Comparing to Occultists, Illuminati would probably fall most similar. This is, of course, because our wonderful Creatrix, Estarra, also designed the Occultist class on Achaea!

Institute are sort of like magi crystalism, however the crystals follow the caster (and are generally more defensive than I remember Crystalism generally being).

Those very minor similarities aside, our classes tend to be pretty unique, and I know Estarra puts great effort into making Lusternia one of a kind.

Pacts and pledges stay through cosmic mob death. Deepbonds might too, but Luci hasn't died recently enough for me to verify.

So how are guardians different than like, wiccans? Are they similar?

All four guardian guilds are actually really different from each other and are difficult to generalize except to say that they revolve around afflictions and instant kills.

Celestines revolve around the Inquisition line, a difficult setup that eventually leads to an 8-second stun, which is generally followed up with a Soulless (Death tarot).
Nihilists revolve around landing ectoplasm, an affliction that gives 2x balance times, and then using Crucify (a special type of writhe affliction during which you cannot do most actions and which requires balance to escape) combined with balance-loss afflictions to secure a kill.
Researchers gradually stack timewarp on their enemies to get an instant kill, combined with some passive crystals.
Illuminati have a couple potential routes they can go, but haven't really had anyone play the class to its fullest potential yet.

Time to test. For Science.

Wiccans are sort of like the forest version of guardians. They have ents, they try to stick afflictions to get their "insta-kill" which isn't really that instant since it turns the enemy into a toad and then you have to be stomped on by someone to be killed. RP wise, they're sort of the spiritual leadership when it comes to their Great Spirit of the commune (Night and Moon), similar to how the guardian classes are tied into their cosmic plane superbeings.

No testing needed, when Baalphegar was slain my deep pact stayed. Back to your cage

If you go guardian, do yourself a favor and influence your way up to ~90, make sure to have your symbol by then and you can begin bashing for cash. Up until that point, influencing blows bashing out of the water. Someone wrote a pretty good guide on influence preparation, make sure to get all that. Only thing not in there would be the new tattoos, which are not like Achaea, what you know as tattoos there is what we have as the enchanting tradeskill.

Also, don't you dare to go beyond Newton as a novice (well unless really bored), it is a cash heaven and it will prepare you for questing. Though no worries if you don't get the honour lines on a first character. Being a seasoned MUD player may help though.

Be sure to have a look at the Lusternia wiki, it is so incredibly handy!

PS: Join Nihilists, we're the most awesome of the guardians

Can never have enough testing.

Newton honors are pretty much like flagging a character as an alt. They're just slightly less incomprehensible than the Grey Moors quests (infamous asspains), but are actually absurdly easy once you've figured them out (like 10 minutes per). Don't expect to manage to snag them on a first character, and if you do, expect a lotta people to assume you're an alt and already know what you're doing

So there are basically classes inside classes? Ugh.....choosing one is becoming a bigger PITA! Heheh. It seems that a lot of the classes are different so I may be presuming some classes are the same as Achaea when they really aren't. Are Monks a lot different? Or is it still the basic three hits per combo type of thing going for damage kills? How about bards? In Achaea...everyone hates bards. It's hard to be killed as one and hard to kill people as one. Are there certain classes that are charisma based? I'm guessing that would help with influence.

Btw, Shamarah your post was extremely helpful! Thanks!

Indeed. Here, though we might flag a guild as 'guardian' or 'bard', each guild differs from one another, which is especially nice since this cuts down the dullness of repetition, but of course brings in the problem of differentiation and equality, but that's more for envoys to deal with.

Monks in comparison to Achaea have the same premise of three hits, but that's pretty much where the comparison ends. You'll want to ask a monk for specifics, but here, it's not as simple as 'build enough damage to go for BBT spam/whatever it is Achaea does nowadays'.

Bards, like monks, use songs, yes, but each guild differs from another, so specifics there will depend on which one you're looking at. Spiritsingers enjoy the ancestral spirit focus and the skills tied to those, while the Cacophony use plague affliction stacking and chains. Harbingers are the kings of bleed while the Cantors just got a revamp in regards to their celestial focus. Bards in particular are charisma based, but you do get notable exceptions - like Telekinetic mages who use high CHA to bump up their Forcefields to bananas levels.

In general though, if you're looking to influence, caster guilds (wiccans/guardians, mages/druids, and bards) can get higher CHA than their melee (warrior and monk) counterparts do. Though bards with their CHA focus can get the highest levels (and therefore be the most efficient) than anyone else, you can be a successful influencer as any other class, really, if you're determined enough.

Each Monk Guild has their own unique specializations depending on the city they're from, which makes them play vastly different from one another. You get Tahtetso/Shofangi/Nekotai/Ninjakari AND the option of choosing harmony/stealth/psionics/psychometabolism/acrobatics. If that's not enough, you'll end up differentiating from others based on the tradeskills you can pick, which effect combat once you trans em (Toxicology/Herbs/Tattooist/Tailoring).

Bards here are some sort of disturbing mage/druid/monk crossbreed, and other than the cantors, are as a whole really hardcore awesome offensively, and a pain in the ass to kill via melee (because of the way armor stacking works here, in addition to the great defense against melee Acrobatics provides). I think you'll find a lot of surprising differences between monks here and Achaean monks.

You also have to remember that just changing a tertiary or specialization can -completely- change the ways someone in a guild can fight. Dealing with an Axelord Necromancer Ur'guard is radically different from dealing with a Pureblade Tracker Ur'guard, which is again, radically different in playstyle from playing a Blademaster of either tertiary in the Ur'Guard. However, despite the differences, they all also have commonalities that they share and certain generalizations that cover the entire archetype as a whole.

Oh, and before you get buried in the avalanche of possibilities and get overwhelmed, try to take it slow. Take an archetype you might fancy and ask for specifics in it. The general combat viability, influencing prowess, and overall utility can be seen easily when comparing guilds of the same archetype together than taking two different archetypes at a time.

Of course, getting a general picture of what archetypes can do doesn't hurt, but I do enjoy giving details when I can. -twiddle-

Yeah, even though a lot of guilds share the same class, each guild has its own unique specialization and you generally have an option with two or three choices in a secondary or tertiary skillset. You might just want to make an alt and play with a few different guilds that sound interesting, or get on the website and read up on some of the different cities and guilds and see where you think you might fit in or a place that has an RP angle that you like. There aren't really any "bad" classes in Lusternia, and even if some aren't super powerful 1-on-1, 90% of the game is group combat anyway. Also, no matter what you pick, you've got a lot of options. We also recently got skillflexing, so if you want to switch some skills around you can do so without losing all your lessons.

It's also worth noting that there is actually very little 1v1 in modern Lusternia. Most combat revolves around groups.

Interesting...most combat is in groups? That's kinda cool. Particularly because I know the mages have those crazy demesne's or however you spell it, heheh. How do cantors play out as far as combat goes and bards in general with group combat? I've been basing my choices off 1v1 combat thinking that was the biggest thing. Also...what is choke? I keep seeing a lot mentioned about it.

What are some of the busier cities? I'd like to be a part of a city that has more people in it just because I'm newer and from what I've seen, the more people in a city the easier it is to get help.

And probably a stupid question that I could've asked earlier which would've helped a ton. Which archetypes are more affliction based and which ones are more damage based (if there's more than these two...let me know...in Achaea that's basically what classes there are.)

In Achaea I play a serpent and am not a huge fan of damage classes due to the linearity of them for just some background information on me.

Remember Kai-choke from Kaido in Achaea? That's what they're mentioning. Nifty raid skill, since there are very very few range abilities for group combat in Lusternia (Because we don't have bows and archery like in Achaea).

Damn, he brought up choke. This thread is doomed to become another choke-rage/taunting pit now. Poor guy, especially when he actually needs advice...

In other news, bards are pretty sweet in group, given a lot of their songs can both benefit allies or hit all enemies in a room, afaik. Not sure about after the recent fix, but up until that, cantors were essentially synonymous with 'horribad', that one class that you only joined if you cared -nothing- about combat. That may have changed, but again, I have no clue.

Here, even the damage classes are affliction based. TK bleedout? Relies on herbstacking. Monk damagekills/bleedout? Relies on salve stacking. Etc. etc. etc.

As for activity levels, that goes in swings, though some, like Hallifax, consistently need more players (and it's a pretty sweet city, so I don't get the lack of retention).


PS: Delete Night-Totems Choke. Spammable incurable perma-aeon should -never- exist. <.<

... what? No. Choke in Lusternia is basically targeted retardation. Night users have access to it. Lusternia has no equivalent to kai choke.