Where is the Good alignment equivalent to the lich or uber-AP? No, this question isn't new, but it needs a new answer. I'm tired of seeing single characters face off against 3-4-5 or even 7-8 opponents and hold their own. Is it a testament to their skill? Maybe. More likely, it's a testament to the nature of the character they are playing. And I'm aware of the drawbacks of each class. I know just how limited their powers can be at times or due to circumstances. I even know that despite their strength, they're still beatable. But as a player, I find it ridiculous that a single player can so dominate the game without there being some form of counterbalance available to the opposite alignment. And using numbers isn't the answer. It's an escape.


The truth is, these characters don't die unless they accept the challenge of facing odds that are as ridiculous as the powers they are able to acquire. Not one opposite alignment class has such power available to them. At some point, they all peak at a level far below the heights to which these two classes can aspire.

Sadly, this comes at a time when most evil players are grumbling about the fortress numbers and goodie gank squads...oh well. My question stands.

People complained that they couldn't beat my ap when they came in numbers against me.

In the end, I died to a single person.

Ganking is not the answer in most cases, since people in a gank tend to start using poor tactics and all just try and lag. Cunning/betrayal is.

Nor do I think there needs to be to make the game interesting. Lots of good points below, I'll just add this one that came to mind:

AP / lich, potentially, won't have any allies at all. Put a different way, they could easily have everyone in their range gunning for them, all the time. Including each other. Given that one of the best ways to die is to make a mistake at a bad time, your chances of doing so are much higher playing one of those two classes.

Goodies don't have that particular problem.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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

>AP / lich, potentially, won't have any allies at all.

Have you grouped with other goods? That's not necessarily a disadvantage.

By and large you agree with me on points when it comes to Good vs Evil. But somehow you at least appear to come to the conclusion that goodies are fine underpowered because the assumed team work aspect is a bigger advantage than it is disadvantage. I haven't honestly played that many evil heroes (evil roleplay has always been hard for me) but I've played enough to know that whatever backstabbery you seem to imagine is all over the place (And honestly, I've experienced so little true backstabbery. Perhaps ONCE, and it was a neutral who did it) - is nothing compared to what a Goodie sees between plain bad allies, pk-bent neutrals and the massive evils who have lackeys in tow. I'd even go to the point of saying I had far better and more reliable friends with my evil characters than with my good.

So I have to ask... is there some kind of bonus coming for goodies? Can we see a Heaven (or even a goodie path in hell) implemented so they can actually use their superior explore abilities? Is there any plan to add some awesome good-only items to even it up between the two sides? How about re-looking at paladin edges, and throwing in some nice ones designed specifically for combatting huge, super APs and phylactery rich Lichs?

I'm just curious if this is one of those things someone else is bothered about, or if I'm doomed to wallow in frustration. I think the worst part is, when I play a neutral and do kill a Good-align - I actually feel pity knowing how much better off I am than them. In every way. Please ease my hurt

Yhorian

Edit: Also, RE:Kasty, a bigger PK range is really not a problem nowadays. It just increases the number of people I can pick on for charges/phylacs. I think the idea that Evils gain a lot from mass-murder (sweet loot, added power and prestige) and Goodies generally don't (no added power, loot tends to be evil-only) means a larger roleplayable pk range is a neat thing. Especially as numbers decline. I learned with Klurak that if I had more people to fight, it just meant more chances that I'd find one of them resting off my rot in an obvious place. Yay rot kills!

>So I have to ask... is there some kind of bonus coming for
>goodies?

They get better mileage out of NPC healers. (Yes, I'm just trying to get publicity for my whiney post below this one.)

Most healers are neutral, and heal Evils as well as Goodies.

There are still goodie-align healers that will heal evils in-game, for the full 100hp heal. Though two of them that I know no longer will. (Voralia and Darsylon)

Goodies who play REAL goodies, don't heal at evil healers. But they can, if they want the same crappy healing as any other evil.

The difference is marginal. If you recall to an evil healer, use it to boost you above safe and walk to a neutral or goodie healer. If you recall to Udgaard, that's just your problem. ALL other evil recalls have a neutral healer you can use nearby.

Maybe I misunderstand it then. I thought "anything healing an evil" was always substandard to "goodie healing a non-evil". Guess I should go read the help files again.

I really don't think that's much of an answer. Their respective skill sets/class specifics are designed to take on absurd odds, which they typically do readily, and with impressive levels of success. To have your entire range after you (which is a bit lower than say...what Ist, Dullameh, or Zorsz faced) isn't overly threatening, considering. And again, Nep is right in pointing out that having groupmates doesn't necessarily make things alright as a goodie, either.

As far as waiting for mistakes: A good, careful player isn't going to make those very often. Knowing when to capitalize on those often isn't as apparent or viable as you seem to think. Relying on luck, mistakes from your opponent, and the right combination of charcters online isn't my idea of a good, fun competition. Maybe I should go find a game that allows my skill to compete against my opponent's skill, instead of my luck against their skill...

And at the end of the day, my entire argument is based on the fact that if you're going to allow one alignment to reach ridiculous peaks, for the sake of game balance, there should be an antithetical equivalent (with similar drawbacks and consequences, etc). You say you don't need that to make the game interesting. I say you're wrong, and you're going to need change or you'll continue losing players who grow bored with fighting losing battles resulting from class/alignment imbalance.

I really don't think that's much of an answer.

You asked if there was an equivalent; I told you there wasn't.

Their respective skill sets/class specifics are designed to take on absurd odds, which they typically do readily, and with impressive levels of success.

And yet, they still get killed. Sometimes solo, sometimes in groups, sometimes when they make a mistake, sometimes when their enemies are just smarter than they are.

As far as waiting for mistakes: A good, careful player isn't going to make those very often. Knowing when to capitalize on those often isn't as apparent or viable as you seem to think.

Regardless, it happens. Don't forget, you can engineer situations that increase your chances of your enemy making a mistake.

Relying on luck, mistakes from your opponent, and the right combination of charcters online isn't my idea of a good, fun competition.

Right on. Though I could argue that luck, mistakes from your opponent and the right combination of characters online affects every aspect of PK in the game.

Maybe I should go find a game that allows my skill to compete against my opponent's skill, instead of my luck against their skill...

Maybe I should have changed my post to read: "You are absolutely correct, there is no good-aligned equivalent to a lich or AP, we're going to go ahead and design one and get it implemented ASAP." And then not done jack ####.

These posts just bug me. So you're basically saying that because once in a blue moon a lich or powerful AP shows up and you feel like you need luck to deal with it rather than figure out the weaknesses of those characters (and they exist, trust me) and exploit them, either alone or with others, the rest of the game is completely invalid, and you're going to take your toys and go home.

Trust me, 99% of the PK encounters you'll experience in CF will be skill vs. skill. If that 1% is enough to turn you off to the game in general...well, I don't really know what to say to that.

And at the end of the day, my entire argument is based on the fact that if you're going to allow one alignment to reach ridiculous peaks, for the sake of game balance, there should be an antithetical equivalent (with similar drawbacks and consequences, etc).

And my argument was based on the fact that you don't need a good-aligned equivalent. If you want to reach ridiculous peaks of power, play a lich or uber-AP.

You say you don't need that to make the game interesting. I say you're wrong

Right on. Opinions are good things.

and you're going to need change or you'll continue losing players who grow bored with fighting losing battles resulting from class/alignment imbalance.

Though I haven't seen the list, I seriously doubt reason #1 we lose players is because of this perceived imbalance. On the contrary, I think it motivates the hell out of people to go roll up their own lich or uber-AP. It sure as hell did that for me.

And, having played a lich, uber-AP and semi-tough paladin, I stand by my opinions on this subject. But like the subject says, YMMV.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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

Maybe I should have changed my post to read: "You are absolutely correct, there is no good-aligned equivalent to a lich or AP, we're going to go ahead and design one and get it implemented ASAP." And then not done jack ####.

These posts just bug me. So you're basically saying that because once in a blue moon a lich or powerful AP shows up and you feel like you need luck to deal with it rather than figure out the weaknesses of those characters (and they exist, trust me) and exploit them, either alone or with others, the rest of the game is completely invalid, and you're going to take your toys and go home.

Trust me, 99% of the PK encounters you'll experience in CF will be skill vs. skill. If that 1% is enough to turn you off to the game in general...well, I don't really know what to say to that.

I don't need immediate gratification. Nor did I intend to get under your skin, but I'm not going to apologize for it, either. You assume I don't know the weaknesses of a particular class. I don't know everything, but I've been around long enough to experience most of the liches and power APs that have passed through the game. I've learned a thing or two over the years.

I'm not saying the rest of the game is invalid because I dislike the imbalance between particular class peaks, just that it simply loses meaning (to me) to continue competing in a game where first place/top dog/king kahuna is allocated to a specific class and you can only aspire to that position with lots of help from others (whereas they are capable of taking and maintaining it alone), or when those top players leave due to boredom. And even then, you share that spot with a multitude of other people from different class/alignment combinations.

It's more than 1% of the fights that have an outcome determined less by player skill than class discrepancies and imbalances. I just picked the ones that stood out from my perspective, in my gaming experience. And for the record, it'd be more like me just saying, "Hey, I don't like this game anymore, I'm leaving. Take your ball and go #### yourself." The court and toys are yours, I'm just here using what you provide.

I don't need immediate gratification. Nor did I intend to get under your skin, but I'm not going to apologize for it, either. You assume I don't know the weaknesses of a particular class. I don't know everything, but I've been around long enough to experience most of the liches and power APs that have passed through the game. I've learned a thing or two over the years.

Your characters are, as a group, less than 50% against the field. You had some success with Gnarugk, but it's pretty clear that you have a lot to learn, especially at the higher ranks.

Kasty gave you the answer to your question: There isn't a mirror-image good class, and coming from his perspective of someone who played very notable characters of the sort you're talking about, you're overestimating them.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Dude, the only problem I had with my mediocre lich was Solasarath (and I still think some shady #### was happening for him to find me as he did...but whatever), and that was temporary. I stuck it out long enough to build up phylacs and a gear set, and at that point I am positive there was no way I was going down. I don't care who was coming at me. I'm not saying that to be boastful...I just know how #### works, generally, and I can weigh odds well enough.

On the other hand, fighting a competent, virtued paladin with anything other than a sick evil mage/AP will feel equally slanted (even though it probably isn't half as bad).

If there were a goodie equivalent to a lich (and some paladins get mighty close...until they meet a tough lich), I'd say that a grouping restriction/ban would need to be imposed upon them in the same way that they are imposed upon liches.


And no one is mentioning neutrals. Where the #### are the Grand Druids? You know, the badass, demi-god-like druids that all other druids bow down to? That'd be siiick.

Hey, you know...I bet if liches and badass AP's did not have 'sleep,' there would be far less bitching from some of the vocal minority here.

Why do I say that? See, I am pretty much where you're at on the notion that there does not need to be a direct goodie equivalent to liches and uber-ap's. However, it is this one single ability - the ability to put people to sleep - that just frustrates the #### out of people. I understand it...I've been on both ends. I've had both a lich and an AP who readily used sleep to get kills. I've also been the guy who took every possible precaution (short of tucking tail and running), went in ready to swing, and got put down by that spell.

Bottom line? It's just not fun, and there are too many ways for it to happen. I realize this is just my opinion.

My solution? Give AP's and necros something(s) to compensate for sleep. Maybe a power word stun-type thing that would operate similar to sleep, only people would see what is happening to them, and the duration would be reduced. The trade-off would be either that communication would be nixed (they are stunned, afterall), or come out garbly...not totally garbled, but messed up.

OK so I am just pulling this out of my hat without a lot of real thought put into it...but I still say sleep is the big issue at the high levels.

>Dude, the only problem I had with my mediocre lich was
>Solasarath (and I still think some shady #### was happening
>for him to find me as he did...but whatever),


The reason why you were so easy to find is because you would never sacrafice corpses. I was playing a character with locate object at the same time as Ithzaruul, as well, and you were very easy to find for the above reason. Thinking back on all my years of playing CF, I do not think there was an easier character to find (this includes Ragers).

So my suggestion is: autosac when you're not making zombies.

I hate to pass this advice on to any other necros, but hey - you've brought up the shady business enough that I thought I would help you out some

Nizarrsh Datul.

Other than that, yeah, he kept popping up everywhere I'd go (and I did sac corpses unless I was making zombies).

I don't care about it now. It's one of those things I'll just always say "yeah, that was some funky ####" about.

I remember him finding me in the Underdark Sea - and there weren't any corpses there either.

Hey, just some friendly advice, you can ignore it if you want.

(hopefully I'll be playing something other than a shaman against your next necro to make more use of it).

Giving good aligned characters an actual tangible benefit when grouped with other good aligned characters.

Since it seems one of the balancing aspects of being good is the supposed better team work that comes from working with people that you can trust then maybe it should have some actual in game advantage, since in reality I feel it has no effect. Maybe a constant moral boost while in groups or something. Or a fortress power that gives some combat bonus when working together to combat evil. This would encourage more teamwork and maybe then good characters could actually get some benefit out of having trusting allies.

Obviously it might also encourage more ganging. So maybe it would need to scale in some fashion to the strength of opposition.

Don't know if this is a good idea, but it is an idea. :-P

I think it would be good to have characters at the opposite ends of the spectrum of AP/Lich be able to reach their level of power. It would add a lot of excitement to the game if you had a situation where it was like title fight night at Madison Square Gardens. It would definately draw interest into the game from other players. I know I would personally be very interested in seeing what would happen and would want to be involved in the conflict/interaction between the two opposing sides.

Having never played a very powerful AP or Lich, it doesn't take experience to know that it takes quite a bit of skill to reach that position. Especially for the AP while building charges. However, I'd also wager that luck plays a big factor. Once at the level though, luck becomes less influential and the skill becomes magnified making the character that much tougher.

There have been enough players in this game who have played powerful APs and at least a handful of liches to think that at least someone would be able to come up with a way to exploit the weaknesses mentioned in another post, yet, I haven't seen or heard of anyone do it. Take Ravon for example, I didn't think he would ever fall to any players in the game. Am I right in remembering that he lost his weapon due to some game mechanic and not PK? I do know that alot of people got frustrated by his dominance, which made it harder to plan, organize and execute any plan that had even a small chance of success.

I think it would be good for the game if you allowed for the chance (even if it is very slim) that other characters can gain this level of power. The next time you get a super powerful AP that arises you might see people become motivated to trying to further developing their character in order to better compete instead of just seeing the whole hero range log out and go do something else.

Theoretically, Battle should be serious opposition for a lich or AP. In general cases, they aren't hunting paladins. I think that evens things up a little bit better.

To my mind Battle is Unholy fodder.

It is, and it isn't.

Battle will be some of your easiest charges; it'll also be some of your toughest and possibly fatal fights.

.

It's a lot of things.

Critical hit is also big. Not that you're ever really going to solo kill a lich with it, but...

I think it's interesting how Battle scout looks a little blah to me for most kinds of characters normally, but put a real powerhouse character in the game and suddenly it seems like one of the toughest things around.

I suppose it's a matter of figuring out how to gear for using critical hit (because the damage multiplier for it by itself isn't going to give you oblits, I figured that out on my own with my bard)

You also need to be doing enough damage that lagging yourself for two rounds for just damage is worth it or will seal you the kill. The skill can potentially do more damage than pugil or drum, but if doing damage to the opponent is an issue to begin with through all of the dam redux, it won't do much more than case people off on it's own. So basically if you're the type of player that's stuck with regear constantly, you're infinitely better off with deathblow. (except as a bard, then you're better off as a defender probably to supplement your already great healing)

Discern is nice, for those classes who still have the kind of sleep skill timers that will let you wait out prep durations. It's less useful for hiding classes or those who need a quick glance.

Think of critical hit as a really good corkscrew, or the fairly specialized tool of your choice. You can't really trim your hedges with a corkscrew, or unscrew a phillips-head screw. It's not great for pounding nails in. It probably doesn't make your top ten of things to stab people with.

As a general purpose tool, it pales in comparison to your handy leatherman or swiss army knife -- but when what you really need is the cork out of a wine bottle, it sure is nice.

Critical hit isn't great all around, but in certain situations it's the perfect tool. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen (for example) a bunch of non-Scout Battle in a fight with a powerhouse character that they're doing a pretty good job of lagging out or have trapped in some way, but they just can't put out the damage fast enough through piles of DR. Critical hit goes through that nicely.

And, hey, sometimes making the other guy run away is the only way to save your life. Critical hit looks really nice in a lot of those situations, too.

As far as discern goes, don't forget that a scout can use it to play support for their cabalmates just as a defender can use field dressing on something besides themselves. Some of the best scouts I've seen in Battle were exactly the hiding classes you think aren't very good scouts, who kept an eye on (possibly out-of-range) Battle enemies and tipped off other Battle of key moments to strike and retreat.

I agree with this, however, one issue that comes to mind with one of your points is the parity issue. I can definately see a scout being great support to another rager with the critical hit skill, but, at what cost? Is it possible? A berserker isn't going to take too kindly to a scout jumping in on their fight unless it is one of those uber powerful characters where parity takes a back seat. Alot of tough mages with good dam redux don't fall into that category, yet, would be perfect candidates for a tactic like this. Many mages are difficult to take down solo, and DR is a big part of that.

It's been my experience that most mages with DR end up retreating before they get too close to death or when they sense the battle isn't going their way (which seems to be before they are in real trouble). You can only lag someone for so long and it's difficult to get that lucky round with 2 even 3 db's that seals a kill through DR. Basically the DR affords them the time to perservere until they can escape.

Thoughts?

My favourite scout was still Ritur. As a full-thug thief, he had parting block, earclap for deafen and cheapshot all working for him. Using discern, you can time when someone's flight is about to expire and count the hours to a trip-happy death. Parting block meant you could critical hit them about gushing or so and the high-wimpy characters had a 50/50 chance of lagging themselves out while you're doing DEMOS through their protection. This is also why a lot of scouts choose polearms - high average weapons, and cut-off so that a high wimpy actually becomes a danger instead of a safety net.

I still there a neat edge to pump up critical hits damage would be nice - but it's still just a plain good skill. And you really don't need perma lag to kill a high-DR character. People put themselves in vulnerable situations sometimes in order to get something done. Other times, they're pretty determined that since you're not lagging them they can kill you first. Also, don't just think of kill-sealing. Critical hit can be used as an opener, and then a lagging move to finish - that head start is very handy against absed scions with beefy despoil HP. And the great thing about ABS is once you've dented that hp, you can run around and heal a lot faster than they can

Also, critical hit while in hell, is just so freakin' sweet. The best hell-team in the world is doubtlessly a rager combo - a berserker, scout and defender can come close to matching a healer-invoker-warrior. Doubleblock, resist with bard songs and critical hit made our hell team a winner right to the fourth circle where lack of experience killed us

Yhorian

Still my favouritist pbf comments of all time. Thank you so much for adding them mate, the memories still make me smile.

Such amazing luck, but in hindsight I shouldn't have been walking around that close to my uber-wraithform dropping.

Battle is just food for an AP or a lich.
Deathblow isn't going to kill abs guy and critical hit is a joke. You need about 10 critical hits (20 rounds) to finally bring the Ap or Lich down (assuming you and your gang doing some other damage as well), nobody goes to wait so many rounds if they are losing. And if they just can't escape for so many rounds, you don't really need critical hit, just lag them for additional 20 rounds and scratch to death.
Various goodie/outlander/scion/imperial gangs are much more dangerous for an AP or a lich. They can summon/hold/permalag you. Put you to sleep and spell up. Blackjack/dispel/summon to a trap and gang down. Whatever.
Again, battle is a joke compared to this.

I think two or three ragers permalagging and scout critical hitting in addition to that would be a tough situation for the lich.

.

Dhaevor. I mean, he almost took Zorsz solo, right? As much as I liked Challen, he was played by Zorszaul like a well used fiddle, and that was the only time it was remotely close. Because the Lich decided to make it a challenge.

I don't think there is, nor does there really need to be a good equivalent to Anti-paladins and Liches. At least not in the nornal sense of an opposing class of equal strength. The relative difficulty of creating a lich or an AP with a big unholy has worked since their inception to keep the number of these characters very low. Further, since both liches and Anti-paladins, can be quite a bit stronger then the "normal" characters and thus unbalancing, I think, limiting the number of them in the way that has been done is the only way to make it reasonably balanced.

The reason for this, in my opinion, is that super-character types are inherently unbalancing by nature and that creating more super-character types does not balance out the existing ones but creates more oppurtunity to unbalance the game.

For example, what if paladins under rare circumstances could say ascend to some form of demi-angel race with strength on par with a lich. This new super paladin would need to be just as hard to make and thus just as rare. The most likely result would be an occasional super paladin in the game, just like now there is an occasional lich or buffed AP. This does not create more balance, it just creates another character type that can unbalance the game. Instead of a lich taking on large groups of goodies you would have a super-paladin taking on large groups of evil. Both are unbalancing. It would allow for the oppurtunity for the goodies to have a super-character type, which might be a good thing, but in general less of these types of character makes the game more balanced.

Of course that is just my opinion.

I kind of like that evil role-play, with no moral limitations, is capable of achieving more power than someone who has lines they just won't cross. It forces good-aligned characters to admit that if one is willing to do "really bad" things then there is incredible power to be had.

I consider it unhealthy for a good-aligned character to be unduly disturbed by the fact that there are evil people "more powerful" than them, or "more powerful" than the "most powerful" good-aligned person they know or can imagine.

People who tamper with things that shouldn't be tampered with, like necromancy and commerce with demons, are likely to reap great benefits, at least in the short term.

Personally I like the big bad evil guys. Not because I have ever played one but it adds another dynamic to the game that I think is worth little unbalancing they may cause.

that your character cannot hold a candle to your opponent, the solution is...what?

Taking solace in the eventual damnation of your enemy? Throwing yourself at them knowing you aren't going to win unless they make a mistake and you, along with a number of your cronies (who sometimes don't have a clue what they're doing), manage to capitalize on that one mistake? At what point do you grow frustrated when you can no longer apply your skill and knowledge to create at least relatively even competition with another player?

What joy do you take from being bitch slapped and piss beaten every time you encounter an enemy? Or are you the masochistic sort who likes to say, "I like when my enemy is better than me, it represents a challenge to conquer!" even though you'll likely never achieve that goal due to the relative imbalance between your class and theirs (and if you somehow do achieve it, it's the result of someone's mistake and your having ridiculous odds, as opposed to an accomplishment based on your skill)?

>that your character cannot hold a candle to your opponent,
>the solution is...what?

Humility? I'm talking IC here. If a good-aligned character has some great crisis of faith because there are big baddies he can't go toe-to-toe with, then imho that's a flaw in that character.

>point do you grow frustrated when you can no longer apply your
>skill and knowledge to create at least relatively even
>competition with another player?

As a player I would find if frustrating. As a good-aligned character I found it lamentable, but took the attitude of "it is what it is". If I can't even engage someone solo without there being a good chance that I'll die, then I bring someone else with me to help.

>What joy do you take from being bitch slapped and piss beaten
>every time you encounter an enemy?

Did I say it was joyous? It's tough. But those are the breaks. Man up. If you're getting kicked around that badly, endeavor not to encounter that enemy. If you absolutely must, then be ready to evacuate the situation before you die.

You could just get me to come back Twisty-poo! Then you could kill me a bunch more!

Nah, EG in their day could be evil as well. Probably most were.

Case in point: Dakizar.

I mean, couldn't you make the Ehren Guard neutral/goodie only?

Then, I could definitely see a lot of the elite pk'ers playing goodies, when most won't touch a goodie (or the Fortress for that matter) with a ten-foot sword.

And yes, I know the Ehren Guard had evils too. Jeez. Just because I didn't play CF for 92347823936578962347856 years, doesn't mean I can't read the archived forums and ####.

If you're using Forceduel to avoid gangs and create a fatal Arena cage-match, most conservative players will go evil with any number of things designed to whittle down players and even forego (some) lag to abuse it. For certain levels of skill and certain playstyles this can be, and was, even better than an army of cabalmates.


That's what I got out of it anyway.

I was under the impression for a long time during the 3rd age forceduel was additionally a level 51 skill as well as an ehren skill. Was this ever the case, and if so at the time what was the rationale since legacies and warrior HP boosts didn't exist at that time?

.
>
>I was under the impression for a long time during the 3rd age
>forceduel was additionally a level 51 skill as well as an
>ehren skill. Was this ever the case, and if so at the time
>what was the rationale since legacies and warrior HP boosts
>didn't exist at that time?

Not exactly...

Ehren uncaballed heroes could use force duel on anyone.

After a while, we made it so any other hero could also force a duel on them.

But random hero couldn't force duel another random hero, just a character who could FD anyone.

I'm going to go ahead and answer for Scrimbul:

Temp/Retribution 2h elf paladin maran.

to a 200 charge AP or a lich with lots of phylacs.

I know. I was making the argument from Scrimbul's point of view. To continue in that vein...

My pally isn't totally different from a high-charge AP:

1. He's really hard to kill since he can just go into champion's stand, so you can't lag him. This is similar to how any high-powered AP worth his salt will have invokable gear that gets him out of combat. He also has sanc, which is like having A/B/S. Also, if he has the faith virtue, his sanc can't be dispelled, like A/B/S.

2. He can dish out ridiculous damage with 2h strikes, defiance progs, and prayer beads, since any two-virtued elf 2h paladin will have defiance and prayer beads.

3. He can dispel you very reliably with LotH. What anti-paladin can do that, huh?!?!?

4. With the right deity, he gets pounce. What anti-paladin can do that, huh?!?!

5. My paladin may never wear Anazu, but he gets templar's vigilance, which is even better against enemy rangers, transmuters, and assassins under some conditions.

Seriously, though...to exit Scrimbul mode...

A paladin like Lariya or Niheriva (when at his apex of power) is pretty dang hard to kill for a solo person, much like a high-power AP. They also dish out a lot of damage like a high-powered AP. Clearly there are still differences that result in the paladin not getting near as many kills.

nt

nt

comparing A-Ps and pallies is a silly game. A-P power is, again, potentially limitless. Especially an a-p with the right items. However, those items are also proportionally harder to gain (well, its mostly about area knowledge then). There's no question, however, that the three strongest a-ps have gotten between them more kills than the ten most deathful pallies ever, and eaten maybe 1/50th of the PK deaths.

A-Ps also have a lot more diversity available to them with wands and stuff, and don't have to deal with all the restrictions goodies have. Lastly, any a-p worth his salt basically has the pally dead if he lands the sleep. There are ways to do this even through eyes of flame, if the A-P knows what he's doing. Even without the sleep, A-Ps are far more dangerous than pallies. The only thing a defiance pally with prayer beads and blade gloves and the right virtues can do is output damage. Any decent a-p can output similar amounts of damage, lag, maledict, sleep, deafen, blind, plague, energy drain, etc.

I'd take an A-P over a pally in my pk group any day, except in very narrow specific situations.

Dude. You don't have to convince me.

I'm just saying that if I'm a warrior, for example, then I have about as much chance of killing Lariya in a straight up fight as I do a Cabdru or Ravon. Both have a lot of damage reduction and do a lot of damage.

Any AP worth his salt has a paladin dead if he lands the sleep?

Hardly. If the paladin is also worth his salt. I can survive being slept by Waris as a non-paladin, and I am less durable than a paladin.

Depends on where you're slept, whether you prepped for being slept, and whether the AP decides to call in reinforcements.

Sure, why not?

If you get slept on say, the eastern road, I won't deny that its entirely possible for you to escape (its also entirely possible for you not to escape, depending on class/race/cabal makeup of the a-p, and whether or not he has any friends around). However, if the a-p gets you slept in, say, Galadon and you don't have any convenient allies with the right abilities to save you (or your allies have the right abilities, but lack the skill), there is no way you are leaving the place alive.

Ultimately, there are a ton of variables in there, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that a successful a-p sleep is one of the deadliest things possible to land on a paladin, and paladins have no equivalent ability that makes them a danger to an a-p. At their normal peak potential (hero range and gear), I'd fear an a-p much more as a pally than I would fear a pally as an a-p.

The things that are wrong in your post, specifically related to ABS are a joke, right?

asdr

If the paladin dies, he comes back just as tough once he gets some gear together. Phylacteries and charges, not so much.

APs and liches (at least those who actually take the tough fights) need to be able to handle the rises and falls. The AP charge system was supposed to encourage more of that, but it doesn't always work in practice.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

This still skirts the issue. An AP can go regather a mediocre set, grab their wands, solo gear for quality pieces (albeit that taking longer than going and requesting a full set) and they are once again a threat. Add to that that both AP's and liches can kill with one command (though obviously less frequently as an AP). What's the one command kill for goodies, even a low percentage one? As a necromancer, you only need patience to raise an army to gather a decent set of gear. In fact, that can really be done with just your ghoul and golem, if you're smart about it and know your wands. So really....it's just more time consuming to regear (and become uber-deathful again).

In fact...now that I think about it, the semblance of balance here isn't power, but time. For goodies (Paladins, since they, IMHO, are the only real rivals to liches/APs) there's request lag time, general regear time, and spending hours on end sleeping to regen mana if you don't want to spend time collecting gold to buy slows. Evils spend their post-death time as I mentioned, or in some similar fashion (ghosted PWK for unique barriers is OP). But I digress....the point remains that their is a substantial imbalance in peak power, and the downsides to being an AP or lich are not as bad as you make them out to be. They're manageable to a skilled player.

Assassinate. 'nuff said.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

You need stalk, so that's at least several commands.

Also, good assassin is really disadvantaged compared to evil assassin, (edited to add: for assassinate purposes) given that evil generally has a lot more detect hidden, between piercing gaze, the only detect hidden item in the game being evil and uncleanseable, and duergar. (Also tends to have more thieves and assassins than good, but that's more inertia from the above than anything else.)

I can't quite say you literally can't assassinate a Waris or an Ahtieli (as two recent examples of relatively tough evil characters), but it's a lot lot harder than assassinating almost anyone else.

Further exacerbated when evil is under-represented during your play times.

But the class only distracts from the focus of my argument. Obviously assassins can be any alignment, though as Nep pointed out, there are difficulties as a goodie assassin against certain circumstances that you won't encounter as an evil. That doesn't change my argument in the least (in fact, it adds to it, though not to an extent that's worth debating) since the inclusion of assassins in the argument at all is a tangent that isn't relevant.

Just that they were going to be intentionally putting themselves in situations where they would be excessively hard to remove as a factor in certain group or 1v1 matchups, usually involving raids, and they would often have healers or transmuters or extra virtues to cover their weaknesses. Liches, coincidentally, have the damage reduction to fight this, but their only way of getting around those spell saves is lich secrets or undead-army. Which for some reason goodies have ceased doing the random co summ zombie ;co wrath zombie anytime necros or liches are on.

Of course, the last time I saw anything remotely close to this matchup happen (and the lich was well on his way to losing as a result because he was solo) the paladins in question, which shared those 2 virtues among their four, had an overpowered X-factor quite similar to something you mentioned could, and did, beat that combo 1v1 a long time in the past pop out and stomp them out of the blue. It wasn't as powerful as the lich and probably would have died to it and any of the paladins 1v1 had they not been caught flatfooted but it sure as hell stopped the divine retribution and light of heaven spam.

So there you go, take that how you will. I was way over pointing out the obvious for this particular observation long ago.

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I mean, in all honesty, a decently-geared Paladin with the right virtues can stand toe to toe with a Lich most of the time.

They could do the same with most APs. The problem with APs though, is their power is essentially limitless. And the longer they go without someone who can stop them, the more impossible they become to stop.

I don't really see it as a problem though, even has a serial goodie player. The only time it's an issue is when 2 or 3 of the powerhouse characters are online at a time..and essentially working together, even if not specifically doing so.

Their weaknesses are glaring, and they don't get edges to cover them like APs do. Mana burn, shorter lasting supps, a lack of +stat gear and them being entirely open to lag unless you're dumb enough to face them on the one spot they've decided to stand (which means they can't move as well. Feel free to stand one step away and taunt).

Their strengths are also common and (while not easy) can be prepped against. Shove on some resist positive, and hey-presto. You're not a paladin's nightmare. They also don't get edges to strengthen them, like APs do.

Defiance is the one thing you have to fear. And it's so difficult to get, chances are they sacrificed 5 con between them in order to get it. Or they don't even have the right mix of classes to bother trying. Seriously, they'll never get it.

Over all, once you've played a hero paladin, you know how to take them down. It's going to be a long fight but it's far from impossible and the clencher is - they don't get anything like the debilitating maledictions and awesome lagging maneuvers an AP does. A long fight benefits you in every way.

Taking down a charged AP like Ravon solo was definetly impossible. Just give me a huge weapon, abs and deafen/bash/iceball and I'd probably mow down my entire range. That's if they were dumb enough to fight me. No Paladin can do that, and why? Because they simply aren't as powerful as APs.

Plus, Good is Dumb. No one argues with that because it's true. The situation in which you are forced to rely on someone else, you're very likely going to lose.

Yhorian

I expected to, but generally I sent the lich running. Forget which lich it was. Not a particularly deathful one, but still, I felt that I'd win (as in, not being the one fleeing) 9 out of 10 fights, and survive the 1 in 10 that went against me, if no one else was involved.