My strat is trash... (in General)

can anyone give me some pointers? Besides what I have equipped, I have a Blade of Thur, an enforcers xbow, and most of the tattoos/runes, lvl 20.

I can't compete with folks my level at all.

I'd say the biggest issue you have is survivability.

The cone of cold requires that you survive a long time. What you need is a decent wall in front with heavy armor to survive the archers and a big antimagic field to survive a magic missile/fireball attack. A wall is a bit expensive but extremely important to a strategy like yours.

I might also consider trading in your ice familiar for a Rune of Balrog Flame which is not vulnerable to anti-magic fields.

A melee minion is a tough minion to use effectively, if even possible. They were severely nerfed and take far too long to do enough damage to be useful.

If I could do so I would reduce the damage from everything except the fireball, melee, and perhaps magic missile to lengthen combat. All three of these were nerfed to far at one point.

Another thing. If you are facing challenges from blowback from anti-magic fields or guardian angels, remember that one big damaging minion is much better than two of of half the size. And the Noldorin Spellcasters are your friend. I think that your strat would be better served with one minion as a wall and one minion with a RoBF and Cone of Cold. No third minion. If you must have a third minion use it for anti-magic field and Steel Skin instead of Ablative Shield to boost armor class. You are not looking for a quick kill.

miteke is spot on. another popular alternative is to slap on a rune of solitude onto your enchanter for a huge boost to survivability. i personally recommend bloodlust on your tank to maximize damage output if you plan on using a melee weapon; it increases damage output by a lot!

Thanks for the ideas. Mulling over the best ways to go about this. Looking like all the money I put into my BoNE and purchasing the Thur was a waste lol. As well as a bunch of the gear boosting dx and str

Yes, a RoS is also nice for that strat. Another nice feature about the RoS is that it allows you to use dispel magic AND anti-magic field without the one cancelling the other. The DM helps with the guardian angel issues and a host of other things. I would still consider the RoBF though. It has some very nice features too, such as damage that is nearly impossible to counter and a bonus to evasion. You will still need that wall. No getting around that (double meaning intended).

Before switching to Cone of cold, i was running fireball, but taking insane damage from it on all minions.

Fireball does damage to every minion, including your own if the battle reaches melee. Back when it did decent damage you could make it work. Nowadays it is just a pretty way to commit suicide. At least at the upper levels of play. It might still be effective at low levels. Some spells do not scale well.

looking at turning my mage into MM with a RoBF, the tank into pure HP/phantom link, and the melee into the AMF / SS. Any downsides to these changes?

Only one I can think of is that your strat will be vulnerable to high AMF/GA teams, since you are putting your RoBF on your mage. If the mage dies due to backlash/retaliation, then all your damage output will be lost.

I would use the cone of cold over the MM, or perhaps an shocking grasp. The MM spell does not do a lot of damage and its main strength is getting off a some quick shots at the back end minion. Great against low HP minions that do lots of damage but hide in the back. But with a RoBF your strat is more long term and CoC and SG compliment that nicely.

So I'm not ready to throw away my 3rd minion yet, he has a lot of exp lol. I'm not sure how SS would work on him as he isn't the wall. Would I train him like 1/16 SS, 7/16th hp, 1/2 amf?

My suggestion.
1st minion: train nearly 100% hit points, train the skill armor proficiency, and get an adam, plus all the items that give the best AC bonus. Pour all your money into the armor.

2nd minion: train steel skin, AMF, phantom link, and hitpoints. Equip the RoBF and equipment that gives a bonus to your AMF. Particularly a nice Corn.

3rd minion: train CoC or Shocking Grasp and hitpoints. No skill needed. Get some Noldorin Spellcasters and other equipment that boosts the spell.


Do NOT be afraid to retrain your minions. Keep them and all that most of that nice experience, but for goodness sakes retrain them and loose the melee weapon.

I don't understand how that setup works exactly. Why put the SS on the second minion when the the first minion has all the AC. AND why PL on the second minion. Don't I want the first minion, my wall, to take all the damage?

SS is an enchant defense spell and is actually cast on all your minions. A wall does not need to use phantom link to be effective, as using wall armor actually diminishes the effectiveness of phantom link. It may actually not be too wise to put your RoBF on a phantom wall, since you want it to stay alive as much as possible to do damage. You could actually not train phantom link at all and still have an effective Wall/Enchanter(RoBF)/Mage composition.

Sweet that makes sense.

I think the way your doing it is better then mine. 3 minions seems a lot more solid since you have the added wall and hp dispersal to survive against the mages. I'm trying it with 2 minions and I already realize that the big fireball mages and shocking grasp or electric familiars still kill me, and i see way more of those then physical attacks around here.

I'm surprised. You have to have an absolutely enormous AMF with that build and you are still getting wiped by fireballs?

Aha, banggang, you are using a RoBF as your sole damage dealer. This tattoo has some really nice features but it does not deal a lot of damage. Furthermore the damage it does is not tied to the PR of your minion. There is absolutely no advantage for you to stick to 2 minions. The 2 minion suggestion was mostly for a cone of cold build. For you, a third or even fourth minion makes more sense.

Another thing I've seen folks do that is really effective is to put a trollskin armor on a minion with PL since the armor allows you to regenerate damage the PL sucks away. So armored minion up front, TS minion with PL second, and damage dealer in the back. Sometimes a 4th minion with ablative shield.

Another note. The thing about tattoos is that they do not keep up with your minions. For example an electric familiar will do less damage and have less hit points than a similar minion. You may have noticed that your max tattoo level is slowly creeping further and further ahead of your actual tattoo level. Way back, when there were more players and you could not reink your tattoo, there used to be quite the business in helping others upgrade their tattoos.

I say this because, banggang, your strat relies on the damage of your tattoo alone. At some point you will begin to realize that it is just not producing enough damage. The tat would be great on a lower level character, but you will probably find it is just not good enough to satisfy your main character.

I think I probably will end up adding a 3rd minion pretty soon, don't really think I can afford one just yet lol. I was reading someones strategy though and I really like the idea of adding and UC minion upfront with an exbow, or maybe just an ablative shield PL wall.