I know this idea will be rejected as soon as it is read--maybe even sooner.

So mages get these wands and staves that have multiple charges. I've played a handful of mages in the past 8 or 9 months, and none of them ever had any trouble having aura up almost 24/7. If I knew I was going to be sitting around idle, maybe then I wouldn't bother putting up the protection.

I'd like to see preps in the form of potions have multiple uses. It could depend on level. Low level ones would only have one use. Mid-level potions would have two. And high level would have three.

Additionally, I think it would be cool to add sip to potions as well. You take a sip of the prep and get partial affects (with full negative effects if the potion has any). Partial effects would be like instead of stone skin, you'd get stone skin cut in half, in both duration and damage reduction.

Just a thought.

To the way they were - no rot. That change really ####ing sucked.

It just didn't always work right when they were in containers.

Warriors are a more annoying class to play than mages (less convenience, more gear dependence and the need for skill practice). In return, they can utterly mow down a near infinite number of mages (in a row, not together) if both are unprepped and both are at least moderately skilled. Throughout the low and midranks warriors are dominant*. Clearly I'm biased, but if warriors are going to get a break with preps then mages need a break with sleeks.


*Yes, yes, I'm sure mages can be good in the low/midranks when played by a master. The fact remains that you pretty much never see an Ilrek, or a Quas in mage form. Self-fulfilling prophecy doesn't really explain that away.

>The fact remains that you pretty much
>never see an Ilrek, or a Quas in mage form.

I've seen that. What are your criteria? :)

>
>>The fact remains that you pretty much
>>never see an Ilrek, or a Quas in mage form.
>
>I've seen that. What are your criteria? :)

I said pretty much never, because I didn't mean absolutely never. Occasionally there is someone.

I didn't have a strict definition but in the 15-40ish range, it's like this:

Someone who develops a reputation as a dangerous person. You're in a group, that person logs on and someone says "Oh, better watch out for XYZ". XYZ is, occasionally, a necromancer or shaman, but is a warrior the vast majority of the time, in my experience.

Someone who, when you look at your range you go "Who can I go kill" you think "Man XYZ guy will probably beat my ass so I need to be ready for him" That guy is almost never a mage.

You happen upon a group ranking by accident. You think "Element of surprise, I'd like to kill XYZ, but I'll get my ass handed to me, even if I can surprise him fighting a mob." XYZ is almost always a warrior.

Now you, Daevryn, probably end up thinking something like "pshaw, I can kill any of these guys and only an elite mage even *could* have the tools to stop me" and so none of what I've said here is likely to resonate with you at all.

To some extent what it comes down to is that no matter what class I am, a mage looks to me like a safe target at low levels. I'm quite likely to win and not very likely to die at all. Whereas any warrior is a potentially deadly encounter if I don't know him. Sometimes an offensive shapeshifter is like a warrior, but without the danger of lag. And in terms of reputation I almost never hear anyone talk with awe or respect for a mid-rank guy who happens to be a mage. Whereas that happens with warriors quite consistently.

Again, this doesn't apply to hero. At hero mages are balanced, and don't seem like easy wins to me.

>I didn't have a strict definition but in the 15-40ish range,
>it's like this:

I would say that in the last year or so I've seen examples in that range of the shapeshifter, conjurer, transmuter, and necromancer classes. (And A-Ps, depending on where you want to count them.)

I mean, if there's as level ~20 transmuter who's like 50-2 in PK, does that count? I've seen that guy a few times in the last year.

>I mean, if there's as level ~20 transmuter who's like 50-2 in
>PK, does that count? I've seen that guy a few times in the
>last year.

Maybe? I dunno, I can't see PK stats on lowbies, so I have to go by reputation and personal encounters. Maybe I just happened never to meet or hear about those guys? If you say people are going 50-2 I'll believe you, though I will admit I'm surprised it happens as often as you are implying. I'm curious who it is they're managing to kill.

For example, right now there's a low level muter that seems pretty offensively minded. Maybe he's got good kill ratios, but I have no idea, really. Still, that's not a guy I'm afraid of at all. He could get lucky and kill me, sure, but it's much less likely than say, being bashed or tripped to death by a random warrior/assassin.

That's because most people underestimate mental jolt.

Generally speaking warriors are more of a threat because of their ability to make fleeing difficult. Magi have to catch you with your pants down.

I know as an ap I always consider magi and bards risk free kills.

It's a bit like paladins. They are only dangerous, in my opinion if you underestimate them or if someone's with them lagging you (or if defiance is lagging you).

>That's because most people underestimate mental jolt.
>
>Generally speaking warriors are more of a threat because of
>their ability to make fleeing difficult. Magi have to catch
>you with your pants down.

Eh. Sure, probably at level 20 a mage has to catch you about prepless, but since you have zero or low XP penalty, almost your whole range IS prepless 24/7, and most of the rest is prepless most of the time.

Killing someone in 2-3 rounds with a mage at low levels is really not that unheard of. That could be "I ran in, cast a damage spell, you fled, I followed quick and did it again, and you died" or "I set up a situation where bash will mostly miss me, you tried it, and that 3 round lag is enough to kill you." or something else. I can't give away all my tricks. :)

And I agree that 2 to 3 rounds can do it. Maybe when a mage kills one of my warriors (or even an orc) I'll be convinced.

Shapa's conjurer, etc, etc, etc.

Lot's of lowbie mages have racked up impressive numbers of kills.

People just like to bitch about warriors/thieves/assassins that level sit for some reason.

Means you made a mistake.

Dying to warriors doesn't have to.

>Means you made a mistake.
>
>Dying to warriors doesn't have to.

I don't agree with this, assuming both statements consider a mistake to be something on the same order of magnitude.

I mean, I can always see a warrior coming if I'm spamming where, and there's no reason he can kill me before I can quaff.

Yeah, but I don't consider stopping to fight a warrior to be a mistake.

If you're bashable or otherwise laggable and you don't know anything about the warrior's damage output, I think that's at least as big of a mistake as, say, fighting a necromancer in an area with a room he can close.

Both are reasonable risks to take to try to get a kill, but both can put you in a situation where you'll die without making further mistakes.

I kind of disagree. Feel free to elaborate on why dying to warriors doesn't require you make a mistake, but dying to a necro does.

Because, a warrior CAN always permalag you, unless you have bash protection. Sure, you can change your size, but they can change theirs. Sure, you might be a giant (but not many magi are), and this bit of the thread started talking about magi fighting warriors.

I don't want to explain why dying to a lowbie necro requires a cock-up or people won't die to them any more. Safe to say that everything you need to survive them is either on sale to even lowbies or can be picked up off the ground, unless you allow them to summon you to a place you cannot flee from, or chase them until you are so low on moves that they can ensure you can't flee when you wake up after a few hours of scourge (or if you don't realise the danger of energy drain early on in the fight).

just like being in a room with someone who can sleep you is also a mistake if you get slept.

Otherwise you'd never fight half the people in the mud. Just because someone CAN permalag you doesn't mean that it is more likely than not.

I'm lamenting the fact that I haven't seen a decent murderous sub-hero-range necromancer since Palmer: The Early Years.

(Because with someone who really knows how to work that class, what Daurwyn is saying is sort of true, in the same sense that "if deathblow is killing you, just parry all the attacks and it can't hurt you" is true, if useless. No offense.)

Someone take that as a challenge. :P

But I'd hazard a guess that he was doing something very odd.

Because I know he used to sleep me and let me die to scourge, and I'd not be able to wake up, even though I got the message saying I could. Maybe he was re-sleeping me each tick, but that feels unlikely given that I had good saves.

So getting slept by Palmer was unique in that I, at least, never woke up at all, even once.

If you're gushing or below you will wake up on the tick if you take damage, regardless of the sleep timer.

No?

Here's the deal. In order for that warrior to permalag me with bash, he has to attack me first. That means one of two things:

1. I fought him willingly, knowing he's capable of potentially permalagging me, or
2. I wasn't spamming where often enough and he got the jump on me.

Now let's look at similar cases for a necro. First:

"I fought him willingly, knowing he's capable of potentially permalagging me."

I'd say this is similar to fighting a necro in an area with a good summoning spot, when you have good saves, or possibly fighting a nero in an area with no summoning spot but where you don't have a full compliment of "sleep survival" aids on hand. Chances are you don't get slept, just like you're likely not going to be straight up permalagged by most warriors you're prepared to fight. With the necro, maybe you're fast enough to prevent him even getting an attempt. But, then again, maybe he gets lucky despite your saves.

Now the other case:

"I wasn't spamming where often enough and he got the jump on me."

This is analagous to you standing at market square (i.e. an area with a good summon spot) talking to somebody and the necro strolls up and sleeps you. Just like you'd be dead if decked-warrior strolled up and started bashing, you're screwed if skilled-necro strolls up and sleeps you in Galadon w/ no tribs around.

vs Warrior: Fight anywhere but underwater and you are at risk of permalag.

vs necro: Fight anywhere except places where you can be trapped by summon (which are a minority), and you are at no risk unless you let your moves get so low that you can't flee.

Unless you are doing something wrong.

>vs necro: Fight anywhere except places where you can be
>trapped by summon (which are a minority), and you are at no
>risk unless you let your moves get so low that you can't
>flee.

I think if I can sleep you with a mid-level necromancer, and you don't get saved by a groupmate/cabalmate, I probably can kill you in at least half of the areas in the game almost regardless of what you're packing.

In some cases there's a locked room.

In some cases there's a room I can close, which a lot of the time is going to be good enough. If I can slow you down for a round or two, that's enough.

In some cases you can't teleport. I like my odds running you down and keeping you away from a healer long enough.

In some cases you can teleport, but I can be on you again in under 2-3 ticks. With enough stuff in your inventory and some luck, you might make it in this case, but frankly that's a much more fringe case than the 'random warrior somehow permalags you and out-melees you for 20 rounds despite everything you might do' case.

This is without giving me, say, Empire powers, a way to reliably lag you for at least a few rounds (see the closed room case), anyone else to help, or a way to do something about your potions, any of which might be in play depending on the circumstances.

>In some cases you can teleport, but I can be on you again in
>under 2-3 ticks. With enough stuff in your inventory and some
>luck, you might make it in this case, but frankly that's a
>much more fringe case than the 'random warrior somehow
>permalags you and out-melees you for 20 rounds despite
>everything you might do' case.

I am not understand that underlined part. Using... air shifters or an imperial shadow ally to find them? Gravesight? Or... uhh... "start spiraling out from Galadon and checking every area with particular attention to roads leading to healers"?

What I'm bad at is finding people anyway, even before we fight. If they aren't in a city/road/ranking area on Isildur's list, I'm usually at a loss and go grind gold/pick up potions.

I somehow have a feeling these two forms of hunting are related. Care to offer any insights?

EDIT: I'm wondering if you meant word, not teleport, in which case I totally get it: you'll find them in their city quickly, unless they're carrying mad gold/barter items. They're not getting rid of scourge very quickly, and they're sitting still while you're bearing down on their location.

If you teleport on a continent other than the main one.

It assumes he's lugging around things to refresh himself too.

Well, I guess I'll just wait for Daevryn to kill me with a lowbie necro then. Because I still don't agree. I would argue that someone spamming flee in a room that isn't locked is making a mistake. And I've killed people like that too. e.g. The house in the silverwood.

>If you teleport on a continent other than the main one.

Yup!

>It assumes he's lugging around things to refresh himself too.

Or that I also have teleport.

>Well, I guess I'll just wait for Daevryn to kill me with a
>lowbie necro then.

You might be waiting a while for me to make one...

>Because I still don't agree. I would
>argue that someone spamming flee in a room that isn't locked
>is making a mistake. And I've killed people like that too.
>e.g. The house in the silverwood.

Sure, but what's your correct move? I might be spamming the door shut and you probably can't tank multiple level 50+ mobs for long with half your hit points, 3 strength, and probably no weapon.

(Granted, you've got a window between my initial attack and when I can do that, assuming I don't decide you're worth lagging to initiate.)

Here's a rundown of the last five or six times I've died to a necro solo, or where I thought the guy was solo:

1. Ahtieli, slept, PWK.

2. What's his name the Trib mummy. PWK while fighting Captain.

3. Satebos. Slept, allowed to bleed down to half health, insta-killed with a scroll that hit for about 400-450 hp damage.

4. Satebos. Slept, teleported, didn't have the preps on hand to outlast it. Was blind when I teleported, and he was able to find my corpse before I could. (Not that he took anything). That's the other thing about necros- even if you get away, you still may end up dying, blind, and they have plenty of time to find your corpse if you're someone who can't locate object.

5. Ahtieli. Slept, spelled up, think I either teleported to the same exact area of my potion failed to work due to the veil. Got knocked down to about 1/4 health, teleported, got too full from eating pills, ran out of movement, died.

6. Ahtieli. Fought in the fortress. Was just trying to steal stuff from him. Eventually got slept, teleported, blind, either I didn't have any cure blindness preps or they failed- either is pretty likely.

7. Jhyrb's necro. Fought him because I thought he was solo. This was around the 20s or 30s I think. Got slept, spelled up, woken by him + another ranger bearcharging me.

3. Satebos, slept, allowed to stew, killed outright with the same scroll (which was extra-bad since I was underwater).

And also Palmer when I never woke at all.

Plus there was one guy who pwk'd an ap of mine that hadn't died up to that point. Annoyed me since I had levels on him and had divine saves. I think I probably rage deleted.

For you to have multiple zombies makes you higher level than I'm thinking of, really.

Also, I fancy my chances of opening a door that you are spamming shut, even blind, bearing mind mind that I'm not talking about multiple zombies.

25?

Granted, that's mid-level, but since a lot of your range is still in the teens if you're human. . .

I'm thinking 20-35 or so. It sounds like you're talking about having level 50+ mobs and enough a/b/s to tank 20 rounds of a warrior. Whereas at the level ranges I'm talking about there's minimal dr and those zombies are nothing like level 50.

>I'm thinking 20-35 or so. It sounds like you're talking about
>having level 50+ mobs and enough a/b/s to tank 20 rounds of a
>warrior. Whereas at the level ranges I'm talking about
>there's minimal dr and those zombies are nothing like level
>50.

I'm talking like 25-35. Zombies 40-50 are pretty easy at that point, 50+ being more than doable with any kind of help or creativity.

Necro can kill people all day lower than that too, really, because most of them won't have potions. I always do, but that's the range.

>I'm talking like 25-35. Zombies 40-50 are pretty easy at that
>point, 50+ being more than doable with any kind of help or
>creativity.

I haven't played a necro in a long, long time, but last time I checked you failed every time when trying to animate a corpse more than a few levels higher than you. Was I on crack? Or is it just that that one item I saw a necro using is considered baseline necro now? Still, if your experience as a level 25 necro is going 20 rounds against a warrior, that experience is night and day from mine on either side of that matchup.

>I haven't played a necro in a long, long time, but last time I
>checked you failed every time when trying to animate a corpse
>more than a few levels higher than you. Was I on crack?

Yup. That's never been the case.

>Or is
>it just that that one item I saw a necro using is considered
>baseline necro now?

Not sure.

>Still, if your experience as a level 25
>necro is going 20 rounds against a warrior, that experience is
>night and day from mine on either side of that matchup.

Generally they can't -- you're chasing a point I wasn't trying to make.

I understand Daurwyn to be saying, essentially, that no matter how good you are, if any amount of command denial can kill you, eventually a warrior will manage against you -- eventually that 20 rounds of perfect bashing in a row will happen even if you're a good but not quite good enough tank. The point I was trying to make is that I think the perfect storm of necromancer conditions isn't that rare compared to that kind of "I'm some kind of really good tank (non-necromancer) character, and it takes a ridiculous amount of bash to kill me, but sometimes it happens."

I mean, hell, I got killed by a necromancer once because I fled, teleported (main continent) and ended up less than ten rooms away. I could have teleported again after that but I didn't get the chance. I don't think it's fair to say that the warrior can get really lucky if that's what it takes, but the necromancer can't also get lucky, and it doesn't take the ten-rooms-away luck.

Summoning you to a room you cannot get out of through other means (must be reduced/need to crawl/etc) and then just whittling you down or leaving you to die.

Damn you Kuhcleros(sp?, one of Palan's necro's). Got Thrak with that (summoned to a room you have to be human size to leave, I was a giant villager).

I have killed people with level 11 invokers consistantly. I have played conjies that could pretty much mow through groups of 3 villagers while being prepless in the mid 20's. I played wuuble which had roughly 100 kills in 100 hours of character life and 80% of those kills I had just shield or just aura up.

Being deadly is a function of finding fights you can win. Every class has strengths and weaknesses and the composition of the player base changes a lot.

Fort example as a rank 15 invoker you have a significant advantage over anyone who has a low melee damage output (basically everyone except warriors over rank 12) and an elemental vuln. You can very reliably kill them in 3 spells and it takes them 5 rounds of melee to kill you, you can be very deadly then.


It is true that through the mid ranks mage characters tend to be weaker then melee characters. Part of that is because melee characters actually build their melee skills through ranking and stop to gear because well they need to hit hard and tank well to suceed. A lot of mage characters rely on melee characters to do that so they can power rank to the top. Nothing though is stopping a mage from getting that basic gear set (I mean like sandy cloaks and stuff not uber crap) and then prey on other mages who forego building a competative advantage in order to speed rank.


I actually think the game needs less preps for everyone, mages and warriors alike. In particular I think teleport or word potions should be hard as hell to come by or they should not work very well during adrenaline time. The true difference between a mage and a warrior isn't how much they can prep but rather the ease with which they can extricate themselves from unfavorable scenarios.

Give everyone drawbacks a bit like the worst one a villager gets?

For word I don't think a change is neccesary. While it is a huge transportation ability it is also predictable and so the hunter can still use this knowledge to even the playing field.

It all comes down to risk and reward. with word you have the reward of distancing yourself from an enemy. the risk is that someone is waiting for you, that your already near your word point, and that your enemy can word to the same city or point and be right on you. As an escape tool it is good but a skilled opponent has a reasonable chance to overcome this in a variety of ways.

Teleport has the same advantage of creating distance between you and a pursuer. It also has the advantage of allowing someone to search for enemies over a great distance in a short span of time. On the risk side you have the risk of teleporting somewhere nasty. It can't be reasonably overcome as an enemy except by preventing it from happening. the risk of just teleporting into a bad area are just not that big. I mean healers are the only ones who can truly harrass teleporters and then I mean your getting hunted down by a healer thats not much of a threat as evident by the high kill counts of healers.


I don't think that near perfect escape ability afforded by the current institution of teleport is great even as a non rager, as pretty much anyone who wants to kill someone who just has to get off one or two commands to escape you taking the time to try and kill them. Look at it this way, both ragers and non ragers hunt people who use teleport, but the rager doesn't have to spend the time to go get another set of sleek rods because they preped before the guy teleported) Non rager benefit the most from this.


I say give teleport a chance to fail while pumping adrenaline, you fumble the potion or mispronounce or whatever. That way the instant thought isn't flee teleport at least force them to move a few rooms and get some space so they can try twice, give it just a 30% fail rate. So conservative players need to get about 9 rooms of space on a truly fast opponent to garuntee escape or they just have to buy 2 teleport potions instead of one, you just make knowing how to run short distances more of a valueble skill in pk.

I've died more from teleporting trying to find an enemy I've almost killed than I have found the guy and killed him.

Teleporting to find someone you lost is generally a really bad idea. I wouldn't even consider going to a place someone can't teleport to in an effort to avoid it.

Teleporting to escape is also lethal on a reasonably regular basis, since in many cases you have low hp, and even if you aren't attacked, you won't make it to a healer under many circumstances.

I use teleport totaly without fear at level 13, my chances of dieing to it are pretty damn slim I feel even when I am that defenseless. By 30 you should be able to get out of just about anywhere you can teleport into pretty much every time.

I also use teleport to hunt not chase, ie I prep up and spam c tel;whe until I see someone then run at them. It can be very effectivee and at hero there is almost no risk at all to teleport not that there isn't a chance to land somewhere nasty but the number of rooms that are going to foob you as a percent of the rooms that you can teleport into is very very low at that point you have to apply how scary dieing really is for you some players feel any mob deaths for any reason are too many, me I figure if you don't generally play to con death why should you care?

... and I can safely say that I won't be using it to hunt again. (At least no pre-hero or with proper potions or allies, translucence, master locksmith etc...)

I teleported into cursed locked no-magic rooms 10 times over 190ish hours (Without mobs in them). I had 6 teleports to locked rooms with an badass aggro mob.

10ish teleports to the dragon tower ruins pre-40 (Most of the time I had a wand of return however, but still died from lag a few times.)

1 teleport to a certain lich in a locked room, got cursed asap and promptly died.

2 teleports straight into a deathtrap...

And add a bunch of inconvinient teleports that perhaps didn't kill me but caused me a bunch of trouble.

No, teleporting to hunt is NOT safe at all. But sure, if con isn't a problem or you're at hero. The risks are pretty small.

1) Rot
2) Recovering hp
3) Being looted before you get to your corpse.

+ If you are after someone you've almost killed already, you can't do that if you just turned yourself into a ghost.

Generally speaking I'm happy to roll the dice to escape someone, but not to try to find someone.

I still suspect the actual % of times you die as a result of teleporting vs the number of times you don't is less then 1%.

If that was not the case we would reasonably see something like 15-20 mob deaths from teleporting on almost every single character who perfects teleport. (not saying some people don't spam it in no teleport area or learn it mostly through rank bonuses but the number of times you cast a spell before it is mastered is measured into the hundreds) we do not see this and therefore in practice teleporting to death has a very very low risk. is it absolutly zero risk, no, our perceptions of the rate may seem high because you really remember that one you died but not the 100 you landed in a safe place. Wording also has a very low percent but as I said in another post at least it is predictable so people can try and use it against you, the unpredictability of teleport reduces the risk of me as a hunter hurting you to the risk of dieing from teleport which is substantially lower.

But I don't agree with it. The reason being is that I USED to use teleport for trying to find people who had teleported from me, and I stopped because it got me killed far too often. It's really annoying to be trying to find a guy you know is writhing or convulsing, and blind, only to be the one to die first.

But I don't agree with it. The reason being is that I USED to use teleport for trying to find people who had teleported from me, and I stopped because it got me killed far too often. It's really annoying to be trying to find a guy you know is writhing or convulsing, and blind, only to be the one to die first.

But...

If you can be bothered to go translucent before you teleport, then it becomes a lot less risky.

Also it depends on your class. An ap is at greater risk than other magi, because if he can't flee on landing (e.g. like when you teleport into whitecloaks where one's a polespec), he needs a wand to word. And if he's not already holding it, he may find that he gets dirted first. That's also assuming not being bashed, as aps have less protection against that.

In short, I think you can make the risks acceptable, but it's too fiddly for my liking.

Me being someone who usually prefers the RP part of the game and not the PK. I would rather get that potion to get away from that fight.

Can you play a warrior who preps out the wazoo, sure.

It is by no means neccesary to compete. In fact most of the time your prepping heavily it is working against you. If your spending 30% of your time prepping and I am spending that 30% of my time fighting I garuntee you I will end up killing more people with less preps then you just because I have had 30% more opportunities to kill people.

Yeah it means I am also a little more likely to die but death isn't that bad, especially if you have established yourself as not an asshat and people leave your things. With wuuble I had 100 kills in 100 hours pretty much using no preps as a shifter or just aura and with that I could take out village berserkers. You don't need preps if you understand when to attack and when to retreat and if you strategically retreat as soon as you see your not doing cap damage then expect your enemies will too.

You were almost never at any risk of dying in many of your fights, given that against most enemies you could fly down, attack, and fly away if not winning easily. Air offense is probably the mage combo least reliant on preps to achieve a good pk record.

That I wouldn't give warriors any more beefiness.

I wouldn't mind seeing barrier removed, and anti-gank code SIGNIFICANTLY toned up to compensate though.

I just don't think the melee classes need that level of prepping, and if we gave it to them, probably we'd need to gimp them in some other way you'd probably like even less to make it fair. Warriors with only one legacy, etc.

One compromise might be to put in more buyable preps that have negative affects as well. Fillets are a great example. They're great in certain situations or for certain characters, or when you have a healer around. Now make them a little pricey and not very high level, and you've given players without a lot of prep knowledge a way to be more competitive. This might appeal to people like me who, more often than not, would rather not prep than spend the time waiting for repops or going from area to area on my "prep route" 2-3 times per session.

But hey, the people who are willing to spend a large portion of their sessions getting preps, gold, etc. probably deserve to whoop those who don't/can't for their efforts.

Don't spend my $0.02 all in the same place.