Ranger, Shaman or Tempest of Set?

Help me decide, TW. :(

Herald of Xotli sound like a surprise quality choice long-term, but im not gonna try.

Ranger, because i enjoy kiting and using range. Tracking and rogue skills would be great in general, obviously. This is my default instinct right now.

Shaman, because they are so combat oriented and bring a lot of heal/support options. I also assume this class rocks for solo crap. I imagine them being a great way to learn the game while having options for roles.

Tempest, because i get the feeling they are going to be very powerful in pvp, and that while they can heal they will also be capable of strong survivability while doing damage.

Breyer seems to be enjoying his Tempest of Set. He was mentioning decent DPS but mainly HoTs and cone-effect healing that was keeping his team alive in the PvP minigames. I plan on rolling a Tempest later, I'd like to get my assassin off Tourtage first.

I rolling a Priest of Mitra and an Assassin. Next is prolly going to be a Ranger.

Breyer seems to be enjoying his Tempest of Set. He was mentioning decent DPS but mainly HoTs and cone-effect healing that was keeping his team alive in the PvP minigames. I plan on rolling a Tempest later, I'd like to get my assassin off Tourtage first.

Breyer is a RANGER.

tempest of set sucks until mid to low 20's. bad. I do ok in pve, but pvp I get worked pretty easy because none of my heals heal worth a dick until my big heal early 20's.

My dps isnt high enough to out dps the other classes either so Its fucked off if I get jumped I usually will stun and root kite.

After your early 20's when you start getting some good tools the ToS start to come into their own.

Breyer is a RANGER.

Right, forgot about that... It would be GraphixX (Burt). That's right this time! I checked the IRC logs. Seriously it's like my memory goes to shit when I'm around TW...

I blame Pessi.

I've got a Bear Shaman at 25 currently.

It's a difficult class to play until you get to 20ish. At that early level you can't really handle more than a mob or two at once and its practically impossible to pull less than that due to 1) having no range 2) the way the mobs are grouped

Once you get blood flow (which is a cone based Hot) and the two feats from the Wrath and Spirit line though, you will find that the more mobs surrounding you or the longer an enemy takes to kill the stronger you can be. This is because the more you melee the stronger the blood flow skill gets, and the more you cast blood flow the stronger your melee gets. It's an interesting synergy and definitely requires some micromanagement.

Attacks usually go like this: blood flow, hit, hit, hit, hit, blood flow, hit, hit, hit, blood flow, hit, hit, hit.

There is also the renewal spell which is an instant heal and damage bonus on the next hit, couple this with the improved renewal which improves the heal and damage bonus and you can put out some decent damage with combos. So you'll start the combo, cast renewal just before the combo finisher and it will hit hard.

I also currently have an AoE rez, although it only rezzes one person.... which is kind of strange but removes the need to actually click a corpse I guess.

There is also a fucking awesome group heal. It's only rank 1 currently, but I saved the entire group from wiping on more than one occasion with it. It's got limited range, and as I said its group. So no need to actually click on anyone, you can just continue to merrily melee after you cast it. I think its about a 2 or 3 second cast heal.

Finally my favorite skill (for PvP) is the AoE stun.


The thing to remind others about healing in this game is that it's all mostly AoE, cone, or group (with a range limit) based. So tell your group mates to stop fucking running away from you because you can't heal them by any real direct ways.

Shaman do sound awesome.

I think i may make a styg ranger babe, get to 20 and then maybe try another class. Shaman or Tempest. I'm sold on how cool shaman become as you level, but im still open to the idea of the ToS.

Tempest of Set are so friggin OP at level 40-50 :(

IDK about other levels ;)

Shaman do sound awesome.

I think i may make a styg ranger babe, get to 20 and then maybe try another class. Shaman or Tempest. I'm sold on how cool shaman become as you level, but im still open to the idea of the ToS.

Some of the peeps in IRC are saying you can kill Strom and get off Tortage at lvl 19 and it's not difficult. Unless you want to fart around there some more. By the time I was 16 - 17 I had done all the quests in the City and at night and in the Ruins so I was forced to go to the Underhalls and White Sands to get quests done. The ganking there is pretty much the suck. I'm halfway to 19 and I'm ready to leave.

But if you chose a Normal realm then you don't have to worry.

Nice xgal, i've got my shaman in the 40s right now. I'll post the feat list I've got for it once I get home, while I do have some of the healing shit I went for a lot of the dps parts. I'll be the first to admit there are multiple skills I wanted, but with the current setup I'll be able to nearly 1 shot some classes. If they decide to nerf some of the things later on I'll just reset my feats and go for some more of the support and defensive buffs.

Also you'll find your knockback skill works on mages and rogues, but hardly ever on soldiers.

Some of the peeps in IRC are saying you can kill Strom and get off Tortage at lvl 19 and it's not difficult. Unless you want to fart around there some more. By the time I was 16 - 17 I had done all the quests in the City and at night and in the Ruins so I was forced to go to the Underhalls and White Sands to get quests done. The ganking there is pretty much the suck. I'm halfway to 19 and I'm ready to leave.

But if you chose a Normal realm then you don't have to worry.

I've now got a lvl 18 Tempest of Set, and it's pretty fun. Flexible. Decent dmg. The heals are all HoTs for the most part, so you have to be careful when against multiple foes.

I may stop at 20 and level the ranger.

Indeed, i've finished all the quests up to strom and have to hit white sands. :lol:

I haven't found any real reason to leave Tortage etc. early unless you absolutely can't stand it. Once you leave, you're greeted by level 30 gank squads camping you while you get stuck in cut scenes trying to get quests.

I haven't found any real reason to leave Tortage etc. early unless you absolutely can't stand it. Once you leave, you're greeted by level 30 gank squads camping you while you get stuck in cut scenes trying to get quests.

Cant leave Tortage till your done with your destiny quest. Destiny quest can only be finished at lvl 19.

I'm sure you can finish the destiny quest at 20 or 21 or something if you felt like running through all the Tortage day quests.

I know you have to be at least 19 for the destiny quest, but I wasn't totally thrilled with the new zone that I got shipped to. Framerates are twice as bad now. Yayy.

Breyer is a RANGER.

:lol:

Anyway, Tempest of Set is probably the strongest of the 3 right now.

My Ranger seems to be losing effectivenes post 40 like they said, but my plan was always to stick it out. I think I found a feat build that helps mitigate that though (shattering stance + bow).

Actually, I don't know much about Bear Shaman.

I hope you people who are already 40+ were in the Beta. What a waste of money if you're going to blast through your levels so fast. But then again, I guess content gets insanely repetitive after a while.

Meh. I just wanna get back home so I can play again.

is there end game in AoC?

My ToS is level 43 or something like that.

Even post-nerf, this class is still strong. I went Thunder spec, so i use Turrents (idols), storm crown and storm field things. I can sit there doing PASSIVE dps, raping multiple mobs higher level than me. Once hots are going and i have these other things going, i can withstand a ton and hold my group up too. The problem is you just cant heal against severe burst. You get one solid non-hot and it's timer is brutal.

I cant say i have too much pvp experience, yet, but if somebody doesnt get the jump on me and chain stun me... once i get heals going they usually die. Likewise, if im in group pvp and left alone... we win. I've found that smarter groups go straight for me. We were fighting some guys from DIE and while the outnumbered us, we held our own until one got insta-rezz'd and then they piled on me.