Fatal's Mailbag - What's a Good Non-Cleric Duo?

I get messages from time to time asking me random questions about the game or even about myself or my experiences within Fiesta.  So why not answer these 'common' gameplay questions here on my blog?  So here we go!

Hi, I'm Winter. I'm new to the game, while browsing the forums I saw that you seemed to be well educated about the game.

I plan to play on the Bijou server, where it so happens to be the same place where you reside.

Well it'd be nice to chat with you ig but when I logged on you were no where to be found lol.

Anyways I have a few questions.

What's a good duo that does NOT involve a cleric?

Sorry to take your time.

Winter (no need to apologize, I'm happy to help) -

One of the most fun experiences I've had in-game was doing a fighter/mage duo with my in-game husband.  We did this often in our 95-99 levels, so bear with me, your experiences as a new player will be drastically different.  I thought I had some screenshots of us doing this, but I guess I didn't... anyhow we used to duo the Temple of Spirit Boss Room.  This was no easy feat considering there was no cleric around, this is something definitely reserved for advanced fighters and advanced mages who have played together frequently as it takes superb timing and coordination to pull this off successfully.

We were both equipped with full +9 95 blues, Hellgait weapons and shield, full complement of t4 scrolls, I used a 50% charm, he used a 20% and a 50%.  We were a married couple so again there is also that little bonus there.  You can make up for that marriage buff bonus if you have Dragons now, as they were unavailable when we were doing this.

Basically we would do a double pull of the Red Shadows as well as the center area taking care of the Black Shadows and the TOS Boss.  It was highly effective and every pull was a life-on-the-edge moment.  Keep in mind that when cookied, it is impossible for a fighter to hold aggro.  This means a LOT of damage will be taken by the mage and the mage has to be alert and remain defensive and evasive at all times.  Use of a t4 Speed scroll is mandatory, you'll need this for pulling anyhow.

One of the biggest challenges that as aspiring duo here will face, especially for the mage, is stone consumption.  At 95-99 Mages still only have about 72 HP stones.  You will go through that in about 20 minutes here with this technique.  Again, it was highly advantageous to us that we were married so we could utilize the Summon feature.  So, if you plan some alone time with your spouse in TOS to do this, be sure to keep a supply of Sand Hill town scrolls handy.  They're generally one of the cheapest and most convenient town scrolls since everything is really close to the warp point.

Getting back to the question posted, I would recommend a Mage/Fighter duo to anyone at any level.  It will definitely teach both of you to use your classes abilities to their best.  The Fighter will need to become an expert at aggro control and intercepting mobs that go after the Mage.  The Mage will become highly skilled in survival, this is definitely not a duo for those stand-around, lazy-Mage types.  Mages, be prepared to do a lot of running.  This is also not a duo set up for those Mock-once, lazy-Fighter types either.  The Fighter will have to be exceptionally mobile and alert if this is going to work.

The one difficulty that you may face early on is that the Mage lacks the ability to kite, meaning he cannot yet cast skills, other than Lightning, while in motion.  This means the Mage is stationary during almost all of his attacks.  The Fighter's Mock and Sneering Kick are great for early level mob control, if the fighter is serious about being a 'tank', empowering Mock's CoolDown is highly recommended.

Mages:  if you take a look at my Solo AOE Technique post, you can apply much of what I stated there to a duo situation but on a larger scale since the pulls will be larger.

Fighters:  I haven't really written a post breaking down tanking techniques yet, but I did go into a bit of detail in my AOE Guide:

playing through as a fighter, u learn mob control, keeping your eye not just on the targets in front of u, but also those spawning near your weaker defensed party members and those that wandered away towards your party. u learn that keeping a large bunch of mobs aggroed for an extended amount of time is difficult especially when the DDs take a bit longer to wipe them all out. your mock is used up and on CD, you have to resort to kicks and tabbing through the mobs and using raw damage to pull them back on u. fully understanding how aggro works helps u with all classes.

It is more advanced than just that, but I'll tackle that another time.  Some things to consider, always have Kick ready and be sure that you're target-switching for damage as well as for Kicks to keep the aggro on you as much as possible.  Slice and Dice also seems to have a larger draw of aggro over other damage skills despite its somewhat small damage output.

Once you get into higher leveled AOE-type duos, you'll see that the damage output of the Mage's Nova/Inferno will all but render Mock useless.  The Mage needs to have good, enhanced equipment to pull this off.  The strength of Mock alone is not sufficient later on, even with a Kick every few seconds on individual mobs, the Mage will take the brunt of the aggro.

Again, this is an advanced set up, so don't feel bad if you struggle a bit in the early going getting started.  If you plan to duo with this person all the time, you should work on finances together as the livelihood of both of you greatly affects the efficiency of your party.  One nice thing is that if you have the same partner the whole way through, you'll both see how the game evolves as you move up and you can make adjustments as you go.

(I'll add some screenshots to pretty up this post later, just wanted to answer your question ASAP!)

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