Hunting as a Wizard - Bandits

[Ashliana]

They're not so bad for Empaths.

My wife owns bandits but she's a smart one with 3x PF. I've been out with empaths that walk in a room and they are one shot dead. Then again, I've looked at those same empaths and wonder where they came up with the build they were using. Physical fitness and CMAN are your best bets for defense against bandits.

My empath (60s) is hit-or-miss with bandits, fully spelled up, with 3x PF and 1x Perception. CMAN spam and those crystals that mass dispel you just ruin your day. IMO, they're not worth it at all.

IMO, CMANs are the biggest example of how high-level combat in Gemstone is broken. When you allow players to stack equipment and 100 defensive spells and rig the AS vs. DS mechanic so far in their favor that even stances become totally irrelevant -- and the only way you have to offer your players "challenge" is to give them incredibly random death mechanics -- your game is broken.

When the only meaningful gameplay choice introduced by bullshit CMANs is "kill it before it has a chance to do anything," the game is fundamentally broken. Note: I'd say "kill or stun it," but that's yet another gameplay element that mobs get to randomly ignore because breaking the rules is the only way they thought of to simulate challenge.

If I was designing the game, I'd make defensive spells self-only with the exception of class/school-defining spells (similar to WoW's Arcane Intellect/Mark of the Wild/etc, before they were removed) or introduce a cap on spelled +DS, and rebalance the AS/DS mechanics accordingly so that it wasn't possible to essentially ignore, and then rebalance CMANs similarly. Spellburst is already kind of an admission that that's a huge issue.

[Tenser]

506 helps with trap and/or cman RT?

[Whirlin]

506 helps with trap and/or cman RT?

Now that we have 535... I'm honestly not sure. I keep it up all the time regardless for hunting with my bow... but knowing Simu, I wouldn't be surprised if some induced RT still utilized 506 rather than 535. I'm also thinking things like standing after being knocked down/etc may still use 506, so I keep it up.

[Tenser]

... but knowing Simu...

You make a good point. I will try keeping 506 up while doing bandits now.

[Methais]

506 helps with trap and/or cman RT?

No but it does affect search (and forage) RT for some reason instead of Haste.

[Tenser]

I can see where searching with 506 up would make sense. A 1 second RT doesn't test my patience quite as much as a 3 second RT each room.

[kutter]

Did not see it mentioned but get cubes as well. Personally my late 60's wizard just does not do them, he could normally live but with all the spells they strip it is just a pain in the ass and not worth it, however my mid 30's UAC wizard is a nightmare for bandits, they cannot spawn fast enough for him.

[khorpulent]

Oddly, nobody seems to have mentioned the most effective bandit strategy: get a hunting partner. If you're not a square, bandits are just hard (and slow!) to hunt solo. With two or more people going after bandits together, one or the other can usually knock them down or disable them while the other recovers from trap/CMAN RT.

Obviously pure spellcasters are gonna be weak against a bunch of square creatures. It doesn't seem like a sign of a broken combat system that, when hunting alone, you'll get your ass kicked by a group of critters that are in a class antithetical to your own.

As far as empaths go (though I'm not sure why we're talking about empaths in the wizard thread), my experience is that they do hold up against bandits a little better than other pures (mostly from the 3x PF). With my empath (who is 3x PF/1x perception), I still tend to get put in RT fairly easily, but I can usually stand there getting beat on by bandits without getting hurt too badly. If I can just get off a cast of 1120, I tend to survive. Bandits do always make me wish I could cast 1150 in RT, though.

[Roiken]

It seems to me several people have mentioned taking a partner.....?

[khorpulent]

getting hamstrung and throat cut sucks. padded armor and honestly , HUNT with a FRIEND. the game is better when you are not solo anyway. but, yes, you will get fucked by bandits a lot till post cap. perception and CM will help

Well, maybe it wasn't several people, but I apparently did miss this.