Yes Neos, that is blatant plagiarism in my thread title and description

Alright. I'm a loboshigaru Serenguard.


My stats:

Strength : 14 (usually 15 after I spiritbond bear) Dexterity : 15 Constitution : 16 (usually 17 after I using weathering)
Intelligence : 10 Size : 13 Charisma : 12


At the moment I don't really have much of a clue as to how to approach combat. Everyone tells me "PIN LEG, PIN LEG" but, I often find it hard to pull it off and lunges eat up power like crazy. I tend to go for the pin leg only because I hear people can't parry while in it, and they also can't run away, so it gives me a chance to hack down with the other sword in the mean while. But, people tend to writhe out before I regain balance and cure up, and then I'm back to building back up wounds on their legs.


My general course of action is to start off with double-morphite and go for the arms, hoping to hit with a hemiplegia. No one ever falls asleep for any amount of time with that, but whatever, the hindering seems to be good. Then, when I feel their stance has moved, I tend to go for the legs, with the same double morphite, rend with morphite and try beheading. But gosh, beheading seems to take an infinite number of hits to pull off! I remember a time where I used make-hay on someone who wasn't parrying at all, and I just kept hacking down over and over and the bastard just wouldn't get beheaded.

Now, I know that I'm obviously going about combat the wrong way, and this is why I'm asking for help. I really want to know how I can start doing better on mid-high ranking people. Yes, I know I probably can't kill demigods yet because of my low level and lack of skills and artifacts, but I just know I could be doing better than I am now.


SECOND QUESTION:

My AB:




What should I focus on next? Credits come extremely slowly for me, and I want to start by having all the little entry requirements for getting into serious combat. I figured my next target since I trans'ed blademaster is to trans discipline? I don't really know how much faster the power renewal will be from Expert to Transcendent, but I suppose every little bit counts, and I eat up power like crazy with lunges since no one ever seems to stop stancing their legs for a second even when I mix up my body parts. >.>
What about after that? What priority order should I put it in?


I'm really looking for all the tips you could give a serenguard on combat. I'm tired of being the useless one who can be taken care of at leisure.


Some notes on what I'm already doing:

- I am using maneuvers to maximize stunning on the hack down
- I do use dulak and senso when going for the behead
- I tend to use mantakaya and dulak whenever I'm not aiming at the arms or legs (in which cases I tend to morphite)

It's all good.

Probably trans out Combat? I'm no warrior, so I'm just going off my observations of others - your effectiveness seems to be kind of low for some reason. Last time I glanced at a log there were those 'stubmling' and etc. messages.

I think you should try building wounds all around, and when you got a decent amount all over the body, then start going for pinlegs / heavy damage and such. Keep in mind that if you hit once on both arms, that'll take 2 applications to cure, whereas if you hit once on one arm, it could just take 1 application to cure. So spread the wounds out to make their applications less effective in general.

That's what I'd try in your situation, anyway. Besides using every wargames you see to experiment and get better.

Athletics!

I'd go for this, up to Flex, first. Then worry about Combat as Vadi suggests. But I'm not a warrior myself, so I'm not 100% on how it all works.

To elaborate a bit - Flex (Strength) in Athletics is a good goal indeed. If you can make it up to Surge, you'll also notice unicorns randomly following you home.

As far as common skills go, I'd aim for Focus mind in Discipline. Geburah and Gedulah in High Magic are also nice but if you're strapped for credits, try to go for Athletics and Discipline first. Then there's Resilience which is always a good idea....

You don't need to make any maneuvers but a pinleg one.

Dulak/mantakaya is always fun to spam, double morphite only starts working once you build up wounds a bit.

As Vadi said, hitting different bodyparts maximizes the chance of you building wounds, so consider that. Though at some point, if you have high enough prec/speed/str/dex, you can still get away with hitting the same bodypart twice in a row.

Athletics is up to flex is great, but personally, I like working on trans guild skills before moving onto combat/resilience/etc. Though focus mind and stuff do rock.

Ooooooooh! Thanks for the replies everybody!




Oh, combat helps my miss rates too? I'm going to admit that I'm very confused as to how my investments into knighthood and combat improve my effectiveness. So far, I've heard that trans-ing a knighthood skill improves miss rates and that transing combat increases the chance of you avoiding a hit with a stance. Some people have told me that those are the only changes. However, others have told me that both of them increase your miss-rates, damage, parrying chances etc...etc...etc

Me confused So what does combat improve on its own then?

Also, in regards to building wounds all around, I'll try doing that. I've made the attempt to hit random body parts to try to get people to change their parry and stancing. I see you're saying hit once in one part and once in another? So when going for pin leg, have an alias that strikes at the leg and at the arm in one go? Something like that?



Yeppers. I know I've been neglecting it, and now you guys are making me think of switching focus.


Ah, ok. I've been looking into getting flex as a solution to my pathetic wounding... Just as an additional question, how dramatic of an improvement to wounding will I actually see with flex?


Unicorrrnnnnsss

Yush. That's actually where I was going for first. I've been finding myself needing focus mind far too often . Maybe I won't trans the skill just yet and just get up to that for now until I can switch back focus to it.

As for surge, how much of an improvement to health does it give? Everyone talks about it like it's rapture. I'm concerned about the line in the AB that says "at the cost of your mana". Does this mean a general decrease in your maximum mana? Is this decrease dramatic? Or, does it mean that you'll be experiencing mana drain over time?


Oh, I love the dulak/mantakaya. I was wondering though, what sort of other poisons do people make use of? As it is now, I just use the dulak/mantakaya when hacking down and hitting random body parts like the gut and chest. When I aim for the arms, I aim for each one and try to hit with sleep. With the legs, I do the same, but have been hitting one leg with both swords. I've heard of people using calcise and dendoxtrin though I never know when to work it in...Any advice there?

Also, to restate my earlier question, you mean hitting different body parts at the same time right? Like strike leg;strike chest?

I think surge subtracts either 1/2 or 1/3rd of your max mana and adds it to your max health for as long as you have it up.

It's pretty amazing, but you've got to be careful about using it against classes with mana instakills.

Last I checked, people can in fact parry while pinned.

They cannot, however, parry while proned (by anything that prones, which pin does not). So mantakaya can help with that, or morphite. I personally like tendon for more long-term proning, as well.

Haymaker also cannot behead. Period.

Oh dear. For some strange reason I was under the impression that pinleg proned you, but just checked a log.
Oh well...thanks for the heads up.

Pinleg never really proned the target as I can recall.

For a very long time it proned the attacker (the person doing the pin) which was absolutely bizarre. Envoyed it to prone nobody (as it wouldn't really be a good thing if it proned the target; it's already strong enough).

I'd say, get Conglute in Planar first before anything else, since it'll make dying in defense/raiding a lot less painful, which makes learning more fun, IMO.

It's only...expert..I think? So it's a good idea. I know I told Ircria that she should get conglut as well, since it's pretty much essential to keep your sanity when defending (and dying.)

Yup, expert (423 lessons). It's what lets you go back up again and again and die to the griefers again and again, which teaches you the first law of Lusternian combat: If you can't seem to kill it, get away from it. Works magically against every class.

That said, Serenguard that I've fought that take Moon tend to really only use succumb, waning sometimes, and full-- where it's good is in the DMP, especially against magic damage. You'll have to rely on blademaster (which does just fine on its own) for most of your hindering offense.

Also, in the Rangers or Lodge clan (I forget which one is used nowadays), there's a CLHELP BLADEMASTER file that goes in detail through the various strategies that have been employed with success, which might be another good place to start since it covers 'standard' maneuvers (and the poisons that go with them)-- Pinleg with quadruple morphite, double hemi with mantakaya and/or dulak, etc.

Rangers clan. The Lodge only still exists because we don't know what to do with the clan now that we don't use it anymore.

Besides the abilities given, more combat means better stancing (stances are more effective), and it gives you an additional three maneuvers. Pretty sure that it does nothing for accuracy. What I've heard is that Trans Weapon gives a base 95% chance to hit, before factoring in stances and parry, and that oil of sharpness increases that chance to 98%.

Also, I'd suggest against using morphite on your first strikes. Even if both venoms trigger, they'll be able to wake up immediately (unless you have a sleepcloud beast for that third level of sleep). Worse, you can clue them in on using metawake.

Thanks for all the advice everyone I'm experimenting. Failing, but experimenting.

I noticed that my rebalance time is about 4 seconds, and someone told me to add more speed to my rapiers in order to get at least a 3 second balance time instead

While I'm thinking of going that route, I just want some second (and third and possibly fourth) opinions!

Currently my rapiers are at:


Damage: 33 Precision: 235 Speed: 211

Should I take out about 19 precision and add it to speed instead? Is the reduction in precision worth it or should I stick with my stats?

Your rapiers should be at least 250 speed, maybe more.

Alright. Changed it over to this:

Damage: 33 Precision: 196 Speed: 250

Which is looking like a 3.326 second balance time :3. Significant increase. Wonder if that's enough?