New to Istaria, with the obligatory ton of questions :P

[Seilan Moonside]

Hi everyone, I just recently started playing Istaria a few days ago, and so far I've been beyond impressed with this game - I really can't stress that enough.

-(This is more of a personal experience account, so you can all skip this if you don't feel like reading it)- A little history about myself: I've been playing mmos for over a decade and have played just about everything I could get my hands on to at least some extent. This would include just about every AAA mmo, as well as quite a few smaller, indie developed types, and through the years I've become very particular and well, picky about my online gaming hehe. It takes a lot to satisfy all of these little expectations that I've developed over the years through playing such a variety of different mmorpgs and their respective gameplay styles, as well as their contributions to the genre.

That said, I'm happy to say that after years of searching, I think I've finally found what I've been looking for here in Istaria! In the short time I've been playing and reading/researching everything I could find, I've been painstakingly combing over as many of the different aspects as possible, and I just can't find anything that truly disagrees with me. Istaria seems to have just about everything that I've only been able to find partially in any other given mmorpg that I've played. A varied, class progression system (probably one of the most interesting I've seen to date, especially with the multiclassing), non-instanced player housing that seems to offer a good deal more freedom than you typically see in this genre, an in-depth crafting system that is surprisingly appealing/entertaining to even a non-crafter like myself, a fine variation of race choices, and of course, the notorious playable dragon race, which offers a whole new dimension to the game, the likes of which you can find no where else (at least to my knowledge).

It's a crime that more people aren't aware of the game and what it offers, because I'm sure there are many other gamers out there who would love it. On that note, even though it might not do much, I plan on starting a little ad campaign of my own in the near future.

Ahem, my apologies for the pseudo-advertising heh, it's not like I'm telling you all stuff you don't already know about the game. I just wanted to express my views to let the devs know that I really appreciate what they have created here. I only wish that when I originally looked into Horizons (probably 4 or 5 years ago) that I could have had the same computer I have now. That was my main reason for not playing sooner (horrid framerates). So many years...wasted...

-Okay, now for the questions- I've been looking all over for resources/guides on the game, and although I've learned a good deal from places like the wikia, as well as Istaria-guides, I'm still a bit confused on some of the more complex systems in the game.

Firstly, I'm a little lost on the adventure rating thing. From what I understand so far, you gain levels in the game for whichever adventure/crafter classes you happen to be using at the time, and with them comes AR. I've also read that the higher your AR is, the stronger enemies in the game need to be to yield notable experience for leveling, regardless of the actual level of the class you're playing. Is that right, or am I off-base on this? I saw something on the wiki that looked a little contradictory so I wasn't sure. One point referred to AR determining the amount of experience your character gains, while another point towards the bottom of the same article stated that your character's current adventure school level determines the maximum amount of experience you can gain per monster. A tad perplexing

That leads me to my next question - how is AR calculated exactly? I've read that the max AR in the game is currently 267 (taken from the wiki), but I was confused as to how that number is reached. Is it a culmination of certain skills, levels, or stats maybe? I don't want to assume too much, so I'll leave it at that.

I was also wondering if there is any notable reason for playing more than one biped character (aside from RP reasons and racial advantages, of course)? As I understand it, one character can level every adventure and crafter class to the max level, so is there much of a reason for playing more than one? The main reason I can see is with the training point allocation, as I imagine it wouldn't be very effective to play a melee class (for example) while using stat distribution more suited for mages. I guess much of this would depend on the training point cap in the game, which I'm still not clear on. Do you get enough points in total to eventually suit most of the classes in the game?

On that subject, I'm thinking of possibly playing the Reaver class as my main eventually, so if any of you have any experience on stat distribution for hybrid classes like that, I'd love to hear it.

And with that, I will end this extremely long-winded, rambling wall of an introduction post . It's crazy the amount you can write when you really get going. No stone left unturned, as the saying goes.

Thanks for reading, and if any of you can share a little insight on the questions, I'd truly appreciate it. I haven't had a chance to get in game for the last couple of days, but I should be on pretty often during the late evenings through the week. Looking forward to meeting some of you other night owls out there on the Chaos shard .

-SM

[Dracaena]

Welcome to Istaria, Seilan. Now if only your questions related to dragons I might have some answers. For all these years of playing I think my first biped is only low 30's mage (just shows you how much I play her I am not even sure what level mage).

From my understanding of biped multi classing both of your examples of exp gains are right. What level you currently are does have a max of how much exp you can get off each kill. Your rating determines how high a monster you need to kill to receive experience for it. I'm sure some biped players will come along and give better advise.

Not sure if you caught it, but training points can be moved. You are not locked into whatever you first put them in. There are "buy back" points that will renew over time that will allow you to shuffle things around as you wish. I think we all wish for more training points. I know I had to decide did I want more shield use or better bolts for my shaman. There wasn't enough for all the goodies I wanted, you do have to decide what you most want.

Hope you enjoy things and have a long stay. I am mostly on Order shard though I do drop in with my hatchling on Chaos now and then.

[LungTien Temeraire]

Hello Seilan Moonside, and welcome on Istaria. I have no bipeds myself, so I can't really help with your questions, sorry. Feel free to also ask in game if you need help.

[Garfonso]

Welcom to this great game.

Firstly, I'm a little lost on the adventure rating thing. From what I understand so far, you gain levels in the game for whichever adventure/crafter classes you happen to be using at the time, and with them comes AR. I've also read that the higher your AR is, the stronger enemies in the game need to be to yield notable experience for leveling, regardless of the actual level of the class you're playing. Is that right, or am I off-base on this? I saw something on the wiki that looked a little contradictory so I wasn't sure. One point referred to AR determining the amount of experience your character gains, while another point towards the bottom of the same article stated that your character's current adventure school level determines the maximum amount of experience you can gain per monster. A tad perplexing

Both is true.
1. The exp you gain for every mob that you kill are determined based on your adventure rating. So, let's say you happen to be lvl 20 and have a rating of lvl 40. You kill a mob with lvl 45 and get a good number of xp. Your friend is lvl 40 and has no other adv. school (maybe he is a dragon ) and kill a lvl 45 mob, too. He will get the exact same number of xp for the mob.

2. The potential XP are capped, based on the level. This is something that was introduced later, when power leveling of peds got to easy. The cap is quite "high" so that you usually only touch it for the first like 10-20 levels of a new school and while hunting enemy groups with friends. The cap forces you to kill at least 10 mobs per level (or something similar), even if your rating would calculate the xp you earn to something that sums up to far less than 10 mobs per level. But as I said: It's very high and you will rarely see this cap in effect.

That leads me to my next question - how is AR calculated exactly? I've read that the max AR in the game is currently 267 (taken from the wiki), but I was confused as to how that number is reached. Is it a culmination of certain skills, levels, or stats maybe? I don't want to assume too much, so I'll leave it at that.

I don't know the exact formula anymore. It's somewhere in this forums, I am sure... but you have your current level and the sum of all your other adventure levels. This is combined with some weight factor... the most important thing one needs to know is that:
1. Every adventure school you ever learn (and not forget ) will add to your rating.
2. Your current adventure level is the most important factor in the rating calculation
So, if you happen to have a school at lvl 100 and start another one from 1, you'll see that your level raises faster than your rating. Also you need quite some schools at lvl 100 to get a raiting above 200 (which then makes gaining xp a bit problematic).

I was also wondering if there is any notable reason for playing more than one biped character (aside from RP reasons and racial advantages, of course)? As I understand it, one character can level every adventure and crafter class to the max level, so is there much of a reason for playing more than one? The main reason I can see is with the training point allocation, as I imagine it wouldn't be very effective to play a melee class (for example) while using stat distribution more suited for mages. I guess much of this would depend on the training point cap in the game, which I'm still not clear on. Do you get enough points in total to eventually suit most of the classes in the game?

It is quite possible to get all the craft classes to lvl 100 for one biped, it just takes a lot of time. But craft classes have not much influence on each other when it comes to xp. In fact, if you do an intelligent combination, you can get most schools to lvl 80 very fast, after the first school reached that level just by processing raw ressources.
For adventure this is a completely different song. There is the point on which you won't get any more xp for a mob. I don't know the correct numbers, but being rating 100 you don't get xp for like lvl 60 mobs. Now your raiting raises, and on some point you won't even get xp for lvl 120 mobs. Sure there are now the lvl 140 (round) Mylocs in the doom, which raise that bar a bit further, but still I think it's not possible to get all the schools to 100 just by killing mobs. There still is the way to do quests (Trophy Hunter ) to get the remaining schools to 100... but that takes ages and is very numbing..
On the other hand it stops making sense at some point in time.. your ped will already be "uber" and you will run out of space on your hotkey bars.

I have a few different bipeds. And I made them mainly because I wanted to try different types of chars. There still are 3-4 very different biped school clusters. There are the meele fighters that swirl their weapons and deal big damage. Then there are the ranged classes that use a bow or crossbow to deal damage to distant enemies and then there are caster classes, that use mainly (or even only, like my cat) spells to hurt their enemies. Of course all of them are overlapping... there are melee classes that can cast spells or are able to use bows (or crossbows) and so on...
But I think those three are very different... skills are different, gear is different and tactics are very different.

But I made a biped that is only caster (my cat, main class a shaman), I'm working on a ranged character and have a meele based character. I'm thinking if it makes sense to add another caster that concentrates on the mage line of magic things... but I'm not sure about that.

Another reason to make multiple bipeds is, that you can experience istaria anew with every new char... as said above: if you learn a new school, your AR rating will be higher and the low level areas won't be of much interest to you, because you won't get much XP.

On that subject, I'm thinking of possibly playing the Reaver class as my main eventually, so if any of you have any experience on stat distribution for hybrid classes like that, I'd love to hear it.

My suggestion always is: decide which is you main attack skill, and put all possible points in that skill (which is 50% of your points). The skill will raise your chance to hit and your damage at the same time.

[Sargoreth]

Hey Seilan, welcome to Istaria! I don't have much insight to offer, as I only discovered this wonderful game in the last month or so, but one thing I didn't realize until a while was that stats stay with you as you change schools, and some abilities will too. For example, I hear people talking about raising fitter(a construction crafting school) to 100 to get 10 STR per level, or raising monk to 100 to get the 10 Evasion per level. Until you get another class that increases a stat, it will stay the way it is, even if you switch classes. So a warrior that has raised armor use high enough to wear plate can still wear plate once their new class reaches the level requirement for that class of plate (some gear have stat reqs as well as level reqs..and sometimes the level reqs are for any class, sometimes it is for your current class)
Apologies if I am already spewing stuff you know. That was something I didn't expect coming from lots of other MMOs and took me a while to find out. Another thing I learned was don't expect to be able to complete quests solo that you pick up. Some you can, some you can't. But this isn't a big deal. at the beginning you can get great XP just by killing mobs.
Anyway again, welcome aboard!
Sarg

[Garfonso]

So a warrior that has raised armor use high enough to wear plate can still wear plate once their new class reaches the level requirement for that class of plate

Of course not all classes are able (or allowed) to wear plate armor. There usually is a list of schools on such items, that are allowed to use them. Same is for weapons and spells and so on...

But in general that's true: Skills and Stats from other schools will stay after a switch. And the "x per level" that you might find in the wikia are counted from the beginning level of that class.
One example where that bites you a bit, if you don't keep that in mind, are the disciple schools (like spirit disciple, storm disciple, and so on). Spirit disciple gets 10 spirit per level. This sounds quite decent, 10 skill per level is what you get at best. There are only very few skills where you can reach 11 skill per level. But: The disciples start at lvl 20 with a value of 0, because Monk does not have that skill. So you get 80 levels with 10 skill increase per level which lets you end with a spirit skill of 800, which is barely enough to hit T5 (Tier 5 = lvl 80-100 ) mobs without skillpoint and gear investment.

Abilities are tagged as "masterable" and "not masterable". Those that are masterable can be kept after a school change.
There are two conditions for this:
1. Your new school will earn this ability anyway.
2. Your level in the old school was double the level on which you earned that ability.
For most abilities the second one is the important one, which basically means that, if you get school X to 100, you will always keep all abilities that you got until lvl 50 and that are masterable. One practical example here: I levelled conjurer to lvl 96 to master Multicast II.

Multiclassing is what really makes this game great and can keep you up planning your character and levelling it multiple classes for different reasons and really "build" your character (if they call you uberped, they are just jealous)... it's time consuming and might be a bit dull at times (can't see Fyakkis in the ED anymore), but I'm sorry for all the dragon-only players that will never be able to enjoy this part of the game.

One thing to add: Having a craft school at 100 is a very good idea, because you can wear T5 cloth armor, which is much better than T1 armor of any kind. Also some craft schools get very decent stats that can greatly help your adventuring skills.

[Seilan Moonside]

Thanks very much for the welcomes everyone, and of course for all the information .

Your thorough explanation helped a ton Garfanso - it cleared up a lot of confusion for me. I'd even suggest that maybe the mods could put it into a stickied thread, to help other new players find it in the future. A big thanks for taking the time to share your insight.

I'm still a little fuzzy on some things, even to the point that I can't think of how to ask the questions I have, if that makes any sense haha. I guess the trickiest part will be deciding on a plan for my character's progression (like which classes to level first, which classes to level mainly for masterable passive skills and stat bonuses that will benefit my main class, etc). And with that AR mechanic, I imagine that leveling multiple classes tends to get complicating the father you go. Don't get me wrong though - I really love this kind of stuff . Variables Galore!

I definitely plan to do some crafting as well, but if they also affect your overall AR, I guess it would be smart to only train those that you plan on using a lot, and that have stat bonuses that complement your main class.

In any case, I feel a lot more confident about this now. So far, I've started a human character, but I've only leveled him up a bit (all of the base adventure and craft classes to around level 4 in the tutorial isle), but I'm still kicking around the idea of restarting him. No sense in leveling up classes that I won't ever use on this character, after all. I'm also thinking of picking a different race; I normally play humans, but there are a lot of interesting race choices in the game, so it's a tough call hehe.

Thanks again everyone - looking forward to see you all in-game soon

[Dracaena]

Craft rating and adventure rating don't affect each other. Craft your heart out if that is what you want to do between hunts. The ONLY thing that craft rating has an impact on is when you can use a travertine cargo disk (tier 6), which is 120 rating for biped.

[Garfonso]

I'd suggest you first try a few of the classes and see what you have fun with... one of the better things in Istaria is that you can be a pure spellcaster, because of the repeating bolts. That is much fun to me..

I would not worry about classes below lvl 10... anyway there is a way to forget adventure classes to optimize your rating a bit. I think it was started in Dalimond..? Is it still there? Not sure...

For races there is also the racial ability to consider nowadays. For example Saris get 110% base Lifeskill, which is only helpful for Healing (and therefor a bit meehh, although bipeds should level a healer into them and most do at some point in time... without it's quite wearisome to Solo). Gnomes get 110% base evasion, which is great if you want to do some char that can't wear a good armor, like mage or druid or similar (This is also a relieve during crafting, most higher Tier resources are guarded by mobs).
My favorite races in this game are Saris, Satyr and Sslisk. Satyr has the great passive ability that it can't be rooted by mobs. Saris has a second sprint, which massively helps in coming around Istaria without wings. Sslisk are just unbelievable cool, although I sadly don't have a Sslisk alt, yet.

But anyway... that's another good thing about Istaria: there is no PvP (apart from the arena), so you can do what you have fun with and if you invest enough time into your biped, it will be "uber" someday anyway, even without careful pre-calculations. And you had much of fun with it.

[Seilan Moonside]

Thanks again for all the help guys .

Yeah, I plan on trying out quite a few classes before I decide on anything. I'm a big fan of hybrid melee/magic classes, so I'll most likely go with a class like that, for my first character.

Speaking of that, aside from raising the appropriate attack skill to the max, do you have any suggestions on other stats/skills to raise for a hybrid class, like Reaver? It looks like all 4 stats would be pretty useful for a class like that (as well as quite a few of the skills), so I'm not really sure of a good route to take. Good to know there's at least a way to redistribute points later if you need/want to change something.

Wow, that Satyr racial is great. Hard to top a passive that makes you immune to root abilities . As for gnomes, I've always been a fan of the smaller races, so I plan to make a gnome (or maybe a dwarf) alt one of these days. And the Sslisk race - I completely agree on the coolness factor. I was a big fan of the Iksar race on Everquest, so I'll have to make a Sslisk eventually .

Although I find some good pvp fun once in awhile (as long as everyone is respectable and it's not taken too seriously), I agree that it's probably best Istaria doesn't have much of it. It's nice having so much freedom and variety with a progression system like in Istaria and that becomes way more tricky (if not impossible) to have when a game is constantly being balanced around pvp.

Thanks again for all the information . I actually put a pretty lengty youtube video together earlier explaining some things about the game for other prospective new players, and I used much of the information you guys provided in it. I'd be glad to give you all credit in my video description if that's ok with you. Just let me know.

[Garfonso]

Speaking of that, aside from raising the appropriate attack skill to the max, do you have any suggestions on other stats/skills to raise for a hybrid class, like Reaver? It looks like all 4 stats would be pretty useful for a class like that (as well as quite a few of the skills), so I'm not really sure of a good route to take. Good to know there's at least a way to redistribute points later if you need/want to change something.

I think you have to experiment a bit here.. What I can tell you is the following:
The attack skill is the most important. Your chance to hit is calculated based roughly 2/3 on your skill and 1/3 on dex or focus. The skill also raises the damage (here it's roughly 1/3 skill, 2/3 str / power).

But the stats also are important. All skills in Istaria are raised a little bit by your char's stats (you can see in your character window a list of skills and next to that is "base" that is what you earned from your class-levels and "current" which is the skill with all bonus from gear and from your stats). In the wiki it tells you which stat raises which skill... most skills are raised by 2-3 stats to a different extents.

Thanks again for all the information . I actually put a pretty lengty youtube video together earlier explaining some things about the game for other prospective new players, and I used much of the information you guys provided in it. I'd be glad to give you all credit in my video description if that's ok with you. Just let me know.

Fine with me.

[Seilan Moonside]

I think you have to experiment a bit here.. What I can tell you is the following:
The attack skill is the most important. Your chance to hit is calculated based roughly 2/3 on your skill and 1/3 on dex or focus. The skill also raises the damage (here it's roughly 1/3 skill, 2/3 str / power).

But the stats also are important. All skills in Istaria are raised a little bit by your char's stats (you can see in your character window a list of skills and next to that is "base" that is what you earned from your class-levels and "current" which is the skill with all bonus from gear and from your stats). In the wiki it tells you which stat raises which skill... most skills are raised by 2-3 stats to a different extents.



Fine with me.

Thanks , that simplifies things a bit. I somehow missed the training points section on the wiki (I swear I looked for it originally haha), and you're right - it's really helpful. I should be able to come up with something now.

[Guaran]

...
I'm still a little fuzzy on some things, even to the point that I can't think of how to ask the questions I have, if that makes any sense haha. I guess the trickiest part will be deciding on a plan for my character's progression (like which classes to level first, which classes to level mainly for masterable passive skills and stat bonuses that will benefit my main class, etc). And with that AR mechanic, I imagine that leveling multiple classes tends to get complicating the father you go. Don't get me wrong though - I really love this kind of stuff . Variables Galore!..

One of the fun things will be planning your character. You mentioned Reaver as a main, so let's start there.

Reaver gets 2 hand slash and spirit (spells) skills. One thing when planning a spellcasting build (which you need to still consider since reaver is hybrid, even if melee is somewhat in the forefront), what spells will he be able to use? To see this, you would look at a spell, and see what all classes can use it. For Reaver, you will get to use Spirit spells, Nature spells, Blight (shaman) spells, as the general grouping. These are all great skills to be able to tap into, so Reaver can be a fun main. (My very first class on a biped was Reaver).

So to add to the mains abilities, you will want to raise up spirit, nature, blight, and 2-hand slash skills. The reaver schools itself only gets 2hs and spirit in moderate amounts. So this means you will also want to level up warrior (for armor use, shield use, hp, and 2 hand slash skill (10 per level)), spiritist (spirit skill 10/level), druid (nature skill 10/level) or shaman (nature and blight), or some other combination. You have more than one choice for gaining most all the base skills. You could choose berserker for 2hs for example (11 2hs per level but less armor use). Also factor in some schools that start at level 20, so that affects the overall total they will grant once at level 100.

Whichever school you have which grants the highest amount of skill, will be the one from which your level of said skill comes. Example: reaver gets 7 spirit per level, spiritist gets 10. 100 reaver has only 700 spirit skill. then you start leveling spiritist. It gains 10 per level, but you already have 700. The beauty of multiclassing is that now you are in a low level school but have 700 skill already in its' primary skill! (Not to mention base stats such as power, focus, strength, dex, and health will all be between 600 and 800 as well) Your spirit bolt will be pretty powerful for a lowbie toon. (at the same time, your adventure rating will require you to hunt mobs about say level 20ish to start to even get experience). So, as you level spiritist, you will not see the skill increase until you hit level 71 spiritist, where it will move from 700 to 710. Then when you hit 100 spiritist, you will have 1000 base spirit skill. Now you can move up from tier 3/4 spirit spells to tier 5, and use those as Reaver.

Same idea for nature spells (stuns), blight spells (debuffs), etc. You will probably also want to add Healer into the mix which increases Life skill, which increases healing done, as well as focus at iirc 11/level (the highest it will go).

Now for the tricky part. You got 100 reaver, and are wearing t4 plate (pretty sure you need warrior or some other school leveled up to get t5 plate), and you switch to level 1 spiritist and now your gear falls off. You have to wear armor that the spiritist school can wear (believe its cloth only), and you are starting with T1 gear, but going to be hunting level 20-ish mobs. Believe it or not this is probably doable, Ethereal leech is an aoe life drain which can make for some crazy fun hunting. Round up 10 to 20 ice blights (t3 mobs) and cast Ethereal leech on them all, and you basically stay healed full while it ticks. In the meantime now you are also beating them down with other spells or aoe melee attacks, and get 3/4 of them dead before ethereal leech wears off, and the remainder you may be able to handle without the big healing coming in.

But if not, then maybe you need to wear some better gear to help you multiclass. This is where Craft levels can help. Get 1 craft school to 100, and you can wear t5 cloth (as long as you also have the required armor use skill) as well as t5 triple t5 teched jewelry (recommend health jewelry, teched with spirit, nature, armor, 2hs, strength, power, dex, focus. Not all skills will go on all pieces so it mixes and matches a bit). So now you can wear t4 or t5 cloth, triple teched with t5 techs, as a level 1 spiritist and go tearing it up!

The very first school you level will actually go slower than the second, third and fourth. The extra schools will be able to use your stats such as power, focus, strength, etc. which are at a level 100's skill, so attacks are powerful for the level, so you hunt higher level mobs, gain exp faster.

Once rating hits about 195 to 205, then exp starts slowing down and it takes longer again to level. You can use trophy quests tho. And this takes like around 6 to 8 shools at 100 before you get in this AR range anyway.

[Sslarn]

Craft rating and adventure rating don't affect each other. Craft your heart out if that is what you want to do between hunts. The ONLY thing that craft rating has an impact on is when you can use a travertine cargo disk (tier 6), which is 120 rating for biped.

I disagree with this slightly. Craft does affect advy. I was a level 91 Blacksmith and level 91 Scholar. I had mage at level 8. AR of 8.

I had strength of like 800+ and high armor use. My spells (beginner) would only do 10-30 damage, but because Blacksmith gave me a crap load of STR- I could use a staff and do 100-170 damage. My best spells didn't stand a chance to do that damage.

So my opinion is that in a way yes, craft does have influence on advy. Maybe not the rating itself, but the 2 do indeed help each other.

[Dracaena]

I disagree with this slightly. Craft does affect advy. I was a level 91 Blacksmith and level 91 Scholar. I had mage at level 8. AR of 8.

I had strength of like 800+ and high armor use. My spells (beginner) would only do 10-30 damage, but because Blacksmith gave me a crap load of STR- I could use a staff and do 100-170 damage. My best spells didn't stand a chance to do that damage.

So my opinion is that in a way yes, craft does have influence on advy. Maybe not the rating itself, but the 2 do indeed help each other.

Key word Rating. I didn't touch at all on the stat benefits you can derive from some crafting schools as the question I was answering was whether craft and adventure Ratings had an effect on each other.

[Seilan Moonside]

One of the fun things will be planning your character. You mentioned Reaver as a main, so let's start there.

Reaver gets 2 hand slash and spirit (spells) skills. One thing when planning a spellcasting build (which you need to still consider since reaver is hybrid, even if melee is somewhat in the forefront), what spells will he be able to use? To see this, you would look at a spell, and see what all classes can use it. For Reaver, you will get to use Spirit spells, Nature spells, Blight (shaman) spells, as the general grouping. These are all great skills to be able to tap into, so Reaver can be a fun main. (My very first class on a biped was Reaver).

So to add to the mains abilities, you will want to raise up spirit, nature, blight, and 2-hand slash skills. The reaver schools itself only gets 2hs and spirit in moderate amounts. So this means you will also want to level up warrior (for armor use, shield use, hp, and 2 hand slash skill (10 per level)), spiritist (spirit skill 10/level), druid (nature skill 10/level) or shaman (nature and blight), or some other combination. You have more than one choice for gaining most all the base skills. You could choose berserker for 2hs for example (11 2hs per level but less armor use). Also factor in some schools that start at level 20, so that affects the overall total they will grant once at level 100.

Whichever school you have which grants the highest amount of skill, will be the one from which your level of said skill comes. Example: reaver gets 7 spirit per level, spiritist gets 10. 100 reaver has only 700 spirit skill. then you start leveling spiritist. It gains 10 per level, but you already have 700. The beauty of multiclassing is that now you are in a low level school but have 700 skill already in its' primary skill! (Not to mention base stats such as power, focus, strength, dex, and health will all be between 600 and 800 as well) Your spirit bolt will be pretty powerful for a lowbie toon. (at the same time, your adventure rating will require you to hunt mobs about say level 20ish to start to even get experience). So, as you level spiritist, you will not see the skill increase until you hit level 71 spiritist, where it will move from 700 to 710. Then when you hit 100 spiritist, you will have 1000 base spirit skill. Now you can move up from tier 3/4 spirit spells to tier 5, and use those as Reaver.

Same idea for nature spells (stuns), blight spells (debuffs), etc. You will probably also want to add Healer into the mix which increases Life skill, which increases healing done, as well as focus at iirc 11/level (the highest it will go).

Now for the tricky part. You got 100 reaver, and are wearing t4 plate (pretty sure you need warrior or some other school leveled up to get t5 plate), and you switch to level 1 spiritist and now your gear falls off. You have to wear armor that the spiritist school can wear (believe its cloth only), and you are starting with T1 gear, but going to be hunting level 20-ish mobs. Believe it or not this is probably doable, Ethereal leech is an aoe life drain which can make for some crazy fun hunting. Round up 10 to 20 ice blights (t3 mobs) and cast Ethereal leech on them all, and you basically stay healed full while it ticks. In the meantime now you are also beating them down with other spells or aoe melee attacks, and get 3/4 of them dead before ethereal leech wears off, and the remainder you may be able to handle without the big healing coming in.

But if not, then maybe you need to wear some better gear to help you multiclass. This is where Craft levels can help. Get 1 craft school to 100, and you can wear t5 cloth (as long as you also have the required armor use skill) as well as t5 triple t5 teched jewelry (recommend health jewelry, teched with spirit, nature, armor, 2hs, strength, power, dex, focus. Not all skills will go on all pieces so it mixes and matches a bit). So now you can wear t4 or t5 cloth, triple teched with t5 techs, as a level 1 spiritist and go tearing it up!

The very first school you level will actually go slower than the second, third and fourth. The extra schools will be able to use your stats such as power, focus, strength, etc. which are at a level 100's skill, so attacks are powerful for the level, so you hunt higher level mobs, gain exp faster.

Once rating hits about 195 to 205, then exp starts slowing down and it takes longer again to level. You can use trophy quests tho. And this takes like around 6 to 8 shools at 100 before you get in this AR range anyway.

Thanks a ton for the thorough write-up! I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on all of this now. I'm also glad you mentioned how the skill progression works in the game, because that was one thing I was still unsure about. It makes complete sense to me now though.

Thanks again

Key word Rating. I didn't touch at all on the stat benefits you can derive from some crafting schools as the question I was answering was whether craft and adventure Ratings had an effect on each other.

Yeah, I understood that you were referring to AR. I regret that I didn't include anything about the benefits of crafting classes to adventure classes, in my video. I'm thinking of adding a little note in about that.

[Guaran]

Welcome. I just noticed a small mistake, I mentioned Ethereal Leech to do AOE, but that's the single target spell (still a useful spell). The AOE is named Ethereal Paroxysm.

Eventually there's a limit on how many spells you can learn. be sure to keep the tier 1 spirit bolt spell. It's useful later on leveling up just about any school (bolts are castable by just about all schools). I think my t1 spirit bolt does about 170 damage.

[Seilan Moonside]

Thanks for the update Guaran .

And wow, I wasn't even aware of the spell limit cap. I guess that would be another good reason to play multiple characters lol. Would you happen to know the number that it caps at?

[hallucin8]

Spellbook limit is quite large, 250 or something (maybe 150, not sure). It only becomes a problem if you insist on keeping all tiers of all spells... which aint gonna happen

Keeping spells which all schools can use (ie. revit line of heals and any bolt repeater spells) is always a good idea. Also, if you're levelling similar schools (say druid, spiritist or cleric), since they can use all the same spells (assuming you have the skill and level), then keeping all nature, spirit, blight, augmentation and life spells makes some sense.

Should you start to level magic schools which don't have anything in common (also likely to happen once you reach your 6th school ) then you might have to start deleting unused spells. [I use to get all the spells for the first few tiers, then about lvl 50 decide which ones are actually useful and which are not.]

As for some of your other comments/queries, I personally have played the same biped since getting my own account ~8 years ago. After a few years, I created a dragon (which I adore!!), but my ped is still my main. I have other peds, but never play them, they are just for extra vault storage and plot holders

As you might have found out by now, the multiclassing is ridiculously awesome but, whatever you do, which ever path you choose to follow, just make **** sure you're enjoying it... no point in trying to level every school to 100 on just one character if it feels like your pulling glass shards out of your arm.

I'm a terrible min/max player, also have been, so being able to take ALL schools, adventure and crafting is absolutely perfect for me (even though I'm not big on crafting, it has excellent advantages), but others prefer to have different characters setup for a different purpose. Example: one toon for arcane magic, one for support magic, one for ranged, one for melee... or just say two toons, each with a different mixed bag but again, whatever is best for you

If you're on Chaos, feel free to give a shout out to iuvenilis or iumentum and I can happily provide assistance in many ways.

Best of luck, see yas in Istaria

[Garfonso]

I find the 100 hotkey limit much more problematic than anything else...
Of course with 10 hotkey bars screen-space gets also a bit problematic... but that's what F10 is for.

How do you guys solve the hotkey thing while multiclassing and many abilities / spells need to be replaced, but not permanent, because now and then you school back to do an epic hunt? I haven't really come up with a good solution... would love to have a set of hotkeys connected to every adventure school I do.