"I opened the second seal of Apocalypse" (in General)

Voice Of Reason owned by QBBarzooMonkey (Canis bellatoris) now a RBF.

And wonder of wonders, his score jumped up over 2M now and he is doing much better.

congrats!

Meh, it's nasty to see how his PR/score evolved over time, then add myself to the graph.
Almost makes me depressed and want to quit :P

Cool, added him and Ichiko Kurosaki (yet another RoBF user) to my fightlist!

Who exactly are these RoBF folks beating to get up over 2 million score? Or is it just that it is harder for other players to pull them down? Bit of both?

The people like Lostling, with 1/3 their PR/MPR now lose to them. They do not lower their score anymore, letting it stabilize where it should be without the RBF in play.

and your point being?

That using a Larger RBF stops smaller RBFs from beating you.

Unless I missed something.

I'd also like to point out that Barzoo retrained, put evasion minion up front and made his own team more effective overall. Good job :)

Right. And apparently does not cause any concomitant losses, thereby resulting in a score rise.

I am not saying I have a point in that. The people against RoBF will say, "See! That means there is some imbalance there, one way or another!" And the people who like the RoBF the way it is will find other reasons why so many are using RoBF and why so many scores appear to be rising.

I'm not getting in the middle of it. I'm just stating how I am experiencing recent times in CB. I have added only five clanned people to my fightlist in the past 3-4 months (meaning their relative scores got high enough for me to notice), and all of those people use RoBFs. And I have removed 2 people from my fightlist because I could no longer beat them after they switched to RoBF. I fully understand this information is anecdotal in nature and specific to me, and I am not stating this information as a jab, aggression, joke, poke, stab, grab, whine, or jibe.

Henk,

The point should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

again and your point is?

Here, I will spell it out for you---Again:

The only way to compete with the RBF and not be beaten by those MUCH lower then you is to use the RBF yourself. The combination of the type of damage the RBF does, combined with evasion is just too damm powerful. At least for those who play the game without pumping tons of USD into it.

If you cannot see that many of the top characters are changing to the RBF, I cannot spell it out any more.

But then again, you obviously know this being a RBF user yourself.

Why agree something your using is overpowered? Then it may just be balanced, and the advantage you have gone.

An RoBF is supposedly overpowered. He switched to it, then performs better.

Also,

This coming from Barzoo, a staunch supporter of UC. He switched to a RBF and his score jumped over 200k. At the score range he is, that is quite a remarkable jump.

If you want hard evidence, Sut's post should be very informative.

No my earlier strategy sucked so bad, I had a bad score, I got beaten by smaller characters then because of that freakin' damage reduction in DD.
So I changed some parts and yes I started using the RoBF cuz that thing doesn't use much nw, which I don't have and starting another ncb which I don't want.
But your not complaining about the RoBF on itself you are complaining about evasion plus the RoBF, you are complaining that the RoBF allows someone to focus there exp into 1 stat. So 100% mpr use in one stat. Well ranger, what if you whole mpr was switched in any DD spell (besides decay), would that mean DD is overpowered? No.

Well I'm still complaining about ELB, beleg and archery that combo is also very OVERPOWERED, but nothing has done about this and nothing will.

So can cry/complain/shout what you want nothing will be done and nothing gets done about these so called "overpowered" items.

ow and my score jumped 400k since the strat change wow!! freakin' wow! but that has something to do with evasion and not the RoBF.
And that allows me being able to beat someone or if you want to be specific hawkhar who has the nice 2mil score.

"But then again, you obviously know this being a RBF user yourself.

Why agree something your using is overpowered? Then it may just be balanced, and the advantage you have gone."

let us just attempt to negate the whole other side of the argument. i guess everyone who disagrees with you, and there are some who do not use the robf, is either just wrong or blinded by their own uber power.

The silly Cloak version was rightfully changed. ;)

If I put all my Xp into a DD spell, GA and/or AMF would kill me in 1 round. RBF have that problem? NO.

But, if all the people now switching to the RBF is not proof enough, then well nothing more I can type will change your mind.

Now the ELB/BG combo is quite powerful, I have typed about that quite a few times. Hence evasion's power.

But the RBF puts 2 very powerful things together, complimentary.

And Henk:

Your score rose 400k since you were able to use a nice high evasion, without worrying about a damage dealer. Use a tattoo instead of the RBF and AMF/GA eats it alive. Use a TOA and tank, well EC/evasion and GA does you in.

But use the RBF and who cares about AMF/GA/evasion. You worry about other RBF users, which are becoming more plentiful. And you worry about high AC/endurance/TOE users. But those worry you not since you cannot beat them, but they stalemate you.

Mages need to pump their DD spell since AMF compares to it.

Tanks need to pump str/dex to compete with other tanks.

Seems now we have a 3rd class, RBF users. They compete with each other. And do quite well vs tanks (using concentrated evasion) and vs mages (due to the magic resistance of the RBF).

Maybe the RBF is not overpowered, just most people have to have one. Or be potentially farmed by those with 1/2 or less of their PR/MPR.

Perhaps your right, I should stop my typing about how overpowered the RBF is and just let time dictate how many people wish now to be in the 3rd class of damage dealing.

And all this time I was wrong, wow.

Again Ranger, i think you pick the wrong example here. Draco's case was a lot more convincing to be honest, then again he wasn't 50% of sut's mpr and had better equipments.

Barzoo's old strategy was remarkably inefficient. His triple tank had very little support and synergy. There are a large number of ways of retraining and get a 200k score. Using an RoBF would be one of them. Let's not discount the fact that he switched to CoC and moved his evasion wall up. All of these efforts play a large role in making his team more effective. The RoBF + amf + four minion team + mgs + EH he is using along with MGS makes him one mean mage killer. Again, congratulation on the great strat change and the well deserved increase in score.

Please stop insulting Barzoo's intelligence. This is not just a "put on robf and bam wins!" scenario that you are so happily portraying. Barzoo put a lot of thoughts into the change and picked the right combination of items and strategies. Do not cheapen his effort.

I meant to say get a 200k score increase. Oops.

Strange.

Of the folks that consistently beat me (or can be bothered to beat me, since I'm not a clanner), only two (afaik) use RoBF:

The first is Janx (Wotan) - who only beats me because of his Mageseeker bow killing my steel familiar in one round (or at most, 2). Without his mageseeker bow, I would put money on me winning. The RoBF helps him win, because without my familiar, the only damage I can do is via GA, and of course...

The second is MI5 owned by chuck. He is a straight RoBF character who trains AMF of a high enough level that it casts for 0.55 on my familiar. The familiar subsequently:

007 cast Antimagic Field on Plato's familiar (0.55)
...
Plato's familiar takes damage from his own Magic Missile (241993)!
Plato's familiar's Magic Missile hit 007 for no damage

Does that all day. I'm not sure AMF is supposed to work like that, but, whatever, it does (or, is this RoBF absorption? If so... hmmm). Due to this, my steel familiar dies after round 6 (incl 4 rounds of ranged), having done no damage.

If you take away the... strange... effect of that AMF, I guarantee that I would beat him, RoBF or not. If the RoBF is absorbing all of that damage, then... yeah, something is wrong. I don't mind it helping folks to evade damage, so long as it doesn't also negate any damage inflicted when you do manage to hit.

All of the other folks who beat me do so by nuking my ED's with DM, or by doing extraordinary amounts of damage that my GA can't deal with.

Is the RoBF overpowered? I don't know, probably, yeah, whatever.

But, let's not lose sight of the basics of this game! The RoBF isn't the only thing in the world. There are ways to beat RoBF strats. An RoBF on its own isn't enough to ensure victory, and there are strats out there that can compete with it. Heck, now those twin archer/Magewall teams have somebody to fight on an even footing ;-)

Cheers,
m.

Muon, that would be the RBF direct DD reduction, coming after AMF 55% reduction.

Thresholds for MM against RoBF is the lowest after amf. In other words, MM is the worst spell against RoBF teams. With my home grown RoBF, I can stop MM at 42% Amf casting consistently (taking at most 400k damage). I need 50% casting for FF and I suspect over 70% against CoCs (I stay away from them entirely..). That is after NSC of course. It is possible to beat RoBF char with a nice pair of NSC at similar mpr using a steel familiar, unless they use a mage seeker too :x.

Ulord,

Please tell me any other tattoo that Barzoo could have used to get the score he has now.

A familiar? AMF would eat it up.

ROS? C'mon.

TOE? He was using it and got killed by RBF users 1/3 his PR/MPR.

TOA? He still would not hit evasion users.

The RBF is perfect. A new type of damage not vulnerable to most of the anti damage methods out there except the standard AC/TOE/endurance/protection arc.

Actually it depends on the spread of the FB or COC.

As Draco shows, vs FB, the RBF works great if you have other minions with HP/defenses to spread that damage around.

"Of the folks that consistently beat me (or can be bothered to beat me, since I'm not a clanner), only two (afaik) use RoBF: "

Join a clan, get farmed by RBF users.

Or at least attack some of the top 15 RBF users and let us know how many can beat you and at what MPR.

An RoBF is the best way to retrain his strategy because of the way he was set up before. A decent sized amf, a mage seeker to take out familiars and nice items like MgS and EH to top things up. It was the most sensible item to use given his previous setup without having to unlearn a whole variety of things and it makes sense. My point is RoBF is not the only magic that suddenly turned him effective, as suggested by your opening post. He picked a tattoo that fits with his setup with the least amount of untrain and made it work, just like a 4 minion team that trained mostly ED can turn to an IF and GA setup and a tank team setup that's heavy on EC can turn into an ToE setup for extra defense, omitting ToA.

I believe what Barzoo did is a good choice of a coherent piece of strategy, not jumping the bandwagon and putting a RoBF where it doesn't seem to fit for the win.

I took the liberty of looking at his fight list. Guess who he fought to move his score upward? HC's SFBM: just the right target that his strategy change targets.

BM is fighting a lot of people 1.9-2.3M score including HC.

But,,, you will notice he will not get farmed by people 1/3 his PR/MPR anymore.

Even people like Glory, Dudemus and other similar level RBF users will not leech his score.

The RBF is the perfect tattoo for his strategy, and he was smart to switch to it.

You are right about the damage spread. I was specifically commenting on the single minion RoBF users, the most prevalent variety. There are definitely creative things you can do with the RoBF in multiple minion teams, particularly to reinforce a mage wall given a good amf. In draco's case, he uses a back wall to stop mm and robf to stop spread damage while staying alive. I have to admit the straight damage reduction is very very powerful.

not really true there are enough tanks and mages that can beat me, they use the ToE and some tanks even use a RoE, example G_Beee he couldn't hit me with his own weapons, now that he loaned one of Freed he can beat me silly with it.
And yes the RoBF has no AMF and no GA to worry, but like I explained before that would be silly. Its not a DD spell and GA would do 0 damage against it. Besides the damage given by that thing is low if you compare it to elbs, DD and melee weapons.

And I don't like spending so much time and money into a !!!!!GAME!!!!!, so I pick the easy route. And the RoBF lets me do that.

Henk,

You said it best.

Beee needs to borrow a USD weapon to hit you.

And it is a very easy, quick strategy. Simple and quite effective to use.

I really cannot type anything more, so I won't.

!!! Mathematical analysis of the RoBF against ToE, ToA and familiars time !!!

A bit over half a mil MPR is roughly 15 mil XP on minions (1.25 mil "levels") translates into roughly 820k max tattoo level, but only around 545k tattoo level if you never insta-up and get a lvl 20 one from the start.
We will use a level 820k tattoo as calculation base.


A ToA is nasty to calculate, and is the only one that also adds "virtual NW" instead of only virtual XP.
That equates (in this case) with roughly 410k ST, 273k DX and almost 4 mil into your weapon's + (in case you have both ranged and melee weapons, it's 4 mil in each, or 8 mil NW total).
That's almost 8.2 mil XP on top of 4 (or 8) mil CB$ worth of NW, which (if translated into equivalent XP levels from purchasing BA and fighting more vs increasing weapon NW instead) would translate into roughly 2.4 (or 4.8) mil extra XP.
So, at worst, the ToA adds roughly +55% to team XP, but in case you also factor in cash-to-XP on two weapons, you can talk about a total equivalent +86% to team XP (well, sort of, anyway).


With a familiar, you get 1/4 tattoo level as HP levels and tattoo level as spell levels.
Translated into XP, that would be (for the 820k tattoo) 12.3 mil XP, or a bit over +80% team XP.
At least they are always a constant, and seem relatively balanced compared to a ToA.


With a ToE, as long as incoming damage is not over the breakthrough treshold (in this case, 307k damage on wearer or 246k damage on rest of team), you get up to x4 effective HP (equivalent of x4 to all HP and AS levels) and it's almost the same (slightly more complicated) with GA levels... and that's it.
Granted, in this particular case, you could almost talk of a +300% addition to the team XP, in case all your XP would be focused on HP/AS/GA.
Obviously, it is most effective on either AS/GA focused teams (vulnerable to DM, no counter sadly ; also vulnerable to RoBF, but to a lesser degree), and after that on high HP percentage single minions (vulnerable to decay, can be countered with AMF ; or vulnerable to HP/AS/GA teams, can be countered with DM ; you have to pick one).
Normally, one only invests at most roughly around half to a third of XP into HP/AS/GA or even less, so the ToE is equivalent to a +133% to +200% team XP increase.
In case somebody manages to break through your endurance with huge hits, this "multiplier" drastically reduces... and since single opponent minions usually deal massive damage per hit, against them, a ToE could just as well mean a negligible team XP percentage increase compared to the above listed mega-value.
So, I guess, you could argue the ToE is a lot like decay (but in reverse), both the strongest and weakest tattoo of the game SO FAR, highly circumstantial depending on opponent's setup (best against 4-minion teams, worst against singles).



Onward to RoBF...
Now, a RoBF has a LOT of effects.
Again, considering a 820k one.

First, and this is easy, it grants about as much evasion as a +59 pair of displacement boots, or in other words roughly 230k levels of evasion. That's aprox. 2.7 mil XP right there.

Second, it grants non-GA-retaliable, always-hits damage of around 164k per melee round to a single minion in front.
This is pretty nasty to calculate as equivalent XP level, since there is no equivalent skill nor spell that can do that.
Depending on how you look at it, it could be as little as 1.8 mil XP worth of CoC against a single opponent with no AMF, up to something more akin to roughly 8.2 mil MM XP plus a doubling of HP (so, let's say 1/3 of your XP is in HP and you have a single minion, that's +5 mil XP) against a 4.1 mil AMF opponent.

Lastly, it grants "damage immunity" from magic damage within the limit of 164k damage per round.
The breakeven point (same magic damage taken) between a RoBF and a ToE of the same level on the targetted minion would be then at 217k magic damage per round, after that a ToE is better as a RoBF.
It would be pretty hard to quantify what exactly that means as "XP equivalent", because it's HIGHLY situational, since only magic damage is reduced, but it can also be reduced to zero completely, not just 1/4 like with a ToE.
At best, assuming all incoming damage is magical, we can equate it with almost 2 mil XP (of HPs) per combat round the fight actually lasts (so, up to a whooping 50 mil XP worth of HP for a stalemate against a pure magic and/or RoBF user).
At worst, in case all incoming damage is physical, it has absolutely no effect for "XP equivalent".


So, adding up, that's:

* worst case scenario: 2.7 mil XP evasion, 1.8 mil XP CoC, nothing from damage blocking, a measly +30% to team XP

* good case scenario: 2.7 mil XP evasion, 8.2 mil XP "reversed MM", 3.7 mil XP of no-AMF-equivalent HP (1/4 XP in HP, doubled if facing an AMF user) and roughly 8 mil XP in HP from magic damage blocked during the entire fight (moderate assumption) = 22.6 mil equivalent XP, or more than +150% to equivalent team XP

* best case scenario: almost 50 mil XP HP equivalent in avoided magic damage (somebody with a single spell unable to break your damage absorption treshold and fight lasting full 25 rounds with you barely winning in last), on top of the above-mentioned 2.7+8.2+3.7 damage-dealing equivalents if the opponent is a moderate AMF user (aprox 27% of your XP into his AMF XP), for a grand total of almost 65 mil equivalent virtual XP, or +433% team XP
___


Ok, did I say the ToE was the "weakest and strongest" depending on circumstances ?
Well, seems the RoBF takes the cake instead though.

The ability to combine RoBF+DB+AoI and some extra evasion on top means you can become almost immune to physical damage, the magic damage you take is greatly reduced if you add AMF to the mix, and you don't get retaliated at all for damage you deal (nullifying any GA/AMF the enemy team has trained).
The only weakness in this setup is pathetic damage output (especially if the enemy uses a HoC so you only have 21 rounds at your disposal) which can be even further reduced by enemy AC/Prot/Endurance or an opposing RoBF.


All in all, you can safely say, MATHEMATICALLY, that the RoBF is overpowered by a large margin, since the circumstances needed for it to add little or no relative XP to your team are very specific, you have no real drawbacks using it, and in most cases it does add a lot of equivalent XP, a lot more as any other tattoo in the game.

So, yeah, the ONLY thing that really needs a nerf is RoBF circumstances of use !
My opinion is that what SHOULD go away is the total magic damage absorbtion... instead it should be turned into a ToE-like absorbtion (capped at 50%-75% of incoming damage, but max "dampened" magic damage raised to 40%-26.6% of tattoo level from 20%, so TOTAL damage absorbed is the same, but some of it ALWAYS seeps through, instead of having to punch through).
____

Damn, THAT was long !

Meh, I forgot about the HF, ToJ and RoS (and I use a RoS, dammit, heh).

The HF/ToJ are both slightly better and slightly worse as "magic" familiars, but not by much, again, circumstational.
___

The RoS (for the 15 mil minion XP, 820k tattoo example I kept using) is easily calculated too, but with two particularities.
First, it's 1/2 of level in one ED level, so that's roughly 4.9 mil XP (a +32.8% team XP increase), and that's the worst case scenario.

However, it's also a "protect all own ED and your casted EC/AMF from 4.1 mil XP worth of DM" (in this particular case), enabling you to use all three EOs at once if you want.
So, depending on how you calculate it, and how your opponent is set up, that can be a lot of extra XP added to the mix (not more than 15 mil worth anyway, even if your whole team consists of only EDs).
So, AT BEST, you could be talking about roughly +130% XP added to the team.
Not extremely impressive, especially since it's highly circumstational.

Come on guys (and you girls! :P). I don't see how anyone cannot think the RBF isn't broken. We're just gonna be chasing each other until it's resolved, and to me, this doesn't feel like a good community air to have.

Verifexs thread is an eye opener. Just try it. Borrow a RBF and untrain all your HP. Hell I dropped my NS/CoC strat dead for a 20HP single minion.

There is no way a single item in the game should make it possible for you to reduce all incoming damage to zero (Not even the ToE allows you to do that. AC does, but only for tiny amounts of damage), so that a single minion can last 25 rounds facing everything CB can throw at it (bar decay, which is *no* threat) with only 20HP...

Yes, there are way to stop a RBF from beating you, its damage output really isn't that great. No, unless you have a super sized Tattoo you probably won't scratch the top ranks with a 20HP RBF. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem. There's still nothing to let you kill a single 20HP minion.

Nothing.

Unless you're just plan bigger than the Tattoo.

And anyone want to really face the largest Tattoo in the game, as a RBF, and try to become bigger than it?

Seriously, there is a major problem, that stems from a couple of issues (one not related to the mechanics of the Tattoo).

I know Changemonth has passed, but I think the RBF should probably be changed now (call it a bug fix! :p), and not come march.

Jon, any chance we could get some insider info from you about the RBF? ;)

Whether I agree or not about the RBF, I definitely agree about the backing and forth arguing. We haven't had such a polarising 'thing' in CB for a little while now. It's not good and wastes a great deal of forum space going round and round and round. So yes, Jon, take a look and make a change - or not.

But don't let it go on too long.

I've said it many times in this forum. The 20 hp robf strategy will perform at best as good as my training ratio with hp. It is nothing special. I agree that the magic reduction of RoBF is huge. I don't agree that the 20 hp training method is optimum. But it doesn't really matter because the challenge bonus will be solid 100% for the first 800k mpr anyways.

i've thought of a 4 minion build that would own =x and like once and for all show how over powered the DD reduction is... personally yep i still think it should be reduced to 15% or maybe 10%

1 : 100% AMF base decay
equip: corn + NSC + HOC(optional) + EH(optional)
2 : 100% AMF base decay
equip: corn + NSC + HOC(optional) + EH(optional)
3 : 100% AMF base decay
equip: corn + NSC + HOC(optional) + EH(optional)
4 : 100% AMF
equip: ROBF + corn

targets: SFBM/SMMM/teams with only magic attacks

buhahaha the ultimate mage killer!(not sure about COC)

Okay, so the UC I used to have on the now RoBF evasion minion was boosted high enough that it was probably of similar level to my new, current evasion.

The RoBF damage amount is similar to my old UC damage, plus I can use a melee weapon now, too. And, that minion gets missed just as often, possibly more.

The biggest difference between my old UC minion and new Evasion RoBF one?


One million HP!

The RoBF simply rocks. Too much, but it certainly rocks.

as some people have stated the evasion factor doesnt seem to be working yep

Tip for GL:

If you want to join the RoBF snore train, try this build:

2 minion, front minion with evasion, eg, eb, aof, robf. You can train 100% evasion or get 20% hp, up to you. Back minion 100% amf, equip corn.

You get full benefit of corn without the evasion penalty. Not gonna make a difference to your fight reward but it is better. I don't even use a corn because of the heavy item PR.

So, I got a million HP and the opportunity for more melee damage for the bargain price of 400k.

I'd like to thank (and this is sincere) Verifex for the thread that brought it to my attention enough to "open my mouth", and Ranger for pounding the point, and GL for the CMs, and woltan for the PM conversation we had this morning, and Ulord for making me finally decide what I really wanted to do with that 4th minion, and to Jon for one rocking RoBF buff. ;)

"QBsutekh137, 1:42 PM EST
Cool, added him and Ichiko Kurosaki (yet another RoBF user) to my fightlist! "

I (Ichigo Kurosaki) AM NOT a ROBF user...

I am a SFBM and i have not been able to find a big tat (SF or FF) to slap on my mage...

and the spell check doesn't like your name just for the record :P

if you ask me, it seems like the ROBF is becoming the next "evasion"

everyone needs evasion if they want any shot in hell at living against archers...

so now everyone needs a ROBF if they want any chance to live against...other ROBF users...

I only use one cause its the biggest tat i have :)

And its getting bigger....

oh, and for the record SFBM >ROBF users....