Asylium
08-06-2008, 08:40
Now, at some point, be it mid-late 30's or later in the 40's / 50's, you're gonna come to a point where you have to grind xp through mob killing, and obviously you need to know how to do this fast or it becomes very boring very quickly, and it'll take 50x longer.
CHAIN KILLING
For this guides purposes we will consider chain killing to be killing 1 or 2 mobs at a time, one after another, with no rest period. A lot of people do not do this effectively, and it takes them a lot longer to deal with mobs. One thing you need to realise when grinding like this, is that you need to EXPLOIT a mobs shields, don't rely on the mobs shield's to pick which combo's you use, FORCE the mob to put its shields where you want them to go, so you can kill as fast as possible with your best combo's. In terms of corruption, this also gives higher hp returns on lifetaps, and you won't need potions unless you pull wrong.
I'll give an example for this, just to make things a little easier. For my own purposes (read as: soul fragments) i will stick to swift strikes and grim corruption/lethargy. Don't waste your time trying to get sneak attacks on every mob, its not XP/time efficient and it'll take you longer to level.
Start combat by running up to the mob while triggering swift strikes.
Hit Lunge if up/vampyric if needed.
Swift Strike mob, mob will be down 50-60% hp, and all shields will be overhead.
Grim Corruption - mob will either die or go down to <20% hp, finish with normal attacks UR.
As you can see from this, its using the mobs shielding against it with the most powerful and time-relative combo's.
Swift Strikes is one of the better combo's you get later on, for this guide i'm lvl 60 or so leveling in thunder river, and with this technique of readying a combo before you reach the mob's melee range its a 1 button combo. Grim Corruption is the same deal, you can trigger it before a mob has got its second swing in, and it'll fire immediately.
Other combinations that work really well are Slow Death Strike + Cunning Strike (almost guarantee'd to kill the mob you're fighting when the cunning strike is finished) and Lethargy II + Cunning Strike. A lot of people ignore Lethargy because they assume its a low damage debuff, but it usually hits up in the 700-800 range around lvl 50+, on mobs higher level than you.
PLAN YOUR XP TIME/CAMP SECURITY
Effective planning as to what mobs you will kill does increase xp, as well as giving some security in that you know where and when the mobs will be repopping, so people will likely ignore your camp. Generally you want to start at one point and make a circle, ending up at the same point as the mobs you first killed are repopping, and just repeat this loop.
This method of keeping track of your spawns does not work perfectly in this game, unlike some others that could be mentioned, due to the anti-camping system they have in place (mobs take a set time to spawn if you're close to their spawn point, but if you leave the area and there's no one else in it they all repop after a slight delay.)
As for camp security, you can employ a little psychological warfare here as follows: open loot bags for the coin, but leave all your item loot. If you're running through a zone and come across a load of open loot on the floor, do you stay there and wait for repops? course you don't, you move on. This works better in the later levels, as the urge to loot every single little thing you come across seems to have fallen by then.
Use Food / Drink that you've crafted yourself or bought from the AH, they last 4 hours and don't dissapear if you die, and have greatly increased hp+sta and hp+sta regen.
Have you been fighting for the last 10 levels in somewhere like Field of the Dead or E-mountains? Leave the area and go someplace else for a while, this helps alleviate boredom and might find you a place with better experience, exploring in part of the game afterall, and knowledge of the map helps when you want to make a group for a specific reason.
HEALING/REGAINING HP + STA
For corruption assassins, the idea is to stagger your lifetaps in such a way that you regain the hp you lost in one fight, during the next fight. As such:
kill mob, lose 20% hp
kill mob, lose 20% hp, gain 40% from vampyric (max hp)
kill mob, lose 20% hp
kill mob, lose 20% hp, gain 30% from life leech (90% hp)
Using this method you'll barely have to rest, if at all. With lotus i assume it'd be golden lotus extract + cats paw + snapkick rotating.
Your stamina should not be falling very much, due to killing with 2 combo's alone (3 at most) so there's no need to rest for this. Fatalities should be rolling in from the fast killing, Second Wind + Necro Leech also help.
Hope this helps through the grinding levels.
CHAIN KILLING
For this guides purposes we will consider chain killing to be killing 1 or 2 mobs at a time, one after another, with no rest period. A lot of people do not do this effectively, and it takes them a lot longer to deal with mobs. One thing you need to realise when grinding like this, is that you need to EXPLOIT a mobs shields, don't rely on the mobs shield's to pick which combo's you use, FORCE the mob to put its shields where you want them to go, so you can kill as fast as possible with your best combo's. In terms of corruption, this also gives higher hp returns on lifetaps, and you won't need potions unless you pull wrong.
I'll give an example for this, just to make things a little easier. For my own purposes (read as: soul fragments) i will stick to swift strikes and grim corruption/lethargy. Don't waste your time trying to get sneak attacks on every mob, its not XP/time efficient and it'll take you longer to level.
Start combat by running up to the mob while triggering swift strikes.
Hit Lunge if up/vampyric if needed.
Swift Strike mob, mob will be down 50-60% hp, and all shields will be overhead.
Grim Corruption - mob will either die or go down to <20% hp, finish with normal attacks UR.
As you can see from this, its using the mobs shielding against it with the most powerful and time-relative combo's.
Swift Strikes is one of the better combo's you get later on, for this guide i'm lvl 60 or so leveling in thunder river, and with this technique of readying a combo before you reach the mob's melee range its a 1 button combo. Grim Corruption is the same deal, you can trigger it before a mob has got its second swing in, and it'll fire immediately.
Other combinations that work really well are Slow Death Strike + Cunning Strike (almost guarantee'd to kill the mob you're fighting when the cunning strike is finished) and Lethargy II + Cunning Strike. A lot of people ignore Lethargy because they assume its a low damage debuff, but it usually hits up in the 700-800 range around lvl 50+, on mobs higher level than you.
PLAN YOUR XP TIME/CAMP SECURITY
Effective planning as to what mobs you will kill does increase xp, as well as giving some security in that you know where and when the mobs will be repopping, so people will likely ignore your camp. Generally you want to start at one point and make a circle, ending up at the same point as the mobs you first killed are repopping, and just repeat this loop.
This method of keeping track of your spawns does not work perfectly in this game, unlike some others that could be mentioned, due to the anti-camping system they have in place (mobs take a set time to spawn if you're close to their spawn point, but if you leave the area and there's no one else in it they all repop after a slight delay.)
As for camp security, you can employ a little psychological warfare here as follows: open loot bags for the coin, but leave all your item loot. If you're running through a zone and come across a load of open loot on the floor, do you stay there and wait for repops? course you don't, you move on. This works better in the later levels, as the urge to loot every single little thing you come across seems to have fallen by then.
Use Food / Drink that you've crafted yourself or bought from the AH, they last 4 hours and don't dissapear if you die, and have greatly increased hp+sta and hp+sta regen.
Have you been fighting for the last 10 levels in somewhere like Field of the Dead or E-mountains? Leave the area and go someplace else for a while, this helps alleviate boredom and might find you a place with better experience, exploring in part of the game afterall, and knowledge of the map helps when you want to make a group for a specific reason.
HEALING/REGAINING HP + STA
For corruption assassins, the idea is to stagger your lifetaps in such a way that you regain the hp you lost in one fight, during the next fight. As such:
kill mob, lose 20% hp
kill mob, lose 20% hp, gain 40% from vampyric (max hp)
kill mob, lose 20% hp
kill mob, lose 20% hp, gain 30% from life leech (90% hp)
Using this method you'll barely have to rest, if at all. With lotus i assume it'd be golden lotus extract + cats paw + snapkick rotating.
Your stamina should not be falling very much, due to killing with 2 combo's alone (3 at most) so there's no need to rest for this. Fatalities should be rolling in from the fast killing, Second Wind + Necro Leech also help.
Hope this helps through the grinding levels.