Shattered Kingdoms

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o [Scores] Mephistir, - Stormrunner of the Maelstrom o
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o Status: Grand Master(1) Race: Sprite Class: Warlock o
o Kingdom: Wastes Religion: Marfik o
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o Coins: zero o
o Carrying: 0/15 items Load: -0.0/120.0 pounds o
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o Health: Excellent Mental: Crackling Physical: Fresh o
o Attribute points: 0 Wimpy: 0 percent Mode: Kill/neutral o
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o You are standing. o
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o You have earned 67 loyalty tokens with this character. o
o You can spend 0 loyalty tokens for this character. o
o You have 15 unspent loyalty tokens in total. o
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o You are over two-thirds of the way to the next level. o
o You have played 807 hour(s) so far. o
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o [Attributes] Mephistir - Stormrunner of the Maelstrom o
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o Status: Grand Master(1) Race: Sprite Class: Warlock o
o Age: 107 Sex: Male Size: Tiny o
o Alignment: Diabolic Handiness: Left handed Religion: Marfik o
o Born: Nature 18, 1184 Birthday: 58 days o
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o STR: Puny INT: Genius WIS: Wise o
o DEX: Limber CON: Durable CHA: Influential o
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o Carrying capacity: 15 items with a maximum weight of 120.0 pounds. o
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So where to begin. Mephistir is an old concept I tried a long time ago. Basically I envisioned the warlock class as some wizard of destruction and such. What i got wasn't really that. They have quite a few problems that I'll cover later.

Mephistir was a Cloudrunner born o the Icewall mountains. He had always had a slight affinity for the elements and this was ultimately what lead to his downfall. A hooded woman offered him power to protect his village. What he got instead was nothing but destruction. His village was destroyed and his beloved Izelia was frozen solid in a block of ice. Due to the incident, a bit of that remnant stayed with him and channeled elements through his wings which caused him great pain at first. Afterwards he eventually became numb to it.

After the incident he was captured and throw into the grotto in which he was forced to expand his elemental prowess or die. Mephistir was often times lost and had no idea what to do with himself. He sought power but he didn't know exactly why he sought it.

Izelia was a Green-sands from the Zhang that was traveling and stumbled upon their village. Mephistir and her grew quite fond of each other and eventually they decided to bond. Days before they were going to fully bond the incident happened and she was killed. After he was released from the Grotto, he traveled to Zhenshi to see the land of his beloved and what she praised so highly about it. Instead he was met with an insane sorceror, Faron, who had charmed a bard, Kitani and tried to kill him for literally no reason. Mephistir's elemental defended him and he got outlawed for it. After this he viewed it as a calling from Marfik and began to see the flaws of order and the law mortals made.

Mephistir at first tried to keep things civil and preach peacefully. Ironic, but he honestly believed that violence was not necessary at first for chaos to reign. However, his preaching did not sit well in places like Exile in which he was attacked by Maelgrim and Callie. After he was killed by them, he sought vengeance before finally getting attacked by a few Hammerites who was not who he was looking for. After running into Benedict, he was attacked by his charm and he killed him. This was the first of a few times in which he killed Benedict and Aratee for attacking him. He learned then that keeping things peaceful was not going to be easy.

Eventually Mephistir's pursuit of power lead him towards the Crucible. He wanted to seek more power and eventually perfection, but mostly he had a selfish desire in wanting to repress the overwhelming sadness and anger that he held inside himself. He thought that the Crucible would be able to rip the emotions away from him and stop the eternal torment that he suffered from constantly. This however turned out to be false. Even though he quickly was made Avatar in a short fashion, he never truly felt in. All the rituals and the fact that he couldn't cast aside his emotions made him a bit of an outcast. He did not like orderly, complex things and kept inductions simple, leading everyone else to do the rituals and ceremonies if they wanted to. He had no part of them finding them to be too Ain-like for his tastes.

After leaving the Crucible, Mephistir became lost again. He decided to teach the lessons of the Maelstrom once again while simultaneously seeking out Aludra herself in order to speak with her. He wanted to know exactly why -SHE- had cursed him with such pain. That love was nothing sweet, or joyful. He became bitter and viewed love as nothing but torment, and to him, Aludra was a sadist that far surpassed anything even Sadr could ever pull off.

Mephistir eventually started to somewhat cast aside his feelings for life. The violence in his life and anger inside him eventually lead him to make questionable decisions. He murdered children to try and stop Dunlin from interfering in Nerina when he was attacked by Eoghan. Various other acts like that. Eventually the constant persecution began to weigh on his mind, and at times he would suffer bouts of absolute insanity, eventually coming to and remembering nothing of the possible atrocities he planned to commit.

There is a lot more to him, but it's simply a bit too much to type up. In the end, Mephistir simply became boring. Probably because I put him in the wrong cabal to start with. Transitioning to Harles would simply take too long and I was better off creating a new character than going through oathbreaker stuff. The constant ganks, dispelling of elementals and just various things eventually made him not fun to play. The challenge of playing a warlock that isn't in a cabal or tribunal is also downright impossible as well. Warlocks as a class simply aren't designed for that. I'll highlight some thoughts on my next post.

Warlocks have a few problems with them. The first really is the lack of dispel. Preparation for a warlock is not the same as preparation for a mercenary or other classes. A warlock is fine, borderline OP against classes who don't have access to defensive buffs or good enchanted armor. Once that comes into play, their spellpower gets absolutely nerfed. This isn't exactly warlock exclusive, but it boils down to spell damage in general. With dispel, and not having to hunt for wands to cast it, warlocks might actually have a chance to do something and a reason for art trains. Wands and staves are supposed to augment your class. You shouldn't have to rely on one and hope one isn't hoarded to be able to do anything.

Since spell damage is static almost and front loaded, there is no way to increase it like melee damage. Faerie fire is the only way to really increase it, but it's not as big of a boost as everyone thinks. Warlocks also don't have any one shot spells like petrification or FoD to rely on to take out pets or such like other caster classes do. This is a huge thing as they have to spell down the pet first which can take 2-4 rounds unless you have a certain item that can magma or something like an OP wand. Casting spells in this game simply is a waste of time almost 99% of the time in this game. In the two rounds it takes you to cast magma, your elemental can either be dispelled or severely hurt, leaving you with not enough time to finish off the opponent. It's a bit sad that often times it's more preferable to zap or brandish than it is to actually cast spells. OP devices really shouldn't exist or their lag time should be increased to match that of the spell being cast in my opinion.

Elementals are also a bit difficult. If things are hoarded, such as wands or staves, warlocks have no way to buff their elementals to protect them. Elementals cannot wield or ingest things. This makes preparation for a warlock dependent entirely on wands and staves. If all the good ones are hoarded, the subpar ones that are weak or moderate simply will not do enough to protect you. Let's also not forget the fact that elementals can be dispelled leaving the warlock vulnerable for a good 27 minutes real time. This is a huge disadvantage. Warlocks simply don't have a way to reliably defend themselves. Let's not even get into the realm of reaching weapons. This is why a warlock either needs some type of root or a tribunal guard to take blows. Otherwise, they have nothing that can protect them for the extended battle which it will take them to kill the opponent or opponents they're facing. If you put the elemental second row, they can just target the storebought pet then target you once you're second row. If it's first row, they can just ignore the damage the elemental does and focus down the storebought pet. Elementals don't do damage. They shouldn't, but they should be MUCH more resilient than they are currently. Sure, they might can last 6-8 rounds against a super buffed opponent, but it doesn't matter if you have no way to damage said superbuffed opponent. Spells doing 2-8% damage is not going to cut it.

Finally, there was the dig spell and earthquake spell. These are nice spells, but really they're useless in any type of combat scenario. For those that dont' know, Dig will knock people prone if they're not in your group. However it's not like bash to where people are prone for 3 rounds. They're prone for about a round. You have time to maybe get a shocking grasp off or a lightning bolt and they're back up. Earthquake however does damage and hits all around you. Every. Single. Room. This can pull in a ton of NPCs but the damage of it is absolutely laughable. Given the fact that both of these spells can also be bypassed simply by flying, their cast time needs to be decreased dramatically, their prone effects extended to at least two rounds or so and their damage, at least in earthquake's case, made much, much higher. Given the ease of bypassing it, it should be a very strong.

Ironically, earthquake is like magma in the fact that it too ignores magical resistance. This of course still doesn't make it useful because you will never kill anything with it anyways. It does 1-2% maybe if you're lucky to GM players with a GM casting it. Anyways, if you play a warlock, you -have- to have tribunals or a certain cabal or a static group. They simply can't function on their own at all. Anyways, that's just my thoughts. Later guys.

Would be really nice if control weather could buff relevant elementals. And this would give greater utility to CW. Elementals need to be stronger. When dispelled, another should be able to be conjured immediately. Water elementals also need a significant buff to speed.

In addition, a warlock should be able to *dispatch* his current elemental and immediately recall another, of a different type. To fit the need.

Oh. And Mephistir was alright. Except the annoying emote aliases. A little overkill. I thought they were nicely written and colored, but used a bit excessively.

Mephit didn't spam more than any other player. I'm looking at you, beak clacking griffon.

Sounds like there will be a next. That makes me happy. Hopefully, it does for you, too, kinny.

I'm looking forward to your next character. Serakyla's interactions with Mephistir were short but fun... and I like the RP from your characters as I've read... elsewhere =)

I miss Meph already.





Don

Warlocks are not underpowered now.

Although I will agree with the fact that adding faerie fire to warlocks was dumb. It doesn't help make magma spray more powerful and since it isn't group affecting the rest of the warlock's spells aren't likely to benefit from it much.

Sad to see him go. I enjoyed both your character and your rp and wish you luck with your next.

gg wp nt gl hf

Mephistir was true to his RP restrictions. He was well played from an RP aspect and as such, he gets my respect. (He consistently put himself at a disadvantage if it meant breaking character, which I found very commendable.) See you IC on your next, hopefully you enjoy it more than Mephistir.