I've searched the forums, but it's hard to decipher what is old info and what isn't. I played a spirit/body Cab on live a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it. I understand that matter is nice for the focus shield and aoe dot, but I'm not necessarily a huge fan of that play style. How do spirit and body stack up here?
Thanks.

Wanna xp fast? Spec matter

Wanna farm some coin for you first template? Spec matter

You can always respec to some rvr spec (either spirit/body or trispec) at 50, once templated.

Sure, you could spec spirit/body for xp, but it will be much slower - though, pet buffs have been fixed a while ago. Will be a tedious time...

Video of an spirit cab xping...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyQ-lwXtmcU

Matter cabby - send pet in spot, ae dot, run, dot again.. collect massive loot... but I think you know this.

Dirtymind wrote:Wanna farm some coin for you first template? Spec matter

Just a friendly warning I give anyone I see rolling cabby. Do not roll a cabby just to farm. The drop rate for valuable items on Uthgard is painfully low. If your goal it to make money roll a raid toon. Reaver/Cleric/Pally/Theu and go on raids.

Trying to make money on my cabby made me want to die.

Thanks for the replies. My main is my 33 scout, and I wanted to level a character to bring in extra money to really gear up my scout and future characters. Not necessarily farm super high end items so the drop rate doesn't scare me. I'm not sure how a thuergist levels compared to cabalist solo. I'm focusing on solo because of the hours and frequency that I get to play.

Off-hours should not be a big problem, as most pve raids consist of 5 ppl only. But then you need some hours at least, to build grp and do the raid.

If you wont be able to do that, a pve raid char like above mentioned would not work. Though you can farm at least some named with reaver or pala solo.

If you can afford the time - go for one of those chars. Theurg levels not that fast as matter cab, but really pretty fast - and needs no special gear except a focus staff. Mine was 48+ within a few days. Just spec ice and hunt for spirit weak mobs (google for daoc necro xp guide).

With earth/ice speccd Theu you could take part at all those money yielding raids - or kill some mobs solo (ice pets then). Ofc its slower solo than with cab.

If you want some numbers...
A solo cab at gobo spot can maybe make 1p/hour or so from money, drops and salvage... (guessed value).
If you go for a high end pve raid it goes depending on raid and luck on roll from nothing up to items value of double digit plat.

Example - a dragon raid takes like one hour - to build grps and get to spot, mob takes some time... but within an hour you get either a very good drop or at least a respec stone worth 1-2plat - and with some luck a highend item to sell or use for your solo toon.

Btw solo pvp means you need perfect gear and pots/charges in order to be able to compete. For example, a str/con charge goes from 60 - 100plat - farm that with your caba^^

I can definitely give the thuergist a go. I have alow level paladin but it's slower than I would like...even if I do feel nearly invincible. I wasn't looking forward to the matter cab anyway lol. I'll take the thuerg up to 20ish and see how it goes. How does the thuerg do in rvr? I plan on doing all or most of my rvr on my scout once I level and gear him, but to not hit the bg would be a crime.

Almost every alb rvr group plays with a theurg.

Usual setup is like this:
cleric, cleric, pala, sorc, theu + 3x dps (mercs, cab, or sometimes reaver, arms, or 2nd sorc body spec, rarely wiz)

Some fill one dps spot with a minstrel or even a friar, but not that often.

As theurgs are easy to xp and needed once or even multiple for pve raids, there is an abundace of them - getting a spot in a rvr grp is not always that easy.

Tried the theurgist...just not for me. So I am leveling a cab. I'm almost 20 and split my spec so I can play with matter some. Still not sure what I want...I seem to use my lifetaps and disease more often than anything else. And the buffs definitely help the pet...

Still trying to decide what is best for me. I like the idea of having ns, aoe dot, and aoe disease in Brae. I can have 25 matter 15 body and 3 spirit at level 30. Anyone done this?

I was full Matter with 3 in Spirit on my Cabalist in Braemar. Yellow NS was lol.

So far spirit here is nice. I've been chaining yellows with 0 downtime and throwing out a heal every 4 fights. It isn't what I remember from live way back but it's entertaining and effective.

if you don't wanna level up or farm semi-afk, don't go spirit for pve...currently spirit suffs from several bugs: pets don't gain cast-speed from dex, emerald-pet doesn't have dot-proc, amber-pet doesn't have self-con (though it has way more hp) and, most importantly, resistance-debuffs are halved vs mobs too...thus the 50% body debuff does not debuff for 62 but only 31% vs mobs, which makes it a waste...also debuffing spirit before bode doesn't prolong the duration of the body debuff, which would be lovely as well (and livelike)

however, in rvr i love my spirit cab, though it's better to have a second cab with you

edit, just saw your last post: when i leveled my cab here (spirit too), spirit was even more broken, so can't really tell how spirit does for leveling now...back then pet-stat-buffs didn't have any influence at all, which was a big issue for spirit cabs

I'll try to update this as I go then. I've found data in the forums, but it's hard to say what's current and what isn't.
That's good to know about the debuffs, I may not have noticed and I haven't gone searching through bug reports yet (lazy).

Best spec for leveling is atm full matter. pulling hordes of mobs and ae-dot them is the fastes way to level on albion atm.
3 points in spirit for the recycle is useless, because your mana-gain is pretty gimp with only 3 points in it.

even in braemar and wilton full matter spec is pretty nice. for thidranki i would suggest to go to your final spec you desire

Magicco wrote:Best spec for leveling is atm full matter. pulling hordes of mobs and ae-dot them is the fastes way to level on albion atm.
3 points in spirit for the recycle is useless, because your mana-gain is pretty gimp with only 3 points in it.

even in braemar and wilton full matter spec is pretty nice. for thidranki i would suggest to go to your final spec you desire

I agree on the matter issue. However, I have to disagree with the "3 points in spirit for the recycle is useless" part, simply because it lowers your PvE downtime so much (and besides, for PvE, a secondary spirit spec helps a lot - tougher pet = more mobs you can AE dot = faster levelling). My cabalist's PvE spec is matter at (level - 1), rest spirit. Once you hit 40.5, you can use the extra points to increase your matter spec to 40 (and keep it at level until you decide to respec).

I'm not saying my way is the "right" way, but it works for me. As you all know, opinions are like a-holes - everyone's got one and they all stink.