Chayesh Posted January 8, 2006 Report Share Posted January 8, 2006 I wrote this quite a while ago now. Probably comes a bit after Viri's guilde to staying out of the sickle's way. Hope it helps some of you out. Basic PK Strategies I’ve talked to many players. I’ve fought even more. A lot of them have good ideas and elaborate strategies. Yes, it is a real kick to see a well laid plan ensnare and cause the (un)timely demise of your opponent. What players fail to realize is that if you do not have proficiency in the basic PK strategies and tactics you will never be able to execute a complicated plan. You will fall and fall quickly to someone who knows the basics. To this end, I’ve decided to compose the following tips on some of the basic tactics that you can employ. This is by no means and exhaustive list, nor is it class specific. It is just a few simple ideas you might like to try. Being able to employ these will not only increase you survival rate, but also likely make your kill rate more impressive. I’m going to make a few assumptions: 1) You know what a vial is and how to use it. 2) You know what other basic potions do. Right, now, the MOST important part of any PK is the preparation. If you are not prepared, you are dead. PK’rs rule #1: DO NOT FIGHT IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!!! I cannot stress this enough, This includes having only one vial, having no gyvels, no recalls, one recall, no weapons, the wrong weapon, no mana, no health, no movement, low health, low mana, low movement or no time to fight. Feel free to break this rule, just understand you are almost assured a death if you are fighting a skilled player. How far do you go to be prepared? Simple. If you are not ready and cannot get ready (ie your opponent is beating on you and you cannot collect vials etc) you quit. I do. Others do. Simple. I have also seen people I surprise and who are unsanc’d go for a dirt kick before they flee. This will often cost you your life. 2 rounds lag with a prepared opponent beating you up? If you are not ready you RUN. Although the dirt and flee tactic IS a good one, you should at least flee, quaff a vial then dirt and run. Fighting someone without sanc is the fastest way to die. Before you enter combat, the smart player checks to see if he is ready. What is ready? Well, I’m glad you asked…. Af Sanctuary: for x hours Armor: ac -20 for x hours Shield: ac -20 for x hours Detect invis: for x hours Flying: for x hours Protective good/evil (when appropriate) Other class abilities for x hours. If you are missing some of these, you are not prepared. Refer to Rule #1. If you don’t know where to find these, do your quests and peruse the local potion shops. They are easy to find. Inv 8 gyvels/red potions (as a low dex race, 5 will usually work) 2 vials A sack/backpack or other carrying device. Spare weapons Spare shields 2 Potions/scrolls of flight A recall potion. Open sack Exam sack In a sack you see: 8 reds/gyvels (10 is better) 2 vials (at LEAST, 20 would be better) 5 recalls (10 is better) More detect invis pills/pots More armor pills/pots More shield pills/pots More other protection pills pots. More spare weapons 5 Potions/scrolls of flight Tools of Champions – Aliases Mu = murder Why? When your opponent is at awful and has fled you don’t see: K opponent You must murder a player Mu opponent If you want to MURDER spell it out Your opponent opens a sack. Your opponent gets a potion of recall out of a sack. You opponent quaffs a potion of recall. You opponent tells you “You suck!!!” Recall = Open sack Get recall sack Quaff recall Close sack Why? For a fast getaway. Opening spell abbreviated to a few letters. Eg hell = c ‘hellstream’ Sha = c ‘sharpmetal’ Dis = c ‘dispel magic’ Why? Less key strokes to do hell opponent than c ‘hellstream’ opponent, speed is everything in PK. Autoaim ON Why? Hell opp is faster to type than hell opponent The Edge – Triggers Either highlight the relevant text or use these: The white aura around you body fades Tell self sanc down Your protective shield fades away. Tell self prot shield down You no longer see invisible objects. Tell self detect invis down. You have been disarmed. Get 1. Wi 1. (this is NOT a perfect trigger, there are better ways that are slightly more complex) In addition, these phrases can be used for offensive purposes as well: The white aura about * fades. Tell self %1 sanc is down Do it for protective shield as well Right, now you are ready to fight. Getting rid of the shakes – Concentration Make sure you are concentrating on what you are doing, nothing else. Watch the screen. Watch the damage you are dealing and taking, watch the spells/skills your opponent is using. If you are focused on only the battle, you will likely forget to be nervous. If you still are nervous, ignore it as best you can. Focus on what you have to do. Write it down in front of you if you have to, make a list of skills/spells to use. Although following a process will not win you many battles, it will help you get used to being in a PK match. Basic Tactics: The essence of a good fight is where you walk over you opponent because you are better prepared. This includes preparation of tactics you will employ. The correct tactic employed at the correct time will be devastating. Use the incorrect tactic or use a tactic at the incorrect time, and it will be greatly weakened. To this end, here are some simple easily employed and effective tactics. I will focus on two types of classes here. Warrior Types (WT) are classes than have some type of lag skill you can use in combat. Bash, trip, grapple and air thrash are examples. Mage Types (MT) cannot lag but cannot be lagged in combat due to use of protective shields or force fields and flight. General If you triggers reveal that your spells drop, you WILL flee and put them back up. If you do not, you are fighting unprepared, refer to Rule #1. If you see your opponents spells fall, assume they are about to flee and get ready to chase. Blinding an opponent who relies on vials means they are without sanc until they unblind. Lagging someone who’s sanc is down works nicely as well. A wimpy is a good thing to have while ranking, but can cause you no end of problems in PK. If you flee to a wimpy, and your opponent chases and hits you, you will flee again. You do not get to even try to hit them back, they simply get free shots. This can be deadly, especially against someone who can throw or has backcutter. Also, wimpy will not make you flee 100% of the time, so if you are relying solely on a wimpy to make you flee when needed, you are going to die. A wimpy of 0 is useful. You can fight to the death if you like. With a bit of concertration, it is not hard to see when your health is getting low. This being said, not all of my characters use wimpy 0, it really depends on the situation. For an undead vs a pally, I set wimpy 0 since their opening spell is nasty and if they get in a few free shots of it, you will likely be dead. For a human warrior vs a pally, I would use a wimpy since the opening spell is no where near as deadly. WTs That you should open with blinding abilities ie dirt is common knowledge. I would recommend this even over charge since dirt;flee;charge will usually give superior results even with the risk of the tick going off when and them rubbing dirt out of their eyes. However, I see many people unable to fully take advantage of a blinded opponent. The MOST common way people fail to use this skill is with a charmie. If you opponent is blind, they cannot stop hitting your charmie and start hitting you. Therfore: Dirt (blind or flamestrike work just as well) opponent Flee Sca Go to opponent Lag opponent This sounds simple right? Can’t be that effective? In a battle just the other day I did just this. I held my opponent bash locked for well over 20 rounds and put him to pretty hurt before the lock broke. I didn’t take a single hit since he was hitting my charmie. Every time I hit him they well all free shots since he had no chance to hit me back. If an opponent cannot hit you, he cannot kill you. When chasing an opponent, generally, open with murder. If you use dirt, you are lagged for two rounds and they can run. If you miss dirt, you gain NOTHING from the attack. I would only recommend using dirt if you are in a large area and they can not get out of it by the time your lag wears off. Of course, many players can run blinded through such areas so the advantage you gain could be very small. Alternately, someone without much experience is usually easily caught when running blind. Disarming I’ve seen so many people disarm when you are NOT blinded. Most people play with triggers to grab a disarmed weapon before your lag wears off. Disarm IS a devastating skill, it will rob an opponent of a chance to parry you attacks and to hit you back, but it must be done correctly. Make sure your opponent is blinded THEN disarm. Now sit there spamming sac 1. or get 1. Why? If you opponent lags themselves the LEAST little bit, there weapon is gone. If they are not as fast as you, their weapon is gone. When dirt runs out (on you), their weapon is gone. If you opponent uses a 2 round lag skill, disarm is a good option (esp for bmgs vs pallys wrath). If they are spamming, they might as well plan how to get the weapon back. The only flaw is a cursed weapon that cannot be disarmed. As soon as you see they are using a cursed weapon (ie you fail disarm or look at them and recognize the weapon they are using) do NOT waste more rounds disarming. Move onto your next tactic. Detect Magic or How to give a MT a nasty surprise There ARE ways for any class to get detect magic. Find them, love them. Look at your opponent, notice when their sanc/prot shield/charm spells drop. Run about in the same zone for a few hours. You have the time on your prompt (prompt %t), you now know how long until their spells go down, attack them at 1 hours, at 0 hours do NOT lag yourself, as soon as the spell drop, go for lag lock. This sounds simple and very effective. It is also one of the harder tactics to execute since a smart opponent doesn’t fight when key spells (prot shield or sanc) are close to falling. The tactic is usually VERY obvious in the set up. THE ULTIMATE TACTIC – Surprise Surprise will win you MANY battles. If you get the drop on your opponent, you have a HUGE advantage. Conversely, if you opponent gets the jump on you, you are not prepared, refer to Rule #1. But how do you surprise someone? Well, towns are VERY common places for people to hang out. Get on the edge of town, say, one room east of town. East Where West You now know WHERE you opponent is. They likely have not seen you. They are also likely not prepared. Now, you want to prepare, get that vial down, spam your directions in and lag lock them. Just keep lagging them, an unsanc’d opponent will almost NEVER outdamage a sanc’d one. They literally have to hit you 2 times for every one shot you hit them with (its worse if you have protection, something like three this for every one you land). Its game over if the lag lock holds. If the lock breaks, you want to pursue for ONE room only then do where a few times. Watch which was they run out of town and spam direction in with lag opponent spammed three times on the end every 5 – 10 rooms followed by where. If you overtake them and they run into while you are spamming your lag skill, its lag lock all over again. When you are chasing, open with you lagging skills unless they are a MT, in which case you open with charge or murder. MTs Openeing with dispel magic should almost always be your first move. MTs as a rule have lower health and less defenses then WTs. When facing off against an opponent, the amount of damage per round they deliver is of critical importance. If it is VERY high, flee. You must be able to survive in combat long enough for your spells to win the day. After you opponent has their sanc dispelled, they will likely run, be ready to chase, if they can get their sanc up, dispel again, try to knock out other spells, most people don’t stop to put up all their spells. If their protection falls, it might be worth hitting them through sanc since your damage has just been increased. A second way to play is to hammer into your opponent while they are sanc’d knowing they will run when it falls. Land every malediction you have, blind if you can, rust, weaken, faerie fire, whatever. Lay in with a damage spell or two THEN dispel. The advantage of this is that they are at much lower health when dispelled and a spell or two could very easily end the battle in your favour. The disadvantage is that it is much harder to execute and has higher degree of risk. Surprise for a MT When you find your opponent in Central Square totally unprepared, lead with THE highest damage spell you have. You want to hit them hard and fast. You can’t lag, so you will have to chase. Watch the direction they run in and follow, lead with high damage. The general rule is to get your damage spells and heap them on. It might be worth taking less lag on the opener (ie hellstream vs fire arrow, sharpmetal vs meteor swarm) to be able to chase faster. The speed at which you chase in this situation will determine if you are a winner or just some noob who can throw damaging spells. I hope this gives the players newer to PK something to try. Don’t be scared to try new things, even if it means a death or two. Just keep logs and review them to see how it went. Make sure you are ALWAYS fully prepared, even when trying new things. Happy hunting L-A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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