I've been adventuring with Cirinwe recently, and having a great time. We're a fair way through Grahtwood at the moment, and very much wishing that she had a mount. Unfortunately none of the mounts in the crown store have caught her eye, so she'll have to walk for now.

I'm steering her more into healing this time around, with a resto staff back bar and plenty of healing spells. Her front bar is a two-handed sword with a good selection of Templar skills. I'm not putting any attribute points into health this time either, just magic, so her heavy armour is proving invaluable.

I really enjoy hearing how you're working with Ciri's Templar abilities!

Buffy's a healer with just enough dps to solo PvE stuff. Most of her slots are heal/buff. Her attributes are all magicka. Her armor and enchants are also primarily magicka. We've found that her robust healing abilities conveniently make for superb self-defense.

For normal ops, she wields 2 resto staves but sometimes runs a destr staff on one bar if she wants to slot elemental drain (to support magicka fighters). She hopes to eventually get necrotic orbs so she can support magicka users without a destr staff.

Ciri's DPS has been pretty solid so far - Templar abilities are really consistent. Obviously she's at a disadvantage with her sword since it scales off her nonexistent stamina, but as long as her magic keeps doing all the damage, she'll be fine.

The main thing that I sometimes have trouble with is that Ciri has very few buffs. Haa-Rei has a full bar of buffs to use before tough fights or if he ever gets in trouble. If Ciri gets in trouble she just has to spam healing spells, which works but looks a little sloppy.

Buffy's primary buffs are Mutagens and Extended Ritual - both heal her over time, last a long time and (most importantly for Buffy) help others as they help her. She likes Robes of the Hist (armor/jewelry dropped in Shadowfen) because it cuts any time disabled by 20% and heals her 2K every second that she is disabled. When pushed into melee, puncturing sweep heals as it kills very nicely of course.

Her biggest risks are pretty well under control now:
1. Being disabled/stunlocked. The Robes of Hist set helps a lot here.
2. Running out of magicka. Lots of focus on a big blue bar, reducing cost and increasing regen help, as does using resto staves to help damage while recharging magicka when needed. She prefers using resto staves to help regen magicka instead of Channeled Focus because that devotes a valuable skill slot to an ability that does not directly help others and she tries to keep those to a minimum. Ciri has a notable racial advantage over Buffy when it comes to magicka.

I'd imagine that some of Ciri's 2H abilities could be pretty useful.

Oh indeed, magicka is not something Ciri has to worry about with her +10% max magicka and +9% magicka regen. It'll only get better once she gets to use all the champion points that Haa-Rei has collected, and gets her hands on some CP160 gear sets.

2H has some good skills, but of course they all cost stamina and do physical damage - not much use for Ciri who uses magicka and focuses on magicka damage. There is one skill that we use, which increases weapon damage by 20% for 33 seconds and heals Ciri every 2 seconds while it's active. Not a significant heal, but effective when used alongside something like mutagen.

This one must ask (and forgive his ignorance; he is but a gnoob after all!), but why carry the sword around if you aren't benefiting from any of its skills?

I was wondering that too, like aren't staves magic based weapons? I think Acadian was against using staves at first, but really got to love them after a short while of trying them out.





This post has been edited by mALX: Feb 3 2017, 03:19 PM

Purely aesthetic. Cirinwe is a swordsmer who dislikes destruction magic, just as Haa-Rei is an archer. I don't use Ciri for anything like dungeons or trials, since Haa-Rei can solo a lot of stuff. When just doing story quests, you don't really need to delve too deep into things.

If I wanted to min/max and make the best class I could, then yes a lightly armoured staff/staff mage would have a higher DPS and magicka regen.

This post has been edited by hazmick: Feb 3 2017, 03:37 PM

Oh, well that is very understandable! I don't know if any of my other characters will ever even quest; but expect Misa will do everything possible in the game that she is capable of achieving. I know there are some things she may not be cut out for, (like some trials, and right now I she can't get past the 3rd level of the Maelstrom Arena, etc).

I really never expected my other characters to ever even go out, they are technically just bank mules. But before One Tamriel when meeting Buffy, Calia had to go because Buffy was in the Aldmeri. Also, the other day a group from one of my Guilds was going Telvar Stone farming in the IC; and they were all in the Aldmeri = Calia needed to go on that run too.

And Calia is not set up for combat at all, just crafting. She didn't do too badly though, thank goodness!



This post has been edited by mALX: Feb 3 2017, 03:55 PM

That all said, there are plenty of dps magsorcs and dps magplars who wield a destruction staff on one bar that uses destruction spells and dual swords on the other bar that with no weapon abilities on that bar. The reasoning (among the meta crowd) is that the top dual wield passive for swords provides a boost to ALL damage (from all sources). They carry those swords only to boost their magicka-based non-weapon abilities that are on that bar. I've no interest in doing that of course but that is why you see plenty of magicka dps players with a pair of swords - and not using them to hit anything. Go figure.

Oh ok, gotcha! This one has thought about doing something similar with his upcoming Reachwitch character.

Jerric has gone the magicka route this time with destr staff and one-handed + shield. He only whips the staff out when he is in dire straits or to keep his distance against the big guys who would one-hit him. (Which often costs him a gem to remember.) He loves melee so he keeps a taunt on his front bar, with mixed results. So far his best companion is another Templar who mostly stays at range.

He is still in leveling gear, which for now is a minimally enchanted set of Tava’s Favor plus whatever he picks up. His enchantress is not keeping up her end of the deal. (Because she gets very little time to level.) Once he levels to CP160 and gets his grown-up gear, it will be June and he will want to start over as a Warden. Good thing we love to play!

So anyway his sword doesn’t do much more than tickle but it keeps the attention on him and not his allies, and the shield helps him stay alive while fighting closer than necessary. I guess if it made perfect sense, it wouldn’t be Jerric.

I always pictured Jerric being a bit of a Tank!

:V

Did a tally of both gold and playtime today. Yeesh. But then I've been playing for nearly 2 years now.

Got 1.74 million gold to blow tomorrow, not counting the ~350k Motif Fund stored in the bank. (But I'm saving that for the Mazzatun style)

This post has been edited by monkeyemoness: Feb 5 2017, 09:33 PM

It made my "chores" take a LOT longer to finish than they had any right to, but I had a ton of surveys saved up and I went and claimed them all. Not a single furniture mat found. I did find a few along the way, at least. Not that it matters much at this point, since all I can craft is a Wax Potato. That's also made out of nickle?

idk


Also, my crafting monkey got 4 Master Writs right from the start. Provisioning was terrible so I abandoned it (8 psijiic ambrosia for 8 vouchers lol), but the rest were reasonable, I guess. 20(?) poisons, a purple glyph, and a purple hunding's rage shield in argonian style for like 9-12 vouchers altogether I think. Also, the character that receives the vouchers are stuck with them, so plan accordingly.

At least regular crafting writs were tweaked again. You don't get that bullcrap 2-dagger, 2-pauldron writ anymore for blacksmithing. Only one of each to match the rest.. About damn time.

I'm friggin tired. I can't believe it's past lunch time already.

So now in crafting writs we don't get asked to make 2 cuirasses, 1 greaves, and 5 daggers? It's 1 item across the board?

Monkey is referring to Rubedite Writs. (highest level writs short of Master Writs)

Yeah, I was talking about the max level rubedite writs. No point in making more than one since the skill is maxed anyways.

The best part about this update is the ability to sit down on chairs. Nice and comfy.


Haa-Rei purchased the small Argonian style home, which is the perfect size for him and Ciri - there's even a nice little garden space which I hadn't seen before.

We're hunting for furniture plans now - they seem to drop in the same containers that provisioning recipes and motifs can often be found (backpacks, urns, furniture in people's homes) and we've already found a couple. No Argonian style yet though.

Oh ok