Junett
I have a few questions about zOMG... I haven't played in several months and got back into it recently to play DMS. But there are a few things I'm confused about even after reading detailed guides.
1) Could someone explain to me in detail how to be a heal tank/aggro? As in which rings to use, the order to use them, where you should go on the screen, and what the minimum CL for an aggro/ heal tank is in DMS.
2) What is kiting and how is it done?
3) What does the term 'smeb' mean? I've done SS and EB runs before, but I don't know what this new abbreviation is. I remember 'smob' and speed runs.
4) And just for fun. Does the ring gumshoe have any significant uses? Or has it ever been useful in the history of zOMG? (ie, was there ever a time when it was a preferred ring to use over another? Not like, 'oh it's similar to quicksand, but quicksand is better to use')
I think I can help a little.
smile
1) So I'm pretty sure you know what the goal of a heal tank is - you want to have things attacking you so you hold aggro while your crew mates can attack safely and take minimal damage. Rings you'll definitely need as a heal tank/aggro are
Diagnose,
Bandage, and
Meat.
Wish is also pretty much necessary if you're not experienced, some people are good enough to not even need it, but it's still great to have.
The rest of the rings all pretty much depend on the individual, you'll need
1 crowd control ring and
1 buff.
Scaredy Cat or
Duct Tape are the crowd control rings you'll be using in yellow rooms. Scaredy Cat can be helpful in getting rid of vamps temporarily, but it is very inaccurate and might screw you over now and then with a well timed miss. Duct Tape is pretty awesome, it puts female vampires and werewolves to sleep, however if anyone attacks a taped enemy they wake up and start attacking again. It comes down to what you prefer, just experiment a bit. So now we have
Meat/Bandage/Diagnose/Wish/Crowd Control/Buff
The last 2 spots can be a number of things. If you want to be extra cautious you could try bring
Solar Rays and
Defibrillate. Solar Rays as a long range ring to lure monsters and make you immune to Grue attacks and well... Defib is defib.
If you start to feel comfortable in your ability to keep your crew alive you can bring 1 or even 2 passive rings.
Fortune's Favor is pretty great. Not only does it have a luck bonus, but at 12.0 it has a dodge bonus that is roughly equivalent to every enemy having rr1 Knife Sharpen. (Knife Sharpen lowers enemy accuracy)
Fitness and
Integrity are also great passives to use in the yellow rooms, they add a little bit to every stat (except foot speed) but the best reason to use them is for
stamina regeneration. As the heal tank you're the last one who wants to be low on stamina.
So now your ring set will probably look like: Bandage/Diagnose/Wish/Meat/Crowd Control/Buff/Defib/Passive or Solar Rays.
So we've got your rings, now how to use them!
There's a few different styles to heal tanking but there's one thing you need to do any way you choose to do it. Self healing to maintain aggro is probably the most important thing. As a beginner the way you'll probably do it is when you first enter a new room, just stay still - heal yourself and heal your crew as they kill everything close to the door you entered from. As they go farther in the room you have to stay in one spot, when you stand far away from the monsters while maintaining aggro, they will not attack your crew mates. Using Diagnose and raged Wish to heal your crew mates are excellent for getting aggro. And remember when they kill everything close to you just start self healing with Bandage and maybe even Diagnose.
Make sure you make good use of your crowd control ring as well, tape up a wolf or female vamp or scare some vamps if you have to so you don't get overwhelmed and dazed, but if you choose Cat be very careful that you do not scare the vampire everyone is attacking. Unless you're all getting overwhelmed and you just rage Cat and scare everything. (Scaredy Cat at rr1 scares 1 enemy, at rr2+ it scares multiple enemies) It could happen in small vampire infested rooms.
sweatdrop
So that's basically it I think, as for the minimum CL for heal tanking... I don't think it should matter too much as long as you're careful. I believe I was only 10.6 when I first started doing it. Meat is the first ring you want to level to 12.0 - the extra health is invaluable! Then after Meat you want to level Wish/Bandage. Oh also invest in Revives.
( I hope that wasn't too "in detail" )
2) Kiting = run around like crazy to stay alive. You run around to not get hit, heal if you need to. It's used a lot to solo challenging bosses/mobs and in DMS it's used in the Green Rooms.
3) smob = speed mob
smeb = speed mob end boss
So instead of leaving the crew/suicide after you kill the grunny sub commander, you just keep going until you kill the end boss.
4) I may be wrong but as far as I know Gumshoe has always been completely awful and never used and will probably remain that way.