You might as well change the name of the game to Mage Wars cause that's what it's become.

First of all, let me point out that I just witnessed a transmuter out melee a RANGER in the WILDS. Doing mangles and massacres three times a round, on top of demolishing spells, holding them still, and then unspeakable damaging disruptions, and to top it off, they were NOT alone. All the while the three that were fighting them did hits and mauls. Explain to me how that's balanced?

But mages are weaker at the low levels and they reap the rewards of their work in the later ranks!

No they aren't. An invoker can kill you with wall of fire from level 16 to 23 or so without much scare. I got beat by transmuters pretty regularly from 23 and up. So what you have is a melee class getting out melee'd by a mage, and THEN the mage gets protections and then you don't have a hope in hell of doing ANY damage to them at all.

Where do characters spend the majority of their life? At the hero ranks, and at that level is where it should be balanced. You HAVE to gang people now because that's the only way you can deal enough damage to kill anyone. It's sad. This used to be a fun game at hero. I'm beginning to remember why I quit playing.

And it doesn't matter what kind of mage you are. Conjurers with angels, elementals, aura, barrier, shield can rip through anyone. Invokers ABS + shields are unstoppable. Transmuters are unstoppable without another transmuter. At least the shapeshifters aren't the uber-ridiculously powerful zoo they were when I was Trewyn. They aren't far from that though.

So to combat this situation the imms have increased the amount of damage warriors do. Which screws ANYONE without damage reduction. Flurries can do 600 points of damage. And don't tell me they don't do that often. I haven't been hit for one that did less than 300 in a LONG time except by head hunters with one sword. I had one dish out 600 points of damage through aura and protection and possibly even shield I can't remember. If I didn't have those protections it would have killed me outright from full health. It DID kill me anyways. I went from 100 hp less than full to 26 hp. Dagger spec bleeding can cause over 100 hps of bleeding per round for 6-8 rounds. At least the leader of battle can cause that much. That's a LOT of damage. I remember the gripe-fest people made when that bug caused impale damage to deal a demolish every round when I was trewyn. Oh how I understand that now.

Another thing that irritates me are the "you can't beat me" situations. If you can't beat someone 100% of the time in a certain situation, then that is NOT balanced. Balanced is you win around half the time, and in a positive situation, you win better than half, but not more than three fourths. It's a GAME, not Real Life, not even an imitation of real life and it should be balanced at all levels, not the power swing system in place now.

The game was fun back when an unspeakable damage was only possible from a backstab or the occasional ambush or when you broke heartseeker the unbreakable dagger in someone's chest. I can't say all the changes have been bad, the game is definately different and unique. But in my humble opinion, it was a lot more fun in the second and third ages. I prefer less of the easter egg hunt and more of the run and gun bash splash blood, whoops I died get some basic gear and get back with it attitude that was in place then.

I'm just curious if I'm the ONLY one that feels ABS is ####. I would LOVE to hear an Imm's opinion on this.

To combat this if you feel it's NECESSARY to keep ABS, then I suggest some simple changes.

Make it so melee classes get a BIGGER boost to HP, 1-2 per level. Then make it so giant classes get an additional 1-5 hp per level, regardless of class. Make it so that the average player has 1000 hp at hero and a high HP class having 2000 hp. And then you can add something like fast healing II for warriors but call it something catchy.

On top of this, have the number of unspeaks possible drop or make it so they can't cast the spells so fast. As it stands, most ranger spells except for entangle can be cast once for two of every mage class spells. Make it so fights last more than 8 rounds.

Another way to combat this is make spells fail just like skills, or not so often. That to me would balance the game out a LOT. Make it possible to simply miss with that fireball, or that lightning bolt and wall of fire at least.

Give shield to rangers like they used to have. OR just give it to the animists. They get screwed on the combat and their mage spells hardly make up for it. It easily fits within the role play.

OR Give warriors some way to stop spell casting other than dagger specs. Maybe have evasion work for spells. You duck behind your tower shield and absorb the blast from XXX's fireball.

So now that I'm done venting and being frustrated, I want to hear some other opinions on what ever about Game Balance.