Originally posted by Mysk

 

I always used an orb as a Spiritmaster.  It gives a higher bonus to magic damage which, to be honest, is what you're going to be doing more often than not.  I always saw the books as a Sorcerer item because the spell book gives a bonus to crit damage.  Still, the OP makes a good point about doing auto-attack damage as a Spiritmaster, I just never found myself doing that unless I was goofing off.

As an assassin I have found that I use the bow for pulling.   It's good for adds.  The bow continues attacking the target and thus the mob does not lose aggro, but the add eventually stops and runs back to its spawn.  It's a good way to split spawn assuming that you have enough room to fall back without aggroing something around you.

Thankfully the 'sin has a stun ability, so once you begin to melee the target you can usually stun them and land your backstab.  In addition to this it is actually possible to jump over the mob and backstab it without the use of stuns because mobs do not always instantly turn as they do in other MMOs.  You can run circles around the mob to gain the stat boosts associated with moving side-to-side, then time your backstab as you run around it.  The timing is a little strict, but it works.

Anyway, while the bow is a situational tool for an assassin it definitely should not be used as a primary weapon.

My 'sin currently dual wields a sword and a dagger.  The dagger is in the off hand and is loaded with "physical critical hit" mana stones.

For your spiritmaster/sorc info you have the position correct, but the reasoning is off. The original guide DOES have it a bit backwards. Most SMs will use the orb BECAUSE they can afford to get in close to the mob to melee a bit with it, with the pet holding aggro it isn't as necessary to keep your distance as it is with a Sorcerer.  SMs skills are also weaker than Sorc, and many like the advantage of the MBoost to pump their initial damage up a bit when grinding. Also, once you've set your pet on a mob, dropped a few dots on it, and you're just standing there waiting for it to die, moving in to whack it a few times with the orb will subtract a few seconds to each kill, which adds up over time. It makes for faster killing, with less downtime, and no need to nuke the mobs to speed things up.

You can kite mobs more effectively (IE: from further away) with a book, and Sorcs can keep their distance, as well as having strong enough skills that the slight damage reduction of using a book is negligable for them. Your mention of crit is unimportant, because there IS no Magical Crit in Aion. It hasn't existed since before the game went into retail in Korea. It was removed as a damage modifier, but hasn't been removed as a stat for whatever reason.

The real stat advantage of a book over an orb is Magical Accuracy. Your CC skills, Fear for SMs as well as their DOT spells benefit from higher MAcc, as do a Sorc's CC skills. The thing to decide when playing either is do you want the slightly higher power advantage, or the higher MAcc advantage. Most players carry one of each, since it's very easy to switch from one to the other with a single action/press of a button. If another player, or a strong mob is resisting your attacks with an orb, you can switch to book and have an easier time. But in general, Most SMs will use orbs socketed with MAcc stones, and Sorcs will use Books socketed with MBoost stones. That balances the negative aspects, and allows the natural playstyle of the class to use the weapon that matches them better. Both classes will almost always have the opposite's preferred weapon on them as a 'just in case it's needed', but I've also seen Sorcs who carry an MAcc slotted book, and a MBoost slotted orb, and SMs who do the opposite. It's really down to playstyle. The mage classes are the one branch where it really is completely up to the preference of the player.

Also, you're holding your weapons incorrectly, with your Sin. Put the dagger in your main hand, and the sword in your off-hand. You don't get the crit modifier on your off-hand in 1.5, or any time after 1.2. The game is only counting the main hand in your overall crit percentage. You get the extra 50 pts, added to your complete set of sockets (sockets and special stat-boosts from both weps are counted, just not the weapon's natural crit) if you hold the dagger in main hand. The sword in off-hand also balances the slight damage reduction that hits from the off-hand weapon take. Check out some of the Sins coming over from China to NA when headstart opens, they've had a chance to play under the new rules since China's servers have been updated to 1.2, most of the ones who used to go with two daggers for the crit boost have switched to dagger/sword:main/off.