In my previous post I was asking mainly about the tattoos and such. I'm more of a solo type person with every character I play, so the set up I'm looking for is something that will make soloing easy.
As for tattoos I was thinking of doing the following. First I need to know does wit effect the speed of casting a summon or summoning a cubic? If yes I was thinking of going +4 wit -4 int. If not I may go +4 men and -4 int (this is at later levels, about B grade)
Also I was thinking of using Nightmare*SLS duals at 52. I believe at +4 it gives a bonus to hp right? I'm thinking of going +3 dex, +2 cons or +3 cons and +2 dex.
Now for the armor. I was thinking of sticking with robes but if I am finding that I'm having too much mp (guess thats possible?) and am not needing as much mp then I may go with a light armor set. Maybe something that boosts my evasion?
I need input, preferably from well experianced summoners of every type. I know different summoners like to play things differently then the rest so input from everyone is very welcomed ^.^
Alright the con tats aren't going to make a big difference so i wouldn't worry too much about them.
Wit will cast your summon spells faster though if you really are pressed for time on those you're probably in more trouble than you can handle.
You don't need robes, seriously go light armor. unless you're doing something horribly wrong you should be at almost full mp all the time. your evasion is pretty useless i recently switched to a shield and it's a negligible differemce, that is to say, i still never evade even in doom.
Definately go + wit, + men is nice, especially for mdef boost. If you want to mess with a physical stat i'd recommend dex and don't worry aobut hte con.
the extra couple points won't help with stunn and the HP is negligible.
Also as for weapons i'd suggest switching to a dagger with focus eventually it's fantastic, nice with cubics and actually gives you a decent damage output in PVP.
Thank you for your fast reply heheh. So you are saying I should just stick with +wit and +men? Well I'll remember that as one of my options. I plan on using my old Divine set up till level 52 then switch to light armor then.
Any suggestions on a light armor set anyone? Or suggestions in general?
In C4, where your pet's survival is integral to your own, robes are a viable choice at high levels (when your crowd control fails).
Don't nerf your INT too early - I'm still running around with +9 INT at level 50, landing 95% of my sleeps without any sort of shot or a top grade weapon.
I'll keep that in mind. Though I hardly need to sleep mobs myself, it would help with those "accidents" of drawing a group ^^ Oh yes and int affects heals too.
I have seen PSes in both BW light sets and Doom Light sets. The BW provides good casting speed and extra Men never hurt anyone. It will also help your mana regen a bit, so that the Soulless becomes a bit more standable to use. If you find your mana to be less useful then you thought, the Doom Light would be my second choice, but only if I was maxing out my Dex to +5 already. +8 Dex is a good touch.
As for 52 weapons, like Physics suggested, a dagger w/ focus and a shield in your other slot would be nice (does B grade have a focus dagger?). Duals and two-handed swords are also good choices. Almost all of the PSes I have seen sport duals.
yes I was originally wanting to go with OE'd SLS*SLS duals for the attack speed, but since I'm depending on my summons for the real damage someone suggested nightmare*SLS duals for the +20% hp bonus (is that right?) I favor duals myself but I'll look into daggers too. Like what was said before having a shield provides good protection against archers, and Ilove seeing the "excellent shield defense"
health duals are handy for pvp. for pve, not as much, as usually your summon will yank agro off you no matter what after its second or third hit (if you are spamming beast ss). frankly, what weapon you use becomes less and less important the higher you go, as your damage becomes more and more marginal compared to your summon.
there is some argument that the faster you hit, the more likely you are to get your cubics to fire. and if you do go +8 dex with doom light (which I do plan on doing, yep, yep), haste duals may not be so bad.
or if you just want to add a little more damage to your hits, a focus'ed weapon, prefereably a sword so you can have a shield, may be a good choice.
actually, you can just keep using whatever weapon you have now w/o effecting your exp rate but so much. from what I'm noticing, much past 56 or so, you could go out there naked and not slow down your grind much.
I guess my point is, go with what ever you are most comfortable with, or what you can afford, or what looks cool. in the end, it is really just personal preference.
Also a little FYI in C4 tanking for your pet is still viable and normal. Pet shots add an incredible amount of damage making the pet yank agro quite quickly, however their high damage makes it so that the mob dies before it has a chance to hurt my shadow.
Currently self buffed i can hunt yellows non stop no cubics. pinks are doable wihtout cubics but that can go nasty quickly. Also as to the int. stuff your matk really doesn't matter too terribly much on sleep. On whites i still have a decent percentage and anything up to red is pretty reliable with shots.
Melee summoning is better than ever and if you are going to be solo i would strongly recommend switching to light, preferably doom.
I'm not exactly sure how much it costs, but the higher the level your summon gets, the more shots it consumes per attack. At higher levels a summon becomes more like a bow than a sword ;)
I believe it's 28 but i'll be honest unless i'm doing cost calculations which i do for the first couple hours each level i pretend that it doesn't cost anything to get them and that they appear magically.
One more thing. In the previous thread people said not to rely on summons until level 44 and instead just play nuker with my DW spells. With C4 out though and with the use of SS for summons now avaliable, would it be better now to hunt with lets say...Shadow at level 40 with shots?
It would be tons more costly. it's doable. i summoned from the moment i hit 40 but you don't have servitor haste till 44 and that makes a huge difference.
^^ heheh. Well it's cheap to me in a sense that I get my D crystals for free...I suppose I'll have to try it out for myself once I hit 40. Probably gonna try the same spots my SH did when she was 40
I have found that shots are extremely expensive from 40-52-- you should only spam them if you have a lot of cash. Divisions:
--If you are very rich, spam both pet ss/bsps and regular ss/bsps at the same time for fast leveling.
--If you are well but not really rich, spam regular ss/bsps until 52. Good leveling.
--Post 52, buy some supplemental bsps, but otherwise, buy mostly pet ss/bsps. Also good leveling.
--If you are poor or would like to save money, don't spam either. Summoners are probably the only classes that can solo effectively without touching sss/bsps. The exp and killing rate is slow, but you can farm cash like mad. Only really effective if you are meleeing.
And also I had been thinking of using the buffs and such that I get as a summoner to level up pets like a wolf and hatchling. I think out of the options of have with the chars I've chosen that may be the best choice. On Kain anyways, I have my soon to be PS, my SH, and 5 dwarfs!
yeah, something I've found now in c4 is that single hp mobs that con green to yellow, if I get the first two hits in, ie get the mob to agro on me, that my summon won't yank the agro off my until its third hit. at which point, the mob is usually dead by the sixth hit by my summon, maybe a little less for greens. this means the summon takes 1 or 2 hits, maybe 3. this, in turn, means I have to heal it like every third to fifth mob instead of after every other mob. corpse life drain does a good job of keeping my health up, and is much faster cast, so the hunting goes by quickly, 5% or 6% per summon, or roughly 14% to 18% per hour.
also, at least at my level, spamming css is relatively unnecessary if the servitor is spamming beast ss on single hp mobs. from what I can tell, you'll take 1 or 2 swings off your kill time at best, in exchange for nearly doubling your soul shot cost. on 2x and higher mobs, css is still useful and necessary. I can solo EV, for instance, but I must have css otherwise my servitor gets beat on too much, and I spend a lot of time healing.
Many summoners enjoy the fact that our nukes land successfully well into our 50s and use this fact to level faster (ie purely nuking with no summon to steal xp). Personally, I played purely as a nuker until my early-mid 50s--that overhit nuke really helped those levels fly by and instead of buying crystals, I was buying blessed sps.
I do caution people who pick their tats/armor/weapon focused strictly on pvp. I personally don't pvp much and thus didn't focus on getting con tats, p def bonus armors and health SA weapons. Grinding takes up most of peoples in game time and imho, should be the focus when it comes to picking gear.
I have +wit/+men/+dex, I was in doom light but just dinged 61 and have put my PS into the DC light my TH was wearing. Weaponwise, I chose style over anything else and swapped my OE'd BG duals for a dragonslayer. I'd love to get MJ light (stun resist is a good thing on a de, as is the extra weight carrying capacity) but can't afford to buy another AG set atm...
yup you can uke until your 50's. my opinion is if I wanted to play a nuker I would have chosen a sorcerer not a warlock. I will lead off with an auro flare a lot of times, and of course my sleep is till very useful, but becoming less so as time goes on, but I'm strictly melee, and happy as such.
that is one of the nice things about a summoner class, there is no 1 real set way to level one, no set armor you must wear or you suck, no 1 weapon you must use or else like there is for some classes. you can be melee if you like, or a nuker or some mix inbetween and it is all good.
that is one of the reasons I am a warlock. we are still a rather rare class, despite c4, and one of the most unique. i wouldn't want to be anything else.