ToBF musings (in General)

OK, I know there have been many suggestions regarding how to make the ToBF better. I have been playing it for quite some time now, and I think I have a few good ideas.

As it is now it sort of works against itself. What I have been trying to maximize and its very hard to do is only getting hit in melee once. You say its easy? It's not. The hard part is you get missed a lot. This works counter to the ToBF. Since it only returns damage on one shot, any shots more than 1 do not help. Since it does have a decent level of evasion, you get missed a lot. This is also not as helpful as it could be. So here are a couple of ideas I have.

One, make the evasion kick in after the first hit in melee. You could leave it alone in ranged of course, but I really want them to hit me once in melee. Sounds complex to code? I agree.

So I think the ultimate suggestion is to change the Evasion to Endurance. I think that tweak would accomplish all the goals needed to fix this tattoo right up. The endurance would reduce the damage from all hits, but most importantly reduce the damage from the multiple hits that it does not return damage on. It would still offer a level of protection in ranged that the Evasion offers now, but you would get hit more often, and missed entirely a lot less. In the end, I don't mind dodging blows, so it can still go on as it is, but I think Endurance is a much better fit than Evasion is for this tattoo. I do think the endurance should ONLY effect the tattoo wearer and have no Aura effect like the ToE does. I think a level of Endurance equal to the level of Evasion that is has right now, would in the end, make this tattoo a much more effective and attractive tattoo.

So those are my thoughts on it :)

I had a similar thought myself today. It would make it a lot more useful...

Oops clicked on 'contribute' too quickly.

Maybe you could then boost the damage output of the tattoo somewhat - perhaps in the way CoC gets more powerful the longer it lasts. It would require some careful strategy to stay alive that long to get the most out of it but that's workable. You never hear about CoC being too powerful.

No, good thinking here Seft. ;)

I'm not so sure... The aura damage is never going to be a mian attack, unless it is buffed. At the rate it is now, it should be applied to every hit, but I digress.

Using the TBF on a Tank means you're going to equal if not slightly less Dex than your opponent. As long as you get DBs equal to your opponents weapon pth (and an equal dex) your would only need around 25-75 evasion from the TBF to reduce the chance to hit of the single attack (depending on 1/2 handed weapon) to zero.

I can't see how dodging all atacks is a Malus.

Maybe we should ask again for item and skill evasion to stack. Become a dodging tank (with UC or Evasion + TBF and DBs).

The splash doesn't hit mages, so the Evasion versus them is moot anyway, evn if vasion effected DD spells.

So f your tattoo does let you gain a 100% damage reduction from dodging all tank based attacks you face, I'd cheer rahter than lament the loss of a small amount of damage.

*Shrug*

someone should put that about CoC in the wiki. i just found that out today, that it gets more powerful as it goes on.

also, sounds like not too bad of an idea for tobf, i haven't used one, but that does sound counter-productive. if you get missed the first melee hit does it still work on the next hit?

I'm sure at super high levels the ToBF damage is "small" compared to the damage from large weapons with BL and big ST, but I disagree with the small damage. I have not complained about the backfire damage because I think its great! I would not mind if it effected each blow, but I lose or draw or stalemate a lot of fights because of GA or them missing me, that I would win if they could hit me :)

How about GA doesn't affect it, or it damages whoever the minion it's equipped on is attacking as well? Meaning twice the damage. Sort of.

GA does not effect the ToBF backfire (you do not take GA damage from the ToBF backfire) the GA I was mentioning is from me hitting them with a weapon or UC. Like I hit them, do some damage, get GA, they miss me, rinse and repeat.

The GA was why I stopped using ranged on my UC incarnation. I needed VA. :(

Gotta say, you've come up with the greatest low level physical set up. Would you consider using a TBF from stratch instead of the Gi? Or keep the Gi until the X10 damage got too low?

We already have an Endurance tattoo. Two, actually :)

I kept the Gi, at base it adds no PR but is a X10 weapon. Then dropped the Gi and added the ToBF. Now I have dropped UC and went to a big Morg. Just upgrading through the weapons as I see the UC was costing too much to raise as compared to the weapon allowance I was gaining. So now both the Morg and Exbow are just barely over my weapon allowance. They together add like 2K PR. Pretty soon it will vanish and I will keep bumping the Morg up. Obviously, at some point I will hit a wall with a single tank and have to add minions. Until then, I am a big ToBF fan, just very difficult to balance the DX right so that I only evade multiple hits instead of the first one. Fortuantely, it seems most opponents have better plus in their melee weapons than in their ranged, so I end up getting a lot of ranged misses, and a lot less of melee misses. Just have to keep the DX down enough to entice them to hit me once. The only tanks I lose to now either do a LOT of ranged damage, or I GA myself to death hitting them, and they missing me.

Great Grant, so assuming you mean the ToJ there exists precedence for a third one :)

No BL? O_O

But I'd keep pumping that dex, getting a 100% damage reduction facing tanks just can't be beat! ;)Drop the EX Bow, and pump that morg! ;)

I like the ToBF giving an Evasion bonus, it adds some variety, but I do see your frustration with trying to be hit exactly once per round to maximise the benefit the ToBF gives. So how about making the ToBF splash damage kick in on missed hits as well? In other words it would hit melee attackers once every turn.

that makes sense, but since when has that ever mattered?

Maybe to be more specific, if the evasion granted by the ToBF makes them miss, it should still give the splash damage.

or would that be too much extra stuff to keep track of each battle? do we love the ToBF enough to buy Jon (and us!) another server/better one?

Yea, that would work better although it may be difficult to code as you would have to find a way of determining whether the miss was caused by the ToBF or other factors (DB's, DEX advantage..).

Sefton, I agree. But what I want to see is it add some form of VA. Change evasion to endurance, throw in a .2 VA bonus and it's not a half bad tattoo.

I as an UC user have wondered quite a few times what could have possesed you to use the ToBF for so long. The GI just adds so much more. For me anyway.
But let's say we aren't using UC. How about a mage? Well, I don't agree with them all using ToEs, but a ToE is still much better than ToBF for them.
Tanks? ToA.
The ToA has it's downsides though, and with a decent boost to ToBF power, the ToBF could become a good option for them.

My other idea on this?
Reduce the NW of ToBFs (dramatically) and make them level up a little faster than other tattoos.

As it is, ToBF is not worth using. I don't care if you're crazy enough to use that thing, personally there's no way I'm going anywhere near the things (this from the guy who thinks slings are good weapons - ToBF is underpowered).

making them level faster would just cause a run on the TA.