TheOne defeated Monkey Business (Doomed) after 23 (in General)

I hate to admit what Ranger has to say. However, though i am happy of what i do. It is definitely too overpower.

Shhhh,

Do not let anyone know!!!

I definitely can break the 2 mil (dead end score for many) score barrier at low 400k mpr. that's 5 times over mpr. Too good to be true.

What's your evasion? +67 isn't very hard to beat, especially when it's my only weapon lol. ;)

about 149+

I agree with JW, a measly +149 effect, without even counting the defensive DX, is not so hard to beat... *Talion coughs very loudly*

Looking through your fight list, I see 0 mages. So you must've done what lost did and put most if not all of your exp into evasion.

That illustrate the fact that evasion is in fact an overpowered skill. It also illustrate the fact that RoBF's damage, although low, is without drawbacks and can kill unprotected enemies. Note that it doesn't say much about the magic reduction aspect of RoBF, which I say is also marvelously strong. But that's not part of your point.

Furthermore, it is a well known fact for people who are in the 2mil score range and can't break through for many weeks to come that hitting up is not always an option. The MPR gap is daunting at the upper end as well as the high nw teams. The dynamics of NW conversion to PR means that the only logical option at that point is to drop PR to increase reward. Hence, you have unprotected tank team with minimal equipments to beat their list and often time, RoE teams. It is fortunate for RoBF users that most of them don't revert to defensive gears after they spend their BA. Hence, RoBF is an incredible strong growth tattoo.

Keep going with your ncb and you will make as much as 500k per day fighting. It beats the crap out of forging for sure. I don't think you'll break 2mil score since I barely break 2mil score very occasionally killing mage teams (Larry Mooseman). But you'll come close enough.

Jon, can we please get some comments on the RBF? Before this topic reaches 100 posts as well...

See this is the problem:

Giantkiller [5x3275] (+67) worth $34,441,027 owned by QBJohnnyWas (Monkey Business)

The + on it is very low for a 1.5M score. He needs to pump tons of USD into it to make it be able to possibly maybe someday hit evasions that high.

The problem is not the RBF, or evasion; it is the fact JW does not put any USD into the game and wants to play a tank. What a foolish idea in this age of CB!

Im not starting on this one, my point still is: without evasion no team can survive against ranged.
one overpowered thing = the other overpowered one

But then again, the RBF allows characters to concentrate far more xp into evasion then any other tattoo. In reality you do not need any attack other then the RBF. On the contrary, if you use a SF, IF, HF or FF; one still have to worry about AMF/GA on higher MPR characters. The RBF allows one to not worry about those spells.

Or you could be a plain old ToA Tank and crank all your XP into Evasion, and only Target Tank teams you can beat by Evading all thier Attacks....

"Or you could be a plain old ToA Tank and crank all your XP into Evasion, and only Target Tank teams you can beat by Evading all their Attacks...."

You certainly could. But then again, you would be quite vulnerable to GA if you do not train HP. You would be very vulnerable to Ethereal Chains if you do not train Str and Dex.

But then again, one could be a TOA tank and put all evasion, just go after those non-EC, non-GA, tank only teams.

While those with a RBF have no fear of GA and/or EC. As EC barely scratches the surface of the uber evasions out there.

But what do I know?

yeah single minion evasions and besides EC is only effective for the full 100% if you have like 200k mpr more then everyone else.

Im not starting on this one, my point still is: without evasion no team can survive against ranged.

If you're using an ELB, an AoI + Meat shields allows you to survive
A Wall character with a bunch of HP + 400AC will allow you to survive.

Vs Freed, I used both 3 meatshield minions and 400AC to survive through ranged.

It can be done but not easily. A familiar does help with its 4th kill slot.

"If you're using an ELB, an AoI + Meat shields allows you to survive"
"A Wall character with a bunch of HP + 400AC will allow you to survive."

Meatshields? at 1-2mil damage a hit, meatshields get multiple so they die in the first 3 rounds (not counting the mageseeker or the sod those kill a mage in 1 round and even a team in 1 round) your main damage dealer dies shortly after round 3 which in most cases is round 4.

A Wall? any idea how much it costs to get 400 AC? I don't have that cash laying around or even if I forged it, it would take me 1 year to do so. And even then you need ToE to back it up because of those huge damages.

So if no evasion and if you don't have an AoI and or 400 AC laying around somewhere your basically screwed and shouldn't even bother?

Or, as I stated you can use 3 enchanters as "kill slots" and a familiar as a 4th kill slot.

Either way, it is not optimal as your team is decimated before melee rounds.

We all know the elb's damage is overwhelming, but evasion is not the solution to the problem. Used to be evasion was good at stopping bow damage, but now, with the RBF, it can be so concentrated to make even melee based tanks miss.

Which, I hope was not the goal of evasion.

Well, if you think about it... If you have the USD to pump into a extremely HUGE ELB, getting a 400AC set shouldn't be too hard, should it?

But I personally think that both ranged damage is far too high and the RoBF needs a nerf. A Major Nerf.

With EX shots used more often then before a wall is useless. The splash damage is way to high. I have seen splash damage hit for 500k+, and I have prot and over 70 ac on 3 of my 4 minions. The SoD + EX shots will make it impossible to fight without evasion soon. Once people get those SoD up in NW walls will be even more useless and evasion will be the only way to play this game. I made a post before about how the Wall is becoming a thing of the past and evasion is the only way to go. I will reiterate the point here.

So much for the rock paper scissors of CB. I guess the RoBF and the Sod + Ex shots have killed. Wait until someone puts those two together. Yikes!

So much for the rock paper scissors of CB. I guess the RoBF and the Sod + Ex shots have killed. Wait until someone puts those two together. Yikes!

The twain will never get together....SoD+ex needs a mega ToA boost to be really effective.

Also Exshots with a SOD is very vulnerable to DM. And one wants to use AMF with a RBF not DM.

if your SOD is large enough like freed's, you don't need DM.... as long as you can hit once a round, you should be able to decimate any team within range rounds using exshots, no matter how many minions it has.

Yes, but most of us do not have SOD's and upgraded shots like Freed, myself included.

DM will be needed for the other 99% of the SOD users in CB.

"Which, I hope was not the goal of evasion"

Actually, I hope it was.

Evasion should be the choice if you want to stop *any* physical damage.

The problem with it is that it seems too easy to get a high enough effect to totally stop all but the most obscene of USD pumped weapons.

The Bonus to Ranged rounds was specifically implememted to help tone down Ranged damage, but Evasion *needs* to be viable in Melee.

Otherwise obscene NW MH rule the game hitting everyone multiple times per round.

"The twain will never get together....SoD+ex needs a mega ToA boost to be really effective."
- chuck1234

What?
I said "With EX shots used more often then before a wall is useless" Why would you need a ToA to hit a wall? You wouldn't. That is why walls are useless.

Additionally SoDs have small + to hit compared to other ranged items. Once the + hit on them starts to catch up to the evasion, and that should take awhile because of the lack of forgers, I imagine there will be people screaming like crazy about how it is unfair and overpowered.

"Yes, but most of us do not have SOD's and upgraded shots like Freed, myself included.

DM will be needed for the other 99% of the SOD users in CB."
-Ranger

DM does not help you hit, why would you need DM. On your archer team you use EC and AMF why would it be any different for a SoD?

"Also Exshots with a SOD is very vulnerable to DM. And one wants to use AMF with a RBF not DM"
-Ranger

DM is need for Ex shots because of GA.

Firstly, a very small % of people use GA. Secondly, the RoBF reduces a flat amount of damage, so that would deal with a portion of the GA, and training a bit of health should deal with the rest.

I have not seen anyone use the RoBF to its fullest potential yet. The RoBF gives Evasion and damage reduction. If a person took the RoBF a pair of DB's and put that on their main damage dealer--Like I do not know a CoC mage--that could build their team as normal. They would have very nice evasion, without the xp sink--especially if combined with DBs, and damage reduction for AMF backsplash or GA.

There are a lot of strategies out there that have not been used with the RoBF. Once people look beyond the fact it does damage and really push the envelope just in its defensive properties we will see how dominant it can become. It just takes a few people to think outside the box.

"and damage reduction for AMF backsplash or GA. "

I don't think the RoBF reduces AMF backlash, it does for GA but that is a different matter on its own.

"I don't think the RoBF reduces AMF backlash"
-Henk Bres

I am almost positive it does. However, only fools are positive.

I hope someone has tested it out, but I doubt the RBF helps vs AMF backlash.

If it does, that is another attribute to add to the RBF's arsenal.

But only a fool would use the RBF on a mage. The AMF would kill that minion before the RBF can get all 21 of its attacks in.

i don't remember seeing any reduction to amf damage when i tried still using dd spells when first going to the robf. ranger is also correct with single minions at least, why open yourself up to retaliatory damage when you don;t have to? now on multiple minion teams it might be more viable.

If you can take care of GA (or just want to avoid GA teams...) stick Decay on a single 20 HP RBF minion.

AMF will never kill you, and the Decay might help your RBF kill quicker.

welll GA woudl kill you ;)

AMF/Decay cast Antimagic Field on Annihilus (0.81)

Annihilus takes damage from his own Decay (69146)!
Annihilus's Decay hit Evasion [25432]

Annihilus takes damage from his own Decay (57944)!
Annihilus's Decay hit AS [41974]

Here we have a decay mage wearing RoBF, as you can see RoBF doesn't reduce AMF damage, amf damage is similar to the RoBF damage, because there is no way to reduce it without the ToE.

i suspect that rbf doesn't grant extra evasion. More data coming soon.
But it is confirmed that i made over 500k / day with a good bonus clan per day. Beat forging for sure.

It already has been proven by others that the RBF does not grant the evasion as stated in the changelog.

But, seriously, do we need it to give more evasion?? We need it to nerf evasion to balance the game.

Don't we rather need Evasion balanced, than a Tattoo Nerf a stat on a minion?

Most people do believe evasion is overpowered.

But if ranged damage (the root of it all) is not fixed, evasion is a necessity.

However most evasion minions have to have an attack, which takes a lot of xp, divided into multiple areas, and subject to AMF/EC along with GA.

The RBF, with its unique method of dealing damage, combined with evasion, is just too powerful.

Sort of like 1+1=3, using a RBF and evasion.

Since evasion will not be nerfed (see above), the combination of RBF and evasion has to be. Otherwise the only tanks that can hit are high USD backed ones. While there are a few of those (myself included), the majority of CB is not like that. This is highly true in the lower and mid levels of the game. RBF evasion minions cannot be hit by any tank within 2-3x their PRMPR for a while.

Just like in the past, when SFBM (single fireball mage) TOE were dominant to all but the top characters, the RBF evasion strategy is just as dominant. Jon nerfed the TOE rather then the SFBM, so it would be logical to nerf the tattoo rather then the minions skill.

perhaps instead of making a global correlation where none exists, the logic might just point to the fact that jon nerfed what needed to be nerfed. i do not think that they sfbm is overpowered now and that would back up my theory.

let's not assume what jon will do and just allow him to make the best decision for the game. he seems to have done very well so far!

The SMFB TOE is not overpowered now since Jon nerfed the TOE which is what made it overpowered.

I trust Jon to make the game right, however as he does not actively play the game, it is tough for him to know what is balanced or not.

Posts and discussions like this is part of the way he knows how things are.

"I trust Jon to make the game right, however as he does not actively play the game, it is tough for him to know what is balanced or not. "

Jonathan tests his code, and various scenarios that can occur within the game before releasing changes. Don't assume that playing the game is the _only_ way to be familiar with game dynamics and balance.

And when software publishers like Microsoft and Blizzard release new game, they certainly have tested all the playing dynamics and never release patches or modifications to their programs/games.

Sometimes many people playing and experience it is the only way to determine if something is good/balanced.

That is a valid point, however players are extremely subjective and want changes that ultimately affect them in a positive light and sometimes are blinded by said light. Testers are most often dispassionate about the thing they are testing and as such, have a greater ability to be objective in their assessment.

This is certainly true.

However I have tried all the tattoos on my character and have had plenty of discussions with a lot of the other players.

What I type about the RBF + evasion is not just watching it in action, but actually playing with it and seeing how overpowered it actually is.

Obviously a lot of people agree just by the use of this strategy and the score/PR ratios of said characters.

Also,

If we would get a free retrain, how many people would switch to the RBF/evasion type of strategy?

I would bet quite a lot.

the majority can be swayed by daily post saying something is overpowered. we have seen it happen quite often in this game. jon is usually not swayed by the majority however, and for that i respect the hell out of him. he can be swayed by data though which is as it should be.

discussions about game dynamics are good and necessary but sometimes they border on propaganda campaigns as we have seen with the nub bonus and with the robf now. at times our environment here doesn't seem democratic enough, but at other times i am really glad we are what we are, a dictatorship! either you trust jon's vision or you don't. i do wish jon had more time to devote to the game and would make his changes faster, but that is my selfish nature coming out.

as i have said before, given a free retrain, i would get out from under the robf immediately. the fact that i cannot fight up with such a defensive strategy and get higher rewards means that i am slowly falling behind the top players. being able to equip a roe would allow me to stay in the game. the 1 percent i would lose from clan bonuses and being farmed again would trade nicely for the occasional 30 percent gains from a roe!

make that a 20 percent gain from the roe. : )

Please do not get me wrong.

I personally love the RBF. It allows me to lend my MH to Little Devil, my DB's to Talion, and other items to my clan mates to make them and BR tougher.

Do not let the fact that Edyit and I use the RBF, as well as more and more top players, dissuade anyone from saying it is or is not overpowered.

But it is amazing that characters like Black Sophist can switch to a RBF and immediately gain people on his fightlist. This near the top, where things are usually stagnant.

please do not get me wrong, i expect the robf to be changed. what i have always said though is drop the amf and evasion effect from it entirely, it allows you to concentrate enough xp that this is overkill.

i would also like to see the triad balanced more, evasion, ranged and high usd weapons.

your solutions for the robf tend to inherently change it to be like the other tattoos and that is what i disagree with. if we make robf damage like any other dd than why have it? i would just like to keep new and interesting strategy options on the table rather than making them like everything else so that no one really has to adapt to counter them.

it is a very subtle difference, but i see it as building up on the game and keeping it dynamic as opposed to the "same old same old."

I really hope they do give each and every person a free retrain. I also think a large portion would switch to the Eva/AMF RoBF strategy. Please, please, Jon, give us a free retrain so I can lengthen my fightli- I mean, so we can all have a chance to try out this wonderfully powerful strategy?

The problem with introduction of a new type of damage is that there is no real counter to it.

Immune to AMF, Immune to GA. What is it vulnerable to?

A higher RBF?

High AC/TOE/prot only lessens the damage like it does to ALL other types of damage. Does nothing real special to the RBF flame damage.

Physical damage is next to useless without a much higher MPR to get a dex advantage or a USD backed weapon.

Remove the anti-magic effect of the RBF and while mages can do well, tanks still suffer badly. And the usual suspects to counter mages fail.

But, I agree, the problem is the triad of ranged damage/evasion/RBF all mixed together. However we all can see nothing will be done with the first of the 3, nothing really will be done with the 2nd, so the RBF has to take the hit to balance the game.

"However we all can see nothing will be done with the first of the 3, nothing really will be done with the 2nd, so the RBF has to take the hit to balance the game."

here's another thing we disagree on. i think many of the polls, as well as changes so far, point to just that happening. i think the cosmetic redesign and facebook have put those changes off, but they are coming. so when you say "we all can see" i just have to wonder which magic ball you are gazing into? perhaps you are trying to force jon to make the change just to spite you or are maybe just being sarcastic as you sometimes are?

Dude, I think you nailed it dead on when you said that Jonathan is simply much, much, much busier with things like the re-theming and Facebook interfacing. Furthermore, I agree that those should be priorities 100%, no matter how long they take to complete. If the RoBF stays as-is for six months, fine by me.

Well I do believe sincerely nothing will happen to missile damage.

Unless it takes over 14 months to change it like was done with the VB.

Evasion is needed to be a foil for the supped up missile damage.

I have no crystal ball, but the RBF is the only thing left to tone down.

But, as in the past, unless the community points out certain things, they can go unnoticed. Like the money NUB's were making with the free BA, like the broken evasion in missile rounds, like the overpowered SFBM TOE early in the game.

It ia all balance issues that I am concerned about. When I see evasion/RBF characters with 3x score/PR ratios, beating characters with nice sized weapons with 1/3 their MPR, I get concerned for the future of the game.

The genius of the single minion RoBF lies in its ability to create a tank [evasion] wall and a mage [AMF] wall, while at the same time the rune provides a decent damage dealer that is invulnerable to both evasion and AMF. While the single minion RoBF user will crib [like I do] about the monotony of this setup, it is a fait accompli [for me at least :) that within the first three months of a N*B, you get a tank+mage wall that is invulnerable to all but the topmost teams. And the grown RoBF deals sufficient damage; and when it doesn't, there is always the stalemate, not the loss.

But beyond this phase, there is no benefit to this strategy. Dudemus' char igotnoname [the elder clone of my char] is almost twice my char's mpr, but he can only stalemate, coz my protection weighs in while his GA goes to waste. So, what's the sense in simply growing that big, fat single minion into irrelevantly high values of evasion and AMF?

To break the monotony, I plan to add a minion [spending some usd/cb$], training HP, CoC fitted with AoI, NSCs and EC to taste and 25 protection. Untraining the protection on the big, fat RoBF minion, I'll turn it into AS, so that all the exp farmed on this minion will grow the AS to provide an AMF backlash meatshield for the CoC minion.

The wiki says don't train AS on 2 minions unless you're doing something clever, but for my circumstance, i guess its more an enforced strat. There's space on the big, fat minion which can be put to better use through AS.

Meantime, the new minion will grow the CoC. Thanks to the AoI, we can consider it an extension of the RoBF damage, though vulnerable to AMF. But, when it becomes strong enough, [and if the RoBF gets nerfed by then], there is every chance of reinking it into a ToE, so that at times I can get to fight down the list using an RoE!

I've evaluated a strat wherein the RoBF is reinked into an Ice Familiar, and fitted using Junction on the new minion, but the AMF backlash would severely curtail its efficacy. Also, the big, fat RoBF tank/mage walll minion is constructed in such a way that you cannot untrain any of these factors without losing the efficacy of the setup.

I'll just hang onto this single minion for a fortnight at best, then its the new minion purchase and the strat i've detailed above; unless you can provide some better strat or undermine the reasoning for this strat :)

Well some people cannot afford the 20 or more million for a 2nd minion.

The evasion/RBF strategy is quite impressive, especially if one has a tattoo that is appropriate to ones MPR. Dudemus does not. I wonder how many more characters he could add with a higher tattoo?

I've always been a strong supporter of evasion, but when I have 35-40% of my MPR into EC and can't touch someone at less than 28% of my MPR using a +101 VB... Yes, I'm aware I only have 10k DX... but that's where the EC (further magnified by his AoF comes into play.

Perhaps something is off?