Ideas: Low cost high-end competitive strategies (in General)

I have a question: Imagine a New User who is really going like this game and will be playing a lot.

I can imagine that after 4 months of NUB period he should pass 1 mil MPR level, have items worth of lets assume in value of 30 mil and a tattoo at 900k level.

What successful strategies are there for newies to continue playing and also be competitive to those 150+ mil NW characters at/near the TOP (apart from Single Mage FB strategy)?

Or another related question. Are there strategies with limited NW competitive to the current leaders?

character Cosmos?

As far as I can tell Jon is obviously unwilling to alter the NUB in such a way that it would match the NW of the top folks. People reaching the top 10 done something huge, Top 5, even more impressive. I don't think we'll ever see a non-$US spending top spot (score/pr), but we had an mpr leader for a long time who wasn't using $US. I myself have almost no NW (no tat, rented Altars) and can compete fairly well even with a score around a million. I understand the battle from here on up is ugly, but a simple strat combined with an insta-ed tat or RoE (for an extra mpr Kick) is all any nub or NCB needs. Plenty of time to complicate things up later. From my perspective, the smart money is on the ginourmous RoS, others would disagree.

They have no hope.

The top characters are too good, the guys that got their characters up there know what they're doing. Chances are we'll never see a newb come straight out of their NUB and be able to beat everyone else. It'd take much more than 4 months for that.

However, if you want strategy ideas. You already said the best one, single mage. It doesn't have much of a chance, but I can not say this enough, simplicity is the most important thing to focus on when you're out of your depth.

Actually the single mage does have hope.

Just play the single mage till your NUB runs out, save money, hopefully 30 million or so. By playing the single mage I mean play it with a ROE till about 400-500k MPR. That is when youll need a FF to fight higher to get the top rewards. At that point, splurge and get the highest FF you can that is at your MTL at that time.

Then hire 3 more minions, train DM, AS and protection on them (with a bit of HP to avoid dying via minitanks). Unlearn the DM and protection on your mage to raise your HP and FB. Put the new minions in front of your mage.

Now most of the top tanks have a fairly low AMF compared to their MPR. The top tanks also have very small DM's if any so most of the AS and protection should go off.

By the time the tanks reach the mage in combat, they might just be dead.

Also, I differ with Chuckles in that NW does help a mage, in this case a set of AG, a COI (move the familiar to your 3rd minion, hopefully its a FF) and a set of DB's to avoid those seeker arrows. Most of the top ToA tanks do not use archery and only 2 use an elb so you should be safe from seekers. Even then you should have over 1.5 million HP on your mage so 2 rounds of missile (esp if you have DBs) should not kill your mage and your FF.

This will work for a time till the top teams learn more AMF, but for a while you might just pull it off. All for a modest NW investment. Your AG and COI do not need to be over +10 if you do not want to spend tons of cb2. However, I would recommend +100 DB at least which is about 15 million. If you play smart you can get it done esp fighting up a lot.

Now I am looking at about 50 million cb2 to do all this. The NUB makes about 30 million I am reading, where does the extra come from?

Now the key part nobody is talking about---Your Massive Tattoo (YMT).

At the point your NUB runs out, your tattoo should be near the top if not the top tattoo. This is one thing I really despise about the NUB (soapbox moment over). To get the extra cb2 you need, Insta down. Insta down about 300k levels and bamm, tons of cb2 since most will pay over 200% of the NW difference for an insta of the top tattoo. So you will then have the 10th biggest tattoo, big deal for the NW you get from it.

Now another thing nobody speaks of. The NUB is designed to give you 95% of the top MPR at the time of the making of the character. Well the top characters constantly train/retrain/train again and again since the game is so fluid. BUT.. the NUB is based on if the top characters do NOT untrain and lose MPR (at least what I know of it). So a single minion character will get to 95% of the MPR of the top character. Since the xp for a 4 minion team is NOT more than that of a solo minion, you will, after hiring 3 more minions, be easily and far and away the top MPR by at least 2-300k. Take things now. TAB is the highest at just over 1.2 million MPR. 95% of that is about 1.13 MPR. Each minion at that level gives about 100k MPR so 3 more would be 1.43 MPR which is far and away the highest MPR. Just by sheer MPR you would beat most of the top 10 players given a decent set of AG/COI and a nice +100 DB.

That is my thoughts on what I would do. But it is just my opinion.

Are you estimating the extra minion cost correctly? Even under 800k MPR, a 4th minion would cost me over 5 mil

I could be a few million off here and there, but the basic principles apply. I think a new minion for a single 1 million MPR character costs about 11 million but if someone like Jayuu or Freed could answer that would be great.

Sounds like someone has a backup plan. :)

For a 1 million MPR, single minion character, I'd estimate that it would cost about 13.5 mil per minion. That's for the more expensive minion. The new minion would have about 4.5 mil untrained XP available (1/3 of the cost). It's also worth noting that the cost of hiring minions is based on the amount of XP trained into your largest minion, not the whole team.

Thanks you for your creative inputs.
I have also a very intrigueing question. All you strategists you can go will on this one.

Imagine a character at 1+ mil MPR with these limitations on items:
- Tattoo with the level similar to MPR.
- Weapons, each having max. 20 mil NW.
- 1 DB +100

What kind of strategies can you imagine with these limitations which would be able to compete with current TOP characters? (Do not limit yourself on your MPR. Imagine that your char would 300k more MPR than the highest MPR char ATM.)

4 minion fake tank team with a RoS. AS, GS, Haste enchanters. All four using a 20 Mil MH each. :)

Thanks for the idea, GL.

I made a little mistake while writing the limitations. My intentions were still to make a low cost character. Therefore there is a limit on 2 weapons (I missed the number 2 in my previous post.) each having max 20 mil NW. 80 mil NW on just on weapons is too much for a low cost character.