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Author Topic: Training offensive skills  (Read 2049 times)

lance2535

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Training offensive skills
« on: February 10, 2020, 01:14:55 pm »

I took the advice of the wiki and stabbed and beat a horse until it couldn't stand and it eyeballs were just gore, then I beat it with my spear until I felt bad enough that I'd rather put it out of its misery. Does anyone else not feel remorse or a little fucked up mutilating and then beating, repeatedly as it comes in and out of consciousness due to pain, a horse or any animal so savagely for personal gain? Well, I can't say i'd want to do that anymore, suggestions for a less cruel way to get my weapon skills to legendary?
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Robsoie

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2020, 01:19:47 pm »

Horses are good, kill all goblins instead to reach legendary weapon level.
-Urist McGoblinSlayer
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Superdorf

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2020, 02:26:30 pm »

If you've already got Legendary dodging, you should be able to kill most stuff quite safely anyhow. Just go about finding stuff you're OK with killing, then (if it doesn't feel too unethical...) kill it a little slower than you otherwise would.
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Luckyowl

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2020, 01:44:16 am »

I know how feel man. It ruins my experience that I have to kill animals to train up my skills. Once dfhack update you can use dfhack to spar with your party members as of now that's the only way to have a real training.
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TheDorf

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2020, 07:37:52 pm »

First, I usually just throw a bunch of stuff to get my archery up. Once archery is at legendary, I try to get my hands on a decent melee weapon, and a ranged weapon with quite a bit of ammo. After that I head out to find a camp that doesn't have too many bandits, and start shooting at them while sneaking. Hopefully you'll be able to cripple most of them and kill off the rest. At this point, I go in and start training, making sure to wound whatever legs/arms that still work before I just start slapping them with my weapon.

This seems to work decently even as a peasant, as long as you manage to kill off the strongest opponents before going in. Got lucky once and found a camp where most bandits were sleeping, and that made the process even easier.
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SaD-82

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2020, 09:31:18 am »

You don't have to beat one horse slowly to death to train your skills - you can beat severall horses to death in a much quicker way to train your skills.
As horses (or other animals) provide food and skin/bones (if you're into sewing and bone carving via editing raws to allow such behaviour) to make money it's a win/win: You train your skills and you live off the land as a true nature boy would do. It's way more immersive and in the vein of roleplaying.
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Anandar

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2020, 12:54:05 am »

You could just you know... not beat any horses etc into oblivion and run the risk of death and reach legendary status in an actually satisfying way... through the trials and hardship of a real adventurer that legitimately becomes a hero and legend of skills and tales of wonder... would make for much better stories for the forum and to get your mates into df too
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George_Chickens

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2020, 08:17:19 am »

You could just you know... not beat any horses etc into oblivion and run the risk of death and reach legendary status in an actually satisfying way...
You are right. Lions and elephants provide much more experience, and are way better targets.
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ShinQuickMan

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2020, 11:07:10 am »

Before the latest update, I would wrestle a prone blind crab while wearing heavy armor and a shield until wrestling, fighting, shield user, armor user, and dodging skills were at legendary 5+. Then, I'd fight against bogeymen with training weapons (or with a bow in melee for sword user, and a leaf for improvised weapon user). Not sure what one would do for the latter part now. Maybe fight tower zombies or something?
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Loam

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #9 on: February 13, 2020, 11:28:02 am »

To un-cheesily reach legendary skill, you'll need to know what kinds of enemies you can take on at certain skill levels.

If you start off below Competent in your weapon/melee skills, your best bet is hunting dangerous animals or wandering the wilderness for random encounters. Animals don't have combat skills, and they tend to scare easily, making them good for low-level training - but (being predators) they are not totally helpless, unlike livestock.

Once you're at Competent/Skilled, you can tackle humanoid bandits (most of whom seem to start with Competent weapon skill + Novice fighter/dodger/etc.). Do so cautiously: avoid multiple engagements, and watch out for their weapons - even if you have superior armor, a solid hit can still (thru force-transfer) bend or break your joints, leaving you crippled (temporarily or for good). You can tilt the odds in your favor by shooting bandits from stealth first. Just beware of flashing bandits, ones with decorated gear, or those called "[weapon]master" or "[weapon]lord" - they have higher skills.
At this level you may also be able to take on some young semimegabeasts - giants, ettins, cyclopes (not minotaurs, who are born with high melee skills). You want to tackle young ones because they won't have trained their skills in worldgen duels: look for beasts that have only a single name (meaning they haven't killed anyone), or at least not a title. Semimegabeasts (I believe) actually give you more XP than other creatures, and since they're huge they take many, many hits to bring down. You can gain several levels off a single ettin. Again, do this cautiously: one hit from a giant and you're basically pulp.

Once you've reached Talented you can deal with night trolls: I strongly recommend avoiding these at lower levels, as they tend to be highly naturally skilled fighters. Towns usually have a few in the sewers (who, due to a bug, teleport to the surface and start slaughtering people), or you can hunt their lairs in the wilderness. They have the questionable advantage of feeling no pain or fear, so they won't pass out or run away - which is good for training but can also, obviously, be dangerous.
Talented skills should also allow you to fight some megabeasts: dragons and rocs. Rocs are the easiest - they get scared about as easily as normal animals; they can fly away, however, so you'll need to damage their wings to keep them in range. Dragons are hard to get close to because of their fire - bring a shield - but once in range a skilled fighter should be able to defeat them.
Bronze colossi and hydras present additional difficulties. BCs are simply hard to damage, but if you can dodge/block their attacks reliably you should be able to fight one. I've never actually fought a hydra myself, but they have seven heads that can bite simultaneously, so again you'll need good defensive options (and a fair bit of endurance - dodging is tiresome)
You should also be able to face Titans at this level, but some are more dangerous than others. Avoid webbers entirely - once webbed you're totally helpless until you break free, which takes time. Fire breathers are bad, but not as bad as dragons. Deadly dust can throw you around and potentially knock you unconscious. But spittle, poisonous bites, bloodsucking, etc. are usually harmless.

All that should give you plenty to fight in a not-too-exploity way. Additionally, use your weapon's lamest attacks - pommel strikes or flat slaps for swords/axes, shaft bashes for spears or pikes, etc. They'll do (usually) less damage but still raise your skill, allowing you to prolong a fight, but be warned: the longer you stay in combat, the greater your chances of getting seriously wounded or killed. Even "easy" opponents can get lucky shots if you aren't careful.

Maybe fight tower zombies or something?
In the last version (.44.xx) zombies, for some reason, gave no XP gains. You could cut through an entire tower and gain nothing. Don't know about the current version, but I'd steer clear of zombies for training purposes until I verified this.
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Superdorf

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2020, 02:25:30 pm »

Building off what Loam said: when you're taking on bandits and similar mortal humanoid opponents, Kisat Dur is your friend. Being able to take control of your opponent's weapon and lay conditions on them like Stunned and Nauseous is a huge deal, and will swing 50/50 odds solidly in your favor.
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Ziusudra

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2020, 05:17:57 pm »

Parrying also trains the weapon skill and you get bonus to success chance when manually choosing to parry (or block).
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Blastbeard

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2020, 08:13:38 pm »

Giant cave crocodiles are my go-to training partners. They're big enough to take some punishment, but still not particularly difficult to kill, and can be found just about anywhere underground with a bit of water.
 The conflict system gives them some interesting behavior as well, where they'll engage you in a brawl, charge at you until they knock you down, and then waddle back to their starting position with what I can only describe as smugness. You may call it a bug, but I see it as the croc being more interested in defending their territory or establishing dominance than predation.
Regardless, it's a great way to train shield, armor, and unarmed skills. They're especially good for wrestling, they're big enough to always break your grabs and prioritize that over attacking, so you can trap them in an infinite loop of grabs and grab breaks.
 They can still maim or even kill you if they land a hit, but if it gets too hot for you all you need to do is go prone and they'll leave you alone until you stand up again. If you attack them with a weapon, they'll escalate to lethal combat and you'll lose your safety net, but otherwise they'll keep going until you hurt it enough to scare it off or it passes out from exhaustion.

I don't think you actually need to land a hit to gain experience, at least with early levels. You definitely gain more from successful attacks, but I can grind striker up to adequate by purposefuly making attack I know I'll never land.
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draeath

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Re: Training offensive skills
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2020, 06:18:01 pm »

Kisat Dur is your friend.

It would be wonderful if someone could take it up to translate that all into plain non-RP language. It's difficult to understand what any but the basics are going on about in the prose everyone is using in there.
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