Posted by . on January 27, 2000 at 22:56:05:
In Reply to: CarrionFields new one man armies.. or.. why ragers are overpowered and no one sees it.. posted by Vonusmere on January 27, 2000 at 19:09:20:
> First off, this is an opinion by me based on fighting battleragers both with a Master, and an independant, caballess Invoker. If I offend anyone with this post, .. go fuck yourself, I'm in it to win it ;) > Let me start off with the way Battleragers and Masters have been structured. I use the Masters in this case because they represent a type of mage that has a minute chance of surviving a rager assault. Normal mages have even less of chance, so factor that in while you're reading. > Breakdown of the Battleragers powers: > About 80% of ragers are Berserkers, ie the old type. 10% are scouts. 10% are defenders. > General abilities. > Resistance: Hah, more like aura/shield in a bottle. Sure its not sanctuary, but its 2/3rds of a Masters chief protection. It can be called without having knowledge of where wands are located and what it takes to get them. It can be called without having to rely on a healer or a shaman with black shroud. It can be called when you're naked. > Truesight: Detect magic(useless), detect invis(useful). Since no mage can hide, detect hidden really wasn't necessary. They can even call this when the head is someplace else. They can use this when they are blinded (scourge, or other) and get sight again to continue to be offensive. Bullfuckingshit they should get all this. First off, if the blindness isn't spellbaned (which it will be), they can just flee and truesight and attack again. Blindness puts ragers out of their offensive nature because they can't initiate an attack without an area attack (poison smoke). > Now.. 80% of all ragers are berserkers.. > Poncho: Practically a quest level item, what other non-weapon is hit/dam/hp/str/-int? > Deathblow: 2x,3x,4x, or 5x damage multiple times a round, in addition to whatever specs/abilities they are currently doing. This has been around forever, but without adequate protection and game knowledge, you'll still get raped by a flurry or a drum or a lucky round. More often than not, ragers do an entire mages health in a single round, nevermind a Master (who might last two rounds). > Scout.. > Spell Evasion: An automatic area spell evading power. I think that pretty much sums up why no one really wants to play an invoker. > Defender.. > > What's left? A mage with a dagger/sword/mace/axe, easily parried, dying to flee before you fuck his ass up in two or three rounds. > When I joined Masters, I didn't know shit about protection. I still don't know shit about protection. I'm still a fuckin' equipment farm for most of the villagers because I'm a stubborn fighter. If you're not a repeat-Master like me and don't have access to the "limited items which save your ass from Battle, but don't tell everyone otherwise we'll take them away and rename them so that the elite few can have them again and be relatively safe" you're fucked in the scheme of things. > Either they need to distribute the general powers that all ragers get to the different "types" of ragers, or they need to pump a shitload of steroids into Masters. Dropping the non-aggression pact isn't a fraction of the shit required to get this Cabal out of its hole. > Well, I had situational schemes of mages fighting ragers, but you can look at the log board for that. The fact remains, if you don't know anything about the mud, you better be a battlerager so its all handed to you on a silver, head of a magician platter because join battle (forgo teleport, word, and some magical weapons) and you can wreck anything. > Of course, that's just my opinion.. I could be wrong ;)
> Battleragers structure: The cabal powers of Battle make each warrior, thief, assassin, ranger, or bard a small one-man wrecking crew. All their powers are innate, they never have to go outside of themselves to get what they need to do battle and win. They never run out of their powers, either.
> Masters structure: Masters, and mages in general, have to rely on each other, and outside sources to be remotely effective. They get health from transform, of course, but that conflicts with the most gathered protection in the game. Either way, the Masters have to rely on other mages spells, potions, wands, and limited items to be on equal footing with the ragers. This puts people like me, a Master who was never a Master before, never had a character in the 3rd age, didn't know purple potions didn't give sanctuary, didn't know where ANY wands were (the chief protection of Masters). Yet, you read "help barrier" or "help aura" and it says "If too many know of these wands, their potency will become useless." It kind of defeats the purpose of Masters, on a whole, using a collective knowledge to survive against those one-man-wrecking crews.
> Spellbane: Spellbane deflects all targetted spells of the mages. That means, a necro cannot sleep, pwk, poison, or do anything. That means a transmuter cannot slow and soften. That means an invoker cannot iceshards. This power stops the ability for a mage to do damage to a rager. The mage must rely on area spells and supplemental damage (mobs).
> Berserkers..
> Bloodthirst: Goes into a rage, attacks any non-rager that enters the room. Gets massive hit/dam bonuses, and spellbanes area attacks 85% of the time. What the fuck ever, so now an invoker is primarily useless, in addition to all the other classes that don't have mobs to fight for them. The ragers have powers that force a mage to do what ragers do, fight physically, where all mages know they'll be beat.
> Critical hit: This makes defensive majors and all those wands we have to collect to survive more than a round, useless. In addition to whatever damage you're doing, now you're guaranteed a good solid hit once a round.
> I'm not really going to go into their powers, because if they actually choose defender over berserker, they're fucking nuts.
> So say you're a berserker warrior with average equipment, good enough to do massacres consistantly.. that means.. you're impervious to all types of targetted spells, you can see invisible things, you're immune to being blind, you've got the same protection as aura/shield, and you can do a random OBLIT every round or other round.. and if you really get serious, you can bloodthirst and really fuck some shit up in addition to be almost immune to area attacks.