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.

Open skill list →

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.

Strengths

Sustained ranged damage with Endless Arrows. Piercing Shot ignores armor. Mobility-friendly playstyle.

Weaknesses

Weak burst compared to magic. Relies on sustained DPS. No native CC.

Pairs well with

Signature skills

  • Charged Bolt Lv 1 10.0s cd

    Fires a charged arrow at an enemy dealing #{avg_damage}#{detail_ranged_damage} Ranged Damage and slowing Move Speed for #{buff_duration}. The skill cannot be evaded, blocked, or parried. Damage is reduced |cFFFF9C27-20%|r if the target is within |cFFFF9C278m|r.

  • Piercing Shot Lv 3 12.0s cd

    Fires a serrated arrow, dealing an initial #{avg_damage}#{detail_ranged_damage} Ranged Damage and then inflicting Bleeding for #{buff_total_avg_damage} Magic Damage over #{buff_duration}. Damage is reduced -20% if target is within 8m.

  • Endless Arrows Lv 10

    Fires arrows that deal #{damage_multiplier}|cFFFF9C52%|r of Ranged Attack as damage. Damage decreases |cFFFF9C27-20%|r if target is within |cFFFF9C278m|r. |cff00ff45Does not trigger a global cooldown. Hold down for continuous use.|r

  • Serpent's Sight Lv 10 10.0s cd

    Enhance your archery with Abyssal magic, transforming your attacks and gaining unparalleled range. Increases the base range of all Bow skills to at least |nc;50m|r for #{buff_duration}, but prevents movement. Replaces the Endless Arrows skill with Fang Bolt for the duration. Dura

  • Fang Bolt Lv 10

    Fires arrows that deal #{damage_multiplier}|cFFFF9C52%|r of Ranged Attack as damage. Damage decreases -20% if target is within 8m. |cff00ff45Hold down for continuous use.|r

  • Double Recurve Lv 15 8.0s cd

    #{buff_tooltip} Lasts #{buff_duration}.

  • Deadeye Lv 20 80.0s cd

    #{buff_tooltip} Deadeye buff lasts for |cFFFF9C2760 sec|r, but bonus damage ends with movement. Doesn't trigger a global cooldown.

  • Snare Lv 25 24.0s cd

    Removes all Shackle effects from the caster and inflics Snare on enemies in a |cFFFF9C275m|r area for #{buff_duration}. Reduces targets' Evasion, Block, and Parry rates. Duration of Snare decreases -50% in PvP.

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)

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.