OK, this is really stupid (in General)

Fighting LA, with his "tank" using an exbow this is my post battle stats:

Sheep Hal Dog
Encumbrance 0.45
Experience 4,185 4,185
Hit Points -2,204,071 -2,235,841 -3,409,396
Strength 13 32,895 -37,917
Dexterity 11 1,696,978 4,200,000
Armor Class 54 97 186
Melee Base to-Hit 60
Melee Bonus to-Hit 106
Ranged Base to-Hit 100 100
Ranged Bonus to-Hit 254 227
Innate Armor 10
Damage Inflicted 0 3,135,229 5,543,869

He gets 2 hits on each of my tanks, with a tank having less than 100k strength.

Now are we at the point with less than 100k strength, using an exbow you force opponents tanks to use DBs or just lose?

This is just plain dumb, not even stupid, well into dumb.

His tank is using a TSA and TG with a 64k TOTAl strength and using
force crush [4x3500] (+120) worth $55,491,001 owned by Little Anthony (FTW)

So for 55M NW, he completely destroys my character, or forces me to use DBs.

No other item forces you to use 1 specific item only to try to counter it.

Can we finally get this fixed or are we into dumbing down the game.

I'm all for fixing the XBow drain.

But the one item forcing you to use one item thing. Facing any Weapon Forces you to use DBs. For anyone (or Train Evasion).

That's nothing special to the EXBow.

NS is fiddling with some other code (related to the jiggy/UC) as we speak. Give him a sec; maybe he can work this out later.

It's a lot better than having no issues be addressed, even if it's not the one you want or think is most important first.

nah, facing any weapon doesn't force you to use DBs. A tank vs. another tank can go at it and try to outdamage them, or reduce it with AC or the ToE, or just lower their DX and get in more hits... looks like a tank vs. an Exbow had better have DBs or some awesome Evasion or that is it.

/Shrug

The answer to large weapon has always been DBs. It's nothing new OB. The drain on an EXBow is wrong, we all know that. But you don't deal any damage when you're dead either.

Right, I'm saying the answer to a large weapon can also be AC, DX, or more damage.

With Exbow, it is ONLY DBs. AC doesn't matter, can't stop it with just DX, and your damage is being killed.

PL as well (Or more Damage). ;) But we've been here before OB. ;)

Yep, that is about the gist of it. You could also lose the DM and train EC and that would do the trick, but as an archer that would hurt. You could also equip your own Exbow on Sheep and tag him before he tags you.

There are many defenses against the ExBow that makes using it a mostly miss proposition, but when it hits it REALLY hurts. A fair enough trade off if a bit annoying to the victim.

Not that I wouldn't mind a change to make it more usable and less dramatic.

Yeah, we've been here before. In all honesty, I'm about as tired of this topic as I can get. Everything's been explained, we all understand the issue, there's just nothing we can do about it personally and patience is not the greatest CB virtue.

I will comment as he is renting that exbow from me.

There a grand total of THREE exbows that can do the drain that ranger is talking about. Mine, NS, and Lightning raider.

The exbow is a considerable investment considering you MUST spend up to x3500 to gain the great drains that make it worthwhile.

It is Ironic that when the exbow is even slightly smaller (x3000) it will take 3-5 times more hits to get equal drain. For example Nov's exbow while having much great PTH has much fewer x's and altogether isn't that great considering it has to hit like 7 times to really be great.


The drain of the exbow should be boosted at low x's and dropped a higher. In other words it needs a redefined drain/dmg curve.

Actually Miteke,

If I used an exbow, the drain on his is independant of his current strength.

If I used EC, it would do nothing to the drain, unless I can make him do 0 damage, which is not possible without over 250 AC.

I know since when I had Koy I tried that with my massive EC.

And while now there are only 3 exbows like this, it is easier to make a 50M exbow than a 200M elb that is now useless vs more and more characters.

Even on a "tank" with under 50k naturally trained strength.

Again, this is stupid for years, and continues to be stupid. I have tried patience, since Koy over a year ago.

In fact more than 2 years now, and nothing is done.

The only defense vs the exbow is to avoid getting hit at all.

DB's and evasion are the only way with a superhigh dex advantage.

EC, AC, and using your own exbow, if he is using one on a minor minion, is no defense.

There are at least 35 weapons more valuable than this exbow, and none FORCE you to use DBs.

You can, as other stated, try to use AC, PL, TOE, HP, AS, GA to win.

However, if your a tank, you better use DBs or evasion to avoid the exbow from a puny 50k strength minor minion. Or your toast.

And if you choose to use archery, you better have high DBs or your toast. No 2nd chances, 1 or 2 hits and your done. And then their mage can just sit back and cast away, using his NSC to lower his AMF backlash.

Just freaking great, has been for years now.

Again, I would love to see a missile weapon that does this degree of drain to mage.

I would be the first to make mine 50M NW and put it on minor minion with only 50k strength and have my way.

At this point I'd like to see the specialty bows simply removed from the game. They create way too much dissonance and I have to completely agree that if there were a Priests Crossbow which reduced DD with each hit people would flip.

Whatever purpose they were supposed to have served would be better dealt with by simply fixing that problem. Maybe if the exbow is removed we can start talking about real solutions to real balance issues.

The major problem with a DD XBow is that the current ones are anti Tanks, and it's really only Tanks that can effectively combat them.

Add a DD one and you're forcing Mages to play the Dex/pth game. Go that route, and you'll need to make DD multiple hitting and have Dex effect its chance to hit.

Making DD nothing more than XP based weapons.

I like novice!

And to GL, I see your point.

So let us make that weapon dex independent, and make mages use DBs just to counter the PTH. Take dex out of the equation for this particular weapon.

How about that? I am sure mages would just flip out.

And GL, what about the mageseeker.

That uses PTH and dex.

However it just does damage, a far cry from draining all your DD in 1 or 2 hits.

to make Ranger's suggestion more specific: One would need 2 DB's to avoid my 40k st, 20k dex super EAT minion :D
1. for Archer.
2. for Hal.

I don't think so.

Mages have to use Evasion/DBs anyway. It's the Dex they can't combat.

Make it (and the others) have a sensible drain though.

Or Junction LA.

Crossbows should never have been dex or str dependent...

It should be straight plus to hit against evasion, no base to hit.

Who cares about mageseekers. ;)

It's Elbows and SoDs that are Mages bane!

Actually LA no.

If I can make my higher str minion avoid your hits, which would likely be the tank, I would not need DBs for my HF.

As you would try to hit the tank every round, since every round it has the highest strength.

I only have 101 DBs right now, and refuse to play the "my DBs are bigger than your exbow game".

you shouldn't have to play that game.

Why Ranger? Isn't that what DBs are for?

ah i forgot about that point. my exbow (rent) hit both minions.

I should clarify, isn't that the CB game? My DD versus your AMF. My GA versus you DM. My DB versus your PTH.

Why should the game go from:

Using DBs to reduce hits and take less damage. To increase chances of winning.

to

Using DBs to never get hit by exbow. Ever. To prevent chances of losing automatically.

One requires much more investment then the other. And punishes one for going tank.

Based on the stats outlined in the first message of this thread, I think the major problem with the ExBow (and every other weapon for that mater) is that it is not dependent enough on the minion ST. Likewise I always stated that PTH on a weapon is not dependent enough on the minion DX.

The x's on a weapon should be highly dependent on the minion ST and the +'s on the minion DX. Of course, the same should then be applied to defensive PTH and ST and DX drain effectiveness.

But that is just my opinion.

Stat regen armor (like the TSA fo HP) could also be added in the mix to make it even more interesting.

Or maybe he wants to choose EBs instead of DBs. Maybe you want to choose AGs instead of NSCs. Maybe you want to use an HoD instead of an HoC. His point was he should *have* to use DBs, especially gigantic ones.

"Using DBs to never get hit by exbow. Ever. To prevent chances of losing automatically. "

Just the same facing a large wepaon that one shots you.

Unless you're lucky enough to have a massive Wall AC set ( and have room for it on your Strategy), the best defense versus weapon is not getting hit.

And that's using DBs (as Evasion won't keep up with large PTH any more), and it always has been.

"Or maybe he wants to choose EBs instead of DBs."

Sure, but then you can't really complain about (not that the OP is, but I hope you see the point here) being hit by a Weapon with large PTH.

The answer to not being hit is the DB/PTH game. You can drop out of it, but then you should accept you're going to be hit.

Even if the XBow drain is changed to be much more reasonable, it'll still hurt tanks that don't try to dodge those PTH hits with DBs.

even the biggest weapons in the game do not create a binary win-lose effect.

You can dodge all but one hit a round and still pull out a win. But if Exbow is involved and you are a tank, not so much.

STR and DEX should never have been a factor for specialty bows... besides being illogical and unrealistic str and dex already don't matter than much.

Make damage based only on weapon x, remove the base chance to hit and dex based chance to hit. Then make drain based on a multiplication of damage done. A less than x2000 bow would only drain damage done, above that each thousand x would be a multiplier. So a x4000 ex would drain damage times four. Base damage would be changed to 5.

This would nerf them into the floor, and allow us to move on.

I like nov's solution.

NS might not, with the coding involved, though. You'd probably have to add a section in addition to just changing things around, since it would be the only weapon not using intrinsics in the damage calculation.

Nov's solution is quite novel. And may work quite well.

However, for all those who boosted their exbows up high, it may not work since they would be far less effective.

I really do not want a repeat of the VB fiasco for current exbow users.

Just in the spirit of "fairness" introduce the priests crossbow that drains DD (deleting the MsK in the process) at the same rate as the ex and ax.

I like the IDEA of an exbow. It is probably a little strong, but wouldn't something like capping the drain at YOUR minion's STR/DX be good enough?
so x4000 and 20k str hits for 20k str per hit
x2000 and 20k str hits for 2000/4000 or 1/2 of 20k = 10k per hit
x2000 and 2m str hits for the lower of 1m and 50% of opposing minion's STR per hit
for axbow replace STR with DEX

"(deleting the MsK in the process)"


Complete with changing existing MsKs or refunding the NW? Lol ;)

"However, for all those who boosted their exbows up high, it may not work since they would be far less effective."

Could get a ranged salvage yard and it would solve this problem, as well as those who use MSK's and got the short end of the stick when the damage got nerfed.

Whatever happens is going to be miserable for those of us with exbows with any NW... We know it's going to be crippled, but at least this way we'd have the possibility of it working again someday.

priest crossbow can't drain at the same rate.

We need to compare the boost ability of str/dex versus DDs. I don't mind it existing. But there needs to be some awareness of the different ratios.

"Just the same facing a large wepaon that one shots you. "

GL,

There is a huge difference.

I get hit 1 or 2 times from an exbow, I lose. No other chance.

Someone gets hit 1 or 2 times from my ELB and they can still win. Look at my fightlog and see that I lose to people not wearing or using DBs. I hit some characters 20 times with my ELB and still lose. And all this is from my main minion.

There are other ways around the ELB.

But there is no other way around the exbow. When it was NS using his, on his main tank minion it was a bad thing. But something that obviously did not get fixed. For years.

Now we are at the point where people are using these supped up exbows on minion with a pittance of strength doing all this drain.

Sure, I can put 100M into an exbow and put it on Sheep. Wow, I just played the game and nerfed all the tanks out there.

So everyone gets one and we are at mage blender. Then we are really into USD infusion as we HAVE to play the PTH game, or lose. One cannot use AC/TOE/PL/GA to combat it. Well you can use PL for 1 more round, perhaps. But after 3-4 rounds, your toast.

There is no comparable item that does drainage on mages.

When all the tanks are gone, the game is gone.

"If I used an ExBow, the drain on his is independent of his current strength."
Which is why you would need an x3500 ExBow to wipe out HIS strength, which I am guessing it would and then some at 100K strength.

"If I used EC, it would do nothing to the drain, unless I can make him do 0 damage, which is not possible without over 250 AC.

I know since when I had Koy I tried that with my massive EC."
Why would you not drop him to 0 damage if you dropped him to negative strength? I remember when I had an AxBow that unless I kept a positive strength it didn't do any damage. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly and that only happened on higher AC opponents. Not sure.

"The only defense vs the exbow is to avoid getting hit at all. DB's and evasion are the only way with a super high dex advantage."
Don't forget the PL. It may not shut it down, but it often delays is enough so that you kill the user before he gets you. I remember doing that with Tank Killer. But it has gotten worse since then because now that Evasion is not overpowered, like you said, even a weenie minion with a drainer is lethal.

I still stand by my statement that the ExBow and AxBow are niche weapons. They are extremely useful in unusual cases and a huge waste of money and encumbrance in most cases. But at higher levels the cost is not so much of an issue and they scale so ridiculously that they will become more and more popular as PR goes up. The game would be much better served by an item that scales more reasonably and was usable in more situations. And that will become more and more obvious as folks rise in PR and take advantage of their higher encumbrances. Those of you that say that there are only 3 will not be able to use that as an excuse for too much longer. Eventually, I suspect that Ranger's nightmare will come true unless something is changed and everyone with an extra weapon slot will slap an ExBow on and pretty much shut down tanks/archers without evasion.

*clears throat*

Dead horse is dead.

Miteke,

You always have 1 strength, even if in the negatives.

There is always a base damage the weapon does. Put your elb on a 20 str minion and fight someone with EC, you will do some damage when you hit.

Even 1 damage does all the drain.

Yes, PL can work, for 1 round. When that minion goes to negative strength, you take all the leeching.

And as you see, putting a massive Exbow on a 50k str minion will be a very effective way of forcing all tanks to use DBs/evasion. And play the NW game.

Where no real choice is involved.

I think the DD draining xbow should stay at the same rate... tanks have to have weapons, mages do not. I think that compensated for lesser boostability.

I like basing the drain on damage. Maybe 5X damage done. Do 10 damage drain 50 stat. Forget the % thing.

In chat, Nem suggested something like giving it a fixed percentage reduction, rather then the current 1/3 of a percent for every x. That sounds like a possible option to me.

For example, say Exbows drain 23% of ST per hit, plus an unknown constant. Getting hit once per round of ranged would leave a target with 27% of their original ST, minus the constant, or 20% minus constant if HoC is involved. Since damage varies with the square of ST or whatever, this would leave the target doing about half the damage it otherwise would. That is enough to make a difference, but not enough to make a significantly larger/better-built character lose the battle.

2 hits in ranged rounds would drop damage closer to 25%.

Or, if that's too steep, make the base drain 15% of ST. Then, 3 hits would reduce damage by 25%, and 5 would reduce it by ~34%.

I'm actually not sure I've got these numbers completely right, but I think I'm pretty close. Multiplying decimals is confusing a bit for me.

And, basically, the constant drain from each x should somehow scale with whatever a reasonable expected NW and ENC would be vs ST or targets at the same MPR. For example, to have enough ENC for a [4x1000] (+0) ExBow, one would need 310k ST and/or HP. Maybe 1 x should be calibrated to drain 1/1000 (or 1/1200, or 1/1500) of the remaining ST after 3 hits.

Like, for example, let's say you're fighting a single tank with 9.3 mil ENC. He has 155k HP, 155k ST, and 155k DX.
At 23% base reduction, hitting him 3 times will drop his ST to 70,762. To get that down to 0, the "unknown constant" would have to drain 23,587 ST per hit. With a x1000 weapon, that would require a constant of ~23.6 per x.

I think that if I keep doing this, I'll just be throwing numbers around and making it look all confusing. I think I've temporarily forgotten how to organize calculations. I'll be back later to maybe re-elaborate or suggest a new idea.

I think almost everyone, except perhaps 1 or 2 outlyers believe the exbow, in its current form is a problem.

Now, hopefully we can get something done before we have 60k strength minions causing either havoc or DB fever.

I think an ENC draining crossbow would be interesting. It'll hurt both tanks and mages.

Problem is that ENC is not recalculated each round.

Also, it would be a huge problem for tank moreso than mages in the current drainage format.

The battles would have to be completely redone, the way they are calculated in order to have ENC be a factor during the battle.

alright to all the haters out there. I have 1 comment:

if any suggestion is taken that involves nerfing the exbow to virtually useless then I think a ranged salvage yard should be added at the same time. It is unfair to any player with 50M weapons or 25M after DE (around a 125$ value) to lose that much value because suddenly the weapon is useless.

Any weapon nerf of that magnitutde must be accompanied by some method to compensate people like myself who sank large amounts of money into an item that is now useless.

I wouldn't mind a free retrain for every time a strat gets nerfed while we're at it.

On the other hand, you couldn't have not known the current incarnation is, at an understatment, abusive. And sinking that much CB into it to take advantage of this must have been a calculated risk.

Knowing it would be on he cards to be changed to something much more reasonable.

That being said, we need a Ranged salvage yard for the exact same reasons we've got a melee one. I always thought it silly the Yard didn't take both types of weapons.

I say this as someone with almost a hundred mil into an exbow...

Please don't spoil those of use who invested in an overpowered item by giving us an easy way out. Every time Jon has bent to the crying hoards we've found ourselves worse off than before... heck even the DE shop has spoiled the crap out of us.

I don't think the exbow will be nerfed (into oblivion). I think that at some point Jon or NS may have the time to balance it (and other ranged options) in relation to the current situations. If you don't like it after it's changed, then sell it. If you're worried it won't sell well, then sell it now.

I think novice's solution is actually pretty clever.

As someone who actually owned an abusive/overpowered weapon before disenchanting came about, it is as novice states.

But some points I would really like to make:

1) There have been quite a few posts about the exbow in the past. Every year or so I have put out a new one. Recently I have put out 2 due to the sheer foolishness of it. So to say you did not know it was OP is just wrong.

2) If you decided to pump up your exbow knowing how OP it was, then you only have yourself to blame if it gets balanced.

3) I did the same when the VB was all powerful. And had it nerfed very severely. Without a salvage yard, I sold it for less than 50% NW. Disenchanting was not around then.

4) One of the main reasons we do not see more high x exbows is that most people realize it is way out of wack and do not want to see their investment reduced.

5) If there was a ranged salvage yard, you betya there would be a lot more high level exbows. And most on low strength enchanters. And there would likely be a lot more DBs used, with EBs an afterthought.

Using novice's suggestion on drain:

AA has a 7,350 SoD, base damage is 5.

Valheru's explosive shot hit Dog [187200], Sheep [75652], Hal [70747]

So using that suggestion, that hit would leech 7 x 187200 or 1.31M strength.

5 hits would almost knock all my strength out.

It seems to be a real nice effect, plus damage as well.

AA's tank only has about 2M strength, so at 8M or more strength, he would do a lot more damage and more leech.

The more I think of Novice's idea, the more it sound really good.

X-Wing's explosive shot hit Sheep [509520]

It gets a little different when some STR is applied... not sure how damage would even work if we disregard STR.

Guys lets be serious...That drain is laugable. Heres a comparison...

a single ToA archer with ELB versus a guys with an Exbow.

the Exbow should be a direct anti tank item and I sincerely doubt that any single tank would last enough hits against an ELB user for the drain to be worthwhile.

Ranger how much damage do you do per hit with your ELB. If some Exbow user could drain you for 500k per hit. with 8M str that would take 16 hits.

Not a chance a single tank lasts that long. I would suggest something more along the lines of 25% or higher str drain per hit as being fair. so if an exbow tank hit an ELB tank 4 times they would have 0 str

I don't think it's laughable. Taking out someone's str in 4 rounds seems fair enough. It's better then 1 rounds.

It'll be super effective against melee tanks. It'll be kind of sad for them actually.

ya but I still think that by definition a single exbow tank with the same nw and gear should beat a single ELB tank every time as the exbow is BRUTAL against mages compared with an ELB.

under that build this would not be true

Ok

So what about 4 minion characters vs 2 minion tanks?

Or what about exbows on enchanters?

your just showing that single exbow archers aren't very good. And why should they be?

I guess the measure of it needs to be taken, what should the exbow be able to do? Is is supposed to be a direct counter to the ELB?

I'm not claiming to hold the solution but I do believe that the nerf suggested by novice is too much.

exbows should have their place. What about if having an exbow equipped required a certain amount of strength per x to make it work at 100%.

what about something like for every x you have to have 200 str. So a 3500 exbow would only work at full effect if you have 700,000 strength.

Apply this and redo the effect curve to make it more effective at lower levels and less effective at higher x's

Then you're still not addressing the issue that it takes a single nick from an exbow bolt to decide the fight.

not true if you were to say that the exbow will reduce at most a certain percentage or amount of strength and have that value at say 10,000 x's with the amount drained asymptotically approaching that value.

"what about something like for every x you have to have 200 str. So a 3500 exbow would only work at full effect if you have 700,000 strength."

You're funny, that's even less than ENC requires haha. Basing it off of damage makes the most sense. I see no reason to reduce the BTH though if drain is based on damage.

Well right now we have exbows on minions that are the 3rd or 4th damage dealer completely destroying tanks.

Whether we use novice's method or another, something has to be done. We have waited 2+ years for a fix and nothing so far.

When will the people that run the game realize this is not right?

As to how it gets fixed:

Making it a counter to a tank is a nice thing. However, there is nothing like it in all of CB. Say what you want about the ELB, there are many counters for it.

Including PL, AC, ToE, multiple kill slots, more dexterity, DBs, AS, GA, native HP etc...

Vs the exbow there is just two- evasion or DBs. As having a huge dex advantage still lets PTH rule the day.

The other question is how much drain?

That is a question to be answered by Jon and NS.

Too much leads us back to where we are now.

Too little makes these weapons useless.

However I will say that even 50% drain does reduce tanks damage quite a bit.

Yeah the part about ditching STR's effect and eliminated BTH isn't really all that sane. It would be nice to have some differences in weapon choices, but even I don't know how sensible it was.

However as I've been saying for going on 5 years, make drain based on damage done. It's a buff for heavy tanks, a fix for defensive chanter turrets, and could make the specialty bows more interesting in the long run. As they are there is zero reason to up them to epic levels.

As to the question of "how much drain?"

I think the amount of drain from my exbow is about right honestly, it only takes me one to see a result as far as reduced damage goes, but not too many more to see damage cease. If indeed things were altered more completely and drain moves from percentage to damage done, I don't see any reason to cap it...

I think having a 3rd minion using an exbow with less than 1M strength completely drain someone strength in 2 blow is wrong.

It has to be damage dependent. Just has to be.

Now for some hard numbers:

Strength: 8,241,000 / 4,100,000

Vs AC 37

Dog hit minion with The Lunatic [1977994]
Dog shot minion with The Lunatic [1271464]
Dog hit minion with The Lunatic [1862079]
Dog struck deep into minion with The Lunatic [1338737]
Dog hit minion familiar with The Lunatic [1595357]
Dog shot minion familiar with The Lunatic [1863203]
Dog hit minion familiar with The Lunatic [1410227]
Dog hit minion familiar with The Lunatic [1633065]
Dog hit minion familiar with The Lunatic [1673984]

Average: 1625179


Strength: 4,100,000

Dog shot minion with The Lunatic [929653]
Dog shot minion with The Lunatic [1195261]
Dog hit minion with The Lunatic [1351973]
Dog hit minion with The Lunatic [1157177]
Dog hit minion with The Lunatic [1057501]
Dog skewered minion with The Lunatic [854511]
Dog skewered minion with The Lunatic [1274992]
Dog hit minion familiar with The Lunatic [1307814]
Dog hit minion familiar with The Lunatic [1032140]
Dog shot minion familiar with The Lunatic [894224]

Average: 1105525

Minion is Canti, 3/4th character.

Yes, I agree I am doing a lot of damage per hit.

But with 50% less strength I am doing 33% less damage.

Which is the equivalent of a massive AMF.

So novice,

Without having +170 DBs vs you, there is no way I can ever hope to beat you, due to the exbow drain on a 3rd order minion.

No matter what my other items or MPR is.

Is that right/fair?

"However as I've been saying for going on 5 years, make drain based on damage done."

I actually like that idea.

alright I agree damage done is the best option...now we have another problem in our endless search for data.

Only lighning raider and perhaps NS have character equipped with big exbows on high str characters. I would be interested in what their damage done is. OR somebody can rent mine and put it on a high str character.

Homicidal Maid hit Dog with Dark Strength [204455]

Takes me to 700k strength from 8.4M in 1 hit.

Oh wow... that's not right :|

The damage of only 200k or the drain?

In novice's suggestion the base damage would be increased to 5 from 4.

I have no idea how much more damage that would do, perhaps 400k.

he has over 10M in str and a x3500 exbow and only does 200k damage thats the thing that bothers me. Unless damage is increased on the exbow the multiple will need to be much higher than the amounts mentioned by novice above.

In my opinion his char should do at least 2M strength reduction per hit against you given the size of his weapon and his huge str.

The drain. That's such an insane amount of drain!

7,700,000 drain is what... 92 million xp worth of strength gone in one shot :|

Ouch?

I don't think the multiple can be made to 5 because it will then far out perform the MSK which requires arechery and has no drain ability.

I don't think anyone have problem with ExBow on a proper STR based archer draining all hits, just having problem with an enchanter draining max STR if it hits, am I right?

I agree PK. I think that the 7.7M drain isn't actually that bad considering his one sided strategy and the puny damage he does.

But the Mageseeker targets mages and you get hits since mages have no dexterity.

The exbow targets tanks so you have to overcome dexterity as well.

Therefore the difference in needed archery vs no skill. I can see that difference.

Using novice's method at a base of 4 doing 400k damage, the drain per hit would be about 1.2M. If he upped his bow another 500 to x4k, then the drain would be close to 2M given the increased damage at x4k. I think that is not as bad.

And he is a huge tank, not a 3rd or 4th option on a character that already has a huge tattoo, a huge tank/mage and then an exbow using enchanter to suck the strength out of any tank not using DBs.

Why not leave the damage as is, and just lower the drain to a realistic number.

Maybe drain 10% of the wielder's trained strength per hit...
The networth would then directly relate only to the damage done...
So if you have 10m strength, you're draining 1m per hit...

Maybe 25% of trained strength? Something to that effect?

I do think 7.7M drain is insane.

Up that exbow a bit more and all strength, any level will be gone.

In 1 hit no matter what damage he does.

I understand the one sided strategy, however, there is defense except to match PTH vs DB. Not EC, not PL (except for 1 round), not GA, not infinite strength, etc...

I can see 7.7M strength leeched in a few blows, perhaps 3 or 4, but certainly not 1.

what if the exbow's damage was increased by 50% and it drained say 3 times the damage. So

Lightning raider would now hit for 300k and 3,000,000 strength per hit.

Seems very reasonable given his strategy

Jir,

I do believe that if you rebalance the exbow, it should come with a boost to its base damage.

If we keep things as they are for high strength tanks, just give me a DD leeching xbow that ignores dexterity.

Even the Mageseeker bow, with 10M strength does less than 1M damage a hit. Which can easily be overcome with PL, AS, HP, DBs, etc...

When I used a x7200 mageseeker, I could not kill most mages in the upper ranks, with 5M strength before melee. It was actually pathetic, which is why I went with the ELB.

"what if the exbow's damage was increased by 50% and it drained say 3 times the damage. So

Lightning raider would now hit for 300k and 3,000,000 strength per hit."

I think 3 times 300k is 900k, not 3M.

Have you taken the same class as Bush II, Fuzzy Math 101?

That was a joke BTW.

tis true about the MSK. I think a great upgrade to it would be that only half it's damage can be absorbed using phantom link

oops I meant to write 10x not 3x. Don't exactly know where that came from.

Or have it leech 1/2 its damage from the DD level of the target :)

I like the PL thing better. It's just too easy to make the MSK useless by putting in a Phantom link. It's sad because it's such a huge investment and with a tiny xp investment you make it so sad

Like I said, remove the MsK and make an exbow (with a base damage of 5) that doesn't require a skill and drains DD

DD casters don't need the kind of drain threat that tanks do. They cannot as easily be levered up using USD.

I still think my PL idea is great.

How many teams can ranger beat in one round. Pfft, I don't even think he can beat me in one round.

Well,

If this is not fixed, the exbow draining all strength in 1-2 hits, can we at least get rid of archery to use bows properly?

This way I can use my xp into evasion to protect me. And not have to play the "mine is bigger than yours" game.

And I can pump xp into evasion as needed.

1,777,868 1,269,906 Current archery.

Anyone know what 1.77M levels in archer gives as evasion?

All that is matched by dex.

No idea if the wiki is still accurate or not - but this is what it says

(134) 1,754,385

I think the wiki is very wrong for evasion ever since it was changed.

I may be 100% totally wrong.

"So using that suggestion, that hit would leech 7 x 187200 or 1.31M strength."

What? Where did he suggest 7 times damage done?

Ok, to flesh out my idea a little more again.
The base drain is constant. We'll say 23% of ST at the beginning of the round (not of total trained ST).
Then there's this unknown constant. Let's call this one 47.8, because they're always really precise and seemingly random numbers that are used in this game's formulae.

Say I have an ExBow x2000 and I'm fighting a tank with 1mil ST.
First hit: (1,000,000*.23)+(2000*47.8)= 325,600 ST drained
Remaining ST: 674,400
Second hit: (674,400*.23)+(2000*47.8)= 250,712 ST drained
Remaining ST: 423,688
Third hit: (423,688*.23)+(2000*47.8)= 193,048 ST drained
Remaining ST: 230,640

At this point, after 3 hits, the target tank would be down to under 25% of his original ST, meaning about half the damage he would do with full ST.
Assuming only one hit, though, this particular tank would be reduced to 67.44% of original ST, and do about 5/6 of original damage. After two hits, he would have 42.4% of original ST, and do 2/3 of original damage. If two more hits land:

Fourth hit: (230,640*.23)+(95,600)= 148,647 ST drained
Remaining: 81,993
Fifth hit: (81,993*.23)+(95,600)= 114,458 ST drained
Remaining: -32,465

I'm glad I chose those numbers for my example, because they worked out exactly the way I wanted them to. The fourth hit in this scenario would knock the tank's ST down to below 10% of his original ST, leaving him with approximately 2/7ths of his original damage-dealing potential. Finally, the 5th hit brings him into the negatives.
Given the BTH of the specialty Exbows, that means that in a matched-DX battle, the expected outcome would be around 3 hits in 5 rounds of ranged (except for like ranged penalties or something...I dunno anything about how those work, really), halving damage. With superior DX or pth, you could bring damage down very low with the 4th hit, or neutralize with the 5th hit. However, that would require Dex advantage and/or a real investment in PTH, and the number would be different against an opponent with higher ST.

Using the same formula with different numbers:
1mil ST vs. x3500 ExBow
First Hit: 602,700 ST remaining
Second Hit: 296,779 ST remaining
Third Hit: 61,220 ST remaining
Fourth Hit: Negative ST

5mil ST vs. x1000 ExBow:
First: 3,802,200
Second: 2,879,894
Third: 2,169,718
Fourth: 1,622,883
Fifth: 1,201,820
I think it would take like 10 hits to bring this one down to 0

5mil ST vs x3500 ExBow:
First: 3,682,700
Second: 2,668,379
Third: 1,887,352
Fourth: 1,285,961
Fifth: 822,890

Maybe the "unknown constant" should be doubled to 95.6? As those example numbers were going, ExBows in this form would asymptotically approach uselessness as ST of opponent increases.

Or maybe we can combine it with damage dealt? Maybe the formula should be (ST*.23)+(95.6*x)+(2*damage). Then equipping minion's ST would also make a difference. Oh yeah! That's what this whole thing was all about, anyway!

Does this look like a step in the right direction to anyone else?

If something is to be changed, there has to be a link to damage done.

That would include the users strength as that figures greatly into damage done.

Any other solution is just putting a bandaid on a shotgun wound.

See my amendment to the formula in the last paragraph. It doesn't affect the rest of the data I put forth, since I can't really estimate at all accurately how much damage on average would be done by a weapon and I can't guess how much ST the attacked would have, but I did acknowledge damage done. I don't think it should be more than like 3.5 to 4 times damage done added onto the total, though. Maybe use the first constant I mentioned, 47.8, and then add 4*damage done at the end? That might be good enough.