Make our Monster!!!

[lessigfan]

Ok, we've got 200hp, 20 spirit, and 1000 gold. We can buy any of a mess of charms (see below) and any of 3 special items. The items:

• First Strike: Your monster will always act first in a fight;
  
• Premeditation: Your monster's gear will not be shuffled, it will come out in the same order as it was filled in the gear interface;
  
• Spirituality: This duplicate once all the charm in your deck. This item can be used multiple times.

The premeditation option seems like it'd be essential, and really complicates the strategy. We'll have to think carefully about this.

Here are the charms:

[Tabernacle]

My initial reaction would be an affliction/spin spirit deck

[lessigfan]

I like the spirit idea (I'm an inq, what can I say?), but the spirit charms are lousy, even with the + ongoing spirit. But I like your idea Tab, spin/afflictions seem like they may work. 5x affliction, 5x spin, some purges (or blurs/fades), and 5x wall/barrier/harden, of course with premeditation, and spirituality?

Maybe something like this, repeated once via spirituality:
harden
affliction
harden
affliction
purge
harden
affliction
harden
affliction
purge
harden
affliction
barrier
spin [so 5x afflictions are on]
barrier
spin [if they're not exhausted now, the EAs will have killed us]
We only have 200 hp, so I don't know now well we can do, even with armor/ward. What about Titan?


Alternately, we could probably do a pretty mean melee deck. 5x of ongoing buff, doublehit, purge/debuff, strong blow, 2 spirituality, one mediation. And that grey eye looks like a winner if we're doing a melee/magic monster, maybe just one or two of them mixed in.

Also, since we've got OOFM & OOBM, we get two shots at this. May as well diversify our strategy.

Thoughts?

[Tabernacle]

Though a titan, steal weapon, double claw deck might work well also.
Titan (85), Titan (85), Soul Shield (80), Barrier (50), Steal Weapon (35), Strong Blow (30), Double Claw (35), Spirituality (100) x 6

Total cost 1000

That gives us 42 charms, 1200 life gain every 7 rounds, a huge influx of willpower (18 + 6 cumulative every 7 rounds), melee steal (with a curse that gives ongoing to the opponent) a double hit and a big normal hit.

I think the only way to beat this thing is with crazy good spirit (maybe) or with tanking with negative ongoing to yourself.

We could maybe get away with only 1 titan as well and swap in more double hits

Titan, Soul Shield, Barrier, Steal Weapon, Double Claw x 4 Spirituality x 6 (cost 990)

[Tabernacle]

The problem with that spin deck is that it'll be really easy to spirit. I think the second deck I proposed is probably a lot nastier.

[Tabernacle]

The magic steal route might work as well.
Titan, Infusion, spell steal, strong blast, spirituality x 8
Only 32 charms, but it'll put out hurt like you wouldn't believe. Might be weak to spirit, but it'll have 16 cumulative willpower and have 120 + damage charms right off the bat. On average, it'll do 200 (or more) damage every 4 charms.

[lessigfan]

Ok, I made a little simulator for the three strategies we've discussed: magic cpb, melee cpb, and ea spirit. Take a look & tinker with the spreadsheet here: http://www.box.net/shared/didn895ly2 . Here are my conclusions.

Magic: Titan, Infusion, Spellsteal, Strong Blast, repeated 7 times (you need 100 gold for premeditation). This produces an impressive average 129 damage/round over 32 turns, won't run out of hp, but it is vulnerable to spirit. With only 32 charms and 16 cumul will, an enemy doing 3 spirit per round will knock us out in 10 rounds, and we'll have done 668 damage. Weakness to spirit isn't a terrible trade-off, given the monster would be invulnerable to CPB magic and melee decks, and really tough for aura/proj decks, but something that may merit some tinkering with the deck.

Melee: Titan, Titan, Soulshield, Steal Weapon, Strong Blow, Doubleclaw, repeated 5 times. This produces a nice 98.5 damage/round, won't run out of HP, and is very resistant to spirit damage. With 36 charms, soulshield and strong blows will make this monster almost entirely protected from spirit attacks that average 3/round, and the monster will have done 2248 damage at exhaustion. Swapping out a titan for another double claw bumps up the damage/round to 103.3, but makes the deck vulnerable to CPB magic strategies.

Spirit: wall, affliction, barrier, affliction, purge, barrier, affliction, harden, affliction, purge, affliction, barrier, spin, wall, spin, not repeated. This deck looks like a nice setup, but I've rejiggered it a few ways, and unless someone else can finds a better mechanic or sequence, this one is a loser. With only 15 charms and only modest willpower, it is easy to spirit. Without titans, even with all that armor/ward, it'll be dead by round 10, before the major spirit attack procs; with titan(s) the monster dies even faster, even with two purges. If the monster can survive until the first spin, an opponent with 60 spirit and no willpower still survives until the next spin.

If I was trying to beat the magic monster, I'd have to go with spirit & cleanse or purge if I had it - I can't imagine direct damage, damage over time, summons, aura/proj, and debuffs would beat this deck. If I wanted to beat the melee deck, I'd do purge if I had it, I might try for spirit, and ongoing melee debuffs & cleanse might do it. I don't think anything else would. The spirit deck & variants would be easy to beat with big cpb damage, decent spirit, high pierce damage, or just about anything.

I like both the magic & melee with 2 titans setups. I think we should go for them with OOFM/OOBM unless/until someone comes up with a better strategy.

[MeDeFe]

Should we consider shortening the deck by one spirituality for another 600 life? Base life is only 300 but each unspent gold gives another 6. I'm not sure Titan heals the monster from 300/300 to 900/300. Or do I misunderstand the "gain life" effect? Can it push you above your maximum amount of hitpoints?

Scratch that, I went digging on the Estiah forum and found the answer.

[Xyel]

---edit---
nvm, Iv read the setup

[MeDeFe]

Base HP for the monster is 300, not 200. Unspent gold is converted to HP at a rate of 1 to 6, meaning one unspent gold increases the monsters life by 6.
All players will have 800 HP and 60 Spirit. Players will get a set of random charms chosen from a pre-defined pool, probably according to the same rules as during the 25th contest, that would mean you get 160 charms to build your deck with.

Sauce: http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=5497.msg72664#msg72664
http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=5243.0

[Xyel]

since people will have random charms, it means they will have a hard time stopping 1-specific-weakness monster, like

affliction
soul shield
titan
titan
affliction
barrier
affliction
purge
affliction
spin
spin

with all 3 specials

could be very effective (Im not sure on where to put the purge. It needs to be there close to the spins, but not too far so we dont take too much damage beforehand. There is no way anyone can make good summons or auras with random charms, purge + 2x titan should handle any cpb, affliction makes sure people cant abuse the titan downside. Its weak to a precise combination of spirit, willpower and cleanse, but most people wont get that with random charms.

Or if this ""Unspent gold is converted to HP at a rate of 1 to 6"" is true, then
strong blast
strong blast
infusion
infusion
absorb

premediation
first strike
5x spirituality
has +1260HP for unspent gold

this should be fairly invincible for any physical type of damage - you just cant hack your way through a monster that has double your HP, does modifier steal every 5 charms and huge increasing DPS - , might be a tiny bit weak to strong spirit but with random charms people shouldnt really have that. It could probably go with 1 more spirituality for -300 HP as 1260 total health could suffice with absorb being every 5th charm. Maybe even 1 less, because this deals 944 magic damage in 9 charms with 4 cumul will, absorb and highly increasing damage curve...

[Street Sweeper Arias]

I am following this with great interest.

[lessigfan]

That's great info Medefe, I don't know how I missed it. I've updated the spreadsheet with the new health information and spirit information. The link is the same as before, so take another look, and if you have problems downloading it, let me know and I can email you a copy. The extra health doesn't make a big difference with the melee or magic decks, except the second melee deck lasts a bit longer against magic cpb, enough to do 1820 damage which ought to be enough.

The increased monster HP does make the spirit decks dramatically better against melee/magic opponents - enough to make enemy exhaustion occur +/- 1 turn of the monster losing all HP. So it is closer, but they're still not great decks. They're not any better against other spirit opponents obviously. Also, since opponents will have decks cobbled together from whatever they pull, they probably won't have many EAs, and the spirit decks will underperform.

Xyel's spirit monster: pretty much holds up against any type of melee/magic damage, and can do 60+ spirit damage by the second spin, when it still has plenty of HP. It lasts 11 rounds against a spirit opponent doing an average of 3 spirit/round, but it needs to last 13 rounds to win, so it is still weak against spirit. Strong against melee/magic, weak against spirit, but better than previous spirit deck designs.

Xyel's magic monster (swapping mirror for absorb). Against a melee CPB deck, the deck lasts 12 rounds and does 1212 total damage in that time, reduced by whatever ward the opponent wears, probably a close win. Against spirit, the deck lasts 10 rounds and does 908 total damage, which may not be enough given any enemy ward will reduce this amount. Against magic CPB, the deck lasts 18 rounds and does 2128 damage in that time, more than enough to wipe out anyone. This is a slight improvement on the original design - less HP, but quite a bit more damage before exhaustion against a spirit opponent.

I think the strongest deck is one of the melee decks. The next strongest is probably xyel's magic deck, or maybe xyel's spirit deck.

Speaking of which, does anyone know if steal weapon & spellsteal affect ongoing damage modifiers or just next damage modifiers? If just next, we'd need to use mirror is needed to do that.

[MeDeFe]

I assume Steal Weapon and Spellsteal are exactly what it says on the tin, "melee damage modifiers" and "magic damage modifiers", both +next and ongoing, both positive and negative.
Mirror only specifies "ongoing", so I suppose that one steals both magic, melee and spirit damage modifiers.

If Absorb really steals all damage modifiers that one might be the best choice for Xyel's magic monster despite the higher cost since it should also steal any +next spirit spirit modifers as well as completely mess up a melee cpb deck. I think +next spirit is more likely to be used than +ongoing spirit.

[Xyel]

Xyel's magic monster (swapping mirror for absorb). Against a melee CPB deck, the deck lasts 12 rounds and does 1212 total damage in that time, reduced by whatever ward the opponent wears, probably a close win.

+

Against magic CPB, the deck lasts 18 rounds and does 2128 damage in that time, more than enough to wipe out anyone.

How the hell does this happen? Absorb steals all melee/magic modifiers so just from this pow the killing time of the opponents deck should be exactly the same in both cases. Reality wise, melee is a lot more dependant on +ongoing while having less dmg/charm in default damage, so actually melee should take the longest time to kill it.

Anyways, if there is some mistake in the melee calculation, then the gear should do enough overkill vs melee/magic that it could afford to put in 1 more strong blast into the sequence at the cost of 180 HP, making it completely destroy any spirit (+ 6 spirit, +2 will in the sequence, less frequent absorb) at not-so-high cost in other matches.

Speaking of which, does anyone know if steal weapon & spellsteal affect ongoing damage modifiers or just next damage modifiers? If just next, we'd need to use mirror is needed to do that.

It should steal both. You might as well use absorb instead of mirror like every time, because it eats +next damage as well, which fucks up/slows down most magic strats and completely stops stuff like delayed auras combo /ok this one will probably not be made under the random charms/.

Also, a gear with 60 charms dealing average 3 spirit/turn is totally not realistic under the random charms - in the previous contests with random charms, you never really got over 30 spirit charms so if we could make a spirit that owns melee/magic and has a close match vs spirit under your conditions, it should totally dominate in reality because the model spirit is overblown.



Im gonna try testing myself, if I fail then the next thing that shuold be tested is this:
1x howl, 1x soul shield, 4x howl. 1x titan, 3x spirituality, first stike, premed

it has 1590 health and plays titan once per 7 charms

--edit--
ok this loses closely loses to melee and gets owned by a gear made of 33 willpower charms, the question is how much are my melee conditions - 50dmg/turn +5 ongoing/turn real and if people will be able to get that much willpower. Still, not good enough.

Xyel's magic monster (swapping mirror for absorb). Against a melee CPB deck, the deck lasts 12 rounds and does 1212 total damage in that time, reduced by whatever ward the opponent wears, probably a close win.

+

Against magic CPB, the deck lasts 18 rounds and does 2128 damage in that time, more than enough to wipe out anyone.

So Iv tested it myself - you either forgot that absorb eats melee cpb or that infusion doesnt give any damage bonus to melee - assuming both melee/magic deal 50dmg/turn with +5 ongoing/turn, it lasts longer vs melee than vs magic and deals 2250 and 2160 damage respectivelly. Against spirit it dies with 944 damage dealt - //you got a mistake in the table at the 2nd infusions, where you dont add the cpb//.

So magic mk.II: 3x strong blast, 2x infusion, 1x absorb, first strike, premed, 5x spirituality. has 930 health, assuming previously mentioned melee/magic and spirit being 3 spi/turn, before dying it deals 1596 vs melee, 1679 vs magic, 1140 vs spirit. With melee/magic the next charms are damage so if it randomly survives few more turns it will deal a lot more dmg. Vs spirit the next charm is absorb, that sucks, but they got to play ward to survive so it shouldnt be just 1 more charm and there is the series of strong blasts. Im fairly confident in this as it puts the pressure on really quickly. Im not sure how probable it is that people can make deadly auras/summons/banes but since the gear deals killing damage in about 8-9 charms, there isnt really time to fuck around with something slow.

Also, that double titan + soulshield melee should play soul shield 1st - if you get 7 spirit damage you lose the last 2 double strikes which is instaloss. Also, the melee might lose to armor/debuff/heal gear and will get owned by purge - something almost everyone had in the previous random charms events (class charmsa were in the lower tier packs, so ice tomb and true sight were quite common).

Lastly, I dont really like the spin decks anymore because anyone who draws a bunch of willpower/cleanse will beat it, that sucks.

[Street Sweeper Arias]

I would bet stealspell and steal weapon do take ongoing, because I see charms that refer to non-ongoing modifier when the want to exclude ongoing.

[Novacat]

Here’s an idea:

Infusion x4 (200), Spellsteal (35), Spirituality x4 (400), and 2490 HP

This build has possibly one of the highest damage potentials, doing around 165 damage per round over the course of the whole battle from my analysis. It can be weakened by magic debuff, normalizing, and purging charms for self and target, but is still about half as potent without any boost and would be hard to press into negative boost. The high HPs are necessary to survive the retribution from your temporary boost on your foe.

Edit: It is also susceptible to a spirit deck of average spirit 3 or above; going first would lessen this sensitivity,, but raise the sensitivity to massive damage by reducing HP.

Edit: I forgot about Premeditation (100).

Revision:
Infusion x5 (250), Spellsteal (35), Spirituality x3 (300), Premeditation (100) and 2190 HP, or
Infusion x4 (200), Spellsteal (35), Spirituality x4 (400), Premeditation (100) and 1890 HP

See entry three down for discussion of hybridization with Tabernacle's Build, through the use of a Strong Blast, Titan, or both.

[MeDeFe]

Guys, I've noticed a problem.

http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=5497.msg72670#msg72670

It appears we can't make complex orderings like Xyel's "1x howl, 1x soul shield, 4x howl, 1x titan, 3x spirituality, first stike, premed", because multiple stacks of one charm aren't supported. All the howls would have to come in a row.

[Xyel]

Here’s an idea:

Infusion x4 (200), Spellsteal (35), Spirituality x4 (400), and 2490 HP

This build has possibly one of the highest damage potentials, doing around 200 damage per round over the course of the whole battle from my analysis. It can be weakened by magic debuff, normalizing, and purging charms for self and target, but is still about half as potent without any boost and would be hard to press into negative boost. The high HPs are necessary to survive the retribution from your temporary boost on your foe.

Edit: It is also susceptible to a spirit deck of average spirit 3 or above; going first would lessen this sensitivity,, but raise the sensitivity to massive damage by reducing HP.

Edit: I forgot about Premeditation (100).

Revision:
Infusion x5 (250), Spellsteal (35), Spirituality x3 (300), Premeditation (100) and 2190 HP, or
Infusion x4 (200), Spellsteal (35), Spirituality x4 (400), Premeditation (100) and 1890 HP

The problem with these loadouts is that they all lose to 3x ward + 7x (3+) spirit charm loadout - something everyone will have. This is the reason the magic version of mine is 3x strong blast 2x infusion 1x absorb - its much harder to shortdeck with spirit while still being overwhelming vs everything else. Altho I guess 5x infusion, spellsteal, 4x spirituality , premediation, first strike could actually work pretty well.

[Novacat]

Tabernacle’s Build,

Titan x1 (85), Infusion x1 (50), Spell Steal x1 (35), Strong Blast x1 (30), Spirituality x6 (600), Premeditation (100), and 900 HP

is an excellent build. While its slight susceptibility to spirit attacks might be a concern, I certainly think it is worth looking at more. I’ll be looking at hybrids of my build

Infusion x4 (200), Spell Steal (35), Spirituality x4 (400), Premeditation (100) and 1890 HP

and his, and other variants.

Edit: New Variants

Strong Blast x1 (30), Infusion x4 (200), Spellsteal x1 (35), Spirituality x4 (400), Premeditation (100), and 1710 HP

This variant still does about the same damage as without Strong Blast, fairs a little better against spirit, and almost has as many HP as previous builds.

Titan x1 (85) – Strong Blast x1 (30) – Infusion x4 (150) – Spellsteal x1 (35), Spirituality x4 (400), Premeditation (100), and 1320 HP

While having less raw HP and slightly less damage per round than other variants, this one has the advantage of being strengthened by EAs and healing, over the course of the whole fight, its entire hit point pool. This is perhaps closest to Tabernacle's build; the number of Infusions was increased to heighten boost, the Strong Blast was moved to guard against short-deck spirit, and the spirituality was reduced to provide some HP. An all around interesting adjustment. I clock it at about 150 dps, and with no lack of early damage. A ward and spirit would certainly have a hard time against this.

[Novacat]

Another Idea:

Titan x1 (85), Empower x1 (60), Mirror x1 (70), Assault x5 (175), Double Claw x2 (70), Spirituality x3 (300), Premeditation x1 (100), and 1140 HP

This deck has some defense against spirit, through will and duration, and Titan to oppose EAs. It also does significant damage, achieving around 120 damage per round on average over the whole deck. It’s most immediate weakness is that the damage is split between melee and magic. Also, the number of HP may not resist the strongest offensives for the whole deck, but it most likely wouldn’t have to do so.

Edit: The above magic decks are likely a better alternative.

[lessigfan]

From the forums:

Steal Weapon steals ALL melee. Spellsteal steals ALL magic. Mirror steals ALL ongoing only. Absorb steals ALL modifiers. If any only took +to next they would say "non-ongoing modifiers".

Guys, I've noticed a problem. . . it appears we can't make complex orderings like Xyel's "1x howl, 1x soul shield, 4x howl, 1x titan, 3x spirituality, first stike, premed", because multiple stacks of one charm aren't supported. All the howls would have to come in a row.

Erp, that is a problem! Thanks for noticing/realizing this! I've looked through the previously mentioned decks, this rules out all the spirit configurations we've come up with.

Xyel's magic monster (swapping mirror for absorb). Against a melee CPB deck, the deck lasts 12 rounds and does 1212 total damage in that time, reduced by whatever ward the opponent wears, probably a close win.

+

Against magic CPB, the deck lasts 18 rounds and does 2128 damage in that time, more than enough to wipe out anyone.

How the hell does this happen? Absorb steals all melee/magic modifiers so just from this pow the killing time of the opponents deck should be exactly the same in both cases. Reality wise, melee is a lot more dependant on +ongoing while having less dmg/charm in default damage, so actually melee should take the longest time to kill it.

You're right, I failed to add the melee buff theft, my mistake. Assuming that makes magic/melee symmetric, your magic deck would be equally good against either.

I agree with your assessment of the spirit-spin decks, they're just not great, and vulnerable to so much. The inability to split up charms into multiple piles pretty much seals the deal on that strategy. To your other point, against decks made from random cards, doing 3 spirit/round average is really high, but so is doing 50 melee/magic and +5 ongoing buff per round. I was trying to be conservative, especially given the quality of charms we'll be using, and people with probably shortdeck.

[lessigfan]

So magic mk.II: 3x strong blast, 2x infusion, 1x absorb, first strike, premed, 5x spirituality.

Ok, against spirit, 3/round, this deck lasts until round 13, by which time it has done 1284 damage - probably plenty, because any ward a spirit opponent plays, is less spirit he can play, and delaying works to our advantage. Against magic/melee, this one lasts until round 16 and has done 1516 damage by that time, both against melee & magic (maybe 1 round less against magic because the opponent does get a 1 or 2 round magic boost from infusion) - which is plenty.

Novacat - I was confused as to which deck(s) you were suggesting, since you seemed to change your mind, so I didn't test any of them, but I'd be happy to do so if you want to point out to me what you'd like tested.

Currently, I think one of the melee decks is strongest, along with xyel's magic 2 deck.

[Novacat]

Actually, upon further review, I think Xyel's deck is a good compromise for this make, except for a few things. Most notably, it has 450 HP as listed. To rectify this, I would consider it without First Strike; it would still last 12 rounds and do 1140 damage against spirit while freeing up 100 gold for 600 hp. Also, is absorb absolutely necessary over spell steal? Making this switch would free up 50 gold for 300 hp. I am not saying that both are necessary, but as it stands I could likely kill it short decking with magic charms before I could spirit it, likely in about 10 rounds.

With the one or both of the above modifications made, I believe Xyel's build is better than those of similar make in combating a wide range of deck types. Thus, none of my previous builds need reviewed, as continued evolution actually led me to Xyel's build anyways.

While we have found a good design, we should keep looking for other concepts, such as enduring Titan decks, melee CPB or bane decks that incorporated Reflexes, or effective spirit decks.

I also agree that Affliction-Spin decks are a dead road, as they are way too easy to spirit.

[Xyel]

Actually, upon further review, I think Xyel's deck is a good compromise for this make, except for a few things. Most notably, it has 450 HP as listed.

if you meant magic mk.II then 3*30+2*50+85+20+600=895, which leaves the deck with 930 HP.

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