Basic Tactics

Whether you choose to follow the Path of the Kwon, the Hakushi or the Daisho, you may often find yourself fighting in these lands to protect your very life or to protect the lives of others. This Tactics Guide is intended for use as a starting point in developing strategies that will help you survive such encounters.

Please note, as you advance on your Path as a Monk - face new opponents, train in new areas and further hone your skills - your tactics will change. While I have tried to represent some of that here, these approaches remain elementary, intended to be built on and adapted as needed.

In starting off this Guide I can do no better than to direct you first to Sensei Revenant’s revised Starting Guide. Revenant was Master of our Guild when I first joined, and remains to many the prime model for what it means to be a Monk.

Stances

When confronting an opponent, there are three basic stances you can take: Parry, Normal and Berserk.

Normal is a cautious stance that allows you to attack while at the same time using your dodging ability to evade your opponent's attacks. You will find that you get hit less often in this stance than in Berserk, and take less injury when you do. At the same time, however, you will find that you yourself hit less often, and do a decreased amount of damage in comparison with attacks made from the most aggressive of your stances. This stance is most useful when facing a new creature whose attack and dodging abilities you are unsure of, and often when facing creatures who are just barely within your ability to defeat.

Berserk is the most aggressive of your stances. Until you have your dodging ability trained to a very high level of skill, it doesn't come into play in any significant way while you are in this stance - meaning that you are more likely get hit often and hard. At the same time however, you will notice that the force of your own attacks is greatly increased, as is your chance of landing those attacks. Once you have gotten some decent armor and have trained your attack skills to a reasonable point, this will likely be your most common stance in battle.

To check the relative strength of your defensive and offensive capabilities while in these stances, use the "stats" command.

To maximize your ability in dodging blows and your ability to take those that are landed with minimal injury no matter what your stance, it is highly recommended that you train thoroughly in Dodging, Toughness and Resilience. Even though I may have been frustrated at first with these skills, seeing little in the way of immediately tangible results, I am quite happy with every moment of time and coin of gold I spent on them now, as their effects have saved my life innumerable times. Once you are trained sufficiently in the dodging skill, you will be pleasantly surprised at how hard it is for your opponents to strike you in those most dangerous moments when you are stunned and forced to parry their blows, or when you are in a normal stance against a creature with less than perfect accuracy but capable of dealing you serious harm. With a enough training in Toughness, you will find that when the blows do land, it is as if you are wearing an extra piece of protective armor, with the damage reduced significantly. Finally, beyond the obvious benefit of resisting attacks like blasts of cold and fire from various Dragons, I am convinced that my training in Resilience combined with that in Toughness reduces both my chance of being stunned by a blow, and the length of that stun when I am. The net result of all three: I find myself stunned less often than otherwise, and able to survive even very long stuns while being attacked by ferocious enemies well.

Empty-hand and Weapon attacks

As a Monk well-schooled in Martial Arts, you will eventually find that your empty-hand attacks are your most powerful and deadly. That does not mean, however, that weapons ever become obsolete in a Monk's arsenal, far from it.

Your first option in weapons will be the bluesteel and ivory carved katanas. Rather than replacing the former with the latter, I recommend keeping both until you have proven yourself worthy of attaining your Soul Katana. Having two weapons at your disposal in addition to your empty-hand attacks is often helpful. Handheld weapons can be enchanted, while your hands cannot, and having two weapons at the ready with different enchantments on each can be used to a deadly effectiveness which will be described shortly.

Striking, Charging and AIMing

There are three basic ways to attack an opponent with either a handheld weapon or with an empty hand strike.

In the training area of the Adventurer's Guild, you most likely became familiar with the first: simple striking. You can strike an opponent once it has advanced you, or you have advanced it. To advance an opponent, use the "ad" command, and to strike, use the "a" command. You may have found tough that letting the slow creatures in the training area advance you, then striking and retreating was extremely effective: it allowed you to defeat your opponents without ever being touched by them. That is a lesson that will serve you well throughout your advancement on your Path as a Monk.

The second form of attack, the Charge, becomes available to you once you have trained a bit in riding and attained a mount like a Stubborn Mule or, eventually, a Spiritual Mist or some other mount offered by our fair Guild. This is executed by using the "ch" command, and allows you to advance and strike all in the same action. That is, of course, a huge advantage. Such attacks also generally do more damage than normal attacks, and that damage can be increased with a greater level of training in the Riding skill. It can only be executed if you are not yet engaged with an opponent yet, though. If you try to charge when you are so engaged, a simple strike will be executed instead. The one disadvantage to charging is that, until you have trained Martial Arts to a very high level, it takes longer to recover from a charge than from a normal attack, leaving you unbalanced and vulnerable to what might be a fatal blow in return. If you are faced with a new creature whose strength you are unsure of, charging may well be a deadly mistake.

Finally, there are Aimed attacks. These are highly concentrated attacks that bring many of your combat skills as a Monk into play. The effectiveness of your Aimed attacks is determined by a combination of the level your training has reached in both Martial Arts and Called Shot. Aimed attacks can do a much greater amount of damage than normal strikes. However, until your skill in Called Shot is reasonable and you are well versed in our Arts, such blows have a decreased chance of landing, and leave you unbalanced for a longer time. As such, I found this option counterproductive until I was well trained in both relevant skills. Once Monks do attain the necessary expertise in these skills though, it is largely their Aimed attacks that make them some of the most fearsome combatants in the lands. Don't be surprised that our Tutors ask you to prove your worthiness extensively before trusting you with such knowledge.

General Tactics

Once the basics of stances and attacks are understood, they can be built upon and advanced, making you increasingly difficult to defeat in battle.

-Stick and move/hit and retreat

This is the tactic mentioned earlier, the one that is so effective in the training area. You will find that different opponents in the Lands attack with differing speeds. Some are very slow while some are blindingly fast. Against the slower ones, this simple tactic can be used to deadly effectiveness. You simply wait for your opponent to advance you, strike them, and retreat. Applied correctly to the right enemy, you will find yourself victorious without so much as a scratch from the battle.

-Strike/Charge Directional Retreat

One of the most consistently useful fundamental tactics that forms the basis for many others is the directional retreat. A directional retreat allows you to retreat from the monster you are engaged with and move to a different room in the same action. It is accomplished by simply adding a direction onto the end of a "re" command (i.e. "Re e" or "re n", etc.) or pressing "alt" while using your number pad for movement.

Once you are comfortable with the simple hit and retreat tactic, it is good to practice hitting and retreating into another room, as such will prove useful in many situations as you explore Cosrin. This will force the enemy to follow you (assuming your opponent isn't so badly injured that it decides better of it and runs) and again advance you before it can return the favor.

Another variation of this is the charge, directional retreat tactic. With this tactic you charge the opponent, and retreat into another area as soon as you have gained your balance enough to do so. Once your opponent follows, you charge again, and repeat. The effectiveness of this attack pattern is that it allows you to cause maximum damage with your attacks by using the force of the charges, while minimizing your chance of being hit in return.

Caution needs to be exercised in the use of such tactics, though. In some areas, movement attracts a large number of enemies quickly, and retreating back and forth between rooms in such an area is a good way to cause a deadly swarm of foes. While you may be able to ring out in time if there are too many, the poor adventurer who wanders in behind you might not be so lucky.

-Dealing with Stunners

In speaking of charging, you till find that knowing your enemy will be to your advantage, not least in deciding which to deal with first, which to charge and which to wait for, and, yes, even at times which to leave for another day.

The Imps in the catacombs will likely be your first meeting with a certain class of creature: those that can stun, web, hold, or ensnare you or in some other way incapacitate you for a long time. Even the smallest and weakest of these can prove to be the most deadly enemy in the lands under the wrong conditions, so it is important to learn how to deal with them early.

This is most easily accomplished with a mental kata directed at keeping your focus on stunners, hereafter called a "stunner macro."

A macro allows you to execute a series of actions with a single command, in the case of a stunner macro, you are using this ability charge one of any number of stunners that happen to be present before anything else. To set such a macro, you simple type (for example) "macro 7 ch stun jelly;;ch giant spider;;ch mouther;;ch crocodile;;ch" Thereafter you need only use "7" to execute that entire series, with the following effect: if a stun jelly is in the room and you are not engaged, you will charge it first. If no stun jelly is there but a Giant Spider is, you will charge the spider, and so on through all of the listed creatures. If none listed are present, the "ch" command at the end will have you charge whichever creature would first be seen if you were to "look" at the room.

Deciding which stunners to put in order in such a macro is of some importance. My personal approach is using a combination of the speed of their attacks with the chance of killing them in a single charge.

-Stunners and Directional Retreating Tactics

Once prepared, such a mental kata can be used to help insure your safety in very dangerous circumstances. As an example, say you are on your way to speak with the Halflings in Cottley mound and you are attacked by an Ogre, while in the midst of that battle, a stun jelly enters the area. Instead of panicking and ringing out, or trying to kill the ogre first knowing you will likely get stunned before you do, you think of retreating. If you do a normal retreat, there is a good chance you will be advanced on before having a chance to charge and take out the jelly (who will probably stay far away from you) or, worse, you'll be stunned in the midst of your retreat.

So instead you disengage from the Ogre and retreat into another room in one motion, using the directional retreating tactics you practiced. Now, both creatures have to follow you, giving you the chance to kill the stun jelly as soon as it is foolish enough to show itself.

One small piece of advice here: if you can help it, don't retreat into the room that the stunner just came from, as it might be spill over from a swarm left by another adventurer.

-Using Dual Weapons

Especially against the Quest beasts (i.e. Ogre King, Cyclops, etc.) I find it very helpful to have two enchants and to be able to switch quickly between weapons. For now I'll use the Soul Katana and Ivory Katana as examples. I often had a Hold enchant put on my Ivory Katana and poison on my Soul Katana. This combination allowed me to solo the Ogre King and his guards as soon as I had reached Guild-Level 14 and had a quick enough attack time.

Using this type of dual enchant effectively requires that you are able to switch weapons quickly. A few simple macros will allow you to switch very quickly between two weapons and empty hand attacks as the need arises. For example, you have one macro of "pack right;;unpack ivory carved katana" another of "pack right;;unpack soul katana" and a third that says simply "pack right." This allows you to switch weapons back and forth with just a couple button pushes. If you do it correctly, you should be able to hold the beast, quickly switch weapons and get a few hits in with the high-damage enchantment, retreat just before they are released from the hold, and hit them with the hold enchantment again when they advance, making you a very difficult opponent to down.

If you happen to mistime your retreat and the creature comes out of the hold too soon, there is a decent chance that the soul katana will hold them while also doing damage with an enchantment or poison and give you at least enough time to retreat and put a more deadly hold on them. These same macros can be used to switch from using a weapon to attacking with your stronger empty-hand attack, and back.

This is a great tactical advantage once you have a soul katana. You can attack with it until it manages to hold your opponent, then switch to empty hand for greater damage and then switch again just before the hold wears off. I have seen many monks just use "swap" to get this same effect, but truth be told I get nervous having my shield in my right hand, I'm never sure it's doing what it's meant to do: protect me.. and it complicates things if I'm switching weapons as well.

- Multiple opponents

Especially in dealing with multiple opponents, knowing your enemy can be the difference between life and death.

For example, as you advance, you will often find yourself confronted with a large, intimidating creature that is challenging when you are advanced on by a smaller or less skilled opponent that is easier to kill. Beyond being a nuisance, the smaller or less dangerous of such opponents can whittle away precious life while you are dealing with the more challenging one, so you want to take them out quickly... in the length of the battle, that may mean the difference between having enough health to survive the confrontation and dying.

To do this, you use targeted attacks: "a 2" or "aim 2," for example, would have you strike the second creature advanced upon you, "a 3" the third, etc. Or, you can use the opponent's species to target your attack: "a ogre" for example. In such a situation as that described above, having a hold enchant can be especially effective. You want to take out the smaller and/or less dangerous of your opponents, but know that it will take a couple of strikes to do so. In the mean time, you know that a couple of unanswered blows from the more fearsome opponent/s may well endanger your life. So, you use a hold enchant to incapacitate the more dangerous, pack it to do maximum damage by and empty hand attack, and quickly kill those opponents you can before the hold wears off.

This same approach is effective in dealing with multiple creatures that are each dangerous in themselves. When I first started exploring the "Scrubs Tower," I often found myself faced with two or three creatures (Beasts) at once that took many many strikes to kill. Using a hold enchant and keeping track of when they would be wearing off to be sure that never more than one was able to attack me for very long allowed me to survive what would have otherwise been an impossible situation.

-General mental katas/macros

Finally, some common sense macros that I've found to be very useful:

The most obvious is probably "Activate guildring." However, I also have a ring of recall in my possession at all times in case I forget to buy the guild ring or am with someone who has forgotten. So I have the macro set as "activate monk's guild ring;;activate ring of recall" No worries, you are unbalanced for a few seconds after using the guild ring, and can't activate the other ring so you won't end up using both rings at one shot and wasting precious gold.

"Pack right;;unpack paste of vitality;;eat paste" I have this right next to my recall macro for the following reason: if I'm using either one it's probably a bad situation and if I hit the wrong key in a panic at least either one of those will likely help, instead of doing something stupid like accidentally charging a Vale Dragon with my "aim;;ch" macro when I have 10 hp's left

And of course the stunner macro, which currently looks like this, since I've been in the Troll Caves lately: "ch giant spider;;ch troll shamaness;;aim;;ch"