This is a copy of the guide I posted for my guild on our forums. A lot of it rehashes stuff already covered in Aelynn's and Munkeezon's superb guides, but some of it is new as well, particularly the combat tips at the bottom. Feedback is always welcome
Here is a guide explaining how I played my shade.
The shade is an incredibly high-damage character with certain unique restrictions and capabilities. The easiest way to describe them is a kind of melee agent, although a high-level shade will typically outdamage an agent of a similiar level. At level 206 Coldshade is one of the highest-damage characters in the game in a prolonged fight, can solo as well or better than most classes, and has a 19-move, 30-60k alpha-strike every 45 seconds + a dimache every 5 minutes. That is why you would want to play one.
The drawbacks are limited equipment selection, hard to twink because you need to depend on drops for your implants, lots of aggro/deaths, and a limited team role in that all you do is damage. But they are a lot of fun, and very different from all other classes.
Breeds
- Opifex. Probably the strongest choice for a shade because our spirits and Tier armor, as well as a lot of our abilities, are based on agility/sense. An opifex shade will have higher evades, be able to get into higher spirits, and be able to upgrade Tier armor faster than shades of other breeds. A ql176 spirit has an agi/sense req of 781, and that's hard to hit for other breeds.
- Solitus. As with most professions, the 2nd best choice. Slightly more robust than the Opi shade, slightly less agile and will have to wait a bit longer for spirits etc.
- Atrox and Nanomage. Non-standard shades, bring the same bonuses to the shade profession as they do any other class. Will have a harder time at higher levels, mainly due to the extreme sense/agi reqs of spirits ql154+.
Perks - This is the big one. A shade is all about his perks. Myself, and all of the high-level shades I have talked to have gone with Piercing Mastery and Totemic Rites. I also took Acrobat and am now working on Spirit Phylactery.
- Piercing Mastery gives you some nice damage perks, and buffs up your piercing skill obviously. Requires that you be behind the target, so it's most easily run when someone else is holding aggro. Even if you have aggro or are soloing though, you can dash "through" the mob while mashing on the key and the perks will land as you "fake out" the mob into showing it's back to you. Practice will help you refine your timing.
- Totemic Rites gives you a constant damage boost, and two sets of perk attacks that must be chained one after the other. The first type of TR perk attack does damage and gives you a short-term damage boost that stacks on top of your constant damage boost. The second type does very high damage and gives you back a % of damage dealt as a heal. (For instance, the TR perk you can train at 190 will heal you for 45% of damage dealt. Do 10k damage with it and you'll get an instant heal for 4.5k)
- Acrobat is absolutely essential in my mind. Regardless of whether or not you want to tank, you will be at some point. When maxed, Acrobat gives you a constant boost to your evades, as well as two perk boosts that stack to give you a whopping +1k to evades. The perk boosts last 45 seconds and recharge every 65 seconds, which means you are likely to avoid a lot of hits for all but 20 seconds each cycle.
- Spirit Phylactery is what I am training now that I maxed out Totemic Rites and Acrobat. It gives you two types of attacks that must be chained just like Totemic Rites. The first type of attack is an Add All Offense/Add All Defense drain with a detaunt attached. Don't count on the detaunt to do much in the way of letting you avoid aggro, but the agg/def drain is quite nice. You hit harder and more often, and your opponent hits you less frequently. The second type of attack is a HP/Nano point dot, handy but not overwhelming by any means.
- Basically all of our perk attacks are more effective when run in sequence, and Totemic Rites and Spirit Phylactery actually require it. As a side note, make sure you have your opponent targeted when running your offensive perks. If you target yourself (to FA stim yourself for instance), you won't be able to run any perks past the first attack. You can perk, target yourself and stim, and then switch back quickly and continue perking however.
- More of an ability than a perk, backstab is a special attack that is unlocked when you hit 101 base sneak attack skill. It gets a multiplier at 235 SA skill, and again at 420 skill. It requires that the target be fighting someone else, so you will never land this one while soloing, and you can't fake out a mob like you can with the piercing mastery perks. Not to be confused with the "Stab" attack of the piercing mastery perk line.
Weapons - Weapon selections and even skills used should change depending on where you are hunting and what your level range is.
- Silvertail Daggers. Superb newbie weapons, made in the Jobe backyard. QL15 ones will remain effective to level 30 I am told. www.anarchyarcanum.com has a guide on making these weapons.
- ITD's. At lower levels, while hunting on Rubi-Ka or at lower non-heckler opponents, many shades like to use Improved Tango Dirks. They have good damage, great crits, and are reasonably easy to come by. The problem with ITD's is that they require brawl, which is only buffed by 1 spirit in the left arm slot. Brawl is also a dark blue skill, so it becomes expensive in IP to use them early on. They also lack the sneak attack requirement, and thus lock you out of your backstab capability. You can either do without the backstab, or just dual an ITD with a sneak attack weapon. Until your backstab hits the 3rd multiplier at 420 sneak attack skill though (base, not boosted by spirits or buffs), you really aren't missing out on that much. As soon as you start hunting hecklers in Adonis +, get rid of the ITD's because their min damage is terrible. Available from the trader shop.
- Compressed Blades. CB's are a nice weapon 130+ when you have IP to blow on Brawl. They give you sneak attack, fast attack, and brawl, and have a great backstab multiplier. You are most likely to get a 10k+ backstab with a compressed blade. Their higher min damage makes them vastly preferable to ITD's when hunting hecklers in Adonis or better. Good dual weapon with ITD if you are still doing RK missions, as they'll give you fast attack and backstab. Great with other weapons because they'll give you brawl. Can be blitzed as a mission reward.
- Sigd's. Very good min damage, which means these are the weapons of choice on high-AC mobs like Hecklers. Even on Rubi-Ka and pre-Adonis, these weapons will guarantee a consistent rate of good damage. No brawl, so 130+ it's nice to dual them with a brawling weapon so you get that extra attack. Available as boss loot from SL bosses, or in SL gardens up to ql150.
- Eye-gougers. Stay away from these unless they are ridiculously high-ql (260+).
- Bronto Vet Lancets. Avoid these regardless of ql.
- Newland Fish Knives. Superb weapons, great min damage, add brawl and fast attack. Dual with a sneak attack weapon at higher levels so you don't lose your backstab. Rubi-Ka dyna boss loot, so camping or forum trolling is the way to get these.
- Die Kleine Nadels and Bloodlusts. Good weapons, use if you don't have something with a higher min damage. Hecklers, redeemed and unredeemed are strong against the Nadel's disease ac, and only hecklers are weak against the Bloodlusts chem ac. At high ql's they are very nice however, and make great weapons for RK missions. Drop off of bosses in SL only, and are NoDrop, so you can't buy them.
- Nippy John Stilleto. At the moment, the be-all and end-all of shade weapons. Incredible minimum damage of 250 makes this the ultimate choice. Currently selling for 300-400 million, hopefully that will come down as more enter the market. Drops off the Nippy Slither boss who is found in Adonis Abyss. I still can't quite solo him at level 206, so bring a friend or two and be ready to spend a few full days of camping to get a pair.
- Slayerdroid Crystal Claw. Don't bother for hunting high-AC SL mobs, but good if you are still doing RK missions. Not entirely sure who drops this item, but I think it's the Obediency Enforcer in Eastern Foul Plains. Price on the forums is usually about 10 mill when they are available.
Armor - Please note that shade's cannot wear the vast majority of head/back armors.
- RK armor works fine until you can get into Tier 1 armor. I used Elite until level 163, but I'd recommend getting Tier before that. CAS, omnified carbonum etc are all solid choices to start out with.
- Tier armor. Try to get into Tier 1 as soon as possible. If you can manage a full set by 125, you're twinking. Try to get into it by 150 if at all possible though. It has good ac's and some decent boosts, although some won't make sense, like the Treatment boost given by the chest piece. Easily one of the best looking Tier armors in the game. Guides to get Tier armor can be found all over the place, but a good guide is available at www.aovault.com. The main advantage to Tier armor is it can be upgraded to Tier 2 and eventually Chosen/Faithful armor, which are great for any profession.
- Tatoos. Not entirely worth it in my opinion. Makes a female shade look naked, looks nasty on a male shade as they used the same textures. Low ac's, some decent skill boosts, but more buff/social armor than something you want to wear into battle. Tattoo drop locations are posted on the official shade forum on the Anarchy Online website.
- For head armor, I scrounged and invested in a Dragon Circlet. Skinchips will also work, as will a Thar's circlet. Dragon Circlets are Tarasque loot in Camelot, or sell for 15-25 mill on the boards. Thar's circlets drop off the Mala-anna mobs in Nascence (look like medusas), but I haven't run across drops in higher zones. Skinchips are typically found on bosses in RK missions, RK dyna-camp bosses, or at the Merc camp.
- For back armor, you can use an ancient container, web cloaks, or backpacks (notum threaded, robust, etc). I use a web cloak for looks because it's invisible, but the ancient container has slightly better ac and stat boosts, and the named backpacks are nice as well. All can be found for sale on the forums.
- Because we are unable to wear a token board, I recommend getting a cyborg token board at 190+ (Requires 500 Sense as well). It drops off of cyborgs in Perpetual Wasteland and Mort camps. An Anything is also nice if you are lucky enough to have one, and is available from Mercs.
- Shades can also wear most pieces of Azure and Omni Armed Forces, so if you feel like camping those more power to you.
Spirits - The almost-symbiant implants for shades. It's all we can use, but they are more powerful than standard implants of the same level, often by a fair bit.
- All spirits use a sense/agi req, are available only to shades, and buff multiple skills. We don't need to use a treatment clinic, which is handy because you can pop in a buff spirit out in the field, buff up, and then toss in your more combat-related spirits and take off. Spirits drop off of, reasonably enough, spirit mobs. Spirit mobs can be found all over SL zones, and inside the temple of the redeemed/unredeemed.
- Spirit Siphons. These allow you to "siphon" a spirit from ANY mob in SL zones. They require Psychic to use, and have a max level of mob that can be siphoned. To use them, you must wait until the mob is below a certain % of health specific to the ql of siphon you are using (it will tell you the exact % if you try to use it too soon). Once successfully siphoned, the mob has a 25% chance of dropping a spirit, or thereabouts. You can even siphon a spirit mob to get a chance of 2 drops on the same kill. They are available from the Yuttos dealers, (Yuttos Tools I believe), scattered across SL. They also drop from Spirit mobs infrequently. {Edit: I am told that there are some mobs that are siphon-immune/resistant. The only type mentioned are the Weaver-type spiders, but there may be others.]
Stats
- Strength. Involved in the piercing and brawling skills, as well as a req for a lot of the nicer RK armors. I kept it close to max for most of my levels.
- Agility. Arguably our most important stat. Involved in spirits requirements, numerous skills including Piercing and evades, and Tier armor. Keep it maxed as frequently as possible.
- Stamina. Important for brawling and hp, as well as a req for a lot of RK armor. Keep high/maxed.
- Sense. Involved in some of our skills, but not as important as agility. I actually only raised this as much as I needed to equip spirits or Tier, or when I had the IP. Secondary to Strength and Agility in my mind.
- Intelligence. Another secondary stat. Important to nano skills, but don't max unless you have IP to blow, like at title maxes etc.
- Psychic. Used for siphons and nano pool. Raise it high enough to boost your nanopool to the point where you can cast your proc buffs, then leave it alone until you have IP to spare.
Cont.