Mon Sep 10 09:57:56 2001


2 o''clock AM, Day of the Moon, 28th of the Month of the Dragon on the Theran calendar Mirzah perished, never to return.

Race:	human
Class:	necromancer
Level:	47
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	SCION, the Scions of Eternal Night
Age:	30
Hours:	110
PK Ratio:	80% (closer to 100% is better)

I'd love a reply on this, never have got one on the subject.

One thing a lot of people are failing to bring to the design board of Anti-paladins vs Paladins, is how easy it is to destroy an Anti-paladin, and how easy it is for a Paladin to get back in the game.

Tikar lost his weapon to being stripped.
All that time, effort, killing, destroyed by a common skill. Hell, you could sleep and fumble and steal, or anything. I've never played an Anti-paladin seriously those ranks because of how easy it is to destroy someone who's killed so many people and amassed so much power. And once the weapon is gone, which is not easy to get AT ALL, they're done. I'd say 90% of all anti-paladins delete when they loose their weapon, and there is good reason for it. Yes, it's the icon of their power, yadda yadda yadda. But to loose it after say 100 kills to a common skill, blows. There is nothing you can do against it, it's pathetic. Anti-paladins should have to die to loose their weapon, not be stripped while slept and their iron grip dispelled.

Let's say you kill a paladin.
w00t, the crowd goes crazy. Alright, he unghosts and doesn't delete (why would he?), and he runs over to you, completely naked, spamming wrath. Let's give him a shield while we're at it, and there you have it, a deadly class that has one piece of gear that can take down nearly any evil person with nearly no preparation. (Oh yeah, get flying potions and commune a few things, and look, your a wrath machine.)

The reason the balance is uneven is simple.

Anti-paladin's weapons are too easily dealt with for how hard they are to amass. Add in wands, preparation needed to get that high, and once again how easy it is to loose the axe...bah.

Paladin's have no loss at dying, and are back in the game as deadly as ever with a practice shield, one potion, and some other basics.

Add in the Fortress being newbie friendly, and the Scions (not newbie friendly) and Scarabs (newbie-eaters), yeah the balance is screwed and quite honestly, isn't worth playing now.

I just can't wait for Scarab's new orc shaman :)
Might actually make the game worth coming back to.

Aether

Too early.....
Aether

I won't mention names because I don't know if he would want me to or not, and that wouldn't be fair. anyway I went to fight an ap and I'm a maran paladin, I'm flying, sanc, prote, the works, plus a -233 armor class. this ap tears through me like I'm nothing PLUS my DREADED WRATH!!!! only did mutilates to him. Apparently he's doing something right......
and yes all my skills and supps are perfected for the most part, so let's not even throw that in

my two cents

sure it is *possible*, duh. so let's see now - we have had, what, 2 or 3 anti-paladins over a span of *years* irl that were succesful compared to over 70 paladins, and then the whole playerbase is supposed to believe that the problem lies completely with *them*? hello!

not exactly all of us have the time and inclination to amass a nepenthe-like insight and knowledge into how to go about making an ap succesful, and to actually expect something like that of the playerbase is just plain foolish. aps are needlessly complex, and as a result there are 15 other classes out there that are much, much more fun to play for the vast majority of players.

what i always find very amusing is the way there always is a sudden surge of lowbie anti-paladins when topics like these arise, all of them burning with the desire to go out there and prove to us all that anti-paladins can make it just as easily as any other class, and to show us that what we think is 'underpowered' is actually 'overpowered'.

and then 95% of them dissapear somewhere between rank 15 and 25. never ceases to crack me up, seriously.


one very important side-note i'd like to make is that this post is in no way representative for my overall impressions and my opinion on the quality of the carrion fields. our mud truly has an incredible depth, has very dedicated and active imms, a ton of facinating and lovely races and finally 15 well-developed classes that are very much fun to play and which almost literally take a decade for you to discover all of their tricks and charms. it just happens to be that there is one class out of those 16 that just does not live up to the same standards and levels the other 15 do. in itself this really isn't that big a deal in my opinion, however when you put an ugly painting together in the same room with 15 rembrandts, don't be surprised that people start talking and gossiping alot more about that 1 ugly painting than they will do about the rembrandts. that's just the way it is.

If heroing is your idea of successful, that post is true. Lots more paladins up there than a-p's.

If PK success is your idea of successful, I'm afraid it's not.

If you want to bitch further, start a thread on gameplay. This isn't really the place for it.

I've never played an Anti-paladin seriously those ranks

That pretty much says it.

I've played both classes in those ranks and I just don't think it's anywhere near as lopsided as is being said. You don't need an uberweapon to be a walking engine of destruction as an A-P. You don't need controls. You don't even need wands, though they sure are nice if you feel like trying something stupid, such as fighting six characters at once.

Go 'head and make a wrath-spamming paladin sometime. It's not all it's cracked up to be.

Me (level 43 fire axe/polearm) Bynote (hero drow invoker) were both fully shielded and equipped pretty well. And we both died to a moderately equipped wrath spamming Selfren. Yes, I didnt help that I missed all my shield cleaves. But when you are fully shielded and those wraths are still tearing you two to three new assholes each time it is a bit ridiculous.

>Me (level 43 fire axe/polearm) Bynote
>(hero drow invoker) were both
>fully shielded and equipped pretty
>well. And we both
>died to a moderately equipped
>wrath spamming Selfren. Yes,
>I didnt help that I
>missed all my shield cleaves.
> But when you are
>fully shielded and those wraths
>are still tearing you two
>to three new assholes each
>time it is a bit
>ridiculous.

Ok. Selfren should never have been able to land a single wrath.

For one, why are you shield cleaving? He is a human. You are a giant. Bash. Bash. Bash. If it takes two minutes of you bashing and Bynote tossing boulders to work down Selfren through sanc/prot, damn, man, take those two minutes, but in no way should Selfren be able to recall, let alone wrath. (I can't imagine how he managed to actually kill two of you.)

I don't think that powers should be handed to evil players to make up for lack of tactical awareness.

Normally yes I would bash, but shield jab still rocks you. I dont know if shield jab is size based but during another fight I had with a shield spec paladin, the shield jabs still hit even when bashed, which in turn, lag you to prevent you from doing such. IMHO if you get the shield out of a shield dedicated paladins hand, you pretty much have won the fight, especially since they are so busy wrath spamming you can land a bash after the shield cleave.

A good half of the special attacks were "sensed"
by Selfren and avoided. From what I saw this helped
to keep him from getting bashed, dirted, ambushed,
bearcharged, and likely various other skills. Even if
you do get through, shield specs put their shield in
the way of bashings, so if you miss one by any of the
above reasons, the Paladin automatically gets two
rounds of wrathing on you which can eat at you badly,
and as far as an Invoker outdamaging a Paladin,
Nova would heal a Maran Paladin, which are more than
half the Paladins out there, pillar of the heavens
wouldn't hurt a storm Paladin, which are 2/3rds of
the Paladins out there, and most of the other
real good damaging spells also take two rounds of lag
where wrath takes only one, this of course isn't
taking into account that Paladins also hurt very bad
with their regular attacks.

I know this is a moot subject where the Imms and players
will never agree on, but I thought I'd try it anyways.

I'd be interested in seeing a log of that because I'm genuinely curious how you could botch the fight that badly. Even if, (and I don't think this is the case) the element of chance went completely with Selfren and completely against the two of you, there is no reason that one of you, much less both, should die.

Additionally, there is something very wrong with the tactics of an invoker of any alignment who gets beat out in a damage contest versus a paladin.

>Additionally, there is something very wrong
>with the tactics of an
>invoker of any alignment who
>gets beat out in a
>damage contest versus a paladin.

Speaking as an evil invoker who just recently got his ass handed to him by quite a few paladins spamming wrath... It takes a lot of work, aligning of several preperations (You know the ones you keep moving), and quite of bit of situational and location thought to out damage a paladin spamming wrath on you. It takes zero thought for said paladin to spam wrath with his own sanc and protection up. Trust me, I took the damage. 2-3 MASSACRE slices a round through 6 invoker shields and a shield item, plus shield jab, with ***DEVESTATES*** wraths, and you're telling me I could outdamage that through sanctuary and protection? Those better be some of the best spells I ever cast and he better fail a lot of saves...

Saying "An invoker should always outdamage a paladin" is sorta like saying a highly trained martial artist can outdamage a man with a gun and a signle bullet. It's probably true, but any idiot can pick up the gun and blow away someone with it without thinking. The martial artists takes a hell of a lot more time and thought, even an almost fanatical devotion to preparation. The invoker is probably best over all situations, but I'd put my money on the idiot with the gun 90% of the time against 99% of the population. I'd put you in the 1% who might live, but let's not forget how the rest of us live, shall we? :-)

Of course, if my drow invoker had barrier, shield and aura readily available (in addition to protection), I'd say I was an even fight with most storm paladins (that's an even fight, not lopsided.) But, my sources of those keep moving, it's not like you move a paladins sanc and wrath every now and then and make them go look for it.

In my opinion paladin's spamming wrath are one of the cheapest methods of killing people on the mud (number two being Cloud giant ragers spamming cranial). Yes, I suppose it's defensible against. Very few people are ALWAYS prepared for it and it takes so little thought to use it's silly.

Additionally, there is something very wrong with the tactics of an invoker of any alignment who gets beat out in a damage contest versus a paladin.




Heh clearly you havent seen a maran paladin in action as of late then. Two of the biggest invoker spells at hero range are Nova and Geyser. A storm maran paladin is unaffected to both. Then you have cone of cold. Uhmm see how much damage that does through protection and sanc, (stoneskin if the paladin has a clue). I wont even get into the mess of resist elements. I know you have played everything and done everything. But well we just cant all be Nepenthe's now can we be? So I am sure you can probably kill a paladin with a gimp duergar sword spec. But this wasnt about paladins, it was about game balance in general. Which I might gladly add you imms are fixing now. Thank you for it.


Much Love

Acidic Parv

>Heh clearly you havent seen a
>maran paladin in action as
>of late then.


I have. I played one. From reading your post, I don't think you have.

And reading through these posts is beginning to tear at me because you people seriously don't know what you're talking about, and aren't connecting the dots to obvious weaknesses of the Maran Paladin. Why? Well, probably because people like you and Arolin and most of the people on this thread *haven't played one* and are relying on "reliable, accurate" information you got from your buds who haven't played one, either. That's the only reason I can think of, because I think your characters are pretty tough. Come with me through this, I'm going to point out places where you could put some more thought into it:


Two of
>the biggest invoker spells at
>hero range are Nova and
>Geyser.


Is that the limit of your creativity with Invokers? Point: These are not the two biggest invoker spells for Maran Paladins, storm or no. There are options that you are avoiding looking into. This is one of those cases where it's beneficial for you to go back to basics, looking at your spell list, and think of a plan to beat them. One big one I can think of doesn't even involve direct damage. It shouldn't take more than five minutes, I think. That's what I do, at least.


A storm maran
>paladin is unaffected to both.
>Then you have cone of
>cold.


I wouldn't even consider cone of cold.


Uhmm see how much
>damage that does through protection
>and sanc, (stoneskin if the
>paladin has a clue).


(Stoneshatter) if the invoker has a clue.



>it was about game balance in general. Which I
>might gladly add you imms
>are fixing now. Thank
>you for it.
>
>


You know, sanc/protection is .375 damage taken through resistance. Paneros example down below of 6 invoker shields (.40) + shield item (.70) is .28 (and protection/stoneskin is easy for him to add to that). That's pretty balanced, dam-resistance wise, given how difficult and time consuming it is to get an empowered paladin going. But Paneros exaggerates the damage taken, saying he received MASSACRES through .28 damage resistance from normal sword blows. Huh? Those moderately dressed Paladins were doing ANNIHILATES on normal hits? Come on, now. If you have a point, I say don't exaggerate to make it.

Of course, I haven't played an evil hero invoker against a Paladin. I really want to after reading all this, but I don't have the time, energy or patience to sit through 120 hours practicing spells. But then I'm willing to bet none of you have played a Maran Paladin, either. I guess they can be scary if you don't know or think through the nature and extent of their powers. But if you do or think about what you DO know about them, there are holes you can exploit, just like there are with hero Scion invokers.

And, as a side note: I think the deadliest class is the necromancer. You aren't exactly handicapped by playing them.

>Uhmm see how much
>>damage that does through protection
>>and sanc, (stoneskin if the
>>paladin has a clue).
>
>
>(Stoneshatter) if the invoker has a
>clue.

Stoneshatter has a save. You wanna try your hand against a paladins sv vs spells and if you fail do zero damage go right ahead.... Yup, you'd do swell against a wrath spamming paladin.

Trust me, I wasted 4 stoneshatters in a row against a transmuter once while the panther formed ripped me a new one, it's not that helpful a spell... (Granted the trannie had 4 levels on me at the time.) I would have been better off doing just about anything else then stoneshatter.

>
>
>>it was about game balance in general. Which I
>>might gladly add you imms
>>are fixing now. Thank
>>you for it.
>>
>>
>
>
>You know, sanc/protection is .375 damage
>taken through resistance. Paneros
>example down below of 6
>invoker shields (.40) + shield
>item (.70) is .28 (and
>protection/stoneskin is easy for him
>to add to that).

How'd you come up with those numbers? I was told shield was .8? (I'm honestly just curious about any info, not trying to bicker about details.)

>That's pretty balanced, dam-resistance wise,
>given how difficult and time
>consuming it is to get
>an empowered paladin going.
>But Paneros exaggerates the damage
>taken, saying he received MASSACRES
>through .28 damage resistance from
>normal sword blows. Huh?
> Those moderately dressed Paladins
>were doing ANNIHILATES on normal
>hits? Come on, now.
> If you have a
>point, I say don't exaggerate
>to make it.

MY point was that a wrath spamming paladin is like giving a 5 year old child a gun and saying "Gee, any idiot with an invoker can beat him". No, 80%, at least, of the evil people on the mud cannot beat a wrath spamming paladin. I'm glad you think you can. I thought I could also. Maybe with another 2 dozen encoutners with them and me dying or fleeing like a baby I could, I got bored long before that happened.

For the record the paladin, Zardik, was doing ***DEMOLISHES*** regularly against the archmage, I have no idea the archmage's damage resistance.

Unfortuntely I don't have the log. I'll stand by my memory of getting hit with 2 MASSACRES in one round, at least 2 ***DEV***'s on wraths and ***DMEOS*** on the archmage... I won't claim total recall. Maybe something fell but I'm usually pretty good on catching those.

And I never exaggerate, you can ask my wife...no on second thought, never mind... :-)

>Of course, I haven't played an
>evil hero invoker against a
>Paladin.

Glad to see it's not just one side of this argument talking on matters he has no idea on first hand.

>And, as a side note: I
>think the deadliest class is
>the necromancer. You aren't
>exactly handicapped by playing them.

Still think a lawful good conjurer is the deadliest class. I've seen level 35 ones take cabal items by themselves, much less wipe out parties of 3.

Necromancers have one major weakness, bored paladins summoning their hard earned zombies from half a world away. Odd we always come back to these paladins don't we? Oh well, I guess it's their job to smite evil and all that. Might as well make them good at it.

>Still think a lawful good conjurer
>is the deadliest class.
>I've seen level 35 ones
>take cabal items by themselves,
>much less wipe out parties
>of 3.

Having played two, albeit not terribly well, no way are they the most deadly class. Got to have that archon to heal you. It will occasionally do big stuff, but not reliable. So now you have elemental for damage, which is adequate, but isn't going to kill someone so quickly they can't flee. And there's the crux. They can flee. Yeah there's lash, but it's not overly effective, and doesn't lag long enough that someone can't just flee the next round instead. Sort of like offensive muters with wands. Lots of power, easy to escape from.

>Necromancers have one major weakness, bored
>paladins summoning their hard earned
>zombies from half a world
>away.

Nope. They can still kill you. Flee;c sleep attacker. Bad bad stuff. Walk into an area, summon/sleep you before you even knew they were there. Obviously marans and warlocks will be *less* afraid of necros than others, but even still. They scare the ##### out of me. Them and assassins, though the latter not as much with my current character.

>And there's the crux.
>They can flee.
>Yeah there's lash, but it's
>not overly effective, and doesn't
>lag long enough that someone
>can't just flee the next
>round instead.

I forgot about two other lag options, one automatic and one not, involving earth and air elementals respectively. Even still, semi-easy to run from.

>MY point was that a wrath spamming paladin is like giving
>a 5 year old child a gun and saying "Gee,
>any idiot with an invoker can beat him".
>No, 80%, at least, of the evil people on the
>mud cannot beat a wrath spamming paladin. I'm glad
>you think you can. I thought I could also.
> Maybe with another 2 dozen encoutners with them and
>me dying or fleeing like a baby I could, I
>got bored long before that happened.
>

Hmm.. ok. What I think you're saying here is that no matter what I think is doable, 80% of the players can not play an evil character and beat an idiot playing a paladin. OK. Let me narrow this down further. Because it's not enough to "beat" someone. The only thing that matters is Nailing The Kill.

So we'll say 80% of the players can not play an evil and nail the kill 1vs1 against an idiot playing a paladin.

Now, I will somewhat flip this around and say that an idiot playing a paladin can NOT nail the kill against 80% of the players playing evils.

To me, that is balanced.

And, as evidence, I point you to the vaunted PK ratios. Remember I am talking about NAILING THE KILL, not scaring someone, or whatever some of the paladins are bragging about when they talk about kicking ass.

And, I think this balance will continue to apply as we take skills into consideration and move upward through varying skill levels. Meaning, the guy that can kill a paladin 1vs1 can probably nail alot of kills with a paladin 1vs1. The guy that can't kill a paladin, probably isn't going to nail alot of kills with his paladin.


>For the record the paladin, Zardik,
>was doing ***DEMOLISHES*** regularly against
>the archmage, I have no
>idea the archmage's damage resistance.
>


Ok, I'm sorry I snipped most of your other stuff, but I wanted to stick with your Main Point and not diverge from that too far. In regards to the rest, I think your spells and your saves against wrath would have been more successful if Relzin were a hero (Zardik=51, Relzin=43). Again, the flip side is running a 41 storm paladin against a 47 human necro. Ugliness ensues.



>And I never exaggerate, you can
>ask my wife...no on second
>thought, never mind... :-)
>
>

Heh. Ok


>>And, as a side note: I
>>think the deadliest class is
>>the necromancer. You aren't
>>exactly handicapped by playing them.
>
>Still think a lawful good conjurer
>is the deadliest class.
>I've seen level 35 ones
>take cabal items by themselves,
>much less wipe out parties
>of 3.
>
>Necromancers have one major weakness, bored
>paladins summoning their hard earned
>zombies from half a world
>away. Odd we
>always come back to these
>paladins don't we? Oh
>well, I guess it's their
>job to smite evil and
>all that. Might as
>well make them good at
>it.

Well, I meant "deadly," not "powerful". It's pretty easy to run from a conjurer, even though they're "powerful."

>Heh clearly you havent seen a
>maran paladin in action as
>of late then.

Alas, I have.

>Two of
>the biggest invoker spells at
>hero range are Nova and
>Geyser. A storm maran
>paladin is unaffected to both.

Y'know, contrary to popular belief invokers have more than two spells for a reason. At least you didn't suggest spamming pebble to boulder. That's possibly the single most overused invoker tactic as far as I've seen. There's a time and a place for it, but that time is not all the time and that place is not everywhere.

Charge a weapon up. It's not much more damage, but it's some. Pick a protective shield that helps. Bring some of the room-affecting spells into play. Dig a pit. Go back to a lower-level spell like iceshards, iceneedles, buffet, avalanche, or even wind wall -- maybe there's a reason to use them. Bring in some wands or staves or scrolls.

>Then you have cone of
>cold. Uhmm see how much
>damage that does through protection
>and sanc, (stoneskin if the
>paladin has a clue).

The invoker could as easily have stoneskin, no? The only difference being the invoker can do something fairly effective about the paladin's stoneskin.

>I
>wont even get into the
>mess of resist elements. I
>know you have played everything
>and done everything. But well
>we just cant all be
>Nepenthe's now can we be?
>So I am sure you
>can probably kill a paladin
>with a gimp duergar sword
>spec.

The legend of Nepenthe is better than I ever was. Apparently it's running around whooping on people with sickly elven hand specs while I go about my life.

But, since you ask . . . I think the duergar sword warrior, played intelligently still has a reasonable chance to win up until around hero range, when due to various factors it starts becoming a lot harder. Is the duergar warrior disadvantaged against the paladin past a certain point? Sure. Everything has its strong and weak match-ups.

Honestly, I have a hard time believing you're having that much trouble with paladins. For the most part you seem to have a good idea of what you're doing.

>But this wasnt about
>paladins, it was about game
>balance in general. Which I
>might gladly add you imms
>are fixing now. Thank
>you for it.

You're welcome, I think.

First, Since all other Immortals defend Paladins,
Lord Vonaxim must defend also. :)

Second, Vonaxim NEVER died to a Paladin. Maybe some bard
who fiended, fire and iced, Flurring warriors, assassinating assassins, nightgaunting conjurors, rotting shamans, gang banging villagers, snaring rangers, wall of thorns, invoker with whatever they used, offensive transmuters, sleeping necromancers, soul collecting anti-paladins, and finally pwking (power word killing for you idiots) liches have killed Vonaxim, but I'll be damned if a Paladin kills Vonaxim.

Third, if Paladin ranks 4th or 5th on pking ability(according to Valg) then liches must be 5th or 6th on his list, and since paladins have Undoubtably the most watched roleplaying, liches I guess are 2nd? But we know this is true, for a lich got its ass handed by a Paladin in a one on one fight, with the lich being a Hero Lich and having Old Master Powers. Maybe Lord Vonaxim shouldn't be a lich now, since they suck so bad, perhaps I should become a Paladin and move up one on the list of pk ability. Maybe, just maybe, it was the skill of the lich who fought or Paladins are overpowered. Vonaxim thinks it is skill.

Fourth, since Vonaxim has no knowledge of dieing to a Paladin, and dieing to all those others, that means Paladins are same as thieves, orcs(orc not in Vonaxim range whenever he is on), druid (see same as orc). You can pick out of those four needs skill revamp, or maybe Vonaxim is just that damn good.


From the PENCIL of (I have no pen, sorry)

Vonaxim follower of Lord Vonaxim


**Lord Vonaxim told me, If I ever die to a Paladin, he will deny me from the lands.**

How can you even stand to complain this much? I've had my butt handed to me repeatedly but necro/arcanse transie/assassin teams, and it's not the same one over and over. Use some strategy for god's sake, and if things don't go your way for a little bit, don't give up and quit. You know I even enjoyed the little scraps we had Mirzah, but I'll just as joyfully dance on your grave because that's one less person I have to watch over my shoulder for, for the summon and gang bang. I never say we're under or over powered, I just get back up re-equip and get on with life. It's a game, you chose your char, cabal and everything. Don't whine about it because you didn't turn into some powerhouse fear juggernaut. pick something else and move on, or quit altogether. I would prefer to see you remain just so there will be some decent players on. I will be the first to admit you play well when you feel like it.

This has all been said before, but what the hell.

Imms make good aligns more powerful to make cf more newbie friendly since goods help newbies and evils dont.

Its got to the point where skillful evils can have trouble winning fights with newbie goods at equal odds and skillful evils are dieing to newbie good gangs. Throw in a few skillful goods and its all over for evil.

Things keep getting tweaked to screw over resistances for evils yet i aint seeing much power downing of good aligns.
Take Maran Paladins, they are so overpowered its not funny.

Paladins get wrath, which is better than anything invokers get. They can also tank, the equivalent is an invoker that hits and tanks like a warrior and has sanc and heal like a healer. So for all this is suppose to be countered by the fact they cant lag anyone in the fight??? They dont need to lag people, people die in 1 round!

Paladins vulnerability is suppose be sleep spell, for everything they get, this is suppose be their downside, but not if they maran, they auto-attack necros and aps, wtf is up with that, its like those 2 classes were picked so good aligns wouldnt get slept. (I have also seen an assassin maran auto-attack a necro while cranial slept and also while ensnarred, i assume this is a bug and has been fixed.)

To make things worse, have you seen the counter, try a strangle or blackjack on a paladin, watch it do bugger all and watch them get 3 non-tannkable hits on you for it. Now they are a polearm spec warrior too

What about those special non-tankable double damage hits the marans get in the fight, oh well i guess scion gets nightfist, that equals out right? *chuckle*

Kadsuane has a point, sylvan and maran are so geared up with pk powers, yet scion/scarab have utility/defensive junk.

So we got a char that sancs and heals like a healer
Huge spell damage like an invoker
Tanks like an arial sword spec
Hits like a mace spec
Counters like a polearm spec
auto-attacks like a rager
oh, did i mention they are usually storm giant
so they are resisted with no vulnerabilitys except mental.
Lets not even get into some of the other ##### they can theoretically get, immunity to being lagged by skills, dispel, knowledge of other weapon types.


Oh, but dont forget they cant trip or bash, big deal.
I honestly cant understand why anyone would play a good align shaman nowadays. Well you dont see any so..

I dont have a problem with hoardes of good aligns, but individual game balance, a group of 3 can be wrecked apart by 1 maran paladin with crap eq which is wrong. Evils have to spend forever trying to get resistances from exploration areas in order to try keep up with what paladins have naturally. Ever wondered why Jubornl didnt hero?

My solution to the rods problem will proceed this rant.
You go from too easy to get them to too hard.
People get cheesed off when you move them about because we think the imms will always be able to use them. I am not forgetting that Istendil was seen putting barrier rods in his container a few days after Barrier, aura and shield came out on the motd. He just happened to wonder in onyx tower that day and stumbled onto them, lucky find. At the time i didnt know what they were, but i remembered their name and a month later put it together.

My solution is to sell them at a shop, moderate price and you cant kill the mob for the gold. DONT MAKE them limited, thats so lame. Then what you do is you reduce the duration of them, so people cant last forever in a fight resisted. This worked for fly potions when the duration was reduced, why cant it work for barrier? So basically easy to get but hard to maintain

I won't touch the paladin issue except to say I think you are greatly exaggerating them to make a point.

My solution is to sell them at a shop, moderate price and you cant kill the mob for the gold. DONT MAKE them limited, thats so lame. Then what you do is you reduce the duration of them, so people cant last forever in a fight resisted. This worked for fly potions when the duration was reduced, why cant it work for barrier? So basically easy to get but hard to maintain

The goal of what we're doing to barrier/aura/shield isn't to make them "easy" or non-limited. I think the system we have worked out will reward exploration, while making the dissemination of OOC information less profitable, and even counterproductive. I don't think we're interested in lowering the total number of such items in circulation, but we're working towards a novel distribution system for them that might address some of the concerns.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

Please Valguarnera, you can't say that Paladins aren't incredibly
powerful. Even without wrath, most Paladins would easily tear me
apart if I hadn't assassinated them. I'm very, very surprised
that you said that the poster exaggerated. Maybe he slightly
exaggerating saying three people will get creamed by a Paladin,
but other than that, he isn't too far off mark. I was just lucky
they weren't immune to assassinations.

I'm saying that Paladins aren't incredibly powerful. On my personal list (which may be wrong one way or another), I'd say they would rank 4th or 5th in terms of PK prowess, despite having the most stringent roleplay restrictions (by far) of any class. There's a reason that since the revamp, we've only seen 2 or 3 paladins who were feared much, all of whom were played by very experienced players who could have probably done just as well with another class.

This thread has a remarkable amount of misinformation as to the capabilities of paladins.

Please Valguarnera, you can't say that Paladins aren't incredibly powerful. Even without wrath, most Paladins would easily tear me apart if I hadn't assassinated them. I'm very, very surprised that you said that the poster exaggerated. Maybe he slightly exaggerating saying three people will get creamed by a Paladin, but other than that, he isn't too far off mark. I was just lucky they weren't immune to assassinations.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

I suppose I can't speak for all evils, but I have an itch that
I am speaking for most. If I heard over the cabal channel that
a Paladin was heading towards the Chasm, and I was alone, being
an assassin, I would immediately think to assassinate is my only
way to kill him unless he makes very, very, very large mistakes.
I am certain that any of the other evil fighting classes would
consider it futile, and I am also quite sure that most of the
rest would find it useless as well. It didn't matter what the
Paladin's name was, if he can com 'wrath' he can keep me from
hand to hand fighting him.

If wrath spam could beat any evil character, why doesn't it? Who's the paladin that dominates all evil with wrath spam?

Standard challenge: If paladins are ridicuously overpowered, and can beat any evil foe by wrath spam, please roll up a paladin, and show us all how it's done. Make a big button on your keyboard, mark it "commune wrath" with a black magic marker, and mash it like you're playing the drum solo at a bad 80's heavy metal concert. You'll need to get empowered, but you won't need to worry about extra things, because all you need is the mighty wrath button!

Otherwise, I will keep looking for this invincible Maran paladin that everyone is talking about. If I see him, I'll call. Until then, I'm done with this thread, and all the misinformation therein. Toodles.

It didn't matter what the Paladin's name was, if he can com 'wrath' he can keep me from hand to hand fighting him.


From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

Nobody is saying Paladins are as overpowered as liches. In the hands of a competent, experienced player, a lich is pretty much invincible. After a while one can beat most foes while afk. Paladins need to be there and do some things, but it's just much easier for them to put up a hell of a fight than a hero transmuter.

As for making one, if there were more than 3 evil heros ever around at the same time, maybe I would. I'd rather not roll up and be a hero paladin with nobody to kill over and over, that'd be just plain boring. What then, mudsex and eq hoarding?

>Take Maran Paladins, they are so
>overpowered its not funny.
>
>Paladins get wrath, which is better
>than anything invokers get.


1. Wrath only works against evil align. Invoker spells work against anyone. Invoker spells do more damage. Invoker spells work against more vulnerabilities.


>They can also tank,


2. Paladins get two defenses, and can only learn four weapons (sword, mace, polearm, staff). There's alot they can't parry. They're not the greatest tanks.

2.a. Invokers also have the capability for far more damage reduction than do Paladins.

2.b. Paladins can be lagged by other players. Invokers have the potential not to be lagged.


>the equivalent
>is an invoker that hits
>and tanks like a warrior


3. Paladins only get three attacks and can not dual wield. They don't hit like a warrior.


>and has sanc and heal
>like a healer.


4. Healers get trance. Paladins don't. Healers have a high mana base to play with multiple sancs/heals. Paladins don't. Healers have rejuvenate. Paladins don't.


>So for all this is suppose
>to be countered by the
>fact they cant lag anyone
>in the fight??? They dont
>need to lag people, people
>die in 1 round!
>


People die to wrath in one round? These are supposed to be "skillful" people that die to one wrath? Huh. I think you and I have differing views on the word "skillful".


>Paladins vulnerability is suppose be sleep
>spell, for everything they get,
>this is suppose be their
>downside, but not if they
>maran, they auto-attack necros and
>aps, wtf is up with
>that, its like those 2
>classes were picked so good
>aligns wouldnt get slept.


My idea of a "skillful" player can get around that power. Your idea of a "skillful" player is helpless against it. I think we have differing ideas of who is "skilled".



>To make things worse, have you
>seen the counter, try a
>strangle or blackjack on a
>paladin, watch it do bugger
>all and watch them get
>3 non-tannkable hits on you
>for it. Now they
>are a polearm spec warrior
>too


Not all paladins have this ability. Rare ones do.


>
>What about those special non-tankable double
>damage hits the marans get
>in the fight,


False.


>oh well
>i guess scion gets nightfist,
>that equals out right? *chuckle*
>



No, the fact that there are maybe two Maran online at any one time and the other goodie cabals are not prone to raiding/PKing is what equals that out.



>
>Kadsuane has a point, sylvan and
>maran are so geared up
>with pk powers, yet scion/scarab
>have utility/defensive junk.
>


Scarab powers are all about PK - they're entirely useful against other players.



>Oh, but dont forget they cant
>trip or bash, big deal.
>


That is a big deal. You should never die to a paladin unless you did something stupid. Try this: type out F L E E on your keyboard.


>but individual game balance, a group
>of 3 can be wrecked
>apart by 1 maran paladin
>with crap eq which is
>wrong.


a group of 3 unskilled evils who did not use damage reduction or lag out the paladin can be wrecked by one paladin.

My solution to you is to actually play a Paladin. You are laboring under many misconceptions.

>1. Wrath only works against
>evil align. Invoker spells
>work against anyone. Invoker
>spells do more damage.
>Invoker spells work against more
>vulnerabilities.

I think you'll find that for a one round lag commune, wrath does damage comparable to ANY invoker spell. Wrath is not affected by spellbane either. The fact that wrath only works against evils is a non-issue and should never have ben brought up.

>2. Paladins get two defenses,
>and can only learn four
>weapons (sword, mace, polearm, staff).
> There's alot they can't
>parry. They're not the
>greatest tanks.

Shield spec'ed paladins are fantastic tanks. I know this because I had one recently. In PK's I never got hit. Whether or not they are better than arial sword spec's is a tough call.

>2.a. Invokers also have the capability
>for far more damage reduction
>than do Paladins.
>
>2.b. Paladins can be lagged by
>other players. Invokers have
>the potential not to be
>lagged.

95% of a paladin's fights are against evil. Sanc and protection, reduce the natural damage taken by what.. 67%? The point you are missing is that Paladin powers are comparable to the *best/drawcard* powers associated with each other class.


>3. Paladins only get three
>attacks and can not dual
>wield. They don't hit
>like a warrior.

What someone was trying to say was that their physical is strong. They have the potential to hit as hard as a warrior and are closer to a warrior on physical than a mage, whereas they are closer to mages than warriors in terms of magical offense and defense. They are closer to healers than warriors in terms of healing.

>4. Healers get trance.
>Paladins don't. Healers have
>a high mana base to
>play with multiple sancs/heals.
>Paladins don't. Healers have
>rejuvenate. Paladins don't.

I really don't think this is an issue either and should not have been brought up.

>People die to wrath in one
>round? These are supposed
>to be "skillful" people that
>die to one wrath?
>Huh. I think you
>and I have differing views
>on the word "skillful".

Tell me how a duergar warrior is not going to die in a round or two to a paladin? I've played my fair share of duergar warriors and damned if I know how it's possible bar cranial coupled with a lackey invoker or healer. A truly skillful player shines on his own, there is no possible way an evil warrior/thief/assassin can do so against a decent paladin.

>My idea of a "skillful" player
>can get around that power.
> Your idea of a
>"skillful" player is helpless against
>it. I think we
>have differing ideas of who
>is "skilled".

Someone is pointing out to the fact that the one soft spot for paladins has now been bandaged. Why should a class/cabal have absolutely no vulnerabilities? Why should a wouldbe-solo- paladin-killer have to go to so much planning, get so lucky, using so much preparation, to get a kill, where all a paladin has to do is commune wrath twice?

>Not all paladins have this ability.
> Rare ones do.

Again, he points to the fact that the further empowerments granted to paladins only create a snowball effect in their already overpowered state.

>>What about those special non-tankable double
>>damage hits the marans get
>>in the fight,
>
>False.

False? Why don't you elaborate on that? Oh that's right, because the auto-attack cannot be tanked, and cuts through all resistances right? Add shield jab to that, which can stun. I'd rather either of those two that the coveted riposte, anyday.

>>oh well
>>i guess scion gets nightfist,
>>that equals out right? *chuckle*

>No, the fact that there are
>maybe two Maran online at
>any one time and the
>other goodie cabals are not
>prone to raiding/PKing is what
>equals that out.

Equals out? Two Marans sure, four Dawn, three Warlock, three wannabe Marans. throw in two Sylvan. All grouped. Equals out? Go figure.

>>Kadsuane has a point, sylvan and
>>maran are so geared up
>>with pk powers, yet scion/scarab
>>have utility/defensive junk.
>>
>
>
>Scarab powers are all about PK
>- they're entirely useful against
>other players.

Yeah, good point *sarcasm*. I don't think I'm even going to bother pointing out your idiocy in that statement. The only think Scarab has going for them is their raid defense.

>>but individual game balance, a group
>>of 3 can be wrecked
>>apart by 1 maran paladin
>>with crap eq which is
>>wrong.
>
>a group of 3 unskilled evils
>who did not use damage
>reduction or lag out the
>paladin can be wrecked by
>one paladin.

What about a group of three who cannot lag a flying/enlarged paladin. What about a group of three that cannot reduce the damage taken more than 30% w/o getting anal in their preparation? Why should some people have to go to extremes in self preservation just to keep themselves alive where a paladin has it all at his/her fingertips?

>My solution to you is to
>actually play a Paladin.
>You are laboring under many
>misconceptions.

As I stated earlier, I have. They are unbelievably overpowered, add Maran to that and you get a joke. You love being a Lightwalker so much that you are blinded by the imbalance.

Love Bemus-ed

Let me start this way. I think I ran a paladin who recieved the extra empowerments that are most pk oriented. Why? When I got them I was a follower of shokai, it's the kind of paladin I was, and so was appropriate.

A bunch of the skills you are bashing, you seem to have a limited appreciation of. *IF* a paladin is lucky enough to get the virtue where you can't be lagged, or the one that dispels, they have other factors that limit them a lot more than protective shield and the shaman com dispel. Ditto for the skill that makes them familiar with weapons, I think I mave met ONE paladin who had that one. They are not easy to get. Being a maran helps, but not always. I know lots of paladins who are still running off the base set of sups, and do okay.

Wrath only harming evils a non-issue? What are you on and where can I get some. I think in my last couple weeks I had AT LEAST as many fights with ragers,nexans, and others whom I could NOT wrath as I did people whom I could wrath. I often differed to other skills once I had them, and more often than not I never even got one off because I had so many fire giant antipaladins bashing me and other misc thieves and assassins tripping me (paladins have everything at their disposal? Don't need to be anal about prepping? then why do you have to bring up two skills they DON'T have when you are trying to argue they are overpowered?)

As for manabase and trance, those are huge. A storm giant paladin with a 17 intelligence and 750 mana takes a lot of extended naps. That's where mine normally sat, roundabouts. Plague and energy drain were pretty much death to me if I was broke, which was most of the time (ic reasons and stuff, I think I accumulated wealth once).

paladins not having rejuv, well, that is kind of a non-issue.

Paladins being invulnerable to solo kills? You funny.

as for the issue of a huge gang of sylvans/maran/dawns/warlock

don't get along
dawns won't do a lot of stuff
lots of friction between warlock/sylvan

and finally I will mention something valg said awhile back, Scion has over twice as many people as the second most populous cabal in carrionfields. Think about it

By the way two maran on at a time is a high estimate. Over the day I'd say about .85 marans at any time, averaged.

Paladins are powerfull (you're right, good tanks, hit hard, good sups and damage reduction), and if you play them right you can get them really powerfull, kind of like you can necromancers, and antipaladins, they just get rewards for different things, but you still have to put in extra work.

All the things you dismissed as non-issues really bothered me, that's a cheap cop out when the rest of your argument is so passionate and misguided.

>A bunch of the skills you
>are bashing, you seem to
>have a limited appreciation of.
>*IF* a paladin is lucky
>enough to get the virtue
>where you can't be lagged,
>or the one that dispels,
>they have other factors that
>limit them a lot more
>than protective shield and the
>shaman com dispel.

I was granted essence of faith, with divine intervention (the dispelling one) because I roleplayed my ass off. In all honesty, if I can get it, according to the CF playerbase, anyone can. They are too easy to get and shouldn't be there anyway.

>Wrath only harming evils a non-issue?
>What are you on and
>where can I get some.
>I think in my last
>couple weeks I had AT
>LEAST as many fights with
>ragers,nexans, and others whom I
>could NOT wrath as I
>did people whom I could
>wrath. I often differed to
>other skills once I had
>them, and more often than
>not I never even got
>one off because I had
>so many fire giant antipaladins
>bashing me and other misc
>thieves and assassins tripping me
>(paladins have everything at their
>disposal? Don't need to be
>anal about prepping? then why
>do you have to bring
>up two skills they DON'T
>have when you are trying
>to argue they are overpowered?)

Firstly, Paladins do not need wrath to compete. Think of it as a ridiculous bonus against evil. A paladin should kick the crap out of any alignment. I wouldn't complain if wrath was lessened greatly and perhaps something of equal damage was added to attack neutrals *shrugs* I know I'm reaching but hey.. wrath is BS. Maybe if resist positive was as easy to get as resist negative, it wouldn't be a problem.

Secondly, getting enlarge roots and potions of flying is trivial. I'm talking about potions of protection, shield potions etc, they are not trivial. Again, if you cannot see the difference here, then I give up.

>As for manabase and trance, those
>are huge. A storm giant
>paladin with a 17 intelligence
>and 750 mana takes a
>lot of extended naps. That's
>where mine normally sat, roundabouts.
>Plague and energy drain were
>pretty much death to me
>if I was broke, which
>was most of the time
>(ic reasons and stuff, I
>think I accumulated wealth once).

You don't get it. I don't care if a character has to sleep for 100 ticks before being able to PK. A character is classified as overpowered based on that character at his/her peak. Noone would complain that conjurers are underpowered and I bet that sleep more than any paladin. In a PK, trance will not make a difference in the outcome of a fight. Thus, it is a stupid point and should not have been brought up.


>paladins not having rejuv, well, that
>is kind of a non-issue.

Yes it is, god knows if you are being sarcastic though. Compare the difference between a warriors heal (ie berserk), a paladins heal (100 hps), and a healers rejuv (200 hps). If you cannot see the fact that the difference between a paladin and a healer is trivial compared to a warrior then I won't argue with you.

>Paladins being invulnerable to solo kills?
>You funny.

I saw a log of a snared paladin against a duergar warrior and a ranger. The paladin ended up on a few scratches and the warrior died, the ranger fled. The ranger AND warrior both supercede the paladin in skill, I know that for a fact.

>as for the issue of a
>huge gang of sylvans/maran/dawns/warlock
>
>don't get along
>dawns won't do a lot of
>stuff
>lots of friction between warlock/sylvan

That is BS. I witnessed Kaersis (Sylvan), Trianna (wannabe Maran), Zeijeiri (fucking good thief), Zardik (Maran), Teeka (Dawn), Derexal (Dawn) and Johan (Maran) all grouped together. Try beating that group, I sure as hell can't. Don't say that they don't get along. Not to mention, I have been attacked in Thar-Acacia by a group of Warders/Warlock and Dawn all together.

>and finally I will mention something
>valg said awhile back, Scion
>has over twice as many
>people as the second most
>populous cabal in carrionfields. Think
>about it

One Belial is better than ten kobolds.

>By the way two maran on
>at a time is a
>high estimate. Over the day
>I'd say about .85 marans
>at any time, averaged.

Doesn't mean they aren't bullshitingly overpowered. Good arguement.

Love Bemus-ed

P.S. Jhyrbian is DA BOMB!!

I never had essence of faith, so I never had the dispel sup you did, I must have had another, but I repeat. It doesn't work like shaman dispel.
I do not think my two virtues were 'easy' to get, especially the second one, which I lost and had to earn again.

For your second point, you are contradicting yourself. Before one of your major arguments was that wrath can outdamage any invoker spell, which is silly. Even so, there are other considerations. If paladins got like pebble to boulder, that would be an overpowerment issue. Curse and some damage, which you CAN find resistance too. . . And part of your argument also was that Paladins have all the things other classes need to work for at their imediate disposal. That isn't true.

As for the trance thing, yeah, sure, having trance would have saved my ass so many times, when I was exhausted and my sanc went out, or when I just fled and one more heal would get me through the rest of the fight, It's ALL an issue, even the minor stuff, so don't blow these things off.

Next point, I was agreeing with you. You didn't catch it. OF COURSE PALADINS CAN'T REJUV

you'r next two points are from isolated incidents you witnessed. My experience is VERY different.

the next response I do not see the point too. Between scarab and scion, and if there are so many goods nexus, scion still outnumbers the fort and the grove at almost all levels.

Paladins are overpowered, but considering who tends to play them, it isn't so bad.

you have a good argument too!

>That is BS. I witnessed
>Kaersis (Sylvan), Trianna (wannabe Maran),
>Zeijeiri (fucking good thief), Zardik
>(Maran), Teeka (Dawn), Derexal (Dawn)
>and Johan (Maran) all grouped
>together. Try beating that
>group, I sure as hell
>can't. Don't say that
>they don't get along.


Actually, Derexal wasn't in that group, Zeijeiri only joined after Teeka left, and Zardik was not in it for long (He joined when the Scions came to the Fortress and had to leave soon after). And we were against Suldereinee (Scion), Srrutryk (Scion), Alsic (Scion), and Ziejar (Scion friendly).

So at the most it was Kaersis, Trianna, Teeka, and Johan vs. Suldereinee, Sryutryk, Alsic, and Ziejar. That's.. hmm.. that's 4 on 4. Although I can see from you perspective how it might have seemed like more, if you were one of those four Scions, it's not like you were helpless.

Obviously the range at hero is stacked, but you're misrepresenting by saying the separate cabals are a tight unit working together. Already in that goodie group there seemed like personalities were rubbing each other wrong.

Warders won't raid Scarab. Dawn won't raid.. at all. Warders won't group with others in your group. Warders will kill others in your group. None of us know who plays the other OOC (I think). Most times you're (well, me, at least) grouping with someone you've never fought with before. In this case, I've never grouped with any of those three before (except Kaersis, briefly).

Please note before responding:

A. I'm not blind to the stacked Hero range.
B. I'm not blind that Maran/Dawn/Warders have grouped for brief periods of time in the past.
C. I think you're blind if you believe they work as well together as people who are in the same cabal/know each other OOC.

>Paladins being invulnerable to solo kills?
>>You funny.
>
>I saw a log of a
>snared paladin against a duergar
>warrior and a ranger.
>The paladin ended up on
>a few scratches and the
>warrior died, the ranger fled.
> The ranger AND warrior
>both supercede the paladin in
>skill, I know that for
>a fact.
>

Come on, man, look at that log (Selfren vs. Jlad & Velnath). You don't think they could have done anything differently? If you want, you can say your friends superceed me in skill, as well, but I know for a fact I would have killed that paladin in that fight with a ranger behind me. They attacked after one tick in the snare. That warrior should not have been wielding maces. That warrior should have bashed the HUMAN paladin. That ranger should not have been wielding the weapons he was wielding. That Paladin should never have gotten off a single wrath.

PS - Paladins vs. Warriors. Warriors have it hard at hero ranks, period. Try running your duergar warrior mace spec without protects against an invoker and see if he lasts any longer than against the paladin. Why are you comparing one of the hardest race/class combos to play at hero to Paladins? Compare an invoker to a Paladin, or something. Playing this Maran, I've heard alot of talk about Paladins kicking major ass in my time, but after they're dead or deleted, looking at their PK ratios (yeah, stupid measure, I know) it's not high compared to that of their enemies. Paladins are "overpowered", but not in PKs - just in general versatility and adventuring.

Look at that log again.

You quickly strike Jlad with the edge of a shield of mirror-white dragonscales.
Your shield jab DISMEMBERS Jlad!

A bright silver broadsword flares with brilliant silvery flame as you make a powerful lunge at Jlad!
Your flaming bite MANGLES Jlad!

You quickly strike Jlad with the edge of a shield of mirror-white dragonscales.
Your shield jab MUTILATES Jlad!

Sensing Jlad's attack, you place your a shield of mirror-white dragonscales in the way and return a counter strike!
Your slice *** DEMOLISHES *** Jlad!
Your slice DISMEMBERS Jlad!
You yell 'Help! Jlad just attacked me!'
Jlad is gushing blood. (30% - 50%)

A bright silver broadsword flares with brilliant silvery flame as you make a powerful lunge at Jlad!
Your flaming bite *** DEVASTATES *** Jlad!

EVERY SINGLE HIT IN THAT PK ON JLAD WAS UNTANKABLE AND AUTOMATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE DOESNT NEED TO WRATH ME

AND yes, velath should not have been using maces, he should have been using axes like me, but he was still reclothing from getting ganged by good aligns.

1. I think Selfren's a good paladin,

2. and I'm sure you two know what you're doing.

It's too easy and consummately lame to second guess another player, and I'm sorry I indulged in that to make a point. I would have done things differently, but who knows if the outcome would have been any different. But if I were Selfren I wouldn't have walked away from that thinking Marans are uberpowerful, and if I were either of you, I wouldn't have walked away thinking I had no chance to win it.

Good luck.

Howdy,

I have played paladins in the past. One before the new changes and one after.. (A shield spec who got ~39th rank)

I agree that paladins have a lot of potential however I think they also have a lot of disadvantages.
The single biggest disadvantage a good paladin player should have against them is their own roleplay. For the most part paladins are supposed to act honorably, courageously, kindly, etc. This really limits what you can and can not do in the game.. (Yes, I know some paladins have roles such that they could get aground one or two of these things but not all of them.)
Lawful paladins can not attack in cities.. They shouldn't go out stomping neutral mobs for equipment... If some newbie requests help they better make an effort to do so... They have the strictest roleplay rules in the game... And as a paladin you have a giant target painted on your back.. And Evils who think they can will attack you... All of the really skilled evil players would gladly beat the snot out of a paladin. And even if you know how to play a paladin well, so your not a sitting duck.. you will still have tons of enemies.
The high roleplay burned me out.. I found it difficult to act honorably, kind, etc. all the time.. Even right after I got trounced into the dirt.
Besides that paladins can't really hide.. They can't naturally go invis, hide or camo, duo, etc. And although they can easily find potions to get invis it really doesn't help you that much. They also can not see others hidden or camo'ed Theives used to have a field day with me...
Another huge factor is the experience penalty... Especially for storm paladins.. They need to fight necro's 10 ranks above them.. and level difference is really a necro's biggest ally in my opinion.
It was pointed out they paladins can deal a lot of damage at times but they do have a hard time keeping others in combat with them. Shield bash usually does not work that well at all.. Then there is shield jab.. and possibly if you have the mana summoning your opponent back to you..
I've found that the amount of mana paladins have is pretty balanced as well. A few summons a wrath or two and your running pretty low already. Paladins can't spam wrath on clever opponents forever. Yes they have damaging magic, yes they can heal themselves, and yes the can summon, ,sanct, word, etc.. but not all in the same (major) battle, the mana is just not there.
Almost all of a paladins prime strength is aimed at fighting evil. Neutrals often tear paladins apart since wrath, dispel evil, and protection, etc. don't help..

Paladins get a few weapons but they are all the most common ones.. sword, mace, perhaps polearm.. but if you go polearm you obviously can't use your shield/two-handed dedications.

Wow, I rambled.. but I really think that the roleplay restrictions of a paladin is the biggest balancer in the whole issue.

Humble Explorer

You're my hero. :)(:

I've beaten down my fair share of duergar warriors, but what, is it against your ethics to flee if you have to? Wrath can be properly prepared for, in fact there are some duergars I don't even use it for any more. Take Poulsen for instance. I don't know what he had going on, but my wraths were only doing "injure". He doesn't moan and groan that I'm overpowered, usually he does pretty darn well, and the best I've managed is to get him to fle. You referred to cranial so i assume your a mace spec, use boneshatter for god's sake. A paladin not using a weapon any more, shield dedicate or not, is going to fall a LOT faster. and not to over simplify but dirt kick does wonders too. Make an axe spec, break their weapon, dirt, run away, come back while still blinded and pincer. Just use some tactics for gods sake. This reminds me of when I first started mudding and didn't know a darn thing, I just stood there and hoped I won, you sound like you might still be at that point.

Damn, this post is so stupid it almost hurts.
Try to do some math. Take a duergar warrior and have him boneshatter a paladin. What does this give... mmm... 3 wraths while the warrior is lagged? I doubt the paladin would need that much to kill the poor bugger.
Weaponbreak AND dirt? I reckon that would give the paladin at LEAST as many wraths on the warrior. And why is it so smart to pincer a dirted paladin? It is not like wrath needs a target if you are fighting the foe directly.

I'd wager that Bemused knows his tactics at least 10 times as well as you, which you blatantly shows us all in this post.

then tell me why an assassin, warrior, or anyone else that can get you to drop your weapon rips through a paladin with sanc and protection? I think you are all grossly overrating wrath. for someone that's unprepared yes it is awesome, but for anyone with half a brain or spell save it just doesn't do that much. It's not the catch all ultimate damage getter. dirt is a good tactic for anyone because a blind person just isn't going to be functional as a seeing person. So I get one wrath off after dirt, come back and pincer, I may or may not get a wrath off depending on if I get stunned. all I'm trying to say there are options to use and it's going to vary from class to class, spec to spec. Paladins are not these unstoppable things that everyone claims. If that were true you wouldn't have paladins getting one rounded by one solid necro with elite storm zombies. it's not like I picked those skills to tell someone how to defeat a paladin, I just picked them out of the air. If you gave a Nepenthe a sickly elven hand spec, he'd make it work. everyone has options, sitting on your behind and laying there dying is not one of them

First - Of course paladins are not unstoppable. Especially not the paladins that play these days. But as an evil in one-on-one battle, they are extremely tough. You are sounding like they can make you drop your weapon and bash you to death like nothing. None of the weapon dropping skills work very often! Bash/throw/trip/pincer does NOT prevent a paladin from wrathing. And most smart paladins can't be bashed/tripped/thrown anyway. You CAN kill a duergar with 2 wraths. Even a decently prepared one. If you really spend a lot of time preparing, what can a warrior/assassin get? aura, shield, stone skin and protection. This would take several hours. All to balance out what a paladin has on his fingertips as said earlier. Furthermore a paladin can use all of the above as well (excepting protection which he already have) along with his sanc.
If you get one-rounded by a necro with a paladin, you are either 1. stupid, 2. slept (mind you, against a good necro anyone slept is dead). 2 is not really an option against a maran, at least it is bloody hard to get through.

Second - Funny... Because I doubt Nepenthe would ever play a sickly elven hand spec. Admittedly I do not know all the chars he played, but the ones I know seems to have been picked carefully to be the best combination of race/cabal in the various classes.

I just got summoned

<812hp 326m 408mv>
You yell 'Die, Vonaxim, you sorcerous dog!'
Vonaxim utters the words, 'saxzf xafe turr'.
You maim Vonaxim!
Vonaxim has a few scratches.

<812hp 326m 408mv>
Vonaxim parries your slash.
Your slash EVISCERATES Vonaxim!
You parry Vonaxim's slash.
You parry Vonaxim's slash.
Vonaxim has some small but disgusting cuts.

<812hp 326m 408mv> com wrath
You narrow your eyes and glare in Vonaxim's direction.
Your heavenly wrath === OBLITERATES === Vonaxim!
Vonaxim is gushing blood.

<812hp 306m 408mv> com wrath

Vonaxim parries your slash.
Your slash devastates Vonaxim!
You parry Vonaxim's slash.
Vonaxim is gushing blood.

<812hp 306m 408mv> You narrow your eyes and glare in Vonaxim's direction.
Vonaxim looks very uncomfortable.
Your heavenly wrath *** DEMOLISHES *** Vonaxim!
Vonaxim is convulsing on the ground.

<812hp 286m 408mv> com wrath

Vonaxim leaves west.
Vonaxim has fled!

ok ok *wink* it was more than just a necro, it was a necro, arcane muter, and assassin. My second mistake was sitting in the fortress chatting. but at the time I was ALSO watching the news on what's happening (aren't we all). *sigh*
So far my major downfalls have been 3, 4 or 5 on 1's, or not having eyes up to stop a sleep. Given that the times I got caught with my pants down, I was either in town or a highly protected area GOOD JOB TRIBUNALS! *blah*
I think everyone is just getting way too bent out of shape about this. can't we all just get along.... *smirk*

lotsa love
Jasmin

>My second
>mistake was sitting in the
>fortress chatting.

Bad bad bad. The fortress should be coffin-shaped.

1) If there's a summoner in your range, don't go there period unless you expect a raid. "But I'm maran and they can't sleep me!" No. They'll bring friends.

2) If there isn't a summoner in your range and you absolutely must be there, keep detect invis up the whole time and constantly do 'who pk' to see if one logs on.

3) If you are inside the fortress and must leave, don't ever walk out. If there isn't a thief or assassin hiding at the entrance, there's a ranger in the mountains.

I can already tell this is going to just turn into a mud slinging conversation, so I'm going to politely bow out instead of joining all the rants any further.

First, with everything that's going on in my country, it's hard enough for me to deal with my everyday life "as normal" right now (seeing the NYFD fire commisioner describe his losses last night was the breaking point for me), let alone think about CF imbalances, but I'll try to respond just so you understand where my opinion was coming from.

This is kind of amusing for me, by the way, because a while back I posted that I was having huge frustrations fighting Maran Paladins with a Fire AP, and you responded that I shouldn't have any problems at all with it - and after reading your posts, I went back to basics and rethought the matchup, and resolved my issues pretty well.

I think we have two miscommunications:

1. The guy who orginally posted implied that Paladins had healing powers OF A HEALER (not "closer to a healer") and damage powers OF AN INVOKER (not "closer to an invoker") and fighting ability OF A WARRIOR (not "close to a warrior"). If he had said "close to these classes", then I wouldn't have posted my response with details that you thought irrelevant (details that illustrated why healers are better at healing than paladins, why invokers are better at damage than paladins, etc.). You, in your reply to me, say their powers mimic these other classes but (presumably) aren't as good as these other classes. I agree with that. Paladins are "jacks of all trades", good at everything but masters of none. This lends alot of versatility to the class, but doesn't make them overpowered in PKs (if you disagree, roll up a Paladin that deletes at 300 hours with a 99% PK ratio and I'll come around to your view).

2. In your examples, you repeatedly use a non-prepp'd duergar warrior as the match up against a fully prepp'd Storm Paladin for illustrating how overpowered Paladins are.

Frankly, non-prepp'd duergar warriors are the worst race/class to fight paladins with. The only target I'd rather have is an evil cloud giant.

If you're going to make a case that Paladins are overpowered, consider how they match up against non-fighting classes. Fighting classes generally have a rough time at Hero.

>>1. Wrath only works against
>>evil align. Invoker spells
>>work against anyone. Invoker
>>spells do more damage.
>>Invoker spells work against more
>>vulnerabilities.
>
>I think you'll find that for
>a one round lag commune,
>wrath does damage comparable to
>ANY invoker spell. Wrath
>is not affected by spellbane
>either. The fact that
>wrath only works against evils
>is a non-issue and should
>never have ben brought up.
>
>


1. Why is "not affected by spellbane" an issue while "only works against non_evils" isn't?

I don't follow your logic of considering one, and not the other.

I brought up problems with the use of Wrath because it illustrates the specificity of the commune. It can only be used in certain circumstances. Whereas an invoker has a wide array of spells to select from, striking as hard or harder than Wrath. I did this because the first guy said a Paladin had the hitting power of an Invoker - I demonstrated that a Paladin might be "closer to an Invoker" than a warrior, but in no way was AS POWERFUL or LIKE an Invoker, because of various limitations.

>>2. Paladins get two defenses,
>>and can only learn four
>>weapons (sword, mace, polearm, staff).
>> There's alot they can't
>>parry. They're not the
>>greatest tanks.
>
>Shield spec'ed paladins are fantastic tanks.
> I know this because
>I had one recently.
>In PK's I never got
>hit. Whether or not
>they are better than arial
>sword spec's is a tough
>call.
>


I can't speak for the people that tried to PK you. Shield specs might be good tanks in ranking, against non-specific-weapon-wielding mobs, but I disagree 100% that they're as good as arial sword specs (with weapon types practiced) in PKs. Again, I'll agree that paladins defend "closer to warriors" than Invokers do, but they're not AS GOOD AS warriors, like the first guy said.


>>2.a. Invokers also have the capability
>>for far more damage reduction
>>than do Paladins.
>>
>>2.b. Paladins can be lagged by
>>other players. Invokers have
>>the potential not to be
>>lagged.
>
>95% of a paladin's fights are
>against evil. Sanc and
>protection, reduce the natural damage
>taken by what.. 67%?
>The point you are missing
>is that Paladin powers are
>comparable to the *best/drawcard* powers
>associated with each other class.
>
>


Communers rock for self-sufficiency, no arguments. Indulge me in an apples-and-oranges comparison of rager warriors to non-rager warriors. 80% of the time, rager warriors are more powerful, but non-rager warriors have the potential to be more powerful.

So, a crappy paladin will have more damage reduction than a crappy mage. But, as you move up the skill level, keeping them both comparable, the mage will surpass the paladin.

Also, 95% of the fights that the Paladin INITIATES will be against evil. Many, many times, the paladin will find himself fighting non-evil foes.


>
>>3. Paladins only get three
>>attacks and can not dual
>>wield. They don't hit
>>like a warrior.
>
>What someone was trying to say
>was that their physical is
>strong. They have the
>potential to hit as hard
>as a warrior and are
>closer to a warrior on
>physical than a mage, whereas
>they are closer to mages
>than warriors in terms of
>magical offense and defense.
>They are closer to healers
>than warriors in terms of
>healing.
>


Like I said, I didn't get that from the first guy's post. I think I saw him imply Paladins were as powerful as these other classes in what these other classes were best at. If he'd stated what you just stated there, I wouldn't have disagreed.


>>4. Healers get trance.
>>Paladins don't. Healers have
>>a high mana base to
>>play with multiple sancs/heals.
>>Paladins don't. Healers have
>>rejuvenate. Paladins don't.
>
>I really don't think this is
>an issue either and should
>not have been brought up.
>


I think I explained above why I brought this up.


>
>>People die to wrath in one
>>round? These are supposed
>>to be "skillful" people that
>>die to one wrath?
>>Huh. I think you
>>and I have differing views
>>on the word "skillful".
>
>Tell me how a duergar warrior
>is not going to die
>in a round or two
>to a paladin? I've
>played my fair share of
>duergar warriors and damned if
>I know how it's possible
>bar cranial coupled with a
>lackey invoker or healer.
>A truly skillful player shines
>on his own, there is
>no possible way an evil
>warrior/thief/assassin can do so against
>a decent paladin.
>


I think I brought this up above. Fighting classes have it hard against most mage types at hero, not just paladins. Also, a duergar warrior is the worst thing to play against a paladin. I think a protected fire axe warrior could take a decent paladin. I certainly don't think a competent warrior has to die "in a round or two." I think most of "competence" stems from bothering to prep up before battle.


>>My idea of a "skillful" player
>>can get around that power.
>> Your idea of a
>>"skillful" player is helpless against
>>it. I think we
>>have differing ideas of who
>>is "skilled".
>
>Someone is pointing out to the
>fact that the one soft
>spot for paladins has now
>been bandaged. Why should
>a class/cabal have absolutely no
>vulnerabilities? Why should a
>wouldbe-solo- paladin-killer have to go
>to so much planning, get
>so lucky, using so much
>preparation, to get a kill,
>where all a paladin has
>to do is commune wrath
>twice?
>


Like I said, this is amusing because you showed me how to get around difficulties like this with my AP. There are lots more vulnerabilities to Paladins than sleep. This particular power, held by two or so paladins in the game, doesn't even eliminate the possibility of sleep.

And, personally, I wouldn't let myself die to a Paladin who just "communed wrath twice." And I suspect you never had a character die to a Paladin that did nothing more than "commune wrath twice."


>>False.
>
>False? Why don't you elaborate
>on that? Oh that's
>right, because the auto-attack cannot
>be tanked, and cuts through
>all resistances right? Add
>shield jab to that, which
>can stun. I'd rather
>either of those two that
>the coveted riposte, anyday.
>


False because the "Maran auto-attack" doesn't work the way you or he think it does. And, no, I don't think I can elaborate on that on the forum.

As far as comparing it to riposte.. are you serious? Riposte strikes every attacker. "Maran auto attack" strikes the person tanking the Maran. Riposte is available to every sword spec warrior. "Maran auto attack" is available to a very few number of players that have usually commited more than 100 hours to their characters. Riposte... whatever. I don't think you were serious.


>>>oh well
>>>i guess scion gets nightfist,
>>>that equals out right? *chuckle*
>
>>No, the fact that there are
>>maybe two Maran online at
>>any one time and the
>>other goodie cabals are not
>>prone to raiding/PKing is what
>>equals that out.
>
>Equals out? Two Marans sure,
>four Dawn, three Warlock, three
>wannabe Marans. throw in
>two Sylvan. All grouped.
> Equals out? Go
>figure.
>


Just because they're on the who pk list, doesn't mean they're grouped. Usually they aren't. And I can GUARANTEE that those people you listed will never physically raid a cabal together (or they won't remain caballed).


>>>Kadsuane has a point, sylvan and
>>>maran are so geared up
>>>with pk powers, yet scion/scarab
>>>have utility/defensive junk.
>>>
>>
>>
>>Scarab powers are all about PK
>>- they're entirely useful against
>>other players.
>
>Yeah, good point *sarcasm*. I
>don't think I'm even going
>to bother pointing out your
>idiocy in that statement.
>The only think Scarab has
>going for them is their
>raid defense.
>


Ok. Sorry, I admit I never played a Scarab. But then, I can tell you've never played a Maran based on your comments about the "auto attack." But I'd be polite enough not to call you an idiot for not knowing more about something you haven't played, but still commented on. Scarab powers seemed very useful to PKing for me (how do you know a scarab ranger is online?). I guess I shouldn't have commented on it.



>>a group of 3 unskilled evils
>>who did not use damage
>>reduction or lag out the
>>paladin can be wrecked by
>>one paladin.
>
>What about a group of three
>who cannot lag a flying/enlarged
>paladin. What about a
>group of three that cannot
>reduce the damage taken more
>than 30% w/o getting anal
>in their preparation? Why
>should some people have to
>go to extremes in self
>preservation just to keep themselves
>alive where a paladin has
>it all at his/her fingertips?
>
>


I dunno. I never lost a 3 on 1 except when I was fighting Zorszaul. I can't conceive how'd I'd manage losing a 3 on 1. It'd have to be a really, really good 1. But I consider you one of the most dangerous players in the game, so if you've lost lots of 3-1's against Paladins, that does say something. More than anything else, that does.


>>My solution to you is to
>>actually play a Paladin.
>>You are laboring under many
>>misconceptions.
>
>As I stated earlier, I have.
> They are unbelievably overpowered,
>add Maran to that and
>you get a joke.
>You love being a Lightwalker
>so much that you are
>blinded by the imbalance.
>
>Love Bemus-ed

Maybe. But I did use the name "Pure Good" just to imitate the first guy. My current (stagnant) character is actually evil.

>First, with everything that's going on
>in my country, it's hard
>enough for me to deal
>with my everyday life "as
>normal" right now (seeing the
>NYFD fire commisioner describe his
>losses last night was the
>breaking point for me), let
>alone think about CF imbalances,
>but I'll try to respond
>just so you understand where
>my opinion was coming from.

I've been up pretty much the whole time since 11:45 pm my time (9:45am your time) 11th Sept, watching things unfold. All I can say is that I'm glad George Bush is behind the held as opposed to Al Gore, who'd have wet his pants by now.

>I can't speak for the people
>that tried to PK you.
> Shield specs might be
>good tanks in ranking, against
>non-specific-weapon-wielding mobs, but I disagree
>100% that they're as good
>as arial sword specs (with
>weapon types practiced) in PKs.

Parry is heavily weaponskill dependent, shield blocking isn't. With shield mastery a/my paladin can/did tank every weapon type with fantastic precision.

>Ok. Sorry, I admit I
>never played a Scarab.
>But then, I can tell
>you've never played a Maran
>based on your comments about
>the "auto attack." But
>I'd be polite enough not
>to call you an idiot
>for not knowing more about
>something you haven't played, but
>still commented on

That's fair enough and I apologise.

I can't believe I've been bothered complaining so much about paladins and I'll take my frustrations out IC from now on. In my eyes, and unless they change things, paladins will remain overpowered but not insurmountable. Now get off your 'stagnant' ass and help me out :P

Love Bemus-ed

Shield spec paladins made poor tanks when I fought them. Some of the tactics that worked were kotegaeshi (can either remove the shield or the auto-attacking weapon), and trip, since they can't see assassins coming and can't spend all their time flying.

I don't think I ever had a problem hitting them, and that was using swords. Occasionally I had to flee because of the damage I was taking, but most of the time I didn't.

And wrath working only on evils is a huge disadvantage, because a lot of neutrals will quite happily kill a good for his gear, or because they're nexan.

Someone quoted the example of a duergar warrior fighting a wrath spamming paladin. Sure you're going to be outdamaged, but that same duergar warrior was my worst nightmare as an assassin, so I just kept well out of their way.

Finally, someone mentioned a group consisting of Marans, dawns, warlocks and sylvans all coming to raid together. That might well have happened, because a lot of this stuff seems to be going on recently without anyone being booted, but cabal politics dictate (in theory) that warlocks don't group with sylvans, and dawns don't raid. I know that dawn does in fact raid, but I've not yet witnessed a warlock/sylvan combo.

>
>I dont have a problem with
>hoardes of good aligns, but
>individual game balance, a group
>of 3 can be wrecked
>apart by 1 maran paladin
>with crap eq which is
>wrong. Evils have to spend
>forever trying to get resistances
>from exploration areas in order
>to try keep up with
>what paladins have naturally. Ever
>wondered why Jubornl didnt hero?
>

Actually this is exactly why I didn't hero at the beginning. At the times when I play everything is woefully out of balance, and adding a storm paladin or two to my range did not look appealing. Now I have managed to get myself in a nice experience hole, but I am trying to hero just because when I log on it would be nice to have more than a guess as to where the scepter is.

As for the below things, I assume that things will balance out, and I knew exactly what the range was going to be like when I started playing this character, as it has been this way for at least 6 months and showed no sign of changing, so I have no excuses. However I will admit it is incredibly frustrating to be the only evil in hero range, which has caused me to blow my stack on occasion.

The thing that keeps killing evils is the fact that they delete. Dawn ends up with characters who are 300-500 hours old, same with Sylvan, and when you have that kind of time in the character you have a lot more capital to spend, both in terms of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your character and more importantly having relationships with other people IC to help you. As long as evils delete after 100 hours or so, they aren't going to break this pattern (at least Maran have the exact same tendency so it does balance out a little bit.)

Two things I'm going to say here. The first is that if MARAN paladin were as grossly overpowered as you suggest, I would suspect you'd see pkratios that are far far FAR higher on Maran paladins....which if you go look at MARAN paladins you don't see.

Point two. By design a MARAN paladin should be feared by an evil character. This is a class in a cabal that is designed to promote goodness and crush evil. If you add on top of this that they are a follower of Shokai....once again they should be something you (as an evil) don't just chuckle and run over.

Having said this, I think of another thing I'd like to add to this...one of them is that because of these exact concerns you've mentioned you'll note 1) Maran induction is done by me, and only me. 2) There aren't a lot of Maran around. I'd also like to say that if you think Maran paladins are unstoppable...you're highly mistaken. I can think of two very common things (one a spell, and the other a skill) that I've watched halt even the mightiest of the Maran paladins. I'd also like to say if you think a Maran paladin is grossly overpowered...play one. If after you've played one at hero level for about 300+ hours...and think they're overpowered, I'll take this post a bit more seriously.

>
>
> Two things I'm going to
>say here. The first is
>that if MARAN paladin were
>as grossly overpowered as you
>suggest, I would suspect you'd
>see pkratios that are far
>far FAR higher on Maran
>paladins....which if you go look
>at MARAN paladins you don't
>see.
>
> Point two. By design a
>MARAN paladin should be feared
>by an evil character. This
>is a class in a
>cabal that is designed to
>promote goodness and crush evil.
>If you add on top
>of this that they are
>a follower of Shokai....once again
>they should be something you
>(as an evil) don't just
>chuckle and run over.

Likewise, ANTI-paladins shouldn't be something MARAN paladins chuckle and run over. Yet they do.

> Having said this, I think
>of another thing I'd like
>to add to this...one of
>them is that because of
>these exact concerns you've mentioned
>you'll note 1) Maran induction
>is done by me, and
>only me. 2) There aren't
>a lot of Maran around.

There are far more Maran around than Scarab... not that this affects, at all, whether or not they're overpowered.

>I'd also like to say
>that if you think Maran
>paladins are unstoppable...you're highly mistaken.
>I can think of two
>very common things (one a
>spell, and the other a
>skill) that I've watched halt
>even the mightiest of the
>Maran paladins. I'd also like
>to say if you think
>a Maran paladin is grossly
>overpowered...play one. If after you've
>played one at hero level
>for about 300+ hours...and think
>they're overpowered, I'll take this
>post a bit more seriously.

Now it costs 400+ hours to be able to convince you that we have a clue of how things work? Greeeeaaaatt. Good to know you listen to your playerbase. Fucknut.

Likewise, ANTI-paladins shouldn't be something MARAN paladins chuckle and run over. Yet they do.

Anti-paladins are not set up to destroy good...they are not some organized group to destroy goods. Paladins on the other hand are a group that is set up to destroy evil. Secondly, I will also point out that I have yet to hear of a paladin that puts fear into people...and yet I can name quite a few aps that have. Oddly enough ap's have both ways I can think of to make a MARAN paladin totally ineffective.

There are far more Maran around than Scarab... not that this affects, at all, whether or not they're overpowered

Yes, 6 is a bigger number than 2(3?)

Now it costs 400+ hours to be able to convince you that we have a clue of how things work? Greeeeaaaatt. Good to know you listen to your playerbase. Fucknut.


I'll tell you why, you could play for 80 hours and have completely no idea of how much power or lack of you have. You may not believe it, and may even resort to calling me names because I say it...oh look you already did...but it's true. In the course of a 300+ hour character you're more likely to witness the full spectrum of what a Maran paladin goes through, and likely to have fought enough opponents (smart and not) that you will have a good handle of how that class holds up.
I don't think challenging my listening to the player base is a valid arguement...since I feel pretty confident that over the years I've tried very hard to listen, and do what I can for them...if you disagree, sorry you feel that way.

>Secondly, I will
>also point out that I
>have yet to hear of
>a paladin that puts fear
>into people...and yet I can
>name quite a few aps
>that have.

I'm not taking sides here, but...Leika, Balrahd.

> Anti-paladins are not set
>up to destroy good...they are
>not some organized group to
>destroy goods. Paladins on the
>other hand are a group
>that is set up to
>destroy evil. Secondly, I will
>also point out that I
>have yet to hear of
>a paladin that puts fear
>into people...and yet I can
>name quite a few aps
>that have. Oddly enough ap's
>have both ways I can
>think of to make a
>MARAN paladin totally ineffective.

An ap has a few things they can do vs a paladin. None of them render the paladin totally ineffective (considering sleep and maledict is pretty much out of the question) and all of them are very hard to do with the amount of damage the ap will be taking. Good luck landing a worldbind or energy drain on a decently geared paladin (especially worldbind, since you have to set it up beforehand or be fighting a dumbass to even have an opportunity). An ap could bash, but they'll be outtanked and outdamaged. Maybe if you have the last control things become a little simpler, but uh... most people are near age death by that point.

>There are far more Maran around
>than Scarab... not that this
>affects, at all, whether or
>not they're overpowered
>
> Yes, 6 is a
>bigger number than 2(3?)

Yes, it is, and neither of the powers given by the cabals or the powers given to paladins are less powerful because few people have them. They're not group efforts.

>Now it costs 400+ hours to
>be able to convince you
>that we have a clue
>of how things work? Greeeeaaaatt.
>Good to know you listen
>to your playerbase. Fucknut.
>
>
>I'll tell you why, you
>could play for 80 hours
>and have completely no idea
>of how much power or
>lack of you have. You
>may not believe it, and
>may even resort to calling
>me names because I say
>it...oh look you already did...but
>it's true. In the course
>of a 300+ hour character
>you're more likely to witness
>the full spectrum of what
>a Maran paladin goes through,
>and likely to have fought
>enough opponents (smart and not)
>that you will have a
>good handle of how that
>class holds up.

If I play a character for 80 hours I know it's strengths, weaknesses, how powerful it is compared to other classes, and whether or not it's boring (like if I've been sleeping for 35 of those hours). 300+ hours on a character that is actively fighting most of the time is so many times more than what is needed to know the class inside and out. The character I've played for the most hours (Leirin, the only one above 300) was my first hero- the majority of his time was spent learning the game, and by the end it was a pretty feared character anyway... because I had a good grasp on the class. Getting to know the ability of your character takes 120 hours or less.

>I don't think challenging my listening
>to the player base is
>a valid arguement...since I feel
>pretty confident that over the
>years I've tried very hard
>to listen, and do what
>I can for them...if you
>disagree, sorry you feel that
>way.

It always seems that the playerbase I hear on the forums and the playerbase the Immortals claim to hear are so very divided.

Maybe I'm at an evil forum mirror put up by Graatch!

Damn him.

Your attitude really irritetes me. Not that I expect this to change anything.

Paladins are not as strong as you say they are, period. I don't think that the IMMs really would let anything terribly overpowered stay that way for too long. Think of conjurers, air shifters and similar and you'll get the idea. Secondly, I have seen only four or five people in all this thread say that paladins are overpowered. What makes you think that the rest of the playerbase thinks alike?

I can only make one more suggestion before the end. Get your head out of your ass. There is much more to the world than the tip of your nose.

Have a nice day.

The thing that AP's have to make Paladins totally ineffective,
doesn't. Maran Paladins autoattack, making those two ways
Anti-Paladins can make Paladins ineffective, very difficult to
get on a Paladin. Have to blind, flee, return. In the meantime
you're eating eradicating wraths.

I really, really cannot understand why you cannot see how
vain it is to fight Paladins. In the time of barrier rods being
easily accessable I could perhaps understand how it could be
possible to have enough tries to actually do either of the
two things mentioned above. Even with all the other protections
that can be gathered, excluding barrier which is I'd believe
hard to find, wraths generally still hit for a *** Deva ***.
I'd go into detail but I'd think it was too damned obvious. As
for Maran Paladins not having a high PK ratio I have two reasons
for that.

1) Evils are generally more well skilled at the higher ranks
because we have to be to make up for the ##### powers we have
to fight on the way up.
2) Evils rack up their kills on the way up slaughtering newbies
and deleting immediately when they figure out how futile it is
to have enemies with snares/walls of thorns/Paladins/hidden
gangbanging ragers/etc. at their disposal almost constantly. Yes
it is true, I've been there. They don't necessarily group up, but
they always seem to help each other when one is slept/snared/etc.

Another point, there always seems to be an unspoken truce between
Ragers and Warlocks - Sylvans and Conjurers whenever Scions are
around. I have seen it happen so goddamned often its sick. They
have a good reason for it, evils are generally more skilled
opponents so they need to be a little more wary, but its totally
##### that the big evil targets get crappy powers in
comparison to their enemies in order to fight this.

PS:I know that you're not going to respond to this post because I
am right. I have seen for a very long time that this point is
always ignored. I am just still amazed that the staff can ignore
the obvious bias in favor of the anti-Scion groups.

I will in fact respond to you with a much larger, much longer, more thought out response...but before I do that, I did a little research in ye olde Battlefield...and this is what I came up with:


MARAN paladins pk ratios:
Dwimmerling- 21%
Falthule- 69%
Bessian- 55%
Vilaeren- 28%
Deidrech- 65%
Balrahd- 87%*

anti-paladin pk ratios:
Tikar- 98%
Khastic- 52%
Fomorius- 95%


* it should be noted that Balrahd spent over 3/4s of his existance without MARAN the cabal being around. I mention this only because I think it's important, not because his 87% detracts from the point I stand by.

Alright so I was wrong, you did and will reply. However, even
with those statistics showing Anti-Paladins with higher ratios
than Paladins, there is a very good reason for it that -isn't-
as simple as evils don't have it as hard as I say they do.

1) Tikar, the big 98%. His reign lasted as long as his axe
had lasted. Once that was gone, he was gone. Sure he made a lot
of kills, but nearly all of them were pre-43rd level. He would
not, in the current situation, be able to bring his axe anywhere
near up to where it was previously since he was then in the Hero
ranks. Also, wands were accessable back then, which allowed him
to compete with Paladin sanctuaries. If they were still as
accessable, I am sure I wouldn't be complaining as much, but they
aren't.

2) Fomorius - Lasted longer when his axe was lost than Tikar did,
but then again, he deleted along with the small group of evils
he ranked up with for a short spurt of power. He also had the
barrier wands.

3) Khastic - 52% - Not exceptional but at least even percent.

Bear in mind that most of these extremely high percentages also
include a great number of grouped-up newbie-kills that feed their
PK ratio. Goods don't do that because they're too busy ranking
until Hero.

Now the good aligns

4) Balrahd - 87% - He existed during another span of time that
evils had absolutely no power. The span of time when it was not
uncommon to be summoned into a plant growth'd, wall of thorned,
large crossroads and beat down by a trio of Sylvans. You would
only hear more bitching if those Shaman Sylvans were still
about, I'm glad none have been inducted... yet. Plus, he was
a competent player. Not as if you need to be a competent player
to play a Paladin, but that only makes it so much harder.

5) Deidreach - 65% - Not bad, I'm sure if Deidreach was as
aggressive as most evils during the low range, and if the wands
weren't as easily accessable, it would be even higher.

6) Vilaeren - 28%, fairly low - Very aggressive, would fight
larger groups on his own, and had a suicidal streak at the end
of his life which shot his percentage. I remember pointing out
to him that he was committing suicide when he ran up to me
several times and just shield bashed without sanc. He got his
own percentage low for that.

7) Bessian - 55% isn't too bad, considering he didn't have the
buffer from all the low-rank kills that most evils have. Hell
I think with both Vaustrien and Kravidian I was only in the
60-75% range myself.

8) Falthule - 69% - Again probably not a huge buffer of low-rank
kills there, but still a decent percentage.

9) Dwimmerling - 21% - He was a follower of Grumorum for Christ's
Sake, what you expect him to be very concerned about PKing?


Now I know this isn't a complete list, and that I could probably
pick up some other high percentages of evil PK ratios from the
past. Most of these high percentages were due to 1) Being alive
at the time when wands were easy to get (ie. when evils could
match a Fortressor's protections) 2) Deleting shortly after
reaching hero, in other words before you start hitting the
range of transplendent archon Conjurers, snaring Sylvan Rangers,
and the like. Mirzah says he deleted because of the Battle, Maran
and Sylvan grouping and ganging. They do that often. The bigger
the threat you are, the more they'll gang up on you. All it takes
is one Sylvan snare and in most cases you're dead, that's it.
You can't see them, and if you get hit, you can't transport
magically out of there. No other cabal has that, and Sylvans use
that aggressively at Scions. I could bring in a million other
points that makes being evil a bitch at Hero, but I'll wait until
you respond.

But all those Paladins were morons..... :) Which meant they could still rape you one ont two or one on three but got raped by the situation at the time, shear damage from groups of scions trying to make a cabal work. Also AP's are more likely to pick on neutrals, evils, goodies, skilled or unskilled for the old charges, so a few pk deaths dont detract fromt the total. I'm not taking a side I'm just applying my knowledge of the characters in question to the figures.

I'll tell ya what, I'm not really going to respond to what I consider a remarkably dumb statement instead I'm going to let those "moron" players respond if they wish.

What I will say is that while I admit figures do not show a full picture, they are a static fact that can be used in this discussion that I think proves my point. I really wish I had exact number of kills to work with since I think you'd find that Maran paladins are not half as scary as this thread is making them out to be. I also have a feeling that this is going to become (if it isn't already) where I can show you any evidence I have on the subject and someone will respond with 'but what if I'm completely unprepared, sleeping, and not at my keyboard...a paladin can still beat me then, they must be overpowered.' At which point this becomes a very silly arguement...I will respond to Vaustrien's and other posts in a longer response tomorrow. (though I'm admittedly unsure what good it will do)

Oh?
Which moron characters were you that walked all over me? Tikar? Rit? Drucyrus? I kind of doubt it.

You make huge generalizations about situations you are not really enlightened on.

I spent MORE than 3/4 or my life not a maran.

>MARAN paladins pk ratios:
>Dwimmerling- 21%
>Falthule- 69%
>Bessian- 55%
>Vilaeren- 28%
>Deidrech- 65%
>Balrahd- 87%*
>
>anti-paladin pk ratios:
>Tikar- 98%
>Khastic- 52%
>Fomorius- 95%
>

As I recall, Tikar deleted as soon as he lost his big weapon. Don't know about Fomorius, but that would destroy any meaning his pk ratio has, don't you think?

Anti-paladins are not set up to destroy good...they are not some organized group to destroy goods. Paladins on the other hand are a group that is set up to destroy evil. Secondly, I will also point out that I have yet to hear of a paladin that puts fear into people...and yet I can name quite a few aps that have. Oddly enough ap's have both ways I can think of to make a MARAN paladin totally ineffective.



I'll just state for the record: Leika scared the ##### out of just about everyone.

If Leika didn't have force duel do you think she would have scared anyone?

Knowing who played Leika, yes, yes i do... there would of been room for escape from her, but she'd of still mopped the floor with just about everyone.


But the statement wasn't 'No paladin's excluding those with force duel were ever feared." Or whatever.. you get my point.

You said "Secondly, I will also point out that I have yet to hear of a paladin that puts fear into people...and yet I can name quite a few aps that have."

Well no kidding, look at how many enemies anti-paladins have vs how many enemies a paladin does.

PLaying a Maran Paladin requires much MUCH more intensive roleplaying than playing any AP you could ever play. You have to RP to get empowered. You have to RP harder to get Into the Marans, then you have to RP yet more to get your virtues. You also have to RP your align, basically locking you into a fairly rigid code of conduct.

Playing an AP, lets say Scion for arguments sake requires...uhmm...ranking your character, and being an ass to everyone. The classes that require more intensive roleplaying OUGHT to be more powerful, because roleplaying is (In theory) encouraged on CF. You SHOULD be rewarded for playing a character for that many hours, that can fit all of the criteria for your empowerments and cabal, and not break role. This is not as easy as it seems. While to a degree this screams "cookie cutter characters" I can say fitting yourself into that cookie cutter isn't always easy. Having been booted from the Marans once for daring to ask a Warlock (politely) to actually do something during a raid aside from standing at the Sorceress, gabbing with fellow Warlocks, I can attest to the not fitting the mold thing being a pain in the ass.

Shokai taking the time to answer your post, and the fact that you can call him a fucknut without your post being removed for being "Slanderous and whining" speaks a lot for his openness about dealing with criticism. Refer to my post, where an opinion, with explaination, about another immortal was removed. I think this speaks much more about just how much certain immortals actually DO listen to, and consider player opinion, and which ones just discount any criticism directed at them.

Flame away.

>Playing an AP, lets say Scion
>for arguments sake requires...uhmm...ranking your
>character, and being an ass
>to everyone. The classes that
>require more intensive roleplaying OUGHT
>to be more powerful, because
>roleplaying is (In theory) encouraged
>on CF. You SHOULD be
>rewarded for playing a character
>for that many hours, that
>can fit all of the
>criteria for your empowerments and
>cabal, and not break role.
>This is not as easy
>as it seems. While to
>a degree this screams "cookie
>cutter characters" I can say
>fitting yourself into that cookie
>cutter isn't always easy. Having
>been booted from the Marans
>once for daring to ask
>a Warlock (politely) to actually
>do something during a raid
>aside from standing at the
>Sorceress, gabbing with fellow Warlocks,
>I can attest to the
>not fitting the mold thing
>being a pain in the
>ass.


For some odd reason there is a misguided notion out there that evil's do not roleplay. Seeing how every one of my last 4 characters was rp intensive including my arse to everyone a-p. Fomorius always roleplayed, I never bothered writing a role. But never did I break character I stuck to my role at all times. Even at times attacking scions and dressing down a chancellor. Hell I even attacked Shokai when he pointed the spear at my throat. (Something I knew I was gonna regret even as I was doing it. But hey it was my chars rp.)
Cuvatar was a chancellor and possibly my second strongest rp type char. Ahuvezer was an evil healer empowered by Eryndorial, that in and of itself should tell you a little about the rp involved. Mirzah was again a fairly strong rp char I always roleplayed with him but something about him just didnt click and my rp just didnt become second nature like it had with Cuvatar and Fom. So now you are saying just because a class "requires" a stricter standard of roleplaying means it should have a better set of skills and spells. Follow this reasoning and you can say I dont have to roleplay at all cause im not a paladin. You know exactly how far that argument will get you with the imms. Paladins are an inherently good class with strict rp restrictions. The way you describe rp you make it seem like a curse and that because someone "has" to rp more they deserve better skills and sups. Ofcourse some of my friends would agree with you. But me personally think you have your head shoved where the sun dont shine. So run along now before I get acidic



Much love


Acidic Parv

Uhh, you think running around with a group of three, killing naked people repeatedly makes for good roleplaying? Someone sure has their head up their ass, and it's pretty clearly not me. Your RP with other characters has zilch to do with anything that happened with this one. Whatever I may have thought of your RP with whoever else you played, I wouldn't have given you a squirt of piss for anything I saw from Mirzah.

Again, I didn't say anything about evil characters NOT roleplaying, I said to get all of their powers it wasn't REQUIRED for AP's. Please do try and read EVERY word of a post before responding, lest you just embarass yourself. Again.

There are plenty of paladins who have run around with three others killing naked people. Sometimes even three paladins running around killing naked people. Why is it so many people seem to think it is ok for goodies to gang bang now, but somehow bad roleplay for evils. I don't understand.

Why does everyone use the "Well everyone else does it, so that makes it ok" excuse? I wasn't talking about good or evil people being gangbanging, nudist killing shitheads, I was talking about one specific persons penchant for doing it. Someone who had claimed to be such an awesome roleplayer, that we should all be gasping in awe to ourselves and thinking "Wow I wish I could be him, for just one day, so that I too could achieve the pinnacle of greatness in roleplaying". I never, in any of my interactions with Mirzah, as friend or foe, saw a bit of roleplaying, beyond the usual calibre of the cookie cutter, kill everything thats not me, Scion twit.

Certainly there have been good people who were just as bad, if not worse. I called them on it too in various guises. Don't think I'm singling Mirzah out because he's evil.

Uh yeah ok. If you think that when I come across a rager/maran/sylvan group or a group defending the ranger with a paladin healer healing them, and I am going to stop to try and roleplay while they beat me every which way then you are sorely mistaken. Yes I consistenly roleplayed, yes I pkilled, but I did both. Did you ever talk to Mirzah a single time? Ofcourse not. As far as groups of three are concerned I ran around without them as much as I did with them. Was I runing around with auto emote triggers and auto yell triggers and resting and sleeping triggers. No, I dont consider that roleplaying really. Anyways you didnt address a single thing in my post. So im not sure what you are seeing from your vantage point last night's dinner maybe?


Much Love


Acidic Parv

I had 3 or 4 encounters with Mirzah in a combat situation ( not nearly enough to be representative.... but) and I would say 1 was with a group and the rest were just Mirzah and me. Mirzah was a very quiet one at least with me, so I cannot vouch for the roleplay at all. However you wouldn't really expect a necro to speak with a paladin anyway.

lotsa love

Jasmin

I did try to speak with you, and asked you why you kept killing a naked lowbie mage over and over with a group backing you up. You didn't bother answering me, sorry no points for RP there. Then you deliberately went to where I was, sleeping, still naked mind you, and killed me again. Again, no points for roleplaying or style there.

Why do you idiots consider pkilling naked and helpless people bad roleplaying? It may be bad form and bad gaming but killing a naked helpless person is totally viable in a evil necromancer's roleplay hell it would be even encouraged. You need to learn to tell the difference between the character being an ass and between the character not roleplaying. Its clear from your last post that you dont know jack. Pull that head out maybe?





Much Love


Acidic Parv

Killing a naked person once, I can see. Maybe, possibly even twice. But anything more than that in a short period of time is inexcusable. Period.

I dont need to play one, i have been playing cf since 1995 and i know how things work. Even when paladins were crap the best way to down them was to put them to sleep. Maran paladins essentially cant be slept because they auto-attack necros and aps, this isnt a roleplay thing, this was done on purpose because of sleep (dont insult my intelligence by denying this). You cant blackjack them because they avoid it if fighting and if not fighting they get 3 non-tankable hits on you. A thief has paladin weapon skills, its insane to get hit as much as they do.

The pk ratios dont mean anything, first of all, most of the maran paladins have been roleplaying idiots, half of there pklosses are while they are levelling with people 8 ranks higher.
Then at hero its all relative to what risks they take, the analagy of the more money you earn you more you spend. Anotherwords they will take on more people cause their char is more powerful. In the end they may die as much lowering the pk ratio but does that make them balanced when they are equal to 3 chars?

Lets put fearing them aside, because i hunt them, they dont hunt me, but its damn near impossible to gang them because they are just so insanely beefy.

>I dont need to play one,
>i have been playing cf
>since 1995 and i know
>how things work.

Can't argue with that logic.

>Even when
>paladins were crap the best
>way to down them was
>to put them to sleep.

Or anyone, for that matter.

>Maran paladins essentially cant
>be slept because they auto-attack
>necros and aps, this isnt
>a roleplay thing, this was
>done on purpose because of
>sleep (dont insult my intelligence
>by denying this).

Yes, it probably was. So? Imagine that, a cabal power designed to give a character some sort of tactical advantage! Go figure.

Yes, that particular power makes life more difficult for necros and anti-paladins. No, it does not make marans immune to sleep.

>You cant
>blackjack them because they avoid
>it if fighting and if
>not fighting they get 3
>non-tankable hits on you.

Certain paladins, yes. To clarify, your argument seems not to be that the paladin class is overpowered, rather that Maran paladins with Temperance virtues are overpowered.

>The pk ratios dont mean anything,
>first of all, most of
>the maran paladins have been
>roleplaying idiots, half of there
>pklosses are while they are
>levelling with people 8 ranks
>higher.

Which are usually the only people in their PK range given the class xp penalty.

>In the end
>they may die as much
>lowering the pk ratio but
>does that make them balanced
>when they are equal to
>3 chars?

Paladins are not equal to three characters. Three axe-wielding, bashing, prepped warriors and you've got one dead paladin. Three prepped Invokers spamming pebble to boulder. A paladin can't heal or wrath if he's permalagged.

>Lets put fearing them aside, because
>i hunt them, they dont
>hunt me, but its damn
>near impossible to gang them
>because they are just so
>insanely beefy.

Yes, paladins are hard to kill. This is balanced by the fact that they're also hard to kill *with*. They have shield bash for lag. Big whoop. Paladin attacks you? flee;quaff green. Unless he kills you with a single wrath (and round of combat) then you're home free.

>I dont need to play one,
>i have been playing cf
>since 1995

So have I. So have a lot of people.

> and i know
>how things work.

Apparently, no you don't.

> Maran paladins essentially cant
>be slept because they auto-attack
>necros and aps, this isnt
>a roleplay thing, this was
>done on purpose because of
>sleep (dont insult my intelligence
>by denying this).

Having nothing nice to say to that, I'll say nothing.

> You cant
>blackjack them because they avoid
>it if fighting and if
>not fighting they get 3
>non-tankable hits on you.
> A thief has paladin
>weapon skills, its insane to
>get hit as much as
>they do.

This is false.

>The pk ratios dont mean anything,

How can they not? If paladins are getting mowed down by people, what's the problem?

>first of all, most of
>the maran paladins have been
>roleplaying idiots, half of there
>pklosses are while they are
>levelling with people 8 ranks
>higher.

It would be hard for them to roleplay something up to your strategic caliber, I'm sure.

>Then at hero its all relative
>to what risks they take,
>the analagy of the more
>money you earn you more
>you spend. Anotherwords they
>will take on more people
>cause their char is more
>powerful. In the end
>they may die as much
>lowering the pk ratio but
>does that make them balanced
>when they are equal to
>3 chars?

If a paladin is equal to three characters, it's because the player makes it equal to three characters. If you prefer, it's because his/her opponents let them be equal to three of them. If you're just standing there like a slack-jawed yokel unable to wrap your mind around either a) a way to bring sleep into play or b) god forbid, going to something other than the sleep well in the PK, yeah they're going to paste you.

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes the well runs dry.



Mystery of the day: What happened to the posts I wrote on this and other threads yesterday? You can be sure I didn't get jumped on for slandering myself. :p

Mystery of the day: What happened to the posts I wrote on this and other threads yesterday? You can be sure I didn't get jumped on for slandering myself. :p

To all posters: There was a pretty big chunk of yesterday that got eaten by software wolves, on all of the official forums. Either that or a sneaky Immortal has decided that Scarabaeus, Nepenthe, Shokai, and I are dirty slanderers.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia, Dirty Slanderer

> So have I.
>So have a lot of
>people.
> Apparently, no you don't.

The purpose of this comment was to prevent newbies from thinking i dont know something obvious or taking me to literal and then replying.


> Having nothing nice to
>say to that, I'll say
>nothing.

What does this mean, do you disagree that its hard for necros/aps to sleep maran paladins. Yes you can blind them first, a bard is probably your best bet.


>> You cant
>>blackjack them because they avoid
>>it if fighting and if
>>not fighting they get 3
>>non-tankable hits on you.
>> A thief has paladin
>>weapon skills, its insane to
>>get hit as much as
>>they do.
>
> This is false.

This does not make any sense for you say this is false, i think having 12 of 12 blackjacks countered means its true, not to mention the avoiding of blackjacks while they fighting.

>>The pk ratios dont mean anything,
>
> How can they not?
> If paladins are getting
>mowed down by people, what's
>the problem?

So its balanaced if i takes 3 people to kill 1 person as long as everyone dies the same amount, go figure.
>
> It would be hard
>for them to roleplay something
>up to your strategic caliber,
>I'm sure.

whats my roleplay got to do with game balance? Winning this argument by resorting to personal attacks, surely your better than this.

>
> If a paladin is
>equal to three characters, it's
>because the player makes it
>equal to three characters.

That is not true, the paladin just needs to spam wrath.

>If you prefer, it's because
>his/her opponents let them be
>equal to three of them.

hardly

> If you're just standing
>there like a slack-jawed yokel
>unable to wrap your mind
>around either a) a way
>to bring sleep into play
>or b) god forbid, going
>to something other than the
>sleep well in the PK,
>yeah they're going to paste
>you.

I never said i got cant kill them with a group of 3, only that they can stand up to them which is wrong. If i implied this, i apoligize.


As for sleep, well its your best choice because lagging a maran paladin often wont cut it because of all the automatic damage.

>The purpose of this comment was
>to prevent newbies from thinking
>i dont know something obvious

I'm sorry if it offends you, but apparently you don't know something obvious. Most likely you'll just assume I'm wrong. That's okay. I'm not the one who's having a problem. There's really nothing for me to gain by convincing you of my point of view.

>This does not make any sense
>for you say this is
>false, i think having 12
>of 12 blackjacks countered means
>its true, not to mention
>the avoiding of blackjacks while
>they fighting.

But I did just say that. Again, it's not really going to ruin my day if paladins keep whipping you. If you want to assume I don't know what the hell I'm talking about and needing to bring two friends to even compete, by all means. Er, except for those pesky rules against that sort of thing.

>So its balanaced if i takes
>3 people to kill 1
>person as long as everyone
>dies the same amount, go
>figure.

If the three are being stupid, it can be, yes.

>whats my roleplay got to do
>with game balance? Winning this
>argument by resorting to personal
>attacks, surely your better than
>this.

Uh-huh. And that bit about "all those paladins were idiots, so this doesn't prove anything" wasn't anything like that.

>That is not true, the paladin
>just needs to spam wrath.

So you say. Go 'head and play one for a while. I'm waiting.

>As for sleep, well its your
>best choice because lagging a
>maran paladin often wont cut
>it because of all the
>automatic damage.

If it's your best choice, why doesn't it seem to be working for you?

I would assume you'd agree that if you fight your opponent on his terms instead of yours, you're at a big disadvantage. Well, you're doing just that and when it doesn't work, rather than change your tactics you just keep ramming your head against the brick wall harder and harder expecting it to give. I understand you may not think you're doing that, but again, if you'd like to think that. . . well, as the saying goes, it's your birthday.

If a paladin is equal to three characters, it's because the player makes it equal to three characters. If you prefer, it's because his/her opponents let them be equal to three of them.


This right here is total b.s. all they have to do is sit there and spam co 'wrath' about six times and everyone who was fighting them is now dead. Sanc, protection, giant resist, is too much protection for three people to take down a single paladin in six rounds. And now with all the save vs. spells you are giving them, even when you try to blind/sleep them its impossible.

I really do not see how you got that many kills if you really believe Paladins are that overpowered. You are telling me a bard, AP and something else cannot kill a Paladin? A healer, AP, and something else cannot kill a Paladin? A thief, AP, and something else cannot get a Paladin? Three bashing enalarged AP's cannot kill a Paladin? A invoker, AP, and something else cannot kill a Paladin? The only thing I think would lose are three duergar warriors with no protections.

Hell, an AP with rods and enlarge can hold their own against a Paladin one on one. The problem now days is they keep moving rods every fucking month because of some useless policy. The policy will never be able to be enforced because there are too many assholes that play CF.

that when I began Hejduk there were like three or four hero paladins, now I log in and see three or four at one time.
Something I would like to add is that the group of three is not the classes that you listed. First of all there are no bards in scions, Aeligrah (you rock, but you are a coward and won't play cause your equipment). Second you mentioned a healer, well if you didn't notice at hero, there are VERY few evil healers. Just like the bards, there are no thieves. An invoker you say, well yeah an anti-paladin and a invoker will tool a paladin. A necro (which you didn't mention) with a full army would also be able to take down a paladin; although with so many paladins these days, they can't have an army.

Here's something else you don't understand you are pairing up an anti-paladin with two others, well the thing is there is like 2 scion hero aps. The majority of scion heroes are transmuters and so basically you would have to be really lucky to land a group that you mentioned. Usually its just an ap, shifter, and fighter(warrior or assassin). You put that up against one paladin (with champions stand, which they hand out like candy now adays, I think is also an area that needs improvement) with invoker shields and there is no chance for that group.

What I would like to see implimented(sp?) is for each race there be a different cast time/damage done on spells, supplications. For example, a storm giant paladin isn't as intelligent or wise as an elf, so make him have two rounds of lag on wrath and the elf only one. Another one, a elf paladin can heal 150 instead of 100. Another example, a drow ap might have no lag on summon, but a fire giant has one. Right now there are no reasons to choose elves over giants (cept maybe you like bein an elf) and because of this there are no drow aps, and not many elf paladins. While both having almost the same xp penalty, the giants clearly have an edge when it comes to advantages.
Also, ever notice how many special forms have been given to evils(that were not also immortals?)

Its also obvious that the imms do favor the "light" to make it a newbie friendly environment. I love examples, so another example is that lich Xoltrandier who changes spells depending on whose fighting him. Like he disrupts reddyn(a lich), vampiric touches storm giants, but for some reason the archmage still will nova a maran(which there is no excuse for). Well I said enough and don't get me wrong imms, I do like the game but it is really obvious that you do favor the light.

P.S.- You can go get roots cept that the chance of dyin to warders is pretty damn high.

Hrmm i dont see you on a lot either mail me will tell you all about it in details.



struffer50@hotmail.com

The problem now days is they keep moving rods every fucking month because of some useless policy. The policy will never be able to be enforced because there are too many assholes that play CF.


Worry not, true believer...we're working on fixing both problems you mentioned. Since we don't like moving the rods, or the 'assholes' who cause us to move them

Then, role up the Anti-Paladin, Joe Blow. Then you can post you
logs of you handing the Paladin his ass and can post them to shut up everyone....(Try and not break any rules either such as perma-grouping.) We all await these logs anxiously.

Please stick with the issue:

The statement was a group of three could not take out a Paladin. Paladins were so over-powered that it is impossile for a group of three to kill a Paladin. I stated this was false. I gave several combos with AP that would stand a very good chance at easily killing a Paladin. If you think otherwise, you are a fool.

I also stated an AP can in fact go toe to toe with a Paladin if the AP had rods. Three rods, bloodlust, giant resist, enlarge will give a Fire giant more protection than a storm giant paladin. Also the AP will most likely hit the Paladin more with dual weapons and bloodlust than a unhasted Paladin. A hasted Paladin may stand a better chance, but I still think a AP with bloodlusts and axes will hit more and for more damage. The enlarge will allow the paladin to bash and keep him from wrathing. If the paladin has anti-stunning, do a couple of energy drains and soak up the wraths. Wrath will not do that much damage to an AP with three rods. Or you can flee and make the Paladin come to you, thereby ruin his special power. Then proceed to bash him to death. With volly, this would not be a bad idea. The first wrath has a 70% of being deflected.

However:

Right now that is not the case. Unless the AP got very lucky and stumbled acrossed the new locations, he will not have rods. Also, the chances of you finding a Paladin alone and the chances of three evils being on at the same time at hero ranks is very low right now. So I really cannot prove you wrong because if I did hero, I would not be facing a Paladin one on one with rods. Also, the paladin is most likely to have people with him than me having people with me.

So please next time, I ask you to read before you respond. Afterall, I am Joe Blow and I am indeed Great.

The enlarge will allow the paladin to bash and keep him from wrathing.

should read:

The enlarge will allow the AP to bash and keep him from wrathing.

there are many many different levels of fighting going on between good and evil. I can honestly say that there is a fair amount of balance going on, BECAUSE (now don't go getting all upset before I finish) there are far more evils in the low ranks than good. I would agree totally that at hero ranks evil are outnumbered. That could half be, because they could give a rat's ### about each other. Good ones help each other and try to push them through. I would say at the lower ranks there are far far far more aps, evil assassins, evil thieves, evil whatever, compared to maran wanna be's. what does that mean? That means in the low ranks if someone is found out to want to be a maran they are hunted like dogs until they either progress further or delete. I can feel your pain about the outnumbered thing I really can, coming from a villager that was the only one ever on and getting gang #####ed by empire/master combo. I guess the only think I can say is, if your out numbered at hero QUIT DELETING! you just drove the numbers down more!

love ya all

Jasmin

I had a giant warrior enlarged bashing Selfren, and an invoker pebbling him. Guess what? We died. At first I felt embarrassed, how the hell could we lose that? We tried again not long later and we killed him BARELY. Need I remind you we were both totally shielded with invoker shields? Also need I remind you it was TWO ON ONE. You toss anyone in there as fighting companion and I would be willing to bet that a maran paladin and companion, will ALWAYS win a fight against two other characters. If anyone can prove me wrong I would love to see it.

Syntax: commune 'champions stand'
This is a powerful defensive supplication which allows
the paladin to make a stand against the evil around it.
Once the paladin has determined to make his stand he
cannot be moved from the spot in any way. Techniques
that would normally slow a persons actions will still
hurt them, but will not slow them down. Because of the
high level of concentration necessary to maintain the
Champions Stand, the paladin cannot move or sleep
without cancelling it.


Pretty simple, let him come to you. Sounds to me like you guys ran right into his trap.

You must have had access to logs or something because did I ever say anything about a stationary fight?

You would have to be truly sad-ass to die in that two on one.

Nepenthe, I know how you don't really like talking about this, so I'll keep this somewhat short.

Why do some paladins have shaman dispel? In the previously mentioned matchup (invoker vs paladin), you mention that an invoker can outdamage a paladin. I'm sure I'm not looking at every possibility, however, I don't have the same knowledge you do. Thus, in the previous matchup, the paladin can in fact drop every single protection of the invoker's (save a/b/s) by the relatively easy tactic of flee; said supp. The invoker's then lost his dam reduction and can do very little about the paladin pounding on him and wrathing him.

Now, I don't know the lag on that supplication, since I don't have a paladin any more and likely won't be playing one for quite a while. But I do think that that either needs to be downgraded a bit (like the dispel effect shouldn't happen nearly as often as it does, and you should also look into it dispelling skills like warcry), or give mages a similar dispel effect that they can drop supplications with.

Another ridiculous thing is wrath. Wrath in general was the paladin's one trick when they didn't have all the other tricks to get. Now, most hero-level paladins have some of those tricks, and as such it needs to go. It's equivalent to an invoker damage spell of the same level/tier but gets progressively better, and rarely varies on its damage. Plus, there's something in the same line of the supplication I mentioned before that makes all wraths better. (last I tried it was around 45, and that was annihilate up to erad)

I know that you consider priest classes significantly more work than mages. However, when I consider the time I've put into some of my mage characters, I don't really see much of a difference.

Thus, in the previous matchup, the paladin can in fact drop every single protection of the invoker's (save a/b/s) by the relatively easy tactic of flee; said supp.

That's true, given infinite time and mana, and being allowed to initiate every time.

I hope you'll not think I'm being ridiculous to point out that, given infinite time, mana, and first strikes a necromancer can kill virtually anyone by doing the same thing with Power Word Kill . . . or that, given infinite time, mana, and an opponent who doesn't do anything but stand there, a healer can kill anyone with kick. If you assume favorable circumstances and a stupid opponent, anything is overpowered and unstoppable.

I would suggest to you that the invoker need not allow the paladin those things. He can attack the paladin's time (e.g. damn, that third Light of Heaven would have stripped out one more shield, but oops, the paladin is dead already). He can attack the paladin's ability to repeatedly initiate first strikes in several different ways, some of which work for all or many classes, and some of which are invoker-specific. If he's really bringing in esoteric tactics, yes, he can even attack the paladin's mana.

I would also suggest to you that stripping out those shields via dispel probably isn't quite as easy as you seem to think.

Finally, even in the eventuality that the paladin is having a good day and does clear some or all of the invoker's shields, there's certainly no rule saying the invoker has to stick around and get beat on. He can run away a little, recast them, and charge back in if his hit points are still high enough. He can run for the hills and try again with a different angle later.

On the other hand, if Light of Heaven does indeed dispel skills (I hadn't noticed that), I'd likely consider that a bug and we could see about fixing that.

Yeah, I know I'm not Nepenthe, but this thread is amazing.


>Why do some paladins have shaman
>dispel? In the previously mentioned
>matchup (invoker vs paladin), you
>mention that an invoker can
>outdamage a paladin. I'm sure
>I'm not looking at every
>possibility, however, I don't have
>the same knowledge you do.
>Thus, in the previous matchup,
>the paladin can in fact
>drop every single protection of
>the invoker's (save a/b/s) by
>the relatively easy tactic of
>flee; said supp.



** Volley. (Bynote has it)



The invoker's
>then lost his dam reduction
>and can do very little
>about the paladin pounding on
>him and wrathing him.
>



** Even if the invoker in question didn't have Volley..
Have you dispelled hero spellcrafted shields
with a shaman before?
If you haven't, in general, it looks like this:

<723hp 971m 467mv>
Delanan narrows his eyes and glares in your direction.
The magic of your airshield spell unravels.
The magic of your pass door spell unravels.

** or this: **

<781hp 1134m 556mv>
Delanan narrows his eyes and glares in your direction.
The magic of your detect invis spell unravels.
The magic of your shield of earth spell unravels.
Hiro has some small but disgusting cuts.


Paladin dispel is comparable to that.



>Now, I don't know the lag
>on that supplication, since I
>don't have a paladin any
>more and likely won't be
>playing one for quite a
>while.


** That's pretty key - The lag and cost of this supplication, along with the limitations of when and how you can use it. It's not half as overpowered as people seem to be making it out to be (though I noticed it was particularly effective against lower ranked Shaman - like, naturally, shaman dispel is)




>Another ridiculous thing is wrath. Wrath
>in general was the paladin's
>one trick when they didn't
>have all the other tricks
>to get. Now, most hero-level
>paladins have some of those
>tricks,


When I asked an Imm, he estimated less than half do (have at least one virtue). I know it seems like most do, but maybe it's just "most" of the "effective" ones do.


>and as such it
>needs to go. It's equivalent
>to an invoker damage spell
>of the same level/tier but
>gets progressively better, and rarely
>varies on its damage. Plus,
>there's something in the same
>line of the supplication I
>mentioned before that makes all
>wraths better. (last I tried
>it was around 45, and
>that was annihilate up to
>erad)
>



Yeah, I wonder about wrath, too. But do you think a hero paladin could survive without wrath or some sort of damage supp? Especially the >50% that apparently don't have a single virtue? Wouldn't it be enough to make wrath a 2-round commune? Shouldn't we be witnessing some 300 hour paladins with >90% PK ratios before we suggest a change to wrath, anyway?

Yeah, I know I'm not Nepenthe, but this thread is amazing.

Tell me about it.

Shouldn't we be witnessing some 300 hour paladins with >90% PK ratios before we suggest a change to wrath, anyway?

I guess we'd have to ask you. You've played one of maybe two or three paladins who've been above 70% (let alone 90%) since the revamp. From my perspective, no paladin is having an easy time rolling over all his or her foes. People keep posing crazy scenarios here based on flawed information, but the proof is in the pudding. No paladin is the scariest guy in his range. It's not even close. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded, period.

After discussing this with a couple other immortals, they pointed out some things I hadn't thought of, and I'm not even sure they're above average at hero. Maybe a little. Maybe not.

Now, add to that: They are the class with the toughest roleplay requirements(*). They need empowerment, and they have a strict code of behavior on top of that. They are monitored heavily, and only see their full potential if they go through the process of what amounts to a second and third empowerment process, each more difficult than the last.

Maybe this thread should be: What can we add to paladins to make them stronger? Seems to me like they deserve a carrot.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

(*) I suspect this is the real reason why certain players have such a problem with paladins not being "roll over and die" characters.

Now, add to that: They are the class with the toughest roleplay requirements(*). They need empowerment, and they have a strict code of behavior on top of that. They are monitored heavily, and only see their full potential if they go through the process of what amounts to a second and third empowerment process, each more difficult than the last.



Didn't I already say this? :P

That most paladin's kills come from them vs 1 or them vs 2 which they can do fairly well I have noticed. But I would also bet that the SOME of their deaths that harm their pk ratio came at lower ranks where they are not nearly as powerful as other classes. And I would bet that the majority of their hero deaths come from gangbangs.

Paladins have the potential to be a powerful class, some reach it, most do not. You are complaining about Maran paladins, and in particular I am going to say Selfren. All of Shokai's points make perfect sense on why evils should have some fear/leeriness of him, what does this mean you should do? Prepare. Plain and simple, there are ways around some of the things(probably all but some I am unsure of) that you mentioned. Personally I have gone up against him one on one several times, and other times in groups. I think of the one on one encounters I am slightly ahead of him with his needing to flee, rather than I. This is in straight up combats and yes I am an evil char so wrath beats the hell out of me too. Have I ever killed him alone? No, but neither has he slain me alone. Why is this? You always have to know when to get the hell out of a situation. So basically, use some common sense and preparation entering a fight with a maran paladin, and you can do surprisingly well.
laters
Gunn

Whenever I kill a paladin, everyone seems to say that it is a joke for me to do it. Go figure, cause I can't.

Well, I enjoyed our fights, and sylvan is right in his statement below, nerylana proceeded to wake up and go a fiending. It was an interesting night, I had fun, and I hope you come back with another strong character.


Derexal

I feel yor pain. Dying to warlock+marans+battle groups surely sucks - not because I died, I died a lot - but because of fact that battle prefer to kill scions and avoid warlocks by all means. So disappointing... and so damn sad. We had good times, man.

Good times, good times.
But I'll still be doing this shizats hardcore yo.

Good luck with your Scion Killer. *grin*

Cirellan always liked seeing Mirzah in the realms, its too bad that you deleted so soon...oh well.

Cirellan

god damnit mirzah
this really pisses me off
you are the only one in the chasm that actually shows alot of skill in playing his class.
zhetzasis.. doesnt cut it with a healer. plays it decently but alot more you can do zhetzasis. with you having sanc protection and all invoker shields I should not have beatin your ass near as easily as I was there at the archmage.
halisstra.. doesnt cut it either. she does better than most.. but always keep protective shield up no matter what! GRR!
mirzah you made others fear you.
and them damn zombies too ;P
jererrarric.. sucks ass. he cant kill anything unless it is a successful assassination.
you, can do basically anything with your char.
i was looking forward to fighting you damnit.
now this.
GRRRR

btw..
there is only three marans known to me right now.
trianna is not a maran
so far.. yesterday was the first time he has ever seen a maran god besides shokai. ever
thats the reason why they dont have many people ;P
marans.. are rare.. warlocks.. are rare. dawn is really the only ones that have alot of people in it.. and all three combined have less people than the chasm.
it is really only one cabal.. with three sects.. like the old empire.. except each has their own item of power.
warders.. trianna does work with them quite a bit.
##### who else am I going to give the sceptre to?
almost never any marans except selfren, warlocks.. dont know many.. yeta annalena.. yaazaulyzt.. hmmm.. think that is it.
there is always a warder to give the chew-toy to.
about the rager ganging thing.. is why i stopped playing ragers and went to other classes.
my last attempt was duranos. autodeleted him.
cabals for mages.. mages can be in every cabal except for ragers.
every one of them..
what more do you want??

In the last week do you know how many solo pkills I have had?
Maybe two or perhaps three at most. Wanna know how times I have put someone to sleep only to have someone show up in 10 seconds and mess everything up? Half the time not even of the same cabal.
Close to thirty times. It is really messed up, sleep a rager and a dawnite shows up. How? Fook if I know. Sleep a sylvan dawn shows up. Sleep a dawn maran shows up. Sleep a warlock sylvan shows up. Sleep independants a whole mess of them show up.


Its not that I dont mind being the underdog. But this is more like one football team facing off seven when ever you find an opening two dozen big bad mofo's show up and lay you out.

i dont know whats going on with the cabal relationships of the ones you mentioned. I havent been a part of those
the only times I know of you being attacked by different peoples were when i was raiding with others that could fight you, and i would sanc them and heal them and all.
and believe me I know the feeling hehe.
thing is also you got power word kill.. that is something.. that works pretty damn well.
knew a necro that was all he did.
c 'power word kill' target
if it fails.. he worded immediately or fled and teleported.. he never fought..
thing is though, he was always alone.. so never risked someone else getting to the other person before he was dead..
dunno.. thats hwo he evened the odds.
you werent always alone.. just forced to fight that way heh.
that was a shitty way of doing things.. he did that repeatedly to my villager ;P
and no, it wasnt my char..
cheesy, but worked.

... you need to do what I do with my current character. Now
I would never, ever do this otherwise except for the fact that
it's so sickly impossible to play a Scion, so I am forced to
do it.

Hide out. Wait until larger numbers of Scions show up with skills
that complement yours, and gang goods. Screw it I used to only
look to fight fairly but it aint reasonable anymore. The imms
aren't going to do anything to change this, whether the reason is
that they have a different point of view, no time to code new
skills or modify cabals, or whatnot. Screw it, gang and act
cheap at -all- times. Even if you have a chance to act
honorably, don't. Be an ass, your enemy deserves it.

Errr, give guerilla warfare a chance eh? Always expect the worst possible scenario and then plan accordingly. The actual cohesiveness of the fortress, sylvans, etc... is just terrible. Splitting them apart was never too difficult and from there on you're just dealing with mostly below average pk'rs with a few exceptions. Of course, when they have summoners or when you have to brave the woods without somebody to come attack you after you get snared you're just screwed... at which point you should find a library and bust out a bunch of fruity emotes about how you're expanding your knowledge in the name of Scion. People can always bitch that it was just cause of the bard/ap combo and how we were always permagrouped that helped us overcome the odds, but for those who actually knew us and fought us on a regular basis... you can do a lot with a stray cabalmate or two and the correct preperation. With the lack of preps... though, I can't really see anybody overcoming the odds we used to be up against. But hey, if you're facing 10 on 1 odds you can always read all those bard notes you've been meaning to get around to... who says cf is a waste of time?

>People can always bitch that it
>was ... how we
>were always permagrouped


Well, given that another one of your permafriends down below said something like "Scions only times of power were directly related to well-coordinated permagroups. We thought 'hey, we can make an evil cabal dominate'..." I'd say that people who say that aren't bitching. They're making an accurate assessment of you and where you're at, skill and attitude-wise.

There's something to be said for the power of OOC permagroupers. The best times for evil cabals were made up of permagroupers. I'm thinking of the greatest Imperial councils - the Imm Council, DIKU, etc. The thing is, all of those OOC-created groups were backed by standout roleplayers with dedication to the cabal. Istendil, Llorethos, Macheath. And, before you in turn bitch about the lack of direction for the Scion cabal, keep in mind how little direction Llorenthos or Kah or Tureanthen had for which way Empire should play out. Personally, I'm going to roll a Scion and try (without the permagroup). I have a feeling I won't miss the "help" of the delete in one week perma-groups.

If what we were doing was truly permagrouping we would be denied. Yes, we tell eachother what we're playing. Yes, we decide what to play based on what the others are playing (sometimes). What's with the push to have everyone be a solitary CFer that doesn't use icq, irc, or dioxide's forum? Scion's times of power have been directly related to times when we all had hero Scion characters. Each of us can hold our own and then some. When it turns out two of us are around at the same time it gets pretty bad for the enemies... but don't be dumb. We don't get 5000 more hps because we know eachother OOC. The characters in the game get no benefit (save a competent and efficient groupmate).

You better have a pretty powerful character. Be careful about grouping with the one or two other hero Scions, because despite their being your only possible groupmates, your grouping with them will definitely be called permagrouping (if you ever manage to kill people).

Maybe CF should have a new rule -- no talking OOC except on the official forum.

And please, try not to be so bitter. I'm just playing a game I enjoy and I'm not destroying it or harming it in any way.

Your bud,
Salvia

>If what we were doing was
>truly permagrouping we would be
>denied. Yes, we tell
>eachother what we're playing.
>Yes, we decide what to
>play based on what the
>others are playing (sometimes).



Well, I literally have no idea who was playing whom or the extent of this "permagrouping." I didn't even realize I was including you in that post. I'm just going by Jhybrian, Astirath, and Kadsuane's seemingly gleeful boasts of "well-coordinated permagroups" that gave them lots and lots of power (that lasted for a week or so, when they deleted). (some of these posts are contained in this thread.)

I don't know, I know I sound bitter, but actually I don't see anything wrong with OOC knowledge of other characters - especially since even Immortals have engaged in it (a la Imperial Council) as long as it doesn't adversely affect relationships that would naturally take place IC. But I do have to question the actual gains of these particular permafriends doing it. They're deleting in a week. It's obviously not enough fun for them to always group together and get "lots and lots of PK power" - maybe they should look into playing differently. I mean, is it me, or are all these bitch session threads beneath characters played by the same handful of players (all of whom are connected OOC)?

That all being said, I can sympathize with what I see as your main complaint: lack of mortal control in affairs and constant harrangement by cabal Imms if you're not meeting arbitrary standards that aren't even expressed. You played kick ass characters that could have been given more leeway for expression to see what you do with them and for Scion.

Although I don't buy for a second that Kadsuane "slipped up" in giving Trothon locations - that was an obvious gauntlet thrown down - respect could go both ways.

I dont do perma groups. Even when I do play characters that belong to cabals which also have some ooc friends chars in it I dont coordinate my login times with them. My last perma group char was Fomorius I think and that leveled up with a fellow NC mudder who stopped playing after I hit 30 something. Both Cuvatar and Mirzah were solo chars. Only help I got on those two chars was from Bynote who helped me level just because I was high chancellor. And no, I have no idea who bynote's player is. I wasnt bragging about my perma groups I was just pointing out that they were the only reasons why scion has been succesfull at all.

And as far as this "gauntlet" I threw down. If you want to read all into it thats fine by me. I said I made a mistake and that was exactly what I did. As I said at the begining of my post it was a rant. And sometimes things slip out in rants. Anyways atleast it kinda got Zulgh and company to put rush order on the upcoming change to the damage reduction system. Not that it negates my posting the location. But hey atleast some good came out of it.

Much Love


Acidic Parv

I kept an eye on Mirzah from time to time after he began praying for me, especially after appointment to Chancellorship. I saw no evidence of any rules problems. Actually, I thought he did a fairly solid job overall, and was helping (*) to plan out a lichquest once he started seeking one.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

(*) Disclaimer: I am not Lichquest Guy, nor is there necessarily Lichquest Guy.

A: I don't roll characters that are specifically designed to complement some other person's char for a super pk ability. I play what i'm interested in at the time and generally look for something that's efficient in solo pk situations cause that's what about 50% of my battles are, one on ones.

B: Yes, I group with ooc friends. It's more enjoyable to play a game with friends... it's part of the human condition. There have been a lot of changes that has made ranking incredibly more difficult and time consuming. I don't enjoy ranking, it isn't a particularly fun way to spend my spare time. However it's a necessary evil to enjoy this hobby, and by grouping with other competent people I can cut my ranking time down by up to 80%.

C: I don't recall ever personally boasting about the competence of our permagroups, but thanks for saying so.

D: You're clearly developing your opinions on forum posts and other people's thoughts... get your own clue. Astirath and Tikar were around for a hell of a lot more time than a week... and there's quite a few more incorrect points in your post, but I hardly feel like addressing them all, just be secure in the knowledge that you're wrong.

The characters in the game get no benefit (save a competent and efficient groupmate).

I'd argue this is the most profitable aspect of permagrouping, and why it is against the rules. To have another player who you are working with OOC, who you can therefore trust implicitly, who you can sync login times with... is all a big advantage.

You better have a pretty powerful character. Be careful about grouping with the one or two other hero Scions, because despite their being your only possible groupmates, your grouping with them will definitely be called permagrouping (if you ever manage to kill people).

Not true. You may notice that many Scions (Stoslav, Lokilith, etc., etc.) manage to live normal, productive lives while PKing large numbers of people without any harassment from the mean old IMMs. This may be because we don't see them constantly logging in/out with their pet support character, only grouping with the same people even when options are there, and the like. Especially so if it's the same group of players, over and over, making the same tired lies about how they aren't manipulating things outside the game.

It's not like you had one character that got singled out. It's also not that you were never given chances to do something, even after you've publically and privately trashed the efforts of our staff to no end. Salviar had a personalized quest, a lichquest, and a leadership position. Tikar had an IC warning (no penalties assessed) about permagrouping/roleplay, followed by attempts to involve him in an ongoing Scion quest. Illijin was left alone (and included in a quest) until he left Scion by telling a patron IMM he had no respect for it, at which point he absorbed a reasonable (standard) penalty (uninducted, slain, allowed to keep gear) for leaving an evil cabal in a hostile fashion, and was allowed to continue with no special penalty. He then went into an OOC tirade, which earned him some other problems. I've answered your emailed questions about Scion honestly and promptly. None of these actions show a record of bias from our side. You have been given (and continue to be given) every chance to just play the game however you want, within CF's rules.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

Was I not special enough to even get a warning?

>The characters in the game get
>no benefit (save a competent
>and efficient groupmate).
>
>I'd argue this is the most
>profitable aspect of permagrouping, and
>why it is against the
>rules. To have another
>player who you are working
>with OOC, who you can
>therefore trust implicitly,

I may talk with these people, but it doesn't mean we have some unbreakable trust. We've fought eachother's characters.

>who you
>can sync login times with...
>is all a big advantage.

Being on at the same time is only a big advantage if your character is a healer or something that can't stand up on it's own.

>You better have a pretty powerful
>character. Be careful about
>grouping with the one or
>two other hero Scions, because
>despite their being your only
>possible groupmates, your grouping with
>them will definitely be called
>permagrouping (if you ever manage
>to kill people).
>
>Not true. You may notice
>that many Scions (Stoslav, Lokilith,
>etc., etc.) manage to live
>normal, productive lives while PKing
>large numbers of people without
>any harassment from the mean
>old IMMs.
> This may
>be because we don't see
>them constantly logging in/out with
>their pet support character, only
>grouping with the same people
>even when options are there,
>and the like. Especially
>so if it's the same
>group of players, over and
>over, making the same tired
>lies about how they aren't
>manipulating things outside the game.

Stoslav killed large numbers of people? Lokilith killed large numbers of people? No. Were they before the majority of crippling changes that have left Scion as the whipping boy? Yes. Non-limited peacefully collected barrier rods...

>It's not like you had one
>character that got singled out.
> It's also not that
>you were never given chances
>to do something, even after
>you've publically and privately trashed
>the efforts of our staff
>to no end.

Was I trashing someone? I was just defending myself.

> Salviar
>had a personalized quest, a
>lichquest, and a leadership position.
> Tikar had an IC
>warning (no penalties assessed) about
>permagrouping/roleplay, followed by attempts to
>involve him in an ongoing
>Scion quest.

I don't remember either of these happening.

Illijin was
>left alone (and included in
>a quest) until he left
>Scion by telling a patron
>IMM he had no respect
>for it, at which point
>he absorbed a reasonable (standard)
>penalty (uninducted, slain, allowed to
>keep gear) for leaving an
>evil cabal in a hostile
>fashion, and was allowed to
>continue with no special penalty.
> He then went
>into an OOC tirade, which
>earned him some other problems.

That's not really related to permagrouping.

> I've answered your emailed
>questions about Scion honestly and
>promptly. None of these
>actions show a record of
>bias from our side.
>You have been given (and
>continue to be given) every
>chance to just play the
>game however you want, within
>CF's rules.

You're a nice guy. :)(:

>From the pen of:
>valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

Begin Rant.



Well this was gonna be my third and final try at Liching but something about playing a scion has changed within the last two months. I know scion is on the losing side right now, hell we were at times when I played cuvatar. But now I had to deal with Battlerager/goodie/warder mega groups. Rager/Warlock tag team operations and a cabal that has been all but abandoned by the immortals. (Yes yes I have heard that whole bit about changes coming. I believe you I really do. Buts lets have them already.) I know I wasnt around that long, was chancellor for a bout a week and half but hey you catch a lot in a week if you pay attention. The game is so totally stacked against evil characters right now there isnt really any point in playing one. I have no idea why immortals didnt forsee this problem when they came up with these new cabals. Didnt we think that when we took out political cabal wars and instated cabal wars directed by allignment, that all of the goodies and the non evils would be on one side and the evils on other? No longer do we have the intricate cabal war system that we did little while back. Where you leaders could manuvere themselves in and out of alliances with enemy cabals. Now we just got two sides, evils vs goodies. Throw in Battle for little more evil bashing and nexus(Was a great idea btw, something just went wrong in the delivery.) for little fence sitting. You have one cabal fighting four one cabal whose powers are mostly utility based against three cabals that get only pkilling powers. Not that I am saying scion powers suck. But why is it that all other cabals get pk specific powers and scion gets utility stuff? Last night was the final straw. Sleep a rager, healer gates in and sancs her. Sleep healer falcon flies up attacks the rager and flies away. Two others show up, Dead High Chancellor. Then the rager healer and bard have a little mock fight which involves rager trying to roundhouse mongoose to death. Anyways any decent bs artist could sneeze their way out of that one but its the fact that it happened to me is what probably pisses me off. Keep in mind this is a rant.
Rant # 2
Rods rods rods. We moved the rods cause they were too easy to get. Notice you still see your fair share of level 30 some good alligned mages with rods. When most evil heros and nero heros run around without. Maybe it has something to do with the fact with all the healers and paladins that make trothorn runs for rods. I have seen atleast two go in solo. When I kill a few warlock mages and grab them rods off them. I get blackjacked and whoosh all of it gone. I am back to slumin it with shield/stoneskin and wraithform at best. If rods have been made that they are no longer a cinch to get why not make them unlimited again. Would it really destroy game balance for a mage to hold on to his damage protection? As far as evil mages are concerned we went from one end of the spectrum to the other. No healthy middle ground. Mages are too powerfull lets change battle so they can do all sorts of non rager like stuff under the flag of tactics. Lets also further hamstring mages by making damage reduction impossible to find. Lets hamstring mages again by making the present easily gotten forms of damage reduction even more useless by having it last 3-4 ticks. Is there something called going too far? Probably not since this post will most likely be ignored for the most part.


Anyways My goodbyes.


Scion: Suck it up you guys best just wait for these new "changes" cause until they happen you arent gonna get anywhere without massive perma groups. Valg thanks for induction and leadership again. Jacynth go the hell back to herald if you cant be bothered to interact with your cabal. Zulgh uhm well you have other coding fish to fry I guess. Halisstra damn I should have just uninducted you before I deleted. Bynote I still have no idea why they keep passing you up. Zhetzasis cool role wrong fookin class. I'l come back to scion when its immortals finally decide to put a head on the cabal and figure out what direction they want to go in. It is still my favorite cabal.

Sylvan: Why dont you guys move into the fortress? Or move the fortress to you? There isnt really anything else left to do.

Maran: See sylvan
Warlock: See Maran
Dawn: See warlock

Battle: Nerylana you are the shadiest battlerager I have ever seen. But hey what do I know im just a stupid mage.


Zejzeiri: Arghhh you suck yo, all those stolen rods. *sniff*




Much Love

Acidic Parv

nt

Scions were running around in hoards killing warlocks/servants/marans/villagers without problems..
mostly because there would just be 8 of them ganging.
power shifts, get over it..

-BUT-

I agree with the alignment based cabal system. I don't
agree with it, I think it makes for shitty cabal wars
and you are right, there is no room to make alliences, for
leaders to declare war, or not declare war or whatever.
Nexites are a great idea, but again you are right, shitty
execution. And what is with three cabals in one fortress
I still think thats #####. And only ONE (really, scarab? common) evil cabal gives you a hell of a choice to pick from.

As for battleragers and sylvan, I think they are the only
two cabals that offer diversity between the whole good/evil
##### thats happening. I mean, sylvans kill warlocks, and scions. Ragers kill any mage, doesn't matter on alignment.
Which is mostly why I will only play sylvans and ragers, there
is no good/evil ##### battles. Sylvans aren't anti-evil
but since there is no other evil cabal and scions are sylvan
enemies.. well.. that leaves very little option.

Need to seperate the fortress, introduce another cabal for mages OTHER than scion or warlock. And allow a bit of creativity in the cabalwars, (which means get off the align #####) and maybe we will start to see some interesting cabal warfare and politics again. Like Old Master and Arbiters against Entropy.. Master with Empire, wars with barons and who can forget shadows betrayal of about everyone. The village with the empire against on and on and on... not this ##### with the nexites.. "Oh, balance is in light... I go to otherside now.. see you when they all leave!" Yah.. thats great. It's also stupid and a lame replacement for what once was a great opportunity for MORTALS to lead cabals and make choices that were sometimes bad, sometimes good and have real... wars.. thats changed as the generations came through.

I guess I got to rant too... cool.

Someone

Were directly related to a few well coordinated permagroups.
We thought hey, an evil cabal that we can make dominate.. we did dominate but with the sad immortal figureheads they have it's just not gonna happen anymore. We've all moved on to being uncaballed and actually enjoying ourselves.

Now all we can do is sit back and watch scions be beaten into oblivion by everyone. Former scions, marans, warlocks, dawnies, ragers, sylvans, barons, etc. Don't fret and just enjoy the show.
After a few months of sound beatings they'll be forced to change something for better or for worse, then we can check out the scenery once again and make another decision if it's worth playing.

Yeah Mano


Im making a character to show some of these uppity up divine peeps how totally screwedededed scion is. I didnt want to have to play this particular class again. But they is forcin my hand.

Much love

Acidic Parv

LAST EDITED ON Sep-11-01 AT 02:55 AM (CST)

>Now all we can do is
>sit back and watch scions
>be beaten into oblivion by
>everyone. Former scions, marans, warlocks,
>dawnies, ragers, sylvans, barons, etc.
>Don't fret and just enjoy
>the show.
>After a few months of sound
>beatings they'll be forced to
>change something for better or
>for worse, then we can
>check out the scenery once
>again and make another decision
>if it's worth playing.

Jhyrbian
Unregistered User

Why shoot for 80%? That's like saying aim for mediocrity. As for the pk challenges being watered down, that is a simple answer to a plaguing questions: CF is stagnating.. all the good players have left or are leaving. RS is up now and i know i won't be playing CF anymore after i delete my lowbie pk char.


...your were quitting CF as soon as your lowbie pk'er had died?

Sounds like the "other" place isn't quite your promised land.
Still, i don't understand why you can't fight each other if your looking for a challenge - rather than permagrouping with each other all the time, a strangely inconsistent act.

...your were quitting CF as soon as your lowbie pk'er had died?

I got a job and can't play during weeks at all, but i need to save money so i head to my parents on weekends so i'm not going out partying and spending money i need to save. Thus i get time to annoy people to no lengths on weekends.(And today due to terrorist activities and the bulk of our workload being american)


Sounds like the "other" place isn't quite your promised land.
Still, i don't understand why you can't fight each other if your looking for a challenge - rather than permagrouping with each other all the time, a strangely inconsistent act.

It's not that the "other" place isn't quite my promised land, it's that i don't have the time. You don't understand why we can't fight each other if we're looking for challenge, that's because we get much more enjoyment doing it to others. It's not inconsistent at all. It's called 'fun'. Dealing with simpleton groupmates who can't find the eastern road is not 'fun'. Ok? So if you're still failing to understand how that works i truly pity you sir.

I don't need your pity and i don't understand why you need to group with others to pk, as i said, you whine about the "lack of challenge" yet you deliberately contribute to the lack of one by continuinally attempting to unbalance the sides as much as you are physically able.

> You don't understand
>why we can't fight each
>other if we're looking for
>challenge, that's because we get
>much more enjoyment doing it
>to others. It's not inconsistent
>at all. It's called 'fun'.

This is amusing, your wanting challenge but you'd rather have fun which you get from not having a challenge. Hrmmm.

Relying on ooc friends or permagroups is just weak. Not being able to do that in the Scarab cabal left you only one option, delete, delete. Sad Indeed.

Hey Druc, have a char as feared as Rituraaj and then try to talk to me. But since that won't ever happen, don't even try to respond to my messages. Thank you sir.

Rituraaj wasn't feared for his ability.... what did he ever do besides gaunt all the time? Most of the time your prey comes in beat to hell, and confused from the drop off. I think that completeing a pk off of a gaunt takes little to no skill. However I will say that Rit did a fantastic job on prep, and was hard to get a blow in on him from him hasting himself and all his pets. I guess what I'm trying to say is it wasn't him that was scary it was watching the skies at night because you couldn't do ####### without being gaunted at night.

can't we all get along? *wink*

Honestly I should have deleted about 2 weeks ago, but I didn't. But here goes. Mirzah, I agree with you 100 percent except for the immortal leadership, I dont think you need good immortal leaders to have a cabal that runs well.

What really chaps my hide though, is the battlerager #####. In the past 5 or so battles that Kvaerner went through, it was marans and ragers vs me solo or me and someone else. I personally dont think any cabals powers including scions are overpowered OR underpowered. But a maran and a battlerager together IS. The villagers come pound on scion warriors, because they protect the mages, fine. But why is it that the villagers dont also pound on the marans and the fighter class servants? Do they not protect the fortress which protects the Warlocks? It is one of the major hypocricys with cf that I am having a hard time swallowing.

I know I said above that the powers for scion arent underpowered, but if it is going to be a 3 cabal on 1 struggle for power, the fighter classes really need something else. Get rid of nightwalkers for fighters, and give them back an imperial training type thing and shove. As for the priest classes, I see the black aura sanc as something that is much more fitting for scion than it was for the Empire.

Oh Well

Scion for Life

It's kind of simple but I'll try to explain it further.

Scion are all foes.

The Fortress primarily has the only conjurers around and the occasional duergar or drow gone goodie. So... Those times you bump into a Sylvan near the Fortress they're either waiting for one of the above or waiting for Scion to go try to pick off someone from the Fortress or recover the scepter. It's easy as that.

We won't go into how if the Grove has the scepter there's almost no point in waiting near the Grove because no one from Scion will come. Independant conjurers and such aren't as easily tracked down as scion or fortress people. Ask Annalena I'm sure she and many of the warlocks can attest to their conjurers and lone dark elf being attacked very frequently by Sylvans. What *is* interesting is that Scion really has it easy by comparison. You don't have easily camoed/thorned/snared areas all around your cabal but I've yet to hear anyone from the fortress cry foul. *knocks on wood*

I agree the interaction between cabals is pretty limited with regards to fighting. Scion is on a downswing at the moment. But honestly you were one of the few who were giving it presence. Horacius (spellcheck) and a bunch of others are as bad as Naz and his blue moon appearances. (read eq horders in essence) It's just sad that the ones that make their presence felt, fight the fight and do their damndest get disheartened, frustrated and call it quits.

On a side note, Nerylana did attack that healer for sancing her and the brawl; as unconventional as it was with all the parties involved, was fun and chaotic. Good luck with your next

Scion is on
>a downswing at the moment.
>But honestly you were one
>of the few who were
>giving it presence.



Correction. Scion is always on a downswing only times scion has ever been able to hold its own as mentioned by Jhyrbian is when a bunch of people got together and decided to roll up Scions together. Scion as it stands now is a cabal for perma groups. If you can play one and stay under the immortal radar. The cabal will be alright. If not you and the cabal are screwed.

>We won't go into how if
>the Grove has the scepter
>there's almost no point in
>waiting near the Grove because
>no one from Scion will
>come.

I'm trying to imagine raiding Sylvan as a Scion, and I have to admit it's damn scary. Cut them some slack. First of all it's difficult to assess how many Sylvans are actually around since everyone in the cabal can camo. Yes I know there are ways around that, but they're semi-unreliable. Second, half the cabal is rangers, who can ambush/snare at/near the cabal entrance. Combine this with a bard and...well, you get the picture.

I'm not going to bitch about Sylvan like everyone else, but you must admit it's a daunting task to raid them. Especially since the caliber of people who play Sylvans is generally a cut above the Fortress (myself included).


>Independant conjurers and such
>aren't as easily tracked down
>as scion or fortress people.

Damn straight. Tesseract is the bomb.


>Ask Annalena I'm sure she
>and many of the warlocks
>can attest to their conjurers
>and lone dark elf being
>attacked very frequently by Sylvans.

Well, when you can find them.


>What *is* interesting is that
>Scion really has it easy
>by comparison. You don't have
>easily camoed/thorned/snared areas all around
>your cabal but I've yet
>to hear anyone from the
>fortress cry foul.

Because it's lunacy to ever spend time at the fortress. I might have done it if the area were nosummon, but standing around there without deny summoning up is like asking to die. Actually, if it weren't for Sylvans camping out in the mountains there would probably be a lot more non-Conjie Warlocks and Dawnies dying to Scion summoners.

One thing I'm glad Sylvan doesn't do, which surprises me, is hit the Maran to draw out Warlock conjies. Battle {read: Armand} did this all the time, but defending against ragers {as a conjie} is mostly just a nuisance. Sylvan would be a different story. Snare/sleep/insect/fiend/ambush is bad enough, but usually it's mitigated by the fact that your foes can avoid areas that are likely to contain snares. But if you're attacking their outer guardian...well, they don't have much choice but to come running or be uninducted.

>Maybe
>it has something to do
>with the fact with all
>the healers and paladins that
>make trothorn runs for rods.

Yep, that's where they were. Make no mistake about the tense of my sentence.

Acidic Zulg

>>Maybe
>>it has something to do
>>with the fact with all
>>the healers and paladins that
>>make trothorn runs for rods.
>
>Yep, that's where they were.
>Make no mistake about the
>tense of my sentence.
>
>Acidic Zulg


Oops ah well didnt mean to splurt that out but hey mistakes happen. Anyways almost everyone knew where the rods were it was not their placement that was the tough part it was getting to them. And this move it is all being done for the sake of the players and the game right? Cause we all know you wouldnt do anything out of spite just cause someone made one small slip up. I mean now that the big secret is out you will have all manner of newbies runing through trothorn claiming the rods and kicking everyones ass all over again.


P.S You forgot Much Love


Much Love

Acidic Parv

Nah, I've had something up my sleeve for awhile, this just gives me a bit more motivation to get it done, and give you something else to bitch about.

After I read your post, and went to bed, I kind of saw this coming.

heh

Makes me glad I run communers

Great make it impossible for mages to compete against deathblowing warriors. whats worse, is the irc elite will find out.. totally blow off anyone in character who asks
and will leave it to people getting OOC information
to compete IC the game.

Someone whos making a battlerager.

... you should wait to see what the solution we're proposing looks like. We're aware of the problem of information cliques, and are taking effort to forge a new system that makes them less useful.

From the pen of:
valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

>... you should wait to see
>what the solution we're proposing
>looks like. We're aware
>of the problem of information
>cliques, and are taking effort
>to forge a new system
>that makes them less useful.
>
>
>From the pen of:
>valguarnera@carrionfields.com">Valguarnera Trisseptia

Might I ask when the new and improved solution will be implemented?

You're pretty young and might not remember, but I remember a time when they were mostly useless to begin with. Of course, the cabal wars were fairly balanced and.... well, you all remember.

remember when there were *NO* barrier/aura/shield rods? Just masters with duo and anti magic shell potions?

Ya know...you and a Archanus muter are about the only two that i feared in thera...and the muter only when he came grouped with others or intercepted me in the middle of a fight...I think you smacked me around about 3 times in a row during a raid on sylvan...granted...much of that was my own stupidity, but, you had skills...*L*
Anyway, sorry to see a good opponant go, can't wait what you have up yer sleeve to kill me with next....
Charqua, Spoiled Cub of the Pack.

Oh, so that's why he didn't respond to me about getting into Scion that secnod time. I thought I had done something wrong.

I just had the time to loot you, fly a bit further away, revert to talk to you and... well, I couldn't, you were gone! I only hope this isn't rage-deletion...