What skills/build are you guys using, and how is it working out?

I have two main builds Archer/Psych and Pig/Psych both work very well at top level. I have played many different skills combinations up to current top level with max enchanted gear.
I strongly suggest that new players should not play any of the animal forms until they have a good grasp of the game, it severely limits the NPCs they can interact with and greatly impedes acquisition of skills, money and storage.

My view on the current skills follows:

Animal Handling
Currently broken; your pet at high level is well nigh useless or worse than useless as it can aggro stuff you do not want in a fight. Needs a major overhaul.

Archery
Probably the strongest DPS skill in the game, huge damage potential both single target and AOE, plus it's ranged! The down side is you will be making arrows continually and you have to carry several different arrow types in your inventory; not to much of an issue for higher levels but very expensive and somewhat limiting at lower levels. Monsters that reflect damage can be deadly for archers. I suggest adding more monsters in future that are resistant to impaling damage.

Bard
Good DPS, good buffs both for party and excellent single player buffs, some healing. Requires poetry appreciation to level. The biggest issues are that you have to stand still to generate tunes and the best buffs are very short term. I would suggest the removal of the stationary tune generation and an increase in duration of the best single target buffs.

Bat
A skill i have not played. From what I have observed it is reasonably balanced in DPS and it does give you flying without being a druid.

Battle Chemistry
A nice mix of control, damage and healing along with some of the best speed buffs in the game. Some of the best armour buffs in game. No changes needed.

Cow
The best tank build you can get along with the highest speed of any character. Cow can generate huge amounts of aggro and take a lot of damage at the same time as generating reasonable DPS.

Deer
An all rounder, good speed and reasonable DPS you will also be able to jump higher than any other character class. I would suggest a mild buff to damage.

Druid
Some excellent debuffs, a very good nuke and some good healing skills. It also allows you to turn in and out of deer and bird forms at will. Many people take druid solely for the ability to get bird forms and fly at level 50 which makes surveying in Kur much easier. No changes needed.

Fire
Good AOE ranged damage, slightly subpar DPS, over the top aggro generation, somewhat power hungry. Rather like the poor mans' archery and by comparison it loses in every way. It's playable but the damage needs to be buffed and the aggro generation reduced.

Hammer
Good DPS with very good stuns. No changes needed.

Ice
Average DPS and excellent crowd control along with some methods to mitigate damage taken. No changes needed.

Knife
Although i have this a top level i have never really used it. The damage output appears to be a bit low.

Lycanthropy
Excellent DPS, possibly overpowered in a pack, huge armour available through crafted metal armour, this advantage will be reduced when crafting of metal armour for other classes comes in. Note that for three days each month you must be a wolf and you cannot get out of this, if you like playing melee DPS this is not a great detriment.

Mentalism
Very good party buffs and good healing sub par DPS. No changes needed.

Necromancy
As broken as animal handling; basically your pets do not do enough damage and are taken out in one hit by higher level monsters if they manage to generate enough aggro to even be hit. Needs a major overhaul.

Pig
Excellent party buffs, excellent crowd control, very good healing, sub par DPS. Probably the best party support class in the game. No changes needed.

Psychology
Very good healing, an excellent nuke, some individual control (single mez and single fear). No changes needed.

Rabbit
I have not played this nor have i seen a fully kitted out end game build. Damage appears to be sub par, good speed and good pulling abilities but I cannot comment further.

Shield
Great stun and the best early game speed buff you can get but damage is low and other support skills are better. Needs a buff on it's armour regeneration skills to make it viable.

Spider
Another skill I have not really played, DPS appears to be good but i have not enough experience to comment further.

Staff
Excellent damage mitigation, a stun and average DPS. Often used by archers to counteract reflect monsters. No changes needed.

Sword
Excellent single target DPS. No changes needed.

Unarmed
Good DPS and good stuns, can be excellent if you are prepared to lose a chunk of your armour to double your DPS. No changes needed.

@OP

Since you decided to switch to Hammer+AH, please do report back how it went.
I've been desperately trying to make @Citan aware of the abysmal damage the skill does and all the wacky little things that make it hard to play and every voice to support me in my quest is greatly appreciated ;)

Enthusiasm and Happiness are, as far as I can tell, entirely irrelevant, as they do nothing.
Get armor as high as possible, as there's a mod for chests that buffs the absorption, so armor > HP when gearing.
Ignore armor is important, but more so dmg% and dmg-number, because you can strip armor with player skills more easily.

I didn't switch yet, wanted to get sword and unarmed to 75.

I'll probably start my AH/Hammer build today and will give feedback/updates as I level.

I already saved up a generic level 60 yellow hammer and have like 600 armor, but i think i may use level specific armor to get a better feel for how the class operates at low levels, and not be so OP

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kazeandi

Enthusiasm and Happiness are, as far as I can tell, entirely irrelevant, as they do nothing.
Get armor as high as possible, as there's a mod for chests that buffs the absorption, so armor > HP when gearing.
Ignore armor is important, but more so dmg% and dmg-number, because you can strip armor with player skills more easily.

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This here meant the pet :) Looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/ZXo606k.jpg

This one has HP, because I was fighting enemies who penetrate armor, like bears, and my lycan/ah build is all about damage (fails spectacularly at it as far as pet dmg goes, personal damage is all right, but it can't be helped right now - until Citan is finally convinced), but the best you can get is "of plated pets" on boots and offhand items.

Also, get "pet gets x% more XP" mods on helmet and mainhand, if possible. Dragging a pet 10 lvls below you around is painful.

If you got any questions regarding anything, feel free to ask, I'll help you out as good as I can. I play everything with AH.

I use Lycan/Pysch and Bat/Ment. Love them both but yes they are animals lol. Before I went to animal I used Archery/Sword, then Archery/druid, the Archery/pysch. Archery is a solid skill. I loved it except for the fletching. But if you want to be different do not choose archery... there are way too many on the game now and you would just be a common Archer then :P lol

I started the game using sword/psych back when and am still using it today. Damage is good, heals, mez, speed...covers just about everything for me, except stun. Thankfully I don't have to chop through too many ghosty mobs.

I do have all of the other combat skills maxed, and while some of them I found interesting (bard, unarmed, arch, hammer, etc.) none of them grabbed me to the point of forsaking my sword/psych. I do however use BC for travel and there's no way to avoid the monthly 3 day visit from aunt lobo. I may one day make myself a more unique combo, but as long as this one gets the job done, I doubt it will be any time soon.

On my main character I mostly use ment/bc. I know that doesn't make sense its basically two support skills but I enjoy it for some reason lol. I also have fire/ice and druid but I end up going back to ment/bc. The golem has some of the same issues as the other pets. I notice it gets stuck a lot. I have him set up to heal and provide power but a lot of the time he is just a strange little audience member watching the fight. When he is working correctly its a great benefit and I would like to try more attack skills with the golem eventually. I am excited to see where the pets go in the future. I normally always play pets given the chance but I couldn't stay with ah or necro for the reasons listed above.

My second character is lycan/psych I enjoy that build a lot also. I will get around to trying more of the skills as well. I enjoyed reading this thread a lot of good information on all of the skills :)

I've been sword/shield since I began, and am now 62/63.

Sword: Strong 1v1 dps with super handy rage reduction and limited aoe with mods. Additionally, the mods are varied and almost always useful, allowing for some welcome flexibility in play style. Sword is exactly what it aims to, and should, be.

Shield: Definitely not bad, but underwhelming, even as a support skill. At this point, I only use it for stunning and running, which are honestly its only strong suits even with mods. It would be nice if it had damage reduction skills, had better armor recovery, or had better support skills. In short, as it stands I could only recommend shield for a travel skill or a stun skill when facing ghosts.

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Druid, psychology and unarmed seem the most popular combos. I used it with druid mostly, it's a solid tank (imo boring but that's just my opinion, i didn't enjoy playing cow cause I'm not into playing tanks).