Sad tale of the fledgling squid

[Radamond]

So, having loads of fun with the class grouping and leveling my newbie tentacles when it's nearly time to call an end to my patrol, so I decide to tackle a radio mish.

 

Lvl 24, following Redlynne amazing build I find myself facing one last group of mobs. 2 orange named guys and one yellow. I say to myself "There are no more corpses to be found, but I'm the Mfing Squidgling" I stealth into the grp. Double mire, try and punch a hold to the one of the brown named pimps. A miss, no problem. Squid form, fly back a lil unload my AoE darkness rage unto them. Yellow guy didn't die, but was knocked back and proceeds to range attack me. My life is at half at this point, time for the dwarf. Pop out my last health regen inspiration. Brown mobs still alive, hp declining. Panic takes over and I decide that maybe trying to burst them down with squid for so I can sneak a heal of the body? Burst down yellow named mob, but earn myself a trip to the hospital.

 

So, how do I aproach solo fighting as a squidgling? The lack of defenses is hurting... and staying in human for the toggles plumets my damage.

 

Side note: i got no real enhacements... lvl 24 and it's my highest level character so far. i've got some common drops sloted but they arent doing me all that much. Do I need to pimp out my squid to take it to greater heights? Or is it just a matter of "git gud, scrub"?

[TheShooter36]

Stygian Circle is the answer to all of your problems. Oh and double mired unchain essence combined with squid AoEs. Burst the weakest guy down, drain it if you lack HP, explode corpse after double mire, then go ham as squid. Should take care of it. And do not EVER neglect Dwarf Drain.

 

PS: I am not an expert or a returning veteran. Just happen to start 2 weeks ago by pure chance and made a warshade immediately after my VEAT and stuck to the WS. Its lvl31 right now.

[Microcosm]

Gravitic emanation first is a great option. I've got the kb to kd io in mine which makes it waaaay better. Honestly though it's just early on for you and you don't have IOs. Khelds can be late bloomers and benefit more from IOs than any other class, partially because of how their tier9s work and partially because they technically get several more slots than anyone else. Itll get better. For now consider taking some purple insps with you if you aren't using break frees.

[Radamond]

Grav emanation is the next power on the list. Unchain essence isnt on the list though... Ran another mish just now and things went waaaay smoother. Not a single inspiration used except for 1 dmg  to speed things up in a 4 mob grp.

 

I'm having a lot of fun with the WS, really don't understand why they aren't more popular.

 

 

[Redlynne]

Lvl 24, following Redlynne amazing build

 

It's okay ... you can say it.

 

I'm a Bad Influence™ on you people ...

 

I'm having a lot of fun with the WS, really don't understand why they aren't more popular.

 

Because they're ... complicated ... and require people to think ahead in order to play at peak effectiveness.  They aren't the "mindless fun" of Scrapperlock simply due to all of the combinations what you CAN DO in every situation, especially when playing a Tri-Form Kheldian (Peacebringer or Warshade).  They're also relatively "expensive" to fill out with Set IOs, making them long term projects to complete.

 

In other words ... they take "work" to play (well) ... and a fair number of people simply aren't up to the challenge (or, let's be honest, have the desire) to keep up with the mental processes needed to play a Tri-Former at high levels of player skill(z).

[Azrath]

Because they're ... complicated ... and require people to think ahead in order to play at peak effectiveness.  They aren't the "mindless fun" of Scrapperlock simply due to all of the combinations what you CAN DO in every situation, especially when playing a Tri-Form Kheldian (Peacebringer or Warshade).  They're also relatively "expensive" to fill out with Set IOs, making them long term projects to complete.

 

In other words ... they take "work" to play (well) ... and a fair number of people simply aren't up to the challenge (or, let's be honest, have the desire) to keep up with the mental processes needed to play a Tri-Former at high levels of player skill(z).

Elaborating on this (because we're warshades, everything we do is elaborate); essentially everyone else picks one character, but we're a trio tag team.  Our decisions aren't just 'which power will be available next for my attack chain?"; we have to consider which of our forms we want to be in at any time, what buffs are available / expiring, and which powers we want to enhance with those buffs.

 

A scrapper runs up to a spawn and might lead with a debuff or aoe before dropping into their attack chain.  A Warshade ghosting up is thinking "Ok, do I want to double-mire into a nuke-corpse nuke; or eclipse-mire into nova cone/aoe; or hold into..." 

 

About the only consistent thing about Warshade combat is that we end with Stygian Circle and Extract Essence before going to find more bodies.

[Redlynne]

On Virtue (and again here on Everlasting), once I reached Level 22 and Stygian Circle the way that my Warshade played felt really ... NECROMANTIC.

 

That was what prompted me to change my Warshade's $Battlecry to instead be ... "Your Soul Is My Chewtoy!!"

 

I even got to team up with none other than Dechs Kaison for a Dr Quaterfield Task Force in the Shadow Shard, and the first time I let loose with my $Battlecry I can only imagine that Dechs was mildly impressed (even though I wasn't fully slotted out yet) because he said in team chat, "MFing WS indeed..."

[Azrath]

Heh.  I was on a team here on everlasting and I'd just MF'ed the hell out of a spawn while the rest of my RP team was recovering from the prior fight in a long hallway.  Stygian'd back up to full and cut loose with my battle cry.

 

M̴̧̪̲͓̙͕͉̟̾͆̄͋̋̊ȗ̵̢̪͎̮̓̽̆̎͗͘͜͠ͅs̶̩͋́͂͑t̵̛̼̟̽̕ ̷̳̥̦̮̙̼̍̍f̸̧̪͔͖͔̚̚͝i̸̜̿ń̶͈̲̓̊͐̚d̸̮͕̺̖͊̾́̄͐̍̈́̕ ̴̡͒̌̊̋́́m̵̠̳̲͎͔͓̗͗̆ṑ̴̮͇̈́̃̈́̕r̷̨̛̥̲̩͇̺̙̓̐̊̅ę̴̢̯̣̫̮̦̯̎ ̷̼̹̩̹̥̦̰̎̿͛́͊͂̓̚b̸͎͒̓ó̶̡̭̀d̸̬͙̯̘̙͂́ͅĩ̸̡̈e̴̗̥̘͌̿̾s̷̟̩͕͉̥͉͍̀̃͂̈

 

Team Lead:  ...Uhh... you OK there Penny?

Another player: She's fine, she's a Disciple of Dechs.

 

Of course, by then I'd run off into yet another spawn...

[Papaschtroumpf]

The mid 20s can be tought, Nova is not quite sufficient to blast your way our of trouble, Dwarf isn;t fully developed and you are missing some utlity powers like Graviting Emanation or God powers like Eclipse.

 

Based on th situation you describe I would have (double) mired, hit the lowest fow with Gravity well (it's OK damage), switched to Dwarf and smash it down (self heal if needed), then use the corpse for boom, nova and finish, or get fluffy and back to tank form.

 

Yes, you need enhancements at lvl24, even if they are store bought SOs. I would craft/buy common lvl25 IOs and keep them maybe till you are ready for a final build. For myself, I bought lvl20 IOs at 17, then started frankenslotting with cheap set IOs around lvl 30 and plan to keep doing that to new slots till I get to 47

 

My best advice is keep at it, don't worry about debt, you're finally learning about using the AT rather than playing a repetitive zombie build. Use some inspirations to mitigate some of what you're missing. Slot your dwarf enough to at least be able to kill ONE MINION and provide that much needed corpse. two lsots inthe main smash (smite I think) and two in the self heal ar a good place to start (oh, and two resists in the form)

 

you can also change your reputation to "team of 4 at -1 lvl", you get more foes and swquishier ones. When you're comfortable with that, up the count or the level (the count is probably the easier of hte two). Once you can solo 8x Even Level, see how 1x Even level feels (you don't want to only know how to play large anemic mobs), the see if you can solo +2, then any combo you want. At lvl 40 I was soloing 8x +1 until I strt running Cimerora radio missions and ate dust a bit too often.

 

 

 

 

[Radamond]

 

Based on th situation you describe I would have (double) mired, hit the lowest fow with Gravity well (it's OK damage), switched to Dwarf and smash it down (self heal if needed), then use the corpse for boom, nova and finish, or get fluffy and back to tank form.

 

 

Now, as mentioned before, I'm following Redlynne's guide to a T... I still don't have unchained explosion or fluffy to help me dps down creatures. Some times when changing back from dwarf or going into nova i get a spike of dps from the enemies and just end up taking a quick nap. I'm not letting it take me down though. Up in the hospital and back at them. The enhancement advice is neat, and I'ld like if you guys could help me out on that front. You guys keep throwing terms like frankenslot and I/O (wich i only recently figured that are the crafted enhacements  :P ) and a trip to the auction house only served to make me realized that I'm a poor squid. My current budget is short of 150k infamy, and from what I figured a single recharge I/O for lvl 25 was going for about 70k. I'm guessing that my xp buff days are over for a while so I can manage to grab some slots filled in. But what should my priorities be when sloting? Defense for dwarf form? Acc for siphon health in dwarf? Acc or Rch for humam for mire? More dmg and acc for AoE Nova skills?

 

I'm in a weird spot where I never stopped being a newb when I played on live and now that I'm here everyone seems so knowledgeble and talk enhacements and builds so casually that I feel like I have a ton to learn before I can even start to ask questions >.< 

[Papaschtroumpf]

Go to Steel Canyon South and go to the University and run the which story arc there to learn how to make IOs (invention origin enhancements).

You can buy the recipes from the crafting table and the salvage from the auction house (type /ah in the chat window to being it up, faster than physically going to a wenstworth location)

 

150K is not going to take you too far. You probably want to sell some of your salvage (click on salvage above your power tray) and recipes on the market to make more money.

Also sell enhancements that drop from killing does to the proper origin store to also make some money.

There are a couple of guides around here on how to get rich quick, but many of those worked best when they were a secret. Getting Merrits by visiting all badges in Atlas park and selling enhancement converters is probably a good way to get started.

 

 

As to what to slot first, it somewhat depends on how you play and what your reputation is set to. Remember that when mired you hit better and harder. Since survivability is a concern here, slot resists in the dwarf, one acc one rechg in the dwarf heal, then some rchg in mires.  Sorry it's just a little vague but there are many ways to do it each with their drawbacks and advantages.

 

[Action Sloth]

 

You can buy the recipes from the crafting table and the salvage from the auction house (type /ah in the chat window to being it up, faster than physically going to a wenstworth location)

 

 

Just want to point out that you can get most, if not all, the generic IO recipes you need significantly cheaper on the AH than from the table itself