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 Archon Material : Soloing Hunters
// Browsing(62) Playing(166) Pfiles(80,726) Clans(104) LiveFeed(down)You don't always have the benefit of a form around when a hunter rifts to you. Or maybe you're machismo and don't need help killing your hunters, or perhaps you want all 25 AP per kill instead of splitting it among a form. Although "hunter camping" is a lot more efficient and easy with forms, it is very possible to solo hunters. This guide will show you my ways of going about soloing hunters; there are no doubt other ways. Perhaps the best thing to do with this guide is to integrate relevant parts into your already established stratagem. Try to read this guide in order, as a lot of the context of certain passages assumes you have knowledge of the passages before that. You might also benefit from reading about the various hunter types in Materia Magica. Before the Fight Prerequisites Of course you have to be an archon; so if you're a first classer reading this, you have quite a while to go. :p You should have at least 2,500 hit points and 2,000 spell points. These numbers will vary depending on your skill. It is possible to solo hunters when you have under 2,000 of both, but of course the difficulty increases significantly (one bolt type spell and a round can kill you). Since you are going about without the benefit of a form, try to get a toy solidier from Lord Vendredi. He will act as the less-than-intelligent surrogate partner that won't steal your AP once you kill the hunter. Be careful when using toys though, more on this later. Also, get a weapon that doesn't decay too easily (or even better, a nodecay weapon) and does decent damage (290+). The fight is going to be quite long. Getting a nodecay weapon isn't difficult at all if you're already an archon. Be sure to stock up on reagents, especially ethereal and gem reagents for counterspell. You should also own an Agrippa's Puzzle. It just makes life so much easier. Also, make sure you have a piece of equipment that gives you sanctuary. Otherwise, don't even think about tanking hunters. Finding the Right Spot Most people have their favorite "hunter camping" locations. If you are in a clan, this might be your clan hall. If you have an active clan with archons, you shouldn't even be reading this as you would be better off camping hunters with your fellow archons in your hall. But these conditions are not available to everyone, unfortunately. When I am trying to find a good spot to solo hunters, I keep a few criteria in mind: The presence of... For my purposes, I'll say this location is Pirate's Cove. It has a nice safe room that's nomob and high-regen. The room even has a bed, which increases regen rate even more! Pirate's Cove also has a reagent shop on the main road, very close to the aforementioned safe room. And I have a clanhall very close to Pirate's Cove, so I can just cast word of recall to get back - should I ever need to puzzle out. So my perfect camping spot is north of the safe recall room in Pirate's Cove. However, these conditions only apply to me. But you get the idea and you should be able to find your own suitable location for hunter soloing. Hunters will move around (hunters flee when low on health, hunters track you when you flee, etc.), so make sure the general area you are in is safe. It would be great if you can find a spot to do your soloing in which all adjacent rooms are nomob. Then your hunter camping spot would be that very room. Although this is the theoretical perfect situation, it's quite hard to find such rooms in Materia Magica unless you custom design it (via a clanhall). False Beliefs About the "Right Spot" Although one might think that LPK rooms are the perfect spot for soloing hunters (because if you die, you instantly reincarnate), this is not true. This is because hunters in an LPK room will randomly rift away. One might also think that nomagic rooms are good also, since you are immune to spells. But generally, hunters in nomagic rooms will do more damage. If their type allows it, they will spam breath attacks and bombs. It's also harder to keep your hunter plagued or poisoned in such rooms. Beginning of the Fight Debuff Your Hunter If your choice of class path lands you with the 'dispel magic' spell, cast it on the hunter! It might take multiple tries for dispel to land, but once your hunter is dispelled, fighting becomes so much easier since he loses sanctuary, haste, +ar spells, and other beneficial buffs. Note that some hunters cannot be dispelled. These are the energy-immune ones. An easy way to find out if your hunter is energy-immune is to equip the twisted holly wand from Lord Vendredi (most archons have this quest item). If your weapon attacks have "no effect" on the hunter, then he is energy immune, and thus, cannot be dispelled. Every other hunter can be dispelled. Although often times the actual dispelling is close to impossible due to the hunter's saving, so keep this in mind. If during the fight, a surge causes your hunter to fall asleep, that's the perfect opportunity to spam dispel on him (assuming you never successfully landed it before). This is because dispel magic isn't a hostile spell per se, and won't provoke the hunter to attack. Do note that dispel magic is indiscriminate, meaning it will dispel both negative and positive buffs. The ideal situation would be to dispel your hunter before casting any of your negative spells. Invariants During the Fight Fight or Flight Truisms If you're soloing hunters, follow these two rules no matter what: 1) If a hunter webs you, calm and puzzle or dispel yourself
and flee. This is because web and silence are like the one-two death spells when you are soloing. If the hunter manages to land both on you, you're pretty much dead. Your only hope after that is to spam the hell out of cure light and pray you break out of the web. Thus, these two rules should be followed religiously, and should only be broken when your hunter is very low on health (and you are certain to kill him). Attrition Truism No matter what, keep your hunter either plagued or poisoned. One or the other should suffice, but cast both if you can stick it. If you're a psionic, use irritation. This is basically an always-stick plague (with some exceptions, I'll explain later). Why is it important to keep your hunter either plagued or poisoned? Because hunters have a lot of hit points. And that means a lot of hit point regeneration per tick (hit point regeneration is based on a percentage of your remaining hp versus max hp). Plague/poison would nullify most of this regeneration. Note that a lot of hunters are immune to poison, but only summoners are immune to plague. Always-Stick Spells Far less important that the attrition truism, but you should try to cast always-stick spells such as weaken and faerie fire whenever possible. However, don't do it if it would endanger your life. The Main Fight Counterspell is Your Best Friend ...Sometimes. After you have casted all your negative spells (especially plague/poison), it's time for the real fight to begin. Now you should find out whether your hunter is counterable or not. Whenever you see one of the following lines: X the Archon Hunter begins muttering an incantation and making arcane
gestures... Cast counterspell! Some hunters cannot be countered; these hunters are of type "alchemist". You can easily identify them because they have breath attacks and they throw bombs. Every other hunter can be countered. If you're up against a witch type hunter, counterspell is doubly important because just one of their witch spells (extinction, for example) can completely debilitate you. Likewise, countering extinction feels quite good. Elementals If you have the quest item bell from Lord Maldra, summon a few! The exception to this is when you are fighting an alchemist-type hunter (a hunter who has breath attacks and throws bombs). Since breath attacks now do area damage, your elementals will die very quickly, so it's quite pointless to summon them. Anyway, the purpose of having elementals is not for their damage (as it is quite pitiful compared to a toy soldier, which we will talk about in the next section), but for their ability to remove defenses from your hunter. The combat system in Materia Magica is coded so new players or NPCs that join your form will fight first. This allows the hunter to waste his defenses on the useless attacks of your elementals, enabling your attacks to go through (mostly) unhindered. Toy Soldiers The toy soldier from Lord Vendredi is helpful, doubly so if you're soloing hunters, so try to have one for the extra damage. You can even equip him with a weapon for even more damage. A good weapon to equip is an ice-covered broadsword. These are fairly damaging two-handed weapons from hunters. Make sure the weapon you equip a toy soldier with is of no importance to you (ice-covered broadswords have little value) and does decent damage (we don't want our toy's attacks to be weaker than his hand-to-hand attack). Since combat will unavoidably stop many times when you are soloing hunters, it's quite a hassle to keep equipping your toy with a weapon. But if you still want to, the commands are: 1) drop <weapon> If you're using a toy, there are a few things you should keep in mind in order to keep him alive. Basically, be sure to FLEE yourself when he gets webbed so that combat stops. If he gets dispelled, order him to flee out of the fight (order toy flee <direction>) and spam it until he does. If he's tanking, check his health often by 'l'ooking at him or typing 'form report'. Heal him when necessary and order him to flee when he gets low on health. You don't want to waste all that hard earned quest points (or gold if you bought it) by letting your soldier die, or by letting him eat a dispel-kill, which hunters do quite often. Which brings us to our next topic... That Damned Dispel! A lot of times, you'll be at near full health and a few seconds later, you'll be whisked away to whatever post-life plane your race places you at. So what happened? Chances are, the hunter dispelled you, and then casted kill. This is instant death for your toy soldier - and also for you. This is because more times than not, the hunter dispel will take away your sanctuary effect. And kill spell on a non-sanced player equates death. So once you see your hunter has dispelled you, either flee and rewear all your equipment to gain all spell benefits back, or remove the sanc item and rewear it on the spot (before rewearing all your other equipment, should you choose to do so). The Art of Harassing No doubt, you'll be fleeing quite often if you are soloing hunters and don't want to die. So what should you do now that you have fled into the safe room? If you are very low on health or spell points, sleep and regenerate for a few ticks. If you are silenced and your health is decent, you can harass the hunter. I usually go in the same room as the hunter, and bash him until he casts a spell - after which I flee. I repeat until my silence timer wears off. When I get low on health, I go back in my safe room and regenerate. Harassing this way doesn't have that much effect on the overall outcome of the fight, but every little bit stacks up. Reiterating a Truism All this time, have you been keeping your hunter plagued or poisoned? If not, he'll probably outheal any damage you can do to him once he gets past significant wounds. Keeping your hunter either plagued or poisoned (or both) is very important, so it gets another mention here. Equalizing your HP/SP During the fight, you should try to keep your health and spell points at about the same level. If your health is lower than your spell points, heal up. Don't be afraid to cast spells! As your hit points/spell points decrease, regeneration increases. Keep this in mind to maximize each tick given to you in the game. But don't let your hp/sp fall so low that you are in danger of dying. You'll get a feel for this general area after soloing a few hunters. At the End of the Fight Everything from here onward is just cleaning up. You've basically won the battle if you got your hunter to vomiting blood or paling, and have him poisoned or plagued. Web Once the fight is almost over (your hunter is vomiting blood or paling), web your hunter! This is because he'll start fleeing periodically, and more so once his health decreases. Casting web at any other time of the fight is a waste when soloing hunters. But it is essential when he's about to die. Maximize Damage Once you have him webbed, maximize your damage. Forego that shield in favor of a 2 handed weapon. Don't worry about spending spell points and cast those damage spells. Bash away whenever possible. At this point, your hunter will also start focusing on healing instead of casting damage/negative spells on you, so it's important to maximize your damage to counteract his heal. In a Public Place? Good Work, Soldier! If you have been using a toy soldier and are in a public area, order your soldier to flee so you can get the last blow. This is important when coupled with... Set Autoloot On If you are soloing hunters in a public place, you should have this on anyway. But just to make sure, set autoloot on. It doesn't hurt, and it's better than having some passerby yank your shiny tokens. See, one of the benefits of soloing hunters (as opposed to fighting hunters in a form) is that you don't have to worry about other people taking your tokens (both passersby and those in your form), since you always have autoloot on and deliver the last blow.
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