Viable BD RvR Specs? - Phoenix Freeshard

About to ding 50 and planning my RvR build.
So far on paper 38 dark 38 supp seems most allround.

Any other recommended builds? I dont plan on having much PvE utility on it just rvr
Thanks!

Sat 16 Feb 2019 2:19 PM by Afuldan

38/38 is the best. Abs buff, body debuff for your lifetap, healer and caster pets.

Sat 16 Feb 2019 6:24 PM by Lundarian

34 38 17 - the D/Q buff for the pets is more important than slightly higher base nuke damage at low RR.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:28 AM by Vitticus

Is the 38/38 spec still the best burst damage without pets? (assuming your pets get mezzed)

Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:18 PM by Falken

45 dark / 29 sup is my RvR spec. The level 45 red pets in the dark line are very strong. With 29 sup you still get yellow body debuff for rupting and blue lifetap and you still have the option to use some healer pets, although I find them useless in RvR unless you go full sup for ideal 1v1 setup which makes you less viable in groups due to lack of darkness spec for your baseline nuke variance.

The other viable spec is 38dark/38sup, but this is more of an 8v8 group spec for the group abs buff, this will not make a huge impact on you if you solo around. Keep in mind that this abs buff is not even useful against caster groups, and I don't know about you, but most groups I see right now have been fairly caster heavy and in a zerg a 6 abs buff isn't going to keep you alive with 10 tanks or a zerg on you. This spec is more for 8v8 against tanker setups, but can still be viable as it gives you 50 composite darkness for baseline nuke variance, body debuff rupting, a good lifetap to help sustain/rupt.

The only real difference between 45 dark/29 sup and the 38/38 is you either go for stronger nuker pets or go for more utility in getting the abs buff.

With the 38/38 spec your pets will be much weaker/lower level which is less damage but still great for rupting and being annoying.

The 45 spec is much higher damage (via your pets / your nukes will be roughly the same) with sacrificing the abs buff utility for that, so it really depends what you want to go for. If I were more 8v8 oriented I would go with the 38/38 if I thought that there was any chance it could be a hybrid setup or full tanker, but right now in this zergy, AJing, no clean 8v8 fighting I would rather just blow somebody up twice as fast. The tooltip on charplanner says 45 pet is a 145 nuke and the next one down with the 38/38 spec you will get is a 60 dmg nuke also considering 45 pet is green con vs grey con, so there will be a resist variance between them as well so damage isn't even reliable when talking about a 60 dmg nuke from a level 30ish pet.

Just my two cents from somebody who played BD fairly extensively in beta and now on live.

tldr; nukes will be the same in both specs (@RR2 for +12), darkness will have higher potential damage with pet damage included, split 38/38 will have same nuke damage with more utility geared towards fighting tank groups due to abs group buff (6 abs @ 38 sup). Both specs get the same rupt tools as the other.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:20 PM by Afuldan

Good point about the caster pets and baseline nuke.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 6:03 PM by joshisanonymous

My admittedly limited testing at 49.5 of all three typical RvR specs (high dark [46], dark/supp [38/38], high supp [47]) suggested that there's almost no difference in how much damage you'll do over the course of 10 seconds between dark/supp and high supp and only maybe a 10% increase for high dark. To me, the biggest advantage of going 46 in dark is that your caster pets will survive longer (more hits + higher str/con), but in a zergy scenario, all your subpets are likely to die pretty quick (I just don't send them out too far or I run a healer or two). You're definitely giving up your soloing ability with high dark, though, and even at 38/38 because you really need your LT to reliably land. Honestly, it seems like 38/38 is really the most common RvR spec, but to me, it also seems like the weakest. You give up the higher survivability for your pets (because you don't have the higher abs buff or the high str/con buff) , you make soloing harder on yourself because your LT doesn't land reliably, and you're probably not even doing as much damage as 46 dark or even much more damage than full supp. It's a cool idea, but I just don't see what makes it better than either high dark or high supp.

Wed 20 Feb 2019 1:57 AM by Dariussdars

Just respecced my 38/38 BD to 45/29 dark/supp. The level 45 mage pets nuke for 90-150, depending on resists. The mage pets I used when split specced were lucky to nuke for 50-60. If I can free cast with pets assisting I can melt almost anyone down almost instantly. Having baseline nuke land for 250-350, insta for 150, and 2 caster pets each hitting for 100+ adds up to a ton of burst damage. Lot of fun watching Bit or any of the other Xper only RvRers trying to run and getting melted down.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 1:38 PM by tsteken

Dariussdars wrote: ↑
Wed 20 Feb 2019 1:57 AM
Just respecced my 38/38 BD to 45/29 dark/supp. The level 45 mage pets nuke for 90-150, depending on resists. The mage pets I used when split specced were lucky to nuke for 50-60. If I can free cast with pets assisting I can melt almost anyone down almost instantly. Having baseline nuke land for 250-350, insta for 150, and 2 caster pets each hitting for 100+ adds up to a ton of burst damage. Lot of fun watching Bit or any of the other Xper only RvRers trying to run and getting melted down.

Im torn between 45 dark or 47 supp atm. Either go for high surv with high supp or lower surv with high damage.
Truth be told 38/38 doesnt give me any satisfaction in either line cause of the current playstyle of this server.
However I feel that in a smallman/solo/zerg situation 47 supp might be the way to go using low lvl caster pets with a high rank healer pet.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 9:27 PM by Dariussdars

tsteken wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 1:38 PM
Dariussdars wrote: ↑
Wed 20 Feb 2019 1:57 AM
Just respecced my 38/38 BD to 45/29 dark/supp. The level 45 mage pets nuke for 90-150, depending on resists. The mage pets I used when split specced were lucky to nuke for 50-60. If I can free cast with pets assisting I can melt almost anyone down almost instantly. Having baseline nuke land for 250-350, insta for 150, and 2 caster pets each hitting for 100+ adds up to a ton of burst damage. Lot of fun watching Bit or any of the other Xper only RvRers trying to run and getting melted down.

Im torn between 45 dark or 47 supp atm. Either go for high surv with high supp or lower surv with high damage.
Truth be told 38/38 doesnt give me any satisfaction in either line cause of the current playstyle of this server.
However I feel that in a smallman/solo/zerg situation 47 supp might be the way to go using low lvl caster pets with a high rank healer pet.

I should have tested more specs when i was close to 50. Never even tried out a high supp spec, which was stupid of me. As of now, if any assassin gets perf off on me, I die in 2 seconds. Doubt a high healing pet would make much of a difference, would like to know though. Only class I have zero chance against is an infil/ns.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 1:09 PM by tsteken

Dariussdars wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 9:27 PM
tsteken wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 1:38 PM
Dariussdars wrote: ↑
Wed 20 Feb 2019 1:57 AM
Just respecced my 38/38 BD to 45/29 dark/supp. The level 45 mage pets nuke for 90-150, depending on resists. The mage pets I used when split specced were lucky to nuke for 50-60. If I can free cast with pets assisting I can melt almost anyone down almost instantly. Having baseline nuke land for 250-350, insta for 150, and 2 caster pets each hitting for 100+ adds up to a ton of burst damage. Lot of fun watching Bit or any of the other Xper only RvRers trying to run and getting melted down.

Im torn between 45 dark or 47 supp atm. Either go for high surv with high supp or lower surv with high damage.
Truth be told 38/38 doesnt give me any satisfaction in either line cause of the current playstyle of this server.
However I feel that in a smallman/solo/zerg situation 47 supp might be the way to go using low lvl caster pets with a high rank healer pet.

I should have tested more specs when i was close to 50. Never even tried out a high supp spec, which was stupid of me. As of now, if any assassin gets perf off on me, I die in 2 seconds. Doubt a high healing pet would make much of a difference, would like to know though. Only class I have zero chance against is an infil/ns.

High supp has insane life regen with the lifetap. And without purge PA CD is insta death.
I have a decent amount of PD now and I can tank and kill rr5 sneaks if purge is up np. And Im 45 dark/29 supp.
get TWF, get Purge2(3) stack PD. If you do this and also spec Supp you are probably impossible to kill. Only reason I dont use that spec is cause I like the caster pet dps in fg rvr.

Sat 23 Feb 2019 2:11 AM by teiloh

The caster pets here cast much, much faster than they do or ever did on live. Darkness used to be something BDs complained about as a spec, and almost no one used caster pets, but they're very strong here.

Mon 25 Feb 2019 7:37 PM by tylerforeal

On the 45/x vs 38/38- for me it's also about the yellow LT. Especially in zerg scenarios but relevant at in all combat the LT is a huge part of our arsenal for finishing off people and getting kill credits- often you are finding a tab target at 10% hp and you have to hit the LT for RPs. WIth resists happening often on this server even body debuff + yellow LT, I don't know how I would feel about going down to a less reliable blue LT. Would like to see the resist % change to help judge.

Wed 27 Feb 2019 1:41 PM by Boomex

any suggestions for BD template?