Thread: Confused about Monster Play.

I've come back to Monster Play from time to time and I'm always left wondering what the point of it is.

I played a Defiler mostly, rank 3. And a some time as a Spider, but I die so ludicrously fast I gave up on it. Only rarely have I been able to take fight in large battles, it's usually small skirmishes. But one thing always stands out in my mind after I play. Monster Players, seem to be absolute fleas compared to the free people. Monster players seem like they are 1/4th as strong. I know on both my Spider and my Defiler, I couldn't kill a player under any circumstances 1 on 1. It'd be impossible, my damage is so pitiful and I just die so quick. My defiler is better advanced, and he has short of 9k health. I was playing just a few minutes ago and I kept getting nailed for almost my entire life bar in a single attack doing around 6.8k any time I left the base. We had a lot of dudes running around with 18k health who seemed just as timid as me about going out and actually fighting. 75% of the fighting was only for the ranged people. Everyone else just kind of stands around, only occasionally running out. And when they do, they get melted by white laser beams from the sky. They have more luck and send up guys who can withstand insane amounts of focused fire before dying, but this distraction usually ends up with half of the monster players getting dominated in a very short amount of time. My heals as a defiler are very weak and healing multiple friendlies doesn't seem feasible with the cooldowns and low throughput. Also, I appear to be a very desirable target, any time I'm not securely in the back, I get hit by some ranged stun then I am melted to death in about 4 seconds by ranged fire. I can support my allies for hours and get almost nothing for it to upgrade my character.

I admit I don't know very much about it, but I have been coming back and playing it for years and it doesn't seem to change.

a) Creep healers have to group up to level, especially defilers

b) Rank 3 is very low.. especially in this world of audacity (ugh). You're in that horrible place where you don't have enough commendations to buy both skills, corruptions, and audacity. Honestly your survivability is going to be in the toilet until you max out your audacity.

c) 1v1 upper ranked creeps actually fare very well against freeps (with significant exceptions *cough* minstrels). A lot of freeps actually complain about not being able to kill defilers with a combination of the self heals that simply let them last and enhanced flies (which is a skill that you have to buy from the turbine store to use) which is screwed up such that it drains a whole lot of power from freeps. That said... if you play normally.. you're pretty hosed for a while. Raid wise yes, freeps will out gun, out heal, out defend, out cc, and out sprint you (away from you of course). So... IMO against equal number of freeps, creeps have to be playing better to win. On Elendilmir that's typically done through really tight teamspeak coordination as an example.

You might want to take a break from the defiler and work on a DPS class (wargs are hideously popular because the last update buffed them plus they are a stealth class with all those benefits). That way you can a) enjoy yourself a bit more b) kill the occasional freep c) earn commendations that you can spend on your defiler (shared over the account).

p.s. you get your AOE heal at rank 5, efflorescence which is an awesome heal creepside (it's laughable vs freep AoE heals of course though)

Actually you're fairly lucky, it appears you haven't wasted to much time on Turbines neglected side-project hoping that maybe they'll improve it. Given the alternative PvP possibilities already out there (and very very shortly coming up) I think you'll be much happier jumping on one of them instead.

I dunno. I played as a Warg for awhile, it was a nice change of pace but the problem still persists, I have no chance against anyone. EVERYONE kills me in literally seconds and I barely get any of their HP. A group of us stealthers were sometimes able to kill someone but we'd always lose a few of us.

So, it seems the PvP monster play is about hiding from them and just doing quests.. Because fighting and doing actual PvP does not at all seem feasible. They are vastly more powerful than new monster characters, which means you need to get more powerful, but you're so weak, you can't fight and hope to accomplish much without overwhelming numbers/NPC support.

I didn't choose a monster to play Mr. Mail Man for all the NPCs. I wanted to fight...

Well, you have to PvE for your maps so that's 4-5 ranks that you'll get just from questing, but come RoR, you'll have to PvP (since inf/comm rewards for PvE are being significantly reduced). However, comm gain from PvP is being effectively doubled. This means that even if you do little damage, you should be getting a decent number of comms per kill (probably low double digits average, at the least).

Yes, you will be weaker than every single freep (except those who come out at lvl 40 :P), but that's part of the game (unfortunately). Joining a tribe helps since you can group up with friends, but just hanging out and jumping in a group when possible is your best bet (especially as a healer).

If you want a quick option to get all your skills and become somewhat more powerful (although not OMG roflpwn freepstyle), the store is always open. Most of the reason creeps can beat freeps 1v1 is skill on the players part, bad luck on the freeps part, and good luck on the creeps part. So that means that learning your class (how to trait, what skills to use, when to use those skills, etc.) is your biggest advantage.

Good luck out there .

Originally Posted by Samus1111111

Well, you have to PvE for your maps so that's 4-5 ranks that you'll get just from questing, but come RoR, you'll have to PvP (since inf/comm rewards for PvE are being significantly reduced). However, comm gain from PvP is being effectively doubled. This means that even if you do little damage, you should be getting a decent number of comms per kill (probably low double digits average, at the least).

Yes, you will be weaker than every single freep (except those who come out at lvl 40 :P), but that's part of the game (unfortunately). Joining a tribe helps since you can group up with friends, but just hanging out and jumping in a group when possible is your best bet (especially as a healer).

If you want a quick option to get all your skills and become somewhat more powerful (although not OMG roflpwn freepstyle), the store is always open. Most of the reason creeps can beat freeps 1v1 is skill on the players part, bad luck on the freeps part, and good luck on the creeps part. So that means that learning your class (how to trait, what skills to use, when to use those skills, etc.) is your biggest advantage.

Good luck out there .

As a new creep (played 2 months now) I agree completely to what Samus said.

One other thing that has a huge effect is, that about every freep is now maxed out (or close to) as creeps are what they were when RoI came out, but freeps got their buff from Great River, and have also gotten their 2:nd and 1:st agers. This is probably the worst possible moment to come to the Ettenmoors, as you are at the worst possible spot in balance (if there is any at all). The good side is, that now is your chance to hone your skills against the worst situation.
When RoR comes out, you will have time to get your map deeds done for commendations in peace without freeps killing you in 4 seconds every time you come out from the gy. Also the prices for skills and traits, and the first 5 ranks of Audacity will go down by a lot.

Originally Posted by Henshaw135

This is probably the worst possible moment to come to the Ettenmoors...

When RoR comes out, you will have time to get your map deeds done for commendations in peace without freeps killing you in 4 seconds every time you come out from the gy. Also the prices for skills and traits, and the first 5 ranks of Audacity will go down by a lot.

^^This. Try the Moors for a couple weeks in their current, extremely unbalanced state just to get a feel for the action. Then when things die down in September, you will have plenty of peace and quiet to quest and any freeps who you do run into will be undergeared.

I would suggest trying to get as much of your questing for maps done now as possible since lots of comm and inf rewards for quests are going away with RoR.

This is a joke. I wouldn't believe anyone had I not seen it with my own eyes.

1 Dude, a champion, can take on 7 of us with no trouble at all. There is me, a Warg, 2 other Wargs, a Defiler, and 2 Spiders and Blackarrow. And the Spider's pets.

We fight him down to about 2k morale, then he runs away at high speed, completely impervious to stuns and slows. Over the next 30 seconds or so, he's back to almost full health and kills us all.

It's mind boggling how broken that is. Even if we were all totally fresh characters against him - that is just incomprehensibly idiotic.

They have nothing to fear and they know it. They will follow me into groups of troll guards without a care, kill me, and then the guards. It's like fighting against people using cheats. I just can't even fathom how it could get to a place like this.

Well Champs are a bit silly in their ability to get away... and creep and freep NPCs both really don't do much (it's going to change in RoR though).

Again you're only Rank 3... don't expect much out of your character. And if you're afraid of dying... you might as well play freepside.

get crunk and kill fellow noobs!!!

Even if we were all rank 0, it's beyond broken that he could take on 7 of us simultaneously all by himself. They don't need any skill or really much effort if it's that easy.

And I'm not afraid of dying, I threw myself at them as best I could and died repeatedly. But it occurred to me this was an utter and complete waste of time because there is no chance, whatsoever, of accomplishing anything. The only result possible of this fight between us and them was to give them points for killing us with no effort. We are just farm material.

People say it'll get better in RoR because they won't be top geared any more, but what happens in a few months when they are again? And if we can't rank up doing quests, only PvP how is anything improving for creeps? Unless monsters are getting a flat buff that you don't have to earn I don't see how, in the long run, anything will change unless there is more to it than that.

It seems to me as I understand it to be completely flawed. In order to be somewhat competitive we have to get stronger, but if we can't get much of anything accomplished to GET stronger, how are we supposed to? Even the guys that look like they are ranked up high get worked over pretty good themselves.

Here's some links you might want to check, as Ettenmoors has nothing to do with PvE at all, when it comes to strategy. If you fight a Champion head on on any monster class, you will be in trouble. You need high rank and Audacity for that, and most of all, skill with your class. A skilled rank 6 BA can take down a non-skilled Champion solo, but a Warg doesn't have the required skillset for that at low (lower than rank 10 I would think) ranks. They are a heavy DPS class with a tanking stance (Glory), which they most probably are using 100% of the time.

http://dailystats.theblackappendage....monster-manual

http://theartofwarg.wordpress.com/1vs1-guides/champion/

http://www.the-rangers.net/joomla/in...o-monster-play

In any case, you will be practically "free reknown" until you get rank 6 and max out your Audacity. At rank 4 or so you can start ninjaing killing blows and infamy from almost dead enemies with careful planning, but you need to understand, that you will be almost always the first one targeted in a fight, as Wargs die very fast at low ranks.

It's a hard place to jump into, but if you want to learn and don't shy from challenges (at the moment it's about as hard as trying to get to Rivendell on a level 1 toon.. ;-) ), the reward of achieving is also great.

Good luck and have fun. :-)

Ps: High rank doesn't automatically mean the players are skilled/good, they just have been doing it for a longer time (or have farmed their rank in some rare cases). ;-)

Originally Posted by BoogieMan1980

People say it'll get better in RoR because they won't be top geared any more, but what happens in a few months when they are again? And if we can't rank up doing quests, only PvP how is anything improving for creeps? Unless monsters are getting a flat buff that you don't have to earn I don't see how, in the long run, anything will change unless there is more to it than that.

You'll have to group up (or at least join the zerg), yes. But with the new comm gain system, you'll be receiving a TON more comms that you do now, even in raids. Also, having the keeps will give you a +infamy gain buff which will make ranking easier (if you're in a group). This is why I suggested trying to find a tribe. Then you'll have people you can group with a lot.

Thanks for the info and the links, they should help. I suppose time will tell, but for now it seems pointless. I'm just a bit pessimistic because for a game that's been out this long to still have such shocking imbalances is concerning.