I've got other stuff to do with college coming up, and I probably would have deleted him soon anyway. Besides, I didn't see anywhere else for this character to go - I didn't really feel like clawing all the way back to Warmaster. The powers are nifty, but not THAT nifty. Besides, I thought I'd let someone else get warmaster then. Besides, Empire does have far too many people right now.

Previous characters of mine include a long line of fortie heroes: Bliggy, Dinian, Silvellien, Enniallien, and a bunch of evils that weren't particularly significant. This was my first try at a cabaled evil.

Alright, Morior was my first Imperial hero, and I had a helluva time trying to figure out the promotion/demotion system: there should definitely be a little helpfile or guide or whatever for it. I wasn't trying for any standout or remarkable RP - he was supposed to be a self-serving thug who didn't much care for the Empire, but rather wanted power and used the Empire as a means to get it. Maybe next character I'll try something interesting, but for now I was just learning the limits of what I could do and what I could not.

I tried to be a good enemy, even though I think it conflicted with my role at times. I just don't like the concept of always full looting my kills, it just makes the victim waste 2 hours regearing and be more determined to full loot me. And even returning a bit of my enemy's stuff wasn't always possible, which often made me sad =(

Oh, and fighting villagers was retarded for a melee'er who didn't know any preps. Only way I could kill them was by ganging. I don't like ganging villagers a lot, BUT if I have no chance at beating them alone I won't bother. Sorry. I have a whole rant on villagers that I'm not going to bother with now.

Speaking from a pure pk perspective, spear/dagger was an interesting way to go. The problem was, with 16 int, it took me forever and a day to perfect my skills, which meant that up until level 48-49 I couldn't use daggers in PK at all without being practically guranteed to die. Which meant that most of my fights were with a spear equipped, and the most boring set of commands ever. Spears are boring as hell to rank with and not that much better to PK with. Imperial offense made spears surprisingly useful, and I could out-melee a lot of people, but I was still meat for most warriors.

Once I got my daggers up I was a little bit deadlier, but RNG still ####ed me up on occasion. I remember these two duels with Yuvralin where he didn't have the head, but I missed hurl torso something like 4 times in a row and he ended up pincering me to death where I'd hoped the strength loss would own him like it owned most of the other axe specs I fought.

I was pretty happy with my legacies: Forsaken thoughts + daggers made meat of any shamans/paladins I fought, and space between heartbeats surprised me with how nice it was, even though it never really shifted the outcome of a fight. I kinda wished more opponents would spam where. Like four fortie paladins deleted the moment I hit 44, though, so I never really got to test Forsaken the way I wanted to.

One thing I think a lot of people might have noticed was that I died a lot more than a sect leader should. I *believe* it was mostly because in about half my raids I was hitting enemy inners with Skiltore and Mmumma, and due to a serious absence of dam redux I was by far and away the easiest to kill. I can see why everyone hates entwine at the destructor. I died to entwine a lot. Blech. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure I killed more than I died.

Before I mastered my daggers, I was meat for a lot of people. Spear specs aren't as tough as you might think, and assassins and entwiners in general would have no trouble owning me. I hate entwine.

Onto goodbyes (I know I'm going to forget some of you, so go ahead and post and I'll respond)

EMPIRE

Grurk: Pfft. I like what you've done with the Empire, but that was harsh at the end there. No offense, I'm sure you had to do something with that hardass role of yours, but I honestly believe if you were in my place, had three sanced warriors versus a fully prepped bard at the watcher, you still wouldn't have won either. Probably wouldn't have died stupidly like I did, but you wouldn't have won. All three of us hitting him for ten, fifteen rounds never got him under bleeding wounds, and I can't think of any set of commands that would have killed the bard unless RNG was absolutely perfectly on our side.

Skiltore: A lot better than I was, that was clear. Bards are really popular these days, and you play a really tough one. I enjoyed running around with you and Mmumma and letting some of your elite knowledge rub off on me ^^

Mmumma: I liked you. Thanks for the occasional tip on prepping and for all the times we ran around together.

Lafashya: My money's on you for warmaster, you played a very interesting (and attention-getting) character, and you threw yourself headlong into Empire politics. I had fun with all of our interactions, and laughed my pants off at times =)

Zhaltum: Thanks for showing me the silent tower! w00t! That place is scary. Exploring stuff like that on my own has never really appealed to me. I'm not an explorer: I'm a rabid suicidal chipmunk who likes PK and doesn't understand prepping.

Ibcade: Nice. Two promotions in one day. You are right, though, it was a poor matchup. Giant resist and wallop, man, twas le overpowar.

Valryn: Were you TRYING to alienate me? =P A very competent thief.

Nhii(whatever): Only other shadow I liked. I've no idea why, you just spring to mind as one thats often around and often useful.

Barelon: Being a trannie is difficult, you do it well. I still wouldn't fight a villager with spellbane, though.

Craglork: I couldn't understand what the hell you were saying half the time, but you were still cool to run around with ^^ some good fights, some good times.

Fuerchaer: I wanted to promote you, sorry I couldn't. Good character. Why are minotaurs always better RPed than me?

Enemies:

Brulgor: I hate entwine. I wanted to fight you after I mastered my daggers, but looks like it wasn't meant to be. Props on being anathema for so long and sticking it out, looks tough as hell.

Gistle: Cool character. Disrupts'r scary =(

Mez: my hands down favorite enemy. You were crazy as all hell, but in a good way. I think. ^^

Landren: Too much honor. Some fights you can't win alone, dude, and I'm pretty sure a duergar dagger spec with forsaken thoughts is one of them.

Crukra: I liked fighting you.

Chyraixtha: Poor bastard. Rank faster, run faster.

Lucan: Fun fights. I didn't like you deleting =(

Yuvralin: I must've died to you and Brulgor ten times because of entwine. Gah. If you had the head, there was nothing I could do, you would kill me. There is nothing I can do against entwine/wie axe/call bloodthirst. If you didn't have the head I could kill you, but for some reason my hurls kept missing in those duels. It made me very angry =P

Merrwyn: Tough villager. Must suck for you right now, cause about 60% of the time we have the head and you can't do anything about it because there are about 3814971984 imperial heroes right now. When you have the head, though, fighting you changes from not too difficult to wtf BS. I remember helping Valryn fight you, I had you bleeding two different ways and you still healed up to full via field dressing and bind wounds while running around in Aldevari. Ugh.

Kuchu: Only villager I was sure I couldn't beat. I could bleed you, but I couldn't beat you alone.

Tirvak: Only tough when you have the head, man. You killed me a few times, but thats to be expected. I didn't have my daggers, then, and a few lucky partingblow deathblows are all you need.

Marigue: You looted my preps, so I looted your preps. Imagine my surprise when I that instead of a bunch of black roots and stuff, I found dozens of potions and crap that I had no idea existed. Including four hastes. I kinda felt guilty about that, but YOU STARTED IT! =(

Merenwen: fighting paladins was teh fun!

Jeir: See above!

Those I forgot, I apologize in advance. Post and I'll respond.

We had some damn good fights man, and I'm really glad I got to have an opponent like you. I have found many worthwhile enemies as Dellian and you were definately one of them. Good luck with the next, and all that.

Without saying too much, (because of active characters still out there)
I'll say... I saw you die twice, and let it go, but when Skiltore asked
how things were going I couldn't resist. The duel and reward/punishment
was all his idea. All I did was provide a safe arena and make it fair
with exact armor and similar weapons.

In all, I dug your character, fun to watch most times.

Good luck with your next!

G.

How would YOU have gone about winning? =(

No hard feelings, I'm just asking for advice on tactics against a solo bard with three warriors. I don't see any way we could have won at that point, even though we had a healer. I tried to ask IC, but it didn't work out so well =P

mad about the losing, not about the demotions and whatnot.

Beating bards is all about command denial. Anti-Ganging code got you down? Why use all three warriors then?


G.

With a healer and three warriors at my disposal, is this: ( and I may regret giving away such fine tactics )

Have fire giant warrior spam bash <bard> as soon as yo enter combat with the watcher, and hopefully he could get the bash off before the bard sang.

Immediately upon entering combat with the watcher, I (i.e. Morior) would have rescued mace specialist warrior. Then when the fire giant warrior did bash the bard, the mace specialist could time cranial attacks inbetween bashes. There IS a downside to wearing face gear, and that's usually not being able to wear any sort of helmet. You're usually stuck wearing circlets and things, which DO affect cranial.

Fire giant warrior would redirect at the bard. Mace specialist would be aiming at the bard. That equals two people fighting the bard directly, so the anti-gang code won't really kick in.

Then I (i.e. Morior) would continue fighting the watcher, and toss in a trip or bash to help the lagging process, since the bard may not be flying. This shouldn't really trigger the anti-gang code, since there's only two people actually fighting the bard.

At some point, the mace specialist should then switch to polearm, to prevent fleeing.

The healer could also be directing at the watcher, and should be spamming curse until the bard is then cursed. Then the healer should be spamming mass heal, or something.

Just my two cents. Some may agree, some may not.

For what it's worth, you shouldn't have died with three warriors and a pocket healer with black shroud.

Just some advice.

.

I've thought this through pretty thoroughly, and I still can't see a situation where we manage to kill the bard or keep him from ####ing us up without perfect RNG on our side. Some points I will make:

1) How do you explain anti-gank code IC? God knows I've had enough healers who insist on attacking a person two warriors are already hitting, creating anti-gank code hate and letting the other guy get away through what should have been permalag. How to explain to them that they should not attack and instead sit there twiddling their thumbs like a right proper healer is something I have not yet learned. Teach me?

2) The bard is fully prepped, which means bash is useless. Either enlarge or reduce would negate a giant basher, and both are easy to get.

3) The watcher does more damage the more people who are in the room. This means that I was writhing (through black sanc) after several rounds of combat. As a spear spec, with several groupmates in the room to take some of the heat off of me as well. Plus, I had a nifty little prep that was healing me and gave me resist positive. That is some crazy damage, even taking the duergar wrath vuln into account.

4) Anti-gang code also set off on specs, in addition people hitting. If there are two friendlies attacking one character and another friendly attacking the other character, with all three allies bashing on the first enemy, the anti-gang code takes effect and prevents one bash in three, and makes the other two bashes more likely to miss.

5) I thought of trying to permalag him at the inner using only two of us, but... RNG IS NOT YOUR FRIEND and in general he hates permalag. Seriously, one symphonic echoes is enough to more than halve your damamge and make your specs fire off less than half the time, and bash/cranial just don't cut it when one is looking for guranteed permalag versus smart bard.

6) Pocket healer words out and is never seen again after first short engagement at watcher. That bard song which prevents you from seeing how hurt you are makes the best of us utter cowards, and good healers are more cautious than most.

7) you are right, I probably shouldn't have died. But the bard shouldn't be able to waltz up to three (somewhat injured) black sanced fighters and take everything they have for fifteen rounds while spamming sing apoc, and walk away with bleeding wounds at worst.

> 1) How do you explain anti-gank code IC?

Easy. Who needs to? You were the War Master, just say how they were supposed to fight. You don't need to explain yourself. But even if you are in a situation where you need to explain yourself, just say that with so many people surrounding one person, it makes it more difficult to find an opening to bash them.

> 2) The bard is fully prepped, which means bash is useless. Either enlarge or reduce would negate a giant basher, and both are easy to get.

The only thing that would negate bash for a giant would be reduce, but if that's the case, he could quaff a reduce potion. If the bard is enlarged, the giant can still get good lag from bashes. Admittedly, it can be difficult coordinating everything if the giant needs to flee to reduce. On the other hand, you all had more ways to lag than just bash, not all of which factor in size as heavily.

> 3) The watcher does more damage the more people who are in the room.

No, the watcher does more damage the more people that are fighting it. There's an important distiction there. You have 3 warriors and a healer. With the bard in the room, only one warrior should actually be fighting the watcher. The healer and the other two warriors should have autoassist off and should be rescued. If you coordinate that right, you could have everyone in the right position in just a few rounds, making handling the watcher much easier.

> 4) Anti-gang code also set off on specs, in addition people hitting.

I can't comment on how accurate this is, but if it is true, then I would think that the code would get set off only on the 'outside party' - the guy not actually hitting him. In that case, consider it a bonus when your specs go through.

> 5) I thought of trying to permalag him at the inner using only two of us, but... RNG IS NOT YOUR FRIEND and in general he hates permalag.

I'll give you this one. It's not easy to permalag a bard. But there are other things you can do to mess him up. If I were in your shoes, I would have started with a "dash n hurl throat bard" right after the tick. After that, warrior #2 rescues healer, warrior #3 rescues warrior #2 and then once your lag is over, you rescue warrior #3. Meanwhile, warriors #2 and #3 are bashing/cranialing. Right after a bash in the beginning, warrior #3 should offhand disarm.

> 6) Pocket healer words out and is never seen again after first short engagement at watcher.

It would have gone differently if only one warrior fought the maran.

> 7) you are right, I probably shouldn't have died. But the bard shouldn't be able to waltz up to three (somewhat injured) black sanced fighters and take everything they have for fifteen rounds while spamming sing apoc, and walk away with bleeding wounds at worst.

At an inner guardian, many well prepped characters can do that. Generally speaking, ones that can maladict or have area spells/songs and can avoid being permalagged can pull this off. It's not always easy, and it's arguably easier with a bard or invoker in this situation, but it can often be done.

I realize that not all of this stuff is easy to pull off and most of the time you don't spend that much time coordinating an attack. But really the major problem it sounds like you had was that too many (everyone?) was fighting the watcher. With three characters with rescue, that shouldn't have been the case. Also, I have to ask, did you all have resist mental up? Because some of those songs are really hard to land on people with resist mental.

As Skiltore, I also wouldn't have cared about any of this if you didn't say this:

Morior says 'We been doin our damned best to kill Meyrshal for the last hour or so.'

That was just an awful thing for a War Master to say. Plus this exchange, after I log in, check the who list and see 4 other Imperials and 0 ragers (visible, there was probably 1 assassin):

You say 'Not even my head?'

Morior says 'Odd. Thought we still had the head.'

Anyways, I know you're not complaining about the demotion, so I'll get off this tangent. I'm just posting here so that you know there were options which you probably didn't consider. There are also other options not mentioned, involving things like maladictions/disarm/offhand disarm so they can't pick up their instrument, driving away from the watcher for better terrain, using shove in the right places, etc.

He walked up to us outside of it, engaged all three of us, and beat us down anyway.

Hurl throat missed four times, and the healer had resist mental on us.

The only other war master I ever interacted with was you, so I guess I didn't really understand enough of the behavior expected. I was still really pissed off from that fight, and probably not thinking clearly. I don't know any better way to phrase it, though

If you do not permalag a bard, symphonic echoes goes off and every warrior is basically crippled, and you have no chance at killing him, or even wounding him greatly.

Offhanding hero bards make them sing acapella. I don't know much about it, not having played a bard before, but it isn't crippling, it just makes his songs less effective, right? Furthermore, offhand will work like once every four or five uses after someone is echoed, which gives that guy eight to ten rounds to kill you dead.

I did use shove, by the way, I learned the tactic from you =P

Problem is the bard needs only to sing one song that works pretty much every time to completely screw up this theory.

It doesn't always work that great under the right circumstance. I've fought fire giants with a bard, and they were using a resist mental prep, and I've gone entire fights where symphonic echoes never worked.

Then again, I've also fought dark elves with resist mental and had it work on the first try.

You're best bet is to use resist mental preperations if you're going to fight a bard. It will take you a long way. Especially if you're a class that can reliably lag that bard. And especially if that bard doesn't know you have resist mental.

As far as I know, resist mental only reduces damage from mental attacks, much like any other resist.

There's no freaking way. Guess I'll take it to the Ask Immortal board someday soon.

I always target the guy with bad damn redux first, unless there's a healer or something involved.

Would have been interesting fighting you more. I very much doubt you'd have made me drop my weapon recently, as I decided to gear almost totally to cover against stat loss. 2h paladins are tough up to the point that the weapon goes, and then they aren't so tough after all, I discovered. hehe.

Had one chance to kill you but I didn't realise until too late how hurt you were, typo'd the killing move and then you successfully fled before the correct command went in. Happens to me way too often, but you seemed fun so I didn't mind.

Too bad, I liked Morior. One of the few imperials who would fight alone and bothered to return some things. I never really bought into the "RP forced me to full loot you" defense either; but I also realize there's no reason to complain about it IC. In any case, good job and thanks for the fights.

Gistle

I also liked how were willing to go balls-to-the-wall, to an extent. That's why I made you War Master. But it was also my choice for you to fight Ibcade. Grurk didn't tell me to do any of what I did, he just said he'd help set up the challenge. I felt you weren't filling the role of War Master well enough and that you weren't fulfilling the obligations of War Master at all. The things that you said to me when I logged on that time sealed the decision for me as to whether or not you were a suitable War Master.

That's fine and I'm not going to anathema someone for it, but I felt I had to demote you back to an elite, which is still a very sought-after position in the Empire.

As for your matchup against Ibcade, you would have won if I didn't stack the odds against you (I won't say more now). But you still could have won with some different tactics. You had him bleeding. You could have ran him in circles while he bled out and you healed up. There were also some more creative tactics at both of your disposals that could have swayed the fight in either of your directions that you all didn't use.

All in all, though, good job. I could tell you were somewhat new, but you tried hard and that's all I can ask for (as a player, not as Skiltore).

So no hard feelings there, I was glad I got the experience with it, at least. And yes, looking back on it, I could have prolonged the fight for quite awhile, and maybe even killed him (though I doubt it, giant resist is pretty beastly). Like I said before, I would have deleted in a few days anyway and I was happy to get the experience in.

Looking back at the fight, you are definitely right. I should have attacked you and shoved Ibcade into you. Might've gotten me anathema, but it would've been funny as hell anyway.

P.S. Bards are overpowered

P.P.S. Centurions are overpowered too.