Before you say a word, I know SwS are not supposed to solo, they are a party class. However, I have a SwS that I rolled a long time ago, and I just want to get 50% more on her. I also have a lower level SE that I'm trying to get to 52 for Emp 3.
So I took my SwS and my SE, along with my 60+ SE (oop) for buffs, to Dragon Valley. I spammed SS, I kept hunter up, I used my Holy Whatever skill that allows me to attack with sacred power. And I still only got about 1/3 of the xp that my SpS/SE got when they were that level, in that area. For that matter, they are getting the same xp per hour that my almost-level-70 SpS/EE get in a duo. Kinda frustrating, considering how much lower the SwS/SE are.
What am I doing wrong? Where should a level 52ish SwS/SE hunt? It's only 50% that I'm trying to get, so if I have to do it the long, hard way, so be it. It would just be nice if I could get at least 10% an hour, since I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time on this. Any suggestions?
Welcome to the melee league. +4Str may help a bit. +4Dex doesnt worth for sure. You are not damage dealer in any way. One more: use PL; it will be ok w/ VR and some heals if you need be.
I suggest patience. I have soloed with a 50 SwS in not-top-gear at the beginning of DV, I could go for one or two buffrounds (self-buffs only), then sit MP back, didn't spam SS or even potions, and I still got XP at a decent rate. I suppose decent here is relative of course, some people think that if they're not 78 in a month it's slow... ;P
Listof, I have an SwS that is lower level than yours and I also have an SE I've partied her mostly with my Prophet. I too have a Caster (in my case a Spellhowler)/Elven Elder combination. I've seen exactly what you are talking about.
With my caster, I can fight mobs way above her level. With my SwS I fight whites and get much less XP per hour.
I was actually going to write a post on this. It's been interesting for me to see just how very easy it is to level compared to either support classes or melee. It's just night and day.
Basic imbalance in the game. If anything helps at all, it might be a bow to save you from running up to every mob, that's about all I can think of - even then, you'll still not kill near as fast as a nuker.
+5 dex (dex kills a hell of alot quick then any STR.. +5dex and +4 str is my build)
Go to Hunters village and then port to the norther portion of EV. Then run south into EV and find the Satrys and Unicorns (NOT ELDERS enless you wanna try and see how well you do on them)... Kill those suckers and get massive XP very quickly.
What i'd give to have an SE at my back, let alone 2!
If your 52, a set of Doom heavy or Light with the tatoos i present, along with Dual +4 SLS and your SE, you can work the EV area (into the elders oventually) all the way up to 61 without issues and it won't take long.
I wish my days had that many hours.. If I can get one lvl a day Im happy.. And Im a nuker..
i don't have many hours...
i just happened to sit down on a saturday night at around 7pm.. and game on till roughly 2 in the morning.... to roughly 6 hours in a single shot.... 2 hours per lvl... i think i did quite well...
2 hours per lvl, 50% per hour.. Considering that from 58-60 you need 10 mil xp per lvl (60-61 you need 20 mil, lets just ignore that for now).. So 5 mil xp/hour, that/s about 83k xp per minute.. Each mob in EV gives you about 12k xp, so about 7 mobs a minute? I wish I could kill that many per minute..
2 hours per lvl, 50% per hour.. Considering that from 58-60 you need 10 mil xp per lvl (60-61 you need 20 mil, lets just ignore that for now).. So 5 mil xp/hour, that/s about 83k xp per minute.. Each mob in EV gives you about 12k xp, so about 7 mobs a minute? I wish I could kill that many per minute..
actually yeah.. that sounds right... did that on my BD with SE buffs and +5dex and +4 str.... Roughly 5-8mobs per minute.... Hex is a wonderful thing ;)
I'm rather new to the game, but I am already understanding the mechanics of teaming. This appears to be the problem you are having with one character leveling faster than the other. If you have a class, SwS, that seems to be leveling slower then your SE, make sure that the SwS is the highest level of the 2. The larger the team you have, the less the amount of total exp you receive. Teaming the 2, is basically reducing each others exp in half (rough estimate). Granted most people will say, I may not get as much exp per kill in a team, but we are capable of killing more in a shorter amount of time. I have been to EV in a team of 4 or 5 people. Being the lowest level on the team, I was getting 2,000 exp per kill. Being in a team of 2 me at the same level as before and the other person as high as the highest person when I was in a team of 4 or 5 and I was getting 8,000 exp per kill. Since the total exp wasn't split/divided 4 - 5 ways.
A thing to consider when duoing with a boxed character, if one character can solo, let them. Let them get to a high enough level to where they are capable of power leveling the other. Say you have 2 level 50 characters. Have one character reach a higher level, like 60 while the other is still 50. Now, once the character reaches 60, go back and kill mobs equal to the level of the level 50. This will have the mobs the level 60 is killing be dark blue, very little exp for the 60. While the level 50 will be getting the maximum exp for their level.
Hope this makes since. I don't have a L2 second account. However when I was heavy into Everquest, I was 5 boxing my own team and would farm raid bosses and Power level any character I wanted extremely quickly.
STR > DEX for dealing damage, both is of course best and I recommend it until you start PVP'ing seriously.
For B-grade, BW heavy is the PVE armor, not Doom, Doom has -3STR and completely defeats the purpose of dealing damage. I wouldn't use light armor on an SWS.
erm no... dex>str .... str doesn't have nearly as many advantages... Dex increases SEVERAL things at once.. where as str doesn't do all the much in comparison.
Dex increase Crit rate, you get hunter up with +5 dex... your an insane crit machine, and no... BW is bad... and i know Doom heavy is BAD.. (good for soloing to start with as, when you need the extra pdef/hp, you use it, and when you want to cruse hard and fast, unequip the lowest pdef portion of the set such as the gloves or boots and fight on)
Personally, the best is probably avadon as only an HP bonus, no screwing with your stats.... OR Doom light where the damage dilivered is insanely high, and if you have VR1... you could be soloing 3 mobs at the same time, and dilivering enough damage to cover the dmg your receiving.
I'm rather new to the game, but I am already understanding the mechanics of teaming. This appears to be the problem you are having with one character leveling faster than the other. If you have a class, SwS, that seems to be leveling slower then your SE, make sure that the SwS is the highest level of the 2. The larger the team you have, the less the amount of total exp you receive. Teaming the 2, is basically reducing each others exp in half (rough estimate). Granted most people will say, I may not get as much exp per kill in a team, but we are capable of killing more in a shorter amount of time. I have been to EV in a team of 4 or 5 people. Being the lowest level on the team, I was getting 2,000 exp per kill. Being in a team of 2 me at the same level as before and the other person as high as the highest person when I was in a team of 4 or 5 and I was getting 8,000 exp per kill. Since the total exp wasn't split/divided 4 - 5 ways.
A thing to consider when duoing with a boxed character, if one character can solo, let them. Let them get to a high enough level to where they are capable of power leveling the other. Say you have 2 level 50 characters. Have one character reach a higher level, like 60 while the other is still 50. Now, once the character reaches 60, go back and kill mobs equal to the level of the level 50. This will have the mobs the level 60 is killing be dark blue, very little exp for the 60. While the level 50 will be getting the maximum exp for their level.
Thanks but... that's not really anything I'm dealing with.
As far as tats are concerned, I only want 50% on my SwS, it would probably take me nearly that long to find the Merchant, LOL. After that, I don't plan on playing my SwS much, I just want to have her available for archer parties, if needed. (Sometimes we can't find a high level SwS and a dual boxed lowbie is better than nothing.)
True, DEX does add to alot of stats, but it adds so little to each stat. +4 STR will give you around 8% more patk (more if you can get over 40str, pure damage, where +4DEX won't give you many advantages, +5-12critical isn't worth much, run speed is useless to level with, evasion in heavy, hah, attack speed perhaps 4% or so, accuracy on elves are already pretty good. STR > Dex for damage.
Dex is an overrated stat. That's why BW > Doom for grinding. Doom is more for tanking and Rb's, and BW has same pdef so.. HP is not needed in normal PVE, period.
No melee can do 3 mobs at once and make up for the damage taken in hp recovered, even with VR4, except for pole-users.
>>No melee can do 3 mobs at once and make up for the damage taken in hp >>recovered, even with VR4, except for pole-users.
actually possible w/ full buffs (BD [DoV inc]+SwS) ++str if fighting no stunners and green. Imo, PL rocks for leveling as long as you have vr3+. Str does a lot more than dex. Dex is pvp mainly setup. I'd not sacrifice con (stun prone) for some little tweaks.
to OP: if you can borrow PL try it just for 1 or 2 buff rounds and think about. (on SwS i suppose best used w/ 2handed focused sword)
have you guys even tried a high DEX set of stats and compared..
Critical chance is quite quite when raising dex.. you criticals fly like crazy.. instead of being once maybe per mob... MAYBE... +5 dex, it's now roughly averaging anywhere from 3-6 crits per mob... and with hunter.... my gaud, i can crit ever friggen hit. (Avadon or mixed armor only)..
add +4 str to that and -9 con... and you've got so much **** dmg dealing power... with VR1... self buffs and a GSA for kicks, i can solo unstoppable with 2 other mobs hitting me.. my hp meter never moves...
BTW.... i'm a lvl 63 BD (finally) now that is out damaging some lvl 70+ DDs....
My sub is an SWS, level 62 with +4str +4dex -10 con (majestic heavy), extreme PvE setup you can call it. The dex tatoos won't change your world like you're implying. A couple more % critical chance won't make you crit 2-3 times as often, it's just not comparable to sustained high damage that STR tats give you. Keep in mind we're talking about SWS' here, they always have hunter up, and the effect of +DEX tatoos are diminished by focus SA's that many have as well. Without tatoos an SWS has around 200+ critical with a sword, add on top there Focus SA 60-80 more critical, the extra 5-12 critical from your dex tatoo will amount to nothing.
I'm not saying Dex isn't worth anything, only that STR is worth more for dealing damage. With my setup and Majestic armor, I hit hard, and almost never miss, even on mobs 6-10 levels above me. I like it, but DEX will be the first tatoo I remove once my SWS is higher.
Sure you can battle a couple mobs at once at this level, try it against higher mobs, they'll rock your world, I promise, especially the nice ones that use soulshots, or use frenzy and UD type skills.
have you guys even tried a high DEX set of stats and compared..
Critical chance is quite quite when raising dex.. you criticals fly like crazy.. instead of being once maybe per mob... MAYBE... +5 dex, it's now roughly averaging anywhere from 3-6 crits per mob... and with hunter.... my gaud, i can crit ever friggen hit. (Avadon or mixed armor only)..
Yeah we did try +Dex and in contrast to you we also saw that the crit rate increase is basicly negligible. I guess the same way your crit rate increased, your exp rate did as well. I simply don't buy that you can constantly kill double or triple hp mobs constantly in less then 10 seconds. Is the respawn rate in EV even high enough?
>>have you guys even tried a high DEX set of stats and compared..
yes, and i tell you odds to get stunned doesnt worth at all.
+4 str/-4con is infinitely better than +4dex/-4con.
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esp. on sws w/ gimped masteries and terrible strength. morealso you can do the math yourself. get your increase crit rate and increase dmg (that also stacks on criticals). 1% more criticals will never help as 10% more flat dmg.
if you are +ing DEX for crit rate you will be disappointed, its like 2-3 crit per 1 DEX, it really isn't much. HOWEVER, attack speed is something that DEX noticably increases. Even then I would suggest just not messing with stats, also I would suggest Avadon if you are soloing ESPECIALLY. Doesn't mess with stats, adds HP, and adds block rate. Shields are more effective on SwS than people give them credit for however if you have a [censored] 2 boxed healer then I guess BW is a good one to go, but I agree with that one person, it's hideous on BOTH male and female.
The answer to your question is VERY simple and you basically answered it yourself, SwS are a group class however that doesn't mean it must be a LARGE group. I can get just as much XP trioing as I can in a full group in the highest lvl hunting grounds. For fast XP I would suggest trio with BD and WC in a Necropolis or Catacomb. Also DO NOT USE A BOW, your DPS is actually better with your sword. The ONLY reason SwS have a bow is for PvP because people run away like *******, only to get critted in the back 4 times in a row and dropped without at least doing some damage to you before they drop......I love how stupid people are. I can't wait for Arrest skill though :) , will finally be able to use my sword/shield more often in PvP.
Anyway, just trio with BD and WC and you will lvl fast. You cannot effectively lvl quickly as a SwS solo
1% more criticals will never help as 10% more flat dmg.
+4 is NOT +10% damage, it may be +10% patk but that does not mean +10% damage. Quite honestly LE fighters are best off just not messing with tats, they are balanced out for a reason.
>>+4 is NOT +10% damage, it may be +10% patk but that does not mean +10% damage.
Can you clarify this? Damage dealt is linear to p.attack(unless you have critical dmg SA, passives to critical, or VS). [and i suppose the SwS has none of those].
Shield blocking doesnt matter w/ 60+ SE OOP buffs. You will stay top HP w/ VR3, DW3, focus3, Hunter, Earth.
+4 is NOT +10% damage, it may be +10% patk but that does not mean +10% damage. Quite honestly LE fighters are best off just not messing with tats, they are balanced out for a reason.
Yes it is, since PATK is your real damage. +10% patk == +10% more damage, also your crits will start to look nice with high patk.