How much random is too much random? PTH v DBS (in General)

Ser Duncan the Tall / Dunk - Dex 6,225,069 (after EC) - Total Evasion 263 (not counting the AoI)

Law / Faithful Steed - Dex 3,598,351 - Unknown PTH / Haste (395,773)

The damage level of the exbow is below 10k as it takes three hits to get me to negative levels.

In most of our battles he hits me 1/2 times, occasionally he gets the third shot in and we go to stalemate.

Besides the frustration, what I'm completely lost on are the times when I see him go 5/6 despite a significant dex advantage and 273 levels of evasion.

I realize we haven't balanced these items in a while, and it may not happen at all as the push has been to emphasize multi-minion multi-damage type teams I just can't get over that I'm forced to invest in defense that is so unreliable despite being expensive and single purpose. I seem to remember folks leaving over this issue.



What do other folks think?

Well, your levels of Evasion probably don't count because the +'s on the ExBow surely cancel them out. So then it's all based on DX difference and in higher levels, that always gives minions with over 1M DX a chance to hit.

This is not an issue IMOP because you have a much lower MPR and you SHOULD have trouble defeating that character. When/if you ever catch up to that MPR, you will probably win. For now, just accept that his character is just too powerful no matter how much real money you spend upgrading your character.

To me, that is a good thing. Else I would just stop playing this game again. I simply HATE games where you can simply buy your way to the top.

Evasion does not cut into dex hit chance. Even if you have 1,000,000 evasion if your opponent has sufficient dex he will be able to hit you. The minion with the ExBow has about a 4M dex when you add in the haste to your 5.5M dex when you deduct the ethereal chains. That is not a significant enough dex advantage to eliminate all hits. Just think if the minion trained that haste as dex instead, it would be even worse.

Well... I stand corrected. You have been back only a couple of weeks and you already bought your way back to the top. I am totally disgusted.

Time to look for a different game. Thanks for killing it a second time.

It was a fun few months at least while money spenders were absent.

thunderhyde, novice came back and resumed playing the same strat he was playing before he left. he didn't buy his way to anything imo he just started again from where he left off.

you think novice would drop all that money into a game when he ALREADY owns like 5 of everything?

most of this is just my confusion then... I would have sworn db ate into CTH as well

TH: I'd really like to understand your upset in this. I certainly spent a lot years ago, but I also played as hard as anyone starting day 1 on this iteration of the game. I sold most of my early CB here for CB1, so when that ended I bought my way back into contention here.

It has been years since i've played, and thrilled folks are still here, I'd hate to think my return put you off the game.

To your point about MPR, the reality is the it's effective MPR that really matters, which in this case I have a significant advantage in. My char is hyper-specialized as a tank killer at this point, with more than half my networth useless against mages (or at least mediocre). If what you're saying is that no one should be able to run the kind of single minion setup I am, then you're entitled to your opinion.

I've run dozens of strats, and actually held the top for periods of time with some of them. I don't believe I'll ever hold the top spot with a single minion without CB changing drastically. There are just too many ways to die!

I figured out what my real question should have been, should we have game mechanics that are so Random as to prevent people from being able to have a full fight list?

I think Jon really envisioned this game being Multi Minion teams. I think it was also shown that Multi minion teams get a slight advantage in experience earned as well.

The creation of a solid damage dealer is the best way for sustained growth, but I think you get diminishing returns on net worth invested in that minion at a certain point and should just enlist a new minion to create some diversity and new competitive angles.

CB in the end is a game of rock paper scissors and the Dex wars/CTH and DD randomness really reflect that.

I've always said I play the long game here AB, and the single minion will overtake all but the most focused 4 minion teams over time.

Totally agree Novice. Holding out with a single minion will only lead to strength in the upper ranks.

I think the real depth in this game comes from all the secondary strategy elements. Mid sized Decays, Amulets and Minion placement etc..

That's one thing about specialized teams, they actually redistribute wealth to lower ranks. Though you are able to take out higher level characters, you are also extremely vulnerable to lower characters.

@Thunderhyde
What AdminNovice did was more about specialization than money. In the old days, when there were lots of players and a large pool of characters to fight up towards it was almost insane how folks specialized and retrained their teams. Seriously. Someone would get on top and then one of the great strategists would set about figuring out how to take him down. Mikal was great at that. Is a bit of a pain when you are the target (and my strat has some pretty major weaknesses that have been exploited in the past) but the fluidity was something to behold. I would go even further to say that I am NOT one of the great strategists and could not do what some of them did. I'm mostly a plugger that is on top because the really good players left. I'm STILL am behind the PR of many players that quite years ago.

What I did about 5 years ago was buying my way to the top. I purchased Anomander Rake and pumped quite a bit of USD into that character. I could beat everyone in the game for awhile. But as miteke stated, people switch up strats to beat the top few. Novice has ran his character for awhile. He is not buying his way to the top.

Let Novice pump USD into his character. It will be that much nicer when my NUB beats him! :) This game has its issues, but it is balanced. Look at how well Joel is doing. Not even 3 months into his run, he is beating top characters. He hasn't spent any USD. If your not able to beat top characters, change your strat.

Ugg I went through so much failed testing last night -

Archery w/MsK and ELB (MsK clear winner, but still half assed against real competition)

ELS, BoT, BoNE, Vorp, and back to an ES

Almost 5 million levels of evasion, taking my total evasion well above 300 and including 16m dex and I STILL got hit with damn exbows.

ToE, RoBF, and back to ToA because sadly, the only setup that seems to work is what I was already using

So much wasted equipment and MPR... *sigh*