Doom and Gloom! (in General)

I just read a couple of comments in some of the threads regarding the Elven Stilleto's uselessness, and it made me think of something.

When Ranger said something about new characters being mages up until 100k MPR, Goodfish responded:
"or they would just stay a mage forever -.- easier, cheaper, better"

In another thread, OB was lamenting the NUB bonus making "climbing up" through the weapons something from the distant past. Here's his quote:
"The game is still slowly but surely rolling toward a "Welcome to CB! Get your butt to work, you've got a 1000% bonus for 6 months and then we're dumping you flat!" gameplay."

That got me thinking about something. Mage damage scales linearly with DD level, which follows experience gained in a linear fashion, whereas tank physical damage scales with the square root of strength and weapon x, or something, while their ENC, which is linked linearly to trained stats, only increases linearly.

So, with the increasing N*B %, does this mean that we are inevitably headed towards Mage blender, as Mage damage will keep increasing while tank damage hits an asymptote? Maybe I should start a mage NCB...

Are you forgetting about the possibility of multiple hits each round as a tank? You're not getting that as a mage. And since all of the cheap ways to counter PTH are pretty much wasted, tanks have more potential of giving more damage then a mage.

Duh,

There comes a point where for a tank to increase their damage by 20% they have to spend tens of millions of CB on their weapon.

While mages just rack up the xp and boost theirs.

But... It is a choice you make when you play a tank. Knowing that it gets quite expensive.

Or... you can use a HF/JKF which increases its damage and PTH as it grows.

But all the comments about the NUB and the decline of low level rares are completely accurate. I do not know of anyone who disagrees.

if Mage damage increases too much, then there will be counter measures...

We have already had one counter measure.

The AoF can no longer be junctioned to a familiar, reducing their levels and HP by approx 30% across the board.

Merely comparing damage output is a little simplistic. Tanks have access to better armour, multiple hits, leeching, maybe some other stuff, if you are correct these will all be overcome at some point but they should work to postpone that day.

That's the countermeasure to the EF build, not to a normal mage ;)

"So, with the increasing N*B %, does this mean that we are inevitably headed towards Mage blender, as Mage damage will keep increasing while tank damage hits an asymptote?"

I think I'd been around for 4 or 5 months (I remember I had just bought a char and was trying to decide what direction to go with it) when i looked at tank and mage damage growth... I came to the conclusion that somewhere between 7-9m MPR (depending on where the break points for XP scaling were), mages would have a fiercely overpowering damage advantage over tanks, which was quite the opposite of what was going on at the time (anyone remember ELBs with seeker arrows? o.O). Top MPR was only like 2.2m at the time though, so this was still way off in the sunset, and set aside... After all, there were expected to be what? 20+ changemonths before that time had come...

Later, Jon rescaled XP by making it a linear 12xp per skillpoint. Most were able to see this as a mage buff (yes, tanks with concentrated XP also got helped, but the size of their weapons didn't increase in the rescale :P). Not many (or any that I can recall) looked at this with the thoughts from my previous paragraph in mind... the XP shift, kinda put mage damage out in front, somewhere around 5m MPR, then encumbrance went and brought that number closer to 3-4m MPR. These are the results we're seeing from the current game.


Wrong? Try using a mage team to take out a tank team at 100k MPR and see how well that turns out. You're toast. At 1m MPR, you're at a disadvantage, but with the right setup, it's doable. now try taking out a 4m MPR mage team with a 4m MPR tank team, and see if the results don't show the exact opposite of the first test.

Funny CC, I said this exact same thing about 4 months ago and I was extremely ridiculed. But, I'm glad someone else thinks it's this way too.

When Ranger said something about new characters being mages up until 100k MPR, Goodfish responded:
"or they would just stay a mage forever -.- easier, cheaper, better"


Actually, that was me that said that. But I can understand how you could confuse one fish for another.

I'm not following... Weapon x is linear, with plenty of room in ENC to grow a weapon so that a tank and mage of the same size can do the same damage.

STR investment is like investing in DD for the mage, except STR doesn't need to be as high as a pure DD pump, since a portion of the damage from a weapon is the x.

In fact, when weapon x upgrades were made linear, I recall Nightstrike saying the exact opposite of what is being said here -- the damage increases for tanks are now open ended since one can pump x essentially forever. Has ENC really changed things that much?

Yeah sut, if you want to throw down 500 or 600 USD maybe tanks have an advantage, but someone can't keep doing this every time they double in size. Fist it's 500USD, then it's 1000USD, then 2000 USD, need I keep going. All mages have to do is grow, with extra money they get that can also upgrade their gear boosting their DD even more.

After a certain point the ability to increase a mage's DD significantly becomes very low.

MPR growth is slow, people have 4 minion teams. Right now, a decent melee weapon with a ton of X and BL can out-damage a huge SG. To tell you the truth I feel that increasing damage practically has hit a standstill.

I agree with Titan. Without the NUB its literally impossible to keep your weapon X anywhere NEAR high enough to compete with DD. I have 70M ENC on my tank and i'm using under 25M. Granted, I don't spend every last bit of cash on my weapon. But if I did i'd still only have about a x1000 weapon, as opposed to the x6000 or more that I could be using if I could afford it.

Tanks sort of have another way to increase damage output with PTH. With sufficiently large STR and x, it might be easier to pump + by 100 then to increase x for damage.

D: That was neither doomy nor gloomy... Lol go me and my "if it seems depressing its worth reading" awkward mind set.

I would love to know the following:

4M MM vs 2M AMF, what is the AMF 0.xx

6M MM vs 4M AMF, what is the AMF 0.xx

10M MM vs 8M AMF, what is the AMF 0.xx

Now put in NSs at .14 and what are the final AMFs

How does the "economic of scale" work with DD in reality.

For a tank to add +100 to a weapon is really not feasible after about +200 for some, +100 for others, depending if they use USD.

There comes a point where getting the x up on your weapon is not going to help do more damage.

IE going from x1000 to x2000 will increase your damage about 50% for a given strength.

Going from x8000 to x9000 will be less than 10%. Both cost the same. Even doubling strength will not get you to 100% more damage. Tanks, in time, due to dimishing returns, will fail to equal mages damage.

However, this is well known and is the price one pays to play a tank. Knowing it will cost a lot of money and possibly one day not be able to catch up.

That is why a lot of the top teams are using a DD familiar, HF, or RBF. There are few pure tanks in the top ranks now due to the prohibitive cost.

If you look at Vectoitz, there will soon come a point where adding more to his massive ELB will not help. He is close now to that point. He can continue to pump more and more USD into it, or can realize it is a losing proposition and try other strategies.

Certainly tanks can hit multiple times per round, however, they can also hit zero times. Mages always hit.

It is a tradeoff one considers when setting up ones character. It has always been that way in CB2.

Here's some info:
My AMF: 5,437,191
(AA's character The Immortals) Magician's MM: 8,250,000

I cast for:
Dark Phantom cast Antimagic Field on Magician (0.17)
Magician is also wearing: Soul Reaping Casters [0] (+15)

Can you post his damage vs a low AC non-MgS minion and the AMF backlash he takes? In melee rounds please as there are penalties in missile rounds to damage. Except the last one that is.

I have no BA. :(
But, it should be easy to test, since my RBF/MgS minion is in the back, and my enchanter in front.

Magician's Magic Missile hit Dark Phantom [2468944]

Vs. my enchanter, who has no other DD-reduction besides the AMF cast at the beginning of the round. Miniscule AC; 24.

Perhaps we should compare the boostability of strength vs the boost ability of DDs before drawing conclusions about AMF/NSC.

Wiki:
"Calculate the ratio (AMF level/DD level), after all bonuses/penalties; call this X.
If X<1 (that is, AMF weaker than DD) then effect is X^(0.7)/2
If X>1 (AMF stronger than DD) effect is 1 - 1/(2X)"

4M MM vs 2M AMF, is AMF 0.31
6M MM vs 4M AMF, is AMF 0.37
10M MM vs 8M AMF, is AMF 0.43

With +14 NSC
.17
.23
.29

Even so though, magic damage scales linearly, besides as you go to infinity you should be keeping the same Amf DD ratio.

And AMF damage is max damage of DD * pct * .4

More interesting to compare.

10M MM vs 8M AMF, is AMF 0.43

With +14 NSC
.29

10M MM vs 4.6M AMF, is .29

Fun huh? Bye bye 3.4M levels.

Yeah, I think NSCs are a bit too good at what they do.

lets see, make the NSC's do to AMF what the whiners did to evasion.
Nerf it down!

Certainly the NSC are quite overpowered. I have been stating that since they came into play. It is one reason I prefer DM to AMF now. Unless you have massive AMF, the NSCs just make it almost 0 effect.

What other item can neutralize 4M levels in a skill/spell aside from the Exbow?

And if you only have 4M levels AMF vs a 10M spells, your basically peeing in the wind.

Quick Cube, what is the effect of 4M AMF vs 10M DD?

Then take .14 off that from NSC.

Yeah, nerf the NSC. That will totally buff my strat to no end. ;)

How much natural DD do you need to get 10 million effect? How much natural str you need to get 10 million effect?

My main beef is not that tanks don't have the ABILITY to do damage comparable to a mage's... it's that its so damn expensive to get a tank to that point, especially at higher MPR.

Here
.26 without NSC
.12 with NSC

Ouch

If your an archer, you only use a TSA to boost strength.

A melee only tank can use TG, and HOE as well.

A mage typically will use a COI, BoE and SBs.

However, at a certain level, a tank really cannot do that much more damage compared to a mage do to NW limits.

"I agree with Titan. Without the NUB its literally impossible to keep your weapon X anywhere NEAR high enough to compete with DD"

You are aware that you get just as much cash:XP with a NUB as you do a standard char (provided both buy BA), right? the NUB is just a bonus applied to that ratio...

ToA Ranger? yeah lets not mention that one.

Yes Hatch. I should have clarified I was talking about NCBs.

You can't have ToA and TSA Henk... I could be wrong, but usually the strength boost is comparable.

Using a TOA is not that advised. Certainly it is nice in the early levels, but later on, pfft.

The TOA gives strength and dexterity, however if you have enough naturally trained, you can get nearly as much boost to strength via the TSA, with regeneration ability. The dexterity boost of the EC is less than the TOA, however it does boost skills. Saving xp for more dexterity.

The TOA stands out in its PTH ability.

However, is the TOA worth using versus a different tattoo such as a HF or a DD familiar or even a RBF?

I personally do not believe so and by a fairly wide margin.

Ever since junction was born, the TOA lost a lot of its luster.

Add the fact that the TOAs PTH addition is NW based, with diminishing returns with the more + you have on your weapon, the TOA certainly fails at higher levels. I think SHD got +26 or so with his ELB.

Also, with a TOA, your tank cannot get the AC bonus of the TSA and EC.

Which in turn means more damage, and less effective HP. Being allowed to use a power shield with a tattoo has made the TOA slightly better, but IMO it falls far short at the higher levels of play.

"If your an archer, you only use a TSA to boost strength.

A melee only tank can use TG, and HOE as well.

A mage typically will use a COI, BoE and SBs."

Really? How about AoM? How about BoM? Those are a "little" significant. Together they can give more a percentage based boost to str than the biggest DD equipment combined. Lets not forget TSA/ToA.

A mid-upper end BoM should give 30% boost. AoM is 24-26%. TGs is 16-17%. HoE 14-15% boost. That's at least 80% boost.

What's my point? 10 million DD is a bigger deal and harder to get than 10 million str. With strength you need so much less investment. If ToA is involved, there is hardly an investment. So when we compare 10 million DD to so much AMF we need to think, 10 million is ALOT of DD. How many people in CB have that much DD on an actual minion. One? Two? Furthermore, how many of those minion have significant HP?

Most importantly, how many of those minions (and familiars) can take take their own backlash? Without AS my Familiar fries himself in two rounds to a huge AMF. So what it's at "only" .30 effect. There is recoil in the equation and little way around it.

AMF is just as hard to boost as DD..

Harder, even.

Two things...

1. Damage increases linearly if you increase ST and weapon x linearly, and you can increase weapon x linearly because encumberance increases linearly with ST too. The OP's concerns that physical damage can't scale are unfounded. The only problem is that at the VERY low levels, the "100k free encumbrance" and the item naming boost to weapon x distort the perception... if people would start at next to no encumbrance allowance and only use unnamed weapons, you would see it all rise precisely linear.

2. What was that about archers ? >:)



Notice how LOW my PR is compared to MPR when you put me side to side with other high-plus-on-weapon archers... meaning I get better challenge bonuses compared to them. Also, I get +122 on the weapon from the ToA, so it's not like I'm swinging empty.

Actually, the problem is more being able to afford the giant NW cost. It scales horribly if you don't have the money to upgrade.

Yes, I certainly forgot the BoM and AoM. My huge mistake.

But to get more damage from your weapon, you need to boost it not a fixed amount but a % of what it was.

The costs add up.

x1k ---> x2k no problem

x2k ---> x4k bit more expensive

x4k ---> x8k a lot more expensive

x8k ---> x16k cost prohibitive

And while mages ramp up their DD less than tanks ramp up strength, given the multifold more str boosting items, the NSC more than compensates vs AMF teams.

Just look at Vectoidz. How much more NW can he possibly add to his bow?. He is already maxing it via the TOA. To get 10% more x on that bow has got to cost millions of CB.

And to Sickone with his +0 elb. Yes, you certainly get +122. But try to hit opponents with DBs. You will find at the top ranks, they are quite popular.

Remember we are not typing about what is happening now. Balance is fairly good. But in how much longer will we see it impossible to boost your tanks damage without massive upon massive amounts of CB to boost your weapon(s).

That is the point of the post. Not what is happening now.

Net Worth $271,341,917 FTW

as a mage with 4 minions and tattoo is included. Not really cheap.

Net Worth
The Hens of Daze (1125690439)
Conundrum (850354965)
King of Pain (649654033)
Vectoidz (555444143)
Heroes (544567034)
The Iconics 3e (520694251)
Yanki (425616611)
Ares the Great (399198861)
The Immortals (390561380)
Luke Skywalker (373371409)
God (350222475)
demolition man (348597388)
The Lega (340096814)
Law (325695433)
Failure (318884098)
The Z Experience (293575767)
Dixie Cousins (287597015)
Zangy (286742916)
Koyaanisqatsi (276057577)
Loans (272698731)
FTW (271341917)

It is all relative.

I'm just pointing out how AMF/NSC is balanced. If you want to say Tank damage has issues, that's one thing, but saying NSC are OP is quite a different thing altogther.

I did not read that 3/4ths.

The NSC/AMF axis is off by my view.

But that is for another thread.

This is to state that in time, tanks cannot keep up with the linear increase mages get to their damage.

Due to prohibitive costs to their weapons.

"And to Sickone with his +0 elb. Yes, you certainly get +122. But try to hit opponents with DBs. You will find at the top ranks, they are quite popular."

There's only about 15 pairs of DBs that would be large enough to nullify my ToA added PTH, and then they'd also need some heavy duty DX to nullify the rest, or else I do get my "one guaranteed hit" in anyway.
Not all of those DBs are on people in the top ranks, and not all are actually used.
Considering I'm on a strict "do not purchase CB$ with cash" development plan, that means I'm not even trying to beat everybody, just have SOME decent targets... I'm actually doing well above average with that strategy.

And when you get higher up, you will find less and less targets to hit.

And DB's do not need to be larger than your elb pth. Just large enough to reduce hits from 3 to 2 or 2 to 1.

Considering physical damage is less than magical. Compensated by the ability to do multiple hits.

Vs targets at the top, and yes we are typing now about the top and the future, 1 hit a round is barely a scratch.

You will find, without at lot more CB, you will not be able to compete very well at a higher MPR.

Less and less targets to hit... So...like me?

And I even have a physical damage source -- a Halidon.

You say "less and less targets to hit" as if that isn't part of the simple fact of getting bigger? Huh? We all have less and less targets to hit unless we expend a lot of USD, or buy minions, etc. How could there NOT be fewer targets as you grow toward an asymptotic peak?

I see you have 25 targets Sut.

Not too shabby. They all are likely over 4M score.

As a tank, without putting a lot of money to your weapons, at your level, I would bet he will be hard pressed to get that many 4M score opponents. You have a physical damage source, but in no way can you compare it to a tank.

Your HF grows its elb and its pth as its level grows. Automatically without USD needed.

It may be the only tank left at the very high MPR ranks.

Even now, my HF has a higher PTH than my tank, as a single minion using Mikel's Elb.

Imagine another 1M MPR for me or 2M? And we are typing about a 169M NW ELB.

Unless as a tank you put in massive NW into your weapon to keep up with mage linear damage increase, you will not be able to keep up.

I will be very interested in seeing how Vectoidz does iwhen everyone has 1M more MPR, not buying a minion. Will Conundrum beat him 100% of the time, due to his linear damage increase?

Also, if novice wants to put NW, he can boost his DBs. Vect has to boost his PTH and x to compensate for novices NW boost and linear DD damage.

Right now things are good. But later, I have no idea how much later, it will again break down without more changes.

This has already been proven by the nerf DD we just had. Jon saw what was happening and took a nice step towards balance. But later something more will needed to be done to even things out.

Just my prognostication, agreeing with Custard as he is a very smart person.

*cough*
My targets...

Let's just put it this way... I have a bit over 5 mil ST (which, actually, only 1.5 mil is trained), slightly under 60 mil NW on the weapon, and I still deal close to 1 mil damage PER HIT in ranged ON AVERAGE against unarmored targets, while my encumbrance could allow me to use a weapon more than four times that size (so, double damage per hit).
Now... just how much damage per RANGED round would a mage be able to do with 1.5 mil (or, heck, 5 mil) into his DD and 60 mil NW worth of gear ?

Sure, mage damage increases linearly with DD level... but then again ranged damage CAN also increase linearly as long as you keep pumping up ST and NW at a constant rate.
The difference is that raw physical damage STARTS much higher than magical damage to begin with, and if somebody can be bothered to sink as much USD as they like into weapon NW, they could positively dominate any mage team at a similar MPR range.
So... unless you plan to make weapon NW largely irrelevant (by, say, removing the X part of them, either reimbursing people or shifting the entire NW into weapon plus) and make physical damage per hit linear with ST only, there's no argument to be had.

"But to get more damage from your weapon, you need to boost it not a fixed amount but a % of what it was.

The costs add up.

x1k ---> x2k no problem

x2k ---> x4k bit more expensive

x4k ---> x8k a lot more expensive

x8k ---> x16k cost prohibitive"

You're confusing things Ranger.

"you need to boost it not a fixed amount but a % of what it was"

No. You can boost your damage by increasinf STR/X by a fixed amount.

What you're showing above is that in order to double your current damage, you need to double your current STR and X. So a Tank with 100K STR and x1000 weapon would need 200K STR and x2000 on thier weapon to double their current Damage.

But upping to only 150K STR and x1500 will still increase your damage.

It's exactly the same for mages. A Mage with a 500K FB would need to double it to 1M to double thier current damage.

And until Jon releases how many hits per round, and at which base weapon damage Tank to Mage damage is balanced, we can't make any short of equivalent stab between the two.

Should a 500K FB do equal Damage to a x250 ES with 250K STR? Is that over a single hit per round? Three?

Let's take Vectoidz's bow and tattoo...

DMON BOW OF POWER [6x12300] (+281) owned by Dark Dreky (Vectoidz)
Super Knock-Out Punch lvl 8,082,157 owned by Dark Dreky (Vectoidz)

Now, that +281 (+293 after naming bonus) is worth, umm, what, around 200 mil NW ? And he gets an additional, what, 50 mil NW equivalent from the ToA ? His actual plus should be somewhere around +340 or so.
What if he dumped all that NW into the x part instead ?
Well, he would get a x37830 bow for starters, and he'd still be getting around +165 to hit from the ToA.

He'd be dealing nearly +75% damage PER HIT, while hitting "only" two and a half times (well, 2.65) instead of four and a half times (actually more like 4.4).
Actually, he'd be dealing MORE damage overall per round if he did that (shift all from the + to the x), at least against targets WITHOUT any form of PTH-reducing gear... while at the same time HEAVILY DECREASING his PR, so bumping up rewards.
But... what about "overkill defence" targets ? You know, the "I have +400 DB" types ? Well, he'd still be dealing one hit per round anyway (unless they also pump up their DX like mad too, which few actually do), so he'd be benefiting from the full +75% damage increase.
No matter how you put it, right now, with a ToA, having any NW into the plus side of the weapon is nearly a total waste, the higher you go, the more wasteful the investment in plus is.

waste? Just cause it isn't as significant a boost doesn't make it useless? Perhaps we should take off the NW boost to PTH off the ToA cause it's obviously doing nothing...wait.

Perhaps you're suggesting a linear boost in the NW PTH curve, which I'm fine with, as long as we rescale evasion and DBs linearly as well. However, unless the number are perfect, I can see this becoming way too overpower/underpowered really really fast...

I'm saying that there's an optimal upgrade curve on how much NW you should put into the x and how much into the +, and that depends on your ToA NW (if you have one) *and* on your opponent's DB and evasion level... and also on number of minions in the opposing team that has those DB/evasion.

If the target has no DB/evasion, you're slightly better off pumping everything into the X if you have a decently sized ToA.
If the target has moderate degrees of NW into DB and XP into evasion, a certain modicum of NW into the weapon plus becomes optimal.
But on the other end, when the target has overkill DBs and huge amounts of XP into evasion, you are MUCH better off pumping EVERYTHING into the X instead.

There's only a narrow range of enemy minion count, minion order, type of damage-dealing done by the enemy team, DB NW and XP into evasion where you're better off pumping the weapon's + side.
In most other cases, pumping the X on the weapon instead is more beneficial, SINCE THE OPTIMAL "+ NW" HAS BEEN REACHED AND SURPASSED just from the equivalent ToA-added NW already.

To give you just an idea of what I mean, would you consider a 6x1(+100) unnamed ELBow ridiculous ?

Compare that to, say, a 6x1500(+55) unnamed ELBow which has pretty much the same NW, and I certainly would call the first one basically pointless.
Just because naming it turns it into a 6x150(+104) bow doesn't make it much less ridiculous, just marginally useful. The second one when named would become 6x1650(+58), which is also clearly superior.

Perhaps we have a different concept of what is optimal.

Yes, if one person has big enough DBs to force you to one hit you'll benefit more from pumping the X, but so what? That's like saying if someone has a gigantic AMF, it'll be more efficent to go tank against that opponent. What does this reflect about tanks? What does it reflect about mages? Nothing.

The thing about tanks is that there are two ways to maximize damage. Because of this we create a sernerio where we need to actually think and balance things other than spamming one stat like a mage. Sure you can spam X but if you find a way to double your hits, you can do TWICE as much damage! But you can't just spam + because clearly Jon didn't want a game where tanks normally hit 6-10 times a round. It's all about balance, and none of your equations involve that. Cause it's complex.

Of course this complexity lends itself to weakness. More options always lead to this, by choosing one you forfiet another. Str vs dex. X vs +. But these weaknesses doesn't mean the whole system is wrong.

Please read this entire post.

"Compare that to, say, a 6x1500(+55) unnamed ELBow which has pretty much the same NW, and I certainly would call the first one basically pointless.
Just because naming it turns it into a 6x150(+104) bow doesn't make it much less ridiculous, just marginally useful. The second one when named would become 6x1650(+58), which is also clearly superior."

Exactly. It's all about balance. In this position it would be better to invest alot in X and a medicore amount in PTH. What does this tell us about the X? What does this tell us about the PTH curve? It just tells us that putting 100% of a weapons NW in PTH is a bad idea. It doesn't show a inherent problem in the PTH system. Same for the X.

PTH increases in effect linearally, but increases by NW nonlinearlly. X increases by NW linearlly, but increases in effect nonlinearlly. I find it funny that Ranger points to the X and says that there is an inhererent problem with tanks since there effect is nonlinear and Sickone instead points at the PTH NW and says it's problematic because it is nonlinear.

But lets turn it around and consider what will happen if either nonlinear property became linear, or both! If any aspect became linear we'll instantly have a problem on our hands because so many elements are involved in determining total damage. Tanks will instantly become too strong because their damage could be scaled too fast. OR they could become too weak early game in an effort to scale their damage appropiatly to the competitive play area. Don't believe me?

Consider this: X is now linear.

Now, at what point can we allow doubling the X doubling the damage? Try plugging in some numbers, making your own formula. If you had 2 million strength, how much X should you need to deal 500k damage with an ELBow. Now double your X. Increase your Str. Is it still balanced? Now at low MPR with 50k str, how much X would you need to deal similar mage like damage? Hopefully it's not in the negatives...hopefully it's not too high.

Perhaps you want a system where you add X and str together to determine damage...but wait! Then wouldn't it be USD blender for sure? And why would you even bother with PTH then?

You see, unless you want tanks to be simplified greatly like a mage (take away the weapon and make damage completely based on exp) we can't have a linear growth. There has to be a curve either in NW or effect growth. The real question is: is this curve right?

I think you completely misunderstood what I was saying.
You seem to think I said "there's something wrong and underpowered with physical damage".
I was saying the exact opposite, "there is nothing wrong with physical damage, it might actually be overpowered compared to magic damage".

The "point" of the thread was the linearity of magic damage and the supposed non-linearity of physical damage.
I was making the point that it's not the case, as long as you keep upping both the weapon x and the ST on a linear basis, physical damage is also linear.
Not just that, but that in SOME cases, upping the + part instead of just pushing the x up constantly might actually push the damage up even ABOVE a linear progression.

I merely made an observation regarding the optimisation of damage output given some of the weapons and gear on the people near the top, pointing out the fact that we DON'T have a problem, it's just that people have the NW on weapons in the wrong places. Well, not even "wrong", just "suboptimal".

sorry, but agreed.

It's worth pointing out that the reason that people invested in tank PTH so much in the past was because tank damage was so high anyway so people wanted a way to guarentee a hit or two.

Now dodging isn't nearly as much as a problem (but can still be done, only with more of an investment). So people are noticing that more X is needed to get significant damage output.

The only argument here is the usefulness of high-NW weapons in the context of the N*B.

Granted, take my weapon for instance, with its "not even 60 mil NW yet". Would I be to start a NCB, I would be unable to use it for a good while properly.
That's due to the debilitating effects of encumbrance. Would encumbrance only affect ST it would make sense (so by using a huge NW weapon I would end up doing just about as much damage as I would do with a properly-sized x upgrade weapon), but it also affects DX and enchants, and let's not even talk of AC and DD.
Sure, I could just go pure HP/ST until I hit my encumbrance limit so that the "negative" effect would be negligible, but then again that doesn't make for a very compelling early growth.
On the other hand, as soon as I hit and pass the encumbrance limit, I am suddendly making most of my weapon, and comparative to some mage at the same MPR, I am dealing far more damage per hit, with the distinct possibility of multiple hits per round.

The big advantage of mages compared to weapon users is that in order to grow their damage linearly, a weapon user would have to invest pretty much every last CB$ he makes into the weapon, while the magic user could instead buy all his BA constantly, upgrade his gear, and have loads of spare cash around - in other words, mages grow faster without USD than a tank would in the upper regions, if no N*B is being used.
But, there's a twist here too - a weapon user CAN fully use his weapon eventually on a N*B run, while all magic users basically start from scratch, with only a handful of exception items. In other words, NW is much better conserved between N*B runs for weapon users.

So, it's not a clear case of "mage is better than tank" nor "tank is better than mage", it all depends on many different circumstances.

The Grey King [84x697] (+0) (morg)
Blackthorn [5x1210] (+0) (mageseeker)
An Amulet of Might [0] (+10)
A Pair of Elven Boots [10] (+21)
A Pair of Beleg's Gloves [3] (+14)
A Helm of Clearsight [-5] (+5)
The Mist Of Ravens [10] (+25) (BoM)
Storm Heart lvl 3,109,784 (ToA)
A 2007 CB T-shirt [1]

That's the gear on my 1.8 million MPR tank. Adds up to about 80 million NW including the tattoo, 25 million without. My score is over the 4 mill, as are a large chunk of my fightlist. My average damage is about 200k per strike, if I was using an ELB it would be more - closer to 500k. I'm hitting doubles, triples and quads. If I switched to a mage with the MPR I've got I'm not sure where I would be fighting at, but I suspect lower.


I switched to this when the junction change came in and I couldn't get an AoJ. I had been running an EF and enchanter team. I didn't lose any score or fighting level by switching to this. I don't think tanks are doing too badly at the moment, especially without evasion to worry about.

I should add that I've quite a lot of dex, which reduces a tank like Sick's to single strikes and other tanks to zero strikes. But I've also no enchantments whatsoever, so I'm probably more focused in my XP use than most. But without DM or AMF I still do pretty well against mages.

I had around 2 mil base DX, over 4 mil base ST on top of nearly 5 mil HP and over 1.5 mil archery.
Modified by gear, that was over 4 mil DX and over 9 mil ST. Not exactly sure how much over, but the ballpark figure is accurate enough.

I untrained almost everything in early February this year, taking the almost 5% XP loss (only archery was untrained at 2% loss), then only retrained 4 mil HP and some leftover ST plus the bare minimum archery after I put 6 mil into DM.
Since then, I have only been training ST and the minimum needed of Archery, I have upped my gear one upgrade point for some of them and kept pumping my weapon x.

In spite of the XP loss, almost immediately after the "revamp", I only lost one single target, but nearly doubled my fightlist even after pruning some lower-scoring targets out.
Personally, in spite of the armor penalties, I think training that huge DM was a big improvement - for starters, it completely nullifies most GA out there (so even if I have slightly lower HP, I survive noticeably longer), and it eats up a lot of enemy AS (and it's a very popular enchant, that AS), which usually translates into faster kills.

To be honest, I think the HP amount on my single archer is overkill... most of my current targets, I finish the battle with 3+ mil HP.
It seems odd that I could fight at such a level even if I only had 1 mil HP on a single minion, but stranger things have happened.

I was even considering trading in my ELB for a SoD (so that I could finish more fights in the first or second round), drop my HP even more to maybe 2 mil, drop archery altogether (since, hey, SoD) and pump up ST to the max. I am still considering it, but, meh, where would I find a SoD that has next to no + but a lot of x _and_ an owner willing to part with it ? Nowhere, precisely.

I think too many teams are now training DM (I noticed all those SFBM with DM at the last tourny), maybe it is time to design a strat that will mop up all those DM quick kill teams.

Except that the cure for a quick-kill DM team is... hmmm... still a quick-kill team, but without DM ?
:)

Seriously, what else would you use ?
If you go with any heavy-ED team, that's out of the question, even with a RoS you still can't fight far above your PR against DM-heavy teams.
If you want to go with heavy armor so you outlast them, well, heavy armor is kind of dead unless you're already in the top ranks and sport so much SS it's crazy, so that's not an answer either.

Face it, DM is kind of overpowered, that's why almost everybody is using it.

"Face it, DM is kind of overpowered, that's why almost everybody is using it. "

Agreed 100%

check out the top 1% of active user in the spell/skill popularity. over 1/5 of all XP in the top is AS. over 20%!!! (its over 9000!!!). and DM is even more popular than AMF. The other interesting thing is that DM is the most popular DD, but with only 0.2% of XP trained. I think in the ideal world, each category should be about even (so MM trained roughly equal SG trained, and AMF trained equal EC trained equals DM trained etc).

Oh dear, now DM is the target of disdain... You folks can't make up your minds, can you?

Yeah, I love investing 25-30% of my MPR in something that has no effect on a large number of targets.

If anyone wants to be an ED baby, then that person gets exactly what he/she signs up for. I don't hear PoisoN complaining that I can beat NWO, threefourths complaining that I can beat Single Minion, nor Bast complaining that I can beat Dixie Cousins. Why is that? Shouldn't they be outraged? No, instead, I get Ranger agreeing that DM is overpowered even as he is owner of a team that can beat my massive DM pretty easily (and who is a tank, by the way!)

And I _still_ can't beat Conundrum even with my massive DM and his large dependence on AS. You know why? Tank gear. An SoD and exbow add a modest amount to Con's total PR, and they obliterate my team.

And yet folks are saying tanks can't hack it and that DM is overpowered... I'm extremely confused.

More on my fight list, and DM, since that appears to be what has been brought up now...

Here are the top people I beat fairly handily:

Titania -- AS user
NWO - AS user
Dixie Cousins - AS User
Single Minion - AS user
Konohas Finest - AS/RoS user

Total number of native hit points on all the above teams COMBINED: around 4-5 million. DM appears to be working exactly as designed, in that case.

Here are people I can't beat, some not even with several attacks in a row:

Vectoidz -- over 8 million native HP -- TANK
Conundrum -- AS baby and still can't beat him -- his edge? Tank gear.
FTW - over 11 million native HP -- uses RoBF
King of Pain -- over 11 million native HP and a great PL strategy -- uses RoBF
Heroes -- over 8 million native HP, pure tank

The people I can't beat almost always have higher score than the folks I can beat. They are the top, and I can't touch them, not even one that depends heavily on what 30% of my DM investment is meant to beat.

The best part? I'm not complaining. I've done exactly what I set out to do -- destroy defensive-enchantment dependency (save for Conundrum). That was my goal on day one of my Hubbell NCB, and that was more than two years ago now. Sure, I lost my way a few times, trying to gain more people and forgetting my focus. Then I got my head on straight, invested in even more DM, and stuck with my native intent.

So tell me, in light of who I can beat and who I cannot, and the fact that this is just about the most direct example of rock/scissors/paper in action (which everyone LOVES, right?), how the heck is DM overpowered?

sadly i think the rock is always going to feel that the paper is overpowered. scissors will feel the same about the rock and paper will definitely believe that the uber scissors require nerfage.

I concur with Sut. I was told to find a strategy and try to beat it to rise to the top. SFBM was popular when I started, so I made the Heavy AS/RoS/GA team to beat it. I rose very quickly. I can beat almost any DM team (except for Sut and Vectoidz). I will probably beat Vectoidz in the near future, if my HP gets high enough and my RoS blocks enough of his DM... but, never, ever, will I plan on beating Sut. Oh well.

I have enjoyed watching Konoha's rise! It is the Finest, indeed! *smile*

Now I just need to brainwash you into changing all that DM into EC.

Could you beat Conundrum without a Hal to be hit by the Exbow? Or if he was without an Exbow?

I feel DM is overpowered in the fact it stacks, while the ED spells do not.

If it would be apples to apples, I would have less of a problem with DM.

But this thread is not about that. it is about other things which I believe have been quite nicely discussed with little degeneration of the thread.

"not even one that depends heavily on what 30% of my DM investment is meant to beat."

That is a heavy investment for sure.

What about people who invest that much in AMF and watch it be cut in 1/2 due to 1 item? The NSC. How is that fair?

I know a tangent.

The Hal and the re-dedication to DM is what gave me Conundrum for a time. The exbow is no longer the problem (with large DBs I can make him miss Hal every time) -- more the SoD. Some large DBs on my lead minion might help, I'm not sure. I gave up, tired of playing the musical chairs against novice. There is always going to be a gear setup that gives him the edge, and I just don't have enough DM to get his hit points down enough.

Hm, might go rent some huge DBs just to see, though... I don't lose THAT badly to Con...

Yeah, even the biggest DBs in rentals (+129) on my lead minion can't stop Con (and he isn't packing the exbow right now). SoD still hits twice because of its pth, and probably a dexterity gap. That's enough to give Conundrum a pretty easy win... That's OK, I don't mind losing to novice. *smile*

I guess moving your HF to the front and using DBs on it, perhaps with evasion trained on that minion as well will not help yet vs Conundrum.

The HF does have a huge dexterity compared to most tanks in the game. With DB's neutralizing the PTH of the weapon, he may not get any hits with his SoD, given his tanks low dexterity.

And then his SF will not get to your HF for a few rounds.

But... With 3 minions learning more and more DM, vs his 1 learning more AS, in time perhaps you will get to the point you nerf enough of his AS to beat him.

The game is more rock/paper/scissors than it ever was now.

If we can only get the Dudemus' bug list fixed.....

That does get closer! Beat him once out of four... I have been so heck-bent on keeping my AoLs useful that I forget about moving the Hal to the front... Still isn't enough to beat Conundrum regularly, though... That MM eats quick from the back! And with Hal and Joe right up front, and Hubbell Man unable to wear an AoL, that takes away the Aol Gains from my offense (can probably still beat everyone else on my list, though.

I'll play around more. I'm not familiar with the power of huge DBs just because I've never been able to afford them. Pretty fun, though!

"Damage increases linearly if you increase ST and weapon x linearly"
Wait a minute. Let me think for a second. I think I thought this wasn't the case when I started this thread, but it's possible you're right.

Let me get my thoughts straight.
To double my damage, I can:
a) Quadruple my weapon x
b) Quadruple my ST
or
c) Double each
Correct?

Now, to quadruple my current damage, I can:
a) Buy 16 times as many weapon xs
b) Train 16 times as much ST
or c) Quadruple both

Hmmm... Now that I look at it, it looks like going with option c is linear. I guess I got all confused because I was talking about doubling, and I thought it worked its way up in powers of two.

100k ST, x500 weapon, 80k per hit.
200k ST, x1000 weapon, 160k per hit.
300k ST, x1500 weapon, 240k per hit.
400k ST, x2000 weapon, 320k per hit.
1.6 mil ST, x8000 weapon, 1.28 mil per hit.
Sound fair. I guess I got hung up on having to double ST and x, and forgetting that it's also doubling damage each time, which yields linear values even though continually doubling is exponential. Or in other words, I forgot that exponential upgrades lead to exponential damage increase.

So what of UC, then? As far as we know, x value (if that is what is shown in post-battle stats, that is) doesn't increase linearly for UC, but rather on the same curve as UC's PTH and the same curve as its effect. Is UC supposed to require an exponential ST investment, then? Or is its base damage value not shown because it somehow scales to give relatively constant damage, even as the multiplier curve steepens?

Maybe the Combat Gi should grant a per + bonus to ST...

"SoD still hits twice because of its pth"
Oops. That was my bad. I kinda let him insta to mine a couple of weeks ago. Sorry.

Nothing to be sorry about! Gear rocks! (which is sort of a point I have been trying to make).

I don't disagree pure tanks seem to be more rare these days, but the use of tank gear, often in hybrid concert with DD or RoBF damage, makes or breaks a LOT of battles on my fightlist. Something as simple as insta-ing up a single piece of gear can make all the difference, and that is something you simply cannot do with DD. NSCs notwithstanding, there isn't a lot I can do to radically change my offense when using a familiar or DD mage.

I would really prefer a different thread for everything claimed to be OP. That way it'll be easier to discuss properly.

Ages ago I made a post about UC being the only non Linear Damage in CB.

I think it got forgotten quickly. ;)

Well the mageseeker bow is certainly not overpowered.

Especially with PL available to protect the mage.

Nor is the VB overpowered due to the nerfage of AC and the change of SS from skill to dispellable ED.

So not everything is OP. Just a few things. My biggest OP item is of course the exbow. Everything else pails in comparison. And yes, even the NSC.