Question. How many minions? (in General)

Ok. I have always wanted to know the best option for minions. Start with all you want at the beginning and just go, or start solo and add minions at certain points.

My question is this. If I want to make a tank without using a ToA, how many minions can I start with and not dilute the xp so much that the tank isn't strong enough to compete? I mean if there are 2 minions can the tank be strong enough, how about 3 minions? I know that with 4 minions there really isn't a chance that the tank can be strong enough at comparable mpr's.

So please let me hear your thoughts on this. I am currently thinking of some ideas for a new char if I decide to go that route and give up on the monks. I was thinking EMT maybe, but not sure if there will be enough xp to make the tank a viable tank with 3 minions from the start. So thoughts, comments, other questions are accepted. Please be nice and send your thoughts :)

maybe start MT or TM and add the E at a later date if you can afford to buy them that is (ask pit how expensive they are) if buying them is out of the question then i'd start with 3 minions

yeah, go that route, trust me, starting with 4 minions in a tank team did not help me. and it was my NCB character, so starting over was out of the question.

start with 1 till around 200k MPR add 1 and around 400k MPR add the 3th minion
its very expensive but you will be strong

Personally, I would go with the more expensive route. It's well worth it in the long run. Get your single tank to about 1 million mpr. Then add the other minions then. You remember my team back over on cb1 eh? :P

i remember that thing!! I tried to get up to where it was...... it didn't work.

start with as many as you want to have in the end game, if you enlist them later on, those will be quite smaller and weaker, and thus not giving you their fullest extent to help.

alternatively at 200-250k mpr, you can enlist 1 or 2 additionally and use a RoE to get them have more exp instead also.

The depends entirely on the type of tank you are attempting to create.
I was using a 2 minion strat to bring my core stats up to a high level, with my team I was actually ending up having to train too many things to keep my team going, hiring two cheep minions to take over training the other two core stats made a lot more sense for me.

Single Minion is the best to start with. There is no question about it.

I'd like to mention though that a tank on a four minion team can do very nicely, it's EXP is diluted but if you spend what EXP you do get on the right stats, you'll be able to compete with anything.

EMT though... I'm not sure. I guess it depends on what you do with the enchanter. Use EC (or if you happen to be using RoS, use haste or GS) and you should do fairly well.

The key to succeeding as a tank (even one with smaller stats and no ToA) is to remember that most other tanks have their stats pretty much equal. This makes it very easy to overwhelm them on one particular stat, once you've done that it's surprisingly easy to beat most of them.

As for the mage... well, I've never been a fan of mixing tanks and mages into one character, but if that's what you want to do, start with two minions, get the enchanter whenever you'd like after that (in other words, a tank and a mage both need their stats to be high to be useful, an enchanter is still effective with low stats and therefore you can afford to stick to only a few minions for a while).

Size is obviously everything in the world of tanks. Well, NW matters a lot too, but the argument at hand is size. So start single. Stay single as long as you can. Myself, I stayed single minion until the point where it was ridiculous the number of mages that were attacking me. So I say stay tank until your main stats, (HP ST & DX) are larger than most ToA tanks, then add minions. But however you want to do it is fine.

This method helps versus a lot of tank teams, but leaves you weaker to the all powerful mage team. Your added M or E will be much smaller to start with and leave you vulnerable. And since there seem to be far more many mage teams, maybe you'd be best off starting with more minions. But it's your call. Good luck with your decision.

Single minions are lonely. All those multiminion bully teams beat us up good. :(