Fri Mar 22 00:52:03 2002


5 o''clock AM, Day of the Sun, 6th of the Month of the Spring on the Theran calendar Jorane perished, never to return.

Race:	gnome
Class:	shapeshifter
Level:	51
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	None, None
Age:	170
Hours:	112
PK Ratio:	50% (closer to 100% is better)

delete
delete
Type delete again to confirm this command.
WARNING: this command is irreversible.
Typing delete with an argument will undo delete status.
If you confirm the delete, this name will be unusable.
You will need to talk to an implementor to use it again.

Rage deleting on your first PK death. How worthless are you?
Time to throw away 112 hours, 51 levels and 532800 experience.

Death tells you 'I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.'

<31-712hp 42-922mn 506mv 19781-0> Patience, you will be able to delete shortly.
You tell Tobeldest 'Good...I was looking to die to someone before I deleted. Enjoy the soft leather bracer and travelling boots that I have had since my third circle.'

delete

Admitting crushing defeat to Tobeldest, you end your existence.
Awaiting the hour of reprisal, your time slips away...



boy. This was called 'death by boredom'.

I've only played 2 mages to hero pk before...and I really suck at mages...for a few reasons.
the big one, is a totall and complete ignorance and deep seated apathy when it comes to a/s/b locations.

The second one is, in pks, I think like an assassin/warrior...nomatter what I play...and that rarely sits well.

If I ever had a/s/b's with Jorane, it was an accident...or given to me.

The problem was...even without them, I never had to die to a pk if I wasn't either wanting to, or being very very careless.

Once, I decided to actually test myself in a pk. now...tchakatchaka might not have been the best conji out there...but for a shifter who sucks at the class to take a conji with elemental and a really decent archon...it was just sick.

After playing a hero rager for ...oh...300 hours...I thought that a/s/b made shifters too powerfull. now I don't believe that.

now I believe there is no balance between shifters and any fighting class whatsoever...even if a/s/b's dissapeared tomorrow. Adding a/s/b's just makes it more sick.

I heroed, with perfected shape spell/skill and controls, in about 84 hours. Another two hours and I had forms practiced enough to be totally sickening.

On the other hand, you have warriors who tank from rank 1 to rank 43...over 200 hours worth...and have defenses in the upper 80s...who get tooled by almost every form out there(notable exceptions exist). It just seems to me that the requirement->benefit ratio is way better than the same ratio for warrior classes. It takes almost zero effort to make a hero shifter who can never die unless careless...compared to the back breaking effort it takes to get a warrior class to hero...and then they are never safe...anywhere.

I am not ANGRY or ornery about this unballance that I see...I am just offering my opinion as I see it, knowing that the vast majority of you disagree. Well, I've now played both sides of the fence, and I think there is. *shrug*

got bored, nothing to do. The person I really wanted to go to hell with deleted JUST before I got to hero....leaving me in a limbo...I tried to become friends with people who I thought would do exploration...but that never went anywhere. Killed once, died once. I suck at mages.

later

sehv

>Rage deleting on your first PK death. How worthless are
>you?

you had a pk ratio of 50%, this means you killed 1 person, how sad


>You tell Tobeldest 'Good...I was looking to die to someone
>before I deleted. Enjoy the soft leather bracer and
>travelling boots that I have had since my third circle.'
>

and all you had to show for the entire char was junk?

>
>Admitting crushing defeat to Tobeldest, you end your
>existence.
>Awaiting the hour of reprisal, your time slips away...
>

As far as flowery code goes, I really like this one imms :)

>boy. This was called 'death by boredom'.

Here is a thought, you could try pking?

>
>I've only played 2 mages to hero pk before...and I really
>suck at mages...for a few reasons.

perhaps because your not getting pk wins or losses, both of
which you learn from.

>The second one is, in pks, I think like an
>assassin/warrior...nomatter what I play...and that rarely
>sits well.

Personal choice, some people dont like classes that dont have much
in-pk options, like sacers classes, orcs and conjurers which have little.. Where as nepenthes classes invokers/assassins have many in-pk options. Some people like the tatics out of pk, others like it in the pk.

>
>The problem was...even without them, I never had to die to a
>pk if I wasn't either wanting to, or being very very
>careless.

When you take on more risks you do have to worry about dieing.
Your one of those people who cant handle dieing so take no chances, then delete because there is no risk. (Or atleast with this char.)

>Once, I decided to actually test myself in a pk.
>now...tchakatchaka might not have been the best conji out
>there..

thats for sure

>.but for a shifter who sucks at the class to take a
>conji with elemental and a really decent archon...it was
>just sick.

Thats probably more about you then him

>After playing a hero rager for ...oh...300 hours...I thought
>that a/s/b made shifters too powerfull. now I don't believe
>that.

in my experience, its easy to say yeah i use a/s/b check my jezzan and sharvin logs and see just how much people use rods. But you played a rager, you should know this?

>now I believe there is no balance between shifters and any
>fighting class whatsoever...even if a/s/b's dissapeared
>tomorrow. Adding a/s/b's just makes it more sick.

if it disappeared, i would roll up another warrior berserker
and kill every non-defensive non-water shifter i saw.

>
>I heroed, with perfected shape spell/skill and controls, in
>about 84 hours. Another two hours and I had forms practiced
>enough to be totally sickening.

I think i did it in 40 hours on yagar, why are you complaining?
Do you want more work?

>On the other hand, you have warriors who tank from rank 1 to
>rank 43...over 200 hours worth...and have defenses in the
>upper 80s...who get tooled by almost every form out
>there(notable exceptions exist).

well I always master my defences at low levels and while you certainly
cant tank every hit because shifters are hard to tank, if you do decent back you can win and if they are a/s/b then you flee and fight another time. If they are a prep-god (always have rods) then just gang them.

>It just seems to me that
>the requirement->benefit ratio is way better than the same
>ratio for warrior classes. It takes almost zero effort to
>make a hero shifter who can never die unless
>careless...compared to the back breaking effort it takes to
>get a warrior class to hero...and then they are never
>safe...anywhere.

Roll up a bard or necro they are shifter-killers.
I am sick of killing the same people at hero or not having anyone in pk because they are all low level and deleting, least with shifters its stocking the hero range.


Arolin (who is only being harsh because the mud is down again)

(what is the world coming to?!)

He is right. Risk brings situations that you can learn from. Without it, life is not only boring but you don't learn much.

I do agree with you about shifter power. Warriors have become the "utility" mediocore fighter and shifters are more of the raw elements of being a warrior (ultimate damage, ultimate defense, ultimate resistance, ultimate movement/scouting etc). Which I believe is unfortunate but my view may be skewed because I just like the warrior concept.

Now again, I agree with Arolin that if you did take a/b/s away, a rager berserker warrior would tool everything but then shifters would be pretty much equal power and ability with non-village warriors. The strange trend is to tone up instead of tone down leaves some obvious gaps where non-caballed (and at a lesser extent, non-BATTLE) warriors are at a distinct disadvantage.

This is the main reason why there are very few warriors in hero ranks. Instead, as Arolin has pointed out, is stocked full with mage types. Yesterday, the hero pk was 3 invokers, 7 shifters (good, evil, and neutral), one assassin(scion), 3 paladins, and one arcane.

The main frustration with a warrior is all your effectiveness is based directly on equipment and weapons. Have good equipment, do well, but with each death it usually means starting from scratch, which is completely disheartening and causes a lot of frustration and deletion. With any other class you have tools to work with even naked (except thief but does have steal to soften the blow of losing all equipment). Shifter just shifts and bamn that offensive major is doing as much damage as before, no real loss. Invokers, bah equipment doesn't matter. Necromancers, summon, pwk for equipment, so quick recovery. A-P same way with demand. You can get a good set with summon/demand before you unghost. Assassins have some skills, Paladins and shamans have tools without equipment, but warriors don't. Anyway, I'll end my rant about warriors.

Heroing in 84 hours is actually not the greatest. The best time for me heroing was with an evil conjurer. It was 34 hours. I think the last thing that needs to be argued is heroing should be made more difficult.
(Side note, I made an arcane transmuter scion and got to level 42 in 18 total life hours when you could use nightwalkers for ranking. Whoever said nightwalkers didn't need to be changed should have been shot :)

What I think you should have done with this character not delete it but throw it into the "test" pile and test the limits of your form against various people. Use that knowledge to not only better understand how to fight your kinds of forms but also how to fight different classes with your forms. Hell, use it as a character to learn how to fight mages better as a rager. I for one know that playing a conjurer GREATLY increased my awareness of their abilities/limitations/weaknesses/and strengths. Hell, just knowing when they can nightgaunt and how long they have to wait if they fail has been invaluable to every single character since then.

Good luck with your next character (RAGER! RAGER! RAGER!)

I for one know that playing a conjurer GREATLY increased my awareness of their abilities/limitations/weaknesses/and strengths.

This is very true. Play a class and you'll view them in a very different light to when you fought them. You'll very likely end up seeing that your old class was a lot more powerful than you ever gave it credit for.

People think you can become a master of a single class.
Someone that has played 9 thieves, aint a master of thieves.
Another person who has played 3 thieves and 6 other chars that
spent alot of time killing thieves is likely the best thief.

You need to master every char until your a master of one char.

>and all you had to show for the entire char was junk?

No. I actually had some decent clothes. Enough at least to take me from 700 hp to 1100 hp...as well as a nice boost to mana. But, I was keeping the soft leather bracer, the first piece of eq the char ever got, and the travelling boots, on purpose to show how easy it was for someone who doesn't even do good in the class to just not ever die to a pk.


>perhaps because your not getting pk wins or losses, both of
which you learn from.

You are probably spot on there. But, like I said, I am one of those people (maybe we are few and far between) that doesn't know any a/s/b locations, and has no desire to go out and find them when I could be doing other fun things... And because it seems the general concensus is that you need a/s/b's to actually kill without a gang, I never bothed to really try to kill anyone...except that once.



>Roll up a bard or necro they are shifter-killers.

I've tried the necro thing a couple times. And while they are pk MACHINES, even in my inept hands, I just can't seem to rank one past a certain point. I have a very real wall that exists between 31 and 36 and at that wall, all ranking oportunities drop to zero. Having spent more than 100 hours at that wall with more than one necromancer...trying to find a group the whole time... I have zero desire to try that again (until the next time I feel like it, and I never know when that masochistic desire will hit me). As for bards. I absolutely suck at them.

Note to self, bards played like warriors tend to die. At least mine do.

You retired at 1 win, 1 loss. How does that prove shifters are overpowered?

Your one win was against a mage. Your one loss was to a warrior. How does that prove shifters own warriors?

Also, your claim that it takes warriors 200 hours to get to rank 43 is very false. There are a large numbers of counterexamples running around currently. The only classes that experienced players routinely take 200 hours to hero with are necromancers, and invokers who choose old-style (7 paths, all at 5) affinity.

You retired at 1 win, 1 loss. How does that prove shifters are overpowered?

It doesn't. To get "proof" as you seem to want, I would have to roll air/off shifter #98769 and do nothing but pk.

Of course, doing that holds zero appeal to me, so even if I did it, I would do bad as I would not enjoy doing it.

Your one win was against a mage. Your one loss was to a warrior. How does that prove shifters own warriors?



Again, it doesn't "prove". My post was more about how I felt about the classes, and while they are based on my personal experiences with the classes, I did not feel that I had to go out of my way to set up a situation that would offer "proof".

My feelings are based less on how successful they are at killing. Than on how successful they are at keeping their own hides alive. The fact that My only pk loss was like this...
fighting ysbaddaden...for about 15 minutes because I wanted to see how long the lemur alone would take to take him down I am hurt, and have about 200-300 mana left. Tobeldest shows up. I beat him up, he flees. I follow him, consciously not bothering to keep fly or control trans up...or eating or drinking...I follow him to the village, where I throw myself on his polearm. That was a totally unnecessary death. If I was concerned about pkrat, I could have just deleted without doing that (as I was contemplating when he showed up).

It you can give me an example of a non-imm...non-duckie...non-caballed warrior class that can rank to hero, and spend almost 30 hours there without dieing to pk? Maybe you could. Maybe there are many.


Also, your claim that it takes warriors 200 hours to get to rank 43 is very false....

I was not intending to claim it takes all warriors that long. I was citing a specific example. The character was not mine, however, so I did not want to give the name. I have other examples, from warrior-type classes, of warriors tanking(and doing a BAD job of it) to upper 30's to lower 40's and having all my defenses in the mid 80's. I agree, there are a large number of counterexamples. But my post was "Here is how I feel on the class, and here are my experiences that have led me to feel this way." I fully understand that others have had other experiences, and thus would have other opinions.


(I could go into how the defense practice changes have had the opposite of the desired effect for non-arial/non-elf warriors who don't want to choose a defensive spec first....because sometimes it is NOT POSSIBLE for them to tank while they rank...so if they do NOT stop at early ranks, and spend hours getting their defenses up...at least to mid 90's...they will never...ever...go up. If they don't, by the time they get to rank 40 and perhaps choose a defensive spec...their defenses are so bad that they can not stand to tank ANY mobs that are high enough level to let their defenses go up....but I won't go into that, because I will just have to put that down as a difference of oppinion).

As for arolin's "Why not just pk." answer to my boredom.

Well. I wasn't really in the mood to do so with Jorane. I rolled jorane for two specific reasons. To find out if it was just me thinking "the grass is greener on the other side" or if it really was greener. And to perhaps explore places you just can't go to without mage backup as a fighting class. having done the one, and some of the other, I was done with the character.

and as for 84 hours to hero not being all that fast...I agree. on the way, I intentionally stopped ranking to perfect shift, shape, all the control spells, all the controls...and some other spells to boot...and I still did it in under 90 hours. that might not be all that fast to others, but it was to me.

You have to be kidding us? You killed one person! ONE PERSON! and your bitching that shifters are overpowered. Please STFU. Thank you.