Extreme makeover Suggestions please (in General)

I currently have a pretty good team set up (I think), problem is that I find it harder than usual to beat most teams in my point group. I don't really know how the whole -tank / mage / enchanter- minion thingy works so I cant tell you wich I have.

There are 2 FB minions, 1 AS minion and 1 with AM/GA. I also have a lesser ToE on one FB minion.

Okay, the plan I have is to change one FB into a BL with VA and one of my defence minions to PL and protection. I'm just not sure if it will be for better or for worse because I'll lose alot of exp points that I've already gained.
Any ideas or advice please?

The biggest problem you've got is the armour you're wearing - take it all off. Mages should only be wearing hard or soft leather armour for body armour, leather gloves and boots and leather cap or cabasset. Mithril Chain Mail, one of the rare body armours is suitable once you've made yourself some money. All the rest of the armours have penalties for magic. By wearing so much of it your fireball spells are weaker than they should be.

I'd stick with the fb strat you're doing for the moment, it's cheap and you'll be able to make a lot of money doing that. If you want to change to a tank based strat do it later when your character is bigger and you have the cash to spend on the big rare weapons which you'll need to do a good tank team.

Oh and lose the guardian angel - it doesn't work well with fireball. When you reach melee fireball hits your own team - friendly fire - and the guardian angel will react to that, attacking yourself.

For details of how different items affect different spells/skills go into 'Help' which is located in the top of the side frame. Find 'armor'. Each item has details of how it affects direct damage spells, how big the penalty is etc.

Whoa, thanks! And all along I thought armor was armor regardless. I still have ALOT to learn! Thanks again!

No problem! Your team is small enough that the penalties wouldn't seem so harsh, but as you grow that amount obviously grows too. Hopefully you'll see a difference in the amount of damage you're doing! ;)

I hope so too. Wich shield can I use? I searched through the wiki but I cant find anything on shields for mages. Should I then not use one?

Shields are tricky. They all affect magic negatively. Really, at lower levels, all you really need is the ToE. (Get hold of a full tattoo rather than the lesser at the earliest opportunity). The ToE reduces damage and at lower and middle levels especially is very effective. It also reduces the amount of AMF backlash you suffer. It is the only thing that does this.


You can use shields, but at your level it probably isn't worth it. I've used mithril shields with mage teams at much higher levels - you just have to decide if the loss to your damage output is worth the extra defence. Personally I'll take the extra damage over the armour....

Mages don't use shields.

the only people who put shields on mages, that know what they are doing are a bit nuts.

or maybe not, sometimes people use heavy armour to put on a mage with CoC as that fires in melee, and they need to survive a while more in melee.

but you should stick with just leathers for now, no shield, too much penalty.

Thanks for the advice guys. I changed my GA to protection but it doesn't seem to help much. I'm still losing battles but the armor theory rocks! I can see the difference in my damage output.

Oh and I'm taking a crap load of damage from friendly fire too.

Flamey, I'm using a MS on my Mage... ;)

Mega, with a four minion team, you might want to consider using at least one CoC instead of FB. Really, you want your FB minions to die before melee, where they start to damage your own team (unless you use a RBF).

At the moment, you can't go wrong with some sort of physical damage dealer, weapons just do so much damage with the latest change. :)

O.K it's official! I'm weaker that cheap toiletpaper! Teams that I used to beat silly now actually beats me. I think it's because I removed GA and replaced it with protection. Any other suggestions to replace protection with?

here is the thing about protection.

almost everyone uses it, it is a must have especially on a 4 minion team.

for 6k exp it gives you a 4% reduction to damage.


i don't think you should of replace GA with it, but you can't really have GA with FB, they don't mix unless you want to kill before melee, in which case you might want to look into a familiar.

oh yea, most of the time FB sucks on a 4 minion team, simple as that.

switch to MM or CoC, if you decide to go with CoC you will need to more HP into that, as you don't get that much from AS, with no RoS.

now this is guesswork. you could try 2 MM's with a SF, which could be deadly damage, or drop a minion altogether or switch it to a tank.

I changed my protection to a PL wall, halved my AS and added AF, and kept the 2 FB. It's working better than the protection did but it still sucks. My stats are taking a good beating with this whole change thing. If I drop a minion will I lose all the exp it gained? Cause if I do my team will be even worse without all the assistance that minion gave.

unless you lied to us, switch back to what you had, not originally.

if you have AS on a 4 minion team it should be by itself not accompanied with AMF, both spells need _a lot_ of exp.

you don't need a wall, if thats planning on being a tank it should of replaced one of your mages, if it is just for PL that can be an enchanter with natural HP.

sorry i do stuff while posting, thus not seeing your last post.

yes when you drop a minion you get nothing back, its an important decision.

and your tank obviously sucks due to not having DX at all. :P
untrain and retrain evenly and have BL at 20% (1/5) of your ST.

also if you go to EETM you can put protection (base) on your mage, it is worth it, you may not notice it but it can be the difference between win or lose, and of course in late game, percentages make a difference.

Nope, I didn't lie. I have just changed my team about half a dozen times since I started this thread, trying out all the different strategies. I think I should just scratch my team and start something solid, do some research and come up with an ingenious combination. I don't want to follow the norm and do the same thing with different variations. Something new and effective. I'll let you know if I find a decent strategy. Thanks for the help guys!

Mega... one thing you have to understand is that for the most part with CB, you won't see instant positive results when making changes. Some of the suggestions made by players here were good, and will benefit you in the long run, but could cause you to loose more fights for a while.... For instance dropping a minion will cause you to loose more fights today, but the additional exp. gained by the remaining three will make your team much stronger in a month.....

Start looking for vet players with strats similar to yours (or what you would like to be) and start asking questions about why they chose certian skills, items etc. Certian things work better with others, find out why, and you can then pick and choose which ones you want for your team.

I would get with your mentor, or choose one or two people you can ask for advice on where to go from here. There are a lot of winning strategys in CB, but getting one little piece of everyone's strategy, and not really knowing why they are suggesting it isn't going to help you a ton right now.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that BL is wasted exp on your minion right now. BL only increases dmg for a fighters attacks not on spells. If you are thinking of adding a tank (someone who would use a weapon) it will help, but right now is doing nothing. BUT it is extremly hard to make a tank & FB mage on the same team work well together.... which is why I think you should spend some time talking to a few people and decide exactly what kind of team you want to run,

My thoughts exactly! I had a winning team going but it was based on a strategy of someone else, while doing this thread I got the urge of developing my own or one as original as possible. Thanks for the advice Velvet, I'm going to do just that and hopefully when you hear from me again I'll have my own winning strategy. Take care

Not sure if you know or not.....

In the left hand pane move your mouse over stats > Characters > then you can look at standings or attributes.... At the top of the screen you will see " Gondor | Lórien | Rivendell | Shire " These are all different "realms" and are decided by how long a person has been playing CB.... Gondor is the players that have been playing the longest, so click that and spend some time looking at other chars strats. Decide what you may want to try, then spend some time asking your mentor, and some of these chars what might work best.

Kepp at it :) the most important thing you can do is get in as many fights a day as you can, and fight the highest score players you can beat 95% of the time

You don't have to come up with your strat on your own!

Post here, poeple love disucssing strategies! :D Just don't take everything as gospel. ;)

What do you prefer, Mages, kicking rear with Unarmed Combat or getting stick in there with a wepaon?

Don't be disheartened if you try something and it doesn't work. The key is to try and work out why it didn't work and put that knowledge to use elsewhere.

And remember nobody here hit the ground running, we all have strats in our closets that we'd rather forget..........

Gentleman, I'm still trying to figure out CB slang :) I tried the mage strat and it worked but it'll be more fun doing weapons wouldn't you say? I'm going to do a detailed study of pros and cons on every aspect I can in CB and I will post them here for discussion. I figure that all the different strats out there are like puzzle pieces wich ultimately could lead to one hell of a colab strat.
I'm going to take a break from hardcore competing and run some tests, get to know some people and their strats and learn more about all the items and armor. It should be fun.

Thanks for everything Johnny! Your advice helped alot.

:D NP! If you've got any questions, on strat or slang, post 'em or feel free to CM (Chat Mail) me! ;)

Thanks Gentleman, will do.