Spar Review

Kresslack

Decided to try to climb back onto the kicking, bucking, biting horse that is combat. I'll take any advice or suggestions I can get. Currently working on fundamentals and making sure my curing is up to par, hence why I wasn't using venoms in this spar. Also, forgot to use Parry. Such mistakes are painful.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/L4OMnh5P

Edit: The perceive immediately before I go for the head looks silly. I tried setting perceive to run before and after each attack, but it's just spammy and seems unnecessary so switched to manual perceiving going forward.

Kogan

I'll give some very basic advice just looking at it quickly.  I notice you didn't really cure legs at the end. No quite sure why. If that is you applying (which I assume is true) svo registered it as an illusion. You're generally safe to turn off svo anti-illusion doing TF AI. It can be turned back on by doing TN AI. Will look at the rest in a bit when I have more time to give more advice.

Edit: Antonius' Disembowel Testing

Edit 2: Edited after @Vallie's  comment so not to mislead with inaccurate information.

Vallie

@Kogan DSB is % based, you can see the values @Antonius found here: http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/comment/329779/#Comment_329779 . You need to have a broken torso to 1-shot with it (even at 24 str you won't without torso), but you can DSB without and then dsl to kill them. More HP will not help you not get DSBed, it will help a bit in terms of general damage you're taking.

If you're on the ground (hence they've broken the first leg) and have a broken torso, you need to tumble immediately - applying to torso might save you, but you're probably already applying to your leg. If they're 18str or higher with fury (and are RW), you're probably going to die unless your tumble gets you out.

@Kresslack You can spam your attacking more - sometimes you're paralyzed when you're about to swing, but you're not attacking immediately after you cure it. For venoms, if you really don't know what to do for now, just literally envenomx30 with curare. At least it'll add something for them to cure while they're curing other herb affs you give (like lethargy). You can also just staticly parry a leg or torso to start, or if you're on svof you can easily do vshow and just pick a parry strat.

It doesn't look like you're using a runeblade? Just make sure that you are, maybe you just didn't swing enough to proc it.

Highlight parry, or highlight the parried limb you're perceiving - you keep swinging into the head when you know it's parried. Aiming for the arms a bit to get lethargy going vs. bal classes (i think arms is leth?) will help alleviate some pressure too.

Moar edits: you should probably audit your restore scenarios.

Taryius

As it's been previously stated curare is almost always going to be your best venom! It forced out at least 1.5s of herb balance, delaying them from curing lethargy/clumsiness for a little while.

Also, as stated. Use hugalaz runeblades, one hugalaz proc can give you such a big boost to health pressure.

Also, sick your falcon on people. The added damage helps.

Also, I'm not sure if you have battlefury focus but it didn't look like you were using it. Precision is almost always going to be your best bet. You'll outpace their curing even if they apply health on every balance. (Until they have 6+ fractures that is). 

Wrist fractures are helpful against momentum classes, Torso fracs will help you build other fracs. Head fracs are pretty much GG if your target doesn't hit head. Not only will it delay curing but most prioritise head fracs over leg. So it lets you build leg fractures way too easy.

If they're squishy and not TOO artied you can usually kill with a double disembowel + brain. If they have 6+ fractures you can devastate legs/upset and then get two back to back disembowels, and one brain. 

If they tumble during this make sure you impale before they tumble away so they take the damage, if they survive either follow or if they have room hinder down you can brazier them.

If they're too tanky you'll want to break torso before disemboweling. Hammer is your friend here, 4 hits will break most of the world. 5 hits will usually break everything else (Tanky dragons). I'd do some testing for numbers. Easy to count in your head if you don't have a limb counter.

As a runie with lagua, jera and a strength spec you should land at 19 strength which is 96% disembowel I believe. That should kill most in one hit. So you just need 4-5 fractures for the lv 2 leg breaks into disembowel.

Kenway

Minor edit to what @Taryius said, precision is not your best bet. Limb prep as 2h is woefully underused and extremely powerful. Precision gives you half the limb damage of speed or no focus which would be breaking 90% of enemies in 3-5 swings at the low end of the weapon spectrum. Your goal should be to use speed to prep one of their legs and then break/upset into a precision overhand. -Then- staying on precision till they cure down their skull fracs.

I'd also argue that situationally curare isn't always your best choice but tbh in most of the situations there are better choices, they're pretty dead anyway

Edit: of course if they're not parrying head for some reason 1. They deserve to die and 2. You can pretty much do whatever you want to them because math.

Kresslack

I thought Precision gave more limb damage and Speed less? Speed gives more?

Mathilda

Precision gives more fractures (2 per hit), but half of the regular limb damage. Speed gives normal fractures (1 per hit), but with regular limb damage at the normal rate.

Kenway

Nomenclature doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there it is. Also if you're not vehemently opposed to using warhammers as some are, pick one up. It's a strong spec so you can get away with the flavor choice of only using the sword or vice versa but using both is the best option. Hammer to break/upset > sword to precision while they cure skull blah blah blah. Also, on carve/devastate speed is fixed but damage is still effected by weapon so you should always use sword for those. And also I realized no one mentioned battlecry. Rarely used by most knights but it's a 2s stun and prone that you can use while prone or impaled so long as the target is undeaf. (You passively relapse undeaf through torso fractures) amazing defensively if you can 1 keep track of them being deaf or not and 2 keep torso fracs up

Kresslack

I've thought about using a warhammer, but for me it's an RP matter of why my character would be carrying around both two-handed weapons and using them interchangeably, instead of increasing proficiency with just one and staying consistent.

It certainly seems there is, combat wise, a very good application for using both if that's the main focus though.

Also, does anyone have any tips on what to gag and/or replace in order to cut down on screen spam and make the review and process of the most relevant combat information available?

Kythra

You must regain balance first.
You must regain equilibrium first.
Alias "serpattack1" will now execute:
Your state of paralysis prevents you from doing that.
You are paralysed and cannot do that.
Frustratingly, your body won't respond to your call to action.
You must be standing first.

Is literally all I have for serpent. Technically if you're pressing rapid fire, or fighting and noticing something you dont need to see 
(falcon balance, your pet cannot see this person here, your pet is already attacking x) then those may be good to gag.
Anything that takes away from information you need to know should be gagged, imo. 

Just don't pull an Ernam and gag standing up, then issue Carmain for hacking when BBT's failed on him.

Kresslack

Kythra said:

Just don't pull an Ernam and gag standing up, then issue Carmain for hacking when BBT's failed on him.

Aerek

For 2H, you don't -need- a warhammer, a sword can do everything you need it to and has the venom advantage, but true that hammers' fast breaks can help you survive the burst-aff and momentum classes a lot better. Brain is also handy, but not necessary.

For gagging, It definitely helps to condense the Perceive block of text down to one line. I personally gag the whole thing and put that info on the prompt, but even just reducing that block of text from 6 lines to 2, with the actual info echo'ed after the base Percieve line, goes a long way to cut down on that spam. Especially since you should be Perceiving before every attack, and when you regain Fury balance.

Vadik

If you're interested, I've linked two files below, one's my own frac tracking stuff which is combined with @Kenway's limb counting stuff that counts limbs and fractures with pretty high accuracy, and integrates both (because the newest version I could find publicly available did not have it implemented yet, but it was like 80% done, needed some completing though).  The other is the finished version of the 2H stuff from Kenway's counter.

Just replace the 2h folder with the one below, and import the second file, which just helps keep track of things between balances, because I got screwed on a disembowel or two due to curing fractures just before I devastated. I didn't like the prompt integration that came with the original, so I made a small, clean version that utilizes the previous stuff. I think the usage is self-explanatory here, the code's not complex at all.

<p>function fracTracker()</p><p><br></p><p>	fracString = "<chocolate>".. headFracs .. "|" .. armFracs .. "|" .. torsoFracs .. "|" .. legFracs</p><p><br></p><p>	return fracString</p><p><br></p><p>end</p><p><br></p><p>svo.adddefinition("@targfracs","fracTracker()")<br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>function wsys.prompttags.tarfracks()<br></p><p>	fracString = "<chocolate>".. headFracs .. "|" .. armFracs .. "|" .. torsoFracs .. "|" .. legFracs</p><p><br></p><p>	return fracString</p><p><br></p><p>end</p>

I had some extra stuff with more advanced guessing that tracked tree tattoo usage too, but that interacts with my affliction tracker and is basically broken beyond my willing to repair without it. The easiest/laziest way to handle it is just to note when it's touched and assume it's -1 frac on the one you want it to be the most, though you'll verify it quick enough with the next balance. I might revisit it some time to see if I can compartmentalize it, but I don't really think it's doable.

http://www.filedropper.com/2hexportfinishedxml
http://www.filedropper.com/fractrackerxml

Kresslack

Thank you, I'll load those in and try them out tonight. I've a ton of gags and rewrites to set up.

Vadik

Oh, just to be clear, you need to have already installed the latest version of Kenway's limb counter if you didn't use it already. If not, you could probably pretty easily repurpose it for your own counter by just flipping around some variables to fit your needs.

If/when something breaks, shoot me a message and I'll see if I can fix it.

Nazihk

I think a lot of people overvalue warhammer breaks as method of hindrance for 2h while heavily undervaluing the extra affliction that the sword provides. That consistent curare can do a surprisingly good job of masking the lethargy/clumsy/nausea/sensitivity that you can build up from stacks.

Vadik

Worth mentioning the value of a warhammer against Priests, it felt a lot easier to deal with, but you could honestly use an unenvenomed bastard to the same effect.

Mathilda

I like to keep a nairat warhammer for when I have a magi buddy with me.

Dochitha

I have recently picked up knight class and 2H. While I haven't been too indepth with it, I can offer some of my opnions:

• @Kenway is right, hammer breaks is quick and useful. May not be for breaking to hinder (since we have access to lethargy and clumsiness), but definitely good for various execution including riftlocks.
• Wrist fracs are good against speed aff classes. At 5 fracs, lethargy relapses every 1s.
• Tendon is super effective against most classes now that clumsiness is OP
• You can hit wrist with xentio. Then you get lethargy and clumsiness, whichever they cure there's still a chance to slow them down.
• You can hit tendon with asthma, giving RNG of curing clumsi, also, asthma allows you to gecko on devastate, delaying their apply with kelp RNG. 2H is pretty potent with kelp RNG. Curare is always a good choice too.
• If you use darkshade, vardrax, you -may- RNG euphorbia into skullfrac, but it's been a frustration since our balance so damn slow, bad if you get parried. Breaking leg/upset or arms for bypass is easier!
• Against certain low health opponents, you can go straight with TT4 devastate impale DSB, they mostly won't be at full health when you DSB. Remember fury.
• Against high health opponents that starts sipping at <50% health, you will have to work hard lowering their health, or break the torso with quick hammer before DSB. Even if they are applying entire fight, they still get behind as long as you aren't hindered
• It's good to start fight with thurisaz and hugalaz, it helps with health pressure.
• 2H is so slow, you can realistically ignore paralysis and prio kelp or imp while you are off balance. This allows you to face aff classes better. If need be, continuation to shrug off para and touch tree. 
• Sword is good against momentum classes for control. Hammer is generally good against not-so-hindering classes like monk, DWB etc.
• At times you hit TT first, at times you hit WF first, against different classes, can slow them down to your level playing field, you are SLOW!
• Lastly, Don't forget falcon!

I am sure I will find out more about 2H. But that's all I have from and 2H newbie.

Kenway

@Dochitha I'm glad you're picking it up, maybe people will finally start to see how strong it is.

Kenway

@Kresslack VCONFIG AUTOSLICK OFF unless you're fighting Serpent, SnB, Bard... think that's all? Basically it's eating kelp to save you from a lock at the cost of being paralysed but DwC can't lock you while you have mana so it's just giving them a free parry bypass.