Combat Classes and City help

Ret

Hey all, new guy here hopefully I've done this right.

I've just transferred over from another IRE game that's slowly growing stagnant. I'd like to get involved in PvP eventually. I love the idea of being part of a fighting force or on a team of raiders (shout out to Oakland?) and right now I'm looking to figure out what city I can join the be part of decent amount of combat action and what classes seem to be the most conducive for new players? I have a lot of experience with IRE combat so I'm not super new to afflictions or the concepts. I really want to know what classes I could play without buying artefacts to be viable.

tl;dr- What city is most combatantly active? What class requires least investment to be useful in a raiding group.

Achimrst

Monk, and the city one is kind of tough. It depends on time of day IMO. Most active is probably Mhaldor and Targossas though.

Jurixe

Ashtan, Mhaldor, Targossas and Eleusis are all active on the raiding/combat scene, probably in that order from most active to least active (which is still fairly active). However, a more important question isn't what cities are active, but rather what role you would like to play, as all four cities have very distinct roleplay and your character will need to conform to them.

As a simple breakdown, Ashtan has strong ties to Chaos, but due to its other ideal of Freedom, is one of the largest cities in the game, but it means it often attracts all sorts. Mhaldor is the city of Evil and arguably the smallest, and life here can be tough but it does mean that your contributions tend to mean more and it's easier to gain attention because of the small population.

Targossas is the city of Good, newly founded from the ruins of Shallam, and is much more hardline than the old city used to be, with plenty of people working hard to build the city up because it's so new. Eleusis is the forestal city, charged with protecting Nature and has recently had a rise in appearance in the world conflict arena, which is always exciting to see. Granted, the above is an extremely simplistic view of these cities, so others are of course welcome to add on as they like (disclaimer: I'm Mhaldorian).

I can't give you any advice on classes (I'll let someone else do that), but one thing to note also is that certain classes are restricted to these cities because of opposing ideologies, so take that into account when considering. Mhaldor retains control over Necromancy, so Apostate/Infernal, Targossas handles Devotion (Priests/Paladins), Eleusis has the three forestal classes (Sylvan/Druid/Sentinel), and it's not technically restricted but Occultists tend to gravitate towards Ashtan, as it is a Chaos stronghold. For these reasons, these aligned classes tend to be banned from all other cities, with very limited exceptions.

Ret

Yeah, I like the idea of an Infernal in Mhaldor but I'm hesitant because in my experience the "evil" cities have the least communication within itself. Is that the case here?

I guess I should tell you classes of interest before this goes any further. 
I like the idea of knight classes. Infernal and runewarden both appeal to me, as well as blademaster. I also like the 1v1 abilities of the "guardian" archtype. Which would be the apostate, occultist, and shaman.

I'm not really even looking for a "what is best". I'm more or less looking for "what's fun and where" without having to invest 500 dollars within the next few months. Lol.

Also, I'm bringing 3 complete nublets with me when I start playing. Huzzah! 

Jurixe

Hmm, that's a pretty interesting spectrum. I'll try and leave the explanations of class combat to the combatants, but as far as communication goes, I will say that Mhaldor is quieter than the other cities, but has excellent on-the-ground roleplay once you start really getting into things. The Maldaathi, which you would join if you made a Mhaldorian Infernal, recently underwent a change of House leader and @Carmain is one of the best people in Mhaldor to get involved with newbies.

There are plenty of other people in Mhaldor as well that actively look out for and guide newbies, but also bear in mind that being one of the smallest cities, as well as the IG concept of self-sufficiency, may contribute to some times being more quiet than others. If you are bringing friends with you to explore the world as a team, though, that should mitigate most of the quietness. Be aware also that Mhaldorian roleplay is very different from other places - hierarchy is heavily emphasised in the city and people who fail to grasp that or have a problem with conforming to authority (at least until you earn your own) may find this lifestyle difficult to adapt to.

That being said, if you are a fan of intense roleplay and think that you might like to give the city a try, go for it! At worst, if you decide you don't like it you can always quit and join a new city/change your class. At lower levels the penalties for such are almost non-existent (minimal lesson loss), not to mention potentially more roleplay opportunities from being a Mhaldorian convert.

Achimrst

Shaman is a very hard class if you ask me, maybe I just think about it too much though.

Hasar

Achimrst said:

Shaman is a very hard class if you ask me, maybe I just think about it too much though.

Well all you do is dor sketch thurisaz....

Achimrst

Hasar said:

Achimrst said:

Shaman is a very hard class if you ask me, maybe I just think about it too much though.

Well all you do is dor sketch thurisaz....

I'm sorry I have to ranged you with Thurisaz, you can always classlead for Shaman to get more ranged abilities.

Also, I throw in an Othala every once in a while and when we ranged you bitches shoot me first because you know I will just swiftcurse you. Don't lie.

Nim

Ret said:

I like the idea of knight classes. Infernal and runewarden both appeal to me, as well as blademaster. I also like the 1v1 abilities of the "guardian" archtype. Which would be the apostate, occultist, and shaman.

Infernals, runewardens, and blademasters are pretty good in 1v1, and all relatively cheap in terms of skill requirements (infernals/runewardens can skip an entire skill if they don't care about fullplate, blademasters don't really need that much striking to be a threat, and shindo is largely beneficial but optional).

Infernals and runewardens need good gear, though, and a good set of swords can be rare and expensive. Blademasters on the other hand have a sort of artefact tiering system for their blades. All their blades are functionally the same, but artefacts make it a bit stronger and a bit faster.

I dunno how much a lv2+ blade helps in combat, but it's completely possible to kill people without an artefact blade at all.

Plus they get evade. Evade is cool. You'll like evade.

Antonius

It's worth bearing in mind that the ability for Knight (and a number of other) classes to essentially skip an entire skill won't always be the case. When the tradeskill split happens they'll almost certainly need to learn all three skills to be fully effective offensively, though there's still a fair amount of time before that happens (probably). You could likely jump into combat with two class skills at Transcendent, then save up to pick up the third skill when that happens though.

Cynlael

Go Paladin.

Makarios

All of the classes you mentioned an interest in are perfectly viable (and some of the stronger ones) without an artefact investment. They also (with the possible exception of apostate) all scale very well with artefacts offensively if you do ever decide to pick some up. That assumes you racially specialise and select your traits correctly (which you can read more about in the help files, if you're not familiar with them).

I'll second Antonius' statement: do not count on knights being able to skip their third skill and not notice a drop in affectiveness for the future, don't want to mislead you there. You will need to learn it.

All of the classes you mention are good for both groups and one v one. I would personally say from your list the best raiding classes (since that seems to be your preference) are pretty open ended. Apostate and occultist would be the most versatile (kind of jack of all trades), but the knights and blademaster are probably the best heavy hitters and single target cc respectively (on your list, other classes can potentially reach higher numbers, although they'll tend to lose some versatility for it with some notable exceptions). They all have very good survivability, regardless. None of the classes you listed have any major drawbacks, although most people find fashioning to be tedious, hence the fairly low shaman population. If that's your thing though, shaman is definitely potent.

That's a very rough outline. You'll find that most (I'd like to say all) cities have a few players who will be more than happy to go into depth on various classes with you, if you're struggling to get feedback here.

Dunn

Download Mudlet mapper

ROOM FIND Atop the battlements of the city wall

Goto room#

Poke Jhui/Dunn/Nemutaur

say to above peckerhead "Hey I'm interested in combat. Could you tell me some stuff?"

???*

Profit

*Will be discussed upon contract signing in the presence of our attorneys

Mizik

You want Ashtan.

We're the douche bag PKers. We're obsessed with combat mechanics and are plenty chatty with each other, always down to test.

We keep a pretty black/white division in roleplay demands: if it's just us in party it's A-Team banter, cursing, humor. If it's an official channel/full city defense party it's game face Oblivion (Achaean spin on Chaos) is coming military formality.

Seek the A-Team.

Naah

@Dunn @Mizik‌

Totally going to just ask, but how open are you guys in terms of Combat, and teaching? Never being Ashtani for any more than 2 weeks, I don't really know.

Do you guys seek out those (city-wise) who spar a lot, or show RP interest in combat, or do you guys simply pick those up who show promise?

Nemutaur

Naah said:

@Dunn @Mizik‌

Totally going to just ask, but how open are you guys in terms of Combat, and teaching? Never being Ashtani for any more than 2 weeks, I don't really know.

Do you guys seek out those (city-wise) who spar a lot, or show RP interest in combat, or do you guys simply pick those up who show promise?

Judging from how they brought me up, if you seek them out and ask for help we'll provide it. We do take notice of those who show promise, but if they aren't hungry we don't chase after them to push them. Its like Ashtani raiding, you ask for invites instead of us asking for volunteers on CT.

Dunn

Nemu and Kross are products of our program. 

Look at @Taraus too. Dat girl cray.