Wed Feb 6 10:29:03 2013

At 7 o'clock AM, Day of the Moon, 35th of the Month of the Ancient Darkness
on the Theran calendar Brun perished, never to return.

I rolled this thinking perhaps I had learned enough to make giant sword nexus work, as last time I tried I had also failed (cloud sword/hand crashing/greeting). I started this build imagining sword/mace gates/greeting and got to 40 just to realize I could barely live with swords in my hands so mace didn't seem possible. I took polearm and switched greeting to landslide to cover lagging mages if needed. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I had put in every effort to make sure Brun had the potential to succeed, including mastering a lot of skills and exploring enough for plenty of edges.

After all that it seemed to take Brun three to one odds to win against a villager. I hit more misses or one round bashes than I thought possible from the other end. I was focused in every team fight and often fell faster than I would have expected. I generally prepped stone skin/iron skin/armor/poppy to try to get use out of gates with size changes as needed. Yes I could have spent time gathering shield if they were even in, but I am not playing CF to waste any more time gathering then I already did.

In the end, it comes down to a formula in my mind: pk win ability + rp fun > time investment + pk losses. As fun as the RP side was, I got so focused trying to fix the pk win ability side and to have that fail it was just disheartening. I generally do not play characters to feed people kills or be forced to be ganging, and it felt like I was to that point.

Tinwold, Nayl, Elsmerah, and Olthundor - you were all frequently awake during my hours, one of the few reasons I got over the frustration I hit at 40. Thank you all.

Mylene and Carg - I didn't get as much time with you both as I would like, but enjoyed the time I did.

Village - Most of you were less than memorable, but I had a lot of respect Aiala and Gredoor.

Training Partner - I hope it ends up better for you than it did for me.

We ran around a little and I enjoyed it. I must admit, having been around the island now hearing about guys off spamming skills and wand hunting I kind of cringe. There is currently 2 top end villagers that are just rape-a-doping (thats not a spelling error) islanders over and over. You guys don't need preps and perfected skills as much as you need to recognize when to press and when to pull back especially as a group.

Craaaaaaap....

So dude,

I am not a new player by any means, I am however new to shapeshifter/nexus in general. I was hoping to lean on you/Ol for help, because you two had the most presence besides Tinwold and myself.

Anyways, to be honest with you I cannot criticize you for your decision. All too often these last 40 hours that I've been playing a shifter, I have realized something. With those same 40 hours I could've been well into a successful villager/scion/fortie/outie all of which I have done numerous times.

The fact that the Nexus HAS TO fight the village regardless of whether or not we have preps/sleeks/etc pretty well sucks

Their abilities trump ours by far, and the best advice you get from the main board is "gang them" we did gang them, and the new anti-ganging code saved their rumps as designed, and they walked the needed 4 paces west back into their village.

I sat there thinking about the "Ragers are OP argument" happening on the other board for a while. And I may post about this.

Ragers are able to solo raid our cabal and be successful. And I say ragers plural, because over the last week I've seen at least 4-5 different villagers do it solo.

I wonder when the last time a solo nexun took the head was?

also, this #### truce between the empire/ragers? allowing them to focus solely on the island? what the ####?

I dunno man, it seems like sometimes someone needs to step up and either tone up nexus, or tone down village. If not, they are just going to end up with nexus being the place to have throwaway chars, and a buncha bored villagers sitting around the pillar drinking Grime's cider.

I will tell you this buddy, I have played both Nexus, and pleanty of Battle. Nexus is definitely the harder of the two. I don't know how much more I will endure before I pull the plug on my nexun too .

I don't want to play this cabal but lure to kill ragers rising...rising...fading...RISING!

(n/t)

This is quite a good argument and I am glad that someone who is new to the Nexun world is taking a look into this life.

I love the Nexus for the idea of it and the whole bonded pair idea, but (Not trying to burn anyone here) without a thriving base of people, it is a total death nail to anyone who is trying to enjoy it.

Without going into details, I have played nexus a few times before and have seen the same thing over and over again. Single villager comes, Me(as the only Nexun awake) stand in defense of the inners. Villager kills guardian, come to inners, destructs my face, kills inners, takes key, and unable to retrieve until at least one other strong Nexun wakes or a younger, untouchable one wakes. It is really frustrating.

Having played village a lot, raiding nexus is no walk in the park, even if there are no defenders.

I think its a downright stupid assumption to think a 40 hour character who just got his key skills 4 hours ago expects to compete with a 250 hour char and all the mechancal and playing experiences advantages that come with the extra 210 hours.


There is also the whole misconception that shifters are good at fighting villagers... Well they can be, but expecting to shift into an offense form, wand up and wipe the floor with the elite villagers is not going to get you very far.

I mean just add a healer or bard to nexus and see how fast the balance of power shifts against the village, its kind of nutty how extreme that swing is.

I wrote this big long post detailing how a 40 hour RBW can 1 round shifters, and a 40 hr shifter can barely kill an outer cabal guardian without resting and can't 1 round anything (including unprepped mages). but, I edited most of it out because, I realized something else.

I just don't care.

>Are you kidding me?

Nope

>I have multiple years of experience with this mud, same as you
>bro. I will tell you this much.

Not enough to make a shifter viable the second you get final forms by your own admission. Even when I play my goto combos there is a ramp up period as I adapt to the current enemy/ally set and I tend to go through that ramp up again when I hit hero because its a different ball of wax then low and mid ranks.

>With my 40 hour RBW, I can one-round shifters, and LOL about
>it all the way back to the village.

So you are better at villager then you are shifter, thats plausible

>With my 40 hour offense shifter, I am lucky to be able to kill
>the ####ing giant (Read: outer cabal guardian) without taking
>a break during the fight to rest.

Which you should expect. If you want to kill NPCs I recomend taking utility. The massive giant has a boat load of HP and offensive forms tend to have basically zilch for build in defenses.

>####, with a villager I can solo a ####ing outer at lvl 30+
> if tanky warrior/assassin) or lvl 35 with anything else.

Thats because most villagers are much more balanced in terms of offense and defense then a shifter. As a shifter if you go offense/defense then you can be good at one of those things at a time (which is why it boggles my mind you don't see more utility mixed with offense or defense in practice because utility)

>I'm not talking a small gap like "gee gosh, it'd be nice if I
>could get a little bump so that I can compete with the
>villagers."
>
>The lack of balance between the two is so extreme, that I am
>frankly dumbfounded that people cannot see it. That said, I
>will spell it out plain as day
>
>A level 44 RBW can one round a shifter
>
>Name one lvl 44 shifter ANYTHING that can one round a level 44
>ANYTHING. ####, I cant even one-round unprotected mages with
>my shifter.

Alligator vs thief
Gorilla vs gnome/svirf
Rhino vs gnome/svirf
Ram vs gnome/svirf
you get the idea

But its also not really the norm that a villager can do that either at 44 unless its a combination of onslaught damage (flurry/pincer/drum/pummel) combined with hitting a vuln or a couple of deathblows and a great set of gear.

>I honestly question the place of the RBW in modern CF, battle
>is the only cabal to not receive a somewhat major over-haul in
>the last decade. All the rest have been redone/rebalanced and
>with good reason.

Its also the only cabal to survive from the inception of cabals and one of the few that has its own legends/history/culture that extends beyond the helpfile or the alignment of its members.

>Yea yea, vilalgers/parity I've spouted the whole BS
>justifiations for them being 'op' (particularly when playing a
>villager)
>
>I've one rounded shifters like myself and been like "eh,
>life's a bitch without your wands I guess, you'l probably kill
>me some day" except they generally dont
>
>Generally I read about them on the graveyard board.
>
>And now I understand why.
>

I feel like a lot of people who play offense shifter really need to recalibrate their expectations and consider (and maximize) the advantages they have that other meleeish characters lack.

Trivial example, I doubt I've ever played warrior/thief/ranger/assassin/berserker and not taken a death where revert;c word would have definitely saved my life.

Edit: Aside with respect to the offense/defense balance skew of offense forms vs. utility forms, I've played utility shifter a lot more often than offense and with utility forms I can eat offense shifters for breakfast given similar levels of prepping because I do a little less damage but tank a LOT better.

####in Cheetah y'all.

I suppose my dissappointment stems from the following:

I had expected an 'offense' major shifter to be...hmm...more successful offensively than I have experienced.

So, I landed the wolverine form which everyone is like "OGOD THE WOLVERINE SO AWESOME" to me, it feels like a ####ty sword-spec with a riposte type skill that fires when you get hit hard however the backlash hit can be parried which I found incredibly disappointing.

My experience 'behind the wheel' of a shifter, is much different than the experiences I've had fighting them.

All in all, you are 100% right that I am better at ragers than shifters. Likely because I've played the heck outta warriors, assassins, rangers, and paladins.

So, to be honest, most times I'm on the 'leave ragers alone' standpoint.

This is not the first mage I've played, however it has been the most difficult, perhaps the majority of that is due to timing.

I've thought a lot about what I've written over the last 2 weeks, and likely in the end, I think if I were to suggest anything it might be a change to the nexus cabal in order to get the #'s up somehow.

Through my observations (and, I could be wrong). It has seemed that out of all the time I've played, nexus is generally speaking 'the underdog' and I think a good reason for that is the 'fun' factor.

Having a set of enemies that it is plainly clear that I will have a very slight chance of competing with does not make the game very fun for me.

What makes it worse, is the feeling that it is 100% simple to obtain what they have. To me, I view entrance to the village as a complete cakewalk, because it is (for me). This view is likely biased.

Then, I consider the fact that I have to (in order to find my sleeks, and survive more than one round against the majority of my enemies) scour the entire game-map looking for randomized items.

The real 'bitching' I was doing, is that at 40 hours, had I gone the rager path, right now I'd be a berserker, have perfected defenses, and be successfully killing things with my rager given cabal powers.

At 40 hours where I am, I can't compete. I have to invest an unknown amount of time to TRY to find the things that make it so I might stand a chance to compete. The limited sources I know are somewhat scarce for whatever reason (likely they are popular).

so all in all, my real bitch is the perceived investment vs reward. Maybe others don't need to invest as much time in a mage prior to it becoming...viable or, maybe my major/minor form choices were not the best, I digress. The only thing I can relay is my experience, and my experience thus far is that shifters are simply ####ty warriors that _require_ damage resistance to stand toe to toe with other warriors

I haven't thrown in the towel, but I am letting my character simmer a few days while I figure out if I want to make the effort to continue with him. I know that if I do, I will likely gain knowledge that will benefit future mages (such is always the case). However, there is a limit to the 'un-fun price' I will pay for that knowledge.

I was trying to really talk about you without giving away clues on your forms for future enemies.

That being said, you revealed wolverine. I think that wolverine can be rather mean, in particular if you take the edge ricochet skin and prep with your sleeks and frenzy. It would have been even better if you had been able to use shell of the armadillo enliven too. All you need is another form that can rake/punch or a warrior to trip and you really should do fairly well 2vs1.

The other thing to note is if you pair your minor form with being bonded, you can literally change the entire battle by telling your bond mate where everyone is who can then relay it to the cabal. Suddenly the cabal can pick the few targets that leave the village for whatever reason.

The other disconnect is that shapeshifters really do not require much gear to be semi-good. They do require good gear to be truly great, but a gnome shapeshifter can get by on regear amazingly well. This balances out the time investment as yes, you spent some time to rank and find sleeks but can regear so much easier than a warrior. The otherside to this is a RBW seems to regear by killing people amazingly well.

Isn't that pretty much the entire point of the cabal?

The point of the cabal is to maintain the balance. Nowhere in that statement do I read "Face enormous opposition within the village at all times"

The fact of the matter is, several in-game factors are attributing to the 'suck' of being nexus

village/empire truce - I mean, what the ####? Since when does the village make friends with those who enslave others. Since the villagers need not worry about empire raiding/retreiving vs centurions all the other #### I've had to do with my numerous villagers vs the empire, current villagers don't have to deal with

Not to mention that hey, in my opinion one of the best counters to a villager is an imperial blade with imperial offense/defense. So, villagers need not worry about a whole group of people who counter them pretty damn well. And what irks me, is I cannot roll up the char I want and do what I want, because some nancy made a stupid fkin truce. And, I don't wanna rock out an Anathema.

this allows them to focus solely on Nexus/Scion..Whelp there aren't many scions about....so that means mainly Nexus, which sucks across the board, the truce makes villagers have less targets, there are a literal "crap ton" of village applicants, hell I'm lucky to go five minutes without seeing one, who will assuredly tell big villager where I am (at least, that is what I do when I'm an app).

Regardless, the ability of players to decide that "my cabal is a peace with x cabal" when normally they are at war is total #### imo I've always hated that crap, as not only does it affect game balance, it doesn't make any sense that two opposing groups with hundreds of years of bloodshed would say "oyea, lets have a picnic instead you bring the sandwiches!" See: Israel vs Palestine.

>The point of the cabal is to maintain the balance. Nowhere in that statement do I read "Face enormous opposition within the village at all times"

This is largely a factor of the current make-up of the character-base. When the tables are turned it can be rather crappy to be a Villager. Also, upon pledging to Nexus, doesn't a character assume the mantle of fighting against the odds?

>village/empire truce

This is one of those things that makes this game so great. Players can determine how they approach the various politics of Thera. Nexus does get the short end of this stick, as their alliances can only last as long as the balance tips, but that's just how the cookie crumbles.

The fact that RP can be used to draw truces between traditional enemies or conflict between traditional allies (on the individual or cabal level) is one of the things that differentiates CF from Pac Man.

I don't have a horse in this race, but I'm always for more freedom in making decisions.

Also, the Village/Empire truces never last more than a few weeks.

Village and Empire have been at peace since July, or were for Cain's entire life.

Saying players shouldn't be able to decide the direction of their cabals is...asking for something that isn't CF. Its some other game.

>>The point of the cabal is to maintain the balance. Nowhere
>in that statement do I read "Face enormous opposition within
>the village at all times"
>
>This is largely a factor of the current make-up of the
>character-base. When the tables are turned it can be rather
>crappy to be a Villager. Also, upon pledging to Nexus, doesn't
>a character assume the mantle of fighting against the odds?

This I don't agree with. Joining Nexus isn't/shouldn't be about being an underdog. It should be about *helping* the underdog. You may not see a difference here, but there is one.


>>village/empire truce
>
>This is one of those things that makes this game so great.
>Players can determine how they approach the various politics
>of Thera. Nexus does get the short end of this stick, as their
>alliances can only last as long as the balance tips, but
>that's just how the cookie crumbles.

I agree with this.


>The fact that RP can be used to draw truces between
>traditional enemies or conflict between traditional allies (on
>the individual or cabal level) is one of the things that
>differentiates CF from Pac Man.

I agree with this.


>Also, the Village/Empire truces never last more than a few
>weeks.

AFAIK Village/Empire truce has been going on for months now. I believe since before Kurbrawn was Emperor, even.

However this isn't something that can be "fixed" about Battle. Empire currently has an Emperor that is a warrior and nearly zero mage presence (is there a Dread Lord? I forget).

So Battle has little reason to raid Empire. Meanwhile, Empire has little reason to raid anyone, unless they get 3-4 heroes steamrolling. When that happens, they currently have their hands full with Fort, Outlander, and (sometimes) Scion. Pile Battle on top of that wouldn't be a smart choice by the current Empire regime either.

I'm not saying that the truce should stay, mind you, or go. Like you said, it's the mortals' doing. But saying "no more than a few weeks" is pretty far from the truth.

There was a time villagers woke up and payed their daily death tolls to the Island every log in, and stayed like that for a good while. I think the first real upswing for Battle came with Akedeh, but for a while it was pretty much a certainty that Nexus had the head. It just takes 2 or 3 consistent chars and you'd see the same thing happen again with the cabal. Especially if they were the right classes as was noted elsewhere, like a healer or bard, that can really make Battle lives miserable.

Nexus chars fight against the odds, but there are times when Nexus is in fact the dominating cabal in Thera. And when that is the case, they pretty much plow over anyone that tips the balance. Nexus is usually on my short list of cabals not to piss off for the reason that most cabals don't do well against them and when they have strong chars, they pretty much can ensure the balance is maintained pretty effictively.

The Village/Empire truce predates Salyeris being named Commander FYI. Back when Otuerghad was Emperor he put it into place. How it lasted, I have no idea. My guess is because Empire is pretty weak and fares bad enough against fort and outlander as it is so that bringing in Battle would just be stupid on their part. And Battle shouldn't be about killing the priests and melee classes which largely comprise what Empire is at the moment.

Battle was fairly dominant while I was playing Woldrun. Then you get Kyaltaru and Calbaseeti (bard/healer), played by two very competant players, and all of a sudden Nexus has all kinds of power and lots of players playing it.

I will say that battle did dominate with woldrun, borkahd, and fihndril? However, it pushed me as a PKer and player (kassibaz) to a whole new level. Something I believe can only be achieved when you are constantly forced into bad situations.

From my perspective this is what appears to be going down.

1.) You expected an offensive shifter to play out like a warrior
-An offensive shifter really plays out a lot more like an Orc
2.) You are confusing a situational problem (3 players that are outmatching you happen to be in an enemy cabal) with a systemic problem (village better/worse then nexus)

>From my perspective this is what appears to be going down.
>
>1.) You expected an offensive shifter to play out like a
>warrior
> -An offensive shifter really plays out a lot more like an
>Orc

This is exactly it. An offense shifter is pretty much always a terrible tank. A/B/S, Vanguard, Despoil, etc. can slow down how fast they run through their hit points a bit but they're pretty much always taking it in the pants from melee damage.

As an offense shifter, I certainly have 1-2 rounded soft targets. Against characters who don't do a lot of physical attacking (e.g. invoker, shaman) they're in pretty good shape because their major weakness isn't relevant. The flipside of that is, there are scenarios where a warrior isn't too bad off (e.g. necromancer with zombie army, fighting a cabal outerguard as a hero) where an offense shifter will get hit a lot where most other characters won't.

It doesn't name them as enemies. What does the village care if someone enslaves another? Unless it's magical enslavement (which it isn't) they shouldn't give a ####. They aren't humanitarians. They're barbarians.

The reason I've always understood there to be war with the Empire was because the Emperor felt the Village to be under the control of the Empire and they owned the Village head. So they took it, and the Village retaliated.

Now those who run the Empire are satisfied to let the Village keep the head. It's strictly up to the players running those cabals at the time, unless mandated by cabal dogma. For a long time, each successive leader of Empire just followed the status quo. Now they aren't and it will either change back to the way it was, or a new status quo will be established.

Nt

I was planning to not really claim this character, not because I am ashamed so much as I don't really consider him relevant. That being said, it is possible to raid the village solo and probably easier than raiding the Isle solo in my opinion. (Darikir would frequently dive villagers sitting at the destructor and win, as well as solo raid and maybe take one break.)

Brun's biggest problem was being a cloud giant and tanking with his face. I really don't feel like cloud giants have an advantage in Nexus and I would not play another. Almost every opponent I face was able to get past my resist physical or do even worse and use a weapon I am weak to. The number of wrath weapons in the game make that weakness so annoying. I can't imagine playing with it as a full weakness.

After comparing strength sword to dex sword I would take dex every time. As dex sword can get large flurries with the edge, I do not see the downside once you start to count in evade.

If you want to be a nexun warrior, I think you pretty much have to be dodgy build to avoid all the deathblows or dwarf to eat them.

If I were to go nexus again and play a char that would 'win' against villagers. I'd rock a bard. as a second choice, I'd play a healer. Either of those 2 things would change the dynamic of the 4v4 fights the nexus can't seem to win

Important note
You do NOT need to face villagers without your wands. If the veil is thick, your dying will make the veil even thicker and the balance worse. Any nexus mage should not throw their life away casually. You have an awesome second and first tier form so far so just hold on and wait for more to join. Especially considering what your minor form is, you should be incredibly hard to pin down and focus on staying that way.

I actually have really mixed feelings here. I feel the pain of a build not working out the way you want it to, but at the same time I am kind of angry that we wasted all that time racing to get you to 51 after you accidentally leveled and now one of the only bond mates that I have in my play times deletes right after. I have half a mind to delete and re roll something else just to be able to have bonded pairs. Damn this sucks lol. Well GLWYN and I wish I had gotten to pick your brain more about rods.

I understand the annoyances, the only thing I can say is that you were generally racing other people up too which made it not a complete waste of time. I think Tinwold has a ton of potential so I really don't think you need to delete. The Nexus/Village war is my favorite, and as the village is dominating it so much right now I will favor the underdog every time. So hold on, you will have more allies in the future I am sure.

I was looking forward to seeing where things went with you. I watched you probably way more than you realized.

=w=

It doesn't surprise me that you watched me with the three mugs I received through Brun's life, which I really enjoyed. I did sometimes feel lost as when I could see you to visit I had balance to try to work on and when balance was perfect I would visit and you wouldn't be there. I had one story that Brun was ready to write down but didn't want anyone else to see/hear it before you.

I would GREATLY welcome any advice you could give me in trying to follow you in the future.



Story as mentioned
Dancing Flame

Long ago, chief see man fire
Cloud giant warm deep in snow
No need flame, Green heart steal

Clan dance around big fire
Watch dancing spark in sky
All kin stare sky, awed

Spark dance to near hut
Hut start new flame
All kin stare sky, awed

Flame dance and dance
Many hut make spark
All kin stare sky, awed

Kin feel too warm, look around
Once awed, now worried
Flame dance, dance, until no one dance
Village no more

Remember dancing flame

I thought you did a good job, but the one thing that confused me was your desire to wait to do much talking/interacting with me until you heroed (at least, saw/read/observed many things that gave me that impression). A bit more as to why that was would have been less confusing for me.

=w=

I really should have came by more frequently is what it all boils down to, but once I got to 40 I knew I would need to master skills and it was taking so long that I got pretty lost in it. I'll make sure to remedy that next time, but in general I am glad to know that the angle I took seemed to be an okay one.

Thought this was a great character. Why the delete?