little serp help cause i know you all love me.

Driden

so my biggest problem in combat it seems is people running or hindering on snaps.

this ranges from web tattoos when i snap to running away or flying when i snap. jinsun astral forming when i snap...magi putting up reflections when i snap or they get more than 4 afflictions an the like.

just looking for some advice on how better to sneak in that impatience so i can actually lock.

i mostly use kelp stacks to achieve a lock since its most reliable. but if anyone has some tips for that let me know.

Austere

Do some fake snaps to throw them off? If they are webbing or running on every one,  they won't gain much.  Death tarot maybe, but is dry death tarot really a risk with evade?

Exelethril

Pinshot and try to use disrupt in hypnosis if you know your opponent shields on snap. To bury affs and keep herb pressure up, try putting up a lightwall on every dstab.

Jovolo

You can flay a shield faster than herb balance if you build for dexterity, right? At the very least it pretty much matches herb balance. Shield shouldn't be so much of a problem for Serpent, just flay with whatever they cure, usually curare - if you need to stop them from running, use pinshot and see if you can stack dizziness over an impatience snap. It should hinder them enough and give you a free reign to lock them too. 

You should post some logs.

Ernam

I was going to say fake snaps, block, pinshot, dizziness, paralysis, etc, but they've all been mentioned already.  Somewhere a while back I listed all of serpent's afflictions that hinder movement, and I believe it was about 15-20 afflictions/abilities.  All in all, serpent has some of the best hindrance in the game.  Just gotta use it, I guess.

Ernam

Driden said:

so my biggest problem in combat it seems is people running or hindering on snaps.

I happen to know that you have a TF - so perhaps try breaking a leg with it (since it's super fast) after you build a stack (or even without one if you're good), and snapping somewhere thereafter.  (You can easily prep with a flail).  You'll easily have enough time for TWO doublestabs while their limb is broken where they can't cure anorexia via salve.  Pretty much a free lock if they let you prep them.  I use dragon rend to prep, but that's just laziness + the convenience of elder.  During that entire time, they can't run at all due to the leg break, and even if they get it, you'll have an extra second of hindrance thanks to needing mending, or they'll burn their tree on the level 1 limb break (either way is great for you).  Same thing works by forcing restoration (or both), but you can't get impatience immediately after via force.

This is an oldie but a goodie that I brought back just for BMs who love to Evade prep.  Good for those goddamn Occie/Jester slow-preppers too.  (it's designed to counter slow-prep [with slow prep], but it can technically work on anyone)

Driden

thats actually a good idea if i get the timing right. but jab is like 21 to break low health opponents so not a great idea that. thanks everyone.

Ernam

Driden said:

thats actually a good idea if i get the timing right. but jab is like 21 to break low health opponents so not a great idea that. thanks everyone.

Yeah that's why ya prep with a flail.  It's way faster.

Herose

To expand on Ernam's suggestion - once you prep a leg and their tree tattoo is inactive:

0.0s Break leg with TF jab
0.0s Applies restoration to leg
0.6s Snap [with impatience as first suggestion to hit]
1.6s Dstab with slike/vernalius
1.6s Impatience hits
3.2s Dstab with kalmia/gecko
4.8s Flay/Bite with curare (or Dstab if rebounding didn't come up)

It's important that the impatience hits at the same time as the slike/vernalius - so you may need to adjust that timing depending on your balance regain from TF stab.  I might actually wait until 0.8s to snap and then wait for the impatience to hit and doublestab immediately.

Jovolo

You don't really need to get that creative as a Serpent anymore. It's not that you shouldn't, and if you find it fun by all means go ahead, but it's probably not that helpful to suggest limb break salve locks to a serpent asking for beginner advice. If you can blow their tree tattoo, you may as well just curare/kalmia, snap impatience, gecko/slike. If they have fitness, curare/xentio, kalmia/gecko, snap impatience, vernalius/slike. That will lock a significant amount of people, especially if you have a Thoth's.

Ernam

Jovolo said:

You don't really need to get that creative as a Serpent anymore. It's not that you shouldn't, and if you find it fun by all means go ahead, but it's probably not that helpful to suggest limb break salve locks to a serpent asking for beginner advice. If you can blow their tree tattoo, you may as well just curare/kalmia, snap impatience, gecko/slike. If they have fitness, curare/xentio, kalmia/gecko, snap impatience, vernalius/slike. That will lock a significant amount of people, especially if you have a Thoth's.

The fitness "nerf" (fix) has made venom/riftlocks a thing again.  I think it's a seriously underestimated change.  Like, I completely rebuilt my offense strategies for like 5 classes already just because of it.

I couldn't possibly be more ready for multiclass to come back.  I'm still holding on to a full set of serpent artefacts =/.

As for the creativity thing, I can't say that I agree.  Locks against most classes are still extremely easy to prevent with proper evasion/turtling, combined with good dynamic curing (requires more than stock server curing / SVO).

I think the "ease" that you're seeing is simply a reflection of the fact that people are willing to drop $1,500 into their offense, but are unwilling to spend 30 minutes fine tuning their curing priority swap scenarios, or learning how to actively predict/avoid specific kill/lock scenarios (95%  of the people I lock are still swinging indiscriminately when the final hit lands).


tl;dr:  The general playerbase has a very high level of offensive power, but a very low general level of defensive skill (including curing system configuration), which results in misconceptions about how "easy" classes are.  [ with that said, I'd much sooner call occultist or knight offense "easy" before any venomlock class, by a long shot ].

Driden

all good points guys.thank you herose for breaking that down. Jovolo i would love to be more than one of those serpents. heh. so creativity isnt bad idea.

Driden

also herose there wouldnt be a reason for me to flay as gecko would have been stabbed an it strips sileris.

Kasa

@Driden The suggestion to flay wasn't for you to strip sileris, it was to go through rebounding if it comes up (as it should have there)

Kuy

Kasa said:

@Driden The suggestion to flay wasn't for you to strip sileris, it was to go through rebounding if it comes up (as it should have there)

Or shield if you're breaking the leg.

Santar

Nobody that plays this game is going to not shield on a leg break + snap combo long enough for you to dstab twice.

You smokin' something?

Seftin

Also with Thoth Limb damage nerf not worth the time