Sun Apr 20 22:47:10 2014

At 11 o'clock AM, Day of the Moon, 7th of the Month of the Great Evil
on the Theran calendar Althamael perished, never to return.

Race:	human
Class:	anti-paladin
Level:	51
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	EMPIRE, the Empire
Age:	40
Hours:	184

It's been way to long since I got to play with a Twist mort. You were a great Imperial from a player perspective. Taking everything thrown at you and just riding it out and fighting. Always seeing what was needed. Just top notch. I won't speak about imperial happenings but suffice it to say I thought this was a quality character and a huge boost to the Black.

Destuvius, thanks for the talks, demotion, promotions, and so on.

Qintaris, seems like your playtimes have picked up lately (though still not matching up with when I can mortal it up, usually). I'm glad to see that. You're doing well, IMO.

Maligor, thanks for the promotion to Elite wayyy back in the day. It was fun to run with you on the rare occasions that we were on at the same time.

Niji, I like the role you are running with. There were things to like about you and things to hate about you, which, as a fellow Imperial, is really how it should be! Keep up the good work.

Ooglarr, holy #### settle down son! :) Seriously though, when you were logged in, I knew I was going to have a shot at some charges because the throwdowns were coming. You could learn a bit from your fellow blades about letting the anti-paladin get the last hit though. :P

Black Sect: Um. Uztal? Good luck and stuff. Melkren, seems like you were just about to hit your stride, but I can understand the frustration. Boy can I understand it. :P

Divine Sect: Lysufany, it's a travesty that you aren't elite yet. Ashmon, didn't see you much (playtimes didn't mesh) until recently. Seemed like a pretty cool guy though. Jalrandar, thanks for the promotion and the gorpu when we made it work.

Shadow Sect: There were a couple of you that I grouped with early on, but lately there's hardly any of you. Or I just don't see you on, which is kind of the point!

Blade Sect: As Hunsobo would say, POWER TO BLADE! Man you guys really are the backbone of the Empire.
Nizrili, thanks for dragging my ass up to hero level pretty much by yourself. You totally earned everything I did in return for you. I hope you keep trucking.
Jarlduz, you're awesome. You and Nizrili both tried really hard to let me get the KB on people we fought, with varying levels of success. Rahzeez, it was fun the little bit we traveled together.


Vree: Fun times, especially the other night when we retrieved the Scales against opposition and made them all flee/die.

Ruakao: Too bad about the negative vibes between you and the Empire lately, but I enjoyed having you as an ally.


Caldysias: Thanks for the duel.

Amatrysti: Enjoyable banter for the most part. I'm not a fan of your role, but that's on me, not you. YOU NO FIT INTO MY MOLDZ! Also, tried to cleave you like 12 times the other night. The next time I tried to cleave something, I got two in a row (on two mobs). Mother....

Worogha: Getting you a few days ago was kind of a highlight, considering how that fight really could have gone either way. I think you're doing a very good job.

Secan: You're obviously very new to CF. I hope you didn't feel I was picking on you too badly. Keep on learning/exploring, and I hope you have fun!


Hexugar: Sorry you thought I was a coward, but I really can't think of a solid strategy against the build you had. Dispelling critical taking out my flight while you had a polearm and I was fully maledicted from your dagger skills - yeah I'm doing c exci 'wand return' on that. Thanks for the 9 charges though! :)

Crraya: Another one I didn't really have an answer for aside from "Take the head and have a Blade stand in front."

Ayinithalasa: VERY nice job retrieving and surviving against me the other night. One thing I need to learn to do as an AP is stop using up all of my mana while bloodlusted just trying to get that one more malediction on a sleeping foe. It made me unable to iceball to finish you at the Centurions.


Alanrias: I'd like to comment here but you still scare me far too much. :) I enjoyed our banter. I'd have liked to hunt you more now that you heroed, but things just didn't work out that way. Something tells me you'd have had a lot more luck than you did when I had a 9 level advantage.

Guargoux: Frustrating to fight/defend the Key against. That's good! Keep up the good work.

Grilbo: Nice job driving me off/nearly killing me in that last fight we had.


Eudessa: Man, you had my number.

Lucosa: My only cleave IN HALF pkwin, and you didn't even give me a charge for it. At least I got one later when I slept you. :)


Oloice: Thanks for the fights, the classy looting, and all the charges.

Ogrot: See Oloice! Most of the times our fights (against either of you) were very one-sided (in your favor) but the rare times when I won made the losses worth it. You guys were worth more charges than most anyone.


Velkano: Classy foe. Getting you in Voralia was a highlight of that day.

Ghrandang: Very classy also. I think the fight in the Weald is definitely logboard material, especially considering the ending.


Quarissa: A few times I pseudo-almost had you. Usually if I had someone else on my side.


I'm forgetting a lot of people. Sorry!

Hopefully your interactions with Althamael were generally favorable ones. That's my end goal with most every character - make CF more fun for other people as well as myself.

I have been a little busy in RL, so I haven't been around a whole lot. But, last night I got to watch you and I was thinking to myself, "This is exactly what Empire needs! This guy is awesome. Let me shoot him some xp." I shoot you the xp and then notice you are low on con. I was hoping you had some eggs to barter with so I could give you a little more to keep you going. Class act from what I saw. Thanks for keeping those characters coming.

Your support is very much appreciated. On one hand I do not think Althamael ever behaved the way I thought he would... But at the same time I benefitted from how you decided to approach the character. So, no complaints here. After Melkren's melt down and you told me you had 1 or 2 deaths left, I was very uncertain how to handle the situation. Probably one of my biggest tells is that I hate stepping on someone elses funstick.

I think you and I are on the same page with trying to make it fun for others. Keep at it.

I completely understand people retreating or not engaging if they feel overpowered or at a disadvantage. Not a coward. You did nothing wrong. I understand AP fragility and wanting to preserve your weapon.

Ah, Twist. I loves me some Twist. I enjoyed the clashes and was very happy to gate/kill another of your fine specimens ;)

Oh and thanks for the nap in Darsylon!

No offense taken about my role. Not digging the whole healer/cardinal/Jaguar devout hybrid?
Understandable if not. I do enjoy breaking molds now and then. And, another Imperial after your Blade? Come to the Light my brother! Yes, come to the Light and we shall bring ruin upon all molds! You are already missed! Good luck and, as usual, a pleasure.

I've never seen a Twist char before that I mistook for Elystan. I was pretty sure that was who was playing Althamael when we had that conversation about who would con die first when I was at about 8 deaths left. This was actually a lot closer than I expected. Had fun running with you although our debacle with Ormee was probably my most embarrising with Jalrandar.

Had I known it was Twist I was trying to lure into the no-exit room in the Galadon sewers when you were a lowbie I wouldn't have bothered! As a caiman I had no chance of sealing kills via chasing against good players, so feigning ineptness was my second option. Almost had you too :P I had shapeshift perfected so I was never in any danger but you were always 1/1000th of a pulse too quick on the quaff.

Bemus-ed, Enforcer of Masters, Battlemage of the Tower, Lowbie Shifter PKer.

I had no idea who played the character so well done from that perspective.

Our times did not match up well, but I enjoyed the few times it did.

GLWYN.

The first few times we fought, I was thinking "some newb, I'll leave the weapons in corpse." Then lately you somehow started to have a chance against me, which was really surprising and even somewhat annoying. Don't think I ever came close to dying though. It might've looked that way because I tend to overstay a lot, but it wasn't really that close. Nicely done! If you can go from newb to making Quarissa word, that's quite some progress. :) Heh, and I'm lecturing Twist. That's something! :)

P.S. Next time, don't bother with sleep on people you're never going to land the sleep on. You waste far too much effort on it. And in the outside chance that you do land it on someone like Quarissa, I'd just fam-attack and word, so it's a complete waste.

>Heh, and I'm lecturing Twist. That's something! :)

I wouldn't read too much into that. Twist is well
known to be a balls to the walls guy who just likes
a fight despite knowing in advance what the outcome
of the fight will be. He is in the top 5% of the
playerbase (but probably more like 2%).

You're a magi. You're an Imperial. There's not much my char is going to like about you.

For some reason I had your number even when you were semi-prepped. But when you had a Blade to meatshield for you, you got properly painful.

Sorry I had to sac your weapon that one time - but it DID have my soul in it. Can't have that.

Anyways, I hope to see you back with something else... maybe a villager?

Always fun to fight you. You were a straight up beast, and empire-classy in the same way Khargurln was.

I'd love to hear more about your experience not farming charges pre-hero. I think the common knock or (mis)perception on AP's is that they can' do too great at landing spells at hero, and thus you better have controls to even things out before you get there. How did you adjust?

Accessible barrier. Althamael always seemed to have it up whenever I fought him. I'd take a soloable barrier spot over fire control and no barrier.

My sleek black spot was definitely better than a lot are. But also worse than some I've had on prior chars.

However, there are non-sleek barrier sources that are relatively easily accessible. One in particular was almost always there, but it's an evil-only wand that only works at hero.

So kinda not something you can do if you play charge-farming AP. :)

Is a reluctance to use them. If I see a guy on where and I've got a soloable black spot, I'll put up barrier and try and engage, if he bails out before the fight begins, so what I can get another. If I've only got limited wands, I'm going to wait to see if he's looking like he's sticking around before I zap, and sometimes he'll be on me before I do or catch me in the lag of using the wand.

Because eventually, I'll go to regather the wand and it won't be there. I do know a few spots that are quite often available but it's nothing you can rely on and personally it always makes me more cautious about using up the wand, and so less likely to prep sufficiently and more likely to die horribly.

My first few A-P's did all their charge collecting at or near hero (Madoc, Eidiol) but Saguntius stuck around in the midranges and did far better. Then he entered hero range and the lack of a consistently available source of barrier made him do much worse at those levels than the previous two who got there without charges, but found their black rods. Even with my increase in player experience.

Sorry, I can't help but opine about antipaladins, particularly human Imperials.

I'm not meaning to imply your character's success was a sole consequence of wand lottery, but having a black spot you can't find or can't solo (I once took a group of 3 hero Imperials to gather my black for me and the Emperor straight up died) really does make things much harder and/or limits the fights you can reasonably take.

So I guess I'm agreeing that rushing to hero as an A-P is feasible, but is also contigent on the wand lottery.

You're more likely to retain a wand you are using regularly than the one you hesitate to use, almost as if the wand counts as exploded at greater than 60% used. So I actually try to keep using any limited wands as much as possible, that way I have damage reduction for fights when I need it (which is often as an AP if you wand to fight tough opponents) and I can be more certain that I will be able to regather a wand if I blew it up in one session.

You can conserve preps, or you can conserve PKLosses... But doing both is a monumental task that I don't think A-P can do and not be a total bitch to play.

>Always fun to fight you. You were a straight up beast, and
>empire-classy in the same way Khargurln was.

Thanks!

>I'd love to hear more about your experience not farming
>charges pre-hero. I think the common knock or (mis)perception
>on AP's is that they can' do too great at landing spells at
>hero, and thus you better have controls to even things out
>before you get there. How did you adjust?

I landed spells maybe 1/3 of the time that I tried them at hero. I didn't try them very often. If I landed the sleep, then sure. Otherwise, I was often stuck iceballing or fireballing to try to keep up with the damage output of those I was fighting (and it was often group v group as well).

I did have the cursebringer and sightblinder edges - blindness worked fairly well, especially against orcs and the like, IF I could get it off between bashes!

One time I had Amatrystri slept at his recall and failed curse no less than twenty times. Then I tried worldbind with the rest of my mana. No luck on either, so I said screw it and cleaved. He fled and walked away in the cleave lag. Bleh.


All of that said, the only real way to play an AP that powers to hero is to play one that doesn't care about having a big weapon and only cares about building up a charge total, in my opinion. You *can* get a big weapon rolling, but you'll have to play so conservatively (or gank so much) that you'll miss out on a lot of charges.

also.

remember I said you were going to get assassinated and started throwing up fogs... on the fifth fog, you die.

I was melkren also

I laughed my ass off the day you put me to sleep and I woke up and killed you. You had it rough from the get go I think when matched up against me. I would either wake up teleport and wait out the world bind or you wouldn't land it and I would kill you. At any rate sad to see you go its hard to find an enemy who is willing to tangle one on one now a days.

It is always fun having a powerful AP around. I found myself cheering for you a lot. Well done!

=w=

From my first role entry -

Goals for the character:
1. Aid the Empire, especially the flagging Black Sect.
2. Become Dread Lord.
3. Gain Destuvius' favor and tattoo eventually.
4. Play until con-death.
5. Play an anti-paladin in the hero ranks without building a weapon first.
6. Avoid whining like a bitch if I die and lose equipment.



So, I did 1. to some degree. Did 2, which was my main goal. Didn't do 3, though I think "favor" might have been there a little bit. Did 4 without *truly* suiciding (yes, the 5 deaths I had last night to Team Outtie were semi-suicide, but I was always thinking "maybe I can surprise them and get one and word out" when going in. Otherwise I could have just tried to kill the outer repeatedly and been done with it.)

Number 5 was an interesting experiment, and I think it is definitely how I'd play again. I've tried the anti-paladin thing repeatedly, and I always get stuck at the "farm charges" levels simply because there are people who are better at sitting at those levels than me (often assassins) that make things not fun.

Interestingly, I was about level 30 when Destuvius took me and two other Blacks who were roughly the same level (we could all group, at least), and said "Look, one of you three is going to be the next Dread Lord. Go prove your worth."

So, I played a lot, leveled up whenever I could, killed whoever I could, and so on.

As for number 6, I *mostly* made it. Toward the end, when the char had become more frustrating than fun a lot of times, I had at least one bitch moment that I can think of. Kirkyn, Thorgan, sorry about that. Bleh. I pondered just deleting there because I kinda felt like I failed in that respect, but then I figured that would be even more of a bitch move, so I just kept trucking.


So with all that in mind, I'm pretty happy with how this char turned out. Got to lightning control, pretty close to acid, even. Biggest weapon was probably 26-ish charges, which, considering I probably lost at least 10 unholies (sometimes with zero charges), ain't shabby.


Goodbyes in another post!

after bashing me down at the fortress and you fled, but instead of ambushing I just hit murder. Doh.

I did go and get some resist lightning/fire talismans after those bouts.

Oh well.

Done with that char.

>after bashing me down at the fortress and you fled, but
>instead of ambushing I just hit murder. Doh.

Heh yeah one of my protections had dropped (barrier?) I think, and I hadn't noticed. So I'm happily bashing away thinking "civilized terrain, bloodlusted, full ABS, just keep him in place and I'll...wait, ow!"

>I did go and get some resist lightning/fire talismans after
>those bouts.

I wondered, seemed like I went from OBLIT/DEVA to MASSACRE which couldn't ALL be attributed to saving throws....

Closing that gap of 46 to 49 seemed to aid a lot. Finally busted out the talismans and you died in drow city.

Guess maybe I just didn't notice that you'd leveled up some.

Makes me feel somewhat better about dying to you solo.. It was close but at that point in Ogrot's life straight up dying like that to single opponents was not something that really happened, I was actually pretty stunned. Especially since I'd assumed you were somewhat new because you levelled fast.

You did well no doubt, reaching lightning control is better than I've done with an A-P but even so I noticed you making mistakes and missing tricks that could have swung fights with me or helped you seal kills. I won't say what exactly because I prefer to discuss those kinds of specifics in-game, but there was more than just what I told you.

In any case I admired your readiness to fight and willingness to accept the consequences of killing Tremblefist during my ghost timer. That was one of the incidents which made Ogrot focus mostly on orderly opponents rather than good ones toward the end of his life.

And I'm tempted to do another A-P. Orcs are wonderful but there is no feeling quite like earning charges.

>Makes me feel somewhat better about dying to you solo.. It
>was close but at that point in Ogrot's life straight up dying
>like that to single opponents was not something that really
>happened, I was actually pretty stunned. Especially since I'd
>assumed you were somewhat new because you levelled fast.

I think a lot of my early (and maybe even late!) charges were due to people thinking I was new (and really I was/am new, when it comes to playing APs).

>You did well no doubt, reaching lightning control is better
>than I've done with an A-P but even so I noticed you making
>mistakes and missing tricks that could have swung fights with
>me or helped you seal kills. I won't say what exactly because
>I prefer to discuss those kinds of specifics in-game, but
>there was more than just what I told you.

Totally. And kinda by choice. I know vault could have landed me a bunch of kills that I missed out on. Hell, tactics aside from "Oh I missed the sleep iceball iceball iceball." would have been good. Early on, though, I used up my trains on hp, so I didn't practice lash, lashesoftheslave, morosacharge. I didn't take the slasher edge either, which could have helped.

I think I did develop a pretty good tactic for retrieving from Orc village though - at least as long as I could get one spell off and flee! :)


>In any case I admired your readiness to fight and willingness
>to accept the consequences of killing Tremblefist during my
>ghost timer. That was one of the incidents which made Ogrot
>focus mostly on orderly opponents rather than good ones toward
>the end of his life.

Yeah, I tried to be more "wade in and see what happens" with this char than I ever have before, with mixed results.


>And I'm tempted to do another A-P. Orcs are wonderful but
>there is no feeling quite like earning charges.

True dat.

>Totally. And kinda by choice. I know vault could have landed
>me a bunch of kills that I missed out on. Hell, tactics aside
>from "Oh I missed the sleep iceball iceball iceball." would
>have been good. Early on, though, I used up my trains on hp,
>so I didn't practice lash, lashesoftheslave, morosacharge. I
>didn't take the slasher edge either, which could have helped.

Hey, sometimes it works! But that other stuff wasn't what I had in mind. Guess I'll just have to do it myself..

>I think I did develop a pretty good tactic for retrieving from
>Orc village though - at least as long as I could get one spell
>off and flee! :)

Assuming you're talking about what I think you're talking about - I had stopped carrying preps to deal with it by the time we fought but a little orcish cunning combined with a slight lack of caution on your part still won me the day - actually quite proud of the way I pulled off that kill.

On the subject of losing weapons though. Losing weapons with charges upsets me a lot less than losing 0 charge weapons, because you have to accept that risk when you play - it's part of the thrill (when I had a 30 charge weapon I'd get a rush of adrenalin just seeing the login screen).

But when the same guy destroys two 0 charge weapons in a row, there's a >50% chance of me raging out.

>But when the same guy destroys two 0 charge weapons in a row, there's a 50% chance of me raging out.

Yeah, there's no small part of me that is thinking that guy is just trying to be a ####.

You were usually up for a fight and were pretty classy. I kind of felt bad about destroying your unholy axe when you died to Oloice and myself because you were pretty cool about everything.

Did you see that log I posted on dios where I died and you died immediately after landing me the killing blow? How did you die there?

That first time I died to you I do not know what I was thinking. I had no business attacking you. It was a total doh moment for me. I think I had like 400 HP and no dam redux and struck you anyway. Plus I opened with a nerve the. Kot. I didn't even try to trip you or throw you and you destroyed me with fire and iceballs. You had to have been wondering what the hell I was thinking and thanks for the easy charges!

Oh and care to share the story how you and nizrilli lost your spots on the council?

Anyhow great job!

>You were usually up for a fight and were pretty classy. I
>kind of felt bad about destroying your unholy axe when you
>died to Oloice and myself because you were pretty cool about
>everything.

Yeah that sucked. It's one of those moments I consider a win because despite the fact that I was sitting at my computer going OH COME ON WTF YOU SACCED MY WEAPON YOU PIECE OF... I managed to keep it together and not whine about it in game.

>Did you see that log I posted on dios where I died and you
>died immediately after landing me the killing blow? How did
>you die there?

I was almost dead and rather than flee I decided to iceball to try to get the KB/charges on you. Brought me into combat with the balator watchman and villager there, and I was so close to death that they finished me before I could flee next round. Totally worth it though.

>That first time I died to you I do not know what I was
>thinking. I had no business attacking you. It was a total doh
>moment for me. I think I had like 400 HP and no dam redux and
>struck you anyway. Plus I opened with a nerve the. Kot. I
>didn't even try to trip you or throw you and you destroyed me
>with fire and iceballs. You had to have been wondering what
>the hell I was thinking and thanks for the easy charges!

Pretty much, yeah. I thought maybe you were just thinking I was a pushover, but yeah I was like Y U NO TRIP?!

>Oh and care to share the story how you and nizrilli lost your
>spots on the council?

"That's Imperial Business, but let's just say that on the heights, the paths are paved with daggers." - my line to anyone in game who asked.

It's not really a huge mystery and you can probably figure it out, but I figure since it involves active chars with plots and more plots, let's leave it in game.

>Anyhow great job!

Thanks! You too. :)

I found the log, it wasn't just the watchman and villager.

Oaths are not Empire....

I was wondering how you hit Ooglarr. It woulda been really funny if you killed him too!

You took a huge calculated risk and lost, and I respected the balls it took to come down into drow city and do what you did. As a player, I felt bad when I sacced your weapon, because I have been there before and it sucks when you lose a weeks worth of kills like that. As a "rager" though, handing over an unholy just wasn't acceptable rp any way I saw it. I wanted to man, as a player. I just couldn't justify what it would look like if I handed it over to save a corpse of armor. Thats why I couldn't justify taking anything else even if I wanted to. You had already taken a low blow there.

That being said, you didn't come off like a whiny bitch, it came off as evil rp to try and bargain for it back with his things. I would have done the same. In the end you made all the classy moves and I was hoping to get my shot at you someday. A good AP is scary, and you were a big reason that the village is in its weakened state right now. Well done.

Good luck with the next, keep adding fun to the game!

Don't worry, every time I go to a place like that I know the risk I'm taking. Most players would have done the same. And in my opinion you did nothing wrong there. I was glad actually because I was able to kill you, which I did not expect to happen considering the health I was in. I would not have cared if you had preceded to loot after you lost that weapon, which I assume was a somewhat big one. In fact I'm the one who should be appologizing for my communication(sorry I was mad about whatever bug was keeping the head in the palace, Ayini had retrieved right before I logged in but the head stayed in the palace even though we could call all our powers but truesight worked like when we don't have the head, when I said "are you deaf?" sorry about that, I really am. I admit Kirkyn has been a bit non-talkative lately because basically village is getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter, and whenever someone initiates some RP I just want to rage on them and tell them to go to ####ing hell in all caps. But I remember what Thumper said, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So I would usually respond with something quite curt. Sorry everyone for that, I'll be cherrier from now on I promise. But dude thank you for helping out the underdogs. Empire needed help, bad. I love people who roll with the underdogs, it makes the game more fun. Now roll a rager already!

Great job. Another a very well done and very classy character. Good luck with your next, and I hope you have fun with it.

You were interesting and determined. You fit right in with the current imperial crowd but I had no idea you were dying so much. Ah well, come on back when you get a moment.