Stategic Planning + Determine your Role

[Caydence]

I'm sure we've all heard the terms Tank, Damage dealer, or Healer sometime while we play O&C [ Yay for temp. Names! ] But do you Really know what they mean? Most people don't!

Also, imagine this: You are a warrior, just starting out on your adventure through Saliko, when suddenly, You level up! OH GOODIE, Stat and skill points! But wait! Defense and Offensive Skills? Vitality, strength, agility, dexterity? So many different stats! You just don't know where to put anything! Fear no more!

This guide should help you understand the vastness and possibilities of different Classes, and how to specialize yourself to meet your needs.

Warriors
So you want to be an attacker huh? Or maybe someone to distract the monsters while your friends ravage away at it. Whichever the case, warriors are good at 2 things: Dealing Damage, and Defending. A proper warrior should be able to do each one with ease.

Attacking Warrior + Defense: Strength, Armor, Vitality+
Basic Attacking warriors have a surplus of strength to take monsters with large amounts of HP down, quickly, and efficiently, without taking too much damage. Adding more to your armor, vitality, and strength will allow you to tackle these behemoths hard while staying alive. High armor levels will mitigate damage and keep you alive. Vitality will also keep you healthy during those lengthy battles, but remember to keep a spare healing potion or two.

Reccomended Pet: Emeraldscale Hatchling. Boosts vit and uses Emeraldshield Defense.
Pair Up With: Healing Priest + Basic Tank
Reccomended Skills: Once you have enough skill points, get slash and thrash and start maxing those out, you can deal instant damage with trash, and then leave your mark on the battlefield with a very strong slash, which will deal continuous damage for 12 seconds. Thats enough to kill that monster your running from!

Attacking Warrior + Agility: Strength, Dex, Agility, Armor+
Swift Attacking warriors have a surplus of strength, but also a burst of speed to dodge those attacks and hit hard and fast. High armor levels will provide you with decent protection as you jab in and out of battle to deftly deliver critical strikes to your enemies. Taunt is a good addition to add to your movepool, as most of the time, you'll need to draw away the attention of different monsters from your allies.

Reccomended Pet: Fliffy or Santa Water Spirit. Uses Heal and Blessing of Speed to enhance dodge and quickness.
Pair Up With: Basic Attacking Warrior + Healing Priest
Reccomended Skills: Bash, Smite, Slash. If you have a good enough timing to smite an enemies strong attack, then slash them, your off to a good start! But then to Smite, Slash, and Bash in that order? Concentration! Slash will deal continuous damage to an enemy, and Bash can stall that temporarily, giving you enough time to flee to a safer area, or deal more damage! Your pick!

Tanking Warrior + Defense: Armor, Vitality+
Basic Tanking warriors have a surplus of Stamina to distract monsters away from priests and attacking warriors, as well as several methods adding to their tanking capabilites. Adding more to your armor and vitality will allow you to draw away the attention of various bosses and guardians without taking too much damage. Defensive stance is a necessary move, and will enrage enemies to distract them further.

Reccomended Pet: Frostbloom Hatchling or Emeraldscale Hatchling. Frostblooms use Frost Barrier, which protects you against damage and deals damage to enemies. Emeraldscales use Emeraldshield to protect and up health.
Pair Up With: Basic Attacker + Healing Priest
Reccomended Skills: Bash, Smite, Def. Stance. When you have over 2000 health, smite, and def. stance, there is close to nothing you can't tackle. Bashing your enemy stalls them, while smite can interrupt spells that would otherwise, take you out quickly. Defensive stance reduces the damage you take, even further. I'd say your pretty close to invincible right now.

Tanking Warrior + Agility: Dex, Agility, Armor+
Swift Tanking warriors can attack deftly and taunt quickly. Also using bash, smite, or shattering strike to enrage enemies and draw them away from other players, while dodging most attacks at the same time. Defensive stance will keep you alive longer, along with +Armor. Use +Dexterity to add to your chances of hitting enemies, causing more and more hatred towards yourself while protecting others.

Reccomended Pet: Fliffy or Emeraldscale Hatchling. Uses Heal and Blessing of Speed to enhance dodge and quickness. Emeraldscales use Emeraldshield to protect and up health.
Pair Up With: Basic Attacking Warrior + Healing Priest
Reccomended Skills: Charge, slash, bash. Time to make an entrance! Charge will let you run right up to your enemy, and knock them back. Slash will do extended damage and bash will stall for you if you need a quick heal. Charge also helps you to catch up to enemies far away.

Priests
So you want to be a healer huh? Or maybe someone to Attack from a distance and deal damage from afar. Whichever the case, priests are good at 2 things: Healing, and Ranged attacks. A proper Priest should be able to do each one with ease.

Healing Priest: Armor, Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Healing Priests are the bread and butter to any warrior or mage, healing them up during dangerous fights with Guardians, and also boosting the health, speed, and defense of teammates. Adding more to your vitality and intellect will allow you to maximize your healing capacity while staying alive. High armor levels will lower enemy damage and give you time to boost your own health. Vitality will also keep you up on the field of battle longer than warriors or mages, thanks to your healing skills and large HP.

Reccomended Pet: Shooey or Spider. Shooeys deal tons of damage, its like having a miniature warrior at your side. Spiders deal poison damage, and can shoot webs to keep your enemies in place as you flee.
Pair Up With: Basic Attacking Warrior + Basic Tank

Hybrid Priest: Armor, Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Hybrid Priests can heal AND do damage to undead. Instead of just healing, they also deal damage with skills like Petal Rain and Poison. When enemies get too close, you can also heal and shield yourself. So while your fighting, you can also get those nasty minions any boss may throw at you.

Reccomended Pet: Shooey or Spider. Shooeys deal tons of damage, its like having a miniature warrior at your side. Spiders deal poison damage, and can shoot webs to keep your enemies in place as you pelt them with petal rains.
Pair Up With: Basic Attacking Warrior + Basic Tank

Attacking Priest: Armor, Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Attacking Priests hit hard with ranged attacks that can hit from far away. They can also deal tons of elemental wind and poison damage. When dealing with the undead, this is good. However, because of their damaging nature, it is best to bring along a healing priest, just in case.

Reccomended Pet: Shooey or Spider. Shooeys deal tons of damage, its like having a miniature warrior at your side. Spiders deal poison damage, and can shoot webs to keep your enemies in place as you pelt them with petal rains.
Pair Up With: Basic Attacking Warrior + Healing Priest

Mages
So you want to be a ranged attacker huh? Mages are well rounded, and can learn 4 different types of elemental spells, which boosts their damaging capabilities to the max. Elemental creatures should also fear their ability to launch deadly area spells.

Wind Mage: Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Wind Mages can cast spells involving thunder, lightning, and tons of fireworks! Does best damage with Lightningbolt. Elemental damage boosts against water element monsters.

Reccomended Pet: Unknown
Pair Up With: Healing Priest + Basic Attacking Warrior

Water Mage: Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Water Mages can cast frosty spells that deal tons of water based damage. Some skills can even freeze opponents where they stand. Does best damage with Blizzard. Elemental Damage boosts against fire and earth element monsters.

Reccomended Pet: Unkown
Pair Up With: Basic Attacking Warrior + Healing Priest

Fire Mage: Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Fire Mages can cast spells that deal lengthy damage. Embers can latch onto foes and explode at a moments notice. Does best damage with Fire Rain. Elemental damage boosts against wind and earth element monsters.

Reccomended Pet: Unknown
Pair Up With: Healing Priest + Basic Attacking Warrior

Earth Mage: Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Earth mages do not have many spells, but can drastically slow down other elements. Does best damage with Spike Trap. Elemental damage boosts against Wind element monsters.

Reccomended Pet: Unknown
Pair Up With: Healing Priest + Basic Attacking Warrior

Complete Mage: Vitality, Intellect, Magic+
Complete mages know a good deal of every type of spell there is, and can deal all different types of element damage in a flash. Does best damage with Lightningbolt, Blizzard, Fire rain, and Spike Trap. Elemental boosts depend on what element attack is used.

Reccomended Pet: Unknown
Pair Up With: Healing Priest + Basic Attacking Warrior

This guide is still a WIP and I'll be constantly adding to it! [as soon as I come back from my 2-week road trip.] Suggestions are welcome! Especially if I missed something! XD I hope that reading it helped you!

Edit 9/14/11: Added a beginners reccomended skill set for warriors, I'll try to move on to priests later on.

[Daymare]

*Was helped a lot by reading this* :D. You are good at this.
I noticed that you know a lot about warriors.

[Kitson]

You miht be getting somewhere cay. question is, how many will follow your advice? i for one am. ^^

[Tobias]

Sounds like a pretty good guide! The only thing I noticed is that you never mention any mages for other classes to team up with - warriors, priests - anyone should just team up with warriors and priests? That's be quite sad for mages!

Another thing I'm not exactly sure of (I'd have to try it myself) is how viable agility-based tanks are. True, you can dodge some attacks, but you need a lot of agility to really dodge *most* of the attacks. In addition, agility has no effect on dodging magic spells - those will always hit (unless something is much lower level than you). Aaaalso, assuming the "+" next a stat means that you should focus on that mostly - I think you mixed up attacking warriors + agility there, no? Strength and agility both seem much more attractive than vitality for non-tanking classes that shouldn't expect to take a lot of damage from bosses. (I'm not sure whether it lets you edit your post - it should. In case you can't, let me know and I'll double-check.)

As for mages, they were actually planned to focus on two elements (for example, water and wind). Combining two spells might me more viable than taking all elements you possibly could, which would likely leave most skills rather low (and thus lacking in damage). Maybe a mage could help on that section? :3

[Daymare]

 By the way, what is a tank?

[Kitson]

that's what i want to know too.

[Caydence]

@Toby: Well I was kind of rushing at the end when it came to the mage section, as I didn't have a lot of time left on my computer usage D: And It would come up to being a pretty large section if I combined every possible combination of spells that a Mage could use, as they do have quite a large selection. Also, I'm not that familiar with Mage skills, as I haven't trained mine much <o< -fail on my behalf- Oh, and I checked, I don't think you can edit them O-o -problem-

@Kitson/Day: Tanks are highly defensive warriors designed to keep the attention of bosses/other monsters while attacking warriors/priests heal and deal damage towards them.

[Kitson]

cool. so what are the quick attack and run players called? XD but other than all that, it's a pretty good guide.

[Tobias]

Well, you can combine a lot of skills for mages, but I'm sure there will be a few skill builds that are more viable than others. ;P That's why I meant, maybe someone with a mage could help here. XD Anyway - I'll check to make sure you can edit your own post even after the grace period. :3

[Akaru]

Actually, it currently feels that with boss fights, mages kind of fall in the "Well, we don't really need them" category XD Yes, they do a lot of damage, but that's nothing a second warrior, or even a priest, can't do. You can't really go off fighting Frigus or Casper with two warriors and one mage, or one priest and two mages.

Also, for reference, my warrior is currently an Agility-based one. :3

[Tobias]

Well, that's true - other classes can deal damage, but so could a mage. And you can go off fighting Frigus with a warrior, a priest and a mage - you don't have to have two warriors at all. ;P I'd rather pick a mage that knows what they do, than a warrior that doesn't.

That said, mages do have quite a bit of utility already - in my opinion. Flash Freeze takes a monster out of combat for up to 1 minute and 10 seconds. Frost Nova can save your entire group if things go out of hand - it's the only area crowd control effect in game. Bind Elemental not only takes an elemental/formless out of combat for 40 seconds, it also puts them under your group's control.
Of course, if general consensus is that mages aren't useful to groups, I need to add more utility to them - but I honestly think they provide quite some use (and very decent damage) to groups.

[Alpha]

Attacking Warrior + Defense: Strength, Armor, Vitality+
Basic Attacking warriors have a surplus of strength to take monsters with large amounts of HP down, quickly, and efficiently, without taking too much damage. Adding more to your armor, vitality, and strength will allow you to tackle these behemoths hard while staying alive. High armor levels will mitigate damage and keep you alive. Vitality will also keep you healthy during those lengthy battles, but remember to keep a spare healing potion or two.

What levels and skills would you suggest for that? (Ex: bite lvl 6, charge lvl 1, and swipe lvl 3)

[Tobias]

What levels and skills would you suggest for that? (Ex: bite lvl 6, charge lvl 1, and swipe lvl 3)

Personally, I would try getting the prerequisite skills for Thrash first, and then stick to upgrading Thrash and Slash for a while. These will give you decent damage for long time, while doing quests. Then again, I play a priest, and am not nearly as good a warrior as Cay and Dazz are. ;P

(Keep in mind, you can always reset your skills later!)

[Caydence]

Personally, I would try getting the prerequisite skills for Thrash first, and then stick to upgrading Thrash and Slash for a while. These will give you decent damage for long time, while doing quests. Then again, I play a priest, and am not nearly as good a warrior as Cay and Dazz are. ;P

(Keep in mind, you can always reset your skills later!)

I guess I should add some tips on what skills you should have XD After all, whats a warrior without any warrior skills?

A plain old wolf!

[Alpha]

I guess I should add some tips on what skills you should have XD After all, whats a warrior without any warrior skills?

A plain old wolf!

So i just do what Tobias says? :P