I'm curious what the top survivals are for other Bards. I've been thinking of back training Disarming/Lockpicking after a few years hiatus because boxes seem a lot less dangerous than they used to, but I'm not entirely sure. I think the lower level ones are easier but they are still pretty deadly later on, and the payoff doesn't entirely compensate.

My top six currently are Evasion, Perception, Skinning, Stalking, Swimming, and Climbing.

I'm thinking of trying to reorder them because their rankings right now were kinda a random byproduct of how I used to train years ago.

~~
Lupdels

My top six, in order, are: Perception, Evasion, Skinning, Foraging, Stalking, First Aid

...my last is Disarm.

I've got -- Evasion, Hiding, Stalking, Perception, Skinning and soon to be Escaping :)

__
~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com

Now, what would also be interesting is listing what percentage of your entire Survival skillset each of your top 6 skills represent. This will signify whether a Bard is well versed in his or her Survival skillset or is more specialized, and where that specialization occurs :)

Percentage = Skill / Total Survival Ranks

Evasion - 16.9%
Hiding - 15.6%
Stalking - 15.3%
Perception - 14.6%
Skinning - 13.7%
Escaping - 7.2%

__
~Leilond
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Leilond
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com

Evasion: 16.60%
Perception: 14.23%
Skinning: 11.46%
Stalking: 10.87%
Swimming: 8.50%
Climbing: 7.71%

Right now my foraging could easily move into the top six, especially if Swimming and Climbing are combined but we still have to hit six Survival skills. Frankly, after the skill combines I hope we move down a bit to something like four.

I just pick four because it would be half of the remaining Survival skills, viewing our current six requirements as half of the existing Survival skills allowed for Guild advancement. Maybe there would be another way to look at it. Who knows.

Question for people who include Stalking higher than Hiding, is your Stalking boosted because of frequent/occasional use of Hunt? That's how I end up training Stalking, I don't really feel like much of a stealth character at all.

It seems to me that our training focuses a lot more on skinning critters than box droppers, which makes a lot of sense. I can understand someone focusing on boxes if they want to, but unless you're in a guild that requires it I think it makes more sense to just stick with skinning. I don't think the payoff is worth it, so I'm starting to think of dropping my backtraining on it.

That brings us to four skills that seem to be on auto-pilot (at least for me, I never have to work to train them to circle. How does this compare to everyone else?) through hunting: Evasion, Perception, Skinning, and Stalking.

I made a comment in another folder that after the merger I feel a bit uncomfortable with Hunt teaching the new Stealth skill and would think that it teaching the Outdoorsmanship skill would make more sense, just for fairness. It doesn't seem entirely fair to build up your ability for hiding just through hunting (unless you're actively hunting, of course).

From the perspective of four auto-pilot skills, I could also see a case being made for five skills in the new requirements. The additional skill would be something that would at least force the Bard to actively train something else. I just think keeping it at six would be more of a pain.

So far the least favorite skills look like Disarming, Escaping (Sorry Leilond!), First Aid, Foraging, and Lockpicking.

Leilond, was Escaping a conscious decision on your part or is that just how it's developed. Why?

~~
Lupdels

>I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that as Bards, we already have our sit down skills in the form of instruments. A lot of the down time between combat sessions is spent playing instruments, going on recall runs and maybe even practicing Mechanical Lore. There is little time left for playing with boxes.

Good point, I had entirely forgotten about the pressure on this side. I just figured with it being a tert skill and low payoff most people decided against it. That's how I viewed it. You bring up a good point about what most of the time in between combat sessions is spent on, but that's going to be another post I've been working on.

>For the record, I will be distressed if our circle guidelines require more than 5 top survivals post skill merger. I can live with 5, only because I'll have Evasion, Stealth, Perception, Skinning and First Aid. I would prefer 4 top survival. I got nothin' after those 5 skills though.

This is about how I feel. Also, going from having to pick 50% of the survival skills to having to pick 75% of the survival skills would make Bards less unique because all Bards would be training about the same thing. We wouldn't be able to specialize as much as we do now. Obviously right now there's a base of four skills that are easy to train in combat, but I think we're seeing a good amount of variety in the other two.

~~
Lupdels

So far the overall rankings look like:

Evasion
Perception
Skinning
Stalking
Hiding
Swimming, Climbing (Tie!)
Foraging
Lockpicking
Disarm, First Aid, Escaping (Tie!)

Everyone had Evasion in their top two. Everyone at least included Perception.

Keep 'em coming!

Does anyone frequent the folders of the other Guilds enough to know of other posts on how they'd compare? I'm particularly interested in the other three survival tert Guilds. I assume less stealthy skills for Paladins, but I'm curious if other factors would shift Clerics and War Mages into a different direction.

~~
Lupdels

>>Perception, is there any way to actively work it?

HUNT, especially hunting to a critter works it.

Foraging / Collecting does nicely.

Boxes also teach it as part of the disarm/lockpick routine, not sure which stages but I remember locking perception while picking before I stopped doing them.


Player of Ryken
---
"Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." ~ Doug Larson

AIM - RykenDR

perception 13%
evasion 10%
skinning 9.5%
disarm 9.3%
stalking 9.1%
lockpick 9%

---

~Faih

Three things that make a bard:
Playing of the lute
Knowledge of ancient lore
Poetic power.
- adapted from the Triads

Evasion 11.2%
Perception 10.5%
Disarm Traps 10.1%
Lockpicking 9.2%
Skinning 8.3%
Climbing 8.3%
Escaping 6.5%

Meigs

Okay, this will teach me to do this kind of stuff from memory... my 6 skills from my prime Bard were slightly wrong. This is correct:

Prime - #1		TF - #2
Perc	14.29%	Perc	17.29%
Eva	11.94%	Eva	15.59%
Climb	9.00%	Hide	14.59%
FA	8.65%	Stalk	13.76%
Swim	8.41%	Skin	13.18%
Disarm	7.24%	Swim	10.47%
Locks	7.12%	Climb	7.88%
Stalk	6.88%	Forage	5.29%
Hide	6.35%
Skin	6.06%
Forage	6.00%
Steal	4.76%
Escape	3.29%

-Evran

Gay, geeky, and a little bit cheeky.

An update, with comparison to the other Guilds I surveyed. Obviously a small sample, but I think it is a little interesting.

Top Six in Bard Guild:

Evasion
Perception
Skinning
Stalking
Hiding
Disarm (at this point the difference between Disarm, First Aid, Lockpicking, Climbing, Swimming, and Foraging is all really close)

Top Six in Cleric Guild:

Evasion
Perception
Skinning
First Aid
Foraging
Stalking/Hiding (Tied)

Top Six in Warrior Mage Guild:

Evasion
Perception
Skinning
Foraging
First Aid
Swimming/Climbing (Tied, and Lockpicking, Stalking, and Disarming were all very close)

Top Six in Paladin Guild:

Perception
Evasion
Stalking
Skinning
First Aid
Foraging (Big gap between Foraging and the rest of the Survivals)

~~
Lupdels