Why PL is a no brainer choice (in General)

It lessens the impact of XP dilution for multile minions, and every team can get use out of it, especially when backed by a TSA.

Consider a single Minion, who has equally trained four stats. For this exmaple I'll list them as HP, STR, DEX and AMF. Giving him a 25% split of total XP over the four.

If he wanted to add another minion (for more item slots, kill slots, whatever) even if he shifted AMF entirely over to the new minion, the Tank would be smaller, as the total XP is less.

The team would now look like;

1 (50% total XP): HP (16.6%), STR (16.6%), DEX (16.6)
2: (50% total XP): AMF (50%)

(A Mage Training HP, DD and AMF would be in similar possition)

So it's a tactical choice. Add a new minion and get the benefits of doing so, but make your other minions smaller (in growth) by default.

But PL changes all this. Ignoring the negligable cost of PL the example above would look like;

1: STR 25%, DEX 25%
2: HP 25%, AMF 25%

The same XP distribution as staying single, with the added benfits of spreading DD damage, being able to use specialised gear (corn for the AMF for example), Tattoo and Regening HP from TSA, 10% Damage reduction from PL itself, etc etc. And your Tank minion still has his 25% HP...

It's an obvious no brianer, as there is no downside.

The downside of PL, from my own experiences on both sides this particular experience is spread fire.

SoD, FB, CoC. PL minion dies a lot quicker - obviously - unless you put some DBs on it, or a mage shield. Even then it's not ideal.

I just unlearned my PL and against the biggest SoD team I actually do a lot better; it was 50/50 before whether or not I won.

I used to love to see PL on opponents when I was running a SoD tank!

The drawback of running a HP-less minion backed by a TSA/HP/PL minion is that PL cannot absorb passive damage retaliation (AMF/GA). Making the 20 HP mage unworkable and the 20HP tank only usable with a massive DM.

This is yet another reason why Mikel's 20HP RoBF minion backed by a TSA/HP/PL minion works so well. RoBF is invulnerable to GA. If this wasn't the case there's no way Mikel could run his strat in its present form.

On a (slightly) unrelated note, why doesn't GA affect the RoBF? I understood when the RoBF was "passive" damage, i.e. required someone hitting the tattooed minion for it to do damage but now that it hits in every melee round shouldn't it be considered normal damage and therefore be affected by GA?

Yes please. RBF affected by GA. Definitely.

seems alot like the principals of comparitive advantage from year 12 TEE economics :)

also if you kill quicker your opponent my lose one or more rounds to damage in so not only do you increase your own damage abilties but possibly decrease your opponents through quicker battles

GA/AMF

PL can actually make you do worse vs Area attacks. on koy I tried it during the free mage unlearn. vs SoD and CoC I lost to characters I typically beat. due to the pl/tsa minion taking tons of damage from the low ac minions.

Yes, PL _can_ do worse against area attacks. By that, folks basically must mean the SoD. If you are talking about FB, well, no, it doesn't work very well. Not even when backed by a massive magic missile.

It takes a HUGE minion to use PL in the way that makes it a no-brainer, but we have such teams. Plenty of teams have been run up with a single minion for a while so that the economies of scale make a PL/TSA well-night invincible. The magics are easy to clean up with AMF, and that has the added bonus of killing off the attacking mages/familiars.

That leaves the SoD for spread-fire, that's about it. CoC is nice, I suppose, but if you are making it that long you might as well just use SG and put Decay/NSCs on the other minions to kill off that lead PL battery (assuming it is in the front).

And while spread-fire is certainly the way to take down the whole team, it is in fighting that where PL shines even more, especially against magic. Fireball stays diluted because even landing massive blows on 20-HP minions doesn't kill them. So, the damage stays below what the PL battery can absorb and regenerate with a TSA. This is NOT the case for SoD, since it splashes with the same ferocity no matter how many secondary targets there are. Change SoD to have limited splash based on number of minions alive, and you will see it be ever bit as ineffective as FB.

I will reiterate -- the PL/TSA idea only works well in large scale. But we have large scale. So it's real. And all I am asking for is that PL act as true life-leech/heal spell, not a force field spell. In its current state, it is a force field. In my opinion, dead minions should stay dead, otherwise this is just another case of cheap resurrection (like using a TSA to hide in death). I don't know anyone who thinks that particular phenomenon is a good thing for the game or a brilliant strategy. It is a loophole, plain and simple.

I agree, if a minion would die, pl should not work. fb and coc work on the principal of ramping up damage as minions die. pl lengthens that process and is very unfair.

I just remembered a reason why Jonathan has never changed the hide-in-death aspect of the TSA, though... The whole "same time" fighting means it is hard to know where a minion is in regards to regenerative dynamics and such... Maybe it is not possible to really know the minion is "dead" because both teams are theoretically supposed to be attacking/defending simultaneously.

I know folks had some ideas on how to fix the TSA resurrection issue previously, so maybe there were some thoughts there that would work. In any case, like I said, I just remembered that this isn't actually as straightforward as it appears (if it is even something Jonathan would want to change in the first place). Maybe Jonathan wants it to be more of a force field, and then that also alleviates the problems of trying to figure out all this pseudo-resurrection stuff...

The SoD is a very good exmaple! It is the only thing in game that deals extra Damage on extra minion count. ;)

FB and CoC don't count, as their Damage is the same spread or concentrated. PL will always be better as it gives you a 10% reduction versus all the PLed spread damage.

It's true that 20 HP minions will die to GA, but this itself can be combated a little by VA if you're a Tank.

Or DM. >;)