Trying to understand how to defend against no-miss, no save, 4-5 hit instakill

[hermespan]

Deathblock item is essential. It's not perfect but will keep you from getting pk'd or fingered. Necessary for beholders and thaarak hounds. Spell absorption is also good. Eye of the beholder ring(8), mantle of the worldshaper (5), optic nerve, scarab of spell absorption, ioun stone.
Note that a deathblock item only prevents instadeath spells, not harm or enervation.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

bring a friend.

move. Use terrain to block attacks.
If you move fast enough, they cannot hit you with melee. and if you move perpendicular to them, they might miss you with ranged....especially rays.

Block line of sight with an object. Wall, pillar, doorframe...rock.

Sneak. Attack first. from a distance.

Many many ways.

[Paleus]

Part of my original point was that there AREN'T any tactics that defend against attacks that are no-miss, no-save, no-heal, and kill in a few hits.

I can think of one good tactic right off the top of my head.....run. Then run some more. Run until you are out of danger and able to regroup your thought processes. One of the more important general tactics for people to learn is how to realize they are in a losing situation quickly and extract themselves before its too late. Too often when people get in trouble they put their heads down and charge headlong into the jaws of certain death, repeatedly.

In your case, you're fighting a mob that dispels deathward and does massive neg level damage on hits. The moment you see your deathward go down its time to stop fighting (unless the mob is about to die) and get deathward back up while avoiding being hit. Fighting with groups helps in situations like these. Let someone else catch aggro, reapply your buff, or kite the mob, or do whatever it takes to stay alive.

So, to sum it up, how do you defend against a no-win situation? You run your butt off until you can position yourself into a win situation.

P.S. - Make sure you don't run up the DA while adopting my self-patented tactic of "Running While Screaming...Not the Face Not the Face."

[wyndzen]

Thanks, all. Lots of very good advice. I learned many things from several of the replies.

I haven't really explored the part of DDO yet that involves "twitch," in which you use your own dexterity, not your characters (I don't know if I'll get used to calling a char a "toon" - heh - I've never encountered that term before for an rpg char, but then, I've never played a graphical online rpg before) to dodge or block attacks. It never occurred to me that you, as a player, could dodge rays.

I'm still a bit skeptical about actually being able to do so. Do people often play with mouse look on, to move sideways (strafe)? With mouselook, you can't click your fastbar, so I don't use it. Dodging, as a player, seems somewhat unrealistic in real time, but, then again, my reflexes for that stuff aren't anything that great. Playing a game without pause is difficult enough - heh. I've only been playing for a few weeks.

The incredible depth of char development is so addicting, which makes me want to enjoy DDO in general. Enhancements are such a great idea. I love how different the races are, compared with most other games and compared with PnP. Classes are also so different as well.

I also have to understand that many quests are designed for some sort of replayability, rather than for that PnP experience of doing something once, for the first time, with a high likelihood of succeeding if you are careful and smart.

I notice that a lot of the advice regarding tactics assumes that you have experience with a particular dungeon, as opposed to having sudden unexpected monsters attack you with unexpected attacks in real time. Much of the point of my OP was regarding how to prepare to deal with fights that you aren't already experienced with. 99 out of 100 times, when a new fight occurs, it feels like a fight that has some balance to it. Most attacks miss you and most spells fail, or else you'd die nearly every fight, since there are multiple enemies and/or bosses with far more hps than you. I usually get hit only on a 20, and fail a save only on a 1. Any more than that, and I'd die constantly, because a failed save is often a stun or hold or death or massive damage, and getting hit too often would do more damage than you could reasonably expect to heal in most cases.

So, it was a shock to my system to encounter an enemy who used attacks that couldn't miss my char, that my char could not save against, and that basically defeated me in 1-2 hits, since by that time my level was so drained that I had no chance, in a room that I believe had no exit, or, if it did, the exits were to new parts of the dungeon that would have still more monsters chasing me. Remember that this was happening in real time, with no pause button, and I had no idea that it was about to happen, and not much reason to expect that it would happen.

(What I generally expect to have happen is to be attacked by things that kill me somewhat gradually, so that I can get some grasp of what is going on and deal with it, before I've already been utterly defeated. When the monster's first attack essentially defeats me, and it couldn't miss and couldn't be saved against, and the room has no exits, that is pretty hard to deal with in real time the first time.)

[Angelus_dead]

Yes, DDO has some design flaws both in Dispel Magic and Enervate. I had a similar problem to you when the end boss from Small Problem surprised me with Enervate... who expected it from a dog??

It never occurred to me that you, as a player, could dodge rays.

Dodging a ray like quell enervation is not terribly realistic, except in terms of avoiding LOS in the first place.

With mouselook, you can't click your fastbar, so I don't use it.

Clicking on icons in battle = fail. Keyboard buttons for icons = victory. You might compare against playing a game like Half Life or whatever. Another way to check it out would be to ask someone to attack you in the PVP tavern and see which UI method is more successful.

I also have to understand that many quests are designed for some sort of replayability, rather than for that PnP experience of doing something once, for the first time, with a high likelihood of succeeding if you are careful and smart.

A D&D character who was careful and smart would not have invaded a temple trapping ancient vampires without assistance from a Cleric, Favored Soul, Wizard, Sorcerer, or Paladin.

The history of PnP D&D in the 20th century was very often that going into the dungeon would KILL you unless you did silly things like poking every brick with a long long pole before stepping into the room (and then it'd still kill you)

So, it was a shock to my system to encounter an enemy who used attacks that couldn't miss my char, that my char could not save against, and that basically defeated me in 1-2 hits, since by that time my level was so drained that I had no chance.

A part of your problem that hasn't been mentioned yet: Dungeon Scaling. Before DS was added, this was a non-problem because easy victory by an unprepared individual player was not the goal.

You see, long after DDO was published the devs added a helper feature which reduced monster damage when there are only a few party members (and the quest is on Normal). But it does not reduce the power of negative levels, making them seem disproportionately dangerous.

Non-prepared characters:
Warforged = immune
Drow = SR check against enervate
Wizard PM = immune
Pal HOTD = immune
Wiz/Sorc = your FW is already up, so it'll die without you casting anything else
Wiz/Sorc/Bard = DD and try again
Cle/FVS/Pal = DW wasn't dispelled in the first place, Resto
Monk = SR check against enervate

That covers 2/7 races and 7/10 classes. For any other kind of character: hirelings

PS. I have repeatedly suggested the devs add the Font of Life feat to DDO, which grants characters a saving throw against negative level attacks.

[Missing_Minds]

I don't know if I'll get used to calling a char a "toon"

Then don't. I personally hate people calling DDO characters "toon". Do you see Micky Mouse in this game? I didn't think so.

[sephiroth1084]

Quests weren't designed to be solo'ed. Go in there with a group. Then it's an easy fight.

If you want to solo, prepare better, or play a stronger solo character.

And in this case, there are defenses. Spell Resistance blocks Enervation. Enervation is a ray, so if you're moving you can cause it to miss, though this is fairly difficult vs. a quell, as there is less of a visual indication that he's casting enervation and probably other stuff going on, especially if you're a melee.

[wyndzen]

Quests weren't designed to be solo'ed. Go in there with a group. Then it's an easy fight.

If you want to solo, prepare better, or play a stronger solo character.

And in this case, there are defenses. Spell Resistance blocks Enervation. Enervation is a ray, so if you're moving you can cause it to miss, though this is fairly difficult vs. a quell, as there is less of a visual indication that he's casting enervation and probably other stuff going on, especially if you're a melee.

I had a lvl 15 halfling monk, complete with multiple dragonmarks of healing, and a 52 unspelled AC, saves in the low to mid 20's, +5 holy lesser undead bane handwraps, and many clickies and various robes, including the deathblock of invuln that I was wearing. I had the death ward casting visor. Other than having foreknowledge of the adventure, it is hard to say that I was unprepared or not playing a strong enough character. Certainly, I could have had a hireling, but I typically have no problem with "balanced party required" without hirelings. Essentially, without that one enemy tactic of no miss no save level drain spam, soloing is little problem for me.

The whole subject of this thread is the idea of no-miss, no-save, few hits and you lose. I could have had +20 to all my stats, and 20 more to my saves and AC, and still lost to that unless I was invulnerable to level drain specifically. I did have SR, being a straight monk, but that didn't help.

Now, all that said, a big problem was that I just didn't think of using my dragonmark healing to hurt the Quell boss. Interestingly, no posters on this thread thought of that either, it seems. I'll remember that I can do that, in the future. Pain touch should work well against non-undead beholder bosses, and dragonmark healing against the undead beholder may work, if he has few enough hps. However, level drain may nerf the effectiveness of the heal dragonmark. I'll have to see.

[sephiroth1084]

I had a lvl 15 halfling monk, complete with multiple dragonmarks of healing, and a 52 unspelled AC, saves in the low to mid 20's, +5 holy lesser undead bane handwraps, and many clickies and various robes, including the deathblock of invuln that I was wearing. I had the death ward casting visor. Other than having foreknowledge of the adventure, it is hard to say that I was unprepared or not playing a strong enough character. Certainly, I could have had a hireling, but I typically have no problem with "balanced party required" without hirelings. Essentially, without that one enemy tactic of no miss no save level drain spam, soloing is little problem for me.

The whole subject of this thread is the idea of no-miss, no-save, few hits and you lose. I could have had +20 to all my stats, and 20 more to my saves and AC, and still lost to that unless I was invulnerable to level drain specifically. I did have SR, being a straight monk, but that didn't help.

The Silver Flame Talisman rivals all of the in terms of negative-level defense. Having more than one Visory helps, too, as does UMD.

Your character is strong in some situations, but not in others. And as I said, Enervation can miss, and dispel can fail to remove the important buffs (although a caster level 7 clicky is unlikely to survive a dispel from a creature in a level 14-16 quest).

Now, all that said, a big problem was that I just didn't think of using my dragonmark healing to hurt the Quell boss. Interestingly, no posters on this thread thought of that either, it seems. I'll remember that I can do that, in the future. Pain touch should work well against non-undead beholder bosses, and dragonmark healing against the undead beholder may work, if he has few enough hps. However, level drain may nerf the effectiveness of the heal dragonmark. I'll have to see.

Undead are allowed a Will save vs. healing spells for half damage, and he probably has far too much HP for you to be able to drop him with the marks, though I could be wrong. A better strategy would probably to get a decent ranged weapon and just plink him while staying mobile, as that would help in avoiding enervation.

As for beholders, you'll be subject to different spells depending on what side you are attacking them from, and can avoid enervation almost entirely by simply staying on the correct side, or strafing them fast enough, or by immobilizing them (paralyzing wraps, stunning fist in your case). Again, the Silver Flame Talisman is really the best, and easiest to obtain defense against this stuff.

[wyndzen]

Yes, DDO has some design flaws both in Dispel Magic and Enervate. I had a similar problem to you when the end boss from Small Problem surprised me with Enervate... who expected it from a dog??


Dodging a ray like quell enervation is not terribly realistic, except in terms of avoiding LOS in the first place.


Clicking on icons in battle = fail. Keyboard buttons for icons = victory. You might compare against playing a game like Half Life or whatever. Another way to check it out would be to ask someone to attack you in the PVP tavern and see which UI method is more successful.


A D&D character who was careful and smart would not have invaded a temple trapping ancient vampires without assistance from a Cleric, Favored Soul, Wizard, Sorcerer, or Paladin.

The history of PnP D&D in the 20th century was very often that going into the dungeon would KILL you unless you did silly things like poking every brick with a long long pole before stepping into the room (and then it'd still kill you)


A part of your problem that hasn't been mentioned yet: Dungeon Scaling. Before DS was added, this was a non-problem because easy victory by an unprepared individual player was not the goal.

You see, long after DDO was published the devs added a helper feature which reduced monster damage when there are only a few party members (and the quest is on Normal). But it does not reduce the power of negative levels, making them seem disproportionately dangerous.

Non-prepared characters:
Warforged = immune
Drow = SR check against enervate
Wizard PM = immune
Pal HOTD = immune
Wiz/Sorc = your FW is already up, so it'll die without you casting anything else
Wiz/Sorc/Bard = DD and try again
Cle/FVS/Pal = DW wasn't dispelled in the first place, Resto
Monk = SR check against enervate

That covers 2/7 races and 7/10 classes. For any other kind of character: hirelings

PS. I have repeatedly suggested the devs add the Font of Life feat to DDO, which grants characters a saving throw against negative level attacks.

That feat would be great. In general, the fewer no-miss no-save attacks, the better, I assume most people would agree. Ray of enfeeblement used to be scarier to me than any spell 6 levels higher. It would knock me straight to helpless, where I couldn't even use a robe of lesser restoration. Of course, with future characters, I'll have my str at 12 or higher so that doesn't happen.

I was a monk with SR but it didn't help. Maybe it stopped one or two enervates, but the other several got me.

I differ with you regarding PnP. In my little world with the friends that I have known, DM's try to provide a reasonable challenge, but they surely don't kill your char for having the temerity to go into a dungeon. In PnP, you play with the chars that you have. I've often played with 2 players and a DM, which is close to solo. The DM isn't going to kill you just because there is something that neither char can handle. There might be some opportunity that you can't take advantage of, or a particular fight might be harder than it normally would be, but it isn't good DM philosophy to shape the world to kill folks for going into a dungeon, vampires or no. Maybe I'm different than many others, but I wouldn't play with a DM who got off on killing chars like many of the devs in DDO seem to.

But, DDO is a video game, not PnP. In PnP, you don't drop a soul stone and get to release with all of your items and immediately heal to full in a tavern.

[wax_on_wax_off]

It seems that there is a sort of gameplay philosophy that one must accept to enjoy DDO adventures, which is that it is perfectly acceptable for the "DM" (designer) to make quests that are auto-death to somebody who doesn't know ahead of time exactly the one or two ways to beat an otherwise unbeatable boss, or, as a different example, a lvl 4 char who doesn't have a way to have protection vs acid when several trogs all cast melf acid arrow on him simultaneously?

I really like DDO in general, especially the terrific character development, but in my DnD preference, I would never play DnD with a DM who put my char in situations that resulted in unavoidable death... unless I had some specific obscure item.

It seems like "proper preparation" in DDO often is assumed to consist of heading into an adventure with a strong char and smart prep, dying horribly to some cheesy, way-overpowered monster trick, then getting just the right stuff, now that you already know what is in the adventure.

It just strikes me as so very cheesy that I apparently need to have a specific hireling or one particular obscure item for every single adventure, if I want to survive these whammies.

Note that your advice was, for example, to play a warforged to be immune to level drain. I totally appreciate you responding, but notice what that advice implies. Before I go into a new adventure, should I delete my current halfling char and make a warforged? Obviously not. And that illustrates my point. Imagine a point in a quest where it says, "you are now dead, no save, because you are not a warforged." Then somebody advises me, "well, to do that quest, you should be a warforged, not a halfling. Everybody else dies instantly." Isn't that obviously bad, unfun quest design?

This isn't really true, if you head into any quest on normal, at level (no xp penalty), with a balanced party and take your time I would imagine that you can get through any quest (assuming play skill/strategy/basic gear etc.)

DMs will often set up encounters that need specific items to complete, they will just make sure that you have that item.

If you want to solo then expect a challenge, expect to require certain gear to complete certain quests.

Please, please please please don't ask for more easy buttons. It really makes me hate this game when quests are easy buttoned.

[lugoman]

Ha, you get to fight him again later - this time on slippery ice. Now you need 2 specific items : the silver flame talisman and spiked boots.

[mystafyi]

/fail

there are just so many items in the game with deathward on it. silver flame talisman has deathward and either 0, 5 or 10 charges of negative energy absorbtion. I know the following slots have items with deathward: armor, helm, ring, necklace.

as for neg levels... bring a divine with you. umd restoration scrolls. get a hammer of life(von). get eyestalks from invaders(lvl 12 ftp quest). silver flame amulet(btw you can skip necro1&2 and upgrade it 3 times at cursed crypt). be a wf. be in lich form. bah... this is a waste i could go on all night

[bryanmeerkat]

So the game should be made easier for the OP because he chooses to play with himself rather than join a party for a party based challenge . The fact he can run a lot of these solo to me implies they need to be made harder rather than these ones made easier .

[voxson5]

Please, please please please don't ask for more easy buttons. It really makes me hate this game when quests are easy buttoned.

This.


Remember how good Tear of Dhakaan was before the devs removed the locked doors?

Or von 3....

The game should be a challenge, one you over come & feel awesome about.


If you want god mode, go back to playing Rastan Saga on the c64

[Dendrix]

This might come across like a complaint, but I am really trying to see what I can do to deal with mobs that dispel [death ward] and then do attacks that seem to never miss, allow no save, and bestow multiple negative levels. Essentially, you get defeated in seconds, with no defense.

You are soloing and that's the problem. Soloing is for the prepared or uber, and you are neither.

Bring 5 other players, adventure as a group. Problem solved.

All of your comments about playing with a DM - all of that playing is with a group.

[tadloth]

The whole subject of this thread is the idea of no-miss, no-save, few hits and you lose. I could have had +20 to all my stats, and 20 more to my saves and AC, and still lost to that unless I was invulnerable to level drain specifically. I did have SR, being a straight monk, but that didn't help.

And that is why the whole idea of this thread is misconceived. For your particular character, who has high AC and evasion, level drain is "the one no-miss, no-save" attack that causes trouble for you. For my cleric with much lower AC and no evasion, level drain is a joke due to RS bursts, but high to-hit ranged or caster mob with high SR or reflex/fort saves in a small closed room can mean almost certain death.

But if the devs wanted to make sure that ANY CLASS, ANY RACE could always solo every quest and would never face a near certain death, then the game would become completely trivial for group play. Given that DDO is intended primarily as a group game, this would make the game ridiculously easy.

Therefore, it is perfectly ok that there are bosses that can either not be soloed at all, or can only be soloed with a couple of specific items.

And as many people have said already, you SHOULD expect level drain from a dungeon with undead in it, so you should have gone in with some way of handling it if you really wanted to solo it.

[Xyfiel]

You have been polite minus the constant saying of "no-miss, no-save, few hits and you lose", and others have pointed out this isn't the case. You can manually dodge it, and it's save is based on spell resistance. You seem to play in non mouse look, and you failed your saves. This does not require a change to the quest or monster.

The most important fact is that you are not a good soloer(yet). Negative levels are the most dangerous things to a soloer, next would be dispel. Being held, fleshed to stone, and blinded use to hurt also but they lowered the durations to almost laughable amounts. They also changed negative levels so that you regen them one every 2 minutes. So if you can be negative leveled, and have no consistent way to block it or recover them, you need to use the backup plan, time. Trapped in a room against a monster who casts and needs line of sight, with a big pillar right in the middle that would remove all of it's threats if you move around it, and you still die. All you had to do was equip a ranged weapon, and use hit and run tactics while you waited out the negative level regeneration and possibly killed it at the same time. Even without ranged, you just had to run and stay out of its sight.

You have a good soloing build, but no build is immune to everything. Understand your weaknesses, and have plans to cover anything that might happen. Run enough unknown quests and you will run into bad situations. Tactics>build+items.

[donfilibuster]

I guess that at this point much that has to be said has been posted in the three pages.
The summary would be 'know thy enemy'.

In ddo "proper preparation" may mean gearing up for the task but in d&d in general it means knowing what you are up against.
In PnP much of it is done talking to the NPCs and using skills that have no place in ddo, but the idea remains the same.

You need not refer to the no-save, no-miss powers as if they were broken so badly anymore.
It is clear by now that some of it are rays and the rest comes from monsters of the most dangerous types.

Rays in ddo can be avoided or twitched and in pnp can miss or be deflected.
I like it more in the ddo version because it becomes part of the combat system that makes you move around in real time.
And it includes to run when it is needed, or charge, both of which is pretty much the case with beholders.

There's a handful of powers or monsters that new players feel defenseless the first times, without knowing the tactics or a safer approach.
It causes a lot of threads just like this one, if not worse, and has actually lead to nerfs of the involved spells.

One such spell is hold person, because few players learn about SR the first time around.
But hold person is one of the magics that melees traditionally fear in d&d. It is meant to kill you.
The unexpected problem come when you are soloing and are suddenly the only target for all the casting monsters.
Luckily these days it doesn't last enough to kill you if you have fortification.

The second is energy drain, because those are hard to avoid and you are pretty much dead without restoration.
Truth is energy drain is one of the most dangerous spells in the d&d repertoire.
This is one thing to fear when facing a vampire, wight or incorporeal undead.
Otherwise the mob with the torches and pitchforks would have no need for heroes.

Vampires are the first big source of complains from players.
It is clear that are they so much powerful than anything else you have faced by the time you meet the first.
What is not clear is why people seem to forget about the mutiple vulnerabilities since they are not even from d&d lore.

Beholders are indeed a big shocker, and with good reason.
There's no actual dispel, an antimagic field is far worse and dangerous.
In hands of a wizard it is unbeatable, to the point of being left out of ddo, but in a beholder it has the weak point on its backside.
A beholder could be bum rushed before it can kill you, yet it takes some practice and trying to avoid the rays.
Still, the beholders are actually made to be dungeon bosses, so even if you can handle a regular beholder a name beholder is bound for trouble.

Then there's the quell, this is a rare and fairly powerful monster not just one of your typical dungeon dwellers.
So the obvious way to fight energy drain is restoration, but the thing with the quell is that it prevents the restoration.
But like the beholder the quell can be overrun and killed before it kills you, and it dies on flames easily.
It isn't as bad as other big undead like the whelp, if only from so many detrimental spells on you.

There might be other troublesome monsters out there, but you don't see complains about them so often as vampires and beholders.
In fact, the devs have already added easy buttons against beholders and mummies (and sun flasks).
They have also nerfed hold person and reduced the duration of all holding spells and also the draining spells.
The ability drain only lasts so much and the level drain goes away faster than before and clears when shrining.

It is not wrong to point out when the quest has an hard to tackle challenge that spoils the fun, or that isn't doable without more preparation than the stuff you already carry.
But it pays well to ask around and see what's the usual approach or tactics.
That task was also on the character's shoulders in PnP, having to find out what tricks the enemy hide.

[bigolbear]

ok. im guessing from your post you like to solo, posibly with a hireling.

This is all about tactics, its perfectly possiblle for a mele to solo these kinds of enemies.

Tactics for warriors for fighting beholders.

1. stay out of their line of sight, sneak up to them and stun them, sap, paralise them
2. use range to your advantage, beholder eye beams have limited range.
3. use a summon clicky, scroll, hireling to engage first and then attack from the rear.
4. if you dont have a cleric in your group or any other means of casting restoration wait for your negative lvls to come back before continuing.
5. work on your saving throws and hit points these MATTER. especialy for a solo focused mele.

additionaly equipment can help a lot, but is far from necessary.
1. a strength damageing weapon - beholder have low str and when disabled are no threat.
2. deathward clicky (from tangle root, a low lvl quest)
3. death block (ah or random loot)
4. sliver flame neclace (from the necropolis chains) Note you were doing a quest which is part of necro 4. I think its entirely reasonable for the devs to assume you have done necro 1-3. and thus would have the neclace.
5. mantle of the world shaper from threnal.
6. holy weapons and bane weapons (abberation for beholder and undead for quells)

Ray and ball spells can be dodged by strafing, tubling and jumping (enervation is a ray spell) learn to dodge spells.

Lastly and this ones important. when fighting a caster of any kind concentrate on damage, ignore your armour class and mele defences. change to the apropriate stance (power attack). make sure you use every trick you have to up your damage because the quicker you kill them the less spells they will get off at you. stun them, trip them, hurt their stats (strength is a good choice) if you cant kill them quickly at least make sure you can disable them quickly.

DDO plays like an FPS rather than an mmo, many spells, ranged and mele attacks and traps can be avoided entirely with skill and timing, develop skill and timing, or develop characters builds that dont need skill and timing. The best of the best do both.