I'm a mhun serpent with transed Subterfuge, Venom, Hypnosis, Survival, Avoidance and Weaponry. I've been thinking which should I get next, I was considering the following:

1. Buy SoA. - for 20/20 armor and chance to absorb damage

2. Trans Riding + Collar + Steed - increase avoidance, also: what are the skills that i can / cannot use while mounted?

3. lvl 1 artie dirk (In my opinion lvl 1 artie dirk is not worth it, although I havent really even tried borrowing/using it. But im still putting it as an option in case someone has a good reason for buying it.)


Thanks in Advance.

SoA, then dirk. Don't bother with a mount.

I can't really speak for Serpents, but trans of your miniskills would be helpful too. I'd jump to a level 2 instead of level 1. Level 2 weapons have the most bang for the buck.

Edit: Definitely SoA first, it's one of the best items available.

You can't use evade while mounted. A mount should be one of the last things on your list.

Serpent is tanky enough. If you're into combat, buy an Icewall ring and pick up an Assassin's Dirk for 300cr.

If you're more of a hunter take the Shield of Absorption for 500cr.

I'd save the credits for a Buckawn's Spine before picking up Shield of Absorption. So far I've hardly had trouble surviving/escaping when I need to. I'd rather kill faster.

I see, hmm riding seems to be useless for serpents based from the answers...I thought the defence benefits from mounts would be a huge factor for serpents like dstabs, monk combos, dsls will tend to miss a lot for someone mounted with weaving on.

While not a serp, I agree with the SoA advice

Weaving isn't as good when you're mounted.

At trans riding though, mounted+weaving is always going to be better than just weaving. Weaving gives the equivalent of 6 dexterity unmounted, and 3 dexterity mounted. Trans riding gives the equivalent of +4 dexterity while mounted, then another 0-4 depending on your mount.

i see i see

but can you dstab,illusion,bite,flay, hypnotise while mounted?

What I was implying is that the advantage of a mount isn't as big as it seems when it cuts back your weaving as well.

i doubt you can evade and phase when mounted.

Although the imagery of a Serpent evading on top of an elephant is quite amusing.

If you're in to combat dirk first, even t1.

My buy order would be:

dirk/fangs/bow - if you melee
bow/dirk/fangs - if you ranged

SoA is nice, but not really truly necessary unless you plan on bashing a lot.

You can't evade while mounted. Pacing while mounted doesn't work either. As for phasing, I've never tried.

Dex artefacts are also overlooked quite a bit for serpents.

Buy a veil.

I've been thinking about this and have a question.

Why not a sip ring and reincarnate to Raja? If your curing is good I don't think the herb penalty would be too bad, and these arties are mostly a speed advantage (fangs equivalently a faster bite)

My order would have been
sip ring/raja/fangs

Would Mhun with Lvl 1 dirk be as fast as Raja with regular dirk in dstab speed?

Raja is about 9% faster than mhun (20% bonus instead of 10%). Level 1 dirk is 8% faster than a normal dirk. So, raja with a normal dirk would be slightly better than mhun with level 1 dirk, but not enough to actually matter.

So with a level 1 dirk as a Mhun, you're like a Raja with no sip/herb penalty, which I hear is hawt for serps.

Also, a level 1 dirk is 300 credits. Reincarnation and a level 2 sip ring is 1100.

A level two dirk for my serpent sounds really appealing now.

On the other hand, the dirk only speeds up dstab. Rajas will still garrote, bite, evade, and do everything else that uses balance faster.

I'm personally partial with saying dirk/fangs/bow, SoA if you're into hunting. It's nifty, yes, but I've already proven that you don't need the SoA to stay alive, even with raja sip rates..

..though I'm heavily considering saving for a sip ring now, just because it'd be funny.


Also: Apparently most people like Mhun over Raja anyway.. so don't think it's the end-all be-all decision.

I dont have a free reincarnation at my disposal besides I'm fine as mhun. Im torn between lvl 1 dirk and SoA.

It depends, what do you want to do?

Combat - Dirk
Bash/politicking/etc. - SoA

Raja serpents with a level 3 dirk are awesome indeed. Provided, they know what their doing.

Im more into combat

How is the 0-4 broken up amongst the type of mounts? I assume the 0-4 is based on the Defence ability in riding where as the flat +4 is based on your lessons in riding?

You don't necessarily need to know what you're doing when you're a Raja with a Thoth's Fang. You dstab at something like two seconds, give or take your usual balance randomization*. You can beat herb balance so thoroughly that if you can memorize one or two truelock sequences and try them repeatedly, you'll get it right after 4-5 tries most of the time. This is not to say that Serpent requires 0 skill, as you'll clearly be much more effective when you know what you're doing, but that Serpents are not exempt from the rule that artifacts can, to a certain extent, bring an unskilled, artifacted opponent up to the level of a skilled opponent with no artifacts.


*Balance is not specifically randomized, but it does get rounded to certain intervals, which randomizes it for all intents and purposes.

I'm just waiting for Gorlasintan to see the advice you're giving our youngsters.

0-4 is based on the mount's level. It's actually something like 0-10, but anything above 4 is exceedingly rare.

Two more questions: Do some of the lesser steeds just not give a dex bonus and are you telling me that somewhere out there are supermounts that give a ridiculous dex bonus?

I think it's only like Sarapis' boar and whatnot.

Legend steeds give the highest bonus. Lesser mounts give less avoidance. I assume that some lesser mounts (such as mules) give 0 avoidance.

I do not know about the super mounts. My numbers merely come from previous Clementius posts.

I don't know any more than that.