Yarith vs Nayl -- What do I do?

Yarith · May 2014

So I've been experimenting with -everything- I can find but I still manage to lose every engagement I come across when I'm alone. I don't think I've really killed anyone properly yet.
I would just appreciate some advice as to what I am doing wrong or what I can do better. I still need to make better echoes for hypnotic and fascinate but yeah.

(P.S. sorry for spam and it looks a lot neater for me. Logging in mudlet doesn't like to capture my line breaks for when I space out my echoes.)

http://www.logsty.net/logs/CAZWI

<<Totally was using the wrong song with Wyrdsong instead of Widowsmercy. In any case.. I'd still very much like the advice and criticism. I don't think I'd have done much either way.>>

Karlach · May 2014

Firstly you need Green. Any scenario where someone can apply a hard lock on you is going to be an instant loss without it.

Yarith · May 2014

I had Gedulah and used it but was unlucky in curing the conditions of the lock (I think).

I realize I may have worded the initial post wrongly. I'm more curious as to suggestions to improve my offence or rotations.

I figure that I screwed up my tritone and didn't get the second application after allheale (He actually dodged and I overlooked reapplying).

I should have also used jumpkick to move back into the room after I was gusted out.

Lerad · May 2014

He already has Gedulah, Karl.

One thing you need to learn to do is power management. Power skills are potent, but if you squander them, it can backfire on you, especially if you don't have trans discipline for power regen. This is especially true against Knights or Monks, because of aforementioned greenlocks. The ninja lock is not very potent, but if you get unlucky with your first gedulah not hitting a lock aff, then you're stuck there waiting for at least 24 seconds (or more) before you get enough power to gedulah again. Specifically in this scenario, you will want to save your power for either dchord or a crowcaw burst, instead of spending yourself down to 0p and continually using it up the moment you can.

The trick here is to do the setup abilities that take power first, and then hinder while you wait for power to regen for the burst. For dchord, that would be octave/pfifth and then slowly build the aurics while holding him in place, keeping around 5p at all times if possible. As he realises you have aurics building, he will try to get out more and more, and against a stealth monk, it's fairly difficult to keep him still, but you can try. Icewalls to prevent yourself getting gusted, and maintain bnote. If you can actually keep him still until you regen to around 8-9p, then spend them for the usual dchord combo as the finisher. The alternative here is crowcaw for a mass of bleeding/mental affs to burst down the mana. If you can maintain aurics before going for crowcaw all the better, to damage him out after you spend your power on crowcawing. It takes 2.5s to 3s to caw, it looks like, so he'll probably earwort once or twice in between, but if you can burst 5 crowcaws on him, spending all 10p at a go, you'll build up a hell lot of bleeding.

The next thing you want to do is to be familiar with the ways you can disrupt a monk's momentum. Once they get to high momentum, they outpace affliction curing at tremendous speeds, making it very difficult to mount a comeback. You have some great tools at your disposal. Monks will hate you for acro dodging and ninjas especially will hate your contort+spidercantiga. Harbinger passives include a balance thrower, and passive paralysis when target is bleeding. You don't do a lot of bleeding on your own (when not crowcawing, which you shouldn't be doing except when you're ready to burst), unfortunately, but even without the passive paralysis, you can already slow them quite a bit by nature of your kit. Next is to decide what active hindering to use. Web is decent, but not great against a fellow contortionist. Shieldstun might have decent application if you have a shield rune, but I'm not sure if it is viable. Other bards might have better advice on what kind of active hindering to use.

Maintain blanknote, and if you have octave/pfifth up already, then use your choice of active hindering while you wait for power to regen instead of crowcawing. Save up the power and then go for a burst.

Also, since you're glamours as well, you might want to consider blindness. Between blanknote and your glamours affliction skills (those also cost power, so refer to the above paragraph on prudent usage of them), you can churn out quite a bit of herb balance pushing, and they can't attack you if they are blind. Of course, blinding them works against your glamours afflictions, but blindness is such a high priority affliction that it gets cured first most of the time, which may delay their earwort eating, and which helps your glamours passives hit. If they stay blind, they cripple their own momentum - it's a lose-lose situation for them. A beast with poison spit (spit it at the same time as your system's guess on their earache fading might be most effective) would be your best chance to give blindness as a glamours bard. If you ever go ecology one day, use the passive poison pet and herbbane for a similar strategy.

Edit: Oh, and there's no real reason to discern + assess all the time. Discern takes mana, it looks like, and you're already mana heavy with all your casting. It is also especially dangerous against a potent bleeding class like ninja. You might want to discern/assess at strategic times, like, before you start your burst, so that you have a rough idea of how much damage you need to be doing to kill him, or after your burst, to see if you are near finishing him, and should keep on the pressure, or if you've failed and have to reset and restart your offence.

Yarith · May 2014

That's a looooooot of information.

Thank you very, very much, Lerad.

Most of what I do is flailing with my power and I always run very low, especially when I'm alone with someone. I have been using Crowcaw pretty poorly and was resting on it as a basis of the majority of my offence(or what to do if nothing else comes to mind). I don't think my shield stun is all too potent due to being a faeling with a small amount of strength but I'll experiment with it. I can also extend two power and apply the transfix which requires 5-6 seconds of writhing after I strip sixth sense and blind but I guess that comes back down to power management. I also never pulled off my hypnotic pattern, which would have been two passive balance throwers. I really should be more careful with my power and most of it is due to a lack of general direction on my part.

I've fixed up discern|assess because it was really unnecessary and taught my beast to spit poison.

I really need to rethink my approach completely, it seems, and I appreciate the feedback a lot. A lot.

Karlach · May 2014

Ack, missed you use Gedulah, was looking for the green lines.

Lerad really covered the rest of it, there's a couple of times that you've wasted EQ on a song when they're deaf, despite the earwort timer and blanknote echoes. Other than that, hinder the monk, hinder and hinder some more, allowing them to build momentum is shooting yourself in the foot.

Cyndarin · May 2014

Bard vs monk is very hard. Harbinger requires you to remain stationary while remaining stationary against any monk is suicidal. You have to run from them, drop octave, wait for them to come to you and then pump out aurics and crow caw to slow them down and hope you can burst them down quick enough. If they get momentum, you have to run and reset. My best advice, and it sounds jaded, is to not bother with monks 1v1. There's very little to learn other than how to run a lot.

Marcella · May 2014

I agree with Celina. Some classes are just rock paper scissors. For example, my combat advice against Nihilists, as a warrior, is 'roll over and try not to die until your allies save you. Except you'll only be fighting Nihilists 1v1 since they're on your side. GOOD LUCK MARCY.'