Hi:

This message was deleted when I tried to post anonymously on the bf, so I registered this character.

Bloodsteep seems to fail too often and not last enough for the benefits it gives. Having to eat two or three ***DEMOS*** to get the effect, which then wears off 10 ticks or so later makes it very impractical, especially combined with orc wimpy. I would suggest that the duraction needs to be lengthed, damaged taken reduced, likelihood to succeed increased, or some combination of the above. It would also be nice if orcs could see blood on the weapon, although this is ancillary to the main issue.

Thanks,

Orc!

If you didn't have the exsanguinate skill, it would be impractical.

Luckily, you do.

So when you've triple demoed yourself, you can drink some skins, and be ready to fight with your bloodsteeped weapon, provided you don't burn through skins too fast.

It would take about 8 skins to heal three demos, or 40lbs of inventory space. Those skins are for after your opponent beats you down. I suppose you could counter by saying hey, you should have 40 skins on you at all times, but that becomes impractical fast.

The exsanguinate skill is, in itself, useless (at the very least past a certain level).... Healing from elf blood is not.

Doesn't matter what elf, they all heal the same.

Gathering skins becomes easy, since you pick them up as you do your normal travels and don't spend time on sitting around waiting for the timer.

Three Demo's is overkill and skins are a pain in the ass. Stop being so damn Valgy lately.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Seriously, look around. If you don't know what you're looking for... look for some logs of past high level orcs... you won't see them using bloody skins made from exsanguinate.

Ignorance of available options doesn't require re-balancing.

In broader news, orcs seem to be quite successful at any of the ranks Ghrun traversed, and I don't feel any inclination to do any work there. Don't like Bloodsteep? Don't use it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

you base your game balancing decisions on certain items within the game that can be gathered by players. The game and the skills and the classes should be somewhat balanced upon what the class is given, not what can be found on a certain mob somewhere near a certain place. That is like you are balancing the skill bloodsteep with having found a place that gives unlimited cure light potions. That is horrible game balancing and illustrates in itself that the skills is impractical to use. You should ask yourself when you make a skill, knowing only what you know from the helpfile, would YOU use it? I don't care how successful a good player is with an orc, it does not illustrate nor give reason why a certain skill should not be changed.

I do not see it a problem to lower the damage caused by this skill to something minimal. There seems to be this trend to give skills huge drawbacks to the point of making them unusable. Why is it that orcs have all these endless drawbacks to all their skills yet warriors do not? Orcs get hit when they to crushing assault, orcs take damage when they bloodsteep, orcs take damage when they grapple, orcs take damage when they headbutt, orcs take damage when they throw their crap up, orcs take damage when they forced march, orcs take damage when they try to heal plague or poison, orcs just plain TAKE DAMAGE. Why is it that they are constantly taking damage for failed and even successful skills? Yet no other class except dagger specialists have this kind of horrible drawbacks, and that is only on failures, which become rare at more perfected levels. I mean assassin get poisondagger at that level yet they don't have to take a DEMOLISH when they try and fail at that skill. What is the huge deal here?

Bloodsteep's main effect is a useful ability that goes off passively (no action by the user) in combat. Those kind of abilities are very potent. Not every ability has to be useful in every situation- if you feel you need all your hit points for a battle, don't use it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Well how does this jive with an assassin able to create a dagger that auto poisons in battle, is very good average, and is a skill they get at or before bloodsteep? They take no damage from it, it poisons in combat, something that not only gives -5 strength but also damage over a period of 5 to 10 ticks depending on level, has a long timer, lags the assassin a round or less (forgot, its not more then a round for creation).

An orc gets to poison a weapon with his own blood. Failure causes 100 some points of damage, and failure rate is high. It puts a disease on their weapon for 10 hours. Diseases have no real instant affect that will affect the battle dramatically if it hits. It may ruin their day later, but I think Ghrun is right. Why drop 300 points of damage to disease your weapon, which has no direct and immediate affect on the battle in the short run? Since you know, by looking at the code, when it is useful, perhaps give us a hint on when it would be so? It seems pretty obvious that a good player failed to grasp the seemingly obvious usefulness from bloodsteep, instead noting the impracticality of the skill, where it bothered him enough to post it here. It obviously made him dislike the skill enough to suggest change, and I don't believe he is stupid.

Also, again why is it that the immortal staff has made it so orcs take constant damage from all their skills yet no other class gets this massive drawback?

And last, balancing a class because of one item they can collect is not balancing the class. If you believe that, then why isn't each class balanced for rings of regeneration? Or embossed rings? Or even for potions/pills/wands? Granted you did balance mages with a/b/s directly in mind. But thats a whole other discussion.

1) Going by the numbers, if anything orcs should probably be toned down in the low-to-mid levels. I don't feel any need to upgrade their various skills for further tip that.

2) You're exaggerating the numbers in your favor, much as you did with Parting Blow, above.

3) One obvious difference between the assassin skill and Bloodsteep is that the orc chooses the weapon. Poison Dagger is a replacement, Bloodsteep is an enhancement.

4) As for a situation where it's all positive: Any fight where you don't think your opponent can kill you, but you aren't sure you can kill them. Give up some hp for an extra way to seal a kill. Yes, it's intended to be a tradeoff.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

1. I am going by the direct quote from Ghrun's post. He said he took three demolishes, that is actually more then 300 points of damage. So please don't comment on me exaggerating since you did not comment that he was exaggerating. I go by experience, I do not have access to the code and exact numbers. Feel free to give out exact numbers so that we may all know what you know. Until you are more open with your information, statements that we are exaggerating numbers in our favor should not be stated unless you are willing to put out the numbers.

2. Tone them down them. But why put a skill in that an experienced player who played with it for quite awhile found so lacking that he didn't use it and took the time to post it here?

3. Poison thieves can poison any weapon, without any damage, apply it to anyone's weapon, and it lasts for a very long time. Last time I played my poison thief it lasted 50+ hours. That poison is dramatically more effective then bloodsteep. Fine its an enhancement that causes 100 + points of damage to do, and lasts 10 hours. Thats not very good at all compared to 30 hours of a weapon that auto poisons, no cost, good average. The upside is that you don't need a weapon, while bloodsteep does. Why not just throw a timer on it or throw a -3 strength flag from the damage caused from doing it? The downside is much greater then the upside which = low fun stick = not used by players.

4. What fight can you think of that an orc player actually thinks to himself, "Gee he can't kill me, and I certainly can't kill him, I think I'll sacrifice 100 or more hit points in attempt to maybe poison them in battle." When I played my orc to chieftain, I never said anything like that, no matter what fight.

I'm not really interested in continuing to re-state the same points. That said, nothing will be changing on this skill in the near future.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Or at least a skill that without looking at the code no one wants to use, and even then its used in one in ten situations. And thats if you don't eat half your life trying to use it.

Your game.

My opinion is that skill viability should be independent of mystery objects that one may or may not know about. I certainly never saw any skins that did that. As you know quite a lot about orcs, toss me some names of your more successful ones so I can look up some of your logs and enlighten myself.

But I wasn't talking about my orcs. Look up logs of old chieftains, and you will find what I found in the exact same way. You won't find the location, but, as I imagine it is with wands (though I refuse to find out), looking where orcs are is a good start for finding orc stuff....

I'm not saying bloodsteep is a phenomenal skill, because I haven't used it enough to figure out exactly what it does, and because quite frankly I don't care much, but your argument that it does too much damage is pretty ignorant considering you are talking about a class/race with the fastest and most readily available healing power in the game.

your argument that it does too much damage is pretty ignorant considering you are talking about a class/race with the fastest and most readily available healing power in the game.

One of us is ignorant, for true.

Its pretty obvious you have not played an orc. The exsanguinate skill has a 24 hour flag on it so that you cannot make another. Elf skins are usually reserved for pks since there are approx. 5 drinks per skin healing about 100 hit points. That means that he would have to use 3 to 4 skins, 96 game hours of time, just to put disease on his weapon for 10 or less hours. Assassins have bind wounds, perhaps they should take DEMOLISHES each time they create a poisondagger?

Skins are to be reserved for PKS and survival, you don't get them enough to just willy nilly drink away whenever your left nut gets scratched. If what you said was true, orcs would never have to rest.

Do yourself a favor and don't actually practice that skill, just find elf blood from another source.

So quit saying stupid shat!

I saw barrels like that in a orc chieftain log.

The fact that you and I do not know where they are doesn't make them inexistent. They are there. Go find them.

x

Since those players who actually seem to know about it, tell us to find better source for elf blood than exaguinate skins.

And if you think of exaguinate giving larger containers of elf blood, I think the skins would just have more elf blood in them. Exaguinate making barrels wouldn't be plausible.

So, I suggest putting finding those barrels in your next orc's to do list.

I'm not sure why it i that orcs have so many skills that cause damage to themselves for reletivly little gain.

s