Monks vs Snakes

Snakes are one of the trickiest classes to master, however this does not mean to say they are the most difficult. They are one of the oldest classes in Achaea are now consist of three guilds, Shadowsnakes, Serpentlords and Naga. If you are not properly prepared for snake combat, you can die in a matter of moves so they have the potential to be extremely deadly.

Snake Abilities
One of the fundamental points about snakes is their overwhelming number of afflictions. Snakes have the ability to produce venoms which are then used on swords by knights etc. As such, a transcendent venom snake will have available almost any affliction they choose. However it should be noted that if a snake were to use these in no particular order, they would have little affect against a well prepared opponent.

Snakes also possess the Subterfuge skillset, in which there are many skills associated with hiding, tracking and moving with stealth. Snakes are the masters of stealth and deception and make the best assassins. They can potentially appear out of thin air to attack you or even fire arrows at you from a distance. At transcendent subterfuge, snakes can "phase" out of time, and cannot be seen by any means except by priests with a form of sense ability. Snakes cannot even be seen by city defenses so they can easily go in and out of cities even if they are enemied. However, if they initiate an attack on a non-phased player, they will immediately become phased again. In addition, the "eye sigil" (SEE HELP SIGILS) when thrown at the ground in a room with a phased snake, it will draw them out of phase.

Finally, snakes have the Hypnosis skillset, allowing them to implant "suggestions" in your mind. These suggestions can either be of their choosing, ie an ability to force, or another set of potential afflictions usually all mental based.

Snake Strategy
The way a snake makes his or her kill is overwhelm their opponent with afflictions. Sometimes afflictions alone can kill someone, but often their strategy is to put their opponent in such a position that simple damage attacks will put them out of their misery. A snake's primary damage skills are garrote (with a whip) and camus (a damage venom).

If you have a good curing system, you may think that it is virtually impossible to be overwhelmed by afflictions, and you'd be right to an extent. With the best systems available, a snake can usually get no more than three afflictions on you at one time due to the rate at which they can bite. To further confuse the issue however, snakes use 'illusions' in order to play with your system. Snake illusions require hardly any balance/equilibrium recovery time, and as such they are able to create an illusion and bite in very quick succession. While your system is dealing with the illusion, the snake is free to bite you thereby increasing the number of afflictions. You should note however that the majority of time snakes use two bites in a row in quick succession, its ALWAYS illusion followed by a bite.

If a snake is failing in their tactics, they may change their strategy as they have a lot available to them. It is essential that your system does not have flaws in it and if it is fully automatic MUST be able to prioritize cures. Let me give an example:

  You cannot cure anorexia without applying epidermal. You cannot cure slickness (oily skin) without eating bloodroot. You have anorexia. You have oily skin.

If you have both anorexia and slickness, it is important that your system recognizes this fact because you can't cure either one by ordinary means. You must smoke valerian as an alternative for curing oily skin.

Defending Yourself
As mentioned before, a good system is the best way to defend yourself against a snake, but there are many other things aside from a good system you will need to stay alive.

If possible make your system run off the diagnose command in survival. The diagnose list never lies, so if you diagnose periodically, your system will retrieve the affliction lines and cure appropriately. In this case scenario, turn off your main triggers to prevent being tricked by illusions.


 * Being deaf and blind WITHOUT mindseye will prevent hypnosis, but isn't always a viable option. Make sure you have appropriate triggers for hypnosis messages.
 * Eat echinacea if you're on the look out for a snake, not only does it show who people are in the 'who list' it will also show shrouded players. If however they are hidden as well, you won't be able to see them.
 * Typing 'group' will show you if a snake is following you (phased or not).
 * Don't let a snake ice wall you into one location.
 * Touch shield if a snake is shooting at you, they can't hit you whilst shielded.
 * Make sure you have SILERIS applied at all times. They may try to "flay" this from you, so make sure you trigger it to reapply. They cannot bite you if you have sileris applied.
 * Smoking skullcap gives rebounding and will rebounding doublestab (their other affliction based attack).
 * TRB (tripblock) will give a chance of tripping your snake opponent if they try to doublestab (though at the obvious cost of a mana drain).

Fighting a Snake
When it comes down to fighting a snake, there are several things you should remember. It is all very well being able to survive a snakes strategy, but you must be able to initiate the killing blow. Snake races are usually very dex heavy, and combined with weaving, rather hard to land combos on. This being said, their races tend to sacrifice health, so if you can get them into a prone position where they cannot dodge attacks, they won't last long in general.

Amazingly enough, snakes tend to be extremely bad at curing afflictions. By hitting them with telepathy based afflictions you can usually cause a snake to flounder. Remember though that snakes can parry, so be careful where you target your combos. If possible, try to go for sweepkick combos because on the ground they cannot parry or dodge. This is a perfect opportunity to cause as much damage as possible. If you can break their legs and keep them on the ground, even better. Remember that Jumpkick is a very good way of achieving double leg breaks and a prone snake is the best kind of snake. Do remember though that if you allow them to icewall you in the room, you won't be able to leave to initiate a JPK.