I am rolling an Overlord don't try to sway me away from the class.
I want to know, what kind of gear should an orc shaman use up until 40. And after that, what kind of gear should an overlord be in?
Ok, I won't try to sway you...but that just means I can say "I told you so" later, Free of charge.
And since you asked...here's 'the rope' you'll need to do it with.
NG) Viper Fangs and Bronze Armor
Spam your free newbie shots and only use MP to buff or drain if you (somehow) get low on HP.
D Grade)Brigandine and Scalloped Jamadhr or '107' Duals. If you want to 'rush' D a bit, go with the Fists. The duals are ok if you don't mind hunting greens if your missing too much.
This will get you to L40 fairly quick and easy. I really don't expect you to party much until after that anyway so you can avoid robes up through D grade.
From 40 to 52 you should start looking at two sets of armor. Robes for MP and either Light or heavy for when you need more pdef. From this point on everything depends on if you have additional buffs or party a lot. So There is no 'right way'.
Once you get Accuracy up to L3 a dagger becomes decently useful as well. Although on evasion mobs you will still miss like a Noob weilding a Forgotten Blade.
Your gear will depend a lot on how you decide to play your OL at various levels.
For any level in group you'll need robes to have enough mp to cast your buffs + HoT. Most usually a melee weapon is prefered though. Once you get higher in level, your weapon won't make much difference. Hitting for 50 or 75 is pointless when other party members are consistantly hitting for 1k+.
In PvP you will always use robes + mage weapon for your drain life (small-scale pvp) or cp/hp cures later on in large-scale pvp. A mage one-handed blunt works best because once in a while you'll be within melee range of someone and a stun is always sweet when it lands.
For DG solo, equipping yourself in melee gear (melee weapon + heavy armour) and using drain when you need HP, as well as your crappy buffs should work well. A DoT using BSpS on a mage weapon could be a half-decent alternative.
In higher levels you'll have the choice of either heavy + melee weapon for solo or robes + melee weapon for solo. One factor will be the cash, kinda hard to afford two weapons to start with (need a caster one for pvp/sieges and a melee one for solo) and then you add the costs of a heavy armour on top of your robes. The other factor is the weight of heavy armour, which means you'll have to go back to town to resupply insanely often, even with +4con.
In either case, it's not how fast you level you'll be affecting, but more of a battle between insanely slow and incredibly slow.
Levels 1-20 you should have a pure melee setup. Heavy armor, and for weapon fists,duals,2-handed.
Levels 20-40 you can keep the same kind of setup or you could go for a mage setup using DOT's and drains. Problem with the second setup is that, since you will go OL, you will not get any levels in DOTs. So, I wouldn't advise taking any DOT skills. They are useless for you later (not that a WC uses them anyway). Here you will be having your first groups. That means that you may need to add a set (or just uppper/lower parts) of robes in your armory for buffing groups. But it's not really a must since groups are rather casual at these levels.
Levels 40-50 You can still go solo with the same setup. Full plate for heavy armor and same type of wepons. Somewhere around 50+ soloing will become harder and clan/ally groups more often. In this case, MP reserves should be your primary concern, that means wearing robe sets. Divine for C and BW robes for B are the usual options.
Levels 50+. Somewhere between B and A grade, soloing will become very slow, even with top gear (unless you have an OOP buufer). Your orientation should be a mage build. You will need to wear robes for MP since your buffs are costly. Almost any set will do with majestic having a little advantage do to it's stun resistance (a lot of mobs stun and as for PvP, well....you know). Weapon wise, you can choose between PVP ones (Spiritual eye, SOM, FDS with accumen SA) or PvE ones (Elemental sword, FDS with magic power SA). I preffer blunts, since you can use hammer crush with them. Additionaly, you could have a DD weapon to help with damage dealt. Dual, 2-handed or daggers (after lvl 56 where you get vision lvl 3) are good options. At this point, you should have constant clan/ally parties. Some parties outside clan/ally (aoe usually) may want you for your debufs but it depends on your ingame friendships.
Dont make OL game is got too FOTM. Get a toon that does something clear.OL is kinda destroyed with CP pots and now at c6 more damage at the scene.For history i have an OL..
OL's cant kill anything in open pvp now with the amount of cp pots people have, with the new cp heals you really only have one job, and its a pretty boring one.
Its not such a bad class, but it was a lot more fun before all these changes, I could actually kill people, now all I can do is tank and ally heal 5 times and then sit for mp.
As for leveling, the best way is to use robes, just for the +mp, you dont need the pdef of heavy, its faster and more fun in robes till b grade, then its up to you.