Quick Combat Questions

Mishgul

is better to just hold down demon beckon <target> if you can predict them moving into range. It will beat pre blocking or having an alertness trigger.

Caladbolg

Jacen said:

I'm sorry my examples dont measure up. They were the only ones that came to mind.

No real diffrence between alias's/triggers in my mind. I don't trigger many offensive things my self personally because I see to much possible abuse from illusions in it.

I have before had a curse setup that did swiftcurse and a bunch of curses turned off my system then started tzantza because it was alot faster than me trying to hit all those alias's every second.

Had one that did voidfist, pommel/neck ,impale,bladetwist,bladetwist,bladetwist, Withdraw blade sheathe sword Brokenstar  (Vadi-m used to think Blademaster impale was an illusion and didn't writhe it causing brokenstars on everyone)

Nothing different than hitting 1 1ep F2 F4 F4 F4 F5 Except I don't have to spam the button.


Also on this note, Is it better to hit the button 500k times or to just hold it down?

Aepas

Mizik said:

Aepas said:

Still can't find anyone that knows where hydra damages come from.

Anyone know what effects the Hydra Flame or Hydra Bite?

As well, what effects Hydra roar or hydra snap?

the last head is pretty self explanatory.

Help please?

Aren't you a -ing Druid? Why don't you tell us, only Druid combatant in game.

PMing you tons of BM questions.

 Everyone typically knows something about every other class. Nobody knows what a druid does.

Fine, finding artywhores and stealing artifacts for testing since I can't just be lazy and check forums.

Caladbolg

Aepas said:

Mizik said:

Aepas said:

Still can't find anyone that knows where hydra damages come from.

Anyone know what effects the Hydra Flame or Hydra Bite?

As well, what effects Hydra roar or hydra snap?

the last head is pretty self explanatory.

Help please?

Aren't you a -ing Druid? Why don't you tell us, only Druid combatant in game.

PMing you tons of BM questions.

 Everyone typically knows something about every other class. Nobody knows what a druid does.

Fine, finding artywhores and stealing artifacts for testing since I can't just be lazy and check forums.

Vitiate can be used instead of strength arties if you can't find anyone with them.

Sena

For strength you can just use jera.

Valden

Do Serpents have any use for a mount in combat?

Avto

Yes, make monks cry irl.

Iocun

^ They help a bit in defence against other classes as well, but that's really their strongest effect. Blademasters too, to a slightly lesser degree.

Keep in mind that this only really applies to in-arena combat for normal mounts. Out of the arena, only invincible pets are really useful mounts in that respect, as all others will just be killed.

Eld

Valden said:

Do Serpents have any use for a mount in combat?

Being mounted provides a potentially major buff to avoidance (something like the equivalent of +8 dex with trans riding and a legendary mount iirc),  which is useful for anyone who can fight mounted. The extra dodge is especially noticeable with classes that stack it with extra boosts (weaving for serpents, acrobatics for jesters/bards). It's also an extra obstacle to proning the target for monk and blademaster. Basically, if you can fight mounted, I don't know of a reason not to.

Iocun

Weaving adds less dex to a mounted serpent though, so it doesn't in practice add that much dex. Weaving+mounted is still more than just regular weaving though.

Eld

I was under the impression that they were each a set amount, without one reducing the effect of the other. I'm far from an expert though.

Avto

Iirc weaving adds 6 dex unmounted and 3 dex mounted. Dex bonus from riding is in itself affected by any def.

Sena

Right, weaving and acrobatics are only half as effective (+3 instead of +6) while mounted. But since being mounted can give up to +8, it's still worth it.

Nemutaur

Eld said:

Valden said:

Do Serpents have any use for a mount in combat?

Being mounted provides a potentially major buff to avoidance (something like the equivalent of +8 dex with trans riding and a legendary mount iirc),  which is useful for anyone who can fight mounted. The extra dodge is especially noticeable with classes that stack it with extra boosts (weaving for serpents, acrobatics for jesters/bards). It's also an extra obstacle to proning the target for monk and blademaster. Basically, if you can fight mounted, I don't know of a reason not to.

Don't forget that you can block an exit too which is a huge bonus if you want to stop someone moving in a direction in a 1v1 or stop a beckon with a double block in a raid.

Iocun

Since we're talking about serpents though, that's no additional advantage, since serpents can block unmounted too.

Arador

Basically to make sure that only the venoms that are going to be shrugged ever have a chance of landing :P

Mizik

Anyone have any numbers on Reinforced vs Light Stepper?

Or Rajamala dodge bonus vs stock? Then Rajamala + Light Stepper.

Assume 40% armour stat and 12 Dex.

Mishgul

I have numbers. On a scale of 1-10 if you have light stepper axkick will kill you.

Iocun

Timestamps or lies.

Mishgul

Yes

Niks

Aepas said:

Mizik said:

Aepas said:

Still can't find anyone that knows where hydra damages come from.

Anyone know what effects the Hydra Flame or Hydra Bite?

As well, what effects Hydra roar or hydra snap?

the last head is pretty self explanatory.

Help please?

Aren't you a -ing Druid? Why don't you tell us, only Druid combatant in game.

PMing you tons of BM questions.

 Everyone typically knows something about every other class. Nobody knows what a druid does.

Fine, finding artywhores and stealing artifacts for testing since I can't just be lazy and check forums.

I kind of have the same problem with Priest.

Velyse

@Niks If you're looking at mechanics, I could help you out, but when it comes to strategy and capabilities I'm pretty clueless. So far, my greatest 1v1 successes are from just spamming sap with rites down and spiritwrack active. Nothing else seems to really contribute towards a priest kill, so it hinders your momentum more than helps you.

My only advice would be to primarily listen to people who play or fight priests regularly. I got a lot of advice from people who do neither, and most of the time it either didn't work or was flat out wrong. Usually the advice was with the best of intentions, but sometimes it was really rude and hostile. More than once, I nearly gave up on combat because I couldn't even find one thing per fight to improve upon; I'd regularly time out and they'd never be lower than 70-80% on contemplate*. Then @Kaden mentioned looking through classleads for any ideas, and I did, only to find that the problems I had were being called class-balance issues by Tanris. It seems like all priests have the same offensive problems I was having, even though I was regularly being told that I shouldn't be having these offensive problems because priest was such a solid dueling class.

If you're having problems, don't get discouraged, but I really don't recommend asking people who don't regularly deal with priests for advice.

* I'm not sure why, but people tell me I get them to just above 50% when regularly contemplating never shows them below 70%. It might be that they're sipping/mossing as soon as they hit the 50-60% threshhold, and so any saps that take them that low immediately bounces them back up to 70% from curing. This would mean that once I regain EQ, my contemplates show them at 70% instead of the 5X% they were just at. It might also be a factor of them hindering once they get too close to 50% mana, so I never get a chance to contemplate before they're back up to 70% again.

Aerek

Your asterisk pretty much sums up your situation. Contemplate is just a tool to help you see what's working and what's not, it really shouldn't be something you do too often. If you're Contemplating a lot between Saps, then you're hurting your own progress. You can contemplate for free while Smiting, but you would need a have a good reason to Smite over Sap, if you're trying for mana drain.

Sometimes I regret going Paladin when I did. I had a fair amount of success as a Priest combatant, but I fought as a Priest back before widespread systems existed and before most people even knew what Priests' skills did. (It felt like no one knew that Spiritwrack gave recklessness) I didn't have much of a system of my own, though, (mostly just a full-heal alias!) and didn't have the technical understanding of combat that I do, now. When I came back, I turned my focus over to the combat side of the game, picked up a proper system, and really learned how and why combat works. Sometimes, I wish I'd have stuck it out as Priest just to see what I could have accomplished as one in today's world.

Velyse

I generally contemplate after my 6th sap or so, just to get an idea of how well I'm draining their mana. If they're not prioritizing it or aren't using moss, then I know I can just breeze through. If they're at 95% because they set sipping and mossmana to 90-100, then I know I can just sap until I see them shielding. Usually it's at about 80%, so then I'll do another 10-14 saps, and then contemplate again, and it'll be at 70%-80% mana still. That's about the time that I start getting puzzled about how to have a stronger offense, because there really isn't much more that can be done other than just hold down sap. It's not like I'm contemplating every other sap, I just do it regularly enough to try and get an idea of how well they're keeping their mana up.

And I wanted to clarify real quick, when I said don't take advice from others, I mean about priest-specific stuff. Definitely do listen to others on general strategies like limb breaks, group combat, curing priorities and affliction, etc. But in my experience, people who have no hands-on experience with priests generally don't give the best priest-specific advice. Even then, it really can't hurt to ask, just take it with a grain of salt. If it seems to contradict with everything you've experienced then don't always assume that the fault has to be on your end, especially if they can't articulate anything that you're doing wrong.

Vadimuses

Dust bombs are an amazing thing for any class, look into involving them into equation.

Velyse

I fiddled around with them a bit -- hiding insomnia/hourglass too, remove armour, etc. behind a dust bomb, but unfortunately a lot of that can be seen through blackout or isn't very reliable due to most people shielding or hindering in blackout. Re-wielding my mace can be seen through blackout, so that's a good indicator that a priest is about to start judging if that's what they're going for. Hiding sap behind blackout isn't practical, so far as I can tell, because forcing them to touch tree + throwing a dust bomb is about 6 seconds of balance/EQ, which is enough time to get a free sip and moss. The damage you do to their mana would have to exceed a single sip/moss. They're likely to assume low mana and continue sipping during blackout, anyway. It might be marginally more effective if you inquisition at the 4-limb threshold instead of force them to touch tree, because then they'll touch tree and you'll get the bonus from inquisition for the same EQ cost, but the bonus from inquisition is so mediocre that if you can get them down that low in the first place you're probably better off ignoring dustbombs all together.

I guess you could sneak in some venoms and a chasten beneath blackout if you can trigger it off of inquisition. Inquisition, they touch tree, dust bomb, wield dagger and jab with aconite/chasten, then hellsight. We can't give impatience, but inquisition's slower focusing and uncurable hellsight might keep them tied up with goldenseal affs long enough for them to die to a judgment, relying heavily on piety/epilepsy/confusion/dizziness/stupidity. Beyond that, I don't know how it can work towards out offense, unless it's some incredibly elaborate limb-counting that ends in a black-out trample then judgment.

Edit: Well, you can't chasten with a dagger anyway, so that already-unlikely situation makes you rely even more on hellsight filling them up with mental affs.

Vaehl

Something else is that some (most because using svo) people would sip health in blackout.

Iocun

Probably not if they have their general sip priority changed to mana though, which they usually would against a priest.

Vaehl

Wat. SVO does these things?

Thought even with mana prio it'd prio health in blackout.

Inquisition should shield break.

Lyr

Vaehl said:

Wat. SVO does these things? Thought even with mana prio it'd prio health in blackout. Inquisition should shield break.

All svo does is 'assume stats' under blackout -- you can put what you want it to assume your health/mana are at and it'll act as if they're at those levels. So mana priority will still win the day.