Low HP Tactics for Different Classes. Getting to 30% or Lower HP On Demand. Pre-Frenzy

Many classes in Lineage 2 have special skills that can only be activated when your HP goes low, usually at 30% or less. Some of these skills are obviously very powerful and it’s quite useful to be able to use them at will.

Low HP tactic preliminaries

To do that you have to apply different strategies which usually depend on the class you’re playing. Some classes have it easy when it comes to getting their HP low as they have their own skills to do that, but others, such as the Titan, need special preparation to do so.

Because this trick is mostly used for a Titan and is known as pre-Frenzy, I’ll start with showing you how to do just that before we look at other classes. Because there are different variations of achieving this, keep in mind that this is just one way which happens to be my favorite and most easily executed.

On a side note, it really depends on the server you’re playing and things that work on retail or retail-like servers won’t work on some customized private servers.

In any case, the items you need to lower your HP on ANY class, as long as they’re Noblesse, are:

Majestic or Tallum Heavy armor set, preferably not enchanted
Any weapon with Conversion Special Ability
Staff of Evil Spirits with Blessed the Body Special Ability
Doom Heavy armor set, preferably enchanted to 6 or more
Additional items that can help, such as Necklace of Valakas, enchanted shirts (especially with HP bonus), talismans (not used by me personally for this, so not sure which) and any other item that may influence your HP

A general tactic for getting your HP low

Before I give you the Titan’s pre-Frenzy tactic (which some of you may know already or use a similar variation), the general sequence to get a character’s HP down to a very low level, without relying on their skills and only through the use of equipment, is as follows:

Decrease your Max HP by equipping a Conversion SA weapon, a -2 CON armor set (Tallum/Majestic Heavy, preferably not enchanted as that gives some HP bonus) and unequipping anything that gives you more HP like enchanted shirts, Valakas Necklace, Talismans and so on. Use any additional items that can decrease your Max HP (can’t think of any other, but throwing this in case there are such or we see such in future game versions).
Use a Staff of Evil Spirits with Bless the Body SA to get the BTB buff on your character. On retail and retail-like servers you need to use a “good” skill that targets. This means self-buffs and party buffs don’t work. The latter is not the case on some private servers, so test it out on the server you play. Obviously some classes don’t have any targetting buffs to do this, so the Noblesse Blessing remains their an only option (though not a very efficient one).
Equip a weapon with Health SA that provides you with a 25% Max HP increase, as well as a Doom Armor Heavy set (+3 CON), preferably enchanted to 6 or more to get an extra HP bonus. Equip your additional HP increasing items like Valakas Necklace, enchanted shirts, etc.
Activate your 30% HP skills and equip your regular equipment.

Depending on the class, the Symbols you use and the additional items you have equipped, your HP should be down to at least 33% or so, sometimes well under 30%. As mentioned, some classes just have the extra skills to help you control the level of your HP better, as we’ll see next.

Titan’s pre-Frenzy

Mostly used in Olympiad and for killing Raid Bosses, doing a pre-Frenzy is pretty straightforward and is achieved by following the steps I just mentioned, though there are some details.

Because some of the HP bonuses are static instead of being an increase by some % of your own Max HP, having either positive or negative CON symbols can affect how low you can bring your HP. In general, having +CON dyes makes it more difficult to lower your HP and having -CON dyes makes it easier. For example, when your regular Max HP is lower (-CON dye), any static HP bonus represents a bigger chunk/percentage in relation to your Max HP and thus has a more pronounced effect.

Additionally, the Titan can benefit of its skill Over the Body learned at level 79, which increases its Max HP by quite a margin and gives you complete freedom in what CON dyes you can use. When the skill is not available however, you have to control how fast your HP regenerates and that is usually achieved by becoming overweight (Weight Penalty Lv1) on purpose. This allows you to keep a lower level of HP by having a slower HP regen while doing the pre-Frenzy sequence.

Another thing to keep in mind if you’re doing this on Oly, is the automatic CP/HP/MP restoration that you get in there. Therefore practice doing the HP lowering sequence until you feel comfortable with it. The biggest factor on how quickly to achieve the whole trick is how quickly you’ll get the BTB effect from the staff.

Because sometimes it just doesn’t catch on, you have to recognize when to give up and approach the match normally, alas with less HP. Make sure to put all the items you’re going to use for this tactic on your toolbar rows, including your armor sets and weapons. Having a well ordered toolbar makes a big difference in pulling this with less effort.

One last thing that some people may not be aware of – while Zealot and Guts provide their effects regardless of the Titan’s HP level, Frenzy only works fully while your HP is at 30% or below, so keep that in mind.

In relation to the latter, a very good alternative combo is to use Guts and Zealot, then follow it with Battle Roar (or just a Life Force Talisman) and Braveheart. You can get very juicy stats if you do that, especially when you also have +CON dyes to maximize your CP and HP. It’s my little trick against dagger class players and they hate it a lot when it gets them by surprise. 🙂

Other classes that can benefit from lowering your HP

One class that instantly comes to mind and I’ve seen people do it with good results is the Phoenix Knight. The idea is to get your HP down and activate Angelic Icon in advance. Of course, it’s quite easy to lower your HP by using the Sacrifice skill, but when you don’t happen to have a target, this is the only way.

Grand Khavatari can use this trick to activate Zealot and Bison Totem, which can be very effective when it’s not expected. As with the Titan, you can only use Noblesse Blessing on most servers to get the BTB effect, and Dark Form on some other. The Fist Fury toggle is really helpful in decreasing your HP while you’re doing the HP lowering sequence, so always keep it on.

Although Soul Takers, Storm Screamers and Ghost Hunters have their own means of decreasing their HP, partial use of the HP lowering tactic can be used to accelerate the process. Starting out with a Conversion SA weapon and casting BTB on yourself takes little time with the nuker classes in particular, so it’s quite helpful in addition to using their Body to Mind skill.

Conclusion

As you can see there are some interesting combos you can achieve by lowering your HP to 30% or so. One thing that I forgot to point is that although you can lower your HP that much, it would obviously go up again if you equip a weapon without Health SA. This is important when using skills that require keeping your HP low, for instance the Titan which has to stay under 30% HP for Frenzy to work properly.

I’m pretty sure there are some other uses of these combinations that I’m probably forgetting right now, so feel free to comment and add to this, sharing your own experiences with the other readers.