Shenanigans! Can we officially call it? (in General)

A Cloak of Balrog Flame [0] (+91) worth $9,111,238 owned by DAWG (Magnus)
A Cloak of Balrog Flame [0] (+91) worth $9,111,238 owned by DAWG (Magnus)

Am I the only person that thinks that is just silly? They both do more damage than any weapon in CB2 (200K ish).

I'm thinking the Upgrades on the CoBF need to go back to being non-linear... I suspect i'm not the only one to feel this way. (I could also have a rant about USD, but beating one dead horse per thread is my max).

Was talking about these cloaks yesterday - it's madness I tell you, madness! Fairplay to DAWG if he's got the resources to do it.

But it is ridiculous that the largest most powerful weapons in the game are actually cloaks. Either the damage/upgrade path needs to be changed or a new item that counteracts them in some way needs to be introduced. Although you could argue that the ideal counter already exists - CoC?

I wouldn't know, his USD purchased ToF kills me before my _Massive_ CoC is used. I think the best counter in this case is a big old bow or a big old ToS... but that's not the point of this thread at the moment, its just for whining about CoBF damage :)

And anyway the Best general counter for a CoBF is another CoBF.. duh.

Do you have that thing envy again? DAWG spent a lot of USD $$$ to make them. Just shut up. If you refer, you can buy 4 ELB, up them with x100+100 and shot DAWG chars to oblivion. But then again, you aren't forking cash out like DAWG. Why don't you check his transfer and see how much cash he spent so far.

DAWG = cash cown with too much cash on his hands

It's a bit of a beat em or join em situation at the moment isn't it.

And they won't stay that at that level for long - doesn't take long to make 100k around here does it? If they're not changed we're going to be looking at cloaks in the +200's before too long.

I've got nothing against them as an item, I had two quite large CoBF's in CB1. It was quite fun just to sink money into them and watch people burn. But that was a mage team. I'm tank at the moment and I'm not looking forward to getting higher up where all the cloaks are......

In all fairness, the CoC SMToE is hit harder by the ToE change then a FB SMToE.

With almost 100k PR less i was astonished to have scored some draws versus Black Belt Jones. This did not happen before :-O

"Hey Farva. Whats the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy *stuff* on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?"

Lol! Now, pistol-whipping - there's a fighting skill that we could do with in CB

Actually I have not needed my cobf for the past day and am renting the useless item.

A big elb wins all the time.

Counter to ELB: 3 20 hp minions
Counter to MM/CoC: MgS + AMF
Counter to All of Melee and FB: CBF
Counter to CBF: CBF

All can be obtained on a single team...

Once I have paid of my loan, I'm planning on increasing my CBF by 1 point daily.

Anyone want to think what sort of damage I'll be doing to all the CBF less melee suckers in 6 months time?

I can't believe he doesn't round them out to an even +100 each. What a cheap skate!

*smile*

Jon is all about balance, especially in CB2. He's taking his lessons learned from CB1, where big tanks ruled the day, and trying to stop that from happening again.

On one hand, I do find it bizzare that a cloak is the best "weapon" in the game right now.

On the other hand, lets say Dawg bought those cloaks for $3M each, and pumped the $9M into them. That's 24,000,000. What would an elbow be like if it had $24,000,000 into it?

The $USD spent on those 2 items alone approaches what? $500.00? But, as long as $USD is allowed (good luck stopping it), you will always have some people whose strategy will be better than the next guy due solely to the $USD he spent. That's life.
(Point #21 on why NW should be factored into PR).

I can beat Magnus. All I have to do is unequip my sword. To (mis)quote a famous PR person of a couple of years ago: "His forces impale themselves on the walls of my AMF." Then my hxbow finishes off the stragglers. His tattoo has so few hitpoints it doesn't even make it out of ranged.

So it's entirely possible to beat this particularly unbalanced strategy. I don't think any changes need to be made just because of this one character.

Don't misunderstand me, I could easily beat him had i not been slacking on my AMF during the ToE Glory days, his strategy is actually pretty awful... my gripe is not with this character, its more with the fact that his cloaks do more damage than my CoC and Gyaxx's Bow, and their damage upgrade is linear so it will only proceed to get worse.

And Todd, imagine if this guy was smart enough to have put all of that onto one CoBF? 400K damage easy. And if he was bright enough to couple that with AC and maybe even EC, Melee tanks would all be doomed.

CBF less Melee tanks would all be doomed.

Even a base CBF stops all other CBF splash damage (at least I think this is correct.. Maye it works like the FB absorption?).

I don't mind there being a counter to Melee tanks. I don't mind there being a counter to FB.

But I do think that combining both into 1 item, that is in itself its only counter is unbalanced. The linear cost is just the icing on the cake.

If CBFs are to be the counter to melee, what's melee the counter to? Where does melee come in the rock, paper, scissors of CB?

GL,

A base CBF does not stop all other CBF splash damage. The effect is based upon CBF vs CBF levels. For instance I have a +56 CBF and vs lower level CBF tanks they take a bunch of damage if they hit me. It is just proportionally less depending on their CBF level.

I have also noticed that if I attack Jochumia who has a CBF also +56 I sometimes do take damage, up to about 20k a round, however sometimes 0.

:)

So it's like the FB absorption then. Still, a CBF is the only item that reduces this damage.

Why doesn't an MgS reduce CBF damage? I consider CBF fire to be at least somewhat magical in nature... Letting an MgS stop some CBF backlash would be a nice addition for tanks in melee.

Go DAWG! haha nice CoBF(s) =P

Do not forget that all other items (except tattoo) do require experience to be useful, and tattoos have a price to be paid in rewards.
A CoBF, instead, requires no experience to be effective, and in a multi-minion team have nearly no counter effect.
You can simply equip it on your mage, and you have a tank killer on top of your normal char: then, you can add single tanks to your normal targets.
Or you can slap it on your tank, and you do not need to train any DX (since tanks will be killed by the cloak, and mage do not require DX to be hit): again, a huge advantage.
Or, of course, you can make a wall minion, to use the full power of the cloak.

You could also start with a 4-minions team with 0 PR and get a draw against most single tanks.

In CB1 the cloak is quite effective, but, due to the rising cost of upgrading it, only up to a certain level: then, it becomes too expensive to upgrade.
Here in CB2, if things remain as they are now, there simply is no future for tanks and ToJ.

No future for ToJ, I agree.

Some tanks can survive -- ones not wearing a tattoo. Those aren't the very interesting ones, though... :\

I really thought I'd make waves by concentrating on pumping a CBF as far as I could take it once an existing debt is paid off. But I've been beaten to it!

"A Cloak of Balrog Flame [0] (+126)"

That costs 12,600,000 CB2 and would take me a little over 4 months to earn and get smithed.

And I don't think +126 will be the end!

Congrats to Dawg, but I'm jealous he beat me to it! Keep going man! ;)

If you don't mind, how much does your cloak do in melee? I couldn't get there to test, your FB took me out in ranged! ;)

Talking about FB, on average the cloak alone would stop approx a level 252K FB, with a max roll stopping around a level 504K.

That's before AMF/AC/Protection/Endurance is taken into account.

Ha. no more cbf

i dont want to be offending but if you get beat up by CoBF it just mean your strat need some major change.

Yeah if you have any Melee weapon and a bow that doesn't take out 3 minions in ranged, you are obviously doing something wrong.

Duke.

Could you face;

A Cloak of Balrog Flame [0] (+133)

In melee?

I'm hoping these rewards will be hammered by the NW change, but if he gets into the Top 10 scores and wedges himself there, it's all over.

To answer Chet question: No future for ToJ.

Very wrong there. ToJ is very effective buffer. High HP/DEX/STR and endurance makes it a tough minion to beat with FB/COC DD or light tank strat. For a 2 or more minion team with a ToJ, my FB/COC spread out so far that combine with AMF, my mages usually kill themselves. CBF is there to counter ToJ.

To answer GL: how do you kill a 120+ CBF in melee?

1. Use range
2. Use DD: COC/MM/Decay

The best tatic vs 120+ CBF = MM/Archery in early rounds and finish with COC.

Arorr, the question was:
Could you face A Cloak of Balrog Flame [0] (+133) in melee?.
"kill it in ranged" or "use magic" do not answer it.

A practical example: EETM team, training AS, AMF, 1/10DX + 6/10HP + 3/10 STR, CoC. A big CoBF (+100 or more), heavy armour and a MH on the tank, ToE on the mage.

I think this team would defeat most of characters that do not use a CoBF. In particular, it will make ToJ completely useless, kill most high PR tanks (unless they are able to kill the tank minion in ranged) and FB mages, and be a decent opponent of single CoC mages.
CoC coupled with DM would prevail, but that strategy is not much good for anything else.

If the CoBF were to counter ToJ only, that would be fine. However, it counters all kind of melee tanks, without any extra cost added to the character (or better, if the new proposed changes come into play, with a cost that is linear with the damage dealt by the cloak).

i think the only thing cobf should be good for is stopping the damage FB does to your own team, and *maybe* dropping some of the damge you take from fb. maybe the damage from the cloak could be dodged? that would make it a little better. to illustrate this, let me use an example from the hit show, Naruto (an anime)

in episode 66-67 (a double show) sasuke and gaara are fighting, when gaara conjures up his "perfect defense" and wraps himself in a total shield of sand. when anyone approaches, spikes shoot out and hit them, impaling if they are accurate enough. fortunately for sasuke, he is fast enough to dodge them, charges up a gigantic hand to hand combat move known as lightning edge, and runs full on towards gaara. right when he gets in range of the defense, the spikes shoot out, but he dodges them until he gets all the way up to the point where he hits and injures gaara.

so my theory? make cobf do static damage and make the +'s the plus to hit..
make the cobf have a plus to hit on them somehow
make evasion able to dodge the cobf (maybe the +'s on your armor total, add up to the evasion stats for countering the cobf...)
for the love of God, make it non-linear to upgrade it. think about ca1, people making 2k a fight...thats 2+'s every ba refresh....

or make bows to more damage in melee...that would be cool, then archers could be a full time class available :D

About Manta EETM strat, my ETM strat will beat you without ever kill your T in range:

E = DM/AS
T = ToA with archery & seekers
M = CoC/MM

Let says my heavy archer takes 3 rounds to kill your M. In melee, my T kills your EE and my M finish off your heavy T, which probably kill my E but can't hit my high Dex T. If my M die before my T, I'll lose or draw. Also my T must equips seeker and has to kill your CoC mage in 4 rounds. With large bow, it isn't that hard since your CoC mage will not have a lot of HP (4 minion, DM>AS).

DM strat isn't a dead strat. Look at my DM/FB/Wall/COC strat and it is very decent.

"or make bows to more damage in melee...that would be cool, then archers could be a full time class available :D"

*Shudder*

At the moment, I have a nagging fear that things are swinging in favour of archers with big ELBs and ToAs. That brings me back to the end days of CB1.

There is no counter to archery. Make it any more powerful and you get your next 'flavour of the non change month' strat.

Ranged was hit heavy in melee for a reason.

It hits first.

The only other thing that hits first is now laughable.

So no one has any way of beating a +100 plus CBF in melee without using a bigger CBF then?

And this isn't seen as an imbalance? Or is it a case of "Dude, he's just got a bigger cloak then you. Suck it up and get your cloak to be bigger than his..."

Just use ranged weapons or DD against a user with cobf. Cobf only retaliates against physical, not to mention only attacks 1 minion once per round. If u want to go lower cobf dmg go pump your gear into AC, or go get DD, either way theres always a counter against this and that. Cobf is just a good thing to fight against physical melee attacks simple as that. You should be lucky that it doesn't retaliate in ranged.

heh, i just recently tried a 4 tank strat, for about 20 minutes, and went up agianst a +60 something cobf...i lost every tank in the first round of melee...thats bad...no other weapon in the game can do that...thats a quadruple 200k hit, or the equivalent of a, what, 900k - 1 mill fireball?

In my humble opinion, any strategy that relies heavily on one item is doomed to fail. And there is no question in my mind that the CBF will be nerfed. When that happens Magnus will come down hard.

I'm being farmed by a new team(aggressor, defender, victor, rounds, time:)

Shield2 (Battle Royale) Brock Samson (Department of Defense) Shield2 4 11:22 AM EDT

I was curious. How? He has 115k PR, 87k MPR, and a 240k score. So, I fought him myself:

Brock Samson burns from the flames surrounding firebrewedbeer (73798)

This is with him having a total NW of only $7m. Consider me & melee beaten, kudos. :D

With CBF, unarm combat is hereby declared DOA.

I think you are too optimistic, mags.
From your words, it would seem that your main problem is that low pr chars with a CoBF can easily defeat your tank (and, for that matter, any melee tank, really).
But that is not the worst part:
the real problem is that soon you will not be able to defeat any char with pr higher than yours, because either it will have a cloak, or be a single toe mage.
And the same holds for all non-archer tanks.
This is the reason why I deem that tanks (except archers) are doomed.

Maybe the announced adjustment (linking NW with PR) will change things a little: since the advantage given by the cloak, albeit huge, is fixed (namely, it does not depend on the experience of the minion wearing it), while the advantage given by most other items (e.g. CoI) increases with the exp trained, there will be a time when using, say, a CoI will be more convenient PR-wise than using a CoBF. Just maybe...

That last point is exactly what I'm placing my hope on, Manta. Linear can be a boon, but it can also be a hinderance... it just depends on the slope you're comparing it to.

We'll soon see. That's one reason I haven't pumped up my CBF past +23, not because I don't have the resources, but because it may be nerfed alot, or deleted from the game, or worst of all, a high CBF may hurt you a lot with a change toward NW factoring into rewards.

High NW is fine in my opinion as long as it's balanced on the character. Having one piece of equipment define a character is doomed to fail ultimately.

Well, that one that blew me to shreds was less than +40, going by metastats, so you may not really need it all that high.