Time to plan my next NCB character. (in General)

:) It's getting time to let go of my Single UC Tank and start a fresh. The Single UC Tank works, and works well, but I never wanted to optimise it by using a ranged weapon and RL threw some spanners into my playing time and I haven't made good use of my bonus time.

Next, back to a Tattoo wearing Single Mage. To blast my way through the lower ranks at light speed.

The plan is to have a Single MM Mage, wearing a FF. The Mage will train PL (For two reasons, to lessen damage taken by 10% and to keep the FF alive and die before Melee). I'm unsure about an EO (As I'll be planning for massive damage output during ranged to win my battles) and will stear clear of any EDs to waste any DM I face.

While leveling through the Ranks, my FF will be my main damage dealer, putting our more than my Mage could hope to. Plus it'll get HPs for free!

As for FF and MM on my mage, I want FB to attack first, as that way, it's damage will never be reduced by any minions killed by my MM.

For equipment, all I need is a pair of AGs, as no other items will really help.

:)

:) So when do I get the keys to your car? That was the bet wasn't it? ;)

Nice. In theory you could end up facing up to enchanters by the time you get to melee, which is good. It will also work nicely against CoC and EEET teams, which is also good. I'd consider adding DM, which you could pump to a certain level and then leave, a bit like you've been doing with AMF. But otherwise I'd steer clear of enchantments.

The winner and champeeeon.....

:P Damn you!!!

My tonka car doesn't have keys. Besides, I thought the bet was for my first NCB charcater, not this one!

I probably will add a little DM, it's too good not to have. Even if it does just get rid of base protections! ;) If I face too much trouble from GA I'll probabyl pump DM a little more.

Yeah, that's the thing, for a set up like this you only need to get it to a certain level for it to be effective, then revisit it later.

The major downside to this would probably be ToE teams. They don't even have to do major damage to you, just take both your minions along to melee. Then your FF scores an own goal and that's it you're out of the game. So I would maybe keep the HP/MM ratio a little lower than normal, just to help him along into an early grave, thus avoiding that melee friendly fire.

I've had a 2.1 mil fb and a 1.4 mil SF.

Short answer, go ToE FB (or ToE SF if you need to be a pain).

Long Answer, MM sucks up top, maybe you'll have ok luck as you're building the char. But I can verify that tother way round doesn't work as well as you'd think.

I gotta say Nov, that your AC causes me all sorts of problems! :) I know VB/Decay would work well against it, but you've got nearly a 70% damage reduction from your armour alone! ;)

Why does MM suck so much at the top? Is it from stopping on MgS Walls?

I'm not really worried about AMF backlash to warrant a ToE over the damage potentail a DD familiar could bring. I've come to accept that no AMF can keep up with Single Mages. And my Familiar would be getting a 10% damage reduction from PL anyway.

Really, I'm plugging to finish fights early. Get out as much damage as I can in Ranged, so as not to face big Melee wepaons or CoC. Defense will play a back seat here to offence.

:)

I'd say if you want to know how well MM does at higher levels ask Truedevil. His NCB char started about the same time as ours and features a mage and a familiar and seems to be doing pretty well - certainly the best of the NCB's that started at that time!

The issue came when the max tat was lowered, you could no longer have a large enough familar for your level. being limited to a 1.5 mil familiar until past a million make DD familiars up high a big rarity.

SNK even gave up arguing...

AMF can't keep up with it, but a .20 AMF will kill your single mage and your familiar long before he kills most teams. The ToE is the other half a of a mage char, awesome defense with no penalties, and a reduction in AMF blowback! Back when you could stack two 2 mil lvl fireballs on a char, sure it was fun and effective. Now you're lucky to have 1.5/2.0. Which means your Familiar you're trying to keep alive is going to be worse off that the single minion in regards to AMF. Not cool.

Yeah, I do worry that when my Max level exceeds my Tattoo, the Tattoo will no longer be able to keep pace damage wise, but that's around 600K MPR, and usually after bonus period! ;)

If I get that far, I might look into swapping my tatoo around, but for 'leveling' a DD tattoo cannot be beaten for damage potential! ;)

I think it will work out fine going up through the ranks. Agreed high up you may find suitable targets a bit limited with lots of high NW teams including many RoS/ToE +AMF with a sprinkling of AC, MgS, TSA etc it is tough for all out DD offense at the top.

If your FF kills the mage in round 1 of melee does it get to fire its MM? I really should remember this one. Assuming you get to fire you want the mage alive until round 4 to get another MM blast off, who cares that the FF is killing it, yes train MM big at the expense of HP, yes use PL if you want but unless you are winning everything in ranged I would try to keep the mage alive for 4 rounds.

I will probably be running something similar in the near future (2 minion though)

I like the strategy. Let's you rise through the ranks nice and quick and having only one minion leaves you a ton of options for when you get a high MPR.

The FF/MM mage idea should work nicely too. But EOs, I've never used DM, but I do think it's the right choice. DM is the most aggressive EO and an aggressive strategy is good early on because your goal should be to attack stronger characters, and aggressive strategies are particuarly good at exploiting weaknesses.

"I've come to accept that no AMF can keep up with Single Mages."

Pffft, never listen to logic when it tells you something can't be done.

personally, if I was going for something akin to this, I'd go single decay mage training Decay AMF and AS and wearing a IF. Specific as heck, but that damage would be amazing

GL, I am not sure what your goal with your NCB is, so it is hard to input...

Do you want maximum MPR at the end?
Do you want a competitive team? (If so, what score/PR level are you shooting for?)
Do you want cheap?
Do you want "sleeper", i.e. people will attack you thinking they can win, but they lose?
Do you want to build a tattoo, or is that optional?

If you aren't worried about tattoo-levelling and just want to maximize MPR< then go with an RoE and never stop.

At this point, almost _any_ strategy has good targets as you work your way up. That is, unless you are silly and try to do it in a clan -- that severely limits fight choice.

/me nudges the needle on suts broken record...

Sut, I agree 100% with you about specific strat teams and low nw teams and clans, however we need you to stop mentioning it...the nubs might actually read it and then who would I farm? Clanfighting is fun, but a lousy way to start building a char.

Thats no problem, start your own clan and fight whoever you please, thats what I do.

My record isn't exactly broken... I know more whence I speak now, as I am building a character. However, Borderliner's point is a pretty good one if he can regularly maintain 7-8% bonus with just one guy and a non-clan-specific fight list... Looks like I've been pretty thick for 2.5 months... :\

To be honest, I don't know what I want to do. :)

But building characters keeps me playing! ;)

MrC, I considered Decay, but for that to be effective, I need my mage to last into Melee. I'm not planning on that happening.

I'm not woried about tattoo leveling, but think I can make more XP using a damaging tattoo than with a RoE. I can fight higher, faster and aim for better rewards from the beginning. :)

I am hoping that if the friendly splash from FB kills my MM mage in Melee, he will still get to attack, as all attacks are simultanious. :D

Bump.

Another thought.

Should I go for two minions? Have one, wearing the FF, train HP and PL? Leaving the Mage to train only MM (with a little HP for AMF backlash). And spread the cost of DM across both minions.

This would free up my Mage to wear a CoI to compliment his AGs.

:/

If you are going to use 1 minion + FF, then your FF will die really fast because it'll be out in front. Using two minions will allow you to put it on an E and let the E die first thus helping your FF live an extra round or two.

:) Mikel, if single, my Mage will train PL to keep my FF alive longer.

PL isn't going to keep a familiar alive any longer than Prot really, Familiars die from AMF, amf, and more amf, oh and GA (which should be/is reduced by prot/end/ac)

GA will be taken care of by DM. And the Familiars DD should be higher than most AMFs the characters level, while my tat is over my max. :)

Doesn't matter, you still can't use DB on your Familiar, nor AG, CoI etc. It will die fast, they don't have a lot of HP either.

Gl with the max tat being lowered your familiar will NOT be immune to amf by virtute of it's dd level, I had a 2.6 mil fb and still took 100k amf damage every round with a 1 mil ToE, and 75-80k damage with a 1.5 mil ToE. They need AS to survive amf and I think that's been proved.

GL: you have two options in this.

A) Single UC ToA tank =P

B) Give me your UC gear at a discount! (nah just kidding you're beyond awesome already!)

"Doesn't matter, you still can't use DB on your Familiar, nor AG, CoI etc. It will die fast, they don't have a lot of HP either."

Mikel, that's what the uber PL is for. Yes, it will get hit many times by tanks, but a load of damage will be sucked up by my single charcater, leaving the FF's HPs (10% of it's level) to soak up AMF. I don't plan on having DBs large enough to do any good anyway. ;)

Good point Nov. With the lowering of Max tattoo level, not only will the FF have less resistance to AMF, but less HPs as well. AMF will hurt, maybe I'lll have to hunt out all the Single FB/ToE Mages with ToEs for my fightlist! ;)