Venom combinations and overall Knight Combat Techniques

Tasleus

So, I wanted to start a discussion to help myself get better with Knight Combat. Right now, I'm catching on to some things, but still not getting the overall flow of combat (Right, @Aerek?) I think I can improve a lot by just focusing on some Venom combos and when certain strategies are okay in battle. So - 

THINGS I'D LIKE TO LEARN : 

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> Venom Combos - Which are appropriate for use in certain parts of battle? When are hindering venom combos good? When are kelp stacks good? Other specific useful combos!

> Venom Locking  - How to do it and what venoms to use.

> Limb Counting    - The do's and don't's.

> Parry Strategy    - Do you all really type PLL and PRL in the midst of battle? If so, this will just take practice. If not, clue me in!

> Combat Flow      - Stages of combat for Limb Counting classes and when it's okay to just be all RUNESTACK ALL THE RUNES and the like.

Also, any other advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance for the help!

Simoln

As a knight, venom locking is pretty much out the window because you can't give impatience. Limb breaks and/or damage out is your bread and butter. That said, your venoms will be mostly hinder and stacking. Curare, xentio, prefarar, kalmia, vernalius, aconite, digitalis, etc. Curare to get past parry, learn your counting based on their max health, and know when to drop your rune stacks before the final break.

Tesha

I would suggest getting svo's limbcounter and some similar damage rapiers (mine are exactly the same), then study the document to remember the aliases. The venoms were really hard for me so I made an alias for venom combos, what works for me is curare on the left (everyone seems to cure it first and that way they are paralysed for your right rapier) and other venoms on the right. I like offensive right-hand venoms except for kalmia and sometimes xentio if they have more artifacts than I have trans skills. The limbcounter will have wrong suggestions occasionally but you can override it. Good luck.

Oh... as for the strategy, the typical disembowel is torso/arm/double leg. I would recommend avoiding trying to damage people out, it will be good for smaller targets but if you do not work on the other strategies, you will have a lot of trouble against more resilient targets. I am still learning myself, so I don't like using my longswords and trying to outdamage most people. The most important thing that has helped me is being really, really patient. 

Tasleus

Yeah, Patience is a virtue that I'm learning the hard way right now. I think I've -lost- my past 20 spars or so.

Tvistor

Pipelocking and riftlocking still work. A riftlock is when your opponent has both his arms broken (l2 breaks to avoid restore) and the herbs he needs to get his arms functioning again are in the rift. He can't remove them because his arms are down. (So with asthma/slickness he'd be pretty dead)

Pipelocking just needs you to break both arms and ensure the pipe he is using to cure slickness is empty. He can't refill it because his arms are broken and can't cure his arms because he is slick.

Tasleus

are either of these valid strategies for the arena?

Zeon

No.

Zeon

They are barely effective out of the arena these days.

Aerek

Venom combos: Until you really get the hang of watching an opponent and figuring out his tendencies, curing priorities, and so forth, venom combos are really just bonus damage or hindering while you focus on your main strategy, which is usually going to a disembowel for a Runewarden. A kelp rotation gives you both bonus damage and hindering ability, so frankly, it's good all the time. Fight Zinka if you really want to learn how to use one, she's one of the best I've fought. After the fight, look back at the afflictions she uses and the order she uses them in, and notice how it affects you throughout the fight. If you're just trying to damage someone out, dropping the full kelp rotation for just prefarar/curare is valid. If you're at a :02 DSL or faster and you need to slow a physical damage class (knights, monks, don't know about blademasters) down right now, epteth/epteth can be pretty annoying. The key to working out venom combos is asking "What will this combo actually do to help me?" and then testing it on a timeline to see how it would actually function at your particular DSL speed.

Venom locks: We're not really equipped for serious venom locks because we can't counter Focus, but they can still be used as hindering/delaying tactics. Curare/prefarar, curare/kalmia, slike/gecko, curare/prefarar is a rudimentary lock sequence that can work on someone who can't Focus. A Tree tattoo will get them out once, (if they touch it before the last curare/prefarar, but the balance on it is long enough that you could lock them again before they can use it again) and Fitness will always let them out, but it can still stop their offense for a few seconds. Rift locks and Pipe locks are more reliable for Knights, (Break leg w/ epteth/epseth, break arm w/ curare/kalmia, (just to burn fitness) break arm w/ kalmia/gecko for a basic rift lock setup, a pipelock can use the same setup, just substitute curare for kalmia on the last hit.) they're just become very difficult because of modern systems that keep pre-outrifted herbs in the inventory, and refill pipes before they're actually empty.

Limb Counting: DO take your time while prepping limbs, fight defensively. Even if you shield after every DSL to cure or heal up, you're still making progress toward your goal. DO highlight or echo salve applications so you're aware of what your opponent is fixing. DO be willing to break a limb early on just to make sure you have their count right, it's less frustrating than losing a setup because you tried to guess from the start. DON'T lose hope if you get their count fouled somehow, just hit each limb until it breaks, (watch for the salve application) reset the count for that limb to 0, and start over. DON'T use rebounding against weapon-wielding classes IF you can tank their damage, as that can complicate your count when they hit it, but DON'T be afraid to start using it when they're much faster than you or hurt too badly, as messing up your count is better than dying. DON'T try to finish a setup if you get interrupted by a shield or rebounding half-way through it, re-prepping one or two limbs and trying again is better than having to start from scratch because you lost time razing, broke everything you had prepped, and lost the setup anyway. DO experiment and pay attention to what your opponent cures first, you can use this against them. Do they cure head before arms? Breaking head with epteth/epteth can give you free shots past parry. Do they cure legs before arms? Breaking arms with epseth/epseth can buy you extra time on bypassing parry and disembowel setups.

Parry Strategy: Yes, I manually switch parries through a fight. Don't use automatic parry scripts, those only work as long as it takes your opponent to figure out the pattern. Even the most clever auto-strategy I've found that parries the opposite limb just hit, (I hit right leg, you move parry to left leg) only works until I figure out that's what it's doing. Once I know the magic pattern, I can prep you completely without ever hitting parry; you might as well not be parrying at all. A static, unmoving parry on a limb that your foe has to prep is more frustrating and takes longer to circumvent than the most clever mobile parry strategy. (Though there are still some cases where moving it is smart, like I showed you the other day.) Personally, I whore the numpad. CTL+5 DSLs my target's torso, CTL+8 DSLs their head, repeat for 4,6, 1, and 3 to make a little numpad man. CTL+ALT+5 changes my parry to my own torso, CTL+ALT+8, my head, etc on the same numpad man. This keeps almost everything I need in one place, I just alternate holding ALT, CTL, both, or none to alter the keymap of my numpad.

Combat Flow: The stages of combat for a knight class go something like "Research -> Prep -> Kill." First you make sure your count is accurate and experiment with their curing priorities, then you prep the limbs while abusing those priorities as best you can, then you start your final setup and kill them. As far as when you should use one strategy over another, like untargeted bust damage vs careful limb preps, that's can vary with the situation and the opponent, but I look at it like this: now that "speed knights" and "damage knights" don't really exist anymore, there are only "efficient knights" that use a combination of speed, damage, and smart tactics to win, and "inefficient knights" who try to win with only one or two of those things. Thurisaz stacking with untargeted prefarar/curare DSLs is amusing when it kills an unprepped, unwary opponent in 15 seconds flat, but it'll probably only once and a wary opponent can easily stop it. It would be more efficient to combine that Thurisaz stack with some carefully planned arm/leg breaks to prevent shielding/running, or even with a full disembowel setup to make sure they can't hide behind shield or survive that disembowel damage.

Jacen

In response to @Aerek on the parry strategy. I use svo's parry strategies set to a hotkey... pressing the hotkey cycles through lasthit, last hit opposite side, lasthit opposite limb, manual. Its very effectve, but you have to keep an eye on what your opponent is hittingnso you can compensate. And after you've been limb hit for awhile, static parrying a leg becomes quite effective.

Also, Iocun has built a parry system that predicts the next limb hit. Might PM him and ask how effective it is

Zeon

Markov chains are where it's at.

Iocun

My parry system isn't bad, but in the end I made it more as a conceptual proof-of-concept thing, than as a significant improvement over much simpler ways to parry (such as static parry). I find it useful against certain classes, but against the primary limb breakers (monks, knights, dragons, blademasters, etc.) I don't actually use it anymore (mostly because my parry system takes time to adapt itself for optimal performance, which is a luxury I don't always want to afford) but simply always parry whichever of my legs is currently less damaged. Essentially, that's almost the same as static parry, but it has some small advantages over it.

There are some exceptions, even for those classes, when I will parry another limb, but they're very specific and relatively rare (e.g. sometimes it can be useful to parry head against a monk to avoid a wwk-dismount).

There's no need to get oneself too worked up over optimal parrying though, since all parrying does is prolong prepping time. That's still relevant, yes, but getting fully prepped is still not already a loss, in many cases.

Aerek

@Jacen To each their own, and perhaps we should spar so I can see your method in action, but I would rather fight someone who moves their parry over someone who leaves it static every time. Static parries mean I have to circumvent it, and those methods all take time and have their pros and cons. Moving your parry, even if you do it well, means that eventually I'll get you without having to use those circumvention methods. Even if you move it around and then switch to static, that still means I probably just need one or two hits on that parried limb, which is much easier to get than prepping the whole thing from start to finish while under parry.

@Iocun A system like that would be pretty impressive if it worked, but I can still only think of a few situations where it would actually be superior to static or intelligently-moved manual parries, and those are only if it can predict the next limb hit during the key hits of specific knight/monk/blademaster's final setups. Most of the time, like you say, just static parrying the least-damaged leg/important limb is best.

@Zeon Markov chains?

Edit: Replies popped up while I was composing.

Iocun

Aerek said:

Haven't fought Iocun recently, I suppose, but when I have, I haven't any particular trouble getting around his parrying. Had plenty of trouble with other things, mind you, but not with his parrying.

Hrm, I'll have to check what kind of parrying I used when we last fought, but chances are I actually parried statically. I stopped using my full parry system against knights quite long ago. But yeah, if I did use it, chances are it didn't work extremely well. It only tends to work optimally late into rather extended fights, or when fighting repeatedly.

Jacen

Heh, the only way I can even rep Iocun is by curare axe, so I don't eben notice the parrying

Tanris

Don't underestimate the ability to focus lock as a substitute for truelocks, particularly as runewarden (faster).
Essentially you'll break leg delph delph for prone, break arms with venoms to stick asthma (kalmia/curare x 2 would probably be sufficient for you to outpace herb bal), break head slickness/anorexia. At this point focus will either catch anorexia or stupidity (which you gained from level 1 head break). If it catches stupidity, they can't cure anorexia for as long as it takes them to recover focus bal, in which time you can stack another 2 focus affs and they can't sip, etc. Its pretty rng heavy because it only will block the anorexia cure 50% of the time, but the concept allows you to consider certain other things hopefully (namely, the ability to stick anorexia and lock down sip for a short amount of time). Full lock is rarely practical or needed.

Vaehl

Don't use focusable venoms unless you're doing an advanced strategy, and if so, only during the combo.

Static parry vs most classes.

Any specific questions you got?

Vaehl

Tanris said:

Don't underestimate the ability to focus lock as a substitute for truelocks, particularly as runewarden (faster).
Essentially you'll break leg delph delph for prone, break arms with venoms to stick asthma (kalmia/curare x 2 would probably be sufficient for you to outpace herb bal), break head slickness/anorexia. At this point focus will either catch anorexia or stupidity (which you gained from level 1 head break). If it catches stupidity, they can't cure anorexia for as long as it takes them to recover focus bal, in which time you can stack another 2 focus affs and they can't sip, etc. Its pretty rng heavy because it only will block the anorexia cure 50% of the time, but the concept allows you to consider certain other things hopefully (namely, the ability to stick anorexia and lock down sip for a short amount of time). Full lock is rarely practical or needed.

 If no rebound, can also slightly kelp stack before it (and weariness post focus lock) for gecko/slike if focus procs anorexia, can gecko/slike.

Tvistor

I just static parry so I can pay minimal attention while simultaneously appearing to know what I'm doing.

Jules

Is this how I should think about parrying - other than when I actually sustain real damage on a limb? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors 

 

EDIT:  I mean, do some people manage to randomize it?  And, I just read what someone said about Markov Chains and looked that up, so that sounds like a yes. 

Arador

Didn't they change it recently so you can not empty pipes beforehand? You can still spamsmoke them empty though.

Iocun

Can't empty them, but can smoke them empty, which I assume most people do (I certainly do).

Tvistor

Yeah, but it's easy to keep two pipes.

Iocun

(Just to clarify: I meant deliberately spamsmoke them empty as Arador said, not actually smoke normally until they happen to be empty and then refill.)

Tasleus

Everyone, this is phenomenal info. Thank you @Aerek for the book reply you gave. I know you've been giving me some instruction in the arena, but during this stage of my combat ability (Which is barely more than nil), I need to learn as much as I can. I'm getting real tired of having the arena floor wiped with my butt. 

Thanks to everyone who answered. I've made notes and studied, now I'm gonna get in there and practice for a bit. I'll be on sparwho shortly!

Cahin

All of this knight venom stuff is gonna be out the window when they release the new knight weapon system.

Achilles

Cahin said:

All of this knight venom stuff is gonna be out the window when they release the new knight weapon system.

That's what happens when you don't have a pair of rapiers

Aepas

if you just set your system to do prefarar/curare, repeat DSL on balance, and  then go make a sandwich, you'll be able to kill me just fine. Pro knight status for you Sir

Iocun

Aepas said:

if you just set your system to do prefarar/curare, repeat DSL on balance, and  then go make a sandwich, you'll be able to kill me just fine. Pro knight status for you Sir

Wow, you must suck!

Tasleus

That is the best gif I think i've ever seen. What's this new Knight weapon system you're talking about though, @Cahin?

Jules

I'm guessing the same one that means it may or may not be a good idea to take advantage of that great sale they're having on soulpiercers (and actually, axes too).  I asked about it not too long ago, and no one seems to know much, but with the new year and all of the big events apparently over for the time being, my understanding is that it should go into effect soon?