Registered User
Posts: 1669
(4/5/04 8:19 pm) Reply
Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
I must be really bored. Cest la vie!
Anyway...
The 50CS spec allowed me to do the most damage I could as fast as I could. Perfect for an assassin. For an Inf, I figured 90% of my fights would fall into one of two categories: Critstrike or Melee.
I'd either be dropping a PA chain on someone, or I'd be relying on toe-to-toe melee ability. A 50DW spec is a solid spec, but it sacrifices the PA chain for increased toe-to-toe ability. I thought about that for a few minutes and I contrasted the two this way:
With 50 Thrust, 50 DW, my Critstrike ability would be at about 10% (2% if I didn't get BS2). My toe to toe melee ability would be at 100% (talking potential efficiency for an Inf...not comparing to other classes).
With 50 Thrust, 50 CS, my Critstrike ability would be at 100%, and my toe-to-toe ability would be at 80 - 90%. I rate the toe-to-toe abililty of the CS Inf higher than others might. My logic was thus:
My anytime style would be Garrote/AH chain backed up with Dragonfang. I think with everything considered--endo usage, ease of use, ease of back-up, damage, etc.--the Garrote chain about equals out against DS. I figured it could lean either way, but I wasn't planning on using the anytime styles much anyway.
I planned, in the absence of a PA, to be relying upon landing Dragonfang. And, let's face it, with evade 7 and some nice buffs, it was more a matter of when than if.
When Dragonfang landed, I could make about two runs through the most damaging style chain in the game (one and a half runs before my opponent was even able to hit me again).
If I happened to land a PA chain, that was about "all she wrote". The enemy was 90% likely to be back on the pad in short order.
The 50 Thrust, 50 CS spec made the game's best styles available to me and ensured that each and every one of them was always at max effiencncy. But what about the other specs?
50DW? Good spec. Very good, actually, but lacks both the PA chain and the CS evade chain. Those are some of best styles in the game and they'd all be unavailble if I went 50 DW.
What about a high CS spec but less than 50CS? I tried that and liked it. However, I realized that while I did have those styles, they were operating at less than peak.
What did I sacrifice by going 50/50? A little bit of DW, I guess. DW is undoubtedly useful, and being completely without any DW skill at all wouldn't be very good. But that was the beauty of the Inf. The DW is at a base 25%. I knew I'd be swinging the offhand nearly 50% of the time with my 12 + 14 DW spec and a couple of levels of DR. My DW spec might have been low, but 50% certainly isn't a bad percentage.
I figured that in a 10 round fight (most of my fights lasted less than that), a 50DW Inf would get in about 7 or 8 offhand attacks, while I'd get in 4 or 5. It's a measureable difference, possibly even a substantial difference, but nowhere near enough for me to sacrifice the insane upfront damage of the 50 CS PA chain, or the super-high damage of the H/L chain. Those damages were further augmented by MoP3. MoP3 all but guaranteed me a crit on one or two of those big styles, and crits on those styles make the damage printouts on the opponents screen look frighteningly high.
Another considerationr for me was what those big individual hits do to an opponents psyche. Big hits = fear. I'm talking about the "Dear God, how can my health be dropping THAT fast," kind of fear that causes people's fingers to swell up and miss the correct keys.
I heard many people talking about "balanced" specs and such. Why? What could they do, that I couldn't? Versatility? I had plenty of that. I could PA you, melee you to death while you stood there watching me perform all the cool-looking CS styles, or poison you with anything except for Lifebane.
I loved that 50CS spec. For whatever reason, I didn't have some of the problems with lost-PAs. Sometimes my PA flat out missed when I was positioned poorly, but even after a failed PA attempt the person usually had to suck up a Dragonfang, a couple of evade chains, and the cost of another portal medallion.
It seems that the one weakness of the spec was attacking with a slow weapon that put me above the speed cap. Every now and then my opponent would manage to slip by a Dragonfang because I was a split second too slow to get it in. It didn't happen often, and I never considered it an exploitable weakness, but if the template has a weakness, I think that's the one.
Now, though, it seems the melee speed bonuses could alleviate that issue. I might be able to use an even slower weapon and be attacking just as fast as before, if not faster. There are those other cap raising items that would mean an even higher weaponskill and even more damage, too.
Granted, Dragonfang is getting a nerf (rightly so, IMO), but how much of a hit is it really going to be? Stun goes down to 5 seconds? I'm not sure how the melee speed bonuses work exactly, but if I was able to lower my melee speed down to the cap and maintain the solid damage numbers, the old:
I'd do either the same amount of damage, or slightly less damage, but I'd do it in two less seconds. Throw in one of those crazy Legendary Weapons....Jeez. That could get disgusting.
My basic premise for my Inf was that I'd be successful if I could do as much damage as possible, and do that damage as fast as possible. I thought the 50 Thrust, 50 CS gave me the best chance to do exactly that.
And...for the record...and for Goldtooth's faltering sanity...
Yes that spec definitely has it's uses, and even more so with the perspective of extra 50% damage on the assassinate ability in frontiers.
What puts me off from speccing that way right now is that unless you are RR7, you will either lack the best poisons, or lack perfect stealth, and i'm not willing to sacrifice that just yet.
The jury is still out, however. Let's see how the changes in frontiers play out.
Registered User
Posts: 1671
(4/5/04 10:42 pm) Reply
Re: Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
I remember I was sooo worried about speccing that low in stealth. I thought I'd be hurting with only 48 stealth for so long, but I was wrong. I landed more PAs on other assassins than I had landed on me, by far. I don't know how SL figures in though. I never had to deal with it...thank God.
I also debated with myself about having a lower poison spec. I tested Lifebane vs. ...uh...the level 45 one (Greater Lethal?) and found that the difference wasn't all that big. about 5 - 10 points per tick. The level 47 debuff was far more important. Lifebane sounds cool, but really wasn't all that much better than the 45.
What I did after I decided I wanted 50 CS was set my template around my minimums:
50 thrust, 50 cs, 34 stealth, 33 envenom, 1 dw, 81 points left over
I went out for a few nights with the purpose of testing my stealth (which, at that point, was the only one I really had a concern with). I was amazed that the low stealth worked out so well (remember, I was RR1 at this point so only 45 effective stealth!). I got to RR2 without having the least bit of problem, and decided to go with it, dumping the rest of the points in DW.
For someone else, it might look like:
50 thrust, 44 cs, 34 stealth, 33 env, 1 dw. That would keep their options open and allow them to test the things that might be too low for them (stealth really, I think the 33 env is an easy choice).
50 CS is just sick though. Sometimes I actually felt BAD about it....well, not really. Actually, when we had all 3 relics, it was kinda stupid. The only class that still gave me problems 1v1 was Zerkers. Major ouchies from that damned Gerbil.
Re: Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
I was already specced that way once, and was really unimpressed - however that was while i still did not have a buffbot.
If i get my hands on some spare respec stones, i plan to try out the 50 CS route again.
Registered User
Posts: 1674
(4/5/04 10:54 pm) Reply
Re: Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
Agreed. The 50 CS spec wasn't much different from the 44 CS when unbuffed. Neither were enough to take down buffed opponents so it didn't really matter.
Buffed though, I capped on level 50s standing in MP armor a few times (829 pre crit?).
I get all warm feeling when I remember it...
PA, CD, SS, Garrote = enemy 1 dead
turn to fight enemy 2 and...
Garrote b/u Dragonfang
AH b/u Dragonfang
Dragonfang lands
Hamstring
Leaper
Hamstring
Leaper
enemy 2 is usually dead at this point
Rib Sep
Garrote
probably OOE now, but if they lived thru all that, I'm gonna die anyway.
Llava Registered User
Posts: 464
(4/5/04 11:30 pm) Reply
Re: Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
I was 50 Critical Strike for quite some time before I finally gave in and started playing my class the way I was intended to by Mythic.
Apparently Nightshades are supposed to use poisons.
Anyways.
It worked quite well in many situations.
I'd go so far as to say extremely well.
When you're stalking Uppland unbuffed, and a troll Thane come trudging down the road, and you 3-shot him with the PA chain, it tastes very sweet. It's sweeter when a few minutes later you do the exact same thing to a Skald.
But alas, the days of finding solo unbuffed 50s vanished, and I had to adapt to the times. I realized that, without buffs, my melee was flat out not going to compete with the others. So I invested in Envenom to get the best poisons, on top of Wild Arcana 3, plus just about every different type of DoT proc I could get. /shrug. Sometimes the massive DoTs were enough to win me a fight against a buffed enemy. Usually not. That's a different subject.
50 Critical Strike is how I would've liked to keep playing my character, but it just wasn't a realistic choice for a solo, unbuffed Nightshade with a desire to stay the only consistently unbuffed guy on the Top 25 Nightshades for his server.
I would, however, say that it was better for groups. Often I end up in keep battles when in a group, and when in keep battles I loved to harass the enemy. And I made it hell. PA and run, every 15-20 seconds someone new got jumped and diseased. With 50 CS, it was even more of a pain for them.
Aeolion Registered User
Posts: 164
(4/6/04 12:30 am) Reply
Re: Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
Heh, I'm 50 cs 50 axe. With a two hander I can oneshot almost any unbuffed caster. I work the back of groups at mile gate standoffs and keep attacks or do the in/out at the doorway. I have to sacrifice most of my envenom (only getting the first str/con), but I changed my playstyle so I dont need it.
I just accept the fact that if an inf/ns gets on me and I dont land snare and get away, that I am dead. In return, I kill casters very very fast. Making it much more likely that I can get away. Having my spec like that means I kill even most buffed casters in 2 hits.
Another thing... I have noticed on my server at least that people tend to dye their armour in certain color schemes depending on realm. Midgard has the dark colors, Hibernia in earthtones, and albion in bright colors. There is some overlap of course, but it quickly became obvious that at a distance where they couldnt see my name the initial friend or foe reaction (how fast they target me and attack) depended a lot on my color. When running in the frontier I have entire groups of mids run up to me with attack on. I've had alb groups run up and lock on to the person I was fighting, giving me the extra second i need to kill said person. Its not much, but so often the extra second or two that it takes for them to realize what I am is all I need with that spec.
I run unbuffed too btw.
Tanya TheSane <the bright orange and red shadowblade>
Re: Why I loved the 50 CS spec.
It does my heart proud to see those of you that run unbuffed for the most part.
Auroric Registered User
Posts: 31
(4/6/04 2:22 pm) Reply
re
I really wish as an ns i had that option. I went with 40 pierce and 44cs. There are not to many ns's with cs that high (well atleast on my server. Most go 39cs/44pierce). I love the extra damage i do spamming garrote/ah and the occasional hamstring/leaper is just awesome. The reasoning I took for not going 50cs was I have access to viper and wa so I took evenom to 36. I wanted my ns to use the advantages it has over the other assassin classes.
With frontiers coming out I no longer have those advantages (well I MAY not) and was thinking of respeccing to 50cs. Considering that I will suffer somewhat in other areas would this be even viable? As an ns I dont have the option to do massive pa's with two handers like an sb and I certainly dont have the spec points to go 50cs and still be on par with my other skills like an inf. So what do you all think? Is it worth it for an ns?
edit: I know most sb's dont think that two handers are an advantage and I'll admit in a real fight it just isn't. However I do know that my lvl35sb's pa cap with a two handed sword is only about 160hp below my 50ns with a 3.5spd weapon.
Llava Registered User
Posts: 466
(4/7/04 12:59 pm) Reply
Re: re
"What are the downsides of using that spec against assassins?"
Well, while your damage from the Hamstring chain would be higher, you'd be missing
1) A good chunk of weaponskill (which means you'll be getting evaded more than you'll be evaded, which means you may not get a chance to use the Hamstring chain)
2) The extra damage from lifebane, which can be important if a lot of your damage hinges around venom (Wild Arcana, Viper)
3) A hefty chunk of dual wield chance (which means longer until you land both poisons, less reliable, less likely to get the offhand to proc...)
Don't get me wrong, you /can/ still fight assassins. You'll just be at more of a disadvantage with this spec than you would be with one that has lower CS, higher Celtic Dual, higher Enveom and higher Pierce.
However this spec is favorable for just about every other target that you can reliably get a PA off on.
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