Standard defense against para-fod?

[vilhazarog]

I've seen the defense against para-fod in a non FC game, but what's the defense in a malaFC game? Is there a defense guaranteed to work, and at which point is it guaranteed and which point where you can defend but it comes down to a 50/50 guess? I'd like to see one of you experts with an article like the Disease defense one, because I hate losing to para-fod, and I'd at least like to feel that I did all I could against it.

[Yaron]

If you want a 100% defense, you could use the same paraFF system of para-chain on one hand, anti-spell on the other. In ParaFC, there's the extra complication involved in preventing your opponnent from turning your para-chain into a half-clap chain. So, for example, with a common P/D opening:

PWPFSSS
FFFFFFF

PFFFFFF
DPPSPFP

If they para you on turn 3 (or any turn afterwards), they get hit with a disruption.

If you have S or W (rather than D) on turn 1, replace amnesia with fear or counterspell, as appropriate.

The problem, of course, is that the opponent can get an advantage by aborting the FoD at an opportune moment, for Cause Heavy wounds, Fireball, or even Ogre on the second turn. If anyone knows of a 100% defense that doesn't suffer from this, now's a good time to speak up :-).

Now, I realize you were thinking of paraFoD faced in midgame, not on turn 1. Answers here are many, and depend on the exact situation. If you point me to a specific game where this came up, we could try to think about that.

Yaron

[Slartucker]

*nod*

In midgame, you have the added complication of being unable to drop what you are doing and begin an FOD defense every time you see P/F.

The simplest way to stop FOD is to force an antispell through. To do that generally requires throwing a disruption on S, P, and F, and that requires paralysis. Since your opponent probably started throwing Fs before you did, you need another disruption to protect your own para. If you are willing to drop everything when you see P/F, this is easy. For example:

xFFFFFFF

DPPSPFP
DSFSPFP
SWDSPFP
WPPSPFP
WWSPFPx

Employing such a tactic from PW/FF, or even from FF/xP, is harder.

You can drop everything for F/F and force one hand through. This gets you two 50-50s and lets you surrender if you lose them. 75% out isn't bad, but it's not great either.

Another tactic: SWDPP/SDDxx. This gets you two 50-50s if you don't mind risking death. The problem is that the first 50-50, the fear, isn't a true 50-50 -- look what happens if one disruption hits you and one hits nobody.

There are better options, but they are all very situational.

[vilhazarog]

Wow, ok, I've reread this post several times now and played it out and I guess I'm getting it now. Basically if you see P/F you have to immediately think about para-fod, I didn't think you had to catch it that early.

So let's say you get hit like this:
XXPWPFSSSD
PSDFFFFFFFFF

and you can't block the charm, what can you do?

[Slartucker]

If you are willing to drop everything, this one's easy to deal with if you see it. Just do F/F twice, and you'll get a single FF. Then you have FFF the same time they do, on PWPF, which lets you get off SPFP on your other hand.

Charm/FOD is not really a threat, however -- aside from a possible counterspell the turn before the charm, they have no way of protecting their spellflow, so ANY single disruption can prevent it.

[yaron]

Okay, you see that ominous P/F, or PW/FF, or whatever, and conscientiously go about arranging your defence. What's to stop that evil FoDder from just quietly switching to Heavy Wounds?

Sure, you get to Anti-spell them in return, but the para-chain continues up until you do (and affects you one turn longer), so you'll probably not get a lot of initiative for those 3 points of damage. And if you defend against the possibility of Wounds, your not really countering the FoD.

So, am I missing anything, or is P/F (against P/D, at least), the equivalent of getting 3 free hit points?

[vilhazarog]

So I recently won a game by going from Disease straight into Fod. Now admittedly, I should not have won this particular game because the player should have come out of dispel with a antispell ready (he got his invis a turn early because he had a counterspell block the paralyze), but I wondered if going for fod after disease is not an ultimate strategy? How do you defend it? Look at the invis/dispel defense:

DSFFFCPWPFSSSD
XXXXXCXXXXFFFF
XXXXXPWSCDPWXX
XXXXX WSCXSPFP

Anti is clearly not going to work in this case, but if you switch that for a para instead what's that get you? A 50/50?

And if you don't go invis/dispel then what have you got? I've got to get that disease cured, plus get an antispell or disruption on your opponent... sounds rough. Any reasons why you shouldn't always go straight for FoD after disease/poison? Anything that would always defend it if you know that's what your opponent will do?

[Slartucker]

The problem is that Disease sucks. Okay, that's an overstatement, but you can defend Disease without totally contorting your spellflow. The Invis Dispel defense, while it often works, is actually worse than other defenses -- if one of your hands had gestured S the same turn your opponent gestured W/W, you'd be able to guarantee the disease is not cured or dispelled.

The best ways to defend disease involve hitting the attacker with a useful disruption on the turn of disease, or 2 turns afterwards, often followed by additional disruptions. Such attacks ruin your FOD. So, no, this is not an ultimate strategy, and thank goodness

[taliesin]

Opening

We have the nifty Justix variant for MalaFC which ensures you cannot be hit by FoD if you open D/P:

DFW
PDW

This leads to

DFWFD
PDWPD

or

DFWPPD
PDWFFD

ensuring that Blindness will land either way. You trade off three health for Blindness with para on entry. In my experience, this swap is usually workable as your opponent is in no position to summon.

(While I have never had to use this, as people usually aren't foolish enough to attempt an opening ParaFoD in a ParaFC game, I have used this ParaFF variant of my own design predating the weave above:

PDWPD
DWFFD

also viable in ParaFF is:

PDWPPD
DDWFFD

which prevents the WPFD from landing at the unfortunate expense of extra vulnerability to ogre-summoning.

surial is responsible for the following refinement:

PSDDD
DWFFD)

The main concern with Justix's weave is that it is weaker against PSFW/FFFF, a problem not present with the ParaFF weaves. However, the liability in this instance is limited to taking two damage from an ogre you will destroy with PDWP (obviously, you will have to continue DFS or similar on the other hand), and it provides a 100% certain escape from ParaFoD.

The ParaFC line I've tended to adopt:

PSDFWFD
DSFFFFD

Assuming that they navigate all the 50-50s and paralyse you at DFWF, you can mutually paralyse them in return. Do not paralyse their FoD into a Fireball, but rather, paralyse the F hand. You will be forced to clap and lose a little initiative, but they will be unable to land either FoD or Fireball.

Mid-game

Highly situation-dependent. SPFP is very useful. FFF is very useful. Time Stop is on occasion useful as is the Invisibility threat. Damage-dealing can be very useful depending on health levels. The best prevention is to have monsters on your side. Few players are willing to go through a damage-intensive FoD run-up with a probable 50-50 at the end.

Disease

As Slartucker has intimated, going Invisible and Dispelling on the time-scale you suggest lays you wide open to Time-Stopped Antispell:

PPWSCDPW
xxWSxxx

FCSPPFD
xCWWSPFP

What about stopping this by casting Fear and Remove Enchantment? Alas, as soon as you enter that shield, your opponent knows you're not going to Dispel, enters SPPW and has a counterspell waiting to greet you when you leave Invis.

One cast-iron means of escape is by having D/P on your hands when they cast the clap, which isn't usually that hard to do. Better still is to disrupt them on the turn of the clap, or the turn after the potential mirror with a PSDF.

DPP
PDW

This stops ParaFoD cold, of course, and will let you PDWP your way to safety if they try it. If they begin with WP on one hand, they can counterspell the PDWP; however, this leaves you with another escape. If the other hand is xW, you can safely begin Dispel on the turn after DPP; if not, you can continue DPPDWP.

Usual Disease-thwarting theory has two main threads:
1) If you can persuade them to have W, WP or WS on both hands simultaneously, you can proceed smoothly to Dispel without fear of disruption.
2) DFPW dummies neatly into DFPDWP. PDWP does not dummy as gracefully.

Note that you may still be caught with damage spells while Dispelling. This is the price you pay for letting them cast Disease.

Hope this helps.

In conclusion, I should say that I was fairly rarely hit with ParaFoD during my career, and almost never used it. It's not a bad weave to use in the hope of catching a better warlock off guard or getting lucky, but if you believe yourself to be the superior warlock you should avoid using it IMO unless you have a monster or something by way of backup. It's inflexible and prone to lose you the initiative in many cases if it fails; moreover, the psychological effect tends to be that the person who has escaped the FoD is imbued with confidence, whereas the FoD caster facing a much longer game than was hoped for is demoralised. The time spent on FoD would have been much better employed in increasing initiative, monsters and health difference.

I have used FoD frequently as a finishing move, but I always tended to prefer:

PWPFSSSD
xxxPDWPP

which does not generally lead to 50-50s in the last stretch, as PDWP prevents a disruption on the final turn, and WPP squashes any mirror or last-minute damage spell. It is generally possible to predict on the PWPF turn whether or not the FoD can be stopped or not with certainty, and it's an attack far fewer people are accustomed to watching for, as it looks almost entirely innocuous.

Taliesin

[vilhazarog]

Wow, somebody archive that post please.

[Slartucker]

Already done... check out the Refuge

[rasteroid]

I noticed in this article:

www.gamerz.net/~fm/para_fod.html

It says at the bottom:

(Janitor's Note: On the Main Server, paralysis has changed so that any other enchantment overpowers it. This seems to work pretty well.)

What main server is the janitor talking? The original email-based host?

How come this variant never incarnated on ravenblack?

[vilhazarog]

I asked the same question in this less ancient thread:

slarty.proboards56.com/index.cgi?board=warlocks&action=display&thread=103&page=3

But I got no answer.

[Dubber]

The "Janitor" was(is?) the process which took care of conflict resolution - it cleaned up the messes.

But really, the "main server" is Fire Top Mountain - the original email-based Waving Hands script host. I suspect "Janitor" was the original implementor (Bartle?)

[vermont]

Thank goodness for this post; it just saved me from an early para/fod death.

(Combined with a lucky guess, of course!)