Design a strat using these: (in General)

I'm getting tired of my current strat and it seems to be stagnating. I'd like to see creative strat solutions using these items. I guess the Morgul Hammer is the only item that has to be included. You may redesign my current group or suggest a new strat to start from scratch. Have fun!

A Shadow Cloak [10] (+7) 65,106
A Mage Shield [0] (+15) 106,648
Lifetap Maul [84x47] (+37) 2,352,777
Mark of Preservation (Jig) lvl 127,770

It's been a few days since we had a good strat thread and I hunger!

Bloodlust + Jig -> ToE + Lifetap Maul with an AMF + Vamp Aura-casting tank out front.

Mags, if I read that correctly, you're suggesting using 2 tats.

I'm suggesting turning the Jig into a ToE, hence the arrow. I should've mentioned the tank should be massive evasion/AMF/MgS rather than AC.

Actually, your gear is pretty darn similar to what I've got on Caedmon. Granted, my melee weapon is bigger, but my ToJ is smaller than yours (about 110k).

AMF/VA enchanter with ToJ
BL tank with big ol' melee weapon and about 150 AC.

Ha, that's kind of funny, Caed. Our gear is pretty similar and I was thinking of using a strat similar to yours.

I'm teasing a ET setup now. Think I might trade the ToJ for a ToE though and go for evasion on the tank and AMF+VA on the 'chanter.

Anyone have experience with or suggestions for a single T setup?

Check out GentlemanLoser's char Talhearn for the best example.

Basically the only truly viable single tank with a tat strat is the ToE. The ToA is nice, but you have no AC. GA tears you up, and so does big DD. Usually a ToA gives you the DX and/or ST to overcome most tanks or even tanks with multiple minions, but opens you up for mages. So you train some AMF. Nice but now you start to lose your edge on the tanks. Basically I have some good gear. Added a nice ToA, and a second minion was required. I choose a wall. The advantage of the ToA is good ST and DX without much trained into it. So your tank ends up with pretty good hp. Then you add a wall char whose only job it is to soak up damage. High AC, CoBF and MGs sets him up nicely. Still though no AMF. I have relied on seeker ammo to over come this. So far it has worked. I added the 3rd minion full AMF for not entirely strategic reasons.

I would say you could have a shot with ToE tank. Stick mostly the HP, let the damage reduction carry you. Personally, Im in favor of the big ranged vs big melee. Once you face enough ToE/CoC single mages you will too. So I would go elbow/archery, no shield you wont have AC anyway, and the Morg. Get DBs. Hurts AC even more, but then if they don't hit they don't hurt, and max AC of a tat wearing tank is like 100-150AC and at that point why bother, simply accept the no AC and gear up. If you have a VA weapon I prefer VA over protection. So I would go ToE archery/elbow Morg and VA.

No AMF...well I say go seekers. Yah its tough to depend on specialty ammo, but its tough to be a single tank in a world of big single mages. Eventually that will be what decides if you get a 2nd minion, when either your sick of getting seekers, or your ToE can't keep up with the DD spells. Either way the less places you train the better. I would add a second minion before I added AMF to my tank. Either that or scrap VA for AMF. Either way, why be a single tank if you have to have 6 places to train your exp (HP DX ST AR/BL AMF VA/prot) when you can be a single mage with the same ToE with a lot less exp sinks.

Thanks Sefton, that helped me think through things a bit on that end. Great stuff.

"I would add a second minion before I added AMF to my tank."

I don't have much background in the game and the reason for this isn't immediately clear to me -- could you go into a little detail? Very much appreciated.

Sure an again this is just my opinion but, as a single tank with a ToE you have to train HP ST and DX. You also figure a skill on the tank, you can't have a CoBF (the tat takes that slot) and the Mage Shield nerfs a lot of stuff so you can't really use that either. So you get a skill. Thats your fourth place to train exp. A mage at this point most likely has HP DD and AMF. Three experience sinks. So now you add VA or protection. Now I tried protection for awhile. If you already have a decent AC seems viable, but without it, did not do much for me. So you say VA. Base VA is expensive by itself, then once you get it, its your fifth sink.

As of right now, as a tank you can use NW to sort of make up for the more places you have to sink experience to remain competitive. Assuming any changes allow this to continue, then a 5 sink to 3 sink can be over come. Adding in the 6th sink, will take some serious NW to over come the loss of focused experience training the single mages can do.

Consider this, You have a single tank and a single mage.

Tank goes HP ST DX BL VA AMF and earns 3mil experience points. He puts them equally into everything. Thats 500K trained into each one.

Now the mage trains HP DD and AMF. He gets the same 3mil and trains 1mil into each. So disregarding the cost of learning the spells and skills, the mage has twice the HP of your single tank!

5 sinks is almost as bad but not quite. You get 600K to 1mil ratio. 4 sinks gets you closer to 750K to 1mil. But you currently can add NW a lot easier and with a lot more effect than he can. Assuming you can continue to do so, you will be able to make up his PR advantage with your NW advantage. Just the more places you train, the more NW it will take. So before I went to 1/2 his HP because of 6 sinks, I would add the next minion, I think it would be very expensive to overcome otherwise.

I think the basis of his point is that there's no reason to bother spreading out the XP across one minion if you can have two, then possibly equip a corn+elven gloves. It's more efficient with two under that context. I disagree, read on ;)

I've started a single tank char and I don't think I'm gonna add another minion for the time being. I don't think it's plausible to sink nearly 1/2 of a chars xp into amf. VA, GA or Protection are really the only choices as a secondary defensive enchantment, so you're going to end up with a lot of AMF. Except against single ToE mages, I don't think that much AMF is necessary; I think this char is dead against them anyway *wink* So I think it's a better idea to keep it a single tank so that I can better balance the amf and defensive enchant and add the rest into my HP/DX/ST pool. I think that I'm going to get a pair of displacement boots, and HoD, and a pair of TG and see where that takes me.

I'd love to hear more suggestions though. It's good readin' ;D

"Tank goes HP ST DX BL VA AMF and earns 3mil experience points. He puts them equally into everything. Thats 500K trained into each one."

Why would you ever train BL or VA (or AMF for that matter) equally with HP, ST and DX? I understand your point, but no one in their right mind would ever train like that.

One point on TOE vs TOA tanks.

The TOE tank will have less dex and str than the TOA tank. While the TOE tank has to train HP/DEX/STR/Archery or VA, the TOA tank trains HP/archery or VA. The TOA tank will even have more hp than the TOE tank.

However, with the better dex and str, the TOA tank will always hit the TOE tank for likely more than one shot. However the TOE tank will hit the TOA only once based on the pth of his weapons.

Therefore, the TOA tank will bash-bash-bash the TOE tank one bit at a time, while the TOE tank will miss-miss-hit-miss. At the same time s/he will hit for lower damage.

IMO the TOA tank rules. TOE's are for mages.

Well, but consider this, a) unless you have no enchantments, get an HoI over the HoD. The what max 20 more AC you can place on the HoD makes for a max AC nerf of a little over 4%. And it would be expensive, go HoI AC is OK and with but one spell it can help offset all the AC penalties on your spells. b) I am all for DB's, but you have to get your DX over theirs for them to work. Otherwise they tag you with DX and leave you wondering why you spent 4mil for the base set, and they are worthless against mages. Spid hits me twice in melee everytime and with my ToA and DB's I have 65 evasion. I guess Im saying if you go ToE and DB's you might want to favor DX over ST a little. The ToE lets you last longer, and if you have DB's you are getting hit less, and the DX will give you more strikes. c) use seeker ammo d) see c

The TG's are cool if you stick with BL and the Morg. Again I would go BG's and archery. Nothing feels as good as ending fights before the attacker gets a shot off. Using seeker ammo if they only have 1 mage like EEEM and its CoC or MM you can kill the mage is one round then pick off enchanters at will :)

I think your point is applicable, but only to ToA vs ToE tanks. There aren't any strategies (except maybe the ToE mage at the moment) that have no inherent weakness. I think I can accept the fact that I may be weak to ToA tanks. hopefully I can stay ahead on my Morgul PTH! >.<

Ahh yes, a HoI makes much more sense. That's a good point.

I do disagree on your point about DBs being worthless if they have higher DX than you. If they have PTH, the DBs are helping. No if, ands, or buts about that.

I do agree that an archery approach is a good way to go, but I don't see myself affording a good enough bow atm (or selling my morg to do so). Maybe in the future I can consider making that step.

Dont forget you'll be weak to Cobf tanks/walls.

Cobf's are getting more and more prevalent lately.

True Ranger, but as it stands right now, there really isn't much I can do about CBF walls. Seems like single tanks are pretty screwed against them. Archery may ease that pain though.

starseed archery and a massive comp or elb would do very well against those cobf tanks

Ok, as i see it you are admitting defeat against ToE solo mages and any team with a ToA tank or CBF wall. In addition, GA will eat you up (effectively canceling the VA benefit from the MH,) as will decay mages (unless you do go archery + seekers.)

So my question is what kind of team is it you are trying to defeat here?
It seems to me that the ToE solo tank is weak against almost every popular strat being used right now.
I have to agree with ranger on this one ToEs are for mages and ToAs are for tanks (unless you are just spiffy like me)

btw, curses on you for retiring Feuersturm while i was trying to fight him ;-)

CBF single tanks or enchanter+tanks yes, but CBF wall hidden inside a 3 or four minion group, no. And I think the latter is quite a bit more common as single tanks value their skills way too much.

lol @ warchild. I guess that I exaggerate somewhat the disadvantages that this single tank will have. I suppose anything multi minion I've got a shot at. Also, I'd challenge your thoughts on the popular strategies on the basis that I simply don't see many of the "popular strategies". There are strategies that people agree that are the best at the moment. And strategies that people agree that are the best given enough CBD. But I simply don't see many of those strategies around.

And in reference to beating up my char, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... HAHA. Ahem. So there.

"TOA tank trains HP/archery or VA. <snip> However, with the better dex and str,"

ToA Tanks will not have better Str and Dex than ToE Tanks (by any significant margin..) if they only train HP/Arch and VA. They have to train Str and Dex along with the bonus from their ToA.

At the moment, a ToE is the only way (apart from using a CBF) for a melee tank to stand up to CBF splashes. Use a ToA and they will fry you.

Use a CBF and you become stronger versus CBF walls, and with a MgS + AMF from another minion, shouldn't fare too badly from AMF, but ToA/ToE tanks are harder. Unless your CBF is so big they only get a couple of hits on you! ;)