Artisan Archive
Thread: What's better?
+15 Experimentation, or +10 weaponsmithing for an aspiring Weaponsmith/Droid engineer?
Edit: Keep in mind, CH isn't as easy as it use to be, unless your high up CH or the greatest power gamer ever, CH is going to take you atleast a month to master.
Message Edited by CeptoKast on 02-08-2004 08:25 AM
i have a master creature handler now and i am considering adding TK to that character. it would be rough as i am 2/2/2/2 in TK with my main, and to try to do all of that work again would be a killer...but i digress.
there are a few things to keep in mind. if you want to PvE (i am 99.9% PvE) creature handler is the way to go. you can have TWO heavy duty tanks taking damage for you as you learn to use your specials to their best advantage, and as you said, if you find a Doc to buff you, you will have the advantage of being able to take quite a bit of damage yourself. something else to think about is you will have to store your pets and build a camp near your destination EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU GO OUT if you want to use a speeder of any kind. your pets cannot keep up with your speeder. it does not sound like much of a hassle, but believe me IT GETS OLD! the other option is to go out on foot all the time...
if you want to PvP pets just annoy other PvPs but pets do not slow other PvP nor do they stop them. unless you have GREAT armor and some good healing skills, a PvP character will just drop you and then go to work on your pets. if they have 70-80% resist Ubese or Composite armor on, your pets are only worth something if you train them to use their special moves like poison, disease or ranged attack (if they even have a special attack). if you go PvP and add Swordsman, as stated above the defensive stacks are going to be nerfed in at least some manner, so now you are stuck with a choise of do i hit with my sword or my fists? either way you are face to face with your opponent (if you can get close enough without being kited)
all of that to say i would suggest you take Rifleman with your chosen profession, be it TKA or CH. Master Rifleman allows you to spam your best specials at one per second, stay back if you need to (while letting your creatures tank) or start a fight with a heavy mind bleed, and finish it with your fists if you go TKA
this is just my $0.02
I not certain but I believe they have even better defenses in some areas than TKM's.
Anyhoo that's the best insight that I can offer you. I suppose the best advice you could be given is the same advice I was given way way back which was, "whatever you decide to do, make sure you have fun with it first and foremost".
Hope that helps.
Ahazians 
ArclightX wrote:
My question would be, do you want the master swordsman title because you actually want to fight with a sword/powerhammer thingy? (which would be fine, not trying to make light of that). Or do you want the swordsman thing simply for the defensive stacking?
If the answer is the former then I'd say enjoy being a swordsman and go for it.. however I would warn you though that while on my way to becoming a TKM I also had 2222 pistoleer skills (got those first). I can't really remember the last time I actually used my pistol, not to say that it's worthless, (I have a dx2 that can do almost +250dmg with a pwrup and dmg modifiers, more if I use overcharge shot), it's just for me TKM is the way to go. While all the ranged people are running away shooting over there shoulder, I usually wave to them as I pass them going in the other direction to fight the mob of the day toe-to-toe. I must say that I get a real feeling of satisfactionfrom never backing down to anything and standing my ground as I watch red and green floating numbers in the order of 2000 - +3000 float above the head of whatever I'm currently killing. Getting praise from the ranged people (especially novice's) for bailing their @sses' out never get old either =), something that I'm not able to do with my pistoleer skills.
If the answer is the latter and it's the defensive stacking your looking for and you seldom plan or don't plan on ever actually fighting as a swordsman then as stated earlier this defensive stacking thing will be nerfed to some degree in the not too distant future. Furthermore if you still were doing it for the def stacking (for the short term at least) then you would get more bang for your skill point buck from being a fencer.
I not certain but I believe they have even better defenses in some areas than TKM's.
Anyhoo that's the best insight that I can offer you. I suppose the best advice you could be given is the same advice I was given way way back which was, "whatever you decide to do, make sure you have fun with it first and foremost".
Hope that helps.