JupiterMoon

once you also have the patron single target hold you can keep just about any mob up to a boss locked down

i dunno about cimeroran's though. they are hihgly resistant to controls. i havent taken any of my /darks there yet

this one can stack just not from the same caster

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traps is our most powerful general pve secondary. period. nothing has as many tools that actually work. nothing outside of force field replaces pets as infrequently. i have every secondary except storm at 40+ - i speak not from bs numbers in a planner or what others tell me, but what i've seen myself

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No, your arogence astounds me. I've teamed with /trap masterminds and found they had to replace pets about as often as I did. Which is to say, not often. You claim that /poison's single target nature makes it useless for general fights. No, it doesn't. By level 30 I found that 90% of the time my ninja didn't actually need much help to take things down. The odd heal, yes. Other then that what they needed was the hard targets being softened and their attention being focused. If you do those two things they don't need too much support. Heck, I've had entire missions where I didn't have to heal them even. And that's without me debuffing the enemies.

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oh and btw the following is everything that weaken does. lrn2cityofdata

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Oh, and I'm sorry. I don't have the time or patience to memorize every single web address people use in forum posts, and my bookmark for City of Data got lost when my old computer died. Nor is it really required since you can just log in and get all those same numbers with equal ease.

Also, did you notice a key difference between -special's defense debuff and acid mortar? That is that it isn't reducing the defense, but the person's capability of buffing defense. That means that BEFORE def debuff resistance kicks in your reducing the base value of their +defense powers. I've seen this in action while testing my AE arc I created. My Claw/SR scrapper got hit with it while testing, and my defense went down to about 8% despite high debuff resistance. Then I hit elude, and I only got about a quarter of it's def bonus. Granted, normally going from 30 defense to 110 defense is overkill. Going from 8 defense to 34 defense still can allow you to get hit frequently at times.

Again, explain to me why you feel that /traps is so vastly superior? It's for the most part stationary. It has a lot of powers which can be interrupted. Not to mention the fact that very little in it I find really helps that much if you have spastic melee pets.

You use your traps, I'll use my poison debuffs. And you know what? We'll probably go just as fast through missions. In fact, I may go a bit faster since I don't have to spent time preparing for every fight. I'll also do so with about the same level of safety as you. And during AV/EB fights you'll be resummoning pets just as often. Maybe more since you don't have as good of a way to recover from spike damage without dipping into pool powers.

So get off your high horse. /Traps may be strong, but it's not the end all and be all of debuffing sets. Neither is /poison. Both are equally strong, just geared for different strengths and weaknesses.

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lol

'nuff said

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I've tried to look for information on the topic, but haven't found any.

How do -res procs in mercs work, regarding stacking ?

Are henchmen considered a different caster than you ? Is each tier of henchmen a different caster than each other ?

How about Acid Mortar ? Is it considered a different caster than yourself, and/or the other pets ?

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tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 and acid mortar are 4 different sources of the -resistance debuff. they will all stack.

in fact you could take burst and slot one in there too, becaues the acid mortar is considered a pet ie. a seperate source

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Poison: is pretty bad for mms in general.


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Are you serious? Do you know how strong Poison is as a debuffer? I mean seriously.

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Strong yes. Single Target, yes.

/Poison is by far the weakest secondary for MM. Believe me, I've tried A LOT of combos. I think Thug/Poison is a bit better because it is easier to put Noxious Gas on Bruiser but even that is weaker than other secondaries that can provide team supports. I've tried Thug/Trap that actually put me to sleep a bit (so strong).

Poison's debuffs are a bit over-rated anyway. Freezing Rain puts /Poison to shame most of the time.

PS: mmm, I am not sure which one is suckier.. Poison or Trick Arrow. I think I'll take Poison just because I can't imagine playing Necro or Ninja with Trick Arrow.

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Do you know what makes /poison so freaking nasty? Spammable -heal, -regen, and -special. I've seen EB's that love stun, holds, and knock backs never pulling them off due to -73% strength and duration to their effects. That -special for instance is the difference between a malta stun grenade disorienting you for a minute, or for 15 seconds.

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so?

with a kb prot io in ffg you dont need the -special, and poison trap and acid mortar take care of the rest

i'm sorry but for general play - and im speaking from experience with a 40+ thugs/poison - Traps is far superior especially once you start factoring in any amount of global recharge.

however on a team where tehre is already a disperson buble or ffg from another source, poison does shine.

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First off, spell check is your friend buddy. Did you notice what all that -special covers? If not, then I'll list it once servers are back up. It's quite the list. And I can reliably keep it on 5 or 6 enemies. Although honestly, you don't need to debuff that many enemies usually. Just the really hard ones.

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lol

your cluelessness is just astounding sometimes

traps is our most powerful general pve secondary. period. nothing has as many tools that actually work. nothing outside of force field replaces pets as infrequently. i have every secondary except storm at 40+ - i speak not from bs numbers in a planner or what others tell me, but what i've seen myself

but i already said this. GENERAL pve. there. now that's three times. yes there are instances where poison shines and in a team i prefer my poison and dark mm's over my traps due to how fast a team mows through mobs and how long recharges are on most traps powersets - but i can duplicate everything except the -special that poison has in traps, and a good chunk of what that -special would protect you as an individual from is in the ffg


and my spelling was quite fine for 3am thankyouverymuch, especially since there were no spelling mistakes but there were two typo's

oh and btw the following is everything that weaken does. lrn2cityofdata

DMG(All Types) -22.5% for 30s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
(same numbers as seeker drones)


ToHit -11.25% for 30s
(may as well be 0% vs. an av, and more than covered by +defense in FFG)


Stun, Sleep, Confused, Terrorized, Immobilize, Held, Knockback, Knockup, Repel -74.5% for 30s
(6 of those can be taken care of in FFG alone with a single IO)



RunSpeed, FlySpeed, ToHit, Endurance -74.5% for 30s
(why tohit is listed twice is beyond me as i doubt it debuffs tohit by 75%. runspeed/flyspeed is handled by web grenade. ever tried to drain an eb/av of endurance? yeah..)


DEF(All Types, Defense, Melee, Ranged, AOE) -74.5% for 30s
Effect does not stack from same caster
(now this is nice and unique, only 22.5% from acid mortar unenhanced)

Heal -74.5% for 30s [Non-resistable]
Effect does not stack from same caster

(same effect can be applied with poison trap)

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Poison: is pretty bad for mms in general.


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Are you serious? Do you know how strong Poison is as a debuffer? I mean seriously.

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Strong yes. Single Target, yes.

/Poison is by far the weakest secondary for MM. Believe me, I've tried A LOT of combos. I think Thug/Poison is a bit better because it is easier to put Noxious Gas on Bruiser but even that is weaker than other secondaries that can provide team supports. I've tried Thug/Trap that actually put me to sleep a bit (so strong).

Poison's debuffs are a bit over-rated anyway. Freezing Rain puts /Poison to shame most of the time.

PS: mmm, I am not sure which one is suckier.. Poison or Trick Arrow. I think I'll take Poison just because I can't imagine playing Necro or Ninja with Trick Arrow.

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Do you know what makes /poison so freaking nasty? Spammable -heal, -regen, and -special. I've seen EB's that love stun, holds, and knock backs never pulling them off due to -73% strength and duration to their effects. That -special for instance is the difference between a malta stun grenade disorienting you for a minute, or for 15 seconds.

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so?

with a kb prot io in ffg you dont need the -special, and poison trap and acid mortar take care of the rest

i'm sorry but for general play - and im speaking from experience with a 40+ thugs/poison - Traps is far superior especially once you start factoring in any amount of global recharge.

however on a team where tehre is already a disperson buble or ffg from another source, poison does shine.

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Ms. Liberty has an initial 50% resistance to lethal if I remember correctly.

So long as you keep Acid Mortar up enough you should be good (and if you have an Achillies Heel dropped into either your mortar or enforcers you're golden).

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ms libery was nothing to my thugs/traps and that was before i had io's.

here's my 5 step easy method for pve godhood

1: make any mastermind
2: level to 40
3: get some io sets
4: ???
5: profit

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On the other hand Bots gives the Mastermind himself additional defense, so if you are going to use a taunt and tank the AV yourself Bots are better. If you are going to let the pets take the aggro, I'd go with Thugs.

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resists are a better mechanic for taking advantage of bodyguard mode than defense. ideally a combination of resists and defense if you are tankerminding.

no joke

people think scrappers or brutes are the best solo class or most powerful class in this game

that's only becaues they havent played or poorly built a mastermind


masterminds ARE this games tank mages.

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where is this 'wall'?

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you're kidding right?

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read the post above this one, chief.

so for a while now when i'd point out how defense sets - most notably willpower - can be overcome by cimeroans in various boards here someone always invariably comes back with 'but i solo the wall...'

and here i thought the wall was all +2 and +3's with lots of bosses. wow.

i'm sorry but the wall is a joke. hordes of even level minions with MAYBE 1 lt and MAYBE 1 boss somewhere if you're lucky?

being able to 'solo the wall' means jack. i was 'soloing the wall' on my thugs/traps using no pets and just dropping trip mines for an h our today. gimme a break.

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...for all the good it's going to do in the long run.

Information Week has posted an article about China's declaration that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services. Defined to include pre-paid game time cards, a joint release by China's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce on Friday stated, "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." While a concerted effort to crack down on the backbone of RMT enterprises -- the low-paid gold farmers -- will impact the 'industry', there will undoubtedly be ways found around the regulations; however, in the short term, this is going to have to hurt the RMT spammers where they live, as 80%-85% of the gold farmers are believed to be in China. The ban is not, however, being presented as legislating compliance with RMT bans by game companies, but rather as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.

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what a lot of people dont realize is this simple fact - this will have no impact on the spammers

the overwhelming majority of the spammers are for sites that infect your computer with keyloggers so they can steal your accounts, strip them and sell THAT currency - not what they can farm.

thugs has a slight advantage due to having more single target attacks (while still having the exact same number of aoe attacks as bots btw), while being able to slot an achilles heel -resist in the enforcers which they keep up at an astonishing rate - plus being able to slot 4 pet aura uniques in gang war to bring them up to and passed bot survivability levels

where is this 'wall'?

one pain or dark, one traps or ff

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Do not skip trip mine. Ever. A mine field can one shot a purple conning boss. Each mine does massive lethal/fire damage. A bunch together can make a serious dent on an av or cut an EB down to half health.

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Yes, but the bots can kill a purple boss faster than you can set up that minefield. Good advice for a Corruptor, but a Bots/Traps MM can just hit purple bosses and EBs head on and flatten them so in practice the mines are less vital.

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depends on the boss/eb

there are some you want weakened as much as possible as soon as possible.

none of the necro pets need end reduction slotted. their attack chains are so slow they dont burn through end like the other primaries can

the three biggest end users are enforcers, probots and the bruiser.

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I don't know how I overlooked the Devouring Earth Monsters. Thank you for the info, KitsuneKnight and BrokenPrey!

So does anyone have thoughts on the Thugs/Dark MM build or info on any other confirmed GM soloing builds?

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thugs/traps, not thugs/dark

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widdershins and biff are why i set out to make the ultimate av/boss killing machine - and after many chars run through those missions i settled on a thugs/traps. although really nearly anything with /traps will work provided you can keep the poisoin gas trap cloud perma and your primary can keep a nonstop attack chain going. bots will pause...frequently.

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Do you mean that I (as a bots/traps) will need to work in all my personal attacks to take on these EBs/AVs? Or that I just can't do it alone?

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you'll be fine. just toss web 'nade on auto so they cant run. they do run. you just lack the single target dmg of the bruiser so it will take longer.

because of the lack of the single target damage, you really REALLY cant let them run. web 'nade on auto and pop your patron immob whenever it's up. if they run they can regen a godly amount of health in a very short time.

detonator is skippable


that's all

do not skip:

poison trap, the -regen is extmrely handy and in many cases may make or break a simple EB fight (ie. widdershins/biff)

seeker drones - fantastic alpha absorbers and eb/av pullers into your mine fields

trip mine - the way my mm is slotted everything is at least -40% resist debuffed. my toe-bomb trip mines hit for over 500 damage. annoying sapper around corner? trip mine and tp foe - it's dead, jim.

triage beacon - when you get io'd out and most of your pets are soft capped, you'll find you dont need repair or aid other that often, this is enough. it's also a great place to slot 5 doctored wounds for global recharge.

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A THUG mastermind using team teleport?! But, thugs don't want to be in melee (most of them anyway)

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and this is why you fail


the point of team teleport on a thugs is for optimal cone positioning as well as ensuring that the thugs remain in range of you at all times. nothing worse than getting near a mob, having your bruiser in int's face but your enforcers are behind you at max range - leaving your bruiser out of range of their manuevers, tactics and assault buffs.

and lets not also forget that you dont need to get teleport - team tp can be your only travel power if you wish. grab tp foe and recall friend. tp foe is great for dealing with sappers or splitting a hard spawn of flamethrowers you'd rather not rush headlong in to.

team teleport is fantastic for all mastermind primaries.

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Anyone solo without using their personal 3 shooties or a shootie from a patron set?

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With Bots/Traps, easily. Poison Trap + the Assault Bot's plasma blasts for -regen and Acid Mortar for -resist (with an Achilles proc for more -resist) means the bots do plenty of damage.

With Bots/FF? Never tried... my Bots/FF is still a lowbie. Probably possible as long as you have enough recharge and duration in a patron immobilize to keep the AV in the burn patches, but it'd take a while. Without the immobilize I don't see it happening.

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/ff has the room and the endurance to spare taking a couple of attacks. the other secondaries do not unless you forego a staple power for the sake of a concept.

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this must be your first villain.

there are more arcs with EB's and AV's redside post 40 than anything blue side. you WILL run into them. yo uwill run into them several times just trying to unlock a patron pool.

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Not my first villain, but I don't have any post-40 characters, period. I don't try to rush my toons to 40 like so many others who treat everything before that as the preliminaries. I think anything past is pretty fun to play, and tapers off around 40 by virtue of all the tier 9 madness.

Having said all of that, why do I need to be able to *solo* AV's? I'll just team up with friends.

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um..rush?

you've been playing off and on since 2005 - 4 years - and have no characters over 40? not even one?

you arent just not rushing, you've gone to the extreme opposite of the spectrum

hold your opinion of how masterminds play until you've played them doing grandville arcs 40+

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Pfah. Nonsense. There's more to the game than the endgame. Why should I "hold my opinion" about the rest of the game that I do enjoy?

And to heck with this spectrum you speak of. People play at a pace that they enjoy. Most of my game time was spent soloing in a pre-CoV environment. Not only no AE, but no newspapers or radios. After doing all the door missions that contacts offered, it was often necessary to streetsweep to ding. I remember 19th level toons crowding The Land of the Lost in Skyway and cursing each other for claim-jumping spawns, simply because there were no other real options (no Striga, for instance). Streetsweeping now is considered...quaint. Folks don't know how good they got it

My highest level toon rarely sees action. He's not as much fun to play. All the options available to him boil down to Aim + Rain of Arrows when teaming and laying Trip Mines when he's soloing. Everything else is just mop up. So, with most builds that's what I have to look forward to at high levels: tier 9 powers overturning the apple cart (apparently to the extent that the only big challenge is soloing an enemy that was designed to be fought with an entire team). That's why I'm attracted to the MM, as I hope it offers a sane degree of advancement.

But if it makes you happy, Jupiter, maybe I should just go PL a Fire/Kin controller just to say I have an OTT level 50 lying around gathering dust.

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you're a joke

plevel a fire/kin? i'm sorry, but i really dont give a rat's [censored] about heroes.

1) villain 40+ content is harder than hero side. heroes dont have 90% of their missions filled with spawns where the lt's drop -40% resist grenades, the minions toss aoe -800% regen grenades and the bosses and eb's will sonic cage/detention field you and kill your support/pets. heroes dont fight bosses and an ENTIRE FACTION where every mob has 300%+ regeneration - where if you let that lt run it will come back in a few seconds at full health. and that's jut the tip of the iceberg

2) plevel a fire/kin? i have plevelled NONE of my characters in the AE. not a one. i havent plevelled a single character in the tv missions. NOT. A. ONE. in 5 years i have only 15 months of actual paid time on my oldest account and yet i could find the time to get at least one char to 50. it's not our fault you have ADD or are lazy or simply cant hack what is one of the easiest to play mmorpg's on the market. maybe free realms is more to your style?


you come into this thread an whine about changes when you dont even have clue 1 about how this game really plays, nor have you even experienced the real meat of villainside dev created content - which is mostly 40+ and in grandville. you dont get to sit there and tell me that you are taking your time to see all of the content when you are seeing only a small fraction of what's available. you havent fought positron or biff or widdershins or dr. quaxtren or even learned about the real storyline behind your character and lord recluse's plans for you because you havent gotten to that content yet.

so go ahead, plevel your fire/kin. i would rather people like you stayed blue side, sitting around atlas whinging for an ae mission. i prefer the smaller pbase with a higher % of skilled players present redside and there's no room for you.

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A few more questions for the experts please.

On slotting the 'bots. Most of the pet sets seem a bit lacking to my inexperienced eyes. Apart from the uniques which I DO think seem desirable. The bonuses seem to focus around Mez Resistance. My build isn't terribly concerned with this. I was using the pet sets just because they are for pets, but in the end I have 11.9% res to hold,8% to stun, and 4.7 to imobilize. The other resistances are good, over 50%, so I think that's worth it. If I understand correctly having 11.9% resistance to hold will shorten the duration of a hold attack that hits me by 11.9%.

Is that correct and is that worth it at all?

Next question regards slotting Probots. I understand that the game actually makes no distinction mechanically between Defense Buffs and Debuffs. It appears I can slot the Probots with two Enzymes for maximum effect. Can someone verify this for me?

Thanks for the help!

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as dark you will have access to two holds - one from dark, one from your patron eventually. it will play much like a dominator without domination - instead of trying to prevent or survive the hold, you beat them to the punch. for av's, ideally your assault bot should be tanking for you and you'll only have to worry about the aoe stuff

do be warned - villains have THE hardest dev content in this game post 40. malta? pfft. try longbow - -resist grenades, -regen grenades and my PERSONAL favorite - elite bosses that will cage you and kill your pets while you can do jack about it. heroes dont have to deal with this - and it will make you a better player overall for having done it.

my necro/dark had an easy time with most av's due to fearsome stare from me, the lich and of course the other control goodies from the dark servant. however some will be a real problem. if you arent already too vested into the bots/dark i would recommend you flip gears and go thugs/dark. being able to slot 10% defense and 20% resistance to all in gang war added to thugs already decent survivability adds a lot, plus you can slot an achillese heel -resist proc in enforcers which they keep up nearly 90% of the time and combine it with tar patch.

also - bots have a lot of aoe knockbacks post 32. until you have your patron immob - and then again ONLY IF YOU PICK MU - it's bloody annoying. thugs has only one knockback in the bruiser hurl. this means you can go with the scorpion +defense shield to combine with shadow fall, and pick up web envelope for it's substantially wider radius.

just my $0.02

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I believe I have experienced the worst case of 'slow kill'...

My Bots/FF, vs Widdershins... in a tree, unable to move or attack, helpless.

I could not overcome his regen enough to defeat him.

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yep

widdershins and biff are why i set out to make the ultimate av/boss killing machine - and after many chars run through those missions i settled on a thugs/traps. although really nearly anything with /traps will work provided you can keep the poisoin gas trap cloud perma and your primary can keep a nonstop attack chain going. bots will pause...frequently.