After all these years, I still tend to hero with the equipment I scrounged up in my first 10 to 15 ranks.

I can only build a 40+ damage set with an Orc and then only just barely.

I can't force myself 90 percent of the time to murder mobs for their gear for RP reasons, and I know that's stupid, because I'm never recognized for my RP so I don't know why I try.

But I can't seem to make a character that parries/dodges/takes damage the way I see so many people in the logs doing.

P.S. I don't want to hear from Marcus as I want to know how people who don't / haven't used chase and kill triggers do it.

Fight on your terms, not theirs. Search for enemies every time you see them on your pk list, even if they're 8 levels lower than you and you can kill them in your sleep. Exploit any RP or cabal restrictions your enemy may have, endlessly.

Of course, that's just how to be more deathful than it is to be 'good in PK situations'. Personally I feel too much remorse if I run around being that type of player. I always back off if I think the person is afk or dropped link. I go after people my character would, even if I, as a player, know I have very little chance of killing them. I look for good fights, not easy kills.


But that doesn't mean I don't consider myself to be a strong force in PK when I put my mind to it. Usually this means:

- Having a well planned out character build and executing it (this goes a long way toward having "a character that parries/dodges/takes damage the way I see so many people in the logs doing")
- Prepping correctly for different scenarios
- Setting up and using your MUD software correctly for each character... highlights, aliases, macro keys
- Gear to cover decent stat loss, usually... Gear is very character dependent, but while a nice set will certainly land you some kills, you don't need a nice set to start PKing
- Engaging and moving around quickly: if you're fast at getting out, healing, and getting back in it can make a world of difference; if you're good at chasing and knowing how to move even while blind, it's even better
- Related to the last one: carrying enough money/barter items to make sure you aren't going to let your opponent outheal you in a raid situation (just as you always want to keep enough preps on you so you're never caught in a bad spot and can't gather more)

There is a lot of valuable and entertaining (Twist's iceman riff, anyone?) commentary in here, but one thing I'd like to add is the value of getting your ass kicked.

Not in the Mike Singletary, "this will expose our flaws and make us stronger" self-deluded way, but in a "holy crap, next time I'm playing a transmuter, I am doing to other people what that guy just did to me" way.

There is a lot to be said for not being prideful, and instead just playing the combos you have troubles against or died to, and leveraging whatever "cheap" stuff owned your soul.

For example, I knew waylay/snare/waylay was devastating and much deadlier than snare/waylay long before I played my first ranger ten years ago because I died that way in the damp tunnel while ranking in the battlefields. I knew that improved invis invokers could wtfpwn low 40s warriors endlessly without risk until the warrior deletes or logs out because that is what Gherian mercilessly did to my low 40s warrior back in the day.

The log board and ooc forums make it easier and less painful to leverage other people's combos, but nothing beats the shock and awe of experiencing good tactics first hand.

Between this post, wherein you call out Marcus, and the other one wherein you say you are too "prideful" to play a svirf battlerager, I think you might have too much Mike Singletary in you. You need to whip that into an adaptable Harbaugh if you want to have any success at PK. On the other hand, you got detailed responses from some great players, though, so well done with that

There's also an interesting corralary to all that. When you try to bust the "cheap" thing that owned you on whatever you were playing when you were on the other side of it, eventually something magical will happen: it will fail to work. The other guy will do something, possibly out of tactical brilliance that you lacked and possibly out of pure dumb luck that will either kill you or at least make it impossible for you to kill him.

And then you have that a-ha moment of: "Crap, that's what I should have done."

When I very first started playing the game I couldn't stand the Battle cabal. I thought it was the most stupidly overpowered thing in the world. Then I finally decided to try playing it once and I had about a hundred of those a-ha moments. Ever since then I do dramatically better fighting Battle with non-Battle characters.

It lets you accomplished the same things as getting your butt kicked does, only without actually being the guy who gets his butt kicked. At least, not quite as often.

Up to a point, sure, though there's a lot of useful things to pick up that rarely if ever would make the log board.

Like I'm not going to post a log of a group of mages going to Arial City to level and thus shutting down my human Battle thief, or having to give up on killing a guy with my improved invis invoker because he's put himself someplace where I can't possibly get the drop on him and he clears out when he knows I'm coming. Those don't make interesting logs, but they're the kinds of things you pick up playing the thing that used to whip you.

In the good old days though that was impossible, now the human villager thief CAN and WILL go up there and gut you up.


(People tried calling me out for using flight potions, muahahahaha! Should check out the thief skillset)

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

To beat your enemy, you must first know your enemy, know atwhat they'll do when you execute a move...know their weakness and strength...secondly you must know yourself, your strenght and weakness... thidly, use all resources dat is avalable to you to be able to become victorious..be it gold to heal, preps to use,the room you are fightinh in, their enemies, your allies...know when to bait them or when to go balls to the walls...also,wear a set of armor dat boast of your loots...that's how you become the pk beast

Someone who can get a good percentage while not playing cliche power combos. Bard empire, Trani Scion, Flurry Rager, Gnome shapeshifter trib. Elf shield ded maran.

Someone who does not log off when the odds are bad, who will defend if there is a chance that they will be kill sealed. Someone who plays to win and does not play ultra conservative to protect the shinnies they systematicaly aquire while playing with their semi-perma. See invoker/thief. Bard.Flurry. jk.

Someone who can take a full loot, requip and get their gear back.
A good pker is not a douche.
A good pker is not someone who brags when they kill seal someone in a bad matchup.

A great pker are people who can ad roleplay to their greatness.

A good pker is not someone who racks up a great ratio and many kills, only fighting on their choice terrain. see quicksand, easternroad(rager) ... never in balator. You know what I mean

A good pker is someone who suceeds at PK matches(killing the other guy) a lot.

Thats pretty much it, you can discuss weather a 30-1 record is better/worse than a 100-50 record but all this crap about what builds they use, how they handle looting, their ability to RP doesn't matter.


If Marcus started talking like funnyone would he suddenly not be a good pker?

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nt

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If you're just trying to kill the other guy a lot, it's a lot easier with a power combo and if you focus on multikilling newbs.

Taking an apparently weaker combo and killing the toughest players shows more skill, imho, provided that you didn't gank all the time or cheat in any way.

nt

Sometimes its easier to kill people when they are very agrresive towards your or it you know they will flee quickley in a predictable manner.

The agression part is easier, you attack them unprepped a bunch to give them a bunch of confidence and then change tact just a bit to beat them after a while. The beauty is they think you just got lucky and will tend to continue throwing themselves against you. Works great against ragers as a mage.

Even if you loot the best set of elite EQ in CF after that - the chances are you don't know more than half of the things your current character can do and will loose this EQ soon anyway.

That just takes a lot of time, energy, effort, and practice. I think I only have 1/5 ratio of success with hero pk characters, mostly because I get spoiled rotten with easy pks during mid ranks and then burn out quickly when I lose the silver platter at level 51 and opponents aren't as quick to fight or only fight in groups.

One thing that vets can do that I certainly can't is to examine a corpse and pick the three "best" pieces of gear a second later.

When the items in question are "A whip made of six living snakes," it's easy to tell that it's cool, but "a wide copper bracelet?" Only through experience is someone going to know that this is a good thing to grab.

estimating your +stat gear, hps, and whatnot.

Helps them pick over the corpse quickly, too.

n/t

Side note, if this is a skill someone wants to cultivate as a player, some kind of stealth character is a good way to work up to it.

For example, playing an assassin instead of running up to that group of three in Arial City that can't see you spamming trip, sneak up on them and have a look at each of their gear and think about what it means for a minute before you attack.

I think being a good Pker does not always translate to a 150 - 10 Pk record. Killing people and being effective in PK are very different.
Th good ones tend to share common traits a lot of time, of which I see really three ones consistently.

1) They are generally always out looking for people to kill, taking fights to their enemies on their terms. They don't sit in their guild/cabal/Inn. They'll go outside the general eastern road circle to find people. Having the initiative in a fight is a major plus- striking when they don't expect it can create confusion, and that's a big help. Sometimes this can require a lot of patience in just waiting for that right time to strike if you know where your enemey is.

2) They also get a general feel for their enemies. I really believe the longer any char lives, the better a char is at PK because he'll experience more fights against different classes. He'll gain edges, but he also get a feel for how to fight a certain class with his build. They adapt to that, and eventually a class that used to beat them a lot they now can kill a lot. They adapt different tactics for different foes. If all your pks are dependent on one or two skills and nice EQ, you're not really a good PKer in my eyes. Building a nice set and bash bash flurry is nice, and gets kills, but some of the better pkers will do so much more than that with that same build. They'll incorporate their other spec, use various abilities that often get overlooked.

3) They generally are not afraid to go after groups solo. People often assume they are safe because they have numbers. A good player lots of times runs in, picks off one of them, and either escapes or kills another. For example, people ranking are generally not going to be fully prepped when you come at them, where as a guy raiding you probably is much better prepared for the PK fight.

For me personally,
The key to any small PK success I ever had was basically I was selective about almost all my fights- I had no qualms about leaving at the beginning of a fight that I knew strongly favored my enemy. I played my same character for a long freaking time to the point I really just figured out what fights I had a chance in and stayed for those. When you've fought a build 100 times with you char, you pretty much have it figured out as to what you do when to kill them or run them off. Where as they have not fought my build anywhere near as much and are figuring out their own builds best tactics, so I gained a big advantage from that. But lots of people who I would shred early on became a lot tougher for me to fight later on, and lots of them also became able to just run me off everytime we fought.

Know when to be Iceman, and know when to be Maverick.

The Iceman players are the ones that people whine about being too cautious on the log forums and such. These people do not make mistakes, they wear you down until you do something stupid and then they've got you.

That works great in the movie, but in CF, that can often mean that they see you making no mistakes, realize that they don't have a chance, and so they just withdraw back to North Korean airspace/flee quaff tele.

So sometimes you have to be the Maverick type guy. A little too aggressive. You can reverse on a hard cross and immediately go to guns on him. It's a big gamble at times, but you're only risking 1/3 con and some eq, not a 30 million dollar airplane.

It is possible to overdo this, too. Guys who burn through con in spurts of 3 or 4 in a single login have egos that are writing checks that their character build can't cash. They are the ones who have made high speed passes over two control towers and one admiral's daughter.

As for your comment about not wanting to hear from Marcus - that's just stupid. Marcus has more pk knowledge in his pinky than I have in...well, in my pinky. Not wanting to hear from him because he figured out how to use triggers to be even more successful than he already was is short-sighted.

It goes along the lines of; If a man build a thousand bridges he will be known as a great architect. But if that man gnarfles one garthog, he will be forever known as a garthog gnarfler.

Other than that, I appreciate the feedback from you and others. I have tried all these things in one form or another. I just cant get the same mileage as others have.

I do tend to put huge RP restrictions on my characters that typically manifest in me not getting gear. I think I need to start lightening up with that.

It's a lot of the other aforementioned factors, but mindset and practice bring you up to par on pretty much all of that better than anything else.

Go after everyone you can take on all the time, don't ever waste time doing anything else that isn't absolutely necessary. Don't over prep. Don't spend too much time gathering preps, only bother if you have nobody else to pk and you actually need them to at all stand toe to toe. Don't waste time sleeping, carry enough gold/barter #### to heal refresh constantly and be moving endlessly. Never sit in your guild or the inn.

Use only the combat options that will seal you kills(you have to feel this out with the person, as some will just run as soon as you land a big malediction) and don't be afraid to get run off 80% of the time by some of your harder enemies because you aren't using the skills that let you "win" the fight. Being tough and being deathful are often very different. If you can't really beat someone but they can't kill you, keep trying until they #### up or are caught unprepared, and be sure you don't #### up first. Don't ever think you can't kill someone because you can't lag them.

If you play like that you'll learn to chase well and the rest of it becomes very intuitive.

And when you chase, chase until it's totally hopeless. Even if you think you've completely lost them keep looking, chase until you're sure that even if you find them you're going to be worse off than they are at that point.

I'm not sure it makes sense to try to narrow it down to a single thing, since no one thing by itself is going to make you good (or even adequate) at PK. That said, it's not a huge list.

1. Area knowledge, as well as meta-knowledge such as which people are likely to rank in.
2. Understanding how all the class abilities and cabal powers work.
3. Item knowledge (gear and basic preps) and knowing how to efficiently farm gold.
4. Having a good set of aliases and highlights.
5. Having a relatively low-latency link to CF.
6. The ability to effectively "time" commands during combat and refrain from stacking commands.
7. The mental ability to avoid "tunnel vision" and force yourself to retreat from fights you're not likely to win. (I'm bad at this.)
8. Being smart enough to assemble an effective strategy for killing someone given #2 above.

The problem with being bad at #7 (and to an extent #6) is that you either have to be conservative and only engage in fights where you have an extreme advantage, or you have to live with the fact that sooner or later you're going to get into an even fight, screw up and lose because of your mistakes.

The benefit to being good at #6 and #7 is that you can be bank on your opponent being more likely than you to make a fatal miscalculation. So you can get into a lot more fights with the confidence that you'll be able to discern when to retreat before it's too late. This higher volume of fights creates more opportunities for your opponents to screw up and die.

It also doesn't hurt to have cabal (and/or leader) powers, perfected skills and tons of edge points, all of which are more easily attained by long-lived characters.

This is an opinion based at least as much on watching good and bad players in play than just my experience PKing and being PKed.

The good PKers have a talent for finding you when you don't want to be found or aren't at your best and pouncing, and being hard to find when they aren't at their best.

If I think I can beat 90% of my PK range, I'm going to be aggressively going after that 90%, and I'm going to be as sure as I can that the other 10% can't get a clean shot at me.

A lot of things add up to that. Some of it's area knowledge. Some of it's aggressiveness or paranoia. Some of it's understanding matchups well enough to know which ones are always easy for you, which ones it will depend on the player or gear somewhat, which ones are always going to be a fight, which ones can beat you up but probably can't actually kill you, and so on.

Gear and preps (beyond basic buyable stuff) are honestly not a big part of it. I can probably count the number of times I've gone and gotten a shield or aura potion and used it across all characters on one hand. If I'm playing a character that's extremely good at killing mobs (e.g. shield paladin) I'm certainly going to go get my own gear to some degree, but most of my characters will very rarely do it.

Mobility and surprise are the crucial factors.

Also making use of your surroudings:
- wearing an opponents moves down my making him chase you through mountains (you may have to let him hurt you first or he's likely to realise what you're doing)
- getting first attack more reliably by going to slower terrain
- standing next to mobs to counter the use of area attacks (even nicer if the mob can't be seen by your enemy
- fighting next to mobs that will assist you
- using locked rooms or hidden parts of an area to trap people
- going underwater to blast them with lightning, or to prevent bash etc.
- standing in rooms that are anti-magic or no-summon
- standing in rooms where you won't show up on "where" even if you're not stealthy
- standing next to rooms that make it dangerous to flee (assuming that YOU have an alternative to fleeing yourself).

Edited to add:
- Also, ALWAYS have a plan!
a) If you know someone is online, know how you'll react if they attack you, so that you don't act indecisive when the time comes
b) If you are attacking him, think about the likely reaction of everyone involved. For example, don't bother ko'ing him if someone out of your pk can just wake him again, etc.

Being aggressive is worth all the character skill in the world. If you're not out looking for people when they might not be their best, when you get the fight, it'll be on their terms, not yours.

I have progressed from "awful" to "competent" in the past several years.

The single largest factor that contributes to that progression is paying attention to how commands are being input and when and if I am lagged by the skills of others or my own commands. And not stacking commands.

This is part of a larger awareness of the big picture during a battle that is (I think) the biggest stepping-stone in the path from "total newb" to "average CFer."

My first hero (Dwarf Sword RBW) was in a battle once ran off his foe. Afterwards I got a tell that said "You parry well, Dwarf." Up until that moment I was completely unaware of how well or poorly I was parrying. That one tell sort of opened my eyes to what sort of thing I should pay attention to.

By going over logs of wins and losses I've developed a sense of when I'm lagged, when I'm lagging, and generally what I should be doing.

Actually doing these things...that's what separates the average player from the Vet. I'm not there yet.