More strategy ideas (in General)

Cut this one up, the other thread was fun :)

4 minion team wearing an RoE until 5 mil mpr. (or hiring 3 minions @ 5 mil mpr, same effect with 1 big minion and 3 smaller ones)

@ 5 mil mpr

Minion 1 - RoE sometimes to get up to 1 mil DM
Minion 2 - 33% HP up to 5 mil HP, rest FB
Minion 3 - Meat for now
Minion 4 - Meat for now

>5 mil mpr

Minion 1 - 100% DM base SS wearing RoS
Minion 2 - Some PL, some amf, 100% AS
Minion 3 - 100% FB
Minion 4 - < minion 2 PL, some amf, 100% AS

Minion 1 has AoI and BoF. Minion 2 has an AoI as well. Minion 3 wears a full wall set, and depending on ability to survive ranged rounds might drop tulkas for AG or NSC, and a shadow cloak for a CoI.

It would take a 15 mil+ DM to take out the SS, and is immune to a big EC, Ax/Exbow drain, and all forms of physical ranged combat. GA won't make a dent in the armor, and AMF shouldn't be able to knock out the mage. The VB and ES will suck in melee, but it's a pretty huge FB casting away for quite a few rounds. It should be able to outlast other mage teams, even without a big AMF.

Fireball sucks wind. It was over-nerfed and became useless at higher levels. It is supposed to be a quick kill spell, but doesn't dish out enough damage to kill anything. Your other minions support a long battle strategy, so even if the fireball WAS able to quick kill a third string enchanter, which it isn't, the strategy is all wrong.

You would be better suited to adding another damaging minion or familiar than all that AS and a RoS. I suggest trading the RoS in for another quick killer - perhaps a fire familiar (meh), a steel familiar (marginally better), or a halidan familiar.

Alternatively, stick with the RoS and AS and go for Cone of Cold or Shocking Grasp instead of Fireball.

I agree on Fireball being a poor choice. You would be best off with SG but you will take a healthy chunk of damage from AMf without NSCs.

You will also have a rough time with encumbrance on the mage since AS doesn't grant any like trained HP does.

Few problems....

1. To do an RoE strategy for the start, there are better initial start-ups that can squeeze out more exp through higher reward fights.

2. RoE strategy start becoming less effective from a growth point of view around 2-3 million MPR (at least when I was running NCBs but basically starts occurring around the "dead zone"). Switching to a huge normal tattoo will see a massive jump in exp rewards due to the increased fight bonus, ability to defeat higher MPR teams, and because your MPR will be higher, allowing you access to higher rewards.

3. Assuming you did not mind a low growth NCB and stuck with the RoE simply for the tailored exp values, then I would have to agree with the others and say there are way better choices than FB.

If you wanted mage, going CoC or SG would be better (especially since FB will hit your team and tax your PLs in melee rounds). However, I think the classic RoBF setup would probably be better overall.

Either-way, the strategy is going to have a hard time with ranged focus damage teams. You will probably have to put minion 3 in the front to tank ELBs/SoDs with his armor, but then he will get fried by SG/EF so you might have to invest in a huge DBs on the DM guy and hope he has enough ENC for them.

P.S. You would not be able to use AMF with how much DM you are running so the huge EFs roaming around will fry you.

All valid points.

I guess I could go with CoC and just ride out the ranged rounds. Bow users wouldn't really pose much of a threat, since the mage/wall would soak most everything and get what does get through absorbed through PL.

The amf backlash worries me, since it is obscene on CoC. I had SG on my old 5 mil mpr character and never really liked it :)

I hate the RoBF. So there is some unfair bias there.

I never thought about enc issues, great point!

It is funny how ENC was implemented to stop massive USD funded physical damage dealers but now hurts mages the most.

DD spells should give more ENC.