My Exciting Banning Extravaganza:
To tell this story of mystery and intrigue I must start far before the banning itself. Now on GW melees are buffed to the max 666 xxx hardcore! A melee wielding a culler can take off 1/3rd of a 20k pkp / raid-geared caster's hitpoints in a single round. Yes, that means a meager three rounds of combat mean a caster's death. A culler can double for 400~. A Lavabolt at level 50 with 25% casting bonus does a maximum of 650~ damage PvP to give you an idea. OK, now that I explained how melee/casting damage is mitigated PvP it is easy to see that casters need some sort of means PvP to be able to compete as they cannot simply go toe to toe with a melee, a la EQLive (duh).
Levitate was the primary means of a caster's defense. Using spires, rooftops, etc, anywhere that would force a melee to actually have to use skill/lev to catch them -- it really forced a race against time for both the melee and the caster. The caster has x amount of time to kill the melee, if the timer runs out, the caster is screwed.
In GW3.0 Image/devn00b decided that levitate was imbalanced since pure melees could not reach the caster. OK, that's cool, you could still cast from anywhere a full sized ogre warrior could reach. Just couldn't use spires, roofs, through-wall-casting, etc -- anything that involved either a place a melee could not reach or a melee could not physically see you.
I was in North Karana clearing guards when a ranger, Nopheer, ported down. I believe it was Nopheer at least. Anyways, he and I were PvPing. He ported down on me, I got a nuke off, got my pet on him and then he was on me. I ran around to the side of the spire (the north-easternmost spire on the map) and he lost his site of me. I then ran up a tiny bit -- barely over ogre's head height -- where a melee could reach me (I was NOT levitated myself). I started casting from the spire and then Nopheer saw me, he ran up and started meleeing me. I channeled the nuke and killed him. Then I gated, the end...or is it?
Image banned me, on evidence provided by devn00b -- a screenshot. devn00b did not show up in zone, and the only screenshot I ever saw was from Nopheer (a no-talent ranger that most everyone viewed as an easy PvP victim), but regardless I was banned. The rules stated that anywhere a melee could reach a caster could cast from, so long as the melee could reach it without levitate.
The GM's (Image/devn00b) argument was that I was banned because an Ogre Warrior could not reach the top of the spires, or even get on the spires. I was banned, end of story!
Or was it?
Flawless logic...change the rules as you go along. Except for when the rule you invent still doesn't work. My pal, Method, made an Ogre Warrior and...guess what...he could reach the top of the Spires without levitate in North Karana. Well holy crap, I was banned for going somewhere anyone can go easily.
I was unbanned and given a verbal warning -- if it ever happened again I was going to be banned.
More stories next time.
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