http://atys.ryzom.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10819
(Until Desco has time free from school and can maintain it himself I will make changes based on current game updates)
Originally posted by torador on 07 Jul 2004 19:26.
The big guide to Ryzom melee combat
INTRODUCTION
In this guide I hope describe how to be a successful melee warrior. There are many choices to make as you advance; whether you want to be a functional part of a team or a solo player, a damage dealer or an all-absorbant tank, a slasher, basher, or poker, this guide will dispel the most common misconceptions about skills and equipment. I will also cover armor selection.
All of the information contained in this guide is based on observations during the original open beta test (beta 3.6+) and the recent open weekend (beta 4.4). I intend to dispel misconceptions about melee combat, not create them, so please criticize thoroughly. However, leave your criticism regarding the game itself to other topics.
This guide is intended for players that have a basic/intermediate understanding of creating actions and generally getting around in Atys. The first section, science, lays out the facts about skills and equipment. The second section, application, tells you how to apply the science to your character.
I refer to the broadest skill categories, such as "Default attack action" or "Atysian missile blueprint", as "stanzas". I refer to the individual components of an action, the options and credits, as "bricks".
SCIENCE
Melee combat in Ryzom is a science. The numbers can be daunting, but with enough practice and self-experimentation, choosing skills and equipment becomes instinctive. It may be of some consolation that these decisions can be made long before you enter combat. You can take your time with this stuff, and it will pay off when you never seem to find yourself caught with your pants down.
THE MAGIC WORD
The magic word of melee combat is optimal. When you are optimal, you're getting results from every point of HP or stamina you're putting into an action.
SKILL/EQUIPMENT BALANCE
Here's an example of an optimal melee attack. You are level 20 in the fight skill. You have the increase damage 2 brick. You have a quality 20 melee weapon. You create an action with increase damage 2 and a precisely balanced ("matched") HP and/or stamina credit. This is optimal.
Here's what would make the example inefficient:
1. Using increase damage 1 with your q20 weapon. Increase damage 1 is optimal for q10 weapons, while increase damage 2 is optimal for q20 weapons. If you use a skill optimal for a weapon of a lower quality, it will be less effective. When increase damage is optimal, it doubles damage. When it's under-optimal, it's less effective. Presumably, increase damage 1 with a q20 weapon will result in only a 1.5x damage increase. You would probably do more damage with a q10 weapon at 2x!
2. Using a weapon over q20. Your skill level is the limit on a weapon's damage output. Look at the info for your weapon. The damage stat is based on your level, while the max damage stat is fixed for that weapon. If damage is below max damage, the weapon quality is too high and it is functioning as a weapon with quality equal to your level. Don't use weapons higher than your level!
3. Using a weapon under q20 with increase damage 2. Increase damage 2 is optimal for q20 weapons; if you're using a skill optimal for higher quality weapons, you're spending too much HP/stam for the action.
4. "Over-paying" the action with hit chance over 95%. When you have a difficulty bonus on a combat action, the hit chance increases to a maximum of 95%. At higher levels (think around 100) the default hit chance is always 95%. There's no reason to over-pay at that point. Over-paying is unavoidable sometimes, when using multiple options, but juggling hp and stam credits can help bring it closer to balance. Over-paying in other cases can be good; it's up to you.
When I go shopping for weapons, here's what I consider:
1. What's the highest quality I can use as determined by my level? I'm level 38, so I'll be able to use q40 weapons optimally soon; might as well go ahead and order one from a crafter now.
2. What's the highest quality I can support with my skills? I have increase damage 4, so I'm all set for q40. But I only have bleeding 2, which is optimal up to level 25; time to upgrade bleeding.
ABOUT ARMOR
Armor selection uses a similar skill/quality relationship. The maximum protection of the armor is limited by your defense skill. Q40 armor goes best with armor defense 40.
Generic light armor has a protection factor of 10% with a low maximum protection value. Medium armor has factor of 25% with a moderate max protect. Heavy armor absorbs somewhere around 50% of damage with a high max protect.
The tradeoff for these varying levels of protection is "penalty". Each piece of medium armor increases your penalty by 10, and each piece of heavy armor increases it by 20. This makes your actions much more expensive. Basically, your actions are around twice as expensive when wearing full heavy armor.
How do you know how much damage is being absorbed by armor? Every time damage is absorbed by armor, a number in parenthesis shows up in the sysinfo. Example: A scampering yubo hits you for 10 (20). This means that the yubo delivered 20 damage to you, but the actual damage done after armor soak was 10. In this case your armor absorbed 50% of the damage. Gloves don't seem to offer any protection. However, wearing anything but light gloves increases your penalty needlessly. Light gloves are good candidates for stat boosts from crafting.
DAMAGE/ARMOR TYPES
The three damage types available are slashing, piercing, and smashing. Different creatures have varying amounts of resistance to each damage type. Your own armor has separate protection levels for each damage type; they can vary according to what materials the armor was crafted from.
It is very important to use the correct damage type against your enemy, to end the fight as quickly as possible. If the target is soaking ANY damage from your attacks, try a different damage type. Most critters are vulnerable to either piercing or slashing, and sometimes both. For example, Kipees are resistant to piercing and smashing damage, but not slashing. Cuttler are extremely resistant to slashing (somewhere around 75% absorption!), but take full damage from piercing.
Piercing weapons have the unique ability to ignore armor, for a moderate price. Piercing is the only damage type you can use for literally any opponent, if you have the ignore armor skill. However, carrying a slashing weapon and applying bleeding is more efficient than using ignore armor on a pierce-resistant foe. Ignore armor can end a PVP duel very quickly.
Based on this, I suggest either carrying equal quality slashing and piercing weapons at all times or buying the ignore armor skill and using piercing weapons.
WEAPON TYPES
The basic fighter weapon types are sword, axe, spear, and mace, with one-handed and two-handed variants. Note that other weapons, like daggers and staves, are generally not worth using as a fighter. They are far from optimal.
There are a few differences between weapon types that should be pointed out:
1. Damage type. Swords and axes deal slashing damage, spears and pikes deal piercing damage, and maces deal smashing damage.
2. Reach. Reach is the length of the weapon. When you're fighting an opponent with a longer reach, your attacks receive a penalty. It can be assumed that larger creatures have longer reach (but an official example mentioned that sleeping opponents have nil reach). Two-handed weapons generally have longer reach than their one-handed counterparts, and spear types have the longest reach of any weapon.
3. Penalty. Two-handed weapons incur 50 penalty, while one-handed weapons incur 30.
SKILL AND UPGRADE RUNDOWN
Here I explain a few skills and upgrades that need explaining.
- Bleeding. Causes the victim of a successful attack to slow lose health over 30 seconds. The amount of damage done by bleeding is dependant on the amount of damage done by the attack itself (therefore, armor decreases bleeding effectiveness). Only usable on slashing weapons.
- Slow attacks. Causes the victim of a successful attack to attack at around half speed for a short time (usually until your next attack). Only usable on smashing weapons (excluding magician's staves).
- Circular attack. Each successful circular attack damages your target and any opponent currently attacking you, within striking distance. Expensive. Increased levels allow full damage to more targets at once.
- Berserker. Increases melee damage output for a slight HP drain over time. The HP drain is nothing significant; this one is worth using.
- War Cry. Creates an aura in which you and your teammates deal increased melee damage. Works on the 30 minute aura recharge.
- Shielding. Provides extra damage absorption for 15 seconds based on what kind of shield you're holding. No shield: 25%. Buckler: 50%. Full shield: 75%. Max protect increases with the power's level. Must target yourself (or an ally) to initiate the power. 2 minute recharge.
- Invulnerability. Makes you invincible for a short time. You can not use actions or be the target of spells (even healing spells) during this time. Handy for soaking up hits in a group, or running through portals in the face of overwhelming opposition. This is a "damage control" skill, for tight situations.
- Melee/Magic protection auras. A pair of damage control skills. They make nearby party members immune to melee or magic attacks for a short time. Persons affected by the aura can fight and cast normally. Works on the 30 minute aura recharge.
- Attack after dodge/parry/critical. An additional credit brick. Attacks with these bricks are only available after a successful dodge/parry/critical. Excellent for solo play, to keep attacks cheap. Attack after parry is my personal favorite, but if working in a team with a defensive fighter or afflicting magician, attack after critical will come up more often.
- Accurate attack. This gives your opponent a penalty to dodging the attack. An optimal accurate attack increases your skill by 30 for purposes of dodging modifier.
- HP credit upgrade. This is what lets you pay HP for attacks. I like to mix HP and stam credits to balance the load.
DEFENSE
This section is mostly speculation, but the results are pretty convincing. Melee warriors should always set their defense to parry, as it uses your current weapon's skill level rather than your armor's dodge skill, and generally works more often. You can change between dodge and parry using the PAD in game. If you're not wearing a helmet, you can also opt to add defense to your head (at a penalty to other body parts).
APPLICATION
Here are some hints on using fighter skills effectively.
SPECIALIZATION
Before we get started on turning you into a lean, mean, sword-swinging machine, you need to decide what kind of fighter you want to be. The skill points you spend from your first 20 (fast) levels will be extremely important for the next 30 levels, and you won't have enough to buy every single skill available at optimal levels. Let's consider the possible roles of the fighter, on the highest level of extremity:
The offensive fighter specializes in skills that increase damage or cause debilitating effects to the enemy or enemies. These skills include increase damage, accurate attack, bleeding, ignore armor, slow attacks, circular attack, berserker, and war cry. An offensive fighter can benefit from both HP upgrades (along with HP credit upgrades) and stamina upgrades. His attacks will be as expensive as possible (optimal), and his weapon will always be the maximum quality optimal to his level. Offensive fighters should consider wearing light or medium armor to keep penalty low and conserve HP/stam for attack actions. Mixes HP and stam credits for attacks, but always has the highest possible level of HP credit avaialable. If the offensive fighter uses magic, offensive or defensive affliction is a good choice (his melee damage should always exceed the damage from any elemental spells, if he's a truly specialized warrior).
The defensive fighter specializes in skills and upgrades that increase his ability to absorb damage. These skills include shielding, melee/magic protection auras, HP regeneration aura, taunt, and invulnerability. He will be best served by maxing out his HP and HP regen upgrades, as well as his HP healing power. Uses the highest level taunt power available to take hits for the team. Wears optimal heavy armor at all times, and may opt to use lower quality weapons to keep actions cheap. May mix HP and stam credits for attacks, but will prefer stam credits. If the defensive fighter uses magic, general defensive magic will be handy, especially sap gift; but remember that any magic while wearing heavy armor will be extremely expensive.
At higher skill levels, you will probably earn enough skill points to play both roles completely.
THE ROLE OF A FIGHTER IN A TEAM
In an efficient hunting or travelling team, and in my opinion, the highest level fighter should be the leader. He should determine the course of travel to avoid aggressive critters, take the point when travelling, choose where, what, and when to fight, and generally control the flow of battle. The team leader must be highly perceptive and make informed decisions very quickly, based on combat experience. At the end of the day, the leader is responsible for everything his team does or fails to do (assuming the team members followed his instructions!)
An offensive fighter will use his maximum possible HP credit for all attacks, as healers will be present to supplement him. If no defensive fighter is present, the offensive fighter will take hits for the magicians by taunting opponents and maneuvering himself between the opponent and allied magicians. If a defensive fighter is present, the offensive fighter should attack from maximum distance to avoid being attacked himself.
A defensive fighter will taunt freely to get as many engaged opponents attacking him at once, taking hits for offensive fighters and magicians. He must be alert at all times for additional enemies entering the fight, and recognize when a teammate is taking too much damage, to taunt the enemy off of them. Defensive fighters in teams should consider using smashing weapons with the slow attacks skill, as an extra non-magical defense method.
Remember that the offensive and defensive fighter examples I've set are extremes, and that it's perfectly feasible to mix their abilities to meet your playing style.
TO-DO
- Get some definitive data up about how shields work aside from shielding skill
- Get some definitive data up about dual-wield (not equipment of a true warrior, but belongs here anyway)
- Get some real numbers in here from the game for examples, not abstracts
- I'm sure I left out some odds and ends
- Get this topic stickied and listed on the betatester guides topic
Sincerely,
Descoladores, Matisian Knight and Melee Tech
