Anti magic (in General)

Defense vs. offense

It would seem to me that if you have the ideal defense vs a persons offense you should be able to shut that offense down. I have found, however, that though I put half of my points into anti magic I still only manage about a draw against equal PR characters that rely on magic missile or fireball. Anyone else notice that, or am I just relying on shoddy generalisms?

I have always thought the best defense is a good offense, but just my 2 cents

Like all the defensive items in the game AMF is only very effective if you invest in it. But also, as in AC for instance, it's effectiveness, obviously, is based on the size of the attack. A large MM is always going to do you damage regardless of the size of your AMF. Invest in some seekers and take out the largest mage in your opposition first. As said, the best defense is a good offense. =)

Miteke,

Don't you think you draw/lose because you dilute most of your exp to non-HP value? With very little HP, you will lose no matter how large your AMF. Remember, you need nearly 2x exp in AMF to totally shut down an oponent DD. The way you have your char setup, it seems your tank have AT MOST 1/3 of total exp in AMF (more likely like 1/5 if your tank is a decent one).

I believe it was Fark, on CB1, who had a character called 'The Wall'. It was all AS and GA. Did pretty well, too. If you put half your XP into AS, you should have more HP than anyone else, and with sufficient GA, they should kill themselves before finishing you off.

Here, however, there is DM; not sure how effective that strat would be. To echo the others, a pretty good offense along with a pretty good defense will probably work better than just a great defense.

The real change from CB1 is now Tanks don't need as much XP stored in ST/DX, thanks to ToAs. It is quite possible for tanks to go nearly 1/2 XP into AMF, without making them weak, and practically reflecting every damage the mage attempts to deal.

>The way you have your char setup, it
> seems your tank have AT MOST 1/3
> of total exp in AMF (more likely like
> 1/5 if your tank is a decent one).

Actually, HALF of my experience is in AMS.
2 shares hp
3 shares dx
3 shares str
1 share archery
9 shares AMS.

Even with HALF of my experience in AMS, the DD spells do surprisingly well against my char unless they have 2 or more mages in the group!

I designed the char to be a mage killer, tailored to hit DD mage groups. The strat does fairly well, allowing me to select a few higher ranked chars to farm, but leaving me weak agains most other strats. I can live with that and like the strat. It just seems odd that so many DD mages do so well against this strat obviously tailored to kill them. I'm just curious, not complaining or anything - like I said the strat works, just not as well as I expected.



In regards to using more Endurance - I tried that. When I won I was usually left with a great excess of hitpoints on the main char and far fewer on the ToJ, so I lightened the balance so that it favored STR and DEX and that seemed to fare better.

Well, then the problem you are running into is that you only train 1/9 of your exp in HP, which is really little. It also hurts you that you are single mage with a ToJ, so you are relying on ToJ to stand last.

I checked your fight. You lost to people who are 4 minion team with GA, eventhough they are heavily mage. GA hurts you alot when your mage has little HP and ToJ can only do so much.

Indeed, GA hurts a lot. Perhaps I should switch to a more tank strat and not work on the AMS for a while, building up HP, STR, and DEX - but I want a nice ToA or ToE before I try that. Have to save up - those things COST. But then I'd be vulnerable to some other strat! I kind of like the mage killer strat.

honestly, your problem is simply that if you want to completely shut down a fireball or MM you'd need to have even more AMF than you do. Your putting 1/2 xp into AMF.... so? single mages put like 3/4 into DD, of course they're still gonna make it around your AMF, and when they do your left with a tank made of maccaroni.

Like I said, for every strat there is a work around. I could put 3/4 of my points into AMS and shut him down.

But that HP comment made me check my data again. I made the 2-3-3 ratio rule for hp-str-dex when I was in my 50Ks. It seems that with my current level HPs are more crucial as I am getting my main hitter wasted earlier than the ToJ. So I will take that advice and beef up the hps for a while. Should be interesting to see what difference that makes!

Thanks for all the advice and comments folks, though that wasn't the original goal of the post. The original goal was to spark some discussion on the relative merits of AMS.

Should AMS block more damage or not?

How successful has your AMS strat been?

What ratio of experience to you spend on AMS and why? Has it worked for you?

miteke, you'll never completely shut down a single mage's DD, although half EXP into AMF hurts them a lot.
I'd actually suggest a ToA and then train HP/AMF equally.
Why? AMF is very nice, a single tank with a huge one could do well.
ST=Weighted to the 'low end', your damage wont go up that much from ST. (Going from 100k ST to 200k ST will not give anywhere near double damage, I'd be surprised if it even gave 50% more)
DX=Most chars are mages, training DX once you already have enough to hit a ToJ is often a waste.

When you look at it, you have two options, base your strat on HP/ST/DX or get a nice big AMF. Offense/Defense. Only, the AMF will be giving you a huge defense, the additional ST/DX gives you minimal extra damage.

"Should AMS block more damage or not?

How successful has your AMS strat been?

What ratio of experience to you spend on AMS and why? Has it worked for you?"

AMF* =p

No it shouldn't black any more, that'd make the game entirely based around tanks.

My AMF strats have done great.

How much EXP? No idea, 1/3 maybe?