Character Advice

Hothane

Hey, folks!

I'm an IRE fanboy looking to branch out into another game. I've dabbled across all five, but haven't touched Lusty for years! When I fired up a new toon yesterday I was (pleasantly) bowled over by the number of chargen choices, got myself all flustered, poured a double whiskey and logged out again. SO, any help at all with making the correct race/city-or-commune/guild choice, within the following parameters would be very well-received:

1) I'm interested in the concept of a dark hero, so I think (correct me if wrong!) that would rule out Celeste, unless Celeste would tolerate a bad guy, perhaps following an arc of noble cause corruption

2) My main interests would either be PvP (a class that doesn't depend too heavily on arties to reach upper-mid-tier would be beneficial) or trade. If a class can do both fairly well, that'd be awesome, if not, more than happy to go either-or

3) I'm also on UK time (GMT), so would rather avoid a city/commune where I'm going to be the only person awake between the hours of, say 1900 and 0000, but I'd imagine that with a playerbase Lusty's size that won't be a problem

4) Finally, I'd really love to play a race that interacts with my specialisation. I seem to remember that I was once transformed into a special type of faeling when I learned a certain skillset, but it's a bit fuzzy. Somebody did answer this question last (so apologies for asking it again), but frankly by that time my brains were scrambled eggs. This criteria is less important than the others, but it would be nice.

So far I'm really leaning towards choosing a faeling or an elfen in Harbingers or Blacktalon (if I'm correct in thinking that's the Glomdoring druid guild?), but please swamp me with whatever advice you think is helpful As I say, I'm not an IRE noob, but things here are really quite different to what I'm used to.

Edit: After reading Qistrel's post in another thread about each city/commune's RP, I think I can safely narrow it down to Glomdoring, Hallifax or Gaudiguch.

Stratas

1) Celest isn't good, they're Light, and doing Bad Things in the name of Light does happen. No idea how hard 'bad guy' would ultimately be. I haven't RP'd much there in years. Depending on what exactly you mean by 'dark hero', you can probably pull it off in Glom, as long as you accept you'll be killing babies at some point.

2) Can't really comment on arties and PvP, but supposedly the point of the Overhaul was to normalize it so arties are less required, and min/max has less benefit and fewer outliers. No further comment beyond that I've heard Lusty is one of the cheapest IREs to get into combat with, arty wise.

3) Peak seems to be a few hours after "0000" if I understand time right. But there's always a fair number of people around for the hours before, so don't worry, you'll have company. Population tends to dwindle after midnight EST and gets really dead after midnight PST. YMMV.

4)Race really doesn't matter, and I wished the intro stressed that a bit more, but this is not the place for that rant. As far as the spec races, Celest has merians, Magnagora has viscanti, Gaudiguch has dracnari, Hallifax has trill and lucidians, Serenwilde has elfen, and Glomdoring has faelings. As a Harbinger faeling you'll become a Shadowsinger, as a Blacktalon you would be a Shadowcaster. It's certainly a neat touch. Mages, druids, guardians, and bards get their specs as a matter of course on learning the advanced form of the guild's Primary skill (though a certain spec of each kind of druid will make you a tree). Monks never get spec afaik, and warriors only get it if they choose the 'guardian' tertiary spec (Sacraments, Necromancy, Aeonics, Paradigmatics) or totems spec (Stag, Moon, Crow, Night).

Twytch

Out of all the IREs, I've always felt like Lusternia had the least reliance on artifacts (save for warriors, and the demesne rune if you're a melder).

Regarding trade, Lusternia has a very broken economy. However, we do have some wonderful trade skills like Brewmeister (beers, whiskeys, etc.), Bookbinding (origami, scrolls, books, etc.), Cooking (food), etc. wherein you can design and create to your heart's content (be prepared to have the occasional grammar/usage battle with the Charites, though). Most trade skills are open to anyone and everyone.

You're looking at Harbingers (bard) and Blacktalon (druid), both guilds in Glomdoring. Both classes play with passive effects in combat. Harbingers are fairly good in combat, while as a Blacktalon (and therefore a melder), you would be very much in demand in group combat.

What combat playstyle are you looking for?

Hothane

Hey, huge thanks for the advice so far. Is anybody able to comment on the mechanical differences between cities and communes, please? I'm assuming that the RP differences are what you'd expect in a fantasy setting. As for my combat playstyle, I'm not a huge fan of brute-force (i.e. Damage-kill) styles. I like the technical classes (read: difficult to master, powerful when mastered), so HUGE amounts of passive make me feel lazy.

Everiine

Communes and cities, mechanically, are very similar--5 guilds, same ruling council structure, same ministries, same governing styles, etc. Notable differences:

Cities and communes both have warriors, bards, and monks (well, half the cities don't have their monk classes, but they would). Communes have wiccans and druids. Cities have guardians and mages. Guardians and wiccans are sort of similar, and druids and mages are sorta similar. But they have different purposes and do different things.

Communes have trees that grow into totems that protect the area. Cities can enchant statues to protect the area.

Communes are tied to the Ethereal plane. Cities are tied to the Elemental and Cosmic planes.

Obviously, all of these become significant RP differences, as well. Beware of assuming standard fantasy RP types though! For example, between the two communes, at first glance you'd assume that the Serenwilde was the "good", light, happy forest, and the Glomdoring was the "bad", dark, evil forest. But everything in Lusternia is a shade of grey. The Serenwilde can be ruthless and devious when it feels threatened, and many people have found acceptance and even warmth among the Glomdorring (obviously, the warmth doesn't extend to those outside the Glomdoring). Similarly, New Celest isn't a "good" city, it's a more a city of the Light philosophy and religious zealotry, while Magnagora is not an "evil" city, just a city that values progress and power above all else.

Hallen

Just to follow up on Twytch: every class gets a choice of a tradeskill. 

Enchantment/Spellcraft is limited to mages and guardians.

Enchantment/Tinkering is limited to bards who choose High Magic.

Alchemy/Lorecraft is limited to druids and wiccans.

Alchemy/Brewmeister is limited to bards who choose Low Magic.

Forging is limited to warriors.

Herbs and Poisons are limited to classes that select Low Magic (so never mages or guardians).

Tattoos is limited to monks.

Cooking, Tailoring, Jewellery, Bookbinding, and Artisan are accessible to all classes.

I can't comment knowledgeably on the economic value of each of these.

Tarkenton

For any skill that you trans via credits, you're looking at 14.3 million gold before you break even versus just selling said credits. Herbs is the one trade I can see eventually making that, since just about everyone finds it boring as heck. The others...godspeed.

Steingrim

Hothane said:

Hey, huge thanks for the advice so far. Is anybody able to comment on the mechanical differences between cities and communes, please? I'm assuming that the RP differences are what you'd expect in a fantasy setting. As for my combat playstyle, I'm not a huge fan of brute-force (i.e. Damage-kill) styles. I like the technical classes (read: difficult to master, powerful when mastered), so HUGE amounts of passive make me feel lazy.

Everyone can do damage and damage is roughly about the sameish kinda. Or to put it another way you don't so much have glasscannons vs instakillers. In groups you'll see far more damage kills, while PURE damage kills should be pretty difficult to impossible at end game in 1 v 1.

Hothane

Huge thanks to everybody who has helped I think I've settled on Blacktalon for now, so I'll see how that works out for me!

Twytch

I think I remember druid ecologists having oodles of fun utility. I don't know if that's changed or not, though, but I like the crow cloak thing that you get that allows you to fly and influence undead.

Cyndarin

Fair warning, faelings (the glom race) have pretty bad racials, especially the regen. Though the racials below the artifact level for any race aren't really game changing. Just a heads up!