A Tattoo of Ice lvl 100,170 (no sale) (in General)

A Tattoo of Ice lvl 100,170 1,683,854

Woot!

This Tat does a massive amount of damage now and is now the primary killer on my team. But unfortunately, I think as configured, the ToI will never be popular because at lower levels, it's a complete liability (barely scratches anyone). I'm still not convinced of it's long-term viability, though the last two buffs have helped very nicely (thanks, Jonathan!).

Anyone have experience with a CoC team want to give me some advice?

This tat is NOT for sale.

The only advice I've got is make sure it lasts as long as possible. Maybe get AMF instead of Dm. Or some protection to give that familiar a bit more of a chance of lasting longer.
My CoC mage does his best damage much later on, although I'm sure you know that already. But that combo of decay and Coc is a gem =)

ToI's major weakness in my opinion is that it can't be your 5th 'minion'. A CoC mage with 4 meat shields in front of it is a very nice killer which makes using a ToS or something on a 4th minion CoC mage much more useful (just my opinion though).

Although I quite like CoC and have found that AMF is very important (that +ToE are the two easiest ways of getting huge damage reduction, and exceptionaly cheap). Usualy I'm not a fan of AC or anything, but AMF can easily get you at least one extra round against most opponents and giving CoC an extra round will more than make up for not having DM to hurt AS.

Also Decay + CoC? Yeah, very nice damage against certain opponents, but against the majority of opponents I'd have thought MM/CoC would work better (take out one or two minions in ranged with MM and CoC will finish the fight up nice a quickly in melee).

Mr C, you're right about MM+CoC being more useful, due to the ranged attack - but Bolfen's team already has an archer to cover the ranged area. But, Bolfen, I don't think you really need a decay as large as you have it though. That could be wasted xp. Shame we can't train and cast endurance - the combo of endurance and CoC is another one that I think is a match made in heaven!

An aside to this, when you're attacked by seekers do they target the decay mage or the familiar?

I used to be MM. When I switched to decay, I started beating about 50% more people ;)

Yeah, matching decay and CoC did the same for me too. Took me from being a 60k score AND pr to my current 200k score with 80k pr. Keeping 'em both alive into melee is the hard part!

I've seriously thought about junking either DM or GA and going to AMF...Can't stand the thought of the PR hit though :P

DM helps not only AS, but Haste/GS/VA/Protection too. But yeah, mostly AS...

AMF might make more sense than GA.

GA doesn't stop you getting hit, although obviously you're dishing out damage. AMF on the other hand cuts back on the damage you're receiving and dishes out in return. Hasn't Jon changed GA in CB2 so that you get hurt by your GA when AMF hits you?

You could, if you're clever keep your DM and have AMF. Just keep the AMF higher than the DM.

Oh yeah, that's why I haven't switched ;)

That would be a huge waste--DM + AMF. Even if AMF was higher, you'd lose the value with DM.

I guess I could go AMF + Prot. Or AMF + AMF ;)

EC is pretty handy too though - especially as more and more people are using tanks.

After inspecting you, Bolfen, I wondered why you have DM instead of AMF. Give it a go!

Although it might weaken you versus tank teams, you will destroy mage teams. :)

Hmm... out of curiosity, I inspected every CB2 player that had a higher score than me..

Of 40 minion teams:

26 (65%) had mage teams
9 (22.5%) had tank teams
5 (12.5%) had an even split

Then I took a look at my fightlist...

Most of the players I'm beating ARE already mage teams. Hmmm...

I never used decay so far, so I'm probably not good advice, but why place the decay minion last? If he's the last one standing, you won't be killing anymore (except with GA). If the decay was placed third, and the tank last, when the decay guy dies, you still have your tank. (But again, I never used decay.)

What if you had that on a mage with CoC...?

Ok, dropped DM + GA for AMF.

So far it sucks.

If you dropped GA and DM for AMF, I would recommend adding evasion as well. Just a suggestion.

Glory, evasion? Huh? That only effects the + on weapons, at this point very few people will get anything out of their +s (you only really start to see it at +50, even then it's only half the time that it does anything).

Bolfen, that doesn't look to be the only change you made, putting the tank in the back and by the looks of it also got haste...
Other than that, AMF really should be making it better.

I did move the tank in back before I retrained.

The AMF didn't really help much. The mage teams I beat before, I beat worse. But a lot of the blended teams started beating me and the higher mages STILL beat me.

DM was pretty darn useful.

You shouldn't have dropped GA. There is plenty of room for it, AMF and AS on a four minion team. I'd train it on your AMF enchanter, so you can balance the two as your battle dictate.

Is the new position of the tank causing some of your losses? Your ToI is now too far in front to last long enough I'd reckon to cause the damage it was doing before.

Ignore my last comment - shouldn't have even tried to read or write that early in the morning...