How to go about setting up this team? (in General)

I've decided to do the following team but I'm not too sure how to start it and eventually end up with what I want. Here's the team layout at the end of it:

1st minion: Train only evasion (Wearing EC, EG, EB and AoF)
2nd minion: Train a little HP and all to AMF (Wearing Corn)
3rd minion: Train PL and AS (Wearing SF, Corn and AoF)
4th minion: Train HP, STR and a fixed amount of DEX (Wearing TSA, SC, CML, TG, HoD, MgS, AoAC and BoTH)

I know the 3rd minion needs to be bigger than the rest since AS is very important to my strategy. The SF will be the main damage dealer and the 4th minion helps to kill the enchanters in melee.

So this is my proposal:
Start off with single minion training PL and AS (Wearing SF, Corn and AoF). Hire the other minions when I hit 50k mpr or 100k mpr. Will this do? Or do I need to hire them earlier?

Personally I would recommend starting out with minions 2,3, and 4 then add minion 1 at around 50K MPR, but then again, I advocate getting multiple minions as soon as possible, and that is not necessarily a popular advocation :)

Seft, why?
I must admit I agree with you, but as you said, received wisdom is to wait

Personally, I would rather start with minions 4 and 3. At around 100k mpr I would add minion 2 and around 200k I would add minion 1. This is just so that you can get a nice little boost to mpr at those levels, so that you will avoid hitting the "walls" that occur around those areas.
Also, I would suggest using a MH instead of a BoTH, especially since you are only training a certain amount of dex (enchanter killer I am guessing) so that you can maximize the damage.

I thought through the comments and have more ideas. What if I did the following:

Minion 1: Train evasion and either HP or an ED.
Minion 2: Train DM instead since it will help reduce AS, GA and other EDs.
Minion 4: Wearing EG instead of TG and train BL too.

Will all this change the way I begin setting up the team now? Also, does a SF grow as fast as single MM mage?

SF will not grow as fast as a single MM mage. I had two 100k MMs on a two minion character by the time my tattoo hit 100k.

So what is the rate of growth of SF as compared to MM mages? I thought the tattoo will grow faster than the mage.

Kong, for comparison, at MPR 202,221 my Max tattoo: 256,120. I have a single Mage with 200K HP and 300K MM.

A SF at my max tattoo would have a MM of 256K and a HP of (I can never remember if it's 10 or 15%...) 38K. :)

If you tattoo isn't above your Max, it gains 1/3 the XP you do, so unless you spend less than 1/3 of your total XP into MM, it won't grow as fast as a mage. ;)

Where did you get the data that a tattoo only gets 1/3 of your total exp? Interesting...

:P I'll go hunt out the changelog.

HP of a DD familiar is 20% of the tattoo level. thats why IF's are so unpopular, they have no armour and die straight away, and it is not uncommon to see AS with many familiar teams, just so the familiar doesn't die. apparently the SF has 25% after some testing.

OK. Can't find the changelog for it, but have worked back.

RoE grants the wearer an extra 22% of the XP they get from a fght (This was tested ages ago).

From the RoE changelog entry for new support items, it transfers "roughly 2/3 of the xp a normal tattoo would earn."

22% is two thirds of 33%.

So normal tattoos earn roughtly 1/3 of the XP you do. ;)

I see, so using SF may not be such a good idea for my team unless I use an oversized one :(

It won't be bad on a four minion team. A mage on a four minion team training nothing but MM would only train 25% of your total XP into MM, while the SF would still get 33%.

So your familiar would outgrow your mage, even if it's lower than your Max Tattoo.

But then I don't like Mages on four minion teams. ;)

Looks like I will need to replace the SF with something else since its not going to be very strong. Any recommendations? ToA tank again :( sigh...

How about this? The tradition 4 minion ToA tank...

1st minion: Train evasion and EC (Wearing EC, EG, EB, Corn and AoF)
2nd minion: Train PL, EC and AS (Wearing Corn)
3rd minion: Train HP and BL (Wearing ToA, MH and AoI)
4th minion: Train HP and based protection (Wearing TSA, SC, CML, TG, HoD, MgS and AoAC)

Hopefully the EC is large enough to negate the DEX of opponent's tank and cause them to miss me. I believe I'll start off with minion 2 and 3 then add the rest later when the AS on minion 2 and HP on minion 3 is large enough. Comments?

One more thing before I forget, MH or BoTH?

Well, I guess it depends on your definition of strong. My team is not nearly as strong as it was when it had an extra say 75mil in NW and had a big elbow tank, but after I changed to mage for offense I feel pretty good about its current strength, considering the sizable drop in NW. That said, my recommendation if you choose to stick with the mage idea is a ToE and CoC as your big damage dealer. I also think dual MM mages might also be effective, but I worry about the time it would take to kill all the opponent minions with only one MM damage point.

Most of my fights now last well over 10 rounds. Some as long as 20 rounds, but there are no brownie points for a quick kill.

I think the way to set up a multi minion mage team is to use the ToE on the damage dealer. Combine it with an AoI and you are on your way. The last step is to leverage PL to its fullest.

The way mine is set I have the ToE CoC with the AoI up front. After him is a 250 AC all HP wall. Then an AMF/AS enchanter, then my TSA MgS PL battery. What happens is, all physical attacks get filtered through the ToE aura, then the high AC wall before the PL minions absorbs it. This means the PL minion is only absorbing damage that gets through the ToE aura and 52.5% physical damage reduction from my wall's armor. The MM attacks have to get through the ToE aura then my +24 MgS and the +28 TSA before damaging the PL minion directly. Fireball and CoC have similar problems, and my admittedly small AMF chips in too.

In the end, with the AoI, using physical attacks they have to kill all 3 of the non-combatants to get to my CoC guy. Using MM because of the ordering they still have to kill all three non-combatants before they get to my CoC guy. Only Fireball and CoC can get around this, but the multi minion spread, AMF, and ToE and its aura really help to mitigate all that damage.

As with almost any mage team, only large NW large damage tanks really give me much trouble, and I simply avoid them.

Do not get me wrong, tanks are GREAT! The new changes and system make them easily the most powerful option and rightly so. But, without a NUB to prop up your cash rewards, the race to stay in step NW wise with your MPR growth means you have to win a LOT of contests or inject USD or lag behind. I cannot inject USD and there is just not enough contests to keep the cash coming in at a steady enough pace, so I made the hard choice to switch to mages. Is my team better for it? No, it is worse, but it costs a LOT less to run and it still holds its own Score to PR wise. Instead of the almost 3x I was getting with my tank, I am getting about 2x now.

So, if you can afford to, go tank, they rock and roll now, if you cannot there are still viable ways to set up mage teams. Most of them in my opinion revolve around the ToE and 4 minions, and either a single spread damage point like CoC or a dual damage point of MM.

You last option is of course the Single mage FB, but they are very inflexible and even less powerful than before the new tank buffs. I really do not consider multi minion Fireball teams, because why help the enemy kill you?

Thanks for the inputs so far. Actually I've been collecting most of the gears I need though there are still quite a few, AoAc, TG, HoE, EB, MH and a corn. That will really cost me lots of money without even considering that I need to forge them up to size.

Interesting idea on the CoC mage. How do you train a team where the CoC mage is the main damage dealer? If on a 4 minion team, the max amount of exp going into CoC is only 25%. Is that enough?

Well again enough is relative. The ToE and damage mitigation system I have in place allows me to just take my time killing them. Basically, if the ToE and various damage protection systems are such that the PL minion is able to absorb all the damage done to the original target, I win, and if they can exceed it, I lose. This is not absolute, and there are exceptions, but in general this tends to be true. That said, is it enough to do 3x Score to PR like my tank was getting, no. Is it enough to get 2x, yes.

I am using an almost maxed out ToE. My max tattoo just recently exceeded my tattoo level. This is a 1mil + level ToE. If they are not just cranked out in the Elbow or Morg department, then my wall typically takes about 25% of the original damage dealt, which the PL easily absorbs. The MgS/TSA does about the same to the MM's. The whole idea being to out last the suckers. I can get a lot of stalemates, and those I avoid as well.

In the end, is it enough? It is enough for me.

How about some relative examples. This is me:

Score / PR / MPR: 1,667,197 / 938,906 / 659,674

I typically operate in the 1.7 to 1.75 mil score range. I think someone with seeker ammo dropped my score last night. Thats OK though, without camping, that will not last, and the score fluctuations caused by not having special ammo when you are used to it will eventually drive them poor or crazy.

This is the biggest score on my fight list:

Score / PR / MPR: 1,735,641 / 1,159,209 / 1,139,013

Here are the next few
Score / PR / MPR: 1,681,301 / 1,071,327 / 799,337
Score / PR / MPR: 1,598,492 / 1,005,974 / 776,103
Score / PR / MPR: 1,650,613 / 769,431 / 615,240
Score / PR / MPR: 1,642,812 / 851,758 / 584,246
Score / PR / MPR: 1,668,518 / 1,178,424 / 861,096

So I feel pretty good about it. These are not cherry picked left for dead characters. They are active characters with some decent strat based minds behind them. So is it enough? Who knows, but again it is enough for me :)

I've thought about it again and this is another one that I can try :p

1st minion: Train HP only (Wearing Adam, SC, CML, TG, HoD, MS and AoAC)
2nd minion: Train AMF and GA (Wearing Corn and RoS)
3rd minion: Train PL and AS (Wearing Corn and AoF)
4th minion: Train HP, STR and a fixed amount of DEX (Wearing TSA, EC, EB, EG, HoE, MgS, AoI and MH)

This one is slightly easier for me since I've got most of the gears except the corns, AoAC, HoE and MH. And I can hire all the minions at one go I think.

Any comments on this one?

i think you want the RoS on the AS minion, not on GA, maybe a typo, but AS really should be boosted.

Oh yeah, scrape the PL on the 3rd minion since there's GA on my 2nd :) Pure AS to boast more HP to give more GA returns...

sorry for being lazy, but what do you plan on winning with? the mage wall and GA/AMF returns?

The small wall tank which will be holding a large MH and of course AMF and GA returns.
The first wall will reduce physical damage by at 60% which will make GA returns possible. The RoS combined with the trained GA will hopefully maximise GA returns. FB and CoC should face max returns from GA and AMF. MM will be reduce greatly by the wall tank and AMF combination.

seems very defensive, dunno if you will win much, looks like a lot of stalemates for you my friend.

Why do you say so? Because the wall tank is too small?

you have no real *big* damage output.

seems like the mage wall is almost a tank, got the armour for it, and everything. your choice i guess, i would train HP, ST, DX like a tank, it almost is one anyway.

The last strat you post will be good versus mages but bad versus tanks as your only damage to them is likely to come from GA, which they can offset with leech weapons/ VA.