Dimraeth classes: Brawler, Mage and Shadow

Dimraeth Early Access has three classes: Brawler, Mage and Shadow. The Mage is written Magician in playtest-era posts and, in one creator’s video, on the character creation screen. Your class decides the east and west halves of your skill tree and your class spells; it does not decide your weapon, which comes with your race.

“3 races and classes (Elf, Minotaur and Human) and (Shadow, Mage, and Brawler)”

Mudtek. From the Steam announcement: Official EA Release, Feedback, and Thank You!

Mage or Magician: one class, two names

On the Early Access build, Revvy reads the creation screen as “So, a magician minotaur … is a earthshaker, while a human magician is an elemental ranger.” SwoleBenji lists “So, we have a combination of magician, brawler, and shadow.” and a player on the forum wrote “There are Humans, Minotaurs and Elves and 3 classes Magician, Brawler and Shadow in the early access for now.” No screenshot in these sources settles which word the current menu prints, so search for either. They are the same class.

Your race picks the weapon, not your class

This surprises players who make an Elf Mage and find themselves stabbing with daggers. The Game Director said it before launch:

“In combat, your race isn’t just flavor, it’s your base kit.”

Phillip, Game Director. From Steam announcement: Character Creation in Dimraeth

LightItUpDan: “Your weapon is race locked, so keep that in mind if you want to use a specific one like the sword with humans or the battle axe with the minotaur.” For a caster who wants to stay at range, that matters more than the class. An Elf Mage player asked “Can you eventually switch your basic attack to something ranged is more what im trying to figure out?” and another player answered “Currently only human has a consistent ranged option.” The race side, including passives and the race half of the tree, is on Dimraeth races.

What each class does

Mudtek has not published a class-by-class description for the Early Access build. What follows is what the developers’ blog and creators recording this build show, named by who said it.

Brawler

On LightItUpDan’s Human Brawler, the class wings were crowd control and damage buffs: “East felt class CC focused, which were blunt damage stunning moves for me.” “And west had class damage skills and buffs, for example, utilizing rage for my wild strider.” On the Minotaur, the Game Director’s blog says “the Minotaur Brawler (a Vanguard archetype) gains bonus stamina whenever they level Strength, whereas other archetypes do not”. SwoleBenji builds their starter on that pairing and calls it “It is the easiest way to play this game. The easiest start. It is not gear dependent.”

Mage

A Mage still carries its race’s weapon, so the class plays as spells plus a weapon kit. Zhun: “creating a human mage will end up becoming an elemental ranger. You can use fire or ice magic and then combine that with some sword and bow action.” The blog pictures two Mages as a fire team:

“One player might build a Minotaur Mage (Earthshaker) around spreading fire and proccing passives whenever enemies are Burning, while another builds a Human Mage (Elemental Ranger) that turns any existing fire on the field into high-impact single-target nukes.”

Phillip, Game Director. From Steam announcement: Character Creation in Dimraeth

For the Elf, the forum moderator describes a common pattern: “Elf Magician is commonly used for applying burn stacks, and blowing it up for extra damage with Temporal Spike.” And one player summed up the frustration some Mage players have:

“There’s no magic focused races yet, so if you’re chasing a pure mage fantasy you’re gonna have a hard time with only hybrid options.”

A player. Posted in Steam discussion: race based skills could work better

Shadow

The Shadow is new in Early Access; the playtests had only Brawler and Magician. Revvy describes the class wings on their Elf character as stealth and bleed one way, poison the other: “If I wanted to do more stealthy or like shadow or bleed damage, I would go down the right.” “And then if I wanted to do a poisonbased build, I would go left.” SwoleBenji says the Elf has “they do have better poisons and blight” and points it at the Shadow: “shadow for the blight build”. The first playthrough in Zhun’s guide was an Elf Shadow built on damage over time with Chronospike. On the Human, the Shadow pairing (Gloom Stalker) gets attack speed from Adventure; Revvy shows “if I swap to a human shadow, you can see that adventure provides an additional 0.25 attack speed.”

Which class to pick

Zhun’s advice is not to agonize, because “pretty much every class available in the early access can spec heavily into physical damage, magic, support, or damage over time, among other options”. Pick carefully anyway, because the forum moderator says “As of EA launch, there is no way to change appearance, or class.” The name each race and class pairing gets is on all Dimraeth archetypes, and full plans creators recorded are on Dimraeth builds. How the class half of the tree is laid out is on the Dimraeth skill tree page.

More classes

The store page describes six classes for the full release. Only one future class has been named by a developer:

“Yes, but roughly it will feature the update schedule of 2 new race/class updates and then the Act II planned story update”

Shindaru, developer. From the Steam discussion: Early Access FAQ

No dates are attached. The announced order of updates is on the Dimraeth roadmap.