Shattered Kingdoms

Ardith, no need to take your anger out on everyone else. Have a glass of wine and eat a bucket of ice cream like all the other girls who need a big cry-fest.

Since when did rogues fall into an unplayable class or even weak? They are just as awesome as they were when I played Joran. MR barbarians just added another angel in pvp, and I think it is great. They should have some perks with all their weaknesses.

As usual, I guess that depends on your definition. I made several improvements to rogues while Finney was playing one, in response to his playability concerns. I just added a few buffs to swashbucklers, of which kip-up seems to be considered a first rate skill. Could I do more for swashbucklers? Sure, but I usually wait a bit to see how things settle first. As for rogues, even though Finney did not walk away satisfied, it's not clear to me that they NEED anything, or if they do, what exactly that might be.

If balance consisted of me improving a class until the people currently playing them were happy, all we'd end up with is every class being overpowered. I have to take every player statement with a grain of salt.

The problem is that their bonuses far outweigh their weaknesses. What other class in the game is 100% immune to spells, immune to a great deal of weapons in the game, and doesn't even have to try to get these bonuses. If you're a class that relies on spells like a paladin, or shaman, or sorcerer you have 0 things you can do to threaten these guys. I don't think they should be nerfed into oblivion, but the balance has gotten too skewed. To reiterate they've got too many bonuses and not enough drawbacks.

Also, if your assertion was true we'd see tons of logs on the log site showing just how awesome rogues are. Sadly, the facts do not back up your assertion.

Yeah, MR barbarians should be another angle, but they're way out of whack right now. If I was playing an MR barb, I probably wouldn't put more effort into the character than buy a storebought weapon. If I die, so what, I can spend 2 platinum and be just as lethal as I was before dying.



I know you can look at the numbers. Players barely play the rogue class because all the rogue class can do is put pets in bodybags. Once someone knows you're an enemy rogue your entire enemy faction will immediately start positioning pets behind them. And pets are beefy enough to absorb a couple circle stabs, and completely negate the advantage backstab provides.

I'm not sure how kip up is a top tier skill. It just helps the swashbuckler run away.

Kip up sounds awesome to me. I think all a Swash needs right now is a macro to kip up and quaff a word of recall to avoid being PK. I think it sounds more of a Rogue skill, but being impossible to kill with almost zero prep time sounds pretty nice to me.

I'm playing an MR barb so it's hard for me to be completely unbiased here, but that "what other class can be 100% immune to magic?" is a ridiculous line of reasoning. Yes, you get it for trains, although you certainly have to sacrifice other things for it whether it's HPs or stats that you then have to mod. But it's super easy to get to 100 MR on a sorc or necro and certainly not out of the question for others, although it definitely requires some item gathering and enchanting.

MR barbs are very powerful in melee against soon to be debuffed melee opponents with magical weapons. They certainly thrash the [REDACTED] out of shamans. When they're somehow immune to bash they definitely present problems for more opponents. That said, their obvious downside of not being able to buff up is really big, and it gets way worse when they're grouped up trying to tank multiple opponents or opponents smart enough to figure out how to avoid an initial negation. Buffed up mercs and barbs tank WAY better than mr barbs. Alaric and Veloras were routinely pooping on MR griffon barbarians. Most of the giants that have come out of the North have been just destroyed, Kondo gets destroyed on the regular, and whoever that minotaur-Hammer-sadal-MRbarb was a couple whiles back was the whipping boy for the entire mud.

The MR barbarian can use Aura of Negation to remove those buffs, making it an unbuffed MR barbarian versus an unbuffed something else. That balance cost can now be circumvented.

No they weren't.

ALL OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE IS NOTHIGN COMPARED TO THE GREAT AND POWERFUL ARDITH! YOU SHALL ALL BOW AND GIVE UP YOUR PHAT LEWTS TO HE THAT IS THE ARDITH!

Ardith is as guilty of folly as the rest of us, but he does seem to understand principles of game balance and tactics more than the average community member. I'd give counter-evidence instead of just trolling him, particularly in this board?