Shattered Kingdoms

Edit: Not worth my time. I've said my piece.

This game is about finding unbeatable, or at least very hard to beat, combinations. Other systems view "balance" not as forbidding players to get what they want because it isn't good for them, but instead, to limit the degrees to which the tactical options of your opponents can be made meaningless. SK's race and class systems do not promote "all choices are equally good" as a design mechanic, and equipment hardly fits that bill, either. Not a bad thing, but it is a thing to keep in mind when looking at an issue like this.

In other words, this is an example of a feature.

I don't think that's true at all. I can name half a dozen hammer MR barbs who haven't done half as well as Talimor. He's certainly benefitted by playing some weak competition but that only bolsters the point that it involves more than simply finding a good combo. In my experience player ability matters far more than character class when it comes to getting things done.

Getting things done effectively, perhaps, but all the player ability in the world won't overcome skillsets nor attribute limitations. "Knowing your role" is an MMO staple, and it just so happens that there are predispositions towards certain roles in characters. That's normal, and okay, and even good, but it does mean that given certain builds running into each other, some will tend to be rocks and some scissors; that's the extent of what I was aiming to observe.

As for the speciics of this derailed argument on magma spray in a counterstrike thread ... I don't even want to pretend to have enough experience to weigh in on it beyond "makes sense to me," which would be a horrible metric.

It is a true rarity to read such eloquently worded nonsense.

I'll try saying it another way for you: the impact of the human element of competitive gameplay is mediated by the relative comparison of race/class combinations involved. You can extend it to alignment and equipment, too.

Or maybe we can say it's all the OOC hookups. I'm sure that'll lead to productive conversations.

A great example of why grep has earned my "foe" status.

When I played a sorc, I found it hard to fight a competent MR barb, but did kill several scrubs with simply charming two NPCs and/or having a guard. There are ways to kill MR barbs if your smart. I'm hardly the one to be giving out PK advice, as I suck, but I do land some kills here and there. Take it or leave it.

Chris

If you're fighting the barbarian, you're already doing it wrong. You go invis, turn off auto assist, and let Lathron do all the work.