Thane QuestionsFollow

Hi all,
I've been out of the game for quite sometime now, and wanted to relive the adventure all over again. I'm picking up Thane again, but wanted to know some pointers about some things;
1 - What weapon is best overall for a Thane?
2 - Troll or Norseman ?
3 - What's the best overall offensive combos ?
The last time I played was way back when the game first came out, and I dropped it around 2 months before Shrouded Isles. HAs anything MAJOR taken place for Thane? Thanks, I appreciate your constructive inputs.

ED

I have a 43 thane and I would suggest taking up a norseman. go hammer all the way to 50 shield to 42 put however many you need into storm-calling and parry depending on which one you like better. imho i think stormcalling should be fairly high because you can always get mastery of parrying later on which will help with parry. it is nice to put some points into parry though.

Tatie lvl 50 troll skald iseult

First ever char I made is a thane over 3 years ago, first char to hit 50 is the same thane, first char to get 9 arties on my account is that same thane. I really love my thane, and at the same time I like to be objective about things.

for a thane there are 2 ways to go: support and offence.

Skill Spec:

support is the most sensible of the two. spec: 42 shield 39 hammer 15 parry 48 sc. you are aiming for ML8 ability of a Battlemaster - Bodyguard. with that and RR5 you are a well-rounded SM or healer bodyguard with Slam and a single target dd that coresponds to RM mainline dd. you are replacable by better specialised classes both in PvE and RvR, unless you deliver spectacular play on your part. your strength is diversity. your weakness is lack of specialisation. in MMORPGs this has always been a center of controversy.

offence is the weird one. 50 weapon (axe prefered) 48 sc 32 parry. this is what you would call an assist train spec. you can deliver tremendous amount of damage in the first round of combat due to 2h weapon + dam add + 2 insta DD. remember to /assist, cause your damage is not much worth spent on some n00bs bladeturn. you also do quite a lot of damage with the 2h weapon in the rounds to follow. why is this a weird spec? because the damage you deliver will not compare to one single spell from a pbae class. your average meele can live with this (yea, it´s BS, I know, MoC for teh win, but that is a totally different thread) because of determination RA. a thane without a lvl 10 ceremonial bracer will be doublemezzed (just so your purge is out) in a matter of seconds, and then you chill for a while. this will change in future, with NF mid get group purge (weeee), but you will still be very controlable ;). NOW, let´s say you are dotted and can not be CCed. this i great. for someone who has a bit more HP than you. get ready to plan your artifacts depending on which one gives most to HP cap. when fully boffed without my sc gear I have just under 2100 hp. that is well under what best hp table can get you with same equip. in PvE you are useless compared to the support thane, replacable by anything that walks on 2 digital legs. in RvR you do good for yourself with instas and 50 weapon. notice "for yourself". if you are CCed, you are useless to the group.


if you start a thane and later on figure out that thane is not what you first thought because of this or that, you might ask questions like:
1) wtf is up with me doing +54 on style damage of provoke (hammer style 15) while that savage does +250 on a lvl 0 style.
2) is this dd supposed to make difference on my target´s hp bar, or should I be happy with the happy colors?
3) why does mythic hire mathematicians responsible for class balance in mental institutions? and more importantly, why do those chosen have to have undergone lobotomy?

well, think about it. most of the DAoC game systems are dysfunctional. like the dex = block relation. I as a thane can duel a troll warrior blindfolded, but I can not take out a kobold warrior for the life of me. when you are making a kobold viking, it plainly says there on the screen: poor viking class. if you want to make a class that will be good when it comes to those fuxored game systems, you can forget about thane right away. why? let´s list them, shall we..

SC line, what makes thane a thane, is packed with useless stuff replacable by sham/SM buffs. in bigger raids or in rvr a well balanced group will get you better buffs. all your spec does in this respect is save concentration on buffers, gimping you somewhat, since everyone else has the better buffs. DD is the only thing you really get fom it. for that to be worth anything, you have to spec 48, for highest instas and last single DD. now, you can easily get a good dd by scing piety and casting-speed, like a RM would. unlike a RM, your spec dd is weak even with 176 value compared to RM spec dd, and you have to think about what you want from your meele side. now, access to wildpower and mastery of magery sortof puts the things into perspective when it comes to what a thane is all about. if you max out your casting tho, your meele ability will be gay at best. support thane falls usually in this category. so much for the question #1.
question #2 is same thing, just in reverse.. as an offensive thane, you are contradicting the nature of a simple gank game: if you deliver damage in 2 different ways that can not be combined, you are at all times wasting the potential of the damage dealing way you are not useing at the moment. let´s say a thane can hit for 50 with his hammer and DD for 150 with his 3 sec DD, and that an RM can DD for 200 with his spec DD. these 2 seam equal, since 150 + 50 = 200. this is not so in practice, since you either meele or dd, so in any case you deliver less damage than RM. at the same time you have no useful utility that RM has, and since your shield spec is not existant, you don´t even have the benefit of the common warrior utility. this is somewhat offset by insta dd, but 15 sec recast on these compared to under 2 sec gatling gun firerate of any caster or meele who does more damage than you, and you have lost the fight, provided that the toon oposing you has same shamy/healer/SM buffs that are a must in any serious group.

these subtle mathematical systems are there. most of the time they will matter. some times, like when you play at the edge of your seat, you will get a chance to negate some negative effect of being too versitile, but the nature of the game is not McGyver style, it´s Rambo style. best at one thing is better than ok at some things.

and here we have #3 question ansewred. eliminate the group, and thane is a spectacular good class, able to hop in just about anywhere and feel at home. duos, trios and other combos with a thane are briliant, because you are not pushing the limit of a group. once the limit has been reached and the hard line of RvR commands respect for optimal play, support bodyguard thane is the blockbot who might live up to the task.. and might not, depending on his HP.

there are always exceptions to the rule, but thanes are eradicated from groups so that groups can optimize potential.

What weapon depends upon how you want to play it. If you want to be a caster killer any weapons are good, but a steather hunter slashing is best. And against Light tanks, slash. Heavy tanks Hammer.

Yet that is mainly out of the window if you spec soloy in stormcalling. I use a sword and have stormcalling maxed.. I sledom get my weapon out of the scabbard, even in RvR.