Ok, I've spoke of this situation before. It got handled I thought pretty well, but it's back.

There is the famous black wyvern and now I hear of a few others. These MOUNTS have over 1k hp, some have 2k and 3k hp.

These mounts/mobs completely take out any assassin/thief class or any class that has backstab as its #1 skill.

I've dealt with them before, I can't kill these mount SOLO. We had an rp today and I couldn't backstab the person mounted. Because they were mounted on the wyvern that can kill me. How can I even attempt to challenge someone who's on a mount that can kill me without them?

Yeah we can 1 shot most mounts, but how on earth can we even stand a challenge when the mount itself can kill us?

i've got two suggestions

hop on a riding horse before you stab

second suggestion would require some coding but i think it sounds logical and interesting:
jumpstab <-- new command, maybe js for short form like we can use back instead of backstab
allows you to stab mounted characters

----> negatives, halve the odds of landing a stab or halve the damage, i would lean on halving odds of landing, its obviously much more difficult to cleanly get a dagger in the back of somebody on horseback just by jumping at them... but if the dagger hit their back i'm pretty sure it would hurt just as much as if they were on the ground.

Yeah...riding and backstabbing? I don't see that working out muh.

What most dont get either is, when someone backstabs the mount, you are in a battle with it. A battle i've lost a number of times. A mount..I shouldn't be dieing to a mount. Now add a character on top of the mount. As soon as I backstab it, it's taking me to about 80% health, then the added bonus someone gets at mounted combat. They will take me to about 45-20%. A lvl 30 can do this to me. So far, the wyvern and other big mounts aren't even at 50% hp and the char hasn't even been touched.

This all happens within 1-2 prompts and then I flee.

Well it would be logical that if you backstab someone's mount they should fall off the mount and sustain some damage. Now the position of why some mounts have such high hp is another matter.

I can't think of any viable solution to that, because some of those mounts allow the larger races to climb atop of them and gallop around.

The Guildinator

What about having a mount flee after a certain percentage of life? So that you don't have to kill it persay, it would render it useless to the rider being so cowardly. I wish I had more time to elaborate, but it's pretty easy to get the concept.

And Nas, you can backstab mounted people while you're mounted. It's the only way to have a chance in an arena as a backstabbing class.

I also like the idea of a jumpstab Guildus. It would make more sense to halve the capability of doing it, but keeping the same amount of damage, if not doing more damage because of the thrust behind the jump as well..

So...has anyone ever tried to hide while on a mount? I have...it's not pretty. Hiding is a BIG thing when it comes to the % rate of landing a backstab.

You cannot sneak while on a mount. Sneaking helps you creep up on someone without letting them know you've enter the area. Then out of nowhere, you land a backstab.

Yes I understand you can backstab while mounted. But then your taking away a lot of things these backstabbing classes rely on.

Just imagine having to kill a monster, who 9/10 times kills you JUST to get to the character behind it. To add too that, that character is attacking you along with the monster.

I just don't see why any mounts should have such high hp and able to kill a lvl 99 character.

I like the idea of large mounts giants and others can mount. But when the hp and skill pass lvl 99 assassins/thieves. I just don't see it.

I like being able to kill level 200 characters too, but it's just not fair that I can't do it... oh wait.

So basically lets take away an advantage of playing a class that gets mountable skills? I don't like how easily I can be bashed either, lets take that away because it doesn't give me an advantage. (There should be lag for spam bashers though, but I'm a spam stand/speller to try and balance that out.) The black wyvern was made unmountable a while back because people started to whine that Piirz was dominating arenas with it. So? Maybe the hp just needs to be lowered on the black wyvern. I'd say it's pretty dern unfair that a giant with skills for mounted hardly has any mounts in the game. There are enough negative risks to mounted combat that have to be worked around to do it. I miss mounted combat, but one day I'll have it again.

Say I'm an assassin and I can assassinate a level 200 character if I get lucky...any other class able to do that? My dispel evil rocks mobs, but it sure doesn't kill them right off the bat. Turn used to rock undead, but it seems that was tweaked a while back and it hardly does anything now, a skill very much missed by me. The lag is almost unbearable and it hardly does any damage now. The critical success rate of it blows.

Did I ruffle anyones feathers? Cool, backstab me in the arena and you can wipe the blood off your blade and be done with it. Each class has to be balanced in some matter. Levels make a great deal of difference. I do remember a day when people hated arenas simply because of assassins, but that's their class, can't be mad at em. Dagroth killed Illiahm with ease in rp and did just under 700 hp with a critical backstab of damage to me, INSANE! But I'm not whining about it because that's the class they chose, and I never wish to try to level an assassin, kudos to you that make it high level. Kudos to all of you.

I really like the ideas about diff backstabbing skills and the jump backstab should have a bit more damage to it initially, maybe balance that by a little bit of lag before or after the attack. All of our classes could use a little more tweaking, that's all part of progress. I love playing DL and I'm an addict.

Ok..I had to read this post about 4 times to understand and decode it.

First, How did you get a black wyvern with 2-3khp that can solo a Hero assassin and compare it with bash and other skills classes have???
The ansewer: Too much coffee at work? Too much work? Playing DL while at work??
I never said that giants dont gets mounts. I am simply speaking about mounts that can solo lvl 99 stabbers. How can a MOUNT beat a lvl 99? Don't forget, when your fighting this mount, your also fighting the person on it. So seeing the stabber can't kill the mount, that leaves 0% chance at killing the mounted character. Everyone knows stabbers have some of the lowest (if not THE lowest) stops in the game. Because it goes to the backstab. So with that, there is no defense. By the time 1-2 prompts come into play (thats the lag for bs), your almost dead, if not dead. This mount is basically solo'ing a class. How and why did BASH come into play!?

Assassinate a lvl 200 character? What!? Are you messing with me?? I don't understand where these are coming from! I'm talking about a mount that can kill me solo. Where did this lvl 200 character come in at?????

Lemme try..Yes I know I have a chance to assassinate the wyvern. That's not the point, the point is..why is there mounts that can totally solo a lvl 99 class?? I don't mind that giants can mount. I never said take them away. I just think they need to be FIXED.

Ruffle any feathers? No. Confuse anyone? Yes.

Yes of course each class has to be balanced. Where is the balance when a character doesn't even have to lift his/her weapon in order to kill me?
A 700hp backstab is INSANE? I don't think so. We were toned down big time. I was backstabbing for 2.5k. All of our +bs eq was lowered. So to me, a 700hp isn't INSANE. Backstab is the ONLY thing we have. Why not make it powerful? Cleric's have FH's, Sanc's, Melee, Defense. We dont melee at all. No defense. No spells. So I don't think a 700hp BS is insane.

I don't think it's insane when your going up against a 2-3k hp mob. That's a lot of BS's to kill it, while someone is mounted on it.

What everyone really is missing is the fact that there should be a chance for someone on foot to backstab someone thats mounted, perhaps a reduced chance due to the understanding that the person in question is mounted. Really one should consider the same with bash, in the real world if I sneak up upon someone on a horse and attempt to bash them with a club, though they are high up there I do have a chance of dismounting them. In turn the same should be equally applicable with backstab.

Translation: make it possible to bash or backstab a mounted person, just reduce the chance for it to land.

Thought: If I bash or backstab a mount, I believe that there should be a longer delay before the realization that the mount is being attacked, give the rider a prompt before they auto assist their mount, and give the mount a prompt before they attack the backstabber.

Cause really someone is riding a horse and the horse is stabbed in the flank, the chance that it is a lethal stab is highly limited and it would take a moment before it realized what attacked it and where the attack came from.

My reason for these ideas vs just nerfing a mounts hp is that a mount is like any other mob in the game, they should have logical reasons for being in their zone, but really they should have the same difficulty as an equal level mob.

In turn though, I really dont think there is a reason to allow flying mounts into the arena, since there are perfectly good normal mounts, unless we create a secondary randomized arena with multiple levels which require a flying mount. Good idea, though would really require a whole new thread to discuss.

Just my two cents, Sylvius.

I basically think that this (along with many other things) is just a 'variable' of the game and should be treated as such. Mounts can be big ocassionally, and if you can't deal with it directly in combat, then try rp it another way or even get a colleague to assist. As far as the mounts in arena, again I think it should just be handled as you face it. If you can't deal with it in combat, wait a while and see if someone else takes it out first. (Or get a mount of your own).

I think the game would lose something by flat standardising mounts. Its the little 'maybe' things that keep it interesting, keep you guessing and forcing you to think of ways to solve the problem. Would anyone like to see the spell fireshield go just because non-bashing classes can't easily defeat a mage in straight combat? Or bash go because a warrior using it will almost always defeat a non-bashing class in straight combat?

Fact is, its not an insurmountable problem (if you get your own mount you can backstab) so in my humble opinion, its just another thing that keeps the game interesting.

Bannik.

P.S. I guess I'll be the cleric with the big circle painted on my back in arenas from now on