Now then..Since the ive seen more people using Alexia as a "Bad" example in their arguments and suggestions, i want to go on the record that ive never played with her (im gonna assume alex is a her, since everybody else says that...or maybe they are just referring to her avatar..heh) or met her in LA, im going to give her the benefit of the doubt and think of her as a nice person until/if she proves it otherwise.
Second part.. All the debate about mages and fighters, can be boiled down to this (methinks) and WITHOUT quoting every obscure die roll, hit percentile, way of building, ect that allot of you seem to like doing. Not all of us are closet Dm's, ty. Some of us just like playing this type of game!
There are basicly only 2 MAIN types of chars in RPG's. Magic users and melee fighters. (with various combos and subspecies of each) A cleric could be called a caster backed up with fighter abilites, and a paladin could be called a fighter backed up by caster abilities. Now, its been my experience that THE biggest threat to a fighter is the mage. A mage can stun you, take control of you, take away your str, ect ect. Many, many ways to deal with a fighter. And THE biggest threat to a mage is a fighter. Mages arnt generally made to be half as healthy as a fighter, and not even 1/3 as strong. So if a fighter manages to connect with a few solid blows, chances are the mage looses. Thats called balance.
Now with the ways things are NOW (remember this is BETA people, which means things can and will most likely change) i genuinely do see a lean towards mage supremacy. They still have their one hit kill spells, on top of everything else they can do to a fighter. (slow him down so it takes him twice as long to close with you, letting you get off more spells) While fighters, on the other hand, have had their "pinnacle" ability taken away (dev crit). Dev crit is NOT a guranteed success, just like FoD or Weird/Wail. However, spells have a better chance of working then the blade. Simple fact so far. There are ways and builds to improve the weakest aspect of your char, and by all means do it. As was said, this isnt NS3, the gear dosnt make the char. The build/char makes the char.
And the added reality that high lvl mages (14th lvl and above) were NEVER meant to be so common that you can expect to run into them once every other map or so, i think its just a matter of fair balance to give fighters back the dev crit. Try it out, see how it goes. I bet you that we'll see its not such a huge advantage over the other classes as we think.
And think about this too : We all agree that NS4 is meant to be more of a party server then a solo, right? Well, if ONE high lvl / well built mage gives any one party so much grief, how are you gonna handle 2? or 3? Wouldnt take a genius to have one mage as the "anti magic" guy, one mage as the "pound em with area spells / functionality interferrence guy (slow, drain str, dex ect) and one as the "finisher" (FoD, wail, ect). If half of the classes dosnt have a CHANCE to take down high risk magic users QUICKLY, then yes mages will dominate and the other classes will suffer immensely.
As this nearly 2pm, i work the grave yards and im unable yet to fall asleep, im not looking forward to 2night. Ick.
