So I've lost the thread where we were talking about fixing them, but it drove me to try them out.

Relevant skills:
390s TM
360s ME
340s armor
330s shield/evasion/multi
290s hiding
270s stalking

Less relevant:
270s brawling
230s longbow

I actually found them very nice -- the changes people are talking about seem to me to be largely simple impatience with them. They locked me quite nicely in all pertinent defenses and armors, though yes I had to wait for 3 of them and dance for awhile. They're not gryphons, this is true.

What I found good about them:
-Could train all three weapons I have listed above.. from 230s up through 360s, all locking pretty easily (I can do this in gryphons as well, but I have a feeling seords will actually teach weapons a little bit higher than gryphons overall)
-Their eyes aren't very good -- was hiding at melee with 3 of them on me. Felt this was the largest advantage over gryphons. I'd say you need maybe 330 hide/stalk to do it without any kind of hiding help (I do use KW). Note: I could hide at missile consistently without cursing them.
-Every skin I managed to get (230s skinning) was worth between 850 and 1200.. pretty nice. Never got any extremely good ones, but would guess they cap around 1950-2000 value.
-If you don't like swarms, this isn't a bad place for you. They're swarmy enough to keep you moving, but slow enough that you can kill a few off and take a break when you need it.

Notes:
-I did have clerical buffs up, most notably Benediction, MaPP, & CoE the whole time. Didn't feel like I had to worry that much about keeping the others up
-They never hit me with LB -- I imagine one can blame the CoE for this
-I do tend to step up the creature ladder fairly early because of clerical buffs and curses.. so they might be worse in the range that they supposedly actually teach in than they are in my range

Overall (aka tl;dr):
I'd tend to use these guys for stealth, ranged, and TM training over anything else (They are POACHable). Probably make sure you have some sort of protection against LB. In short, I'd point rangers, thieves, moonies, and [stealthy and/or ranged using] clerics/warmies here.


Segmere
Shadow Priest, Baron's Own Militia

"The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep." ~WC Fields

What's it take to dodge the LB straight ranks?


Vote DR as TOP MUD: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-cemm.html

Thanks Segmere....I actually thought they were a more difficult critter (like 500s) obviously mistaken.

>>The hit at 338 straight evasion wasn't that bad (minor twitching, light neck bleeder inside and out).

Yeah but a couple of those and yer hunt is done... :/


Vote DR as TOP MUD: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-cemm.html

I dodged most of the attacks also, until I got blasted. After that my nerves were so shot that I had to go get healed.

>500 evasion, 70 reflex, light hindrance, no burden, no wounds.

~Hunter Hanryu
http://drplat.com/CombatEquipmentCompendium.xls
Tolle says, "Yup yup, 'bout time. What the heck took you so long?"