UNDERSHADOW
Starting off
08/01/2012 04:50 PM CDT
Hey guys I'm starting from scratch here and wanted to get some advice on how to train combat / defense and what weapon suggestions to use for my primary? Any advice would be great
JRSCORPION
Re: Starting off
08/01/2012 07:19 PM CDT
I'll take the easy part first. Weapons to train: LE, of course, because of backstab. LT, because of ambush sight/screen, and Thieves throw 5 throwing blades earlier than other guilds.
Beyond that, it's highly recommended to train an aimable ranged, because aiming boosts attack power beyond your base ranks, and being stealthy, you should find yourself with opportunities to poach/snipe. If you never plan on being involved in PvP it's probably less necessary. I like crossbow because of its usability with a shield, but in 3.0 the defensive penalty for stick bow users will be less, and there are plenty of Thieves even now who've had success with stick bows.
Brawling is another wise choice because of ambush clout and the ability to easily work training it into any combat routine. Besides, you definitely want the opportunity to kill people with a head butt.
Offhand weapon is easy to train using throwing blades (5 hits at once really make it go fast). And backstabbing or throwing offhand has its uses (like when your right hand gets cut off and you need to kill the critter to get your ammo back before going to get healed, or a Cleric curses you and your now-useless weapon is glued to your right hand).
If you train all those, you'll be prepared for just about any situation you may encounter. You may want to add HT, a polearm or a blunt for variety. Ambush slash/stun gives us an easy way to backtrain any weapon. It really depends on how much time you want to spend in combat as opposed to doing other things.
As far as defenses go, I've always got all the defense I need while training crossbow.
Beyond that, it's highly recommended to train an aimable ranged, because aiming boosts attack power beyond your base ranks, and being stealthy, you should find yourself with opportunities to poach/snipe. If you never plan on being involved in PvP it's probably less necessary. I like crossbow because of its usability with a shield, but in 3.0 the defensive penalty for stick bow users will be less, and there are plenty of Thieves even now who've had success with stick bows.
Brawling is another wise choice because of ambush clout and the ability to easily work training it into any combat routine. Besides, you definitely want the opportunity to kill people with a head butt.
Offhand weapon is easy to train using throwing blades (5 hits at once really make it go fast). And backstabbing or throwing offhand has its uses (like when your right hand gets cut off and you need to kill the critter to get your ammo back before going to get healed, or a Cleric curses you and your now-useless weapon is glued to your right hand).
If you train all those, you'll be prepared for just about any situation you may encounter. You may want to add HT, a polearm or a blunt for variety. Ambush slash/stun gives us an easy way to backtrain any weapon. It really depends on how much time you want to spend in combat as opposed to doing other things.
As far as defenses go, I've always got all the defense I need while training crossbow.
BADGOPHER
Re: Starting off
08/01/2012 09:20 PM CDT
Really, you can train any weapons you want, but that's not very helpful.
Bare minimum, as suggested, would be le/me (in DR 3.0 they are being combined, there are pros/cons to each in the current system), LT (again, for sight/screen, and the blades bonus), and an aimable bow. I'd recommend long or short bow, because I don't care much for 10 second (yes, I know) loads on crossbows. Snipe works with either, but it's a very strong reason to train an aimable ranged that isn't sling or staff sling.
Thieves are usually agility/reflex biased for stealthy purposes, so the lighter weapon variants are much more popular (cue gonif screaming about her whatever wielding a 2 handed whatever here) since the Light/medium weapons are biased towards low strength, high agility. From what I've seen, and been sort of told, ME vs. HE is really nearly even.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to learn brawling just for the 'oh, out of weapons, let me fist of doom my way out', but it's not really an zomg must have skill.
I'd recommend training a blunt weapon, either MB or HB, just because most of the weapon choices discussed so far are basically pure puncture/slice, and some few critters are resistant to some damage types.
And it might not be a bad idea to keep a big 2 hander weapon going just for giggles, but there's no purely mechanical reason to.
My last thief was Brawling, ME, MB, HE, HB, sling, longbow, lt, backstab (I count it seperate because I had a seperate script line for it), and I think something else. Eventually I got sick of so many weapons and just dropped hb/he entirely, worked backstabbing into my ME section, and dropped whatever the extra one was, to end up with me, mb, sling, longbow, lt, brawling. I really should have dropped sling, but honestly always wanted a sling using char, and it wasn't bad enough to make me kill people.
Bare minimum, as suggested, would be le/me (in DR 3.0 they are being combined, there are pros/cons to each in the current system), LT (again, for sight/screen, and the blades bonus), and an aimable bow. I'd recommend long or short bow, because I don't care much for 10 second (yes, I know) loads on crossbows. Snipe works with either, but it's a very strong reason to train an aimable ranged that isn't sling or staff sling.
Thieves are usually agility/reflex biased for stealthy purposes, so the lighter weapon variants are much more popular (cue gonif screaming about her whatever wielding a 2 handed whatever here) since the Light/medium weapons are biased towards low strength, high agility. From what I've seen, and been sort of told, ME vs. HE is really nearly even.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to learn brawling just for the 'oh, out of weapons, let me fist of doom my way out', but it's not really an zomg must have skill.
I'd recommend training a blunt weapon, either MB or HB, just because most of the weapon choices discussed so far are basically pure puncture/slice, and some few critters are resistant to some damage types.
And it might not be a bad idea to keep a big 2 hander weapon going just for giggles, but there's no purely mechanical reason to.
My last thief was Brawling, ME, MB, HE, HB, sling, longbow, lt, backstab (I count it seperate because I had a seperate script line for it), and I think something else. Eventually I got sick of so many weapons and just dropped hb/he entirely, worked backstabbing into my ME section, and dropped whatever the extra one was, to end up with me, mb, sling, longbow, lt, brawling. I really should have dropped sling, but honestly always wanted a sling using char, and it wasn't bad enough to make me kill people.
KHAM
Re: Starting off
08/01/2012 09:26 PM CDT
If you use light crossbow, you can drop the RT by 2 seconds at 500 ranks. So you can get 7 second load on a 8/9 lx.
or 3 seconds on a stonebow (lx that uses sling ammo, great for training).
or 3 seconds on a stonebow (lx that uses sling ammo, great for training).
MAGIC1300
Re: Starting off
08/02/2012 10:24 AM CDT
>3 seconds on a stonebow
Where can I get me one of these?
Where can I get me one of these?
BADGOPHER
Re: Starting off
08/02/2012 01:51 PM CDT
>http://elanthipedia.org/w/index.php/Weapon:Simply_carved_maple_stonebow_with_a_bright_blue_leather_sling
Note they are sort of crappy. Despite the short load I don't know anyone who uses one to train, because damage determines learning, and sling ammo isn't very damaging mostly.
Note they are sort of crappy. Despite the short load I don't know anyone who uses one to train, because damage determines learning, and sling ammo isn't very damaging mostly.
RAIST
Re: Starting off
08/02/2012 03:26 PM CDT
>because damage determines learning, and sling ammo isn't very damaging mostly.
Crafted sling ammo has improved a fair bit.
Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance
Crafted sling ammo has improved a fair bit.
Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance
JRSCORPION
Re: Starting off
08/02/2012 07:51 PM CDT
I've tried the stonebow with crafted ammo, it still trains LX slower than using a regular crossbow with quads/pulzones. Maybe someone else has had a different experience.
SCHULTZS3
Re: Starting off
08/03/2012 02:30 AM CDT
>It wouldn't be a bad idea to learn brawling just for the 'oh, out of weapons, let me fist of doom my way out', but it's not really an zomg must have skill.
As a Prydaen Thief, I lub me Brawling. Claw, Claw, Kick, Gouge cycles kill things in a hurry. If I wasn't a Cat Burglar (heh), I probably wouldn't use it so much.
I do:
LE for stabbing (a tago, to be specific for its nice balance)
ME for ambush bladework (I use a non-backstabbing 35 stone iltesh. I wish they could be forged and I could drop the weight down to be backstab capable. I like the iltesh not so much because of it's overcapped stats (according to Kodius), but the fact it has nearly evenly balanced stab/slice. Most weapons are either stabbers or slicers)
Brawling. Prydaen. I think anyone playing a Prydaen and not training brawling who is not an Empath or RPing a pacifist is off their rocker. Even the Empaths train brawling.
LT (foraged rock. No lodging)
LX (stonebow. As pointed out, it's very fast loading, and damage is pretty good when using carved ammo. And some carved ammo doesn't lodge, so you can get by with just a handful of ammo)
Short Bow (nisha bow, storebought arrows)
As you can see, all my weapons are storebought or easily obtained (I can carve my own ammo if I happened to lose my 40 carved stone rocks. I think I've lost like 2 in over a year).
I used to do a bone-crushing 2HB for a blunt weapon and LB for Stun purposes, but then was told that I could just substitute backstab and clout and just punch through (heheh) critter resistances.
Kaeta Airtag
>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear
As a Prydaen Thief, I lub me Brawling. Claw, Claw, Kick, Gouge cycles kill things in a hurry. If I wasn't a Cat Burglar (heh), I probably wouldn't use it so much.
I do:
LE for stabbing (a tago, to be specific for its nice balance)
ME for ambush bladework (I use a non-backstabbing 35 stone iltesh. I wish they could be forged and I could drop the weight down to be backstab capable. I like the iltesh not so much because of it's overcapped stats (according to Kodius), but the fact it has nearly evenly balanced stab/slice. Most weapons are either stabbers or slicers)
Brawling. Prydaen. I think anyone playing a Prydaen and not training brawling who is not an Empath or RPing a pacifist is off their rocker. Even the Empaths train brawling.
LT (foraged rock. No lodging)
LX (stonebow. As pointed out, it's very fast loading, and damage is pretty good when using carved ammo. And some carved ammo doesn't lodge, so you can get by with just a handful of ammo)
Short Bow (nisha bow, storebought arrows)
As you can see, all my weapons are storebought or easily obtained (I can carve my own ammo if I happened to lose my 40 carved stone rocks. I think I've lost like 2 in over a year).
I used to do a bone-crushing 2HB for a blunt weapon and LB for Stun purposes, but then was told that I could just substitute backstab and clout and just punch through (heheh) critter resistances.
Kaeta Airtag
>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear
