Advice for THW empath skills

[bunnymustdie]

I have a baby THW empath at level 35. Stats are as follows:

(at level 35), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 90 20
Combat Maneuvers...................| 132 36
Two-Handed Weapons.................| 132 36
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 5 1
Physical Fitness...................| 174 74
Arcane Symbols.....................| 78 17
Magic Item Use.....................| 78 17
Harness Power......................| 130 35
Spirit Mana Control................| 120 30
Perception.........................| 93 21
Climbing...........................| 90 20
Swimming...........................| 70 15
First Aid..........................| 132 36

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 19

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 20

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 35
Training Points: 3 Phy 109 Mnt

Right now I'm starting to get spare training points each level after I train in the basic stuff. What should I do with the extra points? I'm divided between transformation lore, MOC or trying to 3x PF. What should I try to train in first? Anything I shouldn't do? I don't know if it's worthwhile to go for MOC at all, but both Tsalim's guide and Throgg from the official forums mention having MOC on their empaths and mstriking with them.

[Luscinia]

Blessings Lore may be the most useful to you since it gives bonuses to Heroism, Spirit Strike, and Adrenal Surge, all of which are useful for melee empaths.

3x PF is a luxury, pure casters can afford it since they don't need the PTPs but I feel warpaths have other useful skills to pick up first including MOC. Empaths now have 1117 which gives you some ability to multistrike without having to train in the skill, so leave it as a secondary priority and fill it out as you get spare points: it's certainly still useful if you can hit the focused mstrike thresholds.

[khorpulent]

Yeah, MoC is too absurdly expensive for empaths to be worthwhile. And while it's nice to 3x in PF, 2x is probably good enough pre-cap.

One thing I notice that you lack completely is transformation lore. While you may not really consider yourself a "healing" empath, it's still incredibly useful to be able to heal yourself while hunting without a ton of RT. And even if you prefer hunting to healing, you're still going to find yourself healing others occasionally. I would at least go .5x in transformation.

Blessing lore is cool and all, but if you want more DS from spells, just get spell ranks. The only real reason to train in blessing lore would be if you're in Sunfist and you want to recover more stamina for sigil of power.

You probably won't find yourself using 1117 too much at this point, but you'll want MMC down the road to increase the number of targets you can hit.

And don't be afraid to overtrain Empath Circle. I'm at work right now and can't open the wiki to look at the formulas for 1109, 1119, 1130, but I'd assume they're like nearly every other spell and give you DS benefits based on ranks (I'm sure the AS benefits cap at level, don't know about DS, but it's worth looking at). But either way, 1106 is still a nice setup spell even if you primarily swing.

Do you really need all that armor use? You're an empath, you should be able to take a hit! (That's what all that PF is for). My empath is getting close to 2x cap and is still in double leather.

I'd bump perception up to 1x, and I'd start now on migrating away that 1 MOC rank. It'll take a while to migrate, but it'll be nice to get back the 20/20 you spent on it.

And with all that being said, THW empaths are cool and all, but you might consider fixskilling into a pure around level 50 or so. You'll actually have enough mana to hunt with spells by then, and you'll find your AS starting to taper off with melee weapons around that point. Of course, melee empaths are totally viable all the way to cap, you'll just be more versatile as a pure.

[bunnymustdie]

Thank you guys, you've both helped me narrow down on things.

I see 1117 mentioned a lot. Should I worry about getting telepathy lore for it down the road?

I'm 1x'ing the perception now and will eventually have it catch up to level.



Do you really need all that armor use? You're an empath, you should be able to take a hit! (That's what all that PF is for). My empath is getting close to 2x cap and is still in double leather.


Most of the warpath guides I read recommend hard leather armor, with some like Tsalim advocating chain mail. The 20 armor rank I have lets me wear a crit padded cuirboulli armor. The spell failures annoy me but it's also saved my life a few times. I'm not 100% sure if I need it, but it's just a thing I do because most guides tell me to and it seems provide more benefit than cost for now.

[Velfi]

First of all, please don't base your build off Throgg. Please.

I like what you have going on so far for the most part. I would question the FA and the MIU/AS if you're still bumping it up at what looks like .5x. The FA is unnecessary unless you really want to skin, although it is dirt cheap. MIU/AS can be situational if you have a lot of trinkets or scrolls but really I wouldn't say you need that, or even the 1x perception that you mentioned.

I think 3x PF is almost a necessity as a THW empath. Having the confidence that SMRs are generally not going to rock your world is great. Maybe you can do that at 2x, I dunno, I just think even 3x PF is still far too cheap to pass up given its usefulness.

I haven't really used 1117 since the changes, so I can't personally speak to the telepathy lore. At cap, you want to have 57 ranks of transformation lore (along with 1x empath base) so that you eliminate all hard RT from healing. How you get there is up to you and what you have the points for.

Armor-wise, I've always and still recommend 35 ranks of AU so that you can get into brig. You'll have 6-7% spell failure rate, but I think it's worth it for a little more protection than doubles.

While leveling, I eventually worked up to 10 MoC when I could squeeze some points in here and there, for 1) a single unfocused mstrike and 2) FoF elimination on a 2nd enemy in the room. You just need to weigh how you hunt vs what this skill can do for you, as it is definitely very expensive.

Spell-wise, if you really want to commit to THW, I recommend getting up to 120(or 130)/220(or 225/230, based on your needs) and then sticking with 1x empath base. This will leave you some room TP-wise for your other skills.

[Velfi]

In case that comes off like I'm saying no MIU/AS, I think some is useful so that you can read all the scrolls you need to and so forth, but more than 25-30ish for the durations is probably unnecessary until much later. Scrolls can be very useful to fortify your weaknesses as a warpath, such as your ETD.

[khorpulent]

You don't really need telepathy lore for 1117 -- it just increases the likelihood of propagating damage. The base is 50% per target with no lore. MMC affects the total number of targets you can hit (once again I'm at work and can't check, but pretty sure 24 MMC ranks give you 5 targets). I'd say telepathy lore should not be a priority until much later.

If you're sticking with THW long-term, you might want to look at MOC down the line, but I'd wait until you can hit that 10 rank threshold in a couple of levels instead of spending points for it along the way. The FoF reduction is useful, but 1117 is just straight-up badass for crowd control now that it works on top of 1120. For a much smaller investment to get 24 ranks of MMC (pretty sure 120 MTP vs the 200/200 MTP/PTP that 10 ranks of MoC would take you), you can potentially be hitting up to 5 targets at once with no cooldown instead of just 2 with an mstrike. The only problem here would be having enough mana (but you're a warpath so you're not spamming 1106), and enough CS to hit your targets.

3x PF will definitely be useful, as you're in offensive all the time without the benefit of 102, but going 3x definitely will set you back some points. The added crit/maneuver protection may be worth it to you. If you're in Sunfist (have I mentioned how awesome Sunfist is for empaths?), all that stamina will let you keep up all those fancy sigils that other professions can't afford. If I recall, I think my empath hovered around 2.5x PF until he hit cap, and then 3x was my first post-cap goal. But then again, I switched to pure around 50.

I will say that I just CANNOT STAND any spell failure at all, so I'm willing to take a few hits to avoid having to deal with it. If it doesn't bother you that much, there's nothing wrong with heavier armor -- it's just a matter of personal preference. I never really had trouble in doubles, and with hcp doubles and sigil of major protection together, it takes a pretty big hit to give more more than a minor. Being 3x PF will certainly be useful for your ability to survive a hit.

MIU/AS definitely shouldn't be a priority, but they are pretty damn cheap for a pure. Of course, if you're not using them there's no point. I agree that 20-30 ranks should probably be good enough for a while. And like Velfi said, if you're not skinning you don't really need the FA unless you happen to eat a lot of herbs. It is damn cheap for an empath, though. Still, being 1x will at least allow you to complete skinning bounties if you want.

For the transformation lore, every 3 ranks shave off 1 sec of healing RT. Empath circle ranks also reduce that RT, so you can live without the transformation lore if you can't afford it, but you may want to get a few ranks to bring your healing RT down to a more manageable level if it bothers you.

[Velfi]

Good points from khorpulent. I will add that I am GoS so the stamina was a factor in my personal equation, and I also worked towards 65 blessings for full 1107 regen.

Spell failure I think is pretty polarizing. I do find it vexing at times but it's infrequent enough that I find the trade-off an overall positive, personally.

I think a .5x-ish plan for Transformations is pretty solid. You will reduce healing RT somewhat as you're leveling, but unless you overtrain Transformations by a big margin the RT will still be what I would consider significant for quite some time (depending on the wound/scar level, natch).

[Leafiara]

IMO, what you should do with MOC depends on your agility and dexterity bonuses and your weapon. My empath is an elf and uses a greatsword or katana depending what she's hunting. Mstriking with her greatsword is usually 8-9 seconds against 2 targets and 11 seconds against 3 targets, so if that was her only weapon then 5 MOC wouldn't be worth it while 15 would. She can swing her katana for 6 seconds against two targets and 7-8 against three, though, so with that weapon either threshold is good!


I also want to bring up a perk of Blessings lore that hasn't been mentioned yet. It can let you automatically heal off scars when your wounds are healed... Saving you mana and time and avoiding spell hindrance when the healing comes from Troll's Blood. If you don't care about healing off rank 1 scars, though, then Blessings lore is less appealing until a while down the line. You do have to get up to 50 Blessings before a 20% chance of healing rank 2 limb scars kicks in. (60 for rank 2 nervous system, 70 for rank 2 head/neck, and 80 for rank 2 organ. I stopped at 50 myself since healing limbs was what I cared about most.)

[bunnymustdie]

For now I put the points I've set up into transformation lore and have 18 ranks. I've also gotten a much better idea on not only MOC and PF, but also other stuff, thank you all.

I didn't know the scar healing from blessing lore worked with troll's blood, that's pretty neat.