I would like to open a civilized discussion about deathblow. I want to start first by saying that I am not sure whether I think that deathblow is overpowered in its current form or not. I was thinking about it today, and the oddest thought I had was that if you are a mage with wands deathblow probably isn't your biggest worry. If you are a melee class, it probably is up there.

I would like to suggest an alternative which I am sure will not be favored by the masses, but it will at least give me ideas why it is a good or bad idea.

Change deathblow to where instead of giving a damage multiplier, it allows the hit to cut through x% of damage reduction. I will leave x to the immortals to decide. That makes me think of an ability suiting a mage killer. I don't want berserkers to be push overs though against other warriors, so perhaps every time a death blow lands you fight a little harder and get a +y hit/dam on a 0 tick timer with a max of z stacks.

Please, no crucifiction for idle thoughts.

It was giving the guy with it fifty percent damage reduction off of normal melee hits.

Vanguard does not suck.

(N/t)

www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,941207,941207#msg-941207


You know, for someone who played such a successful Nexun, you sure do underestimate their powers. :p

Power, not powers. Bond is incredibly powerful if frequently not present. It frustrates me even further when you try to pamper and help shifters so you have people to bond with just to have them delete days later.

I reviewed the log. In this log it looks to be providing over 50% dam reduction. I would guess that some of this has to be because of Szzilizi being evil and vanguard potentially providing protection from evil. The *** Demo's he looks like he would normally be doing also would seem to be big enough hits for vanguard to be dropping them. This is legit damage reduction.

Had vanguard stayed up, who is your money on? Mine is still probably on Szzilizi.


I would like to do a comparison for a 1vs1 nexun warrior vs RBW warrior.

Village Powers
Berserkers
Resist which provides consistent damage reduction
Deathblow which provides an amazing increase in damage production
Bloodthirst which seems to provide haste, some protection against lag, protection against maledictions, protection against blindness, at a large risk to yourself
Truesight - Detect invis, cure blindness
Spellbane - Counter spells, save vs spells.

After some debate and trying to learn from the forums, these powers are awesome and fun and should stay the way they are.

Nexus Powers
Eye - Free Detect Invis/Alignment/Ethos/Magic. Basically a power that is required to figured out who to fight.
Gauge - Another power that is just required to figure out who to fight.
Vanguard
Protection vs strong alignment - This is helpful for everyone else, but largely not against ragers especially recently with how often light is strong and the rarity of goodie villagers.
Damage Reduction against strong hits - I loved this against rangers and thieves. It was somewhat useful against berserkers. The problem really comes in that it does little against the warriors who are more about hitting you a lot for medium damage instead of a little for big damage.


Resist vs Vanguard - Not a bad comparison, but I would rather have consistent damage reduction than sometimes damage reduction.
Truesight vs Eye - I suppose I would take truesight for the curing of blindness without having to always have potions on me to do it.
Gauge vs ? - Gaining no benefit at all beyond knowing who to fight, I see nothing comparing to this.
Deathblow vs ? - Keep dreaming Nexun.
Bloodthirst vs ? - The general answer said is RUN AWAY. Woo, thats fun.
Spellbane vs ? - Yeah that would be nice Nexun. At least you are not fighting mages all the time, wait you mean a-p's and necro's and transmuters still want to kill you to?

Ever present argument - Nexuns have the numbers! Yeah, so what if I am constantly outnumbered? Do I really have the numbers?

The truth is for a solo nexun vs RBW, your powers are just lame. One of your powers does something, woooo. It doesn't mean you have to lose, you can play smart and win. It doesn't mean there won't be successful nexun warriors, some builds are good enough or people are talented enough to pull it off. It doesn't change my mind that nexus powers are still lame.

The other counter is that the bond does make up for a lot of the short comings and can be rather fierce. I really don't feel like it is overpowered just because you have to have two people work perfectly together, which is frequently lacking.

So don't play them. Well, okay I really don't want to but I don't like any other cabal but villagers any better and I don't have the patience to play them constantly.
Outlander - The last time I played it felt like a collection of independent people who had very little interest in one another, which bored me.
Scion - I am not sure I have the talent or patience to pull this off honestly.
Empire/Fort - I have enjoyed empire and fort in the past, but it just feels like the Fort/Empire wars cause people to be ugly and brutal to each other. I also hate the summoning traps and numbers on both sides.
Tribunal - No patience for sitting on my butt for hours in town twiddling my thumbs.
Battleragers - I love everything about them, you know, except for not having teleport potions ;).
Herald - I enjoy more pk than rp, though do enjoy both so I don't see myself fitting in here.
Nexus - At least you consistently have someone to fight and allies who want to work together.

Notable nexus warrior kill v battle vs death v battle:

Zenze:
79 Battle kills, 29 Battle deaths

Puhguly:
110 Battle kills, 39 Battle deaths

Chulun:
137 Battle kills, 34 Battle deaths

Darikir (WHICH WAS YOU):
64 Battle kills, 16 Battle deaths

Notable battle warrior kill v Nexus vs death v Nexus:

Woldrun:
79 Nexus kills, 29 Nexus deaths (oddly the same as Zenze)

Bartis:
74 Nexus kills, 24 Nexus deaths

Knacnar:
99 Nexus kills, 20 Nexus deaths

Ohbehb:
83 Nexus kills, 23 Nexus deaths


Basically, Nexus stacks up pretty well against the village. So I don't know what the #### you're talking about. If I want to kill villagers, in order of best cabal to worst, this is what I'm choosing:

1) Empire - Centurions + no head = pain. Lot's of pain
2) Nexus - bond + vanguard = win
3) Scion - Despoil....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
4) Outlander - Camo for fun and rape villagers in the wilderness!
5) Fortress - Co "wrath"...oh #### that only works for evils...dammit!
6) Tribunal - Hi, we're going to stand in a place you know we are and wait for you to kill us...god no
7) Herald - FEAR THE L33T HERALD SECRETS!

I think those stats have more to do with player skill on both sides. It takes player skill for nexus to kill a RBW and for a rager to not die to mass nexus gangs.

My argument was that nexus 1vs1 powers are lame to me. Not that Nexun warriors couldn't be elite with preps/awesome builds/good bond mates/gangs. The reason Darikir did so great is he was on during a time of great nexus power and had a frequent bondmate. Frankly, I'm not sure how I would do in the current environment.

I don't disagree with your cabal list. I don't disagree with your premise that nexus can be quite powerful for killing villagers. I suppose you won your argument, it just wasn't the argument I was having. Congrats I guess?

I think this discussion has pretty much played out. This is what I learned.

The situation seems to be that RBW are mean solo, but because of their immobility and vuln gang it's pretty much a perk of having such hard conditions.

Nexus solo powers are still lame in my opinion, but perhaps the balancing act is using potions. If you aren't pk awesome like some others, you need to spend the time to gather preps and tons of gold to spam heal. In the end, you are still vuln to bring RNG screwed like the Eleagra log shows.

Assassins bother ragers immensely psychologically even with plenty to see them.

In the end, I think I would rather see tweaking to Nexus than to Ragers if anyone would seriously consider it. It seems like their is more benefit to being in every other cabal but Nexus. Nexus doesn't even seem to get leader weapons.

>Nexus solo powers are still lame in my opinion, but perhaps
>the balancing act is using potions. If you aren't pk awesome
>like some others, you need to spend the time to gather preps
>and tons of gold to spam heal.

I would semi-qualify the preps bit: the nature of Vanguard (the big/relevant part of which being, good DR, but only to damage past a threshold) makes it such that adding DR preps doesn't get you as much as it does for other characters. In a steel cage match you're better off to have them than not have them, but the difference they make isn't huge. In a fight where healing is involved, you might even be better off being able to heal really fast vs. soak up a bit more total damage before dying, since Vanguard doesn't impact healing but other DR prep potions will.

But having a sackfull of potions to fly/enlarge/reduce/recall/teleport on demand? Yeah, that's a big part of your advantage that you shouldn't leave on the table.

Even if you win, you're getting the short end of the fun stick, because while you're grinding another 50-100 gold to fight them, they're getting into two other PKs. I also fail to see how any competent player dies to this tactic. I'm pretty sure that even with a level 1 character I can get 10 ticks of sleep in a hidey hole before a hero (who knows where I started) can find me, starting from any recall point, as long as I'm somewhere near the Galadon/Hamsah/Voralian triangle to begin with.

>Even if you win, you're getting the short end of the fun
>stick, because while you're grinding another 50-100 gold to
>fight them, they're getting into two other PKs. I also fail to
>see how any competent player dies to this tactic. I'm pretty
>sure that even with a level 1 character I can get 10 ticks of
>sleep in a hidey hole before a hero (who knows where I
>started) can find me, starting from any recall point, as long
>as I'm somewhere near the Galadon/Hamsah/Voralian triangle to
>begin with.

Admittedly, when I do this, the gold is usually coming from PK, not grinding. It's also more like burn 5-10 gold for a kill than 50-100.

It doesn't work for me every time. The tactic isn't relevant every time. It's just one of many tools in the toolset. There's an art to it, too; ideally you want to sneak in enough heals to swing a significant advantage without your opponent realizing you've done so, because then instead of you playing hide and seek with them, they come to you.

How is a RBW not a worry for an ABS Mage? Is there ANY other type of warrior that would be a bigger worry? I can't think of any. Non-rager Warriors are meat for ABS mages absent ganks or environmental handicaps.

And for that matter, what is a bigger worry for a non-rager warrior: a RBW or an ABS Mage? Hands down the Mage.

In short, I think your premise is faulty - although it is a clever way to say DB needs to be rebalanced without saying it is OP.

And I think it's weird that so many people think sleek ABS wands are balanced but DB is OP. The main counter to ABS mages is time investment. :P

Get a mage kill, you get inducted (because it is almost always best to induct anything that moves to shift the veil via numbers).

Play an AP or necro that gets a ####ty black spot that you physically cannot get? Have fun with your gimped char.

It honestly isn't that bad. It's not like sleek wands are the only source of barrier in the game.

Perhaps I've become inured to never finding my sleeks with my mages, but I do just fine without them.

If you look at a recently posted log on the other forum, you'll see that a certain character was carrying many limited wands.

Enough to max out several of the locations that could be used by someone in the low 40s, level-wise.

If a few magi are doing that at once, you aren't getting limited barrier.

I've been there. I've also been the guy that grabs them all, just in case.

You can do fine with Aura/stone skin/sienna/prot/desensitize.

you'd better not die. ever.

I've played more Necroes than any other class. Dying is especially rough on them for reasons beyond wand loss - which can be mitigated by only carrying one or two of each type you need.

There WILL be people who will try to keep all of the wands to themselves, but these people are painting a target over their heads for a relatively small mechanical advantage (in most cases).

This game is a social one; you can band together to take down one guy hogging all the goods, or make some friends and trade for what you need.

I feel as if much of the community has forgotten that individual success is rarely ever an individual process.

"I've played more Necroes than any other class. Dying is especially rough on them for reasons beyond wand loss - which can be mitigated by only carrying one or two of each type you need."

I don't agree with this. Firstly, necros have summon which makes regearing easier. Secondly, they have mobs to take hits, which makes regearing easier. Thirdly, they have pwk, which makes regearing easier (if you understand the spell's limitations and abilities). Fourthly, they are pk just fine without barrier, provided you don't walk into large groups or berserkers, and don't get caught with your pants down by a muter or thief. You have summon to separate groups, and are hard to lag for long.

As a necro, I can get very nice gear solo, and the only other evil char I had that could do this quite as easily was my conjie that had the imp familiar.


"There WILL be people who will try to keep all of the wands to themselves, but these people are painting a target over their heads for a relatively small mechanical advantage (in most cases)."

I've been this person. I kept the wands purely to ensure that I could collect them. At no point did I feel I was being targeted, and they gave me a significant advantage (since it was on a hero ap who had a horrible sleek black source).

"This game is a social one; you can band together to take down one guy hogging all the goods, or make some friends and trade for what you need."

The trading point is a good one, but the ganking one less so, imho. Firstly, you have to know who has the wands. Pretty sure when I did people weren't aware of it.

"I feel as if much of the community has forgotten that individual success is rarely ever an individual process."

True, to an extent, but some people prefer to avoid ganking.

Sure I agree that a necro with a full army can do some ludacris things, especially if they are willing to burn some wands. But what Illanthos was obliquely referring to was the time/challenge it takes to raise an army. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes other times you can spend 2 hours and still only have 2 zombies. So each time you die/logout you need to restart that cycle. Keep in mind there are also lots of times where assembling an army isn't so easy depending on what classes your enemies are (air shifters are a pain when you still only have 1 zombie for instance, they can drive you off of a small army and kill it making you start over)

Correct.

A dead necro is one without his army, which can take a great deal of time to rebuild even under optimal conditions.

A dead AP is one (usually) without his or her unholy weapon, which is a real blow to morale if it was anything relatively substantial.

Contrast this with a dead transmuter or shapeshifter, who really don't lose anything on par with this. Conjurers suffer a little bit more, being taken temporarily out of the game until they can unghost and pull up a few servitors.

While all mages stand to lose wands and/or gear, APs and Necroes have that much more to lose beyond other magey (read: wand enabeled) classes.

Ohhhh boo hoo I don't have easy barrier. use some tactics dude thats why you have class skills. They have the ability to change a fight more then 40% dam redux.

I had a sleek black spot I died 1/3 times trying to get on Rylogax and I basically couldn't even think to try and get it half the time due to all the quest form having air shifters and I still did fine. I never found my sleek black ever with Grippledank and did fine, and most of my other mages never found their sleek black and did fine.

Did it mean I couldn't go toe to toe against a scion that had ABS and 600 hp more then me... sure. But just because there was a subsection of my pk range that I needed a little/lot of luck to go my way doesn't mean there still were not plenty of targets and options where I could suceed without sleek barrier or through the use of unique barrier. I also like to kill people and take their wands, it works out really well. I must have grabbed 20-30 sleek blacks off of tribunals I caught chatting on the high road out of form as gripple (see using timing and class abilities to get them when they are weak as opposed to trying to club them prepped to the teeth and ready for battle)

>And for that matter, what is a bigger worry for a non-rager
>warrior: a RBW or an ABS Mage? Hands down the Mage.

Couple thoughts:

1. Mages don't have ABS up all the time. Mages can be surprised. RBWs are "always on" (unless they lack the head, then they're screwed.)

2. ABS mage is usually harder to take down but *might* not be spitting out the sort of absurd damage RBW is. That means ABS mage may actually be *less* of a worry for non-rager warrior despite being harder to kill. RBW probably also has better lag options than most mages and ABS does nothing to change that.

Not that I believe they need to be "solved". Make Deathblow % increase in a manner similar to AI. You killed a badass NPC mage? Have some deathblow %. You shifted the veil with a unique item? Have some deathblow %. Eventually it would be always on, but there would be some stupid egg hunting beforehand.

I hate egg hunting.

1. Mages don't have ABS up all the time. Mages can be surprised. RBWs are "always on" (unless they lack the head, then they're screwed.)

RBW's and mages are both susceptible to surprises, although of different kind. Summon to a locked room, quicksand+pit, a bunch of gel, sleep, etc are very bad news for a rager but realtively easily handled by a mage.

A bit of surprise pincer/trip/bash/cranial/lash on the other hand, often kills the mage but rarely the rager.

I wasn't trying to suggesting that non-rager warriors are meaner to ABS mages.

I was trying to suggest there are other things I'm normally more worried about on a ABS shifter then deathblow. Entwine. Crimson Scourge. Critical Hit. Bloodthirst. That is probably missing some of the ones elite players would list. A few extra hits for dismembers instead of wounds doesn't seem that big of a deal compared to the rest.

I suppose it depends on the mage, but having fought mostly shifters I feel like at least with them I can work them until they have no mana then retrieve. They aren't likely to permalag me. They can be dirt kicked/eye gouged without calling bloodthirst to get over it (unless I miss understand how this works). They can keep being engaged until they are out of wands or fight you without them.

I am not going to disagree that the premise is faulty, I think it probably is after reading everyone's posts. It is one of the reasons I posted this, to learn.

Any more I think the problem in my mind lies in that Nexus martial classes really don't seem equipped to handle ragers all that well. The bond is unreliable to have, and vanguard does some but not enough. Basically, if you are in Nexus and destroying RBW you would probably be doing it without Nexus. When Nexus rolls villagers, it seems like it is because of superior numbers or power builds (or super skilled players).

As far as ABS mages, I do feel the pain there as if you aren't a power build your not going to stack up well against them. I suppose that is also some of my frustration, feeling pushed into power builds to actually compete. Who doesn't want to be the one to discover a new build and do well with it? I suppose it just isn't likely.

I would agree, by and large, that Battle powers > Nexus powers.

However, that doesn't mean that Nexuns always have to be meat to feed the Battle grinder. In fact, quite the opposite. The important thing is to think about what vulnerabilities Battle has and how to exploit them.

The most obvious is that Battle is vuln_gang. The good news is that Nexus can take ganging to a whole new level with the bond. Use that.

Battle is also vuln_permalag and it's easiest to exploit on them as they can't change size. You can offset the damage done by Deathblow by using aura, shield, stoneskin, desensitize preps and bearcharging their asses in the slaughtering grounds all day long with your enlarged Cloud ranger. (There is, of course, a counter to this, but you can get one or two before they start using it.)

Much of Battle is vuln_plague, scourge, etc. This won't always work because most good Battle has massive saves, but wands, wands, wands.

Finally, without the Head, Battle are probably the weakest class of characters, especially at hero. Take the Head.

There's plenty of other stuff to consider, too, but this should get you thinking.

I feel like every argument you made means having numbers on your side. What do you do when you don't and rarely do during your playtime?

You are throwing out the case that a nexus warrior vs a village berserker in a toe to toe cage match will favor the berserker.

I will agree that in those specific circumstances you are correct. In fact toe to toe cage style slug fests are what villagers do rather well.

What many of the people in this thread are saying is that the above situation is just one of many that exist and while villager looks really good in that one there are TONS of other situations they look very poor.

The biggest drawback of a villager revolve around 2 things, their lack of mobility and their lack of support outside their class abilities and powers.

If you want to beat a villager you attack their weaknesses not their strengths. So don't fight them on their terms, change the terms to favor you.

As a different example a ranger looks really good in wilderness but not so good on roads so if you are struggling with them then stop trying to fight them in the wilderness and just camp out on a road.

The fact is that in straight up 1 on 1 melee, the RBW has few opponents that can measure up.

So, don't give that to them.

There are half a dozen other ways that can be used to tool Ragers without breaking a sweat. Why insist on pursuing the one avenue at which Battle excels?

Ahh. Perhaps because it is your only one? I guess I need more login buddies.

Numbers is one of the better ways to do it, but it's far from the only way.

I can't tell if I'm not being clear or if you're being intentionally obtuse.

Also, there are certain builds that you might be playing that will never, ever solo an RBW. Pickpocket gnome thief comes to mind. Be sure, though, that those builds have a place in the game that does not involve killing Thera's greatest warriors alone.

If you want to solo Villagers with a Nexun, roll up a Cloud Ranger and go to town.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, sorry if it comes off that way.

One on one fight in a locked room, no retreat no surrender 1 on 1 favors Battle, absolutely.

Ganging is one way to not play that game, but there are others, like:

- If you're a stealth character, choose to only initiate combat if circumstances favor you. Yeah, the guy you catch plagued and out of move on the riverbed might get lucky and still beat you... but he probably won't.

- Attack the Ragers you stack up well against, quaff return/teleport against the ones you don't.

- Make liberal use of the healer. If you lack malediction or command denial ability, this may not always get you a kill, but it can easily yield a situation where your enemy has to hide at the Destructor (or somewhere) to avoid dying for a long while.

- Make liberal use of maledictions that cut HP regen or deal regular HP damage, because Battle is seriously ####ed against those things unless there's a defender or bard very handy, and usually there isn't. We had a guy in Nexus in the midlevels a couple years ago, arial spear warrior I think. He got a poison spear and would charge Battle and spam impale at them, and I mean he would keep impaling even after it worked for no good reason. He died a lot but he killed a lot of Ragers too because what does Battle berserker really have for that? Run to the village and buy a cure poison there, but after a couple ticks of poison and the bleeding sticking around it was just too much.

- See a rager that can't permalag you (and most shouldn't be able to)? Run up to him and bash him. If he's doing badly, keep bashing. If he's not, quaff.

As always Daev, you speak well and with logic. Laxman actually made some really good points before Homard returned to only fight with numbers.

I suppose if I have a complaint at the end of the day it's that I consider Nexus solo powers to be lacking. That being said, I enjoy having teleport on a stick so maybe that is the balance.

To me an RBW vs. Nexus warrior solo is not too bad a match up. (Bond is a different story and I think swings it too much in favor of the pair vs a lone berserker, most ragers are easy to slaughter 2 v. 1)

I would rather be a nexus warrior instead of a warrior in any other cabal though to fight a RBW, except maybe an imperial Blade that is Elite or higher. Flight, enlarge/reduce, basic DR preps, and recall/teleport potions can really swing things to favor a fight against a rager.

All the things available to a melee class to handle RBWs are available regardless of cabal, and Vanguard really does help. Turning an Oblit or higher to a dev/dem/mangle is not really that insignificant a power to have. Unfortunately, lots of villagers do go neutral neutral to prevent vanguard giving that added bit of dam redux when things are tipped, but that's just how it goes.

I also think how you define compete matters. As Darikir, who was a power build so to speak (I think that was you) if you ever had things turn against you in a fight, you could usually get out, use a potion, heal heal, and come back. That same tactic works even if you're playing a non-power build. It may just take more trips back to the healer. Most RBWs can't keep up with that healing level over time and inevitably the fight swings to your favor, especially if you have something to make them bleed or otherwise prevent their natural regen. Yeah, you may lose some fights, but that's to be expected. Attrition is the worst enemy of the Battle cabal, they just don't do well over prolonged fights that I ever saw, unless they have a bard or defenders, neither of which I would say are the most common choices for the Battle cabal.

I think people that define compete as stand and go toe to toe with RBWs are taking too narrow a view. Tactically, the non-RBW is far less limited in his options in fighting. There is also the element of if you're trying a new build, you're probably not 100% fluid with how to maximize the char's abilities to be as competetive as possible.

If you want to be the guy that views competing as rolling in to the village, tanks three RBWS and kills them all, well, good luck. It can be done, but it's a rare combination of a build, skill level and some luck to pull it off. I would suggest wood elf bard for example, but I imagine few people are going to do well against the village with that build if it's their first bard and don't have a lot of experience fighting ragers. But when they learn some of the basics of the class, and what the class is really capable of against the village, they'll start to see an upswing in their ability to compete, and eventually win more than they lose against them. No matter what though, against a RBW, respect the fact that they have deathblow and accept that sometimes you'll die because of it if you don't act accordingly. It can be somewhat frustrating to not be able to fight as non-stop as villagers, but keep in mind, nobody dies as much as villagers either. Even the best rager players still die, horribly and often. :)

If you want to play a build that can win more than 50% of fights in a 1 v. 1 against a RBW, I believe you have a lot more flexibility in char design if you get creative about how to use your abilities. There may be a curve in learning where you die a lot early, but that's true of most things in CF.

We all don't get to "Krunk" ragers 50 hours into a char after all. :)

**
I am going to respond to each point, and sorry if I get grouchy
**


To me an RBW vs. Nexus warrior solo is not too bad a match up. (Bond is a different story and I think swings it too much in favor of the pair vs a lone berserker, most ragers are easy to slaughter 2 v. 1)


**
This is a tough match up if they are a competent RBW. You have to use about every defensive prep to equal their natural resist or be playing a power build. I have seen RBW take down groups and bonded pairs. I have also been solo or part of a bonded pair to take them out. A lot seems to come down to how powerful of a build you are playing and whether RNG screws you.
**


I would rather be a nexus warrior instead of a warrior in any other cabal though to fight a RBW, except maybe an imperial Blade that is Elite or higher. Flight, enlarge/reduce, basic DR preps, and recall/teleport potions can really swing things to favor a fight against a rager.

All the things available to a melee class to handle RBWs are available regardless of cabal, and Vanguard really does help. Turning an Oblit or higher to a dev/dem/mangle is not really that insignificant a power to have. Unfortunately, lots of villagers do go neutral neutral to prevent vanguard giving that added bit of dam redux when things are tipped, but that's just how it goes.


**
Lets analyze this. Anyone but a villager can prep, so preps aren't relevant to this discussion.
Empire - Elite - Imperial training defense would be tremendous to stop deathblows. Beyond that, you can probably avoid the fight in the first place. They aren't likely to take your item, at least not right now.
Fortress - Maran - Built in protection, fly, make your own weapons, and cry to other Fortress for gangs (and would work if just two warriors are on your cabal, unlike bond). How is this not better than vanguard?
Outlander - Strengthen, AI, and Chameleon would make me rather play this to kill villagers, but as a warrior you won't have to fight many of them nor will they be raiding the tree frequently if ever.
Tribunal - I haven't played much of this, but if you can force your guards to tank I have to think this would be a better advantage than vanguard.
Scion - Nightwalker tank potentially, but perhaps as a warrior this would be a rough matchup too.
Nexus -
Bond is a neat idea that is so annoying that its not funny. Yes, you can bond with a shifter and be unbashable with stone skin and haste. This will be a small percentage of your life unless you are lucky and have one log in with you regularly. Even then, the rager is likely to bloodthirst to match your speed so you will have to win off of the shifter ABS and hope you can lag the crap outta them. This will work and get kills, but you are simply a +1.
Vanguard - Your best ability solo is to make ONE of the RBW's THREE relevant powers weaker, not even nullified. He still has resistance, which as best I can tell almost completely nullifies any weaknesses he may have (If not true, would love more info). He still has bloodthirst, which solo is going to give you nightmares and force most people to run. You can try to come back after it wears off, I've done that and still had trouble. I truly wish vanguard gave some sort of dam redux for ethos and veil imbalances as well (of course not stacking with each other or alighnment). If it did maybe it would be a more even match.
Tough Inners - Have to mention that they have some of the damn toughest inners of anyone. This would be a plus if always stopped a RBW from walking in and beating you down there.

In the end, I still mostly believe what I said in that if you are a warrior in Nexus destroying RBW solo, you almost assuredly could be doing it out of Nexus. If you are a warrior RBW destroying people, you likely would not be anywhere near as dangerous out of the village.

I love the Nexus/Rager war, but think I am done playing it as a Nexus warrior. You can win, I've done it. I am just not sure it is worth the effort.
**

I also think how you define compete matters. As Darikir, who was a power build so to speak (I think that was you) if you ever had things turn against you in a fight, you could usually get out, use a potion, heal heal, and come back. That same tactic works even if you're playing a non-power build. It may just take more trips back to the healer. Most RBWs can't keep up with that healing level over time and inevitably the fight swings to your favor, especially if you have something to make them bleed or otherwise prevent their natural regen. Yeah, you may lose some fights, but that's to be expected. Attrition is the worst enemy of the Battle cabal, they just don't do well over prolonged fights that I ever saw, unless they have a bard or defenders, neither of which I would say are the most common choices for the Battle cabal.


**
Yes, I was spoiled with Darikir. I had frequent strong allies and somewhat weak enemies at times. I was a power build. It was fun. What was not fun was spending all of that time getting gold to heal like I did.
**


I think people that define compete as stand and go toe to toe with RBWs are taking too narrow a view. Tactically, the non-RBW is far less limited in his options in fighting. There is also the element of if you're trying a new build, you're probably not 100% fluid with how to maximize the char's abilities to be as competetive as possible.


**
Mostly agree.
**


If you want to be the guy that views competing as rolling in to the village, tanks three RBWS and kills them all, well, good luck. It can be done, but it's a rare combination of a build, skill level and some luck to pull it off. I would suggest wood elf bard for example, but I imagine few people are going to do well against the village with that build if it's their first bard and don't have a lot of experience fighting ragers. But when they learn some of the basics of the class, and what the class is really capable of against the village, they'll start to see an upswing in their ability to compete, and eventually win more than they lose against them. No matter what though, against a RBW, respect the fact that they have deathblow and accept that sometimes you'll die because of it if you don't act accordingly. It can be somewhat frustrating to not be able to fight as non-stop as villagers, but keep in mind, nobody dies as much as villagers either. Even the best rager players still die, horribly and often. :)


**
I suppose I would define compete by will sometimes win and sometimes lose in a solo 1vs1 fight with a RBW with some preps. I have seriously pondered playing a bard as if you get up there and learn how to play it they seem extremely flexible and powerful, if fragile. I am just not sure how much time I'm willing to invest anymore.
**


If you want to play a build that can win more than 50% of fights in a 1 v. 1 against a RBW, I believe you have a lot more flexibility in char design if you get creative about how to use your abilities. There may be a curve in learning where you die a lot early, but that's true of most things in CF.


**
I would say you have to have time in the fight where you aren't lagged and not dead to try something creative. Most villagers take ways to lag people (cranial, misdirect, lash, pincer, landslide..), so you may not get much time to experiment before dead.
**


We all don't get to "Krunk" ragers 50 hours into a char after all. :)


**
I don't want to Krunk ragers. I mean, I do, but that's not what I am discussing. I am discussing being competitive, as defined above.
**

nt

Yes, I am aware and that is why arial sword was so strong for me against them.

Everything else you can deal with reasonably.

Want to play a NEXUS char that rolls villagers? Human or Felar assassin in the Island. Assassinate villagers all day long. Not only that, you can set them up by Kote/Kans, then vanishing when they thirst and let them run into another mob.

I really don't see how this is true.

Village has a few duergar and thieves, so you aren't safely hidden in civilization. I don't see this changing.

Village has at least one or two rangers and a ton of wood-elves, so you aren't safely hidden in wilds. I don't see this changing.

If you fail your assassinate, a RBW with maces, axes, or flails will tear you apart. You might die before you even get to hit flee or vanish. You can't vanish at the giant, so you can't attempt assassinates there then use it as a flee mechanism.

Even with perfect circumstances which are unlikely, the fail rate is pretty high on assassinate and it is hard to get high so you are going to fail a lot. If this is a build to roll villagers, I am missing every way it can do it.

Play it, you'll feel sympathy for Ragers. :)

Okay, I am starting to lose my cool. Lets say I don't want to invest 60-120 hours of my life to try to figure this out. Anyone want to clue me in to why this is so good?

Sorry, I meant to be encouraging, not a jerk :P

It's pretty basic. Think about what you would do if someone told you that you were being stalked. Magically transport, right? A rager can't do that. OK, so you go to an area that is completely inundated with water or desert, and there's no place to hide. But how long are you seriously going to sit there not enjoying the game, and not knowing when the coast is clear? OK, so you try to go off exploring at the ends of the earth - which is also the type of place where Ragers happen to be the most vulnerable because there's no healing and no easy way home. And so on.

What it adds up to is that stalking and assassinating Ragers is like shooting fish in a barrel. All the things you mentioned don't shift that "fish in the barrel" needle very much in practice. You can theorize about it, but it plays out differently than how you imagine it.

I suppose the biggest problem I see with that is the race/classes that can see you. Out of the ragers I regularly see, 6 of the 9 would be able to see me in one of the two types of terrain. I pretty much would have to hope that they sat in the right terrain to be in the clear. I really think your underestimating the wood-elf explosion caused by Cainargen's success.

Still, I can see it being different in practice. I just remember what my last long lived character did to failed assassinates, and it was ugly.

1: Assassinate > RBW every time.

2: If you fail, flee or vanish will work great. Axes doesn't cut through an assassin defenses quick enough unless you haven't perfected defenses AND are carrying max-weight.

3: Sure, there's a risk. But it's rather small, you are likely to escape. Believe me, I've had both mace/axe speced giant/normal size villagers, assassins were a problem.

Assassinate ragers are like shooting fish in a barrel. I've been on both sides, I've had a hero leader scion assassin too. (I sucked at assassins and assassinate though.)

Anyway, after having played a bunch of RBWs and a few defenders, RBWs are sitting ducks most of the time.

Thanks, That was honestly super helpful.

Quick question, when 6 of the 9 ragers can see either hidden or camo, how can you get stalks if your constantly being attacked? I suppose wait for them to go off on their own?

Assassins can hide in some wilderness, in that wilderness duergars can't see them when they hide.

Wood-elves can only see you when in the same room if you're hidden/cammoed in wilderness, not on where. So that works.

Sure, if there are wood-elves online, it's hard to stalk someone sitting in the shrine. Unless the w-elf just keeps sitting in the shrine too.

You just have to be a bit creative. I've seen thieves and duergars assassinated. :) Some logs on Dios about it.

n/t

FWIW, the last time I played a martial character in Nexus I was perenially on alone and didn't hesitate to try to kill Battle, 95%+ of the time with just Vanguard as a "prep."

In the case that you're a warrior and not one of the stealth classes, this might necessitate using your quaff return or heal heal preps a lot. But honestly it isn't THAT complicated.

I suppose I really just haven't wanted to spend tons of time gold gathering to spam at the healers to have a shot at villagers. I think I just need to start sinking in the effort.

... All others gets enough gold from killing tough mobs while looking for gear 90% of the gold comes from looting those I kill.

Correct me if I am wrong, but DB seems to fire significantly more often against mages. I suspect it correlates to the number of spell affects on the guy you are fighting.

That is useful information to know, thank you. I'd be interested to what you think of my proposed changes.

Honestly, I'm quite indifferent to the change. I think berserkers are fine the way they are. I think they could be fine with an automatic-critical-hit style deathblow too (if it was well designed/balanced).

My only issue is that it would bring them closer to scouts, who are already kind of designed to counter heavily defended mages.

Edit: So I guess my conclusion is, I would rather have dev efforts put somewhere else with higher fun-for-investment.

(n/t)

Have you ever played a berserker?

Obviously, everyone's entitled to an opinion, but based on what you've written I feel like you're missing that side of the story.

(N/t)

And therefor deathblow should be unparryable. Of course, having played RBW, I know that experience was atypical and deathblow is far from underpowered, but the degree to which it looks OP is directly related to what you are playing and have played.

(N/t)

Melee classes are the best rager killers. Deathblow is the only thing keeping RBW from getting completely stomped by every melee character with a flask of diminution, a yellow root, and a potion of fly. Taking that away and giving them the ability to bypass dam reduction *might* make them better at killing mages, but would definitely make them unplayable.

If this is true which I really don't believe, I would love to know what builds can do it because I must be doing something wrong.

I had Krunk own my rager, but really didn't think it had anything to do with orc being super strong as much as player talent.

The trick is knowing which RBW builds (or just rager builds) your build stacks up well against (and abusing them repeatedly... see: Krunk) and which they don't stack up so well against and using your non-rager-ness to outmaneuver them (recall, healing, mvs, dam redux, flight, enlarge/reduce, etc. etc.) to abuse them repeatedly (see: Krunk).

Player skill is a large part of knowing these things, and executing them, but there is always a rock to your scissors and plenty of paper in the sea. Mixed metaphors are fun.

I mean, arial sword spec nexun totally got worked by Krunk the first couple of fights, then they figured it out and (I think) ended up with a positive ratio vs. Krunk. Dexy sword spec is definitely the rock to a lot of RBW's scissors. They just can't handle the unblockable damage of riposte, and you can get out (in most cases) when the fight doesn't go your way.

I feel like the first paragraph is basically saying, if you don't do well: run. I really hate having to do that.

I don't want to go back like someone and keep playing the same race/class over and over again, so I'm done with arial sword. It has immense power, but is sooo cookie cutter. I wished I had even half built mine right.

I really hate note having slay too, but the Imms haven't seen fit to give it to my characters yet (don't worry, I'm writing it into my next role).

In all seriousness (and non-jackassery) knowing when to GTFO is 50% of the PK game. If you are fighting a rager, you can out heal them and move faster/farther than them, so you can GTFO and heal and come back and try again (with different tactics/preps, or the same if you just need skill X and Y to land consecutively). As long as you aren't getting 2 rounded, there isn't much a RBW can do to keep you around, because you are removing their only perma-lag option (bash) with 200 copper worth of buyable preppyness.

That is exactly how Krunk got so many rager PK's. It was just (a lot) easier with an orc due to bloody skins.

The other 50% of the PK game is basically knowing when you are winning and how to press for the finish. RBW needs RNG love (in the form of deathblow) to make this happen. All you need is to exploit rager weaknesses (can't heal, can't heal mvs, can't change size, can't fly, etc. etc.) to make it happen. One relies on luck (RBW) the other on player skill.

In this particular case, Daevryn's long standing advice really is about as good as it gets. If deathblow gives you problems, or RBW's or whatever, play RBW and pay attention to exactly how skilled players are killing you. Play to con-death. Not only will you have fun (RBW is inherently fun so long as you aren't expecting to put up Marcus style numbers (think more shamanman), and the next time you face RBW, you are going to lick your chops at the free, easy, PK win.

As far as playing a RBW, its high on my list but I am too invested in what I am playing currently.

There's a comment in Nabig's log that pulls attention to the fact that even a good luck run of 3 or 4 deathblows in a row are really pathetic against medium prepped scion.

Deathblow + bloodthirst is contextually underpowered and overpowered. When I play ragers, I feel the underpoweredness at hero range. When I play invokers, with A/B, I feel my lack of skill. Prepped warriors are on a level playing field or much better, unprepped warriors are two rounded.

I think if there was a edge that changed deathblow to some kind of critical hit, a significant amount of RBW would take it. Toughness + bloodthirst haste is still enough to deter anyone but the best prepped melee classes. And frankly -- solo prepped warriors are more likely destroyed by hasted critical hits that go through all their defensive preps and cabal powers, than deathblows.

Also, I think RBW would a better and more appropriate counter to ABS mage, let alone scion mage, if they could actually do something against them in a stand up fight that doesn't involve (oops, my preps dropped or mana dropped). Stand up fights are MORE fun than incentives to play super cautiously (or worse yet, super annoyingly to try to get the other guy on tilt). Critical hit's power scales with protections. An RBW hitting an unprepped warrior isn't hitting any harder than they would without the head, but they STILL have toughness and bloodthirst. This is potentially MORE overpowered, unless maybe restricted to mage classes.



Skip this paragraph unless my experience playing battle is relevant:
With two hero range con died (giant)RBW, I had terrible pk stats. Like 3 45 on both. It is CERTAINLY not a win button. I was something like 14 9 as a midlevel assassin scout. As a mid level sitting dwarf berserker warrior, I was about 15 2 before rage delete. As a maran, I would collect some combo of preps and help from support classes and wince at how easy it was to take out an RBW in a duel. In the mid levels, fire giants learn deathblow % so slowly I didn't even need anything but pfe -- I didn't even have special dam swords to penetrate giant toughness.

At hero level, being unprepped vs thirsted RBW completely destroyed me. There was no stand up fighting with them unprepped at any time, ** even with one or two unprepped warrior friends because everyone would die in one or two rounds**, but preparation and/or support class friends wiped them out.

Oh, I also had a gnome invoker that had reliable aura and barrier. The invoker had infinite survivability as long he stayed away from cursed areas, but NEVER got a single battlerager kill. (Admittedly, he didn't try sniping them post scion raid/counterraid or getting minions, and respected parity non-gank, mostly because I have a lot of sympathy for how hard it is to play rager). Well skilled RBW were very difficult to outdamage with spellbane in play. He did die in one/two rounds unprepped to deathblows in surprise encounters on the eastern road. After getting a few items looted, he just stayed away from RBW, and it was ridiculously easy to do once the decision had been made. RBW are so movement restricted it's hard for them to really generate fights without people willing to risk dying in raid/counterraid.

Is that Ragers rely on deathblow tremendously in ranking. At great deal of the time a ranking Rager will have only sleep or a class skill to help them recover hp during a ranking session. DB really, really helps the grind of ranking when you can't heal.

Now, the real reason that I don't see a problem with DB the way it stands now is that with two exceptions (Nexus and Scion) a melee character who is facing a Deathblowing Rager is in that position due to their own choices.

What I would prefer to see is a harder line on who the Huts are allowed to hunt. As far as I'm concerned, even a C/E Duergar RBW should be walking past the Storm Giant Trib, unless he has an extremely good reason.

Now, if the Stormie feels compelled to bash the Rager, he just needs to know that DB might mess him up a bit.

Your response to the suggestion that RBW is OP against melee enemies who are RP-obligated to attack him is "don't play melee classes that are ever RP-obligated to attack a RBW". That's somewhat unsatisfying. It would mean no melee classes in Nexus, Scion, Tribunal, Fortress or Outlander.

Now, the claim that RBW is OP against those classes may be totally wrong; I'm not discounting that. Just suggesting that "don't play rager enemies" isn't a workable solution if the claim happens to be true.

I'm saying that the number of melee enemies who are RP obligated to attack Battle are pretty slim compared to the overall population of Thera.

Additionally, I'm not sure anyone is RP-obligated to attack Battle on sight. This means that the lvl 42 Squire needn't suicide on the Fire Giant Commander, but the FG Commander should be RP-obligated to not attack the Squire.

Certainly the squire isn't RP-bound to suicide on the RBW. I'm not saying that. But he's RP-bound to try to kill the guy somehow. If it is the case that RBW is hopelessly OP against him then, really, his only choice is to gang. Maybe that's okay. (Or maybe he's not, in fact, hopelessly outgunned).

Also I might disagree on what percentage of cabaled melee chars are obligated to fight RBWs. Tribs have to fight flagged RBWs, and they're often flagged. Outlanders have to try to kill defiling ones, and there's usually a duergar or dwarf. Marans have to try to kill the evil ones. Nexus has to kill all of them. Scion can take it or leave it, but they're going to be attacked on sight by the RBW.

It's so easy to kill a villager I just end up feeling bad for them most of the time.

If I was sitting down to build a character to kill villagers my top picks would be warrior, assassin, conjurer. Warriors are in the best position to overcome deathblow because they have the best melee defenses (defense shifters are better but they give up actually dealing damage to achieve it). If their hits don't land then neither do deathblows.

One of the biggest value added of deathblow as a villager is that it gives you a chance against perma lag situations (which are easy to come by when you just need 2 people with trip most of the time to achieve it).


Then of course there is the whole point that at the end of the day most berserkers are flat out not very succesful at pk.

I think there are warrior builds that can give the village fits. In general, I wouldn't roll a warrior to try to kill a berserker unless you are super dexy or are always planning to gang. If I get to a point in a characters life where I realize I am only a +1 and going to get toasted in the large majority of my battles I'm done.

Assassins pretty much have to hope to land the assassinate as if a RBW starts tearing into them they are toast. I can't see how this is a good matchup honestly.

Conjurers and Shapeshifters really seem to give them the most problems, surprise surprise the classes with ABS.

I have played both sides of the Nexus/Village war recently.

In general, I found the annoyances of village to be the immobility that not using potions gives you. There were many times that I would go after someone(s) and get one or more just to have some spam flyto/peck and get me on my way out. As far as berserker success, I would guess a lot of people play it to be super aggressive and aren't trying to stay alive as much as take as many with them as they can.

I suppose a counterpoint could be made that deathblow/berserkers are fine and that the powers of those who have to fight them just suck (Nexus in particular, Scion's huge amount of hp and nightwalker tanks do fine). Having played several Nexuns, it is somewhat rare to get the opportunity to join with someone (at least during my hours). There is always an odd man out, and that leaves you relying on vanguard. The power that while useful against thieves and rangers, at best just limits deathblows and if they call bloodthirst you pretty much have to run. The idea of parity balancing out ragers with the current numbers during my hours just seems to be flawed.

First off when I said warrior you went straight to a dexy idea. The biggest pain for a villager is going to be a bashing sword spec giant (especially if they have crashing), they can achieve near total command denial on villagers with a high degree of reliability.

You also have to take into account the villager build. Their cabal path is going to make less of a difference in a warrior vs warrior matchup then their race/specs/legacies will, The same thing that slaughters svirf axe specs might struggle with arial dagger specs and vice versa.

For assassins yes they would generally rely on assassinate against axe/mace/giant villagers but there are plenty of combos they can face toe to toe (and again being an axe spec is going to ruin an assassins day way more then being a berserker will) and there are TONS of opportunity to assassinate because of villager mobility restrictions.

I also think nexus powers are awsome for fighting villagers and I would generally recomend against using the bond. In theory you get more buffs out of it then vanguard but at least for me personally having a groupmate is actually a detriment to how I approach pk. most groups of people don't coordinate well which leaves gaps and vulnerabilities you might not have solo (because you don't rely on someone else to fill them).


But at the end of the day it still comes down to the numbers. The math just doesn't support the claim that villagers and specifically berserkers are super duper amazing.

>idea. The biggest pain for a villager is going to be a
>bashing sword spec giant (especially if they have crashing),
>they can achieve near total command denial on villagers with a
>high degree of reliability.

How does an equivalently geared normal warrior beat deathblow+resist in a mutual permalag situation?

Basically, he has a better tanking to damage output ratio than almost all warriors, and that's without even getting into Crashing. Battle tends to gravitate towards builds that can lag mages with protective shields, and almost none of those builds win that fight.

<1152/1152(100%) 423/423 1149/1167 27100 9 PM waning> sThe Crumbling Ramparts


Drothgar is here.

<1152/1152(100%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning> bash dro
You slam into Drothgar, and send him flying!
Your bash grazes Drothgar.
Drothgar yells 'Help! Eleagra is bashing me!'
Drothgar has a few scratches.

<1152/1152(100%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning>
Your acidic bite DISMEMBERS Drothgar!
Drothgar parries your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
You parry Drothgar's divine power.
Drothgar's wrath MASSACRES you!
You parry Drothgar's wrath.
You parry Drothgar's wrath.
Drothgar has a few scratches.

<1083/1152(94%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning>
Drothgar parries your acidic bite.
Your acidic bite DISMEMBERS Drothgar!
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar's divine power DISMEMBERS you!
You parry Drothgar's wrath.
Drothgar's wrath MASSACRES you!
Drothgar has a few scratches.

<948/1152(82%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning> bash dro
You slam into Drothgar, and send him flying!
Your bash grazes Drothgar.
Drothgar has a few scratches.

<948/1152(82%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning>
Your acidic bite MASSACRES Drothgar!
Your acidic bite DISMEMBERS Drothgar!
Drothgar parries your acidic bite.
Like the crashing of waves upon the shore, your attack strikes at Drothgar's weapon!
You disarm Drothgar!
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
You parry Drothgar's wrath.
Drothgar has some small but disgusting cuts.

<948/1152(82%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning> bash dro
An acrid smell surrounds Drothgar as your acidic bite is blocked by an ulrician belt.
Drothgar parries your acidic bite.
Like the crashing of waves upon the shore, your attack strikes at Drothgar's weapon!
You disarm Drothgar!
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar has some small but disgusting cuts.

***Looks I'm winning - both weapons disarmed and I have almost 1K hp

<948/1152(82%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning>
Charging forward, you hit Drothgar with enough force to send him sailing through the air!
Your bash decimates Drothgar!
Drothgar has some small but disgusting cuts.

<948/1152(82%) 423/423 1146/1167 27100 9 PM waning>
Your skin feels soft again.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Your acidic bite misses Drothgar.
You parry Drothgar's punch and return an attack of your own.
Your acidic bite MASSACRES Drothgar!
Drothgar's punch DISMEMBERS you!
Drothgar's punch EVISCERATES you!
Drothgar's punch EVISCERATES you!
Drothgar has some small but disgusting cuts.

<820/1152(71%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning>
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar's punch DISMEMBERS you!
Drothgar's punch DISMEMBERS you!
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar has some small but disgusting cuts.

<703/1152(61%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning> bash dro
Charging forward, you hit Drothgar with enough force to send him sailing through the air!
Your bash injures Drothgar.
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<703/1152(61%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning>
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Your acidic bite MASSACRES Drothgar!
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar delivers a blow of deadly force!
You parry Drothgar's punch.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<703/1152(61%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning>
Xralen has arrived.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar's punch DISMEMBERS you!
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<649/1152(56%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning> bash dro
Xralen looks at Drothgar.
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<649/1152(56%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning> You slam into Drothgar, and send him flying!
Your bash devastates Drothgar!
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<649/1152(56%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning>
Xralen looks at you.
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<649/1152(56%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning>
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Your acidic bite MASSACRES Drothgar!
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar delivers a blow of deadly force!
Drothgar's punch >>> ANNIHILATES <<< you!
That really did HURT!
You parry Drothgar's punch.
Drothgar delivers a blow of deadly force!
Drothgar's punch === OBLITERATES === you!
You sure are BLEEDING!
You barely manage to turn Drothgar's punch aside.
Drothgar is covered with bleeding wounds.

<150/1152(13%) 423/423 1167/1167 27100 10 PM waning>
Your acidic bite MASSACRES Drothgar!
Your acidic bite DISMEMBERS Drothgar!
Drothgar dodges your acidic bite.
Drothgar delivers a blow of deadly force!
Drothgar's punch === OBLITERATES === you!
You have been KILLED!!


You are no longer resistant to poison.
You are no longer resistant to cold.
You have died, but the Carrion Fields are not finished with you yet!
Your soul is returned to the realms in the form of a ghost.
You will return to your corporeal state in a short while.
Be careful, for even a ghost should fear some dangers!

***And he's not even hth spec. So tell me about ease fighting villagers

It was really strong and scary warrior vs i don't even know who (i'm sorry here Drothgar :). It was the best possible match-up for that scarry warrior and he spent his both legacies to make such log happen. After the death that scary warrior could have lost few key items like 2 humansunders, resist poison and cold items, maybe something else. The even funnier thing is that technically Alex didn't even do any mistake - he was preped with stoneskin (which faded in the middle of combat and wasn't enough without something else like aura or shield to even survive anyway) and he simply died too fast.

bards also pwn villagers in general but there are plenty of examples of them losing to them.

We are also just looking at 1 v 1. Mix a bash legacy warrior and a defensive shapeshifter to take the blows and its just hopeless on the villager side (even more hopeless if said defensive form can rescue)

With the current numbers of the game, please stop using numbers as a balancing act. Sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not. Village is just as likely to have the numbers as Nexus is, and in a raid/defense situation they will use it.

Eleagra would have won 9 times out of 10 in this combat if rng didn't help RBW that much. But if you keep fighting villagers a lot such logs will happen. Such deaths will happen rarely, but they will happen for sure. Such deaths will happen even if you are god-like equiped strongest warrior of Thera vs the easiest for you match-up and even if you are preped with let's say stoneskin and aura or shield. Those 10 pks you got by killing that RBW before won't matter at all when rng helps RBW to finally kill you. Because the moment you loose your uber magical eq you will loose another 100 pks you could have gotten if you kept that uber eq and fought non-villagers. And the villager needs nothing, nothing at all. Not even cursed weapons to fight bashing/crashing giant warrior :)

Also keep in mind that the game will be much less interesting for you without 2 humansunders and other shiny things and you may simply decide to delete one day when the rng helps yet another RBW.

The notion that villagers are not very gear reliant is the mother of all myths.

They are more gear reliant than any other kind of warrior and being able to get/hold decent gear (especially weapons) is what seperates the chumps from the champs.

Villager with 70 dam roll and avg 26+ weapons is a blender of destruction to even ABS mages. A villager with a 35 dam roll and avg 21 weapons is praying for DB to save their ass.

I didn't want to point at Ohbaby logs vs Eleagra because it would make berserkers look much stronger vs usual warriors.

.

I never been able to get higher than 40 dam roll.

How is it possible to get to 70 dam roll???

Odd cases like big damroll boosts from things like Cry of Thunder, Aristaeia, or Bloodthirst aside, you mostly have to have a full suit of highly limited damroll gear.

This is easier for some kinds of characters than others -- for example it's easier to get high on a dwarf or duergar than most other things.

I got up to mid 120's with the prog of a certain item for the neck(at the penalty of a risk).

Getting 3 dam avg in each gear slot and 5 each for weapons is very realistic without needing anything highly limited. It does mean completly sacrificing every other stat category though without some high end things.

slot running total
ring 3
ring 6
head/face 9
neck 12
neck 15
body armor 18
about body 21
arms 24
hands 27
legs 30
feet 33
weapon 1 38
weapon 2 43

Now you add in berserk to get up to 53
Add in some dam from natural str (lets go with 3) and you are at 56

thats 56 before cabal/legacies
thirst is 15 at hero so thats 71 without any legacies.

Thank you for your answer, it's much clearer now.

I just wonder if, with that kind of gear, we can expect 20 hit roll? and if so is that enough? (i heard you need more or less 25 hit to be effective)

The hitroll you get from your dex + warcry and bits and pieces from dam gear will be plenty. I generally don't bother with hit roll on a melee class at all after level 25.

Reread the post you responded to. I specifically called out "without stuff like bloodthirst factored in".

70 in that situation, yeah, requires a lot of really good gear. Even, say, 3 dam neckware (one example) that aren't highly limited and don't have other big drawbacks isn't necessarily easy.

NT

So you're saying that DB isn't balanced because Eleagra should win 10 times out of 10, and not just 9 times out of 10? :P

The thing that is missing from the log is how Drogthar is armed. I'm sure he had more than "nothing at all."

And the thing you're not factoring in is how limited villagers are with respect to gear relative to an Eleagra type imperial (in terms of being able to use it, being able to get it, and being able to safely retain it). Something needs to compensate for the fact that a villager cannot reach Eleagra levels.

I agree that the time investment:PK power ratio is lower with villagers than most other options, on average, but the upper limit on a villager's power is also more limited than most other options, and certain parts of the game are virtually foreclosed to villagers (for example, I would bet good money that a group of villagers will never, ever, kill Tiamat). Basically, they're really good at their niche, but at the end of the day it is still a niche.

Yes, Eleagra should have won 10 times out of 10. It was the easiest possible match-up for her and it should have be a textbook kill. Do you seriously think that _anything_ should have the chance to win when doesn't have weapons, specializations and is perma-lagged by much stronger warrior who has 1k HP?

I am not saying let's make berserker's powers worse. I am saying let's remove the rng factor from it. It could be few criticals hits every round, but it would be "controlable" hits. Right now fighting RBW is like retrieving from Outlanders. Daevryn (i think it was his comment one day) can write something like it - he is scared to go retrieve from Outlanders and says there are few of them, but there are noone of them online.

But what if you fight RBW who should be easiest possible textbook kill for you and you still loose because there were simply too much deathblows in a very short period of time?

Personally, I think looting a corpse 9/10 times with a "textbook" kill that only involves typing "bash" is pretty acceptable.

What options does Drothgar have to avoid that "textbook" kill? No magic, so he can't change his size or get spiderhands or increase his damage resistance. No magic, so unlike Eleagra, he's limited in his dual nodisarm sword options. He's a rager, so pretty much had to defend when Eleagra walks up and hits the massive giant.

So yeah, he has a cabal power that can help him survive - by your admission - only 1/10 times in a situation that is incredibly easy for Eleagra to create. A cabal power that goes poof if Eleagra takes the head. I don't think that's something that requires rebalancing.

Especially where Eleagra has options to make this situation even less likely than 1/10 times by upping her damage resistance.

As far as randomness, don't you think that is part of CF? Finding ways to increase your odds of a random event falling in your favor? If the odds were always stacked 100% in your favor, I don't think any of us would be playing. No?

By the way, I admire that you admit the rager dies in this situation 9/10 times.

If we try to write something like CF's theory it would be like this:

....

There are giant warriors sword specs who choose 2 legacies: bashing and crashing.

And about half of the mud becomes textbook kills for them. There is totally nothing noone of them can do to this warrior. These people are the weaker half of the hero pk range.

But these 2 legacies almost don't help anyhow against the rest 50% of the hero pk range. These 50% are the stronger people, who can at least find cursed main weapon to actually make these 2 legacies useless. It only feints sometimes against people who parry, but have cursed weapons. And does actually totally nothing against transmuters, shapeshifters and some other people.

So such giant warrior should play with great care and great skills - only fight the battles where his 2 legacies will shine and simply avoid all other battles. This is where personal skills of the player should come in.


....

But the randomness what comes from RBW simply destroys the theory, isn't it ? :)

i beat up eleagra bare handed as a village defender that was more or less permalagged a number of times, even when he had healer backup.

like i said before a HIGH damager villager doesn't need deathblow because thats just what makes warrior (village or not) nasty. This is also why I always get baffled by warriors who wear progging gear, tons and tons of save/stat gear, over straight damage. You don't need to save against many spells/last through many maledicts if you kill people in 4 rounds, you get more out of dam than any other class because you have more attacks to apply it to.

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,860479,860479#msg-860479

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,860481,860481#msg-860481

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,860482,860482#msg-860482

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,860483,860483#msg-860483

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,860484,860484#msg-860484

Same player. Now he has hero healer help and he kills every villager at least once. In the village. With ease.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=31&topic_id=11103&mesg_id=11112&page=

Every time i was visible because i was already fighting any villager and there was any other villager anywhere nearby - i was ganked, ganked down without mercy. Because every single villager hated me for being assassinated. It was my only second character past 30 level and it was 6 years ago. But if i made an assassin today i would be ganked without any mercy at all too.

So what exactly do your logs prove? Almost everybody ganks and of course villagars gank too too. It only matters how hard/how often you kill them before. If you do it enough often they will gank you anywhere whenever they get the chance.

Gankness cannot be calculated into game balance with the way villagers are their whole history.

>>Now, the real reason that I don't see a problem with DB the way it
>>stands now is that with two exceptions (Nexus and Scion) a melee
>>character who is facing a Deathblowing Rager is in that position due
>>to their own choices.

Two words: Fort war. Warriors getting smashed and db'ed down, not due to their own choice but because the Commander declared war on fort.
Fort warriors don't really have a choice about defense/retrieval. Only the ones that actively raid are titled "Hunted." I've seen Ragers just targeting elves and storms on the assumption they are Fort.

If the fort came to the village on its hands and knees and said please end this then it would come to an end. If they want the village to duck out then maybe they should turn up the heat or try and talk them out of it.

without Imm pressure. Even a war against a single orc that they are losing very very badly. RBW has too much Honor, Pride, Courage to end a war, even if they display none of those things while actually engaging in the mechanics (PK/raid/etc.) of said war.

At any given time you will have a number of hard liners in the village preaching the whole "We need to stay singularily focused on mages" angle. On top of that is the fact that by and large when these wars start, the village gets the ever living #### curb stomped out of them. A villagers biggest weakness is ganking and adding a whole new group onto the pile totally smothers mid to weak villagers.


I would argue that at this point the continuance of this particular war has more to do with the nature of fort leaders than village leaders.

And will drop this particular subject.

Surely you realize that's not an option given Fort RP. Unless you think it's reasonable that Fort should never have mages in leadership in order to avoid its melee classes having to fight RBWs.

Outlander had a mage leader for a long time and they are not at war with the village...

It would fit well into fort RP to turn the other cheek or for individuals to make personal sacrifice for the good of the cabal/light/greater good. I would even go so far as to say that its Poor fort RP that one of the leaders hasn't offered(although it sounds like one might have) to step down in order to resolve this conflict.

Not saying it's the only way for a Maran to RP, but most Maran RP like this:

Maran are not the sort of people you threaten with wars, or threats to kill elves in the Vale of Arendyl. They'll just hunt you harder and kill you more. That's what the stereotypical Maran does. He doesn't bargain with evil, he doesn't show mercy because of threats.

And if neutrals want to do evil (attacking any good align creature is an evil act) then the Maran only really wants to kill the neutral in question. If they take the Orb, then they needn't expect any mercy. They can even expect their item to be taken. Basically, threatening a Maran as a non-good is just going to have a very predictable outcome, that is Maran hostility.

Also, Village-Fort war is a very bad idea for the village if Fort is allowed to take the Head, given Fort's numbers and class diversity.

And I think that the way to deal with it is to let the leaders of these cabals decide what's for the best, not nerf DB (which, in my opinion is well offset by the drawbacks of being a Villager in the first place.)

I think that the real issue with this war is that for most of the cabal, Fort powers just aren't very good.

Now, as far as Villagers killing random Stormies or Elves I think that there's always been too blurry a line on this and that it should be a serious offense to attack someone who is not a mage or enemy, instead of just being frowned upon as it is now.