Wed Aug 1 01:12:40 2007

At 1 o'clock PM, Day of the Great Gods, 33rd of the Month of the Battle
on the Theran calendar Behgrokar perished, never to return.

Race:	fire
Class:	anti-paladin
Level:	43
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	EMPIRE, the Empire
Age:	177
Hours:	105

Eh, you managed to tool me every time we fought. One time you bashed me and I didn't get a single hit in. You musta been doing something right to tool a 25 dex ranger.

I don't like seeing this at all.
I thoroughly enjoyed our fights and the pre fight and post fight banter.
Sorry to see you go, even though you are an enemy.

Sorry to see you deleted. Didn't mean to bitch, I would have done all the same things you did. GLWYN.

:( Boo, hiss. Enjoy the next and make him a goodie!

n

*Sadface*
It was really fun running around with you all that time, now who am I gonna hang out with and talk about random crap? Lol, now that I think about it, from like lvl 9 to lvl 40, it was almost always in a group with you haha. Im sad you couldnt stick around, but I guess thats life. Good luck with the next :D

You seemed like you were doing really well. Thought you would be Dreadlord in no time.

n/t

Good character. Was really pulling for you.

Thank you for the the little reward I am sure I had more stuff coming but thats how it goes sometimes. Although I will say someone needs to look at melee combat all over again. There is a reason fire giant axe specs, fire aps, essentially big hulkin monstrosities are becoming a rarity if. There is a reason every other warrior is a high dex dagger spec.

Doesn't that just mean warriors are now finally equally useful to the strong AND the fast?

Dagger is vogue. It happens. Mace is really making a comeback too.

Vogue? Mmmkay

I personally thought hey if I can gear for str il be fine vs dagger specs and essentially I was. Atleast till I hit hero range and then it didnt matter id fight dagger specs/swords/assassins and with abs/bloodlust I'd hit them once or twice in the entire fight if I was lucky. It used to be there was a risk in trying to assassinate a warrior wielding axes if you failed there was a very real chance you'd die. Now hey if you fail you can flee a few rounds later and try again . Anyway I don't expect you to agree or anyone else for that matter. CF does what CF does it just isnt a viable race/class combo for me to play ever again.

It's been stacked too heavily into Dex. Behg is very right when he says it's ridiculous how well dex classes defend against things like axes and maces. Also I might have skwered view because I'm a big guy, but big and strong almost always beats tiny and fast in a real fight except by running away.

I think things stack up very well now. I think the main reason for this is that the game has changed and the vast majority of people who are playing like it hasn't.

Yes, dexterity is a big deal now, so cover it like you would strength, or attack it like you would strength. In addition to being a big boost, conversely a dex warrior that loses his dex is just as screwed (if not moreso) than a strength warrior.

In the case of dagger specs, maledicting both stats with a single maneuver is not an option. This is an advantage for big guys. Use it.

Don't forget, the same characters who are positively affected by dex changes will also be more likely to be favored by Hitroll changes. This is a bigger deal than most people realize, and hasn't seen anywhere near the volume of bitching that dex has, and I think it is a very considerable factor in the dex warrior's (dagger spec if you prefer) arsenal. In fact, this is probably part of the reason why you don't hit that dex warrior.

Random tangent:

Shifters are following this trend too. I recently saw someone bitching about what a terrible fight shaman vs shifter was for the shifter on Dios, and my immediate thought was "this dude is still just gearing for hp". Seriously, with the new changes, shifters should be something for shaman's to think about. Pack some saves and own him.

I suppose this is the point:

The days of 10 hitroll / 80 damroll / +30 strength glory stacks aren't necessarily done, but they've been dealt a crippling blow. Come at a dex warrior with this stack, and unless you have something else going for you, I think they'll kick your ass.

Try moderating your set some to include some hitroll and dex coverage, then bring it to that dex warrior. I think you'd do much better than you think. You'll still hit harder than they do, and you still have more hp than they do. If you aren't maledicted to absolute crap (on EITHER str OR dex) you'll even the odds quickly.

These changes are great. I love seeing something besides giant/duergar/svirf warriors. It is the player base that needs to adopt the new mindset instead of stubbornly playing exactly the way they used to. I guarantee you those dex warriors kicking your ass have already figured it out.

First off, I've already adapted and started gearing for agility more then strength even.
However, If you are playing a warrior type or a shifter that can't maledict dex much you basically can't hit these guys now. As a polearm or sword spec, you can't hit these guys anymore and they evade your special attacks and I have no options to lower their dex. Even as an AP if they gear for dex I'm not hitting them even with crippling strike and a giant axe.
I recently watched an assassin school a sword spec even though he was decked out and dual wielding, while the assassin just had a shield and one of those default daggers. All the assassin had to do was kick to win. The warrior literally didn't hit him the whole fight and the assassin evaded his double thrust and flurry. That seems a little crazy to me.
I'm all for making dex count more, I just think it's more important then strength now and that seems silly.

I guarantee you if I told you the maximum chance evade could ever work under perfect conditions, you wouldn't believe me.

(It's not very high.)

Oh, we took a look at the evade code and realized it was working way too much!

Because It fires against me about two times in every fight. That's about 25% of my special moves at a minimum.

Had it fire twice against a Transmuter a few days ago.

nt

Cool. Thanks.

Yet, for all of that, the toughest/killingest warrior in the game by a wide margin is still a giant. I know some/all of the runners up are sub-average dex warriors, also.

I generally think the only problem (such as it is) with how dex sits now is that some classes probably should have anti-dex options and really don't, mostly because before there would have been no point.

(Anti-paladins aren't in this camp, incidentally.)

Five or ten years ago it was fine that the only stat a necromancer could really maledict was strength, because who would want to go into a fight and try to sap down someone's intelligence, dexterity, wisdom, charisma, or even constitution (rot cases excepted?) Now you'd actually want to do any of those things in some circumstances, and the classes haven't completely caught up with those stats actually being worth something immediate in a fight.

I tried not to be just a bash ap tried different tactics like crippling strike. It is practicaly impossible to land crippling strikes on a lot of these higher dex classes. And with the gradual reduction of the redux of ABS, going up against a dagger spec ive got about 5 rounds of combat before I gotta get out. I tried enervating spirits thinkin well a lot of them also use shields maybe that will be an option but it doesnt seem to do a heck of a lot in combat, not to mention spending 100 mana for a spell that lasts 5 ticks is ridiculous.
Its not fair to bring Hansolo to this discussion. Yes he is a beast, but is he to fire warriors what cabdru was to fire aps. You are gonna do what you are gonna do, im not gonna ever try and change your mind. Ask yourself this though, how many succesful axe specs are in the game? How many succesful fire aps? But you like you said if you don't think its broken, well thats fine I just wont play that class/race combo and we will both be happy. :)

Much love

Guy's easy AP dex killing equation.
High Dex = Low hp = Iceball spam FTW
if spellbane = flee
*For the uncool, that means For the Win*

The crippling strike situation isn't all that dire. If you really need this skill, you might need to make peace with being a mace-primary A-P, though. (See: Nuloh.)

I'm sure we're seeing a lot of successful high dex warriors right now, but I think you also have to think about the years-long period before this in which high dex warriors really weren't very good. I can't tell you how many times I really felt like playing high-dex human warrior or arial sword or whatever and just had to admit to myself... this really isn't very good and made a giant instead.

Much like there's always a run on a new class or cabal from the novelty factor, there's got to be a novelty factor on playing a subset of a class that's suddenly not terrible for the first time in years.

Any how I don't think aps suck I think they are pretty well balanced still. But if I were to do another fire ap I would never level past 40 without atleast 2 controls under my belt. That was the key.. controls would have fixed all the other issues.

I think if you're an Empire or Scion A-P, that makes a lot of sense. At least getting a good head start into it.

An uncaballed or Tribunal A-P can probably pick and choose their fights a little better and doesn't need them as badly to win a lot of the kinds of fights you'd really want them for.

I never really thought I'd see an imm comign this close to advocating level sitting.

Sure, if I played an ap, I'd try to level sit at a lower level and work charges, mostly because the number of targets out taking chances would be higher. But I thought that kind of attitude was frowned on by the imm staff, which seems to have always pushed the "if you aren't actively trying to level to hero, you are just a power gamer"

>But I thought that kind of
>attitude was frowned on by the imm staff, which seems to have
>always pushed the "if you aren't actively trying to level to
>hero, you are just a power gamer"

I don't like characters meant to sit at a sub-hero-PK level for the rest of their lives. I think it's possible to not be in a rush to level to hero and still not be that.

Thanks for replying. This takes a load off my shoulders, and probably opens up the kinds of characters I'd be willing to play.

I would suggest that you are doing something wrong with crippling strike. For starters, did you think to experiment with changing your size both up and down and see what effect it had on success rates?

I think that's my complaint too. I have no problem gearing for dex to avoid getting malediction. If I'm playing a polearm spec warrior for example that has no options to maledict dex, so I can't even hit people anymore but before I relied on the fact that most classes didn't know the weapon.
They even evade my special attacks. I thought polearm spec's were crappy before, but now you can't even hit an assassin who doesn't even know the weapon and then he can evade your chops and laugh at you.

Until you boneshatter/whirl.

Do that, and they won't dodge much, nor will they evade much. They just won't die to pure bash spam any more (as often).