Dalton's Advanced Ringwielder Guide
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| [[Uvmistis]] - Body Conditioning (primary control skill: [[hardiness]]) | [[Uvmistis]] - Body Conditioning (primary control skill: [[hardiness]]) | ||
| [[Uvmodath]] - Muscle Conditioning (primary control skill: [[manipulation]]) | [[Uvmodath]] - Muscle Conditioning (primary control skill: [[manipulation]]) | ||
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Contents |
Ringwielder Races
Ringwielders can be quite greedy for a variety of attributes and specs (save str, unless you’re dead-set on wielding an str-based weapon), so you generally want to gravitate towards races with both high total aggregate attribute points, and high racial maximums in key attributes (int, ego, wil, per, agi). Beyond that, I’m personally biased towards more ordinary anthropoid races in the ‘intermediate’ to ‘large’ size range as they have the greatest selection of armours available to them, but that’s a smaller concern. Below I’ll try to highlight some of the stronger race options. Note: Just because a race you’re interested in isn’t covered, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s junk-tier. My only caution is to avoid races that have ego / wil / per natural maxes all hovering in the 70-90 range paired with a high minimum to str / vit. These kinds of races will have tremendously low ceilings as Ringwielders.
Default Races
The Fey races: Dana, Drow, Quess
- Each of the default fey races are great fits for Ringwielders, having solid natural attribute ranges and near-0 assimilativity. Personally - if you’re willing to go through the trouble of acquiring a lantern of darkfire - I think Drow is the strongest candidate, as their chief penalty (light dazzle) is something you want to try overcoming anyway due to heliocausticity caused by being immaterial.
The exotic races: Aviar, Nyloc, Garou
- Aviar are a solid core race to build around, and can get some bonus melee potential from their exclusive Hawkmen access.
- Garou attributes I think are a bit shy of the desired ideal, but their access to Synodia Lykouros gives you some heavy melee potential right-out-the-gate and can almost trivialize a quick grind to hero.
- Nyloc have some interesting qualities, and their biggest penalty (high night-vision, heliocausticity) is trivially offset with laelinak. Their steep native Shadow Affinity should contribute nicely to the affinity channel rune (wzadris) for a solid primary attack. They’ll still have to deal with many of the nyloc penalties that can’t be overcome.
High assimilativity races: Human, Llelimin, Gnome, Pixie
- Human and Llelimin both suffer from fairly low aggregate attribute totals - Llelimin at least have respectable relevant attribute maxes so I think they have the better potential of the two races.
- Gnomes are in a similar position to Llelimin, only with more attractive caster archetype attributes at the cost of a steep penalty to native size. Pixies get an attribute mix that rivals both Gnomes and Llelimins, however, they’re terribly small. The diminutive races are going to have the lowest ceiling here, and you’re probably better off grinding to hero and waiting for Imps instead. If you’re really interested in a high assimilativity race, I think Llelimin is the stronger all-around option.
Hero Races
- These flying fire fey-folk are one of the more capable overall races available to Ringwielders. They have a high aggregate attribute total, respectable native attribute maxes across the board in all relevant attributes, and a native pyraturgy boost than can help you hit the very steep final breakpoint for nysevrak. On top of all this, they enjoy a relatively mild assimilativity penalty. The natural illumination on it’s own shouldn’t ever trigger a problem with your eventual light-sensitivity.
- If you’re interested in a more pure caster archetype, Imps have a significantly higher ceiling than their diminutive-caster-cousin Gnomes and Pixies. First, they aren’t quite as annoyingly small. Further, they enjoy an above average aggregate attribute total coupled with great racial maximums. Their native skill bonuses to heat tolerance and cold tolerance save you precious spec points when joining Weapons of Vengeance. Their other free resistance bonus specs generally couple nicely with the Ringwielder theme of high resistance capability.
Legendary Races
Legendary Races are true to their name in value, however it comes at the expense of a steep assimilativity penalty that can be tough to overcome for some folks.
- They get it all. They enjoy a massive aggregate attribute total, have great native attribute maxes, are a nice average sized race and get some token points in autodidaction for some precious combat meditation access.
- beefier than Chaosborn, definitely enjoy more brute melee potential at the expense of more average native access to caster attributes. If you’re more interested in the hack-and-slash potential of an Ringwielder than a purer hybrid, it’s worth looking at them over Chaosborn.
- Well, there’s practically no competing with them outside of truly exotic lux options. They get it all, and lots of it. Only penalty is a merciless assimilativity penalty. Otherwise, they are somewhat locked into an ordered alignment in order to gain enough meditation access via Attuned to make use of all their many autodidaction points for combat meditation.
Psionic Races
Each level-gated race-group gains access to a psionic race. Advenus for fresh atmen, Svirfneblin for heroes, and Kedeth for legends. Personally, I’m not to keen on the combination, as each psionic race tends to come with a bit of penalty relative to other races on the same assimilativity tier. Advenus are a little thinner on attributes than Drow, Svirfneblin are dimunitive, and Kedeth get significantly lower on attribute totals than Chaosborn or Fomor.
The potential comes in being able to combine the RW anti-magic rune (b’padhax) with Psychic Wild Talents attacks. The idea is you cripple both yourself and your opponent, while maintaining access to a unique attack you can spam, like Mindblaster or Firestarter. The shortcoming is that Ringwielders don’t have any non-lux avenue for getting any real access to psionic skills, so you’re attacks will have a definite ceiling.
Lux and Vivi Races
If you’re entertaining the notion of exotic lux or vivi races, I think you have the capacity to make an educated comparison to other listed races here to find their values or shortcomings. A few of the more obvious ones to look at which have steep potential include Bezhuldaar, Dragon, Gezuuni, Zenun.
Ringwielder Archetypes
Ringwielders are a wonderfully flexible guild courtesy of their tremendously large selection of available runes, and broad access to virtually all associations at any alignment. As such, you're left to decide: are you interested in being a purely self-buffed tank-heavy melee monster? Are you dumping all your activity points into spell-casting, making minimal use of melee only on more trivial enemies? Are you going for a more capable melee-caster hybrid, greedily occupying a huge variety of spec points to have broadly capable character? For most scenarios, there isn't really a wrong answer, but it's wise to know your direction before investing in runes and developing attributes as you level. I urge you to plan your desired specs up to a point ahead of time, and only develop attributes in pursuit of particular spec access goals rather than absently distributing points.
Ringwielder Runes
Runes can be incredibly confusing for three key reasons: first, there's simply so many of them; second, the names do not reflect their nature, so it's difficult to grasp what's what before simply reading all the longer rune descriptions; finally, it's a nuisance to get a feel for how different runes behave together due to the incredibly wide-variety of control-skills responsible for their power, and specialty access granted by obtaining them.
Because of these reasons, we want to look at runes in packages and identify which ones follow a certain theme and allow you to broadly maximise potential in all of your chosen runes without spreading yourself too thin.
Attribute Runes
For each of the core seven attributes, there is a corresponding rune that buffs it. These are all very valuable, as the bonus granted is quite steep. Even for a stat like strength - where in many instances we aren't looking for many spec points at all - having high raw strength is still of great benefit to our potential damage output. Be mindful of the sometimes niche control skills relevant to each one. It's not necessarily wise to devote spec points towards the more obscure ones, but it is useful to at least work towards maxing them at their natural 40 limit. If you're completely abandoning melee activity, you can make a case for bypassing Khyaros, otherwise I would rank the entirety of the package as 'essentials.'
Khyaros - Strength (primary control skill: massive exertion) Vanar - Agility (primary control skill: combat reflexes) Omavistis - Vitality (primary control skill: hardiness) Ekaschos - Ego (primary control skill: manipulation) Thabtka - Intellect (primary control skill: arcane lore) Krah-li - Willpower (primary control skill: subordination) Qiange - Perception (primary control skill: awareness)
Conditioning Runes
Similar to the attribute runes, there is a set of conditioning runes that targets each of the core melee attributes, directly buffing some of their associated skills (and a cursory stat bump, too). Unless you're completely neglecting the melee aspect, I would grade at least Uvmanar as an essential rune, moving into Uvmiange or Uvmodath depending on your commitment to weapons that earn more damage rating from killer instinct or massive blow. Commit to the vitality enhancing Uvmistis at your own discretion. For a bulkier race, like Fomor, it can be a little redundant. For a more average-to-small sized race it can save you quite a few precious development points you'd otherwise consider investing into vitality to get a few cursory 1 point specs to toughen up.
Uvmanar - Reflex Conditioning (primary control skill: massive exertion) Uvmiange - Combat Instinct Conditioning (primary control skill: combat reflexes) Uvmistis - Body Conditioning (primary control skill: hardiness) Uvmodath - Muscle Conditioning (primary control skill: manipulation)
