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Need some help in understanding

Started by NoxCruor, February 04, 2004, 06:44:04 AM

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NoxCruor

Since I can't play, I've been doing a ton of research on different tactics to use, mana conservation techniques, different ways to increase overall dps.  I've come to a couple of conclusions, however, and I need some input for them.

Throughout my research I have found that, at my current level, it would be more effective to pet cleric given the amount of mana I have, current regeneration of that mana, and a set of spells which I have decided would be good to use.  However, there lies one small problem.  Overall DPS would not be as great if I were to fight along side my pet.  Which I prefer to do anyway just to maintain current skills.

When going through post after post on these boards and the old, I have constantly heard people mention how their warders hold the most agro, which allow them to position themselves behind the mob.  As I understand it, your warder would be taking the majority of the damage, while you fight from behind, not having to deal with the damage recieved from things like riposte.

With the spells that we get at the lower levels, generating an increased ammount of agro, how on earth do you get your pet to draw the attention away from you so that you can position yourself behind the mob when soloing?  Is this even possible, because when I have tried in the past, I couldn't get it to work.  The only thing I haven't tried so far, is pulling the mob to my warder, having it attack the mob, use whatever spells I plan on using, then just wait for the warder to get enough agro, meanwhile keeping it healed.  Once that is done, position myself behind the mob while my warder continues to beat on it, then start helping my warder out.  But I still think I'm missing something....

Does fighting at max range of your weapons help with this tactic?

Is this concept one that you all practice?

Is there a certain percentage of the mob's health which you should wait for before jumping in to increase dps when soloing?  (ie, waiting until 70% of the mob's health before starting to fight)

Another tactic I read seemed rather...well...time consuming, and I'm wondering if in practice it really isn't.  That's the idea of fighting right along side your pet until you get to about 25% health.  Then, backing off to bandage up to 50%, then going back in to do it all over again.  Here are some questions for this tactic.  I realize that they may seem pretty obvious to some people, and may seem rather stupid.  But while I am definately not new to the game, I consider myself still rather new to the beastlord class.  Until this point, I've had only casters (necro and cleric) and so I haven't had to worry about melee issues before.  So, hopefully understandingly, this causes me to have a lot of questions about things I've heard but never really understood previously.  So here are my questions regarding this tactic:

When you are bandaging up to 50%, after the fight is over do you heal yourself up to full?

People who say that they practice this method often, keep saying that they have little to no downtime.  So...how, where, do you maintain your mana regeneration if you're not sitting down?

I realize that with FT items, and the mana regen spells we have, that it really shouldn't be a problem.  But what if you don't yet HAVE those items because of your level?

Given the above questions, would this be a tactic to save until later on?  Or would this tactic be useful around my level (33)?

What do you use to keep yourself in constant supply of bandages?  Do you use a guaze press, and if so, how do you keep it charged so that you have a constant supply of them?  charging crystals?  If so, how many do you keep with you generally?  Or do you use the summon bandages piercing weapon to keep yourself in supply?  Or, do you just make sure that before you leave, you have one or two full bags of bandages?

Next tactic:  FoL kiting - Oy vey.  I am not looking foreward to try this tactic.  I mean, while I'm sure it's useful, it would make more sense if this was used when partnered with a snaring class - not solo.  Soloing, unless you have some sort of snare to keep the mob from outrunning you, it seems like you would constantly be chasing the mob and wouldn't get enough hits on it for this tactic to be very effective.  Am I wrong, or am I just thinking like a necro and need to stop it?  :P

Lastly, I have one more question.  I have to say, that for the past 4 years of playing, I have never really understood what this meant.  And admitting that is embarrassing to say the least.  Please go easy on me when I ask this:  What is mitigation?  A thorough explanation would be great.  I assume it has to do with the ammount of damage you do, and how you do it.  But, I've been wrong before, and I certainly wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong now.

Thanks all, and I hope none of this was to trivial for you.  Just trying to understand the class more, and get some ideas for when I come back to the states.  I'm already itching to play again, and can't wait to rip things apart with my beastlord.
Khillarri
Dark Beastlord Outcast of Shar Vahl
Sworn Protector of the Nox`Cruor Clan
~Hidden within the night, we follow our Prey.  Surrounded by the darkness we seek our retribution.  Over the centuries, you came for us and sought our destruction after learning the truth.  Now, we come for you and seek your death after centuries of torture.~  Orionus Nox`Cruor

Dakat

QuoteWith the spells that we get at the lower levels, generating an increased ammount of agro, how on earth do you get your pet to draw the attention away from you so that you can position yourself behind the mob when soloing?

When in any fight with your pet or any other persons pet, the Player Character (PC, you) will automatically get agro to the Non-Player Character (NPC, mob).  So, there is no way that your pet will hold agro from a mob and keep it off of you during fights.


QuoteDoes fighting at max range of your weapons help with this tactic?

As mentioned before,  if you get into melee range of a mob, you will obtain agro immediately.  It's the way the game was made.

This should answer several other questions you asked.



QuoteAnother tactic I read seemed rather...well...time consuming, and I'm wondering if in practice it really isn't. That's the idea of fighting right along side your pet until you get to about 25% health. Then, backing off to bandage up to 50%, then going back in to do it all over again. Here are some questions for this tactic. I realize that they may seem pretty obvious to some people, and may seem rather stupid. But while I am definately not new to the game, I consider myself still rather new to the beastlord class. Until this point, I've had only casters (necro and cleric) and so I haven't had to worry about melee issues before. So, hopefully understandingly, this causes me to have a lot of questions about things I've heard but never really understood previously. So here are my questions regarding this tactic:

This is the tactic that you should be using and always will be using for the most part when you are soloing for experience. When you get higher in level and get your best heal, binding wound will be non-existant for the most part.  When I was younger I would start out at full life. Pet and I would enter a fight. I would melee with my pet until my health dropped around 25 to 30% remaining. I would step back and while pet was tanking I would bandage myself to 50%. Once there I would reenter fight until mob was dead or my pet needed a heal.  Once the fight was over, if I was below 50% life, I would bandage myself up as high as my skill would allow and then cast a heal to get be back to 75% or more.  With a 201 skill, I think I was able to repair 94 hp per bandage.  About 10 bandages would bring me back to 50% depending on what buffs I had on.

QuoteWhen you are bandaging up to 50%, after the fight is over do you heal yourself up to full?

Yes, after you have binded to 50%.  When you reach level 51, your skill will go up, if it was already maxed at 200, to 201 up until the cap of 210.  When you break the lvl and skill cap you will be able to bind wound for 70% of your hit points.  If you so desire later on and buy some alternate advancement points into bind wound, you can bind yourself to full life.


QuoteSo...how, where, do you maintain your mana regeneration if you're not sitting down?

You regen mana regardless. Standing only regenerates 1 mana 1 health per tic while sitting does 3 (depending on which race you choose).  However, using bandages frequently will cut down on your mana consumption therefore saving mana.

QuoteWhat do you use to keep yourself in constant supply of bandages?

You can do a couple of things.  One is obtain a knife that when used will summon a small stack of bandages.  For me, I bought a 10 slot hand woven backpack and bought my bandages every time I bought water or food or had to buy or sell anything at a vendor.  It's really up to you.

QuoteFoL kiting

This was nerfed. To many people was using it as an exploit to kill NPC's that they normally wouldn't try through regular combat tactics.  The tactic might work sometimes, but is very erractic.


QuoteWhat is mitigation?

Basically, it means to hit or be hit for less or more then desired depending on what your trying to describe.  Some refer to being hit as damage avoidance, but its also how well you can mitigate (avoid) incoming damage.  Others refer to it as how well you can hit a mob. Taking the hits for a given period of time and averaging them out to damage per second (dps) for a specific type mob.



Well hope this helped you out some. If anyone else wants to help clarify anything I have written, please do.

Coprolith

Mitigation is the ability to reduce the average damage on a hit. The most common definition is

mitigation = 1 - avg_hit/max_hit

If all hits are for max hit then mitigation = 0. Mitigation can never reach 1 however, because you'll always get hit for at least the minimum hit. An alternative way to define mitigation is

mitigation = 1 - (avg_hit - min_hit) / (max_hit - min_hit)

You mitigation is mostly determined by your worn AC and partly by your defense skill.


Avoidance is a totally different thing then mitigation. Avoidance is the ability to avoid getting hit altogether and is therefore equal to

avoidance = 1 - hit_ratio = miss_ratio + d/b/r_ratio

d/b/r_ratio are the Dodge, Block and Riposte ratio's resp. The above definition is sometimes called total avoidance, to distinguish it from the definition of avoidance that SOE apparently uses:

avoidance = miss_ratio

avoidance is determined almost entirely by the Defense skill (and d/b/r skill for total avoidance of course). Agility has a small effect on avoidance as well

/hugs
Elder Coprolith III
Trollie ferrul lawd of 65 levels (retired)

Rhugan

Simple explanation.

Mitigation = The ability to absorb a percentage of incomming damage based off of AC/DEF/AA's.

Avoidance = The ability to avoid the incomming damage all together based off certain skills/DEF/AA's.

All PC's/NPC's have some Mitigation/Avoidance skills.  Some have more and some have less.  A good example of Mitigation is Luclin NPC's.  They have a really high AC and this causes the average damage done to them to be lower when compared to the same level of mob from another expansion.

Tastian

" You regen mana regardless. Standing only regenerates 1 mana 1 health per tic while sitting does 3 (depending on which race you choose)."

HP regen goes up with level.  There are various charts around that show the standing/sitting regen for various races at different levels.  Basicaly trolls/iksar regen more and it's quite nice later on.  My total regen alone offsets ~10dps.  8)

Also sitting mana regen is much higher than 1/3 with meditate.  I was never very fond of bandages on my bst and often found myself inner fire dancing during downtime.  Inner fire is 10 mana to cast and heals 20hps, with a casting time of 3 seconds.  What you can do is shift+2 to get to a new hot key bank.  Have 1 be inner fire spell and 2 be sit/stand hot key.  Sit and wait for regen tick, stand cast inner fire, sit back down, cast tick, stand up cast inner fire.  With this you are getting your meditation mana regen rate and in essance having regen of 20hp per tick.  With this method you not only get back hps, but also mana.  Also it keeps your abjuration up.  Later on  it becomes less and less effective as 20hps isn't a lot and because you can't inner fire yourself if you have temp or sln or whatever on.  

There are a lot of ways to play a bst, but also a lot of variety within beastlords themselves.  A few things you will just have to find out for yourself once you are finally able to play again.  Obviously it's more dps to melee along with your pet, but early on your dps really isn't that high.  The balance of when to back out and when to fight will vary a lot based on gear.  I'd suggest doing some melee to keep your defense and skills close to max because eventually you'll hit a point where you can tank quite a bit and your melee dps will go up too.  However, if you are able to kill faster letting your pet take the damage and healing him (quite common around the 30's), then go with that.  Just always be aware of different ways to do things and be willing to adjust based on what's working best for you.

Taiglin

One thing to watch out for is that you back off early enough in a fight so that the mob wont come after you. Am not sure of the "right" term for it but is the deal where the mob senses you are low on life and hones in on you. You can then do a reverse kite where you run around with the mob chasing you and your pet chasing the mob. This isn't a technique I would rely on since it requires you to be low health but to make it work you should keep sow up on the pet and turn off it's taunt (/pet notaunt). The embalmer's dagger mentioned above actually procs bandages vs summon and think they might be no rent so you should probably have a few stacks for backup if you go that route.

<a href="http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=841014">Taiglin[/url] 70 Iksar Beastlord
Nameless - <a href="http://www.foolsrepublic.org">Fools Republic[/url]

Hereki

Up to about 30, I found that Inner Fire was good enough for my healing, and didn't try bandaging at all.  Then some where during my 30s, probably 36+, I worked up bind wound to max.  At 51, I could bind to 70%; then at roughly 55, whenever it is we get regen, it just wasn't efficient any more.  The proc bandages knife is the Embalmers Skinning Knife, which drops in Tower of Frozen Shadow from Cara Omica.

Mobs will stick to you if you get low health aggro, which happens somewhere between 20 - 30% hp, depending on the mob type.  For most, it is 20%.  At 21% hp you are fine; at 19%, you are tanking until one of you is dead.

In those levels (35-55), your warder probably varies around roughly the same dps as you, although at 50+ your ability to tank increases dramatically.  I'm assuming that you are conserving mana for slows, buffs and healing.  Healing the warder is much more efficient than healing yourself; again, this varies somewhat with levels.  So if you somehow had KEI, you might attempt to pet cleric successfully; but you'd be killing at half the rate you would have been if you were both meleeing all the time and healing yourself instead (but this isn't practical even at low levels and with KEI, because the heals are so small).

I reckon that meleeing yourself down to about 30-35% hp, and bandaging back up isn't noticeably more efficient than dropping a pet heal and medding instead - at least for vah shir, barbarians and iksars; it may be different for trolls and ogres with low wis (meaning low mana pool and high fizzles).  Any downtime is balanced out by fights taking longer while bandaging/medding.

The difference is that pet clericing throughout all fights will mean slower kills, and lower melee skills.  The correct balance is somewhere around 50/50 up to 50, then more like 80/20 (melee/not) after that; whether you bind wound up or heal at lower levels doesn't much matter, but at 50-55 you will want to mostly bandage.

Tukash

QuoteWith the spells that we get at the lower levels, generating an increased ammount of agro, how on earth do you get your pet to draw the attention away from you so that you can position yourself behind the mob when soloing? Is this even possible, because when I have tried in the past, I couldn't get it to work. The only thing I haven't tried so far, is pulling the mob to my warder, having it attack the mob, use whatever spells I plan on using, then just wait for the warder to get enough agro, meanwhile keeping it healed. Once that is done, position myself behind the mob while my warder continues to beat on it, then start helping my warder out. But I still think I'm missing something....

You are NEVER going to be behind the mob if you are within melee range of the mob.  Doesn't matter how much aggro your warder has built up, if you (or anybody) are within melee range the mob is going to turn to you and try to eat you.

For the most part, never pet cleric'd.  I did as many here probably did.  Fought alongside warder (well positioned warder behind mob).  When the time came, backed out and bandaged/healed myself, healed warder, and jumped back in.

There were a few times I'd cleric.  Like at lvl 30 in Paw and having to split 2 mobs.  I'd send in warder and keep him alive till one was dead, then I'd jump in and help kill the second.  It was much easier trying to keep him alive then trying to heal myself vs 2 mobs
Tukash - Feral Lord, Tarew Marr

SwordMage

On the topic of bandaging, I rarely see mentioned the technique of removing HP gear as you bandage. If your base HP is 400 and you have 100 HP added, you can bandage yourself to 200 + 100 out of 400 + 100 rather than just 250 out of 500. This works since the HP gear adds to both the current HP total and the HP pool size.

Note: you leave STA gear on since it doesn't increase current HP, only the size of the pool.
Swordmage on Stromm:
Bedloe a Monk of all gods
Greyforth a Paladin of Karana
Marston a godless Bard
Melrose a Ranger of Karana
Mercureo an Enchanter of Tunare
Swordmage a Magician of Tunare
Thorke a Beastlord of the Tribunal

Maeceo

QuoteOne thing to watch out for is that you back off early enough in a fight so that the mob wont come after you. Am not sure of the "right" term for it but is the deal where the mob senses you are low on life and hones in on you.

Most just call this low hitpoint aggro. However, you can use this to your advantage if you want. For example, I was in griegs and was sleepie (ok, drunk). I went and targetted a mob (my target ring is tiny these days) and pulled with slow, ran around the corner and waited for its arrival. I was at about 80% health and 50% mana. For a single this is more then adiquate. When that mob arrived so did 2 others, I did not notice that 2 were in close proximity and to make it worse I actually targetted a mob past those and of course it pathed through and they all came.

Anyway, I got them all slowed (used /disc to help take damage) and was at 60% life and 40% mana. I burned down the first with my pet as fast as I could (popped the offensive disc) and was left with 2. I healed me to the max I could with the remaining mana saving 10% for a reslow. Second one was killed, I was getting low on life, was low on mana, I had so, my pet had sow, so what do you do? Let yourself get down low in hitpoints and run tight circles around the mob while your pet beats on it from behind! You regen mana (14 Kei + 9 SD) at a decent rate and as long as you are sure you will not get adds it is safe to do if you pay attention. So in this case the low hitpoint aggro got the mob off my pet (who was at 50% health) and let me aggro kite it basically. Good stuff, works in a pinch.