I'd argue telepathic (or telepathetic, depending on how cheap you consider this) mages are the strongest. Why?

Psychic Vampirism - each attack drains willpower (like 800-1000 per burst) and some ego. Willpower cannot be easily recovered. Against any other equilibrium using class, a telepath could just whore this ability 20 times in a row and drain most people to 0 willpower. At this point, they likely cannot attack back, focus mind (a useful ability against telepaths), etc.

I've yet to see someone abuse this skill, but... it could easily be the strongest ability out there. Not only does it drain willpower/ego, it HEALS willpower/ego on the psionist and can be stacked with a demesne + 2 other passive afflictions/attacks.

I'd have to say 1v1, it's Celestines followed by psionic mages, actually. Psionic mages (both telep and teleks) have absolutely incredible defense, and a very strong offense too. Moondancers can be thrown right beneath them too. After that, I'd say majorly artied knights.

When I listed the def costs I was only counting the defs that it's worth the power to use. Honour (in single combat), warrior, and hexsense are IMO not worth bothering with.

My second strongest class would be Blacktalon with Runes and a fascinate gem. While it is a shame Glomdoring has yet to come up with a hardcore BT fighter, the demesne is just insane, ranking in just below the Geomancer demense (at least in 1-on-1).

Imagine the passive affliction rampage:

1. Shrooms

2. Swarm

3. Pollen

4. Spiders

5. Crows

6. Vines

7. Treelife/Briars

8. Infused rune

===============================================

In the end, it isn't impossible to handle (although questionable in skilled hands), but it is extremely annoying. With crows/spiders and active herb feeding via trickery, transfix is impossible to avoid. Dark Spirit firing back mental afflictions most of the time you deal damage (and seems to hit with stupidity a lot) is bleh. Toss in some trampling on the free legendary mount (ok, 1p legendary mount) with Shadowcaster Faeling balance recovery, and you are in trouble if you get sapped for a second too long.

Of course, magic soap >>> all druids.

Psh, hordes of squirrel assassins are far more frightening.

Hartstone > Blacktalon

Can't trample in the trees though, so it isn't easy to use trample with a saplock. And looking at BT vs HS druids - I really don't see how spiders/murder is balanced with squirrels/pathtwist. Pathtwist might be really cool, but squirrels are *worthless* (50 damage every 10 seconds) compared to murder

And hmm, runes doesn't really give that much more than dreamweaving. You can embed semi-masked epilepsy or daydreams or narcolepsy with dreamweaving, or undoing to strip them of levitation, whereas runes are completely unmasked. Anything that isn't stupidity is really kinda worthless until sap hits, and with sap hitting, I'd rather have them falling asleep every five seconds than stupid. Runes makes it easier to get the initial sap off though, I suppose...

Wait..so youre saying all the summoned mounts do something but the bloody Stag one? Bahhhh! Like the Blacktalon demesne though. but I agree with Avaer, go Squirrels!

You can make it with any class pretty much, they all require you to work at it and each have their own strengths and weaknesses that can be preyed upon by another. Go to where you would like to go best.

Slight digression, but has anyone ever wondered why being covered in sticky sap slows your ability to do things like, wake up, focus your mind, look around, etc?

I like that it does, but it is rather nonsensical.

Stag throws into trees if you're on balance. It's pretty bad, I'd rather have had damage. If they're on balance for the toss, they can immediately step down.

Because it's really really icky!



What does the crow do? Wyrm and turtle both suck for combat.

To elaborate on the stag, ALL it does is, if they are unentangled, awake, unparalysed, standing, and have no broken limbs, it sends them into the trees as if they used CLIMB UP. Thus, if they trigger DOWN on being knocked into the trees, the stag does NOTHING at all.

Completely worthless high level skill

Turtle and Wyrm still do much more than Stag. No clue about Crow, but it flies, so it's automatically better.

My completely biased and arbitrary ranking system on four elements of each class would be as follows.

Defence is tankability, healing power, and armour/protection.
Offence is obviously both damage/affliction ability.
The last score on 'speed' is broken into two components: mobility score refers to how much of their combat capacity is carried around with them/how well they can respond to jumping. Agility score refers to how good they are at escaping, moving around, running.



So in my eyes, being either mage/warrior/guardian would generally be the best option.

(I must admit I don't really know how absolutely effective warriors can be. I only see the extremes of fully-artied awesome warriors or pretty lackluster regular combatants, and I've only been on the receiving end of their attacks as Hartstone Faeling)

Edit: And stag isn't useless, its just a free legendary mount. Since a Druid riding automatically cuts off 90% of his strategic options, it isn't combat-useful. But its not useless entirely.

Edit edit: And meh, Celestines don't have hexes you're right. But I think tarot has about the same power as hexes anyway, which is why I said both.

I would say the real problem with that combo is the manner in which Sixthsense is stripped and reapplied. Blacktalon, Geomancers, and to a lesser extent Trackers have passive means of giving blindness, essentially insuring that the person will be punished for trying to keep Sixthsense up. Add in the gem, and you insure that the person will suffer no matter what choice is made.

Umm, why do aquamancers and geomancers have more defence there than moondancers?

Faelings with Forcefield are damn tanky, and Aqua staff is like Waxing on awesometastic steroids.

Well, seeing the possibilities of telekinetics (biofeedback, psiarmour, forcefield), it seems to me they can potentially raise their defence above that of a Moondancer. But maybe not, just my observation in potential. I suppose you are right that Moondancers have a lot more healing capacity than mages, in addition to the defences.

Celestines can't take hexes

Thank god. *shudder*

I'd easily give Nihilists agility over Moondancers/Shadowdancers. Nihilists have Hermit (no delay unlike spores), Ghost, Lichdom, Flying, Catacombs. Moondancers have Spores (delayed), Leap, Burrow, Flow (forest only), and flying (however our brooms require we stay mounted, unlike Nihilist wings, something that doesn't happen in combat).

So Moondancers/Shadowdancers should both have 4 agility with Celestines (they still have Wings, Hermit, and Catacombs afterall), and Nihilists should have 5.

Also, a Guardian shouldn't want Hexes. In the hands of a guardian, Tarot >>>>>>>> Hexes.

Also Hexes are still lost when you change elevation with Hexaura, severely limiting your mobility as a Wiccan, probably lost other ways still yet, despite the fix.



You are in fact, correct.

The notoriety of Wiccan tankiness is mostly a function of race selection/buffs, not of the class itself.


Also, give both Aquamancers and Geomancers a 10 on offense (their offense and passive hindering and defensive abilities combined almost make them deserve a 10 on defense too. Not to mention you 0% chance of chasing them should they flee in their demesne), it's definitely better than Warriors.

There is nothing you can do to hinder them, their offense continues to hit you now matter how pinned down with afflictions you get them. A Warriors offense, as powerful as it is, can be dealt with as long as you don't let them get you to messed up to begin with. If you start to get to that point, you can hinder and shield to fix yourself up before jumping back in. Can't do that on a Aquamancer or Geomancer, their psionic attacks ignore your shield, the fact that they are paralyzed, impatient, anorexic, asthma, webbed, impaled, and with a dozen other afflictions, it keeps coming.