I really really want to play a warrior battlerager. However its not just a pain in the arse its almost impossible to get that first mage kill. Dont get me started at how much bash is nerfed pre-25.

It is hard enough as a svirfnebli, easy enough as an assassin. For a plain ol warrior there just isn't the opportunity. I understand it is possible, take the current commander and drillmaser for example.

I think it is good that it is tough to get in, but the current system seems to make it impossible for 90% of the playerbase.

My solution: Allow me to pledge to the massive giant, which marks me as as village applicant and gives me truesight at lvl 15

Just thought of it randomly. But level to 25 first, then kill mage. Much easier when you can see your target, plus bash and trip works fully then and mages still don't have bash protection.. And you should still be able to kill them in 2+ rounds depending on how much hp they have.

nt

Senility or did something change? : p

Edit: Ahh, now I remember... First kill mage, then get truesight. Senility indeed.

Sometimes in CF doing what you want requires other people. If they aren't there just play something else rather then sitting in a guild or spamming (unless you like spamming)

Is that quite a few people start abusing it. Eg logging on a char that doesn't have a nasty range, is suited for retrieval, matches up well against that one enemy etc.

Most of the time if I log in and see that the range is favorable, I log out and log in as an underdog. Much more fun.

Wait until you spot them in the who list and then check ranking areas.

Check the ranking areas you can rush them in first. Eg check voralian city before you check the forbidden forest. Why? Because even when you find them you have to reach them before they see you.

Don't be afraid to eat a few deaths if you have to take down a group. But equally learn to recognise when someone is not going to die before you do and clear out.

Don't bash as a lowbie. Trip is preferable.

Try to figure out where magi recall to.

Ask a full villager or sympathetic type to tell you when tribs log in or out. Then trip magi while they buy pies.

Learn to read the signs. If there are body parts on the ground in a ranking area, it's a possible indication of recent Mage presence. You might want to prioritise checking that area when they are visible.

You could also camp recall spots though I prefer not to.

Don't lose hope. Magi are like buses. They all come along at once.

You could even rank up. I think my last villager got inducted at lvl 43 or something as he for rp reasons wasn't going to ask to join. He was waiting to be invited. But the point is I was able to kill groups ranking on the battlefield's large guards et . Think I had about 10 pre induction Mage kills. Cloud sword spec pole spec scout.

Re: areas you can't rush across easily:

Also viable (albeit boring and kind of dangerous) to just stand right outside the exit and spam "trip mage". Eventually they'll come out to rest (unless they spotted you peeking in).

This isn't an impossible requirement for 90% of the playerbase. It may not be an easy or fast requirement, but it isn't intended to be. Everyone including you can do it, just maybe not as fast as you want.

My suggested methods:
Sit at 15 until you get your first mage kill as a warrior, no exceptions. Wield weapons the mages don't know, something like a flail and axe or flail and mace. Try to trip or bash, often at rank 15 you only need 1-2 rounds to kill them.

Mages can't stay invis and rank, so there eventually will be a mage visible. When you see them visible, check the most common ranking spots. I would often sit outside the area waiting for them to vis and take a step in and hit where to see if they were there, if not rinse and repeat until you find them. Keep looking. Eventually circle back and check again as maybe they were elsewhere and moved.

Also, Keep an eye on mages that are a little bit too low and ranking. Find them while you don't show up on the where pk and then hide nearby waiting.

Full disclosure: I don't ever play Ragers. That said:

1. Use weapons that exploit vulns if you can. Obviously.

2. If you think you can get the kill then don't be afraid to wax someone in town. At low ranks, since being wanted is such a huge pain in the ass, lots of players assume you won't attack them in town and do risky things on the basis of that assumption. Especially if there's an active Tribunal in town. Even if you end up dying, if you got the mage kill then it was worth it.

3. Reach out to existing Ragers and ask them to let you know if they spot whoever it is you're actively hunting. Since they too want mages dead they will probably be okay with this request.

4. If all else fails, spam up your weapon skills, 2nd attack and enhanced damage. The higher those go the fewer rounds you'll need to lag some poor mage in order to kill him. Be aware you will probably eat some deaths while practicing to people you can't see coming, unless you're really good about choosing out-of-the-way spots.

nt

nt

That was an incredibly dumb comment. :p

Because asking to devalue invis even more is just as dumb.

Mages' life is difficult enough at teen levels.

There's all kinds of weird and creative ways you could "partially" nerf invis if you want.

Maybe it starts to work "partially" and not fully. Works 100% for who/where since someone could just spam those and defeat the RNG. However, when someone walks into the room with you (or tries to use a command) there's a check, and sometimes they "see" you even if they're not detecting invis. Maybe this check goes away at higher levels and it starts working like invis currently does.

Or maybe it makes you invisible w.r.t. the "look" command and when someone walks into the room you're in but you're still visible on who/where and targeted commands still hit you when someone's in the same room.

Or maybe the reverse: takes you off who/where completely, but you're still visible when you're in the same room.

I don't see a big need to implement these, but they could be interesting.

Also- invis kind of works against mages (and for warriors) in some respects. For two reasons. First, it can create a false sense of safety for inexperienced players. Second, mages aren't the only ones who can go invis. I would frequently use it at low ranks when hunting non-mages, many of whom don't have detect invis up all the time. Esp. when ranking.

Nerf it further? No.

NO.

It's way too much a Boolean--either you can detect it, and it's useless, or you can't, and it's far more powerful than any other hiding mechanism in the game.

It forces the constant use of preps by classes without detect, which is a needless time sink, and it particularly screws over wanna-be ragers (already one of the most picked-on set of characters). Really, applicants and pre-applicants are already free frags for anyone who cares to hunt them down. And the ability to do so while making it impossible for them to do the same is silly.

Nice thing is, since everyone carries a bunch of detect invis preps and they are easy to get... I barely have to use them because people don't bother going invis on me on the assumption that I'll detect it anyway

That's more mid ranks (25+) though, not lowbie zone.

Invis is not more powerful than an assassin with hide/sneak and a weapon you are vulnerable to.

I have no problem landing the 1st mage kill with any class regardless of no detect invis. The methods already listed in this thread are quite effective, and honestly it just gets easier as you learn areas better. Bumrushing a ranking mage is easy once you obtain a good knowledge of area layouts and know where to look.

Not all applicants are a free frag, in fact most serial rager players will give someone WITH preps/etc a damn good run for their money. There are a few exceptions to this, but rarely do I consider myself a 'free frag' as an applicant.

I have played many ragers, and I don't think you are as 'spot on' with your diagnosis as you think you are.

Of course serial rager players will be more competitive than those who don't play the cabal as often. But I don't think you'll argue that rager applicants aren't at a severe disadvantage, player skill being equal. Just the ability to quaff return/invis makes a world of difference.

Also, I disagree with your first statement. Against someone who cannot see invis, it IS more powerful than hide/sneak (and vuln weapons don't really matter here, since anyone can have them). Hide/sneak has limitations on terrain, recent combat, etc. "c invis" has no such limitations.

Murphy mentioned his skill at the "art of survival." My point is simply that literally NO "art" is required if you can "c invis".

Anyway, I'm just saying that I dislike the mechanic that makes you unfindable by some characters, but it's useless against others. It's just a minor pet peeve of mine, and I sort of like that the rager app process is difficult.

Ragers are a silly concept anyway.

nt

nt

It's been with us since the first age and it's a good concept. There really should be someone to keep all the power of magic in check. We all know a prepped mage will probably beat anyone, and if he anticipates it, even the villager, but dumb luck can mean the villager will beat him no matter the prep and he's the only char on the mud to do so.

Also, the points about the sheer strength and courage plus all the history is something that can be weaved into so many roles...

Without the village I'd probably never even get 10 pks on any character, so from that point I can't complain.

I just think they are silly.

I've always had trouble killing them. Outside of assassinate. And gangs. But then I don't usually play classes with a/s/b.

I suppose a lot of mage builds are good for it too.
As are cloud mountaineers. And communers, especially druids.

nt

If your Mage has a hard life at low level you are not playing him right. Below level 20 a warrior should not be able to compete with a Mage. Any Mage.

I've mastered the art of survival in another MUD before I even started playing CF.

If you play your Mage right you can dominate warriors and there's nothing they can do to counter it until about level 20.

Basically as a Mage you can stack so much ac that a warrior can't hit you unless he forgoes damroll to the extent that you just outdamage him.

So it's not pre-20 but rather pre-15.

But it takes more effort.

Those seem like very nice suggestions. Could you help me with some suggestions for my past attempts?.

The first thing I tried when I cameback was a cloud vanilla ranger. The problems I had with him were:

-I couldn't hit hard at all, at 15 I was only able to hit Dismembers on an ambush, and that was the only caps damage I was able to deliver. On a GIANT, that was dissapointing,hehehe.
-I couldn't find any mages leveling in the forests.

So after a while of that, I just had to delete him out of frustration.

My subsequent attempts have been with assassins, drow, halfs and felars.(a bunch of stuff mastered, trip, some weapons,etc.) and with non limited all dam gear (thanks official item search).

With these I've leveled by myself until 15 or so to practice my stuff, specially trip. But this is what has happened:

-I can see and find the mages
-I try to trip them to death, and I am able to keep them in combat for about three rounds but when I get them to gushing or even writhing. They flee away between trips.

On my last attempt I actually found the same poor mage 5 times in a row leveling in different areas, but all I did was annoy him and make him run to try another spot because I couldn't do enough damage to two round him.

One time I did kill a mage with an assassin (a drow ap) that I caught leveling(the guy went balls to the wall, not fleeing and I out meleed him), and I was able to become and applicant. But a necromancer killed me twice in a horrible manner and just killed the interest in the char.

So, on an alternate request. Any suggestions for not becoming lowbie necromancer food?, as both a ranger and an assassin applicant?

-Jae

With a ranger or especially an assassin, I'd expect that with some patience you ought to be able to get the jump on someone who is hurt from ranking or another PK. Focus on lurking around common ranking areas or places a mage your level might go to get gear or preps.

It sounds like you're focusing on damroll which is probably a safe strategy as long as your hitroll is abysmally low. Prioritizing damage is definitely going to help, whether it's damroll, higher average weapons, exploiting vulns, etc. On that note, if I were playing an assassin or ranger I'd probably just rank right ot 18 for dual wield if I were you, since dual wield is going to increase your damage output more than some of the other things in your control.

Lastly, try to study up on general tactics. Make sure you're timing lagging moves against their commands if they're entering any. Try to anticipate what your opponent is going to do and how that might play out. For example, if your mage opponent is likely going to flee then be aware of the exits and be ready to run after him. In fact, you might even opt not to attempt a trip and instead be free of lag and ready to chase. Sometimes lowbie mages will attempt to run a few rooms away before casting invis or teleport or whatever because they know the failure rate is still high, so fast reflexes and area knowledge come in handy there. At the end of the day, good PK chops are going to get you that kill much more reliably than anything else, and no amount of game changes will ever change the fact that skill must be honed.

All of my advice was for warriors.

1) Rangers have it tougher and I would almost say you might be easier getting to where the "strongest" spot as far as abilities go and sitting there. For some that might be getting to snare or savage blow, for others it is different. Rangers are a little bit tougher to get the kill on though.

2) Assassins are by far the easiest class in the game to kill with in my opinion. I would probably sit around 21-24 depending until first mage kill.

All in all though, considering you have classes with stealth here you should go up to the mage and watch them and wait until they are hurt. With the ranger, the ambush may seal it that way and with the assassin there is no reason you can't finish a mage quickly with trip.

Lowbie and midbie you are deadly.

Stay hidden as much as poss and people won't be expecting you. Cheap shot will stop them getting a chance to flee.

Necros are unlikely to wax you

There are three ways:

1) On lowbie, when you get dual wield, jump head first onto any group, anywhere that contains a mage and concentrate on that mage. More often than not, they'll kill you, but there is a chance to nail the mage. Hitting hard helps here, but not overly hard, otherwise they just flee. If they do flee, be ready to chase. If there is a mage in town, jump on him no matter the tribs.

2) On lowbie/midbie, wait for a ranking group to go to trolls/elves and just bide your time. Ideal is situation when AP is tanking for a while before you strike, he will be hurt and will die from an ambush and a round. Otherwise, ambushing the mage when the group tank is hurt, they fight multiple foes, they have been fighting for a while, etc, might provide you the opportunity to finish with serpent strike in spam confusion. Golden is the ability to insert yourself at the next mob or two unseen via creep, which they will attack and that would allow you to evaluate health/battle progression/who's dirted, etc.

3) Just rank to bearcharge or even snare and do a classical ranger kill with ambush into them fleeing into snare into second ambush or lagging with bearcharge. In my experience, the first two are easier, but YMMV. Keep in mind that mages at 36+ are significantly harder to kill.

P.S. I somehow manage to kill people with 0 lag ability on different classes. Usually, it involves them thinking they're going to kill me. Against very many competitive people, this is really key.

P.P.S. On assassin, just wait for them to get hurt and trip, that's all there is to it, don't think there's an easier class to kill with.

Agree though that it's hard pre-truesight. Every mage that wants to avoid you can (with ease). You have to surprise someone or find someone willing to fight you.

Lowbie mages want their shield spell and stoneskin at 15.

I can't kill anyone without it as a necro