Deacon_NA
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Posts
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Joined
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I'm going to answer the question "what is a foolproof support combo for PUGs?" not "what is best support?" "Foolproof" in this case means able to make any team better, a bad team good, a good team great and a great team godly. In my own stable, I think the character that does all of these very well is an Earth/Cold troller. Earth control + shields is enough to make a bad team good. Sleet will make a good team great and the ability to juggle 3-4 spawns at a time along with the other stuff in Cold makes a great team godly.
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Quote:Swarm missles, the Assault Bot's most egregious kb abuser, has mag 6.232 kb. You're not going to turn that into kd in normal gameplay. It's an easy choice to me, the proc goes into the Assault Bot, not Bonfire.Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
I think it would still work well enough, especially with poison trap going. Will your Robots KB knock the enemies out your patches though? I'm guessing not since the enemies will be +whatever and the bots KB will be reduced. -
Quote:No combat attributes? No but there was a little something called Hero Stats available as well as a buff bar that's the same as we have today. It wasn't hard to make those determinations if you wanted to.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I don't doubt it was, but that's half of my point. Memory plays tricks on you, especially with the "memorable" events. Often, you remember things a lot better than they really were. The more time between the event and the now, the more distortion occurs. Mostly because your brain just ignores the bad parts, but exaggeration of the good is also pretty common.
Just look at the discrepancies I pointed out for clear evidence of this, particularly the FS recharge time. He seemed extremely certain that FS wasn't coming around every 20 seconds, but I can easily build a Kinetics character on SOs that has that recharge time. Further, he's talking about a time when we didn't even have the combat attributes monitor, so it's not like anyone could be sure whether your team was even hitting the damage cap, much less whether it was happening with one or two or three Kinetics players. Again, I'm not really blaming him or even calling him a liar. I'm just pointing out that Memory Bias is something that happens to all of us.
Get over yourself about the FS in 20 seconds. That wasn't from a poor memory like how you're unable to do some freshman calculus, it was just an off-the-cuff number because I had no interest in doing the numbers. Lazy? Sure. Poor memory, not in this case. Yes, FS was probably closer to the neighborhood of 20 seconds. You win the Internet. -
Quote:Yeah I hear ya. As a matter of fact it was today that I respecced to include 5 Overwhelming Force pieces (including proc) into Shockwave and that power is very very nice now. With all the hubbub about the proc in Bonfire and Tornado (and subsequent adjustment), I don't want to turn attention to Shockwave. It's really a new power with the proc.
I mildly disagree with you on the soloability Deacon.
It can be an effective solo'er (not fire, but pretty decent) if you do two things in particular.
1. put the Overwhelming force proc into Shockwave. With that, you can get three cones going for solo mobs and two of em have mitigation in them (the other debuffs).
2. Get a villain epic so you can get a pet. You want this so you can place Disruption Field on it. Unfortunately, all of them are ranged chars (I think) so this will lessen the effectiveness of the pet. BTW, if you get a pet and hang DF on him, you will need a source of end replenishment. So I suggest Mu Mastery.
The Coralax pet will melee. S/he starts off with a psi attack or 2 then runs in for smash.
Here's the thread I was referring to the OP, it's labeled "Sonic/Sonic Help".
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=292914 -
OP, one quick and easy change would be to use an End Reduction in RI instead of a recharge. Even better, if you could steal an extra slot for RI to slot 2 Enzymes, I think you'd be good to go. Maybe 1 from Dark Embrace and use 2 Ribosomes there.
Oh yeah, use a Steadfast Protection 3% instead of a Glad Armor 3%, that should save you, oh, a billion inf (I haven't checked prices lately so anyone, please don't bother correcting). -
There has actually been a surprising amount of discussion about this combo. On page 2 you'll find a thread that also incudes links to even more threads.
I actually like it for teaming. Very rarely will what you offer be redundant on a team. On the other hand, if you want soloability, this ain't it. -
I "feel" a better kill speed with Thugs. The kamikaze is a pretty high damage minion, but at -2 he always gets diluted. At even level his mortality rate goes down (some) and his damage goes up. I'm going to guess that other primaries that depend on lieut and minion pets (ninja, necro) for damage see a noticable improvement. The minions are going to do 25% more damage (.8 to 1.0) after all.
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Hey Jay, Brutal Speed wasn't just limited to fire and elec armors. I remember some stonies, most significantly Tribal. I was a kin and remember vividly the change in sound when sb wore off.
I do agree it would be fun to redo, especially now with the sb buff being aoe. I've said it before, but that team exhausted me from Kinetics for about a year. Good lord the whining that would happen when a brute had to go SBless for 5 seconds.
As for redundancy, that would only present itself with the 3rd kin. With the Brute damage cap at 750% (650 + base), when brutes slotted damage to ED they still had 550 to go. One best case FS would net a buff of 240. That's best case without taking 5% misses or whatever else can cause less than 10 siphons to hit. This team played without the benefit of IOs (they just came online when we started) so we weren't FSing every 20 seconds like a current Kin can. But hey, what do I know? I was only on the team. -
Quote:Quite frankly, I think Kinetics goes straight to the bottom of the class if it gets ported. I'm not going to support this statement in depth right now, but Kin is not a care bear set.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Whenever people say that Kinetics would be too OP on a MM, I remind them that MMs can team with Kinetic players and enjoy the benefits of Kinetics at a higher buff/debuff rate. And yes, that's different than being able to do it solo, but we're talking iTrials here, which aren't solo content. The point is that when MMs team with Kinetics, it's great; but it's not an "I Win" button.
Besides Dark Miasma can provide -60% Resist Debuff; floor ToHit; and -500% Regen Debuff half the time. Kinetics isn't going to jump to head of the class. -
That's a good point Agent White, he probably retired his MM before the recent pet buffs I mentioned above. Bronze, I would suggest giving trials another shot, especially BAF or Keyes. I actually feel BAF is very MM friendly.
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Well that's one school of thought. It's not mine. Keep in mind the only buffs that require you to choose between a teammate or your minions are Forge, Painbringer and Temporal Selection. I'm really not interested in defending my position, but there are very strong arguments that a team is better off with those buffs on high damage ATs rather than pets. Play how you want though, don't matter to me.
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I hear ya, OP, but I can't say I'm in total lock step agreement with you.
I personally feel MMs overperform at times in trials. The pets are even con with you and aren't subjected to cheaty patches of doom. I don't know about all of them, but there are patches that insta kill Stone tankers that also leave pets unharmed. Once I get a MM to +3 in a trial, I personally feel the character is making a very strong contribution.
On the other hand, trials that require speedy tactics leave the MM running around out of BG mode and with some variable number of pets that eventually make it to your destination. May be 1, may be 6, may be 0. This isn't an iTrial issue either, this is a speedy issue that applies to STFs, LGFT, et al. Not that high level tfs require speed, but except for an ITF periodically, most players are going for speed. In your case specifically, as a trapper, speedy tfs/trials leave you without FFG as well. Outside of TPN and Lamda lab/warehouse, I can't think of any trials that are purely about running around.
On to your questions:
Quote:Honestly, I don't see any ATs as a whole that need "help". Powersets and specific powers, yes. ATs, I dunno.So playerbase in your opinion is there any other AT that needs help as much as MM's post I24?
I don't know if Serum is #1, but I'd certainly put it near the top of such a list of "worst powers". It may well be #1.Quote:Can you say that after I24 there will be any power that is truly worse than serum?
To me the answer is beyond MasterMinds, I find the "cottage rule" sort of silly and unduly limiting. So, in a word, yes.Quote:Do you think that the cottage rule should be thrown aside when you compare some of the older MM primary set powers with the new MM sets? Daemons/Beast Mastery as compared to Mercs/Robots?
My answer to this is the same as for any AT - I "expect" everyone to use all of their powers in a manner that benefits the team as a whole. I expect the player to be familiar enough, in the lvl 50+ content at least, to know what they can do that best benefits a team. In your case, as a trapper, it's pretty easy, your actions to benefit you benefit the team in exactly the same way. On the other hand, the /Thermal that chooses to Forge henchmen over teammates is not benefiting the team first.Quote:On a team what do you expect the mastermind to do? / What role do you expect him to fill on a team?
I'd narrow the focus of this a bit, to just speedy vs not speedy. When in a pure speed part of a trial, such as the lab/warehouse in λ, you may need to focus on your secondary if your pets died. In TPN resummoning pets is a fact of life. Once you're in the room with HD though and you resummon your pets, you're good to go.Quote:Do you think the MM's role on a team changes depending on the content? (I.E. Does the MM do the same job on a paper mish team as he does in the iTrials?)
Hail no.Quote:Do you consider MM's to be tanks?
There are greater injustices. Keep in mind those IOs do little to help pets in speedy parts, since the def is dependent upon close proximity to the MM. I wouldn't object to having this, nor is this on my "devs please gimme this" list.Quote:Do you think it's fair that some MM's can slot the unique recharge intensive pet IO's and more easily soft cap their pets giving those sets an inherent advantage over sets that don't offer that?
I don't think this is "required" either. Helpful yes, but that's the nature of these IOs.Quote:For that matter do you think it's fair that MM's are "required" to slot 5/7 unique IO's in their primary powers just to bring them up to the point where they last long enough to do anything in the high level content? -
Here's my personal final tally
Code:But you don't care about that. Let's look at the sum total.Acc/Dmg 11 Acc/Dmg/End 17 Acc/Dmg/End/Rch 9 Dmg/Proc 7 Dmg/End/Rch 10 End/Rch 8
That's a total of 1004, so, if each had a 1/6 chance of dropping, we'd expect to see 167.333 of each.Code:Acc/Dmg 172 Acc/Dmg/End 205 Acc/Dmg/End/Rch 161 Dmg/Proc 151 Dmg/End/Rch 150 End/Rch 165
I ran the Chi square test and the result wasEmphasis mine. So, according to this calculator http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/chisquared1.cfmQuote:By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be statistically significant.
the results we got were NOT from a uniform distribution where probability of a drop (p(x)) = 1/6.
I welcome anyone to validate or run their own tests. I don't want to say how many years it's been seen I last had to get into the details of this sort of analysis, so I'm rusty, to say the least. -
This is an interesting motivation for creating a character. For the purpose of BAF door slaughtering I'd go with Fire Blast, if only for Rain of Fire, even if Fire Blast wasn't so much more damaging.
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One: The trapper in this case is taking more than 37% more damage than the PD. That number is not small.
Two: Soft-cap is soft-cap.
Yep, that's math all right.
Last word is all yours. I'm done. -
Very well, I'll sure you base your statements on an extensive hands-on play with a Pain Dom MM. I've put in lots of time with both and based my statement on actual game play; with such conviction obviously your assessment is from field tested experience as well. So what did you pair with the Pain Dom you took to 50?
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Looks pretty solid. I have a Kin/Rad that's on about the 2nd page of my "to-do" list but I may do it sooner since this looks like a winner.
Subtle suggestions:
Speed Boost - end mod instead of end red. A little treat for your teammates
Numi Proc - That's better off in Health, where it's foolproof.
Tactics - I'd go ahead and slot that BU proc here, to get the +def buff. However you may have some master plan with PPM changes I'm not up to date on, for keeping it in BU. If you do want to keep proc in BU, then you might prefer 5 of Adjusted Targeting for +rch bonus.
Transference - personally I'd feel a little better with an acc/end mod, just as a hedge against to-hit debuffs.
I think your endurance should be good enough that you could feel free to reallocate the basic end reductions in Maneuvers and Tactics to whatever, maybe beef up Transference a bit. Maybe another recharge in Siphon Speed.
Bottom line, you're good to go as is. My points were mostly season to taste, though I think the 2nd point is relevant. -
That is incorrect. All of the resists do not suppress (World of Pain) nor does all of the regen (health). How long is the suppression? As long as it takes to use a break free. Sorry, but Traps can't come close to the resists of Pain, nor is Triage comparable to Suppress Pain for regen.
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I can't help but think that people are answering the question "what is the best MasterMind", or, as I more strongly suspect, there are different thoughts on exactly what a TankerMind is, since it's a player made term and thus susceptible to different player interpretation.
I'm taking it to mean who can keep aggro off of pets where "better" is determined by who can take the most massive damage and survive. That is basically the fundamental (but not only) role of a tanker after all.
I gave my argument for Pain Dom above, where the build soft-capped aoe and ranged and I'm betting if I spent 10 minutes more on top of the 10 minutes I gave to build it in the first place, I'd find some more points to add to melee. Then hard capped s/l resists, 60% energy resists, 20% to everything else. Higher regen than a triage beacon, not to mention mobility). Oh yeah, what I didn't mention was an aoe heal, for whatever damage gets through all that and bodyguard. Lack of mez protection does go in the "con" column but getting mezzed isn't as catastrophic as it is for Time or Dark since you don't lose toggle debuffs. And of course eventually Clarion covers this.
Now, is Pain Dom a better secondary for a MM than Time, or Dark, or Traps? I'd emphatically say "no". Is it better for Tankerminding? I emphatically say "yes". For the record I'm no PD apologist. I have played every MM primary and secondary and don't have intentions to IO build and incarnate my pain dom, which I've done with a bots/traps, among other MMs. But I do have to say it provided me the best "tankermind" experience I've had. -
I tell you what's money for my farming blaster to prevent scatter - the Overwheling Force proc in Bonfire. They go nowhere but up and down! I haven't played him for a couple of days so I'm anxious to get back at it.
Actually I'm fully aware of the changes so I'm at the same place as the OP, evaluating what my respec will be and scatter mitigation is a consideration. This blaster is Rad/Fire and I'm considering Snow Storm from Cold Mastery to cap -speed or Mace's aoe immob. Leaning to Cold Mastery since I like a couple other powers there. That's probably not as much help to the OP since I'm intending to stack Hot Feet with Snow Storm, so slows won't be as useful to MM. -
Just for gits and shiggles I made a quick and dirty build for Bots/Pain just to see what sort of numbers you'd get. With a second look I already see a handful of changes I'd make but I've spend enough time on this. There's no need for anyone to provide comments or feedback on the build, it's not real and probably won't ever be a combo I ever make.
This gets:
Defense (including 11.2% def from ProtBot)
35% melee
47% range
52% aoe
Resists (assuming perma WoP, which would need a little tweeking to get)
75% s/l (hard cap)
61% energy
let's just call everything else 20%
Regen 617% (22.8 hp/sec, would be more with +hp accos).
If you add in pet regen for the hp/sec number, this indeed would be tank-ish numbers.
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.959
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Science Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Robotics
Secondary Power Set: Pain Domination
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Presence
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Battle Drones -- BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(A), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(3), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(3), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), BldM'dt-Acc(5), BldM'dt-Dmg(7)
Level 1: Nullify Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal(11)
Level 2: Soothe -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Dct'dW-Heal(39)
Level 4: Share Pain -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Equip Robot -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(36), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(36), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(36), RedFtn-Def(37), RedFtn-EndRdx(37)
Level 10: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Protector Bots -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(13), S'bndAl-Dmg(13), S'bndAl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), S'bndAl-Acc/Rchg(15)
Level 14: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GA-3defTpProc(17)
Level 16: Enforced Morale -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(19), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(19), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RedFtn-Def(34), RedFtn-EndRdx(34)
Level 20: Suppress Pain -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(21), Numna-Heal/Rchg(21), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Numna-Heal(23), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(25)
Level 22: Provoke -- Zinger-Acc/Rchg(A), Zinger-Dam%(50), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(50), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg(50)
Level 24: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(25), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(40), GSFC-Build%(40)
Level 26: Assault Bot -- BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(A), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(27), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(27), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), BldM'dt-Acc(31), BldM'dt-Dmg(33)
Level 28: World of Pain -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(29), Aegis-EndRdx/Rchg(29), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Aegis-ResDam(33)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 32: Upgrade Robot -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Anguishing Cry -- ShldBrk-Acc/DefDeb(A), ShldBrk-Acc/Rchg(40), ShldBrk-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(43), ShldBrk-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 38: Painbringer -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(43), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(48), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(48), Dct'dW-Rchg(48)
Level 41: Charged Armor -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(42), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Aegis-ResDam(42), Aegis-Psi/Status(43)
Level 44: Electrifying Fences -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(45), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(46), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(46)
Level 47: Conduit of Pain -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A)
Level 0: Born In Battle
Level 0: High Pain Threshold
Level 0: Marshal
Level 0: Invader
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I normally avoid discussions of "the best" but I do think there's a winner here.
My vote for best Tankermind goes to something/Pain Dom, probably Bots/PD so you can get the bubble from ProtBot. Demons/PD would be good too for more resists, though I think you'd get more from the bubble in this case.
I haven't worked out a build, but it's easy enough to build up some level of defense, very respectable resists, including hard capping s/l, serious regen and a self heal. I don't think any other MM secondary has as many layers of mitigation. Get Clarion to avoid mezzes and you've got an honest-to-gosh tank. -
The "why" can be found in the MM Forum
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=293578
It's worth the read. Post #29 is where the magic happens. -
I have to find a reason to NOT slot Cloud Senses, that's my default, 4-6 slot.
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This notion that a straight up port of Illusion to doms would be op is a head scratcher to me.
Trollers:
1) Cast PA
2) Debuff enemies (PA does more damage)
3) Blind - Spectral Wounds
4) Trow fiyah (or whatever your epic blast is)
Doms
1) Cast PA
2) Blind - Spectral Wounds/other secondary attack
3) Repeat 2
4) Repeat 3, maybe trow fiyah
I don't see how the dom scenario is in any way better, let alone broken, compared to the troller.
The mature ill troller chains blind + sw + epic blast. The dom would be able to do this (hold-blast-blast) early, that's the ONLY advantage I can envision.
So to answer the question of would I play an ill dom with some nerfed PA? Aw hail no.