50 BS
29 Hammer
29 Axe
12 Parry


Let it be known that I am level 30 and have never had a level 50 character in this game, yep - I'm a newb.

But to the folks who have some Skald RvR experience @ 50, play devils advocate for me please

This spec would give you the advantage of have slash and crush damage
You would have the Axe anytime slow combat speed and slow movement speed in pillage/plunder
Then you could hit em with havoc the front anytime style
Then if they run away you bust out your hammer and hit em with conquer
or
Axe pillage plunder for the speed debuffs and then hammer provoke to save endo
You would also adjust which weapon you used based on their armor
In other words, whatever combination is most effective vs that opponent

The difficult lies in getting used to switching weapons

I haven't tested any of this but just would like some opinions

The low weapon skill will really hurt you end game and the Skald is on a lower damage table as it is.

Plus hammer has low endu costs and has less resistances against it than axe, so why bother all the swapping for 20 extra damage?

I see

So you don't believe that the anytime debuffs combined with conquer are good enough to justify the loss in overall damage?

In 8v8 you will be busy with rupting as many caster/supporters with shouts, so that would only suffer if you had to switch weapons there as well. I don't want to say that it's not possible, but you'd need even more situational awareness for optimal play, which, for example, is one of the big issues of playing a Minstrel perfectly (managing of shouts/weapon switch/song switch/cc).

In solo or zerg situations (while assisting in a zerg) you want as much frontload as possible, but this spec wouldn't help you with that either.

I really like the idea, don't get me wrong, but Skald is already a jack of many trades!

For solo RVR, which is my main target, I have to say I like the idea of being able to chose your damage type. I don't believe much in the swaps in combat as I think it would be hard to actually do this consistently without losing time/failing a style because of a bad timing/or changing quickbars (you won't fit everything in 3 quickbars).

As a solo Skald, I am currently hesitating between 50 BS/34 Axe/26 Parry (high parry is essential, as is the last DD, and the 34 Axe style can be useful to land a stun early in combat before swapping to 2H) and 50 BS/29 Axe/31 Parry.

I chose Axe because of Pillager (we're talking about 21% damage reduction against melee, it's huge for a solo player) and I prefer slash damage considering my main targets, although Hib stealthers will not be a piece of cake. However, endurance will be an issue (though most of the damage will come from BS), as well as the lack of an easy/instantaneous melee snare. This makes your idea interesting, but I am really afraid that Parry would be more useful than flexibility in the weapon type in my particular case.

Since your idea is based on 29 in weapon types, any inputs on how significant such low level in the skill will be? From older posts here, it seems it won't influence defense (parry/block) penetration, but just style damage and variance reduction (which improves average damage). This would help me decide between the three possible specs.

@Tharid, Thanks for feedback

@Kabouik, interesting ideas. Where are you finding the 21% number for pillager? I'd like to see all the detailed numbers for the styles.

You also seem to be keen on getting a block in for that 7 second stun on the 34 axe style, are you blocking that much in RvR?


Now I am thinking going the classic 50BS/43 Hammer/2 Parry in RvR until I get enough realm points to be a force. Then maybe switching to a higher Parry spec with lower weapon.

I have to do a lot of testing and see how things really go of course. I have a lot of questions on the difference between the 46 and 50 DD damage and resist rates as this will determine the build bigly.

21% is what is documented in the info window in game. By the way, I have noticed that descriptions on styles is not always accurate on Nixian's character builder. For instance, Plunderer's snare is supposed to be 100% value according to the character builder, while it's documented as being 60% in game.

I remember, back in 200X, that I had found a resource with growth rates for every style. Not detailed effect values for the styles, which is what you are looking for, but growth rates would be very useful too since they cannot be displayed in game. If anyone knows where to find this for Uthgard's version, then let me know.

I am not sure at all about the block rate and 34 style, to be honest. I am only level 40 at the moment so the RVR fights I have had are far from being reliable, plus I bumped into very few melee solo players. It's just that I believe that it is advised to reach 52 in the weapon spec after bonus (am I right?), and for that I am thinking 29 Axe might be too low (however, I do hesitate) since I am not interested in making something that will work only once I'm RR11, which will never happen anyway. So if I spend more points in Axe, then it may be worth going to 34. As a Kobold, maybe the chances of blocking would be a little higher and sufficient to realistically hope landing this stun. It's a 2-style chain though, which reduces the odds quite a lot regardless of the block rate. The skill 'Intercept' would have changed everything on this matter, too bad.

Also interested in the difference between 46 BS and 50 BS, but I'm leaning towards 50 BS for my parry-oriented character that will deal less melee damage than a 44 Weapon Skald.

some1 in this forums made this character builder and spent sometime gathering info about growth rates shown in it.

EDIT: add an about tab or something with your name, this way I can give you credit everytime I suggest your character builder

EDIT 2: Hulkgris made this character builder.

Excellent, thanks. I actually did find this character builder earlier, but did not notice the tooltips differed from Nixian's, so from that point I kept using the builder that came first in search engines. Will definitely use this one now. Thanks again. Seems Havoc will be central for my melee dps as a solo Skald.

i think that is Hulkgris character builder.

borog wrote:i think that is Hulkgris character builder.

true thx.