Vlanice's Shade Guide

[Vlaniceshade]

Vlanices’ Shade Guide

The following shade guide will be arranged in the following (consider this the index)

Intro: You might be wise to read this before reading the guide.

I) Beginners
___a. Pro’s and Con’s of being a shade
___b. Races: which ones for what. Pros and Cons.
___c. Starting off: a generalization of where to head from here.
___d. Planning ahead: Something everyone should do.

II) Beyond nOOb
___a. AGRO 101: Requested by Bas
___b. Weapons: where to start and where to go.
___c. Armor: what to get, when to get, and why.
______i. Armor vs. Tattoos
______ii. Tier vs. Armor
___d. Spirits: Shades dependability on the dead.
___e. Hunting grounds: Requested by Bas
___f. Armor vs. Evades: which is better.
___g. PERKS: them wonderful things that you will need as a shade.
______i. Piercing Mastery <Shade Profession>
______ii. Shade Touch <Shade Profession>
______iii. Shadow (for those with AI) <Shade Profession>
______iv. Spirit Phylactery <Shade Profession>
______v. Sublime Rapport <Shade Profession>
______vi. Totemic Rights <Shade Profession>
______vii. Acrobat <Group>

III) For your Leisure
___a. Twinking: eh yeah twinking a shade?! It can be done Requested by Urdren
___b. Tactics: Youth and enthusiasm will never over come Old Age and Experience. Requested by Bas
______i. Solo: Ya Loner
______ii. Team: Ya Pansy
___c. Vlanice’s advice from the reclaim: “Glimmers of Wisdom” Requested by Bas
___d. Q & A: Ok so you asked while I was in game, Here’s my response.
___e. Guides I have found: What like I did all this on my own? Yeah right.

[Vlaniceshade]

Intro: You might be wise to read this before reading the guide.

“Shades ain’t easy.”
Every time I am in game and someone has to ask me how easy are shades, I go into nerf mode and want to slap them with a nerf stick. My typical response is “There is a reason why FC classified them as “HARD” on the character creation menu.” If you are considering creating a Shade as a first toon to make… DON’T. I say this to the general masses that have no idea how to play the game. I have seen hundreds create a shade their first time around and around lvl 30-60 they get discouraged and drop them. They do this cause they don’t understand that shades are not like any other class around.
Yes they come with SL just like Keepers, but Shades are in a class all by themselves. Our goodies are limited. We get NO TOKEN BOARD. We can’t use implants. And, our back items are so limited it’s a freaking joke. If you are asking you what do I mean by all this, then you are not ready to play a shade. You can do it. Go ahead I don’t mind. But, don’t come to any other shade out there crying cause you can’t take it any more.

By Request of Iamhere I will try to make note for those that have high level support alts to fund their shade habit. These I will mark in red <if I remember to do so>. I may not remember to do so cause when my shade hit lvl 80 it became my high main, and I farmed a lot.

So, please read the guide to your indulgence. However: If you are offended in any of this it is not FC’s responsibility to monitor everything you choose to read in these forums. So bottom line, don’t whine and complain about it, either turn it off or complain to me. I wrote it.

Vlaniceshade.

[Vlaniceshade]

IV) Beginners

Ok so you read the intro and Now you are ready to edumacate yourself. Blahaha wrong section for that. I’m just here to help you understand.

a. Pro’s and Con’s of being a shade

The good part about being a shade is that you get real cool advantages. As a shade you can become a very high lvl DD’r (Damage Dealer). This has its advantages. Teams will like to have you along to help kill stuff quickly. You can get bragging rights for doing more damage than anyone in your team. And, as running solo it means you will not be fighting a creature for too long.
As this sounds intriguing to most there is a downside to this. If something hits you IT HURTS. Our items are limited on what we can use. You will see many things say “Class != Shade” or similar meaning Shades can not use this item. Many back items, helmets etc are like this. The 1 thing you will notice is that your token board is totally useless. The plus part is you don’t have to run mishes for tokens.
Shades can level fast if well equipped, and at the same time they go to the reclaim fast too. If you can live with hitting reclaim 1 – 10 times per level (on average) then you can live with a shade.

b. Races: which ones for what. Pros and Cons.

When picking a race for your shade consider this: Is this your first time playing a Shade? If you answered “Yes” to this then you may want to follow the A-Typical concept of creating a shade. Opifex. Opifex’s race perks fall right along with most Shade requirements. This makes the Opifex the primary choice for a shade. Solitus is the generic class that will not aid or hender a Shade in either way. Nanomage has great nano abilities, but as a first shade is not recommended. (As a matter of fact I have never personally seen a Nanomage Shade.) Trox, big dumb brutes with Hp and Strength to spare. Not a first pick, but I have seen others pull them off, and pull them off nicely.
So here’s the simple look:

Opifex: Primary Choice.
Solitus: The standard.
Nanomage: Havent found 1 yet.
Trox: Big tough and have seen these done well.

More Input:

Opi: ok for the start but end game is weaker than sol or trox
Sol:best for soloing pvm (primarry choice
nano:heh they blow
Trox: for if you want to pvp easyer endgame

c. Starting off: a generalization of where to head from here.

Where to go from here. Well you HAVE TO go to job at the docking station. So that would be a good start. Bare in mind, Shades are primarily set up for piercing weapons. So that is a good direction to go with your weapons. I am not going into specifics here. Read further for specifics. Armor, well you can get the Jobe newbie armor, Carbonome armore if you find someone to make it, and you will notice you get tattoos. Nope can’t build them, level them, or do much with them but wear them and get some real nice perks. Read below for armor section in this guide. Perks is mainly up to you but you may want to hit anything to help you survive and get better weapons. There are some real good ones and some real worthless ones. Again, read below for more detail.

d. Planning ahead: Something everyone should do.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS PLAN AHEAD.
I don’t care if you are lvl 1 trying to get to lvl 2, or if you are lvl 200 trying to get on your Blood-Soaked Cloak of Dishonour. You cant get from one to the other without planning something out on this. It can be from just killing stuff randomly to having to do a perk reset. Either way as a shade I have found it is very important to plan ahead and try to get to certain goals than to just blunder through everything and sit there and go “ok what can I do now.” Basically while you are asking this question there is another shade going “YES, I can do this now.” And, you end up sitting there looking like a fool.
So again: PLAN AHEAD FFS

[Vlaniceshade]

V) Beyond nOOb

Ok ok ok. So this truly is not your first toon you ever hashed at. You know how to play a toon and get it to where you want to take it. Great. You have made it this far and need MORE
The general stuff is boring and you want the PHATS of the world at your finger tips. But you also realize you may need some more help. So as experience, countless questions, requests, and a magic rabbit out of my ars, I will try to give you the most for your indulgence.

a. AGRO 101: Requested by Bas

AGRO: You are a Shade. EVERYTHING HATES YOU. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you are demon spawn here to reek havoc on the existence of others. That or FC decided to make a character that had an agg range of an Enfo’s mongo. I think it is the first one.
Bottom line your agg on your shade is something to be very self-conscious about. If you are going to be a DD’r you really want to pay attention here. If you have a tank you do not want to pull agg from go full def to begin with on your first fight against a mob. If you don’t pull agg, then slowly raise it up after each mob you kill until you pull agg from the tank. At that point drop down just a lil and let the tank have agg . If you are going solo FULL AGG and pray you don’t die. The higher the agg the greater the damage the quicker they die. Going from point A to point B and not wanting to get attack go full def.
Remember as a Shade you already decided you are going to be hated. So either really piss everything off (Going full agg) or play it safe.

From level 100+ you should always be on full-def unless you are using some huge crit scope (not recommended), or you actually want to die. ESPECIALLY when soloing.

b. Weapons: where to start and where to go.

Ah yes. A shade must kill something. And, kill it we shall.
Primarily the weapons of choice for a Shade is Piercing weapons. Ok so you hit one of them online databases and you tell it to sort weapons that require piercing and you get this really long list of garbage.

Starting off you get your nOOb weapons when you hit the Jobe Training grounds.

From these u will want 2 Notum-Infused Silvertail Dagger
|-| How to build:
|-|-|-| Go kill snakes and collect 2 snake biles (QL any)
|-|-|-| Kill Biet Gras (Looks like long legged dear) and collect 2 Handle-Shaped Gofle Toe Bone (QL any)
|-|-|-| Kill Silvertails and collect 2 Silvertail Horn (QL of 9 or higher)
|-|-|-| Now, Combine the snake bile with the toe bone = Bone Handle (looks the same as a Toe bone)
|-|-|-| then combine the Bone Handle with the Silvertail Horn = Notum-Infused Silvertail Dagger

Then you are off to the races till about lvl 30. Yes 30. So don’t panic. They are just fine for your lil shade for a while. (While it was 2 hrs for me in game.)

Next you will be interested in the following:
Sigd’s ::: Drops off SL mobs and is store buyable in SL.
Die Kliene Nadel ::: Have found these off mob bosses.
Tango Dirk ::: These have been boasted and suffed so its at your discretion. It’s because of the Brawl requirement. I have found these off mobs.
improved tango dirks, with are much better ::: Submitted by Valvs
Bloodlust ::: Arguably one of the nicest buffing weapons you can get.
Aleksander's Blooded Punchknife ::: This is a NODROP item and rare to find.
Compressed Blades ::: Another one that falls in line with Tango Dirks.
variable density tanto -- a very good but little known weapon (made by using a viral weapon upgrade with a regular tanto.) ::: Submitted by Valvs
Piercing Evil - Great for buffing ::: Submitted by Emislicer
Spear of Forbidden Ceremonies - for PvP Ganking ::: Submitted by Emislicer
Nippy John Stiletto ::: Submitted by Valvs.

The expensive toys:
Kyr’Ozch Energy Rapiers ::: AI weapons that look like light sabers. These get very costly especially when typed. 90% of all shades that have a bank roll you will see running around with these.

c. Armor: what to get, when to get, and why.

Ok so you thin you can hash it out thus far. Boy are you in for a surprise.
As a shade your back items and helmets are totally limited. What does this mean for you, you are gimped. But DON’T PANIC.
You can still use most the armor you have come to love. Carbanum, Cas, etc these are still available to you. Instead of bashing out which is the best for you to use, and what you should use, and how to use it I am going to give you a short and simple layout.

Level 1-30 ::: nOOb armor
Back Item ::: Whatever you can fit on.

Level 30-60 ::: Carb or your choice of armor
Back Item ::: Whatever you can use.

Level 60+ ::: Predator armor. This gets into the argument of when to use T1, or to use T1 etc etc etc. Argue latter this just general.
Back Items :::
____________ Ancient Container <MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR SIDE>
____________ Blood-Soaked Cloak Of Dishonour the ultimate shade back item. Have not found an argument against this
____________ Web cloaks - Useful for ACs prior to Ancient Container ::: submitted by Emislicer
____________ Sided cloaks - adds evades, but tedious to camp ::: Submitted by Emislicer
Head Items ::: (Overlooked but not forgotten)
____________ infantry helmets are nice ::: Submitted bu Emislicer


i. Armor vs. Tattoos

Armor vs. Tattoos is the best argument I have ever heard. Some praise that armor should be used instead of Tattoos and Tattoos are a waste of space time and money. Others argue that Tattoos are the way to go.
They are BOTH wrong. Tattoos may not be the best items in the world to use for combat, where armor is. BUT, armor does not give a shade the buffs that Tattoos do. I do not make an effort to go farm Tattoos and try to get a set for buffing purposes. But when u need 1pnt of piercing in order to get that new rapier on, toss off the carb armor and slap on a Tattoo that has a piercing bonus and whalla. New weapon.
Tattoos have their place just as armor does. But, decide wisely on what you choose.

ii. Tier vs. Armor

The Shade Tier Armor. This is an ongoing argument that will NEVER be finished because of the 2 sides that are in it. One side says that the AC’s are the better benefit. The other argues that Predator armor is better for the evades. Bottom line, If you have the cash and time to bother with the Tier suit go with it if you want. If you have a set of predator armor and you like the evades go with it.
I suggest that IF you go with Pred armor to consider the Tier Gloves. They add a piercing bonus. My personal conception is of Tier 1 and Jobe just suck. T1 vs. Pred I choose Pred. I recommend if you have the time to farm and the cash to do, get both, try them out, and decide for your own self.

d. Spirits: Shades dependability on the dead.

Why spirits. Well, someone decided Shades being spit out from the bowels of hell itself we should use the dead to become greater. Or some idiot at FC decided we would have to go a new route. Either way Spirits are our Implants. Having to hit one of them treatment machines to get ours in, we can do it right on spot. No having to run to a shop, waste money and toss them in. Included in this chart below I am giving you the layout of what named spirit is at what level lock.

Name lvl Lock
Bitter 1
Blue 4
Comfortless 8
Depressed 11
Despairing 15
Discouraged 19
Dismal 22
Dreary 30
Gloomy 37
Grave 44
Grieving 52
Heartsick 59
Joyless 66
Lonely 73
Melancholic 81
Miserable 88
Mourning 95
Nostalgic 103
Oppressed 110
Pathetic 117
Pessimistic 125
Pitiable 132
Poor 139
Rejected 146
Dispirited 154
Somber 161
Sorrowful 168
Sorry 176
Tragic 183
Troubled 190
Unhappy 198

These spirits are not in game (do not drop)

Removed upset, Weeping, and Whistful... and thanks for the update.

Now, there are certain spirits that give certain buffs, and they jump levels. So DO NOT expect o find the same type of spirit for each named spirit.
<Statement removed after recieving the following>

After QL200 spirits, abilities are the limiting factor in equipping all spirits.

NOTE: Spirit Siphons. Nice lil toys very expensive. They increase the ability to get spirits or more spirits. However after a while it is not too much of a concern to waste your money on these where simple farming is easy.

e. Hunting grounds: Requested by Bas

Sorry kids this section will be updated once I get back to it. For now just do like a good shade and kill everything that moves

f. Armor vs. Evades: which is better.

Another wonderful argument goes in place here.
Again I will only say that You should try both and find which one suite your playing style better. I am a high evades DD’r. So AC is not my primary concern, it is to Not be hit.

g. PERKS: them wonderful things that you will need as a shade.
i. Piercing Mastery <Shade Profession>

The most important perk of all the shade perks. Bottom line this one right here boosts your piercing skills and adds some great damage dealing attacks. If you think that you do not need this, then you forgot you are a shade.

ii. Shade Touch <Shade Profession>

Not a bad perk. This should not be overlooked, especially at higher levels when you can do the full line. The bonus of damage dealt is staggering. Add this with Piercing Mastery and you will pull some serious agg on you.

Not very recommended since this perkline checks against your MA skill and not your piercing skill, therefore it is very difficult to get enough MA skill to make the perks land in high level scenarios.

Thank you Remm for your input on this.

iii. Shadow (for those with AI) <Shade Profession>

Another interesting but yet not that too amusing perk. If you have the AI levels to spend on it I don’t see why not. Overall it increases your evades and dose some damage. Nothing for bragging rights but the evades bonuses would be nice.

iv. Spirit Phylactery <Shade Profession>

A good perk that increases your defense and attack ratings. Don’t forget the annoyance of really messing up your target. They really hate it when you steal from them .

v. Sublime Rapport <Shade Profession>

Never personally used this one myself. Overall it adds nice dimach to you, but I can not find any future in it. I am sure some other shades can indulge in this for us and I will include their comments here.

vi. Totemic Rights <Shade Profession>

Lets increase our damage and hurt them to do it. If you really wanted to get their attention and do some serious damage line this up with piercing mastery and walla, u r the scourge of the earth to all mobs you are fighting.

Not to mention this is the only place we get heals worth mentioning. This perk line is more important than piercing mastery for almost all shades.

Noted for more input.

vii. Acrobat <Group>

This perk right here is in the groups section. It is the best one for evades. If you want to increase your chances of not getting hit, this is the perk you should be interested outside o shade profession perks.

[Vlaniceshade]

VI) Four Your Liesure

Well around here I am going to include some extra insights to totally useless information to boggle your mind and trip your spine.

a. Twinking: eh yeah twinking a shade?! It can be done Requested by Urdren

TWINKING, well lets start off by saying twinking is not what it used to be. You are used to using imps to put in better imps, to put on items, to put on equipment, to put in better imps. Well with a shade we don’t have the option of imps. So 1, keep track of the spirits you got, the ones you need, and to use to put on whatever. You may also have to actually consider when you want to twink you will have to play with your perks. Borrow, swap, steal, manipulate, and whatever else you gotta do to get them wonderful toys on.
Make sure you check the forums, ask around and READ the guides already posted. Some of them are out of date, but recent comments in them are the updates for them.

b. Tactics: Youth and enthusiasm will never over come Old Age and Experience. Requested by Bas

You can do all the wonderful things you want to, but remember that when you first start dealing with a shade you will soon learn that all hell does break loose. This is a general area to look at where this can me a concern for you.

i. Solo: Ya Loner

YOU WILL DIE. Get used to it and quit whining to the higher shades about it. Yes, we all suffered dying countless times during one level or another, and then we just got better. Better = playing our shades with more skill and experience. As you run solo you need to consider that 1, you have a way to heal yourself and it is updated. 2, make sure you are not around large teams that will train you. 3, RUN SPEED. If you move to slow to get away from a problem u might as well just stand there, try and kill them, and die like the rest :P

ii. Team: Ya Pansy

Yeah you are. Can’t solo huh. Don’t blame you either. Team leveling is faster for shades. Plus there is a chance that you will not get killed by everyother mob that you come across. Do remember that if you are teamed with a Doc, Priority 1 for you is to protect the Doc. If the Doc dies, consider yourself dead. Also, if there is a designated tank try not to take agg from them. Most get pissed off and leave you there to tank, and you may not be ready to deal with it. IF for any reason you are the tank for the team, make sure you have heals, you have a Doc, and if you got an MP, you’ll want the heal pet. Set yourself on full agg and have at it.

c. Vlanice’s advice from the reclaim: “Glimmers of Wisdom” Requested by Bas

Advice 1:
At low lvls you suck. When you start coming into the shades prim right before lvl 60 you will start to realize how to play a shade. You will notice things are getting better for you. And then you hit 60, think you are the shiznit and SQUISH. You dead.
Don’t get a big head because at lvl 59 you were oding everything in sight.

Advice 2:
If your Doc dies while you are in team. Die along with the Doc. They like the fact that you tried and died with them instead of just pure negligence. Remember they keep you alive, and you should try to keep them alive too.

Advice 3:
Don’t beg higher lvl shades for stuff. If they have hand me downs, we just might be inclined to share. But, do not bug us when we say we don’t have something. AND, pls no more asking me to go get something for you. That is the quickest way to join my ignore list.

More annoying advice to come: and yesh, for all you other shades that want to include on these, pls post your advice too and I will place in this guide with acknowledgement as to the provider.

d. Q & A: Ok so you asked while I was in game, Here’s my response.

My favorite question.
“I did everything you mentioned, got the best armor I can get into, and yet I still got killed. What did I do wrong?”
Response: Nothing. You match everything you possibly could and still died. Welcome to the club.

e. Guides I have found: What like I did all this on my own? Yeah right.

This is the rooted guides page of AO

and a real nice guide by Vulc
--- this one is awesome for doing Agility and Sense twinking. Thanks to Vulc and a few perk resets I got my Blood-Soaked on at 150 with ease.

More guides I find will be placed here and any you all find pls feel free to send them to me and I shall include.

[Timberb]

rar! Nice job! (Lots of letters... me likey! )

[Locheart]

One of the most informative and well put together guides I have ever read.
Well done

[varrus]

Too long for me to read in full after a day of hard work, but here is a few things I noticed:

1) You mentioned tango dirks, but didn't mention improved tango dirks, with are much better.
2) Another excellent weapon that is missing is variable density tanto -- a very good but little known weapon (made by using a viral weapon upgrade with a regular tanto.
3) I think you should group brawl weapons together and give a bit of info, for the sake of newbies, on their pros and contras (one of the contras would be 1 IPR wasted), and recommended tactics.
I think that the best way to go with brawl weapons is to use then in both hands and only raise brawl (and not dimache or fast attack) until you are ready to switch to nippies or kyr rapiers or whatever else you are going to use. Then you reset brawl and use the freed IPs to raise special attacks required to equip your new weapons.
4) Skills to raise. A rather important question for a newbie. For example, I know that some young shades still raise MA skill in their early levels, since a couple of guides—written way back when—recommend it.

[Monkeyninja]

unless we get new spirits in le it should be more like this for races
Opi: ok for the start but end game is weaker than sol or trox
Sol:best for soloing pvm (primarry choice
nano:heh they blow
Trox: for if you want to pvp easyer endgame

[Emi]

A few things that you might want to consider adding:

1) Weapon: Piercing Evil - Great for buffing
2) Weapon: Spear of Forbidden Ceremonies - for PvP Ganking
3) Armor: Web cloaks - Useful for ACs prior to Ancient Container
4) Armor: Sided cloaks - adds evades, but tedious to camp
5) Helmet: Prior to a Pred Circlet, lowbie infantry helmets are nice.
(For pure ACs get a Living Dragonskull Circlet, but lousy mods and MA reqs)
6) For lowbie weapons, Sigd+DKN combo gives Dimach/FastAttack/Sneak for a little extra damage compared to 2x Sigds.

And please replace the term 'Race' with 'Breed', you may confuse newbies

Edit: And as Valvs mentioned. How can you have a Shade guide without mentioning Nippy's?

[Satanic]

2) Weapon: Spear of Forbidden Ceremonies - for PvP Ganking

Also nice for buffing :-)

[Vlaniceshade]

And please replace the term 'Race' with 'Breed', you may confuse newbies

well if u r so nOOb that it confuses u, then u don't need to be playing a shade :P

I will make note of it on the next edit.


I have included some of what you all have stated, but am not done yet.

AND YES, I am always open to more input to include in the guide so that we can make this as complete as possible that the shade comunity as a whole can say IT IS GOOD, and at the next patches and/or updates we can compile any new information to it as possible.

Thank you for everyones support in this and please keep them coming. the mroe we can put in the better

[Shihna]

I've read through it and think it's informative and up-to-date with current times. I've added it to the rooted guide's thread. Hope ya don't mind.

[jjones2666]

you say to go full agg when solo play, imho that is the quickest way to reclaim. damage comes mostly via perks that are not effected by the aggdef bar. therefore go full def, if it aint hitting you it aint hurting

[Emi]

How about including a section on what buffs to beg for when soloing? This is especially important as Shades are the best NCU-wise, and noobs like me aren't sure which is more effective: Damage mitigation (RRFE, ACs) or Damage avoidance (Evade buffs, etc).

[varrus]

you say to go full agg when solo play, imho that is the quickest way to reclaim. damage comes mostly via perks that are not effected by the aggdef bar. therefore go full def, if it aint hitting you it aint hurting

Heh I totally missed that when I read the guide first. But yes, there is no reason to go full agg at all, except maybe during your first few levels in Jobe BY. A little longer, maybe, if you are using DKN.

The higher the agg the greater the damage the quicker they die.

Not quite correct. Once your weapons are at 1/1, moving your agg/def slider further toward agg doesn't increase your damage output. And most of shade damage comes from perks (again, with the exceptions of low levels). And, afaik, perks are not affected by position of your agg/def slider, .

[Vlaniceshade]

Upcoming sections by request:

Skills to raise. A rather important question for a newbie. For example, I know that some young shades still raise MA skill in their early levels, since a couple of guides—written way back when—recommend it. ::: Requested by Valvs

More indepth study to Soloing and Teaming ::: General interest by all
- AI Raids - things shades want to know about doing an Ailium Raid and their roll.
- PvP'ing - Going one on one and not geting squished.

Buffing - What to beg for and what to use ::: Requested by Emislicer

Locations of Spirits ::: Still compiling avg drops



I will be creating seperate threads to get all shades input on these so not to overwhelm the guide at this point with open discussion.

I continue to thank you all for your input and I am trying to keep ontop of it.
If you feel that there is a topic we have not covered PLEASE let me know ASAP so I can include it as soon as I can.
Thank you every shade that has helped and lets keep it going.

[Occamsrazor]

d. Spirits: Shades dependability on the dead.

Why spirits. Well, someone decided Shades being spit out from the bowels of hell
itself we should use the dead to become greater. Or some idiot at FC decided we
would have to go a new route. Either way Spirits are our Implants. Having to hit one of them treatment machines to get ours in, we can do it right on spot. No having to run to a shop, waste money and toss them in. Included in this chart below I am giving you the layout of what named spirit is at what level lock.


You could perhaps include some advice regarding what types of spirits to use.
Something along the lines of:

In general spirits can be divided into three categories:

Offensive spirits (strength): increase your offensive skills (piercing, offensive modifier, fast attack, add dmg)

Defensive spirits (weakness/defense): increase your defensive skills (evades, defense modifier, heal delta)

Buffing spirits (essence, understanding, knowledge, clear thought): increase your abilities.

What type of spirit to use when is a tradeoff. A pure offensive spirit setup will in
general increase your dmg output, but hurt your survivability. A good advice is: 'if you can perk it, go defensive'.

An example of an offensive spirit setup: http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=46934

An example of a defensive setup:
http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=46935

Note that the only difference between those two setups is the choice of right-arm, left-arm, and midriff. If you are fighting mobs within a certain level range, starting with a full defensive setup and stepwise changing into offensive spirits till you can land perks on the mob is a good approach.

My 2 cents,
Occamsrazor

[Eljoker]

I think u should change the description of one of ur perklines, the one that relies on Martial arts, think it was shade touch, after all MA is a darkblue skill and sucks to be raised, so in general the perkline sux as u need ma skill to be able to perk

mmm, think that line was shade touch but cant really remember, havent been ingame for like months now.

[Eljoker]

Sublime rapport iirc is only used for the stun that comes at sr 6, great for pvp to be able to stun at will instead of the proc, and iirc theres a lifetap on it as well i think,... lol pardon my sorry memory lol

its a nice guide tho