I need help with CTH again... (in General)

OK, I learned some Evasion. That's always fun. It worked to get some pea-shooters using exbows to foil my Hal off my back, but didn't do much else other than that (and it was a mighty unlearn).

So, I fight Dagobah, and see this in the first round of ranged:

X-Wing hit Hal with wooden cane [192505]

My Evasion is 222 on the Hal. Hal's dexterity is 6.6 million according to post-battle stats.

X-Wing has 1.2 million dexterity, enhanced by some gear, but the most he could be (I think) would be around half my dexterity. He is shooting a +176 exbow (wooden cane), and we are in round 1. So, I would assume the ranged multiplier would at least be making my evasion something like 230? Maybe 235?

Can someone screw my head back on straight and tell me how I am getting hit? Is that just the 5% chance kicking in? I don't have a lot of BA to burn, especially on losing, so I'd rather not take a lot of data...

I have the same sort of question.

I have +186 effective evasion on my DBs.

I have 3.3M dex vs novice's 1.2M dex.

And yet I get hit quite often in missile, the first or 2nd round.

Here is what I know.

His PTH on the exbow, with naming is 183. So you take all that away with your evasion.

Your evasion can cut his CTH, which is dexterity only based, down to the CTH of the weapon. Which is 60%. That 60% is assuming your and his dexterity is equal.

Since his is 1/6th your HF, his CTH is about 10%, subject to the missile ranged penalty. Which should cut it to about 6-8% in the early rounds of missile.

For me, it is very similar due to my DBs cutting his PTH to 0.

Then my dex, as it is only 3x his dex cutting his CTH to about 20%, subject to the missile round penalties. So it really should be about 15-17%. I seem to get his 1 in 2 battles in the first or 2nd round.

I chalk it up to being unlucky for a very long time.

A few more fights should see you being hit less, hopefully!!.

Unless there is some bug with the CTH/PTH calculations or a bug with my understand of things.

Your evasion doesn't lower my base chance to hit, and for some reason your dex advantage isn't either.

Any idea why my post-battle stats show this for my familiar and minion-holding-familiar:

Total Evasion 181 181

Why 181? Status screen shows 222. What is making my post battle Evasion appear less?

I think it might just be 5-10% chance stuff, but NS also gets me even though his exbow is at +201 (but he has more dex). He consistently hits me in round 3 of ranged, but that sort of made sense when I considered his higher dex and his AoF (which I assume is decent size).

So really, my main question is about the display of Evasion in post-battle-stats. Where does that number come from?

I really don't think exbows should ghave a base chance to hit. They only NEED to hit once, so in their case, base chance to hit is "base chance to castrate any Hal in the game". That's dumb.

And Mandos has over a million dex, too, yet he doesn't hit my Hal, and I win against him now. So something is working, I just don't know if it is all working.

There is a 40% penalty for non equal evasion to dexterity.

I am unsure if that is displayed on your character overview or calculated in battle but assume it is the latter, to account for Haste and/or Ethereal Chains.

You are likely seeing that penalty as it get applied to the minion first, then the evasion level transfers to the HF.

I used to be able to beat NS solidly before he got his RoBF and when I only had 3.5M DX, and I don't think I was being hit by his exbow more than 5-10% of the time.

And I would love to see the formula change from damage done vs minion's hp to damage done vs minion's strength.

But I am done trying to get the exbow changed for the better of the game.

1 hit on my tank lowers my strength to 4M from 6.6M, one hit on the HF lowers it into the negative millions. From novice's exbow.

But it is used by a 12M strength minion which certainly is a real tank!!

Oh man, well that sucks. So Junction does me no good for that last (expensive) bit of training? That is profoundly asinine.

Compare it against the dexterity on the familiar, who has plenty.

This Junction stuff is a mess.

Hm, maybe I will train some dexterity on the minion and see how post-battle evasion grows... And yeah, it means EC will always double-whammy me, since I will never be able to get a familiar-holder to have very high dexterity against that...

He starts drilling me each round after round 1.
I have +336 DB's and half his dex.

dex vs dex advantage is bugged. Some as with dex vs db's is bugged.

Junction at least lets you have evasion on the HF, compared to when Junction was a skill.

I agree, the skill level should xfer over to the familiar and then the dexterity penalty, if appropriate should apply. But NS specifically stated this was the intended effect of the junction ability.

EC will really only hurt your familiars dexterity as currently the evasion is subject only to the dex of the minion wearing it.

I don't hit JS at all, even with the ELS (+250)

See, Mikel, THAT I get. Any dexterity advantage appears to win out, even though DBs are supposed to eat into that to some extent.

Junction isn't the only thing that is a mess... I am of the opinion that CTH became WAY too complicated about halfway into the life of CB2.

Though, if the exbow couldn't still reduce all STR in one blow, I wouldn't have a problem at all. I'm not sure I understand why a curve was put on the STR reduction, but it is a curve so tight that it is still all-or-nothing.

So, we've got random drops now and the exbow is still binary. Come on, bring back FoD! *smile*

Who is JS?

"He starts drilling me each round after round 1.
I have +336 DB's and half his dex. "

Something then is either:

1) Wrong with how we were told CTH and PTH are
2) Bugged with dex vs dex and DB vs dex as Henk states.

We were told that DBs can take the total chance to hit down to the base CTH of the weapon, which is 60% for the exbow. And that is only with equal dexterity.

Since he has more dexterity, that extra is not applied in the CTH due to your DBs.

So he should have a 60% CTH each round as his only chance to hit.

With some penalties in the first 3 round of missile, he should be hitting every other round.

So something is messed up. Either what we were told, or in the program.

We also failed to take into account the leadership bonus against Sut.

Thanks!!
That was the part I was forgetting.

What is your total in that regard?

Right now Sut and my evasion is about enough to cancel your PTH on the exbow.

But the leadership and little CTH from your dex is the factor.

I get about +30 from your AoL and BoF. Quite a lot there.

So Sut,

Novice has 183 + 30 PTH.

You have 181 evasion.

He has about 32 PTH to hit you, plus his CTH of about 8% or 40% total per round.

This drops to about 10% once his first minion dies.

So it's the ridiculous way Junction applies the Evasion, and the fact that I would have to train dexterity on the minion holding the familiar.

I'm not sure I even understand why that rule is there in the first place, much less why it is applied the way it is. Everything invests at the same rate, why put a ratio requirement on Evasion/dexterity?

"Everything invests at the same rate, why put a ratio requirement on Evasion/dexterity? "

Only Jon can answer that.

I guess I should clarify -- I _know_ why, to make the investment cost more. I just don't understand why that needs to be the case when there are sooooooo many chances to get hit, even with a very large investment in Evasion (not to mention it only works against physical, non-splash damage). Add to that the fact it doesn't junction properly, and deep insult has been added to unnecessary injury.

I understand your pain.

I do not care about getting hit 1 or 2 or more times from an ELB, or MSB or even a SoD.

However 1 or 2 hits from a exbow makes me shiver in fear.

Something is just not right about that. One has to try to avoid all hits, given the many ways a minion has pluses to hit.

But it is what it is. Play the PTH/dex game or become a mage.

And here I have been trying to spread my offensive wings with a physical damage dealer, the Halidon... But yeah, I much just chuck it pretty soon and go back to all magic... At least I have a little breathing room now...

ZzZz Interesting.

the real irony in my mind is that if evasion is going to junction over with a penalty to dex because the minion has that while the familiar wouldn't, then shouldn't a base bloodlust that gives your minion the full effect junction over to a familiar at the full effect as well?

the two are not consistent at all in my mind and therein lies my problem with it entirely. nightstrike claimed that jon wanted the effect to junction over rather than the levels but that is not what happened when it got to bloodlust.

That's a good point, dudemus... I think Junction should essentially just transfer the stats to the familiar, and then the familiar has the "rules" applied to it, including gear. Then, the minion has the "rules" applied to it. It is ENTIRELY fine with me if my Halidon had 222 Evasion and the holder only has 181. Hell, I'd be fine if the holder had ZERO. I ain't looking for a free lunch. Let's change "Junction" to "Transfer". Except, then lesser-minion teams trying to truly double-up the training would be angry (probably rightfully so.)

But yeah, don't do it halfway in one regard but not the other.

Ah the days when evasion used to let you dodge a hit.....

Truth be told, I _could_ be called a bit of a whiner on this one, because my retrain did what any change is meant to do -- I got a low attacker off my back and didn't lose anyone else from my list. Additionally, I have some physical damage protection up front, meaning I can move my offense forward to avoid MM from the back. All in all, it worked out, except I am now much further away again from getting to Dagobah (because I nuked about a fifth of my DM to get that Evasion...)

The bottom line is simply that gear up here is monstrous. And it will only get bigger. I think that is the only thing sticking in my craw. There is no way MPR can compete with items that get bigger and bigger and bigger, with more gear to enhance over time, and MPR tops out on an exponential curve. I realize the + on weapons is also exponential, but the effect of the exbow is not -- it is basically "on" all the time if you get one hit, and with pth being augmentable via various pieces of gear, it is nearly impossible to get enough Evasion against it. And you can remove the "nearly" from the previous sentence when you consider the brain-dead mechanism by which Evasion junctions to the Hal -- that is losing 41 effective Evasion for at the very high end of the Evasion curve. That's entirely insane.

yeppers, and while dex advantage helps a bit when you are attacking, it does nothing while defending. i would really like to see that change, i am not sure what would be fair, but i do think that evasion is great against pth and dex should work both ways against bth somehow.

"The bottom line is simply that gear up here is monstrous."

This was precisely the reason so many of us argued in evasion's favour for so long. Those huge PTHs had only evasion as their counter or DBs.

Of course the counter argument was that evasion was so strong tanks needed to boost PTH to insane levels. Unfortunately once evasion was crippled the insane PTHs remain. Big DBs are all that remain really.

And that's not taking into account the hit a weapon gets if the dex gap is sufficiently wide enough. As I posted earlier this week or last I can hit Mikel's 300+ DBs with a +105 bow....

All in all, though, for anything except the specialty crossbows, getting hit is not ALL that terrible. My effective Evasion of 181 still reduces a hit or two when it comes to pure damage.

If the exbow could not entirely negate a minion with one hit, I would not be posting. But when minion/familiar nullification is considered "OK", then something should be done. And that is still the case, even after the exbow change.

If someone that used to hit me with an SoD 4 times now only hits twice, then Evasion is far from useless. It only becomes useless when one hit is all it takes.

Think about what I've had to do to try and keep Archers and Hal's from slaughtering my team wholesale and you might feel a little better Sut.

You're a mil in damage away from beating me, my weapons are useless against you and your dm will always catch my AS. I think you're just being impatient at this point.

Again JW,

Why do people still persist in the +/- thinking?

That is getting hit at all is bad while not getting hit at all is good.

As Sut stated, going from 4 hits a round down to 2 using evasion in its current form is a massive amount of damage reduction. Something you cannot do to a mage that easily. Especially with the NSC.

The exception is the speciality crossbows which is a lot of cases remains a +/- type of system.

And if tanks put tons of NW into the PTH of their weapons, why should not mages or others not put some NW into their DBs?

cuz that is +/-thinking, tank drops nw on the pth so a mage has only one option but to put nw in db's?

No sorry that is just not acceptable.

I don't disagree that reducing hits is a good thing, but when the big ELBs, heck even the big Mageseekers, (nevermind the exbow doing it's work) can get away with doing what they need to do in one hit, one hit that isn't reduced by evasion or dbs of any size, then we're out of kilter again.

I've quite a lot of HP - over 7 mill, but when an ELB is doing nearly 2 million a strike it only needs to hit me once a round to be almost guaranteed of taking me out in ranged.

Which is also Sut's point, that if something needs one hit to do it's dirty work then evasion is kind of useless.

Mages can learn dex, use evasion, have a minion caste Haste, or use DBs.

With 7M HP, an ELB doing 2M damage a round will take 4 rounds to beat you.

But with the old evasion, one almost never hit and 7M hp would never die.

I fail to see the need for a +/- system in CB.

Hal shot Johnny Was [480363]
Hal hit Johnny Was [716017]
Hal shot Johnny Was [489579]
Dog shot Johnny Was with The Lunatic [1531084]
Dog shot Johnny Was with The Lunatic [1067248]

Hal hit Johnny Was [519544]
Hal shot Johnny Was [591663]
Hal shot Johnny Was [570802]
Dog hit Johnny Was with The Lunatic [1066026]
Dog struck deep into Johnny Was with The Lunatic [1327127]
Dog skewered Johnny Was with The Lunatic [1076623]
Dog cries "Woof Woof!"

Who is doing 2M a hit to you?

If you had Dbs or evasion like Sut, I would hit you 1/2 as much and you would be alive for 4-5 rounds instead of 2.

If I did not use a tattoo like you do, JW, you would like 6 or more rounds if you had a high evasion and/or DBs. Considering your dexterity is much higher than mine.

If you had +100 DBs, and I was not using a familiar, I would hit you 1.5 times a round on average. Doing about 1.3M damage a round. You regenerate about 300k a round. So I would be doing 1M a round.

With 7M hp, you would last 7 rounds. Is that not something vs lasting 4 rounds without any evasion/DBs?

Or do you have to have complete physical invulnerable with the old evasion to consider things fair?

so get rid of base to hit on weapons then? ; )

my post was in response to:

"
I fail to see the need for a +/- system in CB."

since when do all mages have 7mil hp? Learning haste isn't an option without a RoS, learning dex on a mage just for evasion is wasted exp, training evasion is wasted exp since it can only reduce the pth and never the dex advantage hits.

"so get rid of base to hit on weapons then? ; ) "

Then highest dex and DBs win. Since no other tank could hit. I do not like that system.

Plenty of mages have 7M HP at the level I fight. Look at LA, look at novice's familar with is massive AS, or look at the other high level AS.

Or look at the high level RoS out there. Rawr has over 32M hp total on his character.

My "massive" elb with all x20k and 7M strength does 1.2M a hit to another tank with a decent AC. JW's MsB does about 600k a hit at most to mages. I would hope that would be able to last a few hits.

Especially with the PL/TSA/HP walls out there.

The current system is about as good as things have been in a long time.

Except for the 1 hit wonder of the exbow. At least Jon tried to balance it a bit. I still believe it needs more tweaking but is a step in the right direction.

The old evasion method, of granting defensive dex, was one of the worst things ever in CB. It made playing a tank impossible without massive USD. Especially with the AoJ granting 3% per + bonus.

But as Sut stated, perhaps in a joking manner, why not bring back FoD? It is almost the same as using an exbow. The extreme +/- that a lot of people seem to enjoy.

so guaranteed misses were a bad thing yet guaranteed hits are fine?

Yes.

When it was very easy to get to the point of a guaranteed miss that was a very bad thing.

Remember how little xp it was needed to get to that point. Compared to the xp needed for dexterity and the NW needed for PTH.

But there is never a guaranteed hit. If mages would learn dexterity, they could guaranted a miss. With enough evasion and/or DBs.

Also, remember all minions get all the AC to help vs physical damage, while only the + works vs magic.

Change that and perhaps we can chat about lowering/removing the CTH of weapons.

nothing eats into bth though does it? when i had dex advantage with kwai chang and high enough evasion to knock out pth the best i could do is reducing down to one hit per round on hals or elbs, excepting ranged penalty rounds.

novice, I am two nightmares in one for you, three if you count my FB. Yes, I think I SHOULD beat you. Hands down.

You chose to use AS. I chose to use DM. I am your exact foil in that regard.

You chose to not learn much native HP except on your PL wall. I chose to use FB to "clean that up". (not that it works very well, mind you, given PL's "force-field" implementation.)

Then I chose to use a Hal to get good physical, ranged damage in contrast to my magic.

Yes, keeping Hals and archers off your back is hard. It should be. No one promised you rose-garden dominance, especially with your sixth-place MPR. That should matter.

There are other ways of keeping a Hal off your back that don't involve an all-or-nothing approach like the exbow. You can use DBs. You can learn your own Evasion. You can reduce the number of hits and reduce the amount of damage. If you still can't survive, then maybe you need to rethink that AS. Look at Failure -- he beats me, no problem.

And while I am re-growing my DM, you'll be upping the PTH on your weapons. And with the stupid evasion/dexterity link-for-no-good-reason, I am not sure I will be able to get my Evasion much higher on my Halidon at all, and NW won't help since DBs won't stack for crap with the large Evasion MPR investment.

Dudemus, high dex eats into bth.

how high must it be, i had 6m to like 500k and it didn't do it. run the numbers for me please and i will believe ya but don't just state it as fact because i saw vastly different results from what you are saying. i do believe it should, but never saw that with my high dex and ec to knock down the opponents dex.

Well then maybe something is wrong with the jiggy, I have only 3.4M dex, and 105 evasion, and I lower a lot of mini tanks to 0 hits.

are they using 100 bth weapons or something else?

Last Gasp's character "Jingleheimer Schmidt" has 560k DX, and I lower him to 0 or 1 hit in 8 rounds.

Ahh I didn't think about that, it could be something wrong with the ELB also.

Nevermind, Koshka's character The Host of Seraphim is using an ELB and I see the same results.

Sorry for the quadruple post, but I don't have enough evasion to cancel Koshka's pth, so it's still a possibility that something is wrong with the ELB. But, I can't speak from experience.

My +105 (109 with naming) hits you for double strikes Artemis. I have some dex advantage obviously, which lands me one strike. But is being above your Boots by 5pth enough to land a second strike?

You should have a 50% chance for double strikes. I can't test right now to confirm, I'm out of BA.

i had a tree fall and come through my house today so i kinda lost interest in this. ; (

What a terrible excuse!

(Are you alright?)

yeppers, all are fine and we have insurance. thanks for asking!

I'm crossing my fingers for good home insurance! Please...?

Been there and done that with the tree. Best of luck & hope the homeowner's insurance policy covers quickly.