So I've been playing Achaea for about 2ish years, and frankly, it got boring. No RP. Everyone is a dragon or 1 of 3 racial/class combinations. EVERYTHING is about PK this and PK that.

So I came to Lusternia and the RP is awesome, as is the general Lusternia populace. I'm currently a faeling Nihilist and was hoping to get involved in some PK...but as it turns out my connection sucks and is sometimes unreliable. The only PK i would be involved in is defense.

I want to focus on hunting and I plan on buying credits. Quite a few.

I've decided to go Ur'Guard (awesome RP) and I'm leaning towards Tae'dae Bonecrusher. Yes I know. "Teh suxorz" for pk...but they seem like really good choices for hunting. That and Ashteru's tanking ability is sexy. Am I crazy?

No, Ashteru's tanking ability IS indeed sexy.

Bonecrushers are nice for pvp (much much better than Blademasters or so is the rumour).

Also, Ashteru seems to do decent in pvp with speed weapons. Alternatively, you could think about a high str/con race with no balance penality. Krokani maybe? Igasho? (Can't look up races right now so just throwing guesses).

I'm not a big fan of knight combat, always gets boring to me (but hell, bard is always the same thing, blanknote, perfectfifth, rainbowpattern, colourburst, refrain, blanknote, minorsecondwhore) But if i was to be a knight, I would go BC, the first knight specialization i ever took (back when there were only 2). BC is rather fun, and PvP is very capable, windstacking and stun whoring is all too easy. I had a discussion with Khaul, i think he went orchlach, some kind of RP reason, but also cause high str. w/o the balance disadvantage of tae'dae. Igasho also isnt too bad, they only have a level 1 disadvantage.

Well if you want to focus on bashing first anyhow..

Monk > Warrior > Aquamancer (Geomancer) > Moondancer (Shadowdancer) >>>>>....>>>>> Nihilist > Celestine.

(Yes I'm serious, Nihilist bashing can be better than Celestine.)

I'm not quite sure where Bards and druids fit in since I don't have any real experience with them. Both can be good for bashing though, bards can be -very- fast with maestro.

Lastly, that list accounts for high level bashing. If you're low level you'd be best off starting with a magic based class to bash since you can't miss with those attacks (at higher levels the crit ratio becomes more important hence why Monks can outbash Warriors who in turn outbash any magic class with the right skills/races/weapons of course).

A class that has passive healing skills (ie Aqua sweetfound and healspring, Shadowdancer drink + sprite, Moondancers mother + sprite) generally helps a lot. Moondancers / Shadowdancers are also very tanky. Again.. no real experience with bards but don't some have a healing song as well? Not entirely sure on druid either.

PS: Gods I need to stop trolling.. but at least it's -constructive- trolling right?

MajorThird for healing in Bards
Roulade for Ego
The only one with no song is Mana.

Bard MinorSecond (main attack) increase in power as skill rank in Music/Wildarrane rises.
MinorSecond also goes stronger as Dramatics improve, but only 1/4 stronger than training Music/Wildarrane.

Bard bashing/pk drains Ego and Mana. Wildarrane songs can be very fun, though.

Based on Spiritsinger bard, of course.

Except for the fact that you have Moondancers/Shadowdancers on the wrong end of your little list, yes, it is constructive. I'd put warriors back in the order quite a bit, too (especially Faeling / Faeling Shadowlord ones, strength is extremely important). Don't forget that a number of warriors use 2h weapons, as well.

Anyways, if you weren't starting as a Faeling, I'd suggest sticking with your race and going tae'dae later. For now... it'll be awfully slow for you to get startd, but you'll also be able to fight much larger things, so it may balance out.

She qualified it with right skills/race/weapons. A warrior who "specs" right can be a powerhouse when it comes to hunting. The list looks to be more of a ranking of hunting potential based on class rather than taking into account specific race/class/spec combinations that take away from that potential.

That list works for bashing, but if you also want PK people tell me alot on how they love variety in combat, and assuming you want to stay Magnagoran the best place for that is Nihilists. Mages use damage or mindburst, urguard damage or behead/execute, cacophony damage or insta song, and we dont have bards... while Nihilists have options based on what you took.. you always have Damage, Wrack, and Sacrifice.. if you take tarot you have soulless (8 second insta). Thing is which tertiary you take.. soulless is in tarot and tarot has lust, aeon, and a TON of utility, its loved for its utility: healer tarot is like 25% max health, you also have magiciain for mana, empress to summon, and hermit to return to places.. hermit and healer are nice even for bashing and are rather low skills, its nice being able to return home or back to a bashing area without having to walk, not to mention you have catacombs to get to villages (moors bashing!).

It really comes down to things though

Astrology:
-Pros: Bashing Spheres (which can be used when negative to make targets take more damage etc), multiple afflictions at once, very well masked, random buffs and uses it gets, and power to aeon on 1 second eq
-Cons: The ailments vary based on day, some peoples nativity is horrible to try to fight against, spheres can have odd costs ranging from low cost to 5 power and costing 4000 willpower per sphere, and aeon cant be 100% relied on

Hexes:
-Pros: Exceptional affliction rate, wide variety of afflictions, and now jinx!
-Cons: Jinx is untested and may not work with us as intended though more things may come once I get data on it in testing, need to know how to stack well to keep things on people

Tarot:
-Pros: 100% reliable aeon, active lust (instead of needing love potion), bashing and standard utility, more utility (it has quite a bit), soulless (8 second insta is rather quick so long as you hinder the target well first)
-Cons: Can be costly due to costs to inscribe (time, cards, and palette uses), afflictions are limited (lovers curse, amnesia hypersomnia confusion stupidity, justice, aeon, etc

In short we tend to have alot of fun in pvp and we get a good variety.. at the same time we arent as bashing tanky as a warrior, and dont hit as hard as a mage. Although we can be pretty darn tanky, and in some cases we can actually outtank a warrior.

Although if you want to adjust race to guild.. Mugwump is best for eq guilds, aslaran is nice for tarot speed but your eq skills will suffer, as a Nihilist mugwump is best for solo combat, and I say aslaran for groups (ONLY when you just spam aeon... which I dont like) otherwise use damage as a mugwump.... and oooo credits!

Hope this helps a bit, can also talk to me IG for information on combat if you arent in the clan for it.

I always take proteges... but I expect work to improve.. no slacking!

I would disagree. I'd rank them closer to this based on POTENTIAL:

Warriors > Mages (telekinesis is amazing) > Bards (regeneration and massive damage) > Monks (lots of crits at high levels but the damage is low, not great at low levels) > Moondancers (close behind or possibly even ahead of monks) > Shadowdancers (lower damage formula) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> guardians > druids (cudgel FTL).



I'm actually not sure the bolded part is true. I think minor second gets stronger as you use your instrument (up to maestro level) but the short tests I've seen don't indicate that it gets any stronger with more lessons in music/etc.. Learning more magic will increase your damage marginally as well.

Ahem. Don't forget that tae'dae > other warrior races when fighting manakillers, because their sip does a damn fine job of keeping up with the mana drain even with low intelligence...the same can't be said for pretty much every other low int race. Also, remember that warriors and monks don't really get passive attacks, so you have to keep up with your curing or your offense is dead.

Merian Lord? Elfen Lord?

Aw man, Malarious convinced me to stay Nihilist.

Both have 13 int, which isn't low (and they're OP)?

EDIT: WTF was that "don't" doing in there?

Best bashing race for tankage:

Tae'dae Serenguard with Moon (or even with Stag) and Lowmagic

Why?

Tae'dae -

Racial resistances, high basecon, with yellow in lowmagic, you can get even higher health. With mercy, you can easily tick a lot.
With 280 base speed weapons, if you get drawdown and forging runes on them, you'll swing a little faster than 3 seconds.
High Str is always good for bashing

Serenguard -
Access to Moon, and a forgeslave called Sojiro who forges for nothing (Bastard)

Moon -
Drawdown - Extra Damageresistance, Manaregen, more int for surge, weaponaura for faster weapons.
Shine - Additional DR, sometimes additional damage too.
Resurgem - You can die, but most of the times (or all the time now) you won't pray.
Harvest - Additional experience
Aura - Additional 20% Magicresistance, making some mobs cake.
Waxing - Active heal, not sure how much, but will still help.

Stag -
Stagform - Slight additional healthregen, move faster
Facepaints - You can make your balance slightly faster, for faster bashing.
Medicinebag - About double sip, doable additionally (?) to sip.
Stagtotem - Cures health/mana/ego and afflictions temporarily.
Staghide - Additional cold DR

Lowmagic -
Yellow - More con
Autumn - More expgain


So, that's my oppinion!

And Forren, as Tae'dae, I sipped for about 33% of my maxmana, on average. Pretty damn hard to get me low, there.

Seconded on all counts.

Having been a few of those classes (*cough*), my best bets for bashing would be:


Tae'dae warrior with Moon/Night
Merian Aquamancer with Telekinesis
Moondancer/Shadowdancer Mugwump

for general bashing. For bashing with mostly physical, I'd add Nihilist Mugwump with a Level 2 healthregenartie for Putre, and some nice robes.

But you are right, Bards are pretty damn good for bashing from what I can see/what I've heard.
On the other hand, Druids completely lose out on bashing. No DR to speak of, but cudgel seems not too bad for bashing. But still, for bashing, I'd rank Hartstone higher than Blacktalon, seeing as they got the better defensive skills (Totem cures affs too, Medicinebag can be done off-balance/equi) as opposed to (Totem cures only health and takes carrion and power to summon, the healing skill is on equilibrium)

As I just heard, Medicinebag is on Sipbalance, still pretty hot for bashing!

Oh, and if you have any questions on bashing, I think (without any boasting or so) I am a pretty good address to ask, having been in a variety of guilds and mainly being a basher. <.<

Yes, Ashteru is the world's biggest guildhopper. He can't even stick to a single guild when credits are on the line.

Teasing! Don't kill me please....