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Two-handed Seraphim: Combat Discipline or Combat Reflexes


Kasumi Tani

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Kind of continuation of my previous topic.

 

I have decided on my utility Seraphim's build, which would be:

 

Offensive/CA Skills:

Tactics Lore

Sword Weapons

Exalted Warrior Focus

 

Defensive Skills:

Armor Lore

Toughness

Spell Resistance

Constitution

 

General Skills:

Enhanced Perception

Bargaining

 

I am currently debating whether I should take Combat Discipline or Combat Reflexes as my last skill. I am leaning more towards Combat Discipline (even though I won’t be using more then 2-skill combos anyway, due to being single Aspect), since evasion seems to be more or less easily compensated with equipment, plus Combat Discipline can work well with even just a single skill point, leaving more skill points for other skills.

 

But opinions on pro’s and con’s of taking either of these two skills (or perhaps some other skill I haven’t thought of) are most appreciated.

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I would take combat discipline also. Evasion is a mod on battle stance (better than the alternative mod too) and is easily shopped whereas combat discipline adds a little extra damage plus the regen and can be left at one point like you said.

 

A potential other choice could be damage lore which would work well with the high elemental damage of a 2 hand weapon socketed with any damage converter.

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Thank you very much for replying again, Dragon Brother!

 

I will go with Combat Discipline, I guess. Even though I am going to use Blind Guardian, which deals a lot of fire damage, I am not sure that Damage Lore will help me that much: I hope to be able to defeat regular enemies with one-two hits, and I am not sure how much DOT helps against bosses.

 

By the way, you mentioned that Battle Stance’s Flexibility mod is better then Drill.. May I ask, why is that? I was originally planning to take Drill over Flexibility, since 20% + 0.2% per level of evasion doesn’t sound like that much. Or is regeneration reduction from Drill too small to help much? (I have re-checked Wiki, and I understand that I will be getting approximately 9% regeneration reduction at CA level 50, which does sound like a pretty tiny bonus…)

 

Oh, and this kind of goes off the original topic, but I would like to ask, what modification would you recommend me for the following combat arts? (Keeping in my that my weapon will be two-handed sword).

 

Soul Hammer

 

Pelting Strikes

 

Dashing Alacrity

 

Assailing Somersault

 

Battle Stance

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Why flexibility? Well, since battle stance is a buff you are only going to be lowering the regen penalty (and only by a small amount) which isn't really all that useful. Very early in a toons life, sure, regen penalty can be an issue, but only if you eat too many runes into Combat Arts. Provided you start off sensibly, maintain Combat Arts at level 1 and raise your buff with buff suits you won't have any problems with regen until at whatever point simply eating runes to raise buff levels becomes easier.

 

Modifications... well:

 

Battle stance: Aggression (only since I wouldn't be putting much emphasis on raising attack leaving premonition pointless) - flexibility - retaliation.

 

Soul Hammer: Aim - Battering - Coup de Grace (for damage, 3 other mods for status debuffing)

 

Pelting Strikes: Thrust - Focus - Precision (2hand weapon means less hits so mod for max damage and faster regen to allow higher ca levels).

 

Dashing alacrity: either bronze - Delay - Impatience (May not be able to perma cast, but these mods mean you don't have to wait around for the cooldown as often)

 

Assailing Somersault: Spurt - Impetus - Concussion (Long range, Area of Effect stun so you can then whack them with pelting strikes).

 

That's how I would do it, but different requirements for each ca could lead to different mods.

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Mastering Tactics Lore and Exalted Warrior Focus gives you enough mod points to fully mod four Combat Arts, and I would divide them up like this:

 

Battle Stance

  • Premonition
  • Flexibility
  • Retaliation* (This is of little value, so I take it last)

 

Pelting Strikes

  • Thrust
  • Enfeeble
  • Precision

 

Dashing Alacrity

  • Bloodlust
  • Delay
  • Impatience

 

Assailing Somersault

  • Athletic
  • Impetus
  • Concussion

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The real beauty of combat reflexes is the reduction in critical hits. I would favor it over Combat Discipline since you are not in need of 3 combo slots.

 

Combat Discipline doesn't add damage to the whole damage of a weapon art. It only modifies the enhancement from the combat art. For example if you normally hit for 100 damage and Soul Hammer raises that to 150, then 50 is the enhancement Soul Hammer applies and then that gets modified by combat discipline. Make sense.

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The real beauty of combat reflexes is the reduction in critical hits. I would favor it over Combat Discipline since you are not in need of 3 combo slots.

 

Combat Discipline doesn't add damage to the whole damage of a weapon art. It only modifies the enhancement from the combat art. For example if you normally hit for 100 damage and Soul Hammer raises that to 150, then 50 is the enhancement Soul Hammer applies and then that gets modified by combat discipline. Make sense.

I thought the same thing since in Niob criticals can be a killer (literally).

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First of all, thank you very much, Dragon Brother, Lujete, for the suggestions regarding modifiers!

 

I have a little question regarding gold mod for Soul Hammer: how useful Incision is? I was originally considering it, since I am using Soul Hammer as the first skill in my main attack combo (followed by Pelting Strikes), and therefore I am not sure how useful Coup de Grace is for me. (Though I guess it would still be useful against bosses.)

 

Back to the original topic of skills; I have played a bit with this build by now (currently level 20 at Silver), and I am considering getting Revered Technology Focus rather then Combat Discipline or Combat Reflexes.

 

My reason for this is following: I rather like Divine Protection, but once I will modify Dashing Alacrity for reduced cooldown, I will no longer be able to use it in combo with Divine Protection without sacrificing time Dashing Alacrity remains on (since Dashing Alacrity’s cooldown will be 40 seconds, and Divine Protection’s will remain 60). And using these two arts separately would require more micromanagement then I would like ^_^;

 

Another reason is that I am not entirely happy with Assailing Somersault, since its attack animation is kind of slow. And taking Revered Tech Focus will allow me to modify Archangel’s Wrath for Area of Effect damage. I am not sure how useful Archangel’s Wrath will be without Revered Tech Lore, though, even though its damage is based on weapon’s damage (which should be quite decent in my case, since I am using two-handed swords).

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If you go revered focus you will need concentration to get a second buff. You will need lore to do any serious damage with Archangel's Wrath (AW) unless you have BFG (3 buffs), in which case you lose a lot of regeneration, but you get a seriously powerful AW. For a boss you can use a two handed sword with % life leach damage and then using archangel wrath with 2 shots you can double the amount you leach, kinda neat.

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First of all, thank you very much, Dragon Brother, Lujete, for the suggestions regarding modifiers!

 

I have a little question regarding gold mod for Soul Hammer: how useful Incision is? I was originally considering it, since I am using Soul Hammer as the first skill in my main attack combo (followed by Pelting Strikes), and therefore I am not sure how useful Coup de Grace is for me. (Though I guess it would still be useful against bosses.)

Yeah, Incision would probably be better, since coup de grace doesn't work unless you have already dealt some damage.

 

Back to the original topic of skills; I have played a bit with this build by now (currently level 20 at Silver), and I am considering getting Revered Technology Focus rather then Combat Discipline or Combat Reflexes.

 

My reason for this is following: I rather like Divine Protection, but once I will modify Dashing Alacrity for reduced cooldown, I will no longer be able to use it in combo with Divine Protection without sacrificing time Dashing Alacrity remains on (since Dashing Alacrity's cooldown will be 40 seconds, and Divine Protection's will remain 60). And using these two arts separately would require more micromanagement then I would like ^_^;

 

Another reason is that I am not entirely happy with Assailing Somersault, since its attack animation is kind of slow. And taking Revered Tech Focus will allow me to modify Archangel's Wrath for Area of Effect damage. I am not sure how useful Archangel's Wrath will be without Revered Tech Lore, though, even though its damage is based on weapon's damage (which should be quite decent in my case, since I am using two-handed swords).

 

Like claudius said, I think if you take another lores Combat Arts for damage without the actual lore skill you may find damage a little lacking, especially compared to your exalted warrior skills. However, if you only decide to take it to use archangels wrath against bosses so you get the double hit to go with %LL then the lack of damage won't be an issue, and in that case you would just leave archangels wrath at level 1 for minimum regen.

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