Thu Jul 30 05:23:55 2009

At 1 o'clock PM, Day of the Sun, 13th of the Month of Nature
on the Theran calendar Elenia perished, never to return.

Race:	elf
Class:	transmuter
Level:	51
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	FORTRESS, the Fortress of Light
Age:	387
Hours:	143

Sorry everyone! This has got to be the biggest gaffe, ever.

I made Elenia with the intention of making her my next char after Humbert (I'm Humbert's player! Hi Arrna! Was weird talking to you as Squire to Marshall when you were Humbert's wife :P). BUT I predicted the age death would come at 600 hours, not 720! So I was intending to find all my sleeks, age-die humbert, then rank to hero with Elenia. Sadly... Humbert didn't age-die as I thought he would, so I ended up compromising both chars.

THE INFAMOUS WAND RANT (or lack thereof): I shouldn't be complaining because other people have it far, far worse. I've compiled a personal list of wand locations that include probably 30-40+ locations for the sleek rods, and I've searched nearly all of them, and found only my amber. However, I found it relatively easy to maintain ABS all the time whenever needed using limited wands. Shield was disgustingly easy, especially after the addition of the shield spell to mages. Amber's sleek I had, and even the limited wands were easy. Barrier was somewhat hard but offset by transmuter's duo dimension ability. Other wand locations I was aware of were hard to get without a group, so I didn't bother. I didn't need to. Also, being Fort and having access to sanctuary often helped a lot. However, I really really think the staff needs to make wands easier, or pretty much the only people who can excel with mages at hero-level cabal war play would be the truly experienced ones. If this is intended, the beginning rolling screen should state: ONLY EXPERIENCED PLAYERS SHOULD CHOOSE TO PLAY MAGE CHARACTERS, AS THEY RELY HEAVILY ON KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD. I would argue that they are harder than empowerment characters. Roleplay is something that can be learnt relatively quickly, but wand locations are not. My preferred solution, however (Staff please read!), would be:

Make detect artifact available to all classes, mages get it super early (like 25) and everyone else 51. Make it automatic to all mage classes without the need for quest. Make it fire with 100% reliability when you find a wand spot (if you want to make it harder, when you search any container in a room). Also, make it tell you all locations which are not your own but are potential sleek locations. If this makes it too easy, I understand if it is toned down. I really do feel that anyone who puts in the effort to explore ought to be rewarded with the wand locations. It is not as if one cannot run away from a full ABS mage. I'd argue that a decked warrior (having played one) is far, far more deadly than a decked mage. Warrior racks up huge kill counts.

TRANSMUTER class: Very very powerful, like a magical assassin. The problem was the huge mana costs on so many spells (invoker can kill with 3 spells using less than 200 mana, transmuters need to use 500-800 for an easy kill), and the huge time wasted when prepping for killing. I've missed many kills because I've had to quicken from slow, accelerate, adrenal burst, spiderhands, vis duo, zap aura/shield/barrier, etc. By the time 2 ticks pass, sometimes the foe is not in an ideal position. Also, the danger of overprepping scares the enemy away. This is less of a danger for neuro spamming transmuters, but to be honest neuro spam hasn't gotten me all that many kills. I think Elenia's PK ratio in the end was like 17-4 or something. Transmuters are powerful, but they just aren't ever-ready killers like good warrior specs are. They need deliberation and care to land a kill. Do keep in mind however that I spent a LOT of time exploring/finding wands.

To BAERINIKA: Sorry about all the failure in following your religion, this is my first serious try at a transmuter and the need for prepping/high hp was somewhat disconcerting. I was confident that I could earn your approval/tattoo sooner or later, but that'd take some time getting into the groove of transmuter PK. While I'd love to have continued with Elenia, I think I've played too many goodies. I'll get back soon!

To ARRNA: Your overly-strict rules for Fortress are great. There should be some 'discouraging' factor in joining the Fort, since pretty much all goodies benefit from joining the Fort and get very little penalty in terms of roleplay restrictions, unless they are conjurers or something.

For ALLIES: I hope you've all seen how crazy good a transmuter is to have with you! You have Dargin now and from what I've seen he's very capable :)

For ENEMIES: Sorry for the nasty neuro kills, but I really did try not to loot or trashtalk.

On ROLEPLAY: Elenia had a very nice role I wanted to play out to the end, but it was not to be. I got 2000 exp for the starting with a neat echo I've never seen before ('role is of exceptional quality' etc). Thanks for the confidence in the role, I'm sorry so much of my time was soaked up exploring. Elenia is intellectually overdeveloped (even for an elf), pretty much a know-it-all, and generally kind, but careless in speech and somewhat rude (brought up by dwarf mum). She has terribly bad social skills and offends people easily. She doesn't know when she offends people. She is somewhat socially autistic. She is a closet warrior-wannabe, but had zero talent in fighting. Therefore she's usually subconsciously jealous of talented warriors and joined the transmuter school in order to magically turn herself into a good fighter.

I was really sorry I couldn't try out the power of the combo to its full potential, considering there was a time when I had near 1000 hp unbuffed, eagle inscribed staff, full ABS etc. It was easily a brutal setup that could kill alone, but probably even more disgusting in a group.

To Frismund - Well done on the kill, I was stupid to have accelerate up and low moves (that was what killed me). Carry Scion to greater heights of power!

I'll come back with another mage one day!

Thanks for compliment, but I still dont get why you deleted.

If that was because of wands, ah, pity. But you should ask me, we'd find you yours.

Will you buy your PBF?

Sorry no played too little and I'm embarrassed about the comments! I'm sure I have ####ty comments from all the wand exploration trips and soo little time spent killing/hunting/maraning :(

Serious badass.

Seriously, why did you delete? I had A LOT of fun with you really! And I was really sad when you logged on less and less. (Though I saw more of Humbert, but didn't realize why. hahaha!) And I was ever more saddened when I heard you were gone. :(

I remember stuff over CB like (I'm getting the codex, don't come, I want to fight this and that one alone) Really made me happy to see as so many of the fortress wants to go in big groups etc... (Yes, I'm often in big groups myself... Unfortunatly, I have my reasons...)

Now get back into the game and kickass again!

I knew it was you, Humbert and Elenia!

I liked you both! We traveled with Elenia a lot, I had a lot of fun running with you, and your recall was incredible at the mountains, you saved my ass couple times.

Sad that you delete, but good luck with next.

Kinda sucks... Though you seemed to have less and less time to play. A shame, I liked your RP and hanging around with you. :(

Hope you find something else to play.