Specifically, entertainingly hard. I don't want to be ineffective, I do want to know that a kill would require appropriate and variable strategy.

One of the reasons I ended up a warrior is my understanding that they took some work to get a kill. Hard to keep someone from running, and hard to kill someone without giving them a chance to run or turtle up. Target availability, venom, and wound considerations go into each attack, and interact with each other in interesting ways. But, when it all comes together, it's quite satisfying, and I can honestly say that there are almost no wound afflictions that I wouldn't want to use in some situation or other, and only a few that I wouldn't ordinarily seek out at some point in an normal spar or duel.

Now, if only forging were less mindless or less time-intensive... or both.

Anyway, I have been greatly enjoying life as Vaerhon but expect to someday have an alt or three, life being what it is. Combat isn't everything, but it would be nice to pick a class where combat was good, skill mattered, skill synergies were critical, and there were several viable paths to a kill.

So - on those criteria alone, what would the good citizens of the forum recommend? I do care about RP, but that would (will?) be a separate post.

I'm assuming you're looking for a nice combination of viability and difficulty.

At the easier end of the spectrum are the Shadowdancers. They have no kill method that doesn't require substantial player skill, but when done properly, they're beastly potent.

Next in line would probably be the Nihilists. You get a variety of kill methods, arguably the greatest variety in the game, but none of them are particularly easy, since Nihilism lacks the crushing synergy of Celestialism.

If you really want to turn the difficulty level up, try a bard guild. I don't know if it's a fulfilling type of difficulty, though. The majority opinion is that the Cantors are the strongest and the Harbingers the weakest. My personal opinion is that the Spiritsingers are the strongest and the Cacophony the weakest.

Personally, my opinion is that cacophony is the strongest, then harbingers would be weakest.

But anyways, as far as enjoyment through fighting, my pick would have to be a warrior type. I've played celestine, shadowdancer, cantor, and a paladin, and of all those, my paladin is still my favorite by far in fights.

Don't get me wrong, all forms of combat are fun, but nothing to me has been as satisfying as working wounds up all around to the point where your opponent is virtually helpless. All other combat seems to revolve around laying on afflictions enough to get to a certain mana/ego threshold, or lock them long enough for a delayed instant kill, whereas warriors just beat the bloody piss out of people.

Granted, as a warrior, it's exceedingly hard to play well without either a champ artifact or weapon runes, or an extreme level of skill. But it's fun, if you're good enough.

But, if you want to play an 'easy mode' class, go telepath. If you care about skill synergy and pulling off deadly combinations, go wiccan/guardian. My celestine was quite fun as well. If you want a real challenge, go bard.

along with nico for variety go guardian. Wiccan isn't as great. Shadowdancer over Moondancer in combat for sure They can kill with nightkiss or toadcurse. For a harder kill than normal, but a very cool one I always thought, nihilists have sacrifice. Thoros was really the only Nihilist I remember always trying to go for sacrifice, but he was a mugwump rather than the traditional aslaran.

Thoros is a viscanti. Here's a challenge, Tae'dae MD/SD, go for a bearhug kill.

he's a changeling. He went mugwump to pull off sacrifice though

Precisely, and thanks to all for their responses.


Shadowdancers and Nihilists both look quite interesting. Sacrifice is almost an ideal kill skill - well, ideal for fun. Hard to do, but not impossible. And Choke definitely lets you change the dynamic of a duel.


And my warrior has been tremendous fun to play. If it weren't for the forging, I don't think I'd even conceive of taking a vacation from him just yet. But, if I end up wanting a vacation from him, I'll probably want to try something non-warrior. I suppose I could take a different specialization in a different city or commune - they all look fun, and the one I've tried has been great - but my guess is that I'd rather try something else for a bit if I need a vacation.


Not a celestine. If I'm on vacation from Vaerhon, I'd probably want to be on vacation from Celest. Though I've sparred enough of them, and it does look like a really fun class to work with.

What's this about telepathy, though? From the complaints about Forren, I thought that telekinesis was the more feared.


Sounds like Shadowdancer or Nihilist is the consensus, after you take warriors out. No mage or druid recommendations from anyone? At all?

And I'm not so much worried about the relative strength of the bard guilds as the experience of fighting as one. I would expect it to be hard - Bards are balanced as support, not duelists. The question is, is it as interesting and fun as Guardian or Warrior combat?


That's... a bit exotic, as challenges go. The next time I feel like beating my head against a wall, I'll do that - or just forge. Or am I missing some synergy that makes this viable?

Mages are probably the archetype that takes the least amount of skill to kill with, simply because they're so linear.

Druids are weird at first but are pretty straightforward once you understand how to stick sap.

Celestines are powerful and seem complex but are really fairly simple.

Nihilists are complex and interesting and do take considerable skill to kill with, but they definitely DON'T suck like many people will try to tell you (Thoros does incredibly well with the class, as did oldies like Torak and Thorgal).

Wiccans are fairly simple once you understand good hexing techniques and how to pull off a toadcurse properly. Of the two, Shadowdancers are probably the trickier because you have to learn how to fight in choke properly (though you have skills like Drink to help you with that).

Warriors are the most flexible archetype in the game and have a lot of distinct methods for going for a kill. They definitely aren't underpowered either, whatever anyone tries to tell you.

Bards are definitely, by far, the weakest and most difficult archetype to fight with. However, the difficulty arises not from bards just being hard to use like Nihilists, but because they actually suck. You really don't want to be a bard.

So - probably Shadowdancer and/or Nihilist.

Races?

From earlier comments about Thoros needing to go mugwump for sacrificing, it sounds like mugwump would be the race of choice for a Nihilist.

Similarly, Shamarah is the Shadowdancer I hear most often lamented on the forums, and is also a mugwump.

What of viscanti or faeling, respectively? Or aslaran? Or something else entirely?

Agreed to everything he said. Shamarah wins the internets.


EDIT: As for races... those with an EQ/Balance bonus are an advantage. Faeling (in Glomdoring), Aslaran, Mugwump. Aside from that, Nihilists/Wiccans are not as stat-reliable as mages/druids/warriors, so they do not need a huge main offensive stat as much as other archetypes. Some people focused on HP tankiness, going Taurian or Loboshigaru, and it went well for them. But the faster races have it easier, in my opinion.

Viscanti aren't a very good choice, even with racial specialisations. Most Viscanti who play maintain their race for RP purposes.

Hmm.

I'm not convinced by this analysis.

Firstly, because I find Nihilists extremely difficult to fight.


and secondly, because both Chade and Silimaur would and have admitted that on their shadowdancer they found it considerably easier to own the opposition than on their knights.

I really like the druids thornrend kill and ripping people into quarters with vines. I haven't heard about Nihilists sucking as opposed to sucking compared to a celestine counterpart. But they definately can do well since they have a few similar skills and very close other ones.

Shadowdancers may be trickier at first, but it's much easier to do the kill because everyone hates the aeon. And Shadowdancer's fae are better offensively than Moondancer's fae.

Yeah bards are hard. But they were meant to be more of a support group I thought? And in that aspect I think they're awesome. A single bard in a group can make a significant impact. I've seen the mag group go after Lysandus first during Nil defense after the first attempt to stop it failed.

races for nihilists revolve around aslaran for tarot. mugwump was thoro's choice for sacrifice which he managed to do quite often. He's one of the better fighters in the game though and like many of the good ones just knows how to make good use of skills no matter what hte guild. mugwump with quickening is probably scary, haven't personally seen it but i've used celerity and that's fun. I wonder if there's been a Taurian mugwump for souless? that doesn't give you many options though, just makes your kill go for souless.

Oh and the telepaths they were talking about are for mages. Telepathy all offensive. much better to kill with. I personally always wanted to try telekinesis because it's just cool. But it's really not that great I think :/ some of the skills like fling would be really fun to use if it didn't cost 5 power and do absolutely nothing to someone with levitation. And I know you can strip it but usually you have 1 channel locked by daggers and maybe another by forcefield or some other thing like barrier so you can't strip fling. Telekinetics make great bashers though too and if you go mage and wanna be a psionic you'll want some good charisma. I wonder how good a tae'dae would be since they have that high faeling charisma but also the tankiness that faeling's don't have. I know the id channel speed is based on ego, what bout the others? They're just set times right?

as aiakon said, it is much easier to kill as a mugwump shadowdancer 1 vs 1 then it ever has been as silimaur however that doesnt actually mean it is easy, it takes a lot of work and timing to actually be effective and as lots of peopel have told me they find it way to hard to fight as a shadowdancer due to this. if you are looking for a fun guild, good rp, skilled combat that pays off then choose shadowdancers they are by far the funnest for combat out of any others i have played including paladin, and of course they dont need arties.

Nihilist are a fun class, It takes a lot of planing to get a kill with them. You really need to have your demon and some other skills in advance. and viscanti battle wise are crummy, though it does allow for interesting RP

Yes Nihilists take a bit of prep and you will need multiple skills for most any kill type. Aslaran are there for tarot speed and still getting an eq bonus, they are fit to flinging aeon if that is the issue you have with your sacrifices. If your issue is finishing quickly once in aeon, then you want mugwump because crucify has a horrible eq time... then you need shrivel and such.. all in all.. 10 seconds they cant writhe. It isnt impossible but it is harder than most all the others.

Nihilists dont 'suck' you just need to put some time into figuring them out.. I was a slow boomer although I did ok with damage.. I took a mentor who didnt know how to fight then went inactive.. and we had no combatants really.. so I had to self learn.. I still learn new things as I go.. and sometimes I try things just to see how they would work. Experimenting is fun, try it! I mentor but I am semi strict, I set targets so that you always get an idea how you are doing, so even if you get out of tests you will still get things to strive for. You utterly require aeon to work well.. if you want a challenge go Nihilist Astrologer (if you want questionable) and hexist if you want it difficult. Yes hexes is great for afflicting but its not easy to stick ailments when they can cure out in seconds. Astrologers have potential but are iffy because you cant rely on things, you have to know when they are going to occur.

Nihilists tend to need 2-3 trans skills.. you can n theory skip transing necro so long as you can aeon (or have the hexist skill transed) although contagion and lich for its cheaper cost would help greatly.

Hope that helps!

Once upon a time, telekinesis was approx. 10 liters of awesome in a 2-liter bottle. It's pretty crap now though since heartburst and animatedagger were both nerfed to uselessness.

Telekinetics are incredible bashers though.

As for shadowdancer races... mugwump is definitely the best, yeah. That's not to say that you can't pull off SD with other races, as you certainly could, but mugwump is the optimal in almost every situation.

the part I forgot about nihilist is it takes a large amount of expiramintation. You really need to find what combo's work for you when it comes to investing powers into a demon. Obvivously there are some that you should try and use more then others. Shackles is a good example as a lot of the instakills and heavy damage involve stopping your enemy. It is a bit more up to you on what you use with shackles. I personally use anorexia or worms to slow down healing

worms is terrible to use on a level 80 up. I completely ignore that affliction from slaugh cause it doesn't affect me.

If you want a hard to kill with class, go Moondancer and take healing.

You may be nigh-on unkillable, but it'll be nigh-on impossible to kill.

I want a fun to kill with class. For me, that means having to juggle multiple constraints and pick among viable strategies to suit different situations. I do not want a single straight path to victory or defeat, and it was to emphasize this fact that I titled this thread as I did, perhaps misleadingly. I have had great fun in combat as a warrior, killing and dying both, and would highly recommend it to anyone who's prepared to deal with the hunting or aethership trading required to raise the necessary capital. Warrior combat is not cheap - a well equipped warrior carries around rather more than a manse is worth in arms and armor alone. The general consensus so far is that Guardian/Wicca is the way to go if I ever want a vacation from Vaerhon and warriors more generally, so Moondancer is certainly a possibility.

That said, if healing is a subtle offensive tool, of great power when used correctly... well, two things. First, I would be surprised, and second, a Moondancer/healer would be an attractive option. My understanding is that healing - as an offensive matter - is limited to stripping certain defenses and bedevil. Now, bedevil is a subtle tool of great power, but I do not think I would wish to be a healer solely for that. If I am missing something about the combination - and I expect I am - please let me know, but a moondancer/healer does not immediately seem like what I would want.