Do skulls kinda suck?

[mltnschroeder]

The extra damage that skulls (or rings) do doesn't seem to get bound into the item socket at the forge. At least I don't see it in added in the new item description. But all the secondary powers that runes, rings & amulets have DO get bound into a socket when forged. So why would I want to take up a socket with a skull?

Or am I not getting something?

[nugdolf]

the damage from skulls and rings are added to the weapon's base damage

[mltnschroeder]

Ah, thanks. I see now. The extra damage is not listed in the stats-window in the forge, but is still added once you actually forge the weapon.

Still, since ppl seem to advise only reading 1 rune for each CA, doesn't that mean all sockets should be reserved for runes (to get the added benefits of boosted CAs), rather than just adding x-tra damage to normal attacks?

Plus you get the other added secondary powers associated w/ runes & jewelry, which skulls don't have?

[nugdolf]

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

Ah, thanks. I see now. The extra damage is not listed in the stats-window in the forge, but is still added once you actually forge the weapon.

Still, since ppl seem to advise only reading 1 rune for each CA, doesn't that mean all sockets should be reserved for runes (to get the added benefits of boosted CAs), rather than just adding x-tra damage to normal attacks?

Plus you get the other added secondary powers associated w/ runes & jewelry, which skulls don't have?

why should you eat only one rune for each combat art? more levels for combat arts and more damage to weapons is how i've always done it

[mltnschroeder]

Its just what I have been seeing in the forums. As you gain levels in CA, the cooldown time also increases. So apparently ppl recommend keeping your CA levels low, so the cooldown time stays brief, and you can spam CA powers.

I've been reading all my runes as well. But now I do see that the cooldown for some of my favorite CAs is now substantially longer than the duration.

[nugdolf]

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

Its just what I have been seeing in the forums. As you gain levels in CA, the cooldown time also increases. So apparently ppl recommend keeping your CA levels low, so the cooldown time stays brief, and you can spam CA powers.

I've been reading all my runes as well. But now I do see that the cooldown for some of my favorite CAs is now substantially longer than the duration.

just level concentration and whatever your class special thing is. this is how i do it

[Laplace93]

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

Its just what I have been seeing in the forums. As you gain levels in CA, the cooldown time also increases. So apparently ppl recommend keeping your CA levels low, so the cooldown time stays brief, and you can spam CA powers.

I've been reading all my runes as well. But now I do see that the cooldown for some of my favorite CAs is now substantially longer than the duration.

As far as I know the point of not reading runes is to keep cooldowns low and don't damage too much your chances of finding more runes since the more you read, socket in your equip and carry with you/store in your chest the less will drop, but socketing will lower the chance less then reading one, that said most CA multiply the damage you do from other sources (like your weapon) so you don't need a very high level to make them effective, just to keep the cooldowns low so they can be spammed and socketing a rune in the equip add less recovery compared to reading one, plus the other benefits the rune may bring, like for example socketing a Seraphim's "Hard Hit" not only add less cooldown but increase her special move regen. by +10%, which mean even less cooldown time, but this does not apply to every CA the same way, for example right now I'm playing with a Searphim that use the "BeeEffGee" as main damage source, since this is almost like a buff I don't need to read few runes to keep the cooldown very low, as long as it is close to the duration everything is fine, right now the duration is 47 sec. and when active the cooldown is 46.7 sec, when the skill end I can immediately recast it, but if it was an Hard Hit with a 46.7 sec. cooldown I'd be dead before being able to cast it a second time, and this isn't very helpful.
I hope this helped a bit.

[mltnschroeder]

Both suggestions help actually :)

I'm playing as Wood Elf in my first playthrough, and currently my two fav CAs are Multi-shot and Penetrating Arrow. At lvl 15, MS has a duration of 20s but a cooldown of 45s, which gets awkward during the wait (I snipe single enemies from afar during cooldown, and then let loose a barrage burst like a gattling-gun at clumps of mobs). PA at lvl 12 is 9s duration w/ 12.5s cooldown, which seems to work fine for run-and-gun tactics. I've got a lot of Regen Special Move from magic equipment, but I didn't think of increasing Concentration a bit to help further, so thanks for that suggestion.

I've tried drinking the yellow potions to help speed up regen times too, can't really think what they are used for otherwise.

As far as drops go, my Wood Elf still gets plenty but they are rarely usable. Still, I just cash those in 4:1 for the ones I want at the Combo Master. She still gets plenty of rune-drops even after reading a ton of runes, averaging maybe 4-6 runes per long mission if I grind on the way to the destination and back. And then of course she gets another random usable rune as a reward for completing the mission as well. At this point, I'm leveling up CAs that I hardly ever use, she has so many unread runes.

So as far as 'not reading runes' goes, imho it has more to do w/ trying to keep regen times short rather than plentiful drops. I mean, at 45s cooldown, I don't really want to level up MS at all to make it worse, so what do I need plentiful rune drops for at this point?

[Laplace93]

Yellow potions are used to recover combos, not CA, if you put your MS in a combo (a combo can be composed of a single CA if you want) then you can have two MS with two separate cooldowns, one from the CA and the other from the combo and help the recovery of the combo with the yellow potions.
Concentration (Skill) and Physical regeneration (Attribute) both reduce the cooldowns of the same CAs and they stack multiplicatively, if your main damage source is a CA try to stack both.

[mltnschroeder]

Thanks for the tips!

Is there a way to hotkey Combos? I use the F1-F6 keys for CAs, but haven't found a way to change combos w/o a mouseclick.

[Laplace93]

As far as I know no, there's no way.