For those thinking archery is too powerful: (in General)

Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:25 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:24 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:24 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:23 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:23 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:22 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:22 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:21 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:20 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:20 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:19 PM EDT
Incompetent Duo (F) (+) (Wasting Time) Vectoidz (Hidden Agenda) Incompetent Duo 9 5:19 PM EDT

At 800k LESS MPR and 1/2 the NW.

Now can all the archery/ELB chat stop?

I would be interested in seeing the fight log from either LR or DD. I can imagine how it goes, but... yeah...

Called it!!!!!! Thanks for making impossible for any of us non-USD using tanks to hit jigs!!!!

The Travelling Man (Band of Wookies) NWO (F) (+) (Hell Blenders) The Travelling Man 13 5:40 PM EDT
The Travelling Man (Band of Wookies) The Immortals (F) (+) (The Knighthood) The Travelling Man 8 5:40 PM EDT

At nearly 1.5 million less MPR. It's all relative I guess.

I am sure Vectoidz hits his Jiggy, however there is so much extra HP given to it from the PL/TSA/revive minions that he has.

An extremely good strategy vs archers and proof that archers are not all powerful.

Certainly JW it is all relative.

However, I keep reading that archery is so powerful it needs a tone down.

Given the NW on archers, and give the less MPR and NW on LR's character, does this not disprove a lot of that myth.

With the correct strategy, even us all powerful archers can be beaten?

And kudos to LR for doing it well!!

So, why again do archers have to learn archery just to use their bow properly unlike every other weapon in the game?

so if we find one instance of a physical damage team beating an exbow user, that should disprove the myth of the exbow being abusive or overpowered? ; )

Post-battle stats
Inept Enchanter Kano-san Homicidal Maid
Experience 4,427 4,427
Hit Points 2,081,435 3,829,006 20
Strength 10,000 2,977,051 254,013
Dexterity 24 5,724,215 9,238
Armor Class 96 91 91
Unarmed Combat 4,900 3,380
Melee Base to-Hit 50 50
Melee Bonus to-Hit 294 202
Direct Damage 0 505
Total Evasion 194 104
Damage Inflicted 7,215,190 9,159,539 1,567,953

Play-by-play
Incompetent Duo Vectoidz
Homicidal Maid found no valid targets on which to cast Antimagic Field
Homicidal Maid's Vampiric Aura fizzles under Dispel Magic
boum cast Dispel Magic on all enemy Minions (2,525,095)
boum cast Dispel Magic on all enemy Minions (7,302,123)
Ranged Combat
boum shot Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1190768]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1190768]
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP

boum's shot flew past Kano-san
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP

boum shot Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1205297]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1205297]
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP

boum shot Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1570680]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1570680]
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP

boum hit Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1269150]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1269150]
boum shot Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1073605]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1073605]
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP

Inept Enchanter's Decay hit boum [4439357]
boum hit Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1296138]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1296138]
boum shot Kano-san with DMON BOW OF POWER [1310009]
Inept Enchanter absorbs damage [1310009]
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP

Melee Combat
Inept Enchanter's Decay hit boum [2219679]
Kano-san's shield flashes! [4,278,029]
Kano-san pulverized boum [4740339]
Kano-san crushed boum [457072]
Kano-san crushed boum [367982]
Kano-san pulverized boum [330473]
Kano-san crushed boum [450252]
Kano-san cries "kick, punch it's all in the tat!"
Homicidal Maid's Decay hit boum [1298512]
boum's shot flew past Kano-san
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP
R.I.P. boum

Inept Enchanter's Decay hit boum [460583]
Kano-san pulverized boum [392547]
Kano-san crushed boum [444926]
Kano-san pulverized boum [447257]
Kano-san crushed boum [360626]
Kano-san pulverized boum [428738]
Kano-san cries "kick, punch it's all in the tat!"
Homicidal Maid's Decay hit boum [269441]

Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP
R.I.P. boum

Inept Enchanter's Decay hit boum [95571]
Kano-san crushed boum [346192]
Kano-san pulverized boum [393135]
Kano-san cries "kick, punch it's all in the tat!"
boum undershot Kano-san
Inept Enchanter regenerated 238,713 HP
R.I.P. boum

its not neat but a copy and paste.

and thanks

Actually a lot of why LR's team beats mine - and I suspect Vectoidz - is the PL. (and as I've been typing this LR has pasted a fight with Vectoidz which pretty much proves that).

PL teams are my main weakness. I'm doing over a million per strike on the whole and a good PL eats up that damage like nobody's business.

I tried LR's Jig on just now. And SHD still beats me. I suspect the SoC is the thing that totally gets him pwnt.

"so if we find one instance of a physical damage team beating an exbow user, that should disprove the myth of the exbow being abusive or overpowered? ; ) "

There is a big difference between using a strategy and using an item that with 1 hit cripples your character :)

But this thread is not about the exbow but about archery. Let us keep it there please.

Kano-san's shield flashes! [4,278,029]
Kano-san pulverized boum [4740339]

That explains the crunching sound i heard.

PL and decay are being used against teams that have no protection against decay for the most part. That's a winner right there.

sorry, i thought this thread was about disproving a myth based upon one case and the precedent that this would set or perhaps about the power of the pl/tsa combination.

perhaps i am just confused by all of the soapboxes! ; )

Funny, I've been harping on PL being a bit much, especially with the TSA/revival and force-field nature of it, for well over a year. And now it seems that every OP thread ends with, "Well, yeah, I lose because my opponent PL..." or "I win because I have PL..."

So, just about every strategy gets foiled by PL, and the only way to beat PL is to have PL yourself (since PL has very few foils, and I have yet to see an MoD team totally own all PL/AS teams).

Isn't that all the very definition of "overpowered"? Is anything every going to change with PL, or is everyone just fine with it basically being the ender of threads?

Let's not forget that Jonathan used to always say Wall minions were the lamest things in the land of CB, and yet now it seems that PL makes walls entirely required. What's up with that?

A good PL set up can reduce (or at the least you can describe it as 'divert') all my damage, for at least the duration of ranged. Given that a lot of my best damage is in ranged that's some large amounts being diverted. PL is the new ToE.

I have to say I am surprised that the lack of strategic answers to things like PL. It is just saying PL is the be all end all. I ran a PL strat myself and found glaring weaknesses in it. For one thing a PL supported team is INCREDIBLY weak against GA. By moving their hp onto another minion the damage dealer is very weak against retaliatory damage.

For another point. The MoD is a viable counter because if you are using PL it means that you are trying to survive until melee where your damage comes into play. The MoD will come to work in this scenario.

I tried fighting Incompetent Duo with my NCB character Alara United and killed Homicidal Maid as soon as it attacked. The reason i lost i reckon is that Kano-San has reasonable HP as well as doing quite significant damage.

I draw with him in 2 attacks.

yep that minion is only really to train AMF and junction over more UC. also to make it actually do damage it uses decay

I found when running a strat more or less the same that turning the junction minion into a mini tank in its own right with a fair amount of str and some HP of its own turned out best. It would do about 3/4s the amount of damage as the jiggy against mages and 1/2 against tanks.

PL does need a nerf. It's practically free when you consider the 90% discount HP.

I don't think archers are overpowered, and this is good proof considering how much SHD has spent. You could point out that he has a lot of DM, which is made useless, but if he didn't have the DM he'd definitely lose to other teams. At the very least this should prove that archers aren't all powerful.

I actually think not the evasion is beating Ranger, but the decay is beating Ranger. The jig is great for evasion and dex but it does so little damage to Ranger' tank. The decay cuts the HP in half giving the jiggy an easy target.

*sigh* When did such flawed logic start getting listened to?

Seriously, as dudemus said, this is silly. One example of something does not disprove anything. It doesn't even begin to make a counter theory to archery being too powerful.


And, hell, why does 800k MPR really matter that much anymore? It was just a few months ago when Ranger himself was beating teams at well over a million + of his MPR and no one really had anything to say about how OP his strategies might have been.

Counter strats exist. Let me put it this way.

If A beats C-Z but loses to B, is A any less powerful?

It is not flawed logic in that someone with far less MPR/NW can beat someone else.

With my ELB, it is possible for me to beat those 1+M above me, BUT I had a lot of NW in my bow.

LR has little NW other than his tattoo and yet he beats tanks far above him.

If archery was that powerful, it would not be possible to do that.

Especially not vs someone with a massive ToA AND the biggest ELB in the game.

There are plenty of foils for archery/ELB. This helps prove that.

*sigh* that some people do not still get it *sigh*

That YOU don't get it is what is sighworthy.

The entire reason archery has always been so dominant is the size of the bow.

You're saying here that the reason this is silly is because LR wins without much NW. Well, where would he PUT the NW? NOWHERE, as he's NOT a tank. It's a fundamental gameplay truth. Tanks have NW, no one else really gets to. You want the game balanced both ways. You don't want casters/enchanters to have NW sinks, and then you don't want them to win without equal NW? It's ridiculous. You just want, pure and simple, tankblender and are fighting to remove anything that stops it from being that.

More importantly, you're fighting for USD users to have a perfect, unstoppable outlet for their wealth while everyone else gets to run around, fighting each other and getting pounded on by players who make a good living in real life.

ID beats Vectdoiz because it's a counter strategy, pure and simple. Maybe PL is too powerful, but it has nothing to do with the strength of archers. If anything this PROVES how strong archery and large ELBs are in the reality that the only reason he's beating him is because he STOPS the archer from hitting him with a massive Jiggy. With more + or more DX, this fight could be going a totally different way.

MPR vs MPR doesn't matter. What matters is the MPR used in the fight vs the MPR used in the fight. If someone with 5 mil MPR and 4 mil of it in AMF loses to someone with a 2 mil solo tank, that doesn't make AMF underpowered or tanks OP. It just implies game balance and actual MPRs inside the fight.

Good points, Nem.

But then why do so many "OP" threads end up talking about PL? If it has such glaring weaknesses, it should be an also-ran. It should be barely-used and rare in deciding battles.

And it most definitely should be something that FOILING it is much better than JOINING it. Yet, I see plenty of PL walls around. Why are so many folks jumping on that bandwagon?

If everyone is just being silly, and using a clearly average skill to win in such steadfast fashion, then I certainly stand corrected. Everyone using PL must simply be a genius CB player using an otherwise weak tactic to turn the balance in their favor.

I sigh because you sigh on every post you make.

But I never ever stated mages could not have a NW sink. In fact I stated numerous times they can have massive DBs if they wanted. Look at Mikel and his DBs. They beat all tanks out there.

I am agreeing with Jon in that tanks have NW to make them ore powerful opposed to mages.

*sigh*.

I basically can fight with no items except my tattoo and I wouldn't have to change my fightlist (except for dropping Heroes). So am I overpowered?

there is nothing i can do against a big jigorokano familiar...
even with a Ranged Bonus to-Hit of 317, i hit him only once or twice and most of the time, not at all!!!!

archery is not good at all.

what will i have to do ? put another 100 mil cbd in my bow + or X ???
lets face it, i have only one minion who deal damage so its obvious it will have a super big NW weapon( a bow in this case...)

most character using archery have big big NW bow...

there is nothing i will ever be able to do against Incompetent Duo...
while i aim to get those big character like Dagobah, some NCB arrive and crush me easily, and he got the NCB until December !!!!!!!

how long those NCB last now? it use to be 4 months last year, now its about 6 months is it?

men i earn 150 xp per minion per battle, for sure i have to rely on usd to boost my character...

maybe i should unlearn some HP and have a bigger Dex...
anyway Ranger is right, Archery and Elb is not that good...it can be destroyed easily...
i think archery is a big usd trap. i fell right in it hahaha and i am sinking deeper and deeper in it... one day it will worth it i hope. anyway anyone can strat a ncb and have as a goal to defeat the biggest NW elb in the game and do it in 4 months without spending too much




anyway its false to say you can achieve your goal with usd in here, and Incompetent Duo proves it just too well.... strategy guys strategy is the key !!!

but what mix of stategy and usd will beat everyone here ? i havent found he answer yet unfortunately hahahaha

"but what mix of stategy and usd will beat everyone here ? i havent found he answer yet unfortunately hahahaha"

So if you're complaining that the ELB/USD was supposed to be the perfect strategy and it isn't so then the ELB strategy is therefore not overpowered?! Ridiculous.

hey Rawr, the day i will complaint about something in here has not come yet, i guess i just express myself poorly. no offense

Then I apologize for assuming the worst of you. I hope I didn't make a poor impression on you :)

I think SHD needs a nap. *smile*

I think on an overall the ENTIRE meaning of this thread came out in the name of it. Archery is NOT OPed just most players believe it is so because they see some archers come up through the ranks quickly with a high success rate. Big deal a few make it, has ANYONE noticed how they do it?

NW NW NW is what makes an Archer Tank work with all of the Foils and Nerfs they have been hampered with and Still other players have the AUDACITY to say OPed?!? Are you serious? Look yes Archery can be powerful but has any of you paid close attention to the extra 20 Miles and hoops we have to jump through in order to be successful?

Am I complaining? As SHD has stated "No" I chose this path and I hope it pans out. I cannot ask everyone to step into the Shoes of a "Successful Archer Tanks" shoes. Most will not ever want to, however, before you come out of the box and say OPed have a look at our items and see the millions upon millions of NW we have to have in order to be "OPed". In time you will start to see that OPed for a Archer Tank is a Necessity or we are an Epic Failure.

The point of the post was not to say the JKF is OP and archers cannot hit it.

I see LR beating me very soon. And that is great. He has a great strategy vs tanks.

But archery is not as some people think as overpowered.

With just enough NW, it is a nice character to play.

And has just enough foils to make them fun to play.

So next time we discuss the exbow, which is a different thing entirely, the archery is OP and needs a foil discussion is moot. It has a foil-the JKF.

Lets get Jiggy with it! :D

Inept Enchanter's Decay hit Sheep [6250]
Sheep's Guardian Angel smote Inept Enchanter (3301)
Kano-san's shield flashes! [7,553,970]
Kano-san crushed Sheep [7594709]

How much more Jiggy do you need :)

That's less of a consequence of the Jig. More like a consequence of the SoC.

"That's less of a consequence of the Jig. More like a consequence of the SoC."

actually it is a consequence of the massive damage output of archers stored up over the ranged rounds. if that is massive, remember that it is only storing up a small percentage of the damage taken.

even with that and a tat the same size, kwai chang still wasn't this strong. i would say that makes this much less about the jiggy and much more about the pl/tsa combo.

"Inept Enchanter's Decay hit Sheep [6250]
Sheep's Guardian Angel smote Inept Enchanter (3301)
Kano-san's shield flashes! [7,553,970]
Kano-san crushed Sheep [7594709]

How much more Jiggy do you need :)"

the jiggy did around 40k damage to ya? is that the normal damage per round for that jiggy?

^ you're forgetting armor reductions

paper rock scissors?

^ Indeed.

"It is not flawed logic in that someone with far less MPR/NW can beat someone else.

With my ELB, it is possible for me to beat those 1+M above me, BUT I had a lot of NW in my bow.

LR has little NW other than his tattoo and yet he beats tanks far above him.

If archery was that powerful, it would not be possible to do that.

Especially not vs someone with a massive ToA AND the biggest ELB in the game.

There are plenty of foils for archery/ELB. This helps prove that.

*sigh* that some people do not still get it *sigh*"

Sorry Ranger, I'm siding with Godwolf here.

A 4 x EC team with next to no NW can neuter a Tank team, and beat one *far* higher than itself.

That is neither overpowered, nor outside the spirit of the game.

If something is broken, in that in 99% of the time it owns everything, and is the nearly defacto choice to run, but there exists that tiny 1%, doesn't really make it any less overpowered. ;)

Down with your ST cast Ethereal Chains on all enemy Minions (3262113)

Kano-san tapped Down with your DX [230]
Kano-san draws strength from his weapon! [80]
Kano-san bruised Down with your DX [169]
Kano-san draws strength from his weapon! [70]
Kano-san tapped Down with your DX [240]
Kano-san draws strength from his weapon! [87]
Kano-san tapped Down with your DX [223]
Kano-san draws strength from his weapon! [81]

I don't reduce its DX enough but he does crappy damage VS a 0 AC target there.

San is not in the spell checker? And I don't feel like putting html tags up. Thank you.

yep because i only have just under 3mil str

Sure,

If you want to put all that xp into EC, you deserve to win.

OK, but then if the thrust of the thread is;

"however there is so much extra HP given to it from the PL/TSA/revive minions that he has.

An extremely good strategy vs archers and proof that archers are not all powerful."

What *isn't* PL/TSA/Revive an extrmely good strategy versus? And does that then make everything else in CB not all powerful?

MoD? High spread damage; CoC, FB, SoD? decay?

PL/TSA can be awesome versus Decay (have a 20 HP front Minion).

As for the rest, it's only the MoD.

So I guess the point of this thread is the MoD is overpowered?

No,

Rock/Paper/Scissors.

Well balanced in most parts.

So we've got;

Rock = MoD
Paper = PL/TSA
Scissors = Hal and ELbows

If that's balanced, where does the rest of CB fall? Or is it ok that nothing else is as balanced?

Er, I fail at Rock, Paper, Scissors. ;)

But you get the jist. ;)

Congrats, LR, for running such an creative and effective strategy.

"At 800k LESS MPR and 1/2 the NW."

Ranger, lol, you're 800k LESS MPR and 300mil less NW than Novice and you beat him :O

cheers Marlfox, though it is an adaption of Nems strat

"Ranger, lol, you're 800k LESS MPR and 300mil less NW than Novice and you beat him :O"

ZOMG! Hal and ELBow are OP! ;)

Got to admit, that's funny.

And Rawr can beat novice also. With 500M less NW and 600k less MPR.

So the RoS is too overpowered?

That is too funny :)

*sigh*

So the fact that someone can beat big archers with an anti-archer tattoo means that archers are in a good place?

I don't know how I feel about that. What else are jiggys good for and is there any other incentive to commit one as your tattoo?

(What else is an exbow good for and is there any other reason to commit one as your ranged weapon?)

The Jiggy can be a nice wall type minion as a few people use it for that purpose.

The exbow can be used in addition to a Jiggy and can be hugely successful on a 3rd or 4th minion with a moderate strength/dexterity and does not even need a skill to use.

The exbow can be used in addition to any tattoo to decimate any tank if you have a bit of strength/dex and some NW behind it.

NW that is less than 1/4th the best weapons out there.

Ranger, why do you never read a post to find a point, but to find out how it must be wrong?

You're so busy trying to be clever and right that you ignore the point of people's post. Indeed, half your replies in threads nowadays are just walking, talking, textbook cases of strawmen.

Do you even realize your post about Rawr proves yourself WRONG?

Speaking of staying on topic... Ranger, every General thread you ever make ultimately ends up with you complaining that one of the few things that can beat your strat is broken and needs to be fixed.

What happened to staying on topic?

Did I ever say that the Jiggy is broken and needs fixing?

Never once did I state that in this thread. I congratulated LR on a great strategy.

I never stated the RoS was broken as well. Yet both can beat my character.

I guess my point is not that obvious to some people. That is archery, contrary to those that persist in saying it is OP, is not OP as it has plenty of foils.

I guess some people do not read the point of my posts. *sigh*

You did however bring the thread around to exbows. Again.

If we all gave Shade a CB dollar for every time that happens he'd pay off his debt in no time... ;)

quantity of foils does not a balanced item make. your premise that this is so is probably the straw man others are referring to in addition to the premise that if anyone beats a team it must not be overpowered.

posting a partial fight log to make a point is also going to hurt your argument. if your argument is valid, show all of the data and not just that which supports your conclusion.

dudemus September 24 5:48 PM EDT so if we find one instance of a physical damage team beating an exbow user, that should disprove the myth of the exbow being abusive or overpowered? ; )

I brought the conversation around to exbows?

C'mon now, read the thread.

I did not discuss the exbow until someone else had to bring it up.

I was trying to make a point about archery, which has been maligned in many a post as being overpowered.

I NEVER stated the Jiggy was OP, and never stated the RoS was. In fact in many other posts, I advocated a boost to the RoS.

So please, before attacking me for something it is obvious I DID NOT do, please read the entire thread.

Actually :

" dudemus September 24 5:48 PM EDT
so if we find one instance of a physical damage team beating an exbow user, that should disprove the myth of the exbow being abusive or overpowered? ; ) "

^---He was the first to bring this up JW.

Dude,

How much more data do you want/need?

Just like the drop system, while most people utterly hate it, you want more and more data. How much is enough? Do we wait 2 years before we have enough data to state this system stinks for those playing CB?

We have LR beating almost all the archers out there. We have RoS characters beating up on archers.

So we should still say archery is OP? I give you the alternative discussion. Archer is certainly not OP as it has many foils. Aside from the RoS/GA and JKF.

"How much more data do you want/need?"

it really isn't about what i need or want but rather what will convince the dev team.

if it was about me, i want consistency in our soapboxes. if having foils means that archery is balanced, then having foils means that the exbow or the pl/tsa combo is balanced. if having a high nw team being beaten by a smaller lower nw team means that something isn't overpowered, then that should hold true for the exbow or pl/tsa combo as well.

what i really don't want to see is a post saying the jiggy is awesome and showing soc damage gathered from ranged, against one of the most damaging teams in ranged and holding that up as proof of the jiggy's power. showing the one figure without all of the fight log is very dodgy in my opinion as we do not see how much damage the jiggy normally does, how much damage the jiggy took in ranged to have such a return and even the ultimate outcome of the battle.

in short, i want the facts or the data and to come to my own conclusions. there are many people who tend to rebel when they feel they are being led to something, i guess i am one of those. tell me what you think and give me the facts and the data but please do not tell me what to think!

The SoC damage has little to do with the overall outcome of the battle.

I posted that number to show that the number LR had in his fightlist was not the highest. I neither was there to prove or disprove anything.

I will not go into an exbow discussion as that has been discussed in many other posts.

My point of this post was to show that archery is not the end all, be all, all winning strategy that some people like to state it is.

It is not OP or UP. It is what it is due to the many foils it has.

But unless we show these type posts, the devs may get a skewed picture of the game from seeing all those "archery is OP" posts without any data.

One can say the same about any other item/skill/tattoo in the game, but in this particular post and this post only, I am using data to try to prove it.

No straw man situation, just data.

I was going to say something, then Dudemus said it for me.

I really don't think archers are imbalanced. I just found the original post very misleading: posting a whole bunch of lost fights and then pointing at the MPR and NW. Of course, 800k NW isn't as big of a deal as you would think (it's about training 3-4 mil in AMF when you are fighting a tank) and half of Vecotoidz NW isn't really saying much.

I saw that how this was turning into a "Jiggy is super powerful" thread and that really bothered me. Jiggy can dodge bows, wonderful. What else can it do? Having a tattoo simply to dodge makes it a ridiculously specialized tattoo, even more than the ToE because of the equipment restrictions and actual exp you need to train on the junction minion to abuse the AoJ.

I find the whole, bows are balanced because Jiggy can dodge, a really silly argument. Sure, if you want to invest a minion AND a tattoo just so you can survive in ranged, you've specialized so much in tanks, you should be solely an anti tank team.

For the record, I don't think archery is overpowered at all. It's expensive. However, it is probably the best way to make a ranged team at the moment and allows for brute force of the likes that have never been seen before in CB. But please don't make this misleading about the Jiggy. Beating a strong strat doesn't make your strat strong.

I will say it again.

The Jiggy is a foil for the ELB/archery. I stated nothing more and please do not put words on my posts.

I never stated the Jiggy was superpowerful. I stated it was and is a foil to the "OP" archers people complain about.

The Jiggy has a lot of weaknesses that can be exploited.

I have as have others, that UC needs a boost to damage. Not to evasion or PTH but to damage.

I hope people can start to read my posts and not read between the lines of the posts that are not there.

My bad. I didn't see the posts by other people so I thought you were turning the thread into an exbow-hating thread. I apologize.

i also do not think archery is overpowered as long as we have the exbow around. archery has to do what it does very quickly and because of that it needs tremendous damage potential and a tremendously powerful foil.

what i have said is overpowered is the bonus to hit number of the halidon familiars if it continues to scale as it has so far. i have a google spreadsheet somewhere showing what i feel may be an issue:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhqtN8y13_DacjRqczd2eElKZXpqeW5LdGk5dFZ3eUE&hl=en

again i say that this may be an issue in the future as tats continue to grow. what would be great is if we could start a table in the wiki for people to put their bonus to hit number in at various levels for the hals. that would also help us all see the data for ourselves and track the growth over time better.

Well Dude, you are of course allowed your opinion.

However I tried and wanted to keep the exbow out of this thread.

So you believe, without the exbow, that archery is OP? And that all the other foils for it are not enough?

Let us not forget that evasion gets multiplied in missile rounds. Which helps the JKF avoid the HFs better PTH.

Remove that multiplier and we can chat again about the HFs PTH vs the JKFs evasion.

My HF at 9.6M level (named level) has a PTH of 270.

does the jiggie win without the SOC?

Well I know the extra damage the Jiggy does is not helpful vs me due to my enchanter with its 25k hp taking that hit.

I do not know, however, if the reduced damage vs my archer makes the difference.

So, overall, I believe the SoC likely does not change the battle, as once we get to melee, his decay and JKF is good enough to beat me.

who doesn't read now? ; )

i thought i clearly stated that i don't really see the hal bonus to hit problematic at these levels (10m or under tat levels to be precise) but if it continues to scale the same way (in effect if it does not start getting quite a bit harder to add each plus to bonus to hit) then it may be a problem for the future.

2 points Dude.

1) you have not yet answered my Q about if archery is not OP solely due to the exbow.

2) I understand the statement about the HF's future PTH. I was stating that even though the HFs PTH will go up likely more than the JKFs evasion, evasion does get a multiplier that likely will cancel this out. I may not have been clear about this point.

Even if the HF gets 360 PTH at 13M level, the Jiggy evasion may be only 200 but gets a nice multipler in ranged which can effectively cancel the HFs PTH.

I think we have to wait and see on that point.

I also have noticed my HF's PTH gaining 1 slower and slower as I gain levels on it. This, however, may not be real but imaginary.

you did get that right...i had thought that i had expressed that enough in other threads. if the exbow is tweaked further we will likely see a concomitant tweaking of the ranged damage or a new mechanic altogether.

you are also correct about the wait and see on the hal bonus to hit. all that i am asking is that you track the bonus to hit number for the hal as you go in the wiki if at all possible.

i also know that the jiggy base to hit of 50 and scaling that gives it a much lower bonus to hit is evened out not just by the evasion bonus in ranged, but by the fact that the jiggy has many more rounds to do its business in as well as a bonus to hp the hal doesn't get.

I thought that was the case.

And this post was to show that regardless of the exbow, there are enough foils for archery/ELB.

I guess this has not convinced you of that. Which is good for discussions.

I just really would like to see a bow that does the same to mages as the exbow does to tanks. That is with 1 hit have the ability to suck all the DD out.

If the exbow is tweaked further, I would hope that things stay the same. But I doubt that will happen, the exbow being tweaked that is.

I can easily put my PTHs in the wiki on the HF page :)

there is a certain stigma regarding the foils and that they are abusive or cheap.

it may just be me, but i refuse to pop a pl/tsa combo and an exbow on my team even though they would likely help me tremendously.

are you saying you accept the pl/tsa combo as a fair foil now ranger?

As much as I dislike the TSA/PL minion, it is a part of the game that all can use equally.

The thing I dislike about it is the revive portion. That I personally feel is very abusive. If you want a TSA/PL minion great, but you have to give up that kill slot.

Yes, one can use a SoD or FB/CoC but that to me is kind of cheap.

There are a few ways to get round a PL/TSA minion if you have to.

However, others aside from LR use it quite well. Especially when Freed and LA used the ToE, their AC wall backed by a PL/TSA minion was extremely effective vs archers.

So to answer your Q: Yes, it is a fail foil, but it has one area of abuse that I would like to see changed. Especially if the "all attacks occur at the same time" is really how it is.

archers dont need massive net worth.. look at my team, not an ounce of usd.. my fighflist is pretty impressive, and ill be able to add rawr and tensei and possibly single minion before my ncb is up..

"But you get the jist. ;)"

No, but I think I get the gist XD.

after looking the 2 teams over i suspect vect might be able to kill ID if there was no SOC lol... and if vect actually bothered to train decay on both his minions

NSCs on both of them of course

nah still win with a bom instead of soc

how much HP do u have left?

the same as the fight log i posted before

oic

It's not really the Jiggy: it's the PL.

LR's Jig gets hit in ranged for a pretty large amount, far more than it has natural HP to cover. If it wasn't for the PL Vectoidz would slaughter that Jig pretty fast - because he does hit it, for more than single strikes, despite some large evasion going on.

So all this talk about the Jiggy being a foil for the ELB is cheeky, when without the PL it wouldn't survive...

"So all this talk about the Jiggy being a foil for the ELB is cheeky, when without the PL it wouldn't survive... "

No Offense JW but you might want to keep in mind that SHD's ELB is also the TOP ELB in the game with a +281....Cheeky I think not.

More than likely an accurate standpoint with a few exceptions as with all things in CB.

No I think cheeky. The amount of damage that jiggy takes in the fight logs, if it wasn't for PL it wouldn't survive to melee at all. And that's key against archery teams isn't it, surviving past ranged. Then you've got a chance to take them on fairly.

JW I see you missed what I was saying....let me say it again in a different way. SHD's ELB is the TOP ELB in the game with a +281 yes it is gonna hit more and therefore do more damage.

How many ELBs can boast the Type of hitting power that SHD's can? Few very very few that even come within spitting distance and with the evasion of Jiggy's in general they are a Foil for Archers.

Both sum up to this JW, If the Archers + is larger than the Jiggy's Evasion even Junctioned then yes the Archer should win but those instances are not as often as many would like to attempt to point out. The Jiggy has the Long Term Potential to out do an Archer any day without being junctioned, when Junctioned that potential rises quite a bit.

I would like to point out that without AS or PL a jiggy will NOT survive against an archer team. Most especially if it is not getting junctioned.

I get what you're saying, but LR's jig is over 7 mill in levels right, and my relatively small PTH of 138 can still hit it in ranged, for singles and for doubles.

It's only in melee where my weapon (PTH 101) lets me down and can't hit.

+138 is plenty achievable for a lot of people. And if that can hit and still not kill with my X14500 bow then it's not the Jiggy and it's evasion that's in need of a foil really is it?

Nem would this not depend on a few things like Size of Jiggy, Size of + on ELB? ToA or not and also if the + is High is the X low? Add these into that equation Nem.

I have been watching Archers in general and it looks to me like the only ones that are doing any real damage are ones with a ToA or a high + of which there are not that many. It costs to have a High + on a ELB that makes a difference and to get a ToA high enough to outdo a Jiggy sucks by a long shot. Stack them against a decent sized Jiggy and they will lose as the Jiggy's Evasion out does them in the Ranged. You cannot hurt what you cannot hit.

"X14500 bow then it's not the Jiggy and it's evasion that's in need of a foil really is it?"

JW could you please rephrase this I just do not understand what you are saying here.

That is just the thing. For the most part it will not depend on pth but rather on dex. Just about all of the tanks no matter what their pth have enough dex to get at least around an 80% of hitting. By this I am talking about the upper level tanks. Even if the jiggy has more than enough evasion through junctioning of UC it cannot reduce this last cth. In the upper levels most ELB tanks do somewhere around 1 mil damage per hit. With a 7-8 mil JKF this means around 3.5-4 mil hp or basically 4 hits. You are looking at them surviving 4 rounds. And this is not factoring in pth this is assuming that it is completely negated by the evasion on the jiggy (with UC junction it is if they rely on the ToA but generally isn't if they have the heavy pth ones).

What I'm saying is that I hit LR's 20 HP minion for doubles, with a bow that's sitting at x14500 and strength of over 10 million, with damage per strike of around a million. And still can't kill that minion. That's nothing to do with the jiggy.

I don't even get to attack the jiggy in my battles against LR's team.

So how anybody can say the jiggy is the foil for an archer is beyond me.

I hit a 20 HP minion for a total of over 10 million damage and still can't kill it. That's the foil for me anyway.

Because JW you are in the higher echelons of Archery. Step down a bit and you will see things differently.

When I was coming up through the Ranks as an Archer 3 things gave me a ton of trouble: RoS/GA, ExBow Users with a Wall, and Jiggy's both Junctioned and not all of the above had either EBs or DBs another Archer Foil.

In every instance I had to find a way to either Draw enough with them for them to leave me alone or just take a whooping and get Farmed by them.

"Because JW you are in the higher echelons of Archery. Step down a bit and you will see things differently. "

Lol, so Vectoidz isn't in the higher echelons of archery then? So does that make this whole thread a waste of time?

;)

JW I was not trying to be a smart alec with you I was pointing something out from your Standpoint not SHD's. For me to say that SHD is not in the upper echelons would be preposterous and you know it. So if we could drop the sarcasm and shoot from the hip I would appreciate it.


My point still stands JW, if you were a bit lower you would feel the effects of the Jiggy and its Evasion ability a lot more than you would think. I am NOT discounting the rest of LRs Strategy, which by the way is very good. I am, however, pointing out that a Jiggy's Innate Evasion is more powerful that you would like to admit.

Since all it costs is Growth and Time it is cheap in comparison to ANY Archery Weapon's + Upgrades. Even going for a 1 to 1 basis Jiggy's would still have the leg up with Junction, the only Counter to this is the PTH from the ToA which is not an exact Foil. It is a maybe Shot whereas the Jiggy's is a surety, I understand why the Jiggy's Damage was put to where it is now.

I'm not being sarcastic, Z, but I am smiling I have to admit. Apologies if you think I was being sarcastic.

I have a five mill lvl Jiggy. It's own evasion without bonuses is only 99. With a 100 level evasion junctioned over it jumps to 127. Even with large EBs junctioned across it was never higher than about 150. Quite high admittedly, but not impossible to defeat with the way evasion works these days.

Fair enough JW. Now Junction that with a par of DBs that is 100+, I guarantee that = Archers not hitting me today. I ran into a few of those and I have to say they are very irritating. Even with the +150 from the setup you have not many Archers even have that + on their Ranged Weapons. After +100 it starts getting expensive. So you either have Mediocre Archers or High Echelon Archers, I have yet to see any inbetween. Which is why I say Jiggy's Innate Evasion is a Foil for Archers. Give a Jiggy time to get bigger and then lkets see what the Evasion on it is then. You said 99 with a 5 Mil Jiggy? Imagine a 10 Mil level Jiggy....tell me it would not be an Archer Foil then.

A 10 mil jiggy would have 131 evasion.

compare a same lvled jig against a same lvled toa... what do we get?

Using a 10 mil ToA you will have somewhere around 174 pth with an ELB. I also believe it will be a similar number with any of the big 6 melee weapons as well.

Only 131 I would have thought it would be a higher number but still as a Base # that is insane.

I've rechecked the numbers to be sure but from the ELB, MSKer, ExBow and SoD the "Averaged" number for the cost of +150 is 37 Mil. (Just as a side note this is not a number that every Archer has to throw onto their Ranged Weapon for only the +.)

Just for Footwear I got these numbers:

DBs +142 = $36,772,589 // EBs + 35 = $32,332,246

This is before any Evasion or other Items just footwear. Now I do not know how to calculate this in but I am sure that Nem can easily as the Jiggy is his Forte.

I am sure with these Items alone that +150 Archer is completely outdone.....Even without them he is gonna have a hard time taking that Jiggy down giving enough time for Ranged to end and Melee to begin.....Archer Down call the Medic.

One thing I would really like to point out here. Jiggy's evasion is not very impressive. For a 10 mil tattoo with 131 evasion that is not very much at all. It is easily achievable at this level of play. I have more evasion than that on single minion in fact. The real reason why Jiggy is effective against most of these upper echelon tanks because of his dex. How many high dex tanks do you see in the top regions? Other than Hal and Guernica, none. It is the high dex combined with a fair evasion that stops these tanks.

So really, we're back to;

Achery isn't OP becuase it has a foil in PL/TSA.

Which is a bit redundant, as PL/TSA is a foil to absoultly everything in CB, bar the MoD.

And this isn't Rock - Paper - Scissors... It's more like Minds Eye Theatre's Bomb.

PL/TSA is countered by GA as well. Also heavy AMF if the PL is with a mage offense. Also i found that the SoC is a counter to PL as well if you use a tank offense.

I also forgot to mention that CoC and SoD eat through a PL wall incredibly fast and as soon as it runs out of hp they kill the resurrect part as well. Plus if you use PL you really cant use GA at all.

GL - Not Really the Jig is still a Foil it just depends on a few things. A Foil is a Foil regardless if you want to believe it or not. Whether it is Dex, Evasion or both and some Junction in the mix for a little spice Jigs ARE an Archer Foil.

Minds Eye Theatre....been a long time since I have heard that....WW was always better played on TT than on a stage....at least to me anyway :-)

What makes the Jig the foil here?

A 20 HP Enchanter would be just as good. It's all due to the PL/TSA backing.

If it's the Evasion, then a 20 HP Enchanter training Evasion and/or using DBs would be just as good.

So would a Mage.

Or another Tank.

The 'foil' to Ranged here is to live to Melee. Which is what the PL/TSA combo does.

Well an enchanter with evasion with a huge PL/TSA minion would have no or little attack.

i agree that the jiggy part of the equation is not the foil here and that was what i was trying to state earlier. remember too though that evasion cannot touch the base to hit and even with dex advantage the jiggy will likely take 4 to 6 hits in ranged. often times that is enough to kill any tattoo currently in the game if it was a jiggy with no pl or walls involved.

Hmmm Ranger, makes getting a melee weapon not seem like such a crazy idea huh... Well I always have been crazy.

GL - That is a different Story and I said HP/PL aside the discussion was that the Jiggy itself was a Foil and it is. You can put items on an Enchanter yes if they have the ENC for it but a 20 HP Enchanter does not have the innate Evasion or Dexterity of a Jiggy.

A 20 Hp Enchanter without items is a sitting Duck a Jiggy that is not Junctioned has a good chance to survive to Melee where the Archer is neutered.

dudemus - even if the Jiggy dies as long as it has helped the team make it to Melee then it has served its purpose. Yes it IS a Foil. Maybe not the best one but definitely a foil. Junction it and it becomes twice as bad of a Foil and then you Junction it like we have been discussing and well there you go.

from my experience with kwai chang and my current ncb jiggy team jigster, if the jiggy is a foil for an archer based team it is due to the fact that the archer is splitting resources between a melee weapon and a ranged one, a much lower tat or mpr opponent or using a hal that is much lower than the jiggy.

finally getting the fix for the soc to work with the jiggy helped, but once again your jiggy has to live to melee for it to do any good and that is the difficult part against a competent archer build.

Admitted but how many Competant Archers are there in CB dudemus? Remember NW makes them work properly whether it is long term CB Loans, Forging, or USD injected. Without that NW put into the right places that Archer is "Incompetent". You either see the Archers at the Top or you really don't see them at all.

Remember NW makes them work properly

I only have 75 million net worth.

Is it put in the right places? If so then you are Competent Scion. For a +150 on an ELB it is roughly 40 Mil.....

Net Worth $213,921,962 - you should count you Tat as well Scion

which puts us into the realm of jiggy can be a foil for archers depending upon their nw. which is oddly enough where many of the proponents of tank-blender think it should be. if you spend money in the game it should give you an advantage.

how you feel about this idea of purchase your power concept of cb probably determines much about your feelings in this thread. in effect if you think that cash is a strategy in itself then the jiggy is a sufficient foil for archers and if you feel that balance should be based more on mpr than real world salaries or a willingness to throw money at an online game, then you will likely think that the jiggy is not a sufficient foil for archers.

this differing of opinions is once again why i am so glad that the inmates are not running the asylum! ; )

"which puts us into the realm of jiggy can be a foil for archers depending upon their nw. which is oddly enough where many of the proponents of tank-blender think it should be. if you spend money in the game it should give you an advantage.

how you feel about this idea of purchase your power concept of cb probably determines much about your feelings in this thread. in effect if you think that cash is a strategy in itself then the jiggy is a sufficient foil for archers and if you feel that balance should be based more on mpr than real world salaries or a willingness to throw money at an online game, then you will likely think that the jiggy is not a sufficient foil for archers.

this differing of opinions is once again why i am so glad that the inmates are not running the asylum! ; ) "


dudemus that is quite possibly the most binary statement I have seen you make yet. It is insufficient in it's very essence.

I have put a ton of USD into this NCB and I still fear the power of the Jiggy. I have witnessed first hand what it is capable of doing. This does not come from medieval standpoint that if I spend money I should have an advantage, it comes from growing from the start as an
Archer and seeing what pwns me. It comes from seeing that it would not matter if I put 5 Grand into this game someone somewhere would figure out how to beat me. This is the nature of the Game dudemus and I for one am glad of it.

So now where does your statement stand? Nowhere because a persons willingness to put money into their entertainment is nothing more than that and they should not be attacked for it. It is an option, a Choice just because you feel you should not have to spend USD for whatever reason should not bind the next person to your decision.

Whether you like it or not money makes things work, CB Land is no different. Without money CB would die period and you know it.

i do not look down on usd spenders. i do wish that when cb2 came out it would have had a closed economic system and no transfers. it cannot change now though, without starting over that is and i am cool with that.

can you point out some of these jiggy teams that are foils to your archer team. also what is your tat level as well as your stats on your weapons and items? perhaps we can move this from the realm of the anecdotal to the realm of data and proof.

i do have to take your word for how you feel about the jiggy foil situation and my observation was mainly in regards to people who stated clearly how they feel about the influence usd should play on the game and balance issues. i certainly didn't mean to assume that everyone fits that mold and admit that my observation is based on just a few known opinions. how do you feel about usd? should it give you an advantage if you choose to use it?

also, it seems you took my observation to mean that because one believes the jiggy is a foil to the archer, it is due to the fact that they think usd should give an influence. that is not exactly what i meant though.

i was pointing out more of a correlation and that knowing how one felt about one of the ideas probably was a good predictor of how they would feel about the other. i certainly didn't mean to belittle ones opinion regardless of what it is though and apologize for it being taken that way.

Fair Enough dudemus:

I am out of most jiggy's range right now with a 7.5 Mil Dex and +180 DBs. When I was coming up through the Ranks as an Archer 3 things gave me a ton of trouble: RoS/GA(which still pwn me), ExBow Users with a Wall(the highest level ones and I battle it out, I still lose), and Jiggy's both Junctioned and not(I have out distanced almost all of them unless you count LR), all of the above had either EBs or DBs (another Archer Foil.)

Whereas I am out of the thick of it right now I still have the fear when a Jiggy is big enough to take me on, in the lower ranks they were more irritating than any of the rest. It is hard to hurt what you cannot hit.

Yes there are measures I can take and once my NCB is over I will be taking them but as of right now I am akin to a sitting duck. Archers in the lower Echelons already have this a many other foils to content with, which does prove a point for me.

Without NW an Archer is nothing, how many "Competent" Archers are there: Heroes, Vectoidz, FGoD, Guernica, and Death-Note......I cannot name any others off the top of my head and I apologize if I have missed you. However all of them are high in NW and have good stats in comparison with all of the other Char types out there this should speak volumes. Not only for Archer Foils but for the fact that to make them feasible it costs a lot to get past those foils.

"Well an enchanter with evasion with a huge PL/TSA minion would have no or little attack."

Nor does the Jig. ;) Isn't that the point though?

It hits for what, about 40K?

It's the SoC storing the ranged damage that makes it effective at dealing damage.

Stick a SoC on a 20 HP Enchanter with a Mace class weapon to unleash. We'll see the same thing (ofc, depending on PTHs, Dex's, EC's, Specialty XBows, etc). ;)

For those thinking archery is too powerful, I didn't include it in the Tournament (shhh) ;p

The PTH of the Jiggy gives it a lot of hits.

True, but dropping the Tat slot, you could use another damageing Tattoo. Like a RoBF.

But the outcome will be the same.

The team living through Ranged into Melee, due to PL/TSA and not the Jig.

If anything, this thread pokes yet another finger at the PL/TSA combo. But while it does so, it does little to ease the ELBow is OP feeling. As seemingly everything (bar the MoD, which no one uses) is 'foiled' by PL/TSA.

The biggest foil to any strategy is living through it. ;) And PL/TSA is king of that.

GL - no one has argued that HP/PL/TSA Minions ability as aFoil to almost anything. The Discussion however was about a jig being able to be an Archer Foil.

"The biggest foil to any strategy is living through it."

You could not be more right GL. When I started out on this NCB Quest of mine I knew I would have a few things to face I did not expect a Jig to be one of them. Well Surprise surprise it was not one it was 2 of them that gave me one heck of a problem.....Mr. Jiggy and Kwai Chang. I couldn't beat them until I was able to actually hit them and hard. 2 Mil regular Dex plus my ToA's added Dex and PTH combined with a x20K ELB with 10 Mil Strength behind it.

Dismiss a Jig if you want to GL I will not I delt with them first hand and I have seen that if used properly that are extremely effective at what they do....prolonging the fight, out lasting Ranged into Melee where an Archer, without a really Tough Melee weapon, is basically a sitting duck.

The ability to use UC on a minion junctioned to a Jiggy is quite powerful.

There is no way to add to the archery ability of the HF aside from str or dex boosting items.

i think that some are confusing foils with strategy though. with kwai chang i was building a team with 3 enchanter walls who split xp between amf and ec.

i used dex boosting gear rather than strength gear and used bloodlust to make up for the lost strength. in short, i set out from the start to make a team that would focus on other physical damage based teams and wouldn't totally be owned by direct damage.

i have never been all that good at strategy in carnage blender but i think i did pretty well with what i set out to do. jigster is taking that a bit further and if i could ever get all of my walls up to great ac i think it will work better up top.

in short, is the jiggy a foil or was the strategy a good counter strategy to all of the physical damage teams?

Interestingly enough I found that the counter to the Jiggy at least a JIggy being supported by a PL wall was the SoC. When JW had a SoC still and was using the Morg I had to hope he wouldn't hit too often or too little. Too often and he would outright kill me too little and he would 1 hit my Jiggy.

"The Discussion however was about a jig being able to be an Archer Foil."

But it's not. ;) It's just as much a foil to Mages and Tanks as well.

And archery is foiled just as much by a Mage, Tank or Enchanter. Becuase the exmaple here *is* based on the PL/TSA combo.

Not a Junctioned Jig lasting till Melee thorugh Junctioning items and skills.

"The ability to use UC on a minion junctioned to a Jiggy is quite powerful.

There is no way to add to the archery ability of the HF aside from str or dex boosting items."

Both true. And both having nothing to do with the topic (Although you can Junction archery to a Hal, which is possibly only useful to keep the Hal at 1.0 if you boost it with GS, and archery takes post GS STR into account, which I'm unsure of). ;)

The SoC works well against the Jig, and against exbows it gave me a few interesting results. But the loss of the strength bonus from a BoM loses me too many opponents to equip simply to take on some speciality strats.

"i think that some are confusing foils with strategy though."

No dudemus I do not confuse a thing, you built your Strat "Around" your Jiggy, which was a very good thing to do. Yes you were effective against most physical damage teams......Archery is "All" Physical damage so to Archers your Strat was a killer just like Nem's was. My point was that without the Jigs innate Evasion and Dex you would not have achieved the same effect for as long.

BTW just to point another thing out Kwai chang and Mr. Jiggy were the 2 Jigs that took the longest for me to beat but you were not the only ones to give me problems. It was one of the reasons I was hesitant to drop any names in the first place because then there is a ton of analytical thinking and then ppl want to question thought processes. It is a line of junk ok.....the Jiggy was the base of the Strat, you and Nem were just better at making a good strat around it plain and simple.

"The Discussion however was about a jig being able to be an Archer Foil."

"But it's not. ;) It's just as much a foil to Mages and Tanks as well."

DBs are a Foil to many things, Evasion is a Foil to many things, Dex is a Foil to many things as well....Tanks and Mages but is mostly used against Archers so let's stop splitting hairs here GL. And the Topic was about Archery being to powerful and evolved to the point of a Jiggy being an Archer Foil which it is. So please stop trying to dismiss it. I delt with several things coming up in this NCB and I happen to know first hand what I am talking about thank you very much. I have had months to figure many things out and try different small tweaks to make my strat better within the guidelines I gave myself from the start.

The point I have been trying to make, while being hit from many sides, is that a jiggy is an Archer Foil. DBs, Evasion, & Dex do not need to hurt an Archer to Foil them do they? No of course not that would be ridiculous right? Well look at it like this a Jig does not have to hit an Archer to Foil him either, just out last his attempts to damage him until Melee where he is neutered without a big Melee Weapon. Even then if the Jig cannot hit the Archer for much well he can still make the Archer lose due to nit picking him for damage.

The Premise I have stated before still stands and I wish people would stop and take notice of a simple Idea "You cannot hurt what you cannot hit!" Even if you can hit it if you cannot kill it or get past it in the Ranged rounds Where an Archer Rules Supreme then there is a very good chance the fight is over.

Truth whether you like it or not everyone the bottomline is not many Archers can win the fight after Ranged is over. Jigs have the capability of prolonging the fight through Ranged, even if that is their only purpose in the fight.

Being a Long Term Kill Slot is no different than being a good Wall or Meatshield. If it saves the main damage dealers long enough to allow them the killing blow what does it matter?

A Foil is a Foil and the Jig is an Archer Foil, maybe not the best one but still one none-the-less. Just because you can point at the Top Archers and say they are not Farming you now does not mean they did not when we were small or even medium sized. Maybe it is one of the reasons we got big and strong as fast as we did, Jigs are not fun to content with.

cannot*

Zen, what makes the Jig, in this specific instance, the foil to Ranged?

It's innate Dex? It's innate Evasion?

Or is it's ability to survive to melee based on it being backed by PL/TSA?

If it's about it's innate Dex and Evasion, then can't we extrapolate the 'foil' here to any minion training Evasion and/or Dexterity, and/or using DBs.

What makes the Jig a specific anti archer foil?

if the jiggy is such a good foil to archery, i would expect that in battles of near equal level jiggy to hal that the jiggy would win always. if this is not the case and sometimes they win and others not, then i would assume it a case of strategy choices.

if that is accepted as fact, wouldn't it be fairly easy to test and see how two single minions training nothing and holding no gear other than the two tats would come out?

it would at least be interesting to test this at various tat levels and see the results.

Dude. With those stipulations I'd lay money on the Hal winning every time.

It has equal DEX to the Jig, so would land hits for 5 rounds on the 100% BCTH of the ELBow, and has a PTH higher than the Evasion of the Jig.

So more potential hits there.

I'm sure a bare Jig would die in Ranged to a bare Hal.

To sum things up a bit.

The Jiggy shines vs the HF in melee rounds. You do all you can to get there if your the Jiggy. So you Junction much more UC. You use a PL/TSA/revive minion. You use Dbs if you want.

The HF is limited in what it can do to increase its damage or its archery ability. It cannot junction more archery. It can junction more damage via BG, more dex with EBs.

2 equal characters using the same level HF vs JKF will almost totally result in the JKF one beating the HF one. Especially if the HF has no other type of damage.

But if there is an archer like myself, Z, SHD vs a JKF setup to beat the archer it is no contest. The JKF wins.

We can easily see that with LRs beating Vectoidz, almost beating me 100% and giving Z fits.

Dude,

The problem with your scenario is that is never happens. One has to include how one can boost the tattoo up.

You can really boost the Jiggy via junctioning UC. And if you do not, your missing on a lot of the potential power of the Jiggy.

Also, since the Jiggy works only in melee, one needs a PL/TSA/revive type minion to make it last till melee. Or a super large AS.

However, my bet, if 2 equal MPR characters are in play, the one with the same level JKF will beat the same level HF. Unless the JKF user has a strange strategy.

The biggest Hal in the game belongs to Ranger. The biggest Jig belongs to Bast. Heroes is much lower MPR than Dixie Cousins yet wins.

Hal and ELB > Jig.

Unless like LR you build a team that is so focused on the Jig that you can only really beat tank teams.

that would be my point ranger, how you choose to boost your tat is strategy tradeoffs designed for a specific type of opponent often limiting your strength against other opponents. that is why i say that the jiggy can be a counter-strategy to the hal/archer but it is not in my book a foil.

if it was a true foil as you proposed, then tat for tat with no other gear a jiggy would beat a hal.

so to also sum things up a bit:

the jiggy is a foil to the archers if you junction uc, use a pl/tsa combo, equip an exbow or do some combination of the above all while gearing him up very well...oh, i almost forgot if you also choose to forget about ever beating mage teams.

this is not my definition of a foil is my point and is more an issue of strategy choices and rock, papaer, scissors design.

Sum it up how all of you want but mark my words as one of the very few Competent(as ppl like to point out) Archers in CB the Jig is a Foil.

Saying oh well it is a foil for this and that but not Archery where there is only 4 - 5 Rounds is spouting Semantics. If it applies to Tanks and possibly Mages (Depending on a few things)as well then there is a good chance it is so for a Archer you think? I NEVER said it was the be all end all super duper OMG Foil to Archery......I said It is "A" Foil so please stop attempting to add to my words with your own.

Look do a blind test for a Jig and Hal if you so choose but that is stationary and quite frankly too controlled there will not be Random factors that makes a "Minion" work or fail. But be my guest go ahead you will not be testing Archery for players but the abilities of 2 Different "Familiars".

The Jiggy's innate Evasion and Dexterity (Which can be foils to Archery on their own) to an Archer makes them Nervous as many others BUT what makes them even more so is the fact that there is only 4 - 5 Rounds to take them out regular Tanks have what 45 - 46 Rounds (Technically). I have said it before I will say it again: You cannot hurt what you cannot hit, and even if you can hurt it you still have to kill it.

LR's example with the HP/TSA/PL Combo Junctioned to a Jiggy only proves it in double as that is a nasty Combination no doubts on that.

So let's go down Semantics road again which sooooo many people on this thread love to frequent. That is a choice of Strategy or that is a General one that can be used against everyone....Fair enough. Put it on ANY of the other Familiars and see if it does even half as well. I can tell you now though they will not because the Jig has something the rest do not......it's own nasty combo Dex AND Evasion in one. Ask anyone that has fought a Jig they are irritating to fight because they are hard to hit.

Final Case in point and I will digress because no matter what I say I am wrong by everyone else's agreed upon analysis on Archery even though I AM an Archer and have delt with a lot in this 5 month period of time in this NCB and Several months before hand testing Strats but eh what do I know right?

Just pulling the Top 5 from Each Category -
Note a Few things:
1) Most of them have a lot of NW,
2) Most of each one's NW is in their Ranged Weapon(s)
3) Almost all of them have a High + (+100 or more those that do not have a large ToA)

ELB

Ranger - Heroes - Net Worth $624,594,061//The Lunatic [6x22000] (+220) worth $279,856,085

SHD - Vectoidz - Net Worth $872,655,484//DMON BOW OF POWER [6x13600] (+281) worth $305,482,96

Zenai - FuerGrissa ost Drauka - Net Worth $529,705,105//Chainfire of Truth [6x30000] (+0) worth $233,946,277

miteke - Law - Net Worth $334,702,412//Long Arm of the Law [6x16000] (+170) worth $181,705,972

Picasso - Guernica - Net Worth $323,324,300//An Elven Bazooka [6x11000] (+188) worth $158,952,696

MSKer

deifeln7 - Priestess of the Moon - Net Worth $445,728,507//Eaglehorn [5x10001] (+222) worth $170,041,625

QBJohnnyWas - The Travelling Man - Net Worth $398,557,208//Blackthorn [5x14545] (+138) worth $151,920,590

Mikel - Dragos - Net Worth $183,763,536//A Mageseeker [5x4800] (+220) worth $122,938,594

Picasso - Three Musicians - Net Worth $98,315,125//A Mageseeker [5x8000] (+145) worth $98,308,146 (RETIRED)

{cb2}Dinh - Coheed - Net Worth $234,179,708//A Mageseeker [5x3900] (+173) worth $78,509,168

SoD

Freed - The Hens of Daze - Net Worth $663,836,893//Eggs of Death [5x8700] (+265) worth $258,447,754

ImmortalAA - The Immortals - Net Worth $462,700,020//A Sling of Death [5x8000] (+240) worth $212,324,050

Windwalker - Yanki - Net Worth $434,372,493//The Dark Side of the Moon [5x7205] (+226) worth $185,533,785

QBnovice - Dagobah - Net Worth $912,686,324//KX9 laser cannons [5x3646] (+176) worth $97,568,016

Last Gasp - Jingleheimer Schmidt - Net Worth $176,441,062//Flaming Excrement Thrower [5x4100] (+124) worth $63,182,615

ExBow

AdminNightStrike - The Iconics 3e - Net Worth $657,467,665//A Named Enforcer's Crossbow [4x5000] (+202) worth $130,370,181

-----Jiraiya----- - The Legend of Jiraiya - Net Worth $243,124,972//A Bolt of Nether [4x5500] (+150) worth $91,139,160

QBnovice - Dagobah - Net Worth $912,686,324//wooden cane [4x2750] (+176) worth $85,042,960

BluBBen - Item Store 4 - Net Worth $43,272,213//Dark Strength [4x3501] (+150) worth $72,512,601

Herbstwind - Trachal DelArmgo - Net Worth $179,277,409//An Enforcer's Crossbow [4x3333] (+120) worth $53,934,885


Assassin's Crossbow

auctioneer - rental master - Net Worth $0.00//An Assassin's Crossbow [4x2800] (+173) worth $83,015,684

Shadowsparkle - Failure - Net Worth $342,235,076//An Assassin's Crossbow [4x1200] (+171) worth $66,480,368

{EQ}Viperboy - ViperAssasin - Net Worth $131,732,278//An Assassin's Crossbow [4x3200] (+120) worth $52,695,610

Mythology - The Last Airbender - Net Worth $136,160,889//An Assassin's Crossbow [4x1262] (+123) worth $36,088,710

Ulord[NK] - Rigwarl Bristleback - Net Worth $106,086,700//An Assassin's Crossbow [4x1596] (+100) worth $29,401,601


Notice a Trend here folks? I do high + means Im gonna hit you right, Nem said a 10 Mil Jiggy would have a 130+ Evasion....what about the Dex? Add those together and well even at a lower level a Jiggy will be hard to hit. So Archers have to have a High + and a LOT of Dex to keep Jig users off their Emergency Radar. Are Jiggy's a Foil to all Yes Definitely. Can they hurt Archer's more than regular Tanks if they are not up there in +'s and Dex you betcha without a doubt. Regular Tanks have 45 - 46 Rounds Archers have 4 - 5 then get neutered in Melee drastically, even with the Chance for Double, Tripple and Quad hits Tanks still have more Rounds which equals more time. All Jiggy's really have to do is cut the Damage for the rest of the team Evade Evade Dodge Dodge rinse repeat. They can die in the process but if they have saved a couple of the team then they have done their job as a FOIL. That is what a FOIL does right people keep something from happening on an overall?

/Rant Over

I am officially done since most cannot see what is right in front of their noses and I am tired of attempting to explain the obvious.

If I have offended anyone with this Post I apologize as it was not my particular intention but I am Tired, Sick and moreover Cranky so take it with a grain of salt folks.

/me applauds Zenai.

here is my tat comparison table link again:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhqtN8y13_DacjRqczd2eElKZXpqeW5LdGk5dFZ3eUE&hl=en

the reason i suggested jiggy against hal for testing is that the hal is what jonathan considers a competent archer.

you claim that the the jiggy is a foil to archery so that should mean the jiggy would win against a hal unless it is actually other things that are the foil or combos of them.

yes ranged damage dealers have few rounds to do the damage, the question remains though can the hal defeat the jiggy in those few rounds?

/me Facepalms andPoints back to his earlier post

"Please reread it dudemus you missed something a LOT of Something.....although an equivalent it is a Stationary/Binary Representation of what is "Supposed" to be a Competent Archer. It is STILL a "Familiar" not a "Minion" and therefore is not an "Actual" Representation of the Average Low - Mid Level Archer trying to push through the Ranks which is what I have been attempting to pound into everyone's Thick Skull.

Competent Archers(Which are High Level by the way) have Passed the point of Jiggy deafeatism with Items, Dex, and high +'s........duh!

High +'s and High Dex remember that part dudemus hmmm? Yeah that keeps Jig's off Competent Archer's Emergency Radar.

The higher the Jigs level of course the more Dangerous it can be, it's Damage Sucks but it's Evasion and Dex are something for Archers to worry and prepare for even higher up.

/me throws the Posting Section of his CB Tab For this Thread away. Now Im really done this time......at least for today :-/

which is why i originally said:

"it would at least be interesting to test this at various tat levels and see the results."

with that in mind, i think it is valid test to determine what exactly is the foil here.

dudemus it is NOT a Good way in anyway to use a FAMILIAR to test the Competency level of a MINION. There is NO Random Factor, none, zip, zilch, Zero, Nada! What part of that do you not understand?!? Familiars are Stationary/Binary things that grow at a "Fixed" predetermined rate.

Archers are tentative at best when coming up, they have to "Feel" their way through the Ranks. Sometimes it is "X" they have to add other Times it is the "+" then again at other Times it is "Strength" and even further it is "Dexterity" or adding something to their Items. In short they are more "Alive" than a Familiar ever will be because "We" have more control over their growth pattern.

With a Familiar we do not have that sort of control. Using a "Familiar" is an inadequate substitute at best for an "Actual" Archer. What you would be really testing dudemus is the ability of two "Familiars".

When attempting any sort of comparative testing you need the real thing look some up and get some feedback from them. Heck if you want the data so badly do what the big companies do when wanting information, pay them for their time. Give them guidelines and give them a data sheet to fill out.

Still the idea will be kind of binary if you restrict them too much. The better idea would be to leave them to their own devices other than directing them to specific opponents and maybe unequipping certain items for the testing purposes at max.

removing randomness in testing is desired from what i have always understood.

just to be clear, you are stating that the halidon is not a good example of archery?

No dudemus it is a "Fixed Growth" example of Archery that is what I am saying.

It is the same as saying a Fire Familiar is an accurate representaion of a Single Fireball Mage... it is not and never will be that is my point. All of the Familiars are "Fixed Growth Rate" representations of their Actual Randomly Grown "Minion" counter parts.

Admitted their are certain ways to grow certain types of minions. You can tweak and adapt their stats to eke out a win, with a Familiar you just cannot do that.

Familiars = Fixed Growth Rated Generalization (At Best) Not an Actual Representation.

You want first hand knowledge and experience dudemus start an Archer and see for yourself.

so the hal is representative of fixed growth archers and should work for testing against the fixed growth jiggy to determine if it is the jiggy itself or strategic choices that are the foil to archery, thus removing randomness in training and gear / stat choices as factors at various tat levels?

i believe you stated that the evasion and dex of the jiggy were what made it a foil to archery. the test above is designed only to show whether or not the evasion and dex is enough to win out against a competent archer at various levels.

in short, the claim is that the jiggy is innately a foil for archers and this is not due to strategic or gear choices but the jiggy itself. i truly fail to see how this test would not be accurate enough to prove or disprove this claim.

/me facepalms again

dudemus yes that would work in theory for the data acquire and extrapolated for those particular fixed growth rated generalized representations for that time period for the Familiars not an Actual Archer and UC Minion.

Look dudemus to put it in short the data is OLD! All of the Familiars need a rescale to Represent the here and now. Why do you think I said go to Actual Archers or run one yourself?

i am confused. if you are saying the jiggy is a foil for archery because familiars need rescaled then the test i proposed wouldn't prove anything.

unless i am mistaken though, you stated the jiggy was an innate foil due to its evasion and dexterity. familiar to familiar testing should be great then and would overcome any familiar to minion power gap or are you saying the hal is more powerful than the other familiars?

"i am confused. if you are saying the jiggy is a foil for archery because familiars need rescaled then the test i proposed wouldn't prove anything."

to be clear, if you are saying the jiggy is a foil to archer minons, but not the hal, because familiars in general are a foil to minions in general...

dudemus No and NO!

Familiars Grow at a predetermined Fixed rate for what was considered at it's time of creation/nerfing/rescaling a Representation of a Competent "Whatever". You cannot use a Familiar to sustitute for a Minion it will not now or ever be a good or proper exchange.

The Discussion was a Jiggy's innate Dex and Evasion being "A" foil to an Archer not a Halidon Familiar. The Fixed Growth Nature makes it inadequete as a substitute. That is what I am now and will continue to say until the individual stats of Familiars are able to be individually grown/tweaked as a bare minion of its represented type can be.

so a jiggy is a foil to minion archers and hal, just minion archers or just hal?

maybe i should come at this a different way as you keep saying the same thing over and over but not getting my point.

the hal trains archery, str, dex and hit points at a fixed ratio to its tatoo level. it uses the equivalent of an elven long bow with it's bonus pth being the plus on the weapon and some form of its level to determine the damage modifier. you claim that because we cannot change the levels (strategy choice) that it is not a valid archer.

jiggy's on the other hand are an innate foil due to their design even though we cannot play with their ratios (strategy choice) for minion archers yet it is not due to the gear or strategy choices involved.

yet (here is where you lose me) somehow testing the jiggy against the hal to determine if the jiggy is in fact a foil to archery will not work because we can't play with the strategy and gear choices? i still hold that this inability to modify them in any way by placing them on placeholder minions with no stats trained makes the test more valid!

you state the jiggy is an innate foil. that means stripped down without modifying his stats or adding gear he is the foil. to see if he is a foil we cannot also strip down an archer character though and need to add in gear and flexible stats? i just think that to weed out strategy influences the hal is the perfect candidate.

if you need to throw in gear and flexibility on stats, then you are in fact getting into the realm of non-innate factors are you not?

Why do you even have to test that. You can see the outcome without testing. The Hal will win about 90-100% of the time at the very end of ranged.

dudemus have uou thought that maybe the reason Im saying the same thing over and over is because you are just not getting my pointand that there is only so many ways to say something?

A familiar is just that something similar but not exact, using something that is not exact will NOT yield the SAME results.

Jiggy's are foiling Archers with malleable stats and items. They grow differently dudemus because they ARE different.

Where the representation would say the Archer should win and they dont that is because they ARE different. Where an Archer wouldnt have the cash to put into his ELB the Halidon's would still grow according to MTL. Where the Halidon would grow at a Fixed HP/Dex rate an Archer could pump either one to eke out the win. This is of course not even mentionong the fact that an Archer might prefer to pu.p his/her X rather than the + and Vice Versa due to opponents Weaknesses and Strengths.

In short again because of this Fixed Growth Rate it cannot be substituted for the Random Growth Rate of a Minion.

those are all strategy components though. so if there is a difference between the results of a hal and an archer and they are due to strategy differences, then the jiggy is not an innate foil but rather it can counter an archer due to strategy or gear which is what i have said from the start!

even not having enough money to bump your weapon is a strategy choice as it is common knowledge that running a tank/archer takes a ton of money to do well. if you choose to go that route instead of a caster or familiar route, then you decided that either you would spend usd to help along the way or be a subpar physical damage dealer.

dudemus again NO!


This is my point yet again so this time pay VERY close attention because I will put it in short hand for you since everything else has not worked. I'm not trying to be mean but truth is truth.

Jiggy = Foil for Archer Minion("A" Foil not the Ultimate Foil)

[It's Innate Evasion and Dexterity cause Lower - Mid Level Archers a ton of problems because they are hard to hit. High level ones have passed this up due to NW and MPR.]

Halidon does not = Archer Minion

[Halidon = Fixed Growth Rate(Incl.the ELB) based on OLD Outdated Data]

[Archer = Random Growth Rate Even Without Items]

[Random does not = Fixed]

[Fixed does not = Random]

Conclusion: Using a Halidon in place of an Archer Minion will Yield INCORRECT RESULTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you said yourself though that it is strategy choices that separate the two, hal and archer minion by the examples you gave. therefore it is not a foil but rather a strategy issue. i can keep saying this all week! ; )

dudemus no it is not.

You want to use a Hal in place of a Minion I have explained in many different ways why it will not work. This part of the Discussion is over. If you do not like my answer too bad I am not changing it to suite your mood or interest.

It is not a strat choice to not have the money to upgrade a ELB or any Ranged Weapon . It is NOT a Strat choice to NOT have the EXP to dump into Dex right away to make a difference against a Foe you cannot hit. Is it dudemus is it!?! I can tell you right away the Answer is NO!

Drop it dudemus because you have lost this Discussion in Large and Small. You want to talk Archery Talk to an Archer, that would be Me, and you have.

money being a strategy choice was explained above:

"even not having enough money to bump your weapon is a strategy choice as it is common knowledge that running a tank/archer takes a ton of money to do well. if you choose to go that route instead of a caster or familiar route, then you decided that either you would spend usd to help along the way or be a subpar physical damage dealer."

as for the ratio of stats/skills/spells training, you choose your ratio to get certain opponents and may risk losing others and it is clearly a strategy choice.

how exactly do you define the terms strategy and innate?

dudemus:

My mother always told me you want to learn how to be a carpenter go talk to a carpenter. In this instance you wanted to understand Archers, or at least one facet of an Archer. I gave my time up to do just that since I am an Archer. You flat out refuse any of my answers because obviously yours are superior in your own mind.

Problem is that you just do not realize how wrong you really are.
Until you run an Archer yourself you just will not understand and I have tired myself out attempting to explain these concepts to you.

So I will say this I will agree to disagree with you and nothing more.

It is done ok. DONE.

i wasn't trying to understand archers, i was trying to understand your point of view and how you can see a strategic choice as being innate.

innate means that it is part of the nature of something and thus cannot be changed or chosen. evasion is an innate part of the uc skill.

any choice that we have in the game is not innate by the mere fact that it is a choice. if you choose to use usd or not is a strategic choice. since you can choose what ratio to train xp on a minion that is also a strategic choice.

i am not sure how me playing an archer would change the definition of words, but if that is your premise then yes we will have to agree to disagree. ; )

"i wasn't trying to understand archers, i was trying to understand your point of view and how you can see a strategic choice as being innate.

innate means that it is part of the nature of something and thus cannot be changed or chosen. evasion is an innate part of the uc skill.

any choice that we have in the game is not innate by the mere fact that it is a choice. if you choose to use usd or not is a strategic choice. since you can choose what ratio to train xp on a minion that is also a strategic choice.

i am not sure how me playing an archer would change the definition of words, but if that is your premise then yes we will have to agree to disagree. ; )"

What a line of Trollage dudemus no for an Archer that is not a strategic choice it is a necessity. Necessity means there is no freaking choice either you have it or completely fail....period.

Comparing and Archer to something that is fixed and has everything given to it is like saying a bum on the street has the same CHOICE as that guy with a silver freaking spoon in his mouth. Sure that Bum can walk into a nice fancy Restaurant but will more than likely get walked or tossed right back out as he doesn't have what he needs from the start.....Money.

Relate that to a Halidon....it has everything it needs and Grows all by itself it needs no upkeep not anything Except a MTL to grow under. A minion though from the Start has to fight, train, grow and buy items to keep pace with it's opposition.

Not having CBD or Even USD to upgrade your Minion is not a Strategic Choice dudemus that in and of itself is why your analogy does not fit!

Have you even Read my posts dudemus or are you just reading every other 6th - 10th word and summarizing it up in a way to get on my nerves and troll by default? Or is it that you just do not want to accept that someone other than you is right?

Like I said it is done dudemus just freaking let it go for crying out loud.

did you choose whether to go with an expensive strategy or a cheaper one?

did you choose how to distribute your xp?

did you choose how to distribute the upgrades on your bow?

the fact that choices can determine success or failure does not change the fact that you still have that choice and if you have a choice then it is strategic rather than innate. i think it is obvious from the tones of the posts who is trolling here and who is having a civil discussion.

Jiggy = Foil for Archer Minion("A" Foil for Low - Mid Level Archers, not the Ultimate Foil to any.)

[It's Innate Evasion and Dexterity cause Lower - Mid Level Archers a ton of problems because they are hard to hit. High level ones have passed this up due to NW and MPR.]

Halidon does not = Archer Minion

[Halidon = Fixed Growth Rate(Incl.the ELB) based on OLD Outdated Data of what a Competent Archer was at it's time of inception/rescale.]

[Archer = Random Growth Rate Even Without Items]

[Random does not = Fixed]

[Fixed does not = Random]

Conclusion: Using a Halidon in place of an Archer Minion will Yield skewed INCORRECT RESULTS!

The Archer gets Foiled by the Jiggy at Lower - Mid Levels even with their Items on and tweaking their Stats.

# Trains: Hit points (HP) at 50% of level
# Trains: Strength (ST) at 25% of level
# Trains: Dexterity (DX) at 50% of level
# Trains: Unarmed Combat (UC) at 50% of level

* The minion wearing this Tattoo will summon the Familiar, who acts as an additional Minion in battle to fight alongside with your team. This familiar will fight unarmed.
* If the minion wearing the tattoo does not wield Weapons or cast Direct Damage Spells (DD), then the familiar will be created behind the minion wearing the tattoo.
* This item does not spawn in auctions (former Supporter Item)
* This familiar does relatively small damage and will not attack in ranged combat and is therefore often used as a meat shield. The Hit Points, Dexterity and Unarmed Combat (Evasion) that this Tattoo trains makes it great for this purpose.
* Junctioning on this minion affects trained stats Strength and Dexterity, as well as Unarmed Combat.
* This familiar no longer trains Endurance but has an increase to all stats to offset this.

The Jiggy is a Foil for a LOT of things but for a Low - Mid lvl Archer the Jiggy is a Bane it is just so hard to hit that it borders on the insanely frustrating and when you ONLY have 4 - 5 Rounds to actually make an impact well then there you go a loss is on the horizon.


A Halidon, as we have gone back and forth on incessently, is a representation of a Competent Archer whether it is low, mid or high in level. Everything Grows at a Fixed Predetermined Rate that is unwavering EVER.

# Trains: Hit points (HP) at 33% of level.
# Trains: Strength (ST) at 50% of level.
# Trains: Dexterity (DX) at 50% of level, reduced to 20% of level during Melee Combat.
# Trains: Archery (Arch) to Strength (50% of level) [1]
# Weapons: Elven Long Bow (ELB) with 100% Base-to-Hit (BTH) during Ranged Combat, reduced to 40% BTH during Melee Combat.

* The Minion wearing this Tattoo will summon the Familiar, who acts as an additional minion in battle to fight alongside with your team. This familiar will fire arrows and is an Archer.
* If the minion wearing the tattoo does not wield Weapons or cast Direct Damage Spells (DD), then the familiar will be created behind the minion wearing the tattoo.
* To equip items to your Halidon Familiar you need an Amulet of Junction (AoJ). Some items you may consider equipping are a pair of Beleg's Gloves (BG), and a Helm of Clearsight (HoC).
* Archery skill will be trained equal to Strength to provide a buffer for boosting Strength.
* If you would increase this Strength more than 2.5 times the level of the Halidon Familiar, the Archery effect will become less than 1.00.
* Elven Long Bow (ELB) damage modifier, and Plus-to-Hit (PTH) values, increase with the level of the HF.

It has only 2 real Stipulations. That it is on a minion that has an Accommodating MTL for it to grow and that it is Used in Fights. Everything else is done without a single keystroke. All of their Stats and the X and + on the ELB.

A Minion will never EVER without and Extreme amount of CBD or USD injection be able to match that dudemus in short it is now and always will be a bad representation for the Average Low - Mid level Archer. The Problem here is that not all have the same Choice in being able to do everything that the Halidon gets for basically free(Read the Stats above pulled directly from the Wiki.). So bottomline a Halidon is not a suitable Choice as a substitute for an Archer Minion. They are just too different in their very Natures not Choices dudemus Natures.


This will not change just because you try to change the subject which you have been very good at doing so far dudemus. They are what they are an Archer and a representation of a Competent Archer based on outdated Data collected and extrapolated during it's creation/rescale.

Now on the the next part:

There is a difference between Necessity and Strategic Planning I'll give you this but you need to understand where Choice comes into play and this for an Archer is where you are failing to see the bar.

NW plays a big deal in making an Archer successful or a failure. SOME of the upgrades to its Ranged weapon is absolutely Necessary to be a Competent Archer others are a Choice(Strategic Choice in your words) when something is not necessary to win but wanted just because then it is a Choice.

The Same thing Applies to a Archer Minions Stats SOME things are simply a CHOICE others are a NECESSITY.

A good guideline to go by would be 1/3 HP,DEX, and STR and 1/5 of STR in Archery out of NECESSITY a further Training to DM is now getting added into this mix. Is any of it a choice? Sure you can Choose not to train a thing at all and just be the lowest minion in the rankings. A Choice in Strategy for Stat training is when you can do something and it does not matter, to do something when you do not need it. By Necessity you HAVE to Fight in order to gain Optimal Exp(You can get it losing or drawing or defensive winning) in Order to Train, in Order to Grow, in Order to Beat more opponents.

Choosing your Strategy that is a Choice. Choosing to be Competitive is a Choice.

Training bare minimum just to stay afloat is not a strategic choice if you are trying to be competitive dudemus and no one in their right mind in a game as competitive as this would do just the bare minimum but no one can sustain the maximum either which is part odf what I have been trying to tell you. Choice dies a tragic death when Necessity rears it's ugly head in Archery I can attest to the fact that it comes up a lot.

Yes of course there is some choice like my having a x30K ELB with +0 on it. That was a Strategic Choice because I have a ToA giving me a nice PTH. Training my stats though were not a choice I HAD to train them or Fail at the level of Competition that I have been in from the start, Low-Mid-High Level. There was no Strategic planning on that, Train or Fail once again that is not a Choice it is an Ultimatum and out of Necessity I had to do what was needed.

Case in point dudemus:

Using your words:

"the fact that choices can determine success or failure does not change the fact that you still have that choice and if you have a choice then it is strategic rather than innate."

A Low - Mid lvl Archer NEVER Chose the Stats of a Jiggy to beat his. The Jiggy's stats are INNATE because they grow at a predetermined FIXED Rate. In order to be able to get passed this he must out of NECESSITY train in order to overcome those INNATE Stats or get FARMED. That is not a Choice dudemus that is an Ultimatum. Which is the same with a lot of things that the Archer MUST do now out of NECESSITY or be at the bottom of everyone's shoes. (Reread above about Necessity)

The overall of this whole thing I think I have been trying to relay to you, unfortunately I have not done that well enough, is that you are trying to put the collar of Theory on the Run of Actual Application. I can tell you from my personal experience as an Archer it just will not work in the way you would like it to. Sometimes things in Theory just do not work in application no matter how hard you try. I started my NCB off to disprove the Claims of many Archers because I was at a high level testing stuff from Chars I bought. Well I have learned that their Claims were founded in truth, in some cases yes exaggerated but still true. I would say 98% of what I thought and put into my own theory has been disproved in Actual Application. I guess that this is why I said in order to understand it fully you need to run an Archer. I did not say it because I thought you were dumb(I know you are far from it albeit resistant to anothers ideas), I said it because it is so much more easily explained when you go through it and then talk to another Archer because now what they say makes a whole lot more sense.

"i think it is obvious from the tones of the posts who is trolling here and who is having a civil discussion."

A well worded and reserved Troll is still a troll dudemus in case you have not paid attention to the way you have said things maybe you should. You have been pushing it further and further dudemus at every time you saw me get more and more worked up. By definition that sir is what a troll does.

However maybe I am just reading into things since I am worked up, which is why I asked and you still have not answered me on it. Yes I have been aggravated with your incessant wanting to go further and further into detail so minute that even a microscope would say hey lay off jack you cant go any further but I digress since it is not making anything better. So I will apologize if I have offended you as that was not a good thing for me to do no matter how worked up I was. You know what I do not care anymore I think I have hit my personal Zone of Zen with everything I have tried to do in explaining things to you, both complicated and simple. This time Im actually done, there is not any more tension in me concerning this subject and you.

Zenai is completely correct. Jig will own your Hal all day long.

Period.

I'm pretty tired, so I'll just say if you're really going to argue theory about archery, with ZENAI THE ARCHER... (really?) You better have a damn fine argument. Which you don't.

You can take advice from someone who has been there done that, and learn without wasting time. Or go ahead and try it out. One way or another an "I told you so" will be in order, and in this case, I'm going to have to say there is a 90% chance you'll be on the receiving end of it.

"Why do you even have to test that. You can see the outcome without testing. The Hal will win about 90-100% of the time at the very end of ranged."

Seriously. ;)

Hal versus Jig, Hal wins.

O.O... really ?? I found the Hal I used from 0 to 2m MPR to get completely dominated by Jigs due to it's inability to hit them consistently ...

I'm too tired for this, I'll re-read the thread tomorrow.

/confusion >_<

i am hearing that a hal is not a valid representation of an archer because an archer has choices in upgrades and training that a hal doesn't have to make. those choices seem to no longer be choices though when a jiggy beats an archer minion and change into ultimatums? does that not bring us back full circle then to hal equals archer?

While I'm not 100% convinced about the Jiggy being a foil - I do think it's part of a foil, but it is also pretty vital to have the other components in place, like high level bonus gears, or PL.

But I do get what Z is saying. A Hal at lower levels is better than most archers can hope to be, thanks to things like encumbrance and inadequate PTH. The average archer cannot hope to have the PTH and stats that a hal can have.

So it's pretty accurate that the Jig can outdo those level archers. And higher up it's pretty damn good against the good archers.

However I'm not sure that the Jig's dex and evasion can keep up with the Hal's dex and PTh. I will direct people up to my earlier comment about Ranger vs Bast. Biggest Jig versus Biggest Hal (and one of the biggest archers). Hal/Archer wins.....

But now, can we stop this thread please!!! Let all have a drink or something...

"While I'm not 100% convinced about the Jiggy being a foil - I do think it's part of a foil, but it is also pretty vital to have the other components in place, like high level bonus gears, or PL."

you are right jw, the only argument i have had in this whole thread is that the jiggy is not an innate foil. the jiggy can be a foil with gear, skill and spell choices however up to a certain point. brilliantly put and on that note i am outta here.

I have no idea why you guys even bring the Hal and the Jiggy into a discussion about archery.


First off, a familiar is so far removed from a similar minion it's not even funny.
For instance, I seriously doubt any of you guys would think of comparing a CoC minion with an Ice Familiar, for a very simple reason : almost nobody in their right mind would split the XP that way on a CoC minion (1/5 HP, 4/5 CoC... that's just a recipie for disaster).


So, back to Jiggy/Hal and UC/archery...


The JKF is reasonably close to the magic familiars in that his "weapon" is skill-dependant, but it has the added benefit (right now, anyway) of being able to be boosted a lot more via AoJ if the minion wearing it trains UC too (or even evasion, that's also useful). On the other hand, people argue that UC is somewhat underwhelming unless heavily focused and that you need multiple minions to pull it off, so you would have to wear a RoE to really pull that off with minions.

The JKF is sadly the only reasonable UC alternative right now (whereas regular mages can easily replace DD familiars).


Now, the Halidon... is, for lack of a better word, weird.
First off, it has WAY too much PTH, but a pretty pathetic equivalent weapon X. Considering it is only really useful for 5 or 6 rounds tops, that low weapon X means that even with a heavy ST boost (with which you shouldn't really bother) it still doesn't deal all that much damage early on.
That particular EXP spread (and ratio of weapon NW into + and X) might have been pertinent before the evasion changes (when evasion was far more common and powerful), but now, the Halidon is far, far less powerful as it used to be, and worse than a regular archer.

The complete opposite of a JKF in case of UC, the Halidon is easily surpassed by a ToA archer with the least bit of CB$ to spend, even in multi-minion teams.

In other words, the real problem is not that archery might or might not be overpowered, but the fact that JKF does something which is nearly impossible to do with UC (without nearly inhuman effort), while Hal enables to pull off a sub-standard archer, but at no CB$ cost.

And if the case is not clear about whether archery is/isn't overpowered, you only have to look at the largest weapon archer chars and notice how they're NOT that high up score-wise compared to the rest of active characters around... if anything, considering the massive NW on most of them, and looking at other lower-NW teams at round the same size, they're pretty damn low in score.
So, overpowered ? Raw numbers say "heck no".

two out of the top five scores are archers though and the majority of teams that beat those two teams are the other archers. ; )

More responses how archery and archers aren't op below the line please:

=======================================================================

even though it wasn't clearly stated at all, my response was intended more as a "you can prove or disprove just about anything by selectively pulling data."

I have a fairly large archer. I have a pretty high nw for my size, a huge bow and a pretty big tat. I can beat some char's higher than me, some lower than me can beat me. There are as discussed above in various places several things that an archer struggles to deal with. This thread is really really long btw.

Bad example Ernest

"some lower than me can beat me"

Looking at your 24h battle log you haven't been attacked by anyone lower then 3mil mpr. Doesn't say a thing or more then plenty

even though it wasn't clearly stated at all, my response was intended more as a "you can prove or disprove just about anything by selectively pulling data."


dudemus to a point I totally agree but you first must use a proper base. Which was what I was trying to tell you, that JW stated so well, a Halidon cannot be used in place of an Archer Minion.

There is a difference between Necessity and Strategic Planning I'll give you this but you need to understand where Choice comes into play and this for an Archer is where you are failing to see the bar.

Yep, with my single minion archer team. I chose to have a really large dm. That was strategic planning on my part, and by the end of my ncb i will have all the top AS/GA teams on my fightlist (Although i lose to some of the top tanks out there). The reason i chose this route was because i do not have the largest ELB on the market (only 70 million net worth) And i wont have funds to really upgrade for a long while yet. But at least this way i'll still be competitive verse most teams.

OPed nope....

1) It has 4 - 5 Rounds to pound out that same Damage that feasibly others get roughly 44 - 46 Rounds to do. Sounds easy to some when you say it, it is much harder when you do it.

2) There is a Serious Give and Take that just cannot be taken lightly in Archery. You have 4 - 5 Rounds to do Optimal damage you have no wiggle room to play you have to be exact as much as is humanly possible to be successful and Competitive.

3) The Upgrade Curve and Nerfs to various Ranged Weapons has so far, in my honest opinion, leveled the playing field. The Fact that in low - Mid Levels we have a Ton of Competition validates it this.

4) Planning and Selective Targeting before we start are Key to an Archers Success. This is True of all Char Types I believe but once again 4 - 5 Rounds makes an Archer have to Pinpoint a bit Further than the rest.

5) The Top Threat to Archers is as dudemus and a few others have said.....other Archers. Yes we have Foils in the Jiggy(Junctioned), GA, Massive HP or AS, the deadly ExBow(Nasty with PL/TSA), Evasion(Very hard to work against with the high Dex Combo) and DBs which are a direct counter to us. However Archers have had to adapt to these things and in turn have had to adapt to each other.

6) Archery = Expensive as all get out! Archery is not for the CBD deficient. NW is what makes or breaks an Archer. Strategically plan all you want but without at least a bare minimum in NW you will be found wanting to say the least. Either by Saving(Running token NCBs to make money and level a tat counts), getting loans, USD Injection, or some other Venture like Forging your own or others items, & buying low and selling high either by FS/WTB Threads or Auctions. The point is if you want to run an Archer you better have some CBD to back it up or you will get swallowed up by the ranks.

{However the HP/PL/TSA with ExBow are now starting to route that avenue.}

On a rundown from everything I have delt with in my Archer Testing and with this NCB I would say that overall Archery is about where it should be. The one thing I would change about Archery is to make it have a bit of a Curve at the beginning. Budding Archers get a swift kick in the pants particularly in the Crotch area. Other than this though I believe Archery is ok. As with anything it could be better but I am just glad it is not worse.

Disclaimer: With the Jiggy I said Junctioned to include the higher Ranks of Archery and to keep the peace with dudemus since right now I have no hard evidence to prove it otherwise. Another argument of the same as before in this thread is both unwanted or needed as it serves no real purpose.

As an off topic aside, this;

"1) It has 4 - 5 Rounds to pound out that same Damage that feasibly others get roughly 44 - 46 Rounds to do. Sounds easy to some when you say it, it is much harder when you do it."

Is why either Ranged should not be a seperate phase, or Ranged damage should *never* become enough to take out a team before you get to melee.

The Ranged penalties in Melee suggest that Jon doesn't want an Archer to be able to only utilise thier single Ranged Weapon. And just for sheer balance Ranged damage needs to not be able to kill whole teams before you reach Melee.

Maybe we should change the two weapon philosophy, remove (or severely reduce the Melee penalties) and reduce Ranged daamage to compensate.

Let the 5/6 Ranged rounds be softeners, like they really should be, and move the real meat of the game, for everyone (It's why DD gets on average a 52% damage reduction during Ranged), to the much longer Melee rounds.

While letting Archers actually work during Melee...

"The Top Threat to Archers is as dudemus and a few others have said.....other Archers."

wasn't this exact behavior used as an indicator of the robf being too strong even when it could only stalemate other strategies rather than beating them though?

Yes dudemus but once again that is because of the Necessity of Adaptation. The Archer must adapt and as quickly as possible or fall terribly behind as others incorporate the foil en masse.

Whenever a Foil comes up we usually try to find a way to foil it or incorporate it as a matter of course.

In short Adapt or Die.

GL - That is a pretty good idea imo. Right now though the closest thing we have to that is token melee weapons for cleanup. It seems though that more Archers have or are getting larger melee weapons to compensate for the lack of Ranged Damage as it is. It seems to me that instead of just Archers we are evolving into Tanks with Archery :-\

"It seems to me that instead of just Archers we are evolving into Tanks with Archery :-\"

Some of us started out that way....;)

JW - I remember before you had changed my outlook on MSKers & the necessity of training Archery with it when Ranger had a thread on the ELB & Archery.

I know this may seem off topic but to me it would seem to be a corrolation to it if only a bit to the side:

So I would ask why did you start out that way?

"In short Adapt or Die."

this is true for all teams in cb though. some players are definitely better at adaptation than others but i find it hard to believe that archers just seem to be better at it. how do you know when something is out of kilter and people cannot adapt enough to stay up with it?

I think the nature of archers make them particularly vulnerable to direct counters. It's a win fast or lose situation for them... encumbrance made this much more difficult by limiting the size of the melee weapon they can use to bat clean up. The raw power of the top archers really does harm to the folks below them who are often struggling to maintain a fightlist. I was shocked when I saw how much trouble even an above average archer has finding opponents, my experiences running an x focused single minion archer during tournaments led me to believe it was still the best method for growth, however in practice it takes much more investment for no more return than the other focused setups. I think this is just another case of the anomalies at the top hurting the folks below.

Z: I tend to do things a little backwards. I never wanted to do a straight archer. I've done it before, with ELB and, I found it a little...boring. My favourite tanks have always been melee based. But I also didn't want to do a bloodlust tank, or go UC. So I did a melee tank with archery. The mageseeker, because it was the only one of the bigger weapons that I hadn't really used. Also it was a strategic choice, the seeking ability let me take on some pretty large mage teams.

I also didn't want to go ToA, primarily because I don't like tattoos very much. You're almost forced to at this level. Even so mine is only because another minion would set me back 30 mill. This tatt was a lot cheaper than that.

dudemus - "this is true for all teams in cb though. some players are definitely better at adaptation than others but i find it hard to believe that archers just seem to be better at it."


novice - "I think the nature of archers make them particularly vulnerable to direct counters. It's a win fast or lose situation for them... encumbrance made this much more difficult by limiting the size of the melee weapon they can use to bat clean up."

novice hit it on the head perfectly. Archers like I said before have 4 - 5 Rounds to do their thing they must change up ASAP when anything is off they just do not have any choice in it, sink or swim.

My personal opinion is that because of this Archers check things more often and keep their eyes glued to the screen looking for anything going weird in their fights and sometimes other Archers Fights. I know this is what I do, I am constantly checking everything I can. When players/opponents move up in ranks, MPR, PR, Purchases in PR/Auctions, Changelogs, Archery related Threads in short anything that I think could affect my chars performance. I believe Archers simply must keep on their toes or else crash and burn. I know I have used a lot of Cliches and adages but it is true.

JW: That is interesting. I always like to get different perspectives from Archers on the reasons why they do what they do. I understand your setup a lot better now with that rundown. In short you are at Archery's door but not locked in the small room, you have more wiggle room because of it, nice!

here here / hear hear