Blazing Scarab / Frost Scarab

I left them alone. Lvl 1 Blazing is nice to have tho (You have to get at least lvl 1 anyway) as it, for some unknown reason, gives most chi out of all veno skills.

I wouldn't touch frostbolt as well till you get its sage/demon version on lvl 92.

Lvl'd Blazing scarab...fire damage over time is nice...I think it might stack with a few BM skills that increase fire damage.

Lvl'd Frost Scarab later....definitely better with sage/demon version.

My Blazing is at level 10. I don't use it for grinding, as most fights don't last long enough for the damage to reach its full potential. I do, however use it for boss fights, since those tend to last longer. Not only do I get increased damage from leveling the skill, but the greater range allows me to stay outside some AoE's while I DD.

Frost Scarab is great...if the frostbite portion lands successfully. The low success rate is the major problem with this skill. My frost is only at level 2 right now, but I plan on leveling it later. (I'm going sage, and the sage version of Frost has a 95% chance to inflict frostbite.)

I use blazing as an opener for macros that have ironwood in them early, to make sure I have enough chi for ironwood. As such, I keep it leveled.

Blazing is a basic in my opinion, good damage for boss fights and sometimes useful when dealing with multiples or mobs with more ressilient status. I maxed mine. In my opinion Venomous, Ironwood and Lucky should be kept maxed at all costs and after that Noxious is something of a priority over Blazing. The reason is because of it's enormous chi gain, much shorter DoT and it being the only AoE available until Parasitic at 60. Frost is absolutely not recommended and to me, if anything, it would be the big hit and not its DoT or slow effect that could become useful. It has long been proven that a single spark eruption would be far more effective in terms of damage and venos really have no use for kiting skills, get Earthquake's knockback on your genie if you find yourself in need of something of the sort. Do get level 1, although i would advice you not to experiment further with it until you have maxed every single other scarab (including Nova), your utilities (Metabolic, etc) and at least the more useful foxform skills.

I'm currently 36, and have never touched either of the two skills, they're pretty much a waste.

I maxed them both. I use blazing all the time and frost very, very rarely.

Blazing Scarab may seem good at the start but sucks as you further upgrade and refine your weapon. Its 15 second cooldown also makes it difficult to incorporate into macros. It does less damage than Venomous Scarab and also takes more MP. In other words, leaving it at 1 is a good idea.

Frost Scarab is strong as an attack but its really not good enough to justify the spark. The frostbite damage isn't that much (neither is the slow effect useful) and the mana cost is high. You would be better off saving that spark for any of the Spark Eruptions and doing more damage spamming Venomous Scarab+Ironwood Scarab. On the other hand, if you go Demon and get Demon Frost Scarab, that's a really good skill. Not only does it hit pretty hard but it has a 80% chance of immobilizing the target for 3 seconds. In PvE, that, chained with Lucky Scarab stops mobs from running to you long enough to kill them. In PvP, that prevents your target from running away or getting close. In other words, leaving it at lvl 1 until you get the demon book is a good idea.

~Desiree

Is refining you wep beyond +3 actually worth it before 90+? Blazing is dirt cheap, it costs 556 k coin to max and only 276 k coin to get to level 8. Unless you're power leveling to 9x within a few days (in which case you probably do have the cash to spare) it certainly is worth it to make your attacks as effective as posible. This is a lot like venos who advice against skilling your pets at all if you're going to get an herc. If it will take you 3-4 months or more to get one, then 800k to keep your pet's main aggro skill leveled is not that big an issue. Blazing is the second biggest hitting scarab before high refines are factored in, and the fact it's 30 sec DoT is unlikely to fully resolve in anything but bosses, the only way to make it anywhere near effective is to level it. If you're going to keep it at just level 1 then don't bother using it, Ironwood and Lucky are more than enough to bridge 3 uses of Venomous and if you really need a filler that badly Noxious will be a better choice 90% of the time. Just spam venomous if you're starved for chi, although ideally you should enter instances with your chi bar full and your sparks ready...

Many high level venos seem to forget there's more things to consider than what goes on at level 100 or when equiping the best gear. How you get there is also important and small investments in making you effective through the mid range are certainly worth it unless, once again, you plan on doing nothing but power level.

+1 to Desiree's post.

As far as refining your weapon beyond +3 early, it really depends on your style of play. If I remember correctly, I got my Wheel of Fate to either +5 or +6 and used it for a long time (even longer considering it got passed off to my alt cleric later). So if you plan to use it for any length of time, you get a high return on your investment.

Back to the point, both are still at level 1 for me. I tried them both out when I first unlocked them, but neither seemed worth it. I'd kill the mobs before blazing would have it's full effect and the 15 second cooldown is ridiculous. Frost just wasn't worth the spark cost.

I will however take my frost demon if I see a decently priced book for it. Maybe my feelings on the skill will change then...

Slightly unrelated, but rather amusing- I saw someone cast blazing on a wizzie the other day who had the fire defense buff activated. It made me lol.

For my refines, it was technically free. I have unusually good luck in refining, even without aids. I think I used somewhere between 34 and 40 mirages to refine my wheel of fate, all of those gained through questing.

I never meant to claim that it was typical. I spend more time investing in my gear than I do in levelling. My only point was that considering how long I used that piece (17 levels worth across two characters, so for me about translates to three months bare minimum). I made 2 refining attempts per day when I first got my weapon and eventually got lucky. I think it took me two or three weeks to get it to +6. So for me, it was worth it.

I don't know if I'd recommend refining that high, but if you've got the luck and the mirages, why not? Although I would say that it's really only worth it for gear that is decent in the first place and that is meant to be used long term.

If you really want to look at the coin, then I actually made bank on it, considering I was able to sell it for a hefty price. Plus the mold was dropped in my fb and I farmed all the mats and mirages to refine it. The only thing I spent on this piece was a little bit of coin for sapphires and time to go farm the mats.

Was it worth it? Maybe not. But it was fun to be able to kill mobs in half the time as other venos who were higher level than I was.

You said yourself:

"How you get there is also important and small investments in making you effective through the mid range are certainly worth it unless, once again, you plan on doing nothing but power level. "

This was merely my investmest. Since for me it was effectively a free one at the time.

As an aside, I've seen a lot of +4 and even a few +5 weapons pre-level 90. Maybe not as outrageous as my +6, but it's common enough that refines can still be considered as an important factor.

The main point as far as levelling skills is concerned is the priority. Almost all veno skills are excellent. You may have had plenty of spirit to max everything as you got it, but from what I've seen, most people don't. Blazing can be good, but is not as good as the other skills. Therefore, if you have to make the choice between one skill or another, most venos will kick blazing to the curb.

MANray_ - Sanctuary wrote: »

It's 416.200 SP to fully max Blazing which is what you'd get from 2-3 days doing BH at my level range. I should know, i've maxed even melee mastery although i'm a caster. If Blazing is a part of your macro then chances are you'll end up using it even more than nominally better skills such as Leech. I myself use it for more than just bosses... It's good for multiples, to help your pet out if you'll be dealing with a different mob, to get some damage going while transfussing, for positioning mobs, etc.

I don't think melee mastery is bad for arcanes actually. 20% of the time an arcane should be in fox because of amp cycles. During fox there's time to fire off two skills before amp, which means your physical attack is being put to use. Because of that, I see melee mastery as a skill to squeeze out every bit of damage possible. If coin or spirit are really tight I would say it's a bad idea to buy it, but I would prioritize it ahead of blazing and a few other skills for sure.

The thing about blazing is, the extra damage is done really slowly. I remember in my 50's I calculated it out to needing blazing to go 24 seconds before it broke even with a cast of venomous, and that was with keeping it leveled up... something I later realized was a mistake. The problem was, mobs not only tended to die in around 8-10 seconds, but fighting multiples at once wasn't that common. Therefore, I would need to be fighting atleast 3 mobs at once (or an increased life+1 other) before blazing became a good choice for damage output. The only time it ever really worked out to an increase in damage output was against increased life wood mobs and bosses.

I've never had trouble upgrading skills because i lacked SP, and while for a time i was level capped i blew the millions of SP i got from that leveling genies. I've also liberally used it for leveling pet skills. With BH available there really is no more running out of SP anymore, unless you went overboard leveling every single skill you've got on the very same day. And then it's only 1-2 days before you can get enough for whatever you may need to use it. Granted, things may be different later on but unless you're power leveling you can probably max all of your skills and still make 3 mil SP by the time you make 79.

I'm just going from my own experience here. From looking at my BH's, they're not significantly higher in spirit than anything else, following the standard pattern of spirit=exp/5. Therefore, spirit constraints are no different now than when I was a lower level. What this also means is that before taking deaths into account, the total spirit available to a character would be one fifth the cumulative exp on the exp chart.

Lets use level 68 for a comparison (I picked it because that's the level you max out amplify). When you hit 68 you will have earned 11,904,609 total exp. This means you'll have earned 2,380,922 total spirit (plus a bit more to account for deaths). Let's start with the skills that there doesn't seem to be any debate as to the value of:
Venomous - 111,900 spirit
Ironwood - 214,600 spirit
Noxious - 559,300 spirit
Lucky - 407,400 spirit
Nova - 467,000 spirit
Wood Mastery - 403,900 spirit
Bramble Guard - 331,700 spirit
Metabolic Boost - 233,500 spirit
Nature's Grace - 307,500 spirit
Lending Hand - 19,450 spirit
Bramble Hood - 87,000 spirit
Heal Pet - 91,400 spirit
Revive Pet - 34,275 spirit
Tame Beast - 118,440 spirit
Soul Transfusion - 11,800 spirit
Summer Sprint - 99,800 spirit
Fox Form - 99,800 spirit
Amplify - 537,100 spirit

Total - 4,036,065 spirit

That's alot more spirit than what you would have earned without dying. In my experience, veno's at those levels skimp on lucky, noxious, and nova (personally, I think they shouldn't bother with higher ranks of wood mastery, it's very expensive for the small gain). Once cutting out those skills, you end up at 2602365 spirit which is probably a pretty accurate representation of total spirit gained. Everything in this game can be expressed in terms of opportunity cost, and buying skills are no different. That spirit you spend on blazing could be spent on the primary skills, which allows you greater damage output. Which in turn translates into faster kills, which means fewer casts to kill something (less spent on repairs) and higher income.

I dare say that unless you're a heavy CSer coin is much more of an issue than SP.

I disagree, I never once lacked coin to buy my skills. At several points however, I lacked spirit. If someone doesn't merchant and doesn't grind I can see coin being an issue, but that's a case of someone choosing to not obtain coin rather than insufficient coin for skills being available.

Edit 2; Also Brael, i hope you don't mistake my being fastidious about this point with flaming. I do think there is a genuine use for the skill and that if you're going to keep it at level 1 you should not use it at all. I've had my Blazing overwritten too many times by venos from whose damage output you could tell that they hadn't bothered to max even Ironwood or Venomous...

Blazing doesn't overwrite, it stacks. I've tested this in the past using myself and another veno, at different levels, using a different level of blazing. We both hit the mob with it and each got our damage. Furthermore, you can recast it at 15 seconds and get 2 ticks of damage from it every 3 seconds rather than just one.

@Brael; I actually very much agree Melee Mastery is a very useful skill for caster venos. When grinding and going Fox to Leech some hp back if i get hit, i rarely get a chance to use the skill twice since regular attacks will usually kill the mob before the cooldown is up. I do however kill faster using caster skills and the only other time i ever really use Foxform is on instance runs.

Now, my usual attack model when fighting bosses is to wait a few seconds so i can use Lending hand when most effective, then Blazing (good starter as it generates little hate) and Ironwood followed by Foxform-Leech-Amp-Foxform. I could probably squeeze another foxform skill in or a couple of regular hits but i've got the timing right on this and i'm usually busy hitting EP and Howl at this point. Then is single spark (best i can manage using Lending hand and Ironwood regularly) and my "kill" macro (Ironwood-Lucky-Venomous) which i'll continue into my regular grinding combo until i'll hit Blazing just as the last aplication wears off and little before Amp's cooldown is up. Wash-rinse-repeat... Now i used this model as the basis for what skills to level up as most of an instance run i'll only be using pet heal and my "kill" macro, and regular grinding is basically down to Heal Pet, Ironwood and Venomous. Other than the skills i've mentioned i'll only use Noxious in boss fights under regular circumstances, although only when breaking up my combo to use Lending hand wich i'll follow with Noxious-Ironwood-Blazing then Fox. Noxious is likely more appealing to most venos because of chi gain and a much faster DoT (and i do recommend it best) although i personally don't like the longer casting and i don't like to include AoE in macros, it's beyond comical the number of times i've seen a veno pull a Catacomb Dragon using Noxious when fighting LoP...

Now, i'm sure i'm not being as effective as i can, but for the time being i'll stick mostly to this method, or at least until i get Fox Myriad... To all practical purposes i use Blazing as often as i use Amp (and may consider using it more now that you've been kind enough to show me it can be stacked, which i didn't know) and as often as i use Leech for which purpose i've maxed two skills, Leech itself and Melee Mastery. To me Blazing Scarab is well worth it maxed.

Now, you do bring up a good point when showing other skills that could be potentially leveled as a priority to Blazing. Let's compare to Nova, to me easily the most overrated veno skill in the 6x-7x range. Why? Because while very few venos will be doing FCC and RB runs at that range, many will liberally abuse it on TT and BH runs. A veno with two sparks that's using Nova is usually foregoing the use of Lending Hand. For argument's sake let's say Barb and Cleric don't need the extra chi, still it could be argued that a spark could be translated into better damage output in the hands of a DD class. Not to mention you're robbing yourself of the opportunity to double spark or use Bramble Hood in an emergency. Now Nova is an awesome skill but somewhat wasted when used on a single target. And most venos will be using Blazing not just on boss fights but on regular combos as well... I do stand by my statement that level 1 Blazing (while a sensible choice otherwise i'll admit) should not be used at all, you'd be better off just cramming an extra venomous into whatever it is you're doing or using Noxious to bridge a combo.

As for the amount of SP the current leveling rate is unsustainable. Even if you're moderately charging zhen you'll eventually find yourself out of coin or SP to level up skills if you're doing BH runs daily. Doing a couple of BH runs just for SP (dumping the XP into genies) would be a reasoonable thing to do every now and then for most venos in the range. In the old days there were people that actually killed themselves repeatedly to keep from leveling. Not everyone is able to succesfully merchant and that makes grinding/farming another requisite of balanced gameplay. Running out of SP should not be an obstacle a couple of gaming sessions can't fix unless you're fixated on leveling at all costs, an attitude that has wreaked havoc in many ways for our comunity.

@Mauntille; I'll grant in your case that high refine for your weapon was well worth it and do congratulate you on your amazing good luck. But as you yourself admit this is not the norm. Many of the highly refined weapons circulating in the level range come mostly from a time when 7x-8x were considered high levels and people were prepared to spend much more time in there. Nowadays they're mostly in the hands of heavy CSers and Twinks, which has more profoundly widened the gulf between the haves and the have nots. Your average new player (yes, there are still some, and they're a very important part of keeping servers alive) is undergeared, underskilled and unprepared. It's troubling to see the hardships they must go through to get their fb's and bosses done and the current enviroment is downright discouraging for many of them. I now consider a player's gear to be decent if the wep is a molder or from an instance (regardless of shards/refines) and their armor is mostly up to level. Yea, at 8x everyone should have at least an extra couple of wortwhile pieces but asking for more before endgame may be too tall an order for many. I myself have begun to look at add ons for 3 stars thinking of my endgame gear. I'll settle for meeting some modest goals for HP, phys/elemental res and damage and refine from there to as high as i can manage within the limits of the resources (mostly thinking of time) i'm willing to dedicate to the game...

Edit; Thanks for your consideration OP, and sry about the wall of text.

Just so everyone knows where these skills stand...

With level 10 versions of the skill, with 4400 avg matk and 20% channeling, the damage per time spent casting of these skills normalized for venomous = 1.00 are (assuming DoTs run their full duration):

Skill	No sparks	1 spark		2 sparks
Lucky	1.54		1.95		2.36
Ironwd	1.50		1.91		2.38
Frost	-		1.91		2.32
Blazing 1.36		1.76		2.17
Noxious	1.17		1.46		1.75	(AOE)
Venmous 1.00		1.38		1.75
Nova	-		-		1.15	(AOE)

So basically, against bosses, in between the cooldowns for Ironwood and Lucky, Blazing is the skill you want to reach for first to fill in the gap. Then Noxious, then Venomous.

Frost (unsparked) does similar damage to 1-sparked Lucky and 1-sparked Ironwood. But keep in mind if you do a spark eruption, you can cast more than 1 spell before the spark buff ends. Usually you can squeeze off 3-4 spells. So really, Frost (and Nova) does a lot worse than the above chart shows.

Nova's saving grace is that it's AOE and has a 67% chance to seal (and a damage amp in the Demon version). Noxious is AOE, so with 2 targets you'd double the above numbers, making it the #1 damage spell by far in AOE situations.

Frost OTOH is pretty worthless. Maybe once in a blue moon you'll want the movement slowdown from it, or a Demon veno might find the 3 sec freeze worth a spark. It's even useless against wood-immune mobs since the immunity means the spell is completely resisted (the DD portion is wood damage) so the DoT is never even applied.