More damage-related changes (in Changelog)

• Reduced DD and physical damage another 5%. (That's 5% of the old value, not 5% of 90%.)
• TSA regen down to 4% per round (was 5%)
• Increased RBF physical damage by 30%; changed magic resistance to be percentage-based (the largest tattoo in the game would reduce magic by about 25% as a RBF; getting to 15% or 20% is relatively common but it gets pretty hard to go up past that. to get to 30% would require being 6x larger than the biggest.)
• Reduced AC effectiveness by 20%; will update exact formula in the wiki.
• Added "Steel Skin" skill; at a level of 1/5 your HP, it will boost AC effectiveness by 25% (that is, back to the old AC effectiveness, since 1.25 * 0.8 = 1)
• Bloodlust effectiveness is doubled for the first hit [first hit, not first attack, so if you miss but later hit that hit will still be doubled]\
• Max BL upped to 0.75 (was 0.6)
• ToE effect reduced another 10%
• Explosive shot explosions reduced 25%
• Not damage-related but I snuck it in: ELS no longer forgeable

Update: folded in the changes I'd originally added as replies

"Bloodlust effectiveness is doubled for the first hit [first hit, not first attack, so if you miss but later hit that hit will still be doubled] "

Does that affect the way the new shield works? Would the stored shield damage be doubled on that first hit if the user has bloodlust trained?

yes, it stacks with the SoC

Jon,

Is the BL first hit per round or first hit in entire combat?

hank reminded me to remove forgeability from ELB too. done.

Per Jon in chat it is the latter,

only the first hit in entire combat.

All elven gear can no longer be forged, CB is gonna hate me for that. lol

Great, Henk isn't even a multi and now we have to BURN HIM!
I'll miss you Henk.

I think the RoBF protection against other Robfs is busted, im no longer seeing my damage being reduced by other robfs

Ouch, so you take away protection and give us Steel Skin as a SKILL.
So as of now I still can't make up for my loss of protection. :(

Is the TOE reduced another 10% over the 10% it was reduced last time?

Jon, wouldn't the XP going into steelskin be just as useful going into HP ? HP is 100% effective against magic for example, whereas that 25% boost to AC, well, I'd need a calculator (or Ranger) to figure it out, but I'd think it'd be close. Might as well train HP, no ?

Also,

The top AC armors have a dex penalty so you need more xp into Steelskin then normal.

steel skin is a SKILL. so AC + other wall armor REDUCES it, so there is no way to get high armor class anymore without losing A LOT of HP?

Sut must be doing a jig right about now.

Blue, use AS as SS only is based on learned HP.

j'bob, hate to burst your bubble, but steelskin isn't a boost so much as it is a skill that can allow walls to get back the AC they lost with the earlier change :P

Right Hatch, I get it. Here's the funny. My frontman (the medium wall with high hp) was the one with protection trained. And it did help.
So now, my medium ac is even little-er and I'm lacking in the protection that ... protection brought. So even if i could invest in SS (i can't, i've got PL trained on him, and I think that was my point) I still lost the protection protection and for all that invested XP would only get back to my pre-today AC.
Sigh... i'm very confusing this morning and I apologize for that, but at least I understand me.

but the Month is still young... sort of...

Steel Skin makes no sense... AC in general comes with it a skill penalty. So you have to take XP out of HP to spend it in a skill to use armor that will reduce the skill.... and further, that XP move also reduces ENC, since ENC from HP is 1:1.

For this change to make any sense at all, The DX-Skill penalty link should be removed. Otherwise, what in the world is the point of using ANY AC?

"Reduced RBF's magic resistance by 10%, and its physical damage about 6%."

From the RBF thread.

So was it's original damage (10% of Level wasn't it?) reduced by 6%, then increased by 30%?

Or has the 6% reduction been removed?

If it was 10% of level originally, does the RBF now do 13% of Level as damage? Or 12.22%? :/

so TOE gets 20% reduction on effect in total?

I think I got the numbers (over-simplified). For armor set with no skill penalty, ignoring the base reduction (only factor in the % reduction since base reduction is under 1k damage), ignoring other form of reduction (focusing on AC only), and constant damage, 299 AC is the break-even point where it doesn't matter you train 100% HP or 83% (5/6) HP and 17% SS. For full wall armor set (18% penalty), 329 AC is the break even point. Your HP level and damage per round doesn't matter (as long as the damage is fixed).

using the "old" AC effectiveness as 0.167%, and multiply by 80% to get the new AC effectiveness.

Did the max effect for bloodlust also increase? Mine is currently .61, but I was under the impression the max was .60

"For this change to make any sense at all, The DX-Skill penalty link should be removed. Otherwise, what in the world is the point of using ANY AC? "

Heavy minion nerf.

Looks to me like a huge chunk of the changes at the moment are to peel away those defensive layers. Yes, Ranger's right, Sut probably will do a little dance at these changes..

Thanks Bluewolf. I knew there'd be a point somewhere that it made sense, it's just sad to see it so far up there.

> Or has the 6% reduction been removed?

yes

So, all these changes this month: indirect EC/AMF boost?

Why am I doing a jig? Well, did get to add igot noname back to my list... Battles that were 8.6 rounds a(his average, beating me before) are now 4-5 rounds with me the victor.

BIG RoBF nerf.

I also have Iconics back on my list, but that might have been something I could have had back for a while (I _barely_ eke out a win).

An offensive boost, definitely, even with more of a damage nerf... No one else on my fight list added, though. Big AMF and ToE/PL/TSA are still pretty effective (ala Lega and Failure).

JW, how is it an EC/AMF buff? The AMF ratio landed on me will be the same -- that ie level vs. level. Since everything hits softer, that means my backlash hits softer too. Same would be for EC, too, no?

Sut,

I never said you did not deserve to dance once in a while.

Myself, I only dance when very drunk.

Hmm...yeah, you're right. It's Friday afternoon in a hot office. I'm only thinking about cold beer right now.

So,

The adam is not less useful as is the MS, HOD, CML.

The VB took a huge hit with less AC and less TOE effectiveness.

Overall a strange change.

And at last the RBF does not have a 100% chance to stop magic, which is worth all the other changes at least.

Wow, so many changes... Need a while to digest all these before my next NCB plans...

Oh so true about the RBF DD reduction change! ;)

I just don't get Steel Skin. Why not just make Endurance a skill, like the Jigs get.

Bloodlust 422,100 315,000 0.63 0.47

So BL got changed back to 1.00 for full effect? And does it still carry the damage increase with each .01 you gain?

I forgot that more HP = more ENC compared to SS (a skill) so there's another bonus for training HP.

As in the other post by Bluewolf,

This is a good thing for AS dependent characters, especially ROS users.

As almost all ROS users use AS for HP.

> I forgot that more HP = more ENC compared to SS (a skill) so there's another bonus for training HP.

I'm fallible, I forgot that too.

Guess I'll have to do an SS buff soon.

Wow, thanks for pointing out yet another VB nerf Ranger. I hadn't even thought of that. So the break-even point where a VB is good is going to be an even higher AC WITH the SS skill and ToE still plays some part but not much.
Maybe the MoD properties should have been rolled together with the VB.

>Guess I'll have to do an SS buff soon. Sweet! Titanium Skin?!?! TiS

Don't worry Jon, it's everyone tossing stuff back and forth that's making us realise these things. We can't blame you for not always being more insightful than 50 minds working together.
Besides, this is the biggest changemonth I think I've ever seen which always means a lot of stuff to balance.

While we're phasing out flat reductions, can the NSCs be adjusted to a percentage drop in AMF as well?

NSC nerf? I'm surprised NSC didn't get a buff and defend against MgS. Maybe a trade off? A little weakening against AMF in exchange for ability to reduce an opponent's MgS?

I figured that since everybody was complaining about how the RoBF was capable of reducing magic damage to 0, I'd do the same about how NSCs can reduce AMF to 0.

Ranger, I didn't mean to sound like I was rebutting you when I asked why I would dance... I was assuming I was missing something even more beneficial, since the RoBF nerfage is really the only thing that affects me (I believe Iconics will have to drop off my list once NS tweaks related to these changes).

I weigh pros/cons (on a personal level) almost solely on the basis of fightlist changes. So, this is a +1 Changemonth after about 9-12 months of losing 1-2 people every quarter or so...

I seem to have a hard time having anyone think my questions/comments are sincere. :/

Did anyone ever find out if the RBF Physical Damage was absorbed by a SoC? :/

Sut,

You have been advocating less damage reduction and less layers.

Both have occurred this month in droves.

First protection was banished. yes, I know it did not effect you with your DM, but it was a layer.

The MgS was nerfed by 10%, the TOE by 20% and AC by 20%. All things that help you as you do not use any. Well maybe a bit of AC but not a wall minion.

The RBF was changed from a chance to cause 0 damage to a % reduction. The TSA regeneration was lowered.

Is this not a great changemonth for you?

And JS is right.

Can we get the NSC to change from a straight % reduction in AMF to a decrease in the % AMF cast?

IE if you cast at .50 and someone has +15 NSC, right now your AMF would only cast at .35.

I would like to see it that if you cast at .5 and you have +15 NSC you get 15% x .5 = .075 benefit which makes your AMF cast at .425.

With an over 5M AMF, I cast for less then .25 vs some CoC's which are not that much higher.

Wow Ranger. I feel like you wouldn't be happy unless you find a way to completely negate all damage from anyone in the game.

Just repaying all those who bitched about the MgS back in kind.

Seems they got their wish but moaning about it.

A huge part of my strategy was just nerfed in this changelog.

Sure, but let's not forget damage overall was also reduced 15%...so, some of those changes are just equal... And things like PL and GA now do not need to be trained as high to be as effective as before (though TSA got an accompanying change, which is nice).

Until this change, nothing changed on my fightlist. But yes, this one is nice, and takes care of some layering. The same people I lose to because of ToE/PL/TSA, however, I still lose to. The RoBF change and AC changes got me one person each. (that's also with equipping three new Spellboosters for my familiar and two enchanters...)

Like I said above, this has been a good month for me in terms of adding 1 or 2 people to my list, while the last 9-12 months had resulted in removing 4-5 folks just on a "not able to keep pace" basis (pace of strategy, not of BA usage). Though, that's mostly because my strategy is topped out against a lot of the top folks while being more effective against others.

In summary, there's a smile on my face, but I'm far from dancing... *smile*

How is your fightlist, Ranger? (genuine, sincere question). Like I said, I gained one person... How many did you lose/gain?

My strategy was also nerfed by a large part... I lost my Protection and a large amount of my AC that kept Ranger from defeating me... now I have no clue what direction to bring my strat into...

Sut most of the damage reduction you deal with is from the multi minion teams.... the more you spread the damage and use the layers to stop most of the damage.... the less damage you will be able to do.

Ranger is now unbeatable again for a large part....

I did not lose or gain anyone.

However, I do have a much close battle with 2 people.

Freed and FTW. Much closer.

You did gain me Ranger....

I gained you with the loss of protection.

I am typing about this changelog specifically With an AC/TOE nerf.

technically he was already fighting you, but getting stalemates

"While we're phasing out flat reductions, can the NSCs be adjusted to a percentage drop in AMF as well?"

Please. Give me something, ANYTHING to work with this change month (besides the RoS boost, which was super sweet!).

Ranger, you would kick major butt if you'd train Bloodlust.

Fine it's a percentage... but it's + curve changes to match the MgS and has the same percentage effect.

PP,

I have 4M saved xp thinking about doing just that.

True, Drac, but the one person I fully gained back due to this post is single-minion. *smile*

I have always agreed the main parts of damage reduction that beat me are better multi-minion, but it's not required...Failure also beats me, or at least wins/draws enough that he is off my list -- and that's due to AMF/TSA/PL and an MgS involved (so still 4 layers, I guess)... He is using an RoE currently...if he had a ToE on, I am thinking he would be able to add me as a 100% target. I'm OK with that, AMF is still my biggest bane, and I don't really have any designs on wanting that changed.

Sut,

Have you tried the NS now with all the damage reductions?

I am sure someone can loan you a set, if not you can try my +12.

Actually, Failure is kind of a dumb example for me to use -- If I switched my mage to MM I would probably beat him, though I am not sure... Only two minions diluting the FB... He mainly beats me just by lasting until I roast my own team, though... I keep holding out for a free retrain to switch the FB to MM and see what happens. *smile* I don't think I am going to get it!

Alright nov, then it cancels out 100% of all skills, EOs, and EDs. It also changes to a power shield so you can't use it with a tat.

Ranger, sure, that sounds OK, just not sure who it would gain me... Who are you thinking it would help me with? Maybe Failure? I am thinking he would still take me to melee where I do my self-immolation thing... For the bigger folks, it isn't the AMF that kills me, certainly not the backlash, anyway...

"I'm OK with that, AMF is still my biggest bane, and I don't really have any designs on wanting that changed"

I was basing it off that statement.

I think these are pretty balanced changes. The 'nerfs' hit pretty much most of the chars in the top 50. I may have lost DD damage and ToE effect and TSA regen and mage shield. But other people have lost similar things. I've just added three people to my fightlist.

That 25% reduction in Ex shot's spread fire is a pretty big hit for instance.

JW,

The ex shot is not that big.

it is only on the other minions and lowers their damage from 40% to 30%. Overall not that big.

It's gained me some fightlist.

And remember that the SoD has already been hit quite hard by reduction in ranged damage a couple of months back and the reductions in damage this time around.

Fine, but familiars get the Junction+PL@1/4 change I jokingly suggested, and it addition it effects AMF.

There is that fair enough?

Sorry, I meant that AMF was my bane for how much it reduces my damage output, thereby getting blows down into ToE/PL/TSA/MgS damage reduction realms, thereby taking the battle into melee, thereby HUBBELL ROAST! *smile*

Backlash is not so much an issue for me right now. Getting rid of it would not help me against those I can't beat, and probably wouldn't even change the outcome for those I can. Like I said, Failure might be an exception, but I am not sure.

wow, all these changes, suddenly I'm getting lots of draws, especially from fireball mages.... not too sure what happened there...

Mainly the RBF changes, TD. Those will hurt you the most... Fights with dudemus's character had the number of rounds cut in half when he fights me, so taking the flat reduction off the RBF really hurts. I am guessing your RBF is fairly good sized judging by your PR/MPR difference, so you probably had a lot of mages hitting you for no damage at all...now they get through.

getting rid of the backlash isn't the only issue at hand... turn their .23 AMF into .10 AMf, and now you're receiving less backlash *and* (more importantly here) less damage reduction via AMF ^_^

Yeah, and I am hitting just that much softer... AG vs NSC isn't as easy as that -- it depends on scenario. I might grab some from rentals at some point and see what they help with...

I'll loan you mine, I'm using some AG to prove a point to the anti-nsc crowd. The AG are still far better for me in the majority of situations.

What the NSC do is allow you to is to survive just a little longer against the ToE teams that are the top. An extra round in which my damage might overrun the cap. GA can defeat me, just the same as any other massive damage team, even from below me.

Dampening the effects of spells is different than cutting off at the knee's the attack of the enemy. The MgS and NSC are not two sides of the same coin.

Freddy Benelli burns from the flames surrounding the pacifist (809170)

That's too much!

Is it Physical now? Does the SoC absorb it?

novice, I won't help you too much, then.

Hard numbers:

My +10 NSC, 20 battles vs. Failure (this character is the CUSP!)
Wins: 17
Losses: 0
Draws: 3

My +15 AG, 20 battles vs. Failure
Wins: 11
Losses: 3
Draws: 6

novice's +18 NSC, 10 battles vs. Failure (didn't need more)
Wins: 10
Losses: 0
Draws: 0

They work here. Man, it is fun to watch those dynamics in action. I'll use my NSCs and be able to add Failure back to my list. I switch my FB to MM and I'll not have any worries, I'm sure.

HOWEVER, here's a problem with the NSCs: opponent has an MgS? Oops, no need to stop AMF backlash! You're biggest DD is DEAD anyway! I can't get Lega on my list yet. That'll take some grinding. I'll get there... *smile* MM might help there too, but maybe not against four well-played, synergistic minions.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:
Jonathan, man it sucks that I don't have the BA to afford on more testing. That really sucks. I am not asking for anything, or really complaining. But BA is so damn precious I can't even afford to lose a bunch to figure something out.

The MgS is a brilliant addition to the game. Do I defend my familiar against AMF backlash only to have him die first via MgS? THAT'S a well-engineered choice-force. Kudos, Jonathan. It also means more tanks still have that choice. My familiar can't protect itself, except via marge, Junctioned DBs. I know there have been issues with that, but the fact remains that a familar can be plucked from the tree at times. Don't forget that, tanks.

So far today I have added three people to my fightlist. One directly from changes, one not sure, and one from actually adapting. My instinct was right -- switching to NSCs gave me who I thought it would, but you gotta do it. I wouldn't haveben able to do it (with my own gear) without the supporter item change. Wherever you come down on that, instant gratification feels pretty decent today. *smile*

Jonathan, now that AC is not as effective as before, do you think it would be possible to count the mage item AC just like the other items?

I concur with PoisoN.

Mages with AC??? Gary Gygax would curse you!!

(but yes, I agree :) :)

Gygax should DEFINITELY be in the spell checker............

I personally wouldn't mind mages with some AC IF and ONLY IF the PR weight increases a little.

Did not notice the CL till now, lol. This is the bane of the ELS, yes? And instead of adding Steel Skin, why not change Protection (I do know it has been deleted) to do what it did before cb2?

i wouldn't mind seeing it go back to being ac instead of another layer of damage reduction. call it barkskin or somesuch. i would really just like to have an option on the ed side of things other than ga that my character could use.

Any thoughts about free retraining? This change month has really changed the game. Tons of Items, ED changes, new Skills, tattoo changes.

I would like to try out some of these changes. But not at the loss of my MPR, it's too hard now for top end vets to replace it with out fear of being passed up by NUBs.

I'll second that, but it is just pure selfishness on my part -- want to try MM instead of FB, among other things... The changes have not forced me into much else, but goodness, tanks have a ton of new things to consider and a bunch of new items (plus ability to buy past supporter items). I can totally understand why a retrain would be nice for that...

Now if only tanks could have a free "re-train" for their weapons :P

I too wanted to try some things, but it would cost a lot to try things....

At least maybe a 1-2 days free retrain, free re-ink ? pretty please ? :)

Tanks aren't the only ones that got new items.
Mages got gear too.

True, but I don't really see anything that would require a retrain on that front...just lots of gear swapping. *smile* Tanks generally need to train STR/EX/skills to match the strategy. I suppose some mages might want to switch their DD in light of battles taking longer or shorter, though.

Bump for free retrain q's

You know, before the first free retrain, the very thought of such a thing never existed...

the second was because of the archery bug...

Please don't give us what we want Jon...

what I would like changed is the ability to partially remove stats. like untrain 20% of something oppose to taking a big hit for minor changes. (I want 20% less of Fireball, right, I have the untrain the whole lot?)

No Free Retrain Ever [Join NFRE] :P