Last modified: 17.3.1998
The
Warrior's Guide to Combatting Witches and Wizards - by WarLocke
Hack 'n'
Slash-Warrior Strategies - by the Sage
Hack 'n'
Slash-Warrior Strategies II - by the Sage
Alright, alright already! Bandelar, you asked for it, and I'm delivering, but I thought I might as well go all the way.
***The Warrior's Guide to Combatting Witches and Wizards***
Now, all you veteran Warriors have had the foul luck of running into Witches (Succubi, Snow Witches, Hell Spawn, and Soulburners) and Wizards (Counselors, Magistrates, Cabalists, and Advocates) at some point in your travels. While our Sisters and Brothers can deal with them at a range, we are forced to close in order to deliver justice.
This manuscript will answer your questions, dear Warriors. This manuscript is written for a single Warrior, although the techniques decribed herein can be easily adapted to 2 or more. Said techniques will also help the intrepid adventurer with less deadly creatures, such as Goatmen Archers and Skeleton Archers.
From a tactical point of view, there are 3 phases that must be accounted for when encountering these daemons. They are:
Preparation
Containment
Eradication
I will go over each phase in turn, as well as define several techniques in
each phase to make destroying these unholy minions of evil easier.
Phase #1: Preparation
In this phase you must make sure that you are at an optimum, equipment-wise, to take on the hordes of Hell. This can be the simplest of the 3 phases, and I have only listed 2 techniques.
Technique #1: Dressing for Success
All of us know that one may find magical jewelry, as well as occassional armorments, that will make one less susceptible to certain attacks, whether it be Fire, Lightning, or general Magic. Alas, some of our brethren have not the luck that others do, and may not have the same protections. To them, I say: You Are What You Wear. Although some of us may be able to wade into the fray with our standard battlegear and expect to live to see the next dawn, others may not.
To these I have an important revelation: Few and far between are those
daemons that are dangerous in both the Physical and Magical realms. Those
daemons who are dangerous with Magic are usually not very dangerous Physically,
and their Magic takes no consideration of your armor or you fleet
footedness. So an enchanted
set of rags worn in an area full of
Advocates will protect you as well as, if not better than, a set of Full Plate
Mail.
Technique #2: Dealing with Mixed Levels
So now you have donned your Obsidian Quilted Armor in expectation of killing
Hell Spawn. You descend into the great Rift in Town and, lo and behold,
are greeted by Steel Lords. "AAAAAAI!" you say as you are hacked into little,
bloody pieces. You have fallen into one of the worst combinations
possible.
The combination Melee/Ranged level. How you deal with this
dilemma is your own choice, although I have several suggestions. If you,
like I, lean towards the Magical Arts, you can bombard the Ranged Daemons from
afar and, wearing your usual armor, confront the Melee Daemons. If that
does not appeal to you, you can take on the Melee (once again in your usual
armor), and then switch to the protective armor for the Ranged. Your
playing style will ultimately determine
how you handle this situation.
Phase #2: Containment
In this phase you will be striving to take the minions on in small groups, so
as to lessen the chances of your death. There really are no Techniques to
be listed under this phase, except to know that they will generally run away
from your direction of movement, whether by walking or teleporting. One
must learn the patterns of these daemons, it is not something that can be
taught.
Phase #3: Eradication
This is the fun, rewarding phase, at least from a Warrior's point of view. Techniques:
Technique #1: Cornering
Although the minions of Hell will try to stay away from your righteous blade,
they cannot move through walls. They are constrained as you are by
barriers. If you can manage to force a denizen into a corner, and then
stand at a 45 degree angle from either wall, they will be forced to stand there,
unwilling to move closer to your flashing blade.
Technique #2: Peekaboo
This Technigue will only be useful on those Denizens who walk (as opposed to teleporting). In practice, it goes like this: You stand alongside the outside of a room, out of sight of the denizens. Run around the corner, then back, at least 2 spaces away from the corner itself, yet along the wall. Keep your attention upon the wall on the other side of the corner, and as soon as you notice the denizen stepping into view, step towards it and hack. This may usually be repeated as often as necessary.
Technique #3: Vampire Swords and the StoneCurse Spell
There exists a type of enchanted weapon that acts as a funnel, transferring a creature's magical ability to you. The amount of energy transferred is directly proportianal to the amount of force behind the swing, which is why many of us prefer these weapons. The StoneCurse spell, although very draining to cast, holds creatures totally immobile. Very experienced Warriors can stone a handful of creatures, kill them with a Vampire weapon, and finish with a very small net loss of Magical power. This Technique is very useful to those who tend to lean towards the Arcane.
Technique #4: The TeleKill
Also a Technique only for the experienced. The Teleport spell moves you from one place to another, almsot instantaneously. Why spend time chasing daemons when you can teleport? If you are experienced enough, you may be able to get a few swings in before the daemon can react, thus ensuring a quick kill. Again, those using a Vampire weapon will benefit greatly from this Technique.
I'm kinda bored right now, so I figured I'd conduct a little independent study, ala Woody, on Warrior Strategy. As per usual, this is pretty much common sense stuff for veterans, but newbies (if there are any) may find some useful tidbits lying around here and there.
Lesson 1) Dress for Sucess
You are a warrior. What you do is beat the living crap out of anything moving that you think is evil (and maybe Wirt on occassion). You don't shoot arrows, you don't cast spells. Some of you may put on your fancy armors and grab your special maces (*glares at COW*), but you're really just in denial. Do what you do best-slash and bash things into tiny little bloody bits.
That being said, you need to learn how to set your equipment up to optimize your performance. The time derivative of the function relating the heat transfer from the external surface f(x) of you plate to the internal surface g(x), er...sorry. Got confused with Advanced Warrior Strategies for the Mathematically Apt for a second.
Anyway-since you are mainly going to be running right up to the baddies and beating on them mano a mano, you need to dress accordingly. Things you need are-to hit %, AC, life, and damage. While it may be nice to have a good magic ability to heal yourself and move quickly about the dungeon, these four things are the essentials-things a warrior can't live without. They shall each be covered in more detail.
(i) To Hit %- If you can't hit it, you can't hurt it.
Realistically, warriors have the lowest innate contact ability of any class,
and that pretty much sucks for them. While younger, and only venturing
into the less challenging areas of the labyrinth, warriors will find that a TH
of around 100% will be sufficient. However, elder fighters will quickly
discover as they try to tackly more
arduous quests that a to hit of ~180% is
much, much better. When facing non-demonic assailants, such as brigands,
murderers, or other miscreants, one will quickly discover that a much greater to
hit is needed-approaching 250%.
(ii) Armor Class
You're going to be face to face with some pretty
mean tempered baddies, and you don't want them to bite, claw, smash, or stab
through your nice shiny plate. The rules I usually obey are as follows-
Normal hell-AC of at least 100, preferably 150 (unless in single
player)
Nightmare hell-AC of at least 150, preferably 200
Hell hell-AC of at least 250, preferably >275
(iii) Life- Without it you die.
Pretty self-explanatory. Get
as much as you can, and try to keep it.
(iv) Damage- This is the least important of the essentials.
The
theory behind damage is that the more you do, the faster your opponents will
fall, however, having a huge damage in hell/hell with a 20% chance to hit, or a
43 AC will really make it irrelevant, as you will either not be able to hit your
enemy, or one shot from him will do you in. It is a far better thing to be
able to hit consistently and do less damage than to hit almost never and do
tremendous damage. Higher level warriors should have a high innate damage
rating without any bonuses being given to it or to strength, so concentrating on
other areas may be a wise decision.
Now back to equipment. You'll soon face the dilemma every warrior faces-one handed or two handed weapons. This is usuallly just a question of damage, which again leads me to recommend the one handed route. The use of a shield is vital to warriors of high level-it lets you block attacks, enables you to absorb attacks that hit more effectively, and if the user has zero resistance, will also block those nasty bloodstars the topless women in hell fire at you. This choice, of course, assumes that the weapons and shield are of comparable abilities-one would not want a shield of dexterity and jagged short sword of the bear over a King's Great axe of haste.
Resistance- This is not a worry for younger warriors, as they do
not face opponents who choose to use the arcane over a blade. Later in
life, however, it becomes essential. Although, as I already mentioned, a
shield can replace magic resistances, it wil not block fire or lightning
attacks, and will only work as quickly as the
holder can manuever it.
Having a good resistance rating is vital to surviving the deepest levels of the
dungeon. While items which increase your general resistance are more
valued, usually magic and fire resistance are given a higher priority, since
lightning attacks are few, and weak in comparison to the other two. While
a warrior
may not have the maximum resistance to all fields of magic, it is
quite possible to maximize resistance to a single variety, and quickly change to
a different variety, via rings or amulets, depending on the foes he faces.
Frills- Frills are the nice bonuses you get from equipment that
you don't need to survive, but are handy. These usually come from weapons,
as most of the other gear you wear will be used to boost the appropriate
ability-AC from plate, resistances from jewelry, etc. however certain shields,
jewels, and helmets can also have frills
which you may wish to take
advantage of.
There are two main classes of frills-offensive and defensive. Offensive frills are ones that let you kick more ass then you would normally be able to. These include weapon prefixes of the Iron- >Strange or Jagged->Merciless or Fine->King's range, and suffixes of Quality->Slaughter or Readiness->Haste.
Defensive frills give you something to better your abilty to take damage, or to recover from taking it. They include Balance- >Harmony, attribute modifiers, Leech/Blood, Bat/Vampire or Blocking suffixes.
Overall, frills let you specialize your character. Warriors can
go with Strange Swords of haste and Gold rings of Harmony to be better at
dueling human opponents, or can add dragon's rings to be more able in the
arcane. It all depends on how you want to perform. Hmm...it
seems that this lesson was more lengthy than I had
intended. Since no
one warned me that the bell rang four hours ago, I'm afraid I'm going to have to
give you all an extra assignment. As a class, I want you to find someone
in a higher grade (read: cheater), and make him give you their lunch
money. Remember, a true warrior need not always rely on brawn, but
sometimes it is the only recourse.
Ok, take your seats, we're about ready for class to begin.
Lesson 2). How Not to Become a Stain on the Floor
As we all know, dying is bad. It tends to ruin your day.
This lesson will discuss ways to avoid becoming another decapitated body on the
ground.
Part I. Know where you're headed.
It's usually a good idea to know what to expect when you go into a situation. I do not recommend venturing into hell with a warrior if you've never been there. Actually, I don't recommend venturing anywhere unless you know what to expect. A good example is the catacombs. The experienced warrior will realize that upon seeing acid beasts on the second level, he should be prepared for DeathSpit and his cohorts to nail him with their multi-phasic rapid-fire uzi spit of death, and not brazenly walk around corners where a unique monster is lurking without being ready to retreat.
I recommend taking a friend or three along with you
the first time you enter a new area, especially the caves or the bowels of hell
itself. I will cover party combat later in the course, however, you should
be able to figure out the basics for yourself. It also helps if one of the
people you trek with has some prior knowledge of the
terrain and local
fauna, and will share this wealth.
Part II. If you think you can't, don't.
Warriors are very tricky, especially in deep levels. They require patience tempered with audacity, and skill tempered with wisdom. If you feel you are unprepared to tackle a task, you probably are. You are the best judge of whether or not you are ready.
Part III. He who fights and runs away...
Lives to fight another day. There's no shame in postponing your adventuring 'til another day. If you descend into hell, and realize that the entire level is populated by witches, and that you have 5% resist magic, it would be advisable to wait until you are better prepared. You can also return to Ogden's, have some lager and beef, and hope that the balance of power in hell has shifted more favorably (read: start a new game, and hope that it's knights and vipers instead of witches).
It is far wiser to run and live than to stay and die. My philosophy is that the worse you get slaughtered, the less chance you have of recovering your equipment. Since your recovery operation will be without your gear, and you got killed with it, well, I think you get the point.
Part IV. Haste makes paste.
Warrior paste, that is. Make the monsters come to you, unless you are 100% certain you are in a situation where you can't possibly die. The worst move a warrior can make is chasing that Goat Archer around the corner, only to be turned into a pincushion by his 20 cronies. If you feel you stand a chance of severe injury, go slow. Advance one square at a time, and sweep your mouse ahead of you to tell when enemies have been alerted to your presence. When you've activated a few foes, retreat to secure ground, and fight them there. Almost all monsters will follow you once activated, although occasionally they will become stuck around corners (which can work to your advantage if you activate more than intended-simply lead them places where the pack will break up).
Part V. When in hell...
Do as the demons do. If you're on a level with witches and counselors, you may wish to pick up a bow or ready a fireball spell for those sticky situations where you can't chase the witches down without activating more, and you can't kill the counselors without taking hits from the witches. While I previously stated that bows and magic are best left to the other classes, certain cases are exceptions. I have personally saved parties in hell/hell by grabbing a dead rogue's bow from her cold grasp and plinking away at witches from behind walls and pillars.
Example Problem: Kalibos, a warrior, is in
hell/hell. He enters the level, and sees that it is populated with
Maelstroms and Bloodknights. What does he do? What, does he do?
a) Runs into the first room and starts casting chain lightning
as fast as he can.
b) Curls into the fetal position and sucks
his thumb.
c) Moves slowly, activates 4 or 5 monsters at a
time, and retreats around corners and doors to attack them singularly and dodge
the lightning bolts.
or
d) Sends an ICQ message
to his friend who plays a sorcerer, asking for fireball help.
If you answered a or b, then you should go back to kindergarten.
Although the best answer is c, d may be an acceptable choice. While a
warrior should normally be able to deal with this type of monster, Kalibos may
have sub-par equipment. Since fighting hell/hell with a warrior using
magic has already been shown to be completely Well, that's all for today, class. The PTA is going for my ass
for keeping you through your lunch break last class, so I'm trying to be more
brief. Oh, and SinSeeker, your mom called in, and said she washed your
underwear and they're waiting for you in the office. See you tommorrow,
same bat time, same bat channel.
impractical (for full proof,
take class number 12.3468.69-Magic and the Moron-What every Warrior Should
Know), calling for assistance is an acceptable course of action. Although
this would be more effective if his friend were actually Back to
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