[18.0]
Mabinogi Game Tutorials!Thanks to Fl0rn for this.
Sorry about the strange formatting, I will it at a later date.
Warning: This is supposed to be clearly laid out assuming you have little to no knowledge on the matter, so it is long.
Sorry for the extreme spacing. I feel it's hard to read things that are spaced too close together, and i try to be user friendly. Normally i ramble and end up with essay type deals, but i'll try to cut back on it in the guide stuff. Feel free to ask me questions though, and i'll be more free with follow up responses. Trying to avoid race specific skills. If you got something you want included here, let me know. I'll keep a list of some of the edits, so people can easily see what's been added.
LEGEND
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Some Mobs' AI
The Mob Timer.
Most people just think of mobs as either instantly aggroing, or only aggroing on being hit anymore. All mobs have an aggro timer though, which can be exploited for your own sake, when there are multiple targets for the mob to aggro, within his range. Whether it's 2+ players, puppets, pets, it don't matter in most cases. This is very important to controlling some mobs. Now, how it works, and it's quite simple. If anything the mob can aggro, stands within its aggro range, then the aggro timer builds. When multiple targets are within aggro range, the majority of mobs will aggro whatever is closest. In the event the mob cannot aggro whoever is closest, for example a skeleton can only single aggro using this timer rule, then they will aggro the next nearest target within range. Multi will all usually aggro the closest thing to them though, so pay attention. The timer resets if there is target to be aggroed, within the aggro range, at the end of the tick. However, if a target is still available the timer will continue rising until the mob aggroes.
Forced Mob Rush
It's a basic, but it should still be kept in mind. Forcing a mob to rush you. If you hit a mob with a skill that does not knock them over or backwards, there is an extremely high chance that they will run straight to you and try to melee you. This can be essential to setting up certain situations, to protect friends, or to deal with cool downs. It's not terribly advanced, and it lacks dps now a days, but it is still effective.
Caution! The following mobs this either does not work on, or is not very effective. Imps, shadow archers, blinkers, mounted dullahan. (sort of) Imps are likely to just load a bolt and shoot you back. Shadow archers are not able to melee, they can defend but not melee, so they can not rush you. Blinkers, like archers, can't melee so they'll fly up and attack. Dullahan, when mounted, will rush towards you, but he does not melee. Expect him to throw an axe at your face after a second.
Caution! Another thing to watch for, is if you critical hit. A critical hit on a skill that would normally force a mob to rush, will pause the ai, not reset it. If you load a bolt, see a wizard loading firebolt, and then hit the wizard with a critical bolt, it will simply stop the casting. The wizard will stand there doing nothing, for the rest of the time that it would normally cast. After which, its ai will continue like normal.
Lucky Shot!
Sound funny? It can be amusing at times, frustrating at others. If you load a skill that normally forces a mob rush, and hit a mob that is not aggroed, plus get a critical, you will likely not aggro it. This does not hold true for a normal attack with your weapon. It's pure luck for everything but way of the gun. Way of the gun will force this rule to work and you can shoot many mobs non stop without aggroing them, until their timer forces them to aggro. Some mobs are exceptions to this, i'm afraid i do not remember which though.
Aggro Drop
It's pretty much what it sounds like, forcing mobs to drop their aggro on you. The point's obvious. Popular methods include crisis escape, shadow cloak, hide, and play dead. (after a short time) Other methods include pulling a mob too far from its anchor position, more on that in the next entry, or sometimes forcing a single/double-aggro mob to multi aggro you. The latter i've only seen apply to snakes, that i can remember at the moment, where they only single aggro or double aggro, but if you hit multiple of them an aggro all at once, without killing, they can all rush you for a duration of like 5-10 seconds, then they drop aggro. It's not useful for much at all though, so i won't bother going into that.
What i wish to discuss this time, is a minor bug with aggro drop, which can quickly turn the tables on you if you're not careful. If you do something like fireball, large aoe aggro, and then use something like crisis escape, all mobs will drop aggro. If you cancel crisis, they have to do an aggro search again, and basically find you all over again. However, i've noticed that every now and then the mobs will stay aggroed on me. I've only noticed this in parties though. So, i assume it's that if i use something like crisis, and my party's attacking something that's aggroed on me, the mob is being stunned and notices my friend. Until the mob starts moving again, i believe it can still aggro you, if you release crisis escape, or whatever aggro drop skill you used. Try to wait and make sure the mob isn't hit by your attack, and immediately stunned by someone else before you release crisis/aggro drop. This should help ensure you don't retain aggro immediately on release. This still needs more testing, to be 100% though.
Anchor Positions
This isn't particularly useful, but it ties in to aggro drops so i'm going to cover it. There are two central points for a mobs positioning and aggro. One is the spawn point. This determines where a mob spawns, and serves as the default anchor position 95% of the time. The exception would be something where the mob is designed to move along a preset path, aggroing everything along the way. Those types of mobs generally despawn on reaching their objective, leaving them with no actual anchor position. As for the importance of anchor position, it is essentially where the mob thinks it needs to remain, or within a set distance of this position. By default, the spawn points serve as an anchor position. It can be changed, usually quite easily and by players, resulting in a mob sometimes ending up all the way across the map, even though normally it would never go anywhere near that point. Should a mob traverse too far from the anchor position, it will generally drop aggro and walk back to the anchor position.
To change a mobs anchor position, is as simple as doing something to make it retain aggro, after it has moved from its original anchor position. So, mob starts at spawn point A, and you hit it with an arrow from say 1,000 units away. It will likely want to run to you and attack, but its default anchor position has not changed yet. If you move back and let the mob reach the 1,000 unit mark, then shoot it again, its anchor position will change. If you shot it at the 1,000 unit mark, then that will now be its anchor position. It will have changed from spawn point A, to the 1,000 unit distance. You can repeat this as much as you want, so long as the mob doesn't die, to repeatedly change the anchor position. Enthralling performance can also change the anchor position, as the affected mobs follow you until the skill ends or they are outside the radius. The anchor position is determined by the mobs' current position when enthrall ends, except for the mob that is the first in the line-up. The first mob you enthralled, will always have its anchor position set to your current position when the skill ends, but the client will not show it always walking to where it should be. Rather, there will usually be lag displacement. Enthralling performance generally aggroes the mobs though, so use with caution. And with the lag displacement on the first mob, take extra care to make sure you move outside of aggro range, as it may be larger than you expect.
Skeletons.
Don't have much issue with these cuz they're weak normally, but you'll spot their ai in a few other mobs. Skeletons' ai, single aggro. Slow to aggro, great aggro range. Upon aggro, they are very likely to run around for a second, then load counter or defend. Specific ones, like pirates, seem to be more aggressive and will load smash more frequently than counter or defend. They also have probably a 10-20% chance to aggro, and just instantly rush and melee you, so pay attention. A good example of where their ai is reused, tail Shadow Mission mobs. Watch the warriors, fighters, and lancers.
Spiders and bees.
Most spider and bee mobs, and a few other miscellaneous ones, have a notice (!) lock if hit with splash. So, if you grab a weapon like the tailltean two-handed sword, which has high splash radius, you can splash nearby bugs and lock them on !. Most players mistake this as flameburst glitch. Flameburst technically counts as splash damage, and i believe lightning rod does too. Caution! The giant black spiders in alby adv, do not normally aggro. They actually go into a notice state (!) and then will all continue attacking from that, without directly aggroing you. Do not try to splash lock them, it will not work.
Now, situations this is useful. Ciar adv, the laghos there, and in other places, can be splash locked. You can then attack with one of your preferred area of effect skills (AoE/aoe) to deal damage to all at once. Be warned, most magic aoe will instant aggro the whole spawn in this case, do not use the inter magics like thunder, ice spear, or fireball (TH/IS/FB) on them unless you can one shot them. Scathach, yes this splash rule works well in scath. It works on bees and spiders there, so you can gather up something like the bees to kill them all quickly, the spiders to kill, or just to lure some of them out of the way to focus on a specific mob. Some people like killing queen bees and giant spiders, for example. Silva forest bees! They drop white herbs, and can leave behind a temporary white herb patch upon death. Ancients regularly appear among these bees, as they're not frequently killed. So you may wish to group up many of the bees and then quickly wipe them out, before gathering white herbs. 5 white herbs can be taken to a giant guard and his dog, near the whirlpool mark, for a daily seal btw.
Golems,
when windmilled, (WM) ignore you completely on the other hand. If you go into The Other Alchemist Shadow Mission (TOA SM) and windmill all the golems, they'll fly away and sit there. This is where your aggro timer comes into play. You're going to be within the golems' aggro range to wm. So you need to act fast. When you wm, make sure to send them away from you, and not into a wall. Then try to run away from any that aren't dead, to reset their aggro timer. If successful, you will have windmilled them for damage, moved away, and avoided all golem aggro, or most. Be mindful of the alchemists when doing this, they won't just let you windmill and run as you please, so if you screw up you will aggro almost the whole room and die. Also note, with the timer rule. When you windmill and send them flying, keep in mind your party's positions. Remember your aggro timer, cuz while you may be safe your self, you may wm and your team mates can be nearly instantly aggroed after you send the golems flying, due to the whole timer rule. They may not even realize what just happened. Fun fact, used to do this to aj all the time and
him off, cuz i knew how these rules worked.
Golems' tactics. Covered the ai rule for golems, let's go into tactics. They hit low with melee, but they crit like a god. Don't ever let them smash you, and always expect their windmill to crit. Many skills are effective on golems, due to their limited combat abilities in most cases. So i'll cover their skills and ai. Smash. They don't normally spam smash, but they're not shy with it. Generally easy to beat, just watch for multi aggro, no fancy tricked needed. Windmill. Their favorite skill after being knocked back. If you knock a golem back, expect that to be what skill it will use, and it will keep it loaded for roughly 4 or 5 seconds normally. If a target is in range after it is knocked back and loads windmill, it will normally execute windmill after one to two seconds. Be mindful of your party so you don't kill them. It will also auto-execute windmill, if you try to melee it while wm is loaded. Defend. If a golem doesn't load wm after knocked back, this is what you should expect. Simple and straightforward, low threat, and will not move if defend is activated during knockback. If loaded at any other time, the golem will walk towards the target, if the target is past a set distance. It's a remnant from the sharp mind days, where you couldn't see what skill the mobs loaded. So a player who tried to windmill a golem thinking it had windmill loaded, would get killed. The little black golem from ciar advanced can teleport and hit 3 times, as well as summon some skeletons. Black golems will freely load windmill. Spawns as a pair of golems and pair of giant lightning sprites, be cautious. Note, sasquatch in shyllien has similar characteristics, but they can freely load windmill.
Golems from uladh continent, if you trigger their passive defenses expect them to rush and melee you. The scathach golems are erratics, as are the golems in hillwen. They can both rush you if you trigger a passive, but sometimes they'll just turn and run back to their spawn point, not to be confused with their anchor position. From there they typically either spam quake or turn back around and rush the target. Hillwen golems have advanced heavy stander, they can not be knocked back but they can be stunned. Compared to other golems, they're relatively weak with high hp. Due to their location, exercise extreme caution when facing them.
Beholders/Blinkers!
These are a real pain for beginners, or when you're working on skills. Here's some tricks to dealing with them, they have a relatively simple ai and only two skills. Drain beam and monster summon. One, learn their aggro speed. It's moderate, not fast or slow. They have great aggro range. If you're fast enough, you can get off one skill before they aggro, and this is very important. After one skill, even if it's just windmill, expect to be aggroed. If you can two shot the beholder, then i recommend keeping lullaby ready. It don't have to last long, 5 seconds would be plenty in most cases. With the first attack aggroing the beholder, you want to instantly lullaby to keep it from flying after aggro. Then just hit it again to finish it before it can move. If it flies, do not range it unless you can kill it or severely injure it. This will lock aggro to you, unless someone else hits after, and if you hit the blinker in the air, it will continue its attack, land, and instantly fly again before you can hit it. So if you range and don't kill it, it's going to aggro you, go down, and instantly fly up and hit you before anyone else can finish it off. So be careful with range. Don't Thunder it either. On being hit, the bilnker flies, the shock where thunder is supposed to lock an enemy, will make the blinker fly instead. So your TH will completely miss 90% of the time.
Once the blinker is in the air. Sand blast, even if it's novice, will bring it back down temporarily. Keep in mind, sand blast has a short cool down, but there's a restriction to how frequently it can be used on one enemy. Once blinded, twice shy. So make sure you finish it. Frozen blast. Blinkers are one of the lowest cp mobs you'll see in any Hard Mode or Elite Shadow missions. This makes them extremely easy to hit with frozen blast. Guard cylinder is ideal in places with blinkers, so you can still have an effective melee. Unless you're an alchemist anyway. Lock a blinker with frozen blast, most of your troubles are gone. Ice Spear allows players to hit a blinker while it's frozen now as well, with reduced damage, so that's a good alternative. Guns. Normal shots won't hit, flash launcher won't hit, and bullet slide won't hit. Shooting rush, bullet storm, and grapple all hit a flying blinker, as well as other flying mobs besides dragons. Keep in mind the aggro problem range has with bilnkers though, if you don't kill it with your gun attacks, expect the blinker to retaliate.
Giant Ghost of Partholon
This one should not be a big deal honestly. They only spawn in Ghost of Partholon. (GoP) The biggest issue when facing these, is that they have greatly increased protection. When facing these, it's heavily advised to use at least one, i'd advise two-three though, counter attacks. If you equip knuckles, your cool down on counter attack will be reduced. Every counter attack on a giant ghost, will reduce its protection by a great amount, making them easier to kill. One thing to be wary of, is its dual wielding, it can easily kill if it hits. Its movement speed is slow, and it has a basic ai though. So, despite damage, it is simple to kill. Mind multi aggro from other mobs.
Lycanthrope
This guy's ai is extremely simple. Basic combat skills; smash, defend, and counter. Its speciality is a real problem if you don't have high damage though. Any attack that hits it, other than windmill, can make it 'level up.' All it really does is fully heal, including wounds. It's been reported, though i have not personally tested, that doppelganger and kunai storm also do not level it up. Before the lycan aggroes, i believe you can hit it with one attack without it leveling up. And if it has full hp, or extremely close, there's really no reason to worry about it leveling up if you can pull off a major damage skill. So, if it has near full hp, like 90%+, i'd advise using a fast and powerful skill. Smash, lightningrod, snapcast, flash launcher... Anything that hits hard, but not Thunder as it is multiple hits. Only major threat, will be if multi-aggroed while fighting a lycan. Lycans that have the same color mane/fur will not multi-aggro you, but differing colors will. So, blue fur and blue fur, only one aggroes. Bluet and yellow, two aggro. Blue, yellow, and red will be triple aggro. And so on. Know your connection speed, if you're going to windmill a lycan while it is defending, since it will retaliate. You'll want to defend after you trip the lycan's defend if you do that.
Shadow Mission Commanders
There are a few different commanders, but they act primarily the same. They have some basic moves like lightning bolt, defend, counter, and smash as well as some more nasty ones. Things to keep in mind when fighting them. Area Effect Life Drain. (LD) After being knocked back, there is a chance he'll load life drain, but the commanders' life drain makes him invincible and will hit a large area around his current position. He is unable to move during this, but he can finish it with an explosion, to kill any player who stays in range after the life drain ends. Weakness of this skill, he's entirely immobile and unable to queue any skills, he has to finish his skill before loading anything else. My recommendation, prepare a ranged attack of any kind, after you are clear of his life drain. Lightning bolt (LB) will outrange his life drain, just barely. You can run outside of LD range, load a bolt, click him, and you should move within the bolt's max range, just outside of his range. Soon as his life drain ends, you can hit him with the bolt to stun him, and stop him from loading skills or attacking, this does NOT stop his life drain's explosion. You may wish to consider loading something like inter magic instead, and hitting him as soon as his LD ends instead.
Another skill the commanders use, that is a huge problem, is their ability to summon golems. Summoned golems are always snow golems. Individually, one golem isn't a major problem, but combined with multi and the fact he can summon an endless amount, can quickly lead to death. However, commanders can only summon a golem, when they are hit. I'm told flameburst will bypass this, i've not tested it though. The commanders have a greatly increased chance to summon golems, after falling below 50% hp or so. Therefore, it is strongly advised that you do not use multi hit skills, that are lacking on damage. Arrow revolve is typically a bad idea, as is thunder. Using bash can be risky too, unless you have rank 1 bash and over 500 max damage. There really is no good counter for the summonings. You can use pets to knock them back or try to aggro them, but if you're at point blank on the commander, this can be a major problem with latency and timing the pet commands as well as fighting. You can try relying on your party, but at the same time this can backfire and you get stuck with someone who wants to spam bash doing like 500 damage or less, every hit, causing the commander to spam golems. The best preparation you can do, is hit him as hard as you can right off, and use the highest damage skills you have after that, not too be confused with the highest dps skills. Smash has more damage than bash, for example, but bash has more dps than smash does. So smash would be better than bash on a commander.
Fomor Attack Shadow Commander is slightly different than the rest. In hard mode and higher, he has 100%+ protection to start off. You will need a rusty sword, obtained by defeating flying swords within that mission and can not be carried out, and to hit him multiple times with that sword. This gradually lowers his protection. It's necessary to note, that these swords will always have only one durability. Some of them will expire immediately after one hit, making it so they no longer lower the boss' protection. If soloing, always have 4+ swords. Now, when fighting this boss, he does not have life drain or summon golem. He will however, have a chance to summon flying swords after falling below 50% hp. Until that point, don't expect flying swords, so don't go in to the room without any rusty swords, thinking you'll get him to summon some to pick up while fighting. Like his counterpart commanders, he can be poisoned. If you struggle with him, try poisoning him. I do not know if it will work at 100% protection.
Basilisk
He's a bit intimidating, and a real threat to anyone without good def, prot, and moderate hp. However, once you get those, this guy's one of the easiest bosses you'll find. Only basic offensive skills: smash, defend, and counter. He can not be stunned through normal attacks, and can not be knocked over. He has a high chance to activate passive defenses for any hit, causing you to do 50% damage. He has a sluggish ai though, and throughout the fight, due to the Force Mob Rush rule, you'll find he spends most of his time using normal melee attacks. As he can't be knocked over, even attacks that normally wouldn't force a mob to rush, say firebolt, can force this guy to rush you. Be warned, windmill will reset his aggro, in most cases he will stop for 1-2 seconds then attack a nearby player.
Now for his weaknesses and how to take advantage of his skills. Defend. This is a great weakness on him, due to his advanced heavy stander. Smash will cause most monsters to lower defend. If you smash a basilisk, since he does not fly back he will not lower defend. So thus you can get off 3 smashes or so usually, before he'll lower defend. This also applied to skills like flash launcher, fireball, and i think magnum. Do not windmill, you'll trigger defense and he'll attack. Thunder will trigger defend though, causing him to instantly rush you, and he'll rush you usually right before thunder connects, then after thunder hits him he's probably gonna rush again. In other words, expect him to knock you over, you get up, then immediately get knocked over again, without him even trying to load a skill. For this reason, i strongly advise against thunder. Basilisk's counter skill. This is annoying for warriors, as you just got prevented from smashing or bashing. Windmill resets his ai, which can be a problem for anyone taking advantage of the fact he's just standing there, so it's not advised to windmill in parties. Other than those three skills, and normal melee, you can use pretty much any skill you want at this point. He'll stay in counter for probably 5-7 seconds or something, if you don't windmill or trigger it, leaving him open to most other attacks. And his smash. This can be an issue. You can load counter and hope it works, but it's 50/50 normally. As with defend and adv heavy stander, his smash has heavy stander and countering won't actually knock him back, so he doesn't actually cancel smash. He has a good chance of just instantly smashing again when your counter activates, without ever loading smash again, making you extremely vulnerable. Windmill will reset his ai, so it is recommended to windmill here. But, windmill has recovery frames for the player, you can windmill to reset him, and he may decide to load smash. You're getting hit now if you don't have others taking the aggro, no question about it. Smash will be your least favorite skill to see, when fighting the basilisk.
Finally, some generic tips. Sand blast and guard cylinder. I would highly recommend this for fighting the basilisk. If he loads smash, hit him with a sand blast, any rank. Much like windmill, it resets his ai. But, you are not left open. Bear in mind, a mob can only be blinded once like every 15 seconds or something. So if you blind him, he loads smash after blind wears off, you'd better prepare counter or windmill, personally i recommend windmill. Next tip, when he melees or starts to rush you without any skills, use defend. May sound odd, but defend will cause a short stun on him, as well as many other mobs that can't be normally stun, when defend activates. It is not very long though, but you can pull of something like a quick smash at this point. Every little bit counts. Though, if you haven't trained strength or have a really good weapon, this won't be worth much. When fighting in a party, he prioritizes whoever hit him last 90% of the time, excluding lucky shots. So, if you need to heal and see another player hit him, back up for a second, watch that he's not chasing you, and then recover and swap weapons or whatever you need before heading back into the fight.
Dullahan
This guy's a nasty bit of work. He starts off on foot, but immediately summons a hellsteed when he aggroes someone and mounts it. He has a very high aggro speed and range. He spawns with about 6 blinkers in the room to boot. If you get aggroed by dullahan, and caught by a blinker beam, you're as good as dead. He has a ranged attack, which is his normal attack while mounted, where he throws an axe at a single aggroed player, that does the player's current max hp plus 1 extra. You always go deadly, unless you are in deadly state in which case you die. Can not be blocked, invincible frames do not save you. You can use evasion against it, that's it. Evasion can fail, and you can still be hit though. A shield reduces the damage very slightly, and defending with a shield seems to as well. Ideally, you'll want to kill the blinkers first and then dullahan. In this case, you should actually go ahead and get hit by an axe after the blinkers die, make sure you have low hp but not deadly, and then load mana shield. You want your hp to be as low as possible, without being deadly. Since the axe throw is based purely on your current hp, not max, when you're weak it will do very low damage to your mana shield, not bypass it. So you could be taking 30's and less every hit to your Mana shield, without worrying about successful dodges or timing. Life drain and then cancel right after you see the animation start, is also an effective way to ensure you have a little hp.
When mounted, dullahan only throws the axe. The horse however, has instictive reaction. When you try to use a melee skill besides windmill, the horse has a very high chance to melee you before your attack will hit, interrupting your skill. Both the horse and dullahan have heavy stander. The horse can be hit with frozen blast, but it wont' carry over to dullahan. This can be used to pull off melee skills though. The horse has lower hp than dullahan, and will always die first. On death, dullahan will drop to the ground, and will probably throw one axe, then go into melee combat. He has basic melee skills; smash, defend, and windmill. Windmill is barely used. Use the basilisk strategy for reference, when fighting dullahan while he has no mount. His melee damage is really low though, unlike the basilisk. Just try to avoid the windmill if you see it.
After losing his horse, dullahan runs around. However, if the horse's body despawns before dullahan dies, then dullahan will summon another hell steed. If he is hit before he mounts it, then there is a very high chance he will no longer mount the most recently summoned horse. If you kill this horse and a third is summoned, he will again try to mount the third horse. Be wary of letting him get on a horse, because you will have to fight the axe throws again.
Red Dragon
The field version, not a shadow mission. When you encounter the field boss, he is in zardine, a sulfur region but not a mining spot. Here's the trick, he flies up and shoots meteors. When he does, a giant can stomp to depress the ground around him, and he's now safe from all falling meteors until the ground rises back up. The same effect can be achieved by other races, but you requires a cool wind l-rod, i think it was, to dig out the ground. A generic tip for fighting him, watch and try to see who he is aggroed on. He like frontal attacks or cone damage, more than most aoe. So if you can tell who he's aggroed on, try to position yourself on the opposite side of the dragon's body, to minimize the risk of being hit by an attack. Lightning shield also will block his thunder strikes, be sure to use it if you don't have to worry about any other attacks.
Basic Combat Techniques
Point is, some basic combat tricks that are either commonly overlooked, or just tricks that aren't well known. This is to apply to most situations and not any one particular mob, most of these tricks may not work against an advanced heavy stander mob/one that can't be stunned. This covers basic tips and tricks, for applying them more vigorously towards survival, you may wish to view my other thread, lacks the coloring but has a similar layout.
http://exnihiloguild.enjin.com/forums/m/32034504/viewthread/23378127-some-basic-survival-tricksBolt Charge
Requirements: lightning or ice bolt, charge, and a shield if you're not giant or have shieldless charge. Most of your old players either use this, or will go 'oh yeah, i remember doing that.' You shoot a bolt at an enemy, lightning bolt is advised since it has longer stun time, and then just use charge. This is an easy set up to smash, but can be used for other skills, even to safely sand burst sometimes. Caution! If an enemy has melee or mana deflector, he can either ping the bolt and not be stunned, or ping the charge and retaliate before you can move. If the latter happens, try using rage impact for an additional hit.
Bolt Charge and combo (Intermediate)
Requirements: lightning or ice bolt, charge, and a shield if you're not giant or have shieldless charge as before. You now require smash (probably) and assault slash, i recommend ranking assault slash to increase its usable range. Expect to cover quit a bit of distance using this combo, so make sure you have plenty of space! As before, bolt and charge. From here, i recommend smashing to knock the enemy back, then you follow up with an assault slash. Be careful with assault slash, it essentially has two variations after hitting. First one is you knock the enemy over in place, don't hit it if that happens because the follow up hit will remove all stun from the enemy and remove the enemy's attack recovery for its first attack, essentially allowing it to hit you two times instantly unless the first hit is knockback.
Now, the second assault slash variation causes knockback. To get this one, you knock the enemy over (i advised smash for that) then you wait a second before assault slashing. The timing will vary by the speed of the weapon you use, a slow weapon will wait longer than a fast weapon. If you wait long enough and assault slash successfully, then the mob is pushed back and temporarily stunned. You can follow up with an attack of your choice, as this is normally used for melee combos, i advise smash again. The follow up attack after assault slash though, will knock the enemy over in place. If you use an aoe pet or something, after knocked it over in place you will remove stun from the enemy, giving it free hits just like the previous mentioned variation of assault slash. So make sure you prepare a defensive skill. If you're intending to melee combo, i recommend defend. After defend you will be free to smash usually, and follow with another bolt charge, allowing you to spam this combo.
There are plenty of skills you can mix in for assault slash. Things like wind cannon, firebolt, flash launcher, and more. In the case of most of these, the skills are typically preset knockdown times, not based on weapon speed. I don't remember if gun speed affects flash launcher down time. So you'll have to experiment and learn the timing for each skill, if you wish to mix in assault slash with them. Flash launch is good for more than just damage. It can be used for covering distance, it can be used while you are stunned, and it can be used while you are being knocked back though it typically causes lag displacement when you do that one. It does not work properly against anything with a giant classed sprite. Giant spiders from alby are the most notable issue. You will use assault slash, and typically jump to the center of the room for alby spider, and then do no damage. The mob gets up and whacks you before you can move. Be careful with using assault slash against anything with a big sprite.
Blaze
Requirements, wand. Recommended is a savage wand. This one needs to be ranked to be truly useful, but it does still get one trick without being ranked, invincible frames. Damage wise, you only get max damage by fully charging and hitting a knocked down enemy. This can be a bit tricky, but i won't cover this portion unless it's requested, as my original intent isn't to go for top damage but combos and utility. The overlooked part of blaze, invincibility, is that during the attack animation for blaze, not the charging, you are completely invincible. Now normally players don't keep a wand equipped anymore, so this doesn't appeal to many. However, you may consider it for something like field bosses, as you can effectively block an attack by blazing the boss, if you see the attack coming. There are certain attacks that go through invincibility frames, so this won't work on absolutely every situation, but it does for many. A good example of something you can't block with invincible frames, is girgashiy's mineral hail.
Sand Burst
Requirements: Cylinder or guard cylinder. It blinds, but how much practical usage is it? Cool down is extremely short, but the blinding cool down (applying to the same mob repeatedly) is like 30 seconds. Be warned, if a mob is hit while blinded, by anything at all, then the blind is instantly ended and the mobs' ai is reset. Multi-aggroed, sand burst an enemy that causes you trouble, focus on nearby enemies, and then wipe out the blinded one if you can. If you can't wipe out the one you initially blinded, then knock nearby ones back with something like windmill, sand is now cooled down so you can blast one of the nearby ones and whittle away health. Don't sand burst the one you are focusing on, wait till a blinded one can move, then sand burst the one you've been beating on, and move to the one that can move. This will let you whittle their health down safely for a time, and while it may take time to get used to this strategy, it can be very effective.
Revival, healing, buy time to cast/prep magic or a skill, or just time to plainly think. Most of this is pointless when you're multi aggroed, unless everything but one mob is loading defend, counter, or windmill. Against single aggro, say in NPC if your party member just died, you can buy the time needed to move to your team mate and revive without worry, and without doing something like hide and let the monster aggro your friends, possibly making the situation worse. It works better than a skill like thunder or ice spear, because you won't hit your friends' target as well, and you won't unintentionally draw more aggro from hitting an unintended target. You can use sand to buy time to cast more alchemy, prep magic, load most skills, or change weapons/equipment and then fight with a different style. You can also re-position yourself easier and re-evaluate the situation, to determine what course of action would be best. The possibilities aren't limitless, but there's quite a bit to be said for sand burst and blinding the enemy.
Notable mobs for sand burst. It hits flying enemies, so it works on blinkers and wyverns. Take note, that if a blinker is beaming you, you are unable to load any skill, sand burst included, so don't try to rely on it after being beamed. I do not believe it works on field bosses, i've not fully tested due to other players attacking and making it difficult to be certain. It does work in alban training camp and lord missions, from the ones i've tested anyway. It does not work on girgashiy. It does work on mobs with adv heavy stand that can't normally be stunned, like the basilisk.
Life Drain
Requirements: Cylinder or guard cylinder. This one is fairly straightforward, but there's something that's not often taken into mind when using life drain. It has two phases of attacks, drain and knockback. So far i've only seen the point of this for two situations, if the enemy is hit by lullaby or hit by sand burst. If you initiate the drain phase of the attack, and cancel the skill before knockback triggers, you will have restored you hp and not removed the blind/lullaby from the enemy. There are only a few scenarios this is useful, but it is a nice trick to know still.
Life drain's drain damage, will bypass a special monster's resistances, as will some other skills. If used on something like a lich, which you will do 1 damage to unless you hit it with a ghost sword, then the drain will still do damage to its hp rather than just 1. The knockback damage, however, will only do 1. Life drain is not spammable anymore, and is hard on a cylinder's durability, so i recommend using this sparingly.
Rain Casting
You throw up a cloud. At higher ranks it prevents mobs under it from aggroing any nearby player, with normal aggro detection. Mobs will still aggro if you hit them though. But more importantly, and thanks to Kingofgiants/AJ for figuring this out, they can actually aggro if you're too near to them, but only at rank 1. It seems that the lightning strike, which only happens at rank 1, will cause any mob that's right beside a player, to instant aggro. So be wary of that if you're relying on rain.
Another tip for rain casting, if you rely on combos. Try pulling the mob out from under the cloud, kiting. Generally something like a lightninbolt, shuriken basic attack, range basic attack, or a gun basic attack will work wonders at this. If you crit though, there's a chance the mob won't aggro and rush you, see first post.
Dischord
Requirements, instrument. I believe any instrument but a microphone can be used. It does a conical debuff damage based on your position and facing the target, and it knocks the target back with good stun much like assault slash. The higher your rank, the more the enemy is slowed and the more Damage Over Time (DOT/dot) it takes, which is the debuffs. Mobs caught by the Area of Effect (AoE/aoe) will suffer debuffs and have a similar stun applied. They are not knocked back though. If you land a critical with dischord, everything hit by it will suffer knock over, regardless of if it was targeted or just hit by the aoe. The stun alone is fairly good, and can buy you time to weapon swap and use another skill, don't take too long though, or to revive a team mate.
You can also take advantage of the aoe stun to set up combos. Whether you crit or not, if you hit an enemy that is still stunned by dischord it will fall over in place, like if you hit it with assault slash. Note that this does not remove the debuffs though, so the enemy is still slowed if you are fast enough. Practicality wise, i recommend using dischord, then swapping weapons to melee or guns and using windmill or shooting rush/bullet storm. If you don't take too long, the mobs fall in place and have dischord still applied. With a high rank dischord, this means they won't move very fast at all, so you can follow up with another windmill, shooting rush, or bullet storm if you want. Take note if you're using guns, shooting rush cool down is fairly long and bullet storm is even longer. If you use shooting rush after dischord, you must follow with bullet storm after and not another shooting rush cuz it won't be cooled down. Giant windmill at rank 1, with a rank 1 dischord, can do dischord, windmill, and then another windmill. If you can pull that off, i actually recommend you assault slash anything that's alive, and then windmill once more. So the ideal combo, though depending on ranks and race you may not be able to do this, is dischord, move into range and windmill, if necessary move out of striking distance and windmill a second time, assault slash in the middle of the mobs, and then windmill a third time. Caution! If you do this, be warned it is a slow combo, and while windmill and dischord don't generate aggro on things in their aoe, if you get multi-aggroed this combo may well get you killed. So you may want ot make sure you kill whatever you initially aggro, or that you have enough time to safely pull off the combo if you're going to use it. Even monsters with melee deflector, will not be safe from any of the combo but assault slash. Advanced heavy stander notwithstanding.
Dischord's dot will also bypass anything that is melee immune or requires special conditions to damage. It does not bypass 100%+ protection though. If a monsters is so strong you aren't actually able to hurt it, dischord's dot is useless and only does 1's. It can be used against something like the liches to bypass their defenses, but it can not be used on macha from saga episode 10. Try and experiment if you get the chance, it can go well with other unique skills to bypass special mobs' defenses.
Lullaby
Requirements: Song(?) or an instrument. This one is mostly straightforward, like life drain. However, people very rarely implement it with combos. Let's take the charge combo listed earlier. Bolt, charge, smash, assault slash, and smash. Rather than defend or counter at this point, what happens if you successfully lullaby? Oh, mob that's right in front of you is now successfully asleep. Lullaby don't have to last long, but if you're fast enough to pull song off and get him, before he stands up, you can lullaby him and then restart the charge combo without him even attacking. Another possibility is the dischord combo. Dischord, windmill, windmill, assault slash, windmill, and then after that you just follow with lullaby. Now you got an opening to do this combo again as well. There are various situations in which you can use lullaby, both in terms of offense and defense. Don't limit yourself to simply using lullaby just when the enemies spawn, you can rack up better combos and more damage if you keep an open mind. Be wary though, it don't always work on every mob and if you're multied and relying on lullaby, you may well get yourself killed. So make sure you can take a few hits if you wish to experiment with this.
Way of the Gun (wotg)
Requirements: Guns, derp. So, fairly straightforward, infinite bullets and 100% crit to regular attacks. But, infinite bullets also means you can use wotg instead of reload, to temporarily overcome a bullet shortage. And guess what, even if you have no more bullets in your inventory, you can actually still use way of the gun. Take note, after wotg times out, you have 0 bullets in your clip. Practical uses? Say bullet rush and shooting storm are in cool down, just wotg to remove their cool down. You can also do it if a group of mobs only has one hit after shooting rush/bullet storm, and your wnidmill won't be strong enough to finish them. Just wotg to finish them with an aoe attack. Skills are not 100% crit rate though, they're still capped at the normal 30% crit rate or w/e. Also useful if you don't have enough space to run back and reload, just wotg. One minor detail to keep in mind, when using wotg. It does not use bullets, what this implies is that if you're relying on say, the damage bonus from bullets in your inventory, so that your skills just barely have enough damage to finish an enemy, that bullet bonus is now gone. You get 100% crit on normal attack, but you lose however much bonus your bullets were giving you, to both your normal attack and skills. To most people this isn't an issue as they only use wotg for spamming normal shots, and missing a bit of damage while getting 100% crit rate isn't a big deal.
Doppelganger
Requirements: X amount of kills. It will vary depending on your rank, but rather than cool down this skill requires you to kill enemies. This can not be used through objects, but it can be used through barrier spikes. As it teleports the user to the target, it is a good skill to reposition yourself. It can also be a good set up for an instant or fast loading skill. Frozen blast comes to mind, as i used to use doppel during pvp, then frozen since the person couldn't move, to troll them. I don't recommend that btw, frozen is banned in pvp and any mob you try that on typically has to have low cp, meaning it's weak to begin with and not worth freezing. Doppel does go well with things like charge, assault slash, and other skills that reposition your character, for instant movement. Just bear in mind you need kills so you can't spam doppelganger.
Advanced skill tricks
Quick clarification. This section is just devoted to mixing weapon sets, skill sets, and adding in guard cylinders. It's to practice using more than one skill set, usually requiring you to raise more than one stat to be good. This is not hybrid talents like using ninja or guns.
Lance, Bard, and support skills
Lance, not warrior. I won't detail lances too much, if you're mixing it up with a lance, you'll learn real quick what it's about, or you might already know. Primary point, slightly more offensive reach and damage plus lance charge. I'll assume you're human.
Lance's weak point, effective range and lag. Anything too close, you can't hit. Anything move, hard to hit. Also, if you try to load smash, it can be stopped from outside effective melee range by an enemy, simply because melee always beats smash, no matter how far you are from the enemy. It's a mechanic fail, can't fix that. I would never recommend doing pure lance. Some people do, but if you notice the ones that are good lancers, are either pet spamming or hitting 20k+, meaning they really have nothing to worry about anyway. I'll focus on the basics more than pets or reforges.
So, let's cover our weak points. Lag, not much to be done there if using a lance, i strongly recommend you switch weapons if lag is becoming a problem. Reach, one of the best ways to combat the effective range issue, is with lightning bolt or with ice bolt. LB loads faster, has slightly more stun, and slightly more damage than IB, so i recommend it. There's several primary uses for it with a lance. One, enemy's mid distance from you, if you have time load your bolt unless they're using defense. Wait till they're where you estimate your lance reach to be, then bolt them. Follow up with smash, if you lag watch for counters. Don't do this on mobs with magic passive defense, you'll get smacked. Two, enemy's mid-long range. Bolt, but follow up with lance charge. If the mob is standing there in counter, i would recommend running behind a nearby mob, then using lance charge. So you hit not just the target mob, but an extra mob for a bit more damage as well. Do not use your bolt till you're in position, if you do this. You need the stun for when you use lance charge. Third, force a mob to rush you. Many mobs will auto rush you if you hit them with one attack, that does not knock them back, excluding splash damage. You may wish to prep another bolt for when the mob gets in range in this situation, or something like windmill if you have multiple nearby mobs.
Lancer/Bard mix.
Bard's highly underestimated nowadays. You see overture, and that's about it. Lullaby and dischord can be extremely useful in battle too. So, let's do lance+instrument. Not a mic, it has to be able to dischord. You got one aggroed mob, and multiple surrounding mobs. So, aoe is what you'll want. But, don't windmill or lance charge. If you have time, prepare LB. Draw the target mob (aggroed) near. You can either bolt when it's near or defend. Follow up with a well place dischord, to hit more than one mob. The target mob will be pushed back and locked in place for a second, and any mobs directly in front of you will be temporarily locked in place with no push back. This is where you should swap to your lance. I recommend windmill here, but you can do lance charge. Bear in mind the distance between you and your target though, you'll probably have to take one step forward to hit it with windmill, if you're rank 1.
Now, you just used two aoe on your enemies. Don't ruin it, don't scatter them until you survey the situation. How much hp do they have left, and can they be lullabied? You only need about 5 seconds of lullaby here. If they still have moderate hp left, you're gonna lullaby now. You want to run to the far side of the mob you were targetting, the one that's aggroed, after you lullaby. So you should be standing behind him, with the rest of the mobs in the same position on the side you just came from. Dischord and windmill/lance charge again. There's you another dps burst, but remember once you do that lullaby, it won't work again. So make sure you can finish the mobs or you won't aggro them and die by doing this. 4 area attacks, although small, in a relatively small area, and you're at the point you can follow up with another skill at this point, since all mobs are still locked in place. (CAUTION!) If you don't have a high rank dischord, whatever is aggroed after your previous windmill will try to rush you and you can't lullaby them this time. If they're moving faster than your cool down, you may want to lance charge or lance counter at this point. So pick your skill and laugh as you get another aoe in on all the mobs, but remember your cooldowns.
Gunner guide
http://exnihiloguild.enjin.com/forums/m/32034504/viewthread/22623072-frosts-combat-for-gunsAs the gun guide is more a compilation of various aspects here, and so lengthy, i will not edit the guide itself into the this post. The guide lacks the organization this thread has, i apologize for that, but i also do not intend to spend much more time, if any, on that guide unless it becomes heavily used or something. Can't edit the link's color either, sorry about that.
Changelog/edits
4:09 AM 9/24/2015
Edited first post to include Aggro Drop and Anchor Positions.
Edited second post to include Rain Casting.
Edited this post to increase spacing between entries.
11:03 PM 7/30/2015
Edited second post to give it content. It covers basic skill tips and tricks.
Edited third post. It's more advanced skills than basic, ie second post is basic and some inter, while third is advanced and more complicated. Link supplied in third post to my gun guide. As the gun guide is more a compilation of various aspects here, and so lengthy, i will not edit the guide itself into the third post.
11:03 PM 7/30/2015
Edited first post, added Red Dragon, check below the dullahan entry.
9:42 PM 6/22/2015
Edited first post, added the following entries Giant Ghost of Partholon, Lycanthrope, Shadow Mission Commanders, Basilisk, and Dullahan.
4:42 AM 6/17/2015
Edited first post, added Forced Mob Rush.
Formatting, first post.
4:18 AM 6/17/2015
Hybrid skill post added in. Lance section.
3:32 AM 6/17/2015
Colored the words, fixed some spacing.
Added a legend.
Mabinogi Status