Effective Strat help? (in General)

Hi pplz im reworking my strat on Provocative Thoughts and i was wondering on weather or not if i should substitute my Ethereal Chains: 131,000 (47,314) and Guardian Angel: 27,862 (?) into DM. What are the pro's and cons to this radical change? and atm my char relies heavily on my ToJs performance "A Hot Branding Iron Tattoo : "Grade A Beef" lvl 324,170 "... though im trying to steer clear on depending on a tattoo to win my fights. so long term i want a clean char...ie.possible enchanters+mages

Here's a quick link to my char Provocative Thoughts

ooo right forgot to mention something else. if in the case i do go into a DM direction. it would impact my 2nd minion that also casts a 270K amf. so thoughts and feedback is greatly appreciated :D

what are you trying to go for in the long run? you said enchanter + mage...? (without taking into account the tat)

so without the ToJ, you don't really have any use for the EC. But by now it is painfully obvious that a tat is required in CB2, what kind will you stick with?
not a ToA, you said you weren't going tank
so that leaves either a ToE or a DD familiar...(I'm missing a tat, you say? -nonsense!)

what direction do you want to go with the tat?

well most of my fights are won with my toj, id like to see some DD dmg being dealt from my MM and potentially another DD mage. the most i could say atm is its work in progress.

Dropping EC and AMF will weaken your ToJ (the one helps it hit tanks, the other helps it survive into melee). DM is most useful for ranged attackers (because it lowers enemy resistance to damage, allowing them to be killed sooner).

With a score 2x your power and only $550k among your characters, I'd wait until I'd banked ~$5 million for equipment before making any moves. Right now, your strategy looks low cost and effective, so I'd milk it until you start having problems, by which time you should be in a better position to change.

Honestly, it looks to me like you are trying to spread out way too much. You have one guy training a very high level EC, HP and GA at around the same level, then you're training ST and DX, but you're not done yet you're also training BL...On one guy. The other guy is training MM, AMF, VA, and HP. I'm not claiming to be a strategy expert by any means. I do think that perhaps if you focus your experience on certain things though you may do better. If you were to hire two more minions you could have the following strat. Enchanter casting EC and VA, another Enchanter casting AMF instead of GA, Tank wearing your ToJ w/BL, and your MM mage training MM and HP. Everyone is focused. Your EC/VA enchanter's sole purpose is to make it easier for your Tank and ToJ to not only hit your enemy hard but dodge your enemies attacks. Your second enchanter would be AMF instead of GA for three reasons. Reason number one: Armor affects GA's effectiveness, not so for AMF. Reason number two: You have something messing with tanks already with your EC's, now you will have something for the Mages :) Reason number three: Dispel magic won't have anything on you. So all of those dispel magic junkies will just have wasted experience when they fight you. Now onto your Tank and ToJ. These puppies will be hitting and dodging. The BL and VA will just make your tank awesome. The goal here, though, is to make the fights last as long as possible. While people are fighting your Tank and ToJ your last guy will come into play. That's right your MM Mage. This guy is your secret weapon. MM does more damage pound for pound than any other DD spell the longer a fight lasts. So the longer people are messing around with your Tank and ToJ, the more damage you will do. All of your experience will be focused and maximized for damage. If the tanks beat the guy then so be it but that mage is going to tear through people. I hope this helps and good luck with whatever it is you choose to do.

CoC wastes MM in long fights. I mean, it's not even close.

Yeah stupid me...I meant to say CoC. Change MM, in my previous post, with CoC and it's a solid strategy. I don't know what I was thinking. But yeah everything else is good though in my opinion.

actually coc on a 2 minion team just isn't going to cut it..

had that strat at one time. you need at least 2 minions with AS to keep him alive and a wall is a +

I suggested a four/five minion team depending on how you look at it.

E = EC/VA
E = AMF
T = ToJ
T = Tank w/BL (It's a tank train him how you train a tank)
M = CoC +HP (equally)

At one point in grant's past, the char was actually single ToE CoC mage, and reasonably effective (score about 2x power) ... it's just that when he couldn't beat someone, he *really* couldn't beat someone.

The advice about hiring minions to focus is good in many ways, but it's important to note that at shiv's level, hiring useful minions will cost $$$, and a 4 minion teams lose flexibility that 2 minion teams have. The golden question is, "Does my BL tank survive to inflict damage?"

If I were doing a four minion ToJ-based team, I would go with EC/VA on the first enchanter, AMF/GA on the second enchanter, EC/AMF on the third enchanter (wearing the ToJ), and CoC/HP on the last minion. Keep the VA/GA low for use on teams without DM.

You would be vulnerable to stalemates against teams using a similar strategy, though :)

I do understand what you are saying Grant. Would it be expensive? Yes it would, but much more so further down the road. I'm really not trying to pick your post apart but I disagree with some of your points. If you could do the same to mine I'd appreciate it. Hopefully we all can gain a better understanding.

1) VA will only be useful to the ToJ. Which won't be useful in the long run.

2) Against DM your GA, no matter what low level you train it to, would still be worthless, and having it would lessen your AMF's effectiveness.

3) I don't feel that only training HP's on your CoC Mage is enough to keep him alive to do enough damage to win.

4) I know it's semantics but having a ToJ in your team makes not a ToJ-based team. The strategy I suggested, in my opinion, is a CoC-based team.

5) My strategy isn't based on the BL tank either. It's designed to keep that CoC guy alive. It doesn't hurt to have a Tank taking off a ton of hit points, but the CoC guy is really your money maker.

i have to agree with cupof joe... you need at least a 3 -4 minion team for coc to work, and a wall a +... since shiv is going towards a no weapon and armor team with 2 minions coc team really isn't going to work.

there are effective strats out there for a 2 minion team with what she is looking for, and i think fb is the only way to go. just my 2 cents.

she! *giggle*
anyhow, ummm... wait... i have nothing else valuable to contribute. >.<
except that whatever you do, don't do what i do. my score goes up and down more than that evil bungee-slingshot ride in wildwood that i refuse to go on.

oops... didn't mean she. sorry about that.... you guys are quick...lol

I've always considered my strat to be alright, but I have also always thought that a ToJ instead of a IF would be much better. You can try it out for yourself (minus the EC and AMF) and see how it works for you. It's cheap to run and at about your level I had a Score to PR ratio of 3:1 at times. The ED/DD to HP ratio is about 5:1, which makes wearing a Corn or CoI very cost effective.

In this case you could keep MM since like me most of your rounds would end in 4 to 5 rounds. In my opinion 1-3 rounds is where the FB shines, followed by MM in 4-5 rounds, and finally CoC for rounds 6 and beyond. However, MM does have that hit-only-one-at-a-time thing that may upset it effectiveness a lot against larger teams.

The only draw back I see is that I was training 3 minions since the beginning and it was important to have AS, GA, and MM all very big and relatively the same size. Maybe GA is the one I would sacrifice in that case.

an update on my latest char change. I removed the VA on my 2nd minion as it wasn't adding much to my battles. I reinvested the 130K exp from the Va into 9K lvl points in mm and the rest into amf a 5K lvl increase~~. At this point a basically want my mage to fare as well as my ToJ. perhaps see my mages last longer than my toj. that would be a great goal to get to. the small tank stats on the first minion is just so that he can deal small hits. he packs punches ranging from 5K to 15K. sometimes he can sneak in a doublestrike :D

I would eventually want a 4 minion team but not any time soon. and my third minion which ill be getting as soon as i get the cash to hire 1. im considering using CoC as some of u have suggested :). but lets wait till i get there. ;p

my 2nd latest char change. its only temporary. but i unlearned my 30K GA and have EXP: 278,202 to use. It hasn't affect my char at all. I still win against all the chars on my list. and im more aware now that i have alot of people on my fight lists with 50K DMs and highest is 165K DM. should i ditch GA 4ever? pour all the unlearned exp into EC? unlearn the minor tank stats and turn the enchanter into a wall?

Certainly at the upper levels GA is useless against most people unless it's really big. That can be an effective strategy, but you have to be careful how you use it. The two biggest (ab-)users of that up here are Mikel and Toons.

Like the man said, "Go big or stay home."

(Note that things may be different at your level. But if you're planning on coming up here to join us, be prepared for some big-big DMs.)

CupofJoe responses:

If you aren't basing your strategy around your tattoo, then you probably aren't using your tattoo right. Tattoos are the most efficient source of power available. You may differ philosophically from me on this, but most my comments make sense when taken from the "base it around the ToJ" perspective and not the "base it around the CoC mage" perspective.

Shiv response:

Walls best wear heavy armor. Enchanters best wear Cornanthums (to make their spells more efficient). The two tend to be exclusive.

CornWall ! ! ! What a great name for a lousy minion.

cornbread would sound better.

anywho the 280K has been invested into ec which increased by 19K lvl and added an extra 8K st/dx deduction. and the rest i used to add a base protection for fun and hp got a small boost. :)

to clarify: the first minion atm is a mini tank to hit those mages with low st/dx. but the future goal would be to turn it into a wall enchanter. cornbread! lol ;p its being tweaked almost every other day. so keep tuned since i love all your comments and feedback. tytytytytyty so much.