How many hits is this? (in General)

Hey all,

I was just looking through my recent battles to see how badly I am farmed and I was shocked to see that Kiesova can defeat me in 1 round every time. As a RoS/AS team (yeah yeah, unoriginal I know) I figured that no one can beat me in one round, even the tops because I have four high HP minions to get through...

Here is the first round, the only round I get to see...

Kou's explosive shot hit Mielikki, The Lifebringer [471991], Zaknafien, The Warlock [188796], Dark Dreky [180177], Clea, The White Mage [188796]
Kou's explosive shot hit Mielikki, The Lifebringer [330590], Zaknafien, The Warlock [132236], Dark Dreky [126441], Clea, The White Mage [132236]
Kou's explosive shot hit Mielikki, The Lifebringer [371993], Dark Dreky [141509]
Kou's explosive shot hit Dark Dreky [335619]
Kou's explosive shot hit Dark Dreky [274213]
Kou's explosive shot hit Dark Dreky [436415]

I can't even make sense of this honestly. How many times am I getting hit for in one round? To my understanding, I am getting hit six times in one round of ranged combat and this seems a little excessive. Because I am coming back from a sellout (yeah, boo boo) I am aware that I have no defensive NW (or offensive NW for that matter)... however, this seems like a little too much activity for ONE round of combat. I didn't bother posting my side of the battle because it is a pathetic miss by my archer and 150k magic missile.

Explosive Shots only need to hit one minion to hurt all of them, so the best way to prevent this would be to either train Evasion on your lead minion to avoid getting hit, or to move your Archer to the front (assuming you're not using an AoI).

I'm assuming Kou has an HoC and thus you are getting tripled hit twice in Round one.

With a HoC (helm of clearsight) you get an extra hit in ranged (round 1 is effectively doubled). So like kevin said, you're getting attacked twice, each "attack" landing a triple-hit. But ya.. that's pretty monstrous.

He owns so many people with those ex. shots, it's scary.

I was farming him for a while, then BOOM ex. shots dead in round 1.

heehee....

sorry guys

Named ex shots, named SoD: A Vorpal Blade [5x2000] (+90) worth $29,789,953; A HoC.

Still for that 30 million NW SoD, he still does a lot less damage per hit than my old 10 million ELB; it's only the spread damage that does the trick.


However - evasion: you're going to need a large evasion to dodge that SoD - +90 and whatever bonus from the ToA he's wearing will make it a lot more difficult to avoid....;)

yea thanks for posting that wizard - i forgot to add that in my last post :)

look at the other SoDs man - Its the only because my SoD is so high in NW that it does that...

people with high evasion owns me - displacement boots too
(ask krasko - he's the man ... oh yea and that hubbel dude)

i dont know how much my tattoo adds 1.3mil ToA...

The reality of this is that you're going up against the biggest sling of death in the game, you've got to expect some difficulties.

My suggestion is to work evasion in there on your first minion.
Get this guy to hit it when it's defensive DX is at it's best.

You can limit his hits in the first round dramatically. Don't forget, against people like this evasion's first round defensive DX is twice as cost effective, you get two rounds of maximum effect.

With all of that said, despite it being quite possible to overcome even such an extreme strategy (awesome DX, biggest sling of death in the game, explosive shots) my advice is to ignore it.
It's not worth altering your strategy because of one opponent.

And as I suspect all of these ramblings are missing the point, let me add that six hits in one round would not be overpowered, it would be a character leaving themselves vulnerable. They're putting their NW too heavily into the PTH, they're weak elsewhere.

If they have enough NW that they can patch up any weak points this leaves, then it's not the PTH that's overpowered, it's the NW.

Dreky, it's only really three hits.

The HoC is responsible for you getting hit six times.

As others have said, only Evasion on the main target will help. If the SoD misses the target, it doesn't splash.

/me does a little dance of victory for the strat i desgined

Ranged combat has gotten out of control and the explosive shot is one of the worst offenders.

I mean what did Jon expect? Give all the ranges shooters and extra round of combat for free and the balance would stay the same? Assumedly not, so did he think ranged needed a boost? Did he just go overboard and next change month will see it rebalanced (I can only hope)? I, for one, sure do not want to buy a whole new set of equipment to change my strat again to the optimum and will simply wait the winter out while gritting my teeth, and saving up for a big set of DBs.

I think we also need to know the upgrade on the exshots. I will be shocked if they are base, but I have been very shocked before.

But I agree with Miteke, ranged combat has become more and more CB1 like. Add the HoC and soon it will be worse then cb1.

For those new to the game, in cb1, massive ELB's were doing over 20 million damage per hit. However, they could only kill 3 minions in ranged and still had to face BL tanks in melee combat.

However in CB2, the top damage is less (about 2 million a hit max assuming normal arrows) but now an archer can take out an entire 4 minion team in ranged combat only. Which, in my opinion, is far more powerful. True, one can use a familiar to make 1 minion live to ranged, however, for those of use using a tattoo, we are out of luck. Also, one can use evasion, but Sut has shown that NW in the ELB trumps evasion, as his 1.2 million evasion is becoming overwhelmed by Crisis's ELB in the first melee round on occasion.

Anyone wonder why I bought DAWG's old DB's????

Also, do not forget with DM, archers can nerf opponents GA, which before DM was a counter to archery. But not any more.

Yup.

And I got the perfect strat to overown anybody in this game with all those imbalanced range changes.

Yes, you've heard me, the perfect strat.

Now you ask: "Why don't you use it?" Because it would cost tons of cb gold. But still, it could pawn any type of team, and I'm pretty sure of that.

Nerf ranged!

Base shots, Drack occasionally puts +1 or 2 on them but I think that's it.

i put it up to +3
they are also named...

tooo expensive to upgrade the "x"

touche ;p

HoC - I'd love to say that I've figured out why Jon added this item. I don't think that at least pre-HoC ranged was overpowered, nor do I think it's gone too far just yet, but certainly it must be taken into consideration just how many people use ranged, there's enough NW going into it every day that adding an item as powerful as the HoC is bizzare to say the least.

Explosive Shots - Give ranged users the opportunity to kill five targets in ranged. Bad idea.
The equalizer has always been that a melee team can make it to melee with at least one minion still standing. Taking that away is opening Pandora's box.

My suggestions: Get rid of the HoC or otherwise nerf it. Make it so that it gives X amount extra PTH (not upgradable). Something like that.
Remove explosive shot explosions. I draw the line of overpowered at the point where a good melee tank can have their fights ended in ranged.

I agree with most of what MrChuckles said, but one thing.

If you remove explosive shots, it shouldn't be because we draw a line at where a good tank dies before melee. Kiesova's strategy is obviously to OVERextend its range capabilities to end fights before he has to bare his hands to beat down guy. By such extension, he ended up with very little HP for his MPR, no mage protection, and a tendency to die to any GA that survives his DM.

It's all a tradeoff between defense and offense, and obviously Kiesova is all offense. We shouldn't cry foul just because someone's defensive strat couldn't survive a better offensive strat...

Having said that I'm sure there are other really good reasons why xplosive shots should go xD but my money is on that it's here to stay

One can keep the HOC, just change it so it does not retarget in the first missile round.

Actually, I wasn't referring to Drack's strategy.

The simple fact that a minion can strike all targets in ranged with a weapon that has it's damage increased by NW is my concern.

I'd be quite content if the above example was as far as I thought this could go. Unfortunately I'm quite confident it's not.

MrC:

About 2 months ago I made a 5M NW SoD and some massive exshots (about x500 or so). I gave edyit the shots and SoD and at nearly 600k less MPR than NWO was able to take out his whole team in 1 round.

We are now just seeing what a fully upgraded SoD with normal shots can do.

Not retargeting would not stop the explosive shot killing spree

look guys - explosive shots isn't as hacked up as you think...

two skills OWN me... and i mean OWN...

evasion (this is the main one)

the next is Gaurdian Angel... i get smoted for the splash damage and with my little hitpoints - i myself die in 1 round anyway

saying that the SoD with explosive shots is imbalanced is the same as saying that a high NW ELB with seeker/slayer arrows is imbalanced...

I have to agree with what you said, Dreky, except for this one little thing....

I *DO* think the high NW ELBows with seekers are imbalanced.

A high NW ELB with seeker/slayer arrows is imbalanced.

-IMO-

Uh,

High NW Elb's with seekers are certainly imbalanced. I have been saying this for a long long time now.

And you can avoid GA by having a higher DM. That is what most archers do. SInce you use a SOD and exshots, you fall into the archer catagory.

Evasion and DB's are the only real defense vs exshots and seekers. Which is a shame as Crisis is showing NW can overcome evasion.

NW can overcome everything.

Crisis has more than just NW, just to clarify:

-- A Vorpal Bow [6x3500] (+126) -- fourth in NW, yet third in +. Smart move. While others are pumping damage, he is pumping plus. That's a good thing, especially since upping damage is probably VERY tempting given the linear nature of that curve.
-- Crisis' tank is a pure ToA archer. He isn't trying any of this UC-with-bow or ToE tank stuff. His archer is buff, gets that extra ToA pth, and cth from Archery.
-- He has an HoC, giving him two shots in round one instead of one.

About the only thing he is missing is being a bit heftier on the dexterity. But beyond that, he is an Evasion buster, specifically. I _expect_ him to hit me, once I get over my initial woe-is-me whining. Sure, it kind of sucks that the Evasion road ends before the NW road does, but then again -- does it? For him to hit me better, he needs to grow his ToA, get more dexterity, or up the + on the bow. Those first two are experience-based, meaning they have every right to pace with my own Evasion and tattoo growth. The third is net worth, sure, so can be pumped by USD, but at least the curve is not linear, AND I can always get DBs to combat that aspect of the hit chance.

As far as seekers go, at least I can move my mage around in that case and still have the arrows follow me. I LIKE seekers at this point, though I hope Crisis can never afford an uber stack of them! (again, DBs would help me there).

"Since you use a SOD and exshots, you fall into the archer catagory."

How does a Sling become a Bow?
The Sling doesn't do massive damage for a relative low NW and remove the explosive shots splash damage? That is just stupid that takes away every advantage the SoD has over the ELB. Otherwise every tank should be using a VB and a massive ELB.
Making the % of splash damage lower? Now we are talking.

Slings advantages are they attack every round in Melee. ;) But they do get stupid dex (pth?) penalties for doing so though! ;)