Busy times sure do cut down on the ability to play the game. Unfortunately, this workload isn’t likely to let up anytime soon. That said, I have a bit of time now to check in with the snail’s progress report.
Theladas is slow. I find myself far too distracted by crafting and gathering to keep up with the grind-whoring masters. As such, I’ve only recently broken level 21 on my way to the top. To be honest, I’m really not too concerned about being behind. I won’t be the first of my class to get top-end gear, but there’s no way my schedule could support the necessary raiding times to get that stuff anyways. I’ll be more vulnerable in PvP to high-level enemies, but there’s not much I can do about that – only the first through the Abyss get to be on top, and they’ve easily had five times the gametime that I’ve had.
Theladas also has bad luck. When crafting a series of Handicrafting Jewelry pieces, I ended up with only one HQ proc out of the twelve attempts that I made. It’s demoralizing, really, when I had such good luck with these things in the Closed Betas. I suppose I wasted all of my luck back then – how foolish of me.
True to my word, I haven’t worked on Jerricah or the others yet. I’ve reserved the names and made initial cuts at their avatars (I may make a second pass some other time), but they’re all still stuck at level one. I really do want to see the middle and end-game content that wasn’t available in the Closed Beta, it’s just gonna take me a while longer to clamber through the leveling ladder.
In the free time I’m not spending in-game, I’ve been watching Allison & Lillia. It’s a curious show that has a lot of Steampunk themes running through it. I find it very endearing, though the obliviousness of the characters is occasionally frustrating. The mysteries and adventures aren’t quite as engaging as the adventures of Ghost Hunt, but I like the setting: the technology, the times, and the conflicts are more believable (perhaps because they aren’t hinged on phantoms…). Anyways, it’s worth a look for anime enthusiasts.
On the questions front: More Weaving!
Theladas is a Chanter, which means his melee skills are sub-par compared to Gladiators and Assassins. His ability to push out numbers is still vital, however; I don’t ever want to be carried in a group, and killing enemies faster leads to less downtime in the solo venue. So I did a lot of experimenting on what approach to skill use was most productive.
First, some information to scope the Weaving problem for Chanters:
Chanters operate on an 8-second rotation with a 2-second swing timer. I have four skills that I use in the current rotation. All of my blackout periods seem to align at lasting for only 1 second, though the animations often bleed over (The animations are irrelevant for game mechanics, of course). Auto Attacks hit for 60-120 damage, while Special Attacks hit for 160-260. Given these parameters, I tried a few approaches to weaving:
- Skill Spam: I burn out my skillset in 4 seconds, give or take. Two swings go out, one at 5 seconds and one at 7 seconds. I can wait one second for a third attack to land at 9 seconds, or cut it off and return to the skillspam rotation.
- Tight Weave: With a bit of prediction, I can land a special ability just as the animation for the auto attack triggers. The result is essentially a boosted special attack, with the auto-attack damage and the special skill damage landing at virtually the same time. With proper timing, four boosted attacks will land in just over 8 seconds.
- Tight Weave Adaptations: On an 8-second rotation with 4 auto-attacks, there’s no break for throwing on a self-hot or using any more special abilities. But the solution is pretty simple, in principle: when faced with a new special ability, it will be concatenated into one of the two existing chains. I then adapt that half of the rotation to be three skill-spammed abilities, effectively cutting out one of the auto attacks in favor of a special attack. For off-chain abilities, such as an instant HoT, I slip the ability in between the two chains. Again, a single auto attack is sacrificed for the ability if proper timing is maintained.
So, what does this mean? Well, simply put I deal 120-240 additional damage every 8 seconds by using weaving over skillspam. At level 21. By planning ahead, I can prep a heal in between skill chains at the cost of only one auto-attack. When I finally acquire more attacks for the rotation, I can again drop a single auto attack to provide space for the special skill. Once I have 8 special attacks to use on every 8-second rotation, I will no longer be weaving; until that time, weaving provides better returns than skillspam.
Extensions to Gladiators, Rangers, and Assassins? You guys will have to test it out yourselves. I suspect that weaving will always have some benefit, if only to help you queue your abilities up consistently in PvE.
Bottom Line: Don’t be a carry, Chanters; unless assigned to main-heal a random farming group, there should be a cleric in charge of healing the team. Your mantras do part of your job, but only consistent and well-timed weaves will bring your DPS element up to par with the rest of the team.
Okay, back to work with me. It’s time to prep a robotic forklift for simulation.
Theladas is slow. I find myself far too distracted by crafting and gathering to keep up with the grind-whoring masters. As such, I’ve only recently broken level 21 on my way to the top. To be honest, I’m really not too concerned about being behind. I won’t be the first of my class to get top-end gear, but there’s no way my schedule could support the necessary raiding times to get that stuff anyways. I’ll be more vulnerable in PvP to high-level enemies, but there’s not much I can do about that – only the first through the Abyss get to be on top, and they’ve easily had five times the gametime that I’ve had.
Theladas also has bad luck. When crafting a series of Handicrafting Jewelry pieces, I ended up with only one HQ proc out of the twelve attempts that I made. It’s demoralizing, really, when I had such good luck with these things in the Closed Betas. I suppose I wasted all of my luck back then – how foolish of me.
True to my word, I haven’t worked on Jerricah or the others yet. I’ve reserved the names and made initial cuts at their avatars (I may make a second pass some other time), but they’re all still stuck at level one. I really do want to see the middle and end-game content that wasn’t available in the Closed Beta, it’s just gonna take me a while longer to clamber through the leveling ladder.
In the free time I’m not spending in-game, I’ve been watching Allison & Lillia. It’s a curious show that has a lot of steampunk themes running through it. I find it very endearing, though the obliviousness of the characters is occasionally frustrating. The mysteries and adventures aren’t quite as engaging as the adventures of Ghost Hunt, but I like the setting: the technology, the times, and the conflicts are more believable (perhaps because they aren’t hinged on phantoms…). Anyways, it’s worth a look for anime enthusiasts.
On the questions front: More Weaving!
Theladas is a Chanter, which means his melee skills are sub-par compared to Gladiators and Assassins. His ability to push out numbers is still vital, however; I don’t ever want to be carried in a group, and killing enemies faster leads to less downtime in the solo venue. So I did a lot of experimenting on what approach to skill use was most productive.
First, Chanters operate on an 8-second rotation with a 2-second swing timer. I have four skills that I use in the current rotation. All of my blackout periods seem to align at lasting for only 1 second, though the animations often bleed over. Auto Attacks hit for 60-120 damage, while Special Attacks hit for 160-260. Given these parameters, I tried a few approaches to weaving:
Skill Spam: I burn out my skillset in 4 seconds, give or take. Two swings go out, one at 5 seconds and one at 7 seconds. I can wait one second for a third attack to land at 9 seconds, or cut it off and return to the skillspam rotation.
Tight Weave: With a bit of prediction, I can land a special ability just as the animation for the auto attack triggers. The result is essentially a boosted special attack, with the auto-attack damage and the special skill damage landing at virtually the same time. With proper timing, four boosted attacks will land in just over 8 seconds.
Tight Weave Adaptations: On an 8-second rotation with 4 auto-attacks, there’s no break for throwing on a self-hot or using any more special abilities. But the solution is pretty simple, in principle: when faced with a new special ability, it will be concatenated into one of the two existing chains. I then adapt that half of the rotation to be three skill-spammed abilities, effectively cutting out one of the auto attacks in favor of a special attack. For off-chain abilities, such as an instant HoT, I slip the ability in between the two chains. Again, a single auto attack is sacrificed for the ability if proper timing is maintained.
So, what does this mean? Well, simply put I get off 120-240 additional damage every 8 seconds by using weaving over skillspam. By planning ahead, I can prep a heal in between skill chains at the cost of only one auto-attack. When I finally acquire more attacks for the rotation, I can again drop a single auto attack to provide space for the special skill. Once I have 8 special attacks to use on every 8-second rotation, I will no longer be weaving; until that time, weaving provides better returns than skillspam.
Extensions to Gladiators, Rangers, and Assassins? You guys will have to test it out yourselves. I suspect that weaving will always have some benefit, if only to help you queue your abilities up consistently in PvE.
Bottom Line: Don’t be a carry, Chanters; unless assigned to main-heal a random farming group, there should be a cleric in charge of healing the team. Your mantras do part of your job, but only consistent and well-timed weaves will bring your DPS element up to par with the rest of the team.
Okay, back to work with me. It’s time to prep a robotic forklift for simulation.