MgS Haters unite! (in General)

Anyone else get the feeling that supporter items are no longer made for new users and mid level strats?

Add the TSA to this list of oddly effective supporter items, though the fix concerning the degradation of the it's effect did most of the work.

don't forget to add ToJ, I'm not against any of them (since I use 2 of them :P)

the ToJ hasn't stuck me as the same sort of problem, only one of them up high, and if I suggested a nerf the carping I could get from Bast would be ugly.

They are probably the most underestimated item in the game.
People describe them as purely a meatshield and that you can do better with a wall and a different tattoo but I disagree with that.

Well they certainly don't have the offensive power of the other familars, but then again the other familars have no defensive capabilities at all. I will say I am currently kicking the teeth out of a single tank with a ToJ on it...if said tank had a ToE, or better yet a TSA and MgS, I couldn't touch it. A Jf (or whatever they are now), of decent size adds far to much PR for limited defensive and offensive capabilities, add to the that the penalties for AS, and I don't see a top of the heap strat with a JF in it.

I loved the mage shield from the first day it arrived. But I think you're wrong that it's not good at lower levels. It's just that is so very much more effective at higher levels. The TSA is the same. The problem with them is that their 'effect' is a percentage based reduction. So you're going to see better results at higher levels than at lower and mid levels.

The RoE works at all levels though doesn't it Nov?

I thought the thread was about MgS. Personally I like it and it does have a drawback. You can't cast any kind of enchantment with it on but base protection.

the RoE is painful way to play at this level, but yeah the bonus makes up for laziness.

I'm glad an MgS lover mentioned the reason they are so effective up high.

I still don't get how Jon figures a fixed percentage has any chance of being balanced at high levels.

edyit, so you lose the ability to have an enchantment...big deal, your 1 mil nw item just lowered my effective XP by near 30%...nothing else in the game (save for maybe the RoS) does that kinda of nuking of trained XP

I didn't realize you had all your xp in FB novice ;)

I'm not going to do a GL and shout 'overpowered', the negatives of a mage shield do almost balance out the positives. The main problem mages have at the moment is the amount of tank teams who have realised they can do without a ToA. Chuck on a TSA and a mage shield and off they go...

Maybe I'll try to be a little more constructive. Yes its a good item but it also precludes the wearing of a tattoo and is wasted PR versus tanks. I think its fine as long as Jon has the PR weighting right.

And those tank teams with a ToA will beat a TSA/MgS wearing non-ToA tank team. And a single FB mage will crush most tanks using a ToA.

Rock-Paper-Scissors. The game that makes CB go 'round.

:) I agree with Novice. So far the support items have been very powerful.

ToJ: The first Familiar tattoo, was very good when people figured out how to use it best. Now dwarfed by some of the other tattoo, but hey, we thought those were overpowered, didn't we? ;)

MgS: Hah. Do I really need to state how much I think this percentage based DD redution item is needed at least once on every team? This is only barely balanced by it's massive restrictions!

VB: Wow. Don't forget these! Single handedly ruined the weapon market for anything below the top four. Plus these destroy wall type minions. 1/2 AC/Protection/Endurance. Very powerful...

RoE: Extra XP! Very good if you want it, and the only way you can get it.

TSA: :) DD reduction again. Plus AC and Strength enchancement. Begging to be used with a MgS. Very small drawbacks.

Indeed Johnnywas and those tank teams should be getting beaten by ToA teams. The circle is complete (maybe).

Perhaps this should be renamed, why are the supporter items not 'new player' items but just great supporter items?

imo supporter items shouldn't be useless for end game strategies, paying $6 for a new supporter item which you wont be able to use later on in the game is kind of stupid imo.

Oh Nightmare beat me to it.

If the ToA tank is a single minion, then it should beat MgS/TSA tanks. But single MgS/TSA tanks with stat enhancing items can keep up with multi minion ToA tanks stat wise.

Who is running a single MgS/TSA tank?

It's just interesting that we went from MoD, CoBF type rinky dink stuff back on cb1 to the flash powerful killer supporter items here, I have to say it may be that I just haven't gotten used to the extreme nature of the roe sham boe game going on. Conisdering all the best strats look overpowered, maybe that's just the kind of game we got going. If I can dump more than 3/4 of my XP into offense and still clanfight (sometimes with good results), then someone else has to be able to survive it...

I still say we need a fixed amount of damage blocked per + in place of percentage based reductions.

PitSpawn has a single MgS TSA tank called:Spirit of the Night

When I started the first Jack Crow he was called 'A Quiet Storm'. He was a single tank, with mage shield and CoBF. Now there was a superb combo....

I'm not sure the mage shield and TSA would be as effective on a single tank. Running a single tank CB1 style - ie without tattoo of any kind - seems like a difficult thing to do these days....especially without any kind of enchantment...

Good luck to him, score to PR ratio is not great for his level and he is losing out on growth from a tattoo.

he needs a second minion wearing an RoE (training haste / AMF) till about 500k pr, then get a huge RoS and either hire two more minions or put it on the haste chanter.

I know my ninny of a cousin was running a single heavy tank rather successfully, but that included a VB, which comes with a built in fightlist.

Or the tank could wear the RoE to increase the physical stats for a little while while the enchanter grows steadily, switching to either a ToE on the main enchanter, or a ToA on the back tank (thereby making him freaking huge). But, that's just me. ;) And it's way off topic.

A single MgS tank is hard to do. Very hard. You lose out on any AC that you would get from your shield, making you that much more susceptible to all damage (AC reduces dmg first, so even your capped MgS reduction is lesser). You have a protection at the effective casting of 4 against everyone who doesn't have DM, and 0 against anyone with a base DM. No AMF to give backlash damage to the mages, and lesser or equal stats to multi-minion ToA teams. Even the capped DR against a single minion FBer (of equivalent MPR) means you are toast. However, without the MgS and TSA, there is no way a single tank can stand against a single FB mage 99 times out of a hundred. With those two, they stand a slightly better, though still not good, chance.

Unless the tank knows what a bow is, of course.

With regards to the MgS reduction, a MgS of +20 provides a 20% DD redution as minimum. You would need an AC of 96, from only the plus of your Shield to get that much.

A +40 MgS would require an AC of 190 from just your Shield.

That's why it's so good. Specific, but very very good.

The largest MS in the game is 15+35 (named, so 52) for a physical reduction of 10.92% and magical of 7.77%.

The largest MgS in the game is 40 (Named for 42, one point above Basts 41) which gives a minimum 42% reduction to all DD damage.

That's 5.4 times larger than the MS.

WITH NO DEX PEN!

One thing which has not been mentioned is that with prices as they are the supporter items are quite expensive.

I didn't say the MgS or TSA weren't good, guys. :-P It gives great magic DR at a cost of its incompatibility with tattoos, total demolition of all enchantments except a base protection (notably VA's lovely life leech), and a loss of physical DR, which makes them more vulnerable to... dare I say it again... other tanks.

GL, There are three +dex items. None can be raised much past +10 without a huge PR increase (yes, EBs can go to +14 or 15 without getting over 2M NW, but I don't want to muck up the nice round numbers. Point comes out the same regardless). 29% (with TSA/MgS/HoE/+10 Elven gear) of 150k dex still doesn't match the dex of a ToA tank at the same MPR who didn't have to put his experience into str or as much into dex and could instead get a decent VA and AMF, and they don't have the ability to wear DBs to lower their PtH. So no, a non-ToA tank team really won't stand a chance against a ToA tank team at a similar MPR. Even less so since they lack the additional ~6.3% physical DR from even a smallish MS (+15).
To recap this point: ToA Tank = More Dexterity + More Hits = Dead MgS/TSA Tank.

Novice, the TSA magic DR is nice, but inefficient. Matrim's +50 TSA blocks 6.25% of magic damage in the fourth round (1st round of melee when fighting anyone with FB), and continually degrades. Figure a battle that goes to.. oh.. round 8 he's blocking a whopping 0.39%. Not enough to protection to save him from a mage blowing his nose at him. The TSA's saving grace is its decent attainable AC and str boost. So... we'll take the setup I used above with the MgS/TSA tank < ToA tank point.

Lets assume single tank brought up with an RoE, protected by an Enchanter (EC/AS to make up for its weakness against other tanks). 100k Str and HP, 150k Dex, 25k BL and no protection as he spent the 6k xp yet.
250kish MPR.

Opponent: Single FB mage around 250k MPR. ~250k Hp and a good sized FB.

MgS +30 (Focal point of the build - $1M NW)
TSA +30 (Again, focal - ~$800k NW.. no exact +30 in rentals to check against)
EC +8 ($325k NW)
EBs +12 ($172k NW)
EGs +10 ($378k NW)
HoE +11 ($287k NW)

Total AC: 112. Total armor NW - ~$2,962,000

PR of a bit more than 300k with that much gear on can be assumed as well. I don't feel like tearing Joshua apart and blowing a load of cash to test PR increases with rented items.

Physical Reduction: ~23.52%
Magical Reduction (from AC): ~14.91%
Total Reduction (Round 1): ~74.91%

Big number, eh? And we'll assume FB, so that damage is halved as well. Now, lets check that again in round 4, well after the enchanter has become toast.

Total Reduction (Round 4): ~48.66% (and this will be pretty close to the reduction for all rounds herein as the TSA only added 3.75% in this round)

Still big. But, wait. That ~50% reduction isn't backlashing the poor mage in any way, shape or form. So, the mage's damage output is reduced... but his HP only goes down due to being hit, instead of when he is hit, when he casts, and a possible GA. The mage is getting hit less, he's getting hit less... and he isn't getting the bonus PtH from ToA (yeah, I'm going to harp on this.) to hit you 3 times a round more than one round every 3 fights. The mage seems to be doing very well in this one.

MgS/TSA are not too powerful at all. They are specialized. And specialized strategies are always powerful, with one or two glaring weaknesses. This one's weakness is easy to find. Decent tanks will revel in the 4-10% less physical DR. ToA tanks will come over the top and escape the battle almost untouched due to the dexterity gap. Multi-minion mage teams can also stand a chance (I'm thinking a 3 minion, [AMF or DM]/AS, FB, MM/GA team with an RoE going on either the FB or MM dude until 300-500k MPR would do pretty well based on their ability to spread damage to remove the enchanters for the MM to hit the big target quickly... but that's neither here nor there).

I'll end this with this thought. On CB1, the TSA and DBs were both born as supporter items that eventually started spawning. Could it be possible that these two will as well? I think maybe.

Side note: It has been said before that the MgS is a staple of the top end. Looking around curiously, a good deal of the high end guys have an MgS on a Wall type. With that being said... might I be the one to say that it is possible that the MgS isn't overpowered at all, but the buffer that helps DD not be proclaimed as overpowered*? *shrug*


*Before the flaming starts, it is not the belief of the writer that DD is overpowered.

*sigh* First line. "[Loss of physical DR] in the shield slot."

Johnnywas' character Jack Crow (single mage ToE) is beating me (RoS, MgS/TSA tank) with less PR.

"To recap this point: ToA Tank = More Dexterity + More Hits = Dead MgS/TSA Tank."

Nothing can keep up with a single ToA tank for Dex, bar another single ToA tank.

But you can get close with items.

Consider a 50/50 HP Dex ToA tank. In effect it would have 63.2% Dex and 19.8% Str.

A 40/15/45 Item based Tank can get to 40/21/58.05 Very close to the stats of a ToA tank, bar the added pth. HP s lower, but the item based Tank will have a higher AC, not from shield, but from Body armour and Cloak. A 5% Dex gap may drasticaly effect the amount of blows landed, but I'm not too sure.

On the whole, there's not that much gap between the two. The ToA Tank will always be the beter physical attacker, but the TSA/MgS Tank is nearly as good, but a whole lot more durable to DD attacks. Far more durable.


"Novice, the TSA magic DR is nice, but inefficient. Matrim's +50 TSA blocks 6.25% of magic damage in the fourth round (1st round of melee when fighting anyone with FB), and continually degrades. Figure a battle that goes to.. oh.. round 8 he's blocking a whopping 0.39%. Not enough to protection to save him from a mage blowing his nose at him.
PR of a bit more than 300k with that much gear on can be assumed as well. I don't feel like tearing Joshua apart and blowing a load of cash to test PR increases with rented items."

It's not what it degrades to, but the savings it make in the first couple of rounds. Yes, buy the 4/5th round of use, the TSA doesn't provide much DD reduction, but for the first 3 you taking next to nothing from DD, especially FB which has an additional ranged penalty.

Want to get to melee without taking significant DD damage? TSA+MgS.

Or as grant said, use archer and a massive ELB and kill the FB mage in ranged while you take nothing off it. There's always seekers if enchanters get in the way.

"Still big. But, wait. That ~50% reduction isn't backlashing the poor mage in any way, shape or form. So, the mage's damage output is reduced... "

No, no backlash. But (and this really is the kicker) *you will never get a 50% AMF backlash versus a single mage your size* (disclaimer, unless you're a ToA tank, that uses just the tattoo for stats and plows the majority of your XP into AMF, in which case, you're a crappy tank.)

Mages stick 60% plus of thier total XP into thier DD spell. You have to at least equal this XP expenditure to get a 50% backlash.

No Tank can spend that much XP and still churn out effective damage (unless you use a DD Familiar). Then you're not a tank and might just as well be a AMF enchanter with a DD familiar.

"Side note: It has been said before that the MgS is a staple of the top end. Looking around curiously, a good deal of the high end guys have an MgS on a Wall type. With that being said... might I be the one to say that it is possible that the MgS isn't overpowered at all, but the buffer that helps DD not be proclaimed as overpowered*? *shrug*"

If an item is needed so something else isn't overpowered, then that something else is.

Personally, I don't feel DD spells are overpowered any more, but that the the MgS is very very good. or a (maybe) nominal PR increase, it gives you a fixed percentage reduction versus any size DD you face, without you needing to spend any of your own XP.

But let's not focus on the MgS, the VB is just as powerful. Really, bar a starting whip/dagger, all the weapons before it (possibly excluding Katana's, jst for numbers) might just as well be deleted.

One last thing.

A ToA provides (if grown with the character) a 33% extra amount of XP. But it's PR increase continues to grow as it grows.

Bonuses to stats from armour continue to grow as your natural stat grows, but offer a fixed PR increase.

Didn't you read last months changelog GL

Borderliner, the reason you lose to Jack Crow is because 1. try to use ToE, it should make much difference. 2. Your MPR is actually lower than his.

I don't think the MgS itself would do much harm to mages, it's the combination of all magic reduction items, skills, etc. This is seriously getting outrageous, AMF + ToE + Trollskin + MgS + HP , crazy reduction of damage, but the weird thing is I don't see anything to decrease melee damage except the useless AC.

I'll give some example of why all these magic reduction item is overkilled.

Derek's Magezilla, 2 AMF, ToE, 2 MgS Walls with 200+ AC , PR / MPR: 538,865 / 387,649. This team is obviously not good against tanks, but it can kill mage teams even the ones that are much bigger, like for example : Queen Mantis PR / MPR : 901,419 / 674,026 , or MaLicious's character PR / MPR : 921,295 / 595,099. How is this fair ?

Tell me 1 or 2 strat that can kill good tank teams with 200-300 k lower MPR teams and not with outrageous NW.

I guess that's enough ranting. ;) Now, to start with, maybe a good idea would be only 1 supporter item per team or maybe 2, but you can't use the same item (2x mgs, etc)

GL, lets start from the top. ;)

Point 1

Me: "So no, a non-ToA tank team really won't stand a chance against a ToA tank team at a similar MPR."

Note the word "Team". Not just single minions. From gauging the amount of active and competitive single minion tanks... it would be foolish to assume a single ToA tank vs. single non-ToA tank.

Point 2

Not taking into account the scaling cost of stats... Let's assume our tanks have 300k points to spread amongst their stats.

Your ToA tank would have 150k Hp and Dex. Your item-based tank would have 45k Str, 135k Dex, and 120k Hp. Lets assume the ToA tank has the same items that my NCB tank has on, and the item dude has my setup from above. 65 AC vs 112 AC. Lets also be generous to the item tank, and say the ToA is level 175k on the nose (I think that's a bit on the low side, but eh.)

Item Tank (A) - Post Items: 174,150 Dex, 63,450 Str.
ToA Tank (B) - Post Items: 230,500 Dex, 105,022 Str.

That includes all bonuses and penalties. (29% Dex and 41% str on tank A, 7% Dex and 10% Str on tank B.)

So... No. The Item tank has less than 50 more AC (or ~10% more physical reduction), while the ToA tank has a considerably larger Dex and Str, more PtH from the ToA, and less items they need to purchase to properly setup their character, allowing more income to be put directly back into weapon. Hmm. MgS/TSA tank teams are not going to compete with ToA tank teams without Haste on an enchanter. Even then, the ToA team will grow in Dex considerably faster than you can create through enchantments... and that's one less enchanter that can cast a considerably useful ED for you.

Point 3

I agree with you. Its big. It does a lot. An FB that deals 100k dmg in the first round of melee to a single character wearing +42 MgS and +50 TSA... they would instead deal 100,775 damage in the first three rounds, not taking into account normal AC. 240k damage versus that... yeah, I'd rather have the reduction any day of the week. At a PR increase of only 16.3% (the above MgS and TSA only) for the tank, they can survive until melee.

<Woot> Now, they've got to push enough damage past the normal .25HP/.75FB single FB mage to win. Normal FB mage has little AC. ~10% physical DR. But... the mage will also be able to use either GA or a ToE. </Woot>

Therein lies the struggle. Mages are rushing against the clock created by the specific Magic DR items... Kill the tank before it whittles away all your hp. FB gives the board sweeper and the concentrated killer for XP. A tank is a concentrated killer without a way to clear a path to the main target sans seekers (which get expensive when added to constant forging of weapons to keep at the weapon NW cap)

Point 4

I'll quote myself again.

"Still big. But, wait. That ~50% reduction isn't backlashing the poor mage in any way, shape or form. So, the mage's damage output is reduced... "

Let's cut that down to where the important statement is.

"... isn't backlashing the poor mage in any way ..."

An AMF working at an effective level of .3 has a 30% backlash. In terms more easily understood.. [Using above example] lvl 200k FB. 100k base dmg against a single minion. .3 AMF.
Since I am far too lazy to do the math surrounding AMF... I did the next best thing. Nightmare has a 188k FB. Oysterhead's AMF works at .34 against me.
Backlash damage in round 1: Joshua takes damage from his own Fireball (9493)!

In the example I've been using, this mage would take approximately 15k a round, not counting the ranged penalty. An extra 40k damage pushed through before melee in exchange for a little more damage taken.

Point 5

The VB. Yes... this I can almost see to be too good. Not too powerful... just something that removes 99% of all need for any of the non-rare weapons. The only saving grace is that the VB isn't the supporter item anymore, so new characters will need to buy a THF/Loch from the store, or something halfway decent from the auctions... be it a lesser weapon, katana, or a lucky snag with the VB.

Point 6

"Jonathan, December 24 2005 11:17 AM EST
A PR weight of N now means that for every plus of enchantment on the item, your PR will increase by N% of the xp on the minion equipping it."

So, those TSAs and MgS with a PR weight of 0.2 and 0.15 per enchantment point get heftier on the PR increase as you get bigger. With my examples above, the TSA +30 would increase PR by 6% of the minion's total xp, and the MgS +30 would increase PR by 4.5%.

Why is everyone saying that the TOA tank puts 1/2 his/her xp into HP and the other 1/2 into Dex?

That is the biggest misunderstanding I have seen in this thread.

When comparing TOA to non TOA tanks, use the following as a guideline:

HP: 1,000,000/1,000,000 ST: 999,115/100 DX: 901,019/209,839
Bloodlust: 248,184/221,593 (0.75)

That is my stat line on my TOA tank. 5 to 1 HP to Dex.
Overall its is about 5:1:1 Hp:dex:BL. 5/7th or about 70% of my total tanks xp is spent on HP. This is, of course, on a multiminion team where I do not have to use AMF or VA on my tank.

The TOA takes care of enough dex in almost all cases with a little xp investment needed. No str extra is needed, f course.

If I did not have a TOA, I would have about 1/3 the HP.

Honestly Ranger, at smaller MPRs, it is more necessary to put more of an emphasis on dex. Teams are trying to fight people of similar MPR and yet still have a decent dex gap. Once you get up higher, you usually either have a decent pth on your weapons and DBs, a haste enchanter, both of the above, or are using your tank solely to take out enchanters and mages.

Honestly Nightmare, I had a TOA tank from when my TOA was 300k. That was from even before the Tattoo Artist came. I let my TOA handle my dex and pump up my HP. I had a base 120k dex until just last week when I needed to pump up my dex (see below). Until recently I pumped every point of xp into HP with the occasional xp into BL to keep it maxed.

At the lower levels, dex is less important to pump up since there are so many character higher above your PR/score that you can fight if you have plenty of HP. I found that at the higher MPR/PR levels one needs to pump dex. This is very true as those NUB single minion FB mages come up for sale and the USD spenders that buy them convert them to massive TOA tanks. (see Imp and Oduten)

With the TOA's PTH one does not need to have a massive weapon to get a PTH to hit. The PTH of a 450k TOA is 40-45 so unless your fighting someone with high DB's, you will almost certainly get a PTH hit on another TOA tank. Even if they have more dex then you.

Ok so here's my finaly bit of silliness on this topic. It seems to be that the supporter items in question are the way they are in order to balance the extreme nature (at least in comparison to previous incarnations) of cb's roe sham bo game. I think that there are some balance issues that need to be resolved, as well as items that have fundamental problems with the way they work. Until we see someone at the top with a VB (Oh wait Bast's been using one for EVER), or a TSA (how many can you count?), or even the lowly MgS (can you find me a team without one?) I don't think it'll change.

If you won't nerf the supporter items, how about a buff to the real items?
At least make the VB two handed so an els isn't a joke.

Only 4 of the current top ten score are using a mage shield.

besides dbs, which were later altered (after some dim bulb suggested a NW way to combat weapon pth), you wouldn't have seen a MoD, or a CoBF on a top scoring team on cb1, which iwas my point when I started this lovely little flame war...

Why do so many people complain about MgS? Its not like you can't go and pick one up. They don't actually help that much except for during lower MPR where that extra percent DD reduction actually matters. Up higher where you are fighting people with over 1 million trained into FB that extra percent doesn't matter as much as you think. You still get hit by it every time and it still does massive damage. If your strat isn't built enough to withstand that damage without a MgS then you need to go back, unlearn all your characters abilities, and retrain till you learn how to build a strat that can compete with the others out there. I know your character quite well {cb1}novice, I farm him all the time. Until recently I was using a BoM now I'm trying a MgS to see what all the fuss is about. So far I see no difference at all. I'm still farming you just as much. Then again I don't just rely on a MgS and I never have, I was all about AMF. My AMF and my minions are what disperse that FB of yours. So until all you whiners stop complaining about supporter items being all powerful, I suggest you go out and get a couple of them and try to put together a "Good Strat"! Come back and see me when you can do that.

I figured you won because you have FF (the reason for all these overpowered anti-mage items in my stupid opinion) which cooks my silly 1/4HP rest in FB garbage strat before the AMF return gets a chance to.

"Borderliner, January 14 2006 8:46 PM EST
Didn't you read last months changelog GL"

Opps! >_<


"TrueDevil, January 14 2006 11:09 PM EST
I don't think the MgS itself would do much harm to mages, it's the combination of all magic reduction items, skills, etc. This is seriously getting outrageous, AMF + ToE + Trollskin + MgS + HP , crazy reduction of damage, but the weird thing is I don't see anything to decrease melee damage except the useless AC."

That's a good point. :) There is a lot to reduce DD damage AMF, MgS, TSA, AC +, Endurance, Protection. DD reduction has AMF, MgS and TSA over physical reduction.

"Nightmare, 12:30 AM EST
GL, lets start from the top. ;)

Point 1

Me: "So no, a non-ToA tank team really won't stand a chance against a ToA tank team at a similar MPR."

Note the word "Team". Not just single minions. From gauging the amount of active and competitive single minion tanks... it would be foolish to assume a single ToA tank vs. single non-ToA tank."

Ah! But then the waters muddy. ;) Are we looking at teams of equal numbered minions? How about multiple A/EXBows? Etc, Etc.

"Point 2

Not taking into account the scaling cost of stats... Let's assume our tanks have 300k points to spread amongst their stats.

Your ToA tank would have 150k Hp and Dex. Your item-based tank would have 45k Str, 135k Dex, and 120k Hp. Lets assume the ToA tank has the same items that my NCB tank has on, and the item dude has my setup from above. 65 AC vs 112 AC. Lets also be generous to the item tank, and say the ToA is level 175k on the nose (I think that's a bit on the low side, but eh.)"

Only point I have here is the tattoo *is* too large. A Tattoo grown with the character provides an extra 33% XP. So if the Tank has 300K the tattoo should be around level 99,000.

The ability to add a larger tattoo to your team is a seperate matter! ;)

"Point 4

I'll quote myself again.

"Still big. But, wait. That ~50% reduction isn't backlashing the poor mage in any way, shape or form. So, the mage's damage output is reduced... "

Let's cut that down to where the important statement is.

"... isn't backlashing the poor mage in any way ..."

An AMF working at an effective level of .3 has a 30% backlash. In terms more easily understood.. [Using above example] lvl 200k FB. 100k base dmg against a single minion. .3 AMF.
Since I am far too lazy to do the math surrounding AMF... I did the next best thing. Nightmare has a 188k FB. Oysterhead's AMF works at .34 against me.
Backlash damage in round 1: Joshua takes damage from his own Fireball (9493)!

In the example I've been using, this mage would take approximately 15k a round, not counting the ranged penalty. An extra 40k damage pushed through before melee in exchange for a little more damage taken."

And in exchange for spending a shed load of XP on AMF to even get to .3 when compared to a 75% DD expenditure! ;)

"Point 5

The VB. Yes... this I can almost see to be too good. Not too powerful... just something that removes 99% of all need for any of the non-rare weapons. The only saving grace is that the VB isn't the supporter item anymore, so new characters will need to buy a THF/Loch from the store, or something halfway decent from the auctions... be it a lesser weapon, katana, or a lucky snag with the VB."

Yeah, who needs a Tulwar? ;)

"Point 6

"Jonathan, December 24 2005 11:17 AM EST
A PR weight of N now means that for every plus of enchantment on the item, your PR will increase by N% of the xp on the minion equipping it."

So, those TSAs and MgS with a PR weight of 0.2 and 0.15 per enchantment point get heftier on the PR increase as you get bigger. With my examples above, the TSA +30 would increase PR by 6% of the minion's total xp, and the MgS +30 would increase PR by 4.5%. 2

Yeah... Missed that! ;)


"QBRanger, 12:43 AM EST
Why is everyone saying that the TOA tank puts 1/2 his/her xp into HP and the other 1/2 into Dex?

That is the biggest misunderstanding I have seen in this thread.

When comparing TOA to non TOA tanks, use the following as a guideline:

HP: 1,000,000/1,000,000 ST: 999,115/100 DX: 901,019/209,839
Bloodlust: 248,184/221,593 (0.75)

That is my stat line on my TOA tank. 5 to 1 HP to Dex.
Overall its is about 5:1:1 Hp:dex:BL. 5/7th or about 70% of my total tanks xp is spent on HP. This is, of course, on a multiminion team where I do not have to use AMF or VA on my tank.

The TOA takes care of enough dex in almost all cases with a little xp investment needed. No str extra is needed, f course.

If I did not have a TOA, I would have about 1/3 the HP."

Ah! now that just makes it even better for non ToA tanks. :) Everyone throws up the arguement that ToA tanks train a massive amount of Dex, on top of the Dex that the ToA grants. If you're only spending 15% of your total XP (and have a normal size Tattoo...) 29% Dex increase from items can easily outpace the Dex granted by a ToA.

:)





Nightmare, 1:07 AM EST
Honestly Ranger, at smaller MPRs, it is more necessary to put more of an emphasis on dex. Teams are trying to fight people of similar MPR and yet still have a decent dex gap. Once you get up higher, you usually either have a decent pth on your weapons and DBs, a haste enchanter, both of the above, or are using your tank solely to take out enchanters and mages.


"{cb1}novice, 2:30 AM EST
Ok so here's my finaly bit of silliness on this topic. It seems to be that the supporter items in question are the way they are in order to balance the extreme nature (at least in comparison to previous incarnations) of cb's roe sham bo game. I think that there are some balance issues that need to be resolved, as well as items that have fundamental problems with the way they work. Until we see someone at the top with a VB (Oh wait Bast's been using one for EVER), or a TSA (how many can you count?), or even the lowly MgS (can you find me a team without one?) I don't think it'll change.

If you won't nerf the supporter items, how about a buff to the real items?
At least make the VB two handed so an els isn't a joke."

Good point. If these items are so useful, because they provide uses that no other store sold items do (AC penetration, DD reduction, extra XP) Aren't they too powerful for items only a few of us (whoever became a supporter at the time, or bought one for USD) can have? Where's the generic items we can all get a hold of? Wher'es the store sold weapon that provides 1/4 AC penetration? Or the store sold armour that provides .5% DD reduction per enchantment point?


{cb1}novice, 2:43 AM EST
besides dbs, which were later altered (after some dim bulb suggested a NW way to combat weapon pth), you wouldn't have seen a MoD, or a CoBF on a top scoring team on cb1, which iwas my point when I started this lovely little flame war...


"DrAcO5676, 2:47 AM EST
Why do so many people complain about MgS? Its not like you can't go and pick one up. They don't actually help that much except for during lower MPR where that extra percent DD reduction actually matters. Up higher where you are fighting people with over 1 million trained into FB that extra percent doesn't matter as much as you think."

If anything, the percentage based reduction helps more *at* higher DD levels than lower. A 40% reduction stops more damage the higher the DD is.

"So until all you whiners stop complaining about supporter items being all powerful, I suggest you go out and get a couple of them and try to put together a "Good Strat"! Come back and see me when you can do that."

Speak to Johnnywas. He'll happily tell you of being able to farm teams much higher than him due to two MgS wall minions.

But now GL you have to realize that by the time you get to that high, even with the MgS and TSA and AMF the amount of damage that makes it thru is still about the same as when you were lower MPR without those items. As most people put it they spend 75% of their exp in a mage on their DD spell. Thats still a lot of damage getting thru. Maybe not the max that it could but that damage still hurts nonetheless.

Draco, by that time your HP is much higher and can withstand several more of those now rather puny attacks leading to you killing them first :).

blocking 90% of magic damage (round 1 with a +50 TSA and +40 MgS) with no serious penalty vrs tanks (minimal dex den at worst), You still get the AC from the TSA. The NW on these items isn't considered huge by the current standards, and yet they accomplish something that was NEVER done on cb1. I don't think with all the 200 mil + AC sets put together would block 90% of magic damage.

How much PR does a level 1200000 FF add? anyone know?

TrueDevil but the weird thing is I don't see anything to decrease melee damage except the useless AC.

How about Evasion, EC, DB's, Ax/ExBow's and the BL reduction to .75

"How about Evasion, EC, DB's, Ax/ExBow's and the BL reduction to .75"

Evasion is a direct reduction to pth (ignoring the increased defensive dex). It can lead to a damage reduction if a blow is stopped, but it is not automatic damage reduction *no matter what the size of your opponents stat is*. Face a +500 pth with a +30 evasion and is does nothing to reduce damage. Same deal for DBs.

AXBows are similair to Evasion above, but they do provide a percentage dexterity reduction independant to your targets stat. At most, this can stop 2 possible hits.

EXBows reduce damage, but only for the strength portion of the damage code, not the full damage output. And str is weighted less than weapon X when it comes to doing damage.

BL is increase to damage, it doesn nothing to reduce the damage you take. If your saying that Jon chaging BL bonus from 100% to 75% is a damage reduction, it doesn't effect the damage you take, but has just generally lowered the damage you do.

GL, this is why I made my argument to the Chuckle's theories thread about STR. STR is part of the main code as the multipliers work with the STR as well.
If you had a x100 kat and only enough STR to do damage with it then 7400 damage is a huge reduction from a possible 25k minimum.
So I would say an effective exbow actually reduces damage a lot, only problem being if they can outweigh you in dex hugely.

Ok, since GL already mentioned some stuff, I'll probably going to repeat some and added a little more.

Evasion - Last time I checked it doesn't decrease melee damage. It may only decrease per hits

EC - hmm, compared to AMF reducing magic damage, EC means almost nothing because even with low str but huge nw weapon, you will be able to deal tons of damage. (not as low as 20 str of course, but I mean something like 50 k str with 35 m nw morgul can easily deal 100 K damage per hit). Although, good thing that you mentioned it, EC effect need to get beefed up A LOT. Probably 2x str, dx reduction from the current EC.

DB - same with evasion.

AX/EXbow - Can mage use these ? I don't think so. This is probably the same as EC.

And also, can these Evasion, DBs, EC, AX/EXbow kill TANK TEAMS that are 200-300 k MPR, 300 k-400 k PR bigger than you ? (Which is the main point of my previous post). Because if it can, then obviously, nothing is wrong here but if it can't then you need to start thinking whether it's fair or not.

"Speak to Johnnywas. He'll happily tell you of being able to farm teams much higher than him due to two MgS wall minions. "

I have the same type of strat, two MgS wall minions and two big AMF's, making my team very much anti-mage. I can kill mage teams 200-300k PR more than me but I pay the price of losing to tank teams much lower in PR than myself.

Show me a MgS team that kills mage teams at significantly higher PR than itself that doesn't lose to smaller tank teams and I'll concede that the MgS is overpowered.

Also Evasion and DB's ARE ways of reducing physical damage, if you are up against a tank who has 200 PTH and you have 100 Evasion your reducing physical damage by 50%, if you have 50 Evasion you are reducing physical damage by 25%, yes it's not a set reduction each round and it's reducing the number of hits not the actual damage, but over the course of a fight Evasion will still reduce the total amount of damage you are taking.

But while we're on the subject of overpowered items, what about the DB's? Every TOA team in the top 10 uses one, and why not when you can reduce your opponents PTH by 170 (if you have imp's DB's). Forget about getting a DX advantage, if your fighting imp your never going to do more hits to him than he does to you if you do not also use DB's, no matter how much higher your DX is than his (assuming you both have weapons with the same PTH). If your a tank based team and you want to be competitive against other tank based teams then DB's seem to be a must have.

Are you saying that you can do less hits but still do the same amount of damage? I mean we are talking about total damage per round here, not per hit aren't we.

Yes we are, which is the point I'm (not very elegantly) making.

I know you were, I hadn't seen your post when I wrote that, I was replying to TD.

Derek;
"Also Evasion and DB's ARE ways of reducing physical damage, if you are up against a tank who has 200 PTH and you have 100 Evasion your reducing physical damage by 50%, if you have 50 Evasion you are reducing physical damage by 25%, yes it's not a set reduction each round and it's reducing the number of hits not the actual damage, but over the course of a fight Evasion will still reduce the total amount of damage you are taking."

Slight simplification there. A +100 from Evasion (whether skill or DB) will reduce damage by 50% on a +200 weapon *only* if no dex hits land. If two dex hits land, your evasion is only reducing total damage by 25%.

Evasion is a damage reduction, but relies on your opponents stats as to how much it protects. MgS doesn't. It's fixed no matter who you fight, large or small.


"But while we're on the subject of overpowered items, what about the DB's? Every TOA team in the top 10 uses one, and why not when you can reduce your opponents PTH by 170 (if you have imp's DB's). Forget about getting a DX advantage, if your fighting imp your never going to do more hits to him than he does to you if you do not also use DB's, no matter how much higher your DX is than his (assuming you both have weapons with the same PTH). If your a tank based team and you want to be competitive against other tank based teams then DB's seem to be a must have."

OK, take away DBs. How do you stop multiple hits from weapons now? When someone get's a +225 weapon, how do you stop them landing 2 hits with a 25% chance of a third even when they have no dexterity?

Now apply your arguement not to DBs but weapons.

But while we're on the subject of overpowered items, what about MHs? Every TOA team in the top 10 uses one, and why not when you can land 2 additional hits every round (if you have <whoevers> +200 MH). Forget about doing more damage, if your fighting <whoever> your never going to do more hits to him than he does to you if you do not also have a +200 weapon, no matter how much higher your DX is than his (assuming you both have DBs with the same Evasion). If your a tank based team and you want to be competitive against other tank based teams then +200 MHs seem to be a must have...

Borderliner, ok so it's reducing damage, but let's see Take an example of the strongest Magic vs the most powerful blow, The strongest magic currently is 1.6 mil FB base, I'm not sure how much damage that can deal but probably 600-700 k single hit or maybe less ? This is without all the magic reduction items.

While, the most powerful blow by ranger can deal a good 1 mil damage single hit, even with DB, Evasion, etc if it's against mage, ranger can still do 2 mil damage, now the only thing that can reduce it is EC and AX/EX to reduce his str. (Oh and the great thing is while doing 2 mil damage, he also get some HP back, even if it's small, it's still recovery, no way to block that too). The only drawback to this is of course it's very expensive to do, but not impossible.

The mage got screwed if the opponent use the combination of some or all : AMF, MgS, TSA, ToE + 4 MINIONS TEAM that reduce FB, and CoC. Magic missile damage is really really low. Because currently I have around 500 k Magic Missile and the highest damage I've seen is around 100-150 k without any magic reduction.

Derek : You lose to smaller tanks ? How small ? 100 k MPR Tanks beating you ?? Based on your fight record, there is only 1 tank that is smaller than you 235 k MPR, and that's 5 Draws and 1 Win.

OTOH unless STR becomes more linear, damage-wise, Ranger isn't going too much higher. I think it's too soon to tell how the balance will swing.

TrueDevil - Nope I don't lose to tanks at 100k MPR - that's four times less than my current MPR, I doubt any MgS users can beat Mages that are four times their MPR/PR so I don't think 100k MPR is a valid number to look at. There is several tanks out there around 200k-300k PR, about half mine that probably could beat me though, it's just that not many have found me yet. I think losing to the odd tank half my PR and being able to kill a couple of mages almost twice my PR is a fair tradeoff and does not make my character overpowered in anyway..

GentlemanLoser - Yes that argument can be applied to Morgs, along with many other items, I admit I was being a little cynical with my point - I haven't had any experience with DB's so can't really comment on it's overpoweredness but it does seem to be an essential item (along with a big weapon) for tanks, just like the MgS is a must have for certain builds, does that make these items overpowered? Who knows. Tanks need DB's to be effective against other tanks, Wall's need the MgS to be effective against mages, seems fair enough to me.

I'd also like to comment on the point you make about the fixed Magic reduction from the MgS. AC by it's nature is a fixed reduction to Magic (and Physical) Damage as well, but unlike the MgS - which is fixed at 50% reduction - AC reduction gets better and better the higher the AC - 1 point of AC gives much more reduction at 250 AC than at 0 AC. (Gives 0.21% reduction at 0 AC and about twice that at 250 AC). Therefore one could say the MgS gets left behind somewhat as AC gets higher and higher.

I decided to crunch some numbers to compare Physical Damage reduction from a wall compared to Magic Damage reduction from a wall wearing A) Heavy AC equipment (Adam, Tulkas, HoD, CML's, SC, MS) B) Same equip but with a MgS, c) Same equip but with MgS and TSA

I used the biggest items from each category for my this. Which are: Titanium Power Cloak [11] (+24) worth $3,233,873
A Set of Chain Mail Leggings [14] (+33) worth $3,460,542
A Pair of Tulkas' Gauntlets [6] (+18) worth $2,982,926
Horsemen's Protector [40] (+79) worth $8,410,064
Titanium Helm [9] (+21) worth $2,405,143
A Trollskin Armor [22] (+50) worth $9,172,658
I am a Mess [15] (+35) worth $3,971,930

a) Heavy AC tank
Total AC - 35+47+24+119+30+50=305
Enchantment AC - 24+33+18+79+21+35=210
100 Physical Damage Reduced to - 100*(1-305*0.0021)=35.95
100 Magic Damage Reduced to - 210*0.0021=55.9

b) Same equip with MgS
Total AC - 35+47+24+119+30=255
Enchantment AC - 24+33+18+79+21=175
100 Physical Damage Reduced to - 100*(1-255*00021)= 46.45
100 Magic Damage Reduced to - 100*(1-175*0.0021)*.5 = 63.25 *.5 = 31.62

c) Same again with MgS and TSA
Total AC - 35+47+24+72+30=208
Enchantment AC = 24+33+18+50+21=146
100 Physical Damage Reduced to - 100*(1-208*0.0021)= 56.32
100 Magic Damage Reduced to - 100*(1-146*0.0021)*.5*..5=69.34*.25= 17.335 in 1st Round
69.34*.5*.75=26.00 in 2nd Round
69.35*.5*.875=30.34 in 3rd Round etc

Conclusion? MgS reduced Magic Damage to 31.62 from 55.9 - this is about a 40% reduction when compared to the MS, and the difference will get smaller the higher the AC of the user (as the effectiveness of armor increases as AC increases). Also the MgS build gave only slightly more Magic Reduction than the 1st build gives Physical reduction and again as AC increases Physical Reduction in the 1st build will surpass Magic Reduction in the 2nd build. Finally the TSA helped Magic Reduction significantly in Round 1 but after Round 3 an Adamantite Cuirass gives better Magic Reduction than the TSA.

:) And that's why you use a VB! :P

But seriously, my point is;

a) 100 Magic Damage Reduced to - 210*0.0021=55.9

Versus

c) 100 Magic Damage Reduced to - 100*(1-146*0.0021)*.5*..5=69.34*.25= 17.335 in 1st Round
69.34*.5*.75=26.00 in 2nd Round
69.35*.5*.875=30.34 in 3rd Round etc

In three rounds with a) you take 167.7 damage, with c) it's 73.675.

Under half damage.

Three rounds of either beating on the mage in question, stopping MM for longer than you usually would, or helping the rest of yout team by keeping FB/CoC split for longer.

Derek, just a slight detour around the subject at hand:

There are a couple of reasons why smaller tank teams can beat you. One, two AMF's means your PR is effectively lowered against those teams. Two, your mini tanks need DX! A small tank with 50k DX is going to dodge their attacks.

Otherwise, nice to see two mage shields at work! Gotta love the mage shield/ToE aura/AMF combo for cutting down mages very cruelly!

Derek, 100 k mpr equal to four times yours ? I wouldn't count it like that, how about this.

Derek's Magezilla : Score / PR / MPR: 1,043,736 / 541,881 / 390,046. Basically 390 k MPR, even before 390 k MPR, I think at around 350-370 k MPR, you can already beat Queen Mantis Score / PR / MPR: 987,217 / 901,710 / 674,026. Now that's a good 300 k MPR difference and almost 450 k Total PR difference.

Now, it's only fair to compare with Tanks that are around 100-150 K MPR, Because Your MPR 390 k - Small Tanks 100 k = 290 k MPR which is the difference.

Isn't it supposed to be like that ? Because that's how I've always counted and IMO is correct.

Just want to add a little bit, for Derek's strat , I'm pretty sure that if you added AX/EXbow or Elbow for both 'Wall Tanks' , I don't think any small or 200-300 k MPR tanks will be able to survive except probably single tank ToE.

Couple of points
TrueDevil - 1) I look at PR not MPR, as I feel that is a more correct measure of power.
- 2) The ratio of PR difference is more important than the actual number. For example if I am 500k PR and can beat a team at 980k PR it's not really fair to compare me to tank teams at 20k PR is it? Thats 49 times less PR than me where by I am about half the PR of the 980k PR team - not really a fair comparison IMO.

GentlemanLoser - Best case scenario is a reduction from 167.7 to 73.675 - that's against a FB team in the first three rounds of combat, look at say 6 rounds of combat or look at reduction against a CoC team and the reduction will be far less.

Yes, at the moment you can achieve some pretty good magic reduction - but remember as AC increases the reduction of MgS/TSA vs MS/Adam will get less significant (as AC gets more effective as AC increases and MgS/TSA effectiveness remains the same). Also comparing Physical Reduction vs Magic Reduction, the Physical Reduction of A) Is 107.85 compared to the Magic Reduction of C) of 73.675, not a huge difference that will again get less and less. I argue that MgS and TSA are needed to keep Magic Reduction up with Physical Reduction.

Allready I feel Adam's are better for my team than the TSA (since my battles tend to last 15+ rounds) for Magic Recution. I don't feel my Armor will ever get to the point that an MS gives more Magic Reduction than the MgS does, but it will get closer and closer.

Finally Johnnywas and TrueDevil - You both make good points on ways for me to get better against tanks - the only problem is it is a tradeoff - increasing DX or equipping AXBow/ExBow would help me against tanks but would do nothing against Mages - which make up my entire fightlist. I don't really mind losing to lower tanks as long as I beat the mages.

Finally, could someone explain to me how the MgS actually works - I hear the 50% reduction number thrown around alot but surely it's not a flat 50% reduction regardless of the + on the MgS?

I believe it's still a % based reduction equal to the + on the MgS.

With a direct reduction thrown in as well. It's something like 2.2K Direct per point, or 1% per point as a minimum. It's capped at 50% and in Answer to Jon being asked, "what happens hwne I forge my MgS to +51" Jon replied along the lines of "No one's that rich".

Derek, I really don't see AC getting too much higher (above 300) without Jon stepping in to change something. 350 was about the highest AC I saw in CB1 before I stopped playing and getting any higher than that was stupidly expensive. But that's nearing 75% damage reduction anyway.

By the end of CB1 several people had "perfect AC" although strangely enough the ELB's which were just under the "bugged level" could still do over 1 mill of damage and even the magic damage was getting through.

It's a random 0.21% reduction per point.
So on average an AC of 477 will stop all damage getting through. Some times it won't.

477 AC will stop all physical damage.

You will need a + of 477 to stop all magic damage.

so it is the same as cb1 - I was told AC worked differently over here. On cb1 I had 1 minion with 477AC and it did stop the majority of hits (not all)

The only difference is a direct reduction equal to your AC before the percentage reduction is applied.

477 AC will only stop all damage some of the time.