Archery Musings (or I think it needs a buff) (in General)

OK, first off, some raw stats. When looking at the amount of trained exp via the Stats > Spell/Skill link you see the following:

XP trained
Percent of all trained xp used for the given stat:

Bloodlust 1.6%
Archery 0.8%
Phantom Link 0.8%
Unarmed Combat 0.6%
Evasion 0.5%

I think that shows an overwhelming leaning to the training of Bloodlust over any other skill. Why, you ask? Because it is overwhelmingly the most powerful skill. It has almost twice the trained exp into it than archery AND it takes 1/5 of the ST score as compared to 1/4 the ST archery does to be max effect. So not only does it have double the exp trained into it, it takes less trained to max out the effect.

So big deal you say, you get to do damage first with archery. Yes, but this is not the advantage you might think it is. All someone has to do is have 4 minions with the main damage dealer wearing an AoI to completely neutralize the advantage of using archery. How do I neutralize BL? Killing them before melee, but you cannot do it, if they have 4 minions with the main damage dealer wearing an AoI.

OK, Ill stop there and reach my conclusion. I have lots more to say, and lots more data, but I will save that for any rebuttals.

In conclusion I think at the VERY least, archery should be 1/5 ST to max effect like BL, but I think it should actually be less than BL so I think 1/6 is appropriate, assuming you make no other changes. To really buff it up and make the archery vs. BL something other than an easy no brainer, let only those with archery trained target more than a single minion in a single round. OR you could even consider dropping the massive DX penalty for ranged in melee, even if you keep the every other round aspect. Something needs to be done.

Now the 1mil + exp I currently have invested in archery is worth something. Now I do not spend all my NW investment into my elbow and all the exp invested into archery massively overkilling worthless enchanters while the main damage dealer lies in wait to spend the next up to 22 rounds crushing me in melee. All archery gives me right now, is one extra round in ranged over killing one more enchanter.

Why do I still use archery then? I am stubborn, and I want ranged to mean something, but pretty soon, I will give it up and go the way of everyone else and go Bloodlust, sell off the large elbow, drop the proceeds into my new Morg and be like every other 4 minion ToA tank team out there. On my fight list, no one uses Archery, not one single team. Every tank team I fight uses BL, and without some help I am soon to join them.

Very basically;

Archery costs 25% of it's parent stat and grants a 50% damage boost.

BL costs 20% of it's parent stat and grants a 60% damage boost.

But, we don't want Archery and the ELBow to become I.W.I.N. (to everything bar team with three 20 HP meat shields) because it goes first. It's needs a buff, but there needs to be a seperate way to counter it.

;)

Buff Archery and include a new 'Power Shield'. A carbon copy of the MgS, called something like 'Inertia Barrier' (or some such) that reduces Ranged damage by 1% per plus. ;)

Archery is good for one thing. Specialization.

By carefully building up a strategy to you can make archery few powerful. But it's not very good using only 1 minion.

Now Sefton consider they change archery to 1/6 of ST.

2 minion team. One ToA tank one not (duh). Give them both archery at 1/6 and massive ELB's. Now you can take out enchanters 1 and 2 round and own the 3rd round. My strategy is a good example if I used archery. Use a wall with 30k ST and 100 DX to kill an enchanter. My tank would of course killt he next. 2nd round same things happens except my large tank hits their damage dealer.

3rd round DEAD.

By keeping the archery cost high you stop it from becoming an easy skill to learn on a minion. That's all.

Also, you thinking in the term of the best in the game. Quite a few strategies are NOT 4 minions and those players DO NOT want archery costing less or doing more damage.

First off, I only see a 33% boost in damage because of 2 rounds vs. 3 rounds. Without archery I fire in two ranged rounds and with it I fire in three, that I see as a 33% damage boost.

Secondly, how do you counter BL? You do not. It no longer causes the minion to take more damage, and while you laugh at your archery opponent who does 600K damage to your 100K HP enchanter then turn around and clobber him with 60% greater damage in melee for the next 22 rounds.

Thirdly, sounds like a great strat, and a NEW one to boot, imagine that a non-cookie cutter based strat. You mention two massive elbows like it is easy to do. It is not. Show me those non-4 minion teams that are so great, as far as I can see the 4-minion teams dominate in all the realms, as far as score is concerned. I bet the ratio is close to 5 to 1 on straight up 4 minion teams of equal PR to non 4 minion teams, and I bet those non 4 minion teams lose to the 4 minion ones on a consistant basis. Are there exceptions, sure of course there are but as always, the exceptions do not make the rule.

yea, BL has a much higher damage potential as it works for 22 rounds as opposed to 1. and also archery has the additional drawback to having no way around AC, and it also has the weakness of being partially ineffective against 3 minion teams.

*4 minion teams. where was the spell checker there? ;)

Sefton you also have to remember a few things about 4 minion teams at the top. One real good reason for 4 minion teams at the top is to spread out the 100 mil NW of items they have. They don't help if you can't equip them. Secondly, not EVERYONE is in the top of the game. I mean, if you think archery is so bad, then boost GS and GA while your at it because both are underpowered also.

Secondly, two ELB's are NOT hard to get. I am a mediocre player at BEST and I could get two ELB's, and some tank gear for mini tank.

I understand that AoI makes order a non issue and reduces the effectiveness of archery. But you can't just buff archery and ruin every 3 minion team or lower simply because the majority top opponents are 3!

Now if you can find a way to make archery not effect small minion teams worse but hurt 4 minion teams I am all for it. But I can't even understand why someone would want to buff archery. You can't decrease cost or increase power! It won't help you against 4 minion teams. Find a way to make it do that and fine...

Heh,heh,heh.....


(I went for four minions, BL and a morg before all the current changes to physical damage. That particular changelog was Christmas come early for me. Four minions has always been a good way of taking on archers, FB mages and recently, thanks to the changes to it, MM teams.)

All along my benchmark has been Seft's team. It's been interesting to see how an archery based team and a bloodlust team fare against each other, especially given how we started at almost the same time and so have pretty much equal teams.

At the moment we draw, in part because I lose some of my enchantments to DM and mostly because I have a small ranged attack and sometimes am still taking on Seft's Wall by the time melee kicks in. And then another couple of rounds to take out the enchanters. By then Seft's tank has cleaned up my enchanters and has been hitting my tank for a couple of rounds. And still we draw. And sometimes, more often or not I win, because of my increased damage in melee and the addition of my Morg's VA. If I spent some money on my ranged attack I would probably gain more of an edge, but it's already there thanks to BL.

I would suggest maybe an extra element to archery, because as it stands the AoI makes the skill a little less effective than I think it should be. Perhaps the second element could be targetting, giving a random chance to hit an AoI wearer, giving the archer more of a chance of taking on the main opposing damage dealer during the rounds archery counts in.

It might not be to my advantage to agree with Seft here, but I do. My team and his provide perfect illustration of where the power lies in Tank Blender.

I also wanted to add that the "33%" and "60%" figures are way to simplified because there are only 3 ranged rounds and 22 melee rounds. IF BL stopped working after the third melee round THEN that would be a accurate assessment, otherwise it is actually no where close.

Lets say for simplification terms, with my elbow I do 100K a shot. So in three ranged rounds, I do 300K.

Lets say for simplcation terms, without BL I would do 62.5K per swing and with it I do 100K (do the math)

So without archery I would do 200K and with it I would do 300K

Without BL I would do 1,375,000 in 22 melee rounds and with it I would do 2,200,000 in 22 melee rounds. How does that equate to a simple archery increases your damage 33%?

It does not, not even close. Why? Well lets say the BL guy has NO ranged, over the course of 25 rounds the archery guy does 1,675,000 (62.5K X 22) and the BL guy does 2,200,000 100K X 22).

Sure you can try to argue that no fight lasts 25 melee rounds any more, ok lets go there. 100K-62.5K equals 37.5K SO all melee has to last less than 3 rounds to exceed the 100K advantage I had from my extra ranged round. Archery offers no increase in damage per se, only the extra round, so on the 6th round of combat, the BL guy takes the lead and has the greater advantage from the 6th round on.

Again, I say it like this, why is there twice the amount of trained exp in BL than archery when it actually costs less exp to max out BL? Because everyone is stupid and doesn't realize the massive advantage archery has over BL, right?

Johnny has it. Make archery auto-target at random any minion on the opponents team. Even if they have AoI. Make it so that AoI just decrease chance of being picked. This will stop walls from hurting rangers so badly, and stop AoI from being such an automatic "I lose".

There are of course problems with that, but better then nothing. And of course archery only works with bows so no problems will come from ax/ex bows.

Not sure I understand the 4-minion example.... If you are a single archer, say, and you go against a 4-minion team of similar PR, this "main damage dealer" you will be facing is going to be dang weak in comparison to the single archer. That is what evens that scenario out: it's the classic dilution vs. "kill slots" debate.

Look at Conundrum. On any given battle where I don't get extremely lucky and kill him in one round, we draw. I end up with a negative 3 million HP on my familiar and negative 2 million on my mage (I see 8/8/1,000,000 on a regular basis, and that's just a two-round fight). So, Archery doesn't need a power buff, that much is obvious. Even if I had a ToE the results would be the same (probably worse, because his damage can easily "overwhelm" the ToE, and I wouldn't have my familiar providing a kill slot).

The only way to beat him is to add meat. Kill slots. For me, each kill slot costs 27 million dollars. That's pricey. In other words, I am saying that for a damage dealer to go toe-to-toe with an archer, it has do be damn big. And if it is damn big, odds are it is not part of a 4-minion team. I'm not sure I am making sense, but hopefully you at least see my point.

That in no way detracts from your experience argument of at least reducing Archery investment to the same fraction as BL. I completely agree with that. It seems like a nice symmetry to me

Actually Seft's main advantage in his winning fights against me is the Wall. Some fights I simply don't hit it enough to do kill it quick enough, and so Seft's tank can pick off my tank without taking any damage. But if I up my dex, or the PTH on my Morg...back to me.

(For sake of information my average damage in melee is between 200k and 300k)

First of all, I would like to point out the absolute rarity of a 25 round game. Bloodlust is designed to win fast with, so the absolute farthest I would think you could use it would be 15 rounds. After 15 you just hoping AMF kills a mage or somehow your 35k GA K.O.'s them. Be reasonable Sefton, because unless you can document some fights (regularly) going over 15 rounds (really more like 10) then you should change your statistics.

"I also wanted to add that the "33%" and "60%" figures are way to simplified because there are only 3 ranged rounds and 22 melee rounds. IF BL stopped working after the third melee round THEN that would be a accurate assessment, otherwise it is actually no where close.

Lets say for simplification terms, with my elbow I do 100K a shot. So in three ranged rounds, I do 300K."

I dont think this is a fair assessment to say youre only going to get in 3 shots. You "only" get in that extra round yes, but how many extra shots are you going to get in that round? A good tank? Probably at least 2-3 more. With an ELB with a large PTH, 3-4 extra shots for a total of 9-12 shots vs 6-8 shots for a non-archery tank? What if you have a TOA on? 4-5 extra shots makes 12-15 total? I dont think we want to turn this into CB1 where the strategy of the whole game boils down to battles barely lasting out of ranged.

archery is further negated by having no way to attack the main damage dealer of the enemy outright. with AoI and PL, enemies can make archery damage go where ever they want. Even special ammo (seekers) can easily be negated. With 4 minion teams, which are by far the most numerous on cb, it is quite possible, probable even, that you wont touch their main damage dealer, even if you do manage to kill an enemy minion every round. (Assuming of course you have just 1 archer, trying to have 2 might be harder than you think, since the Weapon Allowance restricts that somewhat. But Even then, if your first archer does not kill the minion its attacking then there is no bonus to having 2 archers over one.)

Hey I got an idea then. Get rid of bloodlust. Then tanks and mages will be REAL even.

Seriously, there aren't many ways to improve it without making it too powerful. If you love archery, find a way to make it work. I loved my way. Give your enchanter or wall (if you have one) 20-30k ST. Give him like 100-200 DX. Give him a reasonably powerful compound bow. Then own. It works and if you want archery to work use it. Because, notice, your only complain is that the strategies using BL are better then the strategies using Archery.

I already touched on this, but archery's main problem is the AoI on multi minion teams. There is no point in having huge damage and that extra round if all you're doing is using on 20 HP enchanters. It's a complete waste of XP and cash input.

Take away the AoI and you increase the usefulness of physical ranged attacks. Otherwise it really is better to go BL and take on other tanks in melee.

Tez, sefton was giving the same number of hits to archery and bl, fewer hits = simplified numbers, but illustrate the effect the same

"So without archery I would do 200K and with it I would do 300K"

Isn't that a 50% damage increase? :P

"archery is further negated by having no way to attack the main damage dealer of the enemy outright. with AoI and PL, enemies can make archery damage go where ever they want."

Good.

I'll say it again. Good.

Without this, anyone with a ToA, Seekers and the largest ELBow they can afford wins.

Yes GL, but the difference is Archery is a static buff, only adds damage once, where BL is dynamic, it adds with all attacks; so you cant really compare percentages between the 2 of them

Well, if you want to boost it in whatever way (such as make it cheaper to reach ST) then you going to have to make it cost more base. Like 200k or something. You can't boost accuracy without greatly skewing the lower ranks!

Check it out. Archery currently costs 91. You boost it and anyone who stumbles across it will destroy every mage and other tank until they reach 4 minion teams. Just saying...

"Tez, sefton was giving the same number of hits to archery and bl, fewer hits = simplified numbers, but illustrate the effect the same"

I know what he is up to, but when you add in the full number of shots you'll get, it highlights the point that in the higher levels of the game, an archery tank already has the ability to kill off 3/4 of a team in ranged.

The main problem here is that there is too much 'goodness' for four minion teams.

Aura's, protected ED (DM cam close to being a lower minion equaliser), AoI's, PL, etc.

If you plan well, even XP dillution isn't a problem.

There isn't a reason not to have four minions atm, and that makes me sad. :(

3 rounds= 3 kills. Not bad IMO. Not in a game based on speed.

What if you made it so that when you used Bloodlust ranged damage was DECREASED. Say the rage or whatever doesn't allow for adequate patience... whatever... but that might balance things out. If bloodlust users want "22" rounds of evil, then can pretty much lose the first 3. Sound fair?

I do not think archery needs a 'buff' per se, however its xp cost should be equal to BL.

The one thing I never understood was why the extra damage bloodlusted minions took was removed.

And for those new to the game, bloodlust gave 120% extra damagethen the current 60.

If extra damage isn't the answer, then perhaps lower ac is. Like BL minions lose 1\2 their AC as beserkers usually do in other RPG's.

"Yes GL, but the difference is Archery is a static buff, only adds damage once, where BL is dynamic, it adds with all attacks; so you cant really compare percentages between the 2 of them"

Archery gives a 50%, if you ignore variations on number of hits.

BL gives a flat 60% damage increase.

*shrug*

BL still comes out ahead of Archery. I've always hated BL since the increased damage taken penalty was removed.

"If extra damage isn't the answer, then perhaps lower ac is. Like BL minions lose 1\2 their AC as beserkers usually do in other RPG's"

Or, lower their defensive Dexterity. Make them easier to hit. :)

/me wonders why no one considered just boosting the COST of BL.

Bring it back to 1/4. I imagine DAWG won't be a big fan of that, but I bet a few of the archery users will!

...especially if you rework dexterity! *grin*

Sut, my friend my pal, do you not think perhaps, that the 202mil NW he has on his single minion compared to the 42mil you have on your single minion may have just a little effect on your fights?

Score / PR / MPR: 2,362,397 / 2,330,188 / 1,678,947
Score / PR / MPR: 2,153,365 / 1,992,575 / 1,585,610

Also your are basically saying if he did not have archery you would beat him everytime, because you would fire in round 2 and he would not, so you are able to stop an additional 160mil NW in gear if he doesn't spend GOBS of exp on archery. I think perhaps we should look and see if mages do not still need more reduction applied.

Tezmac, unless you are shooting someone who can hurt you in some way, it does not matter if you do 100K to them or 100mil to them. Also the PTH from the ToA only comes out in melee I believe further buffing BL and furthering my point. IF Archery allowed you to targer multiple minions in a single round THEN your point would be right on, and I would not be making this post :)

Godwolf, how does a 20K ST on my second tank stop anyone from using your Strat? I mean I only need 5K archery, if it went to 1/6 I would need 3.3K archery, I am not sure but I bet the amount of trained exp difference between the two is less than 160 BA spent with a NCB or NUB. So I am not sure how dropping it to 1/6 would make that much a difference EXCEPT on the main tank where it would have a huge effect, and perhaps a balancing effect as compared to BL.

If you actually have trained archery and you have actually tried to fight with it, then perhaps you can say 3 rounds = 3 kills Godwolf, but since archery is SO unloved, I am betting you do not have it. It only equals 3 kills if you are killing non-combatants. It does not go like that if you are shooting mages or tanks, trust me :) As a matter of fact, I would like everyone who has posted in this thread AND has archery trained on their main character they play the most to raise their hand.

I bet I am alone. I raise my hand.

Another problem archery has is a vulnerability to GA. Bloodlust does see that but can counter with a MH or VA.

What if Jon made a new bow-a leech type bow that has an upgrade between a compound and an elb. Would that be buff enough?

Lets Assume Ranged and Melee damage are the same for your minion, and a 6 round fight.

Ranged With Archery Ranged With BL
Rd 1 = 100k Rd1 = 100k
Rd 2 = 100k
Rd3 = 100k Rd3 = 100k

Melee With Archery Melee with BL
Rd4 = 100k Rd4 = 160k
Rd5 = 100k Rd5 = 160k
Rd6 = 100k Rd6 = 160k
TOTALS
600k 680k
even in round 5 BL is ahead by 20k damage.

thats with 100k damage, which is maybe a little, but as damage grows so does BLs damage advantage

i do sef :)

Ranger makes an excellent point I missed. The GA thing. The ONLY reason I have to have DM is because if I do not, my tank dies in ranged, without a single blow landed against him. Any significantly large GA kills me, with no method to recoup like BL has with VA. Give me VA in ranged, then perhaps, I could learn AMF and EC like everyone else does.

/me doesn't use archery because he can't afford to untrain BL
If I did my MPR would drop and I would be a worse forger

Don't flatter yourself Sefton. Others use archery. The .8 says alot actually. That means to me thats 33% of all xp used for tank skills is spent on archery.

Secondly, just one archer won't work! You need multiple archers to get the effect. heck multiple tanks of any kind. A mage! Another minion is needed for archery to be great JUST LIKE BL. I can't help you. They have 1 mil HP (using AS) on every enchanter or 100k DX due to Haste, you were probably going to lose anyways.

Sefton, I normally respect the ideas you come up with. But boosting archery won't change the AoI or the 4 minion bonuses. And if you hate those 20 HP minions SOOO much, give an enchanter 500 ST and DX and a sling. Now your archer gets 3 extra hits!

These numbers everyone is giving are flawed. The ELB does more damage then the Morg does, hit for hit. For short fight a archery team DOES do more damage. But the VA thing is annoying. I don't think GA should count against archers anyways. Mages, yes. Archers, no.

Now lets make this post a little more realistic and assume damage of 400k a shot (a little more realistic, but still conservative) and 4 hits per round...

Ranged With Archery Ranged With BL
Rd 1 = 400k Rd1 = 400k
Rd 1 = 400k Rd1 = 400k
Rd 1 = 400k Rd1 = 400k
Rd 1 = 400k Rd1 = 400k

Rd 2 = 400k
Rd 2 = 400k
Rd 2 = 400k
Rd 2 = 400k

Rd3 = 400k Rd3 = 400k
Rd3 = 400k Rd3 = 400k
Rd3 = 400k Rd3 = 400k
Rd3 = 400k Rd3 = 400k

Youve already hit me for 1.6M more damage. Thats only using 400k a hit and ONLY assuming 4 hits a round. How much more damage are you asking for?

Archery only has an advantage in fights 4 rounds or less, and ELB may do more damage than a Morg, but i chose them to do the same damage to look at the effects of the skills, not the effects with specific weapons

It's weird to me that this thread appeared on my "800k Day". 800k Day is the day that my NCB character reached 800k MPR, and I had determined back in June that on 800k Day, I would go from defense-based to offense-defense balanced by turning my RoS into a TOA and put it on my archer tank.

I've been pumping XP into archery for a while, in anticipation of the big ST jump, but for some reason I was using 20% (probably from my use of BL on my previous character) in my calculation, and now I realize I have to continue to pump the archery to make up the difference.

My point is really just that I wanted to be able to raise my hand and agree with Sefton... :)

ALso, the whole point of this is weird. Archery has belegs. And Archery increases damage. SO archery allows MORE damage and MORE rounds to use it in.

Bloodlust tanks are not even coming close to the damage archer do with bows.

most realistic would be 3 rounds,, 4 is definetly not conservative, except for those with really high nw.
the next round, first of melee would be
w/ Archery || w/out
400k || 640k
400k || 640k
400k || 640k
400k || 640k

that gives a 1440k bonus to BL in round 4, leaving only 260k bonus to archery
then in round 5 BL takes the lead by 1180k dmg over archery, further increasing by 1440k dmg every round

No one is taking into account increased damage for archers.

BL tanks can also use EG or TG gw, which also increase their dmg or save them exp on dx/BL, which gives a damage bonus either way. which is also increased again by bl

*BBQ wonders if G'wolf is kidding, or if he really thinks ELBows do more damage in ranged than Morgs do in melee.

BBQ I did the testing. ELB is more powerful, not factoring in Bl or archery for either.

archers get 3 options

Bloodlust get 2 options.

All I am saying is that no one has given an adequate solution. Just complaints. If you reduce costs people at lower levels will own 3 minions and less.

First off Tez, I have yet to hit anyone, even 20 DX enchanters 4X in a round. I have a Heartseeker [6x650] (+60) with DX: 551,599 and 3 hits is the max. See ToA bonus only come in melee, and the one handed vs two handed only comes in melee that is why you see 4 - 5 attacks a round in melee, I would ask SNK to shoot a 20 DX enchanter and see how many hits he gets, I bet he gets no more than 4 if that with his what 100mil NW bow and mil+ DX

Godwolf, Belegs add their effect to ranged no matter what. Having archery trained only means you get that extra round. Beleg's in no way assist archery. So I do not know how you say archery has Beleg's they do nothing to affect archery other than leverage the extra damage the one extra round.

Also archery does NOT increase the damage in round 1 or 3 of ranged. Only does it increase damage by allowing you to fire in round 2. Bloodlusted tanks crush archery for damage applied, just look at most powerful blows of me and Jonnywas.

Lastly Godwolf, have you looked at my team, I have been advocating sweeper walls from like the beginning. I run a sweeper wall with A Heavy Crossbow [4x100] (+20) and DX: 9,706 and you are wrong, end of story.

"If you plan well, even XP dillution isn't a problem."
And there is a problem with that?!?!

Also just my worthless 2 cents here but as for archery being "underpowered" i have to words for you guys, SNK3R, Jayuu. Someone tell the 2 of them that it's under powered and get them to switch to BL, please!!

From Wiki for the non-believers:


Archery

Initial training cost: 91 exp.
Allows Bows to fire during the second round of Ranged Combat.

Only affects Bows, not other Ranged Weapons.

The maximum effect of archery can be achieved when its level is at least 1/4 of the minion's strength (including strength from Giant Strength). The maximum archery effect is 1.0.
The effect gives a chance of firing during the second round equal to the effect level; i.e. 0.35 Archery results in a 35% chance of firing.

Archery has reduced effect when its level is low relative to ST.

Show me the extra damage archery gives all ranged attacks again?

Godwolf - that's correct, if you DON'T factor in Bloodlust, but to not factor that in is silly.

You only get three rounds with the ELBow, and at less damage than the Morg, or whatever weapon you decide to use. I prefer the BoNE myself, and don't try to tell me the ELBow does more damage than it, with or without BL.

And edyit, remove the NW to PR exclusion for the top 10 and POOF problem solved it has nothing to do with archery and everything to do with hundreds of million in NW.

As for the removale of VA from Ranged attacks, that was another 'Good Thing'. People where hitting AS plump enchanters for massive amounts of dmaage, bloating themselves before they even reache dMelee, so no one had a realistic chance of killing them.

Conundrum and Hubbell are about as classic as possible for mage vs tank.

I have the edge because I have a familiar in a kill slot (I knew I was sooo right not to go ToE *smile*). His PR is greater than mine (not by much), and we still draw and I get the occasional win.

Archery damage is not the issue. Like I said, he digs my dirt nap so deep I almost pop out on the other side.

I don't think Sefton (or anyone else) is whining, but I guess I still don't see the problem other than making Archery train at same rate as BL. That sounds fine. Beyond that, it sound slike tit for tat. Sure, GA hurts. Yeah, 4-minion teams are tough to beat. Same here, Sefton, same here. Those aren't qualities unique to archers.

""If you plan well, even XP dillution isn't a problem."
And there is a problem with that?!?!"

Yes.

There is *no* strategic reason not to have four minions. That's a 'Bad Thing'. ;)

"All I am saying is that no one has given an adequate solution. Just complaints. If you reduce costs people at lower levels will own 3 minions and less."

With a ToA single Archer, I already did that. Reducing costs has nothing to do with that, it has to do with how people set up their strats. Anyone with a Wall I avoided, and anyone with GA I avoided, etc....but if they didn't have the necessary repulsions to my strat, then they died. That's just how things WORK in this game.

For YOUR benefit Godwolf RE this statement I will repost my conclusion.

"All I am saying is that no one has given an adequate solution. Just complaints. If you reduce costs people at lower levels will own 3 minions and less."

In conclusion I think at the VERY least, archery should be 1/5 ST to max effect like BL, but I think it should actually be less than BL so I think 1/6 is appropriate, assuming you make no other changes. To really buff it up and make the archery vs. BL something other than an easy no brainer, let only those with archery trained target more than a single minion in a single round. OR you could even consider dropping the massive DX penalty for ranged in melee, even if you keep the every other round aspect. Something needs to be done.

So to reiterate, at LEAST drop it to 1/5 I think it should go to 1/6. Make archery learners able to target multiple minions in a single round, and keep the cost the same.

The cost means NOTHING to the second sweeper tank. The difference between 1/6 1/5 and 1/4 is minor. So how could it own at lower levels? You make statements that you seem to base on facts from a different game or something. I just rebut them so to help people realize it is one thing to post facts and opinions based on fact and another thing to post wild conjecture.

Classic as possible? 202mil NW is classic? Please. If it is then USD has over run this game more than I realized. Even in my camping hey day it would take over a half a year of 1mil a day (which I never reached) just to make 202mil NW. How is that classic? Show me a battle with a single archer with 50mil NW against your 42mil NW at equal PR and that I will call classic. Otherwise, you are in effect making my point, he should CLOBBER you without archery. He has about the same MPR and 3 times your NW, and without archery he would LOSE to you. How is that classic?

And as far as tit for tat, I have to spend 1mil + exp to keep my archery at 1.00 for my ST. And all it gives me is one extra round.

Tell you what, you now need to train "targeting" at 1/20 your Fireball to shoot in round 2 of ranged, NOW we are tit for tat. Wonder if you would be as hip on Fireball then?

Sut,
If SNK used AMF, he would put a whooping on your butt.

So comparing you and him is not a classic example of tank vs mage.

To GL:
In cb1, where elbs did millions in damage, yes VA was not a good idea. But, cb2 is different. ELBs now do damage in line with melee and magic. So VA in missile will not pump up archers, esp with a lot of heavy ac walls out there.

His PR is classic -- if you think his PR should be higher, then I am in total, violent agreement. *smile* I base everything on PR...is that not a correct thing to do? His PR is only 300K (about 15% higher than mine). Don't talk about NW when NW is now in PR. If the NW is not being properly reflected in his PR, then let's get that changed, hm? *grin*)

And if you make archers target multiple minions in one round, it's game over. Archers will be unstoppable. Conundrum will begin winninbg instantly with his 1.5 million arrow hits. Letting tanks target multiple minions per round would be the most profound paradigm shift I have ever seen in CB in 3.5 years, and there's been a lot in that time. It would change _everything_, and no battle for a sizable archer would even get to melee.

You simply cannot be serious about that part of the idea.

OK don't like that idea, then drop archery, make all bows (not xbows) fire in all three ranged rounds, let me recoup the extra say 100K exp trained into archery vs. BL and I will learn BL like everyone else. Bet you like that idea less.

As far as game over goes. First off his 1.5mil hit is against your 0 and I repeat for the peanut gallery 0 AC.

Against rangers 380 AC wall NOT including his named ToE it would do 79.8% less damage than 1.5mil, so yah game over for those who do not invest in AC. His 1.5mil blow would do 1,197,000 less damage to that 380 AC or a whopping 303K damage. So you say 380 is unreasonable? OK lets take my wall then. I have 238 which I choose because it does just about exactly 50% physical reduction, so again his 1.5mil blow now does 750K.

I think you can make a case that allowing archery to allow you to target multple minions could be over powered, but it is not NEARLY as dramatic as you make it out to be :)

And besides it would not change your fight with him one bit.

And to me at least, to suggest that allowing archery to target mutiple minions in a single round (of which we are only talking the 3 ranged rounds of course) is as large a paradigm shift as adding NW to MPR to make PR is crazy.

That was the largest shift ever, and I was against it from the beginning.

It is dramatic to me, because it was, is, and always will be the thing in the back of my head that if tanks got, they would truly be unstoppable. The _only_ reason I could even dream of hanging with Spid in CB1 was because he had to get through my kill slots (that is absolutely all they were). It was 1-2-3-4, and I had more PR than him and the highest Ablative Shield in the game. Scary enough for you?

Yes, I am aware that my mage has no AC. Let's analyze 4/4/1,500,000 at 80% reduction. That reduces to 4/4/300,000 -- 1.2 million. Anything other than a wall would be killed AND a new minion targeted. Killing off 4 or 5 slots in ranged would still be attainable, and that's with a SINGLE minion. Add an FB mage to make sure 20 HP Es are gone in Round One (that way you don't even waste a single arrow much less a Round). I'm all for single minion (well, anything less than four is what I would like to be truly viable), but that's just all archery, all the time.

My reaction to this is just that I didn't realize archery is so terribly broken that it would need such drastic game changes? Yes, I am all for the 1/5 training. Fine, same as BL. But some of these other ideas -- targeting multiple minions each round? That is HUGE! That's not an archery buff, that's Carnage Blender 3 (aka Archery Blender).

Sef, with the changes to Mage itemization (AGs, CoI's etc not getting AC any more) it's impossible for a Mage to get an serious Damage reduction. And this is the way CB seems to want it.

In that case, isn't it just another "Oh Well, go get a ToA and ELBow to compete" senario?

What causes problems for a 4 minion team with a ToA tank? Be it Archer or BL. Just another four minion team with a ToA tank? (or a single ToA tank depending on your gear...)

*sigh*

I thought we'ld get away from that in CB2. I hate to see it going back to the way it was. The start of CB2 was so much more dynamic...

OK other ideas then. BL is still more powerful, so it should be LESS for archery than BL so if no other changes are made drop the cost to 1/6 or below.

Add damage. Everyone assumed archery increased the damge per blow, it does not, so let it do more, say 1% increase in damage for every 50K of archery in levels. For reference that would increase my blows by 2% each. Might not be enough, but I figured 1% is sufficiently low to keep people from screaming over powered and Archery Blender. I think 2-3% per 50K would be more in line with BL.

Add attacks, give those who train archery a bonus to hit in relation to trained archery stat. Sure it just over kills enchanters even more, but in the end, it is a buff, it is something.

Give those who train archery an extra ranged round. Not just adding the 2nd round, but give them a 4th ranged round, let them have a chance at the tanks and mages they need to hit in ranged but cannot.

These are unfleshed top of the head stuff, but in the end I think any one of them could help out.

And you all thought UC was the red headed step child. It is only .2% behind archery. I guess archery is the red headed step cousin.

BM, if archery is unchanged LEARN BL. Pit, if archery is unchanged be prepared to join me in learning BL, because you will run into the same frustrations I do. For every about 50K earned exp on the minion about 12K has to be spent just to keep archery at pace with your ST gain from the ToA (assuming your ToA is above your max tattoo). And what does it give you, why it lets you kill one more enchanter before the BL boys beat your brains in melee.

I agree that Archery should be lowered to the 1/5 cost the BL has.

How about giving archery users a 25% pth bonus for the ranged rounds, like 1 H weapons get?

Archery is still severly penalised in Melee. :)

Oh, but make Explosive Ammo (for slings) hit multiple minions. ;)

How about adding a bonus to archery (maybe through ammo) that I suggested as part of a thread on crossbows a while ago.

Have some kind of piercing ammo that works either like a VB (not as high as 40%) or reduces a fixed amount of AC.

Would help versus Tanks, but not really do anything versus low AC Mages or Enchanters...

I'm on board with each and every idea except multiple minions per round. *smile*

Archery is fine, you folks want to just give Nymandus a top 5 spot?

You mean impossible like:

The Grid HP: 1,515,151 ST: 20 DX: 19 AC: 104
Cone of cold (21.84% damage reduction)

Noise HP: 90,000 ST: 20 DX: 19 AC: 110
Magic missile (23.1% reduction)

Tezmac HP: 320,000 ST: 20 DX: 20 AC: 100
Cone of cold (21% damage reduction)

MageStorm HP: 350,000 ST: 20 DX: 35 AC: 91
Fireball (19.11% damage reduction)

What you mean is impossible for a single minion mage using a minion based tattoo impossible.

"In that case, isn't it just another "Oh Well, go get a ToA and ELBow to compete" senario?"

No it is not and Sut's own Hubble is a perfect example why it is not. He uses 1/3 the NW and 93K LESS MPR to tie and sometimes beat Conundrum. So he has invested 1/3 the NW and has trained LESS exp that SNK but yet wins some of the fights as a single mage vs a single archer. Heck as far as I am concerned it helps make my point. How does a single mage training less exp and having 1/3 the NW in gear beat a single archer, because archery is way underpowered.

Archery is fine, you folks want to just give Nymandus a top 5 spot?

--{cb1}novice, 1:03 PM EDT

Its comments like this that just irk me. How in the WORLD can you say we would be giving Nymandus a top spot when he has the 4th highest NW in the game at Nymandus (309,369,231) and has trained his MPR to 1,165,133. If anything he bought his way to the top like every other person there, and changing archery wont change that.

And P.S. I will add, forget the multiple targets in a single round. Of everything I have suggested it is the obviously most over powered one, and instead of allowing it to be further pointed out I take back the suggestion, and push forward with my other ideas.

Come on Sef, don't quote 100AC's after this comment;

"Against rangers 380 AC wall NOT including his named ToE it would do 79.8% less damage than 1.5mil, so yah game over for those who do not invest in AC. "

;)

It's impossible for a mage to get that sort of protection.

a 20% reduction versus the damages thrown out here is meaningless.

As for Hubbel versus conundrum, Hubbel would fare a lot worse versus a four man team, which is what I was talking about. Hubbel holds his own there because he's facing a single minion.

"To GL:
In cb1, where elbs did millions in damage, yes VA was not a good idea. But, cb2 is different. ELBs now do damage in line with melee and magic. So VA in missile will not pump up archers, esp with a lot of heavy ac walls out there."

Missed that. :( Ranger, I agree that VA should be bought back for Ranged, but not because of lower damage. It was only the +24/+25 uber ELBows that did silly damage, and I think VA was removed before we got those.

Why i think VA sohuld be added back, is with DM and PL we have ways of countering it. :)

OK GL I will give you that mages cannot have much AC, and that 100AC will not do much against the large damage SNK can generate. You are correct to call me out there. So I take back my target multiple minions in a single round idea.

Once again GL, whether you check or not, you are correct, because I did check. Hubble at 1,585,907 MPR has mostly non 4 minion teams on his fight list, and the ones he does have he out MPR's the most of them by a lot. Only The First is a 4 minion team with close to his MPR (and Hubble still has him by 150K MPR). The few others I saw were 500K or more less MPR than him.

In the end, I do not want to get into the mage vs. tank, or the single vs. multiple minions debate here, because ALL I want is a little love for archery, and I honestly (once you remove the targeting multiple minions in a single round) do not think that buffing archery so that it is comparable to BL will change any of that other stuff (other than perhaps making a single minion archer more viable which could in turn help out your fewer minion cause)

Spell it right: "Hubbell" (always been a pet peeve since college). *smile*

I win because I have an extra kill slot, i.e. a familiar. Tanks need to use ToA (though he might not need it against me seeing as how badly he kills me with that bow). If he strapped on an SF (would have to train more STR), he would beat me. Also, if I switched to a ToE, he would beat me. I stay close and sometimes win purely because of tattoo choice. Had I gone the "classic" mage tattoo (ToE), I would be toast.

But in my opinion you should not win at all. I mean 1/3 the NW and less trained exp, to me says loss no matter how you slice it. (unless of course you have no clue what to do with 1mil + MPR)

But irregardless, I do not think that making archery better than it is now would create some massive imbalance (ok I concede the target multiple minions in a single round was a bad idea) and if it does change and now SNK can beat you no question, it would be a correction in my opinion vs. a new imbalance.

Just to what if it (and save something of the original idea) the multiple minions targeted in a single round only occurred in the bonus ranged round archery gives?

Still too much?

Yeah, too much. One E first round, two on the second, leaving the damahe dealer to be hit in the last. ;)

Sef, I agree with you. Archery needs some loving. :)

Lower the cost to 1/5, give it some increased damage. Remove the Melee penalty (it's not such a problem having one uber wepaon now that they *should* add to PR!) and let VA work with ranged again.

Oh and also add a penalty back onto BL. It's better to train 1/5 XP into BL then it is to train that XP into STR> That's wrong.

Yes, far too much.

IE if you made archery like FB, then someone like SNK would pump his elb to x10000 and destroy all the non walls before melee, then casually cleave them with his VB.

Unlike COC or FB, you can use NW to boost your elb. You could get to a point where you would have massive elb's running the game like cb1.

The balance between physical damage doing damage to 1 minion per round per attacker and CoC/FB is fairly good right now.

But archery does need some love. I like my idea of letting VA work on missile rounds and/or a new supporter weapon such as a MH leeching type bow.

OK I will let my multiple minions per round dream die its slow death then. But thank you for the support on the other ideas and thank you for the new ones.

Ooh, I do like that MH-like bow idea very, very much.

Speaking merely as an individual archery fan/user, I would say that even just an XP cost reduction to 1/5 or 1/6 would be enough to make me happier with it...

Hm, one extra targeting just in round 2 of Archery? Is that what you mean? You will think I'm crazy, but I sort of like it. You know why? Because you just evened out the familiar issue.

Max number of "kill slots" in CB1 was 4. Here, that is now 5 because of familiars. That is also the reason I can hang with Conundrum -- I have that extra kill slot, while he has to go ToA to be true to his tank nature.

Now, adding an extra kill potential in Roune Two evens that out. Not in my current state, but if I would add a minion. If I added a minion now, even just a 20 HP E, I would beat Conundrum. Handliy! My mage would be unscratched. BUT, if you give a bonus "retarget" in Round Two, we would be back to drawing (assuming he hits hard and often enough to kill two targets in one round.

I gotta say, I like it, even though it once again makes an advantage for 4-minion teams (since even an extra retarget couldn't finish off four minions plus familiar...) But if you give a Retarget skill to Archery (maybe make that a separate skill? Ranged Retarget"?), better leave Archery at 1/4, or maybe even jack up to a 1/3 requirement...

Behold! Sefton and I can agree! *smile*

WOW! And yes right on the head, just being able to retarget in round two only, and you only get it if you train archery and your archery is such that you get round 2 (as in if your archery is less than 1.00 and you do not get round 2 you do not get retargeting)

Honestly and frankly, I bet the programming on it would be pretty intense though, because it does go against the entire current combat model.

A simple cost reduction would appease me, but I do not think it would truly create a balance issue between BL and archery.

I like all of the other ideas though, from more damage, to better chance to hit (or get multiple hits) to an extra ranged round (fairly similar to the retargetting idea and may be as complex to program) to just giving us back VA or even letting me realistically fight with the bow in melee. Any of those ideas I think would truly help make the BL vs. archery decision much more difficult.

As it stands now, it is a waste, and I would not recommend it to anyone not within the Top 10 exemption for fighting down.

And thanks for the love Sut SMILE

True, all of my examples are from high level, you would know much better how well archery fares at lower levels. I was under the impression it was dominating there as well, but that was largely an anecdotal conclusion. If that is not the case, then yes, I would love to see the Archery/BL choice be more than a no-brainer...

OK, not so anecdotal... Look at Pit Spawn's main character... score/PR ratio is around 2.5, pure archery. He must be finding something he can kill, and his net worth is rather average for that PR, is it not? He seems to be doing well without any Archery buff, yes?

Well just as a comparison:

4 minion team (my tank)
Me: Score / PR / MPR: 1,561,142 / 765,898 / 541,297

HP: 155,000 ST: 497,211 DX: 551,599 AC: 59
Net Worth: $50,675,217

Single minion team
Him: Score / PR / MPR: 1,496,980 / 621,654 / 439,906

HP: 441,574 ST: 1,050,876 DX: 281,263 AC: 72
Net Worth: $50,348,478

Sefton defeated The Night Spirit (Abyssal Knights) after 2 rounds of combat

My guess is he is very careful about whom he fights. He is in a clan and yet only has 3 opponents he fought and beat that are in a clan in his recent 1000 fights. Lesser Evil, Spoon II and Not a Single Tank.

PLEASE this is not a criticism of Pit or his tactics, he is simply leveraging his advantage to its fullest and I commend him for it, but I would consider him an exception. Pit was always good at that, and continues to be to this day. He works hard to mitigate his low DX (with a high + on the bow is my guess) and leverage his large ST to the fullest and thus he gets good results!

True, but I think that is what some people on this thread are worried about -- archery becoming TOO easy to leverage. But I agree with you, the proof is in the BL pudding, so maybe Archery does need some sort of help!

Pit's char would be a lot harder to beat if he had more dex. My team takes him out in ranged as well. And I've got 20 million less NW.

Yeah, but playing the dex game is such a bore -- if only we could get dexterity reworked...hmmmmm... *smile*

Archery needs a buff like I need to spend another month begging for fixes...
A Vorpal Bow [6x2525] (+105) owned by Nymandus (Nymandus)
Khaos Bow [6x2400] (+102) owned by {cb1}novice (Forge Hog)

Repair Hammer hit Death with Khaos Bow [128798]
Life absorbs damage [128798]
Repair Hammer hit Death with Khaos Bow [127431]
Life absorbs damage [127431]
Tongs shot Death with An Ugly Tree for no damage
	
Nymandus shot Spellcaster with A Vorpal Bow [460716]
Nymandus skewered Spellcaster with A Vorpal Bow [477379]
Nymandus skewered Spellcaster with A Vorpal Bow [470641]
Nymandus struck deep into Spellcaster with A Vorpal Bow [451140]
R.I.P. Spellcaster	
 
Nymandus shot Tongs with A Vorpal Bow [673667]
Nymandus struck deep into Tongs with A Vorpal Bow [568114]
Nymandus skewered Tongs with A Vorpal Bow [425162]
R.I.P. Tongs	
 
Repair Hammer shot Death with Khaos Bow [119646]
Life absorbs damage [119646]
Repair Hammer shot Death with Khaos Bow [157487]
Life absorbs damage [157487]
Repair Hammer hit Death with Khaos Bow [95709]
Life absorbs damage [95709]
	
Nymandus skewered Anvil with A Vorpal Bow [508679]
Nymandus struck deep into Anvil with A Vorpal Bow [601874]
Nymandus skewered Anvil with A Vorpal Bow [470357]
R.I.P. Anvil	
 
Melee Combat
Repair Hammer fractured Death with Maul of Penultimate Devastation [97827]
Life absorbs damage [97827]
Repair Hammer fractured Death with Maul of Penultimate Devastation [127140]
Life absorbs damage [127140]

Nymandus pounded Repair Hammer with A Q-Tip [566854]
Nymandus draws strength from his weapon! [113370]
Nymandus pulverized Repair Hammer with A Q-Tip [642897]
Nymandus draws strength from his weapon! [3776]

Nov, how come you're doing such little damage there? I do more than that on average in my battles...

ooops missed the 300AC.....so not really an accurate representation going on there then.....;)

I'm not talking about damage, it's the fact that archery combined with a decent set of belegs will take out three enchanters easily, while I'm still working on the first one, or maybe the second without it. BL barely comes into play, as my team is long gone before I even take a swing...

"I'm not talking about damage, it's the fact that archery combined with a decent set of belegs will take out three enchanters easily, while I'm still working on the first one, or maybe the second without it. BL barely comes into play, as my team is long gone before I even take a swing... "

This is what Ive been saying to Pit and Sefton, but they want no part of it. I think the 1/4 of st exp is the price you pay for being able to kill quickly. But thats just me.

Is someone trying to do their masters dissertation on CB? awww I knew it!

4 minion team. 3 with AoI's and a 300AC Wall.

But then again, what can really do damage to that team?

I can, just not enough before I get killed!

First off to Novice and Nymandus, here are their respective stats.

Novice
Score / PR / MPR: 2,194,351 / 1,836,819 / 1,467,794
Net Worth: $113,169,608

Nymandus
Score / PR / MPR: 2,238,867 / 2,392,112 / 1,167,093
Net Worth: $323,617,041

I think that is enough said really, I mean, he again has almost 3x Novice's NW he has a PR of 2.3 mil and a score of 2.2mil, and somehow those stats are supposed to tell us some how archery is fine (when in reality what he is complaining about is USD)

Here are some stats of my own then. These are the Top 50 players in the game by score, and they are labelled only as having either BL, archery, evasion, or none or if they have more than one of them, then all are represented (giving 53 total of the top 50)

Krang - Bloodlust
Koyaanisqatsi - Evasion
The Alchemist - Bloodlust
NWO - NONE
The Lega - Evasion + Bloodlust
Lorenzo - Bloodlust
Conundrum - Archery
Nymandus - Archery + Evasion
Tezmac - Bloodlust
MageWraith - Archery
Crisis - Bloodlust
Failure - Bloodlust
Forge Hog - Bloodlust
Dixie Cousins - NONE
Oxcha - NONE
The Hand of Thrawn - Bloodlust
Queen Beee - NONE
Constant - Archery
Hubbell - NONE
The First - Bloodlust
Xanas - Bloodlust
Critters - Archery
Nemesis - Bloodlust
Negator - Bloodlust
Spike Spiegel - Evasion
Ayres - Bloodlust
Proteus II - Bloodlust
MyFirstNCB - NONE
Bridgeburners - Bloodlust
PowerToWin - Bloodlust
Stalker - bloodlust
NewFreed - Bloodlust & Archery
blackmage - Evasion
UserFriendly - Bloodlust
Lord Gothmog - Bloodlust
Elros - Bloodlust
Briggs - Bloodlust
Imp - Bloodlust
valenvail - Bloodlust
TestF1 - NONE
Susan Death - NONE
Major Stars - Evasion
Vlad Tepes - Bloodlust
I Win - Bloodlust
Belg - Archery
She-Wolves - Achery
Team AoD - NONE
Dark Gods - Archery
Philosopher King - Bloodlust
Babbler - NONE

Total Top 50
Archery - 9
Bloodlust - 28
NONE - 10
Evasion - 6

Yes it equals 53 NewFreed, Nymandus, The Lega train two skills that quailify. So now archery is ALL that, but yet, it is less in popularity to NONE and only three short from Evasion.

So those are my stats. You can take his fight with Nymandus where Nymandus' investment of a additional 210 MIL NW (at $10 a mil is additional $2,100) as having NO bearing as to why he loses and blame it all on archery OR you can look at my data and say, why would of the top 50 scores in all the game, those 50 train bloodlust at just over 3 to 1 ratio, and more people train no skills than they train archery and say, hmmmmmm maybe archery could use a little help.

You choose which data could be more relevant to my discussion of:

Archery Musings (or I think it needs a buff)

Sef, how many of those top 50 trained UC? ;)

If it's zero, then surely, but your own data, UC needs much more of a buff than Archery right? ;)

How many of those BL teams you listed are old teams that started their BL training when its was a 120% bonus and simply dont want to, or havent, switched to archery? I know I am and I recognize most of those as being old as well. I dont even own a ranged weapon.

How many of those teams with archery are recent NCB/NUB characters taking advantage of the tank buffs and will be destroying the rest of us soon enough? Im sure the majority.

I think we will have less and less archery with the seeker change.

I suspect Nymandus and possibly SNK went with archery hoping to use seekers to take out the top mage teams before they took enough damage from the spells. I know MageWraith did the same.

However, with the change to seekers, archery, IMO, has little place in the game as it currently is.

Certainly it is nice to get that extra round of missile. And in selected cases, IE: Conundrum vs Hubbell, it can make the difference.

I would shutter to think what if Conundrum learned AMF and BL instead of the current DM/archery combo. Even counting for GA, the backlash of the AMF does damage to those pecky spellcasters, decreasing the damage needed to finish them off, thereby lowering the GA damage.

However, to have all that xp into a skill that helps vs 1 or 2 opponents, when BL would help more, is not a wise investment of xp.

Hey, GL, BM trains UC on She-Wolves ;) BUT if you want to make a post about UC needing a buff, go right for it, I certainly will not pin up my fight against Brock Sampson and say no it does not. I personally think UC is unfair in the Top 50 simply because you cannot get much NW into the UC minion, but regardless, if I disagree I will not use one fight as an example of why it is not broken and then say see I am right.

Tez, I think you make my point for me, legacy people who have old characters with bloodlust can maintain a score in the top 50. How does that prove archery is fine how it is?

>_< Missed one! ;)

I don't disagree with you Sef, just want to make one point before going to bed.

"I personally think UC is unfair in the Top 50 simply because you cannot get much NW into the UC minion."

With HG and Elven Gear (ignoring a Gi in case the UC minion is wearing a Tattoo, and then we sohuld probably include a ToA instead...) a UC minion can put more NW into thier weapon than a Mage can into thier DD, with only the option of AG and CoI, and no Tattoo if you are using one (I don't count a DD familiar, as these are seperate attacks to your mages).

Doesn't that make DD worse than even UC in the Top 50?

Especially now that UC damage is linear, along with all other physical damage...

(It's very tempting to see what I could do with a UC guy since the changes.....maybe I could swap the morg for an ELB and a giant pair of Helms...maybe not...lol...next NCB?)

Once again GL, if you want to make a separate post, and support your case for UC or DD or anything needing a buff, go right ahead. If we do not agree I promise nice hard data upon which to base my opinion. Heck, if we do agree, expect the same. However; my post is not about DD or UC, it is about Archery, and whether UC or DD need buffing or nerfing while interesting to debate, is simply not relevant.

P.S. I debated whether to say BL needs a nerfing or archery needs a buffing, I choose the buff route simply because there are enough nerfing posts in general and thought it would be more positive to speak about buffing Archery.

Either way you slice it though, by comparison BL is currently a much better investment of your exp than Archery, and I would like to see them more equal.

"Tez, I think you make my point for me, legacy people who have old characters with bloodlust can maintain a score in the top 50. How does that prove archery is fine how it is?"

No, my point was that most of the teams in the top 50 with BL are old teams, thus have a large MPR, which yields the high scores. The teams you see with archery are NCB/NUB characters for the most part that are taking advantage of the new tank buffs and working their way up. Once their MPR catches up to the rest of us, Im sure they be wiping the floor with us as theyll be killing 3/4 of our team before we even get a decent shot in.

Archery goes first, that's the equalizer.

Well first in the top 50 there are only 9 of them, so they are not that hard to spot.

Conundrum - owned by SNK3R - Net Worth: $203,003,169 - Created December 30, 2005

Nymandus - owned by Nymandus - Net Worth: $323,635,187 Created May 23, 2006 (NUB until September 20)

MageWraith - owned by Misfit - Net Worth: $76,094,701 - Created April 30, 2006

Constant - owned by Monkeyboy - Net Worth: $82,390,460 - Created January 01, 2005

Critters - owned by {cb1}jayuu - Net Worth: $188,680,763 - Created July 24, 2006 (NCB until November 21)

NewFreed - owned by {cb1}Freed - Net Worth: $538,186,440 Created July 06, 2006 (NCB until November 03)

Belg - owned by Belg - Net Worth: $33,546,380 - Created January 01, 2005

She-Wolves - owned by BarzooMonkey - Net Worth: $93,519,545 - Created June 17, 2006 (NCB until October 15)

Dark Gods - owned by inkubus - Net Worth: $42,722,295 - Created March 28, 2006

So of the nine of them, 4 have either a NCB or NUB (not a majority) looks like about 2 or 3 of them did not play CB1 (not a majority) and 3 of them are in the Top 5 in NW in all of CB and 4 of them are within the top 10 in NW.

So it looks to me the data does not support your hypothesis Tezmac, I see only two truly new up and coming faces, BM and Nymandus.

So fight any of the nine that do not find themselves within the Top 10 NW in all of CB (all 5 of them), and then show me how over powered archery is. If you are saying USD is over powered, while a totally separate post, I am in total agreement.

As I say to my kids all the time, an event in the future is not certain, data from the now and the past is fixed. The data from the now and the past shows archery is unpopular in all of CB (less popular by 2 to 1 trained exp compared to BL) unpopular in the Top 50 scores (9 out of 50) and very popular with people able to invest thousands of USD into CB.

If we try to base our decisions by what the Top 10 NW/USD spenders do, well there are QUITE a few changes needed here in CB, and perhaps Archery is not one of them. I prefer to base my hypothosis on the other 99% of CB and say, that archery needs a buff or at least a relaxing of the cost to maintain. I have hard data to back that up, and several prominent members of our community in agreement with that hypothesis. All I see from the opposition is a single fight with someone who spent $3,000 + USD on CB and conjecture about the possible future. Looks like a pretty solid case to me :)

Conundrum would need a right truckload of AMF to change the outcome of our draws. In fact, I don't think it could happen. I end up putting him pretty deep in the ground too, as should be evident since I can sometimes take him in one round. That second round I put him around 800K to 1.2 million in the ground.

And it ain't the backfires that put me a collective 7 million in the grave. *smile* DM has no affect on me either, as my Protection is only base. My biggest problem is that I'm just a soft teddy bear that all the big dogs can splatter all around the playground. *smile*

OK since I new it was coming and had all of this good data from like my first post, I now have the chance to post it.

Archery goes first, that's the equalizer.

--{cb1}novice, 7:21 PM EDT

So lets talk about that. First off the majority of CB has 4+ kills slots as my friend Sut calls them. This is a fact (3 minions with familiar tat or 4 minions). Majority being more than 50%. It is impossible to kill 4 slots in ranged with a single archer (and technically with mutiple archers unless you are Freed because the NW required to make the second tank able to hit and hurt minions is enormous, MPR certainly cannot support two tanks alone) With the poliferation of EC, this is even more difficult. So no matter what against the majority of CB you need to go to melee. So against the majority of CB going first means you kill a bunch of non-comabtants or maybe one of two combatants in ranged. I do not see this as an advantage. Especially when you compare it to the 2 kills non-archery trainers can get with the same gear.

So yes archery goes first and lasts for exactly 3 rounds. BL starts on the 4th round and is capable of going to the 25th. OK, I will give you 25 rounds happens less and less. OK I will say most fights are 12 rounds or less, that still allows BL to be applied to 8 rounds by comparison to the 3 of ranged and REALLY it is only 1 ranged round, because without archery you still get two of them. So archery works for 1 round, and BL works for lets say 5 (meaning the fight only lasts 8 rounds) You have to give me 8 rounds. So 1 round compared to 5, not balanced there.

BL gets VA support, Archery does not. Not balanced there.
Add in GA and the lack of VA to support the GA damage and the imbalance becomes more glaring.

BL increases your damage by 60%, gains from the PTH from the ToA and the PTH from one handed weapoins. Archery adds from 1 to 3 attacks in ranged and does not gain any increase in damage and does not benefit from ToA PTH or any other weapon based PTH, so I see no balance there.

BL costs only 1/5 ST score and archery costs 1/4, not balanced there.

If John Madden were check marking the advantages of these two teams, EVEN if we say going first is an advantage, even if we concede that point (which I do not), the number of check marks on the BL side would mean John Madden would say the archery team is in trouble and NEEDS massive NW to make up the difference. And there is data to support that.

To lets see the score card:

Goes first - Archery
Lasts longer - BL
Gains from ToA PTH - BL
Gains from one handed weapons - BL
Gains from VA - BL
Can protect from GA without DM - BL (via VA)
Costs less - BL
Increases damage on every blow - BL

So show me how going first balances all of that. I know, you cannot, which is why I say, Archery needs a buff.

I havn't read the 114 replies so far so I will just give my thoughts on the original post and apologize if this has already been said.

I agree BL is generally superior. Look at the state of things after the archery nerf, no one using it and many top teams not even using ranged at all.
1 to 4 extra shots in round 2 versus extra damage throughout melee from BL for less xp is not a good trade.
However since the damage boost that round 2 attack did start to look somewhat attractive especially against 1, 2 or 3 minion teams. If you can do big damage its better to get it in 1st right :) There are now a few top teams using it and doing pretty well. I still prefer BL.
Given the large damage a well setup archery team can deal in ranged improving archery is a tricky business. The change to 1/5 ST for maximum effect would be ok, a fairly minor buff.
Without some help for mages anything more would be too much I think.
So yes I agree, it doesn't compare well to BL but without some boost to mages BL should be made worse in order to make the 2 skills more balanced.

For the life of me, I cannot find where Jon says the Pth of the TOA is not applied to ranged.

I can find this from a May 05 thread:
'ToA no longer grants displacement; instead, grants 50% chance of extra hit
per round (melee + ranged). This is subject to negation by evasion.'

Jon then changed it to level dependent.

Can someone confirm that the TOA does NOT give Pth bonus in ranged?

And I can say, that when I was running TAB, with the +167 named axbow, I would get quints often, using a TOA.

Not bad for a door stop!

I will apologize in advance for not having read through all the posts before this. But I will agree, archery could use a buff or two. Just to throw out another random idea, why not have it also allow you to use your bow in the first melee round without penalty? The archery user would not use his melee weapon that round of course, but it would definitely add more reason for people to consider archery.

I'm pretty sure the ToA PTH works in ranged - I use a bow with a +8, and get triple strikes, and occasionally quads. I'm getting PTH from somewhere with results like that.....

I like that too Vaynard! Any help is better than what we have now.

" It is impossible to kill 4 slots in ranged with a single archer"

That is why I think there are four minion slots and only three ranged rounds. ;)

It all comes down to stopping any Melee (Be it weapon or Melee ranged DD) strategy as you kill the whole team before you get there.

Now maybe with the potential for 5 slots there should be another rnaged round. But that would just start to force people to go 4 minions with a familiar *just* to be able to use your BL + BoNE.

If you can never reach Melee, it doesn't matter how powerful BL is.

"Its comments like this that just irk me. How in the WORLD can you say we would be giving Nymandus a top spot when he has the 4th highest NW in the game at Nymandus (309,369,231) and has trained his MPR to 1,165,133. If anything he bought his way to the top like every other person there, and changing archery wont change that."

"I think that is enough said really, I mean, he again has almost 3x Novice's NW he has a PR of 2.3 mil and a score of 2.2mil, and somehow those stats are supposed to tell us some how archery is fine (when in reality what he is complaining about is USD)"

"Nymandus - Archery + Evasion"

"You can take his fight with Nymandus where Nymandus' investment of a additional 210 MIL NW (at $10 a mil is additional $2,100)"

"All I see from the opposition is a single fight with someone who spent $3,000 + USD on CB and conjecture about the possible future."

"Archery needs a buff like I need to spend another month begging for fixes...
A Vorpal Bow [6x2525] (+105) owned by Nymandus (Nymandus)
Khaos Bow [6x2400] (+102) owned by {cb1}novice (Forge Hog)..."

Just for the record:

1) I currently have 170,000,000 CBD worth of rented items (which I spent a USD equivalent of maybe $1.50 on), most of which is just sitting in my inventory or only equipped for defense. A more accurate measure of my NW would be closer to 150 mil. In any case, I certainly do not need 3x novice's NW to defeat him, and I have spent nowhere near $2,100 more than novice. I haven't even spent anywhere near $2,100 total. True, I have a NW advantage, but it is not nearly as pronounced as it may appear.

2) I don't even need Archery to defeat novice. It's the AS/AC/PL combination that is making the difference. Plus, all of his XP spent towards AMF, Protection, GA, and VA is going to waste.

3) I already have way too much XP invested in Archery, as I was using an AoM prior to the seeker change. Thus, reducing the XP cost would have no effect on my character in the near future. It would certainly not "give me a top 5 spot". I don't even plan on keeping it because the only reason I switched was exactly what Ranger stated. Even if the requirement was reduced to 0% of ST, it would not be the wisest choice for a ToA tank part of a 4 minion team looking to reach the #1 spot.

4) I knew that if I used the word "vorpal" in the name of my ELB, it could eventually be used to piss novice off. Score.

5) I have 317 XP trained in Evasion. Not that it matters, just thought I'd mention it :)

In conclusion, I don't really have an opinion on whether or not Archery should get buffed. I just felt that certain comments deserved a little clarification.

Nym -- wether rented or not, they are still on your char and affecting everything
GL -- 3 rounds is because of 4 'kill slots" is dependent on one thing, that you can kill a minion every round. this is most definetly not true in all but the most extreme cases. i dont see why people consistently try to just how skills should be by looking at the top echelon of them, backed by crazy nw, when most the game has much less than that. I have a solo archer, and i get dbl-triple hits if im lucky. And much of the time i dont kill a minion every round.

For the single minion case, let us also not forget that the game does not entitle anyone to be able to do well with a single minion. I'll confess, I think the worthlessness of the single minion is a sad, sad thing, but that is more because the advantages for multi-minion are so great (auras, PL, AS/GA, RoS, etc. etc.) than that single minions suck. I see single minions as just...normal -- no advantages other than packing a more powerful punch. Then later, if you have several years (see Hubbell if it is still around in several years) or USD (see Conundrum), you can buy more minions.

Pit, single minion sucks. I'm here to tell you. Luckily there are a lot of targets, but the single minion gets little love, and I doubt it will get more any time soon. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be single minion (tank) and only be able to kill one slot at a time -- at least I am lucky enough that Fireball spreads. *smile*

Single minion UC guys have got me to a score of 1.6, 1.7 million twice now, but that's because UC is actually two skills in one, defensive and offensive, so you get a bit more bang for your XP buck. But I'm not sure I would go single again. Especially with a proper tank....shudders

I could get to 1.6 million score with a monkey. *smile* I am mostly kidding, but that is what I meant by finding proper targets. In the current state of the game where a lot of folks are abandoning chars for the NCB (or turning them into farms), there are targets for almost any strategy. Even UC *grin*

Actually there's a hell of a lot of targets for UC, more than ever infact. That is, if you do it right.

But I think we need a new fighter class. And monkey would do.

Monkey!

Oh and just to clarify, because there isn't room in here for me and my big head for too long....that 1.6 - 1.7 mill...at the time of fighting that put me into the top ten.........

Of course some horrible little single mage with a ToE dropped me down to about 40th place straight after lol....

Never underestimate monkeys. Especially Ninja monkeys with bows and Mage Shields. ;)

It's the tail that does it....

sut, single archer may suck, but my single archer will do more damage than a multi-minion team with an archer. and if my archer does not kill a minion per round, theirs certainly wont. that just illustrates the point more that archery could use something

Or you could just get a nice tasty Fireball. *smile*

Someone mentioned another benefit Bloodlust has over Archery.

Archery can fail if you do not have it at 1.00. Anything less allows a percentage chance that all that massive required experience is simply wasted. With Bloodlust, if it is less than the minor 1/5 ST score you simply get a reduced damage increase, it will never fail you in those critical moments costing tons of score because you are banking on it happening and the 1% chance of failure occurs against an opponent you really need it for. Trust me, when it fails Mr Murphy always seems to make sure that it is against that one guy you really need to hurt fast like a massive single FB mage with a FF.

Archery needs some serious love!

So true!

But, if you bump archery to BLs level, shouldn't well also bump the other skills? Even if we only bump UC.

Wouldn't it be easier (if not right) to just bring BL down in power to the other skills, possibly by adding the "Take increased damage" back to BL?

Yes I could see it as eaiser to nerf BL versus Bump archery, which I will say I have NO problem with. I just want the decision to be more equal about which you should choose. If the equality is reached by reducing BL or increasing Archery, it makes no difference to me.

Then I'm firmly in the Nerf BL camp.

Have been ever since it's penalty was removed.

Would anyone like to support BL? Give reasons why it's ok as is?

Umm sure I will!

Mages don't have equivalent, so thats fair.
Insane damage that can kill any minion in the game in one blow is also fair, of course!
Spending 200k exp to double damage also seems about right.
TankBlender should NEVER be called balanceblender. Just don't sound right.
No penalty, unlike every other skill in the game. UC= no weapons less armor, PL= no leech, high HP, Evasion= insanely expensive, etc.etc.

In hindsight... not so helpful!

BL's penalty being removed did come as being a bit of a strange move to me as well. How rare that Jon would change something about CB based on confusing people. I didn't see BL as confusing at all with the penalty, but without it, it's confusing to see why anybody would pick any other skill for a tank, especially archery. Nerf BL a little bit, and give archery back some of its lost, much-missed damage bonus!

Ranged Hits / Shots / Avg Damage 14 / 14 / 668,423

Yeah I can see how that would need a buff or a bonus to damage.

Of course that is someone with 3M str and a x3100 elb, likely using seekers.

Compared to BL, the damage you took with archery is quite a bit lower.

Sry, using slayers, not seekers.

Ed, was that from a single archer?

14 hits out of 3 rounds... Wow, that 5, 4, 5. The increase to ammo pth is making quite an impact.

It is SNK3R with a +100 ELB and a ToA a little under 2M level, don't know about the + on the ammo.

Well that's two hits from Dex, one from the Elbow, leaving the ToA and ammo to make 100% chance of fourth hit and 66% (or around that) for a fifth!

Melee Hits / Blows / Avg Damage 8 / 8 / 1,042,845

I can see how that is not over powered

(and yes, this is sarcastic, pulling out data from nowhere and then posting it without context or explanation and then sitting back and saying see it is broken is as faulty as the reverse, but it seems it is the only thing the opposition is capable of, and now lets see them refute their own methodology)

8 hits over 25 rounds isn't overpowered Sef. ;)

LOL yah but that is a fight where I died in 5 rounds (color me surprised to have lasted 5 vs. 4 considering it was DAWG I fought)

So that's 4 hits in each melee round. Suffice to say the first hit did the job.

a quad hit at 1mil + is still 33% more damage than a quint hit at 600k+ dmg

So.....

Nerf BL? ;)

But so what if BL tanks take and extra 20% damage. With AoI you can never hit them anyway! :P

Thusly GL Buff archery! ;)

Nah Sef, to buff Archery, you have to (at least) buff UC as well. If not Evasion and DD.

It's esaier to just bring BL back down to everyone else's level. ;)

Oh, but sure, make archery the 1/5 cost BL is as well. ;)