Sands of Mu

One important thing to remember when using any Vet Reward is that your Streakbreaker Code is based on the WORST to hit rating you've recieved in the last couple of minutes. If you have a lot of unslotted (for Accuracy) attacks or use a lot of Vet Rewards, the number of misses you have to get before a Streakbreaker kicks in increases. So your overall hit ratio decreases as you use inaccurate attacks.

For this reason, the BEST time to use Sands of Mu, or any Vet Reward, is right after you've missed two or three times in a row. The Streakbreaker should kick in and force the attack to hit. If you use Vet Rewards a lot, or attacks that aren't slotted for Accuracy, then you'll want to wait until the third time you miss before you try Sands. If you have all your Powers (attacks AND any other power that takes a to hit roll to hit a foe) and you're sure your to hit is always 95%, then you can probably go ahead and try it after only one miss.

Likewise, this should be obvious, but if you always use Sands of Mu after Aim or Build Up, not only will you have the best chance of hitting (since it will boost your to hit) but this will keep the Streakbreaker up and you won't miss as often.

Honestly, the Temp Powers are designed to scale with level in the damage they do, so they don't NEED to be slotted, but the fact that they lose accuracy as you go up in level (because the beginner bonus for accuracy goes away) is the main factor that makes them less useful at high levels. Likewise, they can't be slotted for Endurance, so they are most costly compared to standard attacks, too. They are useful to Defenders, Controllers, Masterminds, or even Brutes, as they are "immune" to damage modifiers and always do the same damage no matter your AT or Inherents. But at best they are "as good" as a regular attack, and they are best used sparingly, when you have a to hit buff up.

Finally, I'll add that as noted, if Sands of Mu was a normal attack (needing to be slotted) it would do the same damage as Shadow Maul. (It IS Shadow Maul, even down to the ability to hit two targets if positioned carefully) Flurry overall does about half the damage. I've often said Flurry needs to have its damage set the same as Shadow Maul, or within about 75% of it, and hit targets in a shallow cone like Shadow Maul does. It would make the power considerably more attractive.

Ironically, Flurry has a very low End cost and Recharge time for the damage it does, when what it really needs is MORE End cost and recharge so it can deal more damage in the given cast time. Jump Kick used to have the same problem, was given the ability to be interrupted halfway through, but actually still retains the End cost and Recharge given to try and get more players to use it.

I also have a number of animations I'd like to see for Sands of Mu in place of the current one, including the old Storm Kick animation, which did a Flurry-like kick where the character struck several times while standing on one foot.

Here's another dumb question from me... I CHOSE Sands on my main toon, but somehow, I ended up with the Axe. Can I reverse that somehow?

The "Toes of Mu" animation had other issues.

Jade_Dragon has shown me the light!

The problem with the Sands of Mu, Flurry, Shadow Maul attack chain was unequal acc slotting.

Since you can't slot Sands, don't slot the other two for ACC. Then get tactics and slap on the +tohit IO.

Profit?

I love Sands of Mu, and have used it as part of my attack chain up to 50 on various Controllers and Defenders. I got by with global accuracy bonuses, typically around +40% on Defenders (3 Thunderstrikes, 2 Positrons) and a bit less on Controllers.

I've used it on most tanks as an extra attack, plus to work through the Rage crash on Ss-ers.

In addition to all the benefits already listed, it does half Negative damage, which is great against Rikti.


I guess I wouldn't use it much on a weapons Scrapper, due to the ptoprotionally lower damage and redraw, or on a Blaster, where the long root matters more and your entire try is full of attacks by 20.

I just used it heavily last night on my level 44 fire/fie scrapper. I was fighting my doppleganger and the combination of enormous fire resists and healing flame means that most of my main attacks were worthless.

Yeah, I like it on some of my older characters as an occasional boost when fighting robots with S/L and events like that. Sands of Mu'ing a Zenith bot in the face can take it down a lot quicker than clanging on it with your sword.

I give it to all my characters and some grow out of it and some keep it around.