Revamped's New Build (One Minion UC Tank) (in General)

So, as thehatchetman and novice may know, i am making a one minion UC tank as novice told me so. I am planning on getting an Axbow and maybe renting some Helm's Gauntlets, but am not sure whether or not I should train AMF. And I do not know what the good training ratios of HP/STR/DX/UC are for this strategy. and i was also thinking about Lumpy Koala strat and if that is better. (such as using Exbow and Buckler of Mandos)If i can get any help, I would love to hear from anybody. Thank you.

hgs are a must, you'll end up with enough defensive dex that no tank can hit you, and hit so hard you won't need much STR...

Train AMF like mad since you don't need much in the way of other stats...

I say that you should get a Mageseeker Bow so that you don't have to worry about AMF. Just train HP/ STR/ small DEX/ small UC, with EB, EG, EC, CGi, HoC, AoF. You now have massive UC, Eva, and Dex to CGi and Elven gear (easy to get +60% dex and skill). No more worries about DD due to your Mageseeker.

well a random idea just popped in my head.

UC tanks are fundamentally anti-tanks as I see it, it's just the nature of UC. So as Lumpy Koala's equips suggest that mages are their biggest weakness. So what if you put on a Mageseeker bow? Just because they're mages you don't need to worry about the 80% penalty, it's only the possible evasion that is scary, but you hopefully will have the NW to combat that with PTH.

What is your logic behind an Axbow? I am quite torn on which one to use for my monk >.< (vs Exbow)

haha, as I was writing this someone suggested Mageseeker

my bad

Mageseeker would be incredibly hard to use without archery, so no to that - I'd probably go with an Exbow.

The majority of your exp should be in UC, HP, and AMF, unless if you're going to use an MgS, then no AMF, obviously.

Take a look at my NCB, Pandaman. This strat has been working wonders for me so far, though I am still low in the ranks, having been around less than 2 weeks.

I would suggest Combat Gi, Elven Cloak, and Helm's Gauntlets for sure. Helm's Gauntlets are upgradeable, so you can increase the UC bonus they give you when you have more money, and the Gi is excellent because it gives you +10 to your effect right away. My last monk was a ToA monk, and I can tell you right away, Gi + EC > maxed out ToA. Similarly, HGs are vital to your strategy, far better than any DX/skill boost your EGs could give you.

Footwear is debateable. I would say EBs, because of the boost to both DX and skill level, but if you find that you just don't have enough evasion/defensive DX from the UC and the rest of your gear (which is unlikely, in my opinion), you might want to go DB.

HoE is a good helm due to the strength increase and the lack of a penalty to UC, but if you'd prefer to get an extra ranged hit in, go for the HoC, which also doesn't have a UC penalty (I believe?).

I, personally, am looking for an Amulet of Focus right now. I think it would help you, but you may want to take into account the fact that whatever percentage skill increase you get, you'll also get that much more Ethereal Chains cast on you.

I currently have an Axbow equipped, and it seems to be working pretty well. My actual ranged weapon is an SoD, which is getting forged right now. Hatchetman insists that an AxBow of comparable x upgrade does better damage than an SoD, but I can't tell, really, because the x on my SoD is much more upped. If you decide to go with an AxBow, you can CM me if you need a decent-sized one.

I may have left something out. I'll come back if I remember.

Oh yeah, and right now I'm putting 1/3 of my total XP into UC. That's definitely where you want to pump the most into. Because the more you have in UC raw skill level, the more the elven gear and AoF will boost it.

Without Archery you'd need a whole lot of NW to combat Evasion mages, and most mages do train Evasion. The multipliers in range would make it pretty hard to get a good DX advantage, and you'd need a real good amount of PTH too to counter that 20% base CTH.

"Footwear is debateable. I would say EBs, because of the boost to both DX and skill level, but if you find that you just don't have enough evasion/defensive DX from the UC and the rest of your gear (which is unlikely, in my opinion), you might want to go DB."

EBs are much better, and cheaper. DBs don't give defensive DX, either.

My only advice is...don't ever go for bows (ELB or MSK or whatever that uses arrow) if you are not learning archery. Unless you can get it up to +800 ....

Also my strat is completely out of whack, coz I don't have a tattoo for my size of char and also I shaped it to entirely useful against tank strat only. So don't take me as an example :P I am nonsensical remember?

If you stick with RoBF, you should be able to deter most char around your size. AMF is your friend but don't train too much as you also need to invest into str/dex, and so is UC for evasion. Make sure you have at least HG + EB + AoF (for your case, in low levels, AOI is better)

while a lot of this advice is great long term, early on you won't need to train UC at all once you get hgs...

Johnnywas (one of CB's biggest UC nuts) loves using the SoD with UC, and considering damage output is always the UC folks biggest complaint I'm inclined to agree with him.

So my suggestion would be to rent or borrow a pair of hg and get to slaughtering tanks, and once you get a large AMF going, mages as well.

Forget about mages. You will never stand a chance against even middly decent mage teams with a single UC tank.

Concentrate on defeating tanks. Until you get a HUGE ranged weapon ($50M NW +), you will win and lose fights in melee. So you need to survive until then.

Forget about the AxBow and look for an ExBow (my choice) or a SoD.

Talion - From what I've seen at least down low, UC + RoBF does darn well against everyone, mages included. Training AMF heavy early on isn't going to hurt anything.

You don't need archery to use a mageseeker bow. I was training archery for my current team and untrained it after some time. I still managed to get double strikes without much problem. The only problem is evasion but even with archery, you'll still have problems hitting them anyway. My hits are only due to dexterity and also from my +26 mageseeker bow...

"From what I've seen at least down low"

Even before you reach 100K MPR, things change drastically when using UC.

Kong Ming might have a point about using a Mageseeker. It will take out familiars, which is a good thing.

ToA + Mageseeker combo is my recommendation.

I remember Lumpy was using a decent Mageseeker and a ToA with UC and it didn't work out too good. And I'm sure it would suck even more after the ToA nerf.

The MSK would only hit mages without DBs and Evasion, and even if it did hit the team could have PL, EC, ToE, lots of AC... whatever. That's too specific of a target.

I sent you some HGs and a named RoE...go wild.

"The MSK would only hit mages without DBs and Evasion"

A decent Mageseeker will hit mages only wearing DBs without any trained Evasion. Not many +200 DBs out there. So a +50 bow coupled with a big DX will hit +150 DBs at least 50% of the time if not 75% of the time. For certain that takes care of 90% of all FF, SF, and IF familiars out there.

Talion, a +50 bow is like a +10 bow without Archery. PTH is useless...

Go SoD.

Huge problem with SoD is GA, and it doesn't seem like you'll have much help defending against that if you're training AMF with no ToE. But you can just give up on those targets I suppose. Then again, Exp Shots are so expensive these days...

"Talion, a +50 bow is like a +10 bow without Archery. PTH is useless..."

Actually, no, it's not 10%. Regardless, the DX advantage adds over +100% to your CTH before the 20% bow modifier is applied when your target has a tiny DX and is only wearing DB. So it's not that useless.

He didn't say it was 10%, he said it acted like it was +10, which is exactly right.

So your dex gets chopped by 80%, your bow isn't ever going to help guarantee a second hit unless you spend almost 30 mil.

The MsK is already crippled b y 10%... how much more penalized do you need to be before you accept that it's not worth it?

So, it seems like the MSK for this strat is not such a good idea. Therefore, I probably plan on getting an SoD now that it seems more reasonable from people's opinion. Although I am still waiting for TheHatchetman's response, I want to really thank Deifeln for the HG's (+10) since it is helping greatly, and am probably going to follow the NCB Pandaman, as it seems like a good start (since i am still new). If any more suggestions appear, I will be glad to hear them. BTW, if anyone is selling a close to base SoD, as I only have 500k to spare, I would like to make a deal. Thank you for all your help. :)

"He didn't say it was 10%,"

Correct. I meant +10.

"he said it acted like it was +10, which is exactly right."

Incorrect. Else Kong Ming is just a liar, and I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt that.

That max CTH granted by DX during ranged is bellow 150%. Lets say it is 149% for argumentation's sake. Add the +26 from the bow he had equipped and you have about 175% CTH.

If you directly multiply that by 20%, you get 35% CTH. Heck, if he had a 300% CTH before the bow penalty, a straight 20% modifier would reduce that to 60% CTH and even that doesn't yield double hits.

How do you explain the double hits KM was referring to if the 20% is a straight CTH modifier?

the PTh on the bow is reduced to 20%
the dex of the minion firing is reduced to 20% of what it was

Double hits are possible, but not guaranteed.

"Double hits are possible, but not guaranteed."

Double hits are not needed if you consider that the Mageseeker does almost twice the damage of a SoD and targets DD spell casters first.

That was my point. The Mageseeker will target the minions the UC tank actually needs to kill first and will do almost twice the amount of damage per hit as most crossbows and slings. So don't worry about double hits. With a HoC, you will need to hit only once or twice in the first 4 ranged rounds to kill a familiar or a DB wearing mage. So with 60% or 70% CTH, you are all set.

Evasion mages cannot be hit wetter you use a bow, crossbow, or sling anyways. So why worry about them?

However, thanks for illuminating me on the bow CTH modifier. Now I understand how it works.

Where exactly are you getting that the MsK does damage double of an SoD? Even if that were true the ease with which you could get double hits with the SoD makes it a better choice...

"Where exactly are you getting that the MsK does damage double of an SoD?"

Ask anyone who has used both.

"Even if that were true the ease with which you could get double hits with the SoD makes it a better choice..."

SoD

Advantages: Easier to get multiple hits; Damages all minions so does more damage to 3 and 4 minions teams.
Disadvantages: Evasion walls; REALLY expensive ammo.

Mageseeker

Advantages: A LOT more damage per hit on the target minion; Targets mages/familiars first; Cheap ammo.
Disdvantages: Evasion mages; 80% CTH penalty.

For a single minion UC tank specifically, I think a mageseeker can be the best option. That is all I am saying.

While I'm completely and absolutely behind the SoD and it's spread damage; that spread damage is only really good against multi minion teams.

On it's own Giantkiller [5x3038] (+51) with 1.1 million strength has only managed a most powerful blow of 1,405,873. Against a single minion I'd bet on an equal sized Mageseeker doing bigger damage.

In fact on checking:


A Mageseeker [5x1815] (+140) owned by Domo (Death Prophet) with an MPB of : 2,192,702, and similar amounts of strength.


Admittedly that's not proof of power, but if that Mageseeker is hitting that hard it's something my much bigger SoD isn't going to manage for quite some time.


Just for comparison's sake.

Thanks for the comparison JW.

The thing I dislike the most about a SoD equipped on a single UC tanks is its susceptibility to GA. UC tanks usually do not train Dispel. So the only defense against GA is overwhelming it with bigger damage. The Mageseeker is much better at that.

After all, if the single minion UC tank can't reach melee, all that UC XP is worth ziltch.

You guys make a lot of good points. I would like to point out a few things, though:

To what JW said: It is possible that the MPB on Domo's character does not come from the weapon currently equipped, and/or was affected by other variables. For example, my two smaller characters that act mainly as farms have both been retrained a couple of times, and both have MPBs listed that they are no longer capable of dealing, in terms of physical damage. This is because I equipped a JKF on each of them at various times, and it was able to hit that hard, while the minions themselves are not. There was also a free retrain a while back where everyone untrained all their XP and put it into the ST to attack a (1) score character and try to get MPBs over 4 billion, or something. Or, maybe the same character you mentioned, with around 1.1 mil ST, used one of the top 5 melee weapons on that minion before converting it to simply an archer, and did that damage with that weapon. You know?

To Talion: He said he would be copying Pandaman. I happen to train DM on Pandaman, so if he does follow my example, he will, too. Though YOU has been telling me that's going to fail to be effective soon. We'll see, I suppose.
Another thing to remember is that you can use an SoD with Iron Shots. It does still do damage. The splash damage of ex. shots does increase the GA backlash you'll get, but only if you use ex. shots. I have a large bundle of Iron Shots I plan on equipping once my SoD gets back from forging.