Posted by CuChulain on March 11, 2000 at 11:54:56:
In Reply to: Re: Read this rager groupie! (text) posted by One who has been there since the beginning and knows. on March 11, 2000 at 04:26:23:
> All in all, masters dominated slightly but not by much. Woe be to any other cabal though.
> Now comes the descent of masters and ascent of ragers:
Dominated slightly? There was a time before lash that we could never, EVER lag you a single
round of combat, unless you let shield/fly fall. I would venture any good Cleric Master died at
hero no more than 10 times, and that if they were taking big risks. As you said yourself, you
had 2400hp, haste which gave you 4 attacks just like a warrior, sanc, frenzy, protection, etc.
I never killed Nepenthe in my entire life, and vuln blunt + lower hp due to gnome vs dwarf con
meant he was the weakest of all the (intelligent) master clerics. I finally got a duel with him
at the end our our careers. I had a smashing weapon (him gnome) and bloodthirsted, and lost the fight.
I believe we'd even agreed he couldn't heal himself during the fight. Narche beat me without haste or
healing himself. Yes, they both had nicer armor at the time. But if you die all the time, it's hard
to have that perfect set of armor. And back then, there was far less really nice armor to be had.
>NO SHIT!!! and it would be fine if ragers and masters fought each other exclusively but this is by far the case. You almost avoid each other on
>purpose and take take your aggressions out on all the independents out there. What the chance do they have!?
>That independent mage out there dealing with all the rager crap, can he honestly win? can 3 of them honestly win against a thirsting rager? We all
>know the answer is no.
Um, the first sentence is just dumb. Ragers don't like mages. If you're uncabaled and hang around obvious places,
yes you will get attacked, and yes, you may die easier than a master. The upside is you have no reason to ever have
to show up at the golem or giant and give us free shots at you. So if you learn who the ragers are and learn better
places to rank, you'll do much better. Most ragers do not go out of their way to attack anyone they see. Some do,
but anyone who does has a hoarde of enemies, and you should have no trouble finding people willing to protect you from
them. Air majors on their own do fine against ragers. If they just want to avoid them, that's easy. They can also
kick them when they're down pretty easily as well. Ceorkan does fine as a dawn mongoose. A mongoose plus any offense
form or any class that can tank well can handle any rager save a bard. Maybe not win every time, but could some of the
time. Arkyster does well as an elf conjurer. Troupe bards, Draymen, sure others too. They didn't want to fight ragers
and I never looked at them twice.
> transform changed to 75% of natural mana(good change, made sense, hurt the dwarves big time though)
I can't even begin to list the master mages that had orgasms over this change. Transform for mages
didn't do shit for them, and did huge things for clerics. The change meant clerics suffered a bit
but mages could now survive a backstab.
You don't think seeing hidden is a big deal? See subject.
Yes, we can truesight without powers, but it demolishes you.
It also isn't as nice as the empowered form of it. I believe
we got that so you couldn't c invis golem and make it so a warrior
was helpless to even try to recover.
Bloodthist never prevented fleeing. I say never dating back to before
the purge. Arista doesn't make you attack everything you see. It also
heals you 300hp, restores all moves, gives you like +5str, haste, etc.
You can use that and still murder the target you want. They can flee
and you won't attack the storm giant they summon. It has it's advantages
over bloodthirst. Thirst was useless unless you were blind when you
attacked your own cabal. Masters used to scourage each other too.
You didn't used to be able to cast in rager cabal at all. Nothing. Another
total fuckover for mage masters, while clerics did just fine with 100damroll
and haste.
The only class that suffers from area spellbane are invokers. Before that they
were almost as bad as the clerics of old. Now they have to be a bit smarter.
Zomerseis seems to do just fine. He understands that most everything (save liches)
are not stand alone wrecking crews that can take on any race/class/cabal combo and
win every time. Those shields you practice hundreds of hours for can be cast on
other people for a reason. I'm not going to go over all that again though.
> Three divisions in ragers now (great idea except should limit the no. of berzerkers to balance the divisons.)
The other two division powers are very nice, for certain classes. Not having many of
them around is a huge disadvantage. If no one was willing to be a defender, it would
hurt the cabal. Forcing more people to play scout/defender would make us stronger, not
weaker, overall.
>Hell, if an invalid like Trell can make #2 on the pk list with his cheap rager crap, you know there is a problem with the cabal situation, even he said so himself.
Trell is an idiot. He also mentions his con was in the toilet. And while he thinks it's because
he took risks no other rager would (because he's so badass) it's really just because that's what
happens to ragers. If your dream in life is having a level 27 warrior that can kill most people,
roll one up. See how you do. Considering your vast wealth of outdated information, something
tells me you'd get your ass handed to you. As people have said before, did you hear assassins
can't charm anymore? Did you want to complain about how you won't play a thief anymore, because
all rager warriors counter your backstab for unspeakable damage, even in their sleep?
If you haven't noticed yet, you cannot play a character at high rank with no friends at all and
expect to do as well as someone with friends and knowledge. If you don't want a cabal that's all
about pk, consider dawn, honor guard, troupe. Dawn can be completely non-violent, and their powers
give a good deal of defense to a character. Recall to cabal and protect evil, which would be many
of your enemies. Plus you've got a group of people that you know you can trust, that can help you
out when you need it. Troupe has nothing to fear powers wise, but cabals that take all classes have
advantages just because of that. Being powerful in CF now means knowing what classes to join in a
group to be effective.
And finally, I know I can be guilty of this as well... But if you've been playing uncabaled for the
last three years, and continue to do so, obviously you enjoy it. Having played ragers for years,
I can find lots to bitch about what I'd like to see different, but fact is, I really like playing
ragers, and some people really love playing mages. You can find a post here about the weakness
of every single thing. Save maybe liches, but you try and hero a necro without cheating, and see
if you're having fun. If being uncabaled is what you like, then do it. As a rager hero, I never
even looked at a hero non-mage and thought about attacking them, unless they attacked the cabal or
cabalmates without reason. Any uncabaled hero mage can easily avoid the most travelled areas of a
rager's life and be immune to a huge number of it's members. Only a few people really know enough
to search distant areas for people, and one recall/teleport means a hell of a walk before he could
find you again. You remind me of Tournevis. The imms aren't supposed to balance the game under
the assumption that everyone who plays is a moron. yes, call Bloodthirst is an easy and often
effective way of dealing with a bad situation as a rager. It's also an easy and effective way to
end up dead, if you do it around someone who knows how to deal with it.