Staying Alive in Light Armor

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Cora Cuz'avich, Aug 2, 2018.

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  1. Floors

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    Just group stuff. You can't solo everything (well you can if you're insane, because I've seen youtube vids of people doing it but its just way more fun to group for things)
     
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  2. King Robert

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    Just switched to light myself; been heavy (chain) since wipes were common! I love light, but I have to set myself to do massive damage fast. I am air/death and use the stun aoe spells to let me spam locked death ray etc to do damage and more importantly heal myself. Consider shield on earth for hp or death shield for better healing with death spells. Good luck and have fun. Don’t hunt boar drunk either ....
     
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  3. Nog

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    I like this suggestion a lot. This concept satisfies the stylistic consideration of keeping a character dancing/moving, and it gives some essential oomph to Light Armor's relative weakness if you meet the condition of darting, evading, and moving in to pick at your target. As mentioned before, I feel this as a Light melee too; perhaps better offensive output than archery (at least where hitting 2 enemies instead of 1 is viable) but to hit enemies you have to enter their space and get hit a lot.

    Yes-yes-yes. The tree has too few abilities. And clicking lots of non-passive defensive buffs is pretty tedious mid-combat when your light armor DPS toon should be...well, DPSing. And the fact that heavy armor offers bonus damage via strength, stun resistance, knockdown, etc. really makes it outpace light armor.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2018
  4. Xeng

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    I think the main problem is that you think you can facetank everything in Light Armor, a lot of attacks can be avoided, see Rada Torment doing a troll with his fists in cloth armor. The same counts for Dragons. You will get hit by a few hits from a Dragon but you can heal up yourself all the time and this special attacks rarely get casted 2 times in a row without giving you time to be healed up.
     
  5. Nog

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    Personally speaking, I have not seen moving around enemies having much positive effect - which is why I appreciated the suggestion for a passive dodge bonus when moving. I make an effort to actively avoid facetanking / standing idly and trading blow for blow as a light melee.

    It appears to me that when fighting a tough enemy or multiple moderately respectable enemies, that circumventing them hasn't been particularly effective because the AI is hard to fool and turns with you. Traditionally in PvP this tactic has more benefit.

    It is interesting to hear that there are at least some players with immense twitch skill who can perform this feat against a troll/dragon unarmed. This is pretty stunning to me and I would've previously assumed it not possible.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2018
  6. Xeng

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    Most of the bosses here seem to have some special attacks you can avoid by moving around them or sprinting away.
    For normal melee mobs you have Disabling Shot, which makes you untouchable by those. Archers are trying to run away from you, when you are close, so I use Disabling Shot on them as well and stand near them, so they slowly try to get range and I get bonus for shoting them in their back. For mages I don't have any special tactic, but they take a lot of damage from a bow and die fast.
     
  7. Toadster

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    Correct me if I am wrong, I had another post about Trolls vs Other Mobs. In light armor Trolls are the only mob that you can tank in light armor. Not because of the light armor but because they have noticeable and counterable attacks. With Torc if he raises his foot you jump moves his arms you circle. This allows you in light armor to avoid being hit through player skills and you don’t need armor buffs to survive. But it is challenging because if you get hit he can take 6-700 HPs or cause confusion which makes it harder to avoid further. With the other mobs there are no options for avoiding the hits through movement they are either faster than you, always cause confusion or knockdowns that don’t let you up before the next hit destroys you. Maybe there is a trigger for the dragon swiping his tail and if timed right you can jump it, but I haven’t found it yet. So they really should beef up light a little or add more mobs like trolls that can be challenging in light armor but also possible.
     
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  8. Nog

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    That was my experience too. I don't solo trolls and dragons (as a level 85) because they'll eat me alive, especially with stuns that light armor has no resistance to. If you can dodge some of their attacks through player skill, great. But against every other mob - with the exception of enemies of much lower level such as early game bandits - I've found that attempting to manually circle and feint with twitch skill has no real benefit. The AI appears to me to always anticipate and keep turned toward your position. As such, facetanking or specifically not facetanking, light armor is a bit too underpowered in my melee experience.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2018
  9. Xeng

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    If you are doing everything right while fighting a Dragon, you will only get hit by a Wing Gust ( even though that can be avoided with enough movement speed ) and a Wing Swipe. As long as you have enough HP to not get one shot by those attacks you are in no danger.
    For trolls the only none avoidable damage is when they are throwing a rock which can hurt, but is dodgeable ( so use your major dodge bonus for that ) and you could count the falling down when he dies as well.
    Yes this all counts for doing no errors during the fight, but the sprint ability from light armor does help in avoiding the majority of special attacks from bosses and so does dodge.
    Overall for the most bosses in game it is more about the fight mechanic than what armor you are wearing.
     
  10. Sorthious

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    AdvLvl 112 Mage here, all cloth. I've added Combat Dodge Mods to most of my armor pieces and all but one piece has DA on it. Invest in a Water Elemental if you haven't. I've seen mine heal me for as much as 230hps in one hit. Certain buffs work better in certain situations. You really have to get an idea of what type of damage is being dealt to you. Some mobs are just crazy powerful and will one hit you regardless. Anyway, I use Ice Sheild which gives a good amount of DA, Water Attuenment and Fire Resist. It is a great shield. Use Purify/Burst stacked for extra Death Resistance. Healing grace, in addition to Soothing Rain, can help keep you alive in short bursts. Also, use cover whenever possible to avoid taking full hits.
     
  11. Cora Cuz'avich

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    High life/water attunement? Maybe 111 is the highest I've seen on mine, but I'm only 80 attunement water/life, probably lvl 80 on the water elemental. I have recently started MWing my bone armor- I've GM'd my MW with the double XP days, But I wasn't lucky enough to get a lot of dodge/DA results. I might switch back to leather so I can afford to make several sets and go for specific MWs- I'm not able to get daemon hooves or dragon neck bones easily without a group to help, so I can't really make a bunch of sets of bone armor to MW/enchant without spending a lot of gold.
     
  12. Sorthious

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    Water Ele is Water Tree so I would think it is contingent upon your Water Attunement. Also, I would think that having higher INT makes the Water Ele(and all other spells) more effective. My Water Ele is L107 though, LOL and attunement is 222.3(w/o Warlock Chain.) Maybe upping your Water Attunemnt and getting more INT buffs will improve your Ele's healing. Also, you may want to change the follow distance of your elemental. Right-click on it's name and play with the settings to see what works best for you.
     
  13. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Follow distance? That's a thing? Huh. I know I set mine to defensive, but I don't recall a setting for follow distance. I'll look into that tonight, if I get a chance to get online.

    Water attunement makes sense, but if the heals are life spells, it might be life. Or both. I'm not sure what its heals actually are.
     
  14. Sorthious

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    Yeah, follow distance was added a few releases ago. I only noticed it when I was dismissing an ele. Yeah, it sounds counterintuitive, given that the elemental is casting a healing spell, but I'm pretty sure that it is all Water Attunement, Water Elemental Level, and Intelligence that controls your Elementals effectiveness. Another useful command for ele's is teleport, which is bound to keypad 8(iirc), but you need to be out of combat to use it. It brings your elemental right to you if it has lagged behind or can't get to your location by any other means.
     
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