Somehow I really feel like playing a bonedancer but I am not really interested in Supp because I want to command an army that actually attacks enemies instead of just healing me.

So has anyone tried Dark or BA yet and can tell me how it does in pve or maybe even rvr?

Nobody invites Bonedancers into RvR groups, just wanted to point that out first for you. If you were going to RvR in any way, you would want to go Suppression for the Insta Life Tap but that is assuming you would be able to find the one versus one fights you would excel at.

As for myself, I went straight Bone Army from level 5 for PvE, it is alright, send your commander with BA spec damage add to poke a monster a couple of times, cast a couple DoT's and watch the monster fall before moving to the next target. A real power saver spec compared to Suppression level 5 to 18 where you almost have to spam life tap to fight anything stronger than blue until you get your fossil healer pet. That being said though, the fossil healer and life tap combo is ridiculous, I have watched Bonedancers in Darkness Falls solo two or three orange/red plated fiends simultaneously before.

I have not heard a lot of people talk about Darkness Bonedancers, I assume that is because it is the underrated spec of the three.

Be prepared, since by having a suppression healer pet in your setup is actually counterproductive, since whenever it heals, it steald much more xp than if you were playing without any healer and do the healing yourself.

SEE ISSUE #1647

Even you, mr suppression specced BD, who is reading this. You should try it, see the proofs by yourself, and then realize that you spent nearly double the amount of time to levelup to get wherever you are right now. Try to kill one monster without using your pet healer. Yes, it's easier with those, but you'll see that you're getting far more xp without. Until the thing will be fixed, of course.

Just to confirm, Darkness spec doesn't receive the casting commander pet? So you'd have a melee commander and 3 caster minions? How does that play out?

I just did 1-24 on BD and did it as sup to get the healer pet first, what I would have done differently was do 1-20 as BA for double dot + damage add on pet + buff and then respec into sup (if sup is your plan, otherwise just go straight BA and you will be fine). If you hold aggro on the mob and kite it with 2 dots up and send your pet the mob will not stop running and won't attack your pet, so pet is hitthing it + 2 dots ticking down... easy orange kills. 1-20 would have gone a lot smoother chain killing orange along with tasking.

However, in their current state healer pets are stealing MORE xp than they should be. If I kill things with my buff pet vs my healer I get a hugely different amount of xp, so killing with 2 dots + commander while just running away seems like a solid leveling plan, healer for dungeons (careful for pathing they can sneak into a wall and grab aggro or stay around corners and not heal so have passive on the ready).

Ticket #1647 regarding pet xp issue, if you are concerned.

OGCFTW wrote:Just to confirm, Darkness spec doesn't receive the casting commander pet? So you'd have a melee commander and 3 caster minions? How does that play out?

casting commander came at a much later patch, in which you could also talk to the commander and tell him right away what weapon to use and the tactic you wanted him and the subpets to use.
None of the two are working nor at desired patch level for uthgard 2.0

Thx for all the answers!

So did I get it right that dark spec is pretty bad on uth (high manacosts compared to BA) and if I dont want to go Supp I should go Bone Army?
And you wont get to experience much RvR with any of the three specs?
I'd also love to know how Dark Pets compare to BA pets in terms of dps. Is there any info on what value/damage type/dps caster/archer pets use for their attacks?

No one really play a dark BD on uth, so it is hard to tell. i only have the level 15 caster pet and the casting is pretty bugged(in an op way) But level one and tell us.

I will, but I have very limited time at the moment. But I'll post here once I reached a decent level

tvpro wrote:No one really play a dark BD on uth, so it is hard to tell. i only have the level 15 caster pet and the casting is pretty bugged(in an op way) But level one and tell us.

Just curious how so? Looking forward to trying out the BD again!

Well instant 30 allowing us to goof around with different builds and what not, I made a Dark spec BD this morning. In limited play, it seemed like it might be ok but a couple problems jumped out to me. First, when you tell pets to attack, the nuker pet hits before the commander has a chance to grab agro which will get the nuker pet agroed and put in melee quite often. Second, even if the commander grabs the agro, the nuker pets keep inching towards the target between casts (and they cast really damn fast) so that they are eventually in melee range. Once in melee range, even if they don't have agro they will start meleeing thus sending your dps nosediving down.

I didn't see any issues for either of these 2 problems on the tracker and I can only assume that's because nobody plays Dark spec. I may make some issues for it but honestly, I've found issues for classes/specs that aren't widely played have a really hard time getting the required confirmations so I'm apt not to go the trouble of making them.

If anyone does try out a high dark spec, please let us know how it goes. I'm really considering 39dark/37supp. I solo a lot, but I think the level 31 healers would still be alright for that and this gives you the 30% debuff with the second highest lifetap so I'm guessing the LT will do similar damage to the highest level one.

The real reason I'm considering going so high in dark, though, is because I'd like the option of grouping sometimes and it seems better for groups than 47supp/25dark as there'd be less variance in the dark DD and I could use the level 33 caster pet and 31 debuffer pet to increase damage further, if they can actually land spells on enemy players...

So the main thing I'm curious about is whether caster the 31-33 caster pets can actually hit things, otherwise dark only seems viable at all if you go very high in it, and then you're pretty much reliant on a group, though you'll probably do decent damage.

joshisanonymous wrote:If anyone does try out a high dark spec, please let us know how it goes. I'm really considering 39dark/37supp. I solo a lot, but I think the level 31 healers would still be alright for that and this gives you the 30% debuff with the second highest lifetap so I'm guessing the LT will do similar damage to the highest level one.

The real reason I'm considering going so high in dark, though, is because I'd like the option of grouping sometimes and it seems better for groups than 47supp/25dark as there'd be less variance in the dark DD and I could use the level 33 caster pet and 31 debuffer pet to increase damage further, if they can actually land spells on enemy players...

So the main thing I'm curious about is whether caster the 31-33 caster pets can actually hit things, otherwise dark only seems viable at all if you go very high in it, and then you're pretty much reliant on a group, though you'll probably do decent damage.

Att: joshisanonymous
Did you get your BD ot 50 and did you try out the split spec (39/37)?
I find that spec interesting cause your pets would be able to interupt from a distance.

Also the debuffer pet, does it do disease or resistdebuff?

Tellus_F wrote:

joshisanonymous wrote:If anyone does try out a high dark spec, please let us know how it goes. I'm really considering 39dark/37supp. I solo a lot, but I think the level 31 healers would still be alright for that and this gives you the 30% debuff with the second highest lifetap so I'm guessing the LT will do similar damage to the highest level one.

The real reason I'm considering going so high in dark, though, is because I'd like the option of grouping sometimes and it seems better for groups than 47supp/25dark as there'd be less variance in the dark DD and I could use the level 33 caster pet and 31 debuffer pet to increase damage further, if they can actually land spells on enemy players...

So the main thing I'm curious about is whether caster the 31-33 caster pets can actually hit things, otherwise dark only seems viable at all if you go very high in it, and then you're pretty much reliant on a group, though you'll probably do decent damage.

Att: joshisanonymous
Did you get your BD ot 50 and did you try out the split spec (39/37)?
I find that spec interesting cause your pets would be able to interupt from a distance.

Also the debuffer pet, does it do disease or resistdebuff?

I didn't try out the spec because ultimately it didn't sound worth it to me, mainly because even the lowest level caster and debuffer pets land spells on enemy players pretty easily. Going higher in Dark means you give up a more reliable lifetap, the last absorb buff, and the ability to have one good healer with two Dark pets. all for a bit less variance on your baseline nuke, slightly harder hitting caster pets, and a slightly better str/con buff for your pets. I was strongly considering 34/37/17, but I solo too much to take the hit on defense for what was starting to seem like only a slightly higher damage spec.

And the debuffer pet is supposed to cast both disease and a resist debuff. To be honest, I haven't verified that it actually does, though, since I usually use two healers and a caster pet. I'm gonna try running two healers and the debuffer though and pay a bit more attention to what its doing.

joshisanonymous wrote:

Tellus_F wrote:

joshisanonymous wrote:If anyone does try out a high dark spec, please let us know how it goes. I'm really considering 39dark/37supp. I solo a lot, but I think the level 31 healers would still be alright for that and this gives you the 30% debuff with the second highest lifetap so I'm guessing the LT will do similar damage to the highest level one.

The real reason I'm considering going so high in dark, though, is because I'd like the option of grouping sometimes and it seems better for groups than 47supp/25dark as there'd be less variance in the dark DD and I could use the level 33 caster pet and 31 debuffer pet to increase damage further, if they can actually land spells on enemy players...

So the main thing I'm curious about is whether caster the 31-33 caster pets can actually hit things, otherwise dark only seems viable at all if you go very high in it, and then you're pretty much reliant on a group, though you'll probably do decent damage.

Att: joshisanonymous
Did you get your BD ot 50 and did you try out the split spec (39/37)?
I find that spec interesting cause your pets would be able to interupt from a distance.

Also the debuffer pet, does it do disease or resistdebuff?

I didn't try out the spec because ultimately it didn't sound worth it to me, mainly because even the lowest level caster and debuffer pets land spells on enemy players pretty easily. Going higher in Dark means you give up a more reliable lifetap, the last absorb buff, and the ability to have one good healer with two Dark pets. all for a bit less variance on your baseline nuke, slightly harder hitting caster pets, and a slightly better str/con buff for your pets. I was strongly considering 34/37/17, but I solo too much to take the hit on defense for what was starting to seem like only a slightly higher damage spec.

And the debuffer pet is supposed to cast both disease and a resist debuff. To be honest, I haven't verified that it actually does, though, since I usually use two healers and a caster pet. I'm gonna try running two healers and the debuffer though and pay a bit more attention to what its doing.

I see, thanks for the info