Recently the Fortress inner guardian was modified. Actually i think there have been two changes to the watcher just the last months. First he got the "light of Heaven" = dispell, then "Retribution" came.
Retribution does unspeakables to non preppped and Obliterates through black sanc and protection from good. It is very very hard to raid against defenders when you risk taking unspeakables every round at the inner. I have seen the Watcher casting Retribution two rounds in a row.

It was clear that the forts inner needed a boost in some way, but this seems a bit excessive. Please tone down the retribution part or remove the dispelling...or adjust it in some other way.
Furthermore the archmage should get a boost so it becomes comparable to the other cabals. Soften which is easily rested out, do not compare to unspeakables, insect swarm, 4 inners, or the no recall big D.
Dent should be removed from Destructor choices of defences.

Just my 50 euro note slipped into the coders thong.

But downgrade them!

The stronger inners are the less likely you will see raids with fair odds.
The main obstacle should be defenders, not the inner.
Else we may lure into the situation where the raiders are coming only if they greatly outnumber the defenders ( and thus will be able to drop the inner ).
Inners should provide just some meatshielding and tactical advantage.

I also do not like the idea of random unspeaks from inners.
For example, if somebody happens to be a well known goody-killer and doesn't like gambling with his life, he's obligated to heavily prep for the Watcher even if there is no any opposition.
The fact that those unspeaks are rare doesn't help much, because they MAY happen.

Actually I think it would be good to modify all inners to look like the old Watcher.
Not extremily tough, but dirts and tanks. It gets stronger when more people are fighting him. I would change this part, not becomes stronger but tougher ( more dam reduction, better parry/dodge ). So it would be helpful for defenders in low-number-raids and against hordes, also, it would be possible to raid, let's say, 2 vs. 1 and it wouldn't be useless for raids like 6-7 vs. 5

Ich will die ruhe stohren.

You obviously know the mechanics of CF as well as anyone, but ever since that post where you said that Acolytes should repeatedly altruism the Watcher to take themselves down to 1 hp while people in range are raiding, I just can't take you seriously.

Everything comes off as: "I only play Empire, so please make everything else weaker so I have an easier time." You have the mechanics knowledge, but not a lot of perspective.

About altruism.
It was a half-joke and it was said in the context where fortress members were "blamed" for using it on the Watcher. I only pointed that you can't blame them for it because it has a perfectly valid RP reason and even skilled players may do that for that reason.
That is somewhat similar to a battlerager who always defends regardless of odds. OOC-Dumb? But IC valid RP. ( I've played one who literally always defended and he con-died, eh, but not under 100 hours :P )

The second part of your post puzzled me.
Right here I'm not an advocate of Empire. I'm talking that the "old" Watcher was somewhat close to what I would like to see from the inner and I didn't ask to weaken it more. I rather ask to weaken other guardians. Imperial and Rager inners, for example.

I pointed that I would like to see the offensive power of inners weakened to give a chance for raids at fair odds.
So I will repeat, from gameplaying point of view I would like them to be a meatshield and give tactical advantage ( anything like dirting, rescuing, knocking out of the room ). Nosummon at inners would be also good. I played both sides, when I summoned defenders out and when they summoned me, and I came to conclusion that it takes half of fun from raiding and defending. For example, if I'm alone and two raiders with summon come, I can't get a "fair" battle at the inner, instead, I get a gang one on two which could happen anywhere else in this or that area.
Arguments like "summon them first" aren't very valid, because many classes can't do that and even if they can, in my opinion, the game "who summons first" is less entertaining than actual group raiding/fighting.

Also I don't understand your vendetta against duergars.
They are already vulnirable to many fortress members because of paladin's wrath, "divine" and "light"-maran weapons and they have harder times to raid/retrieve against the Fortress than other races.
The Fortress mobs also exploit their vulnirabilities and when you add yet another holy damage what you try to achieve?
Is it: "If you're a duegar don't bother to raid/retrieve from the Fortress" ?
That's basically what happens.
For example, when I played a duergar fighter I couldn't do low level retrieval because the fortress outer kicked my ass hitting my vulnirabilities.
Well, I personally can find some preps for myself, but let's assume I'm a Joe-random-duergar fighter. What is the point for me to retrieve or raid when I eat capitalized damage from every single my opponent there? Perhaps I would better wait for a healer or quit and login when most of forties logged out and my allies logged in. Is bad behaviour? Of course! But that is what actually happens very often.
Outside of raids that could be a price for duergar advantages and that's fine, but I don't think it is good for gameplay when their vulnirabilities are exploited in raids by cabal powers/NPCs.


Another issue is the denting rager inner.
I don't think you can blame me for not using my godly set and not risking it. But I surely don't want to risk it to something stupid like denting inner.
In practice that means I avoid tanking it or remove my unique gear or just don't bother to raid.

>Also I don't understand your vendetta against duergars.
>They are already vulnirable to many fortress members because
>of paladin's wrath, "divine" and "light"-maran weapons and
>they have harder times to raid/retrieve against the Fortress
>than other races.

Thematically, the Fort cabal guardians are going to have paladin-like powers. That just makes sense. Should the Watcher be throwing pebble to boulder at you instead of wrath? That would just be silly.

This is the downside to being duergar. There are a lot of upsides. Despite everything, duergar is always on my list of final candidates for race for any of the classes they can be, and often is the winner. I know it has been in the past for you at times too. Clearly, you must think it's worth it, or you wouldn't do that to yourself. I know you're not picking it because you're enamored of duergar RP. :P

>Thematically, the Fort cabal guardians are going to have
>paladin-like powers. That just makes sense. Should the
>Watcher be throwing pebble to boulder at you instead of wrath?
> That would just be silly.

Thematically yes, but there are always ways around.
For example, it is not hard to modify their melee damage to slashing. That will not ruin the atmosphere.
Thematically makes sense if the Destructor would have spellbane, but it doesn't mean we should hurry and implement it.

>This is the downside to being duergar. There are a lot of
>upsides. Despite everything, duergar is always on my list of
>final candidates for race for any of the classes they can be,
>and often is the winner. I know it has been in the past for
>you at times too. Clearly, you must think it's worth it, or
>you wouldn't do that to yourself. I know you're not picking
>it because you're enamored of duergar RP. :P

The only reason I play them: they can wear all eq and a bit more. When I'm thinking about other races, I get shocked how many precious artifacts I have to sacrifice because I can't wear them. It breaks my heart and I end up playing a duegar again. *frustruation* }(

But still my point is: I can understand when they have those ugly vulnirabilities, but I don't think it is a good thing when a certain cabal hits their vulnirabilities in all possible ways. After all, that cabal is not anti-duergar but anti-evil, however, it does not exploit vulnirabilities of other evil races. Played a fire giant I didn't feel that unfair :) ( moreover, I had some resistance to the Watcher holy powers )

nt

>Another issue is the denting rager inner.
>I don't think you can blame me for not using my godly set and
>not risking it. But I surely don't want to risk it to
>something stupid like denting inner.
>In practice that means I avoid tanking it or remove my unique
>gear or just don't bother to raid.

No more denting. Granted, this means it will probably cranial you a whole lot more.

>No more denting. Granted, this means it will probably cranial
>you a whole lot more.

Yay.

What about shieldcleave? I rememeber a pissed priest who had lost a certain shield from 5th circle of Hell this way. }(

.

I would like the see it take a big group longer to take down inners. As it is now, when a group of 4 or 5 comes to raid, they are in fact at an advantage to even numbers defending. When they hit the outer, the defenders have two choices, either to group up, prep up and make a game plan, in which case the inner is likely already dead, or option two (the maran way) run to the headquarters solo, and eating a 4 on 1 gank death, one at a time. The only way to counter this is to stay grouped, and ready in the cabal headquarters, or somewhere near. This can get boring when the other guy decides to go gear farming. The advantage of the raider is even worse when they have a summoner. The attackers can easily avoid getting summoned by making a good game plan, with everyone fighting the outer. They can prep at their leasure, while the defender has to wait. So, just as Dwoggurd said here, I'd propose making the inner be tougher, (mayby outer too) by either giving it more hp, or more dam redux. Perhaps make them less offensive, so groups attacking don't get their ass rammed, but at the same time they could do more of the tactical advantage kind of stuff, like rescue defenders, kick dirt, blind, I think dispel is ok too if the inner itself and alone isn't going to punish you that much with protections down.

It would be interesting to see actual group vs. group fights at the cabal head quarters, instead of the summon them out one by one and give them a sound beating tactics.

He said he wants to downgrade them, not make them tougher.

That's not the same as a downgrade. Sure, a less offensive mob will be less badass when there are no defenders. But he was also implying that they should be more defensive, to give the defenders a tactical edge, instead of just some extra firepower.

I've seen the same thing not even cause caps damage through black sanc though. I think most people tend to wear a filter that makes things seem better for their enemies, and worse for their own side.

Grape flavored crack?

It's already really freaking hard to raid Scion if there are other Scions around and now you want to upgrade the Archmage beyond his slows, softens, etc. and novas? What, are the hidden nightwalkers robbing people blind and area-effect maledicts not enough? I already gotta wait for the sun to rise and even then I get my #### robbed bare and sometimes the Scepter swiped from me on the way out.

No thanks.

I did upgrade its spell picking a little bit a while back. You might notice it doesn't spam buffet at targets with airshield any more, for example.

The Archmage's tendency to heal Maran by picking someone who isn't a Maran to target with nova and sweeping the room with it is something I plan to correct one of these days. Otherwise, I agree that Scion is generally pretty well-off -- easy to raid against no defenders, but a very hard cabal to raid if the defender presence is remotely close to a fair fight.

It could do something more worthwile that doesn't help them regenerate their mana/hp.

It's a mixed bag, but I think this currently fits in the bag of many reasons why Scion is easy to raid unopposed, but difficult to raid opposed.

If I'm a mage and want to go nap to recover my mana, I consider slow a positive effect.

If I'm tanking the Archmage, a couple Nightwalkers, and a lion that's owning me, I very much do not consider slow a positive or even irrelevant effect.

We used to groan for years at the mages who would raid Battle slowed and complain that the Destructor hit them so much.

But I would almost like to see the Watcher beefed more.. I still think he's a cake walk for the most part.

One of these days turned out to be late last night. Reboot near you, yadda yadda.

you will find it only works well against certain people. Those who have killed a lot of goodies. against folks who have not killed a lot of goodies its a really weak wrath. My only comment was that there seems to be no cap to the damage it does and I have had buddies take 800 hp unspeaks from it becuase they had killed so many goodies.

There's a cap. As someone who played at least one character back in the day with several hundred good kills, I thought to mention that idea when we were revamping paladins. :)

Is this an admission of playing a much-speculated entropy lich?

He's talking about Istendil

.

So if you have killed a few hundred lightwalkers it will be close to impossible to raid the fortress alone?!?

Raids are often the coolest pk situations on CF, and i think that cap you speak of is so high that it would slay most heroes if they had enough kills to reach the it.

Is this something the staff will look into?

I think the Fortress is probably the easiest cabal to raid, in terms of not dying. Fortress tends to be able to force stalemates more easily (the good side of the coin tends to amass better defensive powers), but you're typically in more danger raiding their enemies if defenders are around.

Also, Divine Retribution isn't nearly as good as you make it out to be.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Does that take into count the number of times you Die to goodies when figuring how effective it is? As in, you kill 100 goodies and you are killed by 40 goodies, it will be an effective number of 60?

Do you wish logs to support the claim that the wathcer throws out "obliterates" through black shround and prot evil, and unspeakables unprepped?
Its not that we cant handle such damage, it will merely lead to raids with larger numbers. Like the groups you need for raiding village.
Large warparties will probably be seen more often now.


If this is a good or bad development is of course up to the imms to decide.
I support Dwoggurds view on it. Rather less damage from the inners, and for example "no summon".

Would that be on someone with a holy vuln? Because that doesn't bother me.

Welcome to the dark side of duergar!

I've seen hundreds of raids of Fort since this change was made, and I have never witnessed damage close to what you've described. I'm not saying it's not possible, but rather that I don't really intend to balance an inner that mostly does holy spell damage for the odd vuln_holy guy with poor saves who charges him.

Tnt

I did see a couple unspeaks for divine retribution, believe they were against duergar. Just to verify it has happened.

Divine retribution isn't all that.

If you killed a few hundred goods but get wasted by the Fortress inner, it most likely means you killed a few hundred absolutely terrible goods or did it via massive gangs. I've seen a lot of people who I wouldn't call great PKers raid Fortress over the last few months without issue.

It's not all you make it out to be, and even if it was, I still wouldn't have much pity for you.

So if you have killed a few hundred lightwalkers it will be close to impossible to raid the fortress alone?!?

Just for the perspective, it is already close impossible to raid Empire alone, at least for magi. Practically, this was the case with (Outlander)Frearrir(ram/mongoose) and (Fortress)Endalion(seven path voker), since it is always possible that the Empire inners two-round you. This is unprepped(no ABS or unrelated to class-protections).

My paladins with stone skin, protection and sanc had to rest at least once or twice before the imperial inners went down. Might just be my imagination, but seems like they repop unusually fast too.

Like most things, they're harder for some characters than others.

In particular, they're especially hard for any character who isn't a decent avoidance tank (e.g. high dex dodge character, pole/spear warrior, etc., a character who tanks by virtue of not getting hit rather than by getting hit constantly but taking little damage). A two-handed paladin, for example, is generally not an especially good tank of this kind.

I'm not going to tell you the Empire inners are a joke -- they're definitely good, but I'm guessing you're dealing with them with characters that are relatively bad for it rather than relatively good.

Every character I've had, had to rest a few times while killing the imperial inners, if it was even possible at all. All my melee classes end up with broken wrists, mages and bards end up deafened. If we even did away with kot/kans, deafen, and healing curse, I wouldn't complain at all about them. They'd still be a tough fight, but it would ease it up considerably. And as I mentioned previously, could we put a longer timer on them repop'ing?

Cabal wars are not about which cabal quits out and which is on in the masses. It's about taking it to your enemy turf, they defends, you hit. It doesn't matter how long it takes you to do it solo against no defenders.

My characters will almost always try to go and raid a cabal solo, even if there are defenders. The imperial inners can shut down most classes, even if they are undefended. So if there are even a couple of defenders around, if they are competent, it becomes an exercise in futility. It's not the number of inners. It's not that they hit hard. It is the extremely well planned stacking of maledictions. Melee classes will get a broken wrist and be unable to wield, mages get deafened, anyone can get healing cursed, sigil of pain etc etc etc.

So all right let's follow your logic. We come in and bring the good fight to the empire! We bludgeon our way through the outer which takes for frickin ever because it is black sanc'd. We get inside and start the inners, the blademaster and warlock go down, but we all have to retreat because the mages are deaf, some people are healing cursed, and half of us are sigil'd.

We go back to Hamsah and rest for 2 mins tops. You go back to the imperial lands, and oops the vanquisher came back. Well no big deal, just take it down and keep going. Vanquisher is dead you head inside again. Well ####, it seems that while we retreated to rest, and continue bring the good fight! The damn inners repopped and you have to start over. Any other cabal you can work an inner down, or at least have the chance of doing so. The imperial inners can't be worked down, because they are four small ones, and they repop.

As for having the right defensive class to get through the inners, that doesn't fly either if you have to go it solo. I had a defensive class doing mangles to the inners every round, and never left the cabal so they wouldn't repop. When I got halfway through the inners repoped anyway. I don't know the solution, but your explanation doesn't fly either buddy.

My shield spec'ed paladin (Menon) never had any trouble solo-raiding Empire. I believe he would be your typical tanking class.