Mission ADOMPossible: Threading Water

[Silfir]

Current Status of Team Water:

Assigned races: High Elf, Drakeling, Orc, Mist Elf, Gnome
Drafted classes: Barbarian, Paladin, Beastfighter, Assassin

Finalized character choices: high elven assassin, drakish beastfighter, orcish barbarian, gnomish paladin, mist elven chaos knight

Players: Silfir, Harwin, Cactus, GordonOverkill, szopin

Current Total Score: 5

Mission Two

GordonOverkill: Groucho, gnomish paladin - FAILURE
Harwin: Lanthir, high elven assassin - FAILURE
Cactus: Mun'sheez, drakish beastfighter - SUCCESS
Silfir: Sturm Flut, orcish barbarian - SUCCESS
szopin: Mistanarius, mist elven chaos knight - PENDING

Mission Score: 2

Mission One

Cactus: Lanthir, high elven assassin - SUCCESS
GordonOverkill: Sturm Flut, orcish barbarian - FAILURE
Harwin: Mistanarius, mist elven chaos knight - SUCCESS
Silfir: Munn'sheez, drakish beastfighter - SUCCESS
szopin: Groucho, gnomish paladin - FAILURE

Mission Score: 3



Original Post Begins Here

Alright, as far as I can tell, JellySlayer is keeping mum about what the first mission and the subsequent ones actually are about. We can assume that early game survival will be the most important factor.

I'll go ahead and provide a preliminary ranking of classes as I would arrange them. I have no idea where duelists or chaos knights would actually fit on it, so I'm taking wild guesses and will let you correct me.

1. Wizard
2. Druid
3. Archer
4. Elementalist
5. Paladin
6. Barbarian
7. Beastfighter
8. Duelist
9. Necromancer
10. Priest
11. Ranger
12. Monk
13. Fighter
14. Assassin
15. Weaponsmith
16. Healer
17. Mindcrafter
18. Merchant
19. Bard
20. Farmer
21. Thief
22. Chaos Knight

(I don't really feel like rolling the corruption lottery if I don't even know the missions we're going to do, but I don't have actual idea how bad they are.)



This list probably sucks and you're going to tell me why, which is precisely what I'm after!

[GordonOverkill]

From my experience Duelists have alot less to offer for early game. Their class powers don't really become interesting untill at least level 12, they start with rather light armor... what they have is a very nice skill set, but that's about all. I'd put them somewhere between rank 13 and 15.
Chaos Knights on the other hand might be prefered to alot of classes just because of their high starting PV. Of course you can be unlucky with the corruptions, but even then they are quite some tough guys that are very likely to survive the dangerous early games. For me they would be somewhere around rank 10.
Apart from that I personally don't see why beastfighters are ranked so high... probably I just suck at playing these guys, but from my experience they have significant disadvantages against a whole lot of early game foes. Whenever I roll a beastfighter, I just hope to find a nice missile weapon or at least a big stack of rocks as quick as possible. I would maybe place them between ranger and monk.
Finally I don't think that bards are that bad. They've got the chance to get some nice skills, their pets help alot very early on and with an appropriate race they have quasi guaranteed access to 7-league-boots... definitely better than merchants at least.

e: Okay, CKs have very limited access to a whole lot of locations... that makes them not very well-suited for this particular challange, didn't think of that.
e: I totally agree on the high rating of Elementalists! The latest arena challange prooved how well they are suited for extreme early game challanges and with careful play their early-game-boost can take you very far. Still I am not quite sure why druids are rated even higher... they have no trouble with animals, that's for sure, but therefore they lack easy and guaranteed access to offensive spells. I'd maybe swap their places.

[Silfir]

Druids do have access to one offensive spell and wear some decent armor to boot. It would depend on races. A high learning race can get a lot of leverage out of the spellbook of Divine Wrath; a dumber race would be perfectly suited to exploiting the elementalist's book-less spell access. I'll probably swap the two, though - precisely because most races aren't high learning.

[Cactus]

Thanks for putting up the list! I mostly agree with the order. Some things I might have done differently:

Druids/Priests
Druids to me always were just Priests without class powers. Although I learned to appreciate the guaranteed Divine Wrath during the arena challenge, that was a very specific situation because we wouldn't be allowed to visit other places. In a normal game my priests usually have found a couple of offensive spells by the time they really need them.

Beastfighters
I'm with Gordon here and would have placed them a bit lower maybe. Beastfighters can be frustrating if they are not levelling fast enough. So it depends a lot on whether races are assigned randomly or if we are allowed to assign races manually from a couple of choices. Do we know that yet?

Assassins
I really like those guys and would prefer them over Fighters and Rangers any day. But I guess it's a matter of playing style. For example I really love to exploit the thrown daggers advantage and try to milk a stack of ~10 orcish knives early on. Which is not of much help later maybe. Oh, and those crowning weapons...

Mindcrafters
Another class I would rank a fair bit higher. I like to start them as pure melee fighters with confusion blast, don't really care about the damaging powers much.

I agree with both of you that chaos knights can be really annoying. Despite their sometimes ridiculous power (I had one starting with 29 PV) I honestly wouldn't really want to play one. Changing alignment at least for some food would help but I never tried that. My last one got thin nimble and had to actually think about starvation in the midgame.

Lastly, I like duelists a lot and wouldn't mind if they stay where they are in the list. Sure, they have to be handled with care early on, but once that moment comes and you can put away that shield for good without losing DV and enjoy that boost in hacking speed - there's hardly anything feeling better.

Anyway, really looking forward to start playing. I think I'm experienced enough to avoid something stupid, the only thing I would be concerned of is time efficiency. I tend to play very slowly and I don't know how harsh the turn limits for a given mission might be. But I'm sure we will have time to discuss strategies beforehand.

[Silfir]

I'm pretty sure the missions are going to be very much about going certain places with restricted options - that's why I think druids should be valued more highly than priests for sure. There isn't much book hunting one can do within a turn limit, and a priest with Know Alignment is just an acceptable melee combatant.

We can pick races from those assigned to us for certain classes. For beastfighters, dark elf would be a very, very strong pick, but we aren't guaranteed one. I remember beastfighters in general to be quite excellent and tough, but maybe that's just dark elves.

Rangers to me win out against assassins thanks to their healing skills (No guarantee of Jharod, remember!). Fighters are tougher and better equipped, but I can see that the thrown daggers give the assassin a certain edge. Milking crude knives may not be an option, though, keep that in mind.

Mindcrafters are really crappy melee fighters with confusion blast. A little risky for my taste - but as my taste is not the decisive factor here I'll be sure to rank them up some... Hm. They're just one notch below healers, who are just as crappy as fighters, but have great toughness and a healing factor. I don't think mindcrafters are better than healers. Or weaponsmiths (who start with decent armor). Where would you fit them, exactly?

One point in favor of merchants is that their stuff can be very helpful, and they're quite a decent pick for dwarves since they start with chain mail. A bard will never have starting equipment worth all that much, and we can't reroll them for good skill selections.

Taste in general is very important; every one of us has the right to demand a personal favorite be ranked higher than strictly appropriate, of course with the caveat that they might be called upon to play them. If you want to invoke personal preference, be sure to do so with the utmost of contempt for my unworthy opinion. It's not an ADOM competition until folks start to bicker.


New list for the time being:

1. Wizard
2. Elementalist
3. Archer
4. Druid
5. Paladin
6. Barbarian
7. Priest
8. Beastfighter
9. Duelist
10. Necromancer
11. Ranger
12. Monk
13. Assassin
14. Fighter
15. Weaponsmith
16. Healer
17. Mindcrafter
18. Merchant
19. Bard
20. Farmer
21. Thief
22. Chaos Knight



I'm tempted to rank necromancers even lower than above. The thing is that they have the potential to be just as OP as wizards with their spellbook finding rate, but there's a chance one will start with a tract of chaos and really be up shit creek without a paddle.

I'm tempted to actually rate elementalists above wizards, on the #1 spot, for this challenge at least. You can pick a high toughness race for Elementalist and barely notice the difference in spell arsenal; wizards need learning. Elven wizards are amazing, but they're little bit less amazing if you can't reroll the ones that get caught by a stiff breeze on level 1.

But then, considering the risk of stone block traps and the sort, maybe we'd be best off firstpicking something like Paladin. Additional resilience is another point in favor of the druid as far as this goes, actually. Not a clear-cut thing at all, the top of the list - keep that input coming.

[GordonOverkill]

In my eyes Elementalist cannot be rated high enough for early game challanges. They work with more or less every race, they get some guaranteed castings of the amazing burning hands, they start with the practical swimming skill and get guaranteed fire resistance rather quickly. A wizard needs one out of a small set of races in order to be equally fit and some truely good luck with his starting spellbooks to be better. During my recent spellcaster-lithium-attemps my wizard died when he ran out of castings for offensive spells. On average I would say that the Elementalist is the better choice... like I said, during the last arena challange among (not 100% sure) 8-10 successful chars there were no less than 5 Elementalists.

For Necromancers, don't they have guaranteed Frost Bolt? I am not 100% sure, but at least I think so. Also their Necromancy ability could surely be used for our advantage - and be it only to create meatshields and trap-collectors.

e: Just created a handful of Necros and they indeed all started with Frost Bolt.

[JellySlayer]

Hi Team Water. Just a reminder in case you missed it in the main thread. One of your (now five) classes will be a chaos knight, and that class can be removed from the formal ranking list.

[Silfir]

They used to start with a tract of chaos sometimes. There seems to be a little imp in my mind whispering that it got changed for ADOM 1.2.0 because it was deemed too much of a swing (turning an already weak and anemic starter into, ironically, a dead man walking).

Maybe I'm not getting enough sleep these days.

[GordonOverkill]

ChAoS kNiGhT

Excellent! Since the element of water is known for it's proverbial flexibility, this will defintiely increase our winning chances!

[Cactus]

Frost Bolt is indeed guaranteed for Necromancers as of 1.2.0. I like them a lot, although the lack of healing and frustrating skill increases can't be neglected. Raising ghuls at level 6 however is super strong and a great way to train mana.

I don't really care that much if the Wizard or the Elementalist leads the list, but I would definitely want one of them to be there. Much rather than a tough class like the paladin. I think by assigning a tough race (i.e. gnome/drakeling for the wizard, any tough race for the Elementalist) the danger of being killed by the first trap can be minimized.

Since we are allowed to assign races feel free to reinstate the Beastfighter. With high Le this is a powerhouse.

Regarding my love for Mindcrafters, of course that is based on getting the Healing first (which is even easier for them because they can confuse Yrrigs on each stairway). But if the missions might dictate even the very first dungeon choice I agree that they are a risky class after all. So for this challenge I'm ok with them being rated rather low.