DWC + general newb questions

Dunn

Raido!

Minifie

Dunn keeps making me want to grab the mastery shard and some lvl 1 scims and give DWC a go. I've always wanted to code a GUI that visually represents limb damage, but I really don't think I'm anywhere near smart enough.

Dunn

Insignia and runestone are my favorite arties for sure

Nazihk

Some thoughts on the value of spec swapping insignia:

Switching specs without the shard costs 100 lessons, which is 16.67 credits. 

The 24hr cd insignia costs 350cr. That gives it a tradein value of 233cr, which means that the actual sunk cost of it is 117 credits, which is 702 lessons. So seven spec changes. That's the point at which the L1 insignia breaks even with just paying lessons to change. 

So if you will change specs 8+ times and you have the liquid credits to buy a L1 insignia of mastery, you should buy it. If you change specs just 8 times and then trade it in, you'll have done 134 credits worth of spec changes for 117 credits and you will have saved 17 credits. So the L1 insignia pays for itself pretty quickly if you're going to change specs with any frequency at all.

The L2 insignia is a 2hr cd, not a 12hr cd(the helpfile on it is wrong). This one is 800cr, so 533 tradein value, so 267 sunk credits. That comes out to 1602 lessons, making it break even at 16 spec changes. However, if those spec changes are all more than 24 hours apart then you could have just made do with the L1 insignia. So the L2 insignia only really pays for itself if you are going to be switching specs multiple times per day. 

Puxi

Is the runestone worth it?

Exelethril

Oui, very worth it.

Aerek

Runestone halves all rune sketch times and makes runes more fluid to actually use in combat instead of pre-fight room prep. That's stellar because Runewarden is balanced assuming that runes will be present, but fighting a mobile enemy means you have to move often and usually don't have them. Uruz and Dagaz are lifesavers, but have sketch times of 4+ seconds, giving out free AXKs/Bites/Impales if you try that in a foe's face. Wunjo/Nairat is frequently cited as one of Runewarden's big strengths, but they need to be in place well before you need to run; a pursuing enemy will likely find you before the Nairat finishes, (1s each, and runes finish at the end of the balance, not the start) which not only dodges the Nairat but wastes the Wunjo as well.

Runestone changes all that, dropping Wunjo/Nairat down ~.5s for the both of them, very much doable before a foe catches you. Uruz/Dagaz/Isaz become things you can drop in each new room without losing much time or opening yourself to abuse. Hugalaz/Othala become DSB openers that don't give as much warning or reaction time to what's coming. Great value, I gripe at myself for not owning one.

Makarios

Atalkez said:

Armali said:

The best defense, after all, is a strong offense.

Unless you have wand of reflection, crystal tattoo, Thir and fulcrum ofc

If you have Thir and Fulcrum at the same time you and I need to have a long talk.

Kyrra

@Aerek, thurisaz and hugalaz don't get modified, unless that has been changed and the help file was never updated to reflect that.

Atalkez

Makarios said:

Atalkez said:

Armali said:

The best defense, after all, is a strong offense.

Unless you have wand of reflection, crystal tattoo, Thir and fulcrum ofc

If you have Thir and Fulcrum at the same time you and I need to have a long talk.

I admit nothing 

Dunn

For wunjo/nairat alone the stone is worth it. You can prep an area SO fast.

Kenway

Aerek said:

Runestone halves all rune sketch times and makes runes more fluid to actually use in combat instead of pre-fight room prep. That's stellar because Runewarden is balanced assuming that runes will be present, but fighting a mobile enemy means you have to move often and usually don't have them. Uruz and Dagaz are lifesavers, but have sketch times of 4+ seconds, giving out free AXKs/Bites/Impales if you try that in a foe's face. Wunjo/Nairat is frequently cited as one of Runewarden's big strengths, but they need to be in place well before you need to run; a pursuing enemy will likely find you before the Nairat finishes, (1s each, and runes finish at the end of the balance, not the start) which not only dodges the Nairat but wastes the Wunjo as well.

Runestone changes all that, dropping Wunjo/Nairat down ~.5s for the both of them, very much doable before a foe catches you. Uruz/Dagaz/Isaz become things you can drop in each new room without losing much time or opening yourself to abuse. Hugalaz/Othala become DSB openers that don't give as much warning or reaction time to what's coming. Great value, I gripe at myself for not owning one.

Gotta say have always been on the fence with stones but this description (sans hugalaz) convinces me I need one. Aerek should get a complimentary runestone for the sales increase you're gonna get from people reading this

Vallie

Looking over some spars with @Karren, I have a few more questions!

Dealing with people who count torso?
Is dust bombs really the go to? Seems like there would be something in class I should be paying attention to, but if that's the answer I don't mind begging for some sweet dust. I was thinking of potentially trying to prep a 4th limb, breaking that first, then torso, then legs, but if they apply torso on the leg break it'll still be fixed up by the time I DSB.

I was also thinking of using that as a chance to try and lock assuming I could get mana to 0, but it doesn't feel like I could out momentum a momentum class with just forged, and vs. high hp pools I don't think I can pressure enough if they just switch to a mana prio. I've reworked my keys around so I can go for a paralysis/nausea/asthma/slickness loop to try and buy myself more time next time vs classes that can't be clumsied.

I'm also particularly unsure of how to deal with DW (step 1 is I need to trans survival). Optimally I need 4 balances to have a chance of starting to hinder them (maybe 3 if I skip nausea?), but within 4 bals I need to start playing defensive (or any time I get parried or rebounded).  I don't have a runestone to quickly wunjo nairat though I know I can walk out, draw, re-walk back in, but with pre-empt this feels like this would mean they have 2+ more bals against me. I have a RoF now that I can try next time, I previously looped shield but still felt like I was falling behind rather than actually getting out of pressure. I considered slower prep, but I'm still stuck if they apply torso on break because I wouldn't be able to apply enough pressure to drain all the mana for locks.

In other news, is undercut something I should be using? I didn't even notice it, searched forums for previous classlead that introduced it but wasn't sure exactly of its application.

Are there any classes that have modifiers to change their limb counts? I have a rough approximation of break points and was really off for 6k+ hp, but I'm wondering if there's certain defenses that would cause someone to take less (or more..?) limb damage.

All the info's been great so far, really felt comfortable despite not  accomplishing all too much. 0 jitters, just failures

Driden

Vallie said:

Looking over some spars with @Karren, I have a few more questions!

Dealing with people who count torso?
Is dust bombs really the go to? Seems like there would be something in class I should be paying attention to, but if that's the answer I don't mind begging for some sweet dust. I was thinking of potentially trying to prep a 4th limb, breaking that first, then torso, then legs, but if they apply torso on the leg break it'll still be fixed up by the time I DSB.

I was also thinking of using that as a chance to try and lock assuming I could get mana to 0, but it doesn't feel like I could out momentum a momentum class with just forged, and vs. high hp pools I don't think I can pressure enough if they just switch to a mana prio. I've reworked my keys around so I can go for a paralysis/nausea/asthma/slickness loop to try and buy myself more time next time vs classes that can't be clumsied.

I'm also particularly unsure of how to deal with DW (step 1 is I need to trans survival). Optimally I need 4 balances to have a chance of starting to hinder them (maybe 3 if I skip nausea?), but within 4 bals I need to start playing defensive (or any time I get parried or rebounded).  I don't have a runestone to quickly wunjo nairat though I know I can walk out, draw, re-walk back in, but with pre-empt this feels like this would mean they have 2+ more bals against me. I have a RoF now that I can try next time, I previously looped shield but still felt like I was falling behind rather than actually getting out of pressure. I considered slower prep, but I'm still stuck if they apply torso on break because I wouldn't be able to apply enough pressure to drain all the mana for locks.

In other news, is undercut something I should be using? I didn't even notice it, searched forums for previous classlead that introduced it but wasn't sure exactly of its application.

Are there any classes that have modifiers to change their limb counts? I have a rough approximation of break points and was really off for 6k+ hp, but I'm wondering if there's certain defenses that would cause someone to take less (or more..?) limb damage.

All the info's been great so far, really felt comfortable despite not  accomplishing all too much. 0 jitters, just failures

I can tell you how Karen hinders me. Asthma para slickness combo. Ugh eats me alive. Besides that stupidity eats me a lot of the time to. But not feasible as a knight. 

Nazihk

Undercut exists to solve a problem DWC has with prone+breaking people.

Without undercut, you prone+break people by DSLing a leg with opium. The problem with this is that if one of the slashes misses you can end up breaking the limb without knocking them prone, which can ruin your attempt.

With undercut, you can try to break the leg with undercut, ensuring that you don't get the break without the prone.

Aquil

Nazihk said:

Undercut exists to solve a problem DWC has with prone+breaking people.

Without undercut, you prone+break people by DSLing a leg with opium. The problem with this is that if one of the slashes misses you can end up breaking the limb without knocking them prone, which can ruin your attempt.

With undercut, you can try to break the leg with undercut, ensuring that you don't get the break without the prone.

Damn Imperians! It's delphinium not opium!

Vallie

Nazihk said:

Undercut exists to solve a problem DWC has with prone+breaking people.

Without undercut, you prone+break people by DSLing a leg with opium. The problem with this is that if one of the slashes misses you can end up breaking the limb without knocking them prone, which can ruin your attempt.

With undercut, you can try to break the leg with undercut, ensuring that you don't get the break without the prone.

Oh, is it the same speed as scimitars? It sounds like it's just better if you get the break, since you already prone and can get +1 venom, and I'd imagine the battleaxe would do more.

Nazihk

I dunno, I'm not DWC myself so I've never used it.

Exelethril

@Vallie : DWC has a skill that lets you blackout someone prone, which acts as a counter versus self limb trackers. Dustbombs aren't necessary and can also throw off your count, assuming you don't have limbprobe/off tree-balance (though you do get to keep the leg prep).

Sometimes people assume 2 slashes/1 slice on a blackout, so you don't actually have to attack their torso, in those cases. Just throw bombs.

Least self limb counters aren't as aggravating as the gmcp torso bug abusing from a year(?) ago.

Armali

You really have no /good/ options against even a mediocre self-limb tracker AND an intelligent opponent that watches their limb hits, short of masking every single torso hit. For example, @Karren has used dust bombs against me. Does it help him? Not much. Why? Because I watch how many hits I have and when it suspiciously goes up after having not gone up for a while, I call shenanigans and diagnose. It's just something you need to work around.

My best recommendation is to mix it up with battleaxes and dustbombs. I don't recommend using concuss - you need to burn a full leg prep on it for one or two hits, and dustbombs are far faster and just as reliable if you're not 100% automated.

Antonius

As a Runewarden, you could look into riftlocks to take advantage of them putting themselves off salve balance for 4 seconds. It will require a little bit of prior momentum with the right afflictions (asthma and/or addiction), and unfortunately isn't an option inside the arena (despite several requests to have the mechanics changed to make it feasible). I'm not 100% sure you'd have the speed with forged scimitars to get the three doubleslashes before they recover salve balance from applying to torso and can start the application to arms, though I think latency on their curing should mean it's viable.

Focus locks are an option without draining mana, just like they are for sword and shield, though each spec has strengths and weaknesses. Dual cutting will need to prep head (you'll use stupidity given by the head break as a second mental), but has full venom selection so doesn't need to stick slickness prior (you can do gecko/slike on the head break). Sword and shield can force off of focus balance, so can stick four (five if they're willing to spend time prepping head) mentals before your first chance to focus, but needs to stick slickness first. With dual cutting limb prep speed, prepping head for an attempt may not be much (or any) slower than getting the aff pressure to stick slickness as sword and shield.

On really tanky people it's probably not going to work, but you can try using nairat on runeblades, then break legs after they apply to torso (gives you an extra couple of seconds of them being prone) and go for damage while freeze and broken legs (can watch their salve applications and switch to epseth when required) works to keep them prone.

Aerek

Yeah, DWC doesn't really have a good answer to competent torso counting, one of S&B's big advantages is that it can deal with it much better. Since axes and scimitars do different damages, if you can account for that difference but your opponent doesn't sometimes that's all you need. (I have encountered very few people who do this accurately) If they do account for it, you'll have to do like Armali said and use scimitars when in view and axes in blackout.

Dust bombs' advantage is that they don't require breaking a leg to use, but dust bombs are complicated because you have to make sure they don't have Tree available and you do, because the blackout hits you too. Afflictions present on you means Tree might not cure the blackout, which means you're swinging blind, which means you can't count your own hits, you just have to hope nothing went wrong. (Were you parried? Did you miss? Did they give paralysis while you were blacked out and stopped your swing completely?) Concuss dodges all these tricky situations, but you have to sacrifice a leg prep to use it. Personally, I use Concuss.

Antonius

May add Concuss to my list of potential classleads for next round. Given what it does and the relatively short duration of the blackout (from what I recall), I'm not convinced the prone + broken leg requirement is actually necessary. Could either decrease the blackout duration or increase the balance time (to its initial value, it was reduced a while back) to compensate, but I don't think relatively on demand short blackout on a longish balance would be unreasonable.

Exelethril

I wish rift locks were an option in the arena, having such an interesting option be only practiceable outside kinda blows.

A plant-wasting arena mode or plant refunds might be a good idea.

Dunn

I just manalock a lot. It's fairly artie independent for both you and the opponent since it's percent drain (mana sip rings are fairly rare). Just contemplate off pith procs and go for venom locks off mana<250

Antonius

I've found pithakhan to be really ineffective the last month or two, to the point where I've simply not been able to get enough procs frequently enough to stay ahead of mana on people who use moss/potash and have some amount of passive mana regeneration. Anybody else found that or have I just been screwed over hard by RNG for an extended period?

Dunn

RNG likely. I don't think anything has changed about it since it was changed to mana drain and Mak has always been for it. 

Antonius

Yeah, Makarios told me nothing had changed and suggested bad RNG, but the fact it's been multiple fights over a couple of months makes me suspicious.

Dunn

It's always my backup/justhappenedtowork strat so I suppose I don't pay super close attention unless I see my contemplate highlight for low mana. I'll  try to be more mindful of it!

Exelethril

What's the difference between lvl I/2/3 scimitar speed btw?