I have always played within guilds that sport demesnes, mage and druid alike.
However I often feel this to be a rather dull fighting style and quite limiting.
Demesnes -are- powerfull but I cannot help but feel that being more mobile means being more vesrtile and interesting.

Therefore, I ask for your input on what's fun and interesting

Also warriors, or so I came to understand, are quite costly on credits. As runeless weapons are considered quite the disadvantage and the need to trans many skills is crucial.
Please take that into account when suggesting ideas.

My thanks in advance.

Going from druid to warrior, I found combat completely different. I really enjoyed it, but you're right in that it was amazingly expensive to get started. Warriors have to be the most fun combat-wise, just because you have a chance against anyone 1 on 1.

Wiccans are pretty cool to play, but like Druids they didn't seem to have a wide range of strategies available to work from. The mobility of being able to take your offense with you all the time is definitely there though, which is a big plus. I didn't get far with my Guardian, but they seemed pretty nifty combat-wise, if you like the RP of either guild.

I'm not a very good combatant in any sense, but those are my opinions on how interesting combat seemed, and how much each class made me want to learn more. So please, Narsrim, don't flame me for it.

I'd argue most warriors don't have a chance against anyone 1-on-1. There are only a few highly skilled warriors. The only time an unskilled warrior has a chance is when you have a retarded weapon (ie. Ravlok's axe), where you can just hit a single marco and kill most people.

I'd hardly consider that 'fun'.

Eventualy, I think that with enough wit and strategy you can do reasonably well.
Credits do tend to have a great effect on things, true
but I seek to have fun and be able to pull my own weight. That doesn't mean I want to be able to slay demi-gods or anything... well, at least not to begin with

Still taking suggestions

Although I've never been a warrior, I like BM. It seems more tactical and less whorrish than Pureblade/Axlord/BC

I am rather low on credits, all the ones I got were from bardic winnings.
Therefore, even though warriors sound neat, I doubt I can "efford" a decent one

Warriors seem the best for low credits actually, if you can only trans one skill go warrior.

Mages/Druids are the best for low credits, since you can have an adverse effect on combat even if you only have Geomancy/Aquamancy/Druidry trans'd.

In fact Warriors are the most credit intensive class, seeing as how the high-level ones usually have arti'd-up weapons.

But she dosnt want to be a demensce user.

Warriors with one trans skill have the ability to kill people, wiccans with only one trans skill dont really, you need at least one trans and the secondary one quite high. Can't say about guardians but it looks like they need quite a few as well, were talking about low end combat though remember warrior with 1 trans will come out on top over a lot of others with just 1, excluding druids and such as she dosnt want to have a demensce.

He never said that he didn't want to be a demense user, he just wanted to know about the other kinds of combat with different guilds...

Ah, I just thought she said demensces were boring so meh my mistake

I didn't say he did.

I said that warriors are not the least credit-intensive class. Demesne users are.

Okay, just to clearify.
I would rather hear other suggestions rather than Demesne using guilds.
That leaves Moondancers, Shadowdancers, Nihilists, Celestines, Ebonguard, Ur'guard, Paladins and Serenguard.
Left anyone out?

What's your input on guardians?

Bad bashing. Hm, skillmessages are cool, from either side. A bit like Moondancers I'd say, just with fewer afflictions per round.

My personal opinion... I agree with Narsrim 100% in that I love the style of Blademaster far more than the others, because I do have to actually work to accomplish something instead of settling into a routine. Each enemy is slightly different, requiring a different tactic to get at them. I've got a 'kill' at chest, head, and gut, as well as kill-enablers on both legs. Can also use the arms as a frustration tactic if I'm getting foiled elsewhere, and to prevent certain skills from being used.

I can't do a one-combo slitlock, or a two-combo behead, or a three-combo bashbrains.

I find combat to be somewhat fun due to this, as I don't have something that guarantees victory. My main problem is that I don't enjoy combat as a whole. *shrugs* To each their own, I guess.

Oh, and as a note, I put 300 credits into Xen's weapons, a +5 stats rune on each (in hindsight, I'd probably have done better with +5% wounding, but ah well). You don't NEED runes to be a decent warrior, especially if you're a smith and can make your own weapons. You can craft a pair of decent scimitars well over the cap and have fun with them, just need to be careful about losing 'em (so don't put a LOT of time into their development).

Next concern is race. If you want to be a truly top combatant, I'd suggest not faeling (assuming, of course, that you stick within the Glomdoring). It IS possible, but it needs some seriously high-end weapons and a brutal offensive style which just overwhelms them. Numbers are slightly against you, in that I've tested it to be about a 25% speed increase over a race with 0% balance recovery. but wounding is completely strength dependant (a 40% increase in strength raises wounding ~40%, and damage goes up considerably as well). The real advantage is in the faster attacks and wound chances, though your overall wounding is considerably less which makes it more difficult to get to a wound that will actually do something (instead of just plucking an artery or a nerve). This makes arti'ing up your weapons just to actually get a similar wounding rate to a non-arti'd race is essential.

Or getting a champion helm.

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I just wanted to add that Shadowlord wounding, with 230-precision (with a +5 stat wound and no wounding rune), a 25% speed increase, and 13 strength seems to be about where it should be in general, excepting Knight combat where it's just frustrating.

I realize my last post could have been taken as "increase our wounding!" but I've been more going along the lines of trying to get other races balanced with ours (by balancing the strength modifier), since it seems to be one of the closest to what it *should* be. Maybe we're a tad low, since it essentially requires a 220+ precision weapon to get anywhere... but not overly so. It's still quite possible to accomplish an offense if you know what you're doing and have spent hours practicing. (See: Lyco pre-Champion helm. Post helm, when it was bugged and giving a double bonus, is not a very accurate comparison)

Anyone who can give me the goods and bads for Nihilists/Celestines?

They seem to have quite a few capable fighters, just wondering if the tactic's fun.

And I am not speaking of switching with an existing char per se... just checking the waters...

Celestine combat is quite defensive. Your kill options are basically quickened cosmicfire, soulless tarot, judgement (which I still insist is crap in one-on-one situations), and absolve. Absolve has a very straight-forward approach for a warrior or loboshigaru guardian, but every other kill attempt is going to involve slowly whittling down your opponent while keeping your opponent hindered.

That having been said, there are a lot of ways to go about the process of hindering and wearing down your opponent. Everything from the afflictions put into the angel to deciding if shieldstun, pentagram, or web will be your primary offense slower can be great fun.

Credit investments give more options, but quickened cosmicfire can be done by a novice.

Being a former Nihilist, several times, on several characters, as several races, I feel qualified to tell you a little bit about Nihilistic combat.

I find it a very interesting and engaging class to PvP with, personally. Different choices to kill your opponent are quickened cosmicfire (not gonna happen), Wrack, Soulless (probably the best choice) crucify/sacrifice (not gonna happen to any with a smidgen of competence), and torturing.

Wrack is basically identical to Absolve for Celestines, except your opponent needs to be webbed. This may sound like a small thing, but it basically means that if you're fighting anyone with even marginal skill, they're going to tipheret repeatedly when their mana gets low in order to avoid it, and shield/sip+sparkle when they see their mana getting low, making it a difficult instant-kill. Crucify/sacrifice is more or less impossible outside of teams, but it's still fun trying to get it off on people. (Like investing epilepsy/scabies, and opening the fight with two masked aeons, before ectoplasming and crucifying. Very fun.)

I think it's a much more sophisticated and tactical style of combat, with numerous different combo's and styles to it, and it's a hell of a lot of fun developing your own. Definitely preferable to Mage/Druid classes or BC/AL/PB.

<3

Couldn't have said it better bud