How to Joust
I’ve been really bad about posting, but to be honest, nothing I would have written would have been useful.
Until now.
I just got the quest “The Grand Melee” and had a heck of a time trying to complete it. For the first 30 min, I only defeated one jouster. Then things clicked and the next 2 fell like nothing. Here’s my priorities –
- DO NOT TRY TO GET TO RANGED. The NPCs can turn around much faster than you (like instantly) while your mount takes awhile to turn even if you’re not using keyboard turning. If your opponent runs away, let him. We’ll deal with that in a sec.
- Hit Defend whenever its up. Or at least try.
- Thrust if in melee range. I know the previous quests showed you that you lose a defend when you do it, but in practice that only depends on what your opponent does. Thrust, Defend, Thrust, Defend should be your cast sequence in close range.
- When your opponent turns to charge, stay where you are and start spamming Shield-Breaker. Once that goes off, spam charge. Some opponents will let you get both off, some will not, but it will be consistent for that faction (I found SW let me get both while Gnomer only let me get one). If you find they turn around too fast to get both, priority is to Charge. If you get it off first at minimal range, they won’t be able to do it.
It sounds simple enough now that I write it, but holy cow, was that a frustrating half-hour.
The Mystic Hunter 
Mania said,
April 16, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I gave so much feedback on jousting on the PTR that my fingers blistered.
Okay, not really, but close. :> Suffice it to say I find the entire thing incredibly frustrating until you happen to hit on a strategy that works, at which point it becomes incredibly tedious. I understand that some people have fun with this, but I can only assume that they are better than me.
Anyway, I used the strategy you outline here today for my Grand Melee, except that I never ever Charge. It takes longer to wear down the opponent if you don’t Charge, but whenever I Charge I lose control of my mount for too long (slow reflexes + lag). I can’t ever manage to get back into melee range before the damage I take outweighs the extra damage I did with the Charge.
So it’s Thrust, Thrust, Thrust, Defend for me, with a Shield-Breaker and then close whenever they move away.
Rogosh said,
August 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Easiest way to burn them down and do so quickly is the following:
As soon as the fight starts your opponent will ride off, hit charge.. as you run by him make a slow arcing circle back toward him while spamming shield breaker. You’ll get off your shield break and then be in melee range while he has two shields down and you’re doing significant damage. As soon as you begin to melee spamm your shield (you will usually get hit with a breaker by your opponent during this unless and will need to put yourself back to full).
When your opponent runs away again, do the same thing again.. Charge, slow arc with a breaker.. melee and refresh your shields. by this time I usually have him to one or no shields left and hitting hard, not to mention a charge on two shields is 3,400 dmg and against one shield is 5,950 dmg.
With this strategy I’m usually able to get three jousts in without waiting to heal so all in all, it goes extremely quickly.
Practice and you’ll find that you can make your arc in such a way that you don’t even give your opponent the chance to hit you with a breaker. Once you’ve mastered that you will usually end the fight losing only 8-10k health total.