What skills/build are you guys using, and how is it working out?

I use Sword/Unarmed, but I'm thinking of switching to AH/Bard.

I mostly use a sustain build (all of my lowest power costing moves rather than my most damaging ones, coupled with some power regen mods) that focuses on DOTs (hacking blade and debilitating blow in particular have six 84 damage DOT mods between the two, a few other skills like headbutt have 1 or 2) and rage control (from Bodyslam to Infurating Blow, more than half my attacks reduce rage). I also use Sigil Scripting to help keep myself alive over the course of some of the longer battles, as well as Willpower Gel and various food products.

One thing that I would like to be able to do but can't is AoE. I also have no way to stun, so ghosts and the like are really annoying to face.

Power Level: Can easily solo Wolf Caves, can solo Striga Steward, can't solo Manticores, have a lot of trouble with Beetles in Labs.

I am AH/Bard.

AH is basically cosmetic. You run around with a huge pet that hits for virtually nothing.
Might be worth leveling though, in case it'll get a buff at some point.

Bard, however, is great fun and, with the right mods, the AOE works great :)

I use wolf +unarmed. This build has burst - up to 5k aoe stun with barrage, or near 10k+1,8 trauma with mamba strike, lots of susatinable dmg boosts, sustain, and tankiness with unarmed shield mods. Works great for quick fights (i can kill most normal mobs with skulk+barrage+bite), and even better in long ones (since i cna stack up shields form unarmed).

As for cons:
- most of dmg is crushing, followed by trauma, so mobs tha ressist thsi 2 can be problem,
- shields form unarmed work only on physical dmg. Tough there is option to pick nature/poision/acid and physic/darkness dmg reduction.
- very mod heavy - on most slots there is more good mods that you can fit on gear, so you have to make choices.

Staff+fire and unarmed+mentalism, I find them to be the most suitable at the moment for me. I used to run UA+necromancy but necromancy seems super bad for dungeons and the pets nerf hit it too hard.

I used to be hammer/ druid but I changed to ice/fire magic, drastic improve in damage output plus nice to have option to go AoE or single with the spells.

what are the upsides, Dragone, in your opinion, to Hammer/Druid (if any) compared to Ice/Fire?

edit: do you guys agree with Kaze? Does AH suck?

"it sucks" is not what i mean. Playing with pet is fun, if frustrating. The damage isn't there and, up until 40, pets die faster than you can heal.

Aggro is now in a half-fixed state. Pets don't have AOE and don't cycle through the mobs, so the slightest heal pulls aggro of everything but the pet's focus off it.

And, yeah... damage.

I play it for the fun factor only. If I wanted a strong class, I'd be Archer/Sword like most others.

I have to agree - its not that Ah is bad... its just that about everythign else is better. Plus its bugged a bit.

Druid is a good healer in both AoE and single, in support has good debuffs but are most single target, epic cosmic strike, cool down on it long imo.
Hammer: this was a big let down compare to other skills, hammer cool downs compare to damage output dont correspond then u look at the mods compared to other skill, meh.
Maybe this 2 skills don't compliment each other well.

Started as Fire/AH and played through to skill level 65/60. Bluntly speaking, AH was near useless as currently implemented (pathetic comparative damage, broken skills not triggering the pet's special abilities, poor pet control, an inability to hold aggro in many if not most situations, a lack of durability for level appropriate fights... not to mention being a general nuisance in grouping). I saw the problems with AH early on, but kept with it thinking that it might get better later on, or that the higher level pet might at least be useful for leveling another skill line in the future... I wish I would have changed skill trees sooner.

I'm now leveling Fire/Shield and have reached 69/50. Having been overwhelmingly dependent on Fire throughout playing Fire/AH initially, using Fire to rapidly level up Shield was nothing new and I've brought it up from L8 (4 bonus levels) since Friday night. The original impetus behind choosing Shield was that I wanted something with a stun ("Ghosts are dumb") as well as something with a run speed buff ("Mounts Needed ASAP"). By skill level 8 I already preferred the Shield skill bar to my L60 AH skill bar.