Strat: Single CoC w/SF (in General)

Not much to say. I want to talk about what enchantments, if any, do you think work best on such a minion, and what the best proportions might be. Then if you want we could get into other tattoo options or discuss equipment.

(HP, CoC, ?, ?) (?:?:?:?) (SF, AG, Corn/Cab, DB)

HP/CoC/Evasion(maybe slap some DX on there?)

no enchantments

SF/AG/DB and a Cab

Evasion+DBs would be crucial to this if you want to survive long enough to get off your CoC, and DX would just help with some more dodging.

I have often thought of a COC mage with a FF. The reason I like the FF over the SF is the ability of the FF to take out the low HP enchanters typically in front of the party, but sometimes behind a "wall" minion. If you use a SF, all your doing is some damage to a wall, but using a FF lets you take out the lower hp minions letting your COC fire vs fewer minions.

Check out Mishras Factory for this exact type of strategy. It is 4 minions but I would like to try it with just 2.

the tank killing CoC mage just needs to use ebs in place of the dbs, the defensive dex of evasion might be a big boost to the strat.

All right, Slayer says: I'd say it's better to drop the DX completely. Evasion is greater then DX. Mixing them both in gives you no advantage. It also might be best to slap on a base Prot at least.

Ranger so far only advises we go FF instead of SF. I've thought about the Fire-Ice combo before and have rather liked it. My advise in that situation would be to forego AS and let the FF live on its own HP. This allows you to add survivability to the CoC mage and makes you immune to DM. I'll take stab at a full strat outline: As for novice, I would have to agree. Once you decide to invest in Evasion I believe you will find a bigger payoff with a pair of EBs, rather then DBs.

I think DX+Evasion would have a slight advantage, I dont know exactly how much, but Evasion grants a bonus to DX:

Jon-- "Evasion gives bonus to effective DX on defense equal to the evasion level" <---from some changelog : )

of course, if your evasion is high enough with DBs and Evasion put together and you are able to nuke a large amount of your enemy's DX, then I guess no DX is needed

Evasion level is equal to that level in Defensive DX. I.E.=

If you have 500k DX and 500k Evasion, you have 500k DX and 1 mil Defensive DX.

If you have 1 mil Evasion, you have 1 mil Defensive DX, but the amount you take from the enemy's PTH is much greater. Therefore, it is superiour, since you need no offensive DX on a mage.

doh, I see : P

I ran a single minion CoC mage for a bit, and were I to do it again I'd start out ToE with 2/3 HP and 1/3 CoC, with the proviso that whenever protection is more efficient than HP to train it instead.

And in my experience, it's best to train both DX and Evasion, with more evasion, because 1 mil evasion > 500k evasion + 500k dex, but it takes less exp to train two stats.

Grant, Evasion was changed.

Yes, but that other 500k lvls of PTH taken off are absolutely invaluable, whereas the small amount of overall DX gained from the two skills separately trained really doesn't cause much of a gain.

Me is dumb. I carn't read what Gernt is saying. Odd Dirb is ight. The lost pith in't worth the minor gain en Defenser Dx.

"(HP, CoC, ?, ?) (?:?:?:?) (SF, AG, Corn/Cab, DB)"

I have been away for a while, but I still think CoC is *my* spell, not that I own it or anything, but rather I'm the best at using it.

It has many great advantages and is potentially the most powerful attack there is.
The problem is that people refuse to pay attention to what it needs.

SF is not a good option, ToE is the _only_ option.
AG are not a good option, use TG.
Corn is not a good option, either Cab or HoD.

CoC does not need any boost in it's power, so don't give it any. What it needs is to survive. This armor will easily increase your total damage beyond what any DD boosting gear could. SF is also not a good idea, sure it will kill enchanters quickly but so will CoC, CoC if given enough rounds will spend a very small percentage of it's damage getting rid of enchanters. So give it a ToE and let it do it's job the way it's designed to do it.

And as for enchantments, there is no question about it. AMF is the only true defensive enchantment in it's slot, and a small prot is always nice. I choose prot because GA would take a decent amount of EXP to be useful, and would still be vulnerable to DM. You need that EXP in your HP, CoC and AMF.

I also wouldn't waste my EXP in a big evasion, but a small one may prove useful.

As for how much in each stat, I'd put 50% of EXP in HP, 35% in CoC, 15% in AMF. Plus less than 1% in both prot and evasion.

I'm planning on doing a single CoC mage for my NCB so I've been thinking about it alot. Also, I've been thinking about the enchantments...

I think the only viable way to run a single CoC mage would be ToE, although I do like the FF idea. I think a FF would be more effective than the SF for already stated reasons. However, a ToE would be key to surviving into casting rounds and it would greatly reduce AMF backlashs.

Enchantments are were I am torn. A base Protection with a decent AMF would be effective because DM wouldn't have a great impact on you. However, I also think GA would be a good idea because the ToE would reduce the level you would need to train it. Obviously you are susceptible to DM but, GA paired with a decent AMF would help against all of those pesky FB mages.

Although I'm planning to have a big pair of DB's, I don't think evasion is all that bad of an idea, but save it for later on.

As for gear, AG's are a must. DB's, obviously. A big corn for AMF (and protection/GA?).

Training ratios would be somethin like: 40-50% HP, 35-45% CoC, the rest on enchantments (or evasion).

You couls also consider using a Familiar (any of the three) with a CoC + AS mage. :)

You'ld be weak versus DM, but you can't be strong versus everything right? ;)

I'd also agree to dropping the DBs (Evasion skill is now far better) and using EBs to pump the Skill. Training Dex alongside Evasion will give you some more Defensive dex overall, but it's a waste, as you'll never use your Dex for offese. Train it all into Evasion to gain the pth reduction alongside defensive dex you'll always use. :)

The original Jack Crow team was a EWWM CoC team. But the set up, AMF enchanter, two mage shield walls and CoC mage, was actually influenced by Mr C's talk of heavy mages.

But instead of high AC on the mage I had two very high AC walls. Mix a ToE, high AC and AMF and a single CoC mage should even be able to take on big FB Mages. The ToE would need to be huge though. But with CoC's power you're able to spread some XP into HP and AMF. I wouldn't bother with a SF (or any other familiar DD) unless their spell is larger than the mage. A few well placed seekers and you're finished.

btw Vestax, KannibalKarebear has a char called SqueakyFromme that you might want to look at.

Thanks Johnny, but really, there's no reason to direct it towards me. This conversation is for the community in general, seeing as I'm going to stick with my current character for now.

Alright, I use a CoC, HP, AMF, Base Prot. With a ToE, Corn, AG's and DB's Works aweosmely!!

I keep HP a little below say 10-20k FB, and AMF about 10-20k below HP. Base Prot.