Help me understand the TOE (in General)

Does it only work vs physical attacks or does it give endurance to magical as well?

Does it help vs GA damage, IE on my Hazzard character, would it help me with GA damage?

Does it work for the whole character or just the minion using it?

Does it help vs the RBF?

I believe it endures all conventional damage (physical and magical). At least, the Jig always seemed to handle my fire and missiles better, and that is the same endurance as far as I have ever known.

Not sure about GA, I don't think it helps. Only pure AC helps with that (I think). I also am not sure about the RoBF...

Still has an aura, I believe, but recent changes have seemed to make it far less desirable than before. I haven't been a ToE user for a long, long time, so I am not sure. Anyone still using one and liking it?

"ToE no longer protects against AMF or Guardian Angel or Direct Damage Spells."

"Primary effect: Grants Endurance to all minions"

It only works VS physical damage like the RoBF protects against magical damage.

Does react to GA but only if the GA damage type returned is physical.

Does not reduce RoBF damage as its in its own damage league

The RoBF does protect against direct Sling of Death hits, so it's not pure magical.

So the ToE and RoBF are kind of like choosing between TSA/EH or AG/NS?

Yeah Kev, except one of the grants protection to magic, protection to physical via evasion, and a lot of damage in melee, the other, just protection against physical damage. But yeah, pretty much the same, lol.

Perhaps the TOE should have a "special attack"

Not subject to AMF or GA.

Since right now, as I can see from the post, it is garbage.

Now that's a buff I could take, when people just want the damage protection increased, I say nay, but this, I'm ok with.

a special attack does raise an eyebrow (I really can't just raise a single eyebrow). And compared to the RoBF I would choose the RoBF in a heartbeat. Would be cool to hear from the top ToE's like Freed and what they think.

The ToE's special is its Aura.

ToE grants SS, RoBF grants Evasion.
ToE reduces Physical Damage, RoBF reduces Magical (Including AMF backlash).

ToE has a defensive Aura, RoBF has a damaging attack.

As I understand the TOE only grants SS to the minion wearing it.

The RBF has a nice non dispellable, non GA backlash attack.

Give me the RBF any day.

RoBF works great with any kind of a wall or tank.

Just as the Evasion from the RoBF is only granted to the minion wearing it.

The ToE has a nice reduction Aura, which I'm sure some multi minion defensive set ups can take full advantage of.

4 Minions FTW. Just add PL and a TSA.

I would find the ToE to be just perfect if the SS effect were granted to the team along with the aura. 50% damage reduction and SS on top of whatever AC you have on your wall minion? Nice! But SS effect is totally wasted on a tattoo holder, IMO.

The ToE IS pretty good. The only problem I have with it is that it stops improving at level 1m, and does not stop inflating your pr.

Somehow I can't imagine that it could be THAT broken for this long.
If Freed put on a lvl 1m ToE He'd still be able to beat Vectoidz?

Not sure I understand your last statement Nov:

A Tattoo of Endurance lvl 6,562,008 owned by Freed (The Hens of Daze)

If Freed used a SF, would be beat SHD?

if the wiki is correct, the toe @ 6.5m would grant 10.5% more reduction across the team than a 1m toe would.

For 6x the size, that is not a lot more protection.

Perhaps a HF or SF would do him better at 6.5M levels.

many things in cbland are on curves for growth (non-linear). if they weren't they would be too powerful, especially when you are talking damage reduction. wasn't that the problem with evasion, it could be raised enough to be a complete block to damage.

as the game continues to grow into the truly staggering numbers, i think curves may be more of the norm as opposed to linear growth. i also think many of the other tattoos have growth curves as opposed to linear models. part of the jig's growth is linear and part curve-based.

compared to the cost of comparable levels of the mage shield, it doesn't seem that far out of whack to me.

I understand that Dude,

However with a DD familiar their damage goes up linearly with their level and they gain hp directly proportional to their level.

The HF does more damage proportional to its level with increased CTH (from dex) and PTH (from their elb) proportional to their level.

Since the TOE is on a curve, it seems to be lagging behind, especially at higher levels.

Even the RBF, even thought its magical damage reduction ability is based on a curve, its damage is not. Which, IMO, is its main feature. The magic damage reduction and evasion are secondary abilities.

How exactly is it a problem? The effect of percentage-based abilities grows along with your character. The only problem with them is that they provide little incentive to grow the tattoo in question.

I just like how it gives you SS to the minion even though it can't wear a cloak and body armor. Quite useless.

a non dispel able SS aura would be better.

I actually had a strategy I wanted to use that would likely have used a ToE, and the overwhelming suggestion was to keep my tattoo around 1.5M. When the tattoo hit 3M, insta down to another 1M tattoo and level it back from there.

It's a great idea, but testament to how worthless it is having a ToE over, say, 2M or 3M. The huge drop-off in effectiveness isn't worth the massive PR hike you experience from all tattoos.

I find this kind of funny, though, because I hadn't realized it was so bad until my brother and I were discussing strategies. He uses a ToE, and I decided to get some info from the wiki... where it basically states (in mathematical terms) that the ToE sucks above 1M (you could arguably use one without hurting yourself too much until it was level 2M). Once I pointed that out, it seems like lots of people have been irked by this oddity in the tattoo.

I don't use a ToE anymore. I inked to RoS because the ToE just isn't worth it. It just.... isn't worth the pain... *sob*

so we don't have exact numbers in the wiki for corresponding levels of the mage shield, which would be 53 to 67 (to get a 40 percent and a 50.5 percent reduction in magic damage. a plus 53 mage shield has a net worth of $52,735,723, the +60 is estimated to be around 480m. the plus 67 isn't estimated there.

so for arguments sake, let's just say that the same 10.5 percent growth in toe aura would be around a 500m(likely quite a bit higher though) increase in net worth. that mage shield would add around 75m to your pr and would only affect the shield wearer. if you wanted to duplicate the aura effect, you would actually need to multiply these number by the number of minions on the team.

this is not taking into account the fact that if you did duplicate the damage reduction in this manner, your minions wouldn't be able to use any magic! while that ten percent may not seem like that much for 5 million tat levels, a glass half full approach shows that it is actually has a pretty nice return on investment, at least in my opinion.

It is very bad investment when other tattoos work in a more linear fashion.

IE: the damage and hp of the familiars
the damage of the RBF
the DM protection of the RoS and its boost to ED spells.

All linear compared to the log type bonus of the ToE.

While the ToE may be great for a specific type of strategy, it seems to fall far by the wayside in the mid to later stages of character development.

I agree that the ToE could use a reworking to make it suck less.

ranger, most tats have linear & non-linear growth aspects. the ss on the toe (granted it does probably need to be an aura effect) benefits from linear growth.

i feel that damage reduction needs to be treated on a damage reduction model rather than a linear direct damage model regardless of if it comes from a tat or from an item. if it isn't, then you get items that are too powerful and then we get the cycle of nerf/uber.

i am not saying that the tat is fine as it is, just that giving it a linear damage reduction mode of growth would be a mistake in my opinion.

Maybe not linear as in % reduced, but linear as in a fixed amount reduced.

Like the ToE used to be.

Ranger,
from wiki:
"TOEs specifically assist the human while walking[2], providing balance, weight-bearing, and thrust during the gait"

and I thought you were a doctor...

/me is so very sorry for that one

I must have skipped Med School that day.

I also did not get instruction on curing cancer, world hunger and HIV.

I feel so inadequate now.

Thanks for pointing that out. :)

it would seem to me that jon is moving away from that type of model in the game and changing most that were based on it to a percentage system.

So how is he going to change the DD familiars, the TOA and/or the ROS to a less linear model.

Well lets see here, after a certain point and against certain opponents, more DX doesn't help you. Also, for me 1M more ST increase my damage by only around 5%, which is a lot less than the first 1M or so granted by the ToA. Finally, the pth curve is not linear, so I think you can see where I'm going with this Ranger.

no one need feel inadequate based on my humour, except me... hehe

Just a thought, but what if the ToE were to provide an aura SS similar to the way the RoBF provides magic reduction (ie the biggest in the game gives, say, 50% SS)

That would stop the uber-op potential (somewhat) and bring back some on the value of AC..

Just a thought

a better question, ranger, is why do you think it would be necessary to have both damage and damage reduction on the same model? isn't that what caused the evasion issues?

We have both on the RBF.

I find no need for both, but why not on the ToE and yes on the RBF.

But seriously, how many people would use the RBF if it did not have a "special" type of damage. Immune to BOTH amf and GA?

Almost nobody.

The evasion issue was completely different.

Evasion in the past was a triple thread, boosted by the AoF. Way overboosted I should say.

The ToE was stripped of all it's niceness. I can see why the previous version was very powerful (I used it), but now it's pretty worthless.

It's way too limited, very specific damage reduction.

I agree,

A defensive type of tattoo has to protect vs all types of damage, including the RBF to be useful (IMO).

An offensive tattoo can be specialized.

Just the nature of the game.

You can choose who you attack, but defend against everyone.

i am not saying that toe should not get any kind of attack.

all that i am saying, once again, is that damage reduction should likely stay on a growth curve and be percentage rather than flat based and that comparing damage models to damage reduction models is of no use regardless of whether on the same item or different.

likewise damage should probably be linear, unless the x mods on weapons are changed as well.

how you combine those on different items makes no matter to me. i was simply trying to explain why you probably weren't going to get the damage reduction mode changed on the toe as you wanted and that compared to other damage reductions it is very much in line, even a bargain.

i was also pointing out the patterns in jon's changes of late as evidence of what i saw in the direction he's taking. damage is linear growing fairly regularly throughout a minions career. damage reduction is now percentage based, i assume so that the ceiling of 100 percent can never be reached as with evasion and some other stacked reductions. the things that used to allow you to get close to the ceiling have been made more expensive, less effective or both.

Dude,

My post and points in this thread are not related to or in any way trying to get the ToE changed to a linear model.

It is just now pointing out that this tattoo really sucks for what it does.

Defensive type tattoos really need to protect vs most if not all attacks to be useful.

While offensive ones can be very specific.

The RBF is just plain stupid as I see it. Giving it a bit of evasion and magic resistance as well as a beautiful "special" attack is just insane. But that is my opinion alone.

"t is very bad investment when other tattoos work in a more linear fashion.

IE: the damage and hp of the familiars
the damage of the RBF
the DM protection of the RoS and its boost to ED spells.

All linear compared to the log type bonus of the ToE. "

it was that post that confused me then. it seemed that you were comparing tats to tats. simply put though i was just saying that it is more useful to compare damage reduction to damage reduction and damage to damage, regardless of where they come from.

good luck with getting it boosted, i would think a ss aura would be a great start since ss doesn't really help one who has foregone the body and back armor pieces to wear a tat.

some of my posts we also targeted at those saying that it was worthless past 1m levels. when compared to other damage reduction items though i showed that it is quite powerful and a bargain.

with that in mind, if it is ever changed to protect against other damage types, i would expect its percentages to likely be halved as far as effectiveness goes, capping at around 35 percent instead of wherever it caps now.

"We have both on the RBF."

Missed the point a little there there Ranger. ;)

Yes the RoBF conatins both a Linear scale (it's damage) and a non linear one (it's Magic Damage Reduciton) but that's neither here nor there. It's like saying the Elbow is broken becuase it has both a linear 'x' and a curved 'y'...

Dudes was talking abbut why you think it's necessary to shift Damage Reduction (in all forms) from a Curve based percentile reduction to a linear one.

As for;

"So how is he going to change the DD familiars"

I guess they'll change the moment Tank damage stops being linear algonside trained DD damage.

The point is all damage is linear in growth, and all damage reduction is now percentile (bar a tiny amount of linear reduction from armour, that's so small past zero MPR as to be unnoticable).

Shifting any sort of damage reduction back to a linear model will cause balancing havok, with immune charcaters popping up.

Ah, you were talking aobut Evasion. Guess I should read to the end of a topic before posting.

The Evaison growth on the tattoo is linear, but the reduction it applies isn't. It's the same as the SS on the ToE.

So if you want, they both give the same thing. One linear growing reduction and one direct percentage based one.

It boils down to you thinking the special attack of the RoBF is much better than the Physical Aura of the ToE.

/meh.

Horses for courses.

[quote]Defensive type tattoos really need to protect vs most if not all attacks to be useful.[/quote]

Why?

[quote]The RBF is just plain stupid as I see it. Giving it a bit of evasion and magic resistance as well as a beautiful "special" attack is just insane. But that is my opinion alone.[/quote]

Evasion is plain neutered now. No one uses a RoBF for it's evasion. Just like I'm sure no one uses the ToE for it's SS.

If you want another special added to the ToE, I'm sure it will have to lose it's Aura. Or the RoBF will have to have an aura reduction of it's magic damage added.

We can't have the ToE providing a team wide Physical damage reduction, a minion specific 'skill' trained *and* a special attack.

If we did, why not just replace every Tattoo with the ToE? What else would you need...

"It boils down to you thinking the special attack of the RoBF is much better than the Physical Aura of the ToE."

Ah, yea!!

The special attack of the RBF is multifold better then the damage reduction of the ToE.

Just look at the RBF vs ToE users.