Atlantica Online Class Guide - Spearman

The Spearman is one of the three class D melee mercenaries in Atlantica Online. The true power of the Spearman is his ability to hit two opponents in a single row, allowing for damage penetration into the second rank of your opponent's formation. They have reasonable hit points, though their defense is rather weak for a melee fighter. Their class-specific magical attack, Lightning Spear, reduces the opposing units' action power, effectively disallowing them from acting on the opponent's next turn.

Spearmen are a useful class in the early levels for bringing high amounts of damage into the enemy's back ranks. I'd recommend if you're going to use a Spearman to combine them with Gunners or more Spearmen, to maximize the damage penetration abilities of your party. In the long run, there are quite a few mercenaries which outclass Spearmen, even in the middle levels, so I would not recommend using them once these other mercenaries become available. However, the Spearman is useful for formation builds which make use of a large number of Gunners and Spears, to cut deep into the enemy's defenses and kill enemy units quickly.

The Spearman's usefulness comes from his high Attack Power, with the other stats backing up his fighting abilities nicely. With his reasonably high Defense and Vitality, the Spearman can take a fair amount of damage, more than most Class D mercenaries, but he is definitely weaker than his counterpart the Swordsman. The Spearman's Magic Defense is quite low as well, making him quite susceptible to magical attacks.

The Spearman's starting stats are as follows:

• Strength: 310
• Intelligence: 120
• Dexterity: 210
• Vitality: 240
• Defense: 330
• Magic Defense: 110
• Action Power: 70-80
• Attack Power: Great

In general, it is best to give Spearmen equipment which increases his Strength, for increasing weapon damage, and Dexterity and Vitality, for increasing his ability to dodge attacks and stay alive for a greater length of time.

Skills are really what most defines each individual class in Atlantica Online. The Spearman has 4 skills in his arsenal, including 3 skills which are common among each of the class D melee mercenaries (Swordsman, Viking, and Spearman).

These three skills are as follows:

• Guard Dispel - This spell can be cast on a single row of the opponent's formation. It essentially cancels out the spell Holy Guard which is on any of your opponent's units in that row. This allows your other mercs to use magical attacks on those mercs which previously had Holy Guard on them.

• Deadly Strike - This spell can only be used when your mercenary is on the verge of death. It is a very highly damaging attack, targeted to a single enemy unit. Using this ability will tax your mercenary's action power both on the round in which it is used, and on the following round. It really is a last ditch sort of ability, but it deals out significant damage.

• Break Down - This is an area-of-effect spell, targeting every unit in the enemy formation. It is one of the weaker AoE spells in the game. However, if it is used on a formation which has the ranged skill Chaos Wind in effect upon them, the spell Destructive Wind will activate. Destructive Wind is a high-damage area-of-effect, damage-over-time spell.

The Spearman's fourth skill is unique to the Spearman class:

• Lightning Spear - This is a high-damaging skill which inflicts damage on the targeted merc, and the merc 1 rank behind the targeted merc in the opponent's formation. Besides the high damage, this skill also takes action power from the opposing units, oftentimes taking away their ability to attack in the following round.

With the basics on the Spearman outlined here, it's time to go more in-depth into the Spearman class. How should you train your Spearman's stats and skills? For which formation builds is the Spearman mercenary most useful? And are they worth keeping around into the later levels? If not, why not?

We will discuss each of these topics on the following page of this article.