Rhames

After 48 levels of playing what has become one of my favorite toons, I wanted to weigh in with some observations and things that have worked for me:

1. I followed Poison_Pill's guide pretty exactly and it worked like
a charm. I can't say enough good things about his guide and strongly advise everyone to really his guide.

2. Lately I've only started applying the 1st upgrade to my Bruiser and not even that when I run in a group (some groups just hate the knockback). That way when I apply noxious gas, I KNOW the bruiser will run in and start mixing it up. Against AV's though, I still give him the 2nd upgrade and do the whole aggressive-goto command thing.

3. I've 6 slotted my pets with 5 Blood Mandates and a proc each: minions get the Edit of the Master defense buff proc, enforcers get Achilles Heel -res proc, and the bruiser got the Sovereign Right resist proc. Blood mandate BTW, 5 slotted, gives a 3.75 AOE defense boost; this works great against opening retaliatory salvos by most mobs and especially longbow LT's and bosses.

4. Speaking of opening shots, against large groups, I use my patron mass immob, and follow it with neurotoxic breath. This keeps the victims in place for the arsonist and the AOE barrage from my enforcers and other minions (especially the burn patch). The AOE defense I mentioned above comes in real handy with this approach.

5. Now maybe I've played too many doms, but when its one or two bad guys I'm facing, I usually open with paralytic poison. As much as I love weaken and envenom, since I reached my 30's most lieutenant or lower quality mobs die just fine without the debuffs and the hold is great against obnoxious lieutenants and teleporting mobs. Getting Black Scorpion's st hold is great also, being able to lock down up to two mobs in a fight or hold a boss is great.

6. Regarding alkaloid; 6 slotting it with doctored wounds has been awesome. I don't remember how much I heal, but without hasten it recharges every 2 seconds and costs about 9-10 endurance; this is improved from the 4 second recharge and 16 end cost from base. Its heal lets me reliably keep my pets and any squishy teammates going.

7. Gangwar: I love to use this to take the alpha from EB's and AV's. Others have reported great success in pinning bosses against the wall with this. After I slotted these guys for damage and accuracy, they also seem to really hurt the big bads out there.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on this toon after 48 levels of great fun with him. My only choice left is to decide what i want at 49: the rez or recall friend. Decisions, decisions...

The end drain w/leadership:

1) If you go beserk with your debuffs and heal while hastened it can start to be a problem, but its nothing that a single piece of blue pez can't fix

2) While upgrading, turn the auras off or it WILL kill your endurance.

BTW, my first 50 was a DM/FA brute and I referred to your guide while respeccing her once. Good guide.

Thanks to this guide, I started playing my thugs/poison MM. I had a pleasent time soloing him all the way up to 40. On the way, I followed Poison Pill's advice religiously and was rewarded for it.

So I hit level 40 and enter Grandville. I shell out some hard earned cash and purchase two Achille's Heel resist debuffs for my thugs and enforcers. I decide to take on Positron int he Rikti Ambassador mission with just one other sg mate, who was playing a Mercs/Traps MM at my level.

We faced Positron.
He was a purple hero to us.
We ganked him in 38 seconds.
I only lost my two thugs in the fight.

I love my MM.