Bard Locking

Gamoneterik

So I have heard a LOT of talk lately of Bards locking people and whilst I am an alright combatant I just can't seem to get a lock.

Even testing with someone standing there it seems impossible. I've heard a few things but the latest advice I'm following is @Jovolo - "A salve lock is impatience and anorexia while off salve balance. Can't focus, eat or applu. From there you stick paralysis and then the rest of the lock affs before salve balance is recovered. As a bard, you can stick impatience, then minuet apply restoration, jab curare pesante and sing qasida. Or slike and recite epic, doesn't really matter. Then jab kalmia martellato, jab gecko. Need a jab faster than 2 seconds."

So I have a 1.6-1.7 second jab and I can't lock following this advice even when the victim is standing there with uncured impatience. I'm just following this to the letter. Currently the victim gets impatience, anorexia and paralysis, then asthma and slickness afterwards as the others start getting cured. My minueting is working well, the whole thing begins as soon as they apply resto. My ping is fine. There is NO way I can see to Bard using the server side queueing, as it doesn't respect envenoming.

Halp much appreciated KK thanks

Jhui

depends on the class:

stick curare, asthma, or impatience, then force apply resto/recon (get this right).  jab slike, sing impatience or jab curare/sing anorexia song (make sure jab/song balance are synced),  then jab gecko (jab kalmia or whatever is left on next bal), sing vern?ashma? any locking affs possible? no idea.  If not then sing focus affs or kelp affs.

Fitness is trickier, I forget what songs you have, but I'd stack based on what you can combo together.  Don't forget you can always wait a for a good force to go through to stop fitness.  you can use limb breaks, you can use tremolo to give a momentum burst.

The rest is up to you.  Should be fun for you to figure it out.  Start on someone standing still with shitty curing, then work your way up.

Lilian

For awhile I was using that method that @Jhui said in another thread, force/salve/jab slike/sing impatience, jab Kalmia, jab gecko/recite paralysis. of course this really only works against people with basic curing, sometimes you have to force them to tree first. But it can be done with a 235/cacitle!

Gamoneterik

I'll try that thanks @Lilian

Kafziel

Treat forced apply as 4 seconds of uncurable slickness (they can't apply because no salve balance). You have to deliver the jab/song after at exactly the same time (recommend in game alias for this) because otherwise they'll just cure. You need all three components at once. If you're following this they shouldn't even start curing until after salve balance is recovered which is enough time for 3 jabs and 2 songs

Terra

If you continue to have problems, it's easier to help if you post a log so we can see what you're doing wrong. Otherwise, the stuff people have said so far should work. You just have to account for tree, fitness, kaido/shindo deafness, rebounding, whether they use restoration or reconstructive, etc.

Nim

If you thought shindo deafness, alleviate, and fitness were bad enough, don't forget about shin phoenix (stopped by prone, I think)!

Kuy

Daeir said:

Tree and fitness are your biggest hurdles to this. You ideally want to start the lock process with a "chasing" sequence which will bait out their tree use at the very least - this will give you a window in which you can pull this off without that interfering.

Post a log of your attempts thus far?

Tree is only a problem if they have fitness/shrugging.

Jovolo

Tree not really an issue. Shrugging, fitness and dragonheal on the other hand...

Gamoneterik

Here's a log of me trying @Lilian's method with someone standing still with deaf off in the arena:

order Juili apply reconstructive

6369h, 5181m, 27830e, 22450w exk- (16:56:26.146)

Juili takes some balm from a vial and rubs it on her skin.

You have lost the trust of your victim, at least for now.

6369h, 5181m, 27830e, 22450w exk- (16:56:26.473)

envenom rapier with slike;tunesmith rapier pesante;jab Juili;sing limerick at Juili

You rub some slike on a gilt-edged rapier of fine steel.

6369h, 5181m, 27830e, 22450w exk- (16:56:26.967)

You weave strands of melodies over your blade, tunesmithing it with the power of the pesante.

6369h, 5131m, 27830e, 22440w exk- (16:56:27.272)(-50m, 1.0%) 

Lightning-quick, you jab Juili with a gilt-edged rapier of fine steel.

The songblessing unleashes a stunning percussive blast.

6369h, 5131m, 27815e, 22440w ek- (16:56:27.282)

Composing a few clever lines in your head, you quickly sing a jaunty limerick at Juili.

6369h, 5031m, 27815e, 22420w ek- (16:56:27.288)(-100m, 1.9%) 

Juili takes some balm from a vial and rubs it on her body.

6369h, 5031m, 27815e, 22420w ek- (16:56:27.641)

You have recovered balance on all limbs. (1.283s)

6369h, 5031m, 27815e, 22420w exk- (16:56:28.564)

envenom rapier with kalmia;tunesmith rapier pesante;jab Juili

You rub some kalmia on a gilt-edged rapier of fine steel.

6369h, 5031m, 27815e, 22420w exk- (16:56:28.911)

You weave strands of melodies over your blade, tunesmithing it with the power of the pesante.

6369h, 4981m, 27815e, 22410w exk- (16:56:29.214)(-50m, 1.0%) 

Lightning-quick, you jab Juili with a gilt-edged rapier of fine steel.

The songblessing unleashes a stunning percussive blast.

6369h, 4981m, 27800e, 22410w ek- (16:56:29.222) (2.226s)

You have recovered voice balance.

6369h, 4981m, 27810e, 22410w ek- (16:56:29.512)

Juili eats an aurum flake.

6369h, 4981m, 27810e, 22428w ek- (16:56:29.833)

You have recovered balance on all limbs. (1.467s)

6369h, 5056m, 27810e, 22428w exk- (16:56:30.689)

envenom rapier with gecko;tunesmith rapier pesante;jab Juili;recite epic at Juili

(+75m, 1.4%) 

You rub some gecko on a gilt-edged rapier of fine steel.

6369h, 5056m, 27810e, 22428w exk- (16:56:31.062)

You weave strands of melodies over your blade, tunesmithing it with the power of the pesante.

6369h, 5006m, 27810e, 22418w exk- (16:56:31.370)(-50m, 1.0%) 

You viciously jab a gilt-edged rapier of fine steel into Juili.

The songblessing unleashes a stunning percussive blast.

6369h, 5006m, 27795e, 22418w ek- (16:56:31.378)

You begin reciting an epic tale of the heroism of Nicator to Juili, holding her spellbound.

6369h, 4856m, 27795e, 22388w ek- (16:56:31.385)(sip mentality)(-150m, 2.9%) 

You take a drink from a blown glass vial.

Your mind feels stronger and more alert.

6369h, 5181m, 27795e, 22388w ek- (16:56:31.706)(+325m, 6.3%) 

Juili eats a magnesium chip.

I think the problem might be using svo's do queue. By the time I do the first jab it's 1.1 seconds after the apply. There is no way to do actions like this using serverside though as envenoming can't be queued.

Gamoneterik

Although looking again, she applies after 1.3 seconds. I have tried "apply reconstructive to torso/head" as well as no body part. All seem to be the same. What am I missing?

Jovolo

Might be off salve balance when you minuet the apply but it's unlikely that happens every time... she basically didn't get thrown off salve balance when applying, or passive curing ticked and she applied redundantly

Accipiter

@gamoneterik Use QUEUE ADD BALANCE ENVENOM RAPIER WITH x and it will fire on balance, or you could just envenom when you aren't on balance and it will be fine. I personally would use the server side multiline aliases as well because that cuts down on the latency a bit, but you do end up needed to make alot of them to do anything complicated.

So if for example you did an alias jgpe that did the command "envenom rapier with gecko/tunesmith rapier pesante/jab &tar/recite epic at &tar" it should cut the time on your timestamps by 300ms (the time at the prompt for envenoming is 31.062, and the last hit of the last combo is 31.385, using the multiline alias should fire them all at the same time)

Gamoneterik

@accipiter I tried that but I think I'm misunderstanding how queueing works serverside. I did config queueing on confirm and then using ls1 followed by ls2 in my script on applying resto, they're both envenom/jab/sing aliases stored using alias ls1 and alias ls2... it envenoms both of the venoms from the aliases straight away and then jabs correctly when on balance. What is this QUEUE ADD BALANCE sorcery? I'll tinker with it I thought the serverside queue was just "do stuff, and if off balance it will wait 'til balance" - the helpfile on it is really, really incomplete

Kafziel

Reconstructive unspecified takes the regular 1s of salve balance. Force to head to make it take 4s of salve balance.

Also if you're having trouble with speed (you need to waste absolutely zero time when doing this) then pre-envenom gecko/kalmia/slike and just spam your attack macro to make sure it goes through as soon as you get balance.

Gamoneterik

Well I managed to code in serverside queueing doing all this stuff. It's amazingly fast but I can't lock. All of my testers still apply after 1.1 seconds. I've realised this is the key to my problem. What do I force them to get them off balance for 4 seconds?

ETA: Thanks @Kafziel you answered this superbly. I'm excited now it might work.

Jovolo

Post another log of you doing the same thing but change your minuet order to apply to head.

Gamoneterik

You say in a smokey voice, "I think I got it!"

6369h, 5056m, 27825e, 22394w ex-(+75m, 1.4%) 

Teghaine says in a tranquil, arioso voice, "I think I'm locked..."

Oh happy day! Thanks for the help everyone!

Lilian

Just remember you may need to potentially waste tree on them first! But glad you got it working!

Cadarus

I hate to dredge up an old post, but does anyone remember when Soulmaster balanceless force was deleted because it was too powerful?  On a class that doesn't have fitness, there is really no defense against this tactic when the bard's got a fast enough rapier.  This is basically force imposed slickness/paralyiss/anorexia in one shot, easily followed by slickness/asthma to seal the deal.  If the bard is already this fast they can bury impatience or asthma before unleashing the combo, so you can't even change your priorities around to defend against it.

I understand that fitness adds another affliction into the mix that makes it more difficult, but not every class has fitness.

Thoughts?

Mithridates

Issue is you can't really do anything about it without absolutely ruining bard. 

Strata

My thoughts are Bard is perhaps the best affliction class at the moment in regard to that. Just not enough people who understand the mechanics of locking play it heavily. (Really there's only one person right now who can fight as Bard well.)

Alchemist has great hindering and OOCly our recent fight was more me fighting svo than you. I've decided to give server-side curing a try, though offensively I don't think much will change in regard to the disparities between different class curing capability that is creeping up regarding affliction combat.

Hopefully things will get fixed and somewhat level the playing field for all classes but right now Alchemist/Occultist are probably the worst off when up against afflictions - then there is Priest/Sylvan on the other end of the spectrum. It would be awesome to see this stuff balanced but I doubt it's going to happen any time soon when, ostensibly, the loudest voices among the players who continue to get change affected don't actually fight on a regular basis to see through their own eyes the results of their blather.

Mithridates

See I don't think that all classes should become equal when it comes to curing.  It seems like every class has a kind of balance when it comes at having two or three things it's good at, but having a few glaring weaknesses to exploit.  Makes things interesting. 

Sena

Cadarus said:

I hate to dredge up an old post, but does anyone remember when Soulmaster balanceless force was deleted because it was too powerful?

It was changed because it let occultists force two actions at the same time (soulmaster+hierophant).

Strata

Sena said:

Cadarus said:

I hate to dredge up an old post, but does anyone remember when Soulmaster balanceless force was deleted because it was too powerful?

It was changed because it let occultists force two actions at the same time (soulmaster+hierophant).

Yeah but what he's really saying is that right now Bard essentially has the same capability as old soulmaster balanceless. Which vs. alchemist or occultist is "no skills needed - mash this key to lock..."

Terra

Unfortunately, bard's overall affliction rate is much slower than other affliction classes (voice balance is like 2.8 seconds), so without balanceless force, it would have nothing going for it.

I'd rather see classes that need them get class-specific curing abilities like fitness, shrugging, etc.

Sena

Sena said:

Cadarus said:

I hate to dredge up an old post, but does anyone remember when Soulmaster balanceless force was deleted because it was too powerful?

It was changed because it let occultists force two actions at the same time (soulmaster+hierophant).

Looking at old forum threads, it seems I was wrong about this. I guess I just noticed the double-force complaints a lot more than the other problems.

Cadarus

Yes, I am certainly not saying it should be deleted with no reimbursement, just highlighting an unsinkable situation.

Having put some thought to it, what do you think about having some way to cancel the effects of minute, such as walking out of the room or a shorter decay so that minuet needs to be used soon after playing, as an indication to the target that it is time to go on the defensive? 

Terra

That would only work if bard had some kind of room hinder like all of the other affliction classes have (gravehands, tentacles, pinshot, homunculus, etc.). Otherwise, people could literally just walk in and out between attacks and we'd have the old serpent hypnosis situation where the bard can't do anything and their opponent loses nothing.

Cadarus

Leaving the room was one suggestion.  You didn't comment on a shorter duration for minuet though. What if minuet had a clear wear off of 15-20 seconds, so that instead of being able to just sling afflictions until something sticks then locking by unblockably abusing salve balance, the bard would need to time minuet and deaf along with the rest of the combo, and the defender would know that when minuet was up he was in danger of being instalocked?

Serpents can also lock very quickly but it requires more of a prep tome, and if it fails they re-hypnotise and try again.   The difference is that you can recognize the snap, and once the affliction burst slows you can go back on the offensive.

It doesn't address the base issue, however, which is an unblockable truelock.  Open to other suggestions too, if anyone else wants to chime in.

Strata

Yeah that's why I said bard, even though they might afflict slower than serpents are overall better because there's no way to stop it. Against serpents you can just lol touch shield and lol lyre and lol leave the room (pinshot is a joke). Hypnosis prep takes time especially when fighting someone who's heavy on the offensive, so as long as you do CURING ON, CURING AFFLICTIONS ON, and touch shield when you see snap, you're going to live.