Fri Jul 13 21:05:57 2007

At 6 o'clock PM, Day of Thunder, 24th of the Month of the Shadows
on the Theran calendar Waserax perished, never to return.

Very cool character. Duergar shamans are a nasty lot. I know the dispel/Hunsobo bash thing is going to stick with this pair a bit, but that's pretty much the first thing a shaman should do when grouped with a warrior. Empire kills are generally ganky on the gank-o-meter, but, yours wasn't really any worse than any one else who had 100+ kills. Anything at 1.8 or below for an Imperial is rare. Kharghurln and Draktel did it, but, off the top of my head, I can't think of any others of note. In fact, many of the past emperors/leaders were over 2.0. Your attitude about looting your kills was cool as well.

I keep hearing about shamans needing a revamp and the few shamans I see around seem to be pretty solid and very competitive. What are your thoughts on the class?

I don't think anyone is saying that shaman are underpowered.

I think they just feel the class lacks a bit of flavour? So could use some love akin to that thieves, rangers, warriors etc have been getting. Some uniqueness in terms of skillsets, perhaps. Maybe just some interesting echoes for the skills/supps.

.

My thoughts on the shaman class. Hmmm. Bear in mind this will be colored by the fact that I was playing a duergar and only rarely had thief or assassin enemies...but, I was a little underwhelmed.

Sure, as a dispel monkey for the most ridiculously tricked out warrior ever, I was really deadly. In a solo fight I tended to get my ass handed to me more often than not. I'm not the most skilled player in the world, but I'm not a moron either, and I usually had above-average gear.

Any melee class I couldn't make drop weapons "relatively quickly" would eventually make me word/teleport. Bards owned me. Kanaev, Niheriva and Enarn all trashed me regularly. I'll cede that those three are outliers. Aomiern could beat me down pretty easily when he used wands. Victoria worldbound me in maybe 2 attempts, which was pretty much the end of that fight.

I'm not sure what I'd change about shamans, or even that anything needs to be changed. They're just not nearly as powerful as I used to think they were.

Like Incognito said, it's not a power thing. It's a they are too boring for words kind of thing.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Great Char all the way around.
Stand up RP the whole "duty" thing was obvious
it was like you were a blade with the soldiering but a damn powerful and crafty one

Congrats on a great char. Not enough can be said about the fights and talks we shared in char and the respect I have for you as a player.

See you in the fields.

to meet at the mansion. I don’t really know if you ever played into the part of being the most devout, but I certainly did. Every time I heard of you or spoke with you, I tried to prod for some weakness. Of course this was all to prove to Daevryn that I was indeed the most devout, and you should be left a pouting duergar. After I got the tat, I kept looking for you at the mansion…only to rub it in your face that you did not have it. Of course, Zesam wasn’t a make of character to prove success with PK ratio, so it had to be done with other means. Over all, you were a very well played character. You defiantly made my dealings with the Empire awful, yet challenging. There’s nothing like being a healer and just having to watch someone die due to a healing curse. Good luck with your next.

Zezy

Woo, one less Imperial hero for me to fight on my current character ;P

Was cool playing with you, showed me a lot of the MUD traveling with you and hunsobo, also didn't own my ass for dying every 5 minutes and being le ####ty at getting gold.

Heres hoping you've already come up with another character that will have the same positive impact on the MUD as Waserax.

As Tsyda we traveled a few times, worked together to get the Codex back and a few times defend the Fortress from you. I think you portrayed a well played Daevryn worshiper and it was interesting to hear you and Zesam's views of each other. All around an excellent character and it was a pleasure to interact with you.

--Tsyda

And sorry I didn't get to reward you for the Imperial representation at the Archmage's research.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

No problem man! Thanks for all your recent work. Gotta say, the leader channel is super-convenient.

What a ride.

I rolled a duergar shaman for a number of reasons, chief among them the butt-whippings I used to receive as Nhiala from the then-current High Priest. Surely duergar shamans are unstoppable! Hah. Man did I learn how untrue that really is.

Chose Daevryn mainly because I liked the adaptability of his religion, and it seemed a non-standard choice. Khasotholas wasn't back yet, and all the other evil imms didn't seem to fit well with an Empire priest. So, Daevryn it was. Got a boatload of interaction early, which was way cool, then it sort of tailed off after Daevryn got married. Which is to be expected.

In case anyone was curious about why my times matched up with Hunsobo's so well, it's because I have a 1-year old, and he goes to bed around 8:30 or 9:00pm. So I get from then till about midnight to play, then a little time on the weekends. Those just so happened to be Hunsobo's prime hours. Maybe he has kids too?

Overall I tried to be good about not looting kills. Hopefully that rubbed off on some people. When I died, people were generally gracious about what they left. The three main exceptions were lowbies who happened to be in the area and cleaned me out. I tried to use IC methods to get my revenge, with mixed success.

Few specific comments:

Daevryn- Thanks for all the interaction! Hope I didn't let you down too much by not getting Emperor.

Hunsobo- Oh man. We had some fun times. Suggesting that we cc: each other on our Emperor votes was a stroke of genius. I had already decided to doublecross you and vote for Ktaar, but panicked when you asked whether I'd already sent my note. If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have lied and said yes, but alas I'm not that crafty. I felt a little better when I realized that if I had double-crossed you it would still have been a three-way tie, which means you'd have probably gotten Emperor anyway. Enjoy whatever time you have left!

Divine Sect- Sorry for not promoting you guys enough. Given how tightly grouped my logins were, there were some of you that I just never saw. It's hard to convince yourself someone needs promoting when you've hardly ever seen them before.

Xinrithil- Dude. You're one reckless son-of-a-gun. I can't roll that way, but you seem to have alot of fun, so more power to you!

Brinkmun/Drovis/Golhyrr/Vhloughvang- You four kicked my butt up and down. Prior to playing one, I had always pegged shamans as good rager killers. So much for that theory!

Niheriva- My thoughts on Niheriva already invaded one thread, but I figured I'd give you a mention. Your role-play annoyed the hell out of me, and I'm embarassed to admit that you actually managed to goad me into fighting you when I'd already decided not to. So, pat yourself on the back for that.

Dio's Conspiracy Theorists- You'll notice I had a log post deleted by the VIPs, which I thought was perfectly alright to post. There was actually some private discussion about whether it should be left up, from which I abstained. So it stayed deleted, and I managed not to go ballistic. See, it's not that hard!

You. Were. Awesome. You fought hard, destroyed light, dissipated hope, and were respected for your play. Some accused you of being Hunsobo's perma summon-dispel slave, but you fought on your own as often as you could during the Empire-swollen hours you played. Always you showed an integrity that others, including myself, could only aspire to. GLWYN.

A part of me liked that you were very competant and all... The other part was also so pissed to see you around !

I always got dispelled completly in two, max three, dispels. And if you were with Hunsobo it meant bashed down too...

But I can't count the number of times I fled with under 50hp in those circonstances.

Anyway, even with all the frustrations I had when you were around, we had great times. And yes, I too hate the lowbie-looting we were victims.

Actually it got restored within 24 hours and gave people a total misrepresentation of the success rate of that tat, which more or less seemed what you were going for.

Other than that!

I liked the fact that you did try to go against all odds and get the Codex back on occasion. I quickly learned that I needed to carry around an extra set of eq just for rots from you, which I hated.

Hunsobo and you were definetly a terrible combination, and at least you finally managed to get me before you died right?

Hurry on back...but..with something without dispel..



-Nih

I'll probably play a goodie next. I tend to alternate that way. I guess I could try a rager for once. Never done that before.

haha I am just kidding. Was fun fighting you and your right that shaman generally are rager killers. The problem is when the ragers get high dam rolls and can lag you which just makes life tough on a shaman. I saw you and hunsobo on a lot but unless you were raiding I never really saw you two together much. I also remember my last char was ranking up alongside you. With that char it was like fighting a brick wall and we fought a bunch from like 20 up.


so yeah roll a villager and have fun picking on the new massive zoo of carrionfields.

From what I saw, and I came in later in your life, good all around. Liked your roleplay, liked your fighting ability. As a High Priest, I didn't see that much leadership out of you, but that's probably a function of immortal involvement, not you. That should be taken care of now. Another nice character.

"Hunsobo- Oh man. We had some fun times. Suggesting that we cc: each other on our Emperor votes was a stroke of genius. I had already decided to doublecross you and vote for Ktaar, but panicked when you asked whether I'd already sent my note. If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have lied and said yes, but alas I'm not that crafty. I felt a little better when I realized that if I had double-crossed you it would still have been a three-way tie, which means you'd have probably gotten Emperor anyway. Enjoy whatever time you have left!"


You saved this character several times, and not just in the IC sense - when I'd start to lose interest or get bleh on the char, the next night I'd login and you and I would do something interesting - be it just gathering gold, preps, whatever, or raiding/killing.

As for our playing times, if anyone wanted to accuse someone of something, I think it'd have to be accusing me of only playing when you were on - from what I saw/heard you were on more frequently than I was.

We started out having to cling to each other because it was you, me, a couple tribs, and a bunch of Fortress/Outlander/Ragers in range. Then after a while that swung the other way, and we would frequently work alone (except for raids). Nobody likes the "imperial gank squad" sitting on Eastern every night.

I thought your char was very very well roleplayed and very tough. I think you could have been a lot more scary, but you seem to have some sense of honor that made you hardly ever (that I saw) use Rot. A lot of times we'd see someone we had just killed a half hour earlier and you and I would both sorta look at each other and say "nah." and let them walk away. I liked that about you, the fair play sentiment, though I'm not sure how "evil" it is (again, "evil" roleplay vs. "asshole" playing style).

It's been said before but yes we were definitely a force when together.

I'll post more later when I'm dead, of course.

Great char, good luck on the next (but not if it's good align! )

As for the vote and a potential doublecross, I was a bit worried about that from both you and Ktaar. The cc: thing was a good idea, yeah, but I was then worried that you'd post a note to Khaso and Zulg saying "My true vote lies here, and I vote for Ktaar. I will be sending another note to placate the simpleton War Master. Disregard it." Or something of that nature. And I was curious, if you did that, what they'd do.

>I thought your char was very very well roleplayed and very
>tough. I think you could have been a lot more scary, but you
>seem to have some sense of honor that made you hardly ever
> that I saw) use Rot.

I used rot sometimes, but only in situations where I thought I had no other (realistic) way of killing my opponent. As for the honor thing, it was mostly a matter of pragmatism. Maybe this makes me a poor roleplayer of evils, but that's how evil characters of mine tend to operate. If you weren't actively opposing the Empire, hadn't pissed me off personally and didn't have any gear that I wanted, then I would probably leave you alone.

There was this conjurer I was hunting once, who I'd never seen before but suspected was a goodie. I determined he was in Organia and went in after him. Ended up finding him with a puny luminous archon, no elemental, sleeping next to a pretty nasty mob. Thing is, his gear indicated he was neutral and he wasn't wearing anything of interest to me. So while I stood a decent chance of killing him, what would have been the point, other than to pad my record? If I were feeding an unholy weapon or something, then sure, I'd have whacked the guy, but as a shaman? Meh.

>It's been said before but yes we were definitely a force when
>together.

I've had some time to contemplate the Hunsobo/Waserax dynamic, and what was both rewarding and unfortunate about it. This may sound silly, but I think I subconsciously developed a sort of "soldier" mentality. I had a job to do and I was going to do it, because that was my duty. Whether or not I "enjoyed" it was irrelevant; it just had to be done.

When I logged on, if we didn't have the Codex, my job was to get it back. If we did, then my (our) job was to get all the other items, and do whatever was possible to keep them. The cool thing was that we were pretty like-minded in this regard, so neither of us ever had to nudge the other one in the right direction. We both just sort of knew that "this is what we do."

The unfortunate aspect of that is that after enough repetition, it changed into more of a "job". We even discussed this a little bit in game. Log on, retake Codex, take Orb/Scepter/Fetish, defend, go gather donations and restock preps, then it's about time to logoff. Then do the same thing the next day, and the next. I'm really not sure what the solution is. I can't see playing a caballed character half-assed and not taking retrieval/raiding seriously, but after a while the "duty" component almost always morphs into joyless obligation.

>Great char, good luck on the next (but not if it's good align!

You too man. Hey, who knows, maybe we'll find ourselves working together as part of Team Good. Stranger things have happened.

I must say, a damn good character. Its was great getting to work with you again in a different form. Thanks for the promotions, and the interaction when I was first applying for the Empire. I think one of the main reasons I actually ended up joining the Empire was cause it was good to see skilled players around the same times as me. Pretty much the exact same story for myself. And you might want to reconsider going either good or village. You seen what Hunsobo does to them and he sticks to your timeslot. Hope to get a chance to work with you again in the future and good luck.

Zarilia

Whatever people said on Dio's, I know that your hours overlapped with mine a lot, and Hunsobo's don't. So that means that you are not all about running around with Hunsobo. In fact, I think I saw you on alone (in hero range) more than I saw anyone other Imperial on alone.

I can also remember you raiding scion solo against Sekhuroth and myself. Fortress and battle were also raiding us at the same time, but as they were your enemies as much as ours, that didn't make things look easy for you. Was disappointed I never got your soul, because when I slept you I figured you were going to die. Then fortress raided, chased me off, woke you and saved you. Grrr!

As far as the thing in HTOS went, I felt that the way you handled it was fine, and I don't have any regrets about the way I handled my part.

Everything I head from enemies about you was positive too. Given what you did achieve with this character, I wouldn't be too worried about not getting Emperor. Without having met Hunsobo, it sounds as if you were up against tougher than usual competition.

I said it on my farewell and I'll say it again: great character. Well roleplayed all the time. I watched you a bit as Kasty and always enjoyed what I saw. As for the Empire raiding tedium and the job aspect of it all, yeah, I think that's the price you pay for a long-lived Caballed character. I know I felt it as Khar, and as other Caballed characters that I've played for long periods. Just something we deal with, I suppose.

Good luck with the next, man!

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

*** Email me your testimonials or two-line blurbs. Help our marketing efforts! ***

I really struggled with how I should handle Waserax, not unlike the parallel struggle I had with Zesam, though the two characters couldn't have been less alike. I haven't reviewed the PBF comments but I have a feeling you'll see some of both throughout the course of his life.

First, the good: Waserax was an excellently played character. He wasn't afraid to throw down with anyone, and he wasn't afraid to be around no matter how outnumbered he was. (Further, he had a lot of success in PK -- he wasn't just a suicidal or stupid gutsy style character.) His RP was always consistent and excellent. He did a great job of rolling with any of the obstacles or challenges I threw in his way. He started with an Empire cabal that wasn't doing so hot and saw it through a lot of periods of utter dominance, his own efforts no small part of the why of it.

I was perhaps most impressed by your sportsmanship as a player, backing off from people who might be linkdead, many easy rot kills, repeat kills of people you'd whipped earlier, etc. You reach a higher standard in this department than I've ever managed as a player, and probably the game would be a better place if more of the players tried to follow your example in that respect. I can't say everything you did was perfect, but I would be hard pressed to find a PK-successful character who did better.

Where I really struggled is that Waserax, to me, wasn't really a Daevryn character. His early play and first couple empowerment talks were great -- probably the first character about which I said to myself, I think I'm going to need to tattoo this guy. But in actual play, not so much? He was relatively low on the ambition scale, more or less content to let other people be Emperor or not push for promotion as hard as he could. He gave his enemies breaks at times in ways an archetypal Daevrynite wouldn't. He was willing, at times, to be part of a winning team rather than seek personal glory/dominance/whatever -- certainly you'll find nastier politics in the office of your choice on any given Tuesday than was typical of Waserax.

At times I definitely tried to send you IC pokes and prods to grab yourself a throne (or whatever) by any means necessary, and I would have really liked to see you stretch your comfort zone as a player to achieve those things, but at the same time I couldn't usually bring myself to bust on a character that I thought was excellently RPed and generally great in play.

Commentary, questions, disagreements, accusations of deadbeat-dad-dom? Toss 'em my way, I'm curious to see what your take on it all was.

I enjoyed our interactions, and especially the "demanding" aspect. With my last empowered character I also got a fair bit of interaction, but it was basically "pat on the back" type stuff. That's also cool, but it's nice to have a deity that gives you some concrete goals to work towards. The three big things I remember you asking from me were:

1. Get High Priest.
2. Don't be Hunsobo's dispel monkey.
3. Get Emperor.

I thought I did pretty well with the High Priest thing. It honestly never occurred to me to petition the Empire imms to remove Rodalrina. That seemed like the exact sort of "whining" that would earn me criticism instead of reward. I had set it up such that as soon as she auto'd I'd be High Priest. Hunsobo had already agreed to petition Kharg to put me in Rodalrina's place, I hero'd, and my donations were good. I think Kharg even said she was going to do it at the earliest opportunity; she was just stymied by Rodalrina never being around to demote.

When it came to getting Emperor, I felt like I didn't have much of a shot. Assuming Hunsobo wins a three-way tie, my only chance was if both he and Ktaar voted for me. If Hunsobo thought Ktaar were going to vote for me, then he would renege on our pact and vote for Ktaar. So not only did I have to have Ktaar's vote, I had to have Ktaar convince Hunsobo that Hunsobo also had Ktaar's vote. I had intended to double-cross Hunsobo and vote for Ktaar until Hunsobo surprised me with the "cc" idea. Even if I had, though, it would been a tie since Ktaar went with Hunsobo. And if Hunsobo had had any reason to suspect treachery on my part then he might have voted for Ktaar just to spite me. It seemed like my best shot was to vote for Hunsobo, assume he wouldn't screw me, then let Ktaar pick the new Emperor. My hope was that Ktaar would conclude that voting for me did the most to bolster his own odds, since Hunsobo was clearly the favorite.

With regard to being only "part of a team" instead of trying to stand out from the pack...well, I guess I can see that. But I did solo raid sometimes when I could have called on Hunsobo (or others) to aid. Raiding any of the four enemy cabals, for a duergar shaman, is a humongous pain in the butt. Battle is impossible. Outlander is near-impossible without blowing a crapload of gold on healing pills. Fortress was doable, but it took at least 2 bouts of sleeping to complete (or copious use of pills). I guess I could have been more insistent about drawing attention to myself when I did do something noteworthy, but that seemed more "sphere vanity" than "sphere destruction".

Sidenote: does your tattoo do something special that you just never revealed to me? I think I noticed one thing, but it didn't seem to work very reliably at all. I kept thinking there must be something to it that I just never figured out (or was never told about).

Innis: can I ask what prompted your comment about having guts but not tactics? I'm not complaining; I know I screwed up on more than one occasion. Just curious which screw-up you happened to witness.

Peanut gallery: Was it obvious that Waserax = Isildur? If so, was it my IC behavior or the forum posts? Or a comination of the two?

Who I', pissed I didn't have time to finish, but no, I had no clue Waserax was you, and I've encountered quite a few of your characters in the past. Most of what I remember from you from previous characters was a paranoia about little things that was unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. Waserax was actually a little intimidating, mostly because of the general presence surrounding your character, similar (but different) from Draktel's. Honestly, if I was prone to guessing, I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to link you and this character.

Well, to answer your question below, I had no idea you were Isildur. I would have guessed Calessin, but for the playtimes.

With Waserax, I felt like the guy showing up two hours late to the party. You guys had a steady rapport and Seriistian's deletion came out of nowhere. So there always seemed to be a distance. I liked your character a lot, and the only thing that bothered me was your attitude when we'd fight Niheriva. It was understandable given his virtue, but c'mon man - (1) no one wants to be in the position where a knife-wielding assassin is tripping them in a one-direction flee room while a shaman is spamming supps, (2) we weren't in any danger of dying, and (3) he kept recalling at covered-gushing. Eventually he's going to push it too far and take a bigger risk. But you kept saying it was hopeless. The bummer is that I had to leave I have the same time constraints as you. So, Niheriva aside, I thought the char was great.

I'll put down more when the char's gone.

Good job, see you around. Assuming you go Fort, I'll be stalking you soon enough