Sat Sep 21 09:51:20 2013

At 9 o'clock PM, Day of the Great Gods, 33rd of the Month of the Battle
on the Theran calendar Finley perished, never to return.

Was reading through it, for the record Arvam, you can't promote/demote outside your Sect. I didn't know that at the time and couldn't 'back up' anything because i didnt actually have the authority.

I'll also take this moment to point out that from a purely mechanical point of view, AP's have only player motivation to rank past 41 without a control.

Thats why I considered the entire issue to be one of an OOC standard being applied IC. Obviously its kinda ooc to not want to rank because you don't have a control, but its quite a bit less so than having an Imm threaten you because you don't want to rank when you have zero reason to. The only benefit an AP gets from ranking past 41 is worldbind and controls. Take away controls and worldbind isnt worth it.

Take away the PK requirement for controls and you would see every AP hit hero in days.

nt

He got 24 kills in 600 hours, thats pretty non stellar utilization of his class.

But just to list a few of the advantages of 51 over 41 for an AP
1.) 10 ranks worth of HP/Mana/MV/practices and 2 trains
2.) The pile of edge points you get for reaching level 51
3.) At level 51 nobody is higher level than you which is nice if you depend on landing spells
4.) Because very high level characters also happen to be very high hour count chars that is where you are most likely to have a charge rich set of enemies
5.) You have access to more wands/scrolls/talismen
6.) Demand works on a wider range of mobs (demand is really cool if you get it up, especially for rapidly getting keys and regearing/getting gear to trade or barter)


That is just a few but combined they can make the game play out a lot differently. Finely was a heck of a role player and he was rather creative in how he went about gearing and protecting his weapon but he just didn't dive into the PK realm often enough to master the minutia of the class.

At 51 you can't harm all the midlevel guys. Sometimes, because you have heroes in range, this means you have *more* targets. Often though it can mean you have *less* targets.

To me that's the rationale for wanting to stay at 41 for controls - greater accessibility of enemies and the enemies you have having less survivability. The mechanics differences are not as important to me, you need to fish where the fishing is good.

Of course, none of that applies if you're not that guy charging ranking groups trying to pick people off.

.

* You see Ron 'the Hedgehog' Jeremy standing here flanked by two gorgeous women in all his fat aging yet still the MAN freaking glory. But wait...it isn't Ron Jeremy...it is actually a short fat darker man who looks alot like Ron Jeremy, only...bigger where it counts.*

Ha!

That's how I saw Finley in my head. He looked like Ron Jeremy with a beard, only fatter, alot less clean and if possible a bit greasier. I actually met Ron Jeremy in real life a long time ago at a strip club and after seeing him it made me realize anyone can get laid. LMAO

Anyways!

I fully expect to see alot of venom thrown my way for having such a cowardly character but after many years of playing CF I realized something. You can't please everyone. No matter what you do there is going to be a hater or haters out there, so do you and enjoy. That said...and this will get long-winded since I lived quite awhile and evolved over time, let me start at the beginning.

Finley was a placeholder character for my actual main character who was Granje (arial chaotic evil shapeshifter) who at the time was trying to be a scion and got on the bad side of Zhenyen somehow. I did my best as Granje to stick it out and hoped I could just outlive Zhenyen and try again to get into Scion.

At the same time I had applied to be one of those folks in Amaranthes RP contest as Granje hoping that could give Granje something to do. Didn't pan out and after awhile I just got real bored of flyto/murder bite bite bite without any interaction with anyone because I was in form, trying to kill someone, etc.

Finley was turning out to be way more fun to play than Granje and I decided that I would let Granje auto if Zhenyen didn't delete or something. So that was that.

In terms of his RP, I had this GREAT freaking 8-chapter role I had written and it got EATEN by CF. Bah! Didn't feel like writing much after that. Long story short Finley was an ancient duergar from the past who had gotten trapped in a magic book and was released by a librarian in the spire and decided to join the Spire in order to earn some gold and get a lay of the land. Finley was sphere Sloth and I really tried to bring some thought to the whole 'sloth' thing over time.

First I figured that for Finley being a merchant and a lover of magic, sloth basically didn't *always* mean being lazy but more in the vein of efficiency and economy. The fewer steps he had to take to accomplish his goal the better. This also played into his love of magical devices. Anything that meant he didn't have to do something but could be granted through magic was an aspect of sloth (like pouch of nourishment for example).

Sloth also manifested in Finley's utter and complete cowardice. Fighting was contrary to his nature unless there was a goal through which that fight could be accomplished efficiently and easily. Most of the times I did fight one on one (like those fights with Ruk) were me fighting as the player and not as Finley because Finley wouldn't fight unless he had a distinct advantage.

Also after awhile I latched onto this 'frog' thing which became a central part of his personality and his embrace of sloth. I actually went and read op on frogs, did you know frogs hibernate? They got this thing called 'torpor' to boot which means in certain temperatures, frogs don't move or something. Long story short Finley saw guilds, the spire, the empire as his 'lilypads' and he wasn't prone to hopping off his lilypad for any reason. He was a plotter not a mover. Think about a frog sitting on its lilypad, a fly buzzes by and snap, the only thing that moves is the frog's tongue. That was Finley. Waiting for opportunity to come buzzing by.

Strangely enough this wasn't boring because I spent alot of time talking with folks, RPing and having fun without needeing to PK alot.

Oh and I picked AP and
Tribunal for two reasons...I HATE anti-paladins and never wanted to play one again, and figured if I WAS...may as well be on a character I didn't plan on keeping once Zhenyen died, and magistrate because I didn't plan on doing much but sitting in the guild and talking people to death.

Well...my goodbyes and a few other things in the next thread...I will miss some folks, long life and all, and I said goodbye to alot of folks on their death threads so I may skip those.

Was nice to Age-death, that's how I wanted him to go

As mentioned if I was in your death thread I won't mention you here! I may also miss some folks out of sheer forgetfulness. I will try and reply though!

Spire:

Nopilopitil (hope I spelled that right) You are THE most helpful character I have met...ever. Your knowledge and god-awful speed in form are incredible assets and I am very glad you got to be Provost. I understand things cooled a little once I became an Imperial but I still regarded you as Finley's buddy up to the very end and always regretted things going a little cool after I left the spire.

Travara: Where the hell did you disappear to woman!

Keriel: Another one of Finley's female loves (he had SO many) I thank you for all the shields and the interaction though you came at the tail end of my being a magistrate we managed to keep in touch. That made things alot easier in terms of being an Imperial knowing i still had friends in the Spire.

Kitok: Bah. I wish I had gotten a chance to kill you! And for the record it really was just an innocent mistake. Finley was definitely a liar but not in that case.

Blindev: My first mentor and master! Man I am sorry if there was any disappointment for taking the Dread Lord spot over potentially being Justiciar. But I knew I was getting old (I was old when I left the Spire already) and wanted a chance to make an impact instead of fading away.

Empire:

Merf: Well what can I say, guess I died before you Thanks for making me Dread Lord and keeping your word. I thought at first it was an elaborate trap or something but you really did come through. Though I expected Gedunthos to be the next emporer I believe you are doing well at it. You were definitely a better AP than me, and I hope you get that lightning control, I was hoping to be around for that. Ah well.

Gedunthos: Finley considered you to be his duergar compatriot and I really loved interacting with you though Finley didn't trust you one freakin bit. You are far too crafty to be trusted, especially after that elaborate scheme you had detailed to me to do with my loan-shark business which honestly I STILL can't wrap my head around! LOL

Drond: Always good to see you awake, between you and Ged, the shadow Sect is in great hands and only wish we had had more opportunities to RP together.

Gharzal: I fully expect you to become very scary. From what I saw you know alot about necromancers which is why I made you one of my elites. ou have different hours than most imperials though I think so I hope that doesn't hold you back. Hope the foundation I lid with the Black sect is in good hands.

Nighden: Hadn't seen you lately, same goes for you bub!

Outlanders:

Chaille: Always was coming for me, but occasionally willing to do the enemy banter thing without being an arse. Enjoyed being your enemy even though those new powers of your made me stay the hell away from you in the end. Finley considered you to be the only outlander of significance once Craznar died.

Battle:

Crraya: Congrats on getting commander, sure wasn't expecting that. Yeah its really hard for an AP to fight berserkers, the only thing that let me stay in fights with you early on in life was the fact I had a nice soul-filled axe. Once I lost that, plus you kept breaking my arm right off the bat, there wasn't anything I could do but avoid you.

Bujoch: You sure talk alot of ish. Finley was definitely terrified of you and for good reason. Anyone that can break into the spire solo and damn near kill me with guards, barrier, aura, shield without hardly taking a scratch is going to be scary. Figured you would get drillmaster for no other reason than I honestly don't think there are many who can beat you in a one on one fight. Kudos anyways for being such a tough bastard.

Scion:

Xona: I didn't want to say anything in your death thread because it would compromise finley but now that I'm dead, I enjoyed our interactions and you always had me nervous that you would bash me down. You probably should have Though while I had my axe I'm pretty sure I would have kicked your arse.

Zhenyen: I have to mention you because you are the reason Finley was created. It always made me chuckle as a player when you interacted with Finley, the contrast in my two experiences with you with two different characters is damn near night and day. I only wish you had acted more like that with Granje, I would have been a great scion man! Owl/Tiger with nightwalker FTW! Ah well.

Heralds:

Aglaron: Literally Finley's oldest friend once Xiadra died. Really loved that time you, Gedunthos and I had at the Whitethorn, seriously one of the funniest and fun moments in his life. Thanks for everything!

Corlyx: WOW! You are the man. I don't even want to know how you get all that lovely gold. all I can say is that from early in Finley's life I appreciated your support of my RP ambitions to own brothels, run loan-sharking businesses, and be an overall kingpin. You are one of the reasons I actually decided to join empire. Once you bought out the White thorn I had enough gold to be an imperial without all the stress. Thanks for that and all the free drinks!

Saersha: Pretty cool elf, wish I could have made you one of my wives

Well that's about it... Thanks everyone for making this one of the funnest characters I have had in awhile. Oh and there will be another thread about my thoughts on AP's and a few random comments.

Well as mentioned earlier, I hate anti-paladins. Ive played them before and never did well. One good thing with Finley was for some reason (maybe imms tweaked the formula a bit?) getting souls was a lot easier than earlier APs I have played. Nearly anyone I killed gave me at least one soul which was the opposite in experience that I had with earlier APs where I killed more often but hardly got a soul for my efforts. That helped me keep trucking. Also this was my first AP to get a control! (yay me)

My thoughts on the class are this...they have the name but these are not anti-paladins. They in no way shape or form match paladins. May as well call thieves anti-warriors. Hell that would make more sense in terms of the effectiveness a thief has in killing a warrior versus an anti-paladin killing a paladin.

My greatest amount of souls was about 35 souls (in rancor) and only with that amount of souls did I begin to approach feeling as if I wasn't a big soft wet sponge waiting to be smooshed. Although I did get better at fighting without souls as time went on the sheer amount of preparation required to have an even chance (at least for me) was ungodly. And by even chance I mean after applying all the preps, being able to survive long enough to see if I had a chance of winning.

Frankly with preps i found still that the vast majority of fights I had were me getting hit once or twice then needing to flee because I was already at half health and none of my spells were landing.

That by the way is the number one problem...getting spells to land. by the time I threw out a blind or sigil (usually missed sigil the first time) I was near dead. Forget trying to fight a berserker...I literally melted before deathblow.

Long story short, APs are incredibly squishy and most kill themselves off before hero. I would love to know what percentage of APs that have even made it to each control. And how long it has been. I think some study into that would be good to see how the clss is doing and how relevant it is. PEople like AP's for the promise of unrestricted power but from what I have seen and experienced its like the lottery. I kept Finley going because of the players not because of the class.


Didn't have alot of immteraction, what few moments I did kinda soured me on the experience. And speaking of which...titles really should reflect the RP reality of things. Finley never betrayed the spire. He quit. There is no oath given or taken to join the spire. as far as Finley was concerned it was a job and he got offered a better job and tendered his resignation. As far as most of the player leadership of the spire was concerned Finley was still an ally. Marking me a betrayer only served to have the light walkers in the spire to have something to say to me. It really annoyed me.

And when did leveling become a requirement of this game?

Having the sect guardian basically threaten you if you don't advance is so not cool and ooc in my opinion. Lets not forget that levels represent one thing and one thing only in this game from an RP perspective - GUILD rank. Meaning that in RL its like a person belongs to the local baseball team and their boss at their job tells them if they don't go pro on their baseball team they will be demoted at their JOB...which has absolutely nothing to do with baseball.

Being high enough rank means you are high...enough...rank....

anyways, for the most part I enjoyed my interactions with the players and I thank the staff for all the work that goes into this game from the imm-side, just wanted to comment that in the past i have enjoyed some imm-teraction but this time around I could have done without it.

I had zero interactions with this char, so I am just going by what you said here.

Your title means nothing. If some people (goodies) in the spire considered you a betrayer to the cause, then your title can reflect that. Don't get butthurt over a rp device, which is all a title is.

The black sect guardian is a ####ing ghoul. He doesn't have a say in anything. You hear him talk and think "okay an imm is talking to me," rather than taking the npc for what it is. Reconsider how you view the game in this sense.

The title does mean something when it in-character effects in how people approach and interact with you. The title specifically provides a context which didn't actually exist but was instead imposed from without. Basically I had to deal with a 'rumor' that persisted through years of Finley's life because near the end of his life (I was already OLD when I quit the Spire) he decided to retire after YEARS of dedicated service. Frankly that is BS and whoever gave me that title should have known more about it than simply tacking on a title, but whatever, I dealt with it because I had no choice.

As for the ghoul being an Imm...he specifically REFERRED to himself as a 'conduit of the divine' meaning he WAS speaking AS an IMM if you actually knew WTF you were talking about and weren't merely spilling some diatribe into the few comments I made at the very end of my postings...oh wait...I thanked alot of people, made comments about ap class, told alot about my RP but you latch onto the last comment I made? Sounds more like a personal problem to me bruh. Considering you had zero interaction with my character I see you just came here to troll.

*Sprays troll-be-gone*

Whatever dude, you're clearly interpreting everything perfectly. No one can be of any help to you.

35 charges sounds unreal to me..

I will say that the reason I keep bashing my head against the wall with the class isn't the promise of unlimited power. I played another mud with A-P's where there was no unholy blessing and they were similarly not very strong - I just like the class concept.

I'm with you on the rest though - as a charge less A-P you NEED ABS to compete with other classes stock abilities, you're putting in 5 times the work for the same result. And I hear you about the spells, especially on low int races. If they've got more than four points of int on you you're usually better off with kick, and much better of with 'c excis return self'. Melee is horrible, the 'already superb fighting skills' described in the helpfile can see you coming off worse against shamans and thieves, never mind warriors. The balancing factor here would seem to be the maledictions - and they're not as bad as stuff like impale or boneshatter, harder to land, and trivial to cure.

The saving grace is that sleep/vault can be as effective as assassinate, but that only really works for brainy races.

At the end of the day I suppose it's intended to be challenge mode, and I'm just unlucky that it happens to be my preferred class for flavour reasons.

I'm genuinely curious about what people are doing wrong to NEED barrier to be competitive as an A-P.

If you insist on trying to take on groups of 3 and expect to kill at least 1 of them? Yeah, you probably need full A/B/S. Anything much short of that and seriously, you're doing something else really, really wrong -- and maybe you don't realize it because sometimes barrier lets you do it that wrong and get away with it.

gr

Depends a little on your race. Let's assume something that isn't fire since everything else is the same size.

I'll also assume the A-P is the aggressor somehow or that both parties are aware of each other (e.g. raid defense or whatever) since, really, my plan with the assassin would be to catch you with your pants down.

Dual wield: weapons assassin doesn't learn. Mace, axe, flail, whip.

Put up: Bloodlust, enlarge, fly, and any DR you have handy. You don't need full A/B/S but like shield OR aura OR stone skin would be pretty good. I probably would use Aura of Despair unless I think I'm going to need to flee/chase past a bunch of nature. More than that is arguably counterproductive because it signals that you're loaded for bear and running away from you, hiding, and trying later might be smarter.

Might start with sleep because it's pretty much a pure death sentence on Battle (unless someone else saves them) if it lands even though it's a longshot. Or cleave, because cleave.

If I have mace out I might consider crippling strike (more likely to the further from the village) but odds are I'm just going to bash and see if things go my way. Don't spam ahead and if that problem kotegaeshi or whatever goes through, excision a wand of return. Excision is one of the skills I will almost always work up on an A-P even if I'm not on a practicing binge because it's your word of recall substitute -- it gives you the freedom to roll the dice on a fight that might or might not go your way and have a good chance to survive if it doesn't.

This of course is a general idea, there are always situational factors, etc.

The thing about A-P is that it's kind of like a constant game of rock, paper, scissors. You have all these great offensive angles and against any enemy some of them will be crap but some won't be. Some people are pretty vulnerable to bashing, others maledictions, others the damage spells, some the weapon skills, some to a unusual excision you pull out of your ass, and so on. For just about any one on one match-up you have something that can be a real problem for the opponent and a lot of the run is reformulating your tactics on the fly.

You're out of your mind. Their melee is going to tear you up, you miss the bash or they land a decent ground control with their next move and you're either dead or wimpied. The free round of melee on a failed sleep alone could potentially chew through 1/3rd of your health. You're certainly not blocking much in the way of melee with that weapon setup.

Just yesterday I had an assassin aiming at a mob bash locked for 8 rounds or so and their backfists alone were hurting more than I was hurting them. Anything that can dodge demands direct damage spam, if it can dodge and spellbane, yeah you need barrier.

Any class that doesn't get some kind of bash protection (except maybe paladin) is a class you more or less never want to bash as an A-P. You can get away with bashing storm giants at low levels if you're a fire giant, I suppose.

Question, was Cabdru before the 'dex changes'?

Nothing significant has changed there. They have dodge and you don't, but your parry in that setup is generally dramatically better than theirs.

(And I've played a LOT of A-Ps -- most of which petered out or lost a decent weapon doing something stupid a lot before they really started rolling.)

It's maybe worth mentioning that if I'm trying to build momentum after a death I'm probably going to stack damroll. I probably wouldn't try the above with less than, say, 40 or so.

I've only played one AP and it was in Entropy when I was still new to the game. At this point every time I consider AP class I'm just overwhelmed by all the stuff they have and the different race/class setups. Seems to be tons of tactics so reading about them is nice. Summon bash seems to be the most effective but I really think I'd be more lowbie sleep/vault/buildweapon/hero/delete type.

At the end of the day I haven't rolled one because I can't think of a decent counter to disarm at level 36, especially when it takes around 750 gold to get 10 spiderhand potions.

>I've only played one AP and it was in Entropy when I was
>still new to the game. At this point every time I consider AP
>class I'm just overwhelmed by all the stuff they have and the
>different race/class setups. Seems to be tons of tactics so
>reading about them is nice. Summon bash seems to be the most
>effective but I really think I'd be more lowbie
>sleep/vault/buildweapon/hero/delete type.

Definitely what race you pick and what weapons you tend to focus on decides a lot in which way you'll go more often, but I really believe there is a time for a d-elf A-P to bash and there is a time for a fire A-P to win with spells.

I think human is the best A-P to learn with because it isn't too pigeonholed in one direction or another -- if all you've played is smart A-P or fire A-P or felar A-P or whatever I think it's harder to have that sense of, "Okay, THIS is the match-up where I need to try to win with Vault/CripplingStrike/Faceslash/whatever instead of what I usually do."

>At the end of the day I haven't rolled one because I can't
>think of a decent counter to disarm at level 36, especially
>when it takes around 750 gold to get 10 spiderhand potions.

Yeah, I generally don't think it's worth it. Exactly once I got lucky enough with an A-P to PK somebody that had a sack of like 20 or 30 of them (and I have no idea why, I think they were midlevel warrior or something like that, not A-P) and that was nice.

Mostly I try to keep my opponents in that range from disarming me, whether that's command denial, blinding/dirting early, or making sure I'm ready to grab the weapon if it's disarmed (not fighting around crowds, 1 round spells only, etc.) You can get unlucky but usually at that stage I'm more focused on re-feeling my way around PKing with the class at that level range or working towards a control than building a super weapon exactly.

One of which an A-P at level 36 can probably get alone.

But you'll probably still get disarmed... not feasible to keep it up 24/7.

Having played a lot of A-P's myself..

Even as a fire giant, bashing dexy melee classes is asking to lose con/gear/preps. Parry alone is never going to keep up with dodge + parry, and certainly not with those weapons. Even a shaman or a paladin will generally outmelee you when sanc is factored in, unless aura/shield are factored in too.

Then again I don't think I've ever actually achieved 40 damroll.

>Then again I don't think I've ever actually achieved 40
>damroll.

This might be our disconnect because on a midlevel A-P 40 damroll is like "Okay, I've regeared enough that I can try to win the fights with bash/trip that call for it -- this will do until my gear gets better" to me.

My tendency is to stack damroll to get rolling and then gradually cover saves/STR/etc. better as I pick up momentum.

And it's very possible that after the first two rounds of combat I'll realize I'm losing and back out. The glory of bash (when it's working) is that you have that prerogative.

Whip/Flail + Mace destroys assassins and they have no good answer to bash. If it gets close, say you're under 50% health, you word.

I think more of a problem is probably assassinate. There are ways to deal with it but it requires you change how you play OR you hope they don't hit their 1/4 or 1/5 lucky shot.

If I'm that scout assassin I'm going for assassinate every time because I've got very little to lose and a lot to gain.

I think it too much a coincidence for you to not talking about me.

I think you make several good points, however in that fight I had ample time to prepare and I had many levels over you. I was also in a martial trance when I fought you.

EDIT: It also ment I had a lot of +dex gear on, and since you were much lower level than me I don't think you had all that many ways to nuke my dex...imagine what would happen to me when you can...

So whilst I think Daevryn's suggestions are biased to his elite player position who may be blind to the plight of normal players, I think you are expecting waaay to much to be even a match for me in those fights.

And remember...I wasn't there to try to kill you...in a straight one on one fight where noone had time to prepare then things might have been much different.

Chances are you were someone else again, since none of the matchups I mentioned fit your description well.

Edit: Ohh you were the bashlocked one. Yeah.

Yeah, I was the bashlocked one. I made a reply to Eskelian which might shed more light.

Weapons do help a lot. This is, I feel, a critical thing to "get" as an AP. If you're mid rank, building up controls, you should not "lock into" one weapon set. A polearm, for instance, will dominate an assassin pretty handily and he's stuck trying to hope for a kot crunch while you're bashing away or nuking his strength. Crescent kick also works well but if that's what he's doing to you then you're in pretty good shape (generally speaking) so long as you don't over lag yourself.

Martial trance can change this but if the guy has sanc you can always just leave or maledict strength. There's no need to nuke dex, nuking strength will effectively do the same thing with the additional side effect of making kot/kans a lot harder to do. Try doing kot with a 5 str, I've had that happen and missed kot (like, outright misses), 4 times in a row (recently too).

If I'm a level 36 AP I'm building charges between different weapons because I'm trying to get fire control...and if I build enough momentum I'll consolidate them all into one weapon. And that one weapon will undoubtedly either be a polearm or whip just based on the mechanics of APs. You can shield cleave and faceslash, crippling strike, etc from the offhand.

If I had to define why APs who have access to barrier fail, I'd probably chalk it up to be built too defensively. You don't want to be defensive as an AP...that's what wands and healing preps are for. You want to be pure offense and control the lag so you can leave if you need to.

I agree with many of your points, though not the ones about reducing the assassins strength. I don't know about you bit i'm a big fan of people wasting their time trying to reduce my assassins strength.

In the fight that KaguMaru describes though where I was lagged out by bash for 8 rounds and I did more damage to him with backfists than he did to me, those points are mostly invalid though. Partly because of the reasons I described, but also because of the situation of the fights (I don't want to say too much because I don't want to give our characters away).

As I said I also had many levels above him, lets just say KaguMaru was trying to fight a hero level assassin when he only had mid-rank skills and spells availiable too him.

The problem with almost every tactic with an AP
is the narrow window you have for success. Basically every fight is win or lose within a couple rounds without enough souls/gear to give you the HP to pull off anything to give you the edge.

Giving yourself that time to try anything means constantly prepping. Bringing up Merf, if you look or play with him, he spends alot of his time getting prepared. For me that just isnt all that fun. i don't mind preparing but the sheer 'need' of it with an AP compared to other mage classes is depressing after awhile.

The concept is you are this big badass knight of evil but it doesn't 'feel' like you are for a real long time. I didn't start feeling like a badass until I got my control and even then as mentioned I wasn't very impressed with flames considering the PK requirement to get it.

Just not for me i guess, I probably won't do another AP unless I get REAL bored or do another placeholder character. And next time I will try and be a bit more aggressive and see how that works out.

Often by the time I've drank a potion, cast bloodlust and excised two wands the target is long gone. If that happens a few times I've had to regather preps and there hasn't even been a fight.

That is legitimately a risk -- there's an art to getting away with sneaking the preps in more often. Sometimes that means ducking back out of an area to prep, sometimes it means appearing to run away as you spell up, etc.

Was just to put up aura/shield/flight/bloodlust any time I left the palace, I'd have at least a 50/50 chance of getting into a fight by the time I got to Galadon. But I had some really easy sienna/amber locations there.

Dunno what to tell you. I never actually found my barrier wand and relied on a barrier source. On top of that my sienna was in a god awful place I really hated going to so I didn't have sienna half the time. That said, you being a coder and all I suppose you may know specific things to overcome all the weaknesses of a duergar AP that I couldn't overcome.

I'm not sure what those things could be honestly except having a healer or bard nearby at all times though. Also I'm not saying an AP can't win fights. I won a few. What I am saying is most classes can win those same fights alot easier, with less preparation and way less risk from dying. The change from between when I had my axe and after I lost those souls was immense. It took that many souls just to be competitive for me. And it took me half of Finley s life to get them.

I'm not great at PK but I know the basics so I am pretty sure I on average didn't make major mistakes. I made a few, but not so many that I wouldn't notice how badly the class itself was working out. And I've played many classes within the game so I have a point of view for reference that includes playing warriors, thieves, assassins, shapeshifters, transmuters, rangers, shaman, and a few other classes here and there.

Of them all that I have played, APs are by far the overall weakest by hero ranks when speaking of just the stock build.

Also as long as I'm speaking on it...considering its the only class that has a PK requirement to get its higher level spells, I was pretty unimpressed by Flames of Ninarmum...err...whatever.

Here is an idea I had if you would consider it.

Take each control and give them a few extra things they can do and foucs that on a defensive/offensive split. What I mean is the following:

I get flames...I set my control over flames to...

OFFENSE

It does its blast thing
Chance of setting attackers on fire

All these would be random effects.

DEFENSE

Sets wherever I am standing on fire (like that village svirf from a little while back)

Grants a small resistance to fire and negative damage

It would be nice to have more utility.

The only things I felt like barrier was necessary for:

Rager Berserker Warriors - No question here, roll the deathblow dice, lose and eat a 600hp shot.

Ridiculously geared fire giant sword specs (AKA 1k hp flurries), kinda self explanatory, takes a lot of gear to get to this and people really should loot these guys more.

Hero offense shifters, particularly tigers - my last hero level AP was before 'excision' so a tiger was pretty much a death sentence if they had an air form to get me.

Conjurers - kinda self explanatory, they pump out stupid amounts of damage.

IC: Deevak thought you were a coward and hated you for obvious reasons.

OOC: Awesomely done. I like the role and everything about this character. I like that for over 600 hours I thought you stuck with the role. It is hard no to fight that often.

Well done.

Thanks

I didn't really get a chance to interact with you much besides when you would come to retrieve, and I couldn't see you in the woods.

We had some good fights (for me) at the mid levels and then you wisely avoided me. Would have been interesting to face you again as Dread Lord.

When I offered you duels in the mid levels, I was trying to say I was perfectly fine 2 on 1 or 3 on 1. I thought that'd be a fair thing, esp if you didn't lose your weapon. You'd almost certainly take out someone with a wanted flag with your group.

In terms of Ap strength/weakness vs berserker...see the most recent log of me vs Merf on qhcf. There's wasn't anything I could do, and if I didn't flurry he probably would have been at 97% when I died. Notice the complete role reversal from me offering 3 to 1 duels in level 40.
I don't think AP is underpowered at hero

Merf does well as AP but he IS the Emporer. And he is pretty damned old himself and hasn't gotten lightning control yet which speaks volumes.

As I said before, APs can win fights, but compared to other classes at hero...for the most part I find them personally harder to play, alot more risk from dying (losing weapons/souls which means being less effective for a long time) and overall incredibly dependent on sheer luck.

For some reason APs, even Fires just don't parry enough with bloodlust up to survive against an average or better melee type. Barrier probably changes that, but very low chance to have it at 36. With any joker disarming you at every opportunity, building up a weapon is incredibly hard. Especially now with much fewer people to fight. Trying your luck at the hero ranks with no controls is just asking for trouble, you'll most probably delete before finding the barrier.

As for why I didn't ever bash Finley I don't have a good explanation except that I didn't want to frustrate anyone more than necessary probably, and you seemed to be a long-hours AP, plus we had some talk going. It would have been incredibly easy though, just rushing in with everything up at you sitting in the guild with nothing. I don't think it matters how many charges you had. Another thing was that I was lawful Anathema, not sure if it had to have much bearing, but didn't want to bash down a tribunal.

Cabals are not a job. Tribunal is not a job.

Joining a cabal is a serious thing and meant to be a life long dedication to the ideals of the cabal. Leaving a cabal has always had consequences, and honestly I think you got off lightly. If I were a Tribunal imm the consequences would have been more severe.

Now I don't know how Arvam prodded you to level, but if I were an Imperial immortal, I certainly would not liked to have my Dread Lord at such a low level for so long. Guild rank is a reflection of your power. If it were me though I'd probably just prodded Merf to replace you and let you level sit as long as you want demoted.

Hmmm..


I understand that you are perfectly correct for most cabals and being an Imm means you are correct no matter what but imho the way Tribunal is set up is a job.

Perhaps that isn't the intention but in effect as a player I feel it is reasonable with the way it is set up to RP membership as being a job. You don't take an oath, you are in effect a cityguard (just higher rank), you get paid while on duty, and you can go off duty anytime. You are pretty free while off duty to do anything you want as long as you don't tarnish the image of the spire with your actions (like a teacher not dating students). In nearly ever way, being part of Tribunal is treated like a job and there is no in game reference to it being anything more than that outside of the dedication (RP) of its members...a person can be lawful and corrupt and not care really about 'justice' persay but simply (as Finley did) desire law simply so he could hide behind it while pursuing other things (loansharking, prostitution, etc.).

As for the guild rank thing, I left the Spire according to the PBF at 400 plus hours. I age died at 600 or so. So I was give or take Dread Lord for less than 200 hours. I became Dread Lord at level 41 and died at level 50. So being real...I wasn't dread lord for very long at low rank at all. I was low rank a long time period but not as Dread Lord.

That said, why not simply make Dread lord a level 45 requirement?

I'm still looking for an actual in-game requirement to rank in your guild that is based in how things are set-up and not something imposed by the will of the masses. That will being the will of the player-base (ooc) and not (ic) because (ic) there isn't a (level 41) floating by your characters head.

I couldn't have been dread lord at that rank unlesss it was 'permitted' is the gist here.

And prodding isn't why I leveled. I got my control. Dunno if the data will show it, but I started ranking again as soon as i got my fire control. It was that simple. I'll reiterate that there is zero reason for an AP to go past 41 outside of inner motivation as a player or outer motivation from the sheer will of the playerbase and staff from a mechanical view if you don't have a control yet. I wasn't moved by either. I've played many many many characters over the years and this is the first one I ever levelsat with because mechanically it simply doesn't make sense to go forward without a control.

Every other class gets more skills to use the higher they go except for APs unless they meet the PK requirement. So I absolutely agree with you actually that the best course should have been to demote me on the basis of not being scary enough because obviously I wasn't killing enough people to have a control.

Perhaps if you have an AP as Dread Lord then having a control should be a requirement, but that would be decided by the Emporer and it was the emporer who wanted me to be Dread Lord knowing ahead of time i didn't have controls and was well known already for not wishing to advance until i did. However I would have been fine with being demoted as a player for not getting a control yet(ic it woulda sucked) but as a player the way it was handled felt ooc to me point blank. It felt as if I (not me) was personally offended (as a player/imm) that this bastard wouldn't rank to 51 so my rank 51 character could have at them.

I still believe that and I'm just pointing out that there isn't anything in-game that spells out a requirement to rank as Dread Lord specifically seeing as you can become Dread Lord at 41 and also there have been many many many characters over the years in every cabal that have lived and died prior to hero in leader positions.

If being a hero was a requirement to being a leader, then make it a requirement in-game so there is no question/intepretation involved about whether the pressure being applied is ic or ooc. That or perhaps reduce the amount of PKs needed for APs to get their controls. That would be nice too

Interestingly enough, When I was choosing between Eidiol and Merf for Dreadlord, my criteria was whoever got fire control first got to keep the position.

I had already promoted Eidiol to extend his con a bit initially with the thought of demoting him for Merf after about a week, but Eidiol got the control first so I let him keep it till he con died.

We did a fair bit of whiling away the time together in idle conversation across various characters, I think it was one of my conjurers who you told your backstory to - told me I was the first to hear it! I appreciated the irony also of having first met your character as a young tribunal while I was Dreadlord, and the roles being reversed by the time I got to Accolon.

I will say however that I think character level ('guild rank' IC) is a big deal - higher level characters out of your range are simply more accomplished and powerful. That may not be true of the player, but heroes could have stomped you when you were level sitting at 40 and frankly I think the fact they don't is what's OOC.

On a different note, Ron Jeremy gets women because they're paid an awfully lot of money - it's true that anyone can get laid that way.

I enjoyed our RP and all the fun we had. I still recall you and Xiadra and I going around leveling in the early teen ranks. I never did once try to "put the moves on your girl (Xiadra). Haha! I laughed so much and had lots of fun. So what did you think of the magic juggling at the white horn? Random drunken magic. :-D

That gear I got for you, I didn't even know what it did, but I had you in mind when I was looting it. You and Aglaron were thick as thieves.

I have not played Aglaron nearly as much as you played Finley, but I'll catch up now. Ha!

GLWYN.

You, Bhar.. everyone is forgetting me. Even after aiding as I did.

I wasn't sure you were still around

Sorry! In my defence I didn't see you delete and I didn't mentions loads of people in my death thread.

I really liked Kulin, you were my first Provvie along with Zinediya (If I remember correctly). We didn't adventure all that much, different play times I think, but I only heard good about you.

You were pretty much the opposite of Ruk when it came to just about everything. Ordering imperials to hunt me was great and thank you for that.

Glad you enjoyed your char. Good luck with your next.

Dirt + Bag.

You can believe what you want.

I have absolutely no reason to lie right now about something so incredibly trivial as breaking a rule that was never actually a rule from the Spire but was something that the Provost decided to implement on his own. Something that went against the actual rules of the spire regarding what a person was allowed to do off-duty but which was being followed out of respect for the Provost.

Seriously, some of you folks need to go and get girlfriends, you take this game way to seriously.

Loser

Dude, you were my buddy on Halaial. I kinda wished I stuck it out a bit more. Seemed like you had a good run though. Good luck with your next.

I liked your style a lot and despite, from my PoV, an Imperial outsider coming in and shooting up to Dreadlord, your character was very easy to work with. Sorry I missed you towards the end, work has limited my time. Hope this means a certain weapon is now available seeing as my elders all had the ones I wanted.

GLWYN

Great character, loved the interactions, even though I never got you. Thanks for the mention, but I'm far from the most important Outlander...

IC, you drove me nuts because you would never fight when the odds weren't totally stacked in your favor.

I really enjoyed the frog thing, it seemed like you were still starting to feel out the comparison when you mentioned it to me. It fit really well with my image of Finley, even though IC I didn't like the natural world comparison.

As has been said before, I really enjoyed interacting with you as Bharhum and a couple of other characters.

Ignore the moron who doesn't understand RP and kept coming at you OOC with multiple characters, he doesn't know what he is talking about even if he was being strictly IC.

I look forward to interacting with you again in the game with other characters, be it as a friend, enemy or simply drinking partners at the eternal star.

Seems like just yesterday I was fighting you in midbie ranks with a binder thief I had. You sure blew through those 600+ hours fast man. Glad you had a good time, I certainty did getting my butt whooped by you.

It's funny how many times we tangled during our early years, and then how few we did later on.

Very early on, you definitely had my number - until I started using a vuln-staff against you and the tides turned... we both knew it... and since you're a real talented player, I knew it'd be hard to pin you down.

Loved your RP and speech pattern. Wish we could have interacted more later on.

Anyways, good job, and good luck with your next.