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Post by GammaBreaker on Feb 7, 2011 0:32:08 GMT -5
So what research and development skill would you recommend? I'm pretty sure i'm not going to choose arms lol so I'm torn between mysticism and science :c. Both will work well. Science has access to a Con/Pre crafted item in the defense slot, while Mysticism has a raw Pre item in the defense slot. If you'd like to pick up a bit more HP, Science is the better bet. If you're comfortable with your HP, mysticism will give you presence in spades. |
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Post by falchoin on Feb 8, 2011 5:13:46 GMT -5
... Power Descriptions: Eldritch Bolts: This is your energy builder - I wouldn't recommend any of the advantages because the energy gain from Accelerated Metabolism isn't that much, and the damage is too pitiful to warrant upgrading. The Wizard's Discretion advantage should not be underestimated. A 20% chance to stun for 3 seconds with every energy builder hit on top of the chance to root is very nice. Eldritch Blast: This is going to be one of your bread-and-butter attacks. It has pretty good range and can do good damage when fully upgraded, so you'll wanna grab Rank 2. Meanwhile, Crippling Challenge applies a powerful debuff to your target while simultaneously breaking through and disabling for 10 seconds your opponent's block, this turning this power into a good one for both PVE and PVP. Like most T0 powers Eldritch Blast is ok early on, but ends up lacking later in the game. I'd recommend crippling challenge on it if you intend to PvP, otherwise leave it alone. The 100foot range makes it useful for pulling, but the damage is sub-par. Sigils of the Primal Storm: Another of your bread-and-butter powers, this not only does great DOT damage, but also serves as a tank of sorts (as outlined in the teleport description). Definitely take up to Rank 3. Agreed with ranking up to 3, but I've had better luck using them with acrobatics. A running jump while you charge your sigils can get you in the middle of your targets with sigils popping out as you land. Pillar of Poz: This power is good in a pinch, as it allows you to knock back all enemies surrounding you, but other than serving as an “oh crud” power, it really isn’t very good. The damage gained by Rank 3 is negligible compared to other powers in the Gimoire’s arsenal, and furthermore, each rank increases the knockback distance. This may not seem like a bad thing until you realize that if you knock your enemies outside the range of your sigils, then you lose a major source of your damage. By increasing the knockback, this power just makes it harder and harder for you to do good damage with your sigils, so this power is best left untouched advantage-wise. With acrobatics or superspeed it's very easy to turn that knockback into something useful... knocking enemies back into your sigils. Eldritch Shield: While this shield isn’t too good compared to other defensive powers, this is the only defense that Grimoires get, so you’ll want to take Rank 2 on this one. Sure the advantage is skippable, but Eldritch Shield has the highest non-physical resistance out of all the shield powers in CO. Vala's Light: The reason I recommend this over Arcane Vitality is because while Arcane Vitality makes for a great single-target heal, it makes for a horrible party heal, as the amount healed decreases with the number of people you’re trying to heal at once. On the other hand, Vala’s Light functions as a decent single-target heal, but also serves as a great party heal. Since the Grimoire is partly a support Archetype, Vala’s Light is just more useful in general than Arcane Vitality. Since it’s your only heal, Rank 3 is a must. Arcane Vitality starts losing effectiveness only when healing 3 or more targets. As an added bonus, Arcane Vitality is a maintained heal as opposed to a charge. Not much is worse than getting knocked, stunned or otherwise interrupted while charging a heal. At least with Arcane Vitality ticking every half second your team mates got *some* healing before you were interrupted. Skarn's Bane: This power is a great source of DPS. Unlike Eldritch Blast, this power must be maintained – meaning you have to constantly hold down its assigned key in order to use it. While Eldritch Blast sends out a blast of energy, Skarn’s Bane fires out a steady stream of energy that does damage per “tick”, which in this case means per 0.5 seconds. Because of this, Warlock’s Malice is a great advantage to grab, as grants a 20% chance to root the target for 16 seconds per tick. Additionally, Accelerated Metabolism is a great advantage to have because of the chance to gain the energy occurs every 0.5 seconds. Because this power does such great damage, R2 is absolutely necessary. Aside from sigils, Skarn's Bane is your main source of damage. I prefer rank 3 over the root advantage, but either way works. Sigils of Arcane Runes or Sigils of Ebon Weakness: This power choice is solely dependent on your personal playstyle. Sigils of Arcane Runes is a great source of DPS and is awesome because you can cast this while Sigils of the Primal Storm is recharging. On the other hand, Sigils of Ebon Weakness is a phenomenal debuff that can severely cripple a mob or a boss. So ultimately which one you pick is dependent on what role you want to play. If you want to be completely focused on DPS, then you might want to pick Arcane Runes for the steady source of DPS. But if you want to be able to support your party by applying a powerful debuff, then Ebon Weakness is the way to go. Which one you choose depends on whether you want to be good at PVP or not. With a pure PVE perspective Ebon Weakness is the way to go, as it will provide a HUGE benefit to your team. But in PVP, your opponents are just going to hop right out of your Ebon Weakness sigils, making this skill fairly useless in PVP. Concerning Arcane Runes, it is a pretty powerful DPS skill in PVE, and it is a great damaging skill in PVP. So ultimately, if you want to go pure PVE, I'd highly recommend Ebon Weakness. But if you want to do both PVE and PVP, I would instead very much recommend Arcane Runes. Regardless of which one you choose, though, you’ll want to level it up to Rank 3. I agree with your assessment up till the PvE vs PvP part. Ebon Weakness sigils are amazing in PvP because of their debuff. Said debuff does *not* go away as soon as the enemy leaves the sigils and usually persists until you have to resummon them. Arcane sigils are great in lairs as well. Even tough henchman usually die if they're caught in enough sigil explosions. Additionally, there is a complex system of Diminishing Returns for most Characteristics once you get beyond 200-220, so over-leveling your stats can have marginal results later on while balancing them out guarantees that you have good, high level stats in multiple Characteristics. When it comes to the Presence stat, there's no such thing as too much. The +dmg as a super stat bonus may not increase by much, but the benefit to your aura and healing is too good to pass up in my opinion. |
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Post by heatzz on Feb 8, 2011 8:18:19 GMT -5
Does Specializations that you pick for crafting matters alot?
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Post by falchoin on Feb 8, 2011 8:28:17 GMT -5
Does Specializations that you pick for crafting matters alot? Mystic crafting works best for the Grimoire in my opinion. It's the only crafting school that allows you to make high PRE primary defense items and the crafted travel power is a form of flight with a mystic flavor. The specific type of mystic crafting only changes which action figures you can make. The actual items have the same stats with different names and flavor text. |
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Post by tribeca on Feb 8, 2011 8:31:32 GMT -5
ty so much for this guide.
Also a big thanks to falchoin for adding to it. with falchoin's input on the heal and advantage point my Grim has become so much better.
So much so that I had to register an account with this site just to say ty.
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Post by heatzz on Feb 8, 2011 8:33:26 GMT -5
Does Specializations that you pick for crafting matters alot? Mystic crafting works best for the Grimoire in my opinion. It's the only crafting school that allows you to make high PRE primary defense items and the crafted travel power is a form of flight with a mystic flavor. The specific type of mystic crafting only changes which action figures you can make. The actual items have the same stats with different names and flavor text. Sad, i already went on to Science crafting with skill level of 100 as i though INT is more important to Grimoire. Say, does Sigils damage affected by PRE or INT? I understand PRE is important because of scaling of aura. |
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Post by tribeca on Feb 8, 2011 8:44:59 GMT -5
Mystic crafting works best for the Grimoire in my opinion. It's the only crafting school that allows you to make high PRE primary defense items and the crafted travel power is a form of flight with a mystic flavor. The specific type of mystic crafting only changes which action figures you can make. The actual items have the same stats with different names and flavor text. Sad, i already went on to Science crafting with skill level of 100 as i though INT is more important to Grimoire. Say, does Sigils damage affected by PRE or INT? I understand PRE is important because of scaling of aura. As far as I can remember from the old days PRE was the stat that helped pet dmg, but do not know if Sigils are thought of as pets. Ether way both should up your over all dmg except INT helps with recharge times and endurance cost, and PRE will up your healing. I will put more of a focus on PRE myself but I will not skimp on INT at all. I am kinda screwed atm cause the toon I coverted from gold to silver was a ego blade toon from a year ago and he had all dex and ego gear. |
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Post by falchoin on Feb 8, 2011 8:50:25 GMT -5
Sigil damage is based off your +dmg bonuses. Since INT and PRE are the Grimoire's super stats, increasing both INT and PRE will boost your sigil damage.
Ebon Weakness sigils have their damage debuff affected greatly by PRE.
The self buff for all auras is affected by the average of your super stats (INT/PRE in the Grimoire's case). PRE scales the team buff aspect.
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Post by Kieran on Feb 8, 2011 11:56:04 GMT -5
The Wizard's Discretion advantage should not be underestimated. A 20% chance to stun for 3 seconds with every energy builder hit on top of the chance to root is very nice. True, but with Circle of Arcane power, I find myself rarely to never using my Energy Builder. Like most T0 powers Eldritch Blast is ok early on, but ends up lacking later in the game. I'd recommend crippling challenge on it if you intend to PvP, otherwise leave it alone. The 100foot range makes it useful for pulling, but the damage is sub-par. Yep, with Skarn's Bane, Eldritch Blast is not used that much, which is why I recommended Crippling Challenge be added. However, Skarn's Bane only arrives later on in the game, and until then, Eldritch Blast is going to be the main source of damage. Agreed with ranking up to 3, but I've had better luck using them with acrobatics. A running jump while you charge your sigils can get you in the middle of your targets with sigils popping out as you land. That's something to consider for when the next travel power arrives at level 35, but until then, Teleport just has many more advantages and uses than any other travel power. With acrobatics or superspeed it's very easy to turn that knockback into something useful... knocking enemies back into your sigils. True, but if you properly set up your sigils, then you won't need to knock enemies into them. Sure the advantage is skippable, but Eldritch Shield has the highest non-physical resistance out of all the shield powers in CO. This is true - when I first wrote this, I was used to the power for Free-Forms, so Eldritch Shield felt practically worthless. However, after using it for some time, I've come realize how nice it really is. Arcane Vitality starts losing effectiveness only when healing 3 or more targets. As an added bonus, Arcane Vitality is a maintained heal as opposed to a charge. Not much is worse than getting knocked, stunned or otherwise interrupted while charging a heal. At least with Arcane Vitality ticking every half second your team mates got *some* healing before you were interrupted. Again true, but with a 1.83 second second charge time, the likelihood of your teammate dying isn't that great, compared with, say, the 3 second charge time of the Mind's Psionic Healing. Meanwhile, in a five man instance, a solid team AOE heal is going to be much better than a Bilbo Bagginsy (if anyone gets this reference, you win 1,000 awesome points) maintained heal. Aside from sigils, Skarn's Bane is your main source of damage. I prefer rank 3 over the root advantage, but either way works. While the damage from R3 is nice, the sheer amount of pulses mean that the 20% pops up A LOT. From my testing, I've often had a never-ending root going, which equates to less damage taken, which in turn equates to awesomeness.  I agree with your assessment up till the PvE vs PvP part. Ebon Weakness sigils are amazing in PvP because of their debuff. Said debuff does *not* go away as soon as the enemy leaves the sigils and usually persists until you have to resummon them. Arcane sigils are great in lairs as well. Even tough henchman usually die if they're caught in enough sigil explosions. I was told by GammaBreaker that the effects do go away if someone leaves Sigils of Ebon Weakness... could someone confirm this either way? When it comes to the Presence stat, there's no such thing as too much. The +dmg as a super stat bonus may not increase by much, but the benefit to your aura and healing is too good to pass up in my opinion. With Presence, that's true, but then it turns into a question of practicality. I mean, how much healing is enough? At a certain point, the extra health isn't going to matter as much as making sure that your heals are effectively and timely placed. |
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Post by obfuscation on Feb 12, 2011 7:33:41 GMT -5
greetings all, new to the game here. currently have a lvl 25 grimoire that i enjoy both pvp and pve with. but as i go higher, i plan to have a more pvp tilt.
question: what about picking up some extra con over end/rec in the talents for pvp? i know im far away from 40, but i rarely have an issue with my energy (particularly since getting the circle). maybe its just an old bias from previous mmo experience, but more HP never seems like a bad thing in pvp.
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Post by Kieran on Feb 12, 2011 11:35:47 GMT -5
greetings all, new to the game here. currently have a lvl 25 grimoire that i enjoy both pvp and pve with. but as i go higher, i plan to have a more pvp tilt. question: what about picking up some extra con over end/rec in the talents for pvp? i know im far away from 40, but i rarely have an issue with my energy (particularly since getting the circle). maybe its just an old bias from previous mmo experience, but more HP never seems like a bad thing in pvp. If you want, you can more than spec for that! You're right though, in that since PVP revolves around killing each other, more health increases your survivability and thus is helpful. However, a couple things to note is that I design these builds to be viable in both PVP and PVE, so some of what I do is designed for both worlds instead of focusing on one specific aspect of the game. Another thing to note is that it could become difficult for you to remain always in your circle during PVP. Don't get me wrong - it's a great power, but PVP is so high-intensity that it can be hard to try to stay in one place all the time. Just a couple things to note.  |
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Post by purplekaze on Feb 14, 2011 2:42:24 GMT -5
Hi just a question what does the Mystic Transference in the sigils advantage do? because I'm kinda confused with the description does it allow to summon 2 sets of sigils or what?
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Post by PoochieHellhound on Feb 14, 2011 5:28:52 GMT -5
Hi just a question what does the Mystic Transference in the sigils advantage do? because I'm kinda confused with the description does it allow to summon 2 sets of sigils or what? Exactly, you can summon only two (I think) of the advantaged Sigil, but you can summon it alongside another Sigil power. |
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Post by Kieran on Feb 14, 2011 10:21:07 GMT -5
Hi just a question what does the Mystic Transference in the sigils advantage do? because I'm kinda confused with the description does it allow to summon 2 sets of sigils or what? Basically what Poochie said. The advantage to Mystic Transference is that you can have multiple sigils out at once. The downside is that the sigil with Mystic Transference has its power reduced by 60%. Because of that, I don't really recommend that advantage - sure you can have multiple sigils going at once time, but if they're only 40% effective, then they aren't really worth it. |
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Post by purplekaze on Feb 14, 2011 23:48:58 GMT -5
ah thanks for clarify it out for me, thedescrition on CO really tempted me to try it it's a good thing I resisted the temptation lol, upgrading my sigils to R3 then.
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