Evasion, 2 (in Changelog)

Sorry, I wasn't satisfied, so I changed it again. :)

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

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

Evasion gets no "defensive DX."

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

Wow! :D

so evasion would only stop archers unless matched with DX?

Oh man...

*faints*

no defensive dex? wow, just wow.

/me loves nerfed evasion

well there goes my new 6 person fightlist... down to 1.

I really hope this is a joke...

ouch!

I don't even know what to say. I'm not even an evasion user and I feel bad for all of you. The first nerf seemed just fine.

I'm pretty sure its not even a viable skill anymore... for anyone.

Indeed, I feel bad for Evasion users.


However, it's still alright for tanks. Free DBs with a 20% ranged bonus.


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

Does this apply to the skill only, or to Displacement Boots as well?

Down with single minion RBFs! Down with them!

I don't think Evasion was ever meant to make physical damage completely non-existent. By removing defensive DX, now tanks will be able to hit (maybe not in ranged as easily) but they won't whiff for 25 rounds either. You can still evade ranged damage even at 60% effectiveness.

More than that with the bonus.

> Does this apply to the skill only, or to Displacement Boots as well?

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

I'm done. Bye.

Lulz, I've got another 1-person fightlist now.

Down from 13.

I guess this is the start of CB 3?

> I guess this is the start of CB 3?

*rolls eyes*

I do hope there is yet another rescaling of evasion, though. The amount of exp required just to shut down a ton of PTH seems kinda harsh.

So it doesn't reduce dex CTH. So evasion = DBs?

> So it doesn't reduce dex CTH

wrong

miami vice can hit me with a +106 exbow on his minion sonny the first two rounds of ranged with my evasion. should that be happening?

my post battle evasion stat is about 210 now.

> should that be happening?

probably. remember, the lowest his chance to hit can get is his weapon's base.

"should that be happening?"

106 + max DX advantage (whatever that is) + base - 216 = hit.

I think the base to hit is too high.

So I suppose my exp is completely wasted then? Maybe a free retrain is in order? Nerfing the skill is one thing, but changing it altogether?

I now lose to someone with 1,600,000 MPR. That seems a bit... wrong...

So in order to not be hit ever, you'd need a massive dex advantage to cancel the cth and the weapon base, and enough evasion/dbs to cancel the pth?

All I can say is massive change... I didn't really think it was needed to be nerfed that hard, but I guess it's only useful for dodging ranged weapons now.

RIP, Evasion:RoBF

As it stands now, the only way to not get hit ever is non-existent.

The best you can do is lower your opponent's CTH down to their weapon's base (which means ELBs will always hit assuming 1.0 Archery). Unless I misunderstand the way things are, of course. :)

Still, you can lower your opponent all the way down to their weapon's base using just Evasion, although it'll be more difficult now.

That being said, I doubt this is the end of Evasion this Changemonth. I wouldn't be too surprised if something happened with weapon bases, so that it would give people a *chance* to lower overall CTH to 0%, but just make it *very* hard to do.

Can I have Protection back now... and A free retrain to re balance my team?

Blech indeed... just retrained to match dex to evasion... does NO good... still have the same greatly reduced and lowered fight list... puts me at 1,000,000 lower score than before.

Evasion is dead... let's find a new whipping horse so that can be nerfed too. :-)

Nerf SG!, or beef the VB, or both.

Since I'm not a fighter: To make everyone happy, Down with Evasion, Up with cb1 Protection.

So the differences between mages and tanks is now that tanks can hit multiple times, but cost more money?

Now that hitting is promised, I mean...

To be honest, if you give mages a chance to hit multiple times this destruction of evasion won't be so harsh. As it is right now, I lost to an archer with 1.6 mil MPR. It makes no sense...

^^^What would happen if you untrained your evasion and pumped it into your fireball?

Even as a tank, I think that evasion should still get its weight in defensive DX and be able to drop dex CTH to 0, but keep the current 60% and bonus. Then scale it so that it continues losing 20%/round through melee. That way, it's still effective against archers, but becomes far less effective vs. melee tanks.

Also, exbows are absurdly good now.

Oh man you guys crack me up! First it's nerf evasion! Evasion ruins the game! Now it finally gets nerfed a bit and everyone says the games falling apart.

Remember that evasion was not intended to make mages invulnerable to melee damage. It just means that you might need to sink the solo fireball mage and recruit another minion for the evasion and dex. Or figure out a better strategy. Roll with the blows. You can still skip those ranged rounds. And lets face it most of the elven gear boosts dex as well as skills so it's really not that huge of a deal.

6 rounds of ranged is a bit much to ask when you don't have a way to make them miss...

For my team that just made evasion completely useless, I had to lose hard earned MPR for nothing. I wasn't even using any stat boosting equipment, just had an 12 mil exp pumped into a small 108 evasion, I lost EVERY non-mage on my fightlist, I'm sorry this is the first change that is so over the top in my opinion it's borderline stupid. No offense Jon, I love your game and I'm sure you know what you're doing but I think you just killed that skill.

Good. I like the change. Evasion was an abomination. Now it can correctly be used as an alternative to the classic tank.

It was only an abomination because you couldn't hit them. Now that you're beating everyone, I bet you feel justified and right. Hasn't once crossed your mind that ranged weapon damage is incredibly overpowered and has been for sometime and the ONLY reason there hasn't been a post a day about THAT is because of evasion.


Remove evasion, we'll say nerf tanks. Enjoy.

Oh, come on guys. So Evasion gets nerfed. You can't honestly say you didn't see that coming. I really, really hope that nobody honestly is complaining that Evasion got a nerf this Changemonth. If you're using it, and complaining that it got nerfed (not the severity of the nerf, but that it got nerfed at all), I'd like to question your mental status. :)

That being said, regarding the severity of the nerf, all I have to say is this: It's the bloody THIRD of September. You know what that means? There's still almost a FULL month of Changemonth left. Stop crying, nobody wants to hear it. Believe it or not, Jon (like all human beings) doesn't always get things right the first (or second) time. Give it some time. If it's unbalanced (probably the wrong word, as it's impossible to truly achieve 'balance'), Jon will do his best to try and fix it in the remainder of the month.

In the meantime, if you'd like to make a case as to the over/underpoweredness of Evasion in its current state, please, for the good of all things holy, don't just shout out "OMG EVASION SUCKS AND NOBODY CAN USE IT WAH WAH WAH". Try using NUMBERS and EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE to support your opinion. An opinion without support is, plain and simple, useless whining.

I hope that's clear enough...

+1 Tyriel

Wow,now this is truly amazing.

I have been running a four minion team,training close to 50% AMF on one minion and getting owned by mage teams because that only stops so much.Especially if they spent 33% or more on evasion for their front minion which rendered me helpless i.e. 0 damage inflicted.

Now we can see how much damage tanks are doing due to ENC limitations on weapons and make other adjustments accordingly.I don't think anyone should complain since you have to admit you have had it very good and rather easy with such a simple stop against tank teams.For a long time many mage players have said to me if your strat isn't working then change it.I tried in several ways except for changing into a mage myself because I wanted to find a way to "tank" and enjoy the game in my way short of doing someone else's mage strat.

When I first read this post I thought it may be over the top as far as adjustment but after some consideration I realize that this is probably a good balance when you consider how much AMF (exp points) needs to be trained to survive a mage vs. how much someone has to train to stop or slow a tank either with EC or evasion/dexterity and it is a much closer gap (in total trained exp) now.

i love this change. Nothing can stop me now hahaha

Here here, Tyriel

Want some numbers?

15 people on my fightlist when I logged on.

Zero left when I removed those I could beat.


How's that?


What do you think? Tanks always hit now. Everyone round. The best you can do is make sure they hit once (aka, turn them into a mage) and pray you have a bigger bow. The first nerf was fine. It hurt, it sucked, people complained, but everyone knew and accepted that you just had to train more. You couldn't fight up as high or as fast. We all thought that was the point.

Jon did NOT nerf evasion. He removed it from the game, whether or not it still shows up under your skill options or not.


BTW, Jon? You want a boring strategy? How's AS+Hal + junction? A halidon, some crappy gear, and ~90% of my experience in AS. At least with evasion I had to work with balance between HP/FB/evasion. I'm using a tank.

It's probably OP too, yeah. But it's not evasion, right? =) And OP or not, all I -have- is a tattoo.


SFBM may have indeed been lame. I hated using it. But I played the best I could with what I was offered. You give me 6 months and a huge bonus to rewards. SFBM is the only strategy that actually allowed permanent RoE usage and one minion. The highest MPR team in the game started off that way, but while it was fine for him, it's not fine for us now? And we're supposed to compete and rise to his level under a new set of rules?

You either have to go with more than one minion from the start or accept that you simply won't catch him because one minion + tattoo is the only other way. And a tattoo means no RoE and boosted PR and lowered rewards.

And, hopefully, you'll change how the NCB works. That's actually the ONLY bright light I could see coming. And even that's a bittersweet one. Yay, finally, a rolling bonus or some other great fix the likes of which you're known for and we've come to expect. But... That hardly helps us in the middle of an NCB... Or those of us who've already run one and went millions in the hole...

Of course this is overly dramatic. But that doesn't make it untrue.

So now it's "oh no we can't use the RoE SFBM"?

lol, come and laugh at all the goings on Ranger. This is the changemonth you were waiting for....

It's going to be interesting, because what counts now is damage and the ability to outlast ranged. Perhaps it's time to reduce ranged back to what it was?

"Evasion gets no "defensive DX.""

Say what? Could someone break this down for me, I'm having trouble digesting this change.

So Evasion now *only* reduces PTH down by it's effect. If the effect is greater than your opponents PTH, the remainder reduces CTH down to the base for the weapon (so 60% for 1H and a whooping 100% for an ELB).

Really?

If so, can we have Cause Fear and UC changed to train Endurance please.

It's impossible to now stop a Tank hitting, and unless you abuse an EXBow (which at least you'll get to hit now), it's fairly impossible to reduce Tank damage to a meaningful level.

And I agree with the assertation about Ranged rounds. 6 is too long to live through.

so far, I've just lost another Hal team, and a 4 minion ELB archer from my fightlist...

Back to the days of single ToA Elb archers it seems...

Yes yes, I know it's only the start of the change month, but do really big changes like this have to be made in a vacumn?

:) its tank blender all over again :) not that it affects me in any way... Just think this was probably the wrong way to go... Shrug... Its only the start of changemonth... So... If you cant wait out the balancing issues then retrain... Thats why its 2% loss now... But yes... I agree... This change killed evasion for... Say everyone :)

so uh...

I should ditch the GoM/MenC? :P

I said somewhere a while back that ranged physical damage was still actually quite high. I think the response was that it didn't matter because damage levels didn't count if you couldn't hit the target. You know, the standard anti evasion response. Well, given how many smaller ranged based tank teams are climbing high - and already were before the evasion changes - it's nice to know I was right. Lol, it's always one thing isn't it!

I am laughing though, cos even evasion users were offering up the removal of defensive dex as a solution to the evasion 'problem'.

It really is the other rule of Carnage Blender: be careful what you wish for.....

It might not have been so bad before the first part of the nerf. The whole 2/3s as effective thing. And... You know... The item thing....

Can someone clarify the no more Defensive Dex part?

Do DBs still not reduce Dex based CTH? So the only thing that does is excess -PTH granted by the Evasion skill itself?

Of course only down to the minimum base CTH by weapon type.

pssst!!!

archer > mage > heavy tank > archer... ^_^

Oddly enough, this barely changed my fightlist. I had one person removed due to being too chance-based when I beat them, but I wasn't 100% on them before the nerf. And my team has 1/3 it's XP in Evasion right now. It's still a very useful ability, it is just no longer the only line of defense needed against tanks.

then its useful against mages?

yay balance has come to bad i retrained and don't have my tank anymore. Whats with the language btw?

Balance?

Hardly.

mmmm, no longer defensive dex, this means you need a huge load of evasion just to stop the DX CTH, ow wait that is is also nerfed.
From 66% to 60%, mmm tank blender, USD blender and archer blender again.
So now start nerfing DX based CTH and just make PTH the only thing that CAN hit.

TheHatchetman 3:47 AM EDT
pssst!!!

archer > mage > heavy tank > archer... ^_^

You got it wrong!

Junctioned HaL> archer > SoD tank > mage > the rest.

So tanks actually got the short end here.

put it this way :) i hit gerson and dogma with +10 SOD now lol...

dogma around 80% of the time
gerson around 10%... but its still a hit... in ranged no less

> Do DBs still not reduce Dex based CTH? So the only thing that does is excess -PTH granted by the Evasion skill itself?

Like I posted above, the only difference b/t DB and Evasion is that only trained EV gets a ranged bonus.

So, DB can also help reduce DX CTH, down to base to-hit.

I, for one, welcome our new evasion-less overlords!

Being an archer I am biased but I do like the change. Seems a bit harsh but like someone said, the month ain't over til it's over. I think he is making the game more Blender than Evasion/RoBF carnage. Time will tell to see what will come next.

Quick weigh-in... My fight list didn't change. That's probably because I removed Yanki and Suq yesterday already.

Here's how Evasion still helps me (I am not going to untrain it just yet...): It stops excessive hits. Even a big Hal only hits me twice. And since I lay down some pretty mean ranged damage, I can hold my own (so far). I will see how badly I am getting beat down by lower-MPR folks once the 24-battle summary equilibrates, but for now this is close to being more like CB1 now. Dexterity based hits still come through, for the most part (I have no idea what the heck this "base" thing is for weapons, I have no idea what that is or ever has been), just like they would have on CB1. But at least there are only 2 or 3 instead of 4 or 5.

So, no, you can't just hide totally behind evasion any more and then duke it out in melee. That's a GOOD thing. But Evasion allows you to last longer. That's all it should do.

Now, if we see Hal or SoD being too powerful to even allow Evasion to help folks last one additional round, then I think physical damage might need a tone-down. I still think SoD is awfully powerful, and it accentuates the pendulum swing here the most. Teams that could last all the way through ranged before now might every well die in 1 or 2 rounds.

So instead of evasion blocking out all hits of 1 million each, it now blocks out 3 or 4 hits of 1 million each. Leaving the 1 or 2 hits of a million each left. Joy. Looks like evasion has stopped the overkill...?

Wasp, for my team, it wasn't overkill. It was "totally untouched" before, and now it is "more dead, but still winning".

I don't discount the fact that my fightlist is based more against teams using DEs (because of my large DM) than it is against tanks, but I figured I would still weigh in.

A lot of Evasion discussions in the past reduced to "Let them hit, just not as hard..." Maybe we have the first part now and need to tweak the second part. Ranger and I regularly agreed that we wanted tanks to be able to hit, but that we both had concerns about things like massive bows, SoDs, and the excessive drainage capabilities of specialty xbows. But those things can be tweaked. And for my current fightlist, they don't even have to be tweaked (but it seems pretty clear that overall things are worse for other folks).

On the upside, my JKF is hitting more often, and still not getting hit! Joy!

the Hal and ELB still do a mil+ damage a hit... for six rounds
I think I'm one of the only teams with minions that can take that kind of damage... many teams will be single hit to death in ranged.

Which Hal? I still can beat Toast...how is that possible? I have decent HP on my front minion and a big familiar, but I wouldn't say that I have above average HP total...

I guess bridgeburners does hit for 800K-1 million each shot, and can get two hits in round 1...

lol this could be the first UC nerf I have ever read about.

"So instead of evasion blocking out all hits of 1 million each, it now blocks out 3 or 4 hits of 1 million each. Leaving the 1 or 2 hits of a million each left. Joy. Looks like evasion has stopped the overkill...?"

Is that bad? Sounds like it is blocking about 75% of damage, if it knocks out 3 out of 4 hits.

> Maybe we have the first part now [reasonable evasion] and need to tweak the second part [damage].

yes, this is just waiting until I have a large enough block of time to deploy + be around in case stuff breaks.

thanks jon, that helps! : )

I was going to comment, but QBFriskyDingo said it all.

Thanks for the response, Jonathan! Now I know to definitely wait before looking for a Hal to play with. *smile*

"lol this could be the first UC nerf I have ever read about."

Yeah... I'm feeling it hard. My entire fightlist was wiped out. Ouch! Can we have some sort of exemption for UC-induced evasion seeing as this was never overpowered in the first place? Pretty please Jon?

Or perhaps finally take evasion out of UC and replace it with Endurance, which would be way cooler and make more sense too.

I agree with Bad Fish.

/me prints bob's response and frames it.

I'll be using that on every resume I write from now on, by the way.

Perhaps it would have been better to release them at the same time. Just a thought...

+1 For Endurance rolled into UC. ;)

I dropped my AoF and added an AoI. Got some archers back on my fightlist again. This change has made the AoI quite useful. ;)

Perhaps it would be better for users to wait... idk... at least a day or so? Before running around claiming that the sky is falling, CB is going to the birds, and ZOMG! I'm getting hit!!! :o Changemonths come as no surprise. But every time something changes that affects anyone's current strategy, non-stop whining... Keep in mind, with a generalized strategy, you saccrifice the ability to target as high up in exchange for being less farmable by those your level, and a much stronger resistance to changemonths. Specialize in one or two things, and you can aim way up in exchange for being farmed more by those at/around your level, and a severe vulnerability in exchange for an inopportune change to something your strat relied on.

Like I told tanks when they were whining about Evasion in the first place, roll with it, and wait it out. Hell, at least you've got confirmation from the man himself that something is in the works ~_^


Just a thought... :P

Come on Hatch, you know changemonth is going to feature cheese and wine; and cries of overpowered.

Wouldn't be changemonth without it!

The only reason I'm cluttering this thread with a non evasion topic is because at the end there will be a change month correlation.

Having said that, you people should really feel such shame when it takes hatch pausing from beating the double meat outta someone long enough to tell you to be patient and wait to see what else happens, as if Jon has ever packed all his changes into the first 3 days.

And on the change month topic, didn't the maker once even grant himself an extra week or two of a change month? Leaving us with a possible (roughly 27 + 14) 41 more days of CHANGE. Oh the possibilities.

Feeling bad for "making" me post is a silly concept :P Been less busy this week, and going to be around more often ^_^ This whole going days at a time without posting or spending a few hours in chat is kinda giving me the shakes :P

"Perhaps it would have been better to release them at the same time. Just a thought..."

Then you wouldn't know what was buggy and what wasn't. It's much easier to do a bit at a time.

Jon, when you mention reducing physical damage, I think I have to throw in my vote to either restore some of Unarmed-Combat-conferred-Evasion's defensive DX, or add Endurance, and this is why:

I've always been a fan of UC, even when it was underpowered, more because of my fondness of martial arts movies rather than because of any in-game factors. During the course of this last character's development of mine, however, I've found that I've really proved the skill, both to myself and others, as not being half bad. While Bananco would contend that it is overpowered, it is not without it's share of weaknesses, and can be foiled by other strats. One of the things that I like best about it, though, is the dual offensive-defensive nature of it. Unlike the RoBF, though, it provides no defense against magical damage, nor does it hit every single round, guaranteed (though this change will make it much more likely to do that, it seems). And, given how much experience needs to be poured into it (and thus diverted from ST and DX) to make it a real weapon, I considered the additional defensive bit to be only fair. However, the defensive advantages of Evasion having now been lowered, it would be too much of a double-whammy on UC to lower its offensive purpose by any considerable amount, and would bring it back to a point where it is underpowered.

This is my personal opinion, and while I admit a bias, I am currently in the process of selling my character and most of my gear, so I hope everyone can at least believe I'm not saying this for personal gain.

On the topic of Evasion unrelated to UC, I do think that taking away ALL defensive DX is a little harsh. I would suggest granting a fractional amount of defensive DX, say 1/5 of the Evasion level, so that it can just help a little bit more in reducing the DX gap, while not granting 40% more DX on defense than anyone can afford to have on offense. Otherwise, I would think the curve needs to be softened just a little, if all that you get out of it is -PTH.

I think I lost a target to the fact that Hal simply got better

PK, Hal hasn't changed at all.

why not give UC a additional % bonus to Dex? Since its evasion is going to suffer if it isnt closely matched by dex, shouldnt it give some bonus to dex to help keep up with the weapon like exp? Since Unarmed Combat is faster than weapons because of the weight hinderance, being able to move more freely should be a benefit to dex.

I think Evasion isn't counting as dex any more (in any way) because it already REQUIRES dexterity being trained to be totally effective. Why would Jonathan mix terms in the equation? Why would he say, "You need more dexterity to make it effective, and then it gives you even MORE dexterity defensively!"

Jonathan is simplifying, folks (talking about "Evasion, 2" change here). He is letting Evasion work, at a lower level and without the defensive dexterity "double dip", but then is letting it work as a complete cth reducer (except for this "base" thing, which I still have no idea about). This is good, I think. This is consistent. Let Evasion do what any dodging thingy should do. Don't make a mix of dexterity and Evasion up front, and then make it a mix of dexterity and minus-to-hit on the back side. Just make it Evasion. If you train the extra dexterity to make the Evasion fully-blown, then guess what? You got some dexterity in there too, naturally. Personally, I think Haste should work. It has enough foils as it is (DM), so it should help with the Evasion-fulfilling as well as be defensive for non-tanks. Hell, it's already half-wasted since it doesn't help a non-tank's offense, plus the DM breakage (as I already stated).

ANYWAY, this all makes a colossal amount of sense. As Jonathan has already insinuated, he will be working on tweaking that tank offense that I just talked about to make sure it isn't out of hand. We'll be back to a simpler CB where tanks still get what they deserve: non-binary damage-dealing. Yes, it is easy for me to say, I only lost two folks off my fight list. But I'm a DM dawg through and through, so that was bound to be the case no matter what.

I won't comment on the UC stuff because I don't know UC. But I will say that enough folks have come out of the woodwork on UC that I am thinking it needs some help. It might have simply been something Jonathan didn't consider on the first or second cut.

"except for this "base" thing, which I still have no idea about"

There used to be a stand 'base' chance to hit with weapons (the chance you get with no PTH or evasion in play and with equal Dex).

That was changed a couple of times, now each type of weapon has a base chance to hit (which is shown in the post fight information).

IIRC, 1H Melee Weapons are 60%, the Elbow is 100% (with a 1.0 Archery) and UC is 50%. But I can't remember the rest.

Now, nothing bar a higher natural Dex or 'Invisibility' can lower your chance to hit under your weapons base.

Personally, I think the 100% of an Elbow is far to high with this in place. ;)

So you're saying you wouldn't be less accurate without elbows? :P

Yes, I think base is too high. Tanks are supposed to be able to miss, even against non-tanks. That's a pretty substantial change...

If you ask me, everyone thats complaining should just quit now and avoid the future torment that will come along with playing this game for years.

Or, suck it up and realize you're playing a free game where all you have to do is hit enter ever couple of hours. Your strategy is going to have to change. Eventual another person's strategy will too. And so on and so on.

Or Jon could never change anything, ever, until someone figures out a clear cut best strategy. Which will result in a counter to that strategy. And maybe if your lucky another counter to the counter. And all you have are 2 or 3 types of team make-ups and no diversity. Sounds pretty exciting to me.

+1, Josh.

Although there is a marked difference between complaining and offering sincere feedback on the game, which i believe is 100% necessary.

How's this for sincere feedback: Who the crap is this Josh kid?

Josh, there have been a significant number of changes made, when industrious and studious players have delved into the mechanics of the game and found things either outright unbalanced, or mechanically broken.

But we could all just stick our heads in the sand.

It's a sad thing with the internet, that one mans feedback (or critisicsm) is the next mans whining...

I'll pay the fine for OB. It's worth it for the chuckles. (or just take the money from Blighted, please)

man this stinks.

+30 named EB's --10mil cb2$
XP invested in Evasion -- 14mil
getting screwed by a nerf -- priceless

Oh my god ob... seriously hilarious....

"man this stinks."

And last month tanks were saying this:

+101 named MH -- 35 mill cb2$
XP invested in Dex and Haste -- .. eh, too much to count.
Still can't hit because of Evasion -- priceless

It's much better now.

Agreed. This is a big (and much needed) boost to melee tanks, but as I'm sure most of you are aware, archers and Hals are far too overpowered now; though I'm sure that too will be fixed in the near future.
I'm sure colts was commenting on ranged attacks more so than melee anyhow.

"archers and Hals are far too overpowered now;"

Yep.

indeed solare. I think the change is in the right direction just it is only one part of it, and since it's not completed im suffering quite badly and it's slowing my progress down.

I want to see how he trys to balance the evasion with ranged archery and still make tanks usable and effective.

Watch your choice of words, IND. I'm interested in seeing how he succeeds in balancing evasion with ranged damage and still keeping tanks viable and effective.

Ind... I got something that might help you succeed where others are failing... hire more minions! With a game full of possibilities and there being very nearly nothing you can do with one and two minion teams thats where three and four minion teams shine... thats where you can build layer upon layer and not have to worry about one nerf to one skill...

I see a few major flaws to your strat and you were trying to rely on one skill to stop it... Evasion was never meant to stop all physical damage... but it was a nice ride while it lasted... You have just about no layers at all... very little defense to physical other than Evasion... You rely on AS which is easily DMable... and you yourself use DM...

But anyways besides that just wait out changemonth... there are only 25 more days left in the month and I'm sure Ranged physical damage (including hals) will be toned down just a bit if not the ranged damage it will be the Elb CTH... Just be patient a work with what you have ^_^

Also as an aside.... don't forget this is coming from the guy who used Evasion to stop everyone from beating him, the one who used evasion and Protection to be unbeatable 99% of the time... and has dealt with 2 large nerfs to his strat not including the toe tone down TWICE last changemonth... It will all get better just give it time...

jon, jon he's our man if he can't do it...we skewer him, then draw & quarter him and then we roast what's left on a big bonfire whilst dancing naked around it and chanting carnage, Carnage, CARNAGE!

Easy for DrA to say go 4 minions now that he has them...


Imagine if you were one or two minions and suddenly a change rolled that meant you had to hire one or two minions RIGHT NOW, or pay the consequences.

Now, I don't really think this is that kind of change. But, come on. If Jon wants us to go multi minion, he needs to ramp the cost and the experience gained from hiring a minion way, way down. I'd prefer multi minions. Unfortunately, that's lost experience. Rather hard to catch up to LA who went single minion forever, then hired if you have to start out 4 minions...

Then again.. At least you could use the RoE.... That's not boring at all.... *smile*

Don't forget that LA was an abomination... he used Roe from the get go cause he knew thats what he was supposed to do... He is also a usd spender and he is still in debt... If anyone else wants to make a run for the top the same way he did (with Nub) I'm sure they can...

Also GW I have had 4 minions with the last 3 teams that I have run... I also ran a two minion team for the longest time... and then a three minion team... I have found if you want to compete and build well rounded strats you can't rely on one or even two minions to do it... there jut isn't enough you can train to help you out enough... Now I'm not saying that you can't specialize I'm just saying that there are more... well rounded... strats out there using 4 minions rather than using only two and being limited in your choices.

I know. That's always been the case.

A) I just wanted to point out that starting with multi minions (or hiring relatively early MPR wise) lowers the max MPR you could have achieved. That's hypothetical, and not a direct loss. If you don't plan on hiring for a massive cost later, it doesn't impact you at all.

B) I don't fault you for having more minions. I just wanted to make it clear that telling someone to simply hire more minions in response to a change is unreasonable with the current prices for minion hiring.

I just sold my character for half the price it cost to hire my second minion. How much is MPR worth? Less than it costs, apparently.

*shrugs* Doesn't make my point less valid. If you want to be top MPR, hiring at the beginning reduces your chances. Even if the resell value is awful.

I know, GW, I'm totally with you. I was trying to reinforce the point that you made about hiring costs being too high. I paid 50 mil and got roughly 500k MPR out of it. Now I've sold 3.1mil MPR for 25 mil. That's a huge discrepancy between its apparent worth and what it costs to generate it in the first place.

Ahh, my mistake.

I'm all for waiting out the rest of this changemonth, at this point. I've bit the bullet and retrained. Unfortunately, all I had on hand was a Hal... so it's probably not going to get much better for me this month... But at least I'm burning BA.

i am leaning more towards the idea of additional minions being free but with no xp. then roe's should just allow you to send all xp to whatever minion it is on, it could also be the only tat you could equip more of than one. ie. if you have 3 minions and roe's on two, the two with roe's equipped get 1/2 total xp each and the one with no roe gets nothing etc.

I like ^ idea.... as long as you can't just hire free minions then fire them on a daily basis...

The problem is, that lets you get free killslots. You'd have to make it so they cost a token sum, like 500K, so you don't get people hiring when they stop fighting and firing when they sign back on.

Token/base costs are FINE. Those have always been a good check again abuse. But 30 million for a new minion? :\ Bit steep thar, Mr. Man...

mine would cost just under 57 million for one. the largest single minion now would probably pay between 60-65 million.

It is so much cheaper to buy a new team...it took me a long time to get around the fact that it feels like using a cheat code...

Draco, send me 54mil and I will hire 2 minions and be happy, oh and can u buy me the gear to equip them to please?

My point is this is my strategy and I wanted 2 minions, There should be a way to win no matter what strategy you use, with exceptions.
If you require people to go 4 minion to be competitive then that takes away from the game.

I say we have a 3rd hire choice that still give some XP but at a much cheaper rate, maybe like 1/3 of the current "cheaper" hire cost.

The idea that was good about hiring was novice's. He said something like allow hiring a Minion for a fixed price like 1 mil, but it starts out with negative experience relative to the price it would cost in CBD.

I did? sweet!

I think it was you; iono it was in an old thread.

You see (derail on) this is what I like about single and lesser minion count teams. Jon thinks they're boring. I disagree totaly.

Just look above. You can layer and layer and layer with 4 minions. change months don't really hurt.

With single minion teams, you have to pick and choose, really work your strategy to be effective, and be able to survive.

It's hard, and less resilient, than the easy mode 4 minions with layers upon layers. ;)

The trade off, concentration. Which in some cases should make you better sticking with lower minion counts than just getting the max and layering them up.

;)

I do miss a single minion team. I love the hard choices you have to make.

I demand a mage based Skill.

There are so many tank specfic skills/spells that it is widely unfair to use mages who now are not going with evasion.

Evasion was never really a mage only skill in the first place, so why can't we have a mage skill that will benefit us?

Some Ideas (not well thought out)

1. Regeneration - Gain a certain % of your total HP back each round, must be trained to a certain lvl to be effective.
2. Boost - If the enemy did not cast AMF on you, you gain a certain % of DD each round
3. Harden - Lowers your DD but grants you a protection like AC that is rather large on scale.
4. Speed - Allows you to fire more then once per round based on enemy evasion/dx and how much xp is invested in it.
5. QuickShot - Grants HoC like abilities allowing for an empty helm slot.

Regarding Harden: perhaps have it only function if you have 0 (or less) AC? So you could get a Corn, AG's, SB's, and a HoC and still get the benefits.

Just a thought?

Actually, Borgin/Ind's idea on Harden isn't bad at all... Not bad at allll.

Metapod used Harden?

But it's defense won't go up any higher!

im a ToA archer and i've been very vocal about evasion being OP but now its useless im now renting the biggest(damage wise) ELB in the game and when you cant miss its the greatest weapon out i hit over 2.2m and i can hit 3 times a round easily so 6.5m damage a round and a max of around 40m before ranged round are over and even when they are i can still hit once or twice and i get the 40% damage bonus from ranged to melee rounds =)

its needs to go back to the first change and give it some time to see how it pans out before you cange it again

for all of you who are being sympathetic / sarcastic / all out panic , Jon had not finished changing everything he has in mind and he has mentioned it at least once in this very thread.

Not to mention evasion dudes had been dominating 90% of tanks for don't know how long, so be glad that you guys had been able to take advantage of this serious 'bug' for so long and not being spam with rescale or whatever from Jon :P

I like the idea of giving mages a skill all to their own.
If damage is not rescaled for some reason, a reasonable skill for mages could be:
Damage Shield: Gives effective endurance (40% resistance; damage reduced capping at skill level). Must be trained at 1/4 of DD spell.

I think this would give mages a fighting shot against archers now that Evasion has be obliterated.

If people think the amount of damage reduced is too high, consider this: I occasionally lose to an archer with 1.7 mil MPR in 2 rounds........, and I have over 3 mil MPR and 4.5 million HP, packing a Fireball of over 8 million.

Of course, this is just a suggestion if ranged damage doesn't get any nerf.

Just something to chew on... I have over 9 mil native hp and I have 3.9 mil mpr... so you have half my hp with only a 900k mpr difference... And back at this again.... mage items should grant AC!

I don't think a mage skill should be damage reduction. It would be too easy to give a wall a base DD of some description and say thank you to the extra reduction, but I am all for something like countering AMF or a skill that works differently depending on what DD you have.

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

does this mean your evasion effect is lower in the first round of range and then gets higher, or vice versa?

one more question, does this replace all ranged penalties we used to have and now we just have the ranged evasion bonus instead?

there are still most certainly additional ranged penalties to hit

do you know if it starts lower and gets higher or the reverse?

highest penalties were stated to be in round 1, they are reduced from there

so in those instances where some hal's miss me in round one and/or two but then get multiples in later ranged rounds, that is likely due to the ranged penalties.

if, as draco believes, evasion could still eat into weapon base CTH and the misses were caused by evasion, then you would never see multiple hits from the same hal that also missed, correct?