Dalton's Advanced Ringwielder Guide

From LSWiki

Ringwielder Races

Ringwielders can be quite greedy for a variety of stats 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 stat points, and high racial maximums in key stats (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 stat 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 stats I think are a bit shy of the desired stat ideal, but their exclusive 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 stat totals - Llelimin at least have respectable stat 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 stats at the cost of a steep penalty to native size. Pixies get a stat mix that rivals both Gnomes and Llelimins, however, they’re cripplingly 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 strongest all-around option.

Hero Races

Phaethon

• These flying fire fey-folk are one of the more capable overall races available to Ringwielders. They have a high aggregate stat total, respectable native stat maxes across the board in all relevant stats, 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.

Imp

• 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 stat 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.

Chaosborn

• They get it all. They enjoy a massive aggregate stat total, have great native stat maxes, are a nice average sized race and get some token points in autodidaction for some precious combat meditation access.

Fomor

• beefier than Chaosborn, definitely enjoy more brute melee potential at the expense of more average native access to caster stats. 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.

Amberite

• Well, there’s simply no competing with the them. 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 stats than Drow, Svirfneblin are dimunitive, and Kedeth get significantly lower on stat 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 incredible potential include Bezhuldaar, Dragon, Gezuuni, Zenun.