Kobold Shadow Stalker

[vastin]

Jul 25, 2008 18:39:20 GMT -5 Variaz said:

I'm starting to give up on Melee characters altogether as they seem to have few survivable options

You are the first one I see here who thinks that Melee is weak. Melee are probably the most powerful characters overall, outdamaging anything as soon as you get a descent weapon. Granted, the fact that you have to actually get close means more risks, but you can do so much damages that it largely makes up for it.

My experience as far as I've gone (late 20's), is that most any build can kill almost any monster in 1 round. Magic can usually kill an entire room in one round, whereas melee tends to take longer simply because it can't hit everything at once.

But the number of attacks a melee build must survive is enormously higher than the magic build, and they don't have any particular hit-point or toughness advantages. Your offensive style does not (for the most part) have any bearing on your defensive style, unless you are playing a martial artist or an INT caster. IE, there is no reason a Defender will be any tougher than a Priest - they ultimately have access to all the same skills and stats.

Thus, if there is an unavoidable risk of being randomly killed off by a nameless elite because you rolled badly on your magic resist, then best to forgo any style that exposes you to such attacks at all.

That is why I say Melee is at a disadvantage. Statistically it does incredible damage, but tactically I've found it is much too exposed to attack and has a tendency to get blown away more often than my casters, who can play very cautiously when the situation calls for it.

[Variaz]

That is why I say Melee is at a disadvantage. Statistically it does incredible damage, but tactically I've found it is much too exposed to attack and has a tendency to get blown away more often than my casters, who can play very cautiously when the situation calls for it.

You can play cautiously with a melee character as well. Of course, if you jump right in the middle of a pack of strong enemies, you're in trouble. But if you use some tactics, such as waiting for enemies in a corridor and take them one by one, it makes things much easier. In many cases, you can kill off enemies before they even get a chance to try a single attack. In cases where you're surrounded, you can use Spin Attack. You can take down a row of enemies from a distance with Wave of Elements.

It's true that against a mob, the mage will kill the mob quicker. But against a tough boss, the melee character will be able to kill them much quicker.

But right now, there seems to be a problem, in that the weak enemies appear for a longer while than they should. Mobs of imps and hounds should appear more often than mobs of Devling Infantries at later levels, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be always the case.

Also, one thing to consider is that as the game progress, more and more enemies gets the counter to block magic attacks in addition to melee and ranged, and most of the stronger enemies have both melee and ranged attacks. So magic doesn't become 100% accurate anymore. Then comes monsters with extra lives, which are difficult to kill in one round for a mage, for they requires a minimum of hits to kill. There's only a few right now, but more will come. And then there are "anti-mage" enemies, like the spheres. Glowing Spheres and Mysterious Spheres can make quick work of an unprepared mage. And of course, magic immunes/returning are always there.

[vastin]

Sure, there are a lot of counters to magic, but likewise to melee. They seem about as common either way.

The big killer I've seen are the fact that anyone will die to a high-end spell if they blow their magic resist roll - that's just the RNG telling you to take a break from the game.

The other is that I've just seen a fair number of 'bizarre' deaths in melee. My two toughest characters didn't die to dragons or glowing spheres - they died to a Devling Champion and a Kobold Infantry.

How a Kobold infantry is supposed to do 14k damage in a single round to a character with 80k armor is beyond me. If physical returning was working, I'd assume I'd killed myself, but it's not, so I'm mystified.

[Variaz]

How a Kobold infantry is supposed to do 14k damage

Well, it may have been a Kobold Champion or higher. But I think it's a devling that got you here...

Higher rank kobolds and devlings have good dexterity, which in turn gives them a high hit rate. Combine that to their high speed, and they can deal quite a few blows in one round. Especially devlings. (but Kobolds gets ranged and magic attacks). This is why when you play a melee character, you try not to fight them in an open room, but rather in a corridor where you can take them one by one. Or all at once with Wave of Elements!

There are also many strategies that can turn the exposure to hits into an advantage. For example, Counter Attack, Shield of Element, Grappling Throw and Damages Curse. You will also likely have more hp and defense than a mage, because while it's true that in terms of stats/skill points, both melee and magic gets the same and no style have inherent disadvantages defensively, melee doesn't need as many points dedicated to weapon skills or strength as magic needs to int/wis and their magic skills. So you can place those spare points into Constitution, Defense and Agility for more defense.

[vastin]

All I can say is that in the case of both the Kobold Infantry and Devling Champions, I was playing characters that not only tended to wade into combat - they'd done so for the entire game up till that point and never suffered more than 10% hp loss, ever. Their AC, Magic Resist and HP were all dramatically higher than any of the caster builds I've played. (5x AC, 3x hp, 2x MR, roughly).

And yet they both died instantly. I'm quite sure they weren't taken down by groups or a creature with a very large number of attacks because I would have seen the HP counters tick down during the round. No, in both cases they both died before I could even stop tapping the space-bar.

I suspect that in both cases it was an elite with double-melee damage, generated something like 10+ levels below the level I was on. I've noticed that as you get to dungeon level 23 or so, it becomes fairly common to see monsters generated with a level of 40 or even higher. My casters don't seem to care about this very much - they just throw another couple balls around the corner - but my melee builds seem to suffer badly when the level ratio gets wider.

[Gando]

I have to agree with Variaz here... This may not be Angband part XIII but it does still bear a strong resemblance to those games...the tricks to surviving any angband game are rather unique to the game style and do not usually include wading into the midst of a mob of monsters as if you were Ares, God of War. Seriously think guerrilla warfare and you will do much much better...My melee builds always have really good speed and movement (agi 40+ for long jumps) and teleport spells at the ready. As you said a stray nuke can kill anyone dead so magic defense is a must but so too is mobility and keep in mind that the flail method of playing say Diablo or Dungeon Seige even does not work well in these games. One fun method is to make walls and fight around them ...which isnt easy to do in portralis as there is no easy tunnelling method and no good wall summoning. But it is possible. I too find it frustrating that my melee characters do not do so well mowing down the kobolds and devilins head on...That is why I usually go hybrid wiscaster/melee or intcaster/melee.

[phlinn]

It could have been magic return, which occurs with some abilities it's really not supposed to, such as spin kick and I would assume spin attack. If you were just using regular attacks then ignore that hypothesis.

I highly reccomend creating a 4th window and assigning it to messages. It's one of the things I always do, as it allows me to skip text without too much of an issue. I believe if you reload after dying you could skim back and see what happened.

[vastin]

Yeah, I've played a great deal of Angband and variants (I mean, really a lot ). My degree of caution tends to depend on how late in the evening it is when I'm playing.

My style as a caster can be very, very cautious, because they can still pay through a level at a decent pace despite that caution. For example, in Quazar's temple where there are huge open spaces that can get you shot and killed from off-screen, I use massive AOE ball spells as a form of 'sonar' to detect enemies that aren't in maximum visual range yet, and I try to avoid using auto-run, even though that does slow things down kind of painfully.

As a fighter type though, the same kinds of precautions needed to avoid an encounter with something lethal becomes onerous. Turning every room fight into a corner pull in order to avoid being attacked at range or obliterated by a lucky swing from a boss before it dies gets reeaally slow. The caster just machine-guns several high powered balls and if anything in the room is still alive after that, you know it is time to pay attention to it - this is the main reason I play celestial casters, as most other characters cannot throw balls without fear of nuking themselves out of existence on a returner.

Really the issue is the ratio of player HP to monster damage. Anything that matters in the late game can pretty much kill you instantly. The HP buffer only seems to be there to avoid death by lucky petty hits from trash.

In most -Bands, the HP buffer acts as a warning that you are in over your head, and it is time to run or heal yourself. Only exceptional monsters will 'one shot' you (Drolem!) and you learn to watch for them carefully. In Portralis the HP buffer does not serve that role, and most Boss or Elite mobs (or normal casters) of your level or higher have the damage potential to one shot you with a good roll. It seems akin to walking around an Angband dungeon where any enemy might turn out to be a Drolem - eventually the odds will catch up with you and you'll just die to an unavoidable off-screen breath attack.

This is why my casters with much lower defense and HP totals survive a lot longer than my melee uber-tanks with several times the defense/hp and abilities like counter-attack, great guard and all the 'survival' specs I could dig up. All that doesn't amount to much when the overkill factor of damage to player HP is so high.

[vastin]

Jul 28, 2008 9:44:40 GMT -5 phlinn said:

I highly reccomend creating a 4th window and assigning it to messages. It's one of the things I always do, as it allows me to skip text without too much of an issue.

That is an excellent idea. The large numbers of attacks (and multi-cast spells) in portralis makes its text a lot spammier than other -Bands. A dedicated message window might help with that a lot.

[Variaz]

Really the issue is the ratio of player HP to monster damage. Anything that matters in the late game can pretty much kill you instantly. The HP buffer only seems to be there to avoid death by lucky petty hits from trash.

Apparently, you didn't apply the hp patch I posted before.

It's included in the next release, and it will give you more hp, so that having high hp actually makes a difference.

[Gando]

Jul 28, 2008 15:49:00 GMT -5 Variaz said:

Really the issue is the ratio of player HP to monster damage. Anything that matters in the late game can pretty much kill you instantly. The HP buffer only seems to be there to avoid death by lucky petty hits from trash.

Apparently, you didn't apply the hp patch I posted before.

It's included in the next release, and it will give you more hp, so that having high hp actually makes a difference.

And when precisely do you think the next update may come out? We havent had a new one in months.

RE: the message window...I usually have that bolded, along with a window for equip, inventory and monster id. Imho these four windows are essential for safe conduct through Port...they should be default.

[Variaz]

And when precisely do you think the next update may come out? We havent had a new one in months.

I'll try to upload it by the end of the week or this weekend.

It won't contain much in terms of new quests, but since there's some good fixes and improvements so far, in addition to the Kensai class, well, I'll upload an update.

[vastin]

Jul 28, 2008 15:49:00 GMT -5 Variaz said:

Really the issue is the ratio of player HP to monster damage. Anything that matters in the late game can pretty much kill you instantly. The HP buffer only seems to be there to avoid death by lucky petty hits from trash.

Apparently, you didn't apply the hp patch I posted before.

It's included in the next release, and it will give you more hp, so that having high hp actually makes a difference.

No indeed I did not. At the moment I'm running vanilla 0.3b002. I didn't see a thread for patches, and I know they aren't under the downloads thread or your general file share...

Any hints as to which thread you tend to secret your patches away in?

[Variaz]

Errr... now that I look at it again, I don't I posted the one with the 20% fix... The one on the forum was too big...

....let's just wait till the next upload, which won't be much longer.



A long time ago, this thread was about a Kobold Shadow Stalker....

[phlinn]

But apparently he slipped into the shadows