Warfare second mastery

[Galefury]

I needed to write a bunch of stuff down to help me think, but that might be too long for some people. And my thoughts might help players that face the same decision. So there's a short version and a long version.

The short version:
Warfare char, regular or possibly xmax, needs a second mastery that doesn't need a lot of skill points. I've narrowed it down to Defense (dual wield), Dream, Occult and Spirit. Pros and cons:

Defense: mastery bar heavy, low defense without a shield. But good offense with axes and some nice utility skills. And in this case mastery bar heavy means lots of HP.
Dream: great defense, great offense, but extremely point heavy.
Occult: good defense, lots of single target attack skills and speed. But with a total of 9 active skills between the two masteries things would get pretty messy.
Spirit: if I only get the auras I need I get great defense at a very very low point cost. No added offense though.

So everything has its pros and cons. Help me decide please.




The long version:

Started a Warfare char, everything is cool so far. The new Warfare skills all seem great. The problem is, they actually seem too great. I cant really drop any of them. And the standard Warfare build is already pretty point-heavy. This puts me in a bit of a predicament with my second mastery. BTW, I won't be playing Uber, but I might switch to xmax or something similar.

I'm going to dual wield, so the left tree will be fully maxed. Onslaught tree will also be maxed. Weapon Training too. I really want to max the Battle Standard tree because its just too awesome in tough fights. I might be able to save a few points by not maxing Glory. It seems fairly awesome though. Does it work past max level btw? The Warwind tree gets either 1 point each (if I have a good attack skill from the second mastery), or will be maxed, with possible savings in the main skill (maybe only one point). Then there's a bunch of one pointers.

Maxing everything I want to max and onepointing everything I want to onepoint should put me at either 70, 56 or 49 points remaining at level 66, depending on what I do with the Warwind tree. Five more if I onepoint Glory. This means I wont have a lot of points left for my second mastery. Each +skills over +4 would free up up to 17 points from Warfare alone. I cant really go over +5 though (Stonebinders + Aphrodite's or Revenant), so another +17 is pretty much all I can count on. I could also free up some points from Triumph I guess.

So now I need a second mastery. I have 50 to 70 skill points left, with maybe another 17 if I get +5 skills, and another 15 or so if I don't max the whole Battle Standard tree. So I need a second mastery that is fairly light on skill points, but compliments Warfare well. I've narrowed it down to Defense (dw conq), Dream, Occult and Spirit. Not very narrow . Now for some pros and cons:

Defense: ironically this would give me the least defense, which is very bad because warfare is not defensive at all, and I would be making a dual wielding conq. Also no second attack skill, leaving me with 50 skill points, up to 80 if absolutely necessary. I would use axes, Hack, Cleave and Armor Handling maxed. Defensive Reaction and Iron Will are major selling points for Defense, but they are at bar level 32. Colossus even moreso, but it's at 40, which is ouch. With Colossus I'd need 67 skill points. So 50+17 would be enough. Fairly solid IMO, but defensively very very weak. High HP and stats however, and great boss killing abilities.

Dream: It has a DA bonus (and other kickass passives), and PS/DS as a second attack. Plus a Trance, and Mindbreaker. I could free up no more than 100 skill points, and some of the great skills are very high in the tree, and there are very few cheap skills. 32 mastery points for PS/DS is absolutely necessary. 40 would get me Lucid Dream. That would leave me with 60 points to distribute. I'd need about 55 to max the skills I want. So I'd definitely have to take out some skills from Battle Standard. So this would give me a secondary attack, and a bunch of DA and a trance for better defenses. Plus some passive damage increases and utility skills.

Occult: The poison line helps me survive, but only after I hit the enemies. The thing is, they should be dead pretty soon after I start hitting them, so this doesn't seem that useful. Then there's a whole bunch of useful but single target extra attacks that would let me zip around and dodge stuff. Being single target is not a big problem, I should be able to annihilate fodder with dual wield and War Wind (even onepointed). And of course there's Agility and Blade Dancing, which both look great. Plus two active defensive onepointers. And the best thing is, I would only have to go to 24 mastery points to get everything I want. I should probably be able to free up enough skill points for everything I want. However I can see this getting a little stressful with five active skills from Occult plus four from Warfare.

Spirit: Two defensive auras and two lowlevel active defensive onepointers. And that's it. I'd have to max Deathchill, Miasma and Ravages, and possibly Diffusion. That would be only 10 points in the mastery bar, plus about 20-30 for skills. So this is pretty much the only mastery that would be where I want it to be without me having to use +5 skills gear. And I would be able to max a bunch of useful skills much earlier than with the high bar requirement masteries.

So, everything has pros and cons, and I cant decide. Help?

[Galefury]

Also I have two questions about the Glory skill:

Glory says it lowers recharge time. Is that faster Battle Standard recharge, or faster recharge for everything once battle standard is up?

Glory has max level of 6. What's the ultimate level? If it's not 6, does it work at levels past its max level?

[Munderbunny]

Glory in beta 4 does not work above the max level of 6. It's been upped to 10.

Glory lowers the recharge time of all skills while battlestandard is up.

Also, defense is a fairly nice pairing, as you get increased armor absorption, more armor and DA. Not to mention, adreneline is a crazy powerful skill tree, battle awareness lets you cover a lot of your secondary resistances which helps a lot for freeing up equipment slots, and the healing on rally is a nice boon with the high potion cooldowns. Not to mention, you can dual-wield an axe and a mace, and make a heave 'n cleave conq.

That being said, an assassin in occult is pretty buttrock. I think it's like 55% chance to dodge attacks and 25% chance to avoid projectiles; that's nothing to sneeze at.

[Galefury]

More DA? Does Shield Training work without a shield? That would actually make a DW conq a lot more viable.

I don't really have enough points left for Heave AND Cleave though, or for maxing a lot of skills. I was thinking of maxing only some passives, and onepointing all of the other stuff like BA tree, Rally tree, Adrenaline tree, Colossus. And that would already take me to the limit. Maybe a shield on weapon switch and one point in Shield Charge and Disruption so I get a charge skill. Might be too much work though, I'll have to try it. Not many active skills, so it might work out. Something that also might be worth experimenting about is how Heave and Cleave work with dual wield (wearing an axe and a club of course). Can Cleave proc on club attacks, can Heave proc on axe attacks? It wouldn't make a lot of sense, but it would be freaking awesome and could actually happen.

[Munderbunny]

Battleawareness gives flat DA, I think like 200 at ultimate level. And yes, heave and cleave will both trigger while 1 of each weapon type is equipped. It's pretty badass. It wasn't how I intended originally, but wasn't something avoidable either; so, instead of fighting it, I just balanced around it.

[The Rock-man]

Munderbunny by description cleave needs axe + shield, so description or requirements needs fixing to match each other.

[Munderbunny]

I guess I do see where it is misleading. I'll change it to say with both hands or something.

[Oldsoul]

my assasin has already 64 avoid and 20 dodge at lvl 13 whit the help of some greens realy something to try out. i am going for 100%for both

[skiflahop]

I accept with The long version:

Started a Warfare char, everything is cool so far. The new Warfare skills all seem great. The problem is, they actually seem too great. I cant really drop any of them. And the standard Warfare build is already pretty point-heavy. This puts me in a bit of a predicament with my second mastery. BTW, I won't be playing Uber, but I might switch to xmax or something similar.