Shaman Combat

Vyn

Since I'm -slightly- new to Achaea, and have no real concept of combat other than Knight combat, I was wondering if you all could help me out a bit with how Shaman combat works. I am able to help out with runelore and the like in group combat, and if I'm lucky I can get a few Vodun dolls to add to Vyn's collection, but past that I have no idea what I should try to pull off if I'm dueling someone or sparring someone in the arena.

I am tri trans, and nearly trans in survival. I am able to survive and cause draws in the arena against any class, due to me going a constitutional route, and between my armour, algiz, berkana, boar, and me placing Uruz runes everywhere, I can keep myself alive enough to get more than 60 stacks on my opponent. The problem arises when I have no idea what to do when I reach that point. I've tried forcing a sleep/transfix lock, then going for concussion, and rushing a Tzantza. But they either wake up just in time, or they have curseward/metawake up.

I do not have any artefacts yet, I am nearly level 80, and I have enough combat knowledge to understand advice when it's given to me. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get a kill, they don't wake up fast enough, or their curing prioritizes the wrong thing, such as if I'm kelp or goldenseal stacking. Vodun Bleed spamming is not viable because of clotting, unless I'm with a Priest and they want an easy kill. But again, I want to focus on actual duels, rather than being reliant only in group combat.

Any advice, or things I should look out for?

Jovolo

Allow me to introduce you to penultimate end-game's of Shaman Combat: 

The Slow Lock: Where your opponent has both Aeon, and Concussion (Delivered via Vodun Slow, and Vodun Concussion). You can try and force your opponent to use restoration by mangling a limb of theirs, and then Vodun Slow, Vodun Concussion when they apply restoration, and Vodun Slow once more. You will most likely be too slow for this to work as Speed will have come back by the time you do the second Vodun Slow, so the above would only really work in Blackout. Otherwise, you will need to Vodun Concussion just as they are about to apply restoration, and THEN Vodun Slow twice.

The "Aeon Lock": I am not sure what the actual name of this would be, so I'm coining the term here if it is not already the case for this. Essentially, this is where your opponent has Aeon and Asthma, and you are on balance at the same time as this occurs. Or, at the very least, you are on balance before they cure Aeon, at which point you afflict Asthma. Following this, you can aim to stack afflictions on top of the Asthma, re-applying necessary afflictions at the appropriate times: 

For example, if you stick Aeon and Asthma, and then you afflict anorexia and they apply to their body or focus, you can assume they cured anorexia, at which point you will curse Anorexia and then afflict Impatience. If you see them eat goldenseal, or apply to their body, you can assume they cured impatience if it is the former or anorexia if it was the latter, so you re-apply that affliction and then imbibe gecko. Once you succeed in giving every affliction of a  hardlock (Impatience, Anorexia, Asthma, Slickness, Weariness if they can fitness, Paralysis), they will be completely unable to cure as well as being stuck in Aeon. From that point, you can do whatever you wish to with them. 

The "Salve Lock": As above, I'm not sure of the actual name for this strategy, so I'm coining the term here if it isn't already the case. The Salve Lock pertains to the state of an opponent when they are afflicted with Impatience and Anorexia while being off salve balance. as they cannot focus due to Impatience, they cannot eat due to Anorexia, and they cannot apply thanks to being off salve balance, it is a partial lock that can lead to them being unable to cure for as long as they are off salve balance. I.e, if you wait for them to apply restoration, and then blight impatience and anorexia, they will basically be unable to cure for the duration of them being off salve balance, which will be around 3 seconds. You can follow up with the rest of the lock afflictions and then tzantza them from there.

The "Straight Tzantza": This will only work on individuals who choose to prioritize paralysis or asthma over impatience. You essentially curse the prioritized affliction of either paralysis or asthma, and then stack impatience and mental afflictions through blighting while they cure the prioritized affliction. As an example: 

0: Curse Paralysis

0: Eat bloodroot

0.9: Curse Paralysis

1.6: Blight Impatience

1.6: Eat Bloodroot

2.5: Curse Paralysis

3.2: Eat Bloodroot

3.4: Curse Paralysis

  4.3: Blight Stupid

4.8: Eat Bloodroot (Impatience + Stupidity Stuck) 

               5.2: Curse Paralysis (Paralysis + Impatience + Stupidity)

Following this pattern, you'll be able to stick Impatience and four mental afflictions (preferably: Stupidity to hinder curing, Dizziness to hinder any attempts to run away, Dementia to confuse them if they enjoy spamming SQUINT/QUICKLOOK/LOOK or manage to run away, at which point you can just follow them and continue, and so on). 

I hope this gives you a few ideas to play around with, at the very least... And you should be able to adapt these to various situations, and definitely don't think of them as applicable-to-all tactics.

Vaehl

@Jovolo Teach him the basics first.

Jovolo

Okay babe. Shamans are a non-momentum based class. What do I mean by this? Sure, I'll explain. 

When a serpent doublestabs you with curare/kalmia, you eat bloodroot, you eat kelp, you recover herb balance. You have no afflictions stuck on you whatsoever - they have made almost zero progress despite their attack. 

The serpent gets in three doublestabs on you, they manage to stick clumsiness and asthma, you eat bloodroot, you touch tree if your next kelp eat catches clumsiness (Meaning you still have asthma - dangerous) and then you touch shield - recover herb balance - rebounding comes up. They have made zero progress, all the while you've been fashioning them, right? 

By this point, you've acquired 8 fashions of them, you're doing pretty well. You mountjump out of the room, leaving your prey at North of New Thera, and you probe your doll in delight at the fashions you've managed to acquire. 

What can they possibly do about this? Basically nothing. They have gained no ground on you at all, apart from maybe discovering a few illusions that might work, which will do nothing anyway as long as you play your defensive cards right. What have you gained? Yeah, that's right, your fashions. You're ahead of them already and you're about to leave them in your wake. 

What I mean by this, is that you are a NON-MOMENTUM BASED CLASS. Remember it well, and cherish it. Don't ever let anybody tell you that you're fighting lame, you're just using the tools available to you. It's up to you whether or not you want to risk dying - if they get pissed off at you because you're fighting on your own terms, then they probably aren't very good in the first place.

Some of the absolute basics that you should always have in mind: 

1. Always remember to drop their curseward before you go for your kill. Try not to do it IMMEDIATELY before, it will only cause them to become alert that you're about to execute your strategy, and you don't want that. Try to throw in a breach when you hit around 15 to 20 fashions. If you see your opponent leave the room, ALWAYS assume that they redeffed curseward. You don't want to lose the two seconds in your strategy by hitting curseward, and then having to breach it before you can continue. This is a waste of your time that could have been easily avoided by being mindful.

2. If you have access to a mount and mountjump, MAKE USE OF IT. Place a Wunjo/Nairat in your room and at least two adjacent rooms, and get Gular on one (Or more, if you can mountjump) those exits. You're a chump if you don't. If you need to escape and you are followed, activating your Wunjo/Nairat runes, make sure you resketch them. These will be your defensive precautions against the heavy damage of the Blunt Icon Monks of the Lotus and Ashura, and otherwise artied Monks. These will be your defensive precautions against the 1.8 second doubleslashes, hitting for 700 - 900 damage per. If you die to these, you will almost always have only yourself to blame, playing as a Shaman. Never go against these classes without Algiz, Jera and Berkana.

3.  USE BIND AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AGAINST CLASSES THAT HURT YOU. So many Shaman's forget about this ability. You can easily fashion back the fashions you used on the ability by around the same time they writhe free. It gives you a chance for a breather, and to regain herb, sip, or moss balance. Really, use it.

I think you already know what I was talking about regarding the locks, but feel free to ask for any further questions or concerns you come across in your spars and duels using those tactics. 

(Wow, the formatting on here sucks)

Mizik

blight clumsy/fashion was my jam

Aepas

Shaman 101


Be really good at it.
or
Be really bad at it.

Aehren

I've been lurking for a little while and was about to make a topic like this. There aren't many Shamans on classwho or in Hashan (when I am, at least, and I'm on frequently)- I got to level 60 before I found one to learn class skills from. And combat advice/masterclasses? Brr. What a nightmare. This is amazing info, thank you so much Jovolo!

Nyboe

Wow Jovolo sure know a lot. Now I don't feel so bad losing to him in a spar.

Mordric

@Jovolo is a beast, he's helped me out several times.

Vaehl

Jovolo is great he is my little baby boy.

Jovolo

I grew up under Vaehl. 

I still get the nightmares...

Kaie

Well, this is about as disturbing as it gets. Vaehl raising children. -shudders-.

Vaehl

Xer

And I grew up underneath them both I never inherited the straight Tzantza, but salvelocking was what I really rocked personally as a Shaman. Now if only I had that Vodun Cripple change when I was Shaman haha.

Mishgul

you all suck. RIP Falgorn.

Santar

What we need is a good ol' fashioned shake-down up in here.

You kids want to talk about grief? Yeah, you haven't seen anything.

Jovolo

Poor *markuth

Bring back old puppetry, sounds fun

Mizik

@Rameus and @Proficy gave Spire his first double shakedown. I had no idea how these abilities worked, wtf a Jester was, but all the stuff I had ratted so hard for was falling out so fast.

I panicked so hard I force DC'ed.

Santar

I'm fortunate enough to have never been shook down. I had a couple of attempts but was smart enough to instantly heartstop.

Jovolo

Miss those dayssss. Maybe weirdly.

Vaehl

Proficy's shakedowns were legendary.

Cahin

Bring back oblit to fall in line with current trend of buffing classes.

Marax

Hoping to revive this thread so I can read some more advice about Shaman combat. I had it down pretty well in Imperian (like 6 years ago )...but it's totally different in Achaea.

How many fashions are foundational before feeling comfortable with going offensive (I had like 4 in the time it took a Monk to kill me...I'm also really bad, I guess).

What's the best way to set up a offensive system? (I'm partial to clickable buttons in a separate window but I've never really used keybindings.)

What skills do I need to be able to effectively kill someone (perhaps I trans'd Runelore before I realized that I maybe...just might...wanna fight a little outside of raiding?

I'm using Omnipave right now because it's free...30 more credits and I'll be getting svo. How important is it to -have- svo?

All these fashions make me miss Imperian's good/illwill system before the skill was removed, so I really have to change my perspective...but I got time to learn.

Thanks to anyone who answers! Any information you want to provide outside these question would be awesome!

Bluef

PMd you my thoughts!

Xith

Actually I have a question inspired by my jester/puppetry comments the other day.

Any one know precisely how puncture and/or torso damage affects bleeding?

I once was able to get someone to well over 1000 bleeding, but whatever I did in those tests didn't seem to be repeatable.

But basically, if you do 3 bleeds, 1 puncture, and repeat, your bleeding is more effective. Also sticking in a thurisaz or throttle ensures they have some extra to sip about.

Also INFLAME was added to curses since the thread started, so they can make bleeding hurt a bit more now. I've heard it does ridiculous multiplications

Mizik said:

blight clumsy/fashion was my jam

I always forget what effects clumsiness has since it no longer allows self-attacks.

Xith

They sped up puppet slow for speed strips, and made fitness active-only, so as a jester, I gotta tell you:

- swiftcurse

- slow (strip speed)

- curse paralysis

- blight asthma

- slow (aeon)

- asthma as soon as they cure

- paralysis/anorexia (stop eat and tree)

- weariness depending on your opponent

- impatience

- imbibe gecko (lock)

If they stop you before you reach step 5, just try again. If they don't, they're most likely locked if you don't mess up.

Shaman needs 21 fashions to do this. 25 if you also want to Command "touch tree" first.

My recommendation, sketch nairat/wunjo in a room.

Trigger their transfix to do VODUN BIND and TOUCH WEB <person>. Requires 3 writhes so you can probably get your aeon in. Might replace the WEB step with just swiftcursing so you get started quicker.

I believe swiftcurses are fast enough that if your asthma hits while they're off herbbal from the bloodroot, your aeon will hit on time. The only time it'll have trouble is when your opponent assumes they should cure asthma before smoking. So it might actually be worth trying to sneak anorexia first. The above salve lock (mangle, impatience, anorexia) mentioned earlier can take care of this temporarily but you won't have time for the speed strip before they're out of it, have to asthma and Slow immediately.

Jovolo

Xith said:

Mizik said:

blight clumsy/fashion was my jam

I always forget what effects clumsiness has since it no longer allows self-attacks.

I don't know if this was a joke but it massively increases the chance for phys damage attacks (e.g. tekura, dsl, jab) to miss.

Hasar

@Marax talk to @Xer he was shaman for some time. In regards to systems svo is great but don't underestimate the power of building your own or at least working off a skeleton system. Helps immensely in regards to understanding combat.

Xith

Jovolo said:

Xith said:

Mizik said:

blight clumsy/fashion was my jam

I always forget what effects clumsiness has since it no longer allows self-attacks.

I don't know if this was a joke but it massively increases the chance for phys damage attacks (e.g. tekura, dsl, jab) to miss.

I always knew it had multiple functions but I didn't know that part. I had no use for it except as a kelp stack in rare situations.

Sena

Clumsy isn't just physical damage either. It affects most (if not all) bashing attacks, including magical attacks that normally can't miss like warp and bleed. And I haven't actually tested it, but the chance to miss seems to be something like 95% (before any normal accuracy checks).

Xith

Any idea what torso damage's bleed effect is?