How do I get a better chance at improving block, dodge, and parry?

By Sowy

"...Since I have been back I have noticed a fair amount of people having unusual ideas in how to improve dodge/block/parry. I felt I would take the time to explain to the new batch of players my information and hopefully dispel a lot of the old wives tales that get aired now and then.

First, if you are new you may not already know that Agility is the primary stat for all three defensive skills. I commonly refer to these three skills as "evasives."

Improving these with a low agility can be fairly slow if you do not do it right, it can even be slow for those with high agility. The first and easiest step to speed up your improvements is to use LIGHT or no armor. The reason for this is that you will ONLY IMPROVE in one of these skills if you do one of two things:

A) Perform that skill OR

B) Avoid the attack

So, if you want to block you need to wear a shield (or a torch) if you want to parry you must wear a weapon (not a bow.)

If you want to focus on one evasive at a time then ensure you do not qualify for the other ones. Example: I have 99 dodge and block and I just got parry and it is improving slow. Fight without a shield so you do not block and instead roll your chance for a parry. You will pretty much always qualify for dodge.

If you are improving your hitpoints too fast and your evasives start to lag behind it will become harder to improve them through natural combat. If the mob hits you 100% of the time your improves go out the window.

Magic Shield:

When I first came back I reinherited a character I had that had neglected to do his evasives and had mid range hitpoints with 5% dodge and block (5agil.) I would get hit by even baby spiders every hit it was that bad. I continued to have this problem until I cast magic shield on myself. As you may have learned from Gar or others, magic shield boosts your chance to evade an attack and it allows you to avoid/dodge/block/parry an attack way easier. Using this buff you will notice your improves come much faster. I was able to max the skills past cap with no problem whatsoever and soon was able to fight regular mobs for the remainder of the improves.

PS - You do not have to evade the attack from the monster that is hitting you. Any monster that you evade will give you a chance to imp on the kill. For example, I am in the throne room working hit points and a zombie hitting me. I ignore the zombie and I beat up tusked skeletons. The tusked skeletons hit me every single time due to my low % however I am avoiding/dodge/block/parrying the zombie all over the place, when I kill the tusked skeleton I get a chance to improve even though it was the zombie that I evaded.

Anyway, I hope this helps.


Originally posted by Sowy, Server 101, 2002-2011


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