How to excel in DMS. A mini-guide to stress-free playing.

[Omnileech]

When I hear about crews, I often hear about people in DMS not doing their assigned jobs very well or crew leaders expecting people to act in one way and they act in another, causing frustration for everyone.

I've been in a lot of crews and everyone who has crewed with me before knows I am always watching everything you do, judging, evaluating, and so I think it's time we establish some guidelines and standard for what it means to be a good DMS player. I don't do smebbing and smobbing enough to feel qualified to do that area, so I'll just stick to DMS.

The following are general tips for good players and then I'll go into tips for specific roles. Feel free to add your own input since I tend to miss out on things when I write my thoughts down.



My hope is that more crews do what is suggested below to create less stress for the crew. Poor buffing causes stress, poor attacking causes stress, people not knowing what to do causes stress.
If everyone does their job well then then everyone walks away happy.

[Omnileech]

There are some things that every DMSer should do to be a good player. A lot of people don't do this unless asked.


* Rebuff your buffs before they expire. Buffs last exactly 15 minutes once they're buffed and another R4 buff will replace it. Many crews, especially ones with inexperienced people farming yellow maze will not rebuff. The goal should be to rebuff all your buffs every 10 minutes or every room or every other room in yellow maze depending on how fast your crews go.

* Use your rage. When you don't rebuff you r4 your attacks. Hack is the best attack to rage hands down. Don't worry about knockback from hack. The damage dealt is well worth it.

* Be careful where you kneel. Don't kneel by enemies or whoever has Aggro. It will get you killed.

* Use your stamina. Your stamina shouldn't be above 20 if you're attacking and even with hack and mantis you can easily deplete your stamina if you attack as much as possible.

* Watch where you stand. Attack the furthest enemy from the Tank to minimize AoE damage you take and make the tank's job easier by giving them less things to heal.

* Invest in some revives. Most people do not carry defib. One nerfing will give you enough gold to buy a pack off the MP and 25 revives usually lasts a long time.

* In Green Maze, Crypt, and Bloodlust you should use amps if others do. It's only fair and it speeds up the run CONSIDERABLY.

* When someone dies and revives you need to rebuff them as quickly as possible. If you can't r4 one then r1 it. It's better than nothing.

*Set a kill order or follow the established one in Green Rooms and Crypt.

*Do everything you can to kill Bloodbats as fast as you can when you're in Bloodlust.

*Attackers always carry 2-4 attacks depending on the assignment.

*Know your attacking rings well. Hunter's Bow and Dervish for instance don't have much use in DMS. Hack, Slash, Mantis, Bump are best for attackers to carry. Other attacking rings are usually role specific.

*Suppress to 11.4 in YM if you can before someone has to remind you. . Don't suppress in Green Rooms or beyond.

* Tank is first going into rooms. Often times they will give a signal before wanting you in or you should just follow them. Doesn't hurt to ask if you're not sure what to do.

* If you need to go do something like go to the bathroom or get up from the computer you should tell the crew. If you're the backup healer or bubu that might mean waiting for you to get back and it's better waiting than everyone dying in a room.

Leveling rings? When you start out level one ring at a time to cl 11 or cl 12 instead of leveling them evenly. Everyone has different ideas on how to do it, but here's some ideas on how to go about your order.

1. Meat (for survivability)
2. Attacks (Hack, then Mantis, then Slash (or solar if you really really need to bring it you bring it as a third attack. I really prefer slash.
4) Bandage
5) Buffs. Raise nonscaling buffs first because unless your scaling buffs (Iron will, Keen, Ghost, Halo, Teflon, Rock) are 12 then nobody wants you have it. So level Pot Lid, Coy, Div, Sphere, Dens. If you can level some scaling buffs you should if you have a lot of non-scaling at 12. Every crew needs scaling buffs at cl 12 in case you're in a crew with lower levels.
6) Adren, Tape and Knife.
6) Wish and the rest of your buffs.

* You might want to level a passive or two for luck, accuracy and dodge. Many crews will let you farm with them!

Specific roles call for leveling certain rings for using.
For instance the tank in Yellow Maze you want to have Diagnose, Wish, Bandage, Meat up to cl 11.4 plus buffs and passives.

In green rooms depending on your setup you will want turtle, quicksand, slash, shark attack, keen leveled first. In Bloodlust a tank needs sugar rush at 12 too.

[Omnileech]

In addition to the information above that everyone needs to be aware of there's some assigned roles in DMS that people sometimes don't perform as well as they can.

Adrener: The most demanding role outside of the tank. It's easy to spot a poor adrener.

A fair adrener: Adrens rarely or attacks before adrening. Or alternately adren EVERYTHING in the room.

A good Adrener: Adrens one thing and serves as a targeter for people to follow. The only exception is bloodbats where adrening multiple bats is a good thing to go.

An excellent adrener rages adren at r4 whenever possible, watches the enemy's health to adren as soon is falls off (it lasts 45 seconds). During Bloodlust and Kamila's first form it's really shows if the adren is fair, good, or excellent.

Sweet Sugar Delight is my role model for what an adrener should be. She uses a spammable armor buff to get rage and is able to r4 adren, r4, hack, and then r4 adren again within 45 seconds.

Knifer: Knifers need to be ready to do their job at the right moments or else the crew has trouble with heavy-hitting enemies.

A fair knifer: Knifes sporadically at r1.

A good knifer: Knifes important enemies: Kamila, Night Frights, Big Dogs, Counts at r4.

An excellent knifer: Knifes important enemies and never lets it fall. It also lasts 45 seconds.

My role model for an excellent knifer is Blitz Jax.

Taper: The most useful form of crowd control. There are few really good tapers out there.

A fair taper: Tapes once or twice and forgets they have the ring. Tapes the enemy everyone is attacking, wasting time and stamina.

A good taper: Tapes at rage fairly often. Knows not to tape male vampires.

An excellent taper: Looks for grouping of enemies and uses exactly as much rage needed. Tapes every 5 or so seconds to retape enemies before it wears off. r1 tapes on individual enemies.

My Role Model for an excellent taper is myself. Pre-update I tanked with tape and was able to hold down 15 enemies in Crypt by myself.

Catter: I hate Scaredy Cat because most people don't use it well.

A fair/bad catter: Cats ALL THE THINGS. WHY WOULD YOU CAT THAT VAMP IT'S AT 1,000 HEALTH. Also uses raged cat and scares everything away.

A good catter: Leaves 2-3 enemies to kill when cats other enemies.

An Excellent catter: Picks targets carefully. Uses cat when the tank is taking too much damage. or about to. Never makes the crew wait for enemies to return at the end of the room.

I guess I'm my own role model for an excellent catter. I used to carry it but then I stopped using it in crews alltogether and now will kick you if you insist on taking it in my farming crews.

Backup healer Good to have for Green Rooms and Bloodlust. Job is to heal the tank.

Fair Backup: Attacks more than heals.

Good Backup: Heals the Tank when their health drops. Does little attacking.

Excellent Backup: Balances healing and attacking, switching slowly from one to the other when needed.


My Role Model for Backup healer are Proletariat Porno, Archaic Tragedy, La Skullette.
Bubu Secondary Healer who assists the backup:

Fair Bubu: Heals occasionally, attacks ocasssionally, only heals thank. Or overheals tank.

Good Bubu: Attacks and throws heals to tank when their health drops sharply.

Excellent Bubu: Heals the tank and crew, switches from attacking to healing and keeps a close eye on the crew panel.

My Role Models for bubus are: BlueO2, Archaic Tragedy, Killer Penguins, Blitz Jax

Tanker

Fair Tank: Relies on crowd control in yellow maze, lets crew members die occasionally. Doesn't use wish in YM or Crypt. In Greens kites constantly, hardly uses quicksand.

Good Tank: Kites when needed, uses quicksand often in Green Rooms, positions well.

Excellent Tank: Able to heal, quicksand, and attack in Green Rooms. Heals people as much as possible in Yellow Maze and Crypt. Moves to keep people from getting injured and reacts quickly. Positions well without multiple attempts in Bloodlust.

I'm my Role Model on Tanking. I've tanked more than anyone else.

Buffer

Bad Buffer: Buffs at end of the room, makes people wait on them.

Good Buffer: Buffs at the beginning or middle of the room before enemies are dead.

[Omnileech]

Other Guides

How to Tank

How to beat Green Rooms and Kamila

[Omnileech]

open!

[A Shiny Typhlosion]

I've bookmarked this thread to show people. A lot of my DMS experience came from me reading guides and learning on the go. While people were very helpful indeed, guides like this helped me learn quicker and go from 10.0 to 12.0 in a matter of two weeks.

Thanks a bunch, Omni.

[A Random Act of Terror]

Quote:

* When someone dies and revives you need to rebuff them as quickly as possible. If you can't r4 one then r1 it. It's better than nothing.

Why does no one do this? emotion_donotwant

[ryry Kenny_McGroot ryry]

good mini-guide 3nodding

based on your standards, i would qualify as a "pretty good" tank; i can react quickly and position fast in blust, but i'm still new to the concept of attacking while kiting in the GRs sweatdrop

but i'm an excellent backup emotion_awesome

[asedc]

You've finally beat the updated version of Bloodlust? Awesome man, I thought all the other people that were better at it then you discouraged you, but yo pulled through and got a poke at her in the end. I'm proud of you!

[Omnileech]

asedc

Go away. I'm so glad I don't have to crew with or talk to you anymore.

[Owlie]

Quote:

She uses a spammable armor buff to get rage and is able to r4 adren, r4, hack, and then r4 adren again within 45 seconds.

Totally going to start doing this when i have adren.

I'd say as bubu I'm almost excellent. lol I just need a few more runs to be more confident.

[Owlie]

asedc

You've finally beat the updated version of Bloodlust? Awesome man, I thought all the other people that were better at it then you discouraged you, but yo pulled through and got a poke at her in the end. I'm proud of you!

No need to be patronizing to the person who has killed lust more than anyone else. talk2hand

[Archaic Tragedy]

Nice guide. o3o

[Gubblegum]

This thread... I want to have its babies.

[Omnileech]

Lots of people have different advice to new people for what rings to level and in what order. What order would you suggest to new people?