Monkey Business and the RBF:some observations. (in General)

OK, this isn't some it isn't overpowered - oh yes it is sort of posts. Lets make that clear. I'm getting stomped by single RBF guys, I haven't found some magical way to beat them. However:

I've noticed something the past couple of days. A large portion of my fightlist are starting to wear RBFs. But they're on my fightlist. So they're beatable. None of them are the popular single minion evasion/amf build though.

What are they? Well, they're a lot of things; one is laid out like a junior version of Koy, a few are multi minion teams, I think one is a single mage. There is evasion trained on some, EC on one. But I can hit them all. Because on these particular teams there isn't the focused XP. I could hit them before I changed my team, I can hit them even better with +101 on my SoD.

And after upping my SoD and adding some high AC to a small wall I've seen a few win/stalemate with Barzoo's team - again another multi minion RBF team, with evasion, but not necessarily the hugely focused XP.

These are little observations - and fairly obvious ones. Like adding PTH helps against evasion. And multi minion teams can't focus XP like single minion ones. And that Barzoo's team is 500k more than my own MPR (sorry BM). And that if the RBF can be hit by me it can be beaten. And that maybe the SoD is a little more than powerful....no, sorry I didn't see that one...;)

See, what I'm seeing is that the RBF on it's own isn't invincible. The focused XP is. So if we're taking the view that the RBF is overpowered, we should maybe be taking the view that it is only truly overpowered on a single focused XP minion. That is, if we want to tweak it so it is less efficient, we need to make it more difficult for a single minion to run the way they currently can.

Anyway: these are just observations, lets not turn this into another one of these 'it is, it isn't' threads. And now, I'm off to the pub. :)

I think most people already know this.

The RBF with its unique type of damage dealing is powerful, however add the ability to concentrate evasion makes it very powerful.

I have no idea how you can hit high evasion minions but you will soon find evasions very higher (over 3M with items) that you will never have a chance to hit in missile rounds, and not in melee if you only use a missile weapon.

And we can certainly see the SOD is quite the item in its own regards.

Try using an elb or Msb and see if you get the same results.

I love my little Giantkiller.

My point really is that on multi minion teams - and you guys in BR don't really count in this, your strats are a little too awesome no matter what tattoo you use lol - it isn't as good. Infact placing it on a multi minion team actually weakens it a great deal. Again I'm only talking lower levels, not when massive MPRs are involved.

So I guess my advice to anybody planning on using it, to get the absolute best go single minion. :)

The thing with evasion and the SoD, that evasion minion has to be the first one in the line of fire or your team is dead. And surprisingly, a lot of people will put an AoI on their evasion minion, while hiding them in the middle of 3 other minions. Enter ex shot and splash damage and BANG.

And the other thing with the SoD versus evasion. Sometimes it will hit. Almost as if evasion turns off for a round. Only once or twice a battle. But it happens.

not strictly relevant to the discussion of this thread, but since it starts with "monkey business" oh, well ....

JW, did you check out your char's graph [mpr and score] on the new scenario; it gives the most impressive curvaceous, bootilicious impression, like J Lo about to dive from the springboard; no kidding, folks, go check it now :)

Monkey Business is bootylicious eh?


Interestingly, my little non tattoo tank team with it's extra PTH and AC, and with the very helpful addition of:

Big Stick [84x3279] (+102) $41,776,012

has just added a couple of single minion evasion RBF teams to my fightlist. Probably not enough evasion in those cases. But still....nice.....


:)

I chuckled when I read "on is a junior version of koy".

"you will soon find evasions very higher (over 3M with items)"

So Ranger... just what does that work out to be in +?

i.e. How high to have I have to get this

Richard the Lion Hearts' Bow [6x2400] (+115)

to start to hit those?

More than that, I have trouble hitting with my +150 MH in melee.

I have:
107,577 Meat Tenderizers [8x1] (+3)
Queen of Pain [6x7100] (+219)
Train of Pain lvl 5,320,616
Archery 1.0

and I don't hit Black Sophist until Round 4.

The issue with the RBF is its defensive capabilities. It isn't enough to block a direct shot from an SoD, but it is enough to mitigate many types of damage well enough that a minion doesn't have to train HP. With the xp it saves by not training HP (or anything else, really), it can put enough into evasion that it will not ever get hit by an SoD (or any other ranged weapon), in the event that it is the first minion in line (or the only one, ideally).

Bascially, damage is reduced for free. Since the minion doesn't have to worry about receiving some damage as much, and because it does retaliatory damage automatically, it can focus all it has on the defense against the single type of damage to which it is actually vulnerable.

Black Sophist has about a minus 220 PTH from his evasion.

About 5M in defensive dexterity in melee rounds.

You do the math.

It is not just the evasion, the ability to pump up all evasion and AMF to the point where no one of our own MPR can do damage to you, and still do enough damage to kill all the minions the opponent has is its benefit. AS people have said before, the RoBF allows people to concentrate xp and that allows them to be very hard to beat.

Yoyo said it best.

Nothing more to type.

Cap it's magic reduction ability at 90% of damage recieved...
-or-
Give it a hefty penalty to skills (20-40%).
-then-
Accompany one of these changes with an increase to the damage it does.

Now, you have a tattoo that is still favors single minions, but it doesn't become the end all be all requiring a huge CoC or USD-powered weapon to beat. This will also make it more usefule for multi-minion teams, able to hide their RoBF minion from damage dealers on the team.

OR...
True Shot.
A ranged weapon that targets the highest Evasion/DX minion first. base value of 1 or 2. x is expensive, and + is unupgradable at 0. Never misses.

I understand mages won't initially like the idea, but it comes with many drawbacks. maximum obtainable CTH is 150%. With 2m ST, and x at 1500, it will hit about as hard as a 800k MM. And as it is physical damage, it will be reduced by both the + and base value of armor.

This could force RoBF users to train more than 20 HP, diluting their Evasion/AMF, and wouldn't hurt most tanks or large evasion mages. Meanwhile, single archers (the team that will be complained about when they're done complaining about the RoBF) will still have trouble against RoBF teams, which will have trouble against mages and TS users, which will have trouble against melee tanks and archers... Kinda like a rock paper scissors thing... but with many types of rocks, paper, and scissors/shears...

OH GAWD, I'M GETTING KIND OF HOT AND FLUSTERED LOOKING AT JOHNNY'S GRAPH

"The RBF with its unique type of damage dealing is powerful, however add the ability to concentrate evasion makes it very powerful. "

True but i was able to do this with a SF too, but the real problem are those skill boosting items, if you have all elven gears + AoF you get a huge boost, my evasion is only 1mil (109 effect) trained but with all those boosting gears its now a good 1.8mil (135 effect).