utis
Ronin Warlock
longing to see were it but the smoke leaping up from his land
Posts: 29
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Post by utis on Nov 27, 2010 12:12:13 GMT -5
So, how do you handle a pastamancer? Mix in SWD all time on general principle? Freak out, every time he finishes a Maladroit spell? Give in to the dark side on sight of the second F? How does one handle the threat of a permanent para chain?
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Post by mikeEB on Nov 27, 2010 12:40:36 GMT -5
So, how do you handle a pastamancer? Mix in SWD all time on general principle? Freak out, every time he finishes a Maladroit spell? Give in to the dark side on sight of the second F? How does one handle the threat of a permanent para chain? You need to look ahead a bit. If they're just single-mindedly paralyzing you and not making a specific threat (e.g. Finger of Death), try to squeeze in a summon. For example, you might gesture WP/PS into paralysis and use either the counterspell or the forced charm monster to cover the F of a PSFW. In general, you want to get paralyzed on a W or PS and not on an F or plain D.
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Post by ourjake on Nov 29, 2010 14:43:30 GMT -5
ooze inside of his brain for the 50/50's. also amnesia and charm monster lead back and forth into each other, and you only have to do that on one hand. W leads into a counterspell after being para'd eventually if you can stalemate at the para, the magic missiles will make him stop F'ing things up.
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Post by ellipsis on Nov 30, 2010 1:55:31 GMT -5
I tend to think one should get basic interactions down before worrying specifically about paramancers. As to weaves, seeing how each spell can flow into others is a very valuable exercise, but in practice, of course, you can't simply execute a nice weave - you have to be ready to change your weave at any moment to respond to your opponent. This ultimately explains why some spells are so valuable - they leave you with lots of options. For instance, gesturing PS is particularly valuable because there are three important 4-gesture spells that all begin this way (PSDF, PSDD, and PSFW). Thus, the majority of common openings have one hand gesturing a P, which provides an amorphous threat for the 4th turn, while the other hand will provide a threat for the 3rd turn. Other spells/gestures that provide options (and are therefore very useful) include: DSF - becomes either DSFW or DSFFF, or even DSFFFc SP - becomes SPFP or SPPFD (or SPPc), and SPFP provides a gateway to a 4-way threat three turns later: SPFPSDF, SPFPSDD, SPFPSDW, or SPFPSFW DF - becomes DFW, DFPW, DFFDD, DFWFd, or DFFF, AND it flows straight out of PSDF! And any spell that includes W is also handy because of the potential for counterspell - possibly the most important spell in the game. Also, the archive has a list how often various spells are cast (under aggregate): lurch.homelinux.org/cgi-bin/wararchive.plI also find it amusing to compare one's own casting habits with the norm. I apparently am significantly more likely than usual to go for antispell/permanency, timestop, delay, and fear.
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utis
Ronin Warlock
longing to see were it but the smoke leaping up from his land
Posts: 29
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Post by utis on Dec 8, 2010 6:28:31 GMT -5
Thank you very much, I shall definitely study this list of spells further, when I have a little time on the WE.
As for pastamancers: losing is not going to bother me too much for a very long time; if in the meantime I'm able to interrupt a declared paramancer's parachain, then this is for me a tiny achievement, even if I'm dying a horrible death, anyways. I hope, trying to cope with parachains will teach me something about the proper and timely use of disruptions and counterspells. Besides, I think it's rather fun.
There's one thing, I don't get, though -- and I mean: I don't get the rationale behind it and I wonder whether I'm missing something important: after casting Paralyze, the caster gets to choose the paralyzed hand at the end of the turn in which Paralyse hit, rather than deciding on a specific hand at the time of casting. This means, the caster knows that little bit more about the victim's spellflow, whereas the victim doesn't know which of his or her hand's is paralyzed until the next turn, when he or she has made a gesture in vain. This lack of knowledge is all the more disrupting, if one or both hands of that turn have made a W or P gesture. Together this seems like a HUGE advantage for Paralyse, compared to the other three gesture disruptions, and one that I found a somewhat counterintuitive when I finally grasped it. (Which took a while. On my first FFF I was expecting to get "<opponent>:LH" and "<opponent>:RH" as possible targets.) Now, I'm aware that I'm still a n00b and I'm probably missing something. But I read a lot of discussions about Paralyse being too strong etc.; and this seems like an otherwise rather unobtrusive issue? Wouldn't it make Paralyse just that little bit more, and reacting to it just that little bit less hazardous if one had to decide which hand to paralyze at the time of casting? Or am I missing something, misunderstanding something, over-/underestimating something?
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Post by Dubber on Dec 8, 2010 14:57:19 GMT -5
Actually, the victim of the initial paralysis (since one cannot change the paralyzed hand in the middle of a constant parachain) only has to decide between "what do do with the cast I intend" vs "what to do with the paralyzed result of FFFer's hand choice"
S/S (assuming one can work it into a reasonable spell flow) is the best parachain-buster... however, the FFFer only has one hand available to do anything beyond threaten FFF disruption. S/S
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Post by xade on Dec 8, 2010 20:26:46 GMT -5
S/S will get you a fear 50/50, but you do run the huge risk of being para'ed to a D. As for the idea of seeing a change where you had to declare the para-ed hand on the turn that it's cast... I don't know if that's ever been suggested. I would love to give it a play run as the change in dynamic, and that extra change to dummy the para could be game changing.
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Post by ellipsis on Dec 9, 2010 16:04:40 GMT -5
It's true, the way paralysis is implemented now is a little counter-intuitive, and we've all been playing with it so long now that we don't stop to think about it from a new player's perspective often. I did once suggest the slightly harsher change of no hand-choosing at all - that the hand paralyzed is the same as the hand that casts paralysis (LH: FFF paralyzes opponent's left hand), but simply making the caster choose on the turn they cast which hand to paralyze might be a more moderate change that would still balance out the spell significantly.
On the other hand, since the player being paralyzed doesn't know which hand his opponent will choose, he still will, practically speaking, usually end up having to play it safe and choose a para-friendly gesture (W or S, usually) for BOTH hands in order to avoid getting disastrously disrupted.
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Post by mikeEB on Dec 9, 2010 20:54:55 GMT -5
You don't usually need to know which hand is paralyzed. Just enter gestures for each hand assuming your opponent chooses the other.
The only time that doesn't work is when you need to cast a spell at a non-default target.
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Post by Dubber on Dec 10, 2010 9:34:02 GMT -5
You don't usually need to know which hand is paralyzed. Just enter gestures for each hand assuming your opponent chooses the other. The only time that doesn't work is when you need to cast a spell at a non-default target. And assuming you do not have a W or P and want to cast a P on the other hand
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Post by ellipsis on Dec 14, 2010 22:41:57 GMT -5
@MikeEB: That's right for managing the turn after you're hit with paralysis, but the general point I was making was that even on the turn before, when paralysis is first cast, it limits what gestures you can (or rather should) make on both hands because either one could become paralyzed on the next turn.
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utis
Ronin Warlock
longing to see were it but the smoke leaping up from his land
Posts: 29
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Post by utis on Dec 22, 2010 3:22:23 GMT -5
A couple of questions on Paralysis, again ... I'm looking for a couple of rules of thumb; I'm aware that there's no recipe for every situation.
Casting Charm Person or Fear seems to me to have the problem that it creates a 50/50 situation that's actually favourable for the paralyser; if he or she looses the 50/50 decision, she still can cast another disruption (i.e. Paralyse) next turn. So, it seem to me one rule of thumb would be to go for Anti-Spell, if possible, even at a small expense (like losing a health point)?
(Incidentally, when you are about to cast e.g. Charm Person. Do you throw an actual coin? Or roll an actual dice? Because I think that's what I'm going to do for fear of unconsciously making those decisions in a consistent and ultimately predictable manner. -- I don't know ditty about game theory or mathematics in general, so I hope the next question isn't too stupid: Is 50% in such cases (Charm Person/Fear against Paralysis) actually the optimum? With the rewards involved, I could imagine that Charm Person or Fear should be cast in e.g. 70% of the cases?)
On the other hand, maybe with the right strategy, playing against Paralysis is not so bad? The effect seems to be that one is actually playing with only one hand, while the other one might throw an occasional Counter Spell or Charm Monster in. So would a reliable strategy against Paralyse be to focus on countering/disrupting the Paralyser's non-F hand while trying to slowly wear him down with small damage, rather than trying to break out of the ParaChain?
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Post by ellipsis on Dec 22, 2010 16:28:10 GMT -5
It's true that actually playing 50/50 may not be optimal for two reasons - landing SWD on your opponent is more advantageous to you than having him cast FFF on himself (it disrupts both hands), and if you tend go one way or the other in a 50/50 then you're more likely to take your opponent by surprise when you change that pattern.
But yes, I for one go for anti-spell fairly often, and there's another response to paramancy that's very valuable - summoning a monster. The more things that your opponent has to split his attention between, the less effective his parachain will be.
Finally, you can respond to paralysis with paralysis. For instance, you just gestured W/W on a turn you were going to be paralyzed. Now one of your hands will be paralyzed in the direction of counterspell, WPP, and your other hand can go for paralysis, WFF... The advantage of this is that it creates multiple 50/50s instead of just one, and if you cast paralysis on your opponent, you get to choose which hand gets paralyzed.
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Post by ourjake on Dec 28, 2010 11:49:31 GMT -5
against the above weave (WPP/WFF), sarcastic paramancers are likely to start another chain on the other hand (WF/WP vs FF/XF)and para at you again for spite, or keep their para and add a fireball back
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utis
Ronin Warlock
longing to see were it but the smoke leaping up from his land
Posts: 29
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Post by utis on Jan 1, 2011 13:41:07 GMT -5
I really don't get why Paralysis works as it does. After reading this thread: slarty.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=warlocks&action=display&thread=663, I got the impression the main problem people seem to have with Paralysis is that it is "spammable". Now I just realized that the paralyser gets to re-choose which hand is paralysed after it was (cast, but) countered. I mean, seriously, why not go the full way of empowering that spell and let him choose after he has seen his opponent's orders for that turn? Is there any particular duel in which one warlock casts paralysis a lot, which would be a good case study for tactics against a para-chain?
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