Classes/Animist
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Description
Animists come from the Sylvan mages of hybrasil. While other Hibernian classes seek to protect nature, by killing as many trees and woodland creatures are possible in the Hibernian countryside, the Animist seeks to become part of nature to use nature upon itself in their quest for slaughter. Animists have the capability to summon wisp pets, often referred to as "bombers", that attempt to quickly speed towards their target and explode on contact, or summon stationary mushrooms that cast various spells on enemies and friends. The Animist, along with the Theurgist, are the two Pet Spam classes in the game. Thanes and Valkyries also get a buff that can increase the to-hit count on a monster, but is not true Pet Spam.
Character Creation
The typical choice for an Animist is Sylvan. Nine out of every ten Animists are Sylvans, and 83% of statistics are made up on the spot. None the less, most Animists you see will be trees! (That rhymes!) The usual reason for picking a Sylvan is that they have slightly more Intelligence then the other two races, which means more power and a little more damage. Celts have slightly more Dexterity then Sylvans, meaning they'd cast slilghtly faster, but probably not noticably more so.
Typically if someone makes a Firbolg Animist its out of personal preference, as there's no real compelling reason to pick a Firbolg.
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Gameplay
The Animist is possibly the hardest class in Dark Age of Camelot to master. It is one of the most powerful casters in the game and up until Catacombs had the strongest Direct Damage spells too, and the ability to cast as many as 15 shrooms at a time. The animist is such a unique class and has so many oddities that are not seen in any other classes that it is worth it to explain them in detail here.
The Controlled Pet
There is one controlled pet in each of the Animist spec lines. Unlike turrets, you can tell the Controlled pet what to attack or whether or not to attack, however just like Turrets it is incapable of moving, you must recast it every single time you move camp. Luckily though, Controlled Pets do not cost too much Power. Controlled pets also have no set duration, they remain as long as you are alive and in that zone, like any other main pet.
The controlled pet is a valuable ally for the Animist. Each pet has a different ability that greatly effects how that Animist plays.
Bombers
Bombers are whisps that the Animist summons and launches upon their target, only to have them explode on contact. It is only appropriate that the Arboreal Animists's Direct Damage bombers they are named things like "Spirit of Wrath", "Spirit of Rage", "Spirit of Vengeance." You litterally are hurling little balls of hate at your enemy. Other animist spells, like the Pet Heal and Pet Based AE Health Regen in the Verdant Baseline, or the AE Bladeturn and Pet-Based PBAE spell in Verdant specline are also bombers.
However being summoned pets, that at least until they explode, they act in a way not too different from Theurgist Earth pets. That being that they have to use Pathing UI to run to their target and get to their target before exploding. There does appear to be a time out on this, after about a minute or two they will explode on their target, without actually having gotten to their target, if its close enough. In RvR it is entirely possible to outrun a bomber.
More obviously bombers being reliant on the Pet Pathing UI presents all sorts of issues in dungeons where saying that the Pathing was messed up would be an understatement. There are spots in dungeons, most notably Coruscating Mines where pets will walk up and down a path a couple times before they decide that they can move on. There are also spots in Darkness Falls where bombers seem to get "stuck" on an invisible wall for a couple seconds before moving on to their targets. All dungeons appear to have issues, and appear to have issues in greater quantities then outdoor areas, it is worth noting that on Gaheris there can be some odd pathing issues in the spaces where Towers are on the other servers.
For some odd reason the pet heal bombers seem more likely to get stuck then the Damage or Root bombers, however all of them can and do get stuck in the right place. It is best, especially in dungeons, that you test out your bomber's pathing to your pet with a Pet Heal or Bladeturn bomber before you begin pulling mobs to make sure that in a pinch that it won't get hung up on something.
Overall it is best to think of your bombers as "time-delay nukes." There will always be at least a split second delay between when you finish casting the bomber and when it actually goes off. This lets you stack bombers rather nicely, where other casters may only be able to get off 3 nukes before the monster gets to them, an Animist can get off four.
One other curiosity about how Animist bombers work is that the buffing bombers (Bladeturn, Absorb Buff, etc) will not go off if the target already has the effect. Meaning that it is possible to stack multiple Bladeturn bombers on a person and one of the bombers will go off when the target looses its bladeturn.
Turrets, aka "Shrooms"
Turrets are probably the hardest thing for a new Animist to get a handle on. They can not be directly controlled, and by default will attack any enemy they see that is green or higher. Also since one of many Animist nerfs they don't have a lot of health points either, and have a tendency either to die, or to expire when their two minute duration is up, at inconvenient times. When this happens all Aggression that the turret had originally had has been passed on to the caster, and typically it is difficult for other turrets, or the controlled pet, to gain Aggression from the Animist.
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Suggested Specializations
Note: At level 20 I highly recommend regardless what your main spec is you get 7 spec in Verdant for the first AE Bladeturn spell.
50 Arboreal/20 Verdant Highest Damage AE and Single Target DD Bombers, a couple AE BT spells, a pet capable of tanking fairly well.
50 Verdant/20 Arboreal Pet-Based PBAER. You aren't capable of doing much damage without having a pet placed though. Loads of utility spells and buffs.
