Kartekenth (Werebeast Zerker, uncaballed) vs. Kotrag (Feral Ninja, Syndicate)

Also, I respect you outplayed me here. I still think the following points need to be addressed:

1. nymph hearts out healing a zerker path specifically devoted to healing (re: ferocity/berserk)

2. Push failure giving a strategic edge to a ninja (you can leave combat in any direction at any time, re-engaging and maximizing free damage from tsuki strike and throw)

On a broader level, I think most of the class re-designs tend to err on the edge of beastmode rather than conservatism. 

I find bards and ninjas essentially unfightable across most classes now.

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

Not sure about necros and druids. I just have not seen them in action enough to make an opinion. 

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

Okay don't forget here he is the leader of syndicate and has those abilities as well.  He has also put a lot more hours into his character and is very used to his playstyle and likely fought a lot of your class combo and better zerk choices.  If you were a giant or ogre then you would have done a lot better vs him.  But, you were not as decked as he was, that is what he was implying, you really didn't do much at all, you made some mistakes and you're blaming it on the player for doing what he was supposed to be doing.  You calling his tactics cheap when everyone does them, nymph hearts aren't the life saver everyone thinks they are.  I used them on Raemus and people would accuse me of gaining ten times the amount of hp that I actually did.  He is going to come for you no matter what, it could be a locked door that you have the key to for all it matters.  Then you could just rage, dirt haym bod bod bod.  But you walked into your own trap and got punished for it.  Kotrag is not an asshole from what I gathered from talking with his char IG and you are obviously just pissed about dying so my advice is just take some time to rethink your tactics and try again.  You don't want to listen to anyone's advice here but you can pm me if you want some on how to fight a Syndicate.

Sorry, to clarify, I did not call him cheap. I have presented information and discussed how my perception of the class splits from its current incarnation. I thought this was an important point to make as I have not attacked the player in any way. 

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

15 hours ago, Anonymous said:

Kartekenth Hit/Dam for this fight was around 97/105 and with berserk and ferocity generated over 1899 HP. Fully prepped. Strategy was to damage and heal.

kotrag is cheap

Kotrag strategy was to eat nymph hearts, flee, push, and make use of tsuki strike and auto-throw.

 

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

I read between the lines.

I would prefer not to have the thread locked. Those are my observations. Tsuki strike accounted for 19 unblockable attacks. With throws, Kotrag had 23 auto-attacks in the mix. With nymph hearts, he outhealed me quicker than a 100 hp per use berserk. 

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

It isn't cheap, it is code, hence the clarification. 

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

We can agree to disagree politely on some level.

I am opposed to unblockable attacks.

I am opposed to a failed skill (push) enabling additional unblockable and automatic attacks to support the flee/murder strategy instead of penalizing the failed skill.

I am opposed to ninjas as a melee class (this might be the main one).

I am opposed to farming nymph hearts outweighing a path skill.

I am opposed to syndicate. 

I am for berserkers steamrolling most classes with little effort...

;)

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

^ This is not me by the way.

10 minutes ago, Anonymous said:

I would prefer not to have the thread locked.

Then you should stop posting crap?

Quote

 Tsuki strike accounted for 19 unblockable attacks.

Most of which were grazes. Really? Next you are going to complain about poison. Ninjas are op, ninjas have poison. Coincidence?

Quote

With throws, Kotrag had 23 auto-attacks in the mix.

Which you could have easily prevented by initiating first or dirting.

Oh wait, you fought on water....

Quote

With nymph hearts, he outhealed me quicker than a 100 hp per use berserk.

That's just a straight assumption there. Ninjas have acupuncture too, not just nymph hearts. And you weren't just outhealed, you were outdamanged too, because you were too busy spamming berserk.

Once again, what are you actually complaining about?

You were outdressed, outranked and outplayed. Does it come as a surprise that you lost? 

When are people going to start accepting that their losses happen due to their own mistakes, and not the opposite side being OP or cheating?

I am seriously disappointed. 

Even more so because you are actually an Immortal, who knows my tactics, my fighting habits, my EQ, my score sheet, my hiding spots.

Really really disappointed.

Kotrag

Anonymous poster hash: e76b7...48d

I reject the position that my posts are crap. The log was posted to illustrate points that I thought and still think are valid. I understand you disagree with them. I do apologize if my remarks implied it was not a legitimate win. You did outplay me, but I think there is a conversation to be had about your characters code-based strength. Please know this is not an attack on you. If I was in your position, I would also leverage these strengths.

Yes, I fought on water so I could see you coming. As berserkers cannot hide, cannot see hidden, and do not benefit from rogue-like abilities, I thought it would be a good test case of melee strength. That actually is one of my points which has perhaps not been elucidated - you have a great number of skills not shown here to win a fight. Yes, I did not maximizing melee potential, however you did not need to use any of your shadow skills given the melee might your combo represents. Which is to say this is not the strongest play you are able to bring to the table and your character is much stronger than show here.

I am not an immortal, and I do not know your tactics, habits, eq, score sheet, or hiding spots.

I accept the criticisms and believe there is value in an ongoing conversation about the code-based strengths you leveraged here, and the maximum output of your class, to which this log serves as a single point of review. 

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

If you're going to post anonymously, put your character name on the bottom or do not post at all.

Thank you.

Whats with all the random anonymous posts....

Kotrag outplayed the zerk and won. Plain and simple.

I also fought him, and he outplayed me and won but the fight looked a lot different.

I was sort of in the lead at the beginning because I did not let him get the opening attack.

I bet Kotrag can attest to how many times he kept fleeing just to try and get the opener.

What turned the tide of the fight was when his syndicate autoblind landed before my warmaster auto dirt, and he was able to flee as that happened.

At that point he got quite a few murder rounds on me before I was able to cure the blindness. I am pretty sure he also did a lot of healing versus me because I was not fast enough to keep the pressure on him.

He also refused to stand and fight when I raged/used forms.

This is just good tactics, it was a great fight and he beat me fair and square.

Push is not OP in my opinion, failing a push as far as I know does not lag the pushed player at all, and it lags the ninja 1 round I believe. It is used similarly to retreat, a way of fleeing and knowing which way you went. If he is using push to get out of combat and return for a murder round it will ONLY work if you lag yourself or if you are blind and he is not.

-Berston

Anonymous poster hash: 26e05...134

I accept you think I was outplayed. I do have ongoing issues with his melee potential. 

As noted, we can agree to disagree.

Except, I will also note, my disagreement is to such a level that I will not be rolling another character when there is such an imbalance.

You can call it whining/being a sore loser/etc. My points are embedded above. Failing push needs to be re-examined. Nymph hearts need to be re-examined. Ninjas should melt under two rages axes.

-Kartekenth

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

2 minutes ago, Anonymous said:

to which this log serves as a single point of review.

This log can not serve as anything because you played badly, you were not equally dressed and you were outranked, cabal wise.

This battle was a David vs Goliath from the very start. You made it even worse with your bad tactics.

The whole idea about the update to ninjas was so that we can have more melee oriented ninjas and less assassin/falcon eye oriented ones.

Out of this change we got ONE ninja who does well.

ONE.

And how many berserkers have we had after the berserker update?

You should also know that most of the ninja nerfs happened because of my own suggestions and logs I posted on prayer.

Quote

Ninjas should melt under two rages axes.

Is that how  you conceive proper balance?

Really? 

Wear two axes, own all rogues? Problem  solved?

And those are the type of people that have a saying in the decision making balance changes of this game?

smh

Kotrag

Anonymous poster hash: e76b7...48d

I don't know what gave you the impression that I am an imm or have a say in anything, but I assure you it is not the case.

-Kartekenth

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

While I agree that ninja should be looked at as all things should be looked at... the game as it is right now has gone heavily in the direction of requiring consumables to truly compete on the level that Kotrag sits. There are exceptions to this rule but generally this is the way you need to go about things in order to compete. This includes all the herbs and yes... nymph hearts. What you fail to mention here is that Kotrag uses them, but nothing is stopping you from being just as prepared and using them as well.

Do I agree that it should be like this, that you should have to camp around emerald forest to get the hearts? I am honestly not sure but I learn towards no. However, this is the way of things as they currently are.

Balance to me means that you plot all player kills along a bell curve and see which characters are outliers. I would argue (and admittedly i don't have this information at hand) that Kotrag would be several standard deviations from the norm and that part of this is his skill and part of it is the combined effects of code-benefits resulting in, dare I say, a power advantage. 

-Kartekenth

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

Instead of attacking me as a player you might address the points I have made specifically about the effect of failing a push and about nymph hearts. There is no need for you to be so defensive. 

I probably would have lost even with these changes.

That does not invalidate the log as useful data.

-Kartekenth

Anonymous poster hash: c922d...29e

Let's cool down. It's a log. It's a player suggesting changes based on the log and players rebuttal to those changes that were suggested. Nothing changes based off one log. It's discussion, observation, and more discussion before anything will be changed, if at all.

You posted the same log on the prayer forum a few weeks ago. Apparently you dismissed our input and now sought out the input of the player base as a whole. Don't be upset if you get similar replies. If ALL ninjas will start roflstoping the pbase, we will certainly look into it. This is not the case however. You'd not do better against a fully decked cabal leader of another cabal with the just stand there and pour out the damage approach is my personal estimation.