Started playing bout 2 weeks ago. Rolled a few different toons and decided I want to go with a female Kamael soul breaker (eventually soul hound). I am most interested in playing PVP.
How should I distribute my skills for pvp soul hound?
Have any special advice for building a pvp soul hound?
How should I start choosing skills for Warrior/Warder? I'm not really interested in using a bow... Any good sources for skill info?
Any special skills I should save my SP for that are most useful in PVP?
Any general advice is very appreciated! Sorry, I sound like a noob, cause I am (only lvl 17)...
Hi. welcome to the game. The Kamael Soul Breaker is an extremely fun character to play. More fun than litterally any other I have played in the game and and I have played a good amount (at least to early A grade). It probably isn't a good first character to play in the game however.
I won't say 'don't', but if you want to pvp, you will lose a lot before you win, especially if your new. More so on the Soul breaker than other classes. I will put my thoughts further on, but it might be a bit confusing if your really new.
All the Kamael are very new and stil being change for the better almost every update. The yare a bit of a working design if you will. Soul Breakers are the most complicated of them all so it may take some time for them to really settle.
Soul Breakers are 'late' damage dealers. Which means they develop later than other classes for pvp. A berserker for example is solid after mid B grade. Daggers earlier. Orc physicals... Are just monsters early on.
Until around A grade+ most won't have the damage output to put Destro's/Tyrants down fast (aside from mages). They have too much hp/cp. It's not just SB's, goes for most classes. It's doable though, you just have to work a lot harder than they do if they know how to use cp pots.
It was in my Mid 60's+ that I started to significantly rock people as a Soul Breaker. Before then it was just hard...
The class has a lot of good skills that give you a lot of options when playing pve or pvp. These skills seem incredibly balanced which funnily enough makes them comparatively, one of the hardest characters to play well in the game...
Why? Well squeezing enough efficiency out of all the skills in pvp isn't very easy to do at all. You only really start to shine when you get to your mid-60's to mid 70's. If you know your class, learn enough about (have experience playing is better) other classes so you know how to respond to them and most importantly 'play well', you can crush most equal level classes (more than the other 2 Kamael for sure. They are just not as flexible... Nor do they occasionally hit people for almost 10k... ). It's still harder for you than most classes however.
This is generally because most of the classes (even the other Kamael) don't have to work as hard to get similar levels of performance. You could sum it up if you like as more options versus a 'harsher' performance curve.(game-wide balances changes are happening that don't really boost the SB, rather brings others in line, but this is too far off in the distance to talk about now).
You don't respond well to ganks unless you make good use of your teleports and PainKiller, but if you know what/who your fighting it puts things significantly in your favour. The hardest classes for me are (funnily enough) Berserkers and Summoners.
Zerkers: If I see them coming and Pain Killer is up, lol, especially if surrender lands, 900 spell range, although Steal Divinity is 600, be careful. you can try a surrender if they are max range, but tbh Soul Barrier is probably up. Hilariously, Soul barrier is a spell and zerker spell casting is slow and it lasts 10 seconds or so. Before they get to you, you will see them casting it (I wouldn't bother wasting time trying to silence a zerker, but you can if you want a laugh/waste mp...)
If not, it's very hard and if I don't see them coming and if PK is not up also, I will lose 70+% of the time (UE might change this) if they know what they are doing. The thing is you need to fight them face to face at 'all times' and you need to be ready to do this (toggles, self buffs etc).
The damage isn't an issue, standing toe to toe with a Zerker isn't a big deal, it's the risk of skill interruption, Disarm and giving them room to kite as you attack, or cast. You can't give them room to run out of range for a rush (although the crits with elemental weapons can be high but that's what S grade armour is for).
You have to stay on them like you would if they were a caster, archer. After buff steals, they're pretty gimped. They 'will' Disarm you. They 'have' to or they will get rocked since you can move just as fast (faster in fact if your female) and after their big hits which can be easily potted (they can't skill crit so no danger there) they are actually more at risk than you are.
The mistake I used to make and see other SB's making is that they run when Disarm lands. The worst thing you can do... You just give them chances to stun or/and bleed you. If they land Blade Rush, their damage goes up by like 40%. Both Contagion and Crushing Pain on recharge f'king hurt! On my A grade zerker, I rock people with this combo. Bleed augment ftw...
Just keep potting, keep stealing buffs, then re-equip, casting carefully until they go down or bsoe.
It's hard. Stupidly hard, but a very fun fight as fighting melee toons face to face, on a Soul Breaker is kinda' stupid as an SB just 'doesn't have to'. It's like sky-diving without a 'chute. Something in your mind tells you this is 'wrong' and it makes you giddy and high :P. An SB can simply range, melee classes and melee ranged. It's a nice synergy. Berserker's are obviously designed to screw with this ^_^.
Summoners? I just get rocked by good summoners. If they know what they are doing and have a nuke augment (most of the ones I have faced tend to _-_) I usually just get rocked. But then so do most classes so it isn't so bad. WTB Lightning Shield....
The Soul Breaker is also very sensitive to level gaps and defense. Be they epics, dark resists, buffs etc.. If they are 5 levels higher than you, your chances of winning drop more significantly than a lot of other classes (certainly the other 2 Kamael). Even more so if they have epics and you don't (this however is also applies to most classes in the game).
The buff situation is this: While you can steal 7 buffs every minute or so it is still takes about 2 minutes to clean someone completely. This is a long time in a pvp situation. Most people who fight me these days after I've advised them (why give intel' on how to beat you!!!? It's more fun...) bury Mental Shield, Magic barrier, and Wind Walk type buffs deep under other less important stuff.
People think I'm jinxed as I tend to mage-crit a hell of a lot (it's all random of course). After eating a Surrender and Death Mark, the crits hurt a lot. I won't even talk about Checkmate...
There are also significant gender issues. The Male Soul Breaker is 'technically' a bit stronger than the female, partially in attribute (not a huge deal but +1 extra con, and +1 extra Int, while the Str/dex differences are mostly irrelevant) but mainly thanks to 4 skills:
The not so obvious ones (read as barely worth mentioning):
-Strike Back: Which very (VERY) rarely lands but actually hurts a a hell of a lot when it triggers. I've observed x2+ damage mostly, on melee skill heavy opponents. I've seen daggers/Gladiators kill themselves with this...
- Furious Soul: Against mages, this is very useful. I use it + True zerk on my berserker almost religiously against mages. the Male SB's I know say it impoves their damage output against non-physical opponents.
... The bigger deals:
Sword Shield: This is basically a 'lite', physical Ultimate Defense skill left over from Berserkers, while it doesn't offer Mdef increases and is pretty lo-fi, it is movable if slow and there are skills that can get a male SB/zerker around fast (Rush). When things get hairy against physicals, it is incredibly useful.
Disarm: Another Zerker left-over. It still lands a hell of a lot even in the early 70's! After 76, not very much. Basically it removes your opponents weapon. This is devastating while the effect lasts for anyone who is not a summoner, or has a pet.
What females get instead isn't as good on the surface but generally really good in the long-run.
-Warp: An untargeted teleport skill. Males get a Rush skill (a targeted rush attack that) but it is nowhere near as good as Warp for a Soul Breaker. This + Blink has saved me far too many times and won me too many fights (against daggers, Glads, tanks, orcs etc.). It has a long recharge compared to Rush though...
CrossBow skills: Bows are very useful in pvp (I feel a 'must' in fact). Bows consume mp. Cross bows do not (this is absolutely HUGE. Your an mp heavy class. Using MP for bows almost seems stupid). They are fundamentally weaker but fire much faster. A female gets passives and skills (from the Arbalester) that boost range, damage and attack speed (the attack speed buff uses a buff-slot so I doubt you will use it much beyond 70. The damage increase going to a drac bow is pretty huge...).
These are basically the differences with the genders. The core of the Soul Breaker is far more important but these additional things matter if you want to get as much efficiency out of the class.
Aside from the UD and the crossbow stuff, they are a small factor. In fact in the next game, females will get an Ultimate Evasion skill (which is going to be pretty sick if it works on attack skills like the others).
The crossbow range gets increased also, which is a lot more important than it initially appears. Best of all the re-use time on Warp will be significantly reduced. This is pretty awesome. Warp is just so **** useful, but with a UE skill? It will be even better. We also get Furious Soul for what it's worth. There are other very important changes to the kamael, but these are the only gender ones that are worth mentioning right now (like I said, a 'working design').
There are a few other really high Soul Breakers on here (higher than me of course) who can tell you about late 70's to 80+ play and may have very different oppinions to me (Different perspectives are good).
Okay that's a lot of stuff. Good luck and have fun ;)
Another huge point (which) I obviously neglected to mention is that in open field most of your really useful stuff can't be used until they flag on you. Very annoying.
Reading back through my 'essay' (_-_) my mind seemed to be all over the place! The surrendering from range stuff only works in the arenas/oly/col etc. Yay for being more gimped! ;)
Really nice post Lordriot! I recently made a soulbreaker and fell for it also! they are alot of fun and it's nice little bit of pvp i've done so far you actually have to be strategic