Guardian Angel (in General)

Yes, I know one can use Dispel Magic to get rid of it, but if you don't have dispel magic, it's become much more powerful recently. It's trained to 2.5 times the damage received, so if you are always receiving less damage, it's easier to return the full 60%.

With the drops in damage you don't have to train as much GA as before. This month and last changemonth included. The ToE was changed with all these damage changes, but GA did not.

Same reason why VA hasn't changed either, because GA only give back the damage it receives, in fact before this change no one bothered with GA because it was so easy to overpower it.

If you don't want GA to bother you train DM. That is called choice.
And besides you can always train VA to get some HP back.

But you still have to train less to get that 60%.

mages can't do that, and the 60% damage return is extremely powerful for a relatively small investment. However, devote the majority of a minion's XP into it on a 3-4 minion team and use another for AS, and you were overpowering almost any team with damage coming from anywhere but the RoBF...

The only ways around that were ToE (scrap that idea now :P), *HUGE* DM that will go wasted on almost 80% of your fightlist (see sutekh), and/or racking up large AC, which everyone's afraid to do because they don't get extra stats for doing so, and usually have to sacrifice the gear slot of something stat-boosting :P

GA retaliation is harsh... Avoidable, but harsh none-the-less. With my last character, I was able to abuse many of the higher ranking players with just my GA alone. For others, it required the help of boosting a MTL level familiar by 42-45% via the AoF, but that's another time another thread, eh? :P

You should be against PL even more, in that case.

It cannot be dispelled, and it, too, is now more powerful with less training.

"However, devote the majority of a minion's XP into it on a 3-4 minion team and use another for AS, and you were overpowering almost any team with damage coming from anywhere but the RoBF... "

Not entirely true...but I do seem to have come through these recent changes a little...stronger...

Sutekh is right, PL should also be changed as it's also based on damage; thus, you have to train less of it.

I agree, with all the changelog changes, the fact that GA remains unchanged, makes it only get better and better!

It's going to be very difficult to beat GA, AS teams in the future, without one heck of a DM. Or perhaps a ridiculously huge offense (single minion SG!).

I think adjustments to GA and PL would be appropriate, as well.

VA also got an indirect buff, but I think it needed it...

adjustments with PL have to be very delicate, otherwise it could easily become useless.

I think it's fine where it is, as it competes directly with GA, which should be the big new thing! Maybe a little change on the exp to effect ratio would be enough

With the TSA in play, it'll be hard to make PL useless.

VA also got an indirect nerf as well, seeing as how it is based on damage done. Physical damage lower = lower VA yield. Sure, VA can be trained lower, but does less. VA titrates itself pretty well, and is also susceptible to DM...

PL is the dead horse I won't stop beating, as it has no foils, and is boring as hell.

"VA also got an indirect buff, but I think it needed it..."

I agree with Sute. VA got nerfed. It's now better to use a TSA for regen (even with it's nerfed 3%) than VA.

At the least VA should be bumped to the 60% return GA has.

That's a very good point, GL. Totally agree.

I'd also like to see DM only half as effective against VA (i.e. it reduces VA by 40% of it's level).

My reasoning is that VA is trained at a much lower level compared to say GA or AS and therefore is naturally more susceptible to DM (it is often wiped out by even a small DM).

Sure, people can over-train VA to protect against DM but it isn't particularly cost-effective because over-training provides no additional benefit against non-DM teams.

So at 2.5 times the damage VA would drain 60%?

I see your point, SP, I would disagree with it. DM is already a tough choice (no AMF or EC to use), so I don't think we should be having additional allowances, especially just for specific DEs.

In any case, odds are good that a DM-dedicated team is going to eat up all the VA for a team anyway, since VA is usually trained FAR smaller than something like AS (just compare them on the attributes page, highest AS is more than ten times larger than highest VA). Even at a fractional dispel rate, no one is going to train VA enough to get by the real DM users. That all falls firmly under rock/scissors/paper jurisdiction. All highway.

GA (IMO) needs a slight tweak, there used to be 3 ways to deal with it, 1. The ToE. 2. DM. 3. Overwhelm the GA with enough damage that it wouldn't retaliate the 60%. Out of those 3 only DM is still the only option left that works.