BMG Help

This will likely give me away but I was never particuarly bothered if it was a secret or not anyway.

I'm playing a BMG at the moment, and whilst I can see how it's potentially a very powerful class, I'm having trouble actually getting anywhere with it. Sure, I can survive - but I can't kill anything. Here are some of the places I'm falling down:

• Against melees, I simply cannot sustain enough damage to do anything worthwhile. Any melee with at least half-decent saves will have already worn my health down quickly by the time I've landed faerie fire or slow, putting me on the back foot - assuming I'm even able to land anything (which, I'm struggling to do). Slow/sleep helps a lot, but whilst I sleep, they can sleep too - and the drastic loss of moves realy takes its toll. Furthermore there's that many spells to manage that I'm struggling to manage dancing around opponents to catch ticks, cancelling spells, and putting spells up. Any advice here? "Thunderclap them and slow them then chase with sharpmetal" sounds good in theory but in practice I've burned through two staves of 15 charges of level 50 sanctuary each in one long fight just trying to land slow/thunderclap/faerie fire and I landed thunderclap once, and faerie fire a couple of times - especially bad when I cannot sustain enough damage. All defensive spells/defences/weapons are trained.

• Spell upkeep. What the ****?! I envy the skills of anybody who has played a successful BMG because in the thick of PK I struggle so hard to keep everything up and running without leaving myself a sitting duck lagged from casting. There are so many spells to think about that I'm constantly casting something every couple of ticks or so and once things start getting tense I just cannot keep everything active, especially when you are chasings someone down and you have the choice of casting your terrafield/blades/dancing blade, or chasing them so you don't lose them. Any more tips?

Any input appreciated. Like I said, I can survive fine, and I haven't taken a Pdeath yet apart from an accidental one with a clannie - but I'm struggling to get enjoyment out of this class on the PK side of things because, to be fair, the high-maintenance aspect stresses me out.

EDIT: I'm not faulting the class by the way, I know the class is fine. I'm just struggling myself to get anywhere with it.

Dey

Careful with slow...it might make you take a bit more damage from a melee...

Make sure you have some source of stone skin and a level 50 bless...

I used zMUD buttons to manage my spells...when they went down, the button changed colors and I could glance at the top of my screen and see what spells were down. You don't need EVERY spell up at every time...if the micromanaging gets to you, pick and choose your important spells to maintain during the fight.

Thunderclap and flashfire (sear) are the killers...faerie fire is a nice extra but only reallllly useful for rogues.

Sear...that is a really, really powerful spell. As is dispel magic, as I'm sure you know.

Also might think about gaining some equipment-based poison..that is worth almost any other piece of eq for a bmg.

Edit: depending on your align, a blessed/dark weapon will also do wonders

Interesting, I assumed slow only made you drop dexterity, so I have enough +dex gear to make up for the defecit. Might have to not use slow and see what happens, though that will hamper me in the attrition fight. I can't stand upto decked melees without resting.

BMGs get stone skin anyway. I will have to look into getting some sources of bless.

Faerie fire is critical, most of my enemies are rangers and it's pointless fighting without it because they have camoflauge. I can count on two hands how many times I've landed thunderclap whilst at pinn too, less than that for flashfire. Sear is a much more reliable form of blind, and damage, and I'm finding myself now just searing because I'm not achieving much elsewhere, even though I'm not likely going to get the kill from just sear.

Admittedly I have just realised I neglected rust, but I'm not sure if that slight reduction in hit/dam/AC will make that much difference against a decked melee, but I will experiment.

Dispel magic has little to no use against my most regular opponents.

Dey

Localize gravity is one second/round/whatever it is -- it's one of them. Dirt kick is two. If the other guy misses a dirt, a bash, or a anything that lags him long enough while you can see you aught to be taking away his pointy things.

BMGs get stone skin anyway.

Dey

Haha...oops..

More +hp equipment.

Rust actually knocks off a decent amount of hit/dam, and it usually lands pretty easy, I'd make sure to use that.

Thunderclap works great, but I wouldn't use it any more than 3-4 times, if it keeps failing.

Flashfire is good against rangers, since blind pets=sucky pets, and they don't get the 'double' round, if you open against them.

Like Mattamue said, localize gravity works great. In the time between where they hit the dirt, and when they're not lagged, you can have both weapons gone.

A mirror image, mid-fight, especially when you're blind, can save you a lot of hurt, and lags them as well(assuming they open w/ charge or bash, etc.).

Shrink is good too, but the lag on it, sear and meteor swarm is kinda tough to swallow.

Make sure you have both a magic and mundane dancing weapon, too, provided you have the strength for it.

Consider setting up a sequencer with spells that drop often during the fight, so you can put them back up and continue chasing?

Also, you have an affects list set up right, so you can easily tell which spells are or aren't up?

Problems landing flashfire... Really? I always found that extremely easy to land, 3 casts at most.

I wouldn't bother slowing them. Especially if they can camo. What weapon are you dancing? You should be dealing tons of damage and their pets should be dead quickly.

Experiment with meteor swarm. I never really used it, but it might work well against a ranger.

Are these rangers the kind that camo their pets? Look for their pets when they camo, then use area attack.

Use haste to counter-act the movement drain from slow, then cancel the haste when you need to rest.

I wouldn't bother putting up any spells until RIGHT before the fight. Use sequencer. Then your ready and have full mana for the fight.

Also, I never really used slow against melees with my BMGs. I found that it was too easy for them to dirt kick, and then catch a tick, making them heal like a ****ing ogre.

If you're having problems dealing damage, you're probably using the wrong dancing blade.

Also, if you're using force field against melees, don't. Reflective shield, enlarge, and fly will do just fine, and will increase the damage you're doing.

You really shouldn't be having problems with melees as a BMG.

.

10/10 on your seamless transition back from the dead.

Having the right dancing blades is vital. The slightest bit of a drop off from the elite dancers is drastic. People swear by reflective shield, but in all seriousness...it should almost never work for a bmg against anyone in the know. Moves really shouldn't be an issue provided you are mounted and flying. Yeah rust might seem cool for the hit/damroll drop...but the other affect is more important. Sear might get the cool dmg text, but stack that rust and the 2 sharpmetals you can pop off for each sear and you've got yourself a fine offense. Also, look for objects that up your skills...an unbelievably common object for goodies ups a useful spell. Thunderclap is your friend, but you aren't doing your maximum offensive best with it...once, twice, screw it. BMGs lack the pure offensive, unblockable casting dmg of invokers...but you live like 3 times as long with your magical defenses. Also...don't fear the water with those melee prats.

Are you trying to tell me that you would use force field or manalock against a melee over reflective shield, Krins?

Because if so you just nullified any hope you had of BMG credibility.

Well with the new changes, BMGs take more lag than before through reflective shield...

Which is not good for BMGs.

Ummm...my last melee fight on my former BMG was Triathix and I was using reflective. Yeah it did some damage, and Triathix has those powers that aren't common to everyone. I wish I would have been using manalock, but thats more special powers than common ones talking. Reflective shield is only going to do a scratch against anyone who knows what's up. Hmmm...I guess you could throw it up, hope for disarmable weapons that aren't charging it up, and localize hoping they fire it up with their fists. I would rather take 0 dmg and lag from that enlarged fire giant zerk then slightly modified damage and lag with a scratch every round. That's just me though. I guess that is just my defensive mind kicking in. I'm not saying reflective is useless, but it isn't the be all end all you are making it out to be.

Are you trying to tell me that you would use force field or manalock against a melee over reflective shield, Krins?

Because if so you just nullified any hope you had of BMG credibility.

Force field yes. Ref shield being changed so that it doesn't reflect magical damage at all and it's lag protection being lowered basically stopped it from being useful in pk against non-newbs.

Thanks for the responses.

I've found localize gravity very useful... but but not at the minute, where my main opponents have noremove this and that.

As far as dancing weaponry goes, I have a fairly above-average one - it's by no means one of the best, but when the best aren't there, this one will do the job.

I had no idea that haste cancelled out the movement penalty that slow provides. I thought that slow provided a movement penalty, but haste didn't give a movement bonus. That will definitely come in very useful.

As for the rest, I must just be very unlucky and have foes that have rocking saves.

Dey

bmage is about AC and HP.

get those +hp items from magic, and get your ac as high as possible.

with melee's use flashfire. Flashfire is a difficult to dispel blind, let them eat up red's and gyv's trying to cure it.

Like phantom grasp, rust is one of those that people seem to overlook for some dumb reason. Rust them a few rounds then begin flashfiring and you will be mildly suprised.

Also carrying a few different weapons to dance, one magic, one mundane for example is good to do.

Highlights!! I have a highlight hat takes everything that has 2 hours and makes them yellow, anything with 1 and 0 are red. this in conjunction with cancellation can help you keep that key spell from popping in a battle. You can easily pick on that 40 item aff list whats about to drop and cancel and refresh it.

as always, and you should know this dey!, have protection from whatever align your facing up, and sanc. (you didnt have sanc or protection when we fought the other day near the nexus fortress)

Meteor swarm is awesome, figure out which shield protects you from it and try it out,. It can be an excellent finisher. I have dropped someone from big and nasty to dead in one cast.

You're confusing me for the wrong BMG. I'm the Gnome BMG Savant, not the Goodie BMG Savant.

Dey

You're confusing me for the wrong BMG. I'm the Gnome BMG Savant, not the Goodie BMG Savant.

Dey

Dey you always make the most outrageous name...one thing I forgot to mention that you might want to consider regarding spell maintenance. I like to assess which spells are essentially the same duration, and then group them together on a piece of paper. If there are 4 spells that generally last between 12 and 14 ticks, I try to spread them out and cast them 3 ticks apart. Two that last 24 hours? Seperate them by 12 ticks. That is completely me being neurotic and developing unnecessary system but it tends to keep your mana supply constant and you rarely lose 6 or 8 spells on any given tick.

Uhh, you should have a Savant thingy that helps a LOT with that...also, you're getting eaten by mages because gnomes don't make very good uh...anything, in my opinion . The low dex is absolutely killer. Also, make sure to get a magic dancing weapon. The one you've got now is pretty much standard, but you need something that'll really punish ogres/giants. Also, I don't know how you're doing in regards to hp, but as far as I could tell, you didn't have much +hp gear, so you might wanna look into that.