I think alot of it comes from the raw damage he spits out. Waririors usualy die of multiple wounds and ailments while non warriors seem to fall flat if you can damage them enough or focus on Criticaling one body part. As such, for the latter, big globs O' damage works best. For the former, being able to spread out the damage to avoid stances/parries/healthApply then focusing when it counts does the trick.

Given that, blademasters and bonecrushers are nice in fighting tanky players while pureblades handle the non-tankies faster. I kind of like that ideal. Perhaps they just need tweaking to make damage purebladists not NEED runes to be proper damage purebladists (if they don't already then there you go).

Makes sense. I know that as a mage and a wiccan, big damage is just kind of like "Ouch, OK, die". But I'd imagine if I had all fullplate and defensive warrior tankiness it's a bit trickier. Circle of life, I would think. Big damage beats up on mages/guardians if you can get in the same room with them, but it bounces off of other warriors. Mages blow you up if they can keep away from you. Speedier 1h warriors can pick off the other warriors better because of wounding, and still take out soft targets more easily.

Seems like purebladers have it pretty decent. They can just damage-crush most mages (assuming they can get to the mage and not get too screwed up by demesnes and them running away). Guardians, you might need to take away some of their mana first, which between Night abilities and the few bleedy afflictions you'll give is not totally unrealistic, this will stop their puer and puella and let you actually damage-crush them. And against other warriors -- well, there's your trouble. They can bounce off your damage and you can't afflict them well enough to kill them with wounding. So, meh. Keep them busy and let the artillery blast at them

And, every time I write "Pureblade" it makes me think of Harry Potter and "purebloods". Bleh.

Edit: That was EVIL. ~S~

Bah. Spoilerers suck! Lucky thing I already read the book or i'd never talk to you again. Meanie.