f13.net

I make this thread with no ill will to the other thread what so ever.


I was just thinking that the game has had some time to shake out and everyone has tried out a bunch of classes. I wanted to make a thread about what people are playing currently, now that the class experimentation is largely out of the way.

So what is everyone playing now that they have had some experiences with the classes.

Ill start, after getting most of the classes to about 15ish, ive decided to have my go as a Demonologist and an Ranger. These classes are very fun for me specifically the ranger since 20ish or so and i learned that I really am a ranged ranger.

Necromonger, Harold of Xotli both post 20. Got a Conqueroo out in Connal's Valley and didn't like it, more due to lack of chrome than any percieved weakness. I'll prolly go back to the Necromonger once the omgpowerups go in.

Got a 22 necro waiting for those same powerups.




P.S. Sidenote, I am astounded by the leveling speeds in this game. It is good fun. I dont feel like im staring down this long boring straight highway. The end is in sight and i dont have to sell my soul and my freetime to get it.

Got both a Ranger and a Dark Templar post-30, which for me is the 'if you don't like it by now...' level, or at least seems to be by what I hear.

The ranger is a hero of wtfpwntage. I love her. The Dark Templar, not so much. I probably am not doing my Talents correctly, or something, but she's duller than dirt and doesn't have half the survivability of the ranger (!). Also, what Lum said. Plate class, bitches, give me some shiny plate, not this dishwater chainmail.

Herald of Xotli (level 65). Lots of fun, good at killing multiple mobs with his AOE melee damage as long as nothing goes wrong. Fights are usually an amazing triumph, sometimes a very swift death.

Tempest of Set, level 77. PVE god mode. Everyone knows it and laugh about it. It's alos the chosen class to powerlevel whole guilds at beta speed.

That aside, I think it's a very versatile and interesting class to play, thanks to many different feats and spells. AOE is the keyword, plus dynamic healing, decent crowd control and good survivability, and a certain nasty inclination to nuking everything that moves. Too cool to be true, expect it to be seriously nerfed.

PROS: All.

CONS: It's the flavour of the month, so it's kinda lame to have one. And it will be nerfed, badly.

Priest of Mitra.

What happened to your amazing Assassin?


Anyway, I am play a HoX 33, Barb 24, Priest of Mitra 17 and Conq 17. Think I am going to stick with HoX as my main for now as its a pretty fun class, and once they fix all the broken feats it should be great. Having some trouble in PVP with it, but still fun.

Also, for anyone joining the game, I highly suggest joining the RP-PVP server, its great fun. Hardly any ganking, but the freedom is there to fight if you want. I am just bummed I wasted time on a PVE server to start with.

Conqueror is getting a bit chromier in the 30s, if you're comparing to the 20s leather look. Chainmail miniskirt ftw. Plate seems to happen with proper dungeon drops from 40.

(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/chromier.jpg)

Haven't got any alts yet. Not planning any. Just want to get something to 80 rather than repeat old content, so don't really care about finalised classes or whether Conqueror is even good or not.

Got Assassin to 24, Bear Shaman to 33, Priest of Mitra to 34 but have stuck with my Tempest of Set who is now 43 and by far the most fun, although the PoM was a close second. ToS is great fun, I like the spells, I like the healing, I like the effects. However I do refer to him as my Discodancer of Set because of his Lightning Strike animation...

The only class out of the ones I've played that I didn't like at all was the Assassin - very weak in comparison to the others and having a class so dependent on it being night was a pain in the arse.

I'm a cynic, so I have an easier time saying what I don't like than what I do. I have a better idea of what I won't be playing than what I will (Ranger, Necromancer, and Demonologist: Do not want!) I do, however, enjoy the Bear Shaman. I also like the Dark Templar, but get bored with it on occasion. The Assassin is also great fun, but I like to solo him more than group him, so am trying to stick with something I'd have more fun in a group with. I'm also an altaholic, so that makes my final decision even more difficult.

Seeing as how I've played  Tortage probably a dozen times, though, for now, the Bear Shaman will be my main. Conquerer pt. 2 (tried one, didn't like it at first, but see fun at later levels, so will try again at some point), Guardian (not sure on this one. Potentially boring), and Harold of Xolti (he's 16... I'm waiting on playing him... not sure what I'm waiting for... but I'm not real crazy about him atm) will all have to wait a bit.

So I guess that's a long way to go to say "Bear Shaman for now".

One final babbling comment, since I'm on a roll: I worry about the after 40 game and am hesitant on playing much further than that, so I might be back in alt land soon because of it.

ToS:

Pros: AoE ownage. Versatile class with solid healing and a bit of crowd control. Seems there are a few viable builds, a nice thing to see.

Cons: Lacks single target DPS. Sometimes I don't want to shoot everything around a target. I'm sick of the shocking fatality :) Does seem FotM so I wish I would have rolled a PoM or Bear Shaman now, but oh well.

63 Assassin here.

Yawn.

I hear the level 70 feats are fun.  I'm waiting on the buffage.  If I didn't put any time into this character I would be rolling something else.

 :pedobear: Shaman, currently at level 51.

Pros: Pretty nice burst dps when using empowered renewal (+50% damage to your next hit), most mobs of equal level either die or nearly die in one combo.  Versatile class with fairly helpful group buffs that tend to proc on melee hits more than giving direct benefits.  Absolutely no down time whatsoever when specced for untamed regeneration.

Cons: Too many short duration buffs and debuffs with cooldowns, most of which don't do a whole lot and almost feel like it's a waste of time casting them (although some of these come from feats and so can be avoided).  Fairly rubbish sustained dps once cooldowns have been used, but it does feel like they got the balance just about right between burst and sustained dps in this area.  Getting to level 15 was a nightmare but enough's been said about that elsewhere.

Ok so ToS - WTFBBQ! I like my ranger and barbarian but as I'm in no hurry to get to the content lite higher levels I thought I'd try a FOTM ToS.

"ZAP ZAP." <mad giggling> "ZAP ZAP". <mad giggling>

Girlfriend: What the fuck are you doing over there?

heh. Sure to be nerfed but that's some fun stuff.

57 conq here.  I think we fall right at the sweet spot between OP and gimped.  I can solo just fine, 2-3 mobs 2-3 levels higher than me are no problem.  I can tank pretty decently, but our dps leaves a bit to be desired but we make up for it with some nice buffs.

Good to read, my Conq is only 25, but so far I am really liking the class. Good survivability and decent damage. Like you said, kinda right in the middle. Of all the chars I've tried so far, easily the one that has died the least on me.

I played a Barbarian to 51. Good to 20, great to 40, then got progressively weaker and less fun to 51. Shelved him as every fight was either massive win or dead too fast.

Guardian was next, dull to 25, decent to 35, great to 45, amazing to 58.

I also started a Necro, but gave up and deleted him at 14.

Got a ToS to 20 as FotM, not bad.

My PoM is 28 on the PvP server now, holy shit is this awesome.

Felt solid, slightly overpowered up through 25, when I put points into reviviication and became an unkillable god.  Only a couple more levels until my HoTs start proccing a AEDoT and my direct heal turns into a huge damage spell, I can't wait.

I was firmly against trying the Necro. I loathe, hate, and abhor pets in any game. They rarely do what you want and they're always getting you into trouble. I have no patience for them Unfortunately, I started reading through the Necro's spell list the other day and really liked what I saw there. This was brought on by today's patch notes that were leaked early. I also read through the feat list and saw that you can destroy your creations while making yourself more powerful. A fitting end to the little bastards, if you ask me. So, I rolled one up last night. He's 6. I rather like him already. Those disgusting pets are actually pretty cool in a nightmarish sort of way. I doubt the love will last though. But I'm definitely giving it a chance.

I can still say that I do not like the Ranger or Demonologist, though. I can also say that the Bear Shaman is still my main and favorite.

What didn't you like about the ranger?  I've played one to 22 or so, it was fairly smooth, linear power curve.  Bows admittedly aren't 'all that' at the lowest levels, until you get a few combos.  I've enjoyed mine.

I think the gist of why he didnt like a ranger is that there was no challenge in it for him?

Biggest reason was that being in first person shooting view made me feel claustrophobic. I couldn't stand it. And what made it worse was the lack of a single button to switch between first and third that I could flip to when I switched weapons because mobs were in my face and I wanted my "peripheral vision" back. I know someone wrote before that the scroll wheel works just fine for them and that's cool. It just doesn't for me.

I also ran into line of sight issues when shooting arrows. I'd shoot up a stair case or over bumpy terrain and my arrows would never hit the mark. That honestly only happened a couple of times, but it annoyed me in a way that was exacerbated by the fact that the class really didn't excite me. I found the abilities kind of "meh". When I read up on the Bear Shaman's list or, like I mentioned, the Necro's list, I'm all "woah... that is freakin cool sounding". Whereas on the ranger, I get none of that. I also find the class a bit one dimensional as a long range nuker and not much else. Before I get flamed by those who love the class, let me reiterate that this is completely opinion about the "feel" of a class which is different for everyone. Archer classes have never truly excited me and this just follows along with that.

Okay, I can buy that.  I never use first person for archery; I haven't noticed any advantage to it whatsoever.  I've read that 1st person archery is supposed to have a longer range, but never experienced that.  I shoot, but arrows seem to just kinda poof at my normal max range.  Normally I stay in 3rd, tab to target the enemy I want to shoot, and then open up with combos.  If I'm in 3rd person, it works, 1st person seems to involve a lot more missing, since you have to keep the crosshair on the moving target.

On the other hand, I have my draw distances set way out. (8800 GTS, 640 MB)  Was the point that in first person you could see enemies that might not have been drawn when in 3rd person?

I know that first person does extend range and not just for arrows, but throwing weapons too. I've used that a few times to pull mobs with my Bear Shaman (although he has a bow now). There's a pretty big range difference from what I can tell between the two.

What is this first person shooting thing?

Ya, my main's a ranger and I never ever use the FPS with crosshair view. Its utterly sucky. Is there some hidden advantage I should know about?

Is it possible to do more damage with actual headshots?

Also, I imagine it would be usful in a messy PvP situation.

I myself have a 18 Assassin, and....I'm kind of on the fence about it. I think I've just played this sort of class so many times in past games that I may just be sick of the the playstyle.

Any suggestions on classes that are good, and don't look like they are heading for a nerf?

Most priests will probably get hit with a nerf.  They've already started a bit on the bear shaman.  My two favorite classes are the bear shaman and Priest of Mitra.  The other finger wavers are still a bit weak, IMO.

Guardians already got nerfed a bit.  They're still probably fine.  Conquerors are pretty cool but more of a group class. 

Priest of Mitra is gonna get nerfed on a skill I don't even use. Which is just radical.

I hope they read how much fun people are having with the supposedly overpowered classes and do more buffs to balance than nerfs.

I think there's a mental block somewhere high on that design team that likes kneejerk reactions to PVP Outrage and is a big fan of the Jackhammer Method of Design.

Whoever it is, I want to punch them.

Max range is supposedly farther with the FPS view.  Can't say I ever checked though.

I did and it works. You can pull from epic distance with first person archery.

I was also under the impression that it did more damage but have zero proof to back that up. But ya... epic distance indeed.

You know what my problem is? I mean, one of the many. Right now I'm thinking that maybe it's just me and I want to run home and try the Ranger again. I can't stand failure on my part. >.<

On an unrelated note, Necromancer >>> Demonologist as far as fun and flavor go. It's just so cool getting more pets as you kill stuff (which is just so weird for me to say. The last thing I ever thought I'd want is more pets). It really feels like you're gaining power as you go (Which would be the only reason I could see going down this evil, vile and disgusting path. Because seriously. This is some disgusting shit I'm doing.) I also like the randomness of the extra pets. It's like a bonus power up for being badass. I'm digging it.

I checked out the ranger a bit last night.  Coming from the perspective of playing an Assassin up to about 30 the Ranger seems to have been designed by Aradune.

Stealth attacks AND dual wield swords AND medium armor AND traps?  Why wouldn't I just play a ranger instead of Barb or Assassin, what's the point to the other rogue classes if the Ranger does all the same things but better?

http://www.vimeo.com/1157337

Video of 60 Bear Shaman VS 74 Tempest of Set. Beware, the ToS is a bad player, but fun to watch nontheless.

Damn that makes me want to PvP.

This is why Assasssins and Barbs need better armor.

Assassin armor is fine, I guess, if we get better evasion.  We already get +13% from feats, plus gear, plus 5% base. Also, I'd like faster combos, large cone of effectiveness with my daggers and my stamina sprint mechanics to work.

Oh and a lot of other things.

When balancing a character, you can't just assume that every single assassin will take the same feets. And 13% evasion is dogshit when every sort of attack hits you for max damage. Sprint management needs work and faster combos are a must.

That said, Assassins are supposed to have light armor. Like, supposed to. I'm not just making that up.

Yes, but the concept of an assassin in silk armor is just so cool. I'd rather see them make it work than slap light armor on them and call it a day.

I agree. Silk armor that drops should automatically have +evasion/+avoidance or some shit. It would be much cooler. But light armor was in the design. Cloth armor was a fuckup bug.

Gotcha. And thinking further on it, absorption has always been greater than avoidance in these games, especially when dealing with higher level mobs (or players if that's your thing) who have a better chance to hit you. Not that light armor is full plate, but I can see where even that small bit of absorption would be helpful.

Still... the assassin in whisper quiet silk... Bah. I'm going all RP on something that should be mechanical.

Trust me, I agree on the sexiness of high level silk gear.

Unfortunately, it'll never work.

IIRC, Rogues in WoW relied upon avoidance (dodge) because they had weak medium armor. It seemed to work out fine, especially in combination with high cooldown abilities like Evasion.

If they give enough base evasion (dodge/parry) it can work. Would be a fine line between overpowered and paper tiger though. Would be a little more reliant upon luck, sometimes you could smoke a conquerer if you had a few key dodges, the next time he owns your face. Higher armor/less evasion is a more predictable form of mitigation - but I do not see why having both sides is a bad thing necessarily.

I'd rather see them give assasin's (and to a lesser extent Barbs) and enhance evasion boost from the double-tap (left of right) - simulating that the assasin is an agile, shifty mofo.  Course, if the TankX class gets the assasin trapped in a place where he can't leap left/right, then the assasin gets CREAMED (as he should).  Yes, I know that currently you don't have to have enough room to leap to get the buff from double-tapping, I'm just saying that I'd like to see a system that doesn't have three people surrounding an assasin, and all of them missing, because the assasin has magical fucking pajamas.  If he doesn't have room to maneuver, he should be fucked.

You should check out the Ninja Gaiden II demo.  You can kill 10 opponents without ever touching the ground.

Also, Magical fucking pajamas?  My GF needs a pair!  :-)

The EQ2 Monk class went back and forth on this repeatedly.  Some mit with lots of avoidance can become extremely uber in ways that are hard to foresee.

I agree it's dogshit, but we need better evasion, like I said.

From what I've been reading there is some question as to whether or not even the defensive stats are working.  Some people have compared nude to armour and there is no difference.  The only reason a guardian can lost longer is because they have so many more hitpoints.  Only the plus mana/health/stam and regen do anything...

So maybe giving assassins light armour wouldn't do anything.  I'm gong to have my toon put on his birthday suit and see if he gets killed any faster.

I did some experiments.

LVL 28 Assassin.

First stripped nude and went and antagonized some lvl 22 scorps.  They hit me for 40 or 41.  Not on average, 40 or 41 only.  Put on store bought cloth lvl 20 armor defense 109, every slot no other enhancements.  Damage taken dropped to 10.  Put on the best armor I had quested for and found, noticed that defense was 107, same scorpion, got hit for 16 each hit.

So it seems like there is some calculation going on there.

Next I found a lvl 26 Scorpion and let it hit me while butt naked.  I was hit for 66-68.  Put on 109 defense store armor and got hit for 65 or 66.  Put on 107 quested armor and was hit for 65 or 66.

It looks to me that it's a contested formula for damage but any mob near your levels attack value is so high that they are mostly ignoring your armor and doing max or close to max damage on every hit.  The lower level info seems to suggest that a few points of defense could make a big difference though.  This also suggests that there should be armor tiers every 5 levels (or two to three) rather than every 10.

I bet if someone were careful and collected a lot of data you could figure out exactly what the maximum useful armor value was for each level mob.

So, I think light armor might be helpful but only right at the beginning of a new tier and only against mobs of a lower level.

Edit:
More info.  Using a lvl 14 Dark Templar with medium armor, again, anything near my level was at max damage regardless of the armor worn, anything far enough below though saw large gains in protection going from naked to medium armor.

Thanks for that Murgos, I'll stick to AoEing slightly lower level mobs for sure.

You're welcome, I would like to see some of the higher level heavy armor wearers do a couple of quick tests to verify this as well.

I'm also interested to see if weapons really make any difference, the stat bonuses don't, obviously, but what about the +1 piercing and etc...?

Anyway, I think I'm done with AoC for 5 or 6 months.  I'll come back when major systems like armor and items are working.

So you'll test it on monday and then again when they actually fix it on Thursday. ^_^

I'm pretty sure at this point that major systems all would've been complete with a 3 month delay on the game, but after putting out marketing materials, that's something you just can't really CHANGE.

Heh, yea no doubt. If that other thread is to be believed, stats beyond the current few are going to, like, matter! That alone would make things pretty different I'd think.

Bear shaman - 34
PoM - 28