Cone of Cold (in General)

First off, I love cone of cold. I truly do. Unfortunately, this love forces me to -use- CoC.

Now, the damage CoC brings to my strategy is huge. For any strategy, the damage is fantastic. The AMF backlash is tolerable. Many players say it suffers too much from AMF, but I disagree. Even taking as much as 400k backlash, it never seemed so bad (that 400k is against the largest 3 AMF in the game).

So, why do I stil say it isn't that good? Because, there are simply too many ways to -stop- the CoC.

I use a 4 minion, RoS team. Yet, Fb, seekers, exshot, and HoC all destroy me before I can use my CoC. So, I simply ask that CoC start firing in the 3rd round. For the benefit of all mages everywhere, let CoC fire in the 3rd round.

It used to...

...and it should again. I agree.

It would make CoC more viable. Maybe a new DD would add for more variance. The options are pretty limited. MM, fires in reverse orfer from the start. FB attacks all, including yourself, from the start. CoC attacks all, in melee only. Theres not much to go with.

Maybe a new spell that has a different order and firing point (and dmg effectiveness) should be made. Strategy's would then be different, no more 4 minion teams with wall at back for MM teams, and PL for fireball teams. Boring.

Why must everyone want to mess with a good thing.

CoC is very, very powerful.

I don't want to see it firing in ranged simply because then Jon would have to reduce it's damage making it less powerful.

CoC is good because if you survive long enough you'll dominate most opponents in melee.

Think of it as a melee weapon, it's the mage's version of a BoNE, that's not going to start firing away in ranged because you can't survive long enough for it to do it's job.

Use a similar, albeit slightly more defensive strategy to what you would if you were using a melee tank.

Your character actually looks halfway there to using CoC correctly but you really do need to be defending that minion a little more. Give it a ToE or AC, not girly little MCMs, get a big dirty piece of armor and chuck it on. Get an AMF to reduce your vulnerability to mages. And something else worth noting is that with CoC's excellent damage, I've always found that it should often be trained 50% HP, 50% CoC, this is about the most you should train CoC, I've even tried 70% HP, 30% CoC and my results actually improved.

Yes, CoC relies on having a whole strategy geared towards helping it out. But if you do this you'll find that it does remarkably well.

Damage reduction, damage reduction, damage reduction.


That was my mantra when I was running my old CoC team. As much of it as was possible. Remember my favourite strategy I've ever run?

CoC mage wearing a ToE and AGs. Two mage shield walls. One AMF enchanter.


That was it. Nothing else. Not entirely cheap with two walls, but rentals were very very helpful!


Against FB especially it was very powerful. All that damage reduction lowered the damage so much that an FB mage twice my size couldn't even singe my skin. And then along comes round four and BANG off they go hit by cool mage action.

Seekers were a problem. But they exist and not in huge quantities, so I lived with them.

The HoC is a problem; perhaps instead of a ToE or a RoS, a familiar might be better - another kill slot might actually make the difference between living and dying.....


But to really get the best out of CoC:

Damage reduction, damage reduction, damage reduction.... ;)

I'm actually glad Johnny and Chuckles made such good posts, despite it meaning my idea is lame. Because it let's me address that.

First of all, I lack the funds to properly protect my mage. So that's one thing. But, you say to use ToE, but I say I can't.

Not I won't, not anything, I say that using the ToE will make me lose. I can't equip the kind of stuff I need to equip on mage, the ToE hurts the rest of my strategy badly. Why not go RoS? Give GA more time, give CoC resistance to AMF, GA, normal damage and VB. The ToE slows my defeat down, but not enough.

Protection is one thing. I don't mind protecting my mage. I consider that necessary. But, simply, why for THREE rounds? With HoC now on so many minions, I'm protecting for FOUR.

I understand the need to not want CoC to be overpowered, but as many players have pointed out, a fight would still have to last until 5th round for CoC to start doing more damage then FB and MM. So, speed it up.

I don't ask for anything fancy. I just want CoC to have fired -at least once- before fight is over. The difference between RoS and ToE is pretty negligible really, so I don't consider myself less defended.

CoC is the lazy but rushed janitor of CB...

It waits till melee to get going, and cleans up the mess after GA does the real killing...

it needs dual AS and RoS on one to do things right, and should be the only thing trained on that minion to maximize damage and minimize AMF blowback. Heavy mages are NOT a good idea.

I don't think the idea is lame; on the contrary. I had a similar idea recently because of the HoC; make CoC fire every other round, starting in the second maybe to make it fairer with all that damage.

But really as Mr C says, it's the equivalent of a bloodlust tank; and they with the addition of the HoC have FIVE rounds to last through before they can go to work. OK, they don't have seekers to face. But otherwise...

There are other things to do, without needing huge amounts of funds. The seekers could be taken care of with some evasion - that would also take care of all the tanks using HoC - if they can't touch you their NW is nicely diminished/exterminated!. The FB could be taken care of with some AMF and the aforementioned damage reduction. Rentals are really worth looking at - I know it's not that good to be reliant on the availability of items, but I've been wearing elven boots and an AoM for months now without owning them...

I'll put some thought into this one and see what my brain can trawl up from the depths....

I'll get back to you. ;)

Thank you. For the record, I'm not really doing this for myself. Granted, I WANT this badly, but not just for me. I will never raise to the top, so I just want the game to be as fair and good as possible.

In my opinion, CoC needs a boost. The excuse for it not needing a boost simply can't be "do this with your strategy" when the exact same changes will aid FB and MM minions the same amount. CoC needs to be able to work the same way a FB minion can work, with nothing but exp. As of now... it can't.

Since when did a MAGE need NW to survive? Since CoC.

<a href=http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0020Cy> This is why CoC still really really sucks.</a>

MrC, take a look at that thread, Don't know if you've seen it, but it got proved pretty blatantly there, that the AMF backlash is much more severe for CoC than for MM or FB.

Other than that, you really do at least need armour for yourself, if you do decide to stick with RoS, use the Alternate CoC armour, in that other thread, I showed the people with just about ~1 mil NW items you can achieve 160 AC, which is way better than what you're doing now. Now that was 160 AC with a ToE on.

If you say the AMF backlash is tolerable, then you really just need AC and probably more HP on the Mage.

This is why CoC still really really sucks.

"Since when did a MAGE need NW to survive? Since CoC."


I agree, sure NW works, NW always works, but Since when does it actually NEED it to survive? What the hell?

/me shrugs.


Lord Gothmog. 8 million NW. A very good character.

My CoC character is about the same overall, with over 4 times the NW. Just weird...

CoC is like a bloodlust tank.. except... Seekers? AMF. MgS? Elven Hauberk? Heck, even EC found a way to hurt mages in taking out Evasion.

A bloodlust tank get's -directly- aided by either huge amounts of ST, DX, and skill armors. They get multiple effects from their armor too! (Elven gear). Or they get a directly effected by their ToA, which nothing a mage has can compete with.

But I don't begrudge tanks their NW, their cool interactions and links, the ability to fine tune their stats to whatever you want.

I simply want my mage to be able to compete with them.

Flamey, that makes it tough to use. It doesn't make it weak.

Godwolf, I'll admit that I've never had a CoC mage at as high an MPR as yours. I however have had one in the top ten (even if only for about a month) which more than held it's own with basically no NW. And I've still got two strategies with CoC lying around for the past six months or more one single CoC mage and one extremely poor four minion strategy. With little to no fighting and no net worth they've both maintained a score above their PR.

As for your comment about the changes you need to make for CoC to work benefiting fireball and magic missile. Yes, a few extra rounds would benefit them, but not nearly as much as it would CoC.

The main problem I see is the HoC. It's the only one I haven't actually seen a CoC mage beat with any real success. Therefore if the argument were "against characters with a HoC the CoC mages should fire a round earlier than normal" I'd be inclined to agree.
Against characters that don't have a HoC, CoC is still not the easiest strategy to use so if Jon wants to make some creative change to make it easier that'd be good, but it still can work quite effectively as it is.

I agree with flamey, it does make it weak rather than hard to use. Ranger's post with the MM/CoC pretty much proves that there is no point in using CoC at ALL.

3 times backlash, AND missing out on 3~4 rounds of ranged for the privilege of 40% increased damage with spread.

How many rounds does CoC have to go on for it to match the damage of MM? And we also have to remember that he needs a lot more HP to survive AMF, so the lvl of CoC is likely to be diluted, unlike Ranger's example where it was same as MM!

Oh, p.s. my MM mage with similar MPR kills Oduten before he even reaches melee. We have basically the same set up too, except I use an SF rather than RoS.

Oh, and there's no one Oduten attacks and beats that I can't beat, save for OB.

I realise I have more Corns/AG over him, but you can't tell me those items will somehow make him beat me - even if he survives to round 1, my lvl 1 mil GA, 2 more attacks from MM and 1.8 million HP will save me.

In fact, he did make it to melee once, and his CoC mage killed 2 of my chanters, and got overkilled by roughly a million damage, plus my MMer didn't even shoot :P

I'm going to try to make a viable low-NW CoC strat (bar the tat NW).

Thanks to MrC with the training methods he's suggested and him being so positive about CoC and not just GW :P I believe there's hope, we just need to try :P

Lol, I do love CoC, as I have said. To me, it's one of the coolest parts of the game. I just want to find a way to make it competitive.

Hmm... question. Why not give the HoC the ability to let CoC fire in the 3rd round of ranged? That would at least let the CoC mage make use of something almost EVERY other mage in the game is making use of.

Just a thought.

every other mage and a lot of tanks*

Heck, I only want CoC to be equal with MM and FB. If I try to make it equal with tanks, everyone will bring up the "tank or mage, which is more uber" debate, and that just ruins it when one type of minion or another needs a change.

Maybe even making it train a better percentage of the skill level
would help. At level 4M MM certainly beats it because MM trains
up to 48% of its level, whereas CoC is only in the teens (as is
FB, but FB does OK)

CoC

"The listed effect will asymptotically approach 19% of the spell level, and represents the maximum damage applied to each minion in a five-minion spread. The total damage, therefore, is the effect * 5, for a theoretical maximum of 95% of the spell level."


95% and FB is different also, but you're right about MM.

FB

"The listed effect will asymptotically approach 13% of the spell level, and represents the maximum damage applied to each minion in a five-minion spread. The total damage, therefore, is the effect * 5, for a theoretical maximum of 65% of the spell level. When calculating AMF backlash, this is the value used, as AMF is sending a fireball to a single minion and not five minions."

Think of it.


HoC new item gives you another hit in the range.

CoC as now 15% more damage.

But do the math. Range had 4 hit, now they may have 5 hit.

If you do 100 damage every round on 1 target in range, that mean a total of 400 damage.

So giving a 100 damage bonus makes you deal 500 damage.

That means 1.25 more damage so 25% more damage for the range.

So what could make CoC better after this change than before it?

Nothing, your just weaker.

There are more melee rounds than there are ranged rounds...

Flamey: I wrote those. It's probably wrong for CoC now that the damage model is different.

bartjan, please. How many fights go past 6 or 7 rounds?

Melee lasts longer then ranged, true. But when millions of damage per round is dealt, how long do fights really last anymore?

another new super damage equation which reduce those nasty 50 mil nw weapons to whips?