The Great Force Disscusion (hopefully great anyway)

[Sierra]

What are your thoughts on the balance of the classes? most people will say that forces were roally gyped, and i'd have to agree with that. Hunters have the advantage of the highest attack, Rangers the highest accuracy, but force highest mst? well with my hunewearl, I do more damage with weapons then the forces i know do with high level spells. I do about 300-700 damage with shifta and deband cast (with delsaber sword and shield). what are your thoughts on this?

(please excuse any holes in my arguement lol)

[Sierra]

i just came up with some more....

Hunters and rangers each have good weapons that only they can use, ex. heavens punisher, Lavis. But do forces have any special weapons that make hunters any rangers envious? no. forces should have force-only weapons that make hunters sorry their not a force. also i think that forces should have force-only spells, that way it would actually be beneficial to be a force, any thoughts on this?

[Synch]

I agree with that, there should have been some force only spells, it would have been a good idea.

All canes, rods, wands, etc, are force only weapons. It would look silly for a hunter or ranger to be walking around with one of those.

As for good force only weapons, they can be a bit lame, but I still really want to get my hands on a PSYCHO WAND. Thats probably the most impressive. I've got C-SORCERERS CANE, CADUCEUS and MAGICAL PIECE which are all pretty good force weapons, especially when you have Shifta cast. They definitely look good on the battle field.

The only reason these weapons don't do as much damage, is because Force ATP doesn't go very high (which is a little frustrating).

[Sisqua]

While I agree with some of the sentiment above, I have to say that I find some of the 'why aren't forces better' debate a little bemusing.

I like the fact that forces are harder to play. I'm having way more fun the second time through with Laluki than I ever did with Sisqua (Ranger). I'm up to about lvl 71 with Lal, and I still find V.Hard a major challenge. I spend most of my time (especially in ruins) ducking and weaving, desparately trying to get spells off before things catch up with me, swapping my shortcuts around to try and optimise my performance, providing cover for other players who are in close combat etc etc...

Last night I played with a bunch of rangers who just sat at one end of the room with their spread needles, fired off 3 or 4 rounds and watched everything die in front of them. Wow! Run into a room, press the same button 3 or 4 times, run into the next room, press the same button 3 or 4 times, run into the next room... etc.... How dull is that!? Frankly I think some of the weapons that the other classes have are more of a curse than a benefit - they just rob you of all the decent gameplay.

S.

[Synch]

I agree with that Sisqua, which is why I'm having a forces only sesh for the next 3 nights (24th-26th).

Anyone interested you can find the force only session on EU:Iapetus11 from about 20:00 (Bristish Standarad Time). Team name is 'Force Power', pass is 'noweps', will be on V.Hard setting. No weapons allowed, just magic. Hope to see you there.

[Lightning]

just to add to this, i'm a Humar, and i use a hell of a lot of TP in team games, as i tend to be the 'support guy' - i'm the one casting strategic spells when needed and healing the entire party (lvl 15 healing - AWESOME! ) while running around hitting things, and i wish i had higher TP just because of this

there's nothing wrong with being the supporting member of a team - it just makes offline play a little more awkward

[SuperSubZero]

On 2001-04-24 03:57, Sierra wrote:
i just came up with some more....

Hunters and rangers each have good weapons that only they can use, ex. heavens punisher, Lavis. But do forces have any special weapons that make hunters any rangers envious? no. forces should have force-only weapons that make hunters sorry their not a force. also i think that forces should have force-only spells, that way it would actually be beneficial to be a force, any thoughts on this?

The techs the other classes have are not useful offensively. Even with a L14 Foie, a high-level RAmar may do 60 damage against an enemy while a force of equal level does 160. Most of the offensive techs are basically useless to non-Forces except the freeze ones.

If there was no single player mode, I would agree with limiting techs. But the single player mode introduces alot of balance issues so giving players "a little of everything" is important.

-SSZ

[magenta]

Hunters have the advantage of the highest attack, Rangers the highest accuracy, but force highest mst? well with my hunewearl, I do more damage with weapons then the forces i know do with high level spells. I do about 300-700 damage with shifta and deband cast (with delsaber sword and shield). what are your thoughts on this?

with my force armed with a soul eater, and shiftaed i managed to do high range 600-800 dmg through special (though in hard, rare to achieve this in vhard, but 675 damage is common) Two hits kills nanodragons outright. ALso enables me to clear rooms of dimenians, and delsabers easily..

with double saber, i could do 200-300+ dmg per hit. Plus i have club of laconium with 50%native...hmm...fun in forest with that one..

of course this isnt just about tanking.. stragetically forces are the best support character out there, esp ones with high level spells, which do not necessarily have to kill enemies outright but do enough damage so that others have an easier time.

[Sisqua]

I played in a game with 3 other reasonably high level forces (all 70ish) a few days back and I have to say, that although one force on their own is not the greatest offensive character, 4 together absolutely kick ass. When you combine a number of different spells together in quick succession (e.g. Rabarta to freeze enemies, Rafoie to massacre them, and a couple of Grants to pick off any strays) the effect is devastating.

Sure other chars can do the same, but they can't do the same damage as Forces and they'd be in the shop every few rooms buying fluids whereas with our often 1000+tp we can stay out considerably longer.

S.

[SaitoH]

I'm just gonna say that I made a second force character. Sure their is no real advantage to playing them but out of the three classes available, forces are by far my favorite.

BTW, how can you not love those outfits