The Arena
by Glore in Dark Ages
Introduction
The Arena lays between Piet,Loures and the Mehadi swamp. Once you enter the arena you will be greeted by Luch,a hearty fellow who will help you get around. There are two parts to the Arena and neither of them are easy. Next to Luch is the arena board. On the board are posts of upcoming matches by hosts or just posts from aislings and their opinions on the arena.
The first part of the arena is the Gauntlet as most call it. This is where special hosts plan various battles for aislings.If you are lucky enough to attend a hosted battle you have two choices. If you are below the required insight of the battle or you just wanna watch the fight you may be a spectator. A spectator gets to leave his body temporally to watch the battle. But if fighting is your style and you want to win that prize the host put up, you may want to be a combatant. Be prepared though because there are many others that have waited for this battle and they wont let anything stand in there way. One important rule in entering as a combatant is you may not bring anything of the dark element inside. It is banned from the arena and wearing it may get you banned! Once you are inside you will find yourself in a room with many others, this is where the host will pick the teams for the battle. Do not complain to the arena host if you are put on a team you do not wish to be on, it is of no use seeing they rarely change there mind. Once you are placed on a team you will find that your hair is changed to a different color, this is the color of your team and it helps you recognize them in the heat of the battle. Once all the teams are selected it is time for the battle to begin. Listen to your host for he or she may have specific instructions you must follow. Once the battle starts and the host says go there are many tactics that people follow.
I shall name a few group tactics I have seen people use in the arena. The first tactic I have seen a lot of is to stick together and protect your priest. This tactic is very useful if you have a high insight priest because the priest is likely the most important person on the team. If the priest stays alive so do you. Another tactic I have seen that usually falls apart is splitting up. This is probably the most unorganized way to go but sometimes can pay off. You go off on your own or with a friend and walk around them and try to pick off other team members that have strayed from their team. Those are two of the most used tactics but there are many others.
Every class that fights in gauntlet should have a fairly different strategy then the other because every class is diffrent.I shall talk about a few of the class tactics now.
Monks
Monks have many tactics because there are many different types of monks depending on how far they are in dugons,what kind of stats and skills they have and what form they all. One of the most deadly monks is a strong con/str draco form monk with gentle touch.If this kind of monk sticks with the rest of the offensive line he can heal them as they fight. But not to close because draco tail kick will damage all around him. Draco stance is also very useful if your punches are weak because you can simply cast it and wait for those kicks to charge up again. The other forms don't seem to useful in arena unless you really know what your doing, a good kelborth monk might get a lucky blow with that kelborth punch and then back off to get the damage he took from it healed and go again but you would need to be really lucky not to get killed trying to get healed.Whitebat monks can be useful if they hide and try to get behind the priest and sacrifice himself to take him out but even then its quite risky and rarly happens.
Warriors
Warrior tactics are quite simple because they are all offensive. If you are a warrior with suain i suggest you suain someone and have your team gang up on him so he cannot run while the priest or monk heals you. It is quite hard but you can try to get to there priest and suain him or her and take them out first because losing the priest so early in the match can give you a real edge over the other team. Dont get to far from your group, warrior are better in numbers when attacking and should stick together.
Rogues
Rogues need to be very careful in these matches for there traps can hurt there own team too. When the match starts the rouge should hide and get inside the heart of the other team. Lay blinds and poisons because even though the priest can ao them it is an annoyance to them when the whole team starts screaming "AO AO!". Depending on the host he may allow or not allow sleep traps, most likely he or she wont allow them but if they do you should try to lay sleeps behind there team so when they try to retreat they will sleep while your team can take out some of them with low health. Maidens can be useful if you are hiding and set one behind their team so they run into them but be very careful because one misplaced maiden could cost your team the victory.
Priests
Priests are in fact the most important class in the arena. First of all get ready to heal those team mates because you will be doing a lot of it. Before your team goes to attack the enemy cast all the defensive spells you can on them like aite and archmad. If you have deo then i suggest using your most powerful cradh on the other priest and then using deo until they are dead. You are most likely their main target so beag pramh is useful when they are charging at you and you need to get a head start. Don't let the other team get to close to you, stay back if you die it will be quite hard for your team to win. They are counting on you to do your best to heal them. Your first job is to heal your team and second is to go on the offensive. Always waste that last little bit of mana on healing your team rather than that deo.
Wizards
Wizards can be quite helpful in battles if they play their cards right. I suggest the wizard stay back with the priest because the priest will most likely be protected. Fas doesn't really come in handy unless the priest wants to kill someone with their deo really fast so don't use it unless asked first. Your best bet is to sit back and cast your most powerful spells on the other team while the monks and warriors duke it out.
The Coliseum
The Coliseum is quite easy to find just walk to your right when entering the arena. You will walk into a gate type passage way that will tell you it costs 1000 coins to enter the Coliseum. If you have enough it will ask you to pick a starting point which are either north, south, east, or west. But beware there may be someone just waiting for you to step in so they can take you out! My advice is to get a small group or team of aislings around your insight, this way you will be safer and live longer. At many times there are groups of higher insights in one of the corners who will either kill you on sight or accept you into there group depending on the mood they are in at the time. The starting place you will enter is called the Outer ring and it is basically a huge square around the Coliseum. If you go into one of the corners you will see a girl on a small island. She is a way to teleport to different parts of the arena. If you choose outer it will be the same as if you were coming in and you will just show up in a different spot but if you choose inner you will be asked combatant or spectator. If you choose combatant you will again be asked for the direction and once you choose you will be teleported onto an island inside of the outer ring. If you choose spectator you will become a ghost and be able to watch others fight.
Dying in the Coliseum
Ah yes dying, a thing that will happen a lot when attending the Coliseum. Dying can be quite tricky to someone who doesn't know what to do and they may even end up getting themselves scared by Sgrios if they are not careful. There are a couple steps you should take right after dying to come back to your body. The first thing id like to say is there is really nothing wrong with dying in the Coliseum besides the repair you suffered from the hits if you were hit. You do not lose any items or health. The only thing you probably will lose is the amount of time it takes you to get resurrected which shouldn't take long at all. First thing you do when you die is go up to one of those girls in the corner and ask her to leave arena. Once you leave you will be at the Mileth town entrance, goto Pravat and walk back to arena. Once you are at arena ask Luch to leave arena once again. When you leave this time you will no longer be a ghost and will have returned to your body. That was pretty simple huh?
Coliseum Tactics
If you are in a group in the Coliseum I would probably do about the same thing you would do in gauntlet except a bit diffrent. Since you are not usually constantly moving around in the Coliseum you should pick a corner at have that as a "base" sort of. When someone enters the arena they have a strong spell of dion casted on them and you cannot hurt them for a matter of time so you cant sit there with four people and trap the people coming in. I would get away from the place where they will teleport in and get your spells ready. If they come seeking peace it may be wise to let them join you because you could always use a little more help. I will not go over class by class tactics because i think the ones i stated for gauntlet can work the same in the Coliseum if your smart.
Conclusion
Ah we are at the end of this document and I wish you all good luck in your upcoming arena battles! I have explained most of the basics you should know and have even given you some advice I have found useful to me as well as others. There are many other tactics and ways to win in arena and I am sure you will find the tactic that fits you best. There is a lot of fun to be had so what are you waiting for? Get out there and get started! The number one thing to remember is have fun, don't let those other guys make you feel down about losing just get back up and give it another shot!