I have never made a deathblow/rager thread, but it seems like all the cool kids are doing it, so here goes.

I have played a lot of chars over the years, and the majority of them have been ragers, specifically those I reach hero with. Most recently, I played Nurok (granted, 2 years ago). I am now back, and not currently playing a rager!

I do have some feedback regarding ragers (not just deathblow). Unfortunately, I am likely in the camp that agrees with them needing to be adjusted. My reasoning is somewhat different than the norm ogod its OP reasoning.

I dislike the current set of rager powers, because they simply are too rewarding for too little investment.

wtf do I mean by that statement...

I can prep my current character pretty well, I have the game knowledge, and the time to do so. Both of which are required. In fact, gathering enough preps to reliably win fights against things that will destroy me (RBW etc) is extremely time consuming

My ragers, on the other hand..spend no time prepping. Why? Because they have what are quite possibly the best preps in the game! and on cooldowns!

Resist: I have not ever had a rager (including giants/etc) that couldn't keep resistance up 24/7 while wandering around. It cuts damage (or used to cut damage) by something like 15% on wuss veil to what must be near 45% on a thick veil (of course I'm speculating the #'s but its pretty damn sweet).

Spellbane: I have not ever had a rager that couldn't keep spellbane up 24/7 past lvl 30.

Deathblow: OP? eh, I can go either way on this one. I don't think "free" (unblockable) hits should be dblowable per the post below. I believe riposte was modified as well as concealed/backfist (as they originally could dblow)

My real complaint is that upon induction to the cabal, most villagers have resist/spellbane available all the time on a stick. I say add a timer to these abilities, or up the costs significantly.

Why?

I need to pick and choose when I use my preps, I cannot possibly invest the time to gather enough to walk around with permanent damage resistance (akin to resist) and permanent spellbane (granted I can't have this period, but you get the gist).

There should be times introduced via game mechanics where villagers aren't resistant, or spellbaned. They should have to pick and choose when they use their preps just like I do.

I do not have a problem with Resist/Spellbane/Deathblow individually

I DO have a problem that they basically have permanent spellbane/resist. I think they should need be more 'tactful' just like everybody else.

At least, when without the head.

You lose word of recall and teleport. So you die where another could have, with minimal to no time investment, bought potions.

Dude,

I played Nurok, first DM of this age. I've played countless ragers. And I agree that yes, the inability to escape sometimes sucks.

the benefits of "on tap" damage reduction, near-immunity to most spells, and deathblow far outweigh the inability to escape.

Example:

I could take nurok, dwarf RBW at lvl 30, with nothing more than 2 blacksmith hammers (from balator) and the armor from the outfit command and flat out WIN pk's.

How?

because I had on tap damage redux/immunity to most forms of spells at that level/haste/deathblow.

So lets look at that in reverse

Can I take a non rager dwarf level 30, use the outfit command, gather 2 blacksmith hammers and destroy my range?

Unlikely

Could the non dwarf rager, using the same equipment stand a chance in a fight against the RBW with the same gear? To clarify, by stand a chance I mean Kill...

Unlikely

Ragers are simply the lazy-mans answer to being able to win PK's :)

So your example is pretty flawed.
One situation does not prove your point at all, it just proves in one situation RBWs are pretty nice. So is everything else in certain situations engineered to favor them.

At hero, I want to see this RBW in ragesteel with 2 forge hammers being comepetetive. Yeah, you might kill some inexperienced people, maybe get realy lucky against some others, but generally, you're dying non-stop.

You are also compared level 30 dwarf warrior to dwarf warrior berserker. That's just silly. The warrior to warrior comparisons don't encompass all there is in CF and hardly proves the point.

I'll say dwarf shaman fights dwarf villager at level 30, same gear.
I bet on dwarf shaman 9 times out of ten to kill the rager or just words away, heals and tries again. Dwarf has sanc, can heal, and can give the rager maladicts that make him a sitting duck unless he gets back to the village. Ultimately, attrition favors the shaman winning that fight with minimal risk, and the shaman also has no prep time needed unless you count getting empowered, which is sort of the same as getting inducted.

I guess that means shamans are really the lazy mans answer to winning PKs because they can beat ragers down like they are nothing with little to no risk.

Ragers are Thera's victims 90% of the time. That being the case, I fail to see cause for anyone toning them down, just because of the rare DB one rounding or the even rarer Djabree/Malakhi style ragers that come around and really do make ragers look awesome.

As Daev said, there are just not that many PK successful ragers out there, even less ones that are on what is considered the high end of successful in PK (Djabree, Knacnar, Ohbehb types)

Ragers have less time investment to get to their height of power, mainly because they have generally the lowest power ceiling of any. They also have arguably the shortest life spans of any type of char, so yeah, maybe they should need a bit less investment to get close to their power ceiling, since the char is usually dead in 200 hours.

Ok buddy,

Shamans can't parry maces

Cranial is reliable lag

Thirst negates any str maledictions that a shammy can put on me

Oright, and truesight removes blindness...

I _destroyed_ shamans with Nurok, and have logs to back that up.

right from my PBF - as you can see, I rocked more warriors than any 1 type of mage. Shamans?? yeah, those too.

few PK successful ragers??? Every single one I have _ever_ had starting with penz in 97 had far more kills than deaths. I cannot say that about every character I have had, but I can certainly say it about every rager I have had.

PK Statistics

Total PK Wins 93 (53 at level 51)
Total PK Losses 16
Total Mob Deaths 5
PK Wins by Class
VS. transmuter 6
VS. thief 1
VS. warrior 30
VS. anti-paladin 1
VS. assassin 6
VS. ranger 2
VS. invoker 5
VS. necromancer 2
VS. bard 1
VS. shaman 5
VS. healer 1
VS. druid 1
VS. conjurer 14
VS. berserker 2
VS. shapeshifter 16

PK Wins by Cabal
VS. None 23
VS. FORTRESS 1
VS. BATTLE 2
VS. EMPIRE 20
VS. SCION 2
VS. NEXUS 39
VS. TRIBUNAL 6

PK Wins by Align
VS. Good 8
VS. Neutral 49
VS. Evil 36

PK Deaths by Class
VS. transmuter 1
VS. warrior 8
VS. anti-paladin 2
VS. conjurer 2
VS. shapeshifter 3

PK Deaths by Cabal
VS. None 2
VS. FORTRESS 1
VS. OUTLANDER 1
VS. HERALD 1
VS. EMPIRE 6
VS. NEXUS 1
VS. TRIBUNAL 4

PK Deaths by Align
VS. Good 2
VS. Neutral 3
VS. Evil 11

You take identical gear to the letter, I guess that's one way to back up the point. The shaman gets a weapon he can use via outfit, so he doesn't need the forgehammer you supply him.

Shamans can't parry maces? Really? Shamans don't have the mace skill, but they can still parry mace strikes though since they do have the parry skill last I checked. They do also have shield block. GO with shield defelction, he's no longer in lag, so he can get out.

Cranial is not perma lag by itself, especially with proper headwear.

Thirst wears off and the shaman can simply leave the second you use it since that's a round you're not spamming cranial.

Blindness? That's the only tactic a shaman has? Truesight curing that is not really a factor. Maybe you should have went with dwarf have high con making plague harder to land.

The shaman has the ability to pretty much shrug off a rager, and can trap a rager quite easily just with summon and leaving you to rot.

"right from my PBF - as you can see, I rocked more warriors than any 1 type of mage. Shamans?? yeah, those too"

Warriors are the most common type of char in CF statistically speaking I would wager. Most people have more warrior kills than anything for that reason.
5 Shamans. 16 Shifters, 14 conjurers, 6 transmuters, 5 invokers. You were successful against mages too, more so I would say then against shamans.

"few PK successful ragers??? Every single one I have _ever_ had starting with penz in 97 had far more kills than deaths. I cannot say that about every character I have had, but I can certainly say it about every rager I have had."

Entirely without relevance. That's you as one player, so unless you're the only one playing Battleragers, your experiences alone don't amount to probably 1% of the overall played hours of all rager characters.

Is it more possible, that maybe just that as someone that has been playing ragers for over 15 years as you just stated, you've figured out how to be more successful with them than most other average players? And moreover, that such experience contributes to that ability, which is something not all people playing ragers have.

And bloodthirst isn't going to be an I-win either. It will have an immediate impact on the fight but if the fight drags out or if you cannot get to the Village immediately after, chances are you're screwed.

Alot of other factors go into this too. Yeah, if you, as the RBW, run up to the shaman and cranial him, get some DB help right away from the RNG, and catch the shaman off guard. Then yes, you probably win. But in most situations you aren't supposed to be hunting the shaman anyways.

Most of the times as a mid-ranked RBW that I've fought a shaman its because the shaman struck me. Meaning he gets a shot to land that plague right off the bat. If it doesn't stick, then all he has to do is commence a series of hit and run tactics, healing in between. As the RBW you are then forced to choose to stay and pursue or go to the Village.

I've fought some shamans as a midranked RBW who knew exactly what they were doing and were hard as hell to kill. The ones that know what they are doing are frustrating and annoying because they don't stick around long. They only do until its too late for you.

Summon is OP. And countering cranial is as simple as wearing a thick helmet.

... 5 lifetime shaman kills is destroying them?

The shaman I fought the most was melememelemelem or whatever. I think Jalim played, High priest Imperial dude. I'm not saying that 5 kills is destroying them, I'm saying that when I fought those 5 shamans, one of which was the high priest. I beat the living crap out of them with very very little difficulty. Likely this is due to several factors

dwarf poison/disease resist
high saves from gear
Berserker w/ Maces...exploiting vulns


anyways, the logs show these fights to be very very one sides in my favor, I had no 'issues' dealing with shaman at all. And, I would consider the high priest (either graatch or Jalim I forget) as not some 'noob shaman'

Thats all dude, really guy hijacked my thread with the "shaman is the end-all be all to a rager argument" And I disagreed

That isn't to say he isn't still good with non-ragers.. But he's reckless.

Come up against me with an AP, necro or shaman and you're toast as a rager. Cranial just isn't scary when you've got a good helmet and +1 size on the guy. Most people go for the wrong tactics against a villager... They try to win outright, instead of baiting the Rager into killing themself.

If I really want to take down a battle rager, I'm going to show up on him repeatedly and get my ass kicked a bit on purpose. I want him to feel like I'm an idiot. I want him to feel like I'm scared of him and getting cranialed into the ground. Eventually, he's going to get careless and I'm going to have him in the jackpot. It's really an inevitability. I can leave, heal heal, heal mana, and be back to continue the fight and press him back into the Village *no problem*.

Very, very few Ragers will not fall for those kind of rope-a-dope tactics. Especially against a lowbie AP or Necro who are usually speed bumps and splatter stains along eastern road.

nt

nt

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that these 5 shamans you destroyed did not perhaps make full use of their skillset (or were perhaps caught with their pants down).

Summon can be used to prepare the battlefield against Bloodthirst, while at the same time enabling effective use of strength maledicts. Additionally, enlarge can be used to interfere with cranial. With these simple preparations, a shaman can turn a combat in his or her favour.

>Thirst negates any str maledictions that a shammy can put on
>me

For hero fights that's half true. For lowbie/midbie fights it's completely false.

I think battle should be given cabal edges that make them more dangerous to certain cabals like Scion, instead of fresh meat.
Scion A/B/s mages should run over the average Empire Blade or Fort Squire or Nexus guy like a speedbump, but should be nervous about a 1:1 fight with an comparably skilled RBW, instead of just laughing at how hard it is to do anything against A/B/S despoil.

Battle is severely underpowered. They are the "finest warriors" and give up an incredible amount of basic prep ability. My pk ratio went from 2% 98% to 50% 50% as soon as I stopped rolling serial battle attempts and started rolling chars that got basic preps and healer access. Not to mention, ability to have transmuters and healers help you, to have non caballed bards help you, et al. The ability to fight 2:1 without getting smacked around by your cabal gods is overpowered.
The ability to avoid con death and constant regear by simplying not showing up until the odds favor you is overpowered.


Consider your complaints apply primarily to warriors vs battle. It should be the case that warriors aren't running over battle like speed bump. Mages with A/B/s, and many mages without full A/B/s, paladins, shamans, et al, can all be fine.

Prep gathering is LIMITED and TIME CONSUMING for a reason. It's so you don't run amuck with infinite preps that may as well be class abilities. That is the basic challenge of warrior at hero level.

The basic powergame tactic of dirt, disarm, run back to healer, run back, dirt, disarm is impossible for battle. Q return and Q teleport is impossible for battle, which is ridiculous.

Battle is underpowered, this is likely the funniest thing I've read in a long while.

What is funny is you proved my point with one sentence

"Prep gathering is LIMITED and TIME CONSUMING for a reason. It's so you don't run amuck with infinite preps that may as well be class abilities. That is the basic challenge of warrior at hero level."

So, I can't run "amuck" with infinite stoneskin/shield/aura/whatever as though it was a class ability

But:

Ragers can run amuck with:

resistance
spellbane
deathblow
bloodthirst

As...ABILITIES and powers...holy ####!

Thanks for making my point about ragers being the lazy mans win button.

Hell I wasn't even saying "get rid of that ####" I am saying "Make it so that the rager needs to pick/choose when he preps" instead of...oh I think I'll prep for the #### of it right now...resist is down again?? damn 'call resist' spellbane down? 'call spellbane'

yeah..

nt

The point of my post is to say that quaff return, quaff teleport, using a healer to heal up, using a support char to help you out, choosing the timing of their fight carefully, are all things that Battle foregoes, among others.

If you are an imperial blade walking around without preps and you get attacked by an air/offense shifter, you can q teleport or q return and heal up. If you are any other class other than warrior, the discussion is mostly ridiculous. You have options to deal with the situations that you don't have preps.

Battle MUST fight unless its overwhelming odds, and even then most feel they have to make an effort before running, often resulting in their death. They have to fight to the death any time, and the ability to recall/teleport is taken away, as well the ability to heal, so they HAVE to fight to the death without choosing the time of their fight. Their powers are balancing compensation for this. If you want to give up all healers, all return/recall/teleport options, all supplications in return for not spending as much time preppping...then play Battle.

n/t

n/t

Putting aside that really successful Battle aren't more common than, say, really successful Outlanders/Scions/Empire/etc...

Think for a minute what this would actually get you.

1) Battle's probably going to do everything they can to spend their downtime inside the Village.

I know this is true because it's exactly what happens with Bloodthirst downtime whenever possible.

Meaning...

2) Battle's even more encouraged to patrol Eastern Road instead of taking risks and going where they might not be able to get back to the Village if the #### hits the fan.

I honestly don't see how either of these things is more fun for anyone.

You are right.

All of my villagers have indeed spent a significant amount of their downtime in the village. With the exception of when I know an assassin is around (with assassinate) in my range.

I just look at it like this Daev. Lets say I spend time gathering a non-sucky shield prep or stoneskin prep. Lets say it takes 5 minutes for the area to respawn and 5 minutes for me to walk in, and kill a mob. then walk off with my reward. Lets also consider that this prep is likely limited. so, for the sake of this discussion lets pretend the most of this prep I can obtain is 3, and all said and done it takes me 30 minutes to gather 3 of them.

Each time I use them, I realize I have to spend 10 minutes re-gathering them before I log off, else someone else will end up with it.

Lets also assume, that this prep is equivalent to resist in its function and usefulness.

What bugs me, is the rager can wantonly use resist/spellbane whenever he wants with a low mana cost.

Wheras I must make the call if the particular fight I am considering warrants using one of my limited availability preps which then will require 10 minutes of my time to re-gather.

Rager spends 50 mana, and maybe a tick or two of sleep to recouperate

I use my prep, its gone, and I need to re-gather it (10 minutes)

My thought was, that if you made it so ragers had to really really pick and choose when they use resist/spellbane it may lead to a more level playing field of melee class vs rager

the _real_ underlying problem as I see it is that as someone else said it, ragers have remained (mostly) unchanged for a long time.

Well, I used to kill ragers all the time with my non rager melee classes..what the hell happened...oh right

Haste was removed as a common prep from the game (for the most part, with few exceptions)

Why does this matter?

Haste, as you know improves the "tankiness" of any melee class significantly. those deathblows that I find myself eating were often dodged/parried with more frequency due to haste.

I think honestly most of these rager threads are due to the fact that RBW's (who are designed to kill mages) are _extremely_ effective against melee classes without haste/preps. If that playing field got 'leveled' more, I doubt you'd see as many of these posts.

(N/t)

nt

(N/t)

I'm not talking about balance I'm saying that no matter how balanced the game is people will still bitch and say it isn't. People will make assumptions that are off base due to their feeling toward a certain build/class/race/cabal. You really don't know the drawbacks of villagers if you think they are OP.

I suppose I think they are very strong for the time investment, but have to be able to take a beating. I am not fond of dying, so I am not sure that I will ever enjoy playing a villager.

Unless you pick your fights as an applicant your will die. A LOT.

"I can prep my current character pretty well, I have the game knowledge, and the time to do so. Both of which are required. In fact, gathering enough preps to reliably win fights against things that will destroy me (RBW etc) is extremely time consuming"

Why do you spend so much time trying/preparing to fight things that will destroy you instead of focusing on things you are on equal ground/have an advantage over?

For most classes you have a lot more enemies in the "even to weak" bucket then you do the "OMGWTF my noob breadz R toast" bucket.

Beyond ABS mages or sanctuary classes, does anyone have RBW in their even to weak bucket without massive prepping?

various warrior builds
assassins
conjurers
rangers
bards
shaman
druids
invokers

various warrior builds - beyond arial sword, what?
assassins - yeah, assassinate, I understand
conjurers - ABS mage
rangers - tried this, got driven out of the forest and pwned but I am sure someone else played it better and Iklahn was mean
bards - pwns anything
shaman - sanctuary class
druid - interesting, didn't know
invoker - ABS mage.

So I can tell you what classes are capable of curb stomping/steam rolling villagers like a bad habbit. That is not going to help you though if you don't know how to actually play them and properly execute fights and leverage situations.

The thing is that not all of these classes work well against all villagers (they have a race and class too that influences their mechanics WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more then their village path will). For instance a cloud giant nexus sword spec with greeting/crashing will roll over axe/mace spec villagers but might struggle against dagger and sword spec villagers (that have cursed weapons)

Now you can either focus on fighting the villagers you match up well against or you can expend a ton of preps to even the field or gain an advantage over the villagers you match up poorly against. The nice thing as a non villager is that you have the choice to do the latter, a villager doesn't have that luxury they can only do the former and focus on picking their fights and avoiding the people/situations that push their #### in.

(N/t)

The fact that ragers don't have to prep is the main reason I play them.

I really dislike having to take time to gather preps constantly.

As many will (or have already) point out, there are many drawbacks that offset the fact that Villagers don't have to prep, such as not being able to use healers or having to walk everywhere.

There is also a much higher ceiling of power or protections (call it what you want) for those who want to use preps and put in the time to do it. I'm pretty sure you can get far better dam redux by prepping than rager resist gives.

Your argument of "make them prep just like I do" is silly. This game is full of options to choose a particular way you want to play a character and the game. Battleragers is just one way for a player to have a self-reliant character game experience. There already is a ton of characters types that I can choose that already require heavy prepping. Why make another one that way? By your line of reasoning we should eliminate sanctuary and a whole slough of other communes from the priest classes so they have to prep too.

This raises a question to me.

If a warrior used every non limited prep for DR, how close could he get to a battlerager's resist with a normal to thick veil?

Far more.

also, the edges you mention in your ridiculous response to me below are for everyone, so it's a rising tide for all boats, ragers aren't any better than anyone else with them, leaving them at the same level of diminishment they were before.

Also, and something I forgot to add below, you don't realize that when a a rager thirsts somewhere, all the enemy needs to do is go and heal at a nearby town, taking one tick perhaps, and go back fully healed, while the rager has to fight every mob everywhere, and not heal. You really have no idea what you're talking about and how easy meat rager berserkers are.

Ok Graatch.

You and I have actually played villagers side by side many times. I'm pretty sure you were Loborguz when I was Selfren.

Let me ask you an honest question regarding your 'escape' and go to a healer plan

How many warriors do you think can escape from the powergamer giant/sword/bash legacy RBW. Heal, and then come back. When is that honestly an option in a 1v1 situation? I suppose if your warrior is high dex, and you bank on evade firing or something similar sure. But for everyone else a Woldrun/Knacnar/Brinkmun/Any high dmg output high lag combo RBW with landslide is a death sentence. I know you're going to make the reduce argument, which may save you sometimes. I still honestly believe that the fight is heavily skewed in the favor of the RBW

A SCION Invoker?

A Marshall Paladin with 3 virtues?

Some times, the game isn't meant to have everyone go down to a single warrior 1 v 1. Woldrun/Knacnar/Brinkmun were all leaders that con-died with over 100 PKs. Name me one other badass warrior that condied with over 100 PKs? They are supposed to be tough.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=31&topic_id=35705&mesg_id=35705&page=

I came sooooooooooooooo close. 98-95 or whatever lol.

You better still be playing bub.

>Ok Graatch.
>
>You and I have actually played villagers side by side many
>times. I'm pretty sure you were Loborguz when I was Selfren.
>
>Let me ask you an honest question regarding your 'escape' and
>go to a healer plan
>
>How many warriors do you think can escape from the powergamer
>giant/sword/bash legacy RBW. Heal, and then come back. When
>is that honestly an option in a 1v1 situation? I suppose if
>your warrior is high dex, and you bank on evade firing or
>something similar sure. But for everyone else a
>Woldrun/Knacnar/Brinkmun/Any high dmg output high lag combo
>RBW with landslide is a death sentence. I know you're going
>to make the reduce argument, which may save you sometimes. I
>still honestly believe that the fight is heavily skewed in the
>favor of the RBW
>

All of them. Reduce potions are overpowered. And while they are going to the healer, if the rager is following, he's now hitting every single mob in that town, getting lagged each time because he's essentially doing "murder x" each time, taking whatever damage, eating his moves up, etc.

As for landslide, that's trip lag by definition, they can't perma lag you. The instant they thirst - and they can't hide thirsting from you - you can get out and just wait a few ticks and then they are ####ed. I never understood how people didn't really wtfpwn more berserkers.

And while thirst let's you ignore -str and some other maledictions during thirsting, most of them are still there and affect you right as thirst goes away. It doesn't cure them, just keeps them in abeyance for the duration. So if you landed any of those dagger hits? Plagues? Impales? Slices? etc. Rager is now meat who can't wield anything, who perhaps can't move, and for sure can't regain any moves at all for a few ticks, has -dam and -hit for several ticks, has a somewhat gimped fighting ability for several ticks, etc.

And by the way, the other side of this is, shouldn't the villager be winning some? You want to make it so they never win, and what's the point there? The facts are clear, villagers do no better, and in fact somewhat worse, than everyone else, in the aggregate. And their sweet spots get them to that point a lot of times so you seem to ignore their weakness at hero. They are significantly underpowered at hero.

Unlimited:
Stoneskin
Desensitize
prot vs alignment
anthem (Short version, 5 ticks tops.)
+ resists against all elements.

Of these, the first 3 is basically on a stick and something everyone always should have around. And those gives about 40-45% DR.

So what does that add up to against the "right" align? ~60-65%? Not sure what the anthem gives. With the resists against elements, well that's another 33% but that can easily be bypassed.

Limited:
Aura
shield
prot vs ethos (if you can use wands)

All of the above stacked up... I'd say 70ish% DR? Yes, a none-villager warrior can stack up A LOT more DR than a villager can with resist, the villager can ALSO get anthem though since it's not magical in any way. And to counter DB... Villager can't use healer, recall, teleport, -save vs spell preps that are magical, enlarge, reduce, fly, spiderhands, haste (Save for bloodthirst) etc etc which all availible as preps. (Yes, warriors too can get haste in more than 2 ways not even counting transmuters or other zaping/brandishing on them.)

Some of this will be my noobness showing but of the above you showed, I normally keep access to stoneskin and desensitize with me always. In addition, I normally have some access to protection vs metals as well though that has a huge downside.

I have no idea where this anthem prep you speak of is, or if you speak only of having a bard's help that isn't frequent enough to count for me. If it is a prep, I guess I have some research to do.

Protection isn't always available, as there are quite a few neutral villagers.

Resist elements can be used and may come in handy if someone is rocking the same elemental set consistently, but in general I don't see that happening. I think partly this is because a villager is ready to throw down against an invoker or people with invoker shields constantly so doesn't rely on them.

So if I had to guess, stoneskin + desensitize + prot vs metals may about equal or surpass resist.
Stoneskin - I've had to either be potentially frozen in place or damned and plagued for the limited sources I know of. Definitely not kept up constantly.
Desensitize - You could keep this up constantly, I just don't know any who do.
Prot vs Metals - As you can get one at a time and can potentially be kept completely out of the fight from the preps downside, I really don't use this often.
Resist - If they have the head, 100% of the time.

I said non-limited because limited has two huge factors for me: sometimes a significant time investment, and inventory spots limiting me to only keeping so many on me. If I do have aura, I have to think is it worth popping right now to just have them runaway until its gone and spend another 10-15 minutes of my life getting it again? Sometimes it just isn't worth it.

I am specifically keeping wands out of this discussion, as mostly if you have wands you have ABS and you don't need most of this stuff.

I agree not using a healer to heal does stink, as does being stuck in place without teleport or recall.
SVS preps is kind of a silly argument considering I would take spellbane over any SVS prep I have ever heard of.
Enlarge/Reduce definitely sucks, but most villagers seem to counter this by taking landslide/mace/axe/whip/staff and spear to get another form of lag beyond bash.
Fly is a large weakness that will get a villager killed frequently, agreed.
Bloodthirst has some major downsides and it will get you killed though it is often used when you know you are going to die anyways. The upsides are huge though. Most warriors don't easily have access to haste. Bloodthirst can be called frequently. Most warriors have to worry about strength drop. Bloodthirst ftw.

In the end, there are what three classes that can give ragers the crimson scourge and hope they don't spellbane it. If they do get it, you have a crappy wait on your hands. The rest of us have the time investment always.

Again, you are simply wrong re: pre-40 ragers having resist and spellbane and trusight up all the time. This is fact. Not up for debate. Accept it. And remember pre-35 berserkers don't have bloodthirst, it's level 35 (or was, and someone else said something about it in the thread so I imagine it hasn't been changed).

(N/T)

With none of my warriors (other than elves/d-elves) could I ever keep all three powers (resist, spellbane, truesight) up all the time until I hit the 40s. Resist and spellbane are each 50 mana (unless they have been changed in the last 3 years), and losing concentration just once on each means you have blow more than half your mana. And they don't last so long until the mid-40s, so you need to re-call more often. I think you're remembering with rose tinted glasses. No way most village warriors are walking around with all three up 24/7 in early and most of the late 30s.

And as the guy below mentioned, the day you become an applicant you can't heal anything, anywhere. You can't use magic at all, including most of the best items in the game. Once inducted the only place you can heal anything at all is in the cabal, the biggest death trap in the game. Everyone knows where you have to go, you have only that one way out, and they can block you either on the way in or the way out. Not having access to all that top end gear, not being able to teleport around to save time, to hunt, to get away, not being able to get out of the most basic and stupid of traps (summoned to locked rooms, entirely unable to go places that require flying, etc.) all make the basic powers of the battle rager rather average at hero.

And without the head. They are literally the weakest things in the game. Bar none.

Frankly, unless they got a power up since I stopped playing, I'd argue they need one. For the last decade or so the game has evolved with new skills, spells, powers, abilities, etc., for almost everyone and everything, but ragers have only the same stuff they have had since the game started for the most part. Everyone else has new toys, new stuff, new powers, and thus new tactics and powers. But not the ragers, and the ragers have to deal with them all anyway. I used to hit deathblows, with 70 or 80 damroll, for lower case damage. Lower case with a period mind you, not even lower case with exclamation point. And you think they are overpowered? They are underpowered.

I would say some of the new edges really benefit ragers, especially wood-elves.

This argument is divisive enough without using outdated information.

N/T

I am not saying they don't benefit wood-elves in other cabals too. I would say that all of the elves can use resist to cover their weaknesses consistently. This and the new edges are giving a nice advantage to wood-elf RBW, and hence why we are seeing so many of them recently.

Battleragers forego the use of progging gear, magic-flagged items, and healers. This is a rather considerable sacrifice in utility, to gain a bonus to a smaller focused area. Their lack of flexibility renders them vulnerable to dangers outside their narrow scope of power.

Ragers typically come in three flavours - Ones that excel in breaking things (berserkers), ones that excel in keeping people from being broken (defenders), and ones that are something of a middle ground of the two (scouts) and lend themselves to a more tactical play.

While each of these paths do possess permanent spellbane/resist, you forget that they do not have access to teleport/recall/pass door/flight/enlarge/reduce/stoneskin etc etc. If they are afflicted by an adverse condition such as poison, plague, or bleeding, they have limited means to deal with such complications.

Moreover, the powers they gain as compensation are tied to a cabal item, which can be taken from them. No one can take away your ability to prep up.

TL;DR, Battleragers possess a higher 'baseline' state of power, but their power is focused in a very narrow field. Non-ragers are vastly more flexible, and better equipped to deal with abstract problems. As your knowledge of preps, gear, and the game as a whole grows, you will discover effective tools and methods beyond the scope of Battleragers, which you can use to trivialize encounters that would prove to be insurmountable to a Battlerager.

(N/t)

Nt

(N/t)

I happen to think that too much time can be invested in gathering preps and it is bad for the game. I was just pointing out that I think the topic of this thread is backwards. The poster is complaining that while he has to spend so much time gathering preps he thinks others who currently don't, ragers in this case, should have to also.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and my younger sister was told to do something she didn't want to do. She would protest loudly and ask "If I have to do it, why doesn't HE have to do it?!" I don't because I'm not you.

Conversely, we should really be discussing how to decrease certain aspects of time investment in this game. This is just an idea for discussion to lead off, but, perhaps make limited preps (since they are usually the most time consuming to get) have longer durations?

I am basing this off of a personal theory that if players had to spend less time preparing their characters we might have less frustration among the playerbase when they die. There are the exceptions to this next statement, but, many of the ragers I have been in contact with usually seem to take deaths pretty well. I think part of that is because all they need to do is type a few key strokes and they're back in the game. On the flip side, if I spent an hour gathering preps only to burn them all, die and lose gear on top of it, I'd be in a pretty pissy mood and just want to quit.

... At least to me. That's why I LOVED playing an AP because they are the ultimate CF experience. (Once you have a few charges) because of the insanely high risk vs reward ratio.

I love CF because it sucks SO hard to die, you risk losing so much stuff you spent SO much time gathering. Items, preps etc etc, and that's one of the big things that makes me come back to CF over and over again.

I can almost imagine what your AP roles must be like ;)

nt

I can't tell you how many times that happened, and most of them ended in me dying, just sitting somewhere praying not to be found.

(N/t)

Most all of them can except assassins and healers.
Keep in mind you can use scrolls, talismans and wands to do this.

Warriors can take enigma
Thieves can take scrolls
Bards rangers have talismans/scrolls
Mages have wands
Druids I think can take an edge to put some added illness affects to some supps, but not sure about plague
Komodo can plague via it's bite, not sure about other forms.

You just have to be creative and know where to get those things.
You can get crimson scourge scrolls if you want for example.

There are ALWAYS lowbie villagers to take it back instantly. I don't understand why people still talk about this.

>There are ALWAYS lowbie villagers to take it back instantly.
>I don't understand why people still talk about this.

Because you're totally wrong? Yeah, that's probably why. You've said this for years, people have said this for years, and it's always been wrong. I am willing to bet it's wrong now as it was then.

... there is ALMOST always a lowbie villager to retrieve. I almost only bother to raid the village with my imperials, when at war, since centurions really can mess things up for lowbie villagers without the head. :)

NT

It depends a lot on what cabal you are.

Scion, yeah, can almost never reasonably keep it from lowbies.

Empire when it's doing all right is pretty great at it.

As Battle, Empire when it's doing great or GSV with any kind of opposition at all are the worst retrievals for any character in the entire game.

...getting stuck without the Head behind Centurions with opposition.

It's basically a straight death sentence that will likely get you looted and no success on the retrieval. Empire is hands down the worst cabal for the village to fight period because of Centurions + summoners + healers + bashers + bards.

Empire being weak now makes a lot of #### seem out of whack with game balance. It is what it is.

One time Graatch (Susu) and I spent over a real life hour plagued between Voralian and the GSV, trying to fend off an Orc and Scion guy, unable to move or call any powers. It was one of the most horrible CF experiences I've had. We survived somehow. :)

NT