I don't care about being shameless... Here's my query.

Willandorf

As a Retiree from other IRE games, I plan to load up on artifacts. Nothing new there.

However, I'd like to choose a class that will benefit from this the most and allow me to lean on the artifacts until my personal skill level rises to match the power the artifacts grant me.

What classes do you think suit this idea the most?

Classes that really interest me: Occultist, Monk, Mage, Alchemist, Blademaster.

Sobriquet

How many Credits do you have to spend?

Rohai

I'd suggest monk. I know next to nothing about teh PK but manage to be mildly useful in group fights just by being a monk with a moderate amount of artes (L2 knuckles, L2 health artes, L1 int sash). Basic monk combat is pretty straightforward: break their limbs and finish them off with the ensuing lol damage. More knowledgable and skilled monks have more interesting strategies available to them through telepathy if they want, but you don't ever really need to learn how to pull off mind scythe or anything just to get by as a scrub monk.

As a monk you also have access to a lot of good survivability skills like Kai heal, vitality, transmute, cripple, and mind throw, all of which can help you get out of sticky situations pretty effectively.

It's overall a good beginner class and benefits hugely from artefacts, so that'd be my suggestion.

Lucianus

Monks got the best artie scaling out of all the classes in my opinion. They seem to benefit from everything. Stats arties, equil gems... the list can go on.

Israyhl

Of the classes you listed, you have limb classes and affliction classes.

Limb classes: Monk, Mage, Blademaster

Affliction classes: Occultist, Alchemist

Affliction rate doesn't scale very far with artefacts, as you mostly pick up faster eq, and then just survive while you work on your skill. Especially with those two classes, as neither use weapons, have a way to 'buff' their afflictions apart from that singular artefact in terms of offense. You can do a lot to increase your survivability, which in turn would help your offense since you won't fall over immediately. 

For the limb classes you listed, monk gets the most benefit out of a ton of arties by far. With knuckles, you can break a leg or two, sweep them down, and axekick them into oblivion (or BBT). BM and Mage are both in good spots, but if you're looking for bang = buck, I'd agree that Monk has the best scale. 

Austere

How many credits you want to spend is really going to weigh heavily into optimal class choices.  In the end though, there really is no bad choice. Everyone benefits from artefacts differently and unless you have 50,000 credits,  there is going to be some give and take. 

Willandorf

Sobriquet said:

How many Credits do you have to spend?

Minimum 15,000 credits.

Appreciate the posts so far. Hrmmm.

Israyhl

With 15,000 (if you plan to invest it all in artefacts) You can deck out about every class. What I did when I made my retiree is I looked at all the classes I wanted. Then I went to the website, went to the Help Files section and opened up all the artefact pages in tabs. I then compiled a list of everything I wanted with costs. Compared those costs with where I wanted to be, how much I had to spend, and made a choice that fit in my budget and what I wanted to play. 

Cooper

I will definitely suggestion making an unartefacted character and playing it for a week or two before deciding where your retirement credits go. We've seen a lot of people come to Achaea via retirement, start up in a class or faction, and not like where they are. Lots of wasted credits from class changes, and some of them have actually retired again.

Austere

Cooper said:

I will definitely suggestion making an unartefacted character and playing it for a week or two before deciding where your retirement credits go. We've seen a lot of people come to Achaea via retirement, start up in a class or faction, and not like where they are. Lots of wasted credits from class changes, and some of them have actually retired again.

This so much.  You don't need arties to have fun.  Find something fun,  then boost it.

Antonius

@Israyhl Occultist affliction rate scales with intelligence.

Willandorf

Can Occultist not do stupid damage?  One would think with an Int mog, Int artifacts, collar and EQ bonus that someone could easily cheese someone down with Warps/Star and Demon pressure. Then there's Truename on top of that.

Antonius

Definitely an option if you want to go that route, especially against lesser or unartied opponents.

Exelethril

I'd recommend monk :

• Easy-ish if you have an accurate limbcounter and know what you're doing
• Artefacts make their kill setups almost 100% guaranteed
• Insanely fast prep and strong defensively

Willandorf

Seems like there's a lot of bleeding between Monk and Occultist in terms of artifact usefulness. Is Multiclass a thing yet? Because why not get both classes? Everyone benefits from Defensive artifacts, and both classes benefit from the Int/Collar/EQ arties. Seems like the only difference would be Knuckles/Str artifact. True?

Austere

Willandorf said:

 Seems like the only difference would be Knuckles/Str artifact. True?

If you want max toys,  4200 credits is a big difference. . Monk is probably the most expensive class to artie out though.  15000 isn't going to cover everything an aspiring monk could want.  7000 cr just in stat arties and even at that point, bashing probably sucks. 

Omor

Also you're forgetting about cr for lesson investment. Just class skills is 868cr not including leveling/daily lessons/cr or those newbie pack things. Then all the other skills (philosophy, for instance, is necessary for monk, due to transmute wp cost). So I'd guess using just the retirement cr, at least 1k of those would go to lessons.
(And yes, bashing still sucks for monk. Not as bad as BM, but probably next worst.)

Willandorf

Lesson investment is completely separate. I'm also probably going to supplement the retirement credits with a purchase. 15k was a ballpark, and I have more than that. 

I appreciate all the advice you all have given. Thank you very much.

If anyone else can think of something that hasn't been posted though, I'd still like to hear it. 

Thanks again, all.

Rom

Two classes that weren't on your list but do fit your criteria:
Runewarden (2 handed specialization in particular) and Sylvan
Both have immense damage benefits from artefacts and can destroy people with relative ease in that case.
Sylvan is factional to Eleusis, but Runewarden can be played anywhere. Both are also very good overall classes, and Runewarden has the added benefit of being able to change weapon specializations (for 100 lessons, or the artefact that lets you switch regularly) which makes it almost 4 classes in one.

Farrah

Monk and Occultist are best with arties of what you listed. Sylvan's monstrous with arties too.