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What's Your Definition Of Combatant Levels?
Traelor
Columbia, SC
I was speaking with someone new to Achaean combat recently and she asked me how I rated myself. I said that I was a mid-level combatant because I understand my class very well and I can beat the people I'm supposed to beat, but I don't have the overall Achaean combat knowledge to beat nearly anyone.
She asked me if that was what constituted being a mid-level combatant. I told her that's what it meant to me but that it was different for everyone.
So, Achaean combatants, what is your definition of low/med/high level combatants? Here's mine:
Low: Usually has trouble understanding why they lost a fight. Doesn't use their class skills effectively in normal melee. Doesn't know when to run or why. No concept of timing for things like rebounding/herb balance.
Mid: Understands why they lose fights but doesn't always have a counter for it. Uses their class skills effectively but may not have advanced strategies for doing so. Runs at the appropriate times but may have trouble with people who run from them. Is able to track things like rebounding/herb balance and use it to their advantage. Able to anticipate opponent's strategies on the fly but isn't always able to overcome.
High: Always knows why they lost a fight and is able to devise a counter for it. Uses their class skills differently against different people to maximize advantages. Runs strategically to set up their opponent for a kill. Takes advantage of things like rebounding/herb balance to maximize effectiveness. Recognizes changes in strategy mid-fight and can adjust.
NOTE: This is not a thread for saying "Soandso is a lowbie fighter trollolol." No need to call anyone out in a negative way. However, if you'd like to say nice things about people, go right ahead.
Comments
Don't you need to take into account their experience level? I can be low-level, <20, and still know why I lost a fight, am able to adjust for it, and I can manage strategies in mid-fight which would make me a High level combatant (for my experience level).
Sure, that's why I asked the question. I'm interested in everyone's opinions.
I think your metric is reasonable. I consider low-tier fighters to be those that don't yet understand combat mechanics or their own class very well, and don't usually win fights. Mid-tier are the ones who have come to understand their own class well enough to get kills, but aren't very flexible and don't yet understand other classes very well, which is why they're still killed often. High-tier fighters understand their own class well and can adapt quickly, and understand most other classes well which is what makes them difficult to kill.
I also use a "top-tier" classification for the big names, the celebrities, the Mark crowd. I don't have any defined prerequisites for top-tier, but everyone who is honestly high-tier will usually agree on who is or isn't top-tier.
I would say the mark of a mid-tier fighter is being able to kill a person who's moderately capable of defending him/herself one-on-one within, say, ten to fifteen minutes, at the most. Group pk is simple enough to pick up that you can be pretty aces at it without being a good fighter yourself, and getting around defences/escape plans is really where knowledge kicks in. It's much more sensible, I feel, to measure a person's proficiency by what they can do to an enemy, than what they can avoid having done to them (although, of course, in order to kill a person one-on-one in ten to fifteen minutes, you also need to be able to avoid being killed one-on-one in ten to fifteen minutes).
High I'd classify as anyone who either has the investment or skill to do things that are unavoidable, or nearly so; these people are, of course, pretty rare.
Not really defining it extensively right now, but I break down the tiers even more:
Low tier/Novice/Midbie - Die to easy, obvious strategies. Don't know what they're doing. Don't fight. Anyone not decent belongs here.
Low-Mid Tier - Knows how to execute a kill combo, sucks at doing it, or parrots combos taught to them by someone else. Kind of person you'd see as monk doing sdk/ucp/ucp in groups.
Mid Tier - Average fighter, pulls off their class combo. Can't really improvise. A mid tier fight would look like two people, let's say a knight and a monk, just disembowel/bbt comboing over and over with double leg break. Untargeted dsls, etc.
High-Mid Tier - Average fighter from above with arties, or someone that can slightly improvise strategies and adapt their defense.
Low-High Tier - Begins to use intelligent defensive strategies, knows when they are prepped and how to counter it. Can execute decently improvised offensive strategies, normally has arties to back them up.
High Tier - Damn good, can use strategies that you will rarely ever see for that class. Smart offense, smart defense. Akia/Jarrel. Doesn't necessarily need arties, can fight damn well without. Starts to use mind games to execute combos, and knows when to do things based off of enemy attacks.
Top Tier- Tanris/Tirac (infernal, not sure about BM haven't seen him fight)/Mizik (in a few certain classes). Will punish mistakes hard.
The last two blend together a bit, and so does high-mid tier and low-high tier. There's a lot of fighters in between high-mid and low-high there days, mainly due to arties bumping them up a tier or sometimes even two (not going to mention who, but you can probably name a few). You can get defeated by someone a tier below often if their class kind of rock-paper-scissors wrecks yours. People are normally one tier below what they expect to be.
I'm midbie cuz I get one-shotted like a scrub.
Can we get a "Hypothetical combatant" tier?
I'm having an existential crisis.
it's ok you automatically go to novice tier
it's so subjective, considering the rock paper scissors monk style of achaean combat, along with how easy it is to just code the offenses of certain classes, and also how easy it is for someone to get destroyed from a simple mistake.
The best way to categorize people from an IC perspective is just by how often they get kills I guess. OOCly it's how good they are at problem solving and application, and coding/acquiring code.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Into which category do the "really want to get better, but get lolstomped every time" people go?
Silver V
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Pretty much nailed it, I think.
I don't like the use of "combat tiers", because 90% of the time, that sort of classification is only used to belittle people, or to complain about various levels of group combat unfairness.
In the latter case, the more appropriate term would be "combat tears" anyways.
→My Mudlet Scripts
Iocun definitely novice tier, with a comment like that.
There's no denying that. All the criteria in @Vaehl's post for novice tier apply to me at least some of the time.
→My Mudlet Scripts
Vaehl forgot Failtier. It's where I sit consistently.
Eat like a caveman, train like a beast. Champions are not born, they are made.
GDI! You went THAT low? Oh ffs! lol. Damn. We'll get ya next time!
Yeah, but what's your power level? Also rated from 1 to 7, your POW, AGI, REA (that's reaction), INT (intuition), STM, LUK, and CHA?
Jovolo-tier: It's like Mizik-tier but only on paper. Has never been validated and never will be. (See: Area-51)
Everyone knows Akia, Mizik, Tanris, Tirac and myself were only about a few tricks, in this day of advanced curing systems they would just be middling combatants.
Which is why we need trusted voices such as yourself to help keep things balanced. People like myself and Jinsun are only seen as noobs barking up trees and have no way of affecting change. The advancement of curing systems (including the addition of server-side curing - as well as automated offense systems) has lowered the standards and turned Low-Mid Tier artiewhores into perceived-High-Tier combatants. I don't see the current batch of ACC people doing much about this any time soon because most of them stopped actually fighting 5+ years ago.
You guys were terrifying because you fought so well together as a unit, you were quick thinking, and it seemed like you always had an answer for everything we tried.
I think the only two I ever fought 1v1 were Mizik and Tirac. Tirac absolutely mopped the floor with me and I don't think any amount of curing systems would have saved me. I killed @Mizik, though, cause he's a scrub.
This is exactly what happens yes
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Xith Tier - ervery tier at same time #highfive
Once Absolwned, always Absolwned.
A lot of people now live off past reputations and people bigging them up for that reputation. Not saying they wouldn't still be top tier if they fought, just they are normally very vocal and quick to shoot down other combatants and remain physically inactive.
I can't really think of anyone in this category. Who are you talking about?
I think he was talking about himself actually. He's trying to say he doesn't lift, bro.
Three tiers is a bit reductive.
There's non-combatants who literally don't have curing systems and won't fight anything that applies voyria or paralysis.
There's non-combatants who have curing systems and can TUMBLE W if they actually get attacked, which is something.
There's players who are serious about combat but don't have anything trans'd yet so they're kind of useless but less so than the previous category.
There's players who are actually Trans something or tri-trans'd but are still pretty bad at fighting (me).
There's players who are tri-trans and competent at fighting but don't have arties and won't ever be in the top ten or twenty list of strongest combatants.
And then there's Santar.