Through the Eyes of a New Player

I don't have the Phoenix or any likelihood of getting it soon so I'll take your word for it, so my reason for using the fire ele over the phoenix is that I have a bunch of XP invested in fire and not much in sun

 

Thanks for sharing this. I was thinking about, to make my way up to the lich. But after reading this, I wont do this and spare the points for some more usefull skills

 

The quest to pick up the Summon Lich skill has a lot of xp and ores you can get, but yeah you are better off using the Skeleton if you want to focus more on the Death Tree. It has the benefit of being relatively cheap to summon compared to everything else.

 

Errata to Death Tree:

Summon Skeleton: Seems to have had a small health increase, and now brings his own sword!

Mummified Undead: Massive numbers increase! I have mine at 45, and it decreases the decay by 27% now! Buuuut I have yet to actually see this happen out of combat.

Summon Lich: Small health increase? Still isn't worth using, and still looks a little silly with the way it holds its weapon.



Sorry for my inactivity, been dealing with real life problems and I haven't had much time to spend on the game, which means I need to put down the Sun and Moon tree reviews soon. The good news is I've almost got the Earth tree finished. I'm hoping to put out the Sun tree today.

 

Mind giving an update on your thoughts now that youve been here about 2 months? Personally i find that after about 3-4 months is where the blindfold starts to come off.

 

Sun Magic:

“The sun is a wondrous body. Like a magnificent father!”

The Sun magic tree seems to focus on….nothing? It has status effects, two utility skills, a healing skill and a damage skill, so jack of all trades seems to be the best term for it. I found the most use for some of these skills in niche situations, though there were plenty of those.


Light:

The first skill for the Sun tree. This provides a small ball of light that is attached to your Avatar and follows you around. It’s useful, but I mainly use Night Vision for seeing things, except in dungeons, in which I’ll switch to using this nifty little utility skill.



Searing Ray:

One of my primary damage skills early on, this skill finds its way onto my hotbar when I go into undead infested areas, mainly because of the damage increase against undead targets. It’s a good skill to have, but one you shouldn’t keep using unless you plan on fighting plenty of undead. There are just so many better options.



Blind:

A nice little debuff that I use in raids to help out my friends on the frontlines, Blind reduces the attack accuracy of one target, making it helpful for any who are planning to be on the potential receiving end of plenty of damage. I don’t use it much outside of those raids, but it always shows back up along with Torpid Torment and other debuffs.



Enlightenment:

A buff that increases your intelligence. A must have buff, even though it does come with a small penalty when you use it. It’s a very good one to have, especially if you are planning focusing heavily on magic like me.



Sun Worship:

Increases strength during the day, or for a half hour….As a passive? And it even works when indoors? Yes please! Nothing wrong with this passive here, and everyone can definitely benefit when it comes to this skill.



Reveal Hidden:

I honestly think that this is a PvP skill, as I have yet to find a use for detecting hidden enemies around me in PvE. It’s a pass for me, but I needed it for two of the skills after it.



Dazzling Rays:

Another nice debuff, but I mainly use it for when I’m soloing, as the Mesmerize AoE is centered around the caster. A little disappointing since it’s called “dazzling rays,” but it’s still very useful!



Sun Eater:

This passive increases the day duration for Sun skills, but not by much. It’s a nice passive to train, but you likely won’t see much difference in it unless you train it to higher levels.



Elysian Illumination:

This is a rather useful skill, but unfortunately it’s buggy. If you use this while near ANY enemy, they get the regeneration effect, NOT the damage effect. So until that’s fixed, cast it before initiating fights if you can. This skill also has a nice lighting effect in a large circle, giving it an alternate use than just for the regen effect.



Summon Phoenix:

My favorite combat pet right now. The Phoenix is a ranged pet that deals (insert obligatory comment about poor combat pet damage here) fire damage, provides a small light source, and has a chance of reviving itself (Though I haven’t seen this actually happen, tested it 10 times and it never revived for me, has anyone else gotten it to revive?). Like the Fire Elemental, the Phoenix also has the benefit of being immune to most NPC magic attacks, but besides the standard fireball attack they both share, that’s where their similarities end.

My idea to buff the Phoenix: (Insert obligatory combat pet damage increased comment here) Change the phoenix’s fireball animation to the sun ray animation and give it the same bonus against undead creatures. Give it a passive that regens a small amount of health every second and give it a large AoE DoT attack (with an animation of course) that the quest boss variant of it uses (toned down).


Overall, I feel that the Sun Tree is in a good place: it contains some useful skills for any style of fighting, though one of the skills needs to be looked at for bugs. What do you guys think? I’ll be finishing the Moon tree soon, and I hope that RL problems don’t get in the way of this.

 

My updated thoughts on the Trees I've done so far (minus Sun):

Chaos:

Still my favorite so far, but still buggy. The clone still does nothing of value, Chaotic Step's reduced reagent consume chance still doesn't work, and the Chaos Daemon still doesn't really do much. That being said, it's still not finished. I just hope that the problems are fixed so it can really personify the High Risk/High Reward playstyle.


Death:

Definitely still have this as my highest. Besides Summon Lich, there are no bad skills in the tree. Every single one of them can be used effectively (except against undead). With the new updates to the passive Mummified Undead, it looks like that the Summon Skeleton might become a permanent edition to my hotbar.


Fire:

Still my main source of damage in most areas, unless I'm leveling up skills (which is often when I'm playing). I feel like there is still a lot of investment required in the passives to help, but it really shows with time. My biggest issue is the Fire Elemental. As it is right now, it is literally an inferior Phoenix. The Phoenix just does everything the Fire Elemental does, and also has a chance of reviving itself.


Game Overall:

I like it, but I feel like several things could be less grindy or time consuming. I've currently taken an interest in training Taming, but it's such a slog I'm not sure it's worth it at all. I have to go find silver, which isn't easy for my current level, find enough ore and scrap to make bindings, then I have to make an animal collar and an animal whistle, then I have to turn them into a "taming collar" and a "summoning whistle." Then I have to waste all of these taming collars trying to tame animals with only a >10% chance even though they're at less than 25% health. Then there are the passives and some of the active skills that take FOREVER to train. Finally, there are the combat pets, which I feel like need to be looked at. I finished my idea for a "Summoning" tree that I think would help this issue and submitted it.

That being said, I have a lot of fun playing, especially when I join one or more of my guildmates in a raid. It's really fun working as a team taking down bosses and such. I'm not ready for full time damage yet in a raid, so I swap out most of my damage for debuffs and AoE skills to help out. Currently I'm pondering what my focus should be: Warlock (Leather Armor, staff, Chaos, Life Drains, Moon, Fire), Necromancer, Generalist Wizard or Druid (Leather Armor, Staff, Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Life, Sun/Moon, Taming).

 

I've not attempted it myself for a long while, but I thought you didn't lose the collar unless the tame attempt succeeded? The strategy was always to tame thing you had next to no chance of succeeding with so as not to lose collars when levelling up. Did this change, or is my recollection incorrect? My opinion is that taming is not worthwhile unless you're willing to go beyond GM in summoning so I've not bothered getting anything up much past 40.

 

You actually do lose the collar no matter what you do, at least until level 20 in Tame Creature, where you can unlock Collar Recovery which is supposed to lessen the chance that your collar is consumed when you lose it.

 

And this ability doesn't help much...I run through collars way too fast.

 

I ended up just buying my pets to bypass the grind and the cost. Levelling the summons skill was easy enough - you just need a tame chicken for starters.

The taming tree really needs to be tweaked and adjusted.

 

I know I said that I would do the Moon tree next, but I got sidetracked. I've unlocked all of the Taming skills and have most of them at 40+, thanks to the help of the amazing guild I'm in! The Taming tree focuses on taming wild creature to become your combat pet (usually anyway), as well as buffing it, healing it, and reducing the cost of taming.

Taming

"Unlike what the civilized folk will tell you, a beast can be anything but predictable."


Tame Creature:

You know it, you hate it. This is the biggest hurdle to get by whether you want to become a Tamer, or just hit the requirement so you can lock and forget about it. That is because it costs silver ore to make those precious Taming Collars, and silver ore is not an easy thing to come by, especially in lower difficulty zones. That, and you lose a collar whenever you succeed or fail at taming a creature. The icing on the cake is that it has a long cast time and unless you have a friend with you, you are going to have stand still and pray that whatever animal you're attempting to tame doesn't interrupt your cast time. In my opinion, taming collars should accept any type of ore, with rarer types of ore giving better taming results (capping at silver). That would make the slog of leveling this skill up less daunting.

That being said, when you finally succeed in taming your first creature in the middle of combat, it feels amazing. I felt really accomplished after picking up Spots, my Red Spider, after dropping him to half health and trying to tame him with only a 6% chance of success. That being said, while you might put a lot of effort into taming one type of creature, unless it's an Obsidian Wolf, Obsidian Bear, or one of those nasty Ferocious Spiders, you are going to have to replace your tamed pet with a more powerful one. There is a cap on how high you can level your pet, but more on that further down the list.



Summon Creature:

If you plan on using tamed pets, level this skill up as high as you can! This unlocks the ability to summon the higher level tamed pets! However, be prepared to wait a really long time between summoning, as after summoning a tamed pet you get a debuff that lasts for several minutes. This debuff keeps you from summoning another tamed pet, or resummoning, however you can lessen the debuff with a passive in the Taming line. Another thing that will be quickly noticed is just how much focus drain a tamed creature requires: it's a lot. With the more powerful pets require far more focus drain cost, training yet another passive in the tree becomes a huge must, especially if you want to use lots of magic skills.

Summoning a creature requires a Summoning Whistle, which like the Taming Collar, requires Silver Ore. Again, I think that the whistle recipe should allow the use of other ores, with different effects based on what ore is used.



Heal Creature:

Another must have skill (There seems to be a trend here) if you plan on using tamed pets. It's pretty self explanatory on what it does, and the best thing about this skill is that it auto targets you pet as long as you are within range. Level it up as much as you can to increase it's healing (and some training in the Life tree will go a long way too) as you can expect your pet to take a lot of damage during certain battles.



Obedience:

This is actually one of the only skills you don't have to keep leveling to its maximum. Obedience increases the percentage at which your pet will stay and fight instead of fleeing. However, if you want your pet to have a better chance at surviving. it's probably best to only raise the skill to its minimum requirement to unlock Combat Training. If you are planning on just being a Tamer for profit, then you can probably skip this all together. An easy way to level this skill is to just spam Heal Creature on your pet.



Collar Recovery:

A must have for a Tamer, or anyone who wants to level up that annoying skill, as this can effectively extend the "lifespan" of the Taming Collars you create. This reduces the chance that your collar is consumed on a FAILURE, not a success. I have Collar Recovery at level 50, and I can safely say that this actually works, which just makes it even more of a must have. If you don't want to risk losing your collars while leveling this skill, spam Heal Creature on your pet. It counts for some reason.



Resurrect Creature:

Much like Heal Creature, if you plan on using tamed pets in combat , pick this up! If your tamed creature dies, its corpse only sticks around for a few minutes before it despawns, so having a resurrection skill that auto targets your pet is going to be extremely helpful! I have already made good use of it once to revive Spots after he got dogpiled by several skeletons. Much like Obedience, I wouldn't recommend leveling this skill past 40, since at level 40 it revives your pet with a 100% success rate. No point in putting XP into a skill that already does its job, it could be better spent elsewhere. An easy way to train this skill is to spam cast it while your tamed pet is out. It levels pretty quickly.



Combat Training:

This skill raises the effective level of your tamed pet. Besides a health increase, I have absolutely no clue if this effects any thing else, but it seems like it also effects base damage? I've noticed my spider doing more damage than what it did originally, but it could have just been its poison, but hey: At least more health is always a good thing. Especially since your tamed pet has reduced health compared to what it was as a hostile NPC. It's still a good idea to level it up as high as you can, so spam Heal/Resurrect Creature.



Concentration:

This skill reduces the focus drain of your tamed pet....WHICH IS HUGE, considering they take a lot of focus compared to summoned creatures. That being said, I feel like the numbers could be increased, especially for pets at later levels. However, much like most of these passives, level it as high as you can.



Refresh:

Reduces the debuff duration in which you can use Summon Creature. Much like most of the passives....See above...



I'm pretty mixed about the Taming tree. The biggest problem I have with it is that it's an all or nothing tree. If you want to be effective, whether as a Tamer, or just using tamed pets, you have to grandmaster certain skills (Though Tamer only needs 3 really). The next problem I have with it is the cost of it all. You need to be high level, or be constantly grouped with a party of high levels in order to survive a trip to the mines where silver ore is, or you can spend your gold on silver....And you'll need a ton of silver. That being said, after being in combat with Spots several times, I do like the fact that tamed pets deal more damage (or just attack more frequently). That, and I like the fact that the tamed beasts follow you even in the world map, which means I don't have to spend gold on reagents every once in a while.

I'll probably make a comparison between Summoned and Tamed Creatures next, before finishing either the Moon, Ranged, or Light Armor trees.

(if you want a guide to taming, here's an excellent one: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/beginners-guide-to-taming.84585/ )

 

I've found out that summoned creatures do actually scale with you level, though on paper it appears that they scale somewhat poorly. Here's how they scale:

10+(skillLevel) + ((adventurerLevel/2)/4). The 10 seems to be the base level of the summon.

Let's put this into practice. My Summon Skeleton is my highest summoning skill, at skill level 45. My adventuring level is 51. so

10+ ((45+(51/2)/4) = 10 + (45+25.5/4) = 10 + (70.5/4) = 10 + (17.625) = 27.625.

My Skeleton is around level 28 (I don't know if they round down, up, or not at all).

As of this moment I'm training my Summon Fire Elemental skill to match my Summon Skeleton skill, then I'm going to do a damage test between the two, since Undead Mastery is supposed to do something with Death Tree skeletons.

 

@Perashim I'd love to test out my skele against yours if possible. Adventurer lvl 56 but JUST unlocked the skill (still lvl 1 or 2, I think I've only summoned it once so far) and don't have any of the death mastery items unlocked (think my death attunement is only 20 or so, but I'll double check when I get home). I'm usually on sometime around 7-10 PST. Would help confirm if they are scaling or not. I did this about a billion releases ago, pre-permanence, with another player that had skele GM and mine won half the matches, with no noticeable difference in damage and generally came down to which skeleton hit the other first. Curious to see if its fixed now so I can start investing in summons as pets are pricey.

 

@Moiseyev Trueden Sure! Though I have to warn you that I do have Undead Mastery and Mummified Undead at level 50. What's your ingame name? Mine is Tharizdun Baphoment.

 

Chris said Death magic and I think the summons in particular, are getting an overhaul, hopefully this release!

 

Same name as on here. Moiseyev Trueden. The differences in that is actually better. If your's works mine then we know there is distinct advantage to doing it.

 

@Moiseyev Trueden I added you to my friends list.

 

I really hope so, especially after what Moiseyev and I found after our testing.

 

Combat logs from our battles. For the most part, my summons are reflected in the skill screen (except for death which is attune 28, lvl 1-4 skeleton, no death mastery)

Death vs death (both skele)

Spoiler

Death vs death (skele vs lich)

Spoiler

Also did water (see screenshot for attune and skill level) vs flame :

Spoiler

And earth vs demon:

Spoiler

And earth vs earth (I finally win one)

Spoiler

Wussy small red spider vs earth ele

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Wussy small red spider vs water ele (poor water did no damage due to web)

Spoiler

We also did some skeleton mage summons... but didn't get screen shots of battle logs for those.

Overall, it seems damage was fairly consistent regardless of Adv lvl, skill lvl, and attunements. The main difference was survivability (especially for the death decay rate, couldn't figure out what death summon effectiveness affects, no noticeable boost to hits, damage, or crits). Of note, skeleton damage was around 4-5 higher on the top end than the regular elemental (water, earth, fire, & phoenix which were almost identical in damage range).

Summons are low focus, low damage, high hp, with weak buff/healing/debuff randoms. Pets are high focus, high damage, low hp, with strong combat abilities.