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Outrider Help
Ahruiz
Member Posts: 4 ✭
I am trying to learn Outrider PK, and I think I have a general idea of what my plan is going into 1v1s. I try to stick a bunch of nightshade afflictions and either set a couple of limbs up for a switch into a shatter setup or a big bloodfreeze when I know I have dryblood on them. It doesn't seem that complicated, and relatively easy to track. There are some things I would like help with, though:
1) Pets.
They attack 3s after ordered to with an 8s interval between attacks. Do I just order them all to attack and then cycle through surges?
Are there any surges which are not worth using? E.x. Surge strip causes a pet which normally causes nausea (good) to strip a defence (maybe not good?)
I can cycle through about 3 surges minimum based on pet attack speed and the equilibrium cost of surge.
Is it worth tracking the cooldowns on pet attacks?
2) Toxins
@Septus told me that the big important ones are chiltran, xeroderma, and ciguatoxin, which makes sense. Any other toxins worth using situationally?
Since I currently have a small bug of having my armor only give 66% of the defences it should, can I use toxins defensively while I set up limbs? Or is that dumb? I know almost nothing about PK.
3) Bloodfreeze
What percentage cold mitigation does trans frost give?
4) Batter/Smash
Are these abilities ever worth using?
I know this is a lot of questions. I appreciate any help I can get. Thank you.
1) Pets.
They attack 3s after ordered to with an 8s interval between attacks. Do I just order them all to attack and then cycle through surges?
Are there any surges which are not worth using? E.x. Surge strip causes a pet which normally causes nausea (good) to strip a defence (maybe not good?)
I can cycle through about 3 surges minimum based on pet attack speed and the equilibrium cost of surge.
Is it worth tracking the cooldowns on pet attacks?
2) Toxins
@Septus told me that the big important ones are chiltran, xeroderma, and ciguatoxin, which makes sense. Any other toxins worth using situationally?
Since I currently have a small bug of having my armor only give 66% of the defences it should, can I use toxins defensively while I set up limbs? Or is that dumb? I know almost nothing about PK.
3) Bloodfreeze
What percentage cold mitigation does trans frost give?
4) Batter/Smash
Are these abilities ever worth using?
I know this is a lot of questions. I appreciate any help I can get. Thank you.
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Comments
2) if Septus tells you anything you should almost always listen xD Chiltran is super important if you want to get damage rolling, and pushes your shatter route, -while- being a nightshade cure. I prioritized it over all other toxins personally, but thats because I liked pushing both routes at the same time while playing defensively. Xeroderma is definitely good for nightshade stack and its easily tracked. Cigua is cigua so yeah xD. other toxins... I only used the limb breaking ones if I got all those stuck.
3) I honestly can't give you an answer on this one. the only thing I can think of is that a good chunk of the professions use athletic, which means they are somewhat more susceptible to cold damage. I used to think of outrider as the physical fighter's bane. they have all the cool stuff via smash(love this move btw) and batter that really hinder them to the point where they sometimes can't make headway. I whored smash fighting knights.
4) as stated above, yes.
so as a big side note, I just want to say, don't put too much focus on targeted limb breaking. if you can figure out how to get a super quick shatter then go for it my friend, I'm not trying to dissuade you from that, but there are ways to push an easy shatter without that. chiltran, limb toxins that can't be parried, and switching to the ice spear effect can all push hypothermia up when frostheart is on. I personally always switched to the ice effect after getting dryblood on, since it cost no balance to change them before you attack.
edit:I also meant to say that getting parried causes you to lose almost all your aff pressure, which is super key as well.
edit edit: I can also probably dig up a log of each kill(bloodfreeze and shatter) that I've gotten and post them if you wish. be warned though, you shouldn't mimic exactly what I do because I usually only log fights where I see something that needs to be fixed, whether is small or large.
Evasion also scales linearly*. At transcendent, it gives 1% damage reduction per point of dexterity up to 10, and 2.5% per point of dex over 10. This gives someone with 16 dex 25% reduction at transcendent. Being prone cuts this value in half.
*Give or take. Lower ranks are weighted very slightly higher.
When you have the free time to do so, keep studying autocuring behavior. Recognize that the average player will be running basic, unmodified autocuring and because of that, you have their curing system right in front of you to learn all of its intricacies and etc. In the old days, duels were won on curing information and that is no less true today.. it's just that the info is more universally available.
The best advice that all of us will give you underneath everything is practice, practice, practice. Get outside your comfort zone. Get as much exposure to PK scenarios as possible. Log everything and read your logs religiously. Build your system to make it easier to read these logs and pinpoint bugs or weaknesses in tracking (I.e my system tells me when I remove an aff or add an aff to my tracking table, which lets me recognize pivotal points.)
The best way to get better at any game is to watch your replays, etc and evaluate your wins and losses intelligently. Always have a take away from every fight or log of a fight.
To be fair with you, your attitude is what makes it obvious you have potential. Please just hold on to that attitude and remember that getting good doesn't happen overnight.
Lacerate>bite>smash=transfix>disrupt
As long as haemophilia and butisol are both stuck on the target, both of which are easily tracked, what you surge from there lands in the weird limbo of "it's kind of up to you but at the end of the day it doesn't matter." As you mentioned, surging strip is wasteful so don't do that. Disrupt is great in specific situations, most of which are easy to achieve, but smash and transfix benefit you more. If as long as butisol is active, smash is brutal and leads almost directly to shatter. If impatience is on, the affs on transfix ruin someone's day. Disrupt's epilepsy is weird: if they have asthma and impatience and lethargy, great, you probably just made them ragequit! If they have only impatience, it's an extra smoke balance to slow down rebounding.
This depends on several factors, but in general chiltran>ditran>hemotoxin>xeroderma will do all you ever need. Your defensive toxin is avidya: intelligence-based damage professions are probably the ones giving you the kind of trouble where taking less damage is your best recourse. It's a non-focusable orphine cure and pairs very well with the passive afflictions from the transfix pet.
As mentioned, trans frost gives 25% cold mitigation. A lot of people are going to be carrying something closer to 40% due to other defences. Don't be discouraged by that seeming like a large chunk of your damage being resisted - it is, but keep in mind that with nausea, dryblood, chiltran, and the general damage of your various attacks you whittle people down FAST. It doesn't need to do the full amount of their max health in damage (though this can be achieved if you're a jerk).
Both of these ignore the aura of rebounding, and that is where they really shine. Smash is okay against physical profs. Batter is great all day every day. As with a large part of Outrider offense, however, using batter is certainly a situational choice. Usually you'll use it if the target has rebounding and neither of the afflictions (okay) or one of the afflictions (best) to continue your offense without needing to pierce. If they have both afflictions, and not all three from blacken, a blackened pierce might serve better.
As has been mentioned, it isn't really worth the headache to try to do a limb setup and it can actually end up hindering your offense significantly. Switching to icecoat if the target has both butisol and dryblood is fine - only really need to push for lethargy if a balance profession is actively giving you trouble - in which case you're probably fighting a Shaman or a Druid.
Batter and smash gives both two afflictions at a time and both bypasses rebounding. That is huge! I've even won battles with purely battering an enemy while surging an animal every combo. That will eventually bleed the opponent and will keep stupidity stuck on enemy. The recklessness is always a big plus.
Make sure to read the AB files of those to make sure you know what you'll land on the opponent. Stupidity and lethargy are definitely life savers if you are against casters and any hard hitters.
When you go defensive and if you don't have flippy boots, fly is a big thing (doesn't work well against piety, soulchain etc.) because the enemy needs to use tentacle tattoo to drag you back down and that has balance cost, but you still have time to heal affliction/regain health.
If you like to discuss more with me, just message me ingame or ask here.
I'm sure you already know, but remember that anything you do in combat is merely a step to victory. Do not attach moral values to anything. Do not act like being on the defensive is cheesy or frowned upon. Victories are won through intelligent gameplay, not posturing about 'cowardice' or whatever people will call it these days. What Dreacor is describing above is acceptable and intelligent defensive play. Don't worry about fair or fun for your opponent; if you become a tough nut to crack or a tough puzzle to deconstruct and defeat, your opponents will enjoy fighting you regardless of how arduous they claim it might be to do so. Something similar recently happened to me where somebody was upset I wouldn't engage them outside of my own terms and I had to remind myself of this, so I figured it might be a nice philosophical tidbit to impart.
Tl;Dr : Don't be afraid to play safe, run+heal, and do 'cheesy' **** to survive.. esp. as a low artifact player. The W is all that matters and don't let anybody ever take said Wins away from you just because they're a sore loser.
@Sarrius I come from a background of other competitive games, I get that. I do think I will avoid some forms of cheese in practice because my focus is on improving as a combatant, and I think the best way to do that is to try to improve combat strategies that aren't reliant on the opponent not being prepared. That said, totally agree that when it's outside of practice, you're playing to win. And I have definitely avoided my fair share of ganks with fly!
In less lame ways to kill, always Frostheart people, even if you're doing a bloodfreeze route. It's very possible to get a shatter off of chiltran ticks while pushing a bloodfreeze kill, if you have butisol up on them. Chiltran is also very easy to track, because the ticks come at regular intervals and they have a third party message. If you go n seconds without seeing a chiltran tick, they've cured it and you should use it again.
Really, the nicest thing about Outrider is that the toxin tracking for it is very simple. Here's a basic guide.