Argentae

Ummm... The elec immobs don't have -kb?

Looong time since I've posted on this thread... Sorry!

I took quite a break from my live characters while playing with the GR beta. And now that it's out I've been spending a lot of time playing with some of the new toys, like my current alt: Elec/Psi Dom.

Viri is still a primary character for me though, and I've gotten her up to about 37.5 IIRC... So LS is very VERY close . Most of my recent experience has been similar to the previous though, she's still able to handle 8 man spawns at +2 (8/+2) with no bosses. Some mob types are trickier than others, and she hasn't gotten to Nems yet, which is likely to be the real PITA group for her.

Kinda have her on hold waiting for the upcoming I19 inherent Stamina change, as that will free up a lot of power slots for her... Need to revisit her overall build. Nice problem to have...

Hey CB! Long time no see!
::waves::

Re: the rng enh: ::nods:: I know, that was something I pondered long and hard earlier. I get some minor +rng enh from the 5 pack of Posi Blast 20-25th lvl that I was outfitting with and I was trying to decide whether to go with a tri aspect Acc/Conf/Rech from another set or something that would boost the range more. In the end I went with the tri aspect as I really needed to boost the acc and rchg. I might well revisit it later though, even the +12% rng (IIRC) from the Posi set makes a significant difference. Really need another slot or two for Seeds though, 6 just isn't enough!

Needs 7 or 8 slots in Creepers even more though .

Suggestion:

Get a copy of Mids hero Designer and give it your best shot. Then post your build here and you're very likely to get quite a bit of good feedback about how to make it better.

:: tosses two shiny coins in hat ::

@Renardine
Nope. It still works great when there is a need for it.

Understand that I *DON'T* open with snow storm if it's in an open environment/map and/or I can see the vast majority of the spawn all at once. Snow Storm is useful if the spawn is spread out with some mobs in adjacent rooms/caves/around corners etc. If I can hit most/all of the mobs with Seeds, than that's exactly what I'll open with.

If I can only hit 1/2 to 2/3 of the spawn right off the bat, and there's a corner available for me to duck behind, then I'll use the Snow Storm pull to clump them up and debuff their acc all to heck with Hurricane as they *try* to come around the corner.

@Debt_Magnet
Not sure why extended range is such an issue? I mean it's nice, and I'd love to have a much longer range on Seeds too, but I don't have much trouble handling +2/+8 spawns with pretty much stock range on my Seeds. I think I get a couple extra feet out of the tiny amound of + range in my lvl 25ish set of Malaise, but it's not much at all.

If you're trying to tighten up the spawns, open with seeds, give it a few seconds for the mobs to bunch up as they run in to attack each other, THEN hit them with Roots to lock them in place.

Oh, and Mind/Psi is an excellent combo. It used to have a BIG problem with single target dmg in the late 30's and 40's when you start running into EB's every other mission (EB's are a real problem for Dom's due to the Purple Triangles of Doom allowing them to basically ignore controlls for 2/3 of the fight), but the major rebalancing of Doms helped out with that quite a bit.

Drain Psyche is a set defining power that makes Stamina pretty much irrelevant, and can make you regen like a /regen scrapper in the right situation.

One of the problems with Mind/Psi, is that almost all your dmg is /Psi, which is HIGHLY resisted by groups that become more and more common in the late game. You need to learn to use Confuse to make the non resistent mobs kille the psi-resistent mobs FIRST . On the flip side you'll tear through CoT Spectrals like they were tissue paper.

I'm a big fan of Mind/Kin, have run several including a duo where my wife and I ran a pair of Mind/Kin and just steamrollered just about everything in our path. .

That said, I'd say that while Mind/Kin will certainly be a killer combo with your friend's Demon/?, one of the downsides you will have is the lack of an Immob to lock the spawn in place and keep your friend's pets from running all over chasing the mobs. So that's something to consider.

OTOH Speed Boost will bring up your Demon summoner's Tar patch a lot more frequently, which will certainly help with that. If he goes /Dark Miasma it could be a great pairing because you can heal the pets in melee while he heals the pets near the two of you. I've noticed that one of the major limiting factors for the tier 3 demon pet is endurance usage, so a Speed Boost with 2-3 endmod slotted will probably turn your partner's demons into... err... Hell-on-wheels? .

Obviously, once you get to 38 and pick up Fulcrum Shift you two will just mow down everything in sight.

If you're interested and willing to play a really ACTIVE character, Mind/Kin will be highly effective for you. Esp since you will be able to sleep a spawn, have your friend put his pets on defensive and all run in for a FULL FS boost before the fight even starts. Mind/Kin excels MOST on well coordinated, disciplined teams, and an good MM brings THAT to the table in spades .

I can see a few issues with the build above, really not sure about the reasoning about a lot of the slotting. Why 5 slotted Stealth instead of just a + stealth IO in SS?

Why Rise of the Phoenix?

Why 3 slot Super Speed, and only have a single io that affects the recharge (and a tri-aspect at that) for Siphon Speed? The +Rech from Siphon Speed is by far the primary use for the power to me, followed by the + movement buff. Focusing on the slow aspects of it seems... Odd, to me.

Siphon Power has only a rech IO?

Fireball has only dmg proc? No other slotting at all?

Only *1* slot for Hasten?

LOT of question marks there for me, seems like the intent is to count on FS for all dmg enh?

Problem with that come when you have smaller spawns (or single hard targets) and can't get enough FS buffs to do the job.

Mind/Kin is all about speed... You should be stacking the Siphon Speed icons as much as possible, who needs to slot run enh in Super Speed when a single hit with Siphon Speed will have you maxed?

Anyway, my Mind/Kin hit 50 long before IO sets existed, and I've never really sat down to put together an optimum build for her, but I'm pretty sure the results would look a lot different . Everyone has totally different priorities, and those priorities and your play style can certainly lead to some radically different builds, so my comments above simply reflect my different opinion/priorities.

In my experience Mind/Kin is a fun, fast and furious build. Great fun to solo, and a huge benefit to a team if well played. Very VERY busy though, and needs a high level of acc more than almost any other build I've played, almost everything you do has a tohit roll.

:: shug ::

:: Tosses 2 shiny coins in hat ::

Exactly. If I was play Mind/Kin and was jumping around in and out of melee, or Fire/ and just getting in melee and staying with the spawn, it'd be different.

Plant/Storm you get to pick your ground and pretty much... ahem... Plant yourself there for the duration of the combat while you watch the spawn simultaneously implode and be shredded. Even without APP's in the mix or Lightning Storm it's pretty freaking impressive!

1. Stealth in on +2/+8 spawn and lineup for Seeds.
2. Drop Spirit Tree between me and the spawn.
3. Pop Seeds and queue up Roots.
4. Drop Carrion Crawlers in the middle of the Spawn.
5. Drop Freezing Rain in the Middle of the Spawn.
6. Roots on a mob near center.
7. Tornado near Center.
7a. If it looks like someone might have been missed, bring up Hurricane for protection.
8. Profit!

The order can vary, if Crawlers are already following me, I generally toss out the Tornado right after the first Roots goes off, then add Freezing Rain to the mix. The key is making SURE you keep Roots firing as it comes up for the -kb. If the spawn is spread out a bit, I'll often use FR before Roots to give the spawn a chance to tighten up, unless there are mobs with KB powers that will scatter the spawn.

The sheer speed with which you can shred a huge spawn is quite impressive though, esp as it keeps getting faster as I get more and more AOE to stack on top... Can't wait for Lightning Storm and the APP AOE! :-). And I love how survivable it is if things break bad.

Fun
Fun
Fun

Well, not quite to 36 yet as there hasn't been much chance to play busy with PRW stuff.

I've decided that Tuatha in Croatoa are probably Viri's favorite mobs, even better than BP. I've bumped the slider up to +2/+8 and hand a lot of fun last night mowing down Tuatha spawns in one of Kelly's later missions. With just a single greyish dmg SO in Tornado, it contributes quite a bit of damage in a tightly packed spawn. Currently planning to give two more slots to Tornado (so it'll have 3 dmg and I can get a feel for how it'll be in the lategame), and a 4th to Freezing Rain so I can add in the Achilles -Res proc.

Spirit Tree evaluation:

So far I'm really kind of liking the Tree despite the prevalent opinion that it's a skippable power. One of the things that's nice is the ability to drop it *before* I start in on a spawn as it doesn't trigger any aggro. Three slotted with heals, it makes a *substantial* difference to my ability to handle incoming dmg that gets through other mitigation, and generally gets me fully healed by the time I'm done with the spawn and ready to move on. And once it's down I don't have to take time out of my attack chains to self-heal, it's a fire and forget (other than staying near it) that lasts the whole combat, even if it goes all pear shaped and takes a lot longer because it devolved into a lot of single target work.

Fire/Kin and Plant/Kin are both pretty fragile IME. /Kinetics in general is pretty much a glass cannon secondary, and for well rounded game play I think it's best paired with a Primary with a BIG box 'o tricks, like say... Mind/Kin. But then that's what Arg is, so I might just *possibly* be less than totally objective there.

I agree with Lewis, for regular play, where you come up against a wide variety of mob types with different def and mez abilities, I *much* prefer Fire/Storm or Fire/Rad to Fire/Kin, even though I love Kinetics as a set. Storm has a big bag 'o tricks and brings a lot of dmg to the table to boot.

One of the biggest pains with playing Fire/Kin is everyone (well a lot) of people you team with will *expect* you to suck as a team player, just because so many PLers go with it 'cause it's what they have seen run on farms.

::shrug::

I had fun breaking that stereotype years ago with Pyrokinthesis, and I never had trouble getting a team, but it was still annoying dealing with the "Oh, another Fire/Kin..." :: sniff :: attitude.

Heh. Trappy -> Trapper Color him Red and olive drab and Put a big Red Cross 4077 Symbol on him.

Yeah, I suppose I figured Twitchy would be more like Jack or Singy than like an Imp. I don't have any problem with dismissing him and re-summoning when needed, just haven't quite gotten it drilled into my head yet that he's more of a big green Imp with a ranged weapon.

And just who thought giving ranged weapons to an Imp was a good idea? Haven't they ever heard of the "Personal Pointy Projectile improper Piercing Prevention Program"?!

Egads

:: shakes head ::

The Devs these days. No sense of Superhero safety... Srsly Sad.

Well, how big are the spawns and what lvl are you?

As I just GOT Tornado about an hour or two ago (rare morning playtime ) It's hard to say exactly. Without the AOE from an APP available (or Lightning Storm for that matter), I'm guessing it'll probably take most of a tornado's spawn time to work through a +1/+8 spawn when soloing. So maybe a spawn and a half depending on positioning and whether a nearby spawn jumps/is dragged in.

When teaming, it's totally different obviously.

One of the things that takes awhile between spawns is positioning for Seeds... I'm strongly considering picking up Hover and switching to Swift vs Hurdle as highspeed Hover was always the best combat movement for my Grav/Storm and I imagine it would work even better with Seeds.

VERY impressed with the durability of Plant/Storm!

I had a spawn trigger (BAD Twitchy! No Compost Tea for you!) in about the worst posible sequence for me, almost nothing ready to go, spawn was spread ALL over the place making Seeds largely ineffective. After Twitchy made a total hash of things, it decided to go fling some thorns at a whole other +1/+8 spawn around the corner making it infinitely worse (VERY BAD TWITCHY! :: threatens with weedwacker :: ). I popped a green, a purple, brought Hurricane up, dropped Spirit Tree and started working the spawn. That was the closest I've come to a faceplant without ever dropping in quite some time. Luckily Crawlers came up shortly, so once those lovely tentacles started waving, things started getting better.

I DID take great pleasure in dismissing Twitchy with extreme prejudice once it was all over.

Ok, So Viri's up to 34 now and 1 piece away from having a 5 pack of Posi in Roots, DID get the Posi Energy Proc, so now I just need the Acc/Dmg or Dmg/End! Have a bunch of bids out on the TotH Proc as well so hopefully that'll come in soonish.

Having a LOT of fun in Croatoa doing Kelly's missions, made most of the last level just doing the "Rescue" 4 Tuatha mission. The one with a HUGE map full of Cabal spawns? With it set to +1/+8 it's a huge pile of flying mobs that I fully expected to be early impossible for me to handle. Guess what?

No real problem. I have to keep on my toes, but even with all those Lightning throwing T-Storm Summoning Hurricaning Mavens, I was able to take on those spawns time after time with only like 1 faceplant(which was just 'cause I wasn't paying attention).

Anyway, I've got Spirit Tree 4 slotted (3 heal, 1 rech) now so I should be able to get a feel for how useful it is as far as potential is concerned. I'm either going to 5 slot it with Doctored Wounds or Drop it in a respec and pick up O2 boost for Twitchy.

Twitchy: Mixed feelings. Helpful, but seems almost as much of an aggro-mad psycho as an imp sometimes. I swear, I've watched him hesitate after taking down a mob on the edge of a spawn I'm working on, and then go CHARGING off to single handedly assault another 8 hero spawn all by his lonesome. NOT. TOO. Bright.

Ok, ok, he's in a persistent vegetative state, granted. But shouldn't that make him CALM at least? I mean, when I'm dealing with Imps I KNOW how far they will range out and they tend to keep reasonably close to me. :: sigh :: Ah well, I prob just need more practice at Twitchy Trailing...

Carrion Crawlers totally rock (as we all know). I'm still trying to noodle out how I want to IO them, the Posi Proc is out as it's Targetted AOE would only trip on the initial cast, but the TotH and Impeded Swiftness Procs should still be good, yes? I need to really sit down and look at this one. Crawlers slotted for dmg are awesome, and obviously you want them maxed for rech as well. I really need 2-3 more slots for Crawlers! ;-).

Ran some team missions vs. Nemesis the other night... They did a great job reminding me WHY I HATE NEMS (Mind/ is my spiritual home as a Controller ), but Carrion Crawlers and Snow Storm were both super useful, as was Hurricane. Really need to try some Nem missions solo so I get a feel for how best to handle them without affecting teammates. I figure I'll get stuck with more NEM missions than I could ever want soon enough though, so why go begging for aggravation? .

Last Level till Tornado! [edited to change 'cane to 'nado Oops!] :: rubbing hands gleefully :: Can't wait to add it to the carnage!

Anyone have some good examples of Crawler and/or Tornado slotting? One cheap option (inf wise, not slots) for Tornado is Kin Crash, got +rech and the -kb is handy. IIRC it's got so-so dmg slotting like 60%ish? Can't remember how it stacks up -n the endred though, which is going to be important when Tornado and Lightning Storm are both coming into play.

The difference is the pulsing frequency from what I gather... Sounds like it's more like bonfire but with sleep instead of KB and no dmg.

At least that's what I HOPE. I'm one of those folks that LIKES sleeps, but that's largely 'cause I'm an old Mind/Kin and nothing goes better with FUlcrum Shift than a Mass hyp ;-)

How did you have Roots slotted?

With a 5 pack of Posi + The TotH Proc you should have had some endred built in to help with end consumption, and with the base dmg + 2 Procs... Seems like it would be effective? Plus you'd have the tasty globals from Posi.

I don't have any real experience with sets on a mature Plant/ build, which is why I'm asking the question . I'm collecting recipes though, so I'm vitally interested in details about what's effective in the longrun!