Let's Talk: Carnifex

Tenshyo

So I'm honestly curious as to how one 'stop' or 'hinders' a Carnifex when (so far a I can tell) they have A) Decent damage, Great speed, and C) Three affs a round.

Now, I'll be flat honest here and admit that I'm not the greatest combatant (Mid-tier as @cariv decrees) and my curing isn't great.

It just seems to me that, outside of Clumsiness, there isn't much one can really do to handle Carnifex presently.

With things like Reckless inhibiting most common routes to inhibit and slow down an offense.



Also I admit that I am not overly that knowledgeable on Carnifex as a whole.

Darned Doges

Aishia

idk break some arms murder a dog kill them faster than they kill you, run when ur getting jacked up be better than them in general.

Drestyn

Can't kill the dog(Soul Pact). Breaking our arms won't work that well(We'll be able to swing with a broken arm). Clumsiness is one of the better routes and I suggest using your superior affliction routes as a Templar to lock us good for a retribution. Then again, we also have Soul Purge and Fitness.

Aishia

Just attack the dog it'll make them so mad

Tenshyo

Drestyn said:

Can't kill the dog(Soul Pact). Breaking our arms won't work that well(We'll be able to swing with a broken arm). Clumsiness is one of the better routes and I suggest using your superior affliction routes as a Templar to lock us good for a retribution. Then again, we also have Soul Purge and Fitness.

Can't aff Clumsi while in Zealot

And with the apparent recent nerf to Evoke Fear, we can't fear the dogs out anymore either.


As far as 'being better than them in general' goes, that's what I'm trying to do!
But if I'm getting WHACKED IN THE FACE with 3 affs a round, and a DEVASTATING Soul Poison on round four? I'm not exactly HAPPY I'm getting beaten with an unmitigatable 1k damage

Drestyn

It's more like 3 affs every other round, we have hound balance to worry about. Soul Poison is only effective(worthwhile, anyway) if you have more than six affs on you. Wraith and Disease count towards that, if I remember, so if it's devestating, they're already sticking four other afflictions. I'd prioritise proning them in Zealot by breaking legs or forcing clumsiness and lock affs while watching for the 8 second(due to recklessness) evolve time of paresis.

Kelliara

They also don't like it when you mess with their eq or balance. Or both.

Tenshyo

The reason I am stating 3 affs a round is this -> https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/kb9qzYG-
(I do apologize if above posted link is not actually allowed here)


Every single person using CATS puts up Poison at 6 to 9 affs.
(Srsly, so many of you it's an alarming amount of Soul Poison and just how quickly it can be tacked on for that much damage)

Tree, at Trans survival, is like 5 second cd. So when it's off CD you can cure 3 affs a round, but when not on CD, you're left with one aff - then 2 after the next round(s) and so on and so forth.



Obviously as a Zealot I'm gunning for the prone, it's just surviving the turtle/attempt to turtle long enough to even get that ball rolling! XD

Draiman

Tree is 10s at trans survival.

That constant diagnosing is murdering your offense up time.

On top of the diagnosing your time between attacks is abysmal. Put queueing into your aliases pls and spam the shit out of them.

You didn't go in with boiling blood or w/e up, rip.

I know you didn't necessarily ask for general tips but I think you need to work those things out first. 

Tenshyo

Draiman said:

Tree is 10s at trans survival.

That constant diagnosing is murdering your offense up time.

On top of the diagnosing your time between attacks is abysmal. Put queueing into your aliases pls and spam the unicorns out of them.

You didn't go in with boiling blood or w/e up, rip.

I know you didn't necessarily ask for general tips but I think you need to work those things out first. 

Still appreciated.

This is also taken from a lesser fight log so I don't typically run a lot of defs at lessers.

Draiman

Imo, lessers are the place to run EVERY defence. They're short so the drain(s) are less noticeable but they benefits are huge. 

Xenia

If you're using a static cure route every time, or the default one to source, then probably nothing is going to change until you adjust your cure order.

If a person's aff route is ordered specifically to poke at how you cure every time, then you're going to keep having the same issues. I recommend you create a couple of cure priority tables and then an alias to switch between them when you start to notice a pattern to how you're being afflicted.

Mazarine

If your opponent is static parrying one limb, you've got 5 other places to hit. The only time you hit head was on jcp, don't think I saw any torso shots. 

Try to vary up how you do your attacking. Having combos for just legs and just arms is okay, but your opponent in this case is giving you free reign to mess his unicorns up. You may even be able to cheese people with cobra( or whatever the double kick stance is) and double head kick if they're not moving parry. Don't know how feasible but I imagine it'd be annoying as heck.

Fezzix

You had paresis as the top prio cure. That was a huge mistake because it allowed him to press the soft kelp stack and ensure a lock. Put asthma above paresis in your cure priority list unless you're fighting against a sentinel.

I also didn't see you use any class cures to break that lock. With smarter curing, you could have won that fight. Pressing his head would have slowed him down immensely, and you probably could have pressed his arms for a CMK at some point.

And I'll echo Drai by saying that you diagnose too much. It's a gamble to keep going, but you have to consider the possibility that you'll recognize any of the hidden lock venoms once you realize you can't smoke/sip/etc. The other ones are typically dummy venoms like digitalis or larkspur or selarnia, i.e. things that zealot/monk shouldn't worry about. Scytherus is your big worry there, but I would diagnose maybe half that many times, if at all. If you're pressing an attack and curing just fine, keep on the offense. Don't give them that extra 0.75 seconds to recover.

EDIT: Carnifex also can't see which venoms their hound sneezes on you, so those "three affs" every other round isn't helping their offense much except for having you waste your tree/renew. As far as I know, the only trackable loki delivery is in the Shaman class.

Oh, and if he had been using Deathlore Implant on you, then I'd have started to worry.

Toz

He also wasn't resetting affs when you left to cure up, so you had some rounds where he waste time using like anorexia/clumsy when you were cured of all stacks. But your diag on hidden killed you on its own.

Tenshyo

@Fezzix I used Push and Cleanse a few times, and were hard to see (I have since added an echo to see when they actually fire now, because good lord the spam gets real)

Mazarine said:

-paragraph about combos-

This is, regarding torso/head blows, something I've been lax on doing. Something I need to get in the habit of again.

Xenia said:

-cure things here-

I do need to do this. I struggle in knowing what is what and what goes where -- Something I can learn/work on too, of course.


Before spiraling downward more into all this combat help (( which I GREATLY appreciate! )) can we talk about what makes Carnifex well.. Carnifex?

Like, what is their Pros and Cons?


Objective things on why Carnifex is too strong and/or too weak in some areas

Vaskar

Underpowered: The entire hammer path(non-hooker version). It's garbage, flat out. Kill method is terrible and the chances of pulling it off are incredibly low. It's a dead end. Hammer is really only used for bashing and Hammer Throw.

Terrible: Hounds. Hound breeding is the fucking worst, I hate it, it's a terrible idea that needs to die. Just let me pick my own damn hound abilities instead of making me reroll endlessly.

Serrice

Shadow. Blurry vision from zealot is the fucking devil.

You need salve highlights. You were attacking his left after he restored it. That's pointless.

Tenshyo

Serrice said:

Shadow. Blurry vision from zealot is the unicorns devil.

You need salve highlights. You were attacking his left after he restored it. That's pointless.

I'm not even sure how to do that without breaking things

Kelliara

Tenshyo said:

I'm not even sure how to do that without breaking things

I'm no expert, but this might be part of your problem.

Serrice

It's just a simple trigger to do highlighting. selectString(line), fg(), bg(), viola!

I have it integrated into my system, but you can get by with just a highlight and some practice.

Irruel

You don't even need to do that much if you're particularly clueless with mudlet.
See the screenshot below.
Create the trigger. Check the highlight checkbox. Use the GUI to select the highlight colour.




Why Tiger stance? Maybe consider using a block or two.

Tenshyo

@Irruel Tiger Stance adds +20% limb damage. I was running Evade Block and either ASB or LSB, I don't remember which. So for running a limb route, it's pretty necessary to get anywhere.

The issue is/was for that the gagging and coding. I have since figured out where to put in the echo to show up when cured.

Toz

Carnifex develops slower than Templar but is similar, like the Chinese knock-off. Momentum-based afflict that seals the deal with implant (knock-off vorpal). Instead of mirroring they have hound Loki, instead of passive cleansing they have a physical only aff cure (purge) that speeds them up depending on how affed they are. Instead of accuracy aura for anti-hinder, they get recklessness to stop broken arm from hindering them and paresis takes longer to convert to paralysis.

They outshine Templar in 2 ways IMO- while they can't double block solo, soul chains are nice for room control, so is stand firm. And much like a Chinese knock-off they are bad for your health - they do more raw hp damage than Templar.

Finally, their limb route is straight unicorns. I worked so hard on an offense for it and unless they hook cheese, it is worse than lycan.

Llok

Just a quick question... does mind push spam still leave the opposing affliction fighter in a difficult spot?

Valingar

Unlike before, Mind Push has a cooldown these days and it now shows what affliction it cured on Discernment, like any other random cure. So it's no different from any other single aff cure in that regard and won't mess up the opponents tracking.

Llok

Shame that. It was a nice boost to a Zealot offense if timed correctly.