Duel: Noun. 1. A prearranged fight with deadly weapons by two people (accompanied by seconds) in order to settle a quarrel over a point of honor. 2. Any struggle between two skillful opponents (individuals or groups).
The history of dueling goes back into the haze of centuries. It has been suggested that dueling first took form in primitive judicial systems, when disputes that could not be resolved peacefully were settled in a trial by combat. Later on, more private duels became popular, allowing a wronged or insulted person the opportunity to gain some satisfaction through ornate challenges and physical combat with swords or the elegant dueling pistols that were developed in the late 1700s.
In The Matrix Online, duels may be fought between redpills to defend their personal honor, or that of their Organization. However, the most common reason for dueling is to test one’s skills against another player. Fighting enemies that are controlled by a computer brain can be challenging at first, but once one figures out their tricks, it becomes fairly easy.
Fighting another player, on the other hand, is a constantly new and challenging experience–even if you fight the same player daily. Both you and your opponent can change your fighting styles with new loadouts in The Matrix Online, so you can never be certain exactly what abilities you will be up against. Yet, there are several basic principles that can help you prepare for dueling success, no matter which ability loadout you may prefer.
Streamlining Your Loadouts
Only load those disciplines and abilities which are necessary for an upcoming duel. Try and refine everything down to the last detail. You should be very practiced and familiar with your best combat combinations so that you can adjust your attacks, or defenses, to any situation or attack that your opponent may throw against you. Flexibility, adaptation, and execution are the three keys to success against a canny opponent.
Upgrade Your Abilities
If you have the $Information to pay for it, you should always level up your primary dueling abilities as high as you can make them go–either to the cap for the ability or the cap for your redpill's level. This ensures that you fight with maximum effectiveness.
For example, you must always have the Awakened ability loaded, so it should be at its maximum for your level. Each level added to Awakened also adds to your combat tactics, viral deflection bonus, and melee damage bonuses, among other things, so you will be at a distinct disadvantage if you do not keep this ability as high as possible. Since Awakened is a starting discipline, many redpills forget to focus their training in this crucial skill set before advancing in others.
Leveling abilities can get very expensive, especially as one advances to higher levels. You will probably have to pick and choose which abilities you invest your $Information spending on. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your $I:
- Look for abilities, like Awakened, that give you large bonuses for leveling up. You can see and compare this sort of data on the Level Up screen.
. - Make sure that your choices reflect your purpose. For example, if you are a player who uses viruses to attack, you will have both the Execute Program and Hacker abilities as potential candidates for leveling. Hacker grants you the capability to access computers in the Matrix, and Execute Program makes it easier for you to affect enemies with viruses. If you plan to try and be a powerful fighter or duelist, spending your $Information on levels for Execute Program is probably the better choice.
Pay Attention to your Statistics
Your characters' statistics are what helps you avoid damage, fight more effectively, and stay alive. A list of your statistics can be found in the Status Panel under the Bonuses tab. The statistics most generally useful to a player who wants to duel are as follows:
- Viral Deflection
On a successful save, prevents damage from viruses. Also increases
the chance to avoid downgrade attacks. Very useful when fighting against
a Hacker-type opponent. - Note: This is not the same as "Viral Resistance".
Resistances only reduce the damage you take, whereas this statistic negates
it altogether.
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- Stealth Detection
Allows the chance to detect a sneaking or invisible character. Spies are incredibly deadly if they can sneak up on you, so removing this advantage is highly important if you wish to fight a Spy.
- Note: The Detection ability in the basic Awakened discipline set enhances this statistic nicely, for a low memory cost.
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- Resistance Abilities(Melee Damage Resistance; Ranged Damage Resistance; Viral Resistance)
All these statistics reduce incoming damage of their specific type
by a percentage. Their function is similar to having an "armor rating" in
other fantasy-based RPGs, mitigating the damage you take in a fight.
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- Maximum Inner Strength/ Maximum Health
These are always helpful to boost, dueling or not. The more health you have, the more hits you can take; the more Inner Strength you have, the more special abilities you can use.
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- Combat Tactics Governs how easily you can hit an opponent in combat. It is generally useful to have a high score even if you are a ranged attacker, so that you can hit well with Free Fire attacks and also survive a few rounds if you are drawn into Close Combat.
Various abilities can enhance the above statistics. Pay close attention to your loading choices, however, as all statistics are "capped" based on your character level. There is no purpose in having an ability loaded for the bonus if you can't gain the bonus due to your statistic cap!
For example, one of the statistics not mentioned above is "Viral Transmission", which affects how easily your character is able to affect enemies with viruses. Hackers especially rely on this statistic, and there are a number of abilities to load that will enhance it. However, with all the different abilities available it is possible to "cap out" very soon, and at that point the rest of the abilities you may take to enhance Viral Transmission are simply wasting your memory capacity and giving you no benefit.
You can check for capped statistics in your list of statistics on the Bonuses tab–they will show up in yellow. From this screen you can also expand any statistic and see exactly what abilities or other factors are adding up to give the current total.
In the Next Article
In our next article, The Art of the Duel–Reloaded, we will discuss helpful tactics and tricks when approaching a player vs. player fight. These topics will include, how to pick and choose your duels, advanced combat tactics, and dirty tricks like 'instant kill' abilities. Plus we will include a few example loadouts for duels that are proving successful inside of the beta test with various opponents. Stay tuned!
Posted by Tester001
