Saber advice for the l33t who oWn j00

[ArtifeX]

After doing a lot of online playing and isolated testing, I've come up with a bunch of stuff that most players, even experienced ones, seem to have missed.

 

1. Holes in saber defense - I had a player stand stationary facing a direction (call it "north") in the Light (blue) stance (best for blocking) and proceeded to attack from the eight cardinal directions ("south" being directly behind). What I found was that the defense that a saber provides is not 180 degrees in front of the defenders body, but about 160 degrees North-West. In other words, the defense provided by a lightsaber against another lightsaber is much weaker on the right side of the body than on the left. Using the largest horizontal swing (strong stance, strafe right+attack) I was able to stand just Northeast of the defender and land every single swipe against the right side of the body. Trying to duplicate this on the left side I found I had to attack from nearly a west-by-southwest direction to achieve the same result. Moral of the story: when you've got a choice, go for the oppenents right side.

 

2. The flipping side kick - Most people know you can run forward into your opponent, hit jump and you'll flip backwards off of them and kick them in the face for 20 damage. What most don't know is that you can do the same thing by strafing left or right into your opponent and jumping as well. The move looks exactly like the sideways wall-flip except that you do the 20 damage and can knock them over, just like the forwards version.

 

3. Duel Ducking - You can defend against any frontal attack while ducked except for a jump attack or a flip kick--that's commonly known, however many don't realize that almost all of the normal saber swings will go clear over your head while ducked. You won't even have to block. A good tactic against a Strong stylist is wait for that strafe right+attack swing of his to come at you and rather than backing up or jumping, just remain where you are and duck. As soon as his swing passes over you, counter with any number of quick attacks. Something like the Light style's duck+forward+attack scooping swing is perfect for this.

 

4. The more vertical the attack, the more difficult it is to block. In my testing I found that how often I could block an attack from directly in front was directly proportional to how vertical the attack was. More specifically, the overhand chop(forward+attack) was the most difficult to block while the underhand diagonal attacks(strafe right/left+back+attack) were the easiest. The sideways swipes that everyone loves so much weren't very effective at breaking a block compared to the overhand swings.

 

5. Force Power Counters: Here's how to counter that power that bugs the piss out of you.

- Power: counter-powers...

- Force Push: Absorb, don't attack, jump or use powers when being pushed.

- Force Pull: Same as Push, but to keep your weapon from being pulled, stay beyond pull range (~15meters)

- Force Speed: Mind Trick, Grip (Drain will not bring them out of the power, it will only reduce the force they have upon it ending)

- Force Protection: Drain, Push, Pull, Grip, Mind Trick (stay invis. till it runs out and slice them), Speed (stay out of range until it runs out)

- Force Absorb: Speed, Dark Rage (This defends against force only, so use massive physical attacks to overwhelm them)

- Force Heal: Drain, Push, Pull (Heal doesn't help when you die from falling :] ), Mind Trick (Doesn't help when you get backstabbed for a 1 hit kill, either), Dark Rage (1 hit kills)

- Mind Trick: Force Sight (only need level 1), Drain (lvl 3, preferably), lightning (lvl 3 to hit large area, then you can see the sparks on them)

- Force Drain: Absorb, Force Speed, Dark Rage (drain won't bring you out of speed or rage), Push, Pull (they're vulnerable to both push and pull while using drain; gotta be quick though)

- Force Lightning: Drain, Absorb, Push, Pull, Heal

- Force Grip: Push, Pull, Absorb, Mind Trick ( I think mind trick will actually release the grip, but not sure. someone let me know)

- Dark Rage: Speed (same level speed is faster movement than rage), Lightning (reduce them to 1 health and they are forced into Rage Recovery mode for 10 seconds), Grip, Mind Trick

 

6. Weapon Counters - the goal against weapons is to get close enough to use force pull on them to take their weapon away.

- Blaster Class - (includes: Bryar pistol, blaster rifle, Bowcaster, repeater primary fire, fletchette primary fire) High level saber defense to reflect shots, Force Speed, Dark Rage, Pull (when within ~15 meters, pull will snag their weapon), Mind Trick

- Disruptor Pistol - Force Sight (level 3 will render you completely impervious to sniper fire), Mind Trick, Protection

- Projectile Class - (includes: Repeater secondary, Flechette secondary, Rocket launcher, thermal detonators) Force Push (catch!), Pull, Speed, Dark Rage, Mind Trick

 

 

That's about everything that I've seen that I believe has been unmentioned thus far. Hopefully this will put an end to all the troubles people are having (whining) with certain types of play.

[Rapio]

some stuff i didnt know in there which may help me when duelling.

i mainly stick to saber only servers so the anti gun stuff was not too meaningful to me but i do realise that saber defense and force push can defend against almost all guns.

Hopefully some of the stuff here will help stop people just holding down fire with their saber and spinning like a madman.

<--- more of those may occur lol

[Master Spiff]

Your post is helpful. Sometimes you get stuck just using one or two force powers, but obviously you need to be able to have them all at your disposal.

[Zek]

Did you try the blocking thing with other stances? The Light stance holds the saber to your left, which might be the reason why the defensive arc leans that way.

[deadpot]

okay i disagree with one part, also the reason i read this post, about the force counters.

 

- Force Lightning: Drain, Absorb, Push, Pull, Heal

 

I tested today and the absorb (blue glow) did jack squat of stoping the lighting as far as i could tell. the drain is a good idea though, i plan on trying that on all those lighting whores out there. I personally hate it when a group is in a big melee, and some dingleberry comes up from behind and level 3 lightings the group to get cheap kills.

 

my 2 cents

[aletoledo]

Did you try the blocking thing with other stances? The Light stance holds the saber to your left, which might be the reason why the defensive arc leans that way.

I noticed this first while fighting bots, they and most people online for that matter seem to use strong stance, but it still gets through wonderfully.

 

my question about blocking is 'how did you test this?' did you have a friend help you out or did you use bots?

 

my second question is in regards to ducking. I've tried testing this on bots, but to my amazement, the couple different bots I tried this on had a hard time attacking me while crouching. they would simply run into my saber (no swing on my part) and get hurt and retreat. I've noticed people doing this on-line a lot, yet the times I test it, it seems they miss (as you've explained) or they do normal damage. it would sem to me with the number of on-line players doing it, there is something benifical to this, yet I haven't quite found a consistant style to it.

[S!TH!NAT0R]

I Shall 0WZ J00 @||!!

[Hiteche5]

I think that was a well put together post. It was a good read for me. Thanks.

[ArtifeX]

Glad to see my post is helping people out. Here's an answer or two to some questions:

 

1. Yes I did have a freind help me out with the testing. At some point we're going to do a complete dissection of the lightsaber combat including possible defense holes for the other 2 stances and locational damage (if any).

 

2. aletoledo, the ducking thing is very seldom used in multiplayer in my experience. it takes a lot of patience and balls to try to slip under the arc of a saber like that, especially if you're in a duel with everyone watching. Give it a try though. You'll find that most strikes will go over your head and the ones that don't will be successfully blocked. (with a few exceptions--if someone's on to you, switch styles and keep them guessing)

 

3. deadpot, try it again and make sure you've got absorb on before they hit you with the lightning. make sure you've got level 3 absorb on too. it should replentish your force pool nicely, while using up his. A good general strategy with absorb is to turn it on and off while duelling. Most players will be so intent upon the saber combat that they won't even notice you turned it off.

[Mafia_Jabba]

okkk.........*says is a very sarcastic tone of voice* mr L33t, mr j00 will be here in a sec.

 

-morons