Which solo caster to play in PvP?

Hey everyone! Thinking of making a return to DAOC and asked this a year or 2 ago, but with a lot of changes during that time, wanted to ask again. I'm interested in playing a caster mainly for solo and had some questions. I know playing a caster solo in a stealthers-world is not recommended, but I don't care

My choices are Dark SM, BD, Cab, or Animist.

I saw the BD lifetap got nerfed to 6 seconds (without adding anything like they did on live when they nerfed LT), so I'm leaning away from that.

Dark SM seems like a great option, especially with mounts now. But did their pet intercept rate get nerfed a lot? I remember it got lowered but how is it now?

Cab would do well with nearsight and LT, but not much can be done vs stealth.

Animist si a wild-card and not thought of as solo, but could set up camp on bridges, and MOC LT.

Any thoughts on this? Since I'm asking on Mid, really wanna know about SM's in solo and pet-intercept rate, as they'd theoretically be best against stealth.

Thanks!

Sat 9 Jan 2021 2:54 AM by Bradekes

seeings none of your choices have speed chant it will be hard to choose... While bd lifetap did get a nerf they did add suppression nuke so I think that definitely adds to its soloability.

Sat 9 Jan 2021 3:45 AM by gotwqqd

No speed....
I’d say cabby or the sm.

But I’d probably urge you go chanter or even better sorcerer.

Sat 9 Jan 2021 6:20 AM by Ironicles

Thanks for the suggestions! Notice both of you said no speed but thought I read they added horses?

Sat 9 Jan 2021 8:12 AM by gotwqqd

Ironicles wrote: ↑
Sat 9 Jan 2021 6:20 AM
Thanks for the suggestions! Notice both of you said no speed but thought I read they added horses?

Horses are realm speed
Slower than top caster speed

And it won’t auto kick in if fleeing or chasing

Sat 9 Jan 2021 9:11 AM by Ironicles

I’m OK with the realm speed, way faster than normal slow speed. I played a bonedancer on live for years so I’m used to that :-)

Does anyone have information on Spiritmaster pet intercept? I know they lowered the intercept rate a while ago, have they done any changes to it since? How often does it intercept now? is it still good?

Sat 9 Jan 2021 12:08 PM by Sepplord

Can only Tell you what i Heard:

When the nerf happened the sky was falling and the class was useless Shit Tier, etc...
A few days ago though, there was a complaint thread about SM jntercept by an Assassin so it can't be THAT bad

Sun 10 Jan 2021 2:59 AM by Ironicles

Thanks for the reply! So it went down from like 75% to 50%?

Thu 14 Jan 2021 4:26 AM by joshisanonymous

Ironicles wrote: ↑
Sun 10 Jan 2021 2:59 AM
Thanks for the reply! So it went down from like 75% to 50%?

Been a while since I tested it, but in the 40s IIRC. Definitely not 75%. It's enough to make you a pain in the ass for melees but it's not good to fully rely on since a lot of melees can burn through your pet very quickly. You can QC to recast it, but it wastes a lot of power.

I played a BD solo up to somewhere in RR6 and I've played SM solo a lot as both summoning and dark. For me, I have an easier time dealing with assassins on an SM than a BD, and assassins are what you'll fight most. The reason is that poisons and stuns sometimes get wasted on the SM's pet, but that never happens for BDs, so whereas I only have purge 2 and no PD nor toughness on my SM, I had purge 3 and pretty much all PD and toughness on my BD. I'd say I ended up having to purge almost every time I fought an assassin as a BD to get rid of poisons or stuns.

In a lot of other cases, though, BD is easier. Any caster or lower dmg delear who gets into LT range is basically dead because they can't run away and can't outdamage your healing. The only thing BD is really weaker to than SM outside of assassins is AoE mezzes. BDs have no way to take care of mezzed pets other than waiting. They can't even release the pets and recast like a Cabby or Enchanter would do because there's no way they be able to recast all of their pets. That said, bards aren't exactly gonna kill a BD even without pets nor is a Sorc unless they have a stunning pet charmed.

Finally, in 1vX situations, SM probably has a leg up over BD most of the time because of very good CC and MoC being better healing than BD pets. For a BD to win 1vX fights, you have to diminish the ability of enemies to focus you, which is a tall order when you have exactly one form of CC and it's a single target root. You have to be good with using your snare nuke pets and/or TWF in these situations as well as exploiting line of sight. BDs probably get more advantage from cutting off LoS than any other caster in the game because of the insta LT.

As for your other picks, Cabbies are very strong solo because of NS, LT, and a faster-than-sprint-speed stunning pet, but they have limited options for dealing with assassins. It's similar for animists. They can solo, but a lot of your kills might come after you've died. Turrets have 2/3rds the range of any regular nuke or CC, so they're pretty easy to shut down. You really have to catch people off guard to have a good shot of winning. Both classes can also MoC LT, but your LTs won't return nearly as much health as an SMs LTs because they're both lower damage and lower percentage return. A body spec Cabby will get similar return on LTs as an SM, but even then the damage is lower and they don't have a pet mitigating incoming damage.

Hope that helps.

Tue 6 Apr 2021 2:24 PM by Skylaar

how about the enchanter?

Tue 6 Apr 2021 9:08 PM by easytoremember

joshisanonymous wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Jan 2021 4:26 AM
BDs have no way to take care of mezzed pets other than waiting. They can't even release the pets and recast like a Cabby or Enchanter would do because there's no way they be able to recast all of their pets.

bd can release pets individually; release and resummon 2 healers, commander be damned

Tue 6 Apr 2021 11:08 PM by Hattrick

If you value your sanity, do not go animist. I can't think of a much worse choice than that. It's not like Thidranki back in the day when 2/3 of the people out there don't know what the hell they are doing and will blindly charge into a dozen forest hearts. Solo in the frontier, you will have to choose a bridge that is near a keep you own to have any hope of actually setting up a mushroom trap. Even if you somehow managed to do that without getting killed, everyone will just go around it. Water doesn't slow you down so there's really no reason you have to use the bridge to cross it other than it's ingrained in people's minds that that is what bridges are for. I sure wouldn't try to play a solo animist and I solo a lot.

Wed 7 Apr 2021 8:31 AM by Ceen

All melee classes get +83 for their main stats while casters get +50 so have fun running as a caster.

Wed 7 Apr 2021 10:01 AM by gotwqqd

Horse speed with its recast limits won’t help you gain advantage against enemies(in general). It’s more of a convenience for getting from A to B.

Thu 15 Apr 2021 3:25 PM by joshisanonymous

easytoremember wrote: ↑
Tue 6 Apr 2021 9:08 PM
joshisanonymous wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Jan 2021 4:26 AM
BDs have no way to take care of mezzed pets other than waiting. They can't even release the pets and recast like a Cabby or Enchanter would do because there's no way they be able to recast all of their pets.
bd can release pets individually; release and resummon 2 healers, commander be damned

It's hard to imagine that you've ever solo'd on a BD. There is no way in hell you're releasing and resummoning multiple individual healer pets during a fight, and if you could, you might as well release the whole lot at once instead.