For those complaining about the WA. (in General)

I would agree to lower the Weapon Allowance (WA) if and only if only the x on the weapon counts towards it.

Tanks have to have high + on the weapon to hit evasions, but the damage is only on the x part of the weapon. And the damage is what makes Jon need a WA, to be comparable to mage damage.

So have 2 weapon allowances? Or have PTH not add any PR at all?

The later,

Not have PTH add to the WA at all. Lower it so you can make the x on the weapon(s) be more controlled.

Right now you can have 2 different weapons: Both same NW but do vastly different damages.

IE x3000 +100 vs x12000 +10, extreme examples.

I think ranger means that only the x will count in WA, since tanks have to bump + incredibly high to battle evasion and WA is only there so mages will have some fight to put up against tanks in the damage area.

But PTH is still NW. When you say that PTH should not add to weapon allowance, I think that needs further clarification. Weapon allowance is an amount of NW that you can add to a weapon for zero PR increase, based solely on your MPR (trained XP). Any NW added to that weapon past this allowable amount does add PR, and at a very high rate. If you say to "not have PTH add to the WA at all," then what happens to all of that PTH-based NW in your PR calculation? Notice that I asked if you wanted to have PTH add zero PR no matter the level, not zero WA. Adding to WA is rather counter-intuitive, as the only thing that adds to WA is XP.

If we assume that you mean that PTH-based NW on a weapon will add zero PR no matter how high it gets -- that is just plain ludicrous.

I would agree. But the problem is the + is extra damage Tanks get, over folk who don't use Evasion (well and don't have DBs).

I would be helpful if we knew how mant Hits per round Physical damage was based on compared to Magic.

Then make the WA not apply up the the amount of PTH needed (if any) to reach this, as any over it is just pure extra damage (in the scheme of things).

Or just cap max weapon NW just like max tattoo level.
Say your WA is 666,666, and the max weapon NW is 1,000,000 (or any other ratio between WA and max NW, even not linear).

Adding a weapon that's higher than 1 mil NW in this previous example will only add PR corresponding to the difference in NW (333,334), but also only act as a 1 mil NW weapon (even if the weapon itself is 100 mil NW).
Upgrades are taken proportionally both from + and x, so if you had a 2 mil NW weapon with [?x1000]+50, you only "get" 500k NW worth of + and 500k NW worth of x, so, let's say, you get a [?x500]+38 weapon instead.

oooh! have the pth with PR weighting... PR weighting isnt exactly possible for weapons, due to the x being difficult to weight, as well as necessary to fight with.

DBs are PR weighted, why not weapon +?

This would allow the cth reduction of evasion to be toned back a bit...

This would kill a lot of the RBF is overpowered talk...

This would put us back to complaining about Archers/BGs...

I think that is a good idea.

Mages always hit, so that is a baseline of sorts. Jonathan must also have an "average damage per round" or "average hits per round) idea in his head for tanks -- that's how he decides how much damage physical weapons do to maintain balance with mages.

So, taking the + NW out of the weapon's contribution toward WA sounds like something more able to be balanced, especially in light of Evasion, etc.

Of course, if Evasion is evern nerfed, then something would have to be done about the + NW contribution, or WA lowered further... But once WA is lowered all the way, it can't go down any more. So, we would have to assume there is enough NW in the x side of things to even make this feasible.

Finally, I think there might be issues with the x on ranged vs melee weapons. Ranged weapons hit a lot harder, but is the x concomitantly more expensive? (I really don't know, I am a tank-newbie). In other words, the base x of the weapon has to be considered, no? If I invest in a lot of x on a dagger, for example, that should not count as much toward my WA as a lot of x on a MH, should it? Granted, investing in lower-tier weapons is a stupidity tax in and of itself, but still...

The theory behind the idea seems sound, though. Mages hit automatically, without any special investment in PR (NW or MPR). So, make the cth portion of tanks also be "free". STR and x get counted as PR (with maybe a small WA), but + doesn't.

Maybe that means ALL cth-related aspects of the game should be free from adding to total PR? Make DBs, Evasion, and dexterity (and Haste, I guess) free too? Level playing field, no? Is that crazy? I'm really asking...

Allowing PTH to be infinitely large with zero PR added ever would be the biggest mistake to gameplay dynamics ever.

Aye. I'm all for making it free, up the point Jon balances Tanks versus Mages.

That might be zero + (with dex based CTH max as the standard) or it might be three hits per round.

But not paying for anything above that is bad. ;)

NS, remember, used to be that NW wasn't factored into PR at all. *smile* So, I'm open to anything (despite being a big voice in getting it that way LAF!), as long as proactive balance follows step.

As long as a cth scheme allows mages to negate 1-2 hits through some MPR means (to counter dex-based hits), then everything else can be done with DBs. If it's all "free" on the total PR scheme, then it is absolutely equivalent.

And yes, that means ToAs have to lose their inherent pth. *smile*

The DB + scale has always been lock-step with the + on the big weapons. Yes, USD has, at times, made some weapons huge and made some DBs huge. But at least it's fair, isn't it? And if it isn't, then screw this noise, start CB3, and get rid of all transfers. That solves the USD issue.

As soon as CB tries to ride a line off-center, that's when things tend to get imbalanced, and quick. This idea (piggy-backing off Ranger) is like most of my tone -- radical but consistent.

Sute, DBs increase PR though. So for it to be equal, PTH has to increase PR exactly the same amount. ;)

I am fairly confident there is balance between tanks and mages.

I think the line needs to be drawn between tanks, mages, and *archers.* It's the completely out of control ranged damage that is messing everything up.

Look at my team against Failure. I get pounded by that MH 90% of the time, for about 600k damage a swing. My CoC can not out pace that yet, but its getting close. There are other tanks that are in the same boat, not doing obscene amounts of damage in melee rounds. I am fine to lose to that, since my CoC can do similar amounts of damage, even against AMF and a MgS.

As everyone knows, its the ranged rounds that are causing all of the grief.

I'd be ok with this change, if the x on bows was increased in price 100 fold, and the WA was reduced as well :P

All this is well and good, but lets not pretend that PTH has nothing to do with damage. The more PTH you have the more times you hit, PTH is a damage multiplier. Nobody should have extra damage for nothing.

I personally don't think you can separate them.

CB is made up of a system of checks and balances. For example:

A 400 AC minion is vulnerable to DD/Decay/VB
Free Damage from DD is vulnerable to DD reduction/AMF
Bonus HP VA and inherent VA is vulnerable to PL/EC/damage reduction
Magic reduction is vulnerable to physical damage
Efficient ED Spells are vulnerable to DM

The list can go on and on. My point is 400 AC is incredibly powerful. So is a large DD spell, or VA/inherent VA. But all of these can be reasonably managed, well at the same time leaving you open to other strategies that can handle you managing another strat (if that makes any sense).

Now, look at ranged damage and evasion. They are the same system of checks and balances, however they lack being vulnerable to anything. For example, if I have PL minion to protect my team as well as negate VA for the other team, I can not use GA, or VA on my PL minion. If I use a large AS/GA combo to help augment HP and damage, I have to worry about DM. If I decide to wear a ToA and invest in a large bow, my only concern *is* Evasion. I do not in any way become more vulnerable to any other strat, I would actually dominate a lot of strats.

Now I am being over simplistic here, but I hope the point I am trying to make comes across. Ranged damage is much, much too high, which means an equally powerful balance needs to be made, which is evasion.

So the point of all this? If pth became PR free, then what would be the balance to all that extra damage?

"So the point of all this? If pth became PR free, then what would be the balance to all that extra damage?"

DD spells and the RBF always hit. That is the balance. Tanks NEED PTH on their weapons to hit.

RoBF does not start firing until melee, with this change to pth the RoBF minion would be dead before a shot could be fired. Same goes for mages, although they might get a couple of castings off.

Tanks need pth, only because mages need evasion. It's a complete circle argument. We need to look at the real root of the problem here, which is bow damage being able to kill anything in one round.

"DD spells and the RBF always hit. That is the balance. Tanks NEED PTH on their weapons to hit."

another part of that though is multiple hits. mages and robf can never do that.

As Dude says.

"DD spells and the RBF always hit. That is the balance. Tanks NEED PTH on their weapons to hit."

We don't know that.

The balance could be Tanks having one hit per round, or multiple (Or even less. The base 50% cth could be the balance point). Only Jon knows.

GL, read my posts. I said DBs would be FREE PR. A factor of 0.00.

Ranger, what if we gave tanks a single hit for free. Let's baseline this. Then what? How would we control what happens? Alternately, how would we stop CB from becoming "anything-blender"? That isn't a jab... I just thought of the single-hit-always idea... But then it gets hard to control things from there...

Ah! Getting confused by free and free NW. ;)

Building on Sutes example and question a coupe of posts above.

Take this hypothetical exmaple.

There is a Mage with a 100K CoC. He is expected (bar counters) to do 100K damage per round. As he always hits, and the amount of Damage done is exactly proportionate to the DD size (it sohuld be 110K, but I'm keeping it smple! :P)

So where does an equal size Tank fit in?

Lets assume the Tank has 50K STR (with 50K into DEX. They both train HP) with an ideally sized Weapon.

The Tank sohuld then do 100K per round to be on equal terms with the Mage, right?

But is that per round, or per hit? If the Tank is expected to do 100K per hit, when he starts hitting twice a round, he is now doing twice as muhc damage as his counterpart. More with more hits.

So if it's per round, how many hits? If the 50K Tank should do 50K per hit, he needs two hits per round to equal his magical counterpart. So what happens if he's only hitting once per round? Or even three times?

There must be a value. A number of hits per round that physical damage dealers are balanced around. But only Jon knows what it is. Until we know that, Tanks needing to hit multiple times per round to be on par with Mages is nothing more than conjecture.

And this doesn't even take into account the Tank could be using an under sized, or over sized weapon. Which would also throw the comparison off. It doesn't even take into account what Base damage this is base don. Are Tanks based on using Morgs? ELS? TH Flails? Daggers?

It's too hard to compare equivalent Tank to Mage damage.

Jeesz Ranger, your crusade against evasion is getting weird, are you now actually suggesting that we should lower everything and gives tanks a major boost to there PTH so they can hit evasion? If you don't like evasion why not go DD?
Stop complaining about evasion and handle it another way, you had one suggestion of yours fulfilled with the no more ammo limit, stop trying to get evasion nerfed, the only way to defend against tanks exp wise, jeesz

The issue, Henk, is that evasion was created as a counter to massive ranged damage caused by a number of factors. Evasion is not a direct counter to damage, however, so there were significant side effects. The biggest side effect is that a tank without a ToA and massive PTH is worthless, and a defender without a massive evasion is equally worthless.

furthermore we have the balance issue between usd weapons and non. it is commonly stated that you need usd pumped melee weapons to hit evasion minions but the counterpart of that holds true as well. you need evasion as it is to counter the usd weapons at the top.

to that, many say "they paid for it, they should get the benefit" but at that point we might as well just throw away all strategy and buy slots with cash. he who is dumb enough to pay the most gets the top spot?

if i gave the impression that evasion shouldn't be fixed, that is not my belief. i think that instead of the two parter that most call for with lowering ranged damage and lowering the effect of evasion, we need to add a third qualifier to truly balance things. that third aspect is the capping of weapon effect similar to max tattoo level as the community voted in the previous poll.

all three would need to be done concurrently though as our balance atm is better than would be achieved by only doing any part of the tri-fecta.

Well, you don't need to pump USD into this game to get a top spot. Just look at LD.

Henk

If you think I am doing this to give myself an advantage your completely wrong.

I already hit high evasion minions in melee, most in missile.

It is when I see others try to hit high evasion minions and miss the whole battle I get upset at the game balance.

Fortunately or unfortunately there is USD in the game. A small expenditure of xp should not be able to nerf all that USD+CB2 expense.

If you want to quote my EC, I have over 87M xp into it. How much xp does Draco or Dudemus or other high evasion people have? At most 1/3 I would bet, yet vs 98% of tanks, it achieves the exact same result.

But I agree 100% that the arc of Missile Damage/Evasion/RBF has to be fixed.

i guess i wasn't clear enough. i am saying without evasion or with halfway balancing by only toning evasion and ranged damage down it would be that way. not that it is now, i am saying that it is balanced now better than it would be with only toning down the two parts instead of the three.

"Fortunately or unfortunately there is USD in the game. A small expenditure of xp should not be able to nerf all that USD+CB2 expense."

36 million xp in my evasion, boosted like heck by elven gear. i am not nerfing all that cash of yours though am i?

if evasion should not be the counter to usd then what do you suggest? before you have stated that those are "aberrations" i believe and we should just ignore it. this is where we differ on opinion greatly. if we are going to have balance then everything needs to be taken into account.

the current system is flawed. evasion is too high to balance ranged and the "aberrations" leaving those without usd with no chance. this is why i brought up the weapon capping idea, balance the tri-fecta or not at all, what we have now is better than usd blender though.

you don't have to spend USD on this game do you now? So if we take out the USD out of the equation and put in the fact that evasion is a direct counter of USD weapons the non USD weapons get left out and hit squat.
This is true, evasion at present is a direct counter for USD weapons, but you need a massive evasion to counter USD weapons. But the potential growth of USD is higher then EXP growth for any character.

So as people pump there PTH with USD you get PTH = USD, so the rest with no USD is basically screwed.
So you are saying that you need more PTH for your USD or something? You actually encourage people to spend cash on a game? That's why most sites have a real life cash policy on them, even WoW has it and most other mmorpg's. Because USD is the unfair advantage in this game, and the only way to counter USD spenders (who btw spend there cash by CHOICE) is with a big enough evasion. So the only real solution here is nerf evasion and no longer permit USD into this game. (except the naming and buying of supporter ships)

well, that would be one solution but jon seems to like the real world/virtual economy aspect.

if weapons were capped in a similar manner to tats though then that would also be a solution. people can spend as much as they want, but it only gives them a set boost regardless and that level or value is based on max mpr in the game. the kicker in that plan is that it would have to be more restrictive than the max tat or it wouldn't be a counter at all.

here is the poll i refer too above:

http://www.carnageblender.com/poll/poll-results.tcl?poll_id=393