Setup critiques / suggestions?

Well, after having done nothing but play dragons since game launch (and through the multitudes of quit-forget-come-back-quit-come back-ad nauseum phases...) I've finally decided to give biped gameplay a shot :D

I've settled on shaman / spearman (with spearman being the "main" class), after looking through all the classes. I'd like the character to be as smooth / "powerful" as possible, and have been doing a bunch of research to get him to that point. Unfortunately I've had zilch knowledge to build on, so a lot of my theories are probably incorrect.

So assuming I'm understanding things, I've figured I'll level Druid and Spiritist to 20, then Shaman to 100, then finally Spearman to 100. (If I'm not dead by then I might pick up Druid to 100 after that.) I'll be cheating and having my dragon craft him a full set of tech'd spells, and try and at least get a set of tech'd Bronze ringmail before I get started.

Anywho, would this work nicely? Any glaring things I'm missing that'll land me into some frustrating circumstances? I was thinking of picking up Cleric too, but that's flirting a bit too close to "overwhelming" for my liking. Seeing as how my caster dragon is already "heal heal and hope it dies", I was hoping to make the biped more along the lines of "kill kill before it kills me", also.

Annnd what kind of techs would I want to put on the armor? I was thinking along the lines of Str, Dex, and 1H pierce skill but that's just me picking random stats.

Thanks :o

Not a complete response but note that neither Spiritist nor Druid can wear metal armor. All schools can wear cloth though, provided level and armor use stat permits.

Knossos

I have had 2 characters that have gone down the shaman route, and the main was a shaman/spearman/spiritist/healer for a long time. Need both Spiritist and Druid to 20 to qualify for shaman, yes.

My character is based on beeing a caster mainly, with good parry and block skills from spearman, and 10/lvl focus skill form Healer to make sure those spells hit.)
The other shaman character sort of drifted into a Reaver build along the way, so not covering that setup here.


I'd go for Shaman/Spearman/Healer, with a later add of spiritist (Spirit Walk, spirit spells, as in bolts and life drains mainly, Blight spells are more or less a waste of resources and time) and possibly druid to 100 as well. And after that, who knows.

Spearman is good for high one-h skill 11/lvl, and for shield skill 10/lvl.
Gives good parry and blocking. Only drawback with spears is that they do little damage, although you will attack more often than with swords/maces/axes and such.

The way damage and mitigation of damage from armor works in Istaria it makes the smaller weapons loose out quite a bit when compared to the heavier, slower weapons with more damage potential, even when factoring in the increased number of attacks because of using a "quicker" weapon.
But you will look much more stylish when fighting as spearman than any other melee class. :-D

Should perhaps also mention that I quite early on took a few craft classes to 100 to gain the benefits from the stat increases there that would not be covered by my adventure classes initially. Fitter for 10 str/lvl, Weaver for 10 dex/lvl.


As for Armor tech's, I would probably go for a mix of 1-h pierce, armor and strength mainly, and sockets in helm/shield/weapon, if I were to use spearman (and melee) as main char/attack.



My route as time went by after having finished my initial classes to 100:
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Added:
Mage (Power skill, 10/lvl) - took this to lvl 36 quite early on for the Perfect Spell and Multicast I abilities. LAter levelled it to 100.
Druid (Damage mitigation abilities, Nature's Fury, Field of Growth, Cloak of Thorns)
Conjurer (Multicast II)
Monk (Foresight, Evasion, 10/lvl, Dex 10/lvl)
Guardian (1 and 2-hand crush, 10/lvl, and Skin like Thornwood ability which a druid don't get, but that transfers over when using druid as main since druid also would get that ability eventually, but somewhere after level 100.., and a few other nice abilities as well.)


Ended up using druid as main since my armor rating was about the same when using leather as my shaman using chainmail, and the Cloak of Thorns ability gave more effective hunting as druid in the end.
The DoT's and curses of the shaman, while helping out a good deal on single targets aren't really much use agains several.


Hope you find something useful in here. :)


Irramor