This was the goof-off character I rolled when found a minotaur slot with my last. This character was fun rp-wise, but I just got sick of trying to level him up. It's no fun sitting around for hours doing jack squat because there's nobody to rank with, you've explored everywhere you can, mastered every spell worth mastering, can't PK very effectively. This character also didn't happen to lend itself to wandering around RPing with people.

Nepenthe, I just don't know where you're coming from when you said it's easy to find a group with a mage. I spent a lot of time exploring, looking for groups and never getting any requests at all, nevermind any that were viable. It seems unlikely that I got a reputation for being an annoying or bad groupmate, so I just can't see how you would expect to be turning down viable group requests as a mage unless you're claiming that you're so fun to be around that you get a reputation such that strangers are dying to invite you.

PKwise, also just don't get what you're seeing. Now it's possible that I'm just stupid, and incapable of understanding this game, but I really don't think that's the case. I've played here off and on for 9 years or so, and never have I seen anything that leads me to believe mages are remotely as strong as melee classes below 30 or so. A mage can win with some luck, and a lot of skill and preparation, but a warrior wins anytime the mage isn't at the very top of his game. Do you guys have any actual stats on mage vs melee pk success at low levels? I'd be shocked if mages were really holding their own.

Usually I don't post goodbyes on this kind of low-level non-serious character. I'm not overly disheartened by my experience with Tirtekket, but it's another drop in the "at low levels mages suck in pk and are a huge pain in the ass to rank" bucket.

Dude. You're a chaotic evil Outlander mage. Of course that's harder to find a group with, even if you never chameleon. That's roughly the hardest character in the game to find a group for. Pretty much any other cabal or uncaballed (or, non-evil Outlander) is going to have a much easier time.

Once iceshards/fireball/lightning bolt come out, an invoker really can PK. Earlier than that I've done it, but don't really recommend it. But with those spells? You can set yourself up such that most bashes will miss you, and you should be able to reliably kill in that three rounds of lag.

That's without bringing in other PCs to help you.

Sometimes bash doesn't miss. Sometimes you get caught by something you didn't expect. You can't expect to run a 100% PK ratio with a 20s invoker, but 80 or 90% is honestly not that hard if you're of a mind to be aggressive. The last part is the catch, and almost all invokers instead opt for the 'power to hero as fast as I can' route.

>Dude. You're a chaotic evil Outlander mage. Of course
>that's harder to find a group with, even if you never
>chameleon.

That is true. That said, I'm not really sure how many people knew I was an outlander or evil and chose not to ask because of it. Most of the people I ended up asking didn't know either of those things before I talked to them. Yes, this character did have a harder time finding groups than other mages, but really not by all that wide a margin. With pretty much every mage I've gotten to hero range with, it's been a result of finding a couple people playing frequently at my times, and struggling to play often enough to keep up with them.

>Once iceshards/fireball/lightning bolt come out, an invoker
>really can PK. ... you should be able to reliably kill in ... three rounds .

Reliably? I found that people saved and took lower-case damage fairly often. With fireball I probably averaged a massacre. Lightnng bolt actually seemed worse than wall of fire, neither of which averaged more than fireball. One massacre is less than the 2-3 dismembers a melee class is throwing at that level, and not really enough to kill most warriors. If I wanted to pick on utter noobs I could probably find a few felar here and there that I could beat.

> You can set yourself up such that most bashes will miss you,

It only takes one good bash and the fight is over. Even one size larger with better dex, it's still reasonably likely that you'll take a bash. This is part of what I meant when I said that if everything goes right a mage can win, but if one thing goes wrong the warrior wins. The mage has to hope the guy fails all his bashes and at least a few saves.

Also, while I can believe it's possible to set it up so that > 50% of bashes miss you, I've never really found that high dex +1 size larger is really what I'd call reliable. Not reliable enoguh to bet on, since one failure means you're dead, while complete success only gives you a chance (the warrior still has a good chance of outdamaging you or fleeing if not). Then again, high dex, grease and +1 size is probably somehwat reliable.

>That's without bringing in other PCs to help you.

This is kind of a silly argument, imho. If you need to bring help to win fights that pretty much says that you're weaker than them. Group vs Group fights are a whole 'nother ball of wax.

>Sometimes bash doesn't miss. Sometimes you get caught by
>something you didn't expect. You can't expect to run a 100%
>PK ratio with a 20s invoker, but 80 or 90% is honestly not
>that hard if you're of a mind to be aggressive. The
>last part is the catch, and almost all invokers instead opt
>for the 'power to hero as fast as I can' route.

All it takes to get a high pk ratio is never taking any risks. Anyone can run an 100% ratio if they are patient and fight only the easiest possible fights. So sure, a very aggressive invoker that picks his fights and doesn't get surprised can do well. But it's way, way easier for a warrior to get that same 80 or 90%. It takes less time, less luck, less preparation and less consistant performance for a melee class to 1. survive, 2. outdamage and 3 seal kills. Maybe it's just a definition thing, but to me if class A and class B can both accomplish X, but B does it much more easily and reliably, that means B is better at X than A?

Thanks for responding though.

>That is true. That said, I'm not really sure how many people
>knew I was an outlander or evil and chose not to ask because
>of it.

But you still weren't asking, say, storm paladins to group. You weren't asking dwarves to group. You weren't asking orcs to group. Etc.

>Most of the people I ended up asking didn't know either
>of those things before I talked to them. Yes, this character
>did have a harder time finding groups than other mages, but
>really not by all that wide a margin.

Huh. I've had a really different experience playing evil Outlander mages. With those characters, finding a group IS as hard for me as you're saying it was for you. With pretty much any other mage? Not so bad.

(My non-mage Outlanders tend to end up grouping with Battle a lot for some reason.)

>Reliably?

I'd say more than half the time, yes.

>I found that people saved and took lower-case damage
>fairly often. With fireball I probably averaged a massacre.
>Lightnng bolt actually seemed worse than wall of fire, neither
>of which averaged more than fireball.

That's with the appropriate touch spell?

>One massacre is less
>than the 2-3 dismembers a melee class is throwing at that
>level, and not really enough to kill most warriors. If I
>wanted to pick on utter noobs I could probably find a few
>felar here and there that I could beat.

My experience... people that hit me that hard and that much at those levels were by far the exception rather than the rule. Those people, yeah, you need to be a little sneaky and catch them fighting a mob so you at least start out not tanking, or get a mercenary in there (which Outlanders struggle with), or otherwise engineer something a little more stacked in your favor.

>It only takes one good bash and the fight is over.

This hasn't generally been my experience at those levels.

>Then
>again, high dex, grease and +1 size is probably somehwat
>reliable.

Yup. And there's a little more you can work in there, but those are the big ones that I'd be looking to hit as an invoker out on the hunt.

>>That's without bringing in other PCs to help you.
>
>This is kind of a silly argument, imho. If you need to bring
>help to win fights that pretty much says that you're weaker
>than them. Group vs Group fights are a whole 'nother ball of
>wax.

Well, right. What I'm getting at there is that invokers have a lot of potential in group vs. group fights.

>All it takes to get a high pk ratio is never taking any risks.
>Anyone can run an 100% ratio if they are patient and fight
>only the easiest possible fights.

Ok, let's say that in ten hours of play at those levels an invoker should be able to knock down around ten kills and die once.

Granted, if all of your opponents deal with you as intelligently and cautiously as possible, that isn't really possible... but specifically because people consider invokers to be a free kill at those levels, hardly anyone will. That guy looking for a mage kill to get into Battle? That guy's the sucker whose money you're going to take, so to speak.

>But you still weren't asking...

True... I was talking more about incoming group requests. As an evil outlander mage I expect few groups to work out, but unless I've done a great job and become well known I wouldn't expect the number of invites to be that different. It's possible this character was just unlucky. I've found ranking mages to be a very very random process. Once in a while it goes incredibly easy and I find I almost never have downtime. Selective memory is a funny thing, so it's hard to say whether I'm over-remembering the hard times or you're over-remembering the easy times. Or if we really have just had different experiences for whatever random reason.

>That's with the appropriate touch spell?

At least somewhat... I did try to compare a bit, though usually I channeled heat for RP reasons. So I could easily be wrong about that.

>My experience... people that hit me that hard and that much at
>those levels were by far the exception rather than the rule.

Well, maybe it's a selection thing. It's probably the case that the people out hunting and attacking your ranking group are the ones that hit that hard, and the noobs in academy gear aren't doing that. I can see how that would contribute to making for a more even playing field if when you're on the offensive. On the other hand, I've usually managed to swing that kind of damage as a warrior.

>This hasn't generally been my experience at those levels.

No? You just said that you should win in 3 rounds, and that makes sense to me in that a fight at those levels usually is in the 2-4 round range. While you may not neccesarily be dead if the very first bash hits, if you go a round or two and then get bashed you're sort of toast. Then again you probably have parry perfected earlier than I do.

>Well, right. What I'm getting at there is that invokers have
>a lot of potential in group vs. group fights.

That is true. So do healers, but nobody would really say that a lowbie healer is much to worrow about.

>invoker should be able to knock down around ten kills and die
>once.

I won't deny that it can happen, or even that it can be done without intense effort and luck if you go after only felar and arials or something but I really think a warrior can knock down ten kills and die once with relative ease.

I played a bloodthirsty elf invoker and from 11-20 had a 9-1 ratio, all solo kills without preps and I had crap eq. Of course, I went after a lot more than that but had to flee or they got away. As well, since I was an elf I wasn't able to go after some of that delicious low-hanging fruit that an evil mage would be.

21-25 was much more difficult, I dropped to 3-6 there still using the same modus operandi. Then, the armor changes went in at 25 and it seemed to really nerf the damage I was putting out on other players.

From 26-30 I had a 0-5 record. Other players now had greater save v spell, but it still really felt like the change in armor accounts for some of my new-found suck. The more powerful spells just don't seem deal as great a percentage of damage, especially when considering that all of my foes were gaining hp at a greater rate than I was (especially thanks to my lowered Con).

If I played the same combo again I would probably pk from 11-20, hoping that the armor changes hadn't made that too difficult. Then I would wait until I got invoker shields or at the very least be a lot more cautious about going into pk.


Oh, I have played a drow invoker in Outlander as well and it was the height of frustration trying to get a group. Sorry to hear it was so frustrating for you.

21-25 was much more difficult, I dropped to 3-6 there still using the same modus operandi. Then, the armor changes went in at 25 and it seemed to really nerf the damage I was putting out on other players.

From 26-30 I had a 0-5 record. Other players now had greater save v spell, but it still really felt like the change in armor accounts for some of my new-found suck. The more powerful spells just don't seem deal as great a percentage of damage, especially when considering that all of my foes were gaining hp at a greater rate than I was (especially thanks to my lowered Con).

If I played the same combo again I would probably pk from 11-20, hoping that the armor changes hadn't made that too difficult.

I'm curious why you think the armor changes would impact an invoker of all classes. They don't alter saving throws or spell damage at all. They'd only factor in for:

1) A small percentage of your melee swings (usually touch spells) would get turned aside.
2) You would occasionally deflect the melee blows of others. You don't have much in the way of armor skills, but you'd get some level of passive protection.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I was under the impression that the newly-added Elemental AC thing modified damage from invoker spells in addition to possibly deflecting it. Thanks for clearing that up.


I guess saves from better armor as people ranked up and random chance must explain it then. My opponents didn't seem all that more skilled, I just was a lot less deathful.

>I guess saves from better armor as people ranked up and random
>chance must explain it then. My opponents didn't seem all
>that more skilled, I just was a lot less deathful.

Obviously it depends on the character, but a lot of damage reduction tends to come out around those levels. Shamans/paladins start having sanc, shifters start having stone skin, etc.