Clebo/ComboGuidelines

Combo Advice

The purpose of this page is to provide a simple starting combo advice section. No doubt, many of you will already know these things, but given time, less trivial ideas might come up. Both in-game and mechanical are welcome. Feel free to add more if you like, just label them as yours!

General Mechanical Things to Think About

A good combo should be beautiful, terrible and versatile. Below I present some of the ideas that I try to think about.

1. Defense wins championships[Clebo]. Make sure that all combat combos (and others) have decent or cost-effective defenses. In many cases, combat combos are used more effectively when first using the defensive charms in it.

2. Versatility[Clebo]. Combos are expensive to learn, so why make them so specialized? Lunars have incredibly general and usable charm. Make the combos useful in more than two situations, ok?

3. Cost-Effectiveness[Clebo]. I rarely construct combos that cost more than one WP. Often, the WP expenditure is the limiting factor when using combos. At least they should be.

General In-Game Things to think About

1. Secrecy[Clebo]. Do not show-off you mightiest combos (unless you happen to play a hopeless gallant), because word gets around very quickly. Your ST surely love to make you feel uncertain by having mysterious characters watching you finish off those pesky extras. Same thing with powerful charms. If you use the same tactic all the time, your enemies eventually will find out your weakness, and exploit it to a lethal degree.

2. Epic Learning[Clebo]. When learning a new combo, try to impress the other participants with dedication, time spent and describing painful or beautiful training regimes that your character goes through to obtain the combo.

3. Excitement[Clebo]. I like boring combos. They are useful and kinda obvious when you look at the charms presented. However, it's the description and its name that makes a combo to come alive. This is particularly important for beginning characters. Combos are great for that uniqueness of a character.

Comments or Criticism

Solars Combo differently from Lunars and others, IMO - I usually design my Solar Combos with the assumption that I'll have at least a persistent defense running, then add in HGD or GEB if I need more parry options. Most of my high-grade Solar Melee Combos come out in the neighborhood of 20 motes, 2 Willpower (including the Combo surcharge) to turn on.

Also, most of my really effective Combos have been designed to target a general class of opponent. This doesn't mean I design "anti-Lunar Combos", because there's a ton of Lunar fighting styles available; it does mean I design things like "a combo against low-defense, high-soak opponents". Knowing what your opponent can bring to bear to stop you is important, and I don't know of many Combos that handle every tactical situation. -- BillGarrett

Hi there! I agree that there is no need to create an all-encompassing combo and that High-Essence characters have use of expensive combos. It's great to have a "finish off" combo when your opponent is down on defense. However, I'd consider the usability and applicability aspect as more important than specialization in these cases. I don't know, but my games are rarely preset in perspective. Thus, we cannot customize our characters to become "anti-darkness" (for instance) unless that is a part of the character. Also, for experienced players, my guidelines will probably not be very useful. As with all advice, people will learn to transcend them. Finally, I'd welcome more advice from other wiki-friends, just put them up there! --- Clebo