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Lycanthrope: How to Eat People
Seir
Seein' All the ThingsGetting high off your emotion
Updated:
4/5: Differences between wolves and bears.
4/6: Pre-Restoration and Howl Combinations
4/10: Minor corrections and additions.
Taking a page from Illidan, I've decided to create a small guide for Lycanthrope. In this guide, I'll try to detail a few facts, counters, strengths, weaknesses and so forth that you can encounter. I'll also explain the minor differences between Atabahi and Bahkatu, as there are some abilities that one has that the other will not.
For the sake of simplicity and uniformity, I'm going to follow a format similar to Balzic.
Lycanthrope
Equipment: Nothing. We don't wear armor and we don't use weaponry. You will need a hammer tattoo though.
Least amount of skills:
- Ferality: This needs to be Transcendent. Your accuracy is dependent upon it.
- Lycanthropy: At least up to Thickhide. You have very little physical mitigation to begin with and you need Pawguard since you don't use a weapon to parry.
- Howling/Roaring: Technically, you CAN get by without Howling, but it is incredibly difficult.
Suggested skill levels:
- Ferality: Transcendent.
- Howling: Transcendent for Distension.
- Lycanthropy: Transcendent. It offers you a fair amount of very useful utility.
- Survival: Transcendent. You want focus.
- Avoidance: Transcendent. You wear no armor and wield no shields. You get the most benefit from dodge chance. This is especially true if you're an Atabahi.
- Vision: Transcendent. Limb breaks can be cured via Renew/Reconstitute/Erase, as well as tree tattoo. You'll find yourself randomly missing your mangle/destroy chances if you don't have the ability to discern when people are cured by those abilities.
Automation: Minimal. To go into detail, there's a very minimal amount of automation that goes into Lycanthrope. You can reasonably get by without a lot of code. I've seen Lycanthropes use nothing but macros and aliases in order to pursue their offense. However, you will have an advantage if you have an affliction tracker with macros that are based off of limb conditions. Also, it's incredibly prudent to create highlights and echoes for when your opponent is utilizing pre-restoration.
As an example, I utilize my number pad exclusively for Lycanthrope excluding a few aliases and function keys. As an example, my "NUM1" key, without CTRL pressed, will execute my dual hamstring macro and thus break both legs. However, if it detects that the enemy already has a broken left leg, it will attempt to mangle that leg. If that leg is mangled, then it will go for the destroy. If it is destroyed and they're not prone, it'll execute a rend/hamstring to the other side of the target's body. If it's destroyed and they're prone, it will jawlock the groin. I have a function macro that will then execute the appropriate rip based on the jawlock that I have.
Your offensive script can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Mine is probably medium of the range in its complexity, but it has worked for me and I'm willing to help people code something together if they need help.
Class Difficulties:
- Shield - Probably the bane of any limb class. If an opponent has one broken/mangled/destroyed arm, they can still shield while the limb is undergoing restoration. They can't shield if they're prone.
- Running - Lycanthropes have very little means of keeping an opponent in the room. If you get someone low, they can spam tumble on you and the only way to stop it is holding them in a jawlock until the actual tumble would go through.
- Web - The same reasons as shield. Can be used with one arm and when combined with shield generally means you have a lot of difficulty with people who are "turtling", or playing excessively defensive. This is something I hope to remedy in a coming liaison report.
- Damage - We have one of the worse audits in the game, if not the worst. Some classes will be able to bash you to death with little difficulty at the moment. You have to do a lot of offense in order to restrain certain offenses.
Class Strengths:
- Group Function - We're incredibly, INCREDIBLY useful for group combat. Between Serenade howls, neckdragging targets from an enemy group into your own, leapslash, our high damage output when spinalcracking, our incredibly hard to remove "impale" from jawlocks and the fact that two Lycans concentrating on one person can basically lock them down, we basically offer a TON of group utility to groups consisting of classes like Monk, Luminary, Sentinel, Praenomen, Bloodborn, and Teradrim. Those classes have conditional instakills that we can line up easily for them and they have abilities that enhance our own. For example, a Luminary can smash the limbs of an opponent while the Lycanthrope takes advantage with destroying the limbs. The Lycanthrope can then jawlock the opponent while the Luminary then judges. Or, if the Lycanthrope manages a spleenrip and begins to bleed out the victim, most systems will overcompensate on clotting and then fall victim to an absolve.
- Damage - We have a lot of raw damage potential in Spinalcrack/Skullwhack. While you won't kill with those alone, you'll have more damage output than some classes do.
- Howls/Roars - Howling is probably one of the best passive skillsets I've seen in my entire time across IRE. For one, Boneshaking will allow your howls to go through deafness. Snarling will mask what afflictions your howls dish out. You have a variety of useful afflictions that can go through like paralysis, confusion, lethargy for bears, and then you have passive disruption which goes a long way in affording you some breathing room and holding down your opponent.
- Versatile - You're a versatile class with at least two viable means of killing folks. Not many classes can say the same.
- Fuzzy - Yes. You're a giant fuzzball who murders people and has some of the best deathsights ever. What's not to love?
Kill Goals:
- Devour - You need to afflict your opponent with a ripped throat, ripped spleen, and a ripped groin. Once that is done, you get to eat them and it will kill them instantly. As a more humorous note, if you were hungry at all, your hunger is restored back to full upon pulling off a Devour. Keep in mind that Devour destroys the corpse of the opponent if it kills them for good. It'll leave a pile of bones of the victim behind.
- Spleenrip/Jugularclaw - Spleenrip functions as incurable haemophilia, which means your opponent has a very large chance of failing to clot when they attempt to do so. Combine this with a baleful howl and elongated claws, your jugularclaws/slashing will do too much damage for them to keep up with.
- Skullwhack Chain - I wanted to add this one in honor of Arbre, as the tactic is hers and has worked against others including myself who don't know to look for it. Essentially, it takes three skullwhack comboes (six individual skullwhacks) to knock an opponent unconscious. The unconsciousness procs when the victim gains damaged_head (level 1 broken head, stupidity). What makes this an effective tactic is that with proper triggers or highlights, you can actually chain the skullwhacks to where another skullwhack will send the opponent unconscious again as soon as they recover. The reason why this is effective is because your howls can stop the opponent from curing paralysis long enough to adjust their parry. Enough chaining and you'll actually give the opponent a concussion and you can lead this into a skullcrush if you want. I'm going to go in-depth on skullwhack chaining in another update.
- Damage - Killing with straight damage is very unlikely, but possible with baleful howls and consistent pressure. This will likely work against classes with low physical audits like other Lycanthropes, Syssin, etc.
Artifacts: I'm basically going to order these in what I feel is the most useful down to the least.
Amulet of Protection - A given. We get the full benefit from it since we're an unarmored class and we fall over from the slightest breeze.
Constitution - Added constitution goes a long way in ensuring your survivability, which is what Lycanthrope's largest weakness is.
Sip Bonus - Same as the above. Higher sips means greater survivability in classes that will try to bash you to death.
Anti-Web - Web stops our offense in its tracks and its usable with one broken arm. This will basically force your opponent to choose another offensive means to stop you.
Claws - More damage potential from Ferality. These combined with baleful (sensitivity) howls will basically turn opponents into a dead carcass to stuff in your den.
Wolves and Bears:
The following are the differences in abilities between wolves and bears.
- Cornering/Bracing - Wolves have the ability to use Cornering as an active defense. Cornering basically increases your Avoidance rate. Bracing, which is Bahkatu only, gives you a much-needed increase to your audit. If someone can send me the difference, I'll post the data here.
- Stealth/Hibernate - Wolves have the ability to use Stealth, which will mask your movement as you go room to room at a slight drain of mana. Bears gain Hibernate, which I'm not entirely sure as to what it does. I will update if a bear can send me info.
- Howling/Roaring - While wolves and bears largely have the same howls/roars, they each have one affliction that the other does not have access to. Wolves have access to the Deranged howl, which will give hallucinations. Bahkatu, on the other hand, have access to Lethargic roars which does what it says on the tin: it gives lethargy.
Classes you are strong against:
Sentinel - You can shut Sentinels down since their offense is entirely based on them having both arms in order to strike. You also have the ability to startle their raven and butterfly away, which will negate the rest of their passive offense on a whole. You can also neckdrag them out of their traps if necessary as well. Just be mindful of their damage and use your howls to your advantage. Your active and passive ability to completely stop their offense in its tracks will work in your favor here.
Templar - Same as the above if they're a 2h Templar. If they're a 1h Templar, they can still hit you at least once. Their damage potential is higher than Sentinel so you have to be taken extra precaution against them. Blunt weapon Templars have an offense similar to ours just without the luxury that is Howling. You can best them most of the time, just keep an eye on your health.
Carnifex - Once again, same as Sentinel. They require both hands in order to attack you and have very little, if anything, of a passive offense outside of their hounds. Watch your soul. A Carnifex, if they get their momentum going, will start afflicting you to high holy hell because the speed of their poleslash increases with the more soul they've drained. Pay attention to your limbs and pre-resto as appropriate.
Luminary - They've got an advantage with Angel Care in curing your limb breaks, but they have very little in the way of stopping your offense. You break their limbs, you stop their afflicting. They're also more resource intensive than you are if the fight drags out. Just be mindful that while a Luminary is ultimately gunning for your mana, you need to pay attention to your health. They have the means of damage killing if they can get you prone with overwhelm. Don't overuse your focus and reconstitute against them. Prioritize your mana over health and you should be alright.
Syssin - While Hypnosis and Sleights definitely make them one of the best affliction classes, they need to actually be able to dstab you in order to do anything. If you put emphasis on making sure that their dstab arm is broken, you'll break their momentum. Just keep in mind that the momentum in a fight against a Syssin can honestly shift in their favor at any time once hypnosis starts ticking or void starts absorbing your attempts to heal. They're also notoriously good at avoiding you when the fight starts to look grim. However, in a straight up fight, you should win.
Classes you will struggle against:
Lycanthrope - What can counter a Lycanthrope? Another Lycanthrope. Two Lycanthropes fighting each other will be subjected to the howls of their opponent and since both of your offenses are active, you'll find yourself frequently disrupting one another's momentum with limb breaks and paralysis/disruption howls. Fortunately, you're both as tough as paper so damage is possible. This fight largely breaks down to curing and individual skill of the Lycanthropes involved. Two Lycanthropes that know what to look for or are highly experienced will be fighting for some time. As a personal note, I fought in a free-for-all against Tyrak as a Lycan vs Lycan and it went on for about 45 minutes.
Praenomen - One of the few classes you can't really stop, even with limb breaks. Between their passives and their actives, their damage will quickly overwhelm you if you choose to prioritize mana. Even if you manage to get them prone, they can still use their dwhispers in order to stop your offense or continue their own. If the Praenomen in question is artifacted, you'll struggle even more in trying to keep up with them.
As a note, the above class counter notes are largely speculative and based on personal experience as fighting as a Lycanthrope. Your success and mileage may vary against certain classes but that is just a general picture of what to expect.
Pre-Restoration
The next part of the guide will cover pre-restoration and how it applies to the Lycanthrope. Pre-restoration is a term that you'll hear thrown about often, especially in regards to limb-based offenses like Monk. What is it exactly? Well, restoration salve is applied to a limb when it reaches a state of being damaged or mangled. The process of limb damage goes as thus in order of severity: broken, damaged, mangled. A broken limb is delivered by our rend attacks to the arms and our hamstring attacks to the legs. These blows can be remedied by an application of mending salve to the affected limb. However, that is not the only effect of our attacks. Our limb attacks also do a portion of damage to the limb. Specifically, our limb attacks do around 3.5-4.0% damage to a limb. Limbs will become damaged at 33%, so it will take around 8-9 blows to a limb to put it in a state of not only being broken from your rend/hamstring, but also being damaged in the process. At that point, it will require an application of restoration salve to cure it. If, for some reason, the limb goes uncured then it will be mangled at 66% and require two applications of restoration. Keep in mind that our jaw abilities will automatically force these damage states on a limb. Mangling a broken limb will take it to the state of being damaged and a destroy attack will take it to mangled.
So where does this tie in with Lycanthropes? As a Lycanthrope, you need to effectively learn how to count (or have a system do it for you) in how much damage you've done to individual limbs. Individuals also do not have to wait for a limb to be damaged before it can be applied with restoration. The person can apply restoration to a limb in order to heal up to 33% of damage to the limb. However, this pre-restoration comes with a cost. Curing a limb with an application of restoration is not an instant cure, it is a delayed cure of around 4 seconds. At dexterous, your jaw attacks function at around 2.5-2.6 seconds and your rend/hamstring functions at 2.3 seconds. This means that if you time your breaks appropriately or you manage to set each limb up, you can begin to outpace the rate of someone curing their limbs with restoration. Once you reach a certain point, you can keep an opponent indefinitely held down if you overwhelm them with mangles which will allow you to at least get one or two jawlocks off without issue. However, your enemy will not just apply pre-restoration and allow you to take advantage of it easily. There will be a session on parrying and the different kinds of parries adopted by systems and how their pre-restoration ties into it.
Howl Combinations
Howls are the passive offenses of Lycanthropes. We have a wide array of afflictions at our disposal that can be delivered while concealed because of snarling and allow deafness, which would normally stop howls, to be bypassed via Boneshaking. The following guide covers some of the more used combinations of howls and why they're used. If any other Lycanthropes don't see a combination that they've tried and tested and would like to add it to the list, please send me a forum message.
As a side note, howls proc every 15 seconds. A timer is helpful to coordinate your attacks.
Paralysis/Stupidity/Anorexia
A standard howl combination. Paralysis allows a Lycanthrope to be able to jawlock without the target being prone, as well as perform a spinalrip on the target. A victim who is spinalripped will have to apply restoration to their torso in order to remedy it which can allow you to take advantage of the other limbs while the opponent is preoccupied with the torso. Stupidity can afford you some small delay in an individual's attempts to cure their limbs. Anorexia/Belenephobia can buy some time since an application of epidermal is used to heal the anorexia, giving you an extra second delay on their applications of restoration or mending since it takes them off salve balance for about a second.
Paralysis/Disruption/Knockdown
My personal selection in most fights. I prefer this combination because it allows a Lycanthrope to do two things at once: maintain their offense while keeping up a defense to stave off damage. Passive disruption is one of the best howls we have at our disposal, knocking a victim off equilibrium for two seconds while they concentrate. The added paralysis and knockdown can allow you to go a jawlock on the arms more easily as you will not need to have the legs broken to go for a jawlock. The same applies if you're trying to go for a necklock.
Paralysis/Confusion/Disrupt
This used to be my main howling set up but I abandoned it upon discovery that concentrating gives a symptom message that you have confusion and alerts the system to cure the confusion and disrupt. One of the greatest assets to Howling is that since balances like tree, renew, etc. are off balance from dealing with your limb breaks, you can often get afflictions through some systems for some time before they realize that they have them. This combination allows you for the same means of disrupting your opponent and furthering your offense as above, but the added knockdown above gives you a little bit more ease when it comes to jawlocks. Still, this howling combination is useful for instances when you find yourself in retardation as the delay caused by the aeon will delay your opponent realizing they have confusion and cost them more seconds in getting themselves back up.
Paralysis/Disruption/Sensitivity
I don't start with these howls. If I manage to get a spleenrip on an opponent from my Paralysis/Disrupt/Knockdown combo, I have an alias where I quickly drop the knockdown howl in order to switch to the sensitivity howl, which does not require balance or equilibrium, but rather uses the howl balance. Essentially, once I start racking up the bleeding, my damage combined with the amount of bleeding that I'm doing becomes too much for individuals to handle. Unfortunately, you somewhat sacrifice your devour path of killing in the process since an effective bleed strategy requires elongating your claws, thus increasing the amount of balance it takes to recover from your regular attacks.
Next up for the guide is parrying and expanding more upon certain subjects. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know.
Comments
I'm currently working on some offensive strategies and howl combinations.
As a note, constructive criticism is the only kind that I will accept. If you want to be snarky or insult one another, take it somewhere else. Thanks.
As a side note, I'm going to comment on the Jawlock/Behead bit as it was my understanding that Sintor used to do this back in the day. I've not tested this yet but I'm fairly sure it was changed a long time ago that you couldn't behead or brainsmash while jawlocking Also, I believe it was also changed awhile back so that Lycanthropes can't use weaponry due to Shatter/Destroy/Jawlock being super silly to pull off. Again, I'd have to test it to see if this is still the case but I'm about 98% sure that we can't use weaponry period unless we unmorph. I guess you could do it, I suppose, but I just personally feel that there are so many passive means of disrupting the channeling for that ability, as well as tumbling as Serrice mentioned, that wouldn't really make it very effective.
As an aside, I'm also going to add Arbre's tactic with Skullwhack because you can actually pull it off on some people.