Thoughts about Ruse.

[Molando]

There has been a lot of talk about the damage of Ruse, other classes complaining about our damage. And if you read our boards you could easily get the impression that we are far too overpowered. I am a 21 Brigand, have had Master 1 ruse for just under a level now, and here is how I see it.I am not going to go into numbers. But I read somewhere else that somebody had an adept and they were doing up to 600 damage, master does quite a bit more. My character is fully equipped with pristine carbonite chain, and all the best jewellery he could get hold of. Gouge and Rake are Adept 1, Quick flurry and Bludgen are App4. I have a macro set up for HO, and use it every time it refreshes. Fancy footwork is adept 3, and adept 1 for street smarts. Using the best poison, and drink I can get hold of. 1.2 and 1.4 delay weapons.Soloing: Solo mobs up to white are almost trivial. About a 1/3rd of a percent each kill. So for 1% it is 3 mins minimum. Which would be 5 hours for a level if you could kill non-stop. There would be much better exp in any group you could find.Ruse scales well. On a green mob it does silly damage, but on white and above it drops down very quickly. Group mobs. Ok, starting with scarecrows in the field. Double up green arrows. Master Ruse takes out a nice chunk, but it still leaves you with a quite long fight on your hands. You will probably not die. But I have been taken down to a third of my health (only killed 5). There will be some that say you should not be able to kill group mobs, but whilst grouping in the field before I have seen lv 21 monks/shaman/ paladins/bruisers and guardians all solo there. About half a percent or a little more exp per kill. Though you have to wait around after to heal. Also it takes time to find the next free mob.I tried high level group mobs. The white up arrows ones are death. The blue ones are awkward. The fights (so far) have taken over 60 seconds. If you want to win the fight you really need to use ruse again, but if you do, you will not get the group exp bonus, so it makes it the same as killing a normal blue mob. You may be able to solo blues and white group mobs, I did not try that many.Where master ruse is nice, is killing low level quest mobs, which you probably could kill anyway, it just makes it quicker.Master ruse in groups. Once you educate the tank to pull to a set place, it knocks quite a nice chunk of life off. Groups are fighting yellows/oranges and the very very odd red. The higher the mob the less damage ruse does. Mobs also seem to barrage and other frontal AE attacks when they first arrive fairly often. This means you will sometimes get hit, which annoys the healer fingerwaggler. Most fights in a group of 6 last less than a 60 seconds. The ones that do not, the mob’s life is soo low that if you ruse again, you will loose the quest credit and extra group exp. Only twice in the last level have I been able to ruse twice in a fight safely, and this was only because half the team got lost, and there was only 3 of us on a named.I think the devs got it just right.Ruse scales very well, the harder the mob, the lower damage.The 1 min refresh timer is perfect. It is too long to use against nearly all group fights, but short enough to be useful in fights.In comparison with other classes. When I group, and probably when most other people group, once the primary rolls are filled, you have no real preference which classes you have. That being said, in ‘perfect groups’ for set situations I would go for:Killing large groups of blues: A swashy, as their ae attacks really stack up the damage.Killing very hard named mobs. An assassin. Great stable damage, and fantastic burst damage. Killing a flow of medium group mobs which come in singles or pairs: a Brigand.I have yet to ever see a ‘perfect group’, the differences would only be slight, and most times groups fight many different situations. (not including the bard types, as they help the group in other ways, also leaving out monks and bezerkers and separate class)I have left out Rangers to annoy the person who comes in here telling us we should be nerfed as we do too much damage and have great utility spells. Forgetting that they can solo almost any mob with their bow (not saying it is easy for them, but it is something that other classes can not do), and some of their other powers are really quite useful. We are quite lucky as scout types, as we are fairly interchangeable. Compared to priest/fighters. For instance if you have a shaman as your healer, you really want an avoidance tank, for wards work much better with those. The only looser is the bard type, who do not stack at all well, if you have one, you do not want another. Not knocking bards (I have a lv 22 Troub).

[Efour EQ2]

<DIV>ok so somone else is twinking a brigand cos they got hold of a master ruse scroll.  This is cool, im happy for you and thats a good post about ruse. yes ruse is a very useful 20-40 lvl spell infact i stil use it if i solo at adept 3.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>However why is your name your CD serial code?</DIV>

[Molando]

The cd code is annoying, can find no way to change it. Shows up right name when I login, but posts under this. e-mailed support, no responce from them.Believe it or not, did not twink the rogue, he made the gold himself. A number of rares, and buying low selling high <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Was fun watching severed bone the other day go from a 30 or so silver to 3-4 gold. Best money so far. 90 copper for a coral, turned into ink, and then to spiritual ward, sold for 13 gold. Market tip of the day, get rid of your lv 11 scholar refining books, were selling for 3gp the other day, higher drop rate now, lucky if you can get a gold for them. give it a week, will be below 40sp.oops going off topic.Was trying to explain in the post that even at master level, ruse is not as wonderful as the impression the boards can give over sometimes. Big numbers, but it does not make us great at soloing. Nor can we use it multiple times in group fights, unless you want to loose the group exp bonus and quest credit. Each time somebody states 'Ruse > all'. 'Ruse makes us the most damaging'. 'We do soo much more damage than whatever class', the more likly we will be nerfed.

[BiggilusE]

<DIV>nice forum name</DIV>

[Efour EQ2]

<DIV>so where did you get the ruse? cos if this turned up on my server id expect to see it to go for multiple platinum - infact id probably be prepared to pay aswell.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>as for the money making tips, its ok im wealthy enough but lower level people may be interested.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>spose its a lot of being in the right place at the right time.</DIV>

[Dtrick]

<DIV>Had to vote 5 for you mr cd key.  Looks like a jealous Ranger came in and 1 starred you.</DIV>

[Azr]

<DIV>Aye just for the record, I'd venture a guess that master ruse is within the top 10 most valuable under 40 spells easily worth multiple plats. </DIV>

[Zerim]

<DIV>having Master 1 Ruse also, I disagree with the blanket statement that it does less damage on higher level mobs.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Some of my early high Ruse marks were against things 5+ levels higher than me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also, Ruse does more damage against different types of mobs. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For example, the oculus/eyes in Runnyeye are SUPER succeptible to Ruse damage (and in my experience so are giants).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><IMG src="http://www.zerimarsurfaces.com/images/temp_pics/shank_ya_very_much_2644.jpg"></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>..and though the damage/delay on my weapons doesn't seem to affect Ruse, ATK and AGI buffs seem to - though I can't say conclusively.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I also don't understand the "you can use this till level 40" comments about Ruse. Will the Ruse combat art be supplanted by some other power after level 40 that can do over 2000 points of damage or is it too risky to stand in front of 40+ mobs because of barrage ?</DIV>

[Molando]

may have just been the mobs I have been fighting. On any grey group mobs I get x, and I get x constantly +- a tiny amount.On green group mobs drop it down by 8%-16% points fairly constantly.On yellow/orange group mobs drop it down by around 25% compared to x.On higher it works out at around 35% lower than x.May just have been the mobs I have been fighting, also may be related to the lv20 thing, where lv20 mobs become harder.

[Sinadi]

I'm lvl 49 and I stand in front of mobs all the time to Ruse. Barrage damage can hit you while behind the mob anyway. It's avoidable if you stand further away.I'm still using Ruse, Hidden Shiv and other mid 20s moves because 1-I haven't found adepts for our better higher level skills, 2-I have master 1 Hidden Shiv and Bum Rush and they still continue to outdamage their replacements. I'm doubting that our higher level skills are scaling correctly in damage anyway.Morchaint, FaydarkEdit: Ruse damage for me seems pretty random. I can hit for 1500 on one mob, then the next mob, same level, same type of mob it'll only hit for say 800.<p>Message Edited by Sinadial on <span class=date_text>01-18-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:06 AM</span>

[Gyilok]

<DIV>finally got a hold of my adept3 ruse rune at 35..</DIV> <DIV>doing nice dmg on all mobs (did also well with adept 1) not nearing the values Crik is hitting, so I assume Master 1 is a huge inprovement even to adept 3, will do some more testing on casters, they always get hit hard <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>