The Game

Classes & Skillsets

Every character picks three skillsets from ten trees. That choice defines a class. With 120 combinations possible, the realm has room for any archetype you can picture.

Tools: Skill Calculator  ·  Class Meta Tier List (S-D rankings)  ·  Power Builds (skill rotations + gear).

The Ten Combat Skillsets, by Role

Each tree has a primary role: Tank, Healer, or DPS. Click any skillset for full details, signature skills, and recommended pairings.

Tanks

1 skillset

Hold the boss. Mitigate. Hold threat. The reason your raid healer has time to breathe.

Defense

tank

Shield-and-board tanking, taunts, shield-throws.

tank shield melee

A wall in plate. Holds bosses, throws shields, refuses to fall over. The clearing-house for raid threat.

Open skill list →

Healers

2 skillsets

Keep the raid alive. Dedicated group-healing roles, not classes that happen to have a heal spell.

Songcraft

support / buff

Bard support. Buffs, debuffs, sustained party utility.

support buff utility music

A battlefield bard. Plays sustained songs (Discord, Quickstep) that pulse buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies for as long as the music holds.

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Vitalism

healer

Healing. The single dedicated healing tree.

healer support magic

A devoted healer. Mirror Light bounces between allies, Resurgence revives the fallen, Antithesis cleanses curses.

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DPS

7 skillsets

Damage. Burst, sustain, ranged, melee, magic, physical. Pick a flavor.

Battlerage

melee dps

Two-handed melee DPS. Charge in, hit hard, bleed everything.

melee dps two-handed

A frontline berserker who closes distance with a leap and unloads heavy two-handed combos. Survives by killing before it dies.

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Witchcraft

ranged cc

Crowd control, hexes, mobility denial.

ranged cc debuff magic

A hex-slinger who locks enemies in place, drains their will, and chains crowd-control through entire fights.

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Auramancy

utility / support

Mobility, dispels, defensive utility.

support mobility magic

A spellweaver of barriers and short-blink mobility. Less a damage tree than a survival multiplier for whatever you pair it with.

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Occultism

ranged dps

Death magic, summons, life-drain, curses.

ranged dps magic summons dot

Necromancer-flavored caster. Summons crows and wraiths, drains life through curses, and answers with Mana Stars and Hell Spear when the trash is dead.

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Archery

ranged dps

Ranged physical DPS. Crit-stacked, kite-friendly.

ranged dps physical bow

A bowline killer. Stutter-steps backward at exactly the speed an enemy charges and stacks Charged Bolts into Endless Arrows.

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Sorcery

ranged dps

Elemental magic. Flamebolt, lightning, frost, AoE.

ranged dps magic aoe elemental

Elemental caster. Charges a Flamebolt, chains Thunder and Lightning, drops Searing Rain on whatever survives. Scales with magic gear and burns down the field.

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Shadowplay

melee dps / stealth

Stealth, daggers, openers from invisibility.

melee dps stealth dagger utility

A knife from the dark. Stealths, opens with a stun, finishes before the target finishes its emote.

Strengths

Stealth opener gives massive burst windows. Mobility (Shadowstep). Counter Strike returns damage.

Weaknesses

Once visibility breaks, sustained DPS lags behind Battlerage. Reliant on the opener.

Pairs well with

Signature skills

  • Counter Strike Lv 1 0.1s cd

    Dodges an attack and strikes back at the attacker.

  • Rapid Strike Lv 1

    A swift, repeatable attack, dealing #{avg_damage}#{detail_melee_damage} Physical Damage to a single target. Marks the target with each hit, reducing their Skill Damage |cFFFF9C27-1%|r and Move Speed |cFFFF9C27-2%|r per stack. Inflicts Shaken each time it reaches 5 stacks, further

  • Use Well Lv 1

    Use the polluted well.

  • Overwhelm Lv 3 18.0s cd

    Triggers a leap toward an enemy that deals #{avg_damage}#{detail_melee_damage} Physical Damage and stacks |cFFFF9C271|r Bloodthirst upon landing. Also Stuns the enemy for #{buff_duration}. Can't be used while Snared.

  • Drop Back Lv 10 12.0s cd

    Triggers a backwards leap to escape a dangerous area or back away from an enemy. Eliminates the Cast Time for Flamebolt, Earthen Grip, and Sunder Earth for #{buff_duration}. Can't be used while Snared.

  • Venom Blades Lv 10 14.0s cd

    Throws venomous knives at all enemies within a #{buff_tooltip2} radius, dealing an initial #{avg_damage}#{detail_melee_damage} Physical Damage and inficting the Deadly Poison debuff. #{buff_tooltip}

  • Wallop Lv 15 12.0s cd

    Launches four attacks in quick succession dealing #{avg_damage}#{detail_melee_damage} Physical Damage. The first attack interrupts the target. Every successful attack decreases Physical Defense -|cFFFF9C27120|r. Grants Bloodthirst for each of the first three attacks, then the fou

  • Second Wallop Lv 15 3.0s cd

    Call Skill 1

Named Class Archetypes

Pick three skillsets, you've made a class. 122 of the 120 possible combinations have community names that every ArcheAge veteran knows. Bucketed strictly by primary role: a class is a Healer only if its job is keeping a raid alive, not because it has heal spells.

Tanks — 31 named builds

Skullknight (Raid Initiator)

The single most important class in organized 3.0 large-scale PvP. Vicious Implosion pulls the enemy ball; Hell Spear → Crows → Mire AoE-CCs it; Revenants delete what's left. Cloth-Int variant maximizes Occultism damage.

Skullknight (PvE Tank)

PvE dungeon and raid-boss main-tank. Same trees as the raid initiator but plate gear, threat-rotation focus, and Fortress for raid-wide DR. Trades AoE pull for aggro generation.

Paladin

1v1 PvP duelist and self-sufficient open-world bruiser. Beats CC-reliant classes (Daggerspell, Darkrunner) because anti-stun / cleanse / shield-block is layered. Defy Death is the iconic save.

Templar

Large-scale PvP 'Survival King.' 40% block rate, self-heal regen, Invincibility 12s damage immunity, anti-CC kit. Best 1v1 PvP healer (almost unkillable vs mages). Cloth-armor counterintuitively for Spirit + healing power gemming.

Healers — 28 named builds

Hierophant

Primary raid healer — best throughput in the game via song-bounce Healing Hymn + Vitalism direct heals + party crit buffs. Mana-sustainable. Note: 3.0 community guides call this combo 'Cleric'; Rookery keeps the 'Hierophant' name for clarity.

Cleric

Survival-oriented healer — plate variant of Templar. Trades song throughput for Defense mitigation. Can off-tank trash mobs while healing the main-tank. Standard pairing with Hierophants in raid healer cores.

Soothsayer

Most mobile healer in the game. Stealth gives revive-from-safety and pre-combat positioning. Six escape tools — best among healers. Healing-power scales Vitalism damage skills for off-DPS while healing.

DPS — 63 named builds

Darkrunner

The defining solo PvP melee class of 3.0. Stealth, gap-close, burst combo, reset. Highest mobility of any DPS — six chases plus escapes.

Primeval

Ranged mirror of Darkrunner. Most-played ranged class in 3.0. Stealth-loaded Charged Bolt + Snipe execute window; kites with Drop Back and Shadow Step.

Daggerspell

King of 1v1 and 1v3 arena. Witchcraft CC chains hold targets through the entire Sorcery burst window; dagger gives weapon-attack-into-spell scaling. Highest skill ceiling mage.

Revenant

Mass-PvP backbone. Drops Sorcery elemental AoE on stacked balls pulled by Skullknights; Occultism debuffs and curses provide DoT pressure; Auramancy keeps you alive in the backline.

Hexwarden

Melee disrupter and raid peeler. Vicious Implosion pull + Witchcraft hex chains hold the line. Scales better than Darkrunner late-game because damage isn't the primary purpose. Note: 'Hexblade' is a different class (Battlerage+Witchcraft+Defense).

Spellsinger

Caster with party buffs and bounce-heal Hymn. Late-game answer to high HP targets. Staff/lute weapon swap is the build's identity.

Skillset metadata curated against the AAEmu 3.0.3.0 client. Skill lists drawn from compact.sqlite3 (80 signature skills mapped). Last refreshed 2026-05-24.