Single Minions, Leadership and PL. (in General)

Leadership and PL are the only things in the game I can think of that have absolutely no effect on single minion teams.

Would it be possible (and not theme/game breaking) to give them a small change to actually give them a use for single minions?

The absorption of PL obviously wouldn't work, but maybe it could be changed to that any damage under it's effect it would have absorbed as normal is subject to the 10% PL reduction?

And maybe Leadership could be changed to effect the wearing minion (even if at a reduced rate) alongside its Team effect.

All the Tattoo 'Auras' work on the wearing minion, while still applying the same benefits to the rest of the team, so should PL and Leadership be left out?

Interesting Idea

no and yes these items are there to benefit teams with multi minions those that decide to go single minion choose to do so knowing what they can and can't do want to get the benefits of those items hirer another minion.

I feel like both PL and leadership were specifically meant for multi-minion teams to begin with, so it wouldn't make sense to give the benefit to single-minion teams.

If you want to have the options of using PL and Leadership run a 2 or more minion character.

Single minions have quite a few advantages namely the concentration of xp. For that they have some disadvantages. Including no option to use leadership or PL. Unless they use a familiar, in which case BoF can be used.

any team can do that and do so with the addition of kill & gear slots, plus a little bonus to xp with the cost of an item naming. this fact eliminates this as an advantage for single minion teams.

i would love to hear some of the other advantages though as i can only think of disadvantages for single minion teams.

Dude,
You are tell me that a 4 minion character with its distribution of xp over 4 minions can yield as powerful a minion as a single one?

I am not typing about overall strategy, I am saying that in some cases (see Z) a single minion with all its concentrated xp can be an advantage.

If it were not, then why would anyone play a single minion character?

In addition, almost all single minion characters eventually hire a 2nd or 3rd or 4th minion. Having a character that has a super minion and smaller minions. Which is a huge advantage.

4% exp bonus due to naming is negligible and not worth going on about. Single minions get there exp concentration and the ability to wear a proper tat. The Fact is single minion is useful for say an ncb run or nub run but once thats over u have to look to improving your strat and that means hiring minions. If u choose be stubborn and stick to single minion thats your choice and i say good luck.

not at all, just as you cannot tell me that z built with four minions and using a named roe for the exact same xp on one minion plus the 4% xp bonus to get to the same but now having more kill & gear slots wouldn't be more powerful.

i am assuming before the fight between the two that the new & improved z would gear the single minion with all of the xp the same way as he is now and then throw the other minions in the right spots for kill slots.

z wouldn't be as powerful since he wouldn't have a toa equipped and this would hamper his enc and reduce the size of the gear he could wear so he is stronger as a single minion in your scenario

Ranger, consider this;

Single Minon Mage: 50% HP, 50% DD.

Two Minion Mage Team;

Minion 1: 50% HP (and a little in PL)
Minion 2: 50% DD

Exactly the same XP concentration, but the ability to utilise a Tattoo and a TSA, and Leadership.

Sure, you make a choice when choosing Minion Number. But in that chase, why aren't there skills/items that 2, 3 or 4 Minions *can't* use?

Why are Single Minions the *only* type of Minion amount that gets penalised in this specific fashion?

You are tell me that a 4 minion character with its distribution of xp over 4 minions can yield as powerful a minion as a single one?

More Exmaples;

Mage: HP/DD/EO

Three Minion Team:
1: HP (and PL)
2: DD
3: EO

We can also do this for 4 minion teams as well (by easily adding in an ED to the single Mage).


Frankly, there isn't a reason to anymore.

because single minion is not meant to be used as a main strat this game is all about pitting one TEAM of minions against another TEAM

And can we just say that roe is not a competitive tat so saying it with its tiny 4% exp bonus when named so exp concentration created from it is no where near as good as a single minion who concentrates exp but also can use a real tat eg toa or robf

Then why give us the choice if it's supposed to be 'gimped' by default?

That's not strategy.

Single minion's hugely focused XP is pretty much the only advantage it needs. Additionally the build forces you to make hard choices regarding spells and skills. It's lack of choice, in my opinion, is it's biggest advantage.

Strategic choice.

'Real' Tattoo versus three Kill slots all wearing MGS/SoC/Leadership/Invisibility items.

Like not being able to use both EC and AMF at the same time.

Sure.

But there isn't an EO that *can't* be trained on a single minion. ;)

aa, you are missing the point. the roe would be harder to grow, yes we all can see that.

a character built to the same level though and then geared just as z is but with three extra kill slots and 4 percent more xp would be more powerful than a single minion geared that way. in effect, it doesn't matter how they got there the single minion at that point has no advantage and only disadvantages if they are geared the same.

there is one advantage though and this is the only advantage currently in the game for single minions as i see it...the ability to buy mpr by adding more characters.

i would like to see a cost breakdown though and see if that is even an advantage as the 4 percent over the life of the character might get you more xp where you actually want it than the xp gained from minion purchases.

Both 2 and 3 Minion Teams can also buy MPR through minion purchases.

4 Minion teams can't for the obvious reason. ;) You can call it a penalty to 4 minion teams if you want.

Then again you could as a 4 minion team always fire a small minion, and rebuy a bigger one. >;)

MGS/SoC/Leadership/Invisibility items.

MgS only good if u have hp which a 20hp kill slot has like none same with SoC. and invisibility is only good for the main minion and leadership can be very short lived depending on what minions and what order u have them in and it doesn't compensate for having to use a roe instead of a real tat to get the exp concentration

Strategy again.

Keep them bare as 20HP kill slots.

Or use AS/PL and stick items on them.

the fact is though if z went roe to this point he would not have created the massive tat he will one day use. Big tats over 7 or 8 mil do not come up for sale that often that u can guarantee you'll get a tat of the same size u would have built if u had grown that tat from the start.

AS is a fantastic exmaple of what I'm trying to discuss.

You *can* train it on a single minion.

It's mostly worse than training natural HP though (you could mess with a RoS and AS for some reason though).

It breaks even at 2 Minions, and gets better for 3 and 4.

Obviously aimed at multi minion teams, but you can at least get some use out of it on single minion teams.

Unlike PL and Leadership.

You can buy one.

but u can't guarantee that he could buy one of the same size that it be if he had grown it from the start. your sacrificing multi minion spells and items with roe concentration for growing a large tat and single minion exp concentration which works out more valuable when u buy minions later on.

How many high level 10+M tattoos come up for sale.

And then when they do they sell for 500 USD.

That really is not an option as we all can see.

tats are cheaper than expensive kill slots though and can be bought. if you discount that option as an equalizer then you also need to discount the buying of kill slots for single minions.

i do think z is already paying to have others level his tat. he could have done that all along and ran a named roe strat 4 minion team or do so in another ncb run.

we are getting into splitting hairs here but it all boils down to your definition of advantage. for something to be an advantage it has to be unique to single minion teams in this instance. if the same, or better, can be gotten with multi minion teams then it cannot be an advantage for single minion teams as others can do it as well. the fact that it might not be easy doesn't change the fact that it is possible.

The biggest question is this:

Is a single minion likely to be a personal final end strategy?

I say no.

But the single minion can get you to a point where, when hiring minions, your character is far more powerful than an evenly distributed xp character.

And this stuff about using the RoE on a 4 minion character is poppycock since you are not growing your tattoo. Which at the top is invaluable.

all this stuff about single minion advantage is poppycock as others can do it with bonuses.

How can someone do what Z is going with bonuses?

I think we need to sit and gather more data for the next 6+ months before making a decision on Leadership and PL on a single minion.

You could already *have* a big tattoo from a previous NCB/NUB run.

And are building a new team to wear it.

Still, this is all obfuscating the point. *Why* are there some things in game that have absolutely no effect for single minions, where 2, 3 and 4 minion types don't have that drawback?

And XP concetration isn't the answer, as it can be equally concetrated (depending on strategy and build) on 2, 3 and 4 Minion teams.

who cares i say single minion like ranger said is just to get u to a point before u really start developing your final multi minion strat. The fact is if people want to wait till minions cost 100mil to buy then that their fault but i c no need to bring in anything to boost single minions u want a boost hirer another minion.

at zenai's level and given the current cb/usd ratio, how much would it cost him to add the 3 minions with the expensive option? over the 500 for a tat?

he could buy the lesser options certainly, just as he could buy a smaller tat going the other way.

i say the roe is the better idea as you can control exactly how much xp is on each team member. adding minions to the single minion later means you take the xp on those purchased minions as the system chooses.

the costs are close enough to a wash though to make these other arguments silly.

Jon has stated, I think numerous times, that single minions are not part of his plan to be uber powerful in CB. Or something to that effect.

And while I agree single minions have numerous disadvantages, they do have a few advantages. Chiefly xp concentration. And the ability to distribute the xp as you see fit.

Typically single minions are never the end game plan for any character.

The negatives of running a single minion are countered by the knowledge that one day, most likely, you will hire more.

It all boils down to how much xp you want your top minion to have. For things like a huge AS (aka novice), a large HP (aka me), a large DD (aka FTW).

Vs having a 4 minion evenly distributed character with less powerful tanks using the other minions as support.

I see no reason to have leadership and PL work on single minions. No reason to make them too powerful.

It's been a while since I've climbed up from the bottom apart from tourneys but:

Starting out, that is right at the beginning a single minion is fine, then for a little while multi minion teams have a bit of an advantage as enemy damage get bigger. But once you're over the hurdle of about 200k in score single minion comes into it's own. And for me has always stayed that way until the top 100 score standings. And then the lack of kill slots starts to hurt, and unless you have pretty huge damage or huge damage reduction you're not going to compete with the other chars in the top 50.

It's not impossible, but things like big GAs and large enemy damage can hurt, unless you've invested in HP. And those ones up top are quite often too big to handle.

He called them boring. I disagree and find 4 minion teams boring. As you can have it all on them.


XP concentration is out. I've given numerous exmaples why, and they've not been opposed yet.

And what do you mean by distribute as you see fit? That makes no sense.

There isn't currently any benefit to running a single minion. Especially with Tattoo 'auras' and the power (or rather lack of) using a TSA with a Tattoo that single minion teams just *can't* take advantage of.

Actually, I've thought of the one and only benefit that a single minion team would have over 2, 3 and 4's.

They take the least damage out of everyone from SoD attacks.

that is cute! ; )

i have not taken a stance on leadership and pl though and am just against stating that single minions have many advantages when the really don't even have one.

If zenai managed to hire 3 minions he would have the highest mpr in the game by about 100k mpr.

And it would cost about 315 mil.

I don't know why you guys are bickering right now let me explain this simply...
When CB2 started out, single minions were the way to go and were almost always prefferred. Over time new items and changes actually arose to stimulate multiple minions per character and such like AS and such....so over time CB2 kinda transformed to gotta have more than one minion

HOWEVER, there are several advantages of a single minion. First of all like someone said its more SIMPLE and BASIC and less chance to mess up. Second you get EXP concentration, meaning your UBER TANK is untouchable and does lots of damage with high DEX/STR/skill (making GA and other skills cast by the enemy less useful). If its a mage, a very high DD that woudn't be affected by a lil spell like AMF. Actually having a single minion basic build you already have the advantage in that the multi minion team now has useless spells he is casting on you that might not affect you at all now and the enemy is further weakened by the EXP lost in casting spells like maybe DM or AMF or EC or GA that might not even affect your tank character at all, making you that much stronger. It was under this notion that all the perks and enchants came about to help out multi-minion teams cause they were very very weak to begin with. Also with a Single minion you MAKE MORE MONEY AND SAVE MORE MONEY, you also have a high ENCUMBERANCE, and can have UBER weapons and can afford uber gear early on with HIGH money and upgrading all the time...

Need I explain more advantages for single minions....?
(even things like base to hit, was built into the game to help out multi-minions, cause single minions are so much more powerful)
Yes Multi minions have more variety and more stuff they can do to help them BALANCE and COMPETE with the already POWERFUL single minion strats...

Yup, that pretty much covers it!

IE.

On a single minion you can choose to have 1/5 xp into hp, 1/5 xp into DM and the rest into your DD. <---- Distributing as you see fit.

A multi minion character is limited by the xp distribution the amount of minions. That is on a 3 minion character, 1/3 is to each minion.

as stated above even more precise control can be obtained with multiple minion teams, if so desired.

Sacrificing the use of a tattoo is quite hefty and if you are relying on someone else to level it that is sometimes both hard to find and very expensive. The 4% also tends to be a trade off in not being able to fight stronger characters. The experience you can get from hiring is far more than 4%. If you hire 3 minions at the expensive option that is a 33% increase in experience.

Also you may not want to end out in a 4 minion strat and fighting with an RoE can be quite hard to do with less minions. It also requires that you use it on the minion you want all your exp going to, so you can't have your big minion using something like a TSA.

i will grant that it would be difficult but possible to do so if desired just as a single minion is difficult but possible if desired. my point all along is that the fact that you can use the roe to the same end means that single minions no longer have that as an advantage over multi-minion teams.

Dude,

That is not true.

You cannot always find someone to level your tattoo. It costs money to have someone level your tattoo. And as you go higher in MPR and your tattoo is higher in levels, the ability to find people to level it decreases as they are levelling their own tattoo.

At the top regions of the game, tattoos are essential to competitive fighting. Probably too essential.

While Z was lucky enough to find LR to power level his tattoo, I was not when I was running Heroes as a single minion. And wanted to save money to later buy my minions.

that is fine ranger, but you yourself said you could buy on for 500 bucks or so. as i said it is close to a wash with buying minions for z now. how much would 315m cost with the current usd to cb ratio?

But dude can you buy your way up above the highest mpr if you use RoE?

If I went and hired 2 minions I would end out at just under 6 mil mpr. A good bit above the highest current MPR.

i did state above that was the only advantage i saw to single minions actually was the ability to purchase mpr.

how many have done that though? for that matter how many have bought minions at a cost of over 100m each? how many large tats have come up for sale?

these are all rare events but i can only think of one minion that was bought at that rate and i do see large tats for sale more often that once in our history.

Let me spin this anotherway, no point in keeping on banging my head against the "XP Concentration" wall...

What adverse effect would it bring to the game, if PL and Leadership were adjusted to work with single minions?

PL;

At first, this would seem like "ZOMG Uber 10% Damage reduction!!oneone". True. But on a Single Minion it has a hefty drawback.

No other skill.

This is something that even though highlighted above, I don't think has attracted enough attention as a single minion drawback, but I'm digressing. Back tot he point at hand.

No Evasion dodging Minion. Can't be used with UC at all. And stops you being an Archer or using Bloodlust.

The trade off, you can train XP to gain a 10% Damage Reduction.

Doesn't seem broken/overpowered to me.

Leadership;

Lets leave this at a 1:1 ratio for the wearing minion. Quite powerful.

But again it contests with other equipment.

An AoL would mean no other Amulet. It would probably be more useful than a AoM (granting STR and PTH over just STR), but no AoI (for the only way to reduce Base Chance to Hit) or AoF (very improtant for some Builds, like a UC Tank).

And with the Boots, no DB. And no way to get a front Dodging Minion either. BoF would be better than Spellboosters for a Mage though (and actually give Mages some specific Boot/Amulet gear they lack atm), and give a STR option to complete the Helm, Glove, Body Armour set, at the expense of DEX if you chose EB.

On the whole, very attractive choices.

But that's the point, Leadership currently *is* very attractive.

To everyone, bar a Single Minion.

I couldn't think *why* any multi-minion team would want to be without Leadership (either in Boot - more commonly - or Amulet form), and I doubt anyone else could.

Leadership is that good.

And it's something that is totally unavailable to single Minions.

Would it break the game if they had access to it?

I doubt it.

RoBF only teams have no use for leadership.

True, but that holds for Single RoBF teams as well as Multi ones mate. ;)

Single minions with a familiar can benefit from leadership in boot form. They also can in amulet form but have to forgo the AoJ.

No longer a Single Minon team really though. CB streats familiars like an extra minion.

But sure, you can use a BoF if you wear a Familiar and don't use a DD/Weapon/train UC to junction to your Jig on your 'minion'.