anonymoose

Bots/ff is kind of out of fashion. You're probably not going to find many modern builds on the forum, so you'll have much better luck posting your build and getting critiqued.

I've found superspeed and traps can be a dangerous combination. I turn off SS when in combat to make sure I don't outrun FFG at inconvenient times.

You don't want to hear about my experiments with teleport, I thought it might work well if I tp'd into the middle of the group and toebombed. Unfortunately FFG doesn't 'port with you...

Darn straight. After the first couple of times you'll shame them into being more proactive.

My only high-ish level stormie is a MM so I can't directly compare, but end management is a struggle for stormie MMs. Back in the olden days my bubbler, dark and traps MMs took the leadership pool instead of fitness, it was tight but do-able. My demon/storm has inherent fitness and a couple of slots in stamina and end is a still a constant concern.

But it's workable, much more so these days. Tip missions are a pretty easy way for lowbies to get Perf Shifter and Numi and the other +end proc, and of course at 50 it'll be cardiac all the way.

Bwahaha no fix yet, ranged pets still charge into melee. Don't hold your breath for dev love, melee pets spent years staying out of the crowd and plinking feeble ranged attacks.

However, stormie masterminds are fun to play and can be quite powerful. The pets don't mind KB, they uncomplainingly and (relatively) efficiently target scattered mobs.

My demon/storm is only high 30s and frankenslotted, but he solos at -1x6. The combination of bodyguard mode, great mitigation and a decent heal gives him a lot of staying power. Most of my faceplants come from running out of end, I hope hitting 50 and slotting cardiac will make him extremely sturdy against normal content.

People say bots/storm is very good and I can see the synergy. +DEF from protbot goes nicely with your -tohit, and if you do a good job herdicaning the assault bot will bathe the tightly packed crowds in flame.

You can say that again. Some sets were designed and balanced around a bunch of great powers that you have to use selectively because of endurance costs. Storm is a perfect example.

Cardiac alpha blows that out of the water, you can run around with all your toggles on 24/7 while blitzing a full attack chain.

When you put it that way ninja/storm sounds pretty decent. Steamy mist and the recharge intensive procs add much needed def and res, and you'd have the -tohit debuffs and KB mitigation. Oh, and freezing rain is as good as noxious gas, can be made perma, and you get it at level 16 instead of 38.

So yeah poison is pretty gimp

strengths
- taking out small groups of tough targets
- ST debuff
- ST damage
- Oni is actually pretty good, offers damage and control

weaknesses
- not much aoe damage (and none at all until Oni)
- genin are extremely squishy, jounin somewhat squishy
- feeble aoe mitigation
- pets die very quickly from aoe
- pets die very quickly from large groups

advice
- the pet uniques are a must
- spam those debuffs, this is a clicky set
- the slow cone is mediocre aoe mitigation but it's all you've got, spam it
- the hold is decent once slotted, and you badly need the mitigation
- noxious gas is great, at least when it's up. Oni doesn't always charge into the middle of groups but if you order him in he'll stay there.

I think some of the terrible reputation for the set comes from the old pet AI. Now that melee pets actually like to melee you can concentrate on debuffs etc instead of micromanaging the pets.

For soloing it's actually pretty fun as a concept toon.

For teaming it can be extremely gimp depending on the team and the enemies you're fighting. I did an ITF the other day with a trapper and a crab, the extra defence meant I was only summoning 1 or 2 pets a fight instead of 4, 5, or even 6 every fight. Fortunately we play in an age of incarnated-out demigods, a couple of those can pick up a lot of slack on a team.

Sonic/sonic is tricky to level solo, but that won't be an issue for you.

Sonic/ isn't orgasmic straight damage, but you'll greatly magnify damage done by teammates with your -res.

/sonic is powerful but clicky. You'll have to keep your shields up on everyone, which some people hate while others don't mind.

edit: sonic/sonic is an AV killer, you'll never lack for invitations to TFs or incarnate trials.

D'oh, yeah I meant x1, haven't even tried going for higher numbers of enemies.

I'm pretty much completely on Justice.

I'm sure Dechs mis-spelled "perfectly balanced" and WAI.

Although in this brave new world where Emps solo rikti pylons, you'd expect traps to be pretty good, right?

Ninja/poison is unidimensional - kill small #s of hard targets. Unfortunately, if you team, only a small fraction of CoH content involves small #s of hard targets.

It's fun to debuff Rommie, but you have to get there first. Someone just blew up a crystal, and the ambush spawns at your feet. The ninja/poison might have time to escape with their own hide, they'll certainly lose all their pets. The bots/traps will survive until teammates can help, and might even crush the ambush solo.

Bots/traps can carve a blood-soaked path thru +2x8 mobs on the way to the AV. When the AV gets scared and summons a big crowd to help, bots/traps barely notices. When the mezzes fly, bots/traps MMs rarely get hit, and if they do bots will survive a few seconds without clicky clicky help.

The only thing saving my ninja/poison from deletion is the cool pet animations. And don't get me wrong, the animations are badass.

My ninja/poison dinged lvl 36 and 37 last night, on an ITF, spending most of my time cowering behind the squishies instead of leading the charge like a trapper.

But the animations are undeniably badass, and I really want to ding 41 so I can haz scorpion shield. You have to run a whole lot of tips to equal the XP from a shardy ITF, and it's not like I'm gimping the team, a couple of incarnated 50s can pick up a LOT of slack.

They'll never do it of course, but that would be hilarious. We'd need a new, attention-getting sound effect for the summons, some kind of frenzied battle cry perhaps.

Fair enough, but for heaven's sake use traps for extra defence and not bubbles.

The rain powers check for scourge with every tick, which is awesome against trash mobs. A very common build on the corr forums is fire/dark, let's use that as an example.

Tar Patch - keeps the group in place and debuffs resistance.

Fireball - good damage

Rain Of Fire - nasty any time, but on a bunch of already slowed and damaged mobs it's orgasmic. You're slowing the mobs so they stay in the damage zone. They're already hurt, after a few ticks you get a chance to scourge, which hurts them so they're even more likely to scourge, it's a cascade effect.

It's easy to observe the rain/scourge orange numbers for yourself, fire/dark gets RoF at level 6