4 Monk Strategy (in General)

I've been debating the merits of a 4 monk strategy for my next NCB

The strat would involve training at the following levels with an RoS at or near max:
Minion 1
UC 1/3 EXP
AS 2/3 EXP

minion 2
UC 1/3 EXP
GS 4/9 EXP
DM 2/9 EXP

minion3
UC 1/3 EXP
Haste 4/9 EXP
EC 2/9 EXP

minion4
UC 1/3 EXP
GA 1/3 EXP
amf 1/3 EXP


By around 800k MPR the fight stats, not counting effects of opponents DM or EC would be:
fight stats per minion:
HP 337155
ST 199464
DEX 199464
UC 224953

DM 156061
EC 156061
GA 224953
AMF 224953

The only teams I see being a real problem are high damage tanks with HoCs.

As far as equipmnt goes, mainly elven gear and MCMs with AoF and Axbows, Exbows or SoDs. (UC gear has magic penalties and vice versa).
The ranged weapons possible with HoCs being the most important.
I welcome comments, insights, ridicule and laughter.
Thanks.

I'd at least try putting the CGI on the first one, simply for the Evasion during ranged rounds. After all, you're going to have

DEX 199464
(removing opponent DX) EC 78030
(acting as Evasion) UC 149969

Meaning your opponent would need a DX of 427463 to equal yours during ranged rounds - why not add the CGi and make that UC Evasion DX go up to 224953, not counting the ranged Evasion bonuses? And getting that extra -PTH?


Anyways, that's my one suggestion. =)

yeah, the -6.67% ED coming from the CGi leaves me undecided.
In general a massive DM scares me too since strength and dex could get decimated even with the RoS DM resistance.

even with the UC bug fix OB got us (THANKS OB!), and some serious ranged weaponry, you're going to have trouble with a lot of clan teams...

Why not go for the gusto...ditch GA and train one minion in nothing but UC and STR (since the HG's give a bonus to it, and you'll need at least 1 minion with some real damage doing power) and use a rear mounted PL minion to keep the combat GI wearing monk of doom in front alive...

Cylo tried this before with an RoS.

If I don't remember wrongly...didn't that work pretty well? =)

I would also drop DM if I were you and invest all that HP into Haste. With the potential amount of damage you can deal with four minions, you won't need DM. Especially if your RoS is on your Haste minion.

AMF 224953

I am around 800K MPR and my AMF is 642,091/544,145, around mages my size that is only good for an effect of ~0.33. There are mages teams out there that eat me alive, since I don't have enough HP to survive the magical onslaught :D

Your team would be worse off then mine, in terms of surviving mages. Damage output is much better though.

"As far as equipmnt goes, mainly elven gear and MCMs"

I agree with OB on the Gi's, and as far as elven gear, you do realise you'll only be getting a bonus to your UC... I'm pretty sure it won't help your DX from enchantments...

"HP 337155
ST 199464
DEX 199464
UC 224953 "

doesn't seem very beefy for 800k mpr. I just passed 800k a few days ago, andmy tank was more like HP:300k, ST: 650k, DX: 400k, all without the risk of DM pushing all my stats down to 20... Furthermore, my tank is pretty weak in comparison to others near my mpr...

My mage has about 1.1m FB, which would easily bypass your 225k AMF, especially with the addition of my ToE. With 300k HP, my mage would last through a few rounds against this team, but with my 300k Evasion, it would last as long as it needs to, without fear of being struck.

So, basically, if u want to use this strategy, make sure to avoid:
Single tanks, Single mages with Evasion, any team with an evasion wall, any team with a heavy AC wall, any team using a decent-level DM, and any team that uses a decent EC...

Hatchetman, with the combined AMF backlash and the GA on a FB split 4 ways your Mage would probably be dead within 2 rounds, regardless of evasion

Oh! forgot to mention, while ST increases damage linearly to level (I think), keep in mind 200k ST 4 times is not near the same as 800k. 800k ST one time only gets reduced by AC one time, 200k ST four times gets reduced by AC four times. Plus whatever damage reduction ST has when much lower than another...

Err, I might stand corrected on the life expectancy of your mage, a 1.1mil TOE would certainly help...

Loch, did you happen to notice I mentioned a ToE in there... With that, I could buy myself another three or four rounds. Tho, you did have a point, I didnt consider the GA in the equation

Sorry, Hatchetman, I read it quickly the first time...
and the second for that matter

An alternative could be the Single Monk strat

hp 800002
st 800002
dex 478574
uc 692859

with a big ToE and a powerful ranged weapon.
Any takers, perhaps VA added for extra longevity?

And you could also try that strat with ToA (since you are dropping the Gi) and focusing all that extra EXP into your UC level. Protection would serve better than VA, seeing as how VA is destroyed by both DM and an opponent's PL (which most teams train).

The only concern with the ToA is the whole dying in 2 rounds possibility. That said, the PTH of the ToA and UC with a HoC would mean some serious first round punishment on opponents.

I did my nub doing your first suggested start. It worked well but...
You will need to use a RoS
-You can only really train UC on the front minion not all four as you are taking away exp from your haste GS and AS etc which means less dex stregth or hp
-The armour you need/want cost a fortune (corns etc)
-Stick your main UC guy at the front so he dodges any attacks that he can
-but the big plus of this strat is you can stick your ranged weapons on anyone of the others so your UC guy doesnt die from GA
-and depending on who you are fighting or who is farming you you can move your ros around between hasate and AS and farm them back
-also a base UC on all four at the very start is awsome as you will out attack most teams with just HG's

Only real weaknesses i found were DM by a bigger team and not having much money to get all my armours (if you concentrate the exp in AS,Haste and GS similar sized DM teams shouldnt be a prob with a RoS)
(Elven boots, Corns, Mcm's etc whilest trying to maintain a ranged weapon)

Imo go for the single tank save money and buy all the stuff you need to run that team as an nbc or buy someone elses team when you finish your nub

UC is potentially the most powerful weapon in the game.

UC also sucks. It's weak. It's wimpy. It's just what every opponent wants you to use.

You will be out gunned most of the time when you try to go blow for blow with anything half decent.
You have four minions so you hit 4 times more than a single minion opponent but your four minions are doing the job of one minion, they have no more EXP, no more power behind them.

Also four attacking minions is rarely advisable for many reasons. First is the fact that you lose one and your attack goes down for further rounds by an estimated 25%.
Secondly, it is much easier to get double hits with one attacking minion. 4 minions doing the job of 1 minion, hitting once per round. Or one minion doing the job of one minion hitting twice per round. Take your pick.
Third, concentrated EXP. Having one attacking minion allows you to pump up the stats you need, he can easily get DX/ST quite high with little assistance from the less efficient Haste/GS which leaves significant portions of EXP lying around for you to pump into AMF or whatever else you think is most needed.
Fourth, vulnerability. DM buddy, DM.

Now that I've told you why it's bad.
Let me also tell you that I like it. I like what you're trying to do here, I like that today I know there's yet another free thinking CBer who'll try a tough strategy. Although I'd like even more to know that another "outside the box" thinker is actually having some success with his strategy, and so here's how you can succeed.

Kill three of 'em. Get rid of three of those minions. I don't care what you do with them, fire them, retrain them as enchanters, that's your call, just don't be relying on them to deal much damage.
Pump up your remaining minion's stats. If you use enchanters, EC is fantastic for the job. Also, may I suggest in the mid-high levels a decent haste specifically for the benefit of your main attacking minion.

My reason for this being that you need an edge. UC is one of those skills that just doesn't win much by itself, both tanks and mages will do more damage, tanks will hit more and mages will often hit earlier.
So you've got to give yourself an advantage over them. With tanks it's DX, you'll never out muscle a quality tank with a ToA and a big sword, therefore STR doesn't have much purpose. Instead run circles around them. Get DBs, train a small evasion, pump up that DX like never before, I had huge success with a similar strategy putting more than 60% of my EXP on that minion into DX (with no GS or AS on that character). Run circles around them and you'll beat them.

As for mages, that's your call. You can quite easily beat tanks, it may be advisable to stick to tank killing. But if you must be an anti-mage too, have a four minion team, an AS and a proper meatshield, one with little armor but lots of HP, use another minion to train something like 50%AMF, this alone will leave most mages ready for the kill.

Just make them fight your fight. Make a tank try to match your speed. Let a mage spread his fire. Don't stand right in front of them with nothing but your bare fists between you and a sharp sword or a fireball.

I tried a UC tank before during the free retraining. It really sucks ;) It cannot dish out enough damage and is generally weak against mages. In melee, ToA tanks will eat you alive because your evasion drops a lot.

I've played single minion UC guy a few times, reaching a fairly respectable score of around 1.6 million, for a minion of about 500k MPR. I've not used it on a multi team but I will say, if you are going to play multi minion use the Gi. The bonus evasion you receive is more than worth it and will help you take on the ToA tanks you will face.

UC obviously has it's weaknesses. And they are xp focused single ToA tanks and Mages. Single UC guys will pose a problem as well, again due to the focus of that xp.

Building a quite large AMF will help against mages obviously, but the real area you can make a difference against the others is in your ranged attack.

You mention axbows and exbows. I've never understood the leaning towards these when UC if used right makes it impossible for tanks to hit anyway. At least until you get near the really big weapons.
For ranged you want damage, so either the SoD with ex shot; or a big bow, the bigger the better. ELB if you can get hold of it. Add some seekers and see how easy it is to take on those mages. And remember, you can use your entire weapon allowance up on ranged. So, you can actually use a much larger ranged weapon than normal tank teams. And if you have this advantage, use it would be my advice.

"In melee, ToA tanks will eat you alive because your evasion drops a lot."

For the record, its not a sudden drop, it works its way down. 1st round of ranged has Evasion equal to UC lvl, 2nd round has it at 7/9 of UC level, 3rd round has Evasion of 5/9 UC level, and all rounds of melee gets Evasion at 1/3 (3/9, in case that seemed like a big difference from its decceleration...) UC level. So it's not primarily just in melee, that's just where its at its lowest.

Aren't you going to lose to nearly any opponent that uses EC?

I played a 4 UC team with all UC gear. I was an very pain in the behind kind of team to play against. Just ask certain people that tried attacking Shaolin Monks when they were at their best. I had all high end equipment that took me forever to aquire, but yet I was still very very weak against certain teams. A team with a good tank would kill me very easily because I couldn't do enough damage to keep up and kill it. I also would end up killing myself a lot of the time when a team had a big enough GA. I do think it is still a viable team though. You just have to survive thru the early stages. I also didn't worry about the magic thing, I just used all UC gear. I wanted the most UC gear possible, and I had my RoS on with my Ablative Shield to help with HP's. I wish I wouldn't have given up on the strat now that there is a UC fix, but good luck no matter how you go about it.

Upon Reflection, I've tweaked my idea a little:
AoFs for EVERY minion.

Minion 1 (anti-tank)
UC 1/3 EXP
GA 2/3 EXP
Equip: CGi, DB, HG, etc

minion2
UC 1/3 EXP
AS 2/3 EXP
RoS, HoC, AXbow

minion 3
UC 1/3 EXP
Haste 2/3 EXP
Equip: MCM, EB, HG, SoD

minion4 (anti MM)
UC 1/3 EXP
GS 2/3 EXP
McM, MgS(big!)

The GA should help to get rid of enemy tanks and mages faster and turn melee rounds into enchanter beatings. The AoFs are essential as they bump UC and help HP,ST,Dex.
Less experience dilution this way too.

Hey Hey... UC doesn't suck that much!

but i just read the posts - and "Death Company's" suggestion is correct - Its not good to train UC on all 4 minions

Another SERIOUS weakness of the strat is Ethereal Chains.