Dark_Impact

I don't see the point of having a friend report the name. Just submit a ticket yourself explaining situation just like you did here. Support will probably be more likely to rename the group for you if you're up front about it.

His tone and attitude notwithstanding, the bug HAS been around for a long time and it is annoying. At least an 'it's on our radar' from the devs would be in order.

It is my understanding that in order to qualify for the merit reward, you have to have either:

a) Started as a villain and then reafirmed your villainy by running an alignment mission

b) Started as a hero, become a villain by running the alignment missions, then AFTER you are a villain, running one more alignment mission to reafirm your villainy.

b) is the stickler, and some aren't happy that they didn't make it more clear, but it is what it is. Do you qualify under either a or b?

The biggest oversight I see is not slotting the +def and +resist pet globals. +10% def to all and +20% resist to all is huge. I'm guessing you're going to try to tank for your pets with all those ranged def bonuses and provoke, but they're still going to come under fire, especially when you're mezzed.

Tanking is going to be painful without mez protection or a self-heal btw. I generally avoid tanking on my Thug/Poison, and I still have aid self.

Edit:

You did not slot enforcers for defense. Enforcers are the reason Thugs/ is a fairly sturdy set. I highly recommend making room for 2 defense I/Os. The achilles heel proc is also very nice in them. I'd recommend something like 2 def, the proc, 2 hammi acc/dam, and a dam/end from one of the pet sets. This is what I have in mine and it works quite well.

Thugzilla, my Thug/Poison MM. He just came together really great thematically and visually, and is one of the toons I get a fair amount of compliments on for his look and bio. He's a poison-spitting lizardman criminal from space. A series of unfortunate incidents led him to being marooned on earth, but he's assembled a posse of like-minded thugs, and the local inhabitants are quite tasty, so he doesn't mind so much.

In action I just love the controlled chaos of the combination. The bruiser runs in and starts knocking fools around, the arsonist dropping firebombs, neurotoxic breath keeps them from spazzing and running too far out of the burn patches. Numbers flying everywhere thanks to the enforcers uzi-spam.

I often start slotting sets in the mid-25's or so. Due to the rate of scaling for I/Os, you'll often end up at or close to the ED cap even with the mid-level ones. To help visualize, here are the enhancement numbers for a single-aspect IO at the different levels:

15 - 19.2
20 - 25.6
25 - 32.0
30 - 34.8
35 - 36.7
40 - 38.6
45 - 40.5
50 - 42.4

If you consider level 30 to be roughly the half-way point for I/Os, you gain ~15% going from 15 - 30, but only ~8% from 30 - 50.

I say make your leveling life easier (assuming you're not the type that races to 50 via AE farms) by slotting sets at 25+. Once you get to 50 you can easily replace one or two in each set to reach ED values if you're not already there.

Edit: To clarify, these numbers are for schedule A enhancements, but the ratios are the same for all of them I believe. The numbers were taken from Paragonwiki.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancement

Ninjas are among the squishiest of pets, and /poison is likely not enough to keep them alive consistently. As a MM, you pretty much have two ways to survive an encounter:

1. Be the tank for your pets - /poison is a terrible option for being the tank; no self-heal, no status protection, no defensive powers.

2. Let your pets tank for you - /poison is a decent (though often overrated) debuffing set, but not enough to keep them alive reliably.

As for what works well, Thugs/ is popular, though I'm a bit biased as one of my few 50s is Thugs/Poison. As RiverOcean mentioned, the bruiser is the ideal candidate for noxious gas as he prefers to be in the fray for most of his powers, and the defense from enforcers is solid (be sure to slot defense for them). I suspect demons, bots, and necro would all work relatively well as they all have enough mitigation of varying flavors to stack with the debuffs of poison. Ninja and mercs would be my last choice to pair with it.

Ten people could answer this and you'd get 10 different answers. In the end it comes down to a choice:

If you want pure damage topped with damage and a side order of damage, go blaster.

If you want solid damage but with extra utility (for yourself and teams) and survivability, go corruptor.

I personally prefer corruptors, largely because I solo a lot and the added survivability suits me. That's not to say that you can't build a blaster for survivability, but it takes more work and often more inf.

I've seen people complain about lack of choices for certain archetypes now and then, but never really compared them before, so while code is loading at work I thought I'd look them up for comparison's sake:

AT - Primary/Secondary, Total

Blaster - 12/7, 19
Brute - 15/10, 25
Controller - 8/11, 19
Corruptor - 12/12, 24
Defender - 12/12, 24
Dominator - 7/7, 14
Mastermind - 6/10, 16
Scrapper - 14/9, 23
Stalker - 11/8, 19
Tanker - 9/14, 23

I don't think it's fair to just take these numbers at base value in a vaccuum, but there you have it. If you do think that numbers are all that matters, MMs and Doms (particularly) are at the bottom of the barrel, while everybody else sits relatively equal in the 19 - 24 range. Make of it what you will. For what it's worth, MMs and Doms are among my favorites to play.

P.S. We could all gang up on brutes (another favorite archetype of mine) for being the only ones with 25 total, but that might make them angry. We wouldn't like them when they're angry.

*ducks in*
And more accuracy on CoF
*ducks out*

Please people, let's be realistic.

Everybody knows the new sets will be Carp Control/Carp Assault.

I think the end usage is overstated. Anecdotal evidence - I felt I was using less end in the low levels than I did on my StJ brute. Granted, StJ is known to burn end due to the fact activation and recharge of it's powers, but on my TW brute with 4 attacks, I'm seldom waiting for one, and 3 or 4 out of every 5 are also very fast activating.

Non-sequitur:

I was amused by the last mission of Twin-Shot's arc in Atlas:

****SPOILER****

When Manticore explains the arachnos were really just people he hired to wear the suits:

Me, "Oh, you mean those guys I just cut a swathe through with my enormous axe, cleaving skulls and splitting torsos in half?"

Manticore, "Oh, yeah, hmm. Don't sweat it, I can afford more."

Mental Note: If Manticore ever tries to hire you for a gig, run for the hills!

Overall this doesn't change much really, other than when you don't have extra targets to feed off in which case it is a nerf.

I'd much rather they do something about CoF.

I have a level 10 TW/FA brute on beta. Too low to have a real opinion on the set overall, but he's been fun to play. The end usage doesn't seem too bad. Once he gets a head of steam going things tend to drop fast. I love that the T1 is a cone (and a big one at that) on top of being a parry clone of sorts. The 5 second momentum window is enough to get 3-4 attacks in consistently. 4 generally will only happen if you can stand in one spot for the entire duration, if you have to do any juking to line up a cone or whatever, you likely won't get the 4th one in.

Level 10 isn't enough to make a call on secondary synergy, but I figure it's a good enough fit with FA, as the +melee/smashing def will significantly add to /FA's meager defensive capabilities. With all that lovely AoE he will be a freight-train of pain. I doubt I'll bother getting him up much higher, I'd rather spend the time on live tunes, but I am definitely looking forward to rolling him on live.

Your resist passives are poorly slotted. The only reason you put a set in a passive is for good bonuses, and Aegis has poor ones (fire/cold def should be one of your least concerns). Either find a set with good bonuses that improve your build goals and/or cover flaws (Impervium 3-piece helps cover the psi hole), or just save yourself some slots and put 2 generic +resist IOs in.

On my SJ/EA brute I plan on slotting them and tough with 3-piece Impervium. I feel combined with weave, CJ, the steadfast global, and Energy Cloak it will be a worthwhile reduction in incoming psi damage. Some would disagree.

If it's true, and intentional, thank god! This along with Carnie illusionists is at the top of the most freaking annoying aspects of the game. A long overdue change IMHO.

The big question is how exactly will the momentum system of TW work? Unless I've missed it, this hasn't been revealed yet. If the powers must be used strictly consecutively with nothing else in between, then regen would be a poor choice. I suspect they would know better however and it will be something along the lines of needing to activate the next attack within x seconds of the last. Only time will tell.

Edit:

I really should finish catching up on the forums after the weekend (I seldom read them during the weekend) before replying to posts. So it seems momentum is a 5-second buff you gain after using specific powers. That means using non-primary powers during that buff will reduce it's effectiveness, especially factoring in redraw. I suspect the power players will be avoiding TW/Regen like the plague, but if you're not too anal about such things I'm sure it's viable.

Interestingly, I recently signed on to my only incarnate character for the first time in a long time. Even though he had already done the arc, Ramiel was listed as an active contact and offering the arc from the start all over again. I did it again for kicks.

Speaking for myself, the issues with Poison:

- It is a single target set in a multi-target world. The so called 'revamp' that Poison already had did little to aleviate this. Even when you are on a tough single target that matters (AV/Hero), they resist your debuffs to the point that they don't make enough of a difference. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if the set is intended to be primarily a single-target master, then the debuffs need to be split into two values, one resistable, and one not.

- Poison Trap, even with it's changes, is still a terrible power. I'll be honest and state that I haven't tried it since the revamp, but I've read reviews from people that have. The hold is apparently not as good as the /traps version (though I haven't looked at the numbers), and the end drain still doesn't do enough to matter, even against minions. I hear the damage is lolworthy too. On the bright side, I guess it's good that it isn't interruptible anymore...

-Noxious gas; ok, this one isn't so much of a problem as the power itself is incredible when it is up, but it can't be up often enough to cover the overall inadequacies of the set

Don't get me wrong, my 50 Thug/Poison is one of my favorite characters, but that's more because of theme and flavor. If I was a power-gamer I'd have deleted him long ago. The fact is that Poison does very little better than other sets, and other sets do most of what it does better and on a larger scale.

At the risk of sounding bitter...

MM's have the set for years and ask for attention and get zilch.

The set is proliferated and now all of a sudden there are rumors of attention.

Go figure. At any rate, hopefully there is change in the not too distant future now that archetypes that get attention have access to it.