So I’m S1/HL2/Cata3 atm and am considering going either Hl3/Lancer or Dragoon 2 to finish off. Im primarily going PvE but this character might dabble casually and lightly in getting one shot. Just a note about my build I’m not dismounting to use Cross Cut so I currently have no bleed for Skyliner and going Dragoon would open up the opportunity to get a bleed usable without dismounting. I already have an S3/Cata so not looking for advice on the earlier part of my build (I.E. please don’t say reroll go Hoplite or Swrd3). Just having trouble deciding between the benefits of either Dragoon or Lancer.
in Dragoon C1 you can buy the atribute for bleeding in serpentine, so you can go for Lancer without loose the bleed, dragoon C2 is more a supportive to another melee classes and Lancer is more for sibgle target burst, since you already have HL2 i will choose lancer over dragoon C2 (poor %scale in skills, high sp cost and static skill animation)
i already test your build during rank reset and it works nice for crystal mine mission and farming dpk items on high hp mobs
So you went with DragoonC1/Lancer1? I considered that as well was just wondering how much getting the bleed to make skyliner stronger was worth it over just making skyliner stronger with more points with HL3. I do guess the other skills in Dragoon1 are alright.
GaeBulg debuff plus bleed and skiyliner is an OP combo making skyliner hitting x4 hits per cast instead of 2
HL3 only gives 2 dismount skills and a little more % to skyliner, the best choice is dragoon c1 for serpentine bleed and gaeBulg debuff
Thanks for the advice.
I have a HL2 Cata3 Dragoon2. Gae Bulg sadly doesn’t improve the chance of Serpentine’s bleed (even if it double the amount of hits). Truth be told, Gae Bulg is a terribly lackluster skill. Quite small AoE, hard to control, needs to pick weapon afterwards (if by mistake you Gae Bulg against the end of the map, you’re screwed). I just reset my build to get rid of Gae Bulg and max Dragoontooth / Dragon Soar instead. Also note for some reason Dragon Soar isn’t launching enemies (actually I prefer it this way).
As for Highlander skills, I maxed Skyliner, Moulinet, Cartar Stroke and Cross Cut. I know you can’t use the last two skills while mounted (it’ll dismount you if you do) but they’re still nice to have as backup. Cartar Stroke gets +100% damage on knockdown targets and Earth Wave is actually a really good knockdown skill (much better than Bash, for example). Cross Cut works as a backup bleed skill in case Serpetine doesn’t work and you really want to maximize your Skyliner dps, but you’ll unmount doing so (it’s still useful in boss fights).
Your other option for HL skills would be Cross Guard. It gives a really really strong Pierce damage increase debuff (+130% pierce damage, if I’m not mistaken) but it’s really hard to use since it needs a 2h sword while most of your other skills require 1h/2h spears.
Crown + Moulinet and Bleed + Skyliner surely do a nice combo. Highlander 2 is surely the best pick for PvM Catas (even if you’ll be missing other skills that can’t be used while mounted).
As for Dragoon or Lancer, Lancer has more potential dps, but in a much smaller area. Quintain has about the same AoE as Dragoontoth (which isn’t bad, but not great either) but the big issue is Crush’s AoE, which is as big as Serpentine’s AoE. Without Crush’s debuff (+150% damage), Quintain is about as strong as Dethrone, but in a much worse area. Do note Dethrone is getting a nice +40% wide-area increase in kToS, and in my opinion that’s something quite relevant.
The annoying thing about Dethrone is the knockback and monster bind it does. You can easily screw your party play if you aren’t careful (i.e. push mobs out of Fire Pillar).
Dragoon2 Main Rotation:
Serpentine lv 5 with debuff (1428%) + 5x Skyliner lv 5 with bleed and Serp debuff (6706%) + 2x Dethrone lv 5 with serp debuff (3714%) + Dragoontooth lv 10 with serp debuff (1998%) + Dragon Soar lv 10 with serp debuff (1807%)
Total: 15653%
Lancer Main Rotation:
2x Crush lv 5 (2848%) + 2x Quintain with crush debuff (6420%) + Serpentine lv 5 (952%) + 5x Skyliner lv 5 with bleed (4471%) + Dragontooth lv 5 (1086%) + Dragon Soar lv 5 (980%)
Total: 16757%
Lancer has much more damage against bosses in a much smoother and shorter rotation (just Crush + Quintain is worth 55% of the total dps, and those skills are pretty quick to cast) but Dragoon 2 doesn’t fall that much behind (as opposed to what people think…) Not accounting for Cata skills or Crown + Moulinet since both builds will have these skills at same skill factor. Note I’m not considering Crush’s physical defense reduction as I have no idea how much that is (doesn’t seem to be a huge difference, tho). Note you need a little bit of dex (90+) to spam Skyliner in dragoon’s main rotation fast enough to benefit fully from Serpentine’s debuff.
What mode do you play in Mr. Shadow, mouse, controller or keyboard? I found a lot of skills hard to control in keyboard mode but in mouse mode not so bad. Don’t know how Gae Bulg is targeted or if that would even matter.
I play in keyboard mode, don’t know if Gae Bulg is targetable in mouse mode (don’t have the skill anymore to test) but it’s certainly not in keyboard.
What skills did you find hard to control? Aside from Gae Bulg, I only have issues with Dethrone because of knockback + client position desync.
EDIT:
Okay, now I remember that, some Cata skills (mostly Doom Spike and Earth Wave) don’t work correctly if you put them in shift + something shortcuts. You need to put these skills in first or second shortcut bar (from bottom to top) otherwise you won’t be able to move while casting them. My keyboard has anti-ghosting so it shouldn’t have an issue with many keys being pressed at same time, but for some reason the game itself blocks some keys pressed together.
Well I play a lot of classes but any target skill I found annoying as heck in keyboard mode. Particularly on my Corsair hook shot was frustrating beyond all belief in keyboard mode.
Oh yeah. Targetting skills in keyboard feel very off and playing in mouse mode for certain classes can be really frustrating too. Your character always faces the mouse itself when casting a skill so if you play a melee class with mouse it will be quite non-intuitive. Game controls are really sloppy overall. Questing with mouse mode sucks hard.
I dont have any problems with mouse mode on melee, but that is probably cause Ive played a lot of ARPGs, it feels pretty natural to me. I guess thats why they give that warning though.
anyway dragoon have many anoying animation and mechanics in his skilset and the high SP cost for all of his skills, in the other hand lancer have short animation in skills easy rotation, dont chunk SP pots like dagroon and even have more dps/second
i play catagoon since early acces and hurts me the actual state for catagoon
for me the ideal build for cataphract should have lancer
i been testing the dps oupunt in many enviroments with my catagoon and catalancer
catalancer has the easiest way to do dps in missions, dungeons and farming with my regard horn pike
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