AMF or more HP's? (in General)

So I'm trying my damnedest to run a one minion, UC character. This leaves me quite vulnerable to direct damage spells. As I see it, I could either train Antimagic field to help counter said DD, or just dump more xp's into hitpoints. What are the pro's and con's? And is there yet another option I've missed?

More HP won't stop the amount of damage you're taking, which will only get worse as your char (and those pesky mages) gets bigger.

There are other options. One is to ditch the Gi, (losing your UC bonus I know...) and getting a TSA. Whether or not the boost to your ST is worth losing that UC bonus is up to you. But it does a decent job of protecting you from DD spells, especially FB. You could also do the same but instead of the TSA put on a ToE. The recent changes to the ToE have made a lot of people say it's better suited to multi teams but I stand by mine for damage reduction. You can stand to have a lot less HP if you're using one.

Of course with both you can still use AMF. AMF doesn't have to be huge to be useful. You could spend a few days of play just building it up a while then leave it alone until you start to see more damage from mages.

And AMF is the only thing to protect against decay which although not used that often can be the bane of the single minion's existence....

Another choice, although there is a penalty to UC, is to get hold of a mage shield. The mage shield, although it has it's limitations is a great defense against DD.

Just tried the TSA and it did not work particularly well. The hit to UC was just too much... The fights I normally win become severe losses. I think I'll try AMF for a while and see how that works.

One more thing to consider. The biggest problem a single minion character faces is the choice of defense or offense. Spend too much xp on defense and your character becomes weak. I've always thought that a single minion should be the most powerful he can be. Even if that means weakness against some strats. Multi teams can have the comfort of knowing that one or two minions can take care of defense while the attackers can focus on being strong.

How many mages are stomping on you? If it's a lot just pump some xp into AMF for a while. If you go down one of the other routes 'unlearn' is easy to do...

With a very low UC, the +10 from a Gi is a lot. But as you get higher and your natural UC improves, the static gain become less important. You can pump a pair of HGs to get a nice UC increase.

Basides, I love the combination of MgS and TSA. The MgS will lower your UC (by 5 I think?) and the Dex reduction of the TSA can be ofset by some Elven gear.

You're pumping XP into UC, HP, Str and Dex, you really don't need to dilute that any further by training AMF.

Problem with the MgS is that it nukes all enchantments such as the AMF you do need to protect from mages. Remember AMF is both a protective spell and damage dealing spell vs mages. Also the MgS will nerf any ED enchantments you might wish to use such as VA or protection. On a single minion I would recommend against using a MgS.

Your best bet is either a TOA and boost your HP going for the quick kills, or a TOE for its defense.

In the long run, a ToA will be better for you than a Gi.

As Ranger said above, a MgS will negate any trained EO or ED, but with XP alrwady spent in UC, HP, Str and Dex, you won't have enough left to make your AMF worth stopping anything but base decays. VA is a very good choice of ED though, as with the low damage UC provides, you won't need too high a level of VA to get maximum effect.

Heh.. I just love how you people toss about the ToA suggestion as if I could just pluck one from the nearest ToA tree. Let's be real for a moment please. It will probably be quite some time before I can even get a glimpse of a ToA, let alone get ahold of one. Since I'm pretty much restricted to what I can rent for now, let's leave the "get yourself a ToA" talk for when I can realistically have a chance of getting one.

So... back to the point. Shall I pump extra into Hitpoints, or see if I can get a decent level of AMF?

I'll repeat one of my suggestions. Take a couple of days worth of XP and put it into an AMF. That should be enough to do you for a while. You're only looking to shave some of their damage down really, not negate it completely.

Do that but keep an eye on the damage reduction and boost it at intervals, rather than waste time and XP boosting it continuously.

AMF is far more useful then HP vs. mages.

pro's
- For one, it reduces damage. Less damage is always good.
- For two, it reflects damage. Dealing damage is always good
- For three, it reduces decay. Decay sucks. anything vs it is good.

Con's
- AMF is related to the level of their spell. you keep it the same and they increase the spell level means it's less effective.
- AMF only works against mages. HP works against all damage.
- It's very annoying to see you not cast AMF when you have it at lvl 250k .

I ran a single UC tank for a few weeks, before I hired more minions for Brock.

Stick with the Gi, and get a MgS. Gi grants 10 UC, and MgS takes away 5 UC. I'm positive the MgS penalty is worth the loss of UC. However, I don't think you should get a MgS just yet. Wait till about 100k MPR. If you do, it'll be a low level one. A big MgS will add too much PR. If you use a low level MgS, the loss of UC won't be worth the little DD reduction you'll be getting.

Don't switch to TSA, not only will you lose out on the evasion from the Gi, but you'll lose DX. The ST bonus isn't that great, and the DD reduction gets halved every round. Get a pair of HGs. Don't train much ST, it's much more worth while to train UC since ST is bottom loaded. DX and HP are important. With high DX and the evasion bonus, you'll be hard to hit.

If you plan on getting a ToA, the only advantage will be the DX, and PTH. A Gi's UC bonus will increase damage per hit more than a ToA will. ToA might increase total DI more than a Gi because you'll be hitting more often. I've noticed that I got higher rewards when using a Gi and EC than when using a ToA.

And as more AMF, you could train a small one till you get to a higher MPR. Don't invest a lot of exp in AMF. Otherwise, your exp will be too spread out.

Hope that helps.

Oh, and get small VA till you switch to MgS. It'll help much more than training HP.

"not only will you lose out on the evasion from the Gi"

This depends on whether the Gi Evasion is Item based (which I'd assume, comig from an item) or Skill based. If it's item based, it doesn't stack at all well with the natural Evasion from the skill itself, so losing it isn't too big a deal. It might be nice with a large pair of BDs though.

But if it is item based and you have a large pair of DBs, your skill based Evasion will be next to nothing...

it adds to the UC which gives 1/3 of it's level as if you trained evasion (the skill)

in the wiki it tells you to train more hp actually.

Alrighty then... someone was kind enough to loan me a ToA for experimentation. Thanks Vendo.

So far, I'm liking the results gotten with the ToA over the Gi. Also am tinkering with VA a bit.(though watching fizzle against a strong dispell magic crushes my soul)

UC will never be a mage killer on a one minion character.

Perhaps with huge gear at the very start (although that kills the point of using UC...) but the longer you stay UC, the further you'll fall behind mages.

There are two ways of dealing with this:

A: Enlist more minions. Combining HP on an enchanter or two and a decent AMF will do wonders for you.
B: Ignore mages completely, just be a tank killer.

Both of those I guess could get complicated and be difficult to do. But if you can't figure it out for yourself, you aren't at a point where it's a logical move to use UC, you'd be far better off sticking with a mage or tank character.

"it adds to the UC which gives 1/3 of it's level as if you trained evasion (the skill) "

It adds a fixed +10 to UC, then also provides 1/3 of your natural trained UC skill (before item modifiers) as additioanal Evasion.

But, this is still an item, so should therefore give item based evasion, in addition to the inherant skill based evasion from UC itself.

But unless Jon answers this, it will still remain guesswork....

ok so to be perfectly clear (at least my my point of view)
items that add a bonus to UC do not grant evasion
(except in the form of increased UC which acts as evasion the skill)

The increase UC skill from Gi or HG doesn't increase the Evasion the skill gives, as that works off of the naturally trained level. (I tihnk there's a changelog on this, I'll go look...)

The Gi then has it's own bonus Evasion, based on the pre-item increased skill level.

"UC still gives an evasion-like bonus of 1/3 of the (pre-item bonus) UC level during melee, but during ranged it is now almost twice that."