Administrator

(addict)

12/01/07 01:59 PM

Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh my!

Originally Posted By: Kim

Crit weaknesses are... harsh. Too harsh. I would love to one day play a nereid or seraph... but... Even though my primary concern is the look and image of a race, I can't bring myself to play a race that automatically loses.

Originally Posted By: Harold

I'd say this could be the topic of a new thread. I'd always heard it was like starting the game with a negative True Armour, but that after a certain point it was negligible. Looks like this isn't the case, and maybe that's contributing to the lack of ethreal race choices (or maybe it's the rediculous xp mods)...

Originally Posted By: Drey

XP Mods were recently reduced to half so that's not really an issue. Negative TA is always an issue. Maybe if they lessened the severity of it somehow it wouldn't be so bad. Or maybe if seraphs started with -100 disruption protection instead of -TA it wouldn't be so bad.

'showstats races' puts Seraph at #8, and Sword-demon at #5. While I'm not sure if this is ranked by the average level of of members of its races or by the number of players of those races, or if it matters at all whether or not the players were active in the last three months... can you tell I think this command should have more information and options? I am sure that either way it's done both these races -TA doesn't exactly put them out of the running for "good" (or maybe just presumed good) races.

(enthusiast)

12/01/07 02:38 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh my!

Sword-demon has holy weakness though, and holy is... weak.

Disruption is maybe the strongest crit type in game, so Seraph is no-no.

And newbies are famed for picking an ethereal race... Popularity is irrelevant, really... I mean, High-man is number one, and.. High-man doesn't merit being popular at all really...

*fondly remembers trying an unchanted desper bokken on Natasha the seraph and watch limbs fly*

(enthusiast)

12/03/07 12:42 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh my!

Ouch... painfully memory.

(newbie)

12/03/07 01:37 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

"*fondly remembers trying an unchanted desper bokken on Natasha the seraph and watch limbs fly*"

Hahaha, I remember Natasha talking about that when I first started, that was rather funny. I played a sword-demon for a couple years, paladins would rape the crap out of me, but I was really good against CL's. Die Baeldaemon die! $;\)$

(enthusiast)

12/03/07 01:39 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Yeah. I was silly and listened to the help file. It said something along the lines that "Seraphs make some of the most powerful paladins"

What it meant I think was that they were great, unless you wanted to fight CLs.. then even with chaos bane they would rip you a new one pretty easily.

(member)

12/03/07 06:46 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Originally Posted By: Shags/Max

I played a sword-demon for a couple years, paladins would rape the crap out of me, but I was really good against CL's. Die Baeldaemon die! $;\)$

I still enjoy how Risla's Wrath never dented you once, but with my relatively high holy protection, WoG ripped me a new one...

Administrator

(addict)

12/03/07 06:57 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

I'm under the impression that Wrath of Risla is a joke. Even if it isn't, it's a stupid spell for clerics to have; just doing holy crits to everything seems unimaginative and inefficient. How about a room-harm! (heh. Totally kidding. That would be retarded.)

(enthusiast)

12/03/07 08:13 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Clerics should have harm IMHO. They need it more than WPs

(member)

12/04/07 12:52 AM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

You know, it's funny that you say they should have harm. I always thought my cleric would have been too sick with harm. That could also be because I thought clerics should be sucky.

Playing my cleric for so long, I saw myself as more of a tank than a PK machine, but just having the ability to defend myself if necessary was nice. I always thought that if I had harm, it would have been overboard.

Administrator

(addict)

12/04/07 08:54 AM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Harm is, in general, a pretty potent spell. Whether clerics or WPs or tinkers get it, it's going to add a measure of power that's clearly in need of balancing.

I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that any guild should be "sucky". If a guild doesn't have a particular niche or can't be worth something somehow I don't think it should be available to play. Why would I as a new person spend hours on end playing a guild, only to find out three months later that it's the "sucky" guild. Ha-ha. Joke's on me. Try again!

(member)

12/04/07 08:08 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Rule 1) Carmy uses the word sucky to refer to himself, because he is sucky, and because he was a cleric, also refers to the clerics-of-Risla as sucky.

Rule 2) Replace sucky wit awesome, because clerics are actually really good, mind you, only when you're like level 60 overall heh.

Seems like most guilds get potent spells way before clerics do. I as a cleric didn't suck, but I wasn't a beast either. A cleric's ability is almost completely reliant upon the % concentrate skill you have at least from my experience. We used to have instill poison, which was removed. We had pwk undead, removed. Spirit anchor (ok, unbalanced a bit) but removed (I really liked it). Anything else removed? The only spell that can do damage to a high-end character is cause critical wounds, and that's if the other char doesn't resist. Seems kinda silly to me.

Administrator

(addict)

12/05/07 11:50 AM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Seraphs and Sword-demons are still a highly represented facet of the mud, but as was said earlier (forgive my lack of quoting) that's likely due to the amount of inexperienced players picking a sub-par race rather than due to the races themselves being good.

I personally think that's a fine niche for them to fill. I was a sword-demon at one point, and got rid of it because it was pretty awful. They do have their strong points, still, if you don't ever get into a PK battle for instance, their crit drawback is pretty irrelevant. Few mobs do disruption or holy damage.

(enthusiast)

12/05/07 11:56 AM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Only templars.. which do both $;\)$

And a couple of other unique ones.

(member)

12/05/07 04:18 PM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Originally Posted By: Drey

Only templars.. which do both $;\)$

And a couple of other unique ones.

I remember when Shags would try and kill templars, he could get assraped because he was a sword-demon, which always boggled my mind, because they are generally quite crappy if you have good armour. Maybe assraped is an overstatement, but still... $\:\)$

Administrator

(addict)

12/06/07 09:57 AM

Re: Seraphs and Sword-demons and Elementals... Oh

Mobs in general are quite crappy with good armour. When armour was made to work, ordinary mob attacks became largely irrelevant since they could do zero damage through armour.