Artifact-light classes for PvP

Teletha

Hi guys! I figured I'd start another thread instead, as some of the others were either very old or not as open-ended as this one hopes to be.

As soon as I can finish deciding between Achaea and Aetolia, I want to plunge fully into the game and start getting involved in it. There are many thematic options I like (the zealous good guys, the evil guys, the art-loving Cyrenians) so none of those are a huge deciding factor in what character I'll play yet. What I was hoping will help me make up my mind is a list of classes that might suit me. I was wondering which classes for the different cities/factions might be good considering these criteria:

• Relatively noob-friendly
• Makes hunting less painful (it is by far my least favorite part of the game. ugh.) Alternatively...
• Good for hunting in groups (if that's even a thing)
• Not reliant on artifacts for PvP (and to a lesser extent hunting)
  
• Easy to contribute in group PvP as a lowbie (level 70ish?) with no arties.
• I do plan to buy the two lesson packages, which will get me close to duo trans I believe? So effective without tritrans+avoidance.

If this doesn't narrow down the list much, just a simple "top 3" for 1v1 and group combat per faction would be nice too.

Thank you so much for your input! I imagine I'll have some questions about the classes after I get some responses. I've been reading the wiki descriptions (the achaea.com classes directory is bugged and not opening for me) for classes, but it doesn't really compare to experienced input from people who actually play them. 

Nazihk

Runewarden. 

Fantastic bashing. Lots of tankiness without artifacts. Awesome group utility and combat potential. 4 different specs to choose from, so lots of options, and 2 of those specs don't require complicated afflicting.

Teletha

Thanks! Any others close to the Runewarden, or is it just that much ahead of the rest given my criteria? I'd prefer to consider a few options.

(Also, off-topic but simple enough to not merit its own thread: is Obliterate no longer a Puppetry skill? It used to be one of my favorite death descriptions.)

Taryius

Runewarden will be king of hunting, you can contribute a lot with runelore in groups though the upkeep gets fairly expensive (The gold can be easily hunted back though)

If you want to get into 1v1 combat, or more advanced combat you'll have to spec strength as a runie which puts you on a kinda squishy boundry (You'll have low health but really good armor)

Other than that, the class is pretty artie free except for the Dual Cutting spec which isn't very good without lv 1 scimitars, everything else though.
Two Handed is AMAZING hunting, super fast I love it. And super easy to get into combat wise (strategies are simple, but effective)
DwB is alright hunting, its simple in design but kinda hard to pull off though it has ludicrous damage, you'll kill so many people in groups and stomp a lot of people in 1v1.
SnB is.. Can't say much on difficulty, but it looks pretty strong. 

Shaman is really good unartied, they can spec con with no drawback you'll be a little squishy in PvP but super tanky when hunting. The combat behind it can be difficult, affliction combat is pretty hard to step right into but you have so many options and a lot of use in groups.

Apostate is similar to Shaman but faction exclusive (Mhaldor), even more useful in groups. Can't say much on the hunting and 1v1.

Alchemist is -also- similar to the last two. No need for arties, can go con for tankiness. They kinda suck in groups, but they're 1v1 is super nasty if you get into it.

I can't speak much for other factional classes.. Or other classes in general. So I'd ask others if you're curious about something specific but a lot of the stuff in achaea can be done completely unartied. And it makes so much sweeter when you succeed.

Ehene

Bard is great for group PvP support with Harmonics. If you can learn to properly utilise Voicecraft with venoms, you can easily afflict two afflictions at once. Bard is newbie friendly in the sense that you just jab stuff for hunting. Accuracy sucks at first, but improves as you learn Swashbuckling.

Solo hunting as a bard can be boring, but I think solo hunting is boring in most regards so I'm a bit biased. For group hunting, if you're set in a room with a bunch of mobs you can set up harmonics to give your allies benefits like faster balance/eq recovery, health/mana regen, periodic aff removal, and periodically changing resistance to different damage types.

For PvP, bard is a lock class. I'm terrible at it, but some people figure it out more easily. Although having artie rapier/SoA is a godsend, I don't think they're necessary for adventurer combat. I did a fair bit of arena sparring without them, and I won a few of them. YMMV

Also, bard isn't factional, so you can join any city you want.

Farrah

Depthswalker.

Dochitha

Unartied hunting:
Runewarden, cos full plates and runes
Alchemist, cos dot rage, enhancement, extispicy, mercury, sulphur, endorphin. 
Basically, unartied, any class that allows you to con spec or give good armor and defenses are good. 

Unartied PvP:
Alchemist
Shaman
Apostate

Group PvP

I am Cyrene so as long as you hit bashing key you are good group PvP. 

Anedhel

Apostate's pretty hardcore, and while you benefit from arties, you can do super super well without. Putrefaction and all that nonsense gives you really decent tankiness, and Apostate's offence doesn't rely on artefacts for speed or damage, as far as I know, which is pretty great! Not sure how rough the willpower drain is on Apostate's main bashing attack, but I suspect that might be its only real 'nuisance' area. It's a pretty well-rounded class, to be honest. 

ETA: Paladin also works really well, without arties! Both the Sword-and-Shield and Dual-Blunt specializations are good fighters and can contribute early and effectively in groups. Sword-and-Shield hunting is a bit supbar (the damage is not the greatest), but Dual-Blunt is pretty great. Paladin's battlerage, in my opinion, is the best in Achaea, since it gives you the ability to heal yourself and both completely heal another person -and- block damage to them for a few seconds, as well as one semi-hurty that's cheap, and a very hurty attack that's expensive (and hits three times). Being able to use bows and Rites in group combat's pretty great, and anything that can either give two venoms at once pretty fast or break limbs pretty fast is a total nuisance in group melees, so that's a very strong option, as well! +2 strength and +1 constitution is lovely for bashing, fullplate's pretty stellar, and you can always get runes from someone else!

Kalila

I'm very curious why no one has said Blademaster so far.

There's literally nothing you can't do as a Blademaster with no artefacts, that you can with them. All they do is lower your margin for error. Save fighting very high-end artefacted people, where you might struggle, but that's another issue entirely.

All Kalila has is a level 2 band, and a ring of flying, and I've thought of trading in the band, because it really doesn't do all that much, and I'd rather have a drinking horn of some fancy rum or something, right?

Shaman, Apostate, Alchemist, Jester also seems like great classes, if you don't want a class that relies on artefacts, but I'd -definitely- add Blademaster to that. You don't even need to be tri-transed either, to make it work, actually not even dual-trans.

It's about as cheap and neat as can be. You won't have problems with endurance or willpower either, not even hunting. I had inept fitness still when I was level 95, and during that I ran out what - thrice?

Good luck with your choice!

Dalran

Tune warden/ depthswalker are my two favorite unartied classes. Tune warden is a class that has aff potential as well as limb prep, which lets you start off at pk with some of the easier concepts and allows you to ease into the harder concepts. As a depthswalker though you'd be jumping right into some of the harder concepts (aff stacking, pressuring multiple routes at once, locks). Now some people might understand what I called harder concepts easier than the one I said is an easier concept, it's all relative to the person of course just in general I find most people more confused about aff routes more so than limb prep 

pve-wise I'd say runewarden reigns supreme unartied.

edit: tune warden = runewarden, thanks iphone

oh as for the other questions, runewarden is easier to be influential in groups, but depthswalker is just as deadly, just a bit harder to use in groups and lacks a good damage LoS ability,

I'd also say for runie and depthswalker having all 3 class skills is pretty important. Depthswalker you might be able to get away with not transing terminus but you'll definitely notice the difference once you finally do trans it. For runie maybe you can get away with spreading your lessons out between the 3 skills and getting some of the more important abilities in those skills without transing them. 

Armali

@Kalila band and strength enable mangle locks on higher health targets. Believe me, if I had a level 2-3 band, I wouldn't even bother going for brokenstar, I'd just manglelock/ice damage people out, because the health threshold goes up to like 6k or something silly.

Kalila

Armali said:

@Kalila band and strength enable mangle locks on higher health targets. Believe me, if I had a level 2-3 band, I wouldn't even bother going for brokenstar, I'd just manglelock/ice damage people out, because the health threshold goes up to like 6k or something silly.

Oh, I know. It's just.. Well to me, not the most interesting tactic right? You can also do the same with breaks in arash with ice then ice/balanceslash/sternum for some quick burst damage, and end with a multislash, helps you extend slightly on those targets that are outside of your mangle range.

You can also still do locks/brokenstar on people, except very highly artied, (Robes, level 3 mana regen, mana sip) without a band, so it seems like a pretty solid class to do unartied.

And doing the same thing over and over, isn't really that fun, gotta switch it up

Nazihk

I feel like Runewarden is one of the strongest classes on a budget, because so much of their offense is tied up in Weaponmastery. 

Where Depthswalker has a lot of power tied up in Aeonics and Terminus and Shadowmancy, the core of the Runewarden offense is in Weaponmastery. 

Kenway

Nazihk said:

I feel like Runewarden is one of the strongest classes on a budget, because so much of their offense is tied up in Weaponmastery. 

Where Depthswalker has a lot of power tied up in Aeonics and Terminus and Shadowmancy, the core of the Runewarden offense is in Weaponmastery. 

Except that disembowel is trans chivalry so unless you're DwB, still at least dual-trans.

Farrah

Kenway said:

Nazihk said:

I feel like Runewarden is one of the strongest classes on a budget, because so much of their offense is tied up in Weaponmastery. 

Where Depthswalker has a lot of power tied up in Aeonics and Terminus and Shadowmancy, the core of the Runewarden offense is in Weaponmastery. 

Except that disembowel is trans chivalry so unless you're DwB, still at least dual-trans.

Disembowel is in Weaponmastery. Though, Fury is (trans?) Chivalry, and might be important for actually securing the disembowel kill unartied.

I think Depthswalker is pretty solid with just Shadowmancy probably, though. At least as solid as Runewarden is with just Weaponmastery.

Shirszae

I don't know. Timeloop is pretty far down in Aeonics.

Farrah

Shirszae said:

I don't know. Timeloop is pretty far down in Aeonics.

Timeloop is good, but not essential.

I'm not actually sure if a runewarden could 1v1 kill anyone decent without fury, runeblade, and thurisaz. The damage pressure isn't there, and neither is DSB even close to an insta.

Dochitha

Can agree with @kalila BM can kill pretty well even against robes, L3 regen, sip. Without torso. Kalila did that. If she isn't that squishy!

Mathilda

Kalila's definitely good at utilizing all the little things of BM. The only thing that gets her is that she's squishy and can randomly explode from a good series of hugalaz procs. 

Kalila

Damage hurts

Teletha

I love how much of a discussion this has generated! I've narrowed down my choices significantly thanks to everybody's input.

I've decided against Runewarden, or any of the knight classes for that matter. The Chivalry skill simply doesn't sound appealing to me after reading about every skill from every class extensively.

Currently stuck deciding between Jester, Shaman, Apostate, and Depthswalker. All their skillsets sound awesome and I love how much personality they all seem to have. The puppets on Jester and Shaman are super appealing (RIP Obliterate though, you will be missed), though Tarot and Spiritlore significantly less so. Everything about Apostates sounds amazing, but I'm not sure if I want to join Mhaldor (the whole "tough love" thing might be hard on a newbie). Depthswalkers sound super legit, but I'm not sure if their theme feels to galactic for me. Demons > Timey-wimey stuff for me.

Apparently I'd be best suited with Con focus on whatever I pick. Could I get a quick tip on what other stats are more important for those four classes I mentioned above? It might affect my choice of race, though I'm likely to pick Human or Atavian just because I like their looks and I'd prefer to RP a relatively normal-looking person.

Thanks so much again, everybody. I love this community already.

Taryius

Believe it or not most Mhaldorians love helping newcomers, join the Legates and I'll help with anything I can!

Mhaldor is also home to a lot of good combatants who don't mind helping, but the roleplay is pretty unique and I understand not everyone likes it. 

I'd talk to some Mhaldorians if you're curious on the ideals, and how your trip through the city would be!

Farrah

I'd play Depthswalker, Apostate, Shaman, and Jester all as con spec. They don't really need other stats.

Intelligence is worth mentioning for Apostate, and maybe Strength for Depthswalker. But neither is vital at all, even at the top tier.

Dieg

OP here. Ended up going with the Apostate. Looking forward to getting my butt handed to me getting into PvP as soon as I can wrap my head around the game basics again and earning enough levels to be relevant. 

Lucianus

When peeps tell a person they don't need any arties for Runewarden to do well in pvp and that person goes 11 str with a player-forged bastard sword.

Leviticus

Kalila said:

I'm very curious why no one has said Blademaster so far.

There's literally nothing you can't do as a Blademaster with no artefacts, that you can with them. All they do is lower your margin for error. Save fighting very high-end artefacted people, where you might struggle, but that's another issue entirely.

All Kalila has is a level 2 band, and a ring of flying, and I've thought of trading in the band, because it really doesn't do all that much, and I'd rather have a drinking horn of some fancy rum or something, right?

Shaman, Apostate, Alchemist, Jester also seems like great classes, if you don't want a class that relies on artefacts, but I'd -definitely- add Blademaster to that. You don't even need to be tri-transed either, to make it work, actually not even dual-trans.

It's about as cheap and neat as can be. You won't have problems with endurance or willpower either, not even hunting. I had inept fitness still when I was level 95, and during that I ran out what - thrice?

Good luck with your choice!

Because BM's limb damage is sooooo jacked up. It makes everyone cry and shake their heads. Been trying to change it for awhile. Mark my words, as soon as they change the limb damage equation to something easier to understand everyone will pick up BM because of it's potential.

Atalkez

The limb damage isn't that bad though with practice, same as anything else.

Kenway

It is annoying as hell though.

Kalila

I tested with Kenway the other day, and 100% his breakpoints were different in the arena compared to outside.

I don't even know.

Leviticus

Kalila said:

I tested with Kenway the other day, and 100% his breakpoints were different in the arena compared to outside.

I don't even know.

I did the same thing. It drives me nuts. Going back Monk.

Dochitha

Kalila said:

I tested with Kenway the other day, and 100% his breakpoints were different in the arena compared to outside.

I don't even know.

And my left leg and right leg have different break points too. LOL