Blindfighting... is it being used at all?

[Booger]

My knowledge is sofar still pretty limited, so perhaps someone can shoot down this thread by explaining the usefulness of the blindfighting skill.

In my experience, dark rooms are handled by lighting a torch. Very dark rooms by lighting several torches. If I have no light source, I can't attack something if I can't see anyway, and if I'm attacked when in a dark room I'm not too keen on staying around hoping that my skill in blindfighting will be sufficient (since I cant see the power nor health of my opponent, nor loot him if I win the fight).
I see some small usage if I find an opponent that is a little tougher than me, in a dark room. Then I can go in with a torch, attack, extinguish the torch and hope that my skill in blindfighting is higher than my opponent's (fat chance, if he's staying in a dark room) and enough so that I can actually kill him. But then I'd much rather use a darkvision herb and have my full potential.
I also see a major possibility with these imbuements, combining a darkness item with a darkvision item and have all fights in darkness, but with me seeing, thus hopefully gaining a nice advantage against some opponents and at least a bit advantage against almost all.

But blindfighting... when?
If your opponent casts a spell, blinding you? Would you bother to stick around, unless you have means to cure the blindness before the fight is over?

Perhaps this skill is mostly used for PvP? Or I've just missed the main point with the skill?
Someone care to comment?

[Cherek]

Always felt like a pretty useless skill to me too.

Rangers can throw sand in your eyes to blind you... and possible other guilds have some blinding ability too, and maybe some NPC or items too? But for the must part I would think its not used much at all.

But back in the days when we had lots of players and guildwars I suppose it could have been useful sometimes. Angmar/monks fighting rangers probably had an edge for instance.

Perhaps it was pretty useful back in the days when nightvision was VERY rare too? And also I think NPCs in general didnt do as well in darkness as they do now?

All guilds who rely on darkness or blindfighting have become "nerfed" in a way, since these days anyone can use darkness since nightvision is more common, and for anyone to use. And with imbuements and other "new" items darkness generation is more common as well.

So if you ask me, I think those guilds who have blindfighting and/or nightvision asabilities should get some other "perk" instead since this isnt much of an advantage anymore. Not as much as it was when it was introduced atleast. Having darkness used to be very good in the past. Now, not so much.

[Rhaegar]

Blindfighting is rarely useful but it's still being used.
It's not just about darkness but also fighting when blinded (when torch/nightvision doesn't help you at all) or against invisible opponents (someone please confirm this?).

Edit: And Cherek is right. Back in the days darkness + nightvision was very powerful but pretty rare too (sword of darkness in a pack and bandana on the head was teh shiznit).

[Booger]

Thanks! So pretty, but not totally, useless, then.
I placed the post here in Suggestion Box intending to suggest ideas for how to make the skill more interesting, and just realised I hadn't written any suggestion.

I was thinking of suggesting specials to blind your opponent for just short moments (dirtkick, sandthrow,...), perhaps only allow _held_ torches to count, or any torch not held be automatically extinguished (picture yourself someone carrying around 20 burning torches... how?), or non-magical light only being able to increase the light by a certain amount, thus making any room with extra darkness "magically dark", only possible to made light by magical means...
Well... there are some possibilities, I guess. But I don't feel experienced enough to suggest something specific, so here's my suggestion:

Please make the skill more interesting? :-/

[Laurel]

I was thinking of suggesting specials to blind your opponent for just short moments (dirtkick, sandthrow,...),

how would that be different to a currently (for ages?) implemented special?

btw. you'd be surprised how FEW NPC's out there are not really affected by darkness (either infra+darkness or blinding) in their combat ... at least the evil ones, as Laurel had hardly chances in last years to experience other enemies; on the other hand some really evil ones have surprisingly 0 blindfighting ...

[Booger]

how would that be different to a currently (for ages?) implemented special?

I have no idea. I didn't know such a special existed. Hence the first line in the first post in this thread: "My knowledge is sofar still pretty limited".
I hope you don't expect me to keep silent just because I don't have full knowledge of what all other guilds can do?

About most npc:s being unaffected while a few having 0 skill: Sad to hear, but not surprising. I trust you have reported the ones who totally lack the skill

[Laurel]

well - try to fight the first Ranger sentinel and you might just learn the working of a blinding special
I don't expect you to know anything, actually there was talks about Ranger blinds on this forum, however
and last ... why would I report any NPC which I have the feeling does not have some skill ... it's not like I know this or I know what the coder's intention was ...

btw. sidequestion:
does exp-reward scale with the (battle) skills the killed NPCs have? or just size + bonus? cause I find it should scale accordingly to the NPCs battle skills and "natural AC" on it

[Rhaegar]

Please not AC. I can't kill anything that has good AC (or rather, I can do it sometimes, but it takes so long that it's not cost effective for me in any way)

[Davvol]

Many years ago, one character being Monk and Thief was grinding in Spur using dark halo and blindfighting skill. He did it fucking good and was getting lot of XP.

[Booger]

btw. sidequestion:
does exp-reward scale with the (battle) skills the killed NPCs have? or just size + bonus? cause I find it should scale accordingly to the NPCs battle skills and "natural AC" on it

Are you talking about how things are today? If so, I believe the xp solely depends on the stats of the npc. At least the ones I have found sofar. So npc:s with poor skills are always way better for xp than skilled npc:s.