Basically, I've been playing L2 for too long and cannot get into the ridiculous amount of grinding involved which is probably based on the fact I'm not enjoying the classes I have. So, after testing Phantom Summoner on PTS and lovin' it; I'm making one. =]
My main concern is the cost of summoners. Every summoner I've pestered with 1000 questions have all told me it is a *very expensive* class.
Since I don't know *that* much about summoners, I'd like to know if anyone would be able to give me some tips on how to avoid going complete potless inGame?
Also if someone could throw in what gear they'd reccommend including armour and weps ;-)
You can hunt solo and decide the balance of money vs exp at your own leisure - that's a great bonus. In so far, it's not a neccessarily expensive class, but rather, one that can cover the whole spectrum from barely spending anything to going broke in a matter of minutes.
Find spots that are profitable to hunt - catacombs if AA is high on your server, or good quests if it's not. Manor if materials and/or buybacks are high.
Also, remember that summoners aren't that gear dependant - another great boon for anyone playing one for PvE only.
For a PS, you probably want to try whether you can keep MP and HP up better in robes or light. There are people for which either works.
I like 1H sword or dagger and shield with robes, or 2H sword with light personally - but others have their own preferences.
In C grade, that would mean divine or karmian for robes and a sword of limit with health or a samurai longsword with focus, light should either be drake for the defensive properties or plated for offensive.
B Grade is either avadon or blue wolf robes if you want to go for pool and cast speed, or doom light (blue wolf light is popular but IMHO a waste of space - either you wear robes and cast fast, or you take full advantage of the light and wear a proper light set).
A Grade is hotly debated, and I haven't tried it on a PS, so shan't comment.
I personally currently use doom light/kris (with doom shield) or blue wolf robes with a kris, depending on my mood.
The costs for a class are diveded in two main categories. Equipment and consumables (shots, pots, etc). Most of the classes need both good equipment and a steady flow of consumables. To my understanding, a sumoner can use crystalls (for summons and cubics), beast shots, ss, sps, top gear etc., to level really fast. These all cost a lot. On the other hand, he can use equipment lower than his grade and use crystalls just for his summon (no cubics, no ss), trading speed of leveling for cost. Between the 2 senarios, I believe one can find the middle road to balance exp speed and cost.
Well you can always hunt with your 90% summon which is by far the best stats wise( so your are doing the most dmg possible at the lowest cost) , but forget exp in that situation.
I never tried that tbh , but I assume if you are really desperate about money you can do like 2 petrounds with 10% summon out and then 1 petround with your 90% to balance profits and expenses.
Imho its abit of a waste using any consumable on yourself. Your summon will out damage you by a long shot. So just stick to beastshots for fast leveling. Maybe get the cheap haste potions you can get in shops for yourself.
Also, the only time its really worth using cubics are in the catacombs and your doing x4 hp mobs or maybe x2.
Storm cubic is NEVER worth it, you'll get more out of using SS for yourself.
Life cubic is only worth it if you're soloing and can see yourself needing every little bit of healing you can get - otherwisely, healing potions give you more HP for your adena.
Aqua and poltergeist/phantom cubic are very much worth it on single HP, especially since they're both cheap.
Binding, spark, and even poltergeist/phantom are worth it on larger HP multiplicity as well - aqua not so much. It'll be a tiny bit of extra damage per mob, but really not much... since it won't fire twice on the same mob, aqua is a bit too idle for mobs with much more than double HP.
Windwalk potions for the summoner are worth it, so are cast speed potions for elemental summoners. Health potions are a given for any melee class, but for summoners, I'd really say only phantom summoners hunting with soulless in a herbless area need them.
If you want to level at the same speed as a melee class, all you need is to get a summon out and you'll outdamage them.
If you want to level faster, you can start using beast SS which shouldn't be too much of a problem.
If you want to level a tiny bit faster than that, you can add ss to your own attacks, but after a while your damage is so pathetic I recommend you don't bother and just save your money.
Depending on class, cubics can be added for a little more killing speed also.
So yeah, you have the choice of going really cheap or really expensive, with really cheap leveling about as fast as a regular melee dd and really expensive leveling nearly as fast as a ranged attacker with oop healer.
Maline's advice is always sound on summoners so in general take what she says to heart. Your 90% summon CAN be used for farming but if you're hurting for money use your 30% pet in a catacomb. You'll get XP and make money at a decent rate. I always use cubics when i first try an area and then as cycles go on i will drop one or both to see how it changes things. If the mobs are less than 2X don't use phantom and if less than 3 don't use spark. Those are just general guidlines but they work pretty well.
For A grade i used Doom light. I really can't think of an armor i prefer more. If you insist on a light armor for A grade get NM. You'll find that your stats in DC are identical to doom basically and the other armors blow as well. NM has the benefit of VR which is something you can definately use as your phantom summon should try to tank for the pet as much as possible, especially for soulless.
Honestly though i bought my first A set at 77 ( i had borrowed sets for brief periods before but never owned one) and that was sufficient. I recommend swords as a weapon, 1 handed if you PVP 2 handed if you don't. They are SS efficient, decent accuracy and high patk so when you need to help your pet you can. Health or focus for SA's. Health is mroe PVP than anything but it's always nice. Focus will help you do damage and help you keep agro longer. To this end daggers aren't a bad idea either. I dislike the drop in accuracy so i stopped using daggers around 65. I do not recommend duals. They are less SS efficient in the event you use them and though mathematically their average damage is identical to a 2-h sword you will take the most advantage of crits with a 2-h weapon.
Crystal costs won't be a big issue, they are mroe of an irritation than anything. Cubics make the cost a lot higher (roughly double) but it's still not horrible. As was said before SS are where the cost comes in. Pet SS are expensive, roughly the same as shots for a melee of your level. Note thatv90% and 10% pets take fewer shots as well. If you want to save money don't use shots, you can hunt very well with shadow without shots. If you want to level shots wear a DD light armor liek doom with a 2-h sword and spam shots on both you and the pet.
A note abut tatoos. I recommend at least +4 wit -4 men. the hit to men is negligible and the casting speed is a must. I have +5 wit but i'm strongly thinking of replacing that extra +1 wit with +4 int. If you PVP definately consider this. I have +4 con for PVP purposes but for PVE, especially if you'd like to level faster dont' touch yoru physical stats. -Con is dangerous as you already are fairly frail and -str or dex will hamper your already small combat abilities.
That's how I do it, works for me ^^ It's nice not to have to worry so much about shots for myself and just stock up on as many beast shots as I can carry :)
Well, good cast speed, lots of mana means your soulless can chew through x1 hp mobs like a knife through butter with beast shots. Really is an awesome summon. But if you really want to make money, its shadow and only SS for taunting the first 1 - 2 hits. You can should be able to manage a small cats room with green mobs (mebbe low white).
I don't get the advice to try and do damage and tank as a summoner. Pet out damages you by a large margin. I guess if one had the funds you could overenchant some weapon and do half the damage your summon does. Also, why on earth try and tank when the shadow has passive VR, the soulless has very good dps and is cheap on SS and lastly, you can heal the summon not yourself.
Anyways, im not that high level yet, but after like lvl 44 I certianly found it pointless to try and tank or even spend money on my dps. So I got rid off the light armor and duals. Bought myself some cheap karmian and a dark screamer which I got focus on. Havnt regretted it since.
Cubic fire fare is influenced by atk speed. Higher atk speed, more cubic action. Dagger is a fast as you can get. Also, getting a dark screamer is just a matter of getting the crystals, since I've been crushing alot of stuff, I just went a exchanged for one. I figure i'll have it to a grade. I got the crystal cause I can easely solo it to stage 5. then I just got a clan mate to get it the last 2 levels. I took me under one buff session to get 5 and I think he did the rest in 10-15mins. DS with focus is super easy to sell cause everyone and their mom are rollling rogues and many archers skip archery until b grade.
You should always assist your servitor, there is no reason not to. But trying to tank or do damage is just pointless imho.
Save your money on equipment and get +4 wit -4 int tatoos instead. The money spent going from mid c grade to top can easely cover that.
In lower levels I have to agree with Physics, but eventually your pet gets the aggro so fast (within 1 hit) that you're better off not bothering tanking.
I'd go 40-44 or 40-48 with nuker gear, then 44-52 or 48-52 with light armour, then 52+ robes.
But either case, with a summoner, you can't go wrong with either robes or light, people have done both, and what works best often depends on what you're hunting also, since summoners can hunt anything from dark blue to dark red without needing breaks.
Well, If I start with wind shackle I can prolly hold the mob for a few hits, this ofcourse means I don't use soul shots on either. But, who's gonna heal me? hehe.
By that do you mean not use pet shots? That's also ridiculous. Debuff and don't nerf your own attack abilities and you can tank a reasonable portion of the time.
B Grade is either avadon or blue wolf robes if you want to go for pool and cast speed, or doom light (blue wolf light is popular but IMHO a waste of space - either you wear robes and cast fast, or you take full advantage of the light and wear a proper light set)
imo.. there's reasons for blue wolf light.
if you check l2calc @ l2guru, blue wolf robes and bluewolf light have .1 mp per tick difference. as in, u'd get 1 more MP in 10 ticks with the robes. that's rather small.
bw and doom have on the whole, the same MP regen. you wont be evading anything in doom light (you're still a mage...), so extra dex doesnt make that much of a difference. and, doom light is -2 con, which translates to loss of total HP pool compared to bw light.
on the whole, bw light has more pdef, more total HP, more weight limit, more resistance to stun, and more cast speed, as compared to doom light. the bonuses of doom light are pretty much useless to summoners. i cant fathom why you would even suggest or use it. (aside from the fact BW light is hideous)
Yeah I do understand, i love fist weapons but i wont' use them because they're so cost ineffective. 2-h is the way to go.
fist weapons are less of a problem than dual swords, because fist weapons benifit from the passive +10 bonus to accuracy of blunts. you wont be missing anywhere near as much as with dual swords.
Well, If I start with wind shackle I can prolly hold the mob for a few hits, this ofcourse means I don't use soul shots on either. But, who's gonna heal me? hehe.
warlocks and phantom summoners both get a newbie corpse life drain. even at high levels, that can return a few hundred HP. not exactly a lifesaver, but it would help you.
Cubic fire fare is influenced by atk speed. Higher atk speed, more cubic action. Dagger is a fast as you can get.
Are you sure about that? Wouldn't fists or duals be faster than dagger? Dagger is classified as "very fast" and fists or duals as "normal" speed. But although they attack slower than a dagger does, they attack twice in that time. Maybe their hit rate (thus cubic firing chance) is faster than a dagger's. Have you ever tested it?
Corpse life drain: I know it can return a few hundreds hp when the mob is dead, but when you in trouble, it will rarely save you. Don't get me wrong, its a great spell and I use it often. But its effectiveness really starts to degrade fast. Compared to letting your pet do the tanking and supplying it with good heals at a very fast cast speed if you get a good tat job. With soulshots the shadow can tank a white x3hp mob at be at something like 97% hp afterwards, I really don't see how I can master that.
Soulshots: Now, I don't know how people make or get money in this game. But spending buying anything but beast soulshots seems like the biggest money sink I can think off. Maybe it gets better at higher levels, but currently it just seems an awefull waste trying to boost my melee damage. My melee damage is already worst then a shilien elder of same level, that's pretty scary lol. Anyways, there is no way I can afford to use soushots on myself and the pet.
Anyways, im debating with people who are far over my level and most likely know much more then me. But so far I see absolutely no reason to put myself between the summon and the mob.
Well, I hit PS yesterday. (That 39 quest was pretty **** tedious.) Going hunting in Cruma Tower for PS spellbooks.
As for tattoos; I was thinking of going with:
+4CON -5STR
+4WIT -5INT
+4MEN -5INT
The +4 -5 tattoos are overall a *lot* cheaper from the magic shop as opposed to the +4 -4 ones, but since I don't (think) we need intelligence or strength, will that extra -1STR and -2INT really make a big difference? (I'm in Divine Set with a Homu/Acu and will just be healing my Shadow which will be doing all the work, since wasting money on your own SS seems like a complete loss of adena, even buying crystals and pet SS, I feel like I've just set up a class to throw away money slowly but surely.)
Hopefully Physics4ever is going to jump in here and say somthing, but I think you want to look at that again. Remeber that the higher your base stat number is to start with, the larger effect the tats will have. As a DE you have a high Int already, I'm thinking that -10Int might be a massive hit to your Matk, so much so that you find your windshackle not landing on mobs, much less on players in pvp. Then at higher levels you get Mass Surrender to Wind, don't know how often you will use that, but also Betray which you will use in pvp (necros will hate you almost as much as they hate warlocks).
MEN won't help you enough to justify nerfing INT for it - if you get a mystic tattoo, get only -MEN/+WIT or -INT/+WIT.
And no, windshackle will still land fine with -INT (just as it does for elves), there just isn't a point in nerfing INT that much when MEN is so very uncritical
MEN won't help you enough to justify nerfing INT for it - if you get a mystic tattoo, get only -MEN/+WIT or -INT/+WIT.
And no, windshackle will still land fine with -INT (just as it does for elves), there just isn't a point in nerfing INT that much when MEN is so very uncritical
ment has more effect on MP regen than you'd think. it also affects MP pool, interruption rate, chance of getting debuffed, and so on, so forth. a +4 men -4/5 int isnt that bad of an idea.
however, it WILL decrease the effective power of your heals. probably not by much, unless you plan on upgrading your current weapon as you level. so you know, summoners can use the C grade acumen sword all the way to the top.
Corpse life drain: I know it can return a few hundreds hp when the mob is dead, but when you in trouble, it will rarely save you. Don't get me wrong, its a great spell and I use it often. But its effectiveness really starts to degrade fast. Compared to letting your pet do the tanking and supplying it with good heals at a very fast cast speed if you get a good tat job. With soulshots the shadow can tank a white x3hp mob at be at something like 97% hp afterwards, I really don't see how I can master that.
people who choose to actually try to tank for the summon, are a holdover from like C2, when it was critical to tank for the summon. lack of servitor SS made it so the summon simply didnt do enough damage to let it attack mobs itself and regen HP.
if you hunt in an herb dropping area, remember, as you pick up herbs, they affect both you and your summon. this includes HP herbs. in many cases, you can probably get away using the shadow without healing it at all.
In herb fields on normal mobs with SS on autofire I can just let the soulless run loose. With mp drops I can keep going forever. Soulless attacks and kills, while I assist, I send him to next mob while I pick up loot and herbs and then join in. Super fast exp.
That's what I've been doing around Ivory Tower crater; using shadow down there since the herb drops are very good and I haven't healed it at all, so I've been nuking now and then to help it out and speed up the exp a bit.
But bleh, doesn't Soulless use alot more SS? I'm sure there is a downside to it since it only takes off 10%. I know it doesn't have VR like shadow, but is that it?
Can someone explain the differences between Shadow and Soulless and where/when they are most effective? (I'm cognisant of the fact Silhouette is for PvP, but since I am a summoner newbie.. that's all :p)
I also need practically every PS spellbook :/ Does anyone have any for sale on Kain or know where they drop?
No -5 dyes. The cost difference isn't worth it. With -10 you will have serious problems with your debuffs landing. Men is pretty insignificant especially if you're using a + regen armor. With your fairly low men each point is less than 1% mp regen.
Shadow:
Takes 30% exp.
Uses more SS then the others
Has passive 15% VR
Good P. Atk
Medcore p. def. (But I think it works different for summons, it a very good tank pet)
Soulless
10% exp
Uses less SS then shadow
Has awesome p. atk
Very low p. def
Has corpse and target AE poison
Contract Payment debuff on summoner. Eats your MP.
Spent 5 hours up there with a clannie's alt killing Liangma and no drop. I've seen the book on a /vendor in giran a month or so ago and it was selling for 4 Mil Adena.
Not paying that much for a book.
Think I may go Sorceror instead, I don't mind the gimp nuker that much...
ment has more effect on MP regen than you'd think.
Considering that I've had everything from -10 to +4 MEN on the same character, I feel confident when I call "false" on this one. MEN does not have a comparable impact on your MP regeneration compared to all the many things you can do manually to manage your MP.
The drop rates on the books aren't that horrible in my experience, but I guess good luck. ^^
Yeah, the 14 men difference Maline played with is probably enough to make the difference of doing an extra servitor heal every 10-15 minutes. Men was made to be -ed.
About the books. I always exp'd from 30-40 near mrt and as soon as someone spammed "selling sbs" I pm'd. I had all books but servitor cure at 40 (still missing, im just lazy) and I payed 50k for all but one, I think it was the haste one.
Another perk of letting your pet do the job is that you get 20% accuracy from behind. Now this is not really doable on normal hp mob, but x2 and up it's easy to just step behind it.
If you start by tanking, your servitor will have a few hits from behind (pull with windshackle, then get the timing right to get the servitor behind the mob - provided it doesn't do the Gaga Pole Nerf Dance), helping it land one of its impressive but horribly rare hits. Then when the servitor takes aggro, you'll be behind the mob, without having had to waste time to run around it, or risking extra aggro you couldn't see. :p
that can make the difference between barely being unable to hold a spot without downtime, and being barely able to stay up w/o downtime.
overall, until you get your third class change debuffs, you're gonna have a piss poor chance of landing them anyways (talking about pvp here...). till then, the smart choice would be to nerf int, because it doesnt do you any good.
once you get your third class change debuffs, a balanced approach to max your cast speed taking from both int and men is probably the best choice. reason being, you dont want to minus men much either, because it's the base attribute to mdef, resistance to interruption, resistance to debuffs, etc etc.
If you start by tanking, your servitor will have a few hits from behind (pull with windshackle, then get the timing right to get the servitor behind the mob - provided it doesn't do the Gaga Pole Nerf Dance), helping it land one of its impressive but horribly rare hits. Then when the servitor takes aggro, you'll be behind the mob, without having had to waste time to run around it, or risking extra aggro you couldn't see. :p
My experience with this is: I send servitor, pull with windshackle. Servitor does 2 hits, then have to move to mob so the time save by not running to the mob, was just wasted. Where most of the time it ends up on the side of the mob, means I have to move anyways. Its actually one of the reason I just said to hell with and let the pet posistion its self first and me afterwards. Lineage II code for this is pretty awesfull, and the pets are even worse. Even when I send the pet it will often end up on the side of the mob.
About the books. I always exp'd from 30-40 near mrt and as soon as someone spammed "selling sbs" I pm'd. I had all books but servitor cure at 40 (still missing, im just lazy) and I payed 50k for all but one, I think it was the haste one.
Another perk of letting your pet do the job is that you get 20% accuracy from behind. Now this is not really doable on normal hp mob, but x2 and up it's easy to just step behind it.
Those are non-factor books gotten in Giran for 25-50k I'm talking about books like Kai the Cat that drop in 2nd Floor Cruma tower that are nowhere to be found (and no one goes up there to farm them, either).
Spent 5 hours up there with a clannie's alt killing Liangma and no drop. I've seen the book on a /vendor in giran a month or so ago and it was selling for 4 Mil Adena.
Not paying that much for a book.
Think I may go Sorceror instead, I don't mind the gimp nuker that much...
Binding Cubic is also AWOL.
I will soon start farming for the books myself. Hope I'll get lucky and get the books without too many days spent in CT.
Any chance of you rolling a Warlock on my server? Did an exploratory mission up to Cruma 2nd floor. The area is actually farmed. One of the players said hello, and I returned the salutation. After watching the group for awhile, I asked if he had any Kai the Cat books that he'd like to sell. Long story short, I now have 3 of the Kai the Cat books as well as 4 of the Unicorn Merrow books. He initially offered them to me for free, but I didn't feel right about that, so I gave him a level 58 lifestone (that I just got as a drop today) and went on my way.