Class Questions

Tanris

Binding on a sleeplock can also be helpful because if they are someone who wakes fast (or you can't leave the room for guards or whatever reason to snipe), it means they can't outrift kola if they do wake instantly. If they don't have it outrifted already and you have them bound, the chance of you being able to resleep them before they writhe/outr/eat is very high (although you still have to be mindful that someone will get metawake up if they know what they're doing).

Synbios

Daeir said:

@Tanris Is there honestly anything about Achaea that you don't know? I frequently marvel at your immense knowledge of well, everything combat related.

Considering that he is a long-time combatant, it kinda is his - along with many other long-time combatants' - business to know their field of expertise. 

Iocun

Xith said:

The only time you get to use puppetry is if it's 1 vs 1 and the person wants to fight you.

That's not a major argument though, as most classes can only pull all stops in a fight if the other person wants to fight you. There are extremely few classes who can hold an opponent down for good if he doesn't want a fight, and even then only against specific classes or against people who don't know how to defend/cure/run or don't have any escape arties. Agreed on the 1v1 part - puppetry is certainly one of the least practical skills in group combat - but tarot and pranks are good enough in group contexts on their own.

Tanris

Well, I still can't manual walk to Thraasi.

Xith

Iocun said:

Xith said:

The only time you get to use puppetry is if it's 1 vs 1 and the person wants to fight you.

That's not a major argument though, as most classes can only pull all stops in a fight if the other person wants to fight you. There are extremely few classes who can hold an opponent down for good if he doesn't want a fight, and even then only against specific classes or against people who don't know how to defend/cure/run or don't have any escape arties. Agreed on the 1v1 part - puppetry is certainly one of the least practical skills in group combat - but tarot and pranks are good enough in group contexts on their own.

It's momentum that's really the problem. If I fight for 5-7 minutes and get near usable fashions, and the other person decides to leave realms for a couple hours, I have to start over. Shaman is similar except that they don't need much more than 25 fashions. All other classes pretty much start when the fight starts, with minimal prep like hypnosis/room effects.
The weakest thing about jesters currently is jumpability. There's nothing we can do short-term that a high-level person can't counter even without duanathar, bombs now being possibly the worst culprit. So jester has its limits, but to avoid derailing here, I'll probably start another topic for classlead discussion.

Tvistor

He finds it funnier when his victims struggle.

Darklyre

Well, I still can't manual walk to Thraasi.

I can barely manual walk from Ashtan to NoT!

Maht

What's the deal with Sentinels in combat? I know thornspray/turtle is cute in raids, but I'm interested in their smalls groups and 1v1. The class just seems really fun and artefact independent, but I don't think I'm innovative enough to go big with it.

Is reflexes jabbing much faster than throwing a decent axe with knife thrower? It seems that Sents really got a great deal out of traits because they get Raja throw speed without any of the cons of Raja. I could afford a Lv1 bow but I'm really tired of straight damage on all of my characters. All of their axe kills seem based around running out val pipe, but I suppose there's more than that.

Their combination of affs with breaks seems really fun, but I didn't like how Blademasters do it (I fundamentally dislike sriking). The RP seems fun, Meta has so much utility, Woodlore/traps are badass, and Concoctions is just icing on the cake. Would I be making a mistake, or should I go with my gut and have fun with Sentinel?

Edit: Posted from my phone so sorry for any errors. I also realized I'm probably trying to over-symplify the class, but that's largely due to my inexperience. Happy Thanksgiving.

Iocun

Haven't seen any sentinel kill that wasn't a pure weapon damage kill with some hindering from breaks for quite a long time. Sentinels are extremely good at breaking limbs, but don't have as powerful finishers to capitalize on a prone target as some other classes.

Can't really comment on how good they can be without arties, because the only sentinels I've ever fought were either 20 year old novices without a curing system or heavily artied.

Xith

I've always thought sentinel would be fun. And it's best to play a class you'll have fun with. Just learn each skill in detail and sort the best combos out for yourself.

Rajan

Sentinel got @Mizik'd pre-traits, don't know how much they've changed since then.

Tanris

Sentinel is in a really weird place right now. The problem is sentinel can essentially achieve any limb prep possible (Mizik could 5 x mangle you if so inclined pre traits, likely still doable with a good axe post traits). That makes giving them a limb based instakill/finisher ridiculously hard to balance, as they'll definitely be able to pull it off given time (and not much beats sentinel for stalling, given that you spend the vast majority of the fight either paralysed, clumsy, or transfixed against a smart one).

Damage is ok against untanky targets (or monks), as you can set off breaks and keep them down while you perma mangle with sensitivity and darkshade/euphorbia, but there's a distinct cutoff point at which that becomes less and less viable. The pipelock that Mizik sentinel embarrassed everyone with is very good, but given people started outrifting 100 kelp/bloodroot against sentinels, not so much anymore. Freeze pound is easily beaten by prioritising caloric top, as freeze isn't reallistically fast enough (even diademed) to freeze 3 times off of a single restoration balance.

Add in artifacts and it becomes a fairly different story (reflexed bow or artied maul -hurts-, as does the soon to be nerfed damage spam with reflexed thoths), but I suspect you're not interested in dropping $500 on a this might be interesting (especially when you could spend said credits on far more sure fire classes).

That said, sentinel is hands down one of the best group classes. Traps (mostly darts for groups, but all of them are awesome) are a game changer, and the ability to apply venoms at sub 1 second from out of room is insane. Reflexes alone are a reason enough (reflexed tumble, reflexed throwing of bombs, etc), but the melee is also very strong. Concoctions/vitality with decentish armour/barkskin makes for good tanking (plus burrow/prismatic/leap/fly), and offensively you have fast maul (good dps), handaxe (good hinder), trip (thank god that got nerfed), thornspray if you're in forest, and Jhui's favourite: trumpet. There's incinerate and ents too, which are pretty enormous. Bow goes here too if you feel like buying even a level 1 version: reflexed shoot/meteors really is no joke.

Essentially, if you want it for group combat, you'll love it. One v one you'll hit a brick wall eventually, whether its when you come up against a dragon or someone with correct priorities/outrifting paranoia.