Fire Familiar Overpowered?? (in General)

Check out this character I just tried fighting because they are somewhat close to my score...
SoulGuardian
You are telling me that a 4 minion team that has an MPR of only 75k and no armor whatsoever that has a Fire Familiar Tattoo equipped should be able to beat a 320K mpr team? If this is the case, the I believe a restriction should be in place that lower level mpr chars should not be able to equip tattoos that make them HUGE practically overnight. If you look at the clan Disappointment Llamas you will see what I mean. HUGE scores, big FF Tats and low MPR. No one wants to fight them because the rewards blow, but they can kill huge players for big gains... /me thinks a change is in order...

I have to post my agreement in this topic. I do think the Fire Familiar is over powered. As I have said a couple of time in a couple of way, the familiar based tattoos should do more to your PR than the non-familiar based tattoos for precisely this reason. Adding a big ToE, ToA, or ToBF to the same group of llamas, would not have the same results.

Add in the fact that some of the largest NW and PR characters in the game HAVE to use seekers just to beat the Fire Familiars and their ilk, I think that goes a long way to showing just how over powered the Fire Familiar is.

Does the tattoo need adjustment or does Fireball need adjustment, that is the question I find difficultly in answering. I think to simply make the PR added from familiar based tattoos in general greater might be an easy way to combat the tattoo over powering. To change the way Fireball behaves could result in a swing too far into under powered.

In the end I think a simply way to combat this over powering is to make the amount of PR a familiar based tattoo adds to your MPR greater.

Fight fire with fire (so to speak). I at least draw (and often win) against that same character, and I've only got 250k MPR and a ToE.

It comes down to specialization - do you want to set up a character that beats mages (and I tend to get owned by ToA teams) or do you want to focus on other stuff? For me that means a 114k AMF on my enchanter, a 213k ToE to absorb damage, and dual FB mages casting 81k and 159k respectively. Since SoulGuardian uses DM, he's toast with any dual mage team.

And Glory - you're likely relying on AS / GA damage too much if his small DM can bring you down. I've weaned myself away from ED (except for a tiny protection).

With a 76K mpr he should not have very big ED or EO spells...

G Max, are these the characters you are speaking of:

Armageddon Score / PR / MPR: 489,793 / 119,345 / 12,714
SoulGuardian Score / PR / MPR: 579,423 / 268,070 / 75,766
The Silver Kiss Score / PR / MPR: 542,964 / 209,618 / 65,246

Take a look at their MPR. Can you imagine how you would feel if you could not beat them? No other tattoo that I know of can be similiarly equipped and have the same results. Thus it is over powered by comparison to ANY other tattoo.

Glory,

Not to sound like a "broken record", but I agree.

However, this has been discussed, rediscussed, dissected, redissected, etc... for most of this month.

I am sure Jon is well aware of this phenomenon. If he thinks its a problem I am sure he will address it during changemonth.

It, however, seems to me, that he does not think it is a major problem as the current change month is almost over and the only real change has been an archery nerf. Which makes the FF/FB/DM strategy even more powerful.

If it is not addressed, then it is not a problem.

Please, not this topic again, there's at least 400 versions of this... see any topic in General with FF, FB, or ToA in the title from the past month.

Also Glory, its hard for you to complain, when you have no HP on your first two minions, a fairly small AMF, one means of offensive attack (that only attacks one minion at a time) and only 75K on your wall. Not really a big surprise that a decent FB can take you out in under 5 rounds.

Fair enough. And yes, it's a whack of damage very quickly - only thing that saves me is the ToE and the +30 MgS to absorb damage.

Here is a little play by play for arguments sake...
This has probably been hashed through as well, but shouldn't your bow man (The Minotaur in my character) be smart enough to shoot another minion if one shot kills the first one in a given round? When I pump three arrows into a minion with 20 hp three times in ranged and get worked by a fire familiar in melee because I kept consecutively shooting dead minions that seems non-realistic, especially when the FF hits all my minions and can effectively wipe out two and three before melee starts...

Play-by-play
The Minotaur	SoulGuardian
King Minos cast Antimagic Field on Soul4's familiar (0.19) King Minos cast Guardian Angel on all friendly Minions (?) Queen Pasiphae cast Ablative Shield on all friendly Minions (11494) Soul3 cast Dispel Magic on all enemy Minions (34,780) Soul4 cast Dispel Magic on all enemy Minions (69,577) Soul1 cast Ablative Shield on all friendly Minions (15263) Soul2 cast Guardian Angel on all friendly Minions (?) enchantment effects that cannot be determined before combat are displayed as '?' Ranged Combat An Athenian Guard shot Soul1 with A Pea Shooter [175] Soul1 looks weaker! Soul1's Guardian Angel smote An Athenian Guard (0) The Minotaur struck deep into Soul1 with The Bow of the Minotaur [78567] Soul1's Guardian Angel smote The Minotaur (8623) The Minotaur skewered Soul1 with The Bow of the Minotaur [87599] The Minotaur struck deep into Soul1 with The Bow of the Minotaur [55176] Soul4's familiar takes damage from his own Fireball (25007)! Soul4's familiar's Fireball hit King Minos [31948], Queen Pasiphae [27551], An Athenian Guard [16020], The Minotaur [29602] King Minos's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (5513) Queen Pasiphae's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (5513) An Athenian Guard's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (5890) The Minotaur's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (6659) R.I.P. King Minos, Queen Pasiphae R.I.P. Soul1   The Minotaur skewered Soul2 with The Bow of the Minotaur [76252] Soul2's Guardian Angel smote The Minotaur (8677) The Minotaur skewered Soul2 with The Bow of the Minotaur [68885] Soul4's familiar takes damage from his own Fireball (28579)! Soul4's familiar's Fireball hit An Athenian Guard [37731], The Minotaur [84131] An Athenian Guard's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (6991) The Minotaur's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (8207) R.I.P. Soul2   An Athenian Guard hit Soul3 with A Pea Shooter [180] Soul3 looks weaker! Soul3's Guardian Angel smote An Athenian Guard (0) The Minotaur skewered Soul3 with The Bow of the Minotaur [60616] Soul3's Guardian Angel smote The Minotaur (8592) The Minotaur struck deep into Soul3 with The Bow of the Minotaur [64439] Soul4's familiar takes damage from his own Fireball (32152)! Soul4's familiar's Fireball hit An Athenian Guard [37579], The Minotaur [110063] An Athenian Guard's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (6813) The Minotaur's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (8660) R.I.P. An Athenian Guard R.I.P. Soul3   Melee Combat The Minotaur pulverized Soul4 with The Hammer of the Minotaur [47372] The Minotaur draws strength from his weapon! [3056] Soul4's Guardian Angel smote The Minotaur (8688) The Minotaur crushed Soul4 with The Hammer of the Minotaur [56235] The Minotaur crushed Soul4 with The Hammer of the Minotaur [59335] Soul4's familiar takes damage from his own Fireball (35724)! Soul4's familiar's Fireball hit The Minotaur [244387] The Minotaur's Guardian Angel smote Soul4's familiar (8904) R.I.P. The Minotaur R.I.P. Soul4, Soul4's familiar

For all the whining and complaining and moaning about how powerful FB and FF mages are, I sure don't see a lot of people using a TBF, sounds like everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too...

Just to hopefully keep the post targetted. And yes it's been said many times, but regardless the problem is not that fireball does a lot of damage, or that you do or do not have protection from it. The problem is a very small MPR character can use this tattoo to beat very large MPR characters.

It is my understanding that most of the NW to PR link was to avoid someone using large gear on small characters to beat large characters, why should this item be specifically exempt from that balancing attempt?

The TBF is completely useless against most other strats besides the FB mage. That is why it has no market value whatsoever...

It's not the FF... That just allows you to do this sort of thing on small MPR Teams.

Imagine if SoulGuardian was a large MPR team, with the last minion being the FB minion, and the rest enchanters...

The FF just allows you to work the low MPR / high reward system.

LOL, the TBF is useless versus FB as well...

It stops somewhere in the region of 1/10 of it's level.

Well perhaps FB wouldn't be overpowered if more people used the item created to directly combat it. Maybe it isn't as useless as everyone thinks. Everyone is choosing to deal damage instead of using the tat that blocks it. I personally think this is why Jon hasn't done anything yet, maybe he's just waiting for everyone to catch on and start implementing the most under used tat in the game.

I am on the fence here looking at those examples Sefton.
Remember that PR is most important in this not MPR, 2 of those 3 chars have a perfectly average score:pr ratio 2-2.5:1 which is what I regularly have using a ST with a ToJ (near worst tat around using a ST)
Armageddon on the other hand I agree is a bit bloated but that must mean he is doing something right I'm not so sure it is just his FF doing that if the other 2 can't even do it that well.

<sarcasm>
Well, I can handle losing to a big MPR team. It is the little ones that damage my virtual pride.
</sarcasm>

Tez, my level 250K TBF stops about 25K damage from FB.

That's nothing. If you consider an equal level FB, it would do ~125K damage.

A TBF is not a viable way to stop FB damage.

i dont think the problem has to do with FB or the FF in concept, i just think that it should not have a free 20% added on to its xp. the HP it trains should be taken out of its DD spell, just like the rest of us non-familiar suckers have to endure.

You'd probably get worked if they had a IF, too.

CoC does as much damage in the first melee round as FB does in the three ranged rounds before it. Everything after that is just cake.

In the case of an IF, the way damage splits means the Minotaur would probably survive first blast, but because there would be less GA backlash, the IF would survive to the next round, and you'd still draw.

What you are really complaining about is the incredible XP efficiency of tattoos, e.g.:
ToA only counts 70% of its level towards XP; it trains 100% of its level divided between STR and DX, AND you get a + to hit. Because net worth counts towards power, there is no way to get that XP efficiency without a tattoo.

Your character (built with one strong attack) seems built to be strong against single mage teams. However, familiar teams will take a minimum of five rounds to kill (unless they kill themselves with GA, as above), which is usually not a winning situation unless you invest a lot more in HP.

Do you realize that if you're using seekers, you could defeat me 100 % ? I think that's the purpose of seekers. Oh , but no, you wanted to defeat me with just normal or slayer arrow or maybe without arrow ?

Even If I added 100-200 k MPR to my team, I don't think I can beat you if you equip seekers. Maybe I should start complaining then about how powerful is seekers.

Sefton just repeated what i said in one of the very first threads complaining about MPR/PR calculations with fighting tattoos vs. stat tattoos. I think it is ridiculous that stat tattoos add the same amount to PR as Fighting tattoos, when its NOT another minion helping you.

But i remember getting flamed for it before, but the FF honestly needs to be lowered or something...=/ Or let ToA grant HP to the wearer and STR / DX to all minions with a certain %, as ToE does.

My point is that I should not have to equip expensive rare ammo to kill a character that is 1/5 of my MPR. That is just silly.

The guy has an 11M NW FF on a 76k MPR char - that is the problem.

Let's see ...

You don't want to equip seeker arrows because they're rare, but you have no problem equipping (rare) SLAYER arrows now ...

... so because you know equipping seeker arrows would make your strat stop sucking, it offends your virtual pride?

:)

The "seeker too powerful" discussion happened less then a week ago. If you want to resurrect that post Devillord you can still post on it, maybe even add another 90 replies to it. But, seekers are not are not easy to come by and no strat should have to rely on "overpowered" ranged ammo. If the strat is good it means it's good with regular plain old ammo and even better with the rare stuff.

As for the character SoulGuardian, it's on the top of my fight list and yet is still in danger of being taken off do to the rewards it gives me. Oh well.

wasn't MPR/PR calculations put here in order to regulate rewards? Well this one seems to suck for anyone who doesn't use FF.....

Why should we focus on PR vs. MPR in this discussion? My point is not that a Fireball is or is not powerful. My point is not that a person like Black Ceasar is over powered, my point is there is no other method besides using the FF to take a small MPR character and beat large PR characters. If I were to loan my 30mil NW elbow to a 75K PR character does anyone here think he would compete at his new PR? How about a 30 mil ToE, do you think the would suddenly start kicking butt?

But if you take a 20mil NW FF on a 75K PR char they can not only compete but win. You cannot do that with the Ice or Steel tattoos. If you try your low MPR character will not survive to get your big tat to do the damage you need over a wide area like the FF can.

So if you are saying its not fair a low MPR character tp take my 90mil NW and use it to beat high PR characters, why is it fair to use a FF tat to do the same.

This just shows another hole in the NW to PR link that needs to be patched in order to have the consistancy I HOPE the spirit of the NW to PR link was designed to accomplish.

Clearly you can see Sefton that adding more PR doesn't quite solve the problem and certainly has draw backs of it's own. For those people operating with FF within their MPR range the added PR might just be a bit unfair. Yet, it would still not disallow smaller characters from beating larger characters in the slightest, it only would effect their growth. It is a solution, but clearly you can see that it is a somewhat nasty fix.

Yes, I do see you point on it being a nasty fix. It may come down to is Fireball over powered. If so then this is likely to be fixed at the same time. If not, then as you say, any fix as I suggested could have ramifications to those who are "doing it right" instead of using under powered MPR over powered tattoos. I will mention that when the NW to PR link was first introduced, many said, well it will hurt you Sefton, who is doing it right by camping for your massive gear, but it will fix those who do not. Take one for the team :)

Tezmac,

If you said noone used TBF to block FF, you are wrong. You didn't follow my TBF contest then. I used a 310K level TBF with good strat. It cannot stand against FF/FB team for simple reason. Why don't you try it yourself?

heheh TDL flaming.
I am part of this big FF thing and I personally don't care what Jon does to change it. I sort of to in my heart think they are overpowered, but until then hey, why not abuse it? =P

As Grant says it is the exp efficiency of the tattoo that is the problem here. It is most noticeable with the FF as this is the best DD spell for use with little or no help from the rest of the team. With people constantly starting over with ever larger FF (and thus growing them at a fast rate) this problem will only get worse over time. The bigger the tattoo compared to non tattoo PR the more exaggerated the effect.

If the PR they add is increased to be more in line with a minion of the same capability then the tattoo just becomes a way to have a 5 "minion" team and to get some free exp along the way (tattoo growth) whilst incurring some equipment restrictions on one minion.

I think the solution lies in somehow linking the amount of PR added by the tattoo to MPR or non tattoo PR, if the tattoo is oversized compared to the team it adds more PR. Hopefully Jon can find an elegant solution.

I'm not sure. I think there are two discrete problems here.

The first being an item that can be given to low characters that skews their power to such an extent they can fight far higher than they are supposed to. (Which has been addressed in the changelog)

The second being the item itself. As mentioned, giving a ToE, ELB, or any other popular item won't cause the problem above. So why does a FF cause it? Would the problem be the same if a SF or IF were used instead of a FF? How about a large ToJ?

I don't think it would be as great with a ToJ, as they casue a small amount of damage compared to the other familiars, and we all know damage is king.

Persoanlly, I still think FB does too much damage for an attack that hit's first. And this is what allows smaller people to exploit using a large FF. The same could be said for the SF, but what about a team with an IF?

Maybe all DD spells do too much damage for thier level.

I've changed from UC (because it really sucks...) to CoC and have been hitting over 300K on a single target with it. This is after AC and in some cases AMF.

The only other thing that reaches this potential is BL. But that has drawbacks.

/me mumbles "UC doesn't suck..."

Oh dude.. It so does...

600K UC (around 75) plus 180K Str plus 360K Dex gave me three 30K hits per round.

90K damage on non tanks.

600K in CoC would give over 500K per hit. In FB it would give 300K per hit.

It sucks. Bad...

I think you may have just used it incorrectly. Swap your numbers around so that UC is only at about 1/3 of your ST or so, like BL and Archery. Sure, it won't be +75 yet, but one day it would be...

He has a point, strats are more then just what you have, but the ratios between these skills, spells, and stats as well.

I think the UC is so high because of the large boost available from elven gear, Gi and HG, the trained level would be much less than 600k, but yea you are probably right , should have more ST.

Actually, Rubberduck, I was assuming that this wasn't the case since comparing UC level that is boosted by items to a DD of the same level would then be pretty absurd. But if you are indeed correct, the n I say UC is one of the best skills ever. ;)

Eh?

My trained UC was around 380K. It was boosted to 600K by my HGs. Test's I performed showed that the boosted level was what xp would have needed to be trained to get it to the boosted effect, so the item made *no* difference.

In effect I had 600K of levels worth of xp trained into UC. I droped 180K worth of Str and put that into my UC and lost maybe 5/10K damage.

The point still stands that a combined level of around 1.140 mil into an attack should not yeild a max of 90K damage compared to the 300K plus that can be obtained from training around half that into a DD spell.

Str? Ratio? Doubling my strength does not double the damage I do. Doubling a DD spells level does.

"Test's I performed showed that the boosted level was what xp would have needed to be trained to get it to the boosted effect, so the item made *no* difference. "
--GentlemanLoser

Think about it, GL. Yes. Absolutely. Without-a-doubt. The level of boosted UC is what you would have to train to in order to get the effect. But you didn't train xp into it. So it was basically a huge amount of "Free PR" as opposed to the equal level CoC that could only be achieved by actual trained XP (or relatively close to it with a CoI equipped).

The point still stands that UC at that level compared to ST is just ridiculously too much. The point is strengthened further by your example of how you increased the gap between ST and UC--in favor of UC--and saw very minimal gains in damage output.

I still say that a relatively low UC (like 1/4th of ST) with Item boosts would be terrifyingly more effective than your experiment revealed to you. Esp since HG boost ST as well as UC, and the Helm of Ecthelion boosts ST even further.

For example... My UC minion has his UC at 31k (19) after the Combat Gi boost. It is normally only at 9.8k level.

This minion's ST is at 21k.

He does the same amount of damage in ranged (pretty close) with his x30 +30 named Axbow as he does in Melee.

"So it was basically a huge amount of "Free PR""

That's a very good point. The PR increase from my HG would be much less than gain to UC.

Still, even if I tweaked my ratios to eak the most out of UC, the xp spent on UC, Str and Dex far underperforms what can be got from just sticking it all into a DD spell.

GL, you forgot that UC is useful not only for the damage it deals, but also for the evasion.
Against an archer, a single mage dies, a single UC tank can win (especially if it uses an ex/axbow and DBs).

Manta, it's evasion is most probably very negligable.

To face any sort of forged weapons pth you need DB s. My guess is that UC evasion is classed as skill evasion, which doesn't stack well with any reasonable sized pair of DB s.

Now if Evasion stacking was changed, UC would become a great dodging skill.