Witch Tank? O_O

[aphrodite]

i've heard alot of tank as using witch as a tank in front line, but how does that work? i was under hte impression that it was mad squishy...

[Zpirit]

Witch is flying so she can't be hit by melee except for skills, and ranged don't really do too much damage.

She also have decent evasion against normal range attacks and super high magic defense against skill spam.

The only drawback is that melee can walk right under her and normal attack the character behind her. But it's quite safe to put a viking, beast trainer or melee main behind her.

[Demon]

i use this strategy
and i use my main behind the witch
witch takes magic dmg
main takes melee dmg
monk / prophet help heal back the dmg i take :p

also considered using a 2 monk line with this strategy
currently have a 54 monk and a 41 so im not sure.

[Jimsta]

Yea, if you put a meele main behind witch and give monk Sheild of Protection skill, he'll be able to tank for a looooooooooooong time. ;)

[cfk]

If you frontline the witch though wouldn't you be eating some silence/lightning/axes and get ugly delay to meteor? I've switched it to front to replace my sword when he's low like midfight. This after I get off at least 1 meteor from back mid, and throw off an early backrow cannon stun by opponent against my monk/shaman on either side

[Demon]

Well if they silence your witch your freezing axe is in your 2nd row which will just freeze them instead

then this is were your exo comes in with mana seal!

then you use meteor!

[zanmatto]

Yeah, witch tank sounds horrible until you actually read up on it and see it's potential.

[axeproject]

if enemies are throwing silence/light spears/etc then sure your witch will be delayed to meteor, but your enemy will be wasting a lot of valuable turns and ap doing small damage to your witch rather than stun pressuring/killing your front line, so basically playing to your advantage

[aphrodite]

but however wut having a witch in front row and having a melee behind it cause a weak spot? cuz shaman heals in a line, which....the chars that r being dmg aren't

[LostCause]

Witch can be a great tank. It might not sounds like it but once you try it you will see. She might have really low def but she hardly take any dmg from all teh atks u muster her way. also witc can help break up a lot of combo atks such as cannon/arty and axe users. there are more benefit but i am sure you will discover them all once you try it yourself

[twixter]

and what if oponent have 3 gunners/archers in team? will witch survive long?

[SparkGun]

and what if oponent have 3 gunners/archers in team? will witch survive long?

The witch will probably die fast unless the archers and gunners are low lvl mercs that can't hit

[Locksley]

The witch will probably die fast unless the archers and gunners are low lvl mercs that can't hit

which is rarely the case, so the witch is pretty much screwed if she runs into a 3 gunner/archer build. but that could mean she just distracted your opponent from your more powerful mercs, whom i hope you didn't put smack behind the witch. however, melee builds seem more popular atm, so a witch could get away with staying on the front for now, that is.

[LostCause]

and what if oponent have 3 gunners/archers in team? will witch survive long?

I highly doubt you will run into a range heavy build too often but even if you do and your witch is near the lv of the gunner or archer, she will survive quite ok. that is due to her amazing skillful art of evade. on top of that some how that robe she wears must be plated with ultra harden steel those arrow and bullet dont penetrate too well either. by the time your witch start kneeing down i am sure your opponent will have eatten her nice meteor meat ball and her job is already done at that point.

[aphrodite]

welll, witch is working out well for me
for tournaments atleast, i just use patrol to check if they gunners
if they do, i put witch @ the back along in column w/ low priority stuff so it'll b a waste for them to atk there

[Newell]

I'm sucking all of this in. Great info and exactly what I was looking for. I had the basic concept but this smoothed alot out.

The question is. Should I place my cannon main behind her and SoP up my monk? Or place my viking behind her and use my shaman/oracle to heal that line.

If I were to stick my cannon main behind. To much damage? Can I survive with just a monk SoP? Could I then replace my shaman for a bt?

Like:

:swm::witc::swm:
:gun::malehero::gun:
:bst::vik::mnk:

This would be in the 5x's IF the monks SoP supports my cannon main behind witch. Edit: Forgot about brutal will, would this be needed with a BT and Witch? Choices choices...argh

[LostCause]

I'm sucking all of this in. Great info and exactly what I was looking for. I had the basic concept but this smoothed alot out.

The question is. Should I place my cannon main behind her and SoP up my monk? Or place my viking behind her and use my shaman/oracle to heal that line.

If I were to stick my cannon main behind. To much damage? Can I survive with just a monk SoP? Could I then replace my shaman for a bt?

Like:

:swm::witc::swm:
:gun::malehero::gun:
:bst::vik::mnk:

This would be in the 5x's IF the monks SoP supports my cannon main behind witch. Edit: Forgot about brutal will, would this be needed with a BT and Witch? Choices choices...argh

IMO i would not place your main behind witch at your current lv. My reasoning is SOP will not be enough to save you if you happen to face a higher lv or someone with very good equip at your lv for it to heal up. Plus at 5x your def is really low without protection. I would stick with have viking or BT do the tanking as they have lots of hp and can rotate when hp gets low. Once you get to higher lv when your def is high with a much larger hp pool, you can put your main behind witch and not worry anymore.

[Undine]

One popular setup is to put Witch on the front line and Viking right behind it. This makes the Viking cannot be attacked by magic/skill, and therefore you can eliminate his biggest weakness.

[Flexor]

becareful of seth will spears or axe that past through ur front row's witch and atk ur mid and back row,if ur unlucky that is...ur other merc will eat alot of dmg

[jesada89237]

If you're going to use a witch as a front row merc, do not put her in the center. That way, if an axe decides to bypass the witch, he can only attack a maximum of two mercs in your second row.

[Macko]

Everything in AO have pros and cons. Im going to put my viking behind, its best posibility IMO

[Flexor]

If you're going to use a witch as a front row merc, do not put her in the center. That way, if an axe decides to bypass the witch, he can only attack a maximum of two mercs in your second row.

what if its a spear,ur backrow with low def gets hurt pretty bad =/

[Plum]

witch tank works unless u run across 3 gunner or archer spike builds =D

[instakiller]

With the witch tank, it all depends on ur opponent. If they were smart they would ignore the witch, if they were stupid they would focus it. I learned the hard way -_-. I focused and lost, but when i didn't focus i won easily and it was someone about 5 lvls above me with better equipments. So in real serious and smart battles there isnt a point in witch front row. When i faced witch front row, i stunned the middle row with my viking and BT and just froze the front and silenced their monk.

There are still some points i may be missing but the main point is, when facing smart people, they could wreck u easily if u dont switch ur witch to bak.

[Ferishi]

Thanks to the archer nerf, I find it friggin' hard to kill a witch with archers. Gunners get the job done, though, if the witch is on the front line, but not many people use gunners instead of cannon characters.

[LostCause]

With the witch tank, it all depends on ur opponent. If they were smart they would ignore the witch, if they were stupid they would focus it. I learned the hard way -_-. I focused and lost, but when i didn't focus i won easily and it was someone about 5 lvls above me with better equipments. So in real serious and smart battles there isnt a point in witch front row. When i faced witch front row, i stunned the middle row with my viking and BT and just froze the front and silenced their monk.

There are still some points i may be missing but the main point is, when facing smart people, they could wreck u easily if u dont switch ur witch to bak.

I agree with you partly, yes smart player would probably not focus on the witch as it is pretty hard to kill. But the point you are missing is with witch in front you can afford to have 1 less tank in the front, which in turn give you an extra tank you can switch in the front line. most of the time with 3 tank in front you are usually force to throw a semi tank in front just to stall time so you can heal up the injured tank unit. with a witch you can swap the main tank with another main tank that you have spare waiting in mid line to do his/her job.

[Ferishi]

Most people put a character with high physical defense (but usually low magic defense. That's the whole point of putting the witch in front of them) behind the witch. Running underneath the witch to hit a spearman or a viking with a physical attack is typically a waste of turns and AP.

[instakiller]

I agree with you partly, yes smart player would probably not focus on the witch as it is pretty hard to kill. But the point you are missing is with witch in front you can afford to have 1 less tank in the front, which in turn give you an extra tank you can switch in the front line. most of the time with 3 tank in front you are usually force to throw a semi tank in front just to stall time so you can heal up the injured tank unit. with a witch you can swap the main tank with another main tank that you have spare waiting in mid line to do his/her job.

But ur also forgetting that melee mercs can go though the witch and hit the middle line. Depending on where u leave it, it gives a perfect opening for bt and viking to hit and stun the middle line.

[cfk]

Put witch on LF/RF corner and have something not too soft on the middle spot

[LostCause]

But ur also forgetting that melee mercs can go though the witch and hit the middle line. Depending on where u leave it, it gives a perfect opening for bt and viking to hit and stun the middle line.

To tell you the truth that is really what ppl want when they put witch in front. Most of hte time it will be infront of their main. The reason behind that is 90% of ppl will have monk with either protect or sop which will natually heal them back to full hp unless u are planning to focus atk. 2nd if they are melee chance are they will have a prophet that will give them additional healing. Stun is usually not a big issue because unless u plan to hit every merc within your turn, a lv 50+ monk will usually take care of that problem so in turn he is able to make you waste you turn to hit a target that he feel have no effect on his overall fight.

[jesada89237]

If I'm up against a witch tank and an SoP monk, I like to spend one or two turns completely draining his monk's MP. Cast mana burn and mana drain while focus attacking his main and maintaining a combo count on a separate row.

[Ferishi]

Monks have high magic defense, and PvP gives you a multiplier on your MP. I'm curious as to if you've actually successfully managed to drain a monk's MP completely in a battle or if that's just theretical. (seriously. I suppose it could work. SoP allegedly is broken right now to consume crazy amounts of MP)

[LtKillroy]

My only problem I can see with this is that if you put the witch in front row, middle, an axe can walk up and level your second row. Then again, they can't do that to your first row... It works, but you really have to think about how you're going to pull it off.

[Ferishi]

That's why you make sure the person behind the witch (and possible the person to the side of that person) is at least semi-durable to melee. It's mostly done to protect vikings and axe-mains from magic attacks like Flame Sword.

[methane]

The main reason why you would want to have your witch in the front line is to protect your vikings or your main since units can only attack the middle row but not cast spells on it. Viking is an excellent choice to put behind the witch since viking is naturally weak to spells and tanking to melee damage therefore it will be good to allocate someone whose weak to spells in the middle row to hide behind the witch. Another tactic is to put the witch in the middle to prevent axe from cleaving all 3 or putting her in the center of the middle row to prevent cannon from hitting in a cross.

[l3g3nd]

having a witch at front is good . .but its always depends on the situation ^^

[Ludacris]

If your witch is flying a viking cant freeze your second row without killing her right?

Luda

[Zinrae]

Right, you can only run under her to do physical attacks. You can't use spells on the person behind her. That's why some people like to put their main behind the witch and use SOP.

[LostCause]

My only problem I can see with this is that if you put the witch in front row, middle, an axe can walk up and level your second row. Then again, they can't do that to your first row... It works, but you really have to think about how you're going to pull it off.

If anyone put their witch center front really deserve to get their midline smash to bits as that is like praying for death from all axe user to plz kill my mid line.

As for the merc that is gonna get hit from the axe adjacent atk. chance are it is your other tank char that use to occupy your front line and is now move to the midline so u usually shouldnt have a problem with the collaterial dmg from axe users.

[Kelnari]

I've seen it successfully used with viking/spear mid-rows. It's just one more thing to throw your opponent off in FL. If they haven't seen it before- it will throw them off their usual game for just a bit. =P