>Every mage that wants to fight on even terms and have a
>chance of having a positive PK record agaisnt skilled foes
>will need use ABS.
>
>Some classes can get kills without ABS, ie) evil devil
>conjurers or invokers exploiting vulns, transmuters vs
>non-village/non-prepped foes, etc.
>

First, thanks for responding. Your explanation is different from how I was interpreting your/Iza/Grudan/etc.'s variations of "ABS is necessary for mages to compete."

So if I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that you need to have A,B, and S ("ABandS") to defeat someone of equal skill that also has ABandS in a scenario where neither of you is going to flee or can take advantage of surprise/clever-type tactics.

Re: Mages - I haven't played an invoker for several years, but my recollection is that you are correct - I was at an extreme disadvantage with ABorS against an invoker that would never fight without ABandS.

Re: Warrior types:
Here, I disagree. My feeling is, that ABandS is an *extreme* challenge to beat as a warrior. As in, you will *not* beat an ABandS mage *unless* you are able to take advantage of surprise/clever-type tactics. Basically, clever/surprise-type tactics put your warrior a little closer to "equal footing" with the ABandS mage (assuming the ABandS mage doesn't use some clever/surprise-type tactics of his own). Even then it's unlikely you'll actually PK the ABandS mage on your own. Have you played a warrior against ABandS mages? Do you concur?

Furthermore, the only non-rager warrior-types I think you would "need" ABandS to have "equal footing," IMHO, are the ultra-conservative-and-very-skilled Dwoggurd/Fatfrumos's warriors, maybe Hunsobo at his prime, too (though he wasn't as conservative as the other two). I'm talking about the type of player that will not put his warrior into play unless it has an extreme amount of DR. I can see how you might need ABandS to PK these guys in a "catch mage" scenario where you can't take advantage of clever/surprise-type tactics.

But again, it's pretty easy to avoid these rare warriors. In fact, if you recall everytime you fight them and they're prepped, eventually they'll start leaving when they see you - because they're not going to want to waste their time-consuming preps and they're not going to want to risk fighting you without their time-consuming preps.

So really we're talking about 2, maybe 3 players in the game who you would need ABandS when fighting their warrior types.

Re: Communers:
I think it's the same as warriors, only ultra-conservative communers are easier to escape from.


>Absolutely wrong though for anyone to suggest mages don't need
>it. Try fighting a battle berserker sword spec. with
>stoneskin.
>
>ONE round, Two rounds, Three Rounds....will he make
>four.....nope...dead.

Well, this is why I was asking. Because I think it's feasible to fight the RBW with one or two of ABS, but not all three. And, given my poor exploration skills, limited OOC connections, and time commitment, I think it's feasible for me to get 1 or 2 of ABS, but probably not all three. So I could definitely take on this "challenge" of getting a positive PK ratio with 1 or 2 of ABS. I'm still not clear, though, on what it would take to refute you guys. What constitutes "success"? 50/10 with an evil mage? 80/10? Also, I will definitely have to use some clever/surprise-type tactics.