OK I know some people, not naming anyone (Murphy and Lyco) seem to make any archetype work. However with my current skills and lack of aeon in tarot to help pull chains I seem to always be using Torture.. which both requires hinderance, can be halted by tipheret esssentially, and uses power.
This cant be all there is.. and no i dont have wrack yet... nor do I have sacrifice... taking credits from any donators though.

So my questions are...

1) Is there another way to kill someone without torture when I dont have wrack or sacrifice or soulless?
2) What are some good things to use dominate for with a symbol?
3) What are some good locking, or stalling combinations to bide time as well as hold my enemy for a bit?

Thanks in advance

You'd be surprised how effective it is to just whore web.

tried combo's with that... but some people rwithe faster than I get back equil.. so I end up getting attacked and out maneuvered

Especially with the recent changes to the affliction order of your thrall. It's been forever since I was a Nihilist, but does Baalphegar (or anyone else) give confusion as an option? That would throw them off balance longer after tipheret. Also remember you can enlarge them to increase writhing time.

Just play around with various affliction combinations. If you have harrow that can help a little bit. If you take the time to time your particular thrall (I'm assuming you're not at archdemon yet) you can throw in a few shackles every other affliction. Something like this sounds good off the top of my head. Sensitivity, shackles, dominate, shackles. During the first shackles use your symbol to dominate (although I'm not sure if it's active immediately, or if it has a delay. If it's delayed use it during the second shackles.) And then you should theoretically have two commands.

About uses for commands, the large majority of the player base seem to consider almost anything you can do lame at the moment. I'm not sure exactly where you want to draw the line, but do remember that it's a game and anything that permanently affects the character (death is really only temporary) will also affect the player, so try not to be an ass and empty vials, or throw weapons into a Nexus.

That being said, a few interesting things to consider are.
1) Handing warriors a shovel and ordering them to bury their weapons.

2) Making them sip vitae (most people think this is cheap, although I'm not sure why). It makes them lose all of their current power reserves.

3) Make them give you mending vials until they're out, then break their limbs. Although you should return the vials when the fight is over. This is also probably considered cheap, but it should help you in a pinch, and as long as they get the vials back then it doesn't really damage the player.

4) Order them to teleport to you, in the arena, or to their nexus otherwise. It takes up a decent amount of equilibrium. Similar to dig with balance.

I'm just making stuff up, but I hope that helps at least somewhat.

Well, since you don't have any of the instant kills, your only option for a kill would be damage. This means you should try to stick both Omen and Sensitivity long enough to cosmicfire/symbol to death (depending on race) or torture. Your entire strategy should revolve around sensitivity/recklessness and any other afflictions that help those stick.

Makes sense.. torture is how I win right now.. and I have scourge and an archdemon if that helps.. not at omen but I can sensitivity.

You can kill with afflictions and damage, just be fast and keep your healing up. Tail is supposedly very helpful. Sorry Im not that much more help, I havent seen Vicktor around in ages so I cant remember stuff.

shackles+hangedman/web stack. So if you keep it up while your demon still delivers other afflictions and your tail is up, you can keep them on the defensive because they have to writhe or tipheret all the time. As for afflictions, you can try and go for a scabies/epilepsy/ectoplasm lock. If you have these.

Best way to decide is to simply try many tactics and see what you like best and which works out for you.

have yet to get a for sure.. what does ectoplasm do exactly? (dont have it though)

Slows balance recovery time.

Can you really get two commands? I'd have thought that since there's no way to differentiate the two, you'd just use both at once.

If people have selfishness up, you can't make them drop vials or give them away. You CAN, however, make them put vials in their backpack. Remember though that many of the suggestions you were given require your target to have balance/eq.

When I had a pooka, which is passive dominate every 12 seconds, I liked to order druids/magi to UNENEMY SHORLEN. Another simple suggestion if you are dominating passively is to order them to sit, since you can sit off balance, but you can't stand off balance. While they are sitting, you can torture them since it just requires a prone target, right?

If you are going for a mana kill, ordering them to focus spirit (if they have it) works wonders, or ordering them to focus body otherwise, for passive mana drain (if the dominating is passive). But I guess you can't wrack yet...

Torture requires bound rather than prone, it's identical to the requirements for wrack.

As for s trategy, if you're going to damage kill people, a good idea is if their curing isn't that good (and the people you'll be fighting can't be that good if you're fighting in your own bracket) then you'll want to aeonlock them.

Here's how to do it, scrouge demon, invest with impatience anorexia shackles sensitvitiy. Since you have luciphage's symbol, hit them with powersink first (phlegmatic cure) Then you time your second aeon (the first one strips quicksilver) with the first demon hit of impatience anorexia, then hangedman and time your torture right after the demon hits, then if they have cured your aeon and writhed, hit them again with the aeon in impatience anorexia (when it comes around on the next lot of afflictions) and rinse/repeat, they might get a sip in here and there but they won't have time to clot the massive bleeding that a demon lets rip with on torture.

If they don't cure the first round of aeon (which most lowbies/midbies wont, hell a lot of the better fighters get stuck on that) then hit em again with torutre (as they will still be bound) after that reaeon them (it wears off after 12 seconds or so) as the impatience anorexia will have already hit. They should be pretty close to death by now so try making em sleep in the aeon to make things harder, the bleed will wake em up but by that time they should be dead.

Good combinations for slowing people are invest stupidity shackles anorexia impatience, then hanged man to stack with the first demon, and aeon for the second one, that slows people down a good amount.

Also, use the paralysis on your symbol to slow people, it's works qute well because they won't cure the paralysis until they try to do a move, also against people with bugger all discipline you can almost keep them paralysed locked as your focus body speed is based on discipline levels.

In short you really need aeon, if you can't aeon there isn't much you're gonna do except hangedman and have your demon on straight senstivity shackles, and then torture when the demon hits (torture eq is about 6-7 seconds, so you won't have much time to wait between the 8 second demon timers)

Im sorry if this may appear off topic, but when roughly do you get a Symbol? Ive never really understood and theyre part of combat it seems.

Around Mythical or so, and you have to bring in 100 supplicants/spides to your chosen Supernal/Demon Lord.

I think it would be cool if we got Avatar symbols. Have them not do damage, maybe just one affliction. It would be neat, and healers would at least something to do besides lash all the time.

Itd be cool looking thats for sure, but probably wont happen because of Moonburt/Darkkiss. (wait..is that right?) Either way you should be able to do some damage if you work with things a bunch and learn how to use what you have.

Oh, I'm not complaining (although I do think Wicca is a tad on the weak side, at least for Moondancers), I just think Symbols are freaking awesome and am jealous. It's very nice to see a firm link between someone and their chosen Supernal/Demon Lord.

I know how you feel, its majorly cool and envy worthy.

You're thinking of Drawdown/Nightkiss, which give you the attacks Moonburst and Nightkiss.

I knew I had gotten it wrong, thanks for correcting me.