Hello all,


So this is probably a dumb question but I have been having an awful time with combat maneuvers and boiling earth and/or web spells. I recently returned to the realms and it seems that I nearly always get caught by these things and it is really slowing me down and/or making it simply impossible to hunt a variety of creatures (arachnids or wood spirits for instance). I am a sorcerer.

Is there something I can do to help with this? I really haven't trained in any physical skills whatsoever mostly since I don't imagine Nou as even vaguely physical, rather I see her as intensely bookish/introverted, living in libraries and what-not.
So sorry for the dumb question but if I need to move some skillpoints around will do, it will definitely be worth it to stop being stunned/webbed/incinerated seemingly all of the time.

Keatsr, the player of Nou the faithless

Maneuvers (and maneuver like spells) are the bane of the pure caster. Hit them first and stop them from casting.

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

The mammoth arachnid's web just drives me crazy and the tree spirits will often boil earth right when I am entering the room making it impossible to hit them first. It is just a bit crazy when I have barely entered into the combat.
I sometimes make it out alive, but that form of alive is crawling from the room wailing, clutching at my gold ring to whisk me away while I'm on the brink of the abyss.

Thanks dearly for the comments!
Keatsr the player of Nou the failure

This won't help with boil earth or web spells, but I remember when my sorcerer was still hunting warfarers (back when their first attack was always e-wave and they rezzed with it already prepped) I had a huge problem with them repeatedly knocking me on the ground with 20 seconds of RT.

Until I finally I noticed that my DS was high enough that they couldn't hit me with their claids in guarded even if I was laying down. So I just stopped channeling my spells, didn't bother standing up, and slaughtered them while laying on my back... only standing up after everything else in the room was dead. That way I didn't get as much RT if they cast e-wave again and didn't give other critters as much of a chance to wander in and gang up on me... I also didn't have to worry about any RT I got while standing up since there weren't any critters in the room.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

>tree spirits will often boil earth right when I am entering the room making it impossible to hit them first.

My experience with creatures like this is to get the drop on them. And by drop on them, manipulate them into losing this advantage. Utilize the PEER verb. Most importantly, utilize patience.

The most basic scenario: There is a deadend in a hunting ground. For an example, imagine one of the spokes of the large Landing catacombs, which go 6 or so rooms in any direction. In the VERY last room, there is only one direction the enemy can go. You want to strategically place yourself in this room, PEER into the deadend, and see if the enemy is there. Then, wait until the enemy walks into the room. Doing so uses their "turn" and you can attack or cast freely for 1-2 attacks of 1-3 spells, depending on the speed of the enemy. That should give you all the time in the world to disable with 703 or Ewave, during which time you can kill it.

In practical scenarios, most rooms have multiple exits, so there is no guarantee that the enemy will go towards YOU and not further away. If you are fast (and the enemies slow) you can take advantage of this too. After the enemy moves, you can race after it and run into its NEW room (it will still be in "move RT" so to speak) and try to disable it there as well. This won't work on faster enemies, however. Sometimes, you can sandwich yourself between multiple enemies, or next to a room with multiple enemies, ensuring increased opportunities for "walk-ins".

If you hunt enemies who spawn with a prepped insta-death spell, you NEVER want to absent-mindedly walk in on them. PEER is your friend. I have spent many hunts PEERing into twice as many rooms as I walk through. Furthermore, you want to have your disabler of choice (probably 703 vs a non-corp undead caster) on a macro. When I hunted Skull Temple, I had a 703Hierophant and a 703Dogmatist macro, and moving to Maaghara Labyrinth, I swapped out for a 703Shricken and 703Goleras macro set (Moulis don't ward very well so were less of a threat, but I still 703'd em).

Of course, even with PEER and macros, you will get hit sometimes. Even if you only spend a half-second in the room before letting lose with 703/410/etc, you will still get hit, and thats where encumbrance and other such benefits come into play. One thing you could do that will make SUCH a difference on being boiled is getting ranger resistance added to your armor. Highly skilled rangers can add up to about 95% resistance to fire damage on armor, and it lasts a pretty long time (such that a suit of leathers I had given to me with Regyy resistance over 2 years of play time ago has only lost maybe 10 charges out of what is 150+).

But avoidance is key. You can dump a few hundred TPs into fitness and other skills, reduce encumbrance, and all that will help. But what they will do is give you a bonus to these maneuvers, not make you immune, and open rolls judge all equally. Why rely on a 15% improved chance to dodge/survive these attacks when you can avoid 95% of them in the first place!

As for the Web maneuvers; hunt with an empath or cleric. Untrammel will turn a cheap maneuver into a slight inconvenient. Empaths and Clerics can even train to cast a Web-Resistance version of Untrammel on themselves, ensuring they are unwebbed and able to help YOU. They can also Untrammel spiders to remove their web maneuver for a period of time.

I definitely appreciate all of the advice. As a generally solitary hunter I will just have to employ some rather complex tactics to minimize death and/or stun experiences!
There is a lot of great stuff here though so I will try to use some of these various tactics going forward.

humbly yours,
beneathing the slavering wretched melancholy zombie moon
Keatsr, the doppelganger of Nou the the faithless

>and try to get slash padding for the boil.

or ranger fire resistance...I forgot that before

--Jurp

note you can still PEER while in RT, making it helpful to know if a critter is nearby while you're in the middle of foraging tasks or something.

~Moredin