Deacon_NA

The Tank I play has the same pri/sec/app as the OP's.

I went down the soft-cap s/l and (hopefully) psi def path.

I'm in phase 2 of that. The first phase, I got psi def just over 45% def. However, that required build compromises I was not content to live with. Most notably, taking a pet, slotting it with a full purple set (5% psi def) but finding it to be of little to no use in practical gameplay. So I went to Energy Master and 6 slotted Miracle, which lowered psi def to about 42% but I was more pleased with the utility of the powers I took from Energy.

So this is still a s/l capped build with 1 foe in range, capped to all others with 2 (maybe 3 for one pair of dmg types) foes. This has served me very well and I have no intention to change.

What I am planning to do though, is make a "heavy assault" build for when I'm on a buff heavy team, but that's for another day.

Wow, that's amazing. I was content with TG's radius and never found it too problematic, I just had to position myself appropriately. Now... gosh...

I have a text file I copy/paste from.

I divide the team into pairs based on the order shown on the team window. Player 1 with player 2, player 3 with player 4, etc. If there's an odd number, the "toughest" goes solo.

When the team finishes the Envoy mission in Perez, I start copy/pasting team assignments with zones and mobs. The direction is to kill CoT as you move to your zone.

I try to keep the directions as simple and easy to understand as possible. No offense but some of you people have the attention span of a mayfly. Once a team begins their hunt in a zone, that's when I give directions on their next zone. Good lord it's inevitable if I say "Team 1 go to KR, Boom and FF" that I'll hear "where do I go after KR". So I give one assignment at a time.

I think it was mentioned above, but one tip is to assign IP to the TV team. Once you go through the gate back into IP, there's tons of Tsoo and Family just to your left and on to the bridge.

Just chiming in with a "no".

Perhaps I'm too jaded from villain epic pets, of which there are also 4, that I'm used to 4 options, none of which are terribly appealing to me.

I once did what you're intending to do. That is, I made a MM I had no long-term ambitions for on a previously unused (by me at least) server. Actually I've done that twice - once for Demons/Storm and another for Thugs/Poison.

The Thugs/Poison was certainly viable as a soloing build. It scales up (higher difficulty) not out (increased mob size), due entirely to Poison. Thugs can scale up and/or out, but Poison needs a small number of mobs. I think this pairing satisfies the criteria you gave for your preferred playstyle, such as no buffing and the ability to debuff from range.

I do want to say that I don't like Poison in its current state and that's why I can't even tell you what server he's on, it's been so long since I played him. That's not to say I regret leveling up that guy, far from it, I like seeing firsthand what various powersets do and you'll get to do Poison with a MM.

As for choosing among those 3 primaries, I'd say Mercs is only for someone determined to play a military/mercenary concept. Necro is fine and the ghost pet (utility power) is neat. I do think the performance of Thugs is a notch above either of those. Thugs also is, to me, the best pairing for Poison because the top tier pet naturally goes to melee, which is good for that T9 debuff from Poison (forgot the name).

I would have tried to recommend a pairing for someone that doesn't like MMs, but I wasn't certain why you didn't like them.

Eyeballs actually have ludicrous to-hit. Maybe there's accuracy too, but they hit through defense.

The same secondary for both?

2 come to mind right away for good stacking:

Pain Dom
Traps

Pain Dom because of Suppress Pain (+Regen) and World of Pain (Resists to all and more). If you get both pet resist ios and both pet defense ios, your Thugs will have very high def (assuming 2 maneuvers from the MMs), high resists and high regen. Even the Arsonist(s) might survive a whole mission.

Traps because 2 FFGs + 2 Maneuvers get you each to 38% def to all before you start adding bonuses and other def boosts. 2x Acid + 2x Poison means things die FAST. What things? ALL THINGS - AVs, GMs, etc.

Another consideration would be 2 Storms, just because 2 Freezing Rains is that much win.

I don't have much to say really. I have a Fire/Sonic troller that is my "favorite character" in concept but not play. That is to say, I like the backstory/basis more than any other I've made. Unfortunately, he's got 2 strikes 1) very difficult to play outside of the original purpose I made for him (assistant farmer to a fire/kin) 2) and most importantly, I've abandoned his server (Freedom).

Still, "fixing" him for general play is on my to-do list, on about the 2nd page, but on the list nonetheless.

Really only 1 comment, a 2-parter. One recharge in Sonic Cage is enough to keep a target perma-caged (26 seconds versus 22 seconds). Also, do you have a specific target in mind that takes > mag 12.4 but < mag 14.5, because that's what the 3rd Endoplasm gives you. I'm picking on Sonic Cage because I do think if you move 2 slots from Cage to Tough you could put Ribosomes in those 2 slots and get your s/l resists to 40%, which ain't too shabby.

Still, very nicely done and I do think that looks very playable.

A small point to help endurance wise might be to switch to an End Redux in Clarity instead of Rch. I always put End Red in it, at least. Not a big deal.

I'll keep your build handy for when I get to my Fire/Sonic. I don't imagine I'll buy him Ragnarok's, Apocs or Armeggedons, but I'm sure I could take your build as is and use some cheaper alternatives that will make my guy more playable than he is.

One last thing I noticed, your net endurance (recovery - drain) actually increases if you use Scir Dervish dmg/end and acc/dmg/end instead of your Eradication slotting. Current Hot Feet slotting is light on Endurance Reduction.

I went to t3 Cardiac (whatever Endurance is), THEN did my analysis of which was the best route (when Mids was updated for Alphas). Now I'm heading in a different direction, forgot all the names, but the Accuracy/Def/Taunt t4 is what I'm going for now.

I shifted direction because I was quite disappointed with the net gain in resists. The endurance is VERY nice though. I run FA and the blue bar just does not move. The additional Def is small, but lowers the number of foes needed to soft-cap from 3 to 2 for 1 pair of damage types and from 2 to 1 for another pair (I forget which ones) and I thought that would be worthwhile.

Hmm, before even looking at the list, I thought of (in no order at all)

Miller/Janson DD
David/x - Hulk
Simonson Thor
Byrne - FF
Byrne - Alpha Flight

After looking at the list I'd also add:

Englehart/Rogers/Rubinstein Silver Surfer

I ended up voting for Simonson's Thor. That was some epic stuff. In fact, now that I think of it, it was one of these issues that brought me back into comics, when Thor was fighting the Celestials. I had stopped collecting for over a decade, saw this in a store and decided to read it there on the spot, to see what Thor was up to. From there I was hooked.

Note - I see "Strikeforce Morituri" is one of the choices. In Manticore's TF, Hopkins says something like "Taskforce *name*? More like Taskforce Morituri."

Pre-inherent fitness, I used to slot it in Aid Other for MMs that didn't take the Fitness pool. Also I've slotted Numi in Aid Other when chasing the ranged def bonus as well.

My apologies MajorDecoy, I underestimated how precise my wording needed to be. I should indeed have stated "base damage" instead of "damage" so as not to confuse the MajorDecoys of the world.

Everything in that post was simply illustrative to make the point that a MM gets less from using an inspiration than other non-pet centric ATs. That's it, the details were not intended to be precise.

MajorDecoy, you may want to check out the below link about how inspirations work.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Inspirations

Hope it helps!

As to insps being overpowered for MMs, let's say, for simplicity, that each tier does 1/3 damage (I have no idea how close this is to true)

That would mean boss pet does 1/3 damage of your total damage
a lieut pet does 1/6 of your total damage
a minion pet does 1/9 of your total damage

If I'm playing a Scrapper, or a Brute, or every other AT that does their own damage and I consume a T1 red inspiration, my total damage increases by 25% for 60 seconds.

If I'm playing an MM and I drop a T1 red insp on my boss pet (best case) my total damage increases by 1/3 * (.25) = 8.33333%.

If I put in on a minion pet (say, Arsonist) I get 1/9 * .25 = a whopping 2.7% damage increase, almost 10% of what other ATs get.

In no way is inspiration consumption by MMs "fair". I'm not going to make this a "cause" but the discrepancy is very real.

I have never, ever witnessed "heal aggro". Never.

The more likely scenario with Recluse is you got caught too close to one of his PBAOE(s) and/or when the Tanks hp took a dive, he focused more on chewing insps/self healing than continuing to taunt.

The "experienced" tf leaders are quite simply, in a word, wrong. I'm going to suspect this "heal aggro" is more that when they use AP, they get hit by other aoes and are unable to heal back due to using AP.

People in this game seem to have some phobia of missing that supersedes facts and reason.

"Enough" accuracy is a number such that you have a 95% final chance of hitting a mob. What it takes to get to 95% varies by mob level, mob defenses and their ability to debuff your to-hit.

Final to-hit is (min(.95, (1+acc mods) * (min(.95, BaseToHit + ToHit buffs - ToHit debuffs)))). Please don't bother to point out that I didn't include the .05 min chance to hit, we're talking about maximizing here.

Here are BaseToHit for levels conning above you

0 - .75
1 - .65
2 - .56
3 - .48
4 - .39

Assuming no to-hit buffs or debuffs, you'd need Accuracy of

0 0.266666667
1 0.461538462
2 0.696428571
3 0.979166667
4 1.435897436

Kismet, Tactics, Focused Accuracy all have a significant impact and will lower the necessary accuracy.

I'm not crunching any more numbers, but the means to compute "enough" given other to-hit buffs or global accuracy are provided.

As mentioned "worth" will be relative to your wealth. If you're sitting on 350M and don't intend to earn more (which I guess means quitting the game) and don't want to earn A-merits, then no, it's probably not "worth" it.

To me, Miracle and Numi go into any build, with some exceptions, such as former stamina-less builds, which just get the Numina. Regen Tissue is only for high HP (e.g. Tank/Brute) toons that don't have a quickly recharging heal. So, my Inv tank for example, does use it. Conversely I wouldn't use it in Dark Armor, Fiery Armor or Regen.

Just curious, what's the scenario where "arctic fog isn't the best power to use"? The only one I can think of is escorting a hostage, in which case you won't use the Stealth IO either.

Personally I'd never skip Terrify and the easy choice to switch out would be Snow Storm.

No Accuracy in Benumb is chancey. The sort of targets you want this to hit happen to be the ones that are hardest to hit.

I don't have Mids at the moment, and in general, I don't use pvp ios, so i don't know what Glad Net does, bonus-wise. For me, Dominate always gets 4 Bas Gaze + acc/dmg HO + dmg/mez HO since it's something I spam, I figure I might as well make it damaging.

Heat Loss slotting, to be honest, makes me sad a little. If you do want just the one slot, go with a Recharge. The chance for endurance, on a power that grants limitless endurance, might as well be the chance for stun. That's a power I want available asap and I'd slot that out over say, Infrigidate.

Because you have a lot of - kb slotted, I suggest the Winter's Gift io in Recall Friend over BotZ -kb. Slow and -rch resistances are very nice when stacked with Arctic Fog's own. Very nice.

Conserve Power is something I think would sit unused in your tray, in case you have something you'd rather take.

Like I said, I don't have Mids available at the moment so I can't see the big picture, but that's from a quick glance over lunch at the desk.

Definitely not, at least not as an absolute "must have for all characters".

I'll list a few of mine, off the top of my head, that don't have it.

Sonic/Sonic Def - Only Liquefy really benefits from recharge and the /Sonic blasts are very quick to recharge.

DB/WP Scrap - Hasten for WP has no value whatsoever. I guess for the self-rez. The DB chains are seemless as is.

Crab - global recharge is high for my crab. With a seamless aoe and st attack chain, the only thing Hasten would give me is faster serum and pets. That's not chopped liver, by any means, but not as important to me.

FF/Energy Def - Like the Sonic/Sonic, nothing needs quick recharge.

Inv/SS Tank - Hasten would actually help, but in my primary build for heavy tanking, there simply wasn't a spot for it. Global recharge is sufficient anyway.

I'm sure I have others, those just were off the top of my head.

My thoughts on what I consider "versatile" out of my characters, in no specific order-

Crab - lacks control, but otherwise brings Brute/Scrapper survivability, team buffs (TT:x), -res and -def debuffs, massive aoes.

Fortunata - probably more versatile than Crab, due to controls, meleeing and similar aoe, lesser toughness, missing -Res.

Mind/Psi/Chill (or whatever has Sleet) Dom - In addition to the embarrassment of riches it has for controls, it's also a strong contributor to AV fights with Drain Psyche for -regen and Sleet for -res. Under effects of Domination, can hold 1 AV and confuse another. That's pretty sweet.

Earth/Cold Troller - really only lacks damage. Mine took Earth mastery but Fire would certainly cover that gap. With Sleet, most spawns are under control before I begin using controls.

Fire/Cold Corr - does NOT lack damage. I think the theme for this and previously mentioned troller is /Cold, it does offer a sound springboard for versatility.

You can't have a discussion on versatility without some mention of Traps. I'll submit my Traps/DP def for this.

I should mention my Ill/Rad, which is indeed versatile, but no more than those I mentioned above.

I place a lot of value on versatility. I may not define it the same way. To me, versatility means I can bring a character to any team and it can cover up a weakness as well as emphasize a team strength. With any of these "versative" characters I never feel compelled to say "let me switch" due to team composition. The above characters, more than any others I have (50+ played 50s, not counting the PLd alts) I'm confident can join any team and add something.

My aggro stealing story -

During 2xp weekend, some of my peeps decided to try a +4 KHTF, to see what kind of inf it generated. There was a Stoner on the team, using Granite, I brought my Traps/ Def. When Mary got to level 40 (in other words, +6 to team), she gave me her full attention. The tank was spamming Taunt and attacking, not to mention Mud Pots. Dangdest thing I've seen. I'm guessing the purple patch made Taunt duration short enough that my debuff hate took precedence.