Not sure why my death-thread isn't showing up, so just thought I'd say some goodbyes.

Fortress - Padwei - thanks for the empowerment and the interaction. I have to admit that my roleplay of your follower wasn't stellar beyond your usual 'paladin of the light' roleplay, that's partly because I didn't really understand your rp scope which is more my fault than yours.

My brothers! Aeinrez, Okin, Arrna, Lornkanamas, Castiel, Dargin, and a host of others, thank you for the great fights, interactions and brotherhood. Gives me a warm feeling playing Fort.

My enemies! The most memorable interaction I had was with Sulzaen, perhaps a few others slipped my mind. Generally good fun and had a blast.

My deletion - I came back after a three year hiatus of world of warcraft, warhammer, lotro, and a host of other on and off mmorpgs. Must say, CF still has that draw of enforced RP, well thought of fighting system, cabal system, etc. It suffers only from a lack of players, but that seems to be improving (did I see 84 players online in dioxides?!). Thanks everyone for a fun time and fun ride.

God Bless.

It was pretty cool that I had the opportunity to grant "mercy" like I did. Anyway, I enjoyed interacting with your character and wish you good luck on your next.

SInce so many of the people who made this character fun to play through intereaction have requested it, here goes. Just meant to be my rough thoughts.

SKILLS


Avoidance - Poor as a tanking ability against mobs comparative to SG2H (storm giant two handed) or ESH (elf shield). It has some cool utility like that odd ability to avoid things like dirt kick, trip, but the chance of this was similar to an evade, ie. not dependable. Not only that it sucks mana. I had to sleep without it on. There is currently a bug where if you have it active, the ancient knight in the fortress attacks you. so I had to switch it off when I was standing at the fortress altar. Unfortunately this caused a lot of deaths as well, forgetting to switch it meant I had no defenses, and i forgot quite a bit until the middle amount of my playing. Would benefit from an effect in the 'affects' list to track.

Intensify - the DPS skill. it is roughly three rounds of three 'lightning strike' attacks. sometimes three attacks would trigger, sometimes 2. During that three rounds while you're hammering away, you're also stunned like a flurry stun to some extent and can't do much until the three rounds have passed. Also gives you a bonus to mental saves during that time. Good when you aren't tanking so you can pummel away and impress people. Bad if you're tanking because you can't tank, and those three rounds can mean your death if you can't heal.

Defy - I had this at 100%, took the mailed templar edge, but could not gauge how significant the reduction once. it seemed to trigger a lot but not enough to make it a better than than SG2H or ESH.

Fist Attacks - As I levelled and improved the skill, more skills would open up to allow my punches to become a searing light, fire, ice, attacks. Useful since I didn't have to carry weapons and I could use whatever vulnearability my opponent had.

Dash-like-skill - can't remember the name now but mostly useless. Didn't practice it, maybe it might have some interesting uses if I had got it to 100 but doubt it.

Anticipate - Good skill. At times I could avoid sleep, bashes, at times I could get bashed four times without it firing. Was stuck at 75% despite being used most of the time before a pk. I remembering anticipating two sleeps from an AP, but also getting slept in a single round by ahtieli. useful I suppose.

TANKING GENERAL MOBS

Poorer than SG2H or ESH.

TANKING AT EMPIRE COUNCIL OR ARCHMAGE.

Poorer than SG2H or ESH. (Couldn't even last two rounds at the empire)

GENERAL DPS

much better than ESH

slightly better than SG2H

(with the caveat that if these guys have defiance, that decreases to almost equal damage output)

Only trouble is that intensifying with lightning strikes sucks your mana a lot. Most paladins suffer from lack of mana but this is the worst. since you have to heal yourself AND sucks mana while you're just fighting AND sucks mana when you intensify.

PVP

poorer than an ESH

poorer than a SG2H

chasing down people with wrath (ie opening it up as an attack) means you don't use intensify, which is paladin's best dps skill), and if you're wrathing and not intensifying, it means you're not using the monk's most useful skill while suffering from its vulnerabilities of mana draining and poor defense.

I'm supposed to work but I'm too curious!

Okay I notice you often use Transcend to gain 'wrath' attack type on fists. Is it not cheaper to skip using it if the enemy is not resistant to physical or vuln to wrath? Or is the cost negligible?

Another note: Intensify damage is higher than wrath spam? I suppose a monk wouldn't do too well with Temperance acting as an extra mana drain, but Faith's 'fast' and Fortitude's straight bonus to physical strikes should be fairly good on a monk yes?

Anything about Ascend (it seems like a dash plus the strange clear obstacles thing which I don't understand) and how is it when used to initiate?

Avoid sounds like it really sucks though maybe a monk should wield sword and wear shield while not fighting and not intending to use Avoid, and switch out when he wants to...

Also since monk abilities are mainly based on wisdom (helpfiles), would it not be very difficult for someone to rely on maledictions to kill you? In that sense you can gear less for +str/dex, and more for +dam, +hp, +mana. +mana is fairly easy to gear for because many people neglect +mana.

I was curious how that one worked, and what it seemed to do.

Please post a full and detailed description of all monk skills =) I have too little time these days for starting an empowerment character... Would love to hear what Monks are like.

Well I dont know what to say.

When I met you first time, you was ####ing weak, cannot tank cannot damage etc. When we were ranking I took blows every time!

Later when you get into the fort and heroed, I really started to like your style. I still took blows but your damage output increased greatly. I was impressed when you land a bunch of punches on someone we fought, Sulzaen probably, and he worded. But you still exhausted too fast, thats why I mastered my pastoral song

For the last two weeks I was on hiatus, maybe you would not delete with me around. Anyway good char all around, thank you for your company and fun.

Good luck with next one.

What are they like?

Always was delighted to see you log on. We had some good times and you were the only other Padwei follower that I knew of, at least
in the focus of our lives. I am like you, I have been away from
CF for nearly 7 years and all of these new additions are wonderful but will take time for me to learn. For now, I will continue to perfect my playing a healer and wait to keep another of your chars alive and well.

Now why would you go and delete on me? I had such high hopes for you! I really enjoyed hanging around with you. You seemed to be just that, someone how returned from CF. Knowing a lot of stuff, and then oblivious about other, newer stuff.

I really hope you come back soon with something equally cool. And tell me! How was the new pally class? Was it cool? It sure as hell looked cool to fight alongside with.

What did you think of your paladin dedication? Your abilities seemed pretty bad ass, but you also seemed to burn through mana pretty quick and require a lot of resting up.

Yar know yar be wanting to come to the dark side, mate. Yar! Enjoyed your RP and enjoyed the few fights we had, hope to see yar next, har!



Can you please share your DETAILED thoughts on monk paladins?

Just because I have my suspicions (I hope I'm right!!!!)

Was really fun rolling with you. I kinda was losing focus with the char towards the end so sorry if I seemed a bit off.

I am Kruuank/Dhaezym/Thrakazhaar, btw.

Ah, don't think we knew each other, none of your chars are familiar.

Ah well, back to my search.

Was fun though.