Apostate - Alchemist - Magi: Some basic questions

Sharidin

Hi! I've been looking into these classes and was interested in learning about some of their differences in RP (like, what could be end-game goals for a character), how they compare in bashing (e.g., apostate tankiness better than alchemist, or magi kill speed better than alchemist etc.) and how they generally approach combat. Any suggestions on trait/stat choices and artifacts are welcome, too! (for bashing mostly but helping combat too)

Sena

There's no set RP for a class, no specific goals or characteristics you should necessarily have, you can pretty much do whatever you want with it (except that apostates are pretty inherently evil and largely restricted to Mhaldor).

To summarise the RP or "flavour" of each class:
Apostates are necromancers (necromancy in Achaea mostly involving things like manipulating life essence, not summoning undead) and demon summoners. They consume hearts (ripped from the chests of player corpses) for the energy used in necromancy.
Magi use the power of the elements to do pretty much what you'd expect (lashes of fire, freezing people, floods and hailstorms, bolts of lightning, stoneskin and diamondskin, summoning elementals, creating a magic staff), along with using crystals to create vibrations, which are primarily room-wide effects that harm your enemies (or everyone in the room), though there are some beneficial vibrations and some that are more for utility than attacking. They can also create crystalline golems, which I don't know much about (it's a newly gained ability, a little over a month old).
Alchemists manipulate the ether, to do things like influence a person's four humours (based on ancient Greek humourism, if you're familiar with it) to harm them, control a homunculus made from your flesh, and draw upon the energies of the different alchemical primes (mercury, salt, and sulphur) and metals (lead, copper, iron, tin, silver, gold) for various effects. They also create potions and compounds that you can drink to strengthen yourself in various ways or throw to produce clouds of toxic gasses.

For bashing, they're all somewhat similar.
In terms of offence, all three are mediocre, all slow and with the same DPS. Alchemist has the advantage of a small critical bonus, while magi are a bit faster (and weaker, so DPS is the same, but the speed is still an advantage) and have an ability that can hit up to three targets at once (which can be pretty strong in the right circumstances).
In terms of defence, all are above average, but they work differently:
Magi have high physical resistances with stoneskin and diamondskin, and they can create reflections that prevent attacks from hitting them (so it's more of an active defence), which is extremely useful.
Apostates have decent physical resistance with demon armour and putrefaction, and vigour for healing (though it costs essence so you can't use it constantly), but the strongest defensive ability they have is demon apathy, which allows you to ignore all damage for a short time, and then take 60% of the ignored damage once it wears off, so that's a huge damage reduction but having it all hit at once can be dangerous.
Alchemists have good resistances to any damage type, by summoning robes that can be imbued with four different resistances at once (you can change them at any time), and they have abilities that slightly improve the effectiveness of healing elixirs, and can create a compound that, when thrown into a room, forms a cloud of healing gas. They can also create enhancement compounds that you can drink to increase your constitution a lot and grant a powerful healing ability, but there are significant downsides if you actually use the ability, and the compound only lasts 3 minutes at a time, so you have to be careful it doesn't wear off in a dangerous situation.

I don't really have any experience with combat, so someone else should answer that part.

For bashing, all three should definitely have the quick-witted trait (faster equilibrium recovery), but alchemist and maybe apostate will want nimble (faster balance recovery) instead for combat. The two traits are mutually exclusive, so if you're an alchemist (or maybe apostate) you'll need to decide which is more important. Other than nimble/quick-witted, you'll want a stat trait (either constitution or intelligence) and either lucky or aim to kill for bashing. I'm not sure what a good third major trait for combat would be. Minor traits generally don't matter much, they're mostly just for RP or convenience (though you can get slightly improved resistance to one damage type), so choose whatever sounds good.

None of them need strength for anything, and dexterity is only for combat and not especially useful in most cases, so for stats you just need to choose between constitution (extra health and endurance) or intelligence (extra mana, willpower, and magic damage). For bashing you could go either way, int to kill things faster or con to stay alive more easily. For combat, most PvP damage scales with max health, so the extra health doesn't make as much of a difference as it does for bashing (though it's still important). Alchemists don't use int for much in PvP, so they can safely go with full con. Int is more important for magi, since they use mana heavily and depend more on direct damage. I'm not sure about apostate.

All three classes will use the same artefacts for bashing. Int, magic damage, faster equilibrium, and critical bonus for offence. Con, health/healing bonuses, and Shield of Absorption for defence. Then there are the various travel/utility artefacts. I would probably recommend SoA and a crit pendant as your first bashing artefacts. For combat, I'm not really sure what's most important.

Additionally, the wiki has some good information, including the background of the class and a basic description of every ability in a skill (for most skills at least). Look at Apostate, Alchemist, and Magi.

Seftin

I will give you my take on these classes - note I have never played alchemist, only against them.

"end game" is a very odd thing with achaea - honestly? There is no end game, only goals you want to set yourself. Get dragon, become a city leader, order leader, infamous fighter, staff-winner whatever you want, you can do, mechanically? Sue there's dragon and 1st ranked xp and win combat rankings but it's not END game like WoW (level 100, full raid gear etc) - theres so much more to this game than the mechanics, the RP is really all that counts.

On to the classes and their RP - a basic break down:

Apostate - evil (Mhaldor/rogue)
Alchemist - Neutral (non Eleusian)
Magi - Neutral (any city/rogue)

Apostate RP is based around both their mechanics being evilly aligned (see the blood pentagrams/demons etc) and their link with Sartan for their abilities - they can be rogue but it's hard as Mhaldorians won't teach you so getting ti-trans is tricky and if they piss off Mhaldor can have their ability to gain essence severed leaving their actions limited. Their RP is more aligned to an evil cleric type character, however this does not mean that you have to PLAY it that way, you can be quite jolly (which I have yet to see someone really do) whilst being an evil bastard/torturer, smile and be happy whilst talking about your evil lord etc. All in all, only as limited as you can make being evil within the 7 truths, or push the boundaries of as a rogue - I would say your best bet is being Mhaldorian as an Apostate and that you follow through their house structure (rp in Mhaldor is good and solid and has a lot of dedicated rp play)

Alchemist is neutrally aligned however they are against the use of herbs and concoctions requiring you to join a city to be gain some of your skills (you must be in a city to link with their anchor I believe though others can clarify). As an Alchemist you can't join Eleusis - a background is that cities had to choose between gaining Alchemist or keeping forestals the story being that an anchor affected forestall being able to pick herbs or some such. Alchemists can be played however you want to play them really. They aren't restricted by their in-game mechanics, and they have options to RP however you want, and fight for any side (bar Eleusis to be fair).

Mage is open to every city and can be rogue (note rogue mages don't have a master crystal so have to purchase their crystals elsewhere and lose the ability to crystal home). Mages aren't restricted and can play however they wish in any city fighting for any cause

NOTE THAT THE RP IS OPEN TO YOU TO DECIDE HOW YOU WANT TO PLAY THESE CLASSES I AM GIVING INFORMATION BASED ON WHAT I HAVE SEEN AND HOW THEY CLASSES ARE MECHANICALLY ALIGNED

Bashing I can't supply details on but @sena has most info on this stuff if she is around and able to help you out (with things like dps, speeds, defences etc)

Now onto PVP - my favourite part.

Apostate is an amazingly variable support class in groups, capable of locking people down so they can't attack through to pressuring health through the use of mana drain for an instant kill they have and through burning afflictions from people causing mass damage. They have access to soulspear (give damage and put a movement restrictor in room), access to static entities like fiends and nightmares to throw off balance and/or afflict and have amazing group utility and tankyness, able to numb themselves to pain, blackwind out if targeted (be untargetable and free to move depending on their afflictions and status upon backwind) beckon using their Baalzadeen into totems and off of groups, heal themselves passively, use vigour to boost their health and sapience for their mana above their max capacity (so if you had 5000 health pool, vigour could boost you to 6000 health) allowing you to tank more and are generally a pretty solid group class. In 1v1 they have the option to play multiple offences going for a lock, draining mana for an insta kill below 50%, vivisect off a lock or shatter (4 limbs being broken) or through the use of an ability that converts afflictions into damage on a target to pressure health, they can be seen to be predictable in their need to use a big warning flag of daegger hunt to defend against, however they are able to compete on top-end if you see ayoxele/carmain fight. scales well with int/collar I believe for their damage on health burn, defensive parties are good and an aldar diadem is good for them (reduce eq time)

Alchemist I don't know much about having never played one, however they are capable of dealing damage, locking your opponent, aurify (turn to gold) at certain %mana, %health level and offer relatively good raid support with their new abilities (throw people out of rooms, reduce peoples health passively with a gas). In groups they are capable of quick afflictions, mass bleeding and ok damage, as well as hindering an opponent from leaving with their homunculus (weird version of them).
They temper humours to give boosts to their afflicting or damage to people, making them able to lock and afflict with 2 afflictions at once, granting them a quick lock ability. 1v1 focuses around locks, bleed and some other tactics - able to scale with in artefacts I believe though others can correct if wrong.

Mage is mostly focused on damage and has a new instakill based off their new flavour. They use to be a pure damage/drop retardation(gives delay to all actions entered) against an opponent class and would nuke people out relatively quickly if artefacted, or go for locks in retardation if unartefacted with their vibes. Their new build is based around an instakill from fire-stacks or pounds within freeze through the use of entities. They are a valuable asset in a group fight giving good solid damage, having good room attack and hinderance in the form of vibes and the use of retardation (though now a more double edged source than it used to be with recent changes). They have access to entities such as an efreeti/waterwierd that lets them damage their opponent and walk on water, they can cast icefalls and firewalls to aid in range defence or offence, freeze ground to stop enemies fleeing, cast storm hammer attacks at multiple targets in raids, reflect themselves and allies, use bloodboil to heal afflictions, cast a sandling to burrow, an aerial to fly and have a pretty interesting mechanism of play. You can go pure damage with staff cast and other damaging spells, or a more finesse route with staff strike and their insta kill or with retardation and lock your opponent (soft lock or rift lock not a hard or true lock) their recent changes made it easier to compete against partied combatants if you are unartied if you go for an insta kill and retardation has been a good way to kill people if you are skilled in it, though with the loss of passive afflicting in retardation you will find it a bit more tricky. They are capable of room wide damage with holocaust bombs and offer some very simple and yet diverse play style. Most people either under estimate or over estimate them, thinking they can't kill them or that they will be damaged out easily - they have good defence in the form of skins to (diamond and stone skin) offering resistance to cutting and blunt damage and their golems and active vibes offer a new play style that is relatively untapped right now.


hope this helps just my thoughts. May be wrong completely but oh well.

Sharidin

Wow, amazing and very informative answers! Thanks a lot! Sucks to be gimped on either bashing or hunting depending on trait choices as an Apostate/Alchemist, though... RP aside, Magi seem to be the best all things considered it seems. SoA seems to be king, always, but how about races? How crippling would a con spec, or lets say a horkval with int spec, be for magi? Or to the bashing speed for alchemist? 

Sena

Sharidin said:

How crippling would a con spec, or lets say a horkval with int spec, be for magi? Or to the bashing speed for alchemist? 

For alchemist, con-spec (or a mix of con and int) is a perfectly viable choice. I currently have 14 con and 12 int as an alchemist, and I prefer it (for bashing) over the 12 con and 14 int I used to have. With artefacts though, it would be better to focus more on int because increasing your defence with artefacts is easier and cheaper than boosting offence, so it makes more sense to use your stats for offence and compensate for the low con with defensive artefacts. And for alchemist combat, int isn't very important at all.

Low int will be more of a problem for magi. They use a lot more mana than alchemists/apostates, and stoneskin/diamondskin also scale somewhat with int. So I wouldn't recommend full con spec for magi, but you can do fine with int-spec horkval (which gives 14 int).

Kensei

Sena said:

With artefacts though, it would be better to focus more on int because increasing your defence with artefacts is easier and cheaper than boosting offence, so it makes more sense to use your stats for offence and compensate for the low con with defensive artefacts.

While not one of the classes being discussed here, I thought of doing the same thing. I know Blademasters can't use SOA , but what is the best order of buying them for the majority of classes? Belt -> Bracelet -> Ring?

Sena

As a general guideline for bashing, I'd probably say SoA -> sip ring -> bracelet -> belt -> regen ring.

More specifically (only counting defensive things), I'd do SoA, trans avoidance, L1 sip ring, L1 bracelet+belt (the order depends on whether you care more about mana or endurance, if you only care about health the order doesn't matter much at level 1), L2 sip ring, L2 bracelet, L2 belt, L1 regen ring, L3 bracelet, L2 regen ring, L3 sip ring, L3 belt. That's somewhat based on my preferences, it's not absolutely the best order (though it's definitely best to spread them out and get level 1-2 of multiple artefacts than to get just one level 3). I would also get some offensive artefacts before maxing out defence.

Kensei

Well, as a str-spec Xoran I guess my L1 BM Band is enough for now?  I have trans avoidance but still take good enough beating as a squishy BM. Hmm... maybe going Mir stance with L3 Band would offset some of the problems of the stance? Anyway, sorry for butting in, this thread has another focus.

And on that topic, I played around with an Apostate alt many years, when Decay didnt scale with Necromancy, and it was still nice. I liked the RP of the class a lot though, because you can do some very evil stuff if you like that. Played an Alchemist very briefly when they came out (but I decided on making this my main one a BM instead - bashing was waaaaaaaaay better), and I liked how versatile their RP could be! That would also be the case with Magi, but I always liked the lore surrounding Alchemy in our world, and that could help with RP directions, perhaps?

Klendathu

Damage for a BM isn't strength based, you might find it better to be con specced

Kensei

Klendathu said:

Damage for a BM isn't strength based, you might find it better to be con specced

Uh? Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure I am killing stuff faster than when I was con-specced human... Or are you referring perhaps to combat?

Also, I had a question to ask, too, about Alchemist, now that it popped into my mind. How does the whole Anchor thing affect the class in its aspects? I think you could get several unique bonuses through that?