Syrphid
04-16-2010, 06:15 PM
I am all ears for your ideas and opinions. Post away please, fuel a discussion! Pics, vids and questions are all welcome.
Guiding principles
1. Pets can manipulate monster aggro and stun conditions. They can hold off or turn on aggro as convenience dictates.
2. Nobody cares if a pet dies (100 gold and 0.1 inv space per res). That is, if a player's third hand is chopped off, he can simply throw out another one. At the end of the battle dead pets can be ressed. It can be fatal for the party if one player dies, but merely inconvenient if a pet dies.
The really nice thing about actively using pets in battle is that they break you out of constraints that enemies normally impose on you. Take the typical solo loop, icecounter. Hit the enemy with an icebolt. Now you have to counter. After you counter, you have to hit them with an icebolt. It's not so much that you want to icebolt or counter but that you have to. Imagine after hitting the enemy with an icebolt you inject a pet ram. Suddenly you don't have to do anything, there is no incoming monster to counter. You can load smash, grab a bow, play song, do a dance. The enemy loses its hold over you. You're free to do as you wish.
In multi-aggro situations you'll have a replaceable and life- and time-saving partner (kinda like a third hand!), and when double teaming a single enemy you'll find it easy to slip in powerful attacks such as smash, wm and magnum instead of laming it up with weaksauce like icecounter.
Quick shortcuts
1. You'll want fast access to pet commands, namely summon, unsummon, sit and call. Pet heal, bandage, smash and cancel skill are also useful to shortcut (accessible via right click on pet\skills, drag to hotkey bar). You can make keyboard shortcuts of all of these. Start\Options\Game\Hotkey Settings, assign a shortcut to the commands you want. I personally use the 2nd row (~ and 12345...).
2. Icebolt, lightningbolt, firebolt, speed boost, wm, counter and defense for you microing freaks. :)
3. Shift + left click will give the pet a target and it'll try to melee combo its target. You can also use ctrl to help pick a target.
4. Mount should be hotkeyed as well. It is "r" by default, although it might be unassigned if you have modded your client. Easily fixed.
A few definitions, because I like making up words
*pet swipe: pet melees enemy but disengages before knockback
- easy ways to disengage pet include sitting it, calling it, unsummoning it, and giving it another target to attack.
- pet ready to move
- enemy in hit stun (shorter than knockback stun)
*pet ram: pet melees enemy until knockback
- pet in post combo recovery
- enemy in knockback stun
*auto-retaliate: when a character comes in to melee a monster that is targeting someone else, but the monster pauses to counter-melee the character, after which it pursues its original target
- seems to only occur with focused monsters
- must be accounted for; some monsters that successfully auto-retaliate will be distracted for only a heartbeat (~200 ms)
- a pet one hit away from death will force an auto-retaliating enemy into post-combo recovery (vulnerable for ~1.5 sec, much longer than the aforementioned 200 ms), basically guaranteeing that the enemy is bogged down, even if the pet's melee is intercepted. Keep your pets at 95% wounds to prevent this!
*focus: a little known property of monsters that is integral to understanding monster ai
- A monster will focus on a player/pet who strikes the monster with any move besides wm.
- A monster can only focus on one target and possesses no memory. That is, if it loses focus, it will not re-focus on its last focusee.
- A simple way to drop focus is to pet swipe the enemy and then unsummon the pet. Playing dead will also drop focus.
- Striking an enemy in defense with ANY move that doesn't pierce defense will not cause it to focus on you.
- Note: focus is distinct from aggro. A monster can be aggro'd on someone without focusing on him, eg a player stands by a monster and it detects and then aggros him, but it has not yet focused on him because he has not yet struck it with a non-wm move.
- I don't really understand how focus works. Watch for it during your battles and form your own gut feelings of when enemy x will do y in situation z. I give you only my general impression.
Pet attributes
- In lower level play, pet damage can be significant. Preceding a wm or smash with 2 pet swipes can cut a 2 turn kill in half. Horses and bears excel here.
- In higher level play, dps comes from the player. Pet damage becomes nothing. Frivolous pet swipes are more likely to cost the player his life against enemies with higher levels of heavy stander. Stopping ranged and magic attacks and awkward charges (thus keeping player alive) takes priority over chip damage.
- Speed is very important, allowing a player's third hand to reach farther and do more. Thoroughbreds, black cotton ostriches, and crystal deer win here.
- The number of attacks in a melee combo determines when a pet swipe becomes a pet ram. Very, very important. A 3 hit combo allows a pet to swipe an enemy who has just recovered from down status (whereas a clumsier pet can only ram), and also allows more variation in swiping to lengthen nail time. Thoroughbreds and crystal deer (3 hit) beat black ostriches (2 hit).
- Odd qualities for odd jobs. r9 ice (mini skels and albino king snakes). Firebolt of any rank for firemill. Counter for counter battery. Hide. Ice Storm.
- Overall I recommend an army of speedy 3 hit pets for swipemill play and random pets to fill odd jobs (perhaps 1 pet placed on a firebolt spamming ai). The thoroughbred is a great combat pet, excelling in all categories. Crystal deer are currently the best pets.
The windmiller's third hand
As an aoe attack that protects the user for a full 2 seconds, windmill has huge potential when paired with the aggro manipulation of aggressive pet play. Some strategies detailed below.
* Swipemilling, a strategy that relies on heavy use of pet swipes (and the occasional ram) in conjunction with wm
- Pets can 2 swipe enemies to coax them to trail after the pet and 1 swipe enemies to quickly nail them in place. Many enemies will load a skill after being 1 swiped, which will buy you more time but won't clump enemies like 2 swipes will.
- The player should locate himself in an optimal position to wm. This is usually in the middle of all the trailing, nailed, and oblivious mobs.
- The player's wm should blow away all of the pet's pursuers, allowing it to continue swiping choicy targets.
- Because wm does not specifically target monsters, it will not usually aggro enemies (leaving them non-alert or still targeting your pet, and yourself free to weave about), nor will it draw focus. This is especially important because monsters that lack focus tend not to auto-retaliate against pets.
- Choicy targets to swipe include monsters that are casting or aiming, have smash loaded, are loading skills, are scrambling (running around randomly or walking without defense), and have not yet aggro'd, and unfocused monsters aggro'd on the player.
- Typically, monsters that break on your wm (as you are spinning and invincible) are also vulnerable to pet swipes.
- Against easier odds, feel free to load smash out of wm. You can open up an enemy with a pet swipe to land the smash.
- After the pet has accrued heavy aggro, you can unsummon it and cycle on to another pet. This has the added benefit of dropping all aggro on your third hand and unfocusing monsters that have been swiped.
- Swipemilling is the highest dps strategy because the pet clumps enemies, making for spectacular wms. It is extremely aggressive, calling for domination of all enemies on the field. When properly executed, enemies will not have a chance to cast magic or aim death at the player or his third hand. Attempted melees against the player are swiped away, and attempted melees against the pet are wm'd away.
- Swipemilling runs into difficulties against heavy stander enemies, as a ping will kill the third hand and unravel the player's aggro domination.
To survive difficult multi aggro situations, you need to plan your wm's a turn ahead. These are some useful techniques for ensuring that you get to the next wm.
Windmill baiting: preparing a stunned enemy that you can use to trigger wm in the face of enemy magic and range
- Position your initial wm so that it does not touch a nearby enemy.
- This enemy should be on the other side of the wm'd enemies so that reaching it will not involve running through an angry mob.
- Fire the wm and swipe the chosen enemy.
- Move to enemy and fire your 2nd wm.
- Having found safe haven, you can then use your seconds of invulnerability to manipulate the wave of incoming enemies, typically again preparing wm bait for the subsequent wm's.
http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss177/syrphid/Wmbait.jpg
- In this picture, the black circle represents the 1st wm.
- After knocking back the 5 enemies in range, you send a pet out to whack the enemy on the right.
- Follow up by moving into range of enemy bait and then wm'ing.
- The 5 enemies hit by the 1st wm will not be able to interfere in time, even if they charge magic, pull out a bow or chase for melee (unless they have heavy stander). The enemy not hit by the 1st wm will be stunned by pet. Nothing stands in the way of your 2nd wm, and the resulting 2 seconds of invincibility will make victory inevitable (imo).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NupFdrz0AU
- Green arrows indicate primary wm bait.
- I make extra pet swipes to pull aggro on pet, nail rats in desirable formations and to free up my own character's movement.
- I shouldn't have smashed at the end, nobody saw that.
Assault slash chaining: using AS to close the distance to a target for your next wm
- On your initial wm, try to hit one of the targets so that it ends up away from the others.
- AS asap, you want to redown your target so that it doesn't get knocked away from you. AS has recovery time after that doesn't allow you to run around. You may be forced to wm where you land, so you want your target next to you.
- wm!
- Your 2nd wm should undown the target. An immediate pet attack against it will result in ram, so attack it after you've performed all the other necessary swipes.
- AS has cooldown, so you'll want to make wm bait for the next turn.
Play-by-play: swipemilling bugbears (3x aggro, human speed, heavy stander)
- If bugbear does not ping to wm, for that turn it is just another human speed monster. Wm will reload in time, so your basic tactic will be wm chains (wm --> wm). If bugbear doesn't rush, pet and move as needed.
- If bugbear pings to wm, it will close the distance on you. If it rushes, you will need to use a pet to continue your wm chain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o-fGFrqeQ4
* Firemilling, a simple alternation of a pet's firebolt and the player's wm against a single target
- Player and pet can safely advance under each other's cover, until the target is walled, after which movement is no longer necessary.
- Completely shuts down one target; solves all single aggro situations
- Works against teleporting monsters (such as ghosts and ciar adv golems) as well, the player just has to stand near his pet so that he can wm the monster after it teleports in response to the pet's firebolt
- Will fail when pet runs out of mp
- Firebolt spamming ai recommended.
Rule: Pet is targeting the enemy
Action: Charge Fire Bolt for 1x, then attack. Time limit: 5 sec.
Shift+left click to give pet a target, then use Pet's "Cancel Skill" to negate its attempt at a physical attack. It should then begin spamming firebolt until it runs out of mp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtFewFe_OrU
Applications in battle
*Excerpts from ciar adv: swipemilling through everyone's favorite dungeon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0xtJ_XCU9E
*L-rod run of maiz garg part: swipemilling up to 7 multi aggros at a time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoENmXrenLg
Hopefully this guide will help you on your way to becoming an awesome windmiller. Spin to win!
Check out this thread for more info on using smash: Close Quarters Combat (http://mabination.com/showthread.php?t=3032)
Guiding principles
1. Pets can manipulate monster aggro and stun conditions. They can hold off or turn on aggro as convenience dictates.
2. Nobody cares if a pet dies (100 gold and 0.1 inv space per res). That is, if a player's third hand is chopped off, he can simply throw out another one. At the end of the battle dead pets can be ressed. It can be fatal for the party if one player dies, but merely inconvenient if a pet dies.
The really nice thing about actively using pets in battle is that they break you out of constraints that enemies normally impose on you. Take the typical solo loop, icecounter. Hit the enemy with an icebolt. Now you have to counter. After you counter, you have to hit them with an icebolt. It's not so much that you want to icebolt or counter but that you have to. Imagine after hitting the enemy with an icebolt you inject a pet ram. Suddenly you don't have to do anything, there is no incoming monster to counter. You can load smash, grab a bow, play song, do a dance. The enemy loses its hold over you. You're free to do as you wish.
In multi-aggro situations you'll have a replaceable and life- and time-saving partner (kinda like a third hand!), and when double teaming a single enemy you'll find it easy to slip in powerful attacks such as smash, wm and magnum instead of laming it up with weaksauce like icecounter.
Quick shortcuts
1. You'll want fast access to pet commands, namely summon, unsummon, sit and call. Pet heal, bandage, smash and cancel skill are also useful to shortcut (accessible via right click on pet\skills, drag to hotkey bar). You can make keyboard shortcuts of all of these. Start\Options\Game\Hotkey Settings, assign a shortcut to the commands you want. I personally use the 2nd row (~ and 12345...).
2. Icebolt, lightningbolt, firebolt, speed boost, wm, counter and defense for you microing freaks. :)
3. Shift + left click will give the pet a target and it'll try to melee combo its target. You can also use ctrl to help pick a target.
4. Mount should be hotkeyed as well. It is "r" by default, although it might be unassigned if you have modded your client. Easily fixed.
A few definitions, because I like making up words
*pet swipe: pet melees enemy but disengages before knockback
- easy ways to disengage pet include sitting it, calling it, unsummoning it, and giving it another target to attack.
- pet ready to move
- enemy in hit stun (shorter than knockback stun)
*pet ram: pet melees enemy until knockback
- pet in post combo recovery
- enemy in knockback stun
*auto-retaliate: when a character comes in to melee a monster that is targeting someone else, but the monster pauses to counter-melee the character, after which it pursues its original target
- seems to only occur with focused monsters
- must be accounted for; some monsters that successfully auto-retaliate will be distracted for only a heartbeat (~200 ms)
- a pet one hit away from death will force an auto-retaliating enemy into post-combo recovery (vulnerable for ~1.5 sec, much longer than the aforementioned 200 ms), basically guaranteeing that the enemy is bogged down, even if the pet's melee is intercepted. Keep your pets at 95% wounds to prevent this!
*focus: a little known property of monsters that is integral to understanding monster ai
- A monster will focus on a player/pet who strikes the monster with any move besides wm.
- A monster can only focus on one target and possesses no memory. That is, if it loses focus, it will not re-focus on its last focusee.
- A simple way to drop focus is to pet swipe the enemy and then unsummon the pet. Playing dead will also drop focus.
- Striking an enemy in defense with ANY move that doesn't pierce defense will not cause it to focus on you.
- Note: focus is distinct from aggro. A monster can be aggro'd on someone without focusing on him, eg a player stands by a monster and it detects and then aggros him, but it has not yet focused on him because he has not yet struck it with a non-wm move.
- I don't really understand how focus works. Watch for it during your battles and form your own gut feelings of when enemy x will do y in situation z. I give you only my general impression.
Pet attributes
- In lower level play, pet damage can be significant. Preceding a wm or smash with 2 pet swipes can cut a 2 turn kill in half. Horses and bears excel here.
- In higher level play, dps comes from the player. Pet damage becomes nothing. Frivolous pet swipes are more likely to cost the player his life against enemies with higher levels of heavy stander. Stopping ranged and magic attacks and awkward charges (thus keeping player alive) takes priority over chip damage.
- Speed is very important, allowing a player's third hand to reach farther and do more. Thoroughbreds, black cotton ostriches, and crystal deer win here.
- The number of attacks in a melee combo determines when a pet swipe becomes a pet ram. Very, very important. A 3 hit combo allows a pet to swipe an enemy who has just recovered from down status (whereas a clumsier pet can only ram), and also allows more variation in swiping to lengthen nail time. Thoroughbreds and crystal deer (3 hit) beat black ostriches (2 hit).
- Odd qualities for odd jobs. r9 ice (mini skels and albino king snakes). Firebolt of any rank for firemill. Counter for counter battery. Hide. Ice Storm.
- Overall I recommend an army of speedy 3 hit pets for swipemill play and random pets to fill odd jobs (perhaps 1 pet placed on a firebolt spamming ai). The thoroughbred is a great combat pet, excelling in all categories. Crystal deer are currently the best pets.
The windmiller's third hand
As an aoe attack that protects the user for a full 2 seconds, windmill has huge potential when paired with the aggro manipulation of aggressive pet play. Some strategies detailed below.
* Swipemilling, a strategy that relies on heavy use of pet swipes (and the occasional ram) in conjunction with wm
- Pets can 2 swipe enemies to coax them to trail after the pet and 1 swipe enemies to quickly nail them in place. Many enemies will load a skill after being 1 swiped, which will buy you more time but won't clump enemies like 2 swipes will.
- The player should locate himself in an optimal position to wm. This is usually in the middle of all the trailing, nailed, and oblivious mobs.
- The player's wm should blow away all of the pet's pursuers, allowing it to continue swiping choicy targets.
- Because wm does not specifically target monsters, it will not usually aggro enemies (leaving them non-alert or still targeting your pet, and yourself free to weave about), nor will it draw focus. This is especially important because monsters that lack focus tend not to auto-retaliate against pets.
- Choicy targets to swipe include monsters that are casting or aiming, have smash loaded, are loading skills, are scrambling (running around randomly or walking without defense), and have not yet aggro'd, and unfocused monsters aggro'd on the player.
- Typically, monsters that break on your wm (as you are spinning and invincible) are also vulnerable to pet swipes.
- Against easier odds, feel free to load smash out of wm. You can open up an enemy with a pet swipe to land the smash.
- After the pet has accrued heavy aggro, you can unsummon it and cycle on to another pet. This has the added benefit of dropping all aggro on your third hand and unfocusing monsters that have been swiped.
- Swipemilling is the highest dps strategy because the pet clumps enemies, making for spectacular wms. It is extremely aggressive, calling for domination of all enemies on the field. When properly executed, enemies will not have a chance to cast magic or aim death at the player or his third hand. Attempted melees against the player are swiped away, and attempted melees against the pet are wm'd away.
- Swipemilling runs into difficulties against heavy stander enemies, as a ping will kill the third hand and unravel the player's aggro domination.
To survive difficult multi aggro situations, you need to plan your wm's a turn ahead. These are some useful techniques for ensuring that you get to the next wm.
Windmill baiting: preparing a stunned enemy that you can use to trigger wm in the face of enemy magic and range
- Position your initial wm so that it does not touch a nearby enemy.
- This enemy should be on the other side of the wm'd enemies so that reaching it will not involve running through an angry mob.
- Fire the wm and swipe the chosen enemy.
- Move to enemy and fire your 2nd wm.
- Having found safe haven, you can then use your seconds of invulnerability to manipulate the wave of incoming enemies, typically again preparing wm bait for the subsequent wm's.
http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss177/syrphid/Wmbait.jpg
- In this picture, the black circle represents the 1st wm.
- After knocking back the 5 enemies in range, you send a pet out to whack the enemy on the right.
- Follow up by moving into range of enemy bait and then wm'ing.
- The 5 enemies hit by the 1st wm will not be able to interfere in time, even if they charge magic, pull out a bow or chase for melee (unless they have heavy stander). The enemy not hit by the 1st wm will be stunned by pet. Nothing stands in the way of your 2nd wm, and the resulting 2 seconds of invincibility will make victory inevitable (imo).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NupFdrz0AU
- Green arrows indicate primary wm bait.
- I make extra pet swipes to pull aggro on pet, nail rats in desirable formations and to free up my own character's movement.
- I shouldn't have smashed at the end, nobody saw that.
Assault slash chaining: using AS to close the distance to a target for your next wm
- On your initial wm, try to hit one of the targets so that it ends up away from the others.
- AS asap, you want to redown your target so that it doesn't get knocked away from you. AS has recovery time after that doesn't allow you to run around. You may be forced to wm where you land, so you want your target next to you.
- wm!
- Your 2nd wm should undown the target. An immediate pet attack against it will result in ram, so attack it after you've performed all the other necessary swipes.
- AS has cooldown, so you'll want to make wm bait for the next turn.
Play-by-play: swipemilling bugbears (3x aggro, human speed, heavy stander)
- If bugbear does not ping to wm, for that turn it is just another human speed monster. Wm will reload in time, so your basic tactic will be wm chains (wm --> wm). If bugbear doesn't rush, pet and move as needed.
- If bugbear pings to wm, it will close the distance on you. If it rushes, you will need to use a pet to continue your wm chain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o-fGFrqeQ4
* Firemilling, a simple alternation of a pet's firebolt and the player's wm against a single target
- Player and pet can safely advance under each other's cover, until the target is walled, after which movement is no longer necessary.
- Completely shuts down one target; solves all single aggro situations
- Works against teleporting monsters (such as ghosts and ciar adv golems) as well, the player just has to stand near his pet so that he can wm the monster after it teleports in response to the pet's firebolt
- Will fail when pet runs out of mp
- Firebolt spamming ai recommended.
Rule: Pet is targeting the enemy
Action: Charge Fire Bolt for 1x, then attack. Time limit: 5 sec.
Shift+left click to give pet a target, then use Pet's "Cancel Skill" to negate its attempt at a physical attack. It should then begin spamming firebolt until it runs out of mp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtFewFe_OrU
Applications in battle
*Excerpts from ciar adv: swipemilling through everyone's favorite dungeon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0xtJ_XCU9E
*L-rod run of maiz garg part: swipemilling up to 7 multi aggros at a time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoENmXrenLg
Hopefully this guide will help you on your way to becoming an awesome windmiller. Spin to win!
Check out this thread for more info on using smash: Close Quarters Combat (http://mabination.com/showthread.php?t=3032)