single minion strat, your thoughts? (in General)

i was thinking of waht to do with blackmage, i mean it makes a great sfbm, i could keep it the same and put the best gear on it(mcm ag db coi hoc aoi). or i can re-train to...

here's what i thought

option 1: base decay, evasion(40) and the rest divided 2/3 amf and 1/3 hp - maybe no tat, just all out ac

option 2: 1/3 hp, few hundred k in str 1/3 dex, using els/dagger, sod. wearing bg,ac,hoc,dbs,ec

what im going for is that i want it to perform best on defense.

whats your thoughts

My thoughts: Ignore him and get to work with Lorenzo ;)

sounds like you want a farm, I'd simply go 1/4 eva 1/4 HP 1/4 STR 1/4 Dex with TSA and elven gear, watch him beat nearly every tank in game...

In cb2 as opposed to cb1, a single minion is not really a viable strat.

The reason being you lose the body armor and cloak slots if you equip a tattoo, you lost the tattoo if you use those 2 armor types.

The min amount of minions to have (as your final version) is 2 to have a chance to be competitive at a comparable MPR.

I am not saying do not start out of 1 and then hire another, but having 1 all the time is not a great idea.

If you were starting out a new team, one minion would be good to start with because when you hire new minions, the amount of EXP that they get is relative to the MPR of your highest MPR minion... not the MPR of your whole team... so having one minion for a long time would make him huge, making your future hired minions that much stronger to start.

I would change option 1 to: 1/4 Decay (AMF could really hurt you otherwise), 1/4 GA (You need GA to hurt tanks as well as mages), and 1/2 HP with evasion(40) and ToE, Corn, AGs, DBs, AoI.

This would allow you to reach the combat rounds more often and really hurt your opponents there.

I will have to disagree with PM on this one.
More often than not I'd recommend people stick to one minion characters. The lack of AC when using a tattoo isn't a great loss (unless of course you happen to have $468,309,394 NW... but for us mere mortals).

I do like option 1, I'm not saying it'll necessarily work (I'm not saying it wont either) but at least it's original. And like Talion I'd recommend GA. It leaves you weak to DM but I would assume there'd be more tanks than DM enchanters.
Also one thing to consider is that the use of decay will leave you pretty vulnerable to AMF in melee and I'd be quite surprised if GA alone is enough to consistently win in ranged.

Option 2 uses a SoD, therefore I like it. But if you're using a SoD, please don't use melee. If you're using melee, use an ELB.
ELB is superior to SoD in damage. SoD is better still because it has the potential to kill all minions in ranged, but if you're going to put NW into your melee and into defense (i.e DBs) rather than into ranged damage, ELB is my recommendation.

If you want to play defense, get a big melee weapon. Just put every bit of NW you've got into it. Slap on a ToE, train evasion heavily enough that you wont be hit in ranged and you're ready to go.

"option 1: base decay, evasion(40) and the rest divided 2/3 amf and 1/3 hp - maybe no tat, just all out ac "

How are you supposed to kill non-DD using minions? Dodge them to death with your evasion?

I would suggest not changing your SFBM, but if you must then tank him out using option 2. ATM, single archers with an HoC seem to be the hot item. Evasion with a SoD might be very nice too. I'm not really sure because I am a tank hater! 0.0

"In cb2 as opposed to cb1, a single minion is not really a viable strat."

Sorry, I beg to differ. My single minion ToA evasion tank hit 2 million score, before I sold off my weapons and ToA. I'd say that's pretty viable.

I think what you really mean is a single minion is not really viable if you want to hit the top 5. Outside of there though, providing you have enough damage, single minions rock.

Just go single minion for as long as you can compete well... then hire two minions... one DM and one AS... then a wall later on... That's my advice...

This way, you'll have a sick damage dealer, and then the DM will help against AMF, the AS will supply your mage with extra HP (also HP for the two enchanters), stick an AoI on your mage (to help with evasion and to make the enchanters die first...

Also, if no tat is being used and you are going for AC, I suggest EH over MCM... 6 less AC base and the DD resist will help alot, I'd imagine... I know there is a DD penalty for the EH but it's only 2%, easily regained with the AG's and CoI...

ooh!

Go for a single minion until it feels so worthless to continue the team that way that you hire another one just to be a tat-holder. Then, buy 2 other large minions, max out DM, and have the highest MPR in CB. That just seems like a great idea to me... Why hasn't somebody else tried this? ; )

Well... 2 + 2 = 4... that works every time... 1 + 1 + 3 - 1 / 1 = 4 too, but it's too confusing... Why not just do it the way that the smart people do it? There are other ways to go about building a strong team... but they are more confusing and may not work as well. I just figure it this way... Smart people who are better than me at CB told me to do it this way because it works... Some smart mathy guy told me not to add extra steps in mathematical solutions... I'm sure I could have put this much more smartly but I sometimes don't work with my brain so good and stuff.

Basically, one big minion is ideal to start with because you want your main damage dealer to be as strong as possible. The other minions are always support anyhow... and the stronger that your strongest minion is, the more EXP your hired minions will start with. Win Win.

By the way... I'm not saying that these so called "smart people" are smarter than you and me... I'm just saying they are smarter than you.

Wait... that makes me one of the "smart people" then, doesn't it? Sounds about right.

lol @ DD 'How are you supposed to kill non-DD using minions? Dodge them to death with your evasion?'

at best hope for a stalemate?

none of my strats are perfect, there is only whats best for one situation or another.

but GA? hrm maybe

even if i was to hire another 2 minions to hold a tat and put towards AS and DM, and put a ToE back on the mage...btw for me to hire another minion is calls for over 18million, and it was discussed about the increase of mpr to be 384k. to make 1.5mil mpr top out at 4 minions coulld cost up to 50million cb to get a result of 2-2.1mil mpr...wait? i have lorenzo that high...*me lost in thought

A wiseman once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Can't remember who said it.

Moon, it is your responsibility to crack some heads with Lorenzo. Don't even worry about your other character... I would suggest selling him to get some gear for your nearly naked team. }:)

Actually, I think it was Uncle Ben who said it to Spiderman :p

The original line was from Amazing Fantasy #15 - The first Spider-Man story, circa august 1962. Stan Lee originally penned the line as "With great power there must also come.... .... great responsibility!"

The movie shortened it to your version.

its not about selling or really adding characters, i want it to be there for others to fight against. i dont plan on using him that i can see, lorenzo will do the same maybe someday, lol

I'll pay the transfer fees for blackmage to take him off your hands if it will make your decision making any easier :D

You should just remove the tattoo and put on all the good armor. I've fought without a tattoo with First Strike and I can gain pretty good rewards ($400 per fight sometimes) because my PR is low.

For fun i have make a rough projection of how a very high NW single tank would look like around 2M MPR.

Looking at hubble is JOE have stats of 2M in HP 3.4M in MM and 1.2M in evasion or about 6.6M.

So let say the tank setup would look like this

3M HP
1.6M STR
2M in DEX
BL= STR*0.2

Then you add top elven gear in the game to that tank.

NamedTSA +52 AC 22 +54
Named EC +13 AC 4 + 14
Named EG +15 AC 3 + 16
Named EB +31 AC 10 +33
Named HoE +20 AC 6 + 22
Named MgS +42 (44% min reduction to DD)
Named AoAC + 24 AC +25

Reduction to physical attack 44.935 %
Reduction to magic attack 1*.56*.64 or 64%
Regen of 150K per round
STR 1.6M * 1.66 = 2.6M
DEX 2M*1.63 = 3.26M
HP 3M

Wouldn't that be a 76% STR increase? And you might be better dropping the AoAC for an AoM, for even more STR! :)