Opinion on Strats (in General)

I think we need some of these for a friendly discussion. 2 minion team

Front minion:
XP: ??
Equipment: AoI, BoF, maybe a corn. ToE.

Back minion:
XP: lots of HP, STR, 50k or so DX
Equipment: BoNE, full Wall set.

What would be the best spell to train on the front minion? GS? Haste? AMF? DM? I am prepared to lose to SG teams, but I think I can beat the rest.

you lose to mages

And he would beat tanks using 50k dex?

against tank I can use weapon and leadership to hit, against evasion: not so lucky.

Definitely think AMF would be the play on the front minion, possibly VA as well. AMF works well with a lot of damage reduction which you have - without AMF, the numerous evasion mages will toast you.

DM is more for offensive strategies, or if you are very vulnerable to GA, that strat is neither of those two things.

GS/Haste - neither is particularly XP efficient when only one tank is in play, Haste can be XP efficient on a heavy tank with lots of DX penalties but even then it's just meh and is easily dispelled without the RoS.

i have a strategy that is similar that i am thinking about when i ever start an ncb again.

basically the first minion i would train amf and have just a base AS. i would however trade the ToE for a RoS. in this way your 1st minion can last a bit longer against mages, which helps with the pth for your second minion.

you do sacrifice the dmg reduction aura of the ToE, however you can easily unlearn a base AS and change it to anything else you require if the need comes about, without a MPR penalty as the whole effect is coming from the tattoo.

well that's my idea

front XP: 100% Ethereal Chains
back XP: 40-50% HP, 40-50% ST, token DX, as much Steel Skin as needed

maybe add some token AMF on the tank

The AMF is far more useful than the EC on a team like that. Most important though is having enough AC/Endurance/pth.

Well, you'll lose to most high-evasion minions anyway (evasion walls, evasion mages, UC minions), so no point trying to fortify your position against them much.

Your focus should be killing no-evasion or low-evasion mages (long-ranged ones you outlast with the AC/SS/ToE combo, short-ranged ones you kill by outdamaging them heavily, mild evasion gets countered by the EC to some degree) and archers or tanks (which get positively CRUSHED by EC... they hit you for less damage because of the ST penalty, they hit you less often, you hit them more often, and if you're lucky you might just hit their encumbrance point and make them crumble under the weight of their own weapon).

Or, well, at least that's how I see it :)

Alternatively, you could go with Junction+EF and rest AS on the enchanter (AoI+DB for sure, HoC or Corn will be a tough choice).

Go with Amf, sort of like Draco's team.

Although The AoI may keep your Leadership bonus active to melee it will get killed by spread damage spells/SoDs before melee is reached so my suggestion if you really want to use this setup:

Minion #1: 75% EC/AMF 25% AS or 50/50 split
Minion #2: 50% Hp 50% str Token (50-100k)DX Token (50-100k) amf to deal with Decay(if EC on minion #1)

EC + ToE should stop most tanks but mages will most likely be your biggest problem since they will most likely pick you off before you do any damage without a ranged weapon. As an alternative you could use amf odds are it won't cast too high vs the single mages and you would be relying on backlash/your high hp to win and the inverse of the previous problem would occur, Owned by Archers. Tons of HP are your only real line of defense if you want to have no source of ranged damage at all so the AS at a 50/50 split with whichever EO you use would be extremely helpful with the ToE.

Without a ranged weapon I see this setup losing to just about everything capable of large amounts of damage capable of breaking your ToEs cap in ranged or anything using UC/Evasion. I'd suggest grabbing a sod/xbow (msk if you don't mind the loss of its bonus cth) You don't need to make it huge but at least deal some damage in ranged, a sod would get rid of any low hp meat-shields, an Ax/Ex bow would help you vs the tanks by taking off some of their stats to make up for the xp dilution of the multi-minion setup, and an MsK while most likely not being too helpful with a very low nw may be able to pick off/seriously damage lower hp mages.

I do have a small exbow that I forgot to mention. :P

Get your exbow large enough and it's instant win versus any tanks without DBs, without Amf I don't see you lasting into melee easily. As for tanks with DBs, you won't be able to hit them anyway in melee. Obviously the big problem would be evasion walls but there aren't too many of those, and if you have 50% of your XP in Amf combined with your ToE, mages with evasion will hopefully blow themselves up, while your tank cleans up.

6m HP + AMF + "big" AC + ToE can't get me 6 rounds into melee? I know I get fried by SG, but FB and MM do that much damage?

Now that I'm home from work, I have more time to reply in depth :P

I ran a very similar team to this one a while back, found that with a split XP heavy tank, training any more than a token ammount of DX for full advantage vs. enchanters is a waste. Furthermore, with a heavy AC set, and even one weapon will leave you yearning for a higher encumbrance limit, with two, you'll be doing whatever possible to get it as high as possible, even if that means training nothing but HP/ST (no sense in fighting against a 16% penalty while other tanks are grabbing a cool 30% boost from their boots alone...)

Evasion will be a lost cause, seems you have given up on it, as a heavy tank, that is the wisest route. Fighting Evasion with Ethereal Chains is like fighting ninjas with midgets... :P Due to the boostability of Evasion (~80-100%+), versus the boostability of Ethereal Chains (20-24%?), and the fact that only half of the level involved with EC works towards evasion, Evasion is growing three times faster than EC, with *equal* XP expense.

Evasion tanks are, and always will be a problem for heavy tanks.

Not sure how well heavy AC + ToE stands up to RoBFs anymore, due to the recent buff to RoBF damage (the ToE nerf most likely still not an issue, due to how much damage a RoBF does versus the ToE's aura cap), but when I ran the strat, I was able to cause almost all RBF/Evasion teams in CB to stalemate, this is likely still possible.

not many teams with "evasion walls"... Few enough to be satisfied that none of them can farm you (If you can't beat 'em, stale 'em ^_^)

Evasion mages would not be caught by EC... but if there was perhaps some way to cause evasion mages to explode on their own accord, that would be awesome, no? In the end, AMF is king. with that level of concentration in AMF, and damage reduction on your tank, he will be able to outlive many/most mages at/around his lvl.

All in all a solid strat, and very fun to use ^_^

Down the line, you could perhaps consider hiring a PL minion, coupled with the already overbearing damage reduction, it would be wisest to train a small level of PL on them (since your tank wouldn't take much damage, and you don't want to be able to absorb enough to keep your enchanter alive unless it is pitifully low, or your PL guy would be quickly overloaded via spread damage)

Pros: Great Against non-SG mages and non-evasion/DB tanks. Highly resistant to all forms of damage. High strength for decent damage of your own.

Cons: You won't hit evasion... Ever... due to you're melee-based nature with a 2-minion setup, SG will wipe the floor with you...

"I know I get fried by SG, but FB and MM do that much damage?"

Nope.

I don't really have anything to add other than that. Except putting a TSA on your back minion instead of an AC. More ST and a nice little HP regen to back up that ToE and big AC. You probably already thought of that, though.

you'd lose enough AC to allow most ranged tanks to shishkebab you before round 3... When damage exceeds the ToE cap, you notice ~_^

before the end of round 3*

It gets close if you don't use AMF, so definitely get a large Amf.