Shapeshifters.. posted this in the wrong place origionally.

Ive played about 8 or 9 shifters all heroed. And a few to the thirties. And well I still belive its a class that needs improving. A shifter gets tooled way to easily. You cant fight a necromancer, ap or shaman, all they have to do is blind and energy drain you. And the forms, any forms saves are easily overcome even with a ton of preps. And Ive attempted this in many forms. Even the most resistant def forms. Against a warrior they will run at first, and just wear you down ever so slowly. Its almost funny.. But I still love the class because its ability to get into many situations and adapt. But a killer your not going to be not even with an off air combo. Not anymore atleast.

A change I would like to see is that in your major Major foci form you would "grow" or improve if you like and get more skills than others that have it as their minor focus. And that you could from the beginning chose a foci within that major foci.
Something like this:
shapefocus major defense skin/regeneration/agility
Now choosing lets say skin, would allow you to get ither the porcupine or the armadillo
Choosing the regeneration would allow you anaconda, crocodile or the snake, and agility would allow you to learn the mongoose or the lemure. By doing this you would have alot more to say in your way of playing the shapeshifter and still keep it at its current level.

For an offensive major Id like to see for instance
shapefocus major offense maladiction/agility/strenght
Maladiction would give you panther/crocodile
Agility would give you tiger/golden jaguar
Stenght would give you lion or ram

As a utility major Id like to see.
shapefocus major utility maladiction/stealth
Maladiction would give cobra/hyena/orangutang
Stealth would give wildcat/fox

this should give a rough idea... now there are lots of holes, but it would atleast afford a shapeshifter the chance to somewhat direct his/her wishes in a direction he would like.

Any responses would be nice...

LH

>this should give a rough idea... now there are lots of holes,
>but it would atleast afford a shapeshifter the chance to
>somewhat direct his/her wishes in a direction he would like.

Actually I think that is meant to be the appeal of shapeshifters. The fact that you can't (to an extent) direct where you want to go.

Your left with just your foci. You choose, then let the chips fall where they may. It's beautiful. With every other class you can learn to adapt your character to your fighting style. With a shifter, you choose your path and learn to adapt your fighting style to your character.

It's a great class, and it would be great if you choose, at least somewhat, what shapes you wanted to shift to, BUT, it would ruin the fun.

The Shapeshifter class in my eyes is good because it's random. If your tired of playing the same thing over and over or you want something thrown at you from left field, play a shifter.

If you know what you want, then pick a foci to reflect that. If you don't, flip a coin and go from there. I like it's randomness because it's the only class like it. Adding a form of system to it would only make it worse. People already complain about the air/offense shifters, imagine if you could narrow down your forms even more, the sheer amount of people who would begin to bitch.

All that aside. Chaos is great, the most fun is always the most unexpected.

I agree that shifters beauty is the randomness. But for instance when you choose defence/defence you can be tooled so badly at hero... Up to there you will allways manage.. And all the cool forms you can get up to hero is plain fun, esp the utility foci.

But at hero you most likely have a plan for your shifter, and for instance if you plan to be a loner with plans to explore and pk some, you can get really tooled if you get mongoose/lemur for instance.. Your plans is totally ruined because bouth are ganging/raiding forms (forms best played in groups), and not to be a loner type of character, but then again its really good at just that. I would like for instance to be able to choose somewhat path for my shifter so I know I can succeed in one way or another, maby not get the perfect form for me, but still get a form that gives me the oppertunity to play the shifter the way I want... The fighting style for each form is hugely different anyhow.

Still for your major foci major it would be really interesting if that form could change a tad after the path you choose so a major foci major mongoose would be a little different from a minor foci major mongoose for instance... This way you would see some interesting major choices you might not see today and so on. And at the same time make the shifter class a class even better.

I just want to add it's a game, and when you invest 100 hours to hero it is kinda nice if you get a form that gives you the oppertunity to follow your goals to an extent, maby not exactly what you planned but something close. I've played 4 shifters, so I am not shifter elite material like larshalv here, but I know it can be soooooo booring if you get the wrong forms, and after 100 hours invested of your spare time to be able to get to a point where you can have a whole lot of fun (I love the hero range more than any range in game) since you can do stuff that most of the players can just dream of (general for all classes) and you can have long fights with lots of tachtics and so on, but if you get something you absolutely don't want it comes up to a choise, what to do delete and go over or delete and take a break. Once I got the exact same forms as my previous shifter and ehh delete;delete there is no fun in that in the long run.

Just my few cents.

Now a dwarf can go under water, an elf can, all they have to do is eat something or drink something or even have a spell on themselfs. Why cant a wolf have the same? Where is the big differance here.. Let them also have hydrophobia. Its after all a magical world. And really I cant see the differance in having a dwarf or lion go under water and fight there. They would be uncomfortable yes, but not allowed.?...

As for the lure of not knowing, heck its exciting enough to not know what you get from rank 15-40. And part of playing and the putting in a role is so that you can say, heck I want to be an agressive type or defensive type explorer type. You try to make a plan with your char and have some meaning. Not just go about and not know what your supposed to do. I even had a comment from an imm, this char does not seem to have any purpose beside ...... And with that char I had explored roughly 50+ areas that are quite hard to get to. And done alot of other things. But heck, because a role was so hard to put on the char from early on it got hard to plan the char.

Anyhow some direction would be nice in the class, and leave it open to them that would not want it like it. For me however having had most forms, and several combination of forms, I still play because I try to challange myself. But at times I would like to make a plan like when playing a warrior or invoker, to choose my path and do my thing.

LH

That is a good idea actually, this way you can make a shifter that fits you particular playstyle.

Curently I see shifters delete after they get their first major form ant that is just sad to see.

I would like to see something happen atleast.