Delicious Vlish

Defensive abilities. The ability to hunker down and endure any incoming storm of melee.

You give up a bit of offense for an incredible amount of defense.

Talk to the creation keeper in the south west corner.

D'oh.

Brainfart. I was thinking about actual greaves. You know, boots.

Sorry. Sigh. Vlish is very tired.

The one before the stoneworks. There are nests on both sides of the map. In one nest, you get the clawbug charm. In the other, a pair of shaped boots.

There is something immensely satisfying about playing a warrior type and charging into battle with your creations to hack and slash, doubly so if you have battle creations.

I remember my guardian and his pack of thahd shades...

Check the clawbug nest. I remember a pair.

Hmm, I seem to remember that shaped boots could be found after killing a clawbug queen in one of the zones just before the stoneworks.

Shaped greaves can be bought, found, or dropped. I forget where.

Oozing blade: Lerman's Pass.

Guardian Claymore is a bright pink sword dropped in an encounter defending the rebels from the shapers, in the Dera Reaches.

Agent's shelter can be found in a couple of places I think.

Isn't there an items list in the strategy section?

For classes who are weak in shaping skills, yes, obviously.

This is why you apply acid and pick the strongest targets. Acid should get the kill when something is down to a sliver of health.

At least, it usually does. Not always.

Actually, I've managed to kill the wicked eyeball beastie in Lerman's Pass before taking on the Stoneworks. Having the Oozing Sword makes the Stoneworks a cakewalk.

Difficult, but not impossible, and not that difficult of a battle.

The endgame will be disappointing and anti-climatic.

At least, it always is for me. The Servile is just to strong.

http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=118366#Post118366

Servile survival guide. Feel free to add this to your list and erase this post.

Go back later. You shouldn't even be there at all.

I intend for this to be a very basic sort of guide. Not so much a cookie cutter template, but a generalist sort of guide to give people ideas.

The Servile is a very powerful class, but also difficult to play as it requires thinking, and lots of it. No slacking off with this build. No powerful army of creations to cover the slack. Just you, and maybe one or two creations depending on the situation or your comfort level.

There are three variances with the Servile. Melee oriented, mental magic oriented, and battle magic oriented. All three are similar, but require a slightly different build. Which way you go is up to you really, and what you find comfortable as your play style. Mental magic is the backbone of any good Servile build, so be prepared to spend lots of points on that. Mental magic as a direct assault or as a support skill is up to you. Mental magic is the strongest form of attack in the game, but also difficult to play well. It requires a devious and cunning mind.

First off, stats. What to do and why. How does one prepare for the challenge?

Your physical stats are not as easy as they appear. For a purely magical Servile, strength isn't as important as intelligence. You can actually get by with rather lowish strength, if you are careful. You could wear robes. Your melee attacks will connect, should you have to melee, and your hit rate will be great, but you will be somewhat vulnerable to physical assaults. For a melee oriented servile, strength and endurance are key. About 10 in each, more with items, and you should be ok.

Endurance... For any build, melee or magic, you should pump endurance. 10 is a good target, higher is better, and there are items to raise it for troubled times. For any build, the key to the Servile's turtle like tenacity is endurance. You want a lot of hit points. This can even overcome a lack of armor, and, with the right items to provide resists and stun, you will be a tough nut to crack.

Dexterity. This can either be neglected or raised. If I am going for a melee oriented build, I raise this. I'll look at my missile skill, and see which is cheaper to raise. Dex or missile weapons. And then I'll raise one or the other. High dex is important for missile weapon damage. You can achieve close to 200 damage a shot with an acid baton if you play your cards right. Other batons will do even more. If you are playing a dedicated missile user, you will never stop pumping dex. Personally, I am a big fan of strong daze or mass madness, and then moving in and shooting the place up.

Intelligence. It really depends on the build. A dedicated melee build that only uses mental magic and blessing magic as a backup skill, they will not need much of this, if anything at all. What you get from items should be enough, use healing pods. It is more important to add points to dexterity, strength, or endurance for a melee oriented build. A spell caster servile can never have enough intelligence. There will never be enough essence, never enough energy, so you still suck down pods at an alarming rate.

And the skills that pay the bills.

Melee skills are valuable for any type of Servile build, but a magic oriented Servile wont need much, and can get most from items. You won't need missile weapons if you are magic heavy. Just the defensive skills, parry and quick action, and a few left over points in melee weapons. For combat builds, the more the better. Both melee weapons and missile weapons should be cranked out the wazoo. Use batons and swords at the right moments, and you will breeze through the game.

Magic skills. For a magic oriented build, you want lots of battle magic, and every spare point you can muster should go into mental magic. Blessing magic is nice, but you can boost it through items, use pods or spores, etc, so it is a low priority. On my last Servile game, which I completed, blessing magic wasn't level 9 until I was near level 50. Healing magic should be just enough to get regeneration and banish affliction, so you can cure lightning aura damage. Your livelihood will center around mental magic though, and you can never have enough of that, for any Servile build. If you can, get it past nine, and into the teens. Especially so in G5. The more the better. In the twenties is even better and will greatly increase your survival in mobs and tight spots. I haven't done it, but I'd venture a guess that mental magic could be raised to 30 now rather easily, because of items.

Battle magic can be neglected if you are going the melee route, but with items, battle magic should be just high enough to cast acid shower. Incredibly useful and powerful. Give everything a good dip before you start charming and terrorising. When stuff is no longer under your influence, it will be mostly dead. Easy pickings. If a dedicated build, push battle magic into the teens, or as high as you can get it to go, even if it means neglecting your other skills a bit.

Spellcraft is of vital importance to any Servile build. It helps your mental magic. Raise it when you can, or if you notice your spells aren't as effective if you move to a new area.

Blessing magic is nice, but it is more useful for a summoner build.

Shaping skills can be achieved through items. You can place points here, if you want, and 2 points placed in battle shaping is a prudent investment. It will allow you to get a war trall later. But you could get those two points from items, take those precious skill points, and place them into other skills.

Leadership and mech skills shouldn't be ignored. 8 leadership and 12 mechanical are good targets. In fact, in the beginning of the game, I'd shoot for 12 mech right away. Easy experience, and it will allow you to loot useful and much needed items.

Well, you have all these skills, but what do you do with them?

Use mental magic to scramble anything remotely threatening, burn down the mobs with battle magic, shoot anything that moves, and stab anything that gives you the stinkeye.

Mental magic requires the use of tactics and thought. Terror will be a skill that you will use right up to the end of the game. It is useful for mob management, containing hostile and dangerous monsters that could squish you in melee, and having a direct effect on the flow of battle. You can not control a charmed creation, but you can drive a creation to the next mob over with terror and charm them. Domination, and later, charm, will be your bread and butter. For any Servile build. Even for a melee build, it is better to have allies. Pepper the mob with charm spells, and then start shooting. Sow chaos, and then unleash hell. Daze and strong daze are useful for 'pausing' a battle. Charmed creations can't be controlled, so daze will have some drawbacks. Hit monsters will regain control. So watch your toes and be alert to battlefield changes. Mass madness has been nerfed a bit, but is still very useful.

Never bite off more than you can chew. Always have an escape plan in order. Have your aggression backed with the right firepower. Know which enemies resist what. Be patient. Turtle down. The key to Servile play is knowing that if you are careful, you can outlast anything that the game throws at you. Load up your resists. Get a runed ruby? Go to the nearest forge and drop it in your armor. Your belt. Early on, everything is disposable. Get a fyora skin cloak? Drop a runed ruby in it and fire is no longer much of a concern. Build up your acid resists. Keep changes of good clothing handy and stashed in a easy to reach place. If you are going into a place with a lot of lightning damage, go and change your clothing to something with more lightning resist. Keep cloaks that have elemental resists and then plug them with the right items to boost that resist even further. Keep a pair of vat shoes or boots for when they might be needed, plan ahead, and dress accordingly. Develop a spike suit for fighting golems or other hard hitters that you might not be able to control very well.

I've probably missed a few points, so feel free to ask questions.

She is a junkie who quit cold turkey. She's been at the bottom of the barrel and experienced the self abuse in a way that few others could conceive.

Now she wants to cure other junkies of their canister problem.

Go with a generalist approach if you are playing on normal.

Some leadership, some mech skills... Hold the phone. I'll do a servile guide in a new thread.

I don't know what the price is.

Do not expect to buy shaping skills from those who hate shaping.

You join the faction.

Yes. From below.

It is worth a point. It helps armor and resists.

The Servile is ridiculously overpowered in G5, just like he was in G4.

Exploit his strengths, (combat and magic) and use items to shore up his weaknesses. (Shaping)

The Servile is God-like, isn't he?

Raise spellcraft and battle magic.

I thought you needed a key to get the dryak canister... In the room with the four canisters that you have to smash?