[code]Archer
I know archers are pretty hated-on and a lot of people think they're boring, but I think they're a fun class and I'm pretty sure they're available from the beginning, so here is a guide to put in the OP for new players:

Bow vs Sling
Bows have better talents and do more damage. The benefit of Slings is that they're one-handed and can be used with a shield, or more importantly, a dagger in the offhand. You wouldn't actually attack with the dagger, it's just a stat stick. Ultimately bows are the better choice, but slings are also viable if you want to veer from the cookie cutter.

Stat Distribution
Bows scale with Dex and Str, slings scale with Dex and Cun.
I always put 1 in to Con every level on pretty much every character. My other two points go in to Dex, or Str (Cun for slings) when Dex is capped. Archers are pretty good at avoiding damage (especially if you're a Skeleton) but Con is a fundamental stat, it provides not only health, but also physical save and access to Thick Skin (A +%resist all passive)

Races
Cornac is my favorite race in general and you can always put your extra cat point in Archery Training for better Aim/Steady Shot. I really like the idea of a Yeek Sling archer who would just be incredibly quick and nimble but I've never been able to get one off the ground. I try to avoid classes with high exp penalties because I think it's a pretty big handicap, especially for a new player, but Skeleton is a great Archer race. A passive str/dex racial, a racial shield, a racial resurrect. Don't play a Skeleton if you want to go Antimagic though.

Gearing
Archers are pretty easy to gear.
Attack speed isn't a priority because you hit so incredibly hard, you want to amplify that as much as possible so you can one-shot things and 2/3-shot bosses. Critical Strike is only marginally useful, by late-game Aim will be giving you massive amounts of crit and you're only going to need 10-20% from gear to have 100% crit chance.
Raw damage is what you're looking for. Armor penetration, physical resistance penetration, raw dex/str. You also want defenses (crowd control immunities, elemental/phys resists, Con, Defense, etc.), but that's true on any character.
I'm not really sure what the optimal ammo setup is because the last time I played archers seriously was immediately after the ammo revamp. Early on you want high capacity ammo, but as you get Bow or Sling mastery up to 5/5, you're reloading 4 shots per reload and low capacity becomes less crippling. Go with the highest damage ammo that you feel comfortable with.

Talents:
I don't know enough about sling talents to give advice there, but for a bow archer:
Technique / Archery - bows
All four talents in this tree are great. Bow Mastery is mandatory, Piercing Shot is a powerful beam, Dual Shot costs no stamina and does elevated Shot damage to two targets. Volley of Arrows is your only AoE. I forget what the scaling is like on Piercing Shot and Dual Shot so consider that before putting more than one point in to these talents.
Technique / Archery training
Steady Shot is mandatory 5/5, as is Aim. These two talents are an archer's bread and butter and should be maxed first. Rapid Shot is useless and Relaxed Shot can be useful if you're ever having stamina problems (you will in extended fights, unless you teleport away to rest).
Technique / Archery prowess
I've never been a big fan of Flare, it's marginally useful (it's a light source, useful for checking areas for enemies) but you will have better sight options pretty early. Cripping Shot is useful to fire off when you cancel Aim to move away from a single target, but I wouldn't take it past 1/5. Pinning Shot is excellent but should be maxed after the important talents in the above two trees. Scatter Shot is an AoE stun and is also mandatory.
Technique / Combat veteran
Worry about your offenses and CCs first, but Spell Shield isn't a bad use of your points, and stamina regen might be useful to you at some point.
Technique / Field Control
I try to keep Heave and Disengage at the same level. You definitely want both of these talents, beyond Phase Door rune they're your only way to distance yourself from a target without breaking Aim. Slow Motion is a great sustain against any projectile-using enemy but keep in mind that you will need to break Aim in order to dodge anything.
Technique / Combat training
Max Thick Skin and Armour Training. You don't need Combat Accuracy because Aim adds a billion accuracy. Honestly if you completely run out of things to spend Generics on you can put some points in Weapon/Dagger mastery for the Phys Power increase.
Doesn't actually work anymore, re: taking Weapon/Dagger Mastery. I believe it takes the highest Mastery and applies that physical power bonus? So you can't double up with Sling/Dagger, even.

Cunning / Survival
Because of the great range that archers have, you definitely want at least one point in Piercing Sight. Charm Mastery is great. You probably won't have enough cunning for Charm Mastery or anything else in the tree though. If you're playing Slings then Charm Mastery and Evasion are great.
Unlockable trees
Archer is pretty drat strong so you don't need anything beyond the trees that you start with. Antimagic is a good way to deal with casters, but you can usually explode casters in 1-2 turns if you have line of sight to them. You will have generics to spare so you can pick up something like curses if you want to get some extra strength at the cost of restricting your gearing options and making shops a gamble.

Playstyle:
Aim from as far away as possible and hit the enemy with repeated incredibly strong attacks. It's pretty straightforward. Try to never stand next to an enemy, you have Disengage and Heave to give yourself some breathing room, and you can Pinning Shot an enemy after you get away from them. You definitely want a movement infusion because you need to be able to break Aim and dip out at a moment's notice. If you can constantly reposition yourself you will be much safer. Scatter Shot will stun you if you're in the radius so don't do that. I'm pretty sure that Volley of Arrows does not damage you but it at least used to damage escorts.

The early levels are a little rough, but Archer really starts to take off when Aim and Steady Shot are maxed.

Berserker
Stat points:

Early on you should get just enough strength to be able to use your class points on the talents you want, rest in constitution. Once you got Mortal Terror maxed just spread the stat points between mostly strength and constitution as you wish. Cunning and willpower are useful but not high priority.

For the class talents:

You want to have maxed as soon as possible: Berserker (and always active), Rush, Bloodthirst and Mortal Terror.
You should have 1 point in: stunning blow, death dance and death blow. Many people put more than 1 point in these talents, but I'm of the opinion that this isn't really necessary until you really have no other use for you class points.
Luxury talents to be maxed after you got the above: Spell Shield, Unstoppable, Blinding Speed. Depends on wether you unlock other categories.

For the generic talents:

You want to have maxed as soon as possible: Tick Skin, Weapons Mastery, Vitality and Unflinching Resolve. Also put at least 3 points in Combat Accuracy and Armor Training.

What you do after getting these talents depends on personal preference, race and prodigy.
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First, there's two major distinct builds: normal and Antimagic Berserker. It's basically entirely your call which route you take; as usual, AM versions of characters tend to have better survivability/healing at the cost of losing escape options, and losing access to Arcane equipment (but getting bonuses from multiple AM artifacts). I did Antimagic Thalore Berserker - this had the slightly unhappy side effect of being pretty tight on generic points, but worked excellently otherwise.

If you want the basic skill point distribution sketch, that's at the bottom. Racials are in the middle, the skill tree analysis is at the top (with Prodigies right after that).

EDIT:: I did not cover AM talents. That may come in another post.

Two-handed Weapons
Death Dance: The damage doesn't significantly increase with points invested. An excellent 1/5 for crowd clears, but not worth putting points in unless you have little else to do with them.
Berserker: As the links above note, using Berserker early is risky - the drop in defense and armor is a blow to an entirely melee class. However, after L15 or so, flip it on and try it out - the stun resistance and damage boost will be very helpful if you keep up your healing/invest some in Armor training. Skill scales well with levels - this should hit 5 before Dreadfel, most likely.
Warshout: One of your few crowd controls, and it's pretty effective! 3/5 this early for a good cone area, and 5/5 it later as the crowds ramp up.
Death Blow: Put a point into it; it turns into a massive Stamina drain at L4, which Berserkers don't deal with well, but having an assured critical hit for the Bloodthirst tree is great.

Two-handed Maiming
Stunning Blow: This skill is your bread and butter, your problem solver. Cheap, quick cooldown, powerful stun, and runs off Phys Power - which is the Berserker's primary stat! I recommend 4/5 in this quickly, so the stun lasts longer than it takes for the skill to go off cooldown. Against rares, uniques and bosses, this skill is hard to beat.
Sunder Armour: Not as impressive as you'll want it to be. Berserkers do one large hit, not multiple small ones; if you're needing to get past Armour, your best bet is to find an elemental weapon or one with damage conversion. 1/5 if you have to have it; I didn't invest any further in this tree on my clear.
Sunder Arms: You're not a dodging class. Accuracy reduction doesn't help. 1/5 if you have to have it, otherwise pass.
Blood Frenzy: Stamina drain is pretty damaging, and honestly? You don't have need of more Phys. Power. You have Berserker lategame, and earlygame this isn't really convenient to use. 0/5, don't even bother.

Combat Techniques
Rush: You are in possession of Rush with a base level of 1.3. This... basically means that lategame, you can get enough cooldown modifiers to get Rush to 0 cooldown. This, plus base Berserker damage? You'll be killing grunt mages very fast, which drastically improves your survivability. 1/5 early, get this to 5/5 over time (preferably by Halfling Ruins or Dreadfel).
Precise Strikes: The -10% attack speed hurts, but the +crit% and accuracy are insanely helpful. (A note: AM Berserkers want to hold off on this skill, most likely. They will probably raise Str/Wil first and then Dex, so it'll be a while before the bonuses are worth the -10% attack speed). Another eventual 5/5 - it synergises insanely well with the Bloodthirst tree.
Perfect Strikes: Didn't get the Withered Orbs from the Withering Thing, or the Spectral Blade? You'll want a point or two in this by Dreadfel to help deal with Dreads and Dreadmasters. It's... not very necessary past that point, though. 1/5, more if you like the accuracy buff. (Remember both Berserker and Precise Strikes boost Accuracy! You may not need this that often as a result.)
Blinding Speed: A great lategame way to bust down harder opponents, and pretty effective early as well. 5/5 when you can.

Combat Veteran
Quick Recovery: Vital to a Berserker's resource pool management. 1/5 early for the initial boost, 5/5 eventually.
Fast Metabolism: Useful, as a Berserker likes stacking healing and heal-mod items to keep health constantly accelerating, but... not a major priority. As much as you want/5.
Spell Shield: Good for walling magical status, if you don't have the infusions or equips to help out there. I did 0/5, but this is also entirely to taste.
Unending Frenzy: It... could be worse? But you kill things slower lategame which means the stamina payback isn't as helpful when you've expended relatively more. I also did 0/5 here. Maybe a build focused on Shattering Blows would see more use out of it.

Bloodthirst
Bloodbath: A great early 1/5 while your critical chance is still not great. Later on, when you have 50% or better chance, pumping this up to 5/5 is a great idea for the stamina regen and max HP buff alone.
Mortal Terror: This is basically one of the few immediate 5/5s I recommend, as soon as you can. +crit% and free dazes on big hits? Yeah. This is an excellent skill for any and all Berserkers.
Bloodrage: 1/5. Better than Blood Frenzy, but not by terribly much? After a point, any more Strength on a Berserker's overkill.
Unstoppable: 5/5 this. It can take a little bit, but... 5/5 this. This is the single greatest survival tool in the game. Being able to take seven turns without dying, and getting a fullheal if you managed to kill some support around you? Yeah. Abuse this in the Prides and anywhere else there's a group of enemies trying to hand you your rear end.

Optional trees (technically, Bloodthirst is optional, but...)
Superiority
Juggernaut: Expensive, but a great way for a Bulwark to handle melee threats, in theory. In practice, how much you need it depends on equipment luck. X/5.
Onslaught: 1/5 and move on. Competent for letting you weasel your way out of a really bad position if you're AM, I guess?
Battle Call: Either 1/5 if you're running for Shattering Strikes alone, or 5/5 if you wanna abuse this. Getting mages/archers right in your face for a Death Dance is an incredibly valid idea, but I prefer Rush.
Shattering Impact: If you're using this, 5/5. It isn't immediately obvious, but this skill does hit that target you landed the blow on with that damage, as well. Now, imagine Death Dance with this. Yeah. 5/5 to drop the stamina drain to something sane and to buff the damage some.

Warcries
Shattering Shout: 7 cooldown and a reasonable Stamina cost makes this the closest any melee dude will get to being a mage. If you're in this tree, I'd say 5/5 this eventually. Good crowd clear that amplifies well with Strength and with any/all physical damage boosters you pick up.
Second Wind: X/5. Great skill, especially as it's now %-based recovery. Allows you to use Unstoppable in an emergency or run Shattering Impacts for that much longer.
Battle Shout: 0 or 1/5. Doesn't scale as well as you might hope, and the bonus runs on raw talent level so you can't boost it with mastery-granting equipment.
Battle Cry: 0. You... really don't need more effective accuracy. You're going to hit, barring stealth/invis.

Everything else is basically in the realm of "gimmick choice".

Generics:
Combat Training:
5 Thick Skin as soon as possible, X in Armor Training (if you're going AM, 1-3 points is valid; if you're not, 5 is probably best), 2-5 in Accuracy (your accuracy will be bananas lategame even with 1 point, but to get that far, you probably want at least 2, if not 3, points here), 5* Weapon Mastery (unless you're planning on Legacy of the Naloren, then just grab 2 or 3), no Dagger Mastery.

Conditioning:
As much as you feel like in Vitality (5, probably, for non-AM; AM can't afford it, drop only one here), 1 in Daunting Presence (the bonuses don't scale well enough), 4 in Unflinching Resolve (Talent level 5 comes at 4/5, since the category is at 1.3. The fifth point is a matter of taste, but I don't find it necessary as you cover the five statuses at L4), and 1 in Adrenaline Surge for emergency situations.

Cunning/Survival:
Your call, entirely. Charms Mastery is a good pickup for AMs, especially if you can get levels off Thieves. Normal Berserkers won't care much about any of this.

Prodigies:
Flexible Combat is great for an additional free hit or hits with a lot of your attacks, and potentially could get nasty with Shattering Impacts? Not sure.
Legacy of the Naloren (get 5 free levels of Exotic Weapon Mastery, plus a very drat good artifact Trident if you keep Slasul alive after grabbing the prodigy)
Superpower (Especially for AM; +30% of your Wil as added damage is excellent, and AMs love the mindpower boost)
Draconic Body (Great for countering surprise attacks or lots of mages/archers/damage all at once)
Draconic Will (Good if you see the status coming - spotted an enemy Necromancer unique, e.g.)
Unbreakable Will (Pre-emptive mental status blocking's pretty solid if you need it.)
Garkul's Revenge (If you have both parts, this is incredibly good - 20% added damage to all humanoids basically means all the Prides -and- High Peak.)
Hidden Resources (Decent enough, and Unstoppable will qualify you for this.)
Spell Feedback (Awesome AM choice - gives a passive way to lock down boss mages!)
Never Stop Running: Great for dodging anything projectile-y, and you have the Stamina regen for it. (Thanks to Wahl Hara for pointing this out.)


Gimmick options:
Unsetting Sun is great if you can meet the damage requirements! Good luck doing so, though. (There are good Fire-element weapons endgame for non-AM Berserkers, which helps a ton.)
Corrupted Shell requires siding with the Grand Corruptor, which probably means having picked up Celestial/Light or, more attractively, Stone Alchemy (since it doesn't require Magic to use the skills, you can swap Mag+ equips on to learn them and then take them back off).
Arcane Might (Even more damage than Superpower... -if- you've been running tons of Magic. Not likely, though.)
Mental Tyranny (AMs might want this if they meet the requirements - getting a way around phys resistance is excellent. But since mind element damage has the flaw of getting a Mental Save check, this isn't a good idea for those without mindpower.)


Racial choice: (2.5/5 is "Average class/race combo", for reference.)
Cornac: 3.5/5. Gives easy access to Warcries/Superiority/AM Fungus without a fuss, and the EXP Modifier's definitely notable nowadays. Good AM choice due to it providing a sink for generic points and leveling up fast.
Higher: 3.5/5. The regen skill's really neat for AM Berserkers and the final skill is great for everyone. Still levels up fast, gets a better HP mod than Cornacs.
Shalore: 4.5/5. Weak start docks the 0.5 here, for me, but once it gets going... 5/5 the crit boost skill and Timeless for an insane Unstoppable-abusing monstrosity. Can't go AM/get stuff like Mobility from Zigur sacrifices (EDIT: Without hardcore chicanery), but doesn't care much.
Thalore: 4.5/5. Excellent choice - the third Thalore racial now gives, in conjunction with Thick Skin, 25% all res. This makes Berserkers - especially AM Berserkers who can really use the first skill - excellent choices. The EXP mod is the -0.5 dock here - while Shalore don't much care, Thalore Berserkers will find themselves walking into the final fight at L47 or so and possibly sweating bullets as a result.
Dwarf: 4.5/5. Great HP, you can likely get enough equipment to not get stressed by the randart merchant prices (due to keeping up Power is Money), and having a racial escape helps a ton. It's not really a dominant choice but it's a pretty effective one.
Yeek: 2/5. Well, your HP's average now! ... and the third racial lets you counteract Precise Strikes' disadvantage! ... and I guess it's a decent AM option due to being able to mind control+autokill people? It's still got that horrific start and the low durability melee guy syndrome, though.
Skeleton: 3.5/5. The EXP mod hurts a lot and losing wild infusions is a major blow, even with Conditioning and Resilient Bones. Spell status will hand you your rear end more often that you'd like. This being said, highly durable, great healing+regen setup, Str+Dex is a great racial boost... If you can deal with status, this is an excellent option.
Ghoul: 2/5. That speed drop is painful, and it makes Precise Strikes even harsher to run. On the upside, you have enough HP to mock Atamathon's damage... until he doubleacts you.  Doable but painful; the changes to Bloodbath make it a worse combo (pre-b38, Bloodbath also gave a heal mod% bonus, which could be abused p. easily and made this a more workable option).

A quick every-5-level skill point suggestion (presuming non-Cornac but also not factoring in racial trees, so Generics could look much different):
Stats: Strength, plus your choice of secondary. For the sake of this, presuming Con until Unflinching Resolve 4 is obtained, then switching to Dex. AM will want to go Str/Wil/Dex for most the game and use equipment to get their Con.

L1: Stunning Blow 2, Rush 1 / Weapons Mastery 1
L5: Stunning Blow 4, Rush 1, Quick Recovery 1, Berserker 2 / Weapon Mastery 2, Accuracy 2, Armor Training 2
L10: Unlock Bloodthirst. Rush 3, Berserker 5, War Shout 1 / (Do the Arena for two extra generics) Weapon Mastery 3, Accuracy 3, Armor Training 3, Vitality 1, Daunting Presence 1, Unflinching Resolve 1
L15: Bloodbath 1, Mortal Terror 2, Rush 4, War Shout 2, Death Blow 1 / Weapon Mastery 4, Unflinching Resolve 4
L20: Unlock whatever you want (infusion/rune point, Superiority, War Shout), Mortal Terror 5, War Shout 5 / Weapon Mastery 5, Thick Skin X, racials/Vitality/Adrenaline Surge/AM from here generics-wise.

At this point you should have Stunning Blow 4/Rush 5/Berserker 5/War Shout 5/Mortal Terror 5 and be on track to start running up Precise Strikes, picking up Unstoppable, getting one or two points in Precise Strikes and working with whatever extra trees you grabbed. From here, the oyster is your world.

Cursed
Alternate stats between 2/1 Str/Con and 2/1 Will/Con.

Go Cornac, immediately cat point Rampage. Take the point out of Slash.

Suppress your Curse the first time you pick up a weapon.

5/1/1 Rampage ASAP to start, then work on Gloom to 5/1/1/1. You'll want to get Rampage to 5/5/5 and Gloom to 5/5/1/5 as priority. Later on, push toward maxing Surge, pick up points to taste in Blindside. Predator can be a great mid-late game tree, if you start it around Dreadfell and use it on Orcs, it'll last you the rest of the game, giving bonuses vs humanoids and bigger bonuses vs orcs.

Get Cursed Form to 1/5 immediately. Combat Training will eventually want 5/5/5/5. Anti-Magic and Fungus are great choices, if you pick up AM, just go 1/2 for the early game, get Fungus to 5/1/5/1 quickly. AM Shield will be great for you as a non-Equilibrium class, so you might want to get Anti-magic to 1+/2-4/5/0.

Don't know about Slaughter, though you'll at least have the points to try it. You are not really tight on Generics or Class points.
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The Slaughter tree is really good for 2 reasons and should never be skipped, particularly Frenzy and Reckless Charge. Frenzy is your version of Flurry and it does a whole lot of damage and homes in on stalked targets and is worth losing a rampage turn to hulk the gently caress out on some dude and split him in half. Reckless Charge is good if you need to just get to a target instantly rather than run over to him while beating up dudes on the way (like an angrier Blindside!), especially if Rampage isn't kicking in and it's also on cooldown. But really though, never skip Frenzy. Cleave is pretty mediocre trash and can be safely ignored.

If you don't want to go AM, then don't suppress your curse. Those generics gotta go somewhere, and cursed don't really need conditioning/light trees, and stone alchemy only demands a few if you choose to get it.

Harass Prey owns. Lategame it reduces enemy damage by upwards of 90-100%. Midgame it's still good, of course, but endgame it's loving hilarious.

You can pick up Predator when you're already in the east, mark humanoids and still have it maxed out for high peak, and it'll pick up enough steam in the prides themselves to help you there since, well, orc slaughter is kind of the deal by that point. It's really good even with low investment though, anything that can give you bonus damage against the majority of enemies you fight including the last bosses is cool in my book.

I'd also kinda disagree with the other post I'm too lazy to quote on maxing Gloom before Rampage, you really wanna get Rampage up there (not necessarily maxed, don't go too crazy) early on because having a way to both get into and out of fights really fast early is awesome. Basically, do a bit of both cause they're both good (except Dismay in the gloom tree and except Slam in rampage cause they're both kind of whatever). An addition to this is that movement infusions on Cursed are loving awesome. If you haven't tried one you really owe it to yourself to find a decent one, hit rampage, hit your movement infusion and then pretend you're Sonic the loving Hedgehog.
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Rampage should be 5/5/1 before anything else. You want one point in stalk and one point in gloom until you get to 5/5/1 rampage. Once you get there, get gloom to 5/1/1/1, then go 5/5/5 rampage, then go 5/5/1/5 gloom, put one point into various talents here and there in the tree so you can pick up blindside and surge or whatever. Cursed Aura and Rampage are the only talent trees that need really heavy point investment (besides Predator, which you should pick up late if at all)

Cursed Rampagers are the best caster destroyers in the game, and once rampage is at 5/5/5 they are loving unstoppable. Seriously, they completely trivialize the late game simply by having outrageous mobility and damage output. You have to be relentless about your points until you get comfortable with Rampage's level, NOTHING should be spent but points on rampage prior to 5/5/1, and only sparing deviation from Gloom should occur to get talents as you need them. If you don't need a rush equiv. in the T2s, you don't need blindside, right? You should get Surge or Cleave (w/e you prefer) asap, though.

For generics, I generally prioritize Relentless > Weapon Mastery > Thick Skin > Combat Accuracy > Armor Mastery. Everything else is just icing. You are not generic heavy as a Cursed. If you go AM, you'll want to go 5/1/5/1 in Fungus and probably dump a cat point on the tree for good measure.
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Arcane Blade
1-5 (Trollmire through Prox, pretty much): Took out point from Dirty Fighting becuase I'd never remember to use it, class pts into Arcane Combat/Flame evenly, pick up Heal ASAP, then get Armor Training by level 2 and Weapon Mastery by 3. When you kill Prox assuming you're cornac you'll be able to max Flame which is a pretty important point. You can fight Bill right away but if you find no +defense gear it'll be RNG. On runs where I had a shield by this level I put my cat point into shield defense and picked up shield bash, otherwise I waited.

6-10 (more starter dungeons): Max Arcane Combat. That pretty much goes without saying! A courtesy point in Rush helps because you never know when that'll come in handy. At 8 you can pick up Arcane Feed which is pretty important, not worth maxing immediately but a couple points in it right away is good because crit chance is always welcome. By 10 you should probably have Heal at rank 3 or so with everything else put into combat training, I tend to skip phase door for now because nothing should be dangerous enough to merit it. When you hit 10, spend the category point if you find any nice shield runes (or at worst, heal infusions I guess).

11-15 (finishing t1s, Ben, Assassin Lord, SWL/Maze shenanigans): If you're a shield build which is what I'm mostly speaking in terms of, 12 is the best level in the world because it means you get Assault. Hopefully you've been prioritizing strength! Afterwards you want to immediately get Arcane Destruction because they kinda go hand in hand. Destruction doesn't need to be maxed ASAP even if it does give a good chunk of physical power, as the damage from it doesn't go up per leveling. Similarly, Assault only scales so-so so there's no rush there either but the second point into it isn't terrible or anything. An extra point or 2 into Shield Bash isn't a terrible idea, nor is working on Riposte since ABs need it at 5 to get the extra counterattack as opposed to Bulwarks who only need it at 4. Welcome to having too many goddamn things that need points. Pray for t4/t5 weapon drops from chests in SWL and Maze.

16-20 (Old Forest, Ruined Dungeon, Slaver Compound if you decide to do it, Daikara): If you haven't picked up Teleport yet this is probably the time! Things are mostly in full swing at this point for you, and you can probably afford to run Shielding or Arcane Shield from the Aegis tree. On any rare that looks scary (mostly a ruined dungeon problem, or if you're doing something crazy like checking graves in old forest/daikara) don't hesitate to stand back and spam Flame because it's pretty decent damage! For Weirdling Beast, go in with Arcane Combat/Arcane Feed turned off and then turn them back on after he devours Fiery Hands because you can probably just gib him outright with those up due to Assault's overwhelming damage combined with Arcane Destruction.

21-26: With your 20 cat point grab the Step Up tree and then proceed to max it out while ignoring everything else because if you don't do this I will become an angry ghost and haunt you because Step Up is amazing. At 24 if your Blight resist is lovely and you're not confident don't even go into dark crypt. I did it once with basically 0% blight resist but I had Wrap of Stone for emergency stone tombing that saved my life but I seriously would not recommend it even though it can drop amazing poo poo. Urkis won't be terribly scary for you but keep in mind a phys/magical wild is pretty handy because Hurricane sucks poo poo, as he's pretty prone to being stunned (if you want to be a bigger dick and took the starting point out of Dirty Fighting, put it back in for this.)

Past that the order of things doesn't really matter as much, but past 20 is a good point to start grabbing Inner Power as well as putting more points into Rush. I usually don't start dipping heavy into Cunning until level 30+ so I leave Arcane Cunning at 1/5 freeing up some class points. Generics are pretty self-explanatory, I was afraid of picking up escort trees (and also got hosed over on anorithils) so I opted to max most of Aegis and pick up controlled phase door/teleport, but for the longest time I only had 1 or 2 points at most in both shielding and arcane shielding, and only 1 in the Aegis talent itself.

That was kind of slapdash and all over the place but hopefully that helps even a tiny bit, ask me if you want me to elaborate on something.
Yeah strength is really the big thing early on since Arcane Destruction is great and if you're shield build then Assault is a huge deal. After you've gotten those you can at least slow it down a bit to focus on your other stats. Lucking into equipment early on is really nice, too. With the change that lets you skip floors 1-2 of t1 dungeons after completing 3 of them, as an AB I tend to go back and do them anyway while hoping to thin the artifact pool or otherwise luck into some good rares. It's a little boring but it can be a big help! Also I kinda forgot to mention this but raise Combat Accuracy as needed, if you don't find gloves with amazing +acc you'll probably need 3 points in it in by your early-mid teens.

I still want to win with a dual-wielding AB but jesus christ throwing dexterty into their stat spread is awful.

^^ yeah not only does it proc off shield bashes I'm not sure if the shield counts as a second weapon for the purposes of halving the proc rate. I would need to doublecheck because by endgame everything kind of became a blur since things died instantly.

edit: Well with just over 100% proc rate on Arcane Combat I have yet to have it not fire off twice with Shield Pummel so either I'm incredibly lucky or shields don't count as second weapons. It kinda makes sense in a way since for bump attacks you don't use it, but at the same time it feels kind of insane.
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Brawler
     I'm running an AM Brawler right now and I'm planning on Flexible Combat (duh) and Windtouched Speed, because +15% global speed and a chance to hit again on my already ridiculously fast attacks sounds goddamn hilarious. Throw in the Fungus free turns, Blinding Speed, and Reflexive Dodging and I'm going to have So Many Turns and be able to land like 15 punches in each of them (so approximately ten billion punches for each enemy turn). My only concern is that if I take Gotta Go Fast and Gotta Punch Fast, I'll be neglecting my defenses and durability. I'm gonna max Resolve, Antimagic Shield, Thick Skin, and go 5/1/5/? on Fungus so I feel like I'll still be pretty solid against casters, not to mention that I'm using the Spellhunt Remnants so as soon as I come within slapping distance of one his life ends in a shitstorm of silence and manaburn, but I still have this niggling little voice telling me I should be doing something different.

    Does any of this make sense? Spell Feedback does sound good but I can honestly just Rush, Spinning Backhand, or movement infuse over to a mage and punch him in the dick and he straight up ceases to be relevant. I massacred Urkis in like 4 turns at level 19 and he never managed to scratch me.
Windtouched Speed is awesome just for GOTTA HIT FAST but if for whatever reason you feel like you need even more mobility, Giant Leap is a pretty good choice too. It's what I took on my last brawler winner, and while I didn't get a ton of mileage out of it (thalore, and I generally don't do farportals so I ended up getting it way later rather than sooner) it's never bad to have a button that can be used to 'crush target clump of mages' or 'get the gently caress away from bad thing'.
Spell Feedback's ultimately never a bad choice though because you see a shitton of mages end game and one of the last bosses is a mage even. You can can certainly win as an AM brawler quite handily without it though, so do what feels good.
For Fungus's last talent I usually get it at whatever level that I can pop it and get a chunk of my health back equivalent to 'holy poo poo' so it kinda depends how awesome your regens are.
Also Spellhunt Remnants own so loving hard on brawlers if you're AM but I never find them gently caress The T5 ability it gets pretty much tells a cone's worth of casters to eat poo poo and die.
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Reaver

Reaver is pretty simple, but getting one going can be tough, mostly because of their stat requirements. Early game as most classes I like to put some points into Con at least but as a Reaver you can't really do that unless you find a ton of +Str/Mag items. My Reaver was a dwarf, which I felt was a good choice, but truthfully any race would work, I think. You might not have that much to spend the cat point on as a Cornac though.

Early game, like everyone says, you can usually just play a knockoff Corruptor. Have one point in Drain and Soul Rot and use them to nuke stuff from afar. Doing so in melee is way more damaging so if something's not dangerous to you, or you need it to die right now, you can fight it in melee in the same way. If any abilities are off cooldown, don't ever bump attack though, especially because even your melee special attacks trigger Corrupted Strength, which is why reavers do so much damage. The issue mainly is that your only defense is your spectacular offense -- you get pretty much no innate resistances (except one which I'll explain shortly), little mobility, and only one powerful if finicky defensive skill. So if you see a spellcaster you need to either have Bone Grab ready, use your movement infusion to get in its face, or teleport away.

Skillwise, it's best early game to pick up as many different abilities that you'll need later at 1 point, especially since each new attack ability is another turn you can get a Corrupted Strength proc on. You obviously want to max Corrupted Strength as soon as you can afford to because it's pretty much all of your damage. The Bone tree is good, but I'd only put one point in each of them, and try to max Bone Shield when you can. Bone Shield can be really powerful but it also has a special weakness for Reavers: each instance of retaliatory damage counts as a separate "hit", so if you use Rend with the Corrupted Strength hit on an enemy with damage on being hit, it'll chew up several charges. One point in Virulent Disease is nice, it does decent damage over time and can spellshock, which makes enemies take more magic damage. Vimsense and Leech are both good abilities to max eventually, the former reduces blight resist and the latter gives you health and vim when you get hit. Be careful that you don't use Vimsense in dangerous areas that you haven't explored nearby, sometimes you can overwhelm yourself by calling more enemies into the fight.

The Reaving Combat and Scourge trees are pretty much your main powerhouses and all the skills in them are probably worth maxing. However, if you intend to max your Scourge attacks, spread the points out rather than dump them all into one of the skills at a time. Each one gives you less and less per point, so that the second point in Dark Surprise is worth more than the last point in Rend, for example. In Reaving Combat, obviously Corrupted Strength is a no-brainer. Bloodlust will often be your main source of spellpower, which isn't nearly as important as it is for a Corruptor, but it still makes your spells hurt more, so it's still very good. Carrier doesn't seem like much since I'm not recommending you use diseases much, but the most threatening enemies to me midgame are the ghouls and corruptors, because their nukes add on a disease that lasts a long time, does a ton of damage, and reduces attributes. Maxing it will make you immune to that and make corruptors especially a lot less dangerous. (If you're a Thalore, you could skip maxing Carrier because your third racial will do it anyway.) Acid Blood I wasn't sure about at first, but it's definitely worth maxing. You're going to take hits, being melee, and it adds up to a lot of damage and is a decent debuff.

For generic points, you shouldn't be too hard up for them. Obviously get the good stuff from your racial tree if you have one. If you get an anorithil escort try desperately to save them and pick up the Light tree: it gives you some much needed defensive abilities, and all of them are still spells, so if anything is in melee with you when you heal or shield, they still take a whack from Corrupted Strength. Obviously, as a melee fighter you're going to want to pick up Armor Training 3, and max Weapon Mastery and probably Combat Accuracy. The Torment tree is okay, I mostly just put one point in everything for Blood Vengeance, which is really good. Note that if you have the Light tree, the cooldown reduction works on all spells, so just another reason to pray for that anorithil escort. Curses and Hexes are good I think, but I didn't bother with them. Vimsense was enough resist reduction for me and I'd rather spend time killing enemies than debuffing them.

Prodigies are sort of up in the air for me, but I took Draconic Body, to help with the Reaver's low defense. If you wanted more offense you could pick Arcane Might, which seems like it would add quite a bit of damage for a Reaver.

They're pretty fun to play if you like to just walk up to a boss and chunk off half of its health bar in one turn. I fought the Master by cornering him and just beating the poo poo out of him over 3-4 turns. Good luck with weapons helps a lot, though.
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Corruptor
Pretty much what demonmage said, although I capped magic before I started working on con without problems. 5/5 Drain ASAP, then 5/5 blood spray, then either soul rot or blood grasp, then the other one, taking a break to at least one-point Blood Fury. Get Vimsense to 5/5 at some point before Dreadfell and you should probably 5/5 Blood Boil and maybe Blood Fury before then too. Get at least one point in Corrupted Negation ASAP, ditto Dark Portal. You might as well get a point into the first disease talent, but I ignored the rest with no issues. I hear that it gets kind of silly if you go all-in on it, but I've got no idea if that's true or not. For generics, 5/5 Willful Tormenter ASAP, 5/5 Overkill ASAP, get Blood Lock before you fight the Wierdling Beast, and at least get one point in Curse of Vulnerability. The rest of the hexes probably aren't worth getting, but at least one-point pacification hex. Other than that do good escort trees, curses, racials, Thick Skin, whatever you end up getting.

For locked trees, unlock Torment ASAP (I actually went Cornac for Willful Tormenter at level 1 and for the Vestments of the Conclave), but otherwise do whatever. I like Fearscape over Bone but you can really make a case for either. If you go Fearscape, though, don't put more than a point or two in shadowflame or you'll never be able to use it. You might also consider throwing a cat point into Blood, you'll probably end up 20/20ing it and it's your go-to tree for most of the game. Otherwise just throw points wherever, I ended up getting two rune slots and Light with my three spare points.

Far as gear goes, you're going to want spell crit, spellpower, mag, con and cun in about that order. Other good things to look for are +blight damage and +spellpower on crit. Basically by the time you're about halfway through the game you're going to want your crit rate up in the forties to fifties so you can open up fights with almost a guaranteed crit with Soul Rot to get Blood Fury going. Definitely get at least one point in armor training, though, vim isn't affected by fatigue so there's no downsides to it.
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Doomed
Asuming Yeek doomed:
- Start with 2 in reproach, 2 in willful strike, 1 in gestures, feed, dominant will and 2 in unnatural body.
- The first levels you should put all stat points into constution, only getting willpower/cunning when you need it to get a talent.
- At level 7 you want 5 in willful strike, 5 in reproach, 1 in deflection. Generics: by that time you should be maxing relentless as soon as possible. Unnatural body is usually level 4 for me but you can get away with less points in it.
- From level 8 onwards put all class points into blast (increasing willpower so you meet the requirement each time, but not further). Once blast is maxed, put all class points into hateful whisper (increasing cunning so you meet the requirement each time, but not further). Once hateful whisper is maxed, get both creeping darkness and dark vision to 5/5 (and split stat points in your 3 main stats).
- Generics should be used for thick skin, getting 1/1/5/1 in the yeek racial tree and 1/1/5/2 in gestures. Improve feed if needed.
- Category points should be used to get infusions.

Playstyle: don't bump into things (bumping with gestures is useful very late, but early you're too fragile and it doesn't do much damage yet). Just spam your attack talents on cooldown, and retreat/heal/use feed when they're all on cooldown. Early game you're just a caster with short range spells really. Mid game get antimagic and abuse the mental tyranny prodigy with madness and gesture of power.

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Wyrmic

Bellowing roar, sand breath, balance your str/wil and con, work toward assault if you are going shield and sink a point in it, 5/1/5/1 fungus, 5/5/X/5 combat training, 4/1/5/5 the higher draconic tree, X/5/X/X the acid tree.

Xs are variable in that you may find some things more or less useful or you might want a different breath than the acid one. You usually want 3 breaths by end game though. Venom breath sucks, fire is 'average' (only does damage), sand is the best, acid is decent, cold is decent, lightning is good but variable damage.
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