A few Provo Questions

[Wodan]

Hi fellow Bards,

there are a couple of questions regarding Provocation and especially Provocation Skill Traning I have. Maybe one of you can help me with them ...

First of all my current situation...

I've started my Mage-Bard roughly 7 years ago .. but I have since been focussing on the Mage side of this char and the last time I did some proper Provocation Training was doing the hedge maze before difficulty based provocation was introduced.

So as you might have guessed, I'm like a newbie ...

After reading a couple of posts and guides here, I figured with my current provocation skill (82.5) I should be provoking Lesser Hiryus onto each other and occasionally take a Greater Hiryu, too...

But doing that for roughly 2 hours brought me only a SINGLE gain that was not GSG ... and a fortune in gold

But the Hiryus are a real pain to provoke so I switched to Yomotsu Warriors which have slightly higher barding difficulty but are much easier to handle !

Well doing those for 30 mins didn't even bring a single gain ...

So here's a couple of questions I have to figure out whether I am going it the right way ...

1) Shall I use GM-Instruments for Skill Training ?

2) I have 110 Music - would it improve gains when I drop it to 100 ?

3) After I have successfulle provoked two monsters onto each other, I keep on provoking them and also bring in a third or fourth or even fifth monster and randomly provoke them onto each other. Does that make sense or is it impossible to gain from already provoked monsters ?

4) What is the best place to provode lesser Hiryus and greater Hiryus ? I am doing the Hotaka Plains at the moment but I spent most of my time searching to targets to provoke ... maybe one of you GM/Leg Provoker can share a little more detail about his or her secrets in gaining provocation ...

Thanks alot for reading and thanks even more for replying

 

[Guest]

The only real tip I can give you is to keep provoking them, just change target.

There are some who macro it, not sure how though.

 

[joblackjon]

Yes, you should drop Music to 100.0 until you're done training.

Use GM or regular instruments to increase or decrease your success rate. E.G.: find a beast with 50% chance using GM. Work it until you need Regular for 50%.

You can't gain from Provoked monsters but they can be re-Provoked for gains. When training, I Provoke a pair, find another pair and Provoke. The original pair is likely no longer Provoked so do them again and so on. If you can get 3 - 4 pairs, you'll be gaining like stink. The idea is not to waste time finding new training partners.

If you're happy with slow gains (and a lot of gp!), continue with the Lessers and Hiryus. You have 42.2% chance on Lesser and 22.8% on a Hiryu 110.0/82.5. Why? They're not abundant, don't usually spawn together and they are unusually aggressive. Not a good training combo!

They say the Barding skill-gain sweet spot is where you have a 50% chance of success, + or - 10 percentage points. 40% can still be productive but you'll succeed less while 60% succeeds more often but with fewer gains. It's a balance.

Find the Complete Hunter's Guide on the left side of Stratic's main page toward the bottom. Open the Advanced search at the top. Enter your Barding skill in the Barding Difficulty. The default Range is 10 meaning 10 + or - skill. Now scroll to the bottom and Sort By Barding Difficulty. You now have a list beasts that you can gain on, sorted from easiest to hardest. I try to pick some that are abundant, the least dangerous, non-casting and that die quick! It's training afterall!

At the top of Stratics Bard forum you'll find the Bard Caculator. Plug in your info and make sure the chosen beast has a 40 - 60% chance of success. Ideal is 50% but variety won't hurt.

The Hunter's Guide also lists the places where you can find your chosen training partners.

At 100.0 Music, 85.2 Provo and regular instrument, I would be training with Ogre Lords on Ogre Island.

Good Hunting

 

[Wodan]

Thanks guys, that's really valuable information for me. I will be following your advice !