12-02-2003, 02:29 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-02-2003, 02:30 AM by MongoJerry.)
WarBlade, I appreciate your suggestions. I really do. But I don't appreciate the tone of your responses. The guide is called the "Preliminary Enchantress Guide" for good reason. I want to get feedback and suggestions from people, and in fact this is the third reworking of the guide I've made after getting excellent suggestions from readers at the Amazon Basin. I posted the guide here to get some more feedback and some different perspectives. Some portions of your feedback are quite valid and I appreciate those comments, but I think your general pan of what has been put forward as a preliminary document is unwarrented. Now, to discuss your specific suggestions.
It's funny that you hated the first sentence, because so did I when I wrote it. The first paragraph was something I wrote as a placeholder until I came up with something better. It's something I'll definitely work on before final publication. If you're wondering, though, the idea of the first sentence was to attract the average bnetter who wants to build powerful characters and yet doesn't have the time to do magic finding runs to get l33t equipment. I wanted to emphasize right off the bat that enchantresses aren't grossly underpowered characters like the characters whose adventures I've written up previously. They're viable on their own and very powerful in a party. I'll see what I can do to rework the first paragraph.
This is the part of your discussion where I get concerned that you might not have read the guide but instead just glanced at the guide's titles and headings. Inferno, FO, Firewall, Hydra, and Meteor were only briefly mentioned as variations that people might like to try while 95% of the guide was spent discussing builds, tactics, equipment, and mercenaries for ranged and/or melee enchantresses. Whether you consider someone who casts a spell as a suplemental attack an "enchantress" or not is purely a matter of semantics. In the guide, I call any character who spends 62 points to fully power up Enchant and uses that Enchant to power herself and her party up an enchantress. Perhaps your definition of a player who never uses any suplemental spell (only powers up a cold armor, for example) would be best described by the more restrictive term "fighter mage" or "fighter enchantress."
Couched in your attacking tone is a reasonable suggestion. I got carried away by D2 terms I'm so familiar with and didn't translate them into ordinary English for the benefit of the newer players I'd like to reach. Thanks for the suggestion, and I'll change it to something like "Incidentally, you can buy a 3-socket Tower Shield with +20% block from the Act 1 hell shops and place three perfect diamonds in it" or something like that. I would have appreciated your suggestion more, however, if you had been less antagonistic when discussing it.
It's interesting that you'd say that, and again I'm forced to wonder if you've actually read the guide, since for all the items, I describe in detail the important mods on the item for the enchantress. On reflection, I do see that even though I mention exploding arrows and bolts in the paragraphs above the discussion of specific bows, it'd probably be good to mention that all of the bows in the list have exploding arrows or bolts. Perhaps I could rework the paragraphs describing the weapons to emphasize their mods a little more. I'll look into it.
I heartily disagree with this suggestion, however, as most players don't spend as much time surfing through the AS as much as we do, only know about the uber l33t items that they must have, and don't know about the other quite useful items that people often discard. I've had literally dozens of conversations with bneters in regular games and in trading games who have never even heard of a Demon Machine much less what it does, despite it's being the most powerful weapon a ranged enchantress can equip herself with. I also want to reach out to those people who don't have good equipment and say, "Hey! You can use that Raven Claw that people always throw away and make a nice weapon out of it!" You'll notice that I only mentioned very common items that most people can get their hands on. In fact, not one of the items I mentioned was an elite item. I want to show people that they can make a viable enchantress without having all of the best equipment available. (Well, OK, I mentioned Warshrike and Gimmershred which are elite throwing weapons, but I only included them because it was the only way to shut up a couple of AB readers who insisted I mention them in the Thrower Enchantress section).
Once again, I'd like to thank you for your comments and suggestions. I think they'll help improve the guide significantly. However, I would appreciate it if you would be more constructive with your criticism in the future and withhold your more scathing remarks. It takes a lot more than you may realize to write these kinds of things. This guide is the product of hours of work and months of playtesting and experimentation. If you're going to pan something that someone has written, it may be wise to do more than "skip much and skim a little."
Quote:I got as far as the first sentence and already started hating it. The quoted sentence while immediately throwing a challege out in the open (with a boast) looks like it heralds something that only a *ahem* "UB3R l337 D00D LOLOL!!!111" (If you'll pardon my AOLish) could appreciate.
It's funny that you hated the first sentence, because so did I when I wrote it. The first paragraph was something I wrote as a placeholder until I came up with something better. It's something I'll definitely work on before final publication. If you're wondering, though, the idea of the first sentence was to attract the average bnetter who wants to build powerful characters and yet doesn't have the time to do magic finding runs to get l33t equipment. I wanted to emphasize right off the bat that enchantresses aren't grossly underpowered characters like the characters whose adventures I've written up previously. They're viable on their own and very powerful in a party. I'll see what I can do to rework the first paragraph.
Quote:And what's with all the entries on non-Enchant attack types? Once a Sorceress devotes half her power to Frozen Orb or Inferno or whatever other attack she's lost her claim to the name of Enchantress IMO, simply because half the time she won't even be using Enchant!
This is the part of your discussion where I get concerned that you might not have read the guide but instead just glanced at the guide's titles and headings. Inferno, FO, Firewall, Hydra, and Meteor were only briefly mentioned as variations that people might like to try while 95% of the guide was spent discussing builds, tactics, equipment, and mercenaries for ranged and/or melee enchantresses. Whether you consider someone who casts a spell as a suplemental attack an "enchantress" or not is purely a matter of semantics. In the guide, I call any character who spends 62 points to fully power up Enchant and uses that Enchant to power herself and her party up an enchantress. Perhaps your definition of a player who never uses any suplemental spell (only powers up a cold armor, for example) would be best described by the more restrictive term "fighter mage" or "fighter enchantress."
Quote:Wonderful. Reading a 'guide' that gives little clue as to what mods are useful and why, prefering instead to list specific names to hunt for.
Couched in your attacking tone is a reasonable suggestion. I got carried away by D2 terms I'm so familiar with and didn't translate them into ordinary English for the benefit of the newer players I'd like to reach. Thanks for the suggestion, and I'll change it to something like "Incidentally, you can buy a 3-socket Tower Shield with +20% block from the Act 1 hell shops and place three perfect diamonds in it" or something like that. I would have appreciated your suggestion more, however, if you had been less antagonistic when discussing it.
Quote:Ok try this. Here's a guide that seeks to educate. Instead it ventures a few names and gives vague reasons why said names might be handy. Does this educate? Not in my opinion. Personally any guide worth it's mettle that mentions anything about items will focus on attributes first and . . .
It's interesting that you'd say that, and again I'm forced to wonder if you've actually read the guide, since for all the items, I describe in detail the important mods on the item for the enchantress. On reflection, I do see that even though I mention exploding arrows and bolts in the paragraphs above the discussion of specific bows, it'd probably be good to mention that all of the bows in the list have exploding arrows or bolts. Perhaps I could rework the paragraphs describing the weapons to emphasize their mods a little more. I'll look into it.
Quote:. . . perhaps not even bother to name items that can easily be looked up on AS.
I heartily disagree with this suggestion, however, as most players don't spend as much time surfing through the AS as much as we do, only know about the uber l33t items that they must have, and don't know about the other quite useful items that people often discard. I've had literally dozens of conversations with bneters in regular games and in trading games who have never even heard of a Demon Machine much less what it does, despite it's being the most powerful weapon a ranged enchantress can equip herself with. I also want to reach out to those people who don't have good equipment and say, "Hey! You can use that Raven Claw that people always throw away and make a nice weapon out of it!" You'll notice that I only mentioned very common items that most people can get their hands on. In fact, not one of the items I mentioned was an elite item. I want to show people that they can make a viable enchantress without having all of the best equipment available. (Well, OK, I mentioned Warshrike and Gimmershred which are elite throwing weapons, but I only included them because it was the only way to shut up a couple of AB readers who insisted I mention them in the Thrower Enchantress section).
Once again, I'd like to thank you for your comments and suggestions. I think they'll help improve the guide significantly. However, I would appreciate it if you would be more constructive with your criticism in the future and withhold your more scathing remarks. It takes a lot more than you may realize to write these kinds of things. This guide is the product of hours of work and months of playtesting and experimentation. If you're going to pan something that someone has written, it may be wise to do more than "skip much and skim a little."