Post
by Rhynox » 26 Mar 2010 03:53
The neidars are a defensive guild. Our strength lies in the fact that we can resist more damage than others, while hitting strong whenever we hit. We had a long discussion about the shieldbearers (especially Gorboth, who wanted them to be redone, Poet, who wanted them to stay the way they are, and myself, who wanted them to have both the old skills and the new ones, much like Militia who can either use the attack or the defense). In the end, and when everything was heading to a rather dull damage update, Navarre and Petros came up with an idea that, while simple, it was pretty good.
Poet (back then, dwarf knight) kept saying shieldbearers' main point was the damage done with the slam. So, he was willing to give up the stun to obtain even more damage to complement the damage done by the knights and neidars. I think stun is pretty fundamental for a neidar, because it allow us to switch from defense to offense in a blink.
Most of the old neidars were elementalists (Logg, Dealon, Dunkhelzan, Korgan, etc... some names may be a bit off since I haven't written them in years). Gu's power to strengthen made neidars really good tankers (plus neidars don't use mana at all). Torwin and Tor were Militia at one point, using evade to add to the tanking capabilities (and jab too whenever we could get the hatchak or whatever it is called). Then Torwin went Minstrel, like Blizzard. Minstrels were great, but as a tanker receiving hits, it cut songss. We have a pirate, which I guess is a good complement (neidars are almost always drunks and the pirate evasion can help), but that is all. Quite a lot of neidars were smiths, giving up extra combat capabilities to forge. That was a pretty huge cost to pay, since it is really hard to be a pure neidar without layman abilities.
Shieldbearers are a natural match for neidars (originally slam was part of the neidar skills). We brainstormed and came up with lots of interesting ideas, but because of lack of time, they were never implemented. I still keep that a neidar shieldbearer should have some advantages over a, say, hobbit shieldbearer. In the old code, neidars could not slam and crush at the same time, but could train up to superior guru, while others could only train up to master. Now both neidars and non-neidars can train it up to superior guru and use specials and slam at the same time. However, some extra advantages for neidars should be there.
It is a pity a layman guild that offers stun capabilities cannot offer a secondary ability (like an evade movement), not as an exclusive command (use one or the other) or as an exclusive skill (choose one and train it, train the other but lose the previous one if you want to change).