>>backstab area

Field goblin shish kebab.

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This idea may have worked in another time and another place, but here it immediately fell on its face and went "Durp durp." - Armifer

>>After 23 LE sky giant kills:

>>Light Edged: 506 70% considering (6/34)
>>Backstab: 512 89% thinking (5/34)

How many backstabs does it take you per kill, on average? It takes me anywhere between 4-12, with an average of about 8.

I need about 240 strikes to lock Backstab.

>I need about 240 strikes to lock Backstab.

Well now it makes sense! I haven't counted how many strikes it takes me to lock backstab but I bet it isn't far off that figure. While you say you can lock it quickly it is still a phenomenal amount of repetitions to mindlock the skill. That is roughly 7 backstabs per mindstate level.

I can't think of another skill that takes so many repetitions to lock.

I can lock all my defenses and weapon skills or any survival skill in under 20 minutes easily. And like you to lock bs would take me well over 30 mins doing NOTHING BUT backstabbing.

>>I can lock all my defenses and weapon skills or any survival skill in under 20 minutes easily. And like you to lock bs would take me well over 30 mins doing NOTHING BUT backstabbing.

It can take up to 30 minutes, but it trains backstab, hiding, stalking, perception, and provides boxes, that's six of my eight survival requirements.

>>I feel like I've read this exact thread before.

gonna backstab u ig cined

If I'm understanding your hypothesis correctly you could start from clear and lock backstab, using the counter to keep track of how many attacks it takes. Let it drain back to clear or if you're in a hurry use favor orbs.

Then use your weapon in melee combat until it locks. Jump directly to backstab and repeat the above procedure using your pre-locked weapon. Your weapon won't stay locked the entire test obviously but should be enough of the time for any difference to show up when compared to the first test. Make sure it's all on the same rank as well.

Kaxis

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For my forged LC/HC, IM me at KaxisDR or visit Ciressa's Tiny Haven in the Riverhaven Market Plaza (from town square/temple go: north, go plaza, north) 12pm - 7pm EST daily. Lirums only.

<<At the risk of jumping to conclusions I'm just going to go ahead and state that NO, backstabbing while locked in your weapon skill will not teach you backstab any faster.>>

I tend to agree with this. Would still like to see the OP's test if he runs it though.

Kaxis

Driving in like the irresistable force of a cyclone, you thrust a peach knife at a sky giant. A sky giant fails to dodge, moving directly into the blow.

well to be honest, I personally have found that weapon be locked or not does affect the skill gain enough to note. BUT the targets perception seems to have a huge effect.

Although I can learn hiding, stalking and weapon on what I was hunting, my much lower backstab was not moving well at all. Which was frustrating me, so I moved up to something with much better perception and suddenly despite the hits not being as hard and me stabbing the same amount of times, it took me approximately half the time to get my backstab locked.

I really hate to have to come and ask advice here about this, but I'm at my wits end. I've read everything on the subject and still have problems with backstab..

I just made a thief (first in a long while). My problem with him is training backstab. I've tried a number of different things, backstabbing, ambushing body parts. I've tried different weapons. I started with one of those jambiyas, moved on to a leaf-blade sword, moved on to a stout short sword from Dirge. I've also tried using ME. I've finally broke down and bought a forged short sword, forged sabre, forged scimitar, and a flat-black sword from the last fest to try to optimize damage per attack.

I'm currently hunting goblins in Haven. I did some testing using both backstab/ambush and it takes roughly 30 minutes to go from 0/34 to 10/34.

Hiding: 46 22.91% clear (0/34)
Stalking: 47 74.01% clear (0/34)
Backstab: 32 76.82% clear (0/34)

Strength : 16 Reflex : 14
Agility : 16 Charisma : 14
Discipline : 15 Wisdom : 10
Intelligence : 10 Stamina : 16

I always thought it sucked training TM using bolt.
Any advice you all can give me would be great.
Sorry for the somewhat longer post.

<<try to optimize damage per attack.>>

This would seem to make sense and is usually the first line of thinking people try. But backstab is a stealth attack, and it doesn't rely on damage for exp. It relies upon how well you evaded your target's ability to see the backstab coming.

This makes weapons that deal lower damage the way to go, as this will allow the creature to last longer since it takes more hits to kill them. Thus you get in more attacks per minute since you spend less time skinning, looting, and hunting and more time actually backstabbing. I can't swear that sums up the entire problem at your level, others need to weigh in on that, but it describes high level problems pretty well.

A peach knife is a light edged melee-ranged weapon.
The peach knife is well suited for backstabbing.

You are certain that it could do:
poor puncture damage
poor slice damage
dismal impact damage

You are certain that the knife is decently balanced and is dismally suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

You are certain that the peach knife is appreciably susceptible to damage, and is in pristine condition.

The peach knife is made with metal.
You are certain that the peach knife weighs exactly 9 stones.
You are certain that the peach knife is worth exactly 180 dokoras.
Roundtime: 8 seconds.

<<I always thought it sucked training TM using bolt.>>

~ listens to a distant echo... ~

Kaxis

I will agree with the people who suggest to find a weapon that is accurate but does little damage for backstabbing (I think you want to do at least a little damage or it won't award anything for that hit, but I may be wrong).

I have found that I seem to get roughly 1/2 - 3/4 the amount of reward for using offhand (I don't know if that is because the coding for offhand is supposed to be only 70% as effective [might have that amount off, can't remember exacts from Red-Name], but the experience I feel suffers in offhand use).

_____________________________________
Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

You still learn with glancing/brusing hits, and this makes critters that are resistant to piercing attacks good to backstab.

Frostweavers, Elba Darvagers and Nipoh Oshu are all immune to piercing (you will never get a damaging hit with a puncture based weapon), I am sure someone can add more.

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the advice. I've adjusted my hunting slightly and gone ahead and tried a few more things that seem to make training backstab bearable.

If you are training 7 weapons, only 2 are usable with the backstab verb. and, BS is a primary skill while weapons are secondary. So, your BS exp will drain faster, plus you are training the weapons more. using the backstab verb versus feint/body part gives more exp for backstab I am pretty sure. It all depends on how you hunt. If you stand at melee and only kill something to maintain a quota of 2 or 3 monsters per room, depending on the spawn rate, your defense skills will train faster than your offense skills. So, (and this is what I do) if you just run around a hunting area, advance and then BS kill every critter in 1-3 hits, your exp will go to stealths and BS pretty evenly. When I hunt like this, the order of exp from greatest to least is, weapon, bs, stalk, hide. Now, if i am correct, the hide vs perc skill check goes up each time you hide in front of the same creature (pretty sure I remember hearing something about this), so if you stand with one or more critters, and use the feint/body part method (i.e. constantly hiding and stalking but doing little to no damage) it makes sense that you will get more hiding/stalking exp than BS exp. Please try with just your LE, run around and kill as I mentioned before, using BS verb, and see if that works. If you do this first, you should be able to lock stealths and BS fairly quick, then do some dancing and work with other weapons that don't require stealth while your stealth pool drains, until eventually you have all combats (offense, defense, and stealths) locked. usually takes about an hour, and will look like this

Shield Usage: 201 35% mind lock (34/34) Leather Armor: 216 97% mind lock (34/34)
Parry Ability: 203 76% very rapt (31/34) Multi Opponent: 229 94% captivated (26/34)
Light Edged: 230 96% focused (20/34) Evasion: 268 46% mind lock (34/34)
Hiding: 326 94% mind lock (34/34) Stalking: 325 91% mind lock (34/34)
Backstab: 267 89% mind lock (34/34) Vocals: 222 04% considering (6/34)

just remember therre are unlimited ways to train, experiment and find what works for you

>CASHAV3

I don't mean to be rude, but would you mind watching the huge paragraphs like that? It's unpleasant to the eye and makes it more difficult to read.

I haven't noticed you do it before, so it may be a fluke, but I'd appreciate it if you'd break up your posts a bit.

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