Apostates

Eolan

I was wondering what the current status of apostates were? How do they fair in 1v1. I haven't seen many combatants fighting as apostate. Group utility is great I've seen but I haven't seen them really shine in 1v1. How is their bashing as well? What artifacts should I focus on getting.

Alrena

Apostates are very strong in 1v1, having some of the scariest momentum in the game. Some classes are a bit harder to fight than others, naturally. You have high survivability, good hindering in the form of gravehands and afflictions at will. The main goal for Apostates is to lock their opponent, meaning getting them afflicted to the point they can't cure anymore or flee, then there's a lot of ways to kill them depending on urgency and style points.

The bashing isn't too bad if you're constitution build and patient, with the survivability Apostate has. Not sure how the evileye bleed changes did, so maybe you'll need to find that out yourself. 

As for arties, Apostate is one of the few classes that can shine without any artefacts at all, as none really help their offense. Instead, go for constitution artefacts, sip rings, maybe a shield of absorption if you can afford it.

I'm a bit on a vacation of sorts now, so I'm pretty sparse for another week or so, but poke me in game and I can show you the basic things (assuming you are Mhaldorian).

Mishgul

If you have a lot of arties, apostates have ridiculous damage and mana draining potential as well. Mana drain apostate (with diadem) is a lot harder to fight than an apostate trying to lock you, though easier to avoid, but for most classes it would be impossible to have an offense against a mana drain apostate without a lvl 2 mana sip ring (which is rare for anyone to have).

With arties (and a fair amount of them) and a high intelligence, apostates probably have one of the highest damage outputs in the game due to meteor, deathaura, daegger hunt, fiend, belch, taint (with diadem).

Without arties, apostates are a great aff class, but good curing and overly defensive fighting (i.e. fighting against jesters/shamans) can be a problem. The last few fights that I won against opponents that people considered good (Tirac, Xer, Hasar) I killed through damage and mana drain as they were too smart to let me lock them. Tirac was a dual cutting infernal, Xer was an Apostate (and a shaman before that), and Hasar was Magi at those times.

I tend to lose against serpents if I have mindseye up (but I go for locks against serpents, as pinning them down for unhindered damage or mana drain is hard when they can evade), and monks usually die to damage, as they can hinder too well whilst being hindered for afflictions, and they can mana drain your mana drain.

Classes outside those I tend to try lock within gravehands.

Overall it is just a great class. I love it. So hard to enjoy playing as any other class. It requires a little patience though.