Of exbows (in General)

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

Moving this to General instead of the thinly-veiled sarcastic Congrats.

I agree with novice:

> The exbow has worked the same way for years, and has forced teams with tank only damage to wear defensive equipment to protect against the power of the exbow. This isn't new, or broken per say. Any more than decay or the RoS is broken. They're exceptionally specialized and are designed as counters to a particular setup (often a very powerful setup in itself).

In particular I'm reluctant to change something that has worked, if not "great," then at least "pretty well" for years. Also, some players do have a tendency to cry for a nerf whenever someone beats them with a narrowly-targeted strategy, and that's part of CB. (And if you're wondering what the antecedent of "that" is, it's both. :)

But, I also agree with sutekh:

> Amazing or not, when it comes to being able to have massive rewards based on one, flawed item, that affects just about every aspect of the game. It skews the new user and new character bonuses, skews clan results, and skews the score ladder.

I'm open to suggestions for making the exbow/axbow still useful without being such a hard counter. (Soft counters are more interesting.) I don't think just tweaking the numbers involved is the answer, which is why it's a tough problem.

There are at least a dozen suggestions floating out there...

My favorite (and one I've been pushing since before the dawn of cb2) is to base drain on damage done with a multiplier based on weapon x.

Magician's Crossbow:

Drains DD: 1/33% of the target's DD plus some unknown constant for every 'x' on the crossbow. (i.e. A [4x1] Magician's Crossbow drains 0.03% DD plus an unknown amount of ST per damage dealing hit.)

But in all serious-ness Jon, its the general opinion that the draining aspect of the ExBow needs to be tweaked because its currently rendering tank teams useless. So would there be a way to lower the amount of Str that it drains to give Archer/Tank teams more time to do damage before they're rendered useless?

If you lower the effect of the x, you end up with the same problem later on. X4000 might be the magic number now, x10000 might be later.

Personally I like how it works, but I would cap it so that it can never reduce 100%, maybe 60 or 70%.


Weapons for enchanters: they're the future...

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002nn1 (I'm trying to track down all the threads so we can compile a complete list of suggestions)

First off:

Thanks for the reply. Yes, many suggestions have been proposed, including mine which is:

But what about this for the exbow drain.

Do it like AMF:
Calculate the ratio (Str Att level/Str defend level), after all bonuses/penalties; call this X.
If X<1 (that is, Str Att weaker than Str defend) then effect is X^(0.7)/2
If X>1 (Str Att stronger than Str defend) effect is 1 - 1/(2X)

Use the other tanks strength vs your strength to determine drain. Irrespective of damage. Have damage be a bonus.

And use the AMF way to figure the % drain per hit.

Now what about the x on the xbow.

I will use something else Jon invented, similar to evasion.

For each +1 on the exbow you get a full 1000 strength. Or +1k gives full 1M strength.

For each 1000 strength unmatched you only get credit for 500 (50%).

Examples:

1) 7M strength using a x7k exbow vs a tank with 5M strength. Using AMF 7/5 = 1.4, which is >1 so 1 - 1/(3.8) = 73% drain per hit.

2) 7M strength using x 3k exbow vs a tank with 5M strength. 3M of the strength is 100% with 4M at 50% so total str is 5M.

5M vs 5M is easy- 50% drain per hit.

3) 3M strength using a x2k exbow vs a 7M strength tank. 2M full strength with 50% of the last million. 2.5M vs 7M tank gives:

AMF of .24 or 24% drain per hit.

4) 500k strength using x1k exbow vs a 5M strength tank. Full 500k strength gives:

AMF of .1 or 10% drain per hit. Something but not a whole lot.

I'm not an expert about how weapons and STR/DX works for tanks etc, as I have never ran one before, but...

I think Ranger's idea would stop base enchanters from taking advantage of the drain and could work very well.

Why not just make it based on damage, either pre- or post- damage reduction?

I agree, exbows are a specific strategy that SHOULD work when that specificity nails it (like my massive DM investment *smile*).

The problem is the ability to throw such a relatively cheap item (sorry, but 50 million is not that much cash considering items never go away and never break) on an enchanter. IF one had to make their specific strategy be both a 50 million dollar item AND a relatively beefy tank, Ranger would not even be complaining about it.

novice's idea works too (damage plus an x-added component), but I think damage should be the main term in the equation.

Or, to work Rangers "STR vs STR" into it, make high STR vs the shooter's STR cause the damage to be less, and still base everything off damage.

Starting with damage and then modifying from there makes sense because damage is a standard thing in CB-land and always has been. It is also a smooth, continuous function, so that should make it easy to titrate the effect along the score ladder, no?

Can you give us an indication on why damage is not a good starting point, if that is the thought?

(And thank you for this open forum. It's classy and elegant.)

Sut, high STR in comparison already has an effect on damage (STR helps damage done but also provides a small amount of defense) so damage and STR comparison together is a double whammy.

When NS started using one on his tank, I first made a post about it.

Then nothing for almost a year. Then another post just to see what was up. Then nothing for another year.

Now we have all these enchanters using 30-50M NW weapons on enchanters draining 75-105% of a tanks strength in 1 hit. Which is very unbalanced.

Of course i can spend USD to up my DBs. But that is beside the point. There are others who cannot. And this just really messes with things as Sut and others can attest to, and agree with.

We just hit a new point in the exbow debate. Someone using it on an enchanter to drain a tanks strength as part of their strategy. As Sut states, skewing the score ladder and all things associated with it.

More and more people will continue to do this and the whole balance of things will be off.

Anyone who wants to use a bow, has to use archery. Fine. But now they are forced to use and spend millions of CB on DBs. Whether they want to or not. So aside from upping your ELB, one has to up your Exbow.

SoD is a different story as they can use evasion or DBs. At least they have some options.

If using an ELB is that powerful that one has to use xp for a skill and spend mucho dinero on DBs as well as spending CB on the bow, perhaps the ELB should be rebalanced.

I use one of the largest ones and would have little problem if that were the case. Just as long as the exbow gets its proper balance.

Again, I have less problem with someone like NS using it on his tank, his main minion, vs someone using it on a 2nd or 3rd or 4th rate minion. And getting its full effect with only x4k upgrade.

Zog,

I believe it would and should be either a str vs str comparison or a damage based model.

Not something using both since as you stated that is from the redundancy office of redundancy.

i'm pretty new here but the exbow is to specialised to be broken. the way EC seems to work it can have th same effect this is how i plan to work my group. the exbow nutralizes heavy damage weapons as it seems to be intended to do. the ToA if i read this correctly is the reason along with weapon pth that the axbow is not as overpowered. imo there is a mage killer in the mageseeker. imo the mage seeker should have an AMF style attack on mages. like i said im new but i spent hours reading this stuff.

str vs str is not a good idea... there are only a very few tanks out there that use exbows. It does not provide adequate damage to make it worthwhile as a major investment of exp and NW. Therefore you would be hard pressed to find people willing to invest the level of exp required to take on a single minion tank.

I was only including the STR vs STR thing because it was another method brought up. No, there is no need for that in a pure damage-based model, another elegant factor of simply using damage.

Overdrive, the big difference is this:

While EC can do what the Exbow can do, it does it using MPR. That's a really valuable asset. Not only that, but tanks can more than easily fight it using the mass array of equipments that boost STR.

The Mageseeker, as well, simply targets mages. It is far weaker than the Elven Long Bow or the Sling of Death, so there's a damage tradeoff.

The problem is NOT so much that the Exbow neutralizes STR - that's what it is intended to do - but that it does it with a relatively small requirement of weapon X and a small dosage of STR.

Jonathan, why not a ST v ST comparison integrating weapon X as a modifier, and approaching a curve so that it soaks up to, say, 90% STR in a shot? I'm not sure what you consider balanced/unbalanced, so I don't know if you'd consider the potential to soak 100% of STR in a single shot to be overpowered or not if it was based on high requirements, both in STR and NW.


I'm excited to see a change for, if no other reason, than to give the CB community another formula to figure out and test on ;) the community works together so well when they're trying to figure something out!

Fatility.

Even draining 50% of a tanks strength is significant.

My damage gets cut by about 40% with 50% strength. That alone is a massive loss of damage.

People are so used to a plus/minus system that they fail to see the middle grounds.

When evasion was so powerful people got this thinking ingrained.

But I can lend my Dbs to a clanmate and it makes a tank that farms him, lose to him. 1 less hit a round.

Things do not and should not be so plus/minus. Shades of grey are great for a game such as CB.

But if a tank really wants to nerf anothers strengh, then let them train strength. Do not let them use a exbow on a 1k strength enchanter and get the full effect.

If one needs to up the base damage of the exbow to 5, great. For better balance, if that is what is needed, do it.

Corn w/e its spelled boosts it right?

Or have it work like decay.

STR v STR with X Modifier, capped at a max of 50% of the Targets Current STR.

Fatility, I'm not sure if you've realized this yet, but the damage the Exbow does is closer to a side effect than anything else. The drain is what the weapon is made for, so you're basically sacrificing ranged damage for tank nerfage. That's not a big deal if you're using Enchanters to pull the tank nerfage, so basing it on damage or STR is a much better idea, so it actually has to be placed on a tank.

I understand you'd like to be able to use an Exbow to nerf tanks while simultaneously getting all the damage of an Elbow/SoD/MsK, but let's be realistic here and stop basing ideas off of having our cake and eating it too.

Y'mean The Department of Redundancy Department? :P

Or have it work in a similar way the to hit on the ToA works now?



OR like this?

An Assassin's Crossbow [4x2800] (+173) owned by Freed (store2)
An Enforcer's Crossbow [4x4000] (+201) owned by AdminNightStrike

Both highest X of their kind.

Lets say the x4000 would deplete 10% ST per hit, now that would be 0.25% per X

an X3000 then would deplete 7.5% ST per hit
an X2000 would deplete 5% ST per hit


good bad ugly?

Shade,

I'm not a fan of the linear growth, as it could still be problematic way down the road. Could the the growth provide diminishing returns of investment?

Shade,

I would say that only 10% str loss due to a x4k weapon is a bit on the lower side.

To be fair to the exbow users, one has to be able to potentially do a lot of drain.

I like my method as it uses the 3 factors that I believe are most important in exbow drain:

1) Strength of user. Like any weapon this has to be one of the most important attributes to determine the amount drained.

2) x of the weapon. The problem now is that only x4k is needed for 100+% drain. 2 years ago, when x4k was massive things were different. Now we have quite a lot of weapons over x5k, and yet the exbow drain is still 100% at that level. One has to find a way to incorporate x of the weapon and not have a hard cap like we do now on the amount needed for 100% drain.

3) Strength of the target. I may alone believe this is important in determining the drain.

We can use damage done, pre or post AC/ToE to determine drain. That uses the first 2 factors directly and then the 3rd after the damage is done. And then base it on a percentage of the targets strength. However, then one has to decide on what damage does what drain. Which, if done correctly, can be effective.

But something to remove the 1k strength enchanter nuking 100% of a 8M tanks strength in 1 hit.

You do have a great point: the ST of the minion who wields the weapon. if a minion with 20 ST now wields the most huge Exbow, it will drain 100%.

it however should be that a minion with 20% ST should drain only a puny amount...

How to incorporate that though?

enc should effect drain

"Or have it work like decay.

STR v STR with X Modifier, capped at a max of 50% of the Targets Current STR."

Also missed adding that the whole STR V STR with X thing can be replaced (as sute posted above) with Damage. A 20 STR E isn't going to cause as much damage as a 1M STR Tank using an EXBow, no matter the size.

The only deciding facor is if you want pre or post damage redction involved.

ENC should effect the Drain, but you might have enough ENC on a 20 STR E just form a larger EO/ED or natural HP.

Yup, like GL says, even that's not foolproof. Give your EC enchanter an Exbow, and now he's got the DX advantage, ENC from his EO, and reduced the STR already before he nails the coffin shut! xD

Shade,

My formula incorporates a 20 strength minion using a x4k exbow. And makes it not work well at all.

Like on Mandos, a 20 strength minion can be a wall with 2M HP, therefore without ENC overload.

Have you formulated an actual formula or do you note about the 3 factors?

I was trying to make an actual formula for it...

do we even understand (have full details about) the current formula?

Shade,

My first post in this thread, about the 5th or 6th one, has a formula incorporating all 3 of the factors I stated.

And this is not the first or 2nd time I have posted it.

I hadn't read every post in the thread but your formula does sound nice.

It working in a similar way as AMF vs DD spell does sound appealing to me at least.

Jon,

I am sorry to have to disagree with this statement when it pertains to the exbow;

"Also, some players do have a tendency to cry for a nerf whenever someone beats them with a narrowly-targeted strategy, and that's part of CB."

What is happening with the exbow is someone slapping one on an enchanter with minimal strength and draining 9+ million strength in 1 hit. This is not a narrow target strategy. It is just abusing an item that is overpowered.

A narrow target strategy is using 4 minions of EC with a HF to do damage. Or 4 minions of AMF with a RBF as Mikel is and expecting to win without DBs vs tanks.

If said exbow as like Nightstrike's, on a massive tank, then one can say it is a narrowly-targetting strategy.

However, this is just slapping on an item and getting full benefit on it.

"forced teams with tank only damage to wear defensive equipment to protect against the power of the exbow."

surely we can still have it be effective without being a slam dunk past a certain upgrade point.

perhaps just lower its bth weapon value down so low (zero?) to where you must have some trained dex to even have a chance at hitting?

^i forgot to add:

pair whatever fix you think appropriate jon with a uc balancing (linear damage like the hal) and we will carry you through the cb streets singing "for he's a jolly good fellow!"

"perhaps just lower its bth weapon value down so low (zero?) to where you must have some trained dex to even have a chance at hitting? "

The problem with this is it still forces tanks to wear DBs or use evasion. And still allows a 20 strength enchanter using a x4000 +200 exbow to nerf a tanks strength in 1 hit unless they use +150ish or higher DB.

The BTH is not a real problem with enchanters weilding these crossbows. Vs any real tank, their BTh from dex is 0 anyway.

It would help a bit vs real tanks using them, but this is more like a band-aid instead of a solution.

Also,

As someone stated above, why is x4k the top upgrade one has to have to get 100% drain?

x4k now is not much considering some weapons are over x15k.

The fact it was high 2 years ago and was relatively balanced then does not mean it is balanced now at that relatively low upgrade. For a weapon that is.

I am not especially informed about this topic but perhaps the rate of fire for these could be changed. They don't fire at the same rate in real life.

Another is Different (X)bows/bows fire different distances,add 1-2 rounds of far range which some weapons could not fire in.

Just my two cents. They may seem silly but I hope I could help.

These two options I can suggest to balance the problems.

I also know this wont fix it completely but it may help.

AK: Bows have Archery to fire every round, Xbows already fire only every other round afaik...

All archery does it let people use bows with 100% of their CTH.

They fire in all rounds regardless of skill used.

Crossbows of all types fire in all rounds.

But even if they fire every other round, if 1 hit from an enchanter nukes all of a tanks strength, it does not matter how often they fire if your hit.

We need a more effective longer term solution rather than short term fixes.

I've done nothing wrong to deserve any sort of verbal bashing. So from this plea forward I will ask you refer to my enchanter and xbow combo as, "Mojo Jojo".

(I don't like being called an abuser when I've done nothing outside the boundaries of the game's design. I'm playing perfectly within the rules and have abused nothing.)

This is all.

perhaps the mechanic needs changing then. should someone without dex advantage and a 0 bth on weapon be able to hit an opponent ever?

In my opinion the disproportionate investment between the Exbow and the Armor is proof enough that it needs a fix. 40 Mil NW armor is decent, but it's nowhere near enough to completely negate physical damage.

Either damage, or Ranger's AMF-style suggestion should work fine. As both can be titrated after the fix, the middle ground will definitely be somewhere.

dudemus, then you have just made dexterity the most important stat in the physical game. PTH has to count, especially as expensive as it is, and even then, it has a natural (exact) foil in DBs.

this is true sut. it just seemed weird to me when i had my jiggy strat with ec that you need dex advantage to get multiple hits, but dex "disadvantage" didn't mean more.

i still think that tying it to damage would work well or leaving it as is but have it only knock out ten percent each time instead of what it does now.

probably best for another thread, but to give an example of dex disadvantage meaning more. as it is dex advantage can give you extra hits, but perhaps dex disadvantage could start removing opponent hits from like pth at the same rate or something. this is a to hit mechanic change across the board, not just with the specialty crossbows.

that along with a zero base to hit on the specialty crossbows would require people to upgrade the plus greatly or train dex up good or both.

First,

To Mandos.

I do not believe you are an abusive player. In fact, I sort of like ya.

You are however using an abusive weapon to its maximal potential.

Second,

To Dude and this statement:
"perhaps the mechanic needs changing then. should someone without dex advantage and a 0 bth on weapon be able to hit an opponent ever? "

Of course they can. That is what PTH is for. If you have 100 PTH on your weapon, and your opponent does not have evasion or DBs, you will hit 1 time a round just subject to the ranged penalties.

This is the problem with what is now occurring with Mojo Jojo.

He has a +120ish exbow on his 1k str, 20 dex wall. He hits my tank if I do not wear DBs in the first missile round. The one with the most penalties.

His CTH is 120ish, minus the first ranged round penalties. The 60 BTH of the xbow is 0 due to my dex advantage.

My minus CTH is 0.00 due to the lack of evasion (I cannot learn it with archery) and lack of DBs (which I am forced to use and keep above his PTH prevent from being hit).

And all it takes is 1 hit to drain all my strength.

so Jonathan, any thoughts about the current suggestions? Flaws with current suggestions, preferences, etc?

Remove both the Enforcer's and Assassin's Crossbows from the game entirely. Replace them with a "Tankseeker".

Not a bad idea, GA, except that leaves half-tanks and mages out in the cold. No matter how much I (as a mage) would invest in a "tankseeker", it isn't going to ever kill a tank unless I AM a tank to fire it.

I don't think that adds to the tank-control motif that specialty xbows are going for.

Now, I say that while pointing out I do NOT want the ability for a wussy enchanter to drain an opposing tank's entire STR. We need some offense in between where pure NW can help control a tank when used on a non-tank team. That's why the specialty xbows were born, as far as I can tell, and why we have a mageseeker but no tank-seeker in the game.

You calling my enchanter a wussy sut!? ^.-

Mojo Jojo does not LIKE to be called a WUSSY!!!!! TAKE IT BACK!!!

On a more serious note, what if we just make archery required to get the STR drain effect from the crossbow (A name change might be in order to Enforcers Bow to stay with the xbow/bow theme) and then make the str drain effect equal to a % of the wielding minions Str?

For example, assuming you have full archery and 5m strength trained, you would drain 2.5m strength a hit if you went with 50%. Then you can have the % vary by the X on the bow. x1000 = 10% of strength trained, x2000 = 20%, and so on and so forth.

So if you had a x10,000 bow, and 7m strength trained with full archery, only then could you drain 7m strength a round.

If that makes sense.

"Of course they can."

i know they can now, i was suggesting that dex advantage apply to defense in a sense and allow it to eat into that one chance to always hit, unless they go higher in dex or pth or both.

"You calling my enchanter a wussy sut!? ^.- "

If he isn't, I will :)

But all our ideas will be moot unless Jon takes one or a combination and utilizes them.

There are many great ones, some ever better than great, but all seem to want to address the problem at hand.

I think all of us agree that it should be dependant on the x of the weapon and the users strength. I hope most agree that there should not be a cap on the amount you need to upgrade the weapon to achieve a 100% leech.

Whether to include the target's strength in the calculations of how much strength is lost is up for some discussion.

Any thoughts Jon?

I disagree with that statement ranger. Why should the drain be a % of str as opposed to a fixed value? why cap it at 100% instead of say capping it at 10M per hit.

all I mean is that it sounds fair that a person much bigger in x and str than their opponenet should drain the lesser opponent greatly even below 100% of their str.

Fatility:

I can see your point.

But it should take a lot more str and x to completely drain someone strength.

Personally I like the Decay Effect that was mentioned earlier. I think the ExBow & AxBow should be regulated the same way. It degrades per Round Shot and only does X amount of DMG/Drain Based on how hight it is, which should be rescaled to work in the same way that Ranger has proposed. With this IF you had to Destroy them Both and incorporate them into the "Executioner's Bow" It would affect both STR and Dex with said effects in place scaled up like the ELB. Pump the Mage Seeker a bit with DMG and by Giving it an added effect, DM or AMF to function the same way that has already been proposed in this Thread about the ExBow. Now we are cooking with Grease.


Now we have 3 Nasty Bows in the game that are now Balanced.

ELB Massive DMG but must Train Archery,

Mage Seeker Moderate DMG DM/AMF Effect,

Executioner's Bow Low DMG Drain Str/Dex by (Decay or even AMF) Type Effect.

All have their Trade off Pick one Archer.

The issue with using the Decay effect to calculate Str reduction is that those first two shots take away 75% of the Archers damage. And, unlike Decay, you can't ignore it unless you have a massive pair of DBs on and I, for one, could not afford a +160 pair of DBs.

Well I said it could work like Decay not EXACTLY like Decay. So you could easily Cap it by say the amount of + or x on it. Simple Fix I think and besides that it could easily be rescaled to work at the lower levels with a Decay like effect. Say 20% Max first Shot, 10% Second 5% 3rd and so forth or even lower just to scale it down further, the point here is that it can work IF we get past the well I'm here and I need it to be there complex.


I know my DBs are high I did it on purpose to plan for a series of things including the ExBow. My point is that if we are going to get a fix we need to come up with something soon or I am sure Jon and NS will say to heck with it.

It is a suggestion like the rest on here, of course it will not work if it is instantly bashed, instead fine tune it a bit to see if other people agree with it or not.

Just to add my own little idea to this brainstorming session, here goes. Leave the exbow mainly alone, and let it take strength down to 0. After that number is reached, further hits on that minion would deal damage only. However, once melee combat is reached, that minion will recover their strength by 10% of their total per round. After 10 melee rounds the tank will have recovered their normal stats (or at least before EC/GS).

Personally, I like this for several reasons. For one thing, it lets the exbow be useful in really slowing down or countering tank teams. But it will no longer be a total neutering, it will weaken them long enough for you to try and stop them. In no time they will be back in hitting form. Also, it means no rebalancing weapons and everything that goes along with it. Next, I thought it up so it seems like a great idea to me :)

Thanks for listening!

wow I really like vaynards idea. It's a great method actually considering that an exbow user can't kill you in ranged. So they force it to go to melee.

I think the 10% recoup might be a little low though. Perhaps 20%

I think combining some variation of basing drain on str and Vay's idea would be perfect.

That is a Good Idea, but how to balance it by X and + though is the Million $ Question. Would its effects go up by X and would the Recuperation be regulated the same way? Or would the Effects of taking it away be regulated by the X and the Recuperation the Regulated by the + ?

i dont see why you can just have a % of the damage the xbow does drain str. Make it like the rest of the weapons instead of a 20str enchanter shooting people with it.

Van's idea is nice, but still does not stop the problem we currently have of 20 str enchanters using one to stop a tank for at least 7 rounds, possibly more.

As novice did suggest, some combination of Van's idea with a strength/damage based drain would be good as well.

Notch up its ENC that may help, I'm still a fan of my previous idea though, at least with the concept of 3 Bows add in Vans Idea to the Executioner's Bow...make work like Decay/AMF then build back up round by round after....XD

My solution remains:
A.) take a flat percentage off the stat. Say 1/33. That's a bit over 30,000 per million.
B.) take a constant amount per X. I say 20.
C.) add a trained strength-based component, say 1/10th of attacker's strength. This means that strength above 20, like it is on most enchanters, is required to make better use of the weapon.

Or just make the drain equal to damage inflicted. Seriously, I like that plan just as well.

Well good idea too, to a point, the whole reason I have been saying kill both the ExBow/AxBow is the fact Tanks are the only one to get 2 Bows Directed solely at them, kind of redundant to me, kill them and combine them then do the fix. This solves two things one the fact of redundant bows and fixing two things at the same time. Honestly the AxBow will be next on the Block so we might as well include it.

I really dont see what the problem is. Ex/axebows only effect those who arent using spells as weapons. Nerfing 1 item because it effects only a portion the total populous of CB is just rediculous.

When i had my exbow(Before i disenchanted it) i was getting beat by single naked FB mages who were of the same PR size. so if your gonna nerf something, maybe a re-examination of spell strengths should be concidered.

"I really dont see what the problem is. Ex/ax bows only effect those who arent using spells as weapons."

Um, that is the problem.

Just wow.

Sparticus it affects more than what you just mentioned even Jon agreed with it.

"But, I also agree with sutekh:

> Amazing or not, when it comes to being able to have massive rewards based on one, flawed item, that affects just about every aspect of the game. It skews the new user and new character bonuses, skews clan results, and skews the score ladder."


So whereas your Spells may need to be looked at the ExBow/AxBow has been under criticism for quite a while. Which is why it has It's own thread atm. If you want to Bring your point up Great I say Make a Discussion Thread on it :D Right now this Thread is about the ExBow issue with the AxBow in scrutiny by default since it works in the same way for Dex as the ExBow for strength.

See,

Someone who has not read my rants about it!!!

But I really hope Jon is playing attention to this thread and is seriously considering some of these ideas. And soon.

Anymore Ideas or Consolidation thereof? If So I would say bring up the Best 3 Ideas and see if they are intermeshable or not, then maybe attempt to agree on one or set up a Poll on which fix you would like the most?

Um "I meant If So Bring them on if Not"*

I would like those here to read my thread about EC, because if we make EC more viable there may be less of a need for the ex and ax bows.

EC is fine where it is.

EC is fine where it be.

I find it best using EC in tank vs tank battles to tip the dexterity war.

I think DM could use with a boost, though.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Following along with Sut...
I think the TSA needs a regen boost :P

I kinda like the Decay part and then the ramping of the st/dex back up during Melee.

I actually really like EC's dynamic of only being useful if 1. You are facing two tanks, 2. You have a tank of your own, or 3. You are ridiculously focused.

Thwe most reasonable course of action would be to link the max ST drain to the PHYSICAL DAMAGE DEALT, and maybe up the base damage on it a bit.

Or, for a "fair" change - combine the AXBow with the EXbow (have the EXbow drain both ST and DX), and change the AXbow to DRAIN DD LEVELS by the same formula you will end up using on the EXbow (just with DD instead of ST/DX).

Whatever formula you pick for the drain eventually, it's bound to be a fair one, because EVERYBODY will be complaining about it if it won't be fair enough (not just a select few tanks).

Basing drain on damage dealt is and always has been a poor way to go.

Care to elaborate as to why, NS? You prefer a flat rate where x4000 end the fight for the opposing tank? That doesn't seem like a very desirable alternative...

Personally I like the Decay Effect that was mentioned earlier. I think the ExBow & AxBow should be regulated the same way. It degrades per Round Shot and only does X amount of DMG/Drain Based on how hight it is, which should be rescaled to work in the same way that Ranger has proposed. With this IF you had to Destroy them Both and incorporate them into the "Executioner's Bow" It would affect both STR and Dex with said effects in place scaled up like the ELB. Pump the Mage Seeker a bit with DMG and by Giving it an added effect, DM or AMF to function the same way that has already been proposed in this Thread about the ExBow. Add in Vanyards Idea to the "Executioner's Bow"

Vanyard
Just to add my own little idea to this brainstorming session, here goes. Leave the exbow mainly alone, and let it take strength down to 0. After that number is reached, further hits on that minion would deal damage only. However, once melee combat is reached, that minion will recover their strength by 10% of their total per round. After 10 melee rounds the tank will have recovered their normal stats (or at least before EC/GS)

As per Ranger

Van's idea is nice, but still does not stop the problem we currently have of 20 str enchanters using one to stop a tank for at least 7 rounds, possibly more.

As novice did suggest, some combination of Van's idea with a strength/damage based drain would be good as well.

Admitted so add in a prerequisite modifier For the Strength/Dexterity Drain. It is a ramping % of what you have with the Decay/AMF Effect. Example: You get X effect from the Executiner's Bow' Str/Dex Decay/AMF like Draining Effect Based on your Own Dex/Str. The % can be anything from a .01/1000 to anything else that would seem proper for this that is not ridiculous on either side. Have the Decay/AMF Ramp in both directions in the same way it was taken away per melee round.
Now we are cooking with Grease.


Now we have 3 Nasty Bows in the game that are now Balanced.

ELB Massive DMG but must Train Archery,

Mage Seeker Moderate DMG DM/AMF Effect,

Executioner's Bow Low DMG Drain Str/Dex by (Decay or even AMF) Type Effect.

All have their Trade off Pick one Archer.

PS: The Executioner's Bow could also be regulated by simple % and uber upgrade costs like the Corn, BG's, etc etc.

Can anyone write this out in equation to see what the possibilities can be?

NS - I'm curious why as well. Because of damage reduction forms?

Can't be that, because that's easy to work around -- just go pre-damage-reduction and do something like what LB mentions: simply reduce STR by the damage done.

i would assume that it is due to the fact that basing it on damage would make it a tank only counter to other tanks. ec fills that role so the specialty bows are supposed to be unique and not just a usd version of ec.

"i would assume that it is due to the fact that basing it on damage would make it a tank only counter to other tanks. ec fills that role so the specialty bows are supposed to be unique and not just a usd version of ec. "

EC is useable by anyone, and is mostly used by enchanters. Almost no tanks use EC, and if they do it is a very low level one.

I thought the e/axbow was to be used on tank vs tank battles and was not designed for an enchanter or mage to use.

If it was designed for a mage or enchanter to use vs a tank, then my whole thinking about its design has been 100% off. And perhaps then 100% drain by a 60M exbow by a 20 strength enchanter is its ultimate design.

If so, then I would have a problem with its inate design rather than the effect. Since then there is no item that an enchanter can use to cripple a mage.

Actually Ranger, there's no weapon a tank can even use to cripple a mage in one hit either ;).

Not to be mwan but seriuosly folks stop pointing out just the bad stuff, cut it out and add in what you would think is good.


With every fault pointed out then bring a proposed solution with it.

Yeah guys, don't point out any inconsistencies such as high tank vulnerability in a manner that mages don't suffer from, and don't point out the differences between EC and the Exbow so that we have a better idea of what kind of solutions to propose. Just say good things. :)

EXBOWS R SOOO PRETY

Z,

Stop it.

We are not just pointing out the bad stuff.

NS made a comment on why damage is not good for calculating the drain.

We are attempting to figure out why that is.

We have posted plenty of solutions/fixes for the exbow and now would like to see Jon state his opinion on it/them.

I would also like NS to clarify his statement about why a damage type model is not good for drain calculations.

my assumption was based on jon's posts of the last two days (mainly on the stating that it has worked pretty well, if not perfect) along with ns saying this:

"Basing drain on damage dealt is and always has been a poor way to go."

what other reason would there be for saying that basing it on damage would be less than ideal?

I was basing part of my statements on Jon's reply to Sut.

I would have thought that the exbow working was due to no enchanters using it. But until just recently only tanks were using it.

If strength of the user has no bearing on the drain and should have no bearing on the drain, then this whole thread is likely moot and the exbow should only have the x needed for 100% drain upped. Given the status of weapons now.

I really hope this is not the case, as I would be loath to see a game where every character has a 30M NW exbow on an enchanter forcing all tanks to use DBs or train evasion.

And then we get the smart player who trains 2M dexterity on a secondary minion to get some dex PTh, raises a exbow to +150ish and can overcome some degrees of DBs and evasion.

However, we need to know what the ultimate desire of the exbow really is from Jon before we can make suggestions as to how to make it more useful.

I posted a suggestion on how to make it useful without really neutering it.

In addition, I guess I disagree with Jon in his first post that the exbow has been working "pretty well" for years.

It is just that nobody decided to try one on a 20 strength enchanter to see how abusive it could be.

If we keep the damage aspect out of the equation, what will stop a 1M MPR character from slapping on a 30M exbow and beating all tanks above him/her who cannot afford DBs or cannot use evasion due to archery requirements.

Also, given that strength of the user does not currently matter, ENC does not matter since any damage done will result in complete drain.

I think one of the first things to do is make the exbow like decay in that it does not work at all if your over your ENC load.

If there is meant to be an item in the game that can be used by any minion (no STR required), offensively, to drain a tank of tankish stats, then just make it an amulet or something. Why make it a weapon that is astoundingly effective when wielded by someone who SHOULDN'T be able to handle a weapon at all? That just doesn't make sense from a consistency standpoint.

Alternately, if that tank-drain capability remains in the form of a weapon, just tone it down then.

At this point I don't understand Jonathan's original post, because if there is meant to be a way for a enchanter to stop a tank via an item, then just tweak the existing exbow or convert exbows into "Amulets of Opposing Tank Drain". If that is NOT the case, and it is decided that a beefier minion be forced to use the exbow, then I see no problem with basing the drain on damage.

Can someone point out the flaw in my logic?

"However, we need to know what the ultimate desire of the exbow really is from Jon before we can make suggestions as to how to make it more useful."

that was my only goal, we can't make good suggestions until we know how the specialty bows fit into jon's vision.

Ranger it wasn't aimed at you O am having to reply by phone which takes a while to do. Your reply wasn't even close to being up when I started.

OB next time read just a bit more I NEVER once said or implied that no bad points or flaws should NOT be pointed out I said bring a solution with it.

500 million Flaws....500 million Solutions.

Honestly in a Brainstorming Thread how is this out of whack or preposterious? Is it just too much to ask if people actually start thinking of solutions while pointing out problems too? I think in this it would help circumvent flamers and hopefully get more production out of posts. You never know when that seemingly insignificant idea can turn into an integral part of a true solution/fix.

I think that until we have some more information about the goal of the exbow and why damage is not a good model to base drain, we cannot try to find a solution to the current problems involving the exbow.

I believe we have gone as far as we can at this point in this discussion.

Jon,

If you want more suggestions about keeping these xbows useful, we do need some more information about what the ultimate design and goal of these items.

IE: Should an enchanter be able to use one to get 100% drain? Should it be based upon the users strength? Is 4k upgrade appropriate for complete strength drain in 1 hit? etc...

Agreed

Mimic the way it used to work, rather than a fixed drain per x put it on a curve which gets stupidly steep at say 80% or whatever, maybe make it slightly better at low x too.

I think a lot of the discussion is moot without knowning if Jon wants these type of weapons to be useable by very low strength minion for a maximum effect. If this is true, then all the discussion so far is worth nothing.

Without that knowledge we are just running in circles.

I would love to have a discussion constructively about these weapons, but without such knowledge, it is impossible.

We can only speculate and then get upset (or not) when we have no idea how things are supposed to be, but see things that as players we perceive as being abusive.

I'm assuming that NightStrike's objection is related to the sheer volume of methods for physical damage reduction (EC, AC, ToE, SoC).

I saw this as a buff to those items, but if we're not out to buff AC we could simply use damage before reductions (which would still give EC some love) instead.

Note that he didn't say anything about using Ranger's STR calculations being a terrible idea...

I agree that one can use damage pre reductions to determine drain.

Which would incorporate strength of the attacker, the x on the weapon.

One can also use strength of the defender as partly defensive as it does lower damage slightly. Boosted a bit more or enabled per a past recent Jon post.

However, I did not get that from NS's post.

If I and others misunderstood it as you state, great. However, I am uncertain and would love to hear from Jon and/or NS to clarify this point.

Rather than working on the Exbow, why not item(s) that maintain(s) attributes? Cloak of reflection that maintains strength at x% per + per round, helm of magical defense that reduces hp drain from any items. That gives choices/foils and complexity rather than simply nerfing an item.

@LG:

And takes items away from the Tanks already required list of gear. Fixing one item is alot easier than creating a full new set that no tank would use due to having to sacrifice the gear that helps them do what they do.

Tis an Idea but I happen to agree with Ranger on this if we do not know where Jon/NS want the Bows to be or do then we are simply spinning our wheels here :/

I do not believe we want to "nerf" the exbow.

Just balance it in line with other items. Stop a person from putting it on an enchanter and nuking 9M strength unless you use DBs.

To add additional items to counter an item thought to be severely broken just puts a band-aid on the problem instead of addressing the true concern.

That stated... We have yet to hear back from Jon or NS about their idea of what the exbow should or should not do.

IE: Is it ok for a 20 hp enchanter to use one and drain all the strength of a 9M Str tank at x4000? If that answer is yes, then there is no debating the item is working exactly as designed. But the other questions need to be asked, like why would there be an item like that, given the potential to abuse and skewing stats of the game, including rewards, clan bonuses and the score ladder.

But right now we are in limbo about it until Jon or NS replies.

I think that the reason NS is against the drain being based upon damage dealt is that if you are dealing the damage to him in the first place, there really ends up being no point in the drain as you will kill him when you drain his str/dex away.

In my opinion out of all the suggestions so far, Ranger's looks the best to me. The one about str regenerating during melee could also work though.

"The one about str regenerating during melee could also work though." I don't really like this idea, unless it regenerates the first round of melee. How many battles last 20 rounds?

Nemeritz, that is only true if the exbow does a lot of damage and if the drain is a straight decrease. There can be factors, etc, as well as controlling whether it is post- or pre- damage reduction. Making the STR decrease pre-damage reduction could reduce STR quite a bit while not taking away nearly as much HP.

I'm not talking absolute specifics, just the idea for what dynamics to use.

"I think that the reason NS is against the drain being based upon damage dealt is that if you are dealing the damage to him in the first place, there really ends up being no point in the drain as you will kill him when you drain his str/dex away."

By that logic you could argue that the Mageseeker bow is completely useless, since it doesn't even DRAIN anything at all :))

Last Gasp: Rather than working on the Exbow, why not item(s)...
Because we all know how great the GoM and MenC worked out.

Nemerizt: ...damage to him in the first place, there really ends up being no point...
The idea is to make it a multiple of the damage. I really don't think the Exbow or Axbow do very much damage currently, so they aren't really getting kills anyway.

I guess what I am trying to say by that is that the damage caused by the exbow is not meant to do anything other than be the carrier for the exbow. So the poison in the dart shouldn't be based on how much damage was done.

I can't recall seeing it anywhere, but howabout a skill for using the xbows, given that they are poison dart bows, some level of skill required to administer the poison.

Personally I see nothing wrong with enchanters using them, provided they are forced to spread their XP to cover the usage.

I'd go for a skill being required to get the drain, AND some measure of dex.

In terms of realism, a crossbow kind of doesn't require huge amounts of strength to do great damage, after all you wouldn't require huge amounts of strength to fire a modern gun. But some dexterity involved in order to be fast enough to hit a moving target...that's I'd go for.

Like Evasion! Nice. ;)

But it would be the first skill tied to a specific (or rather two) item.

(As a historical aside, you didn't need a lot of training, nor strength to fire a Crossbow, but you did need a lot to reload it. Conversly, you needed a massive amount of both strength and skill to use a Longbow efectively. A Longbowman would usually be far stronger in upper body strength than say a man at arms, and when pulling a longbow to full power, you could no longer 'sight' down the arrow, so targetting was purely inbuilt skill over years of practive, allowing you to lead your arrow to your target without aiming)

"But it would be the first skill tied to a specific (or rather two) item. "

Ahem. Archery?

Nah, that applies to a category. ;) All bows.

This wouldn't apply to all Xbows, just the specific E/AXbow.

Still, there's something of a precedent involved. You can't use a bow properly without training archery, so why not something similar for the specialty xbows?

As an aside:

"Amazing or not, when it comes to being able to have massive rewards based on one, flawed item, that affects just about every aspect of the game. It skews the new user and new character bonuses, skews clan results, and skews the score ladder." could also apply to large ELBs (the kind that are big in the X, thus not affecting PR too much) and HALs.

Um but in order to get "Full" usage from the ELB you HAVE to use Archery for the rest of them it is a choice for some extra damage if they Choose to go with it. Most I have seen just don't use Archery unless they are a ELB user :/

Aside from this let's be patient and see what Jon and NS are cooking up and what they think "So Far" about the various ideas that has been posted in this Thread.

Also knowing what it is they they are looking for in the "Function" of the Ex/AxBow so that we may be able to actually help with ideas for a "Fix". Right now, I think Ranger and a few others are right, we are simply shooting in the dark so to speak.

Without archery my mageseeker doesn't even hit once. With archery it's triple hits. There's no in between, if I want to use one I have no choice but to train archery. Which is why I have a melee based tank who trains archery.

I personally don't see a problem with forcing people into certain builds in order to use this weapon. It would stop people just picking one up, boosting it and chucking it on any old minion...

Could do something random.

Start it at -200 to hit (Arbitrary number), so that in order to hit, you need to either have a lot of dex or spend a lot of extra cash. Have the x work on a progressively more expensive cost curve unlike every other weapon and have the drain be based on a percentage system. Armour reduces drain. No damage done.

Personally, I think this is far from perfect, but its not meant to be - It's just an idea!

The problem with training a skill, given the 20 strength minions that use it, would be it would cost nothing in xp to learn xbowmanship to 1/4 your strength.

I really believe we need to know what Jon's idea for these weapons are.

Don't tie it to strength then like archery or bloodlust but instead tie it to the weapon X or +. That way if you want to boost the weapon, you have to boost the skill.

Unless we are typing about billion of xp needed, and boosting the x needed to compensate for weapons at this point in the game, I think having a 20 strength secondary or tertiary minion using this weapon is too powerful.

But again, let us wait for Jon or NS to reply to give us some direction as where to go with this thread.

JW, do you have an example of someone using a Hal to fight up as high as Jiraiya is? I'm on his fight list now, he can pretty much drop my score by a million any time he does a significant number of fights against me. I imagine his challenge bonus is quite nice.

If you see someone using a Hal to get similar awesome rewards as they work up the ranks, I would definitely want to see that and see how it is happening...

Like Sut states, using a HF (with MTL) or a massive ELB (with ENC) to fight as high as Mandos is, right now is impossible.

But if we are destined to have low strength minions using such weapons, ok. But how about this for a xbow change.

Forget strength of user.

Multiply the x on the exbow by 1000. Then use that number compared to strength of minion via the AMF type effect to get the drain.

And make the drain based upon the strength that round.

IE:

x4000 exbow = 4M

Vs 4M str tank would yield an AMF result of .5.

So first his would be 50% strength loss.

2nd hit would be 4M vs 2M strength. Which I think would give AMF of .75. So 2nd hit would lower strength from 2M to 500k.

And so on.

I think we all overlook the fact that even 50% strength loss is quite significant for a tank. Tank damage is balanced for the most part vs mage damage.

So removing 50% strength would be like taking away 33% damage. Or close to it. Not insignificant.

So here we have the ability for enchanters to use this weapon. But the weapon itself would need an upgrade over 4000 to effect the higher strength tanks massively.

I hope this explained things well.

Using a massive ELB to fight high is impossible?

Zenai's ELB is one of the top 5 bows in the game, huge amount of weapon X on it, which doesn't affect PR whatsoever, although is affected by ENC to a certain degree. Zenai is doing pretty damn well out of it.

And on the HAL front: Itachi, owned by Itachi.

Currently looks like this:

Score 4,076,628
Power 2,768,511
MPR 1,927,841
Net Worth $142,287,191

There really isn't a huge amount of difference between that char and Jiraya's in terms of score/MPR ratio.

The ability to fight high by targetting specific char types has been part of the game for a long time now.

And lets not forget Ranger's char: big bow, large Hal and an MPR far lower than the top MPR. Yet look at the placing.

While the exbow is skewing things, it's only doing what a lot of tank based items (and skills, UC used to let me fight very high) have been doing for as long as I've been playing tank.

Why do you think I like playing tank so much? It's only tank based items that have let me do that big leap across the score bracket. Mage teams never, ever ever have let me do that.

Requiring a skill to use a specialty crossbow precludes using UC with them. UC plus either crossbow is a very natural choice. Removing that makes UC users stuck with only a SOD and nothing else.

I had thought about that, and your own particular strat. But having said that, my own UC build used to feature a bow, preferably with seekers to help against mages. Can't run UC that way these days..

JW,

I beat Zenai's character in one round (with 60% of my MPR useless against him). This character is an even purer tank than a Hal team -- ELB and ToA. That should be about as tough as any ELB can get, no?

I beat Itachi's character in 2 rounds (again, all of my DM is useless against him).

Jiraiya beats me (I don't think he uses EDs either, so that part is the same).

That's a pretty big shift, from incredibly easy wins to a loss (and I even have a magic component to my team, so I'm not all tank). That tells me that Jiraiya's challenge bonus fighting up will last FAR longer than Zenai's or Itachi's. Yes, you are correct in that one can find good targets for a while, especially around 2-3 million PR. The question is how large can those targets be, because that designates how long they will pad the bonus. For all intents and purposes, Heroes and Hubbell are Top Ten teams, meaning they will always be "as good as it gets" on the reward front.

And Jiraiya has us already at 3 million total PR. Exclusively because of the exbow. There is no reason to think any NUB can't do the same, owning every Hal/tank team in the top thirty once they hit 3 million PR. Are you stating on the record that the ELB is as powerful as that?

Well, it's Ranger, so it's skewed, but he with 3.7 million MPR can beat you AND FTW's 5 million MPR. And remember, while he may struggle with ENC (may not - the threshold is pretty huge) all the weapon X he has - X20000 or whatever has no bearing on PR, and hence no reduction in rewards as a consequence.

So yes I do think the ELB is as bad.

The other thing I have an issue with, which I have seen in other threads is that the exbows in question do their job cheaply. Jir's is 60 or so million in NW. That's not actually very cheap. Very few weapons go above 60 mill NW. My two weapons, both of which are in the top ten of their classes add up to less than 120 million NW. For the majority of players 60 million NW is a very large investment.

And interestingly, probably because of DBs, Zenai's char beats Jiraya's. As do several other tank teams from the top ranks, such as Bart's.

I don't disagree that it's a silly effect that the weapon carries out. I've never liked them as weapons. But if the reason for it being 'broken' is that it allows people to fight up too highly then we should be taking a long hard look at all the other things that allow that to happen.

Otherwise all the use of the words 'balance' and 'fair' are just hot air.

Just want to echo;

"Mage teams never, ever ever have let me do that."

It is much harder to do so with Mages Teams. You can target softer teams to fight, but unlike Tanks or even UC, you can never fight above your weight, so to speak.

The only option to do so is to use a Mage Familiar, that's always larger than your MTL.

But naturally training a DD you can't, as your damage done is always linked to your current size.

Unlike Weapons pumped with large 'x's.

*cough* DM + FB *cough*

it's harder and harder to do... but it can certainly produce some amazing results...

You are just as capable of fighting up with UC as you are by being a mage. The only difference a UC character would get is that they could also equip a ranged weapon. Mages have ways to fight stronger opponents as well. Through DB, wall equipment, high level mage gear.

JW, Jonathan highlighted my point about fighting up the ladder, not me. *smile* If he considers it important, I consider it important, and while I don't disagree there might be other things that require such attention, I have never seen top targets picked out this easily by a single item. By a whole strategy, perhaps -- but not throwing one item on an enchanter. If nothing else, the ELB requires Archery to be effective, which is already being discussed ad nauseum on this thread.

"You are just as capable of fighting up with UC as you are by being a mage."

uc's non-linear damage model makes that an improbability if not an impossibility, depending on the scale(mpr scale for the entire cb community). in effect, as the game progresses things will only worsen for uc.

my experience running the jiggy team leads me to believe that it is losing ground already when compared to a hal, the closest comparison in the game to a jiggy. there are ways to compensate with a minion, but that will be a temporary relief at best.

When FTW went with a TOE, I lost badly to him. If he went with MM instead of SG or went with MM/SF, I would lose to him.

Sut has 60% of his xp into DM which is useless vs me. So yes, I beat him. But it is closer than you think. I have 3M HP on my tank at the end.

Now, Zenai is 4M score, Mandos is 5M score. That alone is a huge difference. And from a weapon 1/2 the NW of Zenai's elb.

Also, Zenai is using his elb on a MAIN minion. Mandos is using his on a secondary one.

If you cannot see the difference between 4 and 5M score, please look at all those characters in that range. It is a massive difference.

"The other thing I have an issue with, which I have seen in other threads is that the exbows in question do their job cheaply. Jir's is 60 or so million in NW. That's not actually very cheap. Very few weapons go above 60 mill NW.:"

There are 15 melee weapons 60M NW or more, and there are at least 25 missile weapons 60M NW or more (not including the exbows). 60M NW at this level of the game is relatively cheap. Especially when the top weapons, my and Vectoidz ELB along with novice's ELS do not win a battle with 1 hit. A 60M Exbow drains 100+% strength in 1 hit. Battle over dude, battle over.

But back to the exbow.

As NS states, requiring a skill to use it is not an option.

So what about my idea above. Letting 20 str enchanters use it, but at least make the x needed to be higher than 4000.

I wish Jon would give us some ideas on his thoughts about our ideas.

JW: Jir's is 60 or so million in NW. That's not actually very cheap..
I think it's better to compare that investment to armor as the Exbow is more defensive than offensive. Even with the old steel skin you cannot get 100% protection without a lot of NW. Granted armor works versus magic and the RoBF too, but the physical reduction is still on completely different scales of investment. With a 60 mil NW armor set though, I was able to beat Mikel and Vectoidz(when he was smaller) at my best though so.. I guess it's a bit of a toss up. Again though, that's how powerful armor used to be.

GL: Unlike Weapons pumped with large 'x's.
That's still limited by ENC. If anything I think DM is probably the easiest way to fight up by targeting 4x ED characters without an RoS, second to that is not using an ED and targeting DM characters. Tanks are good at fighting up at low mprs for a small investment, yes, but as you get higher tanks can't keep up with the investment, without spending a lot; in which case they should win right?

Those weapons, the x20000 ELB, JohnnyWas's 120m nw weapons, etc, all require other investments as well: str and dex. The enchanter probably doesn't even need hp either since all it takes is one shot to the biggest tank.

Overpowered as the ELB may be, it takes a lot more than 60m nw and base str/dex/hp to use ELB to such great effect. Same with Hal.

As for massive DBs and other high nw equipment, they all take up a slot. For an enchanter to use Exbow, it's like equipping trollskin armor to the enchanter and getting the bonus on your tank. There is no sacrifice, no con to putting a weapon that does so much on a slot that would never have been used otherwise.

It seems that NW is a big complaint; 60m should not compare to 200m+. Could that factor be changed about the exbow? Just a simple adjustment of upgrade costs, on both x and +, and if possible, make the x cost somewhat proportional to the largest ranged weapon. If x4000 +120 Exbow costs as much as x20000 +whatever ELB, would that be considered a fair investment? And keep upgrade costs increasing as the largest weapon increases.

And guess what can help keep me close to Heroes? Yep, an exbow. Mine is puny, and yet it can still hit Heroes for 750K STR reduction per hit (and my x on the thing is TINY).

That's kind of another part of this -- I've had to resort to "can't beat 'em, join 'em", which I haven't had to do for a weapon in about as long as I can remember. I know that is not a hard and fast point, but it can be a sign of something being at least a little bit out of balance.

ENC doesn't really mean much (like MTL) when you get out of the lower BA eration zones.

Are there any character in 6/20 that are limited by ENC or MTL?

At low MPRs ENC limits you, at higher MPRs getting enough cash to actually invest limits you...

Guys/Gals/Others.

Can we please keep the discussion on what Jon wanted.

That is suggestions for making the exbow/axbow still useful wihtout being such a hard counter.

I think all the discussions on whether or not it is balanced has been done. So much so the horse is already buried.

But we need, I think, to come up with some ways as Jon wanted.

However, one very important question needs to be answered by him.

Do you want 20 strength minions to be able use the ax/exbow and get its full effect?

If yes, then one of my latest posts may help address how that can be done.

If no, then my first post in this thread may address that.

But we really need to stop debating whether or not the exbow is needed and come up with a solution.

Jon already stated essentially he believes the exbow is working to a good if not great effect. This is something I can debate with him. But it is his view and game. So we need to work with this point.

He also stated he believes this one item is flawed and can skew results greatly.

So let us stop with the debate on its use and concentrate on helping to solve the problem of this weapon within the confines of his 2 statements.

Do you want 20 strength minions to be able use the ax/exbow and get its full effect?
I may be wrong, but I really think it's safe to assume that a 20 strength minion shouldn't be able to use the ex/axbow to it's full effect. At the very least ENC should effect the drain or else it's a simple upgrade war. If this isn't changed like from how it is in the current system, you could still equip it for no cost and only benefit.

Currently, you could actually create a team with minor MPR and start bringing down massive archers who use DM, which hasn't been exploited yet but could be a problem eventually.
1. Kill slot
2. Giant Exbow/Kill slot
3. Decay minion
4. SG Mage

"Currently, you could actually create a team with minor MPR and start bringing down massive archers who use DM, which hasn't been exploited yet but could be a problem eventually.
1. Kill slot
2. Giant Exbow/Kill slot
3. Decay minion
4. SG Mage"

Ha! Someone let me borrow a largish exbow and we'll find out if it works.

Cube,

That is the $64,000 question.

2 years ago, when I first posted about the exbow, I was very worried about such a scenario.

Only recently someone had enough money to put such a weapon on an enchanter/wall with 20 strength. And we are now seeing the results.

But yes, the current method of drain is very flawed.

I just wish Jon would chime in with his thoughts.

Also,

Is it just me or do others believe x4000 is too low to achieve 100% drain, in some cases over 10M strength in 1 hit? Given the weapons now out there?

No matter what the attackers strength is.

i have always supported some kind of soft caps for many aspects of cb, therefore i do not believe any nw weapon should drain 100%.

i understand that few agree with me on that count though! ; )

I agree 100% dude.

And I hope that Jon's statement about soft counters includes that as well.

It's no longer 20 strength though***

Strength: 5,188 / 4,435

Ah, but you did the same effect with 33 strength as you do with 5k strength.

So the same principles apply.

It's really a moot point to argue because you are correct, but with 20 strength AC comes into play, there were a few targets that I would hit for no damage. No damage = no drain.

*shrug*

=P

Net Worth $319,555,163

I'm coming up in the world!!! :D

OK,

Then change my question to:

Is it ok for a very low strength minion to use one of these exbows and get the 100% full strength drainage effect?

Another worthy question I think is, should the Axbow be left alone? or changed along with the Exbow?

One has to believe any change to the exbow will effect the axbow as well.

However, I am not 100+% certain of this.

Hence my Reasoning for saying kill one and incorporate it's effects into the other, there is honestly not that many AxBows out there being used to full effect like the ExBow. Be assured though that it WILL happen it is all just a matter of time. That's just my thoughts on it though.

Lack of axbow interest is, in my opinion, yet another reason to think the exbow needs to be toned down.

Why kill an opposing tank's dexterity and maybe knock one or two hits off them per round when you can just eliminate all their STR with one shot and make all of their blows no matter how many) negligible?

If the exbow weren't far more powerful in practice, there would be just as many axbows in play as exbows. But there aren't.

hmm, base damage off of combined dex and str (tweak to make it comparable to the current damage models) and then if someone wanted to nerf all damage, they would need both an axbow and exbow. hehe! ; )

Then all you do is need dexterity. Just max dex for more hits and damage.

I think that idea makes dexterity too powerful.

OK,

Then change my question to:

Is it ok for a very low strength minion to use one of these exbows and get the 100% full strength drainage effect?

--QBRanger, 1:33 PM EDT

You're my hero in this game Ranger.

My only counter argument to anything in this thread, is that the xbow's damage is so GARBAGE, it only serves one purpose. To stop tanks. Which it does.

I've yet to see a suggestion that fixes the problem of the Xbow completely neutering all tanks in path (save for those with 100+NW DBs) without completely destroying the item itself.

The Xbow's damage itself is comparable to someone shooting BB guns at a tank.

"I've yet to see a suggestion that fixes the problem of the Xbow completely neutering all tanks in path (save for those with 100+NW DBs) without completely destroying the item itself. "

Ok, before I blow my top due to this quote I need to step back and restate some things.

1) Why do we have to have an all or nothing type of situation with the exbow? Lowering a tanks strength by 1/2 lowers it damage by about 1/3. How can that be a bad thing? It seems we think that things in CB have to be an all or nothing type scenario. Either we reduce a tanks strength to 0 or it is useless. That is WRONG thinking. 100% incorrect!!!

2) Have you read any of the other posts in this thread? There are plenty of suggestions on making the exbow drain proportional to strength of user, strength of defender, and the x on the weapon. And others using 2 of the 3. And even others using damage as a factor. And even others using just x on the weapon vs str of the defender, if low strength minions are the designed users of said item.

3) I am glad to be your hero, but I would rather this broken item be balanced and fixed.

4) Many of us have no problem raising the damage of this item to 5 base if needed. However, we have yet to hear back from Jon about what the desire for the item really is.

5) As much as people state I want the item nerfed since it is used against me, we need to recognize those who do not want it changed since they use it.

But in all seriousness, why is point one beyond peoples comprehension.

One does NOT have to lower a tanks strength to below 0 to win battles.

Right now physical and magical damage is fairly well balanced. If it is not, then we need to do a better job, or at least Jon does. Lowering a tanks damage by more than 1/2 really reduces the damage they can do. How is this destroying the exbow?

I would appreciate it if you read others and my posts on changing the exbow and then reply with an intelligent post on those suggestions. Rather than a blanket statement that you have yet to see a suggestion blah blah blah....

I didn't mean to send you over the top buddy =), in all honesty the last few days I don't really have time to read the giant wall of text, and in all seriousness, I've only read about half of the suggestions here; being mostly ones pointed out, or referred to as good ideas.

That being said this morning when I posted, I was pretty tired (working full time and entertaining house guests, sucks.) I really didn't mean for it to be such a blanket statement, I was more referring to people talking about making the drain in proportion to the damage dealt, and was responding about how garbage the damage itself is.

I'm in line with everyone else in hoping to find a solution to this OBVIOUSLY broken item, but at the same time, I don't want to see the item changed so radically that it makes it completely useless.

Implementing a drain based on damage would in my mind completely destroy the item itself, because of the damage being so low. Maybe making it x5 is the solution, don't know. I was just trying to point out (sorry I did it so poorly) that whatever idea Jon takes a hold of, he really thinks through the full ramifications of the change. (As I doubt he will read every line of text in this thread.)

I don't think I saw anyone actually suggesting it be flatly based on damage dealt. Using damage as a base for drain is not the same thing as drain == damage.

As novice states, it would be a proportional thing with more damage yielding more drain.

Obviously the best exbows do at most 300k damage, which on most tanks would be nothing big.

We were, as novice stated, using damage dealt as a basis for amount of drain.

i must say this one thing.

its a fine tool as it stands, it does what its meant to to. just make it not so easy to use. since it 'targets' make it more strength dependant.

my 2 cents

just had a beer induced idea:

the damage is determined by strength along with the damage mod on weapons playing equal parts. however without any strength then no damage is dealt.

what if, just in the case of the exbow, you still allowed full strength drains, but allowed the damage mod to still do its share of the damage?

it would be a soft cap of sorts.

HuH?

lost me there too... :P

TOO much beer :)

I say just cap the drain (total drain, not each individual drain) at something like 85% or 90% of the target's original stat. Heck, you could even make it only use pre-DE stats to determine the drain cap, so Haste and GS might get used a bit more. Why over complicate things? All that matters is that the ExBow can be used to significantly hurt a tank's damage and the AxBow can lower an enemy's DX enough to hit them more often or make them hit less. No need to make fancy formulas or complex ideas to do that, just cap the drain.

"Ok, before I blow my top due to this quote I need to step back and restate some things."

Ranger, you are in NO position to even say such a thing. You already blew your "top" when you threatened with a sellout. Just be quiet and let people post their ideas. This thread isn't about debate, it'a about suggestions. Jon will ultimately decide what is best... and as this thread is geared... SUGGESTIONS welcome. Jon/NS is in control of this, not you, or anyone else. Say your peace and take a backseat already.

Plus one to Tyriel: just cap the amount of drain it can do and be done with it. If you want to complicate it, only affect trained ST, not that afforded by ToA or items boost.

Lets just get this over and done with please.

aye, too much beer!

i couldn't find or remember the damage formula last night and thought that perhaps the strength and weapon damage mod were added together. found it now though:

Damage = Base damage * SQRT ( (ST/20) * Weapon_damage_multiplier )

and since they are multiplied what i was thinking cannot work. ; (

i am back to thinking that a cap is the best way as well. in the formula above have an if then statement that basically says if drained strength is less than 15 percent of starting strength then use starting strength * .15 instead of drained strength.

Actually Tyriel's idea is very interesting.

Or a variation like people stated to cap the drain equal to the amount of learned strength.

This would be a nice little ToA boost.

And not make these bows completely useless as a 50% strength loss = about 33% damage loss.

"This would be a nice little ToA boost. "

My thoughts exactly. It would still make it an effective weapon, but it wouldn't be an all or nothing in use against tanks, as some tanks would be far less affected.

And even those tanks with only trained stats (and some item boosts) - like you and me - would still be able to achieve some decent damage thanks to training quite high amounts of the stat.

Capping the drain still means the weapon peaks at what, x4000 and there's no reason to upgrade it further?

What if any other weapon had a 'peak' where there was no point in training it further? o.O

That lets you put everything from that point on into the +. I don't like it. Complex formulas ftw.

Plenty of items have a cap where it's too costly to upgrade further. I view this as a variation on that....

As I've mentioned before, Jon could set the effectiveness of + to grow asymptotically with diminishing returns. It's similar to just jacking up the cost per enchantment, but no one would ever reach 100%.

I agree 100% with QBwhateverheisthismonth.

Why should the exbow, a weapon, not need any higher upgrade than x4000?

Every other weapon gets better the more you upgrade it. Given, yes, the exbow is not like every other weapon, but should it not also be more effective on what it does, strength leech, with more x?

Weapons are unlike armors. Mages and tanks both use armors and there is a point where upgrading is not longer cost effective.

But weapons are different, especially with their linear upgrade line on the x.

IMO, to compare a weapon to armor with respect to upgrades is not an accurate statement.

Wait we're supposed to stop upgrading armor at some point?

In all seriousness, just putting a cap on isn't the answer.
You'd still have enchanters using it, and you'd still be able to fight higher than most other specialized setups. If we want to make sure you always have some str left after the other systems are applied that's fine, but don't restrict upgrades, and don't think that a cap is answer enough for this issue.

You could make its effect be reduced based on the targets current HP. The represents that they are better at fighting off the effects. after they've been softened up some, the reduction works better.

That reminds me, linear upgrade curves on weapons might help...

We currently do have linear upgrade curve on the x of weapons.

So far I think that the best setup so far is a slight variant of Ranger's setup so that str is also included but an enchanter could still be capable of using it.

Just make the str count for 1/2 and the x count for 1/2 of a Poison strength per say. So for each 1000 str the user has counts as 500 Poison strength and each x counts for 500 Poison strength. Then base it on the opponents str with the AMF formula.

This way, an enchanter is still capable of using the exbow to good effect, but using it in combination with str will give the full effect.

Nem, I don't feel like that will solve anything...

Actually Nem as a decent idea.

IE a x4000 exbow would be 2M worth of strength.

Wielded by an enchanter would give 2M vs the strength of the defender via the AMF forumula.

Used by a 6M strength tank, that would be 5M vs the str of the defender.

If you up the exbow to x10k, that would be 5M str plus 1/2 the attackers strength.

Not too bad an idea.

I have top 5 highest after boost ST in the game. If that change got made Ranger Enchanters could drain all my ST in two hits with simply 8k x's. That's a delay at best. What happened to the soft cap that every other item has in the game? This isn't a fix, it's a band aid for a broken arm. I liked your initial idea the best Ranger.

No Art,

Nem is saying use the strength and x to determine their "effective strength" and then use the AMF style.

Ohhh ok, that does work better, much better.

I guess now the question is if there will be an exbow change or are we all just wasting our energy trying to fix a broken item.

It's only been 3 days since Jon posted the thread. No need to get all hopeless so soon.