My off the wall ToE nerf idea (in General)

I'm sure I'm going to get shot up for this, and flamed to crisps, but what the hey? I've just got to say, I think ToE's are overpowered. Plain and simple. Massive damage reduction and no drawbacks aside from the regular tattoo restrictions.

In CB1 days, in order to have massive damage reduction, you were required to make it a focus of your team. You had to buy all the equipment, upgrade all the equipment, and adjust your strategy accordingly. This meant a lot of time and effort. Also, massive penalties were enabled on magic for these heavy tank gear, so that a single mage couldn't take off with high NW and high AC.

Now, forget all that and get a ToE. I'm not sure of the exact amount, but it can block a large amount of damage. With no penalties, this means the single mages of CB1 that never were able to get tough enough to take over are now like super man. Because they can ignore NW and focus on buying BA, and only have to really split their XP between HP and their DD spell, they can leave a tank that must split its stats between HP/ST/DX/AMF in the dust. And forget all those poor 4 minion teams with the experience going say 8 ways. And since the tank - mage war has always been NW vs exp, the exp factor here is overly strong since they have the damage reduction of a high NW defensive tank for free. So clearly, I think there's a problem.

As for solutions, I can only see a few. I'm sure you have a few even better ones in mind Jon. But I'll humor myself and list my humble ideas.

1. A weapon or DD spell. Just do like the CoBF did for large melee attackers, make a weapon that say has low base damage but ignores the damage reduction of a ToE or AC. Or even have it do extra. Make the decision to go uber tough have one downfall this way.

2. Add a ToE pitfall. Since the whole point of a ToE is damage reduction, it wouldn't make sense to simply take that away or lower it. Instead, how about having the minion equipped only deal a percent of how much they would have done. IE: if a ToE blocks 50%, have the ToE minion only deal 75% of regular damage then. Just seemed like a good idea to me.

I guess that's all I have. Thanks for reading my opinions. Flame away.

While I agree ToEs are overpowered now, I don't think that will be the case down the road. Eventually, CB boils down to who has the better equipment and who can stay on top of their stats decently. If you've got an ELB at x100 +100 and a MH at x100 +100, how is a ToE even going to come close to negating that damage? I whole-heartedly think ToEs will get a major nerf when May rolls around, but I'm not sure that said nerf is going to be "fair" two months afterwards.

Honestly, I'd just drop the reduction from 75% to as low as 60%.

You make a good point about ToE's in the long run BrandonLP, but I'm not so sure that is going to be correct. In CB1, AC always was important, if not more so, at higher levels. I just reached 1.1 mill PR, and AC is critical for my tank to survive. The damage reduction is highly noticable on everything.

Even in CB2 it will be important way down the line. If someone gets an ELB to x100 +100, and say it does 500k a hit a ToE blocking say 70% would mean you would take 350k. While still a lot, it's some major damage reduction. And with only training two stats, a single mage is GUARANTEED to have a TON of HP. By the time we have weapons that size, we might have single mages with a million HP. Plus, a ToE can nearly wipe out GA damage and AMF damage.

But that might actually keep them at pace with tanks. The thing I would just hate to see happen is mages practically become worthless at higher PRs due to the NW pumping of tank items making tanks exponentially better. While it's easier to run a mage monetarily speaking, I don't want that to mean that mages are only good to a certain point.

I'm just not sure about what you're saying. I suppose they do have to worry about keeping pace with tanks. But for right now they have the heavy toughness of tanks (for free) and have better exp focus so they grow much faster, and have what would be the equivalent of an extremely high NW if they used armor instead of ToE. It really does look to me like the experience vs NW, or mage vs tank, fight is leaning heavily in favor of exp and the mage at the moment

At this momment.

Right now, there is so little money in the game compared to how much their was in CB1 it isn't even funny. I don't think there's enough cash flow in the game TO make I Win. Let alone all the rest of Spid's garb.

But, everyday more and more gets added. And as that happens, NW will slowly win over.

Yeah, NW is slowly growing, I'll grant that. But so is exp. And everyone and all their mages are growing nonstop in exp. Is everyone growing in NW? Hardly. The uber high NW teams are really the exeption, not the rule. Yet at the rate we see mages becoming more and more poweful, with their ToE's especially, we see only a few scattered tanks trying to keep up.

I guess all I'm saying is that it's pretty obvious mages are in the dominant position as is. And at least to me, it looks like they're staying that way, at least until some changes take place.

Instead of using a ToE, a mage could spend money on a CoI and MCM, and avoid getting the penalty on rewards due to the added tattoo experience.

Which is more powerful: a single mage with a ToE, or a single mage without a ToE, the same PR (not MPR) and a CoI and MCM?
Or, even more extreme, a single mage with CoI and adam? True, the adam would give a hefty malus on magic, but the lower PR (compared to a tattoed char) and extra AC might be worth it.
Another question: how much AC would it take to get a 75% damage reduction? How much would it cost to pump a MCM (or and adam) and a CoI to that level?
My point is that for char with enough money, a ToE could be weaker than armor.
The question, of course, is how much is "enough money".
Moreover, is true that the tattoo is (nearly) free, while the armor is not, but a mage does not have many places where to spend his money (except possibly a pair of DB).

The weapon idea is not so good: it would simply create a handful of chars (those that can afford to buy and upgrade this weapon), that would benefit from it, without really putting a dent on mages. Is is like saying that tanks are under-powered only because we have ToBF around: probably they are under-powered, but not because of the cloak.
On the other hand, I like the DD spell idea, especially if it were to ignore not only endurance, but also AMF.

A spell that ignores AMF? You're going to have to be very crafty about how you create a spell that does that and isn't overpowered.

Half the damage of a FB, maybe? And perhaps the "splash" damage in melee, like FB?
After all, a single mage with a ToE and a large CoC nearly ignores the AMF already.

To get approx 80% damage reduction from ac you need 400 ac. That would require a lot of cash to reach.

We are all forgetting the change Jon has foretold.

If he links NW to PR then TOE mages become far more powerful. Why?

Right now the only way a tank can defeat a TOE mage is via NW, high NW. So if Jon links NW to PR, then the tanks rewards go down and the mages goes up. Its all PR vs score. If you have a high PR your rewards will be less. So the mage gets better rewards and catches up eventually to the tank in PR. So then the tank need more NW to defeat the mage, increasing his PR, decreasing his rewards. A vicious cycle occurs.

For instance, take Black Belt Jones. 80k less PR with 1/6 the NW can defeat me about 1/8th the time and draw another 1/4 times. FOr me to defeat him, I will need a lot more NW. Not really effective if the increase in the NW will shoot my PR up. Then I will get less rewards letting BBJ catch up.

For one thing you can't compare endurance and AC where mages are concerned as endurance blocks amf backlash and AC doesn't. The problem would seem to be to balance the ToE for use with single mages (where it seems overpowered) but keep it usable for other teams.

Yes, Ranger. That is why I believe Jon is going to make a far less simplistic change than that.

And I don't think the ToE's 75% cap should be reduced. Just change the curve on the way up to that cap so that only a huge ToE could reach that cap. If someone has a ToE that is huge compares to the damage being done to them, then I think they should be allowed a 75% reduction. But make it so that for more "even" fighting the reduction is more like 50-60% Heck, maybe that is the way it is now, and my team just hits soft.

He may make it so the ToE zero's all spells out on the minion that is wearing it. That would eliminate ToE mages.

A better approach to nerfing existing items, is introducing new tattoos and new items that will allow for competitive strategies. Let's make this place more diverse, not just the same strategies...just weaker.

Hehehe, what if the ToE simply reduced a minions available HP while it was equipped, I know it sounds extreme, but it would balance out 1 minion strats like mages that are completely dominating due to focusing on HP and DD

Or alternatively, to get the full damage reduction by a ToE maybe you need to have a percentage of the ToE's experience trained into ST or DX. That alone would make the ToE not beneficial to single mages.

I personally believe that making a Single Mage that dominates CB is ridiculous, and I don't think that strategy should get any breaks whatsoever.

A lot of ToE posts over the weekend..

I see two main points here.

1) ToE's in the long run. How will they compare versus NW?

2) Tanks damage versus Mages.


With the first point, i think it bears mentioning that NW increases (all apart from the CBF) aren't linear, and get harder to increase as NW increases. Unless the xp gain of a ToE follows a similar trend (which I'm not sure it does. It might be linear) ToE s will always have the potential to beat NW damage.

With the second, as stated in another post, DD damage is linear, while Tank NW isn't. At the moment, with little NW in the game, DD dmage far out strips NW damage. People claim this will change as more money is pumped into the game. But will it? It will get consitantly harder and harder to up NW based dmage, while DD (and that damn CBF again..) remain on a linear increase. Even if NW damage does start to increase past linear damage (somehow? Some massive cash influx.. A concerted effort by a group of people to comine individual NW into a single item..) given enough time, DD/CBF damage will always keep the upper hand.

Excellent breakdown, Dr. Loser. Something to add to your discussion of point #2 beyond just damage; I think it's all the more salient because mage damage dealt in a single shot is greatly preferable to physical damage done in multiple blows. The damage reduced by ToE's and the amount of reciprocal damage GA returns are both much less when dealing with fewer powerful blows versus several weaker ones.

why not just give ToE a magic pen?

What about this idea?

Instead of the TOE reducing damage, it adds HP. To make it equal to a TOA, it should add 60 hp for every 50 levels. That would let it add the same amount of stats as the TOA adds.

That is a great idea ranger.

That is a GREAT modification. It'd make it so it's not a tattoo that is only *really* effective on a single minion. As it is, ToE when at max effectiveness is the equivalent of multiplying the minions HP by 4, which as we can see, is an unbelievable boost when placed on a single mage.

Adding .6 HP/level would make the tattoo far more useful to multi-minion teams, and it would still be good, just not AS good as we see it now.

I think you misunderstood my post. The TOE would only work for the minion using it. It would add 1.2 hp per level of tattoo.

Another way would be for it to cast an AS spell but thats not what I suggested.

What about this idea?

Instead of the TOE reducing damage, it adds HP. To make it equal to a TOA, it should add 60 hp for every 50 levels. That would let it add the same amount of stats as the TOA adds.

-So...wouldn't it be easier to say the ToE shouldn't exist?

Actually, I read the number wrong, but I wasn't saying it would hit multiple minions.

My multi-minion part was because ToE right now is almost useless on a multiple minion team. It's effectiveness is cut by the HP on the minion. What's it matter if you block 75% of damage, when your HP is mediocre compared to a single minion character.

How about we all wait for May to come and see how jon nerfs the ToE, then we can give our comments :).

A worry is that if ToE s are nerfed too much and CBF s are left unchanged, Melee has then no way to deal with them (apart from equipping a CBF, which then makes it a pre requisit for any tank).

CBF s spit out more damage than melee, at a cheaper cost, with no xp needed and has no counter (unlike EC).

Mags made a great point I missed.

One of the equaling factors between MAgic/Physical damage is that Magic damage, While generally higher than physical hits only once a round. Physical damage while less per hit than magic damage, has the chance to hit more than once per round.

But ToE s (damage reduction in general) work better versus smaller damage/more hits, than a single large amount. Until the 75% cap is reached, then it's moot anyway.

So even if the way ToE s equate thier damage reduction is amended, they will always be better at reducing physical damage than magic.

I predict Jon will do these on May 1st:

1. Make ToE negates all DD.
2. Make tattoo artist charge 30% exp for reink.

PWN to all SMTOE

Arorr,

No way will Jon make any tattoo cancel spells out.

He likely will either do nothing and let the storm ride itself out, or decrease the percentage or amount of damage a TOE reduces.

About the Tattoo Artist, now there is a 5% penality, i can see a penalty of up to 25%.

TaT artist should take 25% of exp and less money.

On the ToE adding Hp that will be even worse that actual ToE as i could be tag with GA do be even more powerful that actual ToE

I agree with the damage analysis.

Given a char with 50% AMF and 50% tank skills plus tattoo
vs.
a char with 75% DD and 25% plus ToE

the mage wins every time, even though the tank has the ideal defense vs the mage. Why? Because DD spells deal out too much bang for the buck.

Possible solutions in my order of preference:
1) Lower DD damage or make it non-linear
2) Increase the effectiveness of AMF
3) Have the ToE not protect against AMF damage

AMF is already nearly too powerful: here are the percentage of XP trained in EO spells among the top 5% (I choose the top 5%, but the other groups are not that different):

Antimagic Field 15.4%
Dispel Magic 3.5%
Ethereal Chains 1.7%

A further empowerment of AMF would make it a must, and DM would be consigned to oblivion.

A simple yet effective way of nerfing the ToE would be to make it negate EO spells.
The advantage would be double: on the one hand, single ToE mages would become very sensitive to base decay; on the other hand, decay would become a little more popular.