Talk me into it

[omgmir]

Spellweaving
or
Discord

I can't decide. Discord is what I want but I have a 705 skill cap, I refuse to have lower than 120 taming/lore, and I refuse to lean on the jewelry crutch to build my template.

So that would leave me with this:

120 Lore
120 Taming
120 Music
120 Discord
120 Vet
105 Magery


This looks bad to me, I just can't see being able to keep my mana up with no med if the fight doesn't allow me to heal with vet and I have to spam GHeal.

On the other hand Spellweaving is the easy way out

120 Lore
120 Taming
120 Magery
120 Weaving
120 or 105 Vet
120 or 105 Med

Weaving would give me a lot better options for healing my pet and with med a much bigger mana pool.. but no discord which is what I really want.

Basically the question is do I want massive survivability from weaving or do I want the massive debuff from discord while relying more on vet?

Any advice from vets who have experience with both builds would be appreciated.

 

[Aibal]

I think you answered your own question. If you "refuse to lean on the jewelry crutch", then you find things doubly difficult to put together. I'd imbue some jewels myself, but if you don't want to go that route, then the SW template is probably a better template for you.

 

[omgmir]

I think you answered your own question. If you "refuse to lean on the jewelry crutch", then you find things doubly difficult to put together. I'd imbue some jewels myself, but if you don't want to go that route, then the SW template is probably a better template for you.

Not really as there's still doubt in my mind or I wouldn't have made this post. I'll summarize it a bit into two questions since when I posted it was thoughts coming out.

1) Is the discord temp I posted viable without meditation for magery healing, will vet suffice?

2) Which of the two temps I posted is more versatile, IE which can I do more with?

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

On a secondary shard I have a character with:

100 Tame (10 on Jewelry)
110 Lore (to Lore anything)
100 Vet
110 Mage
100 Med
100 Music
100 Discord

110/110 Tame/Lore is fine for everything except Dread Warhorses (which I don't use).

I switch to Music/Disc jewelry for 120's when needed.

I can solo the whole of Doom with this character. Including the DF, the Discord cuts it from taking 30 mins to taking 20 mins.

 

[Aibal]

1. Yes, IF the mobs your fighting are not casting AoE spells, or prone to retarget (paragons) if you move in too closely. If you run as a human you can pick up an extra MR off of focus. Would be desireable to have more Med, but workable as long as you depend on vet first.

2. The weaving temp is probably more versatile...big damage dealer, good spells to keep your pet alive, WoD at the end is excellent. Can be tough to find enough peeps for a level 6 focus.

 

[gortman]

On a secondary shard I have a character with:

100 Tame (10 on Jewelry)
110 Lore (to Lore anything)
100 Vet
110 Mage
100 Med
100 Music
100 Discord

110/110 Tame/Lore is fine for everything except Dread Warhorses (which I don't use).

I switch to Music/Disc jewelry for 120's when needed.

I can solo the whole of Doom with this character. Including the DF, the Discord cuts it from taking 30 mins to taking 20 mins.

Which pet(s) go with you to Doom? Just curious.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

A greater dragon.

Can solo the whole of Doom without the Discord btw. Just need 110 Mage, 90 Med, 2/6, 40 lmc, 8 mr minimum. (& the pet obviously.)

In fact its only with Mage heals, and I've been considering taking Vet off for Spellweaving, as pets never die anyway.

 

[[JD]]

to answer regarding vet, you spend a lot of pts in vet and get very little back which is useful DURING a fight. magery is much more useful DURING a fight, in addition to heals and cures you get all sorts of other spells.

the only thing vet is really good for is ressing your pet to avoid the 10 minute timer. and for the anal retentive, yes you get extra stable slots.

vet combined with magery can be very powerful for healing - i'll doubleclick a bandage on the pet and while the 2 sec timer to heal is counting down i'll cast a greater heal. doing this i can solo tough stuff like Rend.

if you rely on magery for heals and want vet for resses you can spec 50 vet and have two +15 vet jewels. swap them in when your pet needs a res (which shouldnt be too often).

i don't see why you don't want to "rely on the skills crutch" on your jewels. without eval int you have no need of other things like spell damage increase etc. and will have more room on your jewels to play with. you're not a PVP tamer so you won't need PVP stuff like ep or DCI. you'll definitely want 2/6 casting, its nice to be able to land quick cures and heals. you gotta put something on your jewelry. one or two skills at +13 probably could be very helpful to you since you are short on skill pts.

also Lord God brings up an interesting question with his spec. he only uses 100 music/discord. So the question is, do you really need 120 in each? If not you could save pts there too. I don't know Barding well enough to answer that one. This is gonna sound bad, but we need some Poo right about now.

PS. I'm kind of in the same dilemma as you. I would like to try a Discord tamer, but I'm also interested in the Weaving tamer and a resist tamer for PVP/spawns.

 

[Harlequin]

The question will be what do you hunt more?

Discord tamer works better for non boss mobs.

Spellweaving is a boss killing skill and works better for champion/peerless.



Dropping vet for spellweaving is definitely do-able. But you have to be careful not to let your pet die if GOL runs out. If things gets dicey, logout and let the mobs kill you instead of your pet. Use sacrifice to self-rez.


Might also want to consider getting enough necro (or +necro equipment) to cast wraithform so that you can leech mana back from WOD. Midnight bracers are perfect for this, since it gives a huge boost to necro and sdi.

 

[omgmir]

This will be mostly for peerless/doom/champs in a group setting.

I don't like relying on jewelry for skills because i'm of the old school of thought before jewelry, where you relied on what you had actually put the time in to train, not what items you had. I still vaguely remember right before I quit playing years ago all the influx of kids running around with 70 taming and 30 in jewelry getting the pets they bought at WBB killed left and right cause they didn't have a clue what they were doing.

For gear I want this tamer to have a max luck suit, of course with the normal 70s, LRC, MR, MI, LMC etc.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

also Lord God brings up an interesting question with his spec. he only uses 100 music/discord. So the question is, do you really need 120 in each?

I jewel up when needed. You can't even attempt on most boss monsters with less than 120. I don't LIKE relying on jewelry either but you only need to Discord it once.

 

[Wenchkin]

I'd go for the disco template and I wouldn't worry about the mana. Use your mana as efficiently as you can and vet wherever possible. Wear sturdy armour so you can take the odd hit from a target switcher. Then you can vet nearly all the time. I do, I hate mage healing pets lol.

Personally I find that disco + well trained pets kills most stuff before my pets are in trouble, or I can move in and apply a bandage then step back to reduce the retargetting some mobs do. I know that tactic doesn't work 100% for everyone etc etc, but that's what I do and it works for me

You could always just hop onto test centre and see what works for you.

I'd say if you can avoid skill items then it's a good idea, because you have freedom to wear whatever you like. And it's just less hassle. My bard tamer uses items for barding and in honesty I hate the shuffling, even when I'm in the EC and it's on a macro button

Wenchy

 

[[JD]]

I jewel up when needed. You can't even attempt on most boss monsters with less than 120. I don't LIKE relying on jewelry either but you only need to Discord it once.

So you disco, remove jewels, and it remains disco'd for how long?

That's great you don't need to spend the pts on it.. opens up a lot of possibilities

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

So you disco, remove jewels, and it remains disco'd for how long?

Permanently. You have to be visible and in range every 11 seconds.

You could (for example) be out of range 10 seconds come back in on the 11th the Discord would stay in effect. It also stays in effect through walls.

 

[maroite]

Hmm... this is an interesting topic.

I just started a disco tamer on my second account, and will probably run it with my mage tamer on the other account.

I was going to run this set up:
120 Lore
120 Taming
120 Music
120 Discord
120 Vet
105 Magery

But now I am thinking about axing vet and either getting Weaving or Med...

My Mage/Tamer is 120 Vet/Mage so I can always use him for heals and my bard for the WoD.

Decisions. Decisions.

 

[Llewen]

I don't like relying on jewelry for skills because i'm of the old school of thought before jewelry, where you relied on what you had actually put the time in to train, not what items you had. I still vaguely remember right before I quit playing years ago all the influx of kids running around with 70 taming and 30 in jewelry getting the pets they bought at WBB killed left and right cause they didn't have a clue what they were doing.

This isn't meant as a flame, but you will do better if you take the game as you find it, as opposed to what you think it should be. Skill+ items are part of the game, and an important part, and if you refuse to use them, you only hurt yourself. The only good reason I can think of for not using skill+ items is if you are the kind of person who likes to use soul stones to situationally switch around skills. In that case skill+ jewels can be a hindrance to doing that easily.

 

[[JD]]

^what i am doing for stuff like that is putting more generic skills on my jewelry so that it might be usable by many types of characters

for instance if i need a jewel for my stealth archer (pulling this out of my butt) which is

+13 ninja
15 HCI
15 DCI
22 DI
5 SSI

i would actually not put +ninja on, because that would lock that jewel into a certain type of character.

+13 skills is +13 skills

i would put +tactics instead, because many more types of characters can use tactics: sampires, archers, stealth archers, melees of any type...

this makes the jewel more versitile for me should i need to 'retire' it from a character, i can easily move it to another character. or sell it easier as it appeals to a wider variety of characters.

i wouldn't rely on skills as a crutch, but they are part of the game as llewen said, and just a tiny bit is what you need to accomplish your goals...

 

[omgmir]

This isn't meant as a flame, but you will do better if you take the game as you find it, as opposed to what you think it should be. Skill+ items are part of the game, and an important part, and if you refuse to use them, you only hurt yourself. The only good reason I can think of for not using skill+ items is if you are the kind of person who likes to use soul stones to situationally switch around skills. In that case skill+ jewels can be a hindrance to doing that easily.

I do just fine playing the game how I choose, it is a sandbox after all. I asked for advice between two templates not for you to tell me how to play. And i've seen a lot of your posts you're not really the person to tell other people to 'take the game as you find it'.

 

[Llewen]

I do just fine playing the game how I choose, it is a sandbox after all. I asked for advice between two templates not for you to tell me how to play. And i've seen a lot of your posts you're not really the person to tell other people to 'take the game as you find it'.

Whatever, suit yourself...

I must admit though, I find your response a bit funny. I'm usually cast in the role of mindless fanboi who thinks the game is perfect just the way it is. Nice to see there's some balance to the opinions out there.

 

[Metalstorm]

I just finished my tamer about a week ago.

He has a few skills stoned that he shuffles around as needed but his main hunting template is as such:

Taming- 120
Lore- 120
Vet- 120
music- 120
Discord- 120
Magery- 120


This is what works best for me. Your mileage may vary

The magery is mostly for defense. When I'm armed with blades of prosperity or the staff of power I have 120 pnts of fighting skill that makes me difficult to hit by non magic means.

Sometimes I'll send off a mind blast or three to help my furry helpers since that spell doesn't rely on eval int.