Posted by Jhyrbian on August 29, 2000 at 14:24:49:
In Reply to: How to Kill Berserker Ragers as an Uncaballed Fighting Class posted by The Arcane(VIP) on August 29, 2000 at 09:26:08:
> In my opinion, you have to be built right for it as a character. That is more important than any preparation. Getting six shields and shroud will let you kill any Rager solo, barring your total idiocy or their amazing skill, but that's not something you can count on, or something you want to have to count on, so I'll ignore it. > It can be done without any preparations at all. > Now, you probably want to use stoneskin at the very least, because it takes minimal effort... haste and shield will definitely help. Haste probably more than the others. But they aren't strictly necessary. > What do I mean by "built right?" Well, I mean your specs and thus your overall approach to fighting. > A giant warrior who's axe/mace and focuses on dealing lots of damage is going to have an AWFUL time against berserker Ragers. Why? Because you're not going to outhit a Rager. If you hit him a lot, and he hits you a lot, you lose. He has resist and deathblow, and you're not going to make him have to flee before he kicks your ass. > Now, if you're an arial sword or felar staff/spear, you're in much better shape. If you can tank him perfectly, who cares whether every hit has the potential to do 500 damage? You may have to flee if you get unlucky every now and then, but you're in a much better shape. This is why Shaitar didn't worry much about Ragers. As an arial sword spec with the strange bracers, I could tank anyone, basically. I wasn't nearly as skilled at playing a warrior as I am now (improvement owed entirely to playing Ragers, actually), but I could get away with it because I was just so damn hard to hit. > [Digression: many people have heard this story far too many times, but it's worth repeating here... the moral: never get complacent around Ragers. I was beating down Ghim, Dreylyn, and some other ranger (Craevenwulfe?) at the village, and had killed all three, Dreylyn first... I was on my way back to the then-Fortification, when I ran into Dreylyn on the Eastern Road, unghosted. Naked, entirely, except for a wooden walking stick. I was at full HP. He landed a DB claw for an ANN and an unspeak DB pugil in the second round (shocking bite on an arial--750 damage), and I died on the spot. Not fun.] > So, is a fire axe/mace spec screwed? Should he RTHA every time he sees a Rager? Maybe. But he can still get by, with an adjustment to his combat philosophy. Forget about dealing lots of damage. Bust out the shield. Use skills like weaponbreaker, boneshatter/whirl, and so on. Play it almost like a shaman, tanking ok (but not awfully) while you lay on the "maledictions." Ragers don't have any magical power that lets them continue to kick your ass after you've broken their weapons, or made them too weak to wield them. > Now, you may ask, "So, this would have worked against Dhaevor, and I could have kiled him?" No, you couldn't have, sorry. :P I specifically defended against all of the above. I tanked as well as, if not better, than any opponent I ever fought. I wore enough str/dex gear to soak up a boneshatter without losing a single stat point. I used unbreakable weapons, norem weapons mostly. But that's not by virtue of my being a Rager. Really. Would the above have worked against me when I'd recently died and hadn't assembled my whole kit yet? Sure. But 90% of berserkers would've had trouble with the approach I outlined, which is enough, really. > Also, note that I specified berserker warriors. The fire axemaceguy is probably going to fare much better against a berserker assassin than the deft arial sword-spec. > A bit of a ramble, but I think there's some useful information to be had somewhere in there.