Pre-Season Learning

Hi everyone! I'm a Serpent, and I've been trying to learn combat. Problem is, there's so much to take in. Things to look out for, things to make sure I'm doing right, hindering, highlighting, aliases, and all that. I also understand that practice and lots of dying is really what is going to get me to where I want to be. And I'm not against that and learning on the fly. My only problem is that I'm not really learning that much, I feel like. I die to one person, then I look back at it, don't really understand what I need to do, then fight someone else and die again. I've asked several different people how I need to be doing things, and gotten as many different answers. So I guess my question(s) is/are:

What are my main kill methods?
What steps do I need to take to pull those off?
How do I survive long enough to do this?
What's the best way to actually learn and understand all this?

I'm really just looking to see if there's someone out there that can explain it in a way I understand better. Also, apologies to people that I've asked and not understood. Not your fault.
Further information about me:

15 dex
Trans Subterfuge, Oleander in Venom, Impatience in Hypnosis
No artefacts
Level 81, 3297 health
Willing to supply anything else that is relevant.

Thanks in advance, guys. Sorry for the long post.
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Comments

  • Disclaimer: I was a horrible serpent, relying almost wholely on sniping and camus relapsing. 

    Kill methods: 
    Study your affliction locks. 
    Venom lock, soft lock, focus lock, rift lock, disrupt lock, sleep lock, true lock. (I may be forgetting some- it's been a while)

    What steps to pull them off: 
    I think the main thing is you need to study curing procedures. When you dstabbed with x and y, which one did they cure? From there, you know you stuck them with the other one, and you add another 2 afflictions on top of that, which one do they cure? Now you know they have both of the other 2. Do this until you obtain a lock. 

    Survival: 
    This is actually a Serpent's forte. Use afflictions that hinder their attacks, increase missing, or reduce the damage you take. You can also put up icewalls in a direction and evade past them to gain small boosts in healing and remove their aggression from you for a moment. The problem with this is keeping up your aggression while doing this- I think hypnosis and relapsing help with this.

    Study methods: 
    Seriously, study the curing procedures and have someone stand there and take your attacks without fighting back. Watch how they cure. Try to lock them. If you can do it against a dummy, pick up the pace a bit and play it against an enemy that's fighting back- did it work? No? What hindered your lock? How do you fix it? Troubleshoot your tactics. 









  • JinsunJinsun TN, USA
    My only addition to what Borran said is:

    Darkshade stack with a lightwall. It's a super easy starter combo for newer serps, and you'll kill more people than you realize.

    Also, Snipe kills in group stuff. You can level up really fast with no real talent needed.

    Lastly, the best way is to practice, practice, practice, steal someone else's script, look at it, learn it, rebuild it, practice, repeat. That is really the only way to learn here.
    image
  • edited May 2015
    "almost entirely straightforward as soon as you grasp the concept of stacking" shouldn't really say stacking - it should say priorities. I'm not totally sure what 15 dex dstab is like, but I don't think you should need to stack anything to achieve a lock against someone with static priorities and no active or passive curing.
  • Hey, thanks for the responses guys. I appreciate them. Is there a certain way you recommend learning the procedure for locking people in various ways? As of now, I sort of did what @Tael was saying, where I just wrote up a scenario where there was no tree tattoos, class curing, no latency, default curing, and them having the worst possible luck with which herbs they ate. Then I wrote everything out in a sort of time-sequence graph thing, showing where I  would dstab with what, and what they would be curing when. Do you think something like this is effective for beginning to visualize it? Or should I go out and watch how someone cures things first and keep trying to lock them?
  • edited May 2015
    I think that can help a lot, though I'm not sure what you mean by "worst possible luck with which herbs the ate" unless you're stacking things (which you don't need to be against default priorities).

    For a basic lock against default priorities, which have paralysis above asthma, you just need to use hypnosis to stick impatience at the right time while burying the other afflictions under paralysis (just about every stab will be curare plus another locking affliction - your last stab to seal the deal might not have curare in it, though if they're smart they'll touch tree then, which means you just have to repeat the same strategy before their tree balance comes back).

    For asthma > curare, you bury your afflictions behind asthma instead of paralysis. The trick here is that you need to get at least one more affliction with the same cure as asthma in, and then hope they cure it instead of asthma when you actually go to finish the lock. This means your strategy only has a 50% chance of success (if you add more afflictions with the same cure, the chance goes up), but on the other hand, it also means that you can keep them paralysed pretty much the entire time, so many classes won't be able to fight back very effectively. (Note that situations like this are when you might use the EXPERT DIAGNOSER trait - if you want to see whether they cured the thing you're trying to stack against curing. Though for asthma, you don't really need to use it since you can just tell whether it worked by whether they smoke to cure slickness.)

    After that, things start getting more complex, but you can usually work it out. Working on paper is useful, but it's usually easier to just grab someone and figure out the sequence by trial and error - stab curare/kalmia, see how they cure, stab curare/kalmia twice in a row, see how they cure, do it again and add a third stab and see how they cure. Build your routine, adding one stab to it at a time until it does what you need it to do. Absolutely use serverside queueing to make sure you're attacking as fast as possible and to keep results consistent. Do that against default priorities, against common priorities, against default svo, and against maybe omni or anything else you can think of that you're likely to run into.

    Then, once you're actually in combat, do a few test stabs to try to feel out their priorities. One stab can tell you whether they prioritise asthma or paralysis, though it'll take a few (and maybe impatience) to tell if they have conditional priorities. Serpent locking routines are so fast though that it isn't really a problem for you to go through one attempt, discover they have conditional priorities, and then just adapt and try again.
  • @Aerek thanks! I know I don't know a whole lot, but this all sounds like pretty solid advice! That sequence you showed is almost exactly what I did, only I think my dstab is 2.3, but that could just be what I always see in latency. I think I'll probably keep writing certain scenarios down on paper, such as adding tree tattoos or passive curing or something, adjusting for latency and all that, just so I can actually SEE it, and see how it works, but it sounds like now that I can sort of grasp the basics, I really just need to go out and do it.
  • @Reif I'm working on learning Sentinel Combat and have a bit of serpent experience. I am typically artied up, but if you want I can remove them for sparring.

    Not sure when you play, but hit me up whenever you come around.

  • Reif said:
    @Aerek thanks! I know I don't know a whole lot, but this all sounds like pretty solid advice! That sequence you showed is almost exactly what I did, only I think my dstab is 2.3, but that could just be what I always see in latency. I think I'll probably keep writing certain scenarios down on paper, such as adding tree tattoos or passive curing or something, adjusting for latency and all that, just so I can actually SEE it, and see how it works, but it sounds like now that I can sort of grasp the basics, I really just need to go out and do it.
    If you use serverside queueing, unless you really lag, your latency shouldn't have any real effect on your offense.
  • @Borran I'm usually 7-10ish central time. I've seen you around before, I think.

    @Tael I do, I was really just going to add like a tenth of a second to my offense and see what that did to when my dstabs fell and when they cured, but I don't think it'll make too much of a difference since the balance time always varies a little bit. I'm pretty sure I've seen sub 2 second dstabs without my adding dexterity or arties or anything, but I've also seen closer to 2.5 second dstabs, so I guess it probably evens out.
  • @reif Unfortunately, I'm half-way around the world right now. That'd be the time that I usually play.

    Actually, I may be able to alter my sleep cycle enough to play for 1 hour each day during that time... but I probably won't to be honest.

    Let me just hope that I catch you Thursday nights.

  • edited May 2015
    Reif said:
    @Borran I'm usually 7-10ish central time. I've seen you around before, I think.

    @Tael I do, I was really just going to add like a tenth of a second to my offense and see what that did to when my dstabs fell and when they cured, but I don't think it'll make too much of a difference since the balance time always varies a little bit. I'm pretty sure I've seen sub 2 second dstabs without my adding dexterity or arties or anything, but I've also seen closer to 2.5 second dstabs, so I guess it probably evens out.
    There shouldn't be anywhere near that amount of variation with serverside queueing.

    Note that latency will still affect what it looks like your balance times are. If you see your first stab, queue the next stab, and then your latency spikes before you receive the message from the queue firing, it might look like a 2.5s dstabs even if it's actually 2.3s (because you're seeing the result of your stab ~.2 seconds after it actually happened on the server). And if your latency then goes back down before your next queued stab fires, it would look like it was somehow extra fast. In both cases though, the actual timing of the stabs on the server was unchanged.
  • And no one complains a bit about @tael's long ass posts....must be the rainbow bear. 

  • Rip said:
    And no one complains a bit about @tael's long ass posts....must be the rainbow bear. 
    Joke's on you! People complain about them pretty regularly.
  • On the mobile version, it looks like a little bluebird.

  • @Herose that's what I've been working on so far. I figured out how to lock someone without tree, rebounding, or class curing, then I added tree to the mix and got that figured out. The weird thing there was that their curing only touched tree on a hardlock, and so I just had to get used to doing the same sequence correctly twice. It was pretty simple since they cured darkshade over asthma. But I assume it will be easier if someone uses the tree before the hardlock hits because I won't have to rehypnotise in that time. So my question as of now is: when they keep up rebounding does the flaying with curare slow me down much? Does it give their curing a chance to catch up?
  • @Reif I think you can snap them to touch tree prior to starting your lock loop. I am not so sure about serpent but as a Shaman I will make them touch tree before serious affliction loop. Tree comes back in 13-14 secs, you have about 10s after forcing tree to loop your SOP.
  • HeroseHerose Nova Scotia, Canada
    edited May 2015
    @Reif your DEX affects your flay speed so you should test it out to get your exact time but you should find it just a tad slower than herb balance.  It will slow you down a bit and will only deliver a venom if the target is also not shielded. 

    Unless you are fighting someone who is being defensive they will likely drop their own rebounding shortly after it comes up so it can be beneficial to wait for that rather than flaying.

    Typically when I hear "hard lock" I think anorexia, slickness, asthma, paralysis, and impatience.  The "true lock" would be additional afflictions to stop active/passive curing.  Based on what you said are they waiting until they have anorexia, slickness, impatience and asthma to touch their tree tattoo?

    What @Dochitha said about including "touch tree" in your hypnosis chain can help.  Unfortunately, you'll need to learn up to "action" in hypnosis to try it out.

    Another option would be to include "hypochondria" in your hypnosis chain because that can trigger impatience again if they wait until they have a hard lock to tree tattoo.  But again, that requires a high level of hypnosis.

    There are only two options left:
    1. ensure they are paralyzed when impatience hits (or tree is burned if they aren't saving it) so they can't touch tree
    2. add in other afflictions and hope they are cured instead when they touch tree.  If you're trans in Subterfuge your snake can help a lot with this.  You'll need to strike a balance with this.  If you load someone up with afflictions they will become defensive and possibly run which will make it harder to finish.  If you load to few then the tree tattoo can cure something you don't want it to.
    As you discovered, you can use darkshade to both kill and stack afflictions.  If you want to ensure they are paralyzed when you start your chain then you can use darkshade.  If they are curing paralysis over darkshade then keep hitting them with curare/darkshade and sneaking in other afflictions when you can (i.e. asthma).  At some point they will have to cure darkshade first before paralysis or else they will die.  If you have a lightwall it will happen within 15s.  Keep an eye out for that ferrum/ginseng eat and then snap (for impatience) and stab anorexia / slickness (hopefully they already have asthma).  Now they have a hard lock.

  • Dochitha said:
    @Reif I think you can snap them to touch tree prior to starting your lock loop. I am not so sure about serpent but as a Shaman I will make them touch tree before serious affliction loop. Tree comes back in 13-14 secs, you have about 10s after forcing tree to loop your SOP.
    You definitely can, but it introduces a little more complexity for serpents than it does for shaman. With vodun, you can just make them touch tree then go - it costs a few fashions and some balance but that's about it. With hypnosis, when you snap the first suggestion goes off exactly when you set the timer for, but subsequent suggestions fire at semi-random intervals. So if you put in an action suggestion to touch tree before impatience, it means you can't predict when impatience will hit them quite as well.
  • Most people are in Saoghal Valley within a second or two of me snapping them.

    image

  • So I've been practicing a little. I understand the theory behind it (sort of), but I'm still having trouble. In this situation, they get their tree tattoo back too fast for me to re-lock them. Plus he has fitness, so I'm not really sure what I can do about either of those. Any advice?

    https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/82707eb9
  • @Reif (At work, so can't view log fully) So you baited the tree tattoo out of him, then proceeded with the lock and he got tree back before you finalised the lock? It looks like you spent a little extra time because that hypnosis failed, so maybe try it again and see if you can do it without hypno failing?

    Also.. did you build your affliction tracker/echos/highlights or did you get that from somewhere? I'm looking for somewhere to pull my base script for my own aff tracker.

  • @Borran that's Austere's tracker, it looks like. (whose thread you posted in, heh)
    http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/3314/ak-opponent-tracking#latest

  • Oh good... that's the one I downloaded, but I haven't actually implemented it yet.


  • AustereAustere Tennessee
    Add a ,false) onto the end of your pt send, so it looks prettier(echo won't split your dstab then ).  Stop trying to relay afflictions before you actually confirm they didn't hit shield or rebounding.   Add your dirk into the osettings script for odirk. It's not tracking anything but affs with second messages.(paralysis, slickness,  impatience, darkshade).  If you have already done that, update Ak. If you need help with setup, hit me up.  
  • edited June 2015
    @Borran
    There were other times that I didn't mess up the hypnosis, and he still got it back before I could finish my sequence, too.

    @Austere I'm not sure how to wait and confirm that they didn't hit shield or rebounding before it relays, unfortunately, but I am appreciative of the suggestiong of the ,false)... Anything that I could do to make it less spammy is perfectly okay with me. Thanks for your responses, guys.

    Also, I know I downloaded the aff tracker, but I'm not entirely sure how it works yet, to be honest, or how to use it. I'll definitely start with the adding the dirk thing, though.
  • Herose gave some good advice earlier in this thread - several ways to potentially counter a tree on lock. You need to ensure they are paralysed when you complete the lock OR have extra afflictions on them and hope tree cures one of those. Snake can help with the latter. Darkshade can help with the former, OR delivering gecko pre-lock completion. For example, curare/xentio, curare/xentio, curare/darkshade, kalmia/gecko, snap, curare/slike, depending on their curing priority and your dstab speed.

    You can also hypnotise impatience and hypochondria and use hypochondria to re-give impatience after they tree out of your first lock, so that you don't have to re-hypnotise and can complete the second lock before tree balance is recovered. This requires some extra ginseng/ferrum affliction stacking to get hypochondria to give impatience asap.

    You are not going to beat tree tattoo by locking, rehypnotising, and then locking again. Generally, if you have to re-hypnotise, that's a start over.

    You need to be cognizant of your dstab speed and how many herb eats you are allowing your target to get in between dstabs too. A lot of that log is you doing:

    curare/xentio - target cures both

    curare/xentio - target cures paralysis

    curare/kalmia - target eats bloodroot AND kelp, curing either clumsy or asthma

    curare/darkshade - target eats bloodroot

    snap, gecko/slike

    When you're snapping, the target has darkshade and either asthma or clumsy. There's a 50% chance that the target doesn't even have asthma. You can make this a 100% chance if you switch your afflicting around to something like this:

    curare/xentio - target cures both

    curare/xentio - target cures paralysis

    curare/darkshade - target cures paralysis and darkshade, still has clumsy

    curare/kalmia - target eats bloodroot (has clumsy and asthma)

    snap, gecko/slike


    Finally, you're mistiming your snaps! You need to snap earlier, because you are allowing your target to cure in between gecko/slike hitting and impatience hitting. This gives them a chance to focus anorexia before impatience hits, even if you did everything else perfectly and even if they can't tree. You need to snap earlier so impatience hits either exactly when gecko/slike hits, or (more likely) sometime before gecko/slike, but after the target has used up herb balance so the target can't eat goldenseal before the gecko/slike.

  • Thank you for your response @Xinna .. I definitely want to give this a shot, as it sounds like solid advice. Is there anything you'd recommend for a way to get past fitness as well?

    Also, I only have impatience in hypnosis, so I won't be able to do the hypochondria :(
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