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Coming from WOW........
Bama1267
Member UncommonPosts: 1,822
Ive played several mmorpg's over the years. Mostly Uo , SWG , Lineage 2, and Wow. I played a lot in between such as Eve , COH, and EQ2. Wow held my interest for quite some time but I have to say its tiem for a change... I can only make so many 60's and run the same dungeon till i stick a fork in my eyeball from going insane.
Anyway , Im downloading the trial right now. There are so many classes to choose from, not sure which to choose. Im a caster by trade...how are necros, warlocks and the other casting classes at pvp? Pvp isnt my sole reason but I dont want to absolutely suck either. Wouldnt mind doign moderate damage in pve if applicable...love summoning as well. Can anyone run down a few of the caster classes to give me an idea how they are?
Thanks
Comments
Ok here we go with the lowdown again......
1. First decide what kind of server you would like to play on.
A. Classic: These servers have had the TOA expansion completely taken out. This means no artifact weapons, armor, or items. No master level's to go through. Or as other people put it no time sink although IMO anything you do in a MMO is a time sink CAUSE IT'S A PART OF THE GAME FOLKS! Also with the classic servers the infamous buffbot isn't so valid here. This meaning you cant have veggie the shaman buff you at PK and then you have fun. Buffers must be in the gruop and within a certain distance for the buffs to be effective. The most popular classic server is Gareth.
B. Regular: Standard server with all expansions included and full buffbot powers. Some of ya can say that you NEED a second account with that buffbot or it's not worth it but I've taken so many of you down it's not even funny. Plus I think it's a waste of money just to act like your a top dog. Anyways, these servers are clustered together to raise the population up some. Clustered meaning that theyve taken 5 servers and essentially made it into one. Sure each server still has alot of theyre own maps and stuff but area's like the bg's and NF, main town and DF's are open server areas.
C. RVR: Name says it all pretty much. You can travel to any realm and group with anybody of any realm. Just remember, once you get to level 10 you're open game to be attacked anytime, anywhere. Find a good guild and get to work beating everyone else down.
D. Co-op: The opposite of RVR or as pimply 13 year old's would call it, carebear land. Everyone from every realm works together. Theres no rvr although you can duel still. From what I heard you can go into the bg's and fight the realm guards still. Never actually tried it.
E. Roleplay: Dont let the name fool ya, noone roleplays here. I was sooo dissapointed.
KK got your server picked? Good. time for your realm.
1. Midgard: Norse mythology. This realm is mostly warrior types but there are casters in it. Not as powerful as the other realms but they got a few tricks up theyre sleeves.
2. Albion: Land of Arthur. I see these guys as the jack of all trades but master of none. I personally don't play alb hardly any but they got some good classes none-the-less.
3. Hibernia: Land where elves are elves and small woodland creatures are afraid. EVERY class uses magic in some form here and some of the best casting comes from here.
While you're deciding on your realm, lets go to the last step....your toon.
You want a caster, eh? Let's try to bunch up the classes of each realm that are close to each other. Now keep in mind no class from each realm is identical, just close.
Pet classes: You've got the necro, cabby, and sorcerer for albion. Necro's I hear are farming gods but trust me they suck in rvr. That necro pet is a tank magnet and when he goes down you come out of the corporial plane with pratictally no life. Cabbies and sorc's are mezzing, stunning, and life tapping gods in the bg's and if your pet goes down, oh well, get a new one. Then theres the thuerogist who doesn't really have a pet but spams a army of elementals who kill theyre one target then die in a cute little domino effect way.
For midgard you have the bonedancer and spiritmaster. the bonedancer is the lazy caster with being able to make up to 3 pets to do his work for him. You can literally farm blues and greens and go watch tv. If you spec suppresion then you end up with a killer insta lifetap. Just keep in mind this class is also a powerhog. The spiritmasters are wonderful in so many ways. Speccing suppresion you get the ultimate pbaoe that can take down multiple mobs in quick succession. Speccing in dark gives you awesome castable lifetaps that blows people away in rvr. Speccing summoning allows you to farm some big mobs.
In hibernia you have the mana chanter. Speccing mana gives you everything. A choice fo one of 3 pets to use (healer, caster, warrior), a wonderful pbaoe and the mana shield which you put on your pet therefore doing incredible amounts of damage to the opponents. The mentalist I believe can also have a pet.
Range casters: In albion theres the Fire wizzy with his great balls of fire! Trust me, these hurt. With midgard you have the runemaster who has about the same deal but I think his spells are a tad weaker or shorter range or something. In Hibernia theres the Eld with the infamous stun nuke nuke.
Specialties: Hibernia has they're wondeful little bainshee. A female avatar only toon that turns into a legless pissant. Theyre screams do godawful damage (I'm not high level yet but I can take oj before they even get close) along with a handful of little surprise spells like pbaoe's, cone aoe's and anything else they pull outta theyre legless arse. Midgard comes equipped with the warlock who can cast 2 spells and the same time as well as store more spells in theyre bubbles that float around theyre head like a neon kill me sign. Even though they were nerfed badly a couple of patches ago dont underestimate them. They can take anyone down in seconds. Although this is actually a seer class Albion has the heretic. A medic that can use a weapon and has the machinegun tic spell. The spell is continuous until the target is dead, out of range, or you're disrupted and the damage doubles every couple of seconds (8,16,32,64,128,etc.) Nasty little critters.
Now keep in mind everything I posted here is but a scratch of these casters true talents. Each caster has so many more abilities and most are absolutly lethal in rvr and pve. This post should give a general understanding of what you might like.
this is comming from a wow player too...
like wow is pve based..
so DAOC is more pvp based?
also are items BOP - bind on picked up or you can trade them around...
are there 40 man raids instances etc....
thanks.
If you play a caster, chances are you won't go wrong. Casters do the most damage in the game. Warlocks and Bainshees do the most damage as casters in the game. But have there weaknesses for PvE and RvR. Animists and Theurgists have 'pet spam' classes that are very useful for PvE and RvR as well. If you want a pet Class then those would be Cabalist, Enchanter, or Spiritmaster. Each one is different. I would suggest that once you pick a realm/server then you try one out. If you do not like it, then try a different one.
If you end up playing on the 'Classic' servers then you shoudl play on Gareth. The other two are so low pop you are better off not playing on them. If you play the regular servers it will not matter as much, but the highest populated server is Merlin.
PvP is RvR on most of the servers. This means the 3 realms fight each other in specific areas. Primarily this is the frontiers, refered to as NF, level specific battlegrounds, BG, and some dungeons. By participating in RvR you gain realm points. Those points can be used to purchase new abilities. You can in theory level from 1-50 by only killing other players, however, this is unlikely due to the fact that once a character dies he is worth less XP each time as well as some of the BGs being deserted.
RvR often consits of siege warfare of taking keeps and towers. You can level towers and knock holes into keep walls. There are also skirmishes between smaller groups as well.
So you can mix and match as you see fit. Most people refer to RvR and NF as the 'end game' because that is the only thing you really cannot finish. Certainly DAOC caters more to those wanting quality PvP, but it has a huge amount of PvE content as well.
Almost all items are tradeable. There are certain quest items and artifacts that cannot be traded, but 99.9% of the items are tradeable. You can also make items in the game and have them spellcrafted (that is pick what bonuses and abilities you want added on to items).
There are no 40 main raid instances. Unless I am mistaken, the only instances are 8 man groups. As for Raid content, you have 1 dungeon (not usually worth going to anymore), slay a dragon, and ToA (Trials of Atlantis). The ToA expansion added a lot of raid content. It is much easier than WoW. Raids are offered all of the time. Most of the time you can simply autofollow someone and not pay attention and get the credit you need. You complete certain trails into order to gain abilities. There are also artrifacts you can get that have a lot of power, but most of those can be completed with a raid. Most people will not level via raids. The best XP is by grouping or questing solo.
If you want to avoid the Raid content then play on the "Classic" servers. Those servers do not have ToA so there goes almost all of the Raid content.
yes there are tons of classes to pick from, around 45 or someting. not only that, your spec can make 2 of the same classes entirely different. not just a little extra damage here, a skill there. entirely different.
if you like casters, and pet classes you have tons of choices.
i personally suggest going hibernia because i just started the game again today after a very long time off and i could help you out
. started a valewalker tonight but i probably will be playing something else for the long haul.
i only play hibernia so i can tell you quick about the pet classes you can choose from in hib
animist- basicly you lay down fiels of mushrooms which do everything depending on your spec. single target damage, aoe damage, root, debuff, buff. ifs a great solo class for pve and a unstopable one if you have a couple groupmates to help you out with buffs,heals etc.. and awesome for keeps but not so great in the open field as you need a little time to place your main weapon, stationary shrooms.
enchanter
a mana spec'd enchanter is awesome, they summon a 'companion' which can do a variety of things depending which you summon(as someone already said). this is also a great solo class, with the right group mates is probably the 3rd best power lvl'er in the game. your usualy fight is, send in pet(put up damage shield on him), get him to agro 3/4 mobs if you are solo and then run in and PBAOE nuke them down once they are low.
mentalist
the right spec, you can charm mobs, not summon or conjure them. this is a very strong way to go once you are high lvl but its not really they way mentalists go through the lvl grind for the most part. its not hard getting one high lvl though because they are usualy in demand for gorups thanks to power regen, best to group with one of the 2 above classes really and make an awesome duo with that and the mentalist heal over time spells.
druid
this is the main healing class of the realm, it does have pets but thats not why you are there. you can solo pretty good if you spec for it, but its a waste of a druid to do so in most peoples opinions.
anyway if any of those suit you send me a pm and i can help you get started(though im jsut starting again myself). there is kind of a learning curve for alot of things in this game plus..yeah i dont know anyone yet so i need company :P
hey guys, first I want to start off by saying thank you for all this helpful info.. I really wasn't expecting this much detail but I am very pleased..thank you. So i guess end game for "classic servers" in DAOC is just RvR. If i'm not mistaken, classic servers do not have raiding and dungeons? And in normal servers there is raiding ..8 man instances. My questions are ... 1) how hard is it to find a group of 8 man to raid this dungeon and 2)do I need to be a very good raiding guild to do this? Or people can easily form a pick up group to raid? in WOW...I have to sign up on guild websites to join a good raiding guild... once i signed up I have to raid like everyday with 39 other people and ppl here earn DKP points so when a good loot drop I cannot loot it unless I have enough DKP. 3) In DAOC, if you don't raid in "regular servers" are you at a disadvantage? I guess you don't have to because if you have the money you can buy off from others? Also for pvp...I'm more into melee class ..like in WOW I have a 60 rogue and 60 warrior..both melee classes.. 4) what is the best melee class in DOAC and are they at a disadvantage when fighting casters? 5) last question is wat is the level cap? and how long roughly to reach max level? Thank you!!!
1. If you are talking normal instances, groups on the classic server are easy. The usually complaint is that people do those too often instead of leveling in a zone. If you are talking about Darkspire I am not sure how hard that would be. I have done it a few times on the regular server (still have yet to finish it). It certainly is not as hard and complicated as WoW is. I doubt you would be able to ask random people to go do it, but your guild or alliance you can probably find people to do it. The usual problem is making sure you have the right mix of classes. On Saturday are problem was we only have one caster. We needed a PbAoE caster or an animist, but none wanted to go.
2. If you are talking about the raiding on the normal servers then the raids are almost always pick up group for ToA. If you are talking about Darkspire, you do not need to sign up, you just need to find 7 other people that want to do it.
3. The "raid" content in DAOC has almost nothing to do with items, but abilities. You earn Master Level abilities. Depending on your class these can add some nice abilities. Sometimes they are just for you, or sometimes they are AoE. For example, there is this wonderful abiltiy known as "powerfont" that creates a magial item that is AoE that regens everyone's power really quickly. It is not the ML abiltiies themselves that is the problem, it is that in combination with realm abilties and artifacts that are the problem. So you cannot just purchase these. Artifacts are usually easy to get done. What is the hard/boring part is that once you get credit for the artifact you need to go get scrolls. Depending on your artifact it might be hard to get - but usually not. You can purchase those scrolls. The bad part is once you get the artifact you have to level your artifact. This is very boring unless you like pointlessly killing mobs for hours to get your new sword to level 10. If you cannot tell, this is what I hate about ToA the most.
4. The melee classes all have different roles to fill, then you have hybrid tanks as well. I am not sure there is a best, but you have a heavy tank with the best armor, a light tank that does the most damage, and a more defensive tank. I suck at melee classes and find them very boring to play so I am not the best person to ask. I will say that in RvR tanks often complain that they die before getting to casters. I will also point out that unless tanks are running siege weapons they often do not have a lot to do during keep raids. Keeps are usually long distance fights using siege weapons, arrows, and spells. Tanks that I have known, usually prefer 8 man groups where they can fight other groups.
5. The level cap is 50. Depending on how you choose to level, your class, and if you spend anytime in the battle ground you are looking at 3-15 days. On average, it will take about 7-10 days if you level casually and spend a lot of time in the BG earning realm points. So around 240 hours in the game. Most people will have a level 50 within 2 months of casual play, if you are more into quickly leveling then perhaps a month.
Couple cautions if your coming from WoW---DAOC's Graphics arent insane....they arent even good by any standards so I hope that doesnt turn you off. Take a look at the screenshots they have here. I think the graphics are good enough but some people are picky.
RvR=PVP SOOOO FUN
Eventhough full scale Realm Vs Realm isnt really doable till lvl 50 there are battlegrounds till then that are just as much fun. I know a ton of lvl 50s that keep charachters at lvl 24 just to do one of the most popular bgs in daoc.
As far as a class suggestion....it depends. You said you like casters so...Ill reccomend a couple of my favorites-- Runemaster MIDGARD Eldritch HIB Theurgists and Sorcerers are interesting as well. Read up on them and you should get a better idea of what one suits your style. Eldritch are probably the most rounded casters with utility and great damage. Sorcerers are kings of CC and Runies are just straight fun
.
GL and I hope you enjoy
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Shouldn't forget that while the Trials of Atlantis (ToA) is an extra PvE timesink, it also adds huge diversity to your character. Without ToA everyone is pretty much equal, with ToA you're forced to make a lot of choices as you create the best item template you can get your hands on. If you're more hardcore, you should definetely try a normal server
Classic servers probably better to start out on though, more low level players leveling. Whichever server, try to make friends quick and try to get into a good guild. The game is old, most people do nothing but PvP with one of their many pimped out level 50s, so can be hard to level up if all alone, especially if you don't have a buffbot.
I notice a lot of people coming from WoW asking about "raiding" and "getting their gear". You do not raid in DAoC to get a set of items with the same stats as the other 50,000,000,000 mages on your server. You raid in DAoC to gain class abilities by completeing challenges.
They should probably be made aware the best gear in DAoC you buy from other players - the crafters. Some artifacts and items may rival or exceed (depending on if you're playing a TOA server) player crafted... but these are few.
Player Crafted > All
Getting 99% or 100% (aka Masterpiece/MP) quality gear is easier than pie compared to WoW's "raid until death or you lose your job and gf/bf" atmosphere. Even farming just a few hours - in one week I made enough money to buy a full set of MP... now I'm living out in PVP (RVR).
Items are not soulbound - you can trade them with other players or give them as hand-me-downs to alts.
Most items will one day wear out - but can be replaced.
I also disagree about DAoC's graphics. You have to get the Catacombs and DR upgrades - Camelot and Tir na Nog are gorgeous - easily rivaling any asian grind game like L2 or FFXI. Better than WoW's graphics. I've been playing DAoC since beta and their upgrade makes it more beautiful than any mmo I've played before. (see list of conquests below) WAR will be amazing.
Currently playing: Eve, DAOC, Warhammer
Games I've beaten: AC, AO, CoH, DAOC, D&D, EQ, EQ2, FFXI, FlyFF, GW, Horizons, L2, Ryzom, Shadowbane, SpaceCowboy, SWG, UO, WoW
Stay away from: Eudemons Online, DNL, and Roma Victor
People are running around with different stuff on though, rare that someone has exactly the same template as someone else since a lot of items are hard to come by. There are however so many different items that you can work around most problems with items that are fairly easy (or cheap to buy) and in the end have a template that's great, just not the best possible.
Most gear issues in DAoC can be solved by having a lot of gold, but some things you need to go PvE or raid for, like artifacts on the ToA servers.
But no, you don't go on big lameass raids every day like in EQ or WoW in hopes of winning some uber item that lets you PvE better.