Overloading the mana shield?

[WagesofSin]

When fighting an invoker, how viable a tactic is it to purposefully use a magical weapon while mana shield is up in order to drain the mage of his mana? I've played invokers plenty of times, and while I think most people would question the effectiveness of this strategy, I found it a serious hindrance even if most of my opponents did so unwittingly. It can be difficult to keep your mana over that threshold for mana charge and with your mana quickly dwindling away your spells start to flare. Even pre-mana charge I think the invoker will be running into mana problems very quickly, especially if many magic attacks hit.

[mya]

Yes, but if he attacks mana shield, its kinda of a stalemate.

You can flee and mana tendril for more mana.After all he is not hitting you.

And with Firestorm on and a enchanted weapon ?, you are taking HP from him.

This reminds me, does anyone use other weapons than 2 handed staves on invokers ?

[Mindflayer]

I still see that tactic as a waste of time. I rather be dealing damage to the invoker. Puts them on the defensive, and they forget about casting

Dual wield is your friend against any mage/communer Mya

[Raargant]

100% unviable. Don't even bother trying. The amount of damage you might do to his mana is reversed by a single mystic tendrils, which will do MUCH less damage than the 3-5 or whatever rounds of battle worth of melee physical damage you would've been doing.

[Guest emp_newb]

Dual wield mundanes. Raar is 100% right, you will never be able to effectively drain a mana shield. Or kill him if you are never dealing damage to him. For example

You hit for 150 damage into a mana shield.

They hit a low level of mana and flee casting mystic tendrils for a maul or decimate- 30-40 damage. Had you been wielding mundanes, that 150 would have been his hp, not easily replenished mana.

[Mudder]

Also, damage dealt to mana through manashield is less than it would be if it were noramlly be on HP...

Lets see if I can word this to have it make sense... It is reduced damage on the mana, I believe it is equal to protection.

I think it is similar to this scenario:

You deal 100 damage to an Invoker with Mundane weapon.

Switch to Magical now

You will do 75 damage with the same attack.

[WagesofSin]

Also, damage dealt to mana through manashield is less than it would be if it were noramlly be on HP...

Lets see if I can word this to have it make sense... It is reduced damage on the mana, I believe it is equal to protection.

Perfect sense, I get what you mean. Problem is I just don't know how to take out invokers with melee, especially at lower levels. Invokers seem to be everywhere nowadays. At lower levels, most weapons shatter within a few casts of ice storm(mundane ones at least). Even while using mundane weapons, shield, stone skin, and flesh armor reduce that physical damage like crazy. So you're hitting them with injures while they hit you with Lacerates minimum. Like I said, you won't even be able to hold onto that mundane weapon for long before it's blown to bits. Aff saves can help, but often you have to sacrifice hit/dam for those saves which completely sucks; you hit them even less. It's wierd too, maybe it's just me but even fully mastered weapons that the invoker doesn't know how to use(axe, flail, etc.) seem to only get 3-4 hits a round, if even that much. I just don't know what to do

I hope I didn't derail my thread too much.

[Chayesh]

Your first step is to find some way to drop their protections.

Your second step is to find a way to protect your weaponry.

At least that's my take on it.

[Raargant]

Perfect sense, I get what you mean. Problem is I just don't know how to take out invokers with melee, especially at lower levels. Invokers seem to be everywhere nowadays. At lower levels, most weapons shatter within a few casts of ice storm(mundane ones at least). Even while using mundane weapons, shield, stone skin, and flesh armor reduce that physical damage like crazy. So you're hitting them with injures while they hit you with Lacerates minimum. Like I said, you won't even be able to hold onto that mundane weapon for long before it's blown to bits. Aff saves can help, but often you have to sacrifice hit/dam for those saves which completely sucks; you hit them even less. It's wierd too, maybe it's just me but even fully mastered weapons that the invoker doesn't know how to use(axe, flail, etc.) seem to only get 3-4 hits a round, if even that much. I just don't know what to do

I hope I didn't derail my thread too much.

Dual whips (or axes with a minotaur), and get decked.

[WagesofSin]

Your first step is to find some way to drop their protections.

Your second step is to find a way to protect your weaponry.

At least that's my take on it.

Dropping protections? Unless you're a zerk, I don't think it's going to happen. Unless you simply wait for them to drop, but any smart mage won't let that happen.

As for protecting weaponry... It's doable, but you have to rely on rares as far as I know, thus making it an unreliable choice. Looks like this is my only chance though...

[Crucial]

Guys dont lie to him you can take down a mana shield perfectly well by just pounding on him numerous times with magical weapons.

*goes and rolls an invoker*

Hope to see all you guys out there using this tactic.

[Pali]

First, get some aff saves.

Second, get some hit/dam.

Third, dual whips/flails/axes/anything hard to defend against. Preferably burnproofed ones.

Fourth, take a look at him during the fight, see if you can disarm his staff. If so, try.

Fifth, if you're losing, don't be afraid to run.

[kahlos]

Sixth, don't fight an invoker if you're a DK with a new malform.

[Pali]

Seventh, as others have said, never try to overload a mana shield.

[mya]

My question was if any of the invocker is using another weapon, other then the two handed staff.

There are some nice mage whips.

[Guest emp_newb]

well Im sure some people use other weapons, but certain invoker abilities dictate that my invokers iwll use staffs.

[crackwilly21]

I've found flails to be great invoker killers. Dual wield em, sanc up, and spam murder. Its awesome!

[WagesofSin]

At 50 it's less of a problem. I'm mostly worrying about lvl 30 and above. It seems physical weapons are hard to come by and hard to make burn proof at that level. At that level it also is hard to get a set of armor that covers everything(affl, dam/hit, high damage physical weapons)

[L-A]

At lvl 30 most invokers don't have a huge amount of hp and don't have access to the lvl 50 +hp gear. They also do not have charged staves.

Now, I agree burnproof weapons can be harder to find at that rank - so here is what you do:

1) You may need saves - get waht you can. However, this is going to be a quick and very nasty battle...

2) If he's using icestorm saves are useless anyway so don't feel too bad...

3) Make sure you have sanctuary and protection. If he's neutral just sanctuary - but FFS make sure you have a fair bit of it.

4) Go get yourself 10 throwing axes. Dual two of them. Now go kick the invokers @$$ around. He'll icestorm, just dual the next two axes. When I can't get burnproofs at lvl 50 this is what I do

Personally, I just avoid invokers at those ranks because it isn't worth a lot of time and effort when you can jerk them about by running around. If you must fight them though the above is how I do it.

Cheers,

L-A

PS - no matter how much damage you do to mana shield the invoker loses 20 mana. You could deal 1000hp in a round and he'd lose 20 mana or you could deal 20hp and he'd lose 20 mana. Don't even bother.

PPS - carry 2 fiery daggers and 2 icicles at all times. If the invoker goes to fire shield put on the fiery daggers, if he goes to ice shield use the icicles. Invoker damage is increased by these sheilds BUT so is the damage he takes from fire/ice into the respective shield.

[mya]

Since we are talking about Invokers, how i kill ogre rangers with a invocker ?

Even when i kill all his pets with Fire Shield + Fireball, i am to beaten up and he is just scratched.

[TheNewGuy]

Maybe he had saves. I'd try icestorm. But then again, I'm just a noob, so what do I know.

[Celerity]

use stone skin, dispel the ogre with your mana charged staff, and ice storm and chase quickly

[Ex-D&Der]

Or call lightning.

[WagesofSin]

ya you definitely need stone skin and try to get flesh armor as well. They reduce physical damage making their attacks weaker. With a fully charged staff I never even bothered with dispel, just blast them with ice storms. It helps to get your HP as high as you can too.

[Celerity]

dispel is more to scare than for damage...although the damage is very nice too

people usually react by fleeing

and of course, standard things like trying to find eq to poison, missile shield and so forth