Tank: ToA, ToE, or Armors (in General)

I am figuring out my strategy on my own with help on the side, kind of to do something a little unique, i dont want to copy anyone's strategy (even tho The End OF Days & Mikel and a few others have great strategies). I am making a ETEW Team with the tank mainly an archer that can dance in melee. I am trying to figure out if I should focus on my tank using a ToA for the PTH bonus and massive Dex/St bonuses, ToE on Enchanter (Like Koy for the defensive measures), or using a TSA, BG, BoM, EC, AoM, DB's/EB's, HoC on the tank. I mainly want to just get as many opinions, ideas, and what not into this matter on my mind. I have drawn out all the "possibilities" and stats and whatnot on if iwent each route. I am just trying to get ideas out on this, so please keep this going for me, and any others who are looking to see why people use ToE, ToA, or go the route of Armors on the tank. Thank you for everyone's input.

If your going to be an archer, you need to be able to hit in missile vs evasion minions.

Therefore you need to use a TOA get the extra PTH to hit those pesky mages with high evasions.

You also need to use DM to stop those GA character from killing you .

You will have a problem, however with fireball mages unless you use seekers, at least for defensive measures (which is something I personally abhor).

Thank you as always PM, anyone else?

Ill go with Pop on that, there is no way you can make a archer without a ToA.

Archers are better suited to fighting as single minions. You're most effective if you kill quickly and for that you need your ST/DX and you most certainly don't need the EXP dilution of 3 additional minions.
It can work quite effectively even when you use four minions, but you'd do even better as a single minion.

Trying to dodge hits is the same thing; it's been done before but it's only something I'd advise with a huge melee weapon, and to be mostly an archer most of your WA would be in your ranged.

If you happen to rise through the ranks and reach the top with a strategy that so clearly defies my suggested tactics, I'd be quite pleased. Unfortunately I just don't see it happening.

Regarding the ToA/ToE/Armor situation. The most important factor when running a tank strategy is your ST/DX, after that comes adequate defenses (HP, walls etc). If your ST/DX are already adequate after armor bonuses and haste/GS then you could do without a ToA on the tank. This would free you up to use the ToE on the wall, but first make sure that tank has his ST/DX superior to your average opponent.

Archers need a ToA and DM, however, you could theoretically just up the plus on your bow, and use EC to be able to hit evasion minions (and I mean LOTS of EC).

The question then becomes how to deal with GA.

I agree with them on the archer part. Go ToA with DM, train AS on one enchanter and DM plus haste on the other enchanter. If you want to hit using an ELB, train archery and make sure your PTH on that bow is at least +100 ;)

"If you want to hit using an ELB, train archery and make sure your PTH on that bow is at least +100 ;) "


If you using a ToA with it's bonus to PTH and you have enough of a dex gap you can hit twice a round with an ELB, without archery. With only a small PTH on the bow.

Fact.

Against high dex/evasion minions it's harder obviously, but even those can be taken if your damage is high enough. And an ELB and Belegs guarantee high damage. You only need to hit a minion once if the damage is higher than their HP.

My version will ensure you hit almost everyone who doesn't equip itself with an AoI ;) With the PTH of the ToA and ELB, almost no minion can escape.

Agreed, it will work better. But it's misinformation to say you need archery to use an ELB effectively. If you use a ToA it simply isn't the case.

Well... in order to ensure that you finish the job in ranged, you should increase your PTH. Especially if your tank is in a 4 minion team and will not have much HP or strength to last very long in melee.

If you are wearing a ToA you are increasing your PTH. Maybe not enough to take out evasion minions in ranged but with a 900k ToA and a +16 ELB I could take out some of the larger evasions in the game in melee, and occasionally in ranged.

The ToA enables you to put more cash into damage. Like I say, if you hit somebody for more damage than they have HP they're dead. It doesn't matter if you hit them once twice or three times then.

now that that's settled Animal, you have only to wait for someone to pick out a name for the rest of your minions/gear :P

Furthermore, I remember reading that if archery is not trained, your CTH for both dex based and non-dex based hits are reduced to 20%.

but not ToA-based cth, thats how Johnny so effectively used Evasion after UC. He dabbled in Archery, but to no real benefit...

Well that's true. But unless your ToA is big, your PTH from it may not be able to hit evasion teams.

Yup. I personally didn't see any benefit in training archery over evasion. In fact I lost people from my fightlist when I swapped to archery from evasion.


A ToA tank with evasion is a powerful creature....

That's true for a single minion. But in a 4 minion setup, you don't have enough experience to spread around.

The ToA will be the same size; and you have the benefit of the three extra kill slots to enable you to last longer.

XP dilution is another matter however. And completely dependent on your view of your character. If you want to use skills and spells as effectively on a four minion as you would on a single minion, well, in the short term you simply won't. But, a bit of patience and a long term view and lo and behold; you can....

Ok obviously i am getting a lot of ToA'a which is fine :) I am wondering though, with how you are suggesting to go about this, will i be able to take on people in melee? Also i did the whole "train evasion over archery" thing and lost a lot fo people on my fightlist, i am receiving a 19m nw ELB soon with a +84 on it, so may be i will retry this theory. I would love to have evasion on ym tank, but not if it will sacrafice my abilities in ranged.

There is no penalty to dex based hits because you don't train archery, that was something I had wrong and got corrected by Jon.

Without archery, even with the ToA, you won't be hitting many of the top 20 teams in ranged, which is where it counts, having the extra plus to hit means that you can still kill ToE teams with walls because in round one you've got a good shot at hitting them eight times, which will still kill even heavily armored minions.

ok so sticking with archery, awesome. Would anyone suggest on the ToA archer to go with any combination of either EB's or DB's and AoI or AoM? i have heard 50/50 on the EB/DB but the AoI im not sure about, i wont be training evasion so will the DB's help at all, or would i be better off with the dex and AC bonus?

Also, addition to last post, what would i want ot train on my ToA archer, 1/3 HP, 1/2 St, Max Dex? or more into dex less into strength? or some people have mentioned to go with an enchantment or something since i have a little more exp to spend due to ToA

DB to combat ax/ex teams, but it's hard to do early on since the ebs have benefits against all teams. HP is going to be key, but you're going to need enough dex to counter the dfensive dex of mages teams. I can't give exact ratios for training, but training STR isn't nearly as important as your other stats.

Ok so go high in dex and hp, let st go up with my ToA? im also looking at the end of days and seeing that he uses a ToE, which was kinda of wierd to me, but i guess if the power of his bow makes up for the PTH and damage bonuses form ToA.

ToE on enchanter and armor on the tank :)

How come Shade? I wrote it all out and saw that using armor i get alot of bonuses that are good, but if i went EB's and MS those alone can give me 90 AC not inluding anything else. But please explain Shade because what you said about a ToE on enchanter and Armor on the Tank is my second thought, that is why i am asking everyone :)

Just inspect my main characters, I have EBs and I have a MgS and still have 151 AC...

Ya i saw if i used Eb's and an MS with average stats on all armors, i can come out with 120 AC easily. and average using a TSA is i think 170, so not much difference.

Also what would my enchanters learn other than AS and DM? I am trainign Protection on my tank adn wall [40 Prot :) ]

Enchanters you say?

Haste will greatly help i think. :)

The ToE is a melee focus team. The ToA could be both ranged and melee, but it leans much further to the ranged combat side of things.

The great wonder of the ToE is that you get your Cape and Armor slots back. You may not think much of this, but equipment such as EC and TsA gives you stat boosts, AC, and magical protection. Adding more to your survivability and a little recovery to your stats.

The real question is weather or not you want to go all the way with one sort of combat, or be decent at both. If you want to go ranged, and it sounds like your heading that way, then I think you should maximize that aspect.

That means ToA, EBs, HGs, HoC. Cut down your opponents advantage with Ethereal Chains and kick some butt.

If that does sound like your style, then consider what Shade has to say.

See i want to be good in all aspects or ranged adn melee but that is hard to do. I would love to finish off a whole team in ranged, but if needed to go to the melee side i will still win. I will have a wall on my team with massive AC so even if we go to melee i think i may be ok if i kept my wall up and running to protect my tank. any ideas on this? would i want ot split Haste and DM on one enchanter? or would i tbe better to just train DM and take out all enchantments?

bump

Sounds almost like you're looking to do something like this

Crisis

Yes crisis is one of the people i mentioned i beleive. He has almost the same layout as I am doing, i wanted to do something a bit different (want uniqueness to my build) but i am trying to figure out wether to do toe, toa or armors, so still looking for more input pleasE!

Well you mentioned three options, when really I would say your down to two. If you're going to go ToE, then you are also going for Armor as well. Yeah, sure you could put the ToE on the Tank minion, but you lose access to so many better items, like power shields.

So either you should go ToA or ToE+Armor.

Hope that helps you decide better.

Ya, that is true, didnt even think of that, so i guess i am asking ToA OR ToE+Armors. Also about whether my archer should wear DB's for the evasion bonus but sacrifice the AC and Dexterity bonus of the EB's. Thanks for all the help so far everyone.

I've always been a fan of EBs over DBs. Don't get me wrong, DBs are a bane of many tanks. I myself have a pair... somewhere... where did I put that damn thing.

Anyhow, I like EBs because:

1) Helps generate additional xp needed to fight dilution.

The bonus to skills alone is enough to give you xp you need for things like HP and ST. Then through a DX bonus on top.

2) More offensive, less defensive

Do you know what message you send when you wear EBs. "I'm going to kill you!" The DX boost isn't just for defense, but offense too. Good for overcoming evasion. DBs? All they say is, "Please don't kill me Mister Tank sir?"

3) Helpful versus a wider array of strategies.

DB are useless against a Mage. Not an ounce of benefit. However, EBs give you, at there very least, AC. If you plan on enhancing the armor at all, (and I can't imagine why you wouldn't) then you get AC good versus both mages and tanks.


One thing that isn't true anymore though is that EBs use to be cheaper then DBs. That no longer seems to be the case. Nonetheless, still a big fan.

anyone else on the ToA or ToE topic or the EB vs DB topic?

If your DB are large enough, they will outdo the EB because you will remove the pth of their weapon. and with th ToA, you will be gaining a great deal of DX, which will also work great with naturally trained DX. If they have no pth, and lower DX, what do you suppose their chances are? ;-)

Thank you for that, that is what i was suspecting. If i do go with DB's on him, would i want an AoI for that benefit, or would i be better off with an AoAC or AoM? I would then lose my last to be hit thing.. but i could train PL on my wall for that

Im also thinking that if i put an AoI on my tank, making him last to be hit, or put an enchanter in front of him, i can make the enchanter also train Evasion and him wear the DB's, this would help me get by in melee and ranged and also my wall protects from the back, this would make it so that i dont need an AoI on my tank. any ideas on that?

I would recommend training haste if you are using DB. They work very well when there is haste to narrow down the dexterity gap.

ok so are you saying i should split exp between DM and Haste on my enchanter? while also training evasion and putting him in front?

anyone have any suggestions to this plan or comments?

Or put haste on my tank since i have room to spend EXP?

can i get any input on this idea?

responses please

token haste maybe...emphasis on maybe

What about the Enchanter with Evasion and DB's up front, would that help protect me from the front of the battle, or owuld i need to do more than that?