I have been pushing through levels on a couple of characters and I've found that sometimes I feel I miss really understanding the characters skills by pushing myself this way, since I find that I really only use a couple of things in my leveling.
Do any of the rest of you feel this way?
I am going to spend some time experimenting with different skills because I like really knowing my character's strengths and weaknesses.
At what level do you slow down and do this? Or do you just do it all along?
jute's asking if people lvl too fast so that they don't know how to play (lvling legitly of course)
sometimes i did slightly, but i like using my new skills to try and lvl as fast as possible :p which, i guess, is the point behind the skills in the first place
Basically I sometimes work to level really fast. For instance the other day I gained 12 levels in one day. (Yes, it was a below 40 character). Since all I was really doing was rushing to level, I didn't really USE any skills I gained... so I feel like on that character, I don't know those skills at all.
I was just wondering if others do that and if so, what do they do to learn the skills well.
I think the sad part of lin2 is there's really no reason to change from using just a fixed set of skills in a fixed way. You can mess around and use the others periodically, but at the end of messing around you'll conclude you're faster and more effective if you dance the same 3 dances, use the same skills in the same way, etc.
MobA gets Solar Flare.
MobB gets Hydro Blast followed by Aura Bolt.
It might be more fun if the pve were more dynamic, but in the game we play, just put your head down and press F1 F2 F3, rinse and repeat.
Sure you could mess around with surrender to water/sleep/fear/whatever, but you're just burning shots and mp you don't need to.
When I'm doing my academy characters I learn the basic skills I need to level fast, and that's it. On characters I plan on playing past 40 I try to take time to use/learn all the skills I can.
Its true, most people rush through the levels without really taking time to learn their character.
I used to have a 75 level BD, on a private server, that i had to rush through B and A grade in order to keep up with my friend and clan. In PVE a BD doesnt really need to use any skills except the dances and Hex, but every week i'd take time and go to an arena to try out my skills, learn what i can do with them against which classes, races, etc. I think that knowing your character and being able to play your class well requires time and some effort to learn how your skills work and for what.
Now on the official, i've noticed bladedancers are very common but i'm afraid there are very few good bladedancers.
I rolled a BD again as a main and it surprised me when a friend asked me if i do Poison Blade Dance just for the visual effect or i actually have an use for it. BladeDancers as every other class in this game are quite complex and a good player, in my opinion, is that which takes the time to learn their character and apreciate it for what it is.
So yeah, i say you should take your time and enjoy your character. You dont want to get to level 80 with a toon that doesnt feel yours.
Surrender used to be a viable PvE option for at least saving a spiritshot (this doesn't matter for people using auto sps in PvE, of course), and it used to be worthwhile for fighting high-HP mobs in any case, but now it does so little that it's pretty much a complete waste in PvE unless adding a high attribute value to your weapon substantially improves the damage with Surrender.
Overall I do agree, though, that we have a lot of skills that are worthless or rarely useful in standard play. Curse Fear is occasionally useful (less so for Necro since Anchor and Forget are usually better options), but Curse Discord? Not only would you almost never want to use it (since you don't get XP for the portion of damage dealt by a mob), it doesn't even make a good panic button since it lands unpredictably unless it's been improved in recent updates.
I'm getting off-topic. To the original poster, having to slow down to learn how to use your skills is rarely an issue for a real player since the rate of progression naturally slows. You'll have plenty of opportunities to test your various skills without having to intentionally slow your rate of advancement.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your response, but I find that even with my characters who are in their 50s I still am just pushing away at leveling and not really taking the time to learn things as well as I'd like.
It's easy to log in and have my goal for the day/evening be x% or one more level or whatever, and just grind. So, I'm not sure when I would slow down enough to really learn things without taking the effort.
One reason I've thought a lot about this is because of the different characters I like to play. When I play the different dagger users, they obviously have different skills, but it seems as if for the most part, in PvE the main difference comes down to their base stats and how much damage they do per swing. I know they have skills that make them unique, Elves have more defensive skills for instance so theoretically they should take less damage and need less healing, but I keep feeling that in the end, because I don't use the extra skills, I miss out on the uniqueness of the class.
Perhaps that doesn't make much sense, but I just wondered if anyone else felt like that.
It really depends on which toon I am playing. On me HE I simply can't afford to use any skills in PvE as i'm MP dependant. Haven't quite gotten a LvL 12 Red SA crystal to get CheapShot so MP consumption is a big issue. Only if I get into some deep preverbial excrement will I use skills like stunshot to keep from losing even more valuable asset. Experience points.
When I'm on my Warsmith I have a polearm so I use Whirlwind quite a bit. On my BH, I have enough trouble keeping MP enough for spoiling.
In essence Skill use durring PvE is really a matter of having MP to spare, if you are always low, then using skills would lower efficiency in most cases.
I dont think its a matter of actually using all your skills on a daily basis, because obviously non of us can. Resources are limited, whether its time, money or MP.
The point is to make the effort and try to learn your character in and out, have some fun with it, either in the arena or on the field. I really dont believe in the race to the top and keeping things simple might give you a feeling of emptiness at the end of the day, like Jute said.
I'm not really into the race to the top either. The fun for me is the sense of acomplishment. If I gained some good drops or that extra 20% xp I wanted, it pays for itself in my kind of fun. I also get some kicks finding the most efficient pattern, If I hunt one place I might be able to gain another 1% per hour more than anther spot. I'm not at all racing for top lvls, otherwise I wouldn't have 9 characters. I do however, try to make the most of the time I do play.
If I sit around all day and get nothing done, I feel like I'm cheating myself and any potential clannies I could have helped out.
With my main its the opposite..I crave the ability to have a large skillset that requires more than f1 f2 (if its glowing blue) and then f4(my pickup)
I manor from time to time, and then I get a little more joy due to the fact that I have to seed/spoil then harvest/sweep. I recently got a new skill...called War Frenzy. Its a joke, its an active toggle that uses mp and it "Increases your resistance to Stun and Sleep" wow, so amazing, as a BH I run on little to no mp constantly, my Con is amazing so I rarely get stunned and certainly not enough to warrant having this skill. The only skills I have to master are Spoil...and Sweep.
When I subclass at some point, I am going to become a Phantom Summoner for a couple different reasons the first is that I want to play a class that has to multitask to thrive, I think that a PS would be perfect for that, the second is that I really am in love with the idea of my fat, meatball sandwich eating dwarf summoning up a vile creature of darkness and sending it forth to wreak havoc among the general populace. I intend to use all the skills available to him as well, because in my opinion they are a complex character that requires a good working knowledge of what they excell at.
the second is that I really am in love with the idea of my fat, meatball sandwich eating dwarf summoning up a vile creature of darkness and sending it forth to wreak havoc among the general populace.
I also get some kicks finding the most efficient pattern, If I hunt one place I might be able to gain another 1% per hour more than anther spot.
I
This is actually something else that I struggle with. I have a couple of places that I know I can really crank out the XP, but I like exploring and fighting in unusual or little used locations, but sometimes those are not good XP spots (which explains their un popularity).
the second is that I really am in love with the idea of my fat, meatball sandwich eating dwarf summoning up a vile creature of darkness and sending it forth to wreak havoc among the general populace.
It will just break you heart in the end. :)
Maybe so, but I figure at that point i'll have leveled a bounty hunter all that way, for all that time, it HAS to be better than that, at the very least it will be more interesting.
I feel like there are some that have a greater aptitude for picking up and utilizing the talents of classes that are new to them. I watched Kamaels in the Olympiad on the PTS, and I felt like an armchair quarterback, wondering why they did that or didn't use that skill. Or I'd pvp people that were the same level but didn't make great decisions or seemed a bit lost.
I think part of it is innate, but I think putting yourself in different situations forces you to learn and adapt. It's just like any video game, some people can pick it up right away and play well, for others it's a steep learning curve with lotsa sucking along the way.
the second is that I really am in love with the idea of my fat, meatball sandwich eating dwarf summoning up a vile creature of darkness and sending it forth to wreak havoc among the general populace.
It will just break you heart in the end. :)
Maybe so, but I figure at that point i'll have leveled a bounty hunter all that way, for all that time, it HAS to be better than that, at the very least it will be more interesting.
Actually, that was a joke (a bit of great expectations going through my mind... sorry :confused: )
Sometimes there really isn't a point to learning how to use certain skills until they become needed or you become higher level. Though experimenting is good.
Personally I just mess around and play pretty basically, though I am lacking someone to play with these days. :/
RE: Warfrenzy; I actually thought it was pretty effective vs stun, in the back of the cemetary. It eats far, far, FAR too much MP to be worth while, yes. But I thought it gave a noticable resistance.
Make more PvP. You'll have more SPs so you can use it for "useless" skills, you'll have more time to experiment with them, and you'll have more interesting and unpredictable targets to try them on.
level as you normally do jute, but as you get new skills take a day or 2 and either go openly pvp with them, or head to arena an test them out (if you dont want to lose xp), learn when to use/when not to, then you get the general idea of how useful it is or isnt