Dissect My Strategy (in General)
I just made this up in about 2 minutes, so no doubt there are going to be holes in it that a few of you will hopefully rip to shreds for me.
I'd just like some fresh eyes to look at this to see any flaws I've missed.
My two requirements for this strategy are:
400k total NW. Tattoo must be worth the same or less than an 87k RoS (this is on top of the 400k budget).
Anyway:
EEMM
Enchanter: AMF, trained 100% - Equipped with ToJ and a base whip.
Enchanter: AMF, trained 100%
Mage: HP, trained 50%, Decay, trained 50%
Mage: HP, trained 30%, CoC, trained 70%
My weakness is seekers, but I don't think they're worth worrying about in randomly chosen opponents.
I don't see many more faults.
Tanks are a potential threat, but I have my doubts. Decay will get a few easy shots off before it gets killed, and no doubt will hit the tank before dying. I'd back that CoC to finish them off.
I think the combination of enchanters and the ToJ will be enough to give me the edge against tanks. And a heavy AMF combined with two (or more likely, three) heavy HP minions gives me a very nice edge against mages.
Any thoughts?
are you sure there is no room for Protection??
I'm not sure that the large AMF is going to be enough to combat mages, especially those with a ToE and/or MM, but if it must be limited to 400k NW then it looks ok. Also I'm unsure about training decay full stop.
QBJohnnywas
May 3 2006 9:40 AM EDT
I'm not sure about this set up. It will work but you have absolutely nothing offensive in ranged. So you're going to spend ranged taking damage and losing HP. That decay could be a complete waste of XP.
Still, that's nicely balanced by your complete indifference to DM.
And the ToJ - I'd be wanting to make more use of it. Chuck in some AS and VA and even if it isn't doing huge damage it's fulfilling meatshield duties.
For seekers, I'd plump for changing the second E into a Wall. If you have the cash, get a MgA (and possibly a TSA). Train 100% HP (with a base prot) and train PL.
No more seeker problems.
I'd stick the wall as the first minion if you have lots of AC (or dex...), last otherwise (To stop more MM damage).
But if you have 4 minions, you really should look at AS/AMF/DM and a RoS.
Just use PL to keep your Mage safe from seekers. ;)
Well I think first off your major weakness is not seekers but the new MM. Since it targets the back minion, and starts in round one, you have no return fire while MM picks off you best damage dealer. Sure your ToJ could help you out if the CoC mage is gone, and might even carry the fight, but with out AS/GS/Haste/VA I do not think you will find the ToJ minion strong enough to carry a lot of fights.
The only thing I could see to fix that would be to put the non ToJ enchanter in back. This unfortunately puts your Decay minion at a greater risk of dying before melee. You cannot put the Decay in back because that messes with the order and you would have to wait until the next round to finish it. Like this:
MM does 10K then Decay take half is much less effective than Decay takes half then MM does 10K. In the latter you can finish the fight right there, in the former, you have to wait for the MM to fire again the next round to use the halfing effect from Decay the previous round to full effect.
I have found it seems the best to either say, OK I have a damage dealing minion from a tattoo, support it heavy with Enchanters, maybe toss another damage dealer who could benefit the same from the enchantments that the tattoo minion does, but in the end, make your minion either your best damage dealer with enchantment support, or go with a non-minion tattoo. That is certainly not absolute but in general I think it is true. So, I think if you changed E1 to a wall, made the ToJ a ToE, the same effect will take hold, but the ToE will help the CoC mage a lot more than a ToJ will. Also the ToE will provided added protection for the CoC mage against MM. Heck if you are not geared out, you could do wall first minion but put the ToE on the CoC mage. Now you have really hedged out the MM and the wall is sort of a mini ToJ in the sense of combating tanks and their ilk.
Anyway, I like the concept, but I do think you will find a big MM will tear it down quickly.
Chappy, sure why not.
Borderliner, I agree.
Thankfully I'm not relying on the AMF.
Against a single FB mage or anything but MM I'll be taking only 33% of their damage on my CoC mage.
33% of their damage on any of my main minions even.
My AMF will slice that in half, they'll be doing less than 17% of their damage to my minions. Not to mention the first round where they do even less. Plus DD has lots of penalties in ranged.
Johnny, we use a lot of the same ideas in strategies... but there's one big difference, I'm an awful lot more defensive. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a whole other story, but I can tell you I'm very good at it. Not doing any damage in ranged is not as much of a sacrifice as you'd think.
Look at the minions I've got there to take damage in ranged. Against FB mages I'll lose the enchanters in the first round, but the rest of my minions will take minimal damage.
Against MM and any ranged weapon... well, my hope is that they don't kill off my enchanters, at least not both of them. I'd just want one (or both) of them to survive to melee to take a hit from the melee weapons. You like the invisible PR stat, how about this one, 20HP minion taking the same damage as a 50k HP minion and doing exactly the same job. :)
GL, seekers are a problem, but I doubt making changes in case of the chance that my opponent uses them is worth it. And TSA, MgS, well they're $$$ consuming and I don't think I'll need them.
Sefton, I'm kicking myself right now for not seeing that.
Ok, train CoC and HP evenly on the mage. Rely on AMF to keep the MM damage to a minimum. I haven't seen that many big MM minions, so I'd be content with taking my chances against them. Chances are CoC would get one shot off against a single minion MM (the most deadly to me) and decay would get two. Then it's down to the ToJ with a lot of help from AMF... could go either way. Thanks for pointing that one out. :)
The only reason I stuck with the ToJ rather than ToE is because if I went ToE, I'd have to train HP on another minion. If I did that, I'd have less EXP to go into enchantments.
QBJohnnywas
May 3 2006 10:24 AM EDT
I was actually about to back track a little on the ranged thing. That lack of ranged can mean you're stronger against a lot of things - GA for instance, and you're not taking any AMF hits in ranged either. And I'm actually very fond of the lack of defensive enchantments. I hate DM.
But I'm still not sure about the two AMFs. I think a wall would be more useful, although less intelligent, in ensuring your mage gets to melee. And if you want defensive get two of them....
But I like it. It reminds me of my old team a bit, in the way that you've essentially got a single mage wearing a ToJ spread out over four minions!
PL would also help keep the CoC Mage alive if you don't move a blocking minion to the rear.
If you're going four minions, there really isn't a good reason not to use PL (and a RoS for that matter).
Even with 4 minion, as two only have 20 HPs (and will therefore only last a single round) FB (especially from a single FB Mage + FF) is going to cause you no end of problems. Dual AMF won't be able to keep up with them, 50% of your total XP is less than they'll be investing, plus the bonus from AGs they'll have on top (You could even that out with a couple of Corns, but they're more expensive than a MgS/TSA combo!).
QBJohnnywas
May 3 2006 10:58 AM EDT
Oh and as an aside - any team should be equipped with the biggest tattoo you can lay your hands on. Until that max tattoo level overtakes your tattoo you will be getting the most from it that you can get. And max tattoo levels rise faster than tattoos so your power grows much more quickly.
Works for me anyway. And Sefton. And GL.
Amen on the tattoo level! Also, the doubled up AMF means you have spent a significant portion of your exp on stopping only magic. If a tank group, or single tank comes through, your are going to be at a competitive disadvantage because you have so much exp tied up into something that has no affect on them. You might again consider one AMF and a wall. Add the PL as suggested and you help hedge the MM on your CoC minion. Now you have minion against magic and one against magic and tanks, which I think will help more than over training AMF.
The AMF enchanters would block 25% of damage from a single mage, each.
A wall would block 7%.
I'd put it behind the CoC mage to protect from MM, but that'd leave me too vulnerable to tanks (as they'd stand a chance of damaging my decay mage in ranged). And if I just left the enchanter/wall where it is, then it wouldn't really make much difference at all.
As for tattoos, yeah, you're right. But I'm too cheap to cough up a mil to buy a bigger tattoo. ;)
Oh and as for the single tank idea. Well, I think I'm a very big favourite against them. For a start, my AMFs are useless. So is their DX. I'm not too far behind them there.
Even if they killed a minion every round in ranged (ToJ, Enchanter, Enchanter) then my decay fires in melee, taking away half of their health with one hit. I'd seriously doubt that they'd kill it in one round, if so then decay gets two shots and CoC gets three. That's more than enough to introduce them to an early grave.
There's also the chance that they use an ax/exbow, or they don't kill the ToJ in one round. I think expecting the decay mage to last to second round of melee is reasonable.
Wasp
May 3 2006 11:45 AM EDT
I think the strat is terrible. Theres too much AMF trained. If you fight someone with AMF or GA, you will get slaughtered as the HP you will have on the CoC mage will not be enough. Perhaps re-think another strategy? (The dilution of the CoC will make it useless aswell.)
*coughs and splutters for a while*
Terrible??
That's going a bit far don't you think?
CoC still has a good chunk of health. It'll be pretty difficult for anyone to kill it with AMF and GA, especially considering that seeing as it's combined with decay it only needs a couple of rounds to do it's job.
As for training too much AMF.
Let me explain that one. What is too much, or not enough depends on a lot of things, there's no set in stone limit. As it is I believe that just having my main attack confined to a few rounds and a very solid defence it can beat tanks. If tanks are already beatable, then what makes training an anti-mage spell the wrong decision?
And as for CoC being useless... that will still pack a very decent punch.. I've run lots of single CoC mages with little more trained into their CoC (and some with heavy armor equipped too!) that have matched every blow from an enemy.
Are you sure you didn't just look at this and see an unusual strategy and jump to the conclusion that it is weak because it isn't orthodox?
Wasp
May 3 2006 12:04 PM EDT
No, I looked at which parts were lacking EXP, used a bit of logic, and it said "this strat is terrible". Put it into practice and see for yourself. AMF will rip the defenceless CoC mage apart. Trust me. Throw in GA and the other team will be laughing. Come up against a tank and then you can half your MPR. Come up against a tank with a decent AMF, then you can take a bit more of your MPR off. So no, I didn't look at your strat and think "yeah lets just slate it".
Wasp
May 3 2006 12:13 PM EDT
"Let me explain that one. What is too much, or not enough depends on a lot of things, there's no set in stone limit."
I think there is, but it's not set in stone. There will be a sort of boundary that when trained above, it becomes less efficient on EXP spent. If u start to train way too much AMF, tanks will beat you. If you keep training way too much AMF, mages will then start to beat you as the exp to your form of attack (dd in this instance) and hp will be considerably low.
"The AMF enchanters would block 25% of damage from a single mage, each."
:) I think it will be signifiantly less than 25% each. At an equal level to the DD it faces AMF does stop 50% of the DD damage.
But you'll never be able to equal the amount put in by single mages. It's more than 50% total.
"A wall would block 7%.
I'd put it behind the CoC mage to protect from MM, but that'd leave me too vulnerable to tanks (as they'd stand a chance of damaging my decay mage in ranged). And if I just left the enchanter/wall where it is, then it wouldn't really make much difference at all."
7%? Add PL to the wall, leave it in fromt of the mages. If you face MM it'll hit your CoC mage and your PL wil soak some of it up.
"Oh and as for the single tank idea. Well, I think I'm a very big favourite against them. For a start, my AMFs are useless. So is their DX. I'm not too far behind them there.
Even if they killed a minion every round in ranged (ToJ, Enchanter, Enchanter) then my decay fires in melee, taking away half of their health with one hit. I'd seriously doubt that they'd kill it in one round, if so then decay gets two shots and CoC gets three. That's more than enough to introduce them to an early grave.
There's also the chance that they use an ax/exbow, or they don't kill the ToJ in one round. I think expecting the decay mage to last to second round of melee is reasonable."
Unless the single Tank trains AMF, in which case your Decay is more likely to hurt yourself more than your opponent. :)
You would have only 1/8 of your total xp in decay (and around the same in CoC if you buff your mages HPs). A single minion (that chooses to train AMF over DM) can easily keep pace, if not exceed that. :)
Stay single and concentrate, or abuse multiple minions with EDs and RoS. :)
QBJohnnywas
May 3 2006 1:28 PM EDT
Single tank's dex being useless against you? Don't be so sure. If their dex is high enough - and if they're ToA tanks then you're looking at triple strikes or even quad strikes. Ok so most of the bloodlust tanks and UC tanks will only get the first two minions in ranged but if they've been clever and trained a large AMF they're going to trim down your attacks pretty fast.
Even my weaker tank can do some pretty good damage when he's at his fastest.
100k per hit in ranged and melee on average - quad strikes, you're looking at 400k per round.
And as he's single tank he's also getting high in the HP stakes and VA on the menu too...
I've a couple of 4-minion CoC teams on my fightlist and yes they hit hard but I can still take them...
"Borderliner, I agree.
Thankfully I'm not relying on the AMF.
Against a single FB mage or anything but MM I'll be taking only 33% of their damage on my CoC mage.
33% of their damage on any of my main minions even.
My AMF will slice that in half, they'll be doing less than 17% of their damage to my minions. Not to mention the first round where they do even less. Plus DD has lots of penalties in ranged"
Ah! AMF works before the damage split. So for an equal DD to AMF, you would take 10% of the FB damage to each minion for the first round, 16.66% for the next couple (not including ranged penalties).
:)
I don't think there's much more to be said...
The last few posts seemed to have the same "it's not going to work" tone about them... needless to say they've sold me on the idea of using this strat.
It'll work. It might need some tweaking, but it'll work.
QBJohnnywas
May 3 2006 3:17 PM EDT
Lol, I think it will work. But it's always nice to know what might cause it problems no? And you're a contrary so and so anyway! If we'd all told you it was brilliant you wouldn't have done it!
Tezmac
May 3 2006 3:24 PM EDT
I may be missing something, but it seems kind of a waste to use a RoS and not have an ED spell to boost don't you think?
Tezmac
May 3 2006 3:28 PM EDT
Bah, I did miss something, you're using a ToJ. :O)
:D Hehehehehe! Go for it! It's only constructive critisism. We're all not known for wanting to pursue the most solid of strats (Single UC tanks! LOL!)
The five minions, will work wonders reducing FB/CoC, but would be better at it boosted by ASso the two 20HP minions don't die in the first hit. Doesn't mean that the single round they do live in won't be enough! ;)
PL will keep you mages safer from seekers, and MgS's own DD like red haired step children! ;)
I'd love to see how this goes, and whether my critisisms were accurate or not! ;)
1) Looks to me like your team is best suited to taking out another mage team. Those are going to be MM, FB, or CoC. So put your ToJ in the back and let the tanks tear you up - concentrate on taking out mage teams and don't try to do everything well.
2) Since you have no DEs, assume you will target the DM teams. A high DM team will not have any AMF (except for ToS teams), so drop your Decay to base, then use the extra points to train hit points or more AMF. Boost CoC up. 30% is just too small.
My suggestions are based on the idea that you focus on a single type of target and don't worry that you are vulnerable to others. When you reach the higher tier of players, then it makes sense to go with a more general strategy since your victim targets will be in short supply
.
This thread is closed to new posts.
However, you are welcome to reference it
from a new thread; link this with the html
<a href="/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001nPe">Dissect My Strategy</a>