Strat questions: berzerk ED and more. (in General)

So.

my 2 minion uc/archer has been working well so far. almost always fights at 100% challenge bonus until the last two days.

until then, i had been running around 100-150k exp in prot and va, enough to provide a small bonus, nothing major because im trying to avoid extreme xp dilution.

i noticed that opponents with dm were bringing my va to a point where it was causing ~ -20k per hit leech, aka hurting me instead of healing, so i dropped it.

i have some intentions to changing my strat as my pr progresses and would like some suggestions as to timing, spells, or gear flaws.

also the only current gear change that i would like to do is probably the boots on my archer to elven instead of db, since she primarily only dies to MM users... making their evasion somewhat useless unless up against ex/axbows.

i intend to go to a sword and board vorpal tank to deal with high end ac... not sure whether i should invest in bloodlust to compensate for base damage, or instead go with evasion (since its lol 'broken'). as for his gear, was thinking high ac set, possibly an elven piece or two to counteract armor penalties.

in my current pr range, would an evasion tank instead of the partial evasion from UC be more effective? i lean towards continuing the uc to invest more weapon allowance in my archer and still maintain high melee dps.

i will probably add more minions as my nub gets closer to an end, but might stick with 2minons for as long as i can viably. how long do you think i can survive as a 2m team?

as far as my enchant defense problem... i was considering protection because it has a cap... as far as long term growth, dilution would be less of a problem. va similarly would eventually stop as my damage came to a general plateau, so although it would probably require more of an investment of exp i could in theory stop training it at some point.

if/when i hire two more minions, would i be better off putting va/prot on them rather than the tanks? can i get away with ED on the dps'ers, and relying on my enchanters for more elaborate strats (rear magebreaker pl wall, front evasion or ac wall)?

my plan was vorpal as dps/counter to high end ac, archer for range (evasion can in theory be overcome with NW), magebreaker rear wall as counter to mage dps, and still up in the air about front minion.

also ive never been a big fan of tattoos (grats cb1) so i havent really worked them into my long term plans. any suggestions on type of tat, or ways of working them into my current strategy, if there are counters im missing? i wont use one while i am still 2 minion, i rely too much on other chest/cloak of my gear to be effective.

too many questions at once? :P

all the text is kind of intimidating, and hard to read and follow...

Firstly 2 minions will take you all the way up; if your char gets into the top 20 then you will proabably be at a disadvantage but before then 2 minions will work perfectly well.

Most of my questions revolve around your set up as it is now.

When you win your fights which minion does so? It's an important question, because I've found fairly consistently that one BIG damage dealer does more than two - at least for me. You can focus your money spend, and build an enchanter that boosts and protects your damage dealer.

Evasion tanks have been my speciality. However I use a SoD rather than a bow. The penalties for using a bow without archery are too much to deal with. But an evasion tank, with the right weapons is so much more useful than the UC equivalent. It gives you the same effect but with more evasion, more damage, less XP spend.

In fact what might be more useful for you would be to switch your UC guy to evasion and make him an evasion wall/enchanter. Perhaps with DM or AMF. That will divert tank attacks from your archer through ranged letting him last to melee to use the morg. Meanwhile if you can get a mage shield onto your tank (difficult to buy I know, but quite often in rentals) he will protect your team against MM and lessen the spread attack from coc/fb.

You can maintain your archery to get the most out of the bow, but focus more of your spend on the morg to boost your damage in melee. The elb does decent damage without needing massive spend, far more than the Morg. That needs to be quite big.

Tattoo? I would suggest, as you're building a tank old school, use the ToE on your front minion.

I can pretty much guarantee the changes I've described will not lessen your teams effectiveness.

And finally, for two minions, especially a tank with a morg (Free VA), defensive enchantments aren't actually necessary, and reduce the people who can take you on. You've already found DM users causing you hassle; further up people invest quite heavily in DM. If it has no effect on you then you're weakening those guys considerably. Imagine investing a quarter of your XP into it and it being useless...that makes your team effectively bigger against those guys.

Check your fights anyway and see what your UC guy is actually contributing: if as I suspect it is simply keeping tanks off your back through it's evasion then an evasion wall will be far more useful.

Anyhow, these are just suggestions - you can ignore if you like! But really, check your UC guy; he might not be doing what you think he is doing.

Johnny's got some great points. Definitely use a tattoo. Under the current evasion, you'll have to use a ToA with your tank. In any case, hold off on retraining till after things settle down in change month. You'll have a fair bit of 100% CB to enjoy still.

personally i would 1. trade that ELB for an MSB 2. chuck all the heavy wall stuff off guts and put on all the elven stuff 3. throw the DB onto guts 4. put a HOC on guts 5. switch AOAC off CASCA and put on an AOM 6. throw probably a toa and BGs onto CASCA lol