Swordsman Archive

Noticed a couple of posts recently about having trouble with Elders, and I know there are numerous guides floating around to help people, but as a master sword/doc the macros I use make fighting them, for me anyway, fairly painless, as you have only a couple of things to keep an eye on during a fight.

I’ve taken down 70+ Elders in the past week, including Stun Baton/Power Hammer/Scythe witches (which do hurt ). As long as you are well prepared, you shouldn’t have any probs.

Note: I’m at speed 89 at the moment, but equally was soloing them with 75 speed (although the time taken can be an issue so make sure u have mind food/drink handy if it is taking a long time).

The key to fighting elders is organisation, and not being overwhelmed tryint to warcry, intimide, heal, attacking, removing states, turning on center of being, etc etc, as it is VERY easy to forget things, and against elders u cant afford slips!

Hopefully the macros below should minimise the risk which you face.

#1 – Center of Being

CoB
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/centerofbeing;
/pause 34;
/macro CoB

Always leave it running, saves having to remember to do it in a fight, one less thing to worry about. (play around with the timer if your having probs as lag and packet loss can occasionally mess this up, but I find 34 secs to be fine at master swords).

#2 – Auto Intimidate

Int
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/Intimidate1;
/Intimidate1;
/pause 14;
/macro Int

I activate this once the elder gets within 30m of me or so. Without Master Brawler, our Intimidate only lasts 30 secs so it is vital to keep it stuck as our defenses mean we die very quickly without it. I personally have a macro reapply it every 14 secs. Ok it may seem excessive, and you may waste some fighting time, but I NEVER have an elder come un-intimidated against me. (Make sure you have BE Clothes to help stick intimate easier).

The following macro’s I have hot-keyed for ease of use and speed.

#3 – Heal Dizzy

Dizz
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/healstate dizzy

This is the most important hot key I have. I have it on F1, throughout the fight my finger stays over F1, as soon as she lands a dizzy; usually about 5/6 times per fight, I heal it. It is imperative that you don’t end up on your back. This keeps me safe 99% of the time.

If you are KD whilst Dizzy, ive found the best way to recover is to just have /stand on a hot key and hit it once, wait etc. Problem is if u stand and hit it again u’ll be straight back on your back. So hit it once, wait a sec, then repeast. As soon as ur up heal the Dizzy state. (Just don’t panic when your on your back, if she is intimidated u should make it up again ok).

#4 – Attack

HH
/melee2hheadhit3;
/pause 1;
/macro HH

Your basic attack to take down the elder, just leave it running all fight and it will keep going around everything else your doing, including Center of Being, Intimidate etc.(feel free to change timer to 1< if you are speed capped and hitting faster than the macro.

#5 – Emergency Intimidate

Intim
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/Intimidate1;
/Intimidate1;

If for whatever reason the elder is unintimidated, such as when fight begins and intims don’t stick, this is handy to have hot keyed as it will get her down to 50% dmg ASAP, which you need.




#6 – Heal

Heal
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/healdamage self

I know you can keep a stim in your hotkey bar, but with all the macros running etc, I find it easier to just use this than having to clear the queue manually and then healing via the stim. (Alternatively you could have it clear the queue and press a different toolbar slot to use a specific stim) as it seems to use random ones from your inventory with the way above.

#7 – Blind

Blind
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/healstate blinded

I don’t often use it, as I don’t find blind makes a massive difference to me, however, if you do wanna heal it can be useful.

#8 – Taunt

Taunt
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/taunt;
/taunt

For when she runs, should be able to stop her going too far.

#9 – Bleeds

Mindhit
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/melee2hmindhit1;
/melee2hmindhit2

Stacks 2 bleeds on her, which in the long run will take her down quicker.

#10 – Warcry

War
/ui action clearCombatQueue;
/warcry1

Clears combat queue, then delays elder for 10 secs. Sometimes attacking elder whilst delayed breaks warcry, sometimes it doesn’t, part of the bug I believe.

#11 - Firstaid

FA
/clearCombatQueue;
/firstaid

Clears the Queue and heals your bleeds. At master doc, i find i alternate this every other attack for 2-3 heals, usually removes the bleed. This is important since sometimes the bleeds can really stack up; not such an issue on health or action, but as we all know the mind ones can be really dangerous. All it takes is for a couple of bleeds, and then a Dizzy/KD and you're potentially done for.

Oh, and keep /dump somewhere 

Those are pretty much what I have hot keyed. Usually a fight goes something like this for me:

Eat 2 Brandy, get buffs/mind buffs etc, canapé and muon on hotkeys for emergency standby.

- Pull elder, examine to see what weapon she has.
- Push F12 to turn on Center of Being macro
- Put on stun armour if needed
- As she approaches, activate Intimidate timer macro (F2). If it doesn’t stick, then send her another lot from the single fire marco (Shift-F2).
- Turn on Head Hit 3 macro (F4).
- Give her the bleed macro (F6) making sure it sticks.
Now generally, you should be ready to go. She may use force powers on your, which can hurt, so just have your heal macro hot key ready, with Stim E you heal about 1800 a time at master doc so no real worries there.

If she lands states: Bleeds/Dizzys/Stun/Blind - mixture of all:
- Heal State Dizzy Macro (F1) – Rinse and repeat as dizzys land.
- Then Firstaid macro (F2) - Heal bleed in between one head hit at master doc, usually 3 heals to stop.

I personally don’t bother healing blind and stun.

- When she runs hit your taunt macro (Shift-F10)
- Finish the job!
- Loot


Basically the only way you should die is from mind incap and provided u have music buffs and brandy, only maybe a PH/Scythe/Stun Elder is gonna hurt you.

PH/Scythe – Take an extra canapé or 2 to get nice and high mind, and just be ready to heal a lot of Health and Action Dmg.

Stun Baton – Make sure you have 40% Stun armour but without more melee def you will usually still go down. PSGs solve this but can be costly, so only use if speed capped. Personnal I use about 5/6 Psgs killing a stun elder from a spawn but can do it easy solo.

Hope that helps anyone still having trouble, and I do appologise for posting yet another guide and spamming the forums lol.

Any questions fire away 

Message Edited by RogueLeader7 on 01-06-2005 08:28 AM

Message Edited by RogueLeader7 on 02-08-2005 05:54 AM

thats really helpful, I'm sure people will find it very useful.

Thanks

Personal Shield Generator

It gives you extra resistances on top of what you already have.

I personally think using heavy stun armor against elders is a waste the difference is minimal in the amount of damage taken.
Using my own armor numbers from kettemoor
Best stun we can make is 38% with 66% base
this will cut 69% of her hits off due to the AP difference between the Bat and the armor AP0 vs AR1
The armor I hunt elders in is sliced 26% stun/69 or 70% base
This armor will cut off 63% of her damage and you wont have to worry about changing armor everytime you meet an elder. You will have both high kin/energy/elec /blast you name it and still very good protection against her stun bat if that is what she plays with.

If using a PSG the difference is even smaller
My standard Imp at the moment is 47% stun
Max stun.. 83.5% cut off
26% stun.. 80.39% cut off

But I do see your point you know what shes coming at you with, so why not max it out as much as possible. But the cost of buying two suits of armor might be too much for some, so Id recommend going with the middleground armor.

/Agreed

I suppose for me i have plenty of credits in reserve, so keep a spare fresh set of stun comp in my backpack when im hunting, with a crate of PSGs, more for conveniece then anything else.

For me i guess buying 38% stun comp as well as my standard 80% base isn't really an issue.

But sure, like you say, provided you're using PSGs which take the brunt of the damage, any stun protection is better than none, because even 1% will bring ap0 vs ar1 into effect, massively cutting damage.

Message Edited by RogueLeader7 on 01-07-2005 08:36 AM

and to add some usability to it all...map the same icons for each macro as the skill its running:-)

Good shout