Single Minion Tank (in General)

I want to start a new team, a single minion tank. Yeah, its probably going to be ridiculously hard but i want to give it a go. Any suggestions on strat, item and so forth would be wonderful.

a few questions of my own
- Tat or Armor?
- Ranged weapons?
- Which shield?
- I plan on using MH maybe VB, other suggestions?
- exp distribution?

Thanks in advance

I ran a single minion tank for quite a while, and it's not that bad. My strat was based on doing as much damage as soon as possible, so Elb and a SF were the main components; HoC and Belegs to help out on the offense, Mage shield helping to keep the DD opponent hits down, and I'd probably go with a TSA now that they're freely available. I went for DB's to try and cut down on other tanks hitting back, but don't know how effective they were. Pre-encumbrance I had a BoTH as well, but I'd probably ditch it in favour of concentrating on the Elb nowadays. Choosing the fightlist carefully also helped, and by the time I switched to a multi minion character I had 770k MPR, just over 1M PR fully equipped, and 1.8M score. One thing I will say, there's a long stretch where it seems like you're going nowhere against the multiple minion teams, but stick it out and you'll progress. Good luck with it!

single tank:

ToA
belegs, EBS, HoC
SoD
Evasion 1/8
DM or AMF?

HP, STR, DEX 3/8,2/8,2/8

No melee.

That is a basic Single Sod slinger

Well there is 1 key thing you have to ask yourself going this route:

Tattoo or not.
That perhaps is the biggest question.

If you go with a tattoo, it almost has to be a TOA. A single minion tank cannot hope to live long enough vs mages, especially FB. Even with a TOE.

If you do not go tattoo, then you should use a TSA/EC combo. Using a MgS will be a tough thing since it prevents AMF or DM. For reasons below, DM is my choice in this situation. The new SoC may be an option, however I feel the MS is better overall.

Now, I find it hard to make a single minion melee tank. They do not live long enough, even with a MgS or large AMF/TOE. So with a single minion, your almost forced to use a missile weapon.

Now, even with the recent nerf of exshots explosions, I like the SoD as my primary weapon. Due to ENC, forget about a melee weapon and boost your SoD as high as ENC allows.

Of course you will use BGs, and likely EBs if you decide to use evasion.

So depending on the tattoo or not here are the 2 builds that have a chance:

Tattoo:

TOA/EB/MS/HOC/AOM/CB T-shirt/BG/SOD

No Tattoo:

TSA/EC/EB/MgS or MS or SoC/HOC/AOM/CB T/BG/SOD

xp distribution depends again on tattoo or no:

Try to keep all 3 stats equal for a while and titrate on what you can hit. Learn evasion if you want, I would.

If you use the MgS, no xp needed in AMF or DM. However, due to GA, I would learn a decent sized DM to stop that spell. I personally would use the MS over the SoC especially with evasion.

Hope this helps.

thanks for the suggestions so far, but im looking for more of a melee tank

I personally cannot do or recommend a melee single minion tank.

Perhaps if you look under top scores/1 minion, you can find examples of what you want.

didn't see ranger's post before hand, thanks

single evasion VB dude.

This will get you challenge bonus for longer than most strategies. Unfortunately, it also makes clan fighting near impossible due to being magebait.

Chat with JahRoor.

It seems he is doing a melee single minion tank quite well.

Only single minion in the top 30 or so (of 1 minion characters) who is a melee tank.

far as tat or no tat, I'm quite fond of the NCB's tat-leveling capability, so I'd have to say tat... Though, MgS, TSA, EC may help more in the long run... Perhaps level a tat early, then eventually hire a second minion as a tat holder?

You can perform quite well as a melee based single tank, but you need a large ranged attack with it to even the score with teams with more minions.

I ran a single guy with ToA and SoD and Morg. I had a large evasion trained and a medium AMF. I also trained Dex until it was larger than my strength, although that was pretty big.

It worked well, because once I got to melee the VA from the Morg worked wonders. But I had a pretty specialized fightlist, made up mostly of other tank teams thanks to the evasion. I wasn't bad against mages, but some of the bigger mage teams fried me. When you're up against a large FB and you're single minion you're taking the full hit.

JW,

Was your character before or after ENC as introduced.

Now, in order to have a decent melee weapon you need to use a lot of your ENC. Giving you a pretty crappy missile one, NW wise.

Here's a thought of a Single Minion Tank build:


HP, STR, DX, VA, AMF, Bloodlust
TSA
HoE
EC
TGs
DBs
SoC
MoD or MH

Bloodlust + Shield of Capacity + VA ftw, first hit of melee would be huge.

(best use of the shield I can think of :P) Also, MoD damage against AS and PL immunity would be absolutely invaluable.

No, Ranger's right it was before ENC. I'd given up on it during the first Evasion War!

To be honest these days the UC tank is starting to look like your best option for a single melee based tank. That way you get a 'free' weapon that also goes towards raising your ENC a huge amount. Then you can pump money into a ranged attack.

Some kind of evasion is pretty much necessary, be it evasion skill or DBs or UC.

OB,

Great build, but try surviving to melee vs all those mages out there.

You will do well vs other tanks, esp melee ones. But vs mages, and missile tanks, esp with no evasion, your utter toastage. And forget about keep up clan points.

Yes, I do see the DB's but 1 hit a round from a missile weapon can do you in by the time you get to melee.

JW is likely on the right path with UC. However, to use it you need to use the CGI instead of the TSA. The strength benefit of the TSA and its regeneration ability make it invaluable for tanks.

Yeah Ranger, the AMF would probably have to be buffed a little and it would have to have a good amount of HP for it to reach melee.

However, if it did, the VA with massive damage combo would likely put it right back into the game.


Also, I've tried the DBs and DX thing, and it works quite well for a single minion tank if he's got enough DX. He's certainly capable of focusing it.


Either way, for this build to work, the player would have to carefully observe his or her battles and balance out the stats. And you're right, it wouldn't be so hot against mages - but hey, very few single minion tanks are. :)

And OB,

You cannot count on VA working due to the DM's out there.

So you will have to very carefully choose your battles.

Would it not be far far easier to play a SMFB or SMevasion/RBF?

I know it is not as much fun, but certainly much less time consuming and easier to keep a decent clan score.

Of course it would be *easier*, but that's the difference between single tanks and single mages :P

I'm also looking at a single minion melee tank build, but I am slowly leaning towards a single tank with a small enchanter.

I want a TSA on my tank, and can put ToE on the enchanter to help with damage reduction. Enchanter could train either EC or AMF. I'm not sure if the would be enough XP for AMF to make any difference, but at the very least it would stop decay. Tank would need a lot of HP to make the TSA effective. I'm still looking over the new weapons/armor, but I still think a MH would help more that a MoD, as the MH + TSA should provide decent HP regeneration each round.

I haven't decided between MgS or SoC. I think if you want a shot at mages, you need the MgS, but if you are just going to concentrate on tanks, then SoC is the way to go. The constant all-rounder vs specialist dilemma. Just a few of my thoughts.

Good thinking Xenko.

You may want to try to fight with the SoC and defend using the MgS.

Just a thought. However, you may find the MS is a better all around alternative then either power shields.

I'm not sure if the MS would be the better option with the recent AC de-buff.

The BoM might be an option if you are going to use a 1-handed weapon. Use the BoTh for HP regen, BoM provides extra strength which is very useful, provides some AC, and will allow you to put more XP into HP to increase the ToA regen (or into DX if you want to hit more) since you will not need as much in ST. +25% ST for only $3 mil NW is pretty good, plus ST bonus from TSA.

Correction:
"... and will allow you to put more XP into HP to increase the TSA regen..."

Single Minion UC is what I'm going for this NCB. ;)

Training: HP, STR, Some Dex (not much, going to utilise UC inherant high PT) and AMF. Undecided between GA (going for full returned damage) or VA.

Wearing: AoF, HoE, TSA, HG, EB, EC, CBT and SoC.

I might add in my existing SoD. No reason not to. ;)

"The BoM might be an option if you are going to use a 1-handed weapon."

Why a 1-handed weapon? Check out the latest changelog, Jon buffed the BoM to work with 2-handers as well.

linkage

Single Melee tank?

Well any weapon with VA would do, MH or BoTH

Tattoo or not?
If you dont want tattoo, I would recommend the light tank armors with TSA and str boosters

If you do want a tattoo I would recommend the RoBF. Why you ask?
Well its easy. Melee tanks have problems with Evasion characters, bigger tanks and mages. The RoBF basically solves this problem by providing an attack against evasion, tank and a defense against magic.

With this build you can use the RoE as long as you want (if you have a big enough tattoo laying somewhere), you use the robf as an extra attack and as armor.

Later on you could add a wall of yourself, probably PL/TSA.

You now have the option for skills, BL or evasion or none.
Option for ED/EO (with the mgs this is no option)

See also JS's character for a simiilar build, but JS's character is an archer.

Wiki wasn't up-to-date on the changes to BoM. Now it is. :D

The RoBF is an interesting choice for tattoo. I can see the advantages. RoBF always feels like a cop-out to me though. I've never liked it as a tattoo despite how useful it can be.

It helps if I finish my thoughts:

"Why a 1-handed weapon?"
12% penalty to DX with 2 handed weapon and a shield is pretty harsh, plus the 20% DX based CTH penalty to 2 handed weapons. I'm not sure if the extra 9 base damage is worth it.

If you were using the SoC, the the MH would make sense since you need the hammer damage.

For the MgS, I think the BoTh also makes the most sense.

Word of advice: if you go RoBF, do NOT depend on it to reduce magic very much, especially since you're a melee tank. If you plan to not get farmed to death by every mage around, be sure to invest heavily in AMF.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions here is what I've planned so far:

Equipment:
AoM, HoE, TSA, HG, EB, EC, CBT, SoC, MH.

Minion:
Evasion/HP/ST/DX (not sure about EC or AMF as well as VA)

Forgot to add, also considering adding a second minion later on for Tat, maybe throw on an AMF. maybe even a wall?

If you are going to train VA, remember that you will need a significant XP investment to overcome any DM. If you are going anti-tank, EC would be the best bet.

"Would it not be far far easier to play a SMFB or SMevasion/RBF?"
I'm coining a new acronym: SMERBF! A horrid word for a horrid strat. By the way, it took me like 45 minutes to figure out what the CBT was. I'm looking at the list, thinking "All the armor slots I can think of are filled..." Ridiculous. I'm not in favor of that abbreviation.

Xenko: I think that EC requires an equally large, if not larger, investment than VA. With VA, you have to get to an effective level as high as your MPB and you're safe unless you hit hard against teams with DM. With EC, you have to get its level trained twice as high as the (ST or DX, whichever is higher) of whatever adversary you choose to take on. And, without AMF, it will leave open a vulnerability to mages, as people have mentioned tanks so often have.

Fluffy: I'm interested as to why you picked HGs over TGs? TGs are cheaper to up (thus higher ST boost) and provide more AC.

GL: That seems like a lot of stats to train if you're also training UC. I may have taken mine to an extreme, but my UC stat is around 38% of the experience on my first minion. I would rather be on the high end of that then on the low end. I.E. I would rather end up with 4mil trained UC vs. 2.3-ish mil pre-boost ST and DX, rather than 1.5mil UC and 3.5mil ST and DX.

Fluffy: The idea of adding a second minion as a tat holder/AMF guy sounds like a good idea to me. In fact, I actually spent 50mil to do it myself. Here's my advice: take the single tank as high up as you can while still getting a 100% challenge bonus, and then see if you want to try to keep going higher as your challenge bonus falls. You want to get as big a single tank as you can afford to (keep an eye on your minion costs, too; you may not want to borrow 50mil from GW) before hiring a second minion who will dilute your EXP. I would even suggest possibly that you forego the EC/AMF, and wait until your hire your Tat holder to train AMF on him. So far, that's what I've done: I fought my way up through the ranks killing tanks and sucking up the constant losing to and farming from mage teams, and then threw on a ToE/AMF guy who has helped me regain some of that. Of course, if you're thinking of a different Tat for your enchanter, or if your strategy is less effective against tanks (I assume yours would work pretty well if you invest enough into Evasion), you may want to disregard this all.

"With EC, you have to get its level trained twice as high as the (ST or DX, whichever is higher) of whatever adversary you choose to take on."

It doesn't matter how much or little EC you train, you will always remove some of the opponent's DX and ST. Removing all of it is just a bonus, but any reduction helps.

With VA, if it is below base due to DM, it will hurt you instead of help you.

Oops! i meant TGs not HGs, i might have gotten confused with the UC strat that was suggested. I've been considering to add a second minion as well, but i didn't add it on the reply; I think it will end up as a 2 minion team; however I haven't yet decided on EC or AMF yet. Considering that the RoBF is easy to use :) I might just throw it on with the enchanter, it should help alot with mages. The only problem I am having is getting the gears, as of now; no one seems to be interested in paying the 11 USD to get any equipment so first thing is first. I appreciate all your suggestions and I'll be looking foward to more.

CC, it's no real difference to yours, except you've got your AMF on a second minion holding a Tattoo. I'm still really torn between adding a secodn minion, but I'm a single minion guy at heart. ;)

All I'm adding over your set up is either VA or GA, and my AMF will be smaller due to armour penalties.

;)