A question

[Magick]

45 minutes ago, Ulmusdorn said:

Addon: I was only gone for 36 hours. WTF happened to you all?

 

You were the stick, gooey tree sap that bound us all together.  We missed you and lashed out irrationally.

[Ulmusdorn]

34 minutes ago, Magick said:

 

You were the stick, gooey tree sap that bound us all together.  We missed you and lashed out irrationally.

I see that.

 

[f0xx]

4 hours ago, Ulmusdorn said:

incredibly easy to farm, healing potions equivalent to nymph hearts which are highly contested and hard to farm. 

I agree they are incredibly easy to farm, but they sure are not an equivalent to nymph hearts.

You can't say that a potion which heals you for 100 HP per quaff is an equivalent to nymph hearts (which heal for 40).

[sarcon]

Druid healing potions are not as useful as nymph hearts. They evaporate way to quickly so there is no point in farming them. At best you can brew some before a heavy battle and maybe have a handful on standby. If your dealing with cabal warfare you might as well forget that idea all together. I use nymph hearts over druid healing potions 8/10 times. If your fighting with a staff and shield, your output is pretty much zip, you'll now just be relying on your spells. Now, regarding their shields, you can easily stop a druid from using both shields, thus they truly only have one constant shield (shield of thorns) that can't be blocked. Their other shield is up for 24 hours and if you neutralize it, watch them run for the hills. There are ALOT of ways you can ruin a druids day and pretty much nullify them, ya just need to figure it out. Case and point I fought a druid recently and it took me 5 minutes to chop them down.  Also, as I said before, we really don't have a truck load of druids mopping people up, you have the same player pretty much playing them, except for a few new recruits joining the fold. 

[Ulmusdorn]

@f0xx and @sarcon

 

You misunderstand me. I think the potions are MUCH TOO strong in comparison to Nymph Hearts. 

At least nymph hearts are hard to farm. These potions are not. 

I've played a druid in the past - the evaporation isn't that bad - you're literally getting a healers abilities as a druid for free where as other people have to farm and farm and farm. 

1 hour ago, sarcon said:

If your dealing with cabal warfare you might as well forget that idea all together. I use nymph hearts over druid healing potions 8/10 times. If your fighting with a staff and shield, your output is pretty much zip, you'll now just be relying on your spells.

Unless you're a hasted werebeast. If this is the case and you are a hasted werebeast then the druid is doing something wrong

1 hour ago, sarcon said:

Their other shield is up for 24 hours and if you neutralize it, watch them run for the hills.

Which I believe is some of the complaint considering they can a. Druid gate b. camo c. treeform

1 hour ago, sarcon said:

If your dealing with cabal warfare you might as well forget that idea all together.

Meh you only need 1 or 2 to completely change a fight. Hell. I've won PK's from the healing from the nature spirits staff.

1 hour ago, sarcon said:

you'll now just be relying on your spells.

So thunderstorm, deluge, tsunami etc aren't enough? Add wands and scrolls to that... 

 

I mean, I've heard of potions giving druids Air shield? Or was it barrier? - some sort of other high -ac spell. Coupled with Arms of gaia and the rest of the buffs available? ouch.

 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not directing this post at any druid, player or immortal. I merely stating that from my watchful position as an IMM, druids appear to have tipped an (already fine lined) balance in their favour. 

Remember the complaining we had with those god damn falcon druids (was it Faye? Or the one before) that no one could kill because of the ridiculous AC? Now think about adding them being able to 1. never be effected by yearning and 2. healing potions so they heal like a healer (on top of the 400 skill based healing they already have from herb + restoration).

[tassinvegeta]

I can tell that you Sir, certainly have a great understanding of pk and balance. Hats off to you and very good points btw.

[Fool_Hardy]

So I like to fix stuff.

Its in my nature. You hear a knock in a motor. I hear a curiosity.

When something is out of balance, it whines.

The Player Base is out of balance.

Druids are powerful alone, without cabals, without charmies, without friends. Someone is using every advantage with one and it definitely is seems they need tweaked. However, if anyone else was playing that druid, they would a. not know the advantages they need to be taking b. not perform well in the heat of combat as this one is doing c. not be complaining about how over powered they were.

Its always OP when its in your face and OK when its in your hands.

If Consumables cost mana to use they would have finite use in battle.  But then, you only want that some of the time, when your opponent is the consumable user.

[sarcon]

1.) The evaporation takes away from farming, so nymphs are 100% more useful than potions. The number of times I've nearly died because they evaporated just before tried to use one, too many times. I'm a very active druid and I've played the #'s game, nymph hearts trump potions big time. 

2.) Druid gate, camo and tree are strictly defensive. That's like me getting upset that someone recalled or teleported when I almost had them killed. 

3.) Thunderstorm and Tsunami are both area/weather permitted, easily avoidable. Throw in some good AFF protections and deluge is pointless. 

The only time your going to have a problem with a druid is if your a feral. Even then, you can usually do some counter-measures to tip the scale if you know what your doing. A druid wins' when another player makes a mistake, period. If you get killed by a druid you've over-committed yourself. They are defenders of nature, thus designed to be defensive. Again, when you start seeing DRUIDS STEAM ROLL the player base sure, by all means lets nerf the bastards. 

We are getting complaints, especially IN THIS POST about someone saying they can't finish a druid, give me pointers, yet the immediate answer is NERF THEM. Please, show me right now, all the druids that have insane kill records... Guess what, your going to have to dig deep. With a quick flick of the wrist you can upload like 6 current ninja's, 20 Rangers, 100 warriors and who knows what else. It's no secret I played Yewtrunk, I play Osyn and Capillaris.. please show me any other druid that is really giving people a hard time. The only other druid that I have seen lately around often and holding their own is Swhwhshshshs or whatever the hell her name is, but even with her she is a Merchant, dueling people here and there. 

[Fool_Hardy]

Exactly. Sarcon you are doing everything right.

The rules of the game state.

Avoid death at all costs.

By utilizing every advantage, that is what you are doing.

I will offer this advice Sarcon.

Mister E, Manual Labor, and myself used to play Healers often. We perform very well with them. Now they are gimped. Its our fault. We know it. Its our shame (or pride).

Be careful that you do not gimp my druids please. Remember the balance druids seek to keep, remember that you chose the more "peaceful" path of the Ranger Guild.

I do not want to see lag added to druid skills and spells, and that seems to be the fix. Think about it as you continue to develop these characters.

 

[Zavero]

Damn, wish you wouldn't have said that Sarcon. Oh well. I think the tree thing is a little ridiculous simply because I cannot see the player on a who list when they are in tree form. I don't think you should be able to move around in tree form. Other than that, no issue with druids myself.

[Izzy]

I want to say this.  I fought this druid for hours after I asked for help.  I nearly killed it many times.  It can be done, but super hard.  Maybe easier for my class.

[Ulmusdorn]

Side note: God I hate the posting function on this forum sometimes. I always get stuck with quote boxes I can't delete!

 

Sarcon, take it easy, this isn't directed at you personally. 

 

I think my only point will be is that if we get player x, y and z who are masters of their class like the druid player is, and they cannot win ever. Then there is an issue. 

As the immortal staff we have the advantage of looking at a range of things. Also knowing exactly who plays which characters to gauge ability. 

 

Again I'm not saying druids are overpowered. Hence they haven't been changed. But for transparency for the rest of the Pbase, we are constantly looking at these things and making over all judgements. Not one on one judgements you can make as a 1v1 character.

 

 

[sarcon]

12 minutes ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Exactly. Sarcon you are doing everything right.

The rules of the game state.

Avoid death at all costs.

By utilizing every advantage, that is what you are doing.

I will offer this advice Sarcon.

Mister E, Manual Labor, and myself used to play Healers often. We perform very well with them. Now they are gimped. Its our fault. We know it. Its our shame (or pride).

Be careful that you do not gimp my druids please. Remember the balance druids seek to keep, remember that you chose the more "peaceful" path of the Ranger Guild.

I do not want to see lag added to druid skills and spells, and that seems to be the fix. Think about it as you continue to develop these characters.

 

 

Trust me I am very familiar with the nerf of classes. I feel your pain and remember when the healers got the nef stick. I played Jevrax, Leader of Savant with a Drow cleric ages ago. Had loads of fun with that cleric, they ended up nerfing those bastards especially minister because I did end up going on a nasty 3 month murdering spree. Granted, minister did need to be toned down, if I landed that it was an insta kill.  Everyone knows my favorite of ALL time was doomblades, they started tweaking them more and more, now I personally find them useless vs top tier melees. I also don't mind baiting my toons out because, with the amount of hours I put in on a toon, it's no surprise who i play, well besides @izzy he is cracking out pretty hard with his toons too. I'm all about balance, seriously I am, it's no fun when a class just steam rolls, but right now Druids are not steamrolling by any means. 

[Zavero]

It's not a big deal to know who plays who. I just prefer to keep it a mystery because it's a game to me to try and guess who plays who based off play styles/times/etc... then I find out the truth when the character gets posted on general chat. I honestly suspected you, just was not 100% sure.

[Fool_Hardy]

Keeping ones subidentity secret is a throwback to when the AIM chatrooms were popular and less than favorable OOC situations were prominent. Some of us just do not forget.

[Zavero]

Well, no worries @Fool_Hardy, I don't think you ever did anything to me during pen and paper sessions to warrant retaliation today....

[sarcon]

6 minutes ago, Ulmusdorn said:

Side note: God I hate the posting function on this forum sometimes. I always get stuck with quote boxes I can't delete!

 

Sarcon, take it easy, this isn't directed at you personally. 

 

The problem I have is this, I'm not saying by any means I am the most skilled player, but I definitely will try my best to master a class and limit my mistakes. I'm a perfectionist and need to make sure I'm giving anything I do 100% of my effort.  I dedicated to put a lot of time to my first cleric, ended up getting Leader and loved it. Then shortly after, they got a nerf stick. I ended up taking a few years break after that one. I did the same thing to doomblades, and you guest what, same thing happened, they got a neft stick. Now, I decide to roll a druid because a friend recommended I should try them and JOKINGLY I said, watch them nerf the druids. Now granted, I'm not the only one playing these classes but god dam, for the love of brambus I'm starting to take it a little personal. Any other class I roll I usually do it strictly for informational purposes, give them a test ride to see if I like the play style, but usually don't actually commit to the class. Yet when I do commit, this is what seems to be happening. Maybe I figure out how to exploit them and it backfires. 

[Anume]

Fact is, the druid class got 3 significant updates lately that all were a power upgrade. We ARE watching and evaluating for balance and there are a couple more ideas for changes for the class floating around. That does not mean the class will be gimped.

[Fool_Hardy]

@ZaveroIve seen your current. Would be a fun battle. Just don't take it personal.

 

[f0xx]

Sarcon....

Minister was OP indeed.

Doomblades were VERY OP. After they nerfed them initially and you left, they were nerfed again, after my own suggestion, even though I *love* blademasters. After that they were nerfed yet again (their thac0 change, which was not needed imo, but that's a different subject). You know what I love more than blademasters though? I love the game, and I like to have diversity and variety. It's dull to have just clerics, or just doomblades, or just bards, or just ninjas.

Someone asked why would someone not post PK logs for balance purpose on prayer - here is the answer: Because people don't like to see their characters nerfed (read balanced).

The sole fact that you are defending the old Minister and the old blademasters, and taking their nerfs personally, doesn't speak well about you and your view of the game. Let me tell you this - old blademasters and old clerics were NOT nerfed because of you. They were nerfed because they were OP.

Just like ninjas were not nerfed because of Nictis, Cenlar or Kotrag. They were nerfed because they were OP (and they still are, to a certain extend IMO).

the_nightmare (Nictis) does like to come to me now and then though, and say "They nerfed ninjas because of me". Never fails to make me chuckle.

[Magick]

26 minutes ago, Ulmusdorn said:

Side note: God I hate the posting function on this forum sometimes. I always get stuck with quote boxes I can't delete!

Ctrl+Right Click in the quote itself.  The "Remove Quote" and "Remove Quote and Keep Contents" options should appear, both do what they say on the tin.  Alternately, you can highlight the box by clicking (optional) and delete/backspace and remove it that way.

 

28 minutes ago, sarcon said:

I'm all about balance, seriously I am, it's no fun when a class just steam rolls, but right now Druids are not steamrolling by any means. 

The problem we're having here follows a trend is strangely self correcting.  We have had an influx of druids and ninjas lately.  I've seen at least a half dozen of the latter and nearly as many of the former in the past couple days.  Days.  By far more than the next single class rolled.  This is both a blessing and a curse.
This usually stems from either:

• Player(s) doing extremely well with the class (Sarcon included)
• Changes to the class 
• Some combination thereof

Now, players doing well stems from one of three things, usually.  Either the player is quite proficient with the class, the class as a whole hasn't seen much action for one reason or another and people are unfamiliar with it and struggle to adapt, or they're broken in some way.  In all three instances, people will complain about things they struggle with and claim that X is overpowered and Y should be nerfed.  This isn't always the case.

The more we have of said class playing, we'll usually get rid of the second option; people unfamiliar with the fighting the class.  Of course, it's not always easy to vet those people on the forums from those things that are truly broken.  So we post more information and the Imms tweak as necessary.  Sure, sometimes nerf unnecessarily, but I believe those to be few and far between.  Of course, that takes care of options two and three.

The people that do well in the class then complain that they were fine (because they were, but again, that's rare), or because they enjoyed the power spike and didn't see (or refused to see) anything wrong, as Foxx mentioned earlier.  Of course, there's the option that they've become proficient with the class while people were unfamiliar as a whole and it looked like they were doing better than average because the bar was set lower.  Or some measure between the two.

So now the Imms have the lovely task of figuring out if they're truly fine, or if they need further tweaking.  Let's help them do their jobs by posting relevant information.

 

 

 

17 minutes ago, f0xx said:

Blademasters ... were nerfed yet again (their thac0 change, which was not needed imo, but that's a different subject).

That THAC0 reduction was from -15 to about -10 to put them back in line with warriors.  There was almost as much of a gap between warriors and blademasters before the nerf as there was between warriors and rogues and the same gap between rogues and priests.  But yes, that's a different subject.

[Manual Labour]

8 hours ago, Fool_Hardy said:

Mister E, Manual Labor, and myself used to play Healers often. We perform very well with them. Now they are gimped. Its our fault. We know it. Its our shame (or pride).

Mister E and Manual Labour is the same person, me, and I only recall playing one healer ever.

I also didn't know they got gimped, or that it was somehow partly my fault

[f0xx]

Always funny when reading such posts

[Ulmusdorn]

5 hours ago, Manual Labour said:

Mister E and Manual Labour is the same person, me, and I only recall playing one healer ever.

I also didn't know they got gimped, or that it was somehow partly my fault

So much win in this post.

[Pali]

If it makes anyone feel any better, I was the reason for an early healer tune-up.