I saw on multiple threads that provo mage is fun,relatively easy to play,makes good gold So i built a provo mage But, I DIE A LOT!!! (all i do is pvm) can someone give me some advises? obviously i die mostly to mage monsters eg. titans in cyclops valley, ophidians in therathan keep i find it hard to pull monsters into range to provo them if u have a provo mage, what do u usually do with this character? btw, why does therathan keep always have like 20-30 ophidians packed together in a small area? i tried multiple times but was never even able to get through those mobs
Escape macro. F12 (for me) Clear target que>recall>target rune/rune book Slayer instruments for the relative spawn is also a good shout, slayer instruments aren't crazy expensive.
Just like any other build, you need to find hunting grounds that your build can perform well against. In my experience, you should look for spawns that have 2-4 or 5 monsters that spawn in the same area or close enough to kite. Arctic Ogre Lords in Ice or t2a, Demons/Dragons @ fire temple, Lich Lords Deceit etc... General tips: ALWAYS have the casters Provoked - not necessarily on each other, but get their magic going on another target even if it is something that will die in one spell Carry slayers - as @Earsnot said slayer instruments are cheap, especially silvers they are basically free Use GM exceptional instruments and carry the slayer as the backup for the tougher monsters, you can easily switch back and forth with a little planning... -use only gm tambourines, Lutes for slayers - record a macro "use item by type tambourine" and another for "use item by type lute" -set hotkey f1 to tambourine, f2 to lute f1 is general purpose f2 is for when shit gets real Hiding/Invis - especially invisiblity spell as there is no cooldown, i had hiding and stealth on my bard for a while I would stealth around and pull lifebars for quicker targeting and it also makes it very easy to get back to your corpse Manipulating Cooldowns - if you are targeting large creatures with high difficulty, you can trigger provo and hold it for ten seconds and if it fails you can instantly try again so you can get 2 attempts before getting blasted Hope this helps
ctrl + shift (shows all names) = you can mouse drag their names this way ... most refer to this as "pulling bars" targeting - SET HOTKEYS please - nearest grey - nearest red - nearest blue ^ I personally work with these. Helps transcend across different characters however.... If you wish to get fairly meta --- target nearest grey monster and target next grey monster is pretty sweet too You could record a macro to use skill > provocation hop over to the hotkeys tab press "target nearest grey monster" pause half a second press "target next grey monster" I wouldn't say you should rely on a macro like that but in a pinch it could prove occasionally valuable. Big ticket item though for a bard is pulling bars. G'luck and have fun.
What @wylwrk just said is really good advice too. That's a single button all in one beaut. Any time you can combine multiple actions and streamline your efforts - do it.
This is very helpful! I have a few follow-up quesitons: 1) Shld i drop eval int for stealth? I do PVM only, and i heard eval int is not as important in pvm (vs. in pvp) 2) Alternatively, I can drop eval int for peacemaking what do u think?
Musicianship Provocation Magery Meditation This is the core of a 'provo mage'. From there the skills you finish it with either improve upon it's general purpose (farming) or specializes in other activities as well as basic farming. Those four skills up there imo completes the build. You can do amazing things with it. It is a low effort/investment build. You could improve its general purpose (farming) with skills like... Eval int - increased direct spell damage. Hiding - between using your environment (los) and hiding, harder to find and murder. Discordance - 25% stats off your target. Depending on your goals this may help. Resisting spells - if you are new, this may help. More on this later. Wrestling - may save you in a bind. More on this later. These skills can help you farm better. If measured is it significant enough to be valued and comparable? Meh. Take the core skills and add eval int, resist, and wrestling and you have one of my favorite builds. Very offensive and defensive build capable of fighting back 1 or 2 typical pks. Conversely you could add skills that help specialize in other content. Tracking for example makes this character good for several custom server events like St. Patrick's day. You can use this character to scan the area and find players (soon to be fixed), monsters, animals (farm hides), and player pets. Tracking is easy to train at zero cost except time. Fishing - buy MIBs in bulk and pull them down with ease and profit. Have access to tons of pvp wands, regs, scrolls, weapons, armor, deco, and rares. Lockpicking - pop dungeon chests as you go along. PVP wands, regs, scrolls, etc. Not as awesome as an MIB BUT you don't have to spend time fishing, buying, or plotting/pulling. IMO dungeon chests are comparable to MIBs. Cartography - maps! Enough said. I could go on. Overall my advice is take the core skills music, provo, mage, and med and spend considerable time tackling content with it. After awhile the skills you want to add just might present themselves. When I ran a provo mage, my additional skills changed a few times a year. G'luck!
Oh man....this topic is enough for a dissertation, so I will try to be brief. Basics: 1) Template. Do you have resist in your template? You should if you're going to venture into those places regularly. 2) Magic Reflect. Is your friend. Have it up ALL the time. Not only for the monsters...also for the reds. 3) Mount. I assume you're mounted. If not, grab yourself the fastest horse there is. You'll need it. 4) Terrain. Know your environment. What are your exits, are there walls/doors that can help you break LoS? 5) Pots and pouches. Just because you're not PvPing is no excuse to not carry pots and trapped pouches. 6) CTRL + Shift. This simple thing is THE SINGLE most important thing you need to know. It is game changing. 7) Hotkey. Have a single hotkey for "Use skill provocation". That's it. 8) Slayer instruments. Are the shnizzle! They're "cheap" and well worth whatever they cost. Find them on player vendors or trading forum. Tactics: 1) Targetting. In spite of what @wylwrk mentioned above, NEVER EVER macro your targetting. You will get more in trouble than what it will help. 2) Run. Forrest, run! Get good at running. You will need to get out of harms way, and the way to do it is running. Be sure to know where you can find a "safe" spot to wait out your timer...or just run around out of range of casters for the 5 secs after a failed provo. 3) Kiting. I like to call kiting, the art of having a mob follow you around while staying just ahead of his casting range. Know that different mobs have different speeds at different hp's. Once you get really good with this you'll be able to kite multiple mobs so that they end up within range of each other and you can provo them. 4) Crowd control. When first entering a crowded place (Theratan Keep, Destard, Ophidian Lair, etc.) you want to "control" as many of the mobs as possible. Put two that are loose on each other. Then another two loose ones, and so forth. You will be able to deal with the Threats in due time. 5) Threats. Know your mobs. Know which monsters are casters, and which are your biggest threat. You recall into Destard's main hall, what is your biggest threat? Dragons. Then drakes (firebreath). Then wyverns (DP). You're not planning on dancing with them, so eventhough DP is a bitch, a wyvern should never come close enough to you to apply it. So...provo drakes and dragons first. Use wyverns to finish off mobs with its DP. 6) Know how fast mobs die. Understand how long it takes a Theratan Avenger to kill a Theratan Warrior...or a Matriarch. I have found that if I have an Avenger killing a Matriarch, while also being attacked by a Warrior, it is 90% of the time going to end up with the Avenger and Matriarch dead and a deadly poisoned Warrior. This comes from hours and hours of practice in spawns. To address your specific questions: - What do I do? I hunt Thera Keep Pit A LOT, Cyclops Valley, Shame EG's, Deceit LL's, Shame Blood Eles, Hyth 4th floor deamons...and when I start getting cocky Balrons (Hyth and Thera) and Shadow Wyrms. - Drop Eval for stealth? No. Do not even think it....you can't stealth mounted, and you can't provo efficiently unmounted. - Drop Eval for peace? Nope. Peace breaks too easily and will case even more trouble.
Musicianship Peace Provocation Magery Meditation Eval Resists I dont bother with using two different instruments. Maybe because I only play with high end mobs. I use peace to keep a single mob under control until another spawns or I am able to drag something close. It really pays dividends I think especially when you two bloods and a third spawns. Peace the new spawn and provo the other on it and then back on each other. Without PK interruption I can make roughly 50k an hour there. Dread spiders peace is also VERY helpful. Eval helps when I dont have MR up or a MOB casts on me. Ive considered dropping it for discord. I love having discord on my tamer. Keep invisibility on a macro that auto targets you. In a pinch it can save your ass. POTIONS!! Make a alchemist. Always have 5 full refresh, 5 strength, 20 GH and 20 GC when you leave the house to farm/hunt. Youre getting close to your weight limit and you get weaken cast on you that quick strength and full refresh makes running a little easier. I have an emergency recall macro that casts the spell AND targets the rune. I just hit the button. Great for when PK's show up. Also keep reflect up. If they show up and cast explosion and Corp Por go ahead cast explosion and EB back on them. Theyll likely die because your reflect shoots that first explosion back to them. If they dont die theyll run and give a chance to escape. If you just got there and youll be out 5k if you die I stay and fight. More fun that way. Good luck.
i can't find "target next grey monster" in razor (my razor is version 1.5.0.17) i can see "next monster target", but it doesnt work
i can't find "target next grey monster" in razor (my razor is version 1.5.0.17) i can see "next monster target", but it doesnt work
Personally, I don't use Razor for provo and I rarely die. I just use a basic provo macro (which will always use the last instrument that was double-clicked) and an invisibility macro. I also use other spells like teleport (if I'm cornered), paralyze (if I need a monster to stay put), and magic reflect for basic defense. A summoned Daemon can also be a very helpful assistant. Having a few trapped pouches to break out of paralysis is helpful, too. The biggest thing is to minimize your exposure and stay out of the monsters' line of sight except for the 1 or 2 seconds it takes to run up and provo them. If you fail, immediately run out of their LOS behind a wall and, if the monster is targeting you, cast invisibility or hide. The next most important thing is to know the terrain and adjust your tactics to take advantage of it. Once provoked, balancing monsters according to their strength, HP, and abilities is very important. You need their health bars visible so you can monitor their HP and react accordingly. For example, if I have three drakes (weaker) attacking a dragon (strong), the dragon is going to chew up its targeted drake pretty quick, so I monitor the monsters' HP and cycle the dragon against the weaker drakes so that all the lesser creatures stay alive as long as possible and therefore I don't end up with three dead drakes and an angry dragon to contend with. Ideally, all of the provoked creatures will die within a few seconds of each other so that I can loot them before anything else spawns. Maybe start by practicing on the executioner in the Occlo dungeon. There is a strong executioner with two lesser brigands that spawn in a small building where you can practice the mechanics. Then, when you have gotten those basics down, try Arctic Ogre Lords, then Cyclops/Titans, and then the Fire Temple. Don't even bother with Balrons and Shadow Wyrms until you've mastered those other areas. Balrons are relatively manageable with a lot of environmental tactics available but they're just too strong for a beginner. Shadow Wyrms have good environmental mechanics but also several environmental hazards, and the Wyrms themselves are just sooooooo aggressive and deadly. Their bite is powerful and poisonous, they love to cast paralyze and bomb you with high level spells, they respawn quickly, and they can teleport right on your ass.
