Hi, i am new to L2 and will probably aks some noob question.
Now i am lvl 47 and from what i have read in this forum best option for leveling is still nuking with my lvl 35 spells until i get Haste 2 (lvl 52)
1. Is haste 2 that much of a difference when using soulless or some other summon ? on http://www.l2guru.com/l2calc/summoncalc.html it gives 50 to speed so dont know if is that what i need to wait until 52 or i am missing something ?
2. Many ppl said here on forum, after lvl 56 nighshade is your best summon to level. Then again when i compare on that same page soulles vs nighshade i get that
soulles p.arck = 986: m.atck = 518
nighshade p.atck = 350; matak = 428
of course nighshade have more hp, but how it makes nighsade better for leveling (5% xp vs 10 %xp penalty but dmg output from soulless is much higher than diff of 5% in less xp).
I dont know about buffs nighshade have so this might be reason why he is better choice. Any help about clerifiying this to me in more details ?
3. On many vids i see PS using dualwield weapons and help meleeing target that pet is attacking. Is that any good or any particulary reason why to go melee if u can lets say nuke with death spike, and is that melee dmg good enough to even use it ? (if i need to hit 5 times to be equal 1 hit from pet IMO its noth worth clicking on mob, but again i am probably wrong or missing something :) )
Sry for mybe stupid questions but i am kinda confused about all that.
1. As long as you do a spot with herbs you should be fine with pet out, since haste2 herb drops are pretty frequent.
2. As a PS you have a few different pets to choose from, all have their diffrent uses. Ill show with a short description of each:
Shadow: 30% xp steal, but has passive vr, so if you have no buffer and still wanna do catacombs, this one is really good.
Soulless: 10% xp steal, has the most patk, this is basically your DD pet. If you are in party you can do alot of dmg with this one. And in herb areas will be the fastest to lvl with. Comes with 2 skills, aoe poison and a corpse burst, none of which I ever found a good use for.
Silhoutte: 90% xp stea, which seems like a lot. But only cost 1 d crystal to summon, and keep for 1 hour. Still fairly high patk, and has a drain to get hp back. Good for "money grinding", shot usage optional.
Nightshade: Not sure but I think 10% xp steal. Can buff focus/deathwhisper/guidance buffs, heal by sacrificing its hp, and has single and aoe hate that also debuffs. Has slightly lower patk but also alot more pdef. Good for tough areas where Soulless might be too "frail". It's a good balance of patk and pdef compared to any other summon, making it a good "all around" pet.
3. At the lower lvls you can easily help melee alongside the pet, as the patk difference isnt really too big. But as you progress in lvls you will see your pet get stronger and stronger, and your own patk not really improving at the same rate, making it not so much worth it to prioritise getting a good melee weapon. Same time this happens, weapons also start costing alot more for you (many a grade weps are over 100mil).
On my ps I used a 2h sword for c grade and a dagger for b grade. In a grade I just smacked alongside with my Sword of Miracles, mostly coz you auto-attack when u seed, the dmg I did at this point was pointless really. At higher lvls I also opted for tattos for +wit, +con and +dex with -int and -str. This was done in order to be able to carry more, cast faster and run faster. At A-grade your pet doesnt really need your patk anymore :D
Hi, i am new to L2 and will probably aks some noob question.
Hi and welcome :)
Now i am lvl 47 and from what i have read in this forum best option for leveling is still nuking with my lvl 35 spells until i get Haste 2 (lvl 52)
You can use your summons any time. Depending on your setup, nuking may be faster leveling. For example, I nuked because I had oop recharger. Nuking in a herb area may be a good substitute for an oop recharger.
Some people say to play a summoner "as a summoner". This is just personal preference about play style and has nothing to do with actual grinding efficiency.
Also note that leveling faster is not always the best option financially.
1. Is haste 2 that much of a difference when using soulless or some other summon ? on http://www.l2guru.com/l2calc/summoncalc.html it gives 50 to speed so dont know if is that what i need to wait until 52 or i am missing something ?
Hitting faster is always a good thing. You kill faster so you take less damage so you need less mp for healing your summon.
That '52' which is often mentioned I think is a result of you getting Haste 2 and your Twister starting to fail more and more around that level.
2. Many ppl said here on forum, after lvl 56 nighshade is your best summon to level.
Shade has 3 buffs, focus, guidance and death whisper, which add to your own might, shield, haste and magic barrier. So it becomes a much better summon when you solo. If you have oop support (e.g. a Warcrier 70), Soulless is indeed a better DD.
Plus I always have a feeling of safety with the fat Shade near me! It has a ton of hit points and it can heal me in case something hits me.
3. On many vids i see PS using dualwield weapons and help meleeing target that pet is attacking. Is that any good or any particulary reason why to go melee if u can lets say nuke with death spike, and is that melee dmg good enough to even use it ?
There have been many discussions on this subject (use search a bit), in my opinion it's a matter of setup. If you have good weapons (not only duals) you can add to the damage of your summon. But then one of the positive points of the PS is that he can exp in NG with a little attention :)
Nuking with Death Spike is bad for your adena. You can always help the summon but over time the expenses will add up and this may not be to your liking.
Ya, I suggest keeping some cursed bones on you for emergency use or if someone pvp's you. But the cost will most likely be too much for a new player.
I also suggest staying away from duals. You hit slower with them and cant heal your pet until you have finished your second swing of the sword. If you use any melee wep try one with faster atk speed than duals/2h. I used 2h sword in C grade coz I had oop support.
Hi, i am new to L2 and will probably aks some noob question.
Actually, you didn't. Your questions...
A. Aren't on the first page of the "Dark Elf Mages" forum
B. Are specific enough so that they can be answered without needing to ask you tons of questions to find out what it was you were really puzzled about
C. Probably couldn't be found without a ridiculous amount of searching/skimming
ShaljivdzijaNow i am lvl 47 and from what i have read in this forum best option for leveling is still nuking with my lvl 35 spells until i get Haste 2 (lvl 52)
1. Is haste 2 that much of a difference when using soulless or some other summon ? on http://www.l2guru.com/l2calc/summoncalc.html it gives 50 to speed so dont know if is that what i need to wait until 52 or i am missing something ?
The Haste thing is two-fold. Not only are you killing things faster(so your pet takes less damage per mob death), but in the case of your Shadow it is also netting more HP returned from it's VR component.
2. Many ppl said here on forum, after lvl 56 nighshade is your best summon to level. Then again when i compare on that same page soulles vs nighshade i get that
soulles p.arck = 986: m.atck = 518
nighshade p.atck = 350; matak = 428
of course nighshade have more hp, but how it makes nighsade better for leveling (5% xp vs 10 %xp penalty but dmg output from soulless is much higher than diff of 5% in less xp).
I dont know about buffs nighshade have so this might be reason why he is better choice. Any help about clerifiying this to me in more details ?
The Nightshade isn't doing as much damage per hit, but during loooooong grind sessions:
- The lower exp penalty helps
- You don't need to watch it like a hawk since it is durable
- The Nighshades self buffs(Focus, Death Whisper, Accuracy) help the dps a bit so it doesn't feel like that much of a gap in regards to dps
- The aggression skills are awesome. It can pull mobs off of you quickly and they also lower your targets Pdef/Mdef(again, helping close the Soulless/Nightshade dps gap)
3. On many vids i see PS using dualwield weapons and help meleeing target that pet is attacking. Is that any good or any particulary reason why to go melee if u can lets say nuke with death spike, and is that melee dmg good enough to even use it ? (if i need to hit 5 times to be equal 1 hit from pet IMO its noth worth clicking on mob, but again i am probably wrong or missing something :) )
Back in the day summoner pets kind of sucked. Melee'ing along side your summon or even tanking for your summon was a common strategy. With the increased power of summon pets a lot of people simply support the summon and let their pets do all the heavy lifting. If you happen to have fantastic weapons and armor then by all means go ahead and assist your pet in melee. Personally, I don't see where it is all that effective so I don't even bother. I have the same opinion of Death Spike. If you have a great caster weapon, money for Cursed Bones, money for Blessed Spiritshots, inventory space/weight, and a interest in doing it then go at it. There are proponents of nuking/melee'ing and they should be in shortly to give you some tips. To each their own.
my PS is lvl 50, so i'm around your lvl. afaik, all PS servitors have passive VR, and they're the best single-target DD servitors out of all summons.
for lvling, im using a Magic Power +3 ESword currently, nuke along side with my shadows in catas or non-herb areas. the +115 matk on the SA offset the lack of equal-lvl nukes that you'll need to get to 56 (for nightshade), i lvl in catas almost exclusively because i'm lazy and dont wanna run around looking for mobs, plus i need AA. it isn't recommended unless you're in the same position as i am.
lvling in the field, herbs or not, is a lot faster and cheaper. take on 2.5 targets at a time. send soulless/shadow to one, nuke one down, move on to the next. stop nuking around 30% mana and /walk and spam Body2Mind/Corpse Life Drain/pots till you're full again. if you got adena to waste, buy buff pots/juices and you dont need to SoE to rebuff every 1 hour, or drag a boxed buffer along (i'm monoboxing).
shade is overall a better servitor to lvl with than soulless for soloing. because it can buff itself (and you), a hate/aoe hate that put a debuff on target(s) (-10% pdef and something i forgot), and have more Pdef than the rest. use cubics, they help a ton (especially in catas), i dont use them outside in the field vs. 1x/2x mobs.
after you get 56, get an acumen weapon, most go with homu, you can use a mysterious sword if you lack on cash. try to get an aug that gives +mana. for armor, go with +3karmian, or BW ROBE if you have adena to waste. in short, go for cast spd.
melee along side with your servitor is optional, (and redundant). it's a waste of adena to make a dual sword and pack shots on top of beast shots, bsps. you'll lvl a lot faster using magic power ES to 56. think of it as you go for 1 target (you and servitor) when you're melee'ing. but 2.5 targets when you're nuking. there's more downtime when you're nuking, but that's what it means being a summoner, your pet is "supposed" to do the work, you're its support, not the other way around. as a matter of fact, i dont recall being outside of peace zone without my servitor out since lvl 40, with the exception of running to catas/finding a room. haste lvl 2 is great and all, but lvl 1 is good enough. @ 48, when you get shield2 and might2 (for pet), it's already good enough to handle things by itself.
when you're soloing pre-56, shadow is a better option than soulless. the 30% exp drain can be a drag, but it's the same as lvling a wolf, whom doesn't even help you for ****e till it's 55, beside getting 1-shotted every now and again. and Dcry is a lot cheaper than Ccry, even @ the rate you're using them with shadow + cubics.
save your money, work toward a SoES if you're gonna solo most of the time, if you're dragging a boxed PP along, then don't worry about it. stick with acu homu till you're Sgrade. +4con+4wit+4dex -8str-4int is the tats for you endgame, work toward that from lvl 40. go with +wit first, then +dex, and +con last. Karmian will last you all the way to 6x, use TP and pots when you're being atk'd. always carry some life elixir with you at ALL time, mana elixir isn't even a question, if you're gonna use your mana, you're gonna need them. you dont really need them till you hit 52, but always carry around 5-10.
never drain yourself lower than 30% mana unless it means life or death. always have that 30% mana pool to spam battle heals in case of emergency. if you die, you're doing something wrong. summoners aren't supposed to get hit, much less killed in pve.
as smittie said, use servitors at earlier lvls to get used to working with them. they're like wolves, only better (coz you dont have to waste 150m to gear them with top-ends). you're gonna pull aggro in kama before 56 unless you have a tank spamming hates. (you + servitor = 2 DD, but all aggro falls on you). i tank almost all of the kamas i've been in of late. :D
if you must melee along your servitor, use a dagger, or 1hand sword/shield. it's still a waste of money. as for skills, forget about the curses, poison, surrender to poison. stick with the essentials. cubics/wind shackle are good enough to get you to 56.
summoners are designed to be cheap, and efficient solo char. stay with that doctrine and you're golden. and i'll list the servitors and their functions (according to my opinion)
- Shadow: 30% exp drain. No special ability. High HP. Good all-around for solo pre-56.
- Silhouette: 90% exp drain. Steal Blood (a nuke that's like Life Drain/Vampiric Touch). Low HP, low Patk, high Matk. Cheap to summon. I use it to farm adena and plvl lowbies in clan (you dont lvl at all).
- Soulless: 10% exp drain. Toxic Cloud (aoe poison, useless) and Parasite Burst (make a corpse explode doing aoe dmg- almost useless). Same Patk as Shadow, more costly to summon/maintain. drain less xp. Good in party.
- Nightshade: 5% exp drain. hate/aoe hate/debuff, heal. Focus/DW/Guidance buffs. Low Patk, high Pdef, high Mdef. Best all-around servitor for solo post-56.
I never noticed anything but the Shadow having passive VR.
Other than that your info seems to be very good. Wolf is still a better pet if you can afford it though (not for beginners obviously).
Try to read prior posts a bit more next time, that way the same info isnt repeated over and over (not specific for Kaar, most ppl said basically the same thing in this thread so far).
com'on smittie, that's how the forum works. you shoulda gotten that by now xD
i still think servitors are better than wolves just because you dont _have_ to afford it.. lol plus, what's the point of making a summoner and go and use wolf?
I never noticed anything but the Shadow having passive VR.
True, only Shadow has it.
Another point: tattoo should be +4wit -4men (not -4int).
Wolf is still a better pet if you can afford it though (not for beginners obviously).
Debatable. Wolf steals 30% exp and has no buffs, no heal, no hate. It may kill faster but I think it's less "durable". Plus needs a ton of adena for gear.
Note that we're talking about PS here, not WLK with Kai ;)
An excellent bonus of the wolf, obviously for non-beginners, is to use one which is 19 levels higher than you, like summoner 40+wolf 59. This enables you to solo deeeep red mobs!
My ps is only 72 as of now, but there is no really big difference other than the debuff and cubics. Windshackle might help more than a warlocks cubic to keeping pet alive though.
My ps and my arcana lord both used +4wit -5int tattoos, and I still had no trouble landing windshackle when needed. I didnt want to lower men on my summoners seeing as mdef is one of the actual good stats on a summoner, and I also didnt wanna lose some of the max mp.
OP should do fine even with -int. Unless he wants to nuke ofc.
PS. The wolf gets self buffs and attack skills at higher lvl. I also tried my 55 wolf (fully geared ofc) today doing 6x pailoka on my necro, was really easy, and I even had some heals for it from pre-40 lol. Turns out those werent needed though, once the pet had vr4. All the mobs in there should be higher than pet though...
My ps and my arcana lord both used +4wit -5int tattoos, and I still had no trouble landing windshackle when needed. I didnt want to lower men on my summoners seeing as mdef is one of the actual good stats on a summoner, and I also didnt wanna lose some of the max mp.
OP should do fine even with -int. Unless he wants to nuke ofc.
I have +4wit -5men right now and Majestic robes, so maybe that's why I don't see any problems with mp. But your analysis is good and makes me wonder... Maybe I should put -8/-10 int and try even harder spots? But ****, I love the overhit with Shadow Spark on the Nephilim!
Lot's of choices... *goes back to the spreadsheet* :)
Well, for me I stuck with Soulless, even after the boosts to Nightshade last update, all the way to 70. I just could not get over the P.Atk difference. I think it all depends on where you want to hunt. At 68+ they both have 0 XP drain. I was hunting non-group mobs in Forest of the Dead from 65/66 or so. The mobs I was hunting dropped herbs and I felt like the faster kill speed was better than the durability since I was rarely healing as it was. I was mostly just picking up herbs and curing bleeds, while Soulless finished the mobs in 3-5 hits.
At 70+ I have moved to nightshade. At this level, I can assure you he is just plain unfair. Single HP mobs just simply can not damage him. I’m still in FoD, but have moved up to the fields that have the group mobs. I often get two groups on me along with 1-2 single mobs. On two separate occasions this week, I have literally had nukers dragging 1-2 OOP buffers stop to watch me grind. Both exchanges went like this: me:”Oh, I’m sorry, am I taking your spot?” Them: “Ahh, no, I’m just watching. How are you not dying?” People simply cannot believe that I can survive 8 or so mobs with no OOP support. I’m having a blast with this toon right now!!
listen to jacent, he knows what he's doing, at least pve wise. on a PS, servitors have extremely low Pdef, you will need the heal, and the mana to cast the heal several times in rapid succession, when the situation arises. this will only happen early on, pre-62, or should you choose to play with soulless instead of nightshade post-56.
the reason wind shackle lands even with -4/5 int tats is the blessed shots, it nearly doubles the chance of a debuff landing, no real calculation, but i've tried and it does seem that way. it's only good when you need to keep your pet alive, which is hardly ever if you hunt in white-yellow areas pre-56, as i said i lvl in catas (dont even go there, i know it's not good xp), so wind shackle and cubics are nice if you use them vs. white 4x mobs in catas. when they're turn green, you're fine without. i'll sit in the middle of the room, hit the marco "/targetnext /petattack" once every 45 seconds or so. and stand up to pick loot every 20mins to rebuff the servitor. it's a boring way to lvl, but i'm working at the comp and all it takes is a glance every minute to make sure things are in order.
when i really have time to play, i'll hit up forest of evil, or outlaw forest. herbs area in general, easier for me to nuke/pet routine, and keep it up.
one thing i'd like to see change is that pot buff should share between summoner and servitor (like herbs). i want WW on my soulless :(
woow, i am very suprised for quick and detailed replays.
When i was posting msg i was suspisious will i get good and helpfull replays but i see this community is really mature and very friendly, not like most of other mmo game forums.
Many tnx and all this was very helpfull, thumb up !
While i am here i might add another question:
I didnt see much post about armor, should i use robe or light armor, i mean if i am not caster in higher levels, as i understand i suport my "pet" shouldnt light armor be better choice so i can take more beating if i need to ? ... or ?
Robes + Caster weapon = faster heals. If you get in trouble, the faster heals really do matter.
Dead summon = Dead summoner (most of the time)
If you grind in the catacombs and insist on trying to help with damage, wear robes and swing a dagger. Stand behind mob and go to town after nightshade attacks. Nightshade can buff you with guidance/focus/death whisper so you can take full advantage of crits. If you pull agro onto summoner cast Nightshade’s curse to pull agro back to the summon.
For most field mobs, it is really senseless to try to deal damage with a mele weapon in my opinion. If you hunt above ground, go full speed caster set-up and throw in a “spark” or a “spike” now and then. With a lucky crit you can still almost 1-shot a lot of mobs.
since summoner have the advantage of being able to lvl without X gear, pop on a light armor and try for yourself, common ones would do fine. you will find the lack of MP annoying to the point of no return.
robe = mana.
light = lower cast spd, lower mana regen, lower rw spd for some extra pdef.
you shouldn't even be hit as a summoner. i do double the dmg my shadow do with twister, and it takes me 3-4 nukes to even get the mob's attention. but if you want to go melee, i don't plan on stopping you. go with a dagger as i said, even without focus/dw/guidance from nightshade, you'll find yourself doing a lot more dmg than with duals or 2hander.