How to kill ToE mages (in General)

Some people seem to think ToE mages are the uberstrat to beat all other strats. As someone with a ToE mage, I feel that I have a respectable strat (my score is higher than my power). However, there are chinks in ToE mage armor.

(By chink I mean, "way for a lower power team to slaughter me.")

The Obvious Chink

If you have 4 minions, have one minion train decay. Just decay. ToEs do not affect decay, so even with AMF the mage will lose a third of their hitpoints on the first shot. I hate teams who are smart enough to train a high decay on a minion who can survive until melee. (Against MM mages like me, this means the third minion.)

The Other Obvious Chink

VA rocks for tanks. (And by 'Tank', I do not mean 'UC tank'. By 'UC tank' I mean 'Moron'.) Single Tank + ToE + VA = ouch time for mages.

Intelligently built tanks do more damage than I do when my ToE is matched and VA means they get some of that damage back as life. However, most tanks are not single tanks, so they tend to kill me with ToA + VA + AS while I'm punching through the minions leading up to the tank.

Note that, though the ToE mage can protect against VA with DM, he/she/it cannot protect against both Decay and VA.

And yes, I am aware both strategies have their weaknesses against non-ToE mage teams. Life is hard like that in CB.

First of all:
Any TOE mage worth while will have a high level AMF to protect vs spells and decays. So forget about decay. Even a high level decay will not do a lot of damage vs a high amf.

Second:

About your VA thoughts. Is actually not that helpful vs a TOE mage. Since you do 1/3 the damage vs a TOE mage, you leech even less.

Vs The Germs I do less than 10k per hit in melee and leech only 3-4k with my VA. Thats with 220k str and a x67 MH. The reason I win my Cylo and The Germs is my AMF. This causes them to essentially kill themselves. I dont know if this is true but I dont know if the TOE protects vs AMF backlash.

A TOE mage, with a high level COC or FB and a decent AMF and hp will rock badly. Only a very high NW TOA tank will be able to kill it.

Alas, a ToE does protect against AMF backlash.. At least, that's what I've seen experimentally.. I've casted .40 or greater against most ToE mages, and while I'm taking 10-12k damage, the backlash damage they take is maybe 1-2k.. Against non-ToE mage/mage teams, they take significantly more damage.. Thus my hope of them killing themselves tends to fade out..

Grant, I agree as a single minion you're vulnerable to a large decay but as Ranger says, even a smallish AMF will wipe out decay almost completely - and very few decay users are building it up to levels that overcome AMF. Decay rocks against large tanks/mages who are using DM - but there aren't that many of those. Even a very low level AMF can block out 97% or more of a base decay.

I seem to do better than most vs ToE mages at the moment. I don't use decay, though, but I do use VA.

I've got 2 tanks made for tanking against mages. A Jig covered by AMF and VA. And my main tank with a +14 Mage Shield, a bloodlusted Morgul Hammer and the same AMF and VA. Against single mages, this group does better than most. My mage usually dies quickly and doesn't do much, but they can't deal with my tanks effectively.

So I have to support the fact that VA can be a useful tool, but only when combined with good ac/protection/AMF.

I can't really vouch for decay, but doesn't AMF have a significantly reduced effect versus Decay? It did in CB1...

Grant, I just did a run against your char with mine Raven. 4 minion EEMM team - and yes I have decay. I would say if decay is causing you a problem its because your AMF isn't high enough. It cuts my decay mage's attacks in two. But most of the AMF's at our score/pr block it out almost completely. Plough some more xp into AMF and you won't see any problem from decay... =)

"And by 'Tank', I do not mean 'UC tank'. By 'UC tank' I mean 'Moron'."

Man, why do people keep taking these cheap shots? :P

I believe there was a changelog stating the fact that a ToE does, in fact, protect against AMF backlash. I am, however, too lazy to look it up.

A) AMF is blocked by a ToE, but i do tend to kill myself more than not.

B) Big Decay sucks. If my AMF blocks half your Decay, i'm still losing 1/4 my HP with one attack in the first round of melee. If the Decay mage survives the first melee round i lose another big chunk.

C) Gyaxx is already taking off 15,000-20,000 HP from me per hit with his Bow.. that's 30,000-60,000 per round (with only a $15 million NW bow).. He only has 160K pr, he'll be beating me soon.

D) Big Fireballs Hurt...

There is a more simple way, MUCH more simple :

1) Wait until the person gets so bored with playing a single mage strat their brain implodes, while still able to play means they can no longer answer bot checks.

2) Wait until they have a moment of clarity and suddenly realise by hiring another minion they will rule and create *the* strategy, thus ruining the strategy...

;) Nah myth, I think *the* strategy involves three minions! ;)

ToE single mage/tank seem to powerfull for me.ToE cap almost all attack at 0.75.a nerf seem to be need.