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Post by Lanstro on Oct 25, 2004 4:43:17 GMT
This is a note to stimulate some discussion on the *cough* science of tanking and partying in general.
The goal of this is to seek out the theoretical most efficient party for gathering experience, even though that theoretical setup might not be achievable whether due to practicality, lack of personnel, or whatever. As such, if you haven't been involved in parties where each member gets at least 150k/hr please carefully reconsider your opinions before posting them.
As with all theories, this one relies on a set of assumptions for its foundations:
1. That you have pretty good equipment while tanking 2. That your bashers will do whatever you tell them to do, are whatever classes you want them to be, with minimal mistakes or delays 3. That your party picks up equipment and sells, and thus still needs inventory space 4. That you spend minimal time walking from kill to kill, and that most kills are alive 5. That you don't rely on lucky stacking kills to get to your numbers, but that if your route had a fair number of stacking kills 2-3 of them do actually end up giving you 20-30k 6. That the party doesn't go out of its way to deal extra damage - that is, a necro tank would use some potions to rot (because it's an integral part of keeping alignment), but a mage basher can't have 'unlimited reds for hastes' or a fighter is always loaded up with hungas to throw
I may have missed some assumptions, so we'll just have to tack them on later on
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Post by Lanstro on Oct 25, 2004 5:12:23 GMT
So this means that since you're almost always in combat, all that is left as variables is rate of dealing damage, and rate of taking damage. (Ignoring for the moment the other resource of alignment, so assuming there's enough big kills of the right alignments to keep paladins and necroes going for the duration of a party)
As all tanks considered under this section are always smoking, bound most of the time, and extremely full and drunk all of the time, the bashers needing to are always smoking and bound, maybe with alcohol and food to sometimes supplment need. Thus, the party sort of has a 'hit points pool' and a 'spell points pool', which is largely the same from one party setup to another. Note that the armour of ichor increases this pool quite dramatically when a party moves quickly.
Thus there's 2 types of damage dealt - one that comes naturally (everybody's physical attacks) and one that uses some of the hit points and/or spell points in the party pool.
There's also 2 types of damage abosrbed - one that comes naturally (blocking on a cleric), and one that uses some of the hit/spell points in the pool (fix, alert, turtle).
So in theory, the party which has the best balance of the use of the hit point pool, the spell point pool and natural damage dealing capacity is the most efficient.
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Post by Lanstro on Oct 25, 2004 6:19:06 GMT
The tanks - from here on it's just my own opinions, based upon the criteria used from the previous 2 posts. Add to it, change it, dispute it what you will
Adventurer
The adventurer has no special skills: so that automatically cuts off ways of using his spell points to deal damage, or heal damage. He has no 'free' advantages either, that is, no blocking, or above average strength for higher physical damage. Clearly the worst class for tanking
Cleric
The class most of us learned to tank with due to its ease. But does that make it the best class for it? A cleric comes with high strength to slightly enhance its normal physical damage and blocking to enhance its damage absorption abilities (of course, one of the best clerics we've seen Ivanhood shunned cleric blocking, so its usefulness is debatable). A cleric with outstanding sword and flying shield is however, undoutably better than an adventurer with outstanding sword and flying shield.
A cleric doesn't use its hit points to deal any extra damage for the party (as we'll see, the fighter is the only class that is capable of this). The spell points however, go a very long way towards making it perhaps the best damage absorber out of them all (the feature that made most of us tank with this class first). It's hard to beat a cleric with flying shield, armour of gaius or ichor, everything blessed and armour spell on.
If other classes had trouble staying in fights due to damage absorption problems, cleric would be easily the best tank. However, many other classes are able to absorb all the damage they need to absorb, yet deal more damage than cleric. The (relative) lack of damage is why i think the cleric is not the top tanking class. However, i'm going to use the cleric as the benchmark.
Fighter
The fighter is almost never thought of as a tank, and the fighter tank i'm going to discuss is one who uses berserk, and does not will unless they're about to die. One using block or parry is simply an inferior ranger for our purposes. The fighter therefore comes with no natural (free) defence mechanisms, and with a very high natural free natural offensive mechanism.
The fighter tank has the unique attribute that instead of using their spell points to deal extra damage like the other classes, he uses his hit points. If a berserking fighter could stay in fights all the time with this constant extra loss of hit points, he'd be better than a cleric simply because he deals much more damage, but even Calvin hasn't managed to prove this is the case to date:)
His spell points don't have much use - although disarmed guards are nice, there's not that many of them and other classes simply take minimal damage from the average disarmable NPC anyway - and when you're berserking, a disarmed mob still does hurt. Outflank also has its uses, but i'm sure most fighters would trade these 2 skills for trip, haste or fix any old day.
As such, the fighter seems to lack the damage minimisation abilities to be a top tank.
Shapeshifter
When i say shapeshifter, i mean drakon. The treant thing can't kill indoors (rather fatal for a tank, i'd say), and the xaerre i haven't had much experience with.
The drakon has next to no 'free' physical damage - even an adventurer can beat it, provided he has some even half decent weapon. The drakon comes with a killer dodge, however. This of course requires dropping your sacks every kill, bashers not accidentally taking them, but we have perfect bashers remember? And the shifter loses this ability on certain kills who take stuff from the ground. Combined with this, the drakon seems to randomly just...not take damage from magical attacks. Sort of like free armour of gaius all the time.
I won't bother saying that 'x class cannot use its hit points to increase damage' from now on, since fighter was the only one that had this ability. The spell points of a drakon is used on 2 things - breath and keeping the form. For 25 measly spell points, you pump out a 70ish damage thing of destruction every 4 rounds. This has to be easily the best damage dealt per spell point ratio in the game.
With each knigget eaten or chicker drunk almost enough for a 70 damage can of whoop ass, this just may be enough to make a drakon better at the tanking game than a cleric - both classes have no trouble staying in combat with any kills, and similar ability to deal damage (a drakon uses 25 mana every 4 rounds for 70 damage, with maybe 15 physical damage thrown in, while a cleric gets about 60 physical damage for free every 4 rounds).
Ranger
This jack-of-all-trades has a strong claim to tanking honours. This comes from his free aiblities. He gets block (same as cleric), and reasonable physical damage (same as adventurer). Also, his wolf is a 'free' source of extra hit points and quite solid damage. The best of them all however, is the bola. With a pair of them, a ranger is better than a rogue at keeping the bastards down, increasing the entire party's damage dramatically, especially with dual wielding bashers in a 4 member party
For the spell point usages, rangers unfortunately don't have much to speak of. Strike costs much less than the sps a ranger tank ends up with. There is simply zilch other combat-related spell point use for a ranger, which is its achilles heel.
A ranger and his wolf can usually absorb enough damage to stay in all but the toughest fights (razar, illarin) comfortably, and deals and helps the party deal more damage. Thus, whichever class is more powerful tanking depends on whether you think being able to take things like razar is more important than doing (dare i say it, almost twice) more damage..
Rogue
Long been my favourite class to tank with, but perhaps not the class to pull the absolute highest experience. A rogue gets a free 60 damage for almost every kill in the game. This alone puts it amongst the highest damaging classes - add to it the rogue specific unique shadowspawn. It has no free defence mechanisms (i take alert to be not free).
The spell points are used in 2 ways - alert and trip. Alert makes the rogue have absolutely no problem in tanking anything in the game, thereby putting it into the category of paladin, cleric and drakon for being able to comfortably tank anything in the game. The extra damage it deals is just gravy. Trip's effects have already been discussed.
I think the similar ability to absorb damage to a cleric or drakon, while obviously being able to deal more damage makes a rogue superior to a cleric or drakon in every way. The rogue does rougly similar damage to a rangerwhile absorbing damage better, therefore i rate it above the ranger. However, the following classes are able to absorb damage just as well, while dealing more damage...
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Post by Lanstro on Oct 25, 2004 7:17:55 GMT
Paladin
Just the last few days, Calvin has shown that paladin is a force to be reckoned with. For free, the paladin gets above average strength for more physical damage, and a 'passive' in aura for extra defence.
For spell point usage, paladins have turtle and smite. Turtle is like alert without the extra physical damage. This lost physical damage, however, is easily made up by smite and harm. Being able to toss a few of these so often, especially on hard kills, seems to be a greater damage dealer than backstab and the extra alert damage.
So a paladin is like a rogue who does more damage, is better at absorbing damage, but has alignment problems if he hits too many good areas in a row. (You perfect bashers start the fight on these kills with no time wasted, remember?)
Necromancer
The class that has always been the most powerful, and still arguably is. I don't have much experience with them, so the following is probably mostly garbage. The undead's damage added up with the necro's damage makes the 'free' component of a necro's damage dealing probably the highest out of all classes here. The 'free' defence would be either block, if using a shield, or nothing, if using a revenant.
A necro primarily uses spell points for 2 uses - keeping alignment and healing the undead. Preserve is roughly as spell-points-efficient as fix, while rot and lifedrain, while not anywhere near as efficient as drakon breath, are essential for keeping alignment.
Therefore, with the damage absorption abilities of any of the other classes, and damage dealing capabilities greater than almost all the other classes, the necromancer is theoretically the best so far.
Of course, the reality is that there's just not that many spell points to cast rots with to keep the alignment, which is probably why we don't see many necros tanking. However, if we're talking about tanking for just 1 basher, the necro would have to be named amongst these last few classes as the top ones.
Mage
Never the first thing to pop into someone's mind when they think 'tank', this is the class i think is the wild card. Whereas the ranger's strength lies almost exclusively in the 'free' abilities, the mage's lies almost exclusively in the abilities that consume spell points. The mage deals below average physical damage, and has to use defend none. Stoneskin is only marginally better than armour - which i have so far assumed all the other tanks have cast on them and their pets. Strength makes the mage deal slightly more damage than usual, but still well short of say, a cleric. Anti magic shield or protection from elements is a nice free boost to resistances, but hardly the reason one plays a mage.
It's been long established that haste is the premier spell for a partying mage, and here it's no exception. Similarly to smite or rot or breath, it makes nasty fights last a lot shorter, thereby reducing damage taken and therefore helps the damage absorption side of things. With that being said, a mage tank still is quite bad at taking damage, only marginally better than an adventurer. But with the right equipment, i've tanked for an hour at breakneck pace consuming only slightly more potions than the other classes, but of course avoiding illarin and razar.
However the feature that makes a mage interesting is that this tank uses the party's spell points pool extremely well. For 90 spell points, a fighter can be hasted for about 12 rounds, and for 60 spell points thereafter, enhanced every 15 rounds or so to indefinitely be hasted. With the armour of ichor, this can realistically be kept up, and in my eyes makes the mage the best (sustainable) damage dealer in this list. A drakon cannot wear ichor, therefore cannot spit out as much damage as a mage.
The mage deals the most damage, but is one of the worst at absorbing damage. With more and more good equipment coming into the game, perhaps eventually the mage will be unequivocally the best tank.
Now note that the tripping ability of a rogue is made worthless by a ranger basher with a bola - which is a basher i rate to be just as valuable as a fighter (but that's for another discussion).
For these reasons, i think that the top tier tanks are paladin, necromancer and mage, the second tier rogue, and the third tier ranger, cleric and shifter.
As there are not enough kills around for a necro to stay evil, unfortunately in my book that relegates necro to second tier.
Agree, disagree? I've done my talking, let's hear yours
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Post by tehlung on Oct 25, 2004 16:12:23 GMT
if you are talking choice eq, i think a paladin with 3 bashers would hands down be the best tank in the game. you have, like you mentioned: dmg reduction(turtle) dmg reduction(aura) high free dmg high sp dmg
nearly unlimited kills as you can throw in a good area if you should happen to run out of evil areas.
basher choices: josh's helf pally with elvie("free" cures and extra dmg) high ls rogue with osword/grd high ls rogue with osword
2 trips and 130? dmg to start just about every round of combat with. on easier areas, such as the southern route, the basher pally smites to use sps, as ichor takes care of the tank.
one point i do disagree with you on is on necros being a 2nd tier tank(naturally;). getting a healer class to bash for you, unlike most classes, greatly enhances your exp/hr as you rot a lot more. one factor you have to consider with necros is you will always split tanking with the undead to some extent in order to get "more" hps. (ie: low sps, high hps. rescue undead to eat/drink then rot) since you are always smoking, it is a waste to sit at 138 hps puffing/bound then entire party. the thing with necros is that it is a different style of tanking than other classes, which is why some don't get it or don't like it(poke calvin).
ps. i still gotta party with you sometime rhynst!
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Post by CalviN on Oct 25, 2004 16:44:56 GMT
Very interesting topic. I'd say I agree with you on about 90% of what you said. I've got a few things to add, mainly to the cleric side of things. For cleric, you left out one significant thing: wrath. With the armour of ichor, fshield, etc... and with the ultimate set of bashers (ie. two fighters dualing fire orbs, or shadow sword/crescent/krak, with a ranger (Rhynst/Chun) chucking bolas, and maybe a paladin smiting/harming nasty kills to replace a fighter) You end up having a lot of sps left over from kill to kill. Most of the kills on the list don't do enough damage to make you rely on potions just for fixes. So, you have leftover spellpoints. Those can be used to preserve heals, but we're not interested in how much money you can make, but how much damage you can deal. I've found that when using Ichor, I can, on average, get in a wrath on every 1-2 kills, at least. I've never seen exact figures on the damage wrath deals out, but I'd assume it's in the 20-60 range, depending on which form of damage it randomly deals out. (ground shake, lightning thing, fire, cold, etc.) That can certainly have an effect on the total damage dealt by the cleric for the duration of the party. So, in my opinion, I'd move cleric up to the medium tier of tanks, and let the rangers and shiffas keep themselves occupied on the lower. I know, going strictly on exp/hr that I personally have been able to acchieve, that a cleric is capable of breaking the 700k/hr mark with 2 bashers, and certainly capable of breaking it consistantly with 3 bashers. Fighters...... *grin* You said even I haven't been able to prove that a fighter can be a top tier tank, because of staying power, and lack of physical damage absorption. Wellllllll.... there's this little thing about dying with 128 million experience that kind of holds me back. You've seen me go fast, and do well over 500k exp/hr on a regular basis. But to be perfectly honest, I've NEVER gone as fast, or as hard, as I could. I just really don't want to take the risk. I've killed Razar, Chaos warrior, Illarin, etc. quite a few times tanking with Calvin, yeah... but I don't do it on a regular basis, simply because in my opinion, it's stupid to take the risk. Now I wouldn't consider a fighter a tank to begin with.... but that doesn't mean that they CAN'T tank. *grin* Think about it... The "top tier" tanks we're discussing are mainly top tier because of their extra damage dealing capacity. Now, which of those can deal out more than a fighter on a consistant basis without having to waste spellpoints to do so? If you're judging strictly on the exp/hr rate, and coinage isn't a consideration....... I'd wager that a fighter could hold his own with any of the classes listed. A fighter might burn twice the amount of heals as a cleric would.... but with Ichor and the other uber eq, he'll still pull down a net profit for the party, while dealing out -way- more damage than, say, a ranger, cleric, shiffa, rogue.... maybe even a paladin, since he'll have the ranger bashing with the bolas. Now, I don't mean to say that, overall, a fighter is a better tank than any of the other classes (well, maybe adventurer), but if you're looking at just the exp/hr factor... a 4man party with a fighter tanking, 2 fighters bashing, and a ranger with multiple bolas to keep all the npc's on the floor....... *drool* Might just be the uber-party from hell. Pallywanktank.... *grin* Now this is something that I'm really starting to like. I ran a good party with Rhynst bashing with shadow sword for about half, then kraky for the second half, and Chen bashing with a sharpened Crescent. This party was far from ideal, as we didn't really handle heals well (we had a pile of murkies and elixirs, but -NO- food at the beginning, and I ended up having to carry around whatever food I could, and for several periods, I was hungry for 3-4 kills in a row.) and Rhynst went thru the two bolas we had about 2/3 of the way through. I'm thinking that if I'd had the food situation better worked out, and we had an extra bola, and more sinew (which we ran out of, I believe) we could've easily hit the 800k/hr mark. I would've had a lot more spellpoints to throw around, and on the harder, more evil alligned kills, those smites and harms can make those kills drop in a heartbeat. Chen is really improving as a powerplaying basher, but he's not quite there yet. If that had been, say, machine, ktulu, pillar, tanus... we might've picked up 50k/hr just for the added speed factor. The boy's up-and-coming... but he's still a work in progress. Rhynst... well, we all know how slow he is. *guffaw* I think he added 50k/hr to the speed just for showing up. Name : *** SITH *** Total XP : 704013 Time : 1 Hours 1 Mins Name Lvl HP SP Line XP Share XP Leader Palpatine 19 169 62 ON 33 % 234432 Rhynst 19 170 145 ON 33 % 234432 Chen 19 152 154 ON 33 % 234432 I had a friend make me a -boatload- of medicine last night, and I had pretty good eq. (ichor, fshield, garnet ring, osword, etc.) But I was lacking bog and a gammy. The bog factor is -very- important when tanking with ichor, because it allows to tank to manage his heals -way- better than using a silk pack or geo knapsack. We also had Litherium bashing as a haste mage/heal mule. Now, don't get me wrong, Lith's pretty damn good... but he was a bit slow on picking up the heals in the beginning, and I don't think he put out as many hastes as he could've if he'd planned better and brought along more heals. After comparing the two, I'd say that a good ranger with bolas has a far greater impact on exp/hr than a haste mage.... but that's for another topic. Anyways... here's what we managed on that run. Name : *** SITH *** Total XP : 756547 Time : 1 Hours 1 Mins Name Lvl HP SP Line XP Share XP Leader Palpatine 19 133 46 ON 25 % 189706 Litherium 19 154 27 ON 25 % 189706 Ktulu 19 170 128 ON 25 % 189706 Chen 19 156 154 ON 25 % 189706 I have one minor thing to add to the whole pallywank aspect of tanking. Mental potions. Yep. Smites. Massive amounts of extra damage. I haven't used mental potions in a party yet. Gimmi a few more runs at this to work out the kinks... and then I'm gonna have the heal mule basher start buying half reds, half blues. Then.... look out! *cackle* As far as necros go... I know they're capable of -sick- amounts of damage and exp/hr. But... that's for a hoh-style run. I know they can do the fastest exp/hr lifetime efficiency rate, because they can log in and go from 0 to 350k/hr solo without a problem. But..... as far as parties go, has anyone really seen a necro tank hitting the 600-700k/hr range with 2 bashers? Without, as Rhynst laid out in the guidelines for the discussion, going out of the way to do extra damage... (aka, stockpiling reds pre-party for rots, hungas, gates, etc etc etc...) I can't really remember what Lunger managed when he had me and Machine bashing for him a few times, when we were trying to put the pedal to the metal... *ponder* Lung?? Input??
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Post by tehlung on Oct 25, 2004 17:12:02 GMT
i don't remember to be honest. though i'd definately want to try it now, as i'm doing lots more damage than i was then. i don't tihnk it was as big as your pally parties. maybe 500-600? gimme star for lich, and ichor for me, and i bet i could pop 700. having done both pally/necro tanking, i'd say pally is definately easier as there are 3 times the evil kills as there are good ones :/ the game needs 1 more highly good area near drak, and possibly another one near the ranger camp, to make necros the powerhouse tanking class, imo.
one thing rhynst didn't mention about necros that i just thought of, that could relegate them to 2nd tier, is competition. no class suffers from having another of the same class online like necros do.
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Post by Lanstro on Oct 26, 2004 0:00:13 GMT
for that lunger, we had condition 4: That you spend minimal time walking from kill to kill, and that most kills are alive
i'm hoping that once we past this initial stage of discussing the tank, we can go towards discussing the bashers, and how a complimentary basher can plug the hole a certain tanking class has, thus boosting a tank from 2nd to 1st tier - like lunger's example with cleric bashing for necro, or if a pallywank bashed for calvin's fighter.
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Post by Lanstro on Oct 26, 2004 2:26:46 GMT
and with classes that have less staying power... you have to consider that a mage, ranger or fighter tank would need purges every 20-30 minutes while a cleirc probably could go for a couple of hours without any
you can solve this by either having a cleric basher in your party setup, or getting purges every 20-30 minutes
a cleric basher begs the question for a fighter or ranger tank...why isn't the cleric tanking? those 2 classes don't use the sps you get from food and drinks, yet the cleric does
and the more likely solution, to get purges every 20-30 mins, even with an assumption of a perfect cleric at monks' meditation, those purges would still take up a minute or two every hour
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Post by sinister on Oct 26, 2004 20:12:05 GMT
While I am no longer (or ever was, sorry guys, it was a 10 year sham on my part) a competent enough player to add meaningful discussion to the finer points of general tanking. I believe I can still add a little in terms of overall partying with a necro as the tank.
First off, I'd like to state that the beauty of the necro is that no dream equipment is needed to succeed at a very high caliber. >90% of the time I use the (white iron) stick, the provision sack and the bottlebag as my primary sources of equipment. In fact in none of my necro incarnations have I yet to achieve the idealized nirvana (perfect eq) that most of you are accustomed to, primarily due to AA fatigue (still only 49 staff, 11 from tetsubo).
With that out of the way. As Lanstro has correctly demostrated, the flaw in the ability for the necro to truly shine on a consistent basis is the lack of sps to maintain his or her (yeah right) alignment.
From purely a thereotical standpoint, as only Lunger and Rey (since Rhynst has taken himself out of the running) are fully capable of turning theory into practice, this can be ameliorated by the underrated sheal ability, therefore the necro and his bashers would have to be members of the Scythe. This in turn uses the riskiest and most rewarding ability that the necro has, namely empower.
I submit that a a full complement of mentals and neurals and perfect shealing truly maximizes the party pool of hps and spellpoints. The necro is the only class that is able to convert a basher's hps into any combination of hps and sps that the tank wants based on my current limited understanding of AA.
The major side effect of the necro's need to maintain alignment is the need for a clearly defined killing route. I know none of the top players operate with one, but I find that with my advancing age, a clearly defined route, while limiting my overall creativity in tanking, subjugates (kobe style!) the alignment difficulties.
Hmm, upon rereading my post, I didn't say much. Basically use a route and sheal lots so I can empower . Calvin, you are rubbing off on me.
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Post by Pillar on Oct 26, 2004 20:22:28 GMT
in sinister's (may he live forever) post, he made the following clear:
that unused hps for a basher are wasted. now, i can only think of two ways for a basher to use these:
1. jump the tank on every kill: this saves commands that the tank would have to be typing out; for instance, when in drak and bashing for calvin (may he live to buy me drinks in mexico) in drak, i always pound my 'kill orc' alias while he is moving. he attacks, then rescues me. while i am smoking, i stay at a pretty good level of about 100-120 hps, never fully maxxing
2. sheal: now we all know that sinister (may he live forever) is a big fan of using sheal... sheal DOES use up unused hps, but also uses up sps as well.. if you are bashing with a class that is sp-dependent, is it worth it to sheal?
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Post by Harvey on Oct 28, 2004 6:06:29 GMT
Am a dunce at AA but there is another way to give wasted HP (and SP) to the tank, and that is through Sympathy Powder. It randomly appears on Flaw's buddies in Ravel, so its not worth it to grab while running an xp party, but if youre messing around with a 50-100k/person party, or do some prep it can be quite nice.
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Post by Pillar on Oct 28, 2004 15:19:50 GMT
apparently i am a dunce because i've never even heard of that.. what does it do?
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Post by CalviN on Oct 28, 2004 19:12:58 GMT
You get it when you get Flaw to open a gate to her friends at the old goblin in Ravel. A wannabe rogue npc shows up, and Flaw smacks him and tells him to be a good boy. He'll have a weap of some sort on him, and a bag of Sympathy powder, either red or blue. One does hps, the other sps. I've only had it used on me by a basher, so I don't know the exact syntax. But basically, you sprinkle it on another player, and it transfers some of your hps or sps to them. Sort of like a sheal, but it does either sps or hps. And you use a little powder each time, so you get several uses out of each bag. Another neat, somewhat usefull little toy Pris made us.
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Post by cremit on Dec 3, 2004 21:09:04 GMT
well, I wont lie, I'm not an awesome tank, or really even that good. I think on my best run it was 100k/hr for everyone, and did that for 2hrs (mostly this is cause I don't know enough of the mud to even get to drak)
now, a LOT of aa is luck. Even though you're factoring in that everyone gets the equal amount of luck, chances are there will never be a situation. Now, ultimately you'ld have to clear off the ENTIRE mud (save for bashers and eq you need) and simply run around killing. Areas respawning after you killing them (happens all the time) would also help, but we'll just say only the mud is clear and you get 0 after-death respawns. I agree with most of what you said : save for this "mages are the wild card". Well yes, BUT (let's just fiddle with some numbers here) mages w/ 100 staff, testeubo, and ALL permed buffs could (in theory) smash things craply just hasted. Throw in drowgar spells like spider legs, spider bite, and webdefenders, and you can get a LOT of extra hits/round + hasted tetsy = *gasp* LOADS OF DAMAGE! now, let me show you said setup : Human drowgar mage (best str/con and int combo for a tanking mage (atleast I feel)) has an elvie friend. Elvie friend at monks buys heals, and perms/buffs the living crap outa human drowgar mage. He gets all of the drowgar spells in school, and all the buffs, along with AoI, and for a mere investment of (about 100, maybe 150) sps at the start of the fight the battle can be over in seconds. Spider legs = 4 attacks at 10-20. Spider bite = 1 attack at 20-30. Web Defenders = 4-8 rounds of tanks. Haste for 2x damage. now, with enough int boosters (nbc, spidey(also helps drowgar casting costs), ect) you could have atleast 200ish sps. In theory (smoking, gumming, binded 24/7 (triggers for that "perfect" basher situation) you're reging like 10hp/tic, and probably getting 20-30 by the time you're at the next fight. Drinks and pots and kniggets, and you're NOT gonna run outa SPs and the fights will be over in a sinch. You may actually crank out a possible 1mill/hr run with a mage tank (played like this) of course, that's assuming with that "perfect party" 90% of the time the player makes the run good exp NOT the class (although the class helps)
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