Pariah tips?

Akhvar

So, I have no idea how Pariah works, but they have by far the coolest theme in the game so Id like to try them!

How do they work? What do they do? What is the point of the crypt, it just seems to be a pure flavor/fun skill line?

What kind of artefacts do they want?

Are they affliction, damage, something else? How do they do in group combat?

Any reason to go anything other than horkval for them?

Can they deal decent damage?

How's the hunting?

Thanks!

Akhvar

Also, hugely important, how much actual coding/scripting do they need? Are they another impossible to play class for us uncoder peasants?

Mizik

Crypt mostly flavor. I'm not sure what in there you need if you're pking.

Artefacts:

A bone and willow handled knife:               350 Credits

 - Increases memorium chain time against denizens by 3 seconds.

A sand-worn bandolier:                    300 Credits

Artefact power: jars_capacity

 - Increases blood jar capacity by 3.

A funereal amphora:                      300 Credits

Artefact power: desert_sorcerer

 - Increased durations for Charnel Eternity and Awaken.

 - Charnel Eternity duration increased by 50%.

 - Charnel Awaken duration increased by 30%.

Otherwise, intelligence is their main offensive stat, increasing their damage resist and damage.

Affliction class that deals magical damage with every attack, boosted per unique aff stuck on the target. The class has its own set of 'plagues' that have their own kill conds, which they can fork while keeping MASSIVE affliction pressure on their opponents. When optimized via scripting, they leave very slim windows for survival in 1v1. Their group utility leaves much to be desired and its potential is largely unexplored or undeveloped - it is a new class. Maybe its group utility needs your ideas from classlead reports.

Horkval has low intelligence.

Pariah damage should be solid enough in a team lock composition where opponents might be curing lock affs over plagues, but 1v1 it is very manageable.

Hunting is squishy but very fast.

Argwin

The biggest benefit of the crypt that I know of is that it stores your tablets that unlock some skills. Not being a pariah I have no idea how useful the tablet skills are though.

Shirszae

The only attack boosted per Plague and that is affected by intelligence is Wrack. From what I could test sting seems pretty static. Also their damage is not that manageable if you don't have sip rings or the like.

Class-specific artefacts provide small boost to utility aspects of the class but are not really required to function, which is something I really love about it.

Honestly unless you have a lot of con, I'd suggest going con over intelligence unless you really like hunting.

Akhvar

So they have good affliction pressure and good damage? It looks like they aren't a total nightmare to code either since they have epitath advance.

I have 1 con 2 sip and 1 regen to help keep me alive. I just don't know if the intelligence of grook is worth losing the con and tankiness of a horkval.

Also crypts just seem entirely useless unless there's a lot i don't know about tablets and the like.

Shirszae

Outside wrack, intelligence mostly only affects hunting in any real fashion from what I could see. As for crypts, their main function is to be a safeish place from which to return to from death as well as a place in which you store tablets.

Right now there's only one tablet worth writing about imo but in time that might change.

Akhvar

Ok so they're like groves for spooky tomb kings. What are the tablets? How do you get them? What attacks do you use to hunt with? Also, am I correct in the assumption that it isn't a total nightmare to code some basic gameplans?

Akhvar

Doesn't intelligence boost your defence too though?

Amranu

Pariah Overview

Pariah is the newest class introduced in Achaea. They are a new affliction class that is themed around the use of blood magic, swarms of insects, plagues, and desert magic.

Afflictions & Abilities

Pariah has two main sources of afflictions

Logographs: Found in memorium, these are used via the TRACE ability to afflict someone with one of several afflictions. These afflictions are among the more common afflictions used by other classes. Unlike other classes, a Pariah is restricted in what they can afflict at any given time by the need to maintain an epitaph,which I will talk about shortly.

Plagues: Found in Pestilence, these are delivered by stinging or infesting using swarms that you build. There are 5 plagues, each of them have different effects but the effects are relatively minor, but are the more important afflictions in the kit by far. The more plagues someone has, the closer the Pariah is to killing them, in general.

Logographs & Tracing

Pariah's offense centers around the idea of tracing logographs. In general when using the TRACE ability, one considers two things:

Epitaphs

Central to how a Pariah attacks in combat is the concept of an epitaph mentioned previously. Epitaphs are built by chaining together logograph traces. such that the logographs "flow together". For instance, a simple logograph chain that continues an epitaph is tracing serpent (paralysis), then next balance tracing skein (impatience), then sun (epilepsy) and finally serpent (paralysis) again. However, one cannot afflict paralysis and then haemophilia without breaking an epitaph chain, since the serpent (paralysis) logograph only flows into the skein (impatience) or nest (weariness) logographs.

Epitaphs do several things:

1. The balance time for traces that maintains an epitaph decreases. You traces start at 2 seconds balance, and have gradually lower balance times until you are down to 1.5 seconds on the 4th trace.
2. For all traces including and after your second that maintains an epitaph, your opponent becomes exposed. This allows you a single use of certain abilities known as "Higher Sorcery" against them without using any balance or equilibrium. You use this to begin, among other things, afflicting plagues.

Because of both of these points, in general a Pariah will want to be maintaining an epitaph for as long as possible, both to keep the decreased balance times and also because exposing your opponent and using higher magics on them is generally how you make progress towards a kill. Below is a picture that provides information on the available logographs and which logographs they flow into, courtesy @Shecks. (Relapsing means Scytherus for Scorpion here)

Heartbeats

Whenever a Pariah traces a logograph, they can choose to delay the delivery of that logograph by 1-5 seconds through the use of the heartbeat ability in Memorium. This is almost always used in the opening of an epitaph when you don't have reduced balance times and your opponent is not yet exposed to push the initial logograph afflictions forward and not lose momentum that would otherwise be completely wasted. It can also, of course, be used for tricks.

Swarms & Plagues

Pariah utilizing swarms of insects which carry plagues they use to afflict their opponent. Swarms are built by enthralling various insects which can sting, burrow, and fly (though not necessarily all three), which they can find in the various areas of Sapience. A Pariah can have many swarms and can afflict each individual swarm with a plague. A Pariah currently may have up to 10 swarms, and each swarm can carry 1 plague. Generally, a Pariah will have 5 swarms which can sting, and 5 swarms which can burrow. Thus for every plague, they will generally have two swarms afflicted with that plague.

Swarms are used in some higher sorcery which are paired with traces after a certain point, and allow afflicting with the following plagues:

• Pyramides: Increases bleeding by 10%, cured by bloodroot/magnesium so long as the opponent isn't paralysed.
• Mycalium: Can extend an opponent's balance time by a few seconds. Cured by goldenseal/plumbum.
• Sandfever: Acts like Impatience and also lowers the opponent's celerity by 1. Cured by goldenseal/plumbum.
• Rebbies: Afflicts with sensitivity whenever an opponent applies a salve. Cured by kelp/aurum.
• Flushings: Makes the opponent bleed when they cure a ginseng affliction that isn't Flushings. Cured by ginseng/ferrum.

Swarms are used by the sting, burrow, infest, latency, and scourge higher sorceries.

Plagues affect the latency, virulence, and scourge higher sorceries.

Higher Sorceries

Pariah utilizes tracing epitaphs to allow them a single use of a higher sorcery balanceless per trace, starting from their second trace.

Basic Higher Sorceries

Pariah makes use of four higher sorceries initially to build plagues on their opponent. Once the opponent is sufficiently debilitated with plagues, the use of other higher sorceries can be used to lead into a kill. The following higher sorceries are initially used to build plagues or otherwise meet conditions for kills:

1. Sting: The chosen swarm afflicts the opponent immediate with the plague it is infected by.
2. Burrow: The chosen swarm burrows into the opponent.
3. Infest: If a swarm is burrowed in an opponent, the swarm becomes unburrowed and the opponent is infested with the plague that swarm was infected by. This infestation manifests in the opponent being afflicted with the plague twice, the first time 6 seconds after infest is used, the second 12 seconds after.
4. Extract: If a swarm is burrowed in an opponent, the swarm becomes unburrowed and the opponent is immediately afflicted with the plague the swarm was infected by, and also given 100 bleed. Can be used to accelerate a Scourge kill, but in general infest is the better option to utilize burrow.

Notably, all of these abilities can be used while prone.

Advanced Higher Sorceries

Once an opponent is sufficiently plague ridden, these higher sorceries can be used, generally though not in all cases to attempt to secure a kill:

1. Virulence: Afflicts with many different afflictions which vary based on which plagues the opponent has. Most often used to secure a lock by afflicting with anorexia/and or slickness as necessary. Can afflict with more than one thing if the proper plagues are available. Can also be used defensively to afflict with the peace affliction provided the proper plagues are afflicted.
2. Scourge: Instantly kills an opponent that has Pyramides, Scytherus, Haemophilia and is bleeding for 200. Generally is used in combination with the scorpion logograph to afflict with scytherus and secure the kill.
3. Latency: Prevents the opponent from curing voyria for 13 seconds. Voyria is generally afflicted with a serpent logograph after a scorpion logograph has been traced, and latency is used either with the scorpion logograph or the serpent logograph.
4. Accelerate: Speeds up the voyria countdown. Used twice after latency and voyria have been afflicted to secure a kill, by ensuring that voyria completes before Latency wears off.

Virulence is complicated, the image below provides information on what it can afflict with provided the corresponding plagues are present, again courtesy @Shecks.

Note that the Sandfever/Mycalium combination smart afflicts dizziness first, then stupidity if dizziness is there, then blackout if they both are. It does not do all three at once.

General Combat Theory

Basic Attack Pattern

A Pariah will generally open a fight through the use of the ability Ensorcell in Memorium. This ability afflicts the opponent with a room hinder that lasts 20 seconds and stays with them regardless of how many rooms they move, and more importantly gives the Pariah their blood which allows them to begin tracing logographs and eventually exposing them.

After grabbing their blood, they will do a single trace of a logograph that is heartbeated, generally followed by a second heartbeated trace the next balance that maintains an epitaph. The opponent will then be exposed, so on their third balance they will generally do either burrow/trace or sting/trace. Afterwards, they may choose to use infest if they burrowed, which will act essentially like heartbeat for a certain plague, or continue stinging plagues with their traces. Note that the Pariah could make use of the opponent being exposed immediately on the second balance to do trace/sting or trace/burrow, but generally a Pariah wants to preserve expose due to it being useful for certain kill paths.

Generally, a Pariah either chooses to rush for a kill by stinging as much as they can on the third trace following and hoping they build enough plagues to use one of advanced higher sorceries.

Kill Paths

Lock

By conserving expose, a pariah can afflict with two higher sorceries on the same balance. This is most often used for virulence, by afflicting a plague with sting, then tracing a logograph, and finally using the newly gained expose to use virulence immediately. In this way an opponent can be quite easily locked. For instance, if the opponent has Pyramides, Flushings, and Rebbies, then the Pariah can sting Sandfever/trace jackal (asthma)/virulence for anorexia and slickness to complete a basic lock on the same balance.

Alternatively, a Pariah can lock through the use of transpose which applies a single venom to the target, while using virulence via expose to give anorexia/slickness on the same balance (i.e. transpose gecko/virulence for anorexia). This particular form of completing lock only requires two plagues and to have the remaining lock afflictions stuck (asthma and impatience/sandfever, weariness if necessary). They can also sting for a plague and virulence without a trace to complete a lock under certain conditions. These latter two methods completely bypass shield, since both sting and virulence do not respect shield, but of course require that you have already stuck asthma, and impatience if you are not using the sting for sandfever.

Scourge

Scourge is an instantkill that can generally be performed once the opponent has Haemophilia, 200 bleeding, and Pyramides. If one has an epitaph 4 or more traces long then the Pariah can conserve expose from the last trace and do trace scorpion/swarm scourge to complete the kill. The bleeding can come from two sources: either the bear logograph, which gives haemophilia and 50 bleeding if the opponent doesn't have haemophilia, or 150 bleeding if they do have haemophilia, or by using two extracts after sticking haemophilia. A trick that Pariahs often make use of is to heartbeat the bear logograph so as to be able to trace bear very quickly once the initial haemophilia and bleed is given, thereby very quickly pressuring scourge. Extract can also be used to pressure scourge, however this reduces their affliction output since they need two extracts to be able to scourge after sticking haemophilia.

Latency & Voyria

Once the opponent has three plagues, latency can be used to prevent voyria from being cured. Again this is generally seen by using expose with latency along with a scorpion trace, followed by a serpent trace to afflict voyria and using the expose from that trace to accelerate the voyria, which then must be followed up by accelerate quickly to secure the kill.

There are several alternatives to this, such as using latency with the serpent logograph after scorpion instead of using it with scorpion, and using latency with transpose to afflict with voyria on the same balance. Note that these are in general weaker than using latency with scorpion since they provide larger windows for defensive measures.

Wrack

The wrack ability in Memorium deals increasing damage based on the number of plagues. One can for instance combo an exposed sting + wrack for considerable damage. However, doing more than one wrack in a row stops your epitaph. In general, damage kills are viable against people with lower level arties considering your Basic Higher Sorceries to deal some damage, enough to outpace lesser artied opponents. The damage is not increased by Intelligence.

Combat in Practice

Pariahs generally burst afflictions using heartbeat and possibly infest, this can lull a naive opponent into a false sense of security, as they initially have very few afflictions but become overloaded as the heartbeats/infests land. Generally a good Pariah will switch up when they use infest or sting to play mind games with their opponent. Choosing if and when to use ensorcell is also important, since the ability resets any epitaph.

Pariah's main advantage in combat is it's overwhelming offense. While Pariah has some defensive options, notably a passive affliction cure in the leech logograph and an entangle cancel in Reconstitute, it has very little ability to defend itself once it is on the back foot. This becomes especially problematic if the Pariah becomes hindered long enough to stop an epitaph, as they lose the benefits that have accrued and must start from the beginning. Pariah thus is very scary to face, given that an opponent needs to react quickly to a large burst of afflictions and go on the defensive, or have a very strong hinder as part of their offense.

In general, Pariah's offense has two main weaknesses that an opponent can exploit defensively:

• Since Ensorcell only lasts 20 seconds and ends an epitaph, the opponent can run away once ensorcell fades. Pariahs can choose to forego Ensorcell to maintain affliction pressure, but again the opponent is otherwise free to walk away. Sandfever, which reduces an opponent's celerity by 1, rarely is effective due to it being top priority for opponents to cure.
• Pariah's shield break is relatively weak. This means that if an opponent shield spams (and one cannot complete the lock on the first shield), that opponent is effectively unkillable for the Pariah. Of course, they also aren't putting any pressure on the Pariah, so that's nice.

Generally, good opponents will start shielding after the Pariah attacks several times if ensorcell is up, until ensorcell fades. At that point, the Pariah can choose to Ensorcell, which will give the opponent time to begin pressuring the Pariah, or forego ensorcell, at which point the opponent may leave to reset the fight. Pariah has little choice during shield spam but to continue afflicting. Infest and heartbeat can be used to attempt to burst pass the shield, but these are generally not effective. In order to kill an opponent, they generally have to be fighting back. Still, because of Pariah's burst offense, kills can be secured very quickly and with little warning.

Amranu

Charnel & Crypts

Charnel provides a bunch of bonuses for Pariahs that are by no means necessary for basic combat. Crypts provide a house for Pariahs to hide out in, a place to store tablets that are used in rituals that vary from covering an area in sand to providing additional passive heals and afflictions for the Pariah. It also provides many of its defensive abilities, some of which I have mentioned previously. Largely though, you get a nice house you can chill in. Other Pariahs may attempt to plunder your crypt in search of tablets, though.

Pariah Artefacts and Optimal Races

Generally, none of the Pariah specific artefacts are needed for anything. They are just convenience. However, Pariah has a lack of defensive options available, thus sip bonuses, health increases and stat increases (especially Intelligence and Constitution) are very useful for it. In group combat, one might wish to have a lyre as well.

In terms of race, Pariah utilizes Intelligence defensively for blunt/cutting resist since it does not have armour. Thus Grook and Tsol'aa are useful races. Horkval can also be chosen as an alternative due to its racial bonus.

Final Comments

I hope this overview has been relatively useful. I know that I didn't really touch on for instance coding burden. Personally I have a relatively complex setup for my Pariah, but there are tools available to make Pariah viable to play without much coding knowledge. Specifically, when you are attacking you can setup an epitaph and not have to worry about choosing individual logographs through the epitaph ability. Thus you need only choose the higher sorceries and plagues that you are going to afflict any given balance. The class is fun and the theme is really cool. Pariah has been a really fun class to play personally, and I'd be happy to see more taking it up.

Akhvar

Wow, thanks! @Amranu! That is hugely helpful. I don't know that I could be any good at it but I definitely want to try it. What do they do in group situations?

Amranu

Pariah have two main roles in group combat: Support, or Damage.

First, for Support, Pariah has the ability to give everyone a passive cure with the leech logograph in Memorium. In addition, the Wave ability in Charnel provides the ability to push people out of room, which can be used to separate enemy groups.

Damage wise, sting/wrack is your main option. It is quite good but has wind up, since you need to trace twice to use it.

Pariahs can also single targets out with Wave and 1v1 them, potentially bursting them down quickly or just removing them from the fight as well. In this sense they can kind of act like an assassin character from League of Legends. This is especially true when you utilize one of the tablets available, but I won't comment on that much further.

Argwin

Holy poop @Amranu, talk about a pretty comprehensive answer! Care to write up any other classes? Runewarden or depthswalker perhaps :P

Shirszae

That's an awesome guide. I'll point out, though, it feels like wrack definitely scales with intelligence, even if only minimally.

Archaeon

pariah sucks

Shecks

@Shirszae Wrack scales with Int as well as Collar. I was able to get some pretty serious DPS out of it (albeit not compared to the illustrious Mind Crush or pretty much anything a BM or Shikudo monk does) with maxed out Int and L3 collar. This is PvP - never tested on PvE but it seems reasonable to assume it would also benefit this.

*everything here was tested within first few weeks, so disclaimer that I don't know if things have changed since then.

While I think the concepts as well as the theme of Pariah are absolutely incredible, I still think the class doesn't stand up even close to other affliction classes, and it has some pretty massive weaknesses where there really are no trade-offs offensively to make it worth it. IMO predominately "Support" classes shouldn't exist in Achaea (a sentiment that appears to align with IRE's design choices), so calling a class a "support" class to me basically translates to "a bad class".

I think there are only really two reasons anyone dies to a Pariah:

1) It's super spammy and very hard to read what's going on purely due to the complex and spammy nature of the class. If you don't have highlights on all the delayed affs you aren't going to have a clue what's going on.

2) It is incredibly obscure both as a new class and also as a class that almost nobody plays, which leads to a huge number of easily avoidable deaths purely due to people not knowing what to do.

Do I personally die to Pariahs? Yeah, sometimes I do (well just Amranu). Why? Because I can completely skip all of the prio swapping and defensive logic I need to both study and add into my system by simply not dueling the one single active Pariah player capable of killing me before he's locked. And even then, pretty sure I could just shield spam my way out of any 1v1 and be just fine.

Another point is that Pariahs cannot wield any weapons, which includes bows - meaning they lack direct access to venoms, Throwing, limb damage and limb breaks, and Bows (no Shoot, no Meteors). The class has zero LoS or ranged attack aside, which makes it a complete sitting duck in at least part of most raids (or in some raids, the entire engagement).

And lastly, despite what some people are going to tell you, getting the most of of the class requires not just coding, but relatively difficult/complex coding. You can play the class without scripting of course, you're just going to be crippled. I've seen people claim this isn't true, but I've also seem them play the class and it's clear they're sticking to a short list of pre-defined combos and any deviation from that shuts them down. To play Pariah exceptionally well (which means still not as scary as a decent Shaman, Serpent, Occultist, or Apostate), you need to be able to make split-second complex decisions from a huge range of options very rapidly, without any delay between balances. It can't be done (right) without scripting these decisions (which also requires a very good affliction tracker, which the vast majority of players do not have access to).

I still maintain that death sickness and Dust are both awesome concepts but the delivery was really, really bad on both, which is why to this day I've yet to see either of them used in any serious way since the class has been released.

After the long wait for world-shattering tablets, I was a little let down on this too. Tons of waiting, tons of effort, tons of steps taken to protect and conserve them - all to give you access to lackluster utility abilities that other classes can use all the time whenever they want (none of which are particularly strong anyways). Could have done so much more with this.

I think one of the interesting ironies of the class is that it requires excellent knowledge of combat theory as well as excellent scripting skill - so we're talking about the high end of the playerbase - and yet the class doesn't really benefit from general artefacts much and has no significant class-specific combat-related artefacts either. That's a bit of a paradox, purely from a "who is really going to play this class seriously" perspective. Really feels like the only people who'd do it would be the people who absolutely love the combat theory / math / scripting involved, which is why @Amranu loves it.

tl;dr the class is cool but has a ton of problems. Not being salty at all, but I would easily slot it as the worst pvp class in the game, and pretty lackluster at pve too.

Shirszae

I can beat every single active Pariah by din of not fighting them. Hence the class sucks.

Thats some next level logic. 🤔

Kog

Spoiler Warning

Why is there a character limit? A picture is worth 1000 words.

Cooper

I can beat every single active Pariah by din of not fighting them. Hence the class sucks.

Are there any other classes this new strategy would work against?

Shirszae

It probably works on every class so long as you can get away reliably every time. 😆

Rip quotes, though. Gone but not forgotten

Argwin

Finally! My pvp strategy is being recognized!

Dynos

Wow just wanted to say, one of the best, most comprehensive write ups on a class I've seen! @Amranu bravo and much appreciated! Also a thanks to @Shecks for the figures to aid in explaining. 10/10! almost makes me want to give Pariah a try.

Sadly, class slot 3 and up are so much to trans and I don't wanna drop 1 and 2 :'(

Shirszae

On a different subject, I've always found this layout, also made by @Shecks, to be easier to follow

Gallida

Wrack scales ridiculously well with arties if you have all five plagues on the target: 19 int and collar means just under 50% of health against a dragon with all five plagues.

PvE, Pariah is definitely above average and not too bad for Bashing-on-a-Budget since everything scales off Memorium. You only need to touch Charnel to get your faster writhe and don't need any lessons in Pestilence at all.

Amranu

Hadn't tested that. Interesting, that's why my wrack destroys people.

Taryius

No one's mentioned that Pariah's armour equivalent (shield logograph) scales with int. Its a pretty useful stat for the class.

Shirszae

The scaling seems minimal outside of pve though. But admittedly I might have been testing that thr wrong way.

Shecks

@Taryius Amranu did mention it , but it doesn't hurt to emphasize that. It got buffed twice and still doesn't do much in PvE, though.

Akhvar

I think I might have better luck as a depthswalker than a pariah. It seems like depthswalker would probably be a lot easier for someone with limited coding like myself? How do depthswalkers do for damage and group combat? I much prefer raiding to dueling.

Shecks

DW is insanely good at group combat and above average in 1v1. Astarod is one of the better DW players and he is 100% full manual, and even plays on the web client with almost no scripting whatsoever.

Personally as a person who has played both classes quite a bit (and every other class other than Apostate) I would say that even if you go through the excruciating pain of mastering Pariah (which includes probably hundreds of hours of coding and testing) you will still lose to a good DW using the same handful of aliases.

DW also has a massive amount of utility and group combat mechanics that are extremely vital in virtually every raid you will ever be in, which is the polar opposite of Pariah.

I'm not even being biased, just go look at any raid ever - you'll see a ton of DWs and you will see zero Pariahs.