This is probably a topic as old as time but I have a question for the more experienced players who have played the dreaded race/class combo of felar anti-paladin. From your experiences are there any advantages to playing felar over the other races for AP? Aside from the fact that they get claw attacks wielding a two-handed weapon, can now faceslash with claws, and that they will probably go to town with a powered-up unholy (the problem is getting there).

I was just wondering because I like felar but for AP it looks like you'd have to be a masochist or a super-awesome superb player to play this reasonably well into hero. As opposed to fire giants (resist_physical + 100% bash/enhanced damage + giant-sized + str/con), duergar (detect hidden + 100% pick lock + decent str/con), dark-elf (autosneak + faerie fire inherent + high int/dex), arial (permaflight + wingsweep + high int/dex), human (magical devices bonus), and half-races (quiet movement).

Thank you for your time.

Edit: Originally said duergar had decent str/dex/con. Changed it to just str/con.

They should get it =), just make it very very costly to get.

No:

1) It wouldn't do anything useful with a 17 STR, anyway, and

2) The whole point of the edge is "Normally, you'd have to be stupid to use a spear or a polearm as a non-felar A-P. Here's a bone thrown your way if you want to try."

oh the pain and heart ache if I did that lol. I would love to see a fire giant with a beefy spear and that edge.

But uh, I failed vault 4 or 5 times in row trying to use it as a fire a-p. I strongly suggest you use a polearm as a fire giant. Morosa's charge can be devastating on a slept target.

Arial however.. Oh god vault with an arial is so good.

I recently dabbled again with a human AP. He had perfected spear and polearm as he wanted to primarily use polearms and morosascharge but even when I was enlarged to fight a mob smaller than me I could tank so so so much better with spear than with polearm. It wasn't at all funny at how bad polearm appeared to be, even with the edge.

I had 23 strength and giant size fighting a dwarf and I tanked like a stone with polearm.

I had 20 dex and normal size fighting same dwarf and I did significantly more melee damage as well as tanking really well.

Any insight from you would be appreciated as I love the idea of the unholy polearm but don't think it will ever happen when it tanks so poorly.

One thing to keep in mind is that spin (including non spear spec poor man's spin) is on a pretty even keel defensively, whereas distance (including non pole spec poor man's distance) is more varied. You're up against a smaller opponent with a dagger? Distance is going to block a crazy percentage of attacks. You're up against a bigger guy who also has a polearm? Distance isn't going to do much at all.

ok, Thanks.

In my eyes, the main perks are:

- defensive spin with claw attacks when using spear. Retain ability to vault at all times. But also should be best at toe to toe damage when duking it out. Personally I'd skip polearm, but that's me.
- resistance to light handy versus marans, moreso if you cover fire vuln, which isn't hard
- nice felar gear
- good melee should tie up well with Empire powers (get them at centurions).
- People not defending great against claw attacks.
- bonus high damage attacks.

I think they will have a different playstyle to the other races. I did play one drow with sword + shield who basically focussed on pouring out damage with spells, and that worked decently well. I'd probably play it in similar fashion but using a spear.

Explore, maybe one day you can find where it is.

It's potentially pretty good, but I'd say it's a varsity-level A-P challenge. Felar A-Ps really got the short end of the stick on the first pass of A-P edges.

One argument to being felar and not something else is wanting to use a spear or polearm. Assuming it's not too heavy for a felar to wield I think they really shine there. Put someone to sleep and manage to spell them up and vault to start and not a lot of people are going to survive that, although getting all that to work is less easy than it sounds.

>It's potentially pretty good, but I'd say it's a
>varsity-level A-P challenge. Felar A-Ps really got the short
>end of the stick on the first pass of A-P edges.
>
>One argument to being felar and not something else is wanting
>to use a spear or polearm. Assuming it's not too heavy for a
>felar to wield I think they really shine there. Put someone
>to sleep and manage to spell them up and vault to start and
>not a lot of people are going to survive that, although
>getting all that to work is less easy than it sounds.

Admittedly, I've only played one AP since they got their new toys, but couldn't it be said of nearly ANY race AP, that if you put them to sleep, spell them up, & vault them, that not a lot of people will survive it? Or are you implying that w/ the extra claw attacks, they're much less likely to survive those 2 rounds before they go for the flee?

>Or are you implying that w/
>the extra claw attacks, they're much less likely to survive
>those 2 rounds before they go for the flee?

Mostly that, but also:

1) Stronger vault bleeding than most A-Ps, and

2) Similar to what you said, but also less likely to survive even if they manage to get away and run or teleport because of that extra claw damage, in the relatively common case in which healing is not immediately available.

...that arials have a bonus to vault as well? They do get that extra echo "step" about using their wings - do they lag longer?

I've always said that but since you're giving some AP goodies...spoon? :)

In one sense, the arial thing is purely cosmetic.

However, having a high dex is good for vault, so in that sense, arials are king of vault.

Specifically, if I remember it correctly, more dex generally equates to a better chance to land the skill and stronger bleeding.

Doesn't intelligence affect the strength of your spells now? Including sleep? Having a gimped ability to put people to sleep seems like it would suck for an AP.

Felar with the stronger vault bleeding normally or Arial because of 25 dex?

Just because they can land the sleep a helluva lot easier and they have the edge to compensate for the claws. Also because the first command you'll likely want after a vault is either iceball (way better on an arial) or bash/trip, arial wins ;)

I wouldn't personally take the felar for vault if that was the goal.

First I used whips, then went for vaulting.

Finally said to hell with it and burnt out wielding a sword and shield.

IIRC, vault bleeding keys mostly off of DEX so arial's probably a little ahead even there.

However, being able to dual wield during vault lag isn't a small thing. I think felar's clearly ahead of everyone in terms of vault because of it.

I'd take a human antipaladin wielding a spear of sahuagin.

Vault/bash

Than a felar ap. cheapo spearo

Vault/trip


Any day.




Felar ap's don't lag well at all and do not have the Int to make up for it.

It comes down to this. A felar will be using the spear more than likely. 17int is not hard to pull of sleep or spells. BUT BUT
When you sleep your foe.. Are you seriously going to bash them
after vault lands? I'd rather Vault with a human wielding the spear
of sahuagin and bash them dead.

I think some edges could make felar ap's playable.

Giants can bash.
Arial int and lashes
Drow int and lashes
Human is ok
duergar detect hidden
Felar - Abernyte without powers.

I think it was Daevryn who said originally that Felar APs had the potential to be the strongest. Why?

- Felar gear is awesome and covers a lot of "holes" you need filled after having a huge weapon (saves, stats, etc). This is becoming less and less though as better gear is getting added in.
- Auto-attacking extension claw hits and pack sense for more damage (6 felar + healer group with 200+ charges could probably kill Satan, heh)
- Can wear detect-hidden uber mask, the immune fire belt, and other very key pieces that some races cannot.
- Can just barely wield the most deadly AP weapon (no, not telling you)
- Catnip!
- Magic's Scars and nice inherent skills
- Obviously free faceslash and claw dual-wield

But good f-ing luck getting there.

Artificial is partially right - the gear will make or break you. Felar gear makes up for basically being a gimp AP. The other half is your skills - you *have* to practice a ton. Your crappy cat intelligence will make you that much worse if you don't spend the tons of hours spamming (not kidding, it takes awhile). Giants can get away with crappy skills because they bash+pray while felars don't really have the option. If you want to win in combat, you need your stuff trained.

Oh and you better hope ya get some nice wand spots because some bad spots as a felar AP, hahha...you aien't ever getting those. I'd also wait for some big time felar chars to die because chances of getting felar gear is slim with 5+ felar heroes running around.

Felar AP is for the pure masochist - if you can pull it off you'll love it but you're gonna hate it the rest of the time.

nt