Maybe because Guardians/Mages are supposed to use their skills to cause as an effect: afflictions, imbalancing, immobilizing, and greater chances of attacking from the distance, also because they are much more perfect to coordinate with other Mages/Guardians in group attacks, often being able to do both ranged/close attacks?

I can see how certain folks can coordinate well, due to the ability to cause various lockouts when several abilities are used in quick succession.

On the other hand, a group of warriors coordinating limb targets is nasty. If said target manages to survive damage (which ramps quickly), they still have all the various (admittedly oddball) toxins and deep wounds effects they're being hit with.

There's synergy in team combat all around, I think. Mostly. I don't see a lack of it with warriors, at any rate - when in mass battles, the stated goal is damage, with mana death reserved for the stupidly tanky. And of those attacking, warriors dish it out best. I see warriors as more built for mass combat than any other archetype.

Edit:

Oh yeah, I had a point here somewhere. I would like to see faelings a bit more survivable against damage, which is a rather universal matter. Eldanien being an Imperial Merian Celestine generally in combat alongside other merians, warriors tend to be tops on my list due to the raw damage they can dish out. 10 constitution is tough to deal with. 8 sounds depressing.

Though I swear, one day, I'll have a faeling Paladin just for the novelty and fun factor.

Eh, let's say that a group of 1,000 mages faces against a group of 1,500 warriors. The mages keep bouldering an area, walling an area, their demesne hitting, them keeping distance and attacking from afar. Warriors can't do nothing unless they have their foe at range, the mage even when they may resort to both kinds of attacks, they are better coordinated to incapacitate a warrior with the built of synergy of both range/direct attacks.

Warriors are good on attacking as a group but they constantly need to mobilize, 100% of the time towards the target if they want to kill it (99% if you wish to count the seldom retreat of a warrior to heal up).

This of course is my opinion. Warriors are best at all out wars where time is scant for preperation, but mages/guardians dominate on the other if they have enough time to get ready well.

Warriors hang back out of demesne and shield.

Stalemate.

Are the mages the aggressors? The warriors? There are other factors to combat.

But then, how often do you see 1000 mages vs 1500 warriors?

I see large numbers of generally mixed groups. And when this happens, damage tends to determine the course of battle. That, and statues (and in theory, totems), but that's a different matter.

Let us say it is an all out war. No retreats, just fight kill or be killed. The warriors would be charging into a mine field, along with the barrage of magical projectiles.

Edit: Mage/Guardians defenders (like I've been saying they should play defensively and keep distance)

Warriors the offenders.

Show me one time this has happened? It's fun theory, but not very applicable.

Oh, and the warriors win. Tumble, shield, tumble, shield. A few will get demesne summoned. When they get up into the mass of mages, they shield after tumbling in. They all drink love. One warrior attacks. If one mage attacks him, said mage dies to two warriors. If two mages attack him, warrior shields, those two mages die to four warriors. If three mages attack him, that warrior dies, those three mages die to six warriors. This goes on until mages die, because it's a fight to the death.

It's simplistic by far, but then, it's a simplistic and unrealistic example being used. I can make an equal (and equally simplistic and unrealistic) example when the mages are on the offensive.

So, back to my argument... how are faelings survivable in the principle mode of conflict resolution one finds in Lusternia - being combat, usually in numbers?

We survive by not being noticed in the group.

It's a strange statement of group utility that I find my most useful role in group combat is debilitating enemy damage dealers. IE, I'm better off keeping an enemy damage dealer from dealing their damage, than I am dishing out my own. Nevermind my damage output is greater than most Celestines, due to racial intelligence, appropriate skills that affect damage are max trained, and even an appropriate blessing at times.

And when I arti-whore... I'll still be serving debilitators in mass combat, or so I'm guessing from the numbers I see.

Such folk tend to get targetted, of course. I never considered myself all that skilled in combat, but I get targetted quick, I've noticed. Maybe I'm too tempting a target for the xp gain. Regardless, I'm sure most of you can see that low health races die quick. Generally, they have advantages to make them kill quicker to offset this. Faelings do not.

The only thing I can think of for faelings to do, in general, is stick to non-combat activities. Scouting, teleport target, demesne controlling from afar, influencing. Perhaps faelings are meant to be very rare? This is the only logical reasoning I can think of. I'm unconvinced one way or the other whether artificial means of setting up racial demography is a good thing, but that's another topic.

Only one spellcaster could ever damage me as fast as a good dozen knights I know. But even a mage hurts a lot -simply because of my low health-. Faelings can regain health faster from sipping, yes. That is, they heal as fast as any other, but that's only if they survive the first hit. They've got nice regeneration in forests, yes. But this doesn't mean much in combat when you die too fast to gain benefit from it.

How many mass battles do you see, where the order is given 'go for damage'? The larger the battle, the more important that is. There is a point, of course, in which choice of race matters little - few survive the raw damage output of a dozen people. But in the more common battles involving a handful on each side, it's the low health races that eat it fastest.

My character is a relatively low health race, with well-known and accounted-for weaknesses. I see the hurt. Faelings are in the same boat, but aren't prone to specific types of attacks - everything is painful to them, relative to other races.

I'll go on record as saying I'd like to see some changes for faelings and leave it at that, unless someone feels that my statements are way off.

Okay, this obviously isn't working. In that case: Desdemona, I want you to write down in a post here, EVERY Guardian/Moondancer attack, OTHER than Rage/World/Shine, that attacks from a distance. Every last one. If you can come up with enough to justify attacking from a distance, THEN I will concede that your point applies in Lusternia, not just OOC. And I have no idea what your Astral cord stuff is about, since I don't recall saying D&D was involved or anything of the sort.


And THIS says that mages shouldn't kill anyone, ever. At all. Because what you just said is that warrior attacks, which apply from the next room, don't count as attacks. (Even though they do move in.) And mage attacks do. HOWEVER, only the demesne (and -technically staffpoint, but that's really unlikely) attack from more than one room away. And the demesne, as has been mentioned by the Divine, IS NOT supposed to be able to kill people on their own. So by your reasoning, they should be attacking from a range of more than one room, but by the Divine's reasoning, they shouldn't. Therefore, they can't win. Now that's just not fair.

In the small scenario that I created, Eldanien, warriors also would've won. Not without losing many casualties, though, also not everyone has tumbling.

I believe that warriors would've won because of their numerical advantage. Mages/Guardians would be overrun by an excess force of 500 men, I believe easily making at least four warriors per every one mage/guardian. Still, if we forget the numerical advantage, Mage/Guardians would have the capacity of picking off weaker knights and start finishing them off, imbalancing obstacling the warriors advance allowing them to detain them enough, so that they can keep picking off warriors fallen behind. If the numbers were equal, mages/guardians could've won against warriors, thanks to the amount of support skill and the simple capacity of being able to slow down the advance of warriors.



Hence the reason I said that vulnerable races can't at all take the commodity of engaging face to face battles, especially against a warrior. Therefore weaker races need to aim on being more elusive and constantly try to keep distance, imabalance, immbolize, afflict, slow down others.



So, you are a Celestine? Then you obviously do engage on an offensive targeted on impairing your adversary? How else can you keep a damage dealer from dealing it's damage if other than by applying a method to detain them? This is applicable to Mage/Guardians.

For any reasons that you are enhanced, doesn't eliminate the fundament that Mages/Guardians in general should aim for impairing a victim, and have the capacity of performing better on group attack. They have better synergy on afflicting/damage than Knights do, with the added benefit that they have even better retreat tactics.



If you are targeted often fast, probably is because you have the potential of being a nuisance in mid-combat. You surely have the capacity of probably impairing your attackers therefore being more than adequate for support attacks.



I believe otherwise, I think that faelings may not excel in combat if they insist on fighting at the same level as a warrior, for example. Complete exposition, that is what a faeling fighter should probably try to evade. In any case, I believe that faelings are more apt as support attackers than main attackers. They must remain elusive or else they would die easily.



Seeing how warriors are supposed to be the best damagers around, I think that it would be reasonable to find other classes to deal less damage than a warrior. Seeing how a warrior especially concentrate on afflictions, or hasn't the capacity of gaining dominance of a terrain and use it similar to a weapon.

Like I stated many times, Faelings are the most vulnerable of the races, so of course they need to avoid getting hit or do the best they can. Still chances are that they might get caught, but if they limit themselves to play defensively they might as well be able to survive for an extended period of time. Is a forest demesne considered a forest? If a faeling is being elusive in a forest and using the room as a weapon, the ability to regenerate while flying is a big benefit to restore health, nonetheless it isn't excuse to engage on face to face combat.



I've been in mass battles where the order is to "attack target, eliminate target, then pass onto other target". By no means were this types of battle completely based on damage, or else the support fire of archers and the limitation of afflictions woudn't count. The times when dealing damage only does count is when you have something similar to 5-10 people entering a room attacking at once picking off targets one by one. Also, weaker races will always be prone to die the fastest if they expose themselves to damage. Normally on all out wars, that I've noticed, you go first for those who are the supporters: afflictors, healers, and then you either attack the strongest to the weakest.



I must say I agree mostly with this last part. Yes, faelings are the weakest and may be the most vulnerable, but other races also have to cope with great weaknesses despite their other good stats. Though, still, faelings should be modified so that they aren't as vulnerable as they currently are. Perhaps they should be exempt of the xp penalty and have their equilibrium and/or balance recovery increased so they have greater chances of being faster when attacking.



First off, I never dismissed Charge as an attack. Or else, if we adhere to my anology where I reffered Charge on being the equivalent of a punch, would be like saying that a punch isn't an attack. Don't turn around what I said. What I said about Charge is that it is an attack based on the concept of diminish distance between attacker and target by having the attacker translate itself towards it's target, in order to have a direct physical impact on the target: a bull ramming against the bullfighter, charging from 1-2 meters away. As opposed to a person throwing a projectile at another. Also, don't imply that I was referring to D&D in a form whatsoever because I am much a stranger to D&D, and as I said, that statement was pointless afterwards. You could've ignored it.

Though, with that ridiculous statement, what I was tyring to say is that the things I was referring to were applicable to Lusternia: Warriors sticking to physical face to face combat depending on damage, and the other archetypes on a conjuction of afflicting/impairing/imbalancing also with the capability of mantaining distance and also in some cases being able to attack from the distance.

So, what does this mean? Warriors are strictly physical attacks, while the other arhcetypes have the capacity of overpower a warrior by afflictions and the combination of their other abilities. Also, even when the demesne may not be considered as the ultimate killing age for a Mage, it is highly a weapon for a mage and an may be crucial for Mage combat. Why? Because it helps delay target or similar things that can provoke the opportunity of other attacks to take place. Not only this, but it basically allows a Mage gain much control of a room. If not why do Mages have manse if they are such unimportant why not remove them? Also, that the conjuction of afflictions are more capable for greater synergy of coordinated group combat.

Regarding the List of Guardian/Moondancer attack, I must say that I'll be lacking said list because my own list of skills is very incomplete. But from what I've gathered for the Moondancers: Lash/Shine/Waning/Dark:Rage. And most of the other skills I manage to tell do center around afflicting/imbalancing/detaining someone, which are perfect for any kind of distance support attacks, plus the added benefit that Mage/Guardians do have a greater scale of retreat skills and overall they have also more support skills than warriors. So, this makes completely valid what I said: Warriors can only focus on chasing after the opponent when the other classes can easily be able to employ different strategies to disable warriors and obstacle them.

No, if he's targetted often, it's actually more because he's easier to kill. They have no better synergy on afflicting/damage, because as has been mentioned warriors can just go for different parts of the body and have them not ONLY trying to heal intense damage, but also trying to cure whatever wounds and status ailments are attributed via limb damage. Better escape tactics, though, I won't deny.
Lash isn't ranged in any way, shape or form a ranged attack. Unless...ectoplasm is or something, 'cause the guys spew it on the floor? What? And by the way! You'll notice that some warriors have access to shine/rage too, which I hadn't thought of! And see, now here's the thing. The Guardians are able to escape better, true, but that DOESN'T mean they're better for ranged attacks, it means they're better for raids. And that's excluding stuff like ghost et al.. Your problem is that, as you admit, your list of skills is very incomplete. You're unfamiliar with how combat actually works in Lusternia. As you're unable to provide any more examples of ranged attacks - well, what can I say? It proves we're not good at ranged attacks. WE DO NOT HAVE ANY. And actually, it's arguable that some warriors are better at detaining than some Guardian types. Ectoplasm + Crucify + Shrivel Legs + Knockdown + All the rest of it vs. Vines and Wane and (I guess) Dryad/Monkey/Shove + All the rest of it. Now, I might've given a little unbalanced examples there, but you (I hope) get the point. So no, what you said still isn't valid. It's idealistic. What you need to do is get a proper list of the skills, plus some practice against them. I won't claim to be the best fighter, but I know (vaguely) what the things do.

Easier to kill and better support. Normallly, when someone is easy to kill and nothing more, someone would first of either go to the strongest or those who are know that are capable to provide good back-up: healing, ressurections, defenses, afflictions. Also, the kind of afflictions warriors can make is no way comparible with the amount of afflictions warriors would be able to cause if their envenomed swords could aflict more. Most warriors affllictions consist of maiming a limb/organ causing an effect. Still the most important aspect of a warrior remains being: damage. Mages/Guardians have more ways to afflict, and center on afflicting keeping someone out of balance/afflicted then able to attack or perform combinations of attacks devastating an opponent.




K, so the range of ranged attack isn't much if anything. Still, like I said, a combination of ranged/afflictions/impairing/imbalancing/room attacks. In other words, their strategy is otherwise of depending entirely on damage.

Though, perhaps I should refrain from further commenting until I acquire a better skill list. So until then, I concede to you.

Yeah, I can see where a Faeling or Mugwump would have problems against a Knight class.

I took the time to buy Jagged Lightning runes for my weapons, so even somewhat tanky classes take large amounts of damage from my hits, since half of the damage is electrical and cuts through armour or magical resistances. With the War blessing, I deal about 1400 damage with two swings as a Dracnari with 17 strength.

In other IRE games, when posed with the same kind of problem, normally I would find a ranged attack. As a Serpent in Achaea, I made keen use of a good Darkbow. If you can't stand toe-to-toe with them, then you have to find another way.

For the Faelings.. well.. might be hard to find "another way" when someone walks in, smacks you twice, and you're already dead. I would say increasing their ability to dodge swings would be warranted.


Lazul

Yep. Way behind on the uptake, there. :/


Lazul

Des, you miss my point about me afflicting. I afflict because I can't outdamage. All I can do is mitigate the damage dealer's damage output when it comes to group fights. If after all my efforts to incapaciate, the enemy damage dealer (usually warrior) manages one attack every ten seconds, then I'm accomplishing less in that battle than the enemy damage dealer. Only if I myself manage to completely hold down said enemy, can I be said to have effectively nullified both of us for the period of time spent. My one consolation is that if I'm doing my job right, then my target enemy I'm holding down is more likely to die than I am because he is afflicted and I'm not.

Not every warrior has tumble, right. Not every mage has staff, either. Not every guardian has... not every... heck, the list goes on. I did say that was a really simplistic scenario, didn't I?

In group combat, damage wins. Warriors dish it out best, warriors take it best. Warriors are best in group combat. _I don't have a problem with this._

I'm only in this thread to argue that faelings seem to get the short end of the stick in terms of survivability.

I agree with you there. Faelings are a too weak race, so they shouldn't really be handicapped when acquiring experience to increase their levels, and they could probably be accelerated a bit to make them faster.

On whatever else you said, I disagree. If we center ourselves with our knights/mages/guardians having what... trans guildskills? And only that. Every mage would probably have staff.

Still, I fail to see your logic. How can someone win when it depends on dealing damage, but he can't deal said damage because he is either out of balance, or afflicted to death?

Also, of course you can't out damage. I've been saying countless of times that warriors in here are completely opposite from speed/knights of other realms, in the warrior that seems gold is strength knights. Strength as in the warrior with the highest capacity to deal damage and take damage.

In group combat, coordination wins. Warriors focus on what, probably crippling a limb or to, engaging on causing an effect with a direct physical attack... all the while the other classes go on to afflict them, lock their movement, incapacitating their offense, delaying them further. If you are either an afflicter/healer on a battle, then you can surely consider yourself dead, because back-up on the main force is a deterrent for the offensive of the opposite party.

On other realms, with a band of knights gathered to enter a room and just start hitting at everything in sight picking off targets... guess what? About 90% of the swords of the knights would be envenomed, also some of those knights would also bring their falcon to set some targets out of balance. So the afflictions would be crucial for damage/afflict. Otherwise, if you stick only to damage, one could just as easily run away (even when a room were block, making a knight move was easy), and retaliate.

Two knights enter a demesne facing two-three guardian/mages. Those people can easily block a knights movement, kill it and go for the other one later.

How will changing experience gain/loss (something that I detest, by the way) make us less weak? It doesn't change our role in battle at all.

Whether you detest it or not is of no importance. In fact, the ones that should actually loathe such disadvantages should be the races that are brandished with an excess amount of xp penalty, even when such penalty is completely in accordance with the benefits/advantages of those races.

Now, to answer your question... To be frank, if you bother to use some logic or at least follow mine... Faelings die quick, a top of that, they slowly increase their levels. Meaning that for such a vulnerable race that may have trouble increasing levels in the first place, the xp penalty is intensified. Removing such penalty would stop making leveling a hindrance to the faelings, with the added benefit that dying wouldn't be as problematic as before: loosing big numbers of xp, applying more effort on leveling for a weak race.

Also, of course it woudln't remove your role in battle: stick to being elusive and probably for support attacks. Faelings are the weakest role around, which role do you want to possess? That of a crusading knight or that of a godly magician? If you want number one, go tae'dae or any other bulky race, for choice two... go find a suitable race that has increased int, isn't very vulnerable, and has chances of actually dealing with damage.

Still, because faelings are supposed to be more elusive therefore more likely to avoid being damaged, or at least increase their chance of avoiding damage... was the reason I suggested faelings should be accelerated: recover equilibrium faster level 1. Or something between those lines.

This would mean that faelings would retain their frailty, but they at the very least would have chances to try outmaneuver a slower more powerful foe.

I have to disagree here where you guys are stating that damage wins in mass battle. Coordination, like Desdemona said, holds a much greater role in determining the outcomes of mass battles. I've lead fighters to great extent in Achaea and have soundly defeated the opposing faction not through brute damage, but rather strategies. Use your best hinderer on their biggest fighters, use your range attackers from outside, use your best afflicters on their weakest fighters, take down the weaker supports first, etc.

It is much better when all your fighters know their orders of attacks and pre-determined roles, rather than a commander having to constantly call out new targets since those are easily lost in group combats. Don't forget since Magi can hailstorm/boulderblast only enemies, a group of them could single handedly take down up to 30 people at once.



For group fighting, damage can win but, Magi are easily the best at dishing it out, Guardians are also great with their demons/angels for passive effects, Warriors have a harder time since it is very hard to track rebounding in team fighting, but I have to conceed that Warriors can take damage the best.

Fair enough, if you don't want my opinion, so be it.

To be frank, I didn't see much logic to follow.

You were talking about the survivability of Faelings. XP adjustments will make it easier for a Faeling to reach a level, but will have no effect on this survivability. (Good word, by the way... not sure if its real or not, heh) You're discussing balancing out poor survivability with adjustments in other areas, not changing anything to do with how long a Faeling can last in combat.

Except peripherally maybe, because they might have 80 or so extra health from levelling. Nothing significant, anyway.