I never have really understood all the grumbling about Faelings myself. Yea they got some nice bonuses but they aren't huge by any degree... I hit for crap and I still am not very tanky.. believe me Serens target me specifically for my low HP and I am one of the bigger Faelings running around. And since our INT blows completely my surge won't be to great either, which is the same problem Viscanti have except their massive str makes them good warriors regardless.. as it stands now Faelings got low str low con and great dex except dex doesnt do anything yet.. Personally I would hate to see Knights slipping totally into being all about power where being a speed knight is a joke.. this is not like Achaea or Impy where massive speed means you're landing poisons like nobodies business and vlocking people. Here it's completely random and wounds are what its about.. wound locking, and Faelings are not great at wound locking, believe me. Right now Knights got it tough because as Amaru said countering them is MUCH MUCH easier than the other archetypes.. its not like other IRE's where Knights are nice because they function in a nice rift of balance where they can be versatile and deadly in the right hands.. here MANY factors effect knights hugely.. until Dex comes in as some decent factor I dont see how Faelings are so scary.. I mean I duel Alger all the time and I'm not really that much faster than he is and we stalmate everytime.. why because speed knights just arent impressive right now whereas Daevos, Murphy, Icarus, Marcalo etc the big power hitters are cutting people down in masses..


Edit: Also as a note I think people should start considering group combat much more in things. Like right now I can see where speed knights who got loads of time to work over someone and set them up and wait for them to screw up is ok, cause thats what me and Alger are forced to do, look for that opening, but this just isnt going to happen in what is the MAIN method of combat in this realm and thats GROUP combat, where being power is the victor. No one seems to be considering this even in the Knighthood tests on this server they're doing.. don't think completely on that 1 to 1 basis, its not what combat is about.

You don't need it.

ObOnTopic: I think it'd be great if "tier 1" included all the non-specialized races and the non-specialized forms of the specialized races, all about equal; and "tier 2" was the specialized races who were better at specific things, but in ways that made them worse for other things. I think that might have been the original intent, in fact.

Regarding knights: any imalance is entirely caused by the elemental runes, even after they got downgraded a little.

I now understand why Sarapis said "Never again." after having tested out elemental knights for a while, he'll turn down any suggestion that has anything to do with elemental damage for knights immediately, because they're impossible to balance.

Because of the nature of elemental rune's effect, tweaking knighthood will:

1) either turn out in balancing knights will elemental runes, but completely underpower those without them.

2) or turn out in balancing knights without elemental runes, but completely overpower those with elemental runes.

There's no reason they're impossible to balance, there just needs to be defenses available besides the 10% on proofing.

Which will cause problems for the archetypes using solely elemental attacks, like mages.

The only knights deemed "really good", are the ones with elemental runes, doesn't that ring a bell? The best thing would probably to do like Sarapis, and ditch elemental runes entirely, then work on balancing knights again, but without having to take the runes into account this time.

You could boost mage offense after more elemental defenses go in, without boosting the runes. Seriously man, to say it's impossible to balance something that is just damage dealt isn't thinking things through.

Dude, if you don't believe me, just look at the current example, shadowlord faeling without elemental runes, aren't overpowered, since they're very fast, but do complete crap for damage.

In the test server a load of shadowlord faeling were created, with elemental runes, and suddenly everyone agrees shadowlord faeling are insanely overpowered.

Due to the complete lack of sufficient elemental resistances, elemental runes still effectively double a knight's damage output, even after the downgrade to them. If you're going to offer elemental resistances to such a degree that it would balance out elemental runes, you're gonna totally nerf aquamancers, pyromancers and aeromancers, in the future.

So, it's all the case of elemental runes. Maybe simply delete them and refund the owners with credits, and add something else in their place?

I'd just nerf their damage conversion to 10% and maybe lower the price somewhat, so they offer an edge, instead of doubling damage output. The problem is that the difference between knights with elementals, and knights without elementals, is far too large.

I agree with Thorgal. I dont see why until Dex is some kind of major factor and its not all about Str then Faelings really arent that great. Its not like on others mud whereas on this one its about wound locking not poisons because the're completely random. Not to mention its not even possible to vlock here. Sure Faelings with runes can be scary, but who ISNT scary with runes? I cant tank Icarus PERIOD. I can't tank Daevos PERIOD. I can't tank Murphy PERIOD. The raw damage alone is to much without counting poisons and wounds for more than 2 or 3 rounds unless I get some parrying in and they miss.

Look at what Amaru said. I hit him fast as hell but I do almost nothing.. it'll take a Faeling a long time to bring someone down like it is now. Unless someone completely sucks in which case it has nothing to do with Faelings.

Until its less about having 19+ str then I think Faelings should not be the major issue in the world.

Edited do to oldman disease. Where are my darn glasses?

Runes for druids is a different matter, we're talking about Elemental Runes.

Bah, my mistake. Yep, anyone with elemental runes can be scary.

You still haven't said why buffing the elemental attacks of mancers but not buffing the runes after putting in more elemental resistance wouldn't work. There's no reason it couldn't work. Pointing out how it's arguably unbalanced now isn't relevant when we're talking about the viability of changes or not.

Syrienne on the test server some of the things me murphy and daevos did had nothing to do with the changes. It was pretty much apparent how strong the race/class is, then there were the added changes and we just killed everybody. Hell i kicked Icarus' ass with a normal faeling and the specialized faelings are stronger than they are combat wise.

Well it wasnt under normal scenario I can tell you that cause two maybe three combos from Icarus right now and I'm dead, WITH the added con.

umm, you know all i had less as a faeling was around 500 or so health... if i would have died to icarus in three hits as a faeling I would have died to him in 3 hits as an aslaran. I even had a +sip, and a regen option... so i was healing like mad against him. Big difference compared to my negative sip. They dont even have an elemental penalty people can take advantage off, playing with them was so much easier.

Well to my knowledge no one is walking around with fire runes.. but I still dont see where this big deal is being made. You couldnt have been fighting Icarus under normal constraints as much as he hits me for with this drawdown change, hes insane, even people bigger than me hate his damage.

Icarus' damage is actually less then it used to be, because they downgraded runes. The change to drawdown giving an aura does not add that much damage. No more then say +2 strength from Lich. His damage also felt to be slightly less then Daevos' when I sparred him.

Syrienne, you had to have been there, I guess. Daevos, Murphy and Alger showed us how it's done as a Shadowlord faeling. And Alger as an unspecialized one.