Kelmi Feral Thief vs Yaliza Drow Invoker

[Anonymous]

SO we fough just before I got my ass kicked.  I was hurt, then I decided I was just going to bring the pain.

 

 

 

<668hp 1453m 445mv> [Exits: E W] 9 A marshland
  The air around you is moist and filled with the odor of decaying tissue.
Your feet slip a few inches into the murky water below you as water snakes
slither around in search of prey.  Thin tangles vines hang from the trees
like deadly serpents waiting to strike.  It feels very old here. 

[Exits: east +west]

<668hp 1453m 444mv> [Exits: E +W] 9 
where
The Outerlimits is [SAVANT] controlled.  Players near you:
<PK>   Yaliza        (WANTED)           A marshland

<668hp 1453m 444mv> [Exits: E +W] 9 
c fires
You tap into the bone cane of Wohpat adorned with a soul tear's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
You create a vortex of fire, sulfur, and brimstone overhead.
Kelmi steps out of the shadows.
Your firestorm *** DEMOLISHES *** Kelmi!
Kelmi has some small wounds and bruises. 

Yaliza: [===|===|===|---]
<668hp 1435m 444mv> [Exits: E +W] 9 
Your firestorm spews forth a cloud of fiery brimstone!
Your Firestorm decimates Kelmi!
Kelmi parries your attack.
A winged water dragon breathes forth a shard of ice!
You conjure a magical bolt of ice and launch it at Kelmi.
Your icicle decimates Kelmi!
Your hands become coated in blood.
You parry Kelmi's attack.
Kelmi's hunger devastates you!
Kelmi's crush decimates you!
Kelmi's hunger devastates you!
Kelmi kicks dirt in your eyes!
Kelmi's kicked dirt scratches you.
You can't see a thing!
You feel something drawing your life away.
Someone's life drain scratches you.
You can feel something dig into your body.
Someone's wrath wounds you.
Your fire shield mauls someone.

Yaliza: [===|===|==-|---]
<555hp 1435m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
c fire

Someone executes the 'Armaggedon Smash'.
Someone's crush MASSACRES you!

Yaliza: [===|===|=--|---]
<479hp 1435m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 You tap into something's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
Your fireball injures someone.

Yaliza: [===|===|=--|---]
<479hp 1430m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
The vortex of hellfire explodes suddenly!
Your Firestorm MUTILATES someone!
Your digestion misses someone.
With unnatural speed you strike at someone's torso.
Your strike decimates someone!
Someone's crush devastates you!
Someone's hunger maims you!
You parry someone's attack.
Someone tries to disarm you, but fails.
You parry someone's attack.
You parry someone's attack.
You feel something drawing your life away.
Someone's life drain grazes you.
You can feel something dig into your body.
Someone's wrath hits you.
Your fire shield DISMEMBERS someone!

Yaliza: [===|===|---|---]
<399hp 1430m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
c call
You tap into something's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
Deep thunder rolls and sheets of lightning strike your foes!
Sparks arc around someone's armor!
Your lightning bolt *** DEMOLISHES *** someone!
Someone's armor glows with ghostly blue hue and the air crackles with charge.
Your lightning bolt MUTILATES someone!

Yaliza: [===|===|---|---]
<399hp 1425m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
c call
You tap into something's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
Deep thunder rolls and sheets of lightning strike your foes!
Sparks arc around someone's armor!
Your lightning bolt *** DEMOLISHES *** someone!
Someone's armor glows with ghostly blue hue and the air crackles with charge.
Your lightning bolt maims someone!

Yaliza: [===|===|---|---]
<399hp 1420m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
c call

The brimstone clouds begin to rain fiery hail!
Your Firestorm mauls someone.
Someone dodges your attack.
Your strike misses someone.
Someone sidesteps your attack.
Someone's circle sidestep injures you.
Someone executes the 'Armaggedon Smash'.
Someone's crush LACERATES you!
Someone's crush devastates you!
You parry someone's attack.
Someone's crush maims you!
Someone's groin kick injures you.
You parry someone's attack.
Someone's crush devastates you!
You parry someone's attack.
You are shocked by the lightning from something.
Your muscles stop responding.
Someone's shocking bite grazes you.
You can feel something dig into your body.
Someone's wrath hits you.
You sure are BLEEDING!
Your fire shield mauls someone.

Yaliza: [===|---|---|---]
<211hp 1420m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
Someone has fled!
Someone walks east.

<211hp 1420m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
c call

Without cover someone is peleted with flaming debris!
Your Firestorm DISMEMBERS someone!
Someone walks in.

Yaliza: [===|---|---|---]
<211hp 1420m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
Your Firestorm wounds someone.
Someone dodges your attack.
Your strike misses someone.
Someone dodges your attack.
You parry someone's attack.
Someone's hunger devastates you!
You sure are BLEEDING!
Someone's crush devastates you!
You sure are BLEEDING!
You parry someone's attack.
You are shocked by the lightning from something.
Someone's shocking bite hits you.
You sure are BLEEDING!
You can feel something dig into your body.
Someone's wrath grazes you.
You sure are BLEEDING!
Your fire shield devastates someone!
Someone's steel spikes hit you.
You sure are BLEEDING!

Yaliza: [==-|---|---|---]
<121hp 1420m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 You tap into something's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
Deep thunder rolls and sheets of lightning strike your foes!
Sparks arc around someone's armor!
Your lightning bolt *** DEMOLISHES *** someone!
Someone's armor glows with ghostly blue hue and the air crackles with charge.
Your lightning bolt maims someone!

Yaliza: [==-|---|---|---]
<121hp 1415m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
c call
You tap into something's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
Deep thunder rolls and sheets of lightning strike your foes!
Sparks arc around someone's armor!
Your lightning bolt *** OBLITERATES *** someone!
Someone is mortally wounded!!
Your attention diverted, the firestorm collapses.
You have won your challenge.
FINISH THEM!
[SYNDICATE]: 'Yaliza has claimed victory over Kelmi.'

<121hp 1410m 444mv> [Exits: --- ] 9 
e
You tap into something's mana pool and reinforce your spell.
Deep thunder rolls and sheets of lightning strike your foes!
Sparks arc around someone's armor!
Your lightning bolt *** DEMOLISHES *** someone!
[SYNDICATE]: 'Yaliza has claimed a bounty!'
You have gained 85 skulls in service of SYNDICATE.
[SYNDICATE]: '100 skulls have been directed to our coffers from Kelmi's bounty.'
You have gained 400 skulls in service of SYNDICATE.
You've received 0 gold, 0 items from the bounty and 3 items from the corpse.
You receive 264 experience points.
You stop eavesdropping on someone.

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

[f0xx]

I'm proud of you

See, not that scary?

[Anonymous]

1 minute ago, f0xx said:

I'm proud of you

See, not that scary?

 

He still rocked me first battle.  I think He got cocky and I went balls to the walls.

 

Yaliza

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

[sarcon]

Look at you go! I know your pumped up right now.. you pacing around your computer aren't you??? 

[f0xx]

2 minutes ago, Anonymous said:

He still rocked me first battle.  I think He got cocky and I went balls to the walls.

Making your enemy feel cocky is high end PK skillz.

[Anonymous]

Kelmi my friend.......Where are you.......

 

 

 

Yaliza

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

[f0xx]

Lol, the BM is real.

[Anonymous]

It was past my bedtime, a miscalculation was done there and you see the result.
(If you can't see it, it was the return to the fight for hopes of murder round - nope, firestorm. And no furRRying)

I'm not immortal.

Just a rat.

 

Anonymous poster hash: 7eef3...614

[Anonymous]

9 hours ago, Anonymous said:

It was past my bedtime, a miscalculation was done there and you see the result.
(If you can't see it, it was the return to the fight for hopes of murder round - nope, firestorm. And no furRRying)

I'm not immortal.

Just a rat.

 

Anonymous poster hash: 7eef3...614

 

I noticed, but I didn't mind.

 

Yaliza

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

[Zavero]

This seems like one of those momsnts on a fps where there is some dude destroying every match, 5 times in a row, and talks trash the entire time... Until you finally come around that corner and blast his ass with a shotgun on the last kill of the match. You will relish that single kill.... Haha. I would relish it too.

[Celerity]

Good thing that ferals were not nerfed earlier. This log shows a lot of progression and is an accomplishment because of that.

[Chesta6384]

20 hours ago, Anonymous said:

He still rocked me first battle.  I think He got cocky and I went balls to the walls.

 

Yaliza

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

Balls to the wall is how invokers are supposed to be played.   Bring the pain and bring it hard.   It forces mistakes like it did there, he fled and came right back in.   Good job.

[mya]

2 hours ago, Celerity said:

Good thing that ferals were not nerfed earlier. This log shows a lot of progression and is an accomplishment because of that.

This log has little to do with Ferals and all to do with AC. Replace for any other same equipment non magic resist race and the end result is the same.

Kelmi didn't bother to drop AC and thus the call lightning was doing:

Deep thunder rolls and sheets of lightning strike your foes!
Sparks arc around someone's armor!
Your lightning bolt *** DEMOLISHES *** someone!
Someone's armor glows with ghostly blue hue and the air crackles with charge.
Your lightning bolt MUTILATES someone!

2 of this a round and everyone dies.
I chose to believe that Kelmi didn't forget it's stance, but that is probably rolling with 500+ AC and this getting Call max damage every cast.

[Celerity]

My post was in reference to the calls awhile back to nerf ferals because they were killing mages at the time. Now that the mages have improved their gameplay (they got better because the situation was tough and they stuck it out and listened to advice), it seems to be much more balanced (in this case, the previously killed mage defeated the feral).

It is just an example of something which seemed to be overpowered can be beaten with the correct strategy. This is why some people were resistant to the complaints about ferals at that time.

That said, of course it is also true that sometimes the complaints are correct and the thing really is overpowered. Not in the case of ferals though.

It is very important to bring up issues that you think are imbalanced or otherwise incorrect. That is how you get advice or otherwise prove to everyone that you are right and a change is needed. I can promise you that if you don't bring it up, it almost certainly won't be fixed/changed.

This mage thought ferals were too strong, brought it up (a bit too angrily though), argued his point, heard the counterarguments, (painfully) learned, and we can see that no change is needed in the end. Had he not listened or gave up after the complaints, no progress would have been made. Kudos to the mage for that. It is a tough process, but very valuable.

I still believe ferals to be slightly weak.

[Anonymous]

1 minute ago, Celerity said:

My post was in reference to the calls awhile back to nerf ferals because they were killing mages at the time. Now that the mages have improved their gameplay (they got better because the situation was tough and they stuck it out and listened to advice), it seems to be much more balanced (in this case, the previously killed mage defeated the feral).

It is just an example of something which seemed to be overpowered can be beaten with the correct strategy. This is why some people were resistant to the complaints about ferals at that time.

That said, of course it is also true that sometimes the complaints are correct and the thing really is overpowered. Not in the case of ferals though. It is very important to bring up issues that you think are imbalanced or otherwise incorrect. That is how you get advice or otherwise prove to everyone that you are right and a change is needed. I can promise to you that if you don't bring it up, it almost certainly won't be fixed/changed.

This mage thought ferals were too strong, brought it up (a bit too angrily though), argued his point, heard the counterarguments, (painfully) learned, and we can see that no change is needed in the end. It is a tough process, but very valuable.

I still believe ferals to be slightly weak.

 

 

I will say this.  I was getting my ass handed to me and got lucky, and Had Kelmi changed out his eq I would not be able to defeat him.  The only way it was possible for me to win was he tried to come back and murder round me.  Had my firestorm not been up, had he changed his AC I would have gotten owned.

 

I do not agree that ferals are weak.  I still find them OP.  He did not fury me there, He did not kick dirt.  He basically let me kick his ass.

 

Yaliza

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

[Celerity]

You started hurt, he auto dirt kicked. You fireballed (mistake). Rng was on your side with the initial firestorm. He didn't capitalize on your fire shield. If he plays perfectly and you make mistakes, of course he'll win. The reverse is true too.

You both make mistakes and both aren't perfect, even in this short log. Nobody is.

The point is you have to play well to beat him and he needs to play well to beat you. He might have a minor build advantage (or disadvantage, more likely), but it boils down to how you play. Your mistakes will hurt you slightly more because you are an active skill class (caster), but your match ups are better in general against more opponents.

Shortly, you are both burst damage builds against low hp, so there is very little room for mistakes on either side.

You played this round better than him. It might not always happen, and it doesn't always need to happen.

Sometimes you'll lose even without making a single mistake due to rng or just completely outclassed by the build. There is an art to surviving/winning in these situations too (outside of just running/logging).

This isn't a case where you are outclassed by the build. It is a short, dirty, tough fight that can easily swing in either direction. It is actually a very interesting match up for analysis and I'm glad you post the logs.

[aaa]

If anything this log shows the importance of every spell going off and how fury disrupts that balance. 

[f0xx]

40 minutes ago, Anonymous said:

He basically let me kick his ass.

 

 

That's true. He made many mistakes, but the biggest one was that he didn't approach the fight with his typical iron discipline.

And he immediately lost.

I know you two have had many many fights across different characters. And he has won all of them? Yet, the moment he lost his focus he died. Yes, you capitalised on his error (if spamming spells can be called capitalising). But that's what it takes to kill a good player - him making a mistake AND you capitalising on it.

With that in mind, tell me, is it the combo, or is it the skill of the player?

Do you think sliths are op? Because lets compare them:

Ferals have:
1) minihaste
2) fury (easy to circumvent)
3) +3 parry/dodge
4) the biggest and easiest to exploit vuln in the whole game

Sliths have:
1) tail attack (which is somewhat equal to the minihaste)
2) autotrip (which is pretty big for a thief in WM)
3) shed (again, pretty big for a thief)
4) larger HP pool
5) no vuln
6*) auto dirt removal if evil

 

Quote

If anything this log shows the importance of every spell going off and how fury disrupts that balance. 

Does it really? The mage entered the fight with ~650 hp. That is like half the hp of a well built mage. The thief was almost at full HP (1000+). Yet, the mage still won by outdamaging him greatly. Hell, even if you look at the mage's passive damage, you will find that it is pretty damn good!

 

Quote

Yaliza: [===|===|===|---]
<668hp 1435m 444mv> [Exits: E +W] 9 
Your firestorm spews forth a cloud of fiery brimstone!
Your Firestorm decimates Kelmi!
Kelmi parries your attack.
A winged water dragon breathes forth a shard of ice!
You conjure a magical bolt of ice and launch it at Kelmi.
Your icicle decimates Kelmi!
Your hands become coated in blood.
You parry Kelmi's attack.
Kelmi's hunger devastates you!
Kelmi's crush decimates you!
Kelmi's hunger devastates you!
Kelmi kicks dirt in your eyes!
Kelmi's kicked dirt scratches you.
You can't see a thing!
You feel something drawing your life away.
Someone's life drain scratches you.
You can feel something dig into your body.
Someone's wrath wounds you.
Your fire shield mauls someone.

Not bad eh?

 

Quote

The vortex of hellfire explodes suddenly!
Your Firestorm MUTILATES someone!
Your digestion misses someone.
With unnatural speed you strike at someone's torso.
Your strike decimates someone!
Someone's crush devastates you!
Someone's hunger maims you!
You parry someone's attack.
Someone tries to disarm you, but fails.
You parry someone's attack.
You parry someone's attack.
You feel something drawing your life away.
Someone's life drain grazes you.
You can feel something dig into your body.
Someone's wrath hits you.
Your fire shield DISMEMBERS someone!

Here the mage actually outdamages  him with just his passive damage. And he is blind. He parried 3 out of 5 attacks (but then that has a lot to do with his bad weapon selection, but still shows the mistakes he made).

 

But I guess fury is the problem? A skill that misses half the time, has 2 rounds of lag and can be easily avoided.

Right...

That being said, dude would have been equally strong (if not stronger) if he was a neutral slith.

[aaa]

I see your point. 

Although I feel like for every log like this, there are at least twice as many where fury has won the fight, in fact a very recent one where fury had a 100% lost concentration rate. 

The solution is to wait out the duration yes, but fleeing and running is generally the opposite of the correct tactic vs a thief. 

Fury basically acts like blasphemy in the regard that it sends the afflicted running which is quite the boon for a thief. 

If we were looking at a log where the thief had the jump, put a gag in and then lost id agree more but from what this log shows, he tried to face roll the mage and lost. I don't even think the invoker was poisoned nor is elder in syndicate either, I don't want to give the thief advise because I know he's an excellent thief player across multiple characters but patience is key and in this situation he tried to push the advantage in error. It really was the thieves game to lose. 

[Celerity]

Fury might cut out 10-50% of spells cast, if it used (multiple times). At what cost?

1. Feral takes 10-50% more damage per round due to vuln (even passively -- you can't fury fire shield/firestorm). This may or may not be a wash in terms of damage through denying the casting of spells, but remember your opponent isn't always furied, but you will always take additional damage. Even when furied, rng will work against you 50-90% of the time and not help you at all, since fury does minuscule damage and no other effect. This is a clear net loss for a feral, although it can pay off big occasionally. Like all gambling, it will work against the feral over time.

2. Feral have a bad HP pool to begin with and cannot afford additional unblockable damage, especially big vuln damage.

3. Fury is an active skill. That means the thief (who have a lot of useful active skills) is reduced to using fury. No murders, dirt, throws, circles, pilfers, cabal skills, etc. This means feral have a lower output than other races. Feral have minihaste (increased chance of second/third/fourth attack, not actually any extra attacks) to compensate this. Do you want another attack a round or the ability to use an active skill? Like @f0xx pointed out, why not have both as a slith?

-

Feral are berserker glass cannon melees. They can crush you horribly if you are not prepared to handle their output and casting denial skill. They can crush you if you underestimate their melee output/defense. If you panic and cut your output, their strength amplifies faster than just about anything else. In short, they are newbie crushers.

However, once you learn they have low HP that drains faster than anything else in the game from more sources than anything else in the game, you start to do better against them. Yes, you'll see 8 attack opening rounds, especially with cabal abilities in play. If you flee away and let them keep getting them, you'll be in trouble. Yes, you'll fail that word of recall (which you should almost never need anyways in any PK, btw).

Dealing with a feral and fury in particular is a simple calculation, and it is the same calculation you use in all PK situations. Is my % HP dropping faster or slower than my opponent? If the feral is using fury, be happy, because they aren't doing something better. Sure, you might lose one of your two demolishing call lightnings that round, but the feral just took an extra one because he didn't flee away to make you waste it, and probably will take another because he didn't use a skill to lower your hp/defenses/whatever. He wasted two or four rounds to negate one or two of your spells. Four rounds that the feral can't afford since normally a feral is dead in four rounds.

-

In the above log, the invoker would still have won even if furied and lost a call lightning (because he wasted one on fireball). Actually, the invoker would have probably won with more health since that Armageddon Smash wouldn't have been executed for the MASSACRE (add a massacre to surviving invoker HP and the invoker has room for another two call lightnings at least, btw).

The thief, if played like a thief, could absolutely smoke the invoker. Apparently the thief smokes the invoker by playing like a warrior most of the time because of the invoker's HP pool. The invoker can also absolutely smoke the thief too (lost 500 hp in the fight...that means he'd finish the fight at roughly 50-60 percent with a good hp pool, but I doubt the thief will easily be able to double output to match or survive for twice as long). The key is for each player to figure out who is getting smoked in that particular battle and do something about it.

 

[Anonymous]

Well I thought all around it was a great fight, he was kicking my butt the first round and he got excited, keep in mind I had to lure him out and was fighting his titan, and him for 2 rounds and furried.  I then ran like I have learned to do, and healed as quickly as possible.  I am not going to say that all feral are OP, because I have fought a few now and beat most of them.  His particular skill set is perfect for his race class.  I was very happy to win and now know it can be done against this particular foe.  I have also nearly killed him a few times, so I can say that things are evening out.

 

I think Ferals are right in line where they need to be and can be beat.  He is a good player, I am a decent player and we will have more battles to come to continue this debate.

 

Yaliza

 

 

Anonymous poster hash: 0fe9e...98a

[f0xx]

The thing with ferals is they are the only class that has such an easily accessible vuln and such a low health pool. If you look at fire giants, ogres, dwarves (races with similar vulns) we are talking about HP pools somewhere around 1500-1600. A well built melee feral will have around 1000-1100 hp. That's 50% smaller HP pool. So they absolutely need tools to compensate for the small HP pool and huge vuln. And they have such. Against some combos, those tools will be great, against others, they won't make a difference. Such is the way balance works in this game.

You say fury sways balance.... well your fire spells hit them harder to begin with AND they have a smaller HP pool than normal. So those 30-40% casts lost are compensated for. And as many mentioned, if he is fury'ing you, then be glad, because he is not kicking dirt, flee-murdering, pilfering, executing forms or a plethora of different things he can do to directly increase his damage output.

If you use the above log as example (as Cel did), and the thief uses fury instead of forms, he loses a LACERATE and a MASSACRE which is ~100hp which gains him one more round in combat and 2 more casts. And for fury to be effective, you need to stack it more than once.

 

[aaa]

53 minutes ago, f0xx said:

If you look at fire giants, ogres, dwarves (races with similar vulns) we are talking about HP pools somewhere around 1500-1600. A well built melee feral will have around 1000-1100 hp. That's 50% smaller HP pool.

1500-1600hp? Come on man, if you want me to listen to your argument you gotta do better than making your calculation on a number like that. If any of those races could be a thief, they wouldn't get close to that amount of hp. The last time I checked the code, class had a big part in how much hp you got per level.

55 minutes ago, f0xx said:

You say fury sways balance.... well your fire spells hit them harder to begin with AND they have a smaller HP pool than normal. So those 30-40% casts lost are compensated for. 

The fact that the invoker chose to not use fire spells should say something as well, its like if the correct tactic against an ogre was to use mundane weapons due to some mechanic, maybe this speaks more about the availability of saves than anything else though.

If fury is there to balance their vuln to fire, why does it effect things other than fire spells? Get rid of fury and give them a blood haze that only works with fire damage and I'd wager you'd see much less frustrations.

 

[f0xx]

I give up.

[Fool_Hardy]

To be honest, I never would have believed someone could say Ferals are OP.

I have read logs from Kemli, and Kortag, and while I suck at PK, I often see the wrong weapon in the hands of the ferals enemy.

Why use lightning instead if fire? Because its effective against high dex, decked opponents, not to mention damages twice.

Is two sources of pain better than one at increased damage? Debatable.

Truth is, one of the great ferals in game right now is built to do war with mages, the other is wearing the vulnerability cover.

I have qualms about the item itself. Havent held it to identify, but I hope its not indestructible, and have been watching logs for Ice Storm or Hell Stream.

Either its been tried and will not work, or its indestructible which may need reconsidered.

As for Feral Warmasters, I have always felt Warmaster to be the most synergetic cabal for the Feral race. So be a boy scout and be prepared.

Prepared to win, or prepared to run.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves." <wink> Kemli is just as powerful at RP as he is at PK, as is Kortag.

Its wrong to look at these two characters and say this is OP. Without the players behind those characters the wins/losses would be different.

Fact is they are just damn well played, and complaining about them discredits their accomplishments. I won't take part in it.