• High raw damage output
• Excellent DoT damage
• High Affinities
• Potent AoE
• Strong Skills

• Poor HP
• Poor access to armor
• Low Defense
• Low Accuracy
• No medical affinity or heal abilities

• Ninja: hpbuffer passive
• Medic souls: offers medical affinities and/or passives)
• Dark Knight: (Heavy armor + Vampiric passive)
• Summoner souls: (pets can tank damage)
• Windrunner: (Allows use of Fine Tuned/Heavy/Guided

Short Bow(attack and accuracy passive)

• Tank souls (Fighter, Crusader): Cause you to take damage for others
• Other fire souls: Redundant affinities

• Flame of the Creator (Venomous/CI/Heaviest)

= 83 base damage over 4 rounds

• Parrying blade (Fine Tuned/Heavy/Guided/Large)

= Light weapon, provides 20 defense and 10 accuracy buff

• Sphinx: Offers Damagebuff + Technical
• Phoenix: Offers Healing + free Revive
• Elementalist: Gives you tank or healing pet
• Elemental Dragon: Offers some resists
• Siren: AoEguard causes party to take less damage
• Cerebrus: Offers DoTattack + some resists

• Kraken: AoEmod caps damage, neg. damagebuff hurts
• Kirin: causes you to tank

• Great at fighting one or two enemies
• Variety of combat skills make for a versatile base
• High damage and high defenses stat
• Capable of heavy damage bursts
• Good proficiency selection
• Combat soul with some non-combat proficiencies

• No inherent AoE attacks
• Defenses may be strong, but are very thin
• Very easy to burst through energy reserves
• Split focus means other souls are better at specializing
• No innate healing capabilities

• Souls with strong AoE (Army Magician, Street Fighter, Mage Adept)
• Souls with complimentary styles (Samurai increases Defense and uses counter damage, Ninja's Smoke Grenade and Sudden Decoy complement high defenses and the HPBuffer helps compensate for low resist/low HP)
• Army Magician adds two strong AoE attacks and a passive +Damage power, as well as enough Fire and Air magic to allow the use of Thunderbolt, Flame of the Creators, and Guided.
• Monk and Street Fighter both add the Twirling Kick AoE attack, useful passive powers, and allow the use of high quality Moderate Weapons.

• Souls that duplicate proficiency or with conflicting styles.
• Crusader and Fighter rely on toughness and durability without complimenting Duelist's strengths like Samurai or Ninja
• Scholar and Dark Magician have AoE debuffs, but Duelist does not have the base capabilities to fully use them
• Windrunner, Rogue, and Shrouded Assassin all have positive benefits, but their heavy overlap limits their utility.

• Parying Dagger - Thanks to Avoidance 3, the defense bonus from this item is increased by 45% - easily providing 60 or so defense for the Duelist.
• Swift Sword - Instant attack for high damage, although the bonus penetration from Duelist's combat skills doesn't add much.
• Martial Training - Even without Flurry, the Martial Training is an excellent option for a duelist's 'main' attack.

• Spyguard - Thematically fun and provides a lot of bonuses to RP rolls
• Kraken - Duelist -needs- good equipment, and Kraken's Technical boosts it. Also, AoE Swift Swords.

Ok:

• Phoenix - Fiery Rebirth comes in handy
• 3D Magister - Duelist gets many fast attacks, so can reliably proc the abilities every turn; the energy drain will hurt though.

• Kirin - Damage shifted by cover uses the source's defense, and not yours. This will kill a duelist quickly
• Gryphon - The Duelist's innate attack powers are weak; it relies heavily on equipment.

• Golems

• Decent damage dealer
• Light Weapons (No energy problems or cooldown issues)
• High Athletics (No energy issues)
• Strong at Repeats (2 attack, high accuracy, has 2 flurry. Has access to Guided)
• Fast cooldowns

• Below average base damage potential (127%)
• Poor access to armor
• Low defenses
• Has no natural healing mechanism
• Weak soul powers

• Ninja (Strong hpbuffer passive)
• Medicine Souls (Allows equipping field medicines)
• Dark Knight (Heavy armor access + Vampiric passive)
• Pet Souls (Machine Priest, Golem Crafter for tanking pets)
• Gunslinger (2 strong passives. Can afford to pay energy for Double Tap and can use quick draw)

• Light weapons classes (Large overlap in proficiencies)
• Cover souls (Crusader, Fighter)

• Short Bow(Venomous/Creator Inspired/Heaviest = 83 base damage over 4 rounds)
• Short Bow(Fine Tuned/Crystal Sheened/Toughened/Heaviest) = Get statusboost, defense, damageresist and apply defensedebuff, energyresistdebuff, damageresist debuff to shred boss defenses!!
• Swift Sword (Guided/Heavier Optimized for Windrunners, it provides a lot of damage and buffing power)
• Guided Longbow (Heaviest/Fine Tuned One of the stronger defense debuffs around)

Optimal:

• Sphinx (Damagebuff + Technical on the Answer)
• Phoenix (Healing + free Revive)
• Elementalist (Tank pet or Healing pet)
• Kraken (Free AoE proc chance + technical)
• 3d Magister (Can sustain heavy energy cost on toggle)
• Spyguard (Very potent repeat attack actually worth using)

Ok:

• Elemental Dragon (Some resists)
• Siren (AoEguard in party to take less damage)
• Cerebrus (some resists)

• Kirin (Cover)
• Basilisk (2 weak actives)