Serpent Spec

Obla

Hey all,

new serpent here was just wonder what race spec to take as i've just started?
I'm a mhun and im tossing up between con focus or dex focus? if i take a con focus it will lower my dex which affects my attacks correct?

Obla

hm not sure how to edit but should I also just concentrate on subterfuge do I need to worry about venom?

Dairon

Great questions to ask in game. Look to join a house or city and fire away. Also if you can't log on at the moment, the serpent section has threads that address this issue. 

Quick answer: Con helps you survive Dex helps you attack. I would suggest con until you are ready to pvp. 

Subterfuge affects garrote damage. Learn 20 venoms to get sumac (for things that shield). Learn subterfuge afterwards. You need subterfuge more than venoms at the moment.

Jarrod

Spec dexterity, there's really no other option. Dexterity directly boosts your hunting speed and later combat ability where spec'ing con actually slows you down.

Learn Subterfuge until trans, generally, then other skills (picking up selfishness in survival can be nice). You do not need anything in venom until later, you get a battlerage skill early to break shields.

Austere

Jarrod said:

Spec dexterity, there's really no other option. Dexterity directly boosts your hunting speed and later combat ability where spec'ing con actually slows you down.

Learn Subterfuge until trans, generally, then other skills (picking up selfishness in survival can be nice). You do not need anything in venom until later, you get a battlerage skill early to break shields.

If you send "kill target" instead of "bite target" while not wielding a whip, you don't have to secrete sumac or camus and I am fairly sure both go through shield.

Jarrod

I'd rather just c/p a battlerage trigger to auto-use on shield and garrote because it's very, very significantly better.

Miriam

Is 15 dex still good for serpent combat? Is 16 dex significantly better?

Kiet

It's .1s better for dstabs, unless you have a level 3 dirk in which case 15->16 will only make a difference for bashing, flay, phase, etc.

Cynlael

You can also just flay denizen shields, since they can only shield once every 10 seconds now, as opposed to shield spamming until they get bored/die. Flay is really fast, and lets you conserve rage for more damage, being that rage attacks are generally superior to bashing ones.

Jarrod

Miriam said:

Is 15 dex still good for serpent combat? Is 16 dex significantly better?

For combat, the numbers you're looking at are:

DStab Speed = 2.8 - ((DEX-14)*(0.1)) - (ArtieDirkLvl * 0.2)

Without a Thoth's Fang, your DStab Cap speed is 2.2s.
With a Thoth's Fang, your DStab Cap speed is 2.1s.

These numbers are before the Nimble Trait is applied.

Without any artie dirk and 15 DEX, you're looking at 2.7 base DStab speed, or ~2.43s DStabs with Nimble. You can work with this, it will just take a bit more time to get ahead of herbs. 16 Dex brings you to ~2.34s with Nimble, which is better. Artie Dirks are a pretty huge boon if you're considering buying arties for combat down the line, but aren't necessary.