I always play troll, I like the regen, and stun has never been an issue. Stun is negligible imo and a minor inconvenience at best early game. It adds flavor. Also, I prefer human Bertox necros from Qeynos to Iksar.
I always play an Ogre until pop then race change to Gnome. Why? Because of the high strength for smithing, after pop racials are irrelevant imo.
While FSI is stronger than any other racial... it literally doesnt matter. A mediocre ogre warrior vs a good [any other race] warrior... the good warrior is still going to be better.
Originally a variety of traits were crafted to offset min/maxing. IIRC Rogues and Warriors got a bonus for XP with SK's getting a penalty for example. Over time most meaningful penalties and bonuses were removed from the game. Some things disappear in relevance all on their own. Iksar AC bonus is apparent on a naked low level Iksar but the difference can't be parsed once you get levels, AA's and gear Except the Ogre frontal melee stun immunity. I suspect that the devs, who can see numbers that we can't, don't really see it as any sort of bonus but it does hang on as something some player believe is absolutely essential
So you don't actually play then? There's only one Ogre warrior in the top 10 on Magelo and that's at #5. The 3 flavors of elves who can be warrior are all there. In fairness to Ogre's you get to #10 before you find an Iksar, the rest are Barbarians or Human
Anecdotally, some of the best Warriors I've played with have been Iksar. Not much of a coincidence considering it's the gigachad race.
Make a warrior only lvl 50 tome that grants stun immunity. Make it cost 2-3kr worth of classic era plat. This way you can play the race you want for the first year, and you still have to deal with the BS leveling up. And the high cost gives incentive to just roll ogre from the start
For what? Lack of a big belly? Mine's more barrel than six pack Lack of height? I'm 6 foot 2, taller than most people I meet I could sure use some RL stun immunity though
Actually I don't know if many remember this but the reason why the Iksar got the AC bonus was because originally they couldn't wear plate armor. As someone who played an Iksar SK during Kunark, that limitation sucked horribly. None of the signature SK armor was wearable as an Iksar SK.
and more importantly, Iksars Looked ugly with Plate armor! Especially back in the era of EQ when there was no armor dye, and what you wore, was quite the fashion statement of both your good taste in clothing, and your level of armor suit completion.
Remember when SKs we're shun for the xp drain on a group... XP has been largely flattened, most racials are not game breaking though frontal stun immunity is not insignificant; however it is also not game breaking. Bring back all the racial penalties imo ... I'm an old school EQ player and would still go Ogre or DE SK ... The start of this thread is proof we have not killed all the good idea fairies yet ...