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Subject: "Experienced pvp lancers, please pick apart:" Archived thread - Read only
 
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Wrothgar
Charter Member
21-Apr-01, 07:19 AM (GMT)
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"Experienced pvp lancers, please pick apart:"
 
   Many of you will recognize this, but I'm posting it here as per Bolty's suggestion.....

Wrothgar’s PvP Lancer Guide v1.00

1.0 Credits
2.0 Introduction
3.0 Stats
4.0 Skills
5.0 Equipment
6.0 Leveling up
7.0 Stun Lock vs. Block Lock (and other common misconceptions)
8.0 Matchups
9.0 Potential
10.0 Numbers


1.0 Credits
I would like to thank the following people for without their help this guide would not be possible:

Venomous Vixen for the calculations on Stun/Block lock.
BrianP for the testing of Block Lock and calcs on bow dmg/bow speeds, stunlock % and also for being my editor
IceMage999 for his calculations on the possibility of stun lock and support
AtomicDrop for his help in testing the concentration lock theory
RainyCloud for giving me a reason to create an anti-zon barb
Sethenal for demanding this guide
PvP Fenix for showing me how to perform a short whirl
ZanxZ for giving me the experience dueling an all dex amazon
LanceWhitefist for giving me my first necro dueling experience

And all the other excellent duelers who have lent me their aid, kicked my butt countless times while I was a newbie dueler, and helped me to form my strategies.


2.0 Introduction

Hi, my name is Wrothgar and I duel with a vitabarb lance barbarian. This is my first guide, so please bear with me. This guide will cover how I duel with a vitabarb lancer vs. all 5 classes. I’m neither the best nor the worst dueler, and this is also only 1 way of dueling with this class. There are a ton of other strategies that are found to work. This one is just my personal favorite

What’s a vitabarb? Easy, a barb who has all base stats except for vitality. The point of this kind of barbarian is to reach over 3.5k hitpoints by lvl 85 (and possibly 4k by 92 with good items).

Why a lancer? Well, 4 reasons:

1. Can you say “1-hit kills?” I knew you could
2. The range of a lance is almost double the range of an exec sword
3. It’s easier to get a higher vitality with a lance because of there much lower requirements.
4. Speed. Most SS barbs use Sigons Guard ( a tower shield that slows your running speed by 10%). This does not apply to barbs using boneshields, however.

Now, on to...........

3.0 Stats

There are 3 kinds of lances you will come across:

1. Standard requirement – 110 str, 88dex (yuck – this is a waste of 44str and 35dex compared to a –40 req lance, in effect losing 316 hps BEFORE battle orders!!!)
2. –20 requirement – 88str, 71dex (better – only wasting 22str and 18dex compared to a –40 req lance, in effect losing 160 hps before battle orders...still too much though, IMHO)
3. –40 requirement – 66str, 53 dex (yes! now we’re talking!)

Of course you want to try for a –40 requirement lance, as it is easier to go all vitality. You can get a –20 req lance and still go all vitality, however it’s quite difficult.

With a –40 lance, you will need to get + 33str and + 36dex from your helm/boots/amulet/rings
With a –20 lance, you will need to get + 58str and + 51dex, and I doubt you could manage this and still wear bloodfist (which is ideal with 1 other fastest hit recovery item), deaths sash and blinkbats. I’ll go into more detail about equipment later.

Also, you are going to want to MAKE SURE you have all the gear you need before starting this barb.

A pikes requirements are also quite easy to accommodate: 60 str 45 dex, meaning getting +30 str and +15 dex for a normal pike. Very easy.


4.0 Skills

This is the easy part.

20ww- For obvious reasons (before +skills items)
20spear mastery- See above (before +skills items)
20 Increased Speed – The reason for this is because, as a Lancer, you don’t block ANYTHING. Therefore, closing the distance between you and your opponent is key. It may seem like a waste, but believe me, the extra boost gives you just the added “oomph” you need (WITH +skills items)
20 Battle Orders – Again, this many points may seem a waste, but the point of this barb is to have speed and very high hitpoints. Not to mention the increased duration is always nice in the middle of a duel, so you don’t get caught with your pants down. (before +skills items)

1 in all prereqs.

If you max all of those and have spare points left over (because you enjoy spending hours WW’ing in the river of flame...) you can sink some points into both Iron Skin and Nat Res (for vs. barbs/sorcies).

This brings us to....

5.0 Equipment

You are looking for a few things on your equipment. This is not a cheap barb to make, by any means, but is a whole lot of fun to play.

1. Armor – Blinkbats for zons/necs/sorcies, high def armor for barbs/pallies with +life/mana (and lots of it!) +dex sure as heck wouldn’t hurt either.

2. Belt – Deaths Sash for vs. Zons/Sorcies, +life/mana/str for vs. other classes.

3. Boots – Fastest R/W, fastest hit recovery (if you don’t intend to use bloodfist), +str.
If using bloodfist, however, shoot for fastest r/w with +str/+dex

4. Amulet – +dex/+str. +Mana would come in third, with +life last. +Skills is just a bonus.

5. Rings – This is probably one of the hardest things to get. You need rings that add to str/dex. Mana and AR wouldn’t hurt either. 1 life and 1 mana leech.

6. Gloves – For zons bloodfist is best, but if you want to you can go with +str/+dex/+mana gloves and dual fastest boots with +str. +Life would be a bonus.
For all other classes, just grab some gloves with life/mana/res. Dex/str wouldn’t hurt either.

7. Helm - +dex, fastest hit recovery, +life/+mana. Also, MAKE SURE the str requirement is something you can handle (i.e. no Grand Crowns).

You want to try for ~250-300 mana with battle orders (at least) for zons by the time you want to duel. That gives you mana for about 5 ww’s, and by then the fight should be over anyway. Obviously the more mana the better. With your vs. all other classes equip you want close to 400 mana if you can pull it off.

Now we come to:

6.0 Leveling up

Let’s face it, this guy is going to be a BEAR to level up. Levels 1-20 aren’t so bad, 20-30 are excruciating, and 30-46 are painful. Try to use good starter equipment.
Here’s what I equipped my lvl 1 barb with so he could use bonesnap at lvl 1:

Amulet - Mahim Oak Curio
Armor - Twitchthroe
Boots – Treads
Belt – Bladebuckle
Gloves – Hand of Broc or Bloodfist
Helm – Socketed helm with 2 perfect amethysts (adds +20 strength)
Rings – Stones are most convenient, but put whatever floats your boat

With this setup, I was using bonesnap at lvl 1. Now, this will do you until level 18 or so with just bash as your normal attack. After that, start using concentrate, as the slow attack speed and no shield is very frustrating. At level 30 equip either a pike or –40 req lance (whichever you can manage to wear) just whirl to your little hearts content until the magic level of 46. At 46, you should be able to wear all of your +str/+dex items! Yeah! You should also definitely be able to use your lance by then. From here it’s easy sailing.

7.0 Stun Lock vs. Block Lock (and other common misconceptions)

First off you should realize that to go into stun animation (and this is mainly for amazons, by the way) an attack has to deal at least 1/12 of your maximum possible hitpoints. This also applies to blocking animation. If the hit you receive from that arrow does not equal at least 1/12 of your total hps, then you will not be put into either animation. What does this mean? It means that a SS barb is just as likely to be block locked as a lancer is stun locked. Many people believe that you are more likely to be stun locked, however this is not true. This is one of the advantages to having high life.

What is stun lock/block lock? Well, let me explain:

When an amazon is able to successfully shoot as fast as you can block or be stunned. Meaning, you spend most of the time sitting there in either block or stun animation, unable to move, while the amazon just keeps firing volleys of arrows your direction.

Here is a post from Venomous Vixen regarding blocking fps:

“Hi all,
In case anyone is interested, I have cleaner data than I had before on base number of frames in blocking animation.


Necro: 12 frames
Sorc : 10 frames (8 w/Culwen's Point)
Barb : 8 frames
Pally: 6 frames
Zon : 6 frames”

So as you can see, the barbarian (without culwen’s point) has a base blocking of 8 fps. Remember this, because next I am going to post something else by VV regarding stun animation:

“Here is the latest regarding block lock vs. stun lock:
"I checked up on what Spirea found in the data files about Bloodfist, and it turns out that Bloodfist does indeed count for 30% HR, not 20%. Nice catch Spirea. This extends the HR chart to 16 possible points.
Now some bad news: I screwed up a lot of the data. It turns out that I was miscounting frames. When trying to figure out why I was getting weird values for *blocking* frames, I noticed that the discrepancies I had been getting were due to the fact that I was sometimes not counting the earliest frames in the blocking animation. (The early animation frames can be visually ambiguous between "being part of a block" and "the character is merely standing still". This problem also comes up with spell casting animation, although it is less of a problem in that case.) After having fixed this counting error in the case of blocking, I went back and recounted hit recovery frames. It turns out that I was making the same mistake there too.

Now some good news: I recounted using a better method.

pts | S | N | Z | B/P
---------------------
0 |16 |14 |12 |10
1 |14 |12 |11 |9
2 |12 |11 |9 |8
3 |11 |9 |8 |7
4 |9 |8 |7 |6
5 |8 |7 |6 |5
6 |8 |7 |6 |5
7 |7 |6 |6 |5
8 |7 |6 |5 |4
9 |6 |6 |5 |4
10 |6 |5 |4 |4
11 |6 |5 |4 |4
12 |5 |5 |4 |3
13 |5 |4 |3 |3
14 |5 |4 |3 |3
15 |4 |4 |3 |3
16 |4 |4 |3 |3”

If you look at the chart above, you see that a barbarian with no fastest hit recovery items recovers from a stun at 10fps, 1 FHR 8fps and 2 FHR 6fps, and with 1 FHR + Bloodfist 5fps. So, with 2 FHR items you will recover 25% faster than if you were instead using a shield (which takes 8fps to recover). This may not be much, but every little bit counts. And on top of this, if you instead use 1 FHR item + Bloodfist, you will recover at 5fps!!! Whoot! That’s twice as fast as the fastest gothic can shoot!

Conclusion? With your massive hitpoints, fast recovery and the high damage it would take to stun you, you will actually fair better (IMHO) than SS barbs vs. amazons. That’s been my personal experience as well.

Oh, and to shatter another falsity:

“A ss barb with 500 hitpoints will last just as long as a lance barb with 2000 hitpoints. “

Wrong. A barb with 1/4 the life of a lancer will be s/b locked 4x as often (due to one fourth the life of the lacer) which=death

And finally, the old “Hold concentrate on the amazon” (Conc lock, where you assign it to a mouse button and click/hold on the amazon) doesn’t work like many think it does. The “uninterruptable attack” only kicks in ONCE YOU’VE STARTED YOUR SWING. Until then, you can be locked (whether is stun or block) by the zon.


Now for the good stuff:


8.0 Matchups

Barb vs. Barb – This will be one of the 2 classes you will have the most trouble with. The vitabarb is designed to do well vs. Amazons, Necromancers and Paladins. Barbs and sorcies are gonna be tough.

Lance vs. SS barb: What you will need to do (whether tanker or not) is try to lure them into a whirl. Use your superior range to your advantage and keep your whirls short. Your speed will also allow you to duck in and out to trick the barb into a whirl. At this time you want to perform a short whirl perpendicular (meaning like a T) to the other barb, avoiding his sword while catching him with your lance. Rinse and repeat.

Another tactic vs. a SS barb is if you see them whirling in your direction, whirl away from them (in the same direction they are whirling in) while out of range of their sword but catching them in the range of your lance. It’s going to take practice.

Lance vs. Lance: I don’t have a whole lot of experience here, but I find it quite effective if you lure them into a whirl and perform a whirl of your own where their whirl is going to end. Catch them as their WW ends with your own; it takes timing and practice.

Barb vs. Sorcie – Oof, almost impossible. However, I feel that this barb variant stands the greatest chance in this matchup do to speed/range/life. You will have to try to determine the Teleport pattern of the sorc your facing, and perform a short whirl where you think she is about to teleport to. Also, don’t take your high life for granted, AVOID THOSE ORBS AT ALL COSTS! Static makes short work of even 4k hitpoints. Of course try to wear equipment that allows as much light/cold resistance as possible.

Barb vs. Paladin: TBD as I have almost zilch exp fighting experienced Pally duelers.

Barb vs. Necro: Use either a low damage lance or a high damage pike (ideally no more than ~185 damage). The key here again is speed and knowing how to control your whirls. If you just start rushing straight in and whirling the necro he’ll throw up a bonewall and IM your butt. Ouch. You need to really understand the range of a lance, so you can avoid hitting the bonewalls as much as possible. Now, with your high vitality you can afford to make a couple mistakes like that, and BS even with lower resist is fairly laughable. Just close the distance, get the nec on the run and perform a short, controlled whirl. Also try not just charging the necro, as often they expect this and curse where they expect you to be. If you zig-zag or circle the necro first it sometimes throws them off and you can get to them without getting cursed! That trick usually only works the first time though. Experiment and see what works best. I will often run in close to the Necro as if to whirl to see how they react (we have the life to be able to do this without fear of dying from bonespirits). Also, it keeps the necro guessing if you don’t just rush in and whirl every time.


Barb vs. Zon: My favorite matchup by far If the amazon went all vital, they won’t stand a chance. Balanced zons (half dex/half life or some such) have arrows that sting, but with that high life do not stun as often as high dex zons. High dex zons are the ones to really watch out for, because if you are not careful they will have you dead before you ever reach them.

First of all, NEVER start the match running in a straight line to the amazon. 99% of all bowazons that I’ve dueled start with GA and you’ll just smack right into em. What you need to do is use your speed to start spiraling in towards the zon, all the while outrunning the trailing GA’s and trying to stay on the outside perimeter of their multi. If this is not possible (due to some amazons having a high lvl multi and knowing how to make it very wide spread) you will have no choice but to charge. A nice general rule of thumb: If they GA you spiral, if they multi you charge. As you start to come in closer, you’re going to start getting hit. This is where your high life comes in handy, in that you can not only take a few shots but hopefully those shots won’t do enough damage to stun you (or slow you down). If they do, however, be prepared to eat ~4-6 GA’s. Ouch. Don’t worry though, you’re still alive, and as long as you have 1hp left when the zon is dead you’ve won. At this point the zon should be on the run or dead.

Now, lets stop and think about this for a minute; who has more stamina, the zon or the barb? Who’s faster? A barb with maxed increased speed, fastest r/w boots, a lance and blinkbats=about 30% faster than the fastest amazon. So what wins here? Patience. Patience is the key; as rushing will get you killed. Remember that you do not have a whole lot of hps left usually by this point, so you want to be careful. Learn the zons running pattern. Force her to make a mistake. If you are lucky enough to get her against a wall/shrub/puddle, it’s over because instead of being able to run 360 degrees, she can only run up or down. Use your range to your advantage, and keep your whirls SHORT. Long whirls (especially missed ones) often spell death for you. Practice, practice, practice. If you connect with 1 good whirl, the zon is toast.

And for the extremely few (yet they ARE out there) pure dex zons with over 500 dex, you have to end it ASAP. You will probably only go 50/50 with them as they are barb killers. Use the same strat as before, but be mindful of those arrows. The 1 amazon I have dueled that is all Dex is ZanxZ. He has 530 dex at level 80; his Multi does around 950 damage and his GA around 1100. Couple that with a 68% chance critical strike, oof. It can be done though.

Oh, two last “gotchas” to watch out for vs. amazons:

1. Decoy. Learn to duel with your mini-map up AT ALL TIMES. Pay attention to the name and match it up with the player before you whirl. If you whirl a decoy (especially vs. a High Dex amazon) you can count on taking some severe damage (if not outright death).

2. Invisible arrows. That’s right, just like invisible bonespirits, GA and multi can turn invisible in lag. Just be aware of it

I have referenced a “short whirl” often. What do I mean? Well, thanks to PvP Fenix for showing me this one: practice clicking right at your feet to whirl. You’d be surprised how short your whirl is! This way, if you miss, you’ll still have a chance to be back after your prey again. There are 2 other ways of doing this too, should you not be comfortable doing it that way (it all depends on your playing style):

Shift-left click
Alt-right click (to avoid actually clicking ON the target), this prevents you from getting WW locked and subsequently dead.

9.0 Potential

Life: This barb has a potential 3318 hitpoints by lvl 85 with all quests completed, 64% orders and WITHOUT ANY +LIFE ITEMS!!!!! With +life items you can get to much higher.) I calculated that if I take my own personal baba to lvl 92 I can get 4k hitpoints (with my lvl 24 BO and +life equip).

Damage: Well, to give you an extreme, my baba does 1600+ dmg with a 337dmg lance. I do 1100+ dmg with my 248 lance (I duel with 248 lance and lvl with my 337 lance). WW can hit a max of 4 times, so that MORE than enough to kill most zons in 1 whirl.

AR: Ugh. This is where you will suffer. With 2 AR rings, +AR weapon and my +dex gear, I can get (at MOST) 3k AR. Vs tankers you will have a MASSIVELY hard time. Also vs. some pallies. However, AR generally is not a concern vs. necs/sorcies/amas/MOST pallies.

10.0 Numbers

In this section I will include information from a spreadsheet BrianP made up for me. It’s purpose is to show you what percent chance you have of being stun/block locked. Just match up your life on the left colum with the amazons dexterity on the top to find out what it is. This particular example assumes maxed critical strike + Carrion Song bow (31-153 IAS +1skills bow):

critical 0.68
bow--> min 31 max 153

dex--> 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600
life
2000 0.39 0.53 0.65 0.74 0.80 0.85 0.89 0.92 0.94 0.95 0.96
2100 0.37 0.50 0.62 0.71 0.78 0.83 0.88 0.91 0.93 0.94 0.95
2200 0.34 0.46 0.59 0.69 0.76 0.81 0.86 0.89 0.92 0.93 0.94
2300 0.32 0.43 0.56 0.66 0.74 0.79 0.84 0.88 0.91 0.93 0.94
2400 0.30 0.41 0.53 0.64 0.71 0.77 0.82 0.86 0.89 0.92 0.93
2500 0.27 0.39 0.50 0.61 0.69 0.75 0.80 0.85 0.88 0.91 0.93
2600 0.25 0.37 0.47 0.59 0.67 0.73 0.79 0.83 0.86 0.89 0.92
2700 0.23 0.35 0.44 0.56 0.65 0.71 0.77 0.81 0.85 0.88 0.91
2800 0.20 0.33 0.42 0.53 0.62 0.69 0.75 0.80 0.83 0.87 0.89
2900 0.18 0.32 0.40 0.51 0.60 0.67 0.73 0.78 0.82 0.85 0.88
3000 0.16 0.30 0.39 0.48 0.58 0.65 0.71 0.76 0.80 0.84 0.87
3100 0.13 0.28 0.37 0.46 0.56 0.63 0.70 0.75 0.79 0.83 0.86
3200 0.11 0.26 0.36 0.43 0.53 0.61 0.68 0.73 0.77 0.81 0.84
3300 0.09 0.24 0.34 0.42 0.51 0.59 0.66 0.71 0.76 0.80 0.83
3400 0.06 0.22 0.33 0.40 0.49 0.57 0.64 0.70 0.74 0.78 0.82
3500 0.04 0.20 0.31 0.39 0.47 0.55 0.62 0.68 0.73 0.77 0.80
3600 0.02 0.18 0.30 0.38 0.44 0.53 0.61 0.66 0.71 0.76 0.79
3700 0.00 0.17 0.28 0.36 0.42 0.51 0.59 0.65 0.70 0.74 0.78
3800 0.00 0.15 0.27 0.35 0.41 0.49 0.57 0.63 0.68 0.73 0.77
3900 0.00 0.13 0.25 0.34 0.40 0.47 0.55 0.62 0.67 0.71 0.75
4000 0.00 0.11 0.23 0.32 0.39 0.45 0.53 0.60 0.65 0.70 0.74


Well, I suppose that’s about it. If you ever have any questions, my email is z_wrothgar_z@hotmail.com and my account name is *wrothgar. Just ask


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
Experienced pvp lancers, please pick apart: [View All] Wrothgar 21-Apr-01 TOP
  Lookin for a little constructive criticism here...... Wrothgar 21-Apr-01 1
     You just might be... Smithy 21-Apr-01 2

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Wrothgar
Charter Member
21-Apr-01, 02:09 PM (GMT)
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1. "Lookin for a little constructive criticism here......"
In response to message #0
 
   I can't be the only experienced PvP lancer around.....


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Smithy
Charter Member
21-Apr-01, 03:24 PM (GMT)
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2. "You just might be..."
In response to message #1
 
   Well, I just read your PVP Lancer guide and I thought it was good... but I don't duel. =) Actually, it seems more interesting when dueling is legitimate (like you seem to be) compared to morons who enter public games and challenge everyone to DuLez.

Anyway, some facts hold true regardless of the fact that I don't duel.

Its obvious that something with 3K+ life is going to be tough to kill. I think the best point you make is that stunlock is a funtion of the dmg/health ratio. Many people, in PVM, seem to think stunlock has something to do with armor. You might want to emphasize a little more the importance of avoiding stunlock. It's good sense that if you stunlocked, you can't move and if you can't move you're going to die.

I'm sure someone has mentioned this before, but let me repeat it again. Many, if not most people here do not duel. I'm sure there are even many people who have started playing single player much more like myself. Personally, I've started playing Cold Fusion, a mod that is a lot of fun. Many people here delve farther into the essence of the game, not PVP.

I enjoyed reading your guide. I'm not going to start PVP, but it was still a good read and I think worthwhile to this board. I'd encourage you to continue posting any revisions to the guide, and topics concerning PVP. The simple fact is that you will not get as much response here as you will at other boards such as Diabloii.net's PVP forum. Hopefully, some knowledgeable lurkers that duel will be able to provide you with some better criticism.

Smithy


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