Most people familiar enough with the game to have found this essay are aware of the ability of “cross-skills”, but for those who are not, cross skills are abilities unlocked by maximizing a class that can be used while other classes are equipped, meaning they are not involved in the choice between one class or another, which I might cover in the future. But which one is the best? After all, if you want to choose between all cross skills, you’ll need to put in the time with a single class to get it to rank 10, and that’s a lot of effort depending on where you are in your AQ3D career. This is even assuming you have all classes unlocked in the first place. That’s why in the following dissertation I’ll be ranking each cross skill in a top 10 list for your convenience.

First: ground rules. This list is a top 10 list. Keen viewers will be aware that there are actually 12 unlockable classes. This list will not include Alpha Pirate or Guardian, because I do not associate with cashwalls. This is the first of few assumptions I will make in this list based on personal opinion, and I mean few. If you enjoy Guardians cross skill, enjoy it, by all means, but I won’t list it here for the people who can’t afford to pay 20 dollars just for an edge in combat. I will rank these as 11th (AP) and 12th (G) respectively. I will also clarify that best is conditional in nature and mostly refers to the DPS of the skill. Yes, there are situations where any one of the particular cross skills are the best, but some are… less often than others. I will be ranking them mostly on how much damage they can put out over time. Without further adieu, the ranking.

10 - Ninja
As you might have expected if you know about the skill, Ninja’s “Sprint” skill is just that: a sprint. This is not to downplay the utility of this skill, as it’s sometimes your first access to a speed increase before travel forms, has utilities when used in conjunction with travel forms, such as parkour, and can be used in combat to avoid AoE hitsplashes. However, it simply does no damage, and therefore sits lowest on the list. I love this skill, but it’s simply the worst out of the bunch when it comes to combat.

9 - Necromancer
This one is a bit hard to rank, but it’s here at 9. Why? Because out of any cross skill that deals damage, Bone Prison deals the least. It’s special ability is to freeze your opponent in place, but that’s often not incredibly useful unless your target is fast-moving; the only instance of which I can think of is a low level boss called DreadFool. Because of its poor damage and situation effectiveness, this skill is ranked ninth.

8 - Moglomancer
The two ‘mancers are the lowest on the (true) list, which is surprising, as their classes are some of the best in the game, but their cross skills are simply lacking. Moglomancer’s “Blizzy’s Blizzard Blitz” is a very short ranged AoE attack that only deals damage to one target. An AoE that only deals damage to ONE TARGET is a pretty ♥♥♥♥♥ AoE, and to make matters worse, its dps is horrendous. Even Sprint is a more useful skill. Don’t bother leveling this class to 10.

7 - Berserker
Berserker is one of the highest DPS classes, but sadly has a cross skill that deals no damage. No matter, as Wild Shout increases your haste by 20% for six seconds, nabbing you 2-3 extra hits in the same time, depending on your original haste. This puts it above the damage output of Moglomancer by a hair on auto-attacks alone, and just think of how many extra specials you could deal.

6 - Rogue
Since we’re getting around to the average, Rogue’s cross skill is one of the most. It hits averagely, hits once, has a very average cooldown. Decent DPS, and the 4th best “true” dps. The catch? Affliction’s special ability is that it does double damage if the target is already poisoned. One of the main advantages of a cross skill is that it works without the original class, and this skill is only truly powerful if you or a member of your party has poisoned the enemy already, which you must be a rogue to do. Just meh.

5 - Warrior
Warrior has the simplest cross skill in the game. Good damage, good cooldown. Seismic slam is also an AoE attack, meaning it’s great for crowds. It’s just not… spectacular. Worth the effort to get for clearing out rooms, not worth the effort for anything else. That’s why it’s smack dab in the middle of the list.

4 - Pirate
Yaaargh! This cross skill be for those wishin’ to deal a critical hit at any time, hear? It be a ranged cross skill too, meanin’ ya shan’t be needin’ to lose another leg by gettin’ in yer opponent’s range. Is’ a fairly solid skill, truth be told to ya. It just aint much to talk aboot.

3 - Dragonslayer
Now it’s getting spicy. Rend is an ability that deals a hefty amount of damage on a single hit. Really nice solid smackaroo, yeah? But get this: for 10 seconds after that hit, your opponent has “Armor Break”, meaning your attacks are roughly 20% more effective. I measured my current hits per second at 1.7, and my base Attack Power at roughly 15, meaning the true dps of this attack is about 133% more than the one listed on the wiki. Food for thought.

2 - Mage
Rune Siphon, rune siphon, teach me of your ways! Rune siphon smacks for 50 attack power for 30 seconds. Compare this to Dragonslayers 150 in 25, and you might be confused as to why it’s so high. But, great and mighty mage, fear not, as Rune Siphon deals 20 AP once per second for 8 additional seconds, meaning that for true and complete, no nonsense, output damage, this skill deals the most out of any ingame. It just… takes a while to do it. If DoT is something you want, or if you just need to do the most damage possible with only one slot, this is the skill for you. And considering Mage is a free class, it should take you no time at all to get it. But there is another… one more skill perhaps even more powerful than this…

1 - Paladin.
Those of you that know about Holy Bolt know what I’m talking about. A pretty solid attack, it deals the same damage as Affliction while taking 30 seconds to recharge, meaning it’s about ⅔ as effective. Why is it up here then? Well, although it’s attack power is 100, its HEAL power is 150, meaning it heals you (or the lowest health member of anyone attacking the same enemy) every time you use it. This gives a healing skill to any class in the game. I’ve heard it has some issues with healing your opponents in a PvP battle, but PvP isn’t really the most useful activity in the game and I haven’t tested it. The longevity this skill gives you in battle is enough to place it above the more effective at dps skills of the Dragonslayer and Mage, and is the skill I use more often than any other, especially on long and drawn out boss fights.

And that’s the list. If there's anything you think I should include feel free to suggest it in the comments. I’m including a link below to the spreadsheet I used to do my calculations, but, TL;DR:

Pally Mage Pirate DSlayer Warrior Rogue Zerker Moglo Necro Ninja

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12as6TSv7A9EHVKSkjHY3okv94iAhN9KJ9jBEOq53zRg/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for reading!

First, there’s been some corrections. Lots of things changed durations or powers, I’m not going to cover them as they’ve been adjusted in the spreadsheet and I’ve changed rankings accordingly, but it has changed the DPS values quite a lot. I’d like to clarify that Moglomancer didn’t use to deal damage to all targets; it used to only apply the status effects to the AOE. That’s been fixed but it also deals DoT instead of 1 hit now. Rogue completely changed their cross skill so I’m doing a brand new summary for that. That all being said, please enjoy the new additions and revised rankings. Also: this list was originally made when 10 was the final rank you could achieve in a class. Now classes offer legendary cosmetic equipment and a title after this point. You may find these to be alternative reasons for progressing a class and might change what you’d like to spend your time upgrading.

13 - Healer

God, what a useless ability. I had hoped when they added a healer cross skill, it would… you know, heal you. And I suppose it does, but this ability solely increases the efficacy of other healing effects on you by 35%. This means you must already have some other avenue of healing to benefit from it. Because this locks you from being able to use the Paladin Cross Skill, the only move in the game that isn’t for healers that can heal you… unless you’re using Healer already, this class is borderline useless. Additionally, unlike Paladin, this move does no additional damage to the target. Necromancer may see small benefits, and let’s not forget about health potions, but… a waste of a cross skill in my opinion.

7 - Rogue

Still the middle of the road on DPS, although it’s confusing that they replaced this cross skill’s special ability just after finally putting in a second class that could benefit from it. Instead of dealing extra damage to poison, this skill now weakens and slows your opponent. Not the worst benefit in the world, still better options; plus unlike Dragonslayer, that doesn’t change the DPS of the skill. Useful for new players or against tough bosses, but for your typical AFK grind, rather boring.

4 - Ranger

It’s… okay. It has very good DPS, less due to its damages and more due to the fact that it’s the fastest reloading cross skill in the game. It also has 2 other effects: an increased movement speed, and a quick hop backwards. This can be annoying, true: moving when you don’t want to can put you in a bad place (ask anyone who plays as Samurai…), but there are benefits too. Want to move out of a boss AoE while slowed? Check. Want to put some range inbetween you and a melee-only enemy? Check. Want to hop backwards across a gap too big to jump normally? Could just use Samurai… but yes, check. Give it a try.

3 - Samurai

This is only this high on the list because of the *possible* DPS it has. I’ve placed it below Warrior’s skills because the damage output depends on your Haste & Crit, as it guarantees crits on the next 3 seconds of attacks. You also can interrupt this ability by moving. Funny JoJo reference, decent dps, but kind of a bad cross skill for practical use. High level play & full focus necessary for full use.

SO... Final ranking update:

Dslayer
Warrior
Samurai
Ranger
Mage
Pirate
Rogue
Moglomancer
Paladin
Berserker
Necromancer
Ninja
Healer

Thanks for taking a minute to read my updated guide!