FB + DM. Too powerful? (in General)

A strategy discussion to divert everyone.

Is the combination of FB + DM too powerful?

FB hits first (Along with ranged weapons). It targets entire teams. It does more damage to single tagerts. It's damage increases linearly with xp.

The largest FB is nearly 700K. I would assume it does somewhere in the region of 250K to a single target. That's on par with the most powerful blow, which I'll assume came from an ELB + Archery. ELB s can hit multiple times in a round, but can only target a single minion. With 5 minions, An ELB will take a minimum of 5 round to kill the team, regardless of size and damage.

A large enough FB can do that in the first round.

But that's not very likely. Is it? AMF can reduce the damage, but no one has a 700K AMF, and that would reach only a 40% reduction anyway. A MgS could reduce the damage a single minion takes. But not many people use them. Or have them high enough to matter.

The biggest way of stopping FB is to use multiple minions. It really cuts down the amount of damage FB deals out.

But again, a large enough FB could still take out 5 minions in 1 round.

Ah, but then AS stops this. The counter to FB, multiple minions + AS.

This is where DM shines.

Even facing multiple minions teams with AS, FB+DM will obliterate them. The best that can be hoped is that your meat shields get taken out in round 1, but your main damage dealer lives to the next round.

Unless you're an archer or a FB mage, you'e just gifted your attaker a free round.

Now, consider that a FB+DM character really needs to train only a little HP (hell, you could leave it near 20 if you don't face anyone who can damage you in the first round - CoC single Mage for example), and only need enough DM to reduce the AS they face to a manageble level, all the rest of thier xp can be spent on FB.

So you have a build that will either win, or draw versus everybody.

Overpowered?

What can stop a large enough FB + DM?

Yes FF is too strong in overall

AMF stops me every time.

Its amazing what AMF and natural HPs can accomplish against a FF... Seekers work wonders as well.

Another note, why does every decent mage strategy have to be overpowered? How exactly is the FF overpowered ? Because no one is built to defend against them besides Bartlett and Cougars?

funny...i dont seem to have a problem against them..in fact most of my farms are single minion mages.

why is it so much easier for me to kill them? i have half my exp going directly into amf, i always rent a fairly large MgS on my wall, and my tank has enough HP's because of the amf's to make it to melee and dish out the punishment before dying. even after death, all i have to do is wait. my amf usually does as much or more damage to their minion then they do to my wall with MgS.

so they kill themselfs. its a rather spectacular explosion :D

take this round for example:

Naruto crushed Jack Crow [51403]
Naruto draws strength from his weapon! [12698]
Naruto pulverized Jack Crow [72850]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Crow takes damage from his own Fireball (35611)!
Jack Crow's Fireball hit The Demon Fox [11091], Naruto [36804]


granted he didnt have DM, but instead had amf. i do have VA, but in this case it wouldnt have mattered anyways, i had plenty of hp's left.

FB to powerful? no, your strat just is too weak against them. focus on killing mages like i do, and they wont be such a problem.

every strat in this game is going to have a polar opposite, its pretty easy to find out what it is, you just have to want to use it. since not many people want to focus on mage killing, mages run rampant. more fodder for me i guess :P

hmm, let's see AMF, Mgs, AC, Protection, HP, ToBF. The only problem is nobody have a big ToBF to stop the currently oversized FB. A lvl 500 k ToBF should be able to cut off that 680 k FB. I really don't see any problem with FB.

I think the one that is really overpowered is DM, no changes for DM since the beginning of CB 2, and there are already lots of discussion about how strong is DM. I've seen some teams with 4 minions all DM + AS + familiar having ridiculous ratio of MPR/PR to score.

"no, your strat just is too weak against them"

LOL SC. It Is my strat...

;)

I love two things about this post.

GL saying his own strat is too powerful. Use it GL, abuse it. If it works for you then it's brilliant not bad or overpowered!

The second is Soul's example of a FB mage imploding because of AMF. It's me!!!! Fame at last!

LOL


thank you and goodnight! =)

Devilord, that was my reasoning behind using a TBF, along with it's evasion. But at 200K it's only stoping about 25K. That's not a lot at all..

An AMF equal to it's opponents FB level is only around a 40% reduction. Even at 50% xp expenditure, no AMF will keep pace with the people putting the majority of their xp into FB.

Protection get's nuked by the DM.

AC might become a problem, but with the NW/PR link either 1) most people aren't using armour. 2) it'll be on 1 minion. That minion will last an extra round compared to the rest.

Same deal with an MgS.

Another way of using this would be to have a single minion train only DM, with a FF appearing behind them.

Only reason I'm not doing that is because my tat is too small, I get better growth training FB.

"I was thinking we should have a name for ourselves. Something tough. Cougars?"

"COUGARS!"

Actually I forgot one thing, there is GA, 5 minions + decent GA = dead FB mages. (I've been drawing quite a lot with toons because he got the biggest GA and if I don't have DM, I'm pretty sure my FB won't help at all). Again, it's DM that keep causing the problem. (if you call it a problem). I've been wanting to add more minions for GA and AS but I kept thinking that DM will kill them, so there's no point for adding them.

Like for example, Ranger, if his character doesn't have DM, do you think he would stay at number 1 ? I could be wrong but Avoid could probably draw/beat him. I don't think it's FB + DM that is overpowered, it's almost anything + DM. (you only need to focus increasing 1 skill to kill 3 skills at once assuming your opponent has 3 enchanters, how great is that ?) ;)

:) i've got a good amount of AS+GA yet I am most vulnerable to FF mages, I've been thinking about converting my familiar from IF to FF...

As you said Devilord, GA is stopped by DM. As is AS.

DM is powerful, but it doesn't help MM or CoC as much as it does FB.

DM+MM = Minimum 6 round to kill 5 minions
DM+CoC = Minimum 4 rounds to kill 5 minions
DM+ELB+Archery = Minimum 5 rounds to kill 5 minions

DM+FB = Minimum *1* round to kill 5 minions (Not overly likely, but possible with a large enough FB...)

And that's the problem.

On the other hand... thinking back to my old SMToE. When I gave it up, Ranger was killing me in one or two rounds (400K HP and a 350K ToE). Susan Death (the biggest FB at the time) was Killing me in 4 or Drawing in 5.

There's plusses and minuses to everything.

FYI

Even before I went to DM I would beat The First fairly easy and that was with a much smaller elb then I have now. My AMF was over 300k at the time. So if DM gets nuked, ill go back to AMF.

Or better yet, have both DM and AMF

DM is specific enough that I don't think it's a problem
there are a lot of strats that will tear a single mage with FB/DM
it just so happens they arn't always that effective on the other
more popular strats here. In fact I've found that my very general
strat on Liver works very well against them, simply because I have
a decently sized amf for my pr (ok well it's oversized, but it needs to
be these days). Besides, all you have to do is train a minimal GA and
every FB mage will die, period. GA can destroy FB mages like nothing
else.

DM is effective with FB because a lot of 3~4 minion teams rely on AS for HP. If an effective FB+DM combo like my team or Black Caesar could bring your supposedly 150k HP from AS to less than 30k, you are doomed in 2 rounds.

It doesn't actually suggest that FB + DM are overpowered, it's just the mass developed strategies that are too vulnerable.

totally agreed, it's out of control. 3 of the 4 most recent to farm me have... you guessed it... FB/DM focussed strats. my strat covers DD pretty well with a large AMF & MgS, so what else can i do?
losing the large AMF for DM isn't an option, as I'll need to rework my damage & be left wide open to the FB even more so. that isn't going to happen as i believe in my strat 110%.

nothing counters fb/dm currently.

I'm not one to change strat on a whim just to abuse the latest change month loophole, nor change it around to defend these cheap strats. so it's always loosely moulded around the same concept.

check all the fb/dm score/pr ratios, they're pretty rude.

nerf time.. hurry up change month. :)

You still lose to FB mages even with a 'large' AMF madmax? I don't understand that because the only characters that can beat me are AMF users or have a NW that is incredibly higher than mine. This strat is not overpowered. It just so happens that no one (blatant exaggeration) wants to change their strat to defend against it. And this game is a game of choices. You are supposed to have to choose what strats you are going to be strong against and which you are not. I'm not strong against AMF, but I don't think that AMF is overpowered. I'm not strong against 4-5 minions because my damage output is usually too spread out. I don't complain that there are people out there with 4-5 minions though. I'm just trying to let you see that just because the majority don't account for a particular strat it doesn't mean it's 'overpowered'. People seem to use that term a little too loosely.

Maybe it is overpowered, however there are a number of reasons the strat is looking good at the moment.

1) defence has been nerfed, with NW=PR and no armor allowance and the death of the ToE, maybe we will get an armor allowance giving defence a boost and improving strats which hit later.

2) since the ToE nerf many teams have been able to switch from AMF to DM, AMF still hurts the FB user quite a lot and is one reason why just going all FB and no HP is not an option.

3) These strats tend to be good for drawing fights which is the main reason many of the FB/DM teams scores are where they are, not because they are beating teams at that level but from higher attackers getting some draws.

I think Chet, Bast and Spydah still do ok versus this strat. Now that the MgS blocks a % of damage this is very useful and will continue to be so.

Basically I have problems with anyone who doesn't rely heavily on ED, has AMF and multiple minions.

I believe if anything the ToA is most overpowered right now, maybe FB/DM but I think the strats to counter are out there.

Perhaps you are biased by the fact that you are using the TBF (in theory good versus FB) which is certainly underpowered, I tried one at about level 210k a while ago, kept it for about 2 hours, it was not good.

madmax, I think the problem with your strat is.
1. Your main attacker HP is ridiculously low + no help from AS.
2. Xbows are weak, they need to get beefed up.

It's not really the fault of FB/DM, but if you really want to blame FB/DM mages, how about this.

FB only mage = quite normal, many strats to counter it. (inc. GA + AS + Prot to defend against the FB itself)
FB + AMF/EC mage = still normal, many strats that can counter it. (inc. GA + AS + Prot to defend against the FB itself)
FB + DM mage = suddenly they become GODLY, overpowered (kills GA + AS + Prot at once without penalty). See the problem here ? I just want to say that FB is not a problem at all, it sure is the strongest spell in the game if you compared it with others, but it has many weakness too.

Oh yea I forgot, AMF reduction doesn't cap at 40% just the amount which is returned to sender is capped.

Ok if i sum up everything that DM FB FF usuer say is you need to invest 50% on your EXP on AMF have GA and have all the anti mage gear and lot of HP.Ok good but how i deal dmg now ?



You all know that FF will get nerf live with it.

Whats the point of having GA, arent we taking about countering a DM strat here

OK heres my side of a battle versus Chet, maybe this will enlighten some of you. BTW this is with the 700k FB that can kill all in round 1

Tiny cast Dispel Magic on all enemy Minions (133,937)
Tiny cast Protection on all friendly Minions (5)
Otis cast Antimagic Field on Tiny's familiar (0.30)
Otis cast Antimagic Field on Tiny (0.23)
Max cast Antimagic Field on Tiny's familiar (0.40)
Max cast Antimagic Field on Tiny (0.32)

Ranged Combat
Tiny's familiar takes damage from his own Fireball (42985)!
Tiny's familiar's Fireball hit Otis [14596], Grover [2437], Max [4693]
Tiny takes damage from his own Fireball (48810)!
Tiny's Fireball hit Grover [4924], Max [8498]


R.I.P. Otis

Tiny's familiar takes damage from his own Fireball (49125)!
Tiny's familiar's Fireball hit Grover [12226], Max [25425]
Tiny takes damage from his own Fireball (55782)!
Tiny's Fireball hit Grover [20888], Max [42610]


R.I.P. Tiny's familiar

Tiny takes damage from his own Fireball (62755)!
Tiny's Fireball hit Grover [42333], Max [39239]



Melee Combat
Tiny takes damage from his own Fireball (69728)!
Tiny's Fireball hit Grover [29201], Max [32433]


R.I.P. Tiny

Chet's got a massive AMF. He uses two minions to stack and yet still on get's to 0.32 versus a 700K (which will grow more than his AMF).

The MgS will help keep it's minion alive, until every other minion is dead, then the single target damage bonus FB get's will blow right through it. Even if someone coughs up to get a 50% one.

Besides, if you're facing a MgS minion, it's most likely a non damaging wall, or a weak tank. And you can take your time roasting it.

Just one thing Rubberduck. I wouldn't use a FF with a single FB minion just because of the crappy multi target issue. In your first round your main FB (which is much larger than your familiar) had it's damage split over three targets, even though it only damaged two, because your familiar had already killed one.

So what would you use, ToE is not worth while as most overcome the endurance level to leave you with nothing, As the tattoo dies round 1 quite often it's the only tattoo worth anything to a single FB mage imo, IA might disagree..

Certainly Chet's team is set up well to deal with mine but isn't that what you wanted to see, the MgS is on a tank, sure not one which is anywhere near close to the ToA tanks around but it is quite capable of damaging me plenty.

Oh yea and Chet isn't even using a bow right now.

Yeah, no tattoo really fits at the moment. Ideally I'd use a ToS only if it could appear behind my mage.

I've gone with a TBF, but they are so underpowered it doesn't really matter if I use it or not, I'm just keeping it's level up and hoping it'll get buffed in the change month.

The combination of large AMF + MgS works wonders to keep That one minion alive, but even though it's on a Tank, the tank didn't get a chance to hit you, Chet's AMF killed you.

Maybe a ToE would be good if only for it's reduced AMF resistence...

As others have said, the best way to neuter FB is multiple minions (kept alie with AS) + GA. This really racks up some returned damage. But DM is too much of an equaliser.

Besides, even if it's just potentailly, is there any other set up in the game that is able to kill 5 minions in the first round of combat?

I suppose he's saving his weapon NW allowance for his melee weapon?

I tried the TBF a while ago, not long after getting this char. The TBF was about 210k, after switching my DM to AMF I still wasn't beating the FB mages I thought would be my prey and switched back to FF. I think 4 minions is needed for TBF to split FB damage as much as possible and keep the wearer alive till melee versus ToA archers. I still think it is probably underpowered even with an ideal set up.

I think Chet is just cheap and doesn't like to pay for arrows ;)

His tank did hit me once in melee I think.

I think with the FF it is perhaps overpowered on a sliding scale dependent on how oversized compared to your team it is as I think it gets "free" PR by way of its HP.

I don't see a big issue with FB+DM mages. I get most of my wins from them :D

Oh, one more example would be Cau. He's not much bigger than I am on the MPR front, but i don't stand a chance against him. So that's 3 valid examples (Bartlett and Cougars from before) of teams built to withstand the FB/FF/DM craze.

My ears are burning!

I won't bother much with ranged until I get a bow capable of dealing large blows (read: ELB). ELB will be useless against ToA dudes (dexterity gap), but should be quite effective against mages even though my tank has no ToA.

So, yes, I am concentrating on mage-busting. ToE, AMF, MgS, and ELB should keep me ahead for a while. I will also be rounding out Cougars to its authentic quartet at some point, with the new front enchanter also being AMF.

And DM is useless against me, and always will be.

It is a rather specific strategy, but I decided to embrace the rock, scissors, paper motif and have some fun with it. Now you know everything I am planning (at least as far as I do). Bring it on, mage teams.

This may sound stupid, so I apologize in advance. But it may be a way to kill 2 birds with one stone. The TBF is the "so called" weakest tattoo. Why not have it's FB resistance greatly increased, or even better, have it completely negate FB. Then you'll have your polar opposite strat for FB/DM mages, and beef up the TBF at the same time.

Just beef the thing... Too many items have railroading negative aspects anyway. Do we really need to force mages to only wear a ToE as no other tattoo helps them? Bang goes Strategy.

And CBF s didn't negate the wearers FB...

Four Tank Team could kill for minions in 1 round, but thats with archery and big nws and is quite vulnerable to a DM.
So I'm quiet again.

Not even a 4 Tank team can kill 5 minions in the first round of ranged. (4 minions + Familiar creating tattoo)

Unless FB is used.

Really, what the debate.

Just look at Chet and Bast. Large AMF's. Case closed. Please.

My strat is basic enough but it defeats any SMToE team at my MPR or PR and even above it by as much as 20%. Yeah a big DM could knock down my GA and AS, but then either their HP is too low to withstand the MM in ranged or their FB is too weak and I kill them in melee with ToI. Plus that isn't the only team I'm effective against.

Then again I've also said out load that FB should be the one to fire in two rounds of melee and MM should fire three times. And I think it might be fairer if DM was scaled so it became a tad weaker the more enchantments it dispelled much in the way CoC works with it's damage. But I'll just roll with the changes.

Sorry, I meant FB should fire twice in ranged, not melee of course.

Ranger, the equation is a tad larger than that:

Me: Large AMF, ToE, Large MgS (tank is almost always last guy standing against FB), and no DEs to get nuked by DM.

Bast: Large AMF, HUGE ToJ that essentially acts as a ToE because it is so hard to kill and keeps the FB spread), MgS, and smallish DEs (I assume they are not that huge, definitely not integral to her strategy). Bast has all of this under a very large PR (larger than my own).

A large AMF is not always enough. Ask Almuric. I know his DM eats away a bit at his own AMF, but his still is very large. Beating mage teams is a little bit more than "pump AMF".

Also, the thrust of the debate, which seems to be obscured by peoples specific set ups, is that there is one and only one potential way to kill every other team in the game in the first round.

Nothing other than FB can do that.

DM makes this hard task so much easier to do.

First round (or first couple of round) kills are so important in this game because ranged comes before melee, and defense still doesn't cut the mustard.

It doesn't matter how large your BoNE, MH, BTh, VB, CoC, etc is if you don't get to use them.

The most effective way to stop FB from dominating like this is multiple minions, propped up by AS with a healthy AMF and GA.

DM effectively negates this defense, leaving what?

A large AMF? As shown just by looking at the Stats/Characters/Attributes page, no ones AMF come close to the large FBs in the game at the moment, let alone 6 months time. Even if they did AMF at an equal level is around a 40% reduction. What does that matter is most of your team only has 20 hp after a fizzling AS?

So What else?

MgS's? They're good, but expensive and far to situational to see much use. Plus They're capped at 50%. See 40% above. (Although minions wearing MgS's usually have a lot of natural HP trained, they tend to not be the main damage dealers on a team.

AC? Hardly anyone uses AC anymore. Much less + AC.

Endurance? I doubt even the largest ToE hits the 75% cap versus the largest FB now. The big FB s will grow at a larger rate than the tattoo's, making them less and less effective as time goes on.

But hey, I don't expect anyone will agree to this until they see it happening.

*Shrugs*

One defensive element to consider is the ToJ. It is very effective against FB because it is hard to kill (trains endurance), has a lot of built in HP regardless of AS, and acts as a familiar to further dilute FBs power. It is going to take QUITE and FB to kill of a large ToJ in one round, especially if the ToJ'ed team has any reasonable AMF trained.

I think Avoid and Bast might be on to something with their patience regarding tattoo conversion. *smile*

GL, there are some limits to xp usage which you seem to be ignoring here. Your example is of a huge FB combined with a huge DM. This leaves no room for HP and with even a .08 AMF effectiveness someone at the same PR level can wipe out the FB Mage in the first round (a reversal of what you fear will happen). If the mage wants any chance at survival then FB and/or DM must take a hit. On top of that if the Mage also wants extras like ToE, then thier PR is raised even more thusly making the FB weaker when placed against teams of the same size.

I would also like to say that any team who dies in the first round because they only have 20 HP on each minion once their AS is completely canceled out by a FB + DM mage probably deserves the loss seeing as they obviously either don't have nearly anything put into AS and because they fail to see the importance of real HP.

Besides, what would it mean to be overpowered when we are talking about a strat. I take overpowering to mean that the strat in question has an unfair rate of growth, NOT the ability to beat people well above your PR. Though beating people well above your PR does translate to rewards, which translates to growth. But the growth of a FB + DM mage IS limited, they are limited by the fact that only half of there rewards are useful. Once a ToE is bought there isn't a real need to buy anything else, then their money just wastes away. An FB + DM mage would need massive MPR in order to be #1 and the rewards of the top ten would never ever let that happen.

The top players stay at the top by using both MPR AND NW. In fact I'm sure it is much easier to gain NW then it is to gain MPR given the advantages 7 BA refresh rate gives to campers. Just ask Sefton about all the free BA he gets by camping and about how much money he makes off of it.

'But the growth of a FB + DM mage IS limited, they are limited by the fact that only half of there rewards are useful. Once a ToE is bought there isn't a real need to buy anything else, then their money just wastes away.' GunProof Vestax


Sorry GunProof, but that's a fairly ridiculous statement. A large pair of DB's for instance require some investment - and unless I'm mistaken that's something GL has on his mage. Then there's BA - my FB mage doesn't have any accessories or equipment at all so I spend nearly 200k a day on BA. That certainly isn't limiting my characters growth. In the longer term NW may rule in CB but it certainly isn't everything. And the beauty of CB is that there is always some toy to come along and make you want to hand over your cash!

Oh and BTW glad to see you're sticking around!

GPV;
"they are limited by the fact that only half of there rewards are useful."

I was under the imprssion that the vast majority of people here thought spending CB2 on NW was counter productive because of the NW => PR link.. Mages don't suffer this problem.

Unless they op for a CoI.

Plus as JW mentioned, the extra purchasable BA works in favour of those who don't have to spend CB2 on equipment.

XP dilution? Single Mages (and FB ones specifically) have the greatest concentration of spent XP.

DM doesn't need to be great. It doesn't even need to totally fizzle your opponents ED s. But the fact that it works at full power versus 'stacked' ED s means you can get away with a lesser investment anyway.

And HP s can be left low, as you won't be lasting more than a couple of rounds, you draw or win.

Chet;
Massive ToJ s are hard to kill, but I'm begining to find out that's where my DB s shine.

They're not that great for reducing Tanks pth & cth, but work great versus the (low damaging) ToJ. ToJ's suffer in that the can't bump thier trained UC, so thier pth suffers, and compared to all other tanks, have low Dex.

When facing ToJ s / Wall minions, I think it's more likely that they will be left last after other minions have been killed, but being failr low damaging will not be able to stop a large FB when they are the last minion.

We're nearly at 700K FB s. Imagine how much damage the first 1 Mil FB will do. I don't thin it's that far off.

I'm not saying that FB + DM mages don't grow fast at first or that they don't have any advantage such as the low BA costs. But think about it, what does a lower BA cost do for you when the top players and mostly everyone else around you also spend their full allowance of BA regardless of cost. All you have to show for it is more money to spend on just one character.

Maybe your right though since your character is only as old as March and you have gotten as far as you have without any NUB. Yet, my feeling is that as you get closer and closer to the top and as the opponents that give good rewards start to disappear, you might start to realize a glass ceiling exists for that kind of character.

But I'm probably wrong about that. About me still being here, yeah I've been going through the forum's old posts and I've been getting a feel for how CB got here. Plus I seem to be gaining more and more commitments such as a forging job and a new clan.

My strategy is now to dance on the heads of these FB mages as they climb up to the top and take me with them, then when they run out of steam and realize the time for getting another minion had long past them, I'll be ready for a strat change that'll get me the rest of the way. So I guess I honestly hope your strat continues to benefit you johnny. :)

Sorry, another thing. If AMF + GA (baring the overtly powerful ELB s anyway) are the most threat to FB mages, consider the 'Mage' Tattoo.

DM stops GA damage, and a ToE (even at reduced effectivness) lowers AMF backlash.

LOL GunProof! I think you're going to be around a while by the looks of it. CB gets under your skin after the shortest time.

The biggest disadvantage a FB mage faces - or any single minion character for that matter is the cost of adding minions. It makes strat changes very difficult to carry out. 2 mill to get my next minion if I wanted one! See that's why we don't have anything to spend our money on, just incase we need to change our strat!

=)

I know I'm not going to convince you of any limitations of the FB + DM strat GL. Namely since it is your own strat and since you have spent a lot of time with trial and error and have put much thought into a really good strat. Whatever I bring up as a possible weakness you have already recorded down your protection from it. And if your right about the superiority of this strat, well then I should congratulate you rather then argue with you. You've been in love with DM ever since your third post I imagine. Good luck with your climb, you've probably deserved it given you're contributions to the game.

johnnywas, what do you mean it's under my skin?!!!!
/me runs around in circles screaming until BA is refreshed and starts to play again.

LOL! ;)

If your last post was about Tal, I used to be somewhere near the top, but swapped Tal's strat around so much I''ve got a long way to go to catch up.

I know what you're saying about the top spots, I've thought that ever since the NW/PR link came in, unless I spent a lot of cash on NW, I'll never get a top PR.

But that's not to say I also can't spend CB2 just like any other team.

At the moment, I've got my DB s as a cash sink. I could even save for a corn and pump that.

Johnny and GPV. Staying single for as long as possbile *is* the most powerful strat. Even though this will eventually cost shed loads. It allows you to turn cash into xp. And apart from buying BA, there's no other way to do that.

As for ceilings, I'm 100% sure that there are non for mages and in the long term, Tanks will hit a cap, not mages.

Mage damage increase is linear with XP.

Weapon damage is not. The strength curve favours low strength, and no weapon has a linear cost to upgrade.

There will come a time when it will become nearly impossible for a tank to buy that next X, while the mages gets another point of damage for Y xp spent.

But that might be years in the future.

:) Sure I can be convinced! That's why I changed a while ago and went tank.

Contributions? Now that's just flattery! ;)

Oh, and I'd never make a thread like this to get people to highlight the weakness in my current strat, to see if I can adapt to anything I've missed!

:P

I don't disagree on the single minion front. If you were really patient and had a lot of cash in the bank the best way to create an uber multi minion team would be to wait as long as you could before hiring extra minions. That way your main damage dealer would be that much more powerful than he would have been if you'd been multi from the start. Wait a minute....wasn't that what Sefton did? =)

lol @ Mikel

exploiting it to the max, & a nice 5:1 score ratio...

It also seems I was too conservative with my estimation of the damage a 700K FB will cause.

At 460K, my FB does (very streaky) between 190K-250K on a single target with no AC or AMF. Versus small AMF s and AC it still does around (and just over) 200K.

Taking about 230K as average damage (this is really un scientific... 1/2 level seemed to fit...) means a 700K FB would do around 350K average to a no AC no AMF target (there are a few out there!).

That's slightly more than the highest MPB.

Working on the same thoery (it seems to fit for MM from what I can remember of my MM mage in CB1) a 1 Mil FB (not too far off if you ask me) will do around 500K to a single target .

Oh. And all this was in ranged, with a ranged penalty.

ELB s get to hit more than once per round,so the total damage inflicted on a single minion will be higher. But they don't get to target every minion in a team.

Ranged is where it's at. FB+DM or ELB+Archery. The two strategies of CB.

And nobody has mentioned decay yet? Reasonable natural HP to survive ranged and decay should cut the FB mage down a chunk.

Yes, but one needs to survive till melee to use decay. And by the first melee round most mages are toast.

Put the decay on a wall with a massive mage shield. Base decay (like base protection) still works behind the Mage Shield.

That I did not know...

Makes a mockery of the Mage Shield...

This thread got me thinking about it, so I tried it today - works just fine (I use both protection and decay behind mage shields). Actually, any enchantment works at level 0 behind the mage shield. For my GS, it provided 19 strength when the mage shield nullified the enchantment. It's a loophole Jon knows - any spell or enchantment that has power at level 0 works that way.

Of course if that wall runs into any level of AMF, he (she) is toast as the AMF casts a full 1.0 on the Mage Shielded decay.

Attack me with your base decay. There is a downside to having it.

Typically, FB+DM Mages don't use AMF.

Base Decay is level (1) not (0). :)