CoC Strategy Ideas? (in General)

I've got a few old characters lying around who're covered in cobwebs and whose tactics are obsolete and I don't like owning characters whose strategies I'm not proud of, so I'm going to fix them all over the next few months.

They will all have different strategies and after my NCB I'll be working on a four minion CoC strategy. I figured I'd see if I can't inspire some creative thought on this type of strategy.

I've got a 530k MPR character (ForgingChuckles) with an abysmal strategy. This thing is truly pathetic and therefore will be the first to be fixed. I could do this myself, but I'd rather get some fresh ideas and more importantly get others talking about this type of strategy.

I want ideas, what is the best way to run a CoC strategy? I don't care if you think it's a good idea or not, just tell me what you think should be used for a good CoC strategy (or would it better satisfy you if I rephrased that as "for the least-wimpy CoC strategy"). =P

Ideas people!

Throw 'em out there, even if they're bad.
Especially if they're bad! :)

Rules: None. But even though suggestions may use infinite NW, my personal budget is very low but for the purposes of this discussion, ignore the budget.

1) ToE, CoC, AoI, DBs, no evasion, put XP into HP instead
2) Archer using ELB and slayers (money's no object, right?), no melee weapon, all allowance in ELB
3) AS enchanter
4) PL + HP

That'll get you started.

that looks like an archer strategy. not to mention, CoC mage is gone in the frst round with shots off at the archer with the use of seekers/HoC...

Hatchetman, it uses CoC and that's good enough for me.

Also seekers are not used by many people and so are not necessarily something you should concern yourself with.

Four minions.

1. wall.
2. ToA/CoC/SoD with ex shot/AoI/HoC
3. AS
4. wall.


DM would be a problem here possibly, but after a while the AS would be big enough. Hopefully.

Ex shot would hopefully take out huge chunks of teams in ranged. Reducing those teams to one or two minions by the time CoC kicks in to get it's full effect going on quickly so that AMF doesn't have a huge amount of time to do it's dirty work. The walls would hopefully be big enough to block physical damage at the front and MM damage at the back.

A ToE would be preferable but then the mage would have too much xp dilution going on, and I would want to train HP on that minion as well, incase of the DM attack being too big for the AS.


And like Nightstrike's this has a certain amount of reliance on physical damage to reduce the enemy in ranged. The only problem with that is making yourself weaker against anti tank and anti mage strats. Could be a problem.....


In terms of budget; this can be done 'reasonably' cheap. That's what Rentals are for...lol....

A. CoC Mage (3/5 HP 2/5 CoC) ToE, AG's, AoI, DB's, HoC (When it's fixed for CoC hopefully!)

B. DM Enchanter.

C. 1/4 PL 3/4 HP Wall

D. (2/3) HP / (1/2) DM Enchanter

I have absolutely no idea if this would work well, but if you could get into melee, you'd be doing ok... I figure the DM's will hurt AMF and GA pretty well... Why is the wall in slot three? I'll tell you why... I put it there without thinking about where it should be.

The other one I thought of was this:


Wall
Mage wearing RBF/AoI
Wall
Wall

No enchantments. Mage training HP/CoC only. Heavy AC on all three walls.
The RBF aura will reduce FB mage attacks. And if the team lasts to melee those attacking tanks get some damage back at them.

Well, if you're going to work on a strat that people say is rubbish (CoC) why not couple it with the item that everyone says is even worse...

Correction on my post... on D. it should read (1/3) DM.

If you look at my bank character you'll see I've been playing around with some of this stuff anyway, before this post!

The biggest problem I've seen with the current strat - which although low level works beautifully - is this:

STALEMATES.


Nobody can bring down the walls, except maybe the back one against MM. But FB takes down the mage. So nobody can beat the team outright, but so many stalemates...not good.

I think to make it work the mage needs to be built as a single minion for a time, perhaps simply as a ToE FB mage and then minions added and relearn to CoC. Which is what I did with my old team...

1. 3/4~2/3 CoC, 1/4~1/3 AS, tiny DM wearing AoI and best mage equip u can find + corn
2. 1/4 to 1/2 evasion, AS/RoS and tiny DM + corn and DBs or EBs
3. AS and tiny DM + corn
4. GA and tiny DM + corn

It's really a GA team ;)

I've been putting a lot of thought into this one over the past few days.

I think regardless of how it's used there's actually a lot of similarities between CoC and UC; both of which I've used and gotten a lot out of. Firstly I think you have to forget being a good all rounder. They simply don't work in the same way as a Morg or MM.

You have to specialise.

CoC only really has one weakness. AMF. The fact it doesn't strike until melee isn't a problem; after all most bloodlust tanks these days don't have a ranged attack either and they do all right. You simply have to think very defensively.

So, AMF is CoC's kryptonite? Then avoid AMF. Go after DM teams. There are plenty of them out there.

The other way of helping CoC is to augment it in ranged. It's almost the opposite of UC in this respect in that you don't necessarily need a big ranged attack, you just need to be able to cut the opposition down a little bit.

Anyway...I'm going to get on with something more useful now. Like breakfast. ;)

if amf is the problem, throw in GA

1- AMF
2- HP/COC
3- TANK
4- AS/GA

lots of hp, exp not diluted into many skills.

AS
AS
CoC/ToE
DM/GA


or you could put an RoS on there to help against DM teams. The idea is simply for their main attacker to put himself out of his misery in ranged rounds by letting him beat himself up with your GA, and then you hit the reduced number of remaining minions in melee with your CoC and hope you finish them before AMF finishes you.

Sometimes the best strategy is to not use those things that are underpowered.

Such as bringing a knife to a gunfight.

ELB/SoD in ranged...

Lots of tanks...


Specifically for the point of not using CoC any more than you have to?

It would seem, PM, that most people agree with you.

I will however recommend something a little different to the use of tanks to prevent the use of CoC in melee.
Don't waste NW and EXP trying to limit the use of CoC. Let it fire all it likes in melee, if you must do something about AMF, then take Johnny's advice and avoid AMF characters. - This shouldn't only be done by CoC, most good strategies (excluding the top 10) should avoid what they're vulnerable to, and they should be vulnerable to something. (see wiki - game strategies - how it should be done)
If that's not an option, take his advice from the other thread and take minimal damage by having a low CoC relative to your HP. Even something as simple as AS on three minions, 1/3 HP 2/3 CoC on the fourth (AoI and ToE) would likely achieve this.

Instead of trying to avoid the use of CoC, why not just avoid it's weaknesses?

Also, let me explain to you it's strengths; it doesn't need to be trained high. It does well in melee.
Simple enough.
So how do we make use of this information?

Focus on survival. The longer you last into melee the better.

This can be achieved most simply by the use of ToE, AS and AMF however things like walls and the order of your minions will play a big role.

The fact is that you have a lot of EXP and NW to play with when using CoC and your only necessary objective is surviving into melee.


Any thoughts?

"take his advice from the other thread and take minimal damage by having a low CoC relative to your HP"

I get it... make it weaker than FB/MM, defeating the purpose of it being a more damaging spell...

Sorry for the sarcasm, but 3m CoC with 1.5m HP is going to be doing less damage than a 4m FB/MM with only 1m HP, and that 500k HP isn't going to mean very much after 4 ranged rounds. So it is not only weaker (by means of power), it still usually won't get more than a couple shots off. Unless you have an entirely defensive strategy, centered around your CoC. But, if that's the case, you'd be better with the "massive damage" from the MM... (oh, the irony)

"if you must do something about AMF, then take Johnny's advice and avoid AMF characters."

Just rethinks of that. Do you know how much players uses AMF or GA or even ranged attack. Pretty cool when you got 1 character in your list.

Fight against DM.... -_- almost all strat given used AS, what does counter AS?

There is 41 pages of AMF users and only 18 of DM users. I'll let you do the math.

Like I said before, and repeat again, there is no possible CoC strategy that would be better than just switching CoC by FB or MM. Just a waste of time.

If you train evasion, you will maybe evade archer, but won't survive AMF and GA.

If you train hp, you will maybe survive GA, but you won't survive AMF and archer.

Same thing with training CoC.

Now why not get:

1 CoC AoI ToE

2 DM

3 PL AS or RoS

4 Wall

bad idea, because ok you have a good wall, but witch minion AMF will hit?
Yes you got a ToE equiped, but the difference it make is so little. Not enough to help and PL don't even absorb that damage. Seeker arrow can still it your mage. Fighting against DM would own your strat on that too.

Finally, you can't even say it's a bad strat, it's more than bad.
You would get more chance train FB on a 4 minion team with GA and a useless VA.

I will be enjoy to talk of a CoC strat after a change on it.(if there is). But for now, it is loosing life time.

I've been here before with UC.

http://carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001hT6

This was before the changes to physical damage; the changes to weapons upgrades, evasion, before HoC, Before AoI. Back when mages were still ruling the roost. And my single UC guy was capable of a score of 1.7 mill at his peak.

So I'm going to go down the same route with my next NCB, because if anybody is stupid enough to make it work it's me lol! I have this masochistic streak when it comes to strategy; simply a sucker for punishment.

I'll shut up about CoC now. If it doesn't work I'll be the first to say it doesn't; and I probably won't shut up about it! Until then.....;)

The trick to CoC is to make sure that it isn't your only source of damage. You have to use it to 'sweep up' after another source of damage has softened things up. This could be a tank or another mage with a faster spell.

Yeah, or using a heap of AS+GA in order to wipe out their damage dealer, and allowing CoC to sweep up as you say - OB suggested this to me for my team, but also pointed out the major problem...

But the problem here is: Seekers!

You pretty much have to assume that against tanks, your CoC mage won't survive to melee since if you use a lot of GA, then you aren't using much PL.

And if you are using PL and no GA, then you are still fried, because you won't have murdered their damage dealer - as you said, you need another source of damage aside from CoC for it to be effective.

And then there is AMF to worry about...

As far as I can tell, CoC is basically worthless at the moment. If seekers were abolished, it would come back into use like crazy... but if seekers were abolished, mages would probably rule the roost again full stop.

Cheers,
muon.

Johnny, I just gotta say I love the bit in that thread where you're told you're "not allowed" to use an UC strat. That alone is reason enough to have done it. ;)

This thread here has nearly inspired me to get out the old single CoC mage just to make a point... next NCB maybe.

That said, it's perhaps too early to convince anyone without any current hard evidence so I'll shut up about it (...maybe).

I'll leave this thread with one last point: CoC and anything else "underpowered" is always going to be an effective strategy, if you can spot a weakness in a popular strategy then you can beat it. Doing this may not mean CoC is the best spell for you, but it'll do the job.
The time when CoC is the ideal spell for you is when you play defensively and choose a mage over a tank. In this situation, there is no comparison.


Shutting up now...

May I make a totally out-of-context and opinionated comment:

1. CoC needs to survive - hence needs a strong defensive strategy.
2. High AC wall with PL killslots and ToE is probably one of, if not the best defensive strategies out there.
3. PM did exactly that, and CoC simply did not perform.

the end :)

PM's strategies feature very strong defensive elements, but they're far from being defensive strategies. Mostly they feature the biggest damage dealer he can create. Everything else in the team is there to support that. It's about aggression and offense.

True defensive teams aren't about supporting the main damage dealer. In fact really good defensive teams aren't even about the main damage dealer. They are about lots of damage reduction, they're about choosing the right enchantments and skills so that your enemy does most of the work for you: evasion, AMF, GA.

PM's strats are excellent but even as a mage team they were a continuation of what Todd used to do. Bigger is better. To be honest with you if you want to be top ten that's what you need. True defensive strats probably aren't destined to be there. You need to use elements of them but you still need to be able to crush your opponents.

Lambach probably has the best view of it, that it's a sweeper spell; to do it's work you need other elements in place earlier on doing damage of some sort.

But none of that means you can't make it work for you. I've said it elsewhere, I've used it before with success. Just because other people haven't had success doesn't mean it doesn't work. Even if they have the number one character in the game.

'PM's strategies feature very strong defensive elements, but they're far from being defensive strategies. Mostly they feature the biggest damage dealer he can create. Everything else in the team is there to support that. It's about aggression and offense.'

Hmm,

How is having a 400AC wall, backed by a TOE, then backed up by a large AS, then backed up by 2 enchanters using PL to support the wall, with one of the enchanters having over 500k native hp, having AMF, then using 3 AOIs to divert all damage to the wall not a defensive strategy????

Please, show me a "defensive strategy" that is better than the one I used. Using GA? Using a ROS and AS to support the GA? Well I will tell ya, I tried that also and guess what? Large DM's easily overcame the 25% DM resistance of the ROS grants based on its level.

Remember you have to at some time have an offensive minion to beat others.

The basis of any strategy, whether offensive or defensive in nature, has to feature a damage dealer. Without one, at best you can stalemate.

With my setup as above, no physical damage character without the underpowered VB could get through my wall, And most mages could not get through my wall with the exception of very large FB mages (as Sut used to be).

Yes, I used the highest xp minion as my damage dealer. If I would have used any other minion, I was headed for stalemate city.

Like I said before, why bring a knife to a gunfight when you can bring a gun?

Please show me a strategy that would use CoC over MM and I'll stop my typing that CoC is a nonviable spell.

Now about UC, I personally think it is a poor choice. BUT, I understand not everyone has the CB2 to play a tank. I personally would go mage over UC everytime, but if you HAD to play a tank, then I can understand going UC.

But in no way, shape or form can I see using CoC over MM or FB. Nothing in this thread has proven me wrong.

I will say 1 other thing at this time.

Of course one can make a strategy using CoC that will work vs some characters.

IE DM using tanks that do not use seekers and do not use archery. Rare birds but perhaps you can find a few.

Or you can go after people 1/2 your MPR easily.

But, why use CoC as such a specialized character just to say you can do it. When of course MM would work in the exact same level on the exact same character far far better.

So before anyone shows me a strategy that uses CoC well, I will then say, would not MM work much better? If the answer is yes, then the CoC strategy is not a CoC strategy.

"Remember you have to at some time have an offensive minion to beat others."

I'm working on that. ;) I'll get back to you later! :P

Lol, PM, there is a point when defense becomes offense. The biggest ToE/ biggest wall and one of the biggest damage dealers combined becomes an offensive strategy. That much (very enviable) damage reduction becomes a weapon in itself the way you're using it. ;)

'But, why use CoC as such a specialized character just to say you can do it. When of course MM would work in the exact same level on the exact same character far far better. '

There is a certain amount of 'just to say you can do it' going on. I am, I'll admit, the sort of person who has to burn his hand to find out the fire is hot; rather than take it as gospel from other people. That's just me.

And your point is valid. Why use CoC when I could use MM; why use UC when a big VB and evasion gives you the same effect only better? Simply put, because I enjoy taking the road less travelled. Sometimes you come across a view that nobody else has seen, that nobody else is looking at right now. It's fun.

You're probably right about CoC. But I'm afraid I won't be able to agree with you until I've seen for myself what I can do with it. Again, that's just me. ;)

Yes,
But there is a difcerence between evasion/VB and UC. One costs cb the other is free. Even I know that.

But, the xp costs of MM and CoC are the exact same. So there is no loss or change by going MM over CoC.

Speaking of fire, I think a challenge lies in making FB work on a multi-minion team... Spread-fire is not to be discounted, and that's the reason to use it (or at least find a way)! I tihnk that is why people bring up CoC so much. It has no splash, it has huge damage, and it spreads (helping to nullify small Decay mages and cause more problems for PL.

But its that backlash that kills -- that is what it keeps coming back to. The only way CoC will be viable is if that damage can be reduced. If the largest ToE in the game still does not make CoC viable (because of the backlash), then seriously, any other attempt to shoehorn CoC into something "good" is doomed to fail.

I agree 100% with PM saying that sure, you can find targets. Heck, I could find targets using a pure Decay/GA/RoBF strategy. That doesn't make it particularly strong, though, overall.

No there isn't you're right. ;) This might not make much sense to most people. I'm left handed by birth. Right handed by tuition (horrible teachers). I can use both hands. Sometimes I like to use my right hand. Sometimes I like to use my left hand. There is no difference between the two, except for somethings where my right arm is a bit stronger. My dad is a French speaker by birth, but speaks english. Sometimes it just suits him to speak French, sometimes English. Sometimes both in the same sentence.

MM is most definitely the best of the DD spells. The shooting from the back forces certain defensive measures, which if you're not using an AoI, leaves you open to attack at the front. It's powerful, but not too much that AMF kills it dead, and yes it costs the same as training CoC. And yes, with it you've got a powerful mage team that will most likely do well. But it's the right hand, it's English. I feel like being left handed and French today.

lol, I don't expect anybody else to understand.