CIELAZURE
Trouble Learning Target
12/31/2005 09:41 AM CST
Short and sweet: Is there some new way (past few years 'new') to learn target that I'm not aware of? I have a 10th circle WM, 44 target, and it will not move past learning. I've tried hogs, gobs, cougars, wood trolls, grendels, reavers, wind hounds, rock trolls, and crocodiles. I've tried snapcasting, waiting for full prep, waiting for full target, targetting different body parts, not targetting at all. I've tried Fire Shard, Fire Ball, Fist of Stone, Gar Zeng, and Aether Lance. I've tried barely grazing the creature and pumping so much mana into the cast that it caves in chests and rips off heads. I check my exp, and: learning. Once in a while it creeps to thoughtful but absorbs less than 1% before going back to learning.
I've got to be doing something wrong here. It can NOT be this hard to learn target or nobody in their right mind would play a war mage. And a friend of mine is having the same problem -- she's 20odd circle and has closer to 80 target. The only common denominator is that we're both way old and haven't played our war mages in years, literally. I am seriously wondering if there is something wrong with the characters. I know that shouldn't be possible, but c'mon. We have tried EVERYTHING, for six hours last night, and still: learning. I'm at the point where I'm going to reroll after 10 circles and start over because this is absurd.
Thanks in advance for any helpful insight.
STURM2
Re: Trouble Learning Target
12/31/2005 10:26 AM CST
Here's the most fundamental part of learning TM: It's similar to learning weapon skills in that your experience gain is directly linked to how much damage you do. If you're above the soft cap for a creature, you will gain a lot less experience from the same damage, and if you're above the hard cap, you won't gain any experience at all.
At 40 ranks you should be in trollkin if I recall correctly. Maybe cougs/wood trolls/grendles, but they might hand you your head in a bag. I'd suggest finding a good mana room and blasting trollkin/poths/badgers repeatedly with GZ. Other spells might be good to use, but my experience has taught me that once you have a decent amount of PP and enough harness/PM to quickly cast the spell, GZ is superior for learning.
Another thing: snap casting is far more beneficial for learning than a fully targetted spell because you can do more damage over the same amount of time if you don't have to wait for the fully targetted messaging. Fully targetting is good for making sure you do good damage against something (especially something you may not be able to hit otherwise), but for training, you'll get more bang for your buck if you snap cast.
Hope that helps a bit
-Durnil
At 40 ranks you should be in trollkin if I recall correctly. Maybe cougs/wood trolls/grendles, but they might hand you your head in a bag. I'd suggest finding a good mana room and blasting trollkin/poths/badgers repeatedly with GZ. Other spells might be good to use, but my experience has taught me that once you have a decent amount of PP and enough harness/PM to quickly cast the spell, GZ is superior for learning.
Another thing: snap casting is far more beneficial for learning than a fully targetted spell because you can do more damage over the same amount of time if you don't have to wait for the fully targetted messaging. Fully targetting is good for making sure you do good damage against something (especially something you may not be able to hit otherwise), but for training, you'll get more bang for your buck if you snap cast.
Hope that helps a bit
-Durnil
ERICA
Re: Trouble Learning Target
12/31/2005 07:53 PM CST
This is the friend (of Cielazure), and thanks for the responses. It's making us both crazy, and I was only able to learn 6% on my TM in hours and hours last night.
The thing that makes this seem wrong is that neither of us could even get any experience off Rock Trolls. I don't know if I should have been able to, but seems like she should have. In the six hours she mentioned, I hunted in rockies twice, killing quite a number of trolls with fire balls, aether lance, and also casting various fire shards. (I hadn't tried Gar Zeng, and am going to do that now, snap casting at min + 1).
Here are my relevant skills. I'll gladly take suggestions on what I could or should be learning TM from based on this. I'm still trying to refresh my memory on what's even out there to fight, much less figuring what's going to be the right level for me.
Leather Armor: 80 51%
Parry Ability: 78 89%
Multi Opponent: 54 67%
Light Edged: 28 57%
Medium Edged: 38 91%
Heavy Edged: 72 32%
Twohanded Edged: 26 17%
Primary Magic: 112 09%
Harness Ability: 114 14%
Power Perceive: 105 84%
Magical Devices: 86 59%
Targeted Magic: 89 08%
Evasion: 76 82%
Unless it's a matter of just hunting the wrong critters, I'm still in a quandry. I would have expected Rock Trolls or Reavers (plus Wind Hounds) to get my TM moving at least a little, but to restate, I only got 6% increase in six or more hours, and I think part of that came from actually teaching TM for a bit. I'm going to go try a few things based on the advice here, but I'll take more if you have it.
The thing that makes this seem wrong is that neither of us could even get any experience off Rock Trolls. I don't know if I should have been able to, but seems like she should have. In the six hours she mentioned, I hunted in rockies twice, killing quite a number of trolls with fire balls, aether lance, and also casting various fire shards. (I hadn't tried Gar Zeng, and am going to do that now, snap casting at min + 1).
Here are my relevant skills. I'll gladly take suggestions on what I could or should be learning TM from based on this. I'm still trying to refresh my memory on what's even out there to fight, much less figuring what's going to be the right level for me.
Leather Armor: 80 51%
Parry Ability: 78 89%
Multi Opponent: 54 67%
Light Edged: 28 57%
Medium Edged: 38 91%
Heavy Edged: 72 32%
Twohanded Edged: 26 17%
Primary Magic: 112 09%
Harness Ability: 114 14%
Power Perceive: 105 84%
Magical Devices: 86 59%
Targeted Magic: 89 08%
Evasion: 76 82%
Unless it's a matter of just hunting the wrong critters, I'm still in a quandry. I would have expected Rock Trolls or Reavers (plus Wind Hounds) to get my TM moving at least a little, but to restate, I only got 6% increase in six or more hours, and I think part of that came from actually teaching TM for a bit. I'm going to go try a few things based on the advice here, but I'll take more if you have it.
STEELDREAMER
Re: Trouble Learning Target
12/31/2005 08:55 PM CST
Mmm...89 target, you're way up there for rock trolls. They don't really teach that high. Your best bet would be to find something a little bit higher. Usually at around that circle I take my characters to the islands. Sand Sprites will teach you pretty well for about another 11 ranks, and after that Silver Leucros can take you all the way up to 120+. Creatures do have caps, and 89 is pretty deep for rock trolls. Swamp trolls in Haven are a possibility, but they're probably too strong for you now. You might be able to nuke them magically to learn, and the power's great around there, but they'd almost certainly beat on you physically.
For your friend who's in the 40's, the creatures are the problem as well, I would think.
For 44 TM, I'd actually recommend water sprites followed by bone wolves down around the leth area. I just recently trained TM up to about 80 in bone wolves. Wind hounds are too easy to hit, and reavers have shields to give you TM troubles in addition to being largely immune to electrical damage.
For your friend who's in the 40's, the creatures are the problem as well, I would think.
For 44 TM, I'd actually recommend water sprites followed by bone wolves down around the leth area. I just recently trained TM up to about 80 in bone wolves. Wind hounds are too easy to hit, and reavers have shields to give you TM troubles in addition to being largely immune to electrical damage.
WEILM
Re: Trouble Learning Target
12/31/2005 09:32 PM CST
| Leather Armor: | 80 51% | Parry Ability: | 78 89% | |
| Multi Opponent: | 54 67% | Light Edged: | 28 57% | |
| Medium Edged: | 38 91% | Heavy Edged: | 72 32% | |
| Twohanded Edged: | 26 17% | Primary Magic: | 112 09% | |
| Harness Ability: | 114 14% | Power Perceive: | 105 84% | |
| Magical Devices: | 86 59% | Targeted Magic: | 89 08% | |
| Evasion: | 76 82% |
Other than being in Leather, and having MO a bit low, I would agree that sand sprites would be the place for you. If you have SD, and a willingness to use it, you can probably handle even a nasty swarm there.
As an additional piece of information that might help both of you, check out the links in my signature for the What to Hunt Chart. Very useful, fairly current, even if it doesn't include TM caps yet, but the weapon caps and the TM caps aren't that far apart, and the bottom cap is incredibly helpful.
>>after that Silver Leucros can take you all the way up to 120+
Sand sprites hard cap TM at 100 ranks exactly, and swarm well enough to make hunting them all the way to the hard cap not a problem. They also pay incredibly well, IMO, and will teach you defenses as long as you can stand staying there.
At present, while I am sure I am into the soft cap, I can also verify that silver leucros can teach TM past 132 ranks.
Without knowing your skinning and box skills, I cannot say for sure that you will enjoy/profit from sandies and leucros, but I know that even without your boxes, sandies pay fairly well. But the boxes offer the possibility of the rare "uber" box, which can be worth several plat all by itself.
~Kyn (Kynevon)
Info Page http://kynevon.info
Mac OS X FE http://tinyurl.com/9xjyj
Amagaim's What to Hunt Chart
Excel format: http://tinyurl.com/44jlt
HTML format: http://tinyurl.com/6tpls
JUASON
Re: Trouble Learning Target
01/01/2006 01:13 AM CST
For seeing what creatures would teach TM, I recommend either Amagaim's hunting guide, or the Hunting guide on the DRPlat site. Just click the hunting section, enter the appropriate filters (or click the approximate circle ranges) and it should list some hunting options for you. Rock trolls seem to cap at 90, so you're too high to learn from them as was previously mentioned. Many creatures can be tingled too which removes about 25% of their defense ;)
Some options not mentioned might be snowbeasts, young ogres (if you can tingle them), fire sprites and fire cats in the gate of souls (just watch the defenses), vines might do well up in Theren if you tingle the maras and watch the swarms. Use the bloodwolves nearby to catch up your defenses (MO) some more and you'll be dancing with vines in no time. Good luck hunting!
http://www.drplat.com - The DragonRealms Platinum Community Website!!
Quote of the moment >> "If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button."
-- Sam Levenson
Some options not mentioned might be snowbeasts, young ogres (if you can tingle them), fire sprites and fire cats in the gate of souls (just watch the defenses), vines might do well up in Theren if you tingle the maras and watch the swarms. Use the bloodwolves nearby to catch up your defenses (MO) some more and you'll be dancing with vines in no time. Good luck hunting!
http://www.drplat.com - The DragonRealms Platinum Community Website!!
Quote of the moment >> "If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button."
-- Sam Levenson
ERICA
Re: Trouble Learning Target
01/01/2006 09:48 PM CST
Bah, I definitely see some backtraining in my future. I'm glad to know that Rockies aren't actually supposed to teach me at this point, so the next joy will be finding something that I can learn from that also won't squash me immediately. Thanks for the resources and suggestions... that'll help.
STURM2
Re: Trouble Learning Target
01/01/2006 10:19 PM CST
Sand sprites in Ratha (which I think has already been mentioned). Dusk ogres in Haven, as well as creepers and vines if you can find a room with low spawn (the room before the long walk works well for me).
-Durnil
-Durnil
POPWEASEL
Re: Trouble Learning Target
01/03/2006 05:52 AM CST
<< Bah, I definitely see some backtraining in my future. I'm glad to know that Rockies aren't actually supposed to teach me at this point, so the next joy will be finding something that I can learn from that also won't squash me immediately. Thanks for the resources and suggestions... that'll help. >>
I had the same problem coming back from a long vacation. I would agree that sand sprites in Ratha teach well. Actually, I am still back training after a few months of being back. sigh But I am getting there. I have to learn TM on swains but more than two will kill me quick.
Heading back into sprites.... at least I can add heavy crossbow and brawling to the fun in sprites.
Anyone is welcome to join me.
Dartellum Waddle - swinger of sword and caster of magic that goes BOOM!
I had the same problem coming back from a long vacation. I would agree that sand sprites in Ratha teach well. Actually, I am still back training after a few months of being back. sigh But I am getting there. I have to learn TM on swains but more than two will kill me quick.
Heading back into sprites.... at least I can add heavy crossbow and brawling to the fun in sprites.
Anyone is welcome to join me.
Dartellum Waddle - swinger of sword and caster of magic that goes BOOM!
SHNURUI
Re: Trouble Learning Target
01/14/2006 06:22 PM CST
Well when you get caught up, you can come help me in vines, Darte.
