Shattered Kingdoms

I didn't post the whole log because its all more of the same. As a sorcerer I'm not raising GMs so am probably more impacted by this. Dulrik probably won't want to because numbers, but could clarify the specific level because this skeleton definitely dropped from the level at which they get polearms to the level before that with 1 death.

Good to know that I need to find a fresh one each time.

The battle ends twice as fast? So it wasn't gm then. Will a gm skeleton be mastered in all weapons?

This is generally true. They're still skeletons, so they don't really "master" their skills like y'all can.

Ouch. I suppose that is a balance issue. That might be part of the reason people tended to use controls a few years back.

I'm fairly certain the corpse-deterioration has been in effect for at least a decade. I seem to remember having to deal with the re-cycling of corpses like this for all of my necromancers.

Animate was definitely stepped back a few years ago, because it could be multiplied to be extremely overpowered. When the animates were changed to remove bash is when you saw people really shift back to control undead again, so they could capitalize on those skillsets that animates lost but could still be found on controls.

That is very true. Bash used to be fairly effective.

For a long time it's been true that animates which collapsed due to their timer expiring or due to releasing the spell lost a level. However, when I played Surrit it was true that if your animate died through normal combat you could re-raise it at the same level, meaning that as long as I could find a corner to get all my undead to kill each somewhere and burn through my mana pool re-raising, I didn't have to constantly regather GM corpses.

However, ever since the change that limited a player to 1 animate from magical devices, which was many years ago, animate became useless for anyone but a necromancer. Even moreso now.

Couldn't disagree more with you re broad usefulness. Of course it isn't useful in pvp combat though.

An animate of low level makes a decent pack mule. I've certainly found them to be less risky in pk as well. If dispelled they die instead of turning against you like controls. I've always wondered why they have a timer as well. I can see it being needed back then when you could animate 50 though.

This is still the case.