Concerns about the Evasion change (in General)

I'm hoping this post is made moot by additional change motnh changes. But just in case this is the only thing that happens this month. ;)

I'm concerned that the Halidon Familiar will become the next 'uber' thing.

I'm also concerned that Tanks will now find the best course of action is to ignore PTH on weapons (with it's expensive non linear curve) and dump the entirety of thier NW into the Linear 'X'.

And rely on a single/double Dex based hit to land and kill thier targets.

That is exactly the swing of the pendulum I have been afraid of the whole time, so we will see if other changes help out.

So far, my fight list has not changed a lot, though I am hoping to find a Halidon so I can re-ink and see how a 6 million + Hal does up here...

Perhaps we will simply see a resurgence of EC, as well.

The Hal has been becoming 'uber' for a while, well before this change. My biggest opponents have been - ok, I don't have evasion, but... - hal or archer teams, quite often much smaller in MPR as well.

I agree the hal is quite strong but I don't see the problem with relying on a 0+ weapon that eliminates the users chance of multiple hits on non-evasion teams.

I share your concerns, though I don't want to contribute to the explosion of whining I've seen so far...it's been what, 7 hours since the change was made?

You had to expect this, OB.

i wish there was some way to make evasion's effect based off of opponents dexterity instead of your own. jon has made dex mean more, unfortunately not in the way most of us envisioned. i think we had in mind dexterity meaning more in the "to hit" mechanic rather than the "not to be hit."

while this is fine, i do still wish that physical damage dealers had more reason to train dex again and with the current change, more reason to upgrade the +.

i am willing to be patient and see what happens though. : )

The problem with a +0 weapon is the X is linear. So for your NW, you get a lot more stat.

And PTH is just extra damage anyway, and if you land a large enough hit (with BL) that you kill with one hit, what's the point of a second?

I predicted this would happen soon or later. No worry here. Any Hal would be stunned against me :P

GL, there comes a point where the return on investing another 1000 in X is actually outweighed by investing 10 in +. It's just a matter of weighing the cost against the benefits of each. Perhaps now the X on a weapon has more benefit against its cost, but that doesn't mean + is completely useless.

Assuming you can't beat the evasion PTH penalty, your +10 is exactly nothing. And 10 evasion is... rather easy to get I'd say.

noooooooooooooo I wanted to be right about something!

at the bottom end of the evasion scale, 10 evasion is easy to get. it is non-linear in cost though just as plus to hit mods on weapons are, so at the top end 10 more evasion can be next to impossible.

talk in chat about how this makes the AX/EX that much more powerful...
and unavoidable...

I agree with Little Anthony. Everyone, please switch to Halidons.

So finally, the Axbow has some use:

massive BL tank / Axbow x4k

Just hit everyone once and zero their DX. Pound them into tiny bits with the 160 CTH off an ELS or BoTH. Heck, even VB to slice and dice those reduction layer-ists. 3 rounds of DD should be survivable, especially with that MgS-PL battery.

And if they're a tank, even better - smaller (or no) evasion and equal vulnerability to one-shot drain. Incidentally, the lowest + points are useful for non-evasion targets so around +4-50 to guarantee that killer hit.

This just a thought but might not the ENC have something to do with the choice of X over +
you know like 4000x
over adding 20+ to a weapon
the benefit of extra damage without pushing over ENC

Well, damage is proportional to sqrt(weapon x) anyway, and (unless you're in 6/20 already and couldn't care less about challenge bonuses), the WA is much more of an issue rather than enc past a certain MPR (I'd say around 8/20 or so).

Also, with more people dropping the evasion-based "nigh-invulnerable" stats, you can expect a lower percentage of people actually using evasion walls (no longer so overpowered, the only thing stopping them now is the retrain penalty and the issue of what to do with gear), so weapon plus might actually matter... sure, maybe not weapon + in the 40-80 range, but above 100 for sure.



Personally, I would have prefered a revamp into something like an exponential curve effect (0.75 or 0.8, maybe even 0.95 at max, I don't know), an effect that would MULTIPLY the enemy final chance to hit with ( 1 - [effect] ).
And then have that effect be based on ratio of evasion compared to ENEMY offensive DX.

Badfish is right, versus non-evasion minions pth is definitely worth it to an extent.

Not to spamm the CL thread, but I've now lost another couple of Archers from my fightlist.

WooT?

Seems like my concern about the Hal is becoming a reality.

With an ELB (if I've got this correct) not being able to be reduced below 100% by Evasion *at all*, there's really no point in spending cash on PTH. Wack it all into 'x' and kill one minion with a single hit over the 6 rounds...

Yep, the base CTH with an ELB (and archery) is 100. Evasion alone can't make an ELB/Archery user (or Hal) miss.

A Halidon familiar already does more damage than my FF in a single hit (the Halidon familar is around 20% smaller than my FF) and against many targets the Hal will do double or triple this damage through additional hits. I'm struggling to think of many reasons to stick with my FF at this stage.

"Evasion alone can't make an ELB/Archery user (or Hal) miss."

Bar natural Dex (Which would have to be considerably higher than the archers/Hals Dex - especially if the Hal is junctioned with 150% Elven gear...), what can?

The -20 PTH from an AoI? That's about it isn't it?

Evasion can't reduce the CTH below base (100% in this case), and DBs no longer reduce CTH, only PTH.

Before I get accused of whining, isn't this a *little* too extreme?

There is a silver lining to this cloud; Jon's changes to the tattoo artist make it a lot less easy for everyone to jump on the Hal bandwagon.

Any one got one they want to give me?? lol..

I think it's a little extreme but I'm holding out for some other changes before I go looking for a base Hal to change my tat.

IMO physical damage needs either a layer (or two) of damage reduction or physical ranged damage needs to be scaled back a bit if mages are going to be able to compete damage-wise.

On another note, hasn't evasion now been nerfed so much that it is worse than it was before defensive DX was introduced in the first place? I thought that defensive DX was added because evasion was such a poor skill option that no-one trained it :/

many of us had said that there need to be some caps put in place in the game. perhaps the base chance to hit of weapons is the first of many? if not then i am at a loss here to explain the rational.

unless it was an example to nightstrike of how not to balance a game! ; )

The good news is that dudemus' char gives me awesome bonuses now :D

> DBs no longer reduce CTH, only PTH

incorrect. please see my two posts on the subject in the "Evasion, 2" thread.

Thanks Jon! Still a little unclear, so I'll gather all the Evasion changes together;

1: evasion greater than your DX is only 2/3 as effective

2: the item-based component of evasion and DB cannot reduce DX-based chance-to-hit (but invisibility and "defensive DX" still can)

3: Note: Haste DX does not count towards making evasion work at its full effect, only trained DX (plus armor bonuses).

4: Evasion that isn't matched by DX is now 60% effective (was, briefly, 2/3).

5: Evasion can reduce to-hit down to the base for the weapon (was, briefly, down to base + dx bonus).

6: Evasion gets no "defensive DX."

7: Evasion bonus during ranged rounds increased from 10% per round to 20%.

8: the only difference in how they are treated is that only trained EV gets the ranged round bonus.

OK, so 1 and 2 have gone, replaced by later changes (can we strikethrough text here?)

3 is still in effect?

For item based evasion, is that linked to Dex?

There is no defensive Dex at all now, so Evasion (skill) only provides the effect (PTH reduction), as do DBS. But PTH reduction in excess of your opponents PTH reduce the Dex based chance to hit but 1% per -1PTH (as before), down to a minimum of the target Weapons base chance to hit.

An Elbow (with 1.0 Archery?) can *never* be reduced below a 100% chance to hit by Evasion/DB/AoI.

This can be reduced, but your target needs to have a higher naturally trained Dexterity than the archer.

Evasion actually got a buff in PTH reduction during Ranged. But this is abit 'meh' seeing as you cannot stop an Elbow hitting totally now, they will always get 100% (with equal Dex).

This is all correct isn't it?

If so, with the ability to Junction 150% Dex increases from items, and a native 50% of level as natural Dexterity, how does anyone propose stopping/countering a Hal?

> can we strikethrough text here?

yes, <s></s>

> 3 is still in effect?

yes

> For item based evasion, is that linked to Dex?

no

> An Elbow (with 1.0 Archery?) can *never* be reduced below a 100% chance to hit by Evasion/DB/AoI.

partly right; AoI can reduce it to 80%

Thanks! :D

Ah, so while item based Evasion can't reduce Dex basec CTH, Invisibility can. Which can only be got (currently) through the AoI.

Also, Invisibility is the only way (other than native Dex) to reduce the Dex based chance to hit *below* a weapons base chance to hit.

Also, if you have a Dex of 20, and Evasion of (for exmaple) 1,000,000 (100) would suffer the 60% penalty, but a +100 DB wouldn't.