I had to ask a lot of questions when I first started my Bone Dancer, and I've had to answer a lot of them since. This is my attempt to preemptively answer some of those questions, and help out. This is all done from a PVE perspective.
Step One - Race.
Trolls have more HP, Kobolds cast more quickly, Valkyn has slightly better resists.... If you are reading this guide, it doesn't really matter. Play what you don't mind staring at for hours and hours.
Step Two - Overview.
Bone Dancer is a true pet class. You begin with a single skeleton, and at levels 15/30/45 you gain the ability to have an additional sub-pet (which you don't command directly) that follows the skeleton around does whatever their job is. So at level 15 you get your first subpet, at 30 you get two subpets, and at 45 you finally get 3 subpets, all following your happy skeleton.
The class is a truly exceptional solo experience. You don't really bring a whole lot to a group that other classes don't provide, and they generally bring more to the table. That said, nothing in Midgard solo's quite as well as Bone Dancer. And certainly, nothing allows for afk's like it does.
The only controls you have are for the Commander, and while you do have the standards of attack/release, and setting it to aggro/defend/passive etc, you also have a very important selection of commands that can be accessed by right-clicking on the skeleton. Doing so brings up a menu that lets you tell your skeleton to taunt, and lets you choose what weapon you want them to use. You must select these commands every time you summon your skeleton. It is very important that you tell it to taunt every time, and that you select a one-handed weapon, as it taunts more quickly and allows it to block with a shield.
I cannot stress this enough.
Step Three - Specs.
Darkness normalizes and increases the damage of your DD spell, as well as eventually allowing you to summon nuker and debuffer pets. I didn't find this line particularly useful while leveling. <Edit> I'm playing through this spec now, I've decided to call it the "Ok, OOMer" spec. It kills much more quickly than Bone Army does, but you spend so much time sitting that it ends up being a wash. Now, if you have unlimited power pots and tinder boxes, it would likely pull ahead. It is certainly a more involved style of play.
Suppression grants you an instant cast lifetap spell on a four second cooldown. It also grants you healing and buffing pets, the first of which arrive at level 18 and 15 respectively. Almost everyone puts points into this, as the advantages of having a subpet healing your main pet, who is taunting and tanking for you, can not be understated.
Bone Army normalizes your DoT spell, and adds a secondary DoT as well as an AOE DoT. It also gives a damage add to your skeleton and its subpets, and allows for summoning melee and archer subpets. This is the spec I've most enjoyed leveling with.
Step Four - Strategy.
Until level 18, my strategy was to spec full Bone Army, pull with both DoT spells, and let my Skeleton tank while the mobs died. I had to toss a heal to the skeleton every other pull, but a steady diet of yellows and the occassional orange leveled me quickly. Once I hit 18, I respecced to full supression and picked up the healer pet. Things slowed down considerably, but I was now doing oranges only, with a single dot that I had to refresh at least once (trust me, you'll know what I mean). I kept raising bone army and by the time I hit 30, my secondary DoT was back and landing often enough, and I picked up a second melee pet. Now things were cooking. Using a melee pet and a healer pet, along with the damage add and both DoTs, oranges/reds are steady pulls, although you'll need to toss the occasional heal on your commander when the level 18 healer pet isn't quite keeping up.
I'll no doubt come back and revise this, and update it (I'm only 40 atm), but I wanted to put something up here to help.
Step One - Race.
Trolls have more HP, Kobolds cast more quickly, Valkyn has slightly better resists.... If you are reading this guide, it doesn't really matter. Play what you don't mind staring at for hours and hours.
Step Two - Overview.
Bone Dancer is a true pet class. You begin with a single skeleton, and at levels 15/30/45 you gain the ability to have an additional sub-pet (which you don't command directly) that follows the skeleton around does whatever their job is. So at level 15 you get your first subpet, at 30 you get two subpets, and at 45 you finally get 3 subpets, all following your happy skeleton.
The class is a truly exceptional solo experience. You don't really bring a whole lot to a group that other classes don't provide, and they generally bring more to the table. That said, nothing in Midgard solo's quite as well as Bone Dancer. And certainly, nothing allows for afk's like it does.
The only controls you have are for the Commander, and while you do have the standards of attack/release, and setting it to aggro/defend/passive etc, you also have a very important selection of commands that can be accessed by right-clicking on the skeleton. Doing so brings up a menu that lets you tell your skeleton to taunt, and lets you choose what weapon you want them to use. You must select these commands every time you summon your skeleton. It is very important that you tell it to taunt every time, and that you select a one-handed weapon, as it taunts more quickly and allows it to block with a shield.
I cannot stress this enough.
Step Three - Specs.
Darkness normalizes and increases the damage of your DD spell, as well as eventually allowing you to summon nuker and debuffer pets. I didn't find this line particularly useful while leveling. <Edit> I'm playing through this spec now, I've decided to call it the "Ok, OOMer" spec. It kills much more quickly than Bone Army does, but you spend so much time sitting that it ends up being a wash. Now, if you have unlimited power pots and tinder boxes, it would likely pull ahead. It is certainly a more involved style of play.
Suppression grants you an instant cast lifetap spell on a four second cooldown. It also grants you healing and buffing pets, the first of which arrive at level 18 and 15 respectively. Almost everyone puts points into this, as the advantages of having a subpet healing your main pet, who is taunting and tanking for you, can not be understated.
Bone Army normalizes your DoT spell, and adds a secondary DoT as well as an AOE DoT. It also gives a damage add to your skeleton and its subpets, and allows for summoning melee and archer subpets. This is the spec I've most enjoyed leveling with.
Step Four - Strategy.
Until level 18, my strategy was to spec full Bone Army, pull with both DoT spells, and let my Skeleton tank while the mobs died. I had to toss a heal to the skeleton every other pull, but a steady diet of yellows and the occassional orange leveled me quickly. Once I hit 18, I respecced to full supression and picked up the healer pet. Things slowed down considerably, but I was now doing oranges only, with a single dot that I had to refresh at least once (trust me, you'll know what I mean). I kept raising bone army and by the time I hit 30, my secondary DoT was back and landing often enough, and I picked up a second melee pet. Now things were cooking. Using a melee pet and a healer pet, along with the damage add and both DoTs, oranges/reds are steady pulls, although you'll need to toss the occasional heal on your commander when the level 18 healer pet isn't quite keeping up.
I'll no doubt come back and revise this, and update it (I'm only 40 atm), but I wanted to put something up here to help.
So you can see what pets are ACTUALLY good and who isnt...
