Quick question about my Hybrid Seraphim.

[Viruk 0]

Ok, I'm L30, I only have one skill left to add to my character, I was wondering what y'all think I should use?

 

My skill list so far is...

 

Magic Lore

Weapon Lore

Hevanly Magic

Dual Wielding

Concentration

Armor

Constitution

 

I was thinking either Sword Lore or Agility...

 

Mostly with this build, I use RBoL and Attack for killing the baddies, on the really tough bits I fire off a CL or two and do a little dance of death letting the baddies get killed in the CL and with the RBoL.

 

Anyway, I have 20 levels before choosing another skill, a little while to go yet...but any suggestions would be very welcome, I'm totally torn between Sword Lore and Agility.

[Schot 407]

Oh tough decision Viruk. On one hand Sword Lore not only gives better attack speed and chance to hit but also, more importantly IMO, that it will allow you to use various weapons that require sword lore. Something I'm not certain of though is that if you are dual wielding it may be that the sword lore skill is not applied becuase the dual wield is in affect. One of the seraphim experts will need to confirm that though.

 

But if you are choosing between these two because you want to increase your chance to hit then I would suggest using Strength of Faith for this. It's incredible how much it increase chance to hit. With this I'd suggest taking Meditation.

 

Me 2 cents.

[EvilMale 7]

I would suggest agility you really dont need a weapon lore now that you have dual wielding and besides you have weapon lore already. aggility will add to your defense and attack rates

[Viruk 0]

Hmm, Meditation is something that didn't really occur to me.

 

Blah, now I have 3 things to think about, I hate you

 

Agility adds to attack and defence, sword lore is for attack and attack speed...and with my 2 prototype swords the chance of critical hit is high, so that's good....but mostly for my melee I use the Attack CA...hmm.

 

Does Meditation affect the damage or the regen rate? I've never actually played a caster character before. If it's damage I'm definetly thinking that would be good, if it's regen rate....it's still an option but not as high a priority as it would have been.

[StiCk_eM 1]

Well sword lore I would say you don't really need because you already have dual wielding and sword lore and dual wielding does not stack so therefore it would not increase your attack rating or attack speed when you were dual wielding two prototypes.

 

Agility is a possibility because it would increase your chance to hit and increase your defense, but meditation would do an even better job of making you hit more often if you were to start using strength of faith. Meditation does not affect the damage your spells do, it affects the regeneration times of the spells.

 

Hope this helps you with your predicament,

 

StiCk_eM

 

P.S. - I would pick meditation personally for a real killer! I think Gogo will agree but I'll be curious to see what he says.

Edited July 17, 2007 by StiCk_eM

[EvilMale 7]

Why take Meditation when he has taken heavenly Magic for his regen and casting times imo agility would be the best bet for a skill choice.

But you are right he doesnt need another weapon lore because dual wielding boost up the attack rate

[griffman 0]

Well I'm actually in the same boat, except I took meditation. I figure that the extra regen rate couldn't hurt since I'm using a lot of buffs with my seraphim. Of course this is my first HC seraphim so I don't know how well it will work out, and I may have to re-make her several times before getting it right.

 

Sword lore, as most have said, will not affect your attack rating or rate because of the DW. As soon as you equip 2 weapons the sword lore skill gets negated. The only reason I can think of going against agility is that why need the extra AR? If you use SoF you'll have plenty of it, and parrying gives more defense than agility does. This is me speaking from other characters point of view again (mostly WE)... learning about the seraphim still....

[myles 2]

I would take meditation, agility is only an average skill. I would back Schot's idea of using Strength of Faith.

 

Or I would take riding. Yup pevil converted me in taking this.

[griffman 0]

Doesn't being mounted slow DW attack rate down? I know it speeds up 1h for the seraphim.. but for some reason I thought it slowed DW and 2h down..

[Csaszar 2]

Hi

 

 

I would take definitely meditation.

 

You will have better effects from it (both th short and the long run) than from agility - which is not bad but your def will be low anyway.

 

Meditation is THE skill for the spell regen. It counts much more (considering the spell regeneration) than heavenly magic. Choose meditation and you would have the ability to use SOF and the other buffs more often and higher lvls. Higher SOF = better attack than agility or sword lore can get you.

 

Sword lore is a quick forget. If you dual then raise DW fot AR and invest in SOF.

 

May the heavens be merciful to your enemies.

[Obsession 0]

Everyone has theyr own style to build hybrids. My style has allways been taking only one skill to reduce spell regen times and I see you allready have heavenly magic so I would suggest taking agility. Not just because it will help you hit more often, but it also provides defence.

 

As higher you go, baddies are going to have lot more HP and Def so even if you would go for meditation, your seraphim would lack needed defence and attack rating for close combat and you would start to rely more on your spells. Nothing wrong whit that, but at somepoint attack rating can be so bad that you no longer hit even if using Attack CA.

[Viruk 0]

Almost L40 now...

 

I have to admit although Meditation looks nice, I'm leaning more towards Agility just now.

 

Seraphim have fantastic attack but they don't have any defence buffs...except light shield technically, I'm thinking Agility will give me that extra bit of defence needed to fight at the highest level like VoT and Hell's Ridge.

 

I'd like Meditation to cast Celestial Light a bit more often but not dying is my main priority..hehe

 

I'll probably go with Agility when the time comes...but I'm still not totally decided yet, blah...I hate having so many good skills to use and only being able to take one.

 

Oh thanks for the replies, gives me more to think about

[EvilMale 7]

Thats what I would do you really dont need meditation since you took Heavenly Magic even if you read a SoF rune your should be fine with just the 1 skill to keep your regen times down and like Obsession has stated you need the extra rateings for your defence and attack

[Viruk 0]

Thats what I would do you really dont need meditation since you took Heavenly Magic even if you read a SoF rune your should be fine with just the 1 skill to keep your regen times down and like Obsession has stated you need the extra rateings for your defence and attack

 

And I can always cast SoF as a combo and RBoL naturally so I can cast both at the same time instead of waiting on one to regen to cast the other.

 

Or set both as a combo and carry concentration potions....either or.

 

Since I'm still fairly early in my build, I've not had to use SoF for anything other than dragons yet, but I know I'll need it later on, just now I'm concentrating on RBoL runes, trying to get it to a 120 sec duration...once I hit that target with RBoL I'll dump a whole lot into SoF.

 

While doing SoF, I'll dump some into Light too, just for undead

 

Like alot of people say in the guides, I'm not putting alot into CL, I think just now I only have 7 or 8 runes in it, I'd rather cast 4 or 5 of them than 1 powerful one...and it's good for tough mobs or dragons and such.

 

I'm about 90% sure I'll go with Agility, I'll find out what one I click when the time comes.

 

Thanks to everyone for the help, I'll owe y'all a beer.

[EvilMale 7]

Hey iits no problem mae we are here to help. And its good to see your having fun. If you want to the see the fun I am having check out the thread I started lol its been loads of fun and real interesting to say the least

[gogoblender 3,070]

hmmm, already chosen hm, so now choosing between med and agility....

 

Well, if your doing sof, your agility will pretty much only count for defense. Worth it? Course, taking blows is a big part of life in niob...so agility may be interesting...then again, taking med could let you drop your regen times down a whole lot, increase the number of CA levels you can cast rbol at and then further increase your damage plus life leech.

 

Actually if I were in your position and were looking to make a more "solid" build...it would be a tossup between parry and agility.

 

So the question then would be...which would give more defense to the style of seraphim you're playing? ^^

 

Ahh, decisions, decisions.

 

 

 

gogo

[Csaszar 2]

Hi

 

 

my 2 cents (and IMHO too )

 

Allow me to speak theoretically.

 

IF your seraphim WOULD have a CA like glads HC and that CA would provide her enough defense THEN and only THEN would be the question you asked taken really into account. I mean an already high and buffed defense could benefit from agility. With our without agility your defense will be sooooooooooo low.

 

I dont want shatter any dreams but you will be hit. Hit often and hard.

Surely if you simply trying out a new build and not planning her long future then ofc take agility. Until plat (or Gold - depends on where you want to play) you will manage.

 

If I am not mistaken you have taken DW but no weapon specific lore. That mean you go dual - so no shield or no dex bonus from some LHW. Accept that your seraphim would lack almost all defensive capabilities. Agility will do its job of course: it will boost your 0 defence to 0 defence. (Hehe maybe I am carried away a bit but its really late here - or really early? ) I am not saying of course that you did something wrong - no not at all! Just a DW hybrid seraphim wont have any useful defence past the few lvls. If you start socketing bonus defense stuff - well that is also a way to a very painful suicide. Sacraficing all your sockets to build up a non existant defense will take away almost al killing power you could have. Now damage then leech (maybe WIDD --->Gogo is your man) and buffs. Theese could you keep alive.

 

Let us play a guess game. How many defense could you have around plat for example. Around 1500 to 4000. Maybe a few hundred more. What you think how will agility change this? Give a few hundred maybe thousend.

In niob any defense under 20-30k is almost nonexistant. Even a Glad of a DE with 100k or 200k defense is hit pretty often.

 

In the attack rating agility would surely help. But AR could be boosted trough SOF. The higher the buff the better the result AND the regen time. And the higher you char is the need for a stronger buff would be higher too

 

So I think meditation is something that would help you greatly lowering spell regen times. (meditation has much more impact on spell regen than heavenly magic - sadly because of the casting animation you need to take heavenly). On the other hand agility is a fine choice to waste a skill (and skill points - though it can be raised by items significantly)

 

The best would be to take both of course - but as the man said "decisions decisions"

 

So take the red pill or the blue pill - the choice is yours

 

 

[Obsession 0]

In the attack rating agility would surely help. But AR could be boosted trough SOF. The higher the buff the better the result AND the regen time. And the higher you char is the need for a stronger buff would be higher too

Like I was talking abount in the other thread, SoF won't do much good if your base value of AR isn't that good. Sure you could spend your runes into SoF and boost DW to get base AR up, but why waste both when taking agility would mean you get your base AR up and get extra defence (lol, even it wont help much in niob, but still more than no defence as all the bonuses are allways applied to the base value) just by taking Agility. Still it depens if you are caster melee or melee caster from your gear.. meaning do you get more of RSM or Spell regen from the gear + bonuses to Spells and Combat Arts. If build right, heavenly magic should be enought to keep rbol regen allways lower than duration, SoF regen allways under duration and CL regen really low too. Or that's how I have managed, but what do I know.. never bothered to play much on Niob.