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I've also found that bonfire is really, really solid on mms that lack decent aoe controls. /pois, /pain, etc.
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
I love my mercs/poison, but I have to admit you are right about the lack of AOE mitigation. I was so desperate I gave in and took poison trap. I could handle +1/x2 after that, but only if I concentrated real hard on what I was doing the whole time.
I took the Heat Mastery ancillary at level 41, and Bonfire is helping things a lot. It's wicked awesome on this build. |
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Mercs, Mercs, Mercs and more Mercs. Quick question. I'm leveling my first MM. I reached level 34 this weekend and got access to something called Tactical upgrade. I'm not sure how this power works. During play, I used it. I thought it worked liked equip mercenary but I think I got this all wrong.
Equip Mercs - when I first used this I thought all mercs got upgraded. When I used this they all got helmets but the wiki says only one does.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mercenaries
Tactical upgrade - I thought this was for all too but it seems I have to do every merc for this. I went through the Ouro portal and I had a tactical upgrade drop for all minions.
Follow up questions:
Zoning seems to automatically enable these features. Also, if I have to enable each merc this is time consuming during combat but this would explain why the mercs "seem" to be least amount the MMs. Finally, I thought burst and rifle was for me but it's really for my minions, right?
The two upgrade powers are the buffs you use on your pets to enable their other attacks. Equip becomes available at level 6, and Tactical Upgrade is at level 32. Usually, people will recommend that you take those powers as soon as they're available. You only need to slot them with a single endurance reduction (they're quite expensive, around 45 endurance each I think.) Each of them is an AoE, so if all your pets are summoned, you should only have to cast each of them once to upgrade all your pets. (Unless you're in combat, in which case some of the pets might be out of range or out of line of sight and miss the upgrade.)
Your character can also take three personal attacks from the primary set. I believe that these are Rifle, Burst, and a grenade attack. These are totally normal attacks. However, some people greatly dislike them because they are basically the same as the three lowest damage attacks from the Assault Rifle set. Whether they'll be useful to you or not depends on your playstyle, and what secondary set you picked. Some, like Forcefields, aren't very active at all and will leave you with plenty of time to pick off the weak and the wounded.
Serum is your "utility" power. This is a single target buff that you can cast on one of your pets. Unfortunately, it has almost more drawbacks than benefits. First, it is on an *extremely* long recharge timer, long enough to make it a "once per mission" power. Second, the power has a "crash" effect when it wears off. It will improve the damage out put of a pet while it is active, and then it will basically cripple the pet when it wears off. (The effect is severe enough that it's usually faster to dismiss a pet and summon and equip a new one than to wait for the pet to recover.)
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Yeah. They don't look very different, but they are different. They gain additional power from both tactical upgrade and equip. (Mostly they get new attacks, which make able to deal more damage.) |
Originally Posted by Residentx_EU
Equip Mercs - when I first used this I thought all mercs got upgraded. When I used this they all got helmets but the wiki says only one does.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mercenaries |
For example: you'll notice after you use tactical upgrade that your Spec Ops get stealthy.
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Originally Posted by ShadowsBetween
Serum is your "utility" power. This is a single target buff that you can cast on one of your pets. Unfortunately, it has almost more drawbacks than benefits. First, it is on an *extremely* long recharge timer, long enough to make it a "once per mission" power. Second, the power has a "crash" effect when it wears off. It will improve the damage out put of a pet while it is active, and then it will basically cripple the pet when it wears off. (The effect is severe enough that it's usually faster to dismiss a pet and summon and equip a new one than to wait for the pet to recover.) |
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I've already made mistakes with my mercs already. I should have upgraded to the max three: rifle, buck shot/slug, etc. It's not life threatening but I willl respec once I get t 50.
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
Yeah. They don't look very different, but they are different. They gain additional power from both tactical upgrade and equip. (Mostly they get new attacks, which make able to deal more damage.)
For example: you'll notice after you use tactical upgrade that your Spec Ops get stealthy. Or you could just hand him a blue inspiration. If you've slotted for end reduction, a small blue should be enough to get him started and he'll just keep regenerating back toward full after that. |
Burst slug and M30 are your personal attacks. They cost more END and do less damage than their blaster/coruptor counterparts. However M30 is a good soft control, slug is "ok" damage and good for picking off runners, burst ... well it just makes you look cool.
I always take the personal attacks on my MM's. Even on my Mercs/Traps with my insane recharge I still find time to shoot off a few attacks every now and then. By taking all of the attacks the MM becomes a T1 pet without upgrades.
/end my standard rant on MM personal attacks not being totally worthless.
Captain Den'Rath 53* Merk/Traps MM, Rivona 50Energy Blast/Time Cor,Victoria Von Heilwig 53* Dual Pistols/Traps Cor, Crab Spider Webguard 53* SOA, Accela 53* Bot/FF MM,Valkyrie's Executor 53* Broadsword/Shield Def Scrap. On FREEDOM! @Knight Of Bronze
"Hypocrisy, the human inherent." "Let not this work be wasted, apply yourself always."
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Thanks, I'm glad to hear that. I based my previous comment on those three powers being pet not personal. I don't have to respec now.
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Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
Burst slug and M30 are your personal attacks. They cost more END and do less damage than their blaster/coruptor counterparts. However M30 is a good soft control, slug is "ok" damage and good for picking off runners, burst ... well it just makes you look cool.
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the other thing too, I didn't realize this but I think I have all the core MM powers now. I wish I could slot 8 enhancements on the spec ops. I'll probably find a dual or triple recipe and put it in. Any comments on hold vs immobilization on mercs? I think I should slot both to get web and tear gas. I have hold now only.
finally, I noticed the game client options there is a field for "for advanced management of pets" I turned it on but I have seen anything different.
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Originally Posted by Residentx10
the other thing too, I didn't realize this but I think I have all the core MM powers now. I wish I could slot 8 enhancements on the spec ops. I'll probably find a dual or triple recipe and put it in. Any comments on hold vs immobilization on mercs? I think I should slot both to get web and tear gas. I have hold now only.
finally, I noticed the game client options there is a field for "for advanced management of pets" I turned it on but I have seen anything different. |
You only need damage and accuracy. As has been stated the control powers are on a long recharge its not worth slotting hold/immobilize(its never worth slotting imob unless your a dom) because all it will do is make the hold(tear gas) last 1/2 a sec longer. Its just not worth it. I would recommend frankinsloting Speck Ops with both blood mandate and sovereign right sets to max there damage and accuracy with: a damg/acc, damg, acc, and another Damage/Acc(from Sovg Right) then the two pet uinque IO's. (Please note I'm talking about L50 slotting here, you are welcome to explore how hold enchs help you as you level up, and if you think that's best more power to you.)
As for the controls, please read Master Z's Guide on MMs. It explains the nuances of /petcom as well as other control options for pets.
Captain Den'Rath 53* Merk/Traps MM, Rivona 50Energy Blast/Time Cor,Victoria Von Heilwig 53* Dual Pistols/Traps Cor, Crab Spider Webguard 53* SOA, Accela 53* Bot/FF MM,Valkyrie's Executor 53* Broadsword/Shield Def Scrap. On FREEDOM! @Knight Of Bronze
"Hypocrisy, the human inherent." "Let not this work be wasted, apply yourself always."
Woah... this thread is still going... Well, may as well share some things I know about Mercs
Most of the complainers against mercs have common ground: 1) Kamikaze Medic, 2) Recharge timers on Spec Ops, 3) Serum
1) What I found that helps is changing your Attack Macro from "everyone attack in Aggressive mode" to "everyone attack in Defensive mode, except for the Medic, who will follow on Defensive". If you do this, then the Medic wait a few seconds before attacking (all I need before the mob is dead on my mercs/storm... not quite enough for mercs/TA), but will still heal your other pets, keeping everyone alive. Unfortunately, the Medic won't heal if he's on Passive.
2) Slot your Spec Ops' mezzes with Recharge to make them use it more often. It's easy- use either Soulbound, or (if you'd rather your Commando use it), use To-Hit Debuff sets w/ Recharge (Dampening Spirits especially)
3) Take it if you've got the space. While you *could* use it as a situational power, chances are, in any situation you're in that couldn't be overcome without Serum, you're better off just running than trying to salvage a win with Serum. Instead, use it as often as it's up- it'll make your Commando a happy (addicted) camper. When the crash comes, give him a blue and he'll keep chugging along.
Another thing that may help is pairing Mercs with /resistance shield secondaries (therm, pain). Remember, the softcap isn't everything, regardless of what forum-goers tell you.
Hope this all helps
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Your comments are good except for this one, number 3. I just carry extra greens and blues. That's the 2011 "serum."
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Originally Posted by Zeh_Masteh
Woah... this thread is still going... Well, may as well share some things I know about Mercs
Most of the complainers against mercs have common ground: 1) Kamikaze Medic, 2) Recharge timers on Spec Ops, 3) Serum 3) Take it if you've got the space. While you *could* use it as a situational power, chances are, in any situation you're in that couldn't be overcome without Serum, you're better off just running than trying to salvage a win with Serum. Instead, use it as often as it's up- it'll make your Commando a happy (addicted) camper. When the crash comes, give him a blue and he'll keep chugging along. Hope this all helps |
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No no no! MM pet do NOT benafit from recharge of any kind! You can slot them for Mez if you want (I would not) but slotting Rec only makes the MMs [Spec Ops] power recharge faster. It has NO effect on the Spec Ops powers.
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Originally Posted by Zeh_Masteh
2) Slot your Spec Ops' mezzes with Recharge to make them use it more often. It's easy- use either Soulbound, or (if you'd rather your Commando use it), use To-Hit Debuff sets w/ Recharge (Dampening Spirits especially)
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Captain Den'Rath 53* Merk/Traps MM, Rivona 50Energy Blast/Time Cor,Victoria Von Heilwig 53* Dual Pistols/Traps Cor, Crab Spider Webguard 53* SOA, Accela 53* Bot/FF MM,Valkyrie's Executor 53* Broadsword/Shield Def Scrap. On FREEDOM! @Knight Of Bronze
"Hypocrisy, the human inherent." "Let not this work be wasted, apply yourself always."
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Are you sure about this? I remember that change (and remember hoping it meant /kin was being ported to MMs), but IIRC, the change was to prevent MM pets from receiving Recharge benefits from *outside* buffs, like AM or Speed Boost..|
Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
No no no! MM pet do NOT benafit from recharge of any kind! You can slot them for Mez if you want (I would not) but slotting Rec only makes the MMs [Spec Ops] power recharge faster. It has NO effect on the Spec Ops powers.
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Can someone verify this? Otherwise, It'll be a pain for me to go test it =\
"Normal" Mastermind pets do not benefit from Recharge, and can not slot Recharge Enhancements. Some of the "abnormal" pets can be slotted with recharge, but it *only* affects the recharge rate of the summoning power. All pet attacks are immune to recharge boost of any kind. (Accelerate Metabolism, Speed Boost, or inherited Recharge enhancement from the Incarnate slots.) When the change was made, I believe that a dev posted that they had discovered that recharge enhancements were messing with the pet AI scripts, which was one of the reasons why the Thugs Enforcer only ever seemed to use Hurl Boulder. Fixing the AI apparently would have been extremely difficult. So the only realistic way to prevent recharge from breaking the AI was to prevent recharge completely.
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Originally Posted by Zeh_Masteh
Are you sure about this? I remember that change (and remember hoping it meant /kin was being ported to MMs), but IIRC, the change was to prevent MM pets from receiving Recharge benefits from *outside* buffs, like AM or Speed Boost..
Can someone verify this? Otherwise, It'll be a pain for me to go test it =\ |
It was a bloody pain but I found it.
As I read this its saying that Pets are not affected by recharge buffs by anything, other than them selves.
Captain Den'Rath 53* Merk/Traps MM, Rivona 50Energy Blast/Time Cor,Victoria Von Heilwig 53* Dual Pistols/Traps Cor, Crab Spider Webguard 53* SOA, Accela 53* Bot/FF MM,Valkyrie's Executor 53* Broadsword/Shield Def Scrap. On FREEDOM! @Knight Of Bronze
"Hypocrisy, the human inherent." "Let not this work be wasted, apply yourself always."
Today, I regretting being a Merc. I was on a ITF today and embarrassed myself. It started off good I was holding my own as a 40 merc on an Alpha 50+ team. Then we got to Nictus and we couldn't kill him. I was told after almost two hours of fighting that my pets were extending Nictus. WTF. I quit and less than 3 minutes later they defeated him and I got the rewards. Can anyone explain this? I never experienced this with my Controller or Dominator pets.
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While it is true that Romulus and/or one of the Nictus does an AOE heal based on people in proximity, I highly doubt your pets were tipping the scale unless your team was very weak. Even if they were, you should have just ordered them a good distance away.
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Originally Posted by Residentx_EU
Today, I regretting being a Merc. I was on a ITF today and embarrassed myself. It started off good I was holding my own as a 40 merc on an Alpha 50+ team. Then we got to Nictus and we couldn't kill him. I was told after almost two hours of fighting that my pets were extending Nictus. WTF. I quit and less than 3 minutes later they defeated him and I got the rewards. Can anyone explain this? I never experienced this with my Controller or Dominator pets.
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Let me give you a little more details. During the fighting, I took a break and wandered around to see if we missed something. While I was gone they have gotten Nictus down to 25%. We also had problems with Nictus clouds/entities. I put my MM pets on Nictus to help shut him down and I pushed him back up to 75% and I was using ranged attacks. My pets were on the stairs shooting up to Nictus where he had been transformed by the Well.
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Originally Posted by SpacePope
While it is true that Romulus and/or one of the Nictus does an AOE heal based on people in proximity, I highly doubt your pets were tipping the scale unless your team was very weak. Even if they were, you should have just ordered them a good distance away.
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Let me take a guess at what happened:|
Originally Posted by Residentx_EU
Let me give you a little more details. During the fighting, I took a break and wandered around to see if we missed something. While I was gone they have gotten Nictus down to 25%. We also had problems with Nictus clouds/entities. I put my MM pets on Nictus to help shut him down and I pushed him back up to 75% and I was using ranged attacks. My pets were on the stairs shooting up to Nictus where he had been transformed by the Well.
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Since you were obviously on the team, you could not have had more than 7 melee toons on the team. You probably had less than that. Let's say you have 4 melees, 3 ranged, and you on the team (guessing).
The Nictus have a reverse-AoE heal, so if it used it on the melee group, it would have healed itself by 4 times its heal amount. The ranged toons were probably spread out, so if it healed off any of them, it would only heal by as little as one times its heal amount, and as much as 3 times its heal amount.
On the other hand, if it attacked you and your pets (who were attacking the Nictus directly, so getting more aggro from it), it would heal by up to 7 times its heal amount (your 6 pets and yourself), amounting to the same amount of healing as if the entire time (without you) stood in one place together and fought the Nictus (note that that would be a very bad team).
If we pretend that the Nictus healing amount is 1000 HP, then you and your pets allow the Nictus to heal itself (and the other AVs around it) for 7000 every few seconds (as opposed to only 4000 or 1000 in the examples above, both of which can easily be overcome by a full team).
I suggest doing as I do on the last mission of the ITF: desummon all your pets except for one (for Mercs I'd suggest Commando, though I use one Jounin as a ninja MM) and focus more on using your secondary.
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Originally Posted by Zeh_Masteh
Let me take a guess at what happened:
Since you were obviously on the team, you could not have had more than 7 melee toons on the team. You probably had less than that. Let's say you have 4 melees, 3 ranged, and you on the team (guessing). The Nictus have a reverse-AoE heal, so if it used it on the melee group, it would have healed itself by 4 times its heal amount. The ranged toons were probably spread out, so if it healed off any of them, it would only heal by as little as one times its heal amount, and as much as 3 times its heal amount. On the other hand, if it attacked you and your pets (who were attacking the Nictus directly, so getting more aggro from it), it would heal by up to 7 times its heal amount (your 6 pets and yourself), amounting to the same amount of healing as if the entire time (without you) stood in one place together and fought the Nictus (note that that would be a very bad team). If we pretend that the Nictus healing amount is 1000 HP, then you and your pets allow the Nictus to heal itself (and the other AVs around it) for 7000 every few seconds (as opposed to only 4000 or 1000 in the examples above, both of which can easily be overcome by a full team). I suggest doing as I do on the last mission of the ITF: desummon all your pets except for one (for Mercs I'd suggest Commando, though I use one Jounin as a ninja MM) and focus more on using your secondary. |
How many of the TF/SFs have reverse AoE? I'm just curious.
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It's not always a TF in general, but usually a tough mob.|
Originally Posted by Residentx_EU
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How many of the TF/SFs have reverse AoE? I'm just curious. |
Enemies with Dark Melee (one of those Council AVs, for example), as well as Romulus in the final mission uses soul drain (or a copy of it) that buffs damage and to-hit based on how many people are around them.
One of the Nictus in the last mish of ITF summons Lesser/Greater Unbound Nicti based on how many bodies are around it (I'm not sure about this one)
Ghost Widow from the last mission of Statesman's Task Force has a cone heal that's based on how many she hits.
Those were technically mostly PBAoEs and AoEs, but you get the idea. There are more I think, but those are the only threats high enough to consider desummoning pets off the top of my head.
My L50 Mercs/Traps is pretty awesome. Not the best MM combination, but it holds its own, and it can harden a single point of defense extremely well and beat back anybody approaching it.
Some tips:
1. Spec ops. Acc IO, Acc IO, and three Dam/Mez HOs. Presto! Your unreliable controls are a bit more reliable now, and using one of the cheapest HOs out there to do it. You've even got a spare slot for the defense aura proc.
2. Something I've been considering -- taking Soulbound's recharge bonus (which makes pets charge faster) and spreading it around, giving each of the three pet types a little extra recharge. It's better than having one pet that spins up very quickly, in scenarios where you need to spam pets in general. Consider chasing down set recharge bonuses and Hasten as well.
3. Protect your pets. Take a secondary that gives them damage resistance or defense, and then boost that aspect with the pet set procs. If you slot right, you can have controlling spec ops, a medic with a little extra heal, and room left over to fit in BOTH aura procs.
Hope this helps a little.
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I'm not sure you can ever get enough defense to really keep them alive very well. Not even with /FF or /Traps. But with a bit of ubermicro I bet you can get -ToHit deep enough to serve the purpose. |
Originally Posted by Twoflower
3. Protect your pets. Take a secondary that gives them damage resistance or defense, and then boost that aspect with the pet set procs. If you slot right, you can have controlling spec ops, a medic with a little extra heal, and room left over to fit in BOTH aura procs.
Hope this helps a little. |
I haven't tried it yet (for some reason) but I'd wager that Mercs/Dark actually works fairly well. Slap on what defense you can, debuff enemy tohit as much as possible... between darkest night and the magic of dark servant does I suspect you get something similar to a softcap defense equivilant. Plus a usable AoE heal.
Also stacking tar patch and achilles heel seems like a pretty potent combination.
Which leads to the bigger problems of the set -- its complete and utter lack of damage mitigation. Like I said this is worse with Poison since Poison has none of this either (if only I knew back then what I know now!). But with any secondary, your boys will die. Just when you start to do some damage to your enemy, a couple of your guys are gonna drop dead, cut your damage output, you can't beat their regen, then the battle is thrown and thats that. You can't beat their regen even with /Poison's -regen ability, which doesn't work on EB's or even L54 bosses worth a spit.
Just drop it on the Commando, heal him to full health and tell him to attack the toughest mob. I put 5 slots on it, so it puts his resistances at the 90% resistance cap. I can usually be pretty confident he's not going to go down until it runs out. Meanwhile, I retreat back a good distance away and start resummoning the rest of my crew as they die. When he crashes, I dismiss him and resummon him to, then equip them all before the mobs get up to me.
A third of the time, he kills the AV on his own. Another third of the time, my newly resummoned crew kills him (it helps that my newly resummoned Spec Ops have their mezzes recharged). The rest of the time I run for my life.