Alright. I figure most people who haven't played on the test port for extended periods of time will benefit from my and others experiences there, so I will post here a list of recommended changes to your equipment and your tactics. Most of this will be focussed on Epic levelling, although at the end there will be some information for 1 - 50. I generally won't go over the specific changes because most are listed in Celeborn's thread in the Code Testing forum.
Equipment.
Enchanting:
Don't go overboard on Attack Rating (AR) anymore. Seeing how it only determines if you hit or not, you no longer need to dump all of your enchant space into AR. Equally important now is Damage Roll (DR). It doesn't matter if you hit somebody or not if you don't do any decent damage. Criticals are more rare. Severs are far more rarer. You cannot rely on them anymore, so you must enchant damage roll to compensate. Mobility is a mixed bag. I personally feel that I have enough without enchanting any, the base 80 or so giving me a decent dodge chance against epic mobiles. If you feel like your low mobility is too low, it might not be a bad idea to put some space into it. Hitpoints are not a bad idea anymore either. Having high hitpoints that are no longer merely waiting to be drained away via a sever. The 90% resistance cap and low mobility added being a guarantee that you will get more damaged in epics.
Material types:
Now that material types give you a bigger advantage, it certainly wouldn't do you any harm to reforge to better than Mitrill (ESPECIALLY weapons). Your weapons don't hinder you in any way, theres no drawback to making them better like there is armor (higher mobility penalty), and since better material types increase your critical chance, your critical multiplier, AND your base weapon damage, it's a win/win overall. Metal armor is more of a mixed bag, since you have to trade off your mobility, although now that you can enchant it, it's easier to get away with it. I say unless you are rich and really know what you are doing, keep with cloth/silk armor.
(PS, anybody who thinks I am trying to get metal sales can bugger off. I don't sell anything above Mitrill to anybody but close friends, and even then, not usually.)
Note to PVPers:
Metal armor is perhaps the best suited to Player versus Player combat, where your enemy is very likely to have a high enough AR to hit you reglardless of how high your mobility is, at leats sometimes, so it's better to try to avoid those better criticals by wearing some decent metal armor.
Tacticts
Epics:
Epics have been changed drastically. I won't go over the changes in depth. Some of you might find it easier, some of you might find it harder. It depends how you are equipped. One thing to note, yelling in epics is now a death wish (because they can hit and do damage now), so unless you are sure of yourself, and seeing how it barely increases your speed as opposed to just running into them and killing them as quickly as possible, I don't recommend yelling. Main thing to note, mobs have had their hitpoints reduced, their AR upgraded, and in some cases their mobility upgraded. If you keep your wits, stay healed, and don't get overwhelmed, you should be fine.
PvP tactics:
Hehehe. You didn't actually think I was going to tell you tactics for PvP did you? Anybody serious enough to get into PvP should have no problem figuring out their tactics. Don't try to win the same way you did with the old system, is the only advice I will give you.
1 - 50 Levelling.
This is perhaps where people will have the most issues, and is therefore where I am most concerned. Older areas sometimes have mobs with incredible amounts of hitpoints to balance out the fact that people used to get severs easily and quickly. Now that this has changed, a lot of levelling areas will be out of wack and therefore need updating. I doubt this will be an instant process. My first and most important recommendation is to POST ON THE AREAS FORUM. Explain in depth which areas are easy, which are hard, exactly what equipment you are using, your tactics, EVERYTHING. Do not hold back.
I am not the only one with a lot of experience on the test port, a few people I can think of off the top of my head are: Chubbs, Quintos, Silvanos...But really, anybody who put any time onto the test port...I myself would like to see your insights in this thread, and I am sure everybody else would as well.
Last edited by weems on Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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