Heavenly Wrath

[Monkey]

You know, I come in today to see that you can no longer use sneak to loot corpses without others seeing.

10 seconds later I get hit with Heavenly Wrath and go from 100% to 25% hp while shielded and armored - from someone 5 levels lower then myself.

Priorities a little out of wack?

PK is a large part of the game I understand, but when it's to the point where I'm pretty much dead in one single shot - before I can even realize what's going on, it's a little unbalanced wouldn't you say.

[Davairus]

Shield and armor are AC spells, which has nothing to do with your save vs afflictive at present... and probably never will. AC does not reduce spell damge, only save vs aff.

[gomer]

Shield and armor means you armor class went up by -40 (-20 each spell) and they do not affect you save vs. aff, mal, or mental. So that means a paladin hit an unsanc'd and unprotected "other" with his wrath. It is not far fetched for it to take that much health from you. And I remember Davarius saying in a post that rank does not affect PKing as much anymore.

[Davairus]

You should remember me saying that rank doesnt matter as much for DEFENCES anymore. It does matter in skills and spells. Otherwise there'd be no way of making up for better eq with levels.

[Monkey]

Alright. My mistake with shield and armor then.

Still, call me crazy, but I think the fact that someone can appear and render you more then halfway dead in one shot is a little unbalanced at our level range.

And I know I can do two things. Get better at fighting, and get better armor. However it's hard to get better at fighting when I die almost immediately in every fight against said person five levels lower then I, couple that with the fact that I don't know my way around and even if I did, leaving the Town of Seringale is a hazard to my health and you've got me in quite a bind.

[gomer]

I probably wasn't paying that much attention then and my memory sucks, but I am glad you corrected me on that.

[Davairus]

[Static Impulse]

You think Wrath does a ton? Well it does...but try making a duergar. They don't have to much trouble with it. They're resistant! I think...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but duergars are resistant to wrath right? At least it seems to do less to my duergar char than say my human.

[Kalist19]

Monkey I'm guessing due to your low hp and vuln to wrath that you are a drow illusionist/invoker? Either way, a quick way to avoid being the victim of a sneak attack is to constantly check 'who pk' and 'where pk' every ten seconds or so. Keeping track of 'who pk' will let you know if there are any elves or rogues on in your pk who could possibly sneak attack you. Checking 'where pk' will keep you alert to the whereabouts of any potential enemies.

Remember that it's not just paladins who have the huge damage sneak/wrath combo. Drow invokers can easily match/exceed that damage against any alignment by sneaking in and casting hellstream on an unprepared target. Thieves also have the potential to cause massive amounts of damage by sneaking in and backstabbing, and ninjas can outright kill an enemy by sneaking into the room and assassinating.

For damage reduction, the spells you 'really' want to use are 'protection' and 'sanctuary'. If your class cannot cast these spells, they are both availible in the forms of scrolls, potions, or pills. Just ask around in the game to find the whereabouts of each potion/etc.

Always watch your back!

[Davairus]

Oh yeah, here's a brief description of AC before you ask for one. AC has two functions.

A) to create a "misses you" attack (low levels)

When you're level 1, the amount of AC needed to create the "miss" is pretty small, so thats why you find it hard to hit mobs, and fights are just a lot of miss miss miss. AC is a great stat in those levels. But... as you level up the amount of AC needed to maintain that miss grows exponentially. By level 35 or so, you can forget ever reaching enough AC to make the miss any more effective than it naturally is (it still occurs because there's a failure cap). The reason it breaks down early is because we add defence skills to classes, e.g. reflex mode, parry, riposte.. etc.

Hitroll beats AC, so in low levels, hitroll is a nice stat for killing mobs as well. In high levels, you probably wont need much anymore, unless you have defences to beat (parry and dodge).

B) to provide a trace amount of damage reduction vs the categories for melee attacks

Its not rewarding enough to try whoring AC for this, but its there, in a pretty invisible quantity.


So basically, if you just want to live as long as possible, and dont need a hit/dam (which is the usual for a mage). Its hp eq/saves.

[divsky]

If you´re going to take stupid risks, like loot corpses right in front of someone in your PK range, take some precautions. Purple potions aren´t that hard to get and that would´ve taken care of half your problem right there.

And if a single wrath got you down to 25% hp your probably playing some stupid race/class combo like drow thief anyways. Elves suck. Con rules.

[Enskel]

[Quiet Wanderer]