Maybe a very simple form for shifters at level 5 so they can get on their feet and going before level 15-17? I know there's claws and whatever else but they're still really weak compared to the other people out there. I'm thinking maybe stuff like a dog for offense, a chicken for air, a fish of sorts for water, whatever the hell you want for the others etc etc. Just kinda a thought for shifters since even the claws don't come in until level 6 and they're not that great, would just be nice for a basic form at level 5 or so until the stuff starts kicking in at level 15-17

I don't think a level 5 form would really do much good. The fact is that as anything but an offense shifter you're probably nearly useless until your third tier. A lot of stuff has gone in to make low-level shifters more viable, but the fact is that a first or second tier form shifter is laughable. Sure if you want to put up with 100-200 experience per mob you can maybe get your defensive shifter to tank a little, but even an offensive second-tier form does about half the damage of any melee class. At those levels I'd rather have an unempowered shaman or a mute bard as a groupmate.

Theoretically the shifter could bust out offensive wands, but I've never seen anyone do that for more than a mob or two. Probably because to make that viable you'd have to be a complete masochist.

Adding an even crappier form than the current level 1 forms wouldn't do any good. The lower-tier forms would need to be beefed up considerably to be remotely comparable to a warrior. The problem with the early levels is that by 15 any melee class can swing mutilates or eviscerates 2-3 times per round and tank serviceably at the same time. Mages, except maybe tansmuters, aren't anywhere near that good for extended periods.

>Theoretically the shifter could bust out offensive wands, but
>I've never seen anyone do that for more than a mob or two.
>Probably because to make that viable you'd have to be a
>complete masochist.

Or you'd have to know where you can easily come up with handfuls of lowbie offensive wands pretty easily. I can think of several areas where you can scavenge a good ranking trip's supply without being a masochist.

I traveled with a lowbie mage recently who was helping our group out pretty nicely using some free, easily collectable wands. Maybe these were found in a "newer" area, maybe they weren't... ;-)

I was surprised and impressed, because I've rarely seen mages rank with wands before to any servicable degree. I'm going to try this next mage I roll, that's for sure. I'm keeping tally on where to find some for my next non-invoker mage.

>Or you'd have to know where you can easily come up with
>handfuls of lowbie offensive wands pretty easily. I can think
>of several areas where you can scavenge a good ranking trip's
>supply without being a masochist.

If you're lucky, I can think of a couple places, sure. But I don't know anywhere that has a supply of wands plentiful enough. I'll make up some random numbers. I'll estimate 6 charges per mob (based on counting rounds in a couple logs), 400 exp per mob, 8000 exp per level. That comes out to 120 charges per level. Call a good ranking trip 4 levels. So you need somewhere on the order of 480 charges in order to do maybe a mangle every other round consistantly over the course of a ranking trip?

I don't doubt that it's possible to scavenge that many charges worth of wands, but damned if I know how. Most wands seem to have less than 5 charges. Even if you assume 10 charges, that's 48 wands. Seems like an awful lot to scavenge for one ranking trip.

Then again, some warriors can prep with sanc, shield, aura, protection, stone skin and haste for every fight, and I haven't even figured how to get into that place. Still if you say it's possible to scavenge that much wand power I don't doubt that it is. So that gives you another option. You can have the patience of job to collect a crapload of wands, or you can have the kind of area knowledge that lets you snag 48 wands easily at low ranks.

A decent avg weapon, horns of the bull, and offensive wands can make you pretty useful to a ranking group up to your first form, and a little beyond. There's some cheap-o decent ones at low level to buy with your assorted newbie quests' coin.

I just played a shifter... well I still have it but I have forms now, but at low levels I opted for using 'horns of the bull' wielding a weapon and using a wand. It worked out pretty well. Even after getting my first and sometimes my second form, I still would stick with the wands. Talk about freaking a potential villager out when they're running up to me thinking oh goodie a shifter out of form, let's kill them to put onto the list and then they get sudden hit of massive damage. As far as the wands go... I usually had to talk group members into helping me get them, but it was well worth it.

>Talk about
>freaking a potential villager out when they're running up to
>me thinking oh goodie a shifter out of form, let's kill them
>to put onto the list and then they get sudden hit of massive
>damage. As far as the wands go... I usually had to talk group
>members into helping me get them, but it was well worth it.

Yeah, for the ass-beating wands you often have to roll that way. Often worth doing!

But you could also, for example, choose to level someplace like... Ashes of NoWhere at the low levels, which depending on what you're killing could provide a steady stream of lowbie damage wands. I can think of a handful of areas like that, some more effective for it than others.

The partial shifts are your early forms, shifters IMO are generally pretty boring and on the weak side till you get your upper tier forms, but if they need anything at all it is greater variety/versatility at the higher ranks. From my experience the general shifter player power ranks as much as possible to get their forms, adding anything on the bottom end will just be adding work for something that will get very little use.

That time is a good time to use wands and scrolls and such to practice with. Really, if you run some quests early on and take any group you can get your hands on, you will get to 15 quickly.