I use GMud and I love AR. I suck so bad at PK though. I know how to get potions and stuff and how to be prepaired, but where I lack and I lack in ways that would be almost the worst possible way would be the chase. I can't seem to catch someone once they decide to run away. This being the reason why I will always loose a fight since I know that once they get away they can rest and return and start again prepaired again. Any advice on how I can become better at tracking and chasing at the same time? Ive always played Heralds since my PK is so bad, I think its about time I try and change that.
B) When fighting someone, make sure you have a way to highlight his name, so it stands out and you dont have to try to search the screen for his name.
C) Have the various travelling spell effects highlighted IE Word of recall/gate messages that everyone in the area sees.
D) Stalk your victim. See his tendencies. The best example of this is to watch someone ELSE try to PK him. People are creatures of habit. Generally if his M.O. is to run run run to timeran then word of recall the second he hits the gate (so you cant see the word of recall message) then chances are he will do it again. THen you can try to FORCE him to flee, pretend to chase him, and then get your butt to his recall spot and wait for him to appear (only works once, dont waste it.)
E) Prepare the area for fighting. I always shut city gates in Seringale if I was about to try to PK someone. It's amazing how many people spam E E E E E E E E E when running, and the door will hold them up and lag them.
F) If you are a spell caster, use LOCATE OBJECT. Example: When I was a necro fighting say a dark knight, when the dark knight got away, I would spam c 'locate' purple potion, you will see it on the large hobgoblins, BUT, when the dark knight summons the hobgoblin and kills him, you will have a few seconds chance to see the purple potion on the floor of the room he is standing in. VERY useful, if you are positive it is him summoning.
G) Stand in Moria so the large hobgoblins don't repop, thus forcing your adversary to go elsewhere for purple potions, which if you time it properly, and guess correctly, you can ambush him while gathering them.
H) Don't spam yourself. When chasing, you KNOW how far ahead he is (roughly) and you KNOW the map, so you know when to quickly WHERE PK to see what direction he takes at a path intersection, then sprint to make it there BUT one room at a time, in a good rythym, so you can quickly backtrack if he pulls a change of direction. Nothing worse than typing in 5 rooms EAST just as he runs back into the room and out WEST.
I) PK as much as you can and learn. You can't learn if you don't die while trying. Start your tracking training at a low level, so you KNOW that your adversary will be using recall POTIONS and have very limited MV, thus the chases will be short, but just as fast as you will see at 50.
Just off the top of my head..
If you're playing a warrior class practice getting in the right weapon type and style practice while ranking or just killing mobs, eventually it'll become easier to find that combo.
Res says pk as much as you can, I agree, it can be frustrating at first to be unsuccessful, so don't give up, and remember that there are logs on this website. It'll take you five or six failed pk attempts to realize that the reason why you lost is because you just spammed a damage spell and you should have been dispelling him or waiting out sanc.
If you have a weapon that that person is vulnerable to, use it! And if it just sits in your inventory the whole time, resatimm will know about it, and he will call you out multiple times for it...
Don't give up, don't give up.
Just relax and think on your feet. sooner or later it will all click for you.
Speed is HUGE. If you're fast. You win. Fast to run. Fast to chase. Fast to switch. I've actually gotten comments from people I've fought about how I managed to move so quick. When I'm fighting someone and they flee to switch styles(doesn't happen as much after the changes..) I frequently manage to follow them and attack before they even switch weapons. Which gets me a free murder, catches them by surprise, and sometimes even gets them to lag themselves by switching in combat on accident.(again, the changes ruined my whole pk style.. :(
But really all you can do to gain speed is through experience. Pip owns because he's just so dang fast. I haven't ever been able to keep up with him.
What helps to remember is if you spend a whole characters life losing, and end up condeathed with 5 kills.. you really won't get that much crap, because everyone knows you stuck it out. And you learned. And if that's really the case, then your next character will be better.
Just stick with it, and work on getting faster. At everything..
I use aliases to switch my weapons depending on the situation too. My setup is fairly easy to become familiar with and is great for combat. I'll post again with my setup if anyone else wants to use it, including aliases and whatnot.
%h/%Hhp %m/%Mm %v/%Vmv ($%g %Xxp) %t %W %B %n %T
whish is in order: hp/maxhp, mana/max mana, moves/maxmovex (gold, xptnl) combat style matchup, weapon type matchup, adrenaline and person who is tanking. The combat style will either say defensive, dual-wield or two hand, the color of the words will be green if your combat style is superior and red if your combat style is inferior and gray if you have the same combat style. The weapon type will show / for blades, | for shafts and ; for segment, the colors will be red if your weapon type is inferior and green if your type is superior, gray if you have the same type. Keep in mind that the colors are for your style compared to theirs and the words or symbols are their combat style/weapon type. I use the numbers at the top of the keyboard for the weapon switch aliases such as: 3 for wielding a weapon and shield, 4 for removing a shield so I can dual wield a weapon, and 5 so I can remove a shield and wield a two handed weapon. Keep in mind that if you are wearing a shield you have to remove it before you can wield an off hand weapon or a two hand weapon and you need to remove your off hand weapon or two hand before you can put a shield back on.
If you're a spellcaster, alias all your spells (or use the in-game aliases if those are easy to remember... personally I started using my own a long time ago with invokers, etc.). Some of the "c 'multiple word spell name'" spells are difficult to type out unless you know a shortcut ("c loc" instead of "c 'locate object'" for example), so I just alias all of 'em to something shorter and easier to remember.