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.

Strengths

Only true heal tree in the game. Resurrection. Cleanses. Mandatory for any organized group.

Weaknesses

Damage is intentionally weak. A solo Vitalism player relies on its partner trees for kill pressure.

Pairs well with

Signature skills

  • Holy Bolt Lv 1

    Fires a bolt of holy light that deals #{avg_damage}#{detail_heal_damage} Magic Damage.

  • Mirror Light Lv 3 21.0s cd

    Caster/allies: Cures one debuff and increases received healing |cFFFF9C27+15%|r for #{buff_duration}. Enemies: Inflicts Snare for #{buff_duration2}. Increases received damage |cFFFF9C27+12%|r and decreases healing effectiveness |cFFFF9C27-30%|r for #{buff_duration3}. Snare durati

  • Antithesis Lv 10 5.0s cd

    Allies/caster: Instantly restores +#{avg_heal}#{detail_heal} Health. Enemies: Deals #{avg_damage}#{detail_heal_damage} Magic Damage. Hold ALT to use on yourself.

  • Abyssal Petrification Lv 10 24.0s cd

    Removes all debuffs and aggro from a selected target and protects them against all damage for #{buff_duration}, but prevents them from moving or taking actions for the duration. Using this skill on a petrified target reverses the effects.

  • Resurgence Lv 15

    Regenerates #{buff_total_avg_heal}#{detail_heal} Health over #{buff_duration} for you or an ally. Hold ALT to use the skill on yourself.

  • Revive Lv 20

    Revives an ally and restores the XP lost at death in the same amount as Nui's resurrection. Revived target: #{buff_tooltip} Can't be used during combat.

  • Skewer Lv 25 18.0s cd

    Summons four skewers within a 20m circle at the target area, dealing #{avg_damage}#{detail_heal_damage} Magic Damage and Impaling enemies for #{buff_duration}, preventing all actions. Skewers deal more damage where they overlap. When this skill levels up, it increases in both dam

  • Rising Hatred Lv 25 120.0s cd

    Increases maximum Abyssal Charges |cFFFF9C27+2|r for |cFFFF9C2712 seconds|r. Prevents charges from naturally depleting for the duration, and |cFFFF9C27doubles|r charges gained through using skills. Any additional Abyssal Charges are consumed on casting, increasing the duration.

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.

Open skill list →

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.

Open skill list →

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.

Open skill list →

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.

Open skill list →

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)

Defense Auramancy Occultism

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)

Defense Auramancy Occultism

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

Battlerage Defense Vitalism

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

Defense Auramancy Vitalism

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

Vitalism Auramancy Songcraft

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

Vitalism Auramancy Defense

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

Vitalism Auramancy Shadowplay

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

Battlerage Shadowplay Auramancy

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

Archery Shadowplay Auramancy

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

Sorcery Witchcraft Shadowplay

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

Sorcery Occultism Auramancy

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

Battlerage Auramancy Witchcraft

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

Sorcery Songcraft Shadowplay

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.