Evasion (in Changelog)

* evasion greater than your DX is only 2/3 as effective
* the item-based component of evasion and DB cannot reduce DX-based chance-to-hit (but invisibility and "defensive DX" still can)

This isn't a fix now mages are forced to train DEX besides a huge DD and HP?

Great, but you know this isn't going to work as soon as dex catches up evasion will be twice as powerful because of the non evasion granted dex.

"This isn't a fix now mages are forced to train DEX besides a huge DD and HP?

Great, but you know this isn't going to work as soon as dex catches up evasion will be twice as powerful because of the non evasion granted dex."

Nobody's forcing anybody to do anything. In fact, unless you're going to be using the DX (for offense), then it's almost pointless to train DX.

How would it be twice as powerful? Evasion's DX has higher boosts and multipliers in ranged, which normal DX does not.

Other than that, it's a good change. Let tanks have what little Evasion they can train (if they want it) at full power, and nerf some of the main problems (huge DBs lowering chance-to-hit to 0, ginormous evasion walls, to a lesser extent mages). :)

Note: Haste DX does not count towards making evasion work at its full effect, only trained DX (plus armor bonuses).

Even the second part would have been a great help in making evasion less overpowered, but including the first part, it's *AWESOME*.
Finally, an evasion that does what it's supposed to be doing instead of being the one thing you absolutely must have.

Thanks, Jon !

great change Jon im already noticing a big difference in who i can actually hit on

just another mage buff. :P

"This isn't a fix now mages are forced to train DEX besides a huge DD and HP?"

Not true - evasion is just 2/3 as effective as before if you don't train DX. How are you forced to train DX?


"Great, but you know this isn't going to work as soon as dex catches up evasion will be twice as powerful because of the non evasion granted dex."

Not true, a point placed in dex is a point less that can be put in Evasion.

"This isn't a fix now mages are forced to train DEX besides a huge DD and HP?
Great, but you know this isn't going to work as soon as dex catches up evasion will be twice as powerful because of the non evasion granted dex. "


No, they aren't "forced" to train anything, quite the contrary if they use a big AoF.
I see the entire explanation on how chance to hit and evasion effects used to work was wasted.

Let me give you a quick example.
Let's say you used to have around 3 mil effective evasion with an effect of (165).
Let's also say you were fighting a 3 mil DX opponent with a +110 weapon, and a 2 mil DX opponent with a +215 weapon.
Before, you would have had an additional -55 on the DX-based CTH of your first opponent, so he would only hit you once, most likely in the very last round of ranged and then even less frequently in melee if he also had a 1h +110 weapon.
The second opponent, well, he would get a slightly lower DX-based CHT, but he would compensate with the +50 to hit remaining from the weapon. He'd be hitting you more often than not in last few rounds of ranged, and if he also had a +215 1h melee weapon, most likely one hit in melee most of the time.

Now, since you don't have any trained DX, you're getting only a (141) evasion effect for your effective 2 mil evasion (and only 2 mil defensive DX).
Assuming you don't have an AoF (but you do, so it's even worse in your case), you COULD untrain 1.5 mil evasion and pump it into DX... so, yeah, you WOULD still get the previous 3 mil defensive DX, but only an (125) evasion effect.
Against the first opponent, the 3 mil defensive DX and 125 evasion effect is better (since 110 evasion effect would have already been enough and you want as much DX as possible), but against the second opponent 2 mil DX and 141 evasion effect would have probably been better... depends on the weapon, anyway.

Now, against your first opponent, if you didn't retrain, the extra evasion effect is wasted on the small weapon plus, and with 2 mil def dx (even multiplied by ranged modifiers) against 3 mil offensive DX, you can still get hit once in each ranged round, with the last ranged rounds that being very likely. If you went with the more DX, less evasion effect option, you would still get hit, but slightly less often.

Against your second opponent, no matter how you put it, you're kinda' screwed... 141 effect vs 215 means almost 75% chance to hit extra, and the DX-based CTH also improved... even if you did the reverse, trying to decrease his dx-based CTH, the PTH would be +90, so either way, you're very likely to get hit at least once in the last rounds of ranged, and very likely in the other rounds too.



BUT... here's the kicker... in all of the above, I assumed you have no AoF at all.
If you DO have a +16 named AoF (almost the same with +15 named or +16 non-named), then it doesn't make the least bit of a difference on defensive DX wether you train any natural DX or not, since the AoF boost to evasion beats the 2/3 penalty.

Sickone, see it from a mage perspective here, you already dilute much of you exp into DD and HP, now if you want to beat those mageseekers you actually NEED evasion, now the exp is diluted again and of course this means less powerful mages and more tankblender. You know what I'm running next? Evasion Tank!

And of course EC is more powerful now, with its double dipping into normal dex , dropping that below 2/3 and bam evasion got screwed again.

Just like AMF

just remembered, with evasion using DX, ENC for mages get that 50% (actually not this bad, but) lower.

no because dx doesn't give enc

I don't think EC reducing DX below evasion would make it less effective

Haste, also an enchantment, has no effect on the "effective" evasion level

Amirite, Jon?

This is a brilliant fix.Now trained dexterity gains some reasonable importance.

You have to remember PizzaMan that evasion still grants free defensive dexterity so you are getting a lot of benefit.sure it is not as much as before but that was the point.To fix evasion so more than just mage strats will work.

Look at another possibility of scrapping evasion entirely and having to train dex and get DB's to counter a tank.

This way you still get benefits from evasion without it being uber OP against tanks.

As somebody who has used evasion a lot over the years this seems like a good fix. Certainly a better one than any of the suggestions I saw to fix it.

pizza: I said evasion would be lower than before because I am sure evasion give ENC while DX doesn't. (if you move from evasion to DX to get around the penalty)

Great now bigger hals are even hitting my 246 Evasion in melee where they should theoretically have the worst chance.

still whiff city.

Wicked change!

Especially part 2. ;)

But what's an item-based component of Evasion? Is that the increased skill from things like Elven Gear? Or only the Combat Gi?

yup, some change.....biggest bow in the game still cant hit Evasion, good good change.

That's what melee weapons are for....;)

im talking about ranged, im not as stupid as you all seem to make me out to be.

thats because your dex is still very low sal

not with my tattoo its not

I didn't see it with your tat on, I looked when you had the RoE on.

Hey, who said you're stupid lol?

"yup, some change.....biggest bow in the game still cant hit Evasion, good good change."

Well, your weapon + is nullified by the big evasions, like it should have been, but the excess no longer seeps into DX-based chance to hit.
Now, if you would use the same gear as an evasion minion (sans AoF, but the 2/3 penalty more than nicely negates the AoF evasion advantage), and pump as much DX as they pump evasion, you WOULD hit them occasionally in the first ranged rounds and almost certainly in the last ranged rounds.

Sounds fair to me.

what a terrible change. this is now implying that you should be using evasion alongside dexterity. i was under the impression that mages mostly used evasion. so, that in mind this is kind of only a blow to mages as opposed to tanks training evasion. Why not just make it 2/3rd as effective to everyone, why are tanks getting special treatment yet again?

because people calling it mage blender

Well, as a RoBF evasion based team... this change is horrible!!

Just make evasion 1/3 less effective? Weak! I thought it was going to be a little more indepth than that! My fightlist went from about 16... to 4. While I agree that evasion needed a "fix", simply reducing its effectiveness by a flat amount is kind of... not exciting.

On the other hand, ummm... go tanks?

As a mage, you still have a choice.
Against low weapon plus enemies, if you don't have an AoF or a small AoF, training both is better.
Against high weapon + but low DX enemies, without an AoF or a small AoF, training only evasion is better.
If you have a large enough AoF, still training flat evasion is better.

As a tank, you seldom use evasion anyway, because it only helped against some other tanks, but had no benefits against any other teams.
A vast majority of tanks will train Archery or Bloodlust, depending on what they focus, ranged or melee.
Training evasion for tanks would be EVEN LESS advantageous now if they would also be subjected to the evasion effect reduction. Not like you get a huge advantage anyway, it's defensive DX only.

If anything, tanks NOW have a serious incentive to train more DX (instead of any evasion at all), a stat that was largely underused precisely because evasion was dipping into DX-based CTH more than it should, and now it DOES make sense to pump serious amounts into it (unlike before).

"While I agree that evasion needed a "fix", simply reducing its effectiveness by a flat amount is kind of... not exciting."

The REAL evasion fix was the fact it no longer double-dips into DX-based CTH.
The fact you get even less defensive DX was just an added bonus... actually, you could call it "the AoF nerf".

I think the Evasion to Dex link is great. It's not implying that Evasion needs to be trained alongside Dex.

Tanks will still mostly train Dex and use DBs for -PTH, leaving themselves free for BL. But can train Evasion to the fullest to gain a NW free -PTH ability.

Mages can still train Evasion, but it won't be as good without the Native Dex they won't train.

They'll still need something, be it EC or AXBow to lower that Dex gap, and they'll still have the Ranged bonuses to Evasion versus Bows.

If Bows are still having a hard time versus Evasion, with the damage nerf they received, it might be time to lower the Ranged bonus Evasion gets.

I would have MUCH rather had an AoF nerf than a "33% of your EXP is now wasted" FIX. Even if the AoF was nerfed to not give any bonus specfically to evasion, I'd be WAY better off. Fightlist has actually been reduced to 3 people now...

I'm not really bitter about it, as I was planning on retiring my character in two days anyways, but I do think this change was a little lame. I thought evasion was going to get redesigned from the ground up... not just flat out horribly nerfed.

/me wonders if Ranger will come back now.

Contrary to most popular believes, AOF DOES NOT exist only for evasion. So stop the nerf AOF argument.

Evasion had always been a landslide advantage against tanks no matter how you look at it, at least ever since I joined. So this change is just. Just adapt to it and you will be fine!

Agreed 100% with Dreky. If this was suppose to be some sort of fix then its simply pathetic. I'm sorry but thats the kind of fix that requires no brains. At the end of the day once all the skill bonus armour is upgraded higher and more is trained then evasion will be back up there again. What will the fix be again, make it half as effective? Pathetic.

"Agreed 100% with Dreky. If this was suppose to be some sort of fix then its simply pathetic. I'm sorry but thats the kind of fix that requires no brains."

Wow, I think this is the first time I've seen a change criticized for being too simple. A change doesn't need to be overly complicated to achieve it's goal. Don't forget there are two components to this change as well.


"At the end of the day once all the skill bonus armour is upgraded higher and more is trained then evasion will be back up there again. What will the fix be again, make it half as effective? Pathetic."

Evasion and armor increases don't occur in a vacuum. Tank dex and weapon PTH increase as well. By the time evasion on the top teams is back to where it is now, weapon PTH and DX on the top teams will be much higher.

"Evasion and armor increases don't occur in a vacuum. Tank dex and weapon PTH increase as well. By the time evasion on the top teams is back to where it is now, weapon PTH and DX on the top teams will be much higher."

So tanks win.

And as for change not needing to be complicated... I feel that THIS change (evasion) should have been a little more thought out. I remember Jon hinting at a big changemonth for evasion (or something to that effect) and the whole "2/3 as effective" bit was a little less Wow! than I was expecting.

I was hoping for a complete revamp of evasion. Maybe throw some % based reductions rather than a flat penalty. Also, reduce the number or increase upgrade curves of some of the "+ to skills items" (i.e. AoF)

The way it is now, I am really struggling to find who evasion is for now. It used to be for mages, evasion walls, RoBF users, non-BL and non-archery tanks... now it seems only viable for tanks, as they will not incur the "2/3 as effective" bit. It is horridly discouraging to spend XP in a skill that you're only getting 2/3 of what you put in.

Kill slots ftw?

While I do not mind that tanks will probably be on top again for awhile, I really am disappointed in the nature of this change.

So, on the "brass tacks" side, anyone else care to post how their fight list changed, for positive or negative? Looks like my list will lose one or two folks, mainly huge SoDs being able to hit now in ranged one (so whoever was saying biggest ranged weapons still can't hit, they can definitely hit me -- but I am far from the biggest Evasion as well). I think my fightlist was already involving plenty of non-tanks, and mageseekers already ate my lunch.

Like I said, I took one person off my list, might take off one or two more once everyone adjusts... Anyone else?

"It is horridly discouraging to spend XP in a skill that you're only getting 2/3 of what you put in. "

If you think this is concentrated to Evasion only, you are really missing the boat. My DM is completely worthless in a lot of cases. So are a lot of really large AS against me. Counter-balance is the name of the game.

This change looks good to me so far. Remember, even if you call the change simple, simple does not equate to bad. Also, I highly doubt Jonathan cares even in the slightest about giving you or anyone for that matter the "wow" experience when he makes game changes.

Nerfing the AoF was never the answer. Just look back to Rangers thread where he asked people to take it off, and those that did, it didn't change anything, and the majority that didn't, we're using it to boost UC or a Familiar.

This is a Mage/RBF Minion/Junctioned DB Familiar nerf.

Mainly the Junctioned Familiar. ;)

(As an aside, it's not changed my list at all)

Dreky, even at 2/3rds, Evasion is still pretty effective in ranged (which is what the multipliers on it were originally intended for). So I am certainly not seeing Evasion as worthless now.

The only problem as I see it now is that a very large tank with a big SoD is that much more powerful now (because those CAN hit me in the first round, killing just about my whole team). That makes me fear that boring-butt AS/HP/PL/TSA will begin to be even more of a tendency than it already is (how else are you going to fight a huge SoD that actually hits?!).

I just _know_ GL is going to answer my question with "EC". *smile*

:P

LoL! EC is cool, but there's always an A/EXBow (on a 20 STR minion!) and a RBF!

Oh and GA. ;) Make the SoD user kill themselves on massive returned damage from your AS boosted Kill slots!

But that's just evil. ;)

This makes evasion pointless for a mage to even use. I want a free retrain for my now useless skill so i can get more HP.

Training DX and Evasion to high levels along with hp/dd is far less effective then just training HP and DD on a bigger scale.

Mages should not have DX =/+ evasion that makes little sense, I disagree with how this was handled, but I agree evasion should be nerfed just not this way.

It's not useless. in any way.

It's just been directly reduced *only* for Mage/RBF types of minions, while leaving it as is for Tank and UC (Who get less 'oomph' out of it anyway).

"If you think this is concentrated to Evasion only, you are really missing the boat."

No. This IS concentrated to Evasion only. Some spells and skills can be wasted vs. certain teams. And, yes, Evasion is wasted against non-tanks. However, there is no other "2/3 as effective" penalty out there. Prove me wrong.

As for my fightlist changes. Here they are:

Pre-Evasion "Fix":

The Bridgeburners
Ofer
Bob
Suqataqus
B Ark
Flamey
The Guesstimator
Scion
Miami Vice
alisa
Christopher II

Post-Evasion "Fix":

Miami Vice
alisa
Christopher II

Bloodlust.

Archery.

Junction.

The only 'skill' left to not have this is PL.

GL, is that a response to my post?

If so, I fail to see a "2/3 as effective" in any of their descriptions.

Sorry for pumping this thread full of posts, but I'm at work (on Labor Day!) and bored as heck.

Yeah. ;)


Archery
To reach 1.0, train it to 1/5th of the Minion's strength (including Giant Strength).

Bloodlust (BL)
The maximum effect of BL can be achieved when the BL level is trained to 1/4 of the minion's strength (including strength from Giant Strength).
The maximum BL effect is (0.75).

Junction (Jct)
To get 1.0 you need to have 1/5 of your Tattoo's effective lvl in Junction.

Now for Evasion, you need to train Evasion equal to Dex to get 1.0 (or Maximum effect), otherwise you get 2/3.

Like running Archery, BL or Junction at under the stat they are linked/compared to, and getting a reduced effect.

No it's not 2/3, and no they don't need to be trained 1:1.

No GL, it's a nerf to UC as well. Whoever that has UC, will always have at least 2x UC level (including all buffs) than the dex. At some extreme, it's even 3x or 4x. And since evasion from UC follows UC level, it's effectively always reduced to 2/3 unless some one actually has a UC level equal to dex :P

Evasion is 1/3 of your UC. So to hit this, your full UC has to be over three times your Dex.

And if it is, well consider it a nudge to train some Dex on a Tank. ;)

wow

Ouch for everyone heavily invested in DBs.

Also, I wasn't expecting a double nerf, but I guess we'll see how this plays out.

guess it's time to start begging for a base ToE and disenchanting some db and NSC

MsK users don't need archery or plus to hit to hunt familiars anymore... isn't that awesome... just get an MsK up to x10000 and poof, no more familiar only teams. Guess I get my own version of the crap sandwich I told Ranger to eat. Dual damage required for anyone not using an RoBF.

At least Mikel is going to get beat down worse...

GL, evasion with Gi (like basically required) is 1/2 UC, and again AoF boosts the UC and not DX.

Also my weird team gets hit since Haste doesn't count (why?), I need little native DX here.

Just let Haste/EC count into the DX side. The main reason would be let EC dip into evasion as well.

Dreky, how the heck did you lose Suq off your list? I can still beat him, maybe lost to him once or so... Isn't your Evasion far more massive than mine?

Are you sure you truly lost all those folks, or could a tweak here and there get them back?

Ryo and GL: did Jon even say anything about how this affected UC? I missed anything of the sort.
And Evasion should be 50% of UC level, if Gi is equipped.

So I have a question: How does this affect UC-based Evasion?

Unarmed Combat 7,958,278 <---- me, currently.
DX is just under 3 mil. So does that mean I have ~3mil defensive DX with the equivalent Evasion effect, + (2/3)*500k defensive DX more? Or does any portion of UC count as "offensive DX"?

In response to my own question, my post-battle stats show 178 total evasion. According to the wiki, this means 3,559,706 effective Evasion level, which means I'm not getting the 2/3 reduction on the final 500k effective Evasion I have over my trained DX. Right?

I am n00b.

I quit math.

I am getting the 2/3 reduction on the final ~930k.

I guess this means that UC evasion is unaffected by the 2/3rds because it's already 1/2 with the CGi.

UC doesn't count, my evasion dropped from 155 to 143 on effective UC 174 (and 1.2M DX)

2,535,013 is 1/2 UC
2,062,760 is min 143 evasion

1,252,674 + (2,535,013 - 1,252,674) * 2/3 = 2,107,567 (~144 eva)

Close enough I'd say.

Oh nevermind. I hate posting slowly.

a named +14 AoF = 48% boost to evasion.

1.48*.67 = .9916 of old evasion concersion. Mages, you will find it a *lot* more difficult to block out enemy damage entirely, but Evasion is still an easy ticket to reducing blows in massive ammounts. If I would normally quad you and instead I single and double, you are getting an effective 50-75% damage reduction against tanks. Chuck on some AC and/or a ToE, and you'll be fine.

Roundabout way of removing AoF boosts, but heh...

My heavy tank is looking more and more possible with each passing day ^_^

I take the above back. I've lost a Hal team from my fightlist.

Not sure why, my personal Evasion hasn't changed ( I don't think...)

put an MsK on that heavy T and just up the x... free single and often double hits with no + or archery is toooo good to pass up

I haven't lost anyone from my fightlist, but depressingly, I haven't added anyone new to my fightlist either, and the main reason: I still can't hit em.

Nevermind, I lost a Hal team just like GL did.

Yeah, Hal got an indirect buff here, especially against DD familiars. DD familiars are still pure toast against the mage-seeker bow, while Hal hits more. Looks like I might try a re-ink!

I personally think this is a good change. Also, the Hal definitely needed a buff, and it indirectly got one, which is nice.

Nov, the heavy Tank would have low Dex, and with no PTH on wepaons that would be easily countered by a 2/3 effective Evasion.

At least that's what I hope.

Perhaps DBs should be changed back. Not that I'm biased or have any personal involvement of course. *cough*

I'm not seeing it as a problem; I think most people will know I've always been pro-evasion. But I stopped using it on my last NCB and haven't really touched it since. Can't say I've missed it. Except when I get hit by a large archer/hal damage machine.

yeah, i agree, we need a roll-back on the DBs, my personal interest being the almost +41 i've forged on my set ;)

not going to happen Bananco/JS... if Jon chose to unseat the top team with a change he's not likely to take it back...

Considering how long dbs were the way they were it would be ever so kind if some special disenchant rate or maybe allowing them into the SY somehow...

or not.

Hold on, I confused myself. I'm not in favour of DBs losing the CTH reuction. I thought that had gone from extra PTH reduction on Evasion itself.

Hmmm..

Part two says;

"but invisibility and "defensive DX" still can"

Which is cool.

But can the PTH reduction of Evasion (not the defensive DX) still reduce CTH, if it's larger than weapon PTH?

I hope not, and hope DBs are changed back to doing so. Even with some kind of penalty...

a strict reading would imply that the minus to hit of evasion carries over to it's natural level only... so if you have evasion +100 before item bonuses (and +113 after) and fight someone with a +0 weapon you'll reduce it by 100%.

I don't think that's the case, I think extra minus to hit no long effects dex period...

hi everyone thought i would put in two words. I am pretty much the largest tank with the largest ranged weapon (sod) equipped. These changes have helped me a fair bit, i can kill off mikel in 2 sometimes 3 rounds quicker than before. Ga can't stop me cause my dm is so large so someone would have to put a huge amount of exp into it and my own evasion working at 100% stops me being hit by axbow and exbows. All i can say is maybe i do have the perfect strat currently except for ftw beating me :) but also i could beat everyone before the change except for ftw so really that hasn't changed either. Not sure how u might read this or what my point is but it should fuel some off u i guess to complain, i guess we'll c.

That is because i ignore Evasion :P
There is more than one way to stop huge tank :P
Perfect? Probably not, however, i like the independence from evasion :P

Conclusion: Evasion is rather way too overrated.

interestingly my evasion is reduced from 172 to 158 in fights across the board where ec isn't invovled and yet my dx is 2x my evasion unless dx given by a toa doesn't count towards allowing evasion to function at its full level, if this is the case then the tanks training evasion will have similar problems to mages. To small a evasion won't do anything and the amount of exp required in dx will strip it from hp and st

AdminJonathan 4:14 AM EDT
Note: Haste DX does not count towards making evasion work at its full effect, only trained DX (plus armor bonuses).

Trained dex + armor bonuses... Would a ToA be considered a piece of armor? ... Hmmm...

246 evasion down to 208...

Msk's are now hitting me about once every two rounds...
Hals are hitting me in ranged first round and some of melee...

Yeah Evasion surely got nerfed

It seems very odd that the Hal would hit in melee, considering the heavy penalties that take place when it crosses into melee (bow in melee)

wow, another use for EC!

Truthfully, I don't know how much this change will affect evasion. Upperclass evasion seems to be still untouchable.

"Upperclass evasion seems to be still untouchable."

Having the 5th largest evasion in the game (which I just found out actually!) ... I am very touchable, in a non-creepy way. More like that "I shoot you and you die" kinda way.

can i just say that my toa takes up an armour slot and should be considered a piece of armour so it should grant me 100% evasion jon can u clarify the role of armour bonuses and whether a tat is considered armour or not?

clarification it was my enc limiting evasion stupid me should have seen that.

Thanks Jon... now I'm not just bait for fireball mages but all tanks too. Geeze... can't catch a break and so dies another leg of the supposed "rule of 3."

Lost my entire fight list.

LG, you are an RoS team -- I am surprised you had a fight list bigger than zero in the first place. :\ Sorry, but the RoS is not a strong thing right now (I am not a fan of that, either, and I'm a DM dealer).

Have you just tried a good ole ToE?

Perhaps, make evasion require a certain level of trained DX to be at it's full effect. Or make it similar to archery, and the amount of evasion is dictated by the DX, and the evasion is trained to merely 'activate' the evasion. More DX = Higher evasion required. Might've been brought up before, but I haven't been following all this :) On a side note, I'm posting this from my Nokia 6300 using Opera Mini! Go OPERA! --The Experience, July 27 8:36 PM EDT

This change is awesome :)

only archery requires only 1/5! STR same is for BL and for junction, you don't need to train that much!

Next requirement coming up:
PL you need at least triple the HP to make it work at full effect.

If this will work you would see many strats cry, because everyone uses it!

pizzaman you are probably the most aggresively bias person on cb when us tanks were complaining about evasion being un-hitable you just brushed it off but when the shoe is on the other foot and tanks are receiving a buff your the first to complain

ps. gratz your character has made it on my list now (thanks Jon)

lol check that character again, unequipped everything so no tall order there.

I am so glad to see this change.

I wonder if melee/missile damages will have to be changed to compensate?

Joy... just love seeing my bonus rewards go from +30% to -1% overnight. Any ideas on what I should do with my Evasion minion? PL???

Wow. I must be dreaming. Somebody pinch me.

..no, wait, don't! I think I prefer this dream.

What a beautiful change. *tear*

Just added two to my fight list and I've barely scratched the surface of the opponent pool. I think I'm going to do just fine.

Still lose to Dreky though, so I'm not sure what the problem is there. Dude, you're an RBF. How could you NOT expect your "strategy" to be hosed this month?

Please continue discussion in new thread.