Saved by unlikely sources
Saved by the bell
Other players in BDC have called me crazy. They see me jump into the middle of mobs without a thought. What they don't know is I probably have fewer deaths than any regular player in BDC.
I have put a lot of work and thought into defense. My melee defense is at 293. I have been lucky enough to have good armor. Luck as my legging came a long time ago and I have never found better. My BP came from a friend. The sleeves came a short while ago and have the added bonus of strength IV.
I have two choices for weapon, better attack or better defense. I took defense. I have Armor V, piercing V and acid V. To this I add Rej V, Reg VI, Endurance IV and Coordination IV. Add defender V to the +8% bonus from the weapon and you can see why even a noble has a hard time hitting me.
I have fought long and hard for some of these items and had good friends trade me for the others. With a starting Focus of 30 getting my lore to 203 has been a bear.
But even with all this I can be killed. I came close two times this weekend but was saved by some unlikely sources.
The first time came while I was going to a spot I like to log at. While there is no safe place in BDC this spot is safer than most. It is in the lower section, requiring me to drop into the jumping pit. I saw no oranges dots so I was not ready for what happened next.
I came out of the hallway from of the jumping pit and turned right. A solder confronted me. Another one joined in and a mob charged my rear. It seems a weak group had ran them to the left side and I had not bothered to look in the direction.
In the mob were two solders, a noble, 2 workers and 3 nymphs. Add this to the two solders I was fighting and you see I had a problem. To make matters worse I had not healed the damage from the jump.
I had two choices, the smart one and the greedy one. Smart choice was to run to a tunnel and funnel them in a few at a time. (299 run skill) Problem with that was I was not sure to get the noble if I did.
Mages and archer had been camping the Nobles all week. Shiner had a group that took all three Nobles for over 6 hours. (Now there is greed and there is abuse.) So I really wanted the Noble. This made me take choice number two, greed.
I turned away from the solder I was fighting and attacked the Noble. I got it down about 2/3 but was getting down myself. I start with 182hp and 250 stam. I was down to 60hp and 50 stam. When I get hit there is a ding sound.
The other day in the same type of situation, but fewer of them and no noble, I ran out of stam. I had a few battles before and had not rested. Very stupid of me. I knew there was something wrong, my few dings changed to a fire bell. Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding. A quick stam drink saved me there.
So with that in mind I was keeping better track. I decided to hit the stam and heal bottles. I carry 12 of each. Problem is drinking reduces my defense and with that many I was losing almost as much as I gained. I finally drank enough to be able to resume the battle.
The noble fell but I was down to 5 heal and 6 stam bottles. There was nowhere to run in fact I think a few were waiting their turn outside the circle around me.
That is when help stepped in. Two archers came out of the jumping pit and started to shoot. One was a good friend, (my bp came from him) the other was a 27lv pk from the wolfbane clan.
Between the three of us I lived, but it was a close thing. Later I rewarded the 27lv with a few items and a life IV wand.
The second was not my fault. The server has a bad habit of showing something, and then saying "never mind". This was one of those.
Shiner and his group had left and I finally had a chance to pick up some loot. I had fought one Noble and was waiting on the other to spawn. I had cleared out the pit earlier so there was not much to do but wait.
A mage, "Chin-pow", was camping two bodies of his vassals. It seems they came to BDC against his advice and now were afraid to return for their bodies. He was waiting for them to rot. I saw him jump into the pit and be attacked by a solder. What really happened was he jumped to the other side of the pit after being attacked.
I ran to his aid just as 4 solders jumped into the pit and the Noble spawned. Now a Noble and two solder I can do with no problem. A Noble and 5 solders was something else again.
I'm in big trouble but was going to hang. The Noble fell and I got a heal from the Chin-Pow. I did not need heal, was doing ok there, what I needed was stam. I quickly typed "STAM!"
He started feeding me stam and I whittled the solders down to two. He said he was out of mana but now I was ok. He recharged his mana and fired off a few war spells to help me out. What was impressive about his play was he is not a life mage. He was healing himself with a life wand when he saw the battle start.
Rather than change to a war wand and take free shots, he opted to save my butt. For that I'm eternally grateful.
Imbalance
I know Turbine is aware of the imbalance problem between mages/archers and melee. The last patch did a little to help some. I find that sword is about even with me now. As a sword cannot do blunt damage I'm sure they are ahead of me against other stuff.
But now an Axe man 17 levels below me will get a kill over me. An archer 17 levels below me will out hit me. Not sure how badly I'm outclassed by mages but I can never get a kill over a 38lv, 11 levels below me.
Now figure out the experience points. I have 55 mil in points. A 32lv Axe man has maybe 20. All of them have 1/2 to 1/3 my experience but have better killing ability.
A mage my level can take a noble in seconds. It takes me over a minute to kill a noble and over 3 minutes if my weapon buffs run out.
Because of they all lack the ability to stand in mobs I can see a better attack ability, but 4 to 5 levels, not 17.
In the lower sections of BDC you will see 5 archers to every melee. In the upper section you only see melee. The reason, loot. Now with the archers and mages picking up all the loot, guess who is getting the vassals. Not very good vassals mind you, bribery is a poor substitute for leadership.
At 50 level and above you see very few melee, (Elder, Killian, two other Elder told me about and me). But you see many Mages and Archers at that level. Even Elder is turning to Xbow to get kills.
I know the next excuse, an archer cannot melee them. Well the 32lv archer that I was with was meleeing them. A Solder attacked him. I attacked from the rear where the solder gets 90% of his melee defense. He got the kill. This was not a fluke, it happened over and over again.
I hope Turbine will find a way to fix it. I understand going slow and being careful, but unless they want a game with nothing but archers and mages they need to fix it.
New Fist's
Some have requested low-level stories.
I have started a new Fist de Yuma on Thistledown. The first is an unarmed with two schools, item and creature. I plan to add Life at level 16. Why? Simple, an unarmed has no ranged weapon for drawing. A level 1 imperil with a quick switch to weapon will be a bomb.
Started with 20 self so getting enough mana to do anything useful is a ways off. But at high levels he will rock.
Second Fist is Fist de Mage. Picked up his 4th school at level 9. Plan on melee at level 35. It will be a hard life until then. This story is about Fist de Mage.
Decided to go to Tou-Tou then Arwic and Eastwick. Thought the hunting along the beach would be fun for a mage. I also wanted to trade my sacks for packs.
Headed out of Hebain-to and hit the Lifestone. I knew the forest was a big danger for me but felt I could run though ok. Hell Fist de Yuma makes the run in a few minutes. Well with a 50 run it was not so quick.
After killing a few druges and a blood I was feeling good. I avoided a few bands of mosswarts and was well on my way to Tou-Tou. I was about out of the forest when I saw a lone mosswart. Now mosswarts are not normally alone here. "Aaaa free points", I thought. Fire vol, fire II, "humm where did all they come from." Run, "aaa hell wasps, cannot shake them" Lifestone.
Darn these mages die easy. Quick run up the road, pound, pound, Hunter on my tail. Lifestone.
Dam, no armor. I take a wide circle around the hunter and pick up my hide shirt. Now to get my legging back.
I carefully make my way back. Body is camped by 4 mosswarts and three wasps. This will take some work. Piercing vol on wasp, force bolt, force bolt, wasp dead. Repeat.
Now the mosswarts. Fire vol, run, run. Return Fire Bolt, run, repeat. One left, resist, resist, resist, lifestone.
I saw a person and asked for help. He agreed. And we started off. We got about half way and a Reedshark chases him. He runs off my radar and I guess logged as I could not contact him.
I see three druges. Ok work off some of the vit. Cold vol, frost bolt, frost bold, switch targets frost bolt, "Where did the other three come from!" Lifestone.
I'm running kind of slow now. I get back to where I was killed, "OOOoooo @#$@#, the reedshark." Lifestone.
Humm no wand, this is looking very bad, wish I had kept the beginner one now. Well I once ran a mule cross country with a run of 20. I was going into sneak mode. Aaa no reedshark, get wand back. Blast one druge, run. Repeat, recover body, two more to go.
I make another wide trip around the mobs and get body. Last one is still camped. Someone came running from Tou-Tou and mosswarts chase. Body has rotted but I get my leggings. On to Tou-Tou.
About the only thing in Tou-Tou is the Arwic portal. I take that and head west. I knew from experience that there were a lot of rabbits there. Fist de Yuma never had more than 5% vit. At this point rabbits were about all I could kill.
Killed about 100 rabbits to clear a little of the vit. Started to hunt the druges south of Arwic when a fighter asked if I wanted to team with him to get to Eastwick. I agreed as Fist de Mage is mainly a support ppl.
Now this is more like it. Watch fighter buff, heal, stam and watch vit tick off. Another fighter joined us and it gets a little harder keeping track of them. I also had to watch anything targeting me. They quickly work off my vit for me and we arrive in Eastwick.
Fighter said I did a great job. He got me a mana stone to charge my war wand. On to the beach!
Tomorrow Gromnies.
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