Battle Analysis:

Sirhatter vs UltimateChu

The Halloween Nimmo The Snot Buzz

Relevant Information:

sirhatter UltimateChu

Hitpoints 848 738

Strength 450 600

Defense 450 350

Known Weapons Pirate Cutlass ????????

SoS ????????

Heavy Robe of Thievery ???????? Noxious Carrot Blade ????????

Ghostkershield ????????

Jade Scorchstone ????????

Clawed Shield ????????

Freezing Potion ????????

Pre-Battle Analysis:

I had ended up stumbling upon this fight after I think helping someone out in the battledome board. It wasn’t a specific challenge thread or anything. I saw the challenge and assumed a new player wanted to have a laugh or create one cool screenshot, but instead I was quite surprised to see this challenge waiting at my door! I had heard of the username in the past, but really knew next to nothing about my opponent, except for that he did have a name. Looking quickly at the statistics, the first assumption someone might make would be: “Chu is giving up 100 hitpoints, he has no chance!” Or perhaps: “Hatter is giving up 3 whole strength boosts, he’s in for a beating!” Clearly both of these statements can’t be true.

One of the things that often escapes even high level battlers, but especially battlers weaker than that, that as the higher you go, the less each individual strength boost means. The difference from the 200 boost to the 350 boost is quite major really. The 350 boost can do 7.5 damage per icon against only 4.5 damage per icon, a 66% increase. For me giving up 3 strength boosts, I am still giving up over 3 points of damage per icon, but its only a 33% increase. Large but not fatal. This would be more comparable to the difference between the 35 strength boost and 55 for newer battlers.

To look at it in more definite terms, it will take Chu 66 unblocked icons to knock me out. It will take me 76 unblocked icons to knock Chu out. So Chu has the advantage against me in terms of statistics, but going in I have to really think this fight can be mine if I fight the smarter fight.

The end to this one is a little bit surprising, and I hope you enjoy these 10 rounds of me attempting to unseat another Master level fighter.

Round 1:

What am I thinking: Given that it will take chu only 66 unblocked icons to KO me, an SoS-Cutlass + berserk would be enough to knock me out assuming he landed any kind of iconage in his first round. I also have to think his set could be at least that strong if not stronger. I also really want to see what kind of opponent I am dealing with in terms of weapons, since I know nothing. Usually using a stealer on the first round is a dubious idea, since a lot of people put their own freezer or something relatively worthless in the first slot, but if this guy has 8 awesome weapons I’d like to know now so I can adjust my strategy accordingly. Since my entire offensive output is going to consist of a total of 2 icons, defending is an easy choice for me, to help protect against an unexpected first round blitz. Like I do in a lot of fights, I will probably be sacrificing some early equity, in hopes of gaining some other advantage late on in the fight.

What I think he is thinking: I am expecting from him a freezer + one of his flashy weapons. One I might not see again. I also may well be expecting a steal from my opponent. (I really need to move my clawed shield into the first slot).

My Move: Freezing Potion + Heavy Robe of Thievery + Defend (!)

His Move: Cutlass + H4000 Helmet + Sink

The screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu1.jpg

The Result: A great one for me all things told. Sure I end up taking the worse of the exchange in terms of hitpoints. But given that I wasn’t doing ANYTHING offensively minded, I have forced my opponent to waste his sink early on, where he managed to block all of 23 damage with it. I should now be free to pepper my opponent with my SoS over and over and over. In addition, I stole his U-Bend of Great Justice. That weapon is probably going to be useless to me, but it was definitely going to be useless to him (I just used my one weapon that does any water). Everything I have seen to this point has me convinced that I am in fact up against a pretty big weapon set here.

Round 2:

Both opponents frozen, again no screenshot nor analysis.

Round 3:

What I am Thinking: It’s great that I have this information, but now I need to start clawing back the deficit. Normally I’d just show one weapon here, but I kind of want to show Chu both to let him know that at any time I could unleash a big hit on him. I also must guard myself against a big blitz on his part. I’m going to flash my two biggest weapons, and burn some of that power that I have stored up on a sink right here.

What I think he is thinking: He has a hitpoint lead and a big strength lead. He may well burn some more of his power along with two weapons to try to force me into using my Jade right away. I am expecting to see two weapons from him.

My Move: Cutlass + SoS + Sink (Strong)

His Move: Cutlass + G-Shield + Buzz Zoom (!)

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu2.jpg

The Result: Ouch! He got the best of me there. The G-Shield was a great move on his part. I don’t know if he guessed lucky, or just figured that I was going to use a SoS. But the g-shield also ends up snagging a decent piece of my cutlass, in spite of his lower defense boost. I clearly should have burrowed instead of sinked with hindsight, at the time I was protecting against a SoS, but the buzz zoom + a weakish cutlass hit still gave Chu 10 unblocked icons thru on me in Air damage alone. I basically used 39% of my power and still came worse off. I cannot take too many more exchanges like that one or I am going to lose badly.

Round 4:

What I am thinking: Well the bad news is that I am now down by a lot. Even assuming we both use full healers at the same point, My hitpoints would still only be even with his, and I have to overcome 3 strength boosts and what looks to be a strong weapon set. The good news is at least I know what I am up against. Time to do a bit of thinking. 40 icons at this point would be enough to kill me. I clearly have to start thinking about either stealing a win or getting defensive here, or both. At the same time, I might like to show him a little offense in case I do decide to go for a freeze.

What I think he is thinking: I have no idea right now. No reason for him to not continue what he’s been doing and pound me with the cutlass over and over. A major problem for me is that while my defense boost is rated at 9.75, his attack power is 13, meaning that if I block 4 of an icon type, its really only like blocking 3 icons. So some of my light, air, and physical defense is a little bit weaker, and he can definitely grind me into the ground if he wants, even if I use a shield.

My Move: SoS + Diamond Dust + Ghostkershield

His Move: Cutlass + G-Shield + Buzz Zoom

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu3.jpg

The result: A minor disaster for me. My diamond dust missed. All I have left now is one medium regeneration. My opponent is committed to his g-shield, and twice now he has snuffed out my SoS. I am definitely done using the SoS for the rest of the battle. Furthermore while I popped MY gshield for the first time, and it did a great job in blocking 88 hitpoints of damage, the bad news his that even while he played defense, he still buried me for 224 damage. I am well on my way to losing this battle.

Round 5:

What I’m Thinking: I need to think about healing this round. Or at the very least playing enough defense that I can survive one more round then really maximize my healer. I should opt for the latter. Normally if I was ahead in this fight and it was a weaker fighter, I could be conservative, and just heal knowing I had an advantage and would win anyways. Now I am behind against a stronger opponent knowing I must press every advantage possible. So my move will be along those lines.

What I Think he is thinking: Chu is in a great spot here. He is ahead big enough that I cant really hit him with a blitz. Unless I have a g-bomb up my sleeve, I cant do enough damage to KO him realistically. I’m expecting heavy offense from him, because he has to think I’m going to heal some point soon, so I either can only use one weapon, or use one shield.

My Move: Noxious Carrotblade + Jade + Nimmo Chant (?)

His Move: Kiln + Buzz Zoom + G-Shield

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu4.jpg

The Result: I don’t really like either move here, but I like my move the least. As it turns out I used my jade one round TOO early. Even if I popped two weapons here + the nimmo chant, I would still be alive WITHOUT playing defense. Still, Chu shoulda run two weapons here to put me to a tougher decision. That said, showing the kiln was a nice move. If he thought I was going to run the g-shield again (a real possibility), I woulda been completely out of luck against that kiln. This proves that weapon such as the kiln and mask may even have a purpose in this high level of fighting. If chu runs a cutlass with the kiln I pretty much would have lost if I didn’t heal, so in retrospect my jade isn’t quite so bad of a decision. Still, I would have felt OK about that loss, given my bad moves from before. Chu definitely should have run two weapons here, but he’s got a huge advantage, so playing conservative, even overly conservative doesn’t seem that bad.

Round 6:

What I’m thinking: Given that Chu has now shown me a G-Shield, a Cutlass, and a H4k helm, all more expensive than the kiln, it might seem a little surprising to some that the kiln is now such a worry for me. It definitely is though. Simply put unless I fire my clawed shield, I have no defense at all against fire, and the clawed shield is otherwise not very useful. I need to put the fear of the clawed shield in my opponent, but I cant actually afford to use it too often, otherwise big cutlass hits will leave me devastated. I’m down to more or less my last 500 hitpoints. One well timed regen might steal me an extra 100 hitpoints, but that’s about it. Luckily for me, I will definitely fire my clawed shield here. I don’t even care if it misses the kiln. I want him to see it, and I want him to not use his kiln over and over on me. It just has to hit the buzz zoom to let him know its there.

What I think he is thinking: UltimateChu has played a smart, conservative game to this point. No reason to abandon that game now. Being reckless might even leave him exposed to a sucker punch and knockout style blow before he can pop his healer. He will undoubtedly continue blocking a lot of my icons and punishing me with his offensive weapons that I cant really stop.

My Move:Cutlass + Clawed Shield + Nimmo Chant

His Move:??? + Gshield + Defend

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu5.jpg

The Result: Finally! I get a good clean shot in. Did Chu forget to click a weapon you ask? I don’t think so. In fact my next arrow to him indicates that I think he fired some sort of reflector and missed with it, most likely an earth reflector in response to my noxious carrot blade. The bad news for me is he didn’t even fire a buzz zoom. He was playing VERY defensively here, hoping maybe to catch me on the offensive. Didn’t work out for him.

Round 7:

What I am thinking: I need in my mind to fire my clawed shield again. He could perhaps deduce that the same thing happened to me that happened to him in that his reflector missed, but I still need to make sure I am willing to throw that shield at him even if he can deduce that. If he didn’t figure it out, time to let him know I have an answer to his fire attack. I now also need to continue to put damage on him, and am NOT using the SoS. So Since I think he just missed with his earth reflector, I am definitely NOT using my carrotblade either. That leaves me with the same move more or less as last time.

What I think he is thinking: He can’t be happy about missing with his earth reflector if that’s what happened. He also, as an earlier message arrow shows, know I am here to play defense. He needs to think about defense himself to avoid an increasingly high probability of a sneak attack, but he has to throw the cutlass at me. I cannot adequately stop it.

My Move: Cutlass + Clawed Shield + Nimmo Chant

His Move: ??? + G-Shield + Buzz Zoom (?)

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu6.jpg

The Result: Another great result for me on the surface. Chu’s earth reflector missed again, and now he knows that I know what he’s trying to do. Also I got to show that I do have a clawed shield, and that he is not safe throwing fire at me. On the surface these are great things. After going through the next round I will explain why maybe I got a bit too fancy myself. Doing 152 damage against 55 is also a big result for me, forcing my opponent into some sort of healing mechanism now for sure. I really think Chu should have put a bit more pressure on me at this point, and that’s why he earned the question mark here.

Round 8:

What I am thinking: The good news is it would take a genius or someone crazy to throw a kiln at me after I just used my clawed shield in back to back rounds, with at least one round of him seeing it. The bad news is that means Chu will now use his cutlass more. The really bad news is that in my hubris of letting him know how clever I am in figuring out his move, he went from having a slim chance of making another mistake and using that earth reflector, to having no chance of him doing that. With that said, I must now try to defend against his cutlass. Not an easy task. I am definitely thinking about using my cutlass and G-Shield, and hoping for the best.

What I think he is thinking: Well I’ve all but decided he’s going to use his cutlass. He hasn’t stopped using his g-shield yet, since it will block a piece of my cutlass and carrotblade, so why stop now?

My Move: Cutlass + Gshield + Nimmo Chant

His Move: Cutlass + Gshield + Buzz Zoom

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu7.jpg

The Result: Be careful what you wish for you just may get it! First off, Chu sends a rather amusing arrow to me (not shown in screeny), indicating that buzz’s have 20% air resistance, and that my reputation is true. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or insult at this point. I did exactly what I wanted, scared Chu out of the kiln, and out of his earth reflector, and corralled him into his cutlass and Gshield. At the same time, if he just did that same move all game, I’d be dead, as I have no answer for it! My arrow to him told him that I’m going to stick with my cutlass till the end now, which is more or less true. At the same time, between his statistical advantages, and that buzz air resistance, and the fact that his hit got a little luckier than mine, you can see just how badly I got smoked. I am in deep now.

Round 9:

What I’m thinking: I’m in an either-or spot. Either I go for the suicide-blaze of glory route this round and go for the draw, or do it next round hoping to survive one more round to improve my chances. I think I’ve lost for sure. That last round was completely devastating to me. If my opponent heals now, he gains 600 points and just deals me a sucker punch from which I cannot recover. Not only did I not kill him (I would have had an outside chance of forcing a draw the previous round), but now he knows surely he must heal. So I can’t go for the all out blitz here. I will continue to do what I have been doing and hope to survive one more round. My arrow indicates that I think I have lost this round. But I will do everything I can to hope to pepper him with enough damage to at least force him to either use a shield/healer, while keeping myself alive for that blaze of glory:

What I think he’s thinking: Let’s see what weapons he has left. Greyed out items indicate the item is either stolen or already used.

Cutlass Kiln

Gshield Earth Reflector?

H4kHelm Ubend of Great Justice

Healer? ???

To me, for sure he will add hitpoints to his total. Either use his healer + a burrow, or maybe even a regen + a downsize or something. All while using that cutlass to put me in an increasingly hopless situation

My Move: Noxious Carrotblade + Regen (medium) + Gshield

His Move: Gbomb + Gshield + Regen (medium) (!)

The Screenshot: http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu8.jpg

The Result: I like chu’s move a lot here. He threw a lot of icons at me, that my gshield couldn’t block. Had I not used the regen, and had his gbomb hit a little stronger, he could’ve blasted my shield and won on the spot. While I now know his set pretty much entirely, it doesn’t mean I can stop the cutlass. He also protected himself enough. I couldn’t really do any one move to do enough damage to win the way he set himself up, unless I somehow had the presence of mind to fire up my clawed shield + nimmo chant + my cutlass, which was clearly not something I was thinking (and even then I’d almost certainly end up with a draw). Next move he can just fire his cutlass and a healer and I lose.

Round 10:

What I’m Thinking: You ever listen to Bon Jovi? Do you know the song “Blaze of Glory?” That’s how I was feeling about now. I ain’t got nothin to lose as they might say, so I’m going all out here. He’s going to heal, but by golly I am not letting him get a full hitpoint win. And besides, who knows? Maybe he’s stuck with a crappy ice scorchstone or something crazy and I steal some result. Either way I am dead for sure. My arrow just says GG, short for good game.

What I think he’s thinking: He’s toyed with me long enough. Time for him to heal + cutlass and turn out the light on me. He’s afraid that I’ll keep using my cutlass as indicated in the last arrow he sent me, so he knows it’s coming from me.

My Move: Noxious Carrotblade + Cutlass + Berserk

His Move: Kiln + Buzz Zoom + Gshield (?)

The Screenshot http://idb.finalhit.org/uploads/sirhatter/ultimatechu9.jpg

The Result: Surprise! I was stunned to get so lucky. Chu fought a pretty solid fight to this point, avoiding mistakes for the most part, but it blew my mind that he didn’t heal here. This would be deserving of a double question mark, but I don’t know what healer chu had. As of when I wrote this article he is now a fire kacheek. Maybe he had a kacheek healer. I really don’t know what went on specifically. It was a very lucky turn of events for me. If he had bothered to even use regeneration one more time on medium it would have been enough to see off my desperation attack. Either way using the kiln was fine, not healing was a debacle though. After being outthought and outfought, to give up a draw could not have sat well with Chu, and I was delighted at the result. Overall though thinkfacility seems to have a quality battle set, a very strong and seemingly labbed pet, that will make him very difficult to handle going forward. He is gaining stats rapidly and will be a top 50 superstar if he continues at this pace, and I may add he will get there before I do.

As for chu’s thoughts, here they were:

“Sure, I still can't believe I fell for the old bait and switch with the NCB...We need a rematch next time!”

And that concludes this version of the battle analyzer series. As always I hope it was a good and entertaining read!