Geas

Delmon wrote:lol, I dont think any of us know exactly which is better. Gore or backstab, so I'm putting skill lvl 60 gore equal to lvl 60 backstab, which I have had both.

Can 2 gores without support from any other attacks be enough to kill an ogre? It's something I've never tried. I do know it's doable with backstab, and it can allow a character who would otherwise be easily killed by ogres to clear the entire cauldron minus the nw corner and perhaps the outpost in only a few minutes.

Herst, backstab is powerful, it's supposed to be. It's only powerful for specialists, just like two-handed weapons are powerful for two-handed fighting specialists.

Is it wrong that it's powerful? From all my experience, a backstab alone was not enough to win a PvP fight...two chars backstabbing will be effective, just as two fighters are effective. Backstabs are hard to pull off because sneaking is very difficult, and even then one needs to have a plan to win. A good ambush is a good ambush, and that is almost entirely player skill, not "backstab" skill.

Olrane wrote:Herst, backstab is powerful, it's supposed to be. It's only powerful for specialists, just like two-handed weapons are powerful for two-handed fighting specialists.

Is it wrong that it's powerful? From all my experience, a backstab alone was not enough to win a PvP fight...two chars backstabbing will be effective, just as two fighters are effective. Backstabs are hard to pull off because sneaking is very difficult, and even then one needs to have a plan to win. A good ambush is a good ambush, and that is almost entirely player skill, not "backstab" skill.

Not sure where you are going with this. Perhaps you were meaning to direct that towards someone else? My argument was that it is extremely powerful, like it should be.

1) I said it was powerful, especially for specialists. It is extremely powerful against NPCs, and there it has huge advantages. It can also be very effective and powerful against players.

2)Is it wrong that it is powerful? You already answered that when you said "It is supposed to be"

3)A good ambush is a good ambush yes, however I already stated I saw some Crusaders killed with nothing more than a backstab and another hit soon after. That has nothing to do with player skill, it had to do with backstab skill. Almost any moron can type "backstab X in neck..wait...wait..wait;leap;sheathe daggers in blah;wield larger weapon;melee attack= Dead enemy.

Not much skill involved there and I have seen that scenario on a few occasions. It resulted in a dead enemy.

If you are having trouble with your backstab being effective, then it may be as you said.....it is more powerful for specialists. If people have their skill past high mediocrity then it should be pretty powerful from what I have seen.

I'm pretty sure you can leap immediately after backstab hits.

I was talking about the waiting for the backstab to succeed. You know, the sneaking behind part.

Okay so im lost? Whats being debated now? How cheap/Lame/Overpowered/unfair of a move backstab is?

Im of the opinion that the difficulty in setting up and succesfully executing a backstab in PVP more than balances its power. Just my 2cc.

And I'll ask yet again: Of all the people that gained and trained backstab and cleared the ogre cauldron, half-orc hut, death valley, tcharks, goblinoid camps, ironhold, and so on for countless times, how many of them did it for PvP, and how many of them did it to hunt and kill monsters more efficiently than without?

I'm not necessarily arguing that it needs to be reduced, but saying it sucks in pvp doesn't negate the fact that many backstabbers were literally dependent on the skill to fly through their daily hunting routine against monsters, and I still recall many, many complaints when people had to start using alternative methods to kill high-level monsters like ogres and such.

I did it because i believed it could be effective in pvp, then i took a completely different route, and realized learning that skill was completely useless.

Actually, Herst, I was trying to say that it's not overpowered in the slightest, not even extremely powerful. It's maybe overly useful in PvM, but in PvP, which I believe it is designed for, it is very well balanced.

tessa wrote:And I'll ask yet again: Of all the people that gained and trained backstab and cleared the ogre cauldron, half-orc hut, death valley, tcharks, goblinoid camps, ironhold, and so on for countless times, how many of them did it for PvP, and how many of them did it to hunt and kill monsters more efficiently than without?

I was unaware there was a reason to hunt and kill monsters other than to "train" for PvP. The fact that it is efficient is an inconsequential side effect I think.

Er, not everyone in GEAS pvps, Gojin.

Er, not everyone in GEAS pvps, Gojin.

So there is some strange clique of players who kill mob after mob for no other reason that to kill mob after mob? Weird...

Pretty much. Or for other reasons, like RP or making money from scalps, or improving skills/stats or gaining xp or being able to defend oneself when exploring dungeons or etc. IE; Shaolin are known to do it to get skill requirements for blackbelt.

Only a small fraction of people I know that generally go training a lot actually pvp. And I'm not counting the times when they're forced into a fight by others.

gojin wrote:

Er, not everyone in GEAS pvps, Gojin.

So there is some strange clique of players who kill mob after mob for no other reason that to kill mob after mob? Weird...

Yes. You haven't met them yet? Or you just haven't noticed them yet?

it seems to me that when i get backstabbed by things that can backstab me, they aren't powerful enough to even penetrate my armours. i would really like to see someone like delmon try to pull off a backstab on someone like luminier, if he does it will seldom happen, and if he does he will have to get through my armours, and if he does hes going to have to dodge or deflect a huge hit. I suspect this would be even worse coming from a tshahark. then again I don't know of any humans or dwarves that can backstab, except perhaps maybe chani. if someone feels like proving me wrong, please do so.

You're forgetting the coolest human ever. But yeah, as a human it's very hard, you have to have very good skills.

ya us male humans pay dearly for our massive musculature. from what I've see the female elves don't mind, am I right Olrane?

tessa wrote:Only a small fraction of people I know that generally go training a lot actually pvp. And I'm not counting the times when they're forced into a fight by others.

off topic:
See my thoughts on group PvP to see how it is right now. We can say exactly the same things about the Shaolin what I told about the Asrals in an other topic viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1032. The moment "pvp" guilds grew large enough to hunt in groups the old balance was removed from GEAS and guild defenses become mostly useless unless reworked (see Elvandar, Arborea, Asador, Patrol in the forest, etc) Those guilds stay out of PvP have their very good reason (and no, mostly not RP reasons). I don't think shaolin masters would tolerate the Taniel clergy, the Crusade or the Asrals, not to mention the Sathonites to hunt their students for their thoughts if they had the ability to stop them or effectively defend against them

on topic:
Really don't get the point why this discussion is still going on. PvP groups don't really (reasons mostly told in above discussions) use it, and those did use it for grinding purposes, now can't, or should face the consequences . Want to hit twice more the dead body of backstab or what?

There's again some misconceptions, and I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the thread is. Backstab doesn't influence karma and never did. That doesn't mean certain groups or guilds don't condemn it as evil, but it's not punished by the code.

Reputation, however, is affected by backstabbing. The reasoning is quite simple: Assassins, thieves and other scum (such as darkelves, darklings and goblins) use backstab as one of their favorite techniques. If you use backstab, you look like them. If you look like scum, people see you as scum. Therefore you are free to use it in public as long as you don't mind looking like scum.

So what's the issue again?