Talking strictly in the melee sense, but these are the guys who already had the best chance to kill prepped mages too.

True or False?

You can't nerf playerbase perception, but right now playerbase perception is pretty spot-on. Dagger by itself not only maladicts as good or better than an assassin but also works better as your opponent loses more stats, even if you get maladicted yourself.

If you don't have alot of maladictions, short of being an AP or certain rangers you're pretty ####ed right now. Worse still, there's no reason to switch from dagger once you're winning.

Right now you could stack all the HP in the world on a warrior that would be reasonable but just being tougher is flat not a viable option. Unless of course Riddle of Resilience gets an unannounced buff to reduce the severity as well as the duration of maladictions or otherwise becomes comparable to STSF in as many situations versus players.

There is also the problem that somehow there is nothing forcing the dagger specs to tank mobs (either that or they are taking a real tanking spec with dagger) with the new shifters and rangers around.

Axe/Mace combo still won't pack the punch dagger does alone, and with the slight overall nerf to the chance you'll land your skills with them, dagger officially does more damage AND maladicts better. And that's wrong. It pretty much kills the viability of alot of mediocre combinations that aren't mages in a cabal raid. If you're eating a -str maladict when a battle opens, you can't use pummel/drum/flurry to end the fight, and if you do without a nodisarm weapon you're going to lose one if not both those weapons.

Don't forget that many of the best dagger maladictions are one round of lag, making assassins pale in comparison anytime you're not whoring martial trance. But I'm speaking at all ranks anyway. Between the lag nerfs pre-25 (which at the time were much needed) on top of evade added that removes alot of key skills hitting people that are faster than you, and the new weapon tweaks, brute force characters are now pretty much dirt. Not only can't they tank, but they can't-tank-even-more now once their skills and regular melee keep missing and their stats go down further. At that point... dagger ends up doing as much or more damage than pincer or drum.

Mace also still has the age old issue of potentially KOing people and allowing your target to escape, but that's probably a minor issue compared to the rest. It seems to me if weapon parry orders were put back where they were and the rest of the tweaks made since then were left alone it would be an interesting experiment. But certain legacies (naturally) are exacerbating this situation horribly and the counters aren't powerful enough now, especially in comparison to the other situations you're going to face.

So, I looked up warriors with a large number of PKs, counting only current characters. There are eight with 40+, then a bigger dropoff before you get to #9.

Precisely one is a dagger spec. The breakdown (15 total, since one is under 40): 5 sword, 3 HTH, 2 axe, 2 whip/flail, 1 mace, 1 spear/staff, 1 dagger, 0 polearm.

So it's hard to make the case that an elite cadre of dagger specs are taking over. Of those eight, four are DEX-y builds, four are low DEX. One dagger spec is dishing out a lot of hurt, but his overall stats are similar to the top guy with a power build. The composite PK number of the four DEX-y guys are very similar to the composite PK numbers of the four STR-y guys.

Dagger spec is becoming a more popular pick (only for DEX-y builds), which certainly can be the result of player perception, but it certainly doesn't look like it's distorting the field of play.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Are these all heroes? How many have STSF (and not just the dagger specs)? Are the win-loss ration's also comparative? Thanks!

Thanks Valg. I just appreciate you taking a moment to look into a perception of imbalance and share what you find.

Though, I think the question implied that daggers are best for killing mages, which certainly seems to be the case from experience. Whether it should be or not, is another question.

Say, 8 to 10 months ago?

At one point I know I was swatting dagger specs around for about 75% of my damned battles as Drezen. However, this was also when STSF was a big craze, and the two tend to go together like PB&J.

This does suggest that daggers aren't as prevalent as the poster claims, but you have to admit it's not really conclusive. Maybe the set of players capable of running decent warriors just aren't playing dagger specs at the moment?

It's pretty clear that the one dagger spec in that list is the cause of all this angst, so it might be more helpful to consider it a complaint about "dagger+stsf" instead of dagger specs as a whole.

I saw "dexy dagger spec guy" fight "big sword guy" to a draw, forcing sword-guy to retreat. And sword-guy had vastly superior gear.

Back when Hunsobo was around, Queliryon killed him solo. And Hunsobo, like sword-guy above, was wearing freaky-good gear, had empire powers, had a bunch of edges, etc.

If it was just that dagger+stsf gave you the ability to run a lot of people off, but not seal kills, then I'm guessing nobody would complain. The flee prevention, for me, is what might bump it over into the "icky" category. Basically it means that if you can't kill the guy in the first 6 rounds or so, and you can't word/vanish out of combat, then you had better just avoid him altogether.

What I think would be interesting is to keep the player constant, then see how deathful he could be with each build.

Xinrithil had 4 legacies including STSF with daggers and killed two-thirds of what Queliryon did. Xinrithil also had 7 times the hours of Queliryon. Crunching it anymore isn't going to change things. Some players are just better pkers than others.

Well, yeah. Xinrithil also didn't use potions, so he died alot. And no offense to Xinrithil, but he's not Nep. Then again, are we really going to say Nep totally outclasses Twist when it comes to player skill, and that that's the reason Queliryon was able to beat Hunsobo? Or, similarly, that current-dagger-stsf guy's "victory" over current-fire-sword-guy was due to a big difference in player skill?

Now you can certainly argue that head-to-head matchup is a sort of meaningless metric, since maybe fire-sword-guy matches up better against all his other enemies than dagger-stsf-guy would against those same builds. I'm not entirely sure I'd agree (would have to think about it), but if true, that would mitigate the head-to-head thing.

Truth be told, I have never played at their level. I wouldn't be surprised if Queliryon was Nep, but, I have never heard him say to me it was him. Not having seen the fight between Hunsobo and Queliryon, I don't know if it about a total outclass or if it was just one of the few Hunsobo losses in pk.

And that's why saying one class totally outclasses another is a fallacy. Hunsobo died more than once, but, using one instance to say that there is a balance issue is kind of bleh. The numbers just don't support it.

As for Xinrithil not using potions...well, we can use reasons for every pk situation, can't we?

Saying potion usage doesn't matter to a non-rager warrior is like saying sanctuary is optional as a healer. Its a significant handicap.

...
>again, are we really going to say Nep totally outclasses Twist
>when it comes to player skill,

Yep. Nep will disagree, but he's definitely way more skilled at Pk than I am. I handily defeat him in the re-gearing-after-a-semi-full-loot department though.

...
and that that's the reason
>Queliryon was able to beat Hunsobo?

As for the Queliryon fights, a big part was that I was too much of a headcase after fighting Q a couple of times, so I did stupid #### like forget to use a gem of protection. Also, it wouldn't have been that hard for Hunsobo to carry around a couple of highish-avg iron swords and flurry the moment Q came at him for the first time. If only I'd played Feilinal (against an Igbah-ish char) first, I'd probably not have feared elf dagger specs as much.

FWIW, If I hadn't known that Kyraea wasn't STSF, I'd have sworn she was, for how much she kicked my ass with daggers (and axes!).

On the other hand, poor Xinrithil WAS STSF/dagger, and yet I (sorry Xin) beat him down almost every time.

I honestly think a large part of the fights were based on how quickly I could dish out damage and how well my bashes worked. If I bashed well (which I always seemed to against Xin), there were no dagger maledicts, so they didn't suddenly go ape#### on me with concealeds. If I didn't bash well, a couple maledicts later I had 10 dex (or worse) and I'd eat two rounds of five MASSACRES (at a minimum) because I was swinging so often with imperial offense.

Also using weapons I wasn't resistant to (lightforged/wrath) as opposed to the standard "pierce" damage message of Xin's weapon helped too.


Or, similarly, that
>current-dagger-stsf guy's "victory" over
>current-fire-sword-guy was due to a big difference in player
>skill?

Can't comment on that. Both are very skilled players. I think the one guy's built is definitely better suited to win that matchup (and by "win" I mean "drive the other guy off or kill him").


>Now you can certainly argue that head-to-head matchup is a
>sort of meaningless metric, since maybe fire-sword-guy matches
>up better against all his other enemies than dagger-stsf-guy
>would against those same builds. I'm not entirely sure I'd
>agree (would have to think about it), but if true, that would
>mitigate the head-to-head thing.


One reason I made Feilinal spear/whip instead of dagger/whip was leveling. Dagger specs are very good in PK, but an uncaballed spear spec will level faster/better than an uncaballed dagger spec, in my experience. I think this has to be brought into consideration. Also, I knew I'd be raiding Tribs/Empire often at hero, and wanted a "tank" spec for that.

Spear was also extremely handy for taking out necros with large armies. They couldn't touch me with a spear, but as soon as I switched to anything else (even sword/shield), I got smacked a lot.

All that being said, I do think I'd have had a lot more pkwins if I'd gone dagger instead of spear. But the char might not have even made it to hero (I might have lost interest in attempting to level up).


Hunsobo had upwards of 100 dam at times in his life (with various sups, preps, and big damagesuits). Find an elf/delf STSF with 50 dam and you've found a pretty buffed out elf/delf. Who probably has 900hp with eq.

As Hunsobo I *hated* the evade changes when they came in. As Feilinal, I had the highest percentage in evade than any mortal has had so far, I believe (94%). And if it fired once in 1/5 fights with Igbah, I was lucky (I always had to scamper away too fast for any charges to build up). A lot of other fights went like this too.

Here's what I take away from this:

You got evade to 94% !?!?

Comparing Hunsobo to Queliryon, or current-dagger-guy to current-sword-guy, the difference seems to be that they just match up better against different people. Against people you can bash, I'm giving the nod to the Hunsobo build. With that much offense, more often than not dude is dead before you finish bashing.

Dagger-stsf-guy, on the other hand, is going to get more sneaky kills where someone stays a little too long in combat and suddenly finds he can't flee. Or, is surprised by the sudden upswing in damage output once the legacy gets fully charged up. If he can muster enough defense, which current-dagger-guy can, then in order for anyone to actually *kill* him they have to stick around for a lengthy fight, which means they'll wind up heavily maledicted fighting a guy w/ charged up stsf.

Yeah 94% evade. That was actually the worst part about deleting the char. I couldn't help but think "you'll never play a char with evade this high again."

Two times I got 4 (FOUR!) % on evade for an xpadd. And that was after it'd gone up to 84ish via levelling etc.

As for daggerSTSF vs. Hunsobo, there's no doubt in my mind it's easier to rack up a lot of kills with a Hunsobobuild.

There's also no doubt in my mind that it's easier to solo-kill a very skilled player with a daggerSTSF char. Also easier to use that char to seige-raid (as opposed to Hunsobo's preferred blitzkrieg-raids).

...because on my giants, I swear one out of five commands would get evaded, and it would always be the important ones. Then I play a drow and I swear I evaded three things in about 75 pk fights. With evade at 83 or whatever. ####, my last fight I had a dwarf evade stuff and I didn't evade anything I have come to the conclusion that Valg is jealous of my encyclopedic knowledge of the Sports Guy and has set my luck stat on all my chars to -469.

That's a big handicap.

Looking at the numbers doesn't mean a lot. Some people just choose to pk strong people exclusively, which immediately cuts down on your options.

Xinrithil had 4 legacies including STSF with daggers and killed two-thirds of what Queliryon did. Xinrithil also had 7 times the hours of Queliryon. Crunching it anymore isn't going to change things. Some players are just better pkers than others.

I used only non-magic flagged, non-maladicting preps/items for about 600 hours of my character's life, but there were several things that contributed to my character dying so often that are not necessarily pk incompetence.

1) True, I am not a pk elite, but that means not only that if I'm paired with similarly geared vet that I'm more likely to lose, but also that I'm LESS likely to have comparable gear to begin with.

Relating to gear, my anti-magic role meant I had to turn down gear that would would have made my life easier, such as Heartseeker, Redemption, and helm of brilliance. My leader weapon was the best weapon I found that I could use (and keep) but as Twist pointed out piercing damage was sub-optimal against a fire giant. I wielded poison daggers a few times, but those I personally found which did adequate damage (20+) were, of course, iron or evil.

2) The absence of potions meant not only did I have poorer offense and defense than my opponents, but it was far more difficult for me to get away than it needed to be.

3) Because Xinrithil was by role self-hating with suicidal tendencies and worshiped a goddess who was sphere courage, I felt bound to try to defend against people and groups whom I knew would most likely kill me. A more self-preserving character would not willingly wade in against Hunsobo, Waserax, Ktaar, and a bard/healer or against Pissudin, Iukulli, and Ithulzin, but I repeatedly took this imprudent course. I also attempted counter-raids I wouldn't normally do because I felt my role required it of me. I recall one tribunal (Ithulzin? Nuhol?) who said, "Would you quit littering our streets with your corpse?"

4) For a good portion of Xin's life, It seemed as though the only enemy who couldn't routinely see me during the odd moments we had the Fetish was Waserax. At one time, there were three hero-level Tribunal shapeshifters, and an active emperor and shadowlord who could negate a strong life-preserving cabal power without even "risking" a cabal raid. To be fair to them, if my enemies had been arseholes my pk stats would have been much, much worse.

5) By going daggers/hands, Xin could not put up as strong a defense as he could have if he had gone sword. I also chose Surrounding the Sunrise because I was frequently fighting multiple opponents, but against players Landslide is a far better way to land kills. For what its worth, I did kill far more healers and shamans with this character than I have with other builds, but only when I shifted from daggers to hands mid combat and they didn't use the elite's strategy of bailing early if the fight looked close.

6) Outlander healing is slightly more difficult than for every cabal but Battle, and even more so when you are a dodge-dependent build.

Quite honestly, I think I could have done much better as a dagger/STSF than I did without the legacy loving I got if the stars were aligned differently. Daggers and STSF are that cool.

---------------------------

Ok, now that I'm no longer sobbing uncontrollably because I've created justifications for my suckiness to that big meany Lyr, I'm surprised no one has mentioned creating computer models for either testing class balance and tactics in a controlled fashion.

At the very least, it would probably set a few minds at ease if the staff would say something like, "Nep and Twist, wearing similar gear and using similar preps, have fought each other repeatedly on the test port with the character builds in question, and yes these builds are roughly equal. Skill and gear are creating the disparities the playerbase believes it perceives." Simply jumping to the disclaimer of "skill makes the difference" without the preamble leaves the disgruntled with a feeling that someone is blowing smoke, even when they know deep down that what you are saying is true.

I suspect that what people are griping about is that historically, fire giant sword specs with top-of-the-line gear and Greeting meant "I win." Although Greeting is still a viable option, there are other builds available now that can provide positive win ratios.

Let's not forget that there were a lot of people who died to Hunsobo, but a relative small number who killed him, and Xinrithil is on that list.

Let's not forget the insanely ####ing aggravating fight where Xinrithil retrieved the Fetish from Tribs with Hunsobo helping to guard and Kholav healing/sancing both Hunsobo and the Captain.

All that being said, there's a reason that Twist revealed himself to Xinrithil and showed him that magic isn't all that bad.

.

I currently have an axe user, and I have been raped by dagger specs even if I have a significant level advantage. Something else to note is that I have had fights with bards, muters, and assassins, and only hit them once the entire fight while dual wielding axes. My hit roll was 34, and most of them I had a level advantage on. The muter was hitting me 3 times per round, and I hit them once the entire fight. The bard I only hit with one melee hit, and he evaded 2 out of my 3 skill attempts.

level advantage plays that much a part in landing skills in melee fights. At least not to the extent your post implies.

Not skill successes.

.

You've got a few extra levels' worth of hit points as your advantage there. Possibly you've got some extra skills because of the higher levels. That's about it.

I wouldn't say the Dex/hitroll changes boosted dagger as much as nerfed low/avg dex warriors who would rely on Mace/Axe/Polearm. I had an awesome idea for a dwarf axe/mace but would probably never play them because they would just get slapped down by dagger specs and other high dex warriors/assassins. I think it's kind of silly that Dex is now much more important then strength as a warrior.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

I'd like to see some older abilities gain a -DEX slant. Examples: Overhead (I'd sure be slowing down a step or two after getting hit with that), jab (-1 for 2 hours - stackable), leverage (-4 for an hour or two), vital (change syntax to target like 'hurl' - alternating affects).

These are just a few melee ones I can think of. Here's some other loosely associated thoughts:

Necromancers need some kind of Decripify spell that hits for medium to medium-high damage when the -DEX maledict lands. After that, damage is low. Could toss an edge in there to tweak the spell so that it causes a slow-like affect for a brief period. Or maybe movement drain.

Shamen NEED a way to deal with dex. This is an antiquated ability-tree that needs to get with the times. For a simple fix, let wither be targetable to legs or torso, with respective stat loss.

-DEX on a dex-based build (arial dagger/whip spec, let's say) should be as bad for them as -STR is to a str-based build (fire axe/polearm, let's say). Does anyone think this is currently the case? I don't.

Of adding some -dex or even -hit roll to some abilities. There's almost nothing out there that adds -hit or damage roll. I could see some edges for something like boneshatter, whirl, and so-forth, that add -hit/dam roll, which wouldn't be overpowered.

I like the idea of jab adding some stackable negative dex.

There's an edge for wither to nuke some dexterity. But you're right, shamans need something. Maybe not a revamp. But look at some of the abilities they get and tweak them some.

that sounds more necro-y

We've thrown around ideas like this before. A few classes make sense, and several of them have issues where we don't want to just give them the straight-up equivalent of Weaken. Shamans (*) are higher on that list, since unlike several other classes they don't have good options available. (i.e. As a warrior, your specific character might not have a -DEX option, but that's a consequence of tradeoffs you made.)

One other thing to keep in mind about the maledictions, however, is that -STR is good against almost everyone. -DEX has lower (but no longer insignificant) utility against mages, priests, and clunky characters of any class.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): Not "shamen"! Ack!

(*): Not "shamen"! Ack!

Dammit! I deleted and re-entering that like 3 times and couldn't decide if it was the right plural form. May the God of Puns and Typos (George Carlin) strike me dead!


And I hear you about the warrior thing, but how about necromancers? Those two classes are (or should be, imho) the top dogs when it comes to physical malediction. One might argue that a necromancer with dex-nukage available would just own people with zombies...however, in my experience using zombies I noticed that certain builds are just going to get nailed no matter what, and most others (namely dexy warriors, bards, assassins) tank the holy crap out of them. So, giving a moderate method of taking dex (aside from ghoulish numbing...if it even does a mentionable amount, or any at all) would not make bad zombie-horde fighters worse off, really, since their dex didn't help them anyway. What it WOULD do is make the dex classes a little less ridiculous against those same undead.

Necromancers still handle decay and death related maledictions - something like hobble fits quite well, it's a one-shot dex maledict that relies on a save just like weaken. It's not stackable but it's a decent dent on a dex-specs moves. The only problem I foresee is it being difficult to remove. Weaken has all sorts of skills that are clued in to remove it other than cancel, like poultice and holy strength, and new maledicts start circling those old counters - making them a bit more potent than you'd actually want.

Necromancers Power Word Decay handles physical stats nicely, but it also seemed kinda broken and inedequate every time Satebos landed it on me. It didn't progress once for the entire duration I had it, but because I stayed mostly about 50% health I couldn't tell if it was a bug or not. Between a power word decay that works better than -1 for 50 hours, and just a simple 'hobble' spell the necromancer would look alright. They also feel like a class that should gain some form of -chr malediction. Death and Decay is consistantly ugly and inflicting it upon others must have some kind of degenerative affect on their appearance. Crimson scourge should probably do this - though I understand if people want to jump in and say 'It doesn't do enough?! Game Balance!!'.

The shaman looks so outdated it's nutsy. Although arguably damnation 'covers everything' they lack specific maledictions in everything bar strength. Looking at the erode confidence edge, it gave me the idea that a fanatic like that would look pretty good with some kind of Morale denting ability. Maybe built into their Warcry as an edge, or added to Dispel-Align to give it more focus than just damage.

As <shaman>'s prayer strikes, you feel hopelessness sets in.

Or for Dispel evil...

As <shaman>'s prayer strikes, a wash of regret overcomes you.

I've also been thinking about Fatigue and updating it. Currently, it's misleadingly advertised as tiring the body when I don't think I've ever lost moves to it. The Watcher did it a fair bit and I remember one time there was a 'sheen of sweat' echo on someone once but it seems more like an exceedingly rare occurance than the -purpose- of the spell. Considering it's cost versus similar damage spells, that seems a bit harsh. You could edge it up, but there's a point you reach where 'edging up' entire skills doesn't really address the core problems of basic balance. Taking the Wither edge as an example, it forces a person to spam-practice wither high enough to take it - and then save edge points in order to alter it. Why is this cost being associated with something that was made to aid basic game balance? No one really wants to land people with -age anyway, and wither was like 200 mana (and rot was like 50? Wtf!! Switch the costs!). A pretty hefty price for what I usually get on me (If equal in level - consistantly -10 strength, even -5 if I've got divine saves). I'd like to ask the imms to discuss just making the edgified version standard.

I have absolutely not ideas on how to add more -dex to them unfortunately. But it'd be awesome to see something better than the generic 'curse, blind, poison, plague' set. Le Yawn.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy.

Yhorian

Alot of this is pretty right on in my opinion. Having just played a dagger spec (wasn't even STSF) I can agree that it is a kick ass spec. Yes, artery + hurl will do -12 to 13 str, however, if you add in the poison dagger thats is another -5 str and then get the right stab + twist is EVEN more -str loss plus great damage. Quite often I would start hurl, artery and stab which can all be done in 3 rounds of combat and result in MASSIVE strength loss and heavy damage.

The only thing that dagger specs are really lacking is the ability to lag and seal a kill, but, sometimes heavy bleeding will take care of that. Then I don't need to mention the -dex from hamstring that lets you hit more, dodge more and get more concealeds.

I hear people say well, daggers are easy to disarm. I really don't think that this defense works very well. To start by the time you dirt/disarm they already have at least two skills off on you and since most dagger specs worth their salt carry multiple daggers they will just flee, rearm and come at you again. Another idea would be to maybe permalag the dagger spec, which is difficult to do in itself. Chances are that if you go this route you are slower than the dagger spec and run the risk of just getting concealed to death while not hitting them much. I know that daggers don't parry well, but, sometimes it sure doesn't seem like it. Basically, the dagger spec can usually hack you up quick enough that you couldn't hit a turtle crossing the road.

I am not saying that daggers specs are impossible to fight. They are merely very formiddable, however, add STSF into the mix and they become a ####ing nightmare. I completely regret not taking the legacy with my last dagger spec!

A lot of your assumptions here of how things work don't bear out.

Well, what else do I have to go on? Assumptions through experience. I don't have access to code like you do or have access to the creative process that goes into designing these skills. All that I know is that skill X does Y and take Z long to complete and I plan my strategy around that. Sometimes I have to refer to these forums for the opinion of other players who expound on their experience just the same as I just did. I am sure I was wrong on some detail, technical or not. I will admit that I wish I knew the mechanics of the game better, however, I repeat once again that experience guides me. So, I humbly ask that you explain to me why I carry false assumptions?

A couple things

First off, what dagger spec skill is one round besides artery? I'd like to know, because maybe I missed using it or it wasn't in my skill list?

Every dagger spec skill, top to bottom, except concealed, requires that you hit, or you get hit.

Most dagger specs are incapable of bashing because they are dexterity reliant, and don't usually carry much weight. So if you aren't flying against a dagger spec, you're either A) noob or B) stupid. If you clearly aren't winning by 50-60% of your own hps, then you need to leave the fight and try again another day.

If dagger specs don't tank while leveling up, then good, they will have a ####ty concealed percentage then. 75% concealed pales in comparison to 85% or 95%.



I think what really gives dagger spec's the upper hand, is iron poisonous daggers that reliably poison on almost the first strike. Their strength loss -really- isn't that significant. Artery is -6, torso is -6. That makes 12. Boneshatter is 10 or 12, and it gets that in one shot, instead of two separate skills. What really skews it is the poison, which adds -5 or -6. -18 strength loss is a lot (I MEAN A LOT!) more greivous than -12. At -18, you're dropping your weapon, unless you have some serious strength boost (e.g. giant strength, +strength gear).

The bleeding damage every tick from hurl torso, artery (if bleeding lands) and hamstring, plus poison, is roughly 150hps on an unprotected opponent. That's just stupid.



I think dagger specs are fine as they are mostly. They still get hosed in fights. They aren't the "I win" button at all.

But I think the poisoning daggers need to be nerfed and the bleeding toned down.

Hurl, and artery both make rather nice one round openers.

Furthermore artery does a ####load of damage + str loss + bleeding all in one move.

So yes, dagger specs have rather nice openers (hamstring included)... and if they want to backstab like a thief all they have to do is figure out a way to get the opponent to sleep and then use underhand. I haven't seen this tactic used much (likely because the multiple underhand hits are so unreliable it's easier just to use artery or hamstring or hurl)

but the bleeding and poison bit is spot on as well and coupled with concealed is what allows the dagger's "dps" to match up to what axe and mace used to be and exceed it now.

In comparison, an assassin's openers are strangle and blindness dust. They also have poison darts which is a hell of alot more limited than most dagger strategies.

Seriously, who opens with hurl? I think the only time it's a good option is against a polearm specialist. Otherwise, I'm opening with hamstring if I'm fighting a melee class.

Hurl first looks better in some situatons, but not very many. In combat, hurl is two rounds of lag. Hamstring + artery + hurl = 5 rounds, for a total of 7 rounds of combat before you're out of lag to do something else, assuming they all hit and hit in sequence. Boneshatter + whirl or boneshatter + impale = 3 or possibly 4 rounds, for a total of 5 or 6 rounds before you're out of lag.

Again, my argument is and always will be the blood loss. I explained better under LastMohican's post.

Personally, I like that bash is no longer the I win button, and evade has also weakened the tendency for every warrior out there competing for a flails. It does seem like daggers are in vogue, though, despite the dominant force Hunsobo was and Igbah is. Apparently gear and preppage do matter.

<i>Seriously, who opens with hurl? I think the only time it's a good option is against a polearm specialist. Otherwise, I'm opening with hamstring if I'm fighting a melee class.</i?

I liked hurl as an opener for someone who didn't gear for strength or on someone whom I wanted to target shoulder or throat. Guaranteed blood loss, unlike artery, was a selling point too.

Hamstring I reserve as an opener only for characters who were dex reliant like other dagger specs, thieves, and assassins or those I wanted running away. Otherwise I save the hamstring for a flee;hamstring manuever after the melee opponent is wounded enough he might soon think about making a run for it.

Poison daggers are very, very wicked in a dagger specialist's hands and give a huge weapon advantage to non-elves/non-goods. Get rid of poison weapons or make them available across the race and alignment spectrum.

I'd open with hurl rather than hamstring against most melee classes. I'm also the type of guy though that'd prefer they keep their weapons but rarely hit me than drop their weapons and word. Hurl forearm is very nice and hurl torso is obviously good if you want to get them bleeding fast.

It all depends on your style and your victim's styles. If you're going against skilled people they aren't going to stick around if its obvious they are losing. Sometimes it makes sense to do hamstring/artery/etc, other times it makes sense to just do hurl/stab/trip.

The biggest problem with dagger specs is that the changes the IMMs made to make them more viable at low ranges (where honestly, I'd still rather have a giant sword spec) now make them really really buff at hero. Like, really really buff. I'm talking about evade and dex/hitroll changes of course.

You can gear for str/dex very, very easily. Especially at hero. I'll agree this can be a much more difficult task at level 20-40.

But if you're a class without damage reduction, your largest concern isn't going to be killing a dagger spec or worrying about stat loss. It's going to be bloos loss. And I am speaking from the dagger spec side of things (recently played Vyborny, and played Noelani and Yvalthras in the past). Blood loss won me a lot of fights I probably shouldn't have. The only characters that really stood no chance against me as a dagger specialist, are Orcs and non-berserker warriors who wielded heavy weapons (axe, mace, polearm mostly), and thieves. All mages have damage reduction to deal with blood loss and don't have to worry as much about stat loss as melee classes. Paladins and shamans can heal themselves and survive blood loss, not to mention sanctuary. Rangers can use staves and scrolls (for the most part) and have herbs, so they don't have to worry as much about blood loss.

Look at any dagger specialist PBF. The majority of their wins are going to be against warriors. Why? Blood loss.

I don't buy into the stat loss argument.

Also, there was a cloud giant sword spec who came and killed Vyborny in the Forbidden Forest for some reason. I never even touched him, and this was at level 25. He bashed me two times and I was dead. Dagger spec's haven't really gained a lot in the low levels either.

Everyone's "most kills" are against warriors. That's simply because warriors are the most popular class, hands down and have the least defense/utility (no hide, no heal, no dam redux).

I tend to agree that the iron poison dagger is stupid. I dislike the idea of the popularity of that weapon. The poisoning sword isn't as much of a big deal since sword specs don't have any other maledictions to stack with it.

On the whole though I don't find dagger specs any scarier than whip, axe or sword specs - depending on what I'm playing. As a shaman maybe, but that's obvious because shaman's are based purely on maledicting strength which is moot when the user can never drop their weapon because of strength loss (less than 3lbs weapons). Likewise they don't get dagger, bleeding hampers them a lot and they can't lag. Its pretty much a shoe-in for an easy victory for the dagger spec.

That being said, on the whole, dagger specs don't scare me very much.

>Look at any dagger specialist PBF. The majority of their wins
>are going to be against warriors. Why? Blood loss.

Blood loss kills are actually pretty rare. Healers are cheap and plentiful.

I mean, yeah, newbies die that way, but they die a lot more to bash. Some kinds of Battle and to some degree Outlanders take it in the pants that way because of their harder healer access, but even that's rarer than you might think.

Initiating a fight with a hurl causes it to be only one round of lag. So, you get hurl stat loss plus a following artery (usually the way I started). That hurts!



This might also be true for hamstring...I can't recall.