It's true I'm not one of the best, though I'm a lot better than most people think I am, because I haven't really been showing IC what I can do. But still nowhere near top tier just yet.

How exactly does that bear on the point in any way, though?

I find it noteworthy that there's about four people on the whole forum who are convinced, absolutely convinced, that blademasters don't need upgrades, and have no compunctions defending this by making large-scale, baseless insults against almost an entire third of the realm. Perhaps if you'd like to address the arguments, I'd be more impressed. The closest you've come to an argument is "there might be some brilliant strategy you haven't thought of yet, because you're not trying". That's not true. And then there's the flat-out untruths about affliction rates. Barring those, there's really not much argument beyond simply stating something more often than the 95% of the forum population who disagree with you. I don't think that adds up to anything at all.

No.

That is a lot like the metrazol toxin from Imperian, however, somewhat more powerful. Metrazol was a toxin that paralyzed your limbs, and was an herb cure (maidenhair, same cure as regular paralysis). If you had both arms paralyzed, you could not OUTR herbs, in order to get the maidenhair out in order to eat it. However, if you had your maidenhair out already, then you could eat it and cure it. Any fighter worth his salt would keep 3-10 maidenhair out at all times, with which to heal himself should he get unlucky with metrazol striking both arms.

One thing I also found odd, but I noticed you can OUTR herbs here while webbed. In Imperian, you could not OUTR herbs if you were bound/webbed/impaled or restricted in a similar manner. Why can you here? It made me think of Nihilist torture. The solution wouldn't be to make so chervil has an herb balance, instead make so you can't OUTR herbs if you are webbed/hangedman/impaled/pinlegged, how I believe it SHOULD be.

Hmm, I'm not too familiar with metrazol but I'm assuming it paralyses one of the two arms randomly? However, if Imperian is like Aetolia or Achaea, then toxins will always hit, except against snakes that can shrug, whereas poisons here do not always hit and deepwound afflictions are random. Legtendon is at freaking critical legs and I think I've managed to pull it off twice in my life time since everytime I'm striking legs, I will always impale. And it takes somewhere around 30 to 40 swings consecutively to the head for me to behead someone.

This goes to show how random and low the chances of afflicting with critical afflictions are, I sincerely don't see how it is even conceivable that someone could slice two arms at the same time. Look at collapselungs, which requires puncturelung to afflict in the first place, the only times I've gotten it to stick were because my opponents never saw it before, the next times they easily cured those. If you are unlucky enough to get both arms sliced off, that isn't any different from getting behead or bashbrain, just keep your arm wounds above critical, stance middle, or parry arms, it would not be -that- hard at all to stop.

Metrazol is a toxin that hits any limb and paralyses it randomly, requiring an herb cure (very useful for stacking with paralysis/sensitivity, since it is possible to get a total of 6 maidenhair afflictions on someone, for a maidenhair soft lock), not to be confused with the toxin that shrivels arms and has a salve cure.

Anyway, I notice critical afflictions afflict quite often, at least when coming from artifact runed weapons. It would be very conceivable to slice off both arms. And behead doesn't take that many consecutive blows, Murphy was able to bashbrains with like 2 combos and a pulp, PRIOR to his artifact runes.

For some weird reason bashbrain goes off more than behead... at least to my experience. One reason would probably because of pulp which can be targetted as opposed to haymaker thats 4 random swings(i seriously dont get the power of haymaker, unless its suppose to make someone die of laughter which i've heard almost happened once or twice... almost).

For upgrades for the blademaster i would rather make the existing afflictions more worth while and get rid of the useless fluff before adding new ones.

sliththroat if it makes people unable to eat and requiring mending to cure is overpowered - slitthroat + slickness then what as much as that would make my life so much simpler locking people in one combo is cheap as hell.

Give us a heamophilia ability maybe that would help a bit on the bleeding side but then again i wouldnt be so sure since as it is its very hard to make anything stick on someone.

I would rather see changes like :

slicetendon - lower the required limb stage to heavy since pinleg is on critical as it seems and also since its really easy to cure. Add a weakness type effect that makes people recover balance slower also since hey i expect you to be wobbly if you cant stand properly.

pierceleg/arms - act like crippled/shrivelled legs/arms instead... meaning 2 pierced legs would make the target unable to walk unlike now pierce both and same thing theyll be hobbling away. Also unable to stand with at least one pierced leg. For the arm could it down the arms instead of slowering the arm balance for that arm so that its applicable to more classess. Also maybe make them count as crippled arms and legs for skills that have those requirments. Make them fixable by regeneration(skill not salve) too.

severenerve - this says right/left side paralyzed. Could this affect the entire right or left side meaning including legs and arms so one side means you cant stand, will hobble out and cant use the arm that corresponds to the side. Both paralyzed meaning cant walk cant use both arms and cant stand. Maybe make it fixable by regeneration too. (would make going for the arms more worthwhile)

chest afflictions - maybe if theres a punctered chest make the likelyhood of punctured lung come out more. Then collapsed chest fix the cure so that it gets cured when you get balance back from the regeneration salve unlike now where you fix it right when you apply regeneration.

sliceforehead - maybe instead of bleeding make it do something like a confusion afflict which could be more useful for palis since it would be possible for them to stack the two and maybe open up mactans combos.

scalp - maybe applying mending instead of sipping sanguine for the cure.

haymaker - i dont know

The whole "skill not salve" won't work. Don't assume everyone has the same skills.

As for haymaker.. it should be targetable for the horrible balance recovery/damage. It should also increase the probability of afflictions on the desired bodypart.

erm my bad, i was talking about restoration skill... also im not sayingn only fixable by restoration... fixable by current means + restoration

Anorexia is easily cured, especially if you have focus mind. Considering that allhex can already instant lock someone, I don't see how this would make it easy as hell to stop.

As for haymaker, in theory it is extremely powerful, 4 hits in a row, up to 4 deepwound afflictions, up to 4 venoms delivered. But in reality, you're lucky if half of your swings aren't parried right off the bat. If you can target a specific limb on the other hand, that'd be significantly better, but it would be too much like pulp. But as it stands, haymaker is a waste of 10 powers to save you 4 extra seconds two swing twice again. Pulp is stronger, can be targetted, and costs less powers.

As for behead, I think it is easier to bashbrain mainly for the reason that BC can wail at your head a lot easier since they have knockdown and wind. Knock someone down, wind, then continously wind and smite head, and of course being able to pulp head is extremely handy. On the other hand, BM can't hit head indiscrimately all the time since people will most likely parry it, and we have no way to force them to cease parrying, whereas BC have breakwrist and knockdown.

I forgot to address this point when I last read your post. Yes, it would be nice if outr herb required unproned, but you're forgetting the fact that rending removes the weapon from said target, effectively making them no longer proned so they are able to outr chervil and eat them. If this change was implemented, it would benefit Guardians and Magi better since they can hangman/vine/shackles and let the demesnes/demons/angels/faes continue hitting, how would that help knights at all? If we bother to stop and web people, they'll get out of it before we can, that doesn't in any shape or form help our ability to bleed enemies any better.

slit throat isnt anorexia - unless they make slit throat cureable by focus mind which doesnt make sense a bit.

Also allhex costs power, is a trans skill and has a prep time where you have no offensive well save for passive effects. Hack down + senso isnt exactly on the the same level.