Melee bth (in General)

I think physical melee bth needs increased. I find it ridiculous that it's harder to hit in melee than it is in ranged. That's just my bias.

I suppose I should make an actual suggestion of what it should be increased to. I was thinking something along the lines of 50/70, or 50/75 to make 1h melee weapons a little more viable. I also think it would be cool if there was a weapon skill that allowed for 100 bth, along the lines of archery for bows, but that's a topic for another thread.

Weapon Focus anyone? I believe that idea has been brought up before about having a skill to increase melee bth.

I never really pay complete attention to how often I land blows in melee, but its pretty consistent between 2-3 times when I have the dex advantage (IE: low/no dex teams) sometimes I hit quads but rarely.

The only problem with a skill is that it would compete with BL.

Either an increas ein BCTH would give you more damage than BL (which would make BL obselete) or it wouldn't, and so won't be used over BL.

It's the same as with Dual Wielding as a skill.

We already have bloodlust which is most likely far better than a skill that increases CTH by 30-40.

Example.

Most tanks hit anyone but other tanks multiple times a round.

Let us say 3 times average given dex and PTH.

With "weapon focus" you may hit for 4 times a round. 30% boost x 3 hits.

But with BL you would do 75% x 3 = 225% more damage vs 100% more damage with "weapon focus".

The only time it may help is vs other high dex character or high evasion/DB characters.

But even then overall, BL is a far better "bang for the xp".

I believe from past threads the rationale for a lower CTH in melee is that there are 44 potential melee rounds compared to just 6 missile rounds.

As I stated above, vs most minions you should be getting at least 3 hits a round.

Are you having trouble with some minions where you feel the CTH is too low?

I was thinking the exact same thing...

Sorry, shouldn't have mentioned that, got topic off of where I wanted it. I only want really to discuss the current melee bth, that skill idea was merely a whim.


I could see this being the case, but a fight that goes beyond 20 rounds is very very very very rare. I'd guess that the average battle is no more than 10 rounds long.


Not particularly, I do think it is very difficult for non ToA, non USD backed melee tanks to do significant damage in melee. Don't get me wrong, I know how much a big melee weapon with BL and ST can do, but for sacrificing so much money into a weapon, and either a ranged weapon, or the possibility of increasing that weapon, melee weapons seem rather underwhelming.

Most people would agree that melee weapons are already pretty underused, compared to magic in melee. I think something that could help this would be an increase to bth, by increasing bth, you decrease the effectiveness of DBs in melee allowing for a larger focus on the weapons x or armor needed to survive to melee. I also think that 1h weapons are severely under used. A slight bump to their bth could be just what they needed.

This couldn't be farther from the truth. With large DBs and the low melee bth, if their evasion is greater than your pth, you're looking at hitting only 40% of the time with a 1h weapon, or 20% of the time if they have an AoI on. I know they invested heavily on their evasion if it is this high, and I do believe it should be rewarded, but I also believe melee weapons, specifically 1h melee weapons, should be a little more viable. It's not hard to match the + of a weapon, with the + of dbs.

Sorry botched the math and can't edit post. They actually have to match 100 past your pth, which sounds hard, but not it's not actually that hard. Also, at even equal pth/evasion, you're only looking at hitting 1.4x a round.

Wouldn't it be better to lower Ranged BCTH, rather than boost Melee BCTH?

it feels unfair, cause there are only 5 rounds of ranged and 45 of melee, so why not have the ranged be a bit better then melee if you would rate 1:1 rounds :|

Sorry for quad post.

Another thing that is important that I think is being left out, is how bth works into calculations for final hits. This mainly comes into factor in tank vs tank battles, and would factor largely into tank vs mage battles as you're already getting your max dex cth. When calculating dex cth, it follows something along the lines of yourDX/theirDX * yourWeapon'sBTH ( This might not be exactly right, but it's close enough for this discussion, exact formulas are in the wiki thanks to JS ). Following this formula you'll see that in the case of equal DX, and equal PTH/evasion, the tank with 100cth(99) .i.e archers, will hit significantly more than melee chars. For example, let's look at 3 examples. 0pth, 100pth, 200pth.

Opth for both users:

1*40 + 0 = 40
1*100 + 0 = 100

The bow user hits 2.5x as much

100pth

140
200

The bow user hits 42% more

200pth

240
300

The bow user hits 25% more

As you can see, each time the bow user hits more, even with equal DX and pth, and when pth is low, this advantage is HUGE. Also, this scenario isn't uncommon in higher up battles as it is fairly common to see DBs in play. Where if a bow user faces DBs, they are not hindered nearly as much as a melee user that faces DBs.

I already covered this, it's actually 6 not 5, and most battles last less than 12 rounds.


B/c this accomplishes something else. This doesn't buff melee, this nerfs ranged. While it will allow melee tanks to live better against ranged characters, it will also indirectly buff everything else as well, GA/RoBF/DDs. Which I'm not sure needs to be done. I think physical melee is what is hurting the most.

Because Ranged goes first.

You can't attack back with a Melee weapon in Ranged rounds, or in Melee if you're dead.

and it wouldnt make sense if it would be melee first then ranged xD

How do you want Melee buffed? TO deal more damage in Melee rounds than DD?

The OP was suggesting the balance was between Melee and Ranged, with it unbalanced Ranged hits better/more.

If you buff Melee, to make it on par with ranged, you heailvy nerf things like RoBF, SG/CoC and GA.

Same time (or seperated by an Initiative/Speed stat) FTW? ;)

I currently think with the correct setup though, that DDs are a better choice if you are going pure melee in the current game. However, I think with a slight buff 10-15 bth, they would do better in the places they fare worse, in tank versus tank battles. For example say 2 chars were setup both ways, both could live to round 10. A melee user would only hit .4 times against a DB using tank, while the SG user would hit one time. Even with a gigantic weapon, SG is still going to do more damage per invested xp. I do understand that AMF can be a problem, and even considering that, I still think melee DDs are slightly better than melee weapons, but only in this small slight amount that I have listed above.

I think 99.94% of CB agrees with you there. There are even some of us who believe without US, tanks would almost cease to exist.

There are some people with 120Mish weapons but some of that is trickle down from others spending usd and insta down their weapons and other tank items. I do suspect if CB was closed to transfers there would be a prevalence of RBF and SG characters in CB with very very few tanks. It would be very hard to get that +30 TSA instad up wtihout someone spending USD and instaing it down.

However, that does not invalidate your point about non-USD tanks. They have a very very tough time. One of the reasons of my exbow rants.


I doubt an increase in 40 CTH would change many people to being a melee tank.

Melee tanks have so many negatives right now it is almost comical.

They include:

1) Having to live through 6 rounds of missile/magic attacks to even start attacking.

2) Trying to keep up with the multimillion guaranteed damages of spells like SG and CoC as well as the RBF.

3) That darned exbow

With my x5000 MoD and 8M strength I do about 400k a hit to 0 AC minions. Add 250 AC as a lot of wall minion have an I am down to 200k a hit. Times 4 hits = <1M a round for a 125M weapon.

Most melee tanks are not "pure" melee tanks but use some missile weapon. Whether an exbow themselves or a mageseeker. The mageseeker, as I discussed in another thread is just a pathetic weapon now. With all the HP/TSA/PL minions out there, killing a mage with one is almost impossible unless they rely on AS/GA and do not use PL


I think again it comes back to the 44 rounds potential for melee vs only 6 for missile. Archers have to hit for more damage and more often.


This is a nice debatable point. Some people as I do, believe that if your are not using a ToA you are not really a true tank. Others have a different opinion.

I was once told by a very wise CB player that if you have a high NW weapon, it is best to completely maximize its potential. Which is by using the ToA.

If you are not using the ToA, and have difficulties hitting, you are not maximizing your weapon.


Shame Shame on you. I never ever do that. I quint post!!

>_<

My post two posts above suck. I blame it on rushing this at work. /sigh

But if currently Ranged deals up to 2.5 times the damage Melee does (which I agree with the analysis totally btw!), and you bump Melee to do the same, then wouldn't every Melee attack need to be buffed as well?

If large melee wepaons really suffer that badly, then why the comparison to Ranged damage?

Shouldn't we be compairng them to the other forms of Melee damage themselves?

I don't really agree with this, and thinkthe comparison is too varied by strategy.

Is it SG versus a no AC ToA tank? Or SG versus a heavy AC Tank? How would said Tank fair versus CoC instead of SG?

I think one of the largest things Physical Melee has going for it is the support form Weapon Properties (like VB AC reduction, MoD x2 AS damage, or inherant Life Leech) and Vampiric Aura itself.

Those are massive bonuses that DD just can't compete with, even if thier raw damage might be slightly higher (which I'd like to see some data on! :P).

Agreed!

Give us a perm tourny and we'd know for sure. ;)

Nice point, however the always hitting nature of DD/RBF as well as the decreased effect AC has on damage mitigation makes DD/RBF far better than melee weapons in almost all cases.

Especially if you do not use a ToA for the xp investment one would need in str/dex/BL.

in cb1 these folks were told not to play tanks. even in the first years of cb2 this was pretty standard advice.

i think the question we need to ask is: should that be a viable strategy worth balancing the game over? if it is then how do you balance the usd spenders? doesn't one need to be sacrificed for the other to exist as a viable strat?

Well, I just retrained, lost my exp from DX and ST only, into pure SG. I can do 1.2M damage a round, which took 3 hits for me to do with my x4200 weapon. Unless you invest <100M into a weapon, do significantly better than physical melee weapons. I also had full BL with my melee, I unlearned that as well.

As for Ranger, melee users can't be "pure" tanks as you call it, pure an simple. If a user wants any chance of living to melee, and being well rounded, they are going to have to account for a lot of things, be it GA, ranged DDs, ranged physical, and most important exbows. Let's start with exbows. 2 logical ways of countering this, evasion, and AC. AC works very well, but you need an RoS and AC, so that eliminates the ToA. Second way, DBs, but, you need to spend a significant( very significant ) amount to get 0 hits in 6 rounds, especially round 6 with 0 ranged penalties. So, it's not very feasible to both get insanely large DBs, and a weapon that's better than a door stop. Next up, Ranged DDs, hit from back to front, put your tank in front with some sort of wall in back, and an AoI on front tank. This will help you with both physical and magic ranged, however, it is expensive, I have no problem spending 300M CBD just to live to melee, knowing that when I get there I can actually do some damage. Finally, GA, leaves you two options, high AC, or VA+leech weapon. ToA gets rid of high AC on tank, so your left with a Morg+VA. So, the finale, a tank in front with a high AC wall in back. But, you have no SS, and your tank only has about half of the exp since you need HP on your wall. Throw in 250M for a half decent wall, and your maybe surviving to melee, then 100M on your weapon, and now you're finally doing respectable damage, only to have spent 100M that could've been on more AC, and just used DDs, or better yet, no ToA and an RoBF.

I've always thought balancing a game around USD users was a bad idea, but that's just me, and probably hatchet, I do believe he said something along these lines as well.

how would you balance it then?

I have no idea... Well I have one, but no one would like it. It go something along the lines of let USD users win, but I don't think that'd go over to well here.

that heavily favors the few strats that use a linear cost upgrade path then, so why even have the others?

We have tried a few things such as ENC and NW=PR.

I believe personally that ENC should be a characterwide instead of a minion wide stat. But I am still thinking that one through.


Yes things like DD, the RBF and weapons (partially as we discussed at nauseam before) all have a linear upgrade path. Whether CB or xp. UC is about the only attack that doesn't.

Armor is its own category. Boosting all damage but the RBF in a non-linear method.

Because not everyone will use USD, but that's a discussion for another thread. What I want to talk about is the lack of physical melee users in the current game. Most tanks do 80%+ of their damage in ranged. And most battles in like 7-8 rounds, this depresses me.

I completely agree, I think that it should be about where it is now. However, team wide, and no based on levels, but based on MPR. I believe it currently hinders DD/Enc teams that want to spend a lot of money. I have no problem if someone wants to get a +20 corn.

ranger, when i say linear cost upgrade i mean the stuff that be bought with cbd rather than xp. xp would be a linear growth path, not cost path. i am not sure how to state that any more clearly so that you will stop correcting me when i am stating it correctly.

titan, i tend to agree with gl then, perhaps changing ranged mechanics is the way to go.

Titan,

Even without usd there would be a paucity of melee tanks. In fact likely less than there are now.

Novice is the best melee tank out there with a massive melee weapon.

The next highest is AA's MoD but he is not a melee tank. He has a huge SoD and MM. I think the MoD may only help vs 1 or 2 characters as most and that appears to be on the defensive end.

Without USD why spend hard earned CB on weapons when you can easily play a RBF or mage and actually upgrade your armor instead of having to carefully titrate DB/armor/weapon/buying BA?

I doubt without USD we would have many tanks, likely non at the top.

If that isn't the tagline to reduce Ranged Physical damage Titan, I don't know what is! :P


:D

I work thorugh character set ups exactly like, and hit the same limitations/conclusions. Maybe it's just me, but I find that sad for the game as a whole. :(

Fine, ok, I get it.

But you are giving 1/2 the information and only presenting 1/2 the case.

DD is a linear upgrade so it is not right, fair and equal that weapons have a linear upgrade as well to keep up?

You seem to be fixated on the linear upgrade path of weapons. I again fail to see why given that all other damage, except UC is on a linear upgrade path of some sort.

And again, I will disagree with you on the weapons in that they need BOTH xp and USD to have a truly linear upgrade path. If you just upgrade your weapon without xp, you will find the damage output increase to be anything but linear.

I would think we both can agree that UC needs a linear upgrade path or at least a reworking.

They do.

Strength is linear.

Yes, you need to increase Stregnth by twice (or is it 4 times, can never remember) that of DD to get the same damage increase.

*If you totally ignore the X of your weapon*

But it's still there.

Plus you get multiple hits.

(Not that I'm advocating leaving Weapon X as base in any way. shape or form)

Getting a little off topic here. But, the only thing that I think would be logical would be a massive reduction in damage in every form. Something like 50-75%. However, due to the punishing effects of retraining and salvaging weapons/Disenchanting, I don't see this as a valid solution.

Ranger, that's utterly incorrect. There was a whole thread correcting you on this.

Weapon damage increase by Strength is linear.

Would a rescale really change anything? Or just push the problem back another x amount of years, until damage had outgrown HP again?

I think Dude addressed this very well in a post above.

If we reduce ranged and keep melee the same, does that solve the problem vs all the DD/RBF damages out there?

I have 5M levels in SG on my mage. 7M with items. I get my HP from AS.

But I do 2M damage a hit in the last missile round (which melee tanks lose) as well as automatically hit. The NSC help me lower AMF to a huge degree so even vs the highest levels AMF I still do 700k-1M damage a round automatically.

For 60M xp in strength and dexterity and skills, what weapon would I need to do that damage? My tank has 9M strength and with a x5000 MoD I do 800k a hit max. Vs DBs and AC much less overall in a round.

So if we lower ranged damage to compensate for a crappy melee tank part of the game, that just makes mages and the RBF much stronger.

I do not have the perfect solution, but nerfing ranged certainly is not it. There has to be a way to buff melee enough.

Perhaps a new melee tank skill called survival or something along those lines. Reduces damage on the minion using that skill by some % vs all damage. Trainable up to 1/5 HP like SS but works as a skill.

Then show me with examples where you get a double strength with the same weapon giving double damage.

Ranger, Linear != 1:1 , it's linear, it's just a 2:1 ratio.

As for the topic at hand, it may be worth having two threads, one for melee( magic and physical ) vs. ranged, and one for physical melee vs magic melee. But, they both definitely need to be discussed.

meh I make due with a non-toa tank/wall hyrbrid (Up to you if you wanna call it a *real* tank or not). Doesn't work on everyone, but works for who I need it to work on. Only thing its lacking is dex really, but its pretty on par with many other tanks in the game otherwise. It cant really hit other tanks (was never designed to) but it does a fairly large portion of my damage to any low dex teams like robf/ros users. In fact it does half my total damage vs most those teams. But obviously I'm a multi-minion setup, so you can take that for whatever its worth.

Granted, the weapons aren't mine they are just what has been available to rent for the past few months, so obviously that needs to be taken into consideration. Both my weapons combined are about 260m NW so I do not at all deny I would need a rather large injection of USD or a massive loan on my tank otherwise. So I can absolutely understand and agree that it's much harder for non-usd tanks, or people who don't already have large weapons waiting for them.

But assuming I were to do that, as I said I make out as a non-toa tank alright. If I was to go back and tweak things while I was running the ncb, it would be slightly more focused, and I would have waited to buy certain minions till it had the xp ratio I wanted so it could have about 3m dex on it.

Just my 2 cents on ToA tanks vs Non-ToA tanks. As far as USD-backed tanks vs non-usd backed tanks, I'm on the side that there is no contest that USD makes it much much -easier- to run a tank, but easier doesn't mean absolutely necessary. If you are the patient type, you'll get whatever you need with time, with USD you'll just get there faster.

Ranger, if you want more explaination on linear (if Titan's post didn't cover it), please go back tot he old thread. It was done to death there.


How would that change the problem? You'll have to explain...

If Tanks do most thier damage in ranged, and fights last 6-7 rounds, then who would buffing Melee effect this?

Ranged would still go first and tanks would still end fights in 607 rounds doing 80% of thier dmaage there.

As no one lasts into the newly buffed Melee...

Aye aye aye! My posting sucks.

Going home now. :(

I always wanted the abilitiy to train the old Endurance as a skill. :(

In the past Jon or NS posted the stats on how long fights lasted.

I think now it may be longer than 6 rounds due to the usage of the RBF.

But if we nerf ranged, just to make melee look better, how is that a huge buff to all the DD and RBF users?

Buff AC? I'm only kidding, if you buff it anymore someone will actually see how imba it is. But no really, AC is good. I'd say melee is fine, and that people should just use AC more often, problem is, AC blocks melee damage just as much as ranged damage.

Cool idea, what if all damage reductions, AC/MgS etc, was more effective in ranged!?! Just a cool idea that popped into my mind.

Wouldn't that be the same as nerfing ranged damage?

No one really worries about Ranged (unless it's a SoD!) in Melee rounds.

But if there's a trade off.

Like a specific item (or ability) that *only* reduced Ranged damage (but by a significant amount), then that would be a cool trade off.

Like the age old mentioned Power Shield that reduced Ranged Physical damage. ;)

kinda like the evasion boost in the first ranged rounds for ac though?

Again.

Nerfing ranged damage does nothing to help melee damage/tanks given the damage still out there from DD and RBF.

Again, you miss the problem posed in this thread Ranger.

How would buffing Melee change the problem?

If Tanks do most thier damage in ranged, and fights last 6-7 rounds, then how would buffing Melee effect this?

Ranged would still go first and tanks would still end fights in 6-7 rounds doing 80% of thier damage there.

As no one lasts into the newly buffed Melee...

But if it's just a global thing, then how it that not just an indirect nerf to ranged damage?

I completely agree, and this needs to be addressed. Maybe this thread can continue down the viability of melee vs. ranged, and we can create another thread for that. A lovely admin would have to rename this thread though, since it's topic has changed a little. /me glances teasingly at dudemus.

OK,

I just did a bit of testing.

Vs Draco and his minion 1: AC 343

With 555k strength I do an average of 250k a hit with my x25000 ELB.

With 9M strength I do an average of 1.1M a hit with the same bow.

For the 9M str I used my ToA. For the 555k strength I used my TSA and suffered a huge ENC penalty to str bringing it to 555k.

IF doubling strength with the same bow doubles damage, I should do:

555k x 2 = 1.1M 2x damage
1.1M x 2 = 2.2M 4x damage
2.2M x 2 = 4.4M 8x damage
4.4M x 2 = 8.8M 16 x damage or 16 x 250k or 4M a hit. Which I do not do.

But at 4x strength = 2x damage

555k x 4 = 2.2M 2x damage
2.2M x 4 = 8.8M 4x damage or 4 x 250k or 1M a hit which I currently do.

Doh, I'm retarded, sorry, ranger, it's acutally, the opposite of exponential growth, whatever that's called, I forgot. The exact "formulae" is the square root of growth. So, 4x ST doubles damage as stated above. However, it takes 16x ST to quad damage, and so on, this is not linear in the least. However, with x it is linear, twice as much x and twice as much ST, gives you twice as much damage.

And you can see that ^ is right. 9M/.55 = Something like 17 I'm guessing. sqrt( 17 ) is like 4.1; 4.1 * 250 is close to 1.1M .

ranger, you have to quadruple str to double damage. this is still a linear growth curve though.

this has nothing to do with the discussion though which was started by the question of why not let usd win?

the answer is since there is only one damage type in the game that can be boosted by usd in a linear fashion (x modifier one weapons) then we really can't say let usd win as the winning strategy will then always be the one that has the linear cbd cost.

you guys are over-complicating it. when talking of a linear growth curve on xp you look at how much damage each amount of xp spent into the skill/spell gives you. if the first 1m xp gives you the same amount of damage boost as the tenth then it is linear.

Then, why not just let ENC do it's job?

( As an aside ranger is right, it's not linear it's logarithmic. It's just they both happen to be sqrt logs, and if you multiply those together, you get linear growth. So, we've got that out of the way, pure ST is logarithmic, not linear. )

It seems are disagreeing on some basic ideals. O well.


It actually does. Since damage, USD, and xp are all interrelated.


Ok, how about this. I agree it is "linear" if you agree that the increases in damage due to strength is not proportional to the increases in DD damage for the same given xp. That weapons need BOTH xp and CB to keep up with DD and RBF damage.

It is not a linear 1:1 increase. Boosting your strength by double does not double your damage, as opposed to boosting your DD or RBF level does.

Doubling your x on your weapon does not double your damage.

Weapons need both CB and xp to double their damage, while the RBF and DD spells do not. The RBF is different in that is it harder to boost than DD which can be boosted by some itesm to an extent. And those items are not a linear upgrade I concur. However no armor is linear in its upgrade, either tank, defensive or mage.

yep, he is right, here is the multiplier that would then be used with the base damage of a weapon given certain str:

str sqrt(str/20)
1,000,000 223.61
2,000,000 316.23
3,000,000 387.30
4,000,000 447.21
5,000,000 500.00
6,000,000 547.72
7,000,000 591.61
8,000,000 632.46
9,000,000 670.82
10,000,000 707.11
11,000,000 741.62

yes that is all agreeable.

about the last part though when you say ac is also not linear what you fail to see is that the x mod on weapons is the only thing that can be boosted with cbd linearly. this is why if you say let usd win, then the physical damage weapons are favored by that in a rather big way.

Maybe I am missing something.

You say "first 1m xp gives you the same amount of damage boost as the tenth then it is linear."

But did I just not disprove that.

For 555k strength with my x25000 weapon that is 6.66M xp. Gives me 250k damage.

With double that strength, which would be 1.11M, that is double the xp. My damage does not go from 250k to 500k.

The first 6.66M xp in strength gives me much more damage than the next 6.66m xp. And so on.

According to your statement, I can lose 6.66m xp in strength and my damage should go from 1.1M a hit to 760k a hit. As the first 6.66M equals 250k a hit.

But that is not true.

However, for DD spells and the RBF is it exactly a linear relationship.

6.66M xp into SG gives your x damage. 13.32M xp gives your exactly 2x damage. 66.66m xp gives you 10x damage.

Weapons need both strength and cb to keep up.

Ranger, we're both agree with you, logarithmic.

i said you were right above, the physical damage formula requires both parts of the str and damage mod for linear growth.

since you multiply the str and the damage mod though, with the damage mod having the only linear upgrade cbd cost in the game, that is still a huge advantage that no one else has. this also means that with our game mechanics if we just let usd win, then physical damage would become the "winning" strategy.

Ok, now I think we got to a point we both agree.

Yes, armor, for all types of characters is certainly not a linear upgrade. But again, it is the same for all types of minions.

Now weapons have to be on a linear upgrade method to try to attempt to possibly keep up with all the DD and RBF damages out there.

If weapon upgrade was like armor, non-linear, and each x did not add multiples like in CB1, tanks would be certainly unplayable.

However I look at this as a feature of the game.

You can choose to be a mage, and get a truly linear upgrade from xp to your damage.

You can choose to be a RBF user, getting increased damage linearly to your tattoos level.

Or you can choose to be a tank, knowing full well you have to both increase your strength AND weapon x to keep up.

However at the levels we are playing at it is getting harder and harder to increase your x to keep up with the multimillion autohit damages from DD and the RBF.

Melee tanks (see we have come back to the OP) have it worse. They have to:

1) Live long enough to use their weapon
2) Have a weapon and str large enough to do enough damage to keep up with the multimillion hits that mages and RBF users do.

How about a new melee weapon:

Axe of protection

Base damage 76. 2 Handed.
Upgrade like any big 5 weapon or close to it.
Special ability: IF no missile weapon is used, gets a non-dispelled SS cast on the user. Also get immunity to exbow/axbow drain.

Could be very nice for a non-ToA tank. But then again they have to hit to do damage which on full AC suit would be harder vs other tanks.

but physical damage always has the option of doubling damage by quadrupling the x mod. that can be done solely with usd and at a much cheaper cost than doing so with magic boosting items. you can also do it again if you are willing to with usd and the damage mod.

you will get to a point, probably before the first doubling of damage where doing this with magic damage is impossible.

i am not saying the damage mod needs to be non-linear. i am saying that the actual damage formula assumes people will invest money in their weapon and do so regularly or they will suffer and therefore the game cannot be balanced at all on non-usd spending physical damage dealers. it inherently cannot work that way without becoming an entirely different game and those playing non-usd physical damage dealers will always be second class citizens or switch to other strategies.

Then like I said, let ENC do it's job, and balance it around non-usd spenders.

i was under the impression that enc was to keep people from putting massive items on small characters. i could be wrong but i never thought of it as a top-end solution as much as a bottom-end one.

i thought the elusive enc/pr linking that jon stated he could not figure out a way to accomplish was what you are seeking.

Enc does a damn good job of limiting things up top, it's really hard to run a multi minion tank in the top 5.

But, ENC already sort of handles top end, why not just tweak it a little to get it to work with the top end perfectly, then this is not a problem.

Right now the only real way is to the the ToA.

I also would like to see AS give ENC as I posted o so long ago.

If GS gives ENC and HP gives ENC, so too should AS.

And make the most trained thing in CB more powerful?

That would really nail the coffin on the lid of lesser minion count teams.

AS is powerful enough as it is.

Why would it make AS more powerful?

Well it would but that much more so to make lesser minion characters unplayable?

After all AS gets nuked by DM. AS gets hit real hard by the MoD.

Just saying that HP count towards ENC, AS gives HP.

Just like str gives ENC and GS gives both str and therefore ENC.

I know, there is consistency and there is balance.

^ If AS gave ENC I know a whole bunch of teams that would suddenly have about 100-150m more enc on -each- minion if we are talking about it giving the same amount as regular HP, and that's after a 10m DM hits them. Even if its only 7.5 per point like training the ED itself, that's still a whole lot of extra enc people will suddenly be getting for free.

AS already adds to enc at I believe 7.5 Enc per point on the minion it was trained on, not the entire team. AS is the most used ED spell out there, I don't think giving it a massive boost is a good idea.

I DM everyone but a handful of people, so I'd actually benefit if they decided to push their enc higher, yet I still don't think its a good idea at all for all the same reasons that people shot it down in the last thread that was made about that exact topic.

I would like to point out that there is both consistency and balance for making AS not count and GS count. If you look at all the skills this is the same. SS only counts trained HP, TSA only counts trained HP. BL, and Archery both count GS granted str.

Yes, but on the other side exbow drain counts all hp including AS.

I understand the reasoning behind the current situation.

It is just hard on those characters like RoS characters to make a tank and keep it up to par at the higher MPR levels.

I do not know how much of this is ENC limits.

For myself, I am just a bit above my ENC with a .03 in battle if no EC is cast. Therefore a melee weapon is but a pipe dream.

So actually perhaps ENC is preventing people from using melee weapons and putting all they can into ranged.

I doubt that because if enc were increased or gone people would just invest even more into the ranged weapon.

Lol, too true Nat.

So I've been doing the time warp all day and going back and reading threads from about a year ago and I came up with this little gem.


Care to take a guess who the author is?

Yes certainly enc limits are the entire reason melee weapons don't get used, couldn't be any other reason could it? ;) Solution, give an easier way far more useful way to raise the enc limits and lets just watch all those melee weapons spring forth on all the normally ranged focused characters!

higher enc could increase melee swingers, if we reduce enc enough on ranged melee users! ; )

Most likely me.

However if you look through other threads, I proposed a ranged and a melee ENC, not one pool to cover all items.

I also suggested something different than ENC, that is a cap on the effectiveness of weapons proportional to ones MPR.

Best not to pick and choose which quotes to use. It can grossly distort things. Sort of like politics today.

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

You can re-read the thread yourself if you'd like, there are multiple inconsistencies with things you say all over the place across many different threads. That was just the most relevant quote I stumbled upon for this topic, and it made me laugh, not much more to it then that. I meant to actually post the thread I got it from along with the quote, but I forgot. Surprise, its even mentions the exbow, like some other threads dating back 4-5 years ago. So where is the dead horse? I'd like to beat it around some more.. but I digress.


I don't see how having separate pools for enc would change/solve anything unless you severely dropped both of them so someone couldn't use two super NW weapons. But then where is armor NW supposed to come in at? Does that have its own enc pool as well? One pool to cover all items based on the minions XP distribution seems to work well enough and in line with the way I believe it was intended to work. I don't see how changing that wouldn't completely throw everything off.

I also fail to see how a cap on effectiveness based on mpr would play out well at all. To me that sounds like the only way to win ends up being MPR advantage, and stats wouldn't really matter in deciding how much one could hold or damage done as there would be cap on your effectiveness anyway, which seems completely counter-intuitive to the way CB is balanced.

Interesting ideas yes, but how well would they actually play out and what would they do to all the current teams out there now?

Actually the exbow has been changed once already. Used to be enchanters with 20 str hitting for 1 damage would get complete drain.

^ Actually did not know that, that is a change I completely agree with though, also never said I was against a curve for the drain either I just dont think it should be deleted entirely. I'm planning to go back through when I get the time and check a bunch of change logs to see exactly when things changed/came into being.