Posted by Klaak on March 10, 2000 at 19:55:55:
In Reply to: Did have to be wielding a weapont to practice dodge? posted by Sak on March 9, 2000 at 20:17:51:
I appologise in advance for getting rather wordy.
Well, some things to keep in mind for practicing defenses:
First off, what I've notice with all of my chars who have all three defenses (dodge parry shield block), their chance for success is checked in the order of Parry first (except in the case of assassins with unarmed defense and then I'm not entirely sure yet when that is checked), shield block second, dodge third. Whatever doesn't get blocked by parry has to get through shield block and if shield block fails you try to dodge with AC being the only thing left after that.
Shield block in no way affects how many chances you get to parry if you're using a weapon (refer back to assassins for exceptions)
Dodge in no way affects how many chances to parry or shield block if you're using a weapon (again, refer to assassins)
Ok, so with that in mind, let's assume that you've held off on practicing any defenses til you have all three. You go to perfect them, first things first, the better skilled you are with a weapon, the quicker you'll learn to parry but the quicker you're going to kill the mobs you're using for practice. That said, get a weapon that doesn't do much damage. Next, find someplace remote where you're not going to annoy the hell out of people with 2 screans full of yelling mobs, and pick one that has lots of mobs. Good places, In the Air over galadon, and FoN being the best two, but FoN beware of Pk'ing hunters. There are other places that work for it, but you're not likely to hold onto your gob of kobolds long since people who see it will come and kill them all on you, same with goblins. I'm sure there are dozens of other places that work great with little troubles, but I'm not going to sit here and list them all. Now you go around the area attacking mobs and fleeing, letting them track you all to one place
so that you can fight them all at once. Since you'll be using a weapon that you presumably know well, be sure to get a few mobs that can take a bit of damage; perfect match or few lucky blows work for this, but keep in mind that the more damage they can take, the better they can dish it out as well. Once you have them all in one spot, sit there and let them swing at you, while you aim at the ones who can take the damage. Keep an eye on your own Hp cause even if they only do minor damage, it starts to add up after a while. If the mob you are swinging at starts getting close to death (gushing writhing cunvulsing), time to switch to the next damage excepting mob, assuming you have the hp to last a while yet. When you runlow on Hp, flee and get far enough away that you can rest up for the next bout (or you can just hide/camo/invis if available and if the mobs can't detect you).
You'll likely perfect parry or shield block first (both generally get pretty close about the same time). As soon as you perfect parry, remove the weapon so that shield block and dodge learn better, or if shield block perfects first, remove shield for dodge. Repeat this for the second skill to perfect.
With this in mind, I won't bother explaining how to do the other combinations of defense skills practice as I'm sure by this time, anyone with half a brain can figure out what to do.
In case anyone decides to bitch at me for pointing out alot of the obvious, this details rather well how to practice defenses not just for the person asking, but for any first time newbies who might be reading this.
I'm sure there may have been a few details that aren't perfect, but this is just what I've noticed, so don't bother flaming me for some piss-ant detail