basically its how big of arsebags the empire inners are and how a paladin or decent equipped warrior can come in an tank them and still kill other poeple.... yet a group of three warriors and a bard cant kill the watcher in one go without freaking having to flee (possibly into one of the rooms of death and getting raped.... oh well.) and daveryn seems to think a summoning circle totally negates that fact that four people cant take out the watcher in a single go... I and the previous warmaster disagree here is the last post in it


From molo's death thread
A couple things:

>1) The walk from where you were summoned back to the Fort inner is both longer and less predictable than with any other cabal.

Well first off since I condied behn, I don't remember every having someone who could summon a hero other than damgril and they went out pretty quick as did the last dreadlord

and second every maran can just cry to the person that got summoned.

>2) Because it's a bigger cabal, it's harder (and slower) to take the tactic of running to where someone was summoned to take the fight to the summoner

It's also harder to track people if you dont have summon, and they can just flee to the two rooms of death to the east and west...

>3) Not always relevant, but Fortress is the main cabal that has to deal with black circle in their raids,

what about nexus? oh yeah for the entire war there has been no hero summoning class hehehehe....
not really revelant when there is no summoning class in empire and hasn't been for awhile cept for a very few...

>Unless the Fort are dramatically more skilled than the Empire (or other factors make the fight so skewed as to not be a fight), defending against a group containing a Black is not possible.

I guess the main thing is even if you kill everyone off it is very hard even with a bard to take the watcher down in a single go... and it takes some time even with molo ckath and adamar it took us two tries with no defenders...

Empires inners can be killed from the time it takes to get from hamash to the palace (maybe a bit longer but not by much) and they dont defend worth a crap... I got killed as a bard with imeprial defense by a distorted paladin because he could just com warth me to death faster than I could heal and not worry about the guardians at all, and both of the big fort warriors one of which just immed could come in direct to me and bash me to death never getting below covered...and i dont think you can say that about anyone at the watcher... getting hit for oblits through anthem and getting everything dispelled just rocks chars compared to the empires dirtkick or trip once every five rounds... oh well just my two cents

FWIW I solo raided the Fortress with a level 30 conjurer. I don't really think its as hard as you seem to indicate.

Empower powers > than most other cabals

Ergo, balance is Empire inners < other cabals.

I think nearly everyone in a particular cabal will think their guardians are too easy to kill while everyone else's are nearly impossible at times. It all comes down to particular combinations of factors, none of which are possible to 'balance' in every case.

I saw where someone else had ranked the Spirit as the toughest inner, yet I've seen conjurers go through it so fast you couldn't even get close to getting back before they were done and gone. And I've seen the Imperials very tough to raid if there's anyone there at all to defend because of those damnable Centurions and their early warning (not to mention how close the Palace is to Hamsah or Balator recall points) and all the guards and sentries in the way if you happen to be 'WANTED'.

Unless you had a dynamic system where the strength of Inners and Outers varied in response to changing conditions, which would be nearly impossible to code, you're going to have some combinations that are going to make any given cabals guardians look ridiculously easy and others impossibly hard.

Heck, try being a ranger and raiding anybody solo (except perhaps raiding Outlander where you *may* actually have it easy) -- you'll never think anyone's inners are easy.

... Some fairly successful and a few fortress, battle, tribunal, Scion and outlander. All cabals to hero, and most to a leader position I can easily say that I'd rank the cabal inners like this. (The toughest on top WITHOUT DEFENDERS.)


1: Spirit (INSANE for every class I've tried with.)
2: Watcher (It's just... SO tough and the dispel is to much.)
3: Archmage (The debuffs and sudden outbursts... OUCH!)
4: Nexus (The ability to maladict AND perma lag you! Very rare, they're good in my eyes.)
5: Tribunal (A bit to easy without defenders.)
6: Destructor (If facing the wrong weapons, it's really tough, the right ones real easy. With defenders and the nosum thing it can be rough.)
7: Empire... I've never ever had any troubles with these with any class.

Throw in defenders and the orders change slightly. With defenders the fortress gets bumped down to 6th and Scion up to 2nd. Tribunal up to 4th and Village up to 5th.
With the RIGHT defenders Empire can be tough.

However retrieving against the Empire can be REALLY rough. Only matched by Outlanders.

>However retrieving against the Empire can be REALLY rough.

No way, 90% of the current heroes just pay through centurions. Maybe as a lowbie it can suck, but so does every other cabal (and fortress is more likley to have a healer/paladin to heal the outer than most others).

Raiding Empire is a joke, same with retrieving imho - not to mention Imperials getting summoned to the spirit-knight or the Inn, when raiders can just walk around the keep and be clear of it.

I'd change your 5, 6 and 7 around.

Tribunal being 7
Empire being 6
Destructor being 5



Maybe it has something to do with the class combination that I tend to play. I've solo'd the Empire inners with a warrior on multiple occasions without defenders.

I've solo'd the Tribunal inner with a warrior, druid and shapeshifter without defenders.

And I can't seem to figure out the destructor. He kicks my ass all over the place--but I'll take your word for it.



My characters tend to never be able to solo the spirit, watcher or archmage. And I don't have a whole lot of experience raiding Nexus.

1. We don't have a summoner. Therefore, either buff the Empire inners or nerf the Watcher.

Response: Usually Empire has a summoner. And usually the Empire has better Pkers. From what I can tell, you've only played on Imperial. So...probably best to hold off on your speculations until you've played a lot more of them. All your arguments are based off of one timeframe, and from one character.

2. You couldn't defend well at all and people kept owning you at the inners, so that means buff the Empire Inners.

Response: You also said this was your first bard. Clearly, it was. You should probably go look at some of Alex's old Imperial bard logs. Even if they were secretly nerfed in some areas, he could hold off a helluva lot better than you.

There is rarely an Imperial summoner in the hero range. If you said mid-ranks, I'd be fine with that, since that is more in line with actuality.

Empire is usually full of assassins, thieves, warriors and bards. Occasionally they have a healer. And occasionally they have a hero level summoner.

Fortress is primarily warriors, healers, and paladins. Occasionally they get shapeshifters, thieves, transmuters. So in general, I'd say Fortress has a lot more opportunity to summon and commune sanctuary than Empire ever does.

This is of course speaking only in generalities. Gameplay should reflect averages.

>1. We don't have a summoner. Therefore, either buff the
>Empire inners or nerf the Watcher.
>
>Response: Usually Empire has a summoner. And usually the
>Empire has better Pkers. From what I can tell, you've only
>played on Imperial. So...probably best to hold off on your
>speculations until you've played a lot more of them. All your
>arguments are based off of one timeframe, and from one
>character.
>
and about the better pk'ers i believe all cabals have people decent at pk... i know 25 out of 100 of all time pk'ers are from empire(taken from dio's) but that is not a huge differnce than anyone else...

I have played allot of empire folk just not for the last 6 years... and this is from the "CURRENT" (over the last 6 monthsish or so, i made behn soon as melmemememlen or what ever was on the way out) perspective so I think that is what should matter, if you want to talk about ten years ago then we can... but since there is an avg playerbase of 30 i think we should talk about what is going on now, not what could be or what has been....

>2. You couldn't defend well at all and people kept owning you
>at the inners, so that means buff the Empire Inners.
>
>Response: You also said this was your first bard. Clearly, it
>was. You should probably go look at some of Alex's old
>Imperial bard logs. Even if they were secretly nerfed in some
>areas, he could hold off a helluva lot better than you.

I could defend okay against most my point exactly was if you read it again that I could get out damaged by a paladin communing wrath becase "HE COULD STAND IN FRONT OF ALL FOUR INNERS AND NOT WORRY ABOUT THE DAMMAGE THEY WERE DOING TO HIM" and about the warriors who perma lagged me out it was because the could "STAND IN FRONT OF ALL FOUR INNERS AND ME AND NEVER EVEN GET TO COVERED WOUNDS WHILE PERMA LAGGIN ME OUT...."

So next time you want to troll try reading what is posted first if you would, save me the time of making responses to silly troll/grief posts.

>and about the better pk'ers i believe all cabals have people
>decent at pk...

They all do. Some just have fewer than others, historically speaking. Fortress is probably one of those.

>I could get out damaged by a paladin
>communing wrath becase "HE COULD STAND IN FRONT OF ALL FOUR
>INNERS AND NOT WORRY ABOUT THE DAMMAGE THEY WERE DOING TO HIM"

This really depends on the bard and the paladin. Is the bard emperor? What edges does he have? Does the paladin have a nodisarm weapon? Healing pendants? What virtues does the paladin have? What preps are they both carrying?

In your case if you had hasted the entire council with a talisman, put resisting song on them, then managed to get echos on the paladin...and possibly the song that makes it where he can't see his hp...then he's going to have a damned hard time killing the council with you there messing with him.

>This really depends on the bard and the paladin. Is the bard
>emperor? What edges does he have? Does the paladin have a
>nodisarm weapon? Healing pendants? What virtues does the
>paladin have? What preps are they both carrying?
>
>In your case if you had hasted the entire council with a
>talisman, put resisting song on them, then managed to get
>echos on the paladin...and possibly the song that makes it
>where he can't see his hp...then he's going to have a damned
>hard time killing the council with you there messing with
>him.

I only had everything to make that work out once, but I will say this the paladin (is still active so wont say his name) had defiance at the time, and vs a hasted council with anthem and me with shield, stone skin (from the brew so not for long) and protection, I got off distort, and the two -str -dex songs (could not get dirge off tried twice but then switched to healing) and he still could com wrath me to death and the inners just were not doing enough damage... i know that is kinda specific and maybe a one time deal but i remmeber getting really frustrated because he could do that all the time.

It's true, you can pretty much ignore the inners if you have temperance virtue. When I had defiance, people couldn't really even defend because my staying power was enough to blind the healers etc. It was only when I got stuck fighting in my pk whilst the enemy was supported by those out of pk that I ended up dying (and by then, most defenders had fled and the entire council was dead.

The only thing I don't understand is how a paladin can wrath a bard to death. You should be able to heal (using healer, not songs) about as fast as he can damage you, unless your saves suck or you haven't got resist up.

As a bard though, for any tough enemy I'd have at least aura + shield + resist + protection. For the toughest ones, add in wraithform and stoneskin. But even basic protection and resist feel like they should make it impossible for a paladin to wrathspam you to death.

The thing about Empire's guardians is that their strength depends more than any other guardians on the class fighting them, and the class defending. Nererial could put up a strong defense because he could do stuff like dispel, plague, and healing curse. But my thief just sucked hugely at it. Meanwhile pretty much every class I've ever played could raid the Empire solo with ease. The exception being Nererial, who could raid it but it took forever.

The Watcher is deadly because it dispels, deals both significant melee and supp damage, meaning no one is escaping it, not to mention wrathing to prevent recall. It's REALLY easy to find yourself instantly vulnerable to any defenders there. Personally I would have thought a more balancing thing is to tone down the watcher and to make the fortress a place where you can't make a black circle, the same way you can't make a forsaken portal there.

Also, outlander guardian is mean if you are solo, but too easy if there are people to spread the maladicts around. I include a necro army in that. If I'm alone, by the time it dies I've got crazy maladictions all over me and it can take several attempts with long rests in between even when unopposed. If I'm with a zombie army, it's a cakewalk.

>>>This really depends on the bard and the paladin. Is the bard emperor? What edges does he have? Does the paladin have a nodisarm weapon? Healing pendants? What virtues does the paladin have? What preps are they both carrying?

Misinfo. Not noob shield paly will rape inners with bard defending no matter what. All bard can do is prolong the fight.

When I used to raid empire as a shield paladin (temperance/fortitude), without preps, I would be near-dead and out of mana by the time I finished. And that was with no defenders.

I was a lot less knowledgeable than I am now, but I think if you put non-newbie (but non-super-vet) shield paladin vs. non-newbie (but not-super-vet) "Elite Blade" bard, both having a decent compliment of preps, then its going to take several passes for paladin to potentially take the codex.

Here I'm assuming the paladin has resist mental, and the bard has haste talisman, dispel talisman and some combination of resist positive, stoneskin and protection vs. good. Both have a decent wad of gold.

If I'm the bard I haste and resist the inners before the Paladin comes in. Then I just start spamming symphonic echos. If I get too hurt I run out into Imperial lands and heal some, then go back in. If the Paladin comes out after me then I let him chase me around until the Vanquisher and/or inners repop.

Once echos lands, maybe I try to dispel him, then nightmare/chase/lullaby.

As a paladin fighting a bard, you should have undispellable resist mental.

Also, your problem is probably that you were a shield dedicant, so you needed your mana to do a lot of the damage. However, take the shield jab edge and that problem largely disappears.

I consider myself slightly better than average when it comes to imperial bards, I had alot of experience fighting shield pallies. Unless they are noob there is nothing you can do exept make them spent 15-25 minutes raiding instead of 5-10. Granted they won't kill you too unless you do something realy retarded. But they'll take item forsure and then you won't be able take it from them. Not alone.