TyrusDark's Basic Racing Guide Version 2 - More content and advice all moved to Page 1

Janis: Do you mean you have to do tidal as a witch? (In which case I more or less agree due to the with needing the skill gem) or for all classes for the quicksilver?

Going to tidal is less bad than I make it out to be for players who have no problem beating hailrake, but it's both risky and time consuming, although Tidal is a higher level at least.

I was under the impression that top players skipped tidal, and in the long run getting MS boots was a more critical success faster than the quicksilver. Thoughts?



Also I agree that there are some very good and dedicated witch players, but I've been whining about the witch's starting area since open beta :) It is certainly possible to do well but it's SO much harder than other classes that it's hard to recommend the class to people getting in to the race scene.

I'll add Ice Nova to the discussion, my main issue in testing it was that the initial damage is fairly low, though combined with fire trap (these days, more likely flameblast or storm call) it clears pretty quickly in low lag situations.

Excellent guide, thanks for taking the time to write it up. Just started racing this season and picked up a bunch of tips thanks to your efforts.

Thanks for the recommendation!


In other news I updated some stuff:

Fixed the A2 description about 1 hour races and the straight-to-caverns strategy. For some reason I wrote "Weaver->Alira->Kraityn" and then advised ignoring the bandits. The correct path is "weaver->Chamber of Sins" which gets you access to the Vaal ruins, which is all you need to get to Caverns.

Added a description of Famine mode, which I forgot the first time around.

Earlier I also added the resist ring recipe to the item crafting section.

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TyrusDark wrote:

Janis: Do you mean you have to do tidal as a witch? (In which case I more or less agree due to the with needing the skill gem) or for all classes for the quicksilver?

Every class has to do it. Flask is insanely good. And for Witch you get Fire Trap.

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Going to tidal is less bad than I make it out to be for players who have no problem beating hailrake, but it's both risky and time consuming, although Tidal is a higher level at least.

Hailrape kills mostly people who do not understand how avoid his melee/spell. If one can't kill him - too bad, you won't do good in racing.

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I was under the impression that top players skipped tidal, and in the long run getting MS boots was a more critical success faster than the quicksilver. Thoughts?

I don't think that any of the top players are skipping Tidal. As for Witch - Tidal is a no-skip area, as it provides very useful skill gem, and a boost to your progress in form of QS.

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Also I agree that there are some very good and dedicated witch players, but I've been whining about the witch's starting area since open beta :) It is certainly possible to do well but it's SO much harder than other classes that it's hard to recommend the class to people getting in to the race scene.

She's not hard, the Passive Tree is pretty nice for her. Any class will die, if they mess up. Witch is a bit tougher, as she has to go nearly melee to cast Ice Nova.

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I'll add Ice Nova to the discussion, my main issue in testing it was that the initial damage is fairly low, though combined with fire trap (these days, more likely flameblast or storm call) it clears pretty quickly in low lag situations.

Ice Nova + Fire Trap = godlike.

In act2 you'll have +1 Cold gem Wand + Added Lightning attached to Ice Nova - more than enough damage - 1 fire trap + Nova = dead pack.

And the starting Wand is upgraded to +1 Fire gems, as you'll be using Flameblast + Fire Trap in it. As Curse you pick Flammability.