"Tempting Fate" is my term for a tactical maneuver that any character class can attempt at almost any time against almost any melee opponent. When a monster with a melee attack form performs its attack, there is a time delay between the start of the attack and when it "lands". During that time, if you move your character out of range, the attack WILL miss, every single time.
This same thing happens to your characters. Your swing takes a certain amount of time and if a target flees and gets out of your range before you complete your swing, you WILL miss. You can see this happen when a spider or vampire, a rogue-archer or fetish is on the run and you try to chase them. You get close enough to swing but they keep moving, so unless your weapon speed is very fast, you will just keep missing and missing until either you corner them or you run slightly ahead of them before you swing, so that they are still in range when you connect.
When you deliberately allow a monster to swing at you, with the intent of stepping out of range before you get hit, I call that "Tempting Fate". When this happens unintentionally, merely as a byproduct of retreating or dodging, I also refer to that as Tempting. If a melee attack is initiated, then fails because the target moves out of range before the blow can land, that's what I'm talking about. Speed is the main factor (target foot speed, attacker's foot speed, attacker's weapon speed) but range is also an issue. Enemies wielding axes are easily tempted. Those using swords have longer range. Those using polearms have a goodly reach and you had better be quick. Doom Knights have a deceptively long reach, and their attack is quicker and more hard-hitting than it may seem. Hephasto has very little range but his attack is ungodly quick.
There are four basic forms of Tempting.
1) First, there is deliberate stand-in-place Tempting. You pause, wait for the enemy to initiate its attack, then step out of range and initiate your own attack before the enemy can recover and close again.
2) There is walking-away Tempting, useful against speedy opponents with slow or moderate attack speeds. This only works if the enemy can run faster than you can walk. You just stay in motion, keep walking, let them swing, then capitalize on the opening to dish out the hurt. This may turn into running-away Tempting vs the most speedy opponents, due either to their chilling attacks/Holy Freeze or their Extra Fast properties... or both.
3) Then there is the "oops" Tempting. You are busy casting a spell and some enemy surprises you, either because you didn't know it was there, or underestimated its speed. They begin to attack while you are still locked in your casting animation. You run at the first chance and hope to escape the blow.
4) Finally, there is bypass Tempting. When you are short on terrain and must run past or through enemies, you are Tempting the whole lot of them. Pray that your footspeed will carry you past them before they can land blows... or stack the fast recovery items so that you keep going even if they hit you.
In D1, Stunlock ruled the day. Attack got priority over Dodge, all the time. Your character had to be focused on achieving stunlock on the enemy, and avoiding being stunlocked by them. In D2, it's just the opposite. Dodge gets priority over Attack now, and both sides can capitalize on this to a great extent. The enemy will not hesitate to Tempt you, if retreat or dodge is part of its AI. How much you want to rely on or make use of Tempting is up to you, but you should at least understand the mechanics behind it.
The Zeal and Fend skills are notorious in that they commit your characters to attacks that may have no chance to hit as monsters move around. That's when the monsters are Tempting you!
Successful Tempting requires precision, confidence, knowledge about the attack speed of the enemy, understanding about your own character's speed (modified by boots, skills, stamina and encumbrance) and enough health on hand to survive when you get caught. And you will get caught!
Tempting is easiest to do, and the most useful, in single player. Even 100ms of latency knocks you far enough out of synch with the reality on the server as to increase the risks manyfold, and more so the worse your lag. Desynch can also be problematic. Even so, there are ways to apply tempting that every character can benefit from. Stand-in-place Tempting gets more dangerous, the more lag blur you suffer under. Oops Tempting likewise relies on response time, and may not be possible. You might also tempt critters on the server who, on your client, appear to be far away from you. On the other hand, both walking-away and bypass Tempting remain extremely effective through almost any lag, so long as the lag does not force your character to pause because your commands aren't going through. Thus, the most important thing you can do in a close encounter is to KEEP MOVING. As long as you are moving, you will Tempt automatically. The moment you stop to stand still, you become a prime target. Hot Babes in particular must understand how vital mobility is to survival.
Obviously, Tempting is primarily useful when attacking from range. Ranged attacks include any attack form that is (or can be) initiated from outside the melee attack range of the enemy. Whirlwind, Charge, Inferno are some examples of ranged attacks, along with what people automatically think of as ranged: bows and spells. The idea is that you Tempt, then strike the enemy from range while it is locked up in its futile attack. You can thus reduce your need to retreat (and fight more effectively in cramped spaces) -- and if you are overmatched by the opponent, Tempting may even be necessary to any hope of victory.
There are three key elements to look for in the enemy when evaluating your risks:
1) Enemy movement speed. Slow opponents generally require no tempting, as it is easy to stay out of their attack range to begin with. Just keep ahead of them and continue attacking from a safe distance until they drop over dead. By contrast, particularly speedy opponents can press you hard and fast, and this can be disastrous in tight spaces, particularly if you don't have any retreat room (such as at the start of new areas, or in some underground locations).
2) Enemy attack speed. This is the most vital aspect of deciding who to tempt and how to go about it. If a foe swings quickly, your escape margin will be narrow, sometimes even to a point where you will only get away if you were already in motion. On the other hand, some foes have a slow attack and you can safely tempt them nonstop, even if they are sturdy enough to force you to trudge back and forth across entire regions in the process.
3) Attack strength. You need to know how much it's going to hurt when they connect with you (which they WILL do, even in single player. Hey, I don't call this "Tempting Fate" for nothing, you know!)
"Walk, do not run, to the nearest exit." That's the mantra to hum to yourself as you Tempt your way across the first half of Act 3. Fetishes are particularly speedy but their swing is slightly on the slow side, and then they kindly stand there for several moments before they run away for a brief time only to come back eventually.
It can take some real courage to nonchallantly walk away from a mob of screaming flayers the first dozen times you do it, but as long as you stay in motion the whole time you are completely safe.
If you RUN away, you will stay ahead of the fetishes and accomplish nothing. Then you stop to try and attack and they are on you, and they are hitting you. Oops. But if you instead let them get a swing, which they have no hope of connecting because you just keep walking and you move out of range, that particular fetish is now temporarily "out of commission" and you can attack with impunity.
You can tempt mobs of up to four without a problem. Five or more starts to get into some tougher logistics because by the time you've tempted the last one, the first one is back again. There are means of coping, but your odds of taking damage goes way way up when the mob is larger than five. Of course, blowdart fetishes and shamen complicate matters, but the "real threat" is the melee fetishes, especially flayer swarms or boss packs -- or undead fetishes, which are perhaps the most vital place in the game to use the Tempting tactic.
Even melee-oriented characters can Tempt in particular situations to good effect. Why fight the whole swarm of flayers at once? Tempt a few, which kindly run away, then kill a few. Fight a couple at a time at most and reduce your risks. Just one example of how to apply the tactic. For Fire Tree use, tempting targets that are standing in flames is a devastating maneuver. Tempting them to hold them still while Meteors drop is another good move. Turn the enemy's aggression against them and make them pay.
There is a certain satisfaction in calmly walking your way through the flayer jungle, full-clearing it with little or no worries. All those players who "hate" Act Three are missing out. Spanking the flayer AI (aka advanced Tempting tactics) is enormously entertaining.
This is vital for lag control on Realms, too. How many times have you panicked when some flayer mob came screaming out of some unexpected quarter? No more! Just calmly walk your way out of it. As long as your movement packets are going through you're completely safe. Now if the server (for any reason) stops getting data from you in real time, then you've got a problem, but when is that NOT true?
Extra Fast fetish boss? OK, now you can run. YES RUN! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??? :)
Other foes you can tempt if you've got the speed include fallen ones, skeletons, maggot young, zombies, ghosts, spiders, vipers, zealot types, council members, corpse spitters, and anything that is too fast in too tight of a space for you to safely handle any other way.
Don't go overboard with Tempting Fate, though. Quite often, other tactics will be safer or more effective. Tempting is not your end-all tactic. It is best used for speed control, to take some of the edge off the most aggressive enemies when they are coming at you full speed. Do not tempt leapers, and do not take your chances with anything that might slay you in one hit, or which is slow enough to manage in other ways.
That concludes my general tactical advice. On to the skills.
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