One recent post said rot was a pk deterrant, which makes cf more boring.

I remember when I played Odrirg, who used rot on foes he couldn't kill otherwise (but not all foes), I was called a rot-monkey, a one trick pony.


Why does rot seem to get an inordinate amount of bad publicity from the playerbase? ESPECIALLY since it was severely nerfed?


It is easier to survive for some characters than a bard's fiend. It is easier to survive for most characters than a necro's flee-sleep-scourge-pwk.

It's easier to prep for than a fire giant ap with a big axe, or a drow ap with a big whip.

It's easier to survive for most characters than an assassinate.

It's less of a death sentence than Insects, or the Hunt.
It doesn't prevent quaffing potions like fiend often does.
It doesn't come at you all of a sudden out of nowhwere like an ambush/assassination/nightgaunt can.

It's easier to prep for than a fully wanded offense shifter/necro with full army/invoker/tranny that stops your brain/conji with big bad servitors.

It's easier to prep for than a necro's forget spell. Or pwk spell. Or the cleave skill.

It's easier to prep for than that wrath-spamming pally who can't be lagged.



I just don't get why rot seems to have gotten an inordinate amount of bitching over time.


why do YOU think rot gets piled on so much, compared to so many other things that are harder to survive/prep for/negate?

>Why does rot seem to get an inordinate amount of bad publicity
>from the playerbase? ESPECIALLY since it was severely
>nerfed?
>
>It is easier to survive for some characters than a bard's
>fiend. It is easier to survive for most characters than a
>necro's flee-sleep-scourge-pwk.

Because it's no fun. Fiend and Hunt both have long timers before they can be done again, so if you can beat the first shot, you're solid. Succesful PWK is rare. Rot can be flee-return spammed, making it ultimately very hard to stop indefinitely (especially combined with blindness). Plus shamans have great damage reduction and anti-lag class skills, which necromancers and bards don't have. Making flee-return tactics that much easier.

>It's easier to prep for than a fire giant ap with a big axe,
>or a drow ap with a big whip.

AP with big weapon is a defective comparison. That character is overpowered for as long as they can keep their axe, but is one-ganging away from starting over.

>It's easier to survive for most characters than an
>assassinate.

Personally, I find the habits required for protecting against rot much more annoying than the habits for protecting against assassinate. Assassinate just means keeping on the move a bit, rot requires gathering a set of +con stuff every time you get looted, and carrying it around all the time (which sucks mightily if you have and plan to use the dodge skill). Also, assasinate leaves the assassin vulnerable if it fails, rot doesn't.

>It's less of a death sentence than Insects, or the Hunt.
>It doesn't prevent quaffing potions like fiend often does

Fiend doesn't prevent quaffing potions. Fiends don't chase all that fast.

>It doesn't come at you all of a sudden out of nowhwere like an
>ambush/assassination/nightgaunt can.

>It's easier to prep for than a fully wanded offense
>shifter/necro with full army/invoker/tranny that stops your
>brain/conji with big bad servitors.

Wanded offense shifter is hard to kill, but easy to escape. Quaff teleport gets you away just fine. Necro with wands and full army is tough, yes. But getting a full army takes 6 hours. Transmuter? Meh, can be tough, but succesful neuro is nowhere near as deadly as succesful rot.

>It's easier to prep for than a necro's forget spell. Or pwk
>spell. Or the cleave skill.

Forget doesn't last that long. If you flee/quaff it's gone pretty quick. PWK isn't much to worry about and cleave is even sillier.

>It's easier to prep for than that wrath-spamming pally who
>can't be lagged.

flee/quaff and you're instantly ready to fight again.

>I just don't get why rot seems to have gotten an inordinate
>amount of bitching over time.

Rot makes you waste a lot of time, none of these other things do.

>Rot can be flee-return spammed, making it ultimately very hard to stop indefinitely (especially combined with blindness).

Unless the shaman loses concentration, you can't spam rot. Assuming the shaman doesn't lose concentration, the target gets either rot or the wasting disease. You can't rot someone who's already affected by the wasting disease.

>shamans have great damage reduction and anti-lag class skills,
>which necromancers and bards don't have.

A/b/s for necros + wraithform?

>Assassinate just means keeping on the move a
>bit, rot requires gathering a set of +con stuff every time you
>get looted, and carrying it around all the time (which sucks
>mightily if you have and plan to use the dodge skill).

You don't have to get all your +con stuff immediately after being looted unless you expect to fight a shaman immediately after you unghost. And it's not impossible to find some +con gear that's relatively light and fits in a sack. Esp. if you're good-aligned.

Avoiding assassinate means you have to modify your behavior 100% of the time. Avoiding rot means spending 10 minutes gathering a few items, then carrying around an extra ~15 lb.

>Fiend doesn't prevent quaffing potions. Fiends don't chase all
>that fast.

Rot doesn't prevent quaffing potions either.

>Transmuter? Meh, can be tough, but succesful neuro
>is nowhere near as deadly as succesful rot.

I'd disagree with this. Depending on your class, if a non-moron muter hits you with big neuro then you're dead 3 times out of 4. Maybe that's your experience with rot as well, but trust me- it doesn't have to be.

>Rot makes you waste a lot of time, none of these other things
>do.

When you die to rot, typically it's in a place of your choosing. Meaning you can run back and loot your corpse before the shaman does, which saves you the time of having to regear. Die to assassinate, cleave, offense shifter, etc. and you're probably getting looted. Add that to the "time to recover" when you compare those skills to rot.

It is a single command that racks up quite a lot of kills.

Also, carrying around a bunch of junk to survive it is a pain in the ass. Even if you survive, you then have a long long wait unless you have move-regen preps.

Plus blindness can make it almost impossible to survive for many people.

The main reason I hate it though, is that in my experience, people that use rot will often rot and run, even if they've never fought my character before and irrespective of whether my character is deadly or not.

I'm not sure how many rot kills Waserax had, but I can tell you it wasn't very many. Maybe 5? I think two of those were against one elf conjurer who I later realized had really low con. One was only because I got a -con damnation on the guy in addition to the rot.

It's the time drain. And while I disagree that you're completely out of the fight, there have been times when being rotted definitely influenced my decision to not return to defend the Cabal. Especially with a low-con character that had to swap out most of my l33t gear for +con gear.

That being said, I still think it's a viable tactic, and is defendable. But I agree, it does get a lot of bad press...:P

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

*** Email me your testimonials or two-line blurbs. Help our marketing efforts! ***

Two things:

1. There have been shamans that rot first, then leave the fight. Clearly not all shamans are like this, but it tends to color peoples' perceptions. Similarly there have been assassins who tried the assassinate then immediately fled. In that case, though, there's arguably significant risk to the assassin, since he has to be in bash range to even attempt. With the shaman, he can protect himself against most lag, and withstand what he can't protect against. So to the person being rotted, the shaman is killing him with no real benefit to the shaman (since he's not getting the corpse) and with no real risk to himself. People dislike that. Assassinate also requires some setup effort; not so with rot.

2. Perceived inevitability. With insects, dangerous as they are, you feel like you have a *chance* to avoid dying by running on foot. In contrast, many people feel like rot is an absolute death sentence. Clearly this isn't true in general, but in some cases (characters w/ very low con) it approaches being accurate.

3. Time drain. With fiend, you either die or you don't. Either way, you find out pretty quick. Ditto with assassinate. With rot, even if you end up surviving it, you're out of commission for approx. 24 hours game time. That tends to annoy people.