Pariah tips?

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!

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Comments

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

  • 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.

    image
  • 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.

  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    edited August 2021

    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.

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • 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.

  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo

    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.

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • edited August 2021

    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?

  • Doesn't intelligence boost your defence too though?

  • 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?

  • edited August 2021

    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.

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

  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo

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

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • ArchaeonArchaeon Ur mums house lol

    pariah sucks

  • edited August 2021

    @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.

  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    edited August 2021

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


    Thats some next level logic. 🤔

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

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

  • 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?


  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo

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

    Rip quotes, though. Gone but not forgotten

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • Finally! My pvp strategy is being recognized!

  • edited August 2021

    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 :'(

  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo

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


    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • edited August 2021

    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.

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

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

  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo

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

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • @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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

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