Crigos's Duel/Mutiny Guide


Pkilling and leveling are fun in their own way. Crafting, gold
running, sure. But dueling is a very important part of the game as
well; anywhere from friendly duels with clanmates, duels to the
death between opposite clans, or the all-important call-conquering
mutiny fight. I've had more duels than I can really count, and
have been on the receiving and giving end of mutinies a few times
too. Therefore I'll go over a few of the things I've learned and
try to give a few pointers to those who don't really have much
experience in it. I'll go over tips for fighting each class as
well.


-- Duels

There are a number of steps you should take when you're going to
duel someone. They are fairly simple, but if you don't do them you
will probably lose. Losing kinda sucks, but it's nowhere near as
bad as actually dying.

The most fundamental thing about a duel compared to player-killing
is that duels take place in one room, with no fleeing. Each person
tanks the other and tries to outlast them: the person who flees
first (or dies, in the case of a fight to the death or mutiny) is
considered the "loser". There's generally no penalty to losing a
duel except bitter shame at the fact that you lost.

Here are the general steps in having a duel:

1. Spellup. Use potions, pills, healers, whatever you have
available to give yourself all the benedict spells that you can
possible have. In a friendly duel this is generally not as
important, since losing isn't so big a deal. Mutiny or fight to
the death? You better slap every spell on that you can. Don't
forget to sanc up. Protection from their align is *extremely*
important and cuts down damage by a ridiculous amount. Always try
to find out or guess your opponent's alignment first.

2. Check your spells over again and DON'T forget anything.

3. Check your eq. Get a weapon that hits the target in question
the hardest. If you have time to prepare for the fight ahead of
time, get yourself a strong vulnerability-hitting weapon. I'll go
over the various vuln hitters later. Against a dragon, 95% of the
time you'll want a d-slayer, even as a caster.

4. Someone usually counts down, or someone generally says when to
start. Fight! I'll go over some tactics for fighting down a bit
later. Remember, once you've fled you lost. If you fled by wimpy
accidently, return back ASAP and attack them again and turn wimpy
off. If they're at pretty hurt, warn them that they should flee.
And if they are bashing or tripping and you are at low HP, get out
of there or you'll probably die by accident.


That's generally all there is to it in mutinies. Remember that you
cannot use throws, wands, staves, scrolls, potions, or charged
items in a duel or mutiny, as it turns the duel into a challenge
of who has the most gold instead of who is best. Outside influence
in a duel is discouraged strongly, though it's hard to tell if,
for example, a warlord is grouped with someone to negate their
penalty.


-- Duel Tactics

Area spell effects are fun. I don't mean ones that affect an area,
like earthquake or fireball, but rather things you cast on the
ground. In particular, the most powerful ones are Rain of Tears
(abyssal slivers) and Darkness (black dragons). To a lesser
extent, cloudkill is alright too. The main benefit of these spells
is that you can do other things while the spells are hitting your
opponent. However, you can't cast these before the duel or mutiny
actually starts - it has to have begun already.

Dirt kick and disarm are much more effective here than in a PK
situation. They will be badly mauled by lack of parry, usually,
and if they are a hitter class they will hit way, way weaker
without a weapon. Just don't bother trying to disarm a twohanded
weapon or dirt kick a samurai. Neither are a good idea at all.
Detonate is also a very effective spell against basically anyone,
if you are a spellcaster. Pick up their weapon if it's still on
the ground. Just make sure you give it back after.

Ask if they're gonna use a shocking weapon beforehand, and
fireproof your stuff if they are. It's always irritating having
your equipment fused. In the same vein, put your potions away
before fighting.



-- Fighting Against/as each Class

In this section I'll go over each class and the most effective way
to fight against or as them. This is by no means 100% accurate
because there are some (few) classes I haven't gotten around to
playing yet. However I've certainly fought each one.


-- Invokers: DAMAGE. Invokers can easily hit any vuln with their
high-powered spells, and thanks to a lot of mana they can keep
spamming them in all day long. Invokers should definitely be
damage oriented. However, if you are a necromancer, always go for
blind first. A blinded, non-cureable target is a joke when you
have withstand death. Just keep withstanding and spell blasting.

Fighting any caster requires you to keep them stunned as much as
possible. Trip, bash, the stun spell, tail trip, shocking weapons,
maces, whatever -- just keep their casting screwed up as much as
possible. Always try to have their protection or spelldamage
resistance around, otherwise you will know the meaning of pain.


-- Mages: Mages are one of the most interchangeable classes for
dueling. There are generally three strategies you can employ:
Maladicts, dispel, or vuln hitting. The first requires that you
not fight a cleric or paladin, as they will have ridiculous saves
and will cure whatever you cast. If they don't have berserk or
much saves, spam plague -- two or three plagues and a weaken will
almost always force them to drop their weapon. Dispelling is easy,
yet effective: with a high enough intelligence you can land a good
amount of dispels and strip away a lot of their precious spellups.
Dispelling fly on a paladin/thief/runist, haste on a
cleric/paladin, or sanc on ANYone is generally excellent. As
forthe last strategy, it requires you to basically just become an
invoker: nail their vuln with whatever spells you have, and
occasionally scatter in a maladict or a dispel to shake things up.
Wizards-- prismatic is your friend. Use it!


-- Enchanters: These are generally not too effective in duels. In
a mutiny, try to land a sleep or charm the instant the immortal
says 'go'; in duels this is considered pretty lame. Then when they
are slept spam dispel and then maladicts, or if charmed make them
spam cancel on themselves. Here's what I do: spam feeblemind until
the feeble lands, dispel or maladict a few times, then spam
psychic crush until they are dead. Also very fun is demand: try
demanding them a few times to cancel themselves in the middle of a
fight, or healing you. It's fun!

Fighting against enchanters is fairly easy -- just keep your
wisdom and saves nice and high, and all their precious screw-up
spells like demand or charm will have a very hard time landing.
Disarm them too, since a lot of the time casters need icy
manipulators or intelligent weapons to maximize their stats.


-- Conjurers: Not terribly effective in duels either, but if you
have a strong character it's fairly possible. Like mages, aim for
either maladicts, dispel, or spells. However, instead of spamming
vulns all you can really do is go for prismatic spray, which eats
your mana like a fat man at a free chinese food buffet. Clenched
fist is a strong, cheap spell, so use that if they don't have a
vuln that prismatic can hit. Also, phantom force is very excellent
against elf casters, since it stuns nicely and does a good deal of
damage.

-- Clerics: Ah, clerics. For 99% of Redemption history they were
the class of choice for duels, topped only recently by ninjas. A
cleric is a sponge, first and foremost: they can suck up immense
amounts of damage and whittle the enemy down little by little.
Start off by spamming a few maladicts (for heretics, blind is an
absolute MUST), mix in a dispel or ray/demonfire, or kick if you
really want to preserve that precious mana and have high enough
strength for your kick not to suck. You can hit pretty hard with a
good weapon, too, so get one. Once you get down to low HP,
transfer and start healing up. Once you're nice and high, start
kicking again. If you don't have trans.. well, just heal up and
hope your weapon damage will deal enough to them. Or better yet
stop dueling and go remort! Also, when fighting casters your best
friend is energ drain. Two or three of these landing and it's game
over.

Fighting a cleric is a very difficult proposition. There are
generally only two ways of beating them: First, out-last them.
This requires you to play a cleric too, or a strong paladin. Get a
flooding weapon so that they don't hit nearly as often, and try to
screw up their casting with stun spells/skills. Stripping haste
should be your first priority: if you are a caster, well. Max out
your con so energy drain doesn't land as easy, and hope for the
best. The second way of beating them is to deal so much damage in
so little time that they cannot deal with it in the normal slow,
turtle-like way that a cleric uses. Very excellent for this tactic
is sabre kirre, runists with phantom force + vuln hitter, samurai,
or invokers with a lot of con (to withstand a few energy drains).
If you dish out too much damage, they will not be able to heal it
all in time.


-- Druids: Bah. Druids are generally a mediocre dueling class,
though with a strong race they can be surprisingly powerful.
Rainbow burst is very expensive for the amount of damage it does,
so it's no longer a viable strategy to merely spam it in over and
over. The vitalize spells they get don't really heal fast enough
to make transfer very effective in a duel or mutiny, though can be
helpful to blunt the amount of damage taken. Kick is handy when
you run out of mana. The best bet is to spam either dispel or vuln
hitting spells like lightning bolt. Reclass druids -- always,
always use nature protection. Cancel it if it's not your current
vuln, and keep casting it until it hits the right one. Ie: if you
are a giant, wait till it protects against lightning. Then restore
it when it's at low ticks by casting it again on yourself. Fun
stuff.

When fighting a druid, it's generally pretty effective just to
nail them with as much damage as you can. Vuln hitting doesn't
always work, so try for generic damage like kicks. In general,
fight them as if you'd fight a mediocre cleric.


-- Paladins: With them, you fight much as if a warrior were melded
somehow to a cleric. They hit very strong, are pointless to
maladict, and they have half-decent healing. You should always
have max saves and high dex, because slow will land less often. If
you are slowd, you instantly lose one attack every round and you
will hit *much* less often. It's extremely important to find a
good weapon to use. The strongest paladin reclass skill is useless
in a duel or mutiny (charge). Essentially, you should be using a
flooding weapon on a paladin, cleric, or monk, and then use a
flaming weapon. Flaming weapons allow you to blind them, making
disarm a viable solution if you've got it. Sharp weapons work
nicely too to dish out a lot of damage. Go ahead and use up all
that mana on cure crits if you're getting weakened; it's not like
you'll use it on anything else. Berserk is also a nice healer
later on in a fight.

Fight a paladin in the same way as a cleric, except for one major
difference: they can't trans, they can just heal. Therefore, slow
should be your first priority, then dish out enough damage so that
they start to heal. When they start casting cure critical, use
bash/trip/stun/shocking/eagle spirit to keep their casting screwed
up.

-- Ranger: Hah. Rangers are worse even than druids in a duel.
Since they no longer have rainbow burst or dispel, rangers are
really resorted to simply kicking, bashing, dk'ing, and disarming
their opponents. Keep them off balance with a mix of each of
those, particularly kick if they are monks or elves. Otherwise,
there's not a great deal a ranger can do in a mutiny, since you
can't use archery or charmies. Beware of spellcasters, as without
berserk you'll be an easy target for maladicts.


-- Runist: Runists fight somewhat similar to thieves. Their main
benefit is burst rune, which allows you to hit through the
all-powerful dodge and parry. It's especially effective on elves.
Phantom force is their main damage-dealer; psions should consider
kicking instead, since their mana will drain very fast with
repeated phantom forces. Keep dirt kicking, but don't waste *too*
many combat rounds on it. If you dish out enough damage, you will
nail them before they have a chance to respond. In the early
rounds against casters, use trip and phantom force until they give
up on maladicts: A blind, for example, can be devastating early
on. Keep a LOAD of weapons on you at all times, and make sure your
best ones are runed. Prepare ahead of time with appropriate damage
reduction tattoos.

Fighting a runist really depends on one main factor: If they are
prepared to fight you. A runist who has spent a lot of time on the
right combination of tattoos can be very difficult to face. If you
have disarm, your first priority should be to blind/dk and disarm
them: a runist without a weapon is a sitting duck, especially when
they are blinded and can't wear another one. Darkness works well
for this too.


-- Thieves: Damage! With backstabs, you'll do a ridiculous amount
of damage.. until they hit big nasty. At this point, you really
only have a few options; dirt kick and disarm, kick, or whatever
racial skill you have (breath in particular!) to whittle down the
last of their HP.

Fighting thieves is a lesson in not panicking. They will do an
obscene amount of damage until you are at about 50% health. Make
sure you have mirror to block the first few stabs; if you can
dirtkick and disarm early on, you'll generally win. Maladicting
them is a good idea as well, as they have no cure spells and
generally mediocre saves. Getting their protection is very
important, so they do a lot less damage to you.



-- Warriors: Warriors have the lovely combination of high HP with
high hitting power. They can wear down an opponent for a long
time, but don't have any real "finishers" like vuln hitting spells
to deal a lot of damage. Bash is your friend when dueling as a
warrior, as well as dirt kick and disarm. These three skills are
generally all a warrior needs. If the battle lasts a long time,
feel free to re-berserk in the middle of it for more HP. Keep a
good, strong vuln hitting weapon on hand. Kick is also handy on
those annoying elf casters who dodge all your attacks.


Fighting a warrior is mainly about tackling all that HP. Warriors
will hit very hard, so consider specializing in dodge or parry
beforehand. It's not easy to disarm a warrior, since they will
have high str, but it can be an effective way of neutralizing
their biggest advantage: their weapon.


-- Monks: Bah! I hate monks. They are generally a lot like
paladins but better in every way. They hit harder, they heal more,
they have better skills, and they are much, much better in duels.
A monk should always be in mantis stance to begin with and dolphin
spirit to strip haste; if you are fighting a caster who cannot hit
for beans (ie. elf casters) switch to tiger or kensai if you're a
samurai. Chi is an easy way of doing a lot of damage very fast;
much more so than kick. Once you've disarmed them, go for boosts:
they can do a great deal of damage to someone who's lost their
parry bonus. A samurai can quicken to instantly strip their haste,
as well as re-dirt them if you're dirt kicked.

Fighting a monk is very difficult. They can heal with chakra,
disarm you with ludicrous ease, strip your haste (in the case of
samurai) and dish out a ridiculous amount of damage. They have no
real healing like paladins or clerics for spells, so if you can
just hit them with spell damage as much as possible they will get
worn down very quickly. Vuln hitting spells (invokers!) are brutal
for this too. Watch out for ninja ninjitsu; it's not technically
throwing so it's not against the rules yet. Hopefully it will be
soon.


Whew. That's a lot of classes.

-- Mutinies

A mutiny is, essentially, a grab by a player to take control of a
clan. It can have far-reaching repercussions on the game, so think
well before you attempt one. Also, deleting if you lose is never a
good thing.


To start with, make sure you have 2 supporters in your clan.
Generally these are trusted friends, but if your clan leader is
doing a poor job you can usually find a few people who are
disgruntled enough, yet not good for mutinies, to supprot you. Get
more experience in dueling by dueling a LOT of people and learning
the most effective methods of fighting. A mutiny is definitely NOT
for the inexperienced to attempt.

Post a note on boad 6 or 7 with the names of your mutinies, to 58.
Don't let anyone know you are mutinying, because if you're unlucky
the leader will loner you before the mutiny note has been
officially declared by imms.

Prepping for a mutiny is much like a duel, only with some subtle
differences. You are stripped of all spell effects when you are
transfered, and then restored. Spell up fully with everything you
have (wedding cakes are very good for this!). Restore again. Make
sure you're ready, and fight the champion. Hopefully you've built
your eq set around who you're fighting! Get whatever vuln hitter
works best on them.


-- Vuln Hitters

Getting a good vuln hitting weapon is very important. Here are the
races and some appropriate vuln hitters:

> dragons: Selina's Might, axe of desolation, second hand sword,
shadow's edge dagger, electric eraser
> trolls: burning fauchard
> gargoyles: rotting green blade, spiked chain of nurgle
> elves: cold black-iron blade, wicked battle axe
> sliver: slime-coated pile driver

Other races generally have no vuln hitter except for
elemental-damage int weapons.

As for spells, just hit them with the proper vuln hitting spell.
Acid blast works on slivers and blue dragons, blast of rot on
gargoyles and black dragons, ice bolt or phantom force on kirre or
red dragons, and so on.


So, in conclusion, duels are fairly simple, yet there's a lot of
complexity to making sure you're not always on the losing end.
Keep these hints in mind and you'll probably do better.