Everything needs a counter? (in General)

I don't want to derail the Evasion and RoBF thread any more, so I thought I'd move this into a new Topic.

The RoBF needs a counter? Everything in CB needs a distinct counter (secondary counter as named in the other thread. The comparitive relationship of CB means everything can be trumped by something larger)?

We already have it for most aspects of the game, abilities that directly reduce the stat in question, and counter abilities that are able to boost back the same.

But there are some things that currently don't have a direct counter.

Skills
EC (Hatch made a great point about NSC, one I'd forgotten)
RoBF Damage (Well actually there is. But it's the RoBF, which is frankly boring)

While Skills have things to boost them, there's currently no counter to them. There's nothing someone can do to reduce the effectiveness of their opponents PL, Archery, BL or Evasion. Endurance could easily be lumped into the 'skills' catergory, but it has a specific counter in the VB.

Does everything deserve a secondary counter? If so, shouoldn't the secondary counters have counters themselves?

Sticking with EC again, it already has a counter to the secondary counter, in a Corn. But would this be enough? If an item/ability was introduced that was able to reduce incoming EC, would the Corn on it's own be enough of a counter? Or would we need a specific counter to the EC secondary counter?

The same holds for Endurance and the RoBF damage. Except both of these currently have nothing to boost them, and Endurance already has a counter (bar the JKF, whos Endurance is classed as a skill, and boosted by skill increasing items). There's no way you can boost the effectiveness of your ToE produced Endurance.

If we introduce a secondary counter to RoBF damage, we'll need to introduce a counter to that.

We should also have secondary counters to skills, and some way of protecting the ToE granted Endurance from the VB. also, there should be a secondary counter to EC, as there is nothing a Tank can do versus an EC large enough (possibly boosted slightly through a corn) to reduce STR and/or DEX to zero.

Heh. Sorry if this has rambled on. ;)

I believe having a counter serve as a safety valve. Say Jon made a new ability call OneHit, which has a % chance (based on XP trained on minions) of killing a minion in a hit (with a maximum of 1% if your minion has 10x XP in OneHit compare to target's total trained XP).
And 2 things can happen:
1) the ability does nothing and no one bother with it. In which case having a counter doesn't have a negative impact on the game. No one would waste XP on it.
2) the ability is broken and allow new players to start killing ranger 1/2 the time. In which case having a simple counter makes the game more fair and enjoyable.

In scenario 1, the value of the counter is 0 (but not negative) and in scenario 2, it has a very high +ve value. My point is that having a counter cannot be harmful and balance things out, even if the counter is too good, players would still find a balance (e.g. counter too good=>player stop using the skill=>counter become waste of XP=>player start using it again)

The "counter" to EC is DD. All the exp in EC is completely useless vs DD. The same applies to AMF. All the exp you put into AMF is useless vs a tank. Same thing for DM as well. No ED and DM is useless.

While those might not be direct counters, they are how I see them being balanced out game wise. The skills are a little different for counters but they are there. Evasion counters archery, DD counters evasion. Again not direct "counters" but ways to combat them.

Do we really want a check list of if I train this, this counters it, which I can train this to counter that.

Counters for EC:

ToA (strap on one of these babies, and wham! what EC?),
TSA (cheap way to get a 40% ST boost, with over 50% still feasible),
TG (an anti-corn :P),
BoM (meh... I'll give that one to ya, it's useless...),
HG (I'll give ya that one too, cuz UC is doomed by EC...)
AoM (another anti-corn...),
EB (cheap 25% DX boost with 30%+ feasible...),
EG (every little bit counts!),
and (ironically enough) EC (the cloak :P)...

Counters for standard SRBFM (with HP, Evasion, and AMF):
COC
single mages,
bigger RoBF...

Counters for tank-killing SRBFM (all evasion):
mages,
bigger RoBF

Counters for mage-killing SRBFM (AMF, maybe HP):
tanks
bigger RoBF


The RoBF needs more counters, especially considering over 48% of it's current counters are RoBFs... However, EC is fine as is...

Hatch, they ain't secondary counters to EC. Everything in CB gets trumped by something getting bigger.

But there's nothing specific, nothing that directly reduces the effect of EC, before the stat versus stat comparison.

Otherwise, the counter to the RoBF Evasion is more DEX and more PTH, isn't it?

I still think EC need a little boost. You really need some MPR advantage like ranger to make it viable.
Counter suggestion for RoBF
1) What RoBF do?
a)block some magic damage (and RoBF damage)
b)deals damage

2) How to counter?
a)have some magic damage that bypass RoBF altogether
b)have another way to stop damage.

my 2 cents...

And for skills:

Archery:
Evasion,
damage reduction,
GA,
kill slots.

Bloodlust:
Archery,
Evasion,
damage reduction,
GA,
EC,
kill slots

Unarmed Combat:
Evasion,
damage reduction,
GA,
kill slots,
FB/MM minions,
EC

Evasion:
massive pth
ToA

PL:
overloaded damage
EC (when PL is used to absorb stat drain)

Evasion needs more counters, especially as powerful as it is before boosts, and it's ability to boost itself over 100%... PL could probably use more, but I don't see it as being OP as it is :P

OK. Then the RoBF list must be;

CoC
PTH
Dex
Damage Reduciton
RoBF
Archery
PL
Kill slots

There are strategic counters to everything. Then there are direct mechanical reductions. There's nothing currently that can reduce a Skills effect, before the comparison takes place.

for example;

You could claim the 'counter' to DEX is DEX. They are compared to find the effect. Get more DEX and you've countered your opponents DEX.

But EC (And one of the XBows...) is avialable to directly reduce you opponents DEX before the DEX versus DEX comparison takes place.

If we don't need any other counters to DEX versus DEX than "Train a Bigger DEX", then the answer to the RoBF is "Get more PTH / Get a larger DD to overcome the DD reduciton".

If that's the case, why do people have a problem?

Why do we need to counter skills? The majority of them are not overpowered.

"Get more PTH / Get a larger DD to overcome the DD reduciton".

Too bad the larger DD won't overcome the reduction, the reduction is a fixed percentage?

Fixed amount, not a percentage. But I'm very vocal about that being utterly silly. ;)

And flamey, it's only the overpowered stuff that needs counters?

the issue with the RoBF lies in it's ability to concentrate XP into evasion and/or AMF.

The evasion is even worse off for being able to boost itself over 90% (can't use cloak :P). Couple that with multipliers for ranged, and there's no way in hell anybody is hitting... DrAcO has a 4 minion spread of evasion, and without their RoBFs, two of the largest EC combos would often stale him, and likely lose... On fewer minions this becomes even more prevalent, like, say... a 700k MPR team that is able to destroy someone 2.5x as big, and is soon to make a laughing stock of the number 8 MPR team (4x their size) with the second largest net worth in CB (largest if ya don't count Freed :P)... So more DX and pth is not a viable counter.

The other things I described work as counters for EC... I have 2m ST and DX, you have 4m EC. I strap on a 3m ToA, you strap on Cornzilla. Who's winning this one? Now let me add a AoM, TGs, HoE (I knew i left something out!), and some EBs for flavoring, your EC is a joke! I think I pretty well just countered it, eh?

Meanwhile, I have 2m ST, and 2m DX. You have a 4m Evasion. For some reason, neither of us are training HP or enchantments, and my tank is skill-less... I strap on a 3m ToA, a +200 weapon, EBs, EGs, Cabasset (can't be giving up *any* DX, and AoM. You suit up with a 3m RoBF, AoF, EG, and EB. I am now looking at my +210ish weapon and 3.6m DX, versus your -240ish cth and 6.8m defensive DX... I took every DX-gaining route I could, and used a weapon that is likely near, or over my WA... What happened?

So the introduction of more Stat boosting items to overcome the rediculous amounts of +Skill you can get (going to make a small post in the toher thread about that) would slove everything?

Or maybe not touching the RoBF, but nerfing the AoF to bring Skill boosting back down is the answer?

But still, CB already works aorund bigger is better. Upping your STR/DEX might limit the effect an opponents EC has on you. but you have nothing to reduce how much that EC hits you for. There is nothing you can do but take it.

"And flamey, it's only the overpowered stuff that needs counters?"

Well, I don't think Jon specifically made counters for almost everything. I think that's just how the balance worked out. If we don't need counters for skills and they're not overpowered then you don't need to change it.

Why don't we need counters for things like PL?

We may not see eye to eye on this one, but I feel that going from 0 ST and DX to over 2m ST and 1m DX is pretty well reducing what the EC is hitting me for... granted, the number is still there, but this way, I'm able to surpass it by far...

:) I do understand what you're saying, but then the same arguement can be used against the RoBF, and secondary counters are not needed at all.

Use CoC, and euip an AG instead of NSC, and use a CoI instead of a Tattoo on your Mage, and do damage to the RoBF wearer.

RoBF counters,

(not counting evasion)

Bigger RoBF
ELB
Big DD spell (including CoC, MM and FB)
Melee weapon
ToE
High AC

Cuz the RoBF does little damage you need a large number of rounds to kill of a team of 4 or 5 minions (or for that matter any number of minion with enough HP)
And the RoBF does no damage in ranged.

The RBF's biggest weakness - apart from CoC - in using evasion is melee; when I switched to ToE - reducing damage - and a big PTH melee weapon I was able to take them out thanks to evasion being only (level) in melee. My only problem was that the weapon was rented so I fell behind in PTH after a couple of weeks.

It's an expensive counter maybe, but according to most of the tank players high up you need a lot of PTH once you get up there. It's times like this that I miss the old PTH bonus of the ToA......but hey, that was screamed at for being overpowered for an age. I argued against that too. But apparently it was broken. Oh well. ;)

"RoBF counters,

(not counting evasion)

Bigger RoBF
ELB
Big DD spell (including CoC, MM and FB)
Melee weapon
ToE
High AC "

everyone seems to ignore protection. i would still really like to see some testing as to how much high protections can reduce robf damage. it may suck as a counter or it may be the balancing factor. has anyone actually tested it?

Protection is far more powerful than it seems; I've used it a lot. But people tend to ignore it thanks to DM. RBF/DM minion anyone?

i guess that is a bit of my point exactly jw, if people were using protection more then robf strategies would need to train more dispel magic which would dilute their xp which is the problem many have with it or remove the protection teams from their list.

i guess it is just much easier to declare it uber and cry nerf!

RoBF is a early game strategy (I don't think any single ROBF mage with full evasion/amf has past 2m mark. correct me if I am wrong)
and protection shine in the late game, where for little XP you get to stop like 4% of total damage (which is massive)

Well, (30) Protection is actually pretty damn cheap; and if it really does reduce damage by 30%...that's 30% reduction across an entire team. Which if you're talking multi minions is pretty damn effective, especially if the damage is low.

The problem is though, (30) is very cheap in terms of XP; and very cheap in terms of the DM needed to dispel it. RBF teams focusing on evasion wouldn't be hit that hard.

But they would have to train AMF higher than normally if they wanted to use it. So knock on effect on the evasion from that...

base protections are something that have come about since dispel magic though. when i say high protection and how does that effect robf, i was really wondering about 2 to 3 mill xp in protection or even higher. that would require higher dm to reduce it as well.

Prot used to be pointless training after a certain point simply because the next point was huge in cost. The wiki has levels and XP needed - as it was before Jon's recent changes to XP spend.

(31) was 8,449,330
(33) was 81,461,027


As you can see, a big difference in the amount of XP needed......

d'oh, i had forgotten that protection had changed so much since cb1. i do think the point is still valid though. if you are looking at it as a counter to robf it may be a great counter.

if ya just look at it as "well it will get dispelled', then that is really another matter entirely. it doesn't change the fact that it is a counter or that it would dilute the robf teams xp if they do choose to train dispel.

if your only goal is countering the robf that is one thing. if you want to beat everyone, then that is also another matter entirely as well.

Nah, I agree, it's worth doing; anything that forces people to spread their XP spend is worth doing, particularly if you're focusing your xp spend. Makes you stronger and them weaker. Might just give you the edge.

A skill decreaser would render archers absolutely useless.

"Everything needs a counter?"

Hell yes.

Without a counter, the game become boring as most people go to the overpowered item/stat/skill as to keep pace.

But the answer is a resounding YES!

Again, I wish Jon would give us 2 free retrains. One so everyone who wants to can go evasion, the other to change back when tanks become useless and evasion/RBF is nerfed.

I begged for a skill kill xbow like crazy a few years back... no one liked the idea.

This would give tanks another option, and some of the flexibility back they lost with the current dexwar...

It would also make dbs useful again on tanks.

I think a new damage type was added, and a turd of a tat was finally given it's moment to shine... There should be something new to help combat it, I threw out a couple of ideas in the other thread. Maybe if instead of this same old argument we actually came up with solutions or idea that everyone might like we'd get somewhere...

Maybe there should be a skill that counters evasion, on the other hand doesn't allow for the archery boost because it takes up the skill slot

One problem is with archery.

Just bear with me 1 minute.

With archery you only get your NORMAL chance to hit. No bonuses, just the normal chance. Every other skill gives a bonus.

imagine if tanks had to learn bloodlust just to have a normal chance to hit with melee weapons? Or if mages had to learn a skill just to have a 100% chance to hit in missile rounds with their spells?

Perhaps archery should be more like a "True Shot" skill, given PTH according to its level. And perhaps a skill like that for melee weapons-"Precise Blow".

For a reduction in damage you get more PTH.

I'd be all for that.

But I've a sneaking suspicion Jon blanced massive Ranged damage versus the perils it has to hit.

Without trianing Archery, you might do twice the damage in Ranged you would in Melee, but you've got 50% the change to hit (numbers made up just to get my point across).

Lower Ranged damage, change Archery to a Ranged PTH skill and tweak Evasion.

All wonderful ideas.

"For a reduction in damage you get more PTH."

Hmm.. Only thing is, PTH is extra damage.

It's just all or nothing, unlike thigns like BL.

+60 PTH increases damage by exatly the same amount a 60% BL does. But you see the effects of BL all the time. You'll only do more damage when your 60 PTH kicks in, and less when it doesn't.

:/

also, using skills to balance other skills or game mechanics tends to do like much in cb2 and leave lower minion count teams at a disadvantage with no upside to counter as we had with extra xp in cb1.

"+60 PTH increases damage by exatly the same amount a 60% BL does. But you see the effects of BL all the time. You'll only do more damage when your 60 PTH kicks in, and less when it doesn't. "

with a +100 weapon, and DX advantage, I am hitting 2-3 times a round.
With a +160 weapon, and DX advantage, I am hitting 3 times around, with the rare, but occasional quad.

a 60% increase leads me to believe that I would gor from 2-3 on the regular, to 3-4 with the occasional 2, and the even rarer 5...

So not exactly like doing 60% more damage when you factor in DX :P Not a bad idea overall...

An average, it's exactly like 60% damage increase. You hit for 100% more damage (a full hit) 60% of the time.

But it's 'spikey'. You might not hit for ages, or you might land that extra hit every round.

Unlike BL which is a consistant 60% increase.

Wrong, a 60% increase in damage is equivalent to a 60% increase in chance to hit for exactly 100% original CTH. For below 100%, the 60% increase in chance is better, whereas a 60% increase in damage is better after 100%.

Yoikes! What was I thinking? LoL

60 PTH is only a 60% damage increase if you have a single natural attack. If you have more, it doesn't provide as much damage as a flat 60% increase would.