I can't make UC Work (in General)

Calling all armchair generals and Monday-morning quarterbacks...

I can't make UC into a viable strategy at higher power levels. Everyone beats me. I'm sinking tons of XP into UC directly which could be spent elsewhere and still doing less damage than I could with a weapon or magic. I've tried a Combat Gi, a ToE, ToA, two minions -- one with a damage tattoo, which was responsible for my new most powerful blow all by itself, and AMS or EC or AS and Brock with the Gi, strong AMS, no AMS, VA, high Dex, whatever.

I can't come up with a way to make this work. So, I'm soliciting your unsolicited advice: how can I possibly make this into a viable strategy?

Brock Samson: 41.3k HP, 44.8k(76k with ToA) ST, 47k(77.1k with ToA) DX, 12.8k VA, 69.4k UC -- 221k with Gi, 130k with Helm's.

Thanks for your time and wisdom,
Mags.

I honestly believe you need way more HP. I'd continue using the ToA rather than the Gi, but that ToA doesn't seem to be very big.

Good call. One of the things I've noticed of the single tanks around my PR is they have roughly 60k HP/100-120k stats. I don't see many with higher HP, and my base HP doesn't seem to greatly affect most battles I fight. GA devastates me, so I was hoping to get my damage high enough that it wouldn't return as much, but that's hopeless, so going for high HP might be a better tact. VA sometimes returns as much HP as I have base over the course of a battle.

I'll focus on HP for awhile.

VA will definitely help, but I wouldn't rely on that as a cure-all. You might want to also find out whether or not you're losing to mage-based strategies or tank-based ones. If you're losing to more mages you might want to think about investing in AMF for a bit.

Oh, forgot to mention; of the ToA, Gi, and ToE, I did best by FAR with a ToE. Those things are just ridiculously powerful. They also work in a manner like MgS, GA, etc.; the higher the initial damage, the less they block as a percentage. This meant nothing but single mages could really damage me.

Changing back to it would greatly increase my effectiveness, but it seems like I'm not capitalizing on the UC then, and I'd do better with Bloodlust or DD.

I lose badly to both as it stands, but AMF is not really viable as a long-term strategy if I'm trying to do UC too. There's too many places to spill points and I can't get my AMF high enough even for a EEEM team.

I'm not sure how you define "viable", but have you checked your score/PR ratio lately? You appear to be doing fine.

I am not coming down on you with this, but I need to make clear that a score/PR ratio of 1.00 means "satisfactory". People know that, right? Your ratio is above 1.00. You are viable.

Learn AMF. You do not need that great an AMF to get some mages into the 0.20 range. And you don't need to keep pumping it as high as their DD to keep it there (it is loaded toward the low end, as are a lot of things). AMF hits them back AND reduced your damage. If you split 50/50 on HP/AMF for a couple weeks, I bet you continue to maintain your score/PR ratio, if not gain a little. Your ToA will always grow regardless, and once you get your AMF up to a decent level you can go back to pumping UC and VA for a while.

I think your character rocks! Unique and wonderful!

If the ToE works best, stick with it. It just means you're going to be spreading your exp a bit thinner because you'll have to focus on the DX and ST you'd be missing out. But if it works best, go for it.

"I am not coming down on you with this, but I need to make clear that a score/PR ratio of 1.00 means "satisfactory". People know that, right? Your ratio is above 1.00. You are viable."

Ashamed, but the trick here is it's that high only because there's a few particular characters I'm picking on routinely that I can beat consistently. It's not a reflection of whom I can beat; there's maybe 1 in 30 characters in this score range I can defeat. I can beat 50% of the characters down around 100k.

One thing I was considering as an alternative to AMF is using a MgS + Gi and taking the -5 hit to UC. This would be slightly more evasion, slightly more UC, much less DX, much less ST, and 40% less magic damage vs. a ToA -- seems like a decent trade.

If you are staying single minion, there is no way the MgS can be a valid offset to a tattoo. No way. Tattoos are immensely powerful, no matter which you choose. If you had another minion that could wear a tat, I might agree, but no. You MUST have a tattoo, and the ToA seems like a pretty good choice.

As for only being able to beat select folks...well, look at my Cougars. They suck. I can't beat anyone above my PR (I don't think), and end up preying on lots of lower folk. Sometimes that is the way you have to do it, even moreso as a single minion.

"If you are staying single minion, there is no way the MgS can be a valid offset to a tattoo. No way."

I think you're right. The Gi is just part of what makes UC unique -- and ideally, more viable -- so I tried making a second minion and tossing the tattoo there. It really didn't work. I got more PR and less powerful since the XP gained on my UC guy dropped so much.

It just seems the need for tattoos makes UC less useful because one of the prime items for it is mutually exclusive with it, and distributed UC won't help much because you need the high level for evasion and single damage due to GA and ToE.

Also, it would decrease my PR considerably. Enough to offset the bonus from a tattoo? Almost certainly not.

If I had to do an ideal single char at this point, it'd be 20% of STR in Bloodlust, a ToE, marginal VA, and the rest of his points scattered through stats and possibly AMF. I'd just really like to make UC work, partly because I don't have the dough to do that right, and partly because you're right -- it's a cool char and I like being different.

Does anyone else have any advice, or specifically opinions on whether MgS+Gi would work, before I save to buy a MgS?

I'd have to agree with Chet. Tattoos are almost a must-have at this point. Trading that for a MgS probably wouldn't be in your best interest.