P.S. Thanks Balinor for reminding us once again how much you rocked' date=' and that you killed Suunmar. We're all very impressed.[/quote']
If for nothing else then proving my point from a noted player - I love you for this comment
Blademasters
I think blademasters are exceptionally adept at fighting almost any class with few real weaknesses. Though I'm not saying they're overpowered as such, just really buff.
Blms get so many little hitroll/damroll boosts courtesy of blood vow, battlesphere, and various stances that they can afford to pile on saves gear with little to no ill-effect to their hit-dam. This allows them to have massive hit-dam and still have excellent saves. This is not something many melee classes can do, being set to take melees and mages nearly 100% of the time. As Dregor I had hit/dam over 50 and -saves over 35-40 most of the time. Also they don't need to worry about damroll, as their hitting power is determined by their powerstrike skill.
Blademasters get the defensive benefits of a polearm, and the offensive benefits of dual wielding. I noticed that I often got 4-5 attacks per round un-hasted with Dregor, particularly against mage classes. It wasn't as uncommon as you're making it sound either.
Blademasters have a stance that allows them, in the same command, to disarm non-disarm weapons AND LAG at the same time.
With the footwork command you can quite easily wear a nodisarm primary weapon and attack only with your left hand. This means that you are undisarmable, and still do 100% of your attacks with your offhand with no penalty to accuracy. I could wear a rusty blade primary, and dual a water vuln weapon, attack left handed and get the full benefit of the blade of tears with no chance of being disarmed like everyone else who uses them. Once again, footwork allows you to attack one handed, but you still do the same amount of attacks with that hand as you would if dual wielding that weapon.
Unlike monks, the blademaster doesn't need to empower, or remain in offensive/defensive mode for a long period of time if they want to get in a certain stance. They just jump in at will, and they are then stuck with it for 8-10 hours.
Once again, I am not saying that blademasters are overpowered. I am saying that they are very buff in almost every situation. From the ability to easily get wicked saves and wicked hit dam, to the ability to lag/disarm in the same command, and their general ability to attack as though dual wielding with one weapon - they have great power with few real weaknesses.
P.S. Thanks Balinor for reminding us once again how much you rocked, and that you killed Suunmar. We're all very impressed.
They get two bonuses to hitroll (battlesphere and blood vow), not "so many little bonuses to hitroll."
Your wrong, they cant use the massive hitroll damroll eq, so therefore they cannot pile on massive hitroll and damroll.
Also with the footwork if you are fighting a warrior they can disarm your second weapon, that point is null.
Blademasters stances at 50 last longer then 8-10 hours.
Why are we arguing about equipment?
Its not wise to say something like that unless you are absolutely sure..
I can think of a set Ive seen/could add to that wouldnt encumber but could do that sort of stacking.
The point isn't null, because not all melee characters with a vuln are warriors who can disarm secondary weapons.
And as for the 'two' bonuses to hitroll. Blood vow gives +10, battlesphere gives +6, and in stances you get varying hitroll boosts as well. I know for a fact that kairishi gives something like +9, and doomsinger also gives something of that amount. So there's three, and the 'two' bonuses are +16 with a possible extra +9, which is nothing to be sniffed at.
Also I didn't say they could pile on the big hit/dam gear. I said they could get a big hit dam because of these bonuses and pile on the good saves gear.
yes go into karishi or doomsinger and fight a warrior and get bashed to death yeah go do that!
That point isn't null. In fact it's a very good point brought up, as if you start hitting someone with your secondary weapon and not with your primary that primary weapon is no longer your primary weapon, is it? It shouldn't be that they can't be disarmed because of that, they're being able to hit someones vuln without them being able to at least have a better fighting chance. What if their primary is burnproof noremove and the person they're fighting is a dwarf Zerk who can only destroy their primary weapon? Well they're not going to destroy it while the Blademaster is hitting for the vuln the entire time. This should be the first thing to change.
Blademasters have to worry about encumberance, just like monks, however they have no restrictions other than if they choose the wrong stance, they're stuck in it for a few hours while a monk is stuck in it for 24 hours if they need to jump from defensive to defensive or vice versa. Either get rid of monks having to empower as such or make Blademasters have to empower to go two handed weapon stances or dual weapons.
Point of a Halfling Blademaster in Warmaster as a Barbarian is a ridiculous point to be brought up indeed. Anyone who knows their skills knows that it would be far easier to own the playerbase as this race/class/subcabal combo than any other, the next would probably be Syndicate for the others who know why.
Some of the lightest equipment in the game have huge amounts of saves on it in some way or another. So they can't spell kill communers and such? They can still snakespeed, flee and let them reattack. If they attack with murder, well, blademasters have counter AND twin counter which means that murder goes from one one attack to two free attacks assuming they're trained. Once I read through everything again, or catch anymore posts where people defend their awesomeness I'll gladly point out anymore flaws that I can come up with. Blademasters trained will destroy many people. I say drop some of their critical strikes power, the amount of damage those things do is just insane and I have played a Blademaster before.
you know what? Then do it, and I'll watch you not do it, because none of you know what your talking about, now I am done arguing about this. Later haters.
Here's the thing, since coming back I've only had trouble with three classes/races: Blademasters, Evil Clerics and Ogre Rangers. Two of those were just toned down. Blademasters have HUGE power spikes as well as HUGE drops. When naked, they have a harder time reequipping than say a Warrior, however when decked, they also have an easier time fighting those Warrior banes. Balinor brings up the point that no one since his Blademaster has owned the player base since, however he forgets to point out how much easier it is to regain EQ when he's stripped naked on that particular race/class and subcabal. The problem with them though is their huge spike in power might be a little too high for their own good, and sure they pick a mastery in a certain race or races group which means if they're already a spike in power vs. normal classes not in their particular mastery, God forbid you're playing a race they are a mastery in. Like I've said in another thread, they get to have two expertise lvls in various race selections and then one mastery. Say they go with Unique, Giant and Beast. Beast has 4 races, Giant has 4 races and Unique has 4 races, which means you're playing some kind of Beast Blademaster. Their mastery could be any of these 12 races, say they go with Giant to get rid of Ogres and various other Giants. That's four races they can mal up which seem to have an abundant number of anymore which will totally cripple them, but leave open the other 8 races to a little more freedom. The downside to it is they run out of mana, they're completely defenseless then, so what makes the biggest enemy of them? Shamans and Clerics, those of which can both deplete their mana sources or even possibly a DK/Necro with energy drain. Dispel magic hurts them too if it lands. Other than that if you have the saves, you're pretty safe, as Nekky said, you could go the saves and still have decent hit/dam enough to party hard with the rest. Why shouldn't they be changed? Give an actual fighting reason why these high powered classes shouldn't be changed, don't give up.
you know what? Then do it' date=' and I'll watch you not do it, because none of you know what your talking about, now I am done arguing about this. Later haters.[/quote']
Im going to say this for the benifit of the rest of the PBASE...
Dude how F**king old are you?! Spit the dummy already. If you cannot thoughfully, constructively and insightfully add anything to this current thread then please dont waste bandwith with this 5 year old crap. All of our posts have been thought out - weve touched on many points when all you make is snide remarks.
Either grow up and add something usefull or hold your tongue.
yes go into karishi or doomsinger and fight a warrior and get bashed to death yeah go do that!
If you are a moron you will die with any class. What we are saying that anyone with half a brain will not do that and they will be prepared for said warrior.
Because you guys just bring up the same old thing over and over, I already told you how I felt. Sure if you pick a halfling or dwarf/duergar blademaster your gonna probably do very well against any communer or mage, but that leaves you open for others to beat you. Maybe one thing could be changed and thats with footwork and how your able to get away with only one non-disarmable weapon and exploit weaknesses. Other then that though I do not think there is anything wrong with the critical strikes or the stances. Also every class has huge power spikes in the right hands. And if you deny that you better just stop playing, in all honesty.
Way too much misinformation and flaming in this thread.
Yeah, we all know that in the right hands any class has a huge power spike. The thing is anyone with moderate armor as a Blademaster can have a huge power spike as long as they have the weapon to do it. Look at Janjara, he managed to totally destroy a character with just a weapon, and the weapon was actually a pretty good one. If that isn't saying anything, then what would, eh? That's the whole point of having a race/class though is that you're open to be reamed by another race/class, not that you try to maximize your PK so that you have a much wider array of PK targets you can kill. Take an ordinary Halfling/Dwarf/Duergar Blademaster, do you think they'd tear through half the pbase compared to the same race/class but in Barbarian or Syndicate? Probably not, which seems to be the whole basis of Balinor's argument of there not being a 'scary' Blademaster since his last one. Just kick all anatomies up to 100+, get a decent weapon and some armor and he's set to go at it with a lot of people from what I've seen. That footwork definitely has to be changed, if it's not a bug then that's pretty cheap. Lower the duration of mals that the Blademaster puts on the person or lessen the damage and raise the timer, either way it could balance them out more.
Do you honestly even know how long the mal durations are for critical strikes? I am telling you they are not that long. Hell flamestrike blinds people longer then critin them in the eye. Whatever happens happens, I just do not think they are superly powerfull as you may want to believe.
I now apologize for any flames and or misinformation.
I think blademasters are fine. I haven't played one myself, but through fighting them a fair bit I think I've discovered a critical weakness blademasters have (and I can see why people say 'play a blademaster to find out' because I wouldn't have found the weakness out otherwise if it wasn't for experimenting with a subtle I noticed). If you can exploit this critical weakness (which admittedly, is harder with certain classes) then you have a real running chance of taking a blademaster down, it just needs care.
Think of a blademaster as a caster, is all I'll say.
I only have two gripes with blademasters. IMO, a class that can put out a lot of damage in melee whilst being able to defend well (even against some of the better defenders, blademasters can put out the hurt) should not have access to a caltraps affect, or it should be for 0 hours, if anything (which wouldn't make it worthwhile using). My other gripe is with a certain stance that I think shouldn't do a certain thing when you do a certain thing. 
This is just my own personal opinion. I don't think blademasters are 'overpowered' so to speak, but they are tough. I have always thought that blademaster's strength could be compared to that of a qclass. Blademasters would have made a great qclass IMO.
Dey
I know how long the mals last on one of them for sure, and I died far before it did much anyways. As far as the blind goes, it's the same as being flamestruck, still better than dirt kick though. As for some of the other mals I'm not sure if they have changed in duration, but they were still pretty lengthy enough to cause some moderate damage. If you crit next to an hour on blind and it lasts for 2 ticks, well, that's bad luck because it's still two ticks, just most of one was robbed from you, as I've seen it land blind for two ticks recently.
I am so tired of hearing about Taeim. Every time you say "I dropped Suunmar!" it is like you screaming Im a mediocre player who managed to drop a strong character. So what man. If they where so sweet, why did you rage delete? Please man, it is a halfling blm, by design they are meant to trash communers. And this is why
Mag resist
snakespeed
polearms
shadowdancer
anat expertise/mastery
anything else I forgot? If i made a char just to be able to beat a few certain chars, I better be able to beat those few chars.
Alright my last statement and I will not post again on this thread, personally I havent had trouble with any blademaster in a long time... since maybe Vhorkus (sp?)
It is not the fact that the blade masters have a huge amount of power, it is perhaps the fact that they have no huge weakness.
yes go into karishi or doomsinger and fight a warrior and get bashed to death yeah go do that!
Using Kairishi agains't a warrior is not a bad idea, if you use the right choice in the kairishi, my first two blms used kairishi ALOT.
I think blademaster base class RP is stupid and lame in this MUD world specifically. I think putting them in the game was a depressing and blindingly regrettable decision. And I think the game has suffered for it, not primarily because they might or might not be overpowered, but because they've certainly replaced the need to play other melee classes.
There is a nich no blm will ever replace, you ask someone who they want on a gear trip, an ogre/fire/stone war, or a blm, and it will be the warrior, warriors are still more defensive, still more versatile, and do not require hours of prep and meditation that a blm does.