Da best of da best, the squig herder

[Gobmarley]

Hi Gitz!

I've played a long time this perfect creature and tested all tactics, masteries and renom tactics on AoR. But now, the stuff is a little bit different.

I can see lots of sh with full balistic items. For me it's a mistake (it's just my opinion don't blame me for that) we are not a spell caster.
I build my first squig with full of woe gears (just to be a precious gobelin in beautifull wearing) but it's not realy opti.
Now i try to build an "half" mdps squig, and i'd like having some opinions from the squig herder community about a "good/competitiv" build. I know that at this lvl it could be hard to talk about a real mdps squig herder but...

From now, i played with Splinterin' Arrers (from path of Quick Shootin' ) and Steady Aim tactics. I have to be at less than 65ft of my ennemy, that's why i prefer to be a bit more tanky than having a full balistic's gobelin.
On my second sh, i'd like to play with the path of Stabbin'. (i can see you smile dwarven!!!) but i realy don't know how to combine str and balistic skill cause I will not play all the time in squig armor.

If someone want to test it, i will post my differents tests too.

[xyeppp]

Maybe after all, it would indeed be good to have them Class Forums

[Coryphaus]

Now I have not played sh...like EVER so I might not know anything at all

But isn't melee herder like....really bad? Only worth while for shatter limbs mirror?

[Tiggo]

dont play squiq as melee, it takes so much away from the class. if you want mdps play choppa.

as order mdps player i can say: rdps squigs are pain in the ass! ^^

[Morf]

Stacking bs is the only way to go, melle sh is useless right now as you only have 2 skills and(unless recently fixed) the def bonuses from squig armor is bugged. Even though sh's are squishy you can still be difficult to kill due to sticky squigs, applying stop runnin on the correct target, detaunting and ofc having good situation awareness and kiting.
Even if you wanted to go melle herder the options are very limited because no talis(yet) no renown points and not enough mastery points, its just not worth it.

[magter3001]

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sh; ... 1:5512:0:0:

I use that build for my Squig Herder mainly because it increases the effectiveness of your 3 main abilities; Plink, What Blocka?, and Lots o' Arrers. Path of Quick Shootin' is worthless right now because you don't have enough mastery points to grab the incoming heal debuff yet. Same with Bad Gas! from the Path of Stabbin' tree.

Just learn the correct rotation, always debuff a target before bursting them down, and kite like crazy if someone is chasing you.

[Stinkyweed]

AimQuick and MA for now. Downside is you run o it of AP fast. You dropping AimQuick is viable if you are having trouble managing your AP.

I have run SplinterinArrer but I don't like it much. Order doesn't train as much as destro so single target is best imo.

T3 I will drop AimQuick and run skirmish build, then return to AimQuick and FinishEmOff in T4.

Melee can be fun, but without armor tails, double armor buff, self heal and gas squig heal and guard it's way too squishy right now.

[Zegota]

Melee herder is just underwhelmingly weak.
Only useful skill in the Stabbin tree is bad gas, in case you run in a warband, or solo roam and the lake is full mostly of WHs. And even in the solo roam case, you still lose a lot by not taking some skills from other trees. Stabbin needs lots of love and big changes.
Squig armor costs a lot (55 AP) and you're locked out of all of your ranged skills when you're in it (10s). SWs don't have to lose any ap and a gcd to enter the assault stance, and still get access to the most of the good stuff. You can make him tanky, BUT you need the gas squig for that. He's really squishy and if you use Ere Squiggy he'll be gone in a sec, leaving you naked. In the end, that potential tankiness is not something that you can count on. There's no freedom to adapt to the situation like assault SWs have. You have to stick to a certain rotation if you want to kill anything. If something messes that up, you're toast. I really wanted to make it work somehow on live, tried everything and the results ended up being embarrassing. It's the most awesome and fun looking build , but sadly it's not effective. And as far as I know, it'll be hard to do anything with that tree, cause you have to change everything for it on client side. Only buff that is possible is if Indigestion and Bad Gas swap spots in the tree and you make a build that looks something like this
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sh; ... :;;0:0:0:0:

and that still ain't a melee build. I don't see it being used for anything except aoe farm or getting out of sticky situation with Squig Armor>Bounce>Big Claw>KABOOM! (and even that became redundant in some cases with the Sticky Squigs change). Many tried, many gave up.

As far as t2 goes, I don't see any of the tactics from the trees useful. Maybe Aimin Quickly if we get working AP pots. Agrot's build is what I use, and I see it as the only one that's viable atm. Hell, I even find the Plink as highly situational skill atm: if you want to surprise someone from max range or if you have enough AP to squeeze it into the M2 rotation. And it's easy to make the glass cannon build work cause we have enough tools to stay alive.

[Gobmarley]

dont play squiq as melee, it takes so much away from the class. if you want mdps play choppa.

as order mdps player i can say: rdps squigs are pain in the ass! ^^

A bit too radical for me... of course if you play a sh melee like a choppa, i understand you disagree and your bad results!

Now I have not played sh...like EVER so I might not know anything at all

But isn't melee herder like....really bad? Only worth while for shatter limbs mirror?

Melee sh is not bad, it's just amazing at high lvl but not done for unskill players.
1V1, you have to put all your debuff and dots then you run on your target, you do some dammages , you go back a bit, then you run again on your taget, and you do that again and again. A bit like a WL.
You can use you Sticky Squigz as an escape or to jump faster on you prey. You just have to open your mind when you play a sh. Of course you can play with a skill's rotation, but after 4/5 years on the SH it's really borring to play like that.

Plink, What Blocka?, and Lots o' Arrers

Plink, 2 second cast, motionless. 1 second cast if you use Aimin' Quick, but 60AP the arrow, you can use it 3 times after that you are useless cause you burn all you AP, realy don't know how you can use Lots o'Arrers after that. In T4, yes, why not with your M2, but you have to play like a turret. Are you a sorc? an ingenier? or a magus? not really!

Path of Quick Shootin' is da best path. You cast your skills in 1 second or less, 25AP (run'n'shoot), in constant move, with Splinterin'Arrers tactic you can do aoe too. It's perfect to turn around a group and focus healers with a good escape if a slayer understand your strategy. Like that you can harass all your enemies all the time.
I've down a WH and his guard in the same time in 1v2 fight, 3 WH in the same time too in 1v3 fight, it's really funny to see 2 or 3 focus chasing you and downing all together!

[magter3001]

Whs are an easy kill for SHs anyways. And those 1v2 and 1v3, you killed probably the most mindlesss players ever. Quick shootin' is a must in later tiers, but not in T2 where we don't have access to our heal debuff. Also, you don't need to be mobile 100% of the time on SH. In fact if you do, you lose out on dps. Another point, even though Plink takes 2s to cast, it does more burst damage than run n shoot. The range difference is also important. With Plink, and a rightly timed M2, you can 2 shot most AMs and 4 shot the other 2 healers. The burst that Plink provides if followed my Lots o Arrers is amazing.