How does occultist work?

Akhvar

Hi, so, trying to get a friend back into the game and he really only cares about occultists because cthulu, so I have some questions.

How strong are occultists? How difficult are they to code for? How do they fare 1v1 and in groups? Can they pump out damage? What artefacts do they need offensively? How active is Ashtan lately in terms of raiding and or Babel's order?

Saonji

Achaea Chaos is... Significantly different from Lovecraftian sort. If "Cthulu" is why, then Lusternia would be the game, not Achaea.

Occultists are decent. Some people will overexaggerate how strong it is, without having ever touched the class themselves. PvE is still lacking a lot.

Much like everything in Achaea, Occultist does just fine with 0 coding.

1v1 they're decent. Groups they're better.

No, they're not really a damage class. They can do a decent amount in groups (as can most classes), but you need artifacts, and the aff support is 300x better anyway.

Diadem for artifacts. If you're serious about fighting with Occultist, you absolutely need a platinum whistle. Even after its recent changes I still can't recommend Occultist to anybody who doesn't have one. And good luck since it's an extremely limited (and very, very expensive) artifact to acquire (also not obtainable with renown, because $$$$$).

I don't think Ashtan is incredibly active with raiding lately. It ebbs and flows.

Babel's order is practically dead. The God hasn't been active in a couple years now, and I don't think any high-ranked members are active either. Or active enough to give the order life, at the very least. It's also one of the hardest orders to actually get into, I wouldn't put much focus into it as a new/returning player.

Pandora

While Achaean lore doesn't quite have literal Great Old Ones, I would say that the lore behind Chaos and the Occultists has some very strong cosmic horror inspiration, up to and including monstrous beings that are not very well understood and can drive people to madness. I am not commenting on whether Lusternia does that more or less, but just that it's not entirely absent in Achaea, either. Some of those horror elements are more or less hidden from characters depending on various factors.

Archaeon

Occie is super OP. Pandora was playing as occie once and enlightened me in 1 balance. OP.

Akri

Occultist is pretty strong in terms of 1v1 and raids. The killpath isn't terribly complex either, so you can indeed be fine without coding. There's some damage options, but I'd say a more appealing part of the class is the incredible utility in Tarot, and several methods to escape with some preparation. It can be very hard to kill a well-prepared occultist.

Artefact wise, you'll want a diadem for sure. I am playing occultist without a platinum whistle, and while that would absolutely be helpful, it should honestly not be needed for this class. The leadrope will mitigate it a bit, but primebonded minions should honestly not run off on their own without being told anyway. In groups especially this can be needlessly obnoxious. Still, it's doable to play without the platinum whistle, but it really is a massive convenience/advantage if you do get your hands on it that really shouldn't exist as a hard-to-get, expensive item.

Lastly, every time you're about to kill someone, you make the whole game aware of it as they shout across the game that they can't believe how badass you are. If that's not a reason to go Occultist, I really don't know what is.

I agree with Saonji's post for the rest.

Shecks

I don't think you need any arties other than diadem or any coding to become one of the strongest fighters in the game. You don't even need much talent tbh, relatively speaking. I don't, however, think you need platinum whistle. It's extremely convenient but it's not necessary to win fights in 1v1 or raids, it's just really handy.

If it were me starting a char right now my only concern would be is that at the moment it's dramatically overpowered and nerfs are definitely coming. It's entirely possible for it to get nerfed heavily and still be dramatically overpowered though, so don't let that change your mind if the class fits your character.

Saonji

@Akri "x should not do y" is a common meme when it comes to Occultist. There were a number of issues that me and Penwize bought up to Makarios after its "rework" that we got told was "working as intended" ... only for it to get fixed a bit later. Like the limb break Ruinate, we got told it was working as intended when it was breaking the same limb 4 times (it's not meant to)... And then it got fixed to be smart affing like it's meant to be. (and then it broke again lmao)

Pinging @Novaki to post his log that demonstrates just how spastic Occultist ents are sometimes, even with lead rope. Katalyst and Penwize both said there's no way they'd fight top tier people without a whistle. It might not be a problem if you could actually see whether or not you lose an ent, without having to do some hackjob gmcp tracking (which, even then, doesn't always update properly with Occie ents).