Sun Aug 17 23:51:52 2003


At 1 o'clock AM, Day of the Moon, 35th of the Month of the Old Forces
on the Theran calendar Astilamos perished, never to return.

Race:	duergar
Class:	anti-paladin
Level:	51
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	EMPIRE, the Empire
Age:	345
Hours:	664
PK Ratio:	86% (closer to 100% is better)

Farewell, thank you for the promotion.

Good luck on your next.

Well props to you. You gave my (only ever) goodie thief her first death a long time ago and looted my strange bracers (blast) and so I had some prejudice to overcome with you.

After a while of not liking you, you grew on me...slowly. By the time I deleted, I respected you thoroughly.

In that conversation we never finished...I had intended to ask for your support in overthrowing Yanacek. It seemed like you were avoiding it though...out of curiousity, what made me too dangerous?

I had planned on quietly waiting for you to die before taking over the throne :)

Well, Astilamos is gone.
My enemies can breath easy now.
Honestly this was both most fun and most frustrating char I ever had.
I had a lot of interactions with mortals and Imms. Some good, some bad, some mundane.
I would like to thank everybody who made this ride enjoyable.

Brief overview of my life:
Level 1-15: Practice, practice, practice
Level 15-20: A lot of pk - distent into 35 range.
Level 20-36: Mix of everything. Fun part.
Level 36-41: Play with unholy weapon. A lot of pk. Fun part.
Level 42-51: Run constantly from goodies, try to rank. Awful.
Hero, pre-Emperor: Constant fighting with goodies but on more or less equial terms.
Emperor time - to age death: PK range is so one sided. 20 Hero goodies vs me OR 10 Emperials, no goodies. Mostly BORING.
Nobody would ever fight me alone. With very few exceptions.



Farewells:
I've met a lot of people. Impossible to mention everybody. Please post any comments/wishes and I will reply.

Some people which stood out in good/bad way:

Imms:
Talia - I could not figure out what you REALLY wanted.
Khasotholas - Thank you for your guidance. This helped a lot.
Zulghinlour - Thanks for Dreadlord. Tried to contact you several times, no luck. Wish we would interact more. But I know you are busy in RL.
Onglaurst - Every time we met I laughted so hard. I dont think you intended this imm persona to be so hilarious though.
Shadow guy - Thanks for non-interacting.

One real question for you guys. What a hell was wrong with my lastname?
Verdi. Astilamos Verdi.
Never got it in title. :-(


Mortals:

Faeras/Khalizad - Liked you both a lot. We clicked together perfectly.
Menzaen - Perfect Shadow. But I would never make you Shadow Lord. Too dangerous.
Zuou - Bastard. You killed me three times. Solid char.
Cersai - You have more skills then bash. Use them.
Aemelius - You were the beast. Liked fighting you, hated your full loot/sac/multikill policies.
Gherian - Three words - immolations/improved invis. Only time you ever got me when you dispelled my fly in snow worm lair. And full saced all my crap. Congrats on being an ass. Worse then Aemelius.
Rogardian - A perfect combo to screw me. Searing light weapon/eyes of flame. Never really spoke to you.
Jhanderin - This gate/phoenix_cry is a total abuse. And you (ab)used it to a full extent.
Dafeb - Worthless.
Ocelevan - We were a good team. But very fast we both got too suspicions to trust each other.
Azeri - I wanted to make you Shadowlord. But you go and delete leaving a big mess to clean up.
Izuvererus - Loved you. You are worth 5 warriors. Still a bit newbiesh for my taste.
Amadalie - Next Emperor. Good job. You went from silly worshiping fan to High Priestess who could overthrow me if I would not watch my back.
Eluna - A lot of fun fights. You picked perfect legacies to fight an AP. Never ever died to you or you to me. We both knew when to run. And "Uh, impale is annoying".



Some AP insight:
Very versatile class. An extime pk machine.
With recent sleep change AP becomes even better choice for pk then necro.

New unholy charge system is ... well sux.
Not a complaint. But it is a downgrade.
With old system - you would get one charge per person you kill.
With a new one - you would get nothing OR one chage most of the time. And very rarely you get several charges.
My rough estimate - I killed three times more people then I got total charges.

New AP skills:
Despair spell/cripple/morrosacharge/vault - underused. In certain situations they will help you seal the kill.
That flail spell/lashes of the slaves - useless.
Faceslash - good alternative for kick in ranking. Could not imagine situation it would be a best solution in pk.
Btw it makes a funny yell then you start pk with it. Almost as good as overhead and recite.


Oh well.
My past chars - Yilish, Salazar, Siagrin, Asielith, Elowan, etc.
And now Astilamos.

I am back to the newbie land.

Good thing all the inaccurate bitching about this has left me with an easy way to compile this data.

You wrote:
New unholy charge system is ... well sux. Not a complaint. But it is a downgrade. With old system - you would get one charge per person you kill. With a new one - you would get nothing OR one chage most of the time. And very rarely you get several charges. My rough estimate - I killed three times more people then I got total charges.

Meanwhile, back in reality:
You killed 111 people at level 36 or later. You gained a total of 112 charges.

Nice rough estimate.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I like the new charge system. You get to know who is worth a lot, and can really pull the charges in -- until those people log off as soon as you log on. (This might just be coincidence, but whatever the reason you are stuck killing weak souled people sometimes.)

However, I'm confused by the controls system.

I played one ap who never got a control echo, despite killing a number of people. The last ap I played got an echo on his first kill (control normal) and again somewhere between his 19 and 22 charges (control grip), since that one was a four charge kill.

However, Astilamos said, when I asked him ic, that I would get my fire control after taking 30 charges in pk, as opposed to leeching (paraphrasing).

I've done that, and I still don't have the control.

Is the reason because 30 is the wrong number? If so, please could you tell us the right numbers? eg is it a control every 20 kills?

Another ap I spoke to seemed surprised and suggested I prayed about it. Should I pray? I can present a fairly strong case to prove that I have taken 30 charges in pk, if it is indeed 30 charges needed. I suspect that there is some misinfo floating around, but given that assassins know what they need to improve kicks, warriors know what they need to spec, paladins know what they need for shield mastery, etc etc etc, is it unreasonable to ask for aps to know what they need to do to gain controls?

At the moment I have problems because I put something into my role which relies on me getting the fire control before doing something. Now it looks like this could cause (even bigger) problems (than expected).

>I can present a fairly strong case to prove that I have taken 30 charges in pk, if it is indeed 30 charges needed.

You have been misinformed. Just kill some more people and you'll get that control. There is a reason the helpfile doesn't spell it out and you don't get an echo every time your controls counter increments.

You're on the path, keep going.

> Eluna - A lot of fun fights. You picked perfect legacies to fight an AP. Never ever died to you or you to me. We both knew when to run. And "Uh, impale is annoying".

Actually I did kill you once. At the omegus. I was raiding solo and you were inside defending. You were rank 44 I think at the time.

Yeah impale is annoying. It doesn't bother me either that it does less now to strength and dex. I'm all for the more bleeding factor. It sealed the kill for me a few times, just not with you. ;)

What can I say? I'm both glad and saddened you're gone, and yes, I will breathe easier. Glad because I #"&=? hate duergar summoners and sad because you'd come if you had a chance.
We only got a few fights, some won, some lost but you were one slippery bastard, that's for certain. :P

Good luck on the next and all. Toots.

Jirash

>Jhanderin - This gate/phoenix_cry is a total abuse. And you
>(ab)used it to a full extent.


I think I may have done that to you during one session, but never again. Dont get me confused with the other elf healer.

Heh.. You remember that fight where we both died at the centurions ? If I had only sang a couple of times 'fire and ice' instead of dirt and 'nightmare'.. I was sooo ripping my hear out after that fight, I didn't sleep that night ;).. What I know from you as an emperor seemed at times right, but at times so very wrong .. Like the time I came after you when you were in your guild in Udgaard and you said 'Sorry, I have other stuff to do'.. as if an emperor would say sorry to anyone.. At other times you said that things that a 'normal' emperor would.. Anyways, for a first time emperor you did very well, good luck with your next..

Gwyythinniel

.

Had so much fun with you as Yuntewara but hated you as Mesdoram heh. Good job in overall!

Those fights spiced up my day.

And I had fun too, but damn you. I disagree with only two things:
1. I worth at least six warriors. At least. Or or one and half Khalizads. :)
2. Newbiesh. Bastard. I didn't play for a long time and now I'm a newbie? May you not find rest in the hell! :)

Liked you, but you were a bit soft for an emperor. And all those promotions... damn, I don't know how many did you promote, but you surely abused the power of promote! :P

Posted one of the first logs we ever had, fighting eachother
on the log board, enjoy. Supprized you didn't mention me
especally after that last dual. Anyway I liked your guts but
dispized that every time I lost I was left bare. I remember
a char or two of yours, and respect that your a pretty good
player, and I like that. Maybe next time we wont be on opposite
teams.

DarkTears

I liked Astilamos. Sometimes, he was too cozy with other imperials, a bit too nice... but for the most part you did a good job. Some interesting policy decisions (not enough, but the ones you made were at least interesting), and what I liked most were your pre-Emperor years... you hid, dodged, picked your spots, and did very well against what were almost overwhelming odds in those days. Good job.

Khas

Feared you alot, you were always prepared and you are
obviously quite skilled from what I can tell. Vorondel
even thaught you were wise in your ways.

Good luck with your next

Vor