What are the best race/class combinations?

Sybilla

I have never been one for min-maxing something I play, I tend to make my decisions much more based on what I like the look of (and yes, I've totally bought things just because I like the colour).

Since I still don't understand what constitution/strength/dexterity/intelligence is or does, it has me wondering and I thought I'd ask for curiosity's sake:

If you did want to play Achaea purely for the numbers, and wanted the "best" archetype for each possible style, which do you think are the best race and class combinations and why? Go in as much detail as you like (traits, race specs and all), I'm a complete noob when it comes to this and would love to understand.

Sena

Sybilla said:

Since I still don't understand what constitution/strength/dexterity/intelligence is or does

Strength increases the damage of certain attacks (generally physical attacks, but not all of them, and it's possible to have a magical attack increased by strength). It has diminishing returns, which means that each point of strength adds less damage than the last (disembowel seems to be the only attack without diminishing returns from strength). Strength doesn't do anything else, just increases damage.

Intelligence increases the damage of some attacks, same as strength (except that intelligence is primarily for magical attacks). It has the same diminishing returns. In addition to increasing damage, intelligence also increases your max mana and willpower.

Constitution increases your max health and endurance. It doesn't do anything else.

Dexterity is usually only for dodging attacks (only useful in PvP, and not all attacks can be dodged), but it does have some other uses (primarily for serpents, increasing the speed of dstab and various other things). It doesn't increase accuracy, only dodging.

As for why someone might want one race over another: Using your example, the reason someone might want xoran instead of atavian as a runewarden is that xoran has 2 higher base strength than atavian. You can redistribute stats to a certain extent with specialisations/traits, but atavian will still always have less strength than a similarly-specced xoran. On the other hand, atavian has the ability to fly, which might be worth the lower strength.

You can see the base stats of each race in HELP RACESTATS. Specialisations allow you to add 2 to one stat at the cost of -1 in another. Increasing strength reduces int and vice versa, increasing con reduces dex and vice versa. Traits additionally allow you to add one point in any stat.

Mishgul

This is a pretty open question but the majority of people that have to fight against Occultist will probably say Occultist. Monk, Priest and Sentinel probably not far behind.

Race isn't really that important anymore. The stats are becoming more  irrelevant these days since statpacks got put in and scaling stuff was added. Achaea took a side step away from the min maxing model and is still heading in that direction, and has added more abilities that require x steps to lead to a kill as oppose to mash y to lead to a kill.

That said, monk is probably your best all around class for bashing and raids, and occultist or druid for utility and raids. ALchemist, or blademaster for duelling, won't comment on Occie 1 v 1 because i don't think people understand it properly yet.

Anedhel

With the change to incinerate-level flames being instantly summonable, I think the funnest class to duel with would be sentinel. It was a blast before, and the changes recently only made it better. I'd hands down switch to sentinel in a heartbeat, if Targ allowed 'em.

Sybilla

I sometimes hear people say "oh, atavian isn't good for runewarden, so I went xoran" and I really don't understand that (since @Mishgul mentions statpacks, couldn't someone respec an Atavian to fit the class? Why is reincarnation desirable in this case?)

Other people say that you want to focus on X (intelligence for instance) for Y classes, and again I don't get what that means. What does it -do- to have higher points in intelligence? I could and have asked in game but promptly forget the answer unless I write it down somewhere, hence the thread!

Rom

Killing people with damage into incinerate is actually the opposite of fun. For sentinel you'd want Xoran for damage or Human for survivability, strength specialization for either, nimble and knife thrower are the only must-have traits. Handaxe speed preferably 240+. It's a very strong and versatile/fun class. It's worth mentioning that Xoran is almost always going to be the best race if you are looking for strength stat, Dwarf is also very efficient for the same reason of having 11 base dexterity.

Sybilla said:

I sometimes hear people say "oh, atavian isn't good for runewarden, so I went xoran" and I really don't understand that (since @Mishgul mentions statpacks, couldn't someone respec an Atavian to fit the class? Why is reincarnation desirable in this case?)

Other people say that you want to focus on X (intelligence for instance) for Y classes, and again I don't get what that means. What does it -do- to have higher points in intelligence? I could and have asked in game but promptly forget the answer unless I write it down somewhere, hence the thread!

http://wiki.achaea.com/Category:Adventurer_races
Atavian has 11 base strength and their wildcard point is in dexterity, a stat that is more or less useless to Runewardens. Not to mention, their racial ability of flight is usually negated by most knights having flying mounts (not optimal, but still flying), and many combatants having a Ring of Flying. Compare this to Xoran who has 13 base strength, by far the most desirable stat for a combatant knight. This means the Xoran option makes you far stronger offensively without taking a hit to your defense (assuming you are still capable of flight). Intelligence is similar, as in most classes if someone is inclined to maximize their intelligence, it's because it is an offense stat for their class, and having more points in it will not only increase their mana pool and such, but will increase the damage output or more for some of their most prevalent attacks.

Sybilla

Sena said:

Intelligence increases the damage of some attacks, same as strength (except that intelligence is primarily for magical attacks). It has the same diminishing returns. In addition to increasing damage, intelligence also increases your max mana and willpower.

How can you tell if an attack is magical? I vaguely remember reading that not all attacks you'd imagine are magical actually are.

Anedhel

Most people just check by seeing whether a magic resist ring cuts the damage, or not.

Edit: The enchantment, for the record. Some classes get the RESISTANCE ability, that should modify the amount of damage you take, too.

Sena

Sybilla said:

How can you tell if an attack is magical? I vaguely remember reading that not all attacks you'd imagine are magical actually are.

It's usually obvious enough. If an attack seems to be physically hitting someone with an object or body part, anything where being stronger would help in real life, the attack is probably increased by strength. If it seems to be a spell of some kind, it's probably increased by intelligence.

Some of the less obvious attacks are garrote (asphyxiation damage, not affected by strength or intelligence), thornrend (looks physical, but is actually magical and is increased by intelligence (this was a recent change, it used to be strength)), star/meteor (they're nearly identical, and both are physical damage (blunt, specifically), but star damage is increased by intelligence and meteor isn't affected by either stat).

Note that the damage type (cutting, blunt, fire, magic, etc.) doesn't necessarily have any effect on what stat the attack uses. There can be physical attacks that use intelligence and magical attacks that use strength (I can't think of any actual examples of magic attacks using strength, but it's possible).

Eld

Sena said:

(I can't think of any actual examples of magic attacks using strength, but it's possible).

Void-infused Two Arts attacks are magic damage and scale with strength. Not sure if you meant magic there as in magical damage type or "magical in nature" (affected by collars, for example).

Aliath

Some of the races also get screwed on the racial abilities

Aepas

Aliath said:

Some of the races also get screwed on the racial abilities

How so? All the racial abilities are rather lackluster. The only one I've ever had be any use was lighting pipes as a Xoran.

 

Also, Xoran best at everything, not that I am biased.

Rom

Xoran also has targetted direction icewall destruction via their firebreath. Firebreath also notably uses balance, which means it is affected by reflexes! Best race ever.

Sena

Mhun and xoran get good racial abilities, always useful (unless you have a bad connection that prevents you from moving fast enough for the mhun bonus to matter). Atavian and horkval can be either great or useless (atavian is great unless you can fly without it, horkval is great unless you're a class with good armour). The rest are generally mediocre (at least mechanically; being able to eat corpses is nice).

Eld

Horkval leap is pretty great, too, if you don't have it as a class skill.

Jukilian

I can't help but wonder what an int-focused Horkvali Magi would be like, and how much damage they could take.

Kei

WTB Level 2 XP bonus back.

Eld

Jukilian said:

I can't help but wonder what an int-focused Horkvali Magi would be like, and how much damage they could take.

Hork resistance + diamondskin would make for solid armour, but you can only get 14 base int (just counting race spec and traits), so how good it is would depend on the int scaling of diamondskin and how hork resistance stacks up to the boost you'd get from the extra couple points of intelligence you could get as a different race. And whether that extra armour would be worth the reduced damage/mana/etc.

Aliath

Aepas said:

Aliath said:

Some of the races also get screwed on the racial abilities

How so? All the racial abilities are rather lackluster. The only one I've ever had be any use was lighting pipes as a Xoran.

 

Also, Xoran best at everything, not that I am biased.

Some are a lot more lackluster than others, dwarves get a lot of resistance, grooks gets water regen, and what do Tsol'aa get? The ability to swing up in trees (which you get anyways from survival, or as a class skill) and hiding in forests, so yeah some races gets screwed over on the racial ability.

Jovolo

Hide in forests is actually decent, situationally. Especially so if Eleusian. Dwarves are obviously the best but it isn't like Tsol'aa are relatively horrendous. All of the racial traits bar human and dwarves can be considered highly situational being rendered either redundant or exceptionally useful based on your class, organisation and needs (like Xoran providing utility of a 100g item whe the remaining benefit is directed firelash. This can either be really useful or totally unnecessary. See: other racial bonuses) Not really screwed over.

Carmell

Eld said:

Jukilian said:

I can't help but wonder what an int-focused Horkvali Magi would be like, and how much damage they could take.

Hork resistance + diamondskin would make for solid armour, but you can only get 14 base int (just counting race spec and traits), so how good it is would depend on the int scaling of diamondskin and how hork resistance stacks up to the boost you'd get from the extra couple points of intelligence you could get as a different race. And whether that extra armour would be worth the reduced damage/mana/etc.

Since they changed for diamondskin and stoneskin to be totally based on int and not level of elementalism Horkvali magi take much more damage then they did.  When diamondskin first came out horkvali magi were the tankiest thing around.  You just didn't do very well on int based attacks.