Skip this section if you're just looking for the quick details on starting specializations. I get it; this is lengthy drivel.

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Siralim is like... If you picked up "Japanese Monster Card Duels Game", Or "Nerdy Men Get Together As Wizards", but as a video game.
You get your creatures/cards, assemble your team/deck, and then you just plow through as many fights/matches in a row as possible to earn more items/creatures/cards/decks to play more. It's a good collect'em'up time!

Now that we have THAT in perspective;

Class specializations just augment gameplay even further. Most of the boons and benefits they provide you can acquire through monster traits, spells, or sometimes even niche places like realm effects or card collections. Pretty much everything you look for could be leafed through like it were a giant catalog, as though you were just trying to fit one puzzle piece from any of those sections into some place you got open in your particular jigsaw. If this class spec doesn't have a perk you need, you might be able to anoint it in, search for a creature or material with that trait, or put in time collecting cards for it. The world of Rodia is your big, smelly oyster!

So why bother giving this general overview, if this should just be another catalog? Why not just tell people to play Royal? The class specialization that just lets you cross-class?

A. Because new players don't need tons and tons of information hurled at them. That bites.
B. There are a specific set of perks that are unique to each class. It's not called out anywhere, but some aren't anointments, some aren't obtainable by other means, and some are just better or aggregate versions of other traits and effects, and those are what usually make the classes extra special. Those specialization-exclusive ones, in particular, are something even the Royal class can't duplicate.
Note: 2.0 has added more anointments that are not included in this guide! They are To-Be-Updated!
C. An additional, boring answer, one that we're not going to really cover, is just because classes tend to have a nice little collection of positive effects specific to some purpose or strategy. It's a lump-sum of things you might wanna do. However, intricate details on that are for someone else's guide.
D. That said, at the end I'll splice in a little more detail than what's in the game. Because that might be nice for those of us who have been playing, but still don't quite understand "Why this class?"...

So let's get to it!

Disclaimer: The Author is of the belief that all starting classes are equal in terms of difficulty! Don't limit yourself to thinking some are better than others; they just take different approaches to handling, once you pick them up!

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Oh me, oh my, it has been a while!
With version 2.0 in beta and coming out, there will need to be a lot of changes and I sure have been on a hiatus!

As of me writing this, here, this guide is NOT updated for version 2.0!!!

I will be trying to get back into the game, so I can more adequately update classes.

I'm, obviously, not perfect, nor have I been through all classes in the game with every creature and every team and every spell in the game.

While I've been putting in my due diligence testing out each class specialization and throwing a team or two at each, If I'm overlooking some blatantly obvious facet of a specialization or am misdiagnosing something, give me a heads up!

I'm open to suggestions and recommendations also, especially since I have my awful, awful Opinions!

This section will remain "Under Construction Tags" until every class specialization has a full blurb

The plan as it is:

1. Refamiliarize myself with the finer points of the game.
   
2. Acquire and start fiddling with the new class specs
   
3. verify anointment uniqueness; several anointments were added!
   
   Legacy Tasks:
   
4. Finishing with a play through of new game until reaching end game as each starting class to get a better feel of early game mechanics.
   
5. Ongoing upkeep as long as is-able, after each official update.
   • 1-goblet lap per class to ensure a reasonable amount of consistency with assessments
     
   • a sweep of perks and anointments to ensure accuracy.

• Will be going from new game through end game as each basic class spec to experience new game as each, and adjust their descriptions appropriately.
  
  
  
• - Version 1.1.* - this icon is used to denote potentially outdated information. As of this iteration of writing, this will include:
  
  • at least one goblet-lap, post-Beta-testing
    
  • All finished!
    
  • double-checking verbiage and existence on perks and anointments.
  to ensure assessments and information is still accurate.
  
• Needs Additional Lap on the Goblet:
  
  • 

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- This is my Animatus, there are many like it, but this one is mine. Etc.
Starting us off, this one is technically unique, so says the game's explanation, but you wouldn't get that having just started, would you? It's still a solid beginner-specialization for any new player, though! While it gets away with some more favorite-child stuff that other specializations don't have, the Animatus is the only 100% unique part of this class; cherish it.

• Play this class if: you're comfortable with having a 'leader' in the party.
  Play this class if: you have a favorite child.
• Note: Animator can be a fun class if you don't overthink it! If you really like a specific trait? put that sucker in slot one or five and have at it! Is this creature tanky, or maybe gonna explode all over the enemies when he dies? Great! Slot 6 for you! You got good stats? Slot 3, all the way!

- I love the way I make me hurt so good.
Hit me baby, one more time~ Blood mage rocks that prize fighter flair; taking shots just to say they can. Yet, the experience might fool you. Expect to come loaded with a ton of defenses via its perks; including both prevention AND cures for death. There aren't truly too many unforeseen tricks up the blood mage's sleeves; Like they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

• Play this class if: you want to get stronger and safer when you take damage.
  Play this class if: you like doing that thing. You know, that thing? That thing in video games, where like... You get hit, but it's actually a GOOD thing?
• Note: Blood mage is actually a very stable guy to be; Let the damage come to you, and don't over-exaggerate the self-pain. That's what enemies are for!

- the 52 card pick-up of spellcasting
Cabalist is a real mixed bag of tricks; like a street magician who sets out to murder and rob you, just so they can set up a reliable IRA fund for and also fully pay off college tuition for your children. Your early Cabalist team will be one of two things: wild magic slinging desperados, or a sharing-is-caring, Sesame Street gang of arcano-punks. Just wait 'til later, when they gon' be both.

• Play this class if: You can handle some mild brain-teaser logic.
  Play this class if: You're not afraid to spin a roulette wheel during the middle of fights.
• Note: This class has some real Siralim-only facets to it, no gem puns intended, since 'ethereal gems' are a (presumably) Siralim-exclusive mechanic. As soon as you get used to Ethereal gems, though; This could be the strongest starting specialization! At least, with minimal effort~

- The red cross is gonna hear about this
isn't as defensive as it sounds. There's plenty of ways to turn healing into damage; that's why it takes so long to become a doctor, after all! The perks in this class are not unique but, like most classes, several of the hot-ticket items for doing what it's made for are all accounted for, here. Turn on the defibs, because it's time to get hypocritical about the hippocratic oath.

• Play this class if: You want more healing spells than damage spells.
  Play this class if: Staying alive was a goal, but it turns out the real best offense was the love you had inside, all along.
• Note: I call it a shame, but Life creatures have the life spells and healing traits; so you're probably gonna have a Life-creature heavy team. You might try to toss in some sorcery effects for the spells of it all, or nature creatures for the health of it all... but Sorry-not-sorry, bud. It's life pals, all the way

- Infection is better than a cure, I always say
is your classic 'kick them when they're down' class. Expect to do lots of stat lowering and debuffs, or "bad status effects". Otherwise, this specialization pairs well with tons of creatures and other specializations; You'll almost definitely find your Defiler team fits well as another specialization, later. So sure, it won't be unique, but misery loves company.

• Play this class if: You just kinda like being a jerk to your enemies.
  Play this class if: You want bad things to happen to bad people.
• Note: At some point, your enemies will run out of stats and have every debuff, like in boss fights. Make sure to bring some muscle or brain to finish off those fights! Also keep an eye out for ways to re-up on your foes' debuffs, or at least ways to make them, yet, worse!

- pew pew!
Is casters gonna be castin'. It's more straight-forward than the Cabalist, Witch Doctor, Sorcerer, etcetera, but it's still, somehow, swole? Like if Dwayne Johnson played Harry Potter. You'll be spending more time on spell gems than any other class, as a default, but that's ok; It's just to beef up your wand-carryin' arm! Just raise that intelligence and start-a-blastin'!

• Play this class if: Spells!
  Play this class if: More Spells!
• Note: No notes. Just Spells. Honest notes: this class has some surprising defense to it. If and/or as soon as you start taking too much damage, grab the Arcane Fortitude perk and lean into it. It'll help out immensely against big bosses with nasty high damage effects.

- There is no answer, but violence is the answer.
is your attacker class specialization... Or IS it? Mostly, yes. With some extra safety nets thrown in. Unlike other specs that center around one of the "stats" or "primary commands", Hell Knight is kinda spread out, almost to the point of being thin. Expect a little class-spec-cross play, with at least one caster, some major defense consideration, and some big role for burning to play.

• Play this class if: You prefer attacking over spells.
  Play this class if: Spells are nice, I guess... But also there's punching!!!!
• Note: Hell Knight would be boring if you just attacked. It's got great support for that, sure, but the Hell Knight class sets you up for a little more. If you want pure thwack, wait until you snag the Royal class, later. Hell Knight would be kind of a waste to go pure slug-fest with.

- Monty Python would never expect you to choose this.
Our second 'anything goes' class spec, Inquisitor still has some central themes and isn't actually 'wild', per se, but its perks are kind of hits or misses. As a whole, it'll do three things: stymie enemy strengths, give your team on-death and on-resurrect effects, and let you use healing for damage. So, you know. Righteous persecution!

• Play this class if: You don't want the enemies to do their thing that they planned.
  Play this class if: Hurray! Holy war!
• Note: This is a bit of a glass cannon spec; its only defenses are resurrection-oriented, and can be messy; they're not great when getting one-shotted in fights. If you're falling down and can't get back up, you might have to ignore the res-effects and opt for actual defense.

- It's like Paladin had a baby with Windrunner... You'll get that when you're older.
is a clever, speedy little dude or dudette. It'll be your first foray into stacking as much speed into every critter you have as possible, and you won't regret it! But remember; no good monk ever achieved enlightenment through min-maxing. Unlike the class specializations to come, you'll want strike a nice balance if you're gonna strike a nice hole into your enemies. Namaste.

• Play this class if: You enjoy the 'slippery', 'evade-y' characters.
  Play this class if: You like to 'punish' enemies for trying to hurt you.
• Note: Monk is one of our first classes to have a nice big 'misdirect' in it. It's not so rough for starters, but I'll offer you this: Just because your whole team will have boosts to dodging, doesn't mean they all should. Still plan for a little balance; as though you were a monk.

- Say hello to my little friend...s... My little friends... All these little fellas...
With the introduction of 'minions' in Siralim Ultimate, your dream of having the pitter-patter of tiny feet trail you into fights can now be a reality! The Necromancer isn't a lean, mean, fighting machine, but it is a bulky, co-operative fighting machine! It's got a fantastic mix of a little of everything, and yet... it's just different, what with them being new, and all. So, to war!

• Play this class if: You want to directly hit your enemies, indirectly!
  Play this class if: You'd like a to experience a unique B-side of the game.
• Note: Of course, make sure you're using spells and traits that effect minions; not just buffs! It's kind of like Warden, but with more hurt~ There's plenty of fun, interesting effects, but they mostly center around doing indirect damage, or enemy-killing!

- I actually would like to set the world on fire.
I believe it was a young Bea Arthur who once said, "Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire" and truer words could not possibly describe this fella. Pyromancer is a glass railgun; Not only does it have tons of ways to murdalize (pronounce moi-duh-lize) your foes, but it'll keep them dead for a while. Just be sure to pack some insulated shields, cause it's gonna get hot!

• Play this class if: You like damage-over-time effects.
  Play this class if: You like circumvential methods of damage.
  Play this class if: You want an easy offense.
• Note: all the perks are for Burning, but many traits cross from burning to other damage over time effects. Always diversify, since sticking to just one kind of damage will inevitably hard-block you down the line. And for Pyro? Make absolutely sure you plan for survivability!

- I got time. I can wait.
likes to get riled up and just won't stop! Forget grand entrances, when it's a war of attrition? you're the boss. Reaver's got some shortcomings when it comes to early game, sure, but don't we all? Pack your little humble nerds with some immediate staying power, and the Reaver spec will do the rest. They'll be a boulder barreling downhill in no-time, flat!

• Play this class if: You're worried about long drawn-out fights, but not the short, easy ones.
• Note: Seriously, battles in Siralim, late-game, usually go fast, so this guy sounds bad on paper. But it's nice to be this dudebro during those long, drawn-out battles, because those are a huge drag... Reaver can make up for that.

- Sit down and shut up; It's my turn to do the fighting.
Is finally the 'control' class. Silence'm, Scorn'em, Put'em to sleep and Freeze'm. Hell, never let them take a turn for all I care! The best team fit for Sorcerer involves a lot of turn-denial, so keeping those jerks locked with snares is A+ Sorcerer planning. You and your new found-family have to stick together, because sorcerers are all about the family you make.

• Play this class if: You want your enemies to never take a turn.
  Play this class if: You want to play king of the hill.
• Note: Don't be distracted by the Sorcerer's other perks; Just keep slamming enemies to the bottom of the queue, by any means necessary! Top of Timeline effects (cast on your own team) are potentially dangerous, but bottom of timeline effects (cast on enemies) are a-ok!

- Just think happy thoughts
is a safe choice. No lies, no gags about it. It's the Peas-and-carrots to Defiler; What's good for you is good for you. If it feels good, do it! The safe part about this is, obviously, that your creatures are gonna be the most magically swole denizens of the deep that Rodia has ever laid their woeful eyes upon. So, you know... Gratz on that, brother.

• Play this class if: You like having protected, magically buffed creatures.
  Play this class if: You want good things to happen to good people.
• Note: This specialization has kind of the same issue that Defiler does but, obviously, in reverse. At some point, you'll have all the buffs you can possibly have on all the creatures that can possibly have them. Get ready to re-up, if triggering off of buffs is what you do!

- You're all gonna hate yourself in the morning
Is the epitome of "Stop Hitting Yourself". you'll be making them slug it out amongst themselves, and the perks involved will make it ten times worse for them to be doing so. It also scales ridiculously well; The enemy is, after all, doing all the heavy lifting! But, every once in a while, an attack or spell could slip through. So be careful!

• Play this class if: You want to use the enemies' strength against them.
  Play this class if: You're ready to stand watch over a bunch of children in a mosh pit.
• Note: This is, honestly, some of the most cheeky fun you'll have, until some enemy's trait has an effect like, "after this creature attacks, it deals X% of the damage dealt to all enemies", which still hits your team. Be prepared for that. Still, it's very satisfying to have your enemies just melt alive.

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let me assuage your concerns:
It's all just personal preference, at the beginning,
and you can tell yourself and any of your friends who are just starting this same thing,
I give you permission.

The classes provided for starters do several specific things very well, each in a unique way, and they're lovely for it. They're just absolutely darling, even.
But among those differences that do make them interesting-fun to play, and change up the game in noticeable ways, the general idea behind them seems to center around these two concepts:

• reliability
  - virtually all of the starting classes have some form of defensive considerations, offensive considerations, and maybe a few tricks up their sleeve, but all those tricks are pretty face-value once the sleeves are rolled up. They assist new players by supporting them with a little of everything, allowing you to learn but not letting you grow complacent.
  --
  If you take a look at the Advanced classes, their reliability is all over the place. Some are great at defense and do nothing for offense. Some are the opposite. Some are fantastic for ramping up during big fights while others are terrible for anything but ripping through common enemies and have 0 build-up. Some of them require specific or hard-to-acquire creatures. Fanatic is only there as an ego boost, and Royal is there because there's literally no other way for it to work, prior to end-game. They're not in the starting line-up, because they're just a little too much to handle, right away.
  
• simplicity
  - now, they're not dumb, I'm not calling them boring, there are at least two spray-and-pray specializations in here (at least they were, for me), but they're all, vaguely, easy to understand. The most complex starter is the one you overthink, which is a great advertisement for anyone looking for an interesting, complicated jaunt back into the starter specs! The starting classes, for players who may feel intimidated, will be effective without being overly complicated.
  --
  On the other hand, if you take a look at any of the specializations ahead, I wish I could tell you how difficult it was for me to explain out what some of them are actually trying to accomplish, or how some of them even accomplish the goal they said was so simple to do. Playthroughs really were necessary for most of them, and at least half of that was due to complexity. What's worse, some of them that I thought I understood turned out to have 'not enough' when I applied simple strategies to them; They just needed MORE, or else there were clear gaps in their defenses or offenses, and it was just... weird. Still worth playing them; they're funny and enjoyable, but like I said; they're a little MORE.

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If you're new, this is where I get too involved. Maybe it'll be worth looking into; After all, I am writing and putting this on the internet. But, it may not be for you! And that's all fine and good; no judgements!

This will also switch contexts. Slightly. If you are looking to play these specializations, you're not coming at this fresh as a new player. You've been in the game just barely long enough to build up and get these ones. OR, you're reading ahead to what might be coming later, which means you're just reading for the sake of reading, and I apologize that you actually read all this. My condolences.

As such, we're going to switch it up with: Try this class if:, and Try this class when:, since you've already played as at least one other, and maybe you need a push to know when a class is for you!

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- My Aquarius rising is your moon sign in the Mercury's retrograde of my fifth house!
One star, Two star, Red star, Blue star. Astrologer is a weird son of a gun, honestly. Easily relegated away as a 'only used as anointments' class spec, it's the utility hero of Siralim; the Any-man for any-team. Be ready to snag a plan (or three) and stick to it, because it's a chess game game now, and you gotta play that gambit to win it.

• Try this class if: You like augmenting "those things you like to do".
  Try this class when: You can handle some tough-to-grasp strategies
• Note: This class actually does have some super unique perks/anointments, but it's what I like to call "All glue and no Lumber". You'll need to add in all the damage, stat gain, buffing/debuffing, etc. All the meat'n patata's. After that, though, it's got the adhesive!

- Build your mousetrap and complete the cheese wheel!
is kinda the quintessential Siralim experience wrapped up with a pretty bow, if I had to pick one. It's the rube goldberg-iest of goldberg-y rubes. Be prepared to come up with some hackneyed plan to do a lot of something, because this class is one third triggers causing triggers, one third tripling triggers, and one third incentives to trigger!... It's about to get pretty automatic!

• Try this class if: you enjoyed the smoke-and-mirrors of linking together effects earlier in the game.
  Try this class when: You DEMAND MORE...
• Note: Doombringer has three flaws that are common, but which can make it strong. Real quick: 1. it has options that can spread it thin, so focus. 2. Most of those options are offensive, so get defense. 3. it is a lot at once, so be prepared to trial-test before 'finalizing' your team!

- Help me, Help you, Help me... Kill you?
Trippy and far-out, man! Topsy-Turvy is the name of the game. While inverted is kinda... low-strength-coffee at first, it can spiral out of control under the right circumstances. In short, Dreamshade is kinda like the opposition to Witch Doctor. While inverted is out, it's real hard for you to hurt yourselves; So just start throwin' haymakers!

• Try this class if: Up is down, Black is White, and Night is Day
  Try this class when: You want built-in shapeshifter effects for your team.
• Note: As tempting as it is to say "Inverted sounds OP", it's very weak at the start of any battle and its potency doesn't beef up until you afflict it again or kill an enemy. Look for cheap, easy ways to off enemies at the start of a fight. Trickster's "Even the Odds" does work!

- A simpler team, for a simpler time
The rare class specialization that opts for fewer complications, Druid is a nice respite away from over-complex teams; favoring something a little more brute. But, it can be done wrong. Duh. As long as you get some creatures that synergize well, you'll be as golden as you can be. Like any simple, down-home, house on the prairie, make sure y'gots yerselves a good foundation, and you'll be just fine!

• Try this class if: You like things a little simpler.
  Try this class when: You have a fondness for up to 4 specific creatures.
• Note: The perks that read, "your creatures gain +X% more (whatever) per creature missing from your group", still behave as though 5 creatures are missing from your team with the appropriate perk allocated. Feel free to load up to 4; you won't be losing out!

- What if Gods were three of us?
The GOD Spec. The Avatars and God-baby team. All your gods are super-gods, and all your god-babies have been endowed with more god stuff. If you're not using gods, you're doin' it wrong. Worth mentioning is the cost to make this team; You ever shelled out 100 bucks for a trading card game deck? That's this guy. But, once you've pegged each god at the gate of the gods and have the mana for a couple godspawn, it's time to get out the metal and go to town. It's time to be a Fanatic.

• Try this class if: You're sick and tired of taking garbage from everyone all the time, and just want a little respect.
  Try this class when: You've had it up to here with this.
• Note: This class only sounds ridiculous. It feels like it's ostentatious, but it can easily go south, since what it mostly does is bolster and add on more god abilities; it doesn't necessarily synergize anything. So be wise, and be smart using the remaining 12 traits you have available to you.

- Your plants ARE the pesticides.
So much the continuation of Animatus, this little fella is more a cutie than a machine for destruction! Where Animatus dealt a lot in trait-sharing and tearing down enemies, Grovetender is about stat-sharing and building up the herbling, which leads to a truly arbitrary yet abominable exquisite corpse of the experiences one has with Animatus, Reaver, Spellweaver, and Warden.

• Try this class if: you like small cute little critters. Or if you just like farmin'
  Try this class when: you are patient, aware, and have a plan.
• Note: Grovetender has quite a bit going on with it but can fall into three camps: 1. "have a early-game strategy and late-game strategy" teams; 2. herbling-only-turns teams, and 3. weird fun stuff! I guess it really just comes down to how you like to farm, y'know?

- It's like Monk had a baby with Siegemaster... You'll get that when you're younger...
Sea anemones unite! But not too close, now! Them spikes is sharp business! Paladin would better be described as the porcupine of Siralim; with the most thorns-like perks of any one class spec, as well as utilities to really POP when riled up~. Be careful, though; like any good self-harm class spec, you don't want to stab yourself with your own spines, now do ya?

• Try this class if: you like doing thorns damage.
  Try this class when: you want your creatures to be made of barbed wire and gunpowder
• Note: despite being named after "shield man", letting one or two of your creatures die is an excellent offense, due to the Execution Sentence perk. Lowering damage just enough to build up retribution so that they pop is a very purgatorian way of doing things, but a very successful way, nonetheless!

- We are all gathered here today to mourn the loss of half your team. Most of it was on purpose, but it's still a bit of a bummer.
Expect to murder your own team, you monster. I guess it's an even worse form of the Bloodmage? Purgatorian is, truly, very fun and has one of the most interesting class-exclusive perks in the game. It's easy to go a little too hard on the self-killing, so strike a balance between who lives and who dies; and always remember, YOLET. You only live eleven times!

• Try this class if: You find there are too few repercussions from allies dying or being dead.
  Try this class when: You have some fun ideas for a creature attacking or casting at 0% health.
• Note: "Life after Death" is a Purgatorian exclusive, it has no anointment, and it is amazing. Death-jokes and on-death effects of the class aside, being able to never lose the effects of a trait you have is more comforting than knowing they're never, really, gone.

- Choose your own Adventure~
This is the done class. You're done. You've done it. You've got all the other classes and you've finished! No more to do, no more to try. You just got it all! Congrats! Is pretty simple; every anointment you have is available to you, and you can choose up to 15 to use, instead of just 5. It's mostly there as a way to allow you to mix and match, and try out combinations that you couldn't without that flexibility.

• Try this class if: ya got nuthin' better t'do.
  Try this class when: You're basically done with the rest of them. You've made it. You have all the anointments you want. congratulations!There are a select set of 7 anointments from across 3 or more class specializations that you want to use for a team build.
• Note: My big gripe with this spec is that it's basically every other class, so long as you have their anointments. Presumably, slap on their anointments and their team, and walk out the door. Do me a favor, and only use this if you're gettin' real weird, kiddo's.

- A very special box of crayons
One of the two 'captain planet' specializations of Siralim, Rune Knight comes pre-packaged with its own grenade launchers, the Rune spells. While each one is different, and the perks apply different effects when they're cast, it's more tempting to get that full rainbow. But don't be fooled! Unlike Spellweaver, Rune Knight makes more Green Rangers than Megazords!

• Try this class if: You're curious about what a 'Rune' spell is. seriously. that's all
  Try this class when: You just want a really strong and broken version of an attack.
• Note: Unless you have a rock-solid way of casting every color of the rainbow, reliably, without issues, don't build a team around every color. We could do the math, but the short explanation is: multi-color is more casts, single-color is more wallop and focus. pros & cons~

- "But what if I ALSO put a second shield in my weapon slot? What then?"
Make Tony Stark proud, they said... Look, Siegemaster is not a difficult concept. Like Windrunner, or Monk before it, pile all your eggs in one basket and then build a bunch of egg-basket-powered cannons! When they come banging on your door to kill you (a door made of metal and diamond-hard rock, mind you), just use the whole egg-house to stomp them flat, you basket-case.

• Try this class if: You like the Defend Command.
  Try this class when: You want all the pieces for a team that won't take damage.
• Note: It's hard to bad-talk Siegemaster as an advanced spec; It's hard to go wrong with this one. What I will say, is that it's possibly too narrow-focused. It can (possibly) bottleneck in a few places, which cause unforseen hard-counters along the way. Get Defense: Diversify tactics!

- I bet you never been beat to death with a rainbow.
The Second of the two 'captain planet' teams of Siralim; This team does not come pre-packed with its own spell, but locks and loads once they've manually casted a spell of each color. The 'chambered bullets' provide your team with extra buffs which is real neato in the short term, but evil-doers beware; once all 5 have been combined: SHAZOW! Colorwave! big time castin'!

• Try this class if: You like to be bolstered by team-gimmicks.
  Try this class when: You are certain you can manually cast 5 spells of every color as quickly as you need to.
• Note: With my knowledge of 'manually casts' Traits and effects, my best recommendation is to form a strategy whereby you quickly dispatch regular enemies in common fights, but you have a secondary strategy for bosses to start colorwaving in as few turns as possible.
  
• Read the 'Final Thoughts' for more Notes.

- It really was all about the friends we made along the way
Even early in the game, there are likely a few creatures popping up that make explicit mention of, "oh, if you, uh... have, a few more guys like, uh, me... We do more bad, uh, stuff. Oooh". And that textually Jeff Goldblum-esque conveyed idea is what Tribalist is for. Get your pitchforks and the horde together; time for a real homogeneous monster mash of a good time with the Tribalist!

• Try this class if: You're a big fan of one kind of creature
  Try this class when: You want to get some bonkers multipliers from that cool trait you saw on that one kind of monster
• Note: This is a good class for having a 'big, strong, and dumb' team; commonly used as the 'Diabolic Horde' Specialization. It goes without saying; stick to creature races that explicitly synergize with eachother.

- Big money, All whammies
At times, this specialization kind of feels like a catch-all. It's definitely supposed to be the 'gamble' class, but the effects can be all over the place, and that's, maybe, in line with the flavor of it. After all, your team'll be outfitted to do near-anything, walking in like a James bond, Ocean's six into a Casino Royale, outfitted to kill. Amphisbaena Eyes! Always bet on Death Class!

• Try this class if: You have a gambling problem.
  Try this class when: You like the artifacts you made, and really want them to shine.
  --or--
  
  Try this class when: You are ready to invest a lot into an invisible team.
• Note: There is a 100% damage boost for Invisible allies. It's tempting to make an invisibility team, and I'm sure it could work, but you'll have to be all in on it, and Purrghast is somewhat of a pain to get. The Hidden Hand perk is pretty phenomenal, however!

- I'm pretty certain they came up with this spec after binge-watching the Fast and the Furious movies.
Lastly, the SPEED class. This class does SPEED. Do you have a stat? is it SPEED? well it better become SPEED. Windrunner creatures should, and usually do, start with a load of SPEED, get more and more SPEED, and use that SPEED hyper-effectively. Every time you come across a critter that positively effects or uses your creatures' SPEED, that's a Windrunner hopeful.

• Try this class if: You've found yourself using a lot of speed spells and traits.
  Try this class when: You think it would be fun to make a speed-based Evoker.
• Note: Author says, this has been one of my biggest powerhouse teams. Be sure to find those abilities that turn various forms of speed/stat boosting into defense and offense. Even if the class perks already account for a % of speed in attack and spell damage, it doesn't hurt to add more!

---

let me amplify your concerns:
I'm not saying I read anything about it,
and I wasn't here during the beta or previous versions,
but yikes are these specializations somethin'.

They're still personal preference, buy jeezy-kableezy
Tell your friends, kids: they're gonna have a fun micro-challenge trying to cope with something when picking up each one of these specializations.

I'm just trying to keep a parallel with the previous summary, but the truth is, I will give some credit where it's due: these specializations do seem to be the 'advanced', non-starter-friendly specializations, and that was a smart move to keep them separated from the get-go!

However, to keep things modest and succinct, I will refrain from a long-winded explanation and leave you with this big blurb on what to do with advanced specializations:

---

Welp. I'm finally getting to them. No use hiding it, anymore!

While finishing up the other bits of the guide, I'm going to refresh myself, here, and fill out what I know about the 1.1.1 specs!


I'm going to keep this section separate until it's finished, at which point I'll simply integrate and re-organize everything. Easy peasy, right?

Otherwise, the same goes, here, as did for the advanced specializations. Enjoy!

- This is not the Auld Lang Syne I signed up for!!!
Deep in your cups? Well pour one out for your foes, 'cause they're about to get wasted. Brewmaster is the suddsiest caster in all of Siralim, and an easy contender for wildest caster to boot. A little bar-room-brawl, but a lot of round-of-drinks for the frienemies, Brewmaster will get you that hair of the dog, and leave them with a hangover they just can't recover from!

• Try this class if: You want to throw a rager at your enemies, not with them.
  Try this class when: You've unlocked all the Booze spells.
• Note: Brewmaster might be a little too wild, sometimes. Try to, either, play off of how MANY casts you're about to huck around, or at least go mono-chromatic to save yourself some headache! Like any good hard drinker, make sure to pick your poison, and only mix drinks cautiously!

- Hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons! Pots of gold and rainbows, and wee red balloons!
They done did it, y'all! We have a third (as of the 1.1.0 beta) Captain planet specialization! And this time, she's rearin' and ready to go from turn 0. Demonologist drops all nuance of minions and buffs, and makes use of the darling little demons. It's a huge change, so expect to read every codex entry to get it. Once you do, it's not bad! There's a lot of power in... you know... hell.

• Try this class if: You want to try out a complicated, but effective wild-casting team.
  Try this class when: You're ready to sacrifice all minion effects and all buff effects.
• Note: Fell into the trap, myself: demons can't be summoned/effects via random minion traits/spells! Be sure to account for either a low amount of demons, or come up with different ways of getting them, via perks.

- More explosive than a holiday with the in-laws
So drop the bomb! Bombs, bombs, bombs! Set'em up a bomb! Boom, boom, bang, pow! Explosions! Engineer is pretty simple. Just remember; Bombs, and most bomb spells; are based on the speed stat! If nothing else, it's always fun to get in there, and set up a couple spots of extra TNT before the fireworks go off!

• Try this class if: You haven't had enough speed-centric teams, yet.
  Try this class when: You want to use the bomb debuff to end (most) fights before they even start.
• Note: There's a perk which lets your bomb applications effect based off of another stat besides speed. I wouldn't say don't make use of that, if you want to make a non-speed based engineer team, but that just sounds like a safety in case your team's speed gets dropped!

- Strapped to the Nines, and out on the town to come get some!
For being a cage-fighter, this nerd sure does use a lot of spells... I guess if they're all just weapons, that counts, though. Living ____ and trick slot abilities are what you'll be focusing on, so this here's actually a pretty simple spec. There's also tons and tons of ramp up! Set yourself up right with this team, and you'll wipe the floor with teams in no seconds, flat!

• Try this class if: You want to cast arsenal spells to do an arsenal-load of damage.
  Try this class when: You've unlocked and have easy access to all the arsenal spells and constructs.
• Note: It's not mandatory to have a team full of constructs, but two or more traits will help! Make sure you're prepared to load your team down with arsenal spells. The barrier to entry for this team may be a bit of Arena gameplay, if you haven't hit that place up, yet!
  
• Disclaimer: Class Specialization Requires a second Goblet-lap.

- 'cause it's One! Two! Three strikes you're out, at the Ol' - Ball - Game!

Ready player one, Graveborn has entered the melee! Sure, you can't resurrect via spells and traits anymore, but now you have 3 'extra lives' per creature, and each time they come back, they're nastier than before! So what'll it be; Play it safe, and leave those spare lives-to-live for a rainy day? Or risk big, win big? Or, in other words, YOLO? or... YOLTT?

• Try this class if: You need a reliable safety net.
  Try this class when: You have a team that is virtually self-sufficient.
  OR
  
• Try this class if: You want a more insatiable Purgatorian team.
  Try this class when: You can handle and feel safe permanently not having a few of your creatures alive.
• Note: This guy swings both ways, and by that I mean; I've heard of folks having a great time risking it all on murdering their whole team, while I had a great time using a super-safe team. Just a reminder: no need for resurrection spells or effects. They don't work!

- Still creepy AF
I much prefer color and dialogue, but they say there's no accounting for taste. Mime lets you, as the player, sit back and have the enemy pound themselves into the ground because they made a false move. If Monk and Paladin are counter-attacking for dodging and taking hits? Mime is counter-attacking when the enemy makes any moves, at all!

• Try this class if: You have generally mastered triggering of triggers on triggers
  Try this class when: You want to make a team centered around a free-for-all casting/attacking brawl.
• Note: Mime is pretty frail, unfortunately. You'd likely do best spending a lot of your traits and anointments on some form of damage boosting and mitigation. The silver lining, being: you'll never be for a lack of triggers and sources of buffs and debuffs! Mime will inflict those, for ya!

- Call me a Yu-Gi-Oh, because you're getting sent to a Shadow Realm!...
Time to give some sloppy smooches, because "kissing it all better" is about do your hurting for you! Your foes are gonna get blighted, as a shadowbringer. Yup. This is one'a them "debuff specializations"! The particular flavor being, you don't start with blighted, yourselves, but it does help if you can self-inflict it. All you need to know: love is now pain. So, as a Shadowbringer, all you need is love~

• Try this class if: Cleric and Inquisitor just aren't enough
  Try this class when: You have ample access to Sea Shamblers, Blighted traits, and healing effects.
• Note: Shadowbringer isn't too hard. Maybe I got to him, late, but heal-kills are some of the most effective offenses in the game! Be ready to pack something else, in case indirect damage is mitigated, but you'll be absolutely fine, otherwise!

- That girl is poi-so~on
At this point, you probably knew it was coming; This little fella has a heap of fun poisoning the snot out of his foes and, likewise, his allies, too! Nuances include: Your critters will actually take damage from poison and enemies' debuff damage will trigger ~spells~. So drop on down to your local pharmacy and microdose some poison debuff, today!

• Try this class if: you have a decent grasp on damage mitigation and indirect damage.
  Try this class when: you want bad things, and you want them to be green.[/previewicon]
• Note: Like any debuff-centric team, it's easy to lean entirely on plastering the foes with debuffs. And that will work about 98% of the time! Just be cautious about prolonging those battles where enemies are immune to poison; particularly: exacerbate your own team's poison as a means to succeed!
  
• Disclaimer: Class verified after long hiatus

So we've been through each Specialization and why one may want to pick them up and try them out. That's fair. That's fine.
But the truth is, classes are just an aggregation of abilities and effects that you could, theoretically, pick up from other places.


In this section, I will:

• motif each class spec with several tags to give a brief idea of its feel.
  
• I will identify, if it is the case, when a specialization makes use of a darling~.
  - a darling is any system, effect, or element of gameplay that exists solely, or almost entirely, for that class specialization.
  
• classify each class spec with several tags to give a brief idea for they may be able to commit to.
  
• briefly name off the unique perks and their effects that no other class spec has.
  
• give a brief outline of what to actually expect out of this class's perks.
  
• give an overview of what to expect, should you choose to draw from the class's anointments, rather that use the specialization, wholesale.

Note: this section is NOT up to date for version 2.0! I will drag myself kicking and screaming back into this game so that I can more adequately update these listings!

---

You get a trait, and you get a trait! Every Animatus gets a tra~ait!

• outline - This spec is actually a nice intro for players into some of the weirder aspects of the game, down-the-line, without being too much of a mind freak. Trait-Sharing is a fun little trick that you won't get right away, and it'll numb you to the idea of letting your own creatures die real quick, when you're both not concerned for the little guys, and you get a free power-up when it happens!
  Other than that, it's a pretty standard, run-of-the-mill experience for what you'd expect from having a leading-man, since he's a somewhat malleable and versatile fella. That Animatus of yours is gonna be real beef, real quick, because ALL of the traits refer back to boosting his little self (and his massive ego, I'm sure). If you're looking to learn about how you buff creatures in Siralim, the perks in Animator will give you a nice spread. And, if you have any ideas that, generally, require one big ol' hunka chunka thwackin' away at your foes, this could be your guy!

Stacking your deck isn't against the rules, here.

• unique perks
  
  • Lunar Eclipse - Your 3 creatures with the highest Intelligence always Cast their top-most Spell Gem that has at least 1 Charge and isn't Sealed at the end of their turn
    
  • Solar Eclipse - Your 3 creatures with the highest Attack always Attack at the end of their turn
• Outline - As mentioned briefly in the Note: from the Advanced specializations section, above, Astrologer is going to be a toughy to make a full team out of. It has very little in the way of cohesion; it's like the broth of a soup with none of the meat or veggies. But oh boy is it a tasty broth!
  It almost behooves you to pick the class out and take a look at its perks. I mean really take a good look at them. Then let it stew in your brain for a while. Then come back with a fresh head and make yourself a new concoction of a recipe for destruction!...
  ... Is anyone else in the mood for soup?
  
• anointments - The flip side to that, is that Astrologer makes for excellent anointment fodder. Individually, Astrologer anointments can fill gaps on other teams you'll be able to find nearly nowhere else!
  This will rarely ever be something to build a team around, but it will truly bring a team together.

When Sharing is Caring and it's No Pain No Gain!

• unique perks
  
  • Masochistic Tendancies - Your creatures' spells no longer consume Charges. Before your creatures Cast a spell, they deal damage to themselves equal to 25% of their Maximum Health
• outline - Bloodmage is ostensibly gonna turn your team into the Hulk. The angrier you get, the meaner you get! Like I said before, though, it's a fine line between a few battle scars and a mortal wound. Bloodmage maybe has some perks to help you out there, but not enough.
  The perks are going to help you much in the same way the Reaver class will, only with being punched and kicked at, instead of 'wasting timed'... at?... On its own, Bloodmage is absolutely fine for any generic casting, or even attacking, based team, because the only real issue you have to worry about is: will I be taking damage at any point? And answer is probably: yes!
  My prescription for a great fit, however: any team where you had plans to be running at low health, anyways. bunches of traits where "this creature does more good things when it has less health or more maximum health" are what you wanna go for!
  
• anointments - As for anointments, the same holds true! Maybe with a more specific need in mind, but any team that utilizes 'Maximum Health', or 'Missing Health' as one of its core components will probably find a nice bedfellow among the anointments for Bloodmage. However your little anger management issue (not referencing the perk, anger management) kicks off, check Bloodmage out for some assistance!

Generous is the best Enchantment, and you can't convince me otherwise

• unique perks
  
  • Unshackled - Your creatures are immune to Silenced
• outline - This one's also pretty straight forward, as well! If you got any creature traits that make use of ethereal gems; that's to say using the generous enchantment on any gems you have, or making use of Ashmouth Cerberus, Diamant, etc. Those will get perk bonuses! Certain creatures that are given gems at the start of battle, like Banshees, Lich Priest, that one Imp (you know the one), they'll get perk bonuses! Some of the perks even count for effects like Crazed Leper's Corpse Explosion, or Spider Occultist's Magic Missile, or Ancient Ent's Wrath of Nature! (although not all of them)
  The gist is simple: You got ethereal gems'a'goin' on? The for your consideration? Cabalist~
  
• anointments - Same schtick as the perks, with one fun caveat that, honestly, may just be a personal bias. These anointments are for ethereal gem castin'!
  The personal bias: it's very nice to have near-infinite casting. Cabalist's "Temporal Concentration" is a nice, quickie of an anointment to achieve that. What's better? enchanting chastise to be slightly-more beefed up? Or enchanting Chaos Orb so it can be cast forever? I guess it's debatable, so I won't judge! You do you; Chastise away, you golden god!

You're just here for the heals, and you're not gonna call me later. I get it.

• outline - MMOs be damned! The heals are for younow! All for you! Cleric perks are gonna heal ya, and all their buffing and stat-gaining are going to prevent damage from happening. And isn't that what true self-love is all about? Any traits from critters you find that boost healin', or use it for good or evil alike, are all good stuff to get the wheels-a-churnin' for Cleric.
  As such, look to implement a team with, or for, Cleric when you have a lineup of healy, barrier-y, nice guys just tryin' t'do nice things, and you can't go wrong!
  
• anointments - There's a lot of fun barrier effects that you could dip into Cleric for. A stat gain effect or two, and at least one bonus for damage reduction that is just a blanket for teams that need something reliable.
  The one stand-out effect you might need to snag for a team that's using healing, but isn't 100% insistent that the healing be the strongest-thing-ever-and-that's-the-only-thing-that-matters, might be Overheal. Dreamshade has an equivalent, but the ability to have healing effects trigger even when your creatures are at full health is something you don't quite think of until you're blindsided without it. Don't get caught with your Cleric pants down!

You're just here for the debuffs, and you're not gonna call me later. I get it.

• unique perks
  
  • Lingering Sickness - Enemies' debuffs last forever.
• outline - The starter specs' perks are pretty simple, aren't they? Defiler defiles, my good chums! These perks are gonna be nasty no-nos for all the nefarious nudniks out in them realms. Your Spectres, your Masochists, your Lepers, and every variation of creature that applies a debuff or lowers stats is fair game for the defiler. Maybe it's because I started my first game of Siralim Ultimate as a defiler, but damned-near everything fits this mensch.
  For this every folks' folk, the perks best suit other critters that remind them who's really so invulnerable; break their barriers, set them up with a all of the status effects, and leave their stats so low they forget what level they were to begin with! For short fights, you might be able to off the entire team with 'Unholy Night', and then simply make use of the fact they have every debuff in the codex to blow them to smitheroonees, afterwards!
  
• anointments - The anointments are pretty specific, though. Not every debuff is accounted for; just Weak, Vulnerable, and Feared. There's an anoint- to lower every stat, including max and effective health. And then there's just a hodge-podge of "Please don't have that thing I don't want you to have" perks.
  Other than that, if you plan to just... Absolutely litter the other side of the battlefield with debuffs like it's coachella at the end of the world, there's some stuff here for you!

Funner than a barrel-o-monkeys, and twice as long of a chain!

• outline - Now for an Advanced Specialization that is simultaneously the most understandable and the least understandable all at once. Doombringer's perks cause such a cascade of awful and amazing effects, that it's a wonder it doesn't just crash the game outright no matter what your team composition is! If you attack, you're actually resurrecting that creature. If you heal an ally, you're actually killing it, too. If you defend your provoke effects fire off, also! Then multiply everything times 3, and add the incentive of: "you're stronger if you trigger things a lot." and it could be amazing? Or you just trigger Stay Dead/Final Breath from an enemy, and you're 3 times as toast. *shrugs* Ain't my rodeo to be tellin' you how to ride, mister.
  Anyways. As a team-maker, I'd recommend building around a team that doesn't already have inane (not insane, inane) amounts of chaining. If it's an attack or heal team, then great! attack teams can slap in some on-resurrect effects to gain access to fun abilities they wouldn't normally be able to utilize, and the same goes for on-death effects with healing teams. The one caveat to be aware of is like I said above: Enemies that trigger off of on-death and on-resurrect effects of foes will absolutely trigger their effects, too. !Shucks! Just watch for'em, and you'll be golden, though!
  
• anointments - As for the anointments, these are, kinda, team-makers! This is the spot where you pick up Anger Management or Eruption, and build a whole dingity-dangity team around the idea of slinging 60 attacks at the enemies, just to Buffet them into oblivion~. Or, slap Woe and Anger Management onto a Cleric team, and watch the sparks fly!
  If it's not a whole new team, the other effects are pretty shpedoinkle as well. Multi-triggers take the place of rift dancers if you can't fit them in, there's damage boosts and damage mitigation if you trigger a lot of effects, and there's always the option of doubling down on the vast number of "when your creatures defend or provoke" by having them trigger both at once! Doombringer? *tchyah!* more like Sillybringer!

So you've summoned an Emus. Now what?

• outline - Invert THIS. If you're playing Dreamshade, you're sort of stuck focusing on the Inverted aspect of the class. But that's basically what you came into, right? That knocks out the mystery surrounding about 66% of the perks!
  The real fun stuff comes with how you use it. The most blasé use is to just magnify your damage, which is... fine... I guess... But it's still worth noting that enemies break through the low, low initial barrier of entry and just knock your block off, anyways. There are other fun effects at play when foes have inverted. Namely, 50% chance to muss up their buffs and a 50% chance to foul up their own stat gains.
  
• anointments - Outside of Inverted perks and anointments, what you'll likely see from Dreamshade are duplicates from other specs, which is pretty interesting, I suppose? They basically grabbed and ran with Shapeshifter traits; no debuffing yourselves, no hurting yourselves, no dropping eachothers' stats. Also, No Blighted and you can heal while at full health! It's basically just making sure global effects aren't bad for you! If you ever don't have a good choice when picking anointments, and Dreamshade's are available, there's liable to be something you can use!

Try less.

• outline - There's only one thing I can say about Druid...
  ... Ok, maybe 4 things, but that's only because of 'Companion'.
  Druid's another simple one, folks. The perks are gonna boost and buff your small team. Go in with 4 creatures; 1, if you're just starting out; and they'll be bigger toughies than if they weren't on a druid team.
  Most of the perks are pretty straight-forward effects. Free buffs, free stats, damage, mitigation, dodge, crits, and health, more casts and attacks. The stand-out fun ones might just be the free debuff resistance, extra gems, and an extra 2 traits, just because of how special your 4 pals all are!
  
• anointments - And all, or some, of that could be yours; If you're willing to strike a deal with the druidic devil; taking only 4 (or possibly 1, you wild, mad-man!) creatures into fights with you!
  It's worth noting, unless you want to really give yourself the raw deal, you'll probably want to pick up Companion as an anointment first, before using any other Druid anointments. But, you all know me. I'm not gonna stop you from doin' nothin'! Go forth and do whatever you feel like doing! This is on you, and I am so proud of you.

Give yourself a Hand Gem!

• unique perks
  
  • Outspoken - Your creatures are immune to Silenced
• outline - Wizard it up, son.
  Here in Hogwarts, you're gonna be castin' all day, all night. But that's only part of it, really. The perks aren't just to enable to you cast more freely, they really open you up to the auxiliary fun of having weird combos of spell gems, so capitalize on it, ya nerd!
  Luckily, unlike some other class specs, Evoker really comes packed with chunk, to it. If you play your gems right, your little wizards and witches will be able to take hits just as nasty as those they'll be dishing out~
  
• anointments - as a pool to grab from, Evoker is the fella you grab from when a creature has an effect that does something with non-ethereal spell gems. More of a stat per gem of a color, more damage when it's not the creature's class, boosts per gem, per empty gem slots, boosts per charges... Turn to Evoker!
  It's worth noting, the numbers are actually pretty solid, too! It's not hard to justify a team with 126% more of a stat; especially if you're one-trick pony-ing on that stat!
  Even if you're doing something with less, you can get more spell charges to lose, or more spell gem slots to ignore. Always worth making an opposite-color team if you do it right. And, occasionally, you just want to capitalize on having a strong arsenal if spells! Evoker is a great place to start if you've gotta ride the broom.

Spawning grounds

• unique perks
  
  • Army of Gods - You can have 2 additional Avatar creatures in your party
• outline - The gods are dead, and we have killed them... So that we can add them to our team. And fanatic, here, is as good a reason as any to pull'em'out! While it's never a bad idea to throw an avatar onto a team to round it out and make it a reckonable force to be forcened with, Fanatic will load you up for an out-of-the-norm 3-at-once god-team!
  The real supposition with these perks, is that you use the already uber-powered traits to make something magical. And I mean Magical Kingdom, take the family for a special vacation they won't forget," magical. If I had to, I'd dare say this spec is all broth and no meat or potatoes, but what a meat and potatoes it begs to have used!
  Up to you, of course, but it behooves you to look up and make sure you don't accidentally double down on the same avatar traits by accidentally using a godspawn with its associated avatar. Also don't forget that there's a whole wild world of ultimate spells just out of arm's reach that you'll end up discovering!
  
• anointments - I suppose my feeble human mind couldn't tell you everything one might be able to do with the fanatic anointments, but with the gifts of the gods, there are a few things you can do, and one particular thing you can't.
  First and foremost, if you want to double up on avatar junk, this is the way to do it! If you ever decide "it sure would be neat to have two of their traits", or "what if I casted X's spell, while using Y's trait?" then there's some combo in here, for you! Second, are boosting your critters via the use of 'trickle-down' perks (gross! Questionable economics references!) Lastly, I could say 'misc', but it really comes down to just makin' your godspawn swole, and makin' your Avatars (and their respective ultimate spells) swole! Oh right. And if you recently got into godforging on one of your gods, and you really think it'll give your team that edge, 'Godforged' is like the nether stone booster of that little mechanic~.

Talk about Monster Rancher, am I right?

• outline - Grovetender is one of a few classes that's gonna catch you with a mechanic you don't often think about, because it's more of a grinch than a green thumb, that way. Herbling is all about bolstering your little one, and all the nice little effects it helps the rest of your party out with by having it be BIG, but many, many of it's perks' effects occur at the start and end of its turn. take a look at demonologist, sometime, for another class that, trickily, sneaks in the impetus for taking more turns/more start or end of turns If you can find a GOOD way to get those effects to play well with your herbling and his buddies? Well... it might just be the best harvest we've had, yet!
  Other than that, expect a lot of casting. Sure, there's a desire to attack, so feel free to try it out if you want, but Herbling has so many spells attached to it that it's gonna be hard to ignore the fact that it's primarily a spell-caster class! Keep the fertilizer on hand is all I'm saying. It's, apparently, a fantastic reagent for wizardry~

For all the fans of spiked punch out there.

• unique perks
  
  • Indomitable - Your creatures are immune to Scorned.
• outline - Fight them fights, brawl buddies. Hell Knight is not just an attack class, luckily, so let's go over what the bowels of Satan have to offer, shall we?
  While, yes, there's plenty to do with attacking, it's the first class to attend to when looking for attack-adjacent abilities, so you're going to want to augment it with on-critical and on-damage abilities in general, thanks to always having savage and splashing, and those buffs always being super powered.
  Additionally, Hell Knight really likes to drag its enemies down into the abyss with it, starting things off with a cast of Firestorm (augmented by the attack stat, thank you~) and afflicting debuffs after attacks on a fairly regular occasion!
  Hell Knight's certainly going to be an attacking team, but I told you up above (as it is down below), you're gonna be selling yourself short with these guys if you don't diversify your team of eternal torment!
  
• anointments - Not gonna lie, I think I did a pretty good job spelling out the split of possibilities in the section just prior, but I'll go ahead and restate it for a dogmatic effect.
  When you need Attacking or attacking adjacent anointments, you stop into Hell Knight, first. He may not be the last or best place to go, but he's usually got something that'll get you by.
  Otherwise, Kindling, that anointment to start fights off with firestorm? Excellent ♥♥♥♥ move for any casting or on-debuff team; and there are a few more choice selections in there for buffing, debuffing, indirect damage, additional spell damage, and even a missing-health-based damage mitigation.
  Hell Knight might be presented as the attacker's attacksman, but he is all Renaissance man, at heart.

If you need to inflict some holy war, look no further.

• outline - I shouldn't hate on Inquisitor so bad; I really like some of their perks, really I do! They just may be, to us when we're first looking at him, all over the place. They are, half, about 'inhibiting' foes, so it's hard to form a team around those ones. And since there's nothing we can do about things we have no control over, let's worry about the things we do have control over! (To be continued, in a bit)
  So the Holy war of it all. This class got all the actual 'Paladin' stuff you'd expect from your D&Ds, and your Worlds made of crafty wars. Include lots of healing and resurrection effects with your fellas; Not just to keep them alive, but to begrudge and pain their opponents! Also; would it kill you to die once in a while? Inquisitor's creatures just get to start fights with Rebirth, and they explode on enemies when they resurrect. Nice little trick, there~
  
• anointments - Which makes Inquisitor a great source of 'pulling' for anointments. Since they're, just a little, all over the place, it's a great time to be had to take about 1-3 anointments from Inquisitor, and no more~
  For the healers, there's a lot to be considered both in terms of boosting one's own creatures and dishing out damage, and that's only two of the anointments. Resurrection effects have their place here, too! And, as mentioned above, Inquisitor is the only place for your garden variety Defiler to become your sealed-gem variety Defiler (Of course the inquisitor loves turtles...). There's some help on offense for Generalists, and some fun for "trait-huckin'" teams.
  As for the rest of them, they target specific colors of creatures. The only real use of this I could think of would be doing what a Crusader might do best: Destroy false gods? But I haven't put that to the test. If anyone tries that out, drop me a line and lemme knows hows it goes!

It's like that game with the catacombs and the scaly fire-breathing monster figurines.

• outline - Minions.
  Like... Idk, man. Just get a lot of minions. All of'em. Collect'em like you're making a Warhammer army, have a trust-fund, and got no sense of urgency in life. That's what Necromancer's gonna do, and you're gonna love it.
  Other than that, I guess I could tell you that there's gonna be a little bit of everything, mostly casting, if you needed to hear it. But, more mostly mostly, you can just get yo minions, and eat them, too... If you're into that sort of thing.
  
• anointments - Ok, ok. A little more detail, maybe.
  Both sides of the coin are here. You wanna get a minion? there's an anointment here for that. You wanna be strong a minion? Yeah, we can do that? You want to question my grammar? we don't do that here, with Necromancer.
  If you got a lot of minions, Mecronancer anointments are gonna make you strong AF, but they won't fix my spelling.
  If you wanna pick up more minions, do it, but the anointments won't make me form my sentences any better.
  (personally, I'm just stoked this section was so easy and straight-forward. I missed writing Cleric and Defiler~)

I would like to Retribute this joke to my bad taste in puns.

• unique perks
  
  • Divine Intervention - The first time your creatures would take fatal damage in battle, their Health is instead set to 1.
    
  • Wrath - When your creatures deal damage with Retribution while they're Defending, the amount of damage is increased by 50%.
• outline - Paladin makes me a sad good boi, because it is a bad good name for a class specialization. Briefly touched upon in the Inquisitor section, this class has very little to do with healing. Instead, expect to line up a ton of provoking, attacking, and taking a boatload of hits effects to interact with your perks. That's right. Ya heard. Your perks want your critters to get punched in their stupid pretty faces, and there's nothing they can do about it, so long as you're playing as a Paladin.
  More importantly, everything is going to focus around an indirect-damage perk called 'Retribution', so, in some way or another, you'll want to let it do its work. Let the enemies attack you, or force them to do it; Paladin doesn't care. Paladin never asked questions, it just told you that it's time to enter the Thunderdome. Pack your bags. It's pain o'clock for everyone on the hurt train.
  
• anointments - And so there are two ways to swing Paladin anointments.
  It was almost a Darling class, (as will be Monk) but thorns damage isn't, really, unique to Paladin. So if you want to do thorns damage, you don't have to take retribution, but it is a pretty decent route to incorporate to other builds and teams. Feel free to try out a non-paladin retributor-machine!
  Other than that, the P in Paladin stands for "Provoke", so all your boilerplate boosts for Provocation are gonna be found here, with this slab of meat. Paladin can provide extra defense, and a couple of extra triggers for provoking, if you snag the right anointments for'em. Like I said; Paladin is a rowdy rough boy with a lot of kick-back in his caboose. Hope that's what you're lookin' for!

Life is a curse I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy... Or apparently my own monsters.

• unique perks
  
  • Life After Death - Your creatures' traits are active even while dead. This perk does not affect traits that cause creatures to intercept or take damage in place of their allies.
• outline - This here's a cheery fella~
  For starters. Your creatures gon' die. Like. On purpose. Do it, and that's what you'll want to do, cause these perks actually make it totally worth it!
  
• anointments -

Game, set, and match-stick

• unique perks
  
  • 
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Fortune percentages are for closers, buddy.

• unique perks
  
  • 
• outline -
  
• anointments -

nothin' to see here

• outline -

One Trick Pony

• unique perks
  
  • Diabolism - Your creatures are immune to Silenced and their Rune Spell Gems cannot be Sealed.
• outline -
  
• anointments -

All the Siralim ladies, all the siralim ladies, put your shields up.

• unique perks
  
  • Armor Shred - Your creatures' attacks and spells ignore 25% of the enemies' Defense.
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Leave'em feeling low, low, low.

• unique perks
  
  • Mental Fortitutde - At the start of Battle, your creatures gain Shelled.
    
  • Slipstream - After the Timeline is determined at the start of battle, your creatures are moved up the Timeline 3 positions higher.
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Helping you make your own Electric Light War-chestra.

• unique perks
  
  • Infusion-related Perks - *All Infusion mechanics*
    
  • Colorwave-related Perks - *All Colorwave mechanics*
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Three Imps stacked on top of eachother in a Trench coat

• unique perks
  
  • Battalion - At the start of battle, your creatures gain up a random buff for each creature that belongs to the same race fighting on your side. Maximum of 6 buffs.
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Time to get kicked out of a casino.

• unique perks
  
  • 
• outline - absolutely no ramp up, and little to nothing in the ways of defense or offense. Just mechanisms, my card-sharps. Trickster is a "broth", and it needs something to give it some meat!
  You'll also be split between worlds when it comes to attacking or spellcasting. Assuming you snag and keep all the perks for the spec, you'll have every reason to really weigh your options. It may serve you better to pick one and roll with the punches, instead of losing the best of both worlds!
  
• anointments -

Lookin' better in the buff~

• unique perks
  
  • Preparation - At the start of battle, you creatures gain Invisible and Proficient
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Still just fascinated with statistics

• unique perks
  
  • 
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Ending this section with a nice strong punch to the face.

• unique perks
  
  • 
• outline -
  
• anointments -

Which I guess we all are planning to, aren't we?

While there are only two, I'll keep this section brief. The gist will be pretty simple:

• Start with a list of the limitations', or the challenges to overcome with the class spec.
  
• Do my normal 'blurb' about what the whole thing's deal is. This time, it will be in the form of, "This class will challenge:
  
• next will be a list of reminders of things that are allowed. Oftentimes, the limitations precede the options available to us, and we forget: this isn't as rough as it seems!
  
• Some last few silver linings that made me feel better, as I completed my journey on ascending them.

Limitations

• No fused creature traits
  
• No Avatar creatures
  
• No Relic effects

Allowed

• All 6 creatures
  
• Nether Stones
  
• Godspawn
  
• Anointments

The silver lining: The Deprived is a bit of a comfort of mind when it comes to creature retention. You can't gain anything from their fused traits, so any godspawn or god shop creatures you summon up won't be 'wasted' if you don't fuse them. So don't!
A lot of strategies for the Gate of the gods tend to overlap. Several of the gods are just plain tough fights, and that's it. Some of them are practically duplicates of the same concept, and some of them are as simple as swapping in and out a gem or an anointment.
With 6 creatures remaining, unlike as Pariah, you still have the survivability that comes with a spare 3 critters hangin' around, should something go sideways!

Limitations

• Maximum of 3 creatures
  
• Druid Anointments ineffective

Allowed

• Fused creature traits
  
• Avatar and Godspawn creatures
  
• Nether Stones
  
• Anointments (Non-Druid)

The silver lining: As with Deprived, there's going to be a lack of expenditure if you make multiple teams! With only 3 artifacts per creature, it'll cut down on costs one way or the other; even if you get lucky on one single team to rule them all!
You'll also have access to the full roster of creatures, and 9 full traits among your 3 creatures to work with. If you ever needed to use something as an excuse specify a 'random creature on your team' to have an effect happen to them, now would be the time, since the odds are down from 1/6 to 1/3!

---

Well, about that...

It occurred to me, while playing through, that some class specializations are weird. Like... really weird. In more ways than one, they kind of demand an explanation, both to yourselves and to me; I really wish that 1-page synopsis in the game could've done them more justice.

But I do want to maintain the intent of this guide! So I'm going to set some ground rules, both for myself and for the information that goes into these following sections.

1.[intention]: As stated in the post-amble, this guide is for players diving into these classes. I will not be telling you what to do when you play. It also necessitates I deliberately section out anything that could be construed as Spoilers.
2.[organization]: Speaking of sections, the post-amble also explains how I feel about data organization; that's why this is going near the absolute end of the guide. If you're here, then I don't know what to tell you: you are lost in the guide, and can't be helped. This is the deep end, and you're in it, folks. It's basically the Miscellaneous bits that I hope help you before you dive in!
However,
I will, still, to my dying breath, try to keep things organized and focused amidst this chaos.
3.[exclusion]: Because we are so deep in the weeds, It behooves me to finally start saying "no" to myself. While I'll set down some ideas I intend to discuss, I will also intend to just not have 'sections' if there's nothing to discuss, related to that notion.

So what are some good topics?

Well, it's basically the things I ended up feeling as I tried out these guys for the first, second, and therefore-after times. The events and happenings that truly stuck-out and made me say, "I wish I knew that before I had gotten into this." Sometimes with, sometimes without, that spoilable end-game content.

1. Unexpecteds - Miscellaneous bits that changed the way I thought about the specialization.
   Mild warnings.
   
   
2. Gotchas - Facets that entirely made me change my approach with the team.
   Big Red Flags.
   
   
3. Saviors - Some event, trait, or effect that really brought the team together, finally.
   Possible Advice.
   
   
4. Funnies - Happenings that just kind of made me laugh; Always worth it to bring up!
   Worthy Side-gags.
   
   
5. Start-vs-End - Stark differences between the class with beginning and end-game content.
   Heads Up.
   
   
6. Unexpecteds - Spoilers section; Miscellaneous bits that changed what I thought about the specialization, but in regards to content that may be spoil-able.
   Spoiler Warnings.
   
   
7. Mechanics - Spoilers section; Specific mechanics or traits that made the class extra-special, or changed it entirely.
   Deliberate Mechanics.

---

• Got a (dead) booty like POW - One weird hint I shouldn't have overlooked with this class was the name 'animator', and how 'necromancy'-ish it is. And I've got to hand it to them, the perk that auto-casts 'corpse explosion' is, out of left-field, one of my favorites. Despite being a little hard-to-trigger in boss fights, it basically became my field-clearer for average-shmoes. So thanks, Animatus!
  
• Stepping Stone - Animator has a lot in common with, and is thereofre a good start-of-game stand-in for Druid, Grovetender, or Purgatorian. if you liked this and want to move to something that focuses on fewer creatures, these advanced specializations are good follow-ups.
  
• Ultimate Trickery - a very late-game Nether Trait material, you'll find this, also, on the grovetender list.
  It is, somewhat, infamous for taking the 'unique creature' specializations and making them not so unique. Pick yourself up a few of Kraynaks' Tongues, and you can have an army of up to 6 Animatus'! Now that's a game-changer...
  
• Giran's Strategy - Also a late-game trait, This one is... less fun? It basically demands you sacrifice some amount of synergy to ritualistically funnel stats into your Animatus (or whoever has that trait... presumably your animatus!) But, it really makes you feel as if you have to go all in.
  As I declared in the pre-amble, I won't tell you how to play the game, but I have my guesses how this might actually work well. Getting 100% optimized stats for your Animatus at the expense of every creature in your party would be a wild and interesting trick, and surely one way you could try to go!

• Stayin' Alive - Not a spoiler, necessarily. When I do try the from-start-to-finish with the starting classes, Blood Mage is first on my list, because of one thing: Blood Mage seemed almost too good at keeping its health up, and I wanted to know how it fares earlier on. In the short experience I've had playing Blood-mage, it was very difficult to actually experience the low health parts of Blood Mage. And I suppose that's a good thing! But it was, very, unexpected.
  
• Two for Flinching - Bloodmage has a nifty perk, Hemostasis, that says, "your creatures can't take damage more than once on their turn." Which seems pretty nifty and cool, right?
  Well, it would be. Until you realize: Most of the damage enemies will try to inflict on them will happen when it's not their turn.
  Even worse, yet, it's ambiguous as to whether or not this means that creature's turn, or your entire teams' turns. So remember; I love you, little one. But don't get bent out of shape if your creatures accidentally kill themselves while confused. It happens to the best of us... In video games.

• The Spells are Accessory - Cabalist's schtick as the ethereal-gem guru is pretty neato. Tons of access to spells during fights can be a big ol' help; sure.
  But the one thing you'll, likely, figure out starting the game as a cabalist that you wouldn't notice otherwise, are the amount of fun things you can do just by having or obtaining these ethereal gems. Stick with the Djinns, kid, and you'll catch my drift in no time.
  
• Never not casting - It was my experience, having only officially picked up cabalist after many, many realms into the game, that there is no end to the spells. By very virtue of existing as a cabalist, your creatures will be casting, every single turn. Early in the game, this won't be as huge of a problem; namely because you won't have all of the perks activated, but also because the fights won't be as 'thorny', and there won't be fights contingent on enemies taking their turn. If you're running cabalist late in the game, you will almost certainly have to swap out when fighting creatures who will do too much thorn damage, cause you to reflect or confuse cast, or when up against Lister or Jotun, in cases where you keep on locking them out of taking their turns.

• Just plain Unfair - Picking up on conversations with others and my own experience, Cleric is a specialization that, sooner rather than later, will be a powerhouse. It doesn't take much to put this guy over the top and, without spoilers, there's a ton of early-game content that'll have them crushing baddies beneath their heals.
  
• Abnegate, Flagellate, Life transform for heaven's sake - If you get ahold of Abnegation, Life Transformation, or, later on, Flagellation as an anointment, your team should begin to steam-roll the opposition. These three (Life transform and flagellation are both the same effect, of course) are the essential 'holy war' effects that turn a holy cleric into a war cleric.

• Enter Here - This one might be a little obvious, but pay attention when making your team. It's all well and good if you're looking to have a couple combos building off of certain actions, but remember what triggers what; The Perk triggers are only one-way for Doombringer, so know your 'entry points'!
  
• Leap of Faith - As it would turn out, my first Doombringer team had an emphasis on resurrection effects; entirely because it's way safer to trigger them as a doombringer. As a result, I got to save myself a lot of headache; Once I found out my fellas weren't beefy enough to last those first few rounds, I slapped on a specific Inquisitor anointment which caused them to resurrect stronger and meaner than ever before. It made real nasty use of those resurrection effects... As the gods intended, I guess? Lesson learned: don't be afraid to just use the trigger effects as intended. They could save your creatures' lives!
  
• Ultimate Thorns - A big flaw in the triggers-trigger-triggers methodology: your triggers are definitely going to trigger enemies' triggers, too!
  Be careful when running into enemies with counter-attacks just'a waiting for you to slip into resurrecting or dying, because it's about to get dicey when you try to do simple things, like heal or attack!
  That said, you could work with that in mind. If you build around *actually* dying... What'll they do about that, huh?

• Big Promises - Taking a look at the description of Inverted, as well as the perks for Dreamshade, the effects seem kind of staggering and sound too good to be true. Unfortunately, the math in this game is hard, and even the numbers we can see are pretty difficult to follow. Suffice it to say, the numbers Dreamshade hands you to start each match off with are not great, and will require some serious bolstering and assistance. After you do that, however, you should be solid!
  
• A little help? - Phrasing this one without explicit spoilers because: There are very few traits or spells that actually interact with inverted, and new Dreamshades need help. As you embark on your Dreamshade quest, you're about to find out just how alone this debuff really is. Be prepared to find and use some really tricky, tricky methods to make inverted work for you. It's either that, or you may just have to not rely on it as an initial, primary means of survival.
  
• Of Course! - Without a doubt, this is the class you will start using spells like Apocalypse, or Mass Mutilation, or anything that globally targets the whole field. It's pretty obvious, but I wanted to call it out! Just keep carpet-bombing the whole battlefield, and everything will turn out ok in the end!

• True Mimicry - Being the proverbial elephant-gun of class specs, one soft counter to it is a little more obvious once it's staring you in the face: mimicry. Several enemies, and especially bosses, love to make you hit yourself, cast against yourself, steal your spells, stats, traits, and even go so far as duplicate entire creatures. Where and when possible, just make sure you're not shutting your own self down by giving them your own hard-counter!
  
• Luck's Gambit - This spell shows up sometime in mid-to-late end-game, and will do a number on your spell-casting Fanatic when it gets cast. If you're relying on Zonte, or Vertraag, or... Really any spell-casters to a heavy extent; watch it. As soon as this spell drops, Ultimate Spells obtained through perks and whatever other means you have are all gone.

• Short-game, Long-game - a common problem with several specializations, this will be copy-pasted. Expect to have one strategy for 'easy', or 'common' fights to get in and get out quickly, and another strategy for more difficult, long-winded fights, that's more in-line with this specialization's focus.
  
• Beacon, please. - This is a fun one. If your team is a bunch of good boys, then this will only slow you down, but it is a severe kick to the teeth, and might ruin all of your day if this jerk shows up in, say, a big-bad boss fight.
  Lappet beacon is a natural pest to the Herbling plant, as it feeds on its ability to gain stats. It's rare that you'll run across this one out of 1000 enemy but, when you do, expect your hard-earned strategy of cranking your herbling's fertilizer up to 11 to work against you; That little sap will be drained to nothing by the Lappet Beacon's natural ability to screw over Nature creatures!
  
• Exquisite Corpse - As mentioned in the summary, this class made me... feel?... like I was playing a couple others all at once, namely as follows: It had the long-haul battle approach of Spellweaver that made it feel futile to try and build-up during common fights, an emphasis on getting as many start-of-turns as possible, like you would with Reaver. Tons of Warden-esque buffs and on-buffable effects, and obviously the allure of playing around with a unique creature, à la Animator. The list could go on, but it just felt more pronounced, what with the oddity of these situations, than with other character classes.
  
• Ultimate Trickery - a very late-game Nether Trait material, you'll find this, also, on the animator list.
  It is, somewhat, infamous for taking the 'unique creature' specializations and making them not so unique. Pick yourself up a few of Kraynaks' Tongues, and you can have an army of up to 6 Herblings! Now that's a game-changer...
  ... At least it could be, if you use it well. Be warned, my first team for Grovetender made use of Ultimate Trickery, and it didn't really help; it was added distraction from just making my herbling good to begin with. The real lesson here is to use it wisely, which I'm sure I just didn't do. Don't be stupid. Don't be like me.

• A little on the nose... - My best guess, y'all, is that they just themed everything this guy has around the name of the class, so get ready for some vaguely religious combat. It was hard to find a central theme to this, and the blurb, in-game, about its purpose kind of falls in line with that sentiment: "a solution for every situation". Sounds like they just wanted to make a class full of flavor, and no nutrition.
  But, all things considered, it does have some real fun effects and anointments that I'm glad the game has! Better to shoe-horn them in than to not have them, I guess!

• Saving-Grace, Hurt your Face - One positive gotcha/synergy that you may not pick up on, right away when browsing the Paladin perks, is the interplay between Retribution, Divine Intervention, and Execution Sentence. Long story short in 2 parts: Divine Intervention, during big bad boss fights where you WOULD normally be wiped, lets your creatures do ([Max Health] -1) worth of damage with Retribution and, when they get killed, Execution sentence plows the enemies with at least that much going for it, as well. Since Divine Intervention is a Paladin exclusive? You can't rightly get that effect, without a little effort, from anointments!
  
• Sea Urchin Moshpit - Paladin likes pain. He, or She, is the Masochist of Siralim and makes use of it. But what if your BDSM buddies don't want to play? What if they decide to stay put, and refuse to poke-you-good?
  Fortunately, one thing that'll save you from this, is if you pack spells, traits, or any other effect really, that forces them into fighting you. Personally, I used a well-placed to-be-spoiled-next-bullet-point trait to cause some havoc, and let the rest fall into place~.
  
• 50 shades of Trait Launcher - Paladin was the class specialization that really taught me how ridiculous and fun "improbable catapult" could be. Like I mentioned before, a well-placed trait that forces the enemy to cast spells or force attacks on you that they otherwise didn't really want to? That'll get the Paladin poised to tear them to shreds with little to no effort. My favorite: Look into "Last Ward". My Siralim buddies heard about that combo with Paladin for at least 2 weeks!

• Unobtanium Golem - Due to the general reliance on burning, pyromancers have the distinct disadvantage of, mostly, needing that there debuff. If you need it to be on the enemy, expect to almost never kill enemies who are immune to debuffs.
  Which means there's a silver lining! You're about to be the best friend of all Treasure Golems and, thereby, the most generous, charitable, forgiving soul in all of Rodia~
  
• Double-Edged Matchstick - for new-comers, it sure is fun to watch your foes burn to death. When you play Siralim, the same is also true!
  But in Siralim, they tend to have a nasty habit of fighting back in the process. As a Pyromancer, not only do you gain benefits from enemies taking damage from burning, but you're putting yourself at risk every time they take that darned turn of theirs!
  In short; Most Pyromancers either do away with their sense of obligation to allow enemies to burn-up at all, or they come up with clever ways to ensure their turns are not-so-dangerously spent, or some fine combination of the two. Chances are, you'll do the same in your own, unique way! And that's what makes this tiny little world of ours that's caught fire so interesting!
  
• The Late Bea Arthur - Pyros of all sorts, not just the pyromancer, are gonna have one of the easiest times taking out big baddies who aren't immune to indirect AND spell damage. There's a fairly well-known combo of spells that sync with burning, and several traits that turn up the burners on foes, but the real take-away is: multiplying burning damage can get real insane, real fast. If you find any of those pieces of the puzzle, you hold onto them and cherish them. It's what Dorothy would have wanted, and thank you for being a friend.

• Top of Timeline effects - Many traits, spells, and perks have the ability to 'move [a creature] to the top of the timeline'. For reaver, this sounds great! But it can also be a bit of an oddity; since it tends to swap out whichever creature was already at the top. the comes in the form of, you may accidentally shuffle all of your creatures lower on the timeline, but the is that, with each shuffle, it increments your creatures' turns! Nifty!
  
• Just Doing my Job - Reaver's goal in any fight, for the most part, is to increase turn counts, and exhaustion counts.
  However, an unspoken caveat with turn-incrementing, as with top-of-timelining as we'll learn below, is that it resets the turn, allowing for even more actions to be taken.
  That means, if you're not careful, you can create an actual infinite loop with Reaver. It's not as fun as it sounds, and ends up crashing the game significantly more often than it causes you to win fights. Be warned; As of 1.1.1, you'll have to gag your excessive use of turn increments!
  
• Partners in Crime. But just the one Crime - Reavers and Sorcerers. They're not particularly synced up in terms of strategy, but it turns out they have more in common, once you peel back the layers of their outer ogre. It behooves a reaver to keep enemies from taking turns to give them the advantage, so most reaver teams that use debuffs or that drop enemies to the bottom cross over real well as sorcerer teams. But not top-of-timeline effects! Sorcerers don't take kindly to having their little family split up!
  
• Vivacious Vodka - real strong stuff - I actually found this one out with my Spellweaver team; (long story short, it's a 1-cast-only spell, and I was tired of multi-casts)
  This is one of those fancy tricks that artifact spells work their way around, nicely. It's a booze spell that would, normally, be inaccessible for manual casts, but just triggers the top of timeline effect very, very nicely. Socket it in any and all creatures' artifacts that you expect to be popping off a bunch and watch the turn-counters sky-rocket! It'll save you a trait-slot or two, as well.

• Fully Chromatic teams - It's possible to have a team full of every color creature and to achieve the '1 extra cast' and 'no charge use' because you've cast a rune of each color. However, there is a subtle hint that they don't explicitly tell you about in the class's very own perks that makes it beneficial to use fewer rune types. Each of your rune spells will have Magnetic, and that's additional damage, too! It's fewer battle-actions and memory build-up, also, which is a bonus in my book. Consider going mono-chromatic, if the full rainbow is too much!
  
• Luck's Gambit - This spell shows up sometime in mid-to-late end-game, and will absolutely cripple your rune-knight when it gets cast. It's actually worth having back-up, non-rune-spell strategies, in case this spell drops! In short: your rune gems won't seal, and you can't be silenced, but you may have to fight without your pretty colorful shotguns, so be warned!

• One Big Spike - There's a nifty perk this class has called 'Thorns', which is kinda funny, like strange smell funny, because unlike all the other effects and terms called 'Thorns', it operates on a different wavelength.
  When enemies rush at your impenetrable wall of shields; That is what you're making, as a Siegemaster; They probably won't even hurt you. But they WILL hit your One Big Spike. And so it seems, most enemies don't even ding off your armor before they slide off the ends of your pikes, if you play Siegemaster, this way!

• Top of Timeline effects - Many traits, spells, and perks have the ability to 'move [a creature] to the top of the timeline'. For Sorcerer, this sounds great! But it turns out to be an absolute mess. This effect doesn't re-slot the creature at the top; it tends to re-shuffle, or swap the creature out with whichever creature was at the top. In short: while it will maintain that one of your creatures will be at the top of the queue, you are still splitting them all up, and that is no-bueno, for our Sorc-pals.
  
• The True Spirit of Sorcery-mas - The quick anecdote; My first attempt at sorcerer was nearly 100% stone-debuff and timeline bumping-based which would have been fine, except for the note, above. Because the timeline didn't, truly, get shuffled in a way where my creatures were together on one side of the timeline, I wasn't getting the full effects of the character class.
  Re-doing it all, it's not about forcibly pulling the ones you love close; that never works. It's about keeping the jerks and butts away, and allowing your family and loved ones to find their way to you at the top... Using the ensnared buff and snaptraps... That's the true meaning of Sorcerers.
  
• Leveling Up - Early on, debuffs are a huge hurdle and a huge boon when you get to use them. Snared is a lot harder to come by; bottom-of-timeline effects are even more scarce than that. As a Sorcerer, your early game expectation of keeping enemies locked low on the timeline may be a lot harder to pull off than late-game, so expect your team to wildly change, from start to end. You're likely to rely on Frozen, Sleep, Scorn, and Silenced for a while before even finding and using snared at all, let alone using snared reliably. However, snared does become very reliable by the late end-game, so that's the good news!

• Loose Trigger-Finger - Any strategies that involve machine-gunning ethereal, or ethereal-included, spells risk letting loose color-waves unintentionally. Cabalist anointments, in particular. This might be a-ok if you are, again, hoping to get to that 5 colorwave eden, ASAP, but those infusions tend to keep spellweaver teams alive early on in fights. Don't drop your guard fence during the opening salvos!
  
• Short-game, Long-game - a common problem with several specializations, this will be copy-pasted. Expect to have one strategy for 'easy', or 'common' fights to get in and get out quickly, and another strategy for more difficult, long-winded fights, that's more in-line with this specialization's focus.
  
• The Multi-cast Contradiction and Lag-Machine - Spellweaver's Long-game strategy depends on cranking out 'Manual casts'. Manual casts can be achieved, additionally, through about 3 additional traits; there's not much to work with, and they're all chance-based. Without explicit spoilers: the prospects aren't great.
  Spell-weaver, as a specialization, also has a near absurd amount of built-in multi-casting, including a perk that just... casts everything 2 extra times. Just 'cause! And then there's all the stat increasing and decreasing, buffing and debuffing, and side-healing. It's a tsunami of auxiliary effects.
  So before you ever get to that holy-grail of infini-casting colorwave, you'll have auto-casted an absolute truckload of spells, all of which have additional effects due to the infusion perks, likely slowing your game to an absolute 'ka-chunk-ka-chunk' of a grinding crawl.
  Be Warned.

• The Clothes Make the Monster - While not all-encompassingly, this spec does seem to have an emphasis on augmenting a significant number of artifact statistics; particularly the chance-based sockets, which makes some sense. But it's enough so that, on a second look and on making a second team for it, I tended to rely more heavily on that facet than I did on the rolling of the dice. Uncertainty can fail you, but a swift painful axe to the enemies' face is much more reliable.
  
• Like, Whatever, man... - Might just be me, the author, but this class took me forever to figure out its weakness, but I finally nailed it after critiquing it and trying out about 4 different builds for it.
  Trickster isn't even particularly great at its early-game, but it has absolutely 0 built-in ramp-up. Make sure you get some build-up skills, spells, what-have-you, from somewhere, or else you may be sitting in boss fights for a long, long time.
  That, or the alternative is to sell your soul for one of those teams that's just broken, no matter what specialization you match it up with. And I guess that would be on-brand to sell your soul, as the gambler... So it's your choice. Whatever, man...

• The Infamous Trait-sharing debacle - Due to the order of operations during start-of-battle, "your (creatures of a specific race) share their innate traits with eachother" will not work if a creature doesn't begin the fight as that race. That means the We are Pack perk, and a specific trait belonging to another creature out there in the world of Rodia, will not turn your creatures into the race you want in time for them to share those traits. So, sorry fans of the Golem, Devil, Leper, Luckmantria, Shade... I feel like I'm missing a few others... There is no easy way to do that thing we've all hoped in our heart of hearts to achieve immediately at the start of battle!
  
• The Less-Infamous Innate-Trait debacle - Effects that require your Creatures of Race X to use or reference their Xs' innate traits are coded in such a way that they need traits originating from an X. Less frequently, it's found among Creature Master traits abilities that reference other creatures' innate traits, IF they are of a race akin to a certain kind. Through testing, however, it's been shown that, and this is sad-times at the kiddie coral, they truly mean, "innate traits that come from that race", not just "innate traits that exist on a creature that is currently that race". Sorry folks!

• Thee Forth o' Joo-lai - Fun tidbit: It's possible to get a real 'wild-magic' team going with Warden. Like a fireworks show, but if the fireworks are all launched directly at the enemies. Sync a couple 'get buffs, get healed' and 'get healed, get buffs' effects up to the warden, and your creatures will start spitfiring spells and attacks each time they get healed or buffed, thanks to the Warden's array of auto-casting/auto-attacking perks!
  
• Many Paths All leading the Same way - Most late-game differences have to deal with an exceptional surplus of choices, and that means that, early on, Warden will, likely, have to choose which buffs they like the most, just out of scarcity of options and literal resources. Once you've broken past the end-game, however, your team will need to upgrade into a half-way home for ALL wayward buffs, and attempt to add-in or cycle through them as quickly and as often as possible... Or at least do something creative with having and keeping every buff you can!

• No fury when an enemy scorned - Someday, you too, young one, will play a witch doctor, only to try and force your foes to attack eachother in a ballroom blitz of hilarity. But that day won't necessarily come. The unfortunate debuff, 'scorned', (and likewise silenced for casting) still prohibits triggered attacking. Your efforts are in vain, buckaroo. Best come prepared with alternative methods of enemy-torment, cause that road's gonna be blocked more often than you might like it to be! Or you could just inflict the opposing debuff on them. Your call!

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Around the time I'd created my ... Forgive me while I do the math in my head...
40, minus 4, times roughly 3...
108th team, or so, I figured there's some amount of take-away to be bestowed upon new-er players who are about to embark on a literal quest through all of the Class specializations; Or maybe even if it's just for the first new one, when the game begs of you to try a new one on for kicks.

This list, for the time being, will have no hard and fast form and will, therefore, live at the end-ish of the guide. Once it has a better form, I'll incorporate it somewhere else.

But until then, here is my most miscellaneous of miscellaneous tidbits! The information that you literally did not even come here for:

1. The ramp-up of passive bonuses and boosts is subtle, but will ultimately force your teams into higher Realm Instabilities. Don't worry about treading the highest realms at Realm Instability 5 right away, especially with new teams.
   
2. Every Class isn't made the same. Obviously. I could try and break down their shortcomings in this guide, but usually it's one of the "DIMER" areas I've listed below. If I didn't pick it out, it's usually one of those jerks!
   You're totally in the clear having a few rotten-egg teams with them, though. That's just how they go!
   
3. After trying a new team or two, try taking a Palate cleanser 'round'. When the stress of planning, running, tweaking, losing, winning, crying, etc. gets to be too much, make sure to just enjoy the teams you have that function on a level you know they'll function well on!
   
4. Siralim is, also, a learning game. Any 'failures' are just steps you take to understand parts or facets of it that you haven't tried out, before. Either that, or they're just you intentionally failing which is... I guess that's ok, if that's what you're into!
   But different people seem to be into different parts of the gameplay. If you spent your first 500 realm depths really digging on attacking creatures and buffing, it'll understandably be a little weird when you pick up evoker, or pyromancer for the first time.

1. Don't be afraid to scrap a team, if they're bad. Keeping a failing team's weaknesses and strengths straight just to tweak them into still-not-a-working-state is much more of a hassle than just trying again, sometimes. That said, keep in mind:
   
2. Don't waste resources forcing yourself to make new builds, early on. If you're super interested in a class prior to picking up anointments, then absolutely delve on in! I won't stop you! (see the Words of Fun advice, below).
   And if that wasn't already contradictory enough, how about this?:
   
3. Try to have a couple specializations with solid teams on-hand. That's right. Don't make a ton of teams, but DO make a couple teams. But DON'T waste a bunch of resources...
   Ok, so. The idea is: make a new team when you have the resources to, and have as many solid teams for different specializations as you can on-hand, early on. This will help save a little bit of resources, headache, and, possibly, time. Trying to rotate the Goblet of Trials' specialization pool earlier on in the game just takes time. More so than the 5000 power each time you rotate, the time spent is a bummer!
   
4. If you're concerned about a new idea, break it down to its core concept and then test that idea out, first. It will spare you resources if and when an idea doesn't actually function!
   A simple test is to usually take two or three creatures with traits you intend to have interact together, level them up to 50, and walk them into realm depth 1. No extra steps needed.
   
5. If you need a 'structure' to build a team, I've come up with "DIMER". Make sure you include on your team:
   
   • Damage - deal your damage. Make it big, and make it either 2 types, or 1 and a secondary smaller type, so that you can end a fight.
     
   • Initiation - Initiate your fight. Put yourselves first; launch a salvo turn 0; drop them to the bottom of the queue; snare them all; whatever. Just take control how you need to.
     
   • Mitigation - Resist damage, resist buffs and gain immunity, prep to be resurrected, etc. Make sure you don't die. Or at least don't stay dead.
     
   • Escalation - If your opening doesn't wipe the other team, something's gotta give. Gain stats, ramp-up with traits or perks, or do something to get meaner, just in case.
     
   • Regrets - What shortcomings does your team have, and are they frequent and damning enough to warrant attention?

1. Feel free to try and just slap together a team, sometime! Using the Siralim Team Planner[berated-bert.github.io] is great and all, but it's a worthy exercise to see what you come up with on the fly, without the assistance! If nothing else, it'll show you where your brain is at; How it's doing at passively understanding what's gonna happen before hitting up the realms!
   
2. Try out specializations that look fun! I guess it should go without saying? But maybe the better message is: allow yourself to be challenged by them, too! My most recent foray, as of this writing, into a fun-looking specialization was fraught with team wipe after team wipe. But it was still an experience! And hey. I got to make 3 different teams for the spec. What a blast!
   
3. Change things up, sometimes. Pay attention to the traits you use and over-use! Not only will over-use burn out the materials you have, and send you running back to refresh your stock of that creature, but it gets boring having to include that trait on your team, every time! There are usually at least 3 abilities at any given time to swap between for a given general effect; sometimes more!
   
4. Fortune Percentage is a Lie!... Well... Maybe not really. But it's definitely not worth worrying about! Like any good grinding game, the biggest factor in what determines the amount of goodies you get is just playing, and how far in playing you are.
   And I won't lie- Siralim doesn't scale the goodies by realm depth! (at least not directly) But there are other things you'll just get along the way that'll make treasure more plentiful. So just have fun! Lose if you lose! No pressure!
   
5. Play this game like Dungeons and Dragons. That is: What people tell you the rules are: aren't important! I'd much rather you all just have fun, more so than you listen to me. I'm hoping both can be true, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

• Firlefanz - For being a fine collaborator; keeping me in check on what facts about the game they are able to, and lending assistance with the class specific traits, picture uploads, and other fine details! Most of all, for their assistance with the Notable perks section and really helping shape that section along the way!

• Thylacine Studios - For a great and awfully addictive video game
  
• The Steam Forums - Great chats and information sharing; Always a good source of niche discussion or think-tanking, they've provided a lot of baseline-understanding for the game, on top of what I already knew from 1000+ hours accrued across 2 titles in the series. Nothing directly related to this guide, but they've shored up several misconceptions surrounding specifics that ultimately could influence core understandings of the game!
  
• Siralim Party Planner - What a fantastic tool. Now I don't condone spoilers in video games (other media, I could care less), but once you've hit about realm level 500, where you've unlocked guilds and have started unlocking some of their creatures and spells, it's worth taking a look at this bad boy! Give it a look-see: Siralim Party Planner[berated-bert.github.io]
  
• The Discord Chat - For the brief time I spent there during Siralim Ultimate, and the extensive time I spent on it during Siralim 3, learning about the game. May their spoilers live on forever in my memory.

This is where I'm going to get a little real, folks.

I, as split decision as it was, decided to create this guide for two reasons, and I really hope they came through with the pacing and organization of the text.

First and foremost: I wanted to keep this effective and precise, Even concise where I could, but not lacking on detail and enjoyability. It's why there's specific organization, highlighting, and arranging; it's why the pre-amble is a post-amble, and why the introduction tells one of the two intended demographics to skip it entirely.
I enjoy reading, but I don't have time, either. More-over, I'm about to put a diatribe out here doing the one thing that I hate to see other people do to me: try and convince someone that this will solve a problem they don't have.
So let's be straight-forward about this; Siralim Ultimate is just a video game. This guide is about the Specializations in it, and I am here to give you 1000+ hours' worth of experience; 1400 if you include time playing Siralim 3; explaining why you might want to play one or another of these character classes. And that's really all there is to be said.

Second and foremost, because it's just nearly as important and subconsciously spurred the first decision, I care more about newer and younger players of any sort of game, anywhere, doing anything. Call it a personal philosophy, but guides aren't intended for people who already know everything.
It's hard coming into something new, and it's equally hard changing something you were very comfortable with. One of my favorite rewards in gaming is to "do the thing people don't do", because it means you've stepped out of the cultural comfort zone, and usually your own. And really; there's no harm in it. It's just games, so there's no real risk other than a little wasted time!
But for those of us who are on edge because it's their first foray into Siralim and are overwhelmed (or about to be overwhelmed) by the class specializations; for those of us looking at a class and are just wondering, "... Why?..."; And for those of us who just had their Goblet of Trials roll over onto the last 3 specializations we haven't even tried out yet: this guide is to assuage our worries, and give that, as I described at the very, very top: "quick and dirty." So that we vaguely know what we're getting into. But never too much, so that we can still enjoy getting into it.

As for my self-validation, I just ask that, if this even vaguely helped, you thumbs up the document. Feel free to share the hearsay opinions without credit after that, for all I care. Tell your friends what some nerd on the internet boiled a class specialization down to. And, if you're really philanthropic, pass this along to a new pal who just got the game and is about to tell Caliban how they plan to crash through realms; maybe my prose and jokes will be more digestible than a bunch of paragraphs' worth of card-game rules text.

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