What are the differences in the classes?

Trinque

Sort of a broad question, but as someone relatively new it has been rather difficult to find any good information on what the roles of the classes actually. I have read through the scrolls and through the abilities of every class but a lot of the mechanics I can't find much explanation on and so it makes it difficult to formulate a good idea on what the classes are really about. Unless someone could point me to a good resource that answers my questions, I'd like to ask a few things about each class as a whole.

1. How does each class operate in a 1v1 setting, whether hunting or PvP.
2. How does each class operate in a group setting.
3. What are the main weaknesses of each class.
4. What are the main strengths of each class.

The roleplay and flavor text of the classes is very well explained but it's the general mechanics of each class that I am having a hard time finding any information about. So I hope to foster responses with this thread that will help both me and future people in deciding a class from a gameplay perspective as well as a roleplay perspective. So please give good answers on the classes you are familiar with.

As an example I'm looking for something like this:
Priest
1. They are really terrible at killing things, but are nearly impossible to kill due to healing
2. They spend time healing allies and resurrecting
3. They're weak to getting burst down in fights and they can feel sometimes tedious or repetitive.
4. They're always in demand so you can always feel useful
(This is just an example as I do not know anything of this class, but just an idea of what I'm looking for)

Xli

Daeir

I'll give this the best shot I can for you - note that the best way to get this information is to play each class yourself and see, but obviously that isn't exactly feasible for everyone! Please take these assessments with a grain of salt - they're my personal observations from both playing/fighting against these classes in raiding scenarios.

Alchemist
1. Convoluted 1v1 setups with varying degrees of effectiveness - effectively an untouched field with very few active combatants. Has some very effective hinder (homunculus block) and two instant-kills of which only one is generally feasible to aim for.
2. Relegated to supporting/melee damage role with disrupt to force enemies to move from entrenched locations or die, can disrupt area communications briefly.
3. Many, but am not really familiar enough with the class to list them properly. They lack any form of LoS ability and suffer immensely because of it in raid scenarios and have relatively limited utility in this regard therein.
4. Strong bashing capability (2nd highest damage/eq ratio spell as listed by Sena's stats) with innate tankiness from alchemical robes, armor and ability to use a shield plus transmutation sip bonus and an affliction-curing spell. Generally very tanky for a caster class.

Apostate (not certain, only very briefly played it)
1. Extremely strong supporting/main damage dealer role through necromancy and apostasy abilities - possesses the almighty beckon and three extremely potent instant kills
2. Soulspears and beckoning plus burst damage dealer
3. Requires a large lesson sink into Riding for one instant kill (Vivisect) to become immediately viable, weak-ish bashing spell, Soulspears are only inherent LoS capacity and require initial "capital" corpses to acquire any usable stack, long-term engagements restricted by Necromancy life essence limitations
4. Very, very strong supportive/augmentative fighter - pairs well with just about any other class given its capabilities and has access to the almighty beckon AND blackwind, making it fearsome and extremely hard to pin down. Moderately tanky with good armour and shield use plus apostasy armour defenses granting both additional damage mitigation and passive curing (!!)

Bard (very much not certain, only played duo-trans, no combat aspect)
1. Potent melee fighter in both hunting and 1v1 capable of dealing consistent damage and possessing defensive harmonics that dramatically increase survivability, has access to several strong hindering abilities
2. Hindrance and group support/offense via harmonics and tremolo
3. Lacks any inbuilt LoS abilities, very much a melee fighter - can be a liability in ranged fights due to this
4. Extremely difficult to kill, limited vulnerability to ranged due to arrowcatch ability dramatically increasing survivability in many raid settings, tremolo is extremely strong hinderance

Blademaster
1. Straightforward instant-kill setup with only single-trans required, perhaps the most immediately strong 1v1 fighter with little effort/investment, excellent basher and extremely evasive with high mobility
2. Hindrance via impale and target elimination through facilitated brokenstar
3. No LoS abilities on a high mobility class effectively locks the usefulness of Blademasters to melee only, rendering them useless in ranged fights, tanky in one stance only (Mir) and fairly squishy otherwise
4. Very strong 1v1/melee fighter, requires very little credit/lesson investment to be immediately useful and is easy to learn and play but difficult to master

Druid (haven't played, omitting)

Infernal (haven't played and only very briefly fought against)
1. Damage dealer, initiator, support - effectively fills many raid roles due to varied Necromancy/Chivalry skillset and does pretty much all of them well - viable instant kill technique (Vivisect) that is straightforward to perform and very effective
2. Damage via DSL, placing gravehands for group support/initiation
3. Fairly well rounded, but lacks in raw damage capacity compared to other Knight classes
4. Highly mobile (when mounted), possesses the glorious blackwind and gravehands abilities, has an ability that allows for dramatically increased dsl speed for a short period of time (burst damage/preperation), tanky with fullplate + necromancy healing/damage absorption abilities, innate high accuracy LoS via chivalry skillset

Jester
1. Hindrance, hard supporting role focused on inhibiting enemy movement and actions - poor basher and quite difficult to play effectively
2. Hindering, specifically with Tarot and Bananas, limited area attack ability through suicidemice/star tarot plus handling bombs in team fights
3. Poor damage output and survivability, no innate LoS
4. Immense mobility (universe tarot, backflip, balloons) and excellent group support capacity through rapid bomb throwing (blackout, stun, fight cancelling) and tarot abilities (hangedman, aeon).

Magi
1. High multi-target damage attacks plus group-wide affliction via vibrations, potentially gamechanging with use of the retardation vibration and excellent elemental damage output through staffcasting - decent basher and moderately tanky with no gear requried)
2. Hindrance in melee and potentially area-wide with cataclysm up, affliction with vibestacks and high damage output/burst with staffcast/stormhammer
3. Low innate line of sight damage (firelash) initially, momentum-based class with comparatively little 1v1 hindrance to prevent people from evading preperation
4. Can essentially determine the outcome of a fight with a single well-timed ability (retardation), a full vibestack is EXTREMELY powerful against a large group and has absolutely colossal group-wide affliction output because of this + deepfreeze, hellfumes. Easily one of the strongest and most straightforward classes unartefacted, essentially comes as a full package right off the bat with tritrans, permanent passive curing prevents locks from sticking and affords large survivability, valuable low-time cost tradeskill that offers useful consumables and enchantments

Monk
1. High single-target damage, support, protection, tankiness - hands down the best basher at later levels (80+) due to high critical chance and extremely strong sustaining abilities (transmute, regeneration)
2. Hindrance + damage in twofold role via telepathy and kaido abilities, strong in melee engagements due to high dps/burst sustainability and the ability to break limbs very easily
3. Very, very squishy without defences. Can only wear leather armor and relies solely on mana pool for protracted survival in fights (via transmute), low unartied effectiveness
4. When properly played and specialized, Monks are easily the most potent at nearly every single-target role in the game with massive damage output, huge hindrance, high survivability and excellent synergy with many many other classes. They can damage targets area-wide while proned, transfixed and paralysed and possess area damage/affliction capacity that is unrivaled by any class and have more combat utility than most players know what to do with.

I'll finish more later, maybe. This is getting pretty lengthy.

Blujixapug

Here is a simplistic overview of how each class functions in 1v1 PVP that will leave out most of the finer details. When I phrase it like that, it doesn't sound very helpful, but I already wrote it all out so here you go.

Alchemist: ???

Apostate: Deal two afflictions at a time via Evileye, plus heavy afflictions via summoned daemons. Drain mana, instakill at <50% mana.

Bard: Deal two afflictions at a time afflictions via rapier/Voicecraft combo, plus more afflictions and effects via Tunesmithing and Songbirds, and passive Harmonics effects. Also deal significant damage.

Blademaster: Deal damage + limb damage via sword attacks, building towards limb breaks. Can combo attacks with a single Striking affliction at a time with their slash/strike combo. Can inflict heavy bleeding, instakill at >800 bleeding (or is it >1000? not sure).

Druid: Deal damage + limb damage via morph attacks, building towards limb breaks. Can combo attacks with Hydra morph attacks. Heavy passive damage from bees. Damage and limb-break focused. Can instakill at <50% health.

Knights (Infernal, Paladin, Runewarden): All knights share the primary combat skill of Chivalry, and their attacks revolve around dual-wielding. Deal damage + limb damage + two venom afflictions at a time via Doubleslash (DSL). Can kill via damage, the prep-based heavy burst damage of Disembowel, or Cleave. Infernals have Vivisect in Necromancy which is an instakill if the target has both legs and arms broken. Paladins have some affliction-conditional instakill of their own in Devotion that I forget the conditions of. Runewardens have no such instakill, but runes and runeblades in Runelore strengthen their DSL in various ways.

Jester: Obnoxious trick-based playstyle involves spending time dealing no damage or afflictions while adding fashions to a puppet of the target, then consuming those fashions to deal heavy damage or afflictions. Often kill via the timed jack-in-the-box instakill after disabling the target with heavy afflictions.

Magi: Largely damage-based with damage spells that can be stacked up to deal heavy, delayed burst damage. Strong room-wide passive effects via vibrations (Crystalism). Some affliction capabilities. Have the trump card of Retardation, which delays all commands entered in the room by 1 second, and permits only 1 command be entered at a time (not the most accurate explanation, you have to experience it).

Monk: Deal heavy damage + limb damage with Tekura combos, building towards chains of limb breaks.

Occultist: Deal heavy afflictions via Tarot + Chaos entities, focusing on overloading with afflictions. Can instakill if you have enough afflictions.

Priest: Primarily focus on draining mana via their angel, can instakill at <50% mana. Additional damage and affliction capabilities.

Sentinel: Deal damage + limb damage via morph attacks, building towards limb breaks. Animal entourage deals damage/afflictions/strips defenses. Rapid affliction potential via handaxes. Can prepare a location by trapping exits, causing various powerful effects if a target moves through trapped exits.

Serpent: Deal two afflictions at once via doublestab. Can combo doublestabs with illusioned messages they specify, making it difficult for the target to determine which afflictions are genuine and which are fake. Can use Hypnosis to prepare burst chains of afflictions. The definitive affliction class, with a high skill floor and high skill cap.

Shaman: Use Vodun dolls for similar preparation-and-payoff to jester puppets. Instead of jesters' tricks, shamans can rapidly deliver a wide variety of masked afflictions via Curses.

Sylvan: Deal damage + limb damage + 1 venom affliction via Thornrend, building towards layering enough limb breaks to prevent the target from curing the Heartseed instakill. Also have strong damage capabilities via bees and Elementalism spells.

Trinque

Wow, some great responses already. I appreciate all of it. I find this very helpful and hope it can be equally as helpful for others as well.

Borran

@Daier I would love to see the rest of the classes. I'm learning so much about classes that I never get to fight.

Athrax

Runewarden
1. Great melee.  Extremely high damage with venoms and optional runeblade effects.  Particulary nairat (freezing), and hugalaz(hailstorm proc).  Very straight forward and mechanical setup for disembowel, with the option to damage stack with runes.  Engage/lunge makes mobile combat for the opponent a risk.
2. Totems, rune sketching, smudging make for great support in stationary groups and raids.
3. I'm struggling to find a real weakness.  Not a ton of ranged damage, but between thurisaz and bows, I'm not sure I'd call this a weakness.  No instakill, maybe (but disembowel is fairly reliable as one)
4. High utility for both raiding and hunting.  Strong solo combat.  Raido is a great escape ability. 

Valdus

WTB @Daeir to finish his class explanations. I like reading them, since it gives so much insight into how OTHERS see the classes.

Aepas

I'll just talk about druids because druids are so amazing.

Driuds provide possibly the highest damage in the smallest amount of time given their strength and bees. Reflexed Maul and bees is very good and powerful, especially if you bought a lupine bow and feel like adding meteors in as well. Druids are also arguably the best limb prep class in the game. This is because their limb prep comes from a flat amount. (always four to break) rather than having to figure out damage and a persons health. The hydra is an amazing morph that allows for a free head attack to prep limbs, so you can throw axes, prone enemies, paralyse them, and all sorts of fun stuff while continuing to prep them effeciently. They have incinerate, which kills when the target is below 50% health, and freezepound which does a 97% damage hit and is only slightly negated by the algiz rune that I have seen. possibly the bard reduction as well. They are difficult yet powerful in 1v1, but take an advanced understanding of combat mechanics to be good at them. (unless you just but lvl3 strenght and lvl3 knuckles and just lolmaul everyone)

They are amazing support allies as well. They can increase the health regeneration of anyone, barrier anyone, remove harmonics, resurrect, conceal and all sorts of handy things. I don't know how the new staff swing works, but I'd imagine they can prone a whole group of enemies now as well. (possibly just one person). The hydra web is amazing in group combat, as it bypasses buckawns amulet so you can web anyone no matter the setting, and incinerate will kill anyone in a jiffy. Grove lightning is also nice, though not as powerful as a bow it delivers some very specific afflictions like blackout/stupidity/epilepsy that are unique to lightning only. (in terms of LOS combat)

the weakness of a druid is they are amazingly slow. Each attack is around 3 seconds, which is devastating agaisnt a blademaster who can just keep proning and impaling you on every hit. some knights are even fast enough to do it, but a knight impale is not quite as scary. They are slow and cumbersome in general and lack of lot of the 1v1 potency in early games that other classes get. Also, hunting is slow, even if you do have health regen high enough to outlast most npc's

Their main strength is their diversity and tankyness. While they don't have the best armor, Vigour, vitality, and a passive sip bonus make them a force to be reckoned with when it comes to their overall health pool.

Druid is the most damn fun class I've played. Make evil druids plz

Valdus

Aepas, I'd like to say that I've been playing IRE muds for years now and as such I've pretty much seen every class available and know at least a little about it. Before I read your description of Druids, I had absoilutely zero desire to play one. Now I'm wondering if there's money in this months budget to allow for a Druid alt to be made.

Excellent post, friend.

Daeir

Finishing what I can:

Occultist (never played, only citing what i've seen/read/heard)
1. Heavy support via high mobility + tarot and ease of affliction gathering, strategic use of entities greatly varies possible playstyles (most prominently used in 1v1/melee settings is hecate and cadmus which hinge around mental afflictions). Has an okay bashing spell, slightly better than what necromancy offers.
2. Support via tarot/doppleganger, plus straightforward kill pattern in melee and large aoe damage/affliction capability via chaosrays, high burst damage when artefacted (warp spam)
3. Lacks reliable line-of-sight outside of doppleganger/tarot star, slightly squishy, requires high intellect for damage/mana pool
4. Potentially free massive stat gain via transmogrify (but also potentially stat loss as well), excellent support and fantastic synergy with many other classes that adequately cover its weaknesses, has astralform which permits easy escape and excellent mobility in large fights with little risk

Priest (played briefly, not 100% sure)
1. Tanky area/melee support with rites and affliction healing. Has excellent offensive capacity in 1v1/melee. Hunting is standard, moderately fast but PvE specced priests (strength) will suffer in combat due to high mana reliance
2. Healing both offensively and defensively, use of devotion hands and angel aura to heal/shield teammates and maintaining rites provides huge passive bonuses and other effects which amplify the effectiveness of other classes
3. Weak damage burst in fights, relegated to supporting roles in melee (shatter is about as offensive as it gets), no innate LoS or even adjacent attacking capacity
4. Very strong instant-kill setup that is fairly straightforward to achieve (see Apostates), extremely strong in 1v1. Can contribute in a support role with very little lesson capacity (aura and hands are both VERY early in their respective skill trees), but requires duo-trans (healing/spirituality) to be the most effective. Can bloodswear with a paladin for increased synergy and large ehp boost (rarely used).

Sentinel (never played or fought, omitting)

Serpent (hooooo boy)
1. 1v1 centered around venom locking via affliction bursts (as high as 4 per second on artied serpents) and extremely high LoS damage output through best possible archery in the game. Hunting is okay with both camus and garrote. Not the best, not the worst.
2. Hindering support via rapid "high" priority affliction delivery in melee, huge damage output/nuking with sniping barrages and large burst damage via backstab (deadly in groups of serpents)
3. 1v1 is arguably the hardest to even become mildly proficient at in the game. Requires extensive rote knowledge of afflictions and their cures and is heavily RNG based at often inopportune times. Requires tri-trans to be effective in every regard - cannot lock normal targets without hypnosis and you will spend a FORTUNE on venoms without transcretions + some strategies are not viable without scytherus which is high in venom. Generally poor bashing in terms of both damage and speed. Hard to learn (1v1, sniping is ez), extremely difficult to master.
4. Possesses capacity for high effective health with scales, massively powerful archery (this is really a huge part of what being a Serpent is - 1 lupine serpent can output a ludicrous amount of damage by himself very, very quickly), deadly versus every class without passive curing once mastered, capable of theft (only class), best mobility in the game in hostile territory and out of it with dash/wormholes/phase/pacing and has the holy grail of all escape mechanisms, evade. Can be substantially effective in group combat with only trans subterfuge and a darkbow. Supports both group and solo play with equal proficiency.

Shaman (played only VERY briefly)
1. Incredibly fast hidden affliction capacity leading into a viable and considerably deadly instant kill. Decent basher with high mitigation and regeneration, but comparatively low damage overall.
2. Room support with runelore, group logistics via vodun - area damage capacity via runelore, affliction support in melee
3. Innately low damage over time (via bleed), strategies contingent on affliction use and curing which requires extensive knowledge and/or practice. Vodun is momentum based (but cannot be set back) meaning a large degree of knowing how to survive general combat is important with the class, moreso than perhaps any other. Many combat strategies contingent on vodun to be effective. Very few active shaman combatants.
4. Able to afflict stealthily, requiring regular diagnosis and potentially disrupting the offense of others. Vodun abilities emulate extremely powerful travel artefacts and only require 400 gold (roughly)'s worth of commodities. Runelore provides massive defensive buffs and strong room control with ground runes, totems, and large damage output via thurisaz, hugalaz.

Sylvan
1. Extremely tanky, straightforward 1v1 class centered on limb breaking and salve buffers to permit the most thematically awesome instant kill possible (heartseed). Strong hunter.
2. Provides in-room support with elementalism, LoS capacity via grove lightning (limited), moderate innate supportive capacity via groves plus high mobility and ability to cure afflictions from others.
3. Slow. Nothing about a Sylvan happens quickly, from prep to damage. Groves skillset has very limited use outside of the forest.
4. Access to barrier via groves (equivalent to a 600cr artefact), extreme defensive advantage via concoctions sip bonus, Viridian defense plus barkskin is acceptable damage reduction to begin with, further augmented with staff spinning. Straightforward instant kill, black-out on demand (very strong combat mechanic, especially in groups) and totem countering plus in-room hinderance matched only by runelore practitioners. Excellent class for beginner players (in my opinion) as it is extremely versatile in combat, very tanky and difficult to kill generally and can harvest own curatives for time investment.

Sena

Daeir said:

Shaman (played only VERY briefly)

1. Decent basher with high mitigation and regeneration, but comparatively low damage overall.

Shaman has nearly the highest bashing damage in the game. Pre-traits (thanks to raja stats/balance) they actually did have the highest fully-artied damage (though only slightly ahead of monk, which is much tankier and with less willpower drain). Defensively, they're rather poor compared to other classes with bashing runes, but being able to easily keep runes permanently instead of having to get them re-sketched every hour makes a big difference. Uruz gives good regeneration, but sketching ground rooms in every room isn't very practical and will slow you down, so it mostly only matters when fighting a long time in a single room, or bashing dangerous things where you'd need to hit and run.

Iocun

I sometimes wonder why serpents are always touted to be so utterly amazing with LoS, while it is merely mentioned as a footnote for knights. No doubt, serpent LoS is very powerful, but knight archery is just as much. Serpents have no ability to increase arrow damage beyond what knights can do and accuracy is no issue for knights with artie bows either (especially with the marksman trait). Snipe hiding the attacker's name is a neat feature, but not particularly relevant in most group fights, which only leaves evade as a bonus, which can no doubt be helpful for sniping, but isn't actually needed most of the time.

And pre accuracy nerf, druids/sentinels were easily the most powerful archers with artie bows.

P.S. How  can serpents give 4 afflictions per second? I guess with a lot of luck you can technically give five afflictions at once (two from dstab, one from hypnosis, one snake hit, one relapsing affliction), but that would be a single event, and not something you'd do "per second".

Daeir

That's what I meant by high burst. I didn't mean to say that they could reliably get off 4 affs a second, since that would be ludicrous. I just felt it was important to categorize Serpents as a burst affliction class rather than a momentum based one like say Apostate or Shaman. My bad for wording it poorly!

I also wouldn't say any class with access to Algiz on a regular basis is poor, given that Serpent is regularly accoladed for having high defenses because of Scales, and the equivalent/superior functionality that it offers in that regard. Same deal with Berkana granting a large chunk of health regen and Jera giving one strength and one con. Sure, other classes can access this, but not anywhere near as regularly as actively having the abilities to use on themselves. Couple this with enhanced gebu/gebo armor and I wouldn't really class Shaman as defensively poor, not by any stretch.

The damage portion surprises me, though. Have you posted bleed damage anywhere else before? It felt quite lackluster to me, even at trans Curses.

Antonius

Iocun said:

I sometimes wonder why serpents are always touted to be so utterly amazing with LoS, while it is merely mentioned as a footnote for knights. No doubt, serpent LoS is very powerful, but knight archery is just as much. Serpents have no ability to increase arrow damage beyond what knights can do and accuracy is no issue for knights with artie bows either (especially with the marksman trait). Snipe hiding the attacker's name is a neat feature, but not particularly relevant in most group fights, which only leaves evade as a bonus, which can no doubt be helpful for sniping, but isn't actually needed most of the time.

Can't Serpents get 100% accuracy using Snipe without Aiming now, though? That's definitely not possible for Knights, so archery is a reasonable amount slower if you want to guarantee every shot will hit. In terms of damage, though, nothing to separate the two.

Daeir

Experience with sniping and marksman without aiming thus far suggests 99% accuracy or so at up to 3 rooms, and a sharp decline from there. Aiming ameliorates the decline (somewhat) past that point, otherwise it is effectively useless for a Serpent with marksman.

Tecton had the full statistics thing in the thievery buff thread, I believe.

Strata

Awesome write-ups @Daeir and @Blujixapug. A friend of mine was thinking about starting a character and was asking many questions. I sent him to this thread.

He sounded most interested in Apostate and Shaman.

Edit:

When I asked him why, he said because either of those two classes he thought would be cool to role-play. This is good.

That being said, it would be great if those that are more experienced with specific classes posted short write-ups on the "typical" role-play styles of each class.

By "typical" I mean "how most players tend to role-play a particular class" since there are those that play outside of typical, e.g. @Iocun, the knightly serpent.

Iocun

Daeir said:

That's what I meant by high burst. I didn't mean to say that they could reliably get off 4 affs a second, since that would be ludicrous. I just felt it was important to categorize Serpents as a burst affliction class rather than a momentum based one like say Apostate or Shaman. My bad for wording it poorly!

Yeah,  I realize you were talking about burst damage and not a constant thing. I was merely wondering about the term "per second", which implies a repetition of sorts. I do agree that serpents are somewhat of a burst affliction class (I guess somewhere between momentum and burst, in reality), but those bursts are more in the range of 1.5 afflictions per second, under optimal conditions. (About 1 aff/second from artied out dstab, assuming only small delays from rebounding/hindering, 0.33 affs/second from hypnosis, 0.15 random affs/second or so from the snake).

1.5 affs per second is still pretty damn fast, mind you. (Not that affliction speed in itself is all that crucial though, as long as it's distinctly faster than herb balance.)

Antonius said:

Can't Serpents get 100% accuracy using Snipe without Aiming now, though? That's definitely not possible for Knights, so archery is a reasonable amount slower if you want to guarantee every shot will hit. In terms of damage, though, nothing to separate the two.

I never wait between aiming and shooting anyways. The only reason I ever stop aiming is if I'm running low on endurance.

Sena

Daeir said:

Couple this with enhanced gebu/gebo armor and I wouldn't really class Shaman as defensively poor, not by any stretch.

I only said they were defensively poor when comparing them to other classes with bashing runes. Having easy access to runes is a pretty big defensive boost.

Daeir said:

The damage portion surprises me, though. Have you posted bleed damage anywhere else before? It felt quite lackluster to me, even at trans Curses.

I'm not 100% certain of the numbers, but I think it was 300 damage for a 12 int, trans curses bleed. With swiftcurse and raja balance, balance was 0.9 seconds (probably 1 second with nimble now, but I haven't timed it). Assuming optimal swiftcursing, that's around 260 dps before intelligence bonus. Here are some other bashing attacks for comparison.

With artefacts bleed is even better, since it's a magical attack so it can get +20% damage from collars. I don't think that's enough to give it better damage than monk combos (since they also have knuckles for increased damage), but I don't think anything else can match it.

Iocun

Yeah, I made a shaman alt once and hunting was amazing - if not for that ghastly mana/willpower drain.

Eld

Iocun said:

Yeah, I made a shaman alt once and hunting was amazing - if not for that ghastly mana/willpower drain.

The nice thing about it is that you get amazing hunting for about 15 minutes till you run out of willpower, and then you're forced to take a break and go do something else.

Xer

How's the willpower decrease on bleed in comparison for hunting now? I seem to remember the main drain from willpower coming from having to keep up swiftcurse as well, so it's entirely possible that it's still woefully short

Sena

The willpower cost has been reduced multiple times since I was a shaman, so I'm not sure what it's like now.

Arador

WRT Knight Archery. If the target is outdoors you also have your falcon. Makes quite a difference.

Trevize

Xer said:

How's the willpower decrease on bleed in comparison for hunting now? I seem to remember the main drain from willpower coming from having to keep up swiftcurse as well, so it's entirely possible that it's still woefully short

It's still kinda bad, but better than it used to be.

Oh, and I'll second bleed being insanely good. Not that it's needed after Sena said it, but still! Be sure to re-use swiftcurse before the last one falls off - it halves the bal/eq times for curses, which includes the next swiftcurse.

Trevize

Sena said:

Daeir said:

Couple this with enhanced gebu/gebo armor and I wouldn't really class Shaman as defensively poor, not by any stretch.

I only said they were defensively poor when comparing them to other classes with bashing runes. Having easy access to runes is a pretty big defensive boost.

Daeir said:

The damage portion surprises me, though. Have you posted bleed damage anywhere else before? It felt quite lackluster to me, even at trans Curses.

I'm not 100% certain of the numbers, but I think it was 300 damage for a 12 int, trans curses bleed. With swiftcurse and raja balance, balance was 0.9 seconds (probably 1 second with nimble now, but I haven't timed it). Assuming optimal swiftcursing, that's around 260 dps before intelligence bonus. Here are some other bashing attacks for comparison.

With artefacts bleed is even better, since it's a magical attack so it can get +20% damage from collars. I don't think that's enough to give it better damage than monk combos (since they also have knuckles for increased damage), but I don't think anything else can match it.

Just tested, 0.7s bleed with swiftcurse and nimble, 2s for swiftcurse again with swiftcurse already up. (not sure if anything else is affecting my balance speed? nothing I know of)

Xer

0.7s? That seems fast to me - I remember it used to be 1.0s consistently. Is that just bleed, or curses in general?

EDIT: With swiftcurse up.

Sena

0.7s is faster than old raja, I can't think of why it would be so fast.

Trevize

Xer said:

0.7s? That seems fast to me - I remember it used to be 1.0s consistently. Is that just bleed, or curses in general?

EDIT: With swiftcurse up.

Just did more testing, it seems to vary from 0.7 to 0.9. That was just bleed, but I believe they're the same.

Eld

1 second with swiftcurse and nimble is what I remember, as well.

Trevize

BTW: (0.06s latency)

Fastest: 0.704s

Slowest: 1.095s

Average seems to be somewhere between 8.5-9s, from tracking clearing Dun and the Vertani both.