Ultimate Wit-Gaining Plan!

[Ninja Dathron]

DISCLAIMER: I have never actually tried this plan. It's all just a theory, although I'm sure it will work very well.

So, I was thinking recently about the perfect way to gain wits. We all know the little tricks, but I was thinking of how to best combine them, for example if you were trying to make one of your alts your ENCHANTING alt, and he needed lots of wits. Obviously, at first, dicing will be the best. But if you want to quest for your wits, or if your wits are high enough that dicing won't be much better than smart questing, then here's a plan for you.

1. Get an item with Mystic. I don't care that Mezmerizes may not be the -best- way to earn wits; the simple fact is they don't hurt. They're much more useful for gaining wits than berzerks, at least! Anyway, Mystics adds I think 1 Mage skill per eight levels, which is pretty nice. A decent character should be about level 32, which gives them four extra mezzes.

2. Use unskilling potions if necessary, and set up your char with a huge amount of mage skills, and some sage/trader skills. One thing I don't know for this plan is how many trader skills would be good to get good chances for running away; my guess would be about five (plus the bonus ones you get from the clan), but I don't know. Then, get 10-20 sage skills, and pump the rest into mage skills.

3. Quest in Shangala.

4. Don't wear too good of a suit; wear something that's defense-heavy, so as to avoid getting killed. For the same reason, skill would be good, but make sure your attack is relatively low. This will minimize the amount of one-hit kills you get, which means more chances to run away.

5. Run from: Plagues, Peasants, Riflemen.

6. Help Pandas, and then run.

7. Mezz Samurai's, kill Ninjas.

8. The secret ingredient (this is also why I suggested low attack): how you deal with Shoguns. Typically, when trying to gain wits in Shangala, I simply run from Shoguns. Helping doesn't work often enough, and usually I kill it right after. However, if you KNOW your attack is too low to kill the Shogun in one hit: Help, and then run. If you help, you get a chance for a wit. If you don't help successfully, you can still run!


Now, having posted all this, I realize that maybe someone who knows more about all this will come on here and tell me that helping has a lower chance of gaining wits than running, and this doesn't actually help. But that's okay. I had fun figuring this out anyway, and maybe it'll still help!

[sirinnu]

really interesting/relevants informations-strategy dathron!!

Not much to add !

I prefer to hunt in azteca to get wits myself, but its a personnal preference I guess (I still think azteca is as Shangala and mines i.e. a X5 multiplier area do gain stats, , , yet I've never seen any updated info about it, , IT IS possible that since the harder the area, the higest your chance to raise wits, FRED did make azteca X6... really hard to deduce only from *empirical* - experimentations, , but no one ever confirmed that to my knowledge)
For more info about this:
jackthebear.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tips&action=display&thread=2536

many mezz skills + mystic item to be used on someone not using mezz! using an item with mystic is a must to me, , I gain more wits from running away too, but the few more mezz are always X5, , while runing away is always X1 only.

At least 5 trader skills to save a quest when running away BUT (I must doublechek in my DC notebookof answer about it) the more trader skill ALSO improve a certain formula... can't remember if its another part of running away formula or if in the castle, but I'm sure each trader skill point give u something like a +5% in one formula)

I think about shoguns, , its not helping em but answer riddle dosent matter much its all about wits gain anyway.

Final tip:
when you run out of mezz skills to use on your favorite enemy to mezz (for you samourais, , for me warriors in azteca) ... provoke the fight (with a small weapon as u stated) without killing it, , once provoked ANY AND ALL ENEMIES behavior turn to aggressive mode, , so on the second round, u can run away, and potentially gain wits from any of those too .

[xene]

This is actually quite similar to my own questing strat hehe. Let me tell you, it usually takes at least a good 30 minutes to finish questing my main whereas Azteca lets me finish up in maybe half the time.

Just realize gaining stats always boils down to being patient


The low attack strategy is nice. I'm usually too impatient and berserk anything that escapes my 1-hit kills anyway Other than that, the only quests I purposely spend there is killing ninjas and samurais. I run from Shoguns and Pandas too because they don't drop anything that I want, not really because I want to become more witty


My char's guild skills are set up the following way btw:

12 Fighter
30 Mage
30 Trader
14 Sage

I don't really have as many sages as I'd like. If I could "reroll" my guilds without losing all the stats, I'd probably get rid of all my fighters, the same number of mage and traders, and put 12 more into Sages.

One thing I want to point out. Ninjas pose a bit of danger, because their hypnosis results in them stealing half your gear. I reserve my sage/backstabs for them, while using hypnosis on samurais. If the samurais try to use ieatsu, my use of hypnosis blocks my sage skill from being wasted




Okay, now to actually contribute to the thread, here's a little strategy I use for my lower-end characters.

1) I try to get access to the castle before level 10. I send the alt a few million marks (not too many, as they'll rust daily), and spend a good bit of time drinking with them before they hit level 10. If you ever try this, you'll notice you will never pass out and lose the marks you're carrying. Additionally, you'll have a much smaller chance of losing a quest, so drink up before level 10!

2) I get to the forest asap to get 3 trader skills first, letting me start saving quests. With a high amount of charm from step 1, you'll be able to save a lot of quests from fleeing from the creatures you encounter in the forests. I'd immediately start "hunting" in the forest (but fleeing from everything of course!). There's lots of aggros in the forest, so just watch the wits pile in!

3) This step is optional, but I use the forest as a base point to get all the guild skills I want. I wait till I net a total of 50 wits, then start getting guild skills one at a time, never letting my wits drop below 50. It's a decent number, because it's low enough that you have a decent chance to gain the next wit, but it's also not low enough that you fail to flee from everything. My first alt I made after I came back had gotten all the guilds skills at one time, then tried fleeing in the forests with about 10 wits. It was the worst situation a new character could be in, let me tell you.

I usually go for 10 of every guild skill in the forest, and I send the alt a decent Hie Brasil/Shangala eq suit once it reaches level 16. With 10 fighters, they can equip the new eq, and be able to kill snots for Dwarf axes too. Of course, this whole step is entirely optional, you might just want only high wits.

4) Once the alt reaches 110 wits in the forest, I move on to the mountains (Bring some rope!) Every creature except for giants are aggro, so this is like the wits-heaven zone. A lot of my characters hit around 180-200 wits here. Plus I get to hunt for Great Helms, so why not?

5) At about 180-200 wits, I move them to Hie Brasil. There's not as many things that aggro here. My three strongest alts are currently in this step. I'm not sure if this is the right amount of wits to move them here, wits gains are kinda slow. I only flee from harpies though, so I miss out any potential wits from golems, because I'm hopeful a CG would drop for me

6) Eventually, these alts can move on to Shangala. Dunno when that'll be though. I think the next factor is guts, rather than wits. Those ieatsus look kinda deadly.





edit: One little fix for sirinnu!

"once provoked ANY AND ALL ENEMIES behavior turn to aggressive mode"

That actually only holds true for hostile enemies! Defensives will not turn aggressive, but will turn hostile (Chase, but no exp nor wits-gain chance). I'm guessing passives will turn defensive (allow you to get a clean getaway if you flee), but I can't confirm it, because I've never managed to attack a passive without killing it in one hit!

[Gawayn]

My comments are entirely based on observation and were in no way formally collected as evidence.

However, I've noticed that in higher level areas (Shang, Azetaca), I gain many more wits from running than mezzing. I'm still trying to pile on my guild skills, but I believe my main has somewhere around:

6 fighter
12 mage
18 trader
13 sage
1 ieutsu

At first I wanted to get a bunch of sage skills since, they, you know, help you not get mezzed. However, I soon realized that the better I was at running away, the less I'd have to use those sage skills! I wasn't even sure trader skills were working until I passed the 15 trader skills points. Now I'm noticing the difference, and it's helping big time. With the above guild skill spread, I now gain maybe one wit from mezzing and three to five from running away. All my wit gains from Azteca are gained running from jaggies and priests. I've noticed a slight decrease in my wit gains when I quest in Shangala.

I'm gaining guild skills at less than an optimal time. I got six skills in each area early on, then did nothing more until I hit about level 32 and had been questing in Azteca/Shangala for a long time (SIDE NOTE: if you start questing in these harder areas earlier, they are easier! You have a greater chance of dying since your character is weaker, but given your lower stats, the monsters will do less specials on you. I went to Azteca with an alt at the earliest possible time I could, and even though would sometimes die from getting hit, not one creature tried to mezz/backstab/berzerk me. The chance of the specials happening against you increase as your skills or level go up). Since really realizing the benefits of guild skills, though, I've been slowly building them up. I plan to add mostly trader skills, perhaps sprinkled with one or two more sage skills.

However, I'm just saying what I've noticed works well for me at where my character is currently at. I really like the different ways already listed, and will keep them in mind when I start my next alt!

[sirinnu]

U are right xene, , I guess I did exagerate a bit with the words I'Ve used about my last hint...

ONce provoked ennemies behavior move ONE step toward a more aggressive behavior....

(timid, only fearies)
Passive
Defensive
Hostile
Agressive

Gawayn is right too, about as soon you can go in an harder area : DO IT... if u are low level- stats, , monsters give you a chance and arent using theyr skills.

This bring us to another incomplete discussions we've had before about TRIGGERS! Monsters behavior is always the same, but what skills they use (Or not) is triggered by various levels, , hard to determine... well I've just never experimented it too much, , it shud not be too hard to see at wich level jaguars start using theyr mezz skill on ya, , or when the warriors start to berserk/ieatsu you. (I think ac_shadow also got some interesting theory on this matter, , he pretend its rather your own sage skills that TRiggers monsters to use mezz or others skills, , so without any sages skills, , jaguars were not much using mezz on him, , while with more sages, on a same level chary , , jaguars abuses mezz on us...)

[Toki]

I've got a ton of sage skills and I hardly ever get backstabbed or mezzed.

[Ninja Dathron]

Jan 22, 2010 4:55:05 GMT -5 xene said:

Okay, now to actually contribute to the thread, here's a little strategy I use for my lower-end characters.

1) I try to get access to the castle before level 10. I send the alt a few million marks (not too many, as they'll rust daily), and spend a good bit of time drinking with them before they hit level 10. If you ever try this, you'll notice you will never pass out and lose the marks you're carrying. Additionally, you'll have a much smaller chance of losing a quest, so drink up before level 10!

2) I get to the forest asap to get 3 trader skills first, letting me start saving quests. With a high amount of charm from step 1, you'll be able to save a lot of quests from fleeing from the creatures you encounter in the forests. I'd immediately start "hunting" in the forest (but fleeing from everything of course!). There's lots of aggros in the forest, so just watch the wits pile in!

3) This step is optional, but I use the forest as a base point to get all the guild skills I want. I wait till I net a total of 50 wits, then start getting guild skills one at a time, never letting my wits drop below 50. It's a decent number, because it's low enough that you have a decent chance to gain the next wit, but it's also not low enough that you fail to flee from everything. My first alt I made after I came back had gotten all the guilds skills at one time, then tried fleeing in the forests with about 10 wits. It was the worst situation a new character could be in, let me tell you.

I usually go for 10 of every guild skill in the forest, and I send the alt a decent Hie Brasil/Shangala eq suit once it reaches level 16. With 10 fighters, they can equip the new eq, and be able to kill snots for Dwarf axes too. Of course, this whole step is entirely optional, you might just want only high wits.

4) Once the alt reaches 110 wits in the forest, I move on to the mountains (Bring some rope!) Every creature except for giants are aggro, so this is like the wits-heaven zone. A lot of my characters hit around 180-200 wits here. Plus I get to hunt for Great Helms, so why not?

5) At about 180-200 wits, I move them to Hie Brasil. There's not as many things that aggro here. My three strongest alts are currently in this step. I'm not sure if this is the right amount of wits to move them here, wits gains are kinda slow. I only flee from harpies though, so I miss out any potential wits from golems, because I'm hopeful a CG would drop for me

6) Eventually, these alts can move on to Shangala. Dunno when that'll be though. I think the next factor is guts, rather than wits. Those ieatsus look kinda deadly.





edit: One little fix for sirinnu!

"once provoked ANY AND ALL ENEMIES behavior turn to aggressive mode"

That actually only holds true for hostile enemies! Defensives will not turn aggressive, but will turn hostile (Chase, but no exp nor wits-gain chance). I'm guessing passives will turn defensive (allow you to get a clean getaway if you flee), but I can't confirm it, because I've never managed to attack a passive without killing it in one hit!

Very interesting stuff Xene! I like the part about the mountains, mostly because it was a good reminder for me. I never really think much about places outside of the oceans...I should try that with a couple of my alts. Of course I like getting useful items too though, so the mountains are kind of a yawn...but I suppose somebody could be interested in Great Helms!

About Shangala: I have all my alts in Shangala with at least 20 sages. It may be excessive, but whatever. They all have plenty of guts though, because I gamed for their ranks. If you quest til 150 guts, then game until seneschal, you get 250-270 guts. Even after losing some to sages, you get a decent amount of guts; plus the 20 sages helps with ieatsu for a while. For those alts I never use hypnotize though; only running. Hypnotize is too risky with the ieatsu. Maybe once they hit 350-450 guts I'll add that in.

[xene]

Ooh, I forgot about using the courts to mass-game... I could make a few more alts and have a bunch of my current ones just gaming so I don't have to spend so much time questing... Would likely prepare me for Shangala as well.


20 sages doesn't seem excessive to me at all. For any new alts I'm making, I'll probably aim to eventually have 10 fighters, and 20 everything else, cept for ieatsu. My main with 14 sages always runs out, and would probably still run out if I had 20.



Edit: Oh yeah, as for the guts threshold for Shangala, I'd personally try at around 400 guts with about 400 defense. I know an ieatsu does at least 120% of their guts in damage (plus whatever their attack value is, which is unknown), and I just tested a Shogun and a Samurai with a level 28 alt, they had just under 600 guts. That makes them deal at least 720 damage. If they had a base attack of 100, that'd be 820 damage, etc. I'd venture a guess that you can expect damages ranging up to 850 (rarely) at that level. But hey, there's always bottled frys

[Ninja Dathron]

Hehe, yeah. Well I've got two or three chars in Shangala now, at a max of 300 guts, and they're only getting killed once every couple of days, so for now it seems to be working. Maybe I unknowingly have a crapload of defense?? I dunno

[Torra]

Jan 22, 2010 11:03:54 GMT -5 sirinnu said:

ONce provoked ennemies behavior move ONE step toward a more aggressive behavior....

(timid, only fearies)
Passive
Defensive
Hostile
Agressive

Dear Xene & SIr:

Could you elaborate a bit more on the different levels.

Correct me if I'm not understanding.

Which Monsters fall into which categories? Or can all monsters reach Aggressive mode if the battle continues long enough?

Like when A Fry attacks me (instead of letting me catch it or escaping) and gets killed...is it exhibiting Defensive or Aggressive behavior? So, there is never a chance for a wits gain?

Also, what happens if you use Hypnosis on the Shogun and it successfully uses Iatsu and kills you? Do you just lose a fry or does it run off with half your gear as well? Or do only those characters that use Mezz take half your gear?

Great Thread Dathron!!!!! Thank you all for your posts!!!

[Gawayn]

Torra,

When a fry attacks you, it's actually exhibiting an advanced behavior not usually listed in normal monsters: Greed. Let's face it, word gets around. It wants your diamonds.

It'd be interesting to see this method of behavioral leveling. Would anyone like to attack the next dragon they meet naked? This will ensure the battle takes long enough, yes?

[sirinnu]

I have asked Xene to work on a non-updated monsters behavior list I had. So I guess he shud post it soon

as example in azteca:
Jaguars are agressives (will try to catch you when u run away (Either *The jaguar is left behind , panting* OR *The jaguar proves to be swifter*, combat can still occurs, exp gain if u run, potential wit gain)
Warriors are hostiles (*The warrior chase you for a while just to make sure u arent coming back*, 100% sure no combat, no exp gain)
Annacondas are defensive (*Makes no efforts to pursue* ,u save a quest when running away; if u fail at feeding, u can still run away without loosing a quest)
Priests are passive (*Makes no efforts to pursue* , u save a quest when running away, even if u fail at helping, u can still run away)

I have just doublechecked something with annacondas, , fighting naked..
after a first hit they turn hostile (if u try to run on second round, they are hostile, only follow you for a while)
after 2 hits on annacondas, they are agressive on the third round, , I was even able to get a wits point , , so exactly the same behavior as a jaguar on the first round)...

I've tried with the priests too, (looks rather similar to the annaconda, I need to hit it 2 times before it turns agressive, but we can gain exp and eventualy gain wits from running away from passive foes too)

(To those who wondered how to evaluate monsters behavior, , u got the whole trick here...
run away on first round!!!
if they try hard to catch you they are AGGRESSIVE (3 traders skills needed to save quest)
if they only follow you for a while; they are HOSTILE (2 traders skill needed to save quest)

If they dont follow you at all they may be DEFENSIVE, PASSIVE (Or timid)
to see the difference, , try hitting em once (without killing) ... then run away and watch the message.... if they are now hostile , , the initial behavior was DEFENSIVE.
If u need to hit em twice, , they were PASSIVE. *


Hope this helps.

Dragons are always Aggressive, and since agressive is the higest violent behavior, they wont get worst even after hiting em many times! (Luckily)

[xene]

Oh wow, I actually didn't know about hitting creatures multiple times. I've never had anything survive beyond one hit

I guess this means every hit increases their aggressiveness in their behavior by one.

Sirinnu summed it up pretty nicely about the different behaviors. I have the most trouble finding the difference between passive and defensive, because it requires hitting the enemy once, then fleeing after it survives.


As for timid, I have no idea. It's just physically impossible for a fairy to survive an attack, so it's almost impossible to check. But when the fairy gets angry and attacks you, that is something different. It's a (bad) result of the try to catch fairy action that forces combat to happen. It's still a timid creature, so that if it does hypnotize you, it'll take away half your gear instead of sending you off a cliff.


Also, just to make things clear for Torra, the result of having half your gear taken away only results from getting hypnotized. Since the shogun in your example cannot use hypnosis, it can never take away half your gear. If it kills you via a normal hit, berserk, or ieatsu, it will always try to take a fry. Additionally, the difference between getting half your gear taken or losing a fry when being hypnotized depends entirely on the opponent's behavior. Only aggressive creatures will take a fry away (like jaguars and harpies). All other behaviors will result in taking half your gear away. So be careful attacking those Aztecan Priests and Shangalan Ninjas



Btw, I think defensive creatures far out-number passive creatures. To be honest, the difference is really small between the two (both you get a free getaway from, and are dangerous if they can mezz) so for the most part, you can (almost) treat these two as the same thing.

It'd probably make a bigger difference if everyone didn't just kill everything in one hit. I do have a hunch that passive creatures are more likely to flee from you than defensive, but that's reeeeally difficult to test.

[Torra]

First....Gawayn...ROFLMAO...I'll get you later.

Sir and Xene, thank you so much for explaining this concept. I tried hypnotizing a Samurai and he turned hostile! Then I hit for the kill and gained stats....never had that happen before.

So, now I understand some of the confusing stuff I've seen over the years....suddenly gaining stats from a creature that normally wouldn't provide them. All this time I thought I was just losing my mind or reading something wrong or playing too fast and getting confused.

Ah, it's all clear to me now....like "Yes, I really DID get a wit from running away from a Sphinx".

So, in theory, you have the potential to gain a wit from any creature if you play it just right?

Note: I meant Samurai, not Shogun...oops.

[xene]

Shoguns actually start being aggressive, so whether or not you attack it, it'll already exhibit the most aggressive behavior possible

But yes, you could attack something that was only hostile, for example a Samurai, and if it survives your attack, it'll exhibit aggressive behavior instead. If you flee on the second round, it is possible to gain wits from the Samurai.


And according to what Sirinnu posted, your theory is exactly correct. I haven't tested it myself on defensive and passive creatures, but hostiles *will* turn aggressive after one attack.

One thing I'd like to point out though. A hostile that turned aggressive is still able to flee from you. All aggressives do not normally flee from you, unless you panic it (From my observations anyway. I don't know if a low HP aggro may choose to flee instead. This is hard to test). This makes me think that it's not a 100% behavior change, but just a modification to its chase behavior.


The other theory I swear by is that I can get my quest back from defensive/passives for free, get a chance to gain wits from aggressives, and have a change to retain my quest from hostiles, as long as I drank a lot with that character. Knowing this, I wouldn't bother attacking defensive/passives at all, as I can just run away and hope for a different encounter.

I haven't be able to tell the difference between defensive/passive for every single creature yet so far, but here's a quick list of aggros and hostiles for every zone (except the mounds and dungeons lol)

Azteca:
Aggro: Jaguar
Hostile: Warrior

Shangala:
Aggro: Shogun, Plague
Hostile: Samurai, Ninja

Hie Brasil:
Aggro: Harpy, Golem
Hostile: Medusa, Fighter

Docks:
Aggro: Serpent
Hostile: Trader

Mountains:
Aggro: Troll, Goat, Basilisk, Sphinx, Wyvern
Hostile: Giant

Forests:
Aggro: Orc, Boar
Hostile: Snot, Griffon

Fields:
Aggro: Rat
Hostile: Goblin, Gypsy, Soldier


The two castle guards are also hostile. The Dragon is obviously aggro. I think Evil Fred is hostile, but I haven't set any character I own in the mounds at all. ;/