Why I love and hate DBs (in General)

I figure it has been far too long since I, Vaynard, went off on a good rant. It is late, and I am not yet tired enough to consider sleep, so it is time to share my own insights as to why I love DBs, and how I also hate them so.

I love them, since I use them. I am in debt paying for bigger DBs even right now. And they help greatly. All but the largest and richest of tanks will miss my mighty Stalker.

I am sure you are wondering why I hate DBs though. It is examples such as this: (sorry about picking on you SNK3R) Nascence. Here is a single mage, high MPR, good basic team. No evasion, no DX (which is at 0 after my EC), just HP and FB for the most part. A curious thing happens however. My tank, built solely for dodging and hitting enemies with his DX advantage (over all but a select few monsters) often comes up empty. Quite often in fact. In my last few tests:

Hits / Total Attacks
1 / 7
4 / 6
2 / 6
2 / 5

Now I know that is not much sample data. But remember, this is a tank with a +70 axbow, a +84 BoNE, and 1,210,000 DX against a 0 DX mage.

I realize he has some nice boots. Very nice, named, +174 boots. Nascence really does not even have terribly outragous NW for the level he is at. But the vast majority of the NW is in the boots.

As I understood it, a tank relies on NW, a mage on experience. Seeing my tank miss time and time again made me realize that this is undoubtedly off base. If NW is well placed, say in big boots, a mage can effectively neutralize any amount of DX and theoretically dodge any tank blow. The extra +100 or so larger his DBs were than my PTH effectively reduced my DX 100%. Is this right? I remember this is how Jon changed it to, but why? Should a 0 DX mage dodge a 1,210,000 DX tank in all its weapon swinging glory? Maybe I am just jealous, but I think I have a point here. Shouldn't DB's have some sort of a cap or stopper on how much % of DX it can kill? What other item can neutralize an infinite amount of DX?

That is all. Thanks. Night.

I believe the change letting DB take pth negative was made so that the PR added by DB corresponds to effectiveness in battle in all cases not just those where the DB size is close to the opponents weapon pth.
I agree it is a bit of a problem for a tank trying to up 2 weapons (+ and x) along with other items when the mage needs only a couple of pieces of equipment and can then concentrate on the DB.

The downside of a pair of DBs is this: All that cash input for only one type of opponent. Whereas the weapon that you are pumping cash into takes on all types of opponent. If it hits lol.

Mages don't have it too good at the moment whereas tanks are better served than they have ever been (in CB2 at least). I don't like the massive DBs around either but I think the mighty tanks need to have something to darken their days....

JW is right, it only works on tanks, and tanks do need something to weaken them.

so, 100 mil on DB's to only counter tanks, that 100 mil is completely gone against mages.

there you go, use DD if you want to make those money sinks useless.

i think that, they are only for USD spenders, i prefer EB's, they are still good, and we don't see USD'ers putting 100 mil+ into them.

You need more PTh Vay, you're the one running NW shy for the top 20. You NEED a +100 weapon. I would miss SNK back when I only had 99 PTh on my side, but I'd still hit him occasionally. You've got only a little way to go to get back to the point where you manage at least a hit. I've never been a fan of fixed percentage reductions, but I think in the case of dbs, there isn't another option.

The AoI is very nice for the top DB users too giving extra negative to hit which would cost a lot to add via the DB. My +100 cost 2.8M to get to 107.