Bone Dancer Guide for New Players

Started 8 Feb 2020
by Jahx
in Midgard
I had to ask a lot of questions when I first started my Bone Dancer, and I've had to answer a lot of them since. This is my attempt to preemptively answer some of those questions, and help out. This is all done from a PVE perspective.

Step One - Race.

Trolls have more HP, Kobolds cast more quickly, Valkyn has slightly better resists.... If you are reading this guide, it doesn't really matter. Play what you don't mind staring at for hours and hours.

Step Two - Overview.

Bone Dancer is a true pet class. You begin with a single skeleton, and at levels 15/30/45 you gain the ability to have an additional sub-pet (which you don't command directly) that follows the skeleton around does whatever their job is. So at level 15 you get your first subpet, at 30 you get two subpets, and at 45 you finally get 3 subpets, all following your happy skeleton.

The class is a truly exceptional solo experience. You don't really bring a whole lot to a group that other classes don't provide, and they generally bring more to the table. That said, nothing in Midgard solo's quite as well as Bone Dancer. And certainly, nothing allows for afk's like it does.

The only controls you have are for the Commander, and while you do have the standards of attack/release, and setting it to aggro/defend/passive etc, you also have a very important selection of commands that can be accessed by right-clicking on the skeleton. Doing so brings up a menu that lets you tell your skeleton to taunt, and lets you choose what weapon you want them to use. You must select these commands every time you summon your skeleton. It is very important that you tell it to taunt every time, and that you select a one-handed weapon, as it taunts more quickly and allows it to block with a shield.
I cannot stress this enough.

Step Three - Specs.

Darkness normalizes and increases the damage of your DD spell, as well as eventually allowing you to summon nuker and debuffer pets. I didn't find this line particularly useful while leveling. <Edit> I'm playing through this spec now, I've decided to call it the "Ok, OOMer" spec. It kills much more quickly than Bone Army does, but you spend so much time sitting that it ends up being a wash. Now, if you have unlimited power pots and tinder boxes, it would likely pull ahead. It is certainly a more involved style of play.

Suppression grants you an instant cast lifetap spell on a four second cooldown. It also grants you healing and buffing pets, the first of which arrive at level 18 and 15 respectively. Almost everyone puts points into this, as the advantages of having a subpet healing your main pet, who is taunting and tanking for you, can not be understated.

Bone Army normalizes your DoT spell, and adds a secondary DoT as well as an AOE DoT. It also gives a damage add to your skeleton and its subpets, and allows for summoning melee and archer subpets. This is the spec I've most enjoyed leveling with.

Step Four - Strategy.

Until level 18, my strategy was to spec full Bone Army, pull with both DoT spells, and let my Skeleton tank while the mobs died. I had to toss a heal to the skeleton every other pull, but a steady diet of yellows and the occassional orange leveled me quickly. Once I hit 18, I respecced to full supression and picked up the healer pet. Things slowed down considerably, but I was now doing oranges only, with a single dot that I had to refresh at least once (trust me, you'll know what I mean). I kept raising bone army and by the time I hit 30, my secondary DoT was back and landing often enough, and I picked up a second melee pet. Now things were cooking. Using a melee pet and a healer pet, along with the damage add and both DoTs, oranges/reds are steady pulls, although you'll need to toss the occasional heal on your commander when the level 18 healer pet isn't quite keeping up.

I'll no doubt come back and revise this, and update it (I'm only 40 atm), but I wanted to put something up here to help.
Sat 8 Feb 2020 9:09 PM by Kazine
What leveling spec would you suggest for someone who hasn't played Daoc since 2002 and is just starting a Bonedancer today? Should I go Suppression until I get a healing pet then go all BA?
Sat 8 Feb 2020 9:41 PM by gotwqqd
Kazine wrote:
Sat 8 Feb 2020 9:09 PM
What leveling spec would you suggest for someone who hasn't played Daoc since 2002 and is just starting a Bonedancer today? Should I go Suppression until I get a healing pet then go all BA?

Ba until first healer pet available
Then go suppression

Up to you if stay all suppression or put in ba after you have the healer
Sun 9 Feb 2020 3:31 AM by Jahx
Kazine wrote:
Sat 8 Feb 2020 9:09 PM
What leveling spec would you suggest for someone who hasn't played Daoc since 2002 and is just starting a Bonedancer today? Should I go Suppression until I get a healing pet then go all BA?

Let me be clear - I'm far from a BD expert. That being said, here is my advice -

Bone Army up till 18, then respect to Suppression to get the healing subpet. Leave Suppression at 18, and keep raising Bone Army - you'll get to the point where DoT's are reliable again pretty quickly.

Your only rule of thumb is that leveling Suppression is pretty slow - Once you hit 30 and can have two pets, you can have the bone buffer and healer out, but your DoT and DD's are still crap, and all you really have is your insta cast lifetap. Better to split to get the lowest healing subpet and go up Bone Army.

I'm currently leveling up a pure Dark BD to test the spec, and thus far I stand by my advice (only 20 on the dark bd so far)
Sun 9 Feb 2020 5:24 PM by Quik
I just went 1-18 as Supp then switched to BA.

Mobs die so easy I never even came close to dying and leveling was very fast and easy to the point I would chain pull yellows with no issues or downtimes with power regen pots and power pots.
Sun 9 Feb 2020 6:38 PM by Kazine
Quik wrote:
Sun 9 Feb 2020 5:24 PM
I just went 1-18 as Supp then switched to BA.

Mobs die so easy I never even came close to dying and leveling was very fast and easy to the point I would chain pull yellows with no issues or downtimes with power regen pots and power pots.

The regen pots and power pots.......Can you buy them off a Merchant or is it something to have to craft??? Im learning
Sun 9 Feb 2020 7:28 PM by Quik
Useable at lvl 10...should cost around 6g each and each has 10 charges and yes can buy them at merchant.

I use the power pots for quick bursts of power all the time and they really help with downtime
Sun 9 Feb 2020 8:00 PM by Kazine
One last question, sorry. Where can I find these Merchants that sell the pots?
Sun 9 Feb 2020 8:03 PM by Quik
Kazine wrote:
Sun 9 Feb 2020 8:00 PM
One last question, sorry. Where can I find these Merchants that sell the pots?

Goto any teleporter and choose housing...there will be a merchant right where you port in.
Sun 9 Feb 2020 8:44 PM by Kazine
Thx for your help Quik
Mon 10 Feb 2020 8:46 AM by Sepplord
been long agol but i always preferred full BA specc...
you lose out on the healerpet, but get another dmg pet, and can do the healing yourself


killspeed is only very slightly faster (now maybe even neglible), but i personally found it more intresting to have a bit of healing duty myself. 18supp then BA is the safer route though, should you half-afk level
Mon 10 Feb 2020 8:52 AM by Chihuahua
I dont understand people suggesting Suppression spec - it's a power sink and reduces killspeed. I would go full BA until 40ish and then get 18/24 suppresion for 1 healpet. At lower levels you got less pets and it's not worth losing on DPS pet with that extremely strong DA from BA spec. Also since you can now make your mainpet taunt with 1h+shield, BA is the way to go from lvl 1+
Tue 11 Feb 2020 12:32 PM by andi06
i'm 33 right now, with 27 supp and 18 ba. imho it's worth it putting these points into sup, because the second healer makes a difference, and the buffer provides your little group with pretty nice buffs. i only need to do the pulling, the rest i can leave to my team.. doing orange/reds in warulfhamn right now.
Tue 11 Feb 2020 1:31 PM by Sepplord
andi06 wrote:
Tue 11 Feb 2020 12:32 PM
i'm 33 right now, with 27 supp and 18 ba. imho it's worth it putting these points into sup, because the second healer makes a difference, and the buffer provides your little group with pretty nice buffs. i only need to do the pulling, the rest i can leave to my team.. doing orange/reds in warulfhamn right now.

that sounds hoorendously slow though

if you are watching TV or doing anything else and just want to get a bit of XP done on the side, it's probably the best to have strong healers, but if you actively play healpets just slow you down (imo)
Tue 11 Feb 2020 3:03 PM by andi06
i think it balances out. quicker kills for occasional downtime, or stronger heals with slower speed, but zero sitting.
i prefer the additional security the healer/buffer pets give me, and the buffer really isn't bad at melee either.
Thu 5 Mar 2020 1:47 AM by gotwqqd
I recommend holding off going for the heal pet until 23/24
Then go 18 sup rest army
It’s simply too slow for a few levels waiting for the dots to get bormalized
Thu 5 Mar 2020 11:41 AM by Vkejai
I've had three BDs here , tried all the levelling specs and found supp to be the easiest for solo and slightly faster , by the way if kill task levelling as the mobs are normally higher level than you. I guess in a group type setting maybe BA be better if you can get your pets fully buffed.
Thu 19 Mar 2020 9:46 PM by piero
What s about a hybrid with supp/darkness instead Ba?
Fri 20 Mar 2020 10:00 PM by Vkejai
I found dark / supp ok around lvl 45 ish for solo levelling. But as I then was going for kill task items which mobs would normally be higher con I still found full supp to be best.

Now the kill task items have changed it would probably be a better option to group or farm blues/ yellows and salvage / sell stuff for plat and buy the kill task items. Darkness is very good at farming blues and yellows.

I think with a BD you have to try all different specs yourself to find one your comfortable with.
Wed 1 Apr 2020 8:46 PM by piero
Ok I m 50 tried to farm draculv executioners to drop the cloak ,.
First try 46 dark 18 suppr, nice dps mob last not so long, but I needed to help with some heals.
Second try 48 supp spec, tried with 2 higher healers pets and they suffered the dmg done by the mob to the tank, same trying wih 2 healer Lvl 30 and 1 lvl 18. In both cases I have done some extra heals to help them.
Is that normal or I m doing wrong something?
Mon 20 Apr 2020 6:22 PM by Puzirr
any advice about RA for deep BA BD. its just farmmachine for my second char, and sometimes bg/keeps/zergs. ty
Thu 23 Apr 2020 8:50 PM by Toss
I made a little test and sharing it here So you can see what pets are ACTUALLY good and who isnt...
I did the tests over 1 minute on Target dummies on my RR4 BD capped +skill
Enjoy!

Sat 25 Apr 2020 1:34 PM by msitruk
Interesting testing but what mean 50% on some pet ?
Sat 25 Apr 2020 1:37 PM by msitruk
Oh After debuff sry
Wed 13 Jan 2021 1:44 AM by Dorrian
Jahx wrote:
Sat 8 Feb 2020 5:34 AM
I had to ask a lot of questions when I first started my Bone Dancer, and I've had to answer a lot of them since. This is my attempt to preemptively answer some of those questions, and help out. This is all done from a PVE perspective.

Step One - Race.

Trolls have more HP, Kobolds cast more quickly, Valkyn has slightly better resists.... If you are reading this guide, it doesn't really matter. Play what you don't mind staring at for hours and hours.

Step Two - Overview.

Bone Dancer is a true pet class. You begin with a single skeleton, and at levels 15/30/45 you gain the ability to have an additional sub-pet (which you don't command directly) that follows the skeleton around does whatever their job is. So at level 15 you get your first subpet, at 30 you get two subpets, and at 45 you finally get 3 subpets, all following your happy skeleton.

The class is a truly exceptional solo experience. You don't really bring a whole lot to a group that other classes don't provide, and they generally bring more to the table. That said, nothing in Midgard solo's quite as well as Bone Dancer. And certainly, nothing allows for afk's like it does.

The only controls you have are for the Commander, and while you do have the standards of attack/release, and setting it to aggro/defend/passive etc, you also have a very important selection of commands that can be accessed by right-clicking on the skeleton. Doing so brings up a menu that lets you tell your skeleton to taunt, and lets you choose what weapon you want them to use. You must select these commands every time you summon your skeleton. It is very important that you tell it to taunt every time, and that you select a one-handed weapon, as it taunts more quickly and allows it to block with a shield.
I cannot stress this enough.

Step Three - Specs.

Darkness normalizes and increases the damage of your DD spell, as well as eventually allowing you to summon nuker and debuffer pets. I didn't find this line particularly useful while leveling. <Edit> I'm playing through this spec now, I've decided to call it the "Ok, OOMer" spec. It kills much more quickly than Bone Army does, but you spend so much time sitting that it ends up being a wash. Now, if you have unlimited power pots and tinder boxes, it would likely pull ahead. It is certainly a more involved style of play.

Suppression grants you an instant cast lifetap spell on a four second cooldown. It also grants you healing and buffing pets, the first of which arrive at level 18 and 15 respectively. Almost everyone puts points into this, as the advantages of having a subpet healing your main pet, who is taunting and tanking for you, can not be understated.

Bone Army normalizes your DoT spell, and adds a secondary DoT as well as an AOE DoT. It also gives a damage add to your skeleton and its subpets, and allows for summoning melee and archer subpets. This is the spec I've most enjoyed leveling with.

Step Four - Strategy.

Until level 18, my strategy was to spec full Bone Army, pull with both DoT spells, and let my Skeleton tank while the mobs died. I had to toss a heal to the skeleton every other pull, but a steady diet of yellows and the occassional orange leveled me quickly. Once I hit 18, I respecced to full supression and picked up the healer pet. Things slowed down considerably, but I was now doing oranges only, with a single dot that I had to refresh at least once (trust me, you'll know what I mean). I kept raising bone army and by the time I hit 30, my secondary DoT was back and landing often enough, and I picked up a second melee pet. Now things were cooking. Using a melee pet and a healer pet, along with the damage add and both DoTs, oranges/reds are steady pulls, although you'll need to toss the occasional heal on your commander when the level 18 healer pet isn't quite keeping up.

I'll no doubt come back and revise this, and update it (I'm only 40 atm), but I wanted to put something up here to help.

So I hit 30 using this method and for a newer player it worked great! what do I put my points in now after 30? Thanks for the help!
Wed 13 Jan 2021 5:46 AM by Catkain
I did not read this, but i love this! Bonedancers are great support to the amazing skalds! <3
Wed 13 Jan 2021 7:59 AM by inoeth
i just saw this thread and the pet dmg chart and wondering what "swings per second" actually means?
i mean i doubt that a pet is able to hit several times per second

further i noticed that the commanders dmg is only divided by 1h and 2h but on my bd i noticed that it makes a difference what kind of weapon he is wielding.
afaik 1h hammer hits the hardest, even harder than 2h over time ofc. but i did not note my test results, maybe thats something to look at it again
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