Well I decided to give up on the spirit master. I started up a scout that will turn into an assassin at level 10. The scout is fairly fun, but there is a lot of down time. In fact, my scout has more down time than my mage did at the same level. You continuously have to rest after every fight, which is a good thing since the cooldown on "Hide" (the scout's cloaking ability) is 1 minute. I tried several times and nearly died each time I attempted to take on a same-level mob without first hiding. To begin a battle, the scout MUST use Hide in combination with his back attack, which means you cannot engage in combat more often than every 1 minute. This SUCKS!! My hope is that Hide's cooldown will be reduced once my scout hits level 10 and specializes as an assassin, otherwise I will definitely NOT be playing a scout.

With that one (BIG) exception, playing the scout has been pretty enjoyable. When I had to go back and finish a quest that I missed a couple levels earlier, I hacked through those mobs like they were nothing. The thing I miss and that has me pretty confused is that I mowed down enemies much faster as a mage that were higher level and with less down time. I plan to get the assassin to level 10 this morning and see if things improve, but, if not, I'm going to give up on these guys and just focus on my cleric once the release hits.