Holy WOW is the Exbow broken (in General)

Everyone has seen Ranger's posts over an over again, and not to beat a dead horse but WOW!!!!

Since acquiring the 3rd largest Xbow in the game for use on my TLoJ character, all I have to say is... WOW!!!! Just equipping it on my wall with zero str/dex completely neutralizes almost all the upper tanks in the game. (those not equipped with HUGE DBs)...

C'mon... It's pretty stupid how out of balance this bow is... I mean look at this...

The Legend of Jiraiya defeated Occam's Razor after 9 rounds of combat
Physical

His strength:
Strength: 6,720,403
Round 1:
Greater Halidon Familiar skewered 7128891 [771138]
Greater Halidon Familiar skewered 7128891 [1264115]
Greater Halidon Familiar skewered 7128891 [830025]

Round 2:
Greater Halidon Familiar shot Hal [264660]
6350294 absorbs damage [188024]
Greater Halidon Familiar shot Hal [262389]
6350294 absorbs damage [188024]

Round 3:
Greater Halidon Familiar shot Hal [72992]
6350294 absorbs damage [72992]
Greater Halidon Familiar shot Hal [89729]
6350294 absorbs damage [89729]
Greater Halidon Familiar hit Hal [86081]
6350294 absorbs damage [86081]

That's pretty ridiculous considering it's just my WALL with zero str/dex.

So completely neutralized in two rounds of ranged...

Ouch?

I take Ranger's HF and Archer down to 549,577 Str and 522,989 str in one hit each.

C'mon...

We really NEED a way to either a) get Jon to nerf the exbow finally or b) come up with a decent item to reduce this stat drain.
I mean seriously that is INSANITY that can't be used against mages yet it can utterly own a tank!

I agree it is broken, One Thread Ranger made was actually pretty good as he popped in not just more dead horse beating or preaching to the choir but rather a very good fix concerning it. Not only that but a Complete fix for the entire Ranged Weapons list. It'll take me a few minutes to find it. If anyone else finds it in the mean time please post it. I was extremely impressed with the idea, honestly I wish it had caught on. I'm sure once you re-read it you will see the same thing I did and agree.

I think this is the thread you are typing about:

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002lo4

Well considering who uses the exbow, I really doubt we will get a long term permanent fix.

Been this way for 2+ years now and nothing.

I guess tanks are forced to use DBs and not have any options, which is a horrible things for a game like CB.

One can only hope things get better next changemonth, but I am done hoping against all hope it will get fixed.

This is another thread with a workaround idea:
http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002lY8

But that idea was an awesome idea! Try to make it that they need strength for it to do anything and you have solved the problem of people sticking a massive Exbow on a wall or enchanter. You just need to remember that the drain is standard for all rounds of combat; i.e. the drain in the first round is the same as the drain in any consecutive round.

The drain should be based upon str vs str for that round.

If a tank is already leeched a bit from a hit, his new strength is used.

These were my thoughts too Nayab. Ranger and I have had our fights, disagreements and arguments but when he has a good idea I go with it. This idea and a few others have hit me as viable options for the Ranged World of CB Fighting

Not sure if this was Rangers idea or not, if so, great idea Ranger, =P

Make it so the Exbow user can only drain the opponents STR by how much the Exbow User has trained (before GS or armor).

For example:
Exbow User STR: 100k
Drain would be random but no higher than 100k.

some things are just made to be broken ;D

Scale exbow damage upwards heavily, and make ST drain dependant on DAMAGE DEALT ONLY.

"I guess tanks are forced to use DBs and not have any options, which is a horrible things for a game like CB."


Gee wizz I've been saying this a long time since evasion got nerfed only that applied to mages. Hi! welcome to the new CB.

Am I the only one who thinks that a 56mil weapon should be this much effective? I mean, a 32mil MgS simply sucks 37.5% of my DD power away...

Does a 60 mil MgS suck away 100% of your DD?

How about we make a mage draining xbow?

That at 60M NW, with 1 hit drains 90% of your DD spell.

O and let us put it on an enchanter with 20 str/dex with it being this effective.

How about that for fair?

My 50 million NW Morg takes away all my opponents stats. Not in one hit necessarily but not far off. Admittedly I do use 8 mill strength to do that.

Lol, we had a pretty damn good counter to the exbow in evasion back in 'the old days'. Sigh. I miss evasion.

"""I guess tanks are forced to use DBs and not have any options, which is a horrible things for a game like CB."


Gee wizz I've been saying this a long time since evasion got nerfed only that applied to mages. Hi! welcome to the new CB. ""

I do not care about getting hit, as do plenty of other tanks.

But when 1 hit for 1 damage from 5 exbows out there, and growing, can drain 90-100% of my strength, that is out of whack

I can take a couple hits from other tanks. Perhaps mages should grow a pair and not think they should be completely immune to getting hit at all.

Tough to even consider evasion when your forced to use archery just to use your bow correctly.

Imagine if you had to train mace weapons just to use your morg correctly.

And please tell me how in 1 hit with 1 damage you take away all your opponents stats with that morg? Hell, even 2 hits for as much damage as you can do vs a lot of minion?

As powerful as my ELB is, vs plenty of minions it takes me more than 1 hit to kill them. And this is not a 60M NW weapon, but one 4 time that expensive.

A whole team takes longer, but one minion at a time on some teams I do take out in melee.

I am of course being a little cheeky with regards to some opponents as my SoC helps out somewhat. When a shield flashes for 4 mill and the first hit from the morg is about 3.5 mill all the target minion's stats simply disappear...(3 million NW SoC)

Johnny Was's shield flashes! [3,650,654]
Johnny Was pulverized Memphis with The Grey King [3091898]
Johnny Was draws strength from his weapon! [451454]

Fair enough.

However you must:

1) Live through all that damage you are taking
2) Make it to melee to deal that damage
3) Do it to one opponent if you take all that damage in missile rounds.

A far cry from getting hit 1 time for any damage and having your tank completely neutered.

I'm with sickone, simply make it be based on damage, like it used to be (IIRC).

Basing it solely on STR vs STR completely negates having an enchanter wield the exbow. NOW, I am not saying that is wrong, but let's say I invest 100 million in + and 100 million in x, and train just a moderate amount of STR on an enchanter so that the exbow still does decent damage (because of the x on the exbow). I want that to count, er, not me, I don't have that kind of cash. But it SHOULD count. If not, we are basically saying NW doesn't matter (and that shouldn't be the case).

I can't think of anything more straightforward than simply using damage, and I don't know why it was ever changed in the first place. Damage incorporates getting a hit, the strength of that hit, and could even incorporate AC (or just use pre-AC/SS damage to forego that). If you want to work in a piece of Ranger's idea, make STR-based damage reduction (if that even exists any more) simply be more prevalent against specialty-bow damage. Makes sense from a reality standpoint, since a REAL tank, a big beefy minion, would be bound to have some natural immunity to things specifically directed at taking him/her down.

Easy as pie, and I should think code still exists for that functionality somewhere.

No reason not to get this fixed.

Disclaimer: I am an exbow user now, though it is relatively small. And I also run a Hal that gets pounded by exbows pretty good. So, I am pretty much middle of the road on my own biases.

And PoisoN, raw effectiveness has never been the issue (the way I read Ranger's points). He has ALWAYS said NW should matter, so a big weapon SHOULD hurt. Don't forget, Ranger is a tank guy at heart, so of course he sees the value in NW.

No, the issue is that you can strap an exbow on an enchanter, and with ONE HIT do a ton of drainage. In your MgS example, is that with one hit? From an enchanter? Of has your opponent invested in a real tank to deal those blows?

That's the difference we are discussing, as far as I am concerned. I am operating under the following assumptions:

-- We all think NW should be rewarded to some degree concomitant with said NW.
-- We all agree that investing in a real tank should also be rewarded (MPR investment).
-- We agree that using an enchanter with no STR to drain huge fractions of STR in one shot is "cheap" at best, and over-powered, at worst.

Does that sound correct?

I will point out that when I was using the exbow in question (as it is mine) I had a 2M Str enchanter and it still took me three rounds to drain your hal sut...

This talk of 20 str enchanters one hitting tanks is more than a little misleading...first off you need a bow MUCH bigger than mine, closer to NS's to do that AND you probably need some dexterity. It is not as easy as strapping on an exbow to a 20,20 and watching the fireworks.

As far as the DB's argument of why you should be forced to use one I laugh at that argument. If you use a simple archer strat theire should be simple counters, weaknesses, and simple things you must do. Simple strats deserve simple sacrifices and simple weaknesses.

Without the exbow (regardless of whether or not it is currently imbalanced) tanks, especially USD ones are too powerful. There has to be a balancing item like the exbow or everybody would run tanks. Mages have far more weaknesses than any well run tank.

I wonder why Exbows haven't been curtailed at super-high levels yet. I'm not a coder or a mathematician, but there may be a reason more valid than apathy.

It might be beneficial if one of you (whoever is more mathematically inclined) could come up with a decent algorithm for Jon that the masses may accept as fair. It will need to be an asymptote with STR as a factor, but beyond that, I have no idea.

Mages have far more weaknesses over a well run tank? Huh?

Can't believe I'm sticking up for tanks, but hey...

Mages don't have to really worry about NW. Tanks do. And with this new lottery-drop system making it harder to manage money, that just got more onerous.

Mages don't have to worry about weapon allowance, encumbrance, or balancing STR, DEX, and weapon attributes.

Mages are immune against Evasion. Tanks aren't.

Everything else:
EC equates to AMF
SoD equates to spreadfire magics
Both can use DBs

Tank advantage? Multiple hits, if it can get them.

What are these other weaknesses in mages you are talking about, other than single-hitting (but always hitting)?

Demigod, larger teams are already covered by simply following the damage. A 500K MPR tank team does less damage than a 2 million MPR tank team. So, the former will do less damage, therefore less draining while the latter will do more damage therefore more draining.

What's wrong with simply following the damage model for draining? Help me out on what I am missing.

Mages do need to worry about ENC, if only at lower levels.

At higher levels, ENC become a non issue, purely because there's only one thing left to spend any sort of NW on. DBs.

If Mages had some way of utilising NW thorughout thier lives, like Tanks can, than ENC would mean more in the long term.

But ENC being a tiny worry is the off set of not being able to leverage Cash into 'buffing' yourself.

The main weakness of Mages, is the stakcing layered damage reducitons.

AMF on top of EH+MGS on top of RBF.

Tanks don't get as hard by stacking defenses this way (I'm not saying it isn't an issue for Tanks, just that the layering is more effective versus Mages).

Oh and item stat boosts are paltry for Mages compared to Tanks. AG and SB for DD, compared to things like TSA STR for example.

Sorry for the trifecta here...

Fat1l, for a 15 million-dollar investment (my exbow), and no sacrifices made as far as team configuration (the enchanter wasn't doing anything before, anyway), I take Ranger's STR down 750K with one hit ("down", not "down to"). No, that is not a huge thing, but neither is 15 million at these levels.

And you know what? With another 30 million (it will happen over time, could happen almost overnight if I went the USD route), I could have two more of those on my other two enchanters.

So, for 45 million, and absolutely no detrimental changes or sacrifices in my team configuration, I could take a well-equipped, large tank's STR down 2.25 million per round. No additional MPR investment for that, so meanwhile I can continue to pump my DM to control ED teams.

Sounds like the best of all worlds, and that's not good here.

GL, good point about the damage reduction layers... I guess since the MgS was finally toned down to reasonable levels I have forgotten how much that used to bother me. *smile*

For your other points, I am no longer sure those are advantages any more than they are simply responsibilities. Over the years I have come to understand tank-runners more, not being so obstinate about assuming they had all the advantages. Yes, gear can buff a tank, but that is basically a REQUIREMENT to stay competitive with mages who simply linearly pump their DD. And don't forget the NSCs. Those are unique on the mage side, preserving DD investment better than anything preserves stats on the tank side. Or, go the AG/CoI route, and that is still a pretty decent DD boost (granted, not as much as STR boosters can do, on paper, on the tank side). But mages are doing all right, I think. I really do.

And I think tanks do OK, too. To get back on topic, I think things are relatively well-balanced except the exbow when it comes to mage/tank parity. And the main thing that irks me about the exbow is what I have already stated on the thread -- that you CAN do it with enchanters and under 50 million in cash. That's pretty huge in the 6/20 area of the game.

AMF > EC and don't tell me mages don't have to worry about ENC!!!

AMF meerly has to match your DD to become an effective uncounterable offense, EC has to double your stats to nullify you. For a true mage to use top tier items to combat other top tier teams they've got to be as big or bigger than the biggest tanks in game.

The Exbow exists because without it there is nothing holding the ELB/Hal crowd back. It needs an adjustment (one hit killing str is indeed silly) but I can't stress this enough It Should Not Be Nerfed. DBs have always been a requirement to run a successful archer, and I don't see why that should change.

Look at force crush.

It is on a 33 strength wall type minion and takes my HF and archers strength down from 6M each to 500k each.

On a 33 strength minion.

Add a few more hundred, not thousand, but hundred x to it and you have 100% drain.

Again, on a 33 strength minion.

I saw what was going on with the exbow 2 years ago. With the one NS had on his tank. And every year till recently made a post about it.

But now this is stupid. Get a 50M NW exbow, slap it on an enchanter and if your opponent does not have DBs higher than your exbow +, you can hit and drain almost 100% or more strength in 1 hit.

I can use and afford DBs. Not all tanks can. And with the new lottery tanks have afford to up their weapon to keep up with the Jones at higher levels. And then afford DBs as well?

If the ELB is all that, then lower its CTH or damage. But do not keep a stupidly bugged item out there as a "foil" for it when all it does it punish everyone, including non-usd tanks.

As far as NS using one on his tank, I think my solution, or any solution using damage, strengths of minions, x on the exbow would still keep his exbow from being neutered.

However, why are exbow users able to stop pumping up the x on their weapon at 4k when every other weapon needs potentially much more x to work.

My ELB or any ELB at x4k is laughable at the mid to top levels. But an exbow at x4k is just uber. Remember my elb is now x20k. And there are a few others at or over x12k.

Imagine if I only need x4k on my ELB to insta kill any minion. Or any weapon needed x4k to do its maximal effect? On a 33 strength minion.

Well this is what we currently have, and I am just flabbergasted people can think it is right and good for the long term future of the game.

I've borrowed BluBBen's exbow via rentals a long time ago. Trust me it's very effective on a 20 STR enchanter.

Just thought I'd throw in another example to help fuel this thread.



ROUND 1:

Super overshot Ember
Hot struck deep into Ember with DMON BOW OF POWER [1212031]
Hot struck deep into Ember with DMON BOW OF POWER [1002626]
Hot cries "chow-bye!"

HERE'S THE GOOD PART:

Ember shot Hot [125298]
Hot looks weaker!
R.I.P. Ember

ROUND 2:

Hot hit Regdar with DMON BOW OF POWER [159]
Alhandra absorbs damage [159]
Hot shot Regdar with DMON BOW OF POWER [80]
Alhandra absorbs damage [80]
Hot shot Regdar with DMON BOW OF POWER [63]
Alhandra absorbs damage [63]
Hot shot Regdar with DMON BOW OF POWER [110]
Alhandra absorbs damage [110]
Hot shot Regdar with DMON BOW OF POWER [35]
Alhandra absorbs damage [35]

That's a 300m NW ELB.... tossed in the garbage after a single crossbow bolt hits.

And DD, remind me please.

You are using DB's, about +160ish?

So we have to play the NW game now? Gee, let us just not even pretend to care anymore about non-USD spenders.

+161 DB's... 50m NW.

It's not so much the getting hit that I mind, it's the effect.

/me shoots the dead horse.

Wow, five orders of magnitude loss from one hit.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure mages don't have to deal with anything remotely like that.

"Gee, let us just not even pretend to care anymore about non-USD spenders."

did made me go lol

He gets hit because NS has the dex advantage

Yes Henk,

Contrary to what you may think, I do think about non-USD spenders and how things/changes will effect them.

Because they make up the bulk of CB players. And if they are turned off by things, there may be no CB for USD spenders to play.

Yes nov,

He gets hit 1 time.

And with a x4k exbow, his 300M elb is rendered useless.

I wish I could stop my elb at x4k and get the complete desired effect I wanted.

and I've said a dozen times that it shouldn't work like that

I don't know of anyone that really disagrees about that...

The problem is that 99% or more think it should not work like this but that neither Jonathan or NightStrike can or will fix it atm...

No offence but splitting hairs on the subject should not take away from the focus of it. The ExBow is just a little on the silly side as far as it's application in the higher echelons. I do noy think anyone should argue that since seeing it in action.