Arelith

Hello,

I'd like to ask you something:

If you were a lvl 30 wizard without Discipline in a PvP situation, what would you do to survive/win?

P.S. You're fighting a warrior that is about to knock you down.

die

Pray that the person about to knock me down is one of the various people on the server who has no clue what they're doing and thus can be killed before they get to melee range. If they're not, you're going to die.

Semirelatedly, if you're a mage with no discipline you're also going to die to people twenty levels lower than you who can get to melee range before you kill them.

Reflexively mash gsanc and fervently pray you get it off before the other guy lands a KD. If you're smart, you will then lens to a map that doesn't have the KD guy on it. If you're less smart, but super brave, you reposition, get summons on the field, and start preparing to nova the guy from max range while he deals with the summon.

Most likely though you just become intimately familiar with the respawn button.

One idea, assuming the fighter starts at certain distance:

1. Time Stop and retake some distance.
2. As much Bigby's hands as I can while Time Stop lasts.
3. In case that at least one of the Hands had worked, I would continue with the step 4, if they hadn't worked, I'd try to cast cast major sanctuary and run for my life.
4. Epic Dragon Knight, Greater ruin, Hellball, Maximized Flame Arrows, etc. while Hand lasts.

You could try "-pray"

OOC prayer only. IC prayer will neither remove the KD effect nor prevent you from getting KD'd another time.

Use all/some of the below.

1. Have extended Imp. Invis(50% part) + ext.haste on when you can.
2.
a. Have Con as your primary stat.
b. If things just seem(even in your imagination) get hostile(not when he on top of you sec before the hit..) cast extended acid shield, this isn't a hostile spell. Chances are he will spend a turn to breach(unless he came specifically for you with proper gear);
-> ts combo, GS(last combo spell) -> run away a bit -> recast acid.S(if beached), premonition, (if no green circle on target, grease first!) -> E.Dragon summon -> G.Issac -> etc.
3. A.Quicken 3.
4.
a. Take cross class discipline, gear max discipline+some str gear+buff+sf.disc +3+~10 roll ==>> ~52+roll+50% conceal, vs non TS knock of various 43-46AB builds counts to some extend.
b. Be proactive and prepared; act first, keep some distance etc, buff/GS/Inv/TS at first danger sight.
c. EMA+cross.tumble+dex+AS+imp.expertise(beg. of next round) helps to counter the lower AB portion of the KD spam. 50% + ~52+roll helps vs the higher.
d. etc.
5. Mainly, accept for yourself the fact that one small mistake/little unlucky = respawn vs somewhat relevant melee.

P.C
All the above is the M part of the S/M relationship.
Consider 27/3, 26/4 Wizard, since it has 0 impact on any RP(opinion). Build wise 30 caster lvls are overrated(opinion), etc.

Scurvy Cur wrote:Reflexively mash gsanc and fervently pray you get it off before the other guy lands a KD. If you're smart, you will then lens to a map that doesn't have the KD guy on it. If you're less smart, but super brave, you reposition, get summons on the field, and start preparing to nova the guy from max range while he deals with the summon.

Most likely though you just become intimately familiar with the respawn button.

This is more or less accurate, as a regular player of pure mages- although I encourage that you F1 EXTENDED gsanc.

This is my round by round, personally speaking- note that neither one of my mages can cast conjuration spells.

1: Evaluate distance. If enough distance to cast one spell, Greater Sanctuary(EXTEND!). If hasted, also cast elemental shield. If not enough distance to cast one spell, run faster/more cleverly than the enemy, or die.

2: If not hasted, get hasted. Reposition. Elemental shield, if not hasted in round 1 or no auto-quicken.

3: Thunderclap. This will trigger all three saves- you now know what to target for disables- and you may have stunned/KD'd your foe.


If not stunned/disabled, skip to step 4.

If KD'd/Stunned, follow up with one of these: Bigby's Forceful Hand, Bigby's Clenched Fist(will re-apply its stun if prayed out of), Incendiary Cloud (auto-blind!) centered on target, confusion (cannot be prayed away), hold/dominate. Sunburst is also a nice permanent blind against low reflexers.

"Aelryn, that's a pretty long list!" Yes, yes it is. This is why you lead with thunderclap (which also nicely ignores SR). You should have an idea of which one will apply best here as a result.

4: Be prepared for them to pray the disable away, and cast it again. Run away if it fails to take hold the second time. In fact, start running as soon as you finish casting the disable, don't wait for it to land. You can stop running if they fail the save.

If you got here halfway through step three, you lost the fight, but you probably survived.

5: If you've gotten this far, your enemy is disabled, and you have a slew of spells left. You win.

Guys, guys, please stop. While some of this is will help, it's worth noting that most of it is, at best, optimistic, and at worst, counterproductive.

Item by item.

1. Have extended Imp. Invis(50% part) + ext.haste on when you can.

Imp invis will help, no doubt, but this gives you about a 6.25% chance of not getting KDed straight off by the melee guy. Definitely better than zero, but not a replacement for discipline.

2.
a. Have Con as your primary stat.

Not actually all that helpful. Once the first KD lands, having more HP is not going to be materially helpful without discipline. This is for the same reason that -pray doesn't help you. All it does is make sure the KD man has to KD you a couple more times before you die.

b. If things just seem(even in your imagination) get hostile(not when he on top of you sec before the hit..) cast extended acid shield, this isn't a hostile spell. Chances are he will spend a turn to breach(unless he came specifically for you with proper gear);

Any spellcasting is fair to attribute as a hostile action taken in anticipation of PvP. If you do this before hostiling the other guy, my prior experience has been that the DMs will generally not hold that the other guy KDing you while you're casting it to be in violation of the PvP rule. Individual DMs may have different personal feelings about this, but I generally slap a KD on any mage that starts buffing in the middle of a tense conversation, and have yet to get so much as a stern word from the DM team for it. Further, this advice translates to "be as cheesy as you can about Rules of Engagement", which is always suspect advice.

dallion43 wrote:3. A.Quicken 3.

See previous issues; it's helpful in that it will get your initial gsanc off faster, and will require KD man's reaction time to be < 3 seconds rather than < 6 seconds. It's in the same category as Imp Invis; it gives you an advantage, but isn't really enough to rely on by itself.

dallion43 wrote:4.
a. Take cross class discipline.

Hands down the best bit of advice thus far to "How to survive without discipline", is this answer of "take discipline". Even if you go pure mage, you should be able to get close to 40 discipline, which, while not really reliable, will at least occasionally save you from medium-low AB builds, as well as from the shameful death to 2-3 angry level 10s.

dallion43 wrote:c. EMA+cross.tumble+dex+AS+imp.expertise(beg. of next round) helps to counter the lower AB portion of the KD spam. 50% + ~52+roll helps vs the higher.
d. etc.

Actual word salad. But I like salad, so I'll try to parse it.

Get AC everywhere you can. If you can get your AC high enough to avoid some attacks, it'll help you not get KD'ed by those attacks. I wouldn't go so far as to advocate improved expertise, though. If you can waste 2 feats on IE, you can waste 2 feats on Harper Mage, and get actual discipline.

What do you think about this?

One idea, assuming the fighter starts at certain distance:

1. Time Stop and retake some distance.
2. As much Bigby's hands as I can while Time Stop lasts.
3. In case that at least one of the Hands had worked, I would continue with the step 4, if they hadn't worked, I'd try to cast cast major sanctuary and run for my life.
4. Epic Dragon Knight, Greater ruin, Hellball, Maximized Flame Arrows, etc. while Hand lasts.

Alantar wrote:What do you think about this?

One idea, assuming the fighter starts at certain distance:

1. Time Stop and retake some distance.
2. As much Bigby's hands as I can while Time Stop lasts.
3. In case that at least one of the Hands had worked, I would continue with the step 4, if they hadn't worked, I'd try to cast cast major sanctuary and run for my life.
4. Epic Dragon Knight, Greater ruin, Hellball, Maximized Flame Arrows, etc. while Hand lasts.

What if they use timestop to re-retake that distance? The scrolls are fairly popular for a reason.

Either way, you may be overestimating how much leeway you can get out of the 1.5 rounds timestop. You can maybe move and get a spell or two off, but you wouldn't be able to get very far. Gsanc (extended) is a better option for getting to safety.

Timestop lasts nine seconds. If you use it to reposition to an extent that makes a difference, that's all you'll do with it. If you're going to use it to move, then save it for running away, and lead with the greater sanctuary (which can be extended to give you twice as much set-up time).

Ideally, your next move after time-stop is a two-spell combo that will kill/incapacitate your opponent. If you're using it for anything else, it should be to run, not re-position. (In a PvP scenario).

Yes, you're right. I thought Time Stop lasted longer.

But a successful spell (Bigby, Weird, etc.) could be the end, as much as a successful knockdown.

The question is: how likely is a bigby, dead o disable spell to succeed?

Your mileage on that will vary by opponent. I cannot stress enough how tactically advantageous it is to throw out a thunderclap for save parsing if you get the opportunity. You'll have to know what your save DC's are, and compare it to what you know of their saves- which you usually won't know until the fighting starts.

Some characters will have all saves in the 30+ range vs. spells. Others will have holes.

Scurvy Cur wrote:Guys, guys, please stop. While some of this is will help, it's worth noting that most of it is, at best, optimistic, and at worst, counterproductive.

I do agree. I never said there is a valid alternative for a discipline dip.

But, some insist on pure 30 lvls due to luck of actual field experience or due to having certain RP reasons or whatever else reasons.
For those even 1% on each potentially helpful step adds to 5% average success rate. Maybe not to win but to run away vs less experienced opponent.

P.C
Of course if the reason your PC lost to another PC is due to major lack of discipline skill, chances you will be able to make things different next time are slim.

So, when can we expect that penalty on KD spam?
I think that if this thread leaves something obvious, is that KD makes discipline extremely valuable, and often times, necessary if you expect to get into PvP.

Iceborn wrote:So, when can we expect that penalty on KD spam?
I think that if this thread leaves something obvious, is that KD makes discipline extremely valuable, and often times, necessary if you expect to get into PvP.

What sort of penalty? How often is 'spam'?

Knockdown will never get another penalty if I can help it. It already has -4 to AB.

Hunter548 wrote:

Iceborn wrote:So, when can we expect that penalty on KD spam?
I think that if this thread leaves something obvious, is that KD makes discipline extremely valuable, and often times, necessary if you expect to get into PvP.

What sort of penalty? How often is 'spam'?

9 seconds CD period before it can be used again.

Cortex wrote:Knockdown will never get another penalty if I can help it. It already has -4 to AB.

My god. I completely forgot about that utterly crippling penalty that makes KD unusable.
Thank you Cortex. You've opened my eyes.

Here's a few things you can do:
1. -ward, pray he fails the save, run, lense out
2. haste pot.. assuming you've somehow managed to survive after chugging said potion, run away followed by a self-targeted Hellball, cloudkill, Timestop, IGMS x3, Gruin
3. -kneel, then

Cortex wrote:die

Cortex wrote:Knockdown will never get another penalty if I can help it. It already has -4 to AB.

If I correctly understand the sentiment of "Knockdown spam" to mean chaining knockdowns so that someone doesn't get up, then I feel that while you're correct it has a penalty, said penalty is rendered null by the +4 bonus vs. prone opponents you get.

While I'm not certain I think it needs to be nerfed, I can understand the stance that "discipline or death" leads to Not Fun for the other person when they spend every round on their back. Perhaps a middle ground to address this scenario would be a cumulative -2 to AB for each successive round beyond the first one knockdown is used, which immediately clears after a round of no knockdowns?

I'd rather see it have no AB penalty and deal 0 damage.

So someone spams KD, zero damage but target is CCed.

Someone queues it up on the first attack and no more, good chance to hit and KD, CCing the target and helping their following hits.

Unless parry is active in which case they'll probably eat damage for their attack and do nothing.

So they'd want to time it for the 2nd attack in a flurry.

Of course things might not work out like it does in my head, but I'm all in favor of melee classes requiring a bit of finesse in their actual melee abilities as opposed to what I've seen more of it coming down to smart UMD usage for mirror fights.

Knockdown is pretty powerful, it's true.

If only there was a skill anyone could invest in that counters the ability.

yellowcateyes wrote: If only there was a skill anyone could invest in that counters the ability.