RoBF change... (in General)

I thought a good way to temper the RoBF would be to have a limit on it.

Like:

The RoBF level is calculated at the level of the DD on the minion using.


Just a rough idea.

kind of a super nerf there, eh GW? takes away its ability to deal un-GA-able damage, concentrate XP, and be used on anything but a mage... kinda harsh, no?

I agree. The RoBF has too many advantageous properties for it not to be limited more than the other tattoos/runes/familiars.

Wouldn't it be better to just reduce the damage it deals? IMO the versatility is what the RoBF is all about... it gives a bit of defense, a bit of offense... making it depend on DD would mean it'd be a mage-only tat. If you just reduce it's damage where the point where you (probably) wouldn't be able to kill a character with just the RoBF would be better I think. That way it'd still have the same use as it has now, except that you couldn't use it as your only source of damage, which is how I see most people using it (not counting AMF and base decays)...

Or simply deal GA damage back to the RoBF user.
Wouldn't that be much simpler ?

Why not just take it back to it's roots and let it do two things:

Retaliate vs. Melee attacks (per hit).
Reduce DD by a percentage similar to the reduction provided by AMF.

None of this granting more Evasion nonsense.
No more non-retaliatory damage.

Lord Bob:

RoBF is currently bugged and the evasion effect does not seem to be there. See Draco's post a while back. None the less, it's a very powerful item.

"RoBF is currently bugged and the evasion effect does not seem to be there."

I know, but it doesn't need to be there to begin with. The "bug" makes its Evasion effect fine where it is right now.

Can we stop with the constant RoBF nerf cries? In lower MPR ranges it is a powerful tattoo, but so is the JFK and single FB mages. When you get higher in MPR it is severely limited in team choices, and in order to be effective you have to train so much AMF and Evasion that you can't really have another damage dealer on the team, so you have to rely on the weak splash damage to hopefully kill the other teams minions by the time 25 rounds have passed and of course if you survived.

"Can we stop with the constant RoBF nerf cries?"

No, it is too freaking powerful. Allowing all that xp to be used in evasion/amf makes such a minion relatively invulnerable to physical damage and most decent sized DD spells.

So what if you stalemate those higher then you, at least your not being farmed. Plenty of people love that.

"and in order to be effective you have to train so much AMF and Evasion that you can't really have another damage dealer on the team"

Isn't that the purpose with a pure RoBF strat? To only let the RoBF deal damage, this is a super yber overpowered strat, because GA and AMF doesn't retaliate RoBF(!!!). Is it not overpowered to not being able to get damaged?

give ROBF phantom HP only affected by GA... when the HP is used up it stops working :)

if your strategy is using the robf as the sole damage dealer then there is an inherent disadvantage built in. you are no longer able to equip a roe for mpr boosting without retraining and losing xp. this inherent disadvantage is going to be a pretty strong deterrent to the use of this rune as a long-term strategy decision and is the reason why the robf is not being used all that much.

the robf's numbers have held darn steady since the change at just over 150. this is compared to 200 to 300 for toe/toa. the mass exodus that has been hinted at in the numerous anti-robf propaganda threads has never materialized. i believe that this is due to the afore mentioned inherent disadvantage and with this we don't really need to add more disadvantages.

I would love to be able to see a list of all NCB characters, less so all NUB characters.

That way I can see how many NCBers are using a specific strategy.

I would suspect plenty are using the RBF type strategy.

However, we have no seen the mass exodus due to 2 main reasons:

1) You need to have a single or dual minion strategy to effectively use the RBF. In order to have an uber evasion that is.

2) I am certain (upon chatting with many players) people are afraid of the expected RBF nerf that they expected to have this month. People really do not want to start a strategy and have it nerfed in the middle of a N*B.

After the VB fiasco, I personally will never pump up or use an item/strategy that I know is overpowered. The RBF, for me, falls into that category.

*agrees with dud*

As Johnnywas has repeatedly pointed out in his many updates, RoBF suffers the damage barrier problem. You can't possible upgrade its damage output as you can with a weapon and I end up staling a lot of TOE teams and even RoS teams.

But one cannot ignore the fact that RoBF is an incredibly good way of building up a character. At my current mpr range (600k), I have 100% CB list and I do not get farmed nearly as much as my clan mates. I am happy with that and do not mind not using RoE. As soon as I hit 800-1mil mpr and CB starts to drop, I'd be switching away from RoBF. The ride there is extraordinarily profitable and that is unbalanced.

i can agree that there may be a trend for robf usage as the first part of an ncb and then when the challenge bonus drops (much as johnnywas found) switching to a different strategy. this is much the same as starting out single-minion and adding minions later though and not something to use as proof of uberness. if that is the the case then single-mages must have been overpowered as part of the previous method.

the one stat we do have to look at is the tat numbers. at this time the robf is more popular than it has been since being a tattoo instead of a cloak, but it is only around the halfway mark when it comes to tattoo popularity. furthermore, out of all the greater tats it makes up less than ten percent of the total ones out there. the toe/toa are by far the most used.

As to my last post.

I would be interested to see how many people would change to the RBF given:

1) A free retrain.
2) Knowledge that the RBF will certainly not be nerfed.

Right now, as I stated above, there are a couple of very large reasons people do not mass exodus to the RBF.

Perhaps it is not the RBF by itself that is too powerful, but the ability to pump evasion to levels that make almost all weapons, including some USD-pumped ones useless.

Combined with the ability to work with AMF to neutralize most equal MPR DD spells.

Combined with the ability to always hit and be immune to GA and AMF effects.

So what if you cannot kill some characters in 25 rounds, at least they are not farming you.

Just looking at some of the top RBF users, I see (almost) everyone not losing to people of less MPR. There may be stalemates but not loses. As almost always happens with every other strategy. That to me is the sign something is overpowered.

furthermore is the "fear of nerfage" really based on the fact that the item is overpowered or the concentrated propaganda effort to make people believe that? most users of the item say it really isn't uber and people should try it for themselves.

i truly do not know as i know not what jon's vision for it was. as i have said many times before though i do trust his vision and his ability to ignore the propaganda machine that has been used regarding this item.

There have been numerous instances where most of the community states something was overpowered.

As far back as March 05 when the TOE was that item.

Instances included the VB, BL, and most recently evasion (still overpowered IMO).

In a game like this, it is hard to prove to everyone, especially those that use said item, that something is overpowered.

However, just look at the battle logs of the RBF users and the ability they have to nerf most equal level DD spells and non-USD weapons. That alone tells me quite a lot.

As I stated, perhaps the RBF in of itself is not overpowered. But when combined with a huge AMF and a massive evasion, it certainly is uber powerful.

if ever there's a free untrain/retrain period, i'd like to test the following:

ueber evasion + AMF (and big decay + RoBF) <single minion>

versus

ueber evasion + AMF (and CoC + ToE) <single minion>

assign Protection 20 to each of the above, along with NSC; i'm sure the CoC combo packs a better punch, but perhaps that depends on the people being farmed, the level of their AMF, or if they are pure DM.

Has anyone done this testing before? Off hand, from the stats on my fight list, I think that the CoC+ToE combo would give a fair run to the decay + RoBF strat if ever the latter were nerfed.

Get rid of the huge magic reduction, as far as I can see it is the only problem with the RoBF. The damage is super easy to handle. There are still some teams that can get my CoC to hit for no damage, when I have seen blasts as high as 2 mil, which is just silly IMO.

The DD reduction is minimal when compared with the ToE, it gives a flat 40 to 50% reduction alone. AND it has an aura effect. Compared to the RoBF, it allows distributed exp teams that CAN deal damage unlike the RoBF where all your exp has to be used for defensive purposes.

Decay is a terrible spell to learn on RoBF minion. You are either giving up the exp concentration by using one that's trained up or uses a base one which owns yourself harder still facing any sort of amf.

The coc vs robf example is not convincing. Of course the CoC minion will win, given that enough exp is trained. From my experience, there are thresholds to which spell will not completely nullified based on amf casting percentage. A mm will be mostly nullified around 42% against my single minion. A fb will be nullified at 55% or so. I refrain from hitting CoC most of the time but I think their threshold should be 65%+ at least. It's all about how much exp you train into dd compare to how much exp is in the amf.

Single coc mage will do beat an RoBF single minion char but it will do worse against everything else because not as much exp can be concentrated.

To address horseguy's point. Do not use absolute damage when you are comparing your dd to another RoBF's defensive layer. What if your coc does 2mil damage to a naked enchanter? Have you thought about the fact that you might be facing amf higher than your dd level, or a tattoo that is maxed out? You are simply not breaking the threshold. Saying your normal 2mil damage gets nullified to 0 means absolutely nothing and proves no point. Is RoBF overpowered? I'm fully convinced it is. How do you prove it? The threshold for full damage nullification using amf percentage is too low. Now we are getting somewhere about how to nerf its magic reduction.

I've been using RoBF for awhile now and see no need to nerf it except to make it unusable again. My SFBM strat was more effective but it was boring so I switched to RoBF for the end of my NCB. It's even more boring and I don't even see all the uberness everyone who doesn't use one posts about. There are other powerful items and combinations. TSA + PL + MgS + ToE + highish AC anyone? There's your overpowered uber DD reducing regenerating minion of super d00m. Sure, someone else has to wear the ToE in that family, but it still works.

"There have been numerous instances where most of the community states something was overpowered. "

i have been playing mmorpg's for a decade now and cb for almost five years. perception is often stronger than reality. i have seen uber things left in games because of perception. i have also seen underpowered and balanced things nerfed when they shouldn't have been.

the first big propaganda campaign that i was witness to in cb history was one regarding the nub. that concerted effort did convince most of the community that the nub was overpowered. in some ways it even was, the money issue being chief among them, it flooded the market with cb2 for usd spenders to buy and boost their nw's amazingly well.

this however was not what the propaganda machine said the issue was. we would see vets being passed up continually by nubs and all the vets would then leave. this has never panned out to be a reality. vets have left, but not because the top is owned by nubs.

while i will agree with you that there are instances where everyone said it was uber because it was uber. there are also instances where everyone can be mistaken as shown above. time will tell just as with the nub.

i can only once again state my wishes for the robf. it is a neat strategy idea. if jon does decide it is too much, then it has many variables to it now and each of those can be tweaked to bring it in line with his vision. changing the abilities of the robf as it now stands though would kill new strategy options based upon the item. i assume jon wanted to add more options to the game and hope he will continue to do so.

i guess it just comes down to keep things the same or mix it up. if ga or amf can hurt robf, how then is it different from dd? i like new strategies that force new counte strategies and would opt for a dynamic game environment rather than a stale one where new skins are added for the same old skills/abilities/items.

The DD reduction is minimal when compared with the ToE

You can't be serious. The DD reduction is massive compared to a ToE. My CoC will NEVER hit a ToE minion for no damage when we are of a similar PR. It just can't happen. With the RoBF, even spread over as little as 2 minions I see no damage hits, with less then .5 AMF effect as well. The DD reduction is just too high, period.

I's not too high.

It's a product of it being a direct subtraction after reams and reams of percentage reductions.

Move the RoBF DD absorption up the chain (preferably before AMF...) and it's no longer a problem.

reams and reams of damage reduction? Besides a tiny amount of AC, prot and AMF, what other layers does an RoBF user have? No EH, no MgS and no ToE. So yes, the RoBF being able to nullify big DD spells without the use of the most severe magic reduction items puts the reduction too high in my books.

Dudemus you seem to have conveniently forgotten that Jon introduced the ncb to quell all the NUB hate.

Joe's Fireball hit Prophecies [88347], Microchips [90083], Cloudscape [82424], The Grid [28148].

This with a small amount of AC, no protection and minimal AMF (500k).

So take away the TOE reduction and Microchips would take about 210k damage.

But if use a RBF that minion, typically Microchips, takes no damage and lives throughout the battle. So my RBF at least protects vs 210k damage. Protects, not reduces. Imagine if my AMF was as high as dudemus'. Now imagine me with an uber evasion minion and a RBF. I would be completely immune to all damage on the minion using the RBF.

I hope Jon gives us a free train and I will show you how good the RBF can be. I am tired of this back and forth. I know the RBF is too powerful and would hope to be able to prove it. O/W I will not take the xp loss on Koy to do so as it involves a bit of reconfiguring my character.

I already tried by lowering my NW to 225M from its present 500+M to prove how good the RBF is. All I really needed was my tattoo and mageseeker bow.

My Tattoo is quite high, but I am sure Edy can tell you about the significant magic protection the RBF gives at an appropriate MPR level.

GL, God bless ya as you keep trying to make clear that it's the layers... Queue the little TI girl, but instead of mirrors, have her whispering to the elephant:

"It's the layers..."

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to who the little girl is, who the elephant is, and where GL fits into all of this (hint: he looks great in pigtails!)

"if ever there's a free untrain/retrain period, i'd like to test the following:

ueber evasion + AMF (and big decay + RoBF) <single minion>

versus

ueber evasion + AMF (and CoC + ToE) <single minion>"

Without actually testing it myself, I'd give the edge to the RoBF minion.

With CoC, you need lots of HP. You can't have just 20 HP like a single RoBF can do. You also need much more XP trained into CoC than a RoBF minion -might- put into decay. Also add in the fact that you hurt yourself with GA and AMF damage. Don't forget the equipment, either. A single RoBF team can equip AoF, EB, and EG for a good 50%+ bonus to Evasion with almost no penalties. A CoC user would pretty much always use HoC (with a small penalty to DD), EB, EG, and no AoF (unless you really want a 30% bonus to an enemy's AMF).

So...

CoC: Lower Evasion, lower AMF. Less bonus to Evasion. Vulnerable to AMF and GA. And in return, you gain... an extra round of firing, and a stronger attack... But you just can't concentrate as effectively with CoC + ToE as you can with a RoBF. Training 4 stats vs training 2 (or 3, if you have HP).

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. :)

"Dudemus you seem to have conveniently forgotten that Jon introduced the ncb to quell all the NUB hate."

not at all, in my recollection though i remember the ncb being offered as a better alternative to multi-ing being the only way for vets to have a bonus, not really an answer to the nub being overpowered. i then remember the consensus being that the newly coined term n*b's were both overpowered and would be the downfall of cb as we know and love it.

as i stated earlier perception is everything and this is my perception, your mileage may vary.

To Tyriel:

Your analysis is correct and I have tried this. Even though such a coc single minion will surely beat the RoBF minion, CoC+NSC being the most effective RoBF counter, in general, the RoBF team will have better challenge bonus and overall performance. Single coc mage is very hard to play actually (unless you mange to piggy back all the way up on RoBF minions with inflated score).

On the premise of the test, no single minion robf team should ever train Decay, period. It's just a terrible idea. Having no weakness to backlash is the main selling point of RoBF, why would you spend exp and create one.

That brings me to the next point. What RoBF is, in my opinion, is the ultimate form of exp concentration. You can put 40-50% exp into two skills and keep going. (I'm still a fan of training hp, but that's another story entirely). Name one top team that puts 40-50% of their total exp into dex? You can't. Name one top team that puts 40-50% of their total exp into dd? You also can't. Big IF tatts may come close, and CoC is definitely the RoBF destroyer with the high total damage, but even large SF won't cut through all that dense shield of AMF.

With the current team dynamic of CB, a lot of teams have a lot of skills/spells learn. One minion may even invest in 2 different skill/attribute. Multi minion tank teams have their exp hopeless dispersed. So what if the top character starts to seriously condense their exp? Then RoBF will be a weak strategy, particularly to large, dedicated dd backed by NSC. That would lead to less variety in the game play, and IMO, that's bad for the game. This is the primary reason why I think RoBF needs to be changed, to keep the diversity in the game.

Is RoBF counterable? Yes it is. Put 50% of your exp into CoC and wipe the floor with them. The newly heightened max tattoo level may be intimidating, but dd got the same boost also. How about tank teams? Don't blame the RoBF for that. Its evasion boost is not even working. Evasion is overpowered and that's another story all together.

To Dud:

Nub money bonus WAS overpowered. I understand what you are saying, that sometimes sentiment drives everything but sentiments can be proved or disproved with analytical approach and data backed arguments. I strongly believe nub had too much money and I can back it up with number. That's why Jon's change was fair and well justified (not to mention the fact that nub money scaling was off in the first place).

In my 3 + years of CB playing experience, both CB1 and CB2, I disagreed with Jon on a lot of issues. Being a CB1 diehard and a frequent camper, I didn't like the CB2 and store change and voiced my objection loudly. In the end, I think Jon has the most objective eye of us all. Reading through the forum everyday, you can see posts that are fully motivated by self interest. Buff this because I own it. Nerf that because it's killing me. If Jon is so easily swayed by public opinion, then the massive number of polls opposing the CB2 change woulda stopped him. It didn't. Is RoBF in need of nerfing? All we have are opinions. and we are all stakeholders, me included. It's good that we voice our opinion out on forum, with as much rational analysis to support it as possible. Then look in retrospect after the change, most of the time, I find things to be reasonable.

Dudemus said
"this however was not what the propaganda machine said the issue was. we would see vets being passed up continually by nubs and all the vets would then leave. this has never panned out to be a reality. vets have left, but not because the top is owned by nubs.

while i will agree with you that there are instances where everyone said it was uber because it was uber. there are also instances where everyone can be mistaken as shown above. time will tell just as with the nub. "

So you don't think the NCB would have alleviated this problem perceived or real? I think your desire to illustrate your point has skewed your perception.

Your point is valid, there are many posters who don't posses a deep understanding of the game, the ability to think for themselves or the inclination to get any data but who will just regurgitate whatever they see as the consensus view.

"1) A free retrain.
2) Knowledge that the RBF will certainly not be nerfed. "

Where do I sign up for that?

until faced with it i couldn't say for sure, but i think given a free retrain i would move away from the robf and back to dd.

the reason is twofold, with the recent changes i would like to see how high my concentrated dd i used to have would go now! the other, and primary reason, is the innate disadvantage to the robf that i mentioned earlier and many overlook.

before i went robf, and lost some mpr in that, with using a roe occasionally my growth curve was only slightly off of the top fives. now, it is nowhere near it. the 1 or 2 percentage points clan bonus i gained from not being farmed cannot compete at all with the roe bonus i could at least get part time. with that being said i am falling further behind the top dogs with no hope of ever catching up.

it would be a tough decision but i think i would probably go back to mage.

If you went back to DD with the evasion you currently have, large AMF teams would beat you fairly easy. In addition TOE teams would have an easy time with ya.

If you lowered your evasion to boost your DD spell, then archers will have you for breakfast.

The beauty of the RBF lies in the following:

1) Always hits
2) No counter damage from AMF/GA
3) Not subject to lowering my AMF, your tattoo determines your damage.
4) Some degree of magic protection, magnified when AMF comes into play.

Therefore you can have the massive evasion you have. Change to DD and you will need to boost your DD far higher then you can. And where is all that xp going to come from?

Lower HP? Then your die easier from AMF backlash
Lower evasion? Then non-USD weapons can certainly hit you can kill you in ranged/melee.
Lower AMF? Then mage teams will do a lot of damage to you as a single minion.

So where is this large DD spell going to come from? Again, the beauty of the RBF, you get a guaranteed attack with no AMF/GA backlash.

Yes, you can change the RBF to a IF or SF or FF and simulate a large DD, however, the HP on the familiar is far lower then yours and it will be quite vulnerable to AMF.

So lower your AMF to a minimum and siphon some points from evasion (just a bit) and hp (just a bit) to get a decent DD spell and use a TOE. The TOE still lets a decent amount of damage get through, unlike the RBF, so you will die from AMF combined with taking damage yourself.

Again, the RBF lets you concentrate all your xp into 2 main skills/spells and 1 minor (HP) stat.

And as we know, concentration of xp is far more effective then dispersal of xp.

i did use a toe mainly before and had one of the highest dd's in the game. i did ok, i wasn't great and was farmed by many usd spenders much lower in mpr than myself. i have stated many times before though that going robf let me add no one higher in mpr than i was already winning against...it just turns off the farming mostly.

with that being said and as i stated above, it only gained me 1 to 2 percent on average to my clan bonus. this can be compared to a 20 percent bonus from the use of a roe on occasion. so you do the math, an 18 percent bonus to mpr at the cost of my tat growth.

if i lose too much ground then i drop out of 6/20. if and when that happens i would have to worry about challenge bonuses and that would be the suck! i don't really expect you to understand as you are one of the ones with an amazing growth curve that the other people just haven't seem to realize yet is very difficult, if not impossible, to match.

Even though you did not add many to your fightlist, it seems you were able to be taken off a lot of other peoples list.

Is that not quite powerful?

It certainly effects those people's growth since you are no longer a good target for them to get a nice CB.

aye, however if i choose my strategy of doing well in the game by keeping others from getting a good challenge bonus, then i think i would definitely end up losing ground. i am really quite defeated either way though. stay robf, and most likely at some point fall out of the 6/20 rate or change and use roe and don't grow my tat which will hurt me in the long run, as has happened before.

i guess us non-usd spenders can only hope that jon keeps increasing the range for us to stay in the top. top ten became top 40 percentage mpr or somesuch. maybe before i drop too low he will have to increase it again as the few truly elite in the game keep pulling that much farther ahead of the pack!

i was still having fun playing this game until this thread! methinks i will stop now before i kill all my hopes and dreams. ;)

Here is my case for the DD reduction being too high:

The Savior cast Protection on all friendly Minions (9)
Hank J. Wimbleton cast Antimagic Field on Thanks JW! (0.01)

Thanks JW! takes damage from his own Cone of Cold (2093)!
Thanks JW!'s Cone of Cold hit The Savior for no damage
Thanks JW!'s Cone of Cold hit Hank J. Wimbleton [562128]

That is just a snippet, and that is in the first round of melee,which means my DD is taking no penalty whatsoever. Minimal AC, virtually unhindered by AMF, and a small effect of protection nullifies my CoC.

Spell damage is slightly randomized, and can range from 50% to 100% of the listed spell effect.

You simply bumped into a case where your dd only fired at half damage. You also managed to win the battle anyways, in only 6 rounds non the less. Don't try to prove your point using the extremes. How about run a series of battle and provide some actual number of the average? This is exactly the type of sensational post that dud is talking about.

Also point out the fact that your dd was divided between the two minions that round. After you kill the back minion, front minion becomes exposed and will receive tremendously more damage.

ok ok

Sensational, I can concede to that. I will run more fights and show come better numbers.

Out of the last 10 fights with THIS IS MADNESS:

- hit for no damage 5 times
- Average damage on RoBF minion was 75k, with the low being 16k and the high being 202k
- Average damage on the second minion was 570k, with the low being 398k and the high being 770k.

I still see a very high reduction there. I can post exact numbers tomorrow instead of the quick rounding I did here, but large reduction is present.

"My Tattoo is quite high"

Yeah and the MTL is far too high. No mater what you inked your Tat to Ranger, I'm sure you'd dominate everyone anyway (And this is not a pop at you in the slightest), but that's no proof something is overpowered, right?

"And as we know, concentration of xp is far more effective then dispersal of xp."

LOL!

No. No way.

It *NEVER* has been until now.

Before the RoBF, how many single minion (the most powerful concentration of XP possible) teams were in the top 5? top 10? 20?

Mutli minion teams and Auras ruled the game.

I'm bloody glad to see a viable way to make lesser minion teams, and Conctration of XP, actually a viable tactic.

HG;

"reams and reams of damage reduction? Besides a tiny amount of AC, prot and AMF, what other layers does an RoBF user have? No EH, no MgS and no ToE. So yes, the RoBF being able to nullify big DD spells without the use of the most severe magic reduction items puts the reduction too high in my books."

Here's an example of what I'm trying to say.

Imagine you deal 100 DD damage, and the RoBF is large enough to stop 50.

With just it, you deal 100 - 50 = 50 Damage.

With a 50% AMF, you deal (100 * 0.5) - 50 = zero damage.

Now, move the direct RoBF reduction *before* the percentage reduction and you deal (100 - 50) * 0.5 = 25 damage.

It's not that the DD reduction is too much (it might need a tweak, but we honestly can't say, because it's too hard to judge how much of an impact other reductions, that come before it, are having) but that it's a direct reduction at the very end of a percentage based chain.

Dave burns from the flames surrounding Cloudscape (1602914)

Certainly not enough damage to make the difference in battle, especially since it is immune to GA and AMF.

PwnyBoy burns from the flames surrounding Cloudscape (427145)

Vs a decent level TOE and a 218 AC on top of it. And let us not forget the (21) protection on top of that.

"PwnyBoy burns from the flames surrounding Cloudscape (427145) "

LOL! Ranger, please do not use the biggest tattoo in the game to prove something is overpowered.

Else turn the same tattoo into an IF and post damage. Maybe the IF will be overpowered too?

"Dave burns from the flames surrounding Cloudscape (1602914)

Certainly not enough damage to make the difference in battle, especially since it is immune to GA and AMF."

Named, level 6.3 Million Tattoo does large damage!!!

Who'd have thought it?

Ok, 1/2 it. Let us say my tattoo was 3.3M.

Still over 800k damage a round not subject to GA and/or AMF.

And then over 200k to a 4M+ TOE/218AC/21 protection wall.

Given 21 rounds, that adds up to tons of damage.

Talion.

I have used and IF and while the damage is quite nice, the AMF backlash causes me to have it die in 2 rounds vs Bast or in 1 round via GA vs NWO.

So while it will do millions of damage-potentially-the shelf life vs a lot of characters (GA and/or AMF) is quite minimal.

"And then over 200k to a 4M+ TOE/218AC/21 protection wall."

I don't think it would be over 200K. I think it would be less. Someone should test.

"And then over 200k to a 4M+ TOE/218AC/21 protection wall."

At what level of play?

At 1 MPR that's alot of damage per round.

In the Top 10, how far would being *only* able to deal 200K a round, to a single target, which is backed by PL and a TSA really get you?

The damage of a RoBF is small. The bonus to it is you get no returned damage. A totally new strategic aspect to CB.

The 'overpowered' part is the DD damage reduction.

Evasion as it's self, regardless of RoBF does too much and the MTL is far to high.

All these issues combined make what the Tattoo currently does too much. But it's not *all* the tattoo's fault.

And stalemates, while no one will farm you, can't ever progress your character. You'll need another damage dealer to actually win, which willthen ruin your XP concentration, which will then lead to the RoBF not being as 'overpowered'.

The RoBF is not fine, there are changes needed. But these changes also include changing Evaison and the MTL. The RoBF itself is no tthe root of the problem, and nerfing it won't solve it.

Ranger:

Did you have plenty of AS to go with your IF? Did you junction on NSC? With a 6mil+ level CoC, I can hardly imagine AMF backlash to be very high. If reduced by NSC, you'd survive just fine.

Also, I know a 6mil tatt does a lot of damage. I also know a 3mil tatt does a lot of damage. But how the heck do I get a 3mil tatt? How the heck do I even get my max tattoo RoBF? As Johnywas repeatedly posted in the past, there is a damage threshold for RoBF at any level. Insta it up? I don't see 2mil+ tatts on the market everyday. I'd have to raise my own and fall far beneath the MTL and my sole damage source is on the tattoo.

If people cannot see how powerful it is, I give up.

I was able to get Koy to 222M NW with 115M of that on my tattoo.

I would love to try a 4M RBF and see if things stay the same.

But if you cannot see how powerful it is, given Koy is not setup well to use a RBF then no amount of typing will convice ya.

The EC is equal to some degree to a huge evasion, but my AMF is below 500k. I would like to have it over 1.5M for a true RBF setup.

PwnyBoy burns from the flames surrounding Cloudscape (53550)

With a 2.2M unnamed RBF, I forget about the cap the TOE has.

Totally and utterly negated by a TSA PL minion with under 1 Million Natural HP...

That' not what I'd call 'overpowered'. Would you Ranger?

53,550 * 0.9 (PL reduction) = 48,195

48,195 / 5 * 100 = 963,900.

So with 963,900 HP, PL and a TSA, that RoBF cannot hurt your team.

Yes, GL, you are 1000% correct.

But then anyone using a 2.2M RBF at my MPR should stalemate some people.

But with Talions 2.2M RBF I still was able to beat Iconics, Black Sophist and Tank Killer where normally I would have stalemated them. I did stalemate Lega, Igot noname and Violent Femmes with the 2.2M RBF. The rest of my list I beat normally.

So a relatively puny RBF, for my MPR, helped me beat 3 high level characters. Not too bad. I would love to test out a 4-5M RBF.

But either way, I am able to beat my entire list without my 205M MH and a minimum of NW- 222M - 115M for my tattoo = 107M NW of items.

And I say so what? ;)

They aren't designed to combat the new RoBF, and the strategy changes it requires to take it on.

As for your MH, I assume all that NW was covered under your WA anyway, so your PR didn't change at all?

So finally, a viable, low minion, non NW option (not only way to win) has been given.

What's the problem with that?

It's funny how you consider 220mil nw to be low. Looking through your fight list, the average nw of your opponents are under 200mil, that's with the inclusion of usd spender like NS and Draco.

Also, RoBF is not entirely unsynergized to your team. Adding an IF and SF to your current setup is probably a lot more unsynergized because of your lack of AS. From what I read before, I understand that you can still beat your list with those. Actually, you beat your list with RoE even, so that point is really moot.

"Yeah and the MTL is far too high. No mater what you inked your Tat to Ranger, I'm sure you'd dominate everyone anyway (And this is not a pop at you in the slightest), but that's no proof something is overpowered, right?"

;)

If i used a FF or SF or IF with my current equipment I would lose to NWO, Hubbell and stalemate Tank Killer, Violent Femmes, Lega, Igot noname among others.

But the RBF allows me to beat all of them.

When one looks at NW, it is a bit deceiving as the NW of the tattoo is rolled into the NW of your character.

I have 107M NW of items, which is at the low end compared to those I fight.

"Looking through your fight list, the average nw of your opponents are under 200mil, that's with the inclusion of usd spender like NS and Draco." --Yes, I do have lower NW characters but 7 of my opponents have well over my NW in items equipped.

pffff (778529602) -- Freed
King of Pain (622345773) -- Mikel
Black Sophist (448366638) --- Draco
The Funkes (387725301) --- Storage Unit
The Iconics 3e (361418764) ---- NS
Edyit (358006585) --- Edyit
Violent Femmes (269858956) --- Novice
Tank Killer (268490566) --- Miteke
Oxcha (267724360) --- Little Devil
Failure (264292371) --- Shadowsparkle
Koyaanisqatsi (262549917)
Grain Farm (241671931) --- Storage unit
The Lega (234064876) ---- Hzarb

All these have more NW then I do, much more if you figure in item NW only.

"If i used a FF or SF or IF with my current equipment I would lose to NWO, Hubbell and stalemate Tank Killer, Violent Femmes, Lega, Igot noname among others.

But the RBF allows me to beat all of them."

Now, is it because the RoBF is strong? Or are they in turn weak to it?

Like a Pure Tank dominating AMF based teams, but in turn losing to EC based teams.

Is the Tank overpowered becasue the AMF teams aren't set up to take him out (without any NW I might add).

Or is this strategy?

I notice you included your own character in that list ;). Having two characters on the top list of nw is something.

I want to point out that all your opponents also have a tattoo of some sort, pretty high level I reckon. So that's kinda even there. I'm assuming you are below your MTL, so you are making the maximum use of your tattoo. Hence, its entire nw should be accounted for in term of your fighting ability.

So that leaves Draco, Edyit, Mikel and NS with meaningfully significant nw advantage. (Freed doesn't count, I can prolly beat him once my evasion hits 1.5mil). Then you have a whole bunch of people hanging around 150mil NW range, to a low of 70mil (Dudemus).

Also, it's understandable that IF, SF and FF would do worse. You need AS to make them survive longer at the least to actually do damage. RoBF has no such requirement and your EC is effectively evasion.

MI5
a Character belonging to chuck1234
Created October 20, 2007 (NCB until February 17)

Score / PR / MPR: 1,729,637 / 1,386,587 / 920,279

Monkey Business
a Character belonging to QBJohnnyWas
Created October 21, 2007 (NCB until February 18)

Score / PR / MPR: 1,726,553 / 1,053,572 / 778,602


Chuck's char is a single minion RBF; then there's me, ditching the RBF and going single tank. I seem to recall lots of talk about how I wouldn't be able to fight as high as a single tank as I would have been as a RBF minion. Well that turned out to be true didn't it? I don't even have as much MPR because I stopped buying BA. Whereas Chuck is buying ba as far as I'm aware.

Now either the RBF isn't as overpowered as people say, or I'm overpowered. I favour the latter. ;)

Chuck has decay on his RoBF single minion... That's probably how he nerfed himself below a single evasion tank:P

Johny, I swear I'll beat your score after I put up another 150k mpr :)

Even if I had/used AS, it would not make a difference vs quite a few characters like Hubbell and NWO with their over 3M DM.

vs high AMF characters perhaps it will buy me an extra round or 2 of damage.

But I am typing about beating everyone with a character that is not set up for RBF usage (entirely) and with a modest amount of NW for my MPR.

"but 7 of my opponents have well over my NW in items equipped"

Actually, that number is the amount of NW on the character itself, which includes unequipped items. I have a LOT of unequipped NW. If you like, I can get a more accurate value for real NW.

But Ranger, you said yourself that EC is kinda like evasion, so I guess your build is sorta set up for RoBF, even if slightly.

Your build, on the other hand, is entirely not set up for IF, SF and FF. No large As, no junction, no NSC.

The biggest AMF in the game is only 3.6mil or so. Your Tatt is over 6mil. That means AMF will only be at about 30%. With +15 NSC, you can cut that by half! So It's not surprising that you did better with RoBF which you are slightly set up for than the dd familiars which you are not set up for at all.

Well to use the familiars I would need junction at about 1.5M levels. Not something I will unlearn/learn/unlearn just to test it out.

As others have stated, junction is rather pathetically weak for all the xp needed.

My AMF is very weak for my MPR. WIth a 2M AMF I would likely be able to drop a lot more NW.

BTW, what is the NW of the items you equip NS?

NS,

I could at least 215M NW equipped on Iconics from the VB, Exbow and MgS alone.

So you are well over my characters NW in just equipped items.

"BTW, what is the NW of the items you equip NS?"

Ok, I have no idea how to find out anymore....

"So you are well over my characters NW in just equipped items."

I probably am, but the purpose of the illustration was more to show that the entire list of NWs that you posted is invalid as it stands. Everyone has NW equipped and unequipped, and there's no way to know how much NW a person actually uses unless 1) everything is named and you have enough time to spend coming the named item pages, or 2) you ask them to spend the time to add it all up.

NW is a meaningless stat anyway in terms of power. I will never understand why people say things like "Look at all that NW! He must be strong!" I could put another $16m into my HG for 1 point and it'd do virtually nothing for my character. Similarly, I could put $8m into a weapon, and it'd do much more.

There's a fundamental flaw in the design of this game wherein the cheapest items are the most powerful, and the most expensive items are the weakest. For instance, if I put an x on my VB, it costs $8,854. If I put an x on my BNE, it'll cost $7k and change. The BNE does more damage. So basically, when I add one point to each, the BNE wins. When I add $10m to each, the BNE still wins, and gets a bunch extra added to the 'x' on it.

This paradox applies to many things in the game, and is a source of why things are so wrongly skewed. Why do I have a lot of NW? Simple -- PTH on an Exbow and a VB is outrageously expensive. Is it any different in terms of adding CTH than a MH? Nope. 1% per plus, just like everything else. If I have a $120m VB at +100 and you have a $50m MH at +100 (numbers are fictious), who hits more often? Who does more damage? Who costs more?

So why use NW? What does it gain you? Sure, you have less NW than someone like me. But you use a weapon that can acheive the same PTH as mine for about $7429837498 less. I'm at +177 on my VB and +177 on my Exbow. Both of them will require about $6.5m for 7 more PTH. I would imagine that at +225, the MH still costs less per point.

Bottom line? NW is meaningless in terms of power, and should not be used in any such comparison.

"There's a fundamental flaw in the design of this game wherein the cheapest items are the most powerful, and the most expensive items are the weakest."

Agreed. ;)

I never understood why CB worked like that.

Black Sophist
Net Worth: $338,011,172

That is the nw I actually fight with... I removed all unequipped items and you also need to keep in mind that over 112 mil of it is the difference between Freed's MH and my MH nw... And there is also a difference of 20 mil between my tat and NS's tat... So I actually have about 206 mil nw of my own... and whatever else is scattered on other chars.... Also I would love to make it known that I AM NOT A USD SPENDER! Thank you for your time ^_^