MUME Combat
by Radorac II

After Petrel's long mail about fighting I promised (Oh no! not more mail!)
to reply. Rather than give a point by point dissection I will give my own
complementary guide. Since much of this is based on my experience, the
levels to which some of it alludes is a might high. However, some of these
ideas were not covered in Petrel's which is why I am adding them.

A Buffer's Guide to MUME fighting
--------------------------------

As the buffer (or 'tank') your job is to take all the heat from the other
members of the group. I do not claim to have created the perfect buffer
in RadoracII, but he has very little lacking. Things I would recommend are:

1. Parrying
-----------
Your first line of defence against physical attack, parry is reflected
in your parry bonus pb. There is no distinction between pbs below 100%
and above since it is matched against your opponents offensive bonus
and is open for splitting by multiple opponents. In order to get good
pb you will need

A) To be a Warrior. Warriors get increases in their offense/defence
automatically as they gain a level (up to 25th). Hence they always
have an advantage when it comes to parry.

B) Practised Parry. Parry will be added as you increase this skill.

C) Use a good weapon. The different classes of weapons have different
abilities to parry, with piercing weapons giving less parry than
slashing weapons (and crushing somewhere inbetween ??). So this is
an important area to consider on your future career as a potential
tank. Assuming that you have chosen slashing weapons there are 4 main
categories worth considering. Longsword, Broadsword, Falchion and
Battle Axe. The ob (and hence parry also) is best for longsword and
worse for battle axe, while the damage runs the other way. Obviously
you are best with the longsword as far as buffering but see Multiple
Weapons in Section 6. Also getting your blade enchanted will improve
your ob+pb by 10%.

D) Other gear. A shield is vitally important and the categories to
be aware of at the top of the range are Large Wooden Wall, Large Metal
Wall, and Worm Hide. It used to be the case that some people would
opt not to use a LMW since its weight would spell disaster for their
dodge (See Section 2). These days with the reduced weight this is less
likely to occur. The other important item is the Ruby Ring which gives
a flat increase in ob+pb. There are also rigid leather sleeves etc which
add to ob/pb and other such. Experiment at your local Armourer.

E) Mood. As you switch your mood about you will shift points of ob onto
points of pb. The maximum occurs at Wimpy and the minimum shift is at
Berserk.

F) Spells. Bless can be usefully cast on you before a combat to increase
your parry. However, at 6 ticks only it is not a spell to learn if you
are a warrior.

2. Dodging
----------
This topic is in many ways incompatible with Section 3 which is Absorb.
I will outline a comparison of the two in Section 4.

Dodge is extremely impressive because unlike parry it is ABSOLUTE. Hence if
you have 30% dodge bonus (db) you will avoid 30% of the blows which get
through your parry whether you are fighting 1 mob or 10. In order to have
good dodge you will need

A) Good dex. It used to be the case for the high dex(15+) that each point
gives you 4% so this is a highly valuable asset.

B) Good dodging equipment. This might seem like it only applies for high
levels but thats not true. Even stuff you can buy in a shop can give you
db improvement. Ordinary cloaks, hood, plain shirt and trousers all give 1%
db. This might not sound a lot but these 4 together was as good as another
point of dex. When you start to gain levels, you should try to lay your hands
on some of the following: Enchanted cloaks(forest green,grey,black),
iron ring, black buckler(this item is only useful is you use piercing weapons
or use 2-handed weapons). The %tages of these items I will leave for you to
discover.

C) Practice the dodge skill. At low %tages, practicing it once will give
about a 3% bonus, so you get good benefits right away.

D) Low weight. The more you carry relative to your overall strength, the more
your db will fall. You could be carrying the best dodging gear in the game
but if you are also carrying a canoe you are wasting your time. When I was low
level and fighting the cave bear up fornost I used to drop all my gear in
my inventory just on the hill, in order to get another 4-5% db-but its risky.

E) Spells. Armour is essential as it gives a flat 10% increase, while
Strength gives increased dodge by offsetting D. Invisibility is also of
some small help if the mobile you are fighting can see invis since you will
have an initial 40% dodge bonus. That can theoretically raise you above
100% dodge but you will become visible if your opponent fails an attack,
or you succeed in hitting.

The advantages of dodge really come to the fore only if you have extremely
good db(although the max is set at 85%). For instance if you have 60% db you
are getting hit 40% of the time. If you were able to increase it to 70%
through a combination of A-E, you would be taking 25% less damage than other-
wise, thats like adding 25% to your hp total.


3. Absorption
-------------
I do not claim to be an expert on this area but there are some general
guidelines. Since if your opponent has breached your parry, you have failed
to dodge the blow...then you are hit! The only thing to do now is to
mitigate the damage that you take, and thats where absorb comes in. Bluntly
if you have 20% absorb and you are hit for 10 hps damage, you will only
take 8 points of damage. Ways to buffer using the absorb option are

A) High hps. This is strictly nothing to do with absorb but since the
damage that you do take comes off then high constitution improves the
amount of punishment that you can take. Also make sure you are in good
shape before starting a fight, otherwise you are a liability to the whole
group (See Rescue).

B) Good absorbing equipment. There are many grades of this and you will
have to experiment quite a lot but basically if it sounds like heavy
duty armour then it is (a)heavy (b)absorbing. Even rigid leather gives
some absorb and this and things like Chain mail pants and coif etc. can
all be found in Armourers around the lands. The best absorbing equipment
is called Thick Metal Armour (well rentable at any rate) of various parts
of the body and I have heard that people can achieve 70% absorption.
Please note however that your rental cost is likely to increase and that
you cannot a ruby ring (Section 1) or iron ring (Section 2) with anything
more absorbing than leather(I think). Note also that unlike dodging eq.
your absorption of your armour deteriorates with wear so make sure it is
repaired regularly.

C) Spells. The Shield spell grants you an absorption. This is class and
level dependent and so is of dubious value to a low level warrior. My
estimates are that for high level warriors it gives ~33% absorb bonus,
while Arch-mages get 50-60%. Clerics and thieves have intermediate values.
At low level when you first get the spell don't expect anymore than 10%.
Note also that the more armour you are wearing the less increase you get
from this spell (I tried wearing some heavy armour to give 40% absorb and
found that Shield only improved this to 55% rather than 70+). Also, this
spell is personaly only unlike Bless, Strength and Armour.

4. Dodging vs. Absorb
---------------------

An age old debate if the stories are to be believed. Personally I am a
dodger but thats in some part because of my higher dex than con, and that
I am high enough to be abpractices in dodge, strength and armour to enhance my db. This is less
easy to do for low-levels and I do think there is a place for lower levels
to use absorbing armours for many levels when they will be at a distinct
advantage to dodgers. Things to look out for are:

A) Heavy absorb gear will undermine your dodge considerably as well as
preventing you from using iron/ruby rings. Also since you will be pretty
heavy your movement is rather cut down too-not very nice when being chased.

B) Spells causing physical damage bypass parry and dodge completely.
However, (apart from fireball) they will still get absorbed. IMS check this.

C) If your dex is low, but your str and con are high you will be a better
absorber than if the stats were reversed.


5. Rescue
---------
An essential skill for warriors which some feel free to neglect.
You will not make a good buffer if you cannot rescue someone from a mob.
50% rescue is a good figure since the rate at which you can rescue can be
very rapid, so don't waste anymore than than is necessary on the skill.

Also set and alias for everyone in the group, including fighters, even if
it is not your intention to be the buffer. There may come a time when the
buffer is losing against the mobile you are fighting and fresh blood is
needed. I was in a large group yesterday with me having a rescue alias
for most of the party. Well Carcharoth was the buffer and at some
stage was losing against the Grinder. Then was not the time for me to start
typing rescue Carcharoth as typos can easily be made (as they were twice).

If you have a client you can do some more sophisticated rescues such as
setting aliases so that you attempt rescue 5 or more times on a particular
groupee, thus reducing the number of times you have to type your alias in
rapid succession. Other possibilities in large groups are what I call
social rescues and chain rescues.

Social rescues are when if in a big fight a mage or newbie (no offense)
is caught fighting a tough mob and wantscannot see it because of the scroll on the screen. They can use a social
command to trigger your client to initiate a rescue. The precise social
command should be agreed when the group forms. The social command should be
varied from time to time because if you are known for using pout as a
trigger then you will be in for a shock when in the middle of a battle with
orcs, one of the orcs pouts at you to prompt the rescue. There are ways to
avoid this, such as using a keyword to trigger whether social rescue is
active, etc. etc.

Chain rescues are useful when fighting a mobile which switches target
eg. Chief of Tharbad, or White Worm. Here you set all members of your
group in one big alias in your client eg.

#alias qq {rescue A:rescue B;rescue C;rescue D .....}

Then your job is to keep typing qq in the hope that whoever gets switched
to will have a rescue forthcoming at some stage. Its an idea if A is
weaker than the rest to add them another time for good measure to the chain.

Finally if you are the buffer, when you are going down is not the time
to start arguing who should take over the job. Dependent on how hard
the mobile is, you should have a preset plan eg. when buffer Y is down
to Wounded, warrior X will rescue Y.


6. Tricks of the Trade
----------------------

A) Being last in a group. This ensures thats you are first choice when
entering a location with aggressive mobiles in it. If you are not last then
you will notice that upon entering, someone else enters after you in the
text. If so either refollow the leader or follow the last person entering.

B) Kill aliases. Whether using a client or just MUME, you have aliases at
your disposal. I personally have 50 kill aliases set in tintin but they
could just as well be set in MUME. Examples of such could be

alias kw kill wolf
alias ko2 kill 2.orc

This speeds up the beginning of the fight considerably and if you launch
the first attack you have gained a free shot over the possibility that
your opponent gets a free shot at YOU!

C) Sanctuary. This spell is a blessing if your group is high enough and
the circumstances dictate its use. One of the best uses of this is when
you are at the Ghostly Croom attack whoever is attacking the GC, the buffer's parry is split to
smithereens. This invariably means that many of the mobs which hit you
are fragging you causing massive damage. Sanctuary will at least mean
that attacks which hit do a maximum of 18 hps damage. Note however that
there are some mobiles who can ignore the effects of sanctuary. Personal
note is that the only time I died to the white worm was when I wasn't
sancted (mind you I wasn't supposed to be the buffer but it switched
and breathed on me for 200 hps of damage-sanc would have prevented that).

D) Multiple weapons. Not all things you fight are going to be in
do or die situations. As far as maximizing your parry, there is no
question that the longsword is the best slasher. However it also causes
rather puny damage. I personally prefer to use a battle axe for fighting
most of the time, and leave the longsword for when it is really needed.
This way you will get more xp for your work. The loss of dodge (1% for
me) is a small price to pay for carrying 2 weapons. Also note, that if
you wreck one of your weapons through use of a whetstone, you still have
another weapon to rely upon.

E) Mood. Petrel has said quite a lot about this so I will only say this:
Mood is a 6 speed-gear box with top gear unused. Of the other 5 gears
I use Brave the least. However when I am soloing a tough mobile
changing between Normal, Prudent and Wimpy can have a significant impact
on the battle. Sometimes Normal means you are hitting quite well, but you
are also being hit quite badly, whil Wimpy means that you hardly ever
hit but you are still getting hit from time-to-time. Both of these result
in an eventual loss for you. However, it can be that Prudent results in
you being only hit a few extra times to when you were on Wimpy, but now
the number of hits you land has increased 4-fold. This is then a winable
situation. Altering mood is simply something that you will have to
experiment with in order to gain insight.

F) Healing. Make sure if a tough fight is expected that you have someone
able to restore some of your hps to you. The smoothest fights are where
the buffer continues throughout the fight to stay quite healthy. Such a
recent example was where I was buffering the new Willow Tree. This is
a staggeringly tough monster to buffer since it does massive damage very
quickly to buffers. However as I got to hurt, Masoj cast heal on me thus
returning me to fine. I was also prepared if necessary to quaff 2 blue
potions to further heal me.

G) Borrowing gear. This is particularly important if you are either in
a mid-level group where some magic items are present, or you have died
recently but in terms of raw talent you are the best qualified to buffer.
You should not feel ashamed about asking to borrow gear if it will make
the buffering easier, since your compatriots will ultimately benefit.
However, unless they are very generous you should remember to return it
later.

H) Leaving a mass fight. This is not an appropriate tactic ware the buffer for a group, but it is a little known(I think) fact
when soloing a group of several mobs. As Petrel has said, if you are
in combat with a slithering snake and a ferocious warg, kill the snake
first. However you can (if you are quick) leave the fight as the snake
dies. I will illustrate this:

Warrior X is fighting the snake (which is a good fight but an eventual
victory for X) and the warg comes in. Now the battle is a loss for
X even if the snake can be finished very quickly since the warg can
defeat X. In most cases X will realize that this 2-on-1 fight will cause
him/her to flee sooner or later, thus losing the xp gained from the snake.
However, if X has the nerve, he/she can up the mood thus taking large
damage from the snake and warg but the snake will die soon. Just as the
snake dies, X types a move out of the location and is likely to be
successful in quitting the fight with the xp from the snake kill intact.
Then X can make some more tracks away from the area and lick his/her
wounds. This tactic may well be defeated if your link is not fast, or
if the mobiles left alive hit you in the round that the snake dies(???)
but it is worth playing with. Don't come to me if it goes wrong though.

I) Maximizing xp. Since as the buffer your job is to take the damage,
this often conflicts with gaining xp through causing damage. Hence mages
will be doing rather handsomely from fireballing your opponent while you
get a few extremely hard hits in. Nevertheless, you are getting morethan if you had been trying to solo the mobile(assuming its hard) since
the mobiles are having their parry split by your friends (see Petrels
message for the same sentiment). However, getting another warrior to
buffer half the time will allow you to go aggressive at other times to
get some decent xp. Also you can gain extra xp by learning kick and/or
bash to increase the damage that you do as buffer. However you have to
be careful particularly with kick because you cannot then immediately
rescue people. Other possibilities if you are a serious buffer who
wants to gain more xp is to learn an offensive spell well. If the
mobile(s) are hard but there are long periods when you are not getting
hit (like if a high-level solos a large troll with a wimpy mood) you
can sit there and pump your offensive magic into it for nice xp.


Well, hope that some of the above is useful even if you are not the tank
and I hope that some of these tactics are not employed against me in a
nasty way.

RadoracII