Highway man duelist advance....how to use??

[MythTrip]

Seems like a negative when result of an action is "forward 1", as it disturbs your carefully done order. How to use this, seems difficult. And if he advances to the front, and you take the "forward one" action, does he go to the back of the line, ie position 4?

[R.O.D.]

No. And most of time the skill selection is what really matters, with the right setup, a HWM will not disturb the formation, now if you care to hear, a suffle may do something quite horrible in that regard...

[R.O.D.]

Oh and he does not goes to back RANK. If he goes foward Rank 1 is the limit.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Seems like a negative when result of an action is "forward 1", as it disturbs your carefully done order. How to use this, seems difficult. And if he advances to the front, and you take the "forward one" action, does he go to the back of the line, ie position 4?

You want to combine this skill with Point Blank Shot, because it's devastating and knocks you back to the second rank. You also want the guy in the first rank to be someone like the Crusader or any other heavy damage dealer who copes with second rank just fine.

The riposte it activates can be incredibly awesome against area attack fiends and other vermin like that.

If you also give your Crusader a skill like Holy Lance so he can attack the back ranks from third position and pop back up to the front, this makes Shieldbreaker awesome in third position.

You can just keep the Duelist's Advance coming, annihilate enemies with Point Blank Shot, bring the Crusader back up with Holy Lance, and have your front three ranks dancing around all the time.

Just make sure to pick your skills carefully so you don't end up in awkward situations where a hero doesn't have a move for the spot he's in.

(It actually really becomes a question more of whether you want him in front to begin with to open the fight with a PBS because a crit just wipes out one of the enemies before anything even happens, much of the time.)

[No One]

Start the HWM in row 4. He advances to row 3 on his first turn, where's he's most comfortable. Second turn, he advances to row 2 - have someone who can put up with this shuffle in row 2. Almost every fight will be done by then in any case. For bosses you also want point blank shot so you can reset for the riposte.

[Runiver]

Just use him in a team that can reposition easily if necessary. (Hellion's breakthrough, Man at arms Rampart, Crusader's Holy Lance, etc)

[Timus]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Seems like a negative when result of an action is "forward 1", as it disturbs your carefully done order. ...

Not necessarily, but you have to think about it beforehand. You can build whole parties around moving skills. One of my favourite Ruins party is: VES+GR+HWM+CRU. The first round usually looks something like that: The GR goes first with Lunge (mostly attacking rank 3), then the HWM with Duelist’s Advance (attacking rank 3 or 4, depending on the enemies), then the CRU with Holy Lance (hopefully finishing off one enemy in the back ranks), and the Vestel somewhere in-between (usually stuns at first or finishes an enemy with Judgement).

My best Duelist’s Advance experience: 3 riposte-crits in 1 round, in sum about 60 damage. But that’s the exception.

[Death's Disciple]

I like to team the Highwayman with the Antiquarian, then have the Highwayman use Duelist Advance. On the Antiquarian's turn I have her make the Highwayman guard her. That way there is double the chance to get a riposte attack in.

[R.O.D.]

Originally posted by Death's Disciple:

I like to team the Highwayman with the Antiquarian, then have the Highwayman use Duelist Advance. On the Antiquarian's turn I have her make the Highwayman guard her. That way there is double the chance to get a riposte attack in.

And a helluva of dodge too... too bad it is so unreliable...

[LaserGuy]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Seems like a negative when result of an action is "forward 1", as it disturbs your carefully done order. How to use this, seems difficult. And if he advances to the front, and you take the "forward one" action, does he go to the back of the line, ie position 4?

If your line order is so carefully set up that having one character move forward one step is going to cause you problems, you honestly probably need to rethink your party, since lots of enemies can do much worse than that.

That said, I agree with Skinny Pete that the easiest way to do this is use Duelist + Point Blank shot together, as these cycle through rows 1-2. These slots are usually interchangeable for most classes anyway, so you shouldn't be causing too much trouble doing this. Though there is really nothing wrong with having a party that moves around a lot. Parties like GR/GR/HWM/Occ can be a lot of fun to play around with.

[CloudSeeker]

Use Duelist + Point Blank shot like LaserGuy above said. This hero is really easy to use.