I've noticed over the past few days there are a lot of post up with people struggling to joust.
Especially the City Champions and the dreaded Boneguard Commander seem to couse trouble.
Now I fancy myself quite capable in the art of jousting, so I thought I'd give you some tips that work good for me.
Jousting at the Tournament grounds
The bulk of your lancing will be done at the grounds vs the Valliants and the Champions of the various Capital Cities
I will talk a bit here about the easiest ways to best the capital city of your choice!
#1) The battle begins!
You initiate a battle by talking to the other rider and challanging him to a duel.
Stay where you are! Dont move!
The NPC will ride away from you and starts putting up his defence (you offcourse will have come prepared and should already have 3 layers of defence on before you talked to him in the first place right?).
As soon as the rider is at range, hit 3 to charge forth!
This will break down a layer of his defense (usually at 2 at this point) and prevent him from charging or shieldbreaking you.
#2) Into the fray!
Once you have charged, you will continue to ride trough for a little bit more; turn around as soon as you can and trow a shieldbreaker the moment you have come around and ride towards your opponent while doing so.
This will leave him with -2 defence, -1 from your charge and -1 from the shieldbreaker.
The distance you created after your charge, leaves you with enough range to trow this ranged attack.
However, close the distance immidiatly again as not to give your opponent time to do the same with you.
Just ride to him normally to get into melee range.
There are times that you are a bit slow/laggy and you will eat a shieldbreaker, no worries, just put up a defencelayer again right after.
#3 Battering down the enemy
Once you have reached your opponent again into melee range, do nothing more then just melee him down and keep your defence refreshed
Do not move!
By moving, you will give your opponent the chance to use special moves and gain the initiative, you will want to hold on to that yourself.
Basicly, just stand there and exchange melee wacks for a while.
After a short while, the NPC will gets restless and will try to get range on you for a charge:
stand still while he does this! Dont move!
Once he has enough range for a charge, he will need to turn around again, but hey! You held your spot and now are in perfect position to charge! Do so!
Once you have succesfully charged your target, turn around again and trow your shieldbreaker while you get back in melee range again, basicly same story as #1) and #2)
Repeat this process, steps #1) trough #3), to get his HP down to ~10, accept his yield and collect your mark!
#4) Hint and Tips
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Alternate approach, safe route
For a more safe variation, you can just trow a shieldbreaker and close the distance again while your opponent tries to get range on you.
This will lower his defence by -1 for a short while, whereafter you both continue to melee and thus give you the (slight) upper hand.
This is a sure way to win, it leaves no room for your opponent to charge or shieldbreak you, although it will take a little longer.
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Dont's
Dont trow a shieldbreaker before your charge. The NPC that trained you, said you should, but takes to much time (cooldowns) and its likely that your opponent will to exactly the same to you, if you have a chance to pull it off at all before he does so.
You can try it offcourse, and if it works, its beautifull (charge has more effect), but its risky business.
#5) Battling the Boneguard Commander!
Now this guy is the bane of any beginner crusader and is said impossible to solo
Rubbish, he is in fact a pushover.
The commander has 125k hp vs your 75k hp, uneven odds you might say, but your attacks hit just as hard as if you would be fighting a 50k champion of any capital on the Tournament itself. (i.e. you hit him harder then he hits you given equal defence)
So we may conclude its a fair fight.
In fact, this fight works
-Exactly- the same as any normal jousting fight in the Tournament.
The main problem are the adds, boneguard scouts can lower your defence at the most unpleasant of times, and you might run into a neighbouring Commander = bad news!
Easiest way to fix this, is to hug the walls of the Citadel and make your way up the stairs behind the Commanders and pull the one in the back up the stairs.
Or, if you cannot do this without aggro-ing footman and other riders, pull one to the Crusaders camp and fight in the back there.
You will loose some HP on the way over from his shieldbreakers, but its not that big a deal if you keep your defence up and avoid the scouts while you kite him.
UPDATE EDIT:
I noticed lately that sometimes the commander / mobs tend to disengage when pulled to the camp, it might be a hotfix to prevent players from fighting here, a bug or just that evade kicks in due to range, I'm not sure.
Just be aware that pulling them to the camp does not -always- work.
Once in a position free of adds, just repeat steps #1) trough #3) as described above and you have just solo'd yourself a Boneguard Commander! Gratz!
Hope this helps!
If there are any people who do things differently, wich works equally well or better, please do add more tips!
Appendix
#6) Helpfull comments from readers:
Tryxie wrote:
Q u o t e:
If I may make a contribution to the battle at the gates thing: try and help others by throwing a shield break in when you have the chance, even if that means becoming next on the commander's threat list. It really makes a difference. Another thing that's helpful is taking care of the scouts that are taking someone else's defence down.
The quest becomes a hell of a lot easier when there are many people doing it at the same time. Even without grouping up for it you can still be of major assistance to each other.
And just a warning: going back to the Argent Crusade camp and quickly switching horses will de-aggro the commander and he will run back to his original spot and reset before you have the chance of engaging again. Handy if your horse is low on health, but as a tactic it fails.
Post from Camulus:
Q u o t e:
Q u o t e:
Now if only they could sort out the issue with getting into combat at the flight point, or not dropping combat after defeating a champion for up to 4-5 minutes, so you can't heal your mount, it'll all be good
This seems to be a proximity bug, noticed this a few times aswell. If you stay around your defeated opponent too long, the game will "think" your still in combat from time to time.
Try riding away the moment you defeated one, thats -seems- to prevent it sometimes.
If that fails: change horses.
