Well, after suffering through the ranks as all shifters do, and
getting forms that were (in my opinion), ####ty as all hell, I ended
the trek. I did actually have plans for this character, and a well-
written role. I prayed several times to stir up some interaction and
got nothing. The Warlock cabal has a few good members, and the rest
bore the #### out of me. I had a hard time staying interested, but
kept in char until the last moments of Shin's life.

Sorry to everyone who bitch-ranked me.

To the Imm who said it was "super ####ing weak" to give up after
getting the panther: Crap. Maybe you like getting your ass handed to
you because your form can't hack it, but I'm sure 99% of the rest of
the population thinks differently. Like I told you, my last shifter
was trying to reclaim some of the glory of my old, old shifter who
had a Lion. Instead, he got stuck with the jaguar. Now that is the
####tiest form I've ever seen. I'm not even joking. It sucks balls. I
even used it for about 120 hours to give it a chance. No no no.
Now, after a long lapse of shifting, I tried it again and got the
arctic wolf, and then the panther. Well, the arctic wolf does less
damage than the black bear, and its freezing bite is resisted by far
too many mobs, as well as all furry-forms, rangers, druids, felars,
cloud giants, etc.

So yeah, you can consider this deletion a cop-out if you want to, but
I'm here to have fun, and no one has fun when their expectations are
severely under-cut.

On the flip side, I said to myself that if this character turned out
####ty, and all the hours of my life I spent on him were wasted, it
would be a good way to kick CF for good. I hope it worked.

Ravurlormenzhul

The Warlock cabal has a few good members, and the
>rest
>bore the #### out of me. I had a hard time staying interested,
>but
>kept in char until the last moments of Shin's life.
-Man, we must all suck in Warlocks. Out of three warlock deletions, all of them have said that at least half of us suck.

>
>Sorry to everyone who bitch-ranked me.
-I don't think I was one of them, but if I was then it wasn't that bad. Only sorry that several times I was on and you asked and I said I was busy(which I was). You have to realise that ranking, ranking, ranking, gets really boring. *ESPECIALLY* for a conjurer. (wow, should I flash now, magic missile, or just sit here and conserve mana?)
>
>To the Imm who said it was "super ####ing weak" to give up
>after
>getting the panther:
-Actually having had panther with my last character, its not that bad. The slightly toned down damage, compared to some others, can be compensated by getting items that give you frenzy. They don't dodge that badly but they have an attack that makes others bleed and another attack that quarters your foes moves(or so I was told). Not uber, but decent in its own way. Did you ever find out what your other focus got you?

>On the flip side, I said to myself that if this character
>turned out
>####ty, and all the hours of my life I spent on him were
>wasted
-Don't forget that its only a waste if you make/feel its a waste. Maybe its just me but what makes things rewarding is not how well I pk while my side is in power(for I feel this is forgotten soon after), but how many people you affect thus getting them to remember you. Can pking make you remembered, yes. Is it the way to get you remembered longest? No(IMHO).
, it
>would be a good way to kick CF for good. I hope it worked.
>
>Ravurlormenzhul
Sorry to see you go. Good luck in whatever you do.

Side note to Imms: Please give shapeshifters either more commands or at the very least more socials!

>>The Warlock cabal has a few good members, and the rest bore the ####
>>out of me. I had a hard time staying interested, but kept in char
>>until the last moments of Shin's life.

>-Man, we must all suck in Warlocks. Out of three warlock deletions,
>all of them have said that at least half of us suck.

If my hunch is correct -- that there's often not enough variety in the cabal membership due to people playing similar good-aligned roles -- then this just supports my idea that Masters should return. However... I know much of why Masters are gone, and that they'll probably never return the way they were.

Unless/until there's a new take on magic oriented cabals, I'm afraid we'll all have to put up with the same boring roles/character-types in those cabals alongside the fresh and interesting characters.

I hated bitch-ranking you as Karnif. And that one time where you actually hesitated to come to the Tower when they were clearly raiding it was just odd. So I'm not surprised you deleted when you got a form that others have managed to play well with but doesn't not have obvious strenghts in open combat. It's in your personality.

But I hope it changes, I wish you best luck with your future projects. If you want to be a powerful force in face-to-face fight I suggest invoker or conjurer. If you choose conjurer you don't really have to think either.

>I hated bitch-ranking you as Karnif. And that one time where
>you actually hesitated to come to the Tower when they were
>clearly raiding it was just odd. So I'm not surprised you
>deleted when you got a form that others have managed to play
>well with but doesn't not have obvious strenghts in open
>combat. It's in your personality.

You only helped me a little as far as ranking, so don't sound like it
was a big chore for you. And um, I always tried to show up at the
Tower when a raid was happening, so I don't know what you're talking
about. Lastly, don't you think an offense major should have some
obvious strengths in open combat, or is that just my warped opinion?

>But I hope it changes, I wish you best luck with your future
>projects. If you want to be a powerful force in face-to-face
>fight I suggest invoker or conjurer. If you choose conjurer
>you don't really have to think either.

I like thinking, which is another reason I think I'm done with
shifters, but that's another topic entirely.

You were doing fine with your forms so far. You want to cry about them? Fine, cry like a little bitch with a skinned knee.

Different forms are good for different things. There are characters that you can tear up with a lion. There are also characters that you won't ever beat with a lion unless the player is very asleep at the wheel that you could beat much easier with panther or jaguar, and vice versa.

You barely touched panther. You sure didn't put in jack of time to figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were. You say you gave jaguar 120 hours and you couldn't figure out anything to do with it? I have news for you, man. That might just have less to do with jaguar being bad and more to do with you not being good at the game.

This is not the end of the world. This need not affect your life. There are millions of people who would probably be awful at CF and it doesn't affect their lives. Neither, though, are they trying to blame external factors for their shortcomings.

There's a kind of player who would draw panther and grin to themselves because they knew popular opinion had said it was poor. They would spend the next month completely schooling the hero ranges until people started making shifters and picking double offense because they wanted panther so damn bad.

Then there's a kind of player who isn't up to the above, game-skill-wise, but gives it a try anyway. You know what? They might go 0-81 in their PK career with that character, but sooner or later, they're going to end up clawing their way into the first category.

Finally, there's a kind of player who would rather just give up, cry and make a lot of noise and play the drama queen about the whole deal. Woe is me, everybody hates me, I got forms I don't like, I guess I'll eat some worms.

The panther does suck. It was nice before the tweaking was done. But when someome goes offense...it sucks. And drow assasins can be tough as well if someone plays them perfectly...the consenus is though for most people it sucks.

Apparently 'most people' aren't skilled enough to play anything that isn't completely straightforward. Just like 'most people' tend to rage delete from bruised ego rather than suck up 'the embarassment' of seven mob deaths before hitting PK range and keep going. Can you lose eight or more con and still hero while maintaining max con all the way? Sure can. Take what you've got, and do what you can with it. Keep at it, clearly the Imms feel the forms don't suck, just like the con losses don't suck. (if con loss and xp loss from deaths sucked so bad, would it stay how it is? No)

No, it's not like me to be harsh, but just like Nepenthe appears to have felt: the idea of tossing a form like that is little more than whining.

Feel free to chew me out for agreeing with him, or for mimicking Shokai's recent comments on rage deletion, I'm a free target. Personally, I couldn't do #### with half the forms and I know it, but that doesn't mean I'll never try again. I always tell myself that I suck at CF, but that just leaves room for improvement. I'm far better now than I was a year ago, or seven years ago.

If you want to keep at it, great. I have great respect for someone that will make the most of a bad situation. Most people dont like the panther and would rather power up another charactor to play something that is more fun. I have not come across anyone who perfers Panther, and if you read goodbye notes from people who have had panther, they dislike it.

I have played 3 panthers. 1 was before the tweaking, and I loved the form. AFter it was reduced in dodging drastically, it was no longer as effective. Yes, if fully prepped, it can kill people. That is not the argument....Offense forms are for dealing damage. If you want to whittle people down with hamstringing, bleeding, some hits, heal up...then return....great. Go nuts. No one is arguing that you cannot kill with a Panther.

>You were doing fine with your forms so far. You want to cry
>about them? Fine, cry like a little bitch with a skinned
>knee.

No, I was barely tolerating them.

>Different forms are good for different things. There are
>characters that you can tear up with a lion. There are also
>characters that you won't ever beat with a lion unless the
>player is very asleep at the wheel that you could beat much
>easier with panther or jaguar, and vice versa.

Unless you can give a specific example, I'm not going to believe this.

>You barely touched panther. You sure didn't put in jack of
>time to figure out what its strengths and weaknesses were.
>You say you gave jaguar 120 hours and you couldn't figure out
>anything to do with it? I have news for you, man. That might
>just have less to do with jaguar being bad and more to do with
>you not being good at the game.

Eh...look, the panther may still not have been *that* bad. But when
you consider that I had been saying to myself, "anything but the jag
or the panther is fine. I'll work with anything else" then it sucks
all the more that I actually got the damned thing. And I think I'm
pretty good at the game.

>This is not the end of the world. This need not affect your
>life. There are millions of people who would probably be
>awful at CF and it doesn't affect their lives. Neither,
>though, are they trying to blame external factors for their
>shortcomings.

My only statement that was even "close" to blaming a particular
entity was my prayer, which was "Thanks for the cruel joke that was
my life." That was my last IC prayer, and was Shinkanu in despair. I'm
aware of the fact that the forms are random. It still sucks though.

>There's a kind of player who would draw panther and grin to
>themselves because they knew popular opinion had said it was
>poor. They would spend the next month completely schooling
>the hero ranges until people started making shifters and
>picking double offense because they wanted panther so damn
>bad.

Tried with the jag. Didn't work.

>Then there's a kind of player who isn't up to the above,
>game-skill-wise, but gives it a try anyway. You know what?
>They might go 0-81 in their PK career with that character, but
>sooner or later, they're going to end up clawing their way
>into the first category.

Didn't work with the jag.

>Finally, there's a kind of player who would rather just give
>up, cry and make a lot of noise and play the drama queen about
>the whole deal. Woe is me, everybody hates me, I got forms I
>don't like, I guess I'll eat some worms.

Oh I guess that's lil ol default me, right? Stop being a stuck-up ass
man. I didn't like what I got, you disagree with what my idea of FUN
is. That's an opinion, the same as mine.

I like a lot of the things you do, and actually say, Nepenthe, but
you went off on me like a ####ing jerk, so I'm not going to smile and
nod like some chump, and pretend your cyber-domain has any bearing on
reality.

You think you have a legitamite bitch. I don't. I think you just want to complain and/or recieve sympathy. I wasn't in the mood to hear it and I'm still not. You want to voice your biased and abrasive opinion to me, fine. Just don't act offended when you get mine back.

If you complain to anyone in the real world about something the way you complained and complained to me about the injustice of winter wolf and jaguar, there are two likely possibilities:

1) The victim of your ranting is in a customer service position that obligates them to bite their tongue on responding for fear of losing their job, or some analog thereof, or

2) Their verbal response will not be kind.

I'm sorry that you've somehow come to believe your #### alone doesn't stink and that you're somehow entitled to dump on others without an expectation of the same in return.

-----

There are people who play this game who pick up classes or combinations that are considered weak, and when they're done with them, are considered overpowered. Amora is a semi-recent example of this that sticks in my mind. Players like this are fun for me as a game administrator. Players who whine to me about wasted time and how much fun they're not having just before they rage delete are not.

You're free to be whichever kind of player you like. I'm free to verbally flip you the bird if I don't like it.

Maybe we were both in uncharacteristically ####ty moods. I wanted to
get my thoughts on the situation "out there", you didn't see it as
legitimate feedback, but rather as whiny, "woe-is-me" lamenting. Hey,
sorry it came off that way.


Jaguar stills sucks, and Panther is right there. So what?

>Amora is a semi-recent example of this that sticks in my mind.

This might sound semi lame...but just out of curiousity, do you think it might have had anything to do with druids being recently tweaked and taking wrath scratches and the like? I'm sorry, but that's a weak example, in my humble opinion. Good player, but there's probably some reason why sunray got toned down, call of the wild got toned down, a number of herbal forage bugs got fixed and herbal forage itself was tweaked down somewhat. Know what I mean? If you wanted to go with an example like that, I'd choose someone who wasn't using a "broken" class.

Everything Amora did, could have been done by anyone for a long time before she was doing it. Anything "broken" that Amora may have used, could have been used by anyone for a long time before she did.

But nearly everyone said druids were weak, so no one did.

The point is that you wouldn't even think of druids as having been a "broken" class if there hadn't been an Amora. There isn't a single class in the game that doesn't have abilities I would have to rebalance if someone was constantly using them to their full potential.

Sun Tzu said: To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence. That's true for CF as well, in my opinion. A good player will take a character that you think is good and beat you with it. An excellent player will take a character you think is awful and make you think it is great.

A common complaint I hear when people talk about some of the best players (IMHO) to play the game is that they played only overpowered combos. The truth is that's backwards. Those combos came to be thought of as overpowered because of those players.

If by long, you mean since the changes, then I agree. My main point is however, that while I consider drow APs to be a weak combo, if you threw permanent sanctuary at them and gave them invoker-esque damage potential in their immediately available spells, chances are someone would really kick butt with them. Skill, or being in the right place at the right time? Maybe both are one in the same, where I can concede that indeed it was a good time to pick up a druid.

Another example is Kaada, the "infamous" panther. The player is quite skilled, but once they got put more in line with their intention, it did take the edge off a bit.

My question for you, is when was the last time someone took one of your notable "underassumptions" and did extremely well with them. Drow/Felar AP, drow assassin, various neo-thiefly's (granted they're a new addition to be placing bets on so soon), and etc. Qxorlarran comes to mind...I think what you're searching for with that statement is comparing a Valerion (am I thinking of the right guy?) with a Balrahd in regards to paladins. Some people can make a combo look good, and others can make it look bad, but most of the "beasts" of late, had at least something to work with.

Thankfully, every class has something to work with :). I'm gettin off topic here so I'll leave it at that.

Their vulnerability is to a metal, not a spell, and they have naturally good defenses. As an assassin you shouldn't be having to fight mithril wielding mace or axe specs if you don't want to (or without being prepared), so I really don't see why drow (or any other race) is considered a weak combo with assassin. Also, drow have high dex which reduces the disadvantage relative to less dextrous assassin when fighting against weapons they don't know. Just gear so that boneshatter/whirl/impale doesn't remove too much dex.

I can think of a recent drow assassin (though I've forgotten his name) who seemed far more dangerous than Qxorlarran to me (perhaps because he managed to assemble himself a set of gear that included strange bracers etc). But the guy was, whatever the reason, one of the more lethal assassins out there.

He however just happened to be in the right place to loot khurmen's corpse. It also depends on if you just want to assassinate everyone or if you actually want to do other things with the class. Biggest disadvantage a drow has is they can't use Humansunder. I had the advantage as Q though of having scarab powers which make a huge difference.

That's because of tendonlash. I won't go into why I'd like that tendonlash instead of the lion's raw damage.

It's smooth but lion was useful for lagging them after they had already lagged themselves.

There was a newbie shifter who got the panther form. What
I saw him do at certain times made me drool all over the keyboard. If I ever play a shifter I would hope and pray that I got the jaguar.

Well One thing I have to say, having played a warlock shifter with panther and eagle, I was well hard pressed to fight villagers even with all the protections avaliable... looking aside from stoneform amulet, and the pitch black shield. Having then a/b/s stoneskin, protection...
The panther can be nice for some hit and run tactics, but it cant stand to fight for any longer duration, nor does it do the same dammage as the more angry offence forms. Nor does it dodge much. that is the part I think should be upped one notch... Its skills are good to have, not allowing your foe to well be shure if they will live. But its strenght/agility attack does not help much against anyone, cannot recall once that it actually made a differance, except that I got hit everytime I used it. And fighting villagers you get hit without the chance to dodge, often resulting in a rather nasty deathblow.
Having great respect for you Nep, I have still a problem seeing the panther standing up to any of the other offence forms. And I attempte d fighting most of them one on one. It was beat by most utility forms as well. But Ill not write any specs about that. But I attempted alot of things. But its a form with oppurtunities, combined with a porcupine the panther would be great.
A suggestion for the panther is atleast remove the automatic return attack from tendonlash, and beef up its dodge or resist...

Innsight can come from the hindsight of making alot of misstakes. Eventually one will learn, but its no rule... Former Priestess Nokisan.
PS! Nep keep up the good work!... Its most appriciated. Loved your religion...

>Nor does it
>dodge much.

I got curious and checked the numbers out, and I'm going to have to disagree. As offense forms go, panther dodges very well. Admittely, offense forms in general aren't exactly the champions of the dodge world.

>It
>was beat by most utility forms as well.

I'm neither shocked or apalled that a utility form could beat an offense form one on one. In fact, I notice that lion in particular tends to stack up to many of the utility forms awfully.

Picking offense is just that, offense. It's not 'fighting'. If there was a focus with forms that were the best for all fights, obviously everyone would pick that, but there isn't. Offense is sort of like being a bloodlusted fire a-p -- strong offense, not much defense. I'm not sure you've ever played a bloodlusted fire a-p, but it turns out that while they can put out some fantastic melee damage they aren't the best thing to fight every opponent. Sometimes you'd rather be a character more balanced in offense and defense, like an arial sword spec warrior. No form is the best for every fight any more than any warrior race/spec/legacy choice is the best for every fight.

Having played the panther its hard to hear that it dodges much... I well to say it mildly did not notice that. But it does have the offencive capabilites that an offence form should have, but I dont aggrea that it can hold its own against the other offence forms, as the bleeding cuased by the bite is almost impossible to make on a very protected foe. Never did manage it against an invoker for instance, or a crock... did not try it against many other forms. As far as being beat by most utility forms that was quite a dissapointment for me. Especially the hyena... which hit as hard, and did some other nasty things... you know what they can do... :)...
The fact is that when you choose an offence form you are going to want to play aggressive. the panther can be that. But when you are getting beat silly by most other forms its sort of a crush to your confidence. Even as I learnt how to use it, I could not often hold my own, unless I was more protected than my foe. Not how it should be I think. So Id rather put the panther in the utility class than the offence class. But if its any of the forms that would need a twaking it would be the panther. My greatest worry was always tendonlashing a villager, because I had died several times to deathblow on the counterstrike on it. And not ever hitting a polespec sort of made me whimper, or an axe spec... but Id not expect to do extreemly well against ither.. but when defending and I use hit and run tactics and loose badly I dont honestly know what to do or say. Im shure grogrim could attest to beating my arse everytime, except once, when I showed up with a bit more luck. Once I beat him and he is a scout, a skilled scout, but of the say 20 times we fought I beat him once... Yet I stuck it out. As I thought of it as a challange. But as a player you would need a specific second form to make the panther good.
As for ranking I had the badger, and I used it more than the panther if I would be standing infront. As it atleast resisted some blows. And it seemed that it dodged more... But then again I do not have the numbers as you say.... Just my imput... I dont think it needs much tweaking, but a bit to make it more similar to the other forms....
LH
PS! do you think about getting a new religion? or becoming more active as a god in cf again?