DB/MM help :)

The playstyle is stand off aim, build up, immobilize with tentacles, immobilize boss with subdual, start killing with Umbral Torrent and Psychic scream. If you need to pull out the holds for annoying targets.

If I were going to roll this today I would likely go Dark/Energy manipulation, maybe Dark/Ice if I wanted to mix it up.

This is nowhere near being true. In fact it's the least true thing I've read all day. If you know how to build and play, /Mental will still be the best Blaster secondary in the game after i24. It just doesn't go well with Dark Blast.

Don't mind Another_Fan. He's been on this weird kick lately where he likes to claim that the huge buffs in i24 are going to somehow make [every secondary except whichever one he's fixated on this week] trash or otherwise "doing it wrong".

You need to finish your statement THB. /Mental will still be the best secondary for AE farming as long as they don't nerf patrol farms.

Edit: Even that is pretty iffy. Permanent build up from /Dark and regen and recovery will likely trump /mental the same is true for martial combat. /Fire will be damage output vs higher levels of regen.

Edit: There are some statements that are so clueless, I can't integrate them into my cognitive space easily. The bolded bit is one of those. Sans the upcoming buffs to blaster secondaries Dark/Mental is a very good pairing. Come I24 it will go from, "That's a nice combo you got there" to "Why did you do that ?"

There is a buff for mental ? I must have missed it.

Dude, wow.... My /Mental Blasters are as survivable as my high end Fiery Aura Scrappers (Clarification edit: I don't FARM with my FA Scrappers, I wreck normal content with them at alarming rates,) and those are durable as hell.

My Mental Blasters are a small purple from the softcap to ALL POSITIONS. That means, no s/l (or Ranged) exclusivity. Everything is covered but anomalies.

My Mental Blasters have over 50% s/l resistance, which will be going up ~10% with issue 24. They have >30% NRG resistance-Again, only going up.

Sounds like good resists to the 3 most common damage types on top of amazing defense.

Does that sound good enough to spend less than 2 seconds in an alpha strike to you? Good.

These same builds also PERMANENTLY regenerate 112 HP PER SECOND in melee range, after less than a 2 second time investment. Wow.

So let's recap...


An inspiration macro and/or pre-planning purchase wise means being softcapped to ALL POSITIONS WHENEVER NECESSARY, and having 32.5% to all positions the rest of the time.

Over 50% (closer to 60% when i24 launches) resistance to the two most common damage types in the game- Smashing/Lethal. Over 30% (will only get higher, once again) resistance to the third most common damage type, Energy damage.

Oh, that's not enough? I bet that only works for FARMS!

I'm sure you can agree, even in your warped line of thought, that this is all at least enough to stand still for two seconds and not die.

Good! After those 2 seconds, I will be regenerating OVER 100 HP PER SECOND. I bet that only works on farms though! There are not spawns of 10 enemies in normal high end content!


....


Oh, and if all that wasn't enough, let's move on to a perma 500% regen debuff. That sounds like a pretty awesome regen debuff to me! It's enough of a debuff, in fact, to solo GM's without any outside +DMG, temps, inspirations or pets. Not even Judgement!

And yes, my /Mental Blasters CAN in fact farm. They can do a lot more than that, though. They can compete with Scrapper survivability. I play my Scrappers the same way I play my Blasters (Don't you DARE try to tell my Blasters OR my Scrappers that they don't have Fury bars!) and neither ever feels more or less at risk than the other.

They can also solo GM's.

They can also solo 54x8 Malta and Carnie spawns.

They can also farm and power level at impressive speeds, like you've already acknowledged.

Once i24 launches and you can pull off all of these feats on a /Whatever, 'hide behind the Brute and don't take alpha's because you're too poor to have a high end /Mental ' Blaster, please let me know, and I'll be glad to acknowledge your preferred secondary as /Mental's equal.

I doubt that you can do this, but if you can, I will place whatever it is that you think hiding behind everyone else and regening a bit more will accomplish in terms of character capabilities on a pedestal equal to /Mental.

Remember, you are fighting for equality. Superiority is NO WHERE near your horizon. Nothing can do what /Mental does. Nothing will be able to do what /Mental does after i24. You're competing for second best, so please, start being honest with yourself.

Is there a change that will prevent Mental from having two AoE powers and >1000% regeneration at least part of the time? No. /Mental is excellent already, and i24 won't make it any less excellent.

Will /Mental build and play differently than the other sets with standardized Sustain powers? Yes, definitely. Does that make it "bottom of the pile"? No, definitely not.

Yea, the obvious answer here: Mental doesn't need a buff. The rest of the secondaries are being buffed to be as survivable as /Mental, in a relative sense, probably because Arbiter Hawk found one of my /Mental builds and realized how underpowered the rest of the Blaster secondaries were in comparison.

I even suggested that the Dev's use /Ment as a measuring stick for buffing other secondaries, while babies whined about nerfing /Ment to be as crappy as everything else. For the record, I won. Other Blaster secondaries are now being buffed to be as 'relatively survivable' as Mental. You still don't have the offense to compete with high end results, and your defense (read: Not 'defense' the mechanic, but 'defense' as in sports; Offense v. Defense) is much easier to use. I know you simpletons love simple things.

So, it takes way less inf and way less cleverness to build a Blaster that's about 75% as durable as a peak /Ment Blaster, come i24. It also won't have a -regen power, but that's ok. The people who are sooper stoked about these changes are people who play Blasters that weren't God Moding the game (on Blasters) before i24 like I've been doing.

You guys just need to realize that you're getting a consolation prize for not playing /Ment and move on.

Also, you're welcome for making such a stink pointing out how crappy all of your Blasters were by showing mine off around the forums. I'm sure you hate me for it, but I wouldn't even be slightly surprised if Dev's took notice, since they followed the spirit of ALL of my suggestions to give the common folk (that's what I call most of you) a consolation prize, in order to feel that you were relevant.

NOTICE:

I DO NOT SPEAK FOR /MENT AS A WHOLE, OR THE COMMUNITY THAT PLAYS IT.

MOST OF WHAT I DO WITH THE SET IS EQUALLY, IF NOT MORE RELIANT UPON MY OWN INTUITION AND BUILD SKILLZ AS IT IS ON THE AWESOME POWERSET ITSELF. IF MORE PEOPLE QUOTE ONE OF MY POSTS QQ'ING ABOUT A /MENT NERF, I WILL BE VERY ANNOYED. I'M SORRY FOR BEING SMARTER THAN YOU. MENTAL ISN'T EVEN A PARAGON MARKET SET YOU LAZY *******(S.)

Mental is only considered great currently because it has a taste of what every other secondary lacks. But that is all it is a taste, and unless you are playing a blapper 99% of the time it's pretty minor. 7.5 Hp/Sec/Target in melee range is just not that great and quite frankly I have found trading it off for extra defense to be a pretty good trade.

This isn't even the correct question. The question is will the changes to the other sets allow them to do a better job keeping your blaster alive ? The answer is yes they will. They will give their sets options that mental doesn't have. Mental won't even be able to come close without very expensive IO builds and forcing a particular play style on people using it.

After that you are debating if a low damage immob like subdual is a better choice than a high damage immob like ring of fire. If, mental's aoes are more useful than fires or electrics.(hint they aren't) If world of confusion provides more mitigation than ice patch or Power Sink.(hint it doesn't) If Scare works better than shocking grasp, freezing touch, or taser, (hint it doesn't).

Edit:TBF /Mental will have one trick up its sleave -regen which will be very nice for people that want to solo AVs and GMs. I can't say I consider this a reasonable build goal because the rewards are measured in merits/hour not merits/min.

I laugh. Because when you see what the other secondaries will be doing after the changes you will be dropping ment like a hot potato. I also bet you're going to be dropping archery even faster now that everything has a non crashing nuke.

High-recharge perma-DP builds soloing on x8 aside, 1400% regeneration part of the time is, in some ways, better at keeping you alive than 300% regeneration all of the time. Sustain powers are certainly easier to take advantage of, but not strictly superior. There is no reasonable way to look at a power that is four times stronger under the right circumstances and say "no, there's no way this can be an advantage".

Drain Psyche is a poor substitute for Sustain. But then, Sustain is a poor substitute for Drain Psyche. /MM will still be good - in fact, it will still be the best - at the things it is already the best at now. /Mental is the only Blaster secondary that is so good that it was left out of the i24 buffs because it would have to be weakened.

oh no! You can sit at range and regen more! *shudder*

(By more, I mean less. Good luck soloing 54x8 with no Broot to hide behind, and good luck stalemating GM's, LOL.)

Derp, did you miss my 'Ode to Archery' thread...? Fire Blast all day.

*Yawn*

Ohh sorry, I'm assuming you're just practicing for hiding behind my /Ment Blaster on your lolnrg while I take alpha strikes for you and you post on the forums about how leet you are. Yawning should be worked into your attack chain!

I wouldn't worry about it too much, he's trying to play DB with Mental.

400% Regen against a boss/AV/GM you don't have to stand next to vs 150% against one you have to hug. Yes it is very hard to compare the two.


It would have to be changed.


But enough of this. Neither you or THB, is actually interested in helping the original poster.

Listening to you, you would think you were the only person to ever play an arch/ment or at least a particularly talented user of the combo. Amazing isn't it.

Pretty much this. Nuf said? well... with ED capped Drain Psyche with 1 target and numina unique can already exceed 300% regen.

So should you take advantage of sustain or just roll /mm? Sometimes It's fun to play sub-par builds... The keyword is "sometimes", not to be confused with "often".

Derp, good thing we have IO's. Pretty sure I can withstand 54x8 maps on my /Ment Blasters. My Arch build is a couple threads down in case you want to take some notes, but all the specs are in this thread already.

Also, when you hit 120 HP/s perma, we can talk.

Derp again on a couple counts here. No. DP is perfect. It's a great power because it's a skill power- In order to leverage it properly, you have to ACTUALLY BE GOOD AT THE GAME, and actually INVEST IN YOUR CHARACTERS! Gasp! God forbid City of Casuals loses its stronghold on the forums! Lrn2play and make a high end /Ment (Don't pair it with a retarded primary like OP did, use your head. That's part of not being a nub) and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I'll help the OP. I know the OP. I've helped him with builds in the past, he has a badass Sylar avatar, and he's a super nice guy. He just happened to make a bad decision by pairing DB with /Ment, and then you put down the wrong selection in the first response, while making way more retarded assessments than just putting down pairing DB/ with /Ment.

Considering that I made all of the forum old guard explode about it, and started SEVERAL ~20 page threads about it in recent memory.. Pretty sure I had something to do with all of this.

Of course you did.

No it doesn't at all. It's amazing that you consider yourself qualified to determine what is misinformation in this context when you haven't brought anything to the table yourself.