Dr Causality

@Number Six Hey are there any updates on the Interface double check calculation bug getting corrected? And if so, did the fix roll out to all the Interface versions?

/Rad is a great debuff set, but the best MM 2ndaries buff the survival of the pets, in additon to debuffing. For survival buffs /Rad has just it's relatively small power aoe heal. AM the main /Rad buff doesn't do anything for pet survival. Further Pets don't benefit from it's +Rech. It does help out with a +Dmg and +Recovery buff. But a MM ideally needs their 2ndary to do more survival buffing. The -Tohit, -Dmg debuff will help with survivability, but it's just not enough. You'd ideally also want to some +Res or +Def, etc. But that said /Rad is a strong enough debuff set that's it's definitely playable on MM's. If you're set on it for aesthetic or character concept, theme etc. It will do just fine. It's just that other sets that also include buffs for pets will outperform it. On the other hand, if you're not set on /Rad but like some of these about it consider this: If you like the -Tohit/-Dmg toggle consider /Dark. Darkest Night gives the -Tohit and -Dmg in a single toggle. You get +Res and +Def buffs from Shadow Fall. A more powerful aoe heal. The -Res and Slow from Tar Patch. Plus a cone fear, ranged single target Hold mezzes. And you get a 7th pet that heals and debuffs. The long cooldown means you won't have it on perma, but for short burst you can get the -500% Regen from Howling Twight. If you like the /Rad's big -Regen and good -Res, then consider either /Cold or /Thermal. /Cold has great -Regen and -Res debuffs, plus good Defensive shield buffs (but no heal). /Thermal has heals, +Resistance shields for pets, and a great -Dmg, -Regen debuff. It also has a long cooldown high power -Res. Or you could get even more -Regen, some -Res, with +Def and Mezz protection from /Traps. If you like the pbaoe Choking Cloud toggle, and the toggle -Tohit debuff, then look at /Nature. You get a +Resistance shield. You get 'Entangling Aura' pbaoe hold toggle that's a close analog of Chocking Cloud More heals and Regen buffs than /Rad gets. A -Tohit, -Dmg toggle, that also does a small -150% Regen. Long cooldown +Absorb Shield. And an aoe buff power, that boosts +Tohit, +Dmg, and +End Reduction. Plus a single target rezz that can be used as a big heal on living teammates or pets.

/EA starts slow. You don't get your best survival power with Absorb until a late lvl 35. /EA also doesn't give you much of any dmg increasing powers, or mitigation like slows, -Tohit, Mezzes etc. So you'll probably want to play /EA very differently while leveling, then you might at higher level builds with access to Epic Pools and Incarnate. I'd recommend making a leveling build or even build(s) that you expect to respec out of later. Overall leveling Thoughts: Fight in the Cage - It will be really important to keep pets and the fights inside Faraday Cage, but you won't have immobilize or even a slow while leveling. I strongly recommend taking Provoke to Taunt enemies into fighting in your Cage. This means you'd leave you're pets in Defensive Follow mode, so they stay in Bodyguard mode which distributes a portion of any damage your MM takes out your pets. That damage distribution means your otherwise fragile low HP MM can use your pets HP pool to effectively take much larger hits, and your aoe chain heal, can then easily heal away the damage that's spread across you and all your pets. Hover - which you have in your build is very helpful for mitigating damage and works in well in Tandem with Provoke to help to keep Taunted enemies inside the cage. Don't bother slotting for Def while leveling. It's a small amount and you won't have enough Def from other sources to matter much. But there are some IO's that would greatly help you. Kismet +Tohit, Reactive Defense, +Res and Shield Wall +Res. Unfortunately all of those are fairly expensive and you mentioned being a bit resource strapped... Discharge - Your best mitigation while leveling is probably the -End Drain from Discharge. This won't start to be viable until after level 20 or so and will take a lot of slots to get both the Endurance and Accuracy. Once you get Diffibrillate at lvl 28, it will be easy to Drain Enemies and Discharge will keep them drained. But until then it will take several applications... And Discharge has a 20s base cooldown, so even best case you're gong to be taking a lot of damage while you're initially draining enemies. Crack Whip - Slotted with a ForceFeeback proc, and Annihilation chance for -Res, will help immensely when leveling. The +Recharge buff from the FF proc can help make up for lack of global Rech set bonuses. Works best against larger spawn, since it gets more chances to proc, but only needs to proc on one enemies for you to get the full buff. Unique Pet IO's - Defense won't matter as much, but you're going to really want the three +Res IO's. Summon Demon's - Should be slotted for some Resistance so the Ember Shield provides more survivability. I recommend putting one or two Attuned IO's in so they can keep increasing in power as you level. Tough - Consider the Fighting Pool so you can get an early Tough. Weave is probably not worth it while leveling an /EA, since you'll very few other sources of Def making your overall Def numbers low. With little or no Defense you'll be taking a lot of hits, either way. That means Tough's +15% base Smash/Lethal Resistance will stack nicely with Faraday cage and Ember Shield, to reduce the damage you actually take from all that abuse. This is very important in Bodyguard mode, because it reduces the damage distributed out to your pets... Prestige Attacks - MM's attacks are pretty weak in general. Cruelly at low level the prestige attacks like Sands of Mu, do as much or more damage than most of your own attacks. These can be very useful to fill in you when you don't have many powers. And once you have some combo of Kismet, Empowering Circuit and Tactics, you'll have enough +Tohit that you can land Prestige attacks fairly reliably. In terms of the specific build you posted. I'll go through power by power: Summon Demonlings Needs more slots. At low levels enhancements are weaker, so you need even more slots to reach high accuracy and damage. Your pets are the main source of your dmg, and you need room for some pet uniques. Expect to 6-slot all MM pet powers. Probably even Hell on Earth (although in some builds you might wait until higher level for the last few slots...) Shock Too many slots. You won't have many slots at lower level, and you can make better use of the ones you do get elsewhere. Slot for accuracy, but probably nothing else. Maneuvers ( and Leadership) Demons/EA at low level, with no Incarnate or Epic powers just won't have enough Def to make much difference. Even if you take Maneuvers early, you probably still wouldn't actually run it and it would likely be taken Primarily to unlock access to Tactics and for a free inherent slot for a Def IO like Reactive Defense or Kismet. At low levels accuracy is a much bigger DPS problem than pure lack of damage. This is especially true because your T1 pets are lower level than you. So Tactics is the best early leadership skill for a MM. I would only take Leadership early to get Tactics faster. Energizing Circuit The high Endurance cost is the same at low level. But at low levels you won't be able to get the Endurance slotted high enough to recover that Endurance cost. Likewise you won't be able to do much Endurance Reduction slotting. You aren't going to want to use this power until the net return of Endurance is much greater than the cost. I would probably delay taking this until after lvl 20 or so when enhancements are more powerful, and when you'll have more slots available. Summon Demon's I already mentioned this, but you'll want to slot them for some Resistance to buff the Ember shield. Attuned IO's are the way to go, so you don't need to perpetually slot higher level enhancements.... Faraday Cage Needs more slots. This is a key part of you and your pets survival. At low levels enhancements are weaker, so it will take more of them to get to the fully enhanced Resistance total you ideally want/need. This is also a pretty high Endurance cost power, and you may need to recast it to move it around during fights. So when possible it's also nice to have both Endurance Reduction and Recharge slotting. I'd definitely try to get Attuned IO's so didn't have to replace the IO's as I leveled up further. Hell on Earth You won't have enough recharge while leveling to have this up very often, and you'll be slot starved, so this should not be a high slot priority when leveling. Put slots into other pet's first. But once other pets are 6 slotted, consider adding enough 'Hell on Earth' slots to move at least some of pet uniques over to Hell on Earth. That gives you the full 6-slots in the other pets for Acc/Dmg/End and maybe some recharge. Crack Whip See what I wrote about this in Overall section. I would consider taking this earlier, maybe instead of Energizing Circuit. Try to get Attuned versions of the procs I mentioned. They will make a big difference in your leveling. Empower Circuit Accuracy is challenging for pets at low level. Take this as soon as available. It doesn't need any additional slots. It doesn't stack, and has a 60s duration with a 15s cooldown. Meaning it it doesn't need any +Recharge slotting. Put a +Tohit into it. (The Build up proc can also be a fun gimmick, if you rely heavily on MM attacks...) Demon Prince Full 6 slots. Try to get your hands on an Impeded Swiftness +Chance for Dmg proc. Greatly increases his DPS. It can also be handy when leveling to increase the Demon Prince's Slow movement debuff. Consider adding a 2nd Impeded Swiftness (either Dmg/Slow or Acc/Slow) for the 1.5% S/L resistance bonus. Mace Mastery I'm not a fan of Mace Mastery on /EA MM's. /EA's biggest weakness is not having much dmg or dps increasing powers like -Res. Your Epic powers ideally would help fill that weakness, and Mace doesn't do a great job of that because Web Envelope does no damage and therefore can only slot a single Dmg proc, and can't slot any -Res procs. I recommend either, Fire Mastery for Bonfire with Knockback to KnockDown IO, plus Fireball for Damage. Or one of the Epics with an Immobilize that does Dmg. PowerBoost It's a neat and big boost to your Absorb shield. But Powerboost has a 120s base cooldown. Insulating Circuit has a base 20s cooldown. The powers just don't align well. Also, you're going to be repeatedly spamming Insulating Circuit in the middle of combat, and there just won't be time to mess with seeing if Powerboost is up and trying to coordinate casting it first... Sadly, an /EA Mastermind will want to skip Powerboost. {If you were going to take, I would experiment with making a Macro that cast PB first, then Insulating Circuit. And I'd use that Macro or hotkey in place of the Insulating Circuit power button. That way you'd use PB whenever it was up.... )

Most important decisions will probably be what Incarnate Alpha and what Epic Pool? I've really only looked at Demons/EA. Necro will need to build differently because you won't get the massive +Resistance from Ember Shield. For Demons I think Alpha Cardiac Radial or Resilient are the clear best choices. Because they both buff the Absorb of your best /EA power and also buff the Resistance Shields of Faraday Cage and Ember Demon. The other parts like Cardiac's +End Reduction and +Range, or Resiliente's +Tohit, +Immobilize, +Taunt are just nice to have. Those Alphas will still be good on Necro/EA, because they're great for /EA. But Necro won't be getting the additional +Res from Ember Shield. That changes a lot, and other Alpha's may turn out to be more valuable. That said giving up the additional +Absorb buff letting you go past ED Enhancement is going to be a tough choice... A few thoughts: Alpha Choice Vigor -- Each of your pets has a Siphon Life on 15s to 30s cooldown. But there's unlikely to be room to actually slotting for them heal. I'm thinking 'Vigor Radial Paragon' might actually be best on Necro. That would, Enhance the healing in all of your pets, and the healing in your 'Rejuvenating Circuit' past ED. /EA's heal is already very big for and aoe heal that isn't targetted on enemies like /Dark or /Kin. That means there's a large base to enhance past ED... give you +Accuracy enhancement in all your powers, freeing you up to short slot. This is especially valuable if you want to go for proc-ed attacks. give you +End Reduction in all your powers, further freeing you up to short slot your build. That means Vigor would make pets more self-sufficient and give you a lot of overall build slotting opportunities. Musculature -- Always worth considering for the +Damage. But Musculature Radial Paragon could be especially good on Necro/EA, since it also buffs Endurance and -Tohit debuff. This is likely what you'd go with if decided on a -End Drain focused build. +Damage enhancement in all your powers. not only increases your pet damage by around 20%. Like Accuracy, the +Damage Enhancement also helps free you up to slot procs and chase set bonuses when slotting your pet powers. The +Endurance Enhancement will super charge the -End Drain powers and also make Energizing Circuit return more End to everyone in the chain (including yourself) The -Tohit Enhancement will impact most of the powers the pets have. It will only boost something like an additional -1.25% Tohit per attack. But spread across 6 pets that could add up. Epic Pool Choice I think this will be the toughest choice for a final build. Mace Mastery -- People's first instinct seems to be to go with Mace Mastery likely to fill in for /EA's lack of any inherent Def buffing powers. But I'm sure also because Mace gives you a very reliable easy to use, large aoe Immobilize. However, I do not think Mace is the best choice for /EA. /EA's biggest overall hole is lack of damage or DPS opportunities like -Res. Mace Mastery isn't good for helping to patch the DPS problem. Immobilize is very nice to have on a MM, but /EA wants an Immobilize that (a) does damage, which (b) means it can slot a Annihilation chance for -Res proc and Dmg procs. For me this makes Mace Mastery non-optimal on /EA. But in Mace Mastery or Chill Mastery's favor, Faraday Cage+Tough means with set bonuses you can get to 75% hard cap Smash/Lethal resistance. The challenge being that you likely won't (a) need both an Epic Resistance Shield AND Tough. And especially if taking an Epic Res shield you (b) may want Weave to reach decent Def numbers...so what do you with Tough. That said, it's is it's much easier to fill in a portion of the needed +Def for softcap from Inspirations, then it is to fill in +Res for hard cap. This is especially important on /EA, because the Absorb shield hugely benefits from Resistance. High defense builds will still take some hits from streak breaker, meaning resistance is ultimately what gives an /EA player time to re-apply Insulating Circuit's Aborb, so pets or teammates die less. High defense builds without good resistance are still only two back to back hits away from death. On an /EA MM I'd prioritize getting close +Res cap 1st, then work on Def. That means I think Mu, Fire or Soul are probably the best on Necro/EA: Mu - Probably the best choice if going for -End Drain build. The +Energy Resistance is very nice to have. Thunderstrike, which I normally would skip, provides an /EA player a very high proc chance slot for Fury of the Gladiator -20% Res proc. /EA needs all the -Res it can find, and this would stack with the Annihilation and Achilles you'd also want to try to fit in the build. ThunderStrike can slot up slot up to around 50% +Rech enhancement and still keep the 3.5PPM Fury proc capped at 90%, that should let you keep it up near permanently with decent global recharge you'll have. Even with it's lower 2PPM, at 50% Rech the FF proc would still have around 50% chance to proc per target. I still don't love Thunderstrike due to the incredibly long animation, but could be interesting with /EA and is more -End Recovery for -End Drain builds... Stun build idea - Electrifying Fences can be turned into a psuedo mezz power. It takes both the Immob and End chance for stun procs. Sadly, they're only a 2PPM, but at 0% recharge they still each have a 33% chance to proc an 8s Mag2 stun. So nearly 45% chance of one proc, and 11% chance of both for a Mag4. You can also stun Proc Discharge with up to 27% chance to proc. And Thunderstrike has it's own 50% chance for a Mag3 stun. All together that would be a good amount of stun opportunity. But would be much better with a Pets that do their own stuns.... The annoying thing about both mezz and End drain builds on MM's is you need to take pets out of BG mode in order them to keep attacking disabled enemies.... Fire Mastery - Bonfire with KB -> KD is amazing mitigation. Fireball is good damage. Tough + Faraday Cage should be enough to get to hard capped Smash/Leth resistance, so it's okay there's no Res shield. But you're also giving up an Immob. I think this means you'll need to take Provoke, to help ensure fights stay inside 'the Cage'. Soul Mastery - The 15% base Negative and Tox Resistance is nice to have. Soul Tentacles has decent proc chances, and the cone works well when hovering above Faraday cage. Oppressive Gloom is good mitigation against minions, and can hold aggro from enemies it doesn stun. If you don't mind dealing needing to take pets out of BG mode to keep them attacking, then it could be interesting. The stun proc in Discharge would give you a chance to stack Mag4 stun. Other Thoughts: That Cage Fighting Life Its' very important for /EA that fights always take place inside Faraday Cage. For enemies that are already inside your Faraday Cage, an Immobilize is useful. But Immobilize doesn't help get enemies into the cage and a MM doesn't have high enough Mag Immob to keep lots of enemies like AVs, Crimoreans, Werewolves etc. In my /EA play so far Provoke was by far the most reliable way of keeping enemies and pet fights inside the Cage. Hovering over the cage made it even more effective because the Taunted enemies needed to run underneath my MM to jump up and try to use shorter range and melee attacks. That creates an enemy pile underneath you which is perfect for cones or aoe attacks. Leveling Leveling an /EA MM is slow going. You don't get -Res or other DPS powers. And you're best survival power doesn't come until Lvl 35. At least you get Faraday Cage at 18, because you will definitely be want that Res and Mezz prot... It's doesn't do much to speed up clear times, but for surivivability while leveling I think you'll need to go for a -End Drain build. Sadly, this is also slow going because it's easiest using Discharge + Defibrillate, which you don't get until lvl 28. But Necro has an interesting gimmick that would be fun to try. All the pets can slot Tohit debuff IO's, do you can slot a Deflate Ego chance for -25% Recovery Debuff. I've never used that proc because....Lol.... but up to 7 pets stacking that in most of their attacks on top ofyour Discharge. That would probably keep enemies perma drained. The proc is dirt cheap and avaiable at lvl 10. You should at least try it, for laughs. Gloom I'm not usually fond of single target MM attacks. The dpa tends to not be impressive, and you often have better things to be doing. But Gloom is something special. It has the highest dpa of all the MM single target attacks. It's 8s cooldown gives it good proc chances. In addition to the ranged purple and pvp procs, also takes the Accurate Tohit dmg proc. That means with 0% Rech, you can have 2 x 53% chance for 71 Dmg and 1 x 68% chance for 107dmg. At lvl 50 that's an expected average proc Dmg of around 149, plus with slotting for Dmg up to 109 Dmg from the power. So you should be hitting for an average of 258 with spikes up to 358, and cooldown time after global recharge probably around 4s. Pretty good for a MM. But for leveling you might take Life Drain instead. It's much worse activation time so worse base dpa, but it additionally takes the Accurate Healing Dmg proc, which is handy for leveling when you can't yet slot Apocalypse. The worse activation time, means a 4% better proc chance. Plus you'll be squishier, so the heal will be appreciated. -Res: You need it At least during leveling, I'd definitely consider taking Weaken Resolve. It's a very reliable Achilles -20% Res proc, that stacks with it's own -12.8% resistance. You can also turn it into fairly respectable dmg power with procs. It will take up to 3 dmg procs, that each would have capped 90% proc chance, even if you slot Weaken Resolve for over 100% Recharge Enhancement. Biggest challenge while leveling and short on slots will be getting both the procs and enough accuracy for them to hit... Let me know what you're leaning towards and I'll try to mock out a build or two...

Here's a new thread with my some of my findings, and details the best Demons/EA IO build I've been able to come up:

I've dug into Demon/EA pretty heavily over the last month both in Mid's and the Test server. It's absolutely top tier in terms of shear survivability. I don't think any other MM combo can take, or I should say absorb anywhere near the sustained brutal beating that a Demons/EA can. But that might not feel so impressive in actual game play, because it also has anemic damage potential. /EA's damage potential is solidly on the very bottom of all the MM 2ndaries. I'd rate /EA in probably a threeway tie for last place in DPS potential with /Empath and /FF. But /EA's survivability also requires some spamming of support buff powers, which further reduces the time your MM has for offense. So even without having -Regen /FF probably has better DPS potential because it's such a passives set that you have time for full MM attack chains.... The only DPS in /EA's favor is "Dead pets do no damage; and you will rarely have dead pets...." /EA has no -Ree No Damaging powers No Dmg proc opportunities Only modest -Regen. And it's only DPS buff amounts to about a 21% Dmg buff on all but the first in the chain that gets the full 22.5% buff. Anyway, here's new thread with the best of builds I've been able to come up with:

It won't be top damage, but it is very sturdy, and hold good mitigation. Here's a link to a new thread with the build, stats and details: This is a good insight! The Ember Demon can't shield itself, leaving it with the lowest overall Resistance. And it's Ember shield is critical for maintaining Resistance on everything else, so I've often been targeting it for both the Absorb and Heals. But the few pets I've lost are typically the T1's, so I should probably switch to your plan.

Here are in game numbers of the build for the MM and Pets: Faraday Cage is bugged in Mids', so some in game numbers for the MM's Resistance are 4% higher than shown in Mid's. You're actually at 74.5% S/L, and 62% Cold, without Barrier: T1 Pet Resistance: T2 Pet Resistance: T3 Pet Resistance:

I've been mentioning in some other threads that Demons/EA could be built to be by far the sturdiest MM combo I'd tried. So wanted to share a build or two for people to look at or test on Beta server. Just to be clear I'm only claiming Demons/EA is top tier in Survivability. /EA has poor DPS potential, so I'm not sure how I'd rate it overall against other all around top combos using /Storm, /Time or /Cold. But the survivability that can be achieved is insane. I ran it against +4/+8 Carnival paper mission barely taking any noticeable damage. Cleared a rob bank in Grandville against +4/+8 Arachnos without any difficult. It even handled +4/+8 Malta with double spawn rooms. Malta was still a threat and I had play more carefully against the Malta double spawns.... But most of the MM's I've tried just can't do +4/+8 Malta solo at all. The /EA basics: Absorb in essence increases the pets effective HP, preventing them from getting one or two shotted as easily. High Resistance is a force multiplier for Absorb. It appears that incoming damage is first reduced by Resistance, before it's taken from the Absorb HP pool. This means that even a relatively small Absorb HP pool goes a long long way on Res Hard Capped pets (90%) and MM (75%.). /EA can replenish the aoe Absorb Shield HP pool roughly every 5s or 6s on modest global recharge builds. Demons/EA can hard cap most of the pets to many damage types and can also hard cap the MM to S/L/F/C, with the lowest other Resistance holes in the mid 50's for pets and the mid 30's for the MM. Add to that AOE mezz and KB protection, a large Chain Heal with low cooldown and you have a very sturdy mastermind. But what's the gimmick, you're wondering? When testing how HP buffs impact the Absorb mechanic using HoarFrost (....it doesn't buff /EA's Absorb if you're wondering**) I found that with Cardiac Radial I could hard cap the Res of most of the pets AND also hard cap the MM's own Res to Smash/Lethal/Fire WITHOUT taking either Tough or an Epic Res shield! The problems for /EA are poor DPS potential and no +Def numbers. Well if you can build to mostly hard cap Resistance without needing an Epic Shield or the Fighting Pool, then you'd have a lot of power slots left to fill in Damage and +Def bonuses. By the numbers the sturdiest Demons/EA build I came up used the 'Chill Mastery Epic' and the Fighting Pool. Hoarfrost easily gives you another 23% Toxic Res and +40% HP. Frozen Armor lets you soft cap S/L Def. So you end with impressive numbers like these (**Note: Faraday Cage is bugged Mid's so in game Res numbers will actually a bit higher than shown here...) : The problem was even with proc-ed out Flash Freeze, the Damage was still anemic. But looking at those numbers I realized, I didn't need the Fighting Pool or an Epic Shield. So after lots of tuning I finally reached this 'Fire Mastery' build with greatly improved DPS, but that still retains most of hard capped Resistance and with 5% from Barrier reaches around 32.5% Def to all types except Psi. [It was very challenging to get the Def numbers without Weave, but I was intent on not using power choices on Boxing and Tough....] : [Edit: I added real in game numbers in the first reply to this post.] The reasons this is impressive are, It's similar Resistance and Def as other top set combos, except with /EA and Cardiac Radial you also have an aoe roughly 400 HP Absorb shield on 6s cooldown! Those numbers are achieved using only two toggles, Hover and Maneuvers. Meaning's there's almost nothing to drop, even when you're sapped of endurance you only lose 7% Def and keep all the same Resistance and Mezz protection because Faraday Cage isn't a toggle, nor is Ember Shield, nor Barrier (for the 120s 5% Def and 6% Res...) It does all this while fitting in Bonfire, Hover, Hasten, Tactics, Provoke, proc-ed out Fireball, Force Feedback proc-ed out 'Crack Whip', and Corruption for stacking -Res, etc. To do this I had to give up, +Rech Bonuses, and the Discharge + Defibrillate -End drain combo. But Bonfire is much better mitigation than the -End drain was and it also does a little bit of damage. Build notes: Must have Cardiac Radial: I think it's hands down the best Alpha for /EA. Boosts your best power Absorb shield, boosts both Ember's and Faraday Cage's Resistance shields which is what lets you hard cap without Tough or Epic shields. Plus it gives 33% endurance reduction enhancement letting you get away with short slotting powers for more set bonuses. Needs Barrier Core: It's counting on the constant 120s duration 5% Def and 6% Res from Barrier. That let's you reach around 32.5% Def to all but Psi. So after the 1st portion of Barrier wears off, if you're still in a heavy fight you pop one small purple inspiration for soft cap typed defense before Barrier is up again. Accuracy is lower than ideal for versus +4, but keep in mind there will be an extra 11% +Tohit coming from 'Empower Circuit' that isn't showing in Mid's. No KB Protection slotted. Staying inside Faraday Cage gives you Mag10 KB prot. And beyond that KB is less problematic with Hover... You can switch to alternate slotting to swap the Super Command of Mastermind and Superior Mark of Supremacy sets between the Demonlings and Demon Prince. This shifts 6% Res away from Energy/Negative and gives to Toxic/Psi. I felt it was better to have it balanced, but swapping also gives Demon Prince 7% more Damage... To reach Def and Res numbers you must have the full 6-set of Superior Blistering Cold, that I muled into brawl . I muled it into brawl to free up two power slots, offering you build flexibility. I intentionally left two powers empty, so you can customize to your preferences. Options are: Lash: If you like the idea of all three whip attacks you can take Lash and move the 6-Superior Blistering Colds over from Brawl. But my take is Lash is the worst of the three and given Corruption's low cooldown two whip attacks was more than enough. Corruption and Lash do roughly the same DPA. But Corruption has a much lower cooldown and faster activation time, so more easily stacks -Res and also has a 96' range from Cardiac in this build, making it far more versatile. Assault for some more dmg Discharge (and maybe Defibrillate). You only have a single slot available, so they won't be very effective at -End drain. But together they can still do it. Also Discharge is -11% Dmg debuff, so provides some additional survivability. And also offers a small -50% Regen debuff. Fly+Afterburner: You can only single slot, but that could give one KB prot IO and LOTG +5 in Afterburner gives you +Rech and gets you near soft cap positonal Def. Amp Up: Nice to have for teammates. But also improves Ember Demon's base heal by 50%, so improves your own solo survivability too. Ember also is the weakest because it can shield itself. I didn't test thoroughly, but 'Amp Up' improves Absorb, so appears to increase the amount of Absorb the recipient get from your Insulating Circuit chain. [But it does not appear to pass that higher Absorb on to the next in the chain...] Super Speed: slotted with single w/ an stealth IO would give you full stealth for zipping to the end of missions.... Vengeance: LOTG mule, and profit from teammate's demise etc. Malta made me realize how useful it was to have the Devastation +Chance for Mag2 Hold proc in Char. Being able to stack a Mag5 Hold on a Hercules Class Titan boss missiling you from across the room. I'd consider stealing the FF proc from Bonfire or maybe even one of the Def bonuses sets to have that better Mag5 mitigation option.... Demon/EA/Fire - Bonfire build: Download Link Data Chunk [code]| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1586;782;1564;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F135114C6EF3C0A9682B4D49667A12DEF624BCBC3C74651408DD2042| |DA0AE9A4999D291A1D3B443148D1A16EEF11535A0B222BED7FE016AE2DE855BDD28| |0BC1F8483431A927F79CD0493A49FBBBF3DD7BCF7CF79C3313BF3456FDEAF8F2612| |6384775A55048C69582A9E617B4ECAC2DAECC69298931E69D500A19BF91F70FF80D| |33A3E6FD39E3A29A2F54C254A0B43E99585C5830B2913115FEE946CBCEB55B561C5| |D4CA723E3BA9A32F35A4AD19347D2692DAB994BAC6AD230F44822A7AAB3B57C38A1| |2AB3F0888C9673F1FBB892D5728BBA626A46D6C19563BA3697311BC7735A2A72425| |54C72BE944C988A3EAFE61BC05D187E0F9C8CAEA28D9D93198BC94C9C224E23E5B3| |C4F3C88A19E4E5D0CE5EC65644D0ECEC0A68026A82F055E25AF52632082991049C9| |3FA18D7761357C1878D62D902A8AD815689EB6D953744FECC0EC986948915409FCC| |BABE48FCBE4B44FD2AF8B0633CD1FE47E6F19CFF90757F910F21BE83E23B0EA1FFB| |A11E49E204C74035B91DE3662077A73C1596A70AF54E311F02CDB784EE71632740A| |3D5D032FB5F49CDA61816B4D43B8A765901845B6D6037DC001DCFB083CBAF01CB2E| |B077A6BFD2CF233FB7F614EFCBF197213D82DB3EBF03C37E5D9BD0A6BDC76165843| |36816F0FC5F3CC63BC860CF102B249478634A41DF6D4633CB19ECEDA4B67ECFD893| |E1F83CF46EAA3C6F7548B37C8EEB7C477C40D81FBEF1D45FF0E88DF4CB56F2EC2C5| |EE43341F45F33DC16E0B3C253E43B63F27BE20BE44AEC3DE368AD6469DB40C19095| |20582A7F104A133C8BD09E214711A199EC14AB921FD9DD4D19D9FF00461EA460FCC| |F590CF1EEACC3075663F75663F7564FF6BAC522C8831BCB0B78FE2F67DC08AC63E2| |29997B108FA6511CAB81BB214A5AA46A9AA31AA6A8B6C798B57E82DBD89DC758B78| |1B597587781719922D6F31CF7EB44C8995298365CA50993251A6C44B4A7152DEF95| |23081CFDAA17212CD7EAB8259CA80D08E99DB2E698210C02C569F1478CF6F59D7F7| |E0FAEF56ED1E566CA8F4CD2A0E5BC6FB2CE3FD3076D0F880657C30B4D3E3C511378| |4C3D8C575CBF83F1A6504BC| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|[/code] ** The Absorb from /Nature's Wild Bastion is buffed by your HP, as were the other Absorbs I looked at like Bio, so this makes me wonder if /EA's Absorb is bugged?

Thermal is a more balanced since it has much better offensive power from it's debuffs, so it's probably more effective overall (that said /Thermal's offensive power is unfortunately marred by Melt having such a high 150s base recharge...) But in terms of just survivability /EA is miles ahead of /Thermal. With all the pet IO's etc. /EA can cap lots of the Demons Resistance too. See the pics for stats on the fully built out Demon/EA pets. /Thermal is surprisingly not clearly better on Resistance or Heals. And has none of /EA's Mezz Protection or Absorb: /Thermal shields are only 3.75% base Resistance stronger than /EA's Faraday Cage. Fully enhanced that could turn out to be up to 6% more Resistance for /Thermal's pets and teammates, than /EA. BUT /Thermal cannot shield themselves, so fully enhanced the /EA MM will be at something like +19% Res ahead of the /Thermal MM to all types except Toxic AND /Thermal's shields don't buff Psionic, so the /EA's pets and teammates will be 19% Psi Resistance ahead Shockingly /EA's aoe chain heal starts out nearly double the base Heal of /Thermal's Warmth with the same 8s base cooldown. (/Thermal has a single target heal, but /EA can buff their Recharge so their aoe heal will be up more often than warmth on identical recharge builds...) /EA is probably ahead of Healing. But it is nice not to have to target Warmth, so /Thermal can be easier to play. /EA has always up aoe mezz Protection impacting themselves, /Thermal has none. /EA is probably ahead on surivability just from those powers compared above. But the knockout blow is the Insulating Current's Absorb Shield that will have a cooldown of probably around 5s. It's really hard to describe how much of EHP boost that is. From what I can tell Res reduces the incoming damage before it's taken from the Absorb pool. So the high Resistance Demons/EA ends up with makes the small Absorb very impressive. A 400HP Absorb Shield is huge when the damage taken from it first is reduced by 90%..... /EA is weak offensively, but I don't think any of the other combos can take the beating a Demons/EA MM can. For comparison to Thermal here's what /EA Demon's pets Resistance looks like when fully enhanced, with slotted Ember Shield, Faraday Cage, Pet Res IO's and Cardiac boost (which EA will probably want since it boosts both Absorb and Resistance...) As mentioned /Thermal with Cardiac would be a 6% higher, except would be 19.13% lower in Psionic. **Edit** Also I think /EA builds will need to take Barrier Core, so you'll have at least another 5% Res in addition to what's shown here even at the end of Barrier taking even more of the pets to cap like Demon Prince. T1's T2's T3.

I've never played Illusion that didn't have full perma PA from set bonuses. 😋 I guess I just imagined Illusion wasn't viable for soloing AV's unless you built for Perma PA. Running some quick and dirty math it looks like best case scenario of using Ageless combined with either Alpha Spiritual or Agility to boost Rech slotting past ED, 4-slotted Hasten will still be down > 22s in Mid's (which since Hasten reduces it's own cooldown when up, means it will actually be down for something like 33s...) Even when Hasten is up PA would still be down about 17s But for that 33s where Hasten is down, PA will be down for much much longer. (most likely in the low 30's downtime when Hasten is also down...but really depends on what stage of Ageless wearing off you're at...) The Hasten downtime, combined with the Ageless buffs tapering down will make create enough variability that it will be difficult know how much downtime you'll be dealing with at each summon. How do handle the AV fights with those significant gaps before PA is up again? Really good insp management? Or do you think maybe if you take Aid Other, combined with Triage Beacon, debuffs and FFG you might be able to keep the Lore Pet alive during the PA downtime gaps, and let Lore tank the AV? Assuming you can keep the Lore pet alive during the gaps, then that would give you 5mins plus at least one 60s PA cycle to take out the AVs. Probably doable given /Traps debuffs. If you can't keep the Lore pet alive, then Controller /Traps without set bonuses will definitely not be enough to keep your Controller alive on it's own. Especially against the all the Def debuffs. So maybe you could try using Barrier to help buff the Lore pets, to fill some of the gaps. Ageless is only providing an extra 25% Recharge during the PA summon in the first have of Ageless, and then just 15% effective global Rech during the 2nd half, so maybe it wouldn't be that big a loss.

In my recent runs even resetting a handful of times, AVs have always spawned at +1 to the difficulty settings (up to max of +4). So running at +1 got me all lvl 52 AVs. And when I attempted at +2, I got lvl 53. Yeah it was mind bending trying to think through an SO / Hami build. I originally started trying to do a pure SO build, but once I realized how much effort it would take to optimize power slot allocation, I decided Hami's would be just fine. 🙂 Lol no it took me an average of an hour per mission, for a bit over four hours total. Most of that was just the Crystal mission, which at +1/+8 took almost as long as you did the entire ITF. The Crystal mish an absolute nightmare on Masterminds with melee pets. Most of your DPS is from pets, but the PBaoe damage Crystal Cysts exploding has a good chance to kill most of your pets. The real problem being that your pets are also part of your defense, so Cysts kills the pets and the Ambush then also happens to spawn right on top of you it has decent odds of nearly instakilling you. So basically on a Master run you have no chance of running through just killing crystals. You have to slowly and carefully take out each crystal. And it's also by far safest to deal with each ambush before moving on...because with pets it's very difficult to safely run away from or past the ambushes....

You did it in less than half the time it took my MM! How much of difference do you think the +0/+8 vs +1/+8 makes? How high could you crank the dial up on your Sentinel and still be able to finish the hardest parts?

I really like /Nature. /Nature will be able to take a larger single Alpha hit. But in terms of pure sustained survivability it's no contest /EA is vastly ahead. They both have the same base 11.25 Res buff shield, except for EA is missing Toxic. -Dmg is 5% in /Nature's favor which is not very noticeable. /Nature has quite a bit more healing and Regen, but their survivablity impact is limited by HP pool. So it all comes down to "Absorb is King" because it's basically Pre-healing combined with a HP buff letting you take hits above your HP total, and replenish it all again in a few seconds. And this is where /EA pulls vastly ahead of /Nature. /Nature's Absorb is larger by something like a 1/3, but is on a massive 240s cooldown. /EA is on a 20s base cooldown, that with even just modest global recharge will be around 5s actual cooldown. This means /EA can basically back to back cycle your Absorb and Heal, mixing another power like the Energizing Circuit for +Rech/+End Recovery in as needed. The high Res from Ember Shield and Faraday cage magnifies the effective EHP of Absorb Bodyguard mode further magnifies the power of Absorb when you can direct the big hits towards your MM making use of the Absorb all your pets have... Final bit is Faraday Cage giving your MM and pets a broad range permanent Mezz protection, so your shields don't drop.... This frees you up to take Barrier, use Insps for Def etc. Now that doesn't mean you should drop your /Nature and roll /EA now. /EA's is a very busy set not leaving much time for attacks. /Nature brings more offensively to the table. I also love /Nature's cone heal; it's really amazing what you can do with it when Ranged enchanced. But what I really loved about /Nature was the Absorb and /EA has solidly displaced it as King of Absorb given 'Insulating Circuit' has less than 1/10th the 240s cooldown of Wild Bastion.

Coyote gave a great answer above covering most of the key why's. Demon/EA can be built to other worldly levels of survivability, but has anemic feeling overall DPS potential compared to other top sets. This is largely true. Combined with incarnates, I came up with a few builds that felt almost game breaking in terms of survivability. In terms of just raw survivability, I think you can strongly argue that Demon/EA is the clear top MM combo. But that immortality comes at the cost of keeping you very busy spamming buffs/heals. And EA doesn't have any significant damaging opportunities from it's own powers. So the problem is, EA MM's can't do much with that survivability themselves, beyond survive indefinitely. So the counter argument [against Demon/EA being the top survivability combo] will be the "best defense, is a good offense." Meaning that in terms of overall effectiveness, the defense value of taking out enemies more quickly needs to be heavily considered, since it means needing to survive fewer punches to the face. Or put differently it's great to be able to take 50 punches to the face, while sipping on your electric buffs and laughing, but at that point other sets like /Storm are already onto the next mob and /EA still has some "arrests" to slowly make. If you want max sturdiness and a survivability focused support role, then Demon/EA is a top combo to consider. But all of it's opportunities and gimmicks are towards survivability, which makes for slow going on Solo play.

Hey just finished the final and posted in the MM forums. But I'm wondering what other 'No IO' (SO/Hami only) builds or AT's people think could Solo MoITF at +1/+8 or higher? (Or hell even +0/+8.) The biggest challenge to 'No IO' builds for most AT's is probably the lack of Endurance Recovery. Having Performance Shifter, Panacea, Miracle and Numina's, plus Recovery set bonuses makes a huge difference. You could use Ageless to fill, but again without set bonuses many AT's will need Barrier for survavibility. So maybe the ideal AT is one that needs Ageless for Recovery and +Rech, but has survivability covered on their own. But no idea what that would be. Beyond that, , Blaster? I was thinking maybe a ranged blaster could maybe do the last two AV fights since they can Hover Blast and out range the AVs. But would they have enough DPS without IO's for procs and set bonuses. And they'd have no chance of keeping the Lore pets alive. And Blaster with No IO's would struggle badly in the early cave missions, where they wouldn't be able to effectively Hover Blast, nor would have +Def and +Res from IOs.... Corruptor? or Defender? Using the same ranged Hover Blast plan, but maybe Debuff some -Regen or -REs and could keep Lore pets alive? Also, the Buff set could make the cave missions much more viable. Sentinel? Melee AT's? I'm thinking all Melee will struggle without IO's. Dom will not have Perma Dom with the IO Rech bonuses. Or what am I missing? If you had to do an 'IO-less' SO and Hami build, solo, MoITF run, what AT and build would you try?

[Place holder for future comments on the relatively new Electric Affinity set]

Yes, you read that correctly. Master of ITF completed on a build that used only Single Origin and Hamidon Enhancements. Limitations: No Invention Origin Enhancements (used only Single Origin and Hami) Solo No deaths No temp powers (but did use some Ninja Run and Steam Pack for faster than Hover traveling...) Used just Inspirations from inside the missions (no email inspiration cheese...) Ran at +1/+8 (had to drop down from planned +2/+8) On the final AV fight in the 4th mission, I resorted to splitting the Nictus, so I could pull and fight Romi solo. Might be possible to handle the full Nictus + Romi at +1/+8 if you get lucky and AV's spawn at Lvl 51 (or if you dropped the last mish to +0/+8). But with the Nictus at Lvl 52, my pets couldn't survive their +8 horde of Nictus summons. (More on that below the pics...) Also might be doable without the Hami's but I didn't want to spend that much time crafting an SO build and I never figured out how to make lvl 53 SO's on test server, so already had to make do with combined Lvl 50 enhancements that only get 36.63% instead of 38%. Build was Demons/Elect Affinity MM using Soul Mastery Epic and full Incarnates. I named him "Hami SO SO" I think this says some interesting things about the power of Incarnates and I also have some thoughts about the new Electric Affinity set that I'll post as a reply to this. I had this plan in the pocket a few weeks back when testing out Electric Affinity. But finally had time on the long weekend. I originally planned to run at +2/+8. But to speed up my feasibility tests of the AV fights I did it at just +2/+2, and I didn't consider how much brutally harder +8 would be. I simply could not reliably get through the 'Take Out Shadow Cysts' mission without dying. Each room of Nictus that spawned at lvl 53 had very good odds of killing me. I had to drop to +1/+8 and even then it was a slog. The next thing I hadn't considered was how much brutally tougher the final AV fight is when the Nictus pets spawn at +8 multitudes. Even with EA's great buffs, my pets couldn't survive that fight against Lvl 52 and I barely escaped alive. I reset three times hoping for the AV to spawn at Lvl 51, but no luck. So I cheesed the fight using the run in and "Split the Nictus' trick so I could pull and fight Romulus alone. That made the fight straight forward, even killing Romulus once with just the Demon pets (Lore down and Imperious had run off to suicide himself after getting stunned...) Took about an hour a mission with the Crystal mission taking by far the longest. But it was grueling slow meticulous going, so I finished up the last mission the next day.

Yeah but Homecoming handles temp powers very oddly for Mo attempts. For instance Ninja Run, and some other temp travel powers are not disabled like they used to be on live. Some of the newer non-travel temp powers also don't get disabled.... Build looks good. It's find it interesting how much more you prioritize +Rech bonuses, than I do. For instance if you don't have the room for procing out Char, then I'd probably go Corruption instead for the -9.38% Res, and three slotted with Thunderstrike to make up the Range Def. But the 7.5% +Rech is obviously not something you'd not be willing to give up. 😋 Whereas, if I was going to use a power choice on Char, then I'd steal slots from Sleet and proc Char out. Yeah that FF tends to be the only thing I slot in Bonfire (of course along with a KB --> KD proc). Do you think Bonfire is worth slotting for DMG? Except on Controllers doing Containment bonus damage and not having lots of good damage sources, I've never found Bonfire Dmg to be very impressive. But I'm just realizing the damage boosted by all the -Res might be more impressive than it otherwise is... Yeah big hassle, I only try that when I'm on a team or at the beginning of a big fight. But for normal play, I make a macro to cast Frostwork directly on the Ember Demon. Ember Demon's Ember Shield is a big part of the Res and the only Heal, so him staying alive makes a big difference in survivability.... For slotting I put the Preventative Medicine (1) +Absorb Proc & (2) Heal/End R. That mitigates some of the Endurance problems and gives you 2.25% S/L Resistance bonus. But Frostwork is competing for a valuable power slot against Hover, Tactic and Char. With you're point about T1's being either best with or outright needing Tactics making it a particularly hard choice... (Not to mention that Confuse Protection from Tactics making encounters with Succubus like enemies much easier to handle...)

Maybe you won't care about this, but it matters for me: Does the'Blessing of Tielekku' bonus work in Mo attempts? Or is it counted as a temp power and disabled?

If you switch to Nerve I think you can easily get your build to permanent Ranged softcap without needing the Blessing of Tielekku. Here's an quick example of what I mentioned in the edit of my previous post: *Edit* Updated to include Unbreakable Proc | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1642;775;1550;HEX;| |78DA6594C94F137114C77FD34E29DD68B12D3BD296BD94965A16BD68C26A802624B| |81E4C33D2012676C1B62472F4E0DF608C1B278D174F2672F5E2F267E8C578101030| |8A9AD4D7F9BEB49374027CDEEF6DF37D6F6648DE9B75BE5EB87F49489E998C522CA| |6924AB1A416B25A2E6D492A1BDA9AA0AB29B99408CC28DB45353097D64A5672056B| |79A9D5ED6C369F8BCEAAF4970F5A6EA3C79031BDBDBE1E9DC967D2A9D93C3994929| |6CF09F74A3E9F892EAB4A5A2D1437B52D877E9ECF681B9B2517EC8A49ADECFA6975| |4B55D3ED735BDA5AF4B2AA9458E94E6AB5A464EEA885365295A0DF471EC157D9228| |E4C42C46DC274C8FC01CAC715CA423E001B4EC0CC70B55612AF243DB7E11DC5BCB2| |C8524C92F4982CF9116B5C3083F3A07D91B90436D3AACCA8B198EDA8713AC0A626A| |60BF438255D83C70D3EA6392CD0222C41A1E73C219F95FB59DFC277E60D730FF485| |CC7ABD6F07BA5B1E60B63CE9B7F16C36D6DFE2039F525F07F775DC90F5FCB66BCC6| |9ECAC2382FE1D5FE8DC2D8BAE6F741E94858D6674A1567271BF2EEEEFA5981B31E1| |9E20D0F919DDAB999F4FF327683DFB91F981F91E0CDC8486C015F02ECDE0659DDE6| |3CE39C0AE83FBCC23E609183F459E44F7F6F33EFD65BA84993CADE8666A3D87ACDE| |18AA7A2B019AF239A96D67B5EDD7A1A2F72AD877119BE99BC186FB5EA066E0A7D0C| |F0552DBC91BEFECC0F606464099EEDDCD5BEBE66D0DF0F676E99E3DACB4879F7C91| |7A855847C86CD1FB0FCA4C0BB3011CB6321BC112D5F6736DFF2F59EF37FC170C9F6| |296F01FE66F30F20FF4D2A31AE2DAA129CC1999C4DC910970741CFED104F33376E9| |A7DA11FE6246F86D8DED6137B1AFC889F1DB1A37416B88F612E5BD44795771A68F6| |263BC97313FBE922EB9FAC5D24FE5A986EB3C63759E789D2751E719AFF32C1B3D36| |CC9AACF9CA2B644B1C97F40A1B3D493347BFDBABFF3F84348A890E6A3E490A6213C| |E4549FFAEF68DF943C83F34FA1E42C178B8A660C2604F1AEC29B21D6C9F37D817C2| |D5B7BBBCEBA576124F62D767D4ED5B065B31D8B70DF6CB50ADD6E5A8F9E70C3DFF0| |3E1770EA4| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| Data Link Damn I think you're right that I'm short on T1's. I broke the build trying to fit the Overwhelming proc in. I probably have to give up the Overwhelming, so I can swap the Acc/Dmg/End back with the Dmg/End from the T3 and then make up the Dmg with an IO that can be +5 boosted replacing Overwhelming. That would be another 26% Acc, so would at least get me from 78% to 104% on the T1's.

Yeah I wanted more powers, and Nerve made me feel like I could drop Tactics and have more slots for fun gimmicks. Funny how Hover is pseudo KB protection, means I should be okay with the 3 KB I have. And that's good to hear about the End use being fillable with Heatloss since I was worried... *Edit* The build you posted looks the same as your first one? And I wanted to add that Nerve would let you make up the 2% your getting from Blessing of Tielekku. Nerve would let you short slot Artic Fog and Glacial, then use the slots to 6 slot Sleet with the new Artillary set. That puts at 46.8 with Barrier.

Interesting similar to what I'm leaning towards. But I wasn't willing to give up Frostwork, or procc-ed out Char, so I gave up Recharge and settled on using Nerve to free up slotting. My plan went for 32.5% Positional Def, so I'd be just a small purple Insp away from soft cap even without Barrier. So went for less Ranged, to get all three positions near 32.5%. I also wanted some Heal slotting in Ember Demon. Going Musculature means you're pets will do around 20% more damage, than my Nerve But I was able to squeeze out an extra 1.25% Def for pets using far less Def slotting. That freed me up to more Res slotting in both Artic Fog and Ember Demon. A few questions about your build: I don't see any KB Prot! Aren't you worried about that? I'm worried about my build only having KB 3, so am expecting to have to swap out the Def LOTG in Hover on some missions against higher KB enemies, which would get me up to KB 7.... (at the cost of 0.6% Def...) Aren't you worried about Endurance use? Heat Loss is great, but long cooldown even with your massive Recharge. I'm worried about End use in my build and I have a net positive +1.71/s End, whereas you only have +0.99/s net positive End gain. *Edit* And since we both need Barrier for Pets, the typical Ageless on End hungry builds won't be available... Your accuracy is lower than I'm comfortable running, but I'm guessing you're counting on Sleet to make up the difference. I also couldn't get my Accuracy up to 95% against +4's, but I have what looks to be 15-20% closer to that 95%. *Edit* This was the final straw that made me give up Musculature, I just couldn't get Accuracy high enough to be comfortable.... Since my recharge is lower at just 141% this build will be leaning hard on FF procs in Crack Whip (and a little from Bonfire...) I couldn't allow myself to give up Frostwork because it's a 71% HP buff that you can keep stacked on 4 to 5 pets or teammates. I also wanted Hover for ranged safety and procc-ed out Char. That meant I had to give up Corruption, which made me sad since it can easily stack it's -9.38 Res three times. But realistically there wouldn't be time to stack much and Crack Whip outperforms with it's procs. With the FF proc Rech you should have reasonable chances of keeping -12.5% Res proc up, so Crack Whip should provide close to a sustained -21.88% Res. Maybe I'm underestimating the dmg it can do, but Bonfire is just a soft control power for me on MM's, so slots and the Overwhelming proc moved elsewhere... It's not in the build because Mid's is bugged and doesn't let you toggle it off, but I'm planning to use Vorpal Radial. It's Smash/Lethal which is not great, but that 10s of +30% Def means you can open with it to easily eat Alphas. Nice to have in your toolkit every 90s. Or alternately, for filling the period where Barrier will go down mid fight... **Note** I've had tried similar builds on Beta but this exact version I'm not leaning towards is untested. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1566;760;1520;HEX;| |78DA6554494F535114BEB7EF3D4A5B864229738196B9D0D232386CC40838D284044| |55D350D7D406327DB92C8D2857FC08D314EAC8C6CDCEAD685D3DE855B35C6B06048| |041587D4D3F79DB44DFAD2D7EFDEEF0CF73BF79EFB42B7666B9E9FBB3D2DA47D261| |EC966C3A14836A76712B164540B455663CB8AA0C74CAFBB64092FAE2712A9A47F56| |A77F9EC492ABDD651E67D65756FC33A978343C9B2222928BA592A27E21958AFBE7F| |54854CF64D762E95A637E36B6BA96A3701B66F1C2D46A8C17D3BA1E6D9B4BC796FD| |E7F5488EB56D84177391F80D3DD34AAAFCF4DEB70B7EF29AB8AA0A115485E90AE32| |7C540F5C0049C2EA045547D2674A9223E5C8C95E215710E55546D49C3274136290D| |9B229DE0AA9B18FF0923BEE912F237D01629F035297B8AE153B70B1CF80E9F07A45| |3C35A42730BC3F6903833E234F31D68ACFB8A38FB37C4D937A0ABD1A419F3C697C2| |C014E9B320565A585F13EB7B44796D9CD7760A35379F663C40FED643C623ACD3DE0| |74D926AA9659DB5797A8485987A5EA99E571AE5951ED34A0DBCFB0D8750D6B94D38| |A88AAEF7C8DCF596F11DB0E70DF02655E060950ECEDBCE793B0350D713641C478CB| |B85EC2E8BF09026276B728E40B99B51215B0B6C6A4B00F9DCE3C0DE09C649A0774A| |1A799F501D6D5C47DB65744FEF12B0EF1AE375C6A7D238FD81199C5886EAE8E02EE| |A600D03ED4095B4B858A78B6B1CB4033769CD6EDEE96EEE882CE5F2803379AA35F8| |9B1935608E7CFA596BFF5FD5E0867F31FE66FC03F41E31FE043AE8B08658CFD017D| |433CA9DE724DB08F22A232FA0C7C7DDE6F360FF7DDC85CDE4EBE7B3F37FC06D1AFB| |4868217C8698B1D7C81FBC80FCC120304DFA03BC5F811DE40D6EE39C3BD5E28DA45| |FA1FBBC154CA0820956301315CC6405335FC1844A4C7E81C692AD12F780CE4B61EB| |8EB5F87510D2877AF74A9C49BA5197F5A234EEC2E812FA6CB73C6E0871FBD6B22FC| |D3DEC91F52E6E6BCD3ECEADE607F672D25B523855363E56363E4E631B8F4F948D4F| |7A8B3D9E9F73503AAC99DF2C8C99DFF294F8FFE4290209| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| Data Link

Will be interested to hear how that turns out for you. Won't help until later levels, but I recommend trying Bonfire builds. Fire Mastery goes really well with Kinetics. Giving the Epic shield was counter-intuitive to me, but from testing builds I found that for standard content Bonfire with Overwhelming feels notably stronger. The mitigation ends up being more than enough to make up for loss of an Epic shield. It's just against hard targets that are KB resistance like AVs that my Bonfire builds suffer.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that Incarnate powers broke the balance of standard PVE content. And I get wanting to ignore them or create artificial limits for a personal challenge...** But we're in a thread about "Most Damaging MM combos" and OP stated they're a power gamer (Min/Maxer), so seems very clear he's going to use Lore Pets and anything else that maximizes power. Dirty Min/Maxxers like myself are going to use every (legal) tool they have available. @Coyote already covered this more thoroughly, but from a Min/Max perspective one of the reasons to play a MM is precisely because of Lore Pets. MM's with their two extra pet uniques, and a reason to slot the other four uniques, plus a support 2ndary, can make the most of the potentially very powerful Lore Pets. For thorough fully optimized min/maxing you have to consider Incarnate powers. Put another way if we're artificially limited ourselves not using game breaking out of balance powers, then by you're early arguments seems like we should not use Thugs either. 😋 Taking a step back from all this. You've made a number of good points. It was your original claim that was a bit too extreme to be defensible, so I wanted to push back on that. If you dial down the magnitude on the Thugs claim a bit, then we'll probably be mostly in agreement. And we can stop hijacking OP's thread. 🙂 ** Along those lines, I rolled Ninja/TA that I've been putting through solo ITF's and I'm working on something wild with /EA that I'll maybe post about this weekend.