Max Hits in first Ranged Round? (in General)

Any limit on the number of hits in the first ranged round? Mostly I've been getting 2 - 3, when I can hit... But I got this today... it surprised me. Any limit to the number of hits? And shouldn't GA retaliate for all hits and not just the first? Not that I want to make it that much more powerful... but If I keep hitting, shouldn't it keep hitting me back?

Charming skewered tWiSTed Flame [531024]
tWiSTed Flame's Guardian Angel smote Charming (126999)
Charming skewered tWiSTed Flame [594822]
Charming struck deep into tWiSTed Flame [805623]
Charming cries "Squeezably Soft!"
Charming skewered tWiSTed Flame's familiar [675740]
tWiSTed Flame's familiar's Guardian Angel smote Charming (112462)
Charming skewered tWiSTed Flame's familiar [833194]
Charming skewered tWiSTed Flame's familiar [749309]

Not sure as to the maximum number of hits. Duke and Nightstrike had a conversion in regards to this a while back in chat... If I recall correctly, it is limited only by the reduction in chance to hit from one "inner round" (ie, strike) to the next.

If the PTH gap is large enough, I can't see there being any fundamental limit, although I'm not sure.

As to GA retaliating for every hit... I certainly agree. It should.
Of course, I run a GA enchanter... ;-)

GA retaliates based on damage actually done to the minion. For example, you're up against a GA that retaliates a full 60%, you hit a minion with 300k HP for 100k, of course, you'd be hit back for 60k. You hit a minion with 20 HP for 100k, you'd be hit back for 12. If the minion is dead, there is no damage to hit back for.

But, in the case of the familiar at least (which didn't die), should it not have retaliated for ~100k damage for the last two strikes also?

And, I think that it should have done the same for the second (though not necessarily the third) strike against tWiSTed Flame also...

not fair... i get smoted for every hit i do even from the explosive damage... which i might add hurts me the most

GA doesn't strike back in hits 2 and 3 against T Flame because he's already dead. GA doesn't strike back against you for the hits against the familiar because GA is too small in comparison to the damage dealt. Maybe. Don't forget that AC, etc reduces GA. Also note that these 6 hits are really two rounds of 3 hits each. The first set of three is round zero, granted by an HoC.

I believe the missing piece of that log is that the familiar was killed by that triple-attack. He just cut off the log before the second battle cry. So on that triple-attack versus the familiar the first hit is enough to make the kill (and GA retaliates) with the next two hits being over-kill which GA does not retaliate to.

I was quite regularly getting 7 hits and sometimes 8 in the first ranged round with my ToA Tank Flavor and a +100 ELB.

Surely the HoC should do exactly what it says 'offer an extra attack' rather than what it currently does in basically adding a whole round of attacks?
I'm sure the tank/mage argument would become a little more balanced this way as although tanks do still gain an advantage, mages still receive the best gain.

For once....


I agree 100% with Zoglog!

:-O

No! Keep the HoC the way it is! >_<

Sorry I have disagree completely, hitting a single minion 5 times instead of 4 would be completely useless to a tank, and that would give a huge advantage to mages in ranged rounds which they already have due to evasion nullifying bows completely in many instances.

Sure it would. One more chance to hit. If you're blasting away at a Wall, that's still useful, or if hitting a PL minion...

Should it really be possible to win a fight before you even get to melee?

Yeah, making the item only useful for mages is a great idea...

Yes, it should be possible to win a fight before going to melee, because that is one thing that makes CB great. The tremendous variance of strategies. If someone makes their strategy geared toward a quick kill, or wait until melee to pounce, all the better imo.

How is more variety offered if the most powerful weapon in the game, the ELBow, can hit all 4 of your minions before you get to melee rounds?

And you're even more badly off if you are going on < 4 minions.

I dunno, I'm probably just being silly and my point is moot. I can't seem to think straight today. Lack of sleep? maybe.

I must agree with OB here.

Why not just go ahead and make a T with no melee weapon, just archer, massive ELB, and ST/DX boosting gear and get it over with?

Yes, I find it completely fair that when I fight tanks my CoC never goes off... yeah... fair.

Ranged should never, ever be more powerful that Melee. It goes first. That's benefit enough.

It should never be easy to kill an entire team in the first couple of rounds, or all Melee wepaons and spells become moot, as no one in thier right mind would ever use them.

Ah HA! A change since my last post...

Charming skewered tWiSTed Flame [743618]
tWiSTed Flame Guardian Angel smote Charming (126253)
Charming struck deep into tWiSTed Flame [529048]
Charming cries "Squeezably Soft!"
Charming hit tWiSTed Flame's familiar [604331]
tWiSTed Flame familiar Guardian Angel smote Charming (111667)
Charming struck deep into tWiSTed Flame's familiar [844101]
tWiSTed Flame familiar Guardian Angel smote Charming (7214)
Charming cries "Squeezably Soft!"

Now GA is retaliating on second hits, only with much less damage.

I'm betting that's cuz the first time you hit 675k and killed the familiar, but this time you only hit 604k, so it lived long enough to do a little GA damage on the second hit.

Or maybe the GA got bigger and your damage was too big for it to trigger. When Damage >> GA, it gets nullified.

What is wrong with the quick kill? Contrary to popular belief, it is easy to kill an Archer Tank. This game revolves. A strat that was not good 6 months ago, might be good again. You get free retraining, so take an advantage of it and make your strat better not keep it the same or make it worse.
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Anyways, for every strat out there, there is a counter, the best you can do in this game is to find a strat that works against the majority and forces others to take a weaker strat in order to beat you, thus making them targets for more people so that they have to decide on the trade off. IE: Beat 15 people, lose to 35 or beat 45 people and lose to 5.

Because Ranged goes first. If it's the 'best', then nothing can beat killing people in ranged. Bar killing people in ranged.

It doesn't open variety, it limits it.

There is very little choice at the top now, down in the mid-ranks sure but when you reach the levels that the top ten are currently occupying then you will be forced to kill your opponent faster than they can kill you.
Defense and HP cannot become high enough against triple hits of over 1mill each so any strategies which involve lasting them far enough into melee to beat them get destroyed.
HoC is a good idea but has been poorly addressed in terms of tanks and the exploitation they have received regarding MM.

You want to have your cake and eat it too apparently GL. Mages, (myself included) kill a lot of varying minion teams in ranged. I also am able to dodge a lot of tank teams in ranged due to evasion. I do not see ranged as being overpowered when mage teams and tank teams can both dust an opponent in ranged.

If Jonathan didn't want ranged as a factor in the game, he would remove it. Deal. =)

Glory, I have never made a distinction about *physical* or *magical* ranged damage...

What would happen if you changed to CoC?

Interesting question, I don't believe that a single minion would be in his right mind to attempt CoC. But, if I had a nice wall minion (or two) with evasion to get me there I think I could do quite well if I chose such a strategy switch.

As a side note though, CoC is weak and will remain weak until it is boosted in some way, there are too many ways to die before reaching melee as a CoC minion. There are however quite a few teams that have chosen to forego damage in ranged and basically kill one minion per round in melee via BL and a big Melee weapon. So, one is not necessarily resigned to only be a ranged damage team, one can be a de-ranged?? damage team and still compete. =)

"So, one is not necessarily resigned to only be a ranged damage team, one can be a de-ranged?? damage team and still compete. =)"

Not if Ranged *only* can easily kill 4/5 minions. ;)

I think it's important to highlight this;

"As a side note though, CoC is weak and will remain weak until it is boosted in some way"

In what way is CoC weak? It has the higest return, dadme for xp, of all the DD (ignoring decay...) spells.

Is it only weak because it doesn't attack in Ranged? And ranged attacks are now so much more important?

Exactly Gl.

eva and ec answer all of this...

500k trained into eva can eliminate ranged attacks entirely from a huge number of teams, go up from there, and only a few tanks will even ever hit you.

The ELB is now more powerful that it has ever been, however, to combat this evasion is the most powerful attribute we've ever seen. The balance is excellent, and the ability to use a tank as a blaster doing frighteningly silly damage, is traded for any kind of real defense. The xp penalties taken training archery, and being forced to use dbs to prevent smaller archer teams of much lower size, but more minions from beating you, are all serious drawbacks and and quite painful.

When G Beee asked me if I thought ranged was overpowered, or he was just being sore, I told him the same thing. If not for the massive power of evasion, the elb and Aimery (New Archery) would be the FoDx4+4corns we all wish Jon would give us.
As it is, specialization is king now. Welcome to Ro-Sham-Bo Blender!

I've just started a NCB, and I got 2 minion.

1 as archery ToA and decay

2 as CoC and GS

I'd say 90% of my fights finish 1, 2 or 3 rounds before melee goes.

I don't have a good bow, only a compound bow that can be bought for 8k in store.

Maybe something is wrong about how range as been overpowered in these phew months. And still, I have never miss an attack from the beginning.

EVA and EC are the answer... I almost always win in the first 3 rounds against non EVA teams of equal power... against them I have a much harder time of hitting ANYTHING... I'm still trying to find a strat for that! This is a typical evasion result for me: Charming missed X Charming missed X Super Absorbant missed X Summer's Eve missed X Preparation H missed X R.I.P. Charming Super Absorbant missed X Summer's Eve missed X Preparation H missed X R.I.P. Super Absorbant, Summer's Eve, Preparation H Two rounds and I'm toast against a "weaker" opponent.

The problem is that since the start of cb2 we have asked for every 'underpowered' thing to be increased rather than looking at the bigger picture and getting everything else reduced.
The amount of times physical damage and magical damage have been buffed is now resulting in an inability for a minion in the top ranks to survive almost any hit.
Maybe it is now time to voluntarily take a blow to our damage potential for the ovrall good of the game, either that or wait around for Jon to introduce another 're........' like those back in CB1.

Zog, you'd be surprised how pathetically my MM hits Popsicle man's 410 AC wall. *smile*

I would agree with you about the hits, but from a different angle -- I am lamenting that the only way to be a top team is with a huge wall. I doubt I will ever be able to take out Koy as a mage. Hitting once per round just isn't enough, and even Decay won't help because it doesn't hit from the back forward.