Strat Talk: TT ToE Team (in General)

Forward: The first in a series of posts about simple strat talk. No, I don't plan on implementing these, I just want to talk about strategies I've thought of. Their weaknesses, their strengths, and the cost of making it effective. The first of these is:

A 2 tank team w/ ToE.

Overview: I like the ToE, even on small teams. Failure, one of the most promising single tanks out there, has shown that it's not just Mage Armor. In this strat the focus would be on a strong wall-like tank up front and a fast, hard hitting tank in the back. The front Tank would focus on being a Mage killer while the back row takes care of other tanks. The ToE combined with TSA and MgS makes for amazing DD reduction. There is however a weakness to base Decay that could easily be fixed by a small AMF on the back row minion.

  1st Minion

• A little DX, .75 effective BL, 2/3 remaining HP, Max remaining ST
• Final Gear: VB, TSA, SC, CML, HoD, TG, MgS

  2st Minion

• 1/4 HP, 1/2 remaining ST, Max remaining DX
• Final Gear: ToE, EB, EG, BoTH, Axbow

Thoughts? Tweaks? Flames?

2 ToE tank is a good strat especially since dx droped so much on Top tank teams. But without VA and DM you gonna suffer when vs other toa or tank team as most of them have VA which cancle out the effectiveness of your ToE.
maybe 1st minion HP DM VA(depends if u have spare xp)
2nd minion even on hp st dx BL. with HoE TsA BoM EG DB EC MH AX.

Maybe change the VB on the first minion. Stick it on the second. If the front tank is a Mage killer, you don't need the VBs special on it. Save that for taking out High AC Walls/Tanks. :)

Im not sure Im a fan of a true 2 tank team using the ToE. I would much rather see you take the concept of the mage killer tank much further to the wall idea. How much ST and DX does a minion need to be superior to a mage? Also the MgS +ToE will be very effective, I think I would go big Adam to hedge physical and magical protection together. I would to
Adam - best AC for NW bang
SC
CML
HoD
HGs - the difference in AC (maybe max 10 is insignificant but the HG add less PR and the ST is pretty much irrelevant if your target is a mage)
MgS
with a Morg (why not? Big damage some HP gain to counter GA) and heavy crossbow (again want to actually target the minions in front so as to have superior ST and DX)

Train HP very little DX and ST and base protection (MgS nerf still provides 4 Prot, again why not?)

I like the back Tank fine, would not change him. MIGHT add a little VA to boost the BoTH.

Single ToA tanks and believe it or not single ToE mages will give you the most trouble. Also big AS protected by RoS 4 minion team emphasizing DD damage could give trouble too. (Yes, I know the RoS wont have an effect on this team, but those teams are designed to let their enchantments carry the fight, and in this case could do well against this team)

Im with you though maybe drop a little AMF on back guy too.

Yah basically I turned your two tank team into my Sefton strat. Sorry but I think its the best way to do two tanks with ToE, and I do know its weaknesses. I think you will hit a big NW and ST/DX crunch trying to actually push through two tanks that could hold there own with a single tank. Even if that single tank is part of a 4 minion team. You have no DM so a haste/AS/AS/GS team could generate some tall stats.

The end result is with the big wall HP and the ToE you get a lot of stalemates in fights where you do not even hit them but a handful of times, they just cant chew through in only 25 rounds. This is advantageous actually (assuming you can find plenty of other targets :)

If money was no option I would change the axbow to an ELB. As Sefton says FB mages will be able to take you on. If you have a dex heavy tank and a large ELB you will hit triple even quad against FB mages. That big damage from the ELB will enable you to take them out in ranged a lot more easily, especially if they've kept their HP down to boost their DD spell. The axbow is great against other tank teams but I would go for increasing your own damage output over decreasing theirs every time.

As you should know chelon, sinking DM and VA into the first minion is not compatible with a MgS. If I take the MgS off and invest in those spells then I might as well call it a ET team.

VA in general is a complex issue. The back row tank needs as high a DX as it can spare in order to keep up with most tanks. So sinking more xp into enchantments that need upkeep is an issue. AMF for base decay is fine because it is set and forget, but VA needs some upkeep. My thought was to go for a BoTH so that I wouldn't have to worry about such an investment in the first place.

BL on the second minion means sinking more xp into Damage, which distracts from the focus on having enough DX to hit other tanks. Yet, it might be possible to get more damage output by cutting the ST in half and moving BL to .75 and then put the leftovers into DX, but this would go against using a big ELB as Johnnywas suggests.

Budget here is the serious question. If you have all the money in the world to spend then yeah, ELB and seekers is a no-brainer. Archery would hurt you a bit but it's no big deal since you have the money for bigger elven gear. I choose a VB over Morg for the first minion because its less to own and also helps against Walls, which was essential since I don't have a big AMF, GA, FB, CoC, or seekers in order to get around the wall and kill the Mage. So I suppose there are two variants of this team forming, the big NW team and the medium NW team. Either way some regular cash infusion might be required.

And yes Sefton, I would agree that Adam would be better for damage mitigation over the TsA. My thought though was to not treat the front tank too much like a wall. The TsA was primarily for it's ST boost, not the DD reduction, though that was a plus.

I do also agree that the DX for him should be awfully low, just enough to reach the DX advantage cap against base DX minions, maybe a bit more.

The trick is, I believe, to reach the proper equilibrium between defense and offense. You all see this team and see a Wall and a Tank, and its no wonder you turn around and say that you'll stalemate a lot and lack effective damage output. I see two Tanks. One that doesn't die so easily to DD _and_ can put the hurt on a Mage/Wall/Enchanter. Then another Tank that doesn't get hit to often, either because the first minion takes the hit, or because he manages to dodge a blow or two, and who can put the hurt on anyone.

I know it isn't mentioned yet, but as for GA, I don't consider it much once the ToE is put into play. Against my team it is the bane of my existence, at least more then any other sort of team.

The sweet spot between offense and defense is a hard thing to judge in my opinion.

This sounds much like the strat I'm currently saving for.

Soon I'll recruit my second minion resulting in the following team:

1st minion:
90% AMF, 10% Prot, ToE (no other equipment)

2nd minion:
40% HP, 40% ST, 10% DX (adam, cml, sc, hod, tulkas, MgS, Morg and Exbow)

I'm curious on how god or bad this will work ;-)

(I know it's not good against DX-focused Tanks, but everybody else should suffer ;-)

Well, I wouldn't say it was like the team we're talking about, but I think I can see why you would say that. The point of the team I present above is that Tanks and Mages are both covered in some way.

You're team falls into the category of specialized teams aimed at a particular group, like ET teams with a big EC. That's because you seem to have absolutely no way to kill a decent tank. Now that's not such a bad thing, specialized teams have their pros and cons over well-rounded teams. To summarize it though, specialized teams are better for soloing without a clan. They can achieve a higher base reward by fighting higher, but are a farm fest for anyone who doesn't fall into their specialized group. That translates into lots of negative cp to weight your team down.

The well-rounded team is a better clanning unit and can possible make up for it's inability to fight higher with a bigger clan bonus. Also, well rounded teams have a more consistent score that doesn't drift too low once they stop fighting.

The real question is, is there a well-rounded team that can do what your specialized team can? If you cut out an entire group of characters out of your fightlist, such as teams with tanks with reasonable DX, and gain no specific advantage against everyone else then its not worth it.

Yes, you are right.

The disadvantage against Tanks is a problem, and i hope that they just won't be able to kill me at all (resulting in stalemates). This is also the reason for the exbow (which needs descent PTH).
If this is the case, I don't need to care about them, but that is sth. I can only try and see ;-)

Good luck, sounds like an interesting idea non-the-less.