Is this it for the evasion changes this month? (in General)

Well everyone and their mother was posting that evasion would be changed.

However, except for a modification in ranged, which did not really change much (IMO), nothing was done for melee.

So the great evasion/RBF strategy is still quite uberpowerful.

So, is this it?

There's probably another mage nerf coming... I sense it now...

The RoBF's damage reduction also got taken down a little bit, but yeah, this seems to be it... I guess if ya wanna combat evasion, you need to start sinking some heavy money into the pth of a melee weapon.

The main issue left is not trained evasion though. It's the fact that you can dump all of your XP into it with RoBF (albeit now doing this, you are magebait), and then, you can boost your skill by near/over 100% with equipment...

meaning, I could have a 600k MPR char, working as effectively as a 1-1.2m MPR char, and having 3 people on my list over 2m MPR (one of them being over 3m MPR)... This is a bit much ;)

But Hatch...

Evasion is the way to equalize USD. I mean 1-2M levels in a skill neutralizes a 100M NW weapon. Is that not the right thing?

<sarcasm>

for my part, i always try to visualize things so i find it perfectly ok for an evasion minion to evade range attack, but i have difficulty to imagine this same minion evading at the same efficiency in melee round. Melee round mean closer fight and less reaction time. I am an archer and my dexterity get halved (if i dont use a melee weapon) so i think in melee, evasion should be just a bit less effective too.

I thought jon made clear that nothing will be done to evasion this month or the next for that matter, he wanted to see how this change (read more ranged rounds) would play out.

this quote from jon came from a post on march 5th:

"Basically this thread came about because USD is just skewing the game at the top too much for the game to cope.

Evasion is a good example. Would there be any alternative to a monster bow if you wanted to be competitive, if evasion were not "overpowered?"

So that is the dilemma and I'm starting to think that the only real solution might be to reduce the influence of USD in some way."

this was after the march 2nd changes to ranged rounds. i would take that to mean that balance is coming. it may not come this month though as jon probably wants to take some time to see how the new ranged changes affect things before deciding on the specifics of balancing evasion and usd.

haste makes waste, my granpappy used to say.

Let's hope for a CoC nerf and a good FB boost :P

why should coc get nerfed u still got to survive till melee to really use it or last ranged round fb u can use from the biginning of ranged

I forgot to add this pwn-age i got today: Costello skewered Little with Platypus Phleghm [2274045] Costello struck deep into Little with Platypus Phleghm [2949792] Costello struck deep into Little with Platypus Phleghm [2684643] Costello skewered Little with Platypus Phleghm [2614729] Costello cries "Oh, I'm a ba-a-a-d boy!" 1st range round with full range penalty.

Well, Platypus would be the epitome of what we are discussing -- massive, massive weapon. It SHOULD hit you.

Um, also LA, your minion "Little" has no evasion -- why wouldn't he hit your four times? 2 hits from dexterity and 2 from pth. Makes complete sense to me.

i got about 4mil evasion on my mage, his elb whoop that minion 2nd round as :

Costello skewered Anthony with Platypus Phleghm [1299644]
Costello skewered Anthony with Platypus Phleghm [1696344]

How much more evasion do i need? 5mil -6 mil?

213 AC was in effect. Imagine low AC mage, it will surely be a one-hit-wonder.

with 200 effective evasion, he misses me in the first range, hits in second for around 2m and again in third for 1.6m and then i am dead.

I'd say you need USD-DB to counter his USD-weapon-PTH, then your evasion would be more or less enough.

Only 4m Evasion..?

There's also the small matter of DX: 4,376,995 and ST: 4,087,585 to compliment that bow. Of course you need more ;)

using DB at my (or dudemus ) level will cost us more than 1mil of defensive dex.
and then 80mil worth of DB minimum? Since when NW becomes a must for mage?

i am sure that 2nd round or 3rd round, multiplier is still in effect, so that 2 hit is totally from your PTH

just to be clear, i have 4.7m effective level of evasion which is over 43 million trained xp in evasion.

"I'd say you need USD-DB to counter his USD-weapon-PTH, then your evasion would be more or less enough. "

i am glad that the inmates do not run the asylum and i tend to agree with jon, who says:

"USD is just skewing the game at the top too much for the game to cope"

Dude,

With a 111M NW MsB (+220 named and +5 arrow named) and 5.4M effective EC AND 1.4M native dex these are my hits:

0,0,0,1,1,2

Takes me 6 rounds to kill you.

My god, imagine those without USD backed weapons.

Jon made the evasion/ranged early in the month. It has been a few weeks already and nothing has been done. When something is so overpowered, it should be fixed ASAP. Or STAT as we say in the medical field.

And LA, imagine if you grew a tattoo instead of using a RoE all the way. You may have a 4M TOE and that would significantly reduce that damage. Enough perhaps to let your PL minion with all its HP let your mage survive long enough to kill Beee's character.

Let us chat a bit about melee.

I have a +220 MH. I have 5.4M levels of effective EC, so that is 5.4 million dex loss from characters including their defensive dex. Then add my native 1.4 million dex.

Vs Conundrum I hit TWO time each melee round. JUST TWO!!!!!

It is obvious I get ZERO dex hits and hit solely due to the plus on the MH. I used a +101 VB and 25% of the time hit his mage ZERO times.

One can again say my EC is only 1/2 effective, I should use Haste, or unlearn my Strength and boost my dex, yada yada. But with my EC, I effectively have 6.8 million levels of dexterity vs his mage. AND STILL ONLY HIT TWO FREAKING TIMES.

Why bother playing a tank? I like it but it is so neutered it is like my toothless grandpa at a steak dinner.

Sure, let us go yet another 3 months before it even gets addressed again. Let the mages continue to state it is not nearly powerful enough, or that it is needed to compensate for USD weapons. Either way, this blows.

Just for the record, I don't plan to spend nor make a single dime out of this game, so I'm not quite sure how to take the middle row remark in your reply...
I was just being sarcastic at the "how to counter USD weapons" by pointing out that other USD items seem to do the trick quite nicely (sadly).

"Jon made the evasion/ranged early in the month. It has been a few weeks already and nothing has been done. When something is so overpowered, it should be fixed ASAP. Or STAT as we say in the medical field. "

toa went many months before a fix if i remember correctly. so did ranged damage error. there are probably more that i do not remember atm.

i am not saying that it doesn't need fixing and asap. it does seem to be much more important when it affects us negatively though as opposed to helping us. as with everything in cb, it will be changed when it gets changed. you and i both have played mmorpg's other than cb, most of them have had ongoing issues as well and we paid subscriptions to them...and kept paying most likely.

prima hits me with a dagger + TOA :) that might actually be a good idea

hehe men its a base dagger bought at the store! i had to find something to get you lostling :)

TOA is overpowered! =x

I'm hitting you with my fireball ever since I hit 300k MPR :)

"inmates running the asylum" is a saying meaning democracy, basically as opposed to the dictatorship we have here in cbland. many have expressed a desire in the past that usd is the only counter to usd.

i passionately disagree with that, we can just compare bank account balances and declare a winner or salaries.

I still find it mildly weird that USD transactions are allowed in the first place, but meh...

"Omg ranger are you actually saying that you NEED USD weapons to hit evasion minions?"

I thought we already had this discussion already?

Lets do this again:

OMG USD weapons are so overpowered.
Need more evasion.
OMG evasion is so overpowered.
Need more USD.
OMG I need to up my evasion yet again.
OMG I need bigger USD weapons.
etc....

And if there wasn't any USD weapons then there is no need for big evasion....
But now that big evasions are here we need USD weapons otherwise we can't hit jack.

And over course this recent discussion about the influence of USD:
USD ruins the game!
I can spend my money where ever I like!
This is a game why do you spend money like that!?!
Are you telling me not to spend money on something I like doing?!?
USD sucks! Freed smells!
etc...

Could we just leave this alone already? Or we spiral into another fruitless discussion about nothing.

ok so this thread should be called ''group whining'' let just wait to see the change month and discuss about it later, for now there is nothing we can do about anything except fight hey its wacky xp time
why does it have to start at 12 i eat at this hour ! hahaha
anyway let have fun everyone and wait for jon to manifest about the change month(if there is any...)

make a USE POWERED DAGGER it RULES!

"Could we just leave this alone already? Or we spiral into another fruitless discussion about nothing. "

Maybe to you it is nothing Henk. If so, stay out of the conversation. And YES, I need USD weapons to hit evasion. I tried a +120 ELB and whiffed vs most of the evasions I fight.

But right now I am close to a crossroads.

Use more USD to pump up the PTH on my weapon or change to mage.

Quite a few idea, some excellent, have been proposed for a solution.

But to continue along this path for another 3 months is complete futility. While evasion is quite effective in neutralizing USD weapons, it completely overwhelms non USD weapons.

If that is not a major problem I do not know what in CB is.

You've gotten Jon's message maybe then Ranger...
He's always pushed CB towards balanced teams with both forms of damage.

What makes me red in the face is that by extending ranged Jon essentially ended the single most effective counter to massive $US bows. Now there are six rounds and 5 minions, all someone has to do is commit to ranged with everything they have and no one can live.

Sorry novice, but evasion and db will always out pace USD weapons, period.

Hi glory... What the hell inspired that useless message

Apparently not true, Glory -- Platypus Phlegm can take out LA's evasion mage in round 2. Huge USD weapons with the right build give exactly what novice says.

Yes, Jonathan reduced ranged damage when he extended the number of rounds, but if folks were hitting with large weapons they were triple-burying their targets. So now they barely kill them, but do so in 5-6 rounds.

I'm with novice, and I guess Ranger in a sense -- the "change" to ranged wasn't really a change at all in regards to Evasion, etc. But I DO think Jonathan realizes how deep this problem runs, and apparently some of the simpler solutions people have proposed are not palatable to him. So, overall, I would answer this thread with, "Yes, that is it for changes, while Jonathan mulls things over some more."

"all someone has to do is commit to ranged with everything they have and no one can live"

The statement above, I disagree with it. As you train Evasion you can use items to boost the exp by a factor which out paces the USD pumping of weapons. Couple that with DB stacking and you can completely negate USD weapons completely.

glory ! thats exactly why a change to evasion is required !

Did my message seem like I think evasion is not overpowered? I believe it needs tweaked as much as the next person.

Glory is completely right.

With all the bonuses one can get for evasion, read AOF, it can easily outpace USD bows.

Yes Platypus is the exception. So are we breaking CB for 1 ELB?

Seems that way to me.

To hell with everyone else who does not have such a bow or USD. We have to titrate CB for the biggest, baddest, most expensive bow out there. Forget about everyone else!!

When it takes me 6 full missile rounds to kill Dudemus' and Little Anthony's mages, with all my bonuses, something is not right.

I still think you're missing the point Glory, Jon has offered evasion as the (sole) solution to $US bows. You simply can't expect there NOT to be a counter. If you don't like it, go mage (or half mage) or RoBF for that matter. evasion effects those things like cause fear effected mages (NOT ONE IOTA).

a Familiar will never defeat a mageseeker... I've accepted that. Quit whining about having to think to run a tank.

And let us not forget I need 1.6M levels of archery just to not hit.

Evasion can easily outpace archery/USD. Does anyone debate that?

"Jon has offered evasion as the (sole) solution to $US bows."

Again novice, you are making ultimatum type statements and claims. There are quite a few solutions to USD bows. EC, DB, Evasion, GA, FB, MM, 5 minions to allow certain minions to live to melee, AC, should I keep going? Please try and make statements that are less heated and more logical.

What do you need to run an effective tank? HP, ST, DX, usually a skill (archery, bloodlust), AND a rather large ranged weapon or both ranged and melee weapons. You also either need an EC to combat Evasion or you can try and negate GA with DM. There are variations but for the most part, these are time tested tank setups.

What is needed to run an effective mage? HP, DD and either Evasion or large DB. With NoS you can remove a huge amount of AMF, or choose to boost your DD with AG.

If you compare how much exp is needed to be effective, mages win, if you compare damage capabilities from exp, mages again win. If you compare Evasions ability to completely negate all tank hits, mages win again. The only area in which tanks win is the mageseeker, as long as you can get through the Evasion and DB of the mage in question.

Glory again has some good points.

But I see it as this:

Jon wants non-USD mages to be able to compete with and possible beat heavy USD based tanks.

And a significant portion of CB agrees with this. At least this is what I am reading.

Am I wrong?

well for my part, i think any player can go USD either a mage, an archer or all others out there, i mean its easy to put money in your paypal account and spend it on the items you want on carnage blender. i know i would spend the same amount if i was not an archer because i got a CB budget. anyway for a nub like myself and all other nub out there its better to start spending USD just at the end of the 4 months since spending USD will catapult yourself right in front of the long lasting heavy duty player where you got no chance except if you either very patient, very bright, very rich or very popular.(or a combinaison of those hahaha)
for my part i have money, nothing else, my strategy isnt the best but i like it, i aint got friends who are loaning me items,+i'll leave soon for a couple of months :( and when i look at battlelogs character like sox jr (a veteran archer) i realize archer are going nowhere. Anyway i will continue playing for as long as i can before going to work in the forest where i got no chance to play CB unfortunately,
anyway i am anxious to buy my second minion, although its 20 mil by now.. hmmm 20 mil cb is 100-120USD well it fits my monthly CB budget...maybe a 2nd evasion-AMF could change something about my poor archer situation.ok this thread is about change month? i am anxious to see those changes whatever they are :)
change is always good

Evasion needs to be nerfed. RoBF needs to be nerfed further. I can't stomaches the prospect that nothing else gets changed at this point. We are basically back to playing the game exactly the same way before and after change, with the exception that ToE is buffed to a ridiculous extent. That really kills it for me. I was hoping a new reason to start another ncb but there doesn't seem to be one... Using Freed's insane 200mil weapon as part of argument for balance is insane. Why not apply the weapon cap and get rid of the outliers in the system? Should we nerf armor (which is already horribly laden with PR penalty, at least before 6/20) because Freed has close to perfect defense?

I think all the mages should contribute 2M each to Freed's ELB.

Make it +400, then evasion will get boosted further to compensate for that ONE extreme weapon, making mages that much more powerful vs all other normal or slightly boosted weapons.

Since we have to compensate for the biggest weapon out there, instead of finding a solution that is palatable by all.

<sarcasm>

strangely in all medieval book and stories and movies i read and seen there is always a mage missing their spell once in a while for some reason, guess the only place this doesnt happen is here in cb. That is something to remember about this game.if only the ''always hitting'' direct damage spells could have a little % of missing it would be great.

Yes mages do miss in this game, it's called ridiculous damage fluctuation. Mage spells hit for anywhere between 50% to 100% of listed damage (far less from empirical experience). Guess what? the threshold damage reduction method (RoBF and ToE) has been BUFFED!. That means every time a mage hits for the lower damage bracket, the spell might as well have whiffed.

really Ulord[NK], well i never cast a single direct damage spell, i am happy to know it can ''miss''
ok its enough for me i'll wait for the change month to happen before saying anything else, guess you mute me Ulord[NK] good job :)

There already is a counter for USD Tanks, and it's called EC, there is no reason evasion should be this counter. If you want to counter a strategy, it has to cost you.

Let me offer my evasion suggestion before because everyone missed it. Let evasion effect remove a percentage of (pth+cth) like prohibitively expensive after 50% (but still adds defensive dex), then make them use DBs.

So let's say with the ranged defensive dex boost makes the archer have 0 cth. But then the archer has +200 pth on his bow * (.5) so he gets 100 pth if you add on +100 DBs, then he misses.

Deal?

"There already is a counter for USD Tanks, and it's called EC."

But that is too much xp, evasion is much cheaper.. Cry Cry Cry.

"the threshold damage reduction method (RoBF and ToE) has been BUFFED!. That means every time a mage hits for the lower damage bracket, the spell might as well have whiffed."
RoBF damage reduction was lowered by 1/3rd, while ranged damage was lowered by 2/5ths. So the RoBF was slightly buffed in ranged, but massively nerfed in melee.

JS, note the fact that RoBF was overpowered before the change. A simple shifting of its damage reduction capacity without directly reducing its magic reduction capability leaves it still overpowered.

Since both fireball and magic missle fire in ranged, they are most affected by this. Essentially a lot of time, mages need to endure 6 rounds of amf backlash before actually doing any damage. CoC definitely came out ahead with this change, along with the buffed ToE. But CoC was a RoBF counter anyways. Further nerf on the magic reduction is needed, at least to 60% pre-change to make it about as effective against FB and MM as before and strictly worse against CoC.

To recap what I said: RoBF is now BETTER against FB and MM (who does most of their damage in ranged) and WORSE against CoC (which it was weak against before anyways). It's actually hard to say whether it is nerfed or not when it clearly needed a nerf in magic reduction.

Total FB/MM damage change: -40%
Total RoBF reduction change: -33%
I'm not seeing any massive problems here. The only time when this comes into play is when AMF is combined with RoBF. Simple solution: have RoBF come into play before AMF or disallow stacking. I'm using an RoBF without AMF right now, and I can tell you right now that the damage reduction is severely lacking, especially compared to a ToE.

i posted this in another thread but thought it would apply here as well:

"with the 40 percent ranged damage reduction against a mage shield with the random factors, a mage can at best hope for 18 to 36% of their damage. this is before any armor bonuses or amf reductions."

that is in ranged. in melee against a mage shield the best we can do is 30 to 60 percent of our trained level due to randomness. when i wanted a mage shield counterpart, or an increase to the cost curve (40 percent reduction for less than 6m cbd expenditure) i was told that we never miss and that is what the mage shield is balanced around.

i guess you could let mages miss if you give us our mage shield counterpart...a way to knock out 40 percent of melee damage for 6m or less expenditure.

as an addendum, the mages seem to think the tanks have it best. the tanks are saying that we will all be mages soon. perhaps we are balanced already.

well. I have to disagree dude... The mages compare their losses to tanks to the big huge usd weapons and therefore show that they lose. The tanks such as myself compare to any mage that takes some time to train evasion and sees that they have no chance of winning. I am up to almost 4 mil DX and still can't hit most evasions at all. I finally went and am getting a melee weapon so maybe my 4 mil dx can try to hit something in melee if I live that long.

Oh and on your thing of what you can do with 6 mil and get rid of 40% of melee.. You have that. It doesn't even cost 1 cb at all. It's called evasion and it can get rid of 100% of melee not just 40% . So wouldn't you call that a pretty good counter to the mage shield? I know you are a solo minion like myself and don't have much options and yes we suffer for that, but there is a counter, but explain to me what the counter is for evasion for a person that doesn't use usd and can't get that 200 mil nw weapon?

chicken and egg argument then, is usd the counter to evasion or is evasion the counter to usd? i say the effect of usd needs toning and so does the evasion effect...they both need to be done simultaneously though. it is funny that the question always posed though is when is evasion getting nerfed?

as far as the evasion/mage shield balance. if 6 mill cbd is equal to 45 million trained xp, then i guess that works. i would think trained xp should be valued at higher than cbd, but perhaps i am wrong in that assumption as well.

Like I stated before.

Seems we are titrating evasion to the highest of the USD weapons.

Leaving all the others in the dust.

Have mages train EC like other tanks do and get a set of DB's. Upgrade those. If a mage wants to put in USD then up your DB's. If not don't.

So let sum it up shall we?
Group A: USD tank: whose invested "x" amount into weapon.
Group B: Evasion mage: whose invested "y" amount into evasion.
Jon: wants to balance x and y at his wish. Seems fair here for him.
...
After a period,

Group A: sick of spending more than "x" amount into weapon.
Group B: in time, evasion is growing more than y.
Is very obvious that mages win 'cause y > x.
this happens solely because x doesn't want to grow.

don't get me wrong dude. I agree that something should be done to help people I guess vs usd or the game turns into 2 groups. USD and non, but right now you have 3 groups. USD, non-usd mages, and non usd tanks. Where the non usd tanks are the bottom. lol. I just hate seeing things that are to combat the usd in the game and then it totally makes the non usd spender not able to compete with their tank. I am getting closer and closer to scrapping my tank and going mage and if someone would have told me my first day that if I didn't intend to put usd into the game then I hsouldn't make a tank then that would have been great advice. I just hate it because I like the tank a lot, but am getting to the point that I won't see new people on my list ever.... especially as more and more teams are taking at least 1 minion and getting evasion on it again.

forcing single mages to choose between amf, dm or ec. i know jon has stated that he doesn't want single mages to dominate...totally eliminating any possibility of competing though might be going too far. i think jon set evasion up as a skill for a reason, what other skills can mages use effectively? are we suggesting just not having any mage skills at all?

my point above was not that i wanted a mage shield counterpart so much as that the tanks and mages are balanced around multiple factors and saying things like "let's make mages miss occasionally as they do in fantasy novels" really shows a lack of understanding of the mechanics involved. do you want all of the drawbacks or all of the benefits of the other class? if so, then why have different classes at all?

I hate to break it to you Soxjr, but there are only 2 groups into the equation, your NW invested does not seems to be considered simply because of USD tank. It is not mages fault that the 'balance' is based on USD tank. Point your fingers to the right group :P

All this talk about balancing non-USD tank vs. mages is totally an excuse for USD tank to bury mages into the ground. Do you know how long it will take to train 1mil HP just to survive 1/2 of 1 hit of amazing archers?

I'm tired of this Mage shield stuff. We choose between having enchantments/ having a tattoo/having more AC from an MS on that minion or not, that's a big choice.

My team
--------
One of my minions has an MS.
One has a tattoo.
One is a Mage.
One has a Mage shield.

No, I don't own one, I rent it because they are so expensive.

A mage shield is most effective in reducing damage on a single minion where the damage is concentrated (Except versus MM). A single tank has to choose between, a ToA or a Mage shield. Then they can have no enchantments so they are weakened to GA and evasion/EC.

A mage shield is less effective on bigger teams because the damage is not concentrated then. It is basically only good for MM in that case.

This isn't exclusive to my team, Ranger only uses one. Many people up top only use one and have four minions. Now take every time you quote the number 40pct and divide it by four minions. (Except in the case of Magic Missile)

oh. so by your thought LA that I should suffer trying to make a tank because I don't use usd and therefore get beaten sensless by usd tanks and mages because the mages are buffed to be able to fight the usd tanks... ?? if that is the way it goes then there should really be a point made in the tutorial and also told to all mentors to tell the new player that if they have no intention of adding usd to the game then they should never make a tank or try to use melee or ranged weapons at all. If I was told this in the beginning imagine where I might be as a mage, instead I now have to make a ncb, get all new gear or re-train and lose xp. Or just keep plodding along knowing that I can't kill most mage teams because of evasion and I won't be USD teams because I don't have usd and evasion is not an option because I use a bow.

Making game balances based on a small minority of the game is a bad idea. They are not the norm, they are annomolies <spelling> so making mages able to compete with those few usd people makes it impossible to compete as a non-usd person. Unless I follow the masses and make a mage. that is a lack of choice something that a lot of people in this game promote.

To Soxjr: that is pretty sad but seems to be true. It's just like me using ROE trying to compete with tattoo. You know what they always say? It's your fault because you don't use tattoo. Or if you have use a tattoo, you wouldn't be complaining. The only different i can spot is: without tattoo i can, in time, make up the difference with mpr. But with the same logic, sadly, you have made a choice, like me, but a very expensive choice that you can't afford. Well you know what i am trying to say here.

"I'm tired of this Mage shield stuff. We choose between having enchantments/ having a tattoo/having more AC from an MS on that minion or not, that's a big choice. "

hehe, so then it should be ok to give everyone else a counterpart melee shield that does 40 percent reduction for less than 6m as long as it has the same limitations? sounds fine to me!

LA. Compareing the spending of usd to the choice of using a tattoo and using a roe is not one bit the same. Sorry. The second thing there is a in game choice everyone can make. The first comparison is about spending cash to enhance your character in game and just playing the game with what you make in it. So please compare things that are worth comparing.

you are right. I can't compare the two.
However, the fact remains is non-USD tank is squeezed between the fight of mages and usd tank. And it stinks, and i seriously doubt it will be fixed.

however the joy is still there when :
FTW defeated pffff (Hidden Agenda) after 8 rounds of combat

That is exactly the point to be made here - there is no real imbalance as far as I am concerned. FTW has spent very little in this game apart from a great deal of time (something I dont have). He has a great strat and can defeat me very easily without my big ammo - so how is it out of balance ?

The USD option has always been here since the start of the game and I have made use of that option - yes there are imbalances here, yes there does seem to be 'something wrong' with evasion, yes rnaged damage (especially with SoD/ES) seems imbalanced with Melee but for heavens sake lets stop moaning about a fundamental option of the game - the option to aid your strat with USD spending.

and freed... LA has spent a lot of cash so far... not near your amount, but he spent a ton of money buying minions. Also buying gear and naming everything and upgrading it. The problem I think I'm adressing is this. The imbalance is the game setting up skills to combat your usd contribution to allow people to beat you that don't use usd... but as they do that they are making it where a non usd person like me can't compete ... unless i go mage and follow the crowd. thats my point.... otherwise i'll keep going like always. lol

I am not talking about buying minions or naming - the issue people seem to have is the 'upping' of weapons/armour with USD

well reverse that and ask how a person who wants to go non-mage can compete when they have a real life to lead - even with the change to refresh rate I will always miss at least one refresh a day if I am working hence my low MPR compared to say G_Beee (he started his NCB a couple of weeks after me only.

Anyways I guess we are both a little off the subject of this post which should be about Evasion (apologies for that Ranger but I get sick of this anti-USD subject cropping up everywhere)

freed. i am by no means saying anti usd. i could care less who spends money on the game. If a person likes this game and has the money they can go right ahead and spend it. I am discussing the fact that there is a skill in the game <evasion> that is buffed up the way it is .. to only combat usd weapons.. so us non-usd players can't keep up with the evasion the way it is. Hopefully I explained it better. I totally don't have a problem with you or anyone else using usd to up their weapon ro anything else they want to upgrade.. that's up to them. I just don't think a non-usd person should suffer for it. lol.

Any equivalent would be redundant

A 2007 CB T-shirt [1] 1,000
A Adamantite Cuirass [40] (+51) 1,060,424
A Shadow Cloak [11] (+20) 1,238,978
A Pair of Chain Mail Leggings [18] (+34) 1,145,074
A Helm of Durin [9] (+20) 1,015,221
A Mithril Shield [20] (+36) 1,087,276
An Amulet of AC [0] (+17) 1,209,030
A Pair of Tulka's Gauntlets [6] (+15) 860,374

Total AC: 298

Cost: About 7 Mil
% reduction to physical - 62.56%
Penalties - Can't use on a Mage or Enchanter (effectively) (just like the Mage shield?)

Want to use it on a mage? Swap the AC for an MC and the SC for a CoI and the TGs for AGs

A Cloak of the Istari [0] (+11) 1,101,631
A Mithril Cuirass [35] (+45) 959,997
A Pair or Altar's Gloves [0] (+11) 809,692

For a total of 235 AC
A 49.35 percent reduction in physical damage
A 2 percent penalty to Magic

Conundrum has 252 AC on his mage, which is a 52 percent reduction in damage from physical attacks.

Sorry, one correction that second AC set apparently actually has a 3 percent penalty to Magic.

"for heavens sake lets stop moaning about a fundamental option of the game - the option to aid your strat with USD spending."

it would appear to be more than just moaning when jon made this statement:

"Basically this thread came about because USD is just skewing the game at the top too much for the game to cope.

Evasion is a good example. Would there be any alternative to a monster bow if you wanted to be competitive, if evasion were not "overpowered?"

we play in jon's treehouse here, we play by his rules and under his vision. evidently his vision is at odds with your statement, not ours. what you see as "moaning" is players trying to find a way to help jon accomplish a balancing. you can help in that or continue to state that nothing is wrong here, that is solely up to you. the changes will likely come however, sooner or later.

just so that we are straight on what is happening here though freed your character has 2.1m mpr. you have several people on your fightlist that you beat every time who are 3.2m mpr. you have effectively purchased 1.1m mpr.

the problem with usd influence is where does it end. as the game progresses, how much mpr can be purchased. it is somewhat controlled in the lower regions of the game, but not at the top. at the current time there is no limit to the amount of mpr to be purchased. therefore, once people get to 6/20, as any nub or ncb now should, then usd can be used uncontrolled.

if usd influence were just used to catch up that would be more accepted i think. even if there was some cap, so that experience through mpr can at some point overwhelm it that would even help balance. without a cap though, someone could just keep putting cash into the game to continue having an advantage. this is why i often say let's just compare bank balances or salaries and declare a winner. under the current system though the weakness is that usd always wins if enough is thrown at the game, experience can never catch up if someone is willing to keep throwing cash at the game.

as for your purchased mpr, when i was just stalemating against people only 500 to 750k above me, not winning mind you only stalemating, with an robf people raised holy hell and there were constant threads about how overpowered it was. what amazes me is that those same proponents of game balance are not now raising the same ruckus over the fact that you can purchase the ability to fight even higher and actually win, not stalemate.

you may be a better strategist than i, that wouldn't be difficult, but even with strategy optimization do you really think you should be able to fight over a million above your mpr effectively at the upper echelon of the game, i know that is possible lower down, but in the 6/20 range it is unheard of without usd influence to some extent or a boosted net worth due to rentals or clan sharing of usd weapons and such.

"as for your purchased mpr, when i was just stalemating against people only 500 to 750k above me, not winning mind you only stalemating, with an robf people raised holy hell and there were constant threads about how overpowered it was. what amazes me is that those same proponents of game balance are not now raising the same ruckus over the fact that you can purchase the ability to fight even higher and actually win, not stalemate. "

I have to raise a couple points.

1) When you were stalemating, not winning, it was grossly wrong. Remember you had a very small tattoo for your MPR. It was about 2M if I remember correctly. If you had an appropriate level tattoo you would have won quite a few of those stalemated battles. But it was not just you that people were complaining about, it was ALL the evasion/RBF characters that were growing so fast with incredible score/PR/MPR ratios.

2) I have proposed a weapon cap for the balance between evasion/NW. Right now, we are titrating evasion to the top weapon in the game-Freed's ELB. My MH, at over 200M NW is quite pathetic vs evasion. For instance, vs AB's mage, with my +220 MH and all my native dex/Ethereal Chailns, I only hit his mage 2 times a round for about 400k a hit. If I use my +101 VB, I miss about 25% of the time. It is unfortunate about the USD influence in the game. I am certainly one of the people who contributed to the problem, however, there have been numerous proposals to balance things. But.... right now, evasion is far far too powerful for the generic non-USD player.

ranger, in no way am i arguing with any of that, my tat was about 2.5m or so btw.

i have also proposed many different solutions, in the admin thread as well as since then. my post above was in no way meant to justify evasion at its current levels, i just always feel the need when the post title says "evasion still needs fixing!" to state that there is more to the issue than just evasion. it is the two part balancing act of evasion/usd influence that still needs fixing....together and simultaneously.

freed has actually had an effect on players even higher than the 3.2m in his fightlist, so he has probably effectively purchased 1 to 1.5m mpr in my opinion.

I live a very real life and have always been a powerful force on the MPR front... For almost five years now.

One might argue that if you don't have the time, you simply don't get to be a force in the game. Heck, I'm not really a "force" now -- am about right where I should be in terms of my net worth, MPR, and specialized DM strat. Actually, I feel a bit on the low side of score for my specs at times, but that's probably because of the specificity thing.

If I had to do anything time consuming: education, taking care of a health issue, charity work, taking care of a child, taking care of a sick relative... It would simply take time. Yes, I could pay someone to do some of those things, I suppose, but certain things simply DO take time. The fact that USD has existed as an alternate way just happens to be the way the game turned out -- and appears to be something that Jonathan is seriously considering lessening its influence.

"We have to titrate CB for the biggest, baddest, most expensive bow out there. Forget about everyone else!!"

Ranger, if on one hand you claim "The largest RBF in the game is unbalancing! ZOMG we must have balance!", I don't see how you can not support peoples desire of needing balance versus the largest Ranged weaaon in the game.

Or largest Melee Weapon.

Or largest amount of AC.

It's blatantly obvious that items have grown larger than expected (think back to the announcement that a +51 MgS wouldn't need to be figure out how it would work, as no one would get, as it would cost too much. A +50 MgS exists these days...).

In part due to USD. In part due to NUB cash bonuses.

This has broken CB2. I expect it to be fixed in due course.

I expect some sort of cap on items, like a tattoo cap, and/or a rescale.

Personally, I am starting to think we serously need CB3, with things like a Roling bonus and these cap already in place. Especially before CB opens to Facebook.

Being able to fight up equates to purchasing extra MPR? What about 500K MPR evasion minions being able to fight up to 1M MPR chars? Being able to beat a higher character by no means indicates being at that level.

I would say being able to fight up _consistently_ DOES indicate a higher overall total "power". Evasion does not offer a consistent fight-up capability because it doesn't work on mages.

It comes down to score -- if your ability to fight up equates to a higher, consistent, maintainable overall score, then you are more powerful. Simple as that. If you have a tactic that allows you to fight up against a few folks, but you still get brought down by others (meaning your score will equilibrate at a lower level), then you aren't really "fighting up". That's why score is figured into rewards. It is a market-honest way of seeing how a team does overall.

ok, prissy peach, we can look at it several ways and then see that he is probably at that level or even higher. his character is around 28th in mpr ranking, but sixth in overall score ranking.

there are 13 people over 3m mpr, he has about 25 percent of them in his fightlist that are always wins. as i said in the above thread, people at the very top have made accommodations to their strategy to factor in his influence. do i really need to keep going?

ah at last someone having a direct go at me - ok you want some - lets go at it - you choose where - lets go sucker.

sorry - dont know what happened there - kk - fair enough - I am a cheat

I still think EC can be considered the USD counter. If you bring someone's strength down to 0 they do damage on the order of 1000 or so. EC costs a significant xp investment, and one should be prepared to to spend a lot of xp if they are to counter USD with xp.

using what is allowed within the game is not cheating, no more than robf users currently. the times they are a changing though and it is really just a question of how long until it kicks in and what shape it takes.