Someone complain about something being overpowered. Or underpowered. I'm bored.

Let me try to narrow this question a bit.

Try to list combos that a player with extensive area/prep knowledge (but mediocre skill) could exploit in order to kill (certain) characters played by more experienced players who take every reasonable precaution to avoid dying.

Combos where you basically just "turn the crank" and out comes PKs. You may not match up well against everybody, but against some subset of opponents it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

* Snare/enlarge/haste/waylay/bearcharge on a cloud ranger.

* Sleep/summon/etc. on a necro.

* Sleep/maledict/etc. + vault on a Anti-Paladin.

* Bash, bash, warcry, flurry on a giant warrior + relevant legacy.

* Nightreaver bard.

* Assassinate.

* Improved invis + quicksand.

* Shalsad, e.g. wasp + dire wolf + bloody shackles.

* Scroll-happy binder.

Anybody feel these are so "gross" in certain scenarios that maybe they should be changed somehow? Having played a couple of those, or near enough, there were some fights where I thought to myself, "This guy might as well roll over and die, because he has NO chance to survive this." And, significantly, this near-surety-of-death wasn't due to any particular skill on my part. It was just the interaction of my combo with my opponent's.

What could my foe possibly done to mitigate any of these?

* Snare/enlarge/haste/waylay/bearcharge on a cloud ranger.
-This is freakin nasty, about all you can do is avoid the woods or only go in ultra prepped.

* Sleep/summon/etc. on a necro.
-I have survived, and had people survive some absolutely ridiculous crap involving necros. Still though, in some situations black circle + locked room + zombie horde is pretty much certain DOOM. (Short of having perm passdoor + teleport potion on hand for the flee;qua teleport.

* Sleep/maledict/etc. + vault on a Anti-Paladin.
-I actually think this one can be pretty easy for most classes not to die to. (Again with the locked room caveat)

* Bash, bash, warcry, flurry on a giant warrior + relevant legacy.
-Damage reduction, surprise said giant, better defenses, the easiest approach being a shifter as something that's harder to defend against for swords then abs up. (Caveat is actually killing the warrior)

* Nightreaver bard.
-This fits in with the ranger, its nasty. But you can just not walk into the trap.

* Assassinate.
-Eh.

* Improved invis + quicksand.
-This is tres brutal. But you can be a flight potion whore and just be observant, but still that won't save you from a dispel spamming improved invised invoker standing at said quicksand.

* Shalsad, e.g. wasp + dire wolf + bloody shackles.
-Go somewhere he can't fly into. Or be the camoed gangs bait.

* Scroll-happy binder.
-Bleh, this one is probably the worst I can think of. Nothing short of being a perm enlarged giant with certain pieces of gear that you can't get and detect hidden would make me feel truly comfortable about this sort of foe.

** Snare/enlarge/haste/waylay/bearcharge on a cloud ranger.
Walk in enlarged.

** Sleep/summon/etc. on a necro.
Where is overpowered.

** Sleep/maledict/etc. + vault on a Anti-Paladin.
Where is overpowered. Pass doors too.

** Bash, bash, warcry, flurry on a giant warrior + relevant legacy.
Reduce. After he flees - enlarge, unless he is a villager. And sword giants are not the best ones in melee.

** Nightreaver bard.
Dirt, blindness, orbs of travel.

** Assassinate.
Do not let him track you. Get Eyes on the Back of Your Head.

** Improved invis + quicksand.
Drop all, flee. Do not sit on lvl, where you have much higher ranked invoker.

** Scroll-happy binder.
This is not good. Always be flying when enter popular areas.

I agree with all but that last one.

bindings + a certain scroll means you aren't flying and you can't run away fast enough unless you are a communer.

Well, yes. Goodie binder with progging gear (Kasir had 5 or 6 items) is very very bad person to meet. I just pointed out that fly may save you. Gives some small chance.

Also I'd certainly think about taking Prone Defence in addition to Remain Conscious if I have such enemy thief who is around a lot.

Some thoughts:

>** Snare/enlarge/haste/waylay/bearcharge on a cloud ranger.
>Walk in enlarged.

Still may not save you. For instance if you're wounded at all, or if the ranger snares you shortly before the enlarge wears off.

We're also talking about a cloud giant, so enlarged he's still going to be one size bigger than an enlarged human. I got a fair number of kills as Sule on guys who were only one size smaller than me. Against some folks it only took one lagging bearcharge to land after the initial waylay.

There's also the chance the ranger will see you coming, waylay, then hope you flee into his snare in the next room. Enlarge doesn't help you much there.

>** Sleep/summon/etc. on a necro.
>Where is overpowered.

So the solution is: "never fight the necro, ever, and be so perfect in your where spam that he never, ever, gets the drop on you."

>** Bash, bash, warcry, flurry on a giant warrior + relevant
>legacy.
>Reduce. After he flees - enlarge, unless he is a villager. And
>sword giants are not the best ones in melee.

...then the next time you try this, the giant walks up to you reduced. Since you also reduced, he proceeds to bash you to death.

I mentioned giant sword because they're the most capable when it comes to bashing, and they still get free hits via riposte while they're bashing on you. They can also lay down the gigantic flurries while you're still lagged from their bashing.

Having fought Humbert, bashbashwarcryflurry is pretty potent.

>** Nightreaver bard.
>Dirt, blindness, orbs of travel.

Dirt's not helping you when you can't beat my fiend, since you've been dispelled and maledicted all to hell. Orbs of travel? You still need to be able to beat the fiend. Plus I know exactly where you went, so you can bet I'll be heading straight there. Also- this requires you to keep an orb of travel on hand at all times, which is easier said than done.

>** Assassinate.
>Do not let him track you. Get Eyes on the Back of Your Head.

Eventually you may have to raid or retrieve. You may decide to chase around some enemy (not the assassin) who's running from you on roads. You may need to rest up somewhere, and figure "surely nobody will find me here."

I agree its possible to reduce an assassin's chances to get you to "almost" zero, but even conscientious people don't behave in the sort of way you'd have to behave in order to be completely safe from assassinate.

>** Improved invis + quicksand.
>Drop all, flee. Do not sit on lvl, where you have much higher
>ranked invoker.

You can rank, but you still gotta pass those levels. So, for some span of ranks you're going to be vulnerable to the hero human invoker w/ improved invis. Drop all;flee can work, if you live long enough. You'd better remember to never, ever spam in directions.

>** Scroll-happy binder.
>This is not good. Always be flying when enter popular areas.

Great until he finds you in an unpopular area.

I didn't have Cry of Thunder. Was Enigma/Greeting

First a general response to your response:

1. I never said there weren't way to avoid these things. I just don't think most of the tactics and precautions you propose would fall under the heading of "reasonable".

2. Yes, there are race/class/cabal combos that are more resistant than others. My point mostly concerned classes that are vulnerable. As long as they exist its worth considering them.


>-This is freakin nasty, about all you can do is avoid the
>woods or only go in ultra prepped.

"Never going into the wilderness" or "super-prepping every time I go into the wildnerness" doesn't seem very reasonable to me.

>-I have survived, and had people survive some absolutely
>ridiculous crap involving necros.

Sure, so have I. I also had Satebos bleed me down to half-hp then one-shot me with a scroll.

>-Damage reduction, surprise said giant, better defenses, the
>easiest approach being a shifter as something that's harder to
>defend against for swords then abs up.

So your answer is "be a shifter". What if I'm not a shifter or some class with inherent dam reduction? Sure, given we're talking about a warrior, if the guy attacks you then its probably your fault. Either you started it or you should have seen him coming. But you can't always see the other guy coming. And, against the right class, this warrior has the near-equivalent of "slay".

>-This fits in with the ranger, its nasty. But you can just not
>walk into the trap.

Bard can sleep/maledict/insect/fiend you anywhere outside a protected city. Is your solution "never leave a protected city"? He can't move while hidden, but he can stay hidden in an area and let you get near him, then run over and drop the sleep.

>-Go somewhere he can't fly into. Or be the camoed gangs bait.

Your solution is "spend your entire login someplace he can't fly to"? Or "don't play when he's online unless you have 2 friends to help you gang him"? (I would have just suggested "Never become a criminal." Except that's tough for Outlanders.)

>-Bleh, this one is probably the worst I can think of. Nothing
>short of being a perm enlarged giant with certain pieces of
>gear that you can't get and detect hidden would make me feel
>truly comfortable about this sort of foe.

Well, permafly helps. Also inherent dam redux, high spell saves (hard to curse) and the ability to word out of combat (which anybody can acquire, btw, albeit at a slight cost). If you don't have permafly, then maybe the anti-knockout and anti-cheapshot edges.

I'm not arguing that any of these things is or isn't good; I'm just going to point out some assorted things.

It also goes without saying that adding allies/ganging to the 'tough' character listed below almost always makes things worse. Generally my feeling is that there are not that many characters in the game that in a vacuum are unbeatable in the general case (e.g., an A-P with a 2000 charge weapon is pretty much unbeatable, but that doesn't mean every A-P is), but there may be combos of characters that are just about insurmountable.

>* Snare/enlarge/haste/waylay/bearcharge on a cloud ranger.

Allies are one pretty effective counter to this: one person goes ahead to trip the snare and the other(s) follow not too far behind to keep the ranger from having time to have their way with the scout. Granted, that's only useful in the cases in which you reasonably expect a snare, but in practice this does account for the vast majority of time I encounter a snare.

All that being said, this makes my short list of best ways to actually kill a tough lich, despite the many caveats, pitfalls, and limitations that go with it.

>* Sleep/summon/etc. on a necro.
>
>* Sleep/maledict/etc. + vault on a Anti-Paladin.

For both of these, again, any kind of ally you can call for help makes a big difference. IMHO, this is the biggest single reason (though there are several others) sleep-based kills fall off drastically around hero range -- many more characters are caballed and can get some help in time.

Lots of spell save doesn't eliminate sleep, but it really does make all of this a lot harder. It's very possible to get lucky and sleep someone with a lot of saves and be unable to maledict them enough before they wake up.

>* Bash, bash, warcry, flurry on a giant warrior + relevant
>legacy.

My experience is that there aren't a lot of characters left at hero that can be bashed, aren't stealth characters, don't have some kind of answer to bash, and can be beat by bashing, though there certainly are some.

>* Nightreaver bard.

A lot of the same necromancer/a-p comments, really; a lot of factors have to line up for you to actually get someone slept, loaded up, and fiended unless they have abysmal saves (which none of your best opponents will.) In a raid, resist mental mostly makes you look silly.

My general opinion on Outlander powers in general (from the perspective of an Outlander) is that my powers always feel really tough, until the day that Empire is doing even okay. Which, I grant you, it often isn't doing.

The bard has an edge on the necro/a-p in that you've got a somewhat (but still not very realistic) chance of sleeping a whole group and that insect swarm mostly > curse; it falls behind them in the lack of summon and in that there are more characters that can soak up the full wack of things they can manage after a sleep (even including scrolls, etc.) and still just win the fight.

>* Assassinate.

Definitely this can be hard on the kinds of characters that can raid a cabal unopposed, but not very fast.

>* Improved invis + quicksand.

Pretty good, although, an awful lot of near-hero and hero characters have fly built in, can word when they hit this, or both. Or quicksand isn't a very big factor for them for some other reason. Try to make a list of reasonably tough hero-range characters you could kill with this and it's not a very long list.

For extra fun, toss Nightreaver onto this one, too.

>* Shalsad, e.g. wasp + dire wolf + bloody shackles.

Pretty good; although, there's been one change to this combo in the post-Shalsad era.

>* Scroll-happy binder.

Kind of similar comments to other sleep scenarios. The binder has an edge in that gag can come out limiting calls for help once it works. The binder really suffers compared to the other combos in that any ally, no matter what they are, can really ruin your day.

I was hoping you'd respond. In general you seem to argue these situations are mitigated by the fact that they're niche. I guess I agree with that, generally speaking, but it still seems a little problematic that there are niches where these tactics eventually result in ridiculously one-sided fights.

>Re: ranger
>Allies are one pretty effective counter to this:

Agreed. I guess I have a special fear of it because I tend to run around alone most of the time. Also, I haven't met many people (besides me) who are paranoid enough to do the staggered walking thing except for a few key places, e.g. path to the Fortress and path to the Tree.

>All that being said, this makes my short list of best ways to
>actually kill a tough lich

Wouldn't wraithform mostly nullify this combo? Or are you assuming ranger would dispel with a talisman. Guess I wasn't aware wraithform could be dispelled.

>Re: Necro and AP
>For both of these, again, any kind of ally you can call for
>help makes a big difference.

Agreed. But you're still looking at a fair number of uncaballed people at hero. Maybe 30%? Or some guy who happens to be the only representative of his cabal online at the moment.

This one is less a big deal because, ignoring summon traps and/or particularly creative necros, if you're prepared (potions & pills) then you can survive it as long as you teleport away.

>Re: Bash Warrior
>My experience is that there aren't a lot of characters
>left at hero that can be bashed, aren't stealth characters,
>don't have some kind of answer to bash, and can be beat by
>bashing, though there certainly are some.

Stealth characters do have the ability to (mostly) avoid bash warriors, but there are situations where they're going to be semi-obligated to fight them.

I think of it like a special version of "slay" that only works against certain opponents, and then only if the slay-er manages to reach his victim before the victim notices him in the area.

Is it limited? Sure. Very. But it's also kinda wack when you're the guy getting bashed to death. (Confession: usually when I get bashed to death its because I picked the fight w/ the basher.)

>Re: Nightreaver bard.
>A lot of the same necromancer/a-p comments, really; a lot of
>factors have to line up for you to actually get someone slept,
>loaded up, and fiended unless they have abysmal saves

Eh. Lots of melee classes will mortgage saves in order to load up on hit/dam/stats. And stealth characters, for that matter. Its a decent strategy for them to earn more kills over the course of the character's life; it just exposes them against certain opponents.

Personally I rarely die to fiend, but that's because I:

1. (Almost) always put up resist mental before engaging a bard, and
2. (Almost) always flee and word or teleport immediately after being fiended.

I only fought Nightreaver Bard once, and he (you) expressed genuine surprise that I didn't die after being fiended and teleporting away. If you'd have insected me I'd have croaked for sure. (Maybe you weren't Nightreaver yet at that point - I forget.)

>characters that can soak up the full wack of things they can
>manage after a sleep (even including scrolls, etc.) and still
>just win the fight.

I can't think of many who could do this, but yeah, there are some. Also, it's unlikely that any bard (even mine) would have a "full" compliment of "nasty magical devices" on hand at any given point in time.

>Re: Quicksand
>Try to make a list of reasonably tough
>hero-range characters you could kill with this and it's not a
>very long list.

Well, Marin got Ckath that way. But yeah, maybe it was a fluke.

>Pretty good; although, there's been one change to this combo
>in the post-Shalsad era.

Yay! That really sucked.

>Wouldn't wraithform mostly nullify this combo? Or are you
>assuming ranger would dispel with a talisman. Guess I wasn't
>aware wraithform could be dispelled.

It can be dispelled, but I was just thinking in terms of: it has a very short duration and your chances of it being within 2 ticks of done upon hitting a snare you don't expect are pretty high unless you're extremely paranoid.

>>Re: Necro and AP
>>For both of these, again, any kind of ally you can call for
>>help makes a big difference.
>
>Agreed. But you're still looking at a fair number of
>uncaballed people at hero. Maybe 30%? Or some guy who
>happens to be the only representative of his cabal online at
>the moment.

Sure. But even the uncaballed people are going to be hard to get the drop on. Or they're grouped. Or they're someplace like Eastern Road where one of your own enemies has an excellent chance of wandering by.

Here my experience may be skewed because if I'm in a position where I'm hunting the one guy, I probably get bored and/or roll whatever his cabal is, whereas you tend to play characters to age death and see both the ebb and flow of a particular cabal.


>Stealth characters do have the ability to (mostly) avoid bash
>warriors, but there are situations where they're going to be
>semi-obligated to fight them.

True enough; still, at least they generally should know the fight is coming and have the chance to prepare themselves as much as possible beforehand. If they're not Battle they can size themselves as best they can, often haste themselves, etc.

>Eh. Lots of melee classes will mortgage saves in order to
>load up on hit/dam/stats. And stealth characters, for that
>matter. Its a decent strategy for them to earn more kills
>over the course of the character's life; it just exposes them
>against certain opponents.

I would then argue that they've made their bed and can sleep in it.

>Personally I rarely die to fiend, but that's because I:
>
>1. (Almost) always put up resist mental before engaging a
>bard, and
>2. (Almost) always flee and word or teleport immediately after
>being fiended.
>
>I only fought Nightreaver Bard once, and he (you) expressed
>genuine surprise that I didn't die after being fiended and
>teleporting away. If you'd have insected me I'd have croaked
>for sure. (Maybe you weren't Nightreaver yet at that point -
>I forget.)

Got me. I play a lot of characters.

>I can't think of many who could do this, but yeah, there are
>some. Also, it's unlikely that any bard (even mine) would
>have a "full" compliment of "nasty magical devices" on hand at
>any given point in time.

Yep. It might be easier than before now that people tend to loot less. It's hard to work up the energy to keep gathering twenty different scrolls when you get cleaned out every time you die.

It's also harder for a Nightreaver, as they lack the powerful "buy" cabal power.

You also have to factor into everything sleep-related is that time is a limiting factor. Sometimes you can't burn through all the scrolls/talismans you'd like before the sleep is up. That's probably most of the time for me, honestly. You have to assume that any allies your target has are headed your way and make your move accordingly: are the scrolls I could bust out in this tick worth the chance that I might not get the extra tick I need to finish them off before their help shows up?

>Well, Marin got Ckath that way. But yeah, maybe it was a
>fluke.

I'd say fluke. Obviously it can happen, but...

Hater.

But yes, adhesive web doesn't land in full that often against an arial. There really aren't many matchups worse against an invoker with protections than arial warrior*, however. Even arial RBW has it rough.

Unappreciative hater!

* Adarmar is mean.

Almost all of your examples require catching the opponent by surprise or unprepared to actually kill them.

I think that's a lot harder for players of mediocre skill to do than you think it is. Otherwise, you're snaring people who are enlarged with barrier and their bash protection up. You're getting pincered as soon as you summon people. You're stalking someone just to see them teleport. You're trying to sing on someone who has resist mental. And so on.

I think the easiest of these for a mediocre player to catch a more experienced player would be the improved invis or the thief. The rest require more skill to pull than I think you realize. Or if they do manage to pull it off once or twice during the course of playing their character, good for them. Nobody should be unkillable.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

Hmm. Yeah, maybe. I'm mostly thinking of myself here. When I envision "really good" players, I think of people who adapt well to anything unexpected that happens in a fight. Players who always know when to bail out; not leaving too early but not staying too late. Unfortunately neither of those really describe me. I tend to need the "turn the crank" type builds I described above, the end result of which is that after lots of my kills I end up thinking, "Wow, that guy really had no chance."

When you find yourself thinking "That guy had no chance," that might should send up some game-play warning signals.

Being able to find people in situations that lets you turn that crank is a skill. Not putting yourself in situations where people can turn that crank on you is a skill. It's just another way you're competing. The best players don't get assassinated much. Nor do they get randomly cheapshotted to death very often. Mediocre players don't get that many assassinates (unless maybe they're spam killing noobs, but you know what I mean).

Playing an shifter, a-p, or warrior generally requires a different skill-set than a thief, assassin, and ranger.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

When you find yourself thinking "That guy had no chance," that might should send up some game-play warning signals.

Well yes and no. Let's look at the bearcharge giant ranger example. Sure you're going to pick off and crush a few players without (seemingly) much skill on your (the player's) part.

Of course the tactic is very powerful, but it's also very niche and can be literally impossible to utilize against weary and/or skilled opponents. One on one you're going to crush most opponents of course, but throw in an ally and your game becomes pretty difficult.

But there's a lot of meta-game skill which you need to set up these situations-- and I'm thinking mainly toward hero range here. Are you able to navigate yourself into position without your prey knowing? Do you know the routes they might take and can you set up your snare in the correct place? Can you navigate around the map without stepping out of camo and revealing that you're online? Do you have a good idea of where your enemy will be headed to make use of your time efficiently? Can you have the simple preps you need to allow you to not only seal the kill, but allow you to escape if things go bad? And can you have these preps on hand near 100% of the time, so that you aren't surprised and cursing without the enlarge/haste/redux preps? Can you outthink a very skilled opponent and get him into a situation where you want him?

I think a lot of these are probably skills that you have that you take for granted.

When playing a ranger, I find myself thinking I'm very overpowered only when I find someone exploring and not paying attention . Or again, when they run in noob style solo to the tree without damage reduction. Who makes that mistake more than once though?

Additionally, so many times as a ranger I find myself wishing I could just go running around the roads a bit and bash or neuro or pincer people to death.

n/t

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

YAY!

Hehehehehe.

All such are overpowered:
Bash
Assassinate
Cleave
PWK
Neuro
Nightgaunt
Co Wrath; Co wrath; Co wrath
Rot
Hunt
Blackjack + Steal
Quicksand
Pounce + Flyto

I thus propose that all classes besides Healers are removed from the game.

You left off Grand Nocturne and ambush. Need to get rangers and bards out of there to really make it fair.

And of course you need to remove some races to level the playing field.
Forgecraft is OP- no dwarves.
Perma Sneak is OP- no dark/high elves
Acute vision is OP- no wood elves
Perma Fly is Op- no clouds/arials
Resist phy/water breathing- no storms
So we're looking at human/halife healers.

Sanc is OP though, so no empowerment. Everyone just gets mace skill, that's it. Maybe mend wounds.

On the whole balanced or did they add an element to the game that unbalances it? Sure, the "good" ones are expensive, but are they too good? Are the class edges well balanced against other class edges?

I'll word vomit.

Edges (thoughts): Good) Cool additions to long-lived chars, nice to get things that make sucky skills less sucky, let's you use tactics you might never use; Bad) Gives people even MORE things to whine about, makes people PK/IMMwhore/Explore more than they might otherwise(not necessarily a completely bad thing), some ARE much better than others of comparable price, some make already good skills that much better

Re: Making already good skills that much better:

Sell me on something that you think fits into this category and isn't expensive enough to make you really think about picking something else instead.

Most of these you've caught and properly nerfed/brought in line with the original idea.

But the types of ones I was thinking about when that thought popped up and I wrote it down were edges like the AP curse/dispel edge, the bard switch dex with chr, etc. It seemed when edges first came in (since you are not good at testing Your words! I swear ) there were a lot of these and it made playing casual chars much more frustrating when that tough character was just impossible to kill.

None of the current edges really seem OP these days, but I'm sure one will pop up.

PS Expensive edges like Ricochet Skin/Pyschic Crush(or whatever that better neuro edge is) are really really nice (and getting all four warrior healing edges to a lesser extent).

Many of them seem pretty wicked and go beyond just the slight "edge" edges were supposed to give. I can't speak for the expense of any of them, but if I were garaunteed a certain amount of edges I would most definitely play an AP over anything else.

Can't see a list right now but the cure blindness by blinding an opponent is one that comes to mind. This just seems like whole extra ability instead of just a slight increase in power.

Just general discussion.

I don't know what the tweak actually is for the edge, but I do like to take the evasive edge with a high dex race/class, I think it makes a difference that is noticeable enough to justify always taking it for its moderate cost. I try to always get it as early as possible becuase if I am high dex I am usually taking the front for ranking, so it's upping my chances to actually evade blows which leads to more chances for me to improve my evade skill as well. Of course I may be way off on this, but I always see that edge as not only being a bonus to evade, but because of how it goes up only on success a bonus in evade learning as well.

Of course I've never perfected it yet with a char, and set skill learn marginalizes the learn aspect a small degree.

I'll submit that you based your argument on how Evade is a useful skill, and that Evasive will nearly always have some utility. That's all correct-- it's like taking Chilling Embrace as a Legacy-- you're rarely/never in a situation where it's not doing anytihng for you.

However, that doesn't mean it's mis-priced. If it cost as much as 5 Edges and changed your chance to 101% of base, most people would agree it's fairly worthless. It's better than that, but I'd submit that without some very careful observation, you wouldn't notice the increase by 'feel'.

In general, 'always handy' Edges are priced conservatively, and you should assume you're paying a lot for a small gain.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I did base it on how evade is useful and threw in the difficulty of learning evade, you are quite right. I am sure you know just how subtle the increase is for it though.

This actually sheds a lot of insight on that edge and other ones similar in nature to me. I didn't think evasive was mis-priced, I just thought it was always worth the price it has. I assume if it made noticeably more evades it would be far more expensive.

But thanks for the info, this clears up a lot of things for me on certain edges and that one. I like a lot of the always handy edges, but it seems they are not doing quite as much as I thought they were. I still like them though, one or two extra evades here and there can make a difference, and the longer a char lives arguably the greater chance he'll see that happen (though he might not have a way of knowing it was because of having the edge that he evaded what would have been the last potentially fatal move).

Appreciate the info.

I would propose that by their very nature edges aren't really meant to foster game balance. They make good characters better. There's nothing wrong with that; it rewards a player for trying hard and creates strong, memorable characters. Memorable, tough to beat characters make the game more interesting and enrich the in-game atmosphere. If everything was perfectly balanced the game would be hideously boring. Like WoW.

Splntrd

I think many have the opposite opinion. I remember how people bitched about the lich. Not sure about Ravon and others.

I don't know, I don't think people disliked the lich because he was too powerful. I think they disliked him because of his OOC attitude and his IC gankiness. It was clear he was playing for e-phallus, and nobody likes that.

I remember a lot of people really liking Cabdru precisely because he was such a monster, and the way he played made the game more interesting. It was fun to die to Cabdru. It wasn't fun to die to Ahtieli.

Splntrd

Did not Cabdru gank? I did not play at that time so I do not know about him at all except he got a good unholy.

Oh and btw, I think (just a guess though) anyone could call the Lich to fight one on one. But noone wanted, obviously. Well maybe few people (including me) but very few I think. So whats wrong with going with gank against gank?

I didn't really have a hero at the time of either one of the characters, I'm just commenting on what I noticed from forum buzz.

Splntrd

Some of them are pretty huge. Devious Versatility comes to mind first. Though, with that one, I get the feeling thieves were set power-wise with the expectation that most decent ones would take it at least once.

I'm sort of torn on edges. On the one hand they do reward people who "do stuff". On the other, they encourage you to "game" the system and mechanically walk around tough areas looking at stuff you've already seen for the sole purpose of accumulating observation/exploration.

Also, its pretty clear that they do alter game-play. If not a single edge, then the sum total of a long-lived characters edges, taken together, compared to "some guy who just hero'd".

>Some of them are pretty huge. Devious Versatility comes to mind first.
Why? I never had it, but I think even if it adds 5 skill points -> one thief skill, it wont really make thief overpowered.

>I'm sort of torn on edges. On the one hand they do reward people who >"do stuff". On the other, they encourage you to "game" the system and >mechanically walk around tough areas looking at stuff you've already >seen for the sole purpose of accumulating observation/exploration.
Well, IMMs can stop giving edge points for exploration/observation exp. But this will make the game even less fun for me, because if I wish get some edges (and I certainly wish), I should RP/write a good role which I do not really like.

So now if you wish to get some edges you can go one of the three ways: explore, RP, PK.

Removing 'explore' will limit your choice and I think a good game is the one, which offers you more ways to achieve your goals.

I suck at pk. I'm pretty good at surviving but I can never seal the deal when it comes to a kill.

I'm much better at pve and now I get rewarded for it.

I had psyche crush for a pretty long time on my muter, and I felt like it made fights I was going to win anyways just utter steam rolls.

I fought umm... Can't remember his name 280ish pk scion fire sword an untter buttload, and once landed an ANNIHILATE neuro on him.

Because I was a muter, I usually caught him gathering gear or preps by himself, and in that situation, delf muter probably SHOULD pwn fire sword, but that said having neuro as a primary damage dealer in these situations might have been adding insult to injury. That said, part of my perception may be based on also having the mental jolt edge, and using it to open which made psyche crush better, but also gives the opponent at least one command (more I think) to get away, whereas just opening with neuro might not, but they also probably wouldnt be taking as much damage from psyche crush as if I opened with edged mental jolt.

I never got to play with paralytic opportunist, but I have to assume that with it, the whole situation would be even sillier.

IMHO psyche crush would be better if rather than making neuro pwn low int/wis guys that it already pwns it made neuro do a buttload of damage based on int/wis. I.E doesnt help the lag against high int/wis guys but as a trade off does damage that scales up against high int/wis.

Make neuro better without grinding anyones face in it.

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