MrC's Theories (in General)

These are a few theories of mine. I've left out one or two important ones so that I still have an ace or three up my sleeve. But this post is actually here to help most CBers. If you think it's stupid, fine, flame away.

1: Mages shouldn't be combined with tanks. - 99.999% of the time anyway. It just doesn't work. You can bring down your opponents' in fight PR simply by dodging either their AMF, EC or DM. You can litteraly turn a 100k PR character into a 70k PR character just by not using a mage and a tank.

2: Mages should not have NW attatched. - They are not designed to gain much from NW. It's that simple. Spend the money elsewhere or put it safely away until you do need it for something worth spending your money on.

3: The ex-admin (Max) was right. This post is long overdue, he claimed to have a way to beat CB long ago and he was right. I thought he was crazy, well, he probably was and is. But that's besides the point. Get a single minion and stick with it. Do that and if you fight as much as the top guys (and have half a brain) you'll be unstopable. My addition to this is to use a single mage the way it was supposed to be used and don't add NW, save that money for later on, you'll need it!

4: Walls are stupid. Don't use them.
Meatshields are cool. Use them!
Walls use up a whole minion slot just to stick on an MgS and some armor.
That's a waste! All your other minions are now weaker.
Instead get a minion and train about 50% of EXP in HP, get an AMF on another enchanter and train your remaining 50% of EXP in an enchantment. It's much, much more effective and doesn't cost a cent!

5: Tanks don't need ST! I'm not joking.
Where's Sutekh when you need him? He posted a thread a long, long time ago about ST being heavily weighted towards the low end. You know what? He's right! On a tank you really need your ST to only be about half of your HP and DX. I probably shouldn't be telling you this because if anyone spends 10 minutes to think about it and realise just how useful this is, my character's score will fall dramatically. But hey, I've always thought a lot of better characters to compete with would be better than feeling like a big fish in a little pond. So what I've offered you in the past 5 points is all gold. Maybe you don't agree. Well, I'm right. Pay attention? Good. Don't? Your loss.

There is another reason I've posted this, I want some people to question my theories and let me put in any final tweaks before writing my advanced CB strategy article that I've been thinking about for a while.

Flame away! :)

To compensate for my HP and FB experience usage I added DX, DB's and basic Evasion. (ThePickle) I can now face tanks and dodge their blows while throwing my fireball. I got rid of DM. How's that for a post ready to get flamed with how stupid that technique is? *Shrug* I'm going to run with it.

I agree with the first point. The invisible PR theory is something I worked to with the first incarnation of Jack Crow. It's how a 400k pr character was able to bring down FB/DM mages like Oduten who was twice his size...it's the key to CB for me. I had no defensive enchantments whatsoever. Which meant that DM users had a whole load of their PR negated instantly. Which is a fantastic outcome when you consider the amount people invest in that particular spell....

Ahem. I had two walls on Jack Crow. Both with mage shields. That was the other reason I could take down those mages. They're not stupid if you're after a specific strategy outcome. But, yes they are best if you're specializing. Generally they are a waste of time. And that NW /PR increase from the shields does lead you back to the invisible PR theory again....
On the other hand I love the mage shield, it's like AMF in a can...only with a constant percentage reduction. Which is nice.

And just for those people who wonder what I'm talking about when I talk about 'invisible PR':

imagine a single mage with AMF as a pie chart. 50% FB spell, 25% HP, 25% AMF.

Against a mage team of equal PR that pie chart stays the same.

Now put him up against a single tank. That AMF is useless for that battle. Your pie chart is now missing a quarter. That's 25% of your PR vanished for that battle....

Your real PR changes battle by battle depending on who you are fighting. That's what I call Invisible PR....

My thoughts:

Point 1- Completely agree. Mages are best on 1 or 2 minion teams to concentrate your xp onto a large DD spell. When you combine mages and tanks you need a 3 or 4 minion team, thereby lowering the effective DD spell. Decide-tank or mage team

Point 2- Compeletly disagree. Unless you plan and already know you will be changing to a tank in the near future, NW is not bad. Especially DBs, corn, COI, and AG. Anything that gives you more effective xp (DBs give evasion, corn gives enchantments, AG/COI gives DD ), is good. Too a point. IE, if the difference between a +12 and +13 COI is 2 million, that is a waste. DBs are especially useful on a mage. That one less hit by a tank can mean the difference between winning and losing. Some say why DBs on a mage that will get hit anyway. Yes, they will be hit via the dex to hit, but the DBs take away the Pth and if high enough can take away some of the dex to hit.

Point 3- Agree to a point. At some point you WILL need more minions to compete at the top. At the top, the damage is just too much for one character to take it all. The FB damage from top mages can be over 1 million per shot. You need more minions to disperse the FB/COC damage and to act as blockers vs those BL tanks. When is debateable. For someone who started with 3 minions and added one about 750k MPR look at The Apocalypse Book. To see someone who added his after 1 million MPR, at least the last 2, check out Imp. The later minions are added means the weaker and more expensive those new minions will be. By weaker I am talking about relative to the other minions at the level your playing/fighting.

Point 4- Completely disagree. Walls are great. Only a few characters can take my wall out. Vs tanks that do not take my wall out, I save tons of cb2 on healing costs alone. Vs FB/COC mages, my wall helps by living and dispersing the damage all those round the battle lasts. And very rarely, my wall is the last minion standing vs FB/COC mages and the AMF damage kills the mage leading to a win/draw/stalemate instead of a loss. It would be better if I used GA instead of VA, but for my tank and character I think VA is far better for me.

Point 5- Agree to a point. Of course you need Str. But given my assumption that it takes 4x str to get 2x more damage, str is a underpowered stat. I know most guides say keep your HP/STR/DEX equal. I say Chuckles is correct 100%. If your a TOA tank, put nothing into your strength and let the TOA do its job. Put the xp into dex and HP you would have used in str. If your a generic tank, keep your str about 1/2 your dex/hp. You can use a TSA (which I think is the best tank armor out there) for a str boost as it is the only armor that boosts a stat.

I know I differ from Chuckles in some points and agree in others. Such is the beauty of CB!

#1: The only reason i have a mage on my team is to kill 20 HP enchanters so my lone tank doesn't waste a round on them, with his exbow only hitting other tanks in ranged. I have AS on the mage too, making his damage only part of what i use him for.

#4/5: I could probably stand to train some more dex than str on my tank, but i don't need any extra HP because of my VA and my wall.

#2: I wouldn't know, Being too poor to buy any of the mage items, I've never had any.

So, if i took all (except #3) of your suggestions, I would be left with either an enchanter and tank, or an enchanter, with a wall with useless amounts of HP with his uselessly small AMF. I like my character. Every aspect of it compliments everything else. It does well against almost every other type of strat but single mages. I think I'll continue doing what I'm doing rather than take all your suggestions and mess up my carefully tuned strat.

Oh, but I will probably start training more dex on my tank :P.

How could I not chip in on this thread! :D

1: Mages shouldn't be combined with tanks.

I'm half and half on this. Mages are best with as much conentrated XP as possible. But with the way CB2 is now, if you don't use a weapon, ans the free PR that provides, you're wasting 'power' and are weaker than everyone else around you.

You need to use a weapon.


2: Mages should not have NW attatched.

I think this should be Mages don't *need* NW. By the time you've got a 2 Mil + DD spell, a 5% increase from a pair of AGs is massive. At low levels, don't do it. The higher you get, the more bang you get from percentage increases to fixed PR bumps.

3: The ex-admin (Max) was right. This post is long overdue, he claimed to have a way to beat CB long ago and he was right. I thought he was crazy, well, he probably was and is. But that's besides the point. Get a single minion and stick with it.

I'm unsure, I love single minions, but the focus of CB2 is moving to multi minion teams. No Single minion can take on a 4 minion RoS + AS team. They don't have as much durability nor damage output potential.

4: Walls are stupid. Don't use them.
Meatshields are cool. Use them!

Strongly disagree on this. Mage Shields and Troll Skin Armours are formidable. Use them. Where ever you can fit them on your team. The restriction of the Mage Shield just abotu requires a 'Wall' type minion, but I'm strongly thinking about a single Tank with Evasion, MgS, TSA etc being a very strong build. Elven goods + str boosting items everywhere else to keep on par with ToA tanks, MgS + TSA to keep mages under control. You'll not be as good as a single ToA tank vesus tanks, but you'll fair a whole lot better versus mages.

AMF just doesn't keep up with the dangerous mages. The one's who've taken the advice above, stayed single and pumped most of thier XP into thier DD spell.

5: Tanks don't need ST! I'm not joking.

Agree. Pump your weapon, some of that damage potential is given to you for free from the NW allowance. Don't spend too much time or XP on Str.

:D

Keep single Mage FB for as long as you can. 2 mil PR. Add shields. The shear HP/FB combo on the 2 mil PR minion will just devistate your world and the 3 in front of him will just absorb your attacks. It's just the way it is and I don't think there is a way around that fact.

heh, i just looked at my play by plays and it doesn't look like my mage actually kills anything. Away with that.

I will say this once more, 1/4 HP Max into FB, repeat. Spend every cent on BA and saving for a tat of enormous size and minons. Adding +50 DB adds no one to my fightlist, however I'm WAY offence oriented, so meh.

A few Provisos:

Tanks need strength to counter EC.

Walls are good for (at least) FF/IF/SF strats. You just need to know what you're using things for. Meatshields are only good if you've got GA.

Teams with fewer minions tend to have better offense but are more vulnerable, so it's a trade off. For instance, a team with a ToA and 4 minions has at least three turns to smack a single tank before the ToA tank is vulnerable, and an archer can kill a single minion in three rounds if that minion is hittable.

Invisible power is important, but there are countervailing issues in everything. For instance, past 50k MPR, I train a base protection. Instant 6% more HP when fighting teams without DM at much less than 6% HP price.

Johnny, your strategy was one I made a mental note of as being the only exception I've seen (and one of the only two strategies I can think of that makes walls worth using). However, 2 very unique strategies in a game of a million strategic variations... somehow I don't think that warrants any change in what I said. Anyone capable of coming up with one of those strategies is capable of making exceptions in most rules.

Ranger, "I know I differ from Chuckles in some points and agree in others. Such is the beauty of CB!" I always like that about talking to you. You're right about a lot of things, I think I'm right about a lot of things (ok, everything), and yet we almost never agree. :) Good to get another point of view on things. :)
Oh and as for point 3, I really, really suggest you re-think that. You have a huge edge on most characters because your character is set up well to take on any challenger. However, a single minion character walks right past all your defences. ;)

Blarg, 1# is the exception. Perhaps my "99.999%" was an exageration. But I think saying 'most of the time it's a bad idea to mix mages and tanks' is a bit weak. It's a very important point and that just doesn't do it justice. I may need to work on rephrasing that.

GL, a 5% increase to a stat is a 5% increase regardless of the stat's level. It's minimal and that money will serve you better if you don't spend it. Even if you have 200mil saved up. Keep the 2mil.
I'll explain that one a little more eventually, but it should be easy enough to guess my general line of thought.
You would be another one who would benefit from thinking more about that single minion idea. It went in one ear and out the other the first time I heard it, but it finally clicked about 8 months later and it's a huge edge over opponents if you want to take on the top characters.

Grant, no, they don't.
Opponents with an EC big enough to put you to 0 ST will not have a DX as high as yours and therefore are unlikely to be able to hit you. EC is also not a very effective stat. It takes a lot more EXP to drop your ST to 0 than it does to train up your ST. Therefore you should be fine against most EC characters, but let's say you're up against a real EC team. Well, there are only so many of them and there are a lot more vulnerable targets out there, your fightlist wont suffer.
Also, meatshields do not require GA. I'm guessing you're saying that to counter VA. My advice is to ignore VA completely. Chances are you'll be doing more damage than they're healing in those rounds anyway. Plus you factor in their last hit on the meatshield (where they gain very little HP) and you're ahead.

chuckles, if you noticed, i got rid of my mage :P

:) What I mean is at low levels, (All numbers are pulled out of the air!) where the 5% bonus gives you and extra 10K DD for an increase of 100K PR isn't that great.

The bonus will always stay at 5%, but so will the PR increase. You'll always get an increase of 100K.

But the time your natural PR is in the millions, and the 5% bonus is giving you thousands of extra DD levels, the fixed +100K PR is a very small malus.

But for starting mages, don't bother with items! ;)

I forgot about the whole EC/EXBow problem, but Grant is right, Tanks do need just enough Strength to keep above zero when facing these.

If you're using a Tank, you won't have a big mage ( ;) ) so yout tank is your primary damage dealer. If you opponent is able to reduce your Str to zero through EC + EXBow (Sacred Peanut comes to mind) you lose all your damage potential.

A good reason to mix Tanks with Mages. It stops your opponents bringing one soloution to the battlefiled to stop you. You're based on a massive tank, they bring EC + EXBow. You;re based on a Massive Mages, they bring AMF, MgS, etc. You have both a large Mages and a large wepon weilding tank, do the bring EC enough to stop your tank, AMF to stop your mage or try to cram both into their set up?

An example from my fightlist;

Tate cast Dispel Magic on all enemy Minions (95,548)
Lyle cast Protection on all friendly Minions (4)
Tate cast Vampiric Aura on Lyle (?)


Mokoca cast Ethereal Chains on all enemy Minions (81290)
Mokoca's Protection fizzles under Dispel Magic
Torsuk cast Antimagic Field on Tate (0.21)
Etova cast Ethereal Chains on all enemy Minions (165588)
Etova's Ablative Shield fizzles under Dispel Magic


Ranged Combat
Melee Combat
Lyle scratched Mokoca with Conflagration for no damage
Tate takes damage from his own Cone of cold (28661)!
Tate's Cone of cold hit Mokoca [62071], Torsuk [38817], Erakun [60619], Etova [47459]


Mokoca's blow was dodged by Lyle
Torsuk swung wildly at Lyle
Erakun swung wildly at Lyle
Etova stumbled swinging at Lyle


R.I.P. Mokoca, Torsuk, Erakun, Etova

The EC was enough to take my Tanks Str and Dex to negative values. I could only hit in melee through my pth, but would deal no damage. But focusing two enchanters on EC high enough to shut doen my tank does't leave enough AMF or AS to stop my Mage.

Using myself isn't a great example, as my team is flawed (Tank far too small and does very little damage...) but just to get the point across.

If I added the other main way of dealing damage (AS+GA) that would leave people needing to add DM to thier team as well to counter that.

GL,

Bothering with EC enchanters is giving up efficency in the name of personal pride.
That's not going to do anything for you.

You're far better off ignoring them and fighting above your PR.

But, if we have to take them on then your best bet is to get GS on an enchanter. This goes against point 5, but I don't pretend that I can tell everyone how to beat everyone else. That's not possible. The best I'm expecting is for people to have a higher chance at taking on the top 10, and winning.

I realise I don't have the patience to take my chars to high power, but Stash, who breaks every single blessed one of your rules, has a score 2x power, and is a farm character. :)

Ah ha, but if the top spot is filled by a massive tank, then you can form a 4 EC team just to neuter him and fight far higher than yourself, if you're fine with just targeting Tank teams and having nothing versus Mages. Sacredpeanut did just that. Was able to fight far above himself, and get great rewards.

But Mage teams came along and bought his character back down in score.

The problem is specialisation over durability. Specialisation can make you very powerful, in a limited field. FB was a great example of this. You could specialise in just FB and be great versus everything. Same with archery+ELBow. But Jon has taken heaftly steps to make sure these types of specialisations are stoppable.

Points 1, 3 and 5 are about specialisation. You're trying to tweak as much out of a single strat, while leaving yourself open to others. :)

Don't use a Mage with a Tank, keep it solo. That is the best way to get the most out of it's DD spell, but leaves you open to AMF, MgS, TSA and additional minions. Of copurse if you target teams with only EC as an enchantment you're going to be lowering their effective 'power' versus you. But in the same vein you make yourself weaker to those teams fighting you thank only have AMF.

More on 'invisible PR' and Mage Shileds.

One of the reasons Mage Shileds are (I feel) a requirement (obviously when facing Mages... If you don't plan on ever fighting one, you don't need one...) is the sheer amount they can reduce mages damage by, or in effect thier 'invisible PR'.

Imagine a Mage with 50% of thier xp pumped into thier DD spell. If they face a +25 MgS, it will reduce their damage by a minimum of 25% That is equivalent of reducing the mages trained DD by 25% (as DD damage is linear) and therefore their 'invisible PR' by 12.5% (25% of 50%).

For a small static PR increase to you. Your PR increase from your MgS gets less and less noticeable the higher your natural PR becomes while no matter how high the Mage goes, you're always reducing the amount of XP they have trianed into thier D spell by 25%.

Take Johnnys 50/25/25 FB/HP/AMF Mage example above. That mage faces a +40 MgS and they've now become 30/25/25.

Assume they face a Single Tank wearing that + 40 MgS they've just become 30/25. While the tank get's free weapon PR thrown in.

The mage specialized and suffered the consequences. I have no doubt though, that it would obliterate a team with 50% EC and no AMF/MgS etc...

Mr. C., I'm not understanding point #1. Do you mean for maximization of growth? For maximization of wins? Ever/Never? One must always and forever choose one or the other? Or is this really a sub of #3, where one should only (ever) have one-minion -- so one must always choose betwixt them?

And how does one get a cool meatshield (#4) if one is only to use a single minion (#3)? (unless you are referring to the power of the Jig, now irritatingly seen as Kano-san)

I agree to every single points Mr Chulckes propose. I also found this out a while ago and bought a small 3 minions character to follow this path.

1. Mages should not combine with tank. Yes ! One have to decide whether to have main tank or main mage. Where mages damage is linear and tank damage is not. AMF 'd do too much damage to a mage which would leave mage's job to do clean up enchanter trash. Which in the end turn out to be wasted exp 'cause it only takes certain amount of damage to clean up 1-2 enchanters.
2. Mages really doesn't need NW attached. yes ! However all mages need is a HUGE DB's and nothing else (AG's is okie). AMF damage can be reduced with TOE. At mid game! This won't be too thrilled, however the further single mages go, the scarier it gets.
3. Agree but define "later on"
4. Ofcourse Wall is stupid. End game tank can take out Wall in 6 shots. EC would be much better use if comparing to same NW tank
5. Of course Tank doesn't need Strong ST. Either TOA supplies for ST or just how i do it. Heavy AC tank! at this moment i would need roughly 600k St to beat 90% of the tanks out there. The rest of the exp would go directly to dex / HP. Of course this implied i haven't use 4th minion yet.

Meh. Anti-Tank Team;

4 minions, all train only EC. Last Minion wears a IF. Or Last minion wears a ToA and has a large weapon.

Anti-Mage Team;

4 minions, AMF, GA/AS + RoS. Let the Mage kill itself on you via backlash damage, and GA returns (either multiple times per round when facing FB/CoC or once per round from MM). Add in MgS and TSA to taste.

Single attack types are very easy to build a counter too.

I agree with Bast, nearly every point is a contradiction of another.
If using a single minion you actually cannot have both a tank and a mage (unless trying the CoC archer which is proven not to work).
If using a tank or mage with a "cool meatshield" you disobey your own rule #3.

Tanks need more DX than STR yes but without substantial STR not even the biggest BONE in the game will do any damage in the high ranks.
A single mage in the high ranks with no NW is as good as cannon fodder, they at least need reasonable COI and AG's to leverage their PR effectively with the tanks being able to have free weapon allowance.

So I had the very simple and very elegant strat for a long time. But right from the start I broke one of your rules. I started with 3 minions and moved to 4 halfway through. (Oh No. I broke #3.)

I had a solid meatshield at one point. All HP for the sake of maximizing GA damage. I then loaded it with some AC and I jumped my score by several hundred points. So I stuck with my wall. The AC let me actually maximize the GA by making the hits smaller and keeping them under my GA cap. It also made _everyone_ live longer. (OMG. I broke #4.)

I then loaded my wall with some ST and weapons to do some tank damage. Yeah, he's mostly a wall, but he is also a tank now. Now I can beat more teams. Teams like Mini-Thing1. The tank/wall does slow and steady damage that is a great counter to mages, enchanters, and other walls. The mages I have are great counters to whatever he can't hit, like evasive tanks. The combo seems to work out great for me. (Ah! I broke #1 too.)

But then I did the unthinkable. I added massive amounts of NW to the CoC mage. Now the CoC mage lives through everything except AMF and the SF easily covers that hole. (I even broke #2.)

My team is still cheap and effective in my opinion. If you look at my graph and look to where I should be without the missing gaps of time spent on something else, you would note that I would be one of the top dogs that your trying to beat. In fact, I was a top ten character. Been there, done that. No SM FB team, no FF, no ToA, no ELB seekers, and no cookie cutter rules. Absolutely nothing that has ever been claimed to be overpowering. I don't know what to say after that. Think what you will, but I tend to believe that CB is more complicated then a small set of simple rules.

Grant, score can easily be inflated.
For example I used to have all of my farms using a four minion fireball strategy. Nothing but fireball trained and they'd often have scores of 4x their PR.
I will concede though that I'm surprised your character is successful, even at a low PR. I'll look into it eventually.

GL, specialisation is exactly what you should be thinking about if you are aiming for top spot. Being farmed means nothing. What negative affect does it have on you? None!
Another topic I probably should cover, I guess.
You still haven't convinced me on MgS's either adding in NW and not being able to use any enchantment on that minion is far too high a penalty for my liking. Oh, and it's not 12.5% you would reduce them by. It's a maximum of 6.25% because that MgS only has a direct effect on the minion wearing it. So you've got to half it again, if you have two minions.

Bast, it would be ignorant of me to assume that I could convince everyone to stick to one minion when I myself preffer to use four.

Growth/wins, I wasn't aware I ever suggested anything to comprimise either.

Zoglog, I'm sorry, but your logic really needs work.

Vestax, I never said you couldn't win if you ignored this post completely. All I've implied is that you will do better if you do listen..eh, read.
Also, these are not set in stone 'rules', I'm not telling people how to make a perfect character. Guidelines is a better word for it.

Specialisation can ruin you at the top.

You make a specialized single Tank, to take out all of the top 5, all of whom are multi minion ToA tank teams. You build does wonders and you are soon number 1.

Seeing that, a few other people make EC Mages just to be able to farm you. In no time, they are all 2-5, feeding off of inflated gains from farming you and you now have to start looking lower and lower for the tank targets you can beat. This contiues to get worse until they all beat you, and your set up can do nothing versus mages, so you can no longet progress without re writing your whole strategy.

Or pray that a Tank based Mage killer now makes it to the top, so you can them farm him....

The 12.5% was from a Single Tank using a MgS. :)

Additional minions, while helping to keep a MgS user alive, would depreciate the total amount the MgS reduces.

But we all know, a single tank vs a single mage at the top will lose.

No way the tank can take the FB damage for 4 rounds till his BL kicks in. And heaven forbid if a single tank uses archery just for the extra round of missile.

GL, at the top a lot of crazy things can be done, it's a whole different game in the top 10. You can use a wacky strategy designed to counter the rest of the top characters and win, where you'd otherwise be horrible in the low-mid levels. Just as if you used the same tactics in the mid levels you'd be terrible in the higher levels.

There's another interesting thought. Might be worth splitting it into sections to cover all areas... but this is looking like a lot of writing and I'm far too lazy to do that! Meh, I have leave for work now. If I get time I'll think it over a little more in a bit.

Thankyou for trying to show me where I want wrong.
"Your logic needs work" says a lot about what was actually wrong with any of my statements. I also fail to realise how either of my own gneralisations (which many people would agree with, the second I agree is debatable but I think a naked mage up in the higher ranks(assuming it gets there) is useless).
I never tried to make up a list of bad contradictions to be used as rules (yes you contradicted yourself on #1 and #3 from your sentence in #4).
I don't want to argue but until I have some proof I simply wont accept "your logic needs work" as an answer.

"But we all know, a single tank vs a single mage at the top will lose."

I think a single Tank could win now.

Consider aTank using a +40 MgS and a +50 TSA. If you plan to face FB, you want a Ranged weapon + Archery, if you plan on facing CoC, BL + Melee weapon.

The potential damage from FB would be;

R1: 21%
R2: 36%
R3: 47.25%

For a total of 104.25% damage, or just over one melee rounds worth. For that, you now have three rounds to land multiple ranged attacks on the single mage in order to kill it.

Just buy a very big bow. ;)

CoC would be reduced to 30% in the first round, 45% in the second and so on (increasing due to TSA decay), while you are landing multiple BL enchanced, possibly VA regaining multiple hits on the poor single mage.

Buy a very big MH and go to town! ;)

Well, in your example GL, the Tank has 0 AMF.

The mage will have the use of a tattoo which is a blocking minion and a damage dealer (at least for 1 round if a FF). So the tank is taking far too much damage to live through melee. I dont care if its a solo tank, using a MgS and TSA make AMF impossible and a tattoo impossible. But splitting xp into str/dex/hp your losing a lot of xp via your dex. Less effective xp as discussed above.

IMHO combination of Tanks and Mages is (in a strategies designed to play both) can have many advantages.One of them is the resistance to changes in the game. You see if you are specialized and prevailing and the game is not balance, something gets nerfed so that the game regains balance and people playing specialized strategies are affected and whine.

With a balanced strategy, you are not that much affected.
Also if the strategy is good and someone is having a lot of EC, your Mage can take care of the opponents. If on the other hand opponent has many anti-Mage things, your Tank might win you the fight.

Ranger, the single mage dies hard when the tank has a bow/archery. I typicially survive 2 rounds against similarly powered single tanks. The only way where I'd possibly survive beyond 3 rounds would be a JKF, and single tanks maul those.

Yup, the Mage is open to use any Familiar Tattoo (which get's hideously reduced by the MgS+TSA as well, well bar a Jig...), ToE or Armour. But none of those provide up to a 79% damage reduction. (Well, a ToE *could*, but this is dependant on sizes. The armour combination is a guaranteed 79% reduction for the first round of FB.)

AMF and a Tattoo are impossible on this minion, which lets the Tank wear EG, EB (Or DB. Depends on where you want to get your Evasion from) and EC for Dex boosts, and HoE, TSA and HG/TG for Str boost. I bet (bar the extra pth) you could keep on tract to a multi minion ToA tanks stats. (No tank bar another single ToA Tank can match a single ToA tank for stats...)