Encumerance - Exbows and Axbows (in General)

Well, we all know that at a certain net worth Exbows and Axbows Drain 100%, and if someone wants they can just stick them on an enchanter so encumbrance doesn't matter, and any tank without enough AC to reduce the damage to 0 or DBs is instantly taken down without even using the weapon on a proper tank.

Well I think like decay, you could simply make it so Exbows and Axbows don't drain if you are over your ENC, or scale the drain with the ENC number. Otherwise, I'll have to start saving up to get a huge Exbow to stick on my enchanter.



I think, Exbows and Axbows will still need to have the formula modified to make them fair, but some sort of fix is necessary.

Good Luck in your quest to have this changed.

NS just went to bed, but he's the dude that did the testing and found that another factor in ST drained is the trained ST of the minion using the bow... kinda fits in line with your scaling with encumbrance though ^_^

but for some reason, most axbows cry themselves to sleep at night.

Axbow is just a funny concept... think "Hmmm... I can't hit this guy when melee comes around... Maybe if I split my WA/Encumbrance into two weapons, and fire upon them when their bonus is at it's highest, I'll do better!"

funny concept or..
problem?

The problem mostly is the percent factor that the exbow takes away based on the X regardless of strength. The strength should have more say in how much is lost; this would single handedly balance the exbow and have the drain effected by Encumbrance. Unless it really makes sense to have everyone stick giant Exbows on their enchanters.

Convert the Axbow to skill-draining bow. It would make a lot more sense than it does now simply because for the time being Axbow is obsolete.

I think just the fact that this issue exists, show that the relative strength factors in Exbows doesn't have a huge change in the drain anyway.

"Convert the Axbow to skill-draining bow" Or perhaps a DD draining bow.

I can hear all the mages howl if this gets into play.

Just imagine an skill or DD draining axbow that drains 100% of a skill/spell in 1 hit for 1 damage. At x4000 with 1M strength. Regardless of the skill/spell of the minion being hit.

O, wait, we have that now with the exbow. And very few people seem to care. Perhaps your idea is a very good one.

Mages will be upset? The only skill mages bother training is evasion, which conveniently counters the axbow anyways.

what about a DD draining bow? Get it to +150 and 1 hit for 1 damage would take all the DD away. Analogous to a huge exbow taking all a tanks strength away in 1 hit.

strength can be boosted by weapon. take away DD and mages are dummies.

double post:
but taking away like 75% of DD capped would be good.

The Axbow is definitely useless in that it is useful versus what it can't hit.. what would be interesting is making the + on the Axbow much cheaper and scaling down the damage or something. That way the Axbow could hit, and decrease dex like it is supposed to.

As for the exbow, I think that making the relative strength of the target to the firer should effect the percent drain as well. For example let's say you have equal strength, then the drain is normal. If the exbow minion has double the strength, then you can get 200% of the drain etc. if the exbow minion has 8 times then strength then you get 800% of the drain. If the target has 8 times the strength then the drain is 12.5% of normal. Okay these numbers may not be perfect, but something that works along those lines should be sufficient. Then, when I rent a giant exbow, my 20 strength enchanter won't be able to drain at all.

Painkiller at 0 strength tanks seem to do damage at most on the order of 10,000 no more.

Also triple post for me, but I believe Ranger is proposing a DDbow only hypothetically to demonstrate the problems of the Exbow.

At least Game Cube understood my post.

*drops into a deep slumber.

At Present we have Axbows and Exbows as weapon equivalents of EC.

Maybe a new weapon equivalent of DM or AMF could be introduced to sort out the matter.

Since Axbows and Exbows affect Tanks, this could be balanced with negating weapons directly affecting enchanters and mages.

Of course enchanters are useless even before a battle starts but then who knows!

But I am still game for a weapon variant of the AMF

MsK

Also, the morgul hammer seems to be the "DM" because it can counter GA

We can have amulets that when you equip, any team you face will have no DD spells. Yeah what a great idea. Along with all the other DD draining things out there!!! At the end of the day if an item has been boosted considerably and is designed to hit tanks and make them useless then whats the problem? When someone with a large mageseeker bow writes my team off in 2 rounds I don't complain?

The Mageseeker can be countered. It does pitiful damage versus a decent AC and a ToE. The exbow has to do one damage. After x3333 there is no need to boost an exbow further. If someone wants to keep being able to kill your mage with a Mageseeker, they have to continue to boost the X.

Mageseeker targets mages. I haven't seen a decent mage with a decent AC :P. Exbows do pitiful damage against mages. If you don't want an exbow hurting you maybe evasion will help?

MsK just searches for mages. It doesn't reduce the DD of target to zero. Also MH doesn't work in ranged rounds.

I'm all for chaos.
*Burn enchanters, hang mages >:D

If you think you can put an Exbow on an enchanter and have it work because "encumbrance doesn't matter", then you have a gross misunderstanding of the game dynamics.

But we certainly know how well an exbow works on a tank with 1.5M trained strength and a x4000 weapon.

Imagine if there was a DD leeching xbow with the same characteristics. Leeches ALL DD spell with 1 hit for 1 damage. I would take that over the MSB any day of the week/month/year.

The comparison of the Mageseeker to the bow Ranger was describing is, at very best, silly.

Way to twist the thread into exactly what you want it to be, Ranger. Real smooth.

Actually forktoad diverted the thread. I just took that to the next logical step.

However, I feel sorry you cannot see the utter stupidity of an item doing 1 hit for 1 damage being able to leech 100% of any tanks strength. Regardless of the final strength/ENC of the minion shooting it.

Yes, I know your tank has 1.5M trained strength, however being immune to effects of EC with regards to drain, along with the ability to drain 8+M strength in 1 hit for 1 damage is beyond comprehension.

WIth regards to GCs initial post, I would love to see ENC play a factor in leech. At least until Jon can come up with a better method for determining actual drain. Rather than at x3333 you drain 100%.

BTW, accept your compliment. Thanks!

AX and EX are a reason to actually use dbs or evasion for tanks. The MsK turns familiars into paste (actually killing the minion, not just disabling it).

As painful as it is for those getting pummeled by the specialty bows I really do think it's a pretty fair balance. I would like to see the AX and EX require more hits and more str to drain the amount they do, but at this point it's a counter, and an effective one.

"If you think you can put an Exbow on an enchanter and have it work because "encumbrance doesn't matter", then you have a gross misunderstanding of the game dynamics."

What does enc do to an enchanter? Nothing.
What does a large Exbow need trained to hit any tank without DBs, nothing. I rented Blubben's once and stuck it on my enchanter, I had a ton of tank teams to add. The only reason I lost one person was the base decay that was Encumbered. Now tell me the draw back to adding this to everyone's strategy, besides the cost.

"Mageseeker targets mages. I haven't seen a decent mage with a decent AC :P. Exbows do pitiful damage against mages. If you don't want an exbow hurting you maybe evasion will help?"

I have a CoC Mage.

Nov,

I agree about the theory of exbows and axbows.

However, things have gotten to the point where 1 hit for 1 damage can suck 8+M strength from a tank.

I agree with your statement of more hits, more strength needed. I am no saying they need to be banned, just tweaked to me more realistic.

And GC,

You are correct, there are quite a lot of mages with over 200 AC/ToE combos.

MsB's are great for familiar killing but do poor damage vs moderate AC/TOE mages, especially when backed by a PL/TSA hp sink.

And the difference in the problem what I'm talking about as
compared to a Mageseeker, is that a Mageseeker cannot be useful
when it is simply stuck on an Enchanter. This is the problem I am
talking about. My 20 strength, 20 dex enchanter, should not be able
to completely disable all tanks without evasion with the addition of a
weapon.

Is it only me or is someone else getting a sense of deja vu....

It's NS vs Ranger again.
OR should we say mage supporters vs tank supporters

Anyways time to place your bets.
The odds are:-
NS wins- 10:1
Ranger wins-1:15
This thread expires- 0.00000001:1

*me totally sympathises with NS

GC, an enchanter cannot wield an Exbow and be competitive. Maybe some outlier tanks will be vulnerable, but the ENC will kill your PTH, preventing you from hitting tanks. The PTH curve of the cross bows is insane, making it very difficult to keep at a high PTH.

If you think it's so easy to use one and dominate, then do it. But I'd bet that you'd never be able to afford the PTH neccessary to overcome any tank with more than 81 DX.

I don't care how you argue it, there is clearly something off when one can stick a 30 mil networth item on their Enchanter, and automatically disable over 50% of the tank teams out there.

This is not tanks versus Mages; or the Mageseeker versus the Exbow. This is an item working to full effect with needing any strength or dex to support it. Show me a Mageseeker that I can put on my enchanter to kill all mages without evasion.

What PTH penalty?

I quote this from Jonathan's post: "If your equipped NW is over that number, you take a linear penalty to evasion, DX, ST, AC, and DD damage."

I already said from renting Blubben's Exbow it worked perfectly, if no one is going to fix this issue then sure I'll go ahead and add it to my strategy when I can afford it.

NS,

How does ENC lower your PTH?

I know ENC lowers dex/str/AC/evasion, but have never read or encountered a lowering of a weapons PTH.

Right now your tank vs me has 1 dex, so it has 0 dex chance to hit.

You also have a 1 strength, so I suspect you have some ENC issues, but you hit me 9 times in 6 rounds with your exbow.

Can someone clarify if ENC effects PTH?

"I don't care how you argue it, there is clearly something off when one can stick a 30 mil networth item on their Enchanter, and automatically disable over 50% of the tank teams out there."

These are not real numbers. Please don't be like so many others by making up exact statistics.

And for the record, a tank without any sort of dodging (DB, Eva, high DX, etc) is going to lose anyway due to many other game factors, not the least of which is the state of ranged combat in general.

We know the exbow drain is related to the PRE battle trained strength of the minion wearing it. And of course the x on the bow. It is not related to the strength of the minion being hit (% drain that is) or the final strength of the minion after items/spells.

NS has about 1.3M trained on his tank. I have no idea of the leech if the exbow was on his enchanter.

It would be very interesting to see if it does leech 8+M strength in 1 hit.

Perhaps NS can give us some info on that.

"Can someone clarify if ENC effects PTH?"

Well it certainly kills mine. At least, prior to the UC/ENC change, when my ENC was over 80%, I couldn't hit anyone. I lost my entire fightlist, and had to fight only people below 1m score. That includes tanks with DX.

Maybe it's a bug triggered only on offense.

"Perhaps NS can give us some info on that."

You treat me like a whipping boy, then ask me to help???

Considering that Encumberance is affected by HP and ST, none of which is an asset for an enchanter even if the enchanter belonged to a top team wouldn't it totally distort it's ability to strike even once in ranged rounds with an Exbow as big as that?

And as far as I remember NS is the only person who uses that Strategy so obviously it's not a major deal, right?

And if this strategy is really that feasible then why don't we have an avalanche of players trying this strategy out?

Makes no point raising a hue and cry over just one player....

NS,

You seem to have a poor opinion on the matter.

I am not treating you as the whipping boy. I am pointing out, or trying to point out, a major abuse that an item can bring into CB.

There are people trying to get their exbows up as high as the one NS has, however, NS is a USD spender who can upgrade his as much as needed.

Just like I did with the VB, which was then nerfed. Sometimes getting an item high enough shows how utterly abusive it can be.

So before others take the same approach and we have 5 such weapons, this needs to be fixed.

Well Ranger, considering your EC puts NS's tank into the negative strength and dex realm, it might as well be on an enchanter, yet it's still effective.

NightStrike, don't take this as an attack on you; I'm suggesting this because I don't want Exbows to become enchanter weapons. I don't really have a problem with the use of Exbows with a normal tank.

But EC has nothing to do with the exbow draining ability.

It is only based upon trained strength, not the modified amount from armors/spells.

Well I can't show any hard numbers considering I don't own a large Exbow and there isn't one in rentals, but when I did rent one it certainly brought strength below 0 after a few shots from Blubben's xbow, but I can only say this based on the damage. Random had been doing 200,000 damage or so to me. When I rented said exbow, IIRC by the third round of ranged or so the damage was below 10,000.

Hey!!! I think I got a solution to the so-called Exbow problem.
Call it reverse psychology or whatever but if you think then there is a flaw then start exploiting the flaw in masses. As the number of people exploiting this flaw increases the game dynamics will be severely affected and someone (read: Jon)will be forced to do something about it. Think of the RoBF/evasion effect.

Like they say, if you can't beat them, join them.
Or an even better saying: 'Throw a spanner in the works.'
Or maybe: 'If it's not broken, then break it and then fix it.'

Good luck with that.

For the record, I do believe exbows should probably be capped. But it's worth noticing that I have worked with one of the larger Exbows in the game, and have not found it as completely abuse-able at is might seem to be in theory.

I have equipped it on enchanters, and evasion tanks, and have not yet found utility in it. I tried targeting all those single archers using EBs, though that didn't help much. I still found myself missing with +100 PTH. Maybe my targets are flawed, but in the end, the true danger of exbows are at completely gigantic NW. And at that point, it's that much money wasted against mage teams.

Just my 2 cents.