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General Strategies for Success in Battle
By Mishna#2513 May 07, 2014, 04:59:25One thing I love about Dofus is that it gives you a huge set of spells and tools to work with, but it also pits you against incredibly powerful monsters that take a lot of planning and thinking to conquer. This makes it one of the most strategic MMORPG's on the market.
There are already many specific class guides available, but most of them don't discuss the basic core strategies that top Dofus players use to beat tough fights. These core strategies apply to all classes, not just one specific class, and if you apply these strategies whenever possible, you will see a dramatic improvement in your survival rate and ability to complete tough battles at or above your level.
This thread is designed to list these general, core strategies in one place.
Turn on damage preview
This is a new feature of the Dofus client that will make applying all of the following strategies much easier. To enable it click the gear icon in the upper right, select the "Features" item on the left hand side of the options dialog, and under the "Fight Options" section click the checkbox next to "Display damage preview in tooltips" Just select a spell, hover over an enemy, and it will show you the minimum and maximum damage that you can do on that enemy with that spell.
(Damage in parentheses is the damage if you land a critical hit)
Since this calculates the damage preview with resistances and vulnerability it will help you to avoid wasting AP and to chose the best attack that will do the most damage when needed.
Check the resistances
Most classes have spells in at least two or three of the different elements:
Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Neutral
Whenever you are getting ready to attack a monster you should check its resistances by hovering the mouse over the monster and checking the stats that appear in the lower right hand corner of your screen.
The two rows on the bottom of the monster stats area are its resistances. The top row is linear resistance. If a monster has +10 linear resistance to an element then every time you attack in that element 10 damage is subtracted from the resulting damage you deal to that monster. This type of resistance will cripple your low damage low AP attacks.
The second row is percentage resistance, which has a bigger effect on high damage spells. For example if an Iop casts Iop's Wrath which normally does 2000 damage on a monster with 25% earth resistance the Iop will only do 1500 damage instead of the normal 2000 damage. However, the Iop's wrath would barely be effected by 25 linear earth resistance because it would only reduce the damage from 2000 to 1975.
Remember to check these resistances, and if your attacks will be ineffective against a monster because of resistance, and you are fighting with someone else who can deal damage to that monster more effectively, then it is usually best to let him/her focus on that monster and instead spend your AP elsewhere.
Focus down enemies
When fighting with new players I’ve noticed that many tend to split up and each take on a single monster.
Unless the monsters you are fighting have really strong resistances to your element which make it pointless for you to waste AP attacking them you should team up with teammates to focus on attacking a single monster at a time.
By focusing on a monster you and your teammates can kill it fast, removing it from the battlefield before it has a chance to deal a lot of damage to your team. This is one of the key advantages that players have over monsters.
When fighting in a group you should select one person to be the team leader before the battle begins. Usually this will be the highest leveled or most experienced player who has good strategy sense. Then this person should focus on strategically selecting a target for the team to attack. If you are the team leader then once you have picked a target use Control + S to switch to cell targeting mode, and then click on the monster that the team should target to draw an arrow on that monster, which all team members will see:
If you are in a team and the team leader points out a monster that everyone should attack, it is usually best to follow their lead and focus on killing that monster. The team leader may have more knowledge of the target monsters than you and may have chosen a specific monster for the team to target because if it is not killed quickly it can deal a large amount of damage to the team, or maybe it will make the fight more difficult by healing other monsters, etc. Remember that working together and communicating is the main advantage that human players have over the AI monsters.
Finish off wounded enemies before they can attack
This strategy is strongly related to “focus down enemies” but slightly more specific to classes that have healing skills. Let’s say you have a scenario where there are the following characters on the battlefield:
As you can see this looks like a bad situation. The eniripsa may be tempted to panic and spend all her AP healing the cra for 600 HP, but then the cra has only 800 HP, and the two big bad monsters each deal 400 HP, easily finishing off the cra before his next turn.
But what if the Eniripsa had spent a few of her AP on forbidden word to deal 150 damage and kill Big Bad Monster #1, and then spend the remaining AP on healing the cra for only 400 HP, instead of 600 HP?
Now the cra has only 600 HP instead of 800 HP, but the cra survives, because there is only one big bad monster on the field, who can only deal 400 damage. The fight is easily completed, and the Cra and Eniripsa win!
As you can see, it is important to balance “emergency heals” to keep a character alive with damage output that will kill a foe and keep it from doing more damage. In many cases it is better to remove damage potential by killing monsters fast, because otherwise it will be hard, if not impossible to out heal the damage output of your foes.
Give your buffs to other people if they can use them more effectively
Most Dofus classes have buff spells that increase the power or damage of spells and/or weapons, and we love to use these spells because of how they increase our damage output.
But sometimes it is more effective to give these buffs to other people instead of putting them on ourselves.
For example imagine these scenarios:
Should this cra spend Powerful Shooting on himself to deal another +20 or 30 damage to the monster with Absorptive Arrow? Or should the cra put his Powerful Shooting buff on the Iop so that she can deal an extra +800 damage to the monster with her Iop’s Wrath?
Should the Iop spend AP jumping toward the monster to try to get within range to hit it, or should the Iop use her Power buff on the Cra so that the cra can hit harder from a distance on the monster favorable to his elemental attack?
Should the cra spend Bow Skill on herself in order to do +210 extra damage to the monster with one cast of Punitive Arrow and two casts of Destructive Arrow? Or should she spend the Bow Skill on the Eniripsa so that he can deal +210 extra damage with the wand, and +140 extra damage on two casts of Leek Pie, and +70 extra damage on one cast of Forbidden Word for a total of +420 extra damage?
Each time you have a buff available think carefully about which character on your team would be the best to make use of this buff. It may not always be you.
Figure out which buffs stack and which don’t
Some buffs can be applied multiple times to one character but other buffs just replace each other. For example if two cras both cast Powerful Shooting on one other player the second cra’s Powerful Shooting will just replace the first cra’s Powerful Shooting. The two buffs will not stack.
Always check which buffs a person already has by clicking on their icon in the character list. A list of icons will appear showing the buffs they already have. If your buff does not stack and the person already has that buff you probably don’t want to waste AP just replacing the buff they already have.
Save some spells until they are needed
If you are a class that has a spell like Enutrof’s Living Bag or Eniripsa’s Protective Word you should save these protection spells until they are needed. If you are an Enutrof and you waste the living bag by casting it on the entire group on the first turn you may reduce a little damage from everyone, but your Living Bag probably won’t be available a few turns later when one player is dangerously low on health and about to be killed. Instead of being able to save that player’s life with an emergency cast of Living Bag you will be stuck ruefully looking at the cooldown counter and wishing you could have saved the day.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
Sometimes dealing damage is not the most effective thing to do. For example consider the following scenario:
The earth cra could spend all her AP dealing damage to the monster, but since she can only deal 800 damage per turn there is no way she can kill the monster. However, since the Big Bad Monster’s turn is next the earth cra knows that the Big Bad Monster can definitely kill the wounded Sacrier before the Eniripsa can heal him.
So the earth cra casts Dispersing Arrow between the Big Bad Monster and the wounded Sacrier to push them apart, and then uses Retreat Arrow (a non earth spell that barely does any damage in the hands of the earth cra) to push the dangerous monster even further away. As a result the cra barely does any damage to the monster, but the monster is unable to reach the sacrier and the sacrier lives to be healed by the Eniripsa.
Whenever possible you should try to minimize the damage that your team takes. Sometimes this means dealing lots of damage in order to kill monster before they can kill you, but other times this means spending AP on spells that barely do any damage, but which strategically help your team avoid getting damage that would kill teammates.
Don't overkill
Imagine the following scenario:
Should the Iop finish off Nasty Monster #1? In this case the answer is no, because all of the Iop's spells deal way more damage than Nasty Monster #1 has HP. Instead the Iop should use his hard hitting attacks on monster #2, and let the Eniripsa finish off the nearly dead monster with her weaker attacks on her turn.
This way the available AP from both characters are used effectively to deal the most damage per AP, instead of wasting damage potential on finishing an enemy that someone else with less damage potential could have killed more efficiently.
Keep in mind however, that when it comes to deciding if you want to let someone else kill a monster you need to check the play order very carefully.
In this scenario it would have been okay for the Iop to waste damage potential on killing the Nasty Monster #1 if it meant that this would prevent the Eniripsa from taking damage from an attack by that monster. It is almost always more important to limit incoming damage as the #1 priority, with maximizing outgoing damage as the second priority.
Also keep in mind that if you are in a situation where you are utilizing the strategy to maximize damage by letting someone else finish off a monster it is usually best to let them know in team chat that you are leaving the monster for them, because otherwise they may not notice. Communication is key.
Overkill also applies to spell choice on your turn. If you have two or more spells that will put out enough damage to kill an enemy always use the spell that requires the least amount of AP and/or does the least amount of damage. This way your remaining AP and damage potential will be available for another target, instead of wasting AP and damage on overkilling the enemy.
You should turn on damage preview to help you plan your attacks and decide which spell will kill the enemy without wasting AP on overkilling it.
Plan your team's positioning to maximize buffs
One tool that top Dofus players use frequently is to have one team mate challenge another team mate in order to look at the starting positions of the players and monsters. This can give you a preview of whether to expect a close range battle, or a long range one, and adjust your resistances and/or weapon accordingly.
It also allows you to use the positioning of the starting tiles and figure out how to cast buffs so that everyone will benefit. Many classes such as Eniripsa, Feca, Masqueraider, Iop, and Sac have AoE buffs that can benefit multiple people. Ideally you want to position your characters in a plus shape that leaves the middle tile open and accessible. Then each character with an AoE buff takes turns going to the center tile of the plus, buffing everyone in the plus shape, then leaving the center so another character can go to the center and buff. In this way you can maximize the number of people who get Eniripsa Stimulating Word, Feca shields, Masqueraider Psychopathic Mask and Plastron, and other useful buffs.
If you spend most, if not all, of turn one efficiently buffing everyone on your team then your team will be ready to quickly destroy some monsters on the next turn, as everyone will have lots of nice power buffs.
There are already many specific class guides available, but most of them don't discuss the basic core strategies that top Dofus players use to beat tough fights. These core strategies apply to all classes, not just one specific class, and if you apply these strategies whenever possible, you will see a dramatic improvement in your survival rate and ability to complete tough battles at or above your level.
This thread is designed to list these general, core strategies in one place.
Turn on damage preview
This is a new feature of the Dofus client that will make applying all of the following strategies much easier. To enable it click the gear icon in the upper right, select the "Features" item on the left hand side of the options dialog, and under the "Fight Options" section click the checkbox next to "Display damage preview in tooltips" Just select a spell, hover over an enemy, and it will show you the minimum and maximum damage that you can do on that enemy with that spell.
(Damage in parentheses is the damage if you land a critical hit)
Since this calculates the damage preview with resistances and vulnerability it will help you to avoid wasting AP and to chose the best attack that will do the most damage when needed.
Check the resistances
Most classes have spells in at least two or three of the different elements:
Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Neutral
Whenever you are getting ready to attack a monster you should check its resistances by hovering the mouse over the monster and checking the stats that appear in the lower right hand corner of your screen.
The two rows on the bottom of the monster stats area are its resistances. The top row is linear resistance. If a monster has +10 linear resistance to an element then every time you attack in that element 10 damage is subtracted from the resulting damage you deal to that monster. This type of resistance will cripple your low damage low AP attacks.
The second row is percentage resistance, which has a bigger effect on high damage spells. For example if an Iop casts Iop's Wrath which normally does 2000 damage on a monster with 25% earth resistance the Iop will only do 1500 damage instead of the normal 2000 damage. However, the Iop's wrath would barely be effected by 25 linear earth resistance because it would only reduce the damage from 2000 to 1975.
Remember to check these resistances, and if your attacks will be ineffective against a monster because of resistance, and you are fighting with someone else who can deal damage to that monster more effectively, then it is usually best to let him/her focus on that monster and instead spend your AP elsewhere.
Focus down enemies
When fighting with new players I’ve noticed that many tend to split up and each take on a single monster.
Unless the monsters you are fighting have really strong resistances to your element which make it pointless for you to waste AP attacking them you should team up with teammates to focus on attacking a single monster at a time.
By focusing on a monster you and your teammates can kill it fast, removing it from the battlefield before it has a chance to deal a lot of damage to your team. This is one of the key advantages that players have over monsters.
When fighting in a group you should select one person to be the team leader before the battle begins. Usually this will be the highest leveled or most experienced player who has good strategy sense. Then this person should focus on strategically selecting a target for the team to attack. If you are the team leader then once you have picked a target use Control + S to switch to cell targeting mode, and then click on the monster that the team should target to draw an arrow on that monster, which all team members will see:
If you are in a team and the team leader points out a monster that everyone should attack, it is usually best to follow their lead and focus on killing that monster. The team leader may have more knowledge of the target monsters than you and may have chosen a specific monster for the team to target because if it is not killed quickly it can deal a large amount of damage to the team, or maybe it will make the fight more difficult by healing other monsters, etc. Remember that working together and communicating is the main advantage that human players have over the AI monsters.
Finish off wounded enemies before they can attack
This strategy is strongly related to “focus down enemies” but slightly more specific to classes that have healing skills. Let’s say you have a scenario where there are the following characters on the battlefield:
- Cra with 200 out of 1000 HP remaining
- Eniripsa who has the current turn and who can heal 600 HP per turn, or deal 150 damage and heal 400 HP.
- Big Bad Monster #1 with 100 out of 1000 HP remaining capable of doing 400 damage per turn
- Big Bad Monster #2 with 800 out of 1000 HP remaining capable of doing 400 damage per turn
As you can see this looks like a bad situation. The eniripsa may be tempted to panic and spend all her AP healing the cra for 600 HP, but then the cra has only 800 HP, and the two big bad monsters each deal 400 HP, easily finishing off the cra before his next turn.
But what if the Eniripsa had spent a few of her AP on forbidden word to deal 150 damage and kill Big Bad Monster #1, and then spend the remaining AP on healing the cra for only 400 HP, instead of 600 HP?
Now the cra has only 600 HP instead of 800 HP, but the cra survives, because there is only one big bad monster on the field, who can only deal 400 damage. The fight is easily completed, and the Cra and Eniripsa win!
As you can see, it is important to balance “emergency heals” to keep a character alive with damage output that will kill a foe and keep it from doing more damage. In many cases it is better to remove damage potential by killing monsters fast, because otherwise it will be hard, if not impossible to out heal the damage output of your foes.
Give your buffs to other people if they can use them more effectively
Most Dofus classes have buff spells that increase the power or damage of spells and/or weapons, and we love to use these spells because of how they increase our damage output.
But sometimes it is more effective to give these buffs to other people instead of putting them on ourselves.
For example imagine these scenarios:
- Agility Cra who has the current turn, and who has the Powerful Shooting buff ready
- Strength Iop with Iops Wrath ready
- Big Bad Monster with 2000 HP and 50% Air resistance but -10% Earth Resistance
Should this cra spend Powerful Shooting on himself to deal another +20 or 30 damage to the monster with Absorptive Arrow? Or should the cra put his Powerful Shooting buff on the Iop so that she can deal an extra +800 damage to the monster with her Iop’s Wrath?
- Strength Iop with the current turn, and Power buff available
- Agility Cra
- Big Bad Monster 20 tiles away with 0% Air resistance
Should the Iop spend AP jumping toward the monster to try to get within range to hit it, or should the Iop use her Power buff on the Cra so that the cra can hit harder from a distance on the monster favorable to his elemental attack?
- Strength Cra with current turn and Bow Skill and Punitive Arrow available
- Intelligence Eniripsa with Eternal Wand, Leek Pie, and Forbidden Word
- Big Bad Monster
Should the cra spend Bow Skill on herself in order to do +210 extra damage to the monster with one cast of Punitive Arrow and two casts of Destructive Arrow? Or should she spend the Bow Skill on the Eniripsa so that he can deal +210 extra damage with the wand, and +140 extra damage on two casts of Leek Pie, and +70 extra damage on one cast of Forbidden Word for a total of +420 extra damage?
Each time you have a buff available think carefully about which character on your team would be the best to make use of this buff. It may not always be you.
Figure out which buffs stack and which don’t
Some buffs can be applied multiple times to one character but other buffs just replace each other. For example if two cras both cast Powerful Shooting on one other player the second cra’s Powerful Shooting will just replace the first cra’s Powerful Shooting. The two buffs will not stack.
Always check which buffs a person already has by clicking on their icon in the character list. A list of icons will appear showing the buffs they already have. If your buff does not stack and the person already has that buff you probably don’t want to waste AP just replacing the buff they already have.
Save some spells until they are needed
If you are a class that has a spell like Enutrof’s Living Bag or Eniripsa’s Protective Word you should save these protection spells until they are needed. If you are an Enutrof and you waste the living bag by casting it on the entire group on the first turn you may reduce a little damage from everyone, but your Living Bag probably won’t be available a few turns later when one player is dangerously low on health and about to be killed. Instead of being able to save that player’s life with an emergency cast of Living Bag you will be stuck ruefully looking at the cooldown counter and wishing you could have saved the day.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
Sometimes dealing damage is not the most effective thing to do. For example consider the following scenario:
- Earth Cra with current turn capable of dealing 800 damage per turn
- Big Bad Monster with 1000 out of 3000 HP left capable of dealing 800 damage per turn
- Wounded Sacrier with 600 out of 4000 HP left within MP reach of the Big Bad Monster
- Intelligence Eniripsa ready to heal the Sacrier with Word of Recovery
The earth cra could spend all her AP dealing damage to the monster, but since she can only deal 800 damage per turn there is no way she can kill the monster. However, since the Big Bad Monster’s turn is next the earth cra knows that the Big Bad Monster can definitely kill the wounded Sacrier before the Eniripsa can heal him.
So the earth cra casts Dispersing Arrow between the Big Bad Monster and the wounded Sacrier to push them apart, and then uses Retreat Arrow (a non earth spell that barely does any damage in the hands of the earth cra) to push the dangerous monster even further away. As a result the cra barely does any damage to the monster, but the monster is unable to reach the sacrier and the sacrier lives to be healed by the Eniripsa.
Whenever possible you should try to minimize the damage that your team takes. Sometimes this means dealing lots of damage in order to kill monster before they can kill you, but other times this means spending AP on spells that barely do any damage, but which strategically help your team avoid getting damage that would kill teammates.
Don't overkill
Imagine the following scenario:
- Iop who has the current turn and who can deal 600 damage with Sword of Iop and 300 damage with concentration
- Enirispa who can deal 200 damage with Forbidden Word
- Nasty Monster #1 with 150 out of 2000 HP remaining
- Nasty Monster #2 with 1900 out of 2000 HP remaining
Should the Iop finish off Nasty Monster #1? In this case the answer is no, because all of the Iop's spells deal way more damage than Nasty Monster #1 has HP. Instead the Iop should use his hard hitting attacks on monster #2, and let the Eniripsa finish off the nearly dead monster with her weaker attacks on her turn.
This way the available AP from both characters are used effectively to deal the most damage per AP, instead of wasting damage potential on finishing an enemy that someone else with less damage potential could have killed more efficiently.
Keep in mind however, that when it comes to deciding if you want to let someone else kill a monster you need to check the play order very carefully.
- Iop who has the current turn and who can deal 600 damage with Sword of Iop and 300 damage with concentration
- Nasty Monster #1 with 150 out of 2000 HP remaining
- Enirispa who can deal 200 damage with Forbidden Word
- Nasty Monster #2 with 1900 out of 2000 HP remaining
In this scenario it would have been okay for the Iop to waste damage potential on killing the Nasty Monster #1 if it meant that this would prevent the Eniripsa from taking damage from an attack by that monster. It is almost always more important to limit incoming damage as the #1 priority, with maximizing outgoing damage as the second priority.
Also keep in mind that if you are in a situation where you are utilizing the strategy to maximize damage by letting someone else finish off a monster it is usually best to let them know in team chat that you are leaving the monster for them, because otherwise they may not notice. Communication is key.
Overkill also applies to spell choice on your turn. If you have two or more spells that will put out enough damage to kill an enemy always use the spell that requires the least amount of AP and/or does the least amount of damage. This way your remaining AP and damage potential will be available for another target, instead of wasting AP and damage on overkilling the enemy.
You should turn on damage preview to help you plan your attacks and decide which spell will kill the enemy without wasting AP on overkilling it.
Plan your team's positioning to maximize buffs
One tool that top Dofus players use frequently is to have one team mate challenge another team mate in order to look at the starting positions of the players and monsters. This can give you a preview of whether to expect a close range battle, or a long range one, and adjust your resistances and/or weapon accordingly.
It also allows you to use the positioning of the starting tiles and figure out how to cast buffs so that everyone will benefit. Many classes such as Eniripsa, Feca, Masqueraider, Iop, and Sac have AoE buffs that can benefit multiple people. Ideally you want to position your characters in a plus shape that leaves the middle tile open and accessible. Then each character with an AoE buff takes turns going to the center tile of the plus, buffing everyone in the plus shape, then leaving the center so another character can go to the center and buff. In this way you can maximize the number of people who get Eniripsa Stimulating Word, Feca shields, Masqueraider Psychopathic Mask and Plastron, and other useful buffs.
If you spend most, if not all, of turn one efficiently buffing everyone on your team then your team will be ready to quickly destroy some monsters on the next turn, as everyone will have lots of nice power buffs.
Respond to this thread
Thanks!
I just updated the thread by adding the "Don't Overkill" strategy to the list. Anyone else who has strategies that they use and would like to share please feel free to contribute.
Well-formatted strategy guides like these are good to have in the forums.
Thanks for the effort, much appreciated.
Update: Added "Plan your team's positioning to maximize buffs"
Would say one thing you may wish to add would be a reminder to turn on the damage display, which makes almost all of these things an awful lot easier to do, as you can then compare your spells to see which will deal enough damage for the least ap to kill.
Heck, even on my str/agi eca I check the damage Leek Pie will deal, and quite often it's been enough to finish someone off, and then left me enough ap to finish something else off
Great suggestion! I forgot about that. I just updated it.
Metta
Brilliant advice! This is the first time I've learned about damage preview - how handy!
A quick question: is the damage displayed in brackets the critical damage? I'm assuming it is, but just wanted some clarity. It may be worth mentioning this below the image.
Also, I think it would be great if, in the Check the resistances section, you briefly explained the difference between static and linear resistance for those who are unsure.
Finally, in the Focus down enemies section, you mention that a team leader may point out targets - which is absolutely right. What I've found, however, is that in some teams there's contention over who the team leader is. I think that it may be worth pointing out that assigning a team leader in the first place is a great way to efficiently coordinate a fight!
Keep up the great work!
Kiesza
Looks great!
Thanks for the clarity.
Thanks again for taking the time to make this guide... even I, a long time Dofus player, learned a great deal. I look forward to seeing what other tips and hints you add. :-)
Thanks,
Benjamight
So glad that it was helpful for you as well.
PS: shouldnt this topic be in Welcome to Incarnam Inn?
I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
In answer to your question about Solar Bontarian PvPers I usually see approximately zero.
I'm just brakmarian because I think the wings around my name in the forum profile and character profile page look neat, lol.
Maybe... I guess I put under general class discussion because these are general strategies that apply to all classes, unlike the class specific strategy guides in each class subforum.
That would prevent it from getting lost.
I'll see what I can do....
Want some ice kamas oh great mods?