affliction guide

[dakhound]

Want to use affliction?

No?

Why not?

Ah yes you’re a master of pain and you can nuke mobs to pieces before they touch you.

Well I suppose someone has to put you straight on the many uses of affliction magic then before you fully appreciate what it can do for your team.

If I was to write a disclaimer at the start of this guide I guess it would be go something like “affliction mages are not essential to a group but they will save your butt in high level zones on countless occasions if you take one along”

You see affliction is more varied than your general day to day nuker and for one they don’t actually do any reliable damage. You could call affliction mages “support mages” and I would say the name would fit.

Firstly we have the spells – (not gonna separate them into def/off because I’m in “work” and I can’t remember what goes where.

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS – and effects they have

Blind – blinds the mob so it can be hit easier and reduces the hit rate of the mob.
Slow attack rate/movement – what it says on the box although these do not seem to work at the moment.
Fear – makes the mob run away from your in terror.
Stun – Stuns the mob so it can be hit every time with double damage and does not attack back.
Madness – makes the mob hit itself.
Sleep – I know some ryzom players don’t know what sleep is but for the rest of you I’m sure you can work it out for yourself.
Root – Tangles the mob with roots so it cannot move from the spot.

LINKING SPELLS -

Now you’re a “master of pain” and your used to chain casting your uber destroy all spells in quick succession at the mob but unfortunately it does not work like that with affliction. With affliction there are 2 types of successful casts

1. hit but no link, this is when your spell lands and does not form a link with the mob the spell lasts for 1 round of combat.
2. a link, this is when the spell lands and does form a link with the mob. If this happens the spell lasts until the mob recovers, sometimes even until they die

Now the important thing is that if you cast again (or perform any other action) you will break a link with your mob so you cannot just sit there clicking on the cast action until you give yourself RSI. Always cast – check if linked – cast again if not.
AFFLICTION IN A GROUP –

I will start with a nice scenario to help explain how you can assist your group.

You have a team consisting of 1 tank med level, 1 main healer, 1 low lvl support healer and 1 low level nuker. Say your hunting Huge Varinx in Dyron using the usual set up – tank pulls a varinx runs back and the healers and nukers start casting.
You find your kills are slow because your tanks only hit 35% of the time and your nuker might as well not be there, so your getting your 3k xp at a nice slow dangerous rate.

Add an affliction mage to the team and the party starts. Using stun your affliction mage hits and links just twice for 3-4 rounds per varinx. During this time the healers have time to recharge your HP/Stam as the Varinx isn’t hitting and your tank are hitting for double damage 100% of the time, even your nuker is landing a few more hits but not at double damage = faster kills = xp at probably twice the rate as before.

Now the next stage in this is when you tank in his joy at getting loads of XP misses the varinx 5mtrs from him and taunts another (happens all the time). You know your in trouble as 2 huge varinx will hit knock down your tank too quick and then go about eating your healers. This is where the Spell fear comes in, cast fear on one and it will run away for a short while giving your team the time to kill the remaining varinx and be ready when the second one decides to come back (which they always do).

Additional to this is sleep, if you cast sleep in the place of fear it does the same job in terms of removing the varinx from combat, although I find it wiser to cast fear just out of the simple logic that a mob 50mtrs away is better than one asleep in the middle of your group.

For madness I will quote the master of affliction on our server – Link

“Some time ago we were hunting great Jugulas in grove of confusion.
As the team consisted mainly of melee fighters it took us some time to
finish them off, but it was a lot more fun than having some nuker kill them
in an instant

All but one that died the second after my madness linked. We all concluded
that he basically killed himself as the others had not even hit him hehe
Mind you this has happened ONCE and I doubt I will see it again any time soon

In general madness works better on high lvl mobs as they deal more
damage.”

He says it better than I.

You may have noticed I have not included slow and blind into my hunt yet and there is a simple reason –

Blind has nearly the same effect as Stun only it does not work as well, if you can use stun instead of blind use stun every time. Although I have been told that it works very well on boss mobs whereas stun does not land often
Slow seems not to work at all although it probably does its just so bad you don’t notice 

SHORTFALLS OF AFFLICTION

1. you need a group to level effectively
2. its split into 2 groups which means you have to level 2 trees not 1
3. when casting fear on mobs be aware when they come back they are VERY pissed off at you and will go for you not your tank same with sleep
4. you deal no damage bar madness of which you are unlikely to kill a mob
5. not many people know what benefits you bring to the group so be aware you may have trouble finding a team which wants you.
6. Nukers are more effective in the end and I can’t argue against that

CHAPER 2 to follow soon

[bobturke]

Good guide dakhound!

[mboeing]

Why not?

....

1. you need a group to level effectively
2. its split into 2 groups which means you have to level 2 trees not 1
3. when casting fear on mobs be aware when they come back they are VERY pissed off at you and will go for you not your tank same with sleep
4. you deal no damage bar madness of which you are unlikely to kill a mob
5. not many people know what benefits you bring to the group so be aware you may have trouble finding a team which wants you.
6. Nukers are more effective in the end and I can’t argue against that

You forgot

7. you need to be close or higher then the mob in lvl to hit at least half way decently.

[dakhound]

You forgot

7. you need to be close or higher then the mob in lvl to hit at least half way decently.

not so true as you would think.

as a tiny lvl 70 I was stunning huge varinx on a twice per fight ratio and linking them 75% of the time. Although this is not the case all the time I didnt want to put it in jus tin case

[xolkar1]

try using concentrate in the lol lvl affli-spells

works wonders for me

lvl 80 off affli i hit 80% of a lvl 200+ mob in the grove of confusion

greetz

Luar

Leader of The Keepers

[cevyna]

I don't know about slow attack rate but slow movement does indeed work. Try it on something like a yubo and you'll notice that it approachs far slower than usual. Or try it in a duel, your opponent is only able to walk very slooow

Off affl: Blind, Slow movement/attack rage, Madness, Root
Def affl: Stun, Fear, Sleep

I usually overcredit my affl spells until I get a successrate of 100% (without using concentrate). It happens rarely that I don't hit at least once.
Though like with elemental spells you sometimes just need to find out to which affl a mob is least resistant.

[borg9]

try using concentrate in the lol lvl affli-spells

works wonders for me

lvl 80 off affli i hit 80% of a lvl 200+ mob in the grove of confusion

greetz

Luar

Leader of The Keepers

I have verified that adding concentate to off and aff spells makes a huge difference around the 80-90 lvl of magic. Well worth the credit investment.

[thewarcc]

Slow movement/attack rate
Both work well, but they aren't that effective.

Anyways i'm very interested in what level you are guys in afflicting..

[xolkar1]

deff affliktion around lvl 50

off afflition round 80

atm im more into Rping

there will always be enough time 2 grind *bg*

[oetken]

Nice to know about affliction:

My team happened to enjoy the luxury of two affliction mages and both managed to get a link to that poor gibbai, which was now stunned and struck by madness. It soon started to hit itself while being stunned with quite a success - and there was no other team member currently fighting it. I counted like 5 or 6 hits - this was fun to watch indeed.

Vivy