Yipp’s Combat Decks Melee & Healer

I thought I would share the current combat decks I use, explain the choices I made, hoping what I share has value to the community, encouraging others to correct any mistakes they see, and suggest improvements while having a robust and fun discussion!

About Yipp
I play melee solo 25-30% of the time, 70-75% I play in a regular group, within which I play either melee 20% of the time or healer or healer with some damage spells 80% of the time.


Gear
I have one set of armor for all my play; Constantan Plate Legs, Boots, Helm, Constantan Chain Chest & Gloves. I swap out ring, necklace, & weapons for my four options, either using a 2 handed Mace, 1 handed mace with shield, or 2 wands. This setup allows me to have zero fizzle with 100% of the spells I use when equipped with 2 wands, and in melee only 1 of the spell’s I use has a 5% fizzle rate.

Specialization
Life specialization is currently at 80. 2nd specialization has not been decided upon yet.

My experience playing SOTA
How I play the game may be vastly different than the majority of players. In group I am almost always on discord. I play with the same group of players every night. They know how to pull, when to fall back, when to fight. So I have made gear choices based upon these facts. For example no shield on my healer builds. “IF” I play with a group of players I do not know, I might equip a shield for additional defense. Most of the time my group fights in the Rise, Dragon’s, etc...

Can my healing be more efficient using all cloth, yes! Will it matter to my group, nope, because they do not die now when I am healing. I am not criticizing those using all cloth to heal, its just not they way I am playing my character.

Can I be more defensive when I melee if I was using a Plate Chest & Gloves, yes! The difference is so small, that I decided I would make one set that may be sub-optimal for both, but good enough for me to enjoy my game.

I know all about dual wielding being better than a two handed weapon, I have decided not to go that direction at this time.

Non-Combat Bar

Light, Shield of Crystal, Enlightenment, Strength of Earth, Celestial Blessing, Resurrection, Water Elemental, Focus Potion, Heal Potion, Healing Touch

I make limited changes to my non-combat bar during the game. “IF” I know I will not be melee, I swap Shield of Crystal with Shield of Ice.

Decks
Melee Two Handed Mace

Crushing Blow, Knock Down, Knock Back, 2 Break Weapon/2 Armor, Body Slam, Defensive Stance, 2 Douse/ 3 Fortify Defense/ 3 Glancing Blow/ 2 Inner Strength/ 2 Parry/ 2 Purify, Healing Grace, Healing Touch

Melee Shield/Mace

Crushing Blow, Knock Down, Knock Back, 2 Break Weapon/2 Armor, Body Slam, Defensive Stance, 2 Douse/ 3 Deflect/ 2 Elysian Illumination/ 2 Fortify Defense/ 2 Glancing Blow/ 2 Purify/ 2 Shield Bash/ 2 Purify, Healing Grace, Healing Touch

Heal + Damage

Healing Ray, Healing Grace, Healing Blast, 2 Soothing Rain/2 Elysian Illumination, 5 Ice Arrow/5 Searing Ray, 3 Douse/3 Purify, Dash (replace Dash w/Banish Undead when fighting Rise Lich room)

Heal

Healing Ray, Healing Grace, Soothing Rain, Elysian Illumination, Douse, Purify, Defensive Stance, Glancing Blow, Dash

Why no Ground Pound?
I do not specialize in Bludgeon, therefor Ground Pound does not get the “Stun”. I rarely fight more than 3 difficult mobs at a time solo. At 23 Focus cost, I have judged it to be my least important damage dealer. “IF” I was Bludgeon specialized, it would be using this skill.

Why no Berserk?
Berserk reduces your Damage Avoidance to a negative number (before modifiers like Glancing Blow etc..). DA is your ability to completely dodge an attack or achieve a glancing blow, by reducing this important ability to a negative number you take a ton more damage from both melee, ranged & magic users. In addition its currently bugged. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...k-bludgeon-combat-skill-not-the-stance.71865/

Valiant Warden
This terrific ability is under utilized in my regular group, because of our play dynamic. In unfamiliar groups I sometimes replace one of my defensive buffs on my heal deck with it.

How I heal
I heal by using the mouse to select targets and spells. I do on occasion use the F1-X to select targets as well. I try to keep a stacked Healing Grace up on every player in my party at all times. I heal 80% of the time with Healing Ray, 20% with Healing Blast. I am not the buffer of my group nor do they want me to cast Blind’s as they typically handle those functions themselves.

When in heal + damage mode, you are giving up the benefit of not doing damage buff, so pick and choose which deck to use, Rise Mages for example I participate in battles, Dragon’s I am 100% healing.

Looking forward to all constructive feedback!

 

I see no fails per say, I see your 2 locked heals in yer' melee decks. Ever try one locked and one cycling with rest? It's what I used to do (as a mage but still) Basically when using a cycling slot, I decide if it's going to be attack, defense or heal, and nothing outside that... Many others are better than I thou, that is for sure, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

That's looking great! Tho I don't have some of those skills yet.

 

What is the advantage of using all cloth?

 

Question/insight? I found that piling up short-term buffs for my melee on a couple of hotbar slots (such as you've done on #7-8) gave me unfulfilling results. Namely I'd want to get things like Evasion, Dodge, Flurry, Flame Sword, etc. all up and running right away in a fight, but they wouldn't always come up right away - and not always in the preferred order where that matters.

Sometimes I'd have a couple seconds of dead space since I stacked slots #1-2 or #1-3 for melee attack glyphs, which are also being drawn from the deck. Often by the time I could get my buffs all up, I'd already have taken more hits than I would like waiting on buffs (that in other games, I'd just quickly chain in the first few seconds without a limited hotbar slot factor being an obstacle).

I went to a Buff Deck for more sure fire, pre-combat buffing. Though the deck switching in and out is not particularly my favorite thing to do. And as for switching decks mid-combat for longer fights, that is a cumbersome thing to juggle while more imperative stuff is happening like dealing with enemies swarming you.

 

There is no perfect solution. I have made changes to my deck and now have the two slots #7 #8 accept any glyph as they draw faster than when you assign them spots. I also locked 100% of the melee abilities. A personally do not like the buff deck/combat deck concept (as I hate the switching) however here is two imagines of another players buff/combat bar set up as an example


As to getting all your defensive and offensive buffs up early in a fight, you only have two choices, lock them to your combat bar or create a buff bar. However, by doing this you are limiting choices, gaining access to buffs early, that once cast remain on your bar, limiting you in other ways.

The best advice I can give you is the knowledge that you struggling with the same issues we all do and there is no perfect solution to this issue.