Last skill choice

[Mikel123]

But I find hiding to be much more practical for chest lockpicking as well. If you're using invis items for that type of stuff, you're losing half your profit right away on each chest.

Then it's safe to assume those boxy things that come out of the ground aren't chests?
And please, for the love of god, tell me you have never needed used a ring charge for a dungeon chest.
You make a valid rebuttal on all of the other points as well...

Look, I'm not going to argue semantics with you. Chests from t-maps are called t-map chests. "Chest lockpicking" in my eyes typically refers to dungeon chests. You have a different semantic idea of what the words mean.

Why wouldn't I use a ring charge for a dungeon chest? They're practically free, right?

I have been known to use Hiding, and Teleport-Hiding during dungeon chests, quite a bit. Ancient Wyrms are a pain in the rear, especially when you're half-trapped in that little stone ring with them. Likewise, you can provoke a Lich Lord onto a Lich in the LL room, and you may only be halfway done the chest by the time it kills the lich. Same with the demon room in Hythloth... I can provoke it onto an Orc and hide while looting the chest. The demon dispatches the orc before I'm done looting or IDing, so normally I'd have to waste time killing it (or distracting it), but with hiding I can just finish looting and recall out.

You seem quite happy to spend double the healing regs or bandages to heal yourself when training resist... yet, you are not willing to spend double the e-bolt regs (well, actually, less than double, since sometimes it just takes 1 cast to finish off a monster, whether you GM eval or not) to kill monsters.

[Mikel123]

I can plunder corpses even without ever coming out of hiding if I time it right.

Uhhh, what?

[Layt]

Look, I'm not going to argue semantics with you. Chests from t-maps are called t-map chests. "Chest lockpicking" in my eyes typically refers to dungeon chests. You have a different semantic idea of what the words mean.

I believe what you're trying to say is tmap chest vs dungeon chest. See how the first word in each of these defines the type of chest? 'chest lockpicking' is as ambiguous as it gets.

Why wouldn't I use a ring charge for a dungeon chest? They're practically free, right?

Please, reference where I made any claim to the value of them, with the exception of saying 200-300 is too high. You're not making yourself look any better with statements like these.

You seem quite happy to spend double the healing regs or bandages to heal yourself when training resist... yet, you are not willing to spend double the e-bolt regs (well, actually, less than double, since sometimes it just takes 1 cast to finish off a monster, whether you GM eval or not) to kill monsters.

I'm starting to wonder if you even think before trying to raise counterpoints. Do you seriously believe that using a character w/ eval int means that you will be using anything remotely near double the bandages? Do you really want me to show you a side by side comparison of dmg w/ eval and w/out eval vs damage healed by a bandage? (Hint: http://wiki.uosecondage.com/?title=Healing)

[archaicsubrosa77]

I can plunder corpses even without ever coming out of hiding if I time it right.

Uhhh, what?

Yeah you drag like gold...when you click the amount you automatically hide...you have to time 10 seconds. If you are good at it you will never be visible. You can do it with other things then gold...I found gold is easier to practice with as a click is more specific in timing but you can do it with anything. Most chests won't unhide you, t-maps can especially when you disturb the spawn.

A trick I learned with my stealth mage in high PK areas.

[Layt]

I can plunder corpses even without ever coming out of hiding if I time it right.

Uhhh, what?

Yeah you drag like gold...when you click the amount you automatically hide...you have to time 10 seconds. If you are good at it you will never be visible. You can do it with other things then gold...gold is easier to practice with as a click is more specific in timing. Most chest won't unhide you, t-maps can especially when you disturb the spawn.

A trick I learned with my stealth mage in high PK areas.

So this is supposed to hide you the moment you're revealed? Won't names still show up in journals?

[archaicsubrosa77]

That I cannot confirm, I can atest to never showing the colors of my clothing or rather I stayed the same hue you are while hidden. Got me wondering though...need to test that.
Being revealed by skill or spell would take some psychic intuition though

[Hicha]

-Yeah... you could 'just cast it twice...'. Because every time I wanna cast ebolt casting it twice for double reggies/mana is just as efficient.... Right...
-I made absolutely no claim that this template should be pvping, I was making the point that this is the one case in which you would actually want resist.
-Loosing half your profit right away on each chest for using an invis charge?! LOL... Math notsoez? Let me try to simplify some of the mathematics for you, using a worst case scenerio:
Level 1 chest: ~1k gold, + gems, + reggies, + items. Total loot: 1.5-3k (avg: 2.25k)
Cost of 1 invis charge (using the above estimate of 200g, which i still find ridiculous): 200g
Total loot / Cost of charge = % invested on hunt
2.25k / 200g = 11%

So... I suppose if you're using a charge on a level 1 chest, that 11% is cutting 'pretty deeply' into your return.

You shouldn't be casting ebolt until the very last mob is left during a t-hunt anyway, and like Mikel123 said, 90% of the time its lethal poisoned so you can just wait another 20 secs and let it die on its own. We're talking level 4 and 5 chests here, not level 1's. I'd agree with you if the toughest spawn is a skeleton, I'd definitely use eval over hiding.

Double the regs/mana to cast ebolt is negligible, again we're talking the very last mob left. You could easily cast an EV/BS and let it kill the thing if its going to take more than 2 EVs to kill, then dispel. I actually dropped my meditation to around 70 so I could work in 30 extra Eval Int, but I'd rather just have the full med regen (both passive and active) versus the extra bit of damage (I end up gating out the loot more than I sit there doing damage.)

I'm not sure if you've done any devious maps, but I hide a lot more than once, especially during the initial spawn. A great technique I use is is when the spawn has died down to just a single mob left, I'll kite the mob a few screens away from the chest, hide, then quickly run back and start looting again so that another mob spawns, in which you can provoke your original mob back onto. The mob will sit out there for awhile, then slowly make its way back to the chest. You wouldn't be able to do this without hiding, unless your burning regs to cast invis, using more invis jewelry charges, para-spamming the mob so you can loot, or kiting it really far away from the chest, which increases loot time. Not to mention if you aren't hiding and a caster mob is on you, you're going to be taking damage, which requires additional regs to heal.

Hiding is also great for dungeon chests which are crowded with spawn; you can telehide to the chest, unlock it, take a step away to untrap it, then hide again (if you aren't as fast, you can telehide) and loot it. Saves you on invis regs, damage regs if you decide to kill everything (which is a waste of time,) and invis jewelry which, again, are very profitable to sell.

Hiding is completely underestimated when it comes to t-hunter builds.

[Hicha]

That I cannot confirm, I can atest to never showing the colors of my clothing or rather I stayed the same hue you are while hidden. Got me wondering though...need to test that.
Being revealed by skill or spell would take some psychic intuition though

Run a razor macro on loop with no timeout:

If SysMess "You have been revealed!"
Useskill hiding
end if

I use this for when I'm house stealthing. Works like a charm, especially if you were smart enough to create your thief with a tiny name.

[Layt]

I should take this moment to point out that some level 5 monsters dispel.

I have also done more lvl 5s than I care to count. It seems to me that some of you resort to hiding far more frequently than I ever need to. Between provoking and simply moving at a pace faster than standard mob crawl, I RARELY find that I ever NEED to hide.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Nice Hiicha!

[Layt]

That I cannot confirm, I can atest to never showing the colors of my clothing or rather I stayed the same hue you are while hidden. Got me wondering though...need to test that.
Being revealed by skill or spell would take some psychic intuition though

Run a razor macro on loop with no timeout:

If SysMess "You have been revealed!"
Useskill hiding
end if

I use this for when I'm house stealthing. Works like a charm, especially if you were smart enough to create your thief with a tiny name.

For house breakins, i use:
if sysmsg(revealed)
castspell recall
target <rune>
end if

The primary reason I recall rather than hiding again is because I want to avoid the ban hammer. Just hiding again will leave them time to detect you again. If they're casting reveal, easy reveal/ban, and that's GG.

[Hicha]

The whole point for using hiding is to provide a wide variety of uses for his build. It makes t-maps easier to manage, and it also makes dungeon chests cake and hassle-free.

Nobody is stating you are required to use hiding for t-hunts or dungeon chests, we're simply stating its not only easier on you, but less costlier due to saved regs and more profitable because if you do need to hide, you're using a skill and not an invis spell or jewelry charge.

I honestly wouldn't even bother doing dungeon chests without hiding, because if you're spending time clearing mobs, you're wasting time looting. And if you're using invis charges or spending regs to cast invis, well you're just burning gold anyway.

[Anon]

all of this is noobie non sense.

a cartographer is a mule peice of crap imo

i dig it up, then let it die and then any one of my main toons does the chest.

WHICH IS A LOT BETTER THAN CRAMMING A BUNCH OF HALF DECENT PVM SKILLS ON ONE CHAR.

the bard char i posted alone coupled with a lowly carto mule is much better than anything you guys have posted.... remember you can use 3 accounts!

not to mention i have a tamer that i just loot with all guard me activated. you guys are amateurs arguing amateur stuff.

btw any casting char massively benefits with wrestle, not just for escaping pvp lol

[Layt]

I honestly wouldn't even bother doing dungeon chests without hiding, because if you're spending time clearing mobs, you're wasting time looting. And if you're using invis charges or spending regs to cast invis, well you're just burning gold anyway.

How can you possibly make the argument that the 2 reggies it takes to cast invis is burning gold away, but 'Double the regs/mana to cast ebolt is negligible'?

[Layt]

btw any casting char massively benefits with wrestle, not just for escaping pvp lol

I would hardly call spending 100 points on a skill to be able to finish an EV cast that you started w/ a monster too close to you massively beneficial.