somnambulist

OK thanks all. I'll try to scare up a group using those victory channels some busy weeknight.

I have a MM that really needs a respec. I tried to go without stamina and regret it. He's redside on Victory. How do I get in on a respec mission? Are they regularly scheduled? I've done the redside respec mission once but don't remember it at all. I know it is tricky and don't have the confidence to try to lead a PUG for it. Suggestions?

(I only play solo. I'm not in a supergroup and know noone.)

Holy crap I remember you "Goat" or maybe. Did you play on Virtue?? If you did then I didn't know you well but we had some friends in common and teamed together a few times.

DrMike2000,

I consider you an expert on the sapper build, so I'd sent you a pm before the respec to ask if you thought this could work... but was too excited to wait and went ahead anyway. LOL

I have a kinetics / electric defender that dates from Issue 6 or so. This is the endurance sapper theme build but I never had much success with her. When "Enhancement Diversification" hit she was permanently shelved because the critical "Short Circuit" power could no longer be 6-slotted with endurance modification SOs for the maximum endurance drain effect.

I had played her from time to time trying to make the character work. Finally pushing hard for "Fulcrum Shift" in the hope this power would transform her playstyle into something more successful but this was not the case. Earlier today my finger hovered over the "delete" button for this character and I decided to give her another chance.

An inspiration told me to use her (last) free /respec in a radical transformation that added in the Presence pool: Challenge, Intimidate and Invoke Panic. I've played CoH since 2004 and never used this power pool on any character. Within minutes I could tell that this had totally transformed the character into something which could be very successful.

For those of you who have not tried the "sapper" playstyle, let me describe it briefly. It revolves around the PbAOE power "Short Circuit" which has a large endurance drain component. On my kinetics defender it is base -35% endurance and has a 20 second recharge time. The sapping technique is (basically) to run into a group of enemies, fire of SC and drain your enemies of most of their endurance, and then survive somehow until you can fire it again. Once your enemies' endurance is drained completely they are weaker and easier to take down. (Unfortunately they can usually regen a little END and hit you with some of their weaker powers, or that's how it seems to me, but they are more manageable.

This all goes much much better for me with invoke panic. The reason is the fear keeps the enemies from attacking... unless they take damage. If they take damage they can attack once and then go back to being feared. The advantage I've stumbled upon is that as a kinetics defender I have a lot of buffing/debuffing powers which do no damage and after brief testing I confirmed that the enemies stay feared. I haven't gotten all of the powers slotted to perfection yet but once perfected my new PbAOE routine will look something like this:

Run into a group of mobs and INVOKE PANIC

Then INTIMIDATE the boss (if any)

Take alpha (ouch!)

Heal myself with TRANSFUSION (targeted mob does not fire back)

Drain the boss of endurance with TRANSFERENCE (boss does not fire back)

Fire off SIPHON POWER on the boss (boss does not fire back)

Fire off TESLA CAGE on the boss (it won't hold him with one application)

Take my time finding the best place and fire off FULCRUM SHIFT

Fire off SHORT CIRCUIT (which now does great AoE damage in conjuction with -END)

Fire off BALL LIGHTENING (which now does great AoE damage as well)

Fire powers as needed to heal self, stack hold on Boss, kill minions.


I'm level 34 right now so I don't have enough slots in all of the powers to get this to work perfectly but having invoke panic in the build is already much much better than I've had before.

I definitely think that defenders with powerful Debuffs (that don't do any damage) should take a look at Invoke Panic and see if they can get it to work for them. I could easily see many different */elec defenders or elec/* corruptors getting some mileage out of it with the PbAoE endurance sapping move, but there may be other usages as well.

Good luck all.


P.S. Was hoping I could slot some ToHiff Debuff into Invoke Panic as well but I can't. I had some memory from ages ago that there was a ToHit Debuff associated with Fear but I was wrong or at least... if there is one... you can't slot enhancements for it.


edited: initially wrote "TRANSFUSION" instead of "TRANSFERENCE"

I'm sorry you didn't get any responses to this as I have a kin/elec as well and I'm trying to figure out what to do with her. She is stuck in her 30s and although she is "ok" she does not shine. I'd originally planned to be a -end style build but it's never worked well and she has always been very weak.

How is this build working out for you?

All of your eggs are going in one basket: making enemies miss you and slowing them down. They will occasionally hit you and when they do it will hurt. Think white knuckle boss fights. You're going to have a self heal from dark melee which is good. You could also dip into the pool powers for "Aid Self" and maybe the fighting pool for a little smashing/lethal resistance. You'll have have hibernate for soloing emergency "Oh no!!" moments and when teaming you'll have buff/heal help from allies on teams. You'll be able to herd very well and you have some options to help ameliorate endurance problems that other tanks won't have.

Could be fun.

Lazy, lazy masterminds want to keep all of the good info to themselves it seems.

OK, the last time I played coh (if I recall correctly) masterminds could not be /thermal or /pain. Nor were there any Demons... I think "Thugs" had just been released. If this were a dynamic forum with lots of interested people I'd think we would be able to find a few secondaries guides. Currently there are secondaries guides for *only* /pain, /trick arrow and /poison. There are no secondaries guides for /dark, /thermal, /traps, /FF or /storm. Just saying. Also, only a really really lazy forum would collectively reply: "just go to the Defender/Corruptor forum" because those AT work totally differently and have different *needs* for powers than MM do.

Specific Questions:

I just made a necro: why can I slot heals in my zombies? What does that do and would I want to?

Also - how is it that other pets can reach their targets but the zombies are apt to run around in circles constantly when I tell them to attack and can't seem to path very well? What's up with that?

The guides in the sticky are ancient, outdated, and most guides for a specific */* are not present and there are few, if any, guides newer than issue 9 or 10.

Seriously.

How do I get a free character transfer?

Virtue is so laggy that I want to shift my characters to a less busy server.

OK. Thanks everyone.

Used to be that certain /kin controllers could get multiple instances of a pet out: 3 singularities, 6-9 imps, etc. Is this sort of stuff still possible given enough recharge?

Thanks.

Sounds like it is not working out for you. I am leveling a grav/ff right now and it's going quick and easy, both solo and teaming. I chose to get the 4 single target powers all of which have a hard or soft control element as well as damage (two will set up containment). I also have the personal force field as a panic button when needed (seldom). I've been thinking of myself as a blaster with benefits. That concept guides my gameplay approach and makes me feel sorry for the other blasters. Dunno if this helps but I'm liking it.

Good luck.