GA rant. Oh noes! (in General)

"The reason I don't like GA is that it requires DM to break it. There is no possible other way to get around it, other than a sheer brute force approach (which even I can't do).

Nothing in CB should REQUIRE something else to beat it. For example, how would you feel it you REQUIRED amf to beat mages. It cuts down on strat options and overall isn't balanced. How would you feel if you REQUIRED evasion to beat tanks. As in you could not beat tanks without fitting evasion in your strat. Not balanced right?

GA has one and only one even cost efficient way to beat it. That is because GA has not been rescaled to the damage nerf so the cap isn't practical to break.

And to add insult to injury, DM is a very limiting EO. If you train DM you can't (unless you have an RoS) train AMF or EC. For a strat like mine, I need AMF to stop decay. For a strat like yours, you might want the option of training AMF, I dunno, I'm sure you like options.

To prove my point, prior to the junction nerf, I had 15 MILLION hp on my IF. And it still fried itself from GA. I changed to SG (I have an 8.5 million tattoo + big AoF) GA still fried me. I know every strat has a weakness, but should every non DM strat be super weak to GA? Cause if I can't break it, you probably can't. Should a large DM investment become a necessity?"

I'm reposting it so I don't have to repeat myself.

For more information, Edyit has over 30 million hp. If you don't have DM you are forced to take 60% of that. How many of you have 18 million hp on your damage dealer? Maybe you have AC, but evidence shows less reduction.

RoBF will get you past the GA I do admit that. So just make sure you're not a tank or a mage. Yeah, that's fair.

I don't have dm.

Multiple damage dealers might work

Well, you're not fighting edyit. And how would multiple damage dealers help?

Didn't know Edyit is retired. But my point stands. 30+ HP with GA = win. No it's not hard, Edyit did it with about 3.5 mil MPR.

I was able to beat edy before he retired, and NWO is just as dangerous

Anarchy cast Ablative Shield on all friendly Minions (2382478)

Naw, it's not the same.

Single Minion (F) (+) (The Innocent) NWO (Hell Blenders) NWO 11 1:54 AM EDT

Seems to work out pretty much the same.

GA is survivable, it's the secondary damage that lets you get killed.
MM and FB do an incredible job cleaning up after GA.

But what does it prove? Of course I can survive a few rounds, I have the biggest AS in the game. GA will not do more damage than I deal to it.

Actually armor works pretty good against GA and you can always use VA which owns GA easily.

This debate isn't really about me. I have an IF, I expect to lose to GA. But when I switch to SG I expect to do better. It's just that I've been running strats in my head like crazy, multiminion strats. And it annoys me that they require DM.

secondary damage? I move the familiar to the front so my enchanter can take the ranged damage when I hit this wall.


Splice's familiar's Cone of Cold hit Noise [705097], Riot [697152], Chaos [680276], Chaos's familiar [1022757], Anarchy [540843]
Noise's Guardian Angel smote Splice's familiar (423058)
Riot's Guardian Angel smote Splice's familiar (418291)
Chaos's Guardian Angel smote Splice's familiar (408165)
Chaos's familiar's Guardian Angel smote Splice's familiar (613654)
Anarchy's Guardian Angel smote Splice's familiar (324505)

i should point out that having the biggest AS in the game is nthing when you only have an effective 50% casted on your familiar... take 100% of your AS and cut it in half and then tell me where you stand amongst the AS rankings

1 more point how the heck is SG supposed to do better against GA then COC? its basically damage.... unless SG because of its concentration breaks the cap on the GA of course.... however SG IS better then COC against AMF

Yeah, generally I expect GA's cap to be broken eventually with enough investment. I mean, isn't that the point?

Lost what point are you making when you say that his largest ablative in the game is worth nothing? His familiar is nearly as large as it can get and has the most hp hands down to try and survive retaliation damage, I would say he's the most relevant example.
Not to mention that being single minion here helps the most since getting multiple minions would just split up his hp making him more vulnerable to retaliation damage.

1 minion with AS vs 4 minions with AS... 1minion gets pwned.... thats the way of the AS and so duh... dont understand what you are trying to say here

if he had 4 minions as he would have less hp on that char than he does now..., more hp overall but less on the familiar, which is the minion in question.

my meaning is... if you want to complain about something at least look at the real reason for it... in this case AS effect on multiple minion + GA

DM and ROBF totally destroys these kind of strats... you dont even have to be the same size as the opponent... (way smaller actually)

all im saying that if i just used trained HP + GA you would find that you can easily have more HP then me... in the sense of

HP + GA
100k HP + 250k GA = 60k damage
total lvls spent 350k

HP + spell
60k HP + 268,432 SG = 100k damage

total lvls spent 328k the remaining 22k lvls put into HP or more SG so that you break the cap alittle

You're missing a big point. A point that has already been mentioned. Twice.


The reason that GA is so powerful is that deals the damage directly to the damage dealer. That means you need lots of Hp on your MAIN DAMAGE DEALER beat a GA team. Notice I did not say your entire team. They are different things. Having more Hp on your enchanters will not help your main damage dealer survive.

Now if you look at my team, prior to the AoJ change. I had 17 million HP ON MY MAIN DAMAGE DEALER. I would like to point out that this is not normal. In fact, this is very above average. In fact, I had about 30 million effective levels of HP and DD on my familiar (about 5 million MPR worth). Tell me that's not efficient.

Now is the important part. I still died. 17 million HP still loses to GA.

Now you suggest a better way to get that much HP on a minion that is a damage dealer, please suggest it. It is impossible for a 4 minion team to have that much hp, ON THE DAMAGE DEALER. Not the whole team.

Now, from the above statements, I can assume that most teams aren't willing or able to get that much HP on their DAMAGE DEALER. If there is a way, please suggest it now.

spread out the damage dealing amongst more minions use AS and dont bother about the CAP... because it doesnt matter how much damage you do just how much HP you have

That will work if they have no damage dealer in return. So if you're facing a pure AS, GA team you're good. Of course, if they actually try to hurt you...or maybe cast an EO, you're in a bad place.

This also assumes you're not using a big damage source.

This actually makes no sense.

every spell they cast or use takes away HP... which you can use in the same way...

Ok I don't understand anymore.

Anyway, I would like to point out that my familiar had a decent amount of HP. If you don't think 17 million is alot, you surely can concede that it's better than average. (Though against a EEEEF team, a huge EF team would do better than an EEEE team because the familiar would pick off the enchanters reducing effectiveness. Also note, without an familiar it is unlikely that the other team would have anywhere near the total effective levels in terms of damage and HP.)

I had a lot of HP on my familiar, it was more than most. It lost to GA because of it's inability to break the cap. Since I have more HP than most and deal more damage than most I can conclude that most people with less HP or less damage would lose to such a team without DM.

doesnt matter i guess :) choose your sides... look at the numbers...

personally i rather GA gets nerfed than AS getting nerfed and as i was saying... the only reasons you are having problems with GA is AS... show me 1 team that uses GA that doesnt use AS that you have problems with

"Nothing in CB should REQUIRE something else to beat it. For example, how would you feel it you REQUIRED amf to beat mages. It cuts down on strat options and overall isn't balanced. How would you feel if you REQUIRED evasion to beat tanks. As in you could not beat tanks without fitting evasion in your strat. Not balanced right?"

This is exactly how CB works. Something trumps something else. GA in this regards is fine.

You need AMF to beat Mages. You need Evasion to beat PTH.

Just as Magic Damage also has items as well as skills to reduce it (MGS, RoBF, etc), GA also does.

GA backlash Damage is reduced by AC. So run a Heavy Tank (or use a RoBF) if you want your design to counter GA without using DM.

"GA has one and only one even cost efficient way to beat it. That is because GA has not been rescaled to the damage nerf so the cap isn't practical to break."

Now this is why GA (and PL) need to be adjusted. Damage, which GA effectiveness is based off) got reduced, but GA effectiveness didn't.

In essence making everyone's trained GA that much bigger.

actually GA + RoS is almost impossible to beat without using lots and lots of MPR.

I'd just like to say. If there are ways to plain beat a GA team without DM, what is the point of training GA if you're going to get owned so quickly and they don't even train DM?

PK, I have a RoS and GA, I still get beaten fairly easily.

"I'd just like to say. If there are ways to plain beat a GA team without DM, what is the point of training GA if you're going to get owned so quickly and they don't even train DM?"

Don't face a Heavy AC Tank.

It's like not facing a massive DB/Evasion character as a Tank. Or a 4 minion multiple MGS team as a FB mage.

The AMF/GA combo is a huge killer for DD teams.

Why should one spell get double punished?
I like to see AMF only or GA only for DD.

GA damage is rather reducible by AC. It's just that some mages choose NOT to have high AC. We know that they can get to 200 easily? Also NSC + AC + DM should keep a mage alive against AMF/GA. But then again it is rock paper scissors, mages aren't supposed to beat those teams..

Also, GL: I meant in regards to the original post. He wants a way other than DM/RoBF/AC to get rid of GA. It'd then make GA pretty redundant don't you think?

I'd probably be in favour of an expensive ability (or item) that only reduced GA returned damage and nothing else.

As DM and AC are both general reductions and not GA specific.

"Now this is why GA (and PL) need to be adjusted. Damage, which GA effectiveness is based off) got reduced, but GA effectiveness didn't.

In essence making everyone's trained GA that much bigger."

Precisely. These have needed to be readjusted for quite some time.
GA has especially been broken.
I don't think there should be another way around GA besides DM or breaking the cap, however. If GA (along with PL) is rescaled, I think the current problems will be solved and the game will be more balanced.

I agree the SCALE of GA and PL are off.

In the past one could break through the GA cap and take less then 60% damage.

However, with the rescaling of damage, this is now almost impossible.

I have not read all the posts but there is another method of defeating GA--using a MH and BTh with VA.

True it is not a mage way, however it is yet another aside from DM. Even the MH or BTh without VA helps considerably. It is how I was able to defeat NWO with Koy.

Something you may want to try is a base decay on your enchanter. This along with the NSC's will help do some damage to those high HP minions in front. Yes, your enchanter may die quicker via AMF backlash and GA, however, you cannot solve every problem.

PL is definitely off i mean like seriously 1.6 damage -> 1 lvl ?
but GA is 0.444 damage - > 1 lvl not bad but not really good either

however i have yet to understand the obsession with breaking the GA cap

my problem with GA is that on an RoS team you need a crazy amount of DM just to reduce the level of GA. I learned recently that having say 2M lvls of DM against an ROS GA of 3M will do virtually nothing to reduce it's effect.

that seems a little unfair to me especially given the reduced effect vs lvl of DM

so pray tell me what should GA maximum effect be at?

for an ROS to give 3mill worth of GA it has to be 6mill in size... at 6mill in size it protects against 40% which is 2.4mill worth of DM...

If you "break" the GA cap the % of damage done back to you is less.

Right now you need 2.5 times the blow to do the max of 60% retaliation damage.

However, if you can do more damage so that the GA level is only 1.5x or even less, you will take much less then the 60% retaliation.

That is the current problem.

With damage going down due to rescales, GA levels have been stable. Leading to more 60% damages.

About the ROS, it is fine as it is. Since they are using the ROS, they have to find another method of doing damage since they are not using a familiar, RBF, or TOA(E).

As stated above, there are a few ways of dealing with GA. One has to be a bit creative though since they can be quite a pain.

Right now I have:

DM
VA
Leech melee weapon
decay with NSC on other minions
RBF

So it appears there is more than 1 way to deal with it.

i know the return damage is less... but i dont know... i think GA is weak enough as it is... and like GA it gets pwned by DM if you dont use ROS lol

"actually GA + RoS is almost impossible to beat without using lots and lots of MPR"

incredibly untrue - chaosal was farming sage for a while, being almost 1 mil MPR lower!

Double post :X

And you are beating me (PK is that your name) and I have 300k MPR on you

my problem with GA is that on an RoS team you need a crazy amount of DM just to reduce the level of GA. I learned recently that having say 2M lvls of DM against an ROS GA of 3M will do virtually nothing to reduce it's effect.

that seems a little unfair to me especially given the reduced effect vs lvl of DM,

You're seriously going to say it's unfair? It's the paper rock scissors. The RoS' effect is to really dispel DM. Without that, the RoS is pretty useless might I add..

Flamey,

I agree, the ROS is great to help protect your ED spells.

I even believe it still is a bit weak compared to other tattoos/familiars. Except of course the TOE.

buckled my post :/ but is GA really OP, I know it never got scaled, but I never saw anyone complaining of it before and I'm not exactly dominating anyone.

GA is quite powerful.

However, there are numerous ways to deal with it.

It is something one seriously has to consider when developing a strategy. Just like dealing with decay or evasion etc...

Heh, I'm beating Sage, and I have even less MPR than Chaosal. I think it's because of his RoBF, not so much GA.

In saying that, maybe that's why it never got nerfed? There are so many ways to reduce it. So if its not dispelled, it's near nothing anyway?

When I was running The Prestige last summer I had the number 7 GA, (it's number 10 now). It was powerful, but it wasn't a deciding factor in battles.

A decent DM killed it. And actually something like a mageseeker (coupled with DM) actually worked against my GA, because it was lesser damage, so the GA output was lesser and the opponent could actually last through to take me down.

If GA beats you I say "Tough", because of the rock paper scissors thing...

GA is indeed countered by DM fairly well. But when you add RoS into the mix, things change. When I ran my last NCB, my strat was basically completely reliant on AS, GA, and the RoS. I don't believe I ever had any of my ED's touched a single time by a single enemy DM for the entire duration of my NCB, and that was my first NCB run, which means my tat was being grown from lvl 20.

Basically, if you use GA without a RoS, it's a pretty balanced and effective spell. If you use GA WITH a RoS, you better have the right strat to work around it, because it's not going anywhere.

If you *fight someone using* GA WITH a RoS

GA is a classic Rock/Papper/Scissors type of spell.

To count on it casting one needs a RoS, which makes you need a primary damage source not a familar or ToA.

If you use a familiar and GA, then you run the risk of it being dispelled via DM.

But... If it does cast successfully, you do quite a bit of damage to their damage dealing minions.

I think this is one well designed part of CB.

In fact, I think the RoS does not give enough DM protection. I would like to see it boosted to 50%. But that has been my opinion for a long time.

So everyone pretty much believes that mages aren't meant to break the GA cap?

That's the issue I have, I've always felt the cap was there for a reason.


And for those whom for some reason believe 60% retaliation is a little. It really isn't. Since it's proportional to the amount of HP you have, and more importantly runs past your defenses and straight to your damage dealer, it really is a lot in practice.

Actually 3/4ths mages are more likely to break the cap then tanks are.

The highest blow I see with tanks now are 2-3M. However, I see 8-10M damage from some IF's out there.

As I stated, there are at least 5 ways to counter GA damage. Aside from the standard method of just more HP.

O.o 10 million on IFs? That's centralized against one minion. So these are the ways to get past GA

1. Very Heavy AC on the damage dealer (if you're a tank)
2. DM
3. VA? (If you're a tank)
4. ridiculous brute force of HP on damage dealer (not likely)

I guess being a mage is really my problem. Oh well.

SG will probably be better versus GA against 4/5 and maybe 3 minion teams teams as the splitting hurts CoC's ability to reduce the % returned.

It sounds to me as though you are thinking of some great strat but then think what about GA, it will kill me, well welcome to CB it is tough to beat everything. The GA you complain about is just wasted xp versus some DM/RoBF teams.

If you are dead set on playing a mage and using AMF, well certainly GA is going to be a problem for you.

And perhaps hiring another minion or 2 may help as well with more AS.

Have you tried using a base decay on your enchanter to help suck some GA damage away from your familiar?

"Heh, I'm beating Sage, and I have even less MPR than Chaosal. I think it's because of his RoBF, not so much GA."

@Marlfox - thats the thing, GA is easily countered by an RoBF team.

I wouldn't go so far as easily. GA teams always have another damage source.

If you only have RoBF as your damage source you still need to get past 4-5 minions of kill slots and what not. That's a lot of rounds.

yes, but most of all RBF teams are very defensive ones.

That is a lot of AC, AMF and hp.

My point is that the RoBF counters GA isn't nearly as true as how GA counters mages without DM.

The GA team still has options. The mage not so much.

perfect example Lead Balloon or my NCB strat

^ decay?

With no form of AMF or retribution damage, decay and small DD could whittle you down.

Why did I say that? It was just bothering me. Now back to the discussion.

actually untraining your hp, would solve that problem.

Or he could just train a 100k AMF to deal with most decays.

now why would i untrain my HP??
don't i need it to live?

ranger my MgS's nullify the AMF any who

I am certain WS has more than enough 100% CB opponents not to have to bother with decay opponents at this time.

Later, however, AMF will be essential.

I agree.

But by untraining your HP decay will only deal 10 damage do your main minion which would be PLed away. Since your RoBF damage is immune to retribution damage it doesn't need HP as long as you contain everything in your PL.

Otherwise decay will hit you for more and you'll take more overall damage.

bah im not worried about decay, however MoD ignores PL so i am very much worried about it.

GA Killers:

Dispel Magic
Vampiric Aura
Trollskin Armor
Morgul Hammer/Blade of Thuringwethil
High AC
Endurance (ToE) or RoBF, depending on your damage source, as GA returns damage in the same type as it was delivered


That's a rather long list of options, don't you think?

Lets add more, please. GA is supposed to be redundant..

How bout just a small nerf to return it to scale. As it stands right now, GA is a very cheap investment. That's all I'm asking a little rescale.

GA Killers:

Dispel Magic
Vampiric Aura
Trollskin Armor
Morgul Hammer/Blade of Thuringwethil
High AC
Endurance (ToE) or RoBF, depending on your damage source, as GA returns damage in the same type as it was delivered

DM don't really work that well against GA strangely enough. You need enough DM to kill GA and not too much to waste your MPR so the other stuff kills you, which means you have a very narrow range of targets you can actually kill. VA on the other hand makes GA look really pathetic. TSA probably won't work too well, because you need to have enough damage to kill non-GA teams and not so much damage so that GA kills you too quick. AC and ToE/RBF probably wouldn't work either. The prevention is quiet small if any.

Conclusion: The only effective counter against AC is some sort of VA, which implies tank, and DM is ok against 4 ED teams, but not good against GA on its own.

DM does work well against GA just like any other spell. A DM effect of 100k reduces my 300k GA down to 200k, and you hit me for 100k. Normally that'd be 60% but that's reduced to below 60% isnt it? That's just DM. No one says AC is tanks only, you just have to sacrifice a poor DD bonus for a ton of AC, see OB.

I think the main issue with GA is that it's a minimal investment. CB is supposed to be about choice; you should have to give up something in order to train it. In this case, GA costs so little to be at maximal effectiveness that you can easily take down teams without DM with minimal experience expenditure, sacrificing maybe 2-3M levels.

^ thank you! I've been arguing that GA is unable to be overpowered. When I mean nerf, I mean more exp required to return that 60% percent.

That's why I pointed to my strat. And said that since I was unable to overpower it through straight HP and DD no one can.


Now, GA Killers?

GA Killers:

Dispel Magic: yes it's a GA killer, the most cost efficient one. the only one.
Vampiric Aura: Assuming they don't dispel it. It'll help alot. Otherwise...
Trollskin Armor: how is this a GA killer? By equipping TSA are you immune to GA? Not really....
Morgul Hammer/Blade of Thuringwethil: This does help. But again, is it a GA killer? If I went tank and with a huge MH does it counter? Note that mages do not have this option
High AC: Evidence shows that GA damage isn't reduces by ACs full amount. But AC does help. If you were a heavy tank, you might stand a chance.
Endurance (ToE) or RoBF, depending on your damage source, as GA returns damage in the same type as it was delivered : Erm sure? Never heard of this one.

Note that I am asking for GA's damage cap to be reduced. It should be someone proportional to the damage nerf we had a few months ago.

Note that none of the above statements ever refer to the cap easy to break.

So I guess the real question is. Should GA's cap be broken? Is GA's damage significant? So if GA's damage significant and it's effect significant shouldn't it require an equal amount of investment?

crying i want tanks and archers and every one not using my strat to pretty please get nurfed cause they beat me and thats not fair cry cry cry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh wait if it is so all promiseing they could do it too???????? quit crying and start startagizing you whiners whimper :( :( whimper get over yourselfs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is so sad when youlosecause you arnt smart about this game if you where you would have used GA cause it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good losers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

at least I'm not the one getting a forum ban.

I know seriously stop whining. If they want to put all their xp into GA then that's there choice it's also your choice to not fight that person, unless of course they fight you.

Have you been reading the thread at all? I'm annoyed that people aren't putting all their exp into GA or at least a significant amount of it to reach maximum effect.

sorry i am glad you guys are reasonalble :)

GA wrecks me to:( And i feel the damage should PL to my other guy, but it doesn't. I don't get that.

lets see... 4minions

100k 100k 100k 100k = 400k damage from FB

would require
FB 0.078333333*5 = 0.39166665
0.39166665 damage per lvl
400k damage => 1,021,276.6392032612426919677741263
0.6 x 400k = 240k
1,261,276 total lvls to deal 400k damage to a 4minion team using GA

in 1 round

to deal 240k damage with GA you would need
400k HP(over 4 minions) + 1mill GA
1.4mill total lvls to deal 240k -.-

i still dont see why GA is broken im afraid...

ets see... 4minions

100k 100k 100k 100k = 400k damage from FB

would require
FB 0.078333333*5 = 0.39166665
0.39166665 damage per lvl
400k damage => 1,021,276.6392032612426919677741263
0.6 x 400k = 240k
1,261,276 total lvls to deal 400k damage to a 4minion team using GA

in 1 round

to deal 240k damage with GA you would need
400k HP(over 4 minions) + 250k GA
650k total lvls to deal 240k

1.261mill vs 650k
ratio of 1 to 0.51
GA IS better then FB at dealing damage (only if vs a multiple minion team)

multihits work the same way too BTW

still think theres nothing seriously wrong considering the way that DM kills ED on multiminion teams

DM is sick...

I like GA the way it is :) usually it is much weaker than the common AMF I get hit with. And at least it can be lowered with DM, unlike AMF or Evasion. And in most cases it is the weakest damage dealer on my team.

Let's also not forget how well DM stacks against it. That, in my opinion, is one of DM's greatest strengths. Yes, it is a tough choice at times, but once embraced, it is quite the stuff!