Why do people compare AMF to EC in the mage vs tank discussion? (in General)

AMF vs DD-reduces damage a significant amount AND causes backlash damage to the mage. The backlash can be reduced a lot by a ToE but the reduction in damage to the AMF caster is the major use of the spell.

EC vs ToA tank-whizzing in the wind. Ask Rubberduck how much reduction he gets from an over 2M EC vs other ToA tanks. Not much. And the reduction vs ToA tanks goes from like 1M a hit to 300k a hit. With tanks getting multiple hits, anything but another tank or wall usually dies in 1 round.

EC vs TOE tank-a bit better but still you have to almost completely nuke their str to make their damage negligible. Even a 100k str will do a lot of damage given a nice NW weapon. Nuke their dex and they can use PTH to hit.

Comparing EC and AMF is not as cut and dry as people try to make it.

Having played a high level tank and a high level mage, I personally feel the balance is fairly good right now. Except for seekers. People have complained that they do under 100k a hit vs my wall given its AC and TOE. But please realize I have over 60M NW invested in my walls armor and my tattoo is used for defense while others use tattoo for offense.

How the heck can people complain they are doing 20k damage to my wall when my walls armor is worth 2x or 3x the NW of their bow or melee weapon? I just do not get it. But use seekers and you nullify my walls entire NW. All seekers do is destroy the balance the game has gotten to.

I will say again, where is the disposable item that lets mages concentrate their FB on a tank or lets my MM directly hit my opponents tank starting in round 1?

O, and forgot.

Just as Sut about evasion. Vs a TOA tank you will need more than 1M xp in evasion just to stand a chance not to get hit in round 1 of missile. With all that xp in a defensive skill your hp and DD spell suffer.

Hi ranger!

are you asking to remove seekers from the game?
I would prefer the AoI to make their owner invulnerable to seekers and axbow but they would become a very powerful non supporter item...

Anoter question: why MM hits from the back while melee fighter must begin from the normal order?

If you want to remove seekers from the game, i will ask to make MM fighting in the right order...

HAH! Thank YOU Ranger, as far as the EC part goes!

And additionally, seeing as how tanks may have a MgS and a TSA to protect against a TON of magical damage, such a disposable item would not by any means be overpowered.

I think you're right. I don't think there's anything wrong with seekers used defensively if the mages get a little disposable defensive item that does the same v. tanks.

I think EC needs to be beefed up. I am spending a large amount of my exp into it, and this spell does not have a great effect.

concerning the items you are requesting, do you have any proposal?

That sounds like a nice supporter item ... somehow letting the wearer (mage) concentrate their spell on the most powerful tank on the opposing team .. the problem is with the DDs out there .. MM (and decay to an extent) is the only one that would show any benefit from the item. How long would Krang live if Ranger's MM targeted his tank from the get go?

Maybe we could see a new item .. 'Swirling Crystal' for example .. it would be held in the mages hand like a wand / staff. It could do many different things.. Maybe have an EC & ToE effect, reducing the tanks STR and DEX and Pth a certain % each round. The ToE effect could remain constant throughout the fight. the 'weapon' could be forged or blacksmithed ...

These are just thoughts .. but I've been looking for the wand / staff for the mage for a long time .. i believe it's time has come :) If anyone likes this idea feel free to start a thread about it .. I don't want to stray too far off of Ranger's topic here comparing AMF and EC.

"I would prefer the AoI to make their owner invulnerable to seekers and axbow but they would become a very powerful non supporter item..."

You're in luck! It is a supporter item from a past Changeperiod.

"Another question: why MM hits from the back while melee fighter must begin from the normal order?"

It did once start from the normal order, Spock. Jon changed it to work this way.


And as far as an item, how about sling-slung disposable charms that cause the DD spell to hit the target with the highest STR? *shrugs*

Either way, a counterweight for the seekers *would* be nice.

I've been running tanks for most of this year so I like seekers! But there are few people who can use them regularly without lots of cash. The biggest problem with doing that, apart from the cost, is that you cannot rely on them to be available at all times. Now that archery has been 'fixed' I suspect they'll be less available, especially as more and more teams are going back to being mages....

And on the other hand: EC/AMF. EC is far less effective than most people seem to realise. None of my tanks have been particularly bothered by it. Unless somebody has pumped a lot of XP into it. In which case they deserve to come out on top. But it takes a lot of EC to neutralize a tank with say, 500k in both stats. That needs an EC of a million. And pumping that much xp into a spell that is so specific in it's targets leaves you weak against other teams..



http://carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001tlw

I know MM was used to fire in the normal order, i am here for more than one year...

It's order was reverse so that MM had a chance versus Wall based team.
illogical to my point of view.

I guess the whole game engine has to be changed: every minions of one side fights at random another minion of the other side.

that would be a huge shake in the game, and you can add plenty ideas when you decide this.

If you're suggesting that each minion attack the opposing team in random order, that would be awful, as it would eliminate all strategy from the game.


Anyways - maybe the solution would be to increase EC's effect (2/3 of a point from each stat per point trained?) or, as JW stated in his previous thread, to give EC a backlash of its own?

Johnny,

All it takes is less than 10k cb2 to get a set of seeker to use for defense. Thereby making your tank character basically immune to most mages around your MPR and in some cases up to 2x-3x your MPR.

Give me any other item that you can use for defense that changes battles so drastically?

And if you make a nice fightlist of mages much higher than your MPR, you may get great rewards for fighting up, enough to perhaps justify the cost of using a lot of seeker for offense.

Oh, I do get what you're saying. They're in the same class as the VB, and the Morg's VA. The same group the Cloak Of Balrog Flame was in. Things that make you think 'Oh very nice' at the same time as thinking 'What was Jon thinking when he created those??!?!?'

I have to admit to being puzzled that so many things have counters here and yet there are certain things that just...don't.


Perhaps you should seek some consolation that the kind of player who would use seekers in the way you describe will generally be one of your peers as far as strategy and gameplay are concerned. ;)

Make seeker + compare to AoI + to see if they seek or not.

i disagree in part. i think ec can be used very effectively vs tanks. i mentioned it in the other thread solely because they were making such a big deal about the bonuses to st and dx tanks get. if st and dx are so important then EC is an extremely viable EO, otherwise they are contradicting themselves. ive never been a fan of EC myself, but thats because id rather use amf, because mages are that much more dangerous than tanks. and as far as a defensive item vs tanks, what about DBs? i know people with dbs have completely nerfed my tank, even with a ToA.

In my opinion they are needed.
As you have said Ranger, they nullify the NW on your wall.
I think that is brilliant! An item that actually combats the USD
problem that is out there, in my opinion there should be more
items like it that can nullify walls easily.
There was no such thing as a Wall minion for most of CB1, they
were only created when people realized they could just buy up
the best armour with their USD, upgrade it some more with
USD bought CBD and you're invincible to almost all enemies.
There is one thing pumping USD into a weapon but when
people are using it for Heavy armour which is easily upgradeable
then we need these items to bypass them.

Pit, yes, EC _seems_ powerful in theory. I think you are forgetting that EC's payoff os only half it's level, and the things it reduces can be augmented elsewhere (net worth in weapon augments lost strength and pth from various source augments lost dexterity.

And now I know you will say Evasion. OK, so I need a huge EC and a huge Evasion. What, pray tell, do I have left to HARM the opposing team? Harsh language?

Why a NW boosted weapon of course! ;)

And yes, while EC's return is 50%, it does so to two stats. So, if you've trained your EC with the same XP as your opponent has trained the Str and Dex (bar the slight efficency of slightly lower XP costs...) you (before item modifications) be cancelling out thier investment.

BBQ, making fights random between minions would not eliminate strats. they would have to change, sure, but they would not disappear.

Concerning the discussion about AMF and EC, yes EC is far less efficient. because they are so many items that raise DX and STR, so xp spent in EC is not rewarded as much as in DX or STR.
AMF has a backlash effect: the more the DD is high, the higher the backlash is...

Zog,

How misinformed you are.

Seeker nullify the NW of my wall but what about all the other mage teams out there without a wall? Mages that do not use USD? Look at poor NWO. Tank teams with seekers can stalemate or defeat him with 1/2 to 2/3 his MPR. Same can be said of Bast's character. And so on and so on.

Seeker just bypass all their blocking minions and head right to the mage. The poor mage whose 2 magic boosting items do not even give AC.
And heavy armor is not easily upgradeable. I have 60M into mine and each + now costs 1.4M minimum now.

So where is the disposable item that lets mages bypass the NW of tanks, such as DAWG, Jayuu, Freed etc...

If you want to equalize/neutralize USD, make it fair for mages and tanks. But as a tank character you certainly do not want that.

as i said i dont like ec, but by the argument they are giving it is powerful. and you dont need to have only eva trained, i had an eva tank which faired quite well against even toa tanks a little higher in mpr pr and nw than me. you dont need an insanely large eva like you do ec.

OK. like for like expenditure.

EC = STR + DEX.

EC reduces STR + DEX to zero.

AMF = DD (bar decay)

AMF reduces Damage taken by 50% and returns 20% damage to the attacker.

DD still does 50% damage to target. Weapon does a very small amount based on the weapon X (this used to be zero before weapon damage change). PTH is largely irrelevant now.

So for equal expenditure EC shits down a tank totally. AMF let's 50% damage go thorugh, at a cost of the mage taking 20% him/herself.

Items then muddy the issue.

Gl you should compare the exp spent on each side.
because you need huge EC to nullify both str and dx.

Er, that's a typo above... Should be shuts... >_< I blame fat fingers myself. ;)

"Gl you should compare the exp spent on each side.
because you need huge EC to nullify both str and dx."

As long as STR and DEX are purchased equally, then no. You don't.

If they are weighted different, it depends on how they are weighted.

'Items then muddy the issue.'

Str boosting items:

TSA about 35% on average for decent sized tank/NW
HoE about 15%
TG about 12%

Dex boosting items:

EC about 12%
EG about 10%
EB about 20%

Magic reducing items:

MgS about 35%
TSA about 35%

Magic Boosting items:

AG about 12%
COI about 12%

Two very very large differences is that

1)the TSA boost str a massive amount, at least 35% of a decent NW of that armor.

2) the MgS reduces magic damage by a large amount in addition to AMF. True that a TOA tank cannot use it on that minion.

Therefore your EC expenditure will need to be at least 35% more than the tanks xp expenditure. That does not include the other str boosting items.

Also, remember even if you get a tanks dex below 0 with EC, they still can hit with weapon and ToA pth. Even with 2-300k str a tank can do over 500k damage per hit given a nice sized weapon.

What's the equal expenditure of NW on the other side then? If the tank has lots of high stat boosting armour and a nice sized weapon?

What does the other team have?

As for stopping a Melee Tank, all you need is an AoI.

why do you want a disposable item to bypass tanks when you already have a non-disposable one in dbs?

Sorry Pit, could you explain that in a little more depth?

Just want to go back to this;

"And the reduction vs ToA tanks goes from like 1M a hit to 300k a hit."

That's a 70% damage reduction.

Nothing to sneeze at at all.

I sneeze at it if it doesn't change the only important outcome: death of a damage dealer in one or two rounds due to multiple hits.

That is Ranger's point.

It all comes down to Round dynamics at the high levels (well, all levels, I suppose). There is no difference between seeing -25,000 next to my mage or -2,500,000 next to him as long as the round number at the top still says 4 or 5 (my usual "death" numbers).

Once Spid was able to kill my team 1-2-3-4 back on CB1 (he finally went ELB with massive dexterity/Haste), it was over. I went to "sulk down at the forge", as Spydah put it. There was _nothing_ I could do, save spend hundreds of USD either on matching offense or huge defense (huge AC or huge DBs would have been required).

The same situation still applies here. It's all about lasting that extra round, and as long as something is hitting me, it probably doesn't matter if it is hitting me for 1 million or 300K. This, of course, varies entirely if a team is based on defense (RoS/AS/GA, for example), as massive hit points can be had on multiple targets. Though even in that case, if the tank is still getting multiple hits, they can very well take out a team 1-2-3-4-(5).

Ranger, add Corns to your list of items that muddy the issue. The Corn is the counter to the ST boosting items.

GL, EC only has to be twice the larger of the two stats (ST/DX), not the sum total of both, to drop them both to zero.

GL, why do you say that AMF blocks 50% of the damage and returns 20%?

NS,

A corn is also a counter to DD as it boost AMF. 2% per level which almost completely counters the only 2 mage DD boosting items.

The highest corn is +12 which is an anomaly. The highest real corns are +10 which only boosts EC by 20%, countered easily by a low NW TSA.

Again, you cannot compare AMF and EC.

Hurray! I'm an anomaly!

DD spells are the highest statistics in the game, so bonuses to them are inherently higher compared to stats/skills because the other are always lower

"GL, EC only has to be twice the larger of the two stats (ST/DX), not the sum total of both, to drop them both to zero. "

only? Twice the larger of the two is greater than the sum total of both!

er.... Yeah... well.... So there!