Quick Combat Questions

Kaden

Ohh...makes sense. Thanks! Going to work on it now.

Tael

@Kaden Personally, I would write it thusly:

In a script:

default_staffstrike = "earth"
staffstrike = staffstrike or default_staffstrike

This sets your default staffstrike and sets your staffstrike to the default if it isn't already set (for instance when you first log in). You don't need to put it into every attack - just put it in a script so it runs at login.

Example of a toggle to swap to water:

if staffstrike == "water" then
    staffstrike = default_staffstrike
else
    staffstrike = "water"
end

So if it's already swapped to water, it'll toggle back to your default, which is earth. If it's set to anything other than water (earth or some other element), it'll toggle to water.

You likely want the conditional set up that way rather than the way @Cynlael has it set up. If you test whether it's set to the default rather than whether it's set to the element of the toggle, then you'll use your water alias which will swap it to water (since your staffstrike was set to earth) and then you'll use your fire alias and it'll swap to earth instead of fire (since your staffstrike wasn't set to earth). That's probably not what you want it to do.

Though really, this is not a great situation for toggles and a default. You should probably just have an alias to swap back to earth rather than worrying about trying to hit your toggles the correct number of times such that it goes back to earth. You can still have it set to a default at login. That'd look like this:

In a script:

staffstrike = staffstrike or "earth"

To swap:

staffstrike = "water"

And just have a swap for earth too rather than fiddling with toggles.

Exelethril

Okay, I've no idea what priests do.

What do earth/air/spirit disrupts do?

Are there any drawbacks to prioritizing earth disrupts over regular afflictions besides paralysis?

Also, how do they stick confusion?

Atalkez

Exelethril said:

Okay, I've no idea what priests do.

What do earth/air/spirit disrupts do?

Are there any drawbacks to prioritizing earth disrupts over regular afflictions besides paralysis?

Also, how do they stick confusion?

Earth disrupt: Herb balance extender
Air disrupt: Mana malus every smoke
Spirit Disrupt: random disrupt when focus, if all disrupts are present then impatience

No drawbacks, this is the primary method to not get stacked so quickly. 

Confusion comes from the Dazzle ability, unsure if they have another way to give it.

Exelethril

Thanks. Does casting earth disrupt take balance for them? Like, do disrupts have a separate balance?

Edit : Just trying to think of ways to stop a priest's momentum beyond just actively tumbling non-stop to force them to use force to cancel/moving out of room. I can't really out-momentum their momentum.

Szanthax

it's a class balance.

Anedhel

What's probably kicking your ass is passive bedevil, which has a chance of mirroring an affliction you hit them with (the chance is pretty high).

I think that was classleaded, the proposed solution being to limit the amount of afflictions you can have mirrored within a certain time window, which should help, a bit.

Healing's on it's own balance, for the record.

Moving a lot is pretty much the only way to deal with them, and I suggest working with focus affs in prep, since bedevil doesn't copy a few of them (I know for sure stupidity isn't, iffy on the other focus affs).

Farrah

Disrupts are on class balance. The main drawback to curing earth disrupt first is hellsight after building a kelp stack. It takes time, but you do have to make sure you swap in time to cure that or it's going to destroy you too.

I feel like walking is better than tumbling because once you get out, that's it. Re-pietying is a hefty eq cost, so it's hard to follow and maintain momentum. Whereas tumble will most likely be canceled or braziered back.

Confusion would slow priest a lot, but you don't really have access. Maybe battlecry here and there.

Edit: It's worth noting if you didn't already know that fire disrupt drains mana on tattoo touch, so you're basically focusing with spirit disrupt, giving you the other disrupts (including fire), then spamming shield, which is itself draining some mana. You can easily hurt yourself vs priest by not understanding what the disrupts do and using the wrong commands too much. Try to avoid focusing with spirit disrupt, try not to smoke unnecessarily (don't keep rebounding up, though I don't remember if you were) if you have air disrupt. Hard to say don't touch shield, since it stops absolve, but might be better to use something like battlecry since fire disrupt makes tattoos hurt you. Ultimately, not focusing while you have spirit disrupt and largely prioritizing earth disrupt helps keep the other disrupts off you though, which makes you not have to worry so much about these things the whole fight.

Szanthax

No one used to use passive bedevil, unless it was vs specific classes, because it eliminated being able to use healing (like serpents used to force it). Now we can passive bedevil and use healing...

prepare the tissues.

Farrah

Szanthax said:

No one used to use passive bedevil, unless it was vs specific classes, because it eliminated being able to use healing (like serpents used to force it). Now we can passive bedevil and use healing...

prepare the tissues.

Not exactly. Just the eq based ability HEAL, not HEAL ME <affliction>, which is the stronger heal. It'll still be forced to stop all the other healing.

Anedhel

I honestly have no idea why you wouldn't use passive bedevil vs. an affliction class that has its affs reflected. Self-heal balance is super gross, like 4+ seconds, whereas giving a knight a kelp affliction every time they hit you is harsh as hell

ETA: Specially on long herb balances. Priest is so hardcore  

Szanthax

Farrah said:

Szanthax said:

No one used to use passive bedevil, unless it was vs specific classes, because it eliminated being able to use healing (like serpents used to force it). Now we can passive bedevil and use healing...

prepare the tissues.

Not exactly. Just the eq based ability HEAL, not HEAL ME <affliction>, which is the stronger heal. It'll still be forced to stop all the other healing.

oh I haven't... tried it.

Dunn

The internal cooldown on passive bedevil proc will likely stifle it a good bit. 

Exelethril

The constant clumsy from prio'ing lobelia(earth disrupt) + hidden Spiritwrack affs + rebounding + losing illness from random angel care ticks is kinda brutal I'm gonna employ strategic withdrawal and hope rngesus doesn't screw me over.

So.. can priests readily give clumsiness or was I reflecting my own affs via passive bedevil? How do they actually control their affs besides random affs via Spiritwrack? I remembering being para'd/clumsy a lot.

Oh and.. does the Spiritwrack pool consist of just mental affs?

Dunn

Spiritwrack isn't masked anymore, but I've seen it give disfigure so that's a no. 

Farrah

Exelethril said:

The constant clumsy from prio'ing lobelia(earth disrupt) + hidden Spiritwrack affs + rebounding + losing illness from random angel care ticks is kinda brutal I'm gonna employ strategic withdrawal and hope rngesus doesn't screw me over.

So.. can priests readily give clumsiness or was I reflecting my own affs via passive bedevil? How do they actually control their affs besides random affs via Spiritwrack? I remembering being para'd/clumsy a lot.

Oh and.. does the Spiritwrack pool consist of just mental affs?

We don't really control our affs, for the most part. We choose which disrupt to use and we chasten body (which gives a random affliction, clumsiness being one possibility). Curing earth over clumsy will definitely leave you clumsy a lot.

Disfigure was removed as a spiritwrack aff a long time ago. It's most mentals, but sensitivity is one. They aren't masked anymore.

Mizik

Huh. Are Priests combatable now? I wouldn't imagine the Earth bug fix would have a huge impact. 

Exelethril

I think it's because Knights/Bards have a harder time using clumsiness as a convenient kelp aff due to the % of it being reflected back passively among other affs while dealing with earth disrupt herb extension, making it harder to stick the right affs on priests in general with angel care up. That and having a lot of mental affs stuck due to passive Spiritwrack affs and not being able to focus without further disrupting yourself if Spirit disrupted.

I'm not sure but I think it takes precise curing to deal with or alternatively... just run for it and slow prep while prioritizing paralysis/dizziness/asthma in that order. Probably the latter for me, I've been kinda sloppy and lazy lately when it comes to fighting.

It's a strong class for sure in the hands of the right person.

Xinna

I can't speak to knight, but I never had a problem beating priests as bard. I never used clumsiness vs priests as a bard either, though. They don't really have a need for kelp stacking and it doesn't hinder priest all that much.

As knight, I think I'd just prio clumsiness over earth. Bedevil nerf hasn't gone in yet either, which will help. But you still need to prio it or it's going to get buried eventually. I think people mistakenly assume you always need to prio earth no matter what, since the earth curing buff. It's useful to prio it, but there are still other harmful afflictions.

Slow prep is always a strong option vs momentum, although boring.

Aerek

Slow prep is boring. No one likes fighting it, and most people don't like using it, but it's pretty much become necessity because of how strong momentum- and aff-based classes have gotten. "Fast prep" (assuming that's what we're calling the sacrifice of defense in favour of balls-out offense) is still slower than any momentum class' time-to-kill, and throwing caution to the wind means those momentum classes will kill you more often than not.

Perhaps that's fair, perhaps prep classes have been on top for several years, so now its their turn on the bottom, but that means slow prep is often the only logical option, which is why I don't enjoy fighting those classes.

Ismay

Is leaping stopped by another person blocking an exit?

Atalkez

Nope! Not walls, either.

Ismay

Awesome! Trying to decide if I want to buy either the greaves or a ring of flying. Hard decisions are hard.

Antonius

Just buy both, only 1100 credits.

Farrah

Aerek said:

Slow prep is boring. No one likes fighting it, and most people don't like using it, but it's pretty much become necessity because of how strong momentum- and aff-based classes have gotten. "Fast prep" (assuming that's what we're calling the sacrifice of defense in favour of balls-out offense) is still slower than any momentum class' time-to-kill, and throwing caution to the wind means those momentum classes will kill you more often than not.

Perhaps that's fair, perhaps prep classes have been on top for several years, so now its their turn on the bottom, but that means slow prep is often the only logical option, which is why I don't enjoy fighting those classes.

I think the problem is just DWC and S&B having really long prep. No other classes really seem to have the problem, and I experience problems against more than just momentum classes as S&B, such as artied monk executing 10,000 setups before one kill attempt from me. Most momentum classes are pretty hinderable too (unlike monk, weep).

Buuut everyone else seems ok with the prep, so I just quietly sit by and play other classes.

You really couldn't get rid of the problem of slow prep without removing prep classes, or making all prep classes at least faster prep classes. If it takes one class way longer to do things than every other class, they're inherently going to need to do more defensive things to stay alive that long. It's really pretty much a one class (or 3, I guess, since there's 3 knight classes) problem, though. To some extent, if you hate slow prep you just shouldn't play DWC or S&B knight.

Dunn

DWC prep is actually really fast right now because of the buffs to their limb damage and euphorbia becoming 100% parry bypass. It feels faster than SNB prep even... and DWC is three limb prep compared to SNBs two.

Doesn't mean I like doing it, tho. Focuslocks way more fun.

Aerek

I think we might have different definitions of "slow prep".

I like the prep game, love playing knights, and I don't mind dodging one or two of your kills before going for one of mine. What I don't like is the ultra-defensive extreme of that spectrum; the kind of hit-run-hit-run tactics that you'd see from old Evading Blademasters, or fashion-run tactics of Jesters/Shamans. To me, playing DWC or S&B isn't necessarily "slow prep" by nature of their long prep times, it becomes slow prep when you halt offense every hit or two to run away. Given the hindrance ability and/or the fast kill times of some of these momentum classes, plus the fact that room hindrance means you have to start trying to escape long before you "need" to, sometimes I only get to fight for 10 seconds or so before I need to start thinking about getting out, and that's what makes it frustrating.

Perhaps my curing is out of date, or perhaps I just don't have these 5 or so classes figured out yet, (They do seem to change every classlead round) but I just can't remain in the room with these people and expect to survive, which necessitates running often, which necessitates the slow prep. That's what I find dull and irritating. My options are either hinder you to the point you can't effectively fight, (not fun for you) or spend a majority of my time running. (not fun for me)

I mean, if you want to make my prep time as short as Monks, I won't argue with that, but I only started having these gripes as the modern incarnations of Alchemist, Occultist, and 2H Knight began to take shape, so I consider that design philosophy the culprit more than I consider prep classes a liability.

Kiet

The point is those design philosophies only exist because of how dominant slow prep as a strategy is, though.

Mizik

I think Earth Disrupt needs to go.

Szanthax

What do monk do against occies... I just have no idea..