Packrat

Spells and Achievements
Q. What spells should I upgrade first?
A. Depends on what you do most.
If you solo most, probably your lifetaps and then your other attacks.
For a dirge who groups all the time, upgrade your group buffs and debuffs.
For a dirge who raids, upgrade stoneskin, parry buff, agro buff, and power regen, as well as the group and single-target debuffs. Invest in a good book. Practice all seventeen verses of the Hedgehog Song until you’re letter-perfect.
And, tip your jeweler well.
Q. What ‘special’ spells are there for dirges?
A. At level 35 Zander’s Choral Rebuff is the magic-mitigation debuff song. Careful work by Salmastryon / Kurai indicates that after caster level 50 this is a modest buff for the foul beasts. If it's a raid your guild has done fifty times and it's getting a little tedious, use this, otherwise, best not once you hit 50. This is not fair relative to the other scout K'lorn spells, but we're dirges, we understand that, life isn't fair either. It's been broken forever, but a fix is promised. You’re turning blue!!! Don’t hold your breath, please, that’s just not a good idea.
The Splitpaw Saga has a snare-magic debuff, but it's on the same timer as our main disease debuff, which is almost always more important for us.
At 52 we get Percussion of Stone, which is our fab stoneskin defensive proc spell.
At 55 we get Scream of Death, a high-damage-but-extremely-long-fizzing-DoT-nuke that has to be cast from behind in stealth. Powerful but situational.
At 58 we get Cacophony of Blades, which is a huge haste with procs-and-interrupts built in, usable 12 secs each minute. Also known as the Wailing Cuisinart of Doom.
At 65 we get Oration of Sacrifice, which allows us to transfer health to the tank when the healer drops and all eyes turn to the dirge, pleading ‘save us, save us’. I mean, healing was the only thing we couldn’t do before, now it’s truly one-stop shopping.
All of these can only be gotten from critter-dropped Adept or Master I runes, or from your friendly jeweler, who you should tip well.
Q. What are the dirge ‘fun’ spells like?
A. We don’t have any fun spells. We have Melancholy Melody at level 20 which allows us to make someone else look like they have an embarrassing intestinal disorder. We have Disguise: Dark Elf at I think 40 that’s entirely useless for the dark elves and humiliating for the rest of us, you’ve absolutely never seen anything like ol’ Whysp as a dark elf, it takes you straight to a different and a dreadful world. And there’s another one at 50 that I haven’t even bothered to try that makes you flash away like a Godforsaken wandering lighthouse.
None of this is fun.
Q. What are the dirge AA lines and which is best?
A. Like everyone else, we have two sets of Achievements, Kingdom of Sky and Echoes of Faydwar.
The KoS lines are:
Agility: this line focuses on abilities which improve attacks and firepower, as well as a group stealth
Strength: this line focuses on abilities which improve survivability, especially against AOEs.
Stamina: this line requires a shield, and focuses on both defensive and offensive abilities
Intelligence: this line has several group-friendly abilities
Wisdom: this line focuses on group talents; aggro control, runspeed, casting speed, and critical hits.
Thanks to Darammer, I've got a more extensive chart. I don't believe it's updated for the (minor) changes in LU 24.
Bard's Luck - HO starting ability, reuse sped up by 100%. This power opens the entire KoS line.
Strength Line
Bladesinger's Strength - Increases STR by 4.0 per rank
Turnstrike - DD & prevents AOE(except direct) if Sword equipped in primary
Bladeturn - Group songs that increase avoidance improved by 2% per rank
Bladesing - Group songs that increase attributes more effective by 5% per rank
Bladedance - Prevents AOE to group; breaks on damage;
Loved by raiding dirges everywhere. Well, most places, we’re a contentious lot.
Agility line
Wayfarer's Agility - Increases AGI by 5.0 per rank
Bump - DD & applies shroud if Dagger equipped in primary; must be flanking or behind.
Wayfarer's Watch - Increases Parry skill by 3.9 per rank
Poison Concoction - Adds poison proc (DD + DoT) to attacks
Vanishing Act - Group invis - 2 minute duration
Once you get Bump you’ll never want to be without it. Poison adds significant dps.
Stamina line
Skald's Stamina - Increases STA by 6.0 per rank
Round Bash - DD & applies knockdown (4 sec) if Shield equipped in secondary
Skald's Defense - Increases chance to block by 1.0% per rank (requires shield)
Fortissimo - Increases chance to double attack by 7.0% per rank (if shield in secondary)
Shield Focus - Rooted and immune to knockdown; chance to break on damage; if shield in secondary
See discussions above under weapon choices. PvP and solo dirges use this line a lot.
Wisdom line
Harbinger's Wisdom - Increases WIS by 8.0 per rank
Harmonizing Shot - DD & detaunt (Bow attack)
Harbinger's Sonnet - Increases speed of group: in-combat 0.8%, out-of-combat 1.5% per rank
Allegro - Reduces casting timers of group by 0.8% per rank
Don't Kill the Messenger - Increases Heal/Ranged/Melee/Spell crit chance of group by 7.5%
DKTM is extremely popular with everyone. The rest of this line is trash, but most consider it worthwhile for the end power anyway.
Intelligence line
Minstrel's Intelligence - Increases INT by 7.0 per rank
Rhythm Blade - DD & increases casting & melee skills of bard (if rapier in primary)
Minstrel's Aria - Increases effectiveness of combat skill buff by 7% per rank
Minstrel's Melody - DPS group songs more effective by 5% per rank
Coin Toss - Instantly shift any HO, complete Scout symbol of HO, can be used while stunned/stifled
Coin Toss seems pointless to all except a handful of dirges. Some of the interim abilities are nice. Good rapiers are harder to find than swords and daggers.
The EoF lines provide improvements to existing spells except for the end abilities. The lines are:
Luck: The end power is Luck of the Dirge, which increases all spell (not item) proc percentages by 25% of the original percentage. Works with Percussion of Stone and Tomb’s, as well as other classes’ procs.
Enhance: Shroud – decreases casting time
Enhance: Selo’s – adds group safe-fall
Enhance: Bria’s – increases power regen rate
Enhance: Noxious – adds a modest ward vs. disease / poison
Enhance: Cacophony of Blades – increases duration (I love this!)
Enhance: Tomb’s – increases proc percentage, to the point where with Luck of the Dirge and 5 points here it’s almost worth casting at times. It’s silly that it takes that, but what can you do?
Life and Death: The end power is Confront Fear, which removes revival sickness and fear effects. Widely considered to be lame.
Enhance: Grievance: increases healing from this line.
Enhance: Wail of the Dead: increases healing from this line.
Enhance: Elegy at Death’s Door: increases health / power granted on rez by a humiliatingly small amount.
Enhance: Elegy of Awakening: decreases casting time.
Enhance: Oration of Sacrifice: improves reuse time.
Control: The end power is Magnetic Note, which is claimed to force aggro to target for 5 sec. May be broken, but even the uber-raiders consider this pointless when it works.
Enhance: Jael’s: improves reuse time. Why?
Enhance: Lanet’s: improves reuse time. Well, OK, I suppose.
Enhance: Garsin’s fear: decreases both casting time and reuse timer. Honestly, who wants to spend points on this?
Enhance: Wail of Horror: increases knockback chance. No comment.
Degredations: The end power is Degredation, which decreases casting time and power cost of the continuing encounter debuffs (Clara’s, Daro’s, Discante) while increasing duration. Well-loved by dirges everywhere.
Enhance: Garsin’s stealth attack: Increases Wis debuff
Enhance: Shrieking Stab: increases dps debuff
Enhance: Verlien’s: increases disease debuff. Note that this improves just about every attack we have.
Enhance: Discante: increases str / agi debuff
Enhance: Clara’s: increases melee debuff
Enhance: Daro’s: increases attack speed debuff
As far as which AA lines are best for a particular style of play, well, half the message volume on this forum is probably about that subject, and it makes me grumpy, so you’ll have to sort this out for yourselves.
Q. I’ve got ten buffs and only five concentration slots? What’s up with that? Which buffs should I use?
A. There’s a reason we sing all these songs of misery and despair – it’s because we’ve got too many spells for our concentration slots.
There’s no absolutely simple answer for the ‘what buffs do I use’ question. What follows is a discussion of the buffs with notes on when to use what. As with anything in this FAQ, I don’t claim to be an authority, so you should use your own judgment, post corrections, or, in extreme cases, hire assassins to pursue disagreements. Some assassins have that shadowy-black bad-boy vibe going for them and I might get a date out of it.
In addition to the discussion, I’ve rated each song purely subjectively for usefulness. The ratings look like this:
<S1/G2/R3> where S, G, R refer to the value of the spell in solo, group, and raid situations, respectively, and 1 refers to ‘must-use’ spells, 2 refers to spells which are often valuable, and 3 to spells which are situational only, or even pointless. Unless otherwise noted, for raid ratings I’ve assumed the dirge is in the MT group.
Offensive Buffs
Relentless tune / Rianna’s line: gives a significant increase to autoattack dps. Bread-and-butter. <S1/G2/R2>
Crypt’s Quiet / Grave’s Peace / Tomb’s Stillness / Tomb’s Calm: Grants the dirge's group a chance to strike for additional disease damage on a successful attack. This is currently broken; it was weak-to-balanced before the LU where they took procs away from everything except the main-hand weapon; it’s never been rebalanced and now it’s a pitiful shell of a buff, essentially useless except in a dps raid group where every little bit helps and you don’t need any defense at all. Achievements, lots of ‘em, can make this competitive, see that discussion. <S3/G3/R2>
<Whatever’s> Boon line: Increases the group’s slash/pierce/crush/ranged skill. This improves hit probability without modifying damage per hit. There’s no clear consensus on the value of this buff in the wake of the recent combat changes; it’s clearly useful for yellow and orange opponents, less clear on others. In groups several other classes have combat skills buffs which make this one redundant. <S2/G2/R2>
Defensive Buffs
Jael’s Elusion / Jael’s Mysterious Mettle / Wailing Elusion / Screeching Elusion: Increases the parry skill of the fighters and scouts in the group. A bread-and-butter choice in almost any situation where defense matters. Sometimes raid MTs with the right AA line are near-capped in parry, though. <S1/G2/R1>
Percussion of Stone: A song that grants the group a chance to absorb physical damage for a short duration after having taken any physical damage. A fab spell with two usually-annoying but occasionally-catastrophic ‘undocumented features’. The first is that occasionally it’ll proc on the pull against some big honkin’ attack, and you’ll suddenly – surprise! – have the monster’s undivided attention. This is usually of minimal consequence, you get whomped a bit, you get some good out of your lifetaps, and save the healer a bit of power, but I’ll bet it’s led to a raid wipe or two. The second is that when it procs it breaks stealth. Again, usually no biggie, though it’s frustrating to have Scream of Death all lined up and pop out, but if, to pick a purely fictional example, one had had to lag behind in Cyclopsland due to the juxtaposition of an urgent call of nature and a conveniently placed rock, and one was sneaking back to the group, one could easily draw unwelcome attention by suddenly appearing out of nowhere when the stoneskin procs a mile away. <S1/G1/R1>
Stat and Resistance buffs
Death’s Door / Death’s Scent / Lithe Disbelief / Supple Disdain/Death Bringer: <note: where DO they get these names???> increases your own personal agility and intelligence and procs a bit of damage sometimes when you get hit. Essential solo, value in groups and raids depends on how selfish one is feeling and what else needs to be done. <S1/G3/R3>
Harl’s line: increases strength and agility of the entire group. These are good things. <S2/G2/R2>
Noxious line: gives a substantial boost to disease and poison resistance. This is a situational buff, resistance to various damage types becomes of critical and increasing importance with increasing level, and on raids. There are two ways to figure out when to use this; one is to do your homework and know what sort of damage the critters do, the other is my method, which is, on raids, to make pitiful whining sounds on raid chat until someone gets annoyed enough to tell me, and otherwise to look at the critter and if it’s a plague-bearing rat or a humongous spider or snake to assume it uses poison or disease, otherwise to not use this buff. <S3/G3/R3>
Utility Buffs
Bria’s line: increases in-combat mana regeneration for the group. The great unwashed assume this is our reason for being, which at least in my case is not so. I get a good deal more pleasure out of fine food, elegant wine, music, and good company than I do out of Bria’s. OK, maybe I’m stretching it with the company part, since I’m still not getting any dates months after posting this FAQ which in case you haven’t noticed is basically a very long ‘Personals’ ad, and I don’t think the assassin thing is going to have a big impact there. But Bria’s does help when chain-pulling in groups; though, if power doesn’t seem to be limiting anyone, drop it and see if an offensive buff works better. Bria’s is absolutely, utterly essential during the prolonged boring part of a raid battle when everyone’s out of power and just sitting on their hands waiting for some to come back so they can do something. Which, for me, comes just after the AOE that drops me like a rock. <S3/G2/R1>
Hyran’s line: gives a modest strength increase and a substantial percentage boost to aggro to a single target e.g. The Tank. Essential in raids, and with unskilled tanks or undisciplined dps in groups, probably not needed in groups where everyone’s on the ball. If you ever run into a group like that let me know, I’ll watch the skies, always wanted to see it raining pigs. <S3/G2/R1>
Buffs and Crafting: In addition to our natural creativity, sense of style, and the discipline that comes from practicing the same tune on that dopey mandolin that plays when we play our buffs over and over and over, our dirge powers make us good crafters. Bria’s is quite nice while crafting, also, you should cancel the agi/int and str/agi lines to minimize base power and enhance power recovery during crafting. Yes, this is weird and counterintuitive but it’s well-known in crafterland, see any of the threads in the various crafter forums on ‘crafting naked’. And you can just stop those mental pictures right there.
Q. What are my Master 2 choices, and which one should I take?
A. Here are the choices, with my personal-and-highly-idiosyncratic feelings about how to parse the decision. Remember, particularly for the early choices, the impact of this decision goes away after 10 levels or so, so don’t get all bent out of shape on this.
Level 14
Rousing Tune
Piercing Shriek
Bria's Stirring Ballad
Relentless Tune
Pick: Probably Piercing Shriek. It’s the best high-damage attack you’ve got at this stage, and the group-friendly buffs aren’t as consequential, since most people aren’t heavy into groups at this level. If you are heavy into groups as a teen, and I really don’t want to know the details, OK?, any of the others is good. If you’re splitting the difference, I personally always find health more limiting than power when soloing, so Bria’s wouldn’t be my choice at this point in life.
Level 24
Lanet's Excruciating Scream
Crypt's Quiet
Harl's Quickening Euphony
Clara's Chaotic Cacophony
Pick: No clear choice. Lanet’s is a terrific solo and group tool, with modest damage but an effective 7 sec daze. Harl’s is the Str/Agi group buff, useful in many social as well as combat situations for dirges with a better romantic life than mine. Clara’s is probably our best debuff, a great aid in taking one’s social frustrations out on rampaging monsters. Crypt’s Quiet is in the currently-nerfed-beyond-help Tomb’s line, don’t pick this.
Level 34
Lucky Boon
Jael's Mysterious Mettle
Daro's Dull Blade
Lanet's Agonizing Scream
Pick: Jael’s or Daro’s. Boon is situational at best (see the looong discussion of our buffs for why). Jael’s is the parry buff, possibly our most important single buff in every single setting. Daro’s is one of our bread-and-butter attacks, a side/backstab which debuffs dps significantly. Lanet’s is good, but probably not as primary as the other two.
Level 44
Bria's Exalting Ballad
Riana's Spiteful Sustain
Cry of the Departed
Daro's Sorrowful Dirge
Pick: Daro’s for the long-term. The Master II of this spell is within a percent or two as effective as the T7 – yep, you heard right – the T7 version, while using significantly less power. We’re assured by the Powers That Program that spell resistance is related only to caster level and spell tier (App / Adept / Master), not to spell level, so there’s just no downside; some raiders disagree with that, however. Riana’s, similarly, is nearly as good as the T7 version but there’s no power benefit that matters. If you’re absolutely a solo dirge, either due to choice, personal hygiene problems or a mysterious lack of interest and maybe I’d better check the expiration date on that deodorant now that I think about it, Cry of the Departed is one of the critical damage/lifetap spells that make such a huge difference. But, even so, I’d say pick Daro’s, it’s a big world and there’s someone for everybody. I hope.
Level 54
Lanet's Violent Scream
Tomb's Stillness
Harl's Rousing Strain
Luda's Heinous Cry
Pick: Most people pick Luda’s, because it’s really our first opportunity to break 1000 points with a single nuke and seeing those numbers pop is just so darned gratifying. A good case could be made, though, for Harl’s; by this time grouping becomes more-and-more attractive for those without serious personality problems, and Harl’s probably packs more group punch. Lanet's, see above.
Level 64
Hyran's Seething Sonata
Lanet's Tumultuous Scream
Tomb's Calm
Noxious Dissertation
Pick: It's Hyran’s or Lanet's, hands down, because the other two choices are pitiful. Tomb’s, well, we’ve discussed that. Confirmed uber-raiders who live-and-die by resistances might pick Noxious, except that Hyran’s, the aggro-sucking tank buff, is also an essential raiding tool. Lanet's fiddles for the solo-group dirge; no, it doesn't rock, it fiddles. I’m a confirmed traditionalist; to me, saying something ‘rocks’ implies that it has vapid love-lyrics which you can’t hear anyway because the drums have paralyzed your ears and the singer’s too busy committing an unnatural act with the microphone to enunciate the words properly. But I digress. There’s always the CD notes, whoops, not any more. Progress isn’t always forward, you know.
You might want to pick Master 2 here on the basis of which Master I is either available or cheaper.

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