Viable Character builds

[Festus]

Well, Im gonna ask the big question.

What is in "your opinon" a viable character build if you like to do quests and wish to fight higher end mobs?

What start out skills?
What effort gained skills after the start out template? 
How high for each skill you think the character should have?
What stats?

What is the best method in your opinon for gaining such skills?

I really want to spend the time to build a great character.  There is nothing worse than seeing someone ingame trying to get to they body and dieing again and again and again yet I cannot help them.  Im tired of doing so myself and Im tired of wanting to help but know that if i offer my corps will lay face down in short order. (usually one hit)

[Jharnul]

You have to keep in mind that on Sylvan Heart, the highest level of power can only be attained by using the socketing system to its fullest. This make the "viable" builds oriented towards optimizing what sockets can get you. There are 3 things I observed until now you can get from socketing your gear and can be optimized:

1) Dexterity
With a few ancient emerald you can get your dex to a point where your defenses are very high, and your attack speed and band-aid speed through the healing skill are at their cap (1.25 seconds per swing for the first, 2 seconds for the latter). Let's not forget the abominable bonus it gives to the Evasion bushido spell, that makes you virtually invulnerable to attacks (not their secondary effects, such as mana drain or poison).
2) Intelligence
The same goes for int, but this time it favors mana, mana regen, and thanks to the new SH patented custom magery system, higher spell damage. I have yet to test the system, but I remember fighting a few dragons in Market Vale and seeing a player's Mind Blast spell lowering the MOB health bars pretty fast.
3) HP
With HP boosting augments (rubies) you can have enough HP to prevent being 1-hit-killed by anything in the game. I think the damage cap you can receive is around 250, so getting your HP to around 300-350 take you to that sweet spot where nothing short of the strongest thing can dish out enough damage to kill you before you get your band-aid done.

There is also the possibility to socket and augment your pets, but I don't know much about it since I don't play a tamer, so I'll not go there.

The factor mentioned above, plus the high skill cap, have an effect of reducing the amount of different builds that are viable for high-end hunting. with 1200 skill cap you don't have a lot of compromises to make when you build a melee fighter, or a bard or a mage. There would be variations, of course, but in most cases I don't have to make a lot of sacrifices to build a decent character.

Now, to (finally) answer your question:

The Melee tank
The melee tank maximizes on survivabilty, by lowering (slightly) is offensive capabilities, and relying more on patience to kill mobs. High HP, maximum healing speed, Defence chance increase, and around 200 dex will achieve it, along with a few key skills:
-Melee weapon skill (I prefer swords, but I think maces are stronger). - 120
-Anatomy (not only for healing, but for the damage boost) - 120
-Healing (without which survivability would be low) - 120
-Tactics (for damage too) - 120
-Parrying - 120
-Bushido (another key skill, use of 2-handed weapons for maximum parry chance, and the uber Evasion when above ~170 dex) - 120
-Chivalry (more healing, remove curse, damage boosters) - 120
-Focus (for high stamina and decent mana regen) - 120
The rest is up to you, but I found that meditation with a medable armor suit helps if you don't leech mana with your weapons, and I like to have 2 different melee skills to vary my weapon sets. Necromancy is also a good idea for vampiric embrace that gives life leech, so is Resisting Spells, for... well, resisting spells. You could also reduce your chiv if you do not plan on using the higher spells, to give room to other skills.

The Druid
The Druid makes use of pets to tank in their stead while they blast enemies with their spells. They use the druid staff to get extra spells, such as the legendary tree that heals over time HP, mana and stam. High intel, enough HP to survive stray monsters that aggro you first, and enough dex to vet your pets fast are necessary to get the most out of this build.
-Magery (at least 100 is needed to weild the druid staff)-120
-Inscription (for spell damage increase) - 120
- Eval Intel (damage increase and other effects) - 120
- Animal Taming (100 minimum for druid staff) - 120
- Animal Lore (100 for druid staff, but also makes vet more effective, and gives you extra stable space) - 120
- Veterinary (keep your pet alive!)- 120
- Meditation (keep your mana up) - 120
I would probably end that build with mace fighting and parry for added defense, since you wield a staff for your druid spells. The rest of the skill points could be used for things like focus, poisoning (which give your Poison spell more punch), or splash a few bard skills to keep your pet from being teamed on by annoying things such as Frigid Ice Imps.
I may be off for the druid, as I never played one with any efficiency, but I think the skills are usually pretty straightforward.

The Assassin
This build is more suited for PvP, but it can still take on big MOBs, granting that these MOBs are not immune to poison, and are not accompanied by many more critters. It is mostly melee, but varies a bit from the tank with cunning and utility skills:
-Fencing (this is the skill for poison use, look for weapons with Infectious strike as weapon ablilities) - 120
-Poisoning (Duh) - 120
-Anatomy - 120
-Healing-120
-Parry-120
-Hide-100
-Stealth-120
-Ninjitsu(good defensive weapon moves, plus optimizes on Stealth for PvP) -120
-Tactics - 120
And the rest is up to your taste. For more melee optimization I would add Bushido for it's defense, especially since you can't use a shield with most Ninjitsu spells. You could use focus to make sure you have enough stam to run away, or add a bit of chivalry for Divine Fury and the mobility of Sacred Journey. If you don't plan on going solo on the biggest mobs, you could drop healing and lower anatomy to make room for lockpicking, or stealing, for pure added fun. The fact remains that while it might kill some MOBs faster than the tank, it lack its incredible survivability, thus making it less efficient.

These are the build I consider viable, but you can mix and match a few I suppose, like a half-tank, half-tamer, or a druid that poisons, or an archer tank instead of melee (which works better with wraith form from Necromancy).
I'm not really good on number crunching so I base most of my builds on a 10X legendary structure, but it might not be the best way to work. If people see how mistaken I am, feel free to set me on the straight path by correcting my builds.

Bottom line to an efficient build is to gear it up decently. I suggest runic leather for most armor piece, and probably artifacts for your weapons, but you can craft a runic weapon that would be better suited to your needs or preferences.

Hope that helps,

j

[Cypress]

Personally, I'd say about a third if not more of your "ability to hunt well" is based on template.
Another third of the pie might be effective socketing and good armor choices for your fighting style.
The last third is experience... got to know what skills to use at what time and when to just run for it! lol

All that being said, there are many viable builds depending on what you want to do.

Do you want to be a warrior, druid, archer, mage, bard, mage-warrior, warrior-archer, druid-warrior, druid-mage, archer-bard, mage-warrior-bard, etc...

The possibilities are many. Not all choices are good as stated in so many words above, but there are still many good ones. It's hard to pick out just one good template to hand to you. It all just depends on what you want to be exactly. Maybe yack with me in game, and we can see what ideas we can set you up with.

[Jharnul]

Yes, I should probably have started off with that.
It may sound silly, but the best build is always the one you have the most fun playing. Taking on the strongest beast has little point and little satisfaction if doing it is a chore. Like they say, it's not where you end up, it's how you get there!

Also practice is your friend. You may have a less efficient build that will yield better results because you are most familiar with its battle style, than if you use a uber build you never used before.

I know you play really early in the day when there are few players, but the next time I have an insomnia spell, I'll pm you to go hunting and maybe help you optimize what you want to play.

[Lucian Darkfire]

Also keep in mind you dont have to take all of your skills to 120. I am a tank/druid/tamer and i have a preaty good template (Made by cypress :-D) and it works for me, some people will saying having a skill thats not at 120 is not worth it, but me personaly, i only need 100 animal lore and 100 magery just so i can use the druid spells, i dont use my pets that often so i only need 100 vet so i can heal a bit and res them, and i use the 20 points i didnt use in each of those to bring my chiv to 60 so i can use the spells i need, i dont use any of the higher end spells so i only need 60 chiv. You can do things like that and play around to see what suits you best. And dont forget for defensive purposes parry mixed with bushido and a high dex does wonder! Lower end mobs can bearly touch you. If you can remember that time i went to destard to rescue you youll remember they bearly touched me. hehe.

[Festus]

Im def reading this stuff guys an gals.  So keep feeding me info.  I have a ton to learn. 

It seems that chivlry is a must and I have around 100 skill point in focus I guess I can drop since it seems not to help me out as a mage/bard archer.  Bard and archery being the biggest use since magery will need inscription and I know nothing about it at this point.

Now to figure out how to train chivalry

[Jharnul]

For training, this thread should help.

Focus is very helpful, because it helps on mana and stamina regeneration, which you both need when fighting (chivalry spells take mana too).

[Lucian Darkfire]

Well if your not going to use magery to cast damage spells you might as well do away with eval intel, that only realy helps the power of magery spells, necro spells, and druid spells. So there is more points to free up. Unless your going to use all the chiv spells 60-70 points it plenty in chiv to use the spells that increase damage. Obviously you will have a lower fail rate at a higher level, but i have found at 60 that the fail rate isnt to bad. I would strongly recomend throwing bushido in your arsenal. That is a skill i couldnt do without.