Conquest of the Horde

So, this is has been steaming me up for a while, and so I decided to get it out politely as possible. This can be open for debate, of course.


- Prestiges and Power

We all know that prestiges get new abilities, and often sacrifice old ones for it. That's the basic use of a prestige: to be more specialized. The dissent seems to be about how much more powerful they are than your average Joe. I've seen this argument in a lot of variations, but all with that common theme.

And honestly? It looks more like an arms race to me.

It's my humble suggestion that whenever you're engaging in smaller-scale combat, or roleplaying with a small group of people (maybe three, more if you're amongst friends), that all you have to do is negotiate terms. Just find out what people are comfortable with, and agree to those terms before issuing character warnings. That way, everyone will be expecting and agreeing to the same thing. And if people can't agree, then tough. A character warning requires that all of the combatants agree. Scale it down to a no-lasting-damage fight, or leave altogether.

In larger scales, maybe stick to the basics of the prestige and not argue about power. You can't fight them all. Instead, talk to the key players you'll most likely be fighting. Work something out. If you can't, then just rely on roll fights, no-lasting-damage fights or avoid the situation.

The solution to the problem can be very simple. It all hinges on consent.

A personal rant here. Skip if you don't like whiners. :wink:

So that's about it. Opinions?

I do remember having one fight with my prestige as well. I remember when bringing up what my bonuses could be the person said "I would rather keep it simple" and so I went through the fight without any of the steamwarrior thrills of the prestige.

I'm not sure what to negotiate at times, but no one has been trying to kill my character at least.

You're entitled to your opinion. And I honestly agree with you there.



It's fun to steal Lost's writing style.

Character warning should you continue breathing. It offends me.

As a more serious thought, I'm under the belief that the official stance is that a character warning works in that a player OOCly warns that if another's character continues on to do an IC action, they risk death or maiming of the permanent sort.

Personally, however, I still prefer to work with players and see if they're okay with the idea of death. Probably because I'm leaping out of nowhere in murderous Warlock banditry and I'd really rather work with than against my fellow members of the community; for the most part.

And I will mention that Navren really is probably a titan who could shatter a legion of players.

The masculinity...
How could any hope to stand up to his ferocity and Saurfang-esque acclaim?

While we're on the subject of power, I do remember not too long ago that in one event someone had a prestige bonus that others apparently weren't paying attention to, because it was only towards the end of the event that there were complaints for fairness and such.

I guess it does depend on the situation though. I do believe when fully utilizing their technology a steamwarrior would be quite difficult to deal with one-on-one with a typical player, unless if they were to have some sort of EMP, I could imagine.

(And I call meta-gaming if non-engineers try this :< )

I'm of the opinion that Prestige != Power. It only unlocks nifty abilities for your character to play a more specialized role in a story or group.

I have Kimee as a full Necromancer and Nexi moving toward Spirit Champion, but for neither of them would I ever try to get bonuses during a fight. Then again, I refuse to roll fight. In fact, I don't fight at all unless it's PVE or a trust fight with someone I ( hurr hurr ) trust to not be a godmodder/metagamer/whiner. I don't have any problem whatsoever with either of them being killed by a non-prestige non-approved character in a 1v1 fight regardless of how much work and love I put into the process because I didn't go into the prestige process for power but for story and progression. I think everyone should go into the prestige process for -that- only. I realize that both have their strengths and weaknesses, and if a character manages to realize and exploit those weaknesses in a trust fight, I'd have no choice but to let them win. I've done this in the past already with both.

But that's not to say that certain prestige classes don't have the upper hand in certain instances. Those characters -should- be given the upper hand ( to a reasonable extent ) when such things arise since that's what their whole training centered around doing. ( ie. Demon Hunter vs Demon/Fel-User, Necromancer vs The Living, Deadshot vs Fast-Moving/Distant Object, Spellbreaker vs Arcanist, Gladiator vs Regular Warrior, etc, etc ). Prestige classes don't and shouldn't have the upper hand in every instance just because they're prestige classes.

I do understand the annoyance you feel about having everyone on the planet target your character for no logical IC reason besides knowing she's a prestige class. I've had to deal with that myself on Kimee, and still do, which is why you never see me playing her unless it's to train a student Necromancer or to help move along someone's storyline. It's a shame, really.

I also believe that being an "evil" prestige will get you hunted down too. Perhaps Sanya was also being targeted for being a blood elf death knight along with a steamwarrior, though I am not sure if she has done anything "evil" so to say.

I wouldn't even -dare- to step up to some of the Prestige people I've seen. I mean, ofcourse they are just another character as well, but lately people have just been appearing generally greedy to kill other characters. I may just have been unlucky enough to see a lot of character deaths around lately.

But the fact remains that there's an awfull lot of people actually just wanting to do combat-RP. Easily resulting in a death.

If Prestige opens once more, and Karin gets green light for Fel-sworn, I understand people would want to rid Azeroth of her existance. xP But it'd be a little silly if some unprofiled, just made character would run up for the sole purpose of winning a roll fight.

It's not just prestiges either. I've seen people make three alts just to try and kill Reigen and I wouldn't be surprised if the same was being done for Tavren's group.

I do believe that you should look up characters if they are singling you out, Etmoseril. The account management can let you see which forum user a character belongs to in the character search. If you can pin who is making the characters to kill you then you can tell them to stop since it's considered OOC harassment.

Ah, prestige. This is a wonderfully hot-button issue that I am extremely biased on.

I love my prestige Fel-Sworn. She's cute and cuddly and she's super-fun to play around with. Her new spells are fun and her command of Shadow and Fel is rather useful when Role-playing.

But that doesn't mean she is an unstoppable titan of death and misery. She is, however, extremely dangerous.

As is my want, I usually have her get in fights with Demon Hunters. Not ICly, of course; No demon worth their salts would want to go toe-to-toe with a Demon Hunter. But OOCly I tend to nudge her into situations where Falathorei and Navren are present. Whenever I am in a fight with them, I will always go in with the knowledge that I am fighting someone IC who can kick my butt three ways sideways and I will respect that and have my character react accordingly.

This usually entails my Fel-Sworn trying to find ways to flee like a scared rabbit. I don't have her stand up to the Demon Hunters. I don't have her try to kill them user 'uber powerful death magic!' Any boasting she does is usually done through a megaphone at a safe distance or through a proxy she doesn't really like.

She is, ICly, scared of those two. That is because they are stronger then her and know how to hurt her. And she knows this.

And now we draw this around to my gripe: People aren't ICly scared of prestiges or, in some cases, acknowledge them.

Some prestiges I will admit are unassuming at first glance. Most Archmages, Deadshots and gladiators look like your regular, heavily-armored Azerothian hero. But when the fact comes out that they are super-powered, a character's reaction shouldn't be "Yeah! I'm not afraid of you! I'm going to kill you!" but "Oh god I'm leaving to find more friends before you hack me to bits and burn the rest."

I was in a trust fight (I prefer trust fighting. Arguments over prestige bonuses, like this, are very annoying) once where I was surrounded by a small group of fighters. Marianna, with her physical deformities, is very obviously a Half-demon Fel-Sworn. But they had still been boasting and insulting her for a good bit of time before finally instigating a fight. Nonplussed, the Fel-Sworn unleashed a powerful Fear spell on the group.

Everyone resisted the spell. Some emoted that their characters threw up a magical defense (good), while others just stood there, gritted their teeth, and said they resisted (bad). That is bad trust fighting, and immediately switched me off to the entire combat. In the end the Demon Hunters salvaged the struggle, rushing in to slice me up and listen politely as I swore seven levels of hell upon them and slunk, bleeding, into a pit.

Prestiges are prestiges. We're stronger then normal. But we're not invincible. Put a good Demon Hunter...Heck, put a good Paladin against my Fel Sworn and she'll feel the hurt. But please, keep yourself focused on IC reactions. Many of these prestiges are, ICly, well known. Unless your character has a spike through their head or lived under a rock in Draenor their entire lives they will be either scared or at least phased by a prestige's presence.

Be careful. Because when you boast in front of Marianna about how you will slayer her, she does take it to heart. And when she takes it to heart, she usually ens up taking your character's a well. That's a fact your character should know IC and you, as a player, OOC.

^ that.

If I, IRL, saw someone with horns, or something, I would freak my sh!t. Honestly, having a 21 year old that's never fought be able to hold up to a freaking Demon lady just seems unrealistic to me. I'd already be running, without the spells.

I think the same would also be said if you came upon a person in a goblin shredder-like machine. :B

Yea. A giant shredder machine, somebody covered in scars, somebody with horns, somebody emotionless, somebody made of freaking shadow. Basically, realistically, any prestige thing (except maybe the second) would probably scare the sh!t out of any farmhand or etc.

And lets not forget primals.

Except Taeva doesn't seem to fear 'em B: