Path of the Vampire forum

I was originally going to basically make a guide for new players or something, or people simply unfamiliar with it. But I realize that because I have no authority per say I might not be supposed to do that or anything. So for myself should I want to remember something, or for anyone who cares to read/discuss this, here's my take on the human classes:

Let's start with how I rank them Grid wise.

For easygoing, new, or moderate players:
Paladin
Blood thief
Sorcerer

For moderate to more active/experienced players:
Sorcerer/Blood thief
Paladin.


The reason I rank them like that is because of how they gain PXP. As this is used for powers, getting dual classes, and can also be used for experience.

For those that don't know, a paladin obtains pxp by simply having over 6 anima (or maybe it's 4), and anima can only be expended as far as I can see by using certain powers, most of which you won't be able to expend while using a paladin unless you actively combat other players or use certain enhancements or returning to blood (which uses anima). Which most of the time are only needed if you either have a rather high notoriety or attack/get attacked by other players a lot because of the threat that cops or players can cause to you (injuries and critical hits.) A newer or more combat relaxed player won't have this issue, because they neither have much notoriety starting out nor are likely to get it by attacking the wrong people or something. For relaxed players it has an extra advantage, as if you leave your character they should continue gaining pxp. This makes them easier to get into higher levels if you don't want to expend a lot of effort.


Blood thieves:
Their powers are simple, one side is how long they can maintain stolen powers, the other is what levels of powers they can obtain. Ridiculously simple. A blood thief can, at max without doubling up on blood thief, maintain 8 days of a vampires power they feed on. And as they gain pxp for each day they have vampire blood, they can be left for 8 days after a feeding and continue gaining that pxp. In addition, vampires can be reletively easy to find in the sewers.



Sorcerers:
Sorcerers get pxp basically opposite to paladins, they have to expend their anima to get pxp. Not all of it, simply to spend it. But this does mean, that out of the two classes, they are the only ones who have to be daily used in order to get daily pxp. Even worse is that they actually don't have much pxp to start off with, and thus it can be disastrous to get the wrong power. It's best to get a power that you can use directly to expend anima, such as rock skin.



However when used more actively and combatively and with other players this setup changes entirely, as sorcerers then can excel as their powers can be very helpful when interacting with player characters, and blood thieves can get better powers, but paladins end up at a disadvantage if they have to expend anima.






Short tidbits:
Paladins: Paladins are excellent and great to use, they're easy to level up and are very good at combat, thus giving them a head start on finding higher level npc's to fight and thus leveling up faster again. Now while I didn't experience it, the fact that their anima has to be over 6 can still be an issue for some who use the powers that require anima. In which case I'd advise increasing the arcane significantly, as it will give you more anima to work with and will recharge it faster as well. Of course upping things like intelligence is also a good idea, as it starts out rather low if you chose the class when you created the character and is a very important asset in numerous parts of the gameplay.


Blood thieves: I've been using one for a short while and they're very simple to figure out, but until you reach a high enough level (or ask the right people for help) you probably won't be getting as many nifty powers any time soon. That's of course because npc vampires, while you will always be able to feed on them if you're in the same square and have enough energy, don't have as many useful powers. It'd be best to level up a lot before you actually get powers from a players vampire, as it's easy for them to catch you, assuming you tried to sneak up on them or something.


Sorcerers:
I've had a sorcerer for awhile now, that would be Charles, he started out pureblood but eventually that wasn't cutting it and I made him a sorcerer as no other class really fit him at the time. IC it made perfect sense. Of course, that anima thing really screwed me over for quite some time, I didn't know about it until when I came back from a long break and before had basically been getting pxp, to me, seemingly as if by random chance (sometimes I'd use the powers, but most of the time I wouldn't). Now that I know however, it's pretty useful to be a sorcerer if you actually get on often enough. In addition, certain powers give you serious advantages in grid play as well as make for fantastic RP story wise.


Dual classing:
Let me just say, combining sorcerer or Paladin with blood thief results in a thrall (vampire or trayonetic wolf) which I found totally epic, and immediately considered the best possible combination. Doubling up on a class kind of seemed like a waste to me, especially for a blood thief who simply gets bridge powers of who they feed on. Compare that to:
Sorcerer/sorcerer: Getting to see the future when the power is used, even getting to see future threads/events.
Paladin/paladin: Increased dexterity and skirmish abilities (very useful if you get into fights or someone attacks you)
Paladin/sorcerer: Attack any vampire no matter where they are using a weapon (just can't cause critical hits)




As for as simply applying them to the story: Whichever suits you and your character. Keeping in mind how most of them are likely to act and function, paladins for instance (according to the wiki) are supposed to eventually be driven to disgust of vampires (although they are capable of resisting it it seems). And of course blood thieves tend to be considered untrustworthy by most humans (I don't know why, that's the wiki), and then sorcerers...actually don't seem to have any problems except maybe that they deal with the fae more often.

I like to view them as:
Paladin: Soldier (esque)
Blood thief: Rogue (Can sort of take any direction they want)
Sorcerer: Support class/multipurpose (Very possibly intelligent and knowledgable/crafty)


I considered doing the same thing with vampires, and I might, but I've only experienced Shadow and telepath, (and allurist on blood) I did however run over the wiki repeatedly about them, and will probably do so again. Necromancers and mystics look pretty dang cool, killers are too (and probably more useful to me if I wanted to simply get powerful) but I'm not quite to the point of doing anything like that yet and I don't want to turn any of my characters right now.

Yeah, sorcerers can be a little tricky depending on what powers you get early on. I find the best route is to actually go with a battle power (like chi focus) early on, and make sure that your battle tactics are set to use it pretty frequently. If you use anima in a battle (Combat against an NPC), it still counts for Sorcerers, which means they should still get their PXP the next day.

Which means they still have to be moved daily. I just find whacking an NPC personally works better for me than logging in just to cast a status boosting ability, for example.

As far as vampires go, Necromancers tend to be my favorite both to play on grid and in RP. I've experienced a little bit of all of them, but solid base stats, and powers like 'blood boost' for daily blood gain and rigormortis to use against undead enemies just really gives them a pretty decent edge in early game things, in my opinion.

Agreed, although it’d be important to make sure the battle tactics are set so they will actually use the power. Which I’m not sure every new player would do unfortunately because it’s at the bottom and you don’t need to go there for the tutorial to reward you.


Necromancers look awesome, and the blood boost part especially gives them an advantage since they shouldn’t have to feed, and thus less likely to raise their notoriety if they don’t want to.

Thus far my favorite on grid would have to be allurist though, the thrall gives a significant advantage if you don’t want to move you actual character just in case, and are a reliable source of blood just like blood boost. Course they can’t do some things until enthrall human is level two, but still fantastic for scavenging and killing certain nods.

I do like what you’re doing, gathering the information needed. If you’d like, you should definitely check out the wiki and see if there is any information that you have gathered from your experience to add to it about the human classes. I’ve been trying to work on it with the skill sets, and I know a few other s have been adding information to it, as well, so you should see if there’s something there you can contribute, because this post is very well thought-out!

Now.

After reading over this, I have to first say: you have a lot of excellent points. The only real difference in my opinion from what you’ve stated is the level in difficulty you have. I agree Paladin is pretty easy, but I would say that Blood Thief is moderately higher in difficulty than Sorcerer. I’ve play all three classes, and I have to say that I could never embrace Blood Thief. The attempting to feed, the power gaining, hoping that, if you couldn’t feed off of a PC vampire that you would get decent powers from an NPC. Personally, I just found the game-play of the Blood Thief to be too clunky and I gave up after about level 20.

You also didn’t mention Pure Blood. If that was on the list, I would say that is by far the most difficult, only because it doesn’t level nearly as fast as the classed humans, do. Which, honestly, I think they’re entirely unique on their own, and though I will never torture myself enough to play one, I do like the concept! I just feel as though that particular class is sorely lacking, as it’s intended to be, and doesn’t particularly fit my preferred play-style, but you’re checking into various classes, give it a try! 

Paladins: Paladins are excellent and great to use, they're easy to level up and are very good at combat, thus giving them a head start on finding higher level npc's to fight and thus leveling up faster again. Now while I didn't experience it, the fact that their anima has to be over 6 can still be an issue for some who use the powers that require anima. In which case I'd advise increasing the arcane significantly, as it will give you more anima to work with and will recharge it faster as well. Of course upping things like intelligence is also a good idea, as it starts out rather low if you chose the class when you created the character and is a very important asset in numerous parts of the gameplay.

The main human class that I play is Paladin, and I can offer a little more insight here. I never really have had an issue with the anima until I dualed her to Sorcerer and achieved Dark Theurugy for PVP. Once I went into PVP officially on Sawyer, I started to see the painful decline of my anima and struggled to keep it above the required number.

The only thing I really use the anima for outside of DT is Kensai, and you can cast that once a day and still have your anima requirement met. Now, if you’re PVPing, yes, there is a bit more of an issue, but my suggestion for any new players [outside of yours for the arcane increase] or anyone looking to play the class, stock up on some cash and by anima orbs to ensure that you’re always going to be at the anima required to get your PXP.

As for Dual Classing, my favorite of all time is Paladin to sorcerer – for both PvE and PvP. I love DT, it’s a godsend for PVP, and I love the combined powers for PVE because it helps in leveling. Sawyer can heal her faction, she can fight the enemies, collect extra anima when in the wildnerness, track, etc. By far, I prefer that required path for Dual Classing – but again, that could also be because I just never got into BT, so the thought of even dualing into it just doesn’t appeal to me, lmao.

As for the vampires, I’ve played every path, and my favorites by far are allurist, mystics and necromancers. The gameplay on every class is amazing, but those three are just super fun to me for various reasons, that I won’t get into because I could go on even longer than I have already. xD

All in all, this was a very good post, Charles, and I thank you for taking the time and dedication to actively compare and put your opinion out there for new players. :)

Caligrace wrote:I do like what you’re doing, gathering the information needed. If you’d like, you should definitely check out the wiki and see if there is any information that you have gathered from your experience to add to it about the human classes. I’ve been trying to work on it with the skill sets, and I know a few other s have been adding information to it, as well, so you should see if there’s something there you can contribute, because this post is very well thought-out!

Now.

After reading over this, I have to first say: you have a lot of excellent points. The only real difference in my opinion from what you’ve stated is the level in difficulty you have. I agree Paladin is pretty easy, but I would say that Blood Thief is moderately higher in difficulty than Sorcerer. I’ve play all three classes, and I have to say that I could never embrace Blood Thief. The attempting to feed, the power gaining, hoping that, if you couldn’t feed off of a PC vampire that you would get decent powers from an NPC. Personally, I just found the game-play of the Blood Thief to be too clunky and I gave up after about level 20.

You also didn’t mention Pure Blood. If that was on the list, I would say that is by far the most difficult, only because it doesn’t level nearly as fast as the classed humans, do. Which, honestly, I think they’re entirely unique on their own, and though I will never torture myself enough to play one, I do like the concept! I just feel as though that particular class is sorely lacking, as it’s intended to be, and doesn’t particularly fit my preferred play-style, but you’re checking into various classes, give it a try! 

Paladins: Paladins are excellent and great to use, they're easy to level up and are very good at combat, thus giving them a head start on finding higher level npc's to fight and thus leveling up faster again. Now while I didn't experience it, the fact that their anima has to be over 6 can still be an issue for some who use the powers that require anima. In which case I'd advise increasing the arcane significantly, as it will give you more anima to work with and will recharge it faster as well. Of course upping things like intelligence is also a good idea, as it starts out rather low if you chose the class when you created the character and is a very important asset in numerous parts of the gameplay.

The main human class that I play is Paladin, and I can offer a little more insight here. I never really have had an issue with the anima until I dualed her to Sorcerer and achieved Dark Theurugy for PVP. Once I went into PVP officially on Sawyer, I started to see the painful decline of my anima and struggled to keep it above the required number.

The only thing I really use the anima for outside of DT is Kensai, and you can cast that once a day and still have your anima requirement met. Now, if you’re PVPing, yes, there is a bit more of an issue, but my suggestion for any new players [outside of yours for the arcane increase] or anyone looking to play the class, stock up on some cash and by anima orbs to ensure that you’re always going to be at the anima required to get your PXP.

As for Dual Classing, my favorite of all time is Paladin to sorcerer – for both PvE and PvP. I love DT, it’s a godsend for PVP, and I love the combined powers for PVE because it helps in leveling. Sawyer can heal her faction, she can fight the enemies, collect extra anima when in the wildnerness, track, etc. By far, I prefer that required path for Dual Classing – but again, that could also be because I just never got into BT, so the thought of even dualing into it just doesn’t appeal to me, lmao.

As for the vampires, I’ve played every path, and my favorites by far are allurist, mystics and necromancers. The gameplay on every class is amazing, but those three are just super fun to me for various reasons, that I won’t get into because I could go on even longer than I have already. xD

All in all, this was a very good post, Charles, and I thank you for taking the time and dedication to actively compare and put your opinion out there for new players. :)

Thank you! I appreciate it!

I might go see if there's a way for me to be useful on there then, not sure I'll actually have much to add as most of what I know resides in how to play the game more then actual knowledge.

As the the easiness level, well I guess some people do just have different opinions on that. I find blood thief easier then sorcerer because I found out just how numerous the wild vampires are in the sewers right now, I don't remember there being so many so that might have been a factor. Right now it's really easy to level him up and gain pxp.

Hmm, yeah I supposed just mentioning pureblood may have been a good idea. I have used one, that's what Charles was for awhile before I turned him into a sorcerer after all. They're exceptionally difficult, although if you focus on the non combat oriented ways of gaining exp they're actually fine. I may add to that then and explain them better,


Ah, dark theurgy, cool! Yeah I see how having your starting class rely on basically not using anima, and then your second class using it would be a problem. Considering it's the first class which decides your pxp gain. Still though, pretty cool.

Ah yeah, I totally forgot about anima orbs. That'd be a good thing to add.


Blood thief, in my opinion, is extraordinarily simple. Of course since it rely's on other players in essence like you mentioned, it does have it's downfalls.

Ah cool, yeah still need to try necromancer and mystic, both look very interesting. Just haven't got around to it as I have my other characters. Allurist though, that one's great for certain.

Thank you! Hopefully I can actually be useful with the wiki then lol, no certainty of it, but we'll see. Maybe there's a tips or something section I can put stuff on to help out newer players or people who want to get a class/start a new character