Late one night, Jomino had been woken up sweating, his skin burning. A
dark shadow stood before him, gazing upon him. Jomino did not know how to
react. All his life he had not believed in such things. He had defied the
priests and there false beliefs. The shadow scremed out, "EMBRACE THE
SHADOWS!" Jomino passed out. The next day he woke up deep in Enethema. He
was at the shrine of Zylenier. He pledged himself to the shadows and from
that day, had a new purpose.
Description:
Veins lie in wait, ready to burst over every visible inch of this
barrel-chested male human. He is enormous, towering above the average
human. His head and face are clean-shaven, and adorned by sharp, dark
features. His skin is heavily tanned, approaching a shade of brown. His
slanted eyes are yellow with a hint of green in the center. He has a jagged
scar on the left side of his cheek.
I'm sure you all know this was me. I lost interest very early on when I was removed from Legion. I am not sure how things would have turned out if that did not happen. Anyway I wanted to play a Evil Human ranger for a while now, I tried Aynar but I did not like where he was going, so I made Jomino.
Jomino was also a character I played in another game. He was a centaur ranger who killed anyone who stepped foot into his forest. I liked that idea and wanted to play it out here but that did not go to well.
I made many friends and many enemies, to many to name them all. I killed a bunch of people and only died to one person.
Anyway I will be playing Ark, if anyone wants to come play with some dinosaurs.
@beia: Small world. I knew the name, but I wasn't going to holla' at you with any reference to that which it use to be. Not without concrete validation given voluntarily.
Jomino, you were a total badass!! I knew I'd have 0% chance against you, every time we'd fight.
The RP was fun for a bit, but I could tell you got over it... I thought there was definitely a chance to revive Jomino in interesting ways but I guess you've had your fill with him.
Seriously kicked ass, and owned everyone for a while there - awesome work :)
With your gear you were close to unstoppable. I think out of all our fights there was only one that I felt I had any real chance of survival (let alone victory) and that was WITH a special guard and Dagnir on your ass. I'm always disappointed when I see someone delete after they lose their pimp set, I think your legacy would have been better cemented in history had you picked yourself up, re-equipped, and continued your reign at #1 pk'er.
I uninducted you because you spazzed out when I told some lower level officer to try to kill you to become forsaken. The only reason I inducted you was because you somehow sent a note to a really wide audience announcing you were the forsaken so I thought it would be funny. You did some dumbshit stuff like inducting an alhoon
beia
0 , 0 , 0 .
Spazzed out as in saying he was not even worthy of my time? Then killing him twice? Trying to explain that no one is going to play in your Cabal because of the way you are? How much longer does it need to continue before you realize you are doing something wrong? Will it be to late? I stepped up into a vacant spot and tried to breath life into a dead cabal, then you killed it again. Good job.
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
killed me once, and than repeatedly fought me while hasted and or grouped with other people. good job man. You spazzed out like a little kid. than you kept crying to me afterwards. You had a good set of gear, you killed pretty well just me, that's it, who else did you kill? Cyprian? my invoker, my warrior, who else? Firithien, balan before he was even 50. me again. Cedowyl naked. Hmm. who else again did you fight? Worst forsaken since I was forsaken 2 years ago. I love the way legion is set up, if I had more time to play I would roll up legion after legion. I generally do. Maybe you should roll a character that fits the cabal instead of trying to fit the cabal to your character
beia
0 , 0 , 0 .
Tayyah you haven't killed anyone since Kang. Half your kills on Mishtkah are the same person over and over. You talk so much shit and play so many hours and still this bad? You act like because you spend 150 hours a month here you are entitled to something, when in fact over 90% of your toons are trash. I also love that not even a month ago you were talking so much shit saying I never killed you, what a joke. Please get off Nycticora's nuts man it is obvious you have a boner for him, as if you don't show it enough in irc. I knew you were the giant as soon as we had our first interaction, not sure what you were trying to prove, but I was getting upset that you gave up Mishtkah to come try to fuck with me. Anyway enjoy your time man. No need to get upset about a video game. Maybe that's why I can't separate myself because of the passion I have and how much this game has been a part of my life. hard to let go of those kinds of things. Anyway QQ enjoi
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
actually yah putz, I hardly killed anyone twice ,and I posted all the logs to prove it, but yeah, keep talking shit yah numptee.
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
shit, I forgot, probably your only good kill, you killed thamu while they were in guild issue... another good job
beia
0 , 0 , 0 .
Lol if you were a "good kill" this game is in trouble.
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
Pretty sure I said your only good kill was Thamu.... Yeah checked. I sure did
Kedaleam
0 , 0 , 0 .
You two should just get a room and hammer this out together. Clearly there is some tension here.
Esivole
1 , 0 , 0 .
Ganks don't count as good kills. imho
Ergorion
0 , 0 , 0 .
Depends on the gank.
Davairus
0 , 0 , 1 .
I find AR has a lot of parallels with theatre. There are protagonists and antagonists (good and evil). Those are backed up with cabals. If you want to be an antagonist, the ganks really help cement you as one. I think if you look at the leader of Legion, that role actually tends toward becoming a protagonist.. whereas the Knights are antagonist gankers. It makes the game much more vividly interesting to me. Take a step away from the game, and you can really see that very often the evils are the good guys and the Justices are the bad guys who EVERYBODY wants to see die. Ganks are a critical part of building up the hate. Do ganks cement you as the most skillful fighter in Serin ? Absolutely not. But they're a way to build notoriety and stand out. And there is a rub. Whosoever should kill the worst gankers, will become a darling.
Nycticora
0 , 0 , 1 .
re: spazzed out, I felt like you went ooc. You said to let him take it and demote you. That's grounds for instant uninduction for a Forsaken in my opinion. I would have been well within bounds to slay you. I didn't mean this to start a shit storm though, I was just giving feedback
Don't feel bad, beia. I've had chars that were on the other end of a cruel deity.
Even had a char that served under a High Priest who was rather emotionally unstable OOC, and you didn't have to be a genius to figure it out. All you had to do was -remotely- look like you were -about- to step on their toes, or simply be so good at RP that they started to feel threatened. This usually isn't a problem, except the High Priest blurred OOC contempt with legit IC conflict, lost sight of that '4th wall' and rallied some conventional followers of our faith to malign my char to the point of a one-room exile. The exile lasted a few days, and my char sat in that room for nine RL hours -straight- on the last day. Our deity 'came down' and summoned the HP to meet with She and I in that room, and man...the OOC insecurities just poured out of the HP's say commands. The majority of his concerns and accusations were rooted in a fear of being supplanted...not so much to do with legit (and beautiful) IC conflicts. He was not smitten, he was not told to back off and chill, my exile was lifted but nothing changed.
Prior to, I tried to reach out to the guy OOC and quell his insecurities at length on SEVERAL occasions. At that 'exile meet' though, and after, his OOC vendetta still bled through as toxic as ever. He remained HP. My char remained in his church. I kept playing. This is just one example.
Just saying I understand dealing with what may be total BS. Things tend to go better when you let go, ignore it (or roll-with) and focus on keeping your character unadulterated.
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
this has no relevance what do ever. legion is literally set up FOR in fighting. that's how you get promoted. you kill the person above you. beia is just a whiner and really needs to figure this fact out. you want to play a structured cabal join knights
Nycticora
0 , 0 , 1 .
an emotionally unstable high priest who abuses his subordinates sounds within-bounds of AR gameplay to me. I think there are in-game remedies
DigitalText
0 , 0 , 0 .
I know it is, and was within said bounds of the MUD wherein this took place. My in-game remedy was to keep playing and capitalize on it, in-character. Didn't make it any less annoying out-of-character. Anyway, I was just trying to be encouraging with the post.
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
Yeah it's annoyong
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
just think if you guys didn't have asshole like me and durp. who would you guys hate on? the game would be boring as fuck
Ergorion
1 , 0 , 0 .
Can we have a poll in the wasteland about who's the biggest dick in the game? Ima do that right now.
You are absolutely right. I don't know what's been wrong with me all these years. I thought about it just like you suggesed. The windows of epiphany opened forth, and then I realized: first thing I really wanna do when I'm bored is talk to a man who's on the rag. Thanks for clearing that up for me tayyah.
tayyah
1 , 0 , 0 .
and yet. here you are. bored and talking to a man on his rag
I mentioned it... In fact I helped make it what it was :p
Nycticora
0 , 0 , 1 .
it is a pretty badass ratio
Faelon
0 , 0 , 0 .
Firithien, I stand corrected, you did mention it.
Tayyah. You are a loud mouth scrub. Your ramblings didn't cover his record. Your ramblings attempted to defend your preconceived notions of superiority, while trying to make someone else feel like garbage.
Davairus
0 , 0 , 0 .
The heat between beia and tayyah has been there for weeks, and it goes back to an incident that went down while they were in Legion. Its still very raw between those two. More importantly though, that has nothing to do with you Faelon. There is no need for you to get involved in their crap, which they clearly need to work through like Kedaleam said originally.
beia
0 , 0 , 0 .
Sadly Faelon, I can't continue to play this game right now maybe in the future. It is pretty sad when the IMP straight up says that Shadows are completly overpowered and is telling people to play them now because they will never be this strong again. So on that note, back to ARK.
Davairus
0 , 0 , 0 .
The verdict is the shadow class is actually pretty well-balanced and fun to PK with. The OP stuff that's troubled you is gated behind marks of shadow that requires either building with thrown shuriken (which is why in all the shadow logs you see them throwing mediocre death stars left and right instead of better skills) or successfully landing an assassinate attempt (which used to kill people outright anyways). I've planned to set aside some time soon to catalogue everything correctly and ensure it isn't too easy to spam things, but like shadow spear alone consumes ALL marks of shadow so you're only getting one of those period. That leaves shadow machine as the only sore point. Shadow machine depletes mana fast and constantly and turn off immediately once you're all out, so the way you will play with that is you try to use your mana regaining skills with it (which isn't your mark of shadow gaining skills). The one thing I would say about it is I should've made shadow machine require max mana with a mana cost on assassinate to activate to accomplish exactly what I wanted. That's a very cleverly thought out change, beia, but if you think you can do better, I'm listening. I'm always listening and you know that. Hopefully you can understand that sometimes things are designed to be OP because there are balancing factors, like the paladin wrath spell, or like needing marks of shadow in this case, thats very much the case with thief dual backstab as well - and it is a rogue class, after all. I love to hear everyones feedback but sometimes I just dont think we are on the same page about stuff.
To be honest, I do not like any of the shadows machine tactics spear things and whatever updates. Thought it was all not needed. Miss the days of old where they relied on nerve, caltraps and blind dust... Strangle is now obsolete. Ikuzachi is almost to that point, maybe already there.
Now its just spam throwing stars every round, (not to mention the blind and poison bonus from those), shadows machine, shadow spear...
Does shadow cloak actually cure stuff like poison and plague? Help file says the shadow vanishes and it cures their worst ailments. If that's the case, that needs to be completely removed.
Nonetheless, they need quite a bit of "tweaking", or reverting?
Davairus
1 , 0 , 0 .
ikuzachi used to be a bag of dicks. I'd be very surprised if theres any ninja players out there who would prefer go back to having a useless mana bar, because the class is being hp-penalized for being a hybrid without actually being a hybrid. Obviously, we do not need thieves with gate and hellstream, its not meant to be that extreme, but a direct hp loss must be balanced fairly or why roll the class (other than the obvious answer of goblin sword assassinates).
I just made the change I said I was going to make - machine requires max mana to activate. This means that they will render themselves unable to ever use it by just spamming a couple throws (it takes away tons of mana). I think this is literally the only tweak we needed to solve the teething problems we had. Being able to use nerve/caltraps to gain mana ensures those skills will keep their importance. Thank you for being patient with everything and I appreciate all the feedback. Shadows are definitely a lot more sensitive to balance issues than monks were since they have stealth and a very capable melee. That's something we all should keep in mind.
Nycticora
0 , 0 , 0 .
I think the real issues with shadows are lack of hours played.
The shadow updates are roughly the same quality as the invoker updates except there is less seat time from shadow players and the feedback is less useful.
Strangle obsolete is actionable feedback.
Ikuzachi worthless is actionable feedback.
Requesting the return of blind/nerve/caltrops is actionable feedback.
Requesting clarification of shadow cloak's operation in the helpfile is valid feedback.
Xenyar, can you please file bugs for these issues? You can use the web interface at http://abandonedrealms.com/issues
Please include as much information for each of the above mentioned issues as possible and if you already know how to fix it post the solution also. You may make multiple posts to the same issue.
tayyah
0 , 0 , 0 .
I feel strangle is actually obsolete there isn't much to set up. no gag no steal .dusts wake target. so I have to take an extra chance to strangle just to try to assassinate? I'll just open with my shurikens thanks and hope I get a good couple throws in to max my marks
I agree with the assessment on strangle. I actually do not use it at all, it is a waste of a murder or alt skill now. Nothing I can do to them once they are knocked out if it succeeds.
Davairus
0 , 0 , 0 .
Saying that strangle is not useful is simply untrue. It makes a team of ninja and necromancer utterly deadly. It has a defensive use, if you're lucky enough to get it off then you get away, its that simple. If you were fighting two people, maybe you get lucky enough to put the one doing the most damage to sleep while you focus on fighting the other. That goes for any group fight. It can immediatley take someone out of hte fight. Just because you were only going to use it to dramatically multiply your chances of landing an instant kill, does not mean it was not already useful. I can go on but I shouldnt need to.
Merlandox
0 , 0 , 0 .
Eh, how does strangle helps you in crowd control when your teammate can just attack him to wake him?
Nycticora
0 , 0 , 0 .
dust waking up target smells like a bug to me
Nycticora
0 , 0 , 0 .
BUT I can say this now!!! holy shit
FYI strangle + assassinate was ALWAYS lower chance to kill than assassinate alone. At no point in AR history am I aware of a time when strangle actually improved assassinate chances. The chance of failing strangle was always too high to make up for the gain in percent chance to land assassinate
so when you thought strangle was useful, it was actually useless
Davairus
1 , 0 , 0 .
you missed the period of the game where Virgil returned, was told that, and then made the sleeping assassinate chance FABULOUS
Strangle is useful for group warfare, that's it. If you can potentially remove someone from combat, or give your team a chance to spell someone up great. Every other instance is useless.
Davairus
0 , 0 , 0 .
You guys were saying you dont even use strangle at all.
If you had, I'm sure you at the very least would have noticed that: (1) you can't assassinate anyone except full health targets, so you have to use strangle to help them heal up (you do want the maxed marks of shadow to activate your "OP" shadow spear with, right?) (2) having the player asleep causes their sanc to roll off, and definitely weapon ward, so you can do a giant damage assassinate, which is even more giant if you're doing the poison mastery assassinate, (3) skills (like assassinate) deal more damage when that target happens to be asleep. and (4) in the situation where you are like HOLY SHIT I AM ABOUT TO GET FUCKED AND DIE (like ensnares and cabal confinements and things of that sort) it has chance to save your life especially when pursued by one of Resatimms necros. This skill literally makes the difference between life and death and if you find that useless please by all means leave it at 1% then.
There are also clever exploits that take advantage of being able to put other players to sleep that I am NOT going to share here.
Jomino was also a character I played in another game. He was a centaur ranger who killed anyone who stepped foot into his forest. I liked that idea and wanted to play it out here but that did not go to well.
I made many friends and many enemies, to many to name them all. I killed a bunch of people and only died to one person.
Anyway I will be playing Ark, if anyone wants to come play with some dinosaurs.
Dinklebik 0 , 0 , 0 . You forgot to name Dink! DigitalText 
0 , 0 , 0 . @beia: Small world. I knew the name, but I wasn't going to holla' at you with any reference to that which it use to be. Not without concrete validation given voluntarily.
[reply to beia]The RP was fun for a bit, but I could tell you got over it... I thought there was definitely a chance to revive Jomino in interesting ways but I guess you've had your fill with him.
Seriously kicked ass, and owned everyone for a while there - awesome work :)
[reply to Firithien]
[reply to tayyah]
[reply to Cedowyl]
[reply to Virasen]
[reply to Nadrin]
beia 
0 , 0 , 0 . Spazzed out as in saying he was not even worthy of my time? Then killing him twice? Trying to explain that no one is going to play in your Cabal because of the way you are? How much longer does it need to continue before you realize you are doing something wrong? Will it be to late? I stepped up into a vacant spot and tried to breath life into a dead cabal, then you killed it again. Good job. tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . killed me once, and than repeatedly fought me while hasted and or grouped with other people. good job man. You spazzed out like a little kid. than you kept crying to me afterwards. You had a good set of gear, you killed pretty well just me, that's it, who else did you kill? Cyprian? my invoker, my warrior, who else? Firithien, balan before he was even 50. me again. Cedowyl naked. Hmm. who else again did you fight? Worst forsaken since I was forsaken 2 years ago. I love the way legion is set up, if I had more time to play I would roll up legion after legion. I generally do. Maybe you should roll a character that fits the cabal instead of trying to fit the cabal to your character beia 
0 , 0 , 0 . Tayyah you haven't killed anyone since Kang. Half your kills on Mishtkah are the same person over and over. You talk so much shit and play so many hours and still this bad? You act like because you spend 150 hours a month here you are entitled to something, when in fact over 90% of your toons are trash. I also love that not even a month ago you were talking so much shit saying I never killed you, what a joke. Please get off Nycticora's nuts man it is obvious you have a boner for him, as if you don't show it enough in irc. I knew you were the giant as soon as we had our first interaction, not sure what you were trying to prove, but I was getting upset that you gave up Mishtkah to come try to fuck with me. Anyway enjoy your time man. No need to get upset about a video game. Maybe that's why I can't separate myself because of the passion I have and how much this game has been a part of my life. hard to let go of those kinds of things. Anyway QQ enjoi tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . actually yah putz, I hardly killed anyone twice ,and I posted all the logs to prove it, but yeah, keep talking shit yah numptee. tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . shit, I forgot, probably your only good kill, you killed thamu while they were in guild issue... another good job beia 
0 , 0 , 0 . Lol if you were a "good kill" this game is in trouble. tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . Pretty sure I said your only good kill was Thamu.... Yeah checked. I sure did Kedaleam 
0 , 0 , 0 . You two should just get a room and hammer this out together. Clearly there is some tension here. Esivole 
1 , 0 , 0 . Ganks don't count as good kills. imho Ergorion 
0 , 0 , 0 . Depends on the gank. Davairus 0 , 0 , 1 . I find AR has a lot of parallels with theatre. There are protagonists and antagonists (good and evil). Those are backed up with cabals. If you want to be an antagonist, the ganks really help cement you as one. I think if you look at the leader of Legion, that role actually tends toward becoming a protagonist.. whereas the Knights are antagonist gankers. It makes the game much more vividly interesting to me. Take a step away from the game, and you can really see that very often the evils are the good guys and the Justices are the bad guys who EVERYBODY wants to see die. Ganks are a critical part of building up the hate. Do ganks cement you as the most skillful fighter in Serin ? Absolutely not. But they're a way to build notoriety and stand out. And there is a rub. Whosoever should kill the worst gankers, will become a darling. Nycticora 
0 , 0 , 1 . re: spazzed out, I felt like you went ooc. You said to let him take it and demote you. That's grounds for instant uninduction for a Forsaken in my opinion. I would have been well within bounds to slay you. I didn't mean this to start a shit storm though, I was just giving feedback
[reply to Nycticora]Even had a char that served under a High Priest who was rather emotionally unstable OOC, and you didn't have to be a genius to figure it out. All you had to do was -remotely- look like you were -about- to step on their toes, or simply be so good at RP that they started to feel threatened. This usually isn't a problem, except the High Priest blurred OOC contempt with legit IC conflict, lost sight of that '4th wall' and rallied some conventional followers of our faith to malign my char to the point of a one-room exile. The exile lasted a few days, and my char sat in that room for nine RL hours -straight- on the last day. Our deity 'came down' and summoned the HP to meet with She and I in that room, and man...the OOC insecurities just poured out of the HP's say commands. The majority of his concerns and accusations were rooted in a fear of being supplanted...not so much to do with legit (and beautiful) IC conflicts. He was not smitten, he was not told to back off and chill, my exile was lifted but nothing changed.
Prior to, I tried to reach out to the guy OOC and quell his insecurities at length on SEVERAL occasions. At that 'exile meet' though, and after, his OOC vendetta still bled through as toxic as ever. He remained HP. My char remained in his church. I kept playing. This is just one example.
Just saying I understand dealing with what may be total BS. Things tend to go better when you let go, ignore it (or roll-with) and focus on keeping your character unadulterated.
tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . this has no relevance what do ever. legion is literally set up FOR in fighting. that's how you get promoted. you kill the person above you. beia is just a whiner and really needs to figure this fact out. you want to play a structured cabal join knights Nycticora 
0 , 0 , 1 . an emotionally unstable high priest who abuses his subordinates sounds within-bounds of AR gameplay to me. I think there are in-game remedies DigitalText 
0 , 0 , 0 . I know it is, and was within said bounds of the MUD wherein this took place. My in-game remedy was to keep playing and capitalize on it, in-character. Didn't make it any less annoying out-of-character. Anyway, I was just trying to be encouraging with the post. tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . Yeah it's annoyong tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . just think if you guys didn't have asshole like me and durp. who would you guys hate on? the game would be boring as fuck Ergorion 
1 , 0 , 0 . Can we have a poll in the wasteland about who's the biggest dick in the game? Ima do that right now. Bladefurry 2 , 0 , 0 . i better fucking win this shit...im not kidding. DigitalText 
0 , 0 , 0 . You are absolutely right. I don't know what's been wrong with me all these years. I thought about it just like you suggesed. The windows of epiphany opened forth, and then I realized: first thing I really wanna do when I'm bored is talk to a man who's on the rag. Thanks for clearing that up for me tayyah. tayyah 
1 , 0 , 0 . and yet. here you are. bored and talking to a man on his rag Bladefurry 0 , 0 , 0 . gottem
[reply to DigitalText][reply to DigitalText]
Idc about tayyah obvious personal grief, this character was a good one. Well done, keep growing Beia.
tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . it was actually covered in my second post... or did you just not read any of this? Firithien 0 , 0 , 0 . I mentioned it... In fact I helped make it what it was :p Nycticora 
0 , 0 , 1 . it is a pretty badass ratio Faelon 
0 , 0 , 0 . Firithien, I stand corrected, you did mention it.
Davairus 0 , 0 , 0 . The heat between beia and tayyah has been there for weeks, and it goes back to an incident that went down while they were in Legion. Its still very raw between those two. More importantly though, that has nothing to do with you Faelon. There is no need for you to get involved in their crap, which they clearly need to work through like Kedaleam said originally. beia 
0 , 0 , 0 . Sadly Faelon, I can't continue to play this game right now maybe in the future. It is pretty sad when the IMP straight up says that Shadows are completly overpowered and is telling people to play them now because they will never be this strong again. So on that note, back to ARK. Davairus 0 , 0 , 0 . The verdict is the shadow class is actually pretty well-balanced and fun to PK with. The OP stuff that's troubled you is gated behind marks of shadow that requires either building with thrown shuriken (which is why in all the shadow logs you see them throwing mediocre death stars left and right instead of better skills) or successfully landing an assassinate attempt (which used to kill people outright anyways). I've planned to set aside some time soon to catalogue everything correctly and ensure it isn't too easy to spam things, but like shadow spear alone consumes ALL marks of shadow so you're only getting one of those period. That leaves shadow machine as the only sore point. Shadow machine depletes mana fast and constantly and turn off immediately once you're all out, so the way you will play with that is you try to use your mana regaining skills with it (which isn't your mark of shadow gaining skills). The one thing I would say about it is I should've made shadow machine require max mana with a mana cost on assassinate to activate to accomplish exactly what I wanted. That's a very cleverly thought out change, beia, but if you think you can do better, I'm listening. I'm always listening and you know that. Hopefully you can understand that sometimes things are designed to be OP because there are balancing factors, like the paladin wrath spell, or like needing marks of shadow in this case, thats very much the case with thief dual backstab as well - and it is a rogue class, after all. I love to hear everyones feedback but sometimes I just dont think we are on the same page about stuff.
[reply to Faelon]Tayyah. You are a loud mouth scrub. Your ramblings didn't cover his record. Your ramblings attempted to defend your preconceived notions of superiority, while trying to make someone else feel like garbage.
Now its just spam throwing stars every round, (not to mention the blind and poison bonus from those), shadows machine, shadow spear...
Does shadow cloak actually cure stuff like poison and plague? Help file says the shadow vanishes and it cures their worst ailments. If that's the case, that needs to be completely removed.
Nonetheless, they need quite a bit of "tweaking", or reverting?
Davairus 1 , 0 , 0 . ikuzachi used to be a bag of dicks. I'd be very surprised if theres any ninja players out there who would prefer go back to having a useless mana bar, because the class is being hp-penalized for being a hybrid without actually being a hybrid. Obviously, we do not need thieves with gate and hellstream, its not meant to be that extreme, but a direct hp loss must be balanced fairly or why roll the class (other than the obvious answer of goblin sword assassinates).
Nycticora 
0 , 0 , 0 . I think the real issues with shadows are lack of hours played.
tayyah 
0 , 0 , 0 . I feel strangle is actually obsolete there isn't much to set up. no gag no steal .dusts wake target. so I have to take an extra chance to strangle just to try to assassinate? I'll just open with my shurikens thanks and hope I get a good couple throws in to max my marks Nadrin 0 , 0 , 0 . I agree with the assessment on strangle. I actually do not use it at all, it is a waste of a murder or alt skill now. Nothing I can do to them once they are knocked out if it succeeds. Davairus 0 , 0 , 0 . Saying that strangle is not useful is simply untrue. It makes a team of ninja and necromancer utterly deadly. It has a defensive use, if you're lucky enough to get it off then you get away, its that simple. If you were fighting two people, maybe you get lucky enough to put the one doing the most damage to sleep while you focus on fighting the other. That goes for any group fight. It can immediatley take someone out of hte fight. Just because you were only going to use it to dramatically multiply your chances of landing an instant kill, does not mean it was not already useful. I can go on but I shouldnt need to. Merlandox 
0 , 0 , 0 . Eh, how does strangle helps you in crowd control when your teammate can just attack him to wake him? Nycticora 
0 , 0 , 0 . dust waking up target smells like a bug to me Nycticora 
0 , 0 , 0 . BUT I can say this now!!! holy shit
Davairus 1 , 0 , 0 . you missed the period of the game where Virgil returned, was told that, and then made the sleeping assassinate chance FABULOUS
[reply to Xenyar]I just made the change I said I was going to make - machine requires max mana to activate. This means that they will render themselves unable to ever use it by just spamming a couple throws (it takes away tons of mana). I think this is literally the only tweak we needed to solve the teething problems we had. Being able to use nerve/caltraps to gain mana ensures those skills will keep their importance. Thank you for being patient with everything and I appreciate all the feedback. Shadows are definitely a lot more sensitive to balance issues than monks were since they have stealth and a very capable melee. That's something we all should keep in mind.
The shadow updates are roughly the same quality as the invoker updates except there is less seat time from shadow players and the feedback is less useful.
Strangle obsolete is actionable feedback.
Ikuzachi worthless is actionable feedback.
Requesting the return of blind/nerve/caltrops is actionable feedback.
Requesting clarification of shadow cloak's operation in the helpfile is valid feedback.
Xenyar, can you please file bugs for these issues? You can use the web interface at http://abandonedrealms.com/issues
Please include as much information for each of the above mentioned issues as possible and if you already know how to fix it post the solution also. You may make multiple posts to the same issue.
FYI strangle + assassinate was ALWAYS lower chance to kill than assassinate alone. At no point in AR history am I aware of a time when strangle actually improved assassinate chances. The chance of failing strangle was always too high to make up for the gain in percent chance to land assassinate
so when you thought strangle was useful, it was actually useless
Davairus 0 , 0 , 0 . You guys were saying you dont even use strangle at all.
[reply to Nadrin]If you had, I'm sure you at the very least would have noticed that: (1) you can't assassinate anyone except full health targets, so you have to use strangle to help them heal up (you do want the maxed marks of shadow to activate your "OP" shadow spear with, right?) (2) having the player asleep causes their sanc to roll off, and definitely weapon ward, so you can do a giant damage assassinate, which is even more giant if you're doing the poison mastery assassinate, (3) skills (like assassinate) deal more damage when that target happens to be asleep. and (4) in the situation where you are like HOLY SHIT I AM ABOUT TO GET FUCKED AND DIE (like ensnares and cabal confinements and things of that sort) it has chance to save your life especially when pursued by one of Resatimms necros. This skill literally makes the difference between life and death and if you find that useless please by all means leave it at 1% then.
There are also clever exploits that take advantage of being able to put other players to sleep that I am NOT going to share here.