With their flyto ability and highly (too?) efficient forms, they are exceptionally good at preying on the weak or the unready. With their pecking, which never seems to fail to insta-(re)blind you, they make fleeing extra tough, so that you're a sitting duck to their fierce offensive forms. It's even worse if you happen to be in a maze or city. Especially it if happens to be forsaken. Sometimes they don't even need to shift to their other form to finish it.

To avoid them, you could (or at least, I can):

1. Get dumb-lucky and teleport to where they can't go
2. Quit when they login
3. Never leave the cabal grounds (if caballed)
4. Never travel around without a gang of at leat three.

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The first is just unlikely, cause most forms seem to go everywhere. Two to four are just lame and no fun at all.

And all this is just 'flight' scenarios, 'fight' is just not an option, unless you want to make sure you don't waste any time dieing to them (make sure you set wimpy to 0).

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Right now I am under the impression that some class matchups are just chanceless against them, while others are hardly aware of their presence.

What can you do to make their lives miserable, rather than they yours. Yes, you could dirt them, but even if you get the slim chance that it actually hits, it doesn't last nearly long enough to counter their flyto.

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Its meant to be tongue-in-cheek more than a real rant, but I still would like some pointers on how to turn this situation around, cause they can be very annoying.

>exceptionally good at preying on the weak or the unready.
Only on those, who never heard about teleportation or recall potions, who can't just walk around from air shifter (which is not so hard), who can't maladict him or who is caught with pants down in some cursed area.

All these restrictions do not leave too many easy targets for an air shifters. Yes, there are some. And when you kill them you'll likely find only 2 gold coins and newbie breadz in their corpse.

>which never seems to fail to insta-(re)blind you,
It fails a lot. As a one, who had a shifter with such edge I'd say it works maybe about 25% times. And it is only 0 tick blindness. And peck misses sometimes. And some enemies have evade. And you can see your teleport/recall potion anyway.

>1. Get dumb-lucky and teleport to where they can't go
You can teleport anywhere. Flying up right after combat drains a lot of mvs. Chasing drains them as well. Flying drains them as well. And then you just teleport again. You know you can buy several of the potions, yes?

>4. Never travel around without a gang of at leat three.
I probably should stop here or go for trolling, since you obviously one of those newbies who exhaggerate the strengths of their foes whilst being completely blind when it comes to seeing their own mistakes, but I shall try. Most of chars (excluding pickpocket thief, who got caught on the sea without mvs, etc) can either kill or run away from air shifter. Period.

To sum it up, the ways of getting away from air shifter or ruining his life so that he think twice before attacking you next time were discussed and explained a lot.

When I had my air shifter I was able to kill two kinds of people solo:
1. If I caught them with pants down (happened rarely)
2. If that was some real newbie who did not teleport away, who did not dirt kick me, did not maladict, instead he fled and fled in the same area, without even trying to leave to another adjancent area. I remember a fight when I pecked, changed to my off form and he fled. I waited off the lag from rake, came in and he stood there! I raked again, he fled again. I waited the lag off, came one more room and again he just stood there. He did not run, did not teleport he did nothing except fleeing and occasional moving 1-2 steps and stopping AGAIN. Yes, against such type of char air/off shifters are OP as well as most other classes.

> When I had my air shifter I was able to kill two kinds of people solo:
1. If I caught them with pants down (happened rarely)
2. If that was some real newbie who did not teleport away, who did not dirt kick me, did not maladict, instead he fled and fled in the same area, without even trying to leave to another adjancent area. I remember a fight when I pecked, changed to my off form and he fled. I waited off the lag from rake, came in and he stood there! I raked again, he fled again. I waited the lag off, came one more room and again he just stood there. He did not run, did not teleport he did nothing except fleeing and occasional moving 1-2 steps and stopping AGAIN. Yes, against such type of char air/off shifters are OP as well as most other classes.

So, suppose they steamroll 20% of the chars, while getting steamrolled by the other 80%. This means they will typically only harass either the new and/or the weak or the hopelessly outmatched (unless the shifter player is immensily experienced). Over and over again. Is that a good idea? I don't think so. It's probably not this extreme, but leveling the playing field a bit, wouldn't hurt imho.

And for the record, I know the lands pretty well and have pretty much several teleport tools on me at all times, so they don't bother me 'that' much. They just can be a major pain in the butt if they hit you at the wrong time.

When it comes to, play it yourself and you'll know ... well, yes, except I find shifters in general, incredibly boring. And, even if I should play one, air/off would be the last thing I'd play. So, not going to happen :P

>suppose they steamroll 20% of the chars, while getting steamrolled by the other 80%.

Wrong. And again it is not about the class now. An experienced player will steamroll a newbie with almost any class, not only shifter

>They just can be a major pain in the butt if they hit you at the wrong time.
Yep! But imagine getting blinded by a shaman in a cursed area? Getting caught in the Underdark by cavedweller ranger? Getting gaunted by a wicked conjie while you are gushing blood. It's the same.

i don't have a lot of experience with this but i can think of a couple of things that might help. Some air forms, maybe all not sure, don't do as well indoors. You could also go underwater if you are just trying to survive. There are a few places they can't see from the air, underdark is the first that comes to mind. I agree with the other post that said play one and you will learn the weaknesses. That is true for every race/class.

Just a couple quick ones off the top of my head

Maldict them, gives lag on flyto for one, to the point where as an air shifter folk could walk away before I could re-engage. Also starts to hurt when they change forms if you can pile enough up on them. Hit thier moves too, running out of moves in the air is, put simply, a death sentence.

Its likely they have the bloody pecker edge (sure thats what its called, though reading it as I type it, well) if they keep blinding you.

As most folk will advise, to learn a classes weaknesses try it out there were some folk I could beat up on with near impunity with my grizzly/eagle combo, but others who would just plain own me.

And it would seem vastly unfair if pacifistic chars have no chance against them.