Eatmo's Guide To Beginning Ranged Combat & Combat Medici

[Eat_More_Goats]

First Read:Eatmo's Guide To ControlsHello all out there. I just thought I'd make a much shorter guide to beginning ranged combat. The stuff in here is things brand new players might not know but most of us others take for common knowledge. Just a quick run down on how to fight a lot more effectively for those who just press "attack" and leave it at that. If you're new to the game or keep wondering why you're always dying in combat ...read on.YOUR TARGET:If you read my guide to controls and fiddled with yours you'll know there is a way to target creatures on your radar without clicking on them. This includes ones on the other side of a hill that you can't see but can still shoot. I have mine set to ' for target next and ; for target previous. When I see yellows or reds I ususally cycle my targets to see what they are and if they're worth fighting. This also prevents that pain in the ass of having to click on a moving target you can barely see.Now that you have your target you'll see 3 very important things. The creature's HAM bar, to the left you'll see a number between +50 and -50 or a --. And you'll see to the right of the HAM bar a colored starburst.HAM BAR: Your enemy's health.NUMBERS: What your aiming bonus is to the creature. A negative number means you're more likely to miss, a + number means you're more likely to hit. If you see a red -- it means it's out of range.STARBURST: At least that's what I call it. You'll see a little icon, it will be either Green, Light Blue, Dark Blue, White, Yellow, or Red. This is the enemy's difficulty VS. you. Green means it's pooosay, Light Blue means easy, Dark Blue means average (just below you, still good xp), White Means it's tough, Yellow means very tough, and red means instant death. DO NOT get the starburst confused with the color on the radar. Yellow on the radar means a creature MIGHT attack (thought most won't), Red on the radar means a creature WILL attack, Blue is players, White means they won't attack.PREPARATION:Now that you have all that information on your target, it's time to exploit it. First thing, no doubt you'll be far enough away from your target that it will be safe to change stances. Stances increase your chances to hit, and decrease your chance of being hit. Prone is the best, followed by kneel, followed by standing, then running is the worst. I would suggest against running unless it's a slow enemy or you have a good head start. If it catches you, you're caught ...may as well stand still and fight it. Most creatures you can't outrun away so all you're doin is killing your chance to hit.SPECIAL MOVES:Use them! A lowest level marksman has overcharge shot, spam it. It does tons more damage than just attacking. As you get higher, each weapon will allow you to attack certain pools, use those shots. By attacking a specific pool you're speeding up your kill by as much as 3x. When in a group it's a little different. We can't have each type of ranged combatant attacking a different pool ...again this just adds to the workload. I would suggest using trusty ole' overcharge shot in these situations. You might not get 1 specific pool, but at least you'll be doing SOME damage to what ever pool everyone is concentrating on, as opposed to none. Again groups should be attacking 1 pool. I know I'm no pro at this game yet, but I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me this rule will be the difference between living and total party wipeout when we're taking on Krayts Dragons and Rancors and other high level mobs.THE 2 MAN SHUFFLEWhat you need:1.Someone with warning shot (not threaten shot, it sucks).2.Another ranged combatant.3.A skittish type creature (yellow ones on your radar).OK this is soooo easy it feels like cheating, but it works.Threatenshot guy keep smamming threaten shot. This will make the creature run away from you guys, but it only lasts a couple seconds, so spam is needed.Now other ranged guy kill the creature while it's running back and forth over and over and over again. Soemtimes Iv'e done this and we've never been hit once taking on a humbaba. Take turns doing this so both of ya get XP.THREATEN SHOT (Ranged Support 3 Special Ability)Now that you know what TS does and how effective it can be, this can also be used as a crowd control method. If you end up in a group and something attacks you out of the blue, if it's yellow (skittish) and a creature use that threatenshot over and over and over again if no one can get to you. It's a very ghetto crowd control ....but it works.DO NOT THREATEN SHOT SOMETHING SOMEONE IS MELEEING. All it does is make it a pain in the ass for the melee guy.Basic Grouping With a Medic in the Party:*DO NOT RUN. If you are running the medic can't get to you to heal you, and it just causes confusion anyway. If I have to tell you DO NOT RUN twice, I'm not going to chase you down to heal you. And besides TABAGES you can't outrun what you're fighting anyway without burstrun.*STICK TOGETHER. Again it's pure hell for a medic to try and heal when everyone is all over the place doin thier own thing. If you all stick close I can get to everyone a lot easier than having to track down that almost dead guy 50m from me. Let me draw a little sad assed diagram, M is medic, P is pistol, C is carbine, R is rifle, S is melee, X is the target, - is a little bit of distance.XS-PM-C-RThe riflemen and carbineers should be taking NO hits if everyone attacks the same target. Part of this also falls on the melee and pistol user's job to make sure they get agro (making it attack you) from any adds we have. They should be hanging out in prone or kneeling helping kill the target. By sticking on the same target and staying in the same area, it makes it a lot easier for a medic to heal. *Make a hot button for "MEDIC!!!", sometimes doing 3 things at once means I'm missing something, if you have that hot keyed one of those things I'm missing won't be an almost dead party member.*If you see the medic's mind being drained fast or you hear "OOM" (out of mind) it means heals are done, if it was ugly before, it just got uglier. I'm getting better stims the more I work on medic, if you see me on my ass for hours on end crafting and other things, I'm doin it to keep you guys alive, don't get mad if I don't go on a mission today if it means uber stims tommorrow.