Introduction to Herobattles

For those heroes new to herobattles, this aspect of Medievia can be confusing and downright intimidating. Even with the automated system, which allows players to initialize fights themselves, herobattles seem to be monopolized by a handful of old timers. This is rather unfortunate as herobattles are a lot of fun and pretty rewarding.

Among the rewards for the top 12 HBers, also known as Champion Heroes, are a fancy dragon mount and a HP bonus. The type of mount differs, depending on the player's class. For instance, the thief Champion Hero gets a stone falcon. As far as I know, aside from the name, the special mounts have no other differences. They are all free to the Champion Heroes and they arrive instantly when called. The bonus is distributed according to the HB rankings. The Champion Hero with the most HB points receives 35 HP bonus. The 12th Champion Hero receives the fewest, 10 HP. Finally, Champion Heroes are given this medal:
-=[A crimson banner for being a champion hero]=-.

A major feature of herobattles that makes it stand out from other modules is that fighters start with clean slates, ie: similar equipment and regen speed. At the start of each HB, the game provides the fighters with a very basic set of equipment. The beginning EQ sets are actually different for casters versus meleers. Ideally, you will improve your equipment by picking up better EQ on the ground as the battle progresses.

Below is a description of what happens during a herobattle, from start to finish. The goal is to give you an idea of what to expect in case you have never herobattled before.

1. Two or more heroes request a fight from the Hero's Challenge room (link, e, n, challenge) in MedLink.
2. The game waits 60 seconds after receiving the first challenge for additional challenges. If it has received at least two challenges, the game matches up the two closest scores to each other. If only one player challenged at the end of 60 seconds, the timer runs out. The original challenger can put forth another challenge if he wishes.

   The code seems to favor challengers with an en empty HB history, those with the default 1,000 points. If a hero who fits that description challenges, the game will select him as Fighter 1 and then find the closest score to 1,000 as Fighter 2.

3. Once a match has been found, the game announces the two fighters. Then after a small amount of time, the players are randomly transported into one of the two HB arenas. FYI - the arenas are creatively referred to as the Old Arena and the New Arena.
4. Now the players have four minutes to gather the equipment that is littered around the arena. The fighters are not allowed to attack each other during this time. While this is happening, Medievia announces to the rest of the game about the herobattle that is about to start. This is when other players can place bets.
5. After the four minutes have passed, the game transports the fighters to specific starting rooms in the respective arena. Now it's okay for the HBers to fight and/or continue gathering equipment. Other players can mindlink (watch) the fight from either fighter's perspective at this time.
6. If the HB is still in progress after some amount of time, the fight goes into overtime. During this process, the arena becomes smaller to force an end to the HB. What actually happens to each arena's layout is different. In the Old Arena, the fighters are transported to an entirely different and much smaller area. Whereas in the New Arena, the fighters stay in the same arena but the various doors are slowly closed. Eventually, the accessible space is only a 3x3 arena.

   If there is still no winner after some amount of overtime, the game will end the fight and give the win to the fighter who inflicted the most damage.

That's all there is to it! Of course, just like everything else, it is easier said than done. You're just going to have to practice a lot. If you already have a grasp of PK in general, you're already ahead of everyone else. In the beginning, try to HB against people who are also starting out. There's no reason for you to fight someone way out of your league.

As you acquire more fights under your belt and become better, try to specifically challenge better fighters. You will lose more than you win, but hopefully, you will also pick up on their strategies and improve your own game.

Here's some of the herobattle stuff I learned by trial and error over time:

• Have detect invisible and quickness casted before you challenge. Most of the HB EQ are invisible.
• For the EQ that aren't invisible (weapons, scrolls, potions), cast locate herobattle to get their locations. Remember to do this often since new EQ are randomly placed in the arena during the fight.
• Some fights are entirely won by a small, cylindrical, metal shaft, or also known as lasersword. This is the only EQ that is present in both arenas. However, their stats are different. The Old Arena version is dr/hr while the version is hp/mana.
  Both versions have a special proc that deals extra damage.

  Personally, I avoid using the lasersword but I still try to pick it up first to deny the other fighter the advantage. A popular strategy with it is to trip the opponent and keep him down while letting the lasersword go wild.

• Be conscious of the order of the scrolls in your inventory. Unless you know for sure which one is next, use its keywords and include a target. You don't want to cast a defensive scroll on the opponent or an offensive one on yourself.
• Use track. There's no lag associated with this skill in herobattles.
• To see the rankings, type herolist points. To see your own score, type herostat yourname.
• There's a six fight requirement before you are given a rank. Additionally, points and fights det over time so don't be surprised if your rank changes or disappears entirely.

As I mentioned above, there's an automated challenging system in place nowadays. It used to be that a god has to arrange the herobattles and usually, he or she would only do 3 sets at a time. As you can imagine, the lines were quite long. But now there's no excuse for anyone to not experience this unique feature of Medievia.

To become an expert at it is an entirely different story . . . and article.

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