NC the confused middle child of the Transcended

[Mousus6]

People definitely have fun with the concept and class fantasy but actually mechanically most of the time spells don't manage to make up for quite how unfocussed and weak lots of their skills actually are. Doing a direct comparison to the 2 other Myrm exits and Doomhowler, HC is just too odd to get my head around without actually having played it (looks like I would need to have done lots of buying back to experiment with what they can do as they do look just plain weird). NC skills are generally much higher maintenance, much more complicated for slightly lesser benefits. When I'm counting CP for things I'm not including the cost of spellcraft or parent skills that do something else useful since they have broadly applicable utility.

Defensively:
Passive Innate armours (30cp)

• NC, ES, DH all pretty on par. Rev stands out as not having one though can get 2 points of universal soak from revelation

Active Armours

• Everyone can do potion stacking to get +4+3+2=9 Omnisoak from potions that they can't brew, NC or DH could add 2 to that from Mystic Shield but 9 from potions + the innate armour is enough for virtually all pets and enchanted gear/pristine heavy armour can give higher soaks to each individual element than their innate armours

Immunities

• DH: Nothing

• Rev: Death always, nothing else

• ES: 60cp for on demand immunity to anything but impact/holy/unholy lasting 5 ticks which only ends if you pick a different on. Needs you to be active to do anything

• NC: 60cp for reactive immunity to anything. This one largely wins live fights because the NC can definitely click faster than someone doing element alternation and blunts judgemaster heavy angelic petwalls. As soon as you start mixing other pets in the adaptation gets out of synch and starts doing very little. Trolls single element elementalists though.

Auras

• Rev: 5 death only via revelation

• ES: 30cp baseline for 5 damage always on impact aura improvable by unarmed skills

• NC/DH: Spell, 20 cp for 6 damage aura, casting from gem needs reactivating for 1ap/mp every 10-20 ticks

• NC: 60 cp miss only aura that requires you not to fight (or be using demonic boons whilst fighting demons). Maintaining perfect 0 MO it's 12 retaliation on miss none on hit vs an accurate pet (75%) with a max dodge it's equivalent to a 7.56 damage always on aura

Dodge (Active)

• NC: 150CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Super Reflexes(5,5), Tattoo of Equilibrium (12,12), Blur(5,10), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12). 44% vs melee, 49% vs ranged usin

• ES: 230CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Super Reflexes(5,5), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12), Way of Water (10,10), Master of Reflex (10,10), Master of Flow (33 phase). 47% vs melee and ranged with 33% phasing

• Rev: 200CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Super Reflexes(5,5), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12), Strength of Darkness (5,5), Bat Animus (15,15), Bat Swarm (3,3), Out of Phase (15% phase). 50% vs melee and ranged, whilst there could be 15% phasing it's mutually exclusive with an aura

• DH: 130CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Unsettling Aura(5,5), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12), Phasing (5,5) (30 phase), Blur(5,10). 37% vs melee, 42% vs ranged with 30% phasing though the phasing is expensive and tick based which would be hard to maintain with blur.

Dodge (Passive)

• NC: 140CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Super Reflexes(5,5), Tattoo of Equilibrium (12,12 or 0,0), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12). 33% if they finished with right morality, 27% if they didn't

• ES: 170CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Super Reflexes(5,5), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12), Way of Water (10,10), Master of Reflex (10,10). 47% vs melee and ranged

• Rev: 110CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Super Reflexes(5,5), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12), Daywalker (0,0), Out of Phase (15% phase). 27% vs melee and ranged, whilst there could be 15% phasing it's mutually exclusive with an aura

• DH: 120CP, Dodge (5,0), Evasion(0,5), Advanced Dodge(5,5), Pristine heavy dodge armour(12,12), Phasing (5,5). 27% vs melee and ranged.

Sustain

• All have healing potions as the best option per AP if someone else is providing

• ES: probably heals 3hp per tick picking up defensive mortal/myrm skills

• NC: 30cp to heal 1hp per tick

• Rev: 10hp per night tick, heal and mp restore on attack

• DH: Blood taste? this one needs more of a deep dive than I can do

ES is far and away the best tank, but we knew that already, both passively and actively they are tougher, dodgier and soakier than anyone else we've looked at. Given that they are the only tank in the comparison that should clearly be true and if it wasn't something would be deeply wrong. What is then somewhat upsetting is that if I was being prepared with one of the other classes I think I might prefer trying to tank with the Rev over the DH or NC as a genuinely passive aura + significantly more dodge makes them quite a bit tankier and immunity to some of the Lich pets probably does more than adaption against a mixed pet wall. None of the non-ES defences are enough to be a speedbump on raid defence when not present.

Damage
Stronghold Ward breaking 1000 points

• Bow NC: Perfectly prepared MO wise takes 32AP 43mp and 2 quivers or 37AP 15MP and 3 quivers vs non-neutral ward. 540CP offensive skills

• Punch ES: Using Strength Potions takes 52AP 2 potions or 43AP 2 potions and 58MP vs non-neutral ward. Not using Way of Urgency. 410CP offensive skills

• Wolf Fangs Rev: Using Strength Potions takes 36AP 45MP with Hasheen Vengeance, 36AP 10MP with Champion of Attunement (0 MO), 39AP 10MP with Bloodlust, 43AP 10MP with a non-offensive revelation, not using blood frenzy. 500CP offensive skills

• Toothy DH: Using Unholy Affinity Potions takes 29AP 0MP vs non-evil ward, not even using stygian fury 100CP offensive skills

I thought this might be the one place where NC managed to look good as it is the only sensible context where they can both fully take advantage of Dragon's Rage and keep their MO at 0 (weird boon/pact use aside). They are very slightly better than a wolf Rev at ward busting but there really isn't a lot in it. ES isn't that far behind for the solo raiding idea since whilst they take an extra 20 AP to bust the ward they could in fact come in with an extra 10 AP banked compared to the other myrm exits. DH then blows them all out of the water as destructive blow is stupidly good. Whilst the other 3 were using almost their full builds to achieve this DH has lots left over to do their other stuff.

All of them are quite capable of general killing and the dive would probably get much to deep when it's already too deep to go into how killy they actually are.

Movement

• ES, Bat Rev, DH are basically identical. Semi-flight 1AP 3/5MP to activate don't need to reactivate after going inside

• Wolf Rev misses out on semi-flight but is similar, dust rev has to use bat

• NC is ultra mobile but doesn't see anything along the way 0.5mp per tile travelled is good for getting to a target but useless for hunting

Utility

• ES falls down here, there's the faction accuracy buff and that's it.

• NC has spell access and bad pets. Nothing else utility other than high MP regen to recharge spell gems.

• Rev has EoD, the single best hunting skill in the game and can get constant see invisible. Pets of varied quality and some interesting stuff in the revelations which could allow them the option of using utility gems if someone is willing to charge them.

• DH I don't know very well, awesome AoE and some odd niche things.

The main thing that is a bit upsetting looking through this is that I'd probably rather use a Rev to tank over a NC if forced and given a factions backing for preparation. Think the only context in which a NC looks good is a live fight where Revs are a very close second given the amount of self healing they have.