Pack Mentality

Can someone please explain how Pack Mentality is implemented? The description of the powers says Pack Mentality is supposed to stack and one of the powers increases in effectiveness with more stacks of Pack Mentality in place. But I haven't seen an icon or anything indicating when Pack Mentality is in effect.

Pack mentality counts as inherent so you won't see it on buff bar if you have those hidden

Each proc counts as a seperate buff and you can have up to 10 (so if it's visible it can get quite cluttered)

Change your stacking setting to numeric.

How should one slot it?

My build is very tight, so I have only 2 total slots in it. I might be able to scrape up one more at level 50 using enhancement boosters on Stamina so that I could scrape up a slot. I mostly dont even use it so far. But I was thinking 2 recharge, or maybe 2 rech and a lotg global.

Any slotting thoughts?

Lewis

Watch your pet's icons. From what I read the other day when I created one each stack is a 2% damage buff. 10 stack limit = 20% damage buff limit. The MM's own attacks have a chance (lesser or greater) of adding a stack. I only got my MM to lvl 8 so I'm still undecided on the set overall. However Ravens looks like a good power just from the size of the cone, the recharge and the FX

I don't know the specifics but each stack of Pack Mentality gives your pets 1% or 2% damage buff and it can stack up to 10 times.

What I am not 100% sure is if PM gives pets critical chance. I have to guess they do and maybe the critical chance is up to 10%? The in-game details don't show the critical values. And Beast's critical damage is only 50% (not 100% like Ninja's)

I don't know if pets have natural critical chance or they get critical chances from PM. I think it's from PM because Fortify Pack replace those Damage Buff and Critical chance with +Defense and +Regen.

Either way, you and your pets can build PM. Use your personal attacks if you have the room for it. I took Hawk because I like the knock down and it has -fly which is very important if you have no other way to ground flyers. I am not too sure about Raven yet because Raven draws quite a bit of aggro to myself (since the pets don't have much aoe!). I think Raven always grants one stack of PM though?

The Critical Chance comes from Pack Mentality, but only after you have the Fortify Pack power. Once you own the power, there is a critical buff thrown in with the damage buff. Activating the power of course gets rid of it for 60 seconds, in exchange for making them more survivable. In my experience it is best to only use Fortify Pack when your pets start dying. However, I don't see any reason to not take the power.

And no, Raven does not always grant a stack It has a very high chance to grant a stack for every enemy it hits, making it invaluable.

Not to say that before you get Fortify there is no critical, it simply increases the chance. You can get stacks of pack mentality before Fortify as well, but getting Fortify puts a critical chance on the stacks along with their existing damage buff. So...

Before Fortify- Each stack of Pack Mentality grants a 2% damage buff, up to ten stacks. There is a chance to critical, but it has nothing to do with Pack Mentality stacks.

After Fortify- Each stack of Pack Mentality now grants an unknown (to me) critical chance buff along with the 2% damage buff, still up to ten stacks. The chance to critical now scales with Pack Mentality stacks, with the base being the same as before Fortify.

EDIT: With Fortify, no stacks of Pack Mentality grants 5% def, and every further stack grants 1%. So, 15% max. With Regen, I haven't looked at the scaling yet, but the maximum is a bonus 1.25% regen... more than four times their original.

Do pool power and epic attacks made by the MM also grant stacks of PM or only the attacks from the primary? Conceptually I'm liking the idea of throwing out a KO Blow and Bile Spray every now and then since I'm going to have to be in close to support the pets anyway. I'm sure once I have all the pets they will generate PM fairly well on their own but I was wondering if anyone has tested this yet.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

No, only attacks flagged as granting the power actually grant it. Pool powers are not flagged.

I did notice some crits from my pets at low levels, but not very often. Thanks for some clarification on how this works
Its kind of a shame you have to give up critting for survivability, but I guess at least the option is there if its decent survivability. Does it seem like the crit occurrence goes up a good amount once you get that Fortify power? I'm not there yet.

Actually its simple and the mechanic works thusly:
Your MM attacks (swarm, raven whatever) each have a chance of adding to pack mentality when you use it.
Your pets attacks also have a miniscule chance of triggering one.
Consequently if you go the 'usual' MM route and take no primary attacks, you are relying on your pets ability to generate the effect. and that's pretty thin.

Everytime you use a Primary attack power you have a chance to build one level of pack mentality. It is that simple.

I use Call Hawk as my primary MM attack. I have it on auto so it fires off a lot in combat. IF the fight last longer than 42 seconds (big fight) I'll most likely have 3 stacked mentalities. by adding in other attacks I'll reach that in about 15 seconds. This in on a lvl 16 toon btw.

I started building them as soon as I got my first attack at lvl 4.