Ments-Cob-suck

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buho
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Post by buho »

No real need to pump up classes.

Downing the psi resistance of some Cob crits will do the trick (Ztinktoof was the first one Ive seen saying this). The 'nerfing' can be made in Timmy Caves/Secret, SW Caves, NW Caves, Forest, may be Haunted. No need to change special monsters (scalers, draggies, named giants, griffys, lairs, etc). Point is skilling, not killing power in lairs.


Some numbers:

Cob Timmy Caves and Secret:
- Healer skill 18: most things 10+ assaults; MAs: easy (3 assaults + one stun); staff wielders: one-shot; mace wielders: very difficult (2x30+ shots).
- Hally pally skill 14: most things 3..5 shots; mace wielders and shielded crits: less than 10 shots; staff wielders: one shot; MAs: very difficult in Timmy Caves (4..8 rounds to hit them with poisoned hally and let them die poisoned).

Nork m-3:
- Healer skill 18: most things one shot; golems 2 shots (one psi-crush + one assault).
- Barb skill 15: most of things: one shot; golems 1..3 shots.

Nork DT:
- Healer skill 18: anything 3..6 shots (only assault, may be 2..4 shots mixing with PC).
- Barb skill 15: anything 2..4 shots.

Nork Fate Pools:
Kinda same numbers if memory serve.

(Barb NOT zerked most of the time).


Its clair for me:

a) A 14 skill healer kill way slower in Timmy than a 14 skill hally pally. Not a little slower or slower but too much slower, may be 10 times slower.

b) In Nork, the same healer kill near the rate of a skill 15 barb (not zerked)

Is Nork disbalanced? Is Cob disbalanced? Both cant be balanced.

buho.
Last edited by buho on Wed Oct 16, 2002 2:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Morgar »

Originally posted by lalasushi


morgar, think about it for a molment, u want to be equal to a stick with all the benefits of ments, how is that fair, MT, deplete, haste, psi mirror.... these goodies make up for ur damage. feel lucky u even have attack spells! sticks attack! psi support! :)
Lalasushi, you're misreading what I said. I'll agree that ments shouldn't be as powerful in sticks. But we're not limited to a strict support role either. I've had plenty of sticks tell me that they don't want me to cast prots on them. Fine, if they want to live with the level 10 psimirror that their reggie offers instead of my level 19 psimirror, saves me the ep. In my opinion the disparity between sticks and psi casters is too great and needs to be closed up some. Certainly not equals, but we should be better at defending ourselves. Or the skill gain on casting prots needs to be increased by several orders of magnitude.

Every class in this game needs to be capable of killing crits. Far more skill is awarded for killing a crit than there is for casting protects. I muddle along seeing the sticks kill 8 crits for every one that I manage to kill. If its Brad's intent that the psi users are to be leeches and get the bulk of their skill from what their sticks kill, so be it. I got to skill 19 on the backs of friends. I am a leech in terms of skill, and from skill 16 until skill 18 I was unable to be any serious contribution to any cob party I was in.

But before any other sticks poke their noses in this spouting the usual garbage about MT, Elance etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Lets remember that this post was started by a ment, 18/15 that had newly arrived in cob and found himself totally ineffectual. He's 9 skill levels from elance, 6 from MT. And he's feeling like the last few months of working on his ment have been a complete waste of time. Too big to skill well in Nork, too small and powerless to be of any good in cob. Its going to be a long time before he sees any noticeable improvement. A LONG TIME. I'm four skill levels above him and can barely survive in places where sticks 3 skill levels below me can solo. I'll live with that, but I also understand his frustration. Something which so many none psi casters seem unable to do.

A newbie PSI caster, be it healer or ment, is in for a great deal of difficulty in cob if they do not have a group of friends capable and willing to allow him/her to tag along and suck down some skill.

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Post by Rhonen »

Elessar wrote:
If a ment could haste up, tp to zoo, EC zoo down to one shot, knock them off one by one with a pumped up espear for full skill, then every other class would be complaining just like ments are now.
I could be wrong in this but I was always under the impression that Ments only gain full skill from using energy missile and not energy spear when they kill. If they soften up a mob they still need to finish him up with energy missile or the skill gain is much lower. Given that the power of energy missile is MUCH less than energy spear then to gain the same about of normal skill the Ment can not solely rely on energy spear if they want to gain maximum skill gain from hunting.

If I'm wrong concerning this please let me know for I was under this impression for a very long time.

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Post by Valarc »

I'd love to see a new scenario (not a lair, or a dungeon... an entire high level scenario like cob) added where almost every single crit has innate high level energyshield. Something that really makes sticks ineffective, cuts their damage a whole bunch so they take like ten more swings to do anything than a ment. That'd be sweet.
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Post by Watcher »

Originally posted by Valarc


I'd love to see a new scenario (not a lair, or a dungeon... an entire high level scenario like cob) added where almost every single crit has innate high level energyshield. Something that really makes sticks ineffective, cuts their damage a whole bunch so they take like ten more swings to do anything than a ment. That'd be sweet.
I think they call that UC 4 and 5 <g>.

It's quite difficult in UC 4 and 5 to get vampiric heals from critters on a barbarian because they have super energeyshield. On UC 5 it's worse and the critters hit much harder, so autobalming is a contant issue.

KM5 is loaded with minotaurs that have energyshield. Other critters as well.

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Post by Watcher »

Originally posted by buho


No real need to pump up classes.

Downing the psi resistance of some Cob crits will do the trick (Ztinktoof was the first one Ive seen saying this). The 'nerfing' can be made in Timmy Caves/Secret, SW Caves, NW Caves, Forest, may be Haunted. No need to change special monsters (scalers, draggies, named giants, griffys, lairs, etc). Point is skilling, not killing power in lairs.


Some numbers:

Cob Timmy Caves and Secret:
- Healer skill 18: most things 10+ assaults; MAs: easy (3 assaults + one stun); staff wielders: one-shot; mace wielders: very difficult (2x30+ shots).
- Hally pally skill 14: most things 3..5 shots; mace wielders and shielded crits: less than 10 shots; staff wielders: one shot; MAs: very difficult in Timmy Caves (4..8 rounds to hit them with poisoned hally and let them die poisoned).

Nork m-3:
- Healer skill 18: most things one shot; golems 2 shots (one psi-crush + one assault).
- Barb skill 15: most of things: one shot; golems 1..3 shots.

Nork DT:
- Healer skill 18: anything 3..6 shots (only assault, may be 2..4 shots mixing with PC).
- Barb skill 15: anything 2..4 shots.

Nork Fate Pools:
Kinda same numbers if memory serve.

(Barb NOT zerked most of the time).


Its clair for me:

a) A 14 skill healer kill way slower in Timmy than a 14 skill hally pally. Not a little slower or slower but too much slower, may be 10 times slower.

b) In Nork, the same healer kill near the rate of a skill 15 barb (not zerked)

Is Nork disbalanced? Is Cob disbalanced? Both cant be balanced.

buho.
Have any available free slots left? Sounds like you need to roll a barbarian, MA or Paladin. :>

My old fighter/ment could hit pretty hard with a curvy LS.

If you are going to compare classes, then you need to do it in a perspective that shows how the high end of the classes level out eventually.

Ever seen a PWD healer on KM4 (one of substantial skill.)

Ever seen a Mentalist use firebreath with 2 fire boosts? An awesome sight, believe me.

The point that needs to be made that lower level psi skills will not be effective in bigger dungeons until they get bigger in skill. They certainly are useful though.

As I remember when Cobrahn first opened, skill 18 used to be the bare bones minimum in Cobrahn for PSI types to start to be effective. It doesn't serve a purpose to bring a PSI skill less than 16 over to Cobrahn and try to solo skill, it won't work. It's always been that way. Coining is another issue. Coin is good in Cobrahn, there are ways to get coin without being a powerful force. :>

Party in Nork is a very, very effective way to gain rapid skill.

Heck, I took my 15 skill F/M to the keep and gained 20 % in a couple of hours in a party. Didn't do a lot of damage, but didn't expect to either. Now, that's some skill gain there! :>

I think the perspective has somehow disappeared on what actually an Advanced Segment is.

In case you didn't know, Cobrahn is an Advanced Segment. Critters are tougher, they hit harder, they are harder to kill. I think that was the point of the segment. :>

The rewards are greater as well. No need for me to go into that here.

I play 4 different classes on one account and have the rest of the classes on another account. Sure, I'm not going to have a statue right away for experience 50, but I enjoy playing all the classes and like to plink around with my smaller slots.

I know what their limitations are, it hasn't changed all that much through the years. I know my skill 14 healer sucks really bad in Cobrahn. I keep it in Nork 99 percent of the time unless it needs to chit. :>

Skill 14 for a healer, barely gets by in some of the Nork dungeons. I don't expect it to do much of anything in Cobrahn.

I hear you on comparisons, but don't think anything should be changed. Each can decide their own diversity with their slots. Players in the past have long known the limitations of psi skill in certain areas.

This is nothing new and nothing that needs to be changed.

Get bigger, it's a long process, but I do believe you will be happy with the results. :>

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Post by Ztinktoof »

Buo is right on in his assessment, IMO. The problem is not weak spells, but the psi-resistance of criiters in the Cob 'starter' areas.

As a 19/15 mentalist in Nork, I do NOT need to have the power of my spells boosted. Area spells plus existing directed spells make me a force in Nork I can even solo several lairs!

Even as a small mentalist, I always felt powerful as a general dungeon hunter in Nork. I can still skill effectively there! I cannot think of a single complaint I ever had about the class from the day I rolled it to my current size while in Nork.

The kill based system falls apart for mid-sized mentalists in Cob because of the psi-absorption of the Timmy and surface area critters. I think Buo once charmed some timmy critters and had them remove their gear. He was then able to do significant damage with his spells.

I think Timmy and surface critters need to be regeared so many continue to absorb area damage, but not directed spell damage, i.e., enmiss, espear, assault and psicrush. Then mid-sized ments and healers would be able to do better skilling solo and contribute to the kill rate while in parties.
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Post by Morgar »

Originally posted by Rhonen

I could be wrong in this but I was always under the impression that Ments only gain full skill from using energy missile and not energy spear when they kill. If they soften up a mob they still need to finish him up with energy missile or the skill gain is much lower. Given that the power of energy missile is MUCH less than energy spear then to gain the same about of normal skill the Ment can not solely rely on energy spear if they want to gain maximum skill gain from hunting.

If I'm wrong concerning this please let me know for I was under this impression for a very long time.
I was under the impression that the single crit spells, enmiss, espear, elance would provide the same levels of skill. If enmiss is indeed, our only real skilling spell, I might as well head back to nork where I know I can one shot crits with it. If I can kill a cthon in 8-10 espears, how many hundreds of enmisses would I need? (shuddering at the thought).

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Post by Elessar »

Energyspear gives full skill gain.

I think the new party system, some of the new gear, and some of the new areas have made it fairly easy to grow crits. Solo players are being penalized in general, but that applys to all classes, not just ments. By skill 19 or 20, ments can gain skill just as quickly solo as sticks can.

And if someone wants to write me off as just some stick poking my nose into this, I have many crits. Besides the more well known ma and f/m, I have grown a ment from scratch to 22/22 in the current game, as well as a stick from scratch to level 30.

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Post by lalasushi »

Rone, u have said some of the dumbest things i have ever heard, u take one thing i have said and put words in my mouth, try to understand my meaning before you make stupid comments, theres a difference between class equality and balance

Edited by Mars to remove unnecessary verbal assault

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Post by Mihey »

Please refrain from name calling.
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dman
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Post by dman »

Someone help me here, because I think I am missing something. As I understand from most of the post, the sticks say, I will be able to kill, and even solo some Cob lairs when I am big enough. My question is, if I must kill to skill, yet i don't have weapons strong enough to allow me to kill, how do I get big enough?

Ments don't want to be sticks, don't want our disc to hit as hard as sticks either, just want to be more effective that's all. Area disc work fine, and you don't want to use them in a party, also a ment's primary weapon is emiss and it is useless in Cob. It seems that ments are a solo hunting class in a party system game.
Last edited by dman on Wed Oct 16, 2002 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Demonaic »

Everyone else seems to get their 2 cents in.
Haha Lala got his post edited by a sysop.

Seriously though; Ments do fine in cob after skill 14. Espear does moderate damage, and gives good skill. With the new lairs such as guntver, they can even get an easy to get "cob-only all-psi Chipper" and 2 +9 ep regen robes that stack! They can also alternate between coining methods solo and party hunting for skill. Ments have it easy with low aging area spells from skill 6 on. Healers realy get hosed on the AE discs <all of them are 1-hex dmg untill PWD> :p . I love my healer, wouldn't go any other way for long run. Great for parties too <stun, widdle whole zoo, and poke em all ta death>. Ments do have a problem with their AE spells though; for group hunting, they don't have anything that won't IRK the PWD'ing healer or the Zerking barb. I spose it goes with the territory. Keep up on skill training/chits and ments should do fine with Espear and Guntver gear.

PS.... I've noticed great advancements in every class but MA's and Thieves, any plans on new abilities or gear?
Aye, Improved LS and +5 rada's are nice. but what about new kinds of gear intended specificly for them.
IE 0/10 rings are ment for PSI classes
GK hally is barb only <godly weapon> and his sash!
Paladins get Vanny plate <and i heard a rumor of future double wielding>
Healers/Mentalists <smaller end> also get guntver for EP regen and damage.
Sassy Shield <easter egg lookin one> i was informed was horrible to MA blocking of required size. and is mainly good for psi/pally. And thieves rarely ever, if ever, use a shield.

Thieves can no longer solo hag to my knowledge.
And nothing has realy been done about MA's to my knowledge except for Rada's
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Post by buho »

Watcher:

If you understand that Timmy is a very hard area for a 14 skill psi user and a fest for a 14 skill stick, and you think that this is the way things need to be, ok. Its your opinion. I, of course, disagree.

The whole point (and the ground for my disagreement) is that Timmy is 'advanced' (read: hard) for psi users; for sticks its not 'advanced', its a fest.

buho.

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Post by buho »

Originally posted by Elessar

[...] I have grown a ment from scratch to 22/22 in the current game, as well as a stick from scratch to level 30.
Totaly off topic, Elessar, can I ask how you keep your crits xp/skill balance?

Im trying to keep my crits balanced too but Im being unable. My best balanced crit is my healer who is 20/18; I see it as not bad but I want to balance my crits better.

TIA.
buho.

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Post by Tranquil »

Originally posted by Elessar


Watcher was speaking hypothetically, and his point has value. Ments have area discs, and espear is never blocked, never misses. If a ment could haste up, tp to zoo, EC zoo down to one shot, knock them off one by one with a pumped up espear for full skill, then every other class would be complaining just like ments are now. I'm not saying ment's dont need any kind of help with their target discs, but balance is a delicate issue. Significantly pumping up a class might make that class happy, but is likely to make other classes angry, whether its valid or just jealousy. Just look at how quickly things changed with barbs, from not being a viable option in cob to dominating it.
I AGREE COMPLETELY !

last year, barbs were screwed over mega royal in cob. They wanted balance, but imho it was taken too far. in IEN, barbs were RRing into pallies, or just plain giving up. Now, pallies are RRing into barbs. If you beef up ments real good, sure big ments will love it, but then the weaker classes that are made weaker from the ment beef all become ments. As elessar metioned, this is a very delicate issue. im not saying ments are the masters of damage in cob. but all im saying is if your going to change them dont make it ment-land in cob :p

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Post by buho »

Originally posted by Tranquil

[...] dont make it ment-land in cob :p


[#JOKE MODE ON]
So, you want Cob staying as a stick-land?
[#JOKE MODE OFF]

buho.

PS: Hey, its a JOKE, dont start flaming me :)
[Buo_RELM casting Fire Prot on himself]
[Buo_RELM changing dancers for lizzard boots]
[Buo_RELM changing poison bracers for fire bracers]
[Buo_RELM changing uzi for fire ammy]
[Buo_RELM changing SER for SNR]

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Post by Tranquil »

Dude.

If it was stick land we wouldnt have so many ments requesting changes

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Post by Elessar »

Originally posted by buho

Totaly off topic, Elessar, can I ask how you keep your crits xp/skill balance?

Im trying to keep my crits balanced too but Im being unable. My best balanced crit is my healer who is 20/18; I see it as not bad but I want to balance my crits better.

TIA.
buho.
That ment is balanced mostly because of skilling in parties. With skillgain of 7-10% an hour from skill 15-20 in a good party, it's not difficult to gain skill levels as fast or faster than experience levels. It was not something I intended to do, or wanted. I would rather be 25/22.

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Post by dman »

It is stick_land thus the ments request change :D jking
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Post by Saruman »

Originally posted by buho


PS: Hey, its a JOKE, dont start flaming me :)
[Buo_RELM casting Fire Prot on himself]
[Buo_RELM changing dancers for lizzard boots]
[Buo_RELM changing poison bracers for fire bracers]
[Buo_RELM changing uzi for fire ammy]
[Buo_RELM changing SER for SNR]

where are the bloody mama rd scales!?!? ;)

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Post by Saruman »

Originally posted by Tranquil


Dude.

If it was stick land we wouldnt have so many ments requesting changes

make a ment and get him to cob...you will be right here with the rest of the ments/healers that say psi royally sucks in timmy caves/cob

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Post by Saruman »

Originally posted by Elessar



With skillgain of 7-10% an hour from skill 15-20 in a good party.
holy cow, i wish i could have been making 7% an hour at skill 20

hmm....guess i should pay my trainer more often

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Post by Valarc »

Originally posted by Watcher

Originally posted by Valarc


I'd love to see a new scenario (not a lair, or a dungeon ... an entire high level scenario like cob) added where almost every single crit has innate high level energyshield. Something that really makes sticks ineffective, cuts their damage a whole bunch so they take like ten more swings to do anything than a ment. That'd be sweet.
I think they call that UC 4 and 5 <g>.
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Post by Ztinktoof »

Enough speculation. Hard numbers time...

Here is a mentalist that is more typical of what a player's primary critter might look like after a month or two in Cob.

Level 19, Skill 15
341 Base Nork Hits, 731 Cob Hits (+300HP quests, Gold Plan 9month bonuses)
224 EPs

Didn't not max hits at level 13. Never saw a need to, Still don't.

Didn't max EPs at level 1. Would definitely benefit if I did, but I might still be coining in Nork at level I to do that. I rather play the character.

+200HP quests anyone can do within an hour of coming to Cob.

The +100 from shackles is easy enough to do by spreading the word for an MT of Dex into Kaldor after a hunt is completed.

I'm in no hurry for the final +100HP from Graaagh. Anyway, he is never home.

Gear

BD Scales: 0/6, +2AGI, acid and ice protection. If you can't get someone to get you some padded BD scales the day you come over to Cob, you must have one lousy reputation. >grin<

Yellow Robe: +5 from wrriaths in spec caves, fire protection. You can get a +4 from Evil Timmy or random drop in Timmy caves. You can hunt spec caves with a party of similarly leveled and geared sticks and healers.

Blue Robe: +1 psi. I can't sense any other protections. From wraiths in spec caves. I don't now if they stack.

Boots: 0/4 abner boots (trade alligator hide)

Helm: 0/5 padded glowing helm. Ask players to alert you when one drops in the giant keep. Make a mad dash to pick it up. Soon after I entered Cob, I learned how to run just about anywhere.

Sash: 2/2 red silk from timmy caves

Ring: 3/3 from timmy town store

Ring: 5/5 from under juntes. Stay in the rooms area. Best to hunt in a party. Most of the combat rings will be 1/1. Only takes a sec to sense them to find the occasional 5/5.

Bracers: ivory fire and ice protection. Random drop in timmy. Make sure you bring them to Fixer in Tree Town so they give proper protection for Cob.

Gauntlets: Juntes +4, +2AGI. OK, I admit it, you are going to need some help from big players on this. The hunt is a bit of a lark and big players do it as a change of pace.

Shield: spearman shield from UD1. A bit of a rare drop and a dangerous area to hunt, but doable in a party of similarly sized players. They will love you for your IV and absorption spell as well as transmute on this level.!

Amulet: UZI on neck, UZI in hand. These might actually be the toughest pieces of gear to get of all the gear I listed, and they are from Nork!

My EP regen is 13, 13, 18 while wearing and holding UZIs.

I went to the new Timmy-1 area cause there are a few rooms where regen is fairly constant for a solo, sucky mentalist. >grin<

I played with all manners of area spells, firebreath, icebreath, acidbreath, and with enmiss and espear. Basically, forget about sustaining any sort of attack if using espear and the "reasonable" newbie gear I listed.

What worked best was to ICEBREATH until under 55EPs, then enmiss stuff to kill it off or regen EPs. I was able to cast constantly and a bit effectively as you will see.

So icebreath whenever possible to whittle down zoos, and use enmiss to kill critters.

After a 40 minute hunt...

30 critters killed and still had a zoo standing in line! I did not have to move from one hex inside a room.

420k experience. Not bad at all.

352k coin. I transmuted all the hexes in the room before I left rather than bother with filling sack with gems, otherwise I could squeezed anouther 100k out of the hunt. Thats pretty sweet.

0.26% skill gain untrained. This is with a 15% "post cap" gain from my subcription plan. If trained, it would probqably double to about 0.5%

So basically, you are looking at around 0.5% to 1% skill gain per hour depending on your training.

I used a total of 6 IHs during the hunt and was never in serious danger of dying.

Conclusion: A resonably developed mentalist with reasonable gear for its level can get good experience and coin and OK skill while soloing using only psionic disciplines.

I regeared the mentalist with lori staff, double lori robes so I could cast espear nonstop. Still used icebreath to whittle down zoos. Skill gain was just slightly better at around 0.7% untrained.

Conclusion: An overgeared, small mentalist can skill OK when solo IF gathering zoos then using icebreath to whittle them down.

So maybe it ain't as bad as you think.
Ztinktoof
Drakkars Moral Standard
Avatar (C) WIlliam Li: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/w/i/william/
KaM Guild Website: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ctanzio/kam.html

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