A Chat about Lore

I unlocked Lore last night. Yay! Plus I had already crafted a Longbow Nullifier to put in the slot. Double Yay! And I was even more excited to see we get the Pet Control Icons! Triple Yay!

Anyway I was planning on going with Longbow purely for "concept", I've been told others do better damage. However I did wonder if there are any that work particularly well with Tanks or certain tank powersets?

Your advice, always appreciated

I used to go with Seers because the Seekers spam Fortitude on you.

I like Carnies better because at T4, you get a Dark Ring Mistress which is better than the T4 equivalent of Seers and the Senechal has a nice buff to dam and to hit.

I never really cared for the others really, although I hear the Cimerorans do quite a bit of damage.

It really depends on what you're looking for. My understanding is that the Warworks are the most damaging... that Vicky is really nasty, particularly at tier 4. I believe that most if not all of them have at least one "damage" tree and one "support" tree, you'll need to weigh the pros and cons of each and make your own decision.

I haven't made a study of the new pets but they're supposed to be pretty equal one to another with different pluses and minuses. So far I have the Warworks on CMA and the Seers on my Fire/EM blaster; both at tier 4. I find the Warworks are considerably better at damage output while the Seer buff pet is quite useful on my blaster.

This thread maybe helpful from a damage standpoing, but there are other things listed:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...130754&page=98

Please note there are a lot of neat tricks for the pets. Example: the catafract from longbow does excellent regen debuff. I havent researched them to know all the in's and out's but this thread and ParagonWiki should be good places to start. I just went with concept and saved myself a headache. Since most things in the game these days are co-op centered, I dont think the ~5min up time for these things is gonna make or break you.

Good luck.

My advice: ALWAYS follow concept first!

If you can, or don't care, then:

For single target, the cimmys win, by a mile.

For overall damage, the warworks are hard to beat. Viki is nice, and ace is right there in a crowd.

For debuf the Cataphract is the boss.

If you hate the idea of pets messing up your concept, the polars are ideal. They're practically invisible.

I was surprised how quickly I was able to craft Lore Enhancements. I built the common Longbow enhancement before I unlocked the slot. Its always nice to have something ready to drop in straight away. But the I noticed I had enough "stuff" to craft straight up to the level shift.

Is it the case that they are too easy to craft or that you are supposed to "catch them all"? Because I see myself craft quite a few in the future

Are any of the Pets particularly good for the trials? Or certain parts of the trails, like say catching prisoners?

I haven't had the time to play hardcore lately so I have only used one type of pet for the Lore and that is Carnival. I came up with that decision because the Dark Ring Mistress provides the control and the Strongman is like a mini scrapper. Plus I have always hated fighting Carnies, so why not use them against the enemies Really helps out with the holds and expanding my aggro cap.

While I have been using them, I feel like it was a perfect fit, they really do mess things up.

Thats interesting. I have a soft spot for Carnies. I have always liked the dialogue from their story arcs and if you are playing a female toon it really comes across as them trying to recruit you. So I could see them turning up to help, a kind of mutual respect thing. Now if only we could drop the ghostly aura

Also while doing a LAM last night I noticed that the Longbow Warden can free me from being terrorised. Which is nice as thats one of the few holes in Invln's armour

I've read that the carnies ran out of endurance in a rikti pylon test.

Now, I know the cims totally rule that test, but we're tanks, we don't have single targets for them ever. On my blaster, I have the Warworks and I'm still thinking they're the best out there.

That said...

I'm tempted to take the polar lights [or whatever they're called] that act like Bright Novas. I like the look, though I'm concerned about the kb. I've teamed with khelds and energy blasters who were able to control their kb, and about the same amount who didn't know how to. AI in this game has always been weak for pets. I can see two AI novas being a detriment to the team.

Doing Cim on my katana who always wears the Valentines toga, so I'll know how they do in that situation, as she's also often surrounded by a donut of enemies.

I've decided that upgrading to a T4 with my Longbow was a mistake. Great my Warden is invulnerable but she very rarely died anyway (not sure she ever has?) but now my Cataphract is only available 3 mins 20 seconds

My Ice tank is a fan of Longbow. I have the T3 Cataphract/Warden combo.

A few notes about Longbow, though... Damage is less than suggested by the power info (Not to say it's bad, mind you). Energy Barrage is stated at something like 887 damage. In reality it's about 280-300. The -Regen isn't all people are saying it is. It's a 30% chance for -300% Regen on one attack, that doesn't get used *that* often. If you're looking for -Regen, take a hard look at Vanguard (Partial Core is downright silly in the debuff department), or especially Robotic Drones. All of the Drones attacks do a -Regen (not chance for regen) of something like 30%, if I recall correctly. Although, I expect the damage from Drones is lower. Carnies... Speaking from experience, the Seneschai isn't as useful as one would think... And the Strongman is far too squishy. (The damage is good while he's alive, though...)

Nemesis (Radial) is decent for squishies... Not sure how useful it would be for a Tank, though.

I went with Rularuu (on my widow) and they're pretty sick. I can beat AVs solo now.

I was thinking of the Phantoms for my INV/DM Tank. Mainly for the AB from the support pet. I will have to run some numbers but with the additional recharge I believe Hasten and DP would be perma at that point.

I mainly use him on teams/trials, so extra damage is not something I'm really worried about.