Dromio

It didn't help that Zombie kind of implied that it was WAI and a bonus.

I'm at 75 months so I'd have six character slots from vet rewards and two from GR (I think it was two right?). That would add up to the eight it gave me to redeem (seven now that I tried to redeem one).

I logged in and deleted a character and now the slot that character was in is locked. I assumed that slots that I had redeemed and not filled somehow became un-redeemed. Kind of a bummer, I was really psyched to create a new character today. I had eight slots available to redeem, deleted that character, then tried to redeem one (now shows 7 available to redeem), and no slot has opened up.

EDIT: sounds like these are not WAI. My guess is what I said above: these are bonus slots that were redeemed earlier but were somehow un-redeemed by Issue 20. I have never purchased a slot, and am into high numbers of veteran rewards (I can't remember how high).

I think the -regen is the part of Envenom that stacks, but I'm not positive. That should mean you could at least double the -regen if not triple it.

There should not be a power choice in the game that has a 30% chance to do NOTHING. If these numbers are right, and I have no reason to doubt they are, this is as compelling an argument for changing Poison's Poison trap as I can imagine seeing.

This is a great idea for a thread by the way. With a new Powers person I think having a list like this will be great for Masterminds and would be very smart for all the AT's to have.

They really need to visit most or all of the powersets and provide low/no visual options for those sets that have visuals to suppress. For a game that prides itself on customizing appearances to cover up costumes with armors like Ice and Stone, and other obscuring powers like Hasten, is very foolish.

I usually run with dark blue ice armors. That seems to work OK. It's not enough for me though. I run suppressclosefx and then I set the suppressclosefxdist to 1 (I think I'm remembering that right). Essentially my screen then doesn't show any of the armors or anything. Other people see them, and I don't like that, but at least they don't obscure my view.

That's certainly Poison's big drawback. And it's not like Weaken and Envenom are "single target powerful" either. Just making them cones would really strengthen Poison.

Alternatively they could make Poison Trap, or Poison Trap's slot, an AoE/cone solution for the set. Personally I'd rather not see a Trap there, that strikes me as too tech. I'd rather see something like an Acid Rain kind of power that debuffs all the foes in its area. Freezing Rain without the slow but with a chance to vomit. Or maybe a poison version of Tar Patch (Poison Ooze?) the character upchucks out. Something like that.

I'm fairly sure they could shelve the cottage rule with Poison's Poison Trap. I can't imagine that anyone has taken it.

I just have buttons with the following Macros:

petcom_name <bruisername> attack defensive$$petcom_name <enforcer1> attack defensive$$petcom_name <thug1> attack defensive

So that makes my bruiser, one enforcer, and one regular thug attack my target, and when done fighting reset to defensive. I love that reset to defensive. So then I have a second button that has the other three pets on it:

petcom_name <enforcer2> attack defensive$$petcom_name <thug2> attack defensive$$petcom_name <arsonistthug3> attack defensive

If I want all the pets attacking a target I just hit both buttons. I can also just have the primary group attack of course and keep the last three as bodyguards, or I can assign one target to each group. I'm pretty sure you could split your pets however you choose, even if you had five in one group and one in another, or three two pet groups.

Use the exact names by the way. For example, my Bruiser is named Romeo, my Enforcers are Mercutio and Benvolio, and my Thugs are Valentine, Tybalt, and Paris (arsonist). So the actual first Macro looks like:

petcom_name Romeo attack defensive$$petcom_name Mercutio attack defensive$$petcom_name Valentine attack defensive

I think my command line to create that button was:

/macro prima petcom_name Romeo attack defensive$$petcom_name Mercutio attack defensive$$petcom_name Valentine attack defensive

That will create a button called Prima that you can then drag where ever you want it to go. That same format applies to all my buttons, just /macro, then the button label, then the macro text. You can also do all of the same things and bind to keyboard keys. The "All about Binds and Macros" in the MM guides can tell you more.



I have a button that targets the Bruiser and puts Gas on him (you have to double click the button): petselect_name Romeo$$powexecname Noxious Gas

And I have a button that you double click to target and Heal the Bruiser: petselect_name Romeo$$powexecname Alkaloid



I had taken a long break from my MM and I have to say that when I came back to her these macros really helped me enjoy her a lot more. I saw this stuff in a guide, so I won't take credit, but I can't find the guide right now.

I've got my thugs broken into two groups. I have a button that tells the Bruiser, one LT, and one Thug to attack, and another button for the other three pets. That way I can send in three while the other three stay in BG mode (but in teams I can send them all in). What I did for the Arsonist was to keep him in my secondary group, the one that's more BG than attack. It's not perfect, but he does last longer for me that way.

He's kind of the opposite of the Bruiser. It's too bad we can't set the Bruiser for melee only and the Arsonist for Ranged only.

Awesome! Thanks for the update!

How is this build compared to what you had when you started the thread?

I ran an ITF two weeks ago with a FF mastermind that wouldn't buff the team, only his bots. After 30 minutes and five team wipes I sent the MM a tell (I didn't want to call him out) saying "we might need you to bubble the team". I got no response. After 60 minutes and at least five more team wipes we weren't even at the end of the second mission. I said in team chat "I think it would help if we had bubbles" and the MM replied in team chat "If I bubble everyone it will drain me".

I wished everyone good luck and left the team. The player rating system got some action from me that day.

I think it would be really difficult to do. I think you could probably get fairly high, maybe into the thirties even (before Incarnate), but you'd have to concentrate every IO set into getting it and that might leave you lacking in other areas. But I've not really ever tried it in MIDS. Especially since I'm going down that Nerve road that will include defense, it might be worth looking at. I think it would have to include three powers from the Fighting pool and you'd have to choose your APP carefully to get an armor that helps.

Yeah, it would be an interesting MIDS excercise. I'll have to take a look.

It should apply to the pets. Anything that can be slotted to accept those kinds of enhancements should be effected by the Nerve.

I'm a little worried that I'm over Accuracy/ToHitting. But really the Hold and Defense will both be providing a lot of bonus too, so I think it's still the way to go. Antidote is far from a bad choice, I may be looking at doing something like that eventually.

Because your second tier pets, the Enforcers, have every Leadership toggle. They come with Manuevers by default and then are given Assault and Tactics with the pet upgrades. And EACH of the two Enforcers has each power. So they each, with slotting, can be providing all of their buddies (and any other Thugs from Masterminds on your team) with 12% or more defense. Total comes to over 24%. Then you can add 10% with the IO specials (you've got both) and all of a sudden you're in the mid-thirties. I added my Maneuvers (why can't I ever spell that?) and I can get them up to the very low forties.

If you look at my build this is why I used HO's for the very first time. I was able to buff both the Defense the Enforcers provide and the To Hit buff they provide from Tactics. And then of course I'm running those toggles too.

Two Thug Masterminds on the same team should have every pet capped, including Gang War (because all that DEF applies to them too) from just the two sets of Enforcers.

I admit I'm hoping for a good reaction from you, this sounds like a part of these pets that you didn't know about. It should be an excellent discovery I hope! You were doing well before, just imagine what you can do now!



As mentioned above, the IO buffs don't help the pets, so don't worry about them. This is what I was trying to say (not well) when I was talking about not being a Tankermind. The pets should be tanking (IMO) so your defense is very secondary.

I don't think you have to change much. Well you don't HAVE to change anything. You could get away, very easily, with just reslotting the Enforcers. I'd try and free up a slot somewhere, probably from one of the pet upgrades, to add another recharge to Gas though. You shouldn't be doing the upgrades very often after all. You might also want to look at throwing Maneuvers in there instead of something (I'd replace Vengeance or the Rez). Then you could take a slot from the other upgrade, a slot from Stamina, and a slot from Assault and slot up Manuevers to get more DEF to the pets.

One thing though, is that getting more HP for you isn't really going to make that much difference (IO hit point buffs only apply to you). Nor is your Armor. The idea is that you're the crowd control/debuffer and the pets are the damage/aggro magnets. So HP and Armor is nice, but in an ideal situation shouldn't come into play too much.

I just don't think the armor matters too much in this case. If you were trying to get your personal defense up through passives and stuff it would, but you're not.

I'm SO tempted by the immobilize, the more I think about it. Which of the immobilizes keeps foes from getting knocked back, do you know? That would be really good to have to keep foes in the Arsonists Burn patch and to keep the pets from getting into other spawns. I usually tell half my pets to attack and keep half in bodyguard, so I think I could do an immob, just like you say.

EDIT: In game you can right click on your pets and see their combat stats. That will show you what their defense, accuracy, to hit, and damage buffs are (and more). Plus, like the power screen usually does, you can see the sources of the buffs, so you'll see the Enforcers' Leadership toggles in there.

This. Plus for my Thugs/Poison the softcap for pets will be within reach as I get higher on the Incarnate enhancement table.

I split my pets into two teams so I always have three fighting and three on Bodyguard. It works well I think

Oh yeah, I'm sure it was her. Good grief, I had no idea what happened. I almost wish I had the combat logs.

That's good to hear! I did look at your build but honestly it's better than mine. I'm still trying to work Hasten in and I just don't have the cash for any purples. Tanking three of those guys at once is very strong! Wow!