Call to Testing Arms: Need a player with a fast attack build

[sspitfire1]

I am looking for someone with a build that can successfully counter my Longbow/Spear combination. The key trick is going to be having a healthy set of fast, uninterruptible attacks (cool-down times of .9s or faster). I recommend using Dragoon 5 and Hide and Steel Banded, as well. If you are using a wand, you must wear Cloth Armor.

Shortbow and shortsword/dagger are probably the best candidates; but you are welcome to experiment.

If you can put together a build that reliably owns mine, I will happily help you acquire +2 Weapons and Armor come EE.

Sspit.

Key Attacks for my build:
Longbow
Half-Draw
Overdraw
Impaling Shot
Followthrough Foresight
Patient Anchor

Spear
Penetrate
Stab
Spike
Gore
Skewer
Impale

Reactives
MoO Stop L2
MoO Suffer L1

[sspitfire1]

Only 1 rule: We will both be using T1 +0 equipment all around. Otherwise, no-holds-barred.

[Dazyk]

One-Handed Blunt weapons (club, etc.) should be suitable, as well.

[sspitfire1]

Yeah, speed is key.

I'll go ahead and toss this out there: If you try to use a slow attack at range, Half-draw+MoO Stop will shut it down with a 70% success rate. If you try to use a slow attack in melee, I spam Penetrate, which has a 25% Interrupt rate and is 0.9/1.2 second attack.

[sspitfire1]

I *think* some folks might be working on a build that would perfectly counter mine, but just to be sure, I am upping the ante:

I will also help you and yours acquire 100 units of the raw material of your choice within the first week of EE (yellow, green and blue do not count). This is in addition to providing the winner with whatever assistance is needed to get them into +2 Armor and +2 versions of the weapons of their choice.

[sspitfire1]

Just to clarify: your build has to completely own my to the point that me winning a match is a fluke, not a repeatable process.

[Caldeathe Baequiannia]

Okay, what the heck is MoO that I keep seeing?

[<Kabal> Daeglin]

Master of Opportunity
Fighter feature that gives chance of various effects on successful attack vs target with opportunity, MoO Stop is the interrupt effect I believe.

[<Kabal> Häagen]

Focus
Dazing Touch
Guidance
Virtue
Healing Word
Liberation
Touch of Darkness

Reactives
Exhausting Critical
Staggering Critical

Pot Steel Plate
Unbreakable

Utilities
Shield of Faith
Divine Favor

When he switched to longbow exploit was able to beat me if I ran away to heal. If freedom and mind blank were working I would have been able to heal back in peace, maybe. Instead of completely running away to heal I did better jumping back and healing while he used the spear, then I ran up to touch of darkness or dazing touch when he was using a bow. I could have alternated healing and damaging better to throw him off.

Note that none of the spells above provoke opportunity.

[sspitfire1]

Mr. Haagen has earned his settlement and his name a high honor for beating the unbeatable!

Why did he win? Two reasons: 1) His heals do not provoke and he can spam them endlessly while running away. 2) His Touch of Darkness deals purely negative energy damage, which goes right through my fancy heavy armor. That is one major boon for the Cleric in combat.

I was able to solidly beat Haagen with the long bow exploit slotted; but that was not a part of the original build and so did not count against him :) Mostly I just needed to prove that his highly annoying tactic was own-able.

Anyone else who would like to take a stab at it is free to! I would still like to see if a shortbow and shortsword or dagger build could beat me. No prizes though! Just the opportunity to help further our understanding of game mechanics right now.

In other news, Approximate Sin lost handily with her Great Club and Longbow combo. Too easily interrupted, by far. That said, me spamming interrupt versus her spamming a club attack generally came to a draw for the most part, suggesting that there is, in fact, some balance in the game!

[<Kabal> Häagen]

OK I wouldn't call it 'solidly'. It took quite a long time, and I needed a little practice. I was still able to almost beat you with the sploit and given another chance and the right timing I'm sure I could win.

I'd like to know how you were doing 140 damage past my 42 physical resist from heavy armor and shield of faith using just +0 weapons. Just from me running away? 182 damage seems pretty high for that attack from a longbow and I'd like a way to mitigate that.

[Urman]

Longbow exploit gets +40 damage with opportunity, and he had MoO effects on top of that.

How to mitigate it: don't run, walk (shift to toggle) (which is hard, to never provoke opportunity, because you have to keep reapplying walk).

[TEO Cheatle]

Whats funny, is earlier, I was suggesting that almost same exact build to Proxima.

[<Kabal> Häagen]

Urman wrote:

don't run, walk (shift to toggle) (which is hard, to never provoke opportunity, because you have to keep reapplying walk).

Thanks, I'll try that. I didn't really have to run away and heal I just wanted to be 'safe' but with his exploit that was a bad tactic. I'll just heal while meleeing him and charge to touch of darkness if he uses a bow.

The saving grace here though was the physical resistance. I didn't fair as well against Nihimon's wand and staff combo. I have to kill wizards quickly, but resistance helps.

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

Urman wrote:

...because you have to keep reapplying walk).

That's not just every time you stop walking. That's ALSO each time you take damage.

If you walk three steps and stop, the next time you move you'll be running and presenting Opportunity until the shift toggle can kick in again.

If you're walking and someone shoots you with a bow, spell, or melee attack, any damage at all, you're suddenly running and presenting Opportunity again until you press Shift and the toggle can kick in... again.

Walking in combat to avoid presenting Opportunity is an untenable strategic choice at the moment. When we toggle Walk on all movement needs to be at non-Opportunity walking speed until we press another toggle button (walk, sprint, or stealth) explicitly choosing as a player to change movement speed.

[Neadenil Edam]

Couple of minor points.

If you use lesser cure for healing you only need to get fire it off every few rounds.

Currently the Longbow Expolit gives you T2 and T3 D200 rolls on T2 and T3 bows. That is a bug and apparently will eventuallly change.

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

Dagger might be a challenge to the quick spear. With feint reliably placing the target in flat-footed the exploit did 60+ uninterruptible damage to less armored targets in less than one second. It all depends on just how much the hide and steel reduces damage from my escalation test numbers; and getting flat-footed onto Sspitfire each round.

Also, in anything other than Xv1 once this tactic gets stunned and can't constantly interrupt every attack thrown at it, it's all over. It would be GREAT vs. that single red ogre or ghoul biter you haven't been able to beat yet, you know the one.

[sspitfire1]

to get around the walking bit, hit 'r' then 'shift' in really quick succession. You do it quick enough and you won't provoke. Once you are "auto-walking" you shouldn't change to a run when taking damage.

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

You also take yourself right out of melee range automatically, which is an odd tactic for a melee fighter. The only real fix to that part of the melee game is hard toggle movement speed.

[<Kabal> Daeglin]

I've had trouble getting walk to toggle this patch. Previously never had it fail, but this build it frequently does not toggle on for me. I haven't been able to notice a consistent pattern yet, so haven't submitted a bug report. Anyone else notice a difference with walk from earlier builds?

[TEO Cheatle]

You can't really include spells, spells basically auto interrupt if you get hit by anything, its very frustrating.

Spells at this point are preemptive, have to be timed, and basically used when you aren't being targeted.