Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Bloggorus on Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:33 pm

Be careful using your personal PQI stats as an indicator of what is and isn't used. My PQI, for instance, is full of goblins.

The PQI, by it's nature, identifies the maps, classes and races you PERSONALLY don't use.

Until you can provide some objective reasoning, Lujo, your point is moot.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Lujo on Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:38 pm

So was mine until I went around everywhere using them for the token. And I'm pretty sure those two are the least used races in general. Which is almost certanly why they were chosen for the CO and Slime Pits quests. However, I was slacking on goblins op purpose, having overplayed them the last time around, dwarfs actually do have problems.

How to prove this, I'm not sure, allthough I'm sure it can be proven. For example, I never had trouble with any goblin PQI run because I had to be a goblin, but I had problems with almost every dwarf PQI run particularly because I was a dwarf. So much so as to have anti-synergy in case of warlords... And I've played most of the classes witch sinergize with dwarfs enough so the classes don't pop up in the PQI often, but I've found reasons to chose dwarves over others so rarely that they crop up as often as a race I've been purposefully avoiding.

The reason I'm playing less and typing more basicaly is that the game keeps throwing dwarven assassins at me left and right, and I've played more of them than most other combinations, including some I play gladly and intentionaly pick. And all of those have been PQI. I did a grimss grotto Dw Asassin run I think, and hour ago, and a run after that a slime pits one, and quit the game when I saw the game send me to Havendale Bridge as one. I was sick of them last monday, week later they're still all over my PQI.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Bloggorus on Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:51 pm

Damn, maybe I'm in the minority then. But they have a niche. Remember that the devs played with damage reduction and a number of other solutions but eventually returned to health. It's simple, and not classy, but it works, even if the effects aren't immediately obvious.

Any class that relies on hit mitigation or elimination will struggle in the same way that orcs make poor wizards. In the Vicious and Hard dungeons they can struggle because monsters hit ridiculously hard and half cause status effects, but early on they are a fantastic way to try out general strategies and/or go into a dungeon blind.

My locker always stocks a fire heart and agnostics collar for maximum regeneration and god cheesing. Then I always pick up any regen items and/or lifesteal I can to max that health. Lifesteal in particular is a godsend for dwarves.

Sure, dwarves are exploration heavy but I think many players try to regen fight with them. This can be misleading, because we tend to see health as percentage based in the health calculator, as opposed to numbers.

I see them as health-based spikers and never have an issue with them in particular.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Bloggorus on Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:58 pm

Also, given that fact that you favour rogues\, high damage synergies and min-max strategies, Lujo, using dwarves might seem a little laborious wasteful for someone like yourself.

Dwarves are a little more slow-and-steady than the rest of the races, which may simply clash with your playstyle or the preps you are used to using.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Lujo on Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:12 pm

And you see them right - except you have you locker pantry stocked for dwarves. Mine is all choked up with vicious reward junk - some because I don't want to go through places again, codex and cauldron for testing, fabulous treasure because it's so unique (it's not that strong, thb), trisword for fast-forwarding through rogue PQI's and cb for testing. Only thing I really want in there is the ward.

(And I don't favour rogues, I'm actually in a glyph heavy phase this time around. Big damage is what I'm gettin from most other people. I just know how it works, and use cheese to get past really tricky stuff. Also, I'm not that min-maxy as a rule, and generally go through my dwarf anti-sinergy runs. I only started cheezing them because I got tired.)

With old Absolution (and vineform) dwarves could work regardless of class. Which to me is saying they can actually work - they also really do get a big bunch of health per level! But their downsides could be shored up to make them more attractive, and probably wouldn't be overkill. I mean - I played them quite a bit during all that PQI :D

The "getting only max health when they convert" thing is practicaly a glitch, that should be changed in any case IMO. But as far as buffs go, the one I suggested points in the "health based spiker" direction and probably wouldn't be overkill, but would at least make them more interesting. It's possible that they are underplayed rather than underpowered, but they certanly need to be a bit more interesting.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Bloggorus on Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:40 pm

The question is, how do you make dwarves attractive? :)

I think the balance is there, they are just perceived as being hard to play because it's not immediately obvious how to leverage health like you can attack, mana and potions.

If anything, I like the fact that they exist. They remind me of the maze dungeons and the trouble people have with those; it's a complete shift in thinking, but once you 'get it', it's great.

Dwarves are a valuable dimension to the game, keep 'em in
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Blovski on Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:53 pm

@Bloggorus:

Dwarf early survivability isn't really much increased (compared to other ways of increasing your health) and the only way I've found to properly leverage them is GG Paladin with Fire Heart, because then you've got 4-ish ways of restoring %es of Health, and GG lets you leverage fire heart at low levels when dwarf health alone wouldn't. And that's been hurt quite a bit by the absolution changes... Even with that strategy (which is the only vet vicious dwarf strategy I actually know of), Darvin and others would prefer a Human with a Dragon Shield probably. They have less synergy with flat health restoration and regen-fighting than humans (or Orcs). They have very little synergy with any first-striking or death protection items.

I mean, definitely keep them in, but I'd like some sort of stacking or regen boost or it hitting current HP or more or less anything to give them a bit more presence. I think they could easily take some sort of non-linear improvement to let them feature in more strategies and still remain a bit sub-optimal or niche.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Sidestepper on Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:44 am

The last time we got race statistics it looked like this

Human: 379,212
Gnome: 61,768
Halfling: 61,696
Elf: 57,855
Dwarf: 36,803
Orc: 34,048
Goblin: 15,572

I think this probably reflects user familiarity rather than power level. Orcs and especially Goblins are stronger than their ranking would make them appear, but they unlock late and are a bit tricky to understand. Dwarves on the other hand, are dead simple and and can be enabled as early as the tutorial phase. Their low ranking is more indicative of a problem.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby Bloggorus on Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:08 am

And that Humans are OP.

Or we are all just speciesist.
Last edited by Bloggorus on Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dwarves. Just dwarves. Or Dwarfs.

Postby booooooze on Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:16 am

Blew my mind long ago when I saw people picking goblin as their top race. I had almost never used them; they seemed so boring.

I still find them boring... but they are natural followers of TT. And lord knows I love TT. I've even almost gotten used to the new poison. Certainly not as good as the old variety, but it's not so bad...
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