3 Cor, 1 MM
depends on the mm player. most HATE IT when corruptors spread a spawn all the hell over which makes pet control a nightmare.
3 corruptor 1 brute - but the brute build will depend on what you plan to primarily fight
Problem is that the Resistance cap for MMs/Corrupters is about ~75%, but otherwise I don't see an issue with the numbers.
Since I didn't mention what I plan to fight, I will add that I would like to do all PVE content to include trials and strike forces. Optimally, I would not require additional toons to complete all strike forces, maybe minus the LRSF. I don't PVP very much.
I was originally thinking brute, but the MM seems to bring a little more to the table. A brute's secondary would seem to be wasted with those cor buffs. Therefore, I substitute a /Pain MM which brings a lot more to the table, while still being able to dish out damage and tank if needed.
I admit, the /thermal and /pain might be overkill for this group. If so, what would be a better MM secondary?
Honestly? I'd say /Dark, for the debuffing potential. Near-capped resistance/defense, amplified by more -Res, -Damage (on mobs), and -Hit (again, on mobs), plus an additional pet for crowd control should be more then enough to make the group sufficiently overpowered.
Barring that, Poison or Traps for much the same reason may not be bad choices. More the former then the latter, as the latter also comes with redundant defense.
EDIT: Forgot Trick Arrow in that assessment, and to a lesser extent, Storm.
4 Dream Team?
Any 3 SoA (with single or double Maneuver and at least one Assault) + a secondary the provides healing/resistance (since the defense will be capped through the roof)
/Thermal is actually very good with widows as widows have beyond amazing /Psi resistance so that fills /thermal's hole.
/Pain is a good choice as you can cast aoe resistance buffs and healing.
/sonic resonance has a lot of +resistance but sometimes you just need some healing.
I would nominate: 3 SoA + /Thermal
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I don't see what the Thermal adds to the 3 Veats. I've played 3 Veat Crabs at the same time. I was able to trio just about everything. Something that brings more AOE damage and debuffs to the table might be best. Like a 4th Veat maybe. Perhaps a Storm or a Dark or a Rad.
Hmm...
1 Rad/Dark Corruptor
1 Sonic/Sonic Corruptor
1 Dark/Kinetics Corruptor
1 Thugs/Pain Domination MM
That oughta do it. :P
I don't see how Pain adds much of anything to that team.
*EDIT*Perhaps someone with Fraps can join me for a demonstration. I cannot run fraps while running multiple City of Heroes clients. I'll get on my 3 Crab 50 Soldiers and annihilate some 8-man spawns. Perhaps a video of that will give people more of an idea of the ridiculous potential of buffs and debuffs and the silliness of heals when concocting a "Best" or "most damaging" team.
The title of this thread reminds me of 2 Girls, 1 Cup
Personally I would go with 4 VEATS (I like 2 Spiders and 2 Widows) if you have a lvl 50 villains, 3 Corrs and a Brute otherwise.
First thing, use Mid's to plot the builds. You can avoid skipping a very useful power this way.
Second, plan for Leadership at lvl 12 or soon after. Even just taking maneuvers at lvl 12 and stacking it increases the team's Defense immensely.
Focus on secondaries that can help the whole team all at once with buffs like Arctic Fog or Nightfall. The individual shields are cool but personally having to make sure everyone is still buffed every few minutes gets tedious to me. Much easier to do AoE buffs on the team, ST buffs in the Brute and then go.
MMs can be used in place f the Brute since they bring a lot of their own team buffs to the table but as was mentioned before pet control can sometimes be a pain. If you want to roll fast then stick with the Brute.
As an alternative you can go all MMs and then you'll REALLY see some fun! Everyone take Mercs, Thugs or Bots (ranged Pets) and Leadership and off you go. One or two /Darks and /Pain Doms and the team will be nigh inwincible...
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
[ QUOTE ]
I don't see how Pain adds much of anything to that team.
[/ QUOTE ]
I mainly chose it for three reasons:
1. Not duplicating one of the other sets (because I didn't want to use any twice, for style reasons :P )
2. Providing offense and defense (Force Field would have added the missing defense type, which may have been numerically better, but again for style, decided everything needed to buff damage or debuff the opponents' resistance or defense)
3. Redundant rez, held by the person least likely to faceplant.
Force Field or Poison I could have seen fitting in instead, but the other sets didn't mesh as well. Trick Arrow would bring controls, but this group would likely move too fast to appreciate them; Dark's Tar Patch and Tentacles should be enough. Traps similarly requires a bit of prep and setup, and is further considered a lackluster set overall. Poison is a great mastermind set, Neurotoxic Breath would have added -Rech to the mix of debuffs, but I figured I'd rather stack more Resistance (and add some To Hit) with World of Pain than add more debuffing (plus, it would backfill +Damage if Fulcrum Shift ever put the group at less than the damage cap). Storm, well, to me was great but offered little straight-up synergy with the other sets. Force Field, well, the parentetical near the top covers it.
So, the set adds Heal/Regen, Resistance, To Hit and Damage, and the whole set of four is kinda focused around those two of the three defenses, damage and to hit buffs, and resistance/defense debuffs.
Now, imagine if all four of them decided to run Maneuvers... >
Why wouldn't you, on a Superteam build?
Infact, you'd be a little silly to not be running all three Leaderships at some point. An SoA (I say just one, because really, that's about all you'd realistically need) would probably be a good choice for a 4th over a Mastermind, with special consideration going towards the higher buff values of the Wolf/Bane/Crab line. Which doesn't really matter, as with the rest of the group will likely be able to shore up it's defense and resistances, and the only reason it's really there is for the double-Leadership toggles and the higher values in the Primary version.
But, if we're going with 3 Corrupters and an MM as the OP suggests, that's kind of a side point anyway and sort of against the discussion a little. The specific reason to avoid more then one SoA is the fact with 3 Corrupters/1 SoA (or MM) is you get to spread damage out across the board, and can choose to specifically focus on those sets (Ice and Fire) that have the least overall mob resistances to maximize potential. SoAs, while having a higher damage modifier, also are plagued with having some fairly commonly resisted (or highly resisted uncommon) damage types (Smashing, Lethal, Toxic, Psi) that can negatively affect the total damage output. Crab Spiders (and to a lesser extent Banes) get around this by also having Energy, but frequently only as a damage component.*
Honestly? I'd probably go with a Necro/Storm if I had to choose a specific Mastermind to go with the three corrupters, because it's got a ton of survivability that it can leverage, while also applying -Resistance/Defense and also creating a zone to really reduce the chances anything more then Ranged or AoE defense will really matter (though soft-capping the defenses sort of already does that). Or, possibly, Necro/Dark for something that the group really does lack, and that's a Wipe-Reset button for those rare occasions that someone may get hit hard before anyone can actually do anything, or because the entire group is Mez'd and can't do anything about it in the first place (hideously rare with a */Sonic Corrupter on board, though, as the only thing that should matter then is Sleeps). It may not happen often, but those situations can be really annoying to deal with in the long run.
*DISCLAIMER: Not intending to disparage the synergy of all-VEAT teams, because they're outright brtual, but pointing out the damage issue in a min-max situation is at least somewhat noteworthy. Though I doubt it will really matter all that much in the long run.
(This post is a rambling thought string.)
The solution, as always, is to get Crabs.
I posted a w hile ago asking for a 4 player dream team. I got some good responses and I was kind of fleshing it out a little. I was going to go with 2 Cor, 1 Brute, and 1 Dom/MM. As I was looking at Cor secondaries, I found something that really surprised me, in spite of previous comments about what Cor's could do when grouped.
Looking at 4 secondaries, /Cold, /Thermal, /Sonic, and /Pain, I find some amazing synergy. /Cold can produce Ice Shields and Arctic Fog, for a total of 23% defense. If all 4 take maneuvers, that is an additional 16%. If they all take Scorpion Shield, that is another 20%, for a total of 59% defense (42% for the /ice corruptor).
/Thermal produces 23.8% res from shields, /sonic produces 23.8% res from shields, and 17.8% res from Sonic Dispertion. /Pain produces 17% res from World of Pain. That equals over 82% res (approx 60% for the /thermal and /sonic).
Is that math right? I can have 59% def and 82% res on my cor's and mm? What need have I for a brute?
Now I know that doesn't all come easy. 20% of that defense comes from everyone taking scorpion shield, which won't happen until lvl 41. The World of Pain will not be easy to make perma. The Sonic Dispertion is a pretty big endurance drain, especially if the /sonic is also using Disruption Field, which I would imagine he would be.
But along with those res/def values, they also debuff mobs pretty well too. The MM will be the tank/healer, not that this group would really need either. Painbringer should probably be put on the /sonic, since his endurance will be hurting with those big toggles.
So the question now, if my math is correct, is what primaries to mix with those secondaries? I would like fire and ice with their rains and mix of AoE with ST damage. Sonic wouldn't be bad either with the -res. I'm not sure what to get for the MM. Thugs might require a little more management with the mix of ranged and melee than I would like. Something that stays grouped together would be better, so everyone can benefit from the maneuvers.
So, am I on the right track, and what primaries to go with this, that is the question. Thanks.