Dechs Kaison

While those actions are not heroic, doing them for someone else does not make you a villain.

It makes you a lackey.

Would you mind giving an example? For the life of me, I cannot think of one.

Yes, bodyguard mode does not work in Defensive Attack. Further, if you tell them to concentrate fire on a single target, your henchmen will not return to bodyguard mode until all aggro is cleared and they return to follow.

That's one option, and a very good one. If I were you, I'd open with anguishing cry then go to town with your -res debuffs in the whip (Slot for accuracy/end/recharge. They don't do damage worth enhancing.).

Keep in mind that henchmen will also engage when other henchmen are attacked. I use this on my Thugs/poison. I order the bruiser (and only the bruiser) to attack, then the others open up once he's been attacked.

If you want to be able to attack with a substantial portion of your army while retaining a good amount of bodyguard mode, I have another suggestion that my bots/traps uses. Make a macro that orders only the Demon Prince, the Hellfire Demon, and the Hellfire Demonling to attack your target. This will focus the attacks of your heavy hitting pet plus the two pets who stack -resistance. The three remaining pets are left in bodyguard mode (you will take 2/5 of all damage, effectively 60% resist all). Using a strategy like this will allow you to quickly down big nasty targets within a large group and maintain a good level of safety.

Sounds like a good plan. If you're not terribly attached to your patron, I'd like to suggest taking the Scorpion defense based shield and trying to finish off softcapping S/L. It's not a clear cut better way to go, but it's what I'd try. Then again, I don't know demons or pain that well.

Interesting question. Best explained by example.

Six henchmen out, each with 50% resistance. You have 50% resistance as well. 1000 point attack hits you. Your resistance makes it a 500 point attack, then bodyguard mode kicks in. You take 125 damage and each henchman takes 62.5. The henchman's resistance does not reduce that 62.5 damage. It is essentially typeless damage that came from you.

*nods* I'm one of them. Bots/traps, provoke on auto, +2/x8 is not a problem. Higher and I have to be careful.

I would not suggest this. Those pets don't have a large selection of AoE attacks and don't hit very hard to begin with. Yes, there's three of them, but I really think you'd be better served putting that proc in the Demon Prince or the Lieutenant demons.

Thanks. Editing my posts to reflect this.

That's a good question, and one that I can't answer since I don't have a demon summoner of my own. Keep an eye on your pet combat tab, and maybe run HeroStats, although I don't know if it can track each pet's damage separately. Find out who's doing the most damage, and put the proc there.

I'm not familiar with how demons work, but the protector bots put out 11% in defense when enhanced. Each. Since only one of the two demon pets benefits from the resist enhancement and the base resist value is relatively low, I don't think it's worth enhancing.

Considering that you're pain, yes, the healing he does may not need enhanced.

I generally do not go for set bonuses on my MMs. Right now, mine hits the S/L/E softcap without set bonuses. Recharge is always nice, as well as +HP/regen for more effective bodyguard mode, but outside of that? Not much helps.

Seeing as this is your first MM, are you familiar with bodyguard mode? With six pets in supremacy range on defensive (stay, follow, or go to), you have an effective 75% resist all. If you keep most of the attention, not much in the game can do enough damage to kill you, especially since you have Word of Pain and some healing to keep you and your bots topped off.

This proc works in the pet it's slotted in and has a chance to fire on the MM himself when he summons the pet. It's an incredible damage boost that has a chance to happen for every target that pet hits. It is the single best enhancement I have put in my mastermind, and it's sitting in the Assbot. I put one more enhancer from SA in it for the humongous regen bonus, which again helps bodyguard mode substantially.

Ah-HA! Ok then. Markets are a forum I don't traffic often, and I may not have been around for it.

Yeah yeah, December 04 register date, started playing in July of that year... but no. I took a four year break to go to college.

Because things like Protector bots beg for defense enhancement as well, and a bit of heal. If you wanted to enhance healing or resist in the Ember Demon, you'd be forced to frankenslot.

Also, there are the pet uniques to consider. There's 4 of them, and you'll likely want at least both resists for demons. One has to go in living helfire, the other needs to be put somewhere.

Finally, there's the Soulbound Allegiance proc, which is amazing. Beautifully awesome. It takes up a slot and is worth losing blood mandate's 5th bonus for.

I really like this too.

I wish I were as creative.

Ah! Another good point. John Kerry number 2 for the day!

As a click, you break hide ONCE and only once. If you stop attacking for a while, you will be able to go back to hidden.

As a toggle, you break hide every tick of the power (which, I believe, is every second). If you stop attacking but enemies stay in range, you'll never regain hidden status.

Yeah, that first enemy actually gives you 12.5% plus the 6.875%.

Look at it like the 12.5% benefit of the power is a "are there enemies in range" check, and the first mob counts as giving you 6.875% for being an enemy.

I do something similar.

/bind q "powexectoggleon dark nova$$gototray8"
/bind e "powexectoggleon black dwarf$$gototray9"
/bind alt+q "powexectoggleoff dark nova$$powexectoggleoff black dwarf$$gototray 1"

Since my hand is already on WASD, it made sense to have Q and E be my forms, and hitting alt+Q wasn't hard.

Then I added some other fun binds.

/bind alt+e "powexectoggleoff dark nova$$powexectoggleoff black dwarf$$gototray 1$$powexecname sunless mire"

With that, I drop whatever form I'm in and do a sunless mire. Booh-yah!

/bind v "powexectoggleoff dark nova$$powexectoggleoff black dwarf$$gototray 1$$powexecname stygian circle"

V is my usual button for healing powers, so this one drops whatever form I'm in and sucks the life out of any corpse I can find.

Listen up, because you're not getting it. I'll give you an example. My level 50 dark armor/fire tank, Soulburn Sands, earned a bunch of badges, but it turns out I'd like something a bit more offensive to have fun with.

I didn't delete him. I saved the costume file and created a fire/fire scrapper named Soulfire Sands. Level 1. No badges. Now if I want my Master of Statesman on my fire/fire scrapper, I have to probably join 8 or so teams until one of them can get it right. Do that for every other badge that I happen to like having. That's a ton of extra time I wouldn't have to spend with your idea. Plus, I like having my tank that I can go back to anyway.

The point is your suggestion in no way helps this game and therefore will not happen.

Yeah, but after -45%, mathematically it doesn't matter, which is why he used the term softcap, not hardcap. I guess he's saying the 8% makes it take longer to get there... I guess.

Longbow?

Black market prices are not the cost of creating the enhancement. Sorry.

No it's not. A new alt will need to spend more time to get all those "cosmetic, non-functional badges" back. A rerolled 50 will not. This game has a subscription fee.

Don't fool yourself into thinking the delivery matters. It's the function you're asking for that goes counter to intended design.

EDIT: Curse you and your fast typing Bill Z!

At least I beat you to the punch in the shield defense thread...

Demonstrably untrue. Enhancing an end reduction into the summon reduces the summon's endurance cost by exactly the amount I expect.

BWUH? Wow, I have no idea then. Second time today I've had to say: Ask the tech forum gurus.

Hang on now. Every poster, no matter how trollish and ignorant, is entitled to one use of hyperbole.

This time, he slides.

On this subject, you're comparing claws/NOT shield defense to dark melee/shield defense. If it were a possible combination, there wouldn't be such a large disparity between claws/shield and dark/shield. Be careful you don't go making an unfair comparison.

That said, I don't think dark melee should be able to pump out as much damage as it does considering the utility (healing, +end, +tohit, +damage, -tohit, fear, and immobilize) it brings.

Elation.