DW Race and Trait Specs

Astarod

Hey, does anyone know the optimal Race and Trait Specs a Depthswalker can have? 

I'd rather only change races once and I still have my free trait respec. Thanks!

Telinus

From my recollection, dexterity determines how "old" you can get as a Depthswalker, and their attacks scale both with intelligence and strength.

That being said, I've always believed, and been advised, that the best you can do is to stack constitution - you're essentially a momentum class that doesn't get any speed boosts or major boosts from other statistics, and as such want to be as tanky as you can.

Your base damage will be more than enough to hurt people, as it grows based on certain requirements being in place (stolen shadow, attuned dagger, keystone reached for damage, sensitivity etc.) so going int or str spec isn't ideal in this scenario.

Likewise with age, you get 1000 as your base, and I think dexterity lets you A) exceed that age reduce your age at a higher rate.

That said, you may get more advice from people who currently are Depthswalker, or who have a greater understanding of it.

@atalkez @farrah @davok (?) @aegoth are people I think have been/are Depthswalkers as a class?

Aralaya

Con spec, my major perks are Robust, Mind Warden, and Health Inspector.
Con spec and robust because you aren't exactly rockin fullplate.
Mind Warden and Health Inspector just to make it easier on me to track for damage and dictate kills.

Antonius

Aralaya said:

Con spec, my major perks are Robust, Mind Warden, and Health Inspector.
Con spec and robust because you aren't exactly rockin fullplate.
Mind Warden and Health Inspector just to make it easier on me to track for damage and dictate kills.

Do you know what would make damage and dictate kills even easier? Reducing the balance on all of your scythe attacks by 10% by replacing Mind Warden with Nimble. You can contemplate without balance without Mind Warden, and the equilibrium isn't that long, so you can reap/assess/contemplate if you just have Health Inspector.

Antonius

Telinus said:

From my recollection, dexterity determines how "old" you can get as a Depthswalker, and their attacks scale both with intelligence and strength.

That being said, I've always believed, and been advised, that the best you can do is to stack constitution - you're essentially a momentum class that doesn't get any speed boosts or major boosts from other statistics, and as such want to be as tanky as you can.

Your base damage will be more than enough to hurt people, as it grows based on certain requirements being in place (stolen shadow, attuned dagger, keystone reached for damage, sensitivity etc.) so going int or str spec isn't ideal in this scenario.

Likewise with age, you get 1000 as your base, and I think dexterity lets you A) exceed that age reduce your age at a higher rate.

That said, you may get more advice from people who currently are Depthswalker, or who have a greater understanding of it.

I dabble with Depthswalker occasionally. The strength scaling on scythe attacks was pretty poor, as far as I recall; definitely not so good that I felt it was worth sacrificing constitution for. Intelligence and dexterity are even worse. Strength will boost your core attack, but intelligence and dexterity are a lot more niche.

You can't use loop when you're above 250 age, and that's your replacement for curare when using the instills that can't be paired with paralysis, so there are very few situations where you'd just go mad and burn a ton of age, then benefit from dexterity increasing its decay rate.

Intelligence does... something. Probably boosts the damage on some Terminus and/or Aeonics abilities. I honestly don't recall.

In terms of traits, Nimble and Health Inspector are essentially required if you want to get the most out of the class (honestly I'd say this is now true of a lot of classes). As I already explained in my previous post, Mind Warden is really a waste of a trait slot, because you're not regularly using equilibrium as part of your attacks. Robust is a good third option if you feel you're lacking health still, or just don't see a ton of value in any of the other options (things like Sticky Stirrups are situationally useful, so really depends what kind of things you're doing). Pretty sure I'm using Nimble/Health Inspector/Robust, for what it's worth.

[Deleted User]

Pretty sure int only increases the damage on the LoS one (bahar? I think) and tuad (the thing that breaks walls). Tooros is flat.

Optimal race if you don't care about racial RP or anything like that, would be Tash'la because 16 con in con spec is godly, especially since HP 'caps' at 80 now (pre dragon anyway). DW has 0 issue damaging people out even with 12 strength and no artifact scythe.

Nimble, Health Inspector and Robust majors.

Meticulous Care, Blissful Ignorance + whatever for minors.

Telinus

In-Service is useful for getting to allies

Minifie

If you don't pick "clean freak" as a trait you should get out and take your foul odours with you.

Davok

Just seconding prior suggestions, re: Health Inspector/Nimble/Robust with Con Spec. Most important statistic is constitution since as Antonius said strength scaling is poor and int/dex aren't really all that useful because of the age restraint on Loop.

Antonius

Minifie said:

If you don't pick "clean freak" as a trait you should get out and take your foul odours with you.

Clean Freak might be my favourite minor trait, but I have artefact tattoos so Meticulous care does nothing for me. That said, I'd miss emptying my Fluvian jar over people who stink, so I'd be a little disappointed if everybody had it.

Dupre

Aralaya said:

Con spec, my major perks are Robust, Mind Warden, and Health Inspector.

No offense (ok yes offense) but not taking Nimble (or quick witted if you're eq based class) might be one of the biggest idiot moves I've ever seen