Shattered Kingdoms

This forum is for player-authored guides to creating a specific type of character build. This forum will only permit fully-featured guides written in a way to inform new-players, not simply lists of cheat information.

Character guides posted are suggested to follow this general format:

• Build Name
  
  • Something catchy to separate it from others of the same class.
• Build Overview
  
  • Describe the goal this build is designed to achieve.
• Build Pros
  
  • Convince people why this is a worthwhile build to play.
• Build Cons
  
  • Be up front about what the build isn't good at doing.
• Character Creation:
  
  • Race/class/alignment - which to pick for each and why these recommended choices are important (or not important) to the build.
  • Must use the same terminology as in the game -- AKA names not numbers.
  • Should explain what stats are important to the build and why.
  • You can tell which stats to prioritize over which others in the hall of creation, but not list the exact questions themselves. You can say how many times to train each stat as you level up and which to prioritize first.
• Miscellaneous Choices
  
  • Religion, Tribunal, and Specialization considerations (if applicable)
  • Cabal Considerations - This will almost always be important to the build due to the abilities available. You can name the specific abilities that are relevant for the build and why, but should avoid unnecessary specifics about what they do.
• Leveling Up (for each status)
  
  • Give strategy for the best methods and places to train, suggestions for the best equipment generally available and why it's suitable for such a build.
  • When listing equipment, it is acceptable to show what the identify spell would reveal for that item prior to it being modified by enchantment spells.
  • What types of enchantments you want to request for your gear.
  • Advice on how to use newly acquired abilities of the class at that status.
• PK Advice (for each status)
  
  • Explain spells and skills are of most use at each status.
  • Explain alternate strategies based on the type of opponent (melee, caster, hybrid) if applicable.
• End Game
  
  • General Advice - Tactics that the build is particularly well suited for once everything is available. Be specific about unique strategies that are the signature of this build.
  • Combos - List other builds that work particularly well with this one and why.

Each section should be contained within its own post. Authors can stub out posts to reserve room for future content, but guides will not be approved until the majority of the sections have adequate content. Authors are encourage to edit guides as time progresses to keep up with changes to the game.

Other players can make posts to comment on a guide, but those posts are also subject to moderation.

Any and all content may be removed by the staff at any time for any reason.

General comment, based on reading the first published guide: This is a very in-depth guide, but it feels like it will be a lot more efficient to first publish a "general" guide and then each build can just focus on what is different for that particular build. If each guide is written as though it will be the player's first character it will get redundant very quickly.

I disagree. All that information helps reveal the values and position of the author, which is very important in forming conclusions about his or her suggestions on how to make a character.

I think the guides are directed more towards shortening the learning curve for newer players rather than giving existing players a new take on a class they haven't yet tried. Will some existing players try different approaches based on the guides? Sure, probably. Will there be some cross-over and similarities between two guides to builds in the same class or type? Probably. Will there be important differences between guides to builds in different classes or types? Again, probably. I certainly wouldn't suggest the same leveling path or technique for a merc that I did for a sprite shaman. I also wouldn't suggest as much front-row leveling for a shaman that was more caster- or support-oriented as I did for the U Can't Touch This build.

Ideally, I think that more information is probably almost always better, and the guides should be written from the perspective of "The person reading and using this has never played a character on SK before, and I want to prepare them as well as possible to play the game the way they'd like to." Existing players looking to try something a bit different can skip the parts they don't need, like how to level a barbarian through each status.

Aye, but at the same time people can find a guide that suits their learning style, or makes more sense to them also. I was going to post some other thoughts for these guides, but then some more ideas can be sorted out for either separating/combining things, or deciding if a wiki site for some of this is better, if (in some cases) it makes more sense to have things be collaborative.