I can't seem to do it. Everyone I fight is too hindered by my demesne to do any real damage to me as long as I keep on my toes, but it's not nearly enough for me to do anything significant to them either - almost every time, we end up in a draw. I have trans druidry and crow, but only master runes. My usual strategy is to activate CarrionStench, web them a bit and keep 'em dissolved as my demesne hits, and go for a sap after trying to throw some more afflictions on with Crow Disease. They proceed to cleanse as if nothing had happened and I go back to screwing around with vines and cudgel until I can try sap again. Sometimes I throw Scarab in, but that doesn't do much of anything for its 5p cost. Thornlash has proven to be useless against all but those with no trigger to writhe from it.

SOooo the question is, where can I squeeze a greater variety of afflictions in? I pretty much ignore runes 1v1, as I'd have to give up my shield and can't even embed, but I need a way to stick sap if I'm going to kill anybody.

Scroll of curses

Not a bad idea. What afflictions does a scroll of curses give, and are they masked?

Its random afflictions (kind of like barbedtail or Charybdon) And it shows you reading the scroll.

Curse scroll is too random for a sap lock.

Learn more of your tertiary. It's not terribly viable to stick sap with just druidry and crow.

Yeah, get more tertiary. All of them have potential, I've found Dreamweaving to be the most powerful.

I'd say runes is best for crow.

Nuh and here I thought being dual-trans would be enough to kill. You can either give them all your money or none of it, no point in going for a middle ground. Time to start grinding gold for Runes - besides fuse, what is worthwhile in it? MalignProphesy?

Wrong. Curse scroll has very few afflictions and 3 of them are very good for a sap lock and usually hit within the first couple of reads.

I would assume being able to sling two runes to give afflictions would help make sap stick a bit longer.

Me too, but I've heard from a few people that the fact that both slings are unmasked makes it of limited use. Still, with faeling balance, might be able to overwhelm them, or at least sap the hell out of their mana with haegl. Won't be that far along for awhiiile.

Doublesling



Fine. What I meant to say was it's unreliable, slow, and though curse scroll spam was viable maybe a year or so, improving systems me random affliction spam won't cut it. Maybe it will snag azoth the rare victory against a sup par system. I recommend more runes, as they are reliable and you get what you sling.

Sorry I was wrong. It has 5 that are good. 6 if you count Amnesia. Out of 8.

You don't use it to get your sap lock. you use it to keep your sap lock once you have the basic setup controlled.

3 are great for forced loss of balance in the sap lock, keeping them from curing.

The others are just good because of the ability to prolong the sap lock.

Amnesia, Scabies, Stupidity, Repugnance, Paralysis, Shivering, Vertigo, Epilepsy.

I will let you decide which 5 (or 6) are good.


Edit:: and I have locked down above par systems with it. If you know when to use it, Curse Scroll can make the difference entirely.

Edit2:: Yes, slinging runes is going to help more because you know what you are hitting with (the other person knows too), but you should not discount masked afflictions when the majority of them are beneficial to your sap lock and the other person -doesn't- know what they were hit with till they diagnose or wait for secondaries. If they wait for secondaries there is a good chance that waiting just cost them balance loss in your sap lock.

Thanks for the info. I got a scroll to mess around with, at least until I have more viable runes.

As a former BT Security, I'll throw in my two cents.

Learn more runes. Now, as a bit of help in your current situation, as soon as you recover eq from sapping, start throwing runes. The main ones at your level that you'll want to throw are cen, gyfu and ger, isa (if you're going for isa, try and get two in) and eoh. And if you're feeling paranoid, throw in a vines.

Now, here will be your main kill tactic: swoop. Since you're Master, I'm thinking you have the haegl rune. While they're saplocked, keep throwing haegl. Once you think you've hit a good point, either shove them, or have treebane knock them to the ground. Then use swoop. Take note that you'll have to be perched to use swoop, so try and keep your opponents in the trees and perch as soon as possible.

Good luck to you.

Edit: I forgot to mention, when you're sapping, try and sap right before the demesne effects go off, otherwise it's easy to cure out of.

Okay. Scabies, Epilepsy, stupidity, and shivering are good. Amnesia isn't going to do much, and paralysis is redundant, so it may or may not be useful. So 50%+ chance for an affliction to perpetuate a sap lock. Methods of perpetuating a sap lock can be debated on another thread.

The question was, however, "how do I get a sap lock." Not, "how do I perpetuate one." A curse scroll is simply not a reliable way to set someone up for a sap lock. I'll concede that it's better than what he has (nothing).

I always found Crow Spit to be faster and more "sap locking" than curse scroll. I also found Dreamweaving to be better for Blacktalon than Runes, but I think Runes may be better for Hartstone (maybe not, not entirely sure) because you have active confusion + stagstomp.

Confusion can be given by curse scroll too, right? I always liked it as a Blacktalon because blacklung is simply god awful with confusion (as is Dysentery from spit).

The question was:



I answered said question.

If it does it is really low chance of it, I drained a full scroll getting the afflictions without confusion being one of them. Not saying it's not on the list, just that if it is, it is really hard to get it.

Curse scroll probably works better for Hartstone anyways. With stagstomp I find it is easier to get the initial hindering on the sap lock down so you can build up the scroll reads (which are not slow at all to me with level 2 eq)