I am a newbie. I do not think I am a good pker, and I am learning the game slowly. I think it is very possible I do not understand enough or know enough to be making accurate judgements; however, the following is what I am currently concluding after much thought and some play -- so please correct me without rancor if I am mistaken or ignorant. I have played more than 5 cloud giant warriors beyond level 30 in the last 2 years and have some experience with the combination and living through changes in the game. That being said, the subject of this post properly belongs on Gameplay, I think, and not newbie forum, if I am not incorrect.

I understand the idea of the recent changes, which I think are generally awesome and extremely well done and worthy of both applause and kow-tow. However, the primary straw man for these changes was the stereotypical STR/DAM warrior. Cloud giant warriors are an iconic build for this style and they have been significantly weakened by the recent changes. A cloud giant warrior is now on par, with say, an arial warrior, except that they have significant weaknesses and vulnerabilities that an arial warrior does not have. I do not think that a storm giant warrior, with considerably less vulnerabilties, is in as bad a shape, leaving a storm giant warrior now well balanced but cloud giant warrior at a disadvantage.

At this point, any other race looks to be well balanced in melee against a cloud giant warrior except that the cloud giant has many more exploitable weakness, leaving roleplaying a weaker combination the only reason to play this class. There is still an existant but smaller sweet spot for this build at around level 15, but this is not highly relevant to anyone actually trying to pk veteran players at higher levels, which is what matters for game balance.

Please consider something here or instruct me in my mistakenness.
Thanks!

First, I love the new chanages, all the new skills, edges, everything, just keeps me coming back for more.

As for this post, cloud warriors lose out a bit on evade since they are less dexy, and the fact that hitroll is now dex based instead of STR based.

But where they lose out more, along with Fire giants, Duergar, Orcs, and any other low int race is that they have more skills to consider. The low int races ingeneral benefit from a small number of skill options as you can have a "complete" build without having to make many if any relevant sacrifices. But the more skills you have access to the more difficult it becomes to choose which to practice adding 5-6 skills or so to these races means the converting of more trains to practices or the skipping of more potentially useful skills. I think this is a great change for this reason.

Int/Wis in my opinion have always played a lesser roll in cf, they have a benefit but it is only temporary in that with enough time low Int/Wis races make up the learning gap. But add in more skills and require people to be more selective favors high Int races that can still easily choose all the available skills, this is good again in my opinion as it makes more sense to me that the average Elf would be more skillful over all then the average giant. I don't think it hurts the overall balance of these races much as perviously I've felt balance was in favor of the High Str, low Int races.

Int/Wis in my opinion have always played a lesser roll in cf, they have a benefit but it is only temporary in that with enough time low Int/Wis races make up the learning gap. But add in more skills and require people to be more selective favors high Int races that can still easily choose all the available skills, this is good again in my opinion as it makes more sense to me that the average Elf would be more skillful over all then the average giant. I don't think it hurts the overall balance of these races much as perviously I've felt balance was in favor of the High Str, low Int races.

Yup. The ultra-patient fire AP fans consistently pointed out that they saw their low INT as a time sink more than an actual obstacle, until a bard showed up. (Even then, Resist Mental makes up a lot of ground.) Nep was fond of pointing out that if fire giant invoker was legal, some guy with 300 hours of free time could make a really powerful character.

We'd like the smarter races to get more than a "convenience" for their high INT. I still think, say, fire giant anything is one of the better choices for any of their classes. But I like that people are starting to question that a little, and I don't think we're due to be overrun exclusively by murderous elves.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Cloud still has advantages over others.

Can wield heavier weapons (harder for armor to deflect).
Can wear heavier armor (so more armor choice).
Perma-fly.
Giant resist.
No elemental vuln (other than air, in a sense).
Can make use of weight based legacies (trapping legacy).
Dual wield 2h weapons.
Better bash.

Offsetting that you have:
low dex,
disease vuln,
crap mental stats.
permafly (put here because -sometimes- it is bad).

Seems balanced to me still.

Especially as you have fewer innate enemies than a storm giant, elf, drow, or fire giant.

Can wear heavier armor (so more armor choice).

Yup. While there's a lot of incentives for different types of characters within this new system, the simple fact that a cloud giant can pick armor without really caring about weight makes me wonder why the original poster posted this after the armor changes. Doubly so for a cloud giant warrior, who gets a sizable chunk of the skills which enhance armor use and armor breakthrough.

Evade is a nice skill for the more nimble types, but I don't think we'll be seeing the extinction of the cloud giant warrior by a long shot.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You're forgetting the greatest set of vulnerabilities: god fearing and
vulnerable to all the holy and unholy powers of the realm. That combined with the other offsets is what I considered to be unbalancing them.

That vuln by itself gives them exposure to something like elvish/drow iron/mithril via holy and unholy weapons, except any number of spells/communes also have a magnified effect on them.

>That vuln by itself gives them exposure to something like
>elvish/drow iron/mithril via holy and unholy weapons, except
>any number of spells/communes also have a magnified effect on
>them.

Except that a lot of that stuff only works on goods or evils.

It's great that you've played a lot of cloud warriors because sticking with something is a good way to learn, but it's also a way to develop blind spots to your own strengths. For example, bash or trip are major contributing factors to easily 50% and probably more of the PKs that occur in the game. Which race is generally the hardest to bash and trip? Cloud.

Really good point.