MgS question, and request for opinions on my tank! (in General)

First and foremost, I am curious on MgS. I looked up the original post when it was introduced, but it was pretty cluttered with a lot of people saying it did this and that. Just to be sure- does it cancel trained skills? If I equipped one on my BL tank, would his BL go to 0?

Secondly, would there be a penalty to using a 2-handed weapon with a mage shield? Of course regular shields have a penalty then, but I wasn't sure if power shields did.

And the last mattter: I would like to hear what you guys think. With yet another move of the ToE away from single minion use, and the fact most tattoos don't appear to be optimally used for single minions, I am considering changing up Stalker. Big time. So here is my plan. I lose the tattoo completely, and add a TSA, EC, and MgS. Because of the MgS, I untrain VA and AMF and add those to HP, ST, and DX.

It seems like it would work. Maybe even well. I'd have much better XP focus, and my stats would hopefully soar. Cost would be relatively low, and hopefully selling my tattoo would be a good way to afford the new stuff I would need. Biggest problem I foresee is Decay. Thoughts though? Please let me know, I love my ToE tank, but it seems like its time has come to evolve. Thanks!

MgS negates all spells. Skills are skills, not spells.

DX penalty for shield+2h (and shield+(x)bow) do depend on the base DX % of that shield. As this is 0% for the MgS, the 2h penalty for the MgS is also 0%.

Not having a tattoo means you waste a lot of "XP" you could have had for free (the tattoo leveling).

Sell the ToE. Use the cash to buy a second minion who will wear a RoE and cast your enchantments. Once the second minion has enough exp to deliver all your AMF & VA, drop those on the tank and buff the tank stats. Put a MgS, TSA & EC on the tank. Rinse & repeat.

But that's just because I'm a fan of a RoE based strategy.

Thanks again for clearing those up for me Bart. Although I am kind of sad to hear you seem to be against it.

Not a bad idea there 'G'. Hmm, only problem would be once I had a second minion, I would want a tattoo then lol.

After talking to Shadowsparkle via CM, it sounds like a MgS tank doesn't work so well after all. So I'm back to square one on ideas.

MgS tank works VERY well when combined with a FB mage. Check out my strat.

You've already sacrificed an advantage to ToA tanks, so I don't see why a MgS on a tank is no good. Any other shield will give you a dex disadvantage - the MgS means you can underinvest in AMF on the enchanter.

And anything less than 3 minions seems to me to waste the ToE aura effect. Given how big your tank is already, and the extra boost you would gain from untraining with an enchanter, I think you'd do fine with the extra armor bonuses when the tank takes off the tattoo.

Plus with the RoE you don't get too dependent on a tattoo's effects to boost your strat. Once the enchanter's AMF is big enough, put the RoE on the tank and boost the exp on the tank.