So Shilenne...

[naranana]

So Shilenne, what about the spiritmaster ? lol

[Shilenne]

LOL I'll try to remember more details about it after this, I have my last exam in 2 hours afterwards I'll post here :P

[Gravity]

1 hour 51 minutes to go. o;

[Lunais]

Originally Posted by Shilenne

LOL I'll try to remember more details about it after this, I have my last exam in 2 hours afterwards I'll post here :P

Good luck!

Tell us how you did on the exam when you get back.

[Denmaru]

Yeah - does the Windspirit really look that cool, and what's his job (Tank? DD? Anti-Caster like the Felhound in WOW?)?

[Gravity]

Shilenne left us hangin' O:!

[Lunais]

Originally Posted by Gravity

Shilenne left us hangin' O:!

I feel like I've been stood up!

My therapist is so gonna hear about this.

[Shilenne]

LOL Sorry guys, the exam burnt me out I slept all the way straight. Then I got dragged out by friends.

I'll start summing up my spiritmaster experience here. I've only got it to lvl 20, but in way less time than it took for my assasin to get to 17.

You start off like a sorcerer. You have your basic skills, fireball -> combo fireblast, frost bolt (slows target, not so decent in damage) -> combo frost pushback spell. You also get the meditation skill which gives you back roughly 500 mana (it has a 1 minute cooldown on it, so I advice you use it whenever it's up). Just like sorcs, you have shackle, and a damage over time spell. Lastly you also get a shield that absorb a certain amount of dmg (it'll stay on for either 5 minutes or until it absorbed the amount of dmg).

That being said, I think the riskiest part in my entire leveling session was only up to level 9 (where I get deva quest and choose what class I get to be). Before level 10, the only weapon you get to use would be the caster book, just like sorcs. However at level 10 this is where it branches out. Upon completing the deva quest, you are rewarded with a weapon. I chose the orb that's unique to SM (sorcs can't use it~) because according to Irisviel when he saw it "OMG WHY IS IT YOUR WEAPONS GET MORE BUFFS ON IT? STUFF LIKE +MP +HP etc etc". Lol. It also hits harder, should you decide to stick your pet on the mob and just hit it with melee. It hits for about as much as your pet's dmg without buffs. This is something to try for the first few levels after lvl 10, what I did was I dotted it up with dot dmg, I taunted it with pet taunt skill, and then I go up and melee it. It'll do nicely until later on where you'll be busy spamming pet skills to actually have freetime to do anything else :P.

I had no trouble grinding continuously. If you don't spam your own skills like insane (casting fireball fireblast etc etc all the time), then you'll have no problem with mana. Only problem up to level 13 is that you won't have a heal pet spell, so you really want to watch your pet's HP. That being said, it doesn't lose anything when it dies, so sometimes I'm forced to let my pet die, and just kill it on my own. It's really not hard, SM dmg at lvl 10-13 is only slightly weaker than sorcerers, if any.

At level 10, the only summon you'll get is the fire elemental pet. Two pet skills you'll get are Taunt (deals dmg and taunts target, dmg done is about the same or slightly less than a normal attack -> you can think of this like sunder on warriors on WoW, you don't really deal that much dmg but it generates threat ) and Increase next attack by < >.

Increase next attack has a relative short cooldown, and it allows your pet to hit for 500. It shows up as a buff on your pet, so yes, you can fatfinger and waste your MP even if your pet's not in combat, same as taunt.

I think spiritmaster levels relatively fast atm because the other classes (not all, most) have a relatively difficult time at this level to deal with 2 mobs that's slightly higher or same lvl, while spiritmaster can really play like 2 people at once. You stick your pet on one, then you remember to use pet skills (increase dmg dealt on next attack), dot the one your pet's on up, then go take on the other mob by yourself like a sorc. Yes, I can see why it's OP, but life goes on and I rerolled a SM so I'm not complaining.

At level 13, you can learn the summon windspirit from a book that you have to either buy on AH, or hunt for. The mobs that drop them are lvl 17, and hits like a truck with casting dmg, so heh, good luck hunting for it if you don't have another char. My assasin at lvl 17 actually died like crazy to these cause there are no way I can kill it fast enough or interrupt it.

What I've noticed about using windspirit is the same as I've posted on the pet discussion thread so I won't go so much into detail. More dmg, slightly less hp, slightly more dmg dealt (compare to the fire elemental guy). I used the wind spirit all the way until I got water summon at lvl 19.

Another skill you learn at lvl 13 is Heal pet. It has a 1 minute cooldown, it heals for about 75% of your pet's hp at lvl 13, and only 40~55% of your pet's hp at lvl 19. But it's like regrowth, it's a heal + a hot after the heal. The heal is instant. After you get this welcome to non stop hunting, you may now level to lvl 20 much shorter than others as you'll have almost no downtime due to MP consumption (Meditation + Mage DP skill) and your pet will probably never die.

I'm not sure if it's level 13 or level 16 that I learn this, but it summons a wind cube on your targeted mob. It'll hit the mob (I'm not sure how to explain this in concept, in L2 as certain classes you can summon cubes, but these cubes are on yourself as healing or dps or something like that, however this skill in Aion, it summons it on the target like a lightening orb, and it hits the target for a certain duration, usually longer than the amount of time it'll take for you to kill it). I try not to use this skill a lot until I was killing mobs that have a decent amount of HP, as it drains MP somewhat if you cast it repeatedly. It's a chain combo though, and the next skill you'll get at lvl 19 (or 16, it's 3 levels after this one).


At level 16, you learn the summon treant spell. This is trained, not hunted for. I've also discussed about this in the elemental pet forums so I'm not gonna bother again. It's long and boring and I'm kinda hungry and sleepy atm .

Also at level 16, you get a spell that increases the defense of your pet. It has no CD, but using it before the buff wears off is just stupid. It reduces the dmg taken from physical attack, (I haven't paid enough attention to guess how much dmg it reduced, my wind beast don't get hit enough to know) =/.

Another skill you learn at 16 worth mentioning is an earth attack. It's exactly the same as the water bolt you learn at lvl 5, except only sorcs get the higher ranks of that, while SM get the similar attack in earth form. It slows the target for a duration, I use it to kite mobs at lvl 19 when I prefer to draw aggro completely on myself and have my water elemental dps it from range (mobs die faster this way). This will also eventually lead to a chain skill which is the exact version of Frost pushback you learn at lvl 9 except this is an earth spell. It deals 400 dmg as well, which is a lot. So once you get these two skills, get rid of frost from your bars .

I'm gonna give you guys some time to read over this before I post on about lvl 19 skill. If you have any questions regarding pet summons and stuff, just let me know, I'll answer it. This way it won't be so confusing at once lol

One thing I have to add is, for some quests like the end of a mission chain quest, the mob usually have more HP and hit slightly harder. It's not an elite (next post will go into elites ;p) it's just harder to kill. Believe me, the difference is only noticable by my assasin, on my spiritmaster I killed them so fast I had to check twice to see if I got the right mob >.>

[Icarus01]

sounds like an intense class i was watching a video before about an SM pve'ing and they cast a different spell every second looked complicated and something that would keep you entertained

[Shilenne]

It's really not that difficult once you have a set routine going on. Most of the mobs up to lvl 18 died so fast I couldn't even cast anything before it dies >.>. From the way I've seen Irisviel played his sorc, sorcs look way more complicated, at least on SM when I'm bored of kiting I'll just let my pet hold aggro and heal it/let it die and resummon.

Originally Posted by Denmaru

Yeah - does the Windspirit really look that cool, and what's his job (Tank? DD? Anti-Caster like the Felhound in WOW?)?

Check my post in Elemental pets, let me see if I can get a link of it.

Elemental pet.

[Aggelos]

D:

That's a lot of info... thanks so much.

You mentioned just fire summon skills... what about the others? I know what they do but not their skills =)

[naranana]

Thank you Shilenne, nice reports indeed

I also hope you succeeded your exams (I had exams at the same time as you, to become a teacher )

As you have this great chance to play the game, I would like to have your very own opinion on these two points (please excuse me if you argue about that yet)...

1. If you ever played wow before, can you tell us if the two games are way too similar ?

2. How do you evaluate PVP abilities of the spiritmaster ? We have no doubt it will be easy to level up with this class, but what about flying without a pet in the abyss, fighting hordes of asmodians....

[Delthis]

All that info does sound very interesting. Perhaps an SM with be my main #2.

[Shilenne]

Originally Posted by Aggelos

D:

That's a lot of info... thanks so much.

You mentioned just fire summon skills... what about the others? I know what they do but not their skills =)

You misunderstood me. All the pets have NO skills. The pet skills that a spiritmaster has controls all pets, whichever summon you have.

Increase attack buff -> Increases all pet's ordinary dmg. Doesn't matter which pet I summon.

Same as Taunt. Therefore it controls all your pets, not just fire :P.

Originally Posted by naranana

Thank you Shilenne, nice reports indeed

I also hope you succeeded your exams (I had exams at the same time as you, to become a teacher )

As you have this great chance to play the game, I would like to have your very own opinion on these two points (please excuse me if you argue about that yet)...

1. If you ever played wow before, can you tell us if the two games are way too similar ?

2. How do you evaluate PVP abilities of the spiritmaster ? We have no doubt it will be easy to level up with this class, but what about flying without a pet in the abyss, fighting hordes of asmodians....

Ah, hope you did well on yours too :P And be a good teacher. Sorta like GTO STYLE! :P (Great Teacher Onizuka)

Yes I did play WoW before, Unfortunately I'm still playing it now, cause Aion isn't out T_T So hard to actually want to do anything on WoW after AION CBT2 lol.

No, the two game isn't similar. It's really hard to say that because WoW also took concepts and lessons learned from other games then polished it to make it look good. At first everyone will think "oh this is like WoW", but it's not. I actually never found it to be similar to WoW, so that's why to me it's all new and stuff and I won't get bored of it easily. I love exploring new games and new style and to play a game that I've played for years I'd rather shoot myself >.>

I highly doubt that you won't get to pvp with a pet in Abyss. The Abyss was not yet released in this patch, therefore I'm not surprised pets can't fly yet. It won't be permanent. I'm not too sure about the PVP aspect cause I'm still missing a lot of skills due to my level and it's really unfair to judge at low lvl :P (just like nobody would enjoy pvping as a druid at lvl 29, but at lvl 70 they JUST WONT DIE T_T)

[Icarus01]

rofl Druids die, you just got to catch me keep the there and do enough damage to get through all 4 of my dots (ps that's over 700dps u have to do to keep up with just the dots :P)