Classes for Shalore

[Lyoncet]

I've been browsing the classes/races, and while I can see good cases for a lot of combinations (Cornac Cursed for immediate Rampage, Thalore X because they're just that good), I'm having a hard time seeing applications for Shalore. I've seen people in-game chatting about how good they are, but other than abusing Timeless with the shield category, I'm having a hard time coming up with good uses for them. Between the XP penalty, the bad HP growth, and the spell-category racials (hence hostile Ziguranth), there's just almost always something that makes me say, "Yeah, but I'd rather play as an X instead."

Am I just missing something? Granted I still have maybe 7-8 classes locked, but apart from builds specifically meant to break Timeless I just struggle to see the value.

On a related note, what are a few good talents to use with Timeless? I don't know the game super well so the only few talents I can think of off the top of my head are the extra blocking combo and maybe combining it with Aegis talents.

[donkatsu]

Every class can use Timeless to extend...

-Heroism infusions
-Regeneration infusions
-Wild infusions
-Grace of the Eternals
-Prodigies (Irresistible Sun, Temporal Form, Draconic Will, Hidden Resources)

Along with the countless, powerful class-specific timed effects like...

-Unstoppable
-Sacrifice
-Providence
-Suncloak
-Totality
-Vimsense
-Destroyer
-Invigorate
-Damage Smearing
-the list goes on and on and on and on

And then of course, it cures every type of detrimental effect and reduces the cooldown of every single talent in the entire game by 5. That's just crazy.

Let's see what Shalore have going against them.

-XP penalty. Barely matters. You can always hit the level cap before you beat the game, and dungeons scale to your level.
-HP growth. Almost doesn't matter at all. Compared to Thalore it's a difference of what, barely 200 HP? When your total HP pool with heroism (which you can extend with Timeless) is in the 2000s?
-Hostile Zigur. Just walk around them. It's not like they chase you like orc patrols. In fact, walk INTO them and collect free loot and XP, if you're worried about XP (which you shouldn't be).

[Fhtagn]

Add to that 10% Crit and 20% Crit Multiplier as well as the one point wonder that is Grace of the Eternals for anyone using Magic or Dexterity, and you have yourself one hell of a strong race. For me, it's the other way round, really:
I find it hard not to think of Shalore first unless I intend to play antimagic.
As for classes, any class that needs Dexterity or Magic primarily and/or relies on critical hits works well.
Apart from OP combinations based on extending Draconic Will and/or Unstoppable, Shalore also make great Archers, Rogues, Anorithils and Corruptors, to name just a few.

[Mankeli]

Damage Smearing

Are you sure this can be extented via Timeless? I thought it was not possible because it was marked as effect "other" or something. You can extend invigorate, of course, which let's you cast damage smearing more often.

Doesn't matter much though. Shalore may be the best race for all classes except Oozemancer or at least very close to being best. Using Timeless takes a while to get used to but shalore really start to shine in the midgame and onwards.

[donkatsu]

Oh you're right, Smearing is type: other.

[Lyoncet]

Very good points. I'd missed the stat/talent point scaling of some of those racials. Thanks.

One point of clarification: I've been making the assumption that Shalore racials turning Ziguranth patrols hostile would also mean Zigur itself was inaccessible/hostile – is that not the case? One of the things that made me hesitant to go Shalore with some classes was that I wanted to train Psiblades and thought I wouldn't be able to a) train them at Zigur and b) get them from betraying escorts.

[HousePet]

Zigur visibility is based on magical resource bars, which the racial spells do not give.

[jaumito]

One of the things that made me hesitant to go Shalore with some classes was that I wanted to train Psiblades and thought I wouldn't be able to a) train them at Zigur and b) get them from betraying escorts.

Just don't invest in your racials (or any magic skill) too soon, and you can betray escorts, visit Zigur and get Psiblades just like any other class.

[Lyoncet]

This is excellent news.

[Candesce]

Just don't invest in your racials (or any magic skill) too soon, and you can betray escorts, visit Zigur and get Psiblades just like any other class.

Don't invest your racials too soon, and replace all your runes before you run into the escorts. (Doesn't matter for Zigur and psiblades.)

Don't forget that Shaloren start with two of those.

[Mankeli]

One of the things that made me hesitant to go Shalore with some classes was that I wanted to train Psiblades and thought I wouldn't be able to a) train them at Zigur and b) get them from betraying escorts.

Just don't invest in your racials (or any magic skill) too soon, and you can betray escorts, visit Zigur and get Psiblades just like any other class.

You can't betray escorts if you have runes in your inscription slots. Shalore start with runes. You can get rid of them, of course.

[Atarlost]

Even if you're not good at taking advantage of timeless, Shalorans are better at any non-antimagic critspam build.

Apart from the obvious critspam classes like Anorthils and Arcane Blades there are a number of common trees that promote such builds. Shield Offense has a couple crit producers that it relies on to make up for poor one handed damage. Combat techniques has a fairly direct crit promoter. Dirty fighting has backstab, which turns melee crits into stuns and stuns into crits. Any of these crit generators can be fed into Eye of the Tiger to good benefit in addition to the damage.

Crit builds generally get better returns on excess melee accuracy than builds that ignore crits. Swords give 2.5 crit mult while maces give 1% damage, which means that for any crit chance over 20% you're better off converting excess accuracy into crit mult and therefore benefit even more from pushing up your crit chance. Any melee class is that isn't hitting 100% crits anyways will be well served by the Shaloran's extra crits and the classes that are are well served by the extra multiplier.

Then there are all the other things that can crit. It's not clear in game what non-damage spells crit, but some can crit for duration or heal or shield magnitude. When you reach 100% crit rate you can rely on those longer durations and bigger heals and shields and Shalorans will hit that threshold first, and in some cases be the only race that can do so without lucky item finds.