I see we can go back and forth for years about knowledge, you have your personal knowledge and I had official non-published data.
Plow was good friends with Mackey, (Will say that I couldnt remember the name, but I remember the conversation about skalds)
It wasnt sbaldes that could oneshot and stay stealthed. It was everyone for years, I think it was 1.78 or 1.79 that finally fixed that.
Viper was the most reliable counter to infiltrators but if it was down, they were done.
Scouts dont count, Rangers here do not even come close the overpoweredness of scouts in DAoC.
Smite Clerics and Valkyries, didnt know they could stealth.
This portion is about Thieves vs DAoC’s terrible imbalance of stealth dynamics and classes.
Simple fix to thieves.
Damage received automatically breaks stealth.
Reduce effectiveness of condition removal in stealth (Make it a grandmaster)
Give them 1 elite escape (remove another) that gives them a 50% speed boost, drops them from combat, unbreakable stealth, removes all initiative, 240 second reuse timer and unable to attack for 12-15 seconds.
Then leave their damage as is, thieves are now fixed.
A. All Stealthers could one shot someone and remain stealth this is true, However It was more likely on a SB simply because the 2 handed PA’s hit harder. After they changed it most of the SB’s moved over to Left Axe until that was nerfed and SB’s were subpar after that for quite some time.
B. Viper was a counter to Infil’s yes, But more so Purge was…Purge back in the day was 15 minute cooldown, and like I said, if you got caught without purge up, an Infil would probably kill ya….However if Purge was up they weren’t that hard to take down..
C. I agree with you a Ranger is no where near a Scout at the beginning of the game.
D. I was giving information on relation to classes and knowledge.
If you want to talk about just Stealther’s in DAOC and balance, you have to account for time and the period of the game, Because at different points of the game, The stealthers all measured differently in relation to their power against one another.
Scouts for example were powerful very early game, and eventually became somewhat subpar until they became powerful enough to Warrant another Block Nerf.
Shadowblades, Again powerful early game, Became incredibly overpowered with Left Axe, and eventually subpar for a while before being decent again.
Hunter’s, Which would be the closest thing to a Ranger in this game also had ups and downs and eventually their Beast line became fairly decent, and two handed sword hunters were actually good (Remember how their Bow line was actually the worst of the archers for most of the games life)
Nightshades, Like most of the stealthers were powerful then crappy, then powerful again (recently in the game they became incredibly powerful after their nuke went from being based of Acuity to Dex)
Rangers in that came were powerful for a long time because of access to PD/Duel Wield until DW’s bonus of cutting Evade/Block in half was nerfed. Then they were subpar after that..
Minstrel’s While not super stealthers have always been powerful to some degree.. and amazing in stealth groups.
All these Classes have been Top Dog at one point in the stealther game…..However in relation to other classes in the game they’ve never been “top dog” period.
Multiple classes in DAOC absolutely kittenon Stealthers at all period’s of the games.
Reavers/Valks/Warlocks/BD’s/ValeWalkers/Vampiir’s (esp Vampiir’s)/and to some extent Necro’s (though rare)
All these classes no matter who was top dog in the stealther world would just absolutely wreck most of them fairly easy.
My Valkyrie for example could take on groups of Stealthers without breaking a sweat.
