Fighting with Fury

[Tael]

Not too long ago I was involved in a rather large battle with Bugud. He'd been bugged, and still had his shields up, after his posse had been eliminated. A very large group joined in the battle to help bring him down. I was very surprised to see that most of the players, almost all, in fact, were sitting still on top of Bugud and pounding him, rather than building up Fury. Only 2 players, besides myself, kept on the move. I don't understand this strategy. The power spent to damage expended seems greater when not using Fury, and the total damage also suffers when not using Fury. Perhaps, for a tank, sitting still makes some sense, if giving damage is not a concern, and perhaps, for a healer, to better concentrate, but I don't understand a dps class sitting still in a mounted fight. Am I missing something?

[LoyKashka]

Generally, power is not an issue in MC fights. Therefore, the best way to do damage is to make as many attacks as quickly as possible. Take the minstrel, for example. The bonus to fury is negligible when compared to getting an extra ballad in, thereby allowing you to cycle another coda sooner. The thing is to always be using abilities, and only using whatever fury builds up naturally. In chaotic fights like Bugud, it's often better to sit still, so you can see what's going on, and keep him in your field of view.

[djheydt]

Well, my problem with any target that I'm supposed to attack while mounted is STEERING the damned horse. It's gotten much worse since Update 9; I try to head straight for the target and instead I go around in circles or at the least, swing 90 degrees to right or left of what I'm trying to hit.

Believe me, it's tempting just to stand on top of the target and hit it over and over until it notices me.

Edit: Oh, and I'm not a tank, I'm a LM.

[Tael]

Generally, power is not an issue in MC fights. Therefore, the best way to do damage is to make as many attacks as quickly as possible. Take the minstrel, for example. The bonus to fury is negligible when compared to getting an extra ballad in, thereby allowing you to cycle another coda sooner. The thing is to always be using abilities, and only using whatever fury builds up naturally. In chaotic fights like Bugud, it's often better to sit still, so you can see what's going on, and keep him in your field of view.

I'm not sure about this. My burg can do around 20k damage with fury, on a devastating hit, more than what could be done with the number of strikes landed in the same time it takes to build up that fury.

As for power, (mount power), it is an issue for some classes. My LM burns through it pretty well. If I solo or duo Bug on the LM, I find I may even have to freeze him and change mounts, occasionally, to restore power, if Arise is on CD.

I can see where a healer might want to sit still to see what is going on, but really I'm talking about dps. My champ just wants to see where to stick the sword.

[Tael]

Well, my problem with any target that I'm supposed to attack while mounted is STEERING the damned horse. It's gotten much worse since Update 9; I try to head straight for the target and instead I go around in circles or at the least, swing 90 degrees to right or left of what I'm trying to hit.

Believe me, it's tempting just to stand on top of the target and hit it over and over until it notices me.

Edit: Oh, and I'm not a tank, I'm a LM.

What drives me nuts on the steering is when I try to loop left and the horse refuses and turns right instead, or vice versa. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, I usually end up with adds I'd rather avoid. lol

[yvandriel]

What drives me nuts on the steering is when I try to loop left and the horse refuses and turns right instead, or vice versa. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, I usually end up with adds I'd rather avoid. lol

Please don't be offended but have you toggled the mount skill 'spur on' by mistake? This can give the effect you describe.


For those new to MC: This skills locks your mount onto your target to bring you in range to use whatever skills you choose-so it will 'steer' you within range and steer circles as you approach target until it riggers the the skills and they fire. It's effect seems more noticeable depending on skills you are using-melee will have you riding in close tight circles/flanks around mob thereby losing fury -not good if you are a ranged class. You can override with movement keys/WE but it makes turns and direction changes seem more sluggish imo.

It can be good for soloing multiple lower/on level mobs (like in Dailies) and for learning the best skill rotations- it's like riding a well trained horse 'hands free' . Or, I suppose it could be used in a group, healing through the boss- but it's very bad for aggroing random mobs, for going the wrong way, and for getting too close to bosses.

[Tael]

Please don't be offended but have you toggled the mount skill 'spur on' by mistake? This can give the effect you describe.


For those new to MC: This skills locks your mount onto your target to bring you in range to use whatever skills you choose-so it will 'steer' you within range and steer circles as you approach target until it riggers the the skills and they fire. It's effect seems more noticeable depending on skills you are using-melee will have you riding in close tight circles/flanks around mob thereby losing fury -not good if you are a ranged class. You can override with movement keys/WE but it makes turns and direction changes seem more sluggish imo.

It can be good for soloing multiple lower/on level mobs (like in Dailies) and for learning the best skill rotations- it's like riding a well trained horse 'hands free' . Or, I suppose it could be used in a group, healing through the boss- but it's very bad for aggroing random mobs, for going the wrong way, and for getting too close to bosses.

No offense taken. I posted so that I could get opinions from others, and all are welcome, and thank you for taking the time to respond.

I fully agree with your description, and for many of the reasons you state I never use it. I don't even have it on my main skills bar, anymore. I think, though, that the bug I'm experiencing, where it turns the wrong way, may be somehow related to this functionality being called without me triggering it, but as it doesn't take me to the target, just turns me the wrong way, that's probably not likely. Just an old programmer pondering the problem.

[RJFerret]

Wasting time building up Fury will significantly lower your DPS, especially for mêlée classes.

All that time you could have been actually doing damage.

My burg can show up to Bugud with a third of his morale already gone from folks riding around him, and readily pull threat, despite having the -30% perceived threat mount trait. That's how little damage they do riding around, and how much more I do staying in place.

The best thing you can do is get the relics for -attack speed, trait to reduce skill CDs, forget Fury, and put the MOB on /follow...they made it a keyboard shortcut with Update 9 for a reason. ;-)

Remember, DPS is damage per second, it's not about doing more damage on a single attack, it's about having your average damage happen more frequently. A car analogy would be the winner of the race isn't the one who had the fastest top speed around the track, but the one who spent the least time at slower speeds.

Fury is a gimmick Turbine added because, as they said in one of the videos, mounted combat was boring with everyone just standing around on horses. However, the gimmick doesn't change the mechanics. Hopefully they won't re-balance it, as it can take three times as long dropping something while riding around.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

[Krindus]

Wasting time building up Fury will significantly lower your DPS, especially for mêlée classes.

I disagree. Now granted, I'm not talking about building up your Fury to max for every single hit. However, even a /little/ bit of Fury is going to help increase your damage as opposed to just standing there. For Bugud and Kramp in particular, I generally down their adds, get them dismounted, and then strafe them in a mini circle of death.

This is done easily enough for me by tapping auto-run and holding my strafe key so that my horse starts running circles around the target. Lose sight of him? Easily remedied by just tapping 'x' to lock my camera onto the target. From there I just spam my skills, one at a time as soon as they come off cooldown. By doing this, I generally get my Fury bar up to 1/3 or 1/4 of the bar before the skill fires off, what with delays and making sure he's in range at all. It's not -much- added, but again - better than nothing, and not very hard to accomplish at all.

Maybe it's just me and my cynicism (and I know some folk have issues keeping up with Mounted Combat), but after I sit there and solo all of Bugud's adds, burn him down halfway, then I see someone ride up, stand there, and whack him while I'm running him in circles, it just strikes me as lazy. Too often do I see folk ride up, do an auto-attack or two, and then stand while I do all the work, then ride off with their warband lootbox without so much as a /wave. To each their own, I suppose, and while I do have some sympathy for those who dislike MC but feel forced to do it, I just find it hard buy anyone's theory that it is more efficient to stand still and attack instead of building even a little Fury.

[enginekid]

i have 5 toons fighting bugud every day. hunter, champ, warden, RK, and guardian

all of them stand still when its safe to do so. you deal way more damage over time.

while you are riding around waiting for that Fury bar to fill up, i have already attacked bugud three times...

[Erlessa]

./follow and hit 12345 in no particular order. I do lots more dmg like that. IF I were playing a ranged class maybe there would be reason to actually ride around a bit. As a melee class, definitely not. (using ./follow Bugud and the like are unable to hit you most of the time as well)

[Tael]

Wasting time building up Fury will significantly lower your DPS, especially for mêlée classes.

All that time you could have been actually doing damage.

My burg can show up to Bugud with a third of his morale already gone from folks riding around him, and readily pull threat, despite having the -30% perceived threat mount trait. That's how little damage they do riding around, and how much more I do staying in place.

The best thing you can do is get the relics for -attack speed, trait to reduce skill CDs, forget Fury, and put the MOB on /follow...they made it a keyboard shortcut with Update 9 for a reason. ;-)

Remember, DPS is damage per second, it's not about doing more damage on a single attack, it's about having your average damage happen more frequently. A car analogy would be the winner of the race isn't the one who had the fastest top speed around the track, but the one who spent the least time at slower speeds.

Fury is a gimmick Turbine added because, as they said in one of the videos, mounted combat was boring with everyone just standing around on horses. However, the gimmick doesn't change the mechanics. Hopefully they won't re-balance it, as it can take three times as long dropping something while riding around.



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

Thanks for the response. I have the same experience regarding drawing threat with my burg when using fury. What I was trying to say, (badly I suppose lol) was that the damage done not using fury, in the time it takes to build fury, is less. So the damage averaged over that time, the DPS, is less without fury. This is based solely on casual observation, however. I guess I will load a combat plugin and collect some data both ways and compare. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for their gimmick.

[maxjenius]

I'm not sure about this. My burg can do around 20k damage with fury, on a devastating hit, more than what could be done with the number of strikes landed in the same time it takes to build up that fury.

Which would be fine if you were guaranteed that 20k crit.

All those sweeping "jousting runs" just take too long. Once Bugud's lackeys are gone, he's done. I wonder why people bother with all the jousting runs at that point. Maybe because they think that's what they're "supposed" to do.

For Bugud and Kramp in particular, I generally down their adds, get them dismounted.

That's how everyone does it.

[...] after I sit there and solo all of Bugud's adds, burn him down halfway, then I see someone ride up, stand there, and whack him while I'm running him in circles, it just strikes me as lazy. Too often do I see folk ride up, do an auto-attack or two, and then stand while I do all the work, then ride off with their warband lootbox without so much as a /wave.

As soon as he pops onto the screen, there's a horde after him like sharks after a bleeding seal. There's no time to kill off his buddies and "burn him down halfway" before the posse arrives. Although I'm sure you perceive it that way.

[TharbadThief]

i have 5 toons fighting bugud every day. hunter, champ, warden, RK, and guardian

all of them stand still when its safe to do so. you deal way more damage over time.

while you are riding around waiting for that Fury bar to fill up, i have already attacked bugud three times...

I can't speak for other classes but Hunter I can. Of course you shouldn't wait till the Fury bar is filled up. 10-20 % is enough to boost your dps quite a bit if you can execute the skills before their CD expires. And that you should be able to do even with all the CD reduction traits. Just hit NumLock, keep the target on your side so you can hit it as soon as CD ends, and perform your rotation.

I agree that in most fights its useless because there usually are more than enough ppl to dps those warbands, but to say "you deal way more dmg over time when standing still" is not correct (in hunter's case) if you know how to move and fight.

[djheydt]

Please don't be offended but have you toggled the mount skill 'spur on' by mistake? This can give the effect you describe.

I don't think so. I seem to remember I took that skill off my bottom-row skillbar so I wouldn't hit it by mistake. Let me log in quickly and find out.....

Okay, I don't even have "Spur On" on any of my skillbars; I took it off in the early days of learning to ride. I forget why now, but there must have been some reason I found it a problem.

However, I do have /follow aliased and hotkeyed, and now I'm wondering whether Spur On and /follow use essentially the same coding and have the same (now negative) effects??? I would love it if some dev would tell me this is the case, but I don't suppose they will.

I have no trouble with /follow when I'm on foot; I follow my husband's character around all the time, chiefly because he usually knows where he's going and I frequently don't. (He has thirteen characters he's developing. I have two.)

I would like to be able to use /follow at least to point me toward the target I'm trying to hit and send me in that direction, at least till I catch up with it and have to use up-arrow to get me away from it again (since, as the OP pointed out, we're supposed to build Fury while charging at the target). But since Update 9, /follow doesn't work when I'm mounted. I follow for a short distance; then the horse starts veering to right or left, and/or spinning around in a circle, and I have to use the arrow keys (I usually use those instead of the arrow keys to move; I *never* use the mouse) to follow my husband's character, the critter I'm trying to fight, or anything else.

Interestingly enough, this phenomenon is worse in some areas than in others. For instance, it's fairly bad in the Snowbourne farms instance. But it's MUCH worse in the Cliving fields instance, among the trees.

I just asked whh if he has that problem, and he said, "Not particularly." I asked him if he experienced the horse spinning around and he said, "No, that's a bug. And the way to get out of it is to hit the directional arrow in the direction you're spinning." But when the horse starts to spin, it spins so fast that I'm not sure which direction it's spinning in. Hitting up-arrow usually gets me going forward again, but meanwhile the target is off somewhere else and I have to use the arrow keys some more to point myself to it. And there's a considerable hysteresis (fancy term for lag) in directing the horse; I overshoot or undershoot and meanwhile the target has moved somewhere else.

I don't know whether this is a problem with my (old and slow) computer, or what; but as I said it got worse with Update 9.

[djheydt]

Wasting time building up Fury will significantly lower your DPS, especially for mêlée classes.

All that time you could have been actually doing damage.

Hm. I wouldn't call a LM a melee class; I think I have three melee skills on foot and one mounted.

But when I'm having so much trouble just getting pointed in the direction of the target, maybe I should say the heck with Fury and just ride up to the target and hit it till it drops?

My husband's Hunters circle the target, hitting it over and over with arrows and things. This seems to work very well for him.

Any suggestions? Any other LMs on this thread?

[djheydt]

./follow and hit 12345 in no particular order. I do lots more dmg like that. IF I were playing a ranged class maybe there would be reason to actually ride around a bit. As a melee class, definitely not. (using ./follow Bugud and the like are unable to hit you most of the time as well)

Does /follow WORK for you? How do you manage that? Inquiring minds (mine) want to know.

[Tael]

Hm. I wouldn't call a LM a melee class; I think I have three melee skills on foot and one mounted.

But when I'm having so much trouble just getting pointed in the direction of the target, maybe I should say the heck with Fury and just ride up to the target and hit it till it drops?

My husband's Hunters circle the target, hitting it over and over with arrows and things. This seems to work very well for him.

Any suggestions? Any other LMs on this thread?

One of my 85s is an LM, and I never let him get anywhere close to Bug. He always grabs the aggro because I spam Sign of Power: Inspiration and Enduring Embers. I toggle on Dash and kite him, and anyone else that is there has to chase him. If he ever catches me I'm dead quick, so I don't let that happen.

[enginekid]

I can't speak for other classes but Hunter I can. Of course you shouldn't wait till the Fury bar is filled up. 10-20 % is enough to boost your dps quite a bit if you can execute the skills before their CD expires. And that you should be able to do even with all the CD reduction traits. Just hit NumLock, keep the target on your side so you can hit it as soon as CD ends, and perform your rotation.

I agree that in most fights its useless because there usually are more than enough ppl to dps those warbands, but to say "you deal way more dmg over time when standing still" is not correct (in hunter's case) if you know how to move and fight.

you are right that you can move and fight with a hunter and still shoot just as fast and then youll have some fury in there. but its too little gain for all the dizziness from constantly circling. riding in circles takes energy. if i'm fighting buguud with others i would rather just park it and attk.

[melyjely]

I noticed some time ago (in defence of harwick) that my champ would kill things much more quickly by just standing in one spot and pulling mobs to my location, or using /follow, instead of riding around building fury.

The only times I keep the horse in motion is when a warband poses some kind of threat to me.. Bugud isn't one.

[djheydt]

One of my 85s is an LM, and I never let him get anywhere close to Bug. He always grabs the aggro because I spam Sign of Power: Inspiration and Enduring Embers. I toggle on Dash and kite him, and anyone else that is there has to chase him. If he ever catches me I'm dead quick, so I don't let that happen.

Hm. I avoid warbands whenever possible. I have never known any of them to drop anything I want. Sometimes I can't avoid them, though, and I've never been killed by one. However, I've never tried to solo one; I'm always duoed with one of whh's Hunters, and he does most of the damage.

The thing that annoys me about warbands is that they keep giving me their quest when they aren't even within range, and I have to stop whatever I'm doing and click on the blasted ring and cancel the blasted quest. It's as bad as the Yule quest, which thank the Valar is now over.

[djheydt]

I noticed some time ago (in defence of harwick) that my champ would kill things much more quickly by just standing in one spot and pulling mobs to my location, or using /follow, instead of riding around building fury.

The only times I keep the horse in motion is when a warband poses some kind of threat to me.. Bugud isn't one.

Hm. And does /follow work for you?? Maybe my problem is with my elderly machine!

(Which will be replaced after I get some money in, which will be after Presidents' Day weekend. Cross your fingers for me.)

[maxjenius]

I agree that in most fights its useless because there usually are more than enough ppl to dps those warbands, but to say "you deal way more dmg over time when standing still" is not correct (in hunter's case) if you know how to move and fight.

Until someone shows some hard numbers, I ain't buying it. Everyone and his dog has a "best DPS formula" for all situations(not just mounted combat).

And for those who want fighting with Fury ...

[Elaida]

Well, my problem with any target that I'm supposed to attack while mounted is STEERING the damned horse. It's gotten much worse since Update 9; I try to head straight for the target and instead I go around in circles or at the least, swing 90 degrees to right or left of what I'm trying to hit.

You were given tips about Spur On, but that wasn't the problem... so here's two more:

In Key Mappings, all the way down there, is a binding called "Toggle Target Lock-on Mode". This has caused a LOT of annoyance amongst players, as it's default key is X which is very easy to hit accidentally if you're using WASD as movement keys. Basically, it always tries to turn you towards your target. I have removed the binding completely as it was simply a PITA.

Another setting that's worth checking out is in Combat Settings and called "Enable movement assistance in combat". Afaik, if this setting is enabled, the game tries to move you close enough to the currently selected target if it's out of range for the skill you're trying to use. I have always kept it off, so I'm not sure how it would work in Mounted Combat. In any case, that's perhaps worth testing too.

--
What comes to using /follow, it used to work finely but seems to have broken quite badly in Update 9. If there's any sort of area boundary, the character that's following will often go nuts and start running in small circles, trying to figure out how to step over that border on a plain grass.

The problem won't solve itself - you have to move the character manually over that invisible border and put /follow back on. Then it works again, until the next time you go across a similar invisible border...

[enginekid]

I noticed some time ago (in defence of harwick) that my champ would kill things much more quickly by just standing in one spot and pulling mobs to my location, or using /follow, instead of riding around building fury.

The only times I keep the horse in motion is when a warband poses some kind of threat to me.. Bugud isn't one.

this exactly. /follow is the key.