On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, Talies the Wanderer wrote:
> Okay, my brass and strings skills are maxed out, so that should not be a
> problem.
> I was trying the "all songs" concept, and it DOESN'T WORK.
>
> Just for safety, I was in Splitpaw, where there are only 3 things that will
> attack me: Ghanex Drah, his pet and the occasional wandering zombie.
>
> Welp....
> 1st round: with weapons, I barely killed Ghanex, half killed his pet, then
> died.
> 2nd round. with weapons, I barely killed Ghanex, did hardly anything to his
> pet, then died.
> 3rd round. songs only, I didn't do half health to Ghanex. WHY?!!?!
> I was weaving DDD with brass, and Chords and Hymn on strings, but still, he
> barely took any damage.
> Why did I lose a level on this?
Using DDD and CoD you probably do less damage over time than
using weapons, but because you're also playing Hymn with a
lute, you last a lot longer in a fight. Net effect is that
DDD/CoD/Hymn take longer to kill something, but you can
survive a lot longer because of your increased hp regeneration
rate.
Ghanex is a necro - a caster. Using instruments can backfire
when you're fighting a caster because the best strategy when
fighting a caster is to kill him as quickly as possible.
Whereas against a melee mob your increased rate of hp
regeneration using DDD/CoD/Hymn was enough to significantly
offset the additional damage you took, against a caster it
makes a smaller difference.
e.g. Say you're fighting a mob with 120 hp. Say it's a melee
mob and you're taking 10 damage/sec (numbers made up to
illustrate the point).
Fighting with weapons you're doing damage at 6 dam/sec, so it
takes you 20 seconds to kill him. You're healing at 4 hp/sec,
so the net damage you take is (10-4) = 6 dam/sec. Over 20 sec
you take 120 points of damage.
Fighting with instruments, you're doing damage at 4 dam/sec,
so it takes you 30 seconds to kill him. You're healing at 8
hp/sec however, so the net damage you take is (10-8) = 2
damage/sec. Over 30 sec you take 60 points of damage.
Instruments work better than weapons.
Now say you're fighting a casting mob, again with 120 hp but
this time it does 25 damage/sec.
Fighting with weapons it still takes you 20 seconds to kill
him. The net damage you take is (25-4) = 21 dam/sec. Over 20
sec you take 420 points of damage.
Fighting with instruments it still takes you 30 seconds to
kill him. The net damage you take is (25-8) = 17 dam/sec.
Over 30 seconds you take 510 points of damage. Weapons work
better than instruments.
Summary:
Melee mob with weapons = 120 points damage taken
Melee mob with instruments = 60 points damage taken
Casting mob with weapons = 420 points damage taken
Casting mob with instruments = 510 points damage taken
Hope that was understandable. :-)
--
John H. Kim
kim@...