NCB Tips/ Questions (in General)

When to hire minions?
-I've heard of:
=Hiring all 4minions off the bat
=Hiring minions at set intervals (500k mpr)
=When to make a wall?

Going for the top, retraining and it's advantage at the cost of exp?
-lots of mages at the lower levels

At what rate do normal tattoos grow?

Combat Gi and Tulkas UC stacking
-Is it linear applied to UC after trained UC*(skill bonus items)
EX: UC (100) + Combat Gi = UC (110)
-Or is it based on exp?
EX UC (100) 1,777,759 + Combat Gi (10) 92,443 = UC (103) 1,870,202

Should I buy BA any other time other than Bonus EXP time?

Starting my NCB tomorrow and I'm kinda jittery @_@

here is a table showing my ncb growth as well as tat growth. i bought xp only during xp times and hardly missed any otherwise. my bonus was 413%, yours will be higher though.

it also shows my normal growth since my ncb ended. i started with 4 minions but my strategy is built around that start. that kinda depends on what strat you are choosing and whether you need one large minion or not.

d'oh, forgot the linky.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhqtN8y13_DacF96VEVCSC1TMmgxR1BJbzBtVXJvY2c&hl=en

Use Helm / Gi with a base UC.

Use a focused strat to fight up, retrain when you're out of the low levels.

Pay someone to Gimp a high character for you.

Save up 1600 BA and spend it all at Wacky XP time.

Pay other people to save up and spend 1600BA for you at wacky XP time.

also, get in a clan with a good, steady bonus.

How exactly does the UC stacking work though. I remember a long time ago that it stacked by experience (look at my example). Does the stacking still work that way or has there been a change in the +6months I've been gone?

I've never heard of gimping, could you explain what you mean by that whole process Gent?

And how do people buy BA for you? I've never heard of that either.

an example of gimping a character would be a mage putting on a mage shield that negates all spells and letting you attack that character for a 100% challenge bonus then taking the shield off and fighting more to recover the lost score. lather, rinse & repeat.

you can transfer ncb characters so several people can save up 1600 ba, one starts the ncb, transfers to the next & so on until the cost of transferring gets to be too high or you run out of friends.

most do not do these things, but they are allowed under the current rules and some do take advantage of them. i do not have any friends so mine was on its own! ; )

Yeah... I feel like gimping would just violate the system in every wrong way possible. I think I'll stick with climbing the ladder instead of knocking it over, but the saving up BA thing just seems too expensive and it would require a lot of people to make it BA effective for just one team.

*pokes the UC stacking question with a sharpened popsicle stick* <_<'

i am not 100% on this, but i do believe the combat gi adds a flat ten to your uc. so in your example, it would make 110 the final uc effect. i do not use one in my strat though but have in tournaments and i think that is the way it works.

Gi and HG both give a flat bonus to your UC. This is most effective at very low mpr levels, but it continues to be very effective even as you get to upper levels.

It's effective for a couple of reasons.

You train a base UC, which gives you an effect of (0). Adding on a Gi (which should give +10) gives +9 (a bug) and an effect of (9). Then the Helms add whatever size they are (lets say +5) and you finish with an UC effect of (14).

This gives you two things;

A large weapon, which adds little PR.
Massive ENC, as the game sees your UC effect of (14) as a skill of equivalent size, and gives you an ENC based on that.

This allows you to wear whatever else equipment (or large Ranged Weapon), without really needing to worry about ENC limits.

Just out of curisoity (Maybe I should make a thread under services), what's the going rate for gimping a character?

That would be kinda cool to spend 1000+ BA on a 100% challenge bonus. I'm not sure on rates, maybe pay by MPR growth?

GL, it'd probably wouldn't be very much seeing as there are forgers who could just gimp their character like nothing.