Fellowships

This is supposed to be a helpful guide to fellowship playing and general behavior...

(this guide will refer to fellowship as "FS")

Find People To Fellowship With
Naturally, a fellowship with just one person is rather pointless. The more, the merrier, and everyone should try to the the merriest :)

If you find someone who is killing the same type of monsters as you (not the same monsters, I doubt you want to FS with a killstealer), that you want to FS with, start by saying "hi", "hey", "hello" or whatever suits you. Just to be a bit civil and not ask for FS the first thing you do. After the hi process, you can ask for FS without feeling like a rude bastard ;)

If they ask you for the name, give it to them with a /t. Why? Because you don't want uninvited people in your fellowship. What I mean is, someone might overhear if you say it normally.

If someone wants to solo you should of course respect that...

Fellowship Behavior
First thing you do, go to options > set chat prefix and type "/f". This means that all your messages will automatically begin with /f, the command for talking to the fellowship. It's very annoying for other players having to read what is meant for your fellowship alone to see.

Ah, and the loot thing. Turn off the greed machine - if you play together and kill monsters together, you should divide the loot equally. Start by asking your fellowship members how they want to divide the loot. If they say FF, this points towards a greedy behavior. Being able to click an item the second it was dropped is not something that will avail you much on the road ahead. Being able to play in a team, on the other hand, is.

Taking turns, or claiming certain drops (only to be done if you need* the specific item) is how high level people solve things. I'm not saying that it's written anywhere that we do it the "right" way, but you are bound to make enemies if you refuse to can't do something as simple as sharing.


 * To "need" an item means that you need it for a greater purpose than mere money. A quest, a craft ingredient, but not for selling.

Ask your FS how they want to divide the loot. If they refuse to take turns, well, find comfort in the fact that they won't get into any decent clans.

Taking turns works this way for a three people FS:

FS Founder - Joiner 1 - Joiner 2

That's the order they get drops. Now, if FS Founder and Joiner 1 gets a drop, it looks like this:

Joiner 2 - FS Founder - Joiner 1

If a guy called Joiner 3 joins, the list would look like:

Joiner 2 - FS Founder - Joiner 1 - Joiner 3

Get it? Good.

Fellowships and Experience
Some people refuse to FS or take people into their FS because they think they will gain less experience. In some aspects, this is true, but in most, it isn't. If you have any experience of basic mathematics you can think two-dimensional.

It's not about experience gained per kill, it's about experience gained per unit of time.

Look at this example. Dumbass1 and Dumbass2 are camping a spawn. The spawn consists of two non-cooperative monsters that give 100 exp (we assume that Dumbass1 and Dumbass2 are of the same level). Dumbass1 and Dumbass2 are not in a fellowship. Ah, and the monsters respawn!

Since Dumbass1 and Dumbass2 both agreed that a fellowship would mean less experience, they decided to split the monsters. So, Dumbass1 and Dumbass2 attack and kill one monster each, barely managing though. They both get 100 experience each, and both risked getting killed.

Now, if they were in a fellowship...

The fellowship would grant them a 25% experience bonus (an additional 25% should they create the FS power "The Void") which would mean 62,5 experience per kill. But, they could kill them one by one with little problem, and in the end, they'd both get 62,5 + 62,5 = 125 experience each, as opposed to 100, and in a much faster and safer way.

The two FS members, now renamed Smartass1 and Smartass2, got some spare time after killing that spawn and decided to take on a harder spawn. And look, they managed to kill it, which they never would have done alone! This gave them even more experience. Unity gives strength. Remember that.

Different roles in a Fellow

Different Roles in a Fellowship
Well, there are fighters, clerics and mages. Each have their own task.

FIGHTER
The fighters' job is to make sure that the weaker fellowship members (mages and clerics) don't get hit. A cleric is useless if he has to heal himself. A mage is meant to stand back and blast the monsters into oblivion. If a mage got enough HP to withstand all those hits, he simply wouldn't even be half as powerful. To tank is the job of fighters. Of course they deal a fair amount of damage as well...

The fighters' choice of weapon depends on how the FS looks. If it's a 1 fighter/1 cleric FS, he should use a weapon that deals a lot of damage (since with a shield he'd just run out of stamina, and the cleric would have nothing to do since the fighter would hardly get hit). A two-handed weapon would deal a lot of damage, and let the cleric heal the damage he takes due to his lower AC.

If there are multiple fighters, they should focus on shields. Many fighters means that more need revitalize and the cleric will have less MP left for healing. But since there are multiple fighters, their stamina is less likely to run out. If the cleric is good enough, he/she can make sure that the FS has to rest like 10 seconds after each battle!

There's also another aspect to sword/shield fighters versus two-handed weapon users. The sword/shield fighters generally have higher AC but lower damage compared to the two-handed weapon users. This means that the S/S fighters should absorb as many hits as possible, because otherwise the 2H fighters would have to pull out due to low HP and thus not be used at their full potential. The point is, if a two-handed weapon user is getting hit, make sure that you as a S/S fighter attack the monster attacking him/her, thus provoking the monster to attack you instead. Tanks tank, two-handed weapon users deal the majority of the damage.

CLERICS
Clerics make sure the fellowship is protected against whatever peril that lurks ahead. For example, if they are fighting spiders, the cleric has protected the FS vs yellow magic and he/she is ready to cure poison. Clerics should always have a high amount of gems in cure wounds and revitalize though.

Read the fighters section for information on how to use your spells depending on fellowship size.

APPRENTICES
Apprentices and wizards have two useful spells as of now: Lightning Zap and Flare. Entangle isn't that good because you more often than not entangle your own fellowship members.

The use of Lightning Zap is pretty obvious: Use it on the monster the fellowship is currently trying to kill.

Flare, on the other hand, is a key spell with more use than many think. When you are in a dark dungeon, fighting monsters that don't give off light, this means that someone needs to provide this light. Now, if there's a cleric in the fellowship they usually carry a light source, but if not, it means that a fighter has to be less effective since they have to wield a lousy torch.

Do it like this: The fellowship leader (preferrably a fighter) walks around with a light source. When he spots a spawn, the mage casts flare on that spawn, freeing up the fighter's shield slot so he can put a shield there, or wield a two-handed weapon. And then you kill the spawn in whatever manner you like ;)

Thanks for taking this time to read this guide, made by the one and only Enquillion!