Quick Combat Questions

Keorin

How does juggling work, exactly? Does it really just allow jesters to manage 3 afflictions every 3 seconds or so? I feel like I'm almost certainly missing something here.

Sobriquet

Yep

Juggle three axes in one balance, and then throw -very- quicky

Sena

Keorin said:

How does juggling work, exactly? Does it really just allow jesters to manage 3 afflictions every 3 seconds or so? I feel like I'm almost certainly missing something here.

It takes about 1.2s balance (before nimble) per item to begin juggling, and you can juggle up to 3 things. Once you have something juggled, the balance cost on throwing it is reduced by 70%, and the damage is reduced by 75%.

So you can give 3 afflictions in a little over a second (~0.6s per throw with L3 axes/daggers), but it takes ~3.3s of preparation first. Overall, the average affliction rate with pure juggling can reach about 3 afflictions every 5 seconds.

All numbers are based on my testing in 2012. There haven't been any announced changes to them since then, but sometimes things are changed silently without any notice.

Jovolo

The initial juggle number is wrong but the rest is fine. It's more like one second, from experience. I'm on my phone and not in, but I'm sure others can attest or you can find a Mizik jester log on adayoung pastebin for timestamps.

Sena

The AB file does say 1.00 seconds of balance, so yeah, it looks like the initial juggle balance was reduced to 1s per item.

Keorin

Per item would make way more sense, but from helping a jester test some stuff (they aren't trans pranks yet, so only two items), it was a flat one second to start juggling two items. This was consistent across every juggle attempt, so it wasn't my latency or anything.

Sena

Looking at some jester logs (though I didn't see any with proper timestamps, and none that were very consistent with the times shown on balance recovery) it does look like it's around a second for three items. I was told the balance scaled with the number of items when juggling them all at once was first implemented.

That's a pretty nice buff then, pure juggling gives an average affliction rate of 3 afflictions every ~2.7 seconds. That's not an insane affliction speed though, other classes can do the same (it's almost identical on average to dstab with a L3 dirk, which is 2 afflictions every 1.8s).

Keorin

I'd always heard Jester described as a burst affliction class, so I suppose I'm pretty surprised that they have that kind of speed, especially unartied. 

The more you know, I guess.

Atalkez

It is a burst class.

It's burst afflictions, generally when you're prone so you can't shield.

Shielding on the dry throw strat destroys it.

Finkle

Or you just type
Take <whatever>
And hold enter for a couple of rounds and turn it into a complete non-issue when they're out

Aesi

Finkle said:

Or you just type
Take <whatever>
And hold enter for a couple of rounds and turn it into a complete non-issue when they're out

ahahaha

damnit! he has all my axes!

envenom sock with curare

Kalithea

How much resistance do each of the miniskills give? Is it advisable to trans them all if I want to be serious about combat?

Ahmet

Kalithea said:

How much resistance do each of the miniskills give? Is it advisable to trans them all if I want to be serious about combat?

Miniskills give around 14% resistance at trans, scaling directly with lessons invested. As for their value in combat? I'm not the person to ask.

Shirszae

I'd imagine any kind of resistance is a good resistance to have. For comparison, a paragon that gives you 7% or so resistance against a certain damage costs 400 or so credits. Transing those skills costs only about 114 or thereabouts. 

Kalithea

Shirszae said:

I'd imagine any kind of resistance is a good resistance to have. For comparison, a paragon that gives you 7% or so resistance against a certain damage costs 400 or so credits. Transing those skills costs only about 114 or thereabouts. 

Oh without a doubt, just before I drop 800cr on then I wanted to make sure they were all necessities. 

Ahmet

Kalithea said:

Shirszae said:

I'd imagine any kind of resistance is a good resistance to have. For comparison, a paragon that gives you 7% or so resistance against a certain damage costs 400 or so credits. Transing those skills costs only about 114 or thereabouts. 

Oh without a doubt, just before I drop 800cr on then I wanted to make sure they were all necessities. 

I doubt they're necessities, even when it comes to combat. Avoidance is pretty damn nice, though.

Kalithea

Oh I do have avoidance transed too

Kenway

Kalithea said:

How much resistance do each of the miniskills give? Is it advisable to trans them all if I want to be serious about combat?

If you're wanting better defense for combat there's a number of things worth grabbing before miniskills. I still don't have any trans. Hell I don't think I have any lessons in any of them.

Getting a hammer to match your sword (I'm assuming you're still 2h) can open up a ton of defensive play for you due to the crazy crazy prep speed on hammers (3-6k health opponents are 3-4 hits with forged in speed)

Mithril stick is awesome and takes the biggest limiter off of your defensive runes.

RoF is badass and probably the strongest single defensive artefact in the game.

You got options is all I'm saying. Just make sure you weigh them before you decide.

Anedhel

You'll want constitution for sure if you're ever going to duel an Occultist. If you raid a lot, fitness and antidotes are really, really great (though 2h does well with arrows anyways). Philosophy helps if you fight a lot of monks who do telepathy (like, a lot).

An RoF is good, definitely.

Kalithea

hrm, if I spring for an RoF, is there a special way to alias the ring to fly over the mount? Or will it take the fastest balance skill?

Dunn

RoF is prioritized

Mizik

RoF should be anyone's first artefact. 

Ahmet

Mizik said:

RoF should be anyone's first artefact. 

I beg to differ.

Though this is a combat thread, so I have no actual decent input.

Kalithea

I so badly want those +2 gauntlets from artefact cart so I'll probably spring for both 

Kenway

Mizik said:

RoF should be anyone's first artefact. 

Defensive-wise i can totally see that but imo the upgrade from forged weapons to level ones usually makes combat a lot more fun. Snb dwc and bard at least all have one or two strategies that you flat out cant accomplish without an artie weapon and those multiple paths to your goal are a lot of what make combat enjoyable(at least for me)

Kalithea

Is it even needed to upgrade a warhammer to artefacted? I'm seeing the same break limits on forged. I guess just for more damage?

also crap I need to runeblade my war hammer

Kenway

Kalithea said:

Is it even needed to upgrade a warhammer to artefacted? I'm seeing the same break limits on forged. I guess just for more damage?

also crap I need to runeblade my war hammer

No idea. Never seen anyone with an artie hammer. From my brief testing on one, it seems faster for sure. Can't really say if it changes the break point much 'cause it's already like 1.66666667 to a sword hit.

Aerek

That's my judgement, too. Bastard sword is worth upgrading all the way to L3 for the extra speed and damage, but the hammer's main advantage is the fast breaks. Forged ones already break most of the world at 3 hits, the rest at 4 hits, so you're basically paying 350-1600cr just to move a small number of people from 4 hits to 3. Obviously that would help, but if we're talking cost efficiency, I'd say an L3 sword and a forged hammer would do you fine.

Kalithea

Aerek said:

That's my judgement, too. Bastard sword is worth upgrading all the way to L3 for the extra speed and damage, but the hammer's main advantage is the fast breaks. Forged ones already break most of the world at 3 hits, the rest at 4 hits, so you're basically paying 350-1600cr just to move a small number of people from 4 hits to 3. Obviously that would help, but if we're talking cost efficiency, I'd say an L3 sword and a forged hammer would do you fine.

Where you getting 3 from? Will it hurt more once runebladed?

I'm seeing 4 on most, 5 on 6k+

Farrah

Miniskills aren't necessities.

Nothing is really 100% a necessity but to me the big ones are artie weapons, possibly gauntlets, wings (if you do out of arena raid/skirmish stuff), trans riding + collared mount, and health bracelet/con belt.

The extra health from con/bracelet makes a huge difference when it comes to some very annoying perma mangle setups, and also just letting you have a chance to build enough momentum to kill before you get broken and prone. Artie weapons allow new kill options. Gauntlets can make the difference between your dsb killing or not. Mount = leap/fly and fk not having those.

Wings keep you from being radiance and let you actually participate in skirmishes that go to clouds.