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Potential retire transfer! - Curious about classes/arties/population/membership vs. retire credits
Hi,
Looking to potentially transfer off of Lusternia to here after long hiatus off from MUDding. A cursory glance late last night before my ISP went down seems to be ~100+ people even kind of off-peak, which really eclipses Lusty - is that about right, or was there an event going on?
Class-wise, I'm interested in Serpent, Shaman, or Druid based off the RP I've got in my head. I've previously played Pureblade knight (two handed, builds wounds into restoration(?) cures into instakill) and nekotai monk (wounds+affs into damage kill). I'd likely be hunting till about 80-ish (screw eating and sleeping, irl or not) and then looking to start getting into combat. How do they stack for bashing and combat unartied/artied? I doubt I'll get to 'heavily' artied for some time, so more of the middle tier is what I'd probably end up at for the forseeable future. I'm very often to various playstyles, so it doesn't need to match anything I've done before.
For credits, I think I've got 3-5k credits in retire value based on alts - on this note, does anyone know how membership credits work (if at all) for retirement value? Based off of what I've seen so far, the general consensus appears to be get a SoA, lv 1 defensive arties, and then potentially class arties.
Thanks
!
EDIT: Forgot to add, currently race was Rajamala because I thought it'd be good with Serpent - last I played they had a balance bonus, and I realized they don't anymore. Would it be suggested to change this pending class?
Looking to potentially transfer off of Lusternia to here after long hiatus off from MUDding. A cursory glance late last night before my ISP went down seems to be ~100+ people even kind of off-peak, which really eclipses Lusty - is that about right, or was there an event going on?
Class-wise, I'm interested in Serpent, Shaman, or Druid based off the RP I've got in my head. I've previously played Pureblade knight (two handed, builds wounds into restoration(?) cures into instakill) and nekotai monk (wounds+affs into damage kill). I'd likely be hunting till about 80-ish (screw eating and sleeping, irl or not) and then looking to start getting into combat. How do they stack for bashing and combat unartied/artied? I doubt I'll get to 'heavily' artied for some time, so more of the middle tier is what I'd probably end up at for the forseeable future. I'm very often to various playstyles, so it doesn't need to match anything I've done before.
For credits, I think I've got 3-5k credits in retire value based on alts - on this note, does anyone know how membership credits work (if at all) for retirement value? Based off of what I've seen so far, the general consensus appears to be get a SoA, lv 1 defensive arties, and then potentially class arties.
Thanks
!EDIT: Forgot to add, currently race was Rajamala because I thought it'd be good with Serpent - last I played they had a balance bonus, and I realized they don't anymore. Would it be suggested to change this pending class?
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Comments
Serpent is generally preferred to have a lvl 2 artefact dirk, but isn't too bad unartied now. It's a burst momentum truelock class. You hypnotise your opponent then stab them with various afflictions, snap your fingers to set off your hypnosis afflictions, and hopefully end up with either the right afflictions on them for a "lock" (they can no longer cure) or darkshade affliction killing them (if uncured for 16 seconds).
Shaman is great without any offensive or class specific artefacts. It's a hybrid prep-momentum class with a lot of complexity. You're either afflicting with curses or fashioning a doll and then using the doll + curses to kill. Primarily kills by either locking or sticking haemophilia, stacking bleed, and inflaming (damage based on bleed). Con: fashioning is really boring, though there's a way to do it via curses a bit, just not necessarily as easily depending on your opponent.
If you leave them all in the membership account then they just stay there and do not get retired, because they are not specific to the character.
@Farrah - Thanks for the rundown. Regarding serpent - it sounds telegraphed by the snap, and the term 'hopefully' means 'optimistically random' to me...does Serpent rely on being inventive/trying multiple times to land the lock? Or do you threaten a few kill methods at the same time? Dug up a bit more on Shaman, I see that it's probably just con as the only important stat, woo.
You do also threaten multiple kill methods at the same time though. It's a fast paced class. Lots of affliction pressure, but no prep route to land you a more secure kill. You'll have an easier or harder time based on how defensive your opponent is playing.
Snap is very telegraphed, yes, but the trick is basically to not use it until it's already too late for your opponent to turn things around. It doesn't get your afflicting started. It seals the deal.
You'll need to trans 5 skills @ 288 credits to be competitive in any class (3 class skills, avoidance to reduce damage/dodge some attacks, and survival to make your tree and focus faster).
Shaman - no artefacts needed at all to PK. Dolls can be annoying to use, but the class is very powerful in 1v1 and in small groups. Useful in large groups too but loses a bit of 'oomph' without your allies doing the right afflictions.
Druid - doesn't need offensive arties either. Have to be a member of Eleusis, though.
Serpent - doesn't "need" any artefacts, but you'll need at least a level 1 dirk to be competitive at top tier, preferably level 2. Also very squishy, defensive artefacts are suggested.
For most classes: shield of absorption is your best bet, followed by level 1 defensive artefacts. You can use my spreadsheet here to play around with what artefacts are best defensively per credit spent. Do keep in mind that most PK attacks scale at least partially with health, so sip ring and regen rings are better for straight PK.
With 3k credits (and lessons/credits from leveling):
5 trans skills - 1440
Eagle wings - 800cr (can skip this if you are serpent. It's a fast travel artefact, and serpents can get around quickly with wormholes and phase). These take you to a room that has exits all over the world, very useful for bashing, pk, escaping, etc. - I consider it the best all around artie in the game.
SoA - 800cr - keep in mind some classes can't use this (dual weapon knights, blademasters, sylvans, druids, monks), but it offers extra protection against attacks with armour resistance, and also a 15% chance to negate physical damage entirely. Works on denizens and adventurers!
This will leave you a bit left over that you can save up or use for mini skills.
~400k to get the armor embrasure, then 350 to get it made into artifact armor, and then another 1000 to get the SoA paragon. It would definitely not be my first purchase as a Runewarden or the like.
This SoA embrasure does sound pretty neat, but yeah - sounds like most of the classes I want to play with can wear shields, so that kinda takes care of that. 'Saving' 800 cr on being a Serpent and not needing wings is tempting...can wings be used indoors and such?
I'll be fairly busy for the next few months due to the time of year, so there's some time yet before I dive tooooo deep into pvp - more time to amass credits! Based off the responses and the class forums, it sounds like serpents scale pretty steeply on dex/dirk, I noticed theres an eq. artie - how important is that for Shaman?
If you don't care about access to that room, I wouldn't bother with wings as an early artefact as any class. Walking works fine and most classes have fast travel abilities (serpent and shaman both do, as does druid). Then you can buy more pk relevant arties for combat.
I also disagree with Cooper in that I would buy lvl 1 bracelet and con belt before sip/regen. Better for both bashing and pk imo.
Shaman isn't an eq-based class, so eq Artie isn't particularly useful, relative to its price. Wings can't be used indoors.
More seriously, though, wings did get an upgrade recently, specifically with regard to Meropis (there is now a Meropis clouds room, two if you count the atavian one). So wings travel applies on a whole extra continent now. May be worth considering, depending on how much fast travel you want (eagle wings + wormholes can get you pretty much anywhere you want to go in short order).
Off the top of my head, in terms of buying starting-out health arties, a level 1 belt and level 2 bracelets should give you very good value per credit in terms of how much health you wind up with, and you'll get a boost to mana along with it. I skipped the sip ring when I was first arty-ing up, actually (I think it was my sixth artie), but back then the +15% Concoctions bonus was still around, so I functionally had a level 1.5 sip ring anyway.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
@Korben: I'm more than likely going to multiclass (eventually) - that wasn't an option I ever had and it's something I would have taken advantage of given the chance.
@Cooper - I doubt I could even consider heavy pvping until like February just due to how often I might have to work on stuff unexpectedly, and I'd hate to either have to leave during a bunch of fighting, or just heartstop because something needs to be done right away - I'll keep wings on my mind until then...I've been spoiled by fast travel arties/demigod ascend in Lusty, I'll just have to suck it up for a while. I may or may not join a heavy pvp city at that point, might be fun just to relax/participate in rampages for a while.
@Sarathai - Looking at artifact credit costs, bracelets does seem pretty amazing. I have no idea how tanky or not classes are, that'll probably influence a lot of what I purchase once I've been steamrolled a few (hundred) times. Is Meropis just another area?
@Farrah - wow non-eq based magic-y class! My mind is blown. Are there any arties that I might want to look into for Shaman? I'm not familiar with this 'prep' kind of thing, so it sounds like a good class to ease into learning both prep and how aff locks work here.
Feels like in the end it's mostly splitting hairs on 100-200 cr difference, but I appreciate that the math has been done to help people min/max! I think I'll actually have an additional 1k cr, so I'll try to just get all the things.
It's at least partially based on the fact that PvP attacks scale with maximum health. Some attacks scale entirely with maximum health (i.e. they always do X% of your total). Others have a static portion and a scaling portion. For the first kind (those which scale entirely), increasing the amount of health you can regain without increasing the amount of damage you take (due to a larger health pool) is the most effective way to increase your tanking ability. For the second kind, it's harder to say - and likely depends on the specific attack - whether increasing your maximum health (and reducing the percentage of your maximum health an attack does) or increasing the percentage you can regain (but keeping the percentage of maximum health you take the same) is the better option.
There are some additional considerations:
Denizen attacks don't scale, so increasing your maximum health is always effective at increasing your ability to tank damage (by reducing the percentage of your health that an attack does). It also increases the effectiveness of things like boar tattoo, continuo harmonic, hands, etc. which provide passive or active healing that scales directly with maximum health, since they now heal more relative to the attacks you take.
Additional health may result in requiring more hits to break a limb, which means that your opponent will need longer before they reach a point where they're ready to (try to) kill you.
Bracelets in particular also grant more mana. If you're a class that uses a lot of mana (the majority of mana costs are flat amounts, not percentages) that's definitely something to consider.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
(A) the only benefit from max health (and mana in case of bracelets) is health sip increase, and
(B) that regen/sip are better because of attack scaling. Not necessarily, depends on the attack.
Antonius explained it well though. Limb break points are huge to me because they can be the difference between being able to survive or being perma-mangled and guaranteed to die, in addition to increasing your opponent's prep time, which means you get to execute more kill attempts per kill attempt of theirs.
A very minor sip/health ratio increase, on the other hand, is rarely consequential in 1v1. Just my two cents.
Would this influence any of the artie suggestions so far? It sounds like the full suite of lv 1 defensive (sip, regen, con, gauntlets) for sure, then SoA + wings?
Shaman seems most interesting to me at the moment class-wise.
EDIT: I did read and am taking the advice to relax and enjoy a class for a bit before I decide if I want to invest whole hog into it. I'm mostly looking at this as what people suggest in terms of baseline - or if I should consider what benefit I could be getting in a different class given current investment.
Right. Bracelets, not gauntlets.
You might also want a ring of flying. Shaman has a skull necklace artifact that you can get, but I don't think they're very necessary.
I like greaves for leap as non-leap classes (shaman doesn't have leap).