Let shapeshifters--the mage-equivalent of warriors--have to tap haste preps like the rest of us. And it's wonky seeing offensive forms dealing out MANGLES or better while they are taking injures because ABS.

Nerf the transmuter's ability to out-melee so many warriors. It's bad enough that neuro can permalag, but the damage is a lot stronger and the lag more reliable than bash. Add in damage reduction and insane staffwork, and for most warriors its no contest.

Invokers? They aren't so bad to fight, if you have your own invoker or you gather resistance gear to fight them almost exclusively.

APs aren't so bad until we talk critical mass, then watch people log out to watch reruns of Gilligan's Island or switch to their hiding alt. Bards seem to have the best luck fighting them, but that's for a different OP discussion.

------------------------

One a more serious note, it seems like there is a weird pendulum swing regarding classes, not just cabals. Currently, melee classes are under-represented in the hero range, and murderous gnomes/svirfs are reproducing like rabbits. Why? My pet theory is because a gnome mage will have more hitpoints than an elf warrior, and if he can prep first he will effectively have 50% to 100% more hitpoints. As a shapeshifter they can easily cover their vulnerability to boot.

If mages are trendy because they have fragile folk to beat on, it might be because elves, dark elves, and arials became fashionable when they could finally compete against slower-moving melee targets.

But where have the orcs and giants gone? You barely see non-mages sticking it out at hero, but only a fraction of those are giants.

My suggestion is that you give dwarves, duergar, orcs and giants innate magic resistance, and for dwarves and duergar, extend minor resistance to shapeshifter attacks since they don't have physical resist. This would create a nice rock-paper-scissors racial situation.

Just plain old barrier and lightning control will do the trick. Even lightning control isn't a must.

Are there any shifters in the top twenty for PK kills and positive record?

I can't think of any. How many shifters crack 150 pks? Not many.

The melee classes are way more deathfull. Necros, AP's....

Shifters? You gotta be kidding me.

I would rather fight a decked out shifter than a decked out tranny, voker, necro, or AP.

Warriors have many more options. Assassins as well. You might want to just get better at playing melee classes.

Avoiding death isn't an issue, but in a cabal battle against prepped foes, mages seem to have it good. Generally, if a competent invoker or an offensive shapeshifter knocks on a counterraid, I've found it nigh on impossible to drive them off without having a significantly higher chance of dying than they have.

Edit: Haste has proven to be a great equalizer in my fights with shapeshifters, but for warriors I misplaced my shrooms and sharkbait in the great haste purge, and when I play an Outlander I am prohibited from obtaining the other warrior-available haste I know.

My impression of your own preferences was that you played mages for a reason, and it wasn't because it made you feel like an underdog. Would you enlighten me?

My thanks.

1) Fast traveling.
2) VErsatility (Defense/offense/utility)
3) Not dependent on equipment to be usefull.
4) Fast traveling.

Main reason though is the randomness and lure of trying to get combos or quest forms, etc.

-Definately not to be deathfull. But thats just me.

You're welcome to your opinion, but none of the numbers even remotely back it up in any way.

For example:

Character with the most kills currently is a warrior.

Number of gnome mages in the top 25: 0. Conversely, there's some giant warriors in there.

But I am not talking about PK numbers, I'm talking about winning engagements. I prefer fights where both players stick around for longer than two rounds to see who is better prepared, then the weaker one tucks tail.

Unless we are talking a shapeshifter form with pounce, getting away from a mage is rarely a problem. But if we define fights as who makes the other person run away and heal first, a prepped mage is pretty hard to beat without another mage.

If I can catch said mage unprepared, I can win. But toe to toe with a prepared mage, such as in a cabal raid/defense, I'd say the mage has the edge if they are an invoker or offensive shifter, and also if they are a transmuter and I'm playing anything with an int of less than 24.

If your melee characters can stand up to a ABS tiger, ram or alligator or invoker, then please feed me what you are eating, but I in a raid situation, I have yet as a melee character to do anything other than die like a villager without the head or make a tactical retreat and look for a later opportunity.

The comments from frequent mage players suggest mages are weak (look at their low pk totals!), and so I would love pointers from the masters on how to beat prepped mages with a warrior or ranger when both sides are prepared. For four years now mages have constantly dominated the cabal wars I've seen with the exception of a very few dominant Imperial Blades/Emperors, and I would love a spoon.

As a warrior in the higher levels, I tend to gear for saves first, then hit/dam. If you are a rager, you get the added bonus of spellbane, but, don't get as much of the gear. It's a trade off. Everything about fighting prepped mages works the same way in reverse when you are a warrior trying to kill them. For instance. You can be the guy who has lousy saves and a 100 damage and a guy who has great saves and a 50 damage. Now, if the mage has 90% damage reduction is going to take 10 hp hits and 5 hp hits. But, the guy with lousy saves is going to take *** and the guy with great saves is going to take much less. Which guy is going to last long enough to do the second part?

Secondly, do something that will maledict the mage. Boneshatter, whirl, impale etc. Next is to lag them in some way. Pincer, cranial etc. By maledicting them, you have a much better chance to out melee them. By lagging them, you prevent them from using those spells you don't like.

Wear the gear for the enemy. If you don't know what gear to wear for what enemy, go for save vs. spells. That's going to be your best bet.

This simplifies it when I am using my tactics as a warrior.

(Barrier) An alligator is here

You impale a alligator on your scepter of light!
You decimate an alligator.
An alligator is covered in a few scratches.

An alligators bite ===obliterates=== you!
An alligators bite ===obliterates=== you!
Your searing light maims a alligator.
Your searing light maims a alligator.
Your searing light maims a alligator.
Your searing light maims a alligator.
Your searing light maims a alligator.
An alligator is covered in a few scratches

An alligator clamps on you with his mighty jaws
An alligators bite MANGLES you!

An alligators bite ===obliterates=== you!
Your defensive spin keeps an alligators bite at distance.
An alligators bite ***devastates*** you!
You are dead!

...but I've got a problem with the premise that gear can affect it that much. For starters, most of the problems with mages in a/b/s is *not* the spells they cast - it's everything else. Seen the logs of the alligator that can OBLIT 3-4 times and one-round anything without a/b/s? I got one rounded by the Liches army without any spells - Waris is just as bad. For example of total absurdity here's a mini log of Pelrin...

<505hp 340m 823mv 22075tnl (-26.14%)>
flee
You're totally frozen!
Pelrin roars and reddens with fury as he presses his attack!
Pelrin's smash *** DEVASTATES *** you!
You parry Pelrin's smash.
You absorb the force of Pelrin's smash with a Ragesteel Chestplate.
Pelrin parries your sting.
Pelrin parries your chop.
Your sting hits Pelrin.
Pelrin has a few scratches.

I don't have any logs with Vyadesh, but he regularly would hit me for ***DEMOS/DEVAS*** with only decalficy (which lasts 15+ hours)...mangles with no spells at all. Transmuters are supposed to be a SUPPORT class and he can kill you outright with no casting on you at all because he's hasted with full a/b/s and doing damage that warriors envy. This isn't including all the slow, soften, decalcify, neuro (one of the strongest lagging maneuvers), and ERADICATE+ damage they can do in one hit spells.....not to mention he can follow you around in duo dimension.

Your example for lagging just doesn't make sense - I'd like to see someone try and lag the alligator and survive....I've seen the alligator take down the Maran outer guardian with 5 heroes wailing on it with as much damage as possible. Once I had Pelrin semi-locked with tripping but he was taking 200+ hp off me a round....

It's just not balanced in all honesty - maybe it's not meant to be balanced at hero range but there's a reason that most of the solo "badasses" are A/B/S capable. I can understand the rare other cases of villagers with HPM doing UNSPEAKABLE deathblows but that's a small subset - you can't say warriors are only affective against a/b/s if they have deathblow and spellbane.

Don't even get me started on thieves at hero :) This probably isn't too productive but I just don't see your points making that much a difference. Guess we'll wait to the Arena eh?

I regularly had transmuters out melee-ing my warrior. When they are wielding a staff now with defensive spin they are crazy good. Doesn't stop directed attacks, but very rarely did auto melee attacks actually hit them.

That there were lots of mages that could actually out-melee a warrior. By nerfing their parry, the warriors should have gained a significant advantage. So what's going wrong with transmuters versus warriors?

I still stipulate that neuro is overpowered. Not so much when levels are equal, but neuroing someone just 1 level below you is brutal as ####.

One level just doesn't make that much difference. No more than one level with any other spell makes.

Ckol (arial defender dagger/spear/staff/STFS) No problems.
Batu (Fire elite blade polearm/axe) Big problems, even with saves. Mostly died because I was outmeleed.
Bjorn (Human squire whip/sword) Big problems, but then again it was that dude who immed, with badass gear. Outmeeled.
Kreo (Human thief) Out meeled by FAR. Neruos wasn't the problem at all.
Khurga (Fire scion h2h/axe) Outmeleed, neuros was a small issue too though.
Deiha (h-drow scion healer) Outmeleed, neruos wasn't an issue due to fat saves.
Berak (Human defender, spear/h2h) Not to much problems, outmeeled sometimes but not to bad.)

Feels like I'm forgetting something...

Aah!

Ckath lvl 27 arial warrior, sheated blade, swords. Perfected defences, outstanding gear. (Well, no insane saves.) OUTMELEED by equal lvl trannie! WTF! Hahaha


So, for me it's the melee that is the problem for everything that doesn't have high dex and/or very good tanking abilities.

But, I don't think the "OP" transmuters are as big of a deal as the thieves are. Thieves are SOOOOO bad at hero that it's redicolus, if you're are chosing between changing thieves vs transmuters, change thieves hands down! :D

I notice that, in your case, the warriors with little to no maledictive ability were the ones that had the most problems.

Coincidence?

But "usually" the low int/dex warriors don't maladict much. Whirl for a axes, crush for maces... Impale spears. Ooh, Khurga had swords. Not axes. So there it was only vital blow. So, Batu and Khurga used whirl and vital blow, obviously not enough. Ckol used impale, hamstring, artery, stab, hurl...

Though as you can see most of them had some issues with the melee. But as I said, GET TO THE THIEVES! :D hehe

I hope you take my little rants as somewhat constructive. I really do love this game, just trying to help making it a little bit better. :D

My experience with this comes from a warrior I played who noticed that things went extremely well when I landed the malediction first. If I was going toe to toe and wasn't getting the malediction to hit, I was running. But, things turned around really quickly when it did.

And from what I have seen in the past year since my last warrior is that there are some guys who just do the right things tactically and there are guys who don't. There's a warrior right now who just knows what he is doing and it shows. And his tactics are basically what I have put in here.