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Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:34 pm
by Mindy
Elestir wrote:I never said ditch CON completely and go only for STR and WIL. Keep reasonably high CON, but don't max CON at the price of having very low WIL. I agree on mobility being big issue for trolls, but I repeat CON is not the only stat that affects it, not by far. STR directly affects it through penalty for carrying eq, and also indirectly boosts this impact through wilderness skill (and that's where WIL plays its role as well).
Well lets avoid generalities because that quickly goes nowhere. I put out some numbers (either 12 DEX/13 WIL or 10 DEX/14 WIL) and you disagreed, so what numbers would you suggest? A troll's max WIL will only go up to 15 so are you saying you'd be willing to drop con from 22-->21 so that your willpower can go from 14-->15?
Elestir wrote:Getting draughts is as easy as catching orc player (preferably shaman) willing to mix them
Keep in mind this is a discussion about a newbie guide for trolls. Orcs are hard to communicate with on troll. You have to find a bn online that's nice enough to waste his time being the messenger, and an orcish shaman that's got nothing to do at the moment. Not impossible but from my experience playing troll orcs will not be your main source of draughts. You'll get most of them from the backpack at the bottom of brolg and killing brolg himself and looting his pouch. Do that once a session and you can stock up on 4-5 but they will never be bountiful unless you make it a huge priority.
Elestir wrote:I will add that DEX affects max moves in slightly higher extent than CON too, but I agree it's still marginal (but it balances the loss from lower CON).
Like I said before show me some example stats because in a way you're contradicting yourself here because we don't have endless points to pour into stats. You cite WIL as a huge priority for trolls but then where will you get the points to pump into dexterity? You'd have to drop CON down to 20 now just to get DEX back up to 12. I say good unarmed troll is 25 5 5 12 22 13 7, are you saying yours is 25 5 5 12 20 15 7?
Elestir wrote:Care to elaborate? How does having a weapon increase willpower? Do you mean the -10 save spell of bejewelled shield and the black buckler? You can wear these even as unarmed troll though (yet with some malus in damage afaik).
Yeah i probably should have elaborated. Playing a weapontroll allows you to reduce your strength without serious side-effects. You cant play an unarmed troll with 20 base STR but you can certainly play a weapons troll with 20 STR. Those extra points allow me to bump up dexterity and willpower without having to reduce CON. But yes bejewelled can help although that's not where I was going with that.
Elestir wrote:That's usually smart tactics, but sometimes the caster is well protected and then you will need DEX and WIL to effectively hit-flee before he lands his blinds and WIL to eventually save them.
Your points all sound good but I don't think they're applicable when you get to the stat creation part and start having to make trade-offs, you can't have everything, so what will your numbers be?

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:21 am
by Elestir
Mindy wrote:A troll's max WIL will only go up to 15 so are you saying you'd be willing to drop con from 22-->21 so that your willpower can go from 14-->15?
Indeed.
Mindy wrote:Keep in mind this is a discussion about a newbie guide for trolls.
As much true as this is, it is hopefully not the guide on how to suck as troll, even if it is true that all newbies do suck. Whoever want's to play troll to kill rabbits around warrens, please ignore my posts.
Mindy wrote:Orcs are hard to communicate with on troll.
Afaik it takes 5 minutes to relogin an orc or a bn to ask for that favour. Or ask fellow troll to log orc shaman for a moment (can be even lowbie), and eventually repay him the favour in same way when he needs. Or simply get your emergency minimum from Brolg/Sage/Dunland/Moria as you mentioned yourself.
Mindy wrote:I say good unarmed troll is 25 5 5 12 22 13 7, are you saying yours is 25 5 5 12 20 15 7?
Indeed. I am not saying your set of stats is bad. It's definitely better for exp, but not for PK IMO.
Mindy wrote:Playing a weapontroll allows you to reduce your strength without serious side-effects.
Let me name some (from the most serious to the least):
Higher movecost (wilderness, encumbrance), slower bash (encumbrance), worse doorbash, worse flee (encumbrance), slightly worse ob, slightly worse damage, slightly worse defense (encumbrance). And since weapon trolls usually carry more eq than unarmed trolls, the encumbrance maluses (movecost, bash, flee, defense) kinda suck.
Therefore I'd go max STR even as a weapon troll.
Mindy wrote:...in a way you're contradicting yourself here because we don't have endless points to pour into stats.
Care to quote some of my arguments that is in contradiction to another one in whatever way? I am not aware of any such contradiction. Where did I count with endless points to pour into stats?

To sum it up, we basically argue about importance of 2 WIL vs 2 CON. Try to imagine PK situation where extra 2 CON will make the difference that will either win you the fight or makes you survive. Then do the same with 2 WIL. I say the latter is more likely to happen. Maybe you will lose some mobility, but not too much, as WIL will reduce your movecost through better wilderness %. Bit simplified, you can imagine this trade of 2 CON for 2 WIL as trade of fgc for a better boots that also have spellsave..

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:33 am
by Mindy
Elestir wrote:Higher movecost (wilderness, encumbrance), slower bash (encumbrance), worse doorbash, worse flee (encumbrance), slightly worse ob, slightly worse damage, slightly worse defense (encumbrance). And since weapon trolls usually carry more eq than unarmed trolls, the encumbrance maluses (movecost, bash, flee, defense) kinda suck.
I'd accept the fact that most trolls would prefer to have higher strength in the 21-23 range but here's how I see max str and -2 max con: Less move-cost but less total moves and move-regen; without hard numbers i'd call it a wash, i've never had problems slowing down the group. Encumbrance is also not an issue since the only real weighted items are ornate + shield and the rest are just trinkets. In full-set I rarely go over "tad uncomfortable". slower bash but you also get to increase dexterity so i dont know if the difference is that extreme. Worse doorbash perhaps but it's irrelevant because no one's breaking a staffed puke block anyway. worse flee but i get to increase DEX and encumbrance isn't really an issue. slightly worse OB but you're going to have extremely high OB anyway--much higher than any unarmed troll so do you really need it? I dont have any data on damage but I've never had a problem with not hitting hard enough or beating up enemies. Decreased defence but increased dexterity (+DB) might make up for it.
Elestir wrote:Care to quote some of my arguments that is in contradiction to another one in whatever way?
Not your arguments per se, but I was having a hard time understanding how you would fit all of that into the stat generator for a weapons troll. After checking it again, would I be correct in assuming your weapons troll might look like 25 5 5 12 20 15 7? If so that seems about right--no problems there.
Elestir wrote:To sum it up, we basically argue about importance of 2 WIL vs 2 CON. Try to imagine PK situation where extra 2 CON will make the difference that will either win you the fight or makes you survive. Then do the same with 2 WIL. I say the latter is more likely to happen. Maybe you will lose some mobility, but not too much, as WIL will reduce your movecost through better wilderness %. Bit simplified, you can imagine this trade of 2 CON for 2 WIL as trade of fgc for a better boots that also have spellsave..
Well I'd say it's more about the importance of 1 WIL vs 1 CON. I prefer to have 14 WIL anyway but I wouldn't drop CON from 22 to increase my WIL to 15, so in a way we're just splitting hairs. It seems we have more of a difference of viewpoints on weapon trolls. Well-defended points though and i'll throw in an asterisk in my guide with your interpretation of troll stats. Because yes, many trolls in the beginning do neglect willpower and will eat too many blinds in PK.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 12:21 pm
by Elestir
Mindy wrote:Encumbrance is also not an issue since the only real weighted items are ornate + shield and the rest are just trinkets. ... but you also get to increase dexterity so i dont know if the difference is that extreme.
Even trinkets weigh a lot when you have many of them. What comes to mind in particular is draughts. The higher STR you have, the more draughts you can afford to carry around without feeling the negative effects of it. I agree that if you improve DEX, it makes up for the loss in bashing speed, fleeing speed and defense (unless you are heavily overloaded, which on troll happens basically only after gaccing somebody).
Mindy wrote:Worse doorbash perhaps but it's irrelevant because no one's breaking a staffed puke block anyway.
Here you are very wrong IMO. STR has huge impact on how well you doorbash and in PK situation, bashing a block might very well decide the outcome of a fight. Staffed puke block might be problem for an orc, but for high level troll? Rarely. Last time I saw staffed puke block was at hole necro, and I bashed it right in front of him 1 second later, on first try... You will call it luck though I bet. :-)
Mindy wrote:slightly worse OB but you're going to have extremely high OB anyway--much higher than any unarmed troll so do you really need it?
You will have extremely high OB only in warrens. In other areas it's not so great, so every single OB helps a lot. As you probably know, OB doesn't only affect whether you hit or not, it also affects how hard you hit. How much it helps is obvious from the difference between high level ologs and low level ones. The main diff is in OB (0.5 ob per level) and in hps (but trolls are fearsome for their sheer offensive power, not for their hps). So even if this loss in STR means just -2 ob, it's same as being 4 levels lower offense-wise. And the argument that you will have much better ob than unarmed troll anyway sounds logical, but you forgot this difference of 20ob is already offset by the huge difference in dps between the two. Only smiter troll with war mattock that is fighting a target wearing plate metal can match the dps of an unarmed troll (if i remember unarmed is something like 0ob 20damage 100% delay - compared with war mattock 20ob ~17damage 150% delay eff vs plate-metal). It also depends on the defense of the target and eventual parry split of course. For soloing, weapon troll will be better, but when you bash someone inside Warrens with your group of 3 trolls, it's huge help if you are all unarmed types.
Mindy wrote:... would I be correct in assuming your weapons troll might look like 25 5 5 12 20 15 7?
Actually yes. Whether you are weapon troll or not has in my eyes little impact on base stats. Basically the only difference is if you are smiter or pounder and then importance of CON is tiny bit higher and that of DEX tiny bit lower. Not sure if I would modify the base because of that though.
Mindy wrote:Because yes, many trolls in the beginning do neglect willpower and will eat too many blinds in PK.
Now when you mentioned neglect, I've to actually add 1 more thing. Going for max WIL rather than CON has one advantage that can be exploited using train command. You may neglect WIL and improve CON. That way, you will still get super wilderness and hence movecost and by improving CON you will increase your moveregen. The price for lower base CON is only in lower endurance potential (hence some loss in max hps and hp-regen) (and in lesser degree on OB if you are smiter/pounder), but not in mp-regen, as that one is based solely on current CON. Neglecting WIL will lower your chances to resist magic though. For me, this fact itself makes for good enough reason to go with the stats I suggested.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:05 pm
by Elestir
I will add that based on my estimation, troll having 22 CON will moveregen regen like 3-4% faster than one with 21 CON, and like 7-8% faster than one with 20 CON. That is when not affected by age modifiers and eq modifiers. With fgc and first age moveregen modifier, the difference between 22 CON and 20 CON is already only 5% (experimentally confirmed), with gleaming it will be even less and with draughts/bob basically non-existent.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:05 pm
by Triw
I'm glad the topic is (getting) active. :)

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:37 pm
by Ortansia
Thanks both of you ( Mindy and Elestir) for all these useful informations
Sorry for my ignorance what does DPS mean? :p
@Elestir so for you , this stats : 25 5 5 12 20 15 7 can work for both unarmed and weapon?
Actually it sounds good to me . I would like to play a combo unarmed / weapon troll :p.
That is If I get bored of weapon , I just train off weapon skills and switch to unarmed :p and when I grab a nice weapon like ornate , I just train off unarmed again and prac weapon skill :p

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:42 pm
by Triw
DPS usually stands for damage per second so I guess it fits in this topic. :P

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:26 pm
by Mindy
Elestir wrote:Here you are very wrong IMO. STR has huge impact on how well you doorbash and in PK situation, bashing a block might very well decide the outcome of a fight. Staffed puke block might be problem for an orc, but for high level troll? Rarely. Last time I saw staffed puke block was at hole necro, and I bashed it right in front of him 1 second later, on first try... You will call it luck though I bet. :-)
I will call it luck :). Seriously though from my experience and grouping with max STR unarmed trolls, a staffed puke block is ridiculously hard to bash down even after 7 minutes of it being blocked and the caster leaving the adjacent room. Did you know relative level of puke blocker? From what i've seen I've had groups of us go moveless trying to bash down 1 blocked door.
Elestir wrote:And the argument that you will have much better ob than unarmed troll anyway sounds logical, but you forgot this difference of 20ob is already offset by the huge difference in dps between the two.
Sure if you only care about DPS. If you care about DPS there's no reason to make a weapons troll. I've never seen the point of a smiting troll since you have the same defense as unarmed but at best you do the same damage and it's harder to get equipment. However, I've seen many an unarmed troll get smoked by a dwarf on wimpy simply because they had huge damage, but they couldn't hit the dwarf. I've never met a dwarf that I didn't demolish 1 on 1, except maybe some level 90+ dwarf in shining with a glowstick. puke warriors would be stupid to fight you on aggressive, and with unarmed they counter it by going wimpy and dodging most of the hits. They can't do that with a weapons troll because even with 20 STR i'm still hitting them all the time and they can't easily hit me back.
Elestir wrote:For soloing, weapon troll will be better, but when you bash someone inside Warrens with your group of 3 trolls, it's huge help if you are all unarmed types.
This might not directly be in response to what you said, but in regards to group representation, I've always preferred 1 weapon troll with a group of unarmed ones. If you're all composed of weapon trollies, you're not taking full advantage of the troll race's biggest ability. I like to have a weapon troll that can dodge wimpy bashes from dwarves and have the higher OB to hit protected casters, or to put a low-hp troll on protect and buff for the rest of the group (think killing shadows).
Elestir wrote:Now when you mentioned neglect, I've to actually add 1 more thing. Going for max WIL rather than CON has one advantage that can be exploited using train command. You may neglect WIL and improve CON. That way, you will still get super wilderness and hence movecost and by improving CON you will increase your moveregen. The price for lower base CON is only in lower endurance potential (hence some loss in max hps and hp-regen) (and in lesser degree on OB if you are smiter/pounder), but not in mp-regen, as that one is based solely on current CON. Neglecting WIL will lower your chances to resist magic though. For me, this fact itself makes for good enough reason to go with the stats I suggested.
Actually I would think of this as the opposite way. Start with 22 CON and 14 WIL so you can maximize total HPS and MPS, then neglect CON to 21 and increase WIL to 15. Negative side effects would be a 3-4% decrease in move-regen by your estimates, but still get to keep about 8% of total hps. And spell-save I believe is calculated by current, not base WIL which would solve that problem. Leading to base stats of 22 5 6 14 22 14 7 (neglect con->21, train wil->15), to end up at 22 5 6 14 21 15 7.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:16 am
by Elestir
Mindy wrote:I will call it luck :). Seriously though from my experience and grouping with max STR unarmed trolls, a staffed puke block is ridiculously hard to bash down even after 7 minutes of it being blocked and the caster leaving the adjacent room. Did you know relative level of puke blocker? From what i've seen I've had groups of us go moveless trying to bash down 1 blocked door.
I don't remember anymore, but I had +2 str from ring too of course. And I dont remember having any big problems with any block during the days I played that troll. Also when playing puke my blocking never stopped the trollies for long... :-)
Mindy wrote:with unarmed they counter it by going wimpy and dodging most of the hits
That might work when you are alone, but even then it's not reliable (defence was so randomized that it means much less than in old days).. But as I said, for soloing, weapon troll is better. But soloing with troll is kinda boring imo.
Mindy wrote:I like to have a weapon troll that can dodge wimpy bashes from dwarves and have the higher OB to hit protected casters, or to put a low-hp troll on protect and buff for the rest of the group
You need not to be weapon troll for effective buffing. Few pracs in slash and eng bs (or dcs if lucky) + bej work even on unarmed troll. When I am talking about "unarmed" trolls I mean i am not spending more than 5-10 pracs in weapon skills.
Same goes with protect, having weapon doesn't improve your protect in any way.
And I don't understand your point with higher OB to hit protected casters. If they are protected, you will likely end up hitting the protector and if they are not protected, it's unlikely they will dodge your unarmed because casters (especially those with bejewelled staves) have crap defense.
Mindy wrote:Actually I would think of this as the opposite way. Start with 22 CON and 14 WIL so you can maximize total HPS and MPS, then neglect CON to 21 and increase WIL to 15. Negative side effects would be a 3-4% decrease in move-regen by your estimates, but still get to keep about 8% of total hps. And spell-save I believe is calculated by current, not base WIL which would solve that problem.
You forgot the main negative side effect: having lower wilderness and therefore higher movecost. Let's suppose we stop the training at same result stat set. What will be the difference? You will have bit more hps and hp-regen (from higher endurance) and I will have bit better mobility (from higher wilderness).

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:13 pm
by Mindy
Elestir wrote:You need not to be weapon troll for effective buffing. Few pracs in slash and eng bs (or dcs if lucky) + bej work even on unarmed troll. When I am talking about "unarmed" trolls I mean i am not spending more than 5-10 pracs in weapon skills.
Well sure, for non-pk situations, but you're taking those 5-10 points directly from endurance which is why it's nice to have a weapons troll with a group of unarmed ones that already has the skill practiced.
Elestir wrote:Same goes with protect, having weapon doesn't improve your protect in any way.
No it doesn't but your high defense plus the ability to hit back hard, does put you in a unique situation where you can protect 1-2 other unarmed trolls and sit back on wimpy and "buff" for them. Think of a 1 room situation for pukes. The 1st dwarf will put on all his high-abs gear, ebs, and sit back on wimpy and take all the damage, but if your an unarmed troll in that position, you're not going to last nearly as long. In this case you can try to ensure that you intercept the hits and make yourself the 1.troll in the room.
Elestir wrote:And I don't understand your point with higher OB to hit protected casters. If they are protected, you will likely end up hitting the protector and if they are not protected, it's unlikely they will dodge your unarmed because casters (especially those with bejewelled staves) have crap defense.
From what I know, the chance of a successful intercept is not solely determined by that players protect %, but it's also influenced by the attacker's OB, level, etc.
Elestir wrote:You forgot the main negative side effect: having lower wilderness and therefore higher movecost. Let's suppose we stop the training at same result stat set. What will be the difference? You will have bit more hps and hp-regen (from higher endurance) and I will have bit better mobility (from higher wilderness).
Well the difference of going from 14 WIL to 15 WIL for wilderness is only a 2.5% increase (148.75-->151.25). Does that marginal % of reduced move-cost really offset the base HP/MP deduction and reduced HP/MP regen? I'm a little skeptical about that.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2010 11:21 pm
by hawai
Jahara wrote:I would recommend to write the guide on the MUME wiki if anyone is up for it :-)
Made a small wiki over here. Throw in your ideas please!:)

Tho im kinda having hard time obeying wiki rules and keeping the guide informative.
You should not include information that will remove the joy of discovery for players on MUME. For example, do not post this kind of information:
1. Hidden door names
2. Output from the identify spell
3. Detailed information about how and where to get legendary equipment
4. Detailed maps of new/remote/contested areas (detailed maps of cities are fine)

Is it ok when i post the detailed location about forest greek cloaks, black smooth boots and plain equipment?

When/where do i go over the line when I write about how to be suntrapped in one or in other location?
Mostly this stuff should be (almost is) bread and butter for every troll.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 2:57 pm
by Kalev
Hawai, the wiki page is looking really good.

Re: Request for troll (beginners') guide

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:05 pm
by Dearth
Some information missing:

About the three troll types. Does anyone know what are the advantages of each race? For example I remember that for example Muranog's metals fit for only 1 troll type.

Then there could be a link to this thread, because there is great insight to trolls, especially by Elestir.

Good pk stats like 25 5 5 12 20 15 7 should be included imo

Ob is not the only advantage in warrens. Things like spellspeed, higher success rate in abilities, even mixing, mana cost, save spell etc are also increased

Cave is not the only portable room in warrens, rootdoor is also

Abandoned Cellar is not the only noflee room there, d slab and that warg place is also

But the tactics part is awesome, the eq part, although not complete is really good too!

Edit: I implented those changes and some more myself :)

Edit2: Can someone confirm if trolls can use fell beasts, blood of sauron effect, crude orkish horn effect?

Edit3: Got answers for them, thanks:)