Swordsman Archive

So just cruising across the beautiful scenery of dathomir heading toward a date with my favorite nightsister hunting grounds when I get a tell from a friend. . . let's go after some elders. Well, as I've said before, I am a non-speed capped, power hammer wielding swordsman, so I tend not to hunt elders. First, they are HARD for me to beat and I just don't think it's all that worth it - lots of effort for minimal pay off. You could hit the jackpot, but I'm in it for a steady stream of income.

Despite this, I have a hard time saying no to a friend (a master rifleman). After all, I was on dath already and a master rifleman would certainly make things easier . . . so I say OK - let's do it.

So we meet up to group and then go our own way to better conduct a search. My friend tells me she found an elder not too far away and, so, I head over to her location. There the elder is in all her glory, dancing around and all. Better yet, there are no other NS of any significance, only a couple initiates a ways off in another direction. Excellent!!!

So we get ready and I start running toward the elder . . . I'm about 45m away when POW! I see a laser shot go by my head toward the elder. Then another. Then I see the elder start running toward me . . . . and past me. Heading for the rifleman. HAM of the rifleman goes down quickly, rifleman heals self, but no match for the elder. The rifleman starts running around in sporadic directions. 40m in one direction. 30m in another. I'm a master doc, so I am desperately trying to heal my companion. But can't because of all the running. Try to hit the elder, but can't catch up due to all the running and sporadic direction changes. Couldn't even hit follow fast enough.

Rifleman runs right past me and . .. down - dead. Bad mind injuries and wounds. Elder turns to me . . . I start fighting. Now I'm exactly where I didn't want to be . . . soloing an elder.

But I persist in my attacks (after all, what choice do I really have?). Got a good routine going, hitting 5 times, healing, intimidating when necessary. Get mind down to 100K, 75K, 50K, 40K, 30K, 25K . . . then elder takes off - taunt just simply would not stick. So I start following. Mind down to 20K . . . taunt sticks. Elder stops, turns around and starts hitting again. Mind down to 15K, 14K, 13K, 12K . . . I think I AM GOING TO ACTUALLY KILL HER. Now remember, this will be one of the very few I have actually even fought with an elder, so it's a big deal to me.

But .. . wait . . . a . . . minute. I'm not healing. Where are my stims? They aren't in my toolbar any more. I look in inventory. My HAM takes a hit. only 2 Sim b charges left, no Stim Es at all. Look in my backpack. HAM goes down more, mind taking hit now too. I close windows. HOLY $%#^@ - where did the 3 sentinals, 2 protectors and 2 spell weavers come from? And where's the elder - oh, there she is about 70m away. I run toward her . . . elder's mind is at 10K. Just as I get to the elder, incapped, db'd.

But all is not lost. By this time, my friend has cloned and is approaching my location. I can get a rez!!! and still get the elder - only 10K mind left after all.

However, when the rifleman gets within a couple hundred meters of me . . . POOF!!!! Elder, protectors, sentinels and all her lovely assistants disappear.

Close, but no cigar.

Ittsyk.

Message Edited by Ittsyk on 10-06-2004 08:25 AM

Message Edited by Ittsyk on 10-14-2004 06:03 AM

Wow - never thought to taunt in that situation . . . excellent idea. Will remember it. Of course, wouldn't have had to worry about that if the rifleman had a little patience .

lol - good to hear your experiences too . . . so I have another.

Last night, was once again flying around dath looking in vain for any NS above initiate. I can't believe how popular the stronghold area is getting. So, I take off to areas where there is usually no one around and typically a ton of NS. I find a group and tab through them, looking to make sure there is no elder. I am alone again so I don't want to solo an elder!

So I start with the spell weavers, which I like the best. Then on the sentinels and protectors, which I don't like quite as much. The sentinels don't seem to drop as well as spell weavers (but are easier) and the protectors drop the same as spell weavers (but are much more difficult and time consuming).

As I pull the last two NS - a sentinal and protector, I believe, another red dot appears. I am thinking it is another spellweaver spawn so I tab to it. Nope. An elder. 32m away. Aggro. Here she comes. So I run away from the spawn ground so I don't get in any MORE trouble, with a sentinel, protector and elder on my tail. I look up at my toolbars and think OK, at least I have plenty of stims this time (which was my big problem last time). Also knew I had brandy and canape and a couple muon, so I am as good as I can get.

So I start intimidating, fighting, healing, etc.etc. etc. Then I think about my entertainer buffs. Uh oh. Gonna run out in 14 mins. I will DEFINITELY NOT kill this elder in 14 mins. Then I remember my bike is out Yea! I can just run over and jump on it and ride away. I locate the bike, run towards it, and just as I am about to hop on, BOOM - sparks flying everywhere. Bike disabled. Damn - OK, time to figure out what to do next . . .

Then I see it . . . the little purple dot in the upper part of my screen. What luck!!! I run toward the dot and ask a fellow hunter "Would you like to help?" (I am really ready to get down on my knees and beg for a positive answer). Yep, he starts in on the elder too.

He's s TK, not master, but still doing ok damage. Even knocks the elder on her back a few times. Things are going well until I see this little bubble pop up "Uh oh." What do you mean "uh oh?" So I look at his ham, he's on a muon downer. The I see that I, too, have just entered a muon downer. Damn. Stomach full. So I figure, this is it. Elder mind down to 100K now. Then I notice that my mind is doing just fine. Not going down much and regenerating nicely when it does. I look at the TK. He's in trouble. Only a sliver of blue left so I tell him to get out of here. He runs away and dies a couple minutes later from another NS. I figure it's all over. Elder mind down to 85K. But, I'm doing OK (which surprises me). Then my mind starts dropping. I check my stats - stomach still full. Mind buffs gone, muon downer, stomach full. Not good situation. Mind drops again.

Then I get the message about the negative effects from muon have passed. Yea! So I go to inventory and try to eat another. Ummmm . .. it's all in a crate. Shoot. Of course as we know, you can't pull from crates while in combat. So I'm stuck. Mind of elder down to 70K. My mind down much lower. And dropping like a rock. Just a sliver left now. I re-check inventory. Nope, no muon. But I can eat a canape!!! So I pop a canape. Hehe - too little too late. Mind gone. Incapped.

Waiting for deathblow . . . doesn't come. Elder starts walking away . . . ?!?!?! How could this be? I check elder's mind - down to 65K. 128 seconds left on incap. Could it be . . . could I actually rise again, buff myself and kill this lady? Wait . . . the little red triangle stops . . .stands there. . . . turns . . .. points at me. . . it . . . looks . .. like . . . she's . . . moving . .. again. In my direction. I look up - yep - here she comes. Closer, closer . . . I know what's coming now.

"You were slain by . . . .. ."

Clone facility looks very nice this time of the year. Turns out my assistant also cloned the same time I did - he was hanging out to see how I did. He asks if I want to go back - I say sure (ok, you think I'd learned my lesson by now). So we get mind buffs, I buff each of us and we head back. Elder gone, spawn time over.

One of these days . . . just one of these days

Ittsyk

Very good question - all I know is that I saw a very low number ticking off very regularly over the elder. Like -60, -65, -70, -55, etc. But I have no idea how he was doing it. Once an elder's HAM goes down to a certain level, doesn't there resistance drop? That's what I figured. Didn't see poison or disease on the elder, so I don't know. He was keeping the elder intimidated nicely, too.

Anyone else have any ideas? Maybe I was just dreaming.

Ittsyk

Message Edited by Ittsyk on 10-07-2004 06:52 AM

Once the NS gets down low enough,a TKM can damage it very little. All the TKM should have been doing was tanking, and applying states as fast as possible, and stacking intimidate. Thats really all a TKM is good for against an elder. Was a real wake up call to me after I first mastered TKM.

When the POI were spawning, I used to go to the Labor camp and go through it. The elder and her two friends spawned after I finished the cave up. I used lunge to pull the Spell weavers out one at a time. Waited for my stomach to empty, refilled ahrissa, pikatti(sP) and brandy and aded in after the Elder, without even bothering to /examine her first.

Ooops.

Plus she had a stun baton and me in only kinetic comp. Learned a lot from that first fight.

Message Edited by Eraint on 10-07-2004 10:04 AM

OK - I guess in my post above, when I said the TK was doing OK damage, maybe I overstated it a bit. But I did see a tick about the Elder's head between 50-100 each hit what seemed like every second or so. So, cumulatively, not too bad (maybe 1000 pts damage every 15 seconds or so). Not as much as I was doing, but all that not horrible either.