The Quality of Tattoo's and how they affect CB2... (in General)

Well ive been playing for a while and ive noticed that Tattoo's seem to be what makes this game run...i mean, you can have all the best equipment in the game but when someone with a 100K tattoo or better shows up, it seems like your strat goes right down the tube...

im looking fo ideas that could help improve the game, without having to rely on tattoo's... strats are great and i like the abilities you can get, but i think that the tattoo's make them and the equipment a little useless... soon, i predict, people will stop buying the rare equip for their stat boosts, and instead will, for ex, train a one minion party with a ToJ 500K or the like...

what do you guys think?

I think you should check out the character in your own clan named "Brock Samson" who's currently uninked and loving it. :D You can look at my history graph to look what happened when I took my old ToE -- which I found honest-to-goodness in the store many moons ago, before the artist -- off and sold it for good.

Long-term I might run into issues just because the rate at which I can grow my PR is lower than that of everyone else, but that's okay. As long as I can keep my MPR growing fast and score growing fast too, I'll be happy.

Other then being Stubborn I don't see any reason why if your not going with tattoo you don't pick up a Power Shield.

The big plus for you Mags and others not using a tattoo to increase strength and dex is that items that increase those stats will add more and more value to your character as it grows.

i love the strat your using, its very nice but i noticed that almost all of your stats are above 100K, about... that makes you one of the best stratigizer in the game, but not many people can achive that without tats... and again i am very happy to be in a clan with a char like yours...

then again youve also been playing for a lot longer than i have, and im looking for advise for me and others, or even newbs, to overcome the horror that would be Tattoo's...

but thank you for your input, it is appreciated...

I'm definitely not some General Patton of CB. Maybe more like a 50-year-old Bobby Fischer. :D But try thinking of the issues this way.

You can either aim for the best score:PR ratio possible, or the highest rate of PR growth possible.

The first is becoming much more interesting now because tattoos and NW can both count against your PR, but they can increase your score too. What many don't consider is that XP is the same; it counts against your PR, but also increases your score. The trick now is to find the best point in this new triangle weighted between NW, tattoo, and minion PR for your strategy.

For me, high MPR + low NW seems to be the most effective score:PR strategy. I've tried a bajillion of them and that's part of why I'm so poor. :D

Going for the highest PR to crush with brute strength is perfectly legitimate too, and this essentially requires a tattoo, because your maximum PR is a function of your maximum MPR growth (limited by BA), maximum tattoo growth (limited by BA/purchased 'toos), and maximum NW growth (limited by BA/camping/forging/USD$, i.e. not very limited). Cutting one of those out will limit you.

Find your inner triangle point, my man.

myonax...

being stubborn has nothing to do with it... im just trying to make a list of alternatives for other people not as fortunate as you or me... i just want to help out the other players, as well as myself...

remember i am using a good leveled tat, but not many newbs get that opportunity and mor since the mage shield has replaced them... so please keep your crudeness to your self unless your intent is to help others not as fortunate as you...

My response was to mags.

Um, hey, Mags, last I checked NW didn't affect PR. But your point still stands that there's a balance to find. Unfortunately, rares and tattoos are essentially the same thing! With money so hard to come by in this game (a good thing IMO) its pretty difficult for new players to get their foot in the door. I had to save up my winnings for weeks after registration to buy my first rare - a Katana, at that - and that was with a rapidly growing ToJ and 75% new user bonus! At this point my strat is "get as many rares as you can and beef your tattoo as high as you can" which isn't balance at all, it's total excess.

So here's my newbie strategy - play early, play often, and SAVE YOUR MONEY. Registration and fireball farms don't hurt, either. Buy a lesser tattoo and put it on a farm. Build up your cash first; then go for the gold once you can afford it.

"Um, hey, Mags, last I checked NW didn't affect PR."

You didn't check recently enough. Read General thread "the writing on the wall."

pwned.

"pwned."

And the Department of Defense grows in knowledge. Knowledge and really big weapons are power. Beware, o ye lesser departments, weakling judges, and the purely ornamental "legislative" branch.

"You can either aim for the best score:PR ratio possible, or the highest rate of PR growth possible. "

I think that the true and only measure of how good you are doing is how much do you earn (in term of exp and $, minus expenses) for each BA.
This way of measuring thing works well even if you are forging or camping (since you get paid, and so you earn a certain amount of $ for BA), the only problem being that it is difficult to decide which is the right exchange rate between exp and $.

Score:PR ratio is only an indicator (namely, if you have high score, it means that you are fighting people with high score, which in turn should give you more rewards).
However, if you can get farmed by someone whose PR is significantly lower than yours, the score can fluctuate so much, as to become meaningless. Melon, for instance, was an extreme case of this (for the ones that do not know, it was a 4 EC-enchanters chars, with a ToA).
PR growth, on the other hand, is an indirect measure of rewards, but still a better one than score:PR.
The surest way is to simply fight a certain number of battles (say, 100), and see how much you earn.
The problem is that you cannot compare your result with other people (there is no such stat). Maybe we should ask Jonathan to implement it?

csraven, a ToJ as only damage dealer is too weak, due to lack of damage.
ToA or ToE, on the other hand, are pretty popular (and for good reasons).