Guidance on Primal Skills

Thanks for your reply. I'm honestly still not sure if Wind Blade, Gravel Blade, and Glowing Blade are going to be right for me. I think I would miss being able to mark multiple targets.

I'm very tempted with Chaos Blade as the length of time it takes to cast all three is just painful. So I think I'll pick it up.

bobboberts wrote: »

I wouldn't recommend that, while yes, the soul shatter buff lasts longer, it's significantly nerfed. If you use blade affinity to send out the shatters, they go by quickly and aren't an issue. I personally will not get any of the primal merges because it does not boost the percentage to get each stance applied, instead it lowers it by placing it on only one skill.

you know i've been thinking about this for a while actually. i only have QpQ upgraded atm, but i was thinking of learning glow and windblade despite being limited to one skill to proc them (rather spamy skills anyway xD] that way i would be able to use all my debuffs fairly effectively. i'm normally in parched blade anyway for stuns in pvp, and a few rare times i'll use gemini to proc the def/atk lvl debuff.

so combining the single strike stances i think may be effective for pk since i wouldn't have to switch stances to NSW (-20 def lvls) or glee (disarm), and i get a 4 second stun with my parched (demon ftw xD) or the debuffs from gemini (-12def/atk lvls) that would work with my AOE's for groups of enemies.

another really important fact to take into account!!! no one has really touched on this yet:

when you upgrade the primal skills the debuff triggers STACK on eachother. as you know we have skills heart seeker that stuns 100% with sage/demon but stances like soulsever overwrite the trigger so it causes it to miss. when you upgrade the skills they no longer would and would allow debuffs to stack with those triggers. gravel blade for instance could trigger bloodlet and spiritbour in the same attack and skills like heart seeker wouldn't be nerfed on the percentage. if that makes sense xD

Yadra - Archosaur wrote: »

Is the loss of mass marking not really that big of a deal and is not having to be in a stance working out better?

Is the loss of the higher damage from Soul Shatter worth being able to spam it more frequently with Chaos Blade?

I've still got the same opinion about these as I had when they first came out, and I didn't personally get any of the mergers and most likely won't ever get them (if I ever end up playing again, that is). It really depends on your own preferences here but no one should tell you whether to get them or not.

As for the stance merger skills.... Trade the ability to mark with more skills / normal attack / aoe mark (/ bit more control in northern sky's case) for not needing to swap stances, being able to use stance effects while keeping 100% rate on heartseeker and ion spike. This is preference based, in fact Chaos blade is aswell. Maybe your choice will be easier if you know what the exact trade is here.

Those are the trades you'd be making.

Gravel blade isn't a bad trade off if you don't mind losing aoe marking given that it combines two statuses into one low-cooldown attack, thus making it easier for you to apply more debuffs in any situations when you're focusing on one target. It also means your enemy will have less time to react to the incoming debuffs rather than if they saw you charge at them with that attention-grabbing glow on your sword that pretty much shouts what's going to get applied to them. It means you won't have to switch stances (which also pretty much shouts what you're about to do), and that Ion spike and Heartseeker will have their 100% chance work properly. However if you make use of aoe marking at all this will be a loss to you for sure. While keeping the stances as they are means keeping a few annoyances aswell, you aren't completely blocking off your ability to aoe mark (which you'd do the moment you learned it).

Wind blade has its own pros and cons, though also preference based. Combining NSW with the attack that triggered it makes it a lot quicker to apply the status than if you were to focus on switching the stance and whatnot, and so it also doesn't nerf other effect-applying skills. However one downside is that you lose the mark on your target. How is it a downside? Control. If you apply the mark to your target but want him frozen at a certain moment that gives you a lot more control over what you're trying to do than if you were to hope for the skill to work at the given time.

Glow blade has more cons than pros, given that it already has a low chance to work and having it stuck to only one skill makes this chance even lower.

As for Chaos Blade, I can provide a quick summary for a sage seeker:

If you're sage, the heart shatter applied by chaos blade is the exact same.
The mind shatter applied by chaos blade is better due to the fact that it gives 50% damage increase on wood/water skills instead of the increase of base crit.
Finally the soul shatter applied is preference based seeing as you give up the 150% damage and the crit over 20 seconds, for 50% damage the whole time.

(I'd have to dig through my other posts for a demon summary)

As for time it takes to apply, I'd say that it's not big enough difference so that it would affect overall damage. There's always blade affinity, which makes it quick enough for a seeker that's already gotten used to it. Not to mention you won't always be wasting time applying all 3 debuffs, depending on your squad setup.