Evasion again (in General)

OK, its been a while. How do the new evasion rules work for you. They suck for me. Everyone and their brother is learning tons of evasion and I'm trying to run a non-ToA bloodlust tank. Thanks, Jon, for the evasion tweak that only affected archery. Without the pth of the ToA I'm in serious trouble here. The anti-tank crowd complains that tanks can add hidden power to their character because of the NW thingy. But I say that because of evasion, we're FORCED to pump the NW of our weapons. Unfortunately I can have a 3 billion dex versus a 20 dex and without a +150 weapon I won't hit squat. In fact, I'm having trouble even WITH a +150 weapon hitting anyone who puts a ton of evasion into their minion. So I end up spending 1/6 of my BAs forging just to keep up with the evasion race. Since I'm not a NUB, that hurts. It would be nice if my dex meant SOMETHING when facing evasion.

I am with you brother.

If my weapons were not +220, I would be hitting squadoosh. Even with 1.4M dex and 5.2M effective EC (which gives my tank effectively 5M more dex).

But, as everyone who uses evasion says: "it is the only way to compete vs USD based tanks". So basically as they say: "If you do not use use USD, play a mage".

I am hoping for some sort of balance including a weapon cap and evasion tweak.
But, I have been hoping for a while now.

Wait a minute, you guys have been saying "if you don't use USD, play a mage" for years! This changes something? :P

I completely agree, I started out using my RoE on my tank. Down in the lower ranks I found enough mage familiar teams that I could get a decent challenge bonus, but now that I am fighting characters in the 2 mil+ score range. I found that even using my level 2.7 mil ToA was not helpful at all. If I was fighting anyone with evasion I still whiffed through ranged or hit them only in the last 1 or 2 rounds once or twice for not much damage (40% reduction was basically getting rid of my BG's and then some).

So, I decided to change to a ToE. Now when I miss all through ranged I can make it to melee and have a "better" chance of actually doing damage to the other team. Now I am seeing RoBF teams which are maximizing evasion and coupling that with their RoBF, I can't touch them at all. I have almost 120 million into my weapons and I whiff like I am swatting at flies.

I understand the need to curb tank usd weapon balance issues in the top ranks, but has anyone considered "why" these players have boosted their weapons so high? it is because they "needed" to in order to compete. Having a big weapon that adds PR or is big just for big's sake doesn't do anyone any good. So, maybe, just maybe the game imbalance itself has caused the usd weapon imbalance and subsequent nerfs to ranged which is adding an even greater necessity to pump your weapons via USD.

"But I say that because of evasion, we're FORCED to pump the NW of our weapons."

Chicken and Egg again.

Because of pumped NW weapons, we're FORCED to train Evasion.

But we're only just over half way thorugh this changemonth, I really hope to see more game play changes happen before it's out.

If you're telling me that the top players have been pumping USD into the game in order to combat evasion, I'm gonna have to call you out as being full of it. The top players have always bought CB to remain at the top, including at CB1. I understand this is the "chicken and the egg" argument. However, being that large USD pumped weapons have been around since CB1, I'm gonna have to say evasion is here because non-spenders have to be able to play.

Don't bring out the "adding PR" business either, because the top dogs are all well under then weapon allowance, at least that's what I've understood from a few people.

vicious circle

USD were here weapons first.
Then evasion got powerful.
Then USD weapons get pumped again.
Then evasion gets trained by everyone.
Then USD spenders say they're forced to pump NW
evasion spenders are forced to pump there evasion again to counter
Then massive weapons get even more massive
Then evasion gets more powerful

someone seeing this?
Ow and close this thread before its come to this again:
Boo USD weapons
Boo evasion way too powerful
Boo USD are the reason why evasion is so powerful
Boo evasion needs a nerf
Boo you shouldn't be spending USD on a game
Boo what do you care what i do with my money
Boo evasion
Boo USD weapons

Another vicious circle :)

Actually, if I could have my meat shields back again (read: get rid of explosive shot), I would be fine with Evasion being very much nerfed. Damage has been reduced and rounds spread out, so I think it is very fair that I should take my chances round for round against big archers, etc. Heck, I might even build a wall!

But when a decent-sized SoD and explosive shot can kill my entire team in one round with a PHYSICAL attack, then nope, no way. I need my Evasion because otherwise my team simply has an alive/dead toggle controlled by the SoD.

And yes, I fully realize that some of the larger explosive shot kills are due to uberized ammo bundles -- so what. I can't swap out gear and make myself well-high invulnerable to attackers when I am away ( a HUGE advantage, especially in the clan world) and then swap out to lesser ammo when I fight, so that shouldn't enter into it.

In summary, I am no longer afraid of archers under the new rules (wasn't actually that afraid before, to be honest -- could draw with Mikel before he added the third minion), and would gladly throw my meat to the front of the pack to defend against that. It's the SoD/explosive shot teams that make me have Evasion and make me HAVE to put that Evasion minion up front. There is no way to stop massive, physical, spreadfire damage, because even meat shields don't work (they make it worse, in fact).

The other problem with Evasion is poor Hal. Evasion needs to be reduced a LOT before poor Hal can get something going. Reducing Evasion's effect and reducing explosive shot's effectiveness would do three things:

-- Give archers a fighting chance.
-- Make the Halidon potentially useful again.
-- Make meat shields viable again (I sincerely believe they are a valid, fun choice for a tactic in the game).

All of that while still allowing teams to last through ranged, but definitely not allowing everything into melee...

I have no axe to grind here -- making my Evasion les effective would hurt me, even against straight archers. But right now the binary nature of ranged makes fighting downright dull.

Tez, a lot are within weapon allowance, AND it doesn't matter too much anyway because of Top Ten exemption (though recent, better understanding of rewards has illuminated the fact that it still might matter a smidgeon).

"Actually, if I could have my meat shields back again (read: get rid of explosive shot), I would be fine with Evasion being very much nerfed. Damage has been reduced and rounds spread out, so I think it is very fair that I should take my chances round for round against big archers, etc. Heck, I might even build a wall!

But when a decent-sized SoD and explosive shot can kill my entire team in one round with a PHYSICAL attack, then nope, no way. I need my Evasion because otherwise my team simply has an alive/dead toggle controlled by the SoD. "

Let me get this straight.

Your more afraid of a SoD/exshot combo then an ELB or MSK?

If the SoD was nerfed or exshots removed, you would be fine with a nerf to evasion?

I thought you stated that the SoD was far less powerful then the MsK or ELB. I am quite confused now.

@Ranger

The above response is all about Hubbell because the thread asked how the rules "work for you". I was writing from my point of view, and my point of view only.

The other thread about explosive shot/SoD being INHERENTLY more powerful than ELB and MsK and discussing reduction of the archery skill requirement (or somesuch...) was a global discussion. Globally, on paper, I do not think the SoD is more powerful than ELB or MsK. Read that other thread again, and you will see my bullet points deal with generic things like damage data, ammo upgrade costs, anecdotal evidence from various (non-Hubbell) sources... Here, my bullet points are all about me, as the original post instructed. Besides, I like talking about myself. *smile*

There are PLENTY of people I would imagine weighing in on this with their OWN point of view telling me I am all wet:

-- Lesser minioned-teams without meat shields who find archers FAR more pesky than SoD users.
-- Damage Reduction teams who are less affected by the explosive shot splash (again, people more afraid of archers).
-- Mages who simply want to hold onto any advantage they can in order to compete with large USD weapons (I've personally sort of given up on that -- a 150 million dollar weapon is going to beat me, and Evasion is not the right way to "fix" that, IMO).

Sorry, I can't really help it you are confused. My stance and virtual elocution are perfectly consistent.

Just FYI, it is that very sort of "post-before-thinking" mentality (without really thinking it through and trying to glean where I was coming from) that leads to things getting personal and testy. Perhaps you are just genuinely confused and really wanting to reach common ground and understanding with me here, but I have been burned in the past giving you that benefit of the doubt. It sounds more like you are calling me out for being inconsistent, when in fact, with just a tiny bit of reading comprehension effort, you will see I am entirely on-topic and cohesive.

I say that evasion makes pumping the + on the weapon (by the way, I'm not pumping it with USD, just with my own hard earned cash and forging) unavoidable. If I just spent all my money buying BAs and gaining experience, I would end up with a tank with a nice big fat worthless dex. Why? Because mth flows over into the dex arena, but dex does not flow over into the mth arena.

Again, let me restate my position:

Evasion and DBs should counter pth. There - you have your foil for USD weapons. You can counter my +150 weapon with an evasion that gives you -150. Happy? Excess over that is wasted though. Just as excess DM, Bloodlust, Archery, and many more skills and spells are wasted. Even AMF gives diminishing returns after a certain point. No one I know trains half their experience into AMF, and even if they do, there are DDs big enough, or NSC big enough, that they still get through and make it a contest.

Evasion and DBs should NOT flow over into the dex vs. dex arena. A tank with a 1M dex will still hit your lousy enchanter with a 20 dex 1.5 times per round. If this means having to reduce the damage a tank does to balance it, I'm fine with that.

I gave the change Jon made a chance and it didn't help in my mind.

mit: dbs are useless enough as is... what you're suggesting is a complete nuking...

I've suggested this before, and I guess I'll have to again.

Have evasion's minus to hit decay once it hits melee. This allows evasion users to choose to pump NW into dbs for melee, or use ebs to rule in ranged. We're already in a situation where three tattoo's are completely useless in the face a single item without having the rest of the team go all EC. Eliminating the wash over minus to hit would make the MsK even more of a complete familiar destroying machine.

Back to a simpler pth-only methodology would be fine with me, but then I would say do away with the pth on the ToA. If a tank is going to get 1.65 hits per round from dexterity gap alone, it should be hard to get that 3rd or 4th hit.

I'm afraid Jonathan will see this as a step backward, though. When he melded the pth and dexterity stuff into "cth" more than it ever had been before, I think it was sort of a "no going back" idea. But I'm with you, miteke -- go back to comparing the straight +, and if the dexterity hits are too powerful, tone down physical (I'm not sure they are too strong in ranged any more).

There could still be small factors for ranged, and they could still apply to both + and dexterity -- a mage CAN learn dexterity and/or Haste and benefit that way.

This would do away with the fact that Evasion gets so huge with the ranged factors, and would do away with Evasions's "double-dipping" in defensive dexterity AND pth.

But I will reiterate my explosive shot comment: if this is done, something needs to be done about explosive shot. Two-three explosive shot (more, if the target does not have evasion and the attacker has high pth on weapon) can kill a team in one round, and there would be virtually no way of making a balanced stance against that. Letting a physical attack hit more than one opposing minion per round is just too powerful. Multiple hits AND the ability to spread? Too much.

My +170 DBs are awesome. I wouldn't mind having them nerfed a little so that they only cancel pth. In fact, I'd prefer it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, equipping a pair of +mucho DBs on a starting character gives an extremely unbalanced bonus to that character making it unhitable for a relatively small PR boost. If it only cancelled pth it would be balanced at lower levels too.

I stand to lose as well as gain with the change I've suggested.

nov, that's where a damage tone-down and removing the pth from ToA would be in order... Go ahead and LET the physical hit more, but make it hit softer. I've been asking for that for a long time, a return to simpler times...

But that's why I don't think it will happen.

Why are you saying DBs would be useless? They still reduce pth + for +. How is that not fair? If someone has invested X dollars in a +200 weapon, you should have to invest X dollars in +200 DBs. Iknow the USD aspect makes that hard to swallow, but it is what it is. If something needs tweaking elsewhere, that can easily be accomplished by toning down ranged damage and/or still keeping some sort of + multiplier for Evasion/DBs in ranged to give melee a chance.

I personally think the whole thing got WAY overdesigned once pth and dexterity got melded into the cth stuff. I remember the changelog post talking about all of that and the ToA getting pth, and one-hand, two-hand, shield...head-spinning nonsense. Tanks should be more interesting to run, but unnecessary complexity is not required for that. Over-design is over-design, and now we are seeing how hard it is to balance that house of cards. Why not fall back to a more sane point of cth consistency and balance from there?