Optimization Guide

Every soul is a good soul. But some are better than others at doing their job. This is an attempt at systematically classifying every combat soul, and contains some tips for proper optimization.

Army Magician

Pros:

• Extremely high raw damage output. (4th highest in game at 155% damage dealt)
• Excellent DoT damage
• High, Specialized Affinities
• Strong Skills
• Potent AoE

Cons:

• Poor HP
• Poor access to armor
• Low defenses
• Low accuracy
• Has no natural healing mechanism

Recommended Secondary Souls:

• 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)
• Windrunner (Niche item. Fine Tuned/Heavy/Guided short bow + attack and accuracy passive]]

Avoid:

• Cover souls (Fighter, Crusader)
• Fire souls (Lightning caller!!)

Building souls for Army Magician is very simple. Avoid high fire/air magic overlaps and focus on shoring up the extreme weaknesses of this DPS centric soul. Cover makes you take damage for allies. Avoid!!

Recommended Items:

• Flame of the Creator(Venomous/Creator Inspired/Heaviest = 83 base damage over 4 rounds)

• Parrying blade (Fine Tuned/Heavy/Guided/Large) = Much needed 20 defense + 10 accuracy buff that is cheap and fast! Stronger with Heavier / Heaviest usable with Light weapons affinity)

Recommended Dedications

Optimal:

• Sphinx (Damagebuff + Technical on the Answer)
• Phoenix (Healing + free Revive)
• Elementalist (Tank pet or Healing pet)

Ok:

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

Avoid:

• Kraken (AoEmod capped at +1 target. -damagebuff hurtful)
• Kirin (Cover)

Duelist

Pros:

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

Cons:

• 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

Recommended Secondary Souls:

• 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].

Avoid:

• 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.

The Duelist Recommended Items:

Recommended Dedications

Optimal:

Ok:

Avoid:

Windrunner

Pros:

• 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

Cons:

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

Recommended Secondary Souls:

• 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)

Avoid:

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

Windrunner is a very specialized class. As a light weapons class, it never runs into cooldown issues. As of such, avoid picking classes that have many active skills to deal damage as they will not fit into a strong light weapons rotation. It has a niche role providing defense debuffs with guided longbow and hand crossbow that no other class can provide.

Recommended Items:

• 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)

Recommended Dedications

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)

Avoid:

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