Someone show us how to get kills with the ugly stepchild of the Village.

Does critical hit ignore non-magical dam redux like trance and giant resist?

It bypasses trance, it does not seem to bypass damage specific resistance (like giant resist) or immunity (like from an invoker shield)

I'm pretty sure it DOES bypass giant resist, but if you're using an elemental weapon against the appropriate invoker shield, it does not bypass that. However, all other aspects of damage reduction from invoker shields IS bypassed.

You guys are giving me way too much credit. I have successful chars and unsuccessful chars.

My successful ragers are typically semi-cookie-cutter builds - levelsitting duergar, giant sword berserker, pincersvirf defender.

I've never played a scout because I'm not sure I'd do well with one - for some of the reasons others listed below. Specifically, the big weapon in a scout's arsenal seems to be critical hit, and with that being a 2-round active skill (as opposed to a passive one like deathblow) I feel like it takes away from other moves a person might do (like kote/kans/throw on an assassin).

The really scary scout builds I've played against have been classes that didn't have a whole lot of other options in terms of active skills. A polearm spec or parting-block-thief or that sort of thing. And most of them were scary to my warriors/thieves (who couldn't just "c word" as soon as the critical hits started coming out).

I imagine that nowadays a scout would do well the first few times they surprised a mage by hitting them for DEVAS when they have full ABS, but soon would find the mages just avoiding the fight/bringing allies to bash them down.

I may try a scout sometime in the future - not to "prove how awesome they are" but because I haven't ever played one, and that's somewhat uncommon for me.

I did some research on this. Didn't check all of them, but here are the most deathly non-berserker warriors I could find:

Defender:

Jinroh, 2004, duergar, dagger/h2h, gates/harmonious/incarnadine, 207 PKW, 0.287/hour, 70%
Karashin, 2005, duergar, dagger/h2h, cry/harmonious, 105 PKW, 0.445/hour, 65%
Friarr, 2006, felar, dagger/h2h, fires/mercy/riddle, 140 PKW, 0.540/hour, 72%
Golhyrr, 2007, drow, dagger/h2h, cry/striking, 111 PKW, 0.388/hour, 59%
Illian, 2009, drow, dagger/mace, striking/whirlwind, 97 PKW, 0.584/hour, 66%
Zinsizin, 2010, drow, dagger/mace, calming/flow/striking, 83 PKW, 0.722/hour, 75%
Xazzax, 2012, drow, dagger/whip, flow/onewith/striking, 103 PKW, 0.365/hour, 61%

Scout:

Droghnund, 2008, duergar, sword/h2h, dance/greeting/incarnadine, 108 PKW, 0.295/hour, 72%
Taerg, 2011, duergar, pole/whip, cry/trapping, 114 PKW, 0.422/hour, 75%
Hexugar, 2014, drow, dagger/pole, cry/striking, 171 PKW, 0.425/hour, 86%

The most deathful non-berserk warriors *of late* were:

Defender:
Nurok's Varaez, 2015, drow, dagger/axe, stsf/flow, 83 PKW, 0.370/hour, 73%
Twist's Urgandtol, 2015, svirf, axe/hth, gates/whispers, did he delete his PBF?

Scout:
loknim's Aoirse, 2015, cloud, axe/polearm, riddle/trapping, 111 PKW, 0.206/hour, 59%


Also worth noting are non-warrior:

defender - jalim's Ahjevhil, 2015, human, assassin, 110 PKW, 0.409/hour, 70%
scout - silat's Llathe, 2016, bard, 77 PKW, 0.276/hour, 59%.

PBF was never purchased/published.

However, I don't think he falls into the most deathful category.

As often.

Worst scout I fought personally (combat wise, RP wise I loved them) was Taerg. I was a squire ranger, they were a Duergar polearm warrior, and this was when Eachainn was captain(Marshall, maybe?), so we were at "war" with the village. Critical hit plus 130+ damroll with cutoff, HURT. I had no way to really lag them, so they could critical hit away.

NT

n/t

If twist played a scout the entire mud would be screaming for them to be removed. People already say that about zerkers, and honestly there are very easy ways of dealing with them.

Scouts are NOT the ugly stepchild of the village. Scouts are badass!

It's not like you need Deathblow and bloodthirst to get kills, dude. You had to get at least one kill before you could even speak to Tahren in the first place.

I rarely play anything but a scout, and my last one, which was a thief, was close to getting the MageSlayer title until RL stuff got in the way. Scouts are the best when it comes to magic immunity since they can dodge area spells, rather than having to call Bloodthirst with all its drawbacks for the chance to spellbane the AoE. Also, spell evasion works much more reliably than spellbane does. So even though thieves, assassins, and rangers get the most benefit from being a scout (because they can sit there unseen or standing over an unconscious victim, using discern spell to choose the best moment to strike), even warriors and bards can benefit greatly from scout powers.

Also, critical hit is no joke! Everyone gets hung up on deathblow because it can do MASSIVE damage. But DB is subject to damage reduction, and a well prepped mage can shrug off quite a few DBs, or simply avoid them altogether. Critical hit, however IGNORES all damage reduction, and cannot be avoided by ANYTHING, not even EVADE (which also includes super dodgy forms like mongoose, hummingbird, sifaka lemur, etc...). In other words, perfect your critical hit, and you'll RUIN someone's day.


Try playing a whip/dagger elf with STFS. Entwine, hurl throat, critical, critical, critical, critical, critical

You land the killing blow against DirtyMageGuy!



Or be assassin, and assassinate the guy who's trying to fog you because he KNOWS you're there, but he can't fog you for anything because you keep dodging the spell, while you keep stalking away...


Thug thief with weapon trip and cheap shot.

Earclap, kidney shot, gut shot, weapon trip/cheap shot, weapon trip/cheap shot, weapon trip/cheap shot, weapon trip/cheap shot, weapon trip/cheap shot (and occasionally there will be a parting block or two in there also).

You land the killing blow against DirtyMageGuy!


Cloud giant Savage Mountaineer ranger.

Snare, wait for bash protection to fall, bearcharge them to death. Or creep around in the wilderness while they're ranking or whatever they'r doing in the wilds, and wait for that perfect moment for their bash protection to fall. Barring that, savage blow is pretty dang nice also.


Just keep your save vs spell super high. Keep the veil super thick, and scout becomes almost untouchable by magic. From there, PKing is the same as with any non-rager, but without the benefit of potions, etc...

You are right in that the scout has to prevent escape if they are going to use critical to get a kill. Even then it is a challenge if he is fighting someone who can lag, as the damage output of critical hit is pretty low.

I want to see Twist do it and rack up the high counts of his famed berserkers.

Critical Hit takes into account your damroll. So gear for damage and rape away. You can easily do ***DEMO*** or ***DEVA*** with critical hit if you've geared properly.

And you don't have to have Twist play a build to make it "valid" or "good". I suspect Twist could play just about any build and make it good. The builds that I described are the simplest, and already well proven. I've already witnessed each one of those builds played as a rager scout and be very effective. The class skills + proper gearing + proper tactical knowlege/use is more than enough to get plenty of kills with those builds. Rager powers just make them more effective.

My thief that was close to MageSlayer was a duergar thug. I didn't have earclap yet, so I mostly relied on surprise attacks and trip (or weapon trip) and cheap shot + parting block for times when trip or weapon trip missed or was insufficient. I got a lot of flack from pissed off people who didn't like being murdered all the time with their pants down, but hey, that's a totally valid scout tactic. In fact, that's sort of the whole idea of the stealthy scout. Precise, surgical strikes.

It's been said many times, both on this board, as well as on the newbie channel in game, that ANY build can be deadly, with the right application of tactics. Obviously, some builds are more lethally suited than others. An anti-paladin is expected to be more lethal than a thief. A transmuter is expected to be more lethal than a healer. But with the right tactics, even a healer can become quite lethal, and I've seen a few AWFULLY lethal healers over the years as well.

The point is, it's not about the build, it's about your own knowledge of game mechanics and tactics. I've listed for you some of the strongest scout builds. Now you just need to put them together and learn how they work, and run with them. Those builds should be able to kill effectively without having magic OR rager powers. If you can't be lethal with one of those WITH scout powers, then having Twist play one isn't going to make you any better.

Granted, I only ever played one, but that char did alright.

Their skills do not make a char overly deadly as a whole.

Their entire skill set is functionally pretty useless against non-mages (though discern as a thief/assassin can be useful I would assume, for knowing flight timers) Critical hit against a melee class is rarely a good choice, since those enemies don't stack enough DR for it to be worthwhile. With crit you're not gaining much dam output, so won't use it, unless you happen to have dispelling critical, which then, stripping things like low level flight potions, protection spells, and stoneskin, can be insanely good. But absent that edge, you're almost always better off with a class skill for the two rounds of lag critical requires.

Against Mages, scouts are amazing, because critical hit is just that good. No mage will ever be able to match the dam output really because mages are not intended to eat a Demolish or Devastate every other round.

Spell Evasion + bane just means most mages, excepts shifters and some conjurers, really are unable to fight you effectively. Critical just means you usually can put out far more relative damage to max hp then they can.

The biggest problem with critical is it's no lag. So a mage can just flee or word. Which means you have to know when to use it, and when not to.

If I can put up 252 kills with a bard scout, that should be enough to prove they really are fairly powerful when done correctly. But would I take scout on a sword/mace spec giant warrior? No.

Warriors are really the worst builds for scouts, because they tend to have lots of combat options, and lots of passive damage output, so the need for critical is less. Maybe entwine, STSF, or cutoff, can make critical shine, but otherwise, most warriors should go berserker or defender.

But for thieves, rangers, assassins and bards, I'd say scout is a a good choice. Spell evasion is a really great skill for stealth classes, and well, bards need a way to put out some damage. Since their damage songs are all two rounds, critical is just what you use on mages.

I always say berserkers are better for killing non-mages because sometimes you only need a DB or two to win. Scouts are better for killing mages though, or at least equal, but also, will die to mages far less.