strategy in the long run (in General)

I'm wondering about the merits of two strategies that I have been trying out.

The first team I made was a single tank who is now at around 50,000 PR. It has HP, DX, and ST around 24,000; Archery at around 6,500; and AMF around 18,000.

I made a team yesterday that is magic heavy, after wondering if there was any future for a single tank. That team is around 6,000 PR. My first minion is training only Protection; the second trains MM and HP at a ratio of 1:2; the third trains MM and HP at a ratio of 2:1; and the fourth trains AMF and Haste equally. I thought this would be a good strategy because of its great defense, and the fact that no stat I train hinders any other (I hate teams that cast DM and then other enchantments which fizzle).

For both teams I use a ToJ level 23,000 (Although I think this goes better with the mage team).

I want to stay with this game for the long run, and was just looking for advice on which team would be better as PR gets higher and why you believe so.

One thought:

Sticking with single minion allows you to buy into more experience later. Your mage team is already full, so you will not have the option of adding to it later.

I would side with the single minion, though single mages seem to be faring better these days than single tanks.

personally, i like the single minion thing.... and i ask you if the antimagic field works at your PR?

Actually, I had untrained my AMF at around 45,000 PR, putting that experience into HP, ST, and DX...I then proceeded to get destroyed by everyone that I had been easily beating. So, I trained it back, but not up to what it had been. I've toyed with the idea of switching it to DM when my PR gets higher, but I'm not sure how that would work.

AMF is essential, even around there. That is where I started adding dual AMF, up to 30K each. Helped IMMENSELY

Instead of a ToJ on the single tank, why not a ToA? or if you can't get one, a LToA? or if you are even braver, get a ToE.

I started with using DM. I do believe that it is very good. Imagine wiping out AS, GA, Prot, GS, and Haste. But I think AMF may be better off in the long run. A lot of mages are ready for DM thereby training HP to higher levels. I'm restarting my character and may go into AMF this time instead of DM. If you look at most of the top chars, AMF may be the spell of choice.

I still like DM though. I've toying around with the idea of having both. A low level DM to take out low level spells (GA, VA and such comes to mind), with high level AMF so that it won't be affected too much.

Instead of a ToJ on the single tank, why not a ToA? or if you can't get one, a LToA? or if you are even braver, get a ToE.

ToA=Choice tat for a single tank. Well, for any tank. ToE/ToA are basically free EXP into your stats, ToA splits it's EXP into two stats evenly, ToE however trains at most 70% of what your HP is at, when your HP isn't even 1/3 of your total EXP that can't be good.
Just my opinion though.

Also I'd agree with Chet, single minion is probably your better option.

P.S: Jon, we really do need these tats to be accepted by the spellchecker.

why a Tattoo of Jigorokano, and not a Tattoo of Augmentation or a Tattoo of Endurance....I just can't seem to get either of them...I really want the Tattoo of Augmentation. Also, I don't see any point in going with a lesser tattoo. I'm just pocketing my money until I can afford to buy a ToA, so until then, I'm stuck with my ToJ.

Also, does everyone else agree that not having the tattoos on the spell check is really annoying?

No, I really quite enjoy having to do the <nospellcheck> tags every time!

Hi. A question about your 4 minion team. What is your first enchanter going to train after you reach a stable level of protection? If the curve for protection hasn't changed from CB1 that'll be around an AC of 60-70 (about level 400K or so...).

And another question for your mage team ... why Haste?
Mages don't need DEX. You'd be better off putting that 4th minion (enchanter) in front, and train only AMF with him.

ToA is by far the best Tat for any single tank.

ToA trains 0.6 DX and 0.6 ST per level of the tat. If I remember, my ToJ was roughly 0.2 ST and 0.3 DX. Though it also acts as a damage shield, I think that when you get HIGH level tattoos and single tanks vs a high mage w/ a ToJ, the tank will win.

The tank merely focuses on HP/AMF, maybe some extra DX for more hits/accuracy, ST is enough from ToA in my experience. At high levels, the DX from a ToA could make it impossible for an equal level ToJ to hit the tank.

Just an observation, but something to look into. I personally wiped a 114k PR single mage w/ a 109k ToJ, and I can already see higher level ToJs with same PR chars losing to me consistantly.

Ok, I think I'm sticking with my single tank for now (who might have a ToA on the way *crosses fingers*), but I will answer the questions for my 4 minion team anyways.

Why Haste? Well, I thought that my team was really weak against a tank with AMF (and DM too) and that Haste would help me avoid getting hit multiple times. And maybe, if I was lucky, I could avoid some hits altogether. But now that you mention it, it makes more sense to just go with AMF so that it has the chance to be higher than any DM cast against me.

What would I train after Protection? I was planning on getting decay after protection...I thought it would be a useful spell for a four minion team, especially against teams with ablative shield (although I haven't tested its effectiveness...maybe its not as good a spell as I think)

Thanks for all of the help/suggestions everyone.

GentlemanLoser, Protection is completely different here, and the curve is definitely different. I pumped Protection for a half day and barely broke (6). So it is not the same as CB1, and its effect is not the same either. Theories range from it being a stronger sort of damage reduction applied after AC to it being a straight percent reduction (again, applied after AC).

I think it was Almuric who had the idea to save a lot of experience, mark down damage taken by a known team, then train a large Protection to see what it does to damage. No one has done that yet, to my knowledge.

Thanks Chet!

I'm not sure if that makes it stronger or weaker versus DM now... I suppose if it takes you ages to reach 7 protection, as soon as you do any small DM drops you back to 6. Which would be disheartening.

But as you continue to pump towards 8, less and less DM would drop you back to 6....

:/

For the early part mine looked to be going up at slightly over 1k level/1 prot so that 7 prot I doubt would be more than 8k EXP.

Protection: 13,206/13,120 (10) there's mine (9-10 seemed to take a bit of a training curve that took a bit more EXP) and yeah, any wimpy DM wipes these things out.

I'd just like to point out though, prot is and always has been a spell that you train only a little in, don't put any more EXP than you're prepared to lose in it (in CB1 that wasn't quite the reasoning, but still, overtraining it was a waste).