The Disciples of Chaos Guide

 

Guild Location:

• Continent: Furnachia
• World Location: Temple of Chaos.
• After you get off the Ferry in Furnachia, go through the city of Rilynt'tar and then follow the road east/southeast/south until it ends and a path starts. The temple is right there.
• The training location is at the entrance of the temple.
• Warning: There are a number of very strong and dangerous aggressive monsters in the temple, so be careful if you decide to wander around and make sure you spend all your EXP first.

Guild Requirements:

• Evil Religious, Civilized, or Nomad Background

Disclaimer:

• I'm brand new to this guild having just reincarnated into it. So I'm writing what I learn as I learn it. I expect it will be a while before the quality of this entry gets better.

My Overview of the Guild:

Disciples of Chaos are centered around the ability to transform into a Chaotic Spawn. As a Spawn, you will earn 25% less EXP and will only heal in the dark. To make up for that, when transformed you will gain enhanced stats, start to sprout tentacles that do extra attacks, and you will have access to a nice offensive skills. The main reason you are probably joining the Disciples though is that  they are a prerequisite for several other Chaotic Evil Religious guilds. Most players join it as a stepping stone to those guilds and don't really identify as Disciples. For newbies through, your first 10 free levels might be as a Disciple so luckily they are a pretty good stand-alone guild as well.

Pros:

•  Awesome guild for Newbies
• You will have some healing from your background
• The Chaos Spawn gives you more offensive power than most other melee guilds when you are starting out
• You likely will have a lot more hit points than players of a Magical background (aka Riftwalkers)
• Everyone but Good Religious and Magical backgrounds (and Rangers) can join
• The guild will continue to be helpful as you gain experience and levels
• Extra attacks and STR/DEX/CON/SIZE will always be nice!

Cons:

• 25% less EXP gain when you are a Chaos Spawn is absolutely brutal
• While being transformed to a Chaos Spawn will help you kill stuff faster, it probably won't let you kill stuff 25% faster to make up for this penalty.
• The main attack skill (clawed strike) starts out very weak
• Clawed Strike requires guild reputation to get better.
• Guild reputation is gained by killing things marked by your kiss of death, and it takes a long time to grind out.
• Starting out, other skills like Push and Kick might be more effective than Clawed Strike
• This is a front row melee damage guild
• This makes it harder to participate in parties since you probably don't have the tanking power to take a lot of damage.
• You don't have core defensive skills like Parry and Combat Sense. You do have dodge, but at a very low level so it won't be that effective.
• Chaos Spawns have a couple other annoying features
• They only heal in the dark, which may cause problems partying with other players
• The Chaos Spawn transformation only lasts around 10 -15 minutes so you need to keep using the skill to maintain it.
• When you transform you remove and unwield all your equipment and weapons. Which is just annoying.
• This is a very Endurance (EP) heavy use guild
• Between having to constantly re-up Chaotic Spawn, and using Clawed Strike, I am always running out of EPs.
• Other melee guilds suffer a similar problem, but to me it seems like Disciples have a much bigger problem with it.

Disciples Quick Start Guide:

1. Join the guild. 
• The main skill is Chaotic Spawn so train that as much as you can.
• Also make sure you train Kiss of Death to help you earn reputation
• There's very few useless/situation skills in this Guild, so train other skills as you have experience.
2. I'd recommend having a main hand weapon and a shield
• This will prevent you from casting the "cause harm" spells as you won't have a free hand available. But you'll likely be using damaging skills vs. spells anyays.
• The shield will lesson the damage you do, but the protection from critical hits it provides you is clutch. 
3. I just started experimenting with this, but a different option would be to leave your second hand free so you can cast harm spells. 
• This gives you less protection than a shield, and does less damage than having a weapon and using Clawed Strike, but it saves you endurance points as you are casting spells instead. 
• So if you are killing lots of creatures this approach can help limit your downtime regenerating EPs
4. Kill monsters when transformed as a Chaos Spawn.
• You gotta build up that reputation, so no time like the current to start doing that.
• Initially you may want to use Push as your main attack, but you'll eventually switch over to Clawed Strike so don't bother to train Push/Kick that high.
• Don't heal in battle as Cure Light Wounds won't keep up with the damage most monster deal. Instead use Cure Light Wounds when you are out of combat to get yourself back in the fight quickly.
5. Keep Chaos Spawn up by recasting/using it periodically.
• I've been told this helps with your reputation gain as you'll lose reputation when you transform back to your normal self.

Guild Help

• Disciples skill/spell list: Link
• Very good write-up about Chaos Spawns over at the Bat Wiki: Link

Chaotic Spawn Info/Tips/Tricks:

Being a Spawn:

• Turning into a Chaos Spawn actually changes your race, unlike the Druid animal transformations.
• This means if you have water allergies they will go away as a Spawn
• Also, all of the downsides of being an Ent (such as only healing in the light) go away
• Therefore this guild really helps make certain races such as Ents and Trolls more viable to play.
• When you transform it impacts your statistics in the following way:
• STR: 150%
• DEX: 150%
• CON: 125%
• SIZE: 113%
• CHA: -25 points
• The EXP you earn is reduced by 25%
• As a Chaos Spawn you can breath underwater. No need to swim, and it will help you in certain deathtrap rooms.
• You are unable to train skills or spells when transformed as a chaos spawn. You will need to despawn to do any sort of training.

Tentacles:

• I noticed that tentacles take on different damage properties when you turn into a Chaotic Spawn
• Eg "Acrid tentacle" (Acid) and "Freezing tentacle" (Cold)
• I've been told that as you advance in reputation in the guild that you will start to get extra ring slots to go with your tentacles.

Reputation:

• You earn guild reputation when you kill things while transformed into a Chaos Spawn
• When you initially transform into a spawn you will get a message "You feel like {{ percent }}% as good as the current Octopus
• This tells you how you stack up with the current highest reputation player.
• You can check your reputation by using the command "pray to azzarakk" when transformed.
• I'd recommend making a command alias to make checking this easier. Also I can never remember how to spell Azzarakk.
• This will tell you how close you are to the next major milestone but it won't tell you about your total reputation
• One way to look at your total reputation is to check your skill levels for "Chaotic Spawn" and "Choreography of Mutilation".
• Every cycle of your levels of chaos inside of you will give you 1% to those two skills. So if you maxed out "Chaotic Spawn" to 50%, and you see it at 62% then that means you have cycled your levels of chaos rep 12 times.
• This seems to imply you can get a max of 7 tentacles
• You start with one
• And you can earn 6 more before hitting a skill cap of 100%
• The levels of "chaos inside of you" is the basic ticker of progress. 
• Every full cycle of this will advance the other metric about your tentacle growth by one step. 
• Each cycle takes more kills than the previous one.
• The levels (from lowest to highest) are:
• You feel devoid of chaos.
• You feel a slight tingling of chaos inside you.
• You feel chaos pulsing deep inside you.
• You feel chaos pulsing inside your veins.
• You feel chaos energizing your body.
• You feel chaos pouring out of you.
• You feel your veins throbbing with pure chaos!
• The comments about your skin show how close you are to spawning another tentacle.
• The levels are:
• Your skin feels smooth.
• Your feel a tingling in your torso.
• You feel a tickling in your torso.
• You feel a burning bump in your side.
• There's a bulging mass in your side.
• There's a seething mass in your side.
• A glowing, bulging mass is burning in your side.
• Your side is about to burst by the seething mass lodged there!
• For example, lets say you pray and get the message: "You kneel and pray to Azzarakk. You feel your veins throbbing with pure chaos! You feel a tickling in your torso.' The next time you advance in reputation it will cycle and you will have "You kneel and pray to Azzarakk. You feel devoid of chaos. You feel a burning bump in your side."

Reputation Rewards:

Note: I'm using my skill bonus in Chaotic Spawn to measure my rank. So if I have it at 54% then I'm counting that as rank 4 (50 + 4).

• Rank 3: Received a second tentacle.
• Rank 11: Received a third tentacle.

Disciples Specific Spells and Skills:

Chaotic Spawn Skills:

• (Skill) Chaotic Spawn
• Description: The core skill of the guild. It will turn you into a Chaos Spawn
• Training Priority: (High to Racial Max)
• You can only train it to 50% in this guild, but you can train it more in follow up guilds.
• You'll be using this skill a lot. Making it more reliable is important.
• Notes:
• You can cast this while transformed as a Chaos Spawn and it will reset the duration to be around 15 mintues
• If you use this "at despawn" it will turn you back into your normal self.
• E.g. 'use chaotic spawn at despawn'
• You will get bonuses to this skill as you advance in reputation. Aka while you can only train it to 50% you will find your actual skill level grows over time.
• (Skill) Clawed Strike
• Description: The main attack skill of the guild
• Training Priority: (Medium to 50%)
• The max you can train it to in Disciples is 50%
• It's good while you are leveling up, but once you join your follow up guild I don't know how much you'll be using this.
• There's a lot of good skills in this guild, so I don't know if I would prioritize this over foundational skills such as Attack, and Throw Weight
• Notes:
• You can only use this skill when transformed into a Chaos Spawn
• It will hit with all of your tentacles.
• I've been told the damage is always physical regardless of what element your tentacle is of.
• As you gain more tentacles, this does more and more damage.
• Initially this underperforms for a "foundational" attack skill. It starts to get better as you gain reputation though. 
• Attack Messages (from worst to best):
• You try to attack your enemy but fall over your own feet.
• You pitifully reach out to {{Target}} and barely scratch his body with the tip of your claw.
• You suddenly lunge toward {{Target} with all claws and sink them into his body tearing his flesh into shreds and howl wildly at the blood gushing from the wounds.
• You turn your face down to the ground and scream as you work yourself into a maniacal dance, twirling madly around {{Target} sinking your claws deep into {{Target}}, slashing and stabbing into the mass tearing it into shreds making {{Target}} sink to the ground in pain.
• (Skill) Kiss of Death
• Description: A neutral (non-offensive) skill that will let you mark targets. You will do more damage with your skills to marked targets. Finally, Kiss of Death will give a (very small) amount of health back to you when you kill a marked target.
• Training Priority: (Medium to 30%)
• The damage bonus is nice but not worth the three rounds to cast it.
• Notes:
• I was seeing it only give around 1 hitpoint and EP when it triggered after I killed a marked creature. Maybe higher level creatures give more?
• There is some controversy on if this skill increases your reputation when you use it.
• It absolutely will increase your reputation in the Kharim guild
• It probably does not increase your Disciples/Spawn reputation. 
• You will see a message when the target takes more damage thanks to this skill. Aka when this triggers it does a separate "hit" vs. enhancing the damage of the original attack skill.
• (Skill) Choreography of Mutilation
• Description: It's a mastery skill so I assume it makes Clawed Strike better
• Training Priority: (Medium to Racial Max)
• Mastery skills are almost always worthwhile to train
• I'd rank this higher if I knew more about what it does
• Notes:
• I have no idea what the actual impact of this skill is
• You will get bonuses to this skill as you advance in reputation. Aka while you can only train it to 15% you will find your actual skill level grows over time.
• I've been told it helps open up things like ring spots when your reputation raises it high enough.

General Attack Skills:

• (Skill) Kick
• Description: A more advanced attack than Push
• Training Priority: (High to 20%. Low/Skip afterwards)
• You need it trained to 20% to advance to Level 10 in the guild
• You probably aren't going to be using this skill much as there are better skills you will get later on. So I'd recommend skipping it afterwards. It's cheap though, so ((shrugs) feel free to train it more if you want.
• Notes:
• This is the best attack skill you can learn in this guild that works when you are not transformed into a Chaos Spawn
• (Skill) Push
• Description: The most basic attack you will learn
• Training Priority: (Skip)
• It might be briefly useful for your first couple of levels in the guild. After that you'll never use it again.
• It's cheap though, so if it makes your life easier while getting through those first couple of levels, go ahead and spend the EXP.
• Notes:
• This works when you are not transformed into a Chaos Spawn
• (Skill) Throw Weight
• Description: Increases the damage you do based on your character's size and strength
• Training Priority: (Very High. Max out the 30% you can train in this guild, and max it out in your follow up guilds)
• More damage is always nice
• Your Chaos Spawn adds both strength and size to your character, making this skill even better
• Notes:
• I don't know how much of an impact this skill actually has. If anyone has hard data I'd love if you would share it.
• (Skill) Enhance Criticals
• Description: Increases the damage of your critical hits
• Training Priority: (High. Max out the 10% you can train in this guild, and max it out in follow up guilds)
• Once again, more damage is always good
• This also impacts the damage from your tentacle critical hits.
• You will be doing a lot of attacks, so the bursty nature of critical hit chances will even out a bit. You'll likely be getting at least one critical hit in every longer fight.
• Notes:
• I don't know how much an actual impact this skill has on critical damage
• (Skill) Stun
• Description: Gives you a chance to stun monsters, increasing the damage they take and breaking any skill/spell attempts they are getting ready
• Training Priority: (Low)
• This is not a reliable skill, and until you get it trained up to a very high level, your target will likely be able to resist these stuns
• I trained it because I had extra EXP, but I rarely see it make a difference in my fights.
• Notes:
• This is a passive skill so it will give you a flat chance to stun your opponent every round
• (Skill) Shield Bash
• Description: This will enhance the damage you do with a shield
• Training Priority: (High if you have a shield)
• I recommend you wield a shield, so this is a good skill
• Obviously, if you don't use a shield you can skip this skill
• Notes:
• Shields help prevent the damage you take from critical hits. Having a shield will save your life.
• Even with this skill, shields will still not do much damage. But every bit helps!
• (Skill) Tumbling Attack
• Description: Gives you a chance to hit your target even if they successfully dodge your first strike
• Training Priority: (Medium)
• More damage is always good, and most monsters can dodge attacks. Still this is more a high level skill vs. something that newer players will really benefit from a lot.
• To put it another way, it won't have a huge impact in most of your fights until you start fighting monsters/players with a very high dodge, and you have this skill trained up 50%+
• Notes:
• What is cool is you can see how many times this skill gave you extra hits in your "show summary" output.
• These will show up like "Dodged: 78 (Tumbled: 26)" 
• This means that my targets dodged 78 times total this session, but I still hit them 26 of those times due to my tumbling attack.
• (Skill) Negate Offhand Penalty
• Description: Your left hand weapon is less likely to hit than your right hand weapon. This reduces that penalty
• Training Priority: (Medium)
• More hits = more damage
• The only reason this isn't high is that you might be wielding a shield in your offhand, so the improved damage isn't that great
• Also, if you are using the cause wounds spells as your damage (this helps you save EPs) you need a free hand.
• Notes:
• I'm not sure what the actual off-hand penalty is or the actual impact this skill has.

Other Skills:

• (Skill) Torch Creation, Controlled Panic, Tinning
• Description: I didn't feel like writing an entry for each of these skills
• Training Priority: (Skip)
• There are situations where these skills can help, but they really aren't worth the EXP to train them
• Notes:
• Controlled panic would be useful if it would take you back the way you came. But you need to manually set the direction. There are times when you know you might wimpy and one direction is certain death, but if you are like me you'll still forget to set this skill.