Welcome to my reviews on the various abilities that are gained from clas armors. This is a review of how my level high-level mage has found the various abilities asociated with each clas in the game. This review is therefore from the perspective of a high level mage, and your results may vary. I don't have exact damage numbers for most of the powers, and this is all based on general observation. I hope you find it useful in some way. Any help in developing the guide further is appreciated. If there's something I'm missing, or your experience with an ability differs from mine, please feel free to post it below. I intend to have this guide include every released clas. Dragonslayer Overview: The Dragonslayer clas has several abilities designed to deal with Dragons. A few are highly useful in several situations, but unfortunately the base attacks don't compare well to to standard multi-hit armors, making the clas something I switch to early in a fight for Poison dragon, and then find myself using more protective or offensive armors for the rest of the battle. 1. Dragon Strike. Causes 200% damage to dragons, 120% damage to regular targets. 5 MP. I don't use this much, because with stat bonuses and base damage, I can get a better effect with WWF, even against dragons, for 0 MP. Even most 2-hit armors will suit high-stat characters better. I'd wager that this ability is more useful for characters who's stats aren't too high yet. Against non-dragons, any multi-hit armor will serve you better than this ability. However, since you need to use the DS armor to power up your level 10 ability, this may be your main attack with it. The exception is when you have the dragonblade - since I have nearly no strength, I think I'm better off hitting dragons with this than with my multi-hit armors. 2. Dragon Fire. 50 MP. A 5-hit fire spell for 50 MP. For people with low intelligence or levels, I can't speak for how it works for you. For a high level, hit int mage like me, it's outperforming Solar Incinerator, for just over half the MP. I'll be selling Solar Incinerator now that I have this. This is an awesome dragonslayer ability, and the most useful as it works on all monsters. Of note is that against dragons it's non-elemental. So, no freezer-burn, and you may want to keep Solar Incinerator around for it. Also, it's not so great at lower levels, because of the level-based damage. Like a fine wine, this skill improves with age - and is the only one that will continue to improve as you level into the 100's. 3. Aimed Fang Strike. + 100 to hit dragons, + 15 to hit normal monsters. 5 MP. I suppose it would be nice if you really needed that hit, but this won't be really useful until they come out with dragons that have resistances above 50. With no damage bonus, you might as well try for increased damage if you're gonna hit at least half the time anyway, for the same amount of MP. It might not be a bad attack against non-dragons if you're gonna use the DS armor against them, however, as the + 15 bonus is still substantial. 4. Armor bonus. +5 vs melee and magic and all elemental attacks from dragon kind drop to 92%. Yay. 5. Freeze Dragonkind. 75 MP This is an excellent anti-dragon ability, especially since you can combine it with Dragon's Breath or Call Dragon for lots of damage. It will always freeze the enemy, even if they block, just like the Ice Katana's special. If you intend to freeze your opponent, equip the IK first, so if your weapon does its special, you'll freeze the enemy anyway. If you're desperate for that pixie heal, this technique will give you some free time and damage for it, so long as your MP holds out. The dragon also takes a little damage from the hit. 6. Poison Dragon. 100 MP This is my personal favorite DS clas ability. A poison cloud takes up your guest spot and drains 5% of the dragon's health every turn it hits. Over the course of its 12-turn lifespan, it will often account for up to a third of your opponent's health, despite frequent misses. So it's best for high HP dragons like Trigoras, but very useful in almost all cases. If only it didn't get rid of your sometimes useful guest to be used. For 100 MP, it's got a great damage / MP ratio. Dragons only, but it would be way too powerful if it weren't. 7. Dragon's Blood. 55 MP I find I don't need this. Since the health regen is based on half the damage you do, I don't find the rather small regeneration from the single dragonslayer hit to be significant enough to help me. My 55 MP are better spent elsewhere - like Pixie, or even heal wounds. If Pixie isn't enough, you can try using this to keep yourself alive while doing damage, but that MP is gonna run down fast. If it got a damage bonus, or if the health regen was equal to the damage you do, this would be a better ability. Oh, and it's dragons-only too, making it that much less useful. 8. Summon Draykwing. 15 MP I'm not at all impressed with the guest that you can call with your level 8 ability. He actually decreases my damage output, not to mention slowing me down. You see, he tosses out about 5-6 damage per turn. It's fire damage against normal monsters, and non-elemental against dragons - but who cares? It's about 1/4th of what it needs to be. Poison Dragon is a much better choice for your guest spot against Dragons, and Summon Skull for normal enemies. 9. Second Armor bonus. Additional +5 vs melee and magic and all elemental attacks from dragon kind drop to 82%. Yay. 10. Call forth the fire dragon. The first ability in Adventure Quest with a 'charge counter'. Each attack you make while in dragonslayer that plays the standard attack animation will increase the charge (you can click on the ability while it charges to see the status of the counter). An odd thing to note is that when you start the game, the counter starts at 60 / 90. When you use the ability, it drops to 0 / 90, but you can just visit the shop and the counter will jump back up to 60 / 90. I expect they'll change this at some point. The ability is very much worth charging - it does 33% of the enemy's health in fire damage - so unlike the Guardian dragon summon, the monster's fire resistance matters. If possible, freeze your target first - you'll do 66% damage to them when you hit with this while they're frozen. It takes awhile to charge, however, so save it for those fights when you need it. Also, it's non-elemental against dragons, so you'll get a straight 33% damage no matter what the dragon's fire resistance is. Still, it's nice to go freeze the Reaper or Carnax and go to town on them. Regular attacks in Dragonslayer armor, as well as the abilities Dragonstrike, Aimed Fang Strike, Freeze Dragonkind, and Dragon's Blood will raise the charge counter by one. If you simply want to charge the meter, go fight some easy enemies in a low-level quest, such as frogzard challenge. With rapid enemy attack animations and no need for pets, you can quickly charge the level 10 ability and then go smack Carnax or an Entromorph after a good freeze. Extra contributions to the Dragonslayer review have come from: Hero of Winds, icewraith, debtmaster, Crisknight, TooNice, and GeneralTwit. Vampire Slayer Overview: The Vampire Slayer class comes with various abilities meant to increase the damage you do on undead, vampires, werewolves, and zombies. It's standard attacks are costly but do excellent damage. It has many useful pasive abilities, and the active ones will come in handy for anyone fighting the types of enemies it was designed against. Of note is the Hunter's Eye ability that gives you a 10% bonus to hit with any attack against Vampires, Werewolves and Undead, making this armor worth wearing even while spellcasting. 1. Vampire Strike. 3 hits, 2x damage potential, 40 MP This is a pretty darn good attack, especially if you don't have WWF. As long as your Mana holds out, your can dish out some really good damage over time to undead, vampires, and zombies. Note that it has no effect on creatures that don't fit those categories, so don't waste your MP. Unless you're deperate to save MP, unleash this frequently on your undead foes. A final note - this is something like 3 hits of 66% damage - not 3 hits of 2x damage, which would be obscene. The attacks are a bit better than WWF in damage and BTH terms, but the animation is slow. 2. Evilproof aura. Armor bonus from being... er... evil proof. Don't ask how. 3. Hunter's Eye. 10% BTH to all attacks against Undead, Vamps, and Werewolves. Very nice boost to the other clas abilities and your spells. 4. Werewolf Strike. 3 hits, 2x damage potential, 40 MP This is almost the exact same thing as Vampire Strike, it simply targets Werewolves. I need not comment further. 5. Lift Curse. I have no idea what this really does - but I'll bet it gets used in a quest in the Vamp / WWF war. 6. Summon Huntdragon. Calls guest Vampragon to fight for you. 90 MP The Huntdragon is a better pet than the Dragonslayer's Draykwing, and is pretty much a multi-element vampragon. It's not bad to have two around working for you, but they just tend to slow me down. Useful for those who like pets and guests though. 7. Shake & Stake. 3-hit, +100 to hit attack. 200 MP The cost means you simply can't use this one much, but it's a great way to end a battle if your opponent is near death. From my experience I think it's got the 2x damage potential of the other attacks - for that MP cost, it had better. 8. UltraStrike. 20% chance that the regular attack is a 3 hit, regardless of monster type. Doesn't help much - use multi-hit armors if you want multiple attacks. 9. Turn Undead. Light spell. 75 MP I'm loving these multi-hit clas spells. Against undead, this is arguably better than Purity Portal, as those 6 hits all get your int bonus... and you've got a natural 10% BtH to boot, from Hunter's Eye. What could be better? And it's still excellent against non-undead. The Nighthunter shield adds greatly to it's damage potential against undead and such, because (I think) the +2 base damage and +4 random damage is added to every hit - at 6 hits, that's about 24 more damage than what you'd already do. 10. Vampire's blood. Attack that heals you for half the damage you do. 100 MP Not worth it - you're probably better off casting Heal Scratches with that 100 MP, because unless you're fighting something with a really low elemental resistance, the healing you gain won't be worth the MP you lose. Get a pixie instead, or either of the other healing spells. This is a lot like Dragon's blood, but works on more targets and is more expensive. Save that MP for worthier purposes. Mage Overview: The Mage clas has several generic low-level one-hit spells for a low mana cost and moderate damage. Damage generally pales in comparison to what I can do with high-level, store-bought spells, and thus I feel that this clas is designed for low level characters who want some decent damage for their mana - and eight spells that cost 30 mana and deal a moderate amount of damage for the price of the armor isn't too bad. It is reported that Mage is a 'base clas', so becoming a mage may be a pre-requisite to becoming other magic-oriented clases. It has a single awesome level 6 ability for high-level characters like me, but probably won't become a staple of most people's armor sets in the high levels. After being leveled up, the armor has impressive magic defenses - probably better than anything else you can find as a low level character. The clas abilities review will be shorter than the previous ones, because the abilities are pretty much all the same. Levels 1, 5, and 9. Defense Bonus. Increase in magic defense. Levels 3 and 7. Resistance Bonus. Increase in elemental resistances. I'm afraid I don't have the exact defense bonus conferred by each level for defense and resistance bonuses. Levels 2. 4. 8 and 10. Elemental Spells. Choice of two elements to cast spell with, 30 MP. Normally I'd comment on the abilities seperately, but aside from choices of element (Fire / Ice at 2, Earth / Wind at 4, Energy / Water at 8 and Light / Dark at 10), the spells seem to be identical to each other. They all cost 30 MP and the damage seems similar, if not the same. (I'm guessing in the 20-40 range, unmodified by stats). Damagewise, I do a lot better with store-bought spells, but for low level characters, it seems a reasonable use of mana. Of note is a remarkably high BtH on these spells - supposedly in the realm of 30, I have yet to miss with them. Levels 6. Regenerate MP. Lose 5% of your base HP to regain 10% of your base MP. And now we have the gem of mage powers - an ability that can let you fight forever. Combined with Pixie and Heal Wounds, you need never die now that you can replenish large amounts of mana, unless you're up against a very high damage monster. There have been reports of people now being able to defeat Carnax by using this, where they couldn't before. Low HP isn't a factor - in fact, unless you're in danger of dying, you get a great return on MP for very little HP if you happen to be a low endurance, high intelligence character. Combined with pixie against low damage monsters, Mages should have no trouble lasting forever in a fight. This works best if you're high level, and thus have lots of mana to use for regeneration purposes - above 1000 is pretty good, giving you 100 or more mana per use. Fighter Overview: Fighter is the base clas for future melee-oriented clases. It has a mixture of added defenses (the base armor is pretty weak, the extra defenses are needed) and some abilities that increase your number of attacks, damage and to-hit bonus for an MP cost- and to top that off, it's got a heal and a summon as well. This is a placeholder until I can level the clas and review the abilities. Levels 1, 5, and 9. Resistance Bonus. Increase in elemental resistances. Levels 3 and 7. Defense Bonus. Increase in defense. 2. Weapon Throw. 10 MP The ability claims a small increase in damage and base to hit, and it's probably not much for 10 MP (the exact number is not listed). However, it converts your attack into a ranged attack - which can be useful for some characters, but if you were highly strength based, it may actually decrease your damage. Plus, it's only one hit - and the worst part is, for adventurers, it's the only attack you get with this clas. Two-hit armors are better. 4. Rest and Heal. 40 MP This ability heals you for 5% of your life for 40 MP, making it an excellent ability at higher levels coupled with higher endurance. It's not as MP or time-efficient as pixie, but if you have low cha it might be a better option. For many low-level characters, the fighter heal is more affordable than the MP-eating heal spells - but not as time-efficient, as it takes more turns to heal the same amount. Still, it's the first clas heal, and I imagine it will come in handy for many players. 6. Summon Friend. 40 MP Will this summoned guest impress me more than the others? Well, two hits of earth is nice, and for those of you who need guests the fighter-guy isn't too bad, but the effectiveness of clas pets has yet to impress me. I'll stick with Poelala. 8. Double attack. 30 MP 2 hits, 150% damage. I can go one better for fighters and suggest MAF, but for pre-level-65 characters this is a pertty nice deal. I'd say it were a great deal if it weren't pretty much a waste of your MP when compared to Power Attack, and won't be used by smart fighters. 10. Power Attack. 45 MP One strong 300% damage hit at +40 BtH. Wow. This incredibly damaging ability is also inexpensive MP-wise. It's so inexpensive that it outshines the level 8 double attack in nearly every way possible: You cause more damage each turn, have a better BtH, and it's more mana-efficient than Double Attack if you have low stats. Heck, except for the mana cost, this ability can do more damage than Werewolf Form if you have low stats - so use it often once you have it, unless you need the MP for healing. Just remember, if you kill it three times as fast, you take three times less damage. Power Attack by itself would make Fighter armor worth having - especially for non-spellcasting types. ;)