Trying to get to 50 on an MM...

...and power leveling has turned out to be a disaster.

Right now my Necro/Dark mastermind Astorian Shade is at level 36. I'm trying to race her to level 50 since her backstory is tied into Dark Astoria and defeating Mot would make the perfect ending for her story in the game. I originally wanted to do that through story contacts, but with the game ending on November 30th, it's no longer an option: I work full time, many of my evenings are busy, so I only have a few hours here and there to play. After trying several AE farms that aren't geared for masterminds, I tried to make my own, a farm of nothing but bosses with the Winter Horde to take advantage of the Necro pets' resistance to cold and ability to overwhelm single targets.

Well, at 1/1 it's painfully slow and boring. I spent almost three hours fighting them and, while I was never once in danger, I never gained a level either. Even at 3/1 it's agonizingly slow (and prohibitively slow - I simply don't have enough free time between now and then to progress at that level), but 3/2 adds lieutenants who drop almost the same XP as the bosses, which helps a bit. Only now each mob is enough of a challenge that clearing it becomes an involved debuff-filled battle, and worst of all, I played two hours tonight and got half a level's worth of XP. It seems like I was actually gaining levels faster just playing through missions, but I'm scared to start them up again only to wind up wasting even more time.

I finally got so exasperated that I tried 4/8 just to see what'd happen. Needless to say, the only thing that died were the pets, almost instantly.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to farm a Necro/Dark mastermind to level 50 ASAP? I'm not trying to cheat the playing experience, and the moment I get to Dark Astoria I'm turning the difficulty back down just to focus on the story, but there's only a little more than a month left and my best AE run netted me two levels in almost four hours. I don't have any IO's (and really don't know anything about them at all, although I've read that, being an MM, they wouldn't be of much help for the pets) and I don't have an SG or any higher level friends to call upon to sidekick me along with them. Until now I've been almost entirely a solo player running through contact arcs.

I'd normally say team or 2box (sigh). You can get a bit faster by building for yourself as the primary damage dealer and using your pets in bg mode for defense and mez mitigation, also there will be more 2xp weekends apparently.
However since all my projects have stopped I would be interested in teaming up or pl-ing, let me know your server and times.

If teaming would help, I guess I have one or two friends I could sidekick up and ask to join me each night: they know what a big deal this is and they're in their twenties, and if teaming gives extra XP all around, it'd help them too.

I'm on the Guardian server right now, though moving to a more populated one like Virtue isn't a problem at all. Schedules are a little trickier, though I'm hoping to be free some Thursday and most of Friday night at least. For now, I may just focus on a few other characters who are much closer to their personal endgame stories.

Oh, I really could use your help in a week or so, and anyone else who wants to join in! The Katie Hannon Task Force awaits for rogue Cabal heroine New World Daughter as soon as I get her through the second half of Croatoa. I can round up three other people I know personally, which would leave room for at least two volunteers. I'll focus on getting her there and PM you if you like with a time that everyone's getting together. I've never led a task force at all (and so I'm studying up on Paragonwiki to learn what to expect), but Virginia Dare versus Mary McComber is just too perfect an ending for her saga... ^_^

So teaming, try to do more damage myself (makes sense, the pets aren't exactly what I'd call efficient killing machines) and take advantage of the double-XP weekends (oh, but would they affect AE, or is that the time to get Shade back into old-fashioned street sweeping?). Thanks, I'll give them all a try!

No 2xp does not apply to ae (some people can get more than enough from it anyway /wink). Friday and Saturday is good for me this week, check your forum account inbox.

Not seeing it here.

What server you on?

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

He did say Guardian.

I'm happy to move toons anywhere right now for teaming.

Since you're already farming, how about changing the farm to Dfb? The enemies are easier and they dont damage as much. You'll need 3 ppl to join tho.

I'm leveling a Beast/Nature MM (L44 atm), so I know what you're talking about. MMs just don't scale well for farming, and I find them alternately boring or exasperating to solo where there's often just no difficulty level sweet spot (I managed to get one at +1x4 in the late 30s/early 40s that helped me get into playing mine).

One thing I considered, but haven't done, is using a level 1 Boss farm (my own version of this is called Magic Burrito). The AT mods do not do much at level 1 so the MM attacks are sound at that level. You can use your second build to make a farm-only version of your char that does pretty well at level 1. Don't bother with IOs, since Ex murders even L10 Quads at level 1. [Edit: If you're going to respec later on you can go ahead and slot whatever procs you intend to use.] Over-slot for Damage since the Ex will knock your SOs down to about 7-8%. Make sure you take Dark Blast and Gloom and slot those two and Brawl completely. Go ahead and level up the second build for slots and do something like this...

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.96
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 37 Mutation Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Necromancy
Secondary Power Set: Dark Miasma
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Dark Blast -- Dmg(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(9), Dmg(11), Dmg(11), Dmg(15)
Level 1: Twilight Grasp -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(15), EndRdx(17), EndRdx(17), Heal(19), Heal(19)
Level 2: Gloom -- Dmg(A), Dmg(3), Dmg(5), Dmg(9), Dmg(13), Dmg(13)
Level 4: Tar Patch -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(5), RechRdx(21), RechRdx(21), RechRdx(23), RechRdx(23)
Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(7), RechRdx(7), RechRdx(25), RechRdx(25), RechRdx(27)
Level 8: Zombie Horde -- Empty(A)
Level 10: Enchant Undead -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Grave Knight -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Darkest Night -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Shadow Fall -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Soul Extraction -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Howling Twilight -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Fearsome Stare -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Combat Jumping -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Lich -- Empty(A)
Level 28: Petrifying Gaze -- Empty(A)
Level 30: Super Jump -- Empty(A)
Level 32: Dark Empowerment -- Empty(A)
Level 35: Acrobatics -- Empty(A)
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
Level 1: Brawl -- Dmg(A), Dmg(34), Dmg(34), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), Dmg(36)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal(A), Heal(31), Heal(33), Heal(33), Heal(33), Heal(34)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(27), EndMod(29), EndMod(29), EndMod(31), EndMod(31)
------------

Note that this is very dedicated to playing at level 1 and so power picks after 6 are irrelevant. I've maxed out damage output at level 1 using Tar Patch and Hasten as the extra powers (and over-slotted them knowing even 6 +3 SOs will get knocked down to 50% enhancement before the ED cap is applied). You may be better off with Zombie Horde and Enchant Undead, but I expect the single slow moving Zombie will just hold you back, so I skipped them. [Edit:] It may be better to take Boxing than Tar Patch.

It will probably take you about 1 hr/lvl (give or take) to farm yourself up this way. Note that XP boosters work in AE (but Patrol XP doesn't). So f you do have boosters or enough Paragon Points to buy some, then that could help.

Personally, I find this sort of farming too tedious and haven't used it for my MM (I usually only farm for Tickets or Shards), but I have used it since the announcement for a number of new chars. I built that farm specifically to replace red-side DFBs as those were hard to find. It gives rewards rates (XP+Tickets) that aren't too far short of DFB and there's no need for teammates or waiting around. It was only intended as a way to get villains to 8 when I'd go to PO for the Mayhem and then again to 12 after that to get to DOs. But since the announcement I've used it to finish off levels, and even to get one char from 1 to 22 for SOs (that took about 2-1/2 hrs). I've never used a second build tailored to it beyond L12 but in principle it should help considerably. If you have VR attacks that helps a lot too. You can up the diff in my farm to get extra critters, something that most Boss farms don't do (it starts with 1 Boss/1 Min and at x2 you get an extra Min in each spawn, I haven't checked what it does above x2). However, that extra Minion may be a drawback for some. With VRs I can one-shot it with Blackwand/Nemesis Staff, so it's just free XP/Tickets/Inspirations to me.

Anyway, I'm not a dedicated farmer, so I usually just play arcs I like (using flashback if I have to - I just did Sister Psyche on my MM project that way) and avoid standing around waiting for something to happen and I do OK with XP that way.

I'm on Guardian most of the time (less these days as my #2/3 projects are on Pinn/Just respectively) so feel free to send me a tell (@Calorie) if you want to team up.

Hmm, that brings up a whole bunch of points I hadn't really thought about, like does exemplaring down still preserve the same XP progress rate. I haven't done much with her second build, so it wouldn't be hard to redesign it that way and see what happens, and she does have vet powers to help out at level 1. An hour a level is a little slow, but it beats my best time of two hours a level. I'll give that a try this weekend - thanks! Likewise for just picking a fun arc, which I only hesitated on because of worries about how exemplaring affects XP. As long as it's the same rate, and especially if Ouroboros lets you take advantage of Patrol XP and Double XP, that work as well as AE farming.

I logged on a bit last night to forego AE and just street sweep in Founders' Fall, and that actually worked about as well as AE does since she has a ton of Patrol XP. On paper it looks like the cold-based Winter Horde should be easy for a cold-resisting, darkness-based AT and the Circle of Thorns a pain, but in practice the Circle bosses go down in seconds compared to the struggle the snowmen can put up. Maybe the Winter Horde's just not a good choice...

Anyway, I'll hopefully be around Saturday night for teaming. I'm on Guardian server right now, though with enough transfers to move around, and I've never really teamed, apart from helping a few people on their arcs and one Terra Volta run, so I'm wide open on anything anyone wants to do. Maybe DFB? I've never actually tried it, so maybe one run before the servers close is in order. But I could definitely use help with building Virginia's Katie Hannon TF late next week (once Double XP's over, I'll clear Croatoa with that character so she'll be ready storywise), so even if it's not this weekend, teaming offers are very appreciated.

Yep. XP is the same no matter what level you exemp to now thanks to Supersidekicking, people like level 1 missions because you get a bit more defeats/minute. But as an mm you only get 1 minion pet so you're still gimped.

I haven't tried the Lv1 farm yet, but I did try to team up with a blaster friend and it didn't really help: I think with six fragile minions already swarming the enemies, having one more fragile character in the mix wasn't making much difference. But then I discovered an Ouroboros mission and tactic that seems to work great for a Necro/Dark MM: level 34's "protect the war walls" map with the Rikti. You'd think the Rikti's energy damage would be murder for the undead, but they tear through the Rikti bosses in seconds with almost no damage. I've been alternating between running the War Wall mission, which is a large open map with easily spotted groups of enemies, and street sweeping the Rikti in Founders Fall in flashback mode: not having to worry about diminishing returns and finding better enemies is alone worth it. It's about a level an hour, but a very stress-free hour, and Shade's now reached level 41. Thanks for suggesting Ouroboros - trying the flashback missions instead of AE never would have occurred to me! Katie Hannon's hopefully still on schedule for next Sunday, but since that's a whole different topic, I'll post tomorrow on the Guardian board for anyone who wants to join in.

(Edit: Delaying the Katie TF to make sure that character's all set to lead it and that Shade's safely at 50. Post to come next week!)

That hr/level estimate was without Double XP. But it's about as boring as playing CoH can get, so now that you're at 40+ I'd advise moving on to doing Tina MacIntyre's arc to get the credit towards Portal Jockey. If you're into Rikti I like the "Division: Line" arc from Angus McQueen in the 40-45 range too.

Okay, after the Double XP weekend, Shade's Patrol XP and the vet reward XP Boosters ran out, even the Rikti just became too slow and cumbersome to deal with, so I gave Magic Burrito a try on the custom level 1 build you suggested (with Tar Patch swapped out for Boxing) - and it works great! Got about a bar and a half of XP in 10 minutes, so it looks like it'll add up to a level an hour like you said (and with a goal of a level of a night, currently 43, and extra time this weekend, she'll be at 50 within a few days), and Boxing, Dark Blast and Gloom form a perfect attack sequence even apart from Hasten's effects. And as for the farm's story... I gotta admit, it's creative.

I'm hoping to have time to revisit some of the arcs via Flashback, but for now my focus is just on racing her to 50 so the return to Dark Astoria can begin. Between Shade's battle against Mot, New World Daughter finishing Croatoa and leading a Katie Hannon TF, and Yuki running the Path Into Darkness arc and then hopefully joining a Moonfire TF, these characters are going to be scrambling between now and November 30th...

Done! Shade's now level 50, and her trip back to Dark Astoria awaits! I ended up using Magic Burrito a bit until around the mid-40s its rewards began to taper off, then took advantage of the Halloween weekend to let her henchmen fight the zombies and Terror banner enemies while I ran around doing other stuff, and then went back to street sweeping the Rikti and using Experienced powers for the last five levels, with a Ms. Liberty Task Force pushing her almost to the edge of 49. Then a few more runs through the Rikti farm I made for her, then a run through the arc "Astoria in D Minor" (which really is as good as everyone says), and then one last bit of sweeping in front of Portal Corp and she's set!

Thank you to everyone for your help!

Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaatz.
It is a good feeling when you get there isn't it. Where was I when I first level'd a mm to 50 oh yeah:

Thanks! I wish I'd had the presence of mind to copy/paste the screenshot like you did into Paint and capture all the windows and messages, and my leveling spot isn't nearly as epic as the battle you were fighting in the Shard with Rularuu's servants, but here it is, Astorian Shade hitting 50 right in the midst of saving some scientists in front of Portal Corp from the pesky Circle of Thorns...



With the AE arc "Astoria in D Minor," though, it all worked perfectly for her character: having that as her last story mission before hitting level 50 made it feel like... hm, "Astoria in D Minor" spoilers!

SPOILERS!

.
.
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Like Mot was making one last attempt to break her will and reclaim her, and she fought it off and went back to fighting against evil, with her rescuing the scientists being the last symbolic act that breaks Mot's influence completely.

Plus the satisfaction of hearing the trainers say "there's nothing more I can teach you" isn't bad either.

Nice one. Impressive auras of cool.

I guess it's a bit late now but try this command out:
/screenshotui 1
and then take a screeny.