When my NUB runs out...Archer strat help. (in General)

I've decided that when my NUB runs out, I'll probably still be stuck in this lovely land of 20% CB as max possible... and I think adding a second minion will be my only chance of popping 2mil MPR and "catching up" to a few other people so I can regain higher challenge bonuses.

Sure, this could be dreaming, but its the light at the end of the tunnel, from my perspective.

My question is this. What type of second minion would improve my strat best? I'm thinking of one with a JKF attached to give me that extra meat shield... but I'm not sure what type the second minion themselves should be. A lot of the strats say enchanter, but would a more melee-based tank be a good idea as well? I was thinking that if I keep Robynne in front and have the second minion be a melee tank, then if Robynne dies before melee, it'll be ok because that's when the second minion will start wailing on the opponant.

Is this too optimistic an outlook? xD

(1) If you plan to keep the archer thing going, ToA is a must unless you decide to create a pure EC enchanter as you second minion. Even then, the extra PTH granted by your ToA would be sorely missed.

(2) At the point you have reached, a second tank is not really an option as it will not be able to hit anything most of the time and even when it hit, you would do so little damage it would be insignificant.

If the JFK is what you want to go with, then my personal preference would be a Junction/EC enchanter equipped with a Corn, an AoF, EB, EG, and a MS.

Than find an EH (or TSA) and an EC to equip on your archer. Also make 100% certain that your bow remains big and nasty.

ToA is the way to go, especially if you're using an archer. 2nd minion cannot be damage dealer, and its still not recommended to use it even as a secondary damage dealer. Something like a wall, or an evasion shield would be grand for it. In saying that, I don't think the JKF would work out. If you did use it, the gear would set you back quite a bit, as you'd have to do what Talion already suggested.

Don't attempt to add a second damage dealer unless you have a lot of equipment that is well upgraded and patience to use a roe on it. Any minion you add is going to be a lot smaller than your main. So pretty much everything said above me goes.

Running two damage dealers can be problematic. Unless you start them both at the same time there's always one who's bigger and stronger, and faster. And invariably you'll find that that's the one that wins your battles, leaving the second redundant.

"And invariably you'll find that that's the one that wins your battles, leaving the second redundant. "

This happened to me. My team used to be a BL tank, CoC Mage and my two enchanters. JW suggested I throw a MgS on my Mage to see if it was doing something and I still won all my battles. So I converted it to an EC enchanter.

Your 2nd minion should be a DM minion. Then you can unlearn the DM you have on your archer and boost up your HP or Dex.

Also learn a 57k protection on that minion to help vs AMF based characters.

Your main question now is that tattoo you will use.

ToA vs ToE vs RBF vs HF. One can try using a familiar other then the HF, but I would not recommend it. How many archers you see with a DD familiar-none. It has been tried and was not very successful.

The HF has a lot of benefits. First it has a lot of hp, helping disperse FB and CoC. It also can be in back and take a few rounds of MM, giving your tank more time to "try" to hit mages and their evasion.

The RBF is good if you can live to use it. It can help absorb the MM's that come from behind, but I personally would not use it without AMF. Archers need DM so that is moot.

The ToA is a great tattoo, tons of str and a moderate amount of dex. The PTH however, has been neutered quite a lot. Do not count on it. Use the TOA mainly for the str/dex benefits.

The ToE is excellent. Moreso on a 3 or more minion character but on an archer it can help quite a lot.

I do not know what level tattoo you currently have. That would make a huge difference in what you can/will use. However, the loaning fee for tattoo is now quite small for 1 hour, so perhaps you can ask around and get a loan of the different types of tattoos and test them yourself.

Some people don't have USD to spend that's why the ToA exists.

USD inflated weapons would be more accurate. So you don't think I'm having a go at you. Yes we know you pay 40 mil for the 200 mil weapon, but it didn't get their off $CBD and not many people are going to have weapons over +100 with a decent X.

The PTH supplied by the ToA is still very useful, if you haven't insanely inflated weapons. You get a third of the tattoo NW added to the PTH. So depending on how large your weapon is you could see quite a lot of extra PTH. Which is very valuable when you're up against evasion.

For instance a 2.7 million lvl tattoo - Flamey's to be precise - is worth 50 million NW. So you're adding 16 million or so to your weapon's +. That's not quite what I would describe as 'neutered'.

Flamey,

As many others have pointed out, perhaps rightly so:

Play a tank only if your willing to put in USD. Evasion is so overpowered to compensate for the USD weapons. Forget about all those that do not spend USD, they have to be destined for mages. Even with a TOA, given its recent neutering, it will be quite difficult if not impossible to hit evasion minions without a high USD weapon.

what MPR would have a max tat of about 2.7 mil? just out of curiosity

About 1.33M MPR.

You can look for yourself.

Home---Character Standings----MPR----Click on various characters and see under their overviews what their MTL is. Go up and down as needed.

AdminJonathan, Mar 2
> evasion is still too powerful

that's possible, but let's see how this shakes out first.

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AdminJonathan, Mar 2
> Are damage reduction layers going to be reduced to go along with this?

Honestly? Maybe. :)

Seriously though one of the points here is to increase the number of fights going to melee so I'm not sure if that is a good idea.

Doing this at the beginning of the month lets me watch for a couple weeks and see what the ramifications really are.

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Evasion may be overpowered today, but who knows what tomorrow brings. I certainly don't, but I know as much as everyone else. It's changemonth :)

It has already been 2 weeks into changemonth.

I personally am not holding my breath that anything will change.

There are plenty of discussions about how evasion has to be powerful to compensate for USD weapons. Some of those statements are correct, depending on how one view game balance.

2 weeks of changemonth is a mighty long time; Jon's dropped changes on us right up to the end of the month before now.

But isn't this off topic for Calynne's post?

Agreed, just making the point that for the sake of a couple of weeks it may be best to hold of making drastic changes, specifically if it involves changes around things like evasion based on the comments recently made by Jon.

Good point; and if Calynne waits until then and builds up the single minion on NUB bonus rates and saves some money - much bigger tank, and cash to pay for a decent minion.

Not really JW. Calynne asked what would improve her strat best if she were to hire a 2nd minion. For me the last couple of posts were specific to the discussion about the use of evasion for that 2nd minion.

bleh - now we're all getting out of synch with the replies.

Hard to "chat" on the boards ;)

IMO and only IMO:

If one has to have a TOA just to hit an evasion minion, they your not doing as well as you should as an archer. With the current decrease in damage in missile rounds, an archer has to hit more then once in order to kill. Perhaps Mikel and Freed are the exceptions. I certainly need 4 hits to kill Draco's minion.

When using a TOA you cannot use a MgS, or BoM. You also cannot use the TSA or elven cloak. The regeneration of the TSA is a wonderful thing to have.

Right now, IMO only, using a TOA for an archer,without an uber bow, is not advised. Perhaps if things are changed later in the month, but not now.

However, if you still want to be an archer, hire a DM enchanter for your 2nd minion and consider using the TOE or HF. The TOA leaves your archer quite vulnerable to FB and MM. One can only hope you can hit and kill a CoC mage before s/he starts to cast. Once one does, your doomed.

"If one has to have a TOA just to hit an evasion minion, they your not doing as well as you should as an archer."

Items such as the BoM and the mage shield are all well and good, but using a ToA can be the perfect way to run an archer team. The ST/Dex addition is a great way to create a strong tank, you can spend XP on boosting them if you want to increase your power. And the bonus PTH is worth it's weight in gold if like most players you don't have huge amounts of cash to invest in your weapons. It can also allow you to boost your weapon X instead of PTH. Boosting PTH is not the only way to get past some of the evasions around, boost your dex to a higher level and you can fight against evasion's defensive dex.

If an archer is hitting evasion minions then it's doing a perfect job as an archer. Regardless of what equipment is being worn.

Wow... lots of differing opinions here, I see... and some interesting thoughts on the Halidon Familiar, which I have been told was a waste to use because it would never hit anything...

I guess hiring a second minion to tank for me in melee isn't going to work. I understand now that he probably would never hit anything either... but I do have extra gear. I will say that. I have all the gear on my other two characters I could pass over to Robynne, along with some gear on my bank that I've been saving for possible strat changes in the future. I have an EH, MCM, EG, ToE, RoBF, BoNE, and an HF. They might need a little work (or insta-ing) before they're worth putting on my second minion, but they're there so no really big worries on the gear aspect of the second minion. I think I can clothe them rather well...

I'll keep re-reading some of the replies, but I kinda wish there was a way to make a second minion worthwhile other than just training DM to them or Prot... if there's no way to do this, I guess I'll just have to live with an enchanter meat shield out front of my archer... ^_^