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DragonRealms · The Hunter's Lodge - Advice On Where, What, And How To Hunt

NEFERMOON

Return to the Realms 03/13/2015 02:50 PM CDT

Hello everyone.
I've just rejoined Prime after a decade (or more!) hiatus. Nothing is really as I remember it, and I'm at a mind lock trying to relearn everything through Elanthipedia.

I seem to recall hunting crocodiles (carefully, with friends, from ranged) last time I played, though I'm not sure where I went when I was alone (as I am at the moment). Anyway, first thing I did upon my return was die in Rats. I'll give you my stats and hope someone can give me a pointer on where I ought to be hunting.

Circle: 16
Concentration : 82
TDPs : 39

Strength : 17	Reflex : 18
Agility : 17	Charisma : 14
Discipline : 14	Wisdom : 16
Intelligence : 14	Stamina : 19

Shield Usage: 7	Light Armor: 45
Chain Armor: 1	Plate Armor: 0
Defending: 37	Parry Ability: 32
Small Edged: 31	Small Blunt: 1
Bow: 54	Staves: 9
Light Thrown: 4	Brawling: 18
Melee Mastery: 27	Missile Mastery: 32
Life Magic: 33	Attunement: 31
Arcana: 10	Augmentation: 30
Debilitation: 27	Utility: 26
Warding: 23	Evasion: 43
Athletics: 43	Perception: 64
Stealth: 64	Locksmithing: 41
Thievery: 27	First Aid: 49
Outdoorsmanship: 54	Skinning: 53
Scouting: 53	Scholarship: 52
Mechanical Lore: 26	Appraisal: 24
Tactics: 38

Thanks, in advance, for any tips!

FLINT-TIPPED

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/13/2015 03:03 PM CDT

First thing I can recommend is getting a shield (small size) to wear on your left arm. To arm wear a shield, hold it in your hands and adjust shield then wear it. You can keep it on your arm and enjoy protection while staying hands free - unlike wearing it on your shoulder which gets it out of the way but doesn't protect you. A shield is necessary these days. A target shield from the armor shop in the Town Green is small iirc.

Then I'd hunt rats or louts for a few hours until you gain some (at least 10 or 15) shield ranks.

Vote:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

NEFERMOON

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Re: Return to the Realms 03/13/2015 03:23 PM CDT

Thank you. I was given a buckler but I didn't know how to wear it on my arm. I have adjusted it now!

LAWREYJRJ7

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/13/2015 10:03 PM CDT

Once you get that shield skill up around 20 - 25. After that you will find that hunting at most levels has changed drastically from what it used to be. Main reason is the soft caps were basically removed. Now each critter starts teaching about as it did before but caps out a whole lot lower. An example would be snowbeasts in the past you could start them in the 80 range and train with them probably to 125 without any problems. Now you start around 80 and if your lucky you can get to 105. This means your going to move rapidly

Then I would head directly to grass eels. That should bring up your skills fairly well. Then head for beisswurms which should get you to 75 skill fairly well. Then your looking at bone wolf, blood wolf, snowbeast, crocs or gargs type of progression and it will be rapid.

Just rememeber one thing. You will have to move a lot more often than you were used to in the past.

Ranger Pfanston and his soggy pup.

BADGOPHER

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 05:43 AM CDT

If he's a player from the time frame where shield was useless, then he's used to only having/needing like 3 hunting grounds total.

My advice is to read the wiki, if you haven't.

https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/What%27s_new

After that, get your shield skill up to level with your other combat skills. It's actually the best combat defense in most situations now (for the pedants I said most, not all). I'd spend a lot of time getting familiar and comfortable with the new magic system; Rangers will have access to a decent selection of spells. As far as spells go, I'd really recommend going to the magic shop and buying a Manifest Force scroll, if you have the arcana ranks to invoke it (should only need 20 or 50 ranks). Damage barrier spells in 3.0 are really useful.

If you have some money laying around, it's totally worth your time to buy some player crafted goods; lighter weapons can have just as good damage stats, but tire you out less each swing, and the crafted light armor stuff is really good. Check out the trader plaza, it has a bunch of player owned stores.

Also, I had some minor trouble parsing Pfanston's advice above; he's basically saying get 20-30 ranks of shield, then go to grass eels. Once those stop teaching, you'll be able to move to 'wurms. After that, you can move to blood wolves.

VOLCANUS

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 08:32 AM CDT

Remind me. Do damage barriers stack with other damage barriers? So naming of tears + manifest force?

BADGOPHER

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 09:00 AM CDT

I believe so? I think it's one of the reasons they're grossly broken right now.

NINEVAH1

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 01:30 PM CDT

Yes they do.

GREATJUSTICE

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 07:22 PM CDT

Out of curiosity, would someone mind explaining (to another returning player) why Shield Usage is important -- or essential -- nowadays? I recall playing my previous characters pretty much entirely with parry and evasion speced, although admittedly, I wasn't very good at circling back then.

Is it largely to address the ranged-attack critters? For example, evasion seems to be fairly awful against bow-wielders. I trained in the rock troll/cougar/kelpie area west of Haven for a while, and even when you overlevel those creatures, Kelpies turn you into a pincushion.

###You start towards a massive sea mammoth, but realize it isn't properly equipped for transporting a white guinea-pig.

ABSOLON

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 07:31 PM CDT

<<Is it largely to address the ranged-attack critters? For example, evasion seems to be fairly awful against bow-wielders. I trained in the rock troll/cougar/kelpie area west of Haven for a while, and even when you overlevel those creatures, Kelpies turn you into a pincushion.

It's actually the other way around. Evasion is effective against ranged users, but parry isn't. So if you're using a stance which uses only evasion and parry (e.g. 100% evasion, 80% parry) which totals 180 stance points and are targeted by a ranged attack, that attack ignores your parry defence meaning you only have 100 stance points towards the defence. If you switched to an evasion and shield stance, then the ranged attack would allow you to use all 180 stance points since ranged attacks don't ignore shield.

More generally, all 3 defences are useful and are added up together to make your total defence so training all three allows you to adjust your stance to always be able to use 180 stance points worth of defence vs a given attack, even those that ignore a defence.

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

GREATJUSTICE

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 07:39 PM CDT

Great explanation, many thanks! :)

To add some nuance to what I meant -- my understanding is that parry is basically useless against ranged attacks, and that evasion is helpful, but maybe not as helpful as shield. Overall, I get your point that you're effectively wasting 80 stance points by not training shield against some opponents.

That said, do you know (point for point) whether shield is on average, more valuable against ranged opponents? That is, imagine you only had shield - and put 100 stance in shield, 0 in everything else. Then imagine only having evasion - 100 points in evasion, 0 in everything else. Is it right that shield is more valuable than evasion against ranged?

###You start towards a massive sea mammoth, but realize it isn't properly equipped for transporting a white guinea-pig.

ABSOLON

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 08:16 PM CDT

<< my understanding is that parry is basically useless against ranged attacks, and that evasion is helpful, but maybe not as helpful as shield.

Nope, they're equally useful.

>>That said, do you know (point for point) whether shield is on average, more valuable against ranged opponents? That is, imagine you only had shield - and put 100 stance in shield, 0 in everything else. Then imagine only having evasion - 100 points in evasion, 0 in everything else. Is it right that shield is more valuable than evasion against ranged?

Evasion is equally helpful as shield vs ranged attacks. Given the same skill, 100 stance points in evasion will give the same defence as 100 stance points of shield.

How it used to work before the new combat changes, evasion was king because all attacks went through it first and what was left over went through either shield or parry. Now all 3 defences occur simultaneously and so provide equal effect given the same skill and stance. Evasion is still generally better than the other two, however, mainly because it is the least likely defence to be ignored by incoming attacks.

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

GREATJUSTICE

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 08:18 PM CDT

Excellent. Thanks.

###You start towards a massive sea mammoth, but realize it isn't properly equipped for transporting a white guinea-pig.

BADGOPHER

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/14/2015 09:57 PM CDT

Just to add a bit, despite GMs saying that parry has fewer penalties applied for various situations, general player view is that shield is, at every range, a more effective defense than parry. Even when dealing with a pure, regular, melee attack (I smack him with my sword), players generally feel that shield is more protective than parry, rank for rank.

NEFERMOON

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/17/2015 08:42 AM CDT

Thanks, everyone, for chiming in. I have been playing around with the sleazy louts outside Crossing East Gate, getting used to adjusting stances and going back and forth between parry and shield to try and rank those up. Not feeling like it's been incredibly productive, so maybe I need to move again? Shield just passed 10. Parry is approaching 34.

I need to go read the guides on stalking and other survival skills. They seem completely re-worked since I was last around.

The other thing I'm wondering.. are the old player-run guides/sites mostly falling aside in favor of Elanthipedia? I keep finding guides that seem like their operators are still around, until I get to the detail I need and realize they're offering outdated info.

NINEVAH1

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 03/17/2015 10:20 AM CDT

>>The other thing I'm wondering.. are the old player-run guides/sites mostly falling aside in favor of Elanthipedia? I keep finding guides that seem like their operators are still around, until I get to the detail I need and realize they're offering outdated info.

Pretty much. There are still some player run site that are kept up, but Elanthipedia is the site that all the players and staff members went to and updated with all the info from the last 2-3 years. I don't think a single person can keep a site updated the way the community has kept the pedia. It is the best source for info for the game.

CARAAMON

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Re: Return to the Realms 03/17/2015 11:50 PM CDT

All hail Elanthipedia!

Weapons for Sale:
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/User:CARAAMON#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html

NINEVAH1

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 04/15/2015 05:58 AM CDT

There is a TOGGLE that you can set that will auto wear any shield on your arm (or shoulder if you choose).

BADGOPHER

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 04/15/2015 07:08 AM CDT

>There is a TOGGLE that you can set that will auto wear any shield on your arm (or shoulder if you choose).

Whoa, whats the toggle? I've just been using 'adjust shield' for years.

VOLCANUS

Email Author

Re: Return to the Realms 04/15/2015 09:17 AM CDT

toggle shield.

Just type toggle for other options.

I agree with your sentiment though. We have so many ways to set flags that it's easy to miss one. Can toggle and set and avoid all be rolled up into flags?

DragonRealms · The Hunter's Lodge - Advice On Where, What, And How To Hunt