New minion woes / Protection Info (in General)

So I broke down and bought a minion. Five million smackers, just like that. I even went and got 25 million bucks worth of gear between a named CoI and a named AG to give a 33% boost to the DD. What do I get? a CoC minion that inflicts a whopping 33k before dying -- and that's if he makes it to ranged. I have a weapon on my wall to clean up enchanters, and he easily lands blows for half a million. My main damage dealer is the MM familiar that scores final tallies in the 1 million range. 30 thousand is several orders of magnitude less than a million, and gobs more expensive. I paid about a thousand bucks for each point of that miniscule damage.

Bottom line: when adding a minion, you can't add a DD minion -- he's far too small.

So what do I do? Well, I dumped it all into Protection instead. I bumped protection up to 26, and decided to help out the community a little by finding the exact values for the minimum level required to get to a certain Protection effect. You can find that information in the Wiki. I found that Protection has a very cheap growth curve, and should be considered for anyone wanting to add a minion.

You wasted your time, you shouldve looked at the link right above where you posted that.

recruiting a new minion, is having less exp, so you do not make it your main damage dealer. when recruiting new minions you should make it an enchanter, because new minions are a boost.

Hiring minions later on is for single minion teams who need a tat holder, and people with an RoS based strat.

It is generally thought by the community that your first minions you start with will be your main damage dealers. Whether tank or mage, they will have the most xp and be able to be the toughest.

Minions hired later on are more for support of the main minions. Such are most likely to be walls or enchanters as they will have less xp and not be as tough.

Miandrita, what are you talking about?

Ranger, that's the kind of strategy information that should be expressed in the Wiki, or in some common information repository. I could have done without the rather expensive lesson. I do think, however, that I can make use of this current situation if I retrain my main enchanter as a DD minion, then put the necessary enchantments on the minion I just hired, perhaps giving him a RoS so that he's mildly useful. The Wall can stay as-is, I think.

Upon rereading my reply, I realize that I expressed myself incorrectly. The way I wrote it, it's as if I am directly blaming you for my own mistake, but in reality I do appreciate the help you've given so far. Perhaps it's better phrased thusly:

The information you presented regarding minion purposes both when starting and long afterwards would make for a very useful guide in the Wiki. It'd be very useful for people like myself.

FYI: For those interested, it takes 1,354,515 XP to get to a protection of 25 (including the initial investment of 6,226). If Protection really is a straight percentage damage reduction, that appears to be a very healthy investment.

Oh, and Miandrital, if you're referring to the chart that's linked in the Wiki, who do you think provided all of that data?

imo adding another minion is a complete waste of money, _unless_ you add it before the cost gets over $1 million and if you can still put a RoE on it.

Otherwise the minion will always suffer an exp problem.

I totally disagree with Shade, it all depends what you are training on that minion and how it integrates with the rest of the team. Yes buying a damage dealer late on is not good but I believe you can get advantages by training your damage dealer and or say AS first then adding AMF/EC/wall/PL minion or certain ED later. Its expensive but lets face it MPR should be costly to buy.

Shade,

Just take a look at my current character.

A very large COC mage with the most xp.
Then a Wall with the 2nd most xp.
Then 2 supporting enchanters with lower xp.

Works very well.

I hope you do not mean that if Tuffbunny hires 3 more minions, since they will have far less xp (1/9th to be exact with the most expensive one) they will not be useful.
Imagine Son of Lorhar with a nice wall and 2 enchanters, perhaps one with AS and the other with all the DM, letting his main mage unlearn his DM and boost his FB/HP.

Yes, as a primary damage dealer, minions hired later are not good, esp if you want them as mages. This is true since AMF's will be high in comparison to the new minions DD level. BUT as supporters new minions can be a great help.

Also, do not forget that each minion becomes another blocker that a tank needs to waste a round on. Also more minions help dispurse FB and COC damage.

Yes, as a primary damage dealer, minions hired later are not good, esp if you want them as mages.

I meant that.

Don't forget, you can buy a new minion, then use a RoE to bring their XP up to scratch! ;)

Also, don't forget that what Ranger is talking about would cost around 80 million $CB. No insta-ing, no waiting for a fire sale...new minion costs aren't negotiable. We're talking about $800 dollars. Peanuts to some, impossible to others.