Life vs Speed?

[SeraviEdalborez]

Rather simply, which do you find yourself using more often? I cycle between the two depending on my mood, but since I perform as acting tank a lot I stick with Life for the added drain on Weapon Skills.

On a related side note, what effect does Speed Surge II have over the vanilla version? Increased HP drain, + stamina regen, or both?

[Griever]

I always use Speed Surge, simply because I like the taste of "haste" XD
And the hp drain is not really noticeable or issue in both of the skills, at least for me.

About your question, i'll be able to answer it in like 5 minutes XD.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Generally I'll heal ~100 per WS with Life, not a huge amount by any means (Bloodbath will do 3-4x more, but less often and with a chance of wasting it by missing). Speed's drain only occurs on regular hits, but everyone gets the benefit of it and the stamina regen is also good. But yes, HP drain is pretty negligible on both.

Speed seems like the clear winner; I just want to see thoughts :x

[Griever]

Well, from what I saw, there's an improvement in both Leech and Stamina Regen.
Tested on Cellar Puk:
Surge I: 70~HP Leech
Surge II: 100+ HP Leech
(Hit damage ranging from 265 to 325)

The stamina regen is better, but is not a huge boost, you can notice if you pay attention though.

[MHB3000]

I basically start with speed surge 2 and if i feel like the party is missing hits on the mob i will switch to Life surge to add the evasion down affect.. Speed surge is the bread and butter pre-buff of a lancer.. you basically get a haste stamina boost as well as hp drain per hit for the whole party.. As you fight harder mobs you will notice that the party absorbs less hp per hit.. this is unavoidable but if you think about it.. its the healers job to heal.. so i normally think of the hp drain as a reduction of damage taken from hits by the mob.. but thats basically just to convince myself that im doing something with speed surge besides just boosting my stamina regen.. Lancers are meant to make quick in battle decisions that can alter the outcome of a battle.. we are able to incap, battle regiment, as well as condition mobs in the favor of any battle strat. Lancers are an essential to every party

[God]

Personally I feel Life surge is better at least on NM's.

The evasion down will help more than a small haste since your helping jobs like Archer who stack multiple shots massively increasing dmg on BR WS's not to mention helps our own WS's from missing.

[Cantor]

Personally i use both if u open with life surge then hit it once so debuff sticks then u can switch to life and hit it and then have both debuffs active at once. on really long fights i will juggle them some if we dont have a 2nd lancer

[SeraviEdalborez]

Problem with that is that the use of the Surge abilities themselves is almost a mini-Provoke, as with most buff abilities/spells.

[Krausus]

Ill use Life when soloing or if there is another Lancer in the group already using speed, other then that ill use speed in groups. They also make pretty decent AoE taunts as well, not nearly as good as they used to be but still can sometimes help get the tank/healer out of a jam.

[Rentahamster]

Soloing very weak mobs: Speed Surge (Gonna steamroll 'em anyway, might as well do it faster)

Soloing medium to hard mobs: Life Surge (Helps accuracy, and better life leech help survivability)

Partying against weak mobs: Either one

Partying against hard mobs: Life Surge (life leech on speed surge is minimal, the evade down on life surge is more helpful)