I finally made it back into the fields, and hopefully I brought a net positive to everyone.
People
I've interacted with enough people that I do not think I will even try to tackle everyone.
Deormdel - Stellar as always. There is a reason why everyone is gravitating towards you. Sorry if I wasn't a super preachy priest, assassin kind of makes that a challenge.
Allies
Sirelas - Complete and utter man-crush. I was devastated when you were done. When together, as long as I was properly prepared there wasn't anyone who was safe.
Balgrum - Ditto above, loved Balgrum though I think he fit more as a Maran than Acolyte. I did try to preach Mercy some, trying to keep your spirit alive.
Arrashaw - Also a complete and utter man-crush, sorry to leave you.
Brondalorm - I loved your spirit, but it was hard reading your logs and then keeping my mouth shut IC about your mistakes. The biggest two were 1) always check yourself for flying and/or mantle before starting a fight and 2) stop putting your damn potions in your container - it appeared to repeatedly get you killed.
Hallanaphas - I was a big fan and tried to keep you informed.
Enemies
Muuksube - While I respected your RP mostly, it tended to fade when you realize you weren't going to get me and basically whined at me about it. I also have to say, Healing Curse combined with that venoms prayer was beyond ridiculous. I saw so many people die to something that was basically unbeatable unless you had some great DR.
Malchazzar - I had a lot of respect for you, but I admit.. once you got your buddies and did runs to wherever and got all the awesome gear it became pointless to fight you. You started off destroying me in the beginning, then it evened out, then you would not fight without your friends around. Any time I tried to engage, they were a step away. It just seems wrong and backwards to me when team evil has better cooperation and hand holding than team good. When you add on the mask, bleh.
Venara - If I logged on and saw you were on, I was very likely to find one of two scenarios. You had friends on and were right beside them, or were sitting in a temple with revnants basically making you untouchable.
Ikoxus - You were actually pretty ballsy and quite good or lucky when it came to my attempts. I took an edge Just to fight you and it worked wonders.
Jeede - Aggressive and quite deadly, I wish I had the talent with assassin as you do.
Quindessa - We went from bitter enemies, to sometimes enemies, to respect and preferring to fight someone else. It was interesting to interact with.
Tiiga - It surprised me how often you did not want to fight me, but it appeared whomever used martial trance tried to engage and the other vanished for four hours then tried to use martial trance and engage, after which the other fled. Pointless in the end.
Unknown
To the certain assassin who I see once a week just long enough to keep their gear and quit... If you have alts, please delete your char. I could be wrong as my vision is narrow now, but I swear you are nothing but a gear vault.
Anyone else - post and I will try to reply.
Thoughts on Assassins
After having played an assassin, probably one of the last few to have full edges... Please tweak or remove Master of Nage Waza. I stacked it with Ground Fighter and it was disgusting how much damage I could do. It makes kicks go from relevant to only use if you can't throw. Also, the fact that it negates throw protection against other assassins and hand warriors feels completely overpowered with the damage/lag/reliability increase. Maybe it would be okay as it is if going hands as a warrior safeguarded you against it (even if not reliably).
Thoughts on Cabal Balance (Meaning my OPINIONS follow)
I don't quite think that Maran powers are weak, but they are relatively weaker than the competition. It appears that many of the cabals were balanced with bigger numbers in mind, as far as to powers and leader positions available.
My biggest complaint was with phoenix brand. That damn spell misses SO MUCH. I have a log where I fail on Ikoxus like 3 or 4 times in a row. Compare that to sigil, which appears to hit without fail with one round lag and instead of producing limited weaknesses makes them weak to everything. Now if the numbers were increased it may be 5 marans to one emperor but we don't have those numbers. Our numbers are to the point that you can probably get yourself a council position if you have talent and play, and those powers are all around quite good.
The question is how do you improve the powers without being drastic? I only have guesses, and they may be far off honestly.
Try making phoenix brand more reliable, further improved for leaders.
Make lightforged weapons last longer the higher skill/more hours the player has that is making them. Gives incentive to use them the further in you get and incentive for longer life. Or if you don't want them lasting longer, can you allow for a parm to get the right one? I could literally go through my entire mana pool and not get the right combo at times.
Also, can revnants please be thought out a little bit. The fact that once called they just sit there waiting makes it pretty damned hard to even attempt to enter there without a huge party. Even with a huge party, you are probably going to die. It would make a lot more sense if you tried to raid and they called revnants, they lasted a certain amount of time, went away and no one could call more for a certain amount of time. Maybe I am crazy and this is closer to what it is, but no one should have a completely safe place.. and they certainly appear to. Also, should there not be some enforced RP reasons that they don't walk around hand in hand constantly?
I can say this, the mud clearly looks to favor evils at this point. There appear to be more areas that they can explore, with elite gear they can get, to a wider range of people they can fight (including other evils). The counter argument will be that oh, but goodies can request... Yeah, if it is in. There is only so much goodie gear and you can't kill your friend for it, so most people probably don't have the good stuff or if they do, it is a smattering of it.
