Seems like the IF got the short end of the deal. (in General)

I now have the biggest IF in the game. All other notable characters with strategies built around the IF have re-inked to SF of FF since the extra rounds were added. I am tempted to do the same but I am very stubborn.

What explains this migration?

My opinion is that where before the IF could be given enough HP to last until round 4, now with the Evasion adjustment and the extra rounds it doesn't stand must chance to survive against other DD spells or ranged weapon damage. When it does survive to fire a CoC blast, AMF and/or GA finish the IF off because it has so little HP left.

The users with really big big characters and tattoos like novice and PoisoN can probably give better reasons.

I am just curious. That is why I created this thread.

perhaps some innate endurance ala the jig would be called for, with no aura of course.

"perhaps some innate endurance ala the jig would be called for, with no aura of course."

Nah... that would kill the Jig.

In my opinion, more HP is what it needs.

Agreed. I'm hard pressed to think of an IF strategy. 5 rounds to survive is just a little too much and lack of endurance really makes the amf backlash painful.

Now, if only tatoos would be separate from familiars, and one could equip one of each on a character... it would be a whole different story.

Right now the only strategy that makes sense even remotely for an Ice Familiar would be something like this (nad I'm just getting massively carried away here), say, for instance, a three-man team:
* pure AS enchanter with just a corn and AoI(or AoL) in front
* maxed-out junction, NSc/AoI(or AoF)/DBs/HoC on the familiar "carrier", rest AMF (or DM, or EC, but I'd probably stick with AMF)
* Wall with TSA, MGs and heavy armor, and except the PL, just max out HP, train nothing else

Depending on chosen amulets, the familiar should get decent evasion and get targetted last, receive slightly less AMF backlash, and be marginally well protected from both mageseekers and MMs by the wall.

Meh... doesn't look all that hot, honestly.

Base decay would work nicely on minion #2, by the way.
For that matter, might want to do the same and add NSc to minion #1 too.

I'm playing with other tattoos at the moment. I tried SF (and it worked "better" than the IF) and reinked to IF, once again became frustrated and went crazy and inked to a FF. I lost LD when I went to the SF, and gained edy... the SF (or FF) keeps Little Anthony (who almost completely nukes my HP now) from winning easily.

I don't know if the IF needs a boost so much as I think ranged needs to be looked at.
Prior to the change a five minion familiar team had a chance against ELB users, now you're going to get wiped out unless you've got enough EC to cripple the opponent.

Without evasion, familiars (even with dbs) are just pincushions...

Quick question. Why exactly did this change kill off the IF? The only reason I can think of is that DBs don't work properly in the HoC round. Don't get me wrong; that bug makes IFs far less useful. It is, however, a bug. The total ranged damage over all rounds actually stayed the same barring damage reduction and the HoC round, meaning that after reduction and considering the HoC, it was actually nerfed. If your ice familiar is dying in ranged now, it would most definitely have died prechange as well. The way in which ranged weapons did receive a beef was vs. multiple minions and/or killslots, meaning that evasion is still perfectly viable for an IF strategy. Obviously, you're still going to be a pincushion vs. mageseeker users, but this was true prechange anyways.

the FF wouldn't work well in theory for you novice ( i think) your GA is huge and AMF is very common on top level. i would hate to see you burn yourself up. :(
I thought of wanting a wall a lot but it might turn out as a lot of wasted exp.

you could stick the IF in back pre-change and it wouldn't get hit till round 5-6

I threw on the FF for kicks... it does it's job... you don't win.

Why not use an evasion wall?

Why should that be the only solution?

an evasion wall would completely ruin my strat and still do nothing for me against MsK users... I don't even think that's a reasonable question in my case

only way to back the IF up is with a monster PL/TSA wall and ye old big DB's
And even then its not certain it will life through ranged combat.

I advocated familiars training evasion at 10-20% of their level a while back.

That idea got soundly laughed at. Perhaps it is time to revisit it.

/me agrees with ranger then and i agree with him now

"only way to back the IF up is with a monster PL/TSA wall and ye old big DB's. And even then its not certain it will life through ranged combat."

I like my solution personally. :P

It is not working now because I had not calculated that AoF boost which no one knew about until I posted questions about it. But after tomorrow's crazy XP time, my MM effective level will be greater than my IF 's CoC effective level. This will give it as many as 3 extra rounds of survival against my beloved Mageseeker wielding tank farmers.

That will probably still not be enough against most tanks, but my character is still growing and that Evasion will only get bigger and bigger as time goes by. Mouhahahahahaha!

You were just as vulnerable to MSB before the change.

"You were just as vulnerable to MSB before the change."

The IF wasn't as vulnerable before the change. I think you have no idea what you are writing about. I can guarantee and confirm that.

With the size of the ranged weapons and DD spells up here in the 1M+ MPR realm, having to survive 2 extra rounds before firing is tough. Those other minions serving as meat shields for my IF falls awfully fast and the IF falls a lot more often without getting chance to fire then it did before the change. Even with the extra 300K+ HP per minion that I have per fight since then.

Let me rewrite this part in case you missed it: The IF falls a lot more often without getting chance to fire then it did before the change. And that my Prissy little friend is the reason why the IF got the short end of the deal.

Before the change, it still fell, but very often it fell while firing.

To be 100% honest, I think a better solution would be to increase the "range" of magic spells.

For instance, out of the 5 (or 6, with HoC) ranged rounds, FB would still fire in each, MM would maybe fire in ranged rounds 2+, while CoC would fire in ranged rounds 3+ (or 4+), with decay probably starting at ranged round 5, not just melee.

Sickone has a point.

Why not let CoC fire in the 5th round of missile, with its 40% damage reduction.

How exactly was the IF any less vulnerable to the mageseeker? The total damage output is exactly the same barring damage reduction.

It sounds more like usually the IF would fire on the last round of combat, in round 3 (or most likely 4 with HoC). But now with the change, the IF can die in round 4 or 5 and not get a chance to fire. Which is quite decisive in most battles.

Ah. But if the archer has an HoC as well, it's the same. 6 - 1 rounds at 60% damage is equivalent to 4 - 1 rounds at 100%.

"Ah. But if the archer has an HoC as well, it's the same. 6 - 1 rounds at 60% damage is equivalent to 4 - 1 rounds at 100%. "

Not exactly.

Before, against non-mageseekers, it was possible to place the familiar last, and have a PL battery somewhere, so you're looking at 4 kill slots for 3 or 4 rounds, allowing you to let off one or even two attacks before being directly engaged, then a second or third one when actually engaged.

Against mageseekers, again, same argument applies, but only if heavy PL is involved.
However, let's say you have the familiar as the only mage, and the mageseeker always targets it first.
With 3/4 ranged rounds, that was 200%-300% of base damage before you could start firing at 100%.
With 5/6 ranged rounds, it's 240%-320% of previous base damage before you can start firing at only 60%.

As you can see, there ARE differences.

Well, Talion, to answer your first question: CoC has never been a DD spell easily used - it requires some very specific builds to be a viable option. With the recent change, <i>all</i> melee familiars are taking a hit - which, right now, is limited to the IF and the Jiggy.
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While CoC requires a great deal of specialization in order to work, a Familiar requires even more! ;x. Because of their tiny HP relative to their level, they always need some form of HP boost - either with AS, or with a PL wall of some sort. I would probably say the frustration that IF users encountered was sufficient to drive them to pick another one :P. After all, who wants to retrain Junction when you can simply re-ink?

I'm not so sure that CoC receives the 60% ranged penalty even in its HoC round.