Out of curiosity does this skill do anything other than land a blow?

Monkeying around with it with a lower rank spear user it seems to be quite a pain to train even with high end intelligence. Looking at some of the characters using spear currently and in the past that have done so well. I decided to give it a go as I've believe I had only tried spear once ages ago, and I am trying to fill in gaps of what I have tried and have not.

Another question out of curiosity, if misdirect does not do anything other than land a blow why does it have a three round lag time?

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

and it works well, generally

Shield of ice, anything else?

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Cranial - wear a good helmet
Bash - enlarge/reduce/partial shi.. (wait no, thanks obama)
Trip - flight

etc etc

Pincer - be an invoker

Maledict them, most axes are heavy so removing one from str loss removes pincer.

Disarm skills, same thing. Get the axe out of the hand.

Pretty sure most skills like pincer land less when blinded. So dirt kick or blind might work if you can last that long in a fight.

Evade skill helps if you are dexy, worthless if not.

Be offensive if you can deal with the partial command denial. Most axe specs tank with their faces, turning up the heat on them quick can make them flee fast unless they are something like a RBW pincer svirf or dwarf.

It's not the best answer, but its something.

Simply wearing a good helmet is not a "counter" to cranial, and in your list of lag moves you're forgetting every other one in the game. There is still bat, shield bash, that other paladin lag that I'm forgetting, batter, headbutt, lash, savage blow, bearcharge, bashing mace specs who prep watershield to trick their invoker enemies, mountain storm and rising phoenix kicks, weapontrip, crushingblow.

By your logic I could say grease and adhesive web are a "counter" to misdirection.

The ultimate counter is sleep and then drop their strength.

I'd say a good helmet is a counter to cranial, even edged cranial.

I've always worn good helmets instead of magey headwear for precisely that reason and been able to laugh at cranial.

When I don't cranial screws me.

Every person I have ever cranialed was lagged for the full two rounds, and it almost never misses once perfected and edged. The only thing I noticed the heavy metal helmets doing was stop me from knocking them out. So I guess you never fought any of my mace specs.

You'll notice the more "generic" a skill, the easier the counters.

Trip? Nearly any melee class gets it. Anyone can drink a fly potion.

Bash, throw, bearcharge - More specifically heavy melee. Mage/priest classes get a direct counter to make them immune, everyone else has to use crappy "secondary" measures of enlarge/reduce/etc.

Pincer, cranial, assassin kicks, savage blow, etc? Now we're getting down to specific, class-only skills, or even subset-of-class only skills. For these, you're generally looking at *only* invokers having a direct "immune" counter to these, and they can only use one of them at a time. Some of those aren't even perfect solutions. Beyond those, things like helmet, grease, smear mud, etc, are all sort of "secondary" solutions.

Part of this is due to the fact that aside from a no-charmie conjurer, or unshifted shifter, an invoker is probably the most command-dependent character in the game when it comes to a fight, and the other two just plain have already made mistakes if they're fighting in those situations.

Command denial is one of those big rock-scissor-paper scenarios where you're trying to command deny people you can out-melee, yet not get command-denied by people that can out-melee you. It's really not until you've played that spear-guy, an axe/mace spec, or (kinda amusingly) an orc that you really come to appreciate the ability to be able to create lag on more or less ANYONE.

Having played an orc;

Headbutt was AWESOME until dudes started wearing helmets to fight me with

Lash was unblockable, but even with the (orc) edge it sucked

Misdirect is annoying, but it's a 3 round lag move, which kind of balances it out.

I don't disagree that vokers need their commands and that's not what I'm complaining about (but actually while we're here, shield of ooze makes them basically immune_orc - blocks headbutt lash and spinebreaker. Nasty).

I just feel like pincer kind of stands out above most lagging moves in terms of both reliability and damage, and not having what you would call a secondary counter. Maybe that's by design because axes and maces both do the same kinds of things, and axes are better at some of those and maces are better at others. But cranial is very good and pincer is way better.

>I don't disagree that vokers need their commands and that's
>not what I'm complaining about (but actually while we're here,
>shield of ooze makes them basically immune_orc - blocks
>headbutt lash and spinebreaker. Nasty).

Shield of ooze specifically doesn't block bash though. It makes it less reliable, but as an orc bashing an ooze shield invoker is a very viable tactic. It's *hard* to permalag them so long that they die easily, but it is very possible to do it and mess them up to the point they end up trying to get away instead of nuking you to oblivion though.

Pincer suffers more than cranial does in certain situations.

That's kind of a tortured situation to engineer, but it is a situation. Thanks for pointing it out.

Cabal guardians and inners are all dragon? size. So if you want to pincer ppl at inner - that wouldn't work quite well.

Also, keep in mind that cranial tends to lean towards trip lag, where the enemy only gets one command in a number of situations. One failed flee, spamming directions, etc. Lots easier to lag someone out catching them unaware.

Pincer, on the other hand, has the misdirect combo of enemy 2, you 3. That gives a LOT more solid of a chance for them to escape, or otherwise do what else they might try to do to you.

Was some time since I've played axespec, but isn't it triplag as well? I might be totally wrong of course :)

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