Thanks to Moligant for inspiration. Feeling like these kinds of skills would round out Animist a bit better and keep the feel of the expertise.

Spirit Quest - Since animists are already pretty good trackers, thought a little more expansion on it wouldn't hurt. While in terrain that you can call a spirit guardian in, you gather some hallucinatory herbs, build a fire, and then meditate on a spirit quest. The spirits can either choose to show you all enemies (PK range) that occupy that same type of terrain wherever they are in Thera, they can reveal nothing, or you can get the mix of herbs wrong and get hit with confusion and dulled senses for half a day. Powerful, but not without a big risk.

Possession - Only works when you have a spirit guardian with you. You ask the spirit guardian to enter your body and you take on some of the attributes of that spirit. Would give a few minor stat bonuses and some greater-enliven-like prog effects causing damage, malediction, or lagging.

Having played one a couple months ago, I think Animists are pretty well rounded and fun. I like how you can use some of their spells in civilized areas (albeit to lesser effect) and I also think they're decently tough and dangerous in the wilds. I like them much better than, for example, Hunters - which I think are pretty weak.

My only complaint with Animists is the same complaint that applies to every ranger - for whatever reason when I am playing a ranger it is really really hard for me to get people to fight in the wilds unless I camp the Fortress, which means I don't get to play with all the fun PK tools. I wish I knew how Nreisshe got over 200 people to do it :)

So why do animists get a bad rap? They have 2nd attack, dual wield, ambush, all the extra maledict spells... why does everyone (including Zulg) think they're missing something?

(to see the answer to your last question read the bottom of the post)

The likes of which are praised but never practiced in the game because it generally is a colossal waste of time when you could be doing something more fun, if devastatingly effective. (Creative use of talismans in civilized areas such as the slave mines of sitran, predator's stance, pre-nerf wasps, mountaineer/beastmaster bearcharge which is going to be powerful no matter what your size, and oodles of other factors.)

I'm willing to bet money that kind of patience pays off well for assassins, if it hasn't already. See this comment:

Sun Aug 28 10:58:44 2005 by 'Drokalanatym' at level 36 (158 hrs):
Watching a little more, I understand the ratio. *Very* conservative play style. We're talking the Republican National Convention of rangers here. Not that there's anything wrong with that It's effective.

Mon Dec 5 20:15:29 2005 by 'An Immortal' at level 43 (231 hrs):
An Immortal added 1500 exp for: Went to the underdark to hunt the tribs, found the group of three, killed two and the third got lucky with a flee in the right direction.

(PK is as much about forcing your opponent to #### up as it is sealing the kills yourself by brute force. Others call this 'luck', and depending on the day of the week and circumstances it could be termed differently.)

Then you need to take into account how many of those kills were skilled people, i.e. other cabal leaders, Cabdru and Ravon and Igbah types that did not exist at the time, etc. and how many were noobs.

Throw on alignment and religion, insect swarm (ultra-curse) with the lag, and it ends up being a perfect storm the likes of which are not easily replicated (as Nepenthe has pointed out multiple times about his chars and what he's observed of other people)

If you look at the stats too, the bulk of the kills were warriors that had no clue what they were getting into. This is no surprise, thieves could kill alot of warriors outright as well, even pincerspecs, if they would use backstab more often in lieu of blackjack, just like rangers must use ambush. For whatever reason the types of player for these two classes tend to differ, expert rangers need a finely tuned understanding of when direct damage will work while thieves rarely have or rely on such an understanding. Warriors die to everyone.

You'll also note the killcount of 142 uncaballed people. That means these people were killed while ranking, usually with any number of nasty kill sealing abilities the majority of other rangers and uncaballed people lack. Insects makes things easier too. There were lots of goodies involved on top of that, who are less likely to prepare to flee;q teleport due to their groupmates abilities as well as the usual stereotypes about that alignment.

I was set up to get a fairly decent (for me) amount of kills myself with Bok, but I got tired of the entire hero range of people I wanted to kill ranking up with bash protections, fighting Twist's vastly superior prep knowledge and vast abuse of progging gear, swiftstrike and concealed all on top of one another to do the majority of his work for him, and shapeshifters outdamaging me and their control trans being impossible to dispel. All that aside I killed some amazingly tough ####ers with that build that weren't Twist and I didn't have insects nor the kind of patience she did.

An animist should never be able to get these kinds of numbers while being built like what amounts to a crappy bard. Precisely due to the fact that they have nothing to seal kills.

"So why do animists get a bad rap? They have 2nd attack, dual wield, ambush, all the extra maledict spells... why does everyone (including Zulg) think they're missing something?"

VERSATILITY DOES NOT EQUAL LETHALITY AND VICE VERSA IN CF. THIS IS WHY THEY ARE MISSING SOMETHING, THE LOGS SHOW IT.

Plus I permabashed at least one animist to death myself who promptly started ####-talking semi-OOCly, ignoring his blinding zephyr that was spamming blind every time I bearcharged. So yes, definitely missing something when that can happen in their hometerrain. :3

>You'll also note the killcount of 142 uncaballed people. That
>means these people were killed while ranking, usually with any
>number of nasty kill sealing abilities the majority of other
>rangers and uncaballed people lack. Insects makes things
>easier too. There were lots of goodies involved on top of
>that, who are less likely to prepare to flee;q teleport due to
>their groupmates abilities as well as the usual stereotypes
>about that alignment.
>


You realize that Nriesshe did not have insects.
And you realize that Nriesshe was around for a large chunk of time BEFORE the ranger revamp.

The only kill sealing abilities Nriesshe had were ambush and snare. You can ask anyone who has played a ranger for a long time, and her PK total is damned impressive, especially for a FELAR ranger.


>An animist should never be able to get these kinds of numbers
>while being built like what amounts to a crappy bard.
>Precisely due to the fact that they have nothing to seal
>kills.
>


Animists have the exact same "seal kill" tools that Nriesshe had: ambush and snare. And they have a couple utility spells to help out with those (e.g., gust of wind).

I don't really see the comparison to bards, either. Is that because symbiosis is similar in healing to the bard song? Not getting this comparison.



>"So why do animists get a bad rap? They have 2nd attack, dual
>wield, ambush, all the extra maledict spells... why does
>everyone (including Zulg) think they're missing something?"
>
>VERSATILITY DOES NOT EQUAL LETHALITY AND VICE VERSA IN CF.
>THIS IS WHY THEY ARE MISSING SOMETHING, THE LOGS SHOW IT.
>


What logs?

There is nothing an animist can't do now that a ranger pre-revamp could have done. I've played both. Pretty extensively.


>Plus I permabashed at least one animist to death myself who
>promptly started ####-talking semi-OOCly, ignoring his
>blinding zephyr that was spamming blind every time I
>bearcharged. So yes, definitely missing something when that
>can happen in their hometerrain. :3


This is really a function of (1) what was the animist wielding at the time relative to you, (2) what were your characters' relative dexterities, and (3) what were your relative damage reductions at the time. You're right, a human mountainer/beastmaster should be able to beat a human animist when they have the same primary stat, same weapons, and same DR, and neither character tries anything tricky by virtue of 3rd attack vs. 2nd attack (and assuming you can permalag someone of the same size with bearcharge now). That is the only difference. But switch the variables and it gets more complicated.

The hard part IMO is really finding people in the wilds (other than camping the Fort).

Level 30 bearcharge 100%
Level 30 deadfall 83%

I was wrong on insects.

I wasn't wrong about it being beastmaster and mountaineer.

Level 31 cloud of wasps 100%
Level 42 boreal wind 97%

Level 22 predators stance 100%

Given that she was around for 750ish hours, it's a toss-up as to how much of a difference all these new skills made. Also her predator's stance was pre-nerf, back when at hero you could do oblits with it using a full suit, making it even better to use than ironhands when combined with wild fam. Preds is nowhere near that useful now.

Since Forsaken recently tested an arial ranger, which in many respects is the exact same as felar but with fewer claw attacks, you can ask him how well bearcharge works for a human sized character.

Other than evade, dexterity is moot when it comes to bearcharge. I had a 16 dex, he had 24. I was, however, two sizes larger. I also wasn't in my hometerrain and he was, in the case of the Sunwarden I bashed down. I was wielding a spear, he probably was as well or a staff.

Nreisshe didn't have the kill sealing abilities of an animist, she had many of the abilities that many other ranger players GIVE UP to play certain combos, that no one sane should really give up if they don't have a clear idea as to exactly why they are doing so. (Snare, bearcharge, call lightning, and probably one or two others.) This isn't exclusive to animists. Hunters tank extremely well even out of the wilds, they outmelee people due to unparryable attacks with bows and still can't seal a great deal of kills.

Absolutely zero of the above is discounting Nreisshe's skill and patience and at this point you're disputing semantics and methods. That doesn't undo the 'perfect storm of circumstances' statement.

Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

All things being equal (gear, size, wild fam, in or out of hometerrain), animist will have better healing, can blind/ambush, and can better resist/evade spells.

Anyway. I'll say it again, a str built human ranger mtn/beast could kill 300+. Go uncabal'd, evil for more dam gear, and rock out on Calandryl, Kiadana, Fortress, and the mountain by arial city and sitran. 300+ in less hours than Nrieshe. You could substitute beast for savage and still walk away pretty decently.

A handy damage skill can sometimes help you win your battles.

As for Nreisshe, Nreisshe patiently waited until a victim was in a good situation for the kill to happen and didn't usually strike in situations where the victims had good chance to run away, even if it meant half an hour of stalking. I'd say much of such PK is stalking and waiting for the opportune moment for the kill to arise.

Nreisshe also hunted a lot. When I was playing my Outlander elf healer Theannian with Nreisshe online at the same time, Nreisshe would usually drop by briefly to check wilderness area I was in, where ever that was and never stopped to stay more than few seconds on the spot. So, Nreisshe was briefly everywhere and saw a lot and was thus able to find people. Camping a spot will never achieve you the same amount of chances for a kill than continuous movement and checking of areas. I'd say mobility is a key factor here.