Strategy Talk (in General)

I've been thinking of a little strategy I'd like to try out with my new NCB. I've never been much of a strategy genius, so I'm sure I've missed some vulnerabilities this team would have, or some ways in which it could be improved. For that reason, I thought I would ask the community for some help, advice, or improvements.

Two minions and a JKF.

First minion: MM Mage with AMF. Not sure of exact ratios yet with HP. Equipping AoI and mage gear.

Second minion: Junction Tank. Keeps Junction trained at 1.00, splits the rest between HP, ST, and DX.
Equipping: JKF, SoD, DBs, HGs, AoM, MgS. Probably HoE, but possibly HoC.

I think of this strategy as a sandwich. During ranged rounds, the MM Mage hits from the back while the Junction Tank hits from the front (with explosive blasts), sandwiching the other team with damage. Meanwhile, Kano-San is wrapped in a defensive sandwich. MM blasts hit Mr. Junction Tank, spread damage gets split 3 ways, physical damage goes past the invisible first minion and misses Kano-San, and the first shot of SG hits Mr. Mage, usually guaranteeing Kano-San a second round of melee (unless HoC is involved, or if Mr. Mage has died during ranged).

It feels stupid and/or patronizing of me to spell out the whole idea of my strat, my item selection, etc. to people whose help I'm asking, so I'll leave it at this: I thought it would make sense to junction a physical damage familiar to a physical damage minion so that they would both benefit from the ST-boosting gear.

Thoughts? Comments? Please, tell me all the reasons that this strat is going to fail, so that I can fix them. Thanks!

That strat looks good. The one thing I would consider is Elven Boots instead of DB's. The way things are at the moment you can get about a 90% bonus (!) to the DX of your Jiggy if you equip them. That will help a great deal with avoiding hits in ranged combat.

Thanks for the feedback. I was considering EB, but thought DB might be better, for these reasons:

DB is basically like free Evasion. Equipped on my Junction Tank, it turns him into a Junction Evasion Tank, and adds to my Jiggy's inherent UC-granted Evasion. These are put to maximum effect on both because they are both intended to have fairly high DX anyway.

EBs, however, do look good because I could pretty much double my Jiggy's DX. It would boost my Tank's DX and his Junction, at the cost of him not having any minus to PTH. I guess, though, that there would be no physical damage coming at him until Kano-San was already out of the game, though. The question really comes down to which footwear is cheaper to acquire, and whether or not I need two Evasion tanks or whether I need to boost my Jiggy's Evasion or DX more. EBs do seem appealing, since my gloves slot is full, and I can't Junction EC. Does anyone else have any thoughts on it?

For headgear, I thought HoE for the strength boost to each. The main reason for this is that it would benefit both tank and Jiggy. Alternatively, I could do HoC to get the extra Sling of Death round in, with no benefit to Kano-San.

For my mage, I'm thinking AGs to boost DD level would be best. What do other people think?

Generally, EB's are much better than DB's at very high levels. I think this is doubly true with Jigorokano Familiars, what with the Skill AND Dexterity boost (that is erroneously high). Of course, this all comes down to personal opinion.

Oh, great, now the wiki's got me confused: "Juctioning on this minion effects trained stats STR and DEX, and UC. Evasion is unaffected by Junction." So how would Junctioning EB's affect a JKF? Seems like it'd increase its UC, but NOT UC's inherent Evasion. Awkward?

I really like this sandwich concept. 3 damage dealers ftw!

However, it's going to be hard to have them survive without enchanter backup. Sure you you have beautiful minion placement, but you still have to deal with the idea that every hit you take is a hit on a damage dealer, and if it dies it a huge loss in efficency. I recommend either training a bit more HP than usual, or perhaps training AS instead of HP (AoF? Corn has no DD penalty). I understand this team is meant to win mostly in ranged. But ranged wins will be much harder to pull off with changes, expect reaching melee (Jiggy damage is sexy though :D)

Oh yeah and BoF on the mage :)


Love the setup though!

"I understand this team is meant to win mostly in ranged." Actually, I devised the concept for this team because I wanted to use a Jiggy, mostly. I don't want it to win in ranged necessarily, though I can't really complain if it does; the two ranged-damage dealers were just a little addition so that I wouldn't be simply waiting out 6 rounds hoping to make it to melee. It's really my love of UC (and my love of the JKF since way back when it was still called the ToJ) mixed with a desire to try something new, and have a mixed-damage team.

BoF on the Mage? BoF over SBs? Interesting...

Well the BoF would boost both your Jig and your Tank, while Spellboosters only helps your MM minion.

The boots are a trade-off issue.

BoF helps my Tank and Jiggy, probably with something around a 12% ST boost and 12 extra PTH each. Is this benefit to my team greater than a 2% boost to my AMF and a 3% boost to my DD level?

In other words, do I want to reinforce my physical damage, or my magical damage more? If my mage usually dies in 3 rounds, wearing SBs is probably not worth it (unless the extra 2% AMF is a battle-breaker every time). However, if he proves to last pretty well through ranged and the beginning of melee, it may be worth that little extra boost, because it gives me mixed damage.

As for the BoF, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get a little extra PTH in ranged for my SoD. I'm not worried about Jiggy's PTH because UC is legit, and I'm not too worried about his strength because I'm currently planning on wearing mostly ST-boosting gear, which has a multiplied effect on him. In that sense, it seems like a very small damage and accuracy boost to ranged for 5 rounds, and then its usefulness is pretty negligible. And if Mr. Mage dies, that boost is lost, whereas the SB's boost to AMF will at least last the whole battle even if Mage goes down in the first round.

Amulet of Focus instead of AoM? Maybe. It would only be useful if I were to train AS, which I feel might be too much of an XP dilution on my mage, unless he trained no native HP.

The other thing I was wondering about it this: If I put a MCM on my mage, will that increase SG's damage against him significantly? On the one hand, it's nice no-penalty AC, but on the other, if it increases my base AC to make SG more effective against me, I'd rather not.

I've been thinking about a similar strategy and have the items. I'm just saving up to buy the second minion now.

From my point of view, MM simply does too little damage, even though it attacks from the back. That means that your mage will do a tiny amount of damage, plus get hit with loads of damage from AMF and GA that the opponents may have.

I've been doing far better with SG, and I'd advise you to consider it instead of MM.