>around with items that give them 50 extra mana points and AC's near
>250 at level 10 and I can't raise enough money to buy basic spells.
At 10th level you should have enough money to armor yoursef head to toe in
cloth, have a good weapon (I never spent the 20 plat on a Great Staff, used
a WGS till I got a runed one at 17th, but I could have) and some plat in the
bank. Location, location location, learn where to go at your appropriate
level to get cash. In your case, and I''m assuming you're 10th. Hit
Everfrost and camp one of the crossroads. There's a steady stream of
goblins, spiderling, decaying skeletons. I'm talking in quantites where, if
you're good, you don't even have time to sit down. The monsters are mostly
non-aggro, and you can go med way up on a wall. Made a LOAD of cash there
from 8-10. At one point I was only going after goblins (they carry small
boxes,bags, backpacks etc), and any decaying skeleton with a weapon. Then
I'd lumber my encumbered body back to Queynos and CA$H in. I was making so
much money, I didn't even care about the xps.
1. With enough money, you can get real equipment and stay out in the field
longer. I died and my corpse disappeared, before they fixed the bug, lost a
complete set of cloth armor plus a bunch of other things. No matter, quick
trip to the bank solved that problem.
>Do you really believe that I can be more effective with a snake fang
>then a GS. I have to melee quite a bit now and the staff although it
>seems that I swing it only once every 10 secs and the damage I do is
>proportional to the creatures HP's it does hit regularly for 16 points
This is all a question of style, but I'd say to max BOTH out. Use staff
first, and then use a giant snake fang. If you ever fight a caster, or spell
casting monster, you'll be VERY glad of the faster speed of the snake fang.
You'll also get in a ton more swings than with the staff.
>creature crawls away from me - not run crawl like a slug, follow,
>miss, follow, miss, follow, miss, umph! I am stunned by an ambush of 4
This is where you unload mana. If the creatures running, he isn't going to
be turning on you. Safe effective backstabbing. Who said we're honourable?
>only use my mana to stop a fleeing creature or save my group when
>things go wrong or to minimize the damage they endure. My rule is I
>try to use slightly more mana then the tanks take damage. This way I
>recover my mana in about the same amount of time they recover their
Timing is very important. I usually do 1 hit on the INCOMING mob with the
biggest spell I got. Of course, this is after the tanks have engaged. 1 shot
will never pull a mob off and onto me, or at least, it's never happened to
me. If we're in a pretty open area I'll sit down and med while keeping an
eye on the groups hp meters, and the combat text. I've turned off misses, so
it's a much shorter list that's scrolling by. When the mob hits 1/3 life
time to get up and monitor the fight, it's running, burn.
I also play with some smart tanks. They trade off the hits a bubble at a
time, if it's not leaving one of them I'll root, and badly hurt one will
back off. Alternately if they're really getting their butts handed to them,
root n'shoot. Burn to save 'em because THEY'RE your armor... : )
> Mana is life. If I use it
>indescrimanantly I risk the lives of my party or I become a burden to
>them rather than an asset.
Total agreement with you on this one. Gotta play the game smart, and know
your role... : )
>Also I have used a staff since day one. I have practically no skill
>in one hand piece(?). How long would it take me to build my dagger
>skill to 50 (my current 2H blunt skill)? How much damage over time
>does the dagger do verses the staff?
No idea. I DO know that it will take a huge number of fights to first see an
improvement in your piercing skill, but it will be a monumental jump. Not 1
point. Or so I've been told.
Zalbar
19th Wizard (woohoo!!)
Solusek Ro