Thread: Squishy vs Multiple Mobs

I have started a Burglar alt, but find it difficult to solo multiple mobs.

With my Guardian I am able to absorb the damage, and with my Lore-Master I am able to mez most of the adds. With my Burglar, however, I can't seem to do this reliably. I just take too much damage, and can't survive.

Any pointers on how to play a Burglar in these situations?

I have the same problem with my Mini. these characters where set up as support characters and where designed to play with other players. the best thing to do when your in that sit is to move in the shadows and break off the attack. and take em out one at a time or RUN! I know its not what you wanted to here but I have figured out unless your taking on mobs 3 or more levels below yours in mobs your screwed so quest below your level when dealing with mobs. and gain your levels thru skims and quest completions.

Revers

Attack them one at a time, or else burn down one mob and start running to safety.

Burg is rather hard at first but gets a whole lot stronger when his bag of tricks extends

Without knowing what level it's hard to say ..
But one way would be to enter Mischief stance (Not sure when this is available .. it's all changed from when I was a wee Burg)
-Riddle the toughest mob
-Use addle to pull the other two (or three)
-Touch and go
-When close enough, dust in the eyes one
-Startling twist
-Target third mob
-Disable and burn him down while using Mischievous Glee often
-Target Startled Mob and burn him down while using Startling Twist and Mischievous Glee often
-Keep an eye on your riddle timer and switch targets to re-riddle the tough guy again when it's available
-You can continue to re-riddle the toughest mob and wait for your Morale and Power to regen, or just go in after it.

At earlier levels it's probably best to go Mischief stance against multi's of 3 or more and QK against solos or Duos.

Hope that helps a little

I'm just learning how to do multiple mobs, too.
Try hitting the toughest with Confound. Then, move away a bit and the others will follow. Hit the next one with Riddle. Then, start hitting the still active one.

Some good advice already in this thread.

Sorry if this sounds obvious but I'll state it just in case you're not thinking this way ...

First choice should usually be to sneak past the mobs.

There will be enough times where you have to fight your way through one at a time, or kill X mobs for a quest, that you'll get plenty of killing without looking for more. Low level burgs, as you've noticed, are just not killing machines.

Most situations you can sneak past, and if you get it wrong (or unlucky) while you're learning, just run the mobs off. When you get the HiPS skill this becomes even easier, as you can HiPS to lose chasing mobs. You can also stun, dust, riddle or disable to help survive the chase.

Sneaking where possible will actually be faster than trying to fight your way through, and faster quest XP is better than slow quest xp + kill xp.

So my suggestion is to embrace the difference between your classes. On your guard you'd round up as many mobs as possible, and on your LM you'd control them, but burgs are about getting in and out unseen, with the occasional stealth attack (from behind of course).

Thanks for the pointers.

It looks like I will have to invest more time understanding the Mischief and Gambler trait lines and how they work. I was basically was going straight stealth/dps and using the basic CC and debuffs as needed. It appears though though that a deeper understanding will be needed.

I do sneak past mobs when it is smartest to do so. In some quests though (especially Book quests), stealth is often not an option. They seem especially difficult when you have to escort an NPC, and have to semi-tank.

I'm far from a burglar expert as I just started one on Friday. I'm level 23 now, and I've found the following helpful when dealing with multiple mobs:

1) If they're pathers, use Diversion to split up the group. If you use it on one mob in a group that's walking around, he'll stand still and face the other way while the rest of the group walks away from him. This allows you to fight less mobs at once since they won't all aggro together. I haven't tried this on a stationary group yet to see if the Diverted mob doesn't aggro.

2) Burn one quick. Use Aim -> Sneak Attack from behind -> Burglar's Advantage -> Double-Edged Strike. Usually on-level regular mobs will be dead before I even get around to DES.

3) Depending on the number of adds, you can tab to one immediately after the above and Riddle. If there's a second, Dust in the Eyes -> Startling Twist. If a third, Trip.

4) The first mob that you have to really burn down, hit Disable -> Mischievous Glee. At this point you'll probably be low enough on morale that you'll get the full benefit of the initial heal, and the heal over time will help through the duration of the fight.

5) DPS the targets down starting with the shortest duration CC's, i.e. the one you hit with Startling Twist or Trip. Get behind stunned ones for increased damage. Keep tricks on your targets and use MG whenever it's up. Hit Touch 'n' Go and use pots if it gets hairy.

Personally I find the burglar approach to multiple mobs a lot more active and interesting than on other squishy classes I've played. On RK you pretty much just let your rock tank one until it dies, and on hunter you just lay a trap before the pull.

Can't wait until I have even more skills to use!

Once you get to a point that The Gambler starts to become effective (i.e. you actually have more than 1 gamble to regularly apply), I've found that the best for soloing. It's a little tricky to learn, but that extra mez from a disabling gamble (provoke from stealth opener or Mischievous Glee especially as they are so easy to get going) is a godsend in some material. And the extra stealth bonuses like boosts and faster movement speed makes soloing more convenient. Throw in the damage and debuffing gamble for good measure, and it can help you tackle quite a bit simply because you've got so much control over the fight. Really tough fights you can have a debuff gamble applied to one mob and a mez gamble on a second before you've even come out of stealth.

It's a bit more complicated to learn, but it also isn't as complicated as most people think it is. Most of it is right there in the trait tips, and the in-game guide explains the gambles themselves. The wiki has the exact numbers from each tier, but you get a feel for it without needing to know that, except generally. The wiki guide is helpful and even the in-game guide will give you the gist of it.

Other thing, is don't wait until too late to pop Touch and Go. It is a powerful skill, but you aren't invincible, and there's no point until waiting until it's too late to really use completely to pop it. I was doing that for a long time and had to watch myself to make sure I use it before dying or nearly dying. And don't forget you have HiPS as a method to re-open with trip or gambles or as a way to bail on a bad fight. That goes for most emergency skills, really... sometimes you wait for an emergency until it is too late or it never happens. Use it or lose it.

There has already been posted a lot of good advice here. I follow you, when you say that escort quests are hard to do. I'm sorry to say so, but that's just the way it is. Only do the escorts that you really have to and skip the rest. Burglars are terrible at this. If you can't avoid it, try to be ahead of the npc, riddle and use confound and pray that the npc doesn't break your mezzes. It often helps to do the quests a few times if you fail. Second timeyou will know where the mobs are coming
Burglars are amazing because they are pretty good at almost everything just NOT the escort :-(
Just hold out. You are going to love your burgler when you move on to the higher levels

Escort quest are the only one that are difficult.

If you run gamler you have 3xCC + several stun and great survive skill. (i gambled from 1 to 75)

3 Mobs are easy, 4 are doable, 5 are challenging.

Great advice above, all I'll add is when you stun a MOB (Startling Twist), also put Cunning Attack (bleed/DoT) on it so you are hurting it WHILE attacking the free/active MOB.

This is how we "AoE". By the time you have dropped one, the other's morale should be down 1/3 or so.

(Of course don't put a DoT on a MOB you want to mez or the mez won't last.)

Second, yes, escort quests are hardest on burg. As stated above, usually running ahead of the NPC to gain threat is desirable. Also, eat ICMR/ICPR food, eat agility or vitality food, pop tokens and scrolls. There's no reason to gimp yourself by not using the standard buffs, since encounters are designed around the expectation you have them.

Third, be glad you get to have fun, I've done these quests subsequently with a couple different heavy armor classes and they are downright boring. :-(



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

Yesterday I solo'd the Sever the White Hand quest in the Lone Lands, where you have to fight Hontimurz, a signature mob, and his 4 guard adds all at once. This was impossible to do on my RK and hunter and I remember it being quite difficult on my guard (I think I had to get a little help, but might've been doable solo with enough luck). Huge opening burst DPS, multiple CC, very respectable self healing and the power of TnG are definitely a force to be reckoned with.

It used to be when facing more than one mob I'd sneak up on one and then when another joined in I'd riddle him, get back to killing the first guy and then go get the latecomer, but lately I've reversed this and I've been happy with the results. Now if the guy I'm already hitting isn't going to die immediately I riddle him, and take on the new guy. I make the new guy dead and then go back and finish the first one. This way I save the time I lost switching targets back and forth and the guy I fight at the end, when I'm weaker, have stuff on cool-down etc., is already almost dead.

Fighting more than two you might have to reach for knives out or stun one (startling twist). Dust-in-the-eyes can trait up eventually to affecting 3 targets. Touch-and-go and glee if you're getting into trouble.

Very useful and quick advice, thanks, started mine yesterday.

Another technique not mentioned so far is the HiPS pull. Probably because this is about fighting multiple MOBs, as compared to taking out the boss with way to many MOBs. But it's worth learning the HiPS pull strategy too in case you want to weed out the competition one-on-one instead of all at once. It's also very handy for doing fellowship sizes quests solo.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

Originally Posted by Arlecchino79

Escort quest are the only one that are difficult.

If you run gamler you have 3xCC + several stun and great survive skill. (i gambled from 1 to 75)

3 Mobs are easy, 4 are doable, 5 are challenging.

See, I started gambler right when I was able (startling twist damage) at a fairly low level. I dumped it, promising to come back when I had a few more gambles. To me, Gambler wasn't really useful until after I had a few to work with. Myself, I wouldn't recommend it until you have a few more... before that was just frustrating for me and felt like I was gimping myself. Once I got just a few more though (3, I think)... by far my favorite to solo with.

I found burg is one that doesn't start to really come into it's own until later anyway (for me). Warden I had fun with out of the box, mini was fun as soon as you get WS. For me, burg didn't start getting fun until late 20's to 30's, but man it became a freakin' blast once I could effectively use Gambles. Nothing quite like it. I usually have a big ol' grin on my face.

Originally Posted by RJFerret

Another technique not mentioned so far is the HiPS pull. Probably because this is about fighting multiple MOBs, as compared to taking out the boss with way to many MOBs. But it's worth learning the HiPS pull strategy too in case you want to weed out the competition one-on-one instead of all at once.

Or the similar technique to pull one mob at a time from what would normally be a multi-pull:
1. pick a target to kill separately
2. pull target (with adjacent/linked mobs)
3. run away until the target is out of aggro range of the initial pull
4. riddle target
5. run off rest of mobs (until they give up chasing)
6. return to riddled mob (before riddle runs out) and start attacking