A Change For The Better? (in General)

I'm thinking of picking up another minion and rearranging some of my skills. Just curious if some of you more experienced players could give me a little critique of my new strat, and let me know if you think it's an improvement over the old one. Eventually I'll need some better equipment, but this is using what I've got.

The New Oysterhead

Stewart Copeland (Enchanter/Drummer)
HP:20 ST:20 DX:20
VA: train to 10K AMF: All other XP
Hard Leather Armor
Leather Boots
Leather Gauntlets
Cabasset
Robe

Les Claypool (Tank/Bass/Lead Vocals)
HP:1/3 ST:1/3 DX:1/3
Archery: train 1/4 DX
Steel Brig Arrows
Cloak Compound Bow
Steel Shod Boots Executioner's Sword
Cesti
Armet
Mage Shield

Trey Anastasio (Mage/Guitar/Backup Vocals)
HP:1/3 ST:20 DX:20
Fireball:2/3
Leather Boots
Leather Gauntlets
Cabasset
Tattoo Of Jigorokano level 83,650

Oh, and I'm not sure if I should use VA (I have no experience with it/no idea how well it works) I was thinking maybe switch that for AS and go 1/2 and 1/2 with AMF on the enchanter.

Well that's it, I think it's pretty self explanitory. Let me know what you think.Thanks in advance, any help is appreciated.

If your going to use a TOJ then put it on Stewart to protect your tank a bit.

I would also not equip any items on your tank that gives you more than a 2% dex penality as they will also lower your archery skill.

I personally would change that TOJ to a TOA and equip it on your tank or make it a TOE and put it on your mage.

As to VA, its very powerful especially if used with a TOE on that minion or even in the party as yiou can leech more than other will do.

Your strat is very similar to mine:


Fleisch
Antimagic Field: 75,732 (?) Ablative Shield 24,536/28,867 (11,787)

Reichstag
ST: 31,183 DX: 30,559/31,183 Bloodlust: 6,280/6,409(0.97)
Lifetap Maul [84x50] (+40) (Morgul Hammer)
A Heavy Crossbow [4x10] (+9) (I plan to make this an Ax/Exbow)

Feuersturm
HP: 32,592 Cone of cold: 64,849 (14,417) Vampiric Aura: 15,183(?)
Mark of Preservation lvl 127,470 (ToE)

I just recently changed my tattoo from a jig to a ToE in response to the latest change. This strat is working beautifully. I can hang with single mages and virtually any other strat except ToA archers. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the advice guys! A few questions...

As I'm pretty poor, it's kind of hard to keep a decent AC for my tank. Do you think it would be better to keep the archery up (It's currently at 1.0 with minuses) or try to have a slightly better AC?

Any suggestions on what rares I should be going for right away? I'd like a CoBF, because that'd be great for my tank (although I'd lose archery), but that'd take quite a while.

I personally don't understand why anyone would avoid -dex equipment because of its effect on skills. All it means is that you need to train your skill with a few xp to attain the same effect. It really isn't that bad. The only consideration is it effect on dex.
I usually just assume that my tank is more or less completely ineffective against any other tank, except a non-ToA 4-minion char tank. That assumed, having dex a few percents below what you could normally attain doesn't seem that bad if your tank can take the hits better. Survivability (armor) seems to be much more useful than almost anything else right now. And besides, how many tanks are even out there at the moment ;)

2 more things. If you have to decide between armor and archery, choose archery

..and yes a CoBF on that strat would be sweet. I'm seriously considering making that my next purchase.

Just remember, a CBF negates all skills so the archery skill will not work with one worn.

You can still fire a bow, even an elb, but only in 2 of the 3 missle rounds.

oddly my tank with the crossbow would skip the 2nd round missile every time. Is this the expected behavior, it happens every time, even if I remove the cobf

you must have a bow + archery to fire in the second round of ranged

Oh by the way, my reasoning behind putting the ToJ on Trey was to keep it alive until melee so it could attack. Is this sound reasoning, or would it be put to better use up front?

I'd place the ToE with the enchanter, and rent a MCM for trey. You can usually get good deals on rentals, which really boosts up the progress...

Reebok, I don't think it matters where the Jig is to protect your mage. But if he is in the front, he might also protect your tank for a little while. It's not a big deal, but it may help in a few situations. Either configuration, though, will benefit your mage the same way.

Gokhan, I have to disagree with both points. A ToE on the enchanter would be largely wasted; the benefit gained by the non-Tattoo wearing minions isn't that great. And a rented MCM, in my opinion, is a waste of money.

I meant ToJ with the enchanter, I don't know where that E character came from :)) And you can rent a 60 AC MCM for 3000 a day (I just did). That adds up to 90k in a month 900k in 10 months... Which is the going rate..

Reebok, overall i think that the strat idea is pretty good but to answer some of your more specific questions

1) Stay with VA the benefit to your tank can be amazing (especially if you follow the next point, which is...)

2) Go for the higher AC armor, so you have to put a few more points in to archery to keep it at 1.00, the AC will be more than worth it (and i mean go all the way Adam, CML, Tulkas, and HoD, will discuss cloak below)

And these are some things that you did not ask about that I think would help you tremendously in the long run

1) Switch the ToJ to a ToE for the mage

2) You may do better to train CoC instead of FB on a back row minion because of a) the splash damage in melee (which is even more painful if you decide to keep the ToJ) and b) CBf users negating the damage.

3) Get a CBF. This is really a no brainer, extra damage, Fb mages (including your own, if you decide to go that way) will never do more than warm your aching bones and it gives you the perfect thing to deal with the ToA tanks that you would otherwise be unable to touch

4) And finally you may consider going with DM instead of AMF (once you complete the above steps) Your magical damage reduction will be very high and the DM will help with so many strats its not even funny (look at the top players and see how much a good sized DM would hurt their strats)

If you followed all the points that i outlined then you will have a very formidable team: the wall will be nearly indestructable between high AC, endurance from ToE on mage, Mage shield, and the CBF. This will in turn protect the Mage (both from physical damage (other than seekers) and magical damage (by diluting FB and CoC and blocking MM)) Over all a very defense oriented team but damage can still be very high.

That's some great advice War (and everyone else!), but my only problem with it is I won't spend USD for items. I'm a conscientious objector to non-donation spending.

Oh, another question, if I only had the one physical minion (assuming I switched from ToJ to ToE) would it still be worth it to keep the VA or would something else be a better bet?