>They were annoying, but not scary like Matrien or Wollscheid were scary.

Matraien had a sick-ass form. Not comparable to today's air forms. No, I'm not saying he isn't skilled. Clearly he is. Just saying that a modern-day Matraien isn't really possible. Not only did air forms get downgrdaed, shifters lost halt, et. al.


>Never heard of him. And why is everyone so scared of the
>cemetary? They key ain't hard to find.

Evil scarab conjie. Could locate the key then gaunt whoever wasn't carrying it. Even with the key you had a prepped conjie with ice devil and nasty elemental after you who knew what part of the cemetery you were gaunted to (whereas you didn't). You also had to worry about running into aggro mobs while running to the exit. In any case, this is sort of a side issue to the main topic.


>You're given me the sad sack with a LG char? And sure, you
>can sit at lvl 30 with a human thief and be the boss. Hell,
>I did it for a month or so with Enbuergo. But after you
>rape that stupid storm giant who just doesn't learn so many
>times, it gets boring. Let's focus on hero level play,
>alrighty?

Okay, I'll consider only hero range from here on out.


>Good question. Let me answer it like this: I would rather
>be jacked by an Enbuergo than chased by ME in an airform.
>If I fail the bind, or land a weak backstab with Enb, bye
>bye...anyone who has half a brain can run away.

*If* you fail the bind. Personally I'm more worried about Enbuergo than an Enbuergo-played air form, depending of course on what class I'm playing at the time.


>Fortunately, the recent trend in the cf populace is to leave
>their brains at home.

Agreed.


>Hitting every cheapshot. Have any idea how lucky that was?
>Even at 100%? ONE spell off and I woulda died. One.

Nobody said an invoker with shields is an easy kill. Invoker without shields, on the other hand, really is. Also, no need to get all belligerant on me. I didn't intend my comment about you "shooting down your own argument" to be any sort of "slam". Hopefully we can remain civil.


>I can see where you're coming from, but you're wrong on a
>few counts. Rangers and thieves are nowhere near the top
>"pure power"-wise. Smart players can do well with them, but
>could do better if they wanted *pure pking power* with other
>classes (by the way, shamen should but up there--just
>because we've had a rash of incompetant shamen lately
>doesn't mean they aren't powerful).

Rather than respond to each class example, I'll make a general comment about where I think we disagree. Tell me if I'm wrong. When I talk about classes being overpowered, I'm talking about those with some "trick" that can nail me to the wall no matter how skilled, well-geared, well-practiced and obsessively paranoid I am. And I can be pretty darn paranoid. It's all about, "who has the means to kill me," which usually boils down to, "who has the ability to catch me off guard," and "who has the ability to keep me from fleeing."

Also, just because there are some people a given class can't handle (i.e. perma-fliers for thieves) it doesn't mean (to me) that the class isn't extremely powerful. To me, if there is *anyone* a class can completely uber-screw, then an argument can be made that the class is "overpowered". The point is that no class in the game should be able to completely *negate* the influence of his opponent's player's skill.

Outside of gaunts, no goodie conjurer is going to catch me off guard. Likewise no goodie conjurer is going to keep me in combat unless he's wanded up and has an angel to bash. So as badly as they could kick my ass if I stuck around, I don't consider them a threat since I can pretty much leave whenever I want to. Same for paladins. Can't permalag me, and usually can't do enough damage to two-round me. Only thing I'm really worried about with paladins is summon, and then only if they're summoning me into a gang.

Contrast this with a thief or ranger. It's not realistic for most people to spend their entire life outside of the wilderness or outside of cities/roads. Sooner or later I'm going to have to venture into one or the other. Here's where the question of, "who has the means to kill me," kicks in. Say I get stuck in a cloud ranger's snare and I'm playing a class without word of recall or bash protection. Sure, it's not likely, but unless I'm content to staying out of the wilderness sooner or later I may get caught. He enlarges and hastes himself, wields axes that exploit my race vuln (if one exists). Worse yet, calls over his buddies. Bearcharge, bearcharge, etc.

Anyway, just my thoughts. To me it's all about what class is most likely to catch me off guard and have the ability to prevent my escape.