GA buff (in General)

Considering damage has become massive and impossible to match with XP, doesn't GA deserve the elimination of the penalty for being smaller than damage done?

Not really, since then everyone could train a base GA and lay on the retaliatory damage.
GA can easily match the damage being inflicted when that damage is reduced by AC, protection or endurance/ToE at least in most cases for a decent mix of skills. That's the planning you have to make if you want to maximize GA.

Though I'm all for a boost to my strategy, it already works quite effectively. What you need to remember is that even though the damage is absurd, your opponent's HP levels are not. Their HP is dependent upon the same XP that you fuel your GA with.

Also, GA damage is optimal damage as opposed to the damage your opponent does. While your opponent does damage to pitiful meatshields and walls, the counter damage goes right to their damage dealers.

Then again, penetration of the opponent's ToE and AC can be near impossible to overcome at times.

Yukk: GA does play well with ToE at all, you end up lowering damage too much when it's small, and not lowering the overkill damage at all.

DM is an effective solution to GA, so I don't see small decays becoming an issue.

Even without AC or a ToE, just massive damage cuts GA return by what seems like 30%

Okay, now I get your angle. My team is a GA team and I do see what you're talking about. Often against VA teams hitting for damage my GA should return at the full 60%, I see that their VA actually keeps up with the GA return.
That is a bit disheartening. e.g. with 550000 GA
BadGuy crushed wimpyenchanter 500000
wimpyenchanter guardian angel strikes BadGuy 40000
BadGuy draws strength from his weapon 50000

Just because I deserve it, I would like to add that this is the most self-serving post ever made.

Maybe instead of buffing GA in that way, make it's effect vorpal to some extent?

I think it should have to be trained high, and I think it is wonderful that DM eats it up. *smile* But if the GA still makes it through all that, I think it should hit a bit harder. Especially since leech and HP regeneration methods exist. GA hitting a PL/TSA/VA tank is almost laughable at high levels.

Hmm, that actually opens another interesting question up for testing...

is GA return from someone using a VB, vorpal?

Wouldn't that be nice ! And vampiric from VA users :)

Microchips's familiar's Magic Missile hit Critical Fumble [886659]
Critical Fumble's Guardian Angel smote Microchips's familiar (469268)

And:

The Grid pounded Chaos with Boomstick [853866]
The Grid draws strength from his weapon! [170773]
Chaos's Guardian Angel smote The Grid (301773)
The Grid pulverized Chaos with Boomstick [1133564]
The Grid draws strength from his weapon! [72826]
Chaos's Guardian Angel smote The Grid (127206)

I would say GA is quite fine as it is. Quite powerful enough.

The highest level of GA is Chaos (1915996).
With a corn about 2.3 Million.

That is more then any melee weapon damage, tons more then all DD damage with the exception of the very largest COC vs a single unarmed minion.

With my MH (x12,000) and 4 million strength I am doing about 1.4 million damage maximally. I do not use BL so if you add 60% to that you get 2.24 million-MAX. The highest GA just about covers the highest melee damage (if I used BL), no problem there.

The only problem is with missile damage. IMO, the problem is not with GA, but with the missile damage being far too much. Seems to me you are trying to fix the wrong problem.

And no reason to bring up DM as other spells, such as AS, are reduced by DM.

The Grid fractured Lord Gothmog with Boomstick [1162409]
The Grid draws strength from his weapon! [232481]
Lord Gothmog's Guardian Angel smote The Grid (290240)

since you chose not to post this I thought I should...

This is a perfect example of the problem with GA, your damage is far below the level of my GA, yet my GA return is far far less than the 60% that should be returned. Granted involved are Protection (8) and 257 AC, which could account for some of that, but I see similar return when you damage pushes 1.5 mil.

Jon has had plenty of chances to revert the massive ranged damage, and he hasn't. I am trying to encourage that the traditional counters to massive ranged damage be given the boost to match.

'This is a perfect example of the problem with GA, your damage is far below the level of my GA,'

Then get your level of GA up! NWO does max damage to my tank since his GA level is much higher than yours. So you are saying you should get the max effect for less xp used?

Not like I have a 4M strength and a x12000 MH (180 million NW), and still do far less damage then most elb users in my fightlist. Which is still covered by NWO's GA. If it is not covered by yours, LEARN MORE GA!

Also a 257 AC lowers my physical damage by 54% (and therefore my GA damage), not an insignificant amount. Or would you like GA to bypass AC?

The reason I posted my familiars damage vs you instead of my tank is that for a GA about the level of my familiars damage, it does a large amount of GA damage to my 0 AC familiar.

By this post you seem to want to fix one problem by making another. Of course missile damage is messed up. But why not then make AS far more powerful and eliminate the multi minion penalty? I am sure people who use AS are thinking that they do not get enough HP from it to counter the large missile damage out there.

Or why not boost DD damage by a factor of 2, or melee damage by a factor of 2 as that damage is small compared to missile damage.

2 Wrongs do NOT make a right.

But 2 Wrights do make an airplane.

Sting skewered Lord Gothmog with Queen of Pain [2549514]
Lord Gothmog's Guardian Angel smote Sting (309328)

Sting struck deep into Critical Fumble with Queen of Pain [3503713]
Critical Fumble's Guardian Angel smote Sting (317785)

Sting skewered Campy hates novice with Queen of Pain [3488291]
Campy hates novice's Guardian Angel smote Sting (312306)

Sting struck deep into Rune of Suckage's familiar with Queen of Pain [3651026]
Rune of Suckage's familiar's Guardian Angel smote Sting (264993)

All I'm asking is that I'm not penalized for my GA not matching damage that's impossible to reach...

My GA is already higher than the max damage I see from you, and I NEVER see return near even 30% when damage hits 1.5 mil+.

The Grid pounded Lord Gothmog with Boomstick [1652845]
The Grid draws strength from his weapon! [330569]

Currently GA needs to be insignificantly larger (in the case above the blow doesn't match my HP, and my GA should be casting for at least 1.8 mil) to get anywhere near 60%.

The Grid shot Rune of Suckage's familiar with Diabolical Torrent [780186]
Rune of Suckage's familiar's Guardian Angel smote The Grid (222708)
The Grid shot Rune of Suckage's familiar with Diabolical Torrent [934613]
Rune of Suckage's familiar's Guardian Angel smote The Grid (218680)

There ya go.

About the same damage as my familiar to your familiar.

My AC makes a huge difference in the GA damage I take.

Double the damage (due to my AC) and you get close to 57% of the damage I do is given back as GA damage.

stupid spell check, that was significantly

yeah, my GA is only 1 mil higher than that damage, I should hope it hits 60%...

When you damage is closer to my GA, the return percentage is FAR lower.

Well novice,

We all know the problem is ELB + possible upgraded arrows + higher base damage on seekers arrows + Beleg's.

Let us try to get Jon to fix that problem then create another by manipulating GA to compensate for this problem.

Trust me, I do feel your pain vs those large super damage ELB's.

But vs Melee and DD damage, GA is working just fine. To manipulate it to compensate for the anomaly known as missile damage would be to further hurt the melee and DD characters.

Read it again Ranger, GA is NOT returning 60% unless it's HIGHER than damage done.

Yes, and a bit higher.

I understand.

However there must be a game mechanic for this effect. To boost GA because missile damage is so high would put DD and melee weapon users at more of a disadvantage.

Again, I understand your pain, but to punish DD users and melee weapon users because ELB's are messed up would be counter productive.

There must be a reason Jon has it that the GA has to be OVER the damage done to have maximum 60% effect.

Melee or Ranged my point is the same, damage was increased, and it's very difficult to have GA far enough above damage to see full return. The penalty to GA for not being significantly (more than 15%) higher than damage done is breaking traditional counters to powerful strats.

After talking with Rubberduck in chat, it appears that one can NEVER expect to see GA return 60% of it's level. Apparently GA needs to be two and half times larger than the blow to return 60% of the damage done. So to see 60% of your HP done as damage by GA return you'd need to have a GA casting of two and half times your own HP if you're getting hit for all of your HP with each blow.

This just increases my desire to see the penalty for overwhelming damage reduced.
At least 40% of your GA level should be returned, regardless of how much larger the damage was.

When trying to compare my damage to Rangers, you didn't add in that I have a fairly decent sized DM, which further reduces your GA return damage.

I was clear that my GA was reduced in effect during our fights, and I think I even mentioned DM by name.

Hmm I think that part go edited out, sorry for the lack of clarity.

It's still 20% return on a mil GA, I simply think the return should be closer to 40% for a minimum.

DM reduces GA. So, therefore, shouldn't GA have some sort of "advantage?

I reduce all GA to nothing because it is a powerful force. However, DM is an _expensive_ choice. It means no AMF, it means no EC. It means base Decay can eat you alive. Yeah, it's hard. So one one hand I am glad GA doesn't work (since I built my team for that). On the other hand, I see the GA user's plight... It still sucks against the whole AC/PL/ToE/VA stuff.

That's why I said to make it still need the training, but make it useful when it hits. It's an _angel_ for crissake. Let it do some damage.