Classes/Thane
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The Thane
- The Thane is a fictional Norse character that prays to the god Thor. Dark Age of Camelot trys to stay mythologically yet realisticly accurate in the game. Vikings and Berserkers did exsist.... just not like they do in the game. Mythologically maybe, give or take a few details. However the Thane may not be any recorded mythological charater Mythic does a fine job of writing up the classes backstory.
- "For time unknown, it has been heralded by Skalds and loremasters of Midgard that Thor will one day prove his might to all, and rise again to rain lightning and storms upon all who disbelieve and take arms against Midgard. Because of this prophecy, many Vikings choose to devote their lives to Thor, and in his service become Thanes. Thanes have their roots in the training of Vikings. As such, they can use most weapons, armors and can recieve as much training as their warrior counterparts. However, most Thanes choose the weapon of Thor, the hammer, to devote their training to, in reverence to their God. But the power of the Thane is in his gift of Stormcalling, given to him by Thor. Thanes can call down lightning bolts to damage their enemies. They can use the power of the restless thunder to augment their weapon with electric damage. But the fear of many in realm warfare is the Thane's damaging storms which span large areas and injure many enemies at once."
Taken from Classes of Camelot
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General
- The Thane is one of the more fun classes to play in the game. Certainly, next to the Reaver and Paladin, a very well developed hybrid. I have been playing this game since release and have found playing my Thane more than any other class. From the early beginnings at levels 6,7,8 and developing into the 30's and 40's it never got boring. The inter changing of damage between stormcalling spells then melee really mixed it up enough for me to enjoy. However, many Thanes have started to spring up due to the recent buff given to them. Because Midgard was the only realm without any petspam they gave the Thanes and Valkeryies a buff that raises the to-hit code. Because of this, they are significantly accepted into more groups making them now fun, soloable, and very groupable. The following is a guide and basic info about the Thane and things that would be helpful to know and consider before rolling one.
- I hope you find the following information here helpful and that you use it to the best it can be used. Good luck, stay safe, and may Thor be with you ;)
- ~ Therker ~
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Races and point speccing
- The Thane like all classes has a primary, secondary, and tertiary stats; Strength(P), Piety(S), and Constitution(T). What this means is every time your Thane levels he/she will gain one point in strength every level, one point in piety every other level and one point in constitution every third level. So, for maximum effect you will generally want to choose a class that will/can easily work around these parameters. Strength is a very strong stat that always should have a top priority when working your points. Because strength contributes to the amount of damage your Thane will dish out, wether you go axe, hammer, or sword. Also the Thane does not attain ANY points in dexterity so it is wise to use a race who has naturally high dexterity OR a race were you can afford to spend points into dexterity.
- A really good race to choose for a Thane would be a Dwarf (but this is not to say the only one. ALL races that can be used to make a Thane can be good it is only a matter of where to put the points. I will discuss more of that in shorter detail later.) I say Dwarf because they have everything we need. Decent strength, high constitution and decent piety. Though their dexterity is lower that is ok. Because strength is the primary stat, every level will give you one point, so at 50 a Thane would have 105 strength with no bonuses at all. As well their constitution is naturally high with 80 points and since every third level grants you a point your constitution at 50 would be 95 with no bonuses at all. So, how to spend the points?
- Strength = 60 (you can leave alone)
- Constitution = 80 (you can also leave alone)
- Dexterity = 65 (spend 20 points to raise it to 65 from it starting point of 50)
- Quickness = 55 (the extra 5 points would help)
- Intelligence = 50
- Piety = 65 (the last 5 points here)
- Empathy = 60 (left alone)
- Charisma = 60 (left alone)
- Now this is just one perspective. You could skip putting the 5 into Quickness and raise your piety to 70. Or, not put any into Piety and put it into Quickness. But why the back and forth between those two stats and no other? Well we described that Strength raises fairly nicely with no points and that your Constitution is fairly high as is and that what points it gets as you level would be adequate for great functionality of your Thane. But this is merely a guide. If you want a more defensive, or sturdier Thane then feel free to sacrifice points elsewhere and raise what you feel is more important to your ultimate goal; this guide here is for a well rounded and versatile Thane. But anyway, we are focusing right now on Quickness and Piety because of what they contribute to the class. Simply put, Quickness is self-explaintory. The higher your Quickness the more often you will swing. Piety, in the case of the Thane contributes to the damage output of the spell line Stormcalling. But before we get into specilization here is my personal ways of point speccing a Thane for all races. Again this is just my way and a guidline, it is always ulitmatley up to you...
| Race | STR | CON | DEX | QUI | CHA | EMP | INT | PIE |
| Dwarf | 60 | 80 | 50 | 50 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Frostalf | 55 | 55 | 55 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 75 |
| Norse | 70 | 70 | 50 | 50 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Troll | 100 | 70 | 35 | 35 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |
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Specializing
- This is the more trickier part of any class, how to spec. Because this can be made extremley long I will try to make this a short and to the point as I can.
- Being on Gaheris almost anything goes, however some classes specced certain ways are sought after and WILL be chosen in groups before others. What this might mean is on RvR servers a two-handed Thane is nothing too special to see. On Gaheris we have our handful but mostly all Thanes are s/s specced. (s/s meaning sword and shield but means any 1 handed weapon and shield) So for the following examples these all are focused around specs that involve the shield. Though for you guys and gals set on going two handed I will provide an example of a two handed spec.
- For a well rounded Thane spec, there are generally two that I prefer. Really what they boil down to is one may be more suitable for duels. But depending on how you spec with your realm abilities and gear what may be less duel worthy for someone and more group/soloable may turn out to be very duel worthy for you and group/soloable.
- Stormcalling - 48
- Parry - 15
- Weapon type - 39
- Shield - 42
The other:
- Stormcalling - 50
- Parry - 20
- Weapon type - 34
- Shield - 42
- These both give a nice well rounded balance of damage and defense.
- These next two specs are the 50/50/rest in specs. Meaning you specialize in two lines to 50 and the rest into something else. This is a very common spec and each has different results.
- Stormcalling - 50
- Shield - 50
- Weapon type - 28
- This is proven to be a very nice defensive Thane spec.
- Weapon type - 50
- Stormcalling - 50
- Shield - 28
- OR
- Parry - 28
- This is a lesser chosen spec, it is for a more offensive Thane. This spec however would make for an excellent duel character.
- Lastly, for the people who are looking for a two hander Thane then the following spec best suits that particular need.
- Stormcalling - 50
- Weapon type - 41
- Parry - 40
- Now the weapon type and parry can be put at different levels depending on how you might address a template. If you know your going to have a lot of bonuses to your weapon type then you may spend less points in your weapon type spec and higher the parry. Or if you plan on going and getting master of parrying 5 then you might lower parry and raise your weaponskill by putting more points into your weapon type.
- NOTE - Though this is my prefered spec. for a two handed Thane understand that it may not be the best for everyone. Find out what you think suits your playing style best! Do your homework on damage output of certain weapon, create a template, do whatever you feel you think is worth doing to take total advantage of this class.
ADDITION:
Many Thanes will take advantage of +Buff% gear from Trials of Atlantis to buy them a few more points. With a Stardrop (20% buff bonus gem), for example, you can stop at 48 Stormcalling, which means you have a yellow Str/Con buff, rather than the top-value red one. Before you cast your self-buff, simply switch your main gem for the Stardrop (or switch out other +Buff% items) and cast your buff. With the buff bonus, the value of your yellow Str/Con buff gives you the same value as the red Str/Con buff - cap at +93 str / +93 con.
- Stormcalling - 48
- Parry - 32
- Weapon type - 50
- Shield - 1 (untrained)
Midgard has the unique advantage that a weapon spec line allows the character to freely switch between the one-hand and two-hand version of that weapon. This allows a Midgard fighter to switch from a lower-damage one-hand weapon and shield to a high-damage two-hand weapon.
Quite a few thanes take advantage of this by speccing just enough shield to get Engage, which is useful against archers in RvR and archer mobs, as well as Guard, to help defend a groupmate. Another good spec would then be:
- Stormcalling - 48
- Parry - 30
- Weapon type - 50
- Shield - 11
Without using +Buff% gear, this modified hybrid spec would be:
- Stormcalling - 50
- Parry - 27
- Weapon type - 50
- Shield - 10
A note on weapons:
- Hammer: uses the least endurance, and is excellent if you solo or don't use a bot to provide endurance regen.
- Sword: includes the ever-popular high to-hit Draw Out style, which is your anytime taunt, useful for peeling mobs off your healers and casters. It also includes Ragnarok if you spec all the way to level 50, which is an excellent rear positional style, if someone else is holding aggro.
- Axe: - information requested here
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Realm Abilities
- The Thane has two unique realm abilities; the realm rank 5 ability Chain Lightning and Static Tempest.
- Chain Lightning is a cast that summons a bolt of lightning that will hit one target and jump to 5 additional ones within a 500 range. Per each target leap the damage is broken down into percentages; 90/80/70/60/50. Basically the intial target gets the most damage and as the bolt jumps its damage begins to diminsh. Here on Gaheris this is one of the realm abilites that's just kind of cool to have. It does not add any significant purpose to a group other than add to the hits table and if solo could actually just cause a major aggro problem for you.
- Static Tempest has a 600 second reuse timer and depending on how far you spec in it can go from 10-30 seconds long. What this does is it creates a 360 targetted radius storm that within it procs a 3 second unresistable stun every 5 seconds. Depending on how high you specialized in it determines how long it will last. The longer lasting it is the more the storm will procs because of longer time limit.
A third useful realm ability is Wrath of the Champions, a 150 unit PBAE spirit-based attack that is on a 10 minute recast timer. WoC 1 delves for 200 points; WoC 2 delves for 500; WoC3 delves for 750.
Thanes can also maximize their chance to do critical damage on melee and magical attacks with a combination of Mastery of Pain, Wild Power, and Dual Threat. Mastery of Pain 4 (adds to your chance to crit with melee attacks); Wild Power 4 (adds to your chance to crit with magic attacks); and Dual Threat 2 (adds to your chance to crit with either) is the combination that will get you as close to your crit cap as possible for the least number of realm skill points.
A thane in PvE would do well to also consider buying Mastery of Blocking if he's specc'd shield, or Mastery of Parry, if not. Remember, Augmented Dexterity is a huge help for thanes, both to overcome their terribly slow casting times and to help with their parry rates.
On Gaheris, we have the added luxury of enough free realm skill points that we can also afford Mystic Crystal Lore 2, a 60% power replenishment, usable every three minutes, only while out of combat.
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Master Levels
- Thanes get two paths of Master Levels to choose from; Battlemaster or Stormlord. Because this is to help the Gaheris community I won't discuss Battlemaster because it's uses on the Gaheris server is minimal to none. Stormlord is not that great either, but it does have more uses. However I will only list and briefly cover the levels of the Stormlord path that have some sort of bearing on Gaheris.
- ML1/ Dazzling Array (20s cast time, 600s duration, 300s recast, 350 radius) - Makes it harder for enemies to hit you within the storm.
- ML4/ Inebriating Fumes (20s cast time, 600s duration, 300s recast, 350 radius) - Though I have no 100% confirmation this works on mobs I am under the assumption it does. What this storm does is basically reduces the coordination of enemies within it. The effect fades rapidly when the enemy leaves the storm.
- ML7/ Choking Vapors (20s cast time, 600s duration, 300s recast, 350 radius) - A storm that physically weakens enemies while inside it. Any enemy that leaves the storm area, the effect fades rapidly.
- ML9/ Energy Tempest (20s cast time, 600s duration, 300s recast, 350 radius) - One of the more effective ML abilities in this path. Energy Tempest basically wracks any enemy inside it with essence damage.
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Summary
- So now that you have hopefully read or even skimmed through this you have a better idea of how to properly spec and set up your Thane and what to even expect from one. Like I said, in my experiance it is the most fun class to play. However I have had many questions asked about Thanes, most of which I can not remember but one that stands out the most is "What weapons should I use?" Thankfully on Gaheris what weapon you have is of the least importance of things, at least some more than other classes. For Thanes it generally is best to go 1 handed and shield like I discussed earlier. But as far as WHAT weapon to use that is entirely up to you. There are other guides and places of information that can in great detail talk about the ratio of damage output and endurance used in the different styles that Midgardians use. Laymans terms; sword is a mix of decent damage and endurance use. Axe is more damage and more endurance drain. Hammer has good damage, a lot of slows and stun styles, and is usually the in between axe and sword for endurance drain.
- Anyway, that's all I got. Again I hope you enjoy your Thane and makes the most out of what this great class offers.
