Dead End Strat? (in General)

Exactly as the title says, does my character Tezmac stand a chance, or is he stuck in a dead end strat?

I do pretty well against other mage based teams, tank teams are the ones I have problems with, and with the way Jon has been making changes to the game, I think this will only get worse.

I’ve got a pretty decent sized AMF/GA and a large AS coupled with a growing DM.

My mini-tank/wall usually has about 270 AC and just enough DX and ST to do damage to enchanters and mages that don’t have any DX. He’s basically there to absorb blows from tanks to keep my COC mage alive.

It seems that along with the magic damage reducing gear (MgS, TSA), everyone’s large AMF at the top (honestly, no one trains EC because there is no point to it and AMF is pretty powerful), and the constant leveling down of magic damage on change months from Jon, that having a mage being your primary way of dealing damage is pointless and that I’ll have to have a traditional tank at some point.

Any thoughts from fellow strat tweakers?

Your strategy is perfect :P

Hm... EETM. You might want to ask Bast about the long-term viability of that, especially against ToAs.

However, I don't see it as being any more "dead-end" than anything else when up against a large ToA team. The only thing I can think of is to stay more concentrated. But then, that negates the whole AS/GA idea. Since I think the AS/GA idea is kind of dead (in lieu of an RoS), I see 4 minion teams as a now-unnecessary dilution.

You can still make decent cash, though, yes? Save cash for a couple months and then start a new character under the NCB...?

"I do pretty well against other mage based teams, tank teams are the ones I have problems with"

You can't have everything. Your score/PR ratio looks good also.
Your strat is designed to kill mage teams, so do it. There are always chars out there you can't beat.

Those tank teams up around your score point are all very tough and have been tanks for a very long time now. Big weapons. All that PR made up of offensive means. Nothing wasted, nothing cut back like AMF cuts down your DD spells. You've got a long way to catch up if you want your wall to be a tank, and a lot of spending to do. I'd say it's a matter of patience. If you can be bothered with the long haul then stick with what you're doing. Pump up your tank's DX/ST and you'll get there eventually.

The only other thing I'd consider would be to switch to a ToE. Obviously that would leave you very vulnerable to DM. But I'm not convinced that extra hp is actually better than reduced damage, even if in theory they amount to the same thing.

I was in exactly the same position a couple of months ago. I've gone through so many strat changes in the past couple of months that it was getting silly. (See my retired char The First Crow - used to be 400k MPR.....:\) Your problem isn't with your strat. Your problem is with the bottleneck up and around the top twenty placings. If you look at the PR standings you're higher in score than your PR standing. All those teams above you are much higher in PR. It stands to reason that genius moves aside you're not going to beat them. My advice would to be to stick tight. You wouldn't have gotten to the score you're at if you're strat was worthless.

@ Haters - LOL, darn The Slayers, I'll never beat you!

@ Sut - I don't think I can be compared to Bast especially since I use a ROS (hence my GA/AS), COC and DM. I do make decent cash, but I don't want to start over as my character is still climbing the MPR rankings nicely.

@ Shadowsparkle - I understand what you're saying, however with the continuing decline of magic damage and the number of teams at the top with large tanks, I'm wondering if my strat is going no where. Yeah, I can beat the mage teams, but since I continuously lose to tanks as well, there's obviously a better tank strat out there that beats mage teams and doesnt get clobbered by other tanks...

Why no xbow?

@Sutekh: I thought xp didn't dilute anymore. Did I miss another memo?

Dilute, yes. More experience for four, no.

Of course four minions dilutes the gathered experience... I am talking concentration, not total MPR.

One concentrated mage > two smaller mages.
One concentrated tank (sans ToA) > four tanks (sans ToA).

Now, the interaction of multiple minions starts changing what I say above.

Also, I am an idiot and did not see Tezmac is already running an RoS, so AS/GA makes good, good sense. I would not have him stray from four minions in that case.

Train some VA, get a couple of nice weapons, and convert your CoC to a mini tank. You'll still kill mages fast and with the VA+MH VA, you'll get a lot more HP to tackle those Tanks with. I'm able to defeat a few ToA tanks, but I'm still small... :)

I too have noticed that there are far more tanks in the high range than mages. But that should encourage you to stick with your strat. As more and more folks go with teams without mages, fewer of them will use AMF making the mages that remain more useful.

Basically, I think the strats are pretty well balanced at this point but that the current problem is that there is no way to target a tank team like you can a mage team. It would be nice if there was an item or spell that hosed tanks a bit better than the unloved tattoo of balrog flop (ToBF). Then we mages could at least implement a strategy to target those annoying tank only teams. That's the main reason so may are now opting for tank teams with no mages, because there are no vulnerabilities other than a bigger tank.

all im worried about your strat is the DM that might cancel out some of your AMF.

I'm using a very similar strat, and in the lower ranks it's super powerful. I know, that doesn't help you much. :)

I know little of multi-minion strats, the only thing I'll say is that by not using a weapon you're wasting 'power'. You will never be as powerful as those around you until you utilise your free weapon allowance 'power'.

Well I must say, switching over to a Mini-Tank+BL+VA and utilizing my "free PR" has really changed my fight list.