This is in response to a battlefield thread. Here's the relevant portion, first speaker me, second speaker Daevryn

>>And I'd like to, but there are just too many mechanics that
>>make fighting sub-hero stupid if you also want to be at your
>>best post-hero.
>
>Explain to me why you think this is true, and I'll explain
>what you're not seeing?

First, let me admit that on the con front I was just wrong, because I didn't realize it had changed. There are two separate things, really: reasons it's more fun to fight to wait until hero to fight (besides the fight dynamics themselves) and reasons you're more powerful if you go straight to hero.

Here are the reasons why you're more powerful if you power-rank:

Con loss: Now that I know that the way level gains work has changed, this is not as big deal. That said, if you're fighting and losing con, then you need to switch back and forth from pk-effective gear to con-gear. I can't really remember to do that. I always end up fighting in my traveling boots and fine leather belt because I never remember to switch them. It also means spending more time ranking, which I hate. Wearing con gear is also a liability in pk, so if you do get jumped you're a softer target. If dodging is important, carrying extra gear around blows. Finally, con is also to some extent a pk stat vie rot, saves, etc. Having less of it, or needing to gear for it is a disadvantage.

Age: The ideal situation is to hit mature exactly when you hit hero. This gives you 20hp more than you would've had otherwise, unless you choose not to train wis or str at all. Fighting a lot sub-hero means less time at the ideal age range at hero.

Player ability: Fighting at hero and fighting at hero is different. The longer you spend at hero the better you'll be at fighting at hero, which means having more con and less age. Sure, there's some carryover from lower ranks to hero but I think you'll agree it's not the same. I would say that for anyone who isn't basically their plateau (and as a pretty mediocre pker I'm not) that they'll continue to improve at being a hero-level character throughout the time they are a hero level character. Bashing down people at level 20 doesn't contribute a whole lot to that, and takes time away from it.

These are reasons why I personally really don't like fighting sub-hero, though strictly speaking they aren't ways you are made less-powerful by waiting.

Risk of mob death. Maybe I'm retarded, but when I spend time wandering around and not ranking, eventually I end up taking a mob death that I wouldn't have if I'd just stuck to ranking. Sometimes it's a random aggro mob out of its natural place, sometimes it's falling into a trap, sometimes it's pvp-related, but one way or another, if I wait long enough without ranking I'll eventually take a needless mob death. This obviously makes ranking take longer, which is just unacceptable. Focusing only on ranking pretty much minimizes the window in which that can happen.

Skills: By racing to hero you spend the least time explicitly practicing skills before beginning to pk. If you practice before hero you waste all those level gains, imm exp boosts, and seemingly endless hours of ranking drudgery that could be giving you free skill points. If you pk before you're stuck with the crappy choice of either more painfully awful time spent practicing or being at a disadvantage. Also skill percentages matter less at hero than they do at low levels, imho.

Gear disparity. Gear is more important at lowbie than hero, again imho. A sweet set at lowbie is much harder to overcome than at hero, or so I have always found. I hate playing conservatively so acquiring similarly elite gear for me at low levels is a waste of time, which means I'm at a disadvantage against people who protect the gear they can't get for themselves. Also I'm just not a gear whore so the less impact gear has, the better it is for me.

This is a long post, and more things will probably occur to me, but I'm sure this is more than you'll really feel like bothering to address anyway.