Tue Jun 9 09:22:53 2009

At 6 o'clock AM, Day of Thunder, 3rd of the Month of the Winter Wolf
on the Theran calendar Dhurzoth perished, never to return.

Race:	arial
Class:	invoker
Level:	47
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	SCION, the Scions of Eternal Night
Age:	36
Hours:	220

has come to an end.

Not sure what to say about this dude. I was very excited to play the "walking engine of death" class. Gave an honest shot at playing an evil.

I feel I was successful in that I was able to get almost all my spells (was 7 path. Never got above pebble in earth, though), won an RC (thank you, Daevryn and Raybaer!) and got my first Scion induction.

I feel I was very unsuccessful in never getting pebble and the later earth spells mastered, in generally acting/rping an evil, pk, and finding my wands.

Writing the role was fun, and I was able to get an interaction with Daevryn, which was very encouraging. Interacting with Ikanu was the other set of enjoyable/memorable interactions with this character.

Where the character fell apart, for me, was dying all over the place. I diligently searched for my wands, and found only aura. Aura was a LIFESAVER, and I would have deleted much, much earlier without it. I tried out the whole "chill out at lower levels, get some pks, learn your class, grow into your character" while waiting for an imm induction into then-leaderless Scion (which did not really take very much time, all things considered. Thank you for that, whichever imm that was. I'm also curious if you were/are going to reveal yourself at some point, or if it was just a "personal" deity). This did not really work: all I did was flee from ragers after a few brief rounds, and mob-die. The main thing I learned while searching for my wands was:

"Do not stick around for just one more nova. Flee, word, and heal up, or give up trying to kill the mob."

I died many, many times to my ignorance of this lesson. I'd like to echo The Forsaken here: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=25077&mesg_id=25081&page=

I think he succinctly hits the nail on the head. Just come out and say "don't play mages as a newbie and if you do, race to hero" if that's what the design is going to boil down to. Rp'ing for empowerment (as a counterpoint) is something that is easily learned through effort, experience and (most importantly) the FEEDBACK you get. Wands, not so much.

I feel this character was mostly a failure rp/pk-wise since I could never live up to his aspirations of being a masterful, powerful, deathful, feared mage as his role dictated. I have a hard time attacking random people that haven't provoked me, without a clear role reason. Therefore, I fought mostly ragers (surprising!) and the odd Fortie. Mostly everyone mopped the floor with me. When, during my last retrieval, Dierj said "oh, it's only <this rager> defending", and the guy ended up killing me twice that session, I knew it was time to pull the plug.

Invokers are obviously a super-strong class. I don't think I was able to build up the hp set (or reliably keep despoil up) to make my natural damredux + aura viable for winning most fights, and most enemies appeared to wear decent -svs gear to save them from taking the truly big hits. I will do many things differently and fight far more intelligently (like not always pillaring my nightwalker and tiger-shfiter cabalmates) with my next invoker.

I still don't understand most angles of approaching evil rp farther than: be a cockbag to everyone you can get away with pissing off, grudgingly/openly/secretly respect the people that can kick your ass or hold power over you, and screw people over if it helps you (barring beliefs or routines your character must stick to). Perhaps I'm too much of a softie at heart to truly play an evil, but I will try again, sometime.

/end grousing

Goodbyes:

Scion- good luck, guys. I'm sure a competent invoker would have been a huge help. Sorry I couldn't fill that role. Go kick some Villager ass!

Ikanu- Dhurzoth's one friend. We had quite a long history, and it was quite a blow to see you go, although I resolved in spite of it to not delete. Thanks for the ranking, the good times, and the encouragement.

Daevryn- thanks for the RC rewards and the cursory talk/xp/watching. I'll be back with a successful follower sooner than later.

Oh, and thanks to my enemies: I was barely ever looted of ANYTHING. Granted, I usually had nothing desireable, but thank you very much for being classy enough not to take my #### just to sell/give to Tahren/toss in your cabal pit and forget about. That courtesy undoubtedly contributed to extending the lifespan of this character.

If anybody has tips or general musings on roleplaying evil, or playing invokers, I would love to hear them.

Usually I don't stand a chance against Scion invokers (other invokers are just fine though) with my chars. But I usually felt like I had a shot at you. I think I got you twice, and you got me once. And I did get a creepy evil vibe from you. :D

Good luck with your next!

You were my main Fort opponent. I was pretty pleased with myself when I got you in the desert, since your legacy put me under lots of pressure. I know I wasn't half as scary as a good Scion voker, though I tried. Hopefully next time I'll have some barrier or other knowledge to bring to bear.

Congrats on getting Marshall. Good luck with it.

Man, I was stuck in your pk range, but without the ability to see through your improved invis, for quite a long time. It was slightly nerve-wracking. The time you snickered at me after you realized I couldn't see you, then walked away made me both laugh and shake my fist. :P

Invoker vs storm shaman is a very, very poor matchup for the invoker, particularly given that I had an ancient white dragon hide for most of my life, but you were game more than a few times. Good luck with your next!

Aarn (Eolin)

I was dreading having you around, to be perfectly honest. Someone hell-bent on dispelling you seems like an invoker's bane. Then add no vulns and lots of resists and e-drain... eww.

Cheers, man.

Always liked Dhurzoth, and I was glad to be able to help you out. I guess between making Mizheng hate life, multi-killing n00bs, and being otherwise uninteresting I did something right when it came to you.

You take it easy.

I didnt really get to rp much with you. Was mostly trying not to die. :P I've seen you with a few other charaters. From those I know you are usually good in the RP department. Dont die to the dwarves! It was fun at any rate. I dont think I saved the logs though.

Good luck with the next.

Haha, yes, it was you. It wasn't a dig against you at all.

Definitely good fights. Felt like a complete fool when you got me with the wrong greater shield up, and then the next time you deathblowed me down. Doh! Fair, fun fights, though. Keep up the good work.

Edit: just saw you deleted. Good luck with your next, in that case! :P

>Daevryn- thanks for the RC rewards and the cursory
>talk/xp/watching. I'll be back with a successful follower
>sooner than later.

I'll look forward to it.

I really liked Dhurzoth's role and his take on Daevrynism, such as it was. I had high hopes for you and it seemed like you really just struggled to get things going mechanically.

With regards to playing the invoker class:

Trying to take your time and PK at the low levels I still stand by as a good idea; where you may have gone wrong is trying to start out too early fighting Battle. That's like the advanced class of lowbie invokerdom. It's doable, but seeing some of the fights you picked it felt to me like you were trying to run before you'd really figured out walking. (That's possibly a bad analogy -- in some ways killing Battle is easier than other people as an invoker, in some ways it's harder, but generally it is different.) I understand given the role you picked why you'd roll that way, but I don't think it's really conducive to getting a feel for the class.

In that respect, you almost might even do better with something like a Maran or Outlander style invoker, something that has a pretty specific enemies list that isn't Battle.

A bit of more specific advice: Given the kinds of allies you had with Dhurzoth, I would have tried a lot harder not to tank in raids and other group vs. group fights. Maybe that means you let the guys who can take more of a beating go in first and give them a few rounds head start. Maybe that means you lead with a spell like wind wall that can blind and make redirecting problematic. Maybe that means you put some of the room trap type spells nearby and try to flee into/through them to split up your attackers if they're really trying to focus on you. Maybe you bust out an actual blindness staff. Being the soft target among wanded/despoiled defensive-ish form shifters isn't the end of the world, but you've got to make people work harder to pound on you in that case.

On lack of shield and barrier: don't forget that you can supplement your class-based DR with protection and stone skin as non-mage characters often do. (These are both things, as I assume you know, that you can in some form buy without venturing outside Tribunal-protected cities.) Also don't forget that lacking much class-based DR also means you can heal quickly/easily; at higher levels especially, gold should be pretty easy for an invoker to come by. Being able to heal quick and get back in there isn't necessarily better than just being able to flat out take the damage, but it's not always terrible either.

Invoker greater shields: They're all good for something, but it mostly seemed like you gravitated towards one or two even in cases where one of the others could have served you a lot better.

thanks very, very much. I'll definitely keep these in mind with the next one. And I definitely won't be pillaring my tiger cabalmates and my own nightwalker every chance I get >.<

Re: Fighting Battle- I totally agree that I wasn't ready to face most of them. However, I have a hard time attacking random neutrals (for example) that look like easy pickings when he/she hasn't pissed me off at all. Also, even though they were a bad matchup, fighting Battle often seemed to be the easier fight for me since I could count on getting a one-on-one fight with them (I tried to stay away from ret virtued wrath/LoH plus landslide lag, or ganklich parties), could actually find them, and they would stick around. Long story short, I need to work on evaluating my enemies and even more on my hunting skills.

And greater shields- I often ran around with fire up to deter thieves and assassins, and if not fire either lightning or air. Apart from one death I remember getting lagged hard by Marsen's cranials when I wasn't expecting a fight (much less a mace spec), I don't think I needed much protection from pincer or bearcharge or snare or what have you. Unless you're hinting that one of them might help vs driving warrior opponents...

Thanks for taking the time to respond and give your input. It's very much appreciated!