Whisperwalk's Definitive Guide to Rhinos

[whisperwalk]

Whisperwalk's Definitive Guide to Rhinos

Sturdy and peaceful; rhinos have a hard time killing anything in Alterra. So I present to you the definitive guide for making a rhino that won't suck.

Table of contents
1. Why play a rhino?
2. Stats and Equipment
3. Endgame Builds
4. Skill guide
5. The journey

Why play a rhino?
A rhino is what you get when you combine the supportive powers of a Mage with the tankiness of a Bear. You heal the sick, revive the dead, and walk through the fires of hell receiving barely a scratch. You have ridiculous layers of defence: more than 50% dodge; high armor; two different heals. Even when totally surrounded, the rhino has a pushback AoE to open an escape route. You can still die, but rest assured that rhinos have some of the best defences in the game.

All this comes at the price of horribly low damage. So you won't be soloing many dungeons (except for fun). Bosses will moan as they (very slowly) fall to your toothless attack, while you neutralize every single move in their arsenal. For maximum humiliation, you will kill the boss while his minions watch, helpless to protect their leader. They will do every single thing in their power to stop you. But they just can't get through.

So if you're the type of player that likes this sort of thing, you might want a rhino.

Stats and Equipment

Every levelup gives you 5 points to spend, which goes into STR, DEX, or INT. But a common mistake new players make is to assume those points matter very much. So let me dispel your illusions:

DODGE: To get just 1% more dodge, you need 40 STR, 80 DEX, or 200 INT. So if you go full strength, it will still take at least 8 levels.
HIT: To get just 1% more hit, you need 6 DEX or 10 INT. But you will easily pass 100% hitrate with the Vital Force skill.
CRIT:To get just 1% more crit, you need 33.3 STR, 30 DEX, or 50 INT.
DAMAGE: To get just 1 more damage, you need 50 STR, 6.6 DEX, or 12.5 INT.
HP: To get just 1 more hp, you need 2 STR. Be aware that real threats will easily deal a few hundred damage.

Therefore, your stats come from items rather than points. You can junk any pretend guides that advocate 100% STR, 75% STR/25% DEX, 50% STR/50% DEX, or even 100% DEX, because all these vague percentages will do bupkis to your real power. The only rule you should follow is this: you must have enough stats to wear the items you need.

ITEM SLOTS: You have 5 slots, which are HEADPIECE, CHESTPIECE, WEAPON, SHIELD, and RING
STR ITEMS: In general, STR items have high armor rating and give DODGE + something else. It is highly recommended to wear STR items with both DODGE + CRIT, because CRIT raises your damage. STR items should be chosen for your headpiece, chest, one handed melee weapon, and shield.
DEX ITEMS: In general, DEX items have low armor rating and give HIT, CRIT + something else. Because you need DODGE as a tank, the only DEX item recommended wearing is a ranged weapon.
INT ITEMS: In general, INT items are exactly like DEX items except weaker. So the only INT item you should wear is the Fine Crystal Ring of Life.

Translating these into actual numbers, you need 157 STR, 157 DEX, and 37 INT. The minimum level to attain this is at lvl 70; after that, you can do whatever you wish with the remaining points. 157 is the pre-requisite for the highest level pinks from Blacksmoke Mountain. Due to the flexibility, you can don any combination of STR and DEX gears, as below.

Endgame Builds
If you begin with the end in mind, you'll know what you are working towards. Obviously, items before lvl 75 will be weaker than this. You will still do fine by always prioritizing Dodge, Crit, M/s, and Armor. And for damage get the highest one-handed weapon you can buy.

The Fine Crystal Ring of Life may seem off, but 3 M/s is godly especially for lower levels. You can heal hp quite easily the next challenge is to regenerate mana. For a rhino, 10-15 M/s means you never have to buy mana pots. And with the Restore skill, you will never need hp pots either. In the later levels, you might want to swap it out for other rings; beware this will cost Platinum (real money).

Total Defence Mode
- Savage Dragon Master Helmet (42 Str, 7% Dodge, 5% Crit, 9 Health, 6 H/s, 5 M/s, 22 Damage, 67 Armor)
- Savage Dragon Master Armor (42 Str, 7% Dodge, 5% Crit, 9 Health, 6 H/s, 5 M/s, 22 Damage, 90 Armor)
- Savage Dragon Master Buckler (42 Str, 7% Dodge, 5% Crit, 9 Health, 6 H/s, 5 M/s, 22 Damage, 79 Armor)
- Savage Dragon Master Scythe (234-254 Damage, 0.9 Speed, 42 Str, 7% Dodge, 5% Crit, 9 Health, 6 H/s, 5 M/s, 19 Armor)
- Fine Crystal Ring of Life (1 H/s, 3 M/s, 2 Damage)
Summary: 168 STR, 28% Dodge, 20% Crit, 255 Armor, 36 Health, 25 H/s, 23 M/s, 36 Health

Kiting Mode
- Savage Dragon Master Helmet (42 Str, 7% Dodge, 5% Crit, 9 Health, 6 H/s, 5 M/s, 22 Damage, 67 Armor)
- Savage Dragon Master Armor (42 Str, 7% Dodge, 5% Crit, 9 Health, 6 H/s, 5 M/s, 22 Damage, 90 Armor)
- Swift Dragon Master Recurve Bow (233-288 Damage, 0.9 Speed, 42 Dex, 12% Hit, 9% Crit, 4 H/s, 3 Mana, 5 M/s, 12 Armor)
- Fine Crystal Ring of Life (1 H/s, 3 M/s, 2 Damage)
Summary: 84 STR, 42 DEX, 14% Dodge, 19% Crit, 169 Armor, 18 Health, 16 H/s, 16 M/s, 18 Health

Nuclear Offence Mode
- Swift Dragon Master Helmet (42 Dex, 12% Hit, 9% Crit, 4 H/s, 3 Mana, 5 M/s, 28 Damage, 60 Armor)
- Swift Dragon Master Armor (42 Dex, 12% Hit, 9% Crit, 4 H/s, 3 Mana, 5 M/s, 28 Damage, 81 Armor)
- Swift Dragon Master Recurve Bow (233-288 Damage, 0.9 Speed, 42 Dex, 12% Hit, 9% Crit, 4 H/s, 3 Mana, 5 M/s, 12 Armor)
- Fine Crystal Ring of Life (1 H/s, 3 M/s, 2 Damage)
Summary: 126 DEX, 27% Crit, 153 Armor, 13 H/s, 18 M/s

Skill Guide
Damage Skills
The rhino has very low damage but neglecting these skills will make them even lower. So you must get these:

2 Charge: It closes the gap, deals some damage, and is Part A of a combo.
9 Redemption: Deals damage which heals you. If Charge was casted earlier, Redemption deals double damage.
9 Holy Tempest: 7m area of effect, knocks back enemies, 60% chance of reducing enemy hitrate by 30% for 3 seconds.
9 Rhino Might: Because rhinos are not mighty, Rhino Might deals crappy damage. However, at the highest level it has 100% stunrate for 3 seconds which is essential for endgame maps.

Support Skills
You should support the rest of your party. Max these skills.

9 Restore: Heals entire party and +health/sec for entire party
9 Vital Force: Increases damage for entire party, increases your own crit and hitrate
9 Guardian: Dispels enemy nasties, increases your dodge and armor. Some players look down on this skill but trust me you need the 10% dodge. Dodge is better than armor because it lets u evade an attack that can kill u in one hit.

These skills are optional because they don't get much better with additional skill points. So you can dump your extra points on them.

9 Revive: Resurrects dead party members.
1 Summon: Taunts monsters so that they attack you. Adding skill ranks does almost nothing so best to leave it at 1.

Ignore this skill:

0 Divine Aura: Because you're not a god, and mana regen with cooldown is worthless compared to the Fine Crystal Ring of Life. One ring to rule them all.

Defence skills

9 Brute Force: The skill description says it replaces Vital Force but actually it doesn't. Therefore you should take this for the 10% extra dodge (the 5 armor is just for show).
0 Stone Skin : A lot of players love this, but the cooldown is long, the armor is worthless (because you have too much armor and enemies can always deal some minimum damage), and the buff is short. You couldn't rely on Stoneskin if your life depended on it.

The Journey
Questing

Questing is the main part of Pocket Legends. Since the rhino is a team player (a good way of saying we suck solo) it is vital to join and host parties. Birds and foxes are good friends because you can keep them alive and they can kill bosses. Bears are bad because they are another set of stone walls. Mages are OK but bosses tend to take longer.

Most quests in Pocket Legends follows the formula: kill X monsters to get Y items. Then receive item Z as reward. So it's pretty straightforward.

Bossing

Due to your overflowing armors and ridiculous dodging, bosses might find you difficult to kill. So they will usually ignore you and go for the birdie's neck. Your counter is to spam Summon and buy time for the birds. Of course, there are some melee bosses that the birds can kite. For those types, you should let the bird kite (why let the enemy do any damage at all?), while you pummel it in melee range. The boss will ignore you while chasing the bird.

There are some bosses with a one-hit-kill skill: Magnetic Golem, Gurghox, Shadow Witch, Auntie Emma etc. When you're with a noob party, a single wipe can murder everyone, leaving the whole crew to walk the long distance all over again. As a smart rhino you should not allow this. Stay outside the room (after all, how much damage can you contribute), wait for someone to die. Only then do you walk in to revive. Then get the hell out. You only return when the boss about to die - and you do this so you can get the exp, loot, and credits for the kill. I call this the Rhino Ambulance Service.

Player Vs Player

A rhino can pvp as long as no one runs away from you. Be aware that these are humans so they will run, unlike the silly AI monsters that haplessly stand there for 5 minutes (while you kill them). Mages are the easiest targets because they don't really do single target; these will fall after 5 minutes. Bears are even chance because you can heal and they cannot. Birds are very very difficult - they will absolutely murder you. The only problem with all these people is they will run, so you won't get a single kill.

While pvp-ing with a teammate, the rhino is no good because your 'friend' will take credit for all your kills. Even if they only landed the last hit and u did all the work. So if anyone is on your side, leave. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

In the endgame the Rhino is no good for PVP. Other classes start to score outrageous 1-second kills while the rhino is still slow. In fact I found the place infested with birds birds birds and only a few mages/bears. Birds are too good in the endgame; they can easily pwn anyone wearing crap equipment, while other classes have to work hard to score a kill. Because skills are not really balanced they give birds way too much dodge, damage, and debuffs.

Capture the Flag

Rhinos are said to be kings of CTF due to their overgrown dodge stat and revive skill. CTF is just like rugby, except that the players kill each other. So, the job is to grab the flag and run. And that's all there is to it.