After Pondering it for a long time I have concluded I am stumped (in General)

Ok this is me throwing my hands up in frustration.

I have run Alucard, my CoC/Archer, for quite a while now with mediocre (at best) success. I thought about changing over to a pure tank but the CBF wearers scare me and I would want a better melee weapon than the exec I have now. I really want to keep the strat I have currently but it just doesn't seem to be working.

I started looking at some of the people that are around me in pr a trying to figure out what (if anything) I could do to improve the strat (w/o changing the basics of it.) Some of the fights I would have won if I had more concentration in AMF, some if it was more CoC, and a few I may have been able to do with just a ton more HP. However raising all 3 will just put me in the same boat I am now just at a higher pr.

So I am stumped. I ask you the cb community to come to my aid. Is this strat salvageable? If so how? If not how should I cange it to be, at the very least, competative?

Character details can be found in my pic at left (you may have to click it since I just changed the pic)

A couple of things, I really do not want to change the ToA to any other tat, I do not have the cash to hire a new minion, and I am not willing to start another new character at this point.

From what I have learned so far, all I can say is: Welcome to CB2.

If you persist in thinking that this is CB1, or that you can dominate almost all strategies with a super-uber strategy, then you will be frustrated to no end.

CB2 was made for a reason, and not allowing a CB1 Spid is one of them. (Could have been any character on top, but at the time CB2 was made, it was Spid)

Well i think your at a crossroads.

You have to decide whether to be a mage or a tank. Its obvious that his hybrid is not working for you as well as you had hoped.

Since you stated you do not want to change your TOA the decision is obvious, you need to go pure tank.

I don't know the level of your COC, but I bet its a nice level. Unlearn it and you'll have lots of HP. In fact, you might even be able to take out a lot of COBF walls in missle before you even get to melee. If you get to melee then its just a problem vs those character who use cobf and unequipping your exec might be the solution vs those characters.

The best I can say is: pick a strategy and the implement it as best as possible. Like Todd says, no one strat wins all the time here. But middle-of-the-road, compromise strats get crushed. My choice, seeing your character, would be get a big melee weapon and go single tank. Sure, big CoBFs and other strats will beat you, but you'll have a target-rich environment, too.

Good luck.

I don't think theres really that much wrong with your strat. How big is your ELB? Maybe you just need to concentrate on upping that for the moment?

You don't have much damage reduction, and with a Tattoo your AC will suffer. Have you considered spending some xp on protection? You might feel like you're spreading your xp to thinly, but once you've got it to a level you're comfortable withyou can stop spending xp on it.

In essence you're a CoC mage who has traded the security of a ToE for the ability of using NW to increase your killing power. Focuse on that. Pump your ELB and CoC and try to kill people before they have too much time to damage you.

Take three minions out in ranged!

Why change A good thing? Your char is perfect the way it is , I can beat you in 3 rounds and never see your CoC...

This strat is so wacky. I've been giggling at it since day one, and giggling even more so because it has maintained a score decently above its pr.

I took a good long look at your strat, and decided that you essentially have a strat much like a TM/MT char. These 2 minion groups have never been known as an end all super-strat, but have always been considered viable. My suggestion would be to find a successful ToA-Tank Mage group and emulate it to the best of your ability, by training in roughly its same proportions of HP, ST, DX, and CoC. I think that this will help you 'center' your strat. Decide what kind of enchantments you think will benefit you the most and see where you're at. If you still think that the strategy ails in comparison with you nearest equivalent (A TM/MT char), then you might want to consider Ranger's post more carefully.

Your score is above your PR by over 10%, I would say your strategy is working very well. No one strategy will beat everyone. I don't understand what you're upset about.

CoC can use an archer as well??!?

Salvage by adding the second minion to do the archery and pumping the CoC on the first. Then the CoC can wear a CBF, archer can slap some down in ranged. I switched from CoC archer ToE to FB ToE just because I wasn't getting the desired gains, but I'm hoarding ranged weapons to try another couple minions in front of a CoC mage once the mage is stronger.

Well you have all given me something to think about...it seems that most of you think i would do better by going pure tank (which I probably would) but one of you (Almuric) pointed out something that i had not noticed: my score is above my pr. Now this is not normal for me, or at least it wasn't.

I have been watching my score/pr ratio since i read Almuric's post and it is much higher than it had been. So I asked myself what changed from yesterday to today...I got the Beleg's last night! This damage increase took me from being a few points over my pr after finishing my ba (and well below before starting), to being a few points under before starting my ba (and a good bit over after)

Now that I have an idea which way I need to go (offense vs defense) I am entertaining a few ideas. But am still not sure of exactly what I will be doing, so any input would be very helpful. Thanks.

~WC~

Also the damage increase for physical,

It's better to be good at one thing than mediocre at 2. So pick one, mage or tank. If you go mage, unlearn archery, dex and strength and put it into hp and coc, get a CBF with the cash you get from the Elbow, and consider changing your ToA to a ToE. If you go tank, unlearn coc, and put it into HP, dex and strength and get a good melee weapon. Keep AMF for now either way. Maybe add VA if you go tank. Personally, I'm tank all the way. But your strength right now is in your CoC damage.

But honestly, if you're having fun with your hybrid strat, just stick with it. I have come to realize that no one strat is master over every other.

think of it this way...right now you are basically training 6 stats... what the toa is doing (in essence) is making it so you gain more exp per battle, and forcing you to use that extra on st and dex. it would be like if Susan Death decided to stop training fireball, and train dex and st up to 200k each. everything is too weak, the fireball would not be as good as a fb mage at his level, and the st and dex wouldnt be as good as a single tank at his level. on the plus side, he wouldnt get as hurt by tanks on multi minion teams, and could dish out some punishment in ranged as well. my advice?

Put seekers on your character...

this will allow you to smash the mages up that will hammer on you, and then let your dex and st act as a buffer agianst tanks in melee while you dish out the pain. mages are known to have lower hp and lower armor, and now with the toe effecting all minions, heavy tanks are gonna be even harder to kill. if you can take out some mages, or more minions in general, your coc will do much more damage once you hit melee.

Alucard is a plenty viable strat, you just have to look at its weaknesses.
coc is lowered by every extra minion that stays alive in melee. take out some of the mages in the back, even one, and then you can really dish it out to the tanks in melee. whereas you might not kill a large ac tank with an overflow TOE, you could probably kill the low hp mage. kill him and your in business :D

Personally I think this could work. You just need massive amounts more of HP to get into the melee part of your fight so the CoC works. When I had Ice Cold Cylo the hp were low and CoC was at 300k and I was losing a lot because I couldn't get to melee. Once I got my HP up to 300k which was equal my CoC then I started winning alot. So I personally would keep the strat the way it is. Get your hp alot higher so you live a few rounds longer. Then once that has happened start upgrading your DB's adn your bow. I think the strategy will work real well in the end.

Just my opinion. Which is known to be wrong sometimes. LOL.

Just my 2 CB$, your strat goes wrong at the point where you say : "I have run Alucard, my CoC/Archer," :p

There are fundamental obvious reasons why this cannot work. unless with huge NW / great equipment.

You have also answered your own question, there are basically 5 options to you
1) Leave it as it is - said you recognise you cannot do that.
2) Turn it into a tank - Cant because you're scarred of CoBF / crap exec?
3) Start new char - Dont want to
4) Hire new minions - No $
5) Turn it into a mage - wont change Tattoo

You dont have any options because you have ruled them all out, either unrule one of them, or you will remain stumped... Of which to pick, I'd say any but #1.

The only reason that I can beat you is because of my AMF. My tanks and barely touch you in melee or ranged, you kill yourself. As I see it, you need NW. Forge your Elbow to do more damage in ranged to take out three meat shields, and up your AC to take less damage in melee. That would help you defeat my character at least, but like others have said, it's hard to find a strat to beat them all. Problem is that increasing NW can be a hard thing to do:P

One thing: I'm curious if you are fighting some chars above your PR and winning. If so, I think the result speaks for itself, if you are defeating none above your PR, then I'd say Myth, while maybe harsh ;p , is closer to right than wrong.

I ran a CoC archer for a while - my char Raven - and gave up on it long before you did so congratz on keeping with it. I found that being neither pure mage or pure tank was hard work.

You have to ask yourself what do you want to achieve? Because currently you - from a tank point of view -have the 2nd most successful single tank in the game. And from a single minion point of view you are in the top 15. I'd say your char is pretty successful at the moment.

With regards to score - CB2 scores aren't very stable. If you can be beaten by players of much lower pr your score will drop dramatically and then you have to fight up to simply maintain it. Are you beating people of a higher score? If not then you need to look at why. Plow some money into your bow and equip some seekers - find a higher score multi-minion EEMM type team and you should be able to beat 'em. Stop clanning if you want to maintain your score - if you're not being farmed as much your score will stabilise some. You'll lose the bonuses obviously but it all comes back to 'what do you want?'