>I'm not going to come out and say that you're wrong, exactly,
>about any of this; I'm not interested in having that kind of
>argument.

Okay, I'll try to do likewise.

>Eh... sure, but your power-ranking dude probably doesn't have
>an awesome full set of gear anyway...
>Almost without exception, the had a much, much higher

I'll point out that for you it is easy to picture getting an awesome set by killing people at all levels. For me that is highly impractical. Part of it is just being conservative. You build a great set by taking some risks early, then picking your battles more carefully (albeit with a wider range of options due to increasing power). I just don't really want to choose only fights that I don't have a significant chance of dieing from.

Now you might argue that if I'd just go ahead and play a lot more in the lower levels I'd get better and it would become practical. A fair point, but ultimately the question of where it makes sense to spend my cf-learning-time is answered by in part by personal preference for the hero vs lowbie tactical dynamic, which is a can of worms I'm trying not to go into more than necessary.

>On the other hand, I think we can both
>agree that a warrior or A-P with an awesome set of gear can
>potentially level a lot faster/easier than one with just the
>basics.

Sure. Honestly I don't know what the most efficient possible ranking method is. Maybe it's camping cabals to swipe hero gear, maybe it's pking up a big set. The first is somewhat scurrilous, the second is certainly fairly time consuming, even if you can safely assume it's within your means. Exploration I tend to do with a hero-level character then apply that knowledge to lower-levels. Sure there are some things you don't learn that way but in terms of what gear is attainable I don't think you miss too much.

>I would say that, while this is technically true, no one's
>play of CF is so flawless that something this small is
>something they should give consideration to.

Well much of that argument is based on past statements about training wis and int being worthwhile because of gameplay effects outweighing hp trains. Maybe int and wis are more important than con, though regen rates are kind of important, which I failed to mention (but I suppose you can lug around +con for that).

>Better skills, more edges, cabal advantages, etc.

Can you expand on this? My argument is that if you spend 50 hours ranking and then 50 hours practicing skills, you'll have better skills than a guy who spends 100 hours puttering around in various ways that don't necessarily contribute to skills.

Edges: I assume you mean via explore/observation exp? Do you think it's fair to say that heroes get more imm attention than low and mid range characters? Also, I don't know about anyone else's experience but with Edimus I basically started buying edges just because it seemed silly not to, even though I didn't really want or have a use for them. But edges were new then, maybe the costs and awards have been tweaked.

I'm not sure what cabal advantages means. You mean like progressing up through blade to elite to warmaster and such? That's an interesting point, but in many cases cabal progress is based on your contribution. Generally it seems as easy or easier to make a contribution at hero. Raiding is the obvious reason.

> but I think there's more overlap than you think.

Certainly area knowledge is a valuable tool. But you don't even have to be playing the same character to gain that. In fact, I would say you're better off rolling a shifter to go explore places you think might be of interest to your real character. With few exceptions you can learn all you need to faster that way. And since area knowledge is permanent (at least theoretically, I tend to be lazy about saving that data) you get a benefit for yourself without handicapping any particular character.

>Starting to try to fight and do things with only a fraction of
>your skill set and slowly leveling up and adding more to it,
>to me, is a much better way to learn what a character is
>capable of and how to best capitalize on it.

This is an interesting point that I hadn't considered. I think there is some truth to what you're saying, that there is a tendency to gloss over lower level skills. However, the counter I would make again is that it's more efficient to dedicate time to exploring those skills when you're a hero than when you aren't because of the various resources at your disposal (for your invoker example, a simple example is the better mana pool allowing more casts before resting). Anyway, your point about the capstone ability as hammer to the world's nails is well taken. On a personal level I try pretty hard to use my whole skillset, though I'm sure I fail and underestimate lower-level abilities sometimes.

> Would trying
>to kill your enemies at level 20 teach you anything useful at
>hero? Why or why not?

It very well might. The question is, would it teach you anything useful about hero-level fighting that you couldn't learn as or more easily at hero? As above, I see that there may be a tendency to overlook skills and whatnot, but if you think it's a good learning experience to use a limitted skillset, then just spend some time doing that at hero. You're also less squishy at hero, which probably means you'll take fewer deaths in the process of figuring it out.

>If you're not trying to race to hero or even really trying to
>level at all, does a mob death really matter?

Yes and no. The exp penalty obviously doesn't matter if you aren't planning to do any more ranking ever. What I'm saying is as true for any arbitrary end-point as it is for hero, but if you ever gain a level (or try) after mob-dieing then you have cost yourself some time. This is predicated on the idea that ranking is more or less akin to torture, which I realize isn't your position. That's not to say that I absolutely always hate ranking always, but let's face it, most ranking is a very monotonous process, because it's more efficient that way, and it's tough to find a group of people who want to go die a bunch of times trying something weird and different enough to be fun. This is going off on a (dead-horse) tangent a bit though, so I'll leave it there.

>At low levels, maybe you haven't worked your skills a whole
>lot, but most of your range really won't have either.

See, everyone says that but I'm not so sure. It seems like pretty much every warrior and assassin I rank with, will go off at certain key levels to practice. Generally they say quite explicitly "I have much to work on" Now this is anecdotal, and you have a better statistical view of it than I do, but it always looks like most warriors, assassins and rangers are going off to practice defense and weapons at low levels. I can easily see that being a psychological memory effect e.g. it impacts me when they do leave my ranking group, so I remember it more strongly.

>Honestly, if you think this you've never had to deal with a
>hero with really good gear, or you've never realized the full
>weight of the difference their gear made.

Yes, the extremes of hero gear are more intense than the extremes of lowbie gear, but the extremes of lowbie gear seem more common to me. Maybe that's not true, I dunno. It makes sense though when you consider how many there are of the gear that makes a monstrous hero set vs how many there are that make a monstrous lowbie set.

>I promise you that you don't have the same
>chance as a hero to take down a hero with twenty unique items
>that you've never heard of.

That's true, but he also doesn't have as much chance to take you down. At lowbie, that gear disparity tends to be lethal, while at hero it might only mean unbeatable.

>Hopefully I've addressed it all, although I've largely run out
>of steam to talk about the advantages the non-race-to-hero
>character has. (vs. just trying to point out things you might
>have missed about the advantages you think he's missing.)
>I'll see if I can work up the energy to do it properly
>tomorrow.

Well I definitely appreciate that you took the time to respond as thoroughly as you did, and I do agree with some of your points that hadn't occurred to me. So at least your time isn't totally wasted (hopefully other people are getting something out of it too, I know I'm not the only straight-to-hero guy out there).

Note to laxman: The reason I say skills and gear matter less at hero boils down exactly to what you're saying about being killed out of the blue. It's more likely to happen at lowbie than hero, and the reduced range of available skills means the basic defenses/weapons are even more important. How many fights at hero are ended in the lag from one bash or pincer? How many at low levels?