Combat Guide/Atlas of Discovery

Introduction

This guide is designed to describe how best to integrate unholy prayers into combat progression with the AOD expansion. This is likely going to be very bare-bones primarily because balance changes are expected. A basic understanding of standard combat progression is expected using other various wiki guides.

Unholy Prayer Mechanics

Unholy prayers do not follow the same mechanics as normal prayers.

• Unholy prayers consume prayer points on each HIT, not once per attack turn.
• For each unholy ITEM equipped, 1 unholy mark is applied on HIT to the enemy, up to a maximum of 5.
• Each time prayer points are CONSUMED for an unholy prayer, 1 unholy mark is removed from the enemy. This happens independently for each prayer, so for 2 prayers, 2 stacks are removed. This means prayer preservation results in fewer marks being consumed. Enemy attacks also remove 1 stack per attack turn.
• Unholy prayers scale in power based on unholy marks on the enemy.

It is also necessary to specifically talk about RECKONING. The effect is extremely unclear "+10% damage dealt per effect affected by". The way this works is:

• For each buff on you (meaning, individual icon), you gain 10% damage per unholy mark on the enemy.
• Buffs with stacks only count as 1 buff, but debuffs such as stun, poison, stun recovery, ect all count.
• Buffs that begin with 0 stacks such as Agile Gem and Leviathan Shield still count as a buff while on 0 stacks.
• So for example if you had 5 buffs, with 5 marks on the enemy, you are dealing 250% increased damage.

Due to the mechanics listed above, there are some cases where only a single prayer provides more damage than 2.

• With only the minimum 2 items equipped and little/no prayer point preservation, using 2 prayers results in little/no marks being applied meaning prayers have no effect.
• Without multi-hitting weapons, a slow attack speed weapon may struggle to stack sufficient marks on the enemy due to them being removed on enemy attacks.
• Thus, it is recommended to use multi-hitting weapons with 3+ unholy items for the best results.