When to race change?

Kalilike

Currently I have Kalilike rolling as Faeling Shofangi who has pretty much exclusively influenced up to level 80. While influencing is nice, I have no intention of staying with it until Demigod, I'd like to make full use of the monk class and also go with my intended race all along which is Kephera. That is a choice based solely on RP reasoning, rather than mechanical. Having said that, when would be a good time to race change? Some old posts say 85, while others say 90. There is obviously no point in doing it until I reach a point where critical's become more prevalent, so I am looking for some all round recommendations.

Also, some of the posts I read were really old, like 2009 old.. so is a Kephera Shofangi Harmony Psymet monk still as decent a choice as it ever was? I must say, I am pretty much dead set on the race change to Kephera at some point. I put some thought into it before creating my character. Faeling was just for the quick boost up to level 80 which influencing is good at giving you versus low level non-crit bashing.

Thanks!

Silvanus

Influencing slows down a lot after level 80, that hasn't changed (though, since 09, a top tier influencing area, Lirangsha, has been added).

As a (female?) Kephera, you'll still be able to influence, while also being one tanky basher.

If a male kephera Psymet monk, you'll be able to bash the top tier.

How high of a top tier depends on how high your resilience is, if you have Bodyguard on a Beast, and if you have attune in environment.

Other ways to top out your survivability is always release kirigami, always have War and Life karma blessings, build up some alcohol tolerance for Ambermalt (Up to 50 extra DMP).

Kalilike

Yeah, Lirangsha is somewhere I've ventured and it gives decent experience/gold but you have to strike lucky and hope nobody is already there. It seems to be quite popular among all level ranges, mainly titans though.

Ah, no I'd most definitely be aiming for male Kephera. I'd rather slowly begin phasing out influencing in favour of bashing, since there is more to bash at higher levels than there is to do influencing rounds on.

I'll be investing in a beast very shortly so hopefully I'll have that covered. Aye, I carry around kirigami and wetfold and it is rather helpful, especially the endurance/willpower refresh! Right now using a harmony and beauty blessing, just for the charisma boost. I would change that out for life a life and war/death blessing when bashing. I must admit, I didn't know about the alcohol DMP boost.

Silvanus

You should never phase out influencing, it's a good thing to do when you don't feel like being put in high pressure bashing situations. I still influence routinely, even if I can bash anywhere. And it's a nice change of pace if your favorite bashing areas are bashed out.

I can't understate how important Life/War blessings are for bashing, and how important raising alcohol tolerance is (5-10 sips of whiskey every IG month, in two weeks, you'll be able to outdrink dwarves).  I don't know how being partially drunk while monk bashing works, so take that with a grain of salt, but it is something to look into if you are having trouble staying alive.

I'd also look into getting a Throne, that'll help with influencing by raising your Cha.

If you bash at least once a day and don't idle, you should be able to keep up 3-4 karma blessings at one time.

Kalilike

Well, if I can get my charisma high enough as male Kephera when I do switch to not become tedious, I'll still continue to influence. I mean I invested in the skillset so it will always be of help to me. What I mean to say is I'd like to have bashing slowly become my main experience earner.

Yeah, I figured as much, certainly the life blessing for the added health. Well, I could give it a try, but like you say I'm not sure how well that would work out ha!

Don't you need a manse before you can even buy a throne? Mainly because you can't just plop it down, sit on it and then pick it back up. Aye, I have a good amount of time right now on my hands so maintaining karma buffs shouldn't be too much trouble. Right now its easy-peasy due to figurine imbuing giving nice amounts of karma.

Silvanus

I don't know how Seren works, but Magnagora 'provides' manses, as yes, you would need a manse beforehand, but Magnagora has so many deeded/open manses that you never actually need to buy your own manse for it, you can just place it in either someone else's or in a city provided manse/ship.

Also, commodities are really easy to come by, some people have manses large enough that they produce more commodities than villages, so a cheap throne to get you started in theory shouldn't be too difficult to come by.

Also, once you go Male Kephera and are level 85-90, you can probably join the large Astral group hunts that go on, and that's the fastest way to gain experience, by far.

Kalilike

Aye, I suppose that is something to consider. I may ask around about that.

Hmmm, say I couldn't find a group that is doing some Astral hunting, is it possible to solo it if you are careful? Or is it too random and not worth it on your own?

Lerad

Male Kephera is a great monk bashing race. High dex, high con, cut/blunt resists. As long as you pick your targets, you'll breeze through most areas. The high end areas will have elemental attacks which you might be weak to, but there's where harmony and psymet comes in. This is viable even before 80, but you can certainly feel free to reinc anytime after 85, though 91-92 is where many people see a noticeable jump in crits. Note that this is anecdotal, so your mileage may vary.

I can't remember if it is still the case, or if it has been envoyed, but harmony regen and psymet regen stacks. Which gives you pretty much the highest regen in the game. Even if they've been toned down, the regen from both skillsets are still extremely high.

Don't bother with Life Karma blessing for bashing if you can get hold of the Eternity Labs throne blessing instead. Hell, even the tosha/catacombs health blessing will be enough. Take the karma and put it into harmony and war. Those are the two best blessings for bashing.

You don't really need amberbeer to bash. The extra dmp is nice, but between tattoos and psymet, you should have a glut of dmp in everything anyway. Of course, when you're bashing the top of the top areas like Lirangsha or Muud, then you'll need every bit of help that you can. Fumbling does hurt you quite a bit, though, especially in Muud where you have insanity to contend with as well.

Solo astral is not worth it unless you can cone and can permalink. As a psymet, you'll be able to permalink fesixes easily even at as low as level 90. Though you'll still need to keep on your toes. However, you can't cone solo, so there's no point. And solo astral nets you less exp over time. Just do normal bashing routines and cycle through areas appropriate for your level. That works out much faster.

Kalilike

Thanks very much for the info, Lerad. A lot of that is extremely helpful when it comes to the time I do the race change.

One last thing I had in mind is skill allocation priority. What is most important to me when bashing, is there any particular thresholds in Kata/Shofangi, Harmony and Psymet I should aim to reach? Give the fact that I won't be transing them all out at the one time as I level up.

Lerad

I'm familiar with Harmony only insofar as someone who fights against it. However, I believe you will want the water/metal/fire body mantras for the maximum health regeneration possible. As mentioned I'm not exactly an expert, so I'm not sure if this is best, but well, those three body mantras seem like they are good for bashing, anyway, with faster sip, physical dmp and higher damage, and which combine to give you 3x health regeneration. The combination won't unlock any advanced passive effect, though, but if I'm not wrong, those special mantras don't really give anything particularly useful for bashing anyway. There's one that allows you to dodge webbing, but that requires 3 wood mantras, which means you don't get 3x health regen. Not worth the tradeoff imo, but well, it can be situationally useful in bashing areas with a lot of webbing, like the undead cavefishers.

The minimum requirement for Harmony is the Regeneration ability, obviously, so that your mantras actually give you regeneration. By the time you get the regeneration ability, you should have at least 3 body mantras. I think only the fire one is not unlocked at that point, so you should be able to just slot any 3 body mantras to get the 3x regen.

Please note that you will want to consult with your guild members or Tahtetso members for more accurate information. It's fairly likely that what I said above will have some things wrong.

For psymet, it's simpler. Just get to the (similarly named) regeneration ability. If you have extra lessons, you can consider aiming for these abilities after that:

- Enhancement, gives +2 to str or dex, or +1 to both. +2 dex can help your bashing, though as a male kephera, not by much. You'll already have 16-18, depending on truefavours/dex kabobs. Of course, boosting it up to 18-20 will be useful.

- Bloodboil, this is mythical, iirc. It's also the most unfair ability for bashing physical mobs ever. You will not lose health when bleeding, but instead lose ego, and more importantly, everytime there is a bleed tick, all current bleed is removed. It is basically superclot. This means that with a decent ego pool, you can tank bleeding mobs as though they gave zero bleeding. This is also what allows psymet users to permalink fesixes (which demolish everyone else's willpower) before demi if you pay attention. It also allows demis to permalink fesixes without paying attention. (Slight exaggeration here, but close enough.)

Generally speaking, you will want to lock regeneration + psiarmour + bloodboil for physical mobs, or regeneration + biofeedback + biofeedback (choose two different elements) when fighting elemental mobs.

The psymet trans ability, suspendedanimation, deserves a special mention, because you can use it to save your hide in a pinch. That requires you to have the super channel unlocked, though, so that you can use it on demand. It's not feasible to unlock super and then use supendedanim, because that takes a good 5+ seconds. Fairly useful for combat, but not very useful for bashing, and if you're trans psymet, you're better off locking all three channels and just paying attention/running when you get low.

Nothing beyond basic shofa slashes needed in shofangi to get your damage output. Speed, the only mod which has an effect on bashing, is in basic kata. However, higher skill level in shofangi will boost accuracy and damage slightly, so transing it helps. Similarly for psymet, you will need to trans it to get maximum dmp from its dmp abilities. Not sure about Harmony. The regeneration, however, is independent from skill level and is tied to your max health instead.

Rialorm

Imo solo astral is worth it -if- you have nothing else to bash and something to do while waiting out the insanity. Right now I do one link at a time, but I start up again while killing the mob that spawned and I can get xp / hour that is on par with other high end areas. However due to insanity other options are better, but it is something you can do when nothing else or when you need to refill a lot of power.

As for beers, I'd say they are worth it (take the time to raise your alcohol tolerance first with something strong like whiskey). Yes, trans resi, trans tattoos, attune and a beast will let you run some very good areas but if you want to delve into the newest areas (waste factory, climanti past, lirangsha) and bash those then you need -everything-. In fact I'd say throw in a RoA and a crit rune to be both sturdy and swift enough. 

As for bashing blessings: harmony > war > life. Keeping all three up can be a struggle if you do other things in between so I often go with just the first two and just suck up the karma overflow. 

Are you high or lowmagic? I don't know if it is the same for highmagic but the trans ability of lowmagic is a nice panic button. Pop that, heal up and bash on. It's a shame that suspendedanimation isn't feasible for bashing, but this is a good alternative  

Also, remember to pick up conglut. Some of the great 90-tier areas are off-prime and having a death cost 1% xp instead of 10% xp will keep your sanity intact. Sip vitae or use another resurrection method if you are on prime mainly. 

Enyalida

Your mantras do not need to be a specific element, you just want to make sure that you have three body mantras, as body mantras are the ones that heal health.

Harmony has a 1p prismatic that can be highchanted in (raising the cost to 2p) that spawns a prismatic barrier around you, but you can't use any commands without breaking it. It's worth hitting to wait on regens though.