by zzombieboy Thu Jun 28, 2012 1:37 pmHi all,
I know there is already a huge thread full of great general tips for Forest Hunters (so mods please delete if inappropriate), and these are great for dealing with the average ganker, but I wanted to start a thread specifically for the situation you will inevitably find yourself in as a Forest Hunter where you are a dramatically outlevelled by some goon and his buddy(s) who can heal faster than you can damage (even with ripostes or your best offensives) and who actually have some level of skill.
In this situation I find that the following usual non-cheap strategies for dealing with gankers don't apply;
1 - Leading the host and his jolly buddies into npc mobs doesn't work. At high levels said gankers will be powerful enough that the local fauna and flora will be little more than an irritation, and speaking from experience your foes will ignore them until you are dead. The following being rather useless exceptions; 1) The Mushroom Parents, but their attacks are far too slow and are therefore unlikely to hit your opponents. 2) The Bear Cats, however (assuming they are still alive as they don’t re-spawn) an insignificant % of people are going to be stupid enough to follow you into their territory. Though it is hilarious when they do
2 - AoE pyromancies are not effective in this type of 2/3v1 situation UNLESS you can cast them by surprise. The charge up time is slow enough that one of the multiple wolves circling your soon-to-be-carcass will have plenty of time to take a bite, or will simply avoid them. Attempting to use the fire storm or cloud spells in this type direct confrontation will often get you killed. The only time I would recommend using this would be to stall after someone has cast TWoP. (Incidentally I find that the best place for a surprise Chaos Storm etc is at the very top of the steps behind Alvina if you're lucky enough to spawn in front her. The gankers will usually assume you've gone for the cats or mushroom men and chase you down (make sure they have seen you running away), so just stand behind the wall at the top of the steps (making sure your sword isn't poking out) and wait until the host wont have enough time to back-up when he realises whats happening. Having at least 31 poise is helpful for this in case they start taking panicked swings at you).
3 - Separating the group to get the host alone has an undesired effect. I find that one of 2 things usually happen. Either the host's little puppy who is oh so eager to show his new master how oh-so-good at ganking he is will be the one to catch up to you first. This I suppose is fine IF you are able to deal with him quickly enough (which with his host chugging estus like it's going out of fashion is unlikely), but you are aiming to eliminate the host with this tactic. Or they simply will not follow you, which then leads to an extremely boring waiting game/hoping for another decent blue phantom to appear.
4 - Lastly (and I suppose in general for gankers, not just the high level ones) Lloyds Talismans are good for stopping flask happy moronic gankers, but the pure-bred pedigree ganker who has also likely glitched 99 Humanity and 99 Diving Blessings will not be phased by this as the talismans do not prevent healing with either.
So to the point, I suppose what I'm trying to do is start a thread/beg in an undignified manner for strategies to deal with these situations that don't require you drop to their level of lameness. By that I mean not spamming WoTG or TWoP yourself, because as much as I hate gankers, I'd rather just mess around with them and get killed by them than cheapen myself (without meaning to cause offence to those who legitimately use WoTG). I'll start with a couple which I've been having some success with in this situation recently.
1 - Vow Of Silence. Perhaps slightly cheap, but not really A lot of gankers won't even know what this is, as I very very rarely see this used in PvP or coop. Granted this is only effective against magic using gankers, but the 'wtf' animation after they try to use a spell/miracle/pyro will give you enough time to inflict some heavy damage if you can rush them before the phantom backstabs you. I don't consider this cheap like TWoP because it's using the ganker's lack of knowledge against them.
2 - The Red Tearstone Ring. This might seem like an obivous one, but I often find it's usefulness underrated. Gankers tend to get careless when you are almost dead and will RB/R1 spam to press for a quick victory. They won't be expecting the massive 50% extra damage your parry will be doing. I usually combine this with a quick weapon switch to a weapon in my second slot that they have haven't seen yet for the added surprise. If you chose the hidden weapon approach take the highest damage weapon you can use and carry with your equip burden level. It doesn't matter if its slow as hell, because you only be using it for a parry in that situation. A Chaos Garygole's Halberd +5 is a good choice as it doesn't require much str investment if you're a non str build. For str builds, take your pick! Most of the mid to upper tier str weapons will massively outclass critcial hit weapons. The Demon Great Machete/ Greataxe is always a good choice if you are high level enough the wield/carry it.
3 - Two-handed Risposte. I NEVER see people doing this, but it is just as easy as switching to a second weapon to parry, with a little practice. The timing of it can hard, because unless your real confident at parrying, you sometimes have to assume you're parry has worked and tap Y/Triangle to 2-hand before you see the animation in order to have time to do this and re-position yourself to successfully riposte before they roll away. Not always worth the risk of missing your chance to riposte, but when the odds are really against it I say fortune favours the bold!
That's all I have really for now, so hopefully this will help someone at least with what not to do, and maybe others have some good ideas as well, Oh, and yeah I'm new to the forum so hi all! And apologies for the shameless use of caps lock in the title...
I know there is already a huge thread full of great general tips for Forest Hunters (so mods please delete if inappropriate), and these are great for dealing with the average ganker, but I wanted to start a thread specifically for the situation you will inevitably find yourself in as a Forest Hunter where you are a dramatically outlevelled by some goon and his buddy(s) who can heal faster than you can damage (even with ripostes or your best offensives) and who actually have some level of skill.
In this situation I find that the following usual non-cheap strategies for dealing with gankers don't apply;
1 - Leading the host and his jolly buddies into npc mobs doesn't work. At high levels said gankers will be powerful enough that the local fauna and flora will be little more than an irritation, and speaking from experience your foes will ignore them until you are dead. The following being rather useless exceptions; 1) The Mushroom Parents, but their attacks are far too slow and are therefore unlikely to hit your opponents. 2) The Bear Cats, however (assuming they are still alive as they don’t re-spawn) an insignificant % of people are going to be stupid enough to follow you into their territory. Though it is hilarious when they do
2 - AoE pyromancies are not effective in this type of 2/3v1 situation UNLESS you can cast them by surprise. The charge up time is slow enough that one of the multiple wolves circling your soon-to-be-carcass will have plenty of time to take a bite, or will simply avoid them. Attempting to use the fire storm or cloud spells in this type direct confrontation will often get you killed. The only time I would recommend using this would be to stall after someone has cast TWoP. (Incidentally I find that the best place for a surprise Chaos Storm etc is at the very top of the steps behind Alvina if you're lucky enough to spawn in front her. The gankers will usually assume you've gone for the cats or mushroom men and chase you down (make sure they have seen you running away), so just stand behind the wall at the top of the steps (making sure your sword isn't poking out) and wait until the host wont have enough time to back-up when he realises whats happening. Having at least 31 poise is helpful for this in case they start taking panicked swings at you).
3 - Separating the group to get the host alone has an undesired effect. I find that one of 2 things usually happen. Either the host's little puppy who is oh so eager to show his new master how oh-so-good at ganking he is will be the one to catch up to you first. This I suppose is fine IF you are able to deal with him quickly enough (which with his host chugging estus like it's going out of fashion is unlikely), but you are aiming to eliminate the host with this tactic. Or they simply will not follow you, which then leads to an extremely boring waiting game/hoping for another decent blue phantom to appear.
4 - Lastly (and I suppose in general for gankers, not just the high level ones) Lloyds Talismans are good for stopping flask happy moronic gankers, but the pure-bred pedigree ganker who has also likely glitched 99 Humanity and 99 Diving Blessings will not be phased by this as the talismans do not prevent healing with either.
So to the point, I suppose what I'm trying to do is start a thread/beg in an undignified manner for strategies to deal with these situations that don't require you drop to their level of lameness. By that I mean not spamming WoTG or TWoP yourself, because as much as I hate gankers, I'd rather just mess around with them and get killed by them than cheapen myself (without meaning to cause offence to those who legitimately use WoTG). I'll start with a couple which I've been having some success with in this situation recently.
1 - Vow Of Silence. Perhaps slightly cheap, but not really
A lot of gankers won't even know what this is, as I very very rarely see this used in PvP or coop. Granted this is only effective against magic using gankers, but the 'wtf' animation after they try to use a spell/miracle/pyro will give you enough time to inflict some heavy damage if you can rush them before the phantom backstabs you. I don't consider this cheap like TWoP because it's using the ganker's lack of knowledge against them.2 - The Red Tearstone Ring. This might seem like an obivous one, but I often find it's usefulness underrated. Gankers tend to get careless when you are almost dead and will RB/R1 spam to press for a quick victory. They won't be expecting the massive 50% extra damage your parry will be doing. I usually combine this with a quick weapon switch to a weapon in my second slot that they have haven't seen yet for the added surprise. If you chose the hidden weapon approach take the highest damage weapon you can use and carry with your equip burden level. It doesn't matter if its slow as hell, because you only be using it for a parry in that situation. A Chaos Garygole's Halberd +5 is a good choice as it doesn't require much str investment if you're a non str build. For str builds, take your pick! Most of the mid to upper tier str weapons will massively outclass critcial hit weapons. The Demon Great Machete/ Greataxe is always a good choice if you are high level enough the wield/carry it.
3 - Two-handed Risposte. I NEVER see people doing this, but it is just as easy as switching to a second weapon to parry, with a little practice. The timing of it can hard, because unless your real confident at parrying, you sometimes have to assume you're parry has worked and tap Y/Triangle to 2-hand before you see the animation in order to have time to do this and re-position yourself to successfully riposte before they roll away. Not always worth the risk of missing your chance to riposte, but when the odds are really against it I say fortune favours the bold!
That's all I have really for now, so hopefully this will help someone at least with what not to do, and maybe others have some good ideas as well, Oh, and yeah I'm new to the forum so hi all!
And apologies for the shameless use of caps lock in the title...
