I'm honestly not trying to complain here, and if it comes out that when then I'm sorry, but what are you doing to the magi? You give Ragers spellbane, you give them the ability to see the invisible, you give them a mage plague that is everywhere, and it's hard to sleep with it, and you catch it almost instantely. Spells dont work, and we get hit by an exertion. I mean seriously, what are you going to give to the magi? A transmuter vs a rager really has not a chance. A shapeshifter is still based on what forms he gets in the end, and from what I've read on here some of them aren't to good to have. Some brought up the idea of three forms for your major. Invokers take sooooooooo much work to get any good. What are you doing for the magi?

You've taken away our spells, OR for the majority of invokers there spells. Use area spells, they work. You've given ragers the ability to see the invisible, but I dont know why. They are ragers. No matter how much RP you put into it, battleragers will not be able to see the invisible without magic being used. Then for some reason you give them a plague that is only for the magi. What are you doing? I came to this mud because you all said it was balanced, but i'm sorry, this isn't balanced. The magi are totally screwed over.

I honestly dont know why you dont see this, but this is BS. Something needs to give. There needs to be a magi cabal again which helps out the magi vs ragers. You give all this stuff to the ragers and there is no opposite cabal to fight them.

magi take alot more skill and time to be any good in this game. Ragers are nothing more than warriors, thieves, assassins, ect.. that dont take as much time or skill as magi do. I'm just saying, it's the truth. DOnt take offense to it, you have to be alot more skillful with a magi then you do with a warrior, or thief, ect.. Then you take the majority of what it takes to be a mage away because ragers develop some tolerance to spells. How in the world can you develop a tolerance to spells casted directly at you when an area spell can hurt you?

How can you let the ragers actually see the invis?
How can a rager actually come up with a plague to hurt only magi? They are stupid ragers, all they know is battle, they dont know anything about plagues.

I dont personally find a warrior, thief, assassin class any fun. They are boring. It's the same boring skills used over and over. Magi are fun to play, and alot different, but what is going to be given to the magi to combat all these 'spells' that the ragers get?

>I'm honestly not trying to complain here, and if it comes out
>that when then I'm sorry, but what are you doing to the magi?
>You give Ragers spellbane, you give them the ability to see
>the invisible, you give them a mage plague that is everywhere,
>and it's hard to sleep with it, and you catch it almost
>instantely. Spells dont work, and we get hit by an exertion.
>I mean seriously, what are you going to give to the magi? A
>transmuter vs a rager really has not a chance. A shapeshifter
>is still based on what forms he gets in the end, and from what
>I've read on here some of them aren't to good to have. Some
>brought up the idea of three forms for your major. Invokers
>take sooooooooo much work to get any good. What are you doing
>for the magi?

They've done a ton. It's a plot mechanism. You still have word of recall and teleport to get away from a fight you aren't prepared for.
I'm not going to say it's easy, you have to work for your power stick unlike many classes which have it handed to them, but if you work it out, you'll do just fine.

Plus, now there's a lot of options at low ranks (offensive wands, scrolls) that there wasn't before.



>You've taken away our spells, OR for the majority of invokers
>there spells. Use area spells, they work. You've given ragers
>the ability to see the invisible, but I dont know why. They
>are ragers. No matter how much RP you put into it,
>battleragers will not be able to see the invisible without
>magic being used.

This makes complete sense to Battle, why they should in fact see invisible: they are Battleragers, the bane of magic. One of the biggest gifts that a Battlerager gets when he's inducted is to see the invisible.

Then for some reason you give them a plague
>that is only for the magi. What are you doing? I came to this
>mud because you all said it was balanced, but i'm sorry, this
>isn't balanced. The magi are totally screwed over.

It isn't balanced at certain ranks, but again, the power stick skews to the top for magic-based classes at hero. You think everyone's got an out for that tiger/hyena shifter combo, for instance? Or the seven-path absed invoker that just decided to lay a patch of quicksand down when you're not flying (being a rager, you can't prep for that) and then zapped a wither wand at your head getting through with it? No, in that situation a 'rager is meat. Truly, an invoker who knows what he or she is doing is a very difficult fight for a battlerager.

>I honestly dont know why you dont see this, but this is BS.
>Something needs to give. There needs to be a magi cabal again
>which helps out the magi vs ragers. You give all this stuff to
>the ragers and there is no opposite cabal to fight them.

They might be adding a second cabal, for now there is the Scions which do get very nice powers in order to fight Battleragers with. I'm not going to get into that further, you've gotta get yourself in to discover what I'm talking about.

>magi take alot more skill and time to be any good in this
>game. Ragers are nothing more than warriors, thieves,
>assassins, ect.. that dont take as much time or skill as magi
>do. I'm just saying, it's the truth.

Okay, if you haven't played 'em, you have no idea, right? So why are you making this assumption?

DOnt take offense to
>it, you have to be alot more skillful with a magi then you do
>with a warrior, or thief, ect.. Then you take the majority of
>what it takes to be a mage away because ragers develop some
>tolerance to spells. How in the world can you develop a
>tolerance to spells casted directly at you when an area spell
>can hurt you?

Mages have to prepare if they're going to fight 'ragers head-on, yes. However, there's a certain damage level that the Battleragers cannot prepare past (resistance+giant resistance being the most common) and many ways for a mage to exploit that.

>How can you let the ragers actually see the invis?
>How can a rager actually come up with a plague to hurt only
>magi? They are stupid ragers, all they know is battle, they
>dont know anything about plagues.

How's the same 'rager going to deal with a plague for 50 hours when he's got 100 moves? You can have your plague healed (not the mage plague) but the other plague healed at a healer, the 'rager has to run to his village to get it healed.

>I dont personally find a warrior, thief, assassin class any
>fun. They are boring. It's the same boring skills used over
>and over. Magi are fun to play, and alot different, but what
>is going to be given to the magi to combat all these 'spells'
>that the ragers get?

Thieves are very diverse, warriors almost too diverse, assassins are pretty straightforward, as are magi.

Mages don't need anything else to fight spellbane. You need to listen more closely to what is being said on the board by people with a lot more experience on this mud than you.

>I'm honestly not trying to complain here,

But then you go and complain a lot. :P

>and if it comes out
>that when then I'm sorry, but what are you doing to the magi?
>You give Ragers spellbane, you give them the ability to see
>the invisible,

Yup. And you get magic and they don't.

>you give them a mage plague that is everywhere,

Battle doesn't have anything directly to do with that, FYI.

>and it's hard to sleep with it, and you catch it almost
>instantely. Spells dont work, and we get hit by an exertion.

That's true at times, yes. It's by far the minority of spellcasting attempts for any character.

>I mean seriously, what are you going to give to the magi? A
>transmuter vs a rager really has not a chance. A shapeshifter
>is still based on what forms he gets in the end, and from what
>I've read on here some of them aren't to good to have.

So when 20 people tell you here that you're a newbie and you don't really understand a thing about how Battle balances out, you disregard that, but when somebody posts saying they don't think a form is good that's obviously the truth.

>Some
>brought up the idea of three forms for your major. Invokers
>take sooooooooo much work to get any good. What are you doing
>for the magi?

Running a big-ass quest centered around them. It involves a plague, among many other things. I'm glad you're enjoying it. :)

>You've taken away our spells, OR for the majority of invokers
>there spells. Use area spells, they work. You've given ragers
>the ability to see the invisible, but I dont know why.

Because otherwise mages would kill Battle 100% of the time instead of just most of the time.

>They
>are ragers. No matter how much RP you put into it,
>battleragers will not be able to see the invisible without
>magic being used.

Your imagination is narrow there, but thanks for playing.

>Then for some reason you give them a plague
>that is only for the magi. What are you doing? I came to this
>mud because you all said it was balanced, but i'm sorry, this
>isn't balanced. The magi are totally screwed over.

I'm sorry that you're not very good at this game yet and that you're unwilling to take the word of many better mage players for it.

>I honestly dont know why you dont see this, but this is BS.

Because I've played Battle a fair amount and I've played a TON of mages. I feel a lot more pity for Battle when I'm playing a mage than I do pity for mages when I'm playing Battle.

>magi take alot more skill and time to be any good in this
>game.
>Ragers are nothing more than warriors, thieves,
>assassins, ect.. that dont take as much time or skill as magi
>do. I'm just saying, it's the truth. DOnt take offense to
>it, you have to be alot more skillful with a magi then you do
>with a warrior, or thief, ect..

Except it's not the truth.

I'm calling it here and not responding to the rest of this. I know you don't think you're still an unskilled newbie, but it's obvious that you are. That's not the end of the world; we all started that way. My first character on CF was a mage and Battle killed me from sunrise to sundown... but it wasn't because the game was imbalanced, it was because I wasn't any good at it.

It's not a bad thing to be a newbie. It's not a bad thing to be overmatched by more skilled players. It IS a bad thing if you refuse to get any better because you chalk your deaths up to game balance rather than you being a newbie.

In the future, I'd encourage you to post problems you're having. Post logs where Battle schools your mage. Whatever. BUT, you have to be open to the advice people give you and willing to learn and get better.

Also, it is not necessarily to cheat to play a successful mage. That's another way of avoiding actually becoming better.

I'd like to know it.

:)

You do know that the only prep Villagers are allowed to have is seaweed? This is why they need detect invis as a cabal power. They'd never have invis otherwise. Village applicants who are not yet Villagers will never see invisible. They'll never have flight unless they are cloud giants or arials. No recall potions and so on. Also, Villagers are not allowed to accept communes. This means that they will never have sanctuary(although their resistance power will give somewhat similar damage reduction). So, you have the opportunity of c word:heal heal when things are going bad for you, while the rager is not allowed to use the services of healers. If you want to fight ragers, use their restrictions to your advantage.

If you don't know prep locations or don't have the time/ability to powerlevel, or refuse to practice compulsive paranoia 24/7, as a newbie you'll get steamrolled by ragers.

I've always disagreed with many aspects of the village cabal, because all the traditional ways of destroying villagers are pretty difficult for a newbie, except for ganging. Killing them usually requires things like major prep knowledge, the ability to find most of the healers on the continent, lots of gold to use these healers, basically a lot of things that newbies are still trying to learn.

Once you play their enemies, though, and get the hang of PK, you start to realize that ragers without powers are the worst kind of suck, and that even with powers they can be easy to kill once you understand their restrictions.

In my opinion, playing a villager requires a lot less skill than playing a normal character. However, playing a villager also gurantees you will die a lot more, and maybe get full looted by the embittered mage who ganged you down and killed you (cause he was really mad after you one rounded him with pincer six times at lower levels). There are so many bad situations with Centurions during retrievals that I won't even go there. Villagers tend to die a lot more, as a tradeoff for being able to wipe the floor with newbies and/or the unprepped with one hands tied behind their backs.

Ok dude. You say ragers don't need detect invis. Fair enough. I disagree. Play a non-svirf rager and have a battle imm remove your truesight power. Be a badass and prove me wrong.

Make him non-arial as well, so you don't get wingsweep.

No assassin either. And just for fun, make sure you go ahead and tell all your enemies that you can't see them whenever they cast invis.

Cause that cabal would be AWESOME if it were completely and totally impossible for them to ever see their enemy unless they were already fighting. Hell yeah!

In order to compete with villagers, mages must spend alot of time gathering and regathering preparations. As a mage player I understand your initial frustration when dealing with the uphill battle. When I first started playing, I was in the same boat as you. I couldnt figure out why this one group of warriors/assassins/thieves/rangers seemed so out of balance to the seemingly weak mage powers that I used. I read posts and figured alright, Im going to get to hero and at the high ranks things should favor the magi...

Unfortunatly even at hero, I was finding that in a straight out fight, I was barely scratching these guys. Abernyte, Dhaevor..those type of chars. I had to be doing something wrong. I learnt about preps and some quest items that were about and then began experimenting with cabals. It made a big diference but yes they were still pretty damn tough.

There comes a point where your frustration will lead you to go the route most do, Gang the hell out of them. Full loot and make it hard on these bastards. But even that will give you little satisfaction after a while.

Keep experimenting with diferent mage classes and you will find villagers are without a doubt the easiest pickings of any cabal. You have mobility on your side. You have word of recall. You have healers, preps, mercenaries, quicksand, ect. One on one fights will still favor the villager unless you are skilled and playing one of a few combinations.

The only thing you might have a complaint about is the ease they can call up some pretty nice powers. TO compensate you might have to spend an hour or so gathering things. You die, you get looted and lose your preps. The villager just calls up more powers and is back running in no time.

If there was a mage cabal...which might be happening soon, I think you will see further just how much of a disadvantage villagers have. THere are many deadly players that focus on mages, and if you add some cabal powers to their village Pk prowness it will turn it into a one-sided romp.

My suggestion is to play something totally lop-sided in its power. Play a defense/defense shifter. Something that you know will be the best around in what it does. You will know going in that you are not going to be a PK god, but you will also know that with few exceptions you should last longer in any fight than most people. Village-killers will likely want you in their groups. Explorers will want your help. You will learn where to gear, where to prep, ect. You will remain in fights longer than what you are used to. No more 2 round kills. You will see the tactics that villagers use. You will see battle fatigue set in. You will recognize when villagers have their head, when they might be raiding...ect, ect.

Stick with it. Or do what Nepenthe suggests and play a few villagers.

I dont overly like the cabal myself and for the most part it is indeed pretty lame. Just go the high road and start picking on villagers and you will come to respect them a bit more.

Dude, seriously, take a step back. I'm not playing right now so I can't honestly say I know exactly what's going on, but from reading this post and the events board I'd say something is in the making for mages which I don't think is a secret. So whatever this is, it's temporary and leading to something. Take a breath, relax, and go along for the ride. Once it's all done is when you start bitching =P

If they are 10% as invincible as you make them out to be, you'll dominate.

Otherwise, I'll refer you to the Premium Battlefield, where you'll see plenty of successful magi. Once you accept that it's not the class, but your own limitations, come back and attempt a more reasoned post. If all you're going to do is repeat the "Spellbane is overpowered" rant of a week or two ago, I don't have anything further to add.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

And it has nothing to do with village powers, moreso the size of the village and the amount of people playing mages that will actually fight villagers. Village is big now, and mages that will fight villagers is a bit smaller than normal (they are all lowbies right now...waiting...heh).

Me personally, I like to gang the crap out of ragers. Mostly because one on one, they will usually win the fight unless I prep out of the ass. Most of the time (note most) ragers cannot gang you back, unless it a raid/retrieval (though I noticed with my Healer they would gang me on Eastern and then raid/retrieve, but that's a different thread for a different time). You have methods to kill ragers that ragers don't have to kill you, mainly, quaffing a recall and healing to full. Especially if they are a berserker. Read some of Nepenthe's Cabdru logs of him fighting Guamel before he became supa-buff. He gets beat on badly, but still ends up getting the kill. That's how to fight ragers (also try and check out Nabburak's logs against Vershelt, or Maztriel's logs against groups of ragers trying to retrieve).

Good Luck!

You ask him to try a BattleRager, which I would also suggest, but for a new player to try battle and be successful is pretty hard to pull off. The main reason being the elitist attitude of veteran rager players that play rager after rager after rager. They make it hard for newer players to get in, and there seems to be no real Immortal guidance on some of the crap they make applicants do. Please tell me why knowing which hair on BoltThrower's butt was split in two by Thrym while Throc pincered a tree in the middle of Organia is relevant to being a decent rager? Granted, I researched a lot of what I knew was coming for questions when I got in the few times I did, but I knew where to look. Most of these guys aren't going to tell them where to look. Not to mention some of the randomness of their requests.

I've been asked to bring them marbles, head of a dead mage PC(imagine the randomness of killing a mage pc and getting their head to severe), and a couple other random items that I think they told me to get hoping I wouldn't know where they were.

And, while this may be extreme circumstances, it is still the trend when wanting to roll a rager. Either you have to do an enormous amout of "studying" and reading or just have no luck at getting in usually.

So, anyhow I'm saying this because I would hope that at some point an Imm would step in and say something about whats being asked of applicants.

Well I think the bottom line here is that induction requirements
are pretty much set by mortal leaders of the cabal, and not by the
Imms, and it's like that for most cabals. What you are describing
is the recommendation process which is how battle have been doing
things for a while.
Personally I let the recommendations come, but if, when I talked
to an applicant, he turned out to be an idiot that couldn't tell
me how best to fight an invoker, you KNOW I'm going to be giving
his recommenders a hard time.
On one hand people complain if Battle players are not the epitome
of ragerhood, yet others complain that its too hard to get into
battle, and standards should be lowered. There is a lot of
dynamics to balance. We want to have well-played characters in
the cabal, RP first, since PK skill can be learned. "Me giant
hate mage, want pincer lots!" isn't going to cut it. The cabal
works best, and is the most fun when its full of personalities IMHO.
I also think the induction process should be a learning one,
either in way of history and philosophy, or general skill. So
new players can learn as they try to get in. But again its up
to the mortal leaders how they want it.

Honestly if you so truly hate how its being done then rager-up
get the Commander spot and come up with something better.

> an idiot that couldn't tell me how best to fight an invoker

I know you actually mean that he's both an idiot and also doesn't know how best to fight an invoker, but this really sounds like someone is an idiot for not knowing how best to fight an invoker.

> people complain if Battle players are not the epitome
of ragerhood,

I think when people complain about ragers not being ragerly enough it's because they don't live up to the ideals correctly, not because they don't PK well enough, or know the history. Now you go on to say RP first and PK second, but why should RP = trivia buff?

What about just a set of hypotheticals?

We have the scepter, and a scion conjurer and warrior are attacking the giant. There's nobody else around. What would Ysalorye do?

Two berserkers are wandering through Galadon and spot a mage in the bakery. What would Gre and Dolza do?

This plus the usual "what was the name of your village before mages burned it?" or "What does balls to the wall mean?" type question should be able to determine at least who knows what's expected of battleragers. Whether they do it or not, well that's always a crapshoot.

Well as to the history aspect of the induction process that began to really take off a lot back when kasty was still mortal. A few leaders in a row were ultra focused on village history and since then it has been a staple part of the induction process. Honestly though its not that tough. Read the story in the lyceum and be able to summerize the major points and you will be fine.

If you can't take the time to read a simple document then your not likely to put in the effort required to live as a villager by the village rules.

The life of a villager is tough as hell especially at the higher ranks so its important to not waste slots on people who are just gonna rank up and autodelete when they realize pincer pincer pincer won't cut it at hero.

If you don't have the patience for getting commander why don't you share what you think should be the induction standards here?

Keep in mind that part of the fun of cabals is that everyone is unique not just in their philosophies but also in their practice. As the oldest cabal in the game battle also has the greatest tradition and at least to me thats one of the huge drawing factors to continue playing it because you actually get to be a part of cf history.