Firewasp

I think when Issue 34 comes out there will be a $10 fee for the SG leader to change the name or Option A, a $100 fee paid by any SG member or Option B, a $500 fee by any non-member payable to a selected developer's family's PO Box

If the SG leader switches from red to blue it says that the leadership goes to the next highest ranked member (I believe this was changed from anyone in the SG at random, because I logged in one day and I was the SG's leader).

But if the SG leader that switch sides decides to come back, do they automatically regain their leader role again?

Could have sworn the recharge rate was 1.5 seconds. Now it is 4. It use to be a very nice attack power and enhanced the set, but now I don't see much point. There are not enough viable attacks to get the low level off their feet.

RoF used to be really bad as in making everything run out of it, but it has changed. Not sure when they did it, but there is a slow element in it now. When I cast RoF, everything gets the full damage of that power so a immobilize power would not be all that helpful as it did before the change.

Scorpion Shield sounds nice though. That would add to the DEF from the Combat Jumping I have now.

Since the fire blaster in an AoE AT, many of these pools are not making much sense to me. Can anyone come up with the correct solution and why?

I just wish the developers would widen this narrow cone to 45 degrees or more. I tried using this on large groups in Perez Park and could never hit the entire group.

Hitting Aim/BU, RoF and Fireball takes away half of the health of all that stand there. The tiny area of effect of Fire Breath severely reduces it's effectiveness.

That's the trouble. I didn't realize that Fire Breath was damage over time. I was doing AIM/BU RoF, Fire Ball and Fire Breath and didn't see some big numbers with Fire Breath. Now that makes sense!

Ghetto PBAoE . Now you got me in suspense. Only have hurdle now, but was planning on training Combat Jumping (for the immobilize protection, but also the jump). Hit 35, but hadn't decided what to get. Don't think turning one guy into a block of ice with Freezing Touch sounds like my thing. Could train Blazing Bolt (had it at one time on a fire Corruptor), but rarely used it.

I don't know, can Blazing Bolt be used as a normal blast with Interrupts in it?

Do you click on the closest npc to you or the one far away or what?

According to MIDS, Fire Breath can do some pretty high damage. I must be doing something wrong because even with 3 level 30 damage IO's in it (as well as an Accuracy), I see very little damage. Should I respec this power out or what?

My fire/ice blaster is currently 35.

First I wondered what a Blapper was. Go to Google and ask. Wiki pops up and says:

Definition

Blapper
Refers to an player character who is a Blaster archetype, but plays more like a Scrapper by using melee attacks from their secondary power set a lot more than their primary power set of ranged attacks.

Now as you know, your secondary is not nearly as powerful as your primary. You have little to no defense. So you are telling me that you would go through 50 levels playing a weak scrapper? I bet you get your debt badges rather early.

Is CoX that boring to make a weak AT? Don't get me wrong, I like to do challenging stuff too. That's why I moved from WoW to CoX for more of a challenge

I once thought of making a mercenary mm. Then I saw a thing on you tube showing a level 50 using the soldiers to break through one of the jail doors in a mayhem mission. Was wishing I could fast forward the video. Must have taken 10 minutes.

Wasn't interested in making a Mercenary mm after that.

If you ask for anything, ask for more damage.

My bots/thermal started soloing AV's and Heroes at 35. While soloing a mission I saw an AV at the end. Started to look for others to help, but as my bots were still on aggressive they went after the AV. Soon noticed that their health was still full, so I ran over to debuff the AV (had just trained Heat Exhaustion). During the fight I had to heal the little guys sometimes. A few times they died and had to re-summon. When the AV was down to about half health she started to run away. We kept at her and reapplied the debuff on as soon as it was up. It took about 6 minutes of very nervous game-play, but we finally got her.

That bot/thermal mm is 42 now and both Heat Exhaustion and Melt Armor are all slotted up with regular IO's. Have defeated Positron both times and about 25 others. Valkyrie was the hardest to kill by far. She wiped all the bots once (I was able to run out the exit and back in to set up my bots again).

I would say it is the combination of a high Resistance and the 15% Defense, the debuffs, buffs (Forge) and the straight heals (not a slow +Regen with traps), that helped me to accomplish soloing AV's and Heroes.

I was thinking that with Demons doing a lot of unresisted damage that they may be better suited, but that was before I read about the -Regen from Bots on this thread. Of course I am also reading that it is bugged and is not working. Which means that they would be the same as any other pet that doesn't have -Regen, correct?

Now as I have read, Dark has a better set of debuffs so this might help to kill the AV faster. I will have to see as again my bots/dark is 50 (villain that unlocked my bane).

By the way, you say you can soft-cap the mm, but are you talking about me or the bots? I do not need soft-capping as I am not standing toe to toe with the AV. If you can't soft-cap the bots there is no reason to even talk about it.

Bodyguard Mode and Provoke: Tried it and hated it. Some of the bots would attack, but not always all of them. Sometimes I would see two of them just standing there (like some mm players that think that once they tell the pets to attack, they can just stand there and do nothing -- Automatic AT). I don't use BG Mode even while soloing AV's and I have never died.

Thanks in advance!

Well how about if I happened to have a bots/dark. With all the debuffs I just learned about on my other thermal vs dark post, you think I can learn to do it on him?

Hmm, just in time for i19's post 50 update -- my bots/dark is already there -- just have to learn how to play dark to its full potential.


You say I can soft cap a bots/dark... how?

My thinking only takes me into what damage the AV will resist.

Bots do smashing, energy and the big guy does fire as well. Their shields help with the defense.

Demons do all sorts of damage. Fire, frost and "hellfire" which I think is a mixture of fire and frost.

Any ideas?

I must admit after reading these many posts that I am learning a lot about the true power of /Dark. Will train Howling next level (have nothing else to train except for maybe Black Hole
How would I slot Howling Twilight?

So what is this Chill of the Night? It that a new power for the Dark Servant? BTW, any suggestion on how to slot fluffy?

Maybe someone could include builds so I can see how my other powers look.

As I said on the original post I have played /dark all the way to 50 (my first 50 villain) so if you are saying that I am doing something wrong to be losing my pets that often and you never do, well you must have a couple billion in your IO sets (I just had SO's on that 50). My 33 demons/dark uses regular crafted IO's (no sets).

I was just playing him an hour ago. Came across 6 yellow waler's on a beach. Put the tar patch on them, darkest night and spam'ed the heals. Killed them all, but in the end of that short fight I lost one of the little demons.

If Forge means so little to a pet and I solo 95% of the time on mm's, should I respec Forge out?

Petrifying gaze is a nice hold, but only works with one guy. That doesn't help much when I generally solo X5-6 missions. X1 is dead boring on an mm.

Since I solo, Howling Twilight isn't trained.

As for my keyboard game experience -- lets call it 35 years (1975 on Apple II) playing comp games and 12 years on mmorpgs. Like I said I don't use sets. If I make the game too simple to play it becomes boring to me.

I have read many times on here that Thermal is not the most damage causing secondary and the debuffs are not as good as others. I have a 33 demons/dark and a 50 bots/dark. Also have a 36 demons/thermal and a 42 bots/thermal (and a couple dozen other mm's over 25).

Damage
Dark has a nice -res (tar patch) @ -30% which would mean all your pets do 30% more damage if the npcs are stuck in the patch. Melt Armor has a 22.5% that is ready to use almost as often as tar patch. But dark doesn't have Forge which adds 30% more damage to the top 3 pets (need to keep it casted). So 30% + 22.5% is a bit nicer than the 30% on Dark.


Damage Bonus
Thermal: When you couple Supremacy, Forge, Hell on Earth and Leadership's Assault you get 103.75% damage bonus on the big fella and 66.25% on the 2ND tier pets.

Dark: When you couple Supremacy, Hell on Earth and Leadership's Assault you get 73.75% damage bonus on the big fella and 36.25% on the 2ND tier pets. Notice the drop in damage.

Survivability
Thermal: With the thermal shields the pets have never died in at least 20 levels and only need healing when they are fighting a large group of oranges or higher. I rarely have to heal them otherwise. With this secondary you can send your pets in to attack up to 3 purples and live to tell the tale. I have done missions set at +0/X8 solo. It is tough, but possible. Try that on Dark and you and your pets will get wiped.

Dark: My pets die often. So much in fact its a real pain. You think taking 15 seconds every 4 minutes to put thermal shields on your pets is a pain? Doing that sure beats re-summoning them just as often. Oh and if you send the pets into a large group of reds -- you better kiss them all goodbye because they will all die. They need healing often and if they run off from your Twilight Grasp... well its like playing an EMP Defender and the team splitting up in a hard mission -- someone's gonna die.


Passive Damage Bonus
Pets that stay alive do more damage than dead pets.


AV's and Heroes
Thermal can solo these guys at level 35 and beyond.

Dark? Try to solo them with dead pets.


Conclusion
Thermal has more damage than Dark by a clear mile.

Thanks for the info!

Is there any place that shows the damage a pet makes? I couldn't find this on MIDS. It doesn't even show what mm pets do.

In other words, which controller does the most damage?