Mon Nov 14 15:01:44 2011

At 9 o'clock AM, Day of Thunder, 24th of the Month of the Ancient Darkness
on the Theran calendar Tolmir perished, never to return.

I had alot of fun Leveling & RPing with you. I always thought that you were evil.

Thank you.


GLWYN

Especially if you are evil and notice that I treat you with civility. I didn't see any reason for Tolmir to act differently towards good/evil. Essentially he was always looking for the adrenaline of "adventure" to help deal with the a traumatic experience in his early life. Definitely down to fight with any comers for similar reason, but aside from the Scarab bit I didn't really hunt much until after I had lost interest in the character.

Fjodir, sorry I didn't get to continue on with you except the few brief moments. Think we could have had some fun. Even when I was on, I was barely able to play thanks to outside distraction.

Scarab, thanks for coming to DT for interaction. One of the coolest things I've got to do. I was in there forever btw. Wanted to play into it and try to make a deal with you later, but obviously I didn't get to.

Probably the most well-written role I've ever done, yet it lacked much in the way of substance. I really enjoyed writing it though.

#### orcs killing me in my home terrain with zero effort. I don't feel I should have to prep in my home terrain, but apparently I do. Even when I did though, it wasn't enough. Maybe haste would have done the trick.

Tried to get something going with the Fort too. Half and half as far as interactions there go. Some good, some bad. One guy just couldn't understand that I wasn't Nexus and had motivations for attacking outside of "My cabal must kill you."

I tried to get some paranoia type play in there. Sometimes I think I got it right, others I didn't.

Well this goodbye is already longer than it should be for a nobody with no hours. Maybe after Skyrim I'll have time/effort available for a real character.

.

Explorer.

Experienced ones can tank your initial ambush with a fair amount of ease and bash you for three oblits to insta-kill you. Before wilderness familiarity, and maybe even a little after it, you'll have a lot of trouble doing enough damage to orcs to seriously threaten them before the bashes + flails or whatever kill you.

My most recent ranger also had a lot of trouble against the new orcs, and he was very well-equipped and fairly tough for his level.

The 2-3 fights I'm thinking of, I was 35-40. All with perfect wilderness fam and 95+% in all other defenses. Using a staff.

One did just as you say, only it was two bashes+savage feeding to kill me. The other I actually tanked just a bit, before he ate some prep I'm assuming and went ape #### on me.

I'm really not upset about losing so much as how horribly bad I tanked. An enlarge prep would have changed both fights, to at least the point of not dying. However, had I tanked with anything but my face that would have worked too.

nt

I got exploded with 100% wilderness fam and wielding a staff. It was truly mind boggling both times.

Rangers don't learn flail. And you can dual-wield flails, while you can only single wield staff. So orc gets almost double the amount of weapon attacks that you do with a weapon that you don't know. Also, orcs have a ####ton of hp and I don't ####ing care how badass your staff ability is, no ranger at 35 is going to oblit every 2 rounds while permalagging their opponent, while orcs do it all the time.

Seriously, try it yourself. At earlier ranks, orc damage output beats ranger damage output by a huge amount. As long as the orc doesn't panic from the initial ambush, rangers get freaking meated. Orcs are just more than healthy enough to eat the initial annihilate ambush, and then bash you over and over again for oblits while his flails or whatever beat you the #### down. Rangers have wilderness fam, but orcs have enhanced melee and some selfheal from their berserking.

I remember an orc of mine getting snared, then waylaid & bearcharged by an enlarged wood-elf ranger wielding a staff. I was dead before I came out of permalag. He was barely hurt.

I'm pretty sure savage feeding has a chance to prog on every bearcharge.

Well, at hero, sure, rangers will haste shield aura frenzy and rape the #### out of your poor snared orc without even caring about savage feeding. If you're fighting rangers with snare as an orc, its not even a discussion relevant to the conversation, you're already practically in hero range.

But if you were fighting a level 35-39 ranger, even a very well geared one, its a different matchup entirely and one that any experienced orc will take the advantage on.

If you play ranger 35+ and can't destroy every orc you meet in the wilds, even one with 10 levels on you, in 4 rounds max, you are doing it completely wrong.

Initial ambush aside, i haven't met a single orc so far that i wasn't
hitting for at least 200hp a round (conservative), 300+ if i make an effort.
Bash is not going to save you there, especially if you don't
expect an attack.

Regarding the orc hitting the ranger for "3 oblits" (lol),
besides the fact that it should never happen, if orc damage
output is of concern, one can simply use damage
reduction preps which, for a ranger, are plenty and easy to
procure.

I've played several rangers and this is just not how it works.

Yes, rangers eat the living crap out of orcs at hero, where they have all the damage reduction and mastered defenses and enough hp to survive oblit savage feedings and several mangles a round.

Before level 40, though, after the initial ambush your orcy friend will simply outdamage you. And you just don't have the hp, or the access to the best shield/aura/stoneskin preps, to survive it. And even if you are able to overwhelm the orc 1v1 (he missed one of his bashes?), he can simply quaff and get out, and walk back into you at full hp and try for multiple bashes in a row again.

Yes, you will hit the orc multiple times a round with a staff: but he will be hitting you multiple times a round, too. My plainsrunner got ####ing eaten by orcs in my home terrain: 700 hp and 60 damroll and I simply could not survive the 200 damage per bash + melee rounds. I overwhelmed him once or twice, but he just walked away and quaffed and returned, fully healed, until the bashes managed to permalag me through.

Grongt (orc) beat the snot out of a few rangers. Generally out of the wilds though. One maybe in the wilds, not sure.

My rangers, however? Orcs in the wilds were a free frag for them once I had enhanced damage, regardless of what level beyond that.

I got 99 problems but an orc ain't one.

I think if any of you had tried a neo ranger on bhurmag or one of the others in the early thirties, you would have been singing a different tune.

Most orc players are pretty bad, and few skilled players play them because they come with so many drawbacks. In the hands of a skilled player, though, orcs become able to easily overwhelm many builds which ordinarily bully them, like storm sword or yes, neo-ranger

Yes, they come with many drawbacks. Vuln_ranger is not really one of those drawbacks, at least until hero.

That includes Twist's recent experiment who i almost one rounded from full health with ambush + round of combat before orc wimpy kicked in.

I've never had one my rangers die to an orc in 500+ hours of play.
If you're having problems with orcs as a ranger, you don't know what you're doing.

Get bashed twice, dead in 5-6 rounds. Yes, oblit savage feeding. I was using a staff and he was using an axe. Out-meleed me? How? I don't know. 100% wilderness fam, 100% parry, 92 or so dodge... Home terrain even.

EDIT: Though I agree, all my previous rangers have eaten orcs like candy. However, I think this orc and his buddy both are very skilled. Or rather, they had excellent gear and good preps while I had shoddy gear and minimal preps.

Enlarge or reduce as necessary. No ranger in the wilds should find the orc initiating combat, so not having time to prep shouldn't be an excuse.

No way should you be eating oblit savage feedings either if you're prepping with aura or shield or stone skin or protection (if applicable) or even desensitize.

Start with dirt and disarm instead of ambush if need be.

Call lightning to finish them off when they flee to drink blood.

Entangle so when they try to run they have trouble doing so.

Wait until they are fighting something else and strike - see above about orcs initiating combat.

Alzinghul: 8 - 2
Gutulk: 16 - 3
Kubilak: 15 - 0
Keiigrahv: 5 - 0
Zuktharg: 12 - 1
Fycul: 5 - 3
Urgok: 13 - 4
Pleebert: 3 - 2
Xarghuldaar: 4 - 0
Yazhmog: 5 - 0

Total from Top Ten: 86 - 15

Nreisshe: 8 - 0
Paraloiuts: 0 - 0
Sulye: 9 - 0
Krynna: 4 - 1
Tjok: 1 - 0
Mahar: 5 - 0
Malkhar: 0 - 0
Surin: 1 - 0
Trevant: 0 - 0
Derasori: 0 - 0

Total from Top Ten: 28 - 1

Conclusion: Good pkers beat bad pkers. Also, orc has a better ability to finish a ranger than ranger has to finish an orc.

Fairly certain I had stone skin and protection, though protection may have gone towards goodies since I was neutral.

Resizing doesn't matter since they can resize to compensate and we are talking about good pkers (I think, since they can beat rangers in their home terrain).

The rest? Can't use it because I was getting bashed. It is the strategy that works on many opponents though. Can't argue with that.

Like I said earlier in the thread, heavy prepping isn't my game. I'm ok with losing because of it. Just odd to me that an orc is killing a ranger in their home terrain with just bash. That's the way it is though and I'll roll with it.

The last part is definitely applicable. I misjudged a ranger's ability to stand toe to toe with an orc in their home terrain. My rangers won't do it in the future.

However, thanks for the advice.

a lot of the time you don't need to reduce and you don't need damage reduction preps/haste.

as a ranger you should gear for damage. if you play human you should go for str build, play savage, get power ambush and load up on +dmg.

with the right gear (which you can get and keep because you will seldom die) you should destroy *any* orc straight up at 35,
lagging should not be an option for the orc as he will be dead from straight up melee in 1-2 rounds.

fallback/bash if he has a pet can be anticipated with waylay and quick redirect and again if he bashes he is just lagging himself to your superior melee and should end up dead.

the only scary thing that an orc can do to a ranger is spinebreak/call in someone that can tank you and gang you. but if he misses that spinebreak, he is dead.

Explorer/forester...

I (anyone) can wreck shop with a savage.

I hit 60ish damroll, could hit 70ish if I got several charges of ignite and managed a couple of unspeak ambushes on people with the right weapon. I also hit 700ish hp, which is nothing special on a level 35 ranger but is pretty decent considering I geared exclusively for damage.

That being said, orcs still tooled me. They'd eat the initial ambush damage (annihilate), go to gushing, berserk the next round, back to bleeding with the haste-like effect orc berserk gives, and then bash me. When the bashes failed, I'd usually overwhelm them and make them wimpy out, but when two bashes + savage feedings in a row hit, the third usually killed me.

They'd also occasionally fallback instead of berserk and then bash me, which could be just as effective with significantly less risk.

If you're going through orcs in one round with your ambush + staff, I'd suggest that you have other factors going for you. Such as, orc is already bleeding wounds from tanking mobs or other people at some point, or orc is wearing nothing but midnight dragon and fine leather.

Just saying.

drgbdzr

I think it's the weakest of all ranger combo's.

Kudo's for having fun and rolling with it. I couldn't.

I've played so many rangers it's not funny. Explorer/forester can do fine, but not really so much in PK. I picked based on role, though plains runner probably would have fit better.

explore/cave is pretty damn fun. Cave in general is damn fun.

Or were you just curious?

I'd assume if I logged these fights that people who read them would answer with reduce/enlarge.

You probably had half the hp as the orc. A smart orc would have used maces and tore you up with that and savage feeding. Reducing to where orc can't bash you, thus no savage feeding from bash, would have gone a long way.

It's not a good fight for you until near hero and you have enough gear/hp/better weapons to fight him.

I probably should have answered the enlarge/reduce advice in my post.

There are two types of orcs. Really good ones, and really bad ones. The ones that can kill rangers with 100% wilderness fam in their home terrain are the really good ones. They are also the ones that will reduce right along with me.

I'm not saying it's unfair or anything, but just that I expected to tank better than I did. Like the other guy is saying, two bashes is all it takes where as I would have to whittle the guy down with no ability to lag.

Long story short, I can try to fight and die as I did, or I can resize and have a chance to retreat. Niether ends up in a win for me. Probably how it should be I suppose, as I could just as easily use my stealthy abilities to do what is intended and tear him down at a more opportune time.

You're definitely right that the fight looks bad vs. an orc until hero with fantastic gear and preps. Preps that I won't spend much time gathering and gear that I won't keep because I commit to losing fights too often.

I was quite amazed at how ineffectual your attempts to seal Scarabaeus' deal with my blood were. I knew I would be tanky once I got rolling, but I didnt anticipate how well I could outmelee you in the wilds with only second attack (the joys of flails against rangers, I suppose). I actually ended up pulling my punches to avoid a neutral PKill.

Our RP interactions were pretty funny. I dont think you realized that I didnt:

1. Know how to get where you were trapped.
2. Have the supp to free you that early on in the character's life.

And thus resented me as a result.

GLWYN!

You were definitly counted among the half of Fortress that I had good RP with. I the player knew you couldn't help. I also knew the majority of people Tolmir was angry at couldn't help. The people he screamed out half-incoherently couldn't have helped. Tolmir didn't know that though, and even if he did would still be mad that the rare few even tried.

I wanted to develop with you more interactions as well. A constant shift between friend/enemy as paranoia rose and fell. My next step was to have nightmares regarding the wrist scar from scarab and eventually attempting another deal with him. So, eventually, we would have been enemies anyway.

One of the other Fortress guys that I tried to get something going with immediately assumed (and would not believe otherwise when I told him) that I was Nexus. He said he would kill me every chance he got for being Nexus, etc. No attempt to explain my motives got through. Which is fine, he was a dumb fighter type and I wouldn't expect him to RP otherwise.

We had some awesome interactions! Great stuff. Shame to see you go!

Crap, need to go quickly, I'll write more when I get back.

As I said, some reall nice interactions. A shame we didn't get to run more. Was really curious about your role, was looking forward for more.

Hope you learned some as well in that place and that quest I showed you.

GLWYN!

Forgot about that part, and the reward is awfully nifty. I never made it past the hall with pictures before. So simple too heh.

My role was essentially this:

Farm boy. Rich old guy moves in with hot young arranged marriage wife. Tolmir and girl get the hots for each other. During a festival go out to the corn fields to get it on. Old guy knows. Attacks as they are gazing at stars. Tolmir fends him off, then girl takes a knife to chest to save Tolmir. Tolmir goes into a rage and brutally kills/maims the guy. Has to leave village before anyone sees. Now is a wanderer to avoid his past and like adrenaline packed adventure/fights to help ease his mind over his lost love.

I had a lot of fun writing the role and I think it's probably my best work literary wise.

Later, get caught in death trap (for a long time). Pray. Scarab comes and makes a deal to let me out. "letting me out" takes the form of him killing me. Deal is I have 3 days to kill a light walker or "suffer the consequences." I actually attacked you to begin with, but I think you were blind or something and didn't realize. Later on we made friends obviously.

The plan: Nightmares begin getting worse about lost love. Scar pulsates in nightmares and shadows. that kinda crap. Then go to find Scar and try to make a deal to bring the ol' lady back. Never got that far though.

Overall, Tolmir is free fun-loving guy, but thanks to trauma of lost love in teenage years, long time in death trap, deal with scarab, etc. etc. He had some mental issues and I think goodies caught the brunt of that.

I was really hoping to see some kind of grudging conflict or something between us. Once you realized I was moon lighting as a revenge seeking lightwalker killer.

I thought you were a goodie at first, so I sent you some tell about what I do etc etc, and you were like "Ooh, I didn't know that, sorry" or something. After that we traveled a bit, and we did that quest.

And yeah, eventually things would've gotten sour between us, but as long as Fjodir lives, much more can't be said about that.

Scarab, thanks for coming to DT for interaction.

Those are fun events--a shame it didn't go anywhere later...

I'll be coming back to Scarab for more some day. I definitely love that you act like one would expect a lich lord to act. When you killed me, I saw it coming a moment before, and laughed for a good bit.

totally planned to go further with it, but as usual I stop playing a character WAY too early. I did pray a couple random times, but didn't get to put much effort in it.

By the way. Three rotations of the spheres... I had no idea what this meant, so I was trying to go as fast as I could. Shed some light on that?

>
>By the way. Three rotations of the spheres... I had no idea
>what this meant, so I was trying to go as fast as I could.
>Shed some light on that?

Just a guess if it is a time reference I would think 3 days.

Yep!