It will be rather obvious who is asking these questions to anyone who would care, because of the near-complete lack of active Orcs, so I may as well introduce myself: This is Vok, the (currently) 46th rank Shig-Ru Berserker.

My appologies for the near-book-length post. I've got quite a bit runnin around my head on this topic.

First some skill questions:

Desecration (http://www.carrionfields.com/display.html?keywords=desecration)
The help file seems to imply that an orc must bloody himself in order to use this. I've tried on many occasions to use the ability without success. It always claims I'm much too calm. I assume this is because I've only tried after PVE fights as opposed to PVP, but I'd need confirmation. Most PVP fights I've wanted to leave the scene quickly too much to want to mess around with a skill that would take "a long time."

Also I was wondering exactly what does the cursed ground do? Does this just merely prevent someone from recalling, or does it protect the orc from holy or anything of that sort?

Masochism (http://www.carrionfields.com/display.html?keywords=masochism)
I've had this skill for several days and have managed to take quite a bit of damage, quite quickly (lucky me). In several cases I was killed from full health in two, maybe three rounds of combat. Through all of this I've never seen any applied buff from Masochism, nor have I gotten any skill-ups implying that it has even TRIED to fire.

Does this skill only have a chance to fire in PVP? If so it would make zero sense from an RP perspective.

I've been told that it only fires from attacks of quite significant magnitude all at once, as opposed to when being "nickle and dimed to death." Frankly I see this as a semi-legitimate logic-set, however on what scale? If I die in two rounds from full health, you'd imagine that at least after the first round I'd be QUITE PISSED and RAGING, regardless of if it was from one mage nuke, or by being pummeled by 1,000 unarmed gnomes. If all it gets used for is single giant attacks, especially with the already negligible defenses of an orc, it seems to me this skill will add up to about zero benefit to nearly any Shig-Ru, because in the rare case that some damage amount goes over the threashhold amount, the orc was likely not at full health by now, and he will either likely auto-flee, or be killed within mere moments.

Don't get me wrong, perhaps this skill does more than I'm aware of because I've not gotten it to fire. Maybe I'll get ambushed and then one-hit the ranger out of rage, however, I find this to be unlikely.

My proposed fix for Masochism is as follows. As opposed to the damage needing to be over a certain threshold from a single attack, I would imagine it would make much more sense from both a balance, and a roleplay perspective if Masochism would fire if the Shig-Ru in question received enough over-all damage within a round, or two round period of time. It would also make most sense from the roleplay perspective if this damage cap was with respect to however much health the Shig-Ru currently has.

If a masochistic raging type dude gets taken down 1/3 of his total hitpoints in a single round of combat, I would imagine this would be enough to set him into a rage, regardless of how many hits happened that round.


Now for some Edge questions:

"Primal Terror - More vulnerable to fear poison/magic, but more likely to resist it's effects."
This explanation seems contradictory to say the least. The only thing I can think of is that it means that the spells will actually LAND but then not do anything? I'm not sure how one could be vulnerable to fear, but then not run. Clarification?

"Bully's Confidence - When demoralizing a foe, you get a +morale effect. "
Does this apply only to the actually skill 'Demoralize,' or would this boost your morale any time you demoralize a foe (namely through skills like 'Willbreaker,' and edges like 'Lasher')?

If this edge does not apply to Shig-Ru Willbreaker procs, and if Masochism doesn't get looked at, I see very little good to being a Shig-Ru.

-I've not had a chance to use Punt so I cannot comment
-Masochism, as stated, has failed to help me at all so far (through at least 6 untimely deaths).
-Pillage is cute for if you've died and REALLY need something to use, but I cannot really see any legitimate use for it. By the time you're at the rank to get this skill, you are likely already able to easily attain much better weapons. Well one use would be for a last minute solution to fighting an opponent with metal resistance, but honestly by this rank anyone SHOULD have elemental weapons of SOME SORT.
-Willbreaker seems to proc often enough to be useful, but morale effects are quite hard to measure.
-Rush is a pretty neat little trick to have. Admittedly though, with the incredible skills like Whomp, Stonehands, Bruteforce, Hack, Soot Ritual, Blood Ritual, and Gravesleep availible to Mamlauks and Mundunugus respectively: I cannot see this one skill (and punt) being even close to legitimizing one's existence as a Shig-Ru.

I would think Masochism being changed to an effect that scales their damage up on a sliding scale inversely proportional to their HP would ease most of these concerns. Perhaps also have their mv costs also move up on a sliding scale if you would be concerned with Shig-Ru just staying at very low HP and standing in the back while doing PVE (although I don't think even that would be necessary because of the inherent insane danger of just stickin around at low HP)



If you manged to read this far, thank you for your time. Also feel free to set me straight or bring up any balance issues if I've overlooked anything. This is my first near-hero character so perhaps I just lack some perspective.

It needs to be something you can toggle on and off.

Otherwise there are way too many situations where it is a huge negative. (e.g. if there is a deathtrap within two steps, whether or not it is behind a door).

Aside from Mamlauks, they all ####ing suck. Don't waste your time and don't hope for an answer that will make it worthwhile.

YOU are the one playing that orc. YOU can see that it sucks. Pull the trigger.

The last orc I rolled wasn't a Mamlauk, FWIW. (Although my work got busy and I lost my steam with him pre-hero-range.)

They are weaker than most classes in most situations. Pre-Hero I would much rather have a Mundunugu than a Mamlauk, at hero it isn't a question that Hack/Brute Force is better than gravesleep which you can only use when you aren't bloody and the weak fetishes you can get. Shig-ru are probably about average through the ranks and good against certain classes bards for instance. The difference is Mamlauks can fight warriors if they are prepped with Hack, its the only Orc malediction... Skrugga I haven't played but mostly they are an Orc which defenses are worse than a thief that live two rounds longer than said other Orc if they enter no commands. That about right?

>They are weaker than most classes in most situations.
>Pre-Hero I would much rather have a Mundunugu than a Mamlauk,
>at hero it isn't a question that Hack/Brute Force is better
>than gravesleep which you can only use when you aren't bloody
>and the weak fetishes you can get.

It depends on what you're doing.

I think soot ritual is probably the biggest winner of the Mundunugu skills, though. At least, it's what would sell me on one.

>Shig-ru are probably about
>average through the ranks and good against certain classes
>bards for instance.

Shig-rus do have an advantage there. I'd say they're probably also the best to fight necromancers, shapeshifters, and probably a number of other things as well.

>The difference is Mamlauks can fight
>warriors if they are prepped with Hack, its the only Orc
>malediction...

IMHO, hack is really overrated. It's a good skill for what it is, but any time it's been decisively used on me, I'm clear of the fight a LONG time before the Mamlauk sees his next command.

It's a very crippling and versatile skill; it's also one that misses a lot even at 100 and costs you tremendous lag.

>Skrugga I haven't played but mostly they are an
>Orc which defenses are worse than a thief that live two rounds
>longer than said other Orc if they enter no commands. That
>about right?

Eh.

Among other things, I'd say each of the three non-Mamlauk options is significantly more defensive than a Mamlauk, but each in different ways. In some ways I'm still waiting to see someone really capitalize on each of their strengths.

Mamlauk probably IS my pick for fighting Battle, if only because they're the only people that won't be on another continent by the time you get your next command after hack leg.

I also agree. When I had my lowbie orc 10 months ago, Mundunugu looked VERY tempting because of soot ritual.

Blindness during combat, turning a place into somewhere noone can hide AND resist light (ie maran weapons AND Sunray)? Sign me up.

I had a Mundunugu. Gravesleep's limitations really screw up its potential, imho. Soot ritual was cool, but I still took an ass beating from attacks of those kinds (does it completely fix the orcish vuln to light, when active, or not?) Fetish and blood ritual are crap though, man.

I think I said this in my goodbyes as Ghriz, but it would be so very nice, and not overpowered (opinion, of course) if the PC versions of fetish and blood ritual items can be crafted from npc's of a decent level (say, within 5 levels of the orc). The way it is now, it's just sort of backwards...I mean, those abilities could really help AGAINST pc's, but you can't even get them until you kill someone. It's like someone giving you a $20 gas card that expires in a day right after you fill your tank.

> does it
>completely fix the orcish vuln to light, when active, or not?)

And then some. So imagine taking something like double that damage instead and there's your Mamlauk.

Did you know that when you do that soot ritual you almost always get nailed with heat damage and either drop stuff or lose potions?

I just found that irritating. But hey, it's worth it.

A lot like necromancers have that corpsesight skill... It would give Mundunugu's the ability to find some corpses they can fetish a lot easier and it would be amazingly helpful to making some more "shaman-like" Orcs... I think this is a great idea.

I've played Mamlauk and Skrugga to hero (the latter to chief).

Skrugga is deceptively offensive.

>Also I was wondering exactly what does the cursed ground do?
>Does this just merely prevent someone from recalling, or does
>it protect the orc from holy or anything of that sort?

Mainly it prevents recalling. It also has some effect on non-evil priests.


>Don't get me wrong, perhaps this skill does more than I'm
>aware of because I've not gotten it to fire. Maybe I'll get
>ambushed and then one-hit the ranger out of rage, however, I
>find this to be unlikely.

You did read the help file and notice you need to be berserking for masochism to fire, correct?

>"Primal Terror - More vulnerable to fear poison/magic, but
>more likely to resist it's effects."
>This explanation seems contradictory to say the least. The
>only thing I can think of is that it means that the spells
>will actually LAND but then not do anything? I'm not sure how
>one could be vulnerable to fear, but then not run.
>Clarification?

Essentially, it means you're more resistant to fear effects since you're afraid all the time and more or less used to it.

>"Bully's Confidence - When demoralizing a foe, you get a
>+morale effect. "
>Does this apply only to the actually skill 'Demoralize,'

Yes.

Of course I read the help file on masochism. It was the one reason I was thirsty to play shig-ru. I read the helpfile likely two dozen times with drool coming out the side of my mouth before I was even level 35 to adapt.

However, it has managed to disapoint.... greatly. Much like willbreaker. I'm sure they both do -something- but other than the forced emote of fear upon the face of my foes, I've seen really no benefit from having either of these abilities, being the only two abilities out of shig-ru that made me want to choose it to begin with.

It is my observation that mamlauks are by far the only remotely viable orc at the moment. I can not speak from experience with anything but Shig-Ru, but I can say that the abilities have given me -NOTHING-.

Pillage is even more useless than the emote (and likely whatever benefit it actually gives that I'm just not aware of) from Willbreaker. If you're an orc with Pillage, you've got grappleweapon and are a complete dolt if you're not able to retrieve a weapon better than the pillage weapons in 5 minutes flat.

Without some sort of look at increasing effect of masochism and perhaps giving an inherent +morale to Willbreaker use, I do not see any purpose to anyone playing a Shig-Ru beyond PURE masochistic (ironic right?) roleplay.

I'd imagine a shig-ru being the crazy man with no defensed going crazed and slicing you to bits while you slice him up quite easily as well. However willbreaker/masochism/pillage being complete garbage, mamlauks still end up dishing more damage AND more utility from their abilities.

I can understand how it might be tough to see on your side. On the other wise what you see is shattered warcry/berserk and like a -10/-10 hit dam affect. It also prevents you from using warcry or berserk. This not only is a 20 dam roll drop for hero warriors (no 10 from berserk topped with a minus 10) it can also be used to prevent people from using the warcry legacy.

Among other things, you have advantages while berserking that other orcs don't. I generally consider these to be the selling point of a shig-ru.

YMMV.

While there are some decent differences, if you were to assume that willbreaker worked like power word despondence, you'd be closer to understanding it than you are now.

You admit to being a newer player in some respects and it's possible that even knowing that, you won't see the full value or implications of it, but there it is.

>"Bully's Confidence - When demoralizing a foe, you get a +morale >effect. "
>Does this apply only to the actually skill 'Demoralize,' or would this >boost your morale any time you demoralize a foe (namely through skills >like 'Willbreaker,' and edges like 'Lasher')?


Still awaiting some immortal insight on this topic if at all possible.

>"Bully's Confidence - When demoralizing a foe, you get a
>+morale effect. "
>Does this apply only to the actually skill 'Demoralize,' or
>would this boost your morale any time you demoralize a foe
>(namely through skills like 'Willbreaker,' and edges like
>'Lasher')?
>
>If this edge does not apply to Shig-Ru Willbreaker procs, and
>if Masochism doesn't get looked at, I see very little good to
>being a Shig-Ru.



The question about this Edge was really my main concern, for it will make direct impact on how my points get spent.

Any immortal insight would really be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Having played a number of orcs, I'll answer what I can. Mostly, I've done Skrugga and Mundungu though, so take what you can get.

>First some skill questions:
>
>Desecration
> http://www.carrionfields.com/display.html?keywords=desecration)
>The help file seems to imply that an orc must bloody himself
>in order to use this. I've tried on many occasions to use the
>ability without success. It always claims I'm much too calm. I
>assume this is because I've only tried after PVE fights as
>opposed to PVP, but I'd need confirmation. Most PVP fights
>I've wanted to leave the scene quickly too much to want to
>mess around with a skill that would take "a long time."
>
>Also I was wondering exactly what does the cursed ground do?
>Does this just merely prevent someone from recalling, or does
>it protect the orc from holy or anything of that sort?

You're right, in that you do have to be in a PVP fight before being able to use it. I agree with your assessment though, it's not often I want to take time to use the skill in such a short time after a PVP fight, as usually either I want to run away, or they do. I have had lots of fun leaving desecrated ground at the Fortress though, hehe. As for what it does, I think it's along the lines of recall, maybe summoning. I don't think it naturally protects from holy, though there is an edge along those lines. (I've never had desecration high enough to take it)

>
>Masochism
> http://www.carrionfields.com/display.html?keywords=masochism)
>I've had this skill for several days and have managed to take
>quite a bit of damage, quite quickly (lucky me). In several
>cases I was killed from full health in two, maybe three rounds
>of combat. Through all of this I've never seen any applied
>buff from Masochism, nor have I gotten any skill-ups implying
>that it has even TRIED to fire.

I've only seen logs of it, but it's not had to be MASSIVE wounds. Anything decently damaging seemed to work. If you ever find logs of Fycul, he was Shig-ru, as an example.

>Now for some Edge questions:
>
>"Primal Terror - More vulnerable to fear poison/magic, but
>more likely to resist it's effects."
>This explanation seems contradictory to say the least. The
>only thing I can think of is that it means that the spells
>will actually LAND but then not do anything? I'm not sure how
>one could be vulnerable to fear, but then not run.
>Clarification?

My closest understanding, is that it's like disease carrier. In both cases, an orc's entirely life involves fear, diseases, etc, such that they might be MORE likely to have such things affecting them, but due to living in those states constantly, the impact is less noticable, cuz that's how they ALWAYS are.


Anyways, I threw you what answers I knew, or can guess at from experience. Though, I have to comment...if you think those Mundungu skills are THAT awesome, you haven't played one yet, heh. I tend to agree though, that mamlauks have some awesome skills and the rest of the orc adapts are abit lacking in comparison (or Mamlauks are overboard). Anyways, hope you have fun with orcs. They're a rather unique class.