Aseres
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- Posted: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 06:55:50 +0000
final final update 9/2 changed something for the lovely zZyli and noticed in the process that my mini-healer guide wasn't very comprehensive, so I went ahead and changed that too redface No more updates now yo!
final update 8/2... made me cringe to have an outdated guide up, so I bit the bullet and updated it. Please look at the date of this guide: Nov 20 2011. At this point many of you will probably be all: "No s**t son, I been doing that for ages", but please keep in mind that back then most of what's covered in here was actually NOT known to the majority of the DMS people. I added new stuff but don't see the point in taking correct things out. Afer adding the Kamila-how-to's, this is the last time this guide will be updated - I just hate leaving this incomplete and incorrect.
updated 3/12 with some greenroom content, update on my build and updates on the team
Anchorbug has locked me out and my crew are trying to get a quest done, so I have some time D:
This guide was originally written as a "slightly advanced gameplay guide" for DMS, hence I will not be covering basics. If you need help with that I encourage you to check out zZyli's guide (check the links out). "But most of this is old news" you say? - Please look at the date this guide was posted. It's from November! Back then pretty much all of the info in here was not known to the general DMS-public. I could condense the guide to only containing "new news" (aka "currently" advanced stuff), but that'd require me to edit it quite a bit and keep it updated, plus I don't see the point in removing correct information.
100% of the info in this thread was sourced by us - me and my old team were the driving force behind early maze/greenroom explorations, we were the first to stuck-tank Nightfrights (first to tank her: Becky, credit for figuring it out goes to Becky and myself) and the first to meet Kamila and get attuned (Becky was the first to step through the shortcut door). Lux and his gang, which later pretty much merged with my team and created "the Elitist movement" were the first to kill Kamila, both her first (Lux's brainchild, with brilliant assistance by syit) and second form (pretty much exclusively Lux, with Ankit delivering vital, spot-on execution). It was me and my team (namely Josh and myself) that figured out how to kill the updated Bloodlust and defeat her first.
None of this would've been possible without very strong gameplay of people like (the above named, as well as) Sweets, Fai, Penguins, Miko and asedc, and my old team-members Mage, Sephi, Porno, Sage and Omni.
--------------------------------------
1 TERMINOLOGY
--------------------------------------
Entrance - the first two rooms, you can also find a door that directly leads to greenroom as well as the quest NPCs here
Maze - yellow lights, weak mobs - you know the drill
Greenroom - green lights, tougher mobs
100% room - counts, you encounter Kamila for the first time
Crypt - You fight her first form here
Bloodlust/null planet - self-explanatory
This is the terminology used by the devs hence it is correct, everything else, as pretty as it may sound, is incorrect
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2 STUFF
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3. THE GREEN ROOM HURDLE
------------------------------
So I keep getting asked how to do greenroom. I always believed that our way was one among many that worked but tbh, after having seen a couple of other ways to get it done, I do sincerely believe that, at this moment, it is the only really efficient way. If you've discovered a new, more magical way please do share, I'm always curious!
1) crew set up: the only really important thing here is that you have 2-3 RELIABLE tapers, preferably able to communicate easily, ideally over voice chat. Aside from that you can basically keep your crew set up. Cat will only be needed for emergencies and although I do (always) strongly recommend a dedicated healer I believe it can be done without if the crew is used to healing each other.
2) but the whole room aggros us! This is where tape comes in. Rage up before each room and go in and immediately rr4 tape everything that come your way. Start picking mobs off one by one and take turns rr4 taping. Remember that tape stacks upon tape, so you don't need to wait for them to wake up to re-tape, in fact I strongly recommend you re-tape before they wake up. The tapers should not use their rage to do anything BUT tape until you've cleared out enough of the room to be safe if the majority of the mobs you have on you are awake and active.
3) nightfrights and bigdogs >< The good news is that the bigdogs and nightfrights aren't higher level than the ones in the first maze. The bad news is that they can still make a room bloody challenging. If you enter a room and neither of them aggro you right off the bat, kill off as much of the room as you can before bothering with them. If they do, here's how you survive: a) nightfright: whoever pulls his aggro will have to run him around until the rest of the team has cleared the rest of the room. After that you either get him stuck or, recommended, straight up tank and mellee him to death.
b) bigdogs: can be done the same way as 1), but since they don't have the fearing aoe it's a lot easier to just tape all other mobs and tank and kill the bigdog.
Check out the media section of a video of us doing a fright in greenroom.
4) I'm cl 11.6, they tell me I'm too low for greenroom BULLSHIT. We were an entire CREW of 11.5/6 when we first made it all the way through there and met Kamila, and we've run a cl 10.4 through before with him dying perhaps once. Greenroom is the most fun content of the game right after bloodlust, so don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough.
5) But I want to use quicksand and cat and throw magical prayers to the heavens and hope that it works QS/Cat is way too complicated. Tape does everything QS/Cat does, but just about 100 times better.
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4 GENERAL STUFF
------------------------------
In general I do not recommend you farm the first two rooms too much if you can in any way avoid it. Venture into the maze and have fun trying out tactics and ring sets and failing and suceeding. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun and this is not a race. Not only will you have more fun overall but you'll also gain experience you'll need for green room and the stuff after. If you enter greenroom at 11-11.5 It'll be just as hard as maze was at 10.0, and even at 12 it's not super easy.
Make sure you don't make the mistake of leveling up a few rings to farm just to realize later that they've gotten useless. You'll have to swop CL and that may take a few days. And that sucks. Find a group of people that complement your playstyle and play the same times as you and divide the buffs and start leveling them. That way you can have high level buffs - and you should, cos you'll need them.
Rings I would recommend:
Rings I would refrain from leveling are:
(note: if you make any of those work for you - awesome! Go for it! Let us know how! But they don't work for me or any of the people I know so I can't and won't recommend them)
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5 BONUS HEALER TIPS
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I'm a main healer and since I'm getting a lot of compliments all the time I'm assuming I must be doing something right. Here's how I do it:
My ring-set (for greenroom+ - in Maze you can wear w/e... LITERALLY w/e):
bandage/tape/wish/ghost//meat/diagnose/fitness/integrity
Bandage, tape (is more needed in later areas of the game), Wish and Meat are 100% self-explanatory.
I carry ghost as my assigned buff because it's not a top priority buff. When we all die and rez I'm too busy healing/catting to have the time for a high priority buff, plus I'll need my rage to heal rr4 heals. If I carried Defib I would carry rock instead to be able to rock them as soon as I've defib'd them.
Diagnose - how well you survive really difficult situations will determine how far you get in the end. Diagnose is in general a pretty bad healing ring because of how much stamina it uses, but you WILL need the extra heals when Wish, Bandage and possibly your supercharger are on re-use. You WILL need this, make no mistake of it. For Bloodlust Diagnose is invaluable at keeping aggro and for Bats it helps me to build rage.
Loltegrity/Fitness - The crew needs 11 buffs only so one person can go without carrying 2 and it makes most sense for that person to be the healer. Carrying attacks in those 2 left-over slots sounds like it'd be a good idea, but it won't really work: it'll use WAY too much stamina. As healer I usually have aggro so I can't go rest while we're in combat. I also need my stamina the most when we're in a pickle so that itty bit of stamia regen loltegrity and fitness gives can be essential. The willpower boost is also really neat.
Playstyle:
1) Lowbie-Maze: (exchange one of the passives or tape for solar rays)
I usually pull mobs and get myself into an angle that the crew can get behind it. Just make sure you don't pull a "Hi Room (pull everything). Keep your eyes peeled on the crew panel, especially on people with lower CLs who tend to take more damage. Unless there's any doubt that you're going to be fine (only 1 mob left in the room ect) don't use any attacks.
2) Midbie-Maze aka Josh-style: an alternative way that works really well is this: run into the room first, pull everything, go to a corner and start healing yourself. Just stand there with everything hitting you and keep yourself healed. What that will do is the following: by healing yourself so much you will accumulate a lot of hate and nothing will hit anyone else.
3) Highlevel-Maze: It completely and entirely does NOT matter what you wear here - literally. Aoe, SAD, "animal themed attacks" - anything works.
4) Greenroom and Kam1: Greemroom remains somewhat challenging all the way until cl 12, so I don't recommend slacking off too much. I've already explained how we do greenroom: the whole taping thing. Personally I like to be one of the tapers since: a) I gain a lot of rage through healing, b) taping 20 mobs >>>>>>> trying to out heal them, c) I'm a damn good taper. I'd recommend for any healer to familiarize themselves with tape, although if you really can't get a hang of it and have other people in the crew that love it and are amazing at it you may as well take a debuff, a third passive or even an attack. Just whatever you pick, don't over-use it: If and accident happens, like someone aggroing a group of blood bats when you already have 3 on you, you'll need all the stamina you have and more. Again - how well you survive difficult situations will determine how far you get. Keep in mind that rooms will a lot of bloodbats are super-duper laggy and assign a back up healer to help out and keep you alive: beckygrendel is my one-and-only heart !!
Kam1 with it's minions works essentially the same way greenroom healing does.
5) Bloodlust:
bandage/turtle/wish/buff//meat/diagnose/fortune's fav/integrity
You're really better off not even attempting to tape or attack when you're going for the kill. Let your crew members do some work and concentrate on healing 100%. Turtle, FF and Integrity could potentially be changed for other rings but I noticed that the extra willpower, stamina-regen and HP are really really nice to have.
The 4 passives controversy
So apparently people think that carrying 4 passives at Kamila for an extra super uber dodge bonus helps. WELL IT DOESN'T. THINK ABOUT IT PEOPLE: YOU *******WANT******* TO GET HIT SO YOU CAN HEAL YOURSELVES AND K E E P AGGRO. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO TRY AN NOT GET HIT. It's entirely possible to outheal Bloodlust, even now. I've done it, and if I can do it, so can you!
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HOW TO KILL KAMILA
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First Form:
Bloodlust:
this is a bit tricky, it'll take a bit for your heal-tank to get the right position to stand in figure out, but if you've beaten the old bloodlust you won't have a lot of issues. In addition to the main healer you will need a strong heal-focused back-up healer as well as 2 reliable/3 okay tapers. The rest of the crew should carry 293801923813 attacks (including such lovelies like Slash or Bump! Go all out on attack power - just be mindful of bats if you carry something with an aoe) to speed it up!
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THE TEAM
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Yes, yes, I play in a constant. Stop complaining, it's how I roll and no one's forcing you to do the same. It doesn't mean I hate everyone else or never group with anyone else (cos I do), but I like playing with people I play well with can communicate with. As an example to a team that gets where it needs to get I will introduce you to my team, although I'm sure you've seen them around!
beckygrendel my number one back-up healer - always has my back and never lets me down heart . A great all-arounder - cc's well, damages well and heals the hell out of whoever needs it when I'm durping off. She has extra special skillz for knowing what's going on even if she's not on skype heart
syit. Living map and DMSGPS. Oh, and damage dealer and epic button-masher. One of our main tacticians. heart
KoumikoChan. Syit's gf, also known as "cute voice". Fantastic back-up healer and great player overall.. and that voice omg!!!
asedc. Yet another damage dealer! Now if he could just not change is avatar while we're all dying heart (just kidding, he's all kinds of amazing heart Also, I recommend you do NOT click the links he posts on skype unless you're as hardcore as him.
Uesugi Ankit. best heal-tank in the game. To this day I aspire to match his greatness! When he doesn't heal tank he usually entertains his harem :O
parf always willing to take one for the team and die first this one!
Killer Penguins. Very reliable good and smart player, one of the very few people I'd blindly trust as my heal-tank!!
Fai Maxwell. A rock of integrity, always up for a crew, one of the best!
Sweet Sugar Delight. Can't get much sweeter than Sweets! She rocks the party and keeps you alive and your enemies taped... what more could you ask for!
Lux Fortuna. We're told that we're basically identical, except for that I play healer and he plays cc'er. Also a "bit" of a troll. dramallama part of the wish-trinity and one of our tacticians. Our brain.
Josh-what's-his-new-username-again?. Another perfect all-arounder and good at whatever you ask him to do. He can even play healer! If you have a cute voice he might not even troll you too hard (maybe). part o the wish-trinity and one of our tacticians. Our muscle.
Me! Healer, durpface and "the one who yells at everyone about what to do". also part of the wish-trinity and another tactician. Our heart heart
Sagebomb. You guessed it, another muscle of the team. He's just kinda there and stuff, you know? Plus he has a funny accent (although his mic is derp) - currently on leave for an epic 5 month cruise!
Blitz Jax - SPOKESPERSON OMG SO CUTE VOICE WTF OMG OMG OMG
Brooklyn Rage Mage. Damage Dealer. One of our muscles. He hits hard and is fantastic at it, not much more to say. Often plays targetter and very good at figuring out game mechanics.
Sephira Yamishi. Another Damage Dealer and hits just as hard as the Red Mage. Very dedicated and awesome, often plays targetter as well.
Proletariat Porno. Professional Crowd Controller and damage dealer, heart her long time!
Omnileech. great all arounder - and I mean really, how could it NOT be an epic win party with Sarah Palin?!
Lord Lunar. Professional creep. He mostly goes afk or pulls the entire room. Either way, no party is complete without him creeping the voice chat heart
OMFG Taylor The number cruncher! He uses all sorts of rings to try out all sorts of things and doesn't have a set role really, other than being awesome heart
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LINKS OUT
-----------------------
For general information on DMS check out Zzyli's fantastic guide "Oh the Blood(bats)" and if you're in need of a good crew see if Rafi has a spot! If not, try MLH.
Here's a detailed guide on how to kill nightfrights at low level (note: this won't work well after a certain CL because the damage dealers will keep stealing aggro. You'll either have to be VERY disciplined and keep the damage output minimal, or you just straight up tank her - we started doing that after 11.5ish and it works really well and is a lot faster than anything else).
Here are some general guides: zOMG virgins go here or here for a more visual experience. A great guide on ring stats, ghi boosts, sets and EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW and basic info on how to be a good healer (by the person who taught me how to be a healer herself!.
In the link section of the Rings and Stats guide you'll find more threads with info on specific topics!
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MEDIA
---------------------
****POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING****
screenies and videos of our adventures!
final update 8/2... made me cringe to have an outdated guide up, so I bit the bullet and updated it. Please look at the date of this guide: Nov 20 2011. At this point many of you will probably be all: "No s**t son, I been doing that for ages", but please keep in mind that back then most of what's covered in here was actually NOT known to the majority of the DMS people. I added new stuff but don't see the point in taking correct things out. Afer adding the Kamila-how-to's, this is the last time this guide will be updated - I just hate leaving this incomplete and incorrect.
updated 3/12 with some greenroom content, update on my build and updates on the team
Anchorbug has locked me out and my crew are trying to get a quest done, so I have some time D:
This guide was originally written as a "slightly advanced gameplay guide" for DMS, hence I will not be covering basics. If you need help with that I encourage you to check out zZyli's guide (check the links out). "But most of this is old news" you say? - Please look at the date this guide was posted. It's from November! Back then pretty much all of the info in here was not known to the general DMS-public. I could condense the guide to only containing "new news" (aka "currently" advanced stuff), but that'd require me to edit it quite a bit and keep it updated, plus I don't see the point in removing correct information.
100% of the info in this thread was sourced by us - me and my old team were the driving force behind early maze/greenroom explorations, we were the first to stuck-tank Nightfrights (first to tank her: Becky, credit for figuring it out goes to Becky and myself) and the first to meet Kamila and get attuned (Becky was the first to step through the shortcut door). Lux and his gang, which later pretty much merged with my team and created "the Elitist movement" were the first to kill Kamila, both her first (Lux's brainchild, with brilliant assistance by syit) and second form (pretty much exclusively Lux, with Ankit delivering vital, spot-on execution). It was me and my team (namely Josh and myself) that figured out how to kill the updated Bloodlust and defeat her first.
None of this would've been possible without very strong gameplay of people like (the above named, as well as) Sweets, Fai, Penguins, Miko and asedc, and my old team-members Mage, Sephi, Porno, Sage and Omni.
--------------------------------------
1 TERMINOLOGY
--------------------------------------
Entrance - the first two rooms, you can also find a door that directly leads to greenroom as well as the quest NPCs here
Maze - yellow lights, weak mobs - you know the drill
Greenroom - green lights, tougher mobs
100% room - counts, you encounter Kamila for the first time
Crypt - You fight her first form here
Bloodlust/null planet - self-explanatory
This is the terminology used by the devs hence it is correct, everything else, as pretty as it may sound, is incorrect
--------------------------------------
2 STUFF
--------------------------------------
- "If, in the maze you're standing where I'm standing, you're not doing it right!"
If you pay attention closely you'll notice that the aoe attacks of the mobs (=monsters, not "group of monsters" ) only extends forward. That means that if you stand behind the mob you won't take damage. I'm the healer so I usually have aggro, hence, don't stand where I'm standing! (note: sometimes you *HAVE* to cluster up in a corner because you'd otherwise be aggroing the whole room.) It appears that the vamps aoe acts like HWB, so the healer/tank should be at a bit of a range from the mob/crew hitting it.
"If you're standing where I'm standing you're doing it right
In greenroom you'll all want to bunch up. Why? Because in order to hit as many mobs as possible with rr4 tape they need to be bunched up, and in order to be bunched up all he people that could have aggro need to be bunched up as well. Only exception: nightfrights.
"Don't use KNOCKBACK or I'mma kick your asses"
Since we now know that standing behind the mob is a good idea you don't want to knock them into a wall either. Don't use knockback, ever! RR3+ Hack and RR4 solar rays knock back or have a chance to do so, so don't use them at high rage charges. Sphere has a passive chance-knock back built into it, so if you experience any random knockbacks - that's why. There are said to be few, magical individuals that can use knockback in order to aid the team, but chances are you're not one of them, so leave your knockback attacks at home.
"Assist xxx"
It's a great idea to assign a targetter and have all damage dealers assist off him or her. How can you visualize what mob you have targetted? Simple - with hot foot! It's a great attack ring and absolutely invaluable for this purpose.
"STOP SOLOIN BIGDOGS AND COME BACK HERE L3G1T"
L3g1t is a pr0 debuffer. Your crew should consider getting a debuffer too! Adrenaline is amazing and even knife sharpen is pretty good. But you can't have Josh, he's ours D<
"Liz you durpface, you forgot to suppress"
durr o3o. After 11.6 you'll notice that a lot of stuff in DMS is blue to you - go ahead and lower your CL for the maze so you don't get nerfed drops. Red Mage is currently collecting data to see what level is the most efficient one, let's hope he'll be kind enough to post a mini-guide on this later on : ) Preliminary info, thanks to syit, is that cl 11.4 is perfect!
You'll also nerf your crew members drops if you're more than .8 CL higher than them.
"Why'd you just waste that revive? D:"
Don't bother reviving near a mob, they will likely kill you again right away. Wobble to a free corner and do it there. Likewise, if you're kiting (running from) a mob don't drag them to people that are trying to revive or have just revived - you'll likely end up killing them again.
"BUFF!"
Once someone has used a revive, EVERYONE BUFF RIGHT AWAY. ALL BUFFS. IDC IF YOU WANT TO WAIT FOR RR4 - RR1 ALL BUFFS AND TOP UP WITH RR4 LATER. JUST DO IT. NOW.
"What do you mean your rock armor is still locked? Dx"
Put buffs, heals and cat/tape into the first two ring-slots. These are the rings you need most when you revive. IDC if it will mess up your hotkeys - just re-map them in the menu. You'll be screwing over the whole group if you can't rebuff Rock Armor right away. The most essential buffs in DMS are: Rock armor, Divinity and Iron Will - prioritize those over all others.
"b my frayn"
Make friends!!! If you group with someone and are impressed by their playstyle add them to your friendlist and if you're looking for crew or have spots to fill go through meebo and see if any of them are available. They'll bring more friends and that way you're always guaranteed to have a half-way decent group by meeting more good players. CL < Skill! I've met practically everyone I play with these days within the first few days of DMS's release!
"kill males, tape females"
Tape doesn't land on male vamps anymore horray! Thus, male vamps, along with bigdogs should always be your no 1 priority. It helps to have one person carry cat for emergencies, in case your healer is asleep or your tapers suck.
"Don't prioritize leveling your crowd control rings"
Leveling up Cat and Tape will not make them more effective.
"Prioritize these instead - MUCH thanks to Red Kutai for this info
If you want to level a buff, here's what you need to know: The following buffs' effects do not increase when they are leveled: Divinity, Improbability Sphere, Pot Lid, My Density, Taunt, Gumshoe, and Coyote Spirit. The following buffs receive a minor stat boost when leveled: Teflon Spray, Rock Armor. The following rings receive a major boost when leveled: Healing Halo, Iron Will. These rings will receive a stat boost but it appears to be neither minor nor major: Turtle, Fleet Feet.
"The thing with the weighted average"
In zOMG your overall CL will be lowered if your ring's levels are uneven. As a result, if you level 3 rings up to 12 and leave 3 at 10 the weighted average will kick in and nerf the cl 12 rings. They implemented that so people would level all their rings evenly and that's what you should do too to an extend. (NOTE: some people say this is false info and calculated differently but it's what JK told me, so I'll take his word for it for now sweatdrop )
"Don't scout!!!"
Since everyone now knows how to kill a nightfright there is no excuse to be scouting rooms. It's potentially harmful actually as mobs remain passive for the first few seconds when you enter the room. That way you can prepare debuffs/heals and even, if your crew is disciplined enough (and their internet fast enough), run into a different corner without aggroing the whole room.
"D: Why is there a lonely buddy that says "jonjon21428's stone coatl"?"
You can use buddies to mark the way of your progression into the maze. Very useful if someone needs to re-enter. Jonjon came up with this I think and is uber-pr0 at it heart
"But I don't wanna use tape, and these counts are kicking our butts!
A good way to deal with pesky mobs (and that includes counts, but excludes any sort of wolf/dog and nightfrights) is to first quicksand them and then cat them. They'll stay put and you can beat them up all you want without receiving damage in return. This isn't a tactic my team uses because we frankly don't want to waste a spot on quicksand, but if you have initial troubles with greenroom or the counts - try it.
------------------------------
3. THE GREEN ROOM HURDLE
------------------------------
So I keep getting asked how to do greenroom. I always believed that our way was one among many that worked but tbh, after having seen a couple of other ways to get it done, I do sincerely believe that, at this moment, it is the only really efficient way. If you've discovered a new, more magical way please do share, I'm always curious!
1) crew set up: the only really important thing here is that you have 2-3 RELIABLE tapers, preferably able to communicate easily, ideally over voice chat. Aside from that you can basically keep your crew set up. Cat will only be needed for emergencies and although I do (always) strongly recommend a dedicated healer I believe it can be done without if the crew is used to healing each other.
2) but the whole room aggros us! This is where tape comes in. Rage up before each room and go in and immediately rr4 tape everything that come your way. Start picking mobs off one by one and take turns rr4 taping. Remember that tape stacks upon tape, so you don't need to wait for them to wake up to re-tape, in fact I strongly recommend you re-tape before they wake up. The tapers should not use their rage to do anything BUT tape until you've cleared out enough of the room to be safe if the majority of the mobs you have on you are awake and active.
3) nightfrights and bigdogs >< The good news is that the bigdogs and nightfrights aren't higher level than the ones in the first maze. The bad news is that they can still make a room bloody challenging. If you enter a room and neither of them aggro you right off the bat, kill off as much of the room as you can before bothering with them. If they do, here's how you survive: a) nightfright: whoever pulls his aggro will have to run him around until the rest of the team has cleared the rest of the room. After that you either get him stuck or, recommended, straight up tank and mellee him to death.
b) bigdogs: can be done the same way as 1), but since they don't have the fearing aoe it's a lot easier to just tape all other mobs and tank and kill the bigdog.
Check out the media section of a video of us doing a fright in greenroom.
4) I'm cl 11.6, they tell me I'm too low for greenroom BULLSHIT. We were an entire CREW of 11.5/6 when we first made it all the way through there and met Kamila, and we've run a cl 10.4 through before with him dying perhaps once. Greenroom is the most fun content of the game right after bloodlust, so don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough.
5) But I want to use quicksand and cat and throw magical prayers to the heavens and hope that it works QS/Cat is way too complicated. Tape does everything QS/Cat does, but just about 100 times better.
------------------------------
4 GENERAL STUFF
------------------------------
In general I do not recommend you farm the first two rooms too much if you can in any way avoid it. Venture into the maze and have fun trying out tactics and ring sets and failing and suceeding. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun and this is not a race. Not only will you have more fun overall but you'll also gain experience you'll need for green room and the stuff after. If you enter greenroom at 11-11.5 It'll be just as hard as maze was at 10.0, and even at 12 it's not super easy.
Make sure you don't make the mistake of leveling up a few rings to farm just to realize later that they've gotten useless. You'll have to swop CL and that may take a few days. And that sucks. Find a group of people that complement your playstyle and play the same times as you and divide the buffs and start leveling them. That way you can have high level buffs - and you should, cos you'll need them.
Rings I would recommend:
Bandage - ideally only one person should have aggro so this is the best heal ring to have for everyone in the crew
Duct Tape - Fantastic crowd control ring that lands on werewolves and Blood Bats. Can't enter DMS without 2 people carrying it.
Meat - Another ring everyone should carry, it's just too good a bonus not to.
Wish - absolutely essential ring for healers and back-up healers.
Diagnose - For the main healer. You WILL run into situations where you need to heal and neither bandage or wish are ready. It's really only a ring the main healer should carry.
Hack - awesome attack, just don't necessarily use it at rr3+4 b/c of knockback.
Mantis - solid attack ring.
Hotfoot - solid attack ring and essential for targetting purposes. Just keep in mind that the higher rage ranks have aoe
SOLAR RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYS - many guides will say "carry it for the grue" - OMG don't! The grue doesn't happen often enough to justify that ring. It's still great for at least one person in the group to carry it though because you can use it to lure mobs!
adrenaline - AWESOME debuff
knife sharpen - good debuff
Rock Armor - CAN'T BE WITHOUT THIS AT ANY TIMES kthx.
Divinity - DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT IT.
Iron Will - IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE, TAKE THIS.
Keen eye - essential, especially if the mobs are higher CL than you
potlid - good, essential buff
ghost - good, essential buff
improbability sphere - good, essential buff
teflon - I miss old teflon emo still an essential though
healing halo - good, essential buff
Coyote spirit - good for the luck bonus at rr4, plus you *may* need to kite.
My Density - wolves knockback, and at rr4 it gives a bit of defense
Loltegrity - if the rest of your rings are stamina eaters and you can get away with giving up the ring-slot, this is a good options. Great for healers as it kills the entire crew if we're in a stamina pinch.
Sweethearts - this one's kinda "meh". More HP is always nice, but is it worth the ring slot? Probably not, but if you can work it, work it!
Fortune's Favor - oh HELLZ YEAH
Quicksand - I really don't like this technique personally, think it's way too chaotic, too much work, too inefficient but apparently people use it. I recommend you do NOT level this ring, but realistically I can't fault you for doing it.
Cat - I used to like cat quite a bit - that was until I tried tape! I mean it! Tape can do anything cat (and QS) can do just 100 times better. Yes, tape won't land on make vamps anymore, but it's not that hard to out heal them. Again - I don't really recommend this ring but it *is* popular still, so meh.
Rings I would refrain from leveling are:
(note: if you make any of those work for you - awesome! Go for it! Let us know how! But they don't work for me or any of the people I know so I can't and won't recommend them)
Hunter's Bow - Solar rays will do all the same but better.
Shuriken - Solar rays will do the same but better.
Defib - Bring revives instead.
Taunt - broken ring is broken
Hornet's Nest - durp
Dervish - Aoe and as a such, useless
Turtle - The combination of terrible re-use time and duration just don't make it worth a ringslot
GGGuns - Solar rays will the same but better.
Fire Rain - aoe
Fleet Feet - durp
Sugar Rush - durp
Slash - aoe
Gumshoe - better use cat/tape
Heavy Water Balloon - aoe
Bump - NO KNOCKBACK OR I'MMA KICK YOUR ASSES
Shark Attack - see above
Abuse/Kamila's Curse - durp
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5 BONUS HEALER TIPS
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I'm a main healer and since I'm getting a lot of compliments all the time I'm assuming I must be doing something right. Here's how I do it:
My ring-set (for greenroom+ - in Maze you can wear w/e... LITERALLY w/e):
bandage/tape/wish/ghost//meat/diagnose/fitness/integrity
Bandage, tape (is more needed in later areas of the game), Wish and Meat are 100% self-explanatory.
I carry ghost as my assigned buff because it's not a top priority buff. When we all die and rez I'm too busy healing/catting to have the time for a high priority buff, plus I'll need my rage to heal rr4 heals. If I carried Defib I would carry rock instead to be able to rock them as soon as I've defib'd them.
Diagnose - how well you survive really difficult situations will determine how far you get in the end. Diagnose is in general a pretty bad healing ring because of how much stamina it uses, but you WILL need the extra heals when Wish, Bandage and possibly your supercharger are on re-use. You WILL need this, make no mistake of it. For Bloodlust Diagnose is invaluable at keeping aggro and for Bats it helps me to build rage.
Loltegrity/Fitness - The crew needs 11 buffs only so one person can go without carrying 2 and it makes most sense for that person to be the healer. Carrying attacks in those 2 left-over slots sounds like it'd be a good idea, but it won't really work: it'll use WAY too much stamina. As healer I usually have aggro so I can't go rest while we're in combat. I also need my stamina the most when we're in a pickle so that itty bit of stamia regen loltegrity and fitness gives can be essential. The willpower boost is also really neat.
Playstyle:
1) Lowbie-Maze: (exchange one of the passives or tape for solar rays)
I usually pull mobs and get myself into an angle that the crew can get behind it. Just make sure you don't pull a "Hi Room (pull everything). Keep your eyes peeled on the crew panel, especially on people with lower CLs who tend to take more damage. Unless there's any doubt that you're going to be fine (only 1 mob left in the room ect) don't use any attacks.
2) Midbie-Maze aka Josh-style: an alternative way that works really well is this: run into the room first, pull everything, go to a corner and start healing yourself. Just stand there with everything hitting you and keep yourself healed. What that will do is the following: by healing yourself so much you will accumulate a lot of hate and nothing will hit anyone else.
3) Highlevel-Maze: It completely and entirely does NOT matter what you wear here - literally. Aoe, SAD, "animal themed attacks" - anything works.
4) Greenroom and Kam1: Greemroom remains somewhat challenging all the way until cl 12, so I don't recommend slacking off too much. I've already explained how we do greenroom: the whole taping thing. Personally I like to be one of the tapers since: a) I gain a lot of rage through healing, b) taping 20 mobs >>>>>>> trying to out heal them, c) I'm a damn good taper. I'd recommend for any healer to familiarize themselves with tape, although if you really can't get a hang of it and have other people in the crew that love it and are amazing at it you may as well take a debuff, a third passive or even an attack. Just whatever you pick, don't over-use it: If and accident happens, like someone aggroing a group of blood bats when you already have 3 on you, you'll need all the stamina you have and more. Again - how well you survive difficult situations will determine how far you get. Keep in mind that rooms will a lot of bloodbats are super-duper laggy and assign a back up healer to help out and keep you alive: beckygrendel is my one-and-only heart !!
Kam1 with it's minions works essentially the same way greenroom healing does.
5) Bloodlust:
bandage/turtle/wish/buff//meat/diagnose/fortune's fav/integrity
You're really better off not even attempting to tape or attack when you're going for the kill. Let your crew members do some work and concentrate on healing 100%. Turtle, FF and Integrity could potentially be changed for other rings but I noticed that the extra willpower, stamina-regen and HP are really really nice to have.
The 4 passives controversy
So apparently people think that carrying 4 passives at Kamila for an extra super uber dodge bonus helps. WELL IT DOESN'T. THINK ABOUT IT PEOPLE: YOU *******WANT******* TO GET HIT SO YOU CAN HEAL YOURSELVES AND K E E P AGGRO. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO TRY AN NOT GET HIT. It's entirely possible to outheal Bloodlust, even now. I've done it, and if I can do it, so can you!
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HOW TO KILL KAMILA
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First Form:
Have one member of your team enter the crypt and trigger the quest dialogue, then run off to another screen. Kamila will come after him and kill him, then she will reset. Have all other crew members enter, the meatshield rez and rebuff.
Pull the minions that have spawned to another screen and kill them. Luring them to a choke-point combined with tape works wonders! This works the same way as greenroom does.
The healer (since heshe has no attacks) lure Kamila to the screen you enter on, run up the terrase and watch her get stuck, the rest of the crew kill coffins
Start laying damage on Kamila - this part should be faily easy. Rinse and repeat until she's dead!
Bloodlust:
this is a bit tricky, it'll take a bit for your heal-tank to get the right position to stand in figure out, but if you've beaten the old bloodlust you won't have a lot of issues. In addition to the main healer you will need a strong heal-focused back-up healer as well as 2 reliable/3 okay tapers. The rest of the crew should carry 293801923813 attacks (including such lovelies like Slash or Bump! Go all out on attack power - just be mindful of bats if you carry something with an aoe) to speed it up!
Everyone will be teleported in at once, while you see her spawn-animation everyone swap rings and the heal-tank do a couple of diagnoses. As soon as her spawn animation is done the healtank should end up with aggro. If not: have himher heal whoever has aggro to get it.
Now the tough part: in order to do it right you have to understand what's going on. Kamila has two attacks, a stabby-stabby one that deals a LOT of damage and an aoe that deals very light damage. In the past you would position yourself in a way that you could avoid the stabby-one. You cannot anymore, you can however avoid the aoe! So what you as healtank have to do: stand in a very specific spot, about an avatar-and-a-half-width away from her. You may have to try this a few times, and you'll likely die before you find the right spot, but once you get a hang of it it's not that hard.
First priority: staying alive! Have the healtank heal him/herself and have the back-up healer heal as much as needed. Try to have the main healer do the majority of the healing for the obvious reason that heshe is the one that wants to keep aggro! At the same time it is VERY IMPORTANT that you keep your healtank alive though. In fact, it is your MAIN priority. If your healtank dies it is VERY likely that the whole crew will die.
Second priority: dealing damage! You've found a way to stay alive? Let's work on Kamila being not-so-alive next! Since the heal-tank has to heal himherself like a baws you can have your damage dealers deal more damage than before, horray! I'd start out with rr1 attacks, but you can start doing rr2 and even rr3 after a while - you'll get a hang of how much you can get away witbefore a DD pulls aggro.
Dealing Damage like a pr0: If you want to spam them superchargers and NOT spend hours upon hours killing here, here's a great way to speed things up. Have your DDs suicide. 'U crazy woman???' you ask? A quick death will reset their amount of accumulated hate to zero, and they can whail away with rr4 and chargers. HORRAY! I recommend not suiciding more than 2 of your partymembers at a time as it's a risk to the whole crew, and obviously you won't want to suicide just before bat-waves. The suiciders will need to pretty much stand/sit right on top of the healtank in order to take any damage at all as her sword attack has a very small aoe radius.
Third priority: The bats! Same old same old: Tape, pick off one by one.
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THE TEAM
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Yes, yes, I play in a constant. Stop complaining, it's how I roll and no one's forcing you to do the same. It doesn't mean I hate everyone else or never group with anyone else (cos I do), but I like playing with people I play well with can communicate with. As an example to a team that gets where it needs to get I will introduce you to my team, although I'm sure you've seen them around!
beckygrendel my number one back-up healer - always has my back and never lets me down heart . A great all-arounder - cc's well, damages well and heals the hell out of whoever needs it when I'm durping off. She has extra special skillz for knowing what's going on even if she's not on skype heart
syit. Living map and DMSGPS. Oh, and damage dealer and epic button-masher. One of our main tacticians. heart
KoumikoChan. Syit's gf, also known as "cute voice". Fantastic back-up healer and great player overall.. and that voice omg!!!
asedc. Yet another damage dealer! Now if he could just not change is avatar while we're all dying heart (just kidding, he's all kinds of amazing heart Also, I recommend you do NOT click the links he posts on skype unless you're as hardcore as him.
Uesugi Ankit. best heal-tank in the game. To this day I aspire to match his greatness! When he doesn't heal tank he usually entertains his harem :O
parf always willing to take one for the team and die first this one!
Killer Penguins. Very reliable good and smart player, one of the very few people I'd blindly trust as my heal-tank!!
Fai Maxwell. A rock of integrity, always up for a crew, one of the best!
Sweet Sugar Delight. Can't get much sweeter than Sweets! She rocks the party and keeps you alive and your enemies taped... what more could you ask for!
Lux Fortuna. We're told that we're basically identical, except for that I play healer and he plays cc'er. Also a "bit" of a troll. dramallama part of the wish-trinity and one of our tacticians. Our brain.
Josh-what's-his-new-username-again?. Another perfect all-arounder and good at whatever you ask him to do. He can even play healer! If you have a cute voice he might not even troll you too hard (maybe). part o the wish-trinity and one of our tacticians. Our muscle.
Me! Healer, durpface and "the one who yells at everyone about what to do". also part of the wish-trinity and another tactician. Our heart heart
Sagebomb. You guessed it, another muscle of the team. He's just kinda there and stuff, you know? Plus he has a funny accent (although his mic is derp) - currently on leave for an epic 5 month cruise!
Blitz Jax - SPOKESPERSON OMG SO CUTE VOICE WTF OMG OMG OMG
Brooklyn Rage Mage. Damage Dealer. One of our muscles. He hits hard and is fantastic at it, not much more to say. Often plays targetter and very good at figuring out game mechanics.
Sephira Yamishi. Another Damage Dealer and hits just as hard as the Red Mage. Very dedicated and awesome, often plays targetter as well.
Proletariat Porno. Professional Crowd Controller and damage dealer, heart her long time!
Omnileech. great all arounder - and I mean really, how could it NOT be an epic win party with Sarah Palin?!
Lord Lunar. Professional creep. He mostly goes afk or pulls the entire room. Either way, no party is complete without him creeping the voice chat heart
OMFG Taylor The number cruncher! He uses all sorts of rings to try out all sorts of things and doesn't have a set role really, other than being awesome heart
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LINKS OUT
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For general information on DMS check out Zzyli's fantastic guide "Oh the Blood(bats)" and if you're in need of a good crew see if Rafi has a spot! If not, try MLH.
Here's a detailed guide on how to kill nightfrights at low level (note: this won't work well after a certain CL because the damage dealers will keep stealing aggro. You'll either have to be VERY disciplined and keep the damage output minimal, or you just straight up tank her - we started doing that after 11.5ish and it works really well and is a lot faster than anything else).
Here are some general guides: zOMG virgins go here or here for a more visual experience. A great guide on ring stats, ghi boosts, sets and EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW and basic info on how to be a good healer (by the person who taught me how to be a healer herself!.
In the link section of the Rings and Stats guide you'll find more threads with info on specific topics!
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MEDIA
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****POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING****
screenies and videos of our adventures!
- screenies
dying to Kamila like a baws!
aoe'ing greenroom! - YES WE CAN
heal-tanking nightfrights the becky-way
the crew not taking damage if they stands BEHIND a vamp
killing 2 CL 13 counts JK spawned - awesome 4 party teamwork!!
Kamila's first form at 5 HP - by syit
videos - all videos taken by Sephi unless stated otherwise!
troll-tanking a nightfright
killing two cl 13 counts
kiting+killing a fright in a room full of mobs in greenroom (half the mobs were already dead when the recording starts, but you get the general idea! I heard a lot of people are having problems doing frights in green, so this may help)
totally unrelated video of my bff Persu soloing Landshark a few years ago. Added due to popular demand (not by sephi)
music
music in the maze/green room
the music of her second form - MAJOR SPOILER
~~ more to come ~~
