How EVERYONE can participate in invasions

[sywren]

There are a lot of complaints about the NDD invasions, but I have to wonder how many are from people who just don't think there's a place for them in the invasions. This isn't true. Everyone, from the top players to the brand new players are needed, and wanted, during invasions.

 

My favorite aspect of the NDD invasions (the goal oriented ones like Idalaloran) is the community and helpfulness of everyone who participates. I am not a fighter, but I've never felt useless. I know there are a lot of threads about whether or not people like them, when they should be, and so on, but I wanted to start a thread where we can discuss strategy and demonstrate how every person is useful (and I'm not just talking about cannon fodder here!).

 

In order of lowest level player to more advanced, here are some necessary people during an invasion:

 

1. Bait (sounds boring, but it's not)

 

In Ida, if you can find a spot between a house and a wall, you can collect a nice group of creatures together (one person can collect 20+). This limits the number of stray monsters and allows fighters to find them easily, as well as pick off a smaller number at a time. Just make sure you are between a house and the wall.

 

On this topic, I've seen a few lone fighters come too close to one of these groups and get squished by a horde of creatures. Instead of trying to get their attention, let the bait move one step in either direction and release 1-3 creatures on the end.

 

Oh, and it's not boring. The local chat can get pretty lively, and there are a few harvestables within reach of a couple locations. And you have a great viewing spot to cheer on the fight!

 

2. Scout

 

Toward the end of the the invasions, those last few creatures can be hard to find. Running around the map and finding them for the fighters saves precious time.

 

3. Mage

 

Remote healers are great, but don't waste mana or HE on other mages. Save it for fighters. Even though they have restore, it's still helpful to have someone around because of failures and cooldown.

 

Poison works best since it stacks. Harm is a waste of precious DE, and doesn't take off as many health points (and sometimes doesn't take off any).

 

4. Mixers

 

SRs, HE, and DE are critical to the success of these invasions, and try as we might, most of us still run out half way through.

 

5. Runners

 

Don't mind dying? Some people are needed to run between mixers, mages, and fighters to help restock. Usually this means dropping a bag of HE, DE, SRs, and food into a bag near the group and making a small announcement. You'll be loved by all, and many players will drop token items (rings, coins, weapons, armor) in appreciation/payment for you to take (if you're the mixer) or distribute among mixers at storage.

 

Have I left any out? I know someone is going to say "cannon fodder," but in my experience this can get pretty tedious and often isn't as useful as some of these other positions.

 

I'd love to hear other ideas/strategies. I'd also like to know if this has encouraged anyone to join the fun in the next invasion. One of the charms of EL is the community, and these invasions are a great way to meet other players while working on skills and exploring.

[bkc56]

Poison works best since it stacks.

I'd sure like to get a definitive answer on this. I've had people tell me with absolute certainty that "yes it does stack" and "no it doesn't". Unless it's critter specific (stacks on some not on others) they can't both be correct.

 

I wonder if we could get a definite answer from someone who really knows.

[Ryokotsusei]

Uh, it does stack. This is known.

[Dent]

Great post pointing out the advantages to all.

 

One thing I would point out, especially to the newer players, is that mixing essences can be a full time job, worth more experience and gold than you can shake a branch at. Want to level quick? Become a supplier - mix essences and set up shop on the invasion days. Heck, even if you give them away, you are still making loads of exp and you get kickbacks from grateful community members.

 

[Entropy]

It does stack, but within limits.

[masterpiter]

3. Mage

 

Remote healers are great, but don't waste mana or HE on other mages. Save it for fighters. Even though they have restore, it's still helpful to have someone around because of failures and cooldown.

Its very important for me, if i have 3-4 ppl who heal me while fighting dragons i can kill them 1on1 w/o getting cooldown.

U dont need to be strong to do that, or rich

And it really works much better than to click on the dragon and die at 1st/2nd/3rd hit coz u didnt think it will deal u 100+dmg.

 

mp

[DevilDog03]

Great post pointing out the advantages to all.

 

One thing I would point out, especially to the newer players, is that mixing essences can be a full time job, worth more experience and gold than you can shake a branch at. Want to level quick? Become a supplier - mix essences and set up shop on the invasion days. Heck, even if you give them away, you are still making loads of exp and you get kickbacks from grateful community members.

 

Hmm never tought about being able to help since my a/d is 25/25 but my harv and alch are 66/63. I'll try to help the next invasion with HEs DEs and SEs. Since I got lots of silver and cinnabar.

[Zamirah]

3. Mage

 

Remote healers are great, but don't waste mana or HE on other mages. Save it for fighters. Even though they have restore, it's still helpful to have someone around because of failures and cooldown.

Its very important for me, if i have 3-4 ppl who heal me while fighting dragons i can kill them 1on1 w/o getting cooldown.

U dont need to be strong to do that, or rich

And it really works much better than to click on the dragon and die at 1st/2nd/3rd hit coz u didnt think it will deal u 100+dmg.

 

mp

 

Yes, it help a lot when people heal dragon fighters, if we don't need diss/flee and wait for cooldown on SRS/EMPS, are killing dragons much easier.

 

What time will it be this week, any know ?

Edited December 3, 2007 by Zamirah

[peino]

Great suggestions, Sy. I didn't know about that Bait between-wall-and-house thing. I was only doing the first (low level) part off NDD invasions because I didn't think there was much I could do in the objective-based parts. Now I have things to try. Thanks.

[Hex]

Very good ideas. I saw someone trap about 20 giants, 2 dragons, and a couple yeti by standing on the Ida city wall and keeping the critters outside the wall, trying to get to him/her.

 

I even found myself remote healing higher fighters than me, because at that spot I was more helpful doing that than joining in the fight.

 

And btw here are some tips for remote healing during invasions. If you heal people for about 30 health, heal the fighters when they're 30 below their max. Stop healing when the fighter is around 50% health, because he or she is about to restore and you're wasting your essies and mana. The point is to extend the time between restores for the fighter, so heal long before that person is about to restore.

[eagleprince]

Uh, it does stack. This is known.

The answer is not as obvious as one might think.

 

During one of the recent invasions, I was acting as mage trying to eliminate some giants and a couple of dragons. We quickly found out that life drains seemed to stop working at a point. poisons did not work and harm seemed to be the only spell that worked on them. Also, the harms operated at lower levels than we expected, so it seems the invasion monsters also have magic protection on!

 

However, in each case, you would still get the exp for the spell.

[sywren]

Very good ideas. I saw someone trap about 20 giants, 2 dragons, and a couple yeti by standing on the Ida city wall and keeping the critters outside the wall, trying to get to him/her.

 

That was me! \o/

 

During one of the recent invasions, I was acting as mage trying to eliminate some giants and a couple of dragons. We quickly found out that life drains seemed to stop working at a point. poisons did not work and harm seemed to be the only spell that worked on them. Also, the harms operated at lower levels than we expected, so it seems the invasion monsters also have magic protection on!

 

However, in each case, you would still get the exp for the spell.

 

When I was working with that big group, I took out a few giants (1 alone! ) and took 1000+ hp off a red dragon (before backups arrived to help finish him off) using only poison before running out of DE (I had only prepared about 200 for that invasion). I'm working up to life drain, which is the most effective, but each invasion has gained me at least one magic level. You're very right about the exp. I'll be up to life drain soon!

 

The only problem I have is getting that mercury. I'm very poor, so obviously KF is my only option. Naked merc runs FTW!

 

Every time I'm on C1 during the week, I try to collect as much merc as possible, mix it, try to get more, and then follow it by making hundreds of SRs. This has lead to pretty quick leveling in alchemy and potions. Invasions have given me many levels across the board, and is one of the reasons I'd love to see more low/mid level players get involved. Even if all you can do to prepare is make HE and maybe do remote heal, you're going to see some pretty fast leveling.

[evilmangopie]

Gotta say a really nice post. Some good input about how we can make invasions more fun, after all, thats what they're there for (Oh and to sort out the ecconomy )!

 

Invasions can really make the whole EL community work together to beat teh ebul Mortos, and therefore everyone should be able to contribute in their own ways. As others have said, without people healing (which itself is relatively easy) earning next weeks invasion would be MUCH harder.

[boognish]

Beginners can summon rabbits. On multi-combat maps, the summons distract the monsters, so the fighters take less hits.

[Wizzy]

Beginners can summon rabbits. On multi-combat maps, the summons distract the monsters, so the fighters take less hits.

 

This is a very big help, Giants deal me a lot of damage and I burn through EMPs like crazy. Rabbits, rats though it doesnt seem like a huge help, helps a lot by taking the focus of us.

 

Great suggestion Boognish

[DogBreath]

From personal experience I must respectfully disagree with you. There's very little a middle level person can really do to "help". However, that doesn't mean you can't have fun

 

I tried helping at the last two invasions (and will probably keep trying until I figure out some way, or finally give up.)

 

1) Remote heal is teh suxor at around lvl 30 magic it has nearly no impact on the people fighting (you might as well sit in the underworld healing people on the way out) (I used up about 500 each esses trying to remote heal people fighting during the last invasion, really think it was a waste of esses)

 

2) Harm, ditto, did little or no "harm" to any of the monsters.

 

3) I'm interested in trying poison as you suggested (on the next invasion) but I think that it may be futile unelss enough people are poisoning, it's probably not worth the mana/essences.

 

4) The baiting idea is interesting, but unless you have enough life to survive the baiting process, you may just end up visiting the UW many times.

 

5) Trying to distract the monsters. While this had minor effect, it didn't seem to do much as when one turned to me it only took one swing to take my 110 life away.

 

I did notice, however, many people having fun just watching and I see no reason why anyone else couldn't do the same. Just run behind a pack of people and watch, enjoy the show and converstion.

 

The other support suggestions are interesting but unless you want to spend a lot of time mixing and ferrying, this could get fairly boring fairly quickly.

 

Just my 2gc worth, I still like the NDDs and invasions, just wish I could help more.

 

43/48/40/40 a/d/p/c, 30 magic, etc...

[Gohan]

Uh, it does stack. This is known.

The answer is not as obvious as one might think.

 

During one of the recent invasions, I was acting as mage trying to eliminate some giants and a couple of dragons. We quickly found out that life drains seemed to stop working at a point. poisons did not work and harm seemed to be the only spell that worked on them. Also, the harms operated at lower levels than we expected, so it seems the invasion monsters also have magic protection on!

 

However, in each case, you would still get the exp for the spell.

 

 

Magic RESISTANCE is a normal feature on monsters like Giants, Yeti and Dragons.

Tho I believe you can have some sort of criticals with magic too. Sometimes their magic resistance is 0 when you cast and you hurt them at full potential. But most of the time, the damage will be reduced.

 

-Blee

[Entropy]

Yes, some monsters have a high magic resistence. The higher your magic level, the more damage (or poison, mana drain, etc.) you will do.

So people with a small magic level are not very effective against giants and dragons, but can still heal people, deploy caltrops, and so on.

[Schmurk]

Yes, some monsters have a high magic resistence. The higher your magic level, the more damage (or poison, mana drain, etc.) you will do.

So people with a small magic level are not very effective against giants and dragons, but can still heal people, deploy caltrops, and so on.

Another good idea, ty ent!

I was wondering if it was worth to make caltrops to train engineering, now I know the answer

[masterpiter]

1) Remote heal is teh suxor at around lvl 30 magic it has nearly no impact on the people fighting (you might as well sit in the underworld healing people on the way out) (I used up about 500 each esses trying to remote heal people fighting during the last invasion, really think it was a waste of esses)

 

U need to know who and when to heal.

If u see some 120a/d or lower lvl fighter with low p/c( under 56/100 ;p) who tries to fight a dragon its obvious no matter how much u will heal him he will diss/die fast coz:

1) he doesnt block the dragon at all

2) he gets strong hits, very often for 80+ damage

 

But if u and 3-4 other ppl( some with higher magic lvl some with lower) try to heal for example me, toomass, ohmygod or some1 strong who blocks dragons at least sometimes it really gives us time coz we can heal two times less= cooldown gets us later or doesnt get us at all= dragon is pwned

 

Work in groups and follow high lvl fighter, heal only while he or she is fighting dragons- giants die fast enough coz they have 5 times less health than red dragon so in most cases cooldown doesnt catch on us while fighting a giant

 

mp

[Rehdon]

Nice ideas. Last time I didn't have much fun because I'm too weak for high level monsters (sadly I missed the previous day invasion) and after a while I got tired of the underwold to and fro. Will try to follow some of them next time.

 

3. Mage

 

Remote healers are great, but don't waste mana or HE on other mages. Save it for fighters. Even though they have restore, it's still helpful to have someone around because of failures and cooldown.

 

Poison works best since it stacks. Harm is a waste of precious DE, and doesn't take off as many health points (and sometimes doesn't take off any).

 

Fact is, a Mage character really isn't possible at the present moment in EL: magic is the ancillary skill of the fighter, but like alchemy it grows "naturally" every time you cast a restoration or a ttpr spell.

 

It would be nice if this skill could mature to produce a true Mage character. The suggestion forum is full of requests for new spells (I posted some myself ), so I'd say this is something people would like to see happen. Hope the next client(s) will bring some improvement in this area as well.

 

Rehdon

[eagleprince]

 

Fact is, a Mage character really isn't possible at the present moment in EL: magic is the ancillary skill of the fighter, but like alchemy it grows "naturally" every time you cast a restoration or a ttpr spell.

 

It would be nice if this skill could mature to produce a true Mage character. The suggestion forum is full of requests for new spells (I posted some myself ), so I'd say this is something people would like to see happen. Hope the next client(s) will bring some improvement in this area as well.

 

Rehdon

Have you ever heard of a certain skunk-loving dude called Magpielee?

[hades]

 

Fact is, a Mage character really isn't possible at the present moment in EL: magic is the ancillary skill of the fighter, but like alchemy it grows "naturally" every time you cast a restoration or a ttpr spell.

 

It would be nice if this skill could mature to produce a true Mage character. The suggestion forum is full of requests for new spells (I posted some myself ), so I'd say this is something people would like to see happen. Hope the next client(s) will bring some improvement in this area as well.

 

Rehdon

Have you ever heard of a certain skunk-loving dude called Magpielee?

 

 

Offtopic but cant resist : yes and ? He is mag level 82 which dosent give him any advantage in relation to any noob in top 200 a/d that in the battle field pwn him easily cuz he has very low a/d and same in relation to monsters.

 

Thou i take my hat to Magpielee and a few others cuz is not easy at all level mag without leveling a/a specially when there is no advantage in doing it...

[DogBreath]

1) Remote heal is teh suxor at around lvl 30 magic it has nearly no impact on the people fighting (you might as well sit in the underworld healing people on the way out) (I used up about 500 each esses trying to remote heal people fighting during the last invasion, really think it was a waste of esses)

 

U need to know who and when to heal.

If u see some 120a/d or lower lvl fighter with low p/c( under 56/100 ;p) who tries to fight a dragon its obvious no matter how much u will heal him he will diss/die fast coz:

1) he doesnt block the dragon at all

2) he gets strong hits, very often for 80+ damage

 

But if u and 3-4 other ppl( some with higher magic lvl some with lower) try to heal for example me, toomass, ohmygod or some1 strong who blocks dragons at least sometimes it really gives us time coz we can heal two times less= cooldown gets us later or doesnt get us at all= dragon is pwned

 

Work in groups and follow high lvl fighter, heal only while he or she is fighting dragons- giants die fast enough coz they have 5 times less health than red dragon so in most cases cooldown doesnt catch on us while fighting a giant

 

mp

I followed you and did heal you at least 200x last invasion, and although you were very nice to thank me for the heals, I saw very little positive effect. I also healed toomass, molime, etc...

 

My point is your health dropped so fast that only restore was saving you, my pitiful heals were worthless imho.

 

However, I do see your point if 4 or 5 others were also healing you at the same time the cumulative effect might be positive enough to help but I'm not sure others will want to use up 500+ HEs and MEs in less than 2 hours and gain very little experience for doing so.

 

In this same two hours, with the same amount of HEs and MEs I could gain many times the experience hence making "helping" a huge waste of resources (not to mention all the SRs and extra mana pots I used up.)

 

What's the incentive for the middle level character if all the high level fighters are gaining all the experience and the middle levels are just using up resources for little gain? Helping is nice, but with no incentive it's hard to try and convince those 4 or 5 other people to stand around remote healing and wasting their resources too.

 

I do like the caltrop idea though as I haven't heard anyone say that your engineering level as any affect on the amount of damage a caltrop does (I must admit I don't know much about them yet but am willing to experiment.)

 

Once again, I do like the invasions, and wish to help out, but I want to do so in the most effective/efficient way. If one of you high level chars wants to supply us middle levels with the resources to heal the entire time, I could see that as a benefit to both.

[larrystorch]

What's the incentive for the middle level character if all the high level fighters are gaining all the experience and the middle levels are just using up resources for little gain? Helping is nice, but with no incentive it's hard to try and convince those 4 or 5 other people to stand around remote healing and wasting their resources too.

 

The big incentive for me is to be able to fight along the pr0's like eMPi, Zamirah, Toomass and OMG and the like and to fight along with lots of people that I wouldn't have a chance to normally. The fun of fighting as a community for common objective.

 

I can't take on a giant by myself, but with a group of fighters around my levels and mages harming away, they go down fast. Someone with a lower defense than me attacking the giant gives me a chance to wait out the SR cooldown.

 

I can't touch a dragon at all, except for the very rare lucky hit, but if I can keep the dragon from hitting MP or Zamirah while they wait for SR/EMP to cooldown, it's worth it. With dragons, every little bit helps. My mirror cape and lucky hits don't do much damage, and your harms may not seem to do much either, but all of that combined add up over time.