Posted by Proud Blade on December 03, 1999 at 15:04:55:
In Reply to: Just please don't make any more classes need to perfect stuff (unless it makes total sense) posted by Graham on December 03, 1999 at 13:21:15:
So far: The good examples: Assassins, Necromancers My rationale: For transmuters, you more or less have to perfect shapeshift or you are in a lot of trouble. Same goes for key spells that you want transferred to your form, notably haste. I have not played an Invoker since the revamp, as it looks like a ton of spamming is the only way to efficiently work. I'm all for practicing (currently playing a duergar warrior, and learning nearly all skills to 100%), but with an invoker, each new spell is going to be difficult to efficiently practice with (any non-combat spell) or without (any combat spell, as you can't tank for much) a group. At least with fighting classes, you get the bulk of your skills early, and you can solo-rank (slowly) as you practice them. And it's much more interactive than mastering slow. Invokers get lots of nice abilities when they are all done, but I'm not certain they end up significantly tougher than any of the other three mage classes. (Or APs, for that matter.) I don't remember being particularly afraid of any one invoker, but there are plenty of transmuters, necromancers, and conjurers out there who I keep my distance from. And for bards, perfecting sing is just not so traumatizing. The class is plenty interesting, so I can suck it up and spam some low-mana song for a while. And if your warrior is high enough level to specialize, and hasn't boosted the weapon skill of choice to 90% yet, you are doing something wrong. =)
The medium examples: Transmuters
The bad example: Invokers
The classes that don't have much to worry about: Bards, Warriors
For both assassins and necromancers, the class is playable whether or not you want to run around perfecting everything. An assassin without kicks is still viable even at the hero levels, although there is a clear incentive to take the extra step and go for the higher kicks if you want. You can play a necromancer as well as anything else without mastering everything, and it will only hurt you if you attempt the Becoming. This is how skill perfection should factor in- no need to do it if you don't want to put in the time, but worth it if you do.