Having recently played Surthurr, not to mention the 81 million ragers before him, I've been thinking about ragers and their structure, and how they go about achieving their goals. I have been around since before the split to the three paths, and during each of the various adjustments to bloodthirst, played lots of different types of ragers, blah blah blah. You know who I am. So I'm not speaking in a vacuum.

The biggest problem with being a battlerager now is what I like to call feast or famine. I think most rager players, including myself, want good stand up one on one fights. But we - or at least rager berserkers - rarely if ever get those. Why? The answers to that are the real issues. I will address them, and admit up front that I'm not sure of the answers. But perhaps as a group we can come up with some.

Here they are: (1) Rager powers are both underpowered and overpowered. Yes, that's right, I'll say it again: rager powers are both underpowered and overpowered. (2) Rager powers are make-ups for lacking magic, but not necessarily best for actually killing mages.

Divisions by level, class and rager path are very important for this discussion, so I will try to sort that way.

Berserkers

Up to level 35 or so, Berserker powers are generally more than the lone enemy can handle. Many berserker rager kills at these levels are what might be called "kills of coincidence", meaning the berserker catches an enemy unaware or off guard. This is true because most people at those levels just won't fight a berserker alone. Which most ragers find enormously frustrating. (Which is not to say that you should fight a berserker alone, but right or wrong, that's what the berserker wants.) Do note however that deathblow is not the same at lower levels as it is at higher levels. It is a gradual increase of strength as you level up, so a level 27 antipaladin is not facing the 4x or 5x db that a hero might be. Still, it's a powerful ability, no one suggests otherwise, especially at these levels, especially when combined with resist which gives the rager access to dam redux that, at these levels, most players won't have.

After level 40 or so however, Berserker powers are generally less than necessary to handle his enemies. Why? Because by hero, most of the winnowing of newbies or the unskilled has been done and the players are those who have almost constant access to dam redux and other preps. A berserker fighting an invoker with barrier plus shields plus either aura or shield (or both) will be doing very little damage. And will only spellbane area spells when thirsting, meaning three or four ticks after thirsting, he is literally area spell meat. Or a shifter with barrier and the other dam redux options. Again, most berserkers (alone) will not be able to deal out enough damage to win in a straight up fight - which is the fight a rager berserker wants. I can point you to dozens of logs where the deathblow hits for EVISCERATE or MASSACRE or, sometimes, even lower case dam. That's the deathblow. Injures and the like for regular melee hits.

This goes double for the prepped warrior, or warrior with backup. A warrior with haste and shields and sanctuary or some other combo, is oftentimes going to not only out damage the rager, but because he is a melee class, will be able to parry/dodge/spin/distance/etc. the very deathblows that a rager needs to compensate. Obviously not all non-rager melee players will have all this all the time, but as most of them are part of cabals - the scion fire giant warrior, the empire duerg warrior, the fortress storm warrior, the list goes on - they will have a pretty reliable stream of assistance for all this.

So in the end, for berserkers, we have a group that gets somewhat more than it needs to start, but less than it needs to finish. And unlike the rest of the player base, it cannot combine it's powers with its cabal mates to improve. Berserkers are required to fight alone when they can. Few if any in the entire game must live with that restriction, and of course most people take advantage of it and gang the berserker. That's a problem.

Scouts

The scouts are what got me thinking about this in the first place. Mostly because scouts, despite the name, are not really any better at scouting than anyone else. Discern is the one thing they have that smacks of scouting, but that's about it. This got me thinking about the biggest problem most ragers have, namely, finding mages to fight. I think scouts should have some sort of real tracking ability. Something to actually let them hunt mages. Every other cabal has the ability to find people in several ways, be it the obvious, such as an air major shifter, or a gating healer, or a corpse-sight necro, or whatever. Only ragers really lack any ability (cabal or class) to actually go find their enemies. And, even worse, they are the only cabal that cannot use magical transportation, so when they do go looking, they have to walk not only all the way there, but all the way back. Try it sometime. It defintely takes some fun out of the game having to walk back from Aturi or Octagonal or other far away places that you need to check.

I do think that scout powers are actually better in many ways than Berserker - critical hit for all those barrier types is great - but as the rest of the player base doesn't much care about such differences, it gangs scouts, defenders and berserkers equally. In any event, scout powers could do with a change to make them more like scouts. Without losing their ability to actually fight of course, they are still ragers and still supposed to do killing themselves. Not an easy problem, I know. But there nonetheless.

Defenders

Again, like scouts, they do not have anything which makes them overpowered, either at lower levels or higher. And as some famous defenders have shown (Jinroh among others) they can be very successful, even without any way at all to avoid area spells. The problem of course is that defenders are made to work in concert with other characters, like healers. But the village prides individual battles. The whole idea of splitting the village into three paths was great, but it is hamstrung by the competing directive to fight your own battles. Being an army with different soldiers of different abilities, that together make up a full set, is great, unless (as here) you are not allowed to actually work together to use all those abilities except in rare (raiding) situations. This makes things frustrating for all sides.


Having said all that, I think the problems can be put simply in this way:

1 - Ragers need something to help them actually find and get to their enemies. Everyone else has something that lets them do that - shifters, healers, necros, justiciar/vindy powers, etc. - but not ragers. The one thing that makes being a rager (at higher levels especially) frustrating is the fact that most fights are when your enemy wants. They can come and go and find you when they please. You, the rager, cannot. Personally, I think this would be something for scouts, but that's just an opinion.

2 - Berserker powers are somewhat too strong early on, and not strong enough later on. As db is already a graduated power, I can only think that perhaps resistance might need to be as well. But again, the problem here is that everyone else pretty much gangs the berserker, while the berserker pretty much always fights alone. He therefore needs the dam redux because he's taking damage from two or three people, whereas his enemy can switch it up and essentially have two or three people's worth of hp to use up when fighting. It's a hard issue. The only solution I can think of is to essentially make surrounding the sunrise a rager power. Then you could also reduce the power of resist at the start. Make ragers get those one on one fights they always want, but without as much of the power that they currently have.

3 - Figure out a way to let the paths work in concert, as seems intended. Ragers lead perhaps the most rp-handicapped roles in the game, berserkers especially, because they are required to hunt and fight alone. If you let them fight with their cabal mates, that would make it a much more fun expereience for them, and if you reduce some of the power, that would make it less likely to frustrate their enemies.

Thus ends the rambling. Mostly started because I think scouts aren't really scouts, and because I think at hero a berserker is actually one of the weaker characters out there.

Your problem is as follows :

1) You're a skilled player. As a skilled player, you actually want to find mages in Trothon and such, and go kill them. Many other ragers DON'T and the reason isn't because they don't want to be bothered, its because they don't want to stray too far from home. A tracking ability wouldn't help this.

2) Your assumption is that ragers usually work alone. High end, skilled ragers like yourself do, just as high end, skilled Scions, Maran, Imperials, Scarabs, Tribunals, and Outlanders do. Many do not. I in fact have logs of ragers telling me that if I want to fight them I have to raid them (with 4 ragers inside, when I'm alone). I've posted these logs in the past, and got summarily whined at, since I guess its char assassination when someone acts like a wuss and you show them doing it.

3) You confuse hero decked perma-prepped Cerunnir/Xanthrailles-esque invokers with the entirety of hero magedom, and simultaneously feel like you should just be able to stand toe to toe with these people without considering other options such as letting their wands wear off.

4) You make the assumption that every skilled non-rager warrior wants to horde 15 haste, stoneskin, aura, shield and etc sources on them at all times, and wants to use these in every fight so that they can spend all day prepping, and if they use these things you can't just flee until they wear off.

5) You make the assumption that if someone black shrouds before dueling you, you have to sit there like an asshole and die.

I had made a longer, more drawn out response below your response to Mek, but it poofed on me because my session timed out so, this is just a basic summary of my feelings. If anything, rager powers themselves lend to skill less victories and I personally don't like that. Especially since, for some reason, Scion and other cabals make you figure out your own powers via constant trial and error until you stumble upon how to make them work well.

The never-defending/never-fight-alone mentality is everywhere, in every cabal, and upping ragers powers isn't going to fix it and will just screw over magistrates trying to become vindicators by hunting wanted ragers just that much more.

Ragers may have roleplay that limits tactics, but in practice (including my own ragers) they use a tiny subset of what they have available. This leads to many many (mostly against the unskilled/unprepared/outclassed) victories, and subsequently contributes to them never branching out. I don't think rager powers are out of whack, but I do think ragers have it a whole lot easier tha most people think. Also, because at this point it is becoming obligatory.... Ragers in practice have it 10x easier than Outlanders.

As an example of my own stupid ruttyness while playing a rager.... I had a rager assassin.... I kicked much ass, but couldn't keep from getting my ass handed to me by a svirf axe warrior. The only victory against him I had was one where he stuck around after a wrist breaking kote. Oddly enough, it wasn't until after this win that it occured to me that standing there and letting him pincer me wasn't neccessarily a good idea (sort of like him fighting me with one axe wasn't), and running away to try and get first strike/breaking kote might be a good idea.... Chances are we both would have ended up running away from each other based around the first couple of commands in a fight, but then I could have assassinated him (which also never really occured to me).

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Maybe I'm missing it, but I just don't really see Ragers getting completely owned at hero ranks, berserkers or otherwise. They still win on a regular basis, that seems to be on par with how often everyone else wins.

I checked the pk ratios of every Rager in hero range, and with one exception, all of them have better then 50% pk ratios. This can absolutely NOT be said for, say, the Fortress heros. Or the Tribunal heros. Or the Outlander heros. Or the... well, you get the idea. That said, Ragers have ALWAYS died more then non-rager characters... it's like part of being in the club, mainly due to not having word or teleport, and general balls-to-the-wall roleplay. I know when I think "Rager character", I think "Kill a lot, die a lot." I just don't see any real disparity at hero range.

Now, I do personally feel that scouts are lacking something when compared to berserkers and defenders. Not a ton, mind you, but something. We've discussed this amongst ourselves in the recent past and fielded several ideas. When/If there will be any movement on this is hard to say, but it has come up. I'm not sure adding a tracking skill is the answer, but I also don't think it would break things as much as Mek indicates.

Aarn!

Thanks for the response. Appreciated.

However, I do not think you are making the proper comparison. Rather than look at general pk ratios of ragers in hero range, look at pk ratios of ragers in hero range from pre-level 35 or 40 and then post level 35/40. I think you'll find that for most of the hero range ragers, they had a very big win/loss ratio for the first 35/40 levels, and then a demonstrable reduction in ratio for the later levels. I think for Surthurr I went about 45-2 from levels 11-40, and then 20-20 after that, or something along those lines. And I am not entirely unskilled. I suspect if you look at all ragers (who even make it to hero range, which of course is only a subset of ragers) in the hero range, you'll find something similar or worse. And that supports my point, that early on they (mostly berserkers) are somewhat too strong and that later on they are somewhat not strong enough.

Part of the problem is that the perceived too strongness carries over into the higher levels and so they just gang the rager. So the rager needs to be too strong because he's facing too many foes. The trick then (and I admit I don't necessarily have the answer) is to find a way to reduce rager strength enough to let people not just run away or gang them, but at the same time let them be strong enough to do the big time killing they want. Something like surrounding the sunrise or some other way to keep their fights even less gang-y would be helpful, so long as there is a simultaneous reduction in general power I suppose. Tricky.

Alright, I'll take a couple samples. This is from random high-level Ragers, four berserkers and one defender.

Rager1:
12-10 upon reaching level 40
20-21 upon reaching level 51
53-28 now

Rager2:
6-0 upon reaching level 40
17-15 upon reaching level 51
51-37 now

Rager3:
42-1 upon reaching level 40
51-8 now (not yet hero)

Rager4:
15-1 upon reaching level 40
17-3 now (not yet hero)

Rager5:
16-7 upon reaching level 40
23-20 upon reaching level 51
34-27 now

Feel free to analyze that. I've just glanced it over, and I'm not seeing any particular pattern that indicates a huge crash at hero level. Rager1 (a berserker) has gone 33-7 since he herod, while going 20-21 before that. That goes completely against your theory. Rager2 obviously had it rough in the 40s, but seems to have gone to town since making hero. The only one that really seems to remotely fit your mold is Rager5, who has gone 11-7 since hero - still not too shabby. Rager3 was obviously a killing monster pre-40, then tapered off slightly post-40, but you can still hardly complain about what he has so far. He also doesn't have much time post-40 yet, being a non-hero.

Also, a cursory glance of non-battle heros shows that nearly everyones pk ratio seems to taper off as they hit hero. It's just easier for everyone to kick ass at low ranks, warrior-types in particular.

I would have taken a bigger sampling, but there aren't all that many Ragers in hero range right now, and I didn't want to use every one of them for the sake of keeping this anonymous. So, there you have what I've got.

Well, to some extent I am surprised, certainly. But I suppose what these don't show are the hours. (Not suggesting you go do any more research.) With Vershelt for example, (and by the way, I just discovered that you guys no longer have past premium battlefield posts up, just one page, that's disappointing) I recall having a good bit of kills, say 75 or 80, in the first 100 or 150 hours, and then the other 75 or 80 kills in the next four hundred hours.

I can't argue and don't have access to the statistics that you do. Despite the small random display here (which I agree, do not help me) I think that if you look not only at the ratios but the hours at those levels, and whatever other factors come in, it's not wrong to say that ragers do much better early on than later on. And that's been my not inconsequential anecdotal experience as well, over time. For what it's worth.

I would be more convinced by other rager players who have played ragers to hero (especially berserkers) who would support the position you make by these limited statistics. If I am alone among hero rager players in thinking that berserkers get far more kills early and far less late, and particularly against their actual enemies, mages, then so be it. But I haven't heard that from any rager players.

And by the way, have a great vacation. Try not to stay only on the big island, the others have much to offer. Bring me back some shells.

They may be weak at hero, but on the other hand they don't have to waste all that time gathering preps. As a mage I would definitely trade wands/staves/scrolls for a 30-40% dam redux spell. But that's probably just me, and I hate spending time gathering preps more than most people. The point is, what you trade for being vastly superior to an unprepped character is being somewhat weaker than a heavily-prepped character. Though the difference between an unprepped character vs a rager is greater than the differenbece between a rager and a prepper character.

>Here they are: (1) Rager powers are both underpowered and
>overpowered. Yes, that's right, I'll say it again: rager
>powers are both underpowered and overpowered.

Well, right there I have to disagree. At no point are rager
powers underpowered. Sure, they may seem to do less at the higher
levels, but that's because the enemies of ragers are finally coming
into their own and some kind of equilibrium is being achieved. I know,
it's hard to agree with the notion of "equilibrium" when you think of
a fully prepped invoker, but look at it this way: everyone else is
having just as much (or more) trouble than the rager when they're
trying to fight that. And also, there are plenty of invokers who get
to the hero ranks and get schooled...it's the rare "badass invoker"
that's the problem. Doesn't that apply to everything, though?


>(2) Rager powers are make-ups for lacking magic, but not
>necessarily best for actually killing mages.

Here, I kinda agree. I mean, non-mages definitely take more of a
waxing from ragers in the grand scheme of things. I think, however,
that it might be because the mages know when to get the F out, and the
non-mages have a harder time doing just that.



>Berserkers
>
>Up to level 35 or so, Berserker powers are generally more than
>the lone enemy can handle. Many berserker rager kills at
>these levels are what might be called "kills of coincidence",
>meaning the berserker catches an enemy unaware or off guard.
>This is true because most people at those levels just won't
>fight a berserker alone. Which most ragers find enormously
>frustrating. (Which is not to say that you should fight a
>berserker alone, but right or wrong, that's what the berserker
>wants.) Do note however that deathblow is not the same at
>lower levels as it is at higher levels. It is a gradual
>increase of strength as you level up, so a level 27
>antipaladin is not facing the 4x or 5x db that a hero might
>be. Still, it's a powerful ability, no one suggests
>otherwise, especially at these levels, especially when
>combined with resist which gives the rager access to dam redux
>that, at these levels, most players won't have.

Up above you were saying that ragers are overpowered early on, and
underpowered later on. But the fact that deathblow becomes more
powerful at the high levels is there to compensate for mages getting
more access to those pesky preps. Here's one answer: take away
deathblow and give all ragers critical hit. That way they have
to choose to use it over a spec ability (which I see as one of the
major annoyances of deathblow), and it's always going to be potent.


>A berserker fighting an invoker with barrier plus shields plus
>either aura or shield (or both) will be doing very little damage.
>And will only spellbane area spells when thirsting, meaning three
>or four ticks after thirsting, he is literally area spell meat.

Ok, what about every non-rager in the game? Either they are using up
precious preps, relying on another class (such as a healer) to protect
them, or are (and this is the most realistic scenario) taking those
area spells right on the chin without any damage reduction, and
without even the slightest possibility of evading the spell as a rager
might. And you're also excluding the skills of rager-friendly classes
as well. Thieves can jack them, assassins can silence them, warriors
(who are all apparently born with WHIPS instead of SWORDS in their
hands) can do all sorts of #### to them, and I'm not even going to get
into how much bards can boost the ability of a group of ragers.


>This goes double for the prepped warrior, or warrior with
>backup. A warrior with haste and shields and sanctuary or
>some other combo, is oftentimes going to not only out damage
>the rager, but because he is a melee class, will be able to
>parry/dodge/spin/distance/etc. the very deathblows that a
>rager needs to compensate.

If a warrior has that kind of back-up, I think it's a fair assumption
that the rager can call in HIS back-up (scouts, defenders) to help
out. Sure, it sucks to get Granaak'd(tm) (just messing with you, Gran),
but as with the other stuff I've said...it's happening to everyone,
not just the ragers.


>Obviously not all non-rager melee
>players will have all this all the time, but as most of them
>are part of cabals - the scion fire giant warrior, the empire
>duerg warrior, the fortress storm warrior, the list goes on -
>they will have a pretty reliable stream of assistance for all
>this.

...And they probably should have that kind of assistance. I
mean, the chances of a completely unprepped, unprotected hero warrior
defeating a skilled hero berserker is pretty slim. It's only fair that
they can have some kind of way to get at the ragers.


>So in the end, for berserkers, we have a group that gets
>somewhat more than it needs to start, but less than it needs
>to finish.

I really can't imagine the game if they gave ragers more power. I
think you'd probably see people quit out of spite.


>Scouts
>
>The scouts are what got me thinking about this in the first
>place. Mostly because scouts, despite the name, are not
>really any better at scouting than anyone else. Discern is
>the one thing they have that smacks of scouting, but that's
>about it. This got me thinking about the biggest problem most
>ragers have, namely, finding mages to fight. I think scouts
>should have some sort of real tracking ability. Something to
>actually let them hunt mages.

Kinda cool, but there is a considerable amount of *bad* in there as
well. First, what you're going to see is a paralyzing clench on
ranking when any rager scouts are around, because they are going to
call in the cavalry when they find people trying to do just that. The
cabal might become more of a "surgical strike force," complete with
an intelligence agency (in the form of the scouts), a military (berserkers),
and...medics (duh), rather than a freeking BARBARIAN HORDE!!!
You know what would end up happening? A lot more people would
be spending a lot more time collecting a lot more money so they can
have a lot more potions of return on hand. People wouldn't stay and
fight (especially in the mid-ranks), they'd freeking bolt, and at that
point it'd be hard to find a reason for them not to. I mean,
that's not to say I don't see the heart of the point you're making...
but how can it be worked to be useful and not annoying? I don't know.


>Defenders
>
>Again, like scouts, they do not have anything which makes them
>overpowered, either at lower levels or higher. And as some
>famous defenders have shown (Jinroh among others) they can be
>very successful, even without any way at all to avoid area
>spells. The problem of course is that defenders are made to
>work in concert with other characters, like healers. But the
>village prides individual battles. The whole idea of
>splitting the village into three paths was great, but it is
>hamstrung by the competing directive to fight your own
>battles. Being an army with different soldiers of different
>abilities, that together make up a full set, is great, unless
>(as here) you are not allowed to actually work together to use
>all those abilities except in rare (raiding) situations. This
>makes things frustrating for all sides.

*shrug* Make one kind of Rager again.


>1 - Ragers need something to help them actually find and get
>to their enemies. Everyone else has something that lets them
>do that - shifters, healers, necros, justiciar/vindy powers,
>etc. - but not ragers. The one thing that makes being a rager
>(at higher levels especially) frustrating is the fact that
>most fights are when your enemy wants. They can come and go
>and find you when they please. You, the rager, cannot.
>Personally, I think this would be something for scouts, but
>that's just an opinion.

Well, not to be an ass, but one commonly used solution is to ring the
cabal's front door.


-Mek

I will say..I agreed with just about every point you made.


And btw Mek..I wasnt the only giant sword spec running around with aura..right vershelt? hohoho

>>Here they are: (1) Rager powers are both underpowered
>and
>>overpowered. Yes, that's right, I'll say it again: rager
>>powers are both underpowered and overpowered.
>
>Well, right there I have to disagree. At no point are
>rager
>powers underpowered. Sure, they may seem to do less at the
>higher
>levels, but that's because the enemies of ragers are finally
>coming
>into their own and some kind of equilibrium is being achieved.
>I know,
>it's hard to agree with the notion of "equilibrium" when you
>think of
>a fully prepped invoker, but look at it this way: everyone
>else is
>having just as much (or more) trouble than the rager when
>they're
>trying to fight that. And also, there are plenty of invokers
>who get
>to the hero ranks and get schooled...it's the rare "badass
>invoker"
>that's the problem. Doesn't that apply to everything, though?
>

Actually, I don't think you're right here. Everyone else is not having just as much trouble than the rager when they are trying to fight that. They have a near infinite number of options simply unavailable to the rager. They can get the haste that the rager gets from bloodthirst, but without the drawbacks. And they can also go get those invoker shields themselves, or resists to the invoker powers, or all of the other various preparations available both from their pc friends or from potions/pills/items. And, of course, unlike the rager, they can just go away and not fight. The rager can't teleport or recall away from that invoker. Lastly, of course, everyone else can just send a tell to a friend and gang the invoker. The rager cannot.

I also think the rarity is the invoker (at hero) who is getting schooled with any frequency. Most invokers I have come across (and as a rager I have come across most) have more than just their own shields, they almost certainly have stone skin and barrier, plus a shield or aura, or both.

>
>>(2) Rager powers are make-ups for lacking magic, but not
>>necessarily best for actually killing mages.
>
>Here, I kinda agree. I mean, non-mages definitely take more of
>a
>waxing from ragers in the grand scheme of things. I think,
>however,
>that it might be because the mages know when to get the F out,
>and the
>non-mages have a harder time doing just that.
>
>
>
>>Berserkers
>>
>>Up to level 35 or so, Berserker powers are generally more
>than
>>the lone enemy can handle. Many berserker rager kills at
>>these levels are what might be called "kills of
>coincidence",
>>meaning the berserker catches an enemy unaware or off guard.
>
>>This is true because most people at those levels just won't
>>fight a berserker alone. Which most ragers find enormously
>>frustrating. (Which is not to say that you should fight a
>>berserker alone, but right or wrong, that's what the
>berserker
>>wants.) Do note however that deathblow is not the same at
>>lower levels as it is at higher levels. It is a gradual
>>increase of strength as you level up, so a level 27
>>antipaladin is not facing the 4x or 5x db that a hero might
>>be. Still, it's a powerful ability, no one suggests
>>otherwise, especially at these levels, especially when
>>combined with resist which gives the rager access to dam
>redux
>>that, at these levels, most players won't have.
>
>Up above you were saying that ragers are overpowered early on,
>and
>underpowered later on. But the fact that deathblow becomes
>more
>powerful at the high levels is there to compensate for mages
>getting
>more access to those pesky preps. Here's one answer: take
>away
>deathblow and give all ragers critical hit. That way
>they have
>to choose to use it over a spec ability (which I see as one of
>the
>major annoyances of deathblow), and it's always going to be
>potent.
>

Yes, deathblow does get stronger, but people gain not just more preps, but better preps, and of course have far more hps. They outdistance the increase in deathblow. And remember, most berserker hits are not deathblows. And many of them get parried/dodged/whatever'd. An average berserker thirsting will have a 50-75 damroll (yes, some have more, some have less, gear dependant, how recently killed, etc.). You can see logs of them hitting for lower case damage on all regular hits and even on some (hero level) deathblows. That just seems underwhelming to me, in my experience.

Now, what I might say is deathblow should be changed to criticalblow. (No pun intended.) The thing that makes deathblow good is not so much the big damage, though of course that is great, but the fact that it is automatic.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I like that idea. If you make deathblow into critical blow, it serves two purposes. First, it makes it less helpful against non-mage classes - it will just be a regular hit against a warrior who is not all prepped out with his friend's invoker shields, sanctuary, etc. Thus making non-mages more likely to stand up and fight a rager. Second, it will give the criticalblow a real use against the prepped out mages. A critical blow against a barrier/aura/shield/etc. mage will get the big damage while all the regular melee hits will still be doing lower case or minor damage.

I think this would require a bit of a reduction in the percent likelihood of a deathblow on any given round. If any given melee hit has a 30% chance of being a deathblow currently, I might say that a criticalblow would have a 20% or something like that. But that's just talking out my ass, I would leave that to the pros in immland.

>
>>A berserker fighting an invoker with barrier plus shields
>plus
>>either aura or shield (or both) will be doing very little
>damage.
>>And will only spellbane area spells when thirsting, meaning
>three
>>or four ticks after thirsting, he is literally area spell
>meat.
>
>Ok, what about every non-rager in the game? Either they are
>using up
>precious preps, relying on another class (such as a healer) to
>protect
>them, or are (and this is the most realistic scenario) taking
>those
>area spells right on the chin without any damage reduction,
>and
>without even the slightest possibility of evading the spell as
>a rager
>might. And you're also excluding the skills of rager-friendly
>classes
>as well. Thieves can jack them, assassins can silence them,
>warriors
>(who are all apparently born with WHIPS instead of SWORDS in
>their
>hands) can do all sorts of #### to them, and I'm not even
>going to get
>into how much bards can boost the ability of a group of
>ragers.
>

I think you are sort of arguing my point here. You list all the things a non-rager melee character can do. Which is exactly the point, they can do all those things - plus one you forgot, which is just go away from the prepped up invoker by teleport, word, or some other form of transportation. He *can* get the help of his healer, invoker, transmuter, bard, etc. friends. The rager cannot - except for the generally rare times there is a rager bard, and even then, only to help in preprations, because they cannot gang, and only when they are physically next to eachother, which is not as easy to do as it is for everyone else who can gate/flyto/teleport/recall around. And all those class skills you mention are for anyone, not just rager thieves or warriors or assassins. So I don't see how that changes my analysis.

>
>>This goes double for the prepped warrior, or warrior with
>>backup. A warrior with haste and shields and sanctuary or
>>some other combo, is oftentimes going to not only out damage
>>the rager, but because he is a melee class, will be able to
>>parry/dodge/spin/distance/etc. the very deathblows that a
>>rager needs to compensate.
>
>If a warrior has that kind of back-up, I think it's a fair
>assumption
>that the rager can call in HIS back-up (scouts, defenders) to
>help
>out. Sure, it sucks to get Granaak'd(tm) (just messing with
>you, Gran),
>but as with the other stuff I've said...it's happening to
>everyone,
>not just the ragers.
>

It may be a fair assumption, but it's still a wrong assumption. :P The non-rager gets all that then comes and challenges the berserker. So he is alone. So it's one on one and the rager get's nothing else but himself to fight the guy.

And I was Granaak'd on insofar as I was ganged. The one time we met alone (Vershelt and Graanak) he ran away. Fast. Seeing how much I spanked him, he then tried a rager. Not so good. Oh well. :)

>
>>Obviously not all non-rager melee
>>players will have all this all the time, but as most of them
>>are part of cabals - the scion fire giant warrior, the
>empire
>>duerg warrior, the fortress storm warrior, the list goes on
>-
>>they will have a pretty reliable stream of assistance for
>all
>>this.
>
>...And they probably should have that kind of
>assistance. I
>mean, the chances of a completely unprepped, unprotected hero
>warrior
>defeating a skilled hero berserker is pretty slim. It's only
>fair that
>they can have some kind of way to get at the ragers.
>

You are making an unfair comparison: You have "completely unprepped, unprotected hero warrior" on one side and "skilled hero berserker" on the other. If you want to make the proper comparison, say skilled non-rager warrior on one side and skilled rager berserker on the other, or unskilled on both sides. No one doubts that the unskilled berserker has a big advantage over the unskilled non-berserker, but my point is that the skilled warrior and everyone else for that matter gets the leg up on the berserker at the hero levels, because of how their powers work and the options available to the non-ragers. Even so, my point was that the berserker powers are underwhelming at hero, mostly in respect of fighting mages.

>
>>So in the end, for berserkers, we have a group that gets
>>somewhat more than it needs to start, but less than it needs
>>to finish.
>
>I really can't imagine the game if they gave ragers more
>power. I
>think you'd probably see people quit out of spite.
>

It's not just a general power boost I suggested, but a change in such a manner as to make them better at what they want to do, but not get the easy side kills (or quite as easy. Some, sure. :))

>
>>Scouts
>>
>>The scouts are what got me thinking about this in the first
>>place. Mostly because scouts, despite the name, are not
>>really any better at scouting than anyone else. Discern is
>>the one thing they have that smacks of scouting, but that's
>>about it. This got me thinking about the biggest problem
>most
>>ragers have, namely, finding mages to fight. I think scouts
>>should have some sort of real tracking ability. Something
>to
>>actually let them hunt mages.
>
>Kinda cool, but there is a considerable amount of *bad* in
>there as
>well. First, what you're going to see is a paralyzing clench
>on
>ranking when any rager scouts are around, because they are
>going to
>call in the cavalry when they find people trying to do just
>that. The
>cabal might become more of a "surgical strike force," complete
>with
>an intelligence agency (in the form of the scouts), a military
>(berserkers),
>and...medics (duh), rather than a freeking BARBARIAN
>HORDE!!!
>You know what would end up happening? A lot more people would
>be spending a lot more time collecting a lot more money so
>they can
>have a lot more potions of return on hand. People wouldn't
>stay and
>fight (especially in the mid-ranks), they'd freeking bolt, and
>at that
>point it'd be hard to find a reason for them not to. I
>mean,
>that's not to say I don't see the heart of the point you're
>making...
>but how can it be worked to be useful and not annoying? I
>don't know.
>

A lot of the problem you foresee here stems from thinking the ragers work together. They generally don't. A scout with the power to actually find mages would make the mages and everyone else feel exactly like they already do: that they can be found. Ragers and everyone else feels like they can be found already because of gating healers, air shifters, necro corpse spells, locate object on body parts, the list goes on. Except that all of those methods are unavailable to the rager. The rager is the *only* character who has pretty much no way of finding their enemy other than literally hiking around the whole game. What you see as a clench hold on ranking would in reality just be making ragers have something to make up for what everyone else already has. You would be no more "findable" than you already were, just now you could be found by ragers as well as opposed to everyone else but ragers.
>
>>Defenders
>>
>>Again, like scouts, they do not have anything which makes
>them
>>overpowered, either at lower levels or higher. And as some
>>famous defenders have shown (Jinroh among others) they can
>be
>>very successful, even without any way at all to avoid area
>>spells. The problem of course is that defenders are made to
>>work in concert with other characters, like healers. But
>the
>>village prides individual battles. The whole idea of
>>splitting the village into three paths was great, but it is
>>hamstrung by the competing directive to fight your own
>>battles. Being an army with different soldiers of different
>>abilities, that together make up a full set, is great,
>unless
>>(as here) you are not allowed to actually work together to
>use
>>all those abilities except in rare (raiding) situations.
>This
>>makes things frustrating for all sides.
>
>*shrug* Make one kind of Rager again.
>
>
>>1 - Ragers need something to help them actually find and
>get
>>to their enemies. Everyone else has something that lets
>them
>>do that - shifters, healers, necros, justiciar/vindy powers,
>>etc. - but not ragers. The one thing that makes being a
>rager
>>(at higher levels especially) frustrating is the fact that
>>most fights are when your enemy wants. They can come and go
>>and find you when they please. You, the rager, cannot.
>>Personally, I think this would be something for scouts, but
>>that's just an opinion.
>
>Well, not to be an ass, but one commonly used solution is to
>ring the
>cabal's front door.
>

Trust me, it works far less often than you think. And it brings a gang, not the one on one (or even one on two) fight you want. Often, they just don't show up at all, cabal guard yelling or not. Try it out, you'll see.

>
>-Mek

Thanks for responding. Appreciated.

Such a well thought out and valid point could not possibly have come from Graatch.

You guys really need to bump up security here. Jeeze.

I agree with your assessment.

I'll add that damage reduction has been changed. I take cap damage from non village ragers and we all know what a prep whore I am. Fighting a well geared rager is just an example of frustration. With my last mage I had a rager spellbane 12 spells in a row.

I've faced off against berserkers as a invoker and as a Outlander warrior. So while I've never played a Villager, I can tell you what it looks like from the other side.

As a straight up warrior with similar specs and similar preparation, the berserker wins, hands down. Mainly because of the resist. What it means is that the non-villager must spend time either finding potions or pills or must find a healer, etc.. to provide an equivalent level of protection. That of course does nothing about the deathblow or trophy, or bloodthirst. This means in a cabal war, as long as the village has the head, there is no prep time, no wandering, no looking for allies.

As an invoker, sub-shields, it was just plain sad. Bash, bash, dead. Every single time. Who in their right freaking mind will stand around for that? After shields, it still took time to prep and while the more elite amongst us (not me) may have ready sources of a/b/s, i never did so with my cabal skills and my shields..I still died in straight up, one on one fights.

And I think that would apply across the board for Villagers in a lot of respects. Because of your role limitations AND because of the cabal skills, you spend absolutely zero time working on gathering preps or allies and hence more time hunting and can take advantage on a moments notice when opportunity presents itself. If I'm any other cabal, I have to try and find either gold or barter to aquire things that fall apart, crumble, weigh too much or take too long to use and last too short a time. It's not as easy as you seem to make it sound.

So there are ups and downs to it. You are either hell on wheels or roadkill. I think having a concerted group of enemies would keep you more interested, so besides the Scions, take on Empire and Tribunal, there seem to be a lot of magic users there. Heck, take over Galadon and run all the guilds out of town.

That said, we could all probably benefit from playing other classes and cabals beyond our favorites. As a non-Villager, I think their powers are generally damned strong and hence it's why most of your foes run from you...they know they're very likely to lose unless they gang the crap out of you. The new gang reduction code would likely reduce that some.

The problem with the powers is that they are designed for a small cabal war system. Back in the day, they would fight back and forth during huge drawn out cabal situations. They knew where the mages would be. Since villagers have no real enemies they must fight organizations, ie: Empire, where most of their enemies are non-mages.

Despite what Nepenthe said on my previous post, villagers are indeed having a hard time finding fights. Like you said. Mages dont come looking for them unless overprepped.

Now a days, no mage is going to win agaisnt a villager, unless they overprep for every fight. Please dont point out the log of so and so killing so and so with no preps. I am talking Jinroh, Vershelt type ragers....people that know what they are doing. Using my last shifter water/air as example...I still had to prep for every fight, some villagers I would need to get voker shields on top of my ABS. ANd that was for an 'overpowered' Water form. The villagers can simply walk around with pretty decent damage reduction and special abilities. This creates the powergaming situation for mages. They will simply overprep and tool the villager, or be unprepared and avoid or word out of the fight. Frustrating for the villager and the mage.

My prediction is that if there is a place where villagers know they can find mages (cabal) and vice versa, then the situation will change. And maybe mages dont have to spend so much time gathering preps and can focus more on just fighting...like the good old days.

I'd like you to play high-level Battle for a while. I'd be happy to have this discussion with you after that.

At the moment, we disagree on the basic reality of the current situation and there's really no point.

with what Graatch just said. I remember one of his recent villagers, Vershelt. He played long hours. He found mage fights where he could take them and got criticized for hanging out at the 'fishing holes'. From my recollection and he might disagree, he had a lot of down time between his hunts. Did most mages want to fight him? No. Did most mages avoid him? Yes. In his goodbyes he mentioned this. Heck he is suggesting powers to help villagers FIND MAGES, so maybe that means he too noticed a trend.

I have played hero ranked villagers. I have seen both sides of this. With my mage chars I fight hero villagers almost exclusively. Not sure why you always disagree with suggestions I make. I do talk to alot of CFers...Im not just dillusional. Well not fully.

I know you must still play. What recent hero chars have you played lately? Just curious. Theres gotta be some hero villager in there that I must have had some mix ups with, or I pissed off. Probably one of those tough bastards that I mentioned where you need ABS and voker shields just to survive.

>Not sure why you always disagree with suggestions
>I make.

Heh. Sometimes it's more that I disagree with how you make the suggestions. For example, the roundabout way of asking for a mage cabal by demanding the removal of Battle.

I still play now and again, but my disagreement is most strongly influenced by the time I spend as an Imm. If I hang out and watch Battle for a few hours and see them fighting a lot, dying a lot, and not seeming especially bored, I'm going to disagree with your assertion that they have nothing to do. (Look at Varthas: There's a solid veteran player who, despite completing a con quest, still con died in under 200 hours. You can't look at that character and tell me he had trouble finding action.) If I see a bunch of Rager/necromancer fights and the necromancers win most of them, I'm going to disagree with someone who thinks Battle wins that match-up every time.

By suggesting that you play Battle, I'm mostly suggesting that, as much as possible, you try to get the more balanced perspective on the game. I'm sure you've played Battle at some point, but probably not quite enough to see the full other side of it. Talking to other people gets you that, but only to a point.

Note, I don't entirely disagree with what Graatch is saying, either.

Well the problem is at lower levels they can perma lag mages and kill them in 3 rounds. At higher levels they can't effectively lag mages which means the mages can very easily retreat with teleport or word and have a fair amount of damage reduction. If you want to see more hero level village fighting make it harder for the mages to run when they are not at 100% and with a gang.

That said mages might be more inclined to fight villagers if they stodd some sort of chance solo. Voker and conjies are the only mages that can stand toe to toe with a villager and have a swing fight. Necros and trannies are more or less meat and shifters the battle results should always be the same depending on forms. Spellbane is simply too effective against some mages and not at all against others.

I thought of this some time ago.

Instead of spellbane working as it works now, more mages would be inclined to actually cast in a battle if they knew there was a chance of the targeted spell working. So, no longer would a successful spellbane deflect the spell AND allow numerous strikes, it would have one of three effects.

1. Spellbane fails like normal and the spell lands.

2. Spellbane deflects the spell.

3. Spellbane does not defelct the spell, it lands, but the battlerager gets the free round of combat (1-5 hits or so).

At least with that, there is -some- enticement to casting spells aimed at a villager. Because spellbane is a bummer when every villager has it and you've got no other options as a mage except to gank the poor bastard.

To make a long post short, it's not all as simple as that.

A necromancer will have a hard time landing spells on a Battlerager, but there also is almost no character more ####ed one on one than a successfully slept Battlerager. (There's a lot more in the necromancer arsenal, but that's the simplest counterpoint.)

A transmuter will have a hard time landing spells on a Battlerager, but the Battlerager has no answer for duo. A good disrupt organ on a Battlerager, while often staggeringly hard to land, also would have an extremely high fatality rate. I've seen (non-Battle) characters spend exorbitant amounts of gold at a healer to survive DO. Battle doesn't have that option. (I will concede the point that, playing transmuter vs. Battle I'd be relatively conservative with a majority of fights taking place at the most obnoxiously bad moment for them.)

I may not be the greatest pk'er ever, but I'd like to think I represent the 'moderate' group and I'll say this...in a solo fight, I never fought rager berserkers who could lag me (ie, axe spec, etc) except when I came across them while they were sleeping or in huge gank-fests. Being that spellbane doesn't fire while they are asleep, it was typically an easy win when I could do that, since a lot of ragers apparently don't gear much for saves since they count a lot on spellbane by itself.

That being said, aside from that rare and lucky circumstance, I wouldn't fight them without full ABS and probably stone skin. Is that necessarily a bad thing? No, not by all means, but its certainly the number one worst matchup for a necro that there can possibly be, with (possible) exception to a group of cheapshotting thieves who catch you without zombies.

To be fair, necromancers who manage to sleep someone typically have a way to guarantee or near guarantee the kill (which, I'm not going to mention for fear of it being nerfed), just luckily most don't know about it. They get their lethality in a trade since they're also ridiculously easy to "one-round", more so than most other classes, and they can be easily negated entirely via out of range healers.

Anywho, not that I don't agree with you, I just think maybe you're understating how nasty of a matchup that is for a necro or transmuter.