Looking for strategy advice, and Tattoo details (in General)

Problem: Normally, if I win a battle, most opponent minions are defeated in ranged combat. When they take longer, I end up toasting my Tattoo of Jigorokano with my fireball, and the poor tat is lucky to get in a single attack. Thus the tattoo is acting as a rather poor "ranged combat"-only meat shield, with very little meat and very little shield.

Possible Solution 1: Convert my Tattoo of Jigorokano to a Tattoo of Endurance.
Possible Solution 2: Save up for a long time, and get myself an MCM and a CoI.

Question 1: What exactly does a Tattoo of Endurance do? Sure, it "reduces damage taken", but that's pretty vague. I've seen some posts that saying that it can absorb (up to?) 70% damage, including AMF backfire. Does that also include physical damage? Does anyone know the rate at which the amount of damage blocked increases? For instance, approximately how much damage could a level 100k ToE block? Also, it looks as though the ToE does not transform into another minion during a battle, but simply reduces damage. This means that a ToE cannot be defeated in battle, right?

Question 2: How does the damage absorbed by a ToE compare to the damage that would be blocked by an MCM and a CoI? (And yes, I know that the CoI has the added advantage of increasing magic, but it'll cost a few million.)

Note: I looked though the old forums for detailed info on Tattoos, but didn't find anything very useful. I also looked at the "User-maintained CB sites" listed under community, but they only gave information for CB1. Aren't there any sites out there for CB2? There are so many obsessed fans, hasn't anyone done a detailed analysis of the tattoos? Or is it just time to update the linked sites?

Also, when I was looking through old forums, I found nothing at all on ToA's. The description for the ToA is equally vague: "improves physical prowess" - does that increase strength? Dexterity? Luck?

Getting the ToA out of the way - that tattoo adds to ST and DX - I'm not sure but I think it's 60 st and 60 dx per level of the tattoo.

The ToE essentially adds 'invisible hp'. Endurance enables your character to take less damage - mine cuts about 60% of damage taken. And that's a 43k level tattoo.

I'd say for your mage it would be a good addition - couple the ability to last longer - without the toasting of a familiar - with a fireball the size of yours should make your character very powerful indeed. =)

A1: A ToE reduces the amount of damage you take, separate from AC and Protection. As you found, it reduces up to 70%, so if you were going to take 10,000 points of damage from a hit, and your ToE is of sufficiently high level where it's fully effective against a hit of that size, it will reduce the damage you take to 3,000. This is true of both physical and magical damage.

A2: A ToE will absorb way more damage than an MCM and CoI if it's of a decent level.

For a solo FB mage, a CoBF may be a better choice than a TJK. See the character 'Susan Death'. Or a ToE would also be effective.

A ToA adds to the DX and ST of the wearer. See Spid. Look at his bare stats in the Stats->Attributes table, then see his active stats. Very effective for Tanks. He can't, however, wear a CoBF which somewhat limits his power. Without that one item, a ToA on a solo tank might be overpowering.

For a single FB mage, I would suggest ToE, but I've never played that kind of char, so perhaps that's not optimal. YMMV.

Just for the ToA question:

ToA is 0.6 ST/DX per level of the tattoo (so every 100 levels = 60 DX/ST).

ToE max damage block is 75% of total damage dealt. It needs to be fairly high in comparison to damage dealt to block that, but it's very noticeable. I highly doubt an MCM and CoI could *ever* get high enough to block as much as ToE, without spending literally hundreds of millions, unless the ToE is extremely low level.

Thanks for the help! Looks like I'm saving up for a trip to the tattoo artist.

actually, the ToA grants 59.05% ST/DX of the level. So a lvl 100=59 ST/DX added. Just being precise :).

Uhmm, ToA has always been 0.6. Exactly. My old tank had no DX/ST modifiers other than his ToA for a long time, and it was ALWAYS exactly a 0.6/level boost from ToA. From lvl 9k to 70k (I named it at 70k and it was ~0.628/level)

heh, stupid me :P. I should go back to math class.