I've wanted to write this guide for a while now but didn't think I'd contribute much then, here it is now. This is my first draft and was written way past my bedtime (approximately 10hours past it), I apologise for incoherent points and typos.
*Note: This guide will be updated constantly in my profile to adapt with new findings and new changes in the game*
Disclaimer: This guide is the opinion of one Jsp user and is not to be considered as hard facts. It does not represent the true logic of the Ladderslasher game as only the creator, Paul Taulborg, would fully understand this. For this reason please do not associate any errors made in this guide to anyone other than me.Table of Contents1. Introduction
1.1 purpose of this guide
1.2 limit of this guide
2. Recognising what gives speed
2.1 low levels (1-25)
2.2 mid levels (25-50)
2.3 high levels (50-71)
3. Recognising the Enemy
4. Maximizing your full potential
5. General rules of thumb
6. End notes/Credits
1. IntroductionMost slashers are made to believe that slashing prowess and speed is 100% items or at best very little skill. I for one supported this at first, but soon realised skill actually does come to play. It may seem hard to imagine how skill has a significant play on such a simplistic and beautiful game, but after reading this guide it should add some complexity to the game (a good thing if speed in slashing is your main concern). I dare say that with the skills learned and applied you can change it to 70% items and 30% skill (this increases as u learn more for yourself).
This guide assumes that you have basic knowledge of ladder slasher that can be found here. Reading a few of the other guides will also help.
1.1 purpose of this guideThe purpose of this guide is non other than to speed up your leveling speed in Ladderslasher even if you are amongst the elites or if you just started a week ago. With simple logic and a little understanding of what works, you can improve your leveling speed by a significant degree.
1.2 limit of this guideSadly though I will delve to a great degree on how you can slash faster, I will be identifying with only melee items/characters and not casters'. This however does not mean casters will learn nothing here, it simply means that most if not all of my slashing time has been spent as a Melee so I won't even pretend to understand casters that well.
2. Recognising what gives speedMuch of this data has been identified in
LJ's guide however I will try to add more points here if possible. In general for a melee character, dexterity is life. The worst thing to throw off skill is unpredictability. If you can't read your opponents you can't maximize your potential. WIth a high dexterity you do 4 main things:- Assure first strike, Assure running away before damage done, Increase critical strike damage, and reduce critical strike damage done to you. The general distribution for all melee chararacters is all stat points received to dexterity or the first 10 to vitality then all others to dexterity. As a rogue I suggest putting the first 10 into vitality since it will help prolong monsters you kill per regen. If you have the weapons, I suggest going for Fighter and putting all stats into dex, the main idea is to balance the stats on your characters. The plus side of having more life from the vitality is that you can fight more monsters per regen but the minus side is that at levels 60+ you wont always be getting first strikes, and can throw you off alot. Vice versa for dexterity.
A trick that all slashers must learn is to be able to identify from very early on in combats whether you should keep fighting the "foe" or be a "wuss" and immediately fight another one that will give you less of a hassle. Just because for example I can do 10-20 monster kills at 60+ per regen does not mean I didn't run away 3-5 times in between.
2.1 low levels (1-25)In these levels, life per kill and life per combat is the most important attribute to have. Here's what you generally want on your items:-
*Arranged by order of importance*
*Not all extra surplus stats included*
Weapons: Enhanced Effect
Armors: Life per kill/Life per combat/Max Life/Strength/Dexterity
Charms: Life per kill/Life per combat/Max Life/Strength/Dexterity
You're probably wondering at this moment why is strenght more important than dexterity. The practical explanation is simply because you kill more monsters consistently over a period of time having strength than dexterity. Another plus is that you rely more on consistency than "luck" for the crit to come save you. Strength over dexterity at this level is arguable but since strength is always cheaper, I'd go for strength.
During fights, it is generally a rule that you run away if the monster hits you first. And without waiting to regen fight another. Save your time wasting 80% of your health getting 15-20k exp and instead use only 20% to get that same amount if not more. As an intriguing note, the exp value of monsters tends to be reliant on their max life or vitality, the more life they have (those more dmg required to vanquish them) the more exp you'll sqeeze out of them.
During these levels. Try to find monsters that die fast so you can get your life from the kill asap. Though they give less exp, from experience I've learned these low life (conveniently) monsters are the surest way of doing a no regen leveling to 25 if not at least 20.
2.2 mid levels (25-50)This is when you wanna start whipping out life steal into the game. At this stage the life stolen from the damages generally gives more life than the life per kill received after a monster's death. The stats would be:-
*Arranged by order of importance*
*Not all extra surplus stats included*
Weapons: Enhanced Effect
Armors: Dexterity/Life Steal
Charms: Dexterity/Life Steal
Try to balance a mixture of dexterity on armor ls on charms or the other way around to make it work. At this point strength is obselete comparing to dexterity simply because the monsters will have gotten strong enough that consistency doesnt cut it anymore, luck + consistency is vital. Hence you will need a high amount of dex from items (30+ or so) to be able to 1. get a high enough crit to sweep the monsters off quickly and 2. sustain your first strike. Unlike low leveling, first strike is vital in these levels because you will encounter more monsters you will want to run away from quickly and without the dexterity, the amount of monsters you'll wanna run away from will double.
The trick during these levels is to find a good ratio of damage done to monsters and damage done to you. A 3:2 - 4:2 (your damage:their damage) ratio usually does me good to be able to fight a significant amount of monsters (not always applicable of course). This means I would like to do 300 damage xx life stolen whilst the monster is dealing around 200 damage. This ratio is meant to balance the life you receive from life steal and deduct it from the damage done to you. In case you are wondering, if you are doing first strikes, you will receive the life from ls before receiving the damage, this in turn means that if you have 200 life left with xxx dmg, 30-50 life stolen per hit and the monster is dealing an average 230 damage (excluding crits from monsters of course), it would be worth it for you to take your chances and try to kill the monster (assuming it is also in it's final stages of health) since technically the monster will only do < 200 damage after you receive the life from ls (for clarity 200 life + 50 - 230 = 20 life remaining)
2.3 high levels (50-71)These are the hardest leveling to be done and very few people can do no regen leveling here (particularly 60+). The order of stat importance on items are:-
*Arranged by order of importance*
*Not all extra surplus stats included*
Weapons: Enhanced Effect
Armors: Dexterity/Life Steal/Enhanced Effect
Charms: Dexterity/Life Steal
All I can say here is that you will need more focus here than any of the other levels to find the most suitable monster to fight. Monsters will crit you way more often here and you need to find a balance between the monsters that do high crits but very inconsistently and low crits but very consistent or the deadliest mixture of high crit with great consistency (level 67+ monsters tend to do this annoying ****). This is where you need to learn which monsters you back off immediately after seeing their crit damage or how often they are doing it along side with your own critical damage. As an example:-
Please note, I will only analyse the first 3 combat rounds since it will be too extensive atm to delve too far, not to mention we're trying to figure out asap which monsters we wanna run away from before we die. I also apologise if the values here are glaringly different from what you usually get, these are based partially on my gear. You can downgrade and upgrade the damage accordingly to your setup.
Monsters to run away fromAssume level 60 (170 total dex)
Read the combats from down up.
Constant critsStablering the Dicer hit you for 100-300 points of damage. (the first usual damage after 2 continous crits to you)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage. (notice how the frequency of your crits isn't precisely there)
Stablering the Dicer hit you for 400-500 points of damage.
You stole 22 Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage.
Stablering the Dicer hit you for 400-500 points of damage.(this should be considered a crit, 100-300 is usual damage)
You stole 22 Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 428 points of damage.
High critsStablering the Dicer hit you for 100-200 points of damage. (He isn't hitting you constant crits but then again, his one crit is equivalent to a monster's average of two)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage.
Stablering the Dicer hit you for 100-200 points of damage.
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 400-900 points of damage. (this can be considered a nice crit, however his crit still spoils it. I tend to wait till I get 1k+ to resume battle even when the monsters have high crits.)
Stablering the Dicer hit you for 500-700 points of damage. (this should be an immediate red flag, this crit is just wasting your life, find a weaker more sane opponent)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage.
High crits constantlyStablering the Dicer hit you for 500-700 points of damage. (Paul himself is controlling this character, don't even try)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage. (You're doing consistent average high damage, not good)
Stablering the Dicer hit you for 500-700 points of damage. (Why are you still fighting him?)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage.
Stablering the Dicer hit you for 500-700 points of damage. (Red Flag)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for 200-300 points of damage.
First strikes, for them!You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for xxx points of damage. (There are exceptions when you would want to proceed with the fights, but it is rare)
Stablering the Dicer hit you for xxx points of damage. (Doesn't really matter the damage, rule of thumb, they hit you first you run away)
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for xxx points of damage.
Stablering the Dicer hit you for xxx points of damage.
You stole xx Life from Stablering the Dicer.
You hit Stablering the Dicer for xxx points of damage.
Stablering the Dicer hit you for xxx points of damage.
There are more that I can include here to exemplify monsters that you don't wanna waste your time with, but these are the main 4.
Monsters that just started working for the accursed Pink Unicorn/Ones you wanna fightThe exact inverse of monsters you wanna run away from. Simply put, if they do not meet the criteria for you to run away, you slash away.
3. Recognising the EnemyThe monsters (or if you don't want to hurt their feelings, enemies) too have distributing points and gear just like us homosapiens. Even if this is untrue, the logic of it being true will help you greatly in slashing. The monster's design includes everything from having weapons/armors/charms to having str/dex etc.
The most important mixture that you want to find on monsters are three basic things. Ones that do not use greatly varying damage weapons (e.g swords), have high vitality, and low dexterity. Monsters that use swords are the cause of all confusion for me. You can never tell if 400 was in fact the peak of their damaging swords or if it was a critical damage from an axe/dagger etc. I will for the greater good of us all exclude completely the idea and topic of which weapon a particular monster is using (and naturally what to aim for) as it is far too complicated and abstract to ascertain any kind of value to be put here atm. On the other hand I will point out as much as I can what causes what on the others.
Weapon: Swords/Clubs/Staffs/Daggers/Axes (arranged by most max damage but less consistent to least damage but more consistent)
It is damn hard to tell what weapon the monster is using, so just skip this.
Armors: Heavy/Mid/Low
If they are using platemails/chainmails, you will notice at times that you can do 0-50 damages even when you are using a high ee axe with a min damage of say 200. This generally means that this Stablering the Dicer has some EE on his platemail. You should do very consistent damage if they are using low-mid armors generally.
Charms: Lightning/Fire/Cold
If these monsters are casters, they'll have ee's on the charms. Lightning is what causes you to receive such mad varying damages cold is the consistent one. Intelligence is the best defence against casters (though you can never really tell if they are caster's or melee). Generally speaking, if you are fighting casters, they will do consistent high damage and very few crits, whilst you will do consistent high damage with constant high crits towards them. If they are melee, then it is simply a surplus of random str/dex attributes.
Vitality:
The more vitality the monster has, the more exp you will gain from this particular monster. It is easy to recognise by watching the health bar of the monster. When for example you deal 1000 damage and the health bar moves l l on each side, means this guy worked out alot and has high vitality/max life. It is my theory that at each level just like us the monsters will have a limited amount of stats to distribute. This means that if most of the stats is focused on vitality, it will leave out the damaging source of strength and dexterity out of the equation (I've recognised that this is simply a theory to make me understand it better, experimentally, this is much unlikely). Find these monsters, destroy them.
Dexterity:
The higher the dexterity of a monster, the higher the damage from the crit you will receive and most will most definitely hit you more consistently with crits.
Strength:
Strength on a monster is inseparable from the monster's ee weapon. This simply makes it so that the monster has a higher average damage. Dexterity and strength on monsters can go interchangably and is hard to identify which is which.
Intelligence:
As melee's their intelligence is of no significance to us other than the fact that it helps the caster monsters do more damage.
4. Maximizing your full potentialIf you read everything up to this point, you should've been endowed with enough info that you'd wanna slash for quit some time to figure out the validity of the information. However, that is precisely where validity comes from... experimentation. Each slasher in this forum has different items though the theme of these items are mostly similar. It is due to this ambiguity for each indivual slasher that you must experiment by yourself on the items readily available to you to find which combination of items works out best for you. For the purpose of experimentation, I suggest you try to get 1. As many constants as possible to reduce errors in the variable that you are measuring and 2. Do as much of it as you can to assure a higher % of validity. Sadly the monsters generated against you will always be random, for this reason, our sources must always be constant. One of the main reasons I prefer axes to swords.
5. General rule of thumbIf after reading all this you are scratching your head or better yet saying "no way" either in disbelief or out of certainty that I'm wrong, rest assured this is a normal reaction. There are always exceptions to each rule or points that I have aforementioned. However I have one general rule of thumb I use when even I get confused or not in the mood of focusing. Always find monsters that give the best dmg ratio with life steal combination. E.g me dealing 400 dmg while the monster deals only 100-200 without suddenly doing a 1k crit on me.
6. End notes/CreditsI hope all that I have pointed out thus far, though most likely obvious to some if not inherent, has been useful to some level. I will try my best to update this in my profile when I am able and when I have learned more about this beautiful game. I would like to thank every person that has helped me in the smallest and largest degree from the moment I started playing LS in season 4 to this current season. Many thanks to those that created guides for me to read as I started out and till now when I wanted to try a new build and especially to njaguar for providing the source of addiction. I will strive to learn more and more as I slash away and hope for comments and advice along the way.
This post was edited by Safmy on Jun 28 2007 08:14pm