Thu Dec 21 21:01:28 2006

At 6 o'clock AM, Day of the Great Gods, 26th of the Month of Futility
on the Theran calendar Garker perished, never to return.

Race:	duergar
Class:	warrior
Level:	40
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	EMPIRE, the Empire
Age:	94
Hours:	91

Bah, I liked playing with you too, was a pretty cool character personality wise. Best of luck with your next character!

Damn, Zaaik. I delete before you and your PBF comes up first? WTF?

I wanted someone to know two things when talking to Garker if they weren't his enemy:

He was a relatively simple guy.

He was a duergar through and through.

Duergar in my view are supposed to be fully corrupted versions of dwarven philosophy. Dwarves are supposed to be a slight bit greedy, very religious, virtuous, but not necessarily always fair of speech. They are designed to suffer from Scot-Irish accent.

Duergar are supposed to never be fair in speech, dishonest, really greedy for gold, only somewhat principled depending on class, and unless an empowerment class or an AP, mostly agnostic.

Garker really only wanted his own private island with a nice cave on it and slaves. Empire was the only cabal who deals literally with land and territory, Tribunal isn't interested in expanding, ever. So that's why his sphere was covetuousness. He was a yes man and believed 'those who were loyal to the Empire were rewarded.'

It's no secret that I hate Empire with a passion. I hate it's history because of the players, I still do, I'm fully expecting it to revert to it's old game that Fortress currently plays so well.

But I understand it a bit better. There's no denying that. After you've been bloodoathed, promoted, then demoted, then promoted again, short of anathema or reaching the top echelons there's not much more to experience in Empire. Easy in, easy out. The trick is you either have to be really dumb, really unlucky, or a huge ####ing asshole to get anathema'd.

I did understand why Draktel demoted me once, but to be honest I was not impressed with sword as a first spec. Even with 22 dex and under 250 weight, I tanked like a ####ing brick. Constantly. Couldn't take more than one or two razor mobs. Part of that was I didn't spam in the Mists like everyone else because duergar int makes me impatient (resulting in many skill failures outside of bash that made clever tactics utterly impossible to pull as Kharzak and Vantle can attest to)

So, I did explain to Draktel that I wasn't interested in eating an exp hole during cabal raids with less than 3k tnl to level. Especially since I had already been raiding/retrieving literally five hours straight prior to logging in, was trying to get that level and log off since I was contributing literally no extra offensive power to raids, no scouting abilities, and there were no defenders in my range. All cabal inners were still doing OBLITS regularly to me with their abilities, and the Watcher was even worse. Swords at perfect parry, flourintine and 95% dodge with no haste, were still pretty much tanking like a brick even with damage reduction.

Demoted anyway for 'letting the sect die'. Hunsobo couldn't really appear to disagree as a player with the Emperor so he and I kind of clowned out a discussion in which he said scouting, disarmed weapon pickup and rescuing Elidan before he condied were all contrived, stretched out scenarios I could do before Vezrith came in and promoted me again. I think both elites respected me because other than that incident I was a pretty steady player and did not participate in the mass-logons that the rest of the cabals (both allies and enemies) were pretty consistent with throughout my lifetime.

I mostly deleted this character because I fell extremely ill recently (like, other than CF I've been in BED after finals kind of ill all month long and it's going to very nearly cost me a pleasant christmas with my family) and figured I'd lose well over 100k in donations from not playing if I didn't. Oh, and getting full looted constantly by both Outlander and Fortress ganks/raids, even when I had mostly gear neither could use. That was fun. I guess. Assholes. I also managed to drop to 19 or 18 con before hitting hero range. That was going to cost me about 50-100 HP somewhere along those lines even if I trained it back, so there wasn't any real point in sloughing it out against some of the most pain in the ass opponents ever. Sorry Krynna, I had more fun in Outlander as an evil with Nreisshe as Reaver when you were still a kit, than I ever did with this character.

I had fun playing the dwarf, and can see you tackled quite the cabal responsibility for having a ####load to learn still Xoclibert, I wish you luck with that.

I won't be playing Empire again anytime soon, however. Even the powers don't make the bitterness that the cabal itself has garnered from it's previous incarnation and the beginning of it's current incarnation will ever make it worth it for the average player. I'm quite used to unsportsmanlike abuse from other players in CF quite regularly and rarely spout more than a line or two about it in frustration in character, but my advice to a newer player would be to avoid Empire like the plague. You will get no sportsmanship, no decency, no quarter from your enemies, they will trash talk like Quake players and moreso when they have a muter to back them up and you find your skills/tactics constantly failing on them, for a past conduct in a cabal you didn't create or participate in. It's not as if the cabal as a whole doesn't still deserve it at some level in my view, and I knew it was a bad idea going into it.


Spec choices and such were also a bad idea it turns out but, the general mechanics of this character I'm keeping to myself as a whole because I had utterly terrible luck sealing kills I basically otherwise had in the bag. Unless I waited for the same moronic people to walk into the same moronic Centurion trap over and over thinking they were invincible... the low int did end up hurting in the long run. Defenses perfected, and literally nothing else. Also, not having any stat maladicts whatsoever sucks hard, which is part of why sword specs end up tanking worse overall than spear specs and assassins.

I absolutely loved Hunsobo and the Blade Sect as a whole (the whole two or three people who all saw one another regularly). I wanted the oppritunity to go into a little more depth with the character, but again finals, illness and Christmas all have come up.

Kesoi, I don't know what you were trying to pull, and I don't know why you got Anathema. But you were way more friendly than an Imperial should be to someone else in Empire, especially in a different sect and ESPECIALLY when said different sect is leading in donations in the Empire. I as Garker was basically about as friendly as it should get, and even the Emperor didn't want me to call him 'guv'nor' which, for the character, was a moniker of extreme respect and admiration. If you were new I understand it completely, but you didn't come off as an evil or as a Shadow in empire to me. You came off more like the Empire/Fortress' Herald puppy. I was always wondering what was up with that.

Other than cabal matters, you were a pleasant ally and groupmate and managed to pull some serious #### out of your ass both in and out of my presence. In-friggin'-credible luck, and while I managed to teach you a thing or two you may not have known about the assassin class, you managed in your lifetime to completely show up my mastery of the class through quite a bit of dumb luck. You even managed to get spike-toed boots and realize their value, lose them, kill Tremblay and get them BACK. I sincerely hope that kind of luck stays with you while you play CF the rest of your time here. That kind of luck ran out for me a long while ago and I envy you. :P

Vezrith, I didn't know what you make of you. The only thing I was sure of was I kept forgetting that you were a female dark-elf because of your mannerisms. That might be as intended or that you're caught in the grind of the game just as I am. and though I did pretty much indicate to Draktel that I adored Hunsobo far more than you, (I can't say much more since you all are still active) you made Empire as difficult as it was supposed to be to be in it, and not a smidgeon more or less. I thank you for taking the attitude toward your lessers initially that was supposed to be taken, and shun you for not at least educating me on enough of the cabal functions to actually contribute and donate. 'look questions' in the Council of Four would have been sufficient to tell me to start once I got beyond Oath. :P

Everyone else I interacted with was pretty 'meh' or 'blah' except Paskat who continues to be an excellent Tribunal and despite my motives being my own, could pretty much trust every word I said. I hope he becomes Vindy if he wants it over Provost, the ####er won't NEED guards outside of town. And Asoa, who pretty much felt as much sympathy as he was possibly allowed when I did give him a straight up fight and ended up getting screwed by Lexicus robbing him of said fair fight when I was winning. Other opponents pretty much went out of their way to make things as painful as possible if I died or got disarmed with the exception of one or two times that no one found time to full loot me.

So anyway, aside from some pretty moronic spec/cabal choices, here's to more enjoyable cookie cutter RP'd characters. We need more of those because they offer more detailed RP since there's less to finagle out of it.

"I have to admit I hate pretty much all of these ideas. :)" - Nepenthe, on New Ranger Skills

Sorry there, maybe they like you more and wanted to hold onto your PBF longer? :P

I think it had to do with the week deactivation, the game considered my deletion to Bulanu's pack of wolves. You remember. When I stood there and stupidly expected him to sunray me and put himself in danger, and he did everything but to win. Ah well. Whatever.

"I have to admit I hate pretty much all of these ideas. :)" - Nepenthe, on New Ranger Skills

Well, I usually play goodies and this was my first attempt at Empire so I didn't really know much about the rp. I've had 5 warriors in a row so I didn't know squat about assassins. Thanks for all the tips, those silver-green potions really rock the boat. You were the friendliest Imperial I have met in the cabal, I really liked you. Everyone else seemed lifeless but you made the empire seem not that bad.

I really had no problem with Garker and I thought you were doing well. The demotion had everything to do with the fact that we had been saying over and over again that we were going to go, and that everyone was going to go. You never showed up. I can understand not wanting to continue fruitless raids, but I tend to get my item back especially when I have aide. The funny thing is, you didn't stick around to even get back. I think someday when you see my pbf you might find comments about how "nice" I was giving promotions. You can't possibly understand how much money I've donated and how much I've spent promoting people. When I started as Emperor the fund was around 2million...it is over 8 million now i believe.

Sorry you didn't have more fun, maybe the next will be good for you. Empire has its charms, and it has its drawbacks.

You were pretty much forced to demote me whether you knew that I was already sick of being logged in or not. I was pissed, yes. I don't think it was fair, no. Do I hold it against you personally? Not at all. Demotions are only a setback. Once you know how, gathering gold is fairly easy if you can get 5k every five minutes, or more. The trick is finding the time, either you're forced to find more efficient ways, take advantage of the times your PK range is empty, or simply cheat and log in during some off time early in the morning or late as hell at night to gather the gold. You did not directly affect the actual deletion, I was just merely saying offhand that I'd announced twice 'There are no enemies in range I can harm so I'm going to solo rank so I don't lose my second spec and end up with Hunsobo or Vezrith dragging my ass around killing mobs." once before, to make sure to cover my ass, and once when you asked. I know you lost it in the spam both times when Vezrith asked the third time, and probably wouldn't have had to demote me if you had heard my very first announcement. Still, it happens. Believe me, my luck has been worse and some of the most unfair things have happened to me in this game through no one's specific fault, or if it's not my poor luck it's my own inattentiveness to my environment.

I could go on, but I'll just leave it that I have nothing against the Empire's current players, I even understand the cabal itself a bit better. I still despise it for past behavior, as do most of it's opponents, and I neither blame it's opponents for that nor do I think it has any reasonable chance of changing.

Beyond that, assholes can make this game a real time sink by either forcing you to regear, sacrificing containers, or even simply taking gold or disarmed weaponry during a raid. I only make a character every couple of months lately because it takes too long to 'get off the ground' so to speak, when you've been knocked down, and people tend to go out of their way to make it harder on you even when you lose due to a crappy RNG. Which, between that and being totally unaware of what my opponent might possibly be affected with preps-wise, seems to make me lose a whole lot more fights that I should be winning on paper.

I know exactly what you mean about time-to-effective for chars being a hassle after a loot.

You can mitigate it by choosing characters that are somewhat less gear/prep dependant than warriors though. Consider doing a shaman/druid/shifter/ranger/paladin in the future. I think it'll be a lot less frustrating. Warriors are a great class, but a full loot on a hero warrior (or any warrior over 35 or so), is not something you can usually come back from in under 10 minutes. Not in an effective way at least. Just gathering the normal preps is potentially a 20 minute task.

Duergar warriors in general are crappy tanks.

When I had Morior, duergar spear spec, I would often have to stay out of the inner fights because I was quite literally the most fragile out of everyone in the group. And this is with over 1000 hp and defensive spin and enhanced reactions.

As a cookie-cutter empire blade, your only purpose in life is to spam bash outside of the inners during raids, hit things harder than most people can, and call centurions when the villagers walk past Balator. Face the facts: duergar warriors weren't made to tank =P

I was a sword spec, parry mastered, dodge was at 90%, flourintine mastered. I tried to keep +str and +dex gear, and kept my weight low.

Of course, I only made it to level 36 before I rage-deleted.

s

Every race with 20 or more dex can tank 'decently', and this is big: provided they can maladict their foe with -str and -dex. This only applies to actual melee rounds and not skills. Skills are always going to hit and always going to hurt if they come from a mob, so duergar without at least 33% damage reduction are always screwed at the Watcher for instance.

Duergar as a whole are better prepared to simply shrug off their vulnerabilities and outdamage their opponents anyway, but only with certain specs.

The difference between a felar and arial assassin is not much overall with 23 vs 25 dex. But in the time it takes to land kot/kans, the arial will take fewer hits than the felar initially because of those 2 dex points. When it comes to defenses and effectivity, dexterity tends to be sort of an upside-down pyramid.

Even axes have whirl and mace boneshatter. Swords have nothing to apply maladictions with, and thus if you can't hit your opponent in melee, (and any of the good skills with damage worth using opens you up to an easy disarm or maladict) you're going to take more damage overall regardless of your race and not be able to deal as much back.

The crux of my problem with sword as a first spec was my choices were jab one round, doublethrust three rounds, flurry four rounds. None of these are very good options for dealing damage when just about any action taken by your opponent can negate your entire offense during using anything but jab. Since I'm not dealing damage + lag, nor am I dealing damage + maladicting... I thought flurry would be nice as well but I only managed to get it from 69 to 75% in nine levels. Also, with duergar int, your second spec even if it augments your versatility (mine was flail, and since I wasn't outmeleeing opponents in the first place without maladicts, flail/whip didn't have enough options to change that.) will not necessarily solve your problems. You still have this fat 16 int, and 5+ skills all starting below 75% whose prospect you're facing of getting to 90 or above during the course of normal ranking. Since this is 40 we're talking about here, you tend to get double the attacks while ranking that you do on your way to 40, so your oppritunity to perform these maneuvers is halved again...

If the flail skills weren't basically working only one out of every twenty times, I might would have had more patience with this setup for PvP. But basically if I didn't get my opponent dirt/disarmed, or it was an opponent dirt/disarm didn't affect, I was screwed before the fight started without stat maladicts. Given my dismal CON (18) and only two trains to my name before ranking to legacies, there wasn't any point in continuing with the amount of time slipping through my fingers to play.

DC is right that I probably need to shift to empowerment classes, because besides empowerment itself which is still an extremely flawed and inefficient process unfair to the actual players, the disadvantages to those classes are more easily worked around on the average field of play, the success rates of the skills at any percentage period is generally higher, and both of these things translate to less time spent regearing or replacing disarmed weaponry. The mobility on some of them and ranger is top notch as well. Shifters I can't play because I don't 'get' the wand system and thus still lose to any idiot with a 30+ damroll.

Anyway, the race wasn't the problem. My expectations for the specialization combo were flawed when I rolled the character, and I didn't see any legacies that could fix it while my skill percentages on whip/flail improved. The idea was to combine a decent tank and the unknown demon of flurry out of the blue with flail's really good blind and disarming and entwine. But I pretty much found people were outdamaging me easily, skills never worked as I expected to, and flurry sucked woefully due to skill %. I'll have to leave warriors to people who can pick their opponents better than I.

"I have to admit I hate pretty much all of these ideas. :)" - Nepenthe, on New Ranger Skills