Tips

So you created Helbreath character already. First, lets find out - will your character be a mage or a fighter (no other specializations around). Mage must not have DEX (anyway fighters will have 90% chance to hit you), must have 50+ magic, average or high intelligence and a bit of vitality. Unlike mage fighters needs 50+ dexterity, strength enough for your favorite weapon and vitality so I've decided to make 2 different tips: for mages and for fighters.

So if your character is half-mage - half fighter, I advise you to create a new character while it's not too late ... You can use this one as a fisher (get DEX to 50 and forget about getting EXP on this char) but you will not be able to fish in a safe place if you are not a traveller already. Why creating a new character? Half-fighters are good only against mages, nothing more, they can't do anything with a pure fighter of the same level.

Just a bit more about battlemages

Usually fighters needs just pfm, paralyze or zerk spells while having very low MAG stat - such combinations sometimes gives good results but that's not a true battlemage, just a fighter variation. If you have high MAG as well as some DEX and STR ... Then It's the most deadly combination ... For you. You will be always behind any mage or fighter of your level and prepare to be always weaker by 10-20 levels. So you will get EKs only againsts newbies or during sudden attacks on mages. Perfect if you reached 90 - then you have some chances to get EKs on 80th levels etc...

Currently it's not very easy for battlemages to player-kill. Imagine suddenly attacking mage: you have to PFM or you will just behave like a weak warrior - so you need to release BOTH hands from shield and wand, indeed it will take you 1 ES to do that + not obvious to cast PFM under ES fire.

Yes, you can commit sudden attacks too - but it works only against newbies who has no sound tweak. Only 2-3 fighters (or 1 low-ping cheater) can kill a mage but again, who will take kill? Unless you have high str - it will not be you in most cases.

Also think a bit about leveling ... As a mage ... forget about it, only at high level you will be able to party with another fighter as mage. As a fighter, well, maybe a good idea, but in some cases (like killing liches) you will need to PFM, heal your partner and zerk him constantly unless he's 120+ which is quite hard to do while killing liche for someone who stays near liche and who's PFM sometimes wanishes (yes, hard for you as for battlemage). I think mage can do the same much more efficiently.

Battlemages are self-sufficient, mages can't make them stronger then they are already. But party with a fighter ... It's kind of deadly thing in player killing. Battlemage+fighter against mage+fighter of the same level ... Mage+fighter party will have to retreat soon. I think that's the only advantage of battlemages (for low level players I prefer barrack raiders :P )

Tips for beginner mage

1. Create character with 14 MAG, 14 INT and 2 STR.
   DEX is not needed for a mage - anyway fighter with 100 DEX will easily hit you, even if you will get 50 DEX, STR is waste of points too - because of low DEX you will hit too rarely in close combat to inflict enough damage. Why STR? Otherwise you will not be able to wear wizard's hood or wizard's hat in future...
2. So you appeared in the beginner zone. First of all, set level growth to INT (+3)
   
   Left portal leads to the Aresden city, right leads to the Elvine city. When you put mouse over the white dot on the minimap you will read what's there. This will help you to find barracks, blacksmith, wizard tower and many other places. To turn on minimap use Ctrl+M.
   To learn magic missile and start training magic you need 18 INT
3. Go to barracks and with dagger and hit dummies till you will get 18 INT
   Barracks are in the city. Enter the city, find a barracks there and just kill dummies till you will have 18 INT. Why dummies? You can get a bit more EXP on them than on slimes (much more if you have Hitting probability rep+7 dagger) . Also here's a macro that allows you to release your hands and just look how you kill the dummies.
4. Now visit mages tower and buy magic missile spell (it costs 100 GP)
   You need this spell for training magic %.
5. Go back to barracks, and set leveling to MAG (+3)
   MAG is required to get fast mana recovery
6. While being traveller get your level to 19
   This will save you from repairing items. Don't forget to shoot with magic missiles and don't let your mana to completely recover.
7. Become a citizen
   You can do that in the cityhall in the center of your city.
8. Now you need to get 80 MAG
   You need 80 MAG to be able to recover mana fast for magic %. Again, train in barracks.
   Tips for barracks training:
   • Good idea will be to have MS0 wand, bind sword or dagger to F2 and wand to F3, Magic missile will be F4, so you can start casting at any time.
   • If you want to become barrack raider, at 30 level start training INT (+3) so you can get 38 INT (summon creature) and stop at 37-38, 2 levels you will get just by staying on the same place and training magic missiles. Here is possible mage barrack raiders:
   1. Summoner (38 INT and about 90 MAG with some VIT and 100% magic)
   2. Shooting mage (Mass Lightning arrows - 53 INT and about 70 MAG with some VIT)
      it's not recommended for you to use 7 or higher circle - you will have only 20% to cast in it (40 with +21 CP staff), however you still can make such.
9. Now you have to take care about your magic % - get it to about 80% (or 100% if you can)
   Why should you do so? 1. Summoning better creatures 2. It affects casting probability 3. It affects chance to hit with magic. Some people uses a macro for that.
10. Now when you got 100% magic - time to start training 60 INT for ice strike
    Yes, in barracks. When you will get fire ball or fire strike - you can try 2nd level of barracks. When you will get ice strike at 38 level - you will get to 41 in minutes :) Again, if you want this character to become a barracks raider you will need to stop at 38-39 level (otherwise if you will get 40 you will need to die often which is quite hard and sometimes bad for your rep)
11. Train MR (magic resistance)
    Find or buy a wooden MR shield then get full bag of food to avoid losing it. Put on the shield. First of all remember: if you see cannibal plant - run as fast as you can. In the garden forget about killing any monsters except for usual orcs, snakes and slimes. Ok, now you are ready for the garden run. Tactic in the garden is simple: RUN :) Yes, magic orcs are the best for training MR. If you see the orc - make it to attack you. If it won't shoot magic - it's usual and you can safely kill it. If it's a magic orc - just run from them and they will start to shoot magic on you.
12. Ok, you have graduated from barracks with perfect skill and Ice strike. Now comes the hardest part - leveling.
    All mages needs to have ES without dependence of their specialization. So get enough INT for it. Start from snakes, try scorpions pit, also a good way to get EXP is summoning something strong that ALMOST kills for example, another Cyclops and when you think you can finish enemy Cyclops /hold your creature and shoot strikes (energy or ice on target monster). 2 zerked stone golems can easily beat paralized werewolf :)
    Other way is party with good fighter (you need good MAG in this case to have good chance to paralyze monsters and you need to have berserk for your fighter).
13. Time to choose specialization :)
    Here is 3 specializations for the pure mages, try to think what fits you better:
    1. High MAG mages
       Because of your 160-180 mag you can hit almost always and with very high damage (70-80 with ES is usual, you can also hit 60 rarely and top hit with ES is about 94-97), you have high MR, but you can forget about high level spells like MS and blizzard. Pure high MAG mages has only ES and nothing better, but some considers getting mass chill wind which is actually pretty good for long-time freezing the enemies.
    2. High INT mages
       You had Lightning strike already at 60 level but then your hitting probability against mages will be close to 50%, also damage on fighters will rarely go past 60-70, yes, and the worst - low mana recovers. But at higher level you can deal the same amount of damage as high MAG mages and even with some special effects like freeze or hit through usual PFM. But here you sacrifice mana recovery for special effects. You need a lots of MP rec items to compensate your mana recovery.
    3. Balanced
       Like most mages you can do high damage lightning strike but getting meteor strike delays for a long time. You have balanced set of magic spells and sufficient mana recovery.

1. Ok and some common tips: Buy MP rec shield - leveling without it will take 1.5 times longer.
   This will give you enough mana to level up fast and wear robe (more chance that fighters will party you).
2. From 55 level with high CP wand you can start killing golems
   2 golems at once is ok, if just 1 - use mass lightning arrow, you will still kill it.
3. From 60 level go on helhounds and maybe even cyclops
4. From 70 - good idea will be to try mass troll spawns
5. Blanced mage can reach 169 INT (Meteor strike) and 200MAG only at 114 level.

Pure mages classification

If you do not obey the table above then you will have either low casting probability in your top spells (what's good in having blizzard with 30% casting probability with the best wand?) or slower rate of training.

Tips for beginner fighter

1. Create char with 14 STR 14 DEX and 12 VIT

2. So you appeared in the beginner zone. First of all, set level growth to DEX (+3)
   
   Left portal leads to the Aresden city, right leads to the Elvine city. When you put mouse over the white dot on the minimap you will read what's there. This will help you to find barracks, blacksmith, wizard tower and many other places. To turn on minimap use Ctrl+M.
   To learn magic missile and start training magic you need 18 INT
3. Get 6 or so level and go to blacksmith
   Blacksmith is in the city. Enter the city of your choice (either Elvine or Aresden).
4. Buy weapons of your choice
   In the blacksmith buy yourself usual long sword and long sword manual. Don't think you will want a short sword against fighters or big creatures so it's better to start training long sword skill % as soon as possible.
   For barrack raiders: buy short sword (no manual needed) or esterk (fencing manual).
5. Go to barracks and kill dummies on DEX (+3) till you will reach 50 DEX then put all on VIT (+3)
   Find the barracks in the city and just kill dummies till you will have 50 DEX. Why dummies? You can get a bit more EXP on them than on slimes (much more if you have Hitting probability rep+7 dagger) . Also here's a macro that allows you to release your hands and just look how you kill the dummies. Note, if you want barrack raider, use short sword mostly and get 14 STR (axe), 50 DEX and then train vitality, this will help you training shield.
6. Get shield and shield manual if you will use short sword or fencing
   Just learn to use shield and stay in the middle of dummies on barracks level 2 to train it (train it as traveller on 2 dummies to avoid repairs or death problems)
7. Get shield manual, and shield, read manual and then get 100% shield, also if you want - get archery skill higher, it will help getting EXP in future.
   It's really hard to train shield outside the barracks while it takes just 2-3 nights in barracks. Get 2 (if you have no vit) or 3 dummies on 2nd level of barracks and lead them away into the corner. Then just stay and enjoy. Do that as traveller to avoid repairs, enemies and death problems.
8. For barrack raiders: Then keep killing dummies until you will get 100% short sword skill,
   Quite long, but if you will become a citizen ... then you will not easily get 100% skill as barrack raders (you will have to ask mages...). Why it's only for barrack raiders? For others it's just better to go level in RH after reaching 41st level - at level about 55 you will have 100% skill in any case.
9. Become a citizen
   You can do that in the cityhall in the center of your city.
10. Now choose future specialization of your fighter:

    1. "Dexie" very high dexterity warrior with weak agile sword or esterk
       Because of good chance to hit he is still a very good warrior, even if he got weak armor (good against people, but weak against big monsters even though big monsters will hit you rarely)
    2. Balanced - something like STR 78 (full speed long sword, in future better weapons), DEX 70, VIT 40. At higher levels try to get 104 STR (Great sword+1), about 120 DEX and 40-50 VIT.
    3. Giant sword user (156 STR)
       Maybe here is some others classes ...
11. Train till 40 level in barracks
    Here you are - a ready barrack raider, just train MR a bit and you are totally prepared, oh yeah, you may also want to get INT for paralyze spell.
12. Train MR (magic resistance).
    Find or buy a wooden MR shield then get full bag of food to avoid losing it. Put on the shield and one-handed long sword (or axe). First of all remember: if you see cannibal plant - run as fast as you can. In the garden forget about killing any monsters except for usual orcs, snakes and slimes. Ok, now you are ready for the garden run. Tactic in the garden is simple: RUN :) Yes, magic orcs are the best for training MR. If you see the orc - make it to attack you. If it won't shoot magic - it's usual and you can safely kill it. If it's a magic orc - just run from them and they will start to shoot magic on you.
13. Till 50 level its a bit painful
    You will have to hunt every skeleton on the skeleton pit (in the Promise lands) when horde of other players will try to kill it too. After that you can go to the farm and start training MR and killing orcs and snakes there (you can take troll 1 on 1 only at about 60+ level), also you can hunt golems on any other map. Beware of dungeons - cyclops can easily kill you because you, probably, have no MR items yet and low MR.
14. 60 level
    Here comes freedom - you start to be attractive for mages to party with you, go ogres, trolls (garden) etc 90 and higher levels are good for parties with a mage (it's much easier to kill paralyzed monsters, you know) Just find a mage that has 100% in circle 6 and ask him to party in garden
15. Get 130 strength
    This will allow you to full-swing flam and pickaxe.
16. Get 130 dex.
    Now you can level off ogres and possibly go to WereWolf (WW) pits with a good mage and clear the pit out. 100 dex is too low to fight even paralized werewolves ...
17. If you decide to get full swing battle axe get 170 str, not just a 169
    The reason for 170 and not 169 str (the actually str for b-axe at full speed) is because you get +1% damage for every 10 points of str you have.

I don't have good fighter therefore, please, write me (see top of the page for e-mail address) what you recommend to do next. Thanks you.

Pure fighters classification

Indeed, you can forget about following chart above but note: it will be either harder for you to train (e.g. if you sacrificed str for vit then you will not make a good party but will fight alone well) or it will be harder or even impossible for you to kill players (very low dex or very low str).

Choose balancing yourself +-15 does not mean anything e.g. you can make 115 dex instead of 130 without any sensitive change (but you will earlier start to use b-axe) etc. For players you need higher dex, for monsters - higher str. In brief, that's all about warrior.

Player killing mage tactics

Here's some tips how to get EK for a mage.

Basics
Practice
Equipment
Choosing targets
Locations for player killing
Tracking players that are hiding
Tips for player killing

Lets start from basic:

• Do not PK alone if you have slow computer or laggy connection.
• Run (Start-> Run there enter "ping 211.239.170.79 -t" without quotes. If you have values over 500 - you can forget about any player killing (HB hosts FTP and game servers on the same ISP - what a dumb idea, if someone starts downloading HB on cable you will get +100ms lag, 2 people +200ms etc and thats for about an hour - so better go and find something other to do for this hour). I'v tried pking with 550 ms lag - just wasting 2 times more potions (and therefore money) but still can kill people. It also allows people to be under fire less time. So for example if you have 500ms lag, in 2 seconds you can cross your area of sight. So you will have only 2 seconds - 500ms = 1.5 seconds to shoot and hit. One time it's ok but if it repeats then lag greatly reduces your probability to kill someone (1 wrong move and enemy escaped).
• Close ICQ or at least disable popup PM - died 4 times because of it
• Here is only 2 ways to kill people (if we will forget about accidents): Either hit with high damage (high mag, good spells) or stop them from running (freeze, parlize, first prefered)
  

Practice required:

• Learn to paralize
  Better train on skeletons, later on cyclops they behaves just like fighters with one exception: they are much slower and quite predictable.
• Learn to drink health potions in critical situations (Insert key)
  This will reduce frequency of death 3 times (still will not save from mass spawn, getting boxed by fighters, paralized etc). Its easy to tell "use potion in critical situation". Yeah, you must click hardly, choose correct direction and at the same time HEAL or you will not escape from fighter or a monsters group.
• Learn to escape - the most important skill for mages:
  • Yes, whole mages tactics based on escaping if something goes wrong.
  • First of all, if you are PFMed it may be worth running and shooting Ice Strike/Mass Ice Strike/Chill wind on self (cast ES on self if you are sure you can finish this fighter)
  • Use invisibility scrolls or pots if you can't drop someone from tail after 10 seconds run
  • Never forget that you have recall spell or better, scroll - saves your things
  • Better kill self than let someone kill you (this avoids drops and enemy will not get EK)
  • How to evade from fighter?
    1. Invisibility (about 50% chance that he will forget about you)
       But still some probability that he's battlemage and will try to detect ... In this case learn to escape while you are invisible (see bellow)
    2. Cast ice strike or something freezing on him (yes, you will get hit 2 times after that but if its not a critical berserked hit with GS you will survive
    3. Paralize him (quite hard, you may run out of health while trying to do that)
  • Learn to escape while you are invisible
    So you made yourself invisible but fighter just hit you ... He's staying near you and a mage somewhere behind (or a fighter itself) starts to cast detect invisibility.
    Practice shows that most efficient way to escape is to WALK 90 degrees away from direction they are running to (left or right, its your choice) then after someone have finished casting detect you continue to RUN in that direction. If here's many people following you that will take out over half of them, only most experienced people will guess your direction (by sound or just by luck) and keep following, 2 more such invis casts (in a shadow of the building) drops all lucky players from tail. About experienced people ... Just prepare to die, recall or to use scroll.
• Practice
  Don't think you will read this manual while running from a fighter

Equipment:

• If you are broke - just staff and full bag of food.
• Equipment for the raid if you are lower than 60-65 level:
  • Staff (MS20 prefered) but can also be a CP wand - it's your own risk.
  • Few (2-3) greater stamina potions - to run from fighters
  • Few (5-7) greater healing potions - to survive against fighters
  • Invisibility scroll
    For the worst case when you have no time to cast Invisibility spell, cast it when you are running (yes, only after 10 seconds after getting damage), probability that enemy has detect-invis scroll is VERY low, so you will win lots of time
  • As many big mana potions as you can carry
• If you are higher than 60-65 level - same as above with one difference:
  • Take 10-15 mana pots
  • and fill the rest with healing pots (about 20-25)
• Going with full equipment for EKs is kind of silly - you will have more risks than your enemy

Choosing targets:

• Beware of enemy people with hero capes (cape with cross on it)- they will not give you EK without battle
  Means, never start battle with them if you are not ready. Against mages do not go without PFM, against fighters - if you don't have very strong friends and good skill in using paralize spell)
• If you see someone high level - better just run, you will not get EK here
  You can identify top players by horned helm, plate mail, wizard hat or hood, gold weapons, giant sword, swinging with high str weapons etc. Only VERY "talented" fighters over 80 level can die from a party of mages that does not use MS, just find out how Plate Mail looks on people and avoid people with such stuff. Why ? Fighter can kill mage that drinks healing potions and does not run much (keeps shooting), within about 20 seconds, normally fighters with good items has 400+ health so 3 mages out of 4 (last is running) who shoot ES every second deal 60 damage, you think its ok? Nah ... fighter can easily run away from you (also he will drink and get 70 HP every 2 seconds and therefore no easy EK awaits you here). So only top mages (MS, LS) can kill fighters this way, forget about 70+ fighters for a while.
• Don't start mage vs mage duel until you will reach Meteor strike spell
  Know why? First of all, mages with wizard staffs or MS30 can cast about 2 times faster than you, hit harder etc, just forget about killing high level mages. You can still try lower-level mages using sudden attack, this works pretty well. But again, if enemy mage casts PFM on self just forget about killing it - after that you can only summon or help allied fighters.
• In newbie dungeon (the one that has level 80 limit) here is one kind of totaly invincible fighters - someone with 150 dex and 50+ magic absorbtion
  To kill such you either need 4 !!! mages that shoots lighning strike (and doing max of 30 damage each) or to box this fighter with even more fighters. If you see such which you hit with ice strike for 15, with ES - 25-30 ... Paralize/hold it and forget about killing it - summons can't hit through 150 dex. Also this kind of players is antimage only - such fighter can't kill any fighters, but is perfect for the mages.
• Look from whom you will get EK and from whom you will not
  If you are less than 80 lvl - You can have EK by killing lvl 30 and higher
  If you are higher than lvl 80 - You can get EK by killing lvl 80 and higher
  If you are in enemy town (does not include barracks) you cannot get EK
• Avoid fighter groups, 2 fighters can stop mage from running using critical hits while group with 3rd fighter will easily finish mage.
• Again, note: why I don't like Korean on cables? They have lag 2 times lower than anyone else and therefore can hit while running from 2 times LARGER distance (on your screen) than any others, after some time I think you will learn how to find out the lag of other players visually. For example, such players can hit you from the edge of the screen (I have lots of such screenshots and even some where I can't see the one who's chasing me and he hits me)

Locations for player killing:

• Simpliest: stay near newbie dungeon (name because of level 80 limit) entrance with ES ready on raiding day, I'm normally getting 10EK a day this way (with level 64 mage), you can sometimes help people down there with summons, para, pfm etc.
• Visit enemy city :) Indeed, you can get only items in the city and normally 1 mage can't kill another mage with level 60+ (and means, with loot), so better raid with 2-4 mages in party. Surround any mage and shoot :)
• You still can raid garden and nearby lands - when you see fighter running from a group of trolls, shoot him and enjoy EK :) Also you can help troll a bit by zerking it and paralyzing fighter. 2 mages can easily take out a single fighter of 60-70 level with the help of troll.
• Tips for battle for YOUR city DUNGEON entrance:
  • always try to go deeper in dungeon first
    In safe zone you can only PFM yourself and allied people while enemy can easily summon, paralize etc from non-safe zone. So get out of there if enemy starts to summon or there is much more enemies than allies.
  • how to get deeper into the dungeon untouched ? Easily.
    Works even when I'm 1 agains 8 mages and 4 fightrers (note, only in case when here is no sumons at the entrance).
    First of all PFM party and prepare for a long run into the enemy back (here you will need stamina potions - noone will let you use great stamina recovery). Usually after such run, you have only 1 high level fighter on the tail (mages start to cast something which is just useless against you so they loses you from area of sight). After that just evade from fighter (see escaping tips) and either go to enemy city or just return back with summons.

Tracking players that are hiding:

• Yes, the easiest targets are hiding from you: mages needs to recover mana and they goes to the dead end (without PFM) or just becoming invisible, fighters after stopping running puts their HP rec shield on and rests behind a group of teammates or in safe zone etc.
• First of all, tune your client so walking mage will not be able to hide from you. Check Tuning Helbreath section.

Tips for player killing process:

• Cast Protection From Magic (PFM) every time if you suspect enemy mages to be near
  In dungeon its usually PFM, great stamina recovery and then invisibility, this way you will be ready to meet any mage.
• Summon little army (bersek and then invis clops, then commit sudden attack, this way you will be sure that noone will chase you for a long time around that monsters group (group with berserked clop and helhound can kill 1 level 70 fighter).
• Variation is 2 waves strategy: First 1 or 2 PFMed players goes ahead and then retreats while 2-4 times stronger party goes invisible just after 2 players departs and attacks enemies when those comes into the trap
• For 2 mages: drop something (2 minor mana potions or a daggers and a potion are ok) on the ground in not very populated place. One mage starts casting paralize and then waits, 2nd makes both invisible. When fighter crouches to pick up 2nd item - paralize him, note he still can't see you (summon against paralized mages), think yourself how to kill him ... team with a fighter or both starts to cast combat spells ... You can safely buy potions or daggers in enemy city, just enter to the shop invisible, buy quick and exit.
• Top players always has a traitor characters in enemy city so if they will need to relogin they must be sure that they will not get boxed again. So after logout they brings such character. If you kill it - it will just lie and spectrate ... So you need to make him think that everything ok ... Try inventing something - otherwise you will not have the kill.