Making Bashing Sufferable...?

Sherendiel

So, anyone have any ideas about race/stats/trait combo and, then, artefact investments that could make bashing to Dragon as a BM sufferable? It can be annoying that you have to run from stacks of 3, or even 2 sometimes, low enemies to survive. It really feels bad, so I was hoping there are some suggestions to make it better? SoA armour effect? Higher band? Full Con spec? It's a nightmare...

Atalkez

Go full con spec, and hunt in Mir stance. Get runes before you go. You could get the soa effect for armour if you can spot the credits. Band is also a great buy, for hunting and pvp, but doesn't make you survive much better.

BM isn't the best bashing class, it's not the worst anymore either. Just have to grind your way through it. Focus on not dying, running away is free.

Nazihk

Also take Nimble as your first trait, that speed boost helps a ton.

Sherendiel

So, the idea is how to best run eh?

Oh, how about race for hunting alone? Would Dwarf be best for tankiness? Is human any good with the extra crit and bit of survivability with sipping?

Atalkez

Race won't affect you that much, though I personally went with human for the sip bonus.

Hunting is a grind here, not a tank fest. When you're artied, and high level, you can start mowing through everything. Until then, you've got to make sure you're moving up in xp, not down, which means little to no deaths.

Basically, don't die, be efficient in not dying, and you will have a better time of it.

Tahquil

Sub your critical message for something more interesting, even if you just make them pretty colours. This made bashing thousands of times more interesting and tolerable for me.

or maybe I just get excited about the shiny colours yay!

Xaden

A) set yourself a daily goal. Achievable but not too easy. Make it a game to beat this goal every day.

B ) if you can swing the lesson investment; get innersight in vision when you reach the mid 80's. Seeing he XP rise by .1/.2 % per mob is infinitely better than not seeing it move at all.

C) Time how long it takes you to complete an area, then beat it. Competition, even with yourself, is a great motivator.

Sobriquet

I love hunting as Sobby but I have SOA, lvl 3 sword and pendant plus lvl 2 con, sip, regen etc. 

I created an alt recently and realised how much hunting sucks as a lower character. The XP gain going up was nice to a point but the gold generation is shocking. If I was to start a new character in Achaea for the first time now I doubt I'd stay, the learning curve and cost to get up to speed with (admittedly 15yrs + experience) with others is just far far too expensisve in time and money 

Solnir

As someone who started playing within the past 2 years, can vouch that it takes a lot to get up to speed. Having a good mentor who understands that, and knows on an OOC level that you are a true noob really helps, as most* people will do everything they can to help truenoobs stick around. My original mentor took me hunting constantly, bought me curatives, and even bought my first lesson pack, and he was a shit hunting class who didn't even have dragon yet. Actually, he was doing Dale to get the gold to keep me hunting.
Obviously not every mentor will be like that, but it really helps.

Darkenstar

Still a newb here - can someone explain what SoA effect is?  and also what are bands and how to get them?

Chubbs

@Darkenstar

From what I remember, SoA has a decent blunt/cutting defense rating and there's some probability that I"m not privy to as I don't have one and thus haven't done any testing that the hit you receive will be nullified completely and not do any damage to you at all. Though I'm not sure if the damage nullification is only applicable to adventurer combat.

Antonius

Shield of Absorption (SoA) is an artefact shield that has reasonably good cutting and blunt resistance; better than a lot of shields, so for a lot of classes it's a straight upgrade. It also has a 15% chance to absorb all of the damage from an attack that deals cutting or blunt damage. It can absorb denizen attacks, but there are some adventurer attacks that are exempt.

The "SoA effect" comes from one of the artefact armour paragons, and is just the chance to absorb the damage. HELP ARTEFACT ARMOUR explains all of that.

A band is one of the artefact bands that can be attached to a Two Arts sword to increase damage, speed and (as far as I know) to-hit. HELP BLADEMASTER ARTEFACTS should show you those as well as other artefacts for Blademasters (and whatever other classes they're grouped with in the help file).

Sena

It's a 15% chance to nullify physical damage when hit, works against adventurers and denizens. Against adventurers though, most finishers (like disembowel and BBT) can't be absorbed.

Bands increase the speed and damage of your blademaster blade as well as making it non-decay and resetting. You can buy them from the artefact shop in Delos.

Atalkez

Blademaster can’t wield the shield, which is why you need to go the armour route if you want that effect.

Aesgar

nevermind

Everest

It may be because I’m an Achaean noob, but the insufferable part to me is finding places to hunt - not the actual hunting. 

Me: “oh this place looks good” 
Achaen: “yeah it’s great, if you have six hours I’ll sail you there and drop you off”
Me: goto azdun 

Dairon

Everest said:

It may be because I’m an Achaean noob, but the insufferable part to me is finding places to hunt - not the actual hunting. 

Me: “oh this place looks good” 
Achaen: “yeah it’s great, if you have six hours I’ll sail you there and drop you off”
Me: goto azdun 

The whole point is exploring! I used to stick around Azdun and would never get logosian.. Once I started exploring the north areas and some of the lesser visited villages, I leveled a lot quicker. I'm not too good at finding hints or doing quests, but it feels exciting to go to a new place to see find new things to kill  

Kriemhilde

I find that roleplaying during bashing makes it far more tolerable but I understand that isn't always for everyone. 

Everest

How to make bashing great again:

Step one: Download these Duke Nukem .wav files
http://www.soundboard.com/sb/solrosin

Step two: Make some critical hit triggers

Step three: Hail to the king, baby! 


Extra credit: make your idle timer into the What're you waiting for? Christmas? .wav file. If you get this reference let’s be friends forever. 

Ahmet

The real way to make bashing enjoyable.

https://www.audible.com

Torinn

Yeah that's what I do too.  That or watching people stream other stuff