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Post by sirra on Jan 24, 2015 17:49:08 GMT -5
In my experience, I'm going to say Ranger/Thief is better than Assassin/Hunter on average only because the forage and desert quit. The rest of the drawbacks of Assassin can be worked off, and anyone can kill anyone(outside certain gickers), so I don't much care for combat issue there, but that ranger d-quit and get food or drink from the ground? Consider me jealous. That's the thing though. You'll need to do an insane amount of off/def twinking (and this can only be accomplished, realistically, in the wilderness, as the 'rinth won't take you that far), and even once you've done that...and overcome the massive starting advantage Rangers have in defense (And Defense is much harder to raise than Offense)...There's the fact that your parry will always be much lower, and you won't have slashing or chopping weapons. And when I say 'insane amount of twinking', that is by my completely immoral standards. Not that of a decent person. If even I think something isn't realistic, then you would literally be better off sucking Nyr off and special requesting a stat raise + off/def boost on your templar or Karma 7 mul. Does that sound unlikely? Maybe. But more people have accomplished that than twink up an assassin to the levels people blithely suggest here. There's been some templars/nobles staff-boosted to god-like levels that have never touched a verrin hawk or stilt lizard or gith outside an RPT.The sole reason a ranger can overcome a warrior in the circle is because their parry, while lower than a warriors (if still comfortably higher than an assassin) can be overcome by raising all four weapons. And in fact, even have the advantage over a warrior. A ranger can get their dual wield higher than a warrior, and their two-handed to the same level. For the assassin...Yes. The majority of people will be rocking piercing and bludgeoning. But the moment someone breaks out <advanced> slashing or chopping on you, expect to start taking hits like they were using a pike. And all your extra Defense won't matter. Magickers rely on overpowered magic spells/items in combination with a high off/def. And they still take tons of hits....They just might be immune to damage. I think the number one thing people don't appreciate is how disadvantaged you are by lacking skill in the opposing weapon type. It's pretty big. It factors into a lot of different stuff - even disarm defense. |
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 24, 2015 19:00:26 GMT -5
To put this into a simple tldr example...
In an unplanned fight: warrior > ranger > assassin
In a planned fight: ranger > assassin > warrior
In a planned gank: assassin > ranger > warrior
If we're just walking into a room and beating on each other then you have an unplanned fight. If we're intending to kill someone and using combat code along with advantages like mounted or poison then we have a different ranking. If we are planning to kill someone with minimal or NO combat what so even then you get the new rankings. The point is that the amount of work to make assassin could be put towards making a ranger or even a warrior MORE deadly.
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Hardboiled
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Post by Hardboiled on Jan 24, 2015 22:06:50 GMT -5
It was a interesting post, and a great read. That said, Rangers are great but not so great they completely overshadow warriors and assassins. The only way a ranger is going to kill a warrior is by shooting him with an arrow and hope the poison applies. There is just no real other way, you shouldn't underestimate shield use+disarm even with with shitty ride and no weapon in one hand. Against a warrior holding a with shield+weapon+max parry and shield_use skill, the chances of a ranger kill them with poison arrow and max archery is really a maybe...if its against a human or dwarf with a very good or higher endurance stat though...ummm...its possible but not as sure of a thing as you might think since high endurance helps quite a bit against getting poisoned. All that aside, even if a warrior bashed your ranger, or a ranger charges your warrior, unless that warrior/ranger out skills you greatly , chances are you'll simply be able to type: stand;flee and you'll live, not always but often enough. In short, for a warrior to ensure a kill on a ranger, or ranger ensure a to kill on a warrior, they still need to out skill their victim greatly on top of tricking them into situations where it isn't so easy for them to simply run away at the very first sign of trouble. Assassin have always had the tools to bypass -one- of these requirements. Skilled Assassin have always had the most methods and the very best chance to kill targets which would otherwise be very hard to kill by warriors or rangers. Not to say archery and throw aren't great but when you positively, absolutely want to kill one motherfucker in the room, -backstab-, accept no exceptions. (quote stolen/changed/paraphrased from a movie with Samuel L. Jackson  ) There is more of a -chance- to survive the other methods of assassination and then good luck finding them and kill them after a failed attack. Sadly when certain PCs don't want to die, sometimes the only chance you'll get to kill them is to backstab them in a damn tavern. (or find a whiran but magick is another story) Also the pick skill on assassins is great, mostly because it gives you the chance to shadow people into apartments, in order to spy on them or check out their goodies without getting trapped inside. I do believe its way easier to pick your way -out- of an apartment as opposed to picking your way in. Lets say you are planning on assassinating someone, and shadow them into their apartment, only to find their buff warrior mate is there waiting to mudsex them there, not giving you a chance to kill them before your target logs out, well assassin level pick skill you can get out these situations without problems. Most of the Vanilla classes all have their niche, strengths and weakness which has worked well for 20 years. Now if you are talking about any one of these vanilla classes with extended subguilds like aggressor, outdoorsman or slipknife then those weaknesses become really blurred and its a whole new level of OP. I wanted to mention one more thing; my ranger was using clubs before the defense nerf, they were powerful even back then and even now against animals that don't have high endurance. Not as much against people though, since defense bug made it that fights took a lot longer, and since stat ordering didn't exist back then there was a chance you were fighting someone with high endurance, making it very hard to deplete their stun before it had a chance to recover. After defense nerf which I believe occurred around 2006~ I saw a lot more dwarves and humans dual wielding clubs and hammers. Its really after the defense nerf I personally saw them becoming popular, I know i used them a lot more, its just now they were effective against people as well as animals. The situation really became worse though after the offensive boost to riding along with stat ordering since people often took endurance as their third or forth priority stat and strength as their first. Finally of course, changes to two-handed boosted offensive potential even more. Arguably reel code has helped the situation slightly, since spears and axes tend to do the most hp damage than clubs on average and thus are better at potentially getting that satisfying flee-delaying reel. However I've always felt high endurance+good defensive skills (especially parry/shield use) are excellent counters to bludgeon weapon stun damage regardless of the many bonuses to offense through other skills. As long as you aren't getting hit repeatedly, one after the other, your stun will regenerate surprisingly quick with extremely good or exceptional endurance even on a human during combat. This makes it very hard or impossible to knock you out, which in turn makes bludgeon weapons bad at killing you in comparison to a spear or axe which would bring you down to 0 hp more quickly not to mention more easily reeling you. Rolling high endurance does have some benefits beyond hp. Oh well, just some thoughts, which hopefully with spark more opinions and more discussion. I didn't agree with everything in the original post but I really enjoyed reading it, thank you for taking the time to write it.  |
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Post by sirra on Jan 25, 2015 2:38:02 GMT -5
It was a interesting post, and a great read. That said, Rangers are great but not so great they completely overshadow warriors and assassins. The only way a ranger is going to kill a warrior is by shooting him with an arrow and hope the poison applies. I liked your post as well, and I don't want to cherry pick just one comment out of it while ignoring the good stuff you wrote. But I'ma do it anyways. I should reiterate that a ranger can become as feared and capable a direct melee combatant as a warrior. I've killed many warriors. Warriors that were maxed, uber NPC staff controlled delf warriors, half-giant warriors, mul warriors. Etc. I have logs of two of those encounters up on the forum. And let me tell you...That delf NPC was the first thing to dodge me in months. It just shows how high the staffer set the Defense. By the time of that, I couldn't even miss a stilt lizard with my fists while weighed down to max encumbrance. (FWIW, staffers are notorious for statting and giving off/def values to NPCs that would take even hardened, twink PCs a year+ to get close to). Not because I'm such an amazing pvper. My tactics were rarely ingenious (Hurr durr, I charge and stab you with peraine-laced knives). And in fact, I was often far less subtle than some of the really good rangers, who are great at archery, sneaking and ghosting about. I was too impatient, often. A ranger, especially mounted, can steamroll a warrior. Disarm is not that dangerous when you can whip out another weapon. Bash and kick are useless if you're mounted. As a ranger, I would not hesitate to dive into close combat with any warrior, mounted. Provided I had 30 days plus on me, and I'd spent that time twinking off/def. If you're not twinking off/def to practically unethical levels, then much of this doesn't apply. (But it is worth noting that warriors have a much harder time twinking off/def because they typically can't sneak worth a damn, and if they can sneak, then they can't ride). Yes, poison and such helps. But you certainly don't need to apply it with an arrow. That kind of caution is best reserved for mages. There's only one kind of warrior that I would be wary of: A known, long-lived warrior rocking a spider-fang trident in one hand, a kite shield in the other, and exhibiting no-hand riding skills. I'd give that motherfucker a wide berth or else rely on sneaky tactics. Anyone else? I couldn't wait to get mixed up. Even if they were carrying a trident and shield, if I thought he was some ~20-30 day city guard or Bynner that just branched his trident recently, I'd still have at him. I'm talking about a guy who has his advanced weapon skill to at least <advanced>. Which is extremely rare outside one or two people at any given time. If I were playing, I'd know who they were. The fact that you haven't seen more rangers doing this, is simply owing to how few people effectively twink off/def. Hell, most rangers...I'm talking 90% plus, go their whole careers without even using peraine once. That's incredible. |
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Post by sirra on Jan 25, 2015 2:53:54 GMT -5
Someone asked me how to know if they have a good Offense.
Answer: If a stilt lizard can still dodge you, when you punch at them, then your Offense is much lower than you think it is. You should be able to easily knock out a stilt lizard, with it being unable to hit or dodge you, even while sizably encumbered, to even start considering your Off/Def 'good'.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 25, 2015 3:11:10 GMT -5
I can equally attest that Elrum could go toe to toe with Beldyn or Zarah (both very strong warriors) in the sparring yard while on foot. Beldyn had branched his advanced weapons too. Now keep this is mind, Elrum was only Jman weaponskills when he was doing this. If I'd twinked him and got max weaponskill for a ranger I'd have been winning outright.
EDIT - Jman weaponskills = not even fully twinked! He did have an unholy high def though, two staffers commented on it on separate ocassions to me privately.
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Hardboiled
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Post by Hardboiled on Jan 25, 2015 4:02:14 GMT -5
Did Elrum have the extended sub-guild aggressor? If so how high did the disarm skill go on aggressor?
If not, what style did he use, and how hard was he to disarm?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2015 4:07:13 GMT -5
Because it's overpowered as fuck. Always has been. The ability to effectively do double damage, and easily two-shot people, with any blow to a stun hitloc is ridiculous. There's a reason 90% of half-giants use bludgeoning weapons, too.
If I have a sword and I hit someone viciously on the head, they take like 30 damage. If I have a mace and hit someone viciously on the head, they take like 30 damage and fucking 70 stun damage or something retarded.
A human with exceptional strength can two-shot any other non-giant/mul with double head/neck blows. You can simply one-round people. And you can do this literally out of chargen, although to reliably hit skilled people with their weapons drawn you'll need to raise your skills. Only at the very extreme end of things do other weapons genuinely compare, like when two completely maxed dudes fight and the +5% parry of a sword actually matters, or the fight is likely to end at the first hit due to peraine.
It has always been completely unbalanced and awful for the game, especially since the stun resource is used for all manner of things totally unrelated to combat. On top of effectively double damage on half the hit locations, you can also luck out and the guy you're trying to kill is at half stun from Waying, or just reduced to a max of 85 from scan and barrier or some shit.
If someone ever wants to grief somebody's aide or merchant or something, they can just roll up a dwarf with strength prio and buy two maces in the bazaar, then walk in and attack them at the bar. There'll be a very good chance to kill them instantly, or at least knock them out and leave them defenseless for twenty minutes before soldiers rush in if they're around. People have done this in the past. I believe Pearl was killed in this fashion (though then rezzed because Pearl.)
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Post by Procrastination on Jan 25, 2015 4:22:06 GMT -5
Assassin Sap + Advanced bludgeoning could be fun. Roll yourself a rinthi dwarf about fifty years old with a thug subguild. Get that sap high. Get yourself an etwo HG weapon. Twink up the Sap and bludgeoning hard, and if you don't wack'm out instantly...well it won't take long. Go smash someone.
On the subject of really buff rangers though, I've seen quite a few. I still personally think HG-Ranger seems it has the potential to be probably the most terrifying combination to be found in the game. I would put HG Ranger above HG Warrior, personally, any day of the week. Though, I'll not be rolling a HG, cause after two days of playing dumb(and not having that be an actual intention of the character), I'll wanna fall off the shieldwall, climb back up, and fall off again repeatedly until I die. Or go give a couple packs of kryl a hug.
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Post by sirra on Jan 25, 2015 4:26:21 GMT -5
Because it's overpowered as fuck. Always has been. The ability to effectively do double damage, and easily two-shot people, with any blow to a stun hitloc is ridiculous. There's a reason 90% of half-giants use bludgeoning weapons, too. If I have a sword and I hit someone viciously on the head, they take like 30 damage. If I have a mace and hit someone viciously on the head, they take like 30 damage and fucking 70 stun damage or something retarded. A human with exceptional strength can two-shot any other non-giant/mul with double head/neck blows. You can simply one-round people. And you can do this literally out of chargen, although to reliably hit skilled people with their weapons drawn you'll need to raise your skills. Only at the very extreme end of things do other weapons genuinely compare, like when two completely maxed dudes fight and the +5% parry of a sword actually matters, or the fight is likely to end at the first hit due to peraine. It has always been completely unbalanced and awful for the game, especially since the stun resource is used for all manner of things totally unrelated to combat. On top of effectively double damage on half the hit locations, you can also luck out and the guy you're trying to kill is at half stun from Waying, or just reduced to a max of 85 from scan and barrier or some shit. If someone ever wants to grief somebody's aide or merchant or something, they can just roll up a dwarf with strength prio and buy two maces in the bazaar, then walk in and attack them at the bar. There'll be a very good chance to kill them, or at least knock them out and leave them defenseless for twenty minutes before soldiers rush in if they're around. People have done this in the past. I believe Pearl was killed in this fashion (though then rezzed because Pearl.) You're pretty much right on the money, with the exception that between two equally skilled players, (or with the non-bludgeoning player being slightly better than the other), you're better off taking swords against them. When I last played, bludgeoning, while strong, were generally slower and had a def/parry penalty. That actually makes a huge difference in close fights, when each guy might take 50 swings at the other. Even a 5% differential, with 50 swings, is a big deal. If in the course of a fight, you each take 50 'swings' at the other, and you land 5 more and parry 5 more than he does, then you've basically just slaughtered him. I saw this play out in innumerable sparring matches before I started relying on it in pvp. And if Mr. Blunt Fanatic has never picked up a sword in his life? You're going to MURDER him. That doesn't matter if the bludgeoning guy is better than you. Then it's time to rain down the pain. Slinks, the Red Fang uber-ranger (probably the best ranger I've ever seen), did not have impressive strength as a delf, but used Sun Runner warclubs to great effect. That said, I'm also of the opinion that the Sun Runner warclubs, like everything else Sun Runner and gypsy related, is grossly over-statted, for their accuracy, speed and lightness. They hit harder than weapons with twice the strength requirement. tldr: Most people don't train more than one or two weapons, and so play right into the blunt user's strengths. It's true though, that nothing can wipe out a much lesser skilled player faster than a superior combatant armed with bludgeoning weapons. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2015 4:33:55 GMT -5
Only if their skills are actually high. Two equally skilled middling <10-day fighters will hit each other plenty, in which case the bludgeoning weapons reign supreme assuming the wielder has high strength. At high skill, you don't even need that strength, although it continues to help and will let you one-hit almost anyone instead of having to land two blows to head/neck/body/waist (waist is a stun loc but rarely gets struck, although it's also unarmored for most people).
You know how a human warrior with exceptional strength can fairly regularly land 'grievous' hits on weakly armored or unarmored locations? That's about 100 stun damage. Technically, a 0-day warrior with max strength and a storebought weapon could one-shot most people. And if you attack someone without high defense sitting unarmed at a table, your chance to hit even at starting skill is probably in the region of 80%+. It's actually some of the most unbalanced game design I have ever seen.
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Post by sirra on Jan 25, 2015 4:39:28 GMT -5
Assassin Sap + Advanced bludgeoning could be fun. Roll yourself a rinthi dwarf about fifty years old with a thug subguild. Get that sap high. Get yourself an etwo HG weapon. Twink up the Sap and bludgeoning hard, and if you don't wack'm out instantly...well it won't take long. Go smash someone. On the subject of really buff rangers though, I've seen quite a few. I still personally think HG-Ranger seems it has the potential to be probably the most terrifying combination to be found in the game. I would put HG Ranger above HG Warrior, personally, any day of the week. Though, I'll not be rolling a HG, cause after two days of playing dumb(and not having that be an actual intention of the character), I'll wanna fall off the shieldwall, climb back up, and fall off again repeatedly until I die. Or go give a couple packs of kryl a hug. Interestingly enough, that's exactly how my HG ranger went. He was monstrous...AI strength, exceptional agility...EG endurance, I think, and 'good' wisdom. He was ridiculously powerful. I'm pretty sure at ~5 days I could easily solo a bahamet. But HG RP I find mind-rotting, so I stored him. I hate how people treat half-giants, and what they expect of them. Which is to basically be a stereotype retard. If you add even a hint of nuance or humanity to a HG, you're doing it wrong and playing a too smart half-giant. Not EVERY half-giant has to play the kid from goonies. Not EVERY half-giant needs to be your friendly comic relief. Who are half-giants hanging around that they pick up acting like this? There are NPCs of half-giants with lieutenant, sergeant and one even has a captain's rank, in the Byn or the city guard. I think one of the founding NPCs of some militant organization had an ancient HG on its top council. Might've been the Byn or the Kuraci Fist. I could pull off a Sergeant-esque giant just fine, especially if the wisdom and experiences justified it. But you can't play a half-giant like that. You gotta play a gaping fuckhole or else people complain behind your back and staff titters. It also doesn't help that HGs attract a particular subset of players who, I suspect, must masturbate to muscle magazines in their spare time. Because they're absolutely fine with just being big, stupid and standing around guarding nobles and going 'yup'. I swear to Christ, there's like 3-4 guys who only app half-giants that do that, one after the other. All they care about is having the highest strength in the room. We all used to play tabletop RPGs I'm sure with friends who also had had to have characters with the highest strength stat. One dude who was just fixated on that one stat above all others. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2015 5:28:54 GMT -5
It's because people feel that if your half-giant isn't a hapless moron, you're ignoring the supposed disadvantage of the race. It's regarded a bit like an elf who rides. People don't trust other players to have their half-giants make the occasional sensible decision or contribute to roleplay in a meaningful manner while still allowing the race's mental restrictions factor into the character's actions. In a way I see the underlying point as someone rolling up a half-giant and playing it like a human would be abusing the game, but the problem is that people make that judgment immediately upon seeing a half-giant do anything that makes sense.
I've also never actually seen anybody play a half-giant who wasn't dumb, so people's suspicions are generally unfounded. And over the course of a decade, I think I've seen less than five half-giants that I thought were good, interesting, valuable characters and about a hundred and fifty who were completely pointless code machines whose roleplay was so bereft of any sort of value or purpose that I cannot fathom how the players stayed interested for more than a week. It's fun to try half-giant stats for a bit when it's new to you, but after that point, I don't understand how anyone can continue to enjoy it. Then again, nine out of ten HG players clearly just do it for the coded power and are shitty roleplayers who can't adhere to any character concept with nuance.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2015 9:37:55 GMT -5
@oldtwink agreed about the crappy hg rpers. The ones who do the caveman tarzan shit. "Me Blork smash tok for much shiny" but when it comes to strategy, they turn into geniuses and know exactly how far they can safely be from enemy A compared to enemy B in order to get the best attack and defense, they know exactly the right decisions to make, every fucking time, when someone else offers them options that might be risky if they pick the "wrong" ones.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 25, 2015 10:21:28 GMT -5
To the question further up, Elrum was a Ranger/bard so he wasn't getting any help from his subguild unless bard gives like sekrit bonuses to flee . He used 2-handed baobab staff or dual wielding runed hammers from salarr. He got disarmed by warriors from time to time but I mean come on... he had staff, 2 clubs, spar knives, and he had all his weaponskills to jman so disarming him was pretty much impossible before he could just flee. Not to mention if you are disarmed and have high 2hand and bludgeoning you just auto etwo your remaining weapon, then if you reel them you can pick up your old weapon without giving them a free hit. MORE YOU KNOW GUYS! |
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) There is more of a -chance- to survive the other methods of assassination and then good luck finding them and kill them after a failed attack. Sadly when certain PCs don't want to die, sometimes the only chance you'll get to kill them is to backstab them in a damn tavern. (or find a whiran but magick is another story)