Posted by An Old Arbiter on April 11, 2000 at 07:08:37:
Yes, you read that right and no I'm not going crazy. I never though I'd ever think this, considering how handicapped Ragers have been in the past, but things have changed.
To be honest, much of their strength comes from the quality leadership. The current Emperor of Thera is worthless and the current leader of Master is mediocre and I THINK had a policy where they only will raid to get the orb back and will never down the head/sapling though this might have changed. Ever since Thror, one of the BEST cabal leaders ever, the Ragers have had decent leaders or ones who would at least show up.
There are, I think, some things that make it overpowered, even if it wasn't for the lack of competent opposition.
Now back in the days of Ghim it really sucked to be a Rager since there were so many cheesy ways to get killed. Most master or empire raids consisted of spamming area spells. Also, the absence of healing or any real helpful magic made ranking very, very hard plus if you got poisoned or something, you were dead.
The changes that were recently made tried to remedy this, and I think were a good idea. With the addition of the defender and scout, now you aren’t completely screwed, have an area spellbane, and can be healed or have your poison cured. It became easier to be a Rager, although you still had the disadvantage of not having access to clerical and normal magic. Every cabal has weaknesses like this to balance it.
What is just sick now, are bards in battle. Why bother making a defender when a bard can just heal you up, anyways? The disadvantage of being in Ragers is, obviously, that you have no access to clerical or normal magic. With a bard in battle, he can fight like, well, a Battlerager, use songs that mimic clerical spells, songs that mimic invoker spells, and an area effect sleep song that a Necromancer would kill for.
Yes bard songs aren’t as powerful as a rejuvenate or a invoker's fireball but they certainly come damn close. I would say that their "cold be sleep" song is probably worse than any Necro spell.
(On a side not, I think it would be funny if an Immortal sent a room-tell to a hero bard that said "Grallon has arrived." or some other hero-level enemy of battle. I've seen them in action, and NOONE types as fast as they'd have to in order to have the flee/sleep flee/sleep tactic work so well. *cough* TRIGGER *cough*)
To correct this, bards need to not be allowed in Ragers. In RP it doesn't make sense. You tell me that a group of magic-hating barbarians are gonna let some guy into their ranks who can call up fire and ice and other weird effects with a few hand gestures and some fancy words? Would look like magic to me.
Also, for game balance, Ragers are supposed to be weakened by their rejection of magic. A weakness that is, to easily, negated by the presence of bards.
Ready, Aim, FLAME!
-An Old Arbiter