Let's kick a dead horse...with PRAISE!! (in General)

Hey all,

I have been checking out who is able to beat me, and I see igot noname can now beat me regularly. Nice! Now, mind you, I haven't trained in a while... I have over 2 million experience on each minion. I was going to train it all into my Fireball and see if that helped, but I pretty much know it wouldn't. And any BS upgrades on my AGs or CoI are too expensive. So, I basically can't really leverage any more offense against igot without totally rejiggering my team (could become like Conundrum and probably muster out a win...)

In thinking about that, I checked out who CAN beat igot noname. For a team that is 22nd in the total PR category, igot sure appears to be sitting pretty: only five people hitting him (now THAT is a nice ratio!). The smallest team that can take igot down is (no surprise) a similar RoBF/AMF team (Proteus 4). Having the multiple minions probably gives him just enough edge, their PRs are very close (and Proteus's RoBF is bigger).

The next-smallest team that can beat igot regularly enough to actually do so has a total PR of 4.686 million -- about 30% bigger than igot. I guess that is what it takes? What about the rest of the 21 teams that are more powerful...? I guess they can't beat igot -- tanks and mages alike can't get any damage done to him, and have no foil for the damage the RoBF puts out.

For absolute certain, no ranged-mage can even touch him. It's absolutely useless.

And igot noname's RoBF isn't even the biggest out there... (the tattoo itself is barely in the top 30 as far as size.) That's what I call "right-sizing" as far as using equipment that is perfectly sized for the job at hand.

More than anything, this is a congratulations post! I have never seen someone with so few people who can beat his team when that team is not even in top 20 as far as total PR. Job well done, dudemus!

L.A.M.E





:P

do your FB's overwhelm his robf reduction? I would think you would easily have him since of concentrated damage? If you are facing serious reduction MM could work better. Perhaps even changing your familiar to ice could gain you the win. It only takes me 2 or 3 shots with my coc to take him down. Just some ideas.

the combination is certainly fantastic... RoBF + AMF >= everything magical

I was able to beat him with CoC, but just barely... all the while taking 1.7 mil a round in return from AMF.

Yeah RoBF so lame, I know, but still nice job :)

If Hal didn't get the huge DX cut it gets during melee, I would beat him. =(

*hint hint ;)

i did ask jon for a new stat to be added to the statistics page. mpr by minion would show us the largest minion in game. i would really like to know where the people who can beat me fall in relation to my minions mpr.

while i am only around 20 in top team mpr, it is all on one minion and i think i still have probably the largest minion in the game. for what it's worth.

I don't really think that has much to do with it. If i retrained to a robf strat I am pretty sure I would be untouchable. It simply provides a strat with every angle covered. The only weakness you have now is that you are a single minion and have damage concentration against you.

aye, but xp dilution is countered by xp concentration just as damage dilution is the counter to damage concentration. i have had a theory since the first cb that xp concentration will or should win out in the end. the robf is the perfect vehicle for that theory and i will see where it takes me.

What about making dex the stat to allow the RoBF to hit?

Max of two hits a round... but you don't have to train STR...

This would deal with the xp concentration issue

I think it should simply go back to retaliatory damage. There's no reason there should be a perfect weapon which gives up to complete damage reduction against DD and boosts weapon evasion all in one tattoo. That is just.too.much.

passive damage never worked well...

My FB doesn't do enough (apparently) because of the huge AMF and the decent-sized RoBF... My MM is pretty large on the familiar, and I got an AoF back on there for a 30% buff... Still no dice. Basically, I can't do 3 million HP worth of damage in 7 rounds, then my Fireball takes care of things against my own team...lol.

I know why I lose, and I deserve to... It is the other 21 more powerful people (minus the ones that do fight him) that made me sit up and take notice. I can't recall the last time I saw someone not even in the top 20 in total PR who only has 5 natural predators... That's some awesome stuff!

Rune of Balrog flame blender! That's the game I wanted to join!

As said before, make the CB2 RoBF become the CB1 CoBF (yes, it was a cloak). That is where it did retaliatory damage based on the +. In addition, all skills/EO/ED trained by the wearer was reduced down to 0.

dude you are totally right cb is a war of bigger stats, which lends itself to staying single minion and concentrating your exp. Think of all the successful teams out there. They initially stayed single minion for a long time to build a minion which had a lot of exp concentration. Usually this minion becomes the damage dealer. There really is no way around this unless more team and multi minion game dynamics are introduced.

That isn't worth using unless you could get it to +100 or something like that.

sorry for calling you dude. I just like how it sounds. Whenever i read your name I see dude :)

I've got a better idea... are you ready for this...

PANTS of Balrog Flame.... oh think of the possibilities.
Sorry, I just couldn't resist. Pants for everyone, PFTW!
I've always had mixed feelings about this RBF issue but one thing I am sure I do not like is it's offensive damage. No, not the smell, but it's ability to protect AND kill all rolled up into one. If all that's left is your wall and a non attacking minion wearing the RBF it should always end in a stalemate. If the RBF isn't getting attacked, it shouldn't deal damage.
Eveyone talks of the ToE being overpowered... I want my ToE to have a killing blow!!!!
But who am i. he he he

no worries at all, i have been called worse i can assure you, probably here in cb land even!

Simply make AMF and RoBF stack far less effectively. Say make the total magic reduction equal to either the RoBF or the AMF reduction, whichever is larger.

hehe, that wouldn't really be stacking at all then would it? : )

Nope, but it would mean no more "complete magical immunity" which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

Tattoo of Endurance was our damage reducing tattoo, but it's abilities pale in comparison to that of a tattoo which can reduce both magical and physical damage to 0.

This has all be done/stated before.

Nothing new.

If Jon did not fix the problem the RBF and xp concnetration (evasion) by now, odds are it never will be fixed.

Live with it or change to a RBF yourself.

I am fairly fed up with the RBF/evasion portion of CB.

Yeah! Me too... and the lack of PANTS. <grrrrrr>

Geez. I said I was going to not pay attention to these posts anymore, but I always can't help myself.

Ranger, unfortunately, anything posted by you, or myself or any other archer or melee tank, will be met with, what else do we have to combat your massive nw with? The only thing we can hope for, which is happening now, is that the massive xp concentration is soon about to beat both tanks and dd people and then the people will start to complain. Because it's starting to happen now, the evasion is high enough that tanks can't hit, so the person has enough xp to put massive amf and soon won't be beaten by those people either.

So I go back to just sitting back and beating on who I can and enjoy waiting for changemonth to see what happens this time around.

Me too I hate evasion and the robf! it sucks, but so does getting shot up by a single archer 500k mpr lower then you, but hey that is cb!

"If Jon did not fix the problem the RBF and xp concnetration (evasion) by now, odds are it never will be fixed.

Live with it or change to a RBF yourself.

I am fairly fed up with the RBF/evasion portion of CB."

Big fat LoL.

When this post is about AMF + RoBF DD reduction...

I can't see how anyone can think that the direct reduction to DD from a RoBF, going at the end of the damage redution routine is anything bar massivley silly.

That's the problem with RoBF versus DD.

Now I suppose we'll go back to the RBF + Evasion Rant (where the RBF really offer *nothing* to Evasion any more, and I hope i'm showing you can do a signle AoF evasion Minion quite well without a RBF....)

Actually GL you are proving the point that the RoBF allows people to be more concentrated and therefore go higher than you are. I can hit you in round 2. There are people that were at your mpr 1.2 mil that I couldn't hit till round 4 that had the RoBF, and actually some that were around 1.2 mil to 1.5 mil that I couldn't hit at all. So yeah, no matter how anyone tries to cut it, teh RoBF allows people to concentrate so much that it gets overboard, but yeah, for people that just thought that tanks were complaining to complain, now we can say,, well darn.. it's just doing what it was meant to do in stopping that dd. Oh and by the way I don't agree that it should do that much or allow someone to concentrate that much xp into amf and stop all dd either, but it's funny that dd people are complaining about it when it hurts them and not complain when the exact same thing happened to allow them to concentrate and stop every tank in the game. Only crazy thing is now a person is close to stopping everything. Oh well, if you weren't complaining before you shouldn't complain about it now because as you said to all tanks, it's not the RoBF that is doing everything. So just deal with the fact that now they can concentrate so much xp into AMF and kill DD users also. :)

OH and this isn't a personal attack on you GL, but just a broad statement about how now people are starting to understand what tanks have been complaining about for months.

Sometimes we understand, but realize that not only is complaining not going to do anything about it, but it gets sooooo annoying to see it in the forums. :P

And yeah, I made my own share of posts on the topic both as I ran a mage and a tank over the past couple of months.

Really, all we can do is wait, 'cuz there's no way Jon doesn't know what's up. :) and even if more complaining will change things, I don't wanna be involved in it.

"What about making dex the stat to allow the RoBF to hit? "

Yes! Yes! Yes! That would solve the problem.

Or maybe equipping a RoBF allows you to train the damage portion of it. The damage would go up much faster than regular FBs or MMs, but you would have to put XP into it. The level of the RoBF would also somehow be slightly factored into the damage.

That is an interesting idea, but it would make RoBF actually more powerful than it is now. Maybe a bit more balanced but more powerful at the same time.

"What about making dex the stat to allow the RoBF to hit? "

Yes! Yes! Yes! That would solve the problem.


So would DBs affect that? I'm thinking what you're trying to accomplish here is to weaken the RoBF even more....especially considering the amount of defensive DX Evasion provides.


I think RoBF would be much better if

1) only retaliatory damage, so it is less of a stand-alone damage dealer

or

2) allow AMF or GA or something to hit it, so you can't play the "guard the RoBF and it can hit all 30 rounds with no retaliation hindrance" game.

dex would be bad in my opinion because it would give ec which is already quite poweful, even more power.

if xp dilution is the goal, then i would say make it damage the wearer or his team as well as the opponent. that way hp would be necessary. if you dish out 5 m in damage to your opponent/team, then your robf minion better have that much to back it up.

on the lighter side, if this is your praise sut, i hope to never encounter your wrath! : )

"So would DBs affect that?"

No. I wrote about this idea before.

Make the RoBF CTH based solely on offensive DX versus defensive DX. PTH modifiers would not affect the CTH. Since the RoBF doesn't do anything until melee rounds anyways, Evasion multipliers can be disregarded.

This would mean that RoBF users would at least have to incorporate a little bit of offensive thinking into their strategies. That would be a good thing imop.

"dex would be bad in my opinion because it would give ec which is already quite poweful, even more power."

You would need to train more than twice as much XP into EC than the RoBF user would need to train into DX in order to reduce the RoBF CTH bellow 50%. EC too powerful.... please!

When I said

"especially considering the amount of defensive DX Evasion provides. "

I was not talking about ranged multipliers.

I was talking about all elven gears plus a potential ~45% boost from an AoF. Trust me, the way things are now, the RoBF wouldn't stand a chance against a decent Evasion minion. :P

"I was talking about all elven gears plus a potential ~45% boost from an AoF. Trust me, the way things are now, the RoBF wouldn't stand a chance against a decent Evasion minion. :P"

That is because current RoBF minions do not train any DD or weild any weapons. Why? Because they barely need to have any NW, or originality for that mater, to be effective.

RoBF users would simply need to use something OTHER than the RoBF to deal damage. Right now EVERY other strat needs to find a way to keep dealing damage while managing the consequences of either dealing low damage or receiving massive backlash from bigger more damage.

What does the RoBF user need to worry about? ... NW? No... backlash damage? No... XP dilution? No...

The only thing the RoBF user has to worry about is making his/her strategy too complicated and becoming vulnerable to at least one type of strategy instead of being un-beatable against anyone with a PR that is not massively bigger than the RoBF character's.

Here is an idea. If you want to make the RoBF get penalized, then have it do its own retaliation. Have it deal say 10-15% of the base damage it would deal also to itself. It stops other damage sources but kills the user itself.

So if the RoBF was gonna deal 400k damage, then it also deals 40k-60k to itself.

The problem is, that change will only help magic teams that are on the verge of drawing/beating RoBF/evasion teams. Other magic teams and the same tank teams will still lose soundly.

Yep, you cant fix the RoBF without completely breaking it. Thats because the RoBF isn't the problem though.

technically it isn't the problem. But it is causing it. and changing the RoBF is more likely than a change of AMF

au contraire, RoBF by design creates the problem.

Assuming we're sticking with the initial topic about how RoBF's magical powers.

Sorry, I don't feel like going into HTML mode, so I'm going to point out in this space that the HF needs a buff. :P

Here is your buff to HF, make his archery skill actually work in melee. That way he only gets a 60% penalty to dex instead of that combined with the 80% penalty to cth.

But he still gets a 60% cut to DX in melee, and thus is only at normal strength for 6/30 rounds, while all other familiars have the ability to work at normal strength for 30/30 rounds.

I demand that my familiar be buffed from 20% strength to 100%!

Besides, if he had the option to switch to a melee weapon once melee hit, I'd totally do it. But he doesn't - by design - and I don't think he should be penalized for that.


Oh yeah, and to stay on topic, blah blah RoBF blah blah Evasion blah blah magic blah blah overpowered.

Sox, my Evasion is equal to my AMF.

I could quite easily dump the 1.8M AMF, and stick it all into Evasion. I culd dro my 1M HP and stick some of that into Evasion, and you *wouldn't* hit me.

/shrug

EBs, actually EGs provide more of a boost to Evasion than the RBF does...

Not quite true GL... Sox still hits my 239 evasion once or twice each fight.... and I have over 7.4 mil defensive dex in ranged against him ^_^

Maybe this helps to avoid RoBF abuse ?
Rune of Balrog Flame
Negative (ie)10% to Skills.
Negative (ie)10% to Enchant Offense Spells (EO) cast by the wearer.
Penalties to skills and EO are calculated after the armor bonuses.

The RBF *isn't* the quick fix to single minion XP concentration or Evasion problems....

You can run a single minion with a large Evasion and AMF without using a RBF. Nerf the RBF and these types of minion will still exist.

But, the RBF DD damage reduciton is silly. Especially combined with AMF...

If the DD reduciton must stay as it is, then change the RBF to something like;

Sets all EO's on the entire team (to stop you moving the AMF to another minion...) to zero.

Or we could just change the way it reduces DD damage...

"Simply make AMF and RoBF stack far less effectively. Say make the total magic reduction equal to either the RoBF or the AMF reduction, whichever is larger."
Anything wrong with this plan?

Doesn't nerf the direct reduction of the RBF enough for my tastes! :P

Few suggestions that do not destroy RoBF, yet solve dilution problem.

1) Make RoBF's damage retaliable from GA

2) Make RoBF's damage a compounded damage on top of whatever it can ditch out. Let's say it does 500k damage with FB, RoBF damage adds on top of that. Only 1 hit per round per target. But if RoBF doesn't have a skill to damage others like now, they can't do anything but stale.

3) Some how change defensive dex formula so that concentration into evasion alone doesn't negates tank's dex totally. I don't know how to, but I guess people can think of one later.

1) Make RoBF's damage retaliable from GA
Nobody would ever use an RoBF, ever again. It's FAR too easy to bring GA to a level which deals back the maximum amount of backlash, making it a liability. MAYBE it would work if the RoBF worked with VA.

2) Make RoBF's damage a compounded damage on top of whatever it can ditch out. Let's say it does 500k damage with FB, RoBF damage adds on top of that. Only 1 hit per round per target. But if RoBF doesn't have a skill to damage others like now, they can't do anything but stale.
Interesting idea. How would this work for multihits? How would you adjust for the loss of the ability to hit two targets in one round?

3) Some how change defensive dex formula so that concentration into evasion alone doesn't negates tank's dex totally. I don't know how to, but I guess people can think of one later.
Then people would start complaining that they can't make tanks miss completely with evasion.

actually for (2) I meant to say it targets only 1 target at a time like now. But only able to damage people if they themselves are doing any damage on others.

And it's not like a base FB or something, there should be link between tattoo level and minimum damage number that will trigger ROBF damage.

""Simply make AMF and RoBF stack far less effectively. Say make the total magic reduction equal to either the RoBF or the AMF reduction, whichever is larger."
Anything wrong with this plan?"

i have often said that with the concentration the robf allows, it really shouldn't add at all to evasion or amf. however, the more that i think about it, the more i come to the conclusion that any such adjustment will merely postpone us getting back to the same place, it will just take a bit longer.

i think adding caps to the game is as inevitable as capping usd influence was. what is frustrating to most in my opinion is any investment being completely nullified by counters. take away that capability and the robf would still be useful but not the absolute that it is now.

I don't think we needs caps. I see other forces at work here. The RoBF is allowing (and would over time even if things were changed -- that's a good point, dude) two thresholdy things are more able to go into effect:

-- Evasion, you can train more. And it's on or its off. Tanks whiff. RoBF always hits.
-- DD reduction: Thresholdy, not a percentage. Especially with the weakened ranged damage and other things that can reduce DD (namely, AMF), this is very powerful. My Fireball often does no damage in the first four rounds of ranged, and even my large SF, jacked up 50% or so due to AoL, AoF, and AGs, is lucky to land a 400K missile in the first four rounds. That's damn fine reduction!

Do away with the stepwise nature of these damage reductions, and we might have ourselves a more interesting game. I'm still not thinking I would beat igot, but I am extremely ill-suited to do so. *smile*

I don't think anyone ever envisioned a single minion that could jack up stats enough to take on both tanks and mages. Evasion and the flat DD reduction the RoBF offers makes both possible. That's the issue as I see it. We never thought a single minion could get large enough because there was never anything the single minion could train enough to nullify everyone else equally.

The Evasion problem isn't unique to the RoBF, though, as folks have already pointed out. The flat DD reduction, however, is.

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to whatever day Jonathan woke up and thought, "Step-wise functions and thresholds are awesome! I am going to use them and stack them and totally changed the face of CB forever!" I'd say, "Shhhh, Jonathan....this is a dream, go back to sleep, there there. And remember, step-wise game mechanics make baby Jesus cry. Shhhhhh." I would then sing Jonathan a sweet lullaby of forgetfulness.

That last part made me laugh out right in the air even though I'm in the school library. =D

"Hush little Jon Jon, don't change a thing.
Or Sutekh T. Destroyer will make you swing.
Forget about these layers, and go back to bed.
Do us all a favor, and just rest your head.
Don't throw the are bee eff out of whack
And add so much encumbrance that tanks hurt their backs
Jon boy, oh Jon boy, please hear my plea
Layers and threshholds are too much for me.
Relax like a farmer, after a hard day's yield
Because tomorrow, we nerf the Mage Shield"

The "baby Jesus cry" line can get just about anyone, anywhere... I steal that line whenever I can! *smile*

now that is funny! go hatch.

getting back to the business at hand, whether it be done by caps or by changing the layer and threshold dynamics really matters little to me. the result should be the same though, it shouldn't be possible to reduce anything to zero and it shouldn't be possible to block 100 percent of something either.

what i find quite odd, is that many things in cb2 are linear whereas in cb1 we had curves yet growth experience seems more steady in cb2. they dynamics between the two versions seem switched in my mind. it should be easy to grow xp along with curves or difficult to gain xp along with linear progression if that makes any sense.

Hahaha.

One suggestion I thought of:
Change the order of damage reduction layering.
Someone mentioned in this thread that the threshhold straight reduction to DD spell damage is applied after everything else. This allows something to be reduced to 30% of the spell level, and then from that to 0, rather than being reduced by 500k, and then from that to 30% of the remainder (i.e. not 0).
In other words, say a big FB is going to do 3 mil damage. Currently, other armors could reduce this damage by, say, 70%, lowering damage to 900k. This 900k damage could then be covered by the direct reduction of a large RoBF (it would have to be about 6.7 mil lvls to cover that much damage, but I'm kinda throwing out random numbers here) and reduced to 0. If we were to change the order, though, the 3 mil would first be reduced by 900k down to 2.1 mil, and then 70% would be slashed off of that, allowing 630k damage to still be dealt by the attacker. To me, this seems more reasonable.

Right?

Right. ;)

custard probably has the most decent suggestion. Thanks

"i have often said that with the concentration the robf allows, it really shouldn't add at all to evasion or amf. however, the more that i think about it, the more i come to the conclusion that any such adjustment will merely postpone us getting back to the same place, it will just take a bit longer."
A 10M RoBF blocks 1.33M damage. All that you need to break through that on average is a 2.7M FB. If you can't raise a 2.7M FB by the time you're up against 10M tats, then the RoBF should be the last of your concerns.

"A 10M RoBF blocks 1.33M damage. All that you need to break through that on average is a 2.7M FB. If you can't raise a 2.7M FB by the time you're up against 10M tats, then the RoBF should be the last of your concerns."

That would be all well and good, however, AMF reduces the damage done, which then gets subject to the RBF.

Add in a bit of AC and protection and it will take a lot more then a 2.7M FB to break through a 10M RBF.

Just look at the example Sut gives in the first post. A 5+M FB vs a 3.5M RBF backed by a huge AMF and 136 AC. Almost 0 damage. Certainly not enough to do 3M damage over 6-10 rounds.

In context:

I was responding to

"i have often said that with the concentration the robf allows, it really shouldn't add at all to evasion or amf. however, the more that i think about it, the more i come to the conclusion that any such adjustment will merely postpone us getting back to the same place, it will just take a bit longer."

which was responding to

"Simply make AMF and RoBF stack far less effectively. Say make the total magic reduction equal to either the RoBF or the AMF reduction, whichever is larger."
Anything wrong with this plan?"

i disagree with your fix js because it only addresses the current symptoms of the actual issue at hand.

i guess it can all be summed up as sut is absolutely correct! i still do not think it matters if the problem is handled by caps...easier to code as it is not a rework of the entire game system or if it is solved through removing the layers and thresholds. i just think the caps are more likely to be implemented and done quickly.

whatever is done though it does need to be done across the board. on the other hand though, the game has always been billed as rock/paper/scissors. the current game dynamic is exactly that! with that in mind i am just not sure what will happen to resolve any of this if anything at all. it would be nice to get word from the creator as far as "working as intended" or "gathering more data."

Or better yet.

Make the RBF reduction act like a TOE. Reduces up to 75% up to a cap. Which can be 20% of its level.

So a 5M RBF will reduce magical damage by 75% up to 1M. A FB of 1M will still do 250k damage of the first million and then 100% of anything over that.

I assume, of course, that the max reduction will be increased to compensate.

"Or better yet.

Make the RBF reduction act like a TOE. Reduces up to 75% up to a cap. Which can be 20% of its level.

So a 5M RBF will reduce magical damage by 75% up to 1M. A FB of 1M will still do 250k damage of the first million and then 100% of anything over that. "

even that would be too much at some point considering that i am really only putting xp into evasion and amf. what about when i have 100m xp into amf then, or 150m? i would just prefer a permanent solution to all of the issues rather than stopgap measures against the symptoms.

Your opponents should have 100M or 150M in thier own DD then. ;)

I agree with GL,

I do not believe that with more evasion and AMF you can get to a point where your RBF will take away all damage. Especially if the RBF do not make it possible for one to have 100% MR protection.

I'd just like to state again I'm using a different Tattoo to get 100% MPR Protection.

This is a problem that eclipses the tattoo used. If we don't see past the RBF, we'll never get a complete solution.

"Your opponents should have 100M or 150M in thier own DD then. ;) "

only if my opponent is another single minion though right? if i as a single minion put 100 percent xp into amf and my opponent on a multi minion team does the same for one member of the tream, it will either be 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 of my xp growth, no?

Very true,

However, you need 100x your opponents DD level to get 1.0 effect.

Add in the NSC factor and there is a diminishing point of return by pumping up AMF.

Even at a 3 AMF to 1 DD ratio, you will probably never hit .50 vs the top DD teams.

"only if my opponent is another single minion though right?"

Yes. Multi minion teams bring their own benefits. ;)

"if i as a single minion put 100 percent xp into amf and my opponent on a multi minion team does the same for one member of the tream, it will either be 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 of my xp growth, no?"

Correct.

And I see *no* problem with that.

Compare your single minion with 100% AMF (and therefore 20 HP) facing a two minion team with 50% HP, 50% DD, PL and a TSA. With Tattoo of choice. Maybe a Hal/JFK to take advantage of your lack of Evaison.

;)

dude lands a 0.56 on my main mage, I believe. I ain't gonna waste a BA on losing to igot right now.

And Joe (my mage) ain't exactly small.

Do folks believe me yet on how worthless FB is at high levels?

-- Lays down pathetic smack against multi minion teams. All of the threshold-based things (god there are too many to name! Already have carpal tunnel from typing if over the months (years?)!) take their toll on FB to make it worse than nothing (because of AMF backlash).
-- When it finally kicks in, it roasts one's own team. Strongly. No damage reduction there!
-- GA backlash hurts too. I don't personally have to worry about that, but I am sure some other FB folks do (though DM is pretty popular with FB mages).

"Hey! Sutekh! IDIOT! Train something else then!"

Sure, I might. Here's why I haven't yet: MM is just as worthless. That shouldn't be a newsflash, I've been saying it...well, in Internet terms of time I have been saying it forever. It's all dead. Ranged DD is dead at high levels except for two scenarios:

-- Be a DE-baby and use AS to keep a familiar alive that fires an MM beyond Thunderdome. (mmmmm, my lunch!) Or, keep a team alive to shoot CoC (oops, not ranged, and still my lunch!)
-- Switch to CoC (oops, that isn't ranged, like I said above).

Hm, maybe I am wrong. Maybe there are NO viable ranged DD solutions at the high end.

Blatant segue there...CoC. Jonathan, for the love of Pete, give higher-end stuff something else to do other than become Conundrum. Even he says its a bore. Please. We need help. I haven't trained in over a month, and my fight list hasn't changed because there is nothing I _can_ change (other than EVERYTHING, other than just copying an existing strategy) to facilitate a change. Is there really a point in me becoming Conundrum? Would that help prove what I am saying here? ('cause I'll do it if that's the case.)

And, ah, the AoF -- the AoF makes the support it adds directly accentuate the AMF as well. dude lands a 0.53 on my SF. That's why the poor doofus only gets a few shots off before killing himself.

Being able to kill a familiar -- that's something only AMF can do (prematurely), and it does it well.

You are a 4-minion team, sutekh, your FB increases at a rate no longer worthwhile in comparison to other teams. Ditto to MM. Experience dilution absolutely owns diluted damage dealers.

Granted, archers and other tanks are diluted on 4 minion teams too. But they have the ToA, EC, Haste, GS, and a wide assortment of DX and STR boosting gears to put them back in the fight.

Mages have the CoI, the AG, the NSC.

Imagine if your entire team were in 2 minions, your FB mage, a MM mage with Junction or AS caster with Junction, and your SF. That'd put out enough ranged damage, I'd bet, to do Mr. Dudemus in.

Problem is - and I'm relating this to GL's thread - diluted tanks can be buffed.
No such love for Mages.

There is no ToA for mages, which boosts DD by 25% of its level.
The TSA is great HP regen, yes, but it doesn't give a bonus to damage or encumbrance. I could go on.


You're simply in the unfortunate circumstance of magedom. Until Jon loves mages too, enough to allow diluted minions their own buff up to competition, you're just screwed.

More thresholds, OB.

If I were a four-minion _damage_ _reduction_ team, then I would be sitting pretty. Multi-minions get defense, you see. It's not just that I am a mage, it's that I insist on trying to be a quick-kill, four-minion mage team. Believe me, my mage is bigger than most! I ran him up to 1.6 million MPR before buying more minions. So, he ain't small. Igot, he ain't, but he isn't average either.

Your point is sound, though. I just happen to be seeing stepwise these days. Mainly because that's just about all there is to see.

Exactly - you are an offensive mage. Unfortunately, your offense is limited solely to the MPR contained on each minion. So as your other minions grow, they cannot help your 1.6M MPR FB mage increase its offensive capabilities, aside from knocking out EDs. You are effectively limited because that minion's damage is increased only by MPR alone - but the rest of your MPR is useless towards that minion's damage.

So your FB mage can only shrink in proportion to the rest of the team, whereas other teams - like my Hal team, like any tank team - can use the rest of their MPR to help out their damage dealer. My Hal effectively gets nearly 8M DX because I've got half my team helping to buff him. The FB mage is on his own.

A tank could equip a ToA if his offense began to lack. As I've brought up in old threads, where is the mage counterpart? They have full sets of armor - TSA, HoE, BoM, TG, EB, EG, EC, AoM - all designed to buff their offense. Mages only get a cloak, 2 conflicting pairs of gloves, and a shield. Whoops, that's right, it's only NAMED the mage shield, it actually helps ruin the diluted mage's offense more!

Additionally, since your mage's spell increases in effectiveness by increasing in level, simply adding more mages doesn't make your team more effective. I'll ask this question one more time in this thread, since it still makes no sense to me: If a mage's entire offensive capability comes from his MPR, why is it that it is so difficult for him to make effective usage of all of it, whereas a tank - who uses a combination of MPR and NW - much more easily makes effective usage of his and actually finds that he has OPTIONS as to how to buff his own offensive capabilities?

Bleh. Sorry for the rant, but that's one thing that bothered me as a mage (during the times I have run mages) - I felt EXTREMELY limited. Only single minion and dual minion teams really developed acceptable offensive power. More than that, and dilution took a heavy toll - and defensive teams die to AMF. Granted, if you grow a strong undiluted minion first it will do quite well for a while, but eventually as its individual MPR grows in relation to the team's overall MPR and that of its competitors, it will realize the dilution problem just like any 4-minion team grown from the start. After all, sutekh, had you grown your team as 4 minions from the beginning your FB mage would be effectively 800k MPR...!! No way to buff that, either.

And now I find that my rant hasn't stopped YET, so I am prying up all my keys except the enter key so I can go ahead and submit this post.

wait till you see what im going to do =x

*grins*

I agree with you, OB, and have asked for enchantments to augment DD specifically in the past. No joy yet, and I don't expect any.

My point about the thresholds still being part of the problem in what you are saying is that concentration is only rewarded because of these threshold-based game mechanics. If there weren't things like the MgS, RoBF, PL, TSA, and ToE (all new items in CB2) that supply step-wise characteristics to gameplay, I _could_ have three mages, and have them all be effective. Yes, AMF would still make that a bad idea, probably, but the new stuff in CB2 (all layered, most stepwise in nature) has made dilution = death.

THAT is the problem as I see it. Because you are 100% correct -- without concentration in CB, you are dead in the water as far as offense goes. And mages have no way to concentrate offensive power on one minion. Defense, on the other hand, is much simpler with multiple minions.

That's why fighting is going to get more and more boring as time goes on. Just big damage-reduction builds duking it out, hoping for a conclusion before stalemate. Right now, large bows and SoDs are the only thing keeping battles out of melee, because targets for ranged DD are getting harder to find.