The Drunken Friar

Cleaned up a lot of old stuff in the guide. Should be more accurate now and has a very modified RA section obviously, (mostly centered on a dark/supp specced BD unfortunately since that's what I know best).

Anyway, Darmmrad, feel free to replace the older version with this one (can't do myself since announcement is locked). [Edit: Made sticky - Darm]

Thanks.
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BONEDANCER GUIDE v 2.0 (7/7/04)

By Sheena Iliachenva'ar (Ex-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. I definitely welcome all constructive feedback to help me improve on this 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://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 targetted, 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: BD DoTs start out very similar to Cabalist/Mentalist ones matching their damage in early levels but they gradually become a bit less efficient than Cab/Ment 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/Ment 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/ment 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:

If it were working correctly , the AE focus snare could be used along with AE DoTs to kite multiple mobs. Since it's has no AE component, it's very limited compared to a regular snare+DD.

AE DoT pulling for AE stun +PBAE group: BD is probably the second choice due to lower HP and worse armor than shaman or Thane for this but still. AE DoT a group of mobs from distance, they usually will converge towards you right in time to get AE stunned by pacif healer. Then supp SMs can get to work and kill the mobs pulled. this works best with orange-red mobs that won't recover from the stun or resist too much.

Using pets as bonus to hit devices: This is especially valuable on high level/epic mobs. By summoning 4 offensive pets (no-healers), the pets add a bonus to hit for everyone, makign the mob easier to hit for mroe damage. Caveat is of course the BD won't be as resistant while having all offensive pets. Other caveat is to summon 3 minion pets+commander, you'll have to use lower level ones which often die in one hit from epic mobs forcing BD to resummon more.


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. I haven't tested all of them myself and many variants exist depending on what's more important for individual BD's playing style. (No, I haven't made a LapDancer template yet)


1) "TapDancer" 47-48 suppression / 22-26 Darkness /Rest Bone Army

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" 37-39 Darkness / 37-39 Suppression /Rest Bone Army

This split spec 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 supression provides the level 22 lifetap. This spec should excel in keep sieges/defense, allowing the flexability 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 ? Less than 1% of BDs did not spec to at least 18 suppression meaning virtually all BDs have access to a healer pet of some kind.


VII. MASTER LEVEL ABILITIES

You get Master Level Abilities (MLAs) by completing trials and talking to Arbiter in Hall of Heroes. You can progress only in one path, not mix and match. Bonedancers can choose between the Convoker and Banelord ML paths. Each path has 10 ML Abilities. I may use convention of B1-10 and C1-10 for the individual MLAs.

A) BANELORD

1) Zone of Unmana

Instant 700 radius PBAE shout that slows enemy casting time dramatically (+2-3 sec) for 20 sec or so. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with B4, B6). It interrupts enemy casting when used but does not break mez/root.

2) Primal Agony

Instant 700 PBAE shout that drains 10% of current HP/Power/Endurance of enemies and mobs instantaneously. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with B5, B9).

3) Oppression

Instant 700 radius PBAE that debuffs enemies TO 20% of their encumbrance (not BY 20%) for 5 sec gradually having encumbrance come back up. Effectively unbreakable root/snare not subject to immunity timer. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with B7, B8 )l.

4) Inexorable Defeat

Instant 700? PBAE shout that increases endurance consumption of enemies by 60% for about 20 sec. Reuseof 5 min (shared with B1, B6).

5) Tactical Insight

Instant PBAE 700 shout that increases chance for enemies to miss allies in AE for 20-30 sec. Reuse timer of 5 min. (shared with B2, B9)

6) Snaring Tendrils of Power

Instant 350-500 PBAE shout that stuns the user for 10 sec while snaring enemies by 35-50% for the same 10 sec. Stuns and snare effects are affected by determination RA. 5 min reuse timer (shared with B1, B4)

7) Chaotic Power

Instant PBAE shout that makes it easier for friendly targets to hit enemies for 30 sec. Not clear if it works or if it increase melee or spells. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with B3, B8 ).

8 ) Agony Transmission

Instant PBAE shout that drains 75% HP from caster for drain of 30% HP/Power/Endurance on enemies in area. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with B3, B7)

9) Demoralization

Reduces level of enemy targets for damage calculations. Basically, makes them do about half damage for a short duration. Shared timer of 5 min with B2, B5.

10) Banespike

Point blank effect area shout that boosts damage of attacks from nearby allies.


B) CONVOKER

1) Summon Wood

Summons 100 boards of wood with random quality that can only be used for repair/upgrade of doors and siege (no crafting and not sellable). Reuse timer of 2 min.

2) Prescience Node

Drops a marker stone (very visible) that pulses on 1000 radius every 6 sec and reveal the presence of stealthers without revealing them in shade form (cannot be targetted). Lasts for 10 min with reuse timer of 5 min. Nodes can be destroyed after taking 50 HP of damage. Breaks mez/root when it pulses and agros all mobs entering the area. Puts caster into combat so cannot use MLC. 15 sec casting time. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with C3, C4, C7).

3) Power Trap

Ground target that drops a trap that expires after 10 min if not triggered by enemies coming nearby. Once triggered, it drains about 5% power per pulse every 3 sec. 15 sec casting time. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with C2, C4, C7).

4) Speed Warp

Casting time of 2 second. Drops a node at 700 range that is not visible but cancels speed buffs including speed of sound for 1 min in the area. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with C2, C3, C7).

5) Summon Warcrystal

Summons 10 ammunition of grapeshot, bullets, balls of ice or catapult stones. Reuse timer of 30 sec. Not sellable ammunition.

6) Battlewarder

GT target summons a rooted yellow con to 50 statue-like pet with about 4k HP and can attack targets nearby it. Double hits always. Cannot attack non-realm enemies. Reuse timer of 90 sec (shared with C8, C9). Battlewarder dies after 90 sec no matter what so can have only one at a time. Casting time of 6 sec or so.

7) Dissonance Trap

Summons a trap where caster stands. Casting time of 15 sec. Reuse timer of 5 min (shared with C2, C3, C4). When triggered, 1 time effect of 350 radius AE DDfor about 300 dmg at center with fall-off.

8 ) Brittle Guard

Broken. Currently summon a pet that does nothing. Supposed to take one hit for the Convoker and die (1 HP). Reuse timer of 90 sec (shared with C6, C9).

9) Summoning Mastery

Instant PBAE buff to the to-hit chance of pets in the area. Reuse timer of 90 sec (shared with C6, CCool.

10) Crystal Titan

Summon big pet. Costs 50% power to use. Pet is also static and attacks only realm enemies in range. Hits for 140-350, often double hitting.


VIII BD RA Guide

The RR5 unique BD RA: Allure of Death

Amusing tidbit first, the illusion and name part of it is probably linked to me playing a necro in EQ and loving those life-to-mana conversion spells. I ended up suggesting it when ideas were generated for unique BD RA and I love how it turned out. Sue me if you think it's not a cool RA hehe. Ok on to the more serious stuff.

Allure of Death is a free RA that you gain upon reaching Realm Rank 5. It's a 75% chance to resist outright CC, whether melee or spells. It also protects from nearsight completely. But it does not remove those effects so it's not a purge alternative. It also changes you into a skeleton that will con green to enemy and display as fossil guardian. Despite showing your regular staff and casting animations, it is surprisingly useful since many player totally ignore pets in RvR. If you use a crafted staff, the illusion should be even harder to spot. Only caveat is that it lasts only 1 min and has a long reuse timer of 15 min. Very useful for rushing into a keep or when approaching the enemy.

RA selection otherwise depends on each BD's spec. This FAQ is gonna mostly consider the angle of the most popular RvR spec currently which varies between 38/38 dark/supp and 48/22 supp/dark all those specs basically having decent survival from supp spec healer and solid single target nuking by overlapping lifetap and base DD.

For quantitative RAs boosting damage, I'm also considering a statistical approach based on general damage per second (DPS) increase without other consideration such as front loading or side effects (such as augment acuity increasing power pool or augment dex increasing staff damage). I'm also listing RAs in term of per point efficiency of each level.

A) Damage increasing RAs:

Mastery of Magery:

MoM 1: +2% DPS per RA point
MoM 2: +0.67% DPS per RA point
MoM 3: +0.5% DPS per RA point
MoM 4: +0.4% DPS per RA point
MoM 5: +0.36% DPS per RA point

It affects all our damage spells, DD, lifetap and DoTs. Rank for rank, it's still the best deal around for improving your damage. It also raises your damage cap by the listed amount. Damage cap for each spell being 3 times delve value (i.e. 369 for lifetap 47).

Wild Power:

You need to average it to find real effect. Each crit does 10-50% (average 30%) extra damage on RvR targets and 10-100% (55% average) on PvE targets.

WP 1: +0.9% DPS per RA point
WP 2: +0.6% DPS per RA point
WP 3: +0.4% DPS per RA point
WP 4: +0.3% DPS per RA point
WP 5: +0.26% DPS per RA point

Probably second best in efficiency at same level. It has added impact of providing burst of extra damage which may be difficult for enemy healers to take into account. Wild Power now also works on DoTs but not on debuffs.

Augment Acuity:

This is even trickier to get to than the other dmg-increasing RAs. It boosts your PIE adding to power pool (roughly 1-1.5 power point per PIE point) and increases damage per spell without increasing your damage cap however.

With high PIE, tests have shown a linear dependence on PIE which gives roughly +1% DPS per 5 PIE around 300 PIE. From that, you can get efficiency of Augment Acuity (AA).

AA 1: +0.8% DPS per RA point
AA 2: +0.53% DPS per RA point
AA 3: +0.33% DPS per RA point
AA 4: +0.24% DPS per RA point
AA 5: +0.2% DPS per RA point

Counting the power enhancing it's not a bad deal but not the first choice for purely DPS increasing.

Augment Dexterity:

Casting faster, your DPS increases even though damage per spell stays the same. It's important also for getting spells out before interruptions. This is tricky to figure out for two reasons. First only base DD really benefits from it. If you're BA specced, this is probably useless to you. Lifetap is also on fixed timer so no amount of dex will make you improve its DPS. At 300+ DEX, the conversion factor is about 1% casting haste (and thus DPS increase) per 7 DEX points. Depending on supp/dark split and castign haste, base DD represent in chain nuking situations about 80-95% of your damage. Prior to that 80-95% assumption in mind, here is the efficiency of Augment Dex (AD):

AD 1: +0.57% DPS per RA point (80% = 0.46%, 95% = 0.54%)
AD 2: +0.38% DPS per RA point (80% = 0.3%, 95% = 0.36%)
AD 3: +0.24% DPS per RA point (80% = 0.19%, 95% = 0.23%)
AD 4: +0.17% DPS per RA point (80% = 0.14%, 95% = 0.16%)
AD 5: +0.14% DPS per RA point (80% = 0.11%, 95% = 0.13%)

Not a great deal overall. The % may also be deceiving. If you don't parse a log of those, it's very hard to notice the casting haste effect. Overall, probably best to stay away from it except maybe up to AD 3 for real high ranks. Go for MoM/AA or WP first.

Mastery of Focus (MoF):

This is the opposite case than augment dex in that it'll have no effect on your lvl 50 base DD due to MoF being capped at lvl 50. Instead it'll boost your lifetap and debuff by reducing their chance to be fully resisted by 0.5% per point of MoF (i.e. MoF 1 = -1.5% full resists on lvl 47 and below spells). To find out the efficiency as DPS increasing tool, you need to consider the effect of full resists statistically. Again assumption will be that 80% of the dark/supp BD damage is from base DD and the remaining 5-20% from lifetap. Healing benefits although obvious are not accounted for in efficiency. Considering BD spells, it's unlikely that anyone would need more than MoF 3 so analysis will stop for that level. After that the cap at 50 makes it only useful for the low level debuff and effect is simply too small to even be considered viable.

Efficiency was calculated using delve values for lifetap 37 and 47 and base DD 50.

MoF 1: for 38/38 spec +0.5% DPS per RA point, for 47+ supp/22+ dark +0.6% DPS per RA point

MoF 2: for 38/38 spec +0.31% DPS per RA point, useless for 47+supp/22+ dark spec (0.028% DPS per RA point).

It's a decent deal for MoF 1 when you've already covered MoM2, WP2 and AA 2 and AD1. But not a first choice item otherwise unless you really need that extra bit of healing.


B) Power Regen RAs

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 and 12 sec in combat.

Magic Crystal Lore (MCL): This is your main downtime reducer with much higher efficiency than Raging Power.

MCL 1: +25% power for 5 points on a 3 min timer. Can only be used after 10 sec out of combat (BD or her pets). 1.67% power pool regeneration per minute per RA point.

MCL 2: +35% for 10 RA points which is 1.17% power regen per minute per RA point. Less efficient but ok deal for BDs who don't RvR near power fonts often.

MCL 3: +40% for 15 RA points which is 4.4 power per minute per RA point. You have something better to spend your RA points than this.

Raging power: on 10 min timer but usable in combat. This is NOT a downtime reducer but an emergency power boost when you just need that extra bit.

RP 1: +25% for 5 points on 10 min timer. 0.5% power regen per minute per RA point.
RP 2: +25% for 10 points. 0.25% power regen per minute per RA point. I'd argue that in emergencies, usually you don't need that much power, or at least not at that cost. If this is important still, consider saving yourself one rank of RA points to level a tartaros gift.
RP 3: +30% for 15 points. 0.2% power regen. Again, you don't need this much power regen in emergency. Not recommended.

Serenity: 1 point per level per tick. 10 ticks per minute so +10 power per min. Half of that when in combat. On a power pool of 500 which is typical with ToA items, this is 2% power per minute per rank of serenity. So compared to MCL, serenity 1 is an ok deal giving you +2% power regen per minute per RA point. Serenity 2 is still decent at 1.3% power regen per minute per RA point although with some combat in there, it probably becomes less efficient than MCL2. Serenity 3+ are not worth the point since increase is drops by more than half that of Serenity 2.

Ethereal bond: IMO a curiosity for rank 1 and after that, you're better off with Augment Acuity and MCL combos. I'd save that for those who never find regen potions or power fonts.


C) Survival RAs

Purge is one of them of course. Above RR5, you may need less purge 2 or 3 due to Allure of Death but still. Purge 1 is cheap and great for removing nearsight, long mezzes, big DoTs or disease or debuffs. Nearly mandatory at that cost IMO. Purge 2 and 3 while costly are worth it depending on your priorities.

Physical Defense (PD): Not so much against melee but now more than ever against archery. This is very useful although with one caveat. It is applied multiplicatively to your resists and thus the higher your item resists vs crush/slash/thrust, the more reduced the efficiency of PD. So for example, with 26% slash resists, PD 1 does not add 2% but only 0.74 x 2% which is about 1.5%. Still a worthy addition but note that it does not protect from legendary weapons which usually take into account your magic resists instead. This is a small issue due to magic resists usually being higher than melee ones.

Toughness: These directly add to your hit points. It does not count towards any cap and soaks melee or spell damage the same. It provides per RA point more HP than Augment CON by quite a bit (Augment Con 1 = +11 HP per RA point). It also cannot be debuffed unlike CON.

Toughness 1: +25HP per RA point
Toughness 2: +16.7HP per RA point
Toughness 3: +12.5HP per RA point
Toughness 4: +10 HP per RA point
Toughness 5: +10.7HP per RA point

For this reason, I wouldn't consider anything above augment Con 1. Augment Con 2+ are below any level of toughness and can be debuffed. Not wise investment unless you have toughness 5 already. Even then, that's probably too much HP increasing RAs IMO.

Empty Mind: Nice quick boost for when you're facing heavy caster fire. Problem is it's short duration and most sieges are very long so it won't get you very far in the long run. At the first level, I'd actually go for Bedazzling Aura with only 15 sec less duration but affects your whole group with a 10% (multiplicative on top of items+buffs) reduction. I don't think I'd get much of those otherwise due to active less 5-7.5% of the time.


D) Utilities and exotic RAs

Do we need MoC/Concentration? Less than most casters. If your secondary is BA, forget MoC. Your DoTs don't stack and the reduction in dmg from MoC will kill them. Even if dark/supp specced, it's not gonna keep you alive and we can still lifetap while engaged in melee or spells. We don't have much to spam that would justify the investment due to our spells being fairly low dmg to start with. I could see get MoC 1 for adding interruptions but nothing more than that unless you're swimming in RA points. (in that case you should just give the extras to me hehe).

Thornweedfield: First it's ground targetted so if you don't want to get into that, pass on TWF. Then it's not better range than your lifetap so not gonna make much difference for getting to out of range targets. Although you can draw people into an active TWF and then get them while they're snared/interrupted. It does moderate damage except at rank 3 and is on a long timer. It cannot be used inside unbroken buildings so not really that great on offense but great for defense. However, since the dmg is so low, this is pretty close to being an invisible speedwarp. Quite expensive but can be worth it for gank groups looking to ambush other groups or to buy the BD some time to escape incoming melee train.

Juggernaut: It's doing something very similar to Summoning Mastery (convoker 9). Pet also grows in size which makes it very visible on the battlefield. It's a decent buy especially if you have your pet buffed. Reuse timer being very long hurts however. Plus since pet does not sprint, targets can kite it effectively sometimes. Still it can 2 shot some soft targets and when you have the initiative can be quite deadly addition to your spells. It does not stack with summoning mastery so for convoker 9+, this is probably a weaker buy although they can play with both Juggernaut and summoning mastery timers to have super pet more often.

Negative Maelstrom: a good idea to get AE damage for those with dark/supp spec. Unfortunately, it's also a very gimped AE DoT making it hardly worth it IMO.

Adrenaline Rush and Mastery of Pain: don't ask me why we have access to those. You'll only gimp yourself spending even a point in those. First Aid is in same boat unless you don't group with healers or don't have your own healers handy. Avoid at all costs.

Veil recovery: Probably worth investing a point into it for decreasing the times at which you'll earn less RPs for kills and get back to full effectiveness faster. Higher than rank 1, probably not worth it. Just sit on your butt 15 sec more which you'll need anyway after resummoning pets and rebuffing.

LongWind 1: useful for groups with shaman having only end regen 3. Allows perma sprinting. Weaker buy in NF than before since so much now depends on static conflicts. Still worth it at level 1 but not a priority until RR4+.

Wild minion: see effectiveness in FAQ below. Even with modified % crit for pets, this is not the best you can do. More useful however if you combine it with Juggernaut or Summoning Mastery since those crits will start doing very nasty damage. Might be a good choice as well for more PvE oriented BDs.

Lifter: valid choice for carrying field siege especially if you're a troll. For kobolds, unless your gear has lots of +STR, you won't see much increase even from +20% carry cap.



VIII. 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 exemple: 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 styles are the pets using?
(thanks to Lemo on great data)

That very much depends on which weapon they have equipped. The style is displayed in pet damage channel so it's easier to figure out now.

With a 1H axe (no 2H axe), the commander uses Splitter (anytime, weak damage) and Evernight (rear positional, bleed effect).

With a 1H or 2H hammer, the commander uses Thor's Anvil (anytime, weak damage) and Frost Hammer (side positional, snare).

With a 1H sword, the commander uses Whirling Blade (anytime, weak damage) and Northern Lights (side positional, attack speed debuff).

Here are the damage caps for the various weapons the commanders can wield:

2H Great Sword, 5.4s, 362 unstyled cap
2H Great Hammer, 5.3s, 355 unstyled cap
1H Bastard Sword, 4.1s, 276 unstyled cap
1H Long Sword, 3.6s, 242 unstyled cap
1H War Hammer, 3.5s, 233 unstyled cap
1H War Axe, 3.1s, 210 unstyled cap
1H Small Hammer, 2.8s, 185 unstyled cap
1H Bearded Axe, 2.7s, 180 unstyled cap
1H Hand Axe, 2.4s, 158 unstyled cap

Of the three positional styles, Evernight, Frost Hammer, and Northern Lights, Frost Hammer has the highest damage bonus, although they're all fairly close.

For RvR, I think Frost Hammer snare is the best. Not only does it have the higher damage bonus but it'll allow you to run. Northern Lights is good too to keep enemy melee damage on you down. Evernight bleed is very weak and does very little for your survival. So I'd recommend 1H hammer or sword commanders for RvR since they'll have more chance to use those effect styles by swinging more often than 2H ones and DPS is about the same. If you can live with the lower front-loading of the commander's modest damage.


4) 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[/url]


5)l What's the effect of Wild Minion RA on BD pets?
(pre-NF wild minion so % crits are off but mechanics are the same)

Wild Minion: gives extra 5% crit per level of the ability. It also affects all pets including the melee minions.

Wild Minion 1: 430 reg hits, 22 crits, 150 misses => Crit rate = 4.8%
Wild Minion 4: 86 reg hits, 21 crits, 26 misses => Crit rate = 19.6%
Wild Minion 5: 85 reg hits, 28 crits, 28 misses => Crit rate = 24.8%

Extra damage of commander 41 from hits on 50 BD was noticeable:

Regular hit damage: 74.2 per hit (59-90 range)
Critical hit damage: 98.2 (67-126 range) = 132% of regular hit damage

This is consistent with critical hits doing 10-50% extra damage with an average of +30% per crit.

Combining the test-proven 5% crit per level and the +30% extra damage per hit, each level of Wild Minion increases the damage done by melee pets by 1.5% on average in RvR which is still not much but something to consider especially for BA specs and if you're gonna have a buff bot boost your pets.


6) How does healing from pets vary with pet level?

Evidence from separate tests now shows that pet do not heal a fixed %. Instead, they heal a variable amount depending on their level. The tests confirmed the following healing amounts:

Level 18 Healer pet: +75-90 HP per heal
Level 24 Healer pet: +95-105 HP per heal
Level 30 Healer pet: +115-125 HP per heal
Level 36 Healer pet: +130-145 HP per heal
Level 42 Healer pet: +160-170 HP per heal
Level 48 Healer pet: +165-175 HP per heal

The difference in lvl 42 vs lvl 48 pet healing amount is so small that it's unclear if they simply don't use the same spell doing the same amount of healing. Both could fit in a wider category 160-175HP heals.

I was also able to figure out the HP regen buff. It's about +1.5-2% HP per tick (6 sec or so). This is thus about 15-20 HP healed per tick which is more than the +5 HP delve info would indicate. That didn't seem to vary no matter what healer casted the HP regen buff.