GavinRuneblade

That's not marty. All marty does is prevent drops of any kind, no inf, no exp, no recipes, no enhancements, no AE tickets, no salvage. For exactly 10 minutes. Marty does nothing else (note, reporting things to the devs as a datamining tool is also assumed, but that has no impact on our perceived game experience)

There's a lot of people spouting BS about marty, so, best to work on keeping the facts straight. I keep seeing idiots in AE hit the ticket cap and claim marty shut them down.

Me: Did you get exp?
them: yes
M: did you get inf?
t: yes
m: then it wasn't marty that's the ticket cap.
t: no I never hit the cap that fast before, I'm sure it was marty
m: marty only shuts down all rewards, not some
Random idiot: No, I triggered marty yesterday and stopped getting recipes for three missions
m: did you get exp?
Random idiot: yes
m: then it wasn't marty
Random idiot: yes it was, I went three missions that's way too much to be random.
m: <--- wishes he had the facepalm emote

I had an ill/rad that I moved over to exalted recently. Been stalled out in the late 20s as I sort of realized that I had no idea what I was doing with him. Found your guide and got a much better idea.

However, what I can't find are any skippable powers in the primary or secondary except for maybe group invis. Is this a combo where you really pretty much take it all and don't get many pools?

I'm looking at just flight and haste at this point with nothing else from their pools and am very grateful that fitness is inherent. I can skip air sup because I have three veteran attacks.

Anyway, thanks for the guide!

The trick to MMs is that like Kheldians they are an AT where player skill is as important as build and powers.

A good MM PLAYER can do amazing things with any power set combination. But not all PLAYERS are the same skill level. In the hands of someone with no skills at hotkeys, macros, and complex positioning of multiple characters, and with poor reflexes, MMs will underperform nomatter what the build. In the hands of someone with those skills they are awesome. I see a lot of posts about issues with the AT or sets that really come down to MM's are harder than other ATs, possibly the hardest of all. And other posts by people with the skills not understanding why others don't get how powerful MMs are. The skill is the issue, not the AT, not the powers, not the build.

This is why I have such trouble with all MMs. Btu the concept is my favorite of all, and I really want to find one that I can play. I'm guessing that I'll end up on bots/ff set to aggressive. Heh. But I am trying other options before settling on that as a last effort.

That said, Mercs do have some performance issues that are not player-specific:

1. the supposedly top damaging pet, commando, misuses his knock powers and I don't think it would be possible to intentionally choose worse targets than he does on his own. You have to constantly babysit this jerkwad. He loves to fire off grenades, LRMs, and other knock powers as his opening attack on a perfectly packed spawn. THEN use full auto and flamethrower when only 1 or 2 are grouped up. I eventually started to loathe my commando. Having access to an AoE immobilize with -knock will prevent this I'm told, but that was just 1 more thing I couldn't micromanage. Others have had much better success. Loathe. Not just hate, waaaay past dislike. Loathe. Despise. And eventually respec out of and shelve permanently. fu***** Jac****

2. the spec ops have a couple good attacks on paper. In play I once ran a mission I had outleveled using just them to see how often the powers came up. It was pretty pathetic. they love their wimpy immobilize, stun, etc. And they will try to snipe while being attacked in melee. They will try to snipe, get hit and interrupted, then start sniping again. the snipe, is crap damage even when it hits.

3. they have a tiny amount of resistance, but no other protections. Keeping them alive is thus harder than several other sets, but definitely easier than ninjas.

4. they deal almost exclusively lethal damage, and unlike ninjas they do it in dots. I have very often seen my boys killed by an enemy who dies 2 seconds later from the dots stacked on them. I'm not aware of any other MM set with this issue. Even thugs have a reasonable amount of solid hits.

All that said, mercs do have a few decent slotting options. All of them take a wide selection of procs. You can drop the achilles heel into the tier 1 soldiers and that's practically AoE since there are three of them firing. All of their attacks except the melee do -def so it checks ALOT. Doing this noticeably improved my commando's damage output (I gave him a damage proc after testing it out the other way round, commando doesn't use his -def powers near enough to benefit from the heel).

If you are going to pick up all 4 pet resist and def bonuses, they at least start with some resist.

But overall, they really are that bad or possibly worse. In every circumstance I can think of, thugs do all the same stuff, have all the same advantages, but perform better.

1200pp - Rogue/Vigilante Teleporters
Allows adding beacons to villain groups with destinations in Paragon city, and to hero groups with destinations in the rogue isles.
*note: requires adding the ability to get supergroup badges for opposing side.

40-120pp - individual items from the proposed entertainment pack (video games, bars, pool tables, etc)

400pp - NPC civilian model access (max 2/base)

120pp - additional NPCs allowed

I know, brought up before, obstacles, blah blah blah. Still want 'em and that's what I'd pay.

I do both. I have at any one time, two characters who are stockpiling empyreans and/or alingment merits for a big purchase, and all other characters spend as they come in.

It's slow, but reliable.

13:22 And I was actually trying to be fast.

* hides in shame *

Forgive the mild necromancy.

Just pointing out that I have finally finished putting together the pieces for the Iggy "affordable" version of Werner's build (was being a cheapskate on some of the HOs so it took a while to get 'em all hehe). Very fun. Has serious endurance issues in long fights. I wasn't ever able to take out a pylon without using blues or lore.

But spectacular fun. Even managed to survive Antimatter's undivided attention for a minute and 6 seconds in a keyes run. Which impressed the hell out of me (and quite possibly involved a lot of luck, not sure). Could probably have kept surviving but that's when the tank came back and taunted him off me.

Elegost, have you built yours? How does it fare?

Also, on Werner's really expensive version, how would level 52 (or 50++ since there's no difference) HOs impact that build?

I'm going to back 37 on this. Not a surprise considering my earlier post in this thread.

But I'll also point out that the first ward arcs are a hell of a lot of fun and very well written. I've only done a little of the new lowbie arcs, but especially villain side they have very good writing, and interesting play challenges for the level. The signature story arcs are also pretty cool and offer rewards for all levels.

Lots of the newer content is coming out mid-level.

For me, the game is still about having fun all the way through.