lemme set up a proper log...



so, how can you fight someone who uses healing auras that puts you to sleep and prevents you from curing?

throw in choke and fae and see how long you'd last...

Ariatas did a good job. Rough situation.

1. You never got insomnia back up because you were off-balance. You have to have failsafes for things like this, missing insomnia is suicide against a wiccan.
2. Did you have any kafe? Doesn't look like you had eaten any at the beginning of this log.
3. You might use metawake when you see the healing aura. It will drain your mana more quickly for them, so be careful if you get succumb. It's a tradeoff.
4. Do not try to eat an herb if you are off herb-balance. You tried to eat myrtle before you were ready, which made herb balance loss longer.
5. Cure whenever homeostasis goes down. You missed your short window where you could have cured.
6. Allheale, focus, any other mass-curing abilities you have help a lot in situations like these.
7. Why did you keep trying to cure when you recovered equilibrium? Whatever queue is used for that was not functioning well.

I'm sure there are a few other things, but I didn't have time to read the whole log.

As far as I am concerned, Ariatas has a good combo going with the pixie and healing aura, almost forcing metawake, which is perfect for the SD.
As noted add to this choke, passive insomnia strip x2, basically you are F***. Handling this outside of choke is bad enough, and hard to keep and offense against, Choke just makes this well...

Choke makes decent fighters OP single-handed, where as without it, they would be in trouble, warriors..good luck getting through this, unless got major arties and can obliterate in the first 3 combo's. Forget it.

Someday maybe warriors might be able to do something, but doubt it, I'll add my voice to those and say, choke needs to go.

If you get a good offense going, it's not too bad. Pixie + healing aura are bad because they're both passive, but if you keep your offense going you can keep the SD from capitalizing on it.

For the record, credit for this strategy should probably go to Shamarah, as the first person I saw employ something similar.

"If you get a good offense going"

IF being operative, my guess as soon as this occurs, either drops choke/bedevil/trueheal, take your pick.
in any case, investment and effort in this strategy is far less costly nor though inducing than anything a warrior would need to use/spend

pshh Amarok, just drop 50 escozul darts and LOL at any wiccan/guardian or power heavy class. Or if it's choke, go charybdon and manta's and dulaks, and calcise or the other limb break one saxitin maybe? You could even just go morphite the entire time.

If it's in Choke, just use Hadrudin. None of the current SD fighters have bothered to transcend Influence (300 credits, pft).

Generally, don't fight a Healer in Choke - either Tumble out, or never go in (or try charging/tackle). And there is absolutely no reason to -not- use Metawake against a Wiccan. The mana drain is totally worth it, 100%.

I fought Marina and Ariatas tons of times, Ariatas sorta has you screwed from the get go if you let those fae and all her healing auras and crap beat on you repeatedly, however, if you use hadrudin, that really pisses them off cause a few hits and they get disloyalty and cause of choke have longer time healing it, getting hit by all however many of their fae at once while I slowly bash their chests or heads in.

Seems to work, Also, have earwort up cause until they do the throwing shadows in your face deal, the barghest won't paralyse you and that's one less affliction you need to worry about.

Just from my experience. In the last wargames Ariatas teamed with Thoros and a bunch of others, I hadrudin'd and beat her down with a few swings, her fae basically killed her. It was great.

It was touched on in previous posts but agianst Ariatas you have two choices...

Metawake on: die to toadcurse
Metawake off: die to sleep lock

I gave up fighting Ariatas long ago. She can passively cure any kind of aeon lock and if she gets in trouble, she chokes. Hell, she chokes no matter what happens. People like her merely prove how STUPID choke is. Sadly enough Shadowdancer healers are utterly immune to choke as they cure and afflict passively. The combination is stupid and lacks any real skill. Not bitter towards Ariatas...just choke.

funny that you still moaning about choke..when maybeyou shuold just learn how to deal with it?

maybe you should just learn how to type.

Choke is fine. Shadowdancers are fine. Giving choke to shadowdancers? Not fine. Face facts.

I don't like choke much either, but at least I'm a blademaster. The best solution to this is really just not to fight in choke. Moment choke is dropped, if you don't want to fight in it, do anything you can to get out of it.

Choke's not so bad 1v1, and I'm saying this as a warrior. :S Maybe I'm just used to it, but after fighting in it so much, I'd like to think I'm better at handling it compared to back then.

Basically, it just boils down to learning how to manual, plus preoutring choice herbs (kombu - epilepsy, earwort - barghest, myrtle - blind from scourge, reishi - peace/succumb, marjoram - rigormortis) before fighting them.

If you're a warrior, pre envenom with mantakaya/hadrudin and/or dulak/hadrudin and start spamming lunges/crushes for pinleg/knockdown, with some luck,you'll get the jump on them and get their ents on them before it gets you. Leaning on an insomnia macro helps some as well. Most SD's do web/sleep/pixie in one form or another, so learning to writhe helps too.

With all that said, choke is dumb in groups. /obvious

Yeah, out of choke it's not a big deal fighting them, they are pretty squishy, in choke they become a pain in the ass, plus Ariatas tends to pooka force you to eat faeleaf, giving you sixth sense, then does the strip of it which causes blindness and allows you to be hit by the Barghest, paralysing you, then she has you paralysed and forced to focus body, while the fae are hitting you with everything else and the healing aura is making you sleep, as well as pixie making you sleep.

As I said and Sojiro said, Hadrudin works wonders on them. Cause in choke they can't heal it fast enough half the time and their fae turn on them, hitting them with 5-8 attacks they can't heal either, since they are choked too. Then you can basically beat them down repeatedly and even if they manage to get the hadrudin healed, they will get it within a few more swings, then the shadowdancer either runs or dies.

Works for all people with follows except guardians, even out of choke, the split second that all their fae attack them, really sucks for them.

Protip: METAWAKE ON as soon as choke is dropped.

Protip: Can't metawake on while offbalance from brownie/fighting/writhing.

protip: Don't fight in choke.

I fought Ariatas in the arena a few times, and didn't try to fight in choke, I tumbled or walked away everytime shadows were dropped and she just came in, and dropped more shadows. I swear there was at least 10 rooms with shadows and choke going in them at once before I finally got sick of running and died.

There should be a limit on how many rooms those bastards can choke at once, so that they can't just spam choke.

It would be SOOOO nice if you could just activate metawake AFTER you've fallen asleep like you used to be able to years ago, cause then soon as it gave the, "You're asleep and can't do that, BAM, METAWAKE ON and you pop up. But now they make you do it as a precautionary measure and the wiccan just goes all cheap and toadcurses...