I've made some updates with this, which I'll be posting in game here in just a moment. But now you can do HELP <profession name> as well as HELP PROFESSION <name>. Those interested in helping me clean them up is more than welcomed to post here in this thread. Please keep this thread as strictly updated help files, or comments (not degrading) about the help files others have posted, as in if you have an idea or think something should be reworded.
We are not looking for something super lengthy, and will not be doing an essay on each profession. These are to be "summaries" of the professions as a quick read to get people interested. So please keep them simple.
There are HELP <skill name> as well so you do not need to write summaries on the individual skills, but if you wish to see one of those updated as well you can post here. I will try to keep up with you guys, but know sometimes you all are a bit quick!
Thank you in advance for all your help. I already got some interest after my post in the Newbie thread, and this should keep that thread on topic with what Jeremy is looking for, for our newer members.
Comments
HELP HUNTER
----------
Armour: None – Hunters use their wyvern scales to protect them.
Main stat: Strength
Balance type: Balance/Equilibrium combos
Skillsets: Shapeshifting - Shapeshifting is the Hunter’s primary offensive skillset, and it consists mainly of balance-based wyvern attacks, including wyvern claw, whose damage is based on your strength. This is the skillset used for PvE.
Supremacy - Supremacy is the Hunter's secondary offensive skillset, and it consists of equilibrium-based basilisk attacks that can be used while off balance, so that the Hunter’s primary offense consists of wyvern/basilisk combos. The skillset is entirely PvP-only; though Resurrect can be useful in many situations.
Pioneering - Pioneering is the Hunter's defensive skillset; it has no active offensive abilities. It contains passive defenses used in both PvE and PvP, active healing methods, and utility skills for travel and exploration.
Combat Focus: Afflictions/Damage - The Hunter's primary kill method is to stack afflictions and turn a large stack of applied afflictions into damage. Hunters also possess the ability to instantly kill an opponent who has four stacks Blood Poison by Rupturing them. They can prevent certain curing and stack afflictions to move to a kill.
Tarot - The ability to etch an image onto a card and then FLING it at a target. This is your support skillset. Among many others, Tarot gives the user the ability to heal and destroy.
Combat Focus: (For this class this one is hard to do briefly and for newbies in mind, but I'll give it a shot.) Afflictions AND/OR Damage. The faster your balance, the better able you are to utilize tarot and thus control your enemies. Mental afflictions for the faster, Tarot inclined summoners, can yield a kill with Enlightenment, by revealing the universe at a fundamental level to the target, driving them incurably insane. The road more (viable) traveled by, is that of damage, wherein a summoner focuses on high intelligence to yield devastating warps and rain down meteors, before sealing the deal with a good solid utterance of the target's true name, granting the summoner the mastery over their opponent required to deal devastating damage and instantaneously afflict with the curse of the Aeon. (Death tarot is a thing, but since it's tarot that is eqbased and not balance, I just left it out.)
Why? This is all information that is absolutely relevant to the various classes and which helps new players make a decision about which class to choose. Do you REALLY think it would be better if it just listed the names of the three skillsets and then you made the players go read three separate helpfiles to see what they they do and how they work?
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
The ones up so far look great.
If I thought you would actually post it, my serious suggestion on smithing would go something like:
"This is a garbage skillset. It is a 300 credit investment that gets you nothing but the ability to make armor that's marginally better than what you can buy from some other sucker who's learned the skillset, and which will only help you against a percentage of the damage from physical attacks. You would seriously be better off learning Evasion, because the flat 10% physical resistance from that will help you way more than going from 70/70 fieldplate to 85/85 fullplate. Don't learn this unless you've got absolutely nothing better to do with 300 credits. If you're not omni-trans, you probably do.
Unless you're a deathknight. Then this is a 300 credit purchase that gets you soulquench, too, and it becomes slightly more worth it."
"
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
BACKGROUND: The Templars serve as the plate clad wielders of devotion, masters of all manner of blades, able to both to defend their allies and strike with devastating strength against wielders of sacrilegious magicks. These knights can be found in both Antioch and Ithaqua.
ARMOUR: Fieldplate and fullplate, based upon completion of the smithing skillset.
MAIN STAT: PvE/PvP: Strength PvP: Intelligence
BALANCE TYPE: Balance/Equilibrium
SKILLSETS:
CHIVALRY: This should be the first skill you attempt to master as it provides you with most of your weapon abilities, along with falcon masteries, utility maneuvers and two very solid instant kill abilities. You should put most of your lessons into this skillset, with only situational allowances for devotion and survival.
DEVOTION: Devotion features the majority of your rites. These passive effects offer you and your allies boons and often times damage and penalize your opponents. Templars have the unique ability to sacrifice these individuals rites through use of the ability to flare to deal additional damage. Flare can be combined with Chivalry's doubleslash ability, meaning Templar can put out some considerable burst. Devotion also features a transcendent ability that allows the caster to come back to life once upon dying. Devotion is a great second ability to max out.
SMITHING: Smithing is a tradeskill ability that, at present, provides little combat value. Upon completing it, Templars obtain the ability to wear fieldplate, the strongest armor in the game. If you've got credits to spare, it's not a bad investment. Otherwise, this should be far down the list of things you want to invest in. Repairing also comes standard with the skillset.
COMBAT FOCUS: Templars can go one of a couple routes. In choosing to go with sabres, Templars have the speed to afflict and lock up opponents for an instantkill. Mastering this setup will make you a fantastic duelist, however, doing this will require an affliction tracker, a solid grasp when it comes to your client and a commanding understanding of the game in general. This route is not for beginners. For damage, Templars can elect to pick up a two-handed weapon and combine their doubleslash ability with flare in devotion. This is capable of producing absolutely brutal damage, especially in teamfights, should you elect to invest in a statpack like capable. You'll find yourself incredibly limited in 1v1 contests if the opponent has invested in survivability artifacts or a shield tattoo, but you'll be a great boon to teamfights. Beyond that, Templars can be incredibly tanky and defend squishier targets such as Monks. Templar even has a limited capacity to heal others through the use of the hands ability in devotion. If you're looking to protect a friend from enemy spells or blades, consider defending and also using hands. This will substantially increase the survivability of the target.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
HELP PRIEST
----------
Armor: Splintmail
Main stat: Strength
Balance type: Balance
Skillsets: Fayth - Fayth is the Priest’s primary offensive skillset and it consists mainly of balance-based attacks. Your seraph is also controlled through this skillset, allowing you to sap the mana of your enemies and absolve them to instantly kill them at 50% mana. This is the skillset used for PvE.
Devotion - Devotion is the Priest's secondary skillset, and it consists of combat-oriented rites, passive defenses and active healing. The skillset is useful in both PvP and PvE.
Kanai - Kanai is the Priest's fully offensive skillset, besides prayers it has no PvE abilities. The Priest gains Fanatism on attacking their target which they can then use in many different offensive abilities or to enhance the main attacks from Fayth like Smite.
Combat Focus: Mana - The Priest’s primary kill method is to absolve their foe at 50% mana. They can pressure both health and mana, using sap and smite, and add a small amount of afflictions to help reach the threshold for a kill.
ARMOR: Leather
MAIN STAT: Strength, though not heavily reliant on it.
BALANCE TYPE: Primarily balance with equilibrium used mainly by Beastmastery abilities.
SKILLSETS:
KNIFEPLAY: This is the primary skillset for the Predator and is recommended to master as soon as possible. It enables you to craft the sitara from the bones of your enemies, which serves as your main weapon. You will find both offensive and defensive abilities, including your finisher Crescentcut. The skillset is used for both PvE and PvP.
PREDATION: A wide variety of abilities can be found in this skillset. It is mainly focused on utility and stealth but you can also find FlingDarts and Twinshot, which will allow you to fling darts and afflict your enemy with toxins. Two unique instant kills can be found towards the end of the skillset in the form of Cirisosis and Hostage. The skillset is used for both PvE and PvP but focus is mainly on PvP.
BEASTMASTERY: By summoning the wolf, hawk, spider and bear, a Predator can utilize them for both travel and combat. The wolf focuses on travel, the hawk on ranged combat and utility, the bear on melee combat, and the spider is used for the more technical setups as well as hindering your enemy. The skillset is used mainly for PvP but with the ability to travel faster it has some use outside PvP as well.
COMBAT FOCUS: The Predator is a profession which focuses on breaking limbs while finishing with high damage. It is however possible to kill through the use of afflictions through the Cirisosis ability, however, this method is not commonly used. High damage will come primarily from Crescentcuts with the alternative to use Quarter against those whom can soak up the damage from Crescentcuts. The spider will aide you in your setup as it enables you to mask your sitara toxin and make Bloodscourge stick longer through the use of Acid. If you want to go the stealthy route you may also use Hostage, which does just what the name suggests. Once you have taken your enemy as hostage you can execute them on the spot.
HELP ASSASSIN
Background: Hailing from the Night of Sabotage, the Saboteurs are masters infiltrators and toxin specialists that once worked for anyone in Aetherious... if the price was high enough. But after the Idras made themselves known, and the Phantoms resurged in Kinsarmar as the Renegades, they aligned themselves firmly with the Stavennite Empire and later the Redwoods, from where they still lay their traps in search of information and their next target.
Armour: Scalemail with leather limb armour.
Main stat: As an affliction class, they aren't stat-dependant. You will want a balance bonus. High constitution is always good, and you require decent intelligence for the use of your skills.
Balance type: Balance/Equilibrium combos
Skillsets:
Sabotage: Primary skillset for both PvE and PvP. You can either choose to PvE with garrote or with puncture. Your primary PvP ability will be doublestab, which lets you to deal two toxins in quick succession, and you can eventually use garrote to finish off your target. It also contains defensive and infiltration techniques, including the supreme ability of Phase, which lets you walk to practically anywhere in the continent safely, slighty out of phase with reality.
Spatium: Secondary PvP skillset. Attaching your personal wormhole to different planes, it gives you abilities that can be used offbalance in a combo with doublestab or puncture, like false herbs that hinder the target's healing or additional afflictions. It also lets you create and use stable wormholes that will let you cross the continent in seconds. The transcendant ability lets you call forth a demonic lamia, which will give you additional offensive abilities.
Hypnosis: Third PvP skillset. It lets you implant a batch of mental afflictions on a target, which when triggered will fire one by one in regular fashion, allowing you to overwhelm your target.
Combat Focus: Between DoubleStab and Spatium abilities, overwhelm your target with afflictions. For high tier combat, the use of hypnosis may be required. Your final objective will be to neutralize them long enough to finish either with Devour, Annihilate or Asphyx Damage through Garrote and Choke.
HELP RENEGADES
Background: After the Night of Sabotage, the Saboteurs thought for centuries they were the only keepers of the secrets of the Phantoms. But in the hour of most need of the Duchy of Kinsarmar, when Stavenn was no longer the only threat to the City of the Five Towers, the Renegades revealed themselves to the Duke, and put the skills created long time ago by Suspira at the service of magick again.
Armour: Scalemail with leather limb armour.
Main stat: As an affliction class, they aren't stat-dependant. You will want a balance bonus. High constitution is always good, and you require decent intelligence for the use of your skills.
Balance type: Balance/Equilibrium combos
Skillsets:
Sabotage: Primary skillset for both PvE and PvP. You can either choose to PvE with garrote or with puncture. Your primary PvP ability will be doublestab, which lets you to deal two toxins in quick succession, and you can eventually use garrote to finish off your target. It also contains defensive and infiltration techniques, including the supreme ability of Phase, which lets you walk to practically anywhere in the continent safely, slighty out of phase with reality.
Spatium: Secondary PvP skillset. Attaching your personal wormhole to different planes, it gives you abilities that can be used offbalance in a combo with doublestab or puncture, like false herbs that hinder the target's healing or additional afflictions. It also lets you create and use stable wormholes that will let you cross the continent in seconds. The transcendant ability let you call forth a phantom, which gives you additional abilities, mostly defensive.
Hypnosis: Third PvP skillset. It lets you implant a batch of mental afflictions on a target, which when triggered will fire one by one in regular fashion, allowing you to overwhelm your target.