Strategy thread. Unpicking the top slot. (in General)

Ok. I'm stumped. Ranger's Koy. How can that particular strategy be beaten? I've looked at it frontways, sideways and upside down.

And I'm stumped. The only thing I could imagine having a chance would be a HUGE single minion tank, with at least six million HP, six million ST and six million Dex. With a HUGE PTH weapon and possibly a huge EC all of it's own. A giant mage team might stand a chance also, but anyone running that team would have to get their team bigger in size......

Yeah. Right.


So, ideas people?

TOA archer with enough str using a nice ELB.

CoC mage like Conundrum with a huge AC wall in front using a TOE

TOA using monk using a massive exbow will likely stalemate me.

I was gonna suggest the single ToA Monk. ;)

For more information:

Evasion: 1,390,000/1,000,000 (128)
Antimagic Field: 349,000/400,000 (?)
and my EC is casting at 3,250,000 effect

yeah, you're weakest against CoC really aren't ya, all that investment in EC, but your AMF is quite small. But it would still have to be pretty damn big blasts.

Pfft. Tons of stats would stale a strategy like that. But I think you underestimate yourself Ranger. While I believe CoC is the -only- way to beat you, and it better have some nice evasion, an archer? Nah. With your EC, duel archers, huge PTH... I think the best of them would be lucky for a draw. If this isn't true, ranged truly is broken

Once Conundrum gets his AC up over 350, things will get very difficult for me. But to do that he will need to drop his MgS, thereby opening himself up to all the top mage teams.

So he might be able to beat me, but will certainly lose to 3 or 4 of those he would normally beat.

Just FYI, huge mage team like Hubbell does NOT stand a a chance, since it is so hard to overwhelm the ToE/MgS with anything smaller than a massive CoC (Conundrum has the right idea...)

Actually, I wonder how bamf does with his massive MM.. I would think he might be able to beat koy in 3-4 battles. The Mageseeker makes that harder, but bamf has some Evasion too...

The question is really: how can one lay enough damage on a team like Koy? And bear in mind that Koy isn't even using PL anymore...

The only way to reduce Koy's offense would be a massive, massive EC... But that would work too, probably resulting in stalemates (since there wouldn't be anything left for enough offense after creating such a huge EC...)

bamf's magic missile is reduced by 90 to 95 percent of its effect. i don't think i would ever stand a chance, mm just can't go high enough.

delete the MsK...blammo I win...

dudemus, sorry to hear about that reduction. Man, I thought I had it bad with my MM -- your's is far huger and still gets nuked. I cannot tell you how much I hate the MgS along with all the other stacking damage-reducers.

novice, you really could beat Koy if he didn't have a MageSeeker? Wouldn't he just kill the familiar in round 2? You don't have Evasion as far as I can see, so even with a normal bow he would eat right through you, no? Am I missing something?

This has become a game of walls and damage reduction. I can't for the life of me figure out why everyone doesn't find that mind-numbingly dull. I guess winning ends up making it fun. *smile*

"The only way to reduce Koy's offense would be a massive, massive EC"

Nope.

The only GENERAL way, as I assume you are talking about using specialty xbows? In other words, I am saying there is no way for a mage to reduce Koy's damage other than EC. If you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them other than "Nope". Crossbows are not an option for a mage team. The other ways to beat Koy have already been mentioned.

it is quite frustrating that the largest trained stat in the game can be brought to 90-95% of its power. if i could do the same to melee damage it wouldn't be so hard to take. as a single-minion team that is just not possible though. perhaps it is time for a mage shield spell so we can play the uber mitigation game as well.

You know where I stand, dude. Waaaay too many ways to foil a mage out there. I guess it was all put in place to make sure this place wasn't Mage Blender. So, now it has become "DamageReduction Blender". If I were to try to think of one thing more boring than Mage Blender, it would be that.

On the other hand, my EC reduces the best weapon in the game, one worth over 230M to doing less than 1k damage a hit.

That is far more damage reduction then the 90% I reduce Bamf's MM.

Is that fair?

And novice is 100% correct,

Without the mageseeker I lose to him.

His AoI on his first minion is junctioned to his familiar so I target it as the 2nd to last minion.

Also,

If you want to talk balance, let us type about evasion for a min.

With a 3.2 million effect ethereal chains I still miss Joe (Hubbell's mage) in all rounds of missile of combat with my +142 MSB and +5 arrows (archer of course 1.0).

If not for the MgS and ToE, all tanks would be ToA tanks to even try to have a chance.

Remember for all that xp in your DD spell, you still always hit. With my 40M MSB, I still almost never hit evasions over 1M trained level (boosted through items) with max archery and the largest combined EC in the game.

so, for four rounds you have trouble hitting me, for the next 21 i get pummeled. oh wait, i die way before then, usually in round 7. perhaps if evasion granted similar benefits in both ranged and melee, then i might stand a chance...of a stalemate at least.

Ranger, you know where I stand on Evasion, too. I am 100% consistent.

If you invest what you invest in EC, then yes -- you should reduce entire teams and items to rubble. Just like my massive DM investment helps me win against several DE-dependent teams.

Your MgS is worth a measley 16 million. I could make that amount, just fighting, in a few months. For a few months of play, just using the money, you reduce all magic by that huge percentage -- an amount that is even larger when stacked with all of the damage reducers out there.

By the way, I never said anyone using damage reduction is wrong, or bad, or non-deserving, did I? I just said it's boring. Seriously -- do you think playing the damage reduction game is fun? That it enhances CB gameplay and rewards innovation? I'm talking about things that make the game boring. I have listened, literally, for years about how boring mages are. Well, what about damage reduction? That's surely not considered exciting, is it?

"On the other hand, my EC reduces the best weapon in the game, one worth over 230M to doing less than 1k damage a hit.

That is far more damage reduction then the 90% I reduce Bamf's MM.

Is that fair?"

Apples and Sportscars Ranger. ;)

Your EC has absolutly *no* efftect on the 230M weapon itself. Its just that weapon, and any weapon regardless of size, requires STR alongise it to work.

Your EC negates the STR. ;)

Sut,

Does Mikel play the damage reduction game?

Partly due to his MgS, but mostly he plays the "I can do so much damage so quickly I will lay anyone to rubble" game.

My attack on dudemus:

The Grid pounded goddard with Boomstick [579361]
The Grid draws strength from his weapon! [115872]
The Grid beat goddard with Boomstick [686892]
The Grid draws strength from his weapon! [137378]

His attack on me, first melee round when there are no penalties:

goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (18007)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [328653]

So with a 200M MH and 4.4M strength I do less then 700k a hit, while (with all the UBER damage reduction I have) he does 300k a hit to me guaranteed.

Without my EC, I would likely miss him or hit him only 1 time a round.

Is that right?

Also, remember he is a single minion character with 2/3 my MPR. If he got 3 more minions, using ED spells perhaps things would be different. I am not typing about the cost, I am typing about IF he does.

Ranger you more than double his blow, plus you do 2-3 hits a round, that's why he can't stand a chance.

I don't think Ranger is arguing that he can win... I think his point is that he should be winning by a much larger margin. That is, it seems odd that dudemus can get to half of his damage despite his weapon / ST being ginormous, and having massive DD reduction applied.

Incidentally, this thread made me try myself, and I have now found out that I can beat him, too :) I used to always lose.

Mikel plays pure offense, which I think is fun. Sadly, the only thing that can play a pure offense game against all the damage reduction out there is a over-powered-blow archer.

Multiple things are out of whack, as I have agreed to and posted about multiple times.

True but Dudemus' MM is also massive.

Actually, an archer with a massive bow -- he needs that NW just to overwhelm all the damage reduction.

All I am saying is that the game has shifted into a more necessarily-defensive game, and I find that sad. I'm sure I have said the exact same thing about offense a long time ago... That's why I am asking openly -- is this fun?

There should be more than one way to winning offensively and defensively, I guess all the defensive things cross over, but using RoS/AS/GA can be pretty nasty and you don't need AC, or you can PL/AS/AC/ToE.

I find it silly that the only way to win offensively is to be a massive archer. MM/FB start in ranged too, but get slaughtered without any help.

"Actually, an archer with a massive bow -- he needs that NW just to overwhelm all the damage reduction. "

Not really. He needs all that NW in the + on his bow to overcome the overpowered evasion multiplier in missile rounds. Even with the "overpowered" TOA.

Queen of Pain [6x6800] (+205) worth $143,830,541 owned by Mikel (King of Pain). About 3/5 of the NW is in the + on that weapon, and I suspect with even just 1/2 the x on it, he still would win doing over 2M a hit anyway.

About 60M is in the x on that bow, with over 83M on the + side.

my mm is the largest single trained stat in the game, let us keep that in mind.

my whole problem is that in the changes listed for cb2 from cb1, it never said usd is king, you must pay to play! also the fact that it never stated single-minion teams are no longer an option is a bit bothersome as well. i just have to wonder if this was the plan all along or if it is just how things have worked out so far. is there hope? have i capped out?

also, when attacking as opposed to defending, i get these results against koy:

DD Cast / Avg Damage 5 / 108,513

it wouldn't be nearly as hard to take if the 300k plus was my average.

Once again this seems as another thread thats turned into "lets complain about what we hate'

I admit t he first few posts were thoughtful, stayed on topic, and actually were not badmouthing one person on another, but it seems to me it's turned into another free for all, where everyone wants to point out what they think should be done.

simple fact- If you don't like it, leave, simple as that.

for once can we have a topic where we can stay on the point at hand instead of wandering down this long beaten path and beating the proverbial dead horse?

just my 2 cents

dude - those include ranged rounds, and I think Ranger was dealing with melee only.

excellent point, here is my results of the only melee round i live through when i am attacking:

goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (72026)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [88629]

I don't think that your single minion is capped out yet:

da fence lvl 1,613,483 owned by dudemus (bamf)

I would imagine if your ToE was around your max tat level you would be a monster (even more so then now :D) of a mage to deal with. A big evasion, mad damage reduction AND a MM of an effective level of about 5 mil(give or take?). It might buy you an extra round or two, which might mean offing another minion or two.

I think something that is being overlooked in this thread is how MASSIVE that ToE on Koy is. With an Aura effect of 8%, thats going to shave off about 400k damage, on top of everything else.

It is more annoying when people say what you were saying Tylan. If it seems broken to a ton of people, then it probably is. Its stupid to say If you dont like it leave.

agreed with RX.

his tat is quite small, mine is 2.1 mil, and my max tat is 2.4-2.5 mil, he could easily be able to fit at least another 1 million on the tat.

my point is this.

Do we really need every other thread to break down into squabbling and bickering, cause lately thats all that seems that happens.

Tylan, I didn't realize we were bickering until you stated your opinion on it.

How about I turn your sentiment around -- if you think we have just gone to bickering, then leave (i.e. don't post). I wasn't bickering or whining, and I don't plan to. In fact, I see the point of everyone on this thread (it's a good thread, otherwise I wouldn't bother to post).

Would you rather we all just stand around singing Kum-bay-ya and just force ourselves to never disagree? Or even agree to disagree? I don't sing.

JW's OP said it best. He looked at something and was stumped by it, and wanted to discuss. Could you offer an example of something that you think is bickering?

"With an Aura effect of 8%"

The ToE has an aura of 8%?

8%, or 7.5? rings a bell somewhere... But I will confess to not really understanding how the ToE works, entirely. *smile* Except that it has a threshold of sorts. 8% seems kind of low for that, though...

This thread has no bickering, its about a strat or ways to beat the top MPR character, what's wrong with that? I haven't seen a thread like this in ages.

"Would you rather we all just stand around singing Kum-bay-ya and just force ourselves to never disagree? Or even agree to disagree? I don't sing."

Reason # 10 why I love carnageblender.

Sorry, i dont have anything constructive to say, as I'm basically detached from all of the current issues.

May CB Prevail!

I know that it has that weird damage threshold thing at 75% or 80%. I didn't know that the aura involved a reduced effect, though. 7% is a SERIOUS reduction, and would make it useless. I thought it was more like... no reduction.

From the wiki:

- Reduces up to 75% of the damage taken. Aura effects companions to more than half of "main" effect.
- The cap is 16% of the ToE level for the minion wearing it, and the aura is 1/2 this, or 8% of the TOE level.

I admit I was making the assumption Rangers tat gets the max effect in most cases.

This is the damage without my TOE on. As someone mentioned my TOE is massive while Dudemus' is rather small for his MPR.

goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (12605)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [398071]
The Grid regenerated 120,000 HP

goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (14405)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [463093]
The Grid regenerated 120,000 HP

goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (16206)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [575060]
The Grid regenerated 120,000 HP
Melee Combat

goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (18007)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [356280]
The Grid regenerated 120,000 HP
goddard takes damage from his own Magic Missile (18007)!
goddard's Magic Missile hit The Grid [560603]

great, now i have toe envy! :)

the past game mechanics forced me into a classic catch 22 with my tat. when i was in the 1m mpr range, we had the top ten exemption at that point which i wasn't even close to being in, and i could not beat anyone with a score over my pr. therefore to keep growing at any kind of rate, i started using the roe when fighting. i still use it to build my mpr but am probably at a point where i need to quit using it entirely and working my toe back up...excellent observation and thank you for that.

i think that situation may be better for the next single mage coming up due to the larger exemption at the top now.

i have somewhere around 65 million xp in mm though. the damage mitigation is reducing that amount of xp to between 150k to 700k xp. that may actually be comparable to the reduction we see at the top wtih weapon values, or with evasion knocking out xp values. that was i guess the reason i wanted to post. it is not just usd that is getting mitigated all to hell, which with evasion people are saying is just wrong. it is happening with xp and mpr as well. the downside,for me, is my evasion only helps me in the first few rounds after that i still get spanked.

i think even now it will still be a catch 22 situation though. if i don't use the roe when fighting, the top 5 will outpace me in mpr so even with building my toe, i will be falling behind mpr wise.

i often wonder if the choice by jon to no longer give the bonus xp for fewer minions was the right one. i do understand though that with buying minions that caused a major issue with the bonus.

Can I just say, a little off topic - there's a tiny discussion in the middle about bickering. I've been reading all the entries in this thread and it didn't look like bickering was going on.

This post was intended as a discussion about ways to beat Koy. I've been thinking about those defensive strats that are prevalent at the moment and they really are sticky little creatures. I really can't get my head around how to beat them. This wasn't intended to be a mage vs tank discussion or a talk about what is broken. We've had too many of those in recent months. And they do descend into bickering. So it's quite nice to see discussion like we used to do. Thanks people!

Flamey sums it up quite nicely:

"Flamey, September 21 11:51 PM EDT
This thread has no bickering, its about a strat or ways to beat the top MPR character, what's wrong with that? I haven't seen a thread like this in ages.'

I've missed them too!

Now back to the programme!

Quick analysis of Ranger's numbers...

Average damage per MM per round (normalized for ranged reduction factors): ~540,675 per MM.

Estimated damage reduction due to AC = 179 x 0.21% = ~38%
Estimated damage reduction due to MgS = +46 = ~46%

So, backing out the actual damage through AC and then MgS (since they apply in the opposite order to that):

Damage without AC = 540,675/(1 - 0.38) = ~872,000
Damage without MgS = 872,000/(1 - 0.46) = ~1,615,000

I know there is some AMF at play there, but that damage seems low. I know when I tested my MM (around level 3.3 million) against totally soft targets, I was ranging from 1.5 million to 2 million per blow (maybe I am recalling incorrectly?) Not sure what Ranger's final AMF cast is, but I would have expected dudemus's damage to a soft target to be at least 2 million to 2.5 million. Then again, we all know how much damage can vary, so maybe this was just a low-end set of rounds...

In any case, this shows what the MgS can do as far as the damage reduction. Even with just an MgS and what I would consider "light" AC, 1.6 million in damage is reduced to 540,000 -- that's a reduction of 67% without even counting the AMF, from a 16-million-dollar item together with modest AC pieces. A very effective way of damage reduction! (and that's without the ToE layer).

So, to remain on topic, I will go back to what I said previously -- MM is definitely not the way to beat Koy. *smile* Actually, with the way it spreads, I am rather amazed that CoC fares so much better. CoC is stronger than a 4 million MM, even when spread across four targets? Ranger, how hard does a big CoC hit you (better put the ToE back on... *smile*)? I guess as long as CoC can get 2-3 rounds, that first shot blows away the chaff and then subsequent blows are mighty to be sure!

Juggernaut takes damage from his own Cone of Cold (0)!
Juggernaut's Cone of Cold hit Prophecies [227213], Microchips [91971], Cloudscape [74089], The Grid [58124]

Juggernaut takes damage from his own Cone of Cold (0)!
Juggernaut's Cone of Cold hit Cloudscape [400947], The Grid [61965]

Note my AMF casts for 0.00 vs his CoC.

Estimated damage reduction due to AC = 179 x 0.21% = ~38%

Far less than that if your going to be complete. Only the + on my AC helps vs DD spells. The total + on my AC set I currently use is 131.

But,

Vs conundrum I get protection figured in which is level 20.

Also, When The Grid is the only minion left, he takes over 750k damage a round from Conundrum's CoC.

You are correct -- AC in that case would only be providing about 27.5% damage reduction, which changes the final figure for bamf's MM to 1.38 million. Even lower. Like I said, must have just been a bad run of MM casts, because bamf's base damage should be more in the 2 million to 2.5 million range. I really dislike the widely-varying damages in DD sometimes...

The ToE really helps against Conundrum... So how exactly does Violent femmes beat you when you don't have the mageseeker on? I'm still not seeing how that is possible, even with having more meat shields...? He only gets 2-3 shots of CoC off, yes? That's enough to take you out?

VF uses 2 things very well vs my character in combo.

The key to his win is of course not the CoC or the GA (since my TOE and MH counters it) but in fact his decay.

After the last missile round, in which he takes out my 2 low hp enchanters, the path to my tanks is open for his decay.

By using a 500k+ level decay and NS, his cast vs me drains about 1/4 my hp on whom he casts on.

So he kills my archer in 2 rounds with the decay/CoC combo then starts in with 700k hp damage decays on my tank, all the while casting his CoC on it alone.

Since I do not start attacking his familiar until the 4th melee round, this gives him 3 full decay/CoC casts. More then enough to kill me.

I did not realize he lasted that long -- I always forget that other people have to deal with GA/AS (I take my DM very much for granted).

So, even if I changed my familiar to Ice, it wouldn't do much, and I don't have any sizable decay either...

Then again, I appear to last 8 rounds against you, and I have more than 400K in my account, so maybe I need to give that a try... *smile*

So long as his Archer isn't touching your familiar during ranged combat, I would imagine an Ice Familiar of that size would be a pain in the butt for Koy. You would get at least a couple casts off, and the first one would clear out the enchanters.

Ok I admit, i've probably overreacted, but like you pointed out JW, almsot every discussion in the last few months has turned into the usual tanks vs mages bit.

Actually re-reading thru the posts i read too much into a few comments and for that I do apologize.

I'd also like to note, that theres alot of good ideas so far that apply not only to rangers strat. i've heard, so much in fact that with the free re-inking i've had to play around with my setup again.

btw it's actually nice to read a cb strat thread and seeing everyone working together.

and I hate kum-by ya as well, and my dancing is horrible