Strategy talk again - Don't you just love to talk about them ? :P (in General)

I'm back with another go with this strategy:

Minion 1: Enchanter training DM and AS (Wear AoI)
Minion 2: ToA tank training BL and HP (Wear AoI, ELB and MH/BoTH)
Minion 3: HP and PL (Wear AoI)
Minion 4: High AC Wall (Wear Adam, SC, TG, CML, MS, HoD and AoAc)

All damage from physical and MM goes to the wall and reduced by PL minion. The only problem is getting 3 AoI and the armor gears will cost lots of money.

Multiple AoIs seem to lose effectiveness. Mages will hurt you (the few of them that exist) and I wonder if you have enough DX to compete against the big guys. Once the wall dies then your tank gets hit faster. Even one round can make a difference.

Not to mention thats it is a very expensive strategy.

Other then that it's good!

I (and others) think that the best strategies are ones that can't be reduced. Other then massive DM and EC this one can't. Which makes it impressive.

Very nice. Well, I think so at least hehe.

Your high AC wall (minion 4) will be shredded by MM's.
Your minion 3 will be shredded by those MM's first, along with any tank damage you get done to yourself.
Then your minion 1 will die because you need more HP than just the AS.
Then your ToA tank is up for grabs which can't have that much HP to last any longer.

Imo not really that strong... and the cost is indeed quite high...

"Your high AC wall (minion 4) will be shredded by MM's."

Why? Isn't that waht the AC is for?

"Your minion 3 will be shredded by those MM's first, along with any tank damage you get done to yourself."

Why? Won't all tank dmaage and MM hit the high AC wall first, then be reduced again by PL?

"Then your minion 1 will die because you need more HP than just the AS."

When the Wall dies after minion three, one will go before the Tank. The way you would want it. :)

"Then your ToA tank is up for grabs which can't have that much HP to last any longer."

VA leech from BTH might help with that.

"Imo not really that strong... and the cost is indeed quite high..."

4 minion three AoI, PL and Wall teams are very strong. Bland, but very strong! ;)

It's not that bad, lands somewhere between my own strat and Sefton's team. Very expensive though, and I'm not sure if a team really needs three AoI. If your wall is doing it's job properly the only one that needs the AoI is your tank.

So if that's the case your line up would be:

Tank
Wall
PL Enchanter
Enchanter

Which is what my team was before I ditched my wall...

I was thinking of increasing the AC of the wall so much that it eventually takes out most of the physical damage and MM, further reduced by the PL minion. Maybe a MgS would work better than the MS against MM.

Clement, ranger has exact numbers, but AC 300 is around where heavy AC improves over most TSA/MgS setups...

Depending on the size of the TSA and the size of the MgS, I find about 330-350 is the point where heavy AC is better than Magic reduction gear.

However, with the setup you propose, your trying to have 1 wall vs both MM and physical. I would say not to even try unless you can get to 330 AC at least.

Ill give an example Vs NWO who has 2 very large MM's.
My Amf is very low about 200k or so.
I took off my TOE for this test BTW:
I rented a +30 MgS.

With my MS my Wall has 380 AC:
Noise's Magic missile hit Prophecies [337678]

With the MgS my Wall has 317 AC:
Noise's Magic missile hit Prophecies [277570]

Both were first melee rounds and typical of the damage I took the whole battle.

With the TOE equipped:
MS on wall:
Noise's Magic missile hit Prophecies [175200]

MgS on wall:
Noise's Magic missile hit Prophecies [122718]

So you can see the MgS does lower the MM damage. However, you will get protection vs both MM and Physical to a nice degree with the heavy AC set vs a heavy AC set minus the MS using a MgS.

And when I type about heavy AC being better then magic reducing gear, I mean overall as a balance between taking physical and MM damage on a wall type minion. This stop you from having to have 2 "walls", one for physical and one for magic in back.

The way I figured out what I would use is the following:

Without the TOE I would take about 20% more damage vs MM BUT 13% less damage from physical. I also saw far more tanks out there then MM mages. So I can live with the 7% more damage vs MM mages taking 13% less vs tanks.

For my character that was a no brainer.

For yours, it is a decision you have to make based upon what armors you have, and who you want to fight.

Also,

You will likely need a nice 4 minion team from the start. Hiring minions later with the strat you suggest is not advised, with perhaps the 3rd minion.

Also, having AS and DM on the same minion is not very good. Your splitting xp into 2 spells that can use tons of xp. AS is vulnerable to DM and you want it as high as possible. Same with DM to nuke others spells.

That's a lot of hp. I think it looks like a winner, but I have a few things to say about it.

Why even use DM at all? This looks like a defensive set up to me, and I've always considered DM to be a very offensive spell, unless you are worried about GA. Instead of DM, I'd go with some EC, to help give your tank an edge against ToA tanks, which likely have some EC or trained st/dx of their own. Either that or just go pure AS on the guy, because like Ranger said, AS isn't a spell that likes sharing xp.

For the tank, I think he should train some st and dx of his own. Spending all that money on AC and AoIs, you will not have much left over for pth, and any opposing ToA tank with ec, dx, haste, evasion, uc, or dbs will just dance around your only damage dealer. Plus, you already have a lot of hp trained on the wall, pl minion and enchanter, so you have a lot of lasting power, but somewhat lacking in actual power, which training st would help. I'd go 40 / 30 / 30 in hp/st/dx, or if you put EC on the enchanter, 60 / 20 / 20, to make up for the smaller AS.

Also, I would try to work VA in, probably on the PL minion. Why the PL minion? Because your kill slot needs to spend xp on killing, and your wall will have huge spell penalties. IMO, VA is a must for any tank-based defensive team. Sure, you'd have a few less very important hps, but it would return gobs of hp for your tank, and really helps against GA.

Its a very good strategy, even if you don't make the changes I suggested. Run with it, if you can afford enough AC for that wall.