AM balance?

[warhead2]

i agree 7 having dmm as a drop is not absolute necessity but i personally would like it very much, and think it would help provide better balance. just my opinion, and any1 can disagree and that's fine.
i seriously request the coders to do that mod and make it a drop, i would applaud such a thing. if not, hey i'm having fun and it's all good.

7 has a gr8 point too about am's being stuck for several waves while they r rolling things, while wm's are free to go out and have fun. another thing that balances things. during waves 1-4 an am will be rolling weapons, and a wm will be out killing and collecting his globe and triple and scoring points all that time, so it's not so bad that wm's dont start with a globe/triple, cause while they are out getting them the am's are stuck rolling stuff, so things kinda balance out.

btw scum i'm not trying to invalidate your points i think they are good points. i do think am is bit OP but my opinion is that a WM with some knowledge and practice can make up for it.
so, scum, let me clarify a few things just to make it clear what i mean and where i'm coming from, and i just hope it helps, i'm not really trying to argue you out of your view points, cause things like you say ought to be said, cause server needs feedback of community.

yes, i can run a globe and triple at same time for a long period of time, depending on situation. when i say "continuously", i don't mean wave after wave all wave long. that is not needed, nor possible, nor even desirable. and that is the strength of the WM. they can turn off and on the globe and triple at their whim and rely on vamp, while an AM has to keep them going all the time. so, whenever i feel the need to run globe and triple at same time, i do, then i turn off whichever i like when they aren't needed anymore. for example, if i come on a mob with titans, i may run globe and triple until i got all titans killed, and then turn off globe and just use triple, cause globe then isnt needed anymore and it's an unneeded drain on adren. i can keep both up for a minute or two if i need to, depending on situation. being able to turn things on and off like that means the WM can conserve adrenaline, which gives him an advantage, and this is a thing which is really hard for the AM, cause he usually has to keep both running so cant conserve as well as the WM.

and here's another thing. the AM has a huge inventory! it is a real bother to scroll through all those items to try to turn off and on the globe and triple. with the WM, he can toss what he don't like and just keep the globel and triple, and easily easisly easily switch between them and turn them on and off. ease off inventory use is another huge advantage of WM over other classes. further, WM can bind keys like E and R to artifact's use and next item commands and use those keys to easily switch around, while other classes have bloated inventories which are super hard to manage.

so for running globe and triple for a long time, it's all based on kill rate. if you keep killing, the "Double Kiiil" "Multi Killll" ect bonus's award you incredible amounts of adrenaline and I fine no trouble keeping them running even with MP5 if enough monsters are around to get those kill bonuses. you may already be aware of that but many are not. now granted not all players have this ability to kill at such a high rate. i have great aim so i have no trouble at all keep the Holy Sh## kills going all wave long at times, and as long as i do that, i can run globe and triple all the time even with mp5. this is also why the vorp +22 can indeed give you mucho XP. sure 1 xp for that kill itself, but if you use vorp to keep the Holy SH## kills going, which is easy when vorping, you get mondo adrenaline and XP.

now, what makes it even easier, is as a wm i have learned to always get the Nrg flak, and always get it maxed to +3, whether i roll it myself or get it from someone else. i always get it. i consider it required equipment, and that's just how i've chosen to play. it is easy to keep both globe and triple running when using nrg flak as long as you are good with a flak. you gotta have good aim with the flak which is a challenging weapon to use aim with on moving targets, but with practice can be mastered.

i am on server one and you are on two so maybe there is a difference there. i only played server two for a couple hours once so i don't really know how it's setup, maybe it's harder there.

so what is the disadvantage for the AM with the MP5? Simple. My WM can just use vamp/triple/mp5 and easily sustain that. Most AM's (except for real high level ones) have to keep the globe running during that time. the globe is both their stength and their weakness. i have played AM enough to know you can't run very long with globe/triple/mp5. yes you can keep it up if you keep up the Holy Sh## kills runing every second or so, but the cost of running globe is so high that eventually the kill bonus's will stop coming every second and you run out quick. because wm doesn't need to globe all the time, he can triple/mp5 much better than an AM can. advantage WM. i will state with enthusiasm the WM can use mp5 and triple a heck of a lot better than a AM can.

as far as inf weapon goes, i have maxed ammo bonus and 75% of maps seems to have an mp5 ammo dump somewhere (sometimes you gotta find it and i always aggresively search for it), so i actually prefer not to have inf mp5 most times, but rather use a petri or some such better mp5 and hit the ammo dumps when my awsume 1250 rounds run out, or switch out to another awsome weapon, so i'm ok there. this gives another advantage to the WM. while an AM is mostly stuck using inf mp5 and nrg flak, as WM can use such juicy items as the petri mp5, and doing so is going to have a huge advantage, as things like the petri are much better weapons if you have the ammo/resupply/ammo dumps to sustain them. my little beef is that low level wm's who don't have max ammo have a struggle there, so i'd like to see them have more Resupply (something like level 6, pretty please?), but still, they can make do without it, they just have to play a little smarter than the rest.

again, i think all the points are fair that are raised, i'm just trying to provide a little counter balance. server can always improve and sure it's got it's issues but it's a pretty good server, and situation in my opinion is manageable, but i wouldn't mind a few mods here and there :)

[DW_FrankyTheFly]

This whole "WMs can sustain triple and globe" thing is what's confusing me lately. I'm not calling anyone a liar, and I'm not saying this to brag, but if I'm the top scorer or near the top scorer on most games I play from wave 1 to wave 16, and I can only semi-regularly maintain triple with infinite MP5, then how in the hell do you guys do it?

With an energy flak +3 i can subtain my globe and triple like an AM with an energy flak +4 on my WM. In fact, the 10% Advance DB on the WM make the energy leaching from the energy +3 even more efficient (since the % of adren leaching from energy weps is based on damage done). Of course it's not as efficient as an energy +4 but if u compare an WM with max DB and max advance DB using an energy flak +3 VS an AM using an energy flak +3 too with max DB, the WM will defenitly get more adren.

I'm really at a loss here. Triple is about the only thing I can sustain because it gives me last-hit capability to keep adrenaline up, but it's not guaranteed to the point that I can run triple 100% of the time. When there are 15-20 people on, the odds of getting a last hit go down dramatically, meaning adrenaline goes down dramatically. If I can't sustain triple constantly with a 440% damage hitscan weapon, how on earth do you sustain triple AND globe on a WM with no adrenal drip or energy leech?

Your major problem is that you actually think you know how it works, but i can see you defenetly do not know. An AM energy leach DO NOT WORK when using an energy weapon. IT DO NOT STACK. At level 5, the energy leach is equivalent to an energy wep +2. Energy leach works on every weapon, EXCEPT THE ENERGY MODIFIER. Now guess what, Adrenaline Drip DO NOT WORK when using an artifact (no joke). The point of all this is: YOU CAN'T SUBSTAIN GLOBE AND TRIPLE WITH ENERGY LEACH AND ADRENALINE DRIP only, YOU NEED AND ENERGY WEAPON AT A MINIMUM OF +3. AND WHEN U HOLD AN ENERGY WEAPON IT CANCEL THE DRIP AND LEACH SKILL. Since EVERY CLASS (MM included) can use the energy weapons, and considering they are COPYABLE, ANYONNE CAN DO IT!

I'll paypal 10 bucks USD to any WM who can show me triple + globe sustained regularly on server 2. Completely serious about this.

My youtube video show my WM in server 1 and my WM in server 2 doing that using an energy flak +3 or an energy link +3. Now, where is my 10 bucks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWkXKL_ZXSE

Some might be but by and large it's every man for himself on server 2 and I have no problem with that

You must be joking there!? Team Work is EXTREMELLY present on server 2. I can name a tons of good players that do play their role and share weapons. Apocalypse (AM), Whine_Flu (AM and WM), MMA>Mr Dick (AM, WM and MM), Tapindat (AM), KingKans (WM, MM and AM), Urtho (WM and AM), Me (of course).... And the list can go on very far.

Classes should be relatively self-sufficient

They are relatively self-sufficient. Team works only increase each players survival (That is, if you do give survival some importance and not just give importance to the score like every others solo players that infortunatly think this is "the only way")

[Scumsberg]

Holy capslock Batman. Lots of stuff to reply to.

I had no idea adrenal drip and energy leech didn't work with energy weapons. I stand corrected.

Your video clearly shows it's possible with energy weapons which were DONATED to you via other people, but I stand by my stance that by and large it's not regularly possible by WMs alone because they have to depend on external factors (AM donations) for it to be a regular occurence. However, since you DID show it's possible (at least for a brief 5 seconds), PM me your e-mail and I'll Paypal you 10 bucks.

Edit: Note that while this video is cool, it's a compilation of 5 second (give or take) clips that don't really demonstrate this as something that can occur regularly, easily or with high sustainment. It CAN be done in the right circumstances, with the right weapons, with the right amount of monsters, but it's not something WMs are going to be known for. It's also very easy to compile your best-of clips for a video. That's why all frag videos are amazing - they can pick and choose only the best parts to display.

I don't feel this meets my criteria of "regularity" but since I already said I'd paypal you the money, I'll do it.

Perhaps in 2 years when I'm level 500+ with AM friends I'll be able to do it too. :sclapping:

Maybe there are some generous AMs on server 2, but again in well over a year of playing all my requests for a max are met with silence, so I never ask anymore much less ask for energy weapons. It's not like I'm rude or made enemies on the server either, and I always toss my weapons before suiciding. Reciprocation has never been something I've personally seen much of on server 2. The only guy who's ever given me anything since I came back a few months ago was Mr. Dick (I think, hope I'm not misremembering), and that only happened once the other day.

Edit: Today I asked for a max and Khan obliged. Hongbasi (sorry for the misspelling) also gave me a triple. Maybe AMs are more generous now than they were? Either way it's a positive development.

Anyway, warhead, as for your post, good points man, and I don't have much to argue against it. I know it was a big post but at this point I'm getting reply-exhaustion if you know what I mean, so I'll just give you a salute and hope it works for you. :salute:

[DW_FrankyTheFly]

I'm glad you finaly understand Scumberg.

You're right on this, a WM without energy weapon and without globe have less chances then an AM to survive, but that dosn't mean he can't score high. Take Corky as an example: Corky is a Medic, he never use energy weapon or resupply prism and yet he rarelly died and he even score higher then most WM or AM (between 12K or 13K). This is what i called pure talent, very few players can acheive this level of perfection. Now take Naha as another example: Naha intentionally refuse to use energy weapons on his WM, this is why he die alot, but this is his decision. Most players have this "conceptual idea stuck in their head" that energy weapons are made ONLY for AM, but THEY ARE WRONG. Wether you decide to share and accept energy weapon from other players is your own decision, but I can assure you that if you decide to do it, you wont regret it. ENERGY GUNS IS THE KEY WEAPON IN MONSTER MASH!

Another interresting thing to know about AM is that even with max adrenaline drip and max energy leach, it's impossible (or extremelly difficult) to substain globe and triple, they do need an energy gun and max DB (at least an energy flak +3). Now getting an energy gun alone (meaning no other players can give you a copy) can be really hard. I tested it myself because i wanted to know: I rolled my flak exactly 200 times in Bunker-183 to see what was the energy weapons chances. The result was 4/200. It's 2% chances only! Sometime it take 9 waves to even obtain one energy gun on my AM, some other time (if im lucky) it take 1 or 2. LUCK IS A VERY IMPORTANT FACTOR TO CONSIDER FOR THE AM CLASS.

Now you pointed that I was able to use the triple and globe for 5 sec. Well you said it yourself, this video is only small portion of others video. I can assure you that i can globe and triple with my WM for a whole wave (4 minutes non-stop) starting from wave 9 with the correct weapon set (mostly energy flak and/or link) and with the monster level bellow 100. My next video will probably be a demonstration on how a WM can play hard maps, survive if the monster level increase over 200+ and how to globe and triple a whole wave. (I will probably use AbsoluteHell, Akball or Cheapshot cavern for this, i'm still in a thinking process on witch map to use).

Oh and you can keep your 10 bucks, I was joking there LOL.

[warhead2]

hey franky tanks a lot for the info i too am learning very much here.

scum btw, exactly what is your level of adrenaline?
the wm i use for my examples has adrenaline at 325 right now, and having that much is pretty crucial, and i would say ya need at least 200 to tank regularly.

nrg weapons aside, i'll still tease you that it's possible for wm to sustain the globe/triple for a decent amount of time using non nrg like with a plain mp5. keeping the Holy Sh## announcements flowing is the key to doing that.

however, as i said, *it's not needed!*. a wm can just turn off and on the globe or triple as needed. so when i'm globing and tripling in a brown titan situation i will often just keep the globe on but turn off the triple for a second or two just to conserve adren, and then turn it back on again when i got another Brown Boy in my sights.
doing it this way you can globe and triple easily all wave long, without actually having them on continuously.

this switching in and out is a key strategy. i don't try a lot to keep them both on continuously(even though i am able to) cause i don't need to, and yet i always have both when i need them. their efficiency isn't dimished by switching them on and off, because of my keybinds i got em on demand and can triple everything in sight and always be protected from rocks, so i got no worries. and of course having that Ghost is so huge so i don't even worry about globing until I use the Ghost. so my advice is not even worry about keeping them on all the time, just make sure you are switching between them a lot and turning on/off according to need and yull do good.

anyways, total respect to you and your complaints, i think they are valid, and i hope some kind of decent decisions can be reached.

[Scumsberg]

Hey warhead, is there any way to bind specific artifacts to keys? Like a key for globe, a key for triple, etc.? Something tells me no but if there were that would be so damn convenient to try what you're suggesting.

I have 110 adren btw. I know, it's pitiful, but I have ammo and health to work on right now. All in good time!

[DW_BrainPan]

Hey warhead, is there any way to bind specific artifacts to keys? Like a key for globe, a key for triple, etc.? Something tells me no but if there were that would be so damn convenient to try what you're suggesting.

I have 110 adren btw. I know, it's pitiful, but I have ammo and health to work on right now. All in good time!

Haven't tried it myself, but there are bind instructions in this post:

http://www.clandw.org/forums/topic.html ... 304#p33304

[DW_FrankyTheFly]

As promised here is a video showing how a WM can use globe and triple for a long period of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cih_PVUWtto

[Seven_of_69]

and here's another thing. the AM has a huge inventory! it is a real bother to scroll through all those items to try to turn off and on the globe and triple. with the WM, he can toss what he don't like and just keep the globel and triple, and easily easisly easily switch between them and turn them on and off. ease off inventory use is another huge advantage of WM over other classes. further, WM can bind keys like E and R to artifact's use and next item commands and use those keys to easily switch around, while other classes have bloated inventories which are super hard to manage.

Somehow I built my WM to level 500 using just the Control key to cycle the artifacts in one direction only. :ssurprised: When I started an AM, this method seriously failed immediately! I found that switching to the mouse's scroll wheel worked well (plus I can scroll either way) and have used it ever since. Plus since I try to keep the tossable artifacts in the same order, and keep the globe as the "active/default" artifact, I know how many scroll clicks I need to switch artifacts and therefore rely less on visually selecting an artifact. Of course picking up other artifacts have occasionally caused vorpals, petris, and energies to be converted to infs or reloadings! :sdoh: But for the most part it works well.

now, what makes it even easier, is as a wm i have learned to always get the Nrg flak, and always get it maxed to +3, whether i roll it myself or get it from someone else. i always get it. i consider it required equipment, and that's just how i've chosen to play. it is easy to keep both globe and triple running when using nrg flak as long as you are good with a flak. you gotta have good aim with the flak which is a challenging weapon to use aim with on moving targets, but with practice can be mastered.

One of my WM strategies is to try to get a petri/freezing flak early on, copy an energy flak when (if?) it becomes available, but immediately pick up my petri/freezing flak after tossing the energy copy back to its owner. I'll then use the more powerful petri/freezing for most of the game until I can no longer keep a globe and triple going without energy, so by the end of wave 10 I'll toss the petri/freezing flak and pickup an energy flak to be ready for wave 11. Btw if my AM has petri/freezing flak, I'll use it right to the end and not even bother pickup up an energy flak. Of course that's a benefit of having lots of ammo bonus. :sbigsmile:

... because wm doesn't need to globe all the time, he can triple/mp5 much better than an AM can. advantage WM. i will state with enthusiasm the WM can use mp5 and triple a heck of a lot better than a AM can.

I disagree, but opinions only matter to their owner. :stongue: :swink:

... my little beef is that low level wm's who don't have max ammo have a struggle there, so i'd like to see them have more Resupply (something like level 6, pretty please?)....

Oh please, hell no! :sdull: Resupply level 4 is plenty. No WM or (AM) with resupply 4 can possibly run out of ammo amongst all their weapons. And if they are struggling, that's part of what being a low level is all about - it's not going to be easy if you build your character wrong and/or use sub optimal strategies. Also, after level 100, neither AMs nor WMs should be able to use infs. They're not necessary at any level but it does give the lower levels a break. But after a few dozen levels, they shouldn't need infs at all. I would hope that anything past resupply 4 would eliminate infs completely. Hmmm, maybe resupply 6 wouldn't be so bad after all. :scool:

I have 110 adren btw. I know, it's pitiful, but I have ammo and health to work on right now. All in good time!

No wonder you're struggling to run both a globe and triple at the same time! You need a lot more than 100-ish adren, IMO minimum 200 though 150 is possible with diligent toggling of globe/triple as necessary. Also FYI when I built my WM, I maxed ammo bonus and adren before health. Reason? Ammo and adren bonus with globe and energy weapons keep you alive better than lots of health but no means to sustain a globe. :swink:

[warhead2]

interesting post about the binds. so, we will have to try the commands "SelectGlobe" and "SelectTriple". Would be cool if they work. So to bind G to select globe, for example, you would do something like set input g SelectGlobe. I will have to try this, it would help my MM and AM mucho grando. For my WM, just scrolling thru my small inventory will continue to work well.

yup i agree your 110 adren is totally the reason you are having trouble. you will find it much easier when you get it to 200 and above.

nice tips 7 and thanks. btw i have done the math and resupply level 6 would not make weapons like mp5 or link anywhere close to inf, it's just a better resupply rate which i hardly say "hell yea" to. inf's btw are always fun and often useful no matter what your level, so even wid my hi lvl wm i use em time to time. i don't really care if i "need" one, sometime it's just plain fun, other times depending on situation i can increase my kill rate with one, and the more i kill, the more fun i'm having(morbid guy, huh?), and i play for fun. btw i'm having a blast with this server. fun stuff.