INTRODUCTION

June of 2023.
I've made this guide almost 9 years ago, and forgotten all about it for the last 4. I had tried to keep it updated through Legacy's progress, and then get it up to speed with Hiram gear and AA Unchained.
Luckily, real life happened and I abandoned it. In a few weeks from now, a new private server for AA is launching, Archeage Classic. It'll be based on the 2.0 and 3.0 patches of the game, with updates stopping on 3.0 and not continuing further. As I was getting my old crew together to give this game a proper last hoorah on the patch we loved and played the most, reminisce of all the fun we had back then and all that stuff old people do, I remembered this guide existed. Sad to see this website/project being abandoned and outdated, it came really handy back in the day, but this came in clutch now, that we're theorycrafting our builds. And what's better than coming across my old build from back in the day that was demolishing everyone I came across!

I went ahead and updated a few things, made it a bit more detailed, and hopping a bit easier to understand and folow. There are a few outdated things in here, but it's nothing important or gamechanging, I do not want to remove them just for nostalgia sake.

The basic gist of this guide will work on EVERY version of Archeage, Legacy, Unchained and all private servers. Yes, gear recommendation is outdated, and some skills have been replaced, but it's still the exact same class, same path to take, same stats to chase, same gamestyle and rotations/combos.
If anyone is still reading this, search up Archeage Classic. I'm not affiliated with them, and I gain nothing from promoting it, but I'd love to see you all there and enjoy the best version of Archeage once more!


This guide was made some years back with the Spellsinger build I used then. I still use it to the day with some tweaks on Legacy, and so far it's been working great on Unchained's PTS. Guide will be updated fully and properly once Unchained releases so I can be 100% sure of the skills/armor/weapons etc that will be best used with it.
Ignore all the passives I chosen, this website is a bit out of date and doesn't automatically unlock them like the game does for a while now. I just randomly chose some. Other than that, 90% of the skills are up-to-date.

Feel free to leave a comment if you got any questions, or hit me up on twitter @IcyZinHD or youtube at www.youtube.com/icyzinhd

Spellsinger is a very fluid class that can easily(but not the easiest) adapt to any fight. Songcraft provides you with the Crit buffs you need to do BIG PEEPEE damage. Sorcery provides that damage, and Shadowplay the stealth and movement skill to either escape or open up a fight on your own terms. You can hide in stealth and jump an enemy raid once their healers are not in range, wipe half of them, and run away while the rest realize what's up. Or maybe you're on your little hauler with your Sanddeep cheese and a red decided he'll take it from ya. You can make him regret it with the press of 3 buttons. The main negative thing I can mention about the class, is the fact that you are paper. And also that once you terrorize your opponents enough, you WILL make a name for yourself and you WILL find yourself marked in their raids as a top target to focus on as they'll need you dead quickly before you wipe them

Skill Rotation Suggestions

There's no real rotation in this build, and anyone saying otherwise is either a whale that will oneshot you with a kick, or someone only winning duels in Marianople vs alts.
You're paper with this build, you got no escape skill, no stun breaks, no real movement, no defensive buffs, nothing. If you're alive in the end of a fight it's cause you 1-shotted everyone, or backdropped/glided into stealth after you used your main skills and noone died.

Now, into the tips of how to use it, a very basic guideline to help you get a feel for it.


Your main big dick damage comes from and in some cases,. You wanna cast quick and cast hard, so you'll always got up and running, alonside your .
In this build I'm using but that's the main skillpoint I'm switching around based on my needs. It's a nice quick buff, it lasts for a fair few seconds, so you can cast it and then start DPSing. If i change it around, i'll go for if I'm needed to aoe cc in a raid, or more commonly off of my mount or one mate, as the last bit of it crits hard and can oneshot you back to full hp even if you're not a healer.
& can be used whenever you feel they're needed. Usually you wanna save to combo with and for an almost instant huge burst of damage, followed by to finish them off if they're still alive.

With that said, what do the rest of your skill do?
is pretty sweet against melees or if you're insane like me and frontline way too hard as a mage, it freezes whoever walks on it, so it can be used defensively to keep pesky melees away, or aggressively to stun your target. It also allows for instacasting of which does an ok amount of damage and slows your target, but should weight the situation and not waste it on this as you may need it a few seconds later to defend.

will be your opener in raid fights and situations that you can go unspotted for a few seconds, it does tons of dps and it'll be the only time you'll get a break to stop and cast for so long, plus on a target that won't simply see you and casually walk away from it. It might feel a waste of a skillpoint in some cases, so you could switch to or , for a stun on freezing targets off your /, a bit of a damage boost if you can stand still in it for a few seconds, and a decent but usually useless damaging and slowing skill, described in order.

Lastly, you got your and , which will be your bread and butter. You always cast first, and afterwards . Chain is an AOE skill that will damage 5 others around your target, and Arc will combo off of it and do almost 50% more damage on them. These 2 skills will be your main combo/rotation to quickly kill someone. If you didn't get the chance to open with , then you should start with and if they're in range or while closing the gap to get in range to use . also applies the debuff needed for so it works out pretty great, closing the gap while doing some good damage, to get in range to use your big skill.

So now you see why there's no real rotation for a Spellsinger. You basically got 3,maaaaaybe 4 combos, all working perfectly together, in no real order. You as the player must judge every situation accordingly and adapt to whatever you need to do, and you'll learn through trial and error. In some situations your only way to survive will be to run and go back in with a better opener, in others your only chance will be dependent on RNG as you'll pray for a crit cause otherwise you lose.

Gear

SpellSinger is a class better played with high DPS, therefore you should go for max Int gear.

With that said, you'll be paper. The class is focused on high dps and quick bursting, so you'll need a good weapon.

I gave T4 Obsidian Katana and T4 Obs Dagger a try, and while I loved the cast time and attack speed, I gotta say, nothing compares to a staff just for its pure damage output.
Keep in mind, an Obs Katana does make it easier to switch around different classes, as you can pop a shield for Daggerspell, or if you decide to fully switch to a mage tank, or even another class completely.
On the other side, a staff kind of locks you into two classes, Enigmatist or Spellsinger. In my opinion, if you're certain you want to play a HUGE DAMAGE mage class, invest everything you got into a good staff.


IF YOU ARE FROM LEGACY OR UNCHAINED, SUBSTITUE OBSIDIAN WITH HIRAM AND AYANAD WITH ERENOR


So, for an average player, it'll be easy to be a viable SpellSinger. Both Obsidian and Delphinad/Ayanad armor will be strong, given you regrade,gem and upgrade them properly.
Last time this patch was live, Ayanad was much more expensive than Obsidian, but don't worry if you can only afford Obsidian, you'll still be competitive.

An average summary:

Armor: (at least Divine T4) Obsidian, or Divine+ Delphinad/Ayanad Wave .

Weapon: (at least Epic T4) Staff, personally recommend an Epic+ Ayanad Wave staff, better but pricier than Obsidian

Bow: Delph/Ayanad Wave bow gemmed with Cast Time or MagDef penetration

Instrument: Giving the Obsidian Flute a try as it gives PhysDef, something I desperately need as a clothie. UPDATE Tried it, loved it, recommend it!

Gemming, is simple. big phat honor gems on Shirt and Pants. Go for phys def on head, phys def on feet. Everything PhysDef. IGNORE THIS. IT'LL BE UPDATED ONCE CLASSIC SERVER IS LIVE




Accessories : Delphinad/Ayanad Wave Earrings/Neck and Delp/Ayanad Life/Wave rings based on the extra stats alone

Your worst enemy

Pointy things.


Any pointy thing is your enemy.

Especially pointy things with the ability to break off your stun/fear, and got high mobility.

By focusing on Int in armor, you'll have low HP. By using cloth, you'll have low PhysDef, and while you could get big PhysDef gems in your armor, and get an Epic buff or something, pointy things will hurt.

That's why you should not hug your enemy! By having up before any fight, you can run and cast , plus freeze whoever gets on them. Can also use & , the more hurt they are, the less they'll want to chase you.

What other classes work well with it?

This is a topic I don't see many people talking about much, and IMO it's extremely important. For example, you don't want to play a rotation-based daggerspell if your mate is gonna be endlessly Endless Arrowing your perfectly placed bubble and sleep.


Luckily, Spellsinger combos well with everything, mostly Tanks/CC classes, and less with Healers.


Talking purely for small scale combat, Duos up to full 5man party tops. In a raid scenario you don't care, you just go pew pew and your enemies go boom while your raid keeps em at bay.

I played with pocket healers for the best part of 8 years, some of them being top of the top, keeping me alive in situations that I shouldn't be, and ending up making me tank enemies that would otherwise melt me. So no, I don't dislike healers, but as Spellsingers we're not meant to take any damage, zero, nada. We can't sustain it, and a healer is virtually wasting their time and pots on us. Our "heals" are totally depending on us, in the form of proper positioning, knowing when to disengage, how hard to push etc etc. If you got a healer friend, do not ask them to change classes obviously, and keep them close anyways as they are rare, but do be prepared to not get your best potential.

If we're talking bout duos, you're probably better off with a tripping-happy melee dps/an actual tank/CCer, keeping aggro of the enemy while you work your magic,no pun intended. They won't have to do much work anyways, they only need to keep em off of you for mere seconds while you kill them.

Any melee DPS will work well with Spellsinger, as the majority of your enemies will not really think of targeting you while they have someone chasing them to stab them. Especially if your melee buddy is good at his class and pulls some well timed trips to keep the enemy off of you if they choose to attack you.

As I said, my main setup was either a Duo or a Trio, with Healer/melee or Healer and melee. Both worked amazingly, had tons of fun playing the class, but also playing with those people as our classes combined well, not only our personalities.


You might have noticed I didn't mention Archers anywhere. That's cause it'll either be THE BEST combination or the absolute dogshit garbage worse. You're both classes that must keep distance from the enemy, must never be touched, always running, always looking to lose aggro and have your enemy target someone else. While I had tons of fun teaming up with top archers, wiping raids before they manage to catch up to us, keeping each other safe, I would not recommend going for a Duo like that. You're better off changing to another mage class like a daggerspell if your mate is an archer, as it's easier and more viable for you to change instead of them.



Overall, play with whoever you want, it won't be impossible to make the class viable. If you're planning to start fresh, or your friends are considering a class to play, you could try and get em to play once of the classes working best with you. But either way, you'll have fun

Other things

So by this point I've mentioned pretty much everything there is to mention for the Spellsinger. Everything else is up to you to discover. This is not some shitty roleplay quest, it's the only way to describe the class. You can pull some amazing moves and plays with this class, on a whim, by combining your amazing toolset.
You can decide to specc into as a gap closer, to catch opponents trying to run away from you, dismount them or knock them of their glider, or if you find yourself in the middle of an enemy raid with no easy way out you can a random target in their backline, flip your character around and straight into , escaping them.
You can start an cast, get interrupted, tripped, critted and with 5% HP hit and and come out unscathed and with extra honor on top.
You can CC whole raids with and whip out a with on the end, CCing them even more and getting kills.
You got the freedom of not being locked in a "do rotation or die" situation like most other classes are, especially mages. And no matter how much effort I put in this guide, and how many times you read it along with 50 other guides, you'll never learn and enjoy this class until you practice and make it your own, until your fingers automatically read the situation and use whatever skill needs to be used.
Trust me, you'll have fun.

Closing words

Spellsinger is a class with ok mobility (enigmatist got more), high DPS and the ability to burst targets down in no time. While most of its DPS depends on combos and crits, it's really easy to get used to it.
It can mainly be played as a glass cannon class. If you sacrifice dps to get more survivability you defeat the whole purpose of the class and you're better off playing Daggerspell.
This guide was made a long time ago, yet still works.

If you found this guide usefull, please rate it positevly! Feel free to leave a comment if you got any questions, or hit my up on twitter @IcyZinHD or youtube at www.youtube.com/icyzinhd

Trion cucked it in 4.5 , currently trying to find out how to play it with the new combos and skills, not sure if I'll stick to it, find another magic class or just switch to archery as it seems to be the class Trion favors the most atm.

With Archeage Classic being launched soon, I revisited this build as I'll be putting it to good use again on the 2.0/3.0 patches, the era that it shined in the most! Keep an eye on this for more updates, and on my profile for more mage builds as I'll be also making a proper Daggerspell and Enigmatist guide