Describe the RPG and grouping please?

[awdz]

The way I'm thinking of raising characters is to advance their main class a few levels and then catch up a secondary class from not too far behind. Is that a good way to do it?

That approach worked well for me. I had cleric as a secondary class, kept it at least half my main, and thus had heals to help my main survive better.

[alizarinblaze]

Half? Like 30-60? I was thinking more like a five level gap, essentially playing the same content on two classes. If you did it the other way, wouldn't you have to kill level 60 mobs with level 30 cleric abilities and just the health and some skill points from the higher class?

[awdz]

I did not say I was efficient at leveling cleric, just that it worked for me. ;-)
I typically leveled cleric to about 3/4 or 4/5 of my main level, then leveled the main till it was almost twice cleric, then back to cleric again. There have been many who kept the levels closer and had fun that way. Another way to approach dual-leveling is to go for classes with skills in common, but I do not tend to plan that much.

[hallucin8]

Way back when I started, I did 5 lvls at a time, Druid then Spiritist. I used trophies I collected while leveling Druid, to help level Spiritist, then I only had to do about 2 levels of Spiritist to catch-up. After a while, due to grouping, Spiritist actually overtook Druid and I did the Dark Cyclone questline as Spiritst (had to pump Training Points into Nature to meet the skill requirement, but had the level requirement from Spiritist).

It's easier if the spells and abilities support one another. So doing Warrior and Cleric can be accomplished by using the same weapon (as they can both use 2 handed crush weapons), and they can also wear the same armor, Platemail. Just helps a bit so you don't have to try getting multiple sets of everything. Spiritist and Druid don't share these advantages, as Spiritist can only wear the cloth/padded armor, while Druid can use Leather armors. But they synergy well since they can use each others spells, and the two revitalize spells can use the nature skill, meaning you get access to two good healing spells (as an example).

[alizarinblaze]

Ah ok, those replies give me some of the subtle intricacies involved with not having bought a 100/100 toon from eBay. Again, the complexity of it (or not) is mostly in the hands of the user. With my Druid, I started picking up a level as Guardian due to the convenience of it, but if you look at it, that probably doesn't help the Druid very much and something inconvenient like Spiritist is probably more useful. Guardian seemed more like a tank as it clipped off some of the healing spells.

[hallucin8]

er, pretty sure you can't buy toons for this game anywhere...

I think of Guardian as a more defensive/support tank class. They have less offensive abilities than a Warrior, but have some healing and buff abilities. Nature spells offer quite a bit of diversity, with area of effect spells, stuns, roots and heals. Druid would help Guardian as your Nature skill would be kept high, but Guardian wouldn't bring much to Druid as you'd probably be focusing on using spells anyway.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Spiritist is 'inconvenient', quite the opposite actually. Spirit spells are basically the highest damage spells in game, at least for the Mystic schools. Most of the spirit spells offer life steal; ethereal leech is a single-target life stealing Dot, ethereal paroxysm is an area version, then there's theft of life and it's improved version, which can heal for quite a bit. Blight spells offer debuffs and more DoTs further increasing your overall DPS.

It just depends if you want to be a tank-type, in which case Guardian is a solid choice. If you want to focus on using spells, then a Druid/Spiritist combo is extremely powerful. Spiritist can add a lot of useful spells to your arsenal no matter what Mystic school you choose. Paladin is also a great choice for a tank type and has more focus on warrior type abilities than Guardian, but there's basically no damage spells for Life skill. Check out the wikia class pages to get a feel for what abilities each school has and how you might play your chosen school/s.

[alizarinblaze]

Haha no, that was pure rubbish what I said about buying a character. I'm taking a crash course in Istaria doing multiple things to 20ish just to catch up from the past ten years, although I still have no clue what would be Mystic about any of them. I got my friend to download it today, so we should be doing stuff as a duo pretty soon. If they play a lot, that one will be my main character, otherwise I'll pick something from the roster and start getting serious about beefing it up--at the moment it's like a kid in a candy store trying out all these race/class combinations.

I just meant that compared to Guardian--the trainer is in the same place and you use mostly the same gear--nothing else is as convenient for a Druid. But I can't see any reason to pursue it so I'll pick something else.

Considering Paladins, it makes me wonder, how much of the endgame consists of undead? Are there enemy dragons and other stuff to fight, or is it pretty much Withered Aegis? I saw an article or post somewhere with someone explaining about how Paladin was not their main tanking school but they took it to 100 just for undead. I can see some perks on various tanks, the Paladin/undead, I take it that Berserker is usually the highest melee dps, Spearman is the highest block, and I'd guess a lot of the others are situationally valuable if their spell schools are useful on a given mob. Like Battlemage could be great fun, but I'm assuming there's something out there immune to fire or maybe reflects it to you, so a second tanking class could be really handy for going to fire areas.

[hallucin8]

What I meant by 'Mystic' was that they can cast most mystic spells, as in Spirit, Blight, Nature, Life, Augmentation (though Aug. is more all rounded, cept not all schools can cast the Enhance line of buffs, though the Raise line can be cast by all). If I said Arcane, I'd be referring to Flame, Ice, Energy etc. Hope that clears up any confusion.

Most of Paladin's abilities besides the Warrior ones are non-masterable, but having pally at 100 still means you could switch to it when you go undead killing. There are lots of undead mobs at all tiers, as well as WA at the higher tiers, and many other animals, elementals, golems... lots.

If you were to do Paladin, then Berserker would help too, boosting your 2 hand slash and bumping up your damage and to-hit chance a bit. Berserker certainly has some of the highest DPS of the biped classes, improved berserker's rage is mental. As for Spearman having the highest block, I think their block bonus is masterable, so just levelling it for that purpose is not entirely a waste.

Most mobs, at least in the higher tiers, have resistances or immunities against some of the damage types. Golems for example, might be resistant against slash (or crush? who knows, probably depends on if it's a metal/stone golem or a gem golem), there's flame/fire beetles who are of course immune to flame, and naturally there's ice beetles who are immune to ice damage. The icy wolves of different tiers might have a resistance or even immunity to ice attacks as well.

Undead can be particularly nasty as they usually roam in packs and are very social. An undead mage might have resistances to some 'arcane' damage types, but weakness to 'mystic', and of course they'll buff and help each other out just as we would.

Just a heads up, your race's base stats will not matter, just choose one you like the look of. Though their active abilities can make a world of difference. Dryad's can pretty much dodge anything for a very short time, but Dwarves can pretty much ignore all damage for a short time. Sslik have a fast health regen ability, while Elves have an awesome group ability where everyone will do maximum damage. In the end, their abilities won't make or break the game for you, but some certainly are more useful than others.

[alizarinblaze]

That sounds spiffy. I like the underlying theme of living races vs. undead, but it kind of gives the impression that it becomes "only" undead, so it's good to know there is other stuff as well. I also like that your character is not considered a "savior", but just someone else who can help out since you can cheat death.

Yes, even at low levels from my observations it appeared that gem golems resist slash and using crush is more effective. And, either the RNG is huge, or there's stuff on mobs we can't see, considering that as I pull what looks like the same thing with the same health, one will barely scratch me, and then another will whack the living snot out of me.

The mechanics that puzzle me right now are firstly, direction--some of these mobs do their little charge and go behind you, but you can still hit them without facing them. Also, several times when my health gets low and I sprint, I get about 30m away and then find myself killed by a standard melee attack. Do direction and distance ever get more precise, or should I plan on it staying weird like that?

[alizarinblaze]

I guess I can figure out all the mechanics, even if it's unrealistic like a sword thrust behind the body or a claw swipe at 30m.

I've brought the game's existence to the awareness of over 500 people from amongst PvE players and my friend started a toon. For a first session I thought it was pretty satisfying, having half a clue of how to get going is a great help. A duo is obviously more successful than things that were rough to solo at a given level, Attor still wasted us about five times, so it's still not total immunity, which is good.

From browsing around I see two t2 dungeons, Ashlander's Tomb and Helian's Tomb somewhere around Dalimond. If t2 is something like level 20-39 is this anywhere near 20 levels worth of content? Or is it balanced for a certain level or group size? And are they very big? Sounds like a field day for us but I'd like to plan on catching it somewhere in the sweet zone between suicidal and trivial.

[Ming]

You will like those dungeons. They are part of a long quest that begins if I remember right, at Sable Shores guard post. I'm not sure what you mean about levels of content. I can tell you the quest is a blast and gets harder as it goes. I think it's a challenge at around level 30 with a group of two of that level, for bipeds at least, but then, I'm more of a crafter. Don't know how dragons would do. Once you do the first parts of the quest and actually get into those dungeons, the mob are plentiful.

[alizarinblaze]

Oh, I stumbled across meager descriptions of the dungeons while I was looking up something else and it just said they were t2, and if I have this right, t1 = 1-19, t2 = 20-39, and so on up to t6 is greater than 100. Sable Shores is as far as I've gotten on any alt, so if it's a big quest I guess you can start it there early 20s, with the main part in the dungeon targeted around 30 and continuing for a few levels. Sounds good, we will definitely aim our duo at those places.