How much to train fighting w/ casters


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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 08:53

How much to train fighting w/ casters

If you are playing a conjurer, how much do you train fighting (and a weapon skill?)

If playing a hybrid, what is a good balance skill-wise between magic and melee skills?

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 10:24

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

I've heard it's good to jack up fighting "as much as you can". If you're comfortable with the spells you have at the moment, and can cast them effectively, and you -can- start fighting things to improve your "fighting" skill, then go ahead and do it. More life is more life.

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styrix

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 20:40

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

Well lets put it this way. If your "casting" skills are in the area of 15 the amount of experience needed to raise one of them to 16th level is about the same as it would cost to raise your fighting skill to about 12 assuming 0 aptitudes in both. Specialization is for suckers.

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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 6th January 2011, 07:32

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

No actually I don't think that's true. I had a NaVM that fell in Zot:5 with around 18 in magic skills but just 6 in Fighting even though I was meleeing constantly. It gets harder to raise ALL skills no matter what as your XL and total summed skill levels increase, even if the skill you want to train is at 0.

That being said, leave Fighting on permanently. Turn off the weapon skill because that's not important.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 6th January 2011, 11:56

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

It's harder to raise fighting than spellcasting because training dummies are a limited resource. If you want to raise a magic skill that's too low to be of use, you cast a spell of that school against a wall until your xp pool is empty. When you're trying to train fighting, though, you need a non-threatening monster to practice on, and those things have an annoying tendency to die on you. So even if you have a lower number of training events required to raise fighting to the next level, it's still going to feel like it takes longer than spellcasting.

Depending on your build and choice of weapon, it might be worthwhile leaving your weapon skill on as a caster. A higher weapon skill will increase the maximum difficulty of monsters that you can consider non-threatening, and will therefore allow you more opportunities to train fighting. It's always a bit of a relief when my casters can finally take yaks or mimics in a fight, because that means I'm not forced to find a rat or an imp immediately after a big fight in order to avoid losing xp to some other skill.

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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 13th January 2011, 23:58

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

Is it worth carrying round a really bad damage weapon +5, -5 dagger so that you can still train fighting but don't kill those squishy monsters so fast?

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 00:08

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

Depends on how important training fighting is to you, and if that dagger's taking up inventory space you need.

Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 00:16

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

The answer to this question partially depends on what race you are playing. Especially squishy races (elves, spriggans) should try to get at least 5 points of fighting, preferably more. And it's a good idea to start training it as soon as you can, because it's easier to get levels in it early on.

The lair is the best place to do this because it has a lot of plants (good for getting that initial point if you don't have it yet) and a lot of easy melee enemies.

Snake Sneak

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 01:31

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

It works best for SE/HE casters. DEs are too squishy to train vs. most powerful enemies. Spriggans can train but only after they get loads of EV to increase the enemies chance of missing--doing it early on with a spriggan will just get you pulped.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 02:37

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

I don't think I enjoy training fighting enough with a caster to pursue it. For now I'm going to leave my pure casters as casters and if they get too squishy to survive then that's just that. With a hybrid obviously it's a different story.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 02:41

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

Waywinkle wrote:Is it worth carrying round a really bad damage weapon +5, -5 dagger so that you can still train fighting but don't kill those squishy monsters so fast?


You still have to deal at least one point of damage to have a chance to train fighting, and your xp will still get drained off by Armor, Shield, and Dodge as that little rat utterly fails to attack you.

Best places to bootstrap your fighting, after the initial skill level from hitting plants, are the various rats (weak) and slugs (slow) in Lair and the mimics in Vaults. Once you're in post-endgame, you also have the imps and whatnot in Pandemonium, but you have to make it that far first.

Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 03:25

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

*snort*

I don't have my deep elves train fighting. >100 HP counts are for the weak.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 04:28

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

I used to play like that, but I've been killed from full HP before (twice, one of them was on CAO I think), and in other games I've been hit for like 80-90 damage even with 40+ EV and dmsl on (and only survived thanks to those few extra hp from fighting).

It's pretty rare to die like that, but I like to be cautious.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 15th January 2011, 17:32

Re: How much to train fighting w/ casters

danr wrote:I don't think I enjoy training fighting enough with a caster to pursue it. For now I'm going to leave my pure casters as casters and if they get too squishy to survive then that's just that. With a hybrid obviously it's a different story.


The thing is that one you hit Lv. 27 you stop levelling but still gain XP in the pool, and that kind of encourages hybridization, and IMHO it's better to get on that sooner rather than later.

What I'll usually do with a HE for example is stay pure caster until I find a long blade, then turn long blades off and keep fighting on. I'll also keep armour off (if I get a point in it), and shields on and train with a buckler (until I can use a medium shield). My one, and recent, ascension was a HEAE, who was more of a Air / Fire / Conj / Enchanter but he had 7 in fighting and 10 in shields. The extra HP and the ability to block things prevents a lot of splats-- That's one reason why I like DEs less than HEs for casters.

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