Group Combat Advice!

Silvanus

Just a place for people to post advice as a resource for others:

Almost all fights in Lusternia will happen in group fights. You will rarely find yourself in a 1v1 situation long enough to kill the person on your own, without any interference. Some times, it is more important to survive and hinder your opponent long enough until reinforcements come, if you do find yourself in a 1v1 situation. Other times, it's better to run away and join with your group.

Staying together and keeping your group whole is also one of the most important things. Squad leaders can't use Unity, that's just not feasible in most group combat. It is on you, as an individual, that if you fall behind, to be able to catch up. (Side note: Pig Noses become one of the most important artifacts you can get because of this). A lot of skills people use are aimed at breaking the group up: Scissorflip, Reality, stupid Aeromelds/Pathtwists, Carcer, if this happens to you, you have to get back to the main group (Things scroll really fast, I highlight each exit a different color, so if I get scissorflipped north, I see purple text with a yellow background, I know I went north. In group combat, I don't read what happens, I look at colors, I highlight as many things as I can).

The three most important, and most commonly used skills towards breaking up/holding together groups are Beckon, Rad and Empress.

Beckon: Guardians can beckon enemies in adjacent rooms to enter your room, if you have pits set up, the pits will still fire. The main way to stop beckoning is for two Warriors (or those with beasts) to block the exit you are being beckoned to firmly. This is so important that a lot of Warriors forget they can do this. Don't, you'll live longer. Also, if you do beckon the enemy into your room, don't stop beckoning. Smart people will tumble away after being beckoned, if you keep beckoning, you keep beckoning them into the room when they tumble out.

Rad: Mages/Druids can either fuse rad into their meld, making their melds one of the most annoying places to be and its really great at breaking up groups. Or, more commonly, enemy groups will sit in rooms next to each and get into a Rad/Beckon war. Radders sling rad runes in adjacent rooms in hopes to magically transport them into a random adjacent room. The only way to stop rad is to Pentagram/Circle. This becomes important because the Mages/Druid who are slinging the rads, are never Pentagrammed/Circle'd, because they are in constant combat. It is on you, the non-mage/druid, to be sprinkling salt on the mage/druid after they sling rad to avoid losing them. Very important, very underused.

Empress: Tarotists who can Instant summon to your allies/lusted. One of the most important group combat skills in the game. Make sure you always have your fellow tarotists allied so they can either save you, or instantly summon you to the group if you get lost. Or they can fall back out of the room and work on empressing everyone in the group out of danger. It is stopped by monolith sigils (and Bonds), so you have to watch for when people drop monoliths (hint, highlight the word monolith). *** Important: I have been a Tarotist for the past 14 years throughout IRE games, and the same strategy still works that I used as an Occultist. Set up Fool tarot (masks tarot flings), run in, Fling lust at person, either run out/get empressed out, then empress person you have lusted. If someone flings a masked tarot card at you, just reject them right away, regardless of what it is. If you are not lusted to them, then the reject doesn't take Eq (it'll say, "Why would you reject that person"), if you are lusted, it'll take your Eq but save you. So important. Also, highlight the word Lust, make a huge echo for when someone flings Lust tarot at you, and do not forget to reject. If you are tumbling out of the room and I keep empressing you away, quit tumbling, reject first. Also, when you die, always check your Allies list.

Damaging vs Hindering:

A lot of times people are unsure of what they should be doing in group combat, and unaware of other skills because their over reliance on damage killing right away. While true, damaging someone out in the first 10 seconds of a fight(usually melder/bard) is the best way to go, after that initial surge, you have to switch to other skills.

Bards: In a large group fight, a bard should rarely be targetting one person and damaging them in hopes of killing. Every 8ish seconds, the bard has to blankchord room. The other 8 seconds has to be you managing your song, making sure you aren't fugueing, and taking out the other enemy bard. If there are no enemy bards, you should have Octave up, and Egovice/Manabarbs the Warriors in between blankchording (or PowerSpikes the Serpenters/Truehealers). The auric skills are too often forgotten about in group combat, but still just as effective.

Mages: Keeping your meld alive(and you) is the most important part, every melder knows that, what every melder doesn't know that you can do more besides Point Staff @dir/Phantomsphere/UnleashStaff. If you are a Mage and holding a mid-sized meld, the enemy will most likely have been in your meld multiple times before getting close to your group. Weave Stalkers/Sightstealers on individual enemies before they ever get near your room. If your group is just conceding ground, you are not just helpless to defend your meld, you can set yourself up for the bigger fight. If you weave a Sightstealer on anyone in your meld, you can give them Claws/Phantoms anywhere in your meld. You can also Evoke Whisper, knocking them off Eq, slowing them down even more in your meld. You can knock someone off eq from a distance!

Druids: Quit putting up treelife. I know it helps you, but it doesn't help the group. Not everyone in your group will be able to climb trees or will want to fight in the trees (Contagion?!?), and sometimes the Treelife saves the enemy from a delayed instant kill. Don't go for your individual kill, help the group out.

Guardians/Wiccan: Why are you going for Manakill/Damagekill/Toad/Judge* when Aeon/Slitthroat/throatlock can be done in 3 seconds? That's death in group combat. Casters/Wiccans have some of the weakest attacks, but are the best afflicters. And in group combat, you can often get Manakills without ever using a mana draining skill. * Judge is just awful. The rare times it works, the person was going to die anyways, most of the time you'll get stopped beforehand. All you Celestines are tarotists, just Aeon instead. Or Lust tarot so the person doesn't get away. Or beckon.

Sorry Warriors/Monks, you guys are usually pretty good at doing what you do. If you have a Warrior/Monk stack, you should all gang up on chest/head on one person. If you have few Warriors/Monk, go for the legs. If you are a Monk and you get to mo5 in group combat, just kill everyone.


I'll try and think up of some more.

Cyndarin

I wouldn't lump Wiccans and guardians together.

1) Wiccans actually do great damage with a higher damage formula than staves. Both are great damage type too. Unless they are hexes, they have subpar hinders.  I enourage wiccans to mash their damage buttons.

2) Toad is also fantastic. Know your enemy is the key here, but mana drains are encouraged in the right situations. Especially when there is a Harbinger around.

 

Also: Treelife is awesome when you are outnumbered.

Ileein

Also, some of us are Guardians without beckon.

Silvanus

@Celina: Agree on all 3 points, guards/wiccans are radically different, but:

1. Lots of classes can do damage, but not every class can aeon. Aeon is that important in group combat, and a lot of times you'll find that if you had hindered instead of damaging, the person may not have escaped. That happens more often than not for me (I'm holding someone down via hangedman, but I go to blanknote, and they escape).

2. Out of Absolve/Wrack/Toad, Toad is the only one that doesn't kill. Know your allies here. I've been toaded before and escaped, but if a Celestine absolved me, I would've been dead. If you discern and see someone is at less than 50% mana, call it out on Alliance clan.

3. Not every fight you'll be outnumbered, and while Treelife is awesome for survival and breaking up the group, so is keeping them on the ground, in pits, in contagion, and preventing them from running. Treelife is a double edged sword that sometimes frees them up to run away.

@Ileein:

I'm not sure how Institute/Illuminati beckon, I missed out a lot on the Halli/Gaudi stuff by not being here when most of them were released (and abused), so feel free to take some of my advice with a grain of salt.

Elanorwen

Institute doesn't have a sensible beckon. If they manage to spin a resonance, they can try to use convocation to pull someone to them, but it's hardly as useful as regular beckon in that they need to engage the target before being able to summon, much like empress with lust. Illum do have a single target timed beckon, sort of like wiccan wisp off of one of their throat mods (Feathery throat, I think?)

EDIT: Total cost to try and convoke someone for institute is 8p, making it possibly the most ridiculous summon method.

Shaddus

Bards: Learn when to Captivate, and when not to. I like to sometimes reflexively captivate myself when I get blanknoted by someone who isn't me. It'll keep you alive, trust me on this.

Learn to Fugue enemy bards. Unless they're super smart and imbue deathnote on Stanza 7, it'll drop their song mid-deathnote. Like Silvanus said, reprise is underrated.

Keep mass amounts of power at all times, even when you don't think you'll be in a fight any time soon.

Figure out how to highlight people eating earwort, but do NOT reflex blanknoting on earwort unless you can figure out a timer with highlights so you know when people are reflexively eating, and when they're just spamming it in a panic.

Also underrated in group fights: Blankchord. Use it, then automatically captivate afterwards.

Something it took me a while to figure out: earwort doesn't break p5. If someone P5's you, you eat earwort, and they blanknote you, you still have p5. I know this may not make much sense, but understand how and why that works. P5 is only really broken if someone eats earwort and -then- moves away.

Learn when to raise Octave. Also learn when to drop an enemy's octave. 

Stratagems+aurics are your friend. As for me, I put each of my aurics on F1-F4 on stratagems so I can go through and hit them one by one to raise them on enemies. If you've got octave up and you hit two aurics, blanknote the earwort away, and then hit two more, you can often dchord for 3-4 aurics at once. Allheale does cure them, but the cooldown on that will only allow them to cure one auric.

Siam

DO NOT HELP THE ENEMY. LET THEM SPLASH LIKE MAGIKARP.KARP.KARP.

I jest.

Great quick guide, Silvanus!

Belibi

What about chem/wood mages/druids?

Aerys

To clarify Convoke, the Harmonics summon:

It costs 3p to cast, and ONLY works on the target with which you resonate. Resonating costs 5p to make happen, and you can only Resonate with one person at a time. Also, I'm pretty sure (not 100% positive, but close) that your Resonance gem poofs when that person dies. Without huge amounts of timewarp, it's rather useless, and only marginally less so when there IS timewarp.

Researchers don't summon unless they have Tarot.

Lerad

Note that judge is a very viable tactic when used with pit. Judge/Pit is beyond any doubt one of the most deadly combinations simply because of the time it takes to climb out of the pit. While I'm pretty sure I'd die anyway if I was pitted in an enemy held-room, I'm also fairly confident it'd take a fair bit longer than the time to took to judge. A few second longer at most, to be sure, but a few seconds can mean a timely lust or my friends coming to save me because they can't bear to see me die.

Also, while aeon is a staple ability in group combat (I wouldn't mind seeing it deleted, but that's another topic) there's really no point in having more than 2 aeoners on the primary target, and fairly little point in using aeon as a hinder. Hangedman or cosmic web works better, since web is also a pseudo prone. Instead of saying "always aeon over damage", it'll be wiser to look at your own team and tie down which person will do the aeoning and which person will do the webbing. Extras can feel free to destro spam or mana spam, depending on the situation. For Glom, this is standard procedure because there's only 1 shadow per enemy, so night users have to tie down before hand who's gonna do the stealing and twisting. But it's the same concept - the non twisters should be scourging or webbing or damaging or mana-ing, depending on the situation and team makeup. Having 5 people aeon the same target is pretty pointless.

Raeri

There should be a skill in environment that lets you use Splash.

On topic though, good guide

Maligorn

Belibi said:

What about chem/wood mages/druids?

Maligorn's Super Special Chemwood guide

Step 1: FORGET WYRDENWOOD PERMANENTLY

Step 2: SKILLCHOICE SELECT DRUIDRY

I'm kidding. I think for you, @Belibi, Runes would be best -- since I'm not seeing the option to fuse DW motes to your noose. If you fuse your noose with lots of haegl, you'll be dealing a lot of damage and mana at the same time -- and Glomdoring is all about mana drain. Make sure you're quaffing nightsweats for increased bleeding, and you have your bleeding leaves up. I personally do not use bombs anymore, but only because my field effects are better than having the bomb imo. Make sure you're Coppicing with other droods.

EDIT: Make sure you're using Wyrdenwood Blaze in enemy Hart melds -- I assume it's faster than chopping.

Also, I see something called Barkguard under AB WYRDENWOOD WYRDEN. If I'm reading it right, this means you can barkguard saplings, as if in a BT meld, keeping them (or increasing their resistance) from being chopped. That's basically a permanent BT meld for your allies right there if used at the right time. Unless this is strictly trees in Glomdoring/EthGlom

EDIT DEUS: I see you get a 20 poison damage buff, but no asphyx buff. Unless you can get your hands on a curio for asphyx damage buff, I'd use the simple flail in combat situations rather than noose, but that's up to you.

Siam

Coppice is bonkers at the moment iirc.

Belibi

Coppice works for everything that (I suspect) it's supposed to work, namely the bombs. I suspect it's not supposed to work for our leaves.

@Maligorn there is a way to fuse motes into your noose same as runes, it's just not shown on other skill lists for some reason. That being said I'm pretty stuck on ecology - I love all the utility, and am willing to accept that it's pretty much shit for combat.

Also, nobody has explained to me yet the connection between illusory terrain and trees. I gather these are not the same as saplings that are grown in forests for wood? Can they be mulched by druids? If not, I probably can't wyrdenblaze or barkguard them.

As for flail vs noose, the advantage of noose is it entangles which makes it damage + hindering in one attack. I always assumed that that was worth it - not so?

Elanorwen

Belibi said:

Coppice works for everything that (I suspect) it's supposed to work, namely the bombs. I suspect it's not supposed to work for our leaves.

@Maligorn there is a way to fuse motes into your noose same as runes, it's just not shown on other skill lists for some reason. That being said I'm pretty stuck on ecology - I love all the utility, and am willing to accept that it's pretty much shit for combat.

Also, nobody has explained to me yet the connection between illusory terrain and trees. I gather these are not the same as saplings that are grown in forests for wood? Can they be mulched by druids? If not, I probably can't wyrdenblaze or barkguard them.

As for flail vs noose, the advantage of noose is it entangles which makes it damage + hindering in one attack. I always assumed that that was worth it - not so?

Blaze works in much the same way as mulch, so yes, it can be used to remove enemy saplings in Hartstone melds. What said saplings do is prevent other melders from altering the terrain at their location and thus breaking the meld. Illusory terrain works in the same fashion for mages, but as a druid your only option is to use realitycheck (The illusions ability under discernment - at 50% gifted). Additionally illusory terrain can be stacked on top of saplings in druid melds, adding another layer of protection against enemy melders.

I'd always recommend noose to flail, even though you won't be doing as much damage... either that or alternate the two attacks, noose, flail, noose, flail, etc. The entangle component of noose is much too good to be ignored. That said, there's also the part that any person that dies to noose will -not- leave a usable corpse for reviving in that the attack decapitates if it kills.

Marcella

Headless corpses have always been my favorite corpses because of the fact they don't poof when the person revives (and I don't have a font to insta-offer corpses.)

I didn't know you couldn't immolate them?

Shaddus

Belibi said:

What about chem/wood mages/druids?

I've never been a chem/wood besides Aerochem, but I can give you some general advice. I did pretty well until Morbo started doing 12k bombs and got us nerfed.

First, I don't care what your body looks like, you aren't a tank. You sure in the heck aren't tanky, and you aren't a warrior. Your job isn't to sit there on the front line and flail away at people; it's to help your other allies to do their job. Learn to hit and run, Don't be afraid to run from a fight you can't win, and learn your opponent's skills and how they can effect you or protect them.

It goes without saying that you should also know your allies skills. Are they fighting a guardian/Wiccan? Doublesling a stupidity/repugnance rune and keep it up. All the target has to do is have stupidity hit them with a "secrets" or better yet a sleep/dive, along with their entourage hitting them and missing a love sip to clear repug, and you have the upper hand.

Is your ally friend a warrior trying to go for behead? Paralysis rune keeps an enemy from parrying, iirc.

Something to also make sure you do is make a lot of aliases/highlights. If you see an ally get radded or beckoned out, rad or beckon them back. Salting people also works wonders, I always alias that.

Shaddus

All classes: if you have a cheese kill, abuse the hell out of it. If someone sends you a tell talking trash because all you do is judge people, they're just butthurt. Are you able to decap? Do it. Decap the biggest, strongest enemy there. When I played Vitas, a full 90%+ of my commune favours (and probably circles) came from decapping people in group combat or decapping afk enemies in their own orgs, and sporing out.

Trust me, your enemy will abuse whatever they can to kill you, and you don't owe it to them to use the most complicated killing method you know just for some mishapen sense of "honour". Your job is to kill your enemy, and kill them quick. If they get pissed off, so much the better, because they'll make mistakes when they come after you. Whatever trash they talk is just words.

Siam

Come back @Vitas @Shaddus.

Shaddus

Maybe sometime

Cyndarin

Shaddus said:

All classes: if you have a cheese kill, abuse the hell out of it. If someone sends you a tell talking trash because all you do is judge people, they're just butthurt. Are you able to decap? Do it. Decap the biggest, strongest enemy there. When I played Vitas, a full 90%+ of my commune favours (and probably circles) came from decapping people in group combat or decapping afk enemies in their own orgs, and sporing out. Trust me, your enemy will abuse whatever they can to kill you, and you don't owe it to them to use the most complicated killing method you know just for some mishapen sense of "honour". Your job is to kill your enemy, and kill them quick. If they get pissed off, so much the better, because they'll make mistakes when they come after you. Whatever trash they talk is just words.

What kind of a-hole would communefavour you for decapping randoms in Seren?

 

Oh right...

Cyndarin

Regarding groups and aeon: My personal opinion is that mass aeon spam really isn't all that effective unless there's a mechanic involve to get it to stick. i.e. throatlock, slit throat. The most broadly used public system handles aeon pretty well, it was built from the ground up (to my understanding) to handle choke (RIP) and aeon as effeciently as possible. My experience has been getting mass aeon spammed was irritating but not all that deadly. I would agree with Lerad and say that there needs to be limited aeoners.

I think the biggest takeaway from this sort of thread is that the most important thing in a group fight is this: Know your role beforehand, and be flexible. General rules of thumb are great for newcomers who are just confused by the mass text spam rolling across the screen, but don't be afraid to ask your resident top tier combatant or leader about what you should do. Sometimes you're just going to be the web monkey, and that's okay! Web monkeys are invaluable, and we love you for doing it. Sometimes the situation calls for mass mana drain for a toad gank. Just be flexible and open.

 

I'd also like to point out that you shouldn't get intimidated fighting with the "big PKers." Remember that they need you as much as you need them. They can't do their jobs if you aren't there to do yours, because even the biggest, baddest, scariest PKer can't fight a group of 6 without support. The top PKers generally are the first targets, and you can save them with your hinders. Don't underestimage your contribution. The vine spammer and the mana drainers are just as important as the artied up damage whore.

 

BTW I saw on uh..one of the other IRE forums (Achaea maybe?) sticky class guides that follow the same basic template and give general advice for each class as well as general RP and lore. I was thinking we could do the same. I'd be willing to cover the SD one if there's any interest from the community to have these for Lusternia.

Tridemon

Celina said:

They can't do their jobs if you aren't there to do yours, because even the biggest, baddest, scariest PKer can't fight a group of 6 without support.

I dunno, I''ve seen Kelly take on a group of about 8 all by herself... granted, it was a teamfight in the arena where she was on one team and everyone else was on the other....

Shaddus

Celina said:

Shaddus said:

All classes: if you have a cheese kill, abuse the hell out of it. If someone sends you a tell talking trash because all you do is judge people, they're just butthurt. Are you able to decap? Do it. Decap the biggest, strongest enemy there. When I played Vitas, a full 90%+ of my commune favours (and probably circles) came from decapping people in group combat or decapping afk enemies in their own orgs, and sporing out. Trust me, your enemy will abuse whatever they can to kill you, and you don't owe it to them to use the most complicated killing method you know just for some mishapen sense of "honour". Your job is to kill your enemy, and kill them quick. If they get pissed off, so much the better, because they'll make mistakes when they come after you. Whatever trash they talk is just words.

What kind of a-hole would communefavour you for decapping randoms in Seren?

 

Oh right...

As I recall, it was Sadie that got decapped in the middle of Moon Lake

Xenthos

Shaddus said:

Celina said:

Shaddus said:

All classes: if you have a cheese kill, abuse the hell out of it. If someone sends you a tell talking trash because all you do is judge people, they're just butthurt. Are you able to decap? Do it. Decap the biggest, strongest enemy there. When I played Vitas, a full 90%+ of my commune favours (and probably circles) came from decapping people in group combat or decapping afk enemies in their own orgs, and sporing out. Trust me, your enemy will abuse whatever they can to kill you, and you don't owe it to them to use the most complicated killing method you know just for some mishapen sense of "honour". Your job is to kill your enemy, and kill them quick. If they get pissed off, so much the better, because they'll make mistakes when they come after you. Whatever trash they talk is just words.

What kind of a-hole would communefavour you for decapping randoms in Seren?

 

Oh right...

As I recall, it was Sadie that got decapped in the middle of Moon Lake

Alas, poor Sadie...

(There were also people decapped elsewhere, I remember it happening on a semi-regular basis)

Shaddus

Xenthos said:

Shaddus said:

Celina said:

Shaddus said:

All classes: if you have a cheese kill, abuse the hell out of it. If someone sends you a tell talking trash because all you do is judge people, they're just butthurt. Are you able to decap? Do it. Decap the biggest, strongest enemy there. When I played Vitas, a full 90%+ of my commune favours (and probably circles) came from decapping people in group combat or decapping afk enemies in their own orgs, and sporing out. Trust me, your enemy will abuse whatever they can to kill you, and you don't owe it to them to use the most complicated killing method you know just for some mishapen sense of "honour". Your job is to kill your enemy, and kill them quick. If they get pissed off, so much the better, because they'll make mistakes when they come after you. Whatever trash they talk is just words.

What kind of a-hole would communefavour you for decapping randoms in Seren?

 

Oh right...

As I recall, it was Sadie that got decapped in the middle of Moon Lake

Alas, poor Sadie...

(There were also people decapped elsewhere, I remember it happening on a semi-regular basis)

Well, right, but the specific one where Celina just favoured me for decapping someone was Sadie as she was in the middle of Moon Lake.

Cyndarin

Tridemon said:

Celina said:

They can't do their jobs if you aren't there to do yours, because even the biggest, baddest, scariest PKer can't fight a group of 6 without support.

I dunno, I''ve seen Kelly take on a group of about 8 all by herself... granted, it was a teamfight in the arena where she was on one team and everyone else was on the other....

Murdering lowbies and non coms does not count!

Enyalida

Maligorn said:

EDIT: Make sure you're using Wyrdenwood Blaze in enemy Hart melds -- I assume it's faster than chopping.

Also, I see something called Barkguard under AB WYRDENWOOD WYRDEN. If I'm reading it right, this means you can barkguard saplings, as if in a BT meld, keeping them (or increasing their resistance) from being chopped. That's basically a permanent BT meld for your allies right there if used at the right time. Unless this is strictly trees in Glomdoring/EthGlom

EDIT DEUS: I see you get a 20 poison damage buff, but no asphyx buff. Unless you can get your hands on a curio for asphyx damage buff, I'd use the simple flail in combat situations rather than noose, but that's up to you.

Blaze is just a thematic mulch skill. So yes use it instead of chop, but it's not faster than mulching.

Barkguard is for totems/elder trees, not druidic trees. It's  basically a cruddy 'copy' of totemcarving, because -woods aren't allowed to carve totems.

EDIT: You can also fuse dreamweaving motes to your weapon the same as runes.

Silvanus

Shaddus brought up a good point about always having full power. That point can't be stressed enough, most organizations have daily allocations, fill up as often as possible. Other organizations go aetherhunting a lot, and you can fill up from the collectors (which is also useful for instant refill of your power, instead of wasting time linking if you are in a time crunch).

Another great point was brought up by (I think Celina):

Know Your Role

When I pointed out for Guardians, why they are going for a kill when aeon/throatlock/slitthroat can be done, it was with the advanced knowledge of people knowing their role and what to do. Usually before the fight begins, you assign roles. You won't always be doing your role, but for the main 'burst' attacks after your group kills someone and switches to a new target, you fall back into your role. I'll list a few roles down here, there'll always be exceptions to the roles, that I'm sure somebody will post about.

Tarotists: If you have Tarot, your role in the group is almost always hinder. Before any fight, you should always put up Princess Tarot (cures afflictions, h/m/e when you beseech princess), Enigma tarot (flings two cards at once, lasts 3 flings), Fool tarot (masks 1 card 3 times), Warrior tarot (does damage per card, lasts 2 flings). World tarot is optionable. That's 15 power (25 if you include World), so make sure to put up before any fight. What you should be focusing is on making sure the enemy is always aeoned and lusted, in case they try to run. Hangedman is good for temporary hinder in case you need to slow them down or have someone catch up. While they are aeoned, you don't need to keep aeoning, you can moon tarot or damage them out. Most likely someone in your group did something to prevent them from sipping.

Glamours: Before any major fight, if you are a Glamourist, sometimes it is important to Maze someone right away, and if Demigod, it's important to Refresh power and maze another. That's a bitch on the power front and leaves you ineffective afterwards. But, before the fight, you can set up Maelstorm, which has a huge impact on group combat (Every 10 seconds, they can get hit by your song, by maelstorm, by the meld, and contagion if Magnagoran, passively). Between BlankChording the room, Mazing, Maelstorm, you won't have as much time to Flare/Colourburst as you'd like, though it can be effective because of your ability to transfix.

Telekinetics: This is all assuming you are not the meld holder, and can be true if Mage/Chem. If you are in an allies meld, and are a Mage, you will want to be with the group keeping the meld terrained (weave terrain chaos), so the enemy melders can't break. Outside of that, TKs are really good at knowing what to do, Throatlock for aeon, trip for the Warriors, Barrier for everyone. One thing some TKs forget to do is they can PsychicFling and PsychicPush the Serpenters/Truehealers, breaking their prismatic barrier.

Dreamweavers: This is also assuming you are not the melder, and can be true if Mage/Chem. Just like TK, if you are in the allies meld and are a mage, you have to be keeping the room terrained so it can't be melded over. Beyond that, Puncture/Flick Memoryloss motes, 8 seconds of blackout is basically death in group combat. If you are ganking (8ishvs1), you can easily punctre/memoryloss and have someone start a delayed instant kill. Otherwise, it's still a pretty effective.

Chems/Woods: I just haven't played around with them enough, though AeroChems know what to do with their StaticField, and Aquachems know how to use their Recklessness and Divinus power attack, but beyond that, the best strategy is probably to coordinate your versions of Unleash Staff with either other Chems/Woods or with a Mage/Druids unleash staff.

Midbies: A lot of midbies don't think they impact a group enough, but how wrong they are! My definition of a midbie is someone who isn't quite tri-trans, and doesn't have a lot of their power attacks yet. With the right enchantments and the right know how, you can still be an impact. One of the things you can all do is Web/Vines, which is the most simple hinder you can do. Similar to web/vines is Shieldstun, while preventing curing, doesn't hinder as long as Web/Vines. But the most important thing you can do without any skill is being on Gust patrol. Find out which one of your allies is being attacked, and gust them to safety. It's simple, it's effective, it saves lives. The person that gets gusted heals up really quick and jumps back into battle, sometimes, the group changes target, other times they go back to hitting the person gusted. More often than not, the enemy group ends up attacking two different people instead of focusing. Such a simple thing that can be done if you just pay attention to one of your allies that are being hit, and it can have a large impact on combat. Other such options include Cleanse, if one of your Allies is Crucifixed/Sapped, point cleanse at them.

Leaders: The most important thing a leader does is help keep the group together. You don't want to be going into battle alone when you think you have 7 following you, but end up going alone. Pits are often one of the biggest culprits to breaking up a group (***IMPORTANT***), If your leader falls into a pit, YOU have to REFOLLOW them in a promptly manner. That is so important to leading a group and often leads to the longest delay. The other longest delay and biggest culprit to breaking up a group is a meld. That is why it is extremely immportant for anyone to be leading a group to also know how melds work, and be able to look at the Map of the area and just figure out where the break points most likely are. The leader has to put their group in a position to succeed, and you won't do that if you run your group into the middle of an unbreakable room.

Enyalida

The best general purpose strategy as a -wood is to set any passives you've got going in the room and on the target, and then shieldstun the daylights out of the opponent. Between that and the rubble effect, you should be able to basically guarantee that the enemy will need to tumble or leap to get away from you. 

Munsia

I never forget to fling, but everyone forgets to hexagram immediatly.