Lewisite
-
Posts
198 -
Joined
-
So we all know that IO set bonus's don't do anything much to your pets. I'm not really offering too much of an opinion here because honestly its a lot to think about.. so I'm soliciting opinions if only for my own curiosity.
1) Is there a non-technical reason IO set bonus's don't effect pets? ie balance?
2) Would these bonuses help with the problems a lot of MM's report regarding incarnate content difficulty?
I would carefully posit that IO set's should effect pets like they do their MM's because it would, in my mind, allow an MM to perhaps run one of the less-uber (ie, not bots-thugs/traps) sets more successfully. Right now, especially with Incarnate content, pets without soft-cap defense tend to die pretty fast, and their damage output isn't as thrilling as it used to be.
What do you guys think? -
I think Mercs can fly alright with /Dark or possibly /Thermal. Its not Bots or Thugs /Traps but its probably alright.
Mercs *absolutely require* Achilles heel proc. That debuff is the only thing that makes the set work. Touch of Lady Grey proc can be good too. If you have those, Mercs will do ok. They have solid 'dakka dakka' enough with those debuffs kicking away at them, stacking nicely with your existing /Dark debuffs.
That said, really, you kind of have to focus on something you want when it comes to IO'ing. Cranking up defense as high as possible never hurts, you can never have enough recharge. My /dark MM is Necro, but I went with as much recharge as possible and almost but not quite permahaste. It works well, lots of /Darks powers are quite potent but you really don't want to be waiting around for them to reload.
Honestly, late game content I think /Dark remains a solid set but your MM has to be able to hold agro, resist status effects, and get as much defense and resists you can stuff on your toon. My recomendation is hunt around for anything that adds +DEF and +RES and stack it to the sky. It'll only effect you (lamely...) but if you hold agro you'll probably swing it most of the time. -
Quote:Yeah, basically. I said as much aboveOriginally Posted by Soul_Stormer
my first villain (and one of the first villain 50s yay!) was necro/poison
i really liked the set and my character liked the idea of spitting poison.
maybe the solution is for the main single target powers (alkaloid, envenom and weaken) to have some amount of 'splash' - potentially increase the strength of the heal/debuff on the target, while including a weaker, small radius AoE splash. specifically:
Seems similiar to what I was saying above. The debuffs themselves I don't think are so powerful though you need special conditions to weaken their AoE, though...Quote:alkaloid - increase the heal for the target, add like a half-valued heal in 10-15 ft AoE.
envenom and weaken - increase the debuff values slightly on the target (make it better than AoE debuffs already available in game - rad and dark specifically), and either make it a very narrow cone (10 degrees or so) or a small AoE (i'd go for narrow cone actually - fits the set better). maybe the -special on weaken would only be on the target, or only a % chance for the AoE.
*snip some content*
Everyone agrees on this at the very leastQuote:poison trap blows, no doubt.
Well, yeah, but that doesn't change the fact its only good for MM's with Melee henchmen. Even putting it on another player doesn't necessarily make it useful. Its still a very limited use power for a level 38 -- usually the GEM of most secondaries!Quote:noxious gas is also fine, but maybe allow use on players as well as henchmen (as well as other pets and henchmen)
my 2 cents.
Also... honestly, none of these changes really address the fact that for most primaries /Poison offers almost nothing for damage mitigation. Your poor minions are still going to die like flies. It still has a massive weakness to status effects, which are really killer. Fighting guys like Malta with /Poison is an exercise in frustration. -
Oh man!
Where to begin?? My very first villain (when I didn't know better) is a Mercs/Poison still active through sheer stubbornness. Poison is AWFUL. It offers absolutely nothing, and its even worse with high level incarnate-style content where none of its powers will do anything. I know the set had a brief spot in the sun some time ago as a Thugs/Poison craze went around but that died out soon after people noticed it didn't actually rock at all.
First thing: Kill the single target nature entirely. CoX is not a game where single target debuffs are going to get you anywhere. Especially later on, you never fight one or two guys unless they are bosses and your powers won't debuff them in any noticeable way anyway.
Second: All its animations suck unless your playing some kind of mutant. Bleh!
Lets do this!!
Alkaloid sucks. Its a crappy, end expensive poor quality heal. Its got decent range but thats about it. It costs WAY too much end for they extremely poor healing it actually puts out. Its an early power you have to take too. Double its heal power and it'll be worth the end and worth using IMO. Or make it a targeted AoE heal even better.
Envenom sucks. It should be an AoE. Then it would be useful.
Weaken sucks. It should be an AoE. Then it would be useful. The -special is the magic of this thing anyway.
Neurotoxic breath sucks. A short-lived slow and -recharge. I tired using this to help mitigate damage but it just doesn't make a big enough difference. Useless for incarnate content anyway -- it won't work on anyone. I'd just turf this whole power and replace it with something to really help mitigate damage. The tragic thing is this probably is one of the better poison powers just because its at least an AoE.
Elixer of Life rocks No really. It actually kicks ***, you just need your buddies to die (and they will because you can't help them!), then they get a sweet buff and you get to laugh as they vomit later Its my favorite power in the set! haha, its true!
Antidote .. does what it says anyway. Its not a terribly useful power though.
Paralytic Poison is... ok. Its a solid hold I guess. Its really your only effective way to mitigate damage later on, especially if you stack it with another hold from a PPP or something.
Poison trap is so bad, its infuriating. It does NOTHING. AT ALL. Just clone Traps/Poison Trap and we are good again. Why is it different anyway?
Noxious Gas sucks... for all but a few Primaries. Its great on melee pets. Too bad not all primaries use melee pets. You can throw it on your Commando and micro him into battle -- if he listens -- but then Poison offers no real damage mitigation so he'll probably just die anyway. I'm not sure how to fix this exactly even. Make it so maybe the effects also work on people he attacks rather then merely an AoE around him? Do both or turf the power in my mind. Or better yet, make it what I describe below.
General observation: Antidote seems to have no reason to be in this set. It doesn't seem to fit very well, antidote should be in a BUFF set, not a DEBUFF set. Replace it with something else.
If Positron where to just ask me what to do, I'd say, "Forget the cottage business. People will complain no matter what you ever do, but less will complain if you genuinely improve things. Like this!"
Alkaloid - AoE heal, it splashes! Change nothing else.
Envenom - What it does now but AoE. Change nothing else.
Weaken - What it does not but AoE. Change nothing else.
Neurotoxic Gas - PBAoE toggle. Provides in a fairly wide area a strong -ToHit. Poison NEEDS a way to help mitigate incoming damage for the MM and his pets, otherwise they die too much. A very solid -ToHit will help, and still worths thematically with the set. It could also provide a tidy +DEF since a cloud of poison might be hard to see through or something.
Elixer of Life - Change nothing. Or make the vomit louder
Antidote - Change this entirely. Forget nonsense about removing status effects on other people, you don't have ANY status effect protection at ALL in this set, and it desperately needs it! Make this a TOGGLE that gives you strong status effect protection to your MM. Especially against sleeps and holds, the bane of /Poison.
Paralytic Poison - This is probably ok. I use it, I like it.
Poison Trap - Clone Traps/Poison Trap. Thats a great power.
Noxious Gas - Instead of buffing a henchman, make this a summon power like storm/tornado. It summons a poison cloud that enters melee range and hovers around there debuffing things in the way that it does now. This makes it useful to both ranged and melee primaries. Problem solved.
And there! That would fix it. That would make it a good, solid, balanced set. You get to keep the debuffs poison was meant to use, but in a manner thats actually useful.. you get some damage mitigation in there, desperately needed status protection, and you retain some of the control thats occasionally useful.
Thats a huge amount of changes, but lets be honest: No one likes Poison much, if anyone truly does like it, they are a tiny minority. Chances are, what made them like it before will still be in my New Poison set anyway, I don't think I proposed changing what the set is SUPPOSED to be, I just made it so it would act like its probably supposed to be like.
Thats my opinion as a very, very long time /Poison user. (In fact, my forum name is after my character "General Lewisite", a tech Mercs/Poison MM.)
Cheers -
Well, I run a pretty potent necro/dark. He's really only very modestly Io'd and he can fairly safely run +3x5. Really, any mm has a crap run between around 17-31. The dark servant at 38 really is very awesome though. Honestly I found it a late blooming build but I really don't see a lot of the survivability problems with melee pets complain about. Even at +3x5 I find myself trying to get zombies to die so I can extract their souls
Necro/Dark is one of the few really solid builds outside of the holy four def-cap types.
I personally focus on massive fear for crowd control.
Its really good but keep in mind you attack survivability by three ways. A somewhat weak defense, which helps your formidable -tohit abilities, then round out with solid aoe healing.
Works better then it looks on paper. If you haven't played to 38, at least try to, it works out
-
So yeah.
Issue 20. Us Mm's been asking to customize our pets for a long time now. Since the first day they where added, in fact. Here we are, 14 issues later.. And its still not in.
That really sucks so bad. I wish they'd just add it in already.... They already fixed all the "impossible" features like zoning minions they said would never happen.
Devs, just please add this feature in. Being able to customize things is amoung this games selling feature, having such poor minion choices ruins so many concepts.
Oh yeah and fix our broken ai while your at it
-
Quote:I gotta comment on this. You are so right. Thugs/Traps can be a delicious combination of evil damage, some helpful debuffing, fantastic damage mitigation (talk about softcap def here) and the thugs just powerful performance in general.Originally Posted by kalashnikow
more then this, thug/traps considered to be the most powerful combination of all. i personally dislike thugs for several reasons, but i have seen ppl soloing very difficult maps and whole tf/sf on this combination.
Once I finally (after almost 4 years) gave up on my Mercs/Poison and rolled a Thugs/Traps, life became good, even for late game battles. They might look like a bunch of jerks but they know how to party. Can't go wrong with Bots either. Thugs/Traps and Bots/Traps are legendary for a reason, they can solo stuff that would make the butt hairs fade of just about any other archetype. -
Hi Guys.
This is an old topic for me, my very first Villain was a Mercs/Poison MM, that I thought up thematically with no real regard to the numbers or tactics involved. I still think up my characters thematically, but I do run some numbers before I go through the work ;P
Anyway, my Mercs/Poison is pretty much maxed out for debuff, the set can actually do some pretty impressive damage, even too groups. I still have this character btw, he's got all the accolades and is purpled out pretty completely. As far as a debuffing Mercs build go he's pretty much the best mathematically possible.
Here is the problem with Mercs in general, which are made worse by a terrible set like /Poison. Debuffing in this game works great on minions and lt's, and on regular bosses it can do the trick nicely too. But on the really tough guys (Level 54 bosses, Elite bosses or worse) the debuffing only gets you so far and it isn't enough for the strongly resisted S/L to do very much, ever. Thats debuffing with the Poison set even. So as the game ends you find yourself really unable to damage the enemy very much...
Which leads to the bigger problems of the set -- its complete and utter lack of damage mitigation. Like I said this is worse with Poison since Poison has none of this either (if only I knew back then what I know now!). But with any secondary, your boys will die. Just when you start to do some damage to your enemy, a couple of your guys are gonna drop dead, cut your damage output, you can't beat their regen, then the battle is thrown and thats that. You can't beat their regen even with /Poison's -regen ability, which doesn't work on EB's or even L54 bosses worth a spit.
I'm actually really, really hoping that the Incarnate abilities might bring some of these power sets back into action. If there was a good, solid, constant way to take care of your boys then /Mercs might actually turn out to be not half bad. The set just leaves gaps, regardless of your secondary.
Its really too bad, because I love the dakka dakka I always need more dakka. Mercs need A LOT more dakka. More dakka! If you roll a Mercs toon, hope that Incarnate abilities can fill in your gaps, because to be honest, you don't want end game mobs to fill your gaps for you
-
Quote:And its all true!Originally Posted by Dr Cause
I only have one Demons so I am not going to say anything about them and I will agree that Bots & Thugs are noticeably stronger than Ninjas, Zombies or Mercs.
But as far as 2ndaries go its ludicrous to claim that /Traps and /FF are the only viable sets for endgame content.
You mentioned that Defense was King so let's take a look. Check it out...
Actually I love /Dark, its my second favorite set. /FF makes you hard to kill and gives you lots of ability to move even powerful mobs around with kb. But /Dark is great... but.. it fails at the end game like the other sets. I'll go into why!Quote:Case in point: /Traps Vs. /Dark:
I think Shadow Fall has some +RES too, I have a 50 Necro/Dark but I don't recall exactly. Oh and +Stealth which is handy if you stack it with one of those Uniques that add stealth. But.. you can't beat that much DEF from FFG.Quote:Slotted FFG= +15.5% Def, Vs. Shadow Fall= +5.5% Def
So /Traps is up 10% Def
... and here is where you get it all wrong. All the -tohit abilities are worthless against high level mobs and especially useless against ArchVillains -- AV's resist something like 87% -- there is a wiki article around that describes it. But it'll do nothing to them. So you can't effect their ability to hit you a noticeable amount, you have to be able to get out of their way yourself. Your math only works *at all* against *+0 Minions* LT's, Bosses, AV's, monsters, etc will all resist to some extent. It'll vary a bit between most mobs but by the time you get to the +54 AV's of the end-game TF's your debuffs are completely, utterly, worthless. (Thats why poison is the worst secondary)Quote:Seeker Drones= 15% -Tohit, Vs. Darkest Night= 17% -Tohit & Fearsome Stare=17% -Tohit.
Leaving /Dark ahead by 19% -Tohit.
So /Traps was ahead +10% Def but /Dark was ahead by 19% -Tohit
Leaving the bottom line chance of not being hit 9% better for /Dark.
To reiterate not even counting the -Tohit that Twilight Grasp and Dark Servant give, /Dark has a 9% better chance of not being hit than /Traps.
In my experience because of /Dark's huge AOE heal and an additional pet that also has a great AOE Heal I often find it to be more survivable than /Traps. Where /Traps pulls ahead is in AV/GM soloing fights where its superior -Regen allows it kill things /Dark falters on.
/Traps is very possibly the best MM 2ndary, but I would put /Dark and /Storm way ahead of /FF.
/FF is very easy to play and very easy to Soft Cap so fairly tough, but it has no +Resistance, no heal, no +dmg, no +Regen, no -Dmg, no -Res, and no -Regen. Meaning against most Endgame AV's it has no chance compared to other sets. I personally wouldnt even put /FF in the top half of available MM 2ndaries, let alone anywhere in my list of top 4 MM combos.
Basically, honestly, any set or power that focuses on debuffing is garbage for the late game +54 TF's. That means a lot of traps stuff too! Since none of these debuffs are going to work, /FF's lack of them actually turns out to be no weakness at all. That applies to things like -Regen. The New -Regen is +Damage.
For end-game content all you need to do is keep your butt intact and contribute where you can with whatever you can.
/FF is seriously awesome, its just boring to play. All the things it lacks can be made up with power pools or epic pools, and it really the only things it lacks aren't useful for end-game content anyway. Debuffing is a thing of the past -- which sucks because my first main (and 50) was Mercs/Poison, lol. -
I'd think long and hard about /Thermal as an option.
Especially later on, toward the end-game content where things become really tricky you want to be stacking somekind of survival trait. Thats why Bots or Thugs with /Traps are so popular, they stack up DEF.. with DS and Thermal you can really ramp up the RES. Its a lot of bubbling though!
Going for DEF is a waste of time if you can't softcap it when you get to the end-game, same goes for -Tohit or anything, unless your maxing things out your not getting anywhere. Level 54 mobs have really high accuracy
-
Ah, ha, yeah. Perma gang-war would be fun. But honestly, they are -3 to your level, they die really fast and do no real damage. Its not a huge loss, lol. Still, thats a lot of gang wars ;P
-
Well, Bots/Traps does a bit less damage than Thugs/Traps. Thats a fact really, but Bots/ have their tricks to ramp up the hurt. For example, the assault bots burn patches can be really evil -- holding the enemy inside a burn patch with something like Mu Master/Electric Shackles can really burn even strong mobs down pretty well.
Bots/Traps is the classic AV Soloing MM, so it really can do some mean damage, but its "up front" damage isn't as much, its a bit more involved... but then they are very solid pets that can absorb damage better than Thugs. Thugs general lack of resistances means they get one shotted more often, and maintenance of their health is up to you.
Both Thugs/Traps and Bots/Traps are so powerful, even in the end-game, that for me deciding which one is better is almost impossible. A bit more damage, or a bit more survivability.. you just can't go wrong really. -
Yeah, really. I honestly don't slot my Gang War past sticking in RIP stuff in them. You aren't really going to kill anyone tough with "Punks" but they are a fantastic distraction -- if a little bit cold hearted They are also handy for when mobs jump you at the doors while your real pets are buggering around and milling about the doorway.
I rarely use them in a circumstance where they'd actually last two minutes, I use them when I need to buy a few seconds to re-consitute my forces or make a quick escape. -
With Thugs/Traps you can be pretty durable if you pick the right powers. My Thugs/Traps softcaps S/L DEF and S/L RES. These builds can be pretty flexible.
-
I always try and fit the three Leadership pools in, especially nice if your playing thugs since the Enforcers both add their own Leadership skills -- added together the bonuses are pretty awesome. Maneuvers for MM's is pretty weak, but as stated above -- it stacks with everyone elses maneuvers too and it can add up fast.
EDIT: Also, since my Main is apparently a General -- I'd expect him to be good at leadership. Thats maybe not a great reason to have it, but there ya go
-
Both bots and thugs have lots of knock back, pretty similar amounts. I've got both, and really its not a big problem. If it turns out to really annoy you, electric fences from Mu mastery is -kb and works like a charm its never bothered me much honestly.
You just cannot go wrong with either choice, they are both incredibly powerful. Honestly, go for what you like, both sets can solo avs or just about anything. -
Really?
That's all very interesting. That would make T1 thugs pretty good, maybe better than bruiser. The two basic thugs attack decently fast, and the arsonist deals aoe that can scourge... that with build up might be pretty effective. Maybe interesting! -
Quote:Its not a myth, its a rock-solid fact. I don't like to get into potentially flamey arguments... but I'm going to anyway since it irks me when people give me the old L2P speech. Its nonsense buddy.Originally Posted by Lord_Regulus
This flat-out myth is why I never see any diversity in pets. I have a Ninja/TA and that got good AT end-game. Sure it requires a bit more effort than opening fire on a group from within a bubble, but don't mark down other sets because they are harder to play.
End-game content even minions can often one-shot or nearly one-shot your T1's. Thats an in-arguable fact. Regular bosses can usually AoE all your T1 pets in a single hit. Then you have no pets. As I said maybe with DS/Therm you can stack up enough Res to have them survive a few shots and with /Therms healing pull the whole thing off but Ive never played one or grouped with anyone who has.
My point, is that your T1 pets are going to die a lot if they get hit, the reason why the 4 sets I listed above do well is because you can soft-cap their def so that they rarely do get hit, because when they do get hit they generally die. So its best to just minimize your chances of getting hit.
You can call it a myth, but it makes me wonder how much end-game content you've actually played with a MM -- I've touched nothing but MM's since CoV first came out, I've got some builds that worked pretty well such as Necro/Dark (the AI bug actually make them work better it seems) that survive against most content very well -- he can solo on +3/5 (not alpha slotting yet) if I pay attention and pull all the stops. Maybe some builds could get a little bit farther. But those are newspaper missions and the like, I take him on end-game TF's where you get level 54 mobs rolling around and the whole thing becomes a lot less effective.
Then we get to the boss and bam! All my pets (except my Lich who somehow manages to not be effected by the pet ai bug) are stone dead right away.
Now I'll admit, my Necro/Dark relies heavily on control and healing to keep himself and his pets alive and as I said against most content he's a blast to play, but the mean TF's that are around these days you can't heal because they die too fast, and you can't control because even stacking something like a Mag 9 - 16 fear (depending on my Liches and I's fearsome stare) only works for a short duration. Against level 50's they'll be frightened forever it seems.
I just do not see how you can argue that DEF isn't King when it comes to MM pets, softcapped your pets have a pretty solid chance of lasting in battle long enough to carry the day, without it they die before they can whittle something tough down.
If your not going to be playing max-difficulty TF's and you never want to, then yeah you have more options. But if you want to go all the way and play everything in the game, you have 4 options.
The to-hit % chance and effects of softcap are facts, but the rest are just my opinions and you can take them or leave them. I know the mechanics of this game, and I've clocked in more than 4 years of sub-time, and I'm not an alta-holic so I know how this game plays at the end. The best offense and the best defense is a good defense. -
Mu Master - Electric Shackles.
Totally one of the best abilities in the game. Its -KB so you just zap 'em with that, then you can go to town without sending them flying all over -- unless you want them too. -
Really,
Thugs/Traps
Thugs/FF
Bots/Traps
Bots/FF
One of those, the rest get pwnt at end-game content. Ranged vs Melee pets doesn't matter anymore since the pet AI bug all the pets are melee now.
Theoretically, DS/Therm might be able to stack up enough res if you keep them buffed, but I've never seen it. -
Quote:Not a problem yet...Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend
Okay, let's work this out. Let's say you want to have different looks for each of your henchmen. You're Thugs, to make this simple. You want each of your three Thugs, both Enforcers, and your Bruiser to have a unique look with character level detail.
That's six costumes right off the bat.
This is an easy fix, just have the henchmen spawn with your customized appearance. The little do-dads are just for appearances sake anyway. If they are just basic spawned, then they just don't use the powers -- so your customized robot might have a rocket array, it doesn't doesn't have ammo for it until you upgrade it. Non-issue..Quote:Now remember that with Mastermind powers, when you upgrade a henchman using Equip Thugs and Upgrade Equipment (or whatever), their look changes. Some added on bit of armor or aura or other do-dad. That's actually a separate costume from the original, that just looks the same with the upgrades added to it. There are two upgrade powers per set, which means you have to add three more costumes for each henchman: one for with only the first upgrade, one for with only the second upgrade, and one for with both.
So six henchmen need four costumes apiece, for a total of twenty four unique costumes for each mastermind costume.
Time to upgrade your pentiumQuote:Now remember that each costume slot on a character is able to have differently customized powers. Presumably then your henchmen would fall into this category, so each costume slot would allow you to choose unique looks for your little horde.
At twenty four unique costumes for each of five slots, that becomes one hundred and twenty costumes, plus the five for the character themselves to make it one hundred and twenty five, per mastermind. (we won't even discuss customizing the thugs in Gang War)
125, people, ain't nothing to sneeze at.
One hundred and twenty five costumes. Even if I'm wrong about how the henchman upgrade costumes work, it still ends up being a rather good sized number. 125 records is not a lot. I own a company that builds databases (among other things) and I can tell you that the size of this information is just not the problem. Its the work involved -- which I expect NCSoft to do anyway since we all want it and ask for it everyday -- but the size or amount of the records isn't a problem for modern computers. Any modern database can handle millions and millions of records, building one that can handle billions isn't a huge task, its not the 1995 anymore.
I honestly have no idea what kind of computer hardware or operating systems or software that NCSoft uses -- but most systems these days are farm-type designs and you can just add more to them. Diskspace works the same way, you have storage area networks with pools. Just add more. Its magic!
Seriously though, its actually incredibly cool.
Back to the point -- think of it this way, look at your character as it is. He has records for his health, endurance, possibly more than a thousand badges (Boolean values each), infamy, experience, a record of how many of each type of mob slain in the game, what parts of the maps you've explored, chances are there are already thousands of records per character. Since we would probably skip the upgrade appearance changes (they are pointless anyway) thats only like 30 more records on an MM's profile. I doubt the system would notice that. Loading the textures in game.. well, again, we have modern computers now. CoX isn't running cutting edge high rez textures and models, it should be fine.
So really, the whole issue is just that its a lot of work to make changes to existing code. When MM Pet customization shows up eventually we'll all be treated to a new wave of pet bugs It'll be worth it ;P
-
Honestly, if your pets cannot soft cap, then they die constantly. Resistance based pets like demons I'm pretty skeptical if they can really handle end game content with 54 level mobs. I think demons are cool and fun... but mostly popular because they are new. I bet they'd die in a flash on the new end game tf's.
That means the only viable long term mm's are bots or thugs paired with traps or ff.
Its pretty disappointing ;( Well, if you don't happen to be playing one of those anyway, lol. -
Quote:This is truth to the max. Even poor Recluse gets treated like a sucka, and he's a lot more likeable than that puffed up Statesman.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Because they hate villains, and really hate Masterminds.
-
One of the problems with MM's is that only a few builds are actually good.
These sets are playable at best, they'll always be weak though.
Mercs/* - suffers from a weak primary, no recharge intensive pet options.. poor damage, etc
Ninjas/* - suffers froms AoE's against powerful mobs, melee minions lack survivability. Any boss with an AoE will instakill the whole lot generally.
Necro/* - suffers from the same weaknesses as Ninjas, but to a lesser extent really.
*/Arrow - Just lame and weak in every way pretty much. No one complains about this set because almost no one plays it.
*/Poison - suffers from lack of AoE abilities and absolutely no defenses to keep pets alive. Its reputation as an AV killer is, IMO, bogus since AV's resist debuffs extremely well. Also, with no defenses, they'll instakill all your pets right away anyway. People still swear about this but I've never seen anything recent. I'll come out and be fair with this, my first MM was Mercs/Poison -- took him to 50, purpled him out. Still sucks.
On the other hand...
Thugs/Traps - Awesome.
Bots/Traps - Awesome.
and the rest are "OK", generally average builds.
So thats really the problem, because some people will have great success with their MM and anyone whos says the class is weak say "L2P" and rip you down. Others are having a real challenge because their build is legitimately poor. The fact with MM's is that you have to be careful to do a bit of research to see if a build is potentially any good, it sucks when you level a toon up to some high level just to realize it has no end-game viability. MM's are just a picky class in general.
I don't know what the Devs are up to ever, no one on this planet does... but they really ignore this class, throwing us DS was a nice gesture but really they need to go back and tweak the existing stuff -- adding more primaries and the occasional secondary does a lot to give the ILLUSION of choice for MM's but nothing for the reality of the situtation. -
Before you flame, yes, I know, we won't get it until at least Issue 500 comes out or whatever, if ever It would be nice if it was sooner, but hey, thats life.
I'm just talking about what I *would* (maybe someday will?) do if I could customize my pets. Maybe other people will post some concepts too
I made my MM with a military theme, but Mercs are a poor primary in general, especially for the way I like to play -- thats really another discussion anyway, but I went with Thugs instead. Realistically, former-soldiers might not wear their uniforms anymore anyway.
For my MM's storyline however, they are not former anything but current soldiers working for a Rogue general with his own agenda -- not actually Mercs anyway. I'd like a somewhat sinister look, but clearly military -- and of a fairly uniform (heh) appearance since they are part of the same unit. It wouldn't make sense for soldiers to be wearing uniforms totally different from one another after all. Note I didn't change any of the actual skeleton models, just the skins.
First off, this is my character. Currently in Praetoria actually but he'll be going Rogue ;P He provides the basic look and theme. Natural original, traps secondary. All of his men are assumed to be natural origin-types, but there is a small tech-theme.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img6/glowfoto
My two basic troopers are basically identical in appearance, for variation I will likely change their pistols around a bit as I've shown. Thugs don't really wear any armor so the basic soldier uniform is actually perfect.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img5/glowfoto
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img4/glowfoto
The arsonist is a bit tricky to theme but I think I got a look I like with him. The Arsonist has some fire resistance so I took the bulkier looking gas-mask and changed his jacket to be baggier to represent a different, supposedly fire-resistant material. He has a tool belt since he's got lots of stuff to carry and big armored gloves to protect his hands while handling hazardous materials. I also added some small shoulder pads since dealing with explosives usually involves some shrapnel, and thus a slightly armored look seemed appropriate.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img6/glowfoto
My two "Enforcers" are my officers. They are chock full of leadership skills so it makes a lot of sense. I wanted them to be identifiable as officers, but share a general appearance. The official jacket-type looks like a vest, he's got a toolbelt for the various little bombs the enforcers use and losses the helmet for an official looking military cap, smaller than the Generals but still something an officer would wear. They look combat ready still, even with the slightly more dressy uniform. I'm not sure if I would change the second officers appearance too much, probably just some scale options.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img6/glowfoto
Finally the bruiser. He's my heavy combat specialist soldier, he does wear armor and has resistances in game. You can't really tell from the picture but he's still a "big" skeleton model but he's scaled down pretty much too within normal possibilities. He shares the same camo over the metal armor plating, and the same distinctive gas-mask and helmet as the regular infantry, he's assumed to be part of the regular infantry-types and not an officer despite being T3 since he has no leadership abilities. He is a natural-type origin like the others, of course, its assumed most of his super-strength comes from the armor he's given, which is the reason for the large gloves to make it believable-ish when he does his smash animations and the like.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img5/glowfoto
The gas masks go really well with poison trap The armaments are generally suitable for urban combat which is mostly close range stuff so thematically it works pretty well. They can be recognized for what they are, but share a close theme, and have in my opinion a practical look to their styling.
So yeah, in an Alternate Earth where MM's could customize their pets thats what my boys would be kicking around in. And hey, if we ever get our wish about this I'm ready to go