Thanks for the guide! Useful after being absent from Alb for ages. I do have a question about the Armsman. How would it be specced while leveling? I'm a little unclear about the impact of the primary weapon type and the Polearm skill. Max Polearm, put the rest into Crush to minimize variance? Or is Crush/Shield preferred until later?

Bladed Queen wrote:Thanks for the guide! Useful after being absent from Alb for ages. I do have a question about the Armsman. How would it be specced while leveling? I'm a little unclear about the impact of the primary weapon type and the Polearm skill. Max Polearm, put the rest into Crush to minimize variance? Or is Crush/Shield preferred until later?

Personally, if I was leveling an Armsman I would be all Crush / Shield until 40 so you can have less downtime / heals.

Nezix wrote:

Bladed Queen wrote:Thanks for the guide! Useful after being absent from Alb for ages. I do have a question about the Armsman. How would it be specced while leveling? I'm a little unclear about the impact of the primary weapon type and the Polearm skill. Max Polearm, put the rest into Crush to minimize variance? Or is Crush/Shield preferred until later?

Personally, if I was leveling an Armsman I would be all Crush / Shield until 40 so you can have less downtime / heals.

Is it even viable to go with Polearm/Crush for damage and offtanking, or is Crush/Shield just outright a better option regardless? I know having a shield would be far more valuable in a tank role, and the variance with Polearm damage makes me wary.

Bladed Queen wrote:

Nezix wrote:

Bladed Queen wrote:Thanks for the guide! Useful after being absent from Alb for ages. I do have a question about the Armsman. How would it be specced while leveling? I'm a little unclear about the impact of the primary weapon type and the Polearm skill. Max Polearm, put the rest into Crush to minimize variance? Or is Crush/Shield preferred until later?

Personally, if I was leveling an Armsman I would be all Crush / Shield until 40 so you can have less downtime / heals.

Is it even viable to go with Polearm/Crush for damage and offtanking, or is Crush/Shield just outright a better option regardless? I know having a shield would be far more valuable in a tank role, and the variance with Polearm damage makes me wary.

imo: ignore pole until 40. just ignore it. go full crush/shield till your respec.

Bladed Queen wrote:

Nezix wrote:

Bladed Queen wrote:Thanks for the guide! Useful after being absent from Alb for ages. I do have a question about the Armsman. How would it be specced while leveling? I'm a little unclear about the impact of the primary weapon type and the Polearm skill. Max Polearm, put the rest into Crush to minimize variance? Or is Crush/Shield preferred until later?

Personally, if I was leveling an Armsman I would be all Crush / Shield until 40 so you can have less downtime / heals.

Is it even viable to go with Polearm/Crush for damage and offtanking, or is Crush/Shield just outright a better option regardless? I know having a shield would be far more valuable in a tank role, and the variance with Polearm damage makes me wary.

After levels 30 or so, you wont be the maintank, most likely you will have (NEED) a paladin in your group so its good to have high shield (equal to your level) to be the one guarding the maintank (the paladin). Having high pole aswell is nice, since you can deal decent damage when pulling red/purple mobs one by one (ie soultorns in DF). Pulling mobs one by one is tankable by a solo paladin with high shield, therefor your extra damage with a decent pole would be nice.

Also, its better to level up crush till 40 because you autotrain in slash (which is better for rvr imo at this patch level).

As far as keeping your crush/slash/whatever specc line up, keep in mind that at 50, you'll be looking at a specc like this :
39slash(or crush, whatever you prefer), 50 polearm, 42 shield, rest parry. So, when leveling up, dont go over the 39. No need to.

Bladed Queen wrote:

Nezix wrote:

Bladed Queen wrote:Thanks for the guide! Useful after being absent from Alb for ages. I do have a question about the Armsman. How would it be specced while leveling? I'm a little unclear about the impact of the primary weapon type and the Polearm skill. Max Polearm, put the rest into Crush to minimize variance? Or is Crush/Shield preferred until later?

Personally, if I was leveling an Armsman I would be all Crush / Shield until 40 so you can have less downtime / heals.

Is it even viable to go with Polearm/Crush for damage and offtanking, or is Crush/Shield just outright a better option regardless? I know having a shield would be far more valuable in a tank role, and the variance with Polearm damage makes me wary.

Do NOT go Polearm until 50. It is the most endurance hungry line in the game and it has the slowest weapons.

If you want to do bust out a big weapon, spec into Two Handed while leveling. It's very good. Very.

Sillyfish wrote:Do NOT go Polearm until 50. It is the most endurance hungry line in the game and it has the slowest weapons.

If you want to do bust out a big weapon, spec into Two Handed while leveling. It's very good. Very.

The level 40 respec is a single line respec, no? If you level up crush two hand you are going to need a respec stone to change both lines.

I would suggest to go Crush + Shield to level up. Respec Crush and go for 50 Shield 50 Polearm 31 Slash/Thrust or 42 Shield 39-RR Slash/Thrust Rest Parry.

hazelhimself wrote:i know im reapeating myself...but:
people did not know what the ****** to do back then. people had many years to realize how powerful NS is. sure. a firewiz is easy to play. why? because he has no tools. you can play a firewiz with 6 buttons. assist, face,bolt, bolt, dd, root.

easiest/fastest leveling class? please. you will have to reg power CONSTANTLY. after you hit 30 solo lvling becomes a pain in the ass. viable with a mattercab? yes. it helps. but it works without wizards as well. pbaoe grps are fast tho. but then you end up having a semi-useless icewiz in endgame and can never leave your keep. hooray.

for meleegrps theurgist is better. and there will be plenty of them.

in pvp 219 dd is good.....BUT you will always be hitting on full resists which means any baseline body DD with 35+ composite will always be dealing more damage in the debuff AT. the bolts are nice @ keepdefs and zergfights until the first eld notices this avalonian hurling fireballs at his support.

sorc firewiz debuff grps are a cute gimmick because multiple VPs...but cab/sorc nukeage brings more to the table in every other aspect.

dont get me wrong. i love wizards. but they are garbage.

It's funny how people CONSTANTLY say how OP NS is.
Of course its OP and almost all sane groups of my era were having one and NS is not the holy grail.
Apart from what you think, not all people were clueless headless chicken that were running without templates and sloppy specs back in the days.

Even groups with NS casters were still losing against their counters.

But guess what, it's exactly the same for ALL casters in the game!
Your group has a caby, NS all enemy casters and healers.
Enemy group has NS class and Boom, all casters and healers in both groups are on uncleanable NS.
Job well done, both casters / healers are in a stalemate.

NS isn't a reason to not roll Wizards.
Melee groups will run with specific setups.
Caster groups will run with specific setups.
Not all melee groups will have NS.
Not all casters will be perma NS.

These are facts, it's not a paper theory.
We all know EXACTLY what to do in a game that's almost 15 years old.
But things in reality are different than in theory.

Bottom line is that with this attitude at the end of the day you will have 90% of all Alb groups be mirror like of each other with exactly the same specs, templates and setups.
YAY lovely game...NOT!

TLDR; All specs can have fun and be useful, all casters will have problems against NS.

Kaudo wrote:

Theurgist – Another great caster option. You can provide other players with a melee damage add and haste buff in PvE. You will also be exceptional in PvP as well as your pets are a pain for other players and they help take down keep doors without the use of a ram. You will also be needed in dragon raids to lower a dragon’s ability to be missed. I recommend this class if you want to be a caster that does damage and wants to be welcomed to groups in any situation.

Quick question: which ability of the Theurgist is it that enables the dragons ability to be missed? Is this simply a reference to the bladeturn? Would this mean that the ideal spec for Theurg in a raid scenario is full earth PBT spec? thanks in advance!

Warriston wrote:
Quick question: which ability of the Theurgist is it that enables the dragons ability to be missed? Is this simply a reference to the bladeturn? Would this mean that the ideal spec for Theurg in a raid scenario is full earth PBT spec? thanks in advance!

The mechanics are simple, the more "entities" that hit a high level target, the less defence it has. Albion has earthpets, Hibernia has animists, while midgard has to bring more bonedancers.. There are videos of animist groups soloing the dragon quite fast due to this mechanic.