I would like to make a list comparing all the various archetypes in various fields so that new players can have an easier time starting the game.

I really don't have much information about the various archetypes, myself only ever having played a warrior, so as people give information about what they have experience with, I'll add it to this first page. (If this has already been done before, then please provide the link and we can see if the information is still accurate)


*Note: Skills which the user has no choice over for a guild are not listed. For more information on the skills available in the game see here: https://sites.google.com/site/xieltalnara/Skills

Archetype: Warrior
Possible Guilds: Ebonguard, Paladins, Sentinels, Serenguard, Templars, Ur'Guard,
Skill Choices: Axelord, Bonecrusher, Blademaster, Cavalier, Pureblade, Tracking, Totems(Communes), Cosmic(Cities)
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Normal, Competitive:Significant
Required Gold investment: Significant
Best At: Hunting/Bashing
PK Style: Uses a weapon or two to inflict wounds, allowing killing with an instant kill. Heavily dependant on percentage chance to hit the right location and to afflict the correct affliction.
Trade: Has unique access to the Forging skill, which creates weapons and armour
RP: Warriors generally are charged with protecting one thing or another. Warrior guilds greatly vary in what their philosophy, code of honor, or purpose is.



Archetype: Mage
Possible Guilds: Aeromancers, Aquamancers, Geomancers, Pyromancers,
Skill Choices: Runes, Dreamweaving, Telepathy, Telekinesis
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Normal, Competitive: Normal
Required Gold investment: Minimal
Best At: Group Combat
PK Style: Create Demenses, which are large areas with room wide afflictions, can also use Psionics to be lethal outside of their demense..
Trade: Has unique access to Elemental Enchantments.
RP: Mages are linked to an element, depending on the element, they will have a unique focus. They are also protectors of the elemental plane they are associated with.




Archetype: Druid
Possible Guilds: Blacktalon, Hartstone
Skill Choices: Dreamweaving, Ecology, Runes
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Normal, Competitive: Large
Required Gold investment: Minimal
Best At: Group Combat and Trade, Influencing
PK Style: Creating a Demesne in forested locations. Outside of their Demense, Druids are fairly ineffective in a PK setting.
Trade: Access to Lorecraft for creating potions
RP: Protectors of the forest in their commune, and the Ethereal plane




Archetype: Guardian
Possible Guilds: Celestine, Illuminati, Institue, Nihilists
Skill Choices: Hexes, Astrology, Tarot, Healing(Celestine, and Institue only)
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Normal, Competitive:Normal
Required Gold investment: minimal
Best At: PK
PK Style: Uses a summoned being to drain the mana, hinder, or otherwise afflict their target until they are able to pull of thier signature killing move. (Celestine and Nihilists)
Trade: Has unique access to the Cosmic Enchantments
RP: Guardians have a unique connection to thier cosmic planes, and engage in the "religion/philosphy" of their city.




Archetype: Wiccan
Possible Guilds: ShadowDancers, Moondancers
Skill Choices: Astrology, Hexes, Healing
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Normal, Competitive:Normal
Required Gold investment: Minimal
Best At: PK
PK Style: Use fae to inflict and hinder their opponent, while trying to drain mana to turn their target into a toad
Trade: Along with druids, have access to Lorecraft for creating potions and vials
RP: Wiccans are focused on the Nature spirits associated with their commune and the ethereal plane as well as the fae..




Archetype: Bard
Possible Guilds: Cacophony, Cantors, Harbingers, Minstrels, Spiritsingers, Symphonium
Skill Choices: Tarot(cities), Illusions, Ecology(commune)
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Minimal, Competitive: Normal
Required Gold investment: Normal
Best At: Influencing
PK Style: Singing songs which buffs allies and hurts enemies, can attempt to do a deathsong or kill via damage.
Trade: Has unique access to the Tinkering skill which are a form of enchantments, and/or Brewmastery which is a form of Alchemy
RP: Bards enhance the culture of the place they live.



Archetype: Monk
Possible Guilds: Nekotai, Ninjakari, Shofangi, Tahtetso,
Skill Choices: Harmony(Kephera), Stealth(Illithoid), Athletics or Psychometabolism
Required Credit Investment: Viable: Minimal, Competitive: Normal
Required Gold investment: Minimal
Best At: Hunting/Bashing or PK
PK Style: Uses a Punch/Punch/Kick style which delivers wounds and various afflictions. Also uses a unique system of katas and momentum for a "fire and forget" fighting style.
Trade: Has unique access to the Tattoos skill, which creates unique buffs and can be used as armour for monks
RP: Monks gain their skills from either the Kephera or the Illithoids of the undervault. Other than that rivalry, the guilds vary in their purpose.


Current Credit and gold estimates.
Credits:
Minimal = ~ 300 credits
Normal = ~ 700 credits
Large = ~ 1100 credits
Significant = ~ 1400 credits

Gold:
Minimal = 20,000
Normal = 50,000
Large = 75,000
Significant= 100,000

Your warrior info seems a bit slanted towards "warriors suck".
Your guardian PK style info is only correct for nihilist/celestine.
Your wiccan info has the words "opponent" and "commune" mispelled.
Your bard info is missing the ecology option and doesn't mention how bards kill.

I'm not sure I totally agree with the gold cost for a bard being 'incredible', either...

You need to define what "normal", "large", "incredible", etc, actually are. Like a ballpark estimate on the number of credits you'll need to be competitive.

It's a frightening number in every case, but it should be shown.

I freely admit, I don't know much about many of the archetypes, so please give replacement suggestions, and don't just tell me what needs to be corrected :)
Good comments all though.

I'm likely to be more citical about my own archetype because that is the archetype I know. I was hoping to inspire people to add their own comments about other archetypes about the drawbacks of the archetype in PK.

Deschain:

You need to define what "normal", "large", "incredible", etc, actually are. Like a ballpark estimate on the number of credits you'll need to be competitive.

It's a frightening number in every case, but it should be shown.

Ok, so really we need two categories, Competitve, and Viable?
One reason I put Warriors as really high, is because you need to trans both Knighthood, and Combat to hit mobs often enough that you aren't missing too much. (atleast you used to have to.) So even to be "viable" you have to trans two skills. To be competitive is even more.

Any suggestions for particular archetypes?

I'm actually not so sure about the knighthood/combat thing being required to hit stuff. I'm playing on a warrior alt right now, and I have barely any credits in combat and my pureblade is only at gifted, and I rarely miss.

I'm not sure how we would define viable. A newbie with a web enchantment could be considered viable.

For competitive...I feel like you need:
Combat: Expert (stance head) (423 lessons)
Discipline: Fabled (focus mind) (912 lessons)
Environment: Expert (tumble) (423 lessons)
Planar: Expert (conglutination) (423 lessons)

Then in almost every case, trans in 3 guild skills.
5145 lessons

You get 1100 lessons if you level all the way to 100 and spend all your bound credits on lessons. That leaves 6226 lessons you need to purchase via credits. For the first 1000 credits you bind you get a bonus 2.5 lessons, meaning it would take 733 credits, at level 100, to finish getting all those skills.

If you're a warrior you'll probably need more to get some weapon runes. I actually forgot diagnose, so that's another 16 lessons, but that's a drop in the bucket. This calculation also doesn't figure in some other really nice quality of life things like potionlist or magiclist, which are relatively high up for what they do.

Edit: Some people might argue resilience should be on that list. It helps massively with bashing, and if you're a squishy race it might be needed for combat, I'm not sure...I don't play squishy races.

If you are correct about combat/knighthood then that is good. They must have changed how that worked since 2004 :)

Viable to me, means you have the skills required to bash to level 100 in a comparable amount of time as someone else, if you wanted to.
Competitive to me, means you can participate in War games, and more likely be on the winning team than not.

Anyone can bash to 100 given enough time. Resilience helps a lot. Choosing a weapon spec helps a lot. Getting staff if you're a mage helps a lot.

Not sure I would put bards into the "normal" credit investment bracket, in all honesty. They require a pretty substantial investment.

I guess it really boils down what you want to do, mind. Most things here are balanced around demi and omni, with runes coming after as the real "cost"

Deschain:

Anyone can bash to 100 given enough time. Resilience helps a lot. Choosing a weapon spec helps a lot. Getting staff if you're a mage helps a lot.

I edited my post, sorry.

Draylor:

Not sure I would put bards into the "normal" credit investment bracket, in all honesty. They require a pretty substantial investment.

Of all the archtypes, monks and bards are the least credit intensive. And I think all bard guilds pay for novice instruments which knocks down the gold cost.

I feel like you should add in a side note for the time investment needed for Crow >.> stupid nests

diamondais:

I feel like you should add in a side note for the time investment needed for Crow >.> stupid nests

Good idea.

Anyone know if this is also true for Hart? Does totem renewal in general require this? Do guardians require this at all? (I'll add a note about cavalier as well)

Guardians don't kill anyone with mana kills in 1v1. Celestine and Nihilist primary kill methods are inqui-soulless and sacrifice respectively. Mana kills are for group combat only.

I am also not sure I agree with your emphasis on luck for warriors. Warriors perhaps depend a little more on luck than other classes, but nearly all classes depend on it to some extent. (Celestines need Inquisition to last long enough for a kill, Nihilists need scabies/epilepsy to randomly tick, Wiccans need their targets to not wake up too quickly, Telekinetics need higher numbers of burst vessels...)

Jayden:


Of all the archtypes, monks and bards are the least credit intensive. And I think all bard guilds pay for novice instruments which knocks down the gold cost.

I was not referring to gold cost, hence specifically stating "credits" - and I stand by what I said. To be truly effective as a bard, there is a pretty substantial investment requirement.

Shamarah:

Guardians don't kill anyone with mana kills in 1v1. Celestine and Nihilist primary kill methods are inqui-soulless and sacrifice respectively. Mana kills are for group combat only.

I am also not sure I agree with your emphasis on luck for warriors. Warriors perhaps depend a little more on luck than other classes, but nearly all classes depend on it to some extent. (Celestines need Inquisition to last long enough for a kill, Nihilists need scabies/epilepsy to randomly tick, Wiccans need their targets to not wake up too quickly, Telekinetics need higher numbers of burst vessels...)

More accurate now?

As for luck, nearly everything for a warrior is a Percentage chance.. That means luck.
98% chance to hit, X chance to get past the stance or avoid a dodge, 75 % or 60% chance to hit the right limb on a swing, and X (hidden) percentage chance for the affliction to happen.
Some people like this in a class, and like the idea that they might have more powerful attacks that are mitigated by the fact that they won't always hit what they want to hit. For some this is a benefit, and some it's a reason to avoid the class.

Your examples of sleeping, or Inquisition seems like something that can be calculated, as for scabbies/epilepsy, is that truly random, or can it be calculated? Are there other classes that have X percent chance for their death blows to hit?

Draylor:


I was not referring to gold cost, hence specifically stating "credits" - and I stand by what I said. To be truly effective as a bard, there is a pretty substantial investment requirement.

Can you put a number on it?

daganev:

Your examples of sleeping, or Inquisition seems like something that can be calculated, as for scabbies/epilepsy, is that truly random, or can it be calculated? Are there other classes that have X percent chance for their death blows to hit?

All of the things I listed are, to the best of my knowledge, completely random. I just think your description of warrior PK style comes off as a bit woe-is-me, especially relative to your descriptions of the others - all classes have serious shortcomings, and it just happens that one of warriors' shortcomings is luck.

Draylor:


I was not referring to gold cost, hence specifically stating "credits" - and I stand by what I said. To be truly effective as a bard, there is a pretty substantial investment requirement.

Hence why my first sentence referred to credits. My second sentence was in reference to Daganev's suggestion about bard gold costs. And I wholeheartedly disagree that it requires a substantial credit investment to be effective as a bard.