The only str warriors that still do really well are all sword specs. Not only do you get the insane benefits that dodge/evade get from high dex but most high dex races have high int too so they get another big bonus. They really need to do something to make str based warriors(Non sword spec) better.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

It's been a while since I played, but my last character was an arial dagger/mace, and I found giant polearm/XXX to be one of the more challenging combos - certainly more challenging than your everyday giant sword. Absent extenuating circumstances (like cabal raids), the challenging giant swords were either (1) bloodthirsting ragers in a cage match and/or (2) seriously decked out with gear and preps.

I think polearm is nice for giants because of the bleeding edge (bleeding is an awesome maledict for a warrior), possibility for landslide, and the spec skills. Based on my experiences, I think a giant polearm/mace (if good aligned) or polearm/axe (if evil/good) could do very nicely - I haven't played a giant axe since the infamous "dex changes," though.

>The only str warriors that still do really well are all sword
>specs. Not only do you get the insane benefits that
>dodge/evade get from high dex but most high dex races have
>high int too so they get another big bonus. They really need
>to do something to make str based warriors(Non sword spec)
>better.


Top 25 Warrior PK'ers in the new age

Strength Based (16)
# 2 *<51 Fire War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Polearm|
# 4 <51 Min War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Polearm|
# 6 <51 Fire War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Axe|
# 7 *<51 Fire War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Mace|
# 8 *<51 Duerg War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Hand to Hand|
# 9 *<51 Fire War> |Spec: Axe|Spec: Whip, Flail|
#10 *<51 Dwarf War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Spear, Staff|
#12 *<51 Dwarf War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Spear, Staff|
#13 <51 Duerg War> |Spec: Axe|Spec: Whip, Flail|
#15 *<33 Fire War> |Spec: Sword|
#17 *<51 Svirf War> |Spec: Axe|Spec: Hand to Hand|
#20 <51 Duerg War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Whip, Flail|
#21 *<51 Svirf War> |Spec: Axe|Spec: Hand to Hand|
#23 <51 Duerg War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Whip, Flail|
#24 <51 Cloud War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Polearm|
#25 *<51 Dwarf War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Whip, Flail|

Sword specs = 7 (44%)

Dex Based (9)
# 1 *<51 Felar War> |Spec: Dagger|Spec: Polearm|
# 3 *<51 Arial War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Axe|
# 5 *<51 Arial War> |Spec: Dagger|Spec: Hand to Hand|
#11 *<51 D-Elf War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Dagger|
#14 *<51 D-Elf War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Dagger|
#16 <51 Felar War> |Spec: Dagger|Spec: Polearm|
#18 <51 Felar War> |Spec: Dagger|Spec: Spear, Staff|
#19 <51 Arial War> |Spec: Mace|Spec: Dagger|
#22 *<51 Arial War> |Spec: Sword|Spec: Whip, Flail|

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Took a bit of editing and stuff to do that, I appreciate it. I guess the numbers don't lie and other benefits play into it more than we see.

Thanks again Zulg

...I'd move the duergars down to the dex based list or just remove them since it's kind of a middle ground between strength and dex.

And as ORB pointed out, almost half are sword specs and only 4 are axe specs. Flurry is kinda easy. I'd personally like to see staff work better for strength characters - and maybe even split staff/spear.

>...I'd move the duergars down to the dex based list or just
>remove them since it's kind of a middle ground between
>strength and dex.

Duergars & Svirfs are both sort of middle ground, but their dex is less than their strength, and 22 dex isn't that great in the grand scheme of evade.

>And as ORB pointed out, almost half are sword specs and only 4
>are axe specs. Flurry is kinda easy. I'd personally like to
>see staff work better for strength characters - and maybe even
>split staff/spear.

Actually ORB stated "The only str warriors that still do really well are all sword specs." The data does not support that.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

First is that I totally think that the changes did not gimp str based warriors even axe specs.

Second is that when doing a comparrison it might be better to compare middle of the pack rather than top of the pack but I suspect that would not be as easy.

Intuitively I feel like ORB is onto something about sword being the favored spec among high-strength low-dex warriors. Here I'm going to call that "giants and minotaur". Using those races, here are the characters whose PBFs have been pulled by Dio's, who have over 300 hours played, sorted in reverse order by PKpH:

Djabree (arial mace/whip)
Zubei (felar dagger/pole)
Knacnar (fire sword/pole)
Kostyan (dark-elf dagger/hands)
Granaak (fire sword/mace)
Blitzenturt (fire mace/pole)
Sylus (fire axe/pole)
Bartis (svirf whip/hands)
Igbah (fire sword/axe)
Ckath (arial sword/axe)
Ghrummin (dwarf mace/spear)
Yuvralin (svirf axe/whip)
Hunsobo (fire sword/hands)
Adarmar (arial dagger/hands)
Yevandr (svirf axe/hands)

After this you start getting some guys who weren't notable enough for me to remember their names, so I stopped here. Some notable guys (Woldrun and Humbert) just didn't have the requisite PKpH.

So out of the 6 giants/minotaur on this list 4 were sword specs.

Though, this is a pretty rarified list. If I expanded it to include guys with fewer hours and lower PKpH the % of sword specs might decrease.

And if you look at the overall breakdown of specs regardless of race, sword outpaces the rest (Sword, Mace & Dagger, Axe & H2H, Polearm, Whip/Flail, Spear/Staff). It always has. Powerful limited swords are easy to come by, it offers both some offensive and defensive capabilities, it leverages both strength and dexterity. It appeals to both types of warriors. It's a well-rounded pick for every type of warrior.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I guess I should have been more specific, str based to me are fire, cloud, and storm giants as well as minotaurs. To me dwarves are con based as their str is kind of meh at 22 same with svirfnebli. Duergar have a good dex so they get the best of both worlds and don't really count them as str based as well. I would also be curious to see a bigger selection then just the top 25 since in that group are going to be people who could kill you with a wooden spoon. I bet if you looked at the top 25% of warriors sword would be overwhelming majority of any giant/mino that made the cut. I just know personally giant axe specs that I used to love now feel increadibly nerfed since the dex changes and I probably wouldn't play one again.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

> I just know personally giant axe specs that I used to love

Was it just because they were the go-to power combo? It seems to me giant axe specs used to have the best of all worlds. They could out-melee anybody, and could bash down any dex-based warrior. Do you just like easy wins? Because it seems more balanced to me now, even if axe specs are only good against every class that doesn't dodge well.

p.s. Duergar have worse dex than they do str. So they're definitely not a dex class.

1) He counted races which had higher STR than DEX as "STR-based", and higher DEX than STR as "DEX-based". Even if we use your new, more narrow definition and only count giants and minotaurs as STR-based (neglecting the question of how you would count dwarves), there are 7 of those, and 7 high-DEX races.

I did a similar analysis at least twice within the last year or so, and got the same qualitative conclusion-- there are successful warriors with a wide variety of builds. Trying to figure out why mediocre characters are mediocre is much harder-- and we shouldn't make a design change merely because people haven't figured out to how play a character to the limit of his or her abilities.

2) We shouldn't and won't make changes to gameplay based on vague feelings or a player's personal preferences, especially when it's in contradiction to available data about the playerbase as a whole.

Honestly, it sounds like you want a return to the dominant combo. We tried that for years (for a while, you were silly not to play giant or duergar, and elf/d-elf/svirf was a joke), and we made a large number of design changes explicitly to address that situation.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

a

Splntrd

Do it please.

I did a similar analysis at least twice within the last year or so, and got the same qualitative conclusion-- there are successful warriors with a wide variety of builds. Trying to figure out why mediocre characters are mediocre is much harder-- and we shouldn't make a design change merely because people haven't figured out to how play a character to the limit of his or her abilities.


There are countless examples to support the above statement. One reason I chose polearm with Blitz way back is how much everyone said polearm was a gimped spec.

Not saying I did anything special, but ever since Blitz polearm+emperor powers, I realized it isn't gimped.

Landslide I thought was gimped for a long, long time. Then I see someone use it, and then I see 15 other people decide to build a character that chooses that legacy.

It's just a matter of finding out how to use the spec/legacy/skill/spell/supp.

Skill/spell/supp is easier to figure out than spec/legacy/virtue/thief path, but if you figure it out, you will have a fun time.

Here's the next challenge in mind(not me just generally saying), seeing a warrior with the leader legacy, the one that allows group retreats blah blah. There is something there that just hasn't been used.

I agree with the "copycat" comments. Rhuean became dagger/whip just because no-one thought either of those were useful, and it was almost laughable how many dagger specs started showing up after him. (It was also fun that I decided to play the build that ROCKED Rhuean afterwards...so I got to use it against those builds, hehe).

I even had Vanguard's desire. Unfortunately, someone had forgotten to CODE half of it until about 2/3rds of the way through the character *grumble*. Problem you have with that one, is it's not a legacy that really makes your character much more powerful. It just lets you do things no other warrior can do in group situations. I really enjoyed it, but it's definately a niche legacy for a niche sort of player.

I basically did the same thing with Kazren around that time. I wound up choosing h2h as my second spec because I just didn't see any reason for a second spec. Polearm was just that good. I had chosen cry and crashing and with my leader weapon, I could run around naked otherwise. If I was weakened enough, I could at least handle myself. I really geared for strength so that was a rarity.

Blitz was good stuff.

With Kazren you went 35 and 13. That's not so great a record as to convince me that you didn't need a spec other than polearm - because polearm "is just that good".

No disrespect intended really, I'm aware there are lots of reasons why a character doesn't end up with a lot of kills or a great ratio.

I have never been one to just go for the numbers. My goal with that character, as was in my role, kill all of the leaders at least once and move on. I only killed the other folks if they attacked me first or during a raid.

nt

Who will make it to the Top?

The warrior with 100 pks and 5 deaths or warrior with 200 pks and 30 deaths?

The warrior who can beat any other warrior in CF, but can't actually land kills often or the warrior who can't beat half of the other warriors, but can actually kill any of those he can beat very often?

I mean there are defensive and offensive type of characters. And i don't think defensive warriors are worse just because they can't land pks as often as offensive characters.

Overall i think CF is perfectly balanced. Any character can PK sucessfully, even orcs and healers.

There are a lot of terrible match-ups in CF. Yes, if you sit on low ranks (and I sat there too) you can kill with any combo. But this is not because "CF is perfectly balanced". Rank to hero where average char is much more experienced than a walking punchbag and then try to "PK successfully" as a healer.

PK shamans with an invoker. Try to kill experienced players as a shapeshifter (no tiger/cheetah) or goodie conjie, etc.

People like you cry that orcs cannot kill druids. And people like Thrunna go and kill extremelly tough druids. It's good time to grow up and try to do things instead of finding excuses why you can't. Pk shamans as invoker? I have also seen it being done against very tough shamans.

And why reply in such manner to me at all? I told that there is excellent balance in CF and it's true. How does it hurt your feelings?

>People like you cry that orcs cannot kill druids. And people like >Thrunna go and kill extremelly tough druids. It's good time to grow up and try to do things instead of finding excuses why you can't. Pk shamans as invoker? I have also seen it being done against very tough shamans.
***
Both your examples prove nothing. You realize this? If there were, let's say, 200 battles between a shaman and an invoker, and an invoker won 20 of them and posted logs - it certainly could not mean the match-up is balanced. An argument "I also seen" means there were probably a few logs which you rely upon and it hardly can be a proof to anything.
I have killed War Master arial sword spec with my pickpocket thief (who had 3 binder skills and no weapon trip and was geared for HP). Does this mean something? No. Only for you, probably. There is always place and time for some mistake or trap, but I repeat, I hardly can take it as a proof of anything.

Second, CF is very prep dependant game. So if there will be some battle between trapper with cheapshot who got sanc/haste/aura/stoneskin on him and unprepped fire giant a thief likely wins. But again it hardly can be a proof to 'perfect balance'.

Thirdly, I remember your healer who you probably consider as a "PK successful" char. Do you realize that 90% of your PK frags were complete newbies? If you want more concrete example here is one - You attacked two chars of mine, several times and did not even come close to killing me. And I was not prepared or something. And I am far, far from being elite PKiller.

I had two chars who tried some low/mid lvl PKilling and I was astonished of how many newbies there are there. There also probably some chars who do not care if they die or not because they are powerranking or something.


So imo piling newbies corpses can't be a proof to your argument about perfect balance, etc.


The reason of this all is difference in PK skills and IC goals and a bit of 'human factor', not some mythical "perfect PK balance".

And if it was just me, I'd agreed that I simply do not know something about CF. Thing is some other quite experienced players did agree with me. Perhaps you heard of Elhe?

>And why reply in such manner to me at all? I told that there is excellent balance in CF and it's true. How does it hurt your feelings?

***
Unlike you I did not try some personal insults and as I can see I wrote it in quite polite manner. Was not going to insult you in any way.

Unless he choses to try to finish a kill when already hurt.

Honestly, a shaman should be able to whittle a voker down. Voker has no reliable way to stop the shaman drawing out the fight.

1. I consider Ajil as total failure.

2. Yes people like you always kill elite characters - liches, aps and commanders of the village. Probably that's why elite characters usually don't die at all. I can only kill newbies, i'm sorry.

3. Did you read the log of Jharazoul and Targala vs tons of villagers? Do you think it would be possible without Jharazoul? How can you say after reading that log that healers can't PK?

Do not reply to me as i will not read it anyway.

In favor of good invoker.

Good conjies kill plenty of people.

Stupid examples.

Several logs of invoker killing Meleme or Thnou alone would suit it.
We could discuss it theoretically as well but I think with your style "I am very smart and you it will lead to nowhere.

As for conjurers, there is an interesting tool named Graveyard (on qhcf.net). And according to it for big part of CF history there was only one PK successfull goodie conjie - Jeqo. And he made his frags on mid ranks.

So again, anything to proof with except your words?

Invokers:

Kelrizza vs shamen 2-0
Chrichuk vs shamen 1-0
Umalilath vs shamen 4-1
Zavin vs shamen 1-1
Darascus vs shamen 0-0
Maztriel vs shamen 3-0
Glastrom vs shamen 1-0
Haratzi vs shamen 2-1
Azrael vs shamen 3-2
Nizidrayt vs shamen 3-0

Shamen vs invokers

Grunlath vs invokers 13-2*
Lucrucien vs invokers 1-0
Njaal vs invokers 7-1
Draktel vs invokers 16-1
Waserax vs invokers 6-0
Zhenzar vs invokers 15-1
Mlyarir vs invokers 1-4
Aunkdunell vs invokers 3-0
Melememelem vs invokers 2-0
Klurak vs invokers 2-1

In general, shamans are more likely to win in a matchup vs invoker.

*This guy PKed my invoker multiple times (4-5 at least), rot kills from low con elf mostly.

>In general, shamans are more likely to win in a matchup vs invoker.
That's exactly what I am trying to say. And your numbers prove it at least for me though they are too low to make any confident conclusions.

Also, Kelrizza and Nizi had good anti-escape powers which covered the main weakness of an invoker in this match-up - unability to prevent a shaman from GTFO.

>>In general, shamans are more likely to win in a matchup vs
>invoker.
>That's exactly what I am trying to say. And your numbers prove
>it at least for me though they are too low to make any
>confident conclusions.

Low in what sense? Due to only top 10 PKers in terms of total PK wins were counted? The invokers in the list had 178-84 total PK wins while the shamen had 240-110 PK wins.

What the numbers show is that a good invoker is less likely to die to a shaman than a good shaman is to die to an invoker. They also show that it is more difficult for an invoker to PK a shaman than vice versa. This implies that while shamen in general are more likely to survive against an invoker than vice versa, a skilled invoker is more survivable against shamen than a skilled shaman is against an invoker.

>Also, Kelrizza and Nizi had good anti-escape powers which
>covered the main weakness of an invoker in this match-up -
>unability to prevent a shaman from GTFO.

to make it more simple:

good invoker > good shaman
bad shaman > bad invoker

You should cross reference the two lists you have, as in how often player from list A killed player from list B.

Few points:

Most shaman kills are from rot. Good invoker will rarely die to rot, since they have saves, can cancel blindness, can access con gear quick and very many have volley.

Invoker will have very hard time nailing kills on shamans solo, but why? Invokers rely on burst damage, and this is hard throug sanc, and many shamans have either magic redux or good int.

Real problem for invoker killing shamans though, is that good invoker vs. good shaman in cage match will be invoker wins 100% of time. In fact loaded invoker will make shaman's hp go down so much faster than his own, that there is no point for shaman to fight. Most maledictions will not work anyways.

As Chrichuk I went against all shamans without abs if well dressed and made them run 100% of the time, I guess only one kill, but that's a matter of luck.

I can only figure out one way for shaman to ever win toe to toe, and it is maran storm giant shaman with worn resist acid and cold, having the full kabang Delanan style (both regens, both ivory unicorns and two thin silver bracelets), in this case *mayby* invoker is unable to outdamage healing and runs out of mana if plagued. Or if screaming demon mace works without mace skills. Or mayby the axe Cabdru used to kill things that aren't meant to be killed by solo APs But if we play theorycraft like this, invoker will also be able to get eq that deals consistent prog damage, gives healing via vampiric touch, heals mana, and gives obscene amounts of damage reduction.

Real problem is that good shamans die to good solo invokers or vica versa so seldom that comparing numbers is ridiculous, but I am just going to say that top 5 invokers with their best set on vs. top 5 shamans with best set on fighting arena match would result in camp invoker winning 25 - 0.

an invoker without mana isn't going to be doing a lot and shaman have a couple of tools to attack mana and mana regen (plague, energy drain, dispel and let them use mana restoring things).


rot actually lands kills a lot less often then it lands itself. Since most players are unwilling to play chars to con loss not all that many get to points where rot is especially dangerous to them.

good invoker would have minimum of -100 svspell (by definition of being good). Good luck getting 2 energy drains off before shaman runs out of hp.

With Nererial, I found I could often run vokers out of mana simply by healing myself. Their spells didn't do that much damage.

Eh. If a shaman can get your mana down before you run them out of HP, you're doing something wrong.

Edited to add: Reliably, that is. Everyone gets lucky/unlucky once in a while -- but it should be rare and not result in your death.

nt

assuming the shaman and the voker are both geared for a lot of saves (which I think is what you are doing when you say that voker damage will be > energy drain) then the invoker is going to have one heck of a time actually dealing damage to the shaman.

-I mean shaman is likely to always have sanc in play 50% dam redux.
-succesful saving throw by the shaman means another 50% redux so we are at taking 25% dam now.
-If protection is in play thats another 25% to reduce damage taken to 18.75%

that is all without using any form of other dam redux and ignores the fact that shaman can heal themselves.

I think that this matchup can swing both ways because theoretically it should be a fairly long and drawn out fight with ample opportunity for people to use more complex strats and low chance of death because people also have ample opportunity to decide they are losing and retreat.

But I agree that it's a matchup that, one on one, doesn't produce a lot of deaths on either side.

For what its worth, here are the shaman vs. invoker stats for some prominent recent shamans and invokers:

Invokers:
Glastrom: 1-0 vs. shamans
Chrichuk: 1-0 vs. shamans
Fatfrumos: 0-0 vs. shamans
Darascus: 0-0 vs. shamans

Shamans:
Aunkdunell: 3-0 vs. invokers
Niglecher: 1-0 vs. invokers
Cruggin: 5-2 vs. invokers
Melememelem: 2-0 vs. invokers
Klurak: 2-1 vs. invokers

I didn't take into account whether any of these were gang situations. What this says to me is that neither of these classes kills the other one with any regularity, but that in cases of surprise or mismatched skill, either one can beat the other.

nutext

I don't think any of those are especially bad matchups, FYI.