Act 1 General Racing Guide

Yeah I'll start grabbing small whites. I was relying on drops/scraps/whetstones. Some races that was enough, others not so much... You run a witch most races if I recall? I tend to run a ranger who also lacks HP compared to the other classes. Do you tend to tank mobs so that you fire faster or do you pure kite? I kite the whole race and sometimes I've noticed I kill faster if I just stand and fire...

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majesw wrote:

Yeah I'll start grabbing small whites. I was relying on drops/scraps/whetstones. Some races that was enough, others not so much... You run a witch most races if I recall? I tend to run a ranger who also lacks HP compared to the other classes. Do you tend to tank mobs so that you fire faster or do you pure kite? I kite the whole race and sometimes I've noticed I kill faster if I just stand and fire...

Yeah picking up some things to sell helps loads since you have to rely less on RNG. I do play witch every race but thinking of trying other classes soon. Standing does damage a lot faster.... but you also will get hit more if they are close lol. I try to stand as much as I can if it gets risky then I will kite. Once you know the most a monster will possibly hit then you can stand safely vs packs to kill them.

Hey Powster, I'm really glad you made this.

I've practiced TONS in the past and am now coming back from a break. I've come in 2nd place before and usually can place top 10 at least on a few different classes. So I feel like I'm pretty good but no matter what I can't hang with the top dogs.

This guide helped my iron out some things in my strategy, so thank you.

Having a level guideline is nice, but do you have a time guideline as well? That's usually what I practice by.

For instance, I would like to be able to do a 35 minutes Merveil kill. I've seen some people do around that on Shadow, I don't think Witch can do that.

I've been doing Brutus at around the 30-40 minute mark depending on how good my run is, what about you? What's your Ledge, Brutus, and Merveil times respectively?

Thanks again for your time. I keep banging my head against these races but I feel like I have hit a plateau in getting better and it discourages me from playing sometimes.

EDIT:

Thought of another quick question. Champions, do you think it's worth stopping to kill them if they aren't in a giant pack? Say, 3-4 Champs by themselves?

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Glowyrm wrote:

I've been doing Brutus at around the 30-40 minute mark depending on how good my run is, what about you? What's your Ledge, Brutus, and Merveil times respectively?

Thanks again for your time. I keep banging my head against these races but I feel like I have hit a plateau in getting better and it discourages me from playing sometimes.

EDIT:

Thought of another quick question. Champions, do you think it's worth stopping to kill them if they aren't in a giant pack? Say, 3-4 Champs by themselves?

Did not look at this thread for a while lol.. Since racing season has ended the time I reach places is not perfectly in memory but still should be pretty accurate.

<< proof guide works..

(My timings..)
Ledge = 8:30 to 11:30 (average around 10:00?)
Brutus floor = 17:30 to 20:00 (average around 18:30) [this is the timing I leave upper prison and enter into the map before brutus room not the time I kill]
Coves = 26:00?
Merveil kill = 33:00 to 40:00-41:00 lol

My fastest merveil kill time has been 33 minutes but normally I would say I kill around 36-37 minutes. If I do not reach act 2 by 38 minutes then I will feel behind. Sometimes when I do not follow my own rules for progressing I overlevel too much so I might reach act 2 at more exp than I usually have but at a timing of 40-41 minutes. That puts you far behind because then you are behind in progression forced to kill monsters that give less exp / skip them which gives no exp at all.

That champ question is pretty hard to answer since it depends on a lot of factors. Are you underleveled? Are you overleveled? Are you in need of magic items to sell for trans shards? etc.. I would say though on average you will want to kill the champ packs. 3-4 champs = 9-12 normal monsters which gives you a nice exp boost for where you are currently in your progression. That exp boost will allow you to skip bad packs that you might've been forced to kill to reach level requirements for progression.

If there is only 1-2 champs though then that should definitely be skipped.

If you are not doing brutus till 30-40 minutes that sounds like you are doing something wrong. If you followed the guide I would say 25-28 minutes is the latest that would make sense.

The plateau thing I understand.. I have had that feeling many times. If people have that problem they can ask me though since I enjoy talking about racing.

For people who don't have enough wisdom scrolls:

Unstack your transmute and alteration shards into stacks of 1. Now you can sell them and get 1 scroll fragment for each shard and can easily get a couple extra wisdom scrolls this way.

Early on those couple extra scrolls can be much more important than the shards when you need belt/ring/flasks/ms boots etc...

We need more of these Victory guides!

great thread , id like to share an observation of my play style as i improved as a racer

.. the more comfortable i got with the kind of dmg monsters can output (goats in prisoners, archers in lower prison, exploding dudes, flicker spiders etc etc.) i started to race on lower and lower health...

i mainly race duelist/ used to race witch and i swear half the time my health is below half, and i just keep regening it and moving forward

i feel like that is the superior strategy to do if you want to always place in the top


you save time not waiting for your hp to regen and just keep moving pack to pack.. leaving your self with enough insurance hp to survive the zone..

also things like.. i completely ignore saphire rings for mervail level bcuz i know what kind of dmg she can do to me, and i find it wayy quicker to do mervail with tp to regen pot trick and just face tanking her (another fight where my hp is at half the entire time)


just so my advice holds some ground my last race i came # 1 duelist, slightly edging out helman who i think is best duelist racer atm ! I entered forest 30-31 w/ bm/famine mods

http://poestatistics.com/events/1-hour-bm-famine-solo-s03f086/

Thanks for this. Gonna be useful for the upcoming race.

up

any class-specific guides for solo/descent races?