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Posts
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Quote:Why exactly would improving the AI of MM pets, which one would think would (like the AI of other NPCs) be part of the server-side programming, have any effect on the client-side system requirements?Implementing any kind of substanstive A.I. system into City of Heroes would dramatically increase the processing requirements.
Though honestly, just upgrading MM pets so they're at least as smart as enemy mobs would probably be quite a step up in some cases. (At least, when there's not this issue with everything range-only being stupid.)
-Morgan. -
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Quote:I think everyone is hoping that the pets that are *better* behaving this way will continue to do so. I've heard this is good for ninja, and since I've thought about starting one of those someday, I am.They fixed wanting to Melee?! Ouch... I loved it. My knights have a ranged attack and for years preferred that one... while their headsplitting broadsword does so much more damage!
But I'd also like my Bots/Storm to be playable again, and right now it just doesn't work.
-Morgan. -
Hmmm. I'll preface this by saying that my DS/Dark isn't all that high level yet, so some of this is based more on discussions I've read in other posts and my experience with similar powers in other things.
-With a click heal as powerful as Twilight Grasp, it's probably not worth your while to slot up Health that much.
-I'd honestly recommend just putting two or three RechRed in Tar Patch and have done. Movement slow isn't likely to do much as mitigation for you, since the demons are going to charge in anyway. It might be different for a ranged-preferring primary, but even then the slow is already pretty good. And it's not something that'll be clicked so often that endurance is such an issue; you'd be better off getting some endred in something that can (and surely will sometimes) be clicked more often, like Twilight Grasp.
-People say the pets start having serious endurance issues once you've got both upgrades if you don't slot some EndRed. (May not apply to all tiers, but I'm sure someone will speak up on that part.)
-Petrifying Gaze needs RechRed more than EndRed. You probably won't need it all the time, but when you need it, it's good to be able to stack it, or hold multiple enemies, or have less time you have to deal with whatever's that dangerous if it misses...
-Electrifying Fences isn't really much of a damage power, enhanced or not. If you want this, it'll probably be to make things hold still for AoEs. (It's what I usually read about MM's taking the immobilizes for anyway.) So rather than damage, I'd suggest slotting some immobilize duration and a bit of recharge. (You can probably find some sets for this very cheap.)
-Morgan's usual sig style is going to look like another entry in the list, isn't it? -
I'll second, third, and a thousand times this. Shop around a bit, and you can equal or better anything you can do with common IOs, and sometimes for a lot less inf. It also makes it easier to enhance secondary effects.
I wouldn't recommend the +Knockback in Crack Whip. It doesn't fire all that often anyway, and sending whatever it does hit back slightly more isn't likely to gain you anything.
-Morgan. -
Quote:You did say "a typical spawn is up to 40 feets wide". Which makes it sound like 40' is the diameter, not the radius.sorry to say it, but please go to school and study some math.
surface area of a circle is S=pi * R^2
so 40 ^2 = 1600, 1600*3.14 = 5024
further discussion is pointless with a person who didn' learned to count well in the school.
-Morgan. -
In the sense that you don't need it for farming with the right build and mission.
Of course, if you ever want to do anything *but* farming on the character, Flashfire starts looking nicer to have...
-Morgan. -
Psionic Tornado? Lower damage, but faster recharge, and it gives you something better for fire-resistant enemies. The cast time is apparently much longer though.
-Morgan. -
That would be quite understandable, except the enhancement used in the posted build is the defense/recharge, not the one that provides global recharge. (Which would appear in the forum export as "Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed".)
It is entirely possible that the op actually *does* have that one, and just put the wrong thing into Mids. In which case I'd still suggest replacing the LotG end/rech with a defense, but other than that I'd see nothing especially wrong with the slotting on those powers. (Indeed, the build as posted is pretty close to perma-hasten if the two def/rech are replaced with two def/recharge bonuses.)
-Morgan. -
Quote:Fair enough, but most of the ones I mentioned weren't giving a set bonus. (Exception being the end/rech in CJ. But at least a Defense in there will give a mildly useful boost to the power.) And replacing the LotG Def/Rech with the Red Fortune one adds a useful set bonus.As for the rech in Tought Weave CJ and others the others its for set bonuses since thats what i aim for and some of those sets offer End bonuses and End recov so they have thier purpose even though they dont really do much.
-Morgan. -
I don't get it when people say to slot Char for damage. At low levels, maybe. But at high levels, if I'm facing a single target my Imps will make short work of it, and if I'm facing multiple targets, I'll have AoEs to throw around. I slot char for control, because if I'm using it, it means there's something I want to lock down, and I want it to *stay* locked down.
Not much point in putting recharge reduction in Combat Jumping and Tough, since such things don't detoggle when mezzed anymore. Combat Jumping doesn't need EndRed either, it's super-cheap as is. If you really want that regen bonus in Combat Jumping, I'd at least replace the EndRed/Rech with Defense. But I'm not sure it's really worth it. Weave's also an example of "doesn't need recharge", but there you're going for a set bonus. Might as well get the 5-bonus of red fortune if you're going to have the fifth slot at all though.
I also don't see much need for the EndRed in Super Speed, since that's a power that shouldn't normally be on while you're in combat, and out of combat it doesn't cost enough to matter.
Why slot Siphon Speed for slow? This isn't a power I use with the desire to slow things. I use it for the recharge bonus and the fast unsuppressed movement during combat. I'd recommend just using common accuracy and recharge IOs.
Siphon Power is rather underwhelming once you've got FS. I'd put a common accuracy in here, but that ought to be enough.
You may want to consider the Soulbound Allegiance Chance for Build Up. I've heard it can be a pretty impressive boost, since your pets get the chance every time they attack.
-Morgan. -
The question is, how useful is having an imp out all the time?
For that matter, how useful the imps are in general is something I've been wondering about. Trying to plan ahead on my slotting, what I want in most of the powers is pretty obvious. But these things, I'm not sure.
-Morgan. -
I figured the question was just focusing on enhancement slotting for those things. `.`
I'd missed the Maneuvers on the Enforcers. Kind of weird, that one. They'll take ToHit Buff sets for their Tactics, and Summon Demons will take resist sets, but you can't give Defense sets to the Enforcers? (Then again, Protector Bots won't take them either. Interesting.)
-Morgan. -
If a pet has abilities which boost those things, you can slot enhancements to improve them. (The only one's I'm aware of are the Ember Demon's Ember Shield, and the Protector Bots' Force Shield.) However, there's a certain amount of argument on whether it is worth enhancing these effects.
There's also the defense bonus aura and resistance bonus aura IOs, which provide significant bonuses, but only if your pets stay close enough...
-Morgan. -
...
Okay, did some further testing, and it looks like you're right. Cranked up the level on a council mission I had (since otherwise they'd be capped), had the ember demon attack the same mob with the knockback/acc IO and with it replaced with a damage TO. Same tohit rolls shown in pet combat every time. (With variation based on whether or not I was in range for Supremacy.)
I don't know if it's a display bug or if it's a things-that-should-be-enhanced-not-being bug, but I'm pretty sure there's a bug here. (Hopefully, it's supposed to enhance even powers that don't have knockback/whatever, and they'll get it to do that. More slotting options is a good thing.)
-Morgan. -
Quote:... Seems wrong.Also, if you slot set IO's only an attack or power that could take those set IO's will benefit from them - for example if you slot a ghost widow's embrace acc/end reduction IO in the demon prince ONLY his hold will benefit from that IO.
You can see the accuracy your pets abilities get in the detailed info on the enhancements screen, same as your own. I went and replaced a basic damge IO in my DS MM's Summon Demons with a Volley of Velocity Knockback/Acc. Both the power that does knockback and the powers that don't do knockback showed the improved accuracy.
Though Dam/Mez and Acc/Mez still strike me as an excellent idea for the Prince, given it's multiple controls.
-Morgan. -
Quote:Funny, there was just a "Gale sucks" thread in the MM forum.Yeah, Gale sucks -- most of the time. Once in a while it works as a "Get out of my face" power or a "Go to the back wall of the room" power.
Personally, I love Gale on my Bots/Storm MM. Of course, I might feel differently if I had a harder control to use. But that would probably require being something other than a MM...
-Morgan. -
There's reports of problems on some controller pets too.
I hadn't had any trouble with my Bots/Storm on some maps, but on others it was just unmanageable. Bots all over the place, leading to enemies all over the place, just couldn't keep them controlled enough.
-Morgan. -
Quote:Nothing so accessible as that. I was just imagining someone who was the daughter of a couple characters I've used in another game, one with plant abilities and one with cold abilities. So, it's really only funny if you're me... but hey, I'm doing it for my benefit, aren't I?What's your concept for Plant/Cold, though? The most hilarious one I've seen so far was a Plant/Rad who explained his radiation debuffs as the ability to give foes massive polen allergies.
Though I think the concept might work better as a Plant/Icy dominator. I'll have to think about it some more. (And it's not like I really *need* another alt anyway...)
-Morgan. -
Check out this page on ParagonWiki: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Call_t..._Aura_for_Pets
So, there's two things. Yes, it's supposed to be on even when the power hasn't been used, that's how globals *are*. And the recharge intensive pet ones also give a 40' aura, the 20' is a display error.
-Morgan. -
So, I've been contemplating Plant Control for a while, since it sounded like an interesting set, but I need a character concept too if I'm going to stay interested. While thinking about the secondaries I thought of something that's at least hilarious to *me* for Plant/Cold...
I'm not sure how well it would actually work though. Don't have any experience with shield-using secondaries, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of discussion or guides on cold domnation.
Anyone have any advice for me?
-Morgan. -
If you check out the MM section, there's a thread about this issue with the range-focused pet sets too.
I haven't noticed any difference with my fire imps, but then they've always been crazy.
-Morgan. -
I've never found that to be a problem.
In fact, I usually use Gale as soon as it recharges in most cases, but it's very rare for anything to even look in my direction once the bots have opened fire.
-Morgan. -
Quote:Might have been a bit confusing. I tend to think of things in terms of layers of mitigation (based on the build and strategies I use on my controller), and I was just talking about one at that point. The list for my Bots/Storm ends up being something like this:Sorry. I guess I misunderstood when you said you wanted your bots to take the hits. It is very easy to cap yours, and your bots def with storm. Someone WILL take the hits, and in bodyguard, you have the most hp.
You also can get decent resists with this build, and they are applied before bodyguard, which makes you even tougher.
1. Keep enemies flying through the air/flip-flopping as much as possible, to completely prevent their attacks. (Primarily Gale and Freezing Rain.)
2. Powerful speed debuffs so that anything not bouncing is going to spend a lot of time running to where they feel like being before attacking. (Snow Storm, Freezing Rain.)
3. Defense buffs and tohit debuffs to cause as many attacks that actually get launched as possible to miss. (Steamy Mist, Maneuvers, Hurricane, Protector Bot bubbles, various IOs, etc.)
4. Not being the one getting attacked as much of the time as possible, because I can heal the bots without having to dip into the medicine pool. (Don't take Presence!)
Time will tell how well this works in the long term, but I'm certainly enjoying things so far. And it has a totally different feel from my /Dark, which is also a big thing for me. (Characters who feel too similar to anything else I've done tend to get abandoned.) On my /Dark, when things are going well I can heal anything the enemies do to me and mock them while I do it. When things are going well on my /Storm, I never need to heal, because nothing gets a chance to hurt me. Of course, if I mess up I get hammered, but that just makes things interesting.
-Morgan. -
Quote:I don't know if it'd be hard to qualify for that position, given how few of the MM secondaries have any significant amount of damage... but really it looks a lot more impressive than that.Storm is actually one of the more damage heavy secondary's. Lock a tough mob into a corner and unleash freezing rain, tornado and lightning storm, and watch it melt.
Since you're doing /Storm as a tankermind, it can obviously be done, but... *shrug* It seems like it'd require making some sacrifices that I'm not sure I'm interested in making. Besides, I'm doing the tankermind thing on my DS/Dark. This one, I think it'll suit me better to focus on having no one take the hits instead of taking the hits.
-Morgan.