Home » Games News » Skill deck and mario synergy
This is a snap shot of my wrathguard when he was lvl26. its a good point to see how i got some synergy with my skills. while the following is based on my wrathguard a lot of it applies to the other disciplines and archtypes too. mario skills are good for all, buffs and debuffs are good for all. combo chains in your skill deck and flexibility on each tier are good for all.
When the servers are back up i'll be able to show him at the low levels, he really springs to life at lvl5 when those discipline skills come into play. i hope the lvl5 version will be a great example on how the buffs and debuffs affect combat and wont take too long for a newbie to try out.
If i get my characters back i'll also be able to show him with access to skill set 6 (forget the fame lvl i got to).
I don't believe i capped him but he was a lot of fun to play and could put up with a lot of abuse. i'm fairly sure i tagged along with some higher level guildies to the mount of heros when i was about 10 levels below the monsters. while it was a little over my head i managed to hold my own and not get spaltted left and right.
This probably isnt the most optimised build, the game was new when i played and most players had to make their own builds.
It was however a lot tougher than many of the other players i grouped with. part of that is probably due to my mario skills, honed on the game boy no less (no, not the DS, not even the colour one, yea olde game boy!).
I did 2-2-1 on my attributes, low on the raw damage but doesnt leave a massive weak spot in my tank. which is very usefull for a class that doesnt get any self healing untill much later.
The essential Mario Skills
So, thats how my deck worked, but as mentioned some mario skills are needed too.
Naturally you'll want to learn how to dodge a boar. thats the most basic of mario skills needed.
You'll also want to learn how to "jump cast". some skills will "root" you, meaning when you try to activate them if your touching the ground then you will be frozen in place till the skill has finished. you'll notice early on heavy swing and battle cry do that. so, you need to be mid air when you use such a skill to avoid giving the mobs an easy hit.
For battle cry i jump backwards out of melee range when i try to use it (or any other evasive jump to avoid being hit). for a more offensive skill like heavy swing i will jump forward though a pack of mobs, or skim the edge if its a dangerous pack. this too can avoid some damage if you manage to jump far enough away from where the mob was about to hit, while still allowing your attack to make contact.
I also circular straif a lot, partly to avoid getting hit and partly to keep large packs of mobs in a more of less single location. last thing you want is to blunder into more mobs than you want! you also have to be careful not to get inside a mob, as they wont miss you if your inside them.
You need to learn damage avoidance as there will be times when your defensive buffs arn't active. battle cry lasts for 12 seconds but you can only use it every 16 seconds. i put some sigils on it to reduce thats cooldown and increase the duration but even so, some combo's can take longer to run through than 14 seconds. any mobs that debuff your concentration will also mess with the timings of your deck. so mario skills are still needed to stay alive when your effectively naked. thats also why i've tried to spread battle cry out a bit.
One more thing, while its not on my deck at lvl6, Twilight's Edge was on my deck for the earlier levels. it has an interesting property where it hits a mob in front, and then a mob behind. resonating blow does this too which i added to my single target combo chain later. the reason i wanted to mention it is you can re-position your self between blows to make the mob your focused on take both hits. so this falls under the mario skills category. i found the simplest way was to run inside the mob for the second blow. be wary though, if your inside a mob then it wont miss you either!
It sounds quite simple on paper, but when i first started playing i found i was either focusing on my mario skills, or the timing of my deck. with so much going on in the intensely active combat it was wasnt till later that i was able to get the mario skills and the deck timings working together. i think thats the very essence of why the combat is so fun!
Edit: forgot to mention the gaps between battle cry, added info on hit infront and hit behind skills, added info on mobs auto-hit when your inside them.