IRE Retiree - relocation questions.

Zosajja

Hello Achaeans!

After a few years of absence from Imperian, I'm looking to relocate and start afresh here. You could say I "did it all" over there, but I wouldn't, because that would make me sound like my granddad. Anyway! I'm having a fairly tough time deciding what class to play, and to a lesser extent, what org to join. Frankly, I don't really want to spend a lot of time committing suicide with characters and restarting, because from what I've experienced so far, people have been ever so helpful and I feel absolutely horrid when I go and 'poof' on them. So, please, could you offer me your insight so I can make the right choice?

I wouldn't begin with a huge amount of credits initially, but in the mid term I'd be looking at multiple transcendent skills and maybe a few low-tier artifacts.

Most of the classes interest me thematically, but in terms of mechanics I prefer dealing damage, or preparing limb-break strategies rather than being a heavy affliction class. I also enjoy playing classes or specializations that perhaps aren't as popular as others. The classes that appeal to me most are:

1) Infernal using dual blunt weapons.
How viable is this fighting style in pvp?
Would I be looking mainly to go for a vivisect kill or using the finishers in weaponmastery?
How big a budget would I need?

2) Monk focusing mainly on telepathy.
Coming from Imperian where the only real win condition outside of damage was 3xbbt - how viable are scythe kills here?
Ideally I'd like to focus on telepathy usage. Has anyone had success in pvp with using fast EQ rather than fast balance?

3) Blademaster
I've read that brokenstar kills, when set up correctly, work very well against the majority of players here. Is there any viability in stacking strength and using damage as an alternative? 
Is everyone a Blademaster? Thematically I think they must have great appeal.
Are they more scarce in certain orgs more than others?

4) Magi
Again another class that had a near identical Imperian clone. Are they still a damage powerhouse with artifacts?
Do they do enough damage to kill without artifacts?
The fire skills in Artificing look really interesting. Is there a viable kill method there? if so does anyone have a log or example as to how a Magi goes about setting that up?


I'm afraid I'm asking too many questions so I'll cut it here.

Thank you in advance for any help or insight you can offer. I really appreciate it!

Aegoth

For Magi:

- They still do a good amount of damage when artied, albiet not as much as they used to.
- They can kill with damage in groups effectively, if unartied. Otherwise, the damage isn't threatening to anyone over 4k health.
- Artifice has two kill methods: freeze into pummel, and burn into destroy. Both are viable with or without artied (though it's arguable that diadem is necessary to accomplish both). I can provide some logs later.

Kiet

Zosajja said:

Hello Achaeans!

After a few years of absence from Imperian, I'm looking to relocate and start afresh here. You could say I "did it all" over there, but I wouldn't, because that would make me sound like my granddad. Anyway! I'm having a fairly tough time deciding what class to play, and to a lesser extent, what org to join. Frankly, I don't really want to spend a lot of time committing suicide with characters and restarting, because from what I've experienced so far, people have been ever so helpful and I feel absolutely horrid when I go and 'poof' on them. So, please, could you offer me your insight so I can make the right choice?

I wouldn't begin with a huge amount of credits initially, but in the mid term I'd be looking at multiple transcendent skills and maybe a few low-tier artifacts.

Most of the classes interest me thematically, but in terms of mechanics I prefer dealing damage, or preparing limb-break strategies rather than being a heavy affliction class. I also enjoy playing classes or specializations that perhaps aren't as popular as others. The classes that appeal to me most are:

1) Infernal using dual blunt weapons.
How viable is this fighting style in pvp?
Would I be looking mainly to go for a vivisect kill or using the finishers in weaponmastery?
How big a budget would I need?

2) Monk focusing mainly on telepathy.
Coming from Imperian where the only real win condition outside of damage was 3xbbt - how viable are scythe kills here?
Ideally I'd like to focus on telepathy usage. Has anyone had success in pvp with using fast EQ rather than fast balance?

3) Blademaster
I've read that brokenstar kills, when set up correctly, work very well against the majority of players here. Is there any viability in stacking strength and using damage as an alternative? 
Is everyone a Blademaster? Thematically I think they must have great appeal.
Are they more scarce in certain orgs more than others?

4) Magi
Again another class that had a near identical Imperian clone. Are they still a damage powerhouse with artifacts?
Do they do enough damage to kill without artifacts?
The fire skills in Artificing look really interesting. Is there a viable kill method there? if so does anyone have a log or example as to how a Magi goes about setting that up?


I'm afraid I'm asking too many questions so I'll cut it here.

Thank you in advance for any help or insight you can offer. I really appreciate it!

1) DWB damage is absurd, but not sure how well it'd set up vivi stuff since I haven't seen anyone try. I know 2h/dwc can set up vivis well enough, and 2h is pretty damage based too if that interests you. Even unartied DWB does good damage, but obviously the more hp your opponent has the more arties you'll need. Knights definitely want at least arty weapons, but at least they're pretty tanky on their own.

2) EQ monks are great in group combats/raids, but not so great solo. Scythe pretty viable as far as I can tell but some people say it's not that great.

3) BM damage is really good if you have a band, yes. Almost no one is a blademaster, actually, there's like 2-3 active ones I can name at all, and only one that fights regularly. They're scarce everywhere, largely because they have 0 utility outside melee combat.

4) They don't do absurd damage anymore like Aegoth said, but they do good damage, especially if you use this damage to pressure for instas. Ideally, people have to choose between taking too much damage or stopping the instas. Unprepped damage isn't gonna kill most people 1v1 though.

Kiet

Vivi needs more than just fast prep, though. In fact, vivi doesn't care much about prep speed and cares a lot more about limbs hit/balance recovery. Unless dwb can break more than one limb at a time, vivi is going to be pretty hard. I don't know all their toolset since usually just mashing is enough damage to win, but just saying.

Raeijk

If you are thinking about one of the knight classes like runie, infernal or pally then you have some decent options without having to change your class.

If you don't like that spec then for 100 lessons you can switch spec and pay another 100 lessons to pick up the secondary weapon.

Find what you like or what works for you and then buy artes if you are thinking about a knight.

Antonius

Kiet said:

Vivi needs more than just fast prep, though. In fact, vivi doesn't care much about prep speed and cares a lot more about limbs hit/balance recovery. Unless dwb can break more than one limb at a time, vivi is going to be pretty hard. I don't know all their toolset since usually just mashing is enough damage to win, but just saying.

Each swing of the doublewhirl can target a different limb, so they can resto break two limbs on a single balance. The added threat of whatever the instant kill is called (the name escapes me right now) meaning you may have to prioritise head over legs is an added complication, too. I don't think it's impossible to survive against, but it would definitely be very difficult. Two-handed is the only spec that would be harder to survive against, if you allowed them to stack a horrendous amount of leg and arm fractures.

Kiet

Well there you go!

Taeltwo

Zosajja said:

Hello Achaeans!

After a few years of absence from Imperian, I'm looking to relocate and start afresh here. You could say I "did it all" over there, but I wouldn't, because that would make me sound like my granddad. Anyway! I'm having a fairly tough time deciding what class to play, and to a lesser extent, what org to join. Frankly, I don't really want to spend a lot of time committing suicide with characters and restarting, because from what I've experienced so far, people have been ever so helpful and I feel absolutely horrid when I go and 'poof' on them. So, please, could you offer me your insight so I can make the right choice?

I wouldn't begin with a huge amount of credits initially, but in the mid term I'd be looking at multiple transcendent skills and maybe a few low-tier artifacts.

Most of the classes interest me thematically, but in terms of mechanics I prefer dealing damage, or preparing limb-break strategies rather than being a heavy affliction class. I also enjoy playing classes or specializations that perhaps aren't as popular as others. The classes that appeal to me most are:

1) Infernal using dual blunt weapons.
How viable is this fighting style in pvp?
Would I be looking mainly to go for a vivisect kill or using the finishers in weaponmastery?
How big a budget would I need?

2) Monk focusing mainly on telepathy.
Coming from Imperian where the only real win condition outside of damage was 3xbbt - how viable are scythe kills here?
Ideally I'd like to focus on telepathy usage. Has anyone had success in pvp with using fast EQ rather than fast balance?

3) Blademaster
I've read that brokenstar kills, when set up correctly, work very well against the majority of players here. Is there any viability in stacking strength and using damage as an alternative? 
Is everyone a Blademaster? Thematically I think they must have great appeal.
Are they more scarce in certain orgs more than others?

4) Magi
Again another class that had a near identical Imperian clone. Are they still a damage powerhouse with artifacts?
Do they do enough damage to kill without artifacts?
The fire skills in Artificing look really interesting. Is there a viable kill method there? if so does anyone have a log or example as to how a Magi goes about setting that up?


I'm afraid I'm asking too many questions so I'll cut it here.

Thank you in advance for any help or insight you can offer. I really appreciate it!

For dual blunt I imagine you'd be going for pulp more than vivisect. But presumably you'd want to use the combined threat of both of them and force people to choose what to try to stop. There don't seem to be too many people playing dual blunt knights compared to SnB and 2h.

Telepathy isn't really a skill you can use on its own in 1v1. It's useful to combine with tekura and kaido, and it's definitely strong in group combat, but you can't really 1v1 someone with telepathy. You're still going to be going for breaks. Tekura saw a pretty nice rework lately though, so it might be different (and more interesting!) than what you're used to. Bear in mind though that a lot of area-wide stuff in the game has been changed to line-of-sight - kai choke for instance is no longer area-wide (not sure if anything in telepathy was changed). You might want to have a look at this to see the tekura changes (especially the stances): http://wiki.achaea.com/Tekura

Blademaster is pretty much exactly what you described wanting - damage and limbs. You can throw in a strike and an infusion with each slash too, so you can put out a few afflictions, but the affliction rate is low enough that in most cases you're using them for utility (dismounting people, proning them before impale, making them use focus or insomnia to waste mana, etc.) rather than trying to lock people (not that things like rift locks aren't possible, especially with voidfist - though everyone runs away the instant you try that). Your main kill strategy is to use limb breaks to get an impale and an impaleslash, then impale again and bladetwist until bleeding is high enough to use the brokenstar instakill. BM has very fast limb prepping and breaking, especially with a band. Not many classes can realisticall kill an opponent with anything approaching a clue from damage, but BM can often kill midbies by keeping their legs permanent mangled so they can't run to heal (especially if you have a band and/or high str, though in terms of stats you probably want to focus more on con to offset the squishiness). Downsides are that you're very squishy (Shindo helps a lot if you use it intelligently), have very little out-of-combat utility (you're strictly melee-only), and from what I've heard the class is hard to play at the very highest tier of PvP where people start having artefacts that make mana usage easier to manage (not something I would worry much about, we're talking a handful of people in the entire game). Even without utility or range, they're still one of the stronger classes for group melee with void multislash putting out gigantic burst, impale and hamstring to hold people down, and more. In terms of popularity, relatively few people seem to play it at the moment.

Magi is not really a clone of Imperian magi anymore. Your main kill paths are substantially more afflicty - the new skill, artificing, is a huge part of their combat strategy now and a lot of their stuff revolves around pressuring salve healing. They can also make more active use of vibes now by detonating them for special effects. You should check this out: http://wiki.achaea.com/Artificing

Zosajja

I'm sorry it has taken me this long, but I just wanted to say thank you all for your insights and advice. I very much appreciate it.

I've had some RL things come up to deal with before I can really focus and get started. I haven't quite decided on what class to play, nor what org. I'm trying to find a bit more information about the state of the cities before making a firm choice. I was considering Asthan but I've seen a thread that suggests they're going through a bit of a slump which has kind of put me off. I'm not too familiar with the lore of the other cities, and I am going to want to be somewhere with an active fighting population. Choices, choices!

Kafziel

Antonius said:
Each swing of the doublewhirl can target a different limb, so they can resto break two limbs on a single balance. The added threat of whatever the instant kill is called (the name escapes me right now) meaning you may have to prioritise head over legs is an added complication, too. I don't think it's impossible to survive against, but it would definitely be very difficult. Two-handed is the only spec that would be harder to survive against, if you allowed them to stack a horrendous amount of leg and arm fractures.

I was theorycrafting DWB infernal one time and I couldn't get past the fact that they have no way to meaningfully punish somebody just pre-applying restoration on a loop. Without that or a well-timed tumble I think the pulp/vivi fork would be almost impossible to avoid.

Aerek

DWB Infernal is an Evil that has not yet been properly unleashed upon the world.  It combines the nearly-inevitable-death aspects of DSL Infernal with the kind of damage that only old-school broadsword/battleaxe knights could muster. DWB is not without its drawbacks (easily hindered due to Momentum requirement, no hinder of its own, rebounding more of a problem than most) but it's ability to pursue multiple affliction-based instant kills AND raw damage strageties at the same time make it a supremely terrifying opponent if the DWB'er has done their homework.

Atalkez

I didn't think you could get balance back to Vivi if you quad break before the first restoration finishes than the target can restore?

Aerek

Correct, but that's not the route you'd take.

Aerek

Sorry, not trying to be mysterious, it's just complex and priority dependent. DSL Vivisect is simple and straight forward. DWB Vivisect is not as straight forward, which is why no one's picked it up yet. The simplest setups use a head break before the quad-break, with Gravehands and Expend to stop running/shielding, but like Kafziel pointed out, with proper setup and preparation to combine Vivisect with DWB's other kill options, your victim is stuck between Pulp, Vivisect, or just getting flat damaged out by leg mangle/Engage/Assault torso. You'd have to have perfect priorities, perfect tumble time, and ~5000+ health to soak the very respectable damage just for a prayer at surviving all three. (And it doesn't take long to set that up.)

Am currently DWB, been playing with possibilities. Anyone can PM me if you want to talk about it.

Kiet

Zosajja said:

I'm sorry it has taken me this long, but I just wanted to say thank you all for your insights and advice. I very much appreciate it.

I've had some RL things come up to deal with before I can really focus and get started. I haven't quite decided on what class to play, nor what org. I'm trying to find a bit more information about the state of the cities before making a firm choice. I was considering Asthan but I've seen a thread that suggests they're going through a bit of a slump which has kind of put me off. I'm not too familiar with the lore of the other cities, and I am going to want to be somewhere with an active fighting population. Choices, choices!

If you want an active fighting population, Mhaldor is by far the most militant, followed by probably Targ. Ashtan is probably the most militant when it's active but as you said it's not too active lately. Eleusis mostly defends rather than goes on the offense (unless rangor's online, but then you have to have european timezone). Hashan is 99% defending. Cyrene obviously is neutral and doesn't really fight as a city generally.

Kiet

Yes, I meant to say that Hashan does get a lot of fights, it's just mostly going to be defensive fights.