This is not meant to be a statement of fact, but merely provocation for discussion and opinion on the matter.

To begin with I will establish that High Dex warriors are warriors with a dex 22 or above, who specialize in the weapons suited best to them.

High strength warriors are strength 22 and above warriors, who specialize in the weapons suited best for them. Duergars will be considered high strength for this discussion's purposes.

High strength weapons include: Axe, Mace and Polearm
High dex weapons include: Dagger, Whip and Staff.

Sword and HTH classifications are determined by the race that uses them.

On a whole (felar excluded) high dex races tend to be high int races, while high str races tend to be high con races.

There are 36(yes?) legacies to chose from:

I will list the legacies that in my observations are chosen predominately by one group. These legacies either benefit one group significantly more than the other, or are perceived to by the playerbase.

High-Str/Con:
Chilling Embrace
Crashing of Waves
Fires of Adversity
Greeting the Avalanch
Trapping Beneath Thunder
Soul of the Mountain
Balance of the Sisters

High Dex/Int:
Flow of Shadows
Fluid Deceptions
Whirlwind of Steel
Harmonius Equilibrium
Autumn Harvest

With the rest being(in my limited judgement) more or less equally beneficial to either group.

Soul of the Mountain and Balance of the Sisters are both useful to some high dex/int warriors, but the legacies have not been shown (from my view) to be picked by those sorts of warriors as often as they are by the more "brute force" type warriors.

I hope this information can fuel a discussion on which has come out ahead, the "finesse warrior" or the "brute force warrior."

Chilling Embrace - Doesn't depend on stats
Crashing of Waves - Probably str dependant, but dunno
Fires of Adversity - Favored by high con I reckon, but could also actually be other way. Depends on coding.
Greeting the Avalanch - Usually chosen by high str, yes. Can see benefits for both sides though.
Trapping Beneath Thunder - High str definitley
Soul of the Mountain - AFAIK, would favor low con moreso than high con. Percentage-wise atleast.
Balance of the Sisters - Well I chose it with my cloud giant...

High Dex/Int:
Flow of Shadows - Dex/int yeah
Fluid Deceptions - Dunno
Whirlwind of Steel - Dex yezzah
Harmonius Equilibrium - Dunno
Enigma Of The Thirteen - Wand usage might well be int dependant
Autumn Harvest - Size....
Whispers Of The Great Siege - Might well be better for low con warriors because of their crappy innate regen

Anyways I think there's only a few legacies that can be easily put in one cathegory... like Trapping.


On brute force vs. slick warriors... Since most of your opponents will be gone once they get the first command through(word of recall/hide/camo/flee;quaff), often you will have to catch your opponents with pants down in order to kill him. Atleast that is how most of my kills are made. That strategy mainly favors brute force warriors.

Now I can think of a couple very deadly finesse warrior combinations, but they tend to be dependant on unique items/preps/wands to a much greater degree than the brute force guy.

Of course big damage warriors will need big damage eq, but that's generally easier to come by than specifically progged unique weapons/eq pieces...

Anyways I think there's only a few legacies that can be easily put in one category... like Trapping.

Yup. A pretty small number. The list didn't really make sense to me in this respect as far as swinging some arbitrary "brute force vs. finesse" debate. Especially when we're seeing successful warriors of both "types", along with hybrids.

Since most of your opponents will be gone once they get the first command through(word of recall/hide/camo/flee;quaff), often you will have to catch your opponents with pants down in order to kill him. Atleast that is how most of my kills are made. That strategy mainly favors brute force warriors.

On the other hand, a less defensive warrior is more vulnerable to this being done to them. The typical 'giant axe spec'-type tends to run a higher kill count and a higher death count.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Players, as a whole, tend to be maximizing-oriented when they create a character.

Everyone has different priorities, but the majority of players all try to maximize one or two things, sometimes more if not mutually exclusive.

Very few people roll a warrior and then say, "Ok I want to be protected accross with saves, have 30 dam roll, 1100 hp..."

Most would say, "Alright, I can get a full set of pwent, and if I stack Chilling Embrace on that I can get 90 dam."

The same goes for Soul of the Mountain. *Most* of the time a player will think, "Wow, my dwarf has 1500 hp! If I take Soul of the Mountain, I'll have 1700!!!!"

Not very many think, "Hmm, my hp are slightly below average, let me spend a legacy on achieving mediocracy."

It's just not how people work. While these legacies are perfectly fine for low str, low con races, it's simply not who's going to use them most frequently.

I'm not sure why, but brute force warriors seem to always beat down finesse warriors in most of the matchups I see. Maybe it's just bad luck. Also, I would disagree with some of the legacies you list as specific to either high-dex or high-str.

I found that I was unable to fight a mob wearing a sword + shield,
but I had to dual wield.

I also found that feinting every round is better then dirt kick
in terms of defense.