When to bash, when to kick, and when to trip

[Ceridwel]

I'm playing around with some warrior-class characters and am confused about when to bash vs kick vs trip. Can someone shed some light on this? This might be too broad a question I guess...

[Davairus]

When youre outdamaging them you can bash/trip, otherwise, you'd only be helping to lag yourself dead. i've seen people do that on me a few times btw, rather hilarious to watch. Rarely kick... it can be used to finish someone in awful condition and that couple hp is all you need to shave off, but otherwise the recovery time is bad and I'd go for the overhead, hobble, even a dirt, etc. even vs mages youd probably want to just flee murder them. Other than that, the winding kick might be the only reason to use it. Berserkers dont get kick and do you know how many complaints i've heard about that?

[Olyn]

You can kick mages with all their spells up when you're fighting in a situation where you can't flee. That's the only thing I can think to add.

[Phostan]

I read this as you want to know when to use bash, as opposed to trip. And kick vs trip, and kick vs bash, etc. I'm kind of rusty on exact mechanics, but I was under the impression trip lagged for less time, but it worked more often, at least, on players with moderate to low dexterity. Then bash I thought lagged for 2 rounds, but had extra lag if you missed the bash(maybe I'm thinking bodyslam here?), and was size based, eg, dwarves bashing giants didn't do so well, but giants bashing dwarves is highly effective. And then yeah, there's kick, which is really only great when there's nothing else to use and there's nothing you need to be ready to respond to, eg; your opponent isn't about to dispel you or switch weapons to gain combat advantage. Personally if an opponent was in awful I'd be itching ready to move and attack the second they flee, or if they had protective shield, flying and weapon ward up, I'd be nailing them with hit and runs(murder, flee, murder flee). But yeah, there's my 2 cents.

[Resatimm]

Shaman vs. Elf Healer. With the elf spelled up and equipped well, the shaman sometimes resorts to kick just to do extra damage instead of trying to dispel the -79 save mental. It is actually very useful when you are in a stalemate fight like that. A sliver of damage is usually all that keeps you from death.

[Mandor]

[Eloret]

[Resatimm]

[Ceridwel]

[Mandor]

If I had to be general about it, I'd say.

high dex vs low dex = trip lower dex.
low dex vs high dex = worth a chance if its all you've got.
trip lag is 1.5 rounds on target, 2 rounds on you.

high str vs low str = bash lower str.
low str vs high str = worth a chance if its all you've got.
bash lag is 2-3 rounds on target, size bonus and str vs depending, and 2 rounds if you hit, 3 if you miss, on you.

if both people are equal in all stats, then use the one thats more likely to connect, which is trip, or use the one that has a little less chance but more lag, which is bash.

[Dispater]

Unless you are a giant or you got bash mastered and the target hobbled, dont bother bashing when enemy is already losing. He may flee at any second and you dont want to cause unnecessary delay which prevents you from following him/her.

Trip is way weaker than bash, works well against low dex chars if you happen to be a high dex one, but still, don't rely it on getting you kills.