anonymoose

3 more bots is nice for BG mode as others have said. They also draw aggo, so in a big fight fewer attacks are aimed at you and the decent pets.

I like having a big crowd of pets, so maybe I'm biased. Those little guys mean I don't have to worry about stragglers or that 1 guy who got KB'd away, 1 of my 6 pets will eventually notice the problem and clean it up.

Looks like you've already found the opportunities for proc mayhem, good eye.

Most people find time bomb to be useless, here's an excerpt from Silas' traps guide:

I start shopping for IOs to frankenslot in the late teens/early 20s, there isn't much available to buy at really low levels.

Many brute attacks have secondary effects i.e. KB, disorient, -tohit, taunt etc. Most of those sets are dirt cheap and have 1 or 2 IOs that are enhance useful attributes. I'm unlikely to slot my attacks for taunt but the Perfect Zinger acc/rech IO costs a tenth of the same thing from a melee set.

Bots are arguably the strongest pets, so you can't go too far wrong.

Therm is great if you don't mind re-applying the buffs to your pets and team-mates. Personally that drives me nuts so I choose to play other sets instead of being a poor therm.

The bots have defence shields, and have great synergy with defence or -tohit sets like FF, traps or dark miasma. Therm is a resist set and will make everyone sturdy, but probably not untouchable juggernauts like FF or traps.

If you like therm the demons have resist shields and demon/therm seems to be quite popular. As a bonus the current pet AI makes demons behave more sensibly then bots.

re: avoiding the market

If you just craft and frankenslot the melee/pbaoe recipes that you get as drops, life will get better.

Go on a few TFs or ship raids, the drops will come.

Alternatively do some AE and make bronze rolls, they're cheap.

Run ouro arcs for merits and a change of pace.

If your alts are level 20+ they don't need a sugardaddy, they can run their own tip mishes and buy anything they want. First buy is probably a perf shifter proc, then probably a numi, poof! Your lowbie goes from zero to hero.

The game is balanced around SOs... at +0x1. If you want to farm you have to at the very least frankenslot and make intelligent use of procs.

Re-reading I see you have a fire/dark corr... if there's anything that can farm on generic IOs, that's the one.

disclaimer - don't have Mids right here.

How close are you to softcap? You could frankenslot benumb and use the extra slot for a +def in maneuvers.

Some good advice allready.

Rise to the challenge accepts tohit debuffs, should keep you alive a bit longer.

A bit of frankenslotting would help you out tremendously.

There's a lot of end redux in your build, run tips and use alignment merits to buy a couple of performance shifter procs.

Looks solid.

I'll just mention that a couple of purple procs are nice on bots/traps.

The knockdown proc in caltrops is hilarious, and adds mitigation. When I bought mine it was relatively cheap compared to the rest of that purple set.

The chance for buildup proc in assault bot has a chance to trigger for every enemy in a burn patch, i.e. often. It's one of the cheap purple sets.

Don't forget acid mortar -resist and web 'nade -recharge on top of poison gas trap's -recharge.

disclaimer - I like traps. I know what the powers do and how to use them. This does not imply that I don't like your favorite set.

The most hilariously unbalanced steamroller teams have 2 or 3 or 4 or even more buff/debuffers with different powersets.

Made an moApex attempt last night on my bots/traps. Kind of a rough way to run the TF for the first time...

The first mish was fine. You have to be paying attention when fighting +4 enemies but we had a good team and everyone did their job. The initial ambush of swords was a breeze.

The Battle Maiden fight was chaotic, we couldn't kill her fast enough and failed the mo. But we did complete the TF.

I need more practice on that mish, I was so busy dodging that I wasn't doing a good job of attacking or resummoning my pets. I did nail BM a few good ones with the PGT, which is why I was invited to the team in the first place.

I expect brutes and tanks also get nerfed hard on this mish, i.e. they're used to standing in 1 spot and spamming out an attack chain.

I was not my normal AV murdering self but I'm pretty sure that's the point of the nanite thing :P

Give it a try, but you're going to need a decent team.

I think the ideal mix for this one might be an all defender/corr/dom/controller/blaster team, they'd suffer the least from having to constantly move around.

I hope to try it again a few times and get better at staying alive and throwings attacks/summons between aoes.

I suppose it depends on what you consider an attack.

Web grenade/flash arrow aren't damaging but do have an attack animation.

Force bolt does a little damage in addition to the KB.

Caltrops, freezing rain, acid arrows do damage in addition to a debuff.

Oil slick arrow is a fairly straightforward attack.

You put down an acid mortar or a tornado and they make their own attacks, does that count?

I guess the question is do you want to do a lot of the damage yourself or are you seeking an active playstyle?

From experience /storm is very active. Using hurricane to herd mobs is a fantastic minigame, and helps keep you alive and getting the most from everyone's attacks.

/traps is also quite active, and deals a lot of damage.

/dark somewhat less active.

/FF is an AFK build, you can be typing in the chat window during a ship raid and still be effective.

Trick arrow looks active but I haven't tried it yet.

Dark Servant also contributes a bunch of -tohit.

It's not nearly as easy to quantify as softcapped defence, but it "feels" very safe as long as you can keep everyone in roughly the same area so they're fighting thoroughly debuffed mobs.

2 weeks ago when I did my latest field crafter there were hundreds of jump and run IOs for sale, at a fraction of crafting cost. Now that we have inherent Swift and Hurdle the backlog has been sold and they're going for good coin.

I'd sorta like to take some time and make a ridiculous profit earning field crafter on some toons.... but frankly I'd rather do alpha slot stuff and get all those respecs out of the way.

I'll just say a couple of things about traps, I've never seriously played ice.

My bots/traps can doublestack poison gas trap, but I'm not sure if the -regen stacks. If it does stack it's not noticeable versus AVs.

Not sure how long the -res from acid mortar lasts, there are so many damage numbers flying it's hard to know where they all come from . They're still worth doublestacking, if only to cover more mobs when 1 of them decides to target 1 guy off in the corner instead of a big crowd.

You can do amazing proc shenanigans with traps, i.e. chance for hold in both acid mortar and poison gas trap, chance for -res in pgt, and the knockdown proc in caltops.

I think sleet takes a -RES proc, dunno about the rest of cold.

And yeah sonic doesn't have the best AoEs, can't have 1 toon excel at every facet of the game... but I expect it's an AV murder machine.

You should have people begging you to join teams with either build. I'd probably prefer the cold/ice for a RWZ ship raid and the traps/sonic for a MoLRSF but I'd be very happy to have either toon in any PVE team.

If you farm tips at x6 or x8 with the cold/ice and get invited to a bunch of task forces with the traps/sonic, you could be so wealthy you'll purple them both.

I'll put in another vote for necro/dark. The recent AI *ahem* changes were made to benefit demons, but they happen to also help your zombies and especially the (previously inept) grave knights. The Lich seems to behave about the same as before, which is not a bad thing.

Necro/dark isn't a steamroller of pwntastic AoE damage but it does feel very safe. Your pets will be throwing out some debuffs and heals that are similar to your own but I don't find it redundant, having "more of the same" allows me to tackle bigger crowds.

Incidentally dark miasma is so awesome you could pick attack squirrels as your primary and still make it work.

A bots/ff was my first 50.

I haven't touched that toon since I started leveling a bots/traps. /traps provides as much safety as FF for a bots MM, plus some of the best debuffs in the game.

To relieve the boredom of /FF I learned to herd crowds with the FF knockback powers. If that's your thing roll a stormy, they're knockbackalicious with actual attacks and debuffs.

Dark miasma is awesome, never a bad choice.

There are some good guides on the forum and lots of helpful advice to be had. Have fun!

I build mine for recharge so my build won't help, but I here's a couple of thoughts:

Take tough/weave. You've got lots of recovery.

I'm seriously considering Maneuvers post i19, i.e. I've got lots of recovery.

The Steadfast Protection +DEF IO is an incredible bargain.

I like Air Superiority as mitigation for low level content. ymmv.

Get the accolades, that extra HP noticeably helps your regen.