The Shade is the opposite of everything that is light and good, and it's obvious he belongs to the "dark side", even though the character will not be evil per se. The Shade will be a tough character to solo due to his limited hit points.

The Shade is really a melee class but will have a high focus on "procs" (a proc is a nano that is some times run on the fighting target during combat). Being expert in hand to hand fighting, the primary weapons will be of the piercing kind.

It's worth mentioning that he will not be able to use implants. In their place, you'll find trapped Spirits, which will give various benefits. Since it's an innate ability, the character won't need a surgery clinic to trap or release Spirits. His armour will often come in the form of "magical" tattoos, enabling truly unique profession abilities.

Nano-wise, the Shade will get mostly self-beneficial buffs. He will be able to buff himself to be able to do more powerful procs. His repertoire will consist of direct damage on target, stuns, initiative debuffs, and hit-point/nano-point DoTs, run speed debuffs, short duration fears, evade debuffs and trader-like leeching. Through perk-enabled special abilities, he will be able to drain attack rating, defence rating and health from the enemy. The longer a fight lasts, the more power he drains.

Story-wise, the Shade is seen as a very selfish character you should never fully trust. He will literally backstab you at first opportunity if it's to his gain. The Shade comes from the lowest pits in the Shadowlands, where they were constructed by the first explorers so they could specialize in getting around in the darker, deadlier places of the realm.

The profession is limited to the owners of Shadowlands, and to play the Shade you must start out inside Shadowlands. With the Shade, you begin your life as a neutral. Which side you ultimately wind up supporting depends on the actions you take!

The information on this page was provided by Funcom on the official Anarchy Online site.