Strategy Questions, Please Help (in General)

I'm pretty new, but I've been doing quite well up to 700k score. I have a Tank that has been training HP, STR, DX and BL and a Mage training mostly HP and CoC but have recently added a lower level AMF and SS. I have been going with high AC armor on both minions, with an extreme long term (probably unachievable) goal of cutting damage down to nil. I've kind of hit a road block around the 700k score level and have been unable to progress for quite a while. After getting +100% bonuses since starting, now I'm down to ~+50% with the opponents I can beat. I think it's time to switch my strategy up a bit. Here's what I have in mind, but I'm open to constructive criticism and other suggestions.

Change 1) Adding a a ranged weapon to my tank.
Theory: Currently I do no damage in ranged rounds and it makes me quite vulnerable to teams focusing on Fireball, etc. It would be nice to be able to kill or at least weaken a minion in these rounds.
Concerns: splitting income between armour, melee weapon and ranged weapon could lead to nothing being very effective.
Related Question: Better to go with SoD or Chakram? (No ELB as want to keep BL) Basically is the splash damage or increased BTH more valuable?

Change 2) Add an enchanter with a Familiar doing ranged damage.
Theory: As above. Could be used in conjunction with Change 1. Added benefit of having dedicated enchanter which seems to be the way most people go at higher levels. Also could train AS and get more effectiveness than training HP. Also would train base decay for off chance it's successful.
Concerns: Diluting EXP with an extra minion. Also, having 3 damage dealers seems strange to me.. although I guess only 1 of them requires money for weapon upgrades so could be okay?
Related Question 1: Halidon vs FF? I'm leaning towards Halidon for concentration of dmg on one minion. Anyone can provide insight?
Related Question 2: What EO/ED spells would you recommend to compliment my strat?

Change 3: Swap CoC for FB?
Theory: More ranged damage.
Concerns: FB does less damage than CoC (assuming CoC minion lives to deal it). Not really enthusiastic about this, but it had crossed my mind.

Any help is appreciated! Let me know if you have any other suggestions I haven't thought of.

You probably want to get a mage seeker on your tank.

FB is bad on multi minion, stay CoC or go MM/SG. As for picking up a ranged weapon SoD is a special damage but good for splash damage I recommend for your current set up. If you go MM get the Chakram for increased back to front damage.

And yes another minion might dilute your exp pool but another meat shield with 20hp training an ED/EO that takes 1 hit and dies but its effects last the fight.

If you wanted a good choice for an EO got EC! its OP!

At some point you should probably get a third minion with an ros with As. This could help your SS against DM. Also should get a BoE for your mage or put a familiar on him. The biggest problem with your strat is you are lacking a tattoo.

As for targets, you should focus teams that rely on GA or RoBF since your current strat is good against those.

Elite, is a Mageseeker really a good idea without Archery? Don't the penalties make it a better idea to use a SoD or a Chakram?

Yuuzhan, thanks. I'll stick with CoC and consider the SoD.

Elite, Can I use a RoS and a Familiar? My understand was only 1 tattoo per team?

I would not try to dilute your tank with both high end melee and missile weapons. If you are taking BL you want any money you put into a weapon to get the multiplier.

Your big problem is probably surviving into melee/CoC. You need to deal with that issue, not try to add more damage dealers or damage types.

Add a front wall and boost AC as much as you can on it. Spend your AC money on the wall and not your other minions. Perhaps add yet another PL minion to soak up even more damage and make your wall last longer, and cast the AMF or DM or SS. A 4-minion team is not a bad thing for a non-ranged team.

Also, since melee is so vulnerable to AC, you might swap out your CoC for a Shocking Grasp.

If you are getting eaten up by mages, then I suppose a Mage Seeker *might* be worth the cost, but without archery and considering the endurance dilution I just don't know.

You would want archery. You don't need to worry about melee damage too much since CoC does the most out of anything.

miteke, what do you think about adding an AS enchanter with a RoS? With an AS enchanter and no RoS I'd need +25% effectiveness from various sources to get back to having effectively the same stats on my original 2 minions, so with an RoS and corn, etc, I should be able to make more HP on my first 2 minions which should help me last longer and be more effective with my melee focused strategy. I'd also have the added bonus of the enchanter meat shield.

This no doubt would be an improvement on my current strategy, but is there a -better- way to improve my strat? Using a Familiar or something could possibly be even more efficient?

I've found that the extra hitpoints alone from a RoS and AS do not help enough. I would only go that route if you also intend to take advantage of the DM/AMF combo and GA. A RoS route is only effective if you go gung ho and use it's advantages to the max.

Another nice complement to a melee tank is a RoBF which also gives you some fireball protection. You may want to give that a try. The problem is that it would probably kick a TSA off of your tank, the nice thing is that it gives you some evasion protection against XBows and extra damage during melee.

Ok completely my personal opinion, but one of the most effective strategies I've found happens to be PL Battery/Wall, Tank (with an exbow and a MoD/ES), Enchanter (AS), (Decay)Mage/Enchanter2(Some form of EO or another ED) holding a Familiar.

However this requires some careful planning and a lot of money, or clever use of a RoE, because it requires carefully balancing which minions get the most xp (Typically the AS enchanter) However its very effective at covering a lot of strategies.




Now for your current strat, here we go:


Not a bad idea but it will be a little bit more expensive (though do-able) More down below.


Its costly, but effective. Be smart with your upgrades and focus on one of the three more then the other two, but never neglect something entirely.


Don't use a SoD unless you switch to DM or make that SoD crazy powerful, Chakram isn't a bad choice. Other options include: an Exbow which will fend off other ranged tanks, and a mage seeker will deal with the abundance of high level DD up top. Choice is up to you.




I do this in nearly every strat, I'm a big fan of enchanter+familiar combos, also I'm a big time decay user which when used properly can really wreak some havoc.


Don't be concerned about xp dilution, careful planning or clever use of game mechanics can help out with this.


Neither

Familiar choice is pretty much two options for you, SF for ranged magic damage, or EF for heavy melee damage on top of your CoC


Personally I'd go with DM over AMF in your case. It would allow you to use a SoD+CoC and receive minimum backlash from GA.



No. Keep CoC.

For a quick idea of some of the top hits:
(Oh btw, my decays are trained, I don't ever use base decays.)

Piper at the Gates highest total HP: 63,428,649 (This is continually rising because of my massive AS)

==[Largest Character Hits]==

(Large SoD hit)
[Clay Golem]'s explosive shot hit Melkor 'Master of the Fates' [2,188,344]

(SoC Flash for the lulz)
[Clay Golem]'s shield flashes! [17,679,402]
[Clay Golem] pulverized Greater Halidon Familiar [16,487,167]
[Clay Golem] cries "Muahahaha!"

==[Largest Tattoo Hits)==

(All vs Characters with over 20m+ HP.. I abuse Leadership bonuses a lot)
[Skeletal Mage]'s Decay hit Thing 1 [13,693,547]
[Death's Kiss]'s Decay hit a maug warrior [13,408,456]
[Decrepify]'s Decay hit a maug warrior [12,445,036]

(14m+ EF)
Astronomy Domine touches Elient Soletaken [8,226,987]

(20m+ IF/EF)
Satan's Gift's Cone of Cold hit The Wounded Horse [12,336,533]
Satan's Gift touches Failsafe [10,261,955]

(11m+ IF/EF/SF)
Na'mai'yr's Cone of Cold hit Greater Halidon Familiar [7,413,312]
Na'mai'yr touches Persian [5,606,593]
Na'mai'yr's Magic Missile hit Grotesque [4,335,985]