Quick Combat Questions

Rexia

Kross said:

The limb prepping mechanic with monk is one of the two most notable ways to kill our opponents. It's either that, or enfeeble/choke and hope for the best.

1) Learn to pre-apply (sorry monks out there, kills might get tougher). If you can count your own limbs to know when you've been prepped, or notice the trend when you fight, you will know when that monk is about to double leg break you. So when you feel this is coming on, apply restoration to leg. We'll still break the limb and possibly get a bbt, but you'll stand before the following bbt/axe.

2) Prioritize your curing the right way. I don't know how many times people prioritize anything over curing legs. If you want to heal your legs to stand up faster, then do it.

3) (Serpents) Hypno more than just your afflictions. Fitness requires and takes balance. So force the action. Yes, you can even force them to touch their tree! (Shecks, you should know this, you force people to touch a gem of negation all the time).

4) Mount if you can. Mounting raises your dexterity and makes it annoyingly difficult for a monk to prep you. Not to mention, they cannot sweep from here, so we either have to banish your mount, whirlwind kick you from it(lol), kai cripple, or JPK from another room. Not to mention, if you can parry your head while mounted, this removes one full way of being dismounted. Anyone that can swiftmount (and most that can vault, I believe?) can remount after healing the kai cripple before we get eq back to sweep and break legs.

5) You have a shield tattoo  also. Monks have no way of getting through your shield, other than ranged damage like kai choke, or telepathy. The longer you're getting battered, crushed and chokes, the longer your limbs aren't getting broken.

6) For the really flavorful, and those of you who can watch rebounding...reset your own limbs. Weaponry has a pretty nifty skill called shatter. If you can track your lolmonk's rebounding to avoid it, why not track it to HIT it. Iocun did this to me in our spars and it pissed me off to the point where I stopped using rebounding against him completely. He'd wait til my rebounding came up, shatter his own left leg or right leg, cure it while I was curing his dstabs, and my counter would be thrown off as well as his limb reset completely. Yes, it's a stretch, but with enough practice i'm sure you'll be great too.

1) Sounds worth looking into. So if you apply just before a break, it doesn't waste the salve?

2) Pretty sure I am. But I'll check again.

3) Doesn't help me.

4) I guess I need to get a mount and improve my riding skill for this.

5) When I'm shielding I'm not fighting back, and my legs stay just as damaged as they were before. Don't see how this one helps.

6) Break my own limbs to stop a monk from breaking my limbs? Yeah...I don't think I'll be trying this one. Thanks though.

Jacen

For #6, its infinitely more effective not to break your own limbs, but add limb damage to your own limbs that won't break them. Meaning, go ahead and hit rebounding to put damage on a leg, as long as it won't break the leg. That way, the monk's count is screwed, rather than reset. Of course, you could always hit rebounding then immediately apply a salve to create the illusion that your leg was broken. Just don't forget to apply again 4 seconds later to complete the illusion.

Cooper

When fake applying, use mending, not restoration, btw.

Kross

I didn't mean fake applying to mess up limbcounters. For example, my limbcounter accounts for people fake applying to try to reset me. Won't work.

When you apply restoration, the salve doesn't take effect until the wait period when the salve "infuses with the skin" so to speak. So if you apply restoration, and I break your leg 2 seconds later, the salve will take effect shortly after and cure that leg to a mending cure much much faster. Essentially, buying yourself (in this scenario) 2 seconds faster to stand.

Fake applying does work in some cases, and can definitely trick the individual behind the limbcounter too though, so don't think i'm discounting this entirely. There have been times where someone has fake applied and made me wonder if my counter was tracking properly and what have you.

Antonius

Fake applying only works against people who don't have Sawbones and don't trust their count enough, especially now that pre-damage isn't really an issue any more.

Cooper

Pre applying is different than fake applying, yeah. Pre applying can also screw you over hard.

You apply to legs. I double break your arms with torso. Wait until you apply to arms, then sweep and break legs. Free extra bbt. Granted most people will just walk away. If they do that just substitute Cripple.

Rexia

What does a torso break actually do (not for monks, but in general)?

I thought it caused bleeding damage over time, but it doesn't seem to do that.

Jacen

50 bleeding for a single torso break, 200 bleeding for a double. (Used single and double because there's inconsistency in calling it lvl1/2/3 breaks)

Rexia

So it causes 50 bleeding then does literally nothing else?

Cooper

For monks it increases the damage of bbt, for Knights it increases the damage of dsb

Kaden

Rexia said:

Kross said:

The limb prepping mechanic with monk is one of the two most notable ways to kill our opponents. It's either that, or enfeeble/choke and hope for the best.

1) Learn to pre-apply (sorry monks out there, kills might get tougher). If you can count your own limbs to know when you've been prepped, or notice the trend when you fight, you will know when that monk is about to double leg break you. So when you feel this is coming on, apply restoration to leg. We'll still break the limb and possibly get a bbt, but you'll stand before the following bbt/axe.

2) Prioritize your curing the right way. I don't know how many times people prioritize anything over curing legs. If you want to heal your legs to stand up faster, then do it.

3) (Serpents) Hypno more than just your afflictions. Fitness requires and takes balance. So force the action. Yes, you can even force them to touch their tree! (Shecks, you should know this, you force people to touch a gem of negation all the time).

4) Mount if you can. Mounting raises your dexterity and makes it annoyingly difficult for a monk to prep you. Not to mention, they cannot sweep from here, so we either have to banish your mount, whirlwind kick you from it(lol), kai cripple, or JPK from another room. Not to mention, if you can parry your head while mounted, this removes one full way of being dismounted. Anyone that can swiftmount (and most that can vault, I believe?) can remount after healing the kai cripple before we get eq back to sweep and break legs.

5) You have a shield tattoo  also. Monks have no way of getting through your shield, other than ranged damage like kai choke, or telepathy. The longer you're getting battered, crushed and chokes, the longer your limbs aren't getting broken.

6) For the really flavorful, and those of you who can watch rebounding...reset your own limbs. Weaponry has a pretty nifty skill called shatter. If you can track your lolmonk's rebounding to avoid it, why not track it to HIT it. Iocun did this to me in our spars and it pissed me off to the point where I stopped using rebounding against him completely. He'd wait til my rebounding came up, shatter his own left leg or right leg, cure it while I was curing his dstabs, and my counter would be thrown off as well as his limb reset completely. Yes, it's a stretch, but with enough practice i'm sure you'll be great too.

1) Sounds worth looking into. So if you apply just before a break, it doesn't waste the salve?

2) Pretty sure I am. But I'll check again.

3) Doesn't help me.

4) I guess I need to get a mount and improve my riding skill for this.

5) When I'm shielding I'm not fighting back, and my legs stay just as damaged as they were before. Don't see how this one helps.

6) Break my own limbs to stop a monk from breaking my limbs? Yeah...I don't think I'll be trying this one. Thanks though.

Shouldn't really discount the last one. I always feel like it's Christmas when I'm fighting a prep class with rebounding up. :P

Eld

Torso damage also increases bleeding from bladetwist for blademasters.

Rakon

Alright, serious question for those currently playing knight combatants or those skilled persons who know tactics/strategy of achaean combat.

Is it possible, and if 'Yes', how so, to kill mid to upper level combatants (read, non newbies) utilizing nothing but general accessible skills and Chivalry? No totems, runes, necromancy, devotion, etc. Purely using weaponry and weaponry attacks. 

My thought process is obviously, setting up for DSBs and letting lose some meteors prior to that, but... still can't stop people from running and can't do enough damage on higher health targets, to kill them. 

I need some help.  

Edit: To make it harder, what if I want to keep the head? IE, no cleave. 

Jovolo

Very unlikely with your scimitars. You could still disembowel people fairly easily with some decent rapiers, but you are lacking a large benefactor to your offence without a: Frenzy/Deathaura/Vivisect, Rites, or weapon runes. 

I want to say that you can do it, but practically speaking, you really do need those accompanying abilities to finish off people with any semblance of defensive knowledge and/or a sizable health pool.

Antonius

It's theoretically possible, but not necessarily for the average Knight and not against every class.

22+ strength will give you a disembowel that does greater than 100% of your target's health with torso damage, before factoring in any general damage reductions (things like truefavour, algiz, scales). 21 strength should be ~98%, so the smallest amount of damage from other sources should be enough to kill them; falcon should be more than sufficient, you might have unhealed damage from the doubleslashes to break too. For that you have to pick the right race (Satyr, Troll or Xoran), buy level three gauntlets, pick the Improved physique trait, and use Fury.

Other than disembowel, draining mana (at least enough that they'll stop using focus to cure) into a venom lock, then straight out doubleslashes may work, depending on who you're fighting. I've killed mid level combatants with decent amounts of health that way, but I'm also incredibly artied (and was using rite of demons, though I wouldn't say that was required at all).

EDIT: I lied, a couple of the mana drain kills were against other Devotion users, so no rites involved.

Makarios

I'd suspect not without using rapiers and going an affliction kill route. That might change after weaponry changes though, if that's any consolation!

Rakon

Makarios said:

I'd suspect not without using rapiers and going an affliction kill route. That might change after weaponry changes though, if that's any consolation!

ETA please?  

Thanks for the replies @Jovolo, @Antonius. Your answers are exactly what I expected, and thought myself. 

Exelethril

@Rakon : Not having the convenience and easy prep of vivisect/frenzy(and how svo functions against it) would mean you'll need rapiers to be viable. You'll need rapier speed to bypass leg parrying effectively(instead of just leg, arm, arm) and you'll have to track torso damage too. 

ps - if you need help, I can try teaching you IG.

Rakon

I hate rapiers...  

Penwize

Rakon said:

I hate rapiers...  

Is it because they're too rapey?

Cooper

Yes, but why would you limit yourself to only chivalry attacks? Devotion/Necro/Runelore are supposed to help and complement chivalry.

Rakon

Cooper said:

Yes, but why would you limit yourself to only chivalry attacks? Devotion/Necro/Runelore are supposed to help and complement chivalry.

@Cooper, can you elaborate on your 'yes' answer? Because I and many others believe the answer is no.

As to the second half of your question; Why?

Your life essence stands at 0.0%.

That's why. 

 

Cooper

Because disembowel with proper pre-damage will kill most people.

Other kill methods too utilizing recentish changes to venoms allow more fancy kills now too.

Penwize

Cooper said:

Other kill methods too utilizing recentish changes to venoms allow more fancy kills now too.

I imagine riftlocking is very possible with the vardrax changes actually.  I have not sat down and actually worked out a how, but it seems very viable with just a glance. Likely not possible without rapiers though, since DSL would need a certain speed that I don't think anything but rapiers could hit.

Dalran

Rakon said:

Alright, serious question for those currently playing knight combatants or those skilled persons who know tactics/strategy of achaean combat.

Is it possible, and if 'Yes', how so, to kill mid to upper level combatants (read, non newbies) utilizing nothing but general accessible skills and Chivalry? No totems, runes, necromancy, devotion, etc. Purely using weaponry and weaponry attacks. 

My thought process is obviously, setting up for DSBs and letting lose some meteors prior to that, but... still can't stop people from running and can't do enough damage on higher health targets, to kill them. 

I need some help.  

Edit: To make it harder, what if I want to keep the head? IE, no cleave. 

I assume rift lock is viable for knight again since the vardrax changes so look into that unless someone else has tried and it's not

EDIT: vardrax change so fun and seems pretty awesome but I haven't really gotten/needed to play with it as a serpent/occie. Also don't take me posting as me thinking I'm a good combatant lol

Cooper

Rift lock is viable for now until people re-arrange their priorities vs. knights. I already have my 'move addiction to the top of the queue' alias made.

Jovolo

It's only really doable for Infernals. It's still very difficult to get a rift lock on someone who knows how prio's work. Of course this means you can probably do it on Svo no problem (initially).

Infernal though, christ. Just thank god no one decent plays it regularly.

Mizik

Sentinels with their disregard for rebounding should be thrashing the field with curare, darkshade, vardrax and break chains.

Iocun

Jacen said:

For #6, its infinitely more effective not to break your own limbs, but add limb damage to your own limbs that won't break them. Meaning, go ahead and hit rebounding to put damage on a leg, as long as it won't break the leg. That way, the monk's count is screwed, rather than reset.

I don't necessarily agree with that. Sometimes, just offsetting their count with non-breaking rebounding hits may be preferable, but has two disadvantages to actually breaking your own limbs:

1. Depending on their class and if they have sawbones, they might still get back on track with their count. Or they might make some other stupid counting mistake and get their count back correctly by accident by accumulating different errors (happens surprisingly often!). But if your limb is actually broken it is reset for sure and they have to prep it again, no matter their counting.

2. More importantly though: breaking your own limbs allows you to decide when your limb is going to break, so you can make it happen at a time when it's convenient for you. This is especially important for momentum classes. Even if you manage to mess up their count, it's still annoying if they accidentally hinder you with a break while you're going for the kill. It won't kill you, but it will harm your offence.

Xith

Questions for anyone...

I know that "aflame" causes timed burning damage. Does it have any other effects?

Freeze has 2 levels.

Shivering is the first, and causes disrupt periodically.

Does Frozen have a specific effect? My testing buddies last time seemed to function just fine with it. Is it just to add an extra level before shivering can be cured?