User:Sesserdrix/Guide To The Undying Pestilence

Section 1: Introduction

Welcome fellow necromancers to Sesserdrix's Guide to The Undying Pestilence!

The Undying Pestilence is a name that I've given to my favorite triple class combo in EverQuest: Warrior + Necromancer + Shaman. This build combines the second-to-none durability of a Warrior with considerable self-sustain from a Necromancer's taps, drains, and lich mana generation, and a Shaman's slows, self-heals, and cannibalization. While enduring whatever assault comes their way, the Undying Pestilence laughs as their foes wither away from Necromancer & Shaman DoTs, and an onslaught of Warrior melee attacks.

The goal of this guide is simple: To provide a foundation of knowledge for building and playing this class combination. That's it. If you are looking for a guide that does a deep dive into parses to find the most optimal gear comp that will provide you with a 0.1% faster kill time, that isn't this guide. This build is more than capable of soloing the content available at the time of writing, so I'm not particularly interested in trying to find the most optimal of everything. I just have a lot of fun with this build and want to share some of what I have learned along the way.

I am also going to write this guide assuming a reader may be brand new to all of this, so there may be some pieces of information not relevant to you.

As of the time of writing, this guide is an EQ:L Classic era guide. I may (and likely will) update this guide as time goes on, but as of right now, the game is still young and Kunark hasn't come out. So depending on when you read this, some of this may well be out of date. Use your best judgment reading through this guide.

Section 2: Starting your Undying Pestilence

Character creation on EverQuest: Legends is fairly straight forward. You choose a race, a primary class, and a secondary class. Your race and primary class must be one of the classic EverQuest matching combinations. For example, you can't be an Iksar with a primary class of Wizard. Your secondary class can be anything, not limited to the traditional race/class combinations of EverQuest. So while you couldn't be an Iksar with a primary class of Wizard, you could be an Iksar with a primary class of Necromancer and a secondary class of Wizard.

Your starting ability scores are automatically applied based on your selected classes.

As you level up from 1 to 10, you will level all classes simultaneously. At any point during this time, you can change your primary class to another appropriate for your race and your secondary class to any other. You are not locked in from 1 to 10. At level 10, you'll gain access to a second secondary class. When you reach level 11, your primary class, race, and deity choice is locked in. From that point forward, you can only swap between secondary classes. So if your primary class is Necromancer, all your builds will have Necromancer until you unlock a new primary class. Primary classes are unlocked via an unlock token (you get 1 free the first time you hit level 50 or you can buy them for $10 in the microtransaction shop) or by completing the Sky quests for a given class (which is very doable, but it can be time consuming).

When starting your Undying Pestilence, I would recommend starting with Warrior and Necromancer. When you're first starting out and you're not well geared, a Warrior's HP and access to a wide range of weapon types is a much welcomed boon. Necromancer gives us access to a pet that we can tank for and lifetaps we can use to sustain ourselves while killing enemies. Shaman is an incredibly strong support class, but it generally takes some levels for them to grow into their power. Bringing them into the build at level 10 works out just fine. That said, if you really want to start with Shaman, do so! I recommend Warrior and Necromancer, but starting with Shaman absolutely works too.

In terms of race selection, it's up to you, but there are some considerations. Much like swapping classes, you will also be able to switch between races that you've unlocked, either by completing a faction-grind related achievement or buying an unlock token in the microtransaction shop. See Alanna's Race Unlock Guide for more details on how to unlock various races. While I prefer to run around as an Iksar for the innate AC, regeneration, and their home city having access to the spells I want, Iksar isn't as hard to unlock as some of the others like Ogre or Troll. I strongly recommend you review Alanna's guide and determine which race that you want to have access to has the worst looking grind, and then start with that race.

Also, it's worth noting that once you unlock another race, you can swap to that race even if it wouldn't normally work with your primary class. For example, if you started as an Iksar Necromancer, then at level 15 you did some quests to get access to Wood Elf race, you could be a Wood Elf with Necromancer as a primary class. The race/class restriction is just for when starting your character and locking in your starting position when hitting level 11.

Section 3: Difficulty & Item/Spell Leveling

In EverQuest: Legends, everyone has the ability to create instances. Instances are copies of a given zone that you can go into solo or in a group. They allow you to have personal access to the mobs of that zone without running into other players. If you've ever wanted to camp a mob in classic EverQuest just to find someone at the camp already, instancing lets you make a copy of that zone and camp it anyway.

You access the instancing menu by clicking on the red box with a grey/silver "0" in it. It should be on the UI element that has 6 buttons for other menus and two big buttons below it, one of a picnic basket (the microtransaction shop) and the menu (the EQL logo). When you click this box, it will let you Pick Difficulty (to change between which difficulty you're in in the open world) or Create Instance. In the Create Instance menu, it will let you choose a difficulty (0 is easiest, 4 is hardest), a type (solo is if you're alone, multiplayer is if you're in a group), and respawning or non-respawning (respawning will let you farm in that instance, while non-respawning will make it a lot easier to full crawl a zone without the pressure of mobs respawning on top of you).

Increasing the difficulty, either by creating a higher difficulty instance or picking zone to go into a higher difficulty version of the open world, causes the game world to spawn noticeably stronger enemies. These enemies will have more HP, better resists and AC, hit harder, and will often spawn will 2 or even 3 classes (giving them access to a wider powerset than they otherwise would have). Higher difficulty does reward more experience, though most people seem to agree that the XP reward is not worth the increased kill time. Rather, the main reason to increase difficulty has to do with item and spell leveling.

In EverQuest: Legends, items and spells have levels. When they increase in level, certain aspects also increase. Leveling up a weapon will generally increase it's stats and damage, making a noticeably stronger weapon. Leveling up a spell will generally decrease it's mana cost, recast timer, add a resist modifier to make it harder for enemies to resist, and other spell-specific benefits (like damage spells generally do more damage, charms can charm higher level enemies, longer duration, etc.).

Items are leveled up by combining duplicates. Say you get a Short Sword of Ykesha to drop. If you get a second one, you can hold right click to inspect one of them and drag the other into the "Place Item" box next to the "Merge Item" box. To the right, it will show the item's current tier (0, 1, 2, 3, etc.) and how many points it has toward the next tier (a fresh +0 item will show Tier 1 & 0/1). This means it needs 1 point to level up to Tier 2. If you get a duplicate SSoY +0 and add it, it would be worth 1, increasing it to Tier 0 & 1/1, DING! Now it's Tier 1 & 0/2. If you added 2 more SSoY +0s, it would be Tier 1 & 2/2, DING! Now it's Tier 3 & 0/4.

An item is worth how many points it needs to level up. The SSoY +0 is at tier 0 and is 0/1 to level up, so it's worth 1 when merging. A SSoY +1 is tier 1 and is 0/2 to level up, so it's worth 2 when merging. So although it would take 2 SSoY +0s to increase a SSoY +1 up to SSoY +2, it would only take 1 SSoY +1 to do the same.

This is one of the main boons to doing dungeons on higher difficulty: When you get drops in difficulty 0, they are usually +0 drops (with a diminished chance of higher). When you get drops in difficulty 1, they are usually +1 drops (again, with a diminished chance of higher). As a result, if you're doing difficulty 4, you're usually getting +4 drops, which is equivalent to 16 drops at difficulty 0. So while it's harder to clear and the XP isn't usually worth the added kill time, it's absolutely worth it for the drops.

Now, there's another way to level stuff up: random drops called Motes of (X) Potential. Motes can drop from anything, but seem to have an elevated chance to drop off of named/rare mobs. Like items, they will generally drop at the difficulty of the content you're doing, with a diminished chance of dropping at higher tiers. So if you're doing difficulty 0, you're going to see a lot of level 0 or higher. If you're doing difficulty 4, you're going to see a lot more level 4 or higher motes. There also appears to be a level minimum: If you were to kill a level 10 mob at difficulty 4, you're likely going to get a lower level mote. I don't know the exact level thresholds, but it seems like level 4 motes start dropping on mobs around level 20ish. That is to say, that's the level the enemy needs to be. If you kill it at difficulty 4 while you're level 10, you can still get a level 4 mote.

Motes can be placed into items in lieu of a duplicate to level it up, however, motes don't provide as much benefit to the item as a duplicate drop and you can't put low level motes into a high level item. As such, if you want to level an item, burn your low level motes on low level items and your higher motes on higher items. You can also combine motes in each town at these construct NPCs. I'll have to edit their name in later.

Now all that said, the mote cost to level up items increases at an extreme rate, making it increasingly difficult to level up items with motes. As a result, many choose to instead save their motes for leveling spells.

Unlike items, spells can only be leveled up with motes, but the cost doesn't increase as sharply and you can use low level motes on high level spells. To give you an example, I once got a Mote of Infinite Potential, a level 10 mote. If I put that item in a fresh tier 0 spell, it would have added 512 points and brought the spell to Tier 9 & 0/512. If I put that mote into my Tier 8 weapon with 0/256, it would only increase it to Tier 8 & 10/256. Yeah, 1/25th of tier 8 of an item versus a spell going from tier 0 to tier 9. It's a massive difference in scaling.

Now with all this said, there is one other mote related thing to discuss: void motes. Void motes are a weekly reward from completing raids. You can get these from solo raids or group raids, but you can only get 3 per week and each has to be from a different raid. So if you do difficulty 0 Yael, you get a void mote, but you can't then do difficulty 1 Yael to get another. After you've earned 3, that's all you'll earn for the week. In addition, you can't bank them for long as the game won't allow you to earn more void motes if you still have your 3 void motes. So you're meant to get these and spend them.

Void motes are unique among motes in that they will give 1 full level to an item. If you put a void mote in a tier 0 spell, it becomes tier 1. If you put a void mote in a tier 0 item, it becomes tier 1. If you put the void mote in a tier 9 spell, it becomes tier 10. If you put the void mote in a tier 9 item, it becomes tier 10. As you might imagine, given what I said about the cost scaling of leveling up items versus spells with motes, void motes are commonly used to level up items through the higher levels. You can level up your spells with them too, but since you can use low level motes to get through the higher levels, but you can't do that with items, void motes are often reserved for leveling up weapons and armor.

Section 4: Stances & Invocations

Stances and invocations are a unique subsystem in EverQuest: Legends that provide you with a strong buff to your combat ability (stance) and spellcasting ability (invocation) which you can swap between on the fly to adapt to whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Stances and invocations are linked to specific classes, so when you add a class to your character, you get access to the stances and invocations that class has. As this build is a Warrior/Necromancer/Shaman build, we have access to the stances and invocations of those three classes. They are as follows:

Stances

We have access to the following stances:

• Balanced Stance - Incoming damage is reduced by 10% and your chance to hit is increased by 10%. Endurance regeneration is doubled (does not include the out-of-combat endurance regeneration bonus). While out of combat, you always gain the benefit of this stance, even if you're not in it. Which is to say, in addition to the heightened out-of-combat endurance regeneration, you'll also get double your usual endurance regeneration when out of combat, even when you're not in this stance.
• Defensive Stance - All incoming physical damage is reduced by 50% and incoming magical damage is reduced by 20%. Every point of damage reduced consumes an equal amount of endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill.
• Striker Stance - Outgoing weapon skill abilities deal 3x damage and non-weapon skill abilities deal 5x damage, and your chance to hit is increased by 25%. Every point of damage dealt consumes an equal amount of endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill. When below 25% endurance, the chance to hit bonus is reduced based on remaining percent of endurance. The bonus damage from critical hits and similar effects do not cost endurance.
• Offensive Stance - Outgoing melee damage is increased by 100% and your chance to hit is increased by 25%. Every point of bonus damage dealt consumes an equal amount of endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill. When below 25% endurance, the chance to hit bonus is reduced based on remaining percent of endurance. Bonus damage from critical hits and similar effects do not cost endurance.
• Channeler Stance - All incoming damage is reduced by 40% and your chance to successfully channel is increased. Half the mitigated damage is charged to both mana and endurance, with a reduction based on your strategy skill.

Generally speaking, I've found myself using Offensive Stance and Defensive Stance. Balanced Stance is alright for in-combat endurance regeneration, but since we spend a lot of time casting and we have Shaman buffs to boost our endurance, this doesn't come up much. Striker Stance would be better for us if we had more high-impact skills, but since our only true melee in the build is Warrior, all we get is Cleave, Bash, and Kick. Channeler Stance is quite useful in the right situation, especially early on before you're stun immune and have AAs to help shrug off interrupts or when fighting casters doing considerable magical damage. However, as you level up, you'll find channeling to be less and less of a problem and enemy nukes to be less of a concern against the flow of necromancer lifetaps and shaman self-heals.

When I'm feeling fine on the durability side, generally I'll be sitting in Offensive Stance to boost the offensive potential of my weapon between casts. If I'm fighting something difficult or if I'm swarmed and am working on getting everything slowed, I'll be in Defensive Stance so I can turtle up and focus on sustaining while getting control of the situation. Remember, an Undying Pestilence is a DoT Tank: Survive first, the enemy will eventually wither away and die.

Invocations

We have access to the following invocations:

• Empowering Invocation - Adds 20% + 10% per additional non-hybrid casting class to Damage effects at the cost of 20% more mana. For an Undying Pestilence, this is +30% damage for +20% mana cost.
• Arcane Mastery Invocation - Spell cast and recovery times are reduced by 20% plus 10% per additional intelligence class. The mana cost of detrimental spells is reduced by 10% plus 5% per additional intelligence class. For an Undying Pestilence, it's just the baseline -20% spell casting and recovery time, and -10% mana cost for detrimental spells.
• Divine Invocation - Spending mana will heal the group member with the lowest HP percentage by that amount. For every additional wisdom class, this will repeat with a heal for 33% of the mana spent. For an Undying Pestilence, we only get the initial effect, no extra 33%. Also note, lifetaps count as heals for this invocation.
• OverChannel Invocation - Cast spells have a -150 resist adjust plus another -15 for every non-hybrid caster class at the cost of 10% of the mana cost in endurance. For an Undying Pestilence, this gives our spells a -165 resist adjustment at the cost of spending some endurance. This makes it so spells land much easier!
• Inversion Invocation - Shifts 2/3rds of spell cast time in the global recovery time and 20% of the mana cost into half as much in endurance cost. What this does is to make it so our spells cast much faster but have a noticeably longer spell recovery time. Thanks to casting spells faster, it's far less likely that we get interrupted and it leaves us free to swing our warrior weapons around for more damage.
• Recovery Invocation - You regenerate mana twice as fast and spells have a 5% reduced mana cost. Out of combat regen is not affected. While out of combat, the regeneration modifier of this invocation is active even if this invocation is not. In effect, you'll start regenerating a ton more mana while in combat, and while out of combat, you get extra mana regeneration on top of the standard out-of-combat resting mana regeneration.
• Unyielding Invocation - Health regen excluding out of combat bonus regen is doubled with a 25% resistance increase to loss of control from fear, mez, and charm. While out of combat, the regeneration modifier of this invocation is active even if this invocation is not. Basically like Recovery Invocation and Balanced Stance, except while those are for mana and endurance respectively, this one is for health.

We use almost all of these depending on the situation, so it's a good idea to learn these and identify when the right time is to switch to the right one. Unlike the simple dichotomy of Offensive Stance vs Defensive Stance, there's a lot more going on here. However, we can eliminate one to make our options easier: Unyielding Invocation might have some circumstance where it's handy, but thanks to our lifetaps and shaman heal-over-time effects, we don't really need it all that much. If we do, it's probably in a group setting where we don't yet have fear immunity or want to be fully charm immune (see the AAs section for more).

With that said, now lets talk about these invocations.

Firstly, think of Recovery Invocation as your 'default' invocation. When you're not really doing anything, when the fight is under control, when you're not casting, etc., be in Recovery. It'll keep your mana regeneration up so you can avoid running OOM. We are a sustain build, so managing our mana expenditure against regain is a big part of taking down bigger challenges. Additionally, the 5% mana cost reduction is a nice extra boon for those spells that don't get a more significant bump from another invocation.

While Recovery is the 'default', you do want to bounce between our other invocations based on circumstance.

OverChannel Invocation is generally my default opener. Before I start a fight, I generally start in OverChannel Invocation for applying Slows. Slows are Shaman spells like Drowsy, Walking Sleep, Tagar's Insects, and Togor's Insects. These spells reduce how quickly an enemy attacks, which makes it far easier to sustain against their damage. If we can start a fight with an enemy already slowed (OverChannel to reduce the chance they resist + pulling with a Slow), we're not going to be taking all that much damage. OverChannel is also good for applying DoTs to mobs that have unusually high resists. Once a DoT sticks, it sticks for its full duration, so having OverChannel to ensure it lands is a major boon. However, if you don't need OverChannel to land a DoT on given target, there's no reason to use it. We're better served by using one of the other invocations.

Empowering Invocation will boost the damage of your DoT spells, even if you then swap out of Empowering Invocation after you apply the DoT. If you can land a big DoT like Odium or Envenomed Bolt while Empowering Invocation is on, it'll boost DoT damage by a good chunk for the entire duration. I have seen Envenomed Bolt ticks crit for ~2k when applied with Empowering Invocation. As an additional boon, Empowering Invocation will boost the damage of your spell procs like Spirit of the Puma, but only while you're in the invocation. Unlike DoTs, Spirit of the Puma's invocation bonus is based on the invocation you're in when it procs, not when you cast the buff on yourself.

You might be wondering: Empowering seems pretty damn great. Why would you ever not use it? Well, maybe you're dealing with a larger number of weak enemies, enemies where y you don't need the extra damage of Empowering and don't want to spend the extra mana on it. You're focused on sustain while whittling down a pack of enemies. In this case, Arcane Mastery Invocation is a major boon. Not only do you cast your spells faster, recover so you can recast faster, but you also spend less mana doing it, so you can spread your normal DoT damage around to a wider range of targets with more ease.

If you're doing okay on mana though, you might instead favor Inversion Invocation. You won't chain spells as quickly as Arcane Mastery, but you'll finish casting each spell far faster. I often find myself using this when I want to chain lifetaps or when I want to steadily add more mobs to my current fight and I'm not hurting for mana.

The last one, Divine Invocation, is primarily for survival with no heightened mana cost. Lifetaps heal you for the damage that they deal, so you can boost that damage with Empowering Invocation to heal for more, but that costs mana. Divine Invocation won't make a lifetap heal you for more, but it will give you a bonus heal for the amount of mana you spent casting the lifetap. This is often a good chunk extra. So it's almost like you're getting the healing of an Empowering lifetap without the damage or mana cost of one. As you get higher along into gear and spell levels, this one comes up a lot less, but early game I found this one to be an invaluable tool for survival.

Alright, so that's it! Play around with these tools. Experiment. Find what works for you and what helps you on a particular encounter. Don't get lulled into sitting with just one stance or one invocation all the time. A big part of what makes an Undying Pestilence so fun is constantly dancing between these to suit your circumstances.

Section 5: Alternate Advancements (AAs)

Alternate Advancement is a type of talent system in EverQuest. Originally, AAs were earned by diverting XP away from your experience bar and sending them to an AA bar. You'd earn AA points and spend them to unlock different boons. Here in EverQuest: Legends, you'll passively gain AAs while leveling without needing to divert any XP away from leveling up. In addition, you'll always gain them at the same rate. You'll get your first few AAs well before hitting level 10, and you'll just keep getting them. You can view the AAs menu by pressing V (by default). There are 3 main categories: General (AAs universal to everyone), Archetype (AAs specific to the type of classes you have access to, like Healing AAs because you have a Healer class), and Class (AAs specific to the class, like Cannibalization AA for Shamans only). When you switch your loadout, you may lose access to AAs, but they will come back if you switch your loadout back. For example, if you are a Rogue/Berzerker/Shaman, your Shaman class is giving you Healing AAs. If you bought them then switched out Shaman for Wizard, you'd lose access to them. If you switch Wizard to a healer like Cleric, you'd regain access to those healing AAs.

Okay, been quite a while since I've talked about this build in particular! Lot of high level EverQuest: Legends mechanics for the last section and so far in this one. Well, that changes now.

When building an Undying Pestilence, the goal is to bolster your defenses as much as possible and then enhance the efficacy of your DoTs, so enemies wither away while they ineffectually try to kill you. Below is a list of major AAs that I recommend prioritizing. People will argue until the ends of the earth about the 'correct' path, but please keep in mind that there are always more AAs and they are not hard to get. You get them all the time while playing.

• Essentials, the Highest Priority AAs
  • Steadfast Will (General) - This AA grants you full 360 degree immunity to melee stuns. This provides a massive benefit to most builds, and the Undying Pestilence is no exception. We're constantly casting spells in melee, and getting bashed and stunned is a quick way to get interrupted. Get this to 8/8 as soon as possible. If you're an Ogre, you can probably sit on it for a bit, but for realsies, this is one of the best AAs and is one of the few I would say is a 'must take' early AA.
  • Critical Affliction (Archetype) - This build is all about DoTs, so extra chance to make DoTs crit is huge. We get up to +6% DoT crit chance from having Necromancer in our build, and this AA gives us another +9%. This is a major part of an Undying Pestilence's damage.
  • Destructive Cascade (Archetype) - Playing off of Critical Affliction, Destructive Cascade increases how much damage our DoT crits do. We get up to +30% DoT crit damage from Shaman in our build, which helps our hard hitting DoTs like Odium and Envenomed Bolt crit for 1,500 - 1,600. This is also a major part of an Undying Pestilence's damage.
  • Fury of Magic (Archetype) - While Critical Affliction increase DoT crit, Fury of Magic increases direct damage crit. This primarily bolsters our lifetaps and weapon procs, including Shaman's Spirit of the Puma proc buff.
  • Destructive Fury (Archetype) - Fury of Magic is to Critical Affliction as Destructive Fury is to Destructive Cascade. This AA increases how hard your lifetap and weapon procs crit. And remember, if your lifetaps crit for a lot, you heal for a lot!
  • Natural Durability (General) - More health. We're a tank, we want that.
  • Warriors Endurance (Class) - Remember how I said that Innate Regeneration's magnitude isn't that great so it's worth getting, but not a major priority? Yeah, this one has a great magnitude. If you have 6000 HP, this AA gives you +60 HP a tick. You don't need to cast a spell or anything, it's just always on. This is really good sustain.
  • Combat Agility & Combat Stability (General) - These AAs provide a bonus to the way your character's MIT (mitigation) and AVD (avoidance) stats are calculated. Increasing these enhance both, making you a bit more durable and a bit harder to hit. These aren't the flashiest, coolest AAs, but as a tanky build, they are definitely something we want.
  • Mental Clarity (Archetype) - Provides a passive increase to mana regen. The magnitude isn't huge, but any sustain is great. The main reason this is in my Essential category is that you need 3/4 for Cannibalization AA.
  • Cannibalization (Class) - This AA is brought to us by Shaman. We can quickly burn a chunk of HP to get back a chunk of mana. With how efficient Slugs Healing is and how much our mitigation smooths out damage flow, this is a great way to get some free mana mid-fight and reduce downtime between fights.

• Not Quite Essential, but Good
  • Physical Enhancement (Archetype) - Combat Agility & Combat Stability v2. Another small investment to bolster our survivability. Not the greatest priority, but it doesn't cost much and it's just one point.
  • Spell Casting Mastery (Archetype) - This build is all about sustaining our HP and mana while our enemies rot away. Anything that lets us stretch our mana is worth it. You probably don't need this mana savings on trivial content, but the less mana you use, the more you can stretch your mana bar for tough fights.
  • Burst of Power (Archetype) - While we're a DoT Tank that kills with DoTs, our melee damage from Warrior is not nothing. It's pretty dang nice. Warriors get access to Triple Attack, and this AA gives us a chance to turn that Triple Attack into a Flurry of 5 attacks. We do spend a lot of time casting, but it's really nice to finish a spell and see a barrage of 5 swings go out.
  • Ambidexterity (Archetype) - This helps with dual wielding. If you plan to dual wield a lot, pick this up. If you're going to be using 2-handers a lot, you can wait on this for a while. I'll discuss dual wield vs 2h in more detail later.
  • Healing Boon (Archetype) - One of the main sustain mechanics for a Shaman is their HoTs, their heal over times. They have two lines: one that gives a heal over time at the cost of reducing the recipients attack score, and another which gives a heal over time at the cost of reducing the recipients movement speed. We generally favor the latter as it doesn't interfere with our Warrior melee swings. These spells don't cost a lot of mana and they tick for a good while when leveled up, so having the ticks also crit is just fantastic.

• Quality of Life
  • Quick Buff (General) - This is a huge QOL. When you click this button, it will automatically cast all buffs spells on your spell bar. Since we have Shaman in our build, we have no shortage of buffs, so being able to quickly swap to a buff bar then click Quick Buff to reapply our buffs with a duration is such a nice QOL. However, you can choose to wait on this one if you don't mind manually casting your buffs. While the QOL is significant, it is ultimately QOL rather than combat advantage.
  • Mnemonic Retention (Archetype) - Each upgrade gives you an additional spell gem. You can raise your 8 slots up to 14. Similar to Quick Buff, this one is technically a QOL AA, but we need a lot of gems to have our lifetap, HoT, DoTs, and utility spells on our bar... So, yeah, this is really good to get. You may not need it immediately at lower levels, but as you level up, you'll want to divert points to it as your spell repertoire expands.
  • Spell Casting Reinforcement (Archetype) - This AA increase the duration of your buffs. A nice QOL AA, but not something of significant combat advantage. Get it when you're absolutely sick of rebuffing as frequently as you are.
  • Mastery of the Past (Archetype) - Handy AA that eliminates fizzles. Fizzles eat mana and impede the smooth flow of casting our spells, so we definitely like that. That said, fizzles are generally a function of spellcasting skill, so they aren't that bad when you level up and improve your spellcasting skill. Still worth getting, but depending on your patience, probably better to get it after durability and damage.
  • Companion's Discipline (Archetype) - Holy shit pets are fucking stupid. I cannot emphasize how absolutely annoying managing a pet can be at times. Their basic intention to help so often leads to disaster. This AA gives you access to /pet hold, a command that makes it so your pet stops doing stuff until you explicitly tell it to. This means if you get hit, it won't try to assist you. It will stand there and wait until you give it an affirmative /pet attack. This is technically QOL, but my gods, it's a really nice QOL, lol. You can hold off on this for a while though. Just know that this AA is here for the day your pet 'helping' ruins whatever you were trying to do.

• Worth Picking Up When You're AA Rich
  • Fear Resistance (General) - Who likes losing control of their character? This AA won't do much for you when you're soloing, as it seems solo mobs don't use fears. However, as soon as you start to group, you're going to want to be immune to fear. I have this in this section only because a lot of people solo and this is very much an afterthought AA while you're soloing. If you're interested in grouping and do a lot of it, make this more of a priority.
  • Adamant Will (General) - In the same vein as Fear Resistance, but this time against mezzes and charms. Doesn't come up much at all in solo, but happens all the damn time when grouping. Get this and reduce the chances that you're standing around doing nothing, or worse, attacking your friends. Same thing as Fear Resistance: if you plan to group, make this one more of a priority.
  • Stoicism (General) - Reduces how much you get moved by melee attacks. Getting bashed isn't the only way your spells can be interrupted, they can also be interrupted if you move too far from where you started casting. If an enemy can push you while you're casting, there's a chance you'll lose the spell if you don't channel through. That said, this doesn't happen much without this AA, so this isn't the most essential one to grab.
  • Double Riposte (Archetype) - We're a tank build. Things want to hit us? Hit them back! Twice!
  • Persistent Casting (Archetype) - While Steadfast Will prevents melee stuns from interrupting your spells and Stoicism stops push from interrupting your spells, sometimes you'll just get stunned from spells. Persistent Casting gives you a chance to continue casting when stunned, even magically stunned. Steadfast Will does eat into its value, but not so much that you want to ignore this forever. Get this one eventually.

After this point, just buy whatever. There are still some AAs that provide mechanical benefit like Innate Regeneration, Combat Fury, Innate Eminence, Innate Spell Resistance, and so on, but the order isn't that important. By the time you're looking at these AAs, you're likely past the point of struggling to XP grind.

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See Also

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