RoBF (in General)

Its been in the game for a pretty long time and yet it is perhaps the most completely useless of all the tats in every possible way; its defense against fireball, which was its original purpose doesn't even stack up to ToE, which can reduce all forms of damage (Cept decay). Just wondering if there was a way to make this tat usable and increase game strategy

Many ideas have been suggested before, but none implemented. I guess Jon just feels it's good as it is. Because you have to remember the backlash damage, which was the main point to my knowledge.

If you wanted to make it better, just increase the FB protection and the backlash, just a bit. But, eh.

Nah, the RoBF is probably one of the most improved items in the game. It constantly gets tiny little buffs. Just nothing that'll make it worthwhile. I think the whole concept behind it just isn't working - FB isn't all that popular anymore, and melee damage blows it away, not to mention that it doesn't even work during Ranged rounds against the Archers. (I don't believe? Correct me if I'm wrong there.)

One way a lot of people suggested to make the RBF useful is to make its magic resistance to fireball apply to all DD spells. Sort of a AMF type of tattoo.

Then, it may be useful even though it does not cause flame damage to ranged attacks.

I would like to see it still do damage to those archers that persist in using a missile weapon in melee rounds. Sort of like if your so close to your enemy, even though they do not use a "melee" weapon, the flames from the damage done to you still reach out far enough to engulf your enemy.

"Nah, the RoBF is probably one of the most improved items in the game"

It's also one of the most highly nerfed. Don't forget where it started :)

Incidently, I have a strat that I tailored to the RBF. And you know what? I use an ROE instead. That should mean something.

I don't think people are really making effective use of the tat. It's main purpose is in my mind allowing the old AS AS GA FB team to work here in cb2.

can anyone confirm is the absorbing effect is 10% of max tat lvl as said in the wiki? 10% is like horrible.... think about it... by the time you have like 500k max tat and you get like 50k absorbtion for the whole battle? ... that cant even last you half a FB lol

Knovice -- to maximize the tattoo, you need to make physical attacks hit often and for very little damage. The Exbow allows that. You need to be able to devote all of your weapon allowance to the exbow, so that implies UC.

Well, I like this idea for a RoBF change. Given its limited use and tasks now, make improvements. Make its damage to attackers ignore AC / Endurance / Prot. Give the equipped minion immunity to vampiric effects- do you really want the health of that guy that's burning? Plus 25% reduction to drainage for your other minions.

This means it can deal back damage to enemies pretty well guaranteed, and the vampiric killing gives it a strong niche to fill with the over-use of the MH currently seen. This also will increase demand for the two lesser used weapons of the Big Melee 4. It still has limited niches of course, but it would excel in them.

But that's just my ideas. I think it would make for a very usable rune.

Using an evasion strat with an RoBF is umm...well I'll just leave adjectives out of this.

Not that I disagree that the RoBF is near the top of the "change me please" list, but I think it's only been put to decent use once or twice.

I like Vaynard's idea, though I still think they can't escape the nightmare of ranged rounds :)

"but I think it's only been put to decent use once or twice."

I'm interested in knowing where it can be used and nothing better can be used or more effective. Let's just take RoE out of the equation, just because.

"Using an evasion strat with an RoBF is umm...well I'll just leave adjectives out of this."

Who said anything about Evasion? I never said I'd put the RBF on my UC minion.

Further, you have to remember that you can't let the RBF holder get hit until melee starts, or he'll perish quickly under the might of the ELB. UC provides a nice wall for that.

"Let's just take RoE out of the equation, just because."

When an RoE winds up being better than another tattoo, then that tattoo has serious issues.

*Anyone* can use a RoE to use on their strat, just for the xp bonus. Of course with a RoE you'd lose less, and if you didn't well that tat and strat didn't have feelings for each other.

Sometimes you get to a point where you're at the top of your game in your class, but can't even begin to compete in the next class up becuase the gap is so great. That's where I'm at.

I swear I had hit confirm. weird.

"Of course with a RoE you'd lose less"

That should've read "you'd lose more".

I meant to permanently replace it, obviously you'll switch back to a normal tat to beat others not just not climb the ladder.

"One way a lot of people suggested to make the RBF useful is to make its magic resistance to fireball apply to all DD spells. Sort of a AMF type of tattoo."

Lame.

The concept of the RoBF needs to be changed. Looking at other tattoos, you see that they are all designed with a purpose. The really effective tattoos, the ToA and ToE are the best because they are simple. The first takes every aspect that makes a Tank good and makes it better. The ToE takes just about every source of damage and makes it less, by a lot.

I'm still a big fan of my concept. The idea is simple, the wearer of the RoBF is a scary guy. That's about it. The dude is covered in smoke and flame and has an aura of unnatural horror. Fighting in his choice of range, which is up close and personal, is exactly where no other minion wants to be. He's the kind of guy you want to ping with a few arrow shots and prey that takes him down.

In game mechanical terms, I say that aside from constant fire damage in melee (active damage instead of reactive), the RoBF minion also has an aura of fear, which causes characters with a lower ST score in comparison to the tattoo level to likely miss with melee attacks. Or force all damage dealers to likely miss by basing the miss chance on the HP of the opposing minion. Also, I suppose the fire resistance thing is cool.

The point is that the ToA should be the tattoo of choice for Archers, as it already is, and the RoBF should be the choice tattoo for the melee fighter. If a ToA minion doesn't take out a RoBF minion in ranged, then it should lose. Hands down, every time.

Now that I think about it. Basing the fear effect on the current HP of the minion, instead of the max HP or the ST, would lead to a really cool effect.

If the minion deals damage every round through the constant fire damage then every round becomes harder then the last for being able to hit this guy. I really like that, as it really says that the Balrog minion is a guy who wins in the contest of long battles.

This effect also agrees with my opinion that each aspect of the tattoo needs to enforce the other aspects of the tattoo in order to make it effective.

I have a more or less base RoBF that I bought once upon a time intended for an NCB.
I have been thinking about it now that NCB time is almost here, and I have a few ideas - none of which, however, seem strong enough to get that far :-(

Nifty idea Vestax!

For starters this would allow the minus to hit to be reborn as the tat would no long depend on hitting to do damage. Kill the aura for the tat, jack up the fire damage per round and lets see it go to town!

Vestax,

While you're "a big fan of" your own idea of the RBF, it is quite impractical for gameplay.

Right now every tattoo/familar except the JKF, IF and ROE help starting the first round of missile. The IF compensates for that fact by doing a lot of damage. The ROE gives extra xp. The JKF acts as an evasion type wall.

While every other tattoo can help vs all types of mage in one way or another, using a RBF as your idea would do absolutely NADA vs MM and COC mages/familiars. Even the HF with its broken PTh, can do damage if it hits vs all minions/familiars.

The RBF, by the method you "love" does nothing except vs FB damage in the missile rounds. While it may fit with the whole RBF idea, for gameplay it is still near useless.

The idea which you called "lame", may not be in the theory of RBF, but perhaps it is more then a large fireshield but a magic shield that reflects melee damage. Not the cleanest idea but more useful for gameplay then having it do nada until melee.

Right now I would love to use the RBF on my character, however with MM so prevalent, there is no way I can even think of using it. I can use ever other type of tattoo and beat my fightlist but the RBF makes me lose to 2 characters.

So, letting the RBF protect vs all magic and have it do damage back to the attacking minion in melee may not be the sweetest idea, but it does have a bit more use in gameplay then the idea you seem to "be a big fan of".

"In game mechanical terms, I say that aside from constant fire damage in melee"

I am unsure about this part.

Will it do damage to all opponents in melee, just the minion in front?

Will it do damage like FB does to friendly minions?

I think the biggest problem would be making the RoBF more useful then a MgS/EH or MgS/TSA mage wall. I would think right now that is your best defence against a mage (with some AMF of course). If you put an RoBF on a minion, you would be giving that up.

Make it the mage's answer to the ToA! =D I'm still all for that!

Actually Ranger, my final conclusion would have been to apply the fear effect to all enemy minions. This would include mages. I originally thought to only apply it to melee fighters because I thought to use ST as the counter to the fear effect. I originally dismissed the application of the fear against mages as they would almost certainly not have the ST to overcome the fear. This changed when I decided that HP was a better fit. I'm sorry because I wasn't clear on this.

The way the fear aura would work is that the enemy simply loses his move. HP is a good measure against the tattoo since all damage dealers have it (unless your team was made by MrC). HP is also determined by xp mostly and therefore can't be manipulated easily with NW.

There was a problem with basing the fear aura on ST anyhow, as it made the tattoo no longer a good counter to ToA. Instead it would have made the ToA an absolute necessity.

As for whether or not the fire damage hurts your own guys or not, I hadn't actually decided. I can see arguments for both. It really depends on how nasty you make the constant damage. If it is really nasty, then your own minions should suffer too. If not so much, then I say make the other minions immune as the tattoo wearing minion will need their help.

I do understand what you mean, that if it doesn't protect against MM or CoC, then it becomes very limited. However, my final idea does indeed protect you from these two as soon as melee rounds start. It would be nice to see the miss chance for mages brought back if it meant it made the RoBF a big deal for once.

perhaps it could have a phantom link ability that only absorbs magic damage 8/10 for the minion equipping it in addition to the fear aura

Vestax,

I see your point and it is a novel idea.

However, unless it can give some benefit during missile rounds, other then lowering FB damage, I just cannot see it being used more then the IF. And we all know how many people use that familiar.

For it to be a main stream tattoo, it has to help some in missile rounds.

Would the fear effect apply during ranged rounds? If yes, I think it's a great idea.

This way, RoBF users would always have the random factor apply to them. No opponents would ever be sure how many times they could attack RoBF users.

Fun, fun, fun.

Fear could increase as the minion gets closer (ie increases from begining of ranged to a full effect in melee)

what if AC was added to the RoBF, because a wall with AC and RoBF could hurt tanks pretty effectively. (perhaps too much)

That would make it a ToE that deals damage.

not quite, but a somewhat similar idea, ToE works differently than ac, and can potentially block a higher amount, than some arbitrary smallish AC amount

I'm trying to buy a RoBF right now, so if you have one. Its not so useless. If you have one go to FS forum for my topic.

Oh, Stryfe, if you only knew.

You've never felt the burn of the RoBF strat run. I regretted every minute of it.

i was trying to hold out but vestax's last soment got me lol
anywas i loved my RoBF strat i had on my other char i mean i even had someone make a post about how its UC death when RoBF was combined with PL but and was i would be useing my RoBF right now but im trying to work with CoC and CoC/RoBF doesnt seem too good but i might just try it ;)

Sorry Drakon. I suppose I even lied. I haven't any actual experience with using the RoBF. It's the ToBF that burned me. Back when it had 10 ranks of evasion. Ah, it's almost like living the horror all over again. Good times.

Right.
I *Am* going to use an RoBF next NCB
I *will* make it successful if it's the last thing I

You know, what I really think we need to make RoBF usable again is Cause Fear. Reduce that silly outrageous amounts of melee damage so the flaming guy can actually hurt them back a bit.

gl with trying to get that to work vicious cat. Ive personally tried using it with my ncb char trying to do that "fight higher lvl fball mage" strat but apparently robf only gives a 10% of its lvl (one time only) reduction in dmg. Hence when u get a lvl 10,000 tat it can absorb 1000 dmg.... which will not even protect u from the first round of fball. And the chances of survivng ranged round AND having enough HP left to let them beat upon you to gain the melee effect is almost impossible

The Cloak of Balrog Flame was an item that was fairly sure of what it was and what it should do. The way it worked was overpowered, especially if you had the cash to boost them. I had two in CB1, and by the end they were huge :)

But the RBF just seems a little unfocused. What is it supposed to do?

I would change it back to being a Cloak. But the damage output I would make 10% (or maybe 15%) of the trained_HP_of_the_minion_wearing it. Currently the highest trained HP in the game is about 2.5 million; so the cloak would output 250k per strike received - that's still a lot less powerful than an ELB or a boosted SoD. Being a cloak again would make it more flexible for use - and ideal for walls. I'm not even sure it would need the FB reduction; it would basically be GA in an item.

The tattoo needs to be focused. Then maybe we could come up with strats for it.

The purpose of the RBFwas originally to deal with the many SFBM teams out there. It was coupled with an abiality to fight back against tanks, as well.

The fireball blocking part is useless. Forget about it.

The anti-melee tank part used to be great until the recent changes to ranged. The RBF is totally useless in ranged rounds, so the only way to make it viable is to keep the minion wearing it alive until melee. However, if you have the stats to do that, you wouldn't need the RBF to begin with.

The bottom line is that I'd like to see the power of the RBF after ranged gets brought back to reality.