EricHough

I play a lot of brutes and scrappers because I solo a lot and they are pretty much the premier soloers in the game (with masterminds vying for the title). I tend to alternate between them depending on whether I am in the mood for constant, non-stop scrapperlock or if I want to play in a more measured pace with occaisonal pauses. In the former case I play my brutes, the latter scrappers. I have two accounts and lots of alts.

My current stable of brutes:

Flame Raven: EM/Fire, L29
Obsidian Bruiser: SS/WP, L40
Raven Darkblade: DB/WP, L44
Razer Charlie: Claws/WP, L31
Crypt Thing: SS/Invuln, L13
Sahara Blaze: Fire/Fire, just started
Midnight Mystique: DM/Elec L15
E-M Cowgirl: Electric/WP, RIP at L18
Princess Pinky; EM/WP, RIP at L35

Not as huge a list as it would seem but I have about as many scrappers. So far I haven't tried or won't play the following primaries/secondaries:

Axe, Mace, Stone melee: I have no good character concepts for these plus I am tired of smashing/lethal damage villainside - to many longbow to fight. If I do eventually play one of these it will be a mace brute as my mace bane VEAT is a blast (crowd control FTW).

Energy Melee: When the last changes went into this set it lost its shine for me as a brute. I still found it reasonably effective solo but the slower pace was just not fun, especially as the sets big hitters are net fury losses. I will probably try again if EM ever gets ported to scrappers as the slow activating attacks are not going to be as much of a drain. Currently if I want a heavy single target set I will go with dark melee as I find it a lot more fun to play and more effective. My surviving EM brute, Flame Raven, is my crafter and marketer. My other em brute, princess pinky, has been re-rolled as a mind/energy dominator so I can STILL have pink pom-pom's of doom villainside :-)

Super Reflexes,Shield Defense, Energy Aura: I have the first two of these secondaries on scrappers but I like being able to start IO'ing out characters in the early to mid 30's and get as close as possible to the softcap early on. Blueside this isn't that hard as the necessary recipes are available on the market at prices I can manage, redside the recipes aren't available at lower levels or are far to expensive, despite the fact that I have MORE cash redside than blueside. As much as I would love a shield defense brute I just find def based sets to squishy until I hit about 30% def to at least melee and ranged - which is tough to get without at least a few good IO sets. I am just not interested in energy aura - it doesn't have enough variety to be interesting and it faces the same problems as the positional def sets - possibly worse as the kinetic combat prices are insane redside and thats the best set for filling out S/L defense.

Dark Armor: I can't stand running out of end and this sets bounding factor is end use so I haven't been able to bring myself to do a dark armor brute yet.

Thanks for the pointers Fleeting.

The version I am using has the same problem as filcher's - its version 1.6, database issue 16 updated 11/09/09. If there is a more up to date version I don't know where it is because the update check doesn't show a new one. I believe that the problem in my version is a bug because the power was originally focused accuracy before the dev's changed their mind and made it shatter armor and the power got renamed but not changed in my version and clearly in filchers.

As to the original question - yes, shatter armor does take melee damage IO sets - my mace bane spider has a set of crushing impact in his shatter armor power. I don't know if it takes other IO sets or not.

As much as I love archery I don't know if I would push it as the 'best' fit for /Traps. Archery/traps isn't a bad combo in any way, my current archery corruptor is /traps, but there isn't any real synergy between the two sets either.

If you are actually looking for something to synergize with traps I would think that dark would be a good choice - the -to hit in the attacks will stack with the def in FFG and the immobilize in TT will keep things locked in place so you can maximize the effectiveness of acid mortar. You might even be able to get some damage out of caltrops since the immobilize will prevent the mobs from fleeing off the caltrops patch. Seeker drones should stack stuns with dark pit to even stun bosses, if only for a short while.

I can't really think of another primary that will synergize MORE than dark - traps is such a jack of all trades that it will probably work about the same with all primaries.

I figured I should follow up with an on topic post: I don't really see the focus on hitting the soft cap as an obsession as much as it is an definite, obtainable goal that can be reached in many ways. As such, it is actually something that you can discuss constructively. With resistance you can't really do anything but take tough on top of whatever other resistance powers you might have in your primary/secondary - then you are done, no discussion needed and nothing more to do as the IO bonuses to resistance are to small and scattered to be worth much discussion. The exception to this is psi resistance - which you CAN actually get to a decent level with IO bonuses.

So while it looks like folks are obsessed with softcapping they are no more obsessed with that than illusion controllers are with using recharge bonuses to get perma-PA or dominators at getting perma-domination. In all 3 cases you have a goal that is obtainable through IO bonuses but frequently needs a lot of work to get there without compromising the character in other ways. So you see a lot of discussion about these topics because there is actually something to talk about. Where other IO bonuses do not have benefits that are as easily delineated or are not as easy to achieve so they don't get as much discussion.

As far as repeating KD goes I have actually observed two different things - the first is the same one made by Muon and M_K, where a standing mob is semi immune to KB until they have just finished the standing up animation. The second is in the split second right after they are knocked down just before they start standing up - if you hit them again right then with a second KD they kind of 'bounce' up and down again, extending the KD period.

I noticed it mostly with my bane who will open with a shatter, knocking the first target down and then frequently follow up with a crowd control if he is in a group, but I have also seen it with ice slick where sometimes a mob will be knocked down then bounce 1 or 2 times - probably because the RNG is in a low streak so the chance to KD pinged a couple times in a row.

This does appear to extend the KD time although it is hard to say how long.

For the first time in a long while my bane is back to fighting arachnos at L45 as he finishes up some of Westin Phipps arc's and every single tarantula mistress he fights is hitting with mental scramble despite having softcapped ranged def. Unfortunately since that attack doesn't show up on the combat monitor I can't tell if I have just been incredibly unlucky or if it is not being affected by my ranged def.

Unfortunately since that attack shreds my def AND blinds me (I haven't been able to fit TT: Leadership into the build yet - it comes at 47) its a real pain. According to the wiki page this attack is ranged, psionic, which would mean it should almost never hit but so far I have been hit by 3 in a row (well, 3 mistresses in a row, not 3 attacks in a row).

The key to doing damage with a mind controller, at least early on, is to take mesmerize, levitate and dominate then slot them up for damage as quickly as possible. Try to get 4-5 slots in all 3 powers and at the DO stage slot 1 accuracy in each of mesmerize and dominate, 2 accuracies in levitate and the rest damage. Then take mass hypnosis and get 2-3 slots in it for 2 accuracies and 1 recharge (at the DO level) - if you can, 4 slots is nice as well so you can get a couple of recharges. I would also recommend confuse for an extra single target control and those mobs that are hold resistant (like lost bosses). If you have access to Mr. Yin's store in faultline and you are a natural or mutant origin you can buy and slot damage SO's at L10 (he sells L13, 17 and 21 SO's, one type for each origin). After you get to 22 and can slot SO's I would suggest frankenslotting the 3 main attacks with ranged damage sets as even at this point damage is more important than control. At higher levels you can slot dominate with 4 Lure of the basilisks for the recharge bonus and slot 2 high level damage IO's.

The best tactics solo are to open with mass hypnosis on larger groups (3+ minions) to get initial lock down and avoid the alpha. Then put a longer sleep on one target with mesmerize, move on to the next target with dominate, levitate and then mezmerize and keep cycling between targets like that until they are all down. The base duration of mesmerize and confuse are long enough you don't need to enhance them and while the hold duration on domination isn't that long you only need it to last long enough to levitate and then mesmerize the target back into sleep. On smaller groups (lone LT or LT+Minion) sleep one target, dom + lev + mez the second until dead, then switch back to the first.

At higher levels what is going to bite you with a mind controller is lack of a pet and AE containment. You will need to take mass domination and mass confusion, slot them for as much recharge as possible AND get as much global recharge as possible. Then you can alternate mass hypnosis and mass domination for AE containment, use terrify and an attack from one of the epic pools for AE damage and alternate mass confustion and mass domination but you probably won't have good AE containment except for the first attack in every fight since your AE sleep will only last for one attack.

Here is a build with a bunch of stuff thrown in - I moved some slots around as you are WAY overslotted once you start including set IO's that enhance multiple aspects of a power. I also included the following unique/expensive IO's which you may or may not be able to get:

Numina's +regen/+rec
Regenerative tissue +regen
Sovereign right +resistance pet aura
Edict of the Master +def pet aura
2 full sets of Blessing of the zephyr - the -KB is really expensive.

You could easily drop the BoTZ sets, or at least the -KB IO's, I included them for the def bonuses and because slotting up the 3 bubbles as well as scorpion shield with IO sets saved a slot per power so that was where I moved them.

Here is the data chunk:

Well, you could probably skip the rez in pain. You can't use it on your pets and in a group between temp powers, veteran powers and the ability to combine inspirations a rez is not nearly as useful these days. Add in the fact that the primary extra you get from the rez (the damage boost) is pretty much useless to an MM and it looks pretty skippable to me.

If you want to stay at range going mind/anything is pretty good - both mesmerize and levitate are basically ranged blasts that also include controls so you can fill in a ranged attack chain with those two powers. I have tried both mind/elec and mind/energy and both work fairly well. Pretty much anything/energy would also allow you to stay mostly at range as energy gets power bolt, power push and power blast by level 10, then adds in power burst at L38.

The problem with most of these combo's is that you are going to be low on AE damage. Mind/electric might be the best bet here as you will get electric's cone plus terrify, which does ok damage (although it costs way to much end and is on to long a recharge to be a good attack) or you could go plant/electric or plant/energy and use roots + carrion creeper for extra AE damage.

Well, the AT I personally think matches Dr. Strange's powers best is a dominator: controls + blasting + summoning allies. If you want to play a hero your best bet is probably a blaster with a lot of control in their secondary, as you noted, although a controller could work as well.

Necromancy goes well with either /pain or /thermal. In each case you have the ability to stack the pets base resistances with resistance buffs from the secondary (World of Pain for /pain and the shields for /thermal) and you can slot both the +res pet aura IO's as soul extraction can slot the recharge intensive pet sets. Both secondaries also give you good healing, some debuffs and single target buffs to speed up killing.

I would say which secondary you pick depends on concept and play style preferences. Thermal is probably a bit stronger as you have more resistances and nearly as much healing but you are going to be constantly buffing your pets - putting up 12 shields every 4 minutes and forge every 45-60 seconds was more than I was willing to do, which is why I have a necro/pain instead of necro/thermal. If you can handle the buffing and/or find the idea of flaming zombies amusing, go with necro/thermal, if not go with necro/pain.

I solo almost exclusively and have found the best solo primaries are illusion, plant and mind. Fire is decent due to the AE damage of hot feet but starts off a bit slower than the other 3 and gravity is ok due to the single target damage in propel and lift but lacks good control until wormhole at 26 and singularity at 32. I haven't tried ice and earth as they look to be extremely slow going until you get your pet at 32 and I prefer sets that solo at a reasonable speed at all levels. Some specific advice on each primary:

Illusion: Unlike most control sets this primary relies mostly on its pets for damage as it has very few control options so you can't leverage containment as much. Instead the goal is to get phantom army up as much as possible. Secondaries that work best with illusion are those that debuff the enemy mobs as PA is immune to your buffs, which is why rad, storm and TA tend to be good secondaries. Illusion also does decent single target damage when you combine blind + spectral wounds + a pool attack. Local_Man's guide for Ill/Rad is excellent and can probably be used as a starting point for all Illusion controllers

Plant: Seeds of confusion + roots are your primary early methods of killing off spawns, adding in carrion creepers at 26 and fly trap at 32. Since a lot of the killing speed of plants depends on the AE confuse secondaries that reduce the ability of mobs to kill each other are going to slow you down, although they will still work. I find both TA and Storm work very well and although I haven't tried it I am sure Kin would also be a good secondary. Rad would be a very safe secondary but a lot of its best debuffs are going to be somewhat counter productive.

Mind: The safest and best soloer pre-32 due to its solid lock down (mesmerize + dominate + confuse for single targets and mass hypnosis for groups, all available by level 8) and good single target damage mind slows down after 32 because it doesn't get a pet. Pretty much any secondary will work with mind because the primary is so effective.

Fire: I am not sure I would recommend this for a first, solo controller. When everyone talks about fire's awesome solo ability what they really mean is that its the best set for large scale farming at high levels. When it comes to soloing though fire lacks the single target damage offered by mind and illusion and its AE damage is very end intensive. Plant has a similar problem with single target damage but having seeds of confusion up twice as often as flashfire tends to make up for that. Prior to the i16 changes to the difficulty levels this meant that fire struggled to finish off LT's and bosses although you burned through minions as if they didn't exist - now that you can change your settings to generate large groups with no bosses it should be easier to get through the lower levels. Any secondary that increases your damage and helps you stay alive at close range will work well with fire: rad and storm are probably the best for soloing at all levels, fire/kin is considered the premier farmer but that is because of fulcrum shift, which you won't get until 38.

Gravity: So far I have done one gravity controller - a Grav/Rad who is L19. I find that crushing field + RI makes for a decent ghetto AE hold (CF locks down the mobs and RI keeps them from hurting you to much) and crush + gravity distortion + propel makes for fast single target damage. I am not sure if any other secondary would work so well solo as neither CF or crush completely prevents incoming damage and getting to 26 to get wormhole could be pretty ugly. Storm would probably work but I suspect it won't take off until you get freezing rain at 16 - and storm is a tough secondary to use so I am not sure you want it on your first controller. TA will add some extra control but most of it does not completely stop incoming damage, it just keeps the mobs at range and you don't get any really good stuff until L20 (acid arrow).

In general if you expect to mostly solo I would not recommend any of the secondaries focused on ally buffs (cold, empathy, ff, sonic and thermal). Most of them are very low on ability to boost a solo controller and will only take off when you get a pet and can buff it up. Empathy and cold are probably the best soloing secondaries in this list although I can't speak from personal experience.

My necro/pain MM, Mistress Loviatar, was initially inspired by the forgotten realms version of the goddess (the maiden of pain) but I dug into the original finnish lore to name her pets. In the Kalevala Loviatar is the mother of 9 diseases, I used the finnish version of the disease names as the actual diseases themselves aren't very impressive these days (gout, ulcer, rickets, etc). So the pets are:

Zombies: Ähky , Luuvalo , Riisi
Grave Knights; Syöjä , Rutto

The wiki reference I found listed her 9th son as a witch named envy, so I named the Lich Envy rather than look up a finnish translation.

My other MM's aren't as well researched. My thugs/traps pets are Bill, Ted and Blazing Ed (thugs), Joe Bob and Jim Bob (enforcers) and Bubba (bruiser). My Merc/Dark MM was supposed to be an evil version of Scarlet from G.I Joe but I couldn't remember very many names from the cartoons so after Duke, Hawk and Snake Eyes (2 soldiers and a Spec Ops) I named my medic Bear (as in a shadowrun bear shaman), my second spec ops SnakePlisskin and my commando Arnie (I mean - what else would you name a commando :-).

I am currently working on a robot/traps MM named Ms. Tech. She only has two drones and a single protector so far and thier names are Larry, Moe and Bud. Curly Joe and Lou are yet to come and I haven't decided on the assault bot yet - Charlie (for Mr. Chaplin) might work.

Midnight Carnage, my arachnos soldier just hit 40 and its time to start thinking about a patron pool selection so I can plan ahead for 41. I have 2 builds on this character - a bane mace build and a ranged huntsman build based on the guide by Aisynia.

If the mace mastery pool can use the same mace as the bane spider attacks I will probably go with that pool for the first build to avoid redraw, although the power that seems the most attractive, shatter armor, looks a little screwy because mids is showing it as only accepting to hit buff sets which makes no sense, as its a melee attack with a resistance debuff. Hopefully this is just an error in mids - if someone could confirm that for me I would appreciate it.

That leaves the huntsman build and I am kind of at a loss as to where to go from this point. Any pool I take is going to cause redraw so I was thinking of going with Mu mastery so I could get a second immobilize and some energy AE - even with redraw the Mu attacks look to have a fast enough animation to be reasonably effective. The only alternative I see is picking up the regular leadership pool or the fighting pool for more defenses, but my current build is pretty tough on end use even with a perf shifter proc in stamina so I really don't want to add any more toggles.

Here is my current hunstman build as of level 40. I am open to suggestions as to where to go from here:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Midnight Carnage: Level 40 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Bane Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Bane Spider Training
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Single Shot -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(5), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(7), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(27)
Level 1: Bane Spider Armor Upgrade -- S'fstPrt-ResKB(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(25)
Level 2: Burst -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(5), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 4: Combat Training: Defensive -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 6: Wide Area Web Grenade -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(13), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(29), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(40), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(40), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(40)
Level 8: Heavy Burst -- AirB'st-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(9), AirB'st-Dmg/EndRdx(9), AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg(11), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(11), UndDef-Rchg/EndRdx(29)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(23), DefBuff-I(23)
Level 12: Venom Grenade -- AirB'st-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(15), AirB'st-Dmg/EndRdx(15), AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg(17), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(17), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(34)
Level 14: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 16: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 18: Frag Grenade -- AirB'st-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(19), AirB'st-Dmg/EndRdx(19), AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg(21), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(25), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(27), P'Shift-End%(33)
Level 22: Combat Jumping -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(31), LkGmblr-Rchg+(33)
Level 24: Mental Training -- Run(A)
Level 26: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(A), Zephyr-Travel(33)
Level 28: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Tactical Training: Leadership -- AdjTgt-ToHit(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(36), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(37), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg(37), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(37)
Level 32: Cloaking Device -- RedFtn-EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def(34), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(34), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(36), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 35: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 38: Surveillance -- AnWeak-DefDeb(A), AnWeak-Acc/DefDeb(39), AnWeak-Acc/Rchg(39), AnWeak-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(39)
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
------------
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Set Bonus Totals:

• 7% DamageBuff(Smashing)
• 7% DamageBuff(Lethal)
• 7% DamageBuff(Fire)
• 7% DamageBuff(Cold)
• 7% DamageBuff(Energy)
• 7% DamageBuff(Negative)
• 7% DamageBuff(Toxic)
• 7% DamageBuff(Psionic)
• 7.06% Defense(Smashing)
• 7.06% Defense(Lethal)
• 3% Defense(Fire)
• 3% Defense(Cold)
• 9.88% Defense(Energy)
• 9.88% Defense(Negative)
• 3% Defense(Psionic)
• 7.38% Defense(Melee)
• 13% Defense(Ranged)
• 3% Defense(AoE)
• 2.25% Max End
• 16% Enhancement(Accuracy)
• 6% Enhancement(Knockback)
• 6% Enhancement(Knockup)
• 3% Enhancement(Immobilize)
• 27.5% Enhancement(RechargeTime)
• 4% FlySpeed
• 36.1 HP (3.37%) HitPoints
• 4% JumpHeight
• 4% JumpSpeed
• Knockback (Mag -4)
• Knockup (Mag -4)
• MezResist(Immobilize) 4.95%
• MezResist(Sleep) 4.95%
• MezResist(Stun) 2.2%
• 3.5% (0.06 End/sec) Recovery
• 10% (0.54 HP/sec) Regeneration
• 1.26% Resistance(Fire)
• 1.26% Resistance(Cold)
• 3.14% Resistance(Energy)
• 3.14% Resistance(Negative)
• 4% RunSpeed

I think they need to make 2 changes:

1) Add in the 'deselect' mission option that has been mentioned previously
2) Decouple the group level selection from the leader by essentially adding a 'level' star and a 'leader' star. Thus allowing the leader to select a group member the same way they would select an active mission to set the group level

I think adding in one or both of those changes would probably solve most of the problems mentioned here, with the second change being the best one. Decoupling the group level completely from the group leader would allow someone who was running a lower level character but felt comfortable managing to group continue to do so without borking up the level for the rest of the group. Obviously the default would be to assign both stars to the same person, leaving things working the way they are now unless you want to change it.