This includes Hi Dex hunters in their home terrain with 1/4 to less than 1/2 weight, using light armor and bows.

Storm Swords with perfected defenses. Nothing.

Most recently My orc Ogrut was tooled by a Paladin wielding a staff. Yes I know I don't use staffs but he doesn't use flails and he just raped me.

I did several things wrong in that fight, but the thing that bothers me is I never seem to melee like others, whether it's hits or parry and this was no exception. I realize Elf favors Champion but that was crazy. I think I got three hit's on him and he spun away 20. (Guessing)

I prep very little, but I am beginning to think, that there is haste on a stick out there because I just get run over by things I wouldn't expect to get run over by.

So a general question to the player base. How much do you guys prep and is there some secret to hitting and defending? Perhaps akin to the previously little known quirk about order of log in and initiative?

I just fought about 50 rounds with a Village applicant and I only hit him with special attacks and spells. Maybe 2 hits from my sword.

I realize he's got mastered defenses and a high dex but so do I, pluse I am wearing a shield. All my defenses are perfect or in the 90's, He used a mace which I cant and is getting Massacres and Dismembers on me.

Not to mention my ####'s barely scratching him like he's protected from good.

There HAS to be something I am missing here because I can not duplicate in ANY way the way some people avoid and fight these attacks.

Shapeshifters for instance. I can't recall ever having beaten one but people do it all the time. I've won 2 conjie fights EVER.

So how are these guys able to flat out raw melee? There's got to be a prep or down down X Y L1 start I am missing.

You're talking about spells, shield, & sword vs. village applicant. At best, I'm assuming you're an anti-paladin. At worst, a necromancer. Village applicant with mace, I'm going to assume warrior.

Pretty certain all village applicant classes have all THREE major defenses. Dodge, parry, and shield block. As an anti-paladin, you'd only have parry and shield block. You mention you can't use a mace like he can, so if you're a necromancer...you're really only relying on parry. Yes, you can still use a shield to shield block, but it'll be amazingly rare.

One major factor in parry (which is stated in the helpfile), is if you know how to use both YOUR weapon, and the weapon type your enemy is using. If you're a necromancer, you have no idea how to use a mace, how he's going to attack with his mace, which means you're going to be parrying horribly.

Also consider that most village applicant classes are going to be making use of second attack, third attack, and dual wield. This is up to six attacks you're defending against. Except for an anti-paladin, the next best offense you're getting as a spellcaster/communer is a paladin's third attack, and then you're down to just a max of two attacks for any others.

Honestly, I'd rather just recommend posting the log to the log board if you're really curious for specifics in each situation.

In which case, he needs to look at three things:

Are you high enough rank for wild fam?

What race is the village app? If he's an arial with mastered defenses, you're just going to have a hard time doing melee damage.

What is your damroll/hitroll and gear? If you're rocking fine leather at mid 20s, don't be shocked to see you not do as well in melee as you'd normally think.

PS Great use of "it happens all the time" with no supporting evidence whatsoever If you're not Pro I'll eat my hat.

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this:

1. You're using a sword and shield.

2. You are a high-dex combo.

3. He is using at least one mace, which you can't learn. I'm guessing he's probably wielding two maces.

4. He's also a high-dex combo.

5. He's a village app, but your hits only scratch him.

You say that only special attacks and spells hit him. The only class that learns sword, doesn't learn mace, and can cast spells is necromancer.

Dex means nothing for your necromancer because you can't dodge. Necromancers don't learn shield block either, so wearing a shield doesn't help any. All you have is parry, and you're not going to parry his maces well because you don't learn mace.

If you're fighting a village app then most likely you don't have second attack, which necromancers get at 25. He has third attack and is probably dual-wielding, so he's going to get WAY more attacks than you. Not only is going to get more attacks, his attacks will be WAY more likely to hit you than yours will be to hit him because he a) knows your weapon and consequently can parry it well, b) he knows how to dodge and has high dexterity so he dodges particularly well, c) sword is one of the more easily parried weapons.

Unless you're wrong and he's a full rager then I'm going to guess that you only scratch him because you're a necro and you have a very low damroll, no "enhanced damage" skill, probably haven't perfected the "sword" skill, and are probably wielding a mediocre-to-crappy sword.

What I don't get is why you're surprised that you got out-meleed as a necromancer against a high-dex warrior wielding two weapons you can't learn.

Forgot about rangers. Disregard all the crap I wrote about necromancers.

I also beat you to the whole necromancer/AP post. So, you're entirely useless today! Mwahahaha!

There's a likelihood the villager has one or more "aim" skills, enabling him to bypass armor.

This is a village app. He isn't using preps.

By level 25, you are also beyond the point where ac tends to help. At lower levels, a good enough ac can make you tank superbly even with no defenses.

1) Others will disagree, but in my opinion if you have dual wield and you're fighting someone with dual wield, using a shield is a sucker bet. You're trading half your offense for what probably doesn't amount to getting hit half as much.

There are exceptions, but as a character who relies on melee to do your damage and win you fights, I don't think it makes sense to use a shield unless you have a strategy that involves changing the circumstances of the fight, such as being a dagger warrior and thinking your maledictive skills will turn things enough in your favor to later switch the shield off for the finish.

2) Assuming you are who I think you are and are talking about the fight I think you're talking about:

a) The dodge difference of 3 points of dex is pretty substantial.

b) The parry difference between one combatant knowing both his weapon and his opponents and the other combatant not knowing his opponent's is substantial, and

c) The fight was still close enough that your killer only survived your death by 3 seconds.

But most of them involve me wanting the dude I am fighting to think I am an easy mark.

IE, when I bust out those wakizashi's on him once he bashes me (I am enlarged by the way, so good luck lagging me) he is probably at his computer going 'Uh oh'.

PS Like that theory-crafting? I am proud of myself. Ah...pinot noir. I don't like you but I will drink you.

Rangers are not GREAT tanks until they get wilderness familiarity.

When they do, it also helps against shifters (since they are animals), as well as helping them in the wild.

Prior to wilderness familiarity, don't expect too much of your ranger.

If you wonder why...

a) rangers are faster in the wild, so you should be controlling the fight in terms of fleeing and reengaging
b) you can heal
c) you can camoflage
d) you can drain his moves

Your dodge skill isn't great around level 25. That's what needs boosting by wilderness familiarity. You parry skill is nerfed because you don't know maces. That's largely a non-issue once you get wilderness familiarity, but not beforehand.

You're using sword, which parries well and but is easy to defend against. By using a shield you're cutting down your attacks. Assuming he's not, he's attacking more often. You're assuming the benefit from shield block outweighs the benefit of attacking more frequently and when you're wielding a sword as your primary you are probably wrong.

Now if it is true that you are a hunter then you should be wielding spear or axe + shield and if you're not very dodge-tastic then you want to power rank to wilderness familiarity. Never assume by the way that you will outmelee a warrior as a ranger pre-wilderness familiarity, they get their extra attacks before you do and they can learn every weapon (other than bow I guess).

Play an assassin, and use kotegaeshi and kansetsuwaza. Not many people will be outmeleeing you after that.

Make an evil human axe spec.

Rank to 30.

Gear for absolutly nothing but damage.

Find people and pincer.


Lots of people recomend the defensive builds for starters but in my book its a lot easier when you are starting off to just go overboard on offense. As a warrior you have two builds which do that, axe spec (any race) or giant sword spec. The downside to the giant sword spec is you need to put a lot more time into getting your flurry skill up (though technically doublethrust does the same damage as pincer and is more reliable it just doesn't lag and can't be used as an opener).

Get a decent damage set (as an evil go kill red dragon as a goodie go request spikey green) don't worry about your dex/weight/saves/hit roll and run at people. You will die. They will die. There will be lots of death and it will be fun.

This is a really good idea, but maybe not for noobs. I tried this as a cloud giant serial villager berserker noob. My best effort ended up something like 5 wins to 55 losses and con died at level 44. The irony is that the one build that had a lot of difficulty were the drow/half-drow transmuters that usually go around wreaking havoc, esp on giants (as long as the char had two good mithril axes and all cabal powers up).
Imperial blades ripped through the character and offense/defense shifters, necros, stopped bothering with A/B/S on their way to multikills.

all the way levels 7 through 51.

You should expect to get run over more then.

Orcs will pretty much always be tooled by a staff wielder. Even the orcs with staff defence! (Skrugga) That's just how orcs are. The secret is... get the staff out of their hands with grapple weapon. Yes, it hurts, but not doing that hurts more.

As far as the ranger tanking goes, rangers don't really shine until they get wilderness familiarity. After that, they can still be hit with active skills with almost as much ease as others (some exceptions, but generally true). It's only the melee you tank well with.

I wouldn't blame it on haste. It's probably not haste in most cases, and interestingly, back when I could get long-duration haste with ease, it still didn't stop my orcs getting pounded on (but it worked like a dream for my assassin).

For orcs, any prepping you do is probably best focussed around damage reduction.

So, why do you tank worse than a paladin? Depends a bit on what kind of paladin he is. If he's a champion, however, and I'm guessing he is if he's using a staff, he's got several advantages. One, he has a better defensive spin than most classes. Two, the FEND skill makes a huge difference as to how well he tanks. Three, it's harder than normal to get the staff out of his hand (but it can be done). Four, he's got dam redux and healing on a stick. You sort of do, but you're depleting resources if you use them.

n/t