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. Some general Do's and Don'ts for optimization:

• DO take complementary secondary souls.
• DON'T overlap proficiencies when you dual-soul. Since you get half the ability of the secondary soul at a given level, redundant proficiencies are wasted.

Aranian

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries	Hearth Mage (Adds earth and water magic, giving access to two good AoE repeats: Hailstorm and Sand Storm)
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Army Magician

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 it!

	Strengths	Weaknesses
General	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
Dual Souls	Ninja: hpbuffer passive Medic souls: offers medical affinities and/or passives) Dark Knight: Heavy armor and Vampiric passive Summoner souls: Pets can tank damage Windrunner: Allows use of Fine Tuned/Heavy/Guided Short Bow for attack and accuracy passive boost	Tank souls (e.g. Fighter & Crusader): Cause you to take damage for others Other fire souls: Redundant affinities
Equipment	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	xxxx
Chakras
Dedications	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

Bard

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Berserker

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Cannoneer

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Champion of Light

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Crusader

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Dark Knight

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Dark Magician

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Duelist

	Positives	Negatives
General	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
Secondaries	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.
Equipment	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.
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications	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.

EarthShaker

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Fighter

The name 'fighter' is a bit of a misnomer, as this soul excels at providing defense and cover more than inflicting damage. Make sure to add damageresist to better soak up enemy damage.

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Golem Crafter

The Golem Crafter has two flavors: offensive and defensive.

	Positives	Negatives
General	Golems
Secondaries	Machine Priest: Leadership plus 3 loadout-free summons at MP level 15 (i.e., GC level 30)
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Gunslinger

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Hearth Magician

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Journeyman

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Lightning Caller

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Machine Priest

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Mage Adept

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Monk

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Ninja

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Pirate

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Priest

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Rogue

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Samurai

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Scholar

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Shrouded Assassin

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Standard Bearer

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Street Fighter

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Trauma Mage

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Treasure Hunter

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications

Windrunner

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.

	Positives	Negatives
General	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
Secondaries	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)
Equipment	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)
Modifiers
Chakra
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)	Kirin (Cover) Basilisk (2 weak actives)

Winter Witch

	Positives	Negatives
General
Secondaries
Equipment
Modifiers
Chakra
Dedications