ME Strategy (in General)

Hi All!

It's half term at the moment, so I've got a little more time to myself at work and want to offer my current strategy up for constructive critism! ;)

After swinging back and forth between tattoos for my single mage (using a TOE, then TOF and back to TOE again) I decided that CBF s were too good to ignore and was there anyway I could incorporate one into my single mage strategy.

I didn't want to get rid of DM, that combined with FB is the back bone of my strategy, but a CBF would force me to lose the use of DM. The only way around this was to hire a second minion to train just DM. Two minions would dilute my xp though (my main reason for having a single minion), but when considering how I was spending my xp I came to an arrangement that meant that the xp spent on my mage wouldn't be diluted too much.

I planned to roughly spend xp on my mage as 1/3 HP s, 1/3 FB and 1/3 DM, steering clear of any ED s. With two minions I decided to split my xp as;

1) Mage: 1/3 HP s (1/6 overall) and 2/3 FB (1/3 overall)
2) Enchanter: 1/3 HP s (1/6 overall) and 2/3 DM (1/3 overall)

Splitting my xp this way means I don't dilute the level my FB or DM would be as if I was still staying single, but although my total HP s would stay roughly the same, they would be split over two minions. Not too bad a deal as I now get an extra body. I was going to stick my TOE on my enchanter to give it more durability as a meat shield. Not only this, but the extra body (for as long as it lasts…) increases the effectiveness of my CBF by halving the damage done to my mage before the CBF reduction kicks in.

Originally, I placed my enchanter in front of my mage, to soak up damage. This led me to be weaker to only one thing than I would have been staying single. Seeker Ammo. They could bypass my meat shield, and I would be weaker by only having half the hit points on my Mage. That and I still had no way of defeating large CBF users.

Another idea came to mind. Instead of my enchanter sitting there doing nothing, I swapped out the TOE for a TOA and turned my enchanter into a psuedo tank. I decided to learn archery and give my new tank a bow, to deal out as much damage as quickly as it could. That way, I could do damage to CBF s (which if my archer lasted to melee wouldn’t take the splash damage either) and provide a decision to Tank opponents. Equip seekers to take out my mage while my archer peppers you. Or equip slayers to kill my archer, while my mage burns you. With dexterity from my TOA my enchanter lasts longer to physical attackers as well.

Recently I decided to move my mage infront of my archer for one reason. The way FB targets. With DM versus AS, my archer could sometimes kill a minion in the first round of ranged, before my mage attacks. But FB still spread it's damage as if that minion were still alive, so I lose 1/total number of minions worth of damage from my FB. Moving my mage to the front gets rid of this excess (but negates the need for anyone to use seekers…) and in a perfect situation allows my mage to kill everyone boosted by AS, then my archer attacks damaging the more hardy (Tank, TOJ, etc) targets left.

I know I need my enchanter/tank to get bigger, and I need to increase my CBF to compete with the big FB users, but any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

:)

Thoughts? Nice strat! ;)

What if your opponent really does have a giant CoBF? How would you win? Aside from that, it looks great.

Tribute, in that case he has an archer that is completely unaffected by the opponent's CoBF and a big meatshield. Besides, no strat is perfect (well, except whatever one I'm using at the time, of course).

Yup. versus a massive CBF I plan to have an equally massive bow and show them the error of their ways.

;)

The only thing I'll have trouble with is a single minion CBF with a Dex higher than my ToA...

But then it just get's into a weapon + / DB + battle.

;)

Or here's a slight amendment.

Drop the ToA and archery, train Decay on the second minion and equip a ToJ on it...

Hope for Decay + ToJ to take out any massive AC guys...

Hmm.. I'll think about this some more...

Thinking about it more, I can't find a reason to change from the set up I have now.

If a massive single minion comes along that causes me problems (CBF, more Dex than my ToA) I can combat that by sacrificing some xp I would have trained into DM (Or even HP s depending on the situation) and pump some natural Dexterity on my Enchanter.

I don't think I'll need to pump natural strength, as long as my ToA stays above the level of any EC I meet.

:)

1 Thing to note. Slayers do not target tanks. slayers are strictly 'first minion gets hit' kinda missles. If it was an Exbow/Axbow, that would target your tank first.

Yeah, I was only using slayers in the original post, because anyone rich enough to waste seekers on me (when my mage was behind my enchanter/tank) would probably use slayers instead.

I made a humourous post in CB1 about equiping seekers on a A/EXbow to bypass meat shield enchanters until the mages (seeker targets first) then the tanks (who will have a higher str/dex than a meat shield) are both killed.

;)

your best bet would be to use an Exbow then. if you look at certain very large popular 4minion teams.. that use hste... the tank has a lower dex then the mages. but i'm sure you know this

:)

Not worried about that. My massive DM will even the score.

(Well, it's not massive yet, but it will be! ;P )

Interesting use of DM on a two minion team. But my attempt at it (Maranello) is focusing on AMF instead to deal with multi-mage teams, so I'm exposed to the large solo tank (and CoBF too with my FB). Good work, GL!

/me is a self acknowledged "clicker" and not a "thinker" when it comes to strategy so I am no doubt missing the point, but it strikes me as odd that most of the forum space is taken up with strat talk about single this / single that etc...

All the top spots in the stats are made up of four minion teams.

I always assumed that people liked single/dual teams because they showed up on the top 5 for a lot of stat categories. I prefer the diversity a 4 man team gives you, plus the EXP bonus you get from having more minions.

/me jumps up and down waving his arms. Not all the top spots! ;)

I agree though, 4 minion teams are under rated right now, they do have the best couple chars (as much as I may blame that on CoBFs), although in my opinion they're going 4 minions too early, only one or two of the top 5 four minion teams seems to have gotten it right but I guess that's just my opinion and we'll see how it turns out.

Regardless, one minion chars are powerful and therefore are a favoured strat.

There are certain items in the game that seem to work best with one or two-minion strats. In particular, the ToE and ToA seem like they would be wasted on four-minion chars.

In addition, talking about 1-minion strats is easier than talking about 4-minion strats. You've only got Mage vs. Tank. Then on the mage side, which spell? On the tank side are you going heavy or light? Archer? Blood-luster? Or my new, patented, Ninja (nyah-nyah-can't-hit-me) Evader?

I do plan on eventually being a 4-minion char, but talking about 1-minion strategies is the basis for all other strats, sort of. We're in CB2 infancy here. It makes sense to crawl for a while before we consider walking, much less running.