Avrenka

Mathematician Avrenka
Status
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Guild	Moon Mage
Instance	Prime

A Human who values knowledge above all else, Avrenka seeks the truth and its meaning behind everything. Skeptical to a fault, he takes no one at their word -- but equally, he will not dismiss anyone's words without careful consideration. To him, social constructs hold no value -- only truth and knowledge have merit.

Background

Avrenka, whose name means "Moon Tree" in Gamgweth, was born under an oak tree at a night when all three moons shone brightly.

Raised on the outskirts of Dirge by his father, an apothecarist, Avrenka was no stranger to delivering medicines to miners injured from accidents, trolls, volcanic eruptions, to name a few. And while his two older brothers demonstrated talent and skill in the healing arts, Avrenka found he had none.

Instead, he excelled at school, particularly in Mathematics and Astrology. So when he became of age, with his father's reluctant approval, Avrenka moved to Crossing to become a Moon Mage to pursue greater knowledge on how the universe works.

Nowadays, Avrenka spends his time conducting magical research experiments, and maintains his adolescent practice of rescuing fallen adventurers.

Moonmage Spell Recommendations

Beginner Spells to get:

1. Piercing Gaze (PG) as soon as possible, training Astro is very difficult without it.
2. Calm, it's much easier to train Debil with it than Burden
3. Telekinetic Throw (TKT) for training TM, it's super fast
4. Manifest Force (MAF), you'll need it as it'll be awhile until you can cast TKSH
5. Shadow Web (SHW) (need 80 Debil), it'll make training Debil insanely easy
6. Seer's Sense (SEER) (need 80 Aug & Util), it gives evasion buff
7. Cage of Light (COL) (need 80 Ward), it makes hunting safer
8. Shift Moonbeam, Locate, Moongate, and Ripplegate Theory (need 80 Util) -- otherwise why did you even make a Moonmage?!
9. Aura Sight (AUS) & Shadowling, more mana is always nice

Beginner Feats to get:

1. Sorcerous Patterns to reduce backlash rates
2. Injured Casting & Cautious Casting so you don't fail every spell when you're hurt
3. Deep Attunement & Efficient Harnessing for more mana
4. Raw Channeling & Efficient Channeling to use cylics

Advanced Spells to get:

1. Read the Ripples (RTR), this makes training Astro so much easier
2. Destiny Cypher (DC), this helps maxxing out your Divination Tool a lot faster and easier. Tools are useful for reliable targeted predicts, which can fail even at 1,000 Astro ranks (with min Cha). Buy the 700 plat tool you see in fests, the 7k plat tool is overkill and not needed. Tools cheaper than 700 plat will not max out. You can forget this spell after you've maxed out your tool.
3. Telekinetic Storm (TKS), makes training TM even easier and farms fast
4. Telekinetic Shield (TKSH), our best ward
5. Riftal Summons (RS) -- Shift Moonbeam has a range limit of 2 zones. RS has no limitation at all.
6. Lay Ward (LW) (use a runestone to save spell slot) -- really good at blocking spells that critters cast at you
7. Advanced Feats: Faster Targeting, Faster Matrices, Faster Battle Prep are nice for casting spells a little faster, meaning faster training (Optional) PvP Spells to get:

(Optional) PvP Spells to get:

1. Whole Displacement (WD), without this, you will die in 15 sec vs Barb, Thief, Ranger, and Paladin.
2. Mindshout (MS), arguably our best PvP spell
3. Shear, this spell combined with Lay Ward allows you to block 2 enemy spells
4. Sorrow, our bread and butter TM pvp spell
5. Unleash, allows us to buff ourselves with every non-signature spell in the game
6. Psychic Shield (PSY), protects you from Mind debil spells, which tend to be the nastiest around
7. PvP Feats: Magical Theorist + Improved Memory to use spell scrolls; Debil Mastery to reduce Mindshout cooldown; Silent Prep to hide your casting and Advanced Spell Knowledge to see what others are going to cast
8. Refractive Field (RF), invis is always good. Allows you to move without Roundtime, and you can snap cast it to disrupt enemy targeting in the fight. Causes you to miss Group whispers though.
9. Moonblade + Shape Moonblade, being able to store and instantly cast 3 debil spells is a large advantage in the first minute of the fight. Takes 5 seconds to switch between debil spell. Can cast 3 moonblades, even with only 1 moon.
10. Invocation of the Spheres (IOTS) so we can buff our mentals and land Mindshout better, but not necessary since Unleash can cover this. But the less you Unleash, the better.
11. Rend, it's an okay spell. Ward Break is far more efficient and doesn't carry the risk of dispelling debuffs on the enemy, which Rend seems to do 50% of the time.
12. Partial Displacement (PD), armor piercing damage is always good, even if the accuracy on this spell is slightly lower. Useful against heavily armored foes like Paladins. Otherwise Sorrow is better. Can be combo'd with Sorrow to explode heads.
13. Burn + Fire Lens (IFL), man I think this spell sucks. It's highly accurate, but low damage. Main use is to punch up in a big rank disparity fight. Otherwise, I never use it.
14. SLS, very rarely used. Does pretty good damage in combo with SCO, but it takes a valuable cyclic slot. Spells to avoid:

Spells to avoid:

• Steps of Vuan (SoV), mostly cuz it's a cyclic. The most useful part of Refractive Field is that it can be snapcast -- but there's a roughly 1 minute cooldown for casting new cyclics. Cylic slots are way too valuable for just another pulsing invis.
• Empower Moonblade, moonblade attack stats suck, don't bother using it as a weapon
• Artificer's Eye, Tenebrous Sense, and Machinist's Touch buffs can all be replaced with prediction buffs, it's a waste of spell slots.
• Sleep, just a really sucky version of Mental Blast
• Thoughtcast, just buy a gweth
• Hypnotize, unusable on players
• Be careful with acquiring quest related spells, as they are unforgettable no matter what
• Teleologic spells (Sever Thread, Tangled Fate, Sovereign Destiny, and Tezirah's Veil) are extremely hard to land. Saesordian Compass (SCO) provides like a +25-30% to Partial Displacement and SLS's DPS, but it's pretty expensive to spend 6 slots to get this one spell. It provides an overwhelming boost to Bonegrinder DPS, but this combo is way overpowered and needs to be nerfed.

Choosing a Sect:

• Heritage House -- gives you a cantrip that reverses predict curses, very useful when you fail a predict. Reduces Unleash scroll destruction rate from 4% down to 1%.
• Tezirite -- can predict curse easier. Reduced Bonegrinder backlash.
• Monk -- has a balance raising cantrip, balance is always good. Gains an extra Sorrow cast charge (+9% dmg on avg).
• All the other sects are PvP neutral.
• WARNING: once you choose a Sect, it is irreversible -- exception being that you can always change Sects to Heritage House.

Beginner Moonmage PvP

Armor:

• Leather -- my recommendation. Stealth is important for us, as it allows us to disengage and engage on our terms. And we should reset often to recast MAF and Shear, or regain any lost balance.
  • Start with onyx-hide leathers, then save for punka leathers. If you've got cash, buy the shadowleaf MT end-loot.
• Shield -- small, we're armor tertiary after all.
  • Start with onyx-hide small shield, then upgrade to either damite target shield or agonite triangular sipar. Best is diamond-hide or shadowleaf small shield, or MT octagonal cobwood shield.

Weapons:

• TM focus -- accuracy is considered best, since damage is heavily influenced by to-hit %. Players can craft one via enchanting. MT end-loot TM focus are best, but expensive.
• Physical weapons -- you must be ready to use them. 5 out of 11 of our matchups require weapons, and they can be a surprising source of extra damage in the other matchups.
  • For a beginner, I recommend getting the best Spiked Knuckles and best Heavy Thrown (HT) you can get. Get to melee range and MANE PALM and then PUNCH. If you can't, take out the HT and starting HURLing!

Spell Scrolls:

• Easiest and most powerful to use: Ice Patch (IP) and Curse of the Wild (COTW). IP to stun, COTW to moderately debuff their offense and defense.

Pre-fight Prep:

• Repair all armor & weapons. Lower than 90%, you start to see penalties.
• No clownsuits (i.e. make sure you're wearing only 1 armor type)
• Make sure all your prediction pools are filled. Use your predictions to buff your TM, Tactics, Shield, and your two favorite weapons (Brawling and HT probably). If allowed, you can use RTR to buff more, like Defending and Light Armor.
• If allowed, cast IOTS intelligence/discipline
• Cast all your buffs: AUS, Shadowling, SEER, TKSH, MAF, PSY, CV, SHAD, and RF. Cast Glythtide's Gift (GG) via runestone. Save WD and LW Shear right before the fight starts, as those only last 10min. And save Shear for last, since you don't want to weaken it with your own spellcasting.
• Save time when buffing -- you don't have to wait for full prep to successfully cast spells.
• Check your stance, 100% evasion + 99% shield. If you buffed your defending, then it's 100% evasion + 99% shield + 9% parry.
• Check your AOE, make sure it's set to Nongroup
• Always cast every spell at max mana.
• Invoke your TM focus.
• In a 1v1, SHW is our best native cyclic ... in a group fight, go with SLS so you don't accidentally web your teammates.

Fight!

• Start with Mindshout, it's our best spell. Just make sure you grouped, so you don't hit your teammates.
• Alternate casting Debil (IP or COTW) and Sorrow/Punching
• Bob in between casts -- it helps your balance and also gives a small debuff to the enemy's defense.

After Fight:

• Say "good fight" whether you won or lost
• Save the fight log
• Get ready for the next fight!

Intermediate Moonmage PvP

Review your logs

• #1 way to improve
• Ask lots of questions from more experienced players

#1 problem of all moonmages: "Why am I dying so fast?!"

• Problem: You died in once Ice Patch or Stun.
  • Solution: get Awaken and Aesandry Darleath (AD).
• Problem: You died in 10 physical attacks.
  • Solution: highlight the message of your MAF going down. Leave the room and recast it.
• Problem: You always die first.
  • Solution 1: stay hidden when the fight starts. Your teammates get first strike while the enemy wastes time searching for you.
  • Solution 2: alternate between casting Shear and casting stuns. Shear will block their spells, and stunning them also reduces their offensive capabilities. Don't bother with casting TM, go full defense.

#2 problem: "Why are none of my attacks hitting, and all of theirs are?!"

"Balance is life." -Rakkor

"Balance rules." -Warbrolus

Understanding Balance Advantage

Balance advantage provides tremendous buffs to your offense and defense, and huge penalties to theirs.

How do you gain a balance advantage? Usually with stuns, which instantly tank the target's balance to "very badly balanced".

For example:

* Warbrolus hurls a polished silversteel throwing axe sculpted with the lines of an anguished visage at you.  You evade.  

The throwing axe lands nearby!

[You're invigorated (100%), energetic (100%), mighty (100%), incredibly balanced and overwhelming your opponent.]

I had stunned Warbrolus right before this hurl. Note the message "overwhelming your opponent", which signifies maximum balance advantage. He missed every hurl, while most of my Sorrows landed and did damage. And then he stunned me back, resulting in this:

* Warbrolus hurls a polished silversteel throwing axe sculpted with the lines of an anguished visage at you.  You fail to block with an octagonal shield of cobwood reinforced with a chitinous boss.  The axe flashes midnight-blue, lacerating with countless denticulated blade projections and lands a very heavy hit that scratches the right bicep (But another battle scar for your collection!).

The throwing axe lodges itself shallowly into you!

[You're hurt (70%), energetic (100%), mighty (100%), very badly balanced with opponent overwhelming you.]

His stun tanked my balance to "very badly balanced", giving me the message "opponent overwhelming you" which is maximum balance disadvantage. This hurl did 30% damage to me, and the next few Sorrow bolts missed.

Do not stay in balance disadvantage.

Ways to stay in balance advantage:

• Keep Shear up to block their stuns
• Stun them back
• If you don't have a stun spell ready, leave the room, hide, prep it, then re-engage
• Use TRIP or SHOVE (but only in melee range)
• Ask a Warrior Mage to cast Sure Footing (SUF) on you. Unleash Centering on yourself if you can. You should already have AD up.

#3 problem: "Why are all of their stuns hitting me, and none of mine hitting them?"

Understanding Stats

Landing a Debilitation spell is very different from landing a TM spell or a weapon attack.

• TM & Weapon attacks depend on ranks and balance advantage
• Landing Debilitation attacks depend on stat advantage
  • Each spell has its specific stat vs stat matchup (See: Category:Contested abilities for details)
    • For example, Mindshout puts our Int + Disc + Wis against their Disc + Wis + Int (in that order of importance!)
    • Therefore, it's recommend our highest stat be Int, second highest stat be Disc, and third highest stat be Wis

No one can defend against every stat matchup

• If they pump their mentals to defend against Mindshout and Rend, then they will be vulnerable to Dazzle and SHW
• Most players will prioritize mental stats
  • This provides defense against nasty debils like Mindshout, Ward Break, and Huldah's Pall
  • It also enables MANY offensive debils like Mindshout, Ward Break, Ice Patch, Tremor, Lethargy, Frostbite, to name just a few...
• Raising stamina or reflex is nice for defending against Ice Patch, Lethargy, Tremor etc., but then you won't be able to stun your opponent, and you'll still be vulnerable to the other mental attacks like Mindshout and Ward Break -- which is why you won't see many people going this route (exception being Barbarians, who must avoid Ice Patch at all costs)

Upgrade your weapons:

• You need 9 weapons to cycle thru all the ACMs. Polearm, Brawling knuckles, 2HE, 2HB, LE, LB, Staff, Crossbow and SE.
• Start with high carbon steel (with 33% gold or plat, ideally), then upgrade to haralun or kertig. You want 7.5 density in your weapons and armor, higher density is always better (but there's no benefit to going above 7.5). And then the best as usual is MT end-loot.
• For Staff, bo staff is the best template. Start with Ebony, then upgrade to Rockwood.
• For LE and LB, go for the heaviest template to maximize damage. For 2HE and 2HB, go for the lightest template to maximize balance.
• For knuckles, go for spiked knuckles template for max damage.

Learn how to use Advanced Combat Maneuvers (ACMs)

• Create scripts that automate the ACM for you
  • For example, to get to melee range I will have my script: (1) wear left, stow left, stow right; (2) remove shield; (3) MANE RUSH %target
• Practice cycling thru all the ACMs to do maximum damage in the shortest amount of time
• All ACMs have a 90 sec cooldown, except Palmstrike which is 45 sec. Play around this.

Advanced Moonmage PvP

Unleash

The spell that allows us to buff everything. The most important spells, in order:

• AD and Awaken, otherwise you just die to one stun
• Centering and SUF for balance, cuz balance is life
• Rage of the Clans and Righteous Wrath to enable weapon usage
• Tailwind if you didn't predict buff Heavy Thrown
• Sentinel's Resolve for extra defense, if you can't predict buff Shield & Defending

Secondary spells to Unleash:

• Depending on who you're fighting, you might want Courage, Soul Shield (SOS), Nonchalance and Redeemer's Pride (REPR) to fend off Spirit, Fear, Charm and Mind debils. Tranquility to bolster your Fortitude defense.
• Essence of Yew (EY) gives a small but not insigifnicant bonus to all debil defense
• Buff all your stats. Vigor, Heroic Strength, Gift of Life, Turmar Illuination, Will of Winter. This will help you win your Debil stat matchups.

Tertiary spells to Unleash:

• Only if you have time: Ignite, Resonance, and Rutilor's Edge, to give a little bit of extra damage to your favorite weapon.

Mid-fight Unleashing:

• If you can manage it, landing a Curse of the Wild (COTW), Lethargy, and Tremor mid-fight can be devastating, but it can be difficult to do.

Gyre -- if possible, use it to reduce the amount of Unleashing you do. It's very time consuming to Unleash this many spells, try to keep it to a minimum.

Learn how to cast Unleash at minimum mana -- saves you a lot of time, and conserves a lot of mana. Requires understanding how Sorcery penalty multipliers work (See: Sorcery#Mana Inefficiency)

Empowered Moonblade

You can store 3 spells in each moonblade, and you can summon up to 3 moonblades -- hypothetically, you can have 9 insta-cast debils at your disposal, but practically speaking you'll likely only ever use 1, as it is extremely difficult to manage more than 1 moonblade at a time.

• STUDY the moonblade to figure out how this works
• There's a 5 sec switch time between stored spells, which means you need to alternate between non-stored spells and stored spells.
  • For example, I might start a fight casting Sorrow, then immediately casting a stored Ice Patch to stun, then prepping Mind Shout and switching to the second Moonblade node. After the 5 sec RT switch is complete, I cast Mind Shout (with buffed Debil, I only need 6 sec prep time to cast Mind Shout), then immediately cast a stored Ward Break to capitalize on the stunned status. I prep Sorrow while switching to the third Moonblade node. After the 5 sec RT switch is done, I cast Sorrow (with buffed TM I only need 4 sec prep time to cast Sorrow) and then immediately cast a stored Rend.
    • In 21 secs, I will have casted 7 spells: 2 Sorrows and 5 Debils.

Casting this many spells in such short time requires many scripts to handle -- similar to cycling thru ACMs, but harder since you need to customize which spells you want to store, depending on the fight.

• At minimum, you want 7 scripts. Three to switch between the 3 nodes. Another three to set the spell variable for each stored spell. And the last one to insta-cast the stored spell at %target.
• If you plan on using 3 moonblades at a time, this can blow up to 19 scripts, or more if you want to insta-cast at more than one target.
  • Don't talk to me about how hard Warrior Mage micro is, Tirost! Look at all this crap I have to do, all in 21 seconds!

Herbs and MT goodies

• Herbs: Buy them crafted, or make your own. If you plan on fighting for more than 3 min, you need 'em. If you're gonna get nerve damage, you need 'em. Check the Remedies product page to see which ones you need (See Remedies products). I usually just use chest, abdomen, limbs and nerves, since the other body parts are rarely hit. Unless you're against another Moon Mage, then you want the head herbs (Sorrow!).
• Regen items: I don't have any, but vit regen is probably best.
• Hand of Glory: +10 to your stats. Who doesn't want more stats?
• Wands & Tattoos: Ice Patch is of course the best wand. I would probably get a Tremor tattoo. WB and HULP wands are okay, if you can land 'em.
• HE gifts: tend to not be allowed, cuz they're too strong, like the automaton, totem or mask pigments (bees!).
• Flared weapon/armor: Flares don't really move the needle much. Nice bonus when it happens, but don't plan around it.
• Ice cube, poisons: Don't seem to be working properly in the Arena

Know the Matchup

• If you're up against stealthers, use Mindshout and Sorrow.
• If you're up against weapons, keep your WD up, keep them stunned, and refresh MAF often.
• If you're up against anti-magic, use your Mindshout/Ward Break combo, switch to weapons, or use Magic-based Debils. Refresh Shear often to win the Debil contest.

Learn the Mechanics

• There's a million hidden mechanics in the game. Knowledge is power. Learn them, investigate them, ask around about them.

MOST IMPORTANT: Know the Game

• Know when to go all out, and know when to keep it casual
  • The PvP community is a small one, much akin to playing pickup basketball at a local court. There's a huge range of skill, and the teams or matchups usually aren't balanced.
  • Play in a way so that everyone has fun!

Avrenka's Crappy Experiments

First, go check out Tambellis' experiments: https://elanthipedia.play.net/Tambellis

• A lot of my work was built upon his. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Yes parry stick balance makes a notable difference.

Shield hindrance seems to be a bit more important than shield protection. Fortuitous chance to block is even less impactful than shield protection. (If I had to guess, 1pt hindrance = 1.5 pts of protection = 3 pts of fortuitous) This test may be skewed by the fact that I am a moonmage, and my Evasion is always higher than my Parry/Shield and my stance is 100% evasion, so hindrance probably is more impactful for me.

Bonegrinder + SCO: 75% instalock rate (86/115), 16% backlash rate (15/93)

TM body part targeting accuracy: vs t1 Xala: No target 94%, Legs 79%, Chest 94%, Abdomen 94%, Eyes 9%, Neck 34%, Head 69%

vs t2 Xala: No target 49%, Chest 21%

TM accuracy focus vs no focus, vs t2 Xala 85% hit rate vs 55% hit rate

• This should be equivalent to around a +10% to OF?

Moonmage TM spells vs t1 Xala

• PD appears to have a decent accuracy penalty (67.4%) vs DO/TKT/unempowered Burn (84-87%). This is likely to offset the extra dmg that PD gets from being armor piercing.
• Sorrow is even less accurate than PD (54.0%). Keep in mind, fully targeted spells get a +20% accuracy bonus, which Sorrow does not get.
• each IFL source appears to slightly increase Burn accuracy. Conventional wisdom holds that each source increases accuracy & damage by 10% (I'm not sure about this)
• TM accuracy focus appears to give about a 25-30% accuracy boost to hit

Punching no-target body part distribution: head 1.9%, eyes 1.6%, neck 3.2%, chest 18.4%, abdomen 8.9%, back 6.0%, arms 30.5%, hands 5.7%, legs 23.8%

TM no-target body part distribution: head 6.6%, eyes 8.5%, neck 7.5%, chest 9.4%, abdomen 17.9%, back 17.9%, arms 10.4%, hands 2.8%, legs 18.9%

Punching damage: plate gauntlets seemed about as effective as handwraps. Spiked knuckle dmg +7.4%, regular knuckle dmg +17.7% as compared to plate gauntlets/handwraps. Buffing brawling skill did not affect dmg when accuracy was capped (~95%). COMPARE verb is effective for comparing knuckles, but not accurate measure of difference in damage. Difference between storebought knuckles and haralun spiked knuckles about 20%. Difference between haralun spiked knuckles and leather gloves is almost double. Regular knuckles do about 6% more damage w/ PUNCH vs spiked knuckles, but spiked knuckles do about 15% more damage w/ MANE PALMSTRIKE vs regular knuckles (darkstone 85 hardness).

• SvS: primary stat counts for 1.5, secondary stat 1.0, tertiary stat 0.5
• Attacker vs Defender no advantage, success rate 15%
• Attacker vs Defender +5 advantage, success rate 100%
• Max mana provides +14 boost
• Minimum success stun = 6 seconds (SHW)
• +30 advantage stun = 17 seconds (SHW)
• Stun appears to lower Will defense by 20-25, full Nerve damage appears to lower Will defense by 7
• Maximal success appears to be +50 advantage
• PSY appears to give 20-30 points of Will defense

Empath vit healing, pulses every 3 seconds, unlimited links possible: Charisma 14: 5%/link, Charisma 30: 6.3%/link, Charisma 60: 7.3%/link; max appears to be 8%/link

Gyres do not work with signature spells unless it's your guild

• invoking Gyre requires Arcana check, which depends on the difficulty of the spells being invoked
• i.e. max mana Intermediate spell difficulty (800 rank difficulty) had a 0% success rate with 800 ranks of Arcana, and somewhere around 30-40% advantage provided 100% success rate.

Armor testing on Moonmage w/ 859 evasion, 632 parry/armor/defend vs 2 Xala thralls + magus, solidly balanced

• Leather armor yielded the best results, at 0.29 dmg/atk
• Cloth and Bone were next best, at 0.36-0.37 dmg/atk
• Chain, Brig and Plate were noticeably worse, at 0.51, 0.61, and 0.80 dmg/atk respectively
• higher armor density appears to always be beneficial
• reinforcing armor is almost always bad
• Clownsuiting is even worse than Plate. Clownsuiting with mostly Leather was better than mostly Chain, 0.39 vs 0.54 dmg/atk (I had TKSH up to help)
• results indicate hindrance is extremely important, which may be due to my defensives being skewed towards Evasion. Whatever benefits the extra protection gave was more than outweighed by the % to-hit penalty. And, accuracy appears to increase damage all the way up to around 80-85% accuracy.

Light armor skill testing: it appears armor skill does make a difference. To-hit % seems to remain the same, but damage received from hits is slightly reduced with higher skill.

• Light armor skill 511 vs 756: lost vit/hit 2.83 vs 2.10, and 0.54 vs 0.41, sample size ~400-650 per test
• DR-Kodius has said that Armor skill affects Absorb slightly, but Protection heavily -- meaning, Armor skill impacts small hits a lot more than big hits (i.e. PvE more than PvP)

Fatigue 0% seems to apply a -20% DF and OF, prevents getting items, adds a lot of RT to athletics and makes it harder, and -20% to spellcasting.

• Lethargy drops target Fatigue to 50-60% (if below, no effect), and reduces Fatigue regen to stabilize at that level. If Fatigue ever hits 40% or below, it immediately tanks to 0% and stays there.

Retreating seems to apply a -10 OF to each retreat, stacking. 1 retreat lasts 13 sec, 2 retreats lasts 18 sec.

Webbed status seems to apply a -20 DF, as well as +20% dmg taken. Stunned status seems to apply about -15 DF, and +20% dmg taken. Prone status seems to apply another -20 DF and +20% dmg taken.

Grapple and Analyze do not seem to impart any DF penalties.

Weave, Circle and Bob seem to each contribute around -7 DF to target, as well as increasing dmg taken by 7-10% depending on the manuever. These tactics can be stacked up to 3 times for 18 seconds for a total -20 DF to target, as well as an increase in dmg taken by 20-30%. Practically speaking, Bob x3 and Circle/Weave/Bob are the only stacked tactics worth doing, as spamming Circle will tank your balance and spamming Weave will tank your fatigue.

RAGE seems to provide +20 OF

Avrenka's Crappy Notes on Random Mechanics

• Accuracy affects dmg by as much as -80% penalty to 2x bonus (KODIUS)
• Damage bonus from rank disparity is capped at 2x (KODIUS)
• Sliding % of damage is given as wound damage. At > 80%, is very little. (KODIUS)
• It is possible to be dragged away from your own rogue moongate, and avoid death
• Many TM spells do not work in water
• Moongate in water no longer applies an AOE stun
• Conventional wisdom holds that grapple and analyze apply a Defensive Factor penalty. From my own experience, nerve damage applies a DF penalty as well. I wouldn't be surprised if Stun status also applies a DF penalty too. It's been said that Immobilize applies an Evasion penalty.
• From my own experience, armor protection starts to deteriorate under 90% durability
• Many cyclics pulse every 18 seconds. RAGE, NAME, and REPR seem to pulse quite randomly (8-30 seconds).
• Herbs pulse every 30 seconds, 9 times, split between # of affected areas (i.e. limb remedy to multiple limb damage will heal multiples slower than chest remedy to chest damage)
• Gyres cannot be invoked while hidden/invis, so don't put an invis spell first into the gyre, then all the other spells won't invoke
• Certain spells can't be cast on others by non-native guild, like PSY and Uncurse
• Integrity barriers stack. So always combine LW with whatever, like AC, Shear, SP, WORM, etc. This makes it so your spells can go out (since LW doesn't affect it), but their spells can't go in. Shear and SP do not play nice with each other, I've tried stacking them, doesn't work.
• Casting Blend breaks you out of group. Whole Displacement pulses break you out of group. Soul Bonding breaks you out of group, and prevents you from joining any groups at all while it's on you.
• Shift Moonbeam has a 2 zone limit.
• WT Arena HIGH multiplies your stats to equalize them to 800 points in total, but only for SvS purposes. So if you're wondering why you get hit harder than others, it might be cuz your Reflex and Stamina aren't 100 and theirs is. And if you're wondering why small players seem to always succeed their debils on you, it's probably cuz their mentals are way above their other stats.
  • HEROIC equalizes to 958 stat points. Health, spirit, fatigue pools are flexed with stats, but almost all other stat aspects are not (i.e. encumbrance, weapon RT).
• Tremor pulses 9 times (10 if you count the initial cast, which does hit) every 4-5 seconds. Spell ends in 42-44 seconds. Ending message does not hit. Vertigo is 8 pulses, same timing, but 1st pulse is missed.
• Bardic screams mechanics: https://discord.com/channels/619301383451181075/823599885693354064/953128015129366538
• I believe "stun" condition gives a sizeable penalty to DF, from my many armor tests. Tambellis theorized immobilize gives a large evasion penalty. Golameth believes immobilize gives the highest penalty.
• Glyph of Dueling mechanic: https://discord.com/channels/619301383451181075/619330202614497290/857613082099580959
• Damage calculation mechanics: https://discord.com/channels/619301383451181075/819303984719200297/1019333944212201513
• OF vs DEF mechanics: https://discord.com/channels/619301383451181075/819303984719200297/1431285731632091308
• Javac — 8/18/2026: Looking at the code, there is no autostance penalty.
• Javac — 8/20/2026: Armor is applied before reactors.
• CoZ mechanics: if target is wearing no armor and holding no weapons, CoZ does not take effect. CoZ only curses worn armor -- any armor put on after cast will not be cursed. CoZ takes 1-3 seconds to affect a weapon grabbed from a container, and will remain for the duration of the curse. CoZ does not affect parry sticks or brawling gear.
• Kodius -- 3/26/2021: templates have no hard caps, weapon stats increase +1 per stone of weight up to 7.5 density, swappables and throwables slightly penalized on base stats