It ended up being a game of patience rather than fun so I decided to just call it quits.

The fun factor went to zero pretty fast there. After 200+ hours of being by myself on a social game it just got real boring. I'm druid'd out. Tired of sunrays, thorns, spores, herbal foraging, charmies, the stupid insane lag on herbal medicine and the even more rediculous six round lag for the hunt. (I'm exaggerating) I'm tired of not being able to lag opponents even with telluric surge doing what ever it's supposed to do. Who ever thinks druids are overpowered needs to stop smoking crack and try one.

I got lots of Imm XP for things I don't know about. I got some when I got my title. I got some for roles, and twice I got some for... who knows. An example, I log in, I run through galadon, did a where, checked the balance, and poof, instant XP. Not enough for any edges, but I got 5 different useless skill improvements.

The Imms need to consider making an explore area that's outdoors and wilderness for druids and rangers. And while we're on druids, their power needs to be less dependent on the moon and more on the herbs. I got annoyed with the HUGE power swing. Tone it down some. Even with 100% herbalforage I STILL got 3 sets of utility herbs about half the time and it was extremely rare to EVER get 5 sets of the herbs I wanted. Even if I was picking the right kind for that moon cycle. The only tmie I could reliably get 5 sets of what I wanted was under a full moon.

I felt gyped on the cabal powers for the first time in my Nexus career. There was no character that the bond gave me any kind of real benefit to. Even with 300 hp from a warrior, all that'd do is let me run away. Hiding an charmies is silly. Stone skin and haste really do a druid some good. The ONLY character that I got 100% positive effects from the bond was a conjurer. Beyond that I was sacrificing much needed damage reduction for something that didn't even come close to compensating. In a PK, I'd much rather have the vanguard than the bond.

Right now the game balance is really miffed up. The imms really need to consider doing away with barrier. And IF they think barrier is really that needed, then consider how I felt without dodge, with minimal parry ability, with my pathetic 625 hp at hero including trains, 15 str at old age (19 at youthful age) (meaning I instantly lose my weapon to a dagger spec), and the only damage reduction I could reliably get was a shield and a stone skin potion. And half of the time the shield potions just kept me alive long enough to flee, especially there at the end. Even with 3 or 4 sets of protective herbs (protective herbs yielded utility herbs more often than any other set of herbs, followed by natural herbs), the damage reduction wasn't all that impressive. Bards aren't over powered, but I think if I didn't have the ability to heal, I'd have died to countless fiends. I can count on two hands the number of times a bard failed sleep against me in 600 hours of playing, and I'm being generous. I bet the number is closer to six than to ten.

More on the gripe list since that's the majority of this post is the Nexus Couriers. It would irritate me to no end to see the villagers drop five items to shift the veil back to back when I'd have to CHASE down the couriers, give three items to the couriers, then HOPE a villager doesn't come while I'm waiting the 3 hours for them to get out of the vault. It'd generally take me 10 to 15 minutes to unload all my items since I got into the habit of using weak items that wouldn't draw attention to me.

More on the Nexus, it is IMPOSSIBLE to defend the nexus cabal against competent people. All you have to do is go out into the water where you can't scan and rest up and heal. The Imms should consider moving the island (which I don't suggest), or just making it so you can scan. That'd fix it.

You could fix the Centurion gripes by making a second road into the imperial lands. Then they could still put centurions up to guard the way, they'd just need to cover more options and it'd thin out the forces and leave open the choices of pincer and double flank attacks.

I hated fighting villagers on the eastern road too cause they'd just run back into the village and hide in there. It'd take 100% of my mana to kill the outer guardian, so going in after them wasn't a choice. I hated raids cause there was nothing I could do. Spores and thorns, oooh... good for extended long raids. If I managed to get them really weak, wimpy would make my fireseeds completely useless. Fun. At least the village is mostly outdoors. No complaints about that setup at all, especially since Trewyn requested that war room and it's there.

Bearform sucks. End of story. I took MORE damage as a bear than I did as a regular form and it says "damage reduction" as it's skill choices. The ONLY use for bear forms I had was when I got rotted. The 25 +5 con made rot a futile effort.

Oh yeah, let me add this too. With the druid edges make echoes that let you know when you poisoned/plagued/diseasified them and add something to whirling simoon to let you know when you blinded and made them bleed. That'd be really awesome of you.

And someone tell me, is 625 hp including trains NORMAL for a druid? I felt like I got real crappy gains, but I'm not one to quit cause of that. Just means lots of hit and run. Anyhow, it was fun. Longest I've ever had a single character ever. I'm about CF'd out. I'm gonna have to take a break and I doubt I have the time for another real effort before school starts.

My leadership style was pretty different from my style with Trewyn. I left most people to do what they wanted and I made the induction process educational rather than hoop-jumping. I tried to get people in before level 20 but some people didn't even apply until level 30 or above which annoyed me. Dunno how that all really worked out as LOTS of people ended up getting in and I ended up being by myself a LOT. Someone can comment on that if they want.

Thanks for all the fun fights. I'll post goodbyes and thank yous in another post later when I've had time to think about it.

I was laughing to see you rage delete, considering you only had like 10 hours or so till age death.

I think the hps are pretty well normal. I didn't watch your con too much while you levelled, but if you kept it maxed, that should be right. Less con = less hps. Sometimes you need to just suck it up and gear for hit points. I've had heros who have a base of around 4-500 hit points, but with the right gear you can get that up quite a bit.

Random xp was often me. I liked Grecken in general, you had title, leader, cabal edge, tattoo, empowerment...what else to give you? At the end I thought, hey I'll give him 2k xp, hope he can get some cool edges or whatever out of it to live out his last hours with some fun. Sorry it didn't seem good enough for you.

The benefit of the bond for priests is supposed to be the flexibility that they can bond with anyone in the Island, not really that you're supposed to get uber benefits out of it.

I think you're right about the no scan on water thing, I never realized it before. It should be changed. The rest of your suggestions...well, I dunno.

All around, good work. Better than your last efforts, and I'll look forward to seeing you at the Island again.

I regretted it later, but what can you do?

The Imm XP was cool, it was fine and I liked it a lot. I did gear for HP and I eventually found a relatively easy to get set that gave me 800 hps (+200-250) easy and if I had that shield and a few improved versions of what I could easily get I could get it up to 940 which is what I typically ran with. When I'd bond with Andaayhn sometimes I could get it up to 1300. I couldn't gear for str and hp though so it meant I daggers were going to rip me apart.

Oh... and I didn't have a tattoo. Marcatis said I'd never ever ever ever have it cause apparently neutrals aren't allowed in his temple.

Congrats on a successful character.

I thought you did well all and all, and we had many good chats. That being said, you are correct insofar that a true neutral couldn't get my tattoo--we did have that discussion of you moving from that path, but obviously it would have had a rather major impact on the character, what with being nexus leader and all.

Regardless, glad everything went smoothly for you, hope you enjoyed the convuluted conversations.

Marcatis

Damn straight. Filthy neutrals.

I thought someone must have spiked my morning coffee when I read this. Druids are disgustingly powerful against most classes. Complaining that things are broken because you had a few bad matchups just made me lol, sorry!

nt

,

I truly dislike people that talk about stuff they have absolutely no personal experience with.

First and foremost, thanks goes to Marcatis for making my first empowerment character since 2000 smooth and easy. I logged on, got empowered on my first login and inducted on my second or third. That was cool. So thanks again for making it not at all the headache I was expecting.

Nexus - Cool cabal, still my favorite. Needs another power. I dunno how I'll play anything else where I'll end up fighting the SAME thing over and over again. See previous post for complaints.

Iltch - You annoyed me. I guess that's kudos then cause I think your character was supposed to be that way. Deadly thief, it was fun until I started dying more often than not by running around with you.

Andaayhn - Bash Buddy, after you left I started running out of allies to go bust open the village with. You were always up to do what ever which as cool. Prolly my second favorite Nexun even if you did get called a gank monkey or what ever. They were just jealous.

Nitch - I didn't really get a good read on you, but at least when you were around I didn't have to worry about getting ganked down four to one. What little exploring we did was fun.

Praeto - Didn't like you really. But couldn't find anything to really complain about. The bond and a transmuter just didn't work. I hated the bond. You quit too soon as leader too. But still it was fun exploring, raiding, and what ever.

Cryptodiro - Crazy ass invoker. We coulda been peas in a pod with our no-exit strategy playing styles. But I NEVER saw you for the longest.

Jakziim - I deliberately avoided you cause I didn't like your introduction note, but then I gave you some hope. I interviewed you and you missed all your questions and I let you in anyways. Then you ended up being pretty fearless which I liked. So good luck with the leadership spot.

Krengrar - My favorite nexun. I knew you as my experiment Biolanthus, as Zennon, and as Grecken. So you could say I knew you pretty good. I thought you figured out I had played Zennon when I called certain things like the Seantryn Continent the New Continent with both characters. Always fun exploring. Always fun going into situations we had NO BUSINESS going into (like counter raids against five or six people).

Jiahe - You seemed to be a bit new to me with some of the things you did. Swiss cheese is an OOC coment by the way. There are no Swiss in CF.

Malrokael - I was disappointed when you deleted.

I'm forgetting some so feel free to remind me.

Battle - No, anti-magic is not a force.

Yevandr - Fun fights.

Ckol - Fun Fights. I hate daggers.

Cezar - Fun Fights. I hate daggers. Betcha didn't know I was Trewyn.

Fjarn - Every time I fought you at the beginning I'd get SO LAGGED I couldn't do anything. Sometimes fighting you was easy, sometimes it was impossible. Thems the breaks I guess. Good luck and have fun in Immland.

Inger - I liked our fights a lot. You ended up being the only one Grecken had to talk to. I got lonely. Have fun with that blasted tat power I had no idea would be that useful in so many situations.

Djabree - I hate flee/chase triggers.

Xubetok - I never saw you leave the eastern road, the way to the Island, or the village without someone else with you. Dunno if that was just luck or not. Got annoying.

I'm purposefully leaving some of you out, feel free to say stuff though if you want.

Scions - Who are they?

Shenkov - You were supposed to be my enemy and what not, wish we coulda fought more. 6 undeads is impossible for me to defend against. Glad you failed that elixir, that woulda been nasty.

Igbah - Couldn't hurt fire giants. Thanks for the help against the village hoardes.

Waris - Thanks for the tips and stuff. Good luck with the chancellorship.

Outlanders - Chameleon needs to be looked at.

Feilinal - Thanks for the lich help.

Throkk - Hot winds, thanks for the lich fights and the interesting interactions. Can't hurt a fire giant.

Riv - Enjoyed ranking and what not. Good times.

Careashiin - Daft twig, crazy... crazy druid.

Jhoqu - What's with the priest of earth and sky stuff? Good char.

Nizydrayt - Arrogant bastard. You ran from me twice. Lose the arrogance pitch.

Teldasill - I hate tigers. Bleh. Couldn't do anything with my one damaging strike a round against five demolishes a round. And even then it only came out a DISMEMBER or what ever. I only got 625 hp.

Fortress - Gank squad... Got ganked by seven vs two once in the courtyard. You waited till all seven showed up to attack too.

Mizfara - Liked you.

Cyruil - Fearless. Flee sometime.

The rest... mmm... didn't get to know you.

Tribunal - ... no comment

Inglor - You were pretty insulting at first. I almost struck you once just to shut you up, but I let it slide and I think eventually you figured out you were pissing me off and let some of it go. Ended up getting along all right at the end.

Empire - Yay...

Kostyan - I kicked your ass... then you became Warmaster and it got harder, then you became Emperor and it became impossible. I still don't know how I killed you that one time by myself. Maybe I had help and didn't realize it.

Eoria - The only bard to give me troubles solo. Maybe it was fighting you that made me not think other bards were really that big of a deal alone.

Kornuel - I bet you won't eat fillet's outside the cabal you're attacking again . You started figuring a few things out as you went, but you only gave me troubles when with multiple summoners and Kostyan. I didn't get to know your char at all really.

And Satebos - Usless lich. I used to fight Istendil back in the day and a meeting with him... it was considered a win if you even survived. You didn't impress me at all. You only killed me once when I didn't go into a situation I KNEW I'd die in. I'm also exluding the two times the ghouls froze me. That's BS to be lagged that long anyways. You should become more aggressive and take more chances. All those phylacteries won't do you any good if you always sit and wait till you're at full power to attack.

Like I said, I'm leaving some out. Thanks for all the fun fights. If any wants to get the PBF, that'd be cool. I don't have a way to do it.

First I'll say. Man, did you ever complain a lot. When Vehldriss and I took you down and took the ivory troll amulet and fulminator gauntlets, you bitched for half an hour saying we 'ganked' you when it was 4 of you and 2 of us. Its not our fault you slept everyone but Vehldriss with the opium pipe. Otherwise, Grecken was decently played.

Secondly. Did you ever fight Satebos before the Becoming? He was twice as aggressive then. Did you ever think to wonder... 'Maybe this is an RP construct of the Becoming.' I totally enjoy Satebos's character. Both when he was a Dark-Elf and now.

Also, Liches were changed in the time between Istendil and Satebos. Mixed with other changes, Liches aren't as powerful now as they were back then.

One of the fights was at the Imperial lands and was a 4 vs 4 counter raid. That was the fight I mentioned about Krengrar, even though I died it was my favorite fight. It was about an hour and a half long fight. The other was at the Island where I was alone with backup coming and in both situations a combination of lag and stupidity and trying out different tactics got me killed. I remember Vehldriss killing me once but I don't remember who else was with them. It was shortly after I killed Vehldriss at the Tree and had to run from Kornuel and some others (maybe you were the others). I still had Vehldriss's hell gear that she took back.

And yes I fought Satebos before the becoming and after. I fought Satebos a lot as another character. Considering all I could do to Satebos was decompose or sunray, which did a whopping DISMEMBERS every round for decompose due to ABS and maybe what ever a druid phylactery does, and I had to leave 300-400 mana to cure the scourge and poisons and hopefully have enough to go into treeform so I could wait out the blindness, there wasn't much risk involved for Satebos due to a complete lack of lagging options.

I just never play mages and I never tried a enigma warrior, so i was sort of at a loss about what to get. And if they dont have swiss cheese, they shouldnt have ships that are named coeur rouge and french and stuff.

Besides that, yeah, I was really bored with the character, so I just followed you around. Late at night when there is no ranking, its tough, so you just became the guy i followed around.

Thanks for the info you gave though. =P

Dont worry Praeto didnt like you either.
He thought you were a bit too agressive and didnt have much of a balance yourself between agression and politics.

He also thought that you took the leadership positions to be above the rest of Nexus, Where he saw that they made you more of a servant to the rest of the nexus instead of the other way around. He believed that being elected to a position of leadership makes you ultimately responsible to and for those people since they put you there, thus putting you below those people instead of above.

I as a person didnt really hate you, But Praeto definatly didnt like you , and second guessed whether you belonged in a leadership position, much less on the Island.

It was always nice to shoot the breeze with you. I think the last time we interacted was when we almost got Kostyan that one time.

I had fun fighting Grecken. Like you said, most of our battles went one way or the other - there were very few in-between fights. If I could get you into a drive/cutoff situation where I was landing strong hits, you were in trouble. If you caught me with sunray spam, I was in trouble. You did a good job at making raiding Nexus annoying. I couldn't figure out a way to redirect to you at the inners, and Nexus inners are not the best place to fumble around with targets.

We always had some good fights. Sorry to hear you were so bored with the character. You seemed to have pretty good pk stats. I think you need to jump the nexus ship and play another rager.

Well... I never really planned to specifically joined, but left the option open. When I started talking to Praeto for some reason he pretty much convinced me that I should... but then being in it seemed pretty damn lonely and I couldn't do a damn thing against the dexy ragers. Poor Dorfo was about the only rager I could fight and have a chance against. In the end, though, I just didn't like the kill, kill, kill... I guess that turns a lot of people off for it too. Sorry to let you down and leave like that. As for HP, typical mage HP is 450 to 550, so 625 sounds pretty good to me. I know in the past that druids had some of the best dam redux and their pets just tore people up. Also, the hunt is one of the most disgustingly OP things in the game, so of course it has major limitations. Now if only the Fiend could get just a little more limitations to it... Anyhow, you certainly made an impression on people and I guess that is what anyone aspires for in a character. So good job and good luck with whatever you choose next.