Spell Resistance: how to deal with it
Sept 3, 2013 14:55:51 GMT
AW O'Reilly, Paradoom, and 8 more like this
Post by Raj on Sept 3, 2013 14:55:51 GMT
In order to be a successful caster in legendary areas and beyond, you need to realize the monsters have different layers of defence against your spell: they can be outright immune to a particular spell or effect, have to be debuffed before you can successful cast at them, have too high saves for your spells to matter, or, most important and common issue in the level 40+ areas, have too high spell resistance (SR).
You're going to learn the various immunities as you explore the module, and your difficulty check (DC) needed to overcome enemy saves is going to naturally increase as you level up and doesn't require active efforts, so such issues aren't covered in this guide, because players usually don't have as many problems to deal with these; instead, fresh immortal characters who attempt LL runs, and a incredible number of noobs with level 80 toons I wouldn't trust on a beetle cave run, don't know about SR or don't care much about it.
Guess what, passing Spell Resistance checks is important: you need to overcome the enemy SR with your Spell Penetration (SP), calculated as caster level (not character level, but the number of your levels in the relevant caster class up to 60 counting legendary levels but not paragon ones) + spell penetration feats (+2 every feat up to +10 if you have them all up to paragon spell penetration) + class/quasiclass special abilities and some rare (and usually so inconvenient that's hardly usable) item with +1.
Your base caster score doesn't matter, so open race toons have no excuse, their spell penetration is the same as the same build made with a bur race.
Splashing more than 1-2 levels of a class that doesn't improve your caster level is going to cost you so much SP that your spells aren't going to land enough to matter, so if you ever wondered why there're not 20 cleric/20 paladin or mages that don't take all five spell penetration feats in the end game areas, I hope this cleared some doubts; if not, it's time for noob-proof red flaming letters:
SR is not a common issue in 1-40 areas: usually monsters don't have SR, or they have so little that it's not going to affect a level appropriate character who took the spell penetration feats. Once you hit immortal areas anyway, you are facing many monsters that a level appropriate caster has only a 50% or worse chances to affect with his spells, and if you are jumping on some run out of your league (fresh immo to the desert anyone?) or join some run that's harsh for casters (Rona comes to my mind) your chances to overcome the enemies SR are likely to hit 0%.
If we exclude the last spell penetration feat you take in paragon levels (and that should often be your first paragon feat, to be taken at level 63), your SP ceases to increase once you hit level 60, usually hitting a score of around 70 on core casters, but a lot of the enemies you're going to meet have SR scores of 80+, some hitting silly 90-100 values; so, it doesn't matter if you are a level 45 (with approx 53 SP) trying to kill a SR 65 devariel in the Desert or a level 80 (with approx 71 SP) tossing spells at a 86 SR pit fiend, in both cases many of your spells are going to be wasted.
It really pays off lowering enemies SR as the first action of the fight, and you are expected to do it if you are on druid or bard; when these two classes are missing, or their human controllers suck big time, the duty of lowering SR goes to mages or in last instance clerics, and sometime some smart tank can help too (but then with such casters I'm not sure lowering SR is going to change much about magic efficiency )
Do not be tempted to cast spells at foes whose high SR is intact, you're usually going to waste actions; if the ones who should drop SR aren't doing their duty, yell at them/do their job: after all, everybody gets pissed if the tank hides in a corner not attacking enemies, and everybody should be pissed if forced to cast spells with 0-50% chance of success where a single action from your teammate can raise such chances to 100%.
Here is a quick example of how a single action can turn the tide of the battle for those who still have doubts and don't check in-game logs:
without SR drop: SP 71 vs SR 80
Here a caster (little splash, all spell penetration feats taken, even a little bonus from items) is fighting a common Hell foe, casting a random spell at them while their SR is intact: you can notice how he has a 40% chance to be immune to any spell you cast at it, doesn't matter how high your other stats/level are, only the SP vs SR check is important.
Check the Hell Bestiary link, and notice how many common foes have SR value in the 76-86 range; if you don't bother lowering their SR first, your spells are going to affect just the random fodder, but killing a Hell Hound is not your main duty nor the main issue in such runs.
The Abyss Bestiary shows you even more silly SR values, so high that even after all the appropriate debuffs you might not reach a 100% success rate; then consider every paragon rank adds +4 to a enemy SR: checking the wiki you notice how Barbazu have 76 SR (approx 75% chances to affect them with spells if you don't lower it), but the Barbazu Razor in the example has 80 SR, and when it comes to fight superior/elite monsters your chances drop dramatically (random example, a elite pit fiend with 98 SR? good luck hitting it if it's not ''green'').
after a SR drop (NB): SP 71 vs SR 63
Notice what ''green'' monsters are: mages fodder. Suddenly you have 100% chances to hit most enemies with spells (in the example, those enemies don't stand a chance to resist with less than 70 "new" SR), and the impossible ones become manageable..
Here is how to deal with SR, and you selfish ones shall remember that not only you're doing a courtesy to the team, but you're also helping your own spells, so there's no excuse for not doing your best and debuff the high SR foes.
Important: only the best (higher) SR-drop value applies for spells (Persuade stacks on top of it), so once a enemy is ''green'' there's no need to use another spell against it; similarly, if a enemy got hit by a low-SR drop effect, but it still has a very high SR score, it's best to cast a fresh, high-SR drop effect.
Druid
The SR-drop master, the one character in the party who's supposed to ALWAYS start spawns by running in the mid of enemies and cast one Nature Balance (NB) in order to hit as many enemies as possible, then 1) stand and cast, if there're no KD/disabling monster or 2) run back and cast.
Despite the huge armor class druids can reach, many players claim they can't NB efficiently: the sad truth is they forget to activate defensive casting mode while running to the middle of enemies, and that causes a lot of attacks of opportunities (aoo) when the monsters switch target from the tanks to the druid; check the screens above, where I didn't activate the defensive casting mode I keep (hint hint) near NB quickslot, and caused me to take a couple of aoo. In the second screenshot you see a enemy hitting me even if their roll isn't enough to reach my armor class, but that's because the druid was standing still in front of enemies, that's called being flatfooted, losing a huge chunk of AC (dexterity bonus, tumble bonus, dodge ac) and happens when you're not attacking nor casting spells ... if you want to have a idea of how much AC you lose standing flatfooted use "!list ac" command while standing still in town, the second (current AC) number is your flatfooted AC, and is horribly low.
Edit: old screenshots are gone, I forgot to not use defensive casting to prove my point. Oh well, I'm sure you'll meet plenty of bad examples in-game
So, remember to use defensive casting mode, be fast at your job (if you wait too long before running to kd/disabling monsters they'll use their special attack, instead rush at them asap and rush back right after having finished casting), don't stand flatfooted doing nothing and don't dare cast any spell that's not NB as your first spell; there're exceptions but if you read this guide and some things are new to you, then you aren't ready for the next chapter
The SR drop from a caster druid NB is -16 or -17 depends if you reach CL 60 or not (you want paragon focus in transmutation anyway), has a ok range that becomes huge with a highly recommended aboleth off-hand item (Confluence of Silvanus); it's the single best SR-drop spell, and that's why you druids are supposed to be the ones doing this duty.
The SR drop from a battle druid NB is -13 with a standard 35/4/1 splash build, and those 3-4 points make a huge difference in practice so in the remote eventuality there're bot ha caster druid and a battle druid in party, the caster one should NB anyway; nonetheless, -13 is better than anything other casters can do, so if you have a battle druid in party the mages are quite happy anyway.
Consider how many spawns you fight before going rest and memorize NB accordingly, 1/spawn is ok for battle druids, 1-2 might be needed for caster ones; having 15-20 NB memorized is standard for hells and Beyond; if you miss only one or two enemies in a spawn, tossing another NB is justified only if they're high SR (85+) foes (hence you need to learn the wiki values for SR), else let the other casters deal with it.
Bards and Mages
The other area of effect option to lower SR, is way worse (only -10) and can dispel allies in the range, but when there's no druid available it's the best opening action.
Run ahead of party with Ghostly Visage (enemies must not spot you and not run at you) so that you can aim better in the ground to affect the whole spawn; in alternative, wait for the fight to start and then aim Mord half a screen behind monsters, so that the aoe gets them and not your tanks; practice is needed before you calculate perfectly the AoE range in a stressful situation, but it has to be done sometime.
A hint to druid players: if you see AoE mording effects, the party mage thinks you suck. If the other party members don't say anything about that (after all, it's a risky spell to use), then they think you suck badly as well.
Bards should carry mord scrolls/rods as well mostly because they don't have much to do and usually are the spawners, but the spell casted from spellbook is easier to use.
This is what you use against the monsters missed by NB/Mord, a nice low level single target spell that gives a use to all those low level slots you should have plenty of.
Pure casters can lower SR by -12, splashed ones by -11, so it's better than Mordenkainens Disjunction if you haven't the uncommon focii in abjuration; even then, it's a level 3/4 spell, and unlucky monsters might suffer the curse penalties as well.
Caster bards should wear Visor of Cursed Chaos as soon as they're tagged for it, as it makes the risky aoe-mording redundant for when there's no druid; aoe bestow curse (BC) is cheap, ease to use and effective.
Palemasters and Pariah should also wear this helmet near-full time once they are tagged for it, because their bestow curse is much more powerful (high SP/DC) than standard and usually scores its huge debuff on enemies even on the first cast.
Bard players, stop put points into Taunt, raise Persuade. You don't want to aggro monsters, and the taunting is best left to tanks (Paladins, Blackguards, Barbarians all have Taunt as class skill and should max and use it); -6 AC is not as useful as -6 SR from Persuade and it stacks with NB/Mord/BC; your high charisma, persuade as class skill, and some bard items with persuade ranks make you the best (and usually only) class to do this job; it's a free action so you can bestow curse and istantly persuade after, just remember to put your epics on first (you can't put on uuu and persuade in the same round for example)
Others
Clerics can BC, but it takes the same slots as Prayer so memorize some for emergency but should leave the SR-dropping job to the other casters.
Turners can max Persuade, are CHA based and can Greater Restore themselves so they are great persuade users.
All characters, tanks included, should carry Mord scrolls (if they have UMD) or hell-bought rods, and stockpile those breach balls for when the casters aren't lowering SR; one could argue about what good is wasting a round worth of attacks to lower SR for incompetent casters, but it can save some time and makes you feel good, just make sure those noobs know you're doing them a courtesy.
Paladins' Holy Sword drops SR by no-stacking 4/hit, not much but it comes handy because some attacks could land before NB/Mord and sure before BC, possibly helping the cleric land his opening action (prayer); as usual, if a lame tank effect is the party best SR removal, point those useless casters to this thread
Thanks to their no-skill-drop-in-hells special ability, rogues can max persuade ranks and be good at it even w/o maxed persuade from gear/no uber charisma, a value of 100+ can be obtained after song and is a good special to toss in between attacks, considering their pickpocket special attack is lackluster and given how powerful dropping SR is. Palemasters can also raise the skill and be fairly decent at it as well: they don't need the SR drop on their targets but can help other casters against non-instakillable stuff.
CoTs Nimbus, MSD and Frailty epics: good for randoms/boss spawns but as you can't use them every spawn they're not something to rely on. Obviously use them when possible, not much to say about them.
Breach spells are single target and even with abj focii the SR drop isn't impressive; arcane casters shall use the cheaper (lower level slot) bestow curse spell over them for standard monsters, and use breach (or better mord) only against buffed enemy casters, for the spell-removal effect
The lazy noob question: "do I really need to NB/Mord/BC every single spawn and enemy?"
There're different answers to this question, based on Raj'NoobDetector™, where highest noob scores go to Level80inOneMonthOfBeingDragged, followed by HC players and TS spammers (usually same people), Hercules because he deserves to be mentioned, and finally good newbies who are learning and hence deserve just a couple of NubPoints™ for good measure but are on the way to greatness
1) Yes, because you are a noob and better be safe than sorry.
2) Yes, but if you skip just a couple enemies it might be worth check with the party: every run has its ''fodder'', things with low/no SR you shall learn to recognize; if you leave a not very dangerous looking opponent and the party has no problems dealing with it, it might be worth ask in game if it was a lucky circumstance or if such monster doesn't pose a threat.
3) Yes, but act accordingly to what the rest of your team is doing; if you are the druid, then do it; if the druid is somebody else but he sux, then do it; if the party has a devoted SR-dropper then only debuff lone enemies he missed.
4) No. But then you must have memorized all enemies SR values (if not the actual number, at least recognize the ''0'', ''low'', ''medium'' and ''obscene'' levels). Again, check the Wiki Bestiary links, and pay attention at in-game logs as well (in the dead times, while people rest/chat/wait, scroll the combat log looking for SR values of enemies you had issues killing).
If you're on a Legendary Level run and you're way over the recommended level for it, or if a level 60+ caster is dragging the team, usually SR is not a issue either; in the latter situation anyway, the highbie is not going to help you lower the SR, so if you want to be something more than a spectator, you might have to debuff your own targets.
A quick general hint I can give you is, if a enemy deals huge kickback damage, then it's supposed to punish those hitting it, and is designed with 0 SR (punishing random aoe spammers): for hells/abyss that means fumes and machines have 0 base SR; animal/plant creatures tend to have 0 or very low SR as well.
Don't proceed to istantly kill those anyway because the other party members might want to target other enemies, and if you are the druid or the bard it's a bad idea using 1-2+ rounds to kill a machine while the rest of the spawn is high resistant to magic attacks; the smoothest way to deal with a spawn is 1° drop SR and saves 2° istakill the fodder to limit the size of the spawn 3° focus to destroy/disable KB and other nasty targets 4° damage the big boys left, but that's material for future ramblings
You're going to learn the various immunities as you explore the module, and your difficulty check (DC) needed to overcome enemy saves is going to naturally increase as you level up and doesn't require active efforts, so such issues aren't covered in this guide, because players usually don't have as many problems to deal with these; instead, fresh immortal characters who attempt LL runs, and a incredible number of noobs with level 80 toons I wouldn't trust on a beetle cave run, don't know about SR or don't care much about it.
Guess what, passing Spell Resistance checks is important: you need to overcome the enemy SR with your Spell Penetration (SP), calculated as caster level (not character level, but the number of your levels in the relevant caster class up to 60 counting legendary levels but not paragon ones) + spell penetration feats (+2 every feat up to +10 if you have them all up to paragon spell penetration) + class/quasiclass special abilities and some rare (and usually so inconvenient that's hardly usable) item with +1.
Your base caster score doesn't matter, so open race toons have no excuse, their spell penetration is the same as the same build made with a bur race.
Splashing more than 1-2 levels of a class that doesn't improve your caster level is going to cost you so much SP that your spells aren't going to land enough to matter, so if you ever wondered why there're not 20 cleric/20 paladin or mages that don't take all five spell penetration feats in the end game areas, I hope this cleared some doubts; if not, it's time for noob-proof red flaming letters:
If you don't pass a Spell Penetration (SP) check of Caster Level + Spell Penetration Feats + Class/Items ''specials'' against enemy Spell Resistance (SR) your spells have
no effect at all.
no effect at all.
SR is not a common issue in 1-40 areas: usually monsters don't have SR, or they have so little that it's not going to affect a level appropriate character who took the spell penetration feats. Once you hit immortal areas anyway, you are facing many monsters that a level appropriate caster has only a 50% or worse chances to affect with his spells, and if you are jumping on some run out of your league (fresh immo to the desert anyone?) or join some run that's harsh for casters (Rona comes to my mind) your chances to overcome the enemies SR are likely to hit 0%.
If we exclude the last spell penetration feat you take in paragon levels (and that should often be your first paragon feat, to be taken at level 63), your SP ceases to increase once you hit level 60, usually hitting a score of around 70 on core casters, but a lot of the enemies you're going to meet have SR scores of 80+, some hitting silly 90-100 values; so, it doesn't matter if you are a level 45 (with approx 53 SP) trying to kill a SR 65 devariel in the Desert or a level 80 (with approx 71 SP) tossing spells at a 86 SR pit fiend, in both cases many of your spells are going to be wasted.
It really pays off lowering enemies SR as the first action of the fight, and you are expected to do it if you are on druid or bard; when these two classes are missing, or their human controllers suck big time, the duty of lowering SR goes to mages or in last instance clerics, and sometime some smart tank can help too (but then with such casters I'm not sure lowering SR is going to change much about magic efficiency )
Do not be tempted to cast spells at foes whose high SR is intact, you're usually going to waste actions; if the ones who should drop SR aren't doing their duty, yell at them/do their job: after all, everybody gets pissed if the tank hides in a corner not attacking enemies, and everybody should be pissed if forced to cast spells with 0-50% chance of success where a single action from your teammate can raise such chances to 100%.
Using a action to lower enemy SR is not a waste of time and slots, it's a investment for the future, for both you and your party.
Failing in lowering enemy SR is going to waste many, many spells and rounds.
Failing in lowering enemy SR is going to waste many, many spells and rounds.
Here is a quick example of how a single action can turn the tide of the battle for those who still have doubts and don't check in-game logs:
without SR drop: SP 71 vs SR 80
Here a caster (little splash, all spell penetration feats taken, even a little bonus from items) is fighting a common Hell foe, casting a random spell at them while their SR is intact: you can notice how he has a 40% chance to be immune to any spell you cast at it, doesn't matter how high your other stats/level are, only the SP vs SR check is important.
Check the Hell Bestiary link, and notice how many common foes have SR value in the 76-86 range; if you don't bother lowering their SR first, your spells are going to affect just the random fodder, but killing a Hell Hound is not your main duty nor the main issue in such runs.
The Abyss Bestiary shows you even more silly SR values, so high that even after all the appropriate debuffs you might not reach a 100% success rate; then consider every paragon rank adds +4 to a enemy SR: checking the wiki you notice how Barbazu have 76 SR (approx 75% chances to affect them with spells if you don't lower it), but the Barbazu Razor in the example has 80 SR, and when it comes to fight superior/elite monsters your chances drop dramatically (random example, a elite pit fiend with 98 SR? good luck hitting it if it's not ''green'').
after a SR drop (NB): SP 71 vs SR 63
Notice what ''green'' monsters are: mages fodder. Suddenly you have 100% chances to hit most enemies with spells (in the example, those enemies don't stand a chance to resist with less than 70 "new" SR), and the impossible ones become manageable..
Here is how to deal with SR, and you selfish ones shall remember that not only you're doing a courtesy to the team, but you're also helping your own spells, so there's no excuse for not doing your best and debuff the high SR foes.
Important: only the best (higher) SR-drop value applies for spells (Persuade stacks on top of it), so once a enemy is ''green'' there's no need to use another spell against it; similarly, if a enemy got hit by a low-SR drop effect, but it still has a very high SR score, it's best to cast a fresh, high-SR drop effect.
Druid
Natures Balance
- Drops all targets SR by (CL/5 + 1 per Trans focus) without a save.
- When cast by a Druid caster with at least 30 base Dex and whose base Dex is higher than their base Wis, casts Aura of Balance instead. This lasts 10 rounds and drops enemy SR by CL /4 on all enemies without a save.
- Drops all targets SR by (CL/5 + 1 per Trans focus) without a save.
- When cast by a Druid caster with at least 30 base Dex and whose base Dex is higher than their base Wis, casts Aura of Balance instead. This lasts 10 rounds and drops enemy SR by CL /4 on all enemies without a save.
The SR-drop master, the one character in the party who's supposed to ALWAYS start spawns by running in the mid of enemies and cast one Nature Balance (NB) in order to hit as many enemies as possible, then 1) stand and cast, if there're no KD/disabling monster or 2) run back and cast.
Despite the huge armor class druids can reach, many players claim they can't NB efficiently: the sad truth is they forget to activate defensive casting mode while running to the middle of enemies, and that causes a lot of attacks of opportunities (aoo) when the monsters switch target from the tanks to the druid; check the screens above, where I didn't activate the defensive casting mode I keep (hint hint) near NB quickslot, and caused me to take a couple of aoo. In the second screenshot you see a enemy hitting me even if their roll isn't enough to reach my armor class, but that's because the druid was standing still in front of enemies, that's called being flatfooted, losing a huge chunk of AC (dexterity bonus, tumble bonus, dodge ac) and happens when you're not attacking nor casting spells ... if you want to have a idea of how much AC you lose standing flatfooted use "!list ac" command while standing still in town, the second (current AC) number is your flatfooted AC, and is horribly low.
Edit: old screenshots are gone, I forgot to not use defensive casting to prove my point. Oh well, I'm sure you'll meet plenty of bad examples in-game
So, remember to use defensive casting mode, be fast at your job (if you wait too long before running to kd/disabling monsters they'll use their special attack, instead rush at them asap and rush back right after having finished casting), don't stand flatfooted doing nothing and don't dare cast any spell that's not NB as your first spell; there're exceptions but if you read this guide and some things are new to you, then you aren't ready for the next chapter
The SR drop from a caster druid NB is -16 or -17 depends if you reach CL 60 or not (you want paragon focus in transmutation anyway), has a ok range that becomes huge with a highly recommended aboleth off-hand item (Confluence of Silvanus); it's the single best SR-drop spell, and that's why you druids are supposed to be the ones doing this duty.
The SR drop from a battle druid NB is -13 with a standard 35/4/1 splash build, and those 3-4 points make a huge difference in practice so in the remote eventuality there're bot ha caster druid and a battle druid in party, the caster one should NB anyway; nonetheless, -13 is better than anything other casters can do, so if you have a battle druid in party the mages are quite happy anyway.
Consider how many spawns you fight before going rest and memorize NB accordingly, 1/spawn is ok for battle druids, 1-2 might be needed for caster ones; having 15-20 NB memorized is standard for hells and Beyond; if you miss only one or two enemies in a spawn, tossing another NB is justified only if they're high SR (85+) foes (hence you need to learn the wiki values for SR), else let the other casters deal with it.
Bards and Mages
Mordenkainens Disjunction
- When cast from an item, the user's character level is used as caster level to cast this spell.
- The dispel check is now CL + (Abj foci * 2) + 1d20 vs a DC of (11 + target HD).
- When targeted at a single creature, breaches up to six magical defenses, lowers SR by 9 + (Abj foci) for 10 rounds, and inflicts an aura-suppression effect for 1 round, plus 1 round per Abjuration focus.
- When targeted as an area-of-effect spell, breaches up to two magical defenses and lowers SR by 10 for 10 rounds.
- When cast from an item, the user's character level is used as caster level to cast this spell.
- The dispel check is now CL + (Abj foci * 2) + 1d20 vs a DC of (11 + target HD).
- When targeted at a single creature, breaches up to six magical defenses, lowers SR by 9 + (Abj foci) for 10 rounds, and inflicts an aura-suppression effect for 1 round, plus 1 round per Abjuration focus.
- When targeted as an area-of-effect spell, breaches up to two magical defenses and lowers SR by 10 for 10 rounds.
The other area of effect option to lower SR, is way worse (only -10) and can dispel allies in the range, but when there's no druid available it's the best opening action.
Run ahead of party with Ghostly Visage (enemies must not spot you and not run at you) so that you can aim better in the ground to affect the whole spawn; in alternative, wait for the fight to start and then aim Mord half a screen behind monsters, so that the aoe gets them and not your tanks; practice is needed before you calculate perfectly the AoE range in a stressful situation, but it has to be done sometime.
A hint to druid players: if you see AoE mording effects, the party mage thinks you suck. If the other party members don't say anything about that (after all, it's a risky spell to use), then they think you suck badly as well.
Bards should carry mord scrolls/rods as well mostly because they don't have much to do and usually are the spawners, but the spell casted from spellbook is easier to use.
Bestow Curse
- Penalties increase by -2 per 5 CL above 15, reaching -12 at CL40.
- Inflicts a -1 AB penalty per 4 CL above 40.
- In addition, the target's spell resistance is lowered by (CL / 5) for 10 rounds. This effect ignores SR and has no saving throw.
- When cast as a Blackguard spell, receives +10 SP.
- Penalties increase by -2 per 5 CL above 15, reaching -12 at CL40.
- Inflicts a -1 AB penalty per 4 CL above 40.
- In addition, the target's spell resistance is lowered by (CL / 5) for 10 rounds. This effect ignores SR and has no saving throw.
- When cast as a Blackguard spell, receives +10 SP.
This is what you use against the monsters missed by NB/Mord, a nice low level single target spell that gives a use to all those low level slots you should have plenty of.
Pure casters can lower SR by -12, splashed ones by -11, so it's better than Mordenkainens Disjunction if you haven't the uncommon focii in abjuration; even then, it's a level 3/4 spell, and unlucky monsters might suffer the curse penalties as well.
Caster bards should wear Visor of Cursed Chaos as soon as they're tagged for it, as it makes the risky aoe-mording redundant for when there's no druid; aoe bestow curse (BC) is cheap, ease to use and effective.
Palemasters and Pariah should also wear this helmet near-full time once they are tagged for it, because their bestow curse is much more powerful (high SP/DC) than standard and usually scores its huge debuff on enemies even on the first cast.
Persuade
- Can be used to lower the SR of an enemy, similar to how Taunt lowers AC. Persuade is used via the Taunt skill radial icon.
- The defender must make an opposed Concentration check; if it fails, its SR is lowered by the amount it failed the check by (to a maximum of -6) for 5 rounds. It stacks with other means of lowering SR.
- The !opt tauntpersuade command toggles between Taunt and Persuade. The two cannot stack on the same target. As with Taunt, Persuading is a free action.
- Can be used to lower the SR of an enemy, similar to how Taunt lowers AC. Persuade is used via the Taunt skill radial icon.
- The defender must make an opposed Concentration check; if it fails, its SR is lowered by the amount it failed the check by (to a maximum of -6) for 5 rounds. It stacks with other means of lowering SR.
- The !opt tauntpersuade command toggles between Taunt and Persuade. The two cannot stack on the same target. As with Taunt, Persuading is a free action.
Bard players, stop put points into Taunt, raise Persuade. You don't want to aggro monsters, and the taunting is best left to tanks (Paladins, Blackguards, Barbarians all have Taunt as class skill and should max and use it); -6 AC is not as useful as -6 SR from Persuade and it stacks with NB/Mord/BC; your high charisma, persuade as class skill, and some bard items with persuade ranks make you the best (and usually only) class to do this job; it's a free action so you can bestow curse and istantly persuade after, just remember to put your epics on first (you can't put on uuu and persuade in the same round for example)
Others
Clerics can BC, but it takes the same slots as Prayer so memorize some for emergency but should leave the SR-dropping job to the other casters.
Turners can max Persuade, are CHA based and can Greater Restore themselves so they are great persuade users.
All characters, tanks included, should carry Mord scrolls (if they have UMD) or hell-bought rods, and stockpile those breach balls for when the casters aren't lowering SR; one could argue about what good is wasting a round worth of attacks to lower SR for incompetent casters, but it can save some time and makes you feel good, just make sure those noobs know you're doing them a courtesy.
Paladins' Holy Sword drops SR by no-stacking 4/hit, not much but it comes handy because some attacks could land before NB/Mord and sure before BC, possibly helping the cleric land his opening action (prayer); as usual, if a lame tank effect is the party best SR removal, point those useless casters to this thread
Thanks to their no-skill-drop-in-hells special ability, rogues can max persuade ranks and be good at it even w/o maxed persuade from gear/no uber charisma, a value of 100+ can be obtained after song and is a good special to toss in between attacks, considering their pickpocket special attack is lackluster and given how powerful dropping SR is. Palemasters can also raise the skill and be fairly decent at it as well: they don't need the SR drop on their targets but can help other casters against non-instakillable stuff.
CoTs Nimbus, MSD and Frailty epics: good for randoms/boss spawns but as you can't use them every spawn they're not something to rely on. Obviously use them when possible, not much to say about them.
Breach spells are single target and even with abj focii the SR drop isn't impressive; arcane casters shall use the cheaper (lower level slot) bestow curse spell over them for standard monsters, and use breach (or better mord) only against buffed enemy casters, for the spell-removal effect
The lazy noob question: "do I really need to NB/Mord/BC every single spawn and enemy?"
There're different answers to this question, based on Raj'NoobDetector™, where highest noob scores go to Level80inOneMonthOfBeingDragged, followed by HC players and TS spammers (usually same people), Hercules because he deserves to be mentioned, and finally good newbies who are learning and hence deserve just a couple of NubPoints™ for good measure but are on the way to greatness
1) Yes, because you are a noob and better be safe than sorry.
2) Yes, but if you skip just a couple enemies it might be worth check with the party: every run has its ''fodder'', things with low/no SR you shall learn to recognize; if you leave a not very dangerous looking opponent and the party has no problems dealing with it, it might be worth ask in game if it was a lucky circumstance or if such monster doesn't pose a threat.
3) Yes, but act accordingly to what the rest of your team is doing; if you are the druid, then do it; if the druid is somebody else but he sux, then do it; if the party has a devoted SR-dropper then only debuff lone enemies he missed.
4) No. But then you must have memorized all enemies SR values (if not the actual number, at least recognize the ''0'', ''low'', ''medium'' and ''obscene'' levels). Again, check the Wiki Bestiary links, and pay attention at in-game logs as well (in the dead times, while people rest/chat/wait, scroll the combat log looking for SR values of enemies you had issues killing).
If you're on a Legendary Level run and you're way over the recommended level for it, or if a level 60+ caster is dragging the team, usually SR is not a issue either; in the latter situation anyway, the highbie is not going to help you lower the SR, so if you want to be something more than a spectator, you might have to debuff your own targets.
A quick general hint I can give you is, if a enemy deals huge kickback damage, then it's supposed to punish those hitting it, and is designed with 0 SR (punishing random aoe spammers): for hells/abyss that means fumes and machines have 0 base SR; animal/plant creatures tend to have 0 or very low SR as well.
Don't proceed to istantly kill those anyway because the other party members might want to target other enemies, and if you are the druid or the bard it's a bad idea using 1-2+ rounds to kill a machine while the rest of the spawn is high resistant to magic attacks; the smoothest way to deal with a spawn is 1° drop SR and saves 2° istakill the fodder to limit the size of the spawn 3° focus to destroy/disable KB and other nasty targets 4° damage the big boys left, but that's material for future ramblings