Ask Fatal - Dragon's Tomb Edition (Trickster)

Alright!  Welcome to the final installment of my Dragon's Tomb series of postings.  So far we've covered Fighters, both Tank-style as well as Damage Dealing / Sub-Tank style, Mages, Archers, and now Tricksters.  Sorry to you Cleric lovers out there, but I highly doubt I'll be doing a Cleric version as I really have no desire to level up another Cleric to 80 just for the sake of making a guide!  Let the questions begin!

What is the Trickster's primary role in the party?

This is the question that everyone asks and depending on your playstyle and gear, therein lies your answer.  The Trickster can be extremely versatile if you get a better grasp of some techniques.

Versatile?  Tricksters are squishy by nature right?  What do you expect the Trickster to do?

While it is true that a Trickster's defense and HP doesn't measure up to a Fighter's, the Trickster has the Evasion advantage.  While not the ideal "Tank" in Dragon's Tomb, the Trickster is surprisingly serviceable in this capacity.

Tanking?!  Are you nuts?

Maybe.  But to me, that's the most fun a Trickster can have in Dragon's Tomb.

Yeah, you're a bit loco... wanna explain?

Tanking for a Trickster is a bit err "tricky" in that it involves a lot of cooperation from your party.  This is where the Tanking-Trickster really needs to assert themselves.

Okay, so where to start?

As a Tanking-Trickster, you need to set a few groundrules to the party to make sure that it is successful.  The first off being that YOU set the pace.  So no Archers running up front, no Mages going off to pull, etc.  The reason for this is because you need to establish aggro quickly.

Alright, that sounds reasonable.  What else?

For some reason, Mages are more apt to cast Inferno first rather than Frost Nova.  As a Mage, I never do this, so I don't really understand why they do it, but the Mages I've partied with as a Trickster typically drop Inferno first.  This, for the Tanking-Trickster led party, is a mistake.  This technique for a Trickster takes some timing and a bit of practice.

What's so hard? I just grab a soul and cast Soul Trap right?

Hmm... not so fast.  You first need a better understanding of how Soul Trap works.  If you've ever played as Fighter, you know that the skill Devastate is directional.  Typically you only stun those mobs that are in front of you.  Any mobs behind you will be unaffected by Devastate's damage or Stun effect.  Soul Trap works much the same way.

Okay, so what does that mean for me?

This means that you need to position yourself to set up Soul Trap so that you can freeze as many mobs as possible.  This also means you damage as many mobs as possible.  More damage means more aggro generated towards you.

Establish proper positioning prior to Soul Trap.

Ahh.. that makes sense.  So what's the sequence of events that leads to a successful pull?

For the smaller, regular mobs, typically you need to pull all of the close-ranged melee-type mobs into the ranged mobs so that you can freeze/damage them all together.  If you attack only the melee-types without pulling them towards the ranged, the ranged will continue attacking you, then as the Cleric heals you, they will refocus their attacks onto the Clerics since you are no longer generating aggro.  Again, remember to position yourself in front of all the mobs, you don't want any behind you if possible.

Wow, so I need to understand some basic tanking principles?

Yes.  In order to do this successfully, you need to have a working knowledge of how to tank.  Tanking on a Trickster is much more difficult compared to tanking on a Fighter.

Yeah, I imagine so, but why?

Tanking-Fighters have many advantages over a Trickster trying to fill that role.  As stated before, higher DEF and higher HP for one, but also an abundance of aggro-grabbing skills like: Kick, Mock, Demoralizing Hit, and Slice and Dice.  The Trickster's only source of aggro are generated through damage and positioning.  Again, this is why you need a cooperative party.

So what happens when the party isn't cooperative?  What can go wrong?

Again, a Trickster is not ideal for Tanking in DT, but it can be done effectively.  A couple of the problems aside from just uncooperative party members would be Stuns and Fears.  Nothing's worse than getting stunned or feared before establishing aggro.  This is when chaos typically occurs and party members start panicking.  So again, you need to keep a level head and work on re-establishing aggro.  This doesn't mean killing!  You re-establish aggro via damage, once you established aggro on that mob, target the next one, then the next.  You may have to sacrifice your Soul Trap skill just for the sake of an Aggro grab.

Okay, so what about the party members?

If you allow the Archer or Mage to get out ahead of you, you're going to have problems establishing aggro and keeping things in order.  I always warn both Archers and Mages to be patient, wait for me to get in there first before they start AOE'ing.  This is especially problematic with Archers.  With a normal Tank, an Archer is free to move out ahead and start AOE'ing to pull mobs back to the party where the Fighter can just Mock them all to him.  This pace setting technique for Archers is detailed in my Archer-DT guide.  However, this does not work well with a non-traditional Tank.  When that Archer starts pulling, they will typically just continue kiting along avoiding damage.  This is extremely problematic for the Trickster trying to establish aggro when his targets continue running down the hall.  So again, rein in your party members and be assertive.  Not rude.  Assertive.

In the case of the Mage using Inferno, you'll see that you'll have a hard time re-establishing aggro without the help of Soul Trap's freeze effect.  It can still be done based on the strength, or in this case weakness, of the Mage, but it's more difficult.  Kindly remind your Mage to Nova first once you've pulled the mobs.

What about those panicked party members that continue just running mobs away?

Well that's really on them.  If they want to pull the mobs all the way back down the hall, then it's on them to finish them off.  If the rest of the party is safe from immediate harm, then by all means, give chase and help, but if there's danger around the main party, focus there.

Okay, I think I understand that a bit.  So what do you use to Tank?

Again, not everyone plays the same way or has the same resources.  I understand that.  This is what I use on my Trickster (Level 89 as of this write-up):
+50% HP/SP Extender
+10 BK Dual Swords (45end 33dex 6int 34spe)
+9 86 Helm (36str 35spr)
+9 85 Wonder W Armor (32end 11dex 43spr)
+9 85 Wonder W Pants (40end 41dex 30spr)
+9 85 Vanity Dance Boots (27end 41spr)
+0 40 Bloody Gem Necklace (3str 5dex 4end)
+0 85 Guardian's Wish Earring (3end 1dex +325HP +4%Evasion)
+6 40 Ring of Chaos (Totals 9str 18end 25dex 13int +42MDef)
+9 40 Ring of Chaos (Totals 7str 21end 20dex 22int 6spr +70MDef)
I always use a full compliment of T4 Scrolls (Vit, Def, MDef, Eva) as well as T1 Speed.

Geez, I can't afford that.  So what do I do with limited resources?

Much of what you can and can't do will be affected by your resources.  I've stated that in pretty much every write up.  How to play DT as a Trix fully +0?  I really wouldn't know.  That's not something I plan to, or would want to do, but I don't begrudge anyone for doing it that way.  Just understand your limitations and work from there.

If I'm fully +0, what can I do?

A fully +0 Trickster at 85 sacrifices about 700 DEF from what I use.  That's significant.  The Trickster in this case is primarily just support.  This isn't enough DEF to really be considered a Sub-Tank either.  If this scenario happens to be you, I would just focus on having Soul Trap ready when you're Tank is pulling as well as focusing your damage primarily on ranged mobs to help out your Cleric.  In the end fight vs. Cornelius, you'd get 1-hit by his AOE.  You're better off not approaching him, honestly.  You could try and help kill the spawned Shellas and Nerpas, but if you do charge in there, you run the risk of getting flattened by the Dragon.

Anything else?
Pre-85, I primarily just filled the "Sub-Tank" role.  I had an incomplete +9 75 Set (+9 pants, +7 armor, +0 boots, +0 hat, +10 Emberflame Dual Swords), but that worked fine for everything except Cornelius.  Again, if you've experienced DT on mutliple classes, you're much well equipped to figure things out and understand how every other party member will react in certain situations.

If you're an aspiring Tanking-Trickster, take it slow.  Keep going into DT with a Fighter as the primary Tank, but take a few opportunities here and there to try and increase your comfort level with Tanking.  Get out ahead a little bit and start the pull.  Work on positioning.  Understand mob positioning in relation to their status effects also (like pulling Krugers away from other idle mobs so in the event you get feared, you don't end up pulling everything).  Basically stretch your limits and improve every run.  I would also highly recommend that you keep HP pots on you at all times.  I carry T3/T4/T5 HP as well as T3 Cure potions into Dragon's Tomb.  T3 Cures are especially convenient during the fight with Cornelius as this will cure his nasty debuff.  Do keep in mind though that a Cure potion shares it's cooldown with a regular potion, timing is critical to this.

The Tanking-Trickster is NOT ideal, but it works.  If there is a Tank-Fighter available, go with that route. it's safer for the party.  But if there are none available, hopefully this helps you fill in that gap.

Below are two walk-through videos, I will be adding annotations to them a bit later.  The first video (which still needs to be uploaded) is a basic DT run with the Trickster serving as the Sub-Tank.  The second video is an example of how to run DT without the traditional tank, with the Trickster filling in.

Video I:


Video II:  Tanking - Trickster

Trickster Chronicles - Another Milestone Reached

Well it took me longer than I expected, but DaydreamBeliever reached level 80 this morning!  I was sort of milking the KingKongPhino Kingdom Quest for a while, before finally deciding to go ahead and level up.
I still had the 7-day HP/SP Extender, 7-day Blessing of Teva, and 7-day 100% EXP Boost from the level 56 and 66 Mystery Vaults (Thanks OutSpark for the freebies!  Gotta love a free 7-day Elite Bundle!), so I went ahead and activated it and figure I'd put in the time and claw my way to 80.  Thankfully I still have about 36 hours remaining, so I'll see if I can progress much further.

I am sad to be over KKP though.  It's a really fun KQ, especially for a melee character.  You get to stick you nose into everything, and if you're like me, you always try to compete to pull aggro from the tanks.

I've done that KQ so many times and probably 30% of them was without a Cleric in my party, and yet I still pull aggro, and don't mind tanking at all.  Yeah, I burn through a lot of T3/T4 HP pots, but I dunno, I see it as kind of a badge of honor.  Maybe that sounds hokey, but I dunno, I think it's kind of cool.  I'm proud to say that none of the KKP KQs I participated in failed, whether there were Clerics around or not, we always got it done.

It's funny to see how many people will bail out of KQ the minute they realize there are no Clerics participating.  Getting to the end, there's always a few non-believers who think that the KQ is just doomed, that there's no way it can be done.  I always tell them to have faith, that we can get it done, just hang in there.  It's funny, all of these non-Cleric scenarios, there was never EVER a Fighter to step up and tank KKP at the end and I really can't explain why.  Use some scroll, use some pots, is it not worth the 600k EXP and the reward chest?  Not to mention the respect and admiration of those that stayed?  You're not losing any EXP by dying in KQ, so you may as well give it a shot!

We were the final two remaining and we succeeded!

So what's next?  For Daydream, I really want to do a lot of Gordon Master KQs as this is also one of my favorites, and hopefully, it can net me a 70 Blue Claws or Dual Sword!  I also want to do some Dragon's Tomb runs, hopefully getting into parties there won't be an issue.  I could always dual log and wipe out the minibosses with Dharalyn (89 Mage), just getting the shirt requires other people...

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates in the future, the Trickster Chronicles aren't over just yet!

Trickster Chronicles: Giant Harpy Rematch!

I posted this on my YouTube a couple of days ago and didn't want to take attention away from my Archer Rebalance post, so I withheld posting the video here.  Subscribers may have already seen this.  But anyway, after my last failed attempt (due to outside interference), I decided to take a crack at the Giant Harpy again.  At 79, she wasn't hard at all, even when the extra mobs spawned nearby and were pulled in early in the fight.

Not a huge accomplishment, but I was happy to avenge my losses.  Hope you all had a great weekend!

Daydream's at about 50% to 80, maybe we'll see some Trickster action in Dragon's Tomb soon!

Trickster Chronicles: The Giant Harpy

Continue reading...

Enhancement Glows - Trickster

Didn't see something like this in any organized posting, so I figured I'd post it here.  Since I was enhancing my own set of Claws, I was able to snap screenies of each successive attempt and show the graphical representation of each enhancement level.

+0, +1, +2

+3

+4

+5

+6 (this one might be wrong, have to doublecheck)

+7

+8

+9

+10 Image to come... too many fails, ran out of stones.. bleh.

Trickster Chronicles: Another Milestone and a Quest Completed

Well after much blood, sweat, and tears (not mine, the mobs *wink*) I've finally reached 70!  What a relief!  The 6x levels went by fairly quickly considering I didn't do the Crystal Castle instance all that much.

All together I think I only did about 5 or 6 complete runs of Crystal Castle, only killing Jewel Golem once, and that was on my last run.  Thankfully I was able to turn in those two Jewel Golem quests and gain quite a bit of EXP from them.  I soloed (with my 6x Mage and a logged out char to hold the CC Map) the Zombie repeat from 62-64.  From there, mostly lived in 7x, 8x Abyss.  I did do a few of the Greenkie repeatable, as well as 3 rounds of Muds at level 68.  Level 69 was mostly spent catching up on some of my old quests in AEW and CP1.

Trickster Chronicles: To GOC or Not to GOC?

I'm always one for pushing the limits to see what's possible and at what stage in the game certain things can be achieved.  Going forward with the Trickster class has given me ample opportunity to test those boundaries.  I didn't think to take footage of fights with King Marlone, Zombie King, or Giant Goblin King, but started sort of a trend with some footage on a fight with Torturer King.  That trend continues on with the Giant Orc Captain, the boss of the 6x Dungeon:  Land of Trials.



Giant Orc Captain (GOC for short), is a great boss to farm since many of his drops are highly sought after.  He is capable of dropping both level 55 and 75 blue set armors, GOC Weapons, and GOC rings.  The rings, if well statted, can bring quite a small fortune since these are typically the last set of rings most players use until they replace them 30 levels later with Paradise Rings at level 95.  So to say that he is a lucrative boss is definitely an understatement.

"Cruel" Intentions - The Trickster's Promotional Quest

DaydreamBeliever finally reached 60 last night!

I solo grinded her through the 7x Abyss for the entire 59th level.  As I stated in previous posts, getting comfortable grinding in all Abyss maps is a huge time saver when you're trying to level up quickly.

For me, I generally follow my own "Rule of Twenty", basically that your experience gains are maximized when the mobs you are killing are about 20 levels higher than you.  This holds especially true on the Abyss maps where generally mobs are plentiful and not all that difficult.

I try to gear my characters so that they are able to withstand the punishment from mobs in those Abyss maps 20+ levels higher than my character's current level.  It is difficult, especially on the Tricksters with limited armor/weapon options at this early stage, to make some of those jumps, but from your late 30s and onward it's not too bad.  At 20-29 grinding in 4x is a real pain, at this point I would step down a notch and stay in the 3x Abyss instead.  Full scrolls, high DEX gear are musts when trying this, especially if your gear choices are limited.

Trickster Chronicles: Torturer King and the March to 60

It's Monday, time for another Trickster update!  I didn't really level all too much since last week, I spent most of my time grinding in Bonds of Darkness farming the Torturer King dungeon boss.  I have a Hunter's Warrant, so I figure I may as well use it and see what I can get outta the fat guy.

I started farming him at level 51, and if you're okay with just holding down one room and waiting every 10 minutes for him to respawn, Trickster isn't too bad of a choice.  Going room to room however, can be a bit of a chore and it seriously sucks the HP stones/potions out of you.  I decided to farm just the C-4/5 room since it's almost never in use by someone else and TK spawns pretty much by himself, he lacks minions.

Trickster Chronicles: To Fifty and Onward

Well it's been about 10 days (wow 10 days? really?!)  since my last Trickster update.  Again, I missed out on most of the EXP boost weekend.  *sigh* But, I was still able to make some progress!  My downright refusal to engage in any powerleveling is slowing me down a bit, but at least I know I earned every bit of experience along the way. 

So what have I done, where have I gone?  Well for starters, I decided on a build.  I'm going with a 1:1 DEX:STR build.  I know, it's not ground-breaking or revolutionary, but it accentuates the strengths of the Trickster class.  Again, I'm not a believer of using stat points to cover up your weaknesses, in my opinion, it's better to use the bonuses in enhanced gear to do that.

Ask Fatal: Simple Questions With Not So Simple Answers

Time for another round of questions.... These are mostly questions that I've gotten asked in my chat box that I just can't answer in such a limited amount of space... So here are a few I figure I'd tackle today since the servers were down.

Trickster Day One (Part B) - The Journey to Twenty

Alright, I'm finally set up and ready to venture out scratching and clawing my way up level by level.  This feels an awful lot like when I first started Fiesta back in 2007.  Besides the greater number of people running around, the class is unfamiliar to me.

I'm too excited to get started to go research skills and planning out my empowerments at this point.  So I'll kind of play-it-by-ear for now.  Looking at the preset stat distribution, the Trickster class is high in STR and DEX.  Looking at its base DEF, EVA, etc, it's a bit hard to tell since I don't remember what a similar leveled Fighter would have.

Trickster Day One: GO!

(image taken from OutSpark Website, no I can't draw like this)

Wow, what a surprise!  It's March 31st and the Trickster has arrived!  Many of us anticipated, at earliest, an April 1st launch, but were skeptical that it would be reached.  And to sweeten the deal, we even got a fifth character slot on each account!

Maintenance last night was long, four hours to be precise, so I just slept.  Fiesta wouldn't be back up and running until after midnight my time, so I figured I'd just wake up a bit earlier and try it out before getting ready for work.

Thy Name Is Trickster - Forum MVP Event

While we're all eagerly anticipating the release of Fiesta's fifth class, the Trickster, the nice folks at OutSpark continue to feed our hunger with little snippets of information and events.  A little bit of insight was given into the Trickster class, but for the purposes of this event, we were just given the ball and told to run with it.  Our writing could be fictional, from experience, or even our hopes for the future.  We are allowed two entries with each limited to only 300 words, so a huge narrative wouldn't work.  I've finished my first one, and with a deadline of April 1, I don't know if I'll be able to write another.  Wish me luck!

Well anyway, I hope you enjoy my take on the emergence of the Trickster...

Darkness. My journey begins here, unconscious, the sad result of another defeat. But in this pit, there is hope for someone like me.  The outcast.

A man much wiser than I once said, “Finding your niche in life is key to one's happiness.” As I bounce from discipline to discipline, I've never experienced anything that remotely felt like "this is me". I lack the brawn and bravado of the typical Fighter, I lack the mastery of a Mage's powerful spells, I lack the elusiveness of the Archer, and I lack the faith and humility of the Cleric.  So where is my place in this world?

The darkness brings about calm. A single point of light brings about focus. Thoughts of vengeance bring me a clarity besieged by mayhem. It is clear now that what used to be is not what I will be, my path to glory must take a detour. Rejecting the roles our forefathers laid before us, I will forge my own path. 

Fighter. Cleric. Archer. Mage. I am none of these, yet, I will become all of these at once.  I will take what I have learned and apply them to a new discipline. But will it be enough? Simply, no.

For generations now, myths have been passed down that spoke of a dark magic long forgotten, abandoned, and outlawed.  But where does simple myth end and truth begin?  Is the power to spirit away the souls of defeated enemies real?  And as the legend states, if the cost is one’s own sanity, is the price worth the madness?  Simply, yes.

I promise to be like nothing you have ever seen before. You have been warned. My journey begins today, the Trickster is born.

Edit:  Hey I was chosen as one of the winners!