By Sheena Iliachenva'ar

May 8, 2003

BONEDANCER GUIDE v 1.1
(1/13/03)

By Sheena Iliachenva'ar (Bonedancer Team Lead)


Disclaimer: This is only a very small introduction to the relatively new Bonedancer class and some of the spells and stats/number quoted may change from patch to patch due to fine-tuning of the class. There has not been much RvR data so far so I refrained from including much info about Bonedancer RvR performance or tactics in this guide. I definitely welcome all constructive feedback to help me improve on this rough guide and hope some find it somewhat useful. I also apologize for some of the jargon and various symbols used which I tried to define but some may have slipped. Finally, I don't work for Mythic and this guide only reflects my personal opinion on the Bonedancer class. As usual, use it at your own risks.

Disclaimer (the return): Many spellcasting class issues (such as quickcast, focus items and power usage on spells, effects of spec level on spells, resist rates, etc.) also shared by Spiritmasters and Runemasters (RM) are not discussed here since people (such as Alvis of Galahad) have already done so themselves with great detail and skill in other guides and FAQ's such as this RM FAQ (http:// http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=34457694).




I. INTRODUCTION:

Bonedancers (BD) are followers of Bogdar specializing in caring for the souls of the dead and summoning animated skeletal remains to do his bidding. They have the choice of what their pets will do and they get more pets as they level. They summon a commander pet or bonelord which in turn commands various minion pets. Only high level commanders are able to control minions so bonelords can control 1 minion at level 15-29, control 2 minions at level 30-44 and 3 minions at level 45-50. The specializations are very different offering a wide range of choice to fit the Bonedancer's style of play. Bonedancer primary stat is Piety, secondary stat is Dexterity and tertiary stat is Quickness (unfortunately).


II. CHARACTER CREATION:

1) RACE

Only Kobolds, Trolls and Valkyns can become Bonedancers and they start their careers as Mystics. Which class is the best ? There's no clear winner but some choices might be more suitable for some specializations than others. Overall, all races have advantages and drawbacks. All races start with 60 piety which is bonedancers' casting stat so all races are the same from that point of view. The other relevant stats are primarily dexterity (DEX) and constitution (CON), racial resistances and to a lesser extent Strength (STR) and quickness (QUI) for the melee abilities. Let's review all the races.

Kobolds: They start with 70 DEX/QUI, 50 CON and 50 STR. They will be casting their spells slightly faster than Valkyn and Trolls and have the lowest strength of the 3 races. They'll have slightly higher CON that Valkyns but significantly lower than Trolls so they won't have as many Hit points (HP).

Valkyns: They start with 65 DEX, 75 QUI, 45 CON and 55 STR. Their high quickness doesn't help bonedancers much except at low levels where the bonedancers might melee more. Their weaknesses are clearly low CON and STR and lower DEX than kobolds. They make up for it in racial resistances and have a total of +15% racial resistances instead of +10% for kobold and trolls.

Trolls: They start with 35 DEX/QUI, 70 CON and 100 STR. Clearly their main weakness is their DEX and they're going to cast spells slower than kobolds or valkyns. But they will have much higher HP and will be able to carry lots of loot due to high strength. The staff being DEX-based weapon, trolls will not benefit from high STR for melee performance.

NB: Bonedancers who intend on specializing in suppression will have the opportunity to melee significantly more than their darkness and bone army counterparts and should remember this when selecting a race.


2) HOW TO USE ABILITY POINTS

There are 3 main stats Bonedancer care about. PIE, CON and DEX.

- PIE increases both spell damage and power pool. For this reason, I'd say a minimum of 10 points should be allocated to PIE.

- DEX increases casting speed which can become crucial when enemies are rushing towards you. DEX is also the main stat affecting melee performance with a staff.

- CON increases your Hit Points.

For reasons of diminishing returns, it's very popular to boost both DEX and CON by another 10 points. However Trolls with low DEX might want to use their extra ability points to get +15 DEX and not add anything to their CON. Vice versa, Kobolds and Valkyns with low CON may choose to boost CON by 15 points and not add any more to DEX. All those choices are fine and depends on what you value most. So in recap, here are a few choices that might be popular.

For all races: +10 DEX/CON/PIE
For Trolls: +10PIE/+15 DEX
For Kobolds and Valkyns: +10 PIE/+15 CON

QUI and STR while not terrible choices are probably not the best ways to use your ability points.


III. PETS

Pets are what define the bonedancers. Unlike spiritmasters (SM), only the commander pets are gained in baseline (bone army). To gain extra pets, BDs need to spec above level 15 in one or more spec lines. The spec pet also called minion pets are not controlled directly but through the commander essentially helping you and the commander do its job. Some can cast offensive or defensive spells, some do damage in melee and some are archers all depending on the BD spec and pet chosen.

Pets are lower level than a SM pet. Commanders are 80% of BD level except the Dread Commander (gained at level 45) which is 82% of caster level (thus level 41 with a BD 50). The minion pets are 75% of BD level OR capped for the specific summon spell version. Minion pet abilities increase according to their level. To get higher level minion pets, you have to spec higher in that spell line. Note that there is currently a total level cap on the levels of minions that can be controlled by commander pet. It's currently set at 75 which will not allow you to summon 3 pets of max level (37).


Let's go over an example. When I'm level 17 with 17 in suppression, I will use the level 15 guardian minion that will be 75% of my level, which is level 13. Now let's say I level a bit and now I'm level 24. If I use level 15 summon, I get a pet which is 75% of my level OR the level cap for that spell which is 15. At level 24, I would get a pet of 0.75x24=18 but the spell is capped at 15 so my pet will never be higher than that. Of course if I kept speccing in suppression, at level 21, I get an upgraded version of that guardian pet summoning. This one is capped at level 20 and therefore my pet is free to be 75% of my level, which is 18 when I'm 24. Confusing? Sure is if you're used to SM pets but it's actually pretty similar to the way theurgist pets work. If you want the good air pets, you spec in air.

Level cap chart for pets looks tentatively like this:

lvl of summon spell --> lvl cap of pet (caplvl)
15 ----------------> 15
18 ----------------> 18
21 ----------------> 20
24 ----------------> 22
27 ----------------> 24
30 ----------------> 27
33 ----------------> 29
36 ----------------> 31
39 ----------------> 33
42 ----------------> 36
45 ----------------> 37
48 ----------------> 37

Another way to look at it is in equation:

commander level = 0.8 x caster level (for version 5, 15, 30)
commander level = 0.82 x caster level (for version 45)

minion pet level = (0.75 x caster level) OR cap level (as per table) whichever is lowest.


For pet management, you can unsummon/kill a minion pet without killing the commander pet and all other minions. Target the pet you want to kill and hit the release button on commander control window. If you have anything other than a minion targeted, it'll default to the commander and you'll lose all your pets so be careful.



IV. SPELLS AND SPECIALIZATIONS

Now let's see the spell lines and flavor for each spec.

1) DARKNESS SPEC

This spec path is mostly for those who prefer to do damage directly (DD spells also called nukes). They have access to nuker pets who cast direct damage (bonecasters) or cast debuffs before rushing in melee (bone breakers). They also have a resist debuff instant to boost damage of bonecasters, a STR/CON buff for their pets and the same snare+DD spell as suppression runemasters. There's little fancy about this spec line. Just raw damage output. Popular tactics will use snare+DD few times, run away making use of 30 sec 35% snare duration, then more snare+DD till mob is dead or alternatively DD, DD, DD, root, run away, more DDs until mob is dead. With upcoming possibility to overlap root and snare, it should be possible to snare+dd and root. However, this can be tricky due to nuker pets breaking root with their own DD spells. Baseline and spec DD spells are both Cold-based. Note the Body debuff that will boost nuker pet damage as well as lifetap from suppression spec.

Nuker pets use body destruction DD spells. They'll only melee if really cornered.

Debuffer pets cast AE debuff spells and then rush to melee.


2) SUPPRESSION SPEC

This spec path is more defensive. In contrast with fast damage output of darkness spec, the main spell to do damage is a moderate damage lifetap instant with 4 second recast timer. The pets gained in this spec are a healer pet that has no melee/range attacks and only heals the caster and her pets and a buffer pet that will provide buffs and melee. Other spell gained are an absorption buff 3-9% that can be cast on anyone but does not stack with self absorb buff of SM/RM and BD. That one should make you liked in groups by all but cloth casters.

Other spell of note is boneshell line providing absorption buffer buff for pets and AE snare. In this spec, the BD will have choice of letting pets tank while BD lifetaps the mob, letting healer pets keep everyone alive or even meleeing the mobs a bit keeping the BD alive through lifetaps and healer chain casting heals. Since lifetaps casting do not depend on DEX of caster (4 sec recast timer and suppression BD may be doing a lot of meleeing, trolls would be particularly suited for this spec). Lifetaps are on Body resists (note the very good synergy between a darkness spec BD and suppression specced BD).

Healer pets heal from 8% to 17% of your HP per cast depending of the level of pets vs your level (i.e. high level pets will heal more HP than lower level ones). They also provide casters and pets with 5 HP/tick regen buff.

Buffer pets cast damage shield and 15% haste buffs on caster and all pets as well as a bladeturn on itself occasionally.


3) BONE ARMY SPEC

Bone army (BA) spec plays a little bit like a cabalist with good pet melee/archer and lots of damage over time (DoT). You get base DoTs and spec DoTs as well as AE DoTs the latter two stacking with baseline DoT. You also get warrior and archer pets, DEX/QUI buff for the pets, damage add buff (up to 11 dps) in the spec line. You also get pet heals in base bone army. You also get Bladeturn at 19 in base bone army. With those spells, solo you're going to let your pets melee a lot while your dots go unnoticed (that's the idea at least). Your pets will do considerable damage with damage adds and since they all engage the same mob give each other a bonus to hit much like you get in large groups. The BD can pull with debuff, let pets get agro and then apply DoTs, also healing the pets getting hurt as needed. For tough fights you can pull agro on you with both DoTs and pet heals so make sure you stand far from the mobs (DoT range is 1500, heal range is 2000). With a secondary spec in suppression, you can get a healer pet that will relieve you from the healing duty as well as some lifetaps for yourself in case you do happen to get agro on you. BD DoTs are on Matter resists and they do stack with shaman DoTs.

Note on DoTs: The more observant will notice the DoTs start out very similar to Cabalist (Cab) ones matching their damage in early levels but they gradually become a bit less efficient than Cab DoTs to account for extra pet damage of BD. So with only one pet you're basically using the same DoTs, with 2 pets, your DoTs may only do 85-90% of Cab DoTs. With 3 pets, it's probably closer to 75-80% of Cab DoTs and with 4 pets your DoTs only do about 65-70% of Cab DoTs damage. They still do plenty of damage but your pets are actually doing increasingly more damage the higher level you get.

Soldier pet is a warrior that will try to taunt its target.

Archer pet will attack at range or in melee if cornered.



V. GROUPING

Just by looking at our spell list, one can see BDs are not a support class. They're a self-reliant class with varied tools to do damage and keep themselves alive. The only spell that a BD can cast on others is the absorption (ABS) buff that is only gained at level 32+ in suppression spec. The other aspect where we are not very strong is in crowd control. With baseline root and AE snare (currently focus) as our only CC tools beside our pets, we won't hold a crowd of mob from harassing our groups. This doesn't mean we are useless in groups. Far from it.

First, all 3 specs have effective tools to dish out damage. Darkness can do so the fastest with fast casting DDs. Suppression specced BDs, beside their obvious ABS buff at high levels will be very low maintenance. If they happen to get agro their healer pets and lifetaps should keep them alive long enough to distract a mob until fellow groupmates take care of the mob. Bone Army specced BD will rarely get agro since their DoTs will not get very noticed by the mobs in the midst of the group attacking them. They can apply their DoTs and use minor suppression lifetaps or baseline darkness DD to complement their damage output.

Some group tactics:

Focus snare+ AE DoT kiting is possible in a group with shaman (with cave AE DoT), suppression BD (for focus snare) and Bone Army BD for AE DoT. The strategy is simple. Either Shaman or Bone Army BD will pull with AE DoT on a group of adequate con mobs (orange-low reds works really well). The mobs should start chasing the puller who should circle around the suppression BD as she casts her focus 50% snare on the mobs. Then shaman and Bone Army BD apply and re-apply AE DoTs as needed until the mobs are dead. It's power efficient, it's fairly safe but requires some room to roam around the snaring BD. This can work with AE DD instead of AE DoTs but may be less power efficient. The AE DoTs also allow more running in between casts than AE DD but may take longer.

Another hunting tactic is available to Bone Army/suppression specced BDs. With as many healer as possible, the BD, pulls a group of (orange con) mobs. As the mobs close on the BD, they are then easily stunned by Pacification healer while suppression SMs kill them with PBAE. The stun duration should allow healer pets to provide vital healing to the pulling BD. This doesn't work so well with higher than orange cons because mobs will do too much damage to BD before getting stunned, AE stun will be resisted quite a bit and PBAE will not kill mobs fast enough. Additions of a warrior or thane to guard the BD is very welcome. If an AE DoT shaman is available for this tactic, the shaman and BD can alternate pulling and apply AE DoTs along with PBAEing. All healer pets cast the same 15% heals so high suppression (18+) is not needed for this. Good quality and AF gear for pulling BD is essential however.

Secondly, the many pets add considerable bonus to-hit mobs. A group of 3-4 BDs, each with 4 pets, would probably have those pets hit every time even though they are low level. Just because of them swarming the mobs and giving each other large to-hit bonus. And even if the pets do not hit much themselves, they'll make it easier for everyone else to land hits on mobs. This becomes very obvious with several high level BDs in full groups. The only caveat is that the more pets you bring around the more work you have to do to keep them in line. For that BDs are the only ones to benefit from the in-game commands /formation (line/triangle/protect) and /spacing (normal/big/huge). These dictate how the pets line up behind or around the BD and with how much distance between them. I like line formation with normal spacing in RvR to hide the number and nature of pets while I think the protect formation is more compact in dungeons with pets surrounding you. Definitely something to remember when comes the time to not agro unwanted mobs.


VI. LVL 50 TEMPLATES

I'm not routing for any particular template here and just summarizing some of the possibilities that seem to be popular. Therefore the templates are in no particular order of preference or popularity. I haven't tested all of them myself and I know many more variants are already being played successfully. Use these as possibilities and ideas to shape your own favorite Bonedancer hehe ! (No, I haven't made a LapDancer template yet)


1) "TapDancer" 47 suppression / 26 Darkness / 5 Bone Army (or 48/24 or 49/22 supp/dark)

This template provides the best lifetap as well as excellent healer pets (lvl 36 or 37). This also gives access to the 15% Body debuff to supplement lifetap damage and decent DD power with baseline darkness spell. For groups, it also gives the 9% absorption buff as well as STR/CON buff to boost pet survival. This template also has access to good AE focus snare for limited crowd control and kiting PvE. Survival is the key in that template. With 2-3 healer pets, 15% boosted lifetaps this makes the BD one of the more resilient casters in the game. With 9% absorb buff, it might also be one of the more wanted by all non-casters along with PBT RMs. Weaknesses are the lack of AE damage ability and the relatively weak and power inefficient nuking power.

2) "BoneTapper" 47 suppression/26 Bone Army / 5 Darkness

This template is similar to the TapDancer except it substitutes darkness nuking power, pet str/con buff and Body resist debuff for DoT and AE DoT abilities along with DEX/QUI and dmg add buffs. This template has less lifetap power due to lack of body debuff but still the same pets setup as TapDancer. However, it gives access to the second AE DoT and great variance reduction on DoTs. DEX/QUI buffs should make healer pets cast their heals a bit faster which can be critical in fast-paced RvR.

3) "DarkTapper" 39 Darkness / 37 Suppression / 4 Bone Army (or 38/38 dark/supp)

This BD will have very strong DD using baseline DD (capped variance with +11 darkness items only), the second best lifetap (no variance with +11 suppression items and realm rank 3) and a 30% Body resist debuff. This spec is very oriented on fast damage from overlapped dark DD and body debuffed lifetaps but still has access to good healer pets (capped at lvl 31), access to the 3% or 6% absorb buff and 150 radius focus snare. It has very good str/con buffs for pet as well. This is a slightly more aggressive template than a "TapDancer" but without too much sacrifice on defense/survivability and group abilities.

4) "BoneHealer" 44 Bone Army / 31 Suppression / 4 Darkness (or 44/30/8 or 42/32/11 Bone/supp/dark)

Those BDs will have access to second best AE DoT and spec DoT, no variance on their DoTs, the third best lifetap and may opt to give up second best spec DoT for 3% absorb buff and some variance reduction on darkness DD and better str/con buff. They will have access to lvl 36 soldier pets and lvl 33 archer pets as well as lvl 27 healer pets. This is a very well balanced spec with great DoT power and enough healing/survival power to see those DoTs kill their enemies. The main weakness of this template might be the relatively weak damage output due to low darkness spec. Would probably excel in keep situation where healer pets will keep BD alive long enough to apply AE DoTs.

5) "DarkDancer" 50 Darkness / 20 suppression / 4 Bone Army (or 48/22 or 46/28 dark/supp)

These BDS go for pure nuking power in darkness line. They will also have a 50% body debuff to boost their relatively weak lifetap. They'll have the best nuker and debuffer pets, the best (or second best) snare+dd with no variance, best str/con pet buffs and basic healer pets. Great nuking damage with overlap of snare+DD and 50% debuffed lvl 17 or 22 lifetap. With the addition of nuker pets doing 50% body debuffed damage, these BDs should have the fastest damage output of all BDs but at the cost of AE, absorb buff and high level healer pets. This template may be a bit harder to level early on but will certainly pack a punch in RvR.

6) KeepDancer" 48 Bone Army/24 Supression/ 6 Darkness

Similar to the Bonetapper template, these BD's have access to the highest soldier pets as well as the highest AOE dots. The darkness spec provides the 1st STR/CON buff for the army pets. A lower suppression provides the level 22 lifetap. This spec should excel in keep sieges/defense, allowing the flexibility to use high end archer pets for offense, or several L24 healer pets on defense to keep BD alive while applying AE DoTs.

It's possible to think of Darkness/Bone Army templates doing even more damage by stacking DoTs and good darkness DD, they would give up all the healing/buffing power in suppression and this seems like a hard road to follow but who knows ...Any "DarkBones" around ?


VII. MISC. Q & A

These are some of the questions that most BDs may ask themselves and not find an easy answer to.


1) How do spell resists work in RvR?

First there is a chance to fully resist the spell cast on you. Full resists in RvR have a base 15% chance regardless of caster and target levels. That base 15% chance gets modified only by spell level cast vs level of target. The factor is 0.5% per level difference between caster and target. % magic resistance of the target, or casting stat or spec level of caster do not factor in this full resist chance.

So full resist chance = 15% +0.5% x (target level - caster level).

Something to keep in mind for those using very low level lifetaps and counting on interruption. If you used the lvl 1 lifetap on lvl 50 target, you would have 15% + 49x0.5% = 39.5% chance of getting fully resisted.

Then if the spell lands, there is effect resolution. The resist % of the target vs the damage type of the spell determines how much damage or what duration the spell will have. Dmg or duration increase with casting stat (PIE for BDs), spec level (counting all +spec items and realm ranks up to 50) and if caster is higher level than target. Dmg/duration decreases with % magic resistance, determination, etc and level of the target.

Magic resistance debuff only affect the damage done, not the chance to land a spell. It adds a 1+0.01% pre debuff % up to the point where the target has 0% resist and then only +0.005 (half percent per point that takes target in negative resists).

So if I do a 50% body debuff on a target with 32% body resistance, it'll multiply my damage by 1+ (32x0.01) + (18 x 0.005) = 1.41. If my target had 55% resists, it would multiply my damage by 1.5 instead.

Full example: I'm level 50 BD with 2/3 darkness spec after items and RR are taken into account casting my lvl 43 darkness DD on a level 50 target with 32% resistance to cold (since darkness DD is cold-based). I get a basic chance of getting totally resisted of 15+ (50-43) x 0.5 = 18.5%

If my spell lands, due to variance at 2/3rd spec level, I will do between 75% and 125% of [155 (base dmg) x 1 (2/3rd spec) x 1.7 (for piety, rough number since I don't have formula for effect of piety)] x (1-0.32) = 180 dmg (average).

If someone had cast a 50% cold debuff on my target, I would then do (155 x1 x1.7) x(1-0.32) x(1 +0.41) = 254 with the same exact chance to get fully resisted.


2) How are spell resists in PvE ?

Much like in RvR in fact except there is an extra factor coming into play. Chance of getting fully resisted is also affected by level difference between caster and target mob (sorry don't know exact formula but it's the main effect). Base chance when fighting same level mob is still 15% modified by spell level vs mob level. The rest is identical to RvR.

3) What RAs should I take as supp BD?

This focused on supp BDs but some might be relevant for other specs.

For supp BD, it depends if you went with secondary in darkness or in BA.

Mastery of Magery: +3% to lifetap and dark DD.

Wild Power: need to average it to find real effect. This is 5% of getting 10-50% (average 30%) crit. That's a 1.5% average boost per level.

Wild Arcana: needed to have DoTs and debuffs crit. Similar to wild power in that it gives 1.5% boost to dmg on average.

Magestic Will: 5% of reducing full resists (or 5% more chance to do full dmg). Requires acuity 3. Base chance of getting resisted is 15% in RvR modified by spell level and lvl of target. Safe to say it'll never go below 15% on lvl 50 and if you rarely cast on people below lvl 40, you can safely make use of lvl 1 and 2 of this ability. From acuity 2, lvl 1 costs 12 RSPs to get 5% boost, lvl 2 is 10 RSPs more for another 5% boost.

So for dmg improvement per RSP point, your best bet is to go MoM 1, Wild Power 1 (or Wild Arcana), MoM 2, Wild Power 2, MoM 3, MW 1, MW 2, MoM 4, WP 3, MoM 5, WP 4, WP 5. (It's another issue whether WP 3+ and MoM 5 are worth their RSP cost). I'd probably stop around MoM 3-4 for diminishing returns.


We're not power efficient in our dmg, so you'll need all the power you can get. A tick is 6 sec for purposes of serenity.

MCL: (counting that right now it's giving too much so going with description) 30% power regen per level of MCL. 5 min timer. Total power at 50 is around 450 power points. So 30% is 135 power every 5 min.

Serenity: 1 point per level per tick. 10 ticks per minute so this gives you 50 power per level per 5 min.

Raging Power: full power heal is 450 every 30 min. That's only 75 per 5 min for 10 RSPs.

Ethereal Bond: +3% total power per level. That's around 15 power cap increase per level of EB. This will increase by 3% how much power MCL (30% x1.03, 60% x1.03 for EB 1) gives you back but not change serenity benefits.

Given those, I'd go for power regen efficiency per RSP point with serenity 1, MCL 1, MCL 2, serenity 2, EB 1, MCL 3, serenity 3, Raging power, EB 2, serenity 4-5., EB 3-5. I'd probably stop around EB 1 since cost per returns is getting low after that.


Do we need MoC/Concentration? Less than most casters. If your secondary is BA, forget MoC. Your DoTs takes action slower than the 15 sec of MoC and your lifetap doesn't benefit at all from MoC. You can benefit from Concentration however to reapply DoTS even if enemy is right on you. If your secondary is darkness, MoC is probably better than Concentration but it's still a dubious call considering the RSP cost. That wouldn't be a priority for me.

The same goes for augment dexterity and mastery of the art. No effect at all on lifetap. Most of the times, you'll get base dex buff in RvR. With good gear and dex buffs you'll get near casting speed cap or close very fast. Mastery of the art is better than augment dex at any rate but requires acuity 3. I'd put that as low priority but if you have acuity 3 already for MoC, then might be worth putting MoA 1-2 especially if darkness is your secondary.


One thing that seems important to me is our survivability. If you went supp, you have good healers and lifetap so you already traded off dmg for healing. I would strongly recommend looking at toughness and augment con.

Toughness: 3% of your HP per level. At 50, this gave me about 23 HP.

Augment con 1: Unbuffed we're usually way below 250 con. So return will be pretty much linear with this RA. At 50, it gave me +18 HP.

Avoidance of Magic: +3% magic resist per level. It only reduces dmg from magic but reduces CC time as well. Personal choice is +HP is protection vs both dmg types and I take purge vs CC.

Empty mind: 10% magic resist per lvl (6,10,14) for 1 min every 30 min. Given its timer, I'd put it low on my priority list. Costs only 6 for 1st level and can be a nice boost before the toughest battles. Probably better than AoM 4+. It's about same as AoM 3. Both cost 6 RSPs. One is 3% permanently, other +10% for 1 min.

Given the HP returned, I'd go toughness 1, augment con 1, AoM 1, toughness 2, augment con 2, AoM 2, toughness 3, augment con 3, AoM 3, etc ... I'd probably stop at toughness 2-3, augment con 2-3, AoM 2-3 since after that you don't get much for your RSPs.

Purge: 10 RSPs. 30 min timer. Can be used to remove rez sickness, mez/stun/root/snare/DoT/debuffs/disease. Pretty much a must-have at some point.

Resilience of Death: currently it's a +100 CON buff for your commander for 1 min every 30 min. Commander takes less dmg from melee and spells (about 25% less than normal) but that's hardly enough to justify the 10 point cost.  Just another of the useless Midgard unique RAs.  Stay away from it.

Regeneration: usually too slow to matter. Plus you have healers buff and heals so useless for downtime. Get more power to summon healers and forget about regeneration.

Tireless/second wind: with end regens being more available and our use of endurance (sprint only), long wind is a better option but still questionable. Maybe for 1 RSP of Longwind. Mostly fluff for BDs.

Lifter: mostly fluff. Can be useful when permarooted by assassin poison. Can take a lvl 1 for cheap 20% boost. That can help you carry wood for keeps. Can be an option for non-trolls. Trolls can probably ignore it unless they want to be active in siegecraft.

Other RAs (mastery of Arcane, mastery of water, augment qui/str, minion control, veil recovery) are pretty much all fluff.


4) Do healer pets heal all the same ?

Healer pets heal more as they get higher level. On a lvl 50, the healer pet lvl 18 will take 8-9 heals to heal 80-85% HP. That's 9-10% HP per heal.

At lvl 36, the healer pets will need only 5 heals to heal the same amount so that's about 16-17% HP per heal.


5) What styles are the pets using?

Commander and soldier pets use psoitional styles depending upon the weapon they have but are the same whether they use 1H or 2H weapons. They will have to be in the right position to use the styles but don't go in those positions by themselves.

Axe: rear positional. Bleeding weak DoT
Hammer: side positional. Weak snare
Sword: side positional. Attack speed debuff

IMO the sword style is the most useful one. The snare is next to useless since you pretty much have to be in melee yourself for the pet to be in right position. The DoT is so weak it's not gonna help with dmg much but it would prevent a stealther from restealthing.


6) Any info on Bonedancer-only Brittle Bone armor from Tuscanian Glacier?

They look like the BD epic armor with different stats. All are AF 51, 100% quality and 35% bonus. All proc a cold-based 95 DD except the vest that procs a 180 HP heal. Here are the pieces that drop there:

Brittle Bone Sleeves: 22 pie, 22 con, 60 hits, +3 darkness
Brittle Bone Pants: 22 dex, 22 con, 60 hits, +3 supression
Brittle Bone Boots: 9% spirit, 9% thrust, 7% energy, +3 darkness
Brittle Bone Gloves: 9% matter, 9% crush, 7% heat, +3 bone army
Brittle Bone Vest: 22 dex, 22 pie, 60 hits, +3 bone army
Brittle Bone Crown: 9% slash, 9% cold, 9% body, +3 suppression

Sheena Iliachenva'ar - "Sheena"