Sirhatter vs Auron_Pyre
The Halloween Nimmo The Mutant Kacheek
Relevant Information
Sirhatter Auron Pyre
Hitpoints 845 502
Strength 450 500
Defense 400 125
Known Weapons Pirate Cutlass Pirate Cutlass
SoS Freezing Potion
Heavy Robe of Thievery Ghostkerbomb
Noxious Carrot Blade ????????
Ghostkershield ????????
Jade Scorchstone Some Healer
Clawed Shield ????????
Freezing Potion ????????
It should be noted that I’ve italicized and boldened the weapons that I think he knows I already have. He could of course make assumptions about the rest of my set, but I know for a fact he has seen these two weapons recently.
Pre-Battle Analysis:
There was actually a history between the two of us before this fight. While this pet is owned by ghost_phoenix, someone I don’t know at all, I had actually fought this pet before with disasterous results. I had attempted to duck an early onslaught by NOT freezing 1st round, surviving one round of being iced and then coming back to win big. A very stupid strategy on my part, as auron’s ghostkerbomb and cutlass were more than enough to put me away it turned out. Note that I have a decent sized statistical advantage. It will take auron about 77 unblocked icons worth of damage at his strength boost to knock me out, while it will take only 52 unblocked icons for me to knock out Auron. That’s a pretty big gap to overcome. However last fight, I had lost some icons early when I got frozen and took a cutlass hit thru part of my gshield, and then was stunned when his g-bomb and cutlass hit for enough damage to KO me. I was not going to let that happen this fight. I should be a favorite here, and decided not to get cute with tactics. We shall see if it works. (This was also the first fight I decided to analyze in full, and thus took a little while to screenshot all of it, which is something I try to get most rounds of anyway, but getting every round is something else).
Round 1:
What am I thinking: Well one of my favorite openings, the one I used last battle of G-Shield and Robe is out of the question. I remember vaguely the robe backfired on me, so I am not going to be using that first round, eliminating my standard opening move. At this point I could either opt to freeze and play a weapon, or freeze and use my gshield. I should be safe against an all out blitz, but theoretically if Pyre got lucky that tactic could knock me out (if the g-bomb hits for 30, and the cutlass for 24 on a berserk I lose). So I will elect to play conservatively and open up with Gshield + FP + nimmo chant, which ought to give me a little offense at least.
What I think Pyre is thinking: I’m quite sure hes going to freeze here. He has to believe that if he doesn’t freeze and I do, I can surely put him away.
The Screenshot, if it doesn’t load, can be found here: Round 1
The Result: He runs his standard opening, as you can see he scores a decent sized hit against my gshield. I get in enough icons to do some damage, but he gets the best of it.. A small price to pay for ensuring I don’t lose right away. Note his comment about him hearing about my killer arsenal. I don’t know who has been lying to him, but he might want to try to figure out who.
Round 2:
Both parties frozen, the only round where I wont waste your time with a screenshot.
Round 3:
What I am Thinking: The answer turns out that I am not thinking enough. In my greed want to pop my robe early, conveniently forgetting that last time I stole something worthless/non-existant. So I am determined to do that. My thought is I guess I am looking to take his g-bomb or one of his main weapons before I use it. I still am inclined to play defense for now, protecting against any unrealized assault. I also would love to finish this fight quickly, and a well timed diamond dust might do that.
What I think Pyre is thinking: In the back of my mind im worried about a big explosion here, either way I am quite sure im in for a heavy dose of offense. Since I can kill him at nearly any time, I figure I will just play defense here.
My move: Clawed Shield + Heavy Robe of Thievery + Diamond Dust (?)
His move: Downsize + cutlass + Defend
The Screenshot Round 3
The Result: I definitely take the worst of this exchange. I don’t like Auron’s decision to defend here, since he’s already downsized, so the defend will reduce whatever attack power I have from 50% to 40%, not a big deal, all while reducing his attack power by 20%. Kacheek Smile would have been a better play for him, both at the time of the decision and using hindsight, since I didn’t attack at all! My diamond dust missed, and my clawed shield also missed the g-bomb I was anticipating. To make things worse off, I ended up stealing Pyre’s used downsize, leaving me empty handed. So he made a relatively poor move, but I could not have guessed much worse on all 3 fronts, and my entire move was a waste. To top it off I tell pyre the next round that my clawed shield missed, when I could have kept that information to myself. Brilliant!
Round 4:
What I’m Thinking: I’m now thinking I am pretty mad at myself. Without even landing any real blow, I’ve used 39% of my power, and have hardly done any damage, all while negating a big chunk of my hitpoint advantage. I am now down a strengthboost, without my stealer, and have given up my robe. I have no idea what my opponent has. It is definitely time for me to start at least probing his defenses a little bit. I now know he’s down to 6 weapons, two of those being his cutlass and g-bomb. I am definitely going to play offensive, and protect myself at the same time against a big g-bomb hit by burrowing.
What I am thinking he’s thinking: I am quite sure he’s happy with the situation. He may think I might press here a little and be forced to use some sort of defensive mechanism now that he’s popped his downsize. He may also be looking to use his two main attack weapons. I really have no idea.
My Move: SoS + Noxious Carrotblade + Burrow
His Move: Heavy Robe of Thievery + Cutlass + Burrow
The Screenshot Round 4
The Result: Not a bad one for either of us. My SoS slipped thru his burrow, which was good, because I’d rather him burrow than sink in that specific spot. He ends up taking my noxious c-blade, so at least he learns no new information. I’m at a power deficit, but that is OK. I finally land a decent sized shot in to make him think about defense. Sadly I have to think about defense now in a big way too. And finally, his cutlass doesn’t land for a big hit, after the last two hits of 24 and 20. Good times.
Round 5:
What I am thinking: I know at any point he could unleash that cutlass/g-bomb combo and I would be left in a bad way. At the same time it’s earlier than I would prefer to pop my Jade. I have enough confidence that I can pop him again, but in retrospect should be much more worried about him going all out here. For some reason I don’t worry enough about that, and just elect to run my g-shield and jab at him again.
What I think Pyre is thinking: Pyre has to be a little concerned about my ability to finish him off now. To some degree, if he acts in the classic mid-level battler pattern, he will burn his sink this move, since he just burned his burrrow. At the same time he has to realize he can finish me off here. I don’t think he will do that, but this thought does cross my mind. More likely he’s thinking the same thing about me right now. The fact that he hasn’t seen a bomb from me, or my 3rd multi-use weapon can’t make him feel good. He has been on a run, and still has to feel he is getting the best of this fight. So it makes sense for him to play defense here, which it turns out he does.
My move: PCC + G-Shield + Nimmo Chant
His move: PCC + Kacheek Life Potion + Sink
The Screenshot: Round 5
The Result: A lucky one for me on all counts. I knew the sink was coming, and landed a decent number if icons through (10 visible, in actuality it seems to be a little less). Moreover, I had been quite careless. If Pyre elects to play for the win, and go Cutlass + Gbomb + Berserk: Lets see what happens…
In this spot I’d push through 23 icons. I get the 50% bonus from him zerking, so I’d do about 340 damage. That wouldn’t be able to kill Pyre. Now he would push through 10 fire, 10 earth, lets call it a total of 10 physical, 5 light, and maybe 10 air icons.
Of that I can block about the following: (crude and inexact adjustments for his strength boost versus my defense boost taken into account) 4 physical, 3 light, 4 earth, and maybe 3 air. He pushes through 31 icons initially, good for about 341 damage. Given that I went into the fight with 415 hitpoints, that wont be enough to get to me. If he goes berserk though, he pushes through the additional 5 fire, 5 earth, 5 physical, 5 air and 3 light. 18 more icons, that at this point I simply cannot block since my gshield has used up its defensive capacity. That’s good for 198 damage and I lose if he gets that hit, or even something a little smaller than the 25 icons on the gbomb and 20 on the cutlass. Even if he’s afraid of the draw and elects to go with the kacheek smile: then he just pushes through those extra 6 icons, good for a total of about 407. At that point the odds are I will duck the attack, but its far from certain. If his gbomb OR cutlass hit big and the other one hits for average damage or better, I lose. Nonetheless, it is understandable to see why Pyre went the way he did. He was very much afraid of me going after him with two weapons like I did the previous round, and there’s no real way he could put me on going back to the G-shield for the first time in the match since the opening round.
Round 6:
What I am thinking: I thought for a long time about this move, not just to take the screenshot, but also to think about what he might do. If he runs cutlass + gbomb, which I think he will, I could run my clawed shield to reflect the fire, but it really wouldn’t block enough, just about 7 icons only. The gshield will block about 4 earth, 4 phsyical, 4 light and 4 air. That’s what I really need, is to block, not just reflect. At the same time I would still be giving up the damage mentioned earlier. And if he berserks it at this POINT will be enough to kill me. I could run both shields, to stop the fire and the other attacks as well. With that said I have to gamble at some point. So I choose to gamble here, and know I won’t be popping my jade. I have 21% power, so I can at least run a medium regeneration, which will give me about 90 hitpoints. That may be just enough to keep me alive through this move, since it will take me to about where I was last move. Either way I will certainly be popping my jade next move. I should really run both my shields, but I elect for offense, more on that in the result.
What I am thinking he’s thinking: I’m 80% sure hes going to use his gbomb and cutlass here, and my battle message indicates that sentiment to him.
My Move: Cutlass + G-Shield + Regen (?)
His Move: Gbomb + Shield of Soaring + Kacheek Smile (?)
The screenshot: Round 6
The result: A pair of interesting but flawed moves. In our defense, this is where the decisions really count. Still, while the regeneration on my part was fine (one of the reasons I like the 39% power moves, since I get left with 1% power after this medium regen, something I frequently use), the decision not to use the clawed shield was silly really. The 98 damage I ended up doing didn’t mean too much, but stopping 77 damage or so from my opponent’s gbomb fire attack would be massive for me. The numbers above on the previous round tell me that pyre can do about 340 damage if I use just my g-shield pre berserk, so wouldn’t it make sense to block an extra 77 and send it his way? I’d be doing ALMOST as much damage as I ended up actually doing, all while giving myself a much bigger margin of error. If pyre decides to berserk, I’d block an extra 33 or so of damage, which would mean that when its all said and done he;d average about 410 damage on a g-bomb + cutlass + berserk, which would give him about a 50% chance of killing me. If Pyre respects my ability to counter attack and go for the kill myself, the Kacheek Smile is fine. But if youre going to throw the gbomb, you might as well get a big attack in too. I can tell you exactly what Pyre was thinking, and it was defensible, but it wasn’t enough. (and note, this is not to criticize Pyre, who was the better tactician through the fight, but rather to give insight into how top level battlers think, or at least a decent approximation of how they think)
What was Pyre thinking: Simple! I had 310 hitpoints left. 28-29 unblocked icons would do 310 damage, enough to kill me. The gbomb averages 25.5. The Kacheek Smile does exactly 6 icons, which would give him 31.5 icons, more enough to kill me if I don’t use a shield. If he thinks I am going offensive, he can stop my air attack with the shield of soaring, and keep himself alive in the process! The cutlass + the smile just wont cut it. He obviously wont be going berserk if he thinks im playing offensively here. This move wins him the fight if I use two weapons + nimmo chant, or even two weapons plus berserk. Unfortunately for pyre, I was definitely aware of my precarious position, despite having about 36% of my hitpoints still. Lastly, an all out attack wouldn’t do any good anyway against the Jade that he thought I was going to run here (more on that also later). Thus pyre was thinking, “either he’s going to use his jade, or he’s going to attack, I’ll play it safe and stay alive here no matter what”. This is a reasonable thought on its face. I just don’t like the shield of soaring decision, though it certainly caught me off-guard.
This should also be said: Pyre has had a heck of a run to this point. He crushed me in our first fight in two unglorious rounds thanks to a big g-bomb hit. He’s outfought me this fight and in a very winnable position. If you took two complete outsiders, and removed the petnames, and had access to our battlesets and stats only, you would have to say a draw for pyre is a good, maybe great result. Pyre was riding so high though, that he was thinking that maybe he could get me two in a row. He wasn’t playing for the draw, which is something that other battlers might have done, and thus chose to blitz here. If I use two weapons and he goes all out, its almost certainly a draw. If he had never fought me before, surely he goes that route. If I do heal, so be it, I wont have been able to hit him hard while his guard was down anyway, and at least he will have taken a big chunk out of my attempt to heal. With that said, this decision looks bad now, but at the time it wasn’t that bad of a thought. The only thing that stopped my move from being brilliant, was not using the clawed shield like I should have, and opting for the cutlass. I lived to survive that tale
Round 7:
What I was thinking: heal, Heal, HEAL, HEAL HEAL! Ok, now that I am calm again. What do I need to think about now? Let’s start with what I know and what he knows.
At this point, I have to start wondering. This guy is definitely a tough fighter. A lot of battlers at his level have some major hole in their weapon set. Prices are so outrageous for top line weapons, and the jump even from the top tower prices to the next level are even more absurd. So a lot of people, to fund a few of those weapons leve huge holes in their set. I cant assume that for sure, but here’s what we know the guy has now.
Empty slot where the freezing potion was
Empty slot where the kacheek life potion was
Empty slot where his downsize was
Empty slot where his g-bomb was
This leaves him with 4 actual remaining weapons.
We know he has a Cutlass
We know he has a Shield of Soaring (useful against g-swords and cutlasses)
We know he has MY noxious carrotblade
We don’t know his last weapon.
I have to at this point put him on a SoS, or maybe something offensive but a little weaker or a little stronger. His set to this point is only worth 32 million, well below most people in the master class, showing he’s very serious about training and not just getting rich, even if it means he will have tougher 2 player fights. At the same time he could be sand-bagging a sling on me, or g-sword. I don’t know for sure. I have shown him at this point my entire set of weapons, and the one weapon he didn’t see (the clawed shield), he was told I had. For what its worth, my set, just the 3 multi use attack weapons alone are worth 36 mil. Throw in the freezing potion, and jade, and that puts my set to 70-80 mil. Add on the other 3 weapons, and its fair to say my weapon set value could be double his, and again, most people have me dominated in that category.
I mean, no one has only one multi use weapon right? Either way, My G-Shield seems like a great idea right now. I also *know* that my SoS will get past his shield of soaring if he chooses to try defense again. So this round it’s between my jade and gshield, or jade and SoS. I choose the Jade/SoS route.
What I think hes thinking: Well I kinda know. As the screenshot indicates, he sent me a message thinking I would jade that round. Now he knows I am going to Jade. He can pop me with his cutlass relatively safely. Will he show his mystery weapon? Anyone’s guess…
My move: Jade + SoS + Defend
His Move: Cutlass + G-Shield + Kacheek Smile (!)
The Screenshot here: Round 7
Result: Brilliant move by Auron_Pyre! It is clear at this point, that Pyre is also safely in the category of being outgunned against opponents with comparable stats. The total value of his first 7 weapons at time of writing is approximately 32 million. His g-shield puts the set to about 40 million total. That sounds like a lot. Keep this in mind. His entire set could barely afford a ghostkersword, or barely afford a jade (which I have). He knew I saw his Shield of Soaring. There wasn’t any point where I really thought Pyre would lack a 2nd primary offensive weapon, so I was sure my SoS was safe. Dead wrong it turns out. Thus he gashes me here in a big way.
The reason I don’t particularly like him showing the shield of soaring last move, is if I go all out, the gshield will still stop my sword of skardsen (which he knows I will HAVE to use if I want to go on the offensive), and then he can spring the shield of soaring surprise on me the next move. As you can see from his comment, he both acknowledges my correct predcition of him using his g-bomb, (though not in the way I thought he would), and he correctly predicts the use of my jade. As brilliant as his move was, hes in a bad spot now though. He is also nearly out of power. Both of us really cant heal anymore. It will take me 32 unblocked icons to win. It will take pyre 59 unblocked icons to win. I also now know his full set. The Cblade he stole from me averages 12, and the Cutlass does about 19. Lets call it 32 combined. If he berserks me, he can only get through 48 unblocked icons assuming I play NO defense. He knows he can’t realistically kill me in one round even if he goes ALL OUT. He saw my jade kick in, and now he knows what hes up against. This takes us to… Round 8.
Round 8:
What I’m Thinking: I have a lot of choices here. I am in the lead, but if pyre has regeneration, he could add on another 50 hitpoints which might make my lead slimmer down the road. Either way, I can’t possibly heal another hitpoint. So I need to conserve the 642 while seeing out the win right? Wrong. I’ve now seen both of pyre’s shields. My best two weapons combine to do about 38 unblocked icons. Unfortunately I also know that pyre has shields to stop either of them, and theres no way in hecl he will go all out on the offensive. He has played a very tough and conservative style all fight, why would he go away from what’s been his calling card now?
My
ghostkershield, for what it’s worth, will block a net of about 10 icons against
the cutlass, and maybe 4 or so more against the carrotblade. At most its going
to save me 14 icons. It could save me as little as 0 if he throws both of his
shields (unlikely) It is nothing more than a math problem for me now. I am
desperate to generate the best possible outcome as quickly as possible. My SoS
averages 18, and lets say my cutlass averages 19 or so icons. Even if the light
gets blocked on the cutlass, I am still pushing through the other 10 icons. So
either Ill get 10 icons in, or maybe more than 14. I’m definitely using the
cutlass over the shield of soaring. My SoS is trickier. If it gets through
What I think pyre is thinking: He is thinking hard about this for sure. He has to know he can’t kill me even if he berserks, unless I help him out, or the carrtoblade and cutlass both hit for miracle totals (meaning the blade hits for 18 and the cutlass 22 or so). In the 6 rounds of actual combat to this point, 3 times I’ve popped my ghostkershield, and once I popped my clawed shield. So he’s seen me play true to my reputation. He has to think that I have a chance of killing him if I use my SoS and Cutlass if he doesn’t do something to stop it. Cutlass + SoS + Nimmo chant would get me 43 icons. He would need to really block 11 of them to stay alive and formulate a last ditch strategy. He cant really crouch into a defensive shell and not attack at all, unless he just wants to bleed hitpoints. He can try a sucide attack and pray for a big hit with kacheek smile and pray I berserk, or berserk himself, or he can probably stay alive one more round, and try to get in enough damage to launch a meanigful suicide attack. He chooses the last option,
My Move: SoS + PCC + Berserk (!)
His Move: Shield of Soaring + PCC + Kacheek Smile
The Screenshot here: Round 8
The result: Victory for me. Not pretty, and not necessarily deserved, but victory. I get through a rather weak hit I have to say, but it proves to be enough, as I push through the equivalent of just under 40 unblocked icons. My opponent blocks about 14 icons with the shield of soaring, but it isnt enough as my initial hit goes for 53 or so. (Hard to assess the fractionals perfectly). If Pyre had elected to spring the gshield, it woulda been more interesting. He woulda blocked 22.5 dark icons, plus, well, 3 more icons total between air, light and physical. His defense boost is quite low, so that probably tipped him towards the Shield of Soaring. Had he gone with the G-Shield, he woulda saved himself about 9.5 icons, and actually would have still been alive probably. Hard to fault him though really. If he thought I was playing a shield, then my most logical weapon would have been to use the cutlass to guarantee myself 10 icons. Since he must’ve thought I was using my gshield in an effort to wear him down, he chose to use the shield that would do the best job of slowing me down. Plus under normal circumstances, even if he uses the Ghostkershield, my weapons wouldn’t hit so weakly, and I’d win the battle anyway. So no reason to really fault his move at all. He was doing his best to make sure he’d have some hitpoints to play with, to either regen for one move, or go straight to the suicide option and play for the draw. It was a harsh decision on him, as he did have a couple of chances to knock me out in earlier rounds, and unfortunately they just didn’t fall for him the way he anticipated. In retrospect, of course using the carrotblade here would have earned him a draw as well instead of that shield, but he was not thinking that way, and was sure I was going to protect myself a little bit. Throughout most of the fight, he had the better of it, and turned a fight in from which I had both a big statistical as well as weapons advantage into one that was almost a coin flip at one point. That’s really all you can ask for. While this particular fighter stays low-key, and seems to be a little bit short of coin, there’s a good chance we could be seeing a lot more out of him in the future if he can get his weapon set a tiny bit stronger. The lowish hitpoints for his strength will always put him in a bit of a precarious spot, but his good defensive instincts make him an opponent that I certainly wouldn’t fancy facing, and certainly is not a pushover, even if he’s new to the master class of battlers.
I also got his input from the fight, which is meaningful to see as well.
“I didn't expect a zerk that is for sure. x) I figured with your advantage you'd def me out with g-shield and alternate attackers. Very risky on your part xD I'm too lazy to use a battle calc anymore to quick fight. Usually I just calc the dam done ; say your pcc at av 22 icons and the dam defended from the gshield if i attacked with both, and if it wasn't too bad i'd probably use the ncb i stole from you. x_x , but again nubness on my part.”
He goes on to talk about how a jade would be nice, as well as how he has a lot of experience against top pets. Both statements would seem to clearly be true. This was originally a quickfight in the battledome, which was why he was probably surprised to see me waiting for him. (He met my stat requirements FWIW). He definitely was harsh on himself with his last move, as I don’t think it was a bad move, just a very tough situation to be in altogether, and he chose what he thought would be his best chance of securing a result from the situation. One of the strange things about the battledome is it doesn’t matter how you got to a certain point. You can only really make the best move possible from there, and since you don’t know all of the facts, your best move is often a guess, and there’s no shame in guessing wrong if your guess was backed by solid facts.
My aim was for this to be enjoyable and entertaing and informative for you all to read. I’d enjoy feedback one way or another, so feel free to send me neomail at any time.
