Here I am again... biting the dust ALL the time.

[undernolights]

It's me again! I asked for some training feedback when I came back a couple months ago. I did tweak some things, but I continue to die in OTF way too often. I am not quite sure what what I need to adjust.

I hunt with 1106 and I often use sympathy when there's multiple critters in a room, but even with that war griffins are putting me in major OT or I'm getting stunned by scouts coming out of hiding. I don't feel like it's too hard for me to kill things, but clearly I'm not doing it fast enough to not get killed first! I am totally fine in the aqueducts with taints, gremlocks, et cetera, but I really struggle in the general hunting areas.

I am in brig, I hold a runestaff..
Here are my current skills/stats.

Maybe I'm just a shitty hunter? Or I need to accept that I need to stay in the aqueducts until I can no longer learn at all from those creatures?
I am also honestly just not very knowledgeable about Gemstone mechanics despite having played on and off for 20 years, so any thoughts would be appreciated.

at level 90), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 130 35
Physical Fitness...................| 376 276
Arcane Symbols.....................| 130 35
Magic Item Use.....................| 191 91
Harness Power......................| 191 91
Spirit Mana Control................| 191 91
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 155 55
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 155 55
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 220 120
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 70 15
Survival...........................| 120 30
Perception.........................| 190 90
Climbing...........................| 130 35
Swimming...........................| 140 40
First Aid..........................| 190 90

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 122


Race: Giantman Profession: Empath (shown as: Butcher)
Gender: Female Age: 49 Expr: 6530548 Level: 90
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 97 (38) ... 97 (38)
Constitution (CON): 96 (33) ... 93 (31)
Dexterity (DEX): 69 (4) ... 69 (4)
Agility (AGI): 83 (11) ... 83 (11)
Discipline (DIS): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Aura (AUR): 83 (11) ... 83 (11)
Logic (LOG): 100 (20) ... 100 (20)
Intuition (INT): 82 (16) ... 82 (16)
Wisdom (WIS): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Influence (INF): 100 (30) ... 100 (30)
Mana: 260 Silver: 413

[Tenser]

My 2 cents:
- Hunt in aqueducts until 92
- Hunt in East or west woods to avoid higher level critters in Otf until you are 96 or so
- Make sure you always hunt at None emcumbrance, not light or worse
- Run from multiple critters when they are higher level than you.
- Get crit padded armor if possible

[undernolights]

Thank you! Yeah, I do a lot better when I stay in the woods but then I get too bold.
This is super helpful - I may need to just slow my roll a bit.

[Ososis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udUCjJphE-0

[Velfi]

IMO, if you're not swinging a weapon then the brig is hurting you more than it helps with the spell failure penalty, vs some nice doubles or something. It would also free up a lot of TPs, those AU ranks aren't cheap.

[undernolights]

Thanks. Someone in the past said I needed to be in brig, but yeah, really not sure it's helping too much at this point.

[Velfi]

One other thing I noticed was the lack of Transformation lore, that can be super handy to reduce your wound/scar healing RT particularly when you're in the field. 57 ranks at cap will eliminate all hard RT from healing, and 50 ranks will let you get a 2nd 1150 per day.

[Aluvius]

I'd agree on dropping down to double leathers.

Another route would be to go spell aim and use fire spirit and web bolt for crowd control.

[undernolights]

What would you recommend for spell aiming - 1x, 2x?

[Velfi]

I'd agree on dropping down to double leathers.

Another route would be to go spell aim and use fire spirit and web bolt for crowd control.

+1 to that and would also suggest 1110 with your lores, though my personal experience of hunting with spells is quite limited so I don't know if 111 or 1110 would overall be more efficient.


What would you recommend for spell aiming - 1x, 2x?

If you get SA, get it 2x.

[Aluvius]

Yeah 2x SA all the way, you'd have to drop your 1100's to do it most likely.

1110 is a great single target spell with high damage, 111 is better for crowds and things resistant to fire, web bolt is nice because it also disables and does decent damage vs lower AsG's ... plus it won't blow you up in certain hunting areas like the other 2.

Also don't forget for web bolt you need 20 ranks of spirit lore, summoning to use it. And fire flares/111 will set the web on fire for extra damage.

Finally, the other good thing about spell aim is now you can use wizard wands to extend your mana.

[undernolights]

Thanks for the ideas, all. I did adjust my training per the advice here. One is when I try 111 my AS is SO low it can't hit anything. Is that normal? What increases it? I did 2x in spell aiming and have summoning ranks and what not.

[Zarston]

I dunno who told you to go with Spell Aiming, but it's not ideal for you as a Giant(wo)man with non-capped (<100) Dexterity. Even capped you'd be playing a little far behind.

Honestly your initial training path wasn't that bad. I would attribute any deaths to being rusty and/or needing to learn the hunting ground. All of the capped hunting grounds have a period where you're gonna die until you recognize what situations to run away from.

[Roblar]

What increases it? I did 2x in spell aiming and have summoning ranks and what not.

211, 215, Dex enhancives, 509, society powers, other stuff!

[undernolights]

Fudge.

[Aluvius]

Have you tried different hunting grounds? I'm not certain how you could have bolt AS so low as to not be able to hit anything even with low dex? Empath bolt AS is usually equal to wizard bolt AS.

The same goes for if you swap back to a CS build, try a different hunting area?

[undernolights]

Hmm. Yeah, I am doing the aqueducts which is a bit below my train and I still can't hit. But the web bolting is awesome! Either way, I think the biggest thing is I need to stay hunting under level for a while.

[khorpulent]

Yeah, SA will make you able to hit a greater range of creatures, but bolting is generally not an empath's best option, especially if you're up hunting. Maybe it's too late at this point, but here are my two cents:

Drop down to 8 AU ranks like everyone else said
Get rid of all 120 ranks of that manipulation lore, put 57 in to transformation, and put the rest into empath circle ranks
Bring arcane symbols up to 1x for extra runestaff defense
Bring MMC up to at least 25 ranks, but preferably 1x (a little extra mana recovery plus extra targets for 1117)
If you're in sunfist, bring blessing ranks up to 65. If you're not in sunfist, drop out of your inferior society and join sunfist. Or if you're not in sunfist and don't want to join, then get rid of all that blessing lore and bring summoning up to 1x.

If you're casting 1120 at everything and still dying, it means your CS is too low. Get more empath circle ranks. Or maybe don't take on more than one or two at a time. Stop casting 1106 and start opening with 1115, and make sure you channel. If you can go 1v1 against a creature and it's not too swarmy, go use offensive stance for the +20 enroll bonus when channeling -- if you're really feeling bold, put away your runestaff for the full +40 bonus. This will allow you to one-shot a lot more stuff with 1115, thereby saving mana. Of course, it might also get you killed. You keep up 140 if you want to make going hands free safer, but then you're not really saving any mana.

Also, to hell with OTF. Go hunt Nelemar.

[khorpulent]

211, 215, Dex enhancives, 509, society powers, other stuff!


509? What is this, 1996?

513 would help, though.

[Maerit]

Wait until post cap to bother with spell aim. Empaths can bolt well enough, but the TPs are better spent elsewhere to increase your hunting. You will rely more on your CS than your bolt AS - and kill things much faster (in general) with CS based spells. That means over-training your Empath circle to be at least +21 above your level.

Also, not sure why people aren't mentioning this, but the real secret to powerfully murdering something as an Empath/Cleric is 240... 240 is sick, and should be used frequently.

At your current training (in the OP), you'd have +35 AS/CS and 80% chance for your spell to be duplicated.

[khorpulent]

Yeah, but 240 is pretty damn mana intensive. You could use it, but you won't be hunting long. That's one reason I'm a fan of 140 + open handed/offensive channeling. You get +40 to every shot (or at least every shot that doesn't get warded) and only have to spend 40 mana every 90 seconds instead of every 30. Or if putting the runestaff away is too risky, even just runestaff + offensive is +20. There's some risk involved, but hey, if you had 50+ ranks of transformation lore, you'd have an extra use of 1150 to bail yourself out.

As far as spell aiming goes, if you take all those points from 2x SA and put them instead into empath circle, the difference usually only works out to be about 9 or 10 CS (at cap at least, assuming you'd stay above +20 empath ranks with either training path...probably works out about the same at 90). So while an extra 10 CS is pretty nice, the difference isn't as big as some folks make it out to be. I trained my empath in spell aiming all the way up through cap and still use bolts with some frequency, but mostly just because it's more interesting than casting Wither at everything.

That being said, Wither is almost always going to be a better choice than bolts. The only exception might be using 1110 to conserve mana against creatures that won't immediately kick your ass if you don't kill them quickly. Even if you only get 3 warding cycles from 1110 (note: you need 20 telepathy ranks for this, I noticed you only had 15), you can hit a creature with 1110 and let the warding cycles kill it while you move on to other things. I've actually started using 1110 in orc warcamps lately -- I'll hit an orc with one shot of 1110 and just go to another part of the camp to cast at another orc. When I come back later, the orc will usually be dead. Of course, I have 100 telepathy ranks, so I get 6 warding cycles. The problem with bolts, though, is that you gotta deal with both DS and EBP, and there's plenty of shit that I can't even touch with bolts even as a halfling (though with 1110 all you have to do is connect!)

Edit: I just noticed your DEX bonus is 4. You should probably not be bolting.

[Maerit]

Yeah, but 240 is pretty damn mana intensive. You could use it, but you won't be hunting long..

That's subjective. If you spend 40 mana to kill something with one cast of wither instead of two casts of wither, and you can find 3-4 targets in those 30 seconds, you will actually spend less mana. Just breaking it down to the smallest component. The real power is two-fold:

1. Your CS is substantially higher, which means higher warding margin, which means more damage - reducing the number of times you have to cast attack spells.
2. It casts the spell twice at the same target using the same casting mechanics (i.e. channel vs cast) without additional mana or RT - reducing the number of times you have to cast attack spells.

So if you kill targets with 2-3 casts of Wither, that's 30-45 mana. Using 240 will reduce that cost by 15 (and cut your RT by 3 seconds). If you can find 3-4 targets to kill within 30 seconds duration (and since you're killing faster - much easier to fit in 3-4 targets), it's a saving of 45-60 mana. If you can't find 3-4 targets within 30 seconds, then you're only losing 15-20 mana.

On top of this, if the empath is trained for GOS with good stamina (possibly a regen enhancive or two) and blessings lore - mana won't be a problem.

You don't need to keep 240 running constantly. It only needs to be activated when you have targets to kill.

[khorpulent]

Sure, if all the right conditions come together, 240 can save you mana. But just as often you'll end up getting put in RT from some maneuver and wasting half of the 30-second cast, or you'll get a high roll on the first shot and won't need the second, or you'll fumble or get blocked by slippery mind or something. I use 240 fairly often, but mostly in warcamps when I want to run in, kill a dozen creatures in the span of 2 minutes to get fried, and go rest. If I'm trying to hunt for more sustained periods, I tend to be more judicious in my use of 240. So yeah, if you're just trying to get fried and there are pretty good swarms, 240 can be effective, especially if you're up-hunting a bit. But if you're trying to cull 27 creatures or something, you're generally not going to go the distance blasting everything with 240.

Part of the problem with 240 is that 3-second setup time. Three seconds is often just long enough to get hit by a maneuver or ewave or something, which can effectively waste your cast of 240. I often find I get better results against a room full of creatures using 1120 + 1117 + 1115/1106. But that assumes you actually can hit everything with that first cast of 1120.

Your calculations are also assuming that 1115 is never killing the creature on the first shot. If your cast of 1115 kills the creature on the first shot, there's no re-cast from the slayer and consequently no mana saved.

But you're right about using sigil of power. With 3x PF and 65 blessing ranks at cap and no enhancives, an empath can generate an average of something like 20-40 extra mana per minute, depending on what sigils you keep active (assuming you remember to pop your muscles and use 1107 ever 5 minutes). With enhancives you can get that closer to 75+. My empath gets 145 stamina per pulse with enhancives, so I can use sigil of power two or three times a minute. I can still run out of mana if I get carried away with 240, but usually only in the most lively warcamps.

[drauz]

240 is the most broken spell in my opinion. How that ever got past QC and "balancing" I will never know. It is just so stupidly powerful.

To your training, I would make it look more like this:

Armor Use..........................| 8 ranks
Physical Fitness...................| 2x/level
Arcane Symbols.....................| 1x/level
Magic Item Use.....................| 1x/level
Harness Power......................| 2x/level
Spirit Mana Control................| 1x/level
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| delete
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 1x/level and move to 2x after cap
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 1x/level or wait until after cap to focus
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| delete
Survival...........................| delete
Perception.........................| 1x/level
Climbing...........................| 130 35
Swimming...........................| 140 40
First Aid..........................| 1x/level

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 122

This focuses on getting 240 up and working to full effect.

[khorpulent]

If you're in Sunfist, you probably wouldn't want to ditch that blessing lore. If your'e not, 1x summoning lore (at a minimum) for the benefits to 1115. That extra damage cycle makes a huge difference. And if you're sticking with spell aiming, you'll want either 5 or 20 telepathy ranks for the extra warding cycles from 1110.

Harness power is a matter of preference, but most folks seem to only do 1x pre-cap. I'm past 2x cap at this point and still only have 170 ranks of HP. At cap, 100 ranks of HP is the equivalent of 25 spell ranks.

MMC is cheap enough that you might as well be 1x in it too.

Survival is another matter of personal preference. I'm 1x in survival and FA for skinning, and also because I travel back and forth from WL to IMT a lot.

And I've always found manipulation lore a waste, especially since it interferes with 1117. Better to put the points into transformation. I'm currently at 100 telepathy/51 transformation and 137 summoning/65 blessing.

[cwolff]

Have you looked at the combo of 1107 and sigil of power with Sunfist? Check that out if you go Sunfist. It may impact your HP and lore training

[undernolights]

Appreciate all the different ideas. Also - 240 - YES - literally used it for the first time after the suggestions here, and it helps in the right situation. I am not in Sunfist, but am strongly considering it... I just don't know if I'm ready to do a whole new society thing right now. Wondering what people think of the following training path if I can't bolt (which I can't). I basically open with 1115, use Sympathy as needed for crowd control, 1106...
I did start hunting Nelemar which is generally easier to fry in than OTF, but I continue to die a lot. Whenever I'm put into RT it's like a done deal.


Any additional thoughts would be appreciated before I use a fixskills..also my train is 92 now.

Skill Name Goals
Armor Use..........................| 8
Physical Fitness...................| 282
Arcane Symbols.....................| 93
Magic Item Use.....................| 93
Spell Aiming.......................| 0
Harness Power......................| 138
Mental Mana Control................| 93
Spirit Mana Control................| 93
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 90
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 40
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 57
Survival...........................| 30
Perception.........................| 93
Climbing...........................| 135
Swimming...........................| 65
First Aid..........................| 93

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 40

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 120