The only adjustment I ever made for my Masterminds when the Upgrade power was changed is that I switched out the Recharge SO for an Endurance SO. Recharge is no longer needed, since you only need to use the power once for each summon or resummon of your pets, and the one End makes the cost manageable enough. I still use up my End bar on the summoning process, but then I always did.
I don't particularly like the change (for one thing, I have to either summon the Bruiser after I give everyone else the first Upgrade, or move him out of its radius) but it's really neither a nerf nor a buff. It's faster when you're first setting up, but costs more End when you're recovering from a wipe. I just wait until I lose enough henchmen and resummon and upgrade them all at once.
Since the addition of Bodyguard shortly after release, there have been no other significant changes to Masterminds as a whole. There simply is no difference.
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Oddly, I have a FF defender that has no END issues even with bubbling an eight-stacked team. Anyone know if the END cost is the same for both AT's?
[/ QUOTE ]
No. Masterminds have additional End cost in all of their powers. This is normally pointed out in regards to attacks, but it's also true of all Secondary powers as well. It has been this way since release. Well, with the single exception of Traps.
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I don't particularly like the change (for one thing, I have to either summon the Bruiser after I give everyone else the first Upgrade, or move him out of its radius) but it's really neither a nerf nor a buff.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Seems awful to me, but like I said, an FF MM has to bubble-bubble individually anyway, so bubble-bubble-enchant was just part of the rhythym.
What you mentioned about the bruiser, about not wanting to upgrade him--been thinking along the same lines with the grave knight. Not sure I want him standing back throwing dark at mobs instead of pummeling them on the front line.
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Ultimately, it's the bubbles, man. I gotta find a couple of spare slots to get END reducers in them. Oddly, I have a FF defender that has no END issues even with bubbling an eight-stacked team. Anyone know if the END cost is the same for both AT's?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, and no. For one thing, a defender usually isn't buffing six pets and seven team mates. For another, defenders get endurance discounts based on party health
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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I don't particularly like the change (for one thing, I have to either summon the Bruiser after I give everyone else the first Upgrade, or move him out of its radius) but it's really neither a nerf nor a buff.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Seems awful to me, but like I said, an FF MM has to bubble-bubble individually anyway, so bubble-bubble-enchant was just part of the rhythym.
What you mentioned about the bruiser, about not wanting to upgrade him--been thinking along the same lines with the grave knight. Not sure I want him standing back throwing dark at mobs instead of pummeling them on the front line.
[/ QUOTE ]
Or you could use commands to move your henchmen into melee range like the other competent MM players. There is a reason we have advanced controls for pets and controllers don't. The MM was not designed to be an AT that just sits back and yells "Attack!" all day long (unless you're Bot/FF, even then you need goto occasionally).
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Although the MM summoning change of a little while back is a major plus to most MM players, especially new MM players, I can't help but miss the micromanagement of being able to individually upgrade your pets. It made for an interesting game within a game that I wish we could still do. Although I get along just fine these days, having respecced to match the changes, I have ended up playing my MMs less than ever, and even find the micromanagement of Kheldians to be more of a draw.
Not to say I think the entire game should be about micromanagement, but it was nice to have a few classes that let you do it. Now it's down to Kheldians. And it's just not the same (for me). Oh well.
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I don't particularly like the change (for one thing, I have to either summon the Bruiser after I give everyone else the first Upgrade, or move him out of its radius) but it's really neither a nerf nor a buff.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Seems awful to me, but like I said, an FF MM has to bubble-bubble individually anyway, so bubble-bubble-enchant was just part of the rhythym.
What you mentioned about the bruiser, about not wanting to upgrade him--been thinking along the same lines with the grave knight. Not sure I want him standing back throwing dark at mobs instead of pummeling them on the front line.
[/ QUOTE ]
Or you could use commands to move your henchmen into melee range like the other competent MM players. There is a reason we have advanced controls for pets and controllers don't. The MM was not designed to be an AT that just sits back and yells "Attack!" all day long (unless you're Bot/FF, even then you need goto occasionally).
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Well, that was kinda rude.
Battlefields are hectic places, and Goto commands can produce undesirable results even in otherwise calm situations. In the middle of a free-for-all, reactively mousing around with the GoTo swirly sometimes isn't ideal, and produces results that can hardly be considered "competent". Competence dictates a proactive attack plan that minimizes reactive strategies (this is pretty much endemic to playing classes in just about any MMO). You can now go on to tell me how you do it all the time and it works like gangbusters, but the neat thing about people going out of their way to be rude is that you can assume a certain level of equivocation on their part, since you know there's a lack of good will anyway.
Ok I MUST ask this, Jade Dragon, WHY ON EARTH would you NOT want your Bruiser to have Equip powers? They DID fix the Handclap, it knocksDOWN now, and the Haymaker is just a good all-around attack. They REALLY brightened him up. Mine (Tank Eater) used to get stuck flinging rocks all the time .. now, he charges in faster than a Kamikaze Pilot.
Shigeru Miyamoto "A delayed game will eventually be good, a bad game is bad forever."
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Ok I MUST ask this, Jade Dragon, WHY ON EARTH would you NOT want your Bruiser to have Equip powers? They DID fix the Handclap, it knocksDOWN now, and the Haymaker is just a good all-around attack. They REALLY brightened him up. Mine (Tank Eater) used to get stuck flinging rocks all the time .. now, he charges in faster than a Kamikaze Pilot.
[/ QUOTE ]
I was wondering that too. Sure he sometimes still gets stuck throwing rocks... But I noticed yesterday he now throws one rock then charges in.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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Or you could use commands to move your henchmen into melee range like the other competent MM players. There is a reason we have advanced controls for pets and controllers don't. The MM was not designed to be an AT that just sits back and yells "Attack!" all day long (unless you're Bot/FF, even then you need goto occasionally).
[/ QUOTE ]
Obnoxious much?
Battlefields are hectic places. In the middle of a free-for-all reactively clicking and mousing with the GoTo swirly sometimes isn't ideal, nor competent. A proactive attack plan that minimizes reactive mousing-around strategies is what competence dictates. You can now go on to tell me how you do it all the time and it works like gangbusters, but the neat thing about people going out of their way to be rude is that you can assume a certain level of equivocation on their part, since you know there's a lack of good will anyway.
[/ QUOTE ]
You know, you're right. I apologize for coming off as rude as I did.
What I should have said was you deprive your grave knight one of his (better) melee attacks if you don't enchant it, which you can't really afford to do. Even without enchanting, he retains one fairly rapid ranged attack, so it's not a guarantee that he will run to melee. Unfortunately, you cannot let the AI take care of itself either. You won't see top performance from your henchmen unless you make use of all the commands available.
A piece of advice that might be helpful: Bind an easy key to hit as your goto command; better yet, bind shift+lbutton as a goto. Then all you have to do is shift click and the pets go to the spot you picked. You'll never see the swirly.
I've just recently started playing with necro, and I've found that I need a different strategy than normal. Usually, I have every tier of henchmen do the same thing, but I've had to adapt to the zombies' fragility. I changed the usual binds so that I never actually command the zombies to do anything. They remain in defensive follow regardless of any attack, goto, or stance commands. While I command the heavy hitters, I maintain my meatshield that vomits on anything that wanders close enough to me.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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I recall being able to give orders through the PFF, so I didn't have a constant need to drop it
[/ QUOTE ]I'm fairly certain that you have never been able to give orders while inside PFF
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Defenses were "rebalanced" at some point. How did that affect FF?
[/ QUOTE ]The only significant change to defense sets that occurred in anything you could call "recent" history was Elusivity, which only operates in PvP.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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I recall being able to give orders through the PFF, so I didn't have a constant need to drop it
[/ QUOTE ]I'm fairly certain that you have never been able to give orders while inside PFF
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Defenses were "rebalanced" at some point. How did that affect FF?
[/ QUOTE ]The only significant change to defense sets that occurred in anything you could call "recent" history was Elusivity, which only operates in PvP.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the change being referred to here was changing it so enemies up to +5 go accuracy bonuses instead of to-hit bonuses... and bosses/elite bosses/archvillains getting 50% To-Hit and 1.5 accuracy instead of 75% to-hit.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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I recall being able to give orders through the PFF, so I didn't have a constant need to drop it
[/ QUOTE ]I'm fairly certain that you have never been able to give orders while inside PFF
[ QUOTE ]
Defenses were "rebalanced" at some point. How did that affect FF?
[/ QUOTE ]The only significant change to defense sets that occurred in anything you could call "recent" history was Elusivity, which only operates in PvP.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the change being referred to here was changing it so enemies up to +5 go accuracy bonuses instead of to-hit bonuses... and bosses/elite bosses/archvillains getting 50% To-Hit and 1.5 accuracy instead of 75% to-hit.
[/ QUOTE ]Wasn't that stuff, like... I5, or thereabouts? That was 4 years ago, and the OP said he's been gone for 2 years.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
It's the only "defense fix" I can think of, and no it wasn't Isb 5. More like ish 7 or so I think.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
Yeah, defence got sensibled-up in I7. On the other hand, it would actually make the force fields better.
From what I checked out AVS and EBs got a 1.30x ACC innate increase.
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Or you could use commands to move your henchmen into melee range like the other competent MM players. There is a reason we have advanced controls for pets and controllers don't. The MM was not designed to be an AT that just sits back and yells "Attack!" all day long (unless you're Bot/FF, even then you need goto occasionally).
[/ QUOTE ]
Obnoxious much?
Battlefields are hectic places. In the middle of a free-for-all reactively clicking and mousing with the GoTo swirly sometimes isn't ideal, nor competent. A proactive attack plan that minimizes reactive mousing-around strategies is what competence dictates. You can now go on to tell me how you do it all the time and it works like gangbusters, but the neat thing about people going out of their way to be rude is that you can assume a certain level of equivocation on their part, since you know there's a lack of good will anyway.
[/ QUOTE ]
You know, you're right. I apologize for coming off as rude as I did.
What I should have said was you deprive your grave knight one of his (better) melee attacks if you don't enchant it, which you can't really afford to do. Even without enchanting, he retains one fairly rapid ranged attack, so it's not a guarantee that he will run to melee. Unfortunately, you cannot let the AI take care of itself either. You won't see top performance from your henchmen unless you make use of all the commands available.
A piece of advice that might be helpful: Bind an easy key to hit as your goto command; better yet, bind shift+lbutton as a goto. Then all you have to do is shift click and the pets go to the spot you picked. You'll never see the swirly.
I've just recently started playing with necro, and I've found that I need a different strategy than normal. Usually, I have every tier of henchmen do the same thing, but I've had to adapt to the zombies' fragility. I changed the usual binds so that I never actually command the zombies to do anything. They remain in defensive follow regardless of any attack, goto, or stance commands. While I command the heavy hitters, I maintain my meatshield that vomits on anything that wanders close enough to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Apology accepted. You make good points that I shouldn't take lightly. In a thread where few folks seem empathetic, it's easy to become oversensitive.
Keybinds are inclusive, not exclusive, right? If you keybind to leave the zombies out of your orders, don't you basically have to set up two sets of keybinds--one set for the grave knights, and one for the lich? As for the Shft + Lclick Goto, is that just a Grave Knight Goto?
Also, once you're attacked, doesn't defensive stance cause the zombies to start running around on their own doing stuff without your direction?
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You know, you're right. I apologize for coming off as rude as I did.
What I should have said was you deprive your grave knight one of his (better) melee attacks if you don't enchant it, which you can't really afford to do. Even without enchanting, he retains one fairly rapid ranged attack, so it's not a guarantee that he will run to melee. Unfortunately, you cannot let the AI take care of itself either. You won't see top performance from your henchmen unless you make use of all the commands available.
A piece of advice that might be helpful: Bind an easy key to hit as your goto command; better yet, bind shift+lbutton as a goto. Then all you have to do is shift click and the pets go to the spot you picked. You'll never see the swirly.
I've just recently started playing with necro, and I've found that I need a different strategy than normal. Usually, I have every tier of henchmen do the same thing, but I've had to adapt to the zombies' fragility. I changed the usual binds so that I never actually command the zombies to do anything. They remain in defensive follow regardless of any attack, goto, or stance commands. While I command the heavy hitters, I maintain my meatshield that vomits on anything that wanders close enough to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Apology accepted. You make good points that I shouldn't take lightly. In a thread where few folks seem empathetic, it's easy to become oversensitive.
Keybinds are inclusive, not exclusive, right? If you keybind to leave the zombies out of your orders, don't you basically have to set up two sets of keybinds--one set for the grave knights, and one for the lich? As for the Shft + Lclick Goto, is that just a Grave Knight Goto?
Also, once you're attacked, doesn't defensive stance cause the zombies to start running around on their own doing stuff without your direction?
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You can do a pretty complicated bind. /bind shift+lbutton "petcom_pow grave knight goto$$petcom_pow lich goto" will command both pets at the same time I think. I haven't actually hit level 26 with my necro yet.
And yes, the defensive stance sends the zombies in as soon as the knights start taking hits. Mostly, the delay is all it takes so that the zombies don't get attention, but I've rigged a set of macros that puts them in passive then defensive to reel them back if I feel I need to.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
[ QUOTE ]
From what I checked out AVS and EBs got a 1.30x ACC innate increase.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, it's 1.5. They previously had 75% to-hit. A few issues back it was changed so they had 50% to-hit and 1.5 acc base. This still gives them a final hit chance of 75%, but made defense more useful against them.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
So, how viable is necro/FF?
I was thinking about trying a necro/traps build. But honestly, Traps is a complete mystery to me. Tried it on a corrupter and lost interest around the time I got the FFG. In terms of cool toys it seemed pretty heavily backloaded. Then again, a corruptor and a MM are pretty different, so maybe traps will do the trick.
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So, how viable is necro/FF?
I was thinking about trying a necro/traps build. But honestly, Traps is a complete mystery to me. Tried it on a corrupter and lost interest around the time I got the FFG. In terms of cool toys it seemed pretty heavily backloaded. Then again, a corruptor and a MM are pretty different, so maybe traps will do the trick.
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do you want to solo av's?
the problem with necro/ff is that the tier 3 pet has very little to no dmg and you have no resistance debuffs to help the grave knights and zombies, nor any -regen powers to complement it all.
i wouldnt make one t hinking i could solo most av's or biff/widdershins as +2 eb's, but there's nothing wrong with th ecombo otherwise.
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So, how viable is necro/FF?
I was thinking about trying a necro/traps build. But honestly, Traps is a complete mystery to me. Tried it on a corrupter and lost interest around the time I got the FFG. In terms of cool toys it seemed pretty heavily backloaded. Then again, a corruptor and a MM are pretty different, so maybe traps will do the trick.
[/ QUOTE ]
do you want to solo av's?
[/ QUOTE ]
Honestly? (mini-rant warning ahead)
Why should I want to solo an AV? Please, somebody enlighten me. I really have no clue why there is non-stop talk about this subject. It just sounds like an irrelevant gimmick that's been blow up into the end-all, be-all of character greatness. Maybe there's something to it I'm just missing.
I've read some of these threads. To solo an AV, there's a very cut-and-dried formula. We know why FF doesn't work well and DM, Traps, and Poison do. It's very unlikely most of the people who do so are coming up with a build that hasn't already been done, so for them, zero points for creativity. And since the capabilities essential to shutting down an AV--namely, hefty anti-regen effects--don't carry over to the way you fight the other 99% of battles, it's not a true metric of overall power.
So, in a practical sense, what's the big whoop? Some neat badge or prize you get for doing 100% of the damage to an AV? Once I have the answer to that, I'll ponder whether or not I want to spend time taking down an AV.
Otherwise, the practical considerations mainly have to do with handling door mishes smoothly.
[ QUOTE ]
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So, how viable is necro/FF?
I was thinking about trying a necro/traps build. But honestly, Traps is a complete mystery to me. Tried it on a corrupter and lost interest around the time I got the FFG. In terms of cool toys it seemed pretty heavily backloaded. Then again, a corruptor and a MM are pretty different, so maybe traps will do the trick.
[/ QUOTE ]
do you want to solo av's?
[/ QUOTE ]
Honestly? (mini-rant warning ahead)
Why should I want to solo an AV? Please, somebody enlighten me. I really have no clue why there is non-stop talk about this subject. It just sounds like an irrelevant gimmick that's been blow up into the end-all, be-all of character greatness. Maybe there's something to it I'm just missing.
I've read some of these threads. To solo an AV, there's a very cut-and-dried formula. We know why FF doesn't work well and DM, Traps, and Poison do. It's very unlikely most of the people who do so are coming up with a build that hasn't already been done, so for them, zero points for creativity. And since the capabilities essential to shutting down an AV--namely, hefty anti-regen effects--don't carry over to the way you fight the other 99% of battles, it's not a true metric of overall power.
So, in a practical sense, what's the big whoop? Some neat badge or prize you get for doing 100% of the damage to an AV? Once I have the answer to that, I'll ponder whether or not I want to spend time taking down an AV.
Otherwise, the practical considerations mainly have to do with handling door mishes smoothly.
[/ QUOTE ]
this must be your first villain.
there are more arcs with EB's and AV's redside post 40 than anything blue side. you WILL run into them. yo uwill run into them several times just trying to unlock a patron pool.
Have fun with Dr. Quaxterin.
I know he will.
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So, how viable is necro/FF?
I was thinking about trying a necro/traps build. But honestly, Traps is a complete mystery to me. Tried it on a corrupter and lost interest around the time I got the FFG. In terms of cool toys it seemed pretty heavily backloaded. Then again, a corruptor and a MM are pretty different, so maybe traps will do the trick.
[/ QUOTE ]
do you want to solo av's?
[/ QUOTE ]
Honestly? (mini-rant warning ahead)
Why should I want to solo an AV? Please, somebody enlighten me. I really have no clue why there is non-stop talk about this subject. It just sounds like an irrelevant gimmick that's been blow up into the end-all, be-all of character greatness. Maybe there's something to it I'm just missing.
I've read some of these threads. To solo an AV, there's a very cut-and-dried formula. We know why FF doesn't work well and DM, Traps, and Poison do. It's very unlikely most of the people who do so are coming up with a build that hasn't already been done, so for them, zero points for creativity. And since the capabilities essential to shutting down an AV--namely, hefty anti-regen effects--don't carry over to the way you fight the other 99% of battles, it's not a true metric of overall power.
So, in a practical sense, what's the big whoop? Some neat badge or prize you get for doing 100% of the damage to an AV? Once I have the answer to that, I'll ponder whether or not I want to spend time taking down an AV.
Otherwise, the practical considerations mainly have to do with handling door mishes smoothly.
[/ QUOTE ]
this must be your first villain.
there are more arcs with EB's and AV's redside post 40 than anything blue side. you WILL run into them. yo uwill run into them several times just trying to unlock a patron pool.
[/ QUOTE ]
And the question is still very valid. Why have a build that can solo an AV, when a build that can handle the EB scaled version is more practical?
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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Even without Stamina the summons and upgrades are no big deal on my Bots/Traps... I lose about a full bar of endurance summoning all three tiers, FFG, and using both upgrades, but if I just wait about 30 seconds before turning on any toggles it's fine.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ultimately, it's the bubbles, man. I gotta find a couple of spare slots to get END reducers in them. Oddly, I have a FF defender that has no END issues even with bubbling an eight-stacked team. Anyone know if the END cost is the same for both AT's?
Anyway, I used my second built to try out some of the suggestions here. I got Provoke instead of the PFF. Of course, Teleport is just a bad idea withotu PFF or some kind of stealth, so I dropped it in favor of Flight. Seems to not hold aggor that well out of the box, but I'll try slotting it up with more taunt. Of course, not sure how an MM with no personal attacks holds taunt for long, but I took Air Superiority to get Flight, and I kept Lifre Drain.
Also, I edited out any Aggressive stances from my commands, even Attack. Until they achieve better survivability, there's little point in putting them in aggressive mode.
Things went better. Basically, my zombies are either unhurt or they're dead, not much room in-between. Fire is still a big problem. I guess I really am just hanging on until 24.