defensive strats? (in General)

ToE, Protection
GA/AMF
AS

wouldn't this strat destroy single minion characters?

I just got to thinking about how to make a team with good defense, rather than simply focusing on offense... given the prevalence of FB as the spell of choice, (XP trained: Fireball 13.5%, Magic missile 5.5%, Cone of cold 4.7%, Decay 0.4%) and FFs as the tat everyone seems to recommend;
it spreads the damage, and brings the amount of damage down to a level where GA will work wonderfully. The spells should be concentrated enough that DM won't completely negate them.

is this too specific to actually work? has anyone tried something like this?

Of course they have, but you still need some form of active offense. Make the ToE-Prot minion into some form of attacker (like a CoC mage) and your strat is finished.

You basically described Briggs. Farm Vest's Off Air from time to time if that helps push a point. CoC mage and front E are often the only to die, recent ToE change gave me a few stalemates. GA was what I used instead of AMF a year ago for cost effective counters and worked terrifically with the huge AS. Been thinking of turning the CoC into a tank(got so many wares in stock) because the mage is often the weak link. Also, don't go past (20) with protect.

You'll see once I get the cash to hire some more minions, and buy a huge RoS.

Did someone say Huge RoS????

I did, and first too.

does this have anything to do with GL's tulwar alert?

TULWAR!!! Get rid of em... *cough* erm, I feel better now... :)

Your original Strat won't work. Most FB teams also train DM which will eat your GA and AS. You would need to swap out the ToE for a RoS.

Then it would work.

There's not much to beat 4 minions + AS + RoS. *sigh*

"There's not much to beat 4 minions + AS + RoS. *sigh* "

How do you know?

CB1.

CB is basically just "reduce other teams HP to zero to win". Multiple minion teams lack concentration but gain diversity over single minion teams. Multiple minions *should* be individually weaker than minions on teams of smaller amounts. Ad they would be, if natural HPs had to be trained on each minion.

AS upsets this. It allows a single minion to provide HP for the whole team and provides a benefit over natural HP for teams of 3 or more.

DM was bought in to limit this as CB1 showed beyond a shadow of a doubt it was always beeter to add additional minions, as in the least, they could just be AS batteries (bar tactics to limit VA HP stealing in ranged, which was removed anyway).

The RoS swing balance away again. DM is (in my opionion) overpowered from working from the individual levels and not combined, but the RoS has gone overboard.

An XP free increased and DM protected AS...

Now multiple minion teams (while offensively less concentrated than smaller teams) have the same, if not more durability of single/lesser number teams, *With more bodies to soak damage anyway*.

No loss.

With stats taken from the Wiki.

Consider a single minion spending 'x' amount of XP on HP, a 2 minion team spending the same amount on HP over both minions and a 4 minion AS team using the same amount as AS.

(ignoring the scaling costs of stats...)

Single Minion: 100% HP = 100% Total

2 HP minions: 50%/50% = 100% Total (same relative HP, individually smaller, but you now have two bodies to soak damage)

4 Minion AS: 48 (AS skill effectiveness compared to just training HP) x 0.77 (4 minion penalty to AS) = 36.96%

Each of those four minions has individually less hit points than a minion training natural HP, but unlike the 2 minion team (or single minion) they have a combined total of 147.84%. Nearly half as much in total as natural HPs *and* four bodies to soak it with.

Now add a RoS on to this...

RoS is a waste of a tattoo against teams that don't use DM or have small DM's - they expect to have enough HP to chew through the team and bear the brunt of the GA anyway.

Um, no, the RoS provides a bonus of 50% of it's level to the AS of the minion it is on, regardless of DM. This probably will affect the outcome of some battles.

Ack - forgot about the ED bonus. My bad.

And with RoS you can use DM and AMF together and DM with will not affect your AMF, so basically you will cancel/decrease all VA, GA, Prot, Haste, GS and AS on all non-RoS opponents.

As well as reducing all the DD spells or Str/Dex as well. Come on, how much more do we want this tattoo to do?

Adding in a RoS increase to the 4 minion stats above;

4 Minion AS + RoS: (100 (trained) + 33/2 (RoS boost)) x .48 (AS Efficiency) x .77 (23% Four minion penalty) = 43.06%

Total effective HP: 172.24 compared to a single minion.

Add a RoS and your 4 minions have just under (7%) half the hit points a single minion would, adding up to nearly 3/4 more in total!

Plus it protects your VA, GA, AS, Haste, Protection and GS from DM reduction *and* allows you to use DM yourself without any or as much penalty to your own AMF/EC...

And it's fine? Realy?

What's the counter? Everything in CB has a counter, so what's the RoS counter?

Sorry I feel the need to highlight this.

Train as much into AS as a two minion team does into natural HPs on both it's minions on a four minion team with a RoS and each of your four minions has just under 7% of the hit points the two minion team does...

I think ToE is a really good counter against RoS.
Reasons:
If you put RoS on AS, opponents' Tank based ToE teams will destroy you.
If you put RoS on Haste, opponents' Mage based ToE teams will destroy you.

The ToE provides a reduced effect via it's aura to the other wearers. A RoS boosted AS doesn't. All minions get that nicely boosted extra HPs.

how about this all-around strat:
AS/DM, + RoS (train DM to about half the protection the tat grants)
AMF
EC/GA
Heavy tank, mostly ST, +TSA + MgS +base prot


that is very similar to my NCB char currently, except instead of EC I have a CoC mage. It worls kinda well, but not what I would like it to. does the above look like a good alternative?


(on a side note, how much protection *does* the RoS grant...?)

I would say the RoS is probably the second or third most powerful tattoo in the game behind ToA and ToE.

A good ToA tank can also run basically the same setup minus the DM and with more trained hp and be just as effective. In fact that is pretty much how I ran my first big Tank. So I don't understand why you keep saying that the RoS is overpowered. The way I see it, any tattoo can be good if you use it with a strong supporting cast/setup that capitalizes on it's features, except for the ToBF (or whatever it's called now).

With a ToE, I think you should have a small GA, and a Large Protection to further minimize the damage done to you. AS isn't really needed, but is a nice HP bonus.

So a 4 minion team with ToE would be: 1 minion on AS (or a nice Wall with max HP and AC), 1 Minion with AMF/GA and 1 minion with Protection. Then your choice of either a CoC or Mini-Tank.

I'm just saying, that if the RoS is soo strong, I don't think John would've buffed it up some on the last change month.