how big and how much? (in General)

i was wondering how much dex and how big of a weapon i would need if i wanted to throw an assassin's xbow on my team if i actually wanted to hit the opponents up top and knock out some of their dexterity?

i guess i am asking for the lowest end of the scale where i could expect to see some benefits.

I would go with a +110, x3400 AxBow. If they have evasion/dboots you can forget the idea, but otherwise that will hit pretty much every time and suck up all their dex. That will cost about 50M to forge and take a minion with an encumbrance that can handle it. Don't bother with the dex. It isn't going to help you hit the real tanks anyway unless you have tank level dex. You only need to hit once with x3400 anyway. Buy some strength since you have to get through armor with at least some damage and it really helps with the encumbrance.

I've an axbow equipped right now, with 5 mill dex and a PTH of 120. I can't beat Ranger or Zenai with that. Although I could before.

Ranger's DBs are over +200. That's the minimum you'll need...

x3400 wont be enough for the top regions. Not unless you are packing 13 mil str and even then it will only barely be enough. If you want to take out the top level players dex in 1 hit you are likely going to need around x5-6k and around at least 4 mil str. If you don't invest in dex you really won't touch any of the top tanks until you get upwards of 300 something pth. If you do go into the dex game you will need 3-5 mil dex to really have a fair chance at hitting.

why does ST effect Xbows? you can't shoot a Xbow any harder then the spring mechanism lets you

But you can use a stronger spring if you are strong enough to wind it up.

I picture that being the X of the X bow

x3200 (+120) does let me take out Zenai actually. He's got 3 million more dex than my 5, and +180 DBs.

You do then need some serious melee damage because the biggest tanks up here have a lot of HP too. But then you know that...

Miandrital and I did some testing on the Axbow drain. Nothing extensive though. Using a X100 AxBow, he trained 100k and 200k DX on his character, and marked down the results when he fought me. I took away 3% DX per hit, with an X100 AxBow, assuming that the drain is based on the DX you started the fight with, and not the DX you have as you get hit. This would mean that a X3334 AxBow would drain 100.02% DX per hit.

I plan on doing a little more testing, as now I'm using a X2000 ExBow and Axbow. The issue is, that I can't fight my own characters, to gather the information. I considered using a tourney test character, but that character would lose to mine, and I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to gain extra XP by intentionally losing to my own characters with a second set of BA. Also, without knowing whether or not the drain is based on starting ST/DX, or current stats, the results will say completely different things.

JW,

Your axbow lets your normally beat me. Takes a while, well into melee rounds, but you do. I beat you if you have your mageseeker on.

Has this changed?

I've not been able to beat you with the axbow unless I've put on a very large pair of DBs. It's been like that for a couple of weeks. I've not changed anything with that set up. Have you boosted anything, trained some more dex or anything?

It is the DBs + the axbow.

I thought you always had those DBs on.

i guess i needed to be clearer, i don't have to take their dex to zero in one hit or even multiple hits. i am mainly wondering if on my team if i could at some point have the axbow work as well for opponent dex reduction as my ec now does and then i could put the experience i have in ec all into amf to help against mages.

so the goal is to reduce melee opponents hits some and give my jiggy that much more dex advantage as well.

And that's how I set up the team, exbow + big DBs + the ToE as a very specific anti-tank (read: anti archer) strat. If I wanted to reduce them completely I'd strap on an exbow. I wanted to at least give them a fighting chance.

(That's not entirely true. What I was trying to recreate was the old evasion with the axbow/db combination...)

Ranger: the larger DBs were rentals. Only +120 though, but that was obviously enough to lessen your hits.

They were obviously more integral than I realised.

Although I'm not hitting you at all now, so the DBs don't really matter. Are you sure you've changed nothing DB or dex wise?

Even if I hit 4 times a rounds, +120 DBs lower my damage by about 30%.

That only with your ToE makes a huge difference.

I'm also have a hell of a time hitting Ranger....

Nov,

Typically you have 3 rounds before I take out your exbow user.

My Dbs are 205 and you have 245 plus leadership on your tank.

However, with the minuses to hit in ranged, I suspect your PTH is negated almost perfectly by my DBs.

Then you only have your BTH, dex chance to hit.

+289 (after naming) + leadership (around 30) + any dex based CTH
I'm getting just around 30% cth in real effect in the first three rounds of ranged.

70% of 290 is 203, less than my DBs.

What are the true ranged penalties to hit?

290 is Before the 30 plus from leadership, and the 6-7 CTH from dex


320 - 64 (20% penalty) - 213 (about what your dbs after naming should be) comes out to 43%


I'm betting the penalty is more like 25-30%