Where do I begin? 6 months of intensity is a long time. Perhaps with the most important stuff first:

A BIG THANK YOU to the Imps and Imms who keep this beautiful game going.

A GIGANTIC, ENORMOUS THANK YOU to Baerinika (in addition to the above). I can not even begin to express how awesome you are and how meaningful the interactions were to both Argivo and myself (but I will try to do so in my goodbyes). Even though we didn't get to play out Argivo's last step forward, I'd like my thoughts of Argivo's end to be that Baerinika kept his soul and he frolics and plays tag with Her in the misty jungle from time to time.

Thank you to all the players who enrich this game, I mean both especially Argivo's allies and his adversaries, 'cause the game ain't fun without both.

I will be posting, separately, goodbyes.


Some thoughts about the character and my experience:


I was very much a near-complete newb when I rolled this character last August or July. In fact, I still get lost in the Galadon sewers, and I'd say I still have only a vague idea of a lot of important things, like gearing, the melee system, et al. I rolled this character expressly to learn how to PK: I figured a noble, tragic type hero who just attacked everything evil he saw. The only way to learn from such an experience would be to retreat in any cases I could be sure I was facing certain death or defeat, otherwise I would just be dying stupidly and learning nothing. I wanted to be like those fearless vets I saw running around without any concern at all, like they were unbeatable, instead of cowering in a guild wondering when the next guy would kill me or the next xp group would start. My motto was "keep moving,Argivo" and I ran around EXPECTING to die lots.

I expected to con-die in two weeks, learn some lessons, and move on. A quick summer fling. Instead, something magic happened I couldn't quite figure out. From a few long struggles, many times I was sent packing, and some opportunistic victories, Argivo gained momentum and began to turn into a lowbie/midbie juggernaut. I was doing things and acting in ways that previously only I had seen only the serial killing vets do, like scattering groups of three and seeming to move in and out of situations without any concern at all. I was beating RBW with deathblow even though I didn't know where to find any nonphysical damage weapons. When it got to the point that Baekai, Gralog and Miric felt justified hunting me down in groups of three(one of the few pre hero deaths I had), I decided I had a choice. I could stay at this golden period where I felt I was winning (distention isn't really that bad, especially for a human), enjoying the fact I was a wolf instead of a lamb, or else move up to the hero ranks and try to learn all over again -- which is what I chose to do. I think I only managed to learn enough to really find my stride in solo PK at the hero level fairly close to the end -- like most humans in real life, I was just barely getting the important stuff when it was time to go

Some questions: so I was a classic weak newb who took all the advice I could understand, and managed to turn out a decent character by the absolute standard, which feels like fantastic victory for me.
What's next? Do I stick with the same build, or do new things? How do you recommend I choose what to play next? Part of me wants to just reroll the same build and choose different legacies so I can master what I was doing, but I'm not sure that's wise.


Legacies:

I newb-chose my legacies specifically to be an Eleagra-fighter. I knew there would be a lot of fights when I got into hero range. My thinking was that Fist of the Titans would counter the disarm of Crashing, and Ward of Blades would let me survive the perma-bash, since bash-bash-bash in the midrange only works if you outmelee the other person. Both these legacies spectacularly failed at their chosen purpose, even when I was full prepped with A/S/s/p.

Fist of Titans with 23 strength fails fairly regularly at preventing disarm. Even if it works 70% of the time, Crashing fires so damn often that the compounded chance of resisting Crashing is effectively 0. Once you lose your weapon, and permanently bashed, it's over.
The +10 lbs effect seemed very useful to an utterly clueless warrior, so I could gear for max hit/dam and ignore stats.
However, and this is something I didn't know when I choose the legacy, parry turns out to be very strength dependent. Therefore, retaining a weapon in hand when strength was reduced to very low levels turned out to be no actual benefit for a strength/parry warrior in most situations, either (for a cranial Maran, actually holding a mace is of some benefit if you are in a 3 vs 3 fight and your job is to lag)

Ward of Blades -- I first suspected something was buggy here. I have logs of being outmelee'd by the same 42 minotaur vs 51 human warrior when we both use swords (in order words his parry is better than mine), and then switching to maces which he couldn't parry/didn't know as well, and beating him. Counting the hits, I believe he was parrying better than me. I also have logs of fighting minimally prepped fire giants like Kurbrawn, and seeing them outparry me as well. The win there came from the fact that phoenix brand outdamages Cry of Thunder. In fact, for a while I was running with maces all the time because I couldn't see a difference in the parrying between maces and swords w/ flourintine. Then from logic and forum reading I realized this probably meant Ward WAS working in some way, but the size/str effects for parry for a giant or mino mean a whole lot more than the legacy, which was disappointing.

Space Between the Heartbeats -- I was fortunate enough to be rewarded with this very close to the end. This + relentless assault edge was awesome and changed my life. I wish I had more time with it. Thank you, Baerinika!!