TSA: viable for an enchanter yes or no. (in General)

Or the discussion MCM vs. TSA.

your ideas?

I used to like them ... after the nerf I feel they are good for only walls (ADAM is better still) or non TOA tanks ... which it is great for ...

MCM, IMO

Penalties on the TSA are just too heavy on enchantments, a good AMF can have similar effects, or a ToE (to a lesser extent, I think?)

the magic penalty hurts pretty bad...Alatar gloves and corn can compensate easily for the nerf, but at decreased effectiveness...good for making an all around mage, but biggest threat to mages is tanks...and MCM offers more protection in this case.

ahh yes, Magic penalties are now based on 10% DD penalty, dang forgot about that :)

It's not what I wanted but the nerf essentially made it stupid expensive to equip one on any magic using minion. I was hoping for a fundamental change in the way they block magic damage, but meh it's good enough. MCM isn't worth it either unless you depend heavily on damage being broken up to win your fights, the extra mil or two you spend on the MCM could be used more logically buying or upping a corn.

I prefer a TSA on my enchanter.

The reason is the magic protection lets my enchanter live long enough to disperse the FB and COC damage allowing my wall and tank to live longer. This more than compensates for the 10% loss from my AMF.

However, I have a 200k HP enchanter, if I only had 10k or so, the enchanter would likely fry the first FB round anyway, therefore I would use a MCM.

wow are you sure that makes sense ranger?

ok so by living two more rounds, your reduce the damage from FB by what..about half of what it would be without the living chanter...hmm

with the Enchanter living 2 more rounds indeed the FB damage would be split up in half at least.

but it would need to be a quite high TSA or not?

Yes, I am certain.

Here is my TSA: Hades' Shell [22] (+43)

Vs Cosmos, who is one of the highest FB mages with the TSA on my enchanter lives sometimes to melee round 1, mostly s/he dies in missile round 3. With him/her alive in round 3 of missile my tank takes about 80k damage and my wall about 60k.

With the TSA off, s/he dies in round 2 of missile and in round 3 my tank takes over 150k damage and the wall over 125k damage. Sometimes the tank takes over 200k damage in missile round 3.

So, YES, the TSA for me, with a bunch of HP on the enchanter is extremely beneficial in breaking up the FB damage.

It also works with COC but to a lesser extent since COC goes off in at least round 3 of combat vs me since I use an axbow.

Round 3 of missile:

TSA on:
SuperNova's Fireball hit War [100345], Death [60507], Conquest [114729]


TSA off:
SuperNova's Fireball hit War [106323], Conquest [252343]

"It also works with COC but to a lesser extent since COC goes off in at least round 3 of combat vs me since I use an axbow."

round 4 since your Exbow deals damage in round 1 of combat and first melee round is then seen as round 4 (or not...)

Now for a more specialized question:


would it benefit my character?

2 minions, Enchanter and Tank.

my AS generates a maximum of 300k HP (which is when not agains DM)

Exactly,

My axbow fires in rounds 1 and 3 of missile and therefore round 1 of melee is considered round 3 of combat. Therefore COC starts to cast in round 3 of combat. With the TSA's MR decaying each round of combat is it less effective vs COC.

and what if you are opposing a FB character which casts in round 2 also...?

FB starts in round 1 of missile. In round 2 of missile the TSA's MR is 1/2 of what it was in round 1.

Shade, I think TSA will work for you.

On a related note, observed something strange, on more then one occasion. My guess is that it might be possible that the decaying of TSA magic protection is not coded correctly and in effect it is not decaying. But I will have to get a proof of that. I observed 2 specific cases from what I created this theory:

1. damage from FB is the same and with considerable chance smaller in consecutive rounds (should be higher, because the penalty is getting smaller and there is no penalty in melee).

2. While fighting a character which was dealing only around 1k damage to each of my char, it was dealing 0 damage to my minion wearing TSA. My guess is that it is because of the extra protection from TSA which kicks in first. My TSA is 28, but in round 4 the damage done was still 0, which means the TSA protection should fall to 3.5%.

you're right, peter. there was a bug. fixed.

tnx Jonathan.

So will the TSA be viable for me 'after' the fix of this bug? :p

Hooray! I knew it had to be borked...

My apologies but I have ignored every post other than the first one... it's been a long day at work and I'm far too lazy to read any more than that.

Here's your answers though Shade.

MCM - Anyone who uses this on an enchanter deserves a vicious carping.

TSA - This is one of the few pieces of armor useful on an enchanter (note: A Cornuthaum is not included in those few pieces of armor because it's just not cost effective, not even close). It is useful when combined with AS as a reasonable anti-mage meatshield. However, don't put any more NW than you absolutely need to into it because that money would be far better spent on your weapon, instant upgrading your tattoo, buying a bigger weapon etc.

"A Cornuthaum is not included in those few pieces of armor because it's just not cost effective, not even close"

Would you care to explain Chuckles? Perhaps I am reading the wrong but your saying a corn is not cost effective?

Indeed, I am.

That being said, with 250mil NW, you would have nothing to worry about. Your corns are a very small amount of your total NW.

But my statement stands for anyone with less than say 20mil NW.

Disregarding the cost of actually aquiring the corn in the first place, a +5 Corn (NW approx. $350k) completely negates the penalties of the TSA, and only raises my NCB character's PR by less than 3k. So long as it isn't upgraded much past +6, I don't where a corn would not be "cost effective."

A corn is the most cost effective item in the game.

For a slight bump in PR, you get a large amount of free xp. Not everyone needs a +10 corn. My +8 corns at 1.8 million NW each give me +18% to all my enchantments. Why is that not cost effective. 18% more AMF is certainly going to help me quite a lot, and considering you can only buy a limited amount of xp (via BA buying), it is extremely cost effective.

If you do not want +8 corn, a +5 corn with its 10-12% addition to enchantments is only around 350k NW.

True, the base cost for one is about 2 million now, but even then it is one of the best cost effective items I can think of.

That is for another thread.

I'd hate to hijack Shade's thread with my thoughts on a completely unrelated item. Although I seem to have already done that... sorry!

hmmm!

Ok here is some data then:

Against no DM, my Enchanter cast Ablative Shield on all friendly Minions (305989)

Against the people in my fight list, my Enchanter seems to last until second round of melee, and sometimes even until the end of the battle.

People I lose / draw against: (lives to = my enchanter dies in that round)

Against Black Caesar, lives to round 2 ranged.
Against Stalker, lives to round 2 melee (no 2nd ranged round)
Against NWO, lives to round 2 ranged.
Against Krang, lives to round 1 melee (no 2nd ranged round)
Against Cosmos, lives to round 1 ranged (I lose in 2nd round ranged)
Against The Lega, lives to round 1 melee.
Against The First, lives to round 1 ranged.
Against Gunira, lives to round 2 ranged.
Against {=} Viperboy, lives to round 1 melee.
Against Car-a-carn, lives to round 2 melee. (no 2nd ranged round)


People using DM from this list:
Krang, NWO, Black Caesar, Cosmos, The First, Gunira, {=} Viperboy


People using DD spells from this list:
NWO, The Lega, Black Caesar, Cosmos, The First, Gunira, {=} Viperboy


People using tanks from this list:
Krang, Stalker, The Lega, {=} Viperboy, Car-a-carn

With a high end TSA:

krang: melee round 1, no 2nd Ranged round
black caesar: ranged round 2
viper boy: ranged round 3
gunira: ranged round 2
the first: ranged round 2

So for me it doesnt make any difference...

TSA coupled with that AMF of yours would help cut back the FB damage. And although the magic penalty is high, when enchantments are at a high enough level I think you can live with it.

But, and this is just my opinion, I would also recommend giving your enchanter some HP of his own, which would maximise his meatshield potential against far more people. As it stands your AS is toast when up against some of the larger DM's.

Johnny, i know that my AS is toast against a high DM.

I also know that my Corn takes care of all the magic penalties of the DM.

but as of yet, it doesnt really help me... :\

I think unless you boost your enchanter's HP none of the damage reduction items/techniques are going to make much difference where your team is concerned. Two minions obviously doesn't reduce FB/CoC as well as four. I think you need to consider your team a single minion, because for all intents and purposes, especially against high DM teams, it is. Therefore I would not bother investing in an item that doesn't seem to make much difference to you.

But personally I prefer the damage reduction from an MCM. It's damage reduction is constant reduction to the end of the battle, admittedly not as high as the TSA gives.

"I also know that my Corn takes care of all the magic penalties of the DM."

I'm puzzled why people think it works that way. The penalties/bonuses for each item work individually from each other. Saying that one item's bonuses cancels the other item's penalties is as meaningful as saying that the other item's penalties cancels out the first item's bonuses.

Judge each item individually whether or not to use it and ignore the bonuses/penalties any other item equipped gives. The only exception is AC, as the additional AC boost you get from each item depends on your total AC as well.

bartjan: TSA gives 6.666% penalty to ED spells, my corn gives 16% bonus to ED spells

wouldn't it then be ~10% bonus still?

Yes, but that does not change the fact that the TSA costs you 6.667% of your ED level. This means that you would have to train 7% (1/0.933) more into your ED to get the same effect as without the TSA. That XP can't be spent on other stats, like HP. The question you should ask yourself is: "How much can I save on training HP because of the extra AC this TSA gives, compared to a similar market value MCM, and is that saved XP more than the 7% extra levels of ED I need to train"? You'll see that the word Corn appears nowhere in this question.

Of course, different NWs and PR weights makes choosing armor on CB2 a whole lot more complex than on CB1 ;)

bartjan, its not so much about the AC of the TSA, but for the + of the TSA

its 1% magic damage blocking per +, which counts almost 5 times as 'hard' as AC

Then add that effect to your equation. It still doesn't add that corn to the question "MCM or TSA".

It does if the enchanter in question casts AMF - then the lost EO due to armor impacts the enchanter positively (armor benefit) and the tank negatively (lost EO)

I think Jon's fix should eliminate people misusing the TSA...

I didn't really notice a big change, since in the meantime my AMF grew enough to compensate anyway. I don't get the same odd draws with the big mages out there, but that's fair.

It wasn't degrading at all previously apparently, so I figure it has to be a serious change for folks like ranger, who was using it to keep a chanter alive a couple extra rounds...

It'll still do its job against FB & MM mages. But yes, it's more likely wall / non tattoo tank armor now.

with a mage shield it is impressive tank armor DD reduction and STR bonus an easily negated DX penalty with a decent AC base.

edyit, that wasn't the question, and as I am using it for an Enchanter, then I CAN'T use a Mage Shield...

But the MCM works better for me, for now.

it should no penalties at all it's like it was made just for magik users :)

Mage Shields and TSA's were introduced to nullify mages not to help them so I have no idea what you are on about edyit.

i was just agreeing with Quark that it is better suited for tanks or walls and that a MCM is better for enchanters IMO.