Mercurias

So I'm very clearly not a proc god sort. When building, I tend to aim straight for defense softcaps, recharge, recovery, and *then* procs once I think I have enough of the rest to be happy. My Plants/Storm Troller looks solid on paper, but I can't help feeling that I built him all wrong. Does anyone want to look it over and shred me for missing chances to increase damage and lower endurance cost without losing defense and recharge? For what it's worth, the concept is a hippy-ish, urban druid type who walks around barefoot and smells like an avid composter.

I slapped together a super-basic build for a melee-focused Elec/Kin if you want to see what it looks like. I'm sure someone like Coyote could blow it out of the water, but...I tried? I mean, I'd probably play it. Basically it'll alternate between Jolting Chain and Crosspunch in melee while everything is locked down and the imps are running wild. Staying close to bosses and using Repel helps keep enemies under control that would otherwise be swinging hard at you, and when confronted with an enemy who can't be knocked down? Transference and Static Field'll take all the fight out of 'em. Jolting Chain and Repel are BFFs that I slotted with Sudden Acceleration procs to keep enemies from flying across the room.

If your goal is to make a character who is extremely effective on a team, an Elec/Kin Troller is going to serve you well. If you want to be able to solo content easily? Well it'll be easy thanks to all the control, but the lack of damage is going to make is very slow going. Mostly you'll find that your team is super interested in your /Kinetics powers, and because of how powerful and fast-paced your support is you'll end up not having a lot of chance to use your primary. If you would *really* like to focus on the Electric Control side of things as well as solo, I'd recommend a dominator.

I'll second Water/Time, but as an alternative I would also suggest Water/Dark. Water/Time does its best stuff in melee, where you can get the most use out of Time's Juncture. Water/Dark has more toys that work well from range. Both of them can heal and debuff enemies, but /Dark will have stronger overall Debuffs, immediate healing (Temporal Mending is all about the healing over time), and the best Rez power in the game for when your buddy goes down. By comparison, /Time is a much later bloomer in terms of its strong powers, and its healing is more about being over time than immediate, but has *superb* buffs which greatly enhance defense and recharge. Your friend would be extremely happy either way.

In a vacuum, your defenses and resistance look awesome! The issue I see is that you're giving up a whole lot for them, and Unleash Potential doesn't even have a 40% uptime. Also, Dominators aren't rocking a lot of Health, so emphasizing Resistance for them is a lot less effective than on a Tanker or Brute which can easily absorb 50% damage from a lot of hits and regen through it (That would kill most Doms dead). Here's my own Dark/Savage Dom for comparison. It's certainly not optimized (I made it as a vampire-themed baddie), but its defenses are consistent. All-around, I built it to take advantage of a playstyle that emphasizes locking down enemies before shredding them with pets and offensive powers like Bird-Cannon (Call Hawk), Bird-Shotgun (Unkindness), Cat-Sees-New-Couch (Vicious Slash), Cat-Pretending-It-Wants-Belly-Rubs (Rending Fury), and Cat-Has-The-Zoomies (Feral Charge).

So I built my next character to focus on now that my DP/Kin Corrupter is mostly built and my Rad/DM tanker is working on his Incarnates. This build was made to turn a Dominator into a soft control beast, able to Stun, Sleep, Confuse, Sap Endurance, and bounce enemies around with Jolting Chain. At Perma Domination, this is a pretty flipping fun way to solo bosses and possibly EBs. Damage is on the light end, but frankly I don't really care. I want the control toys. Take a look and lemme know what you think!

I can try to post a data link, but I built it in the version of Mids with the new sets. Cutting/Bleeding/Arterial Spray Edge or w/e. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1578&c=732&a=1464&f=HEX&dc=78DA6594CB4F135114C6EF74A6140AB5AD050A940AAD94BE680175E32B243C340A248D246E49530698D8B44D5B125DBA70870A3EE20AD444051450B7FE0DBE3571E3CE8D2FD4951B63C6D3395F989A36697FA7DF79F6DCB99D3C3FDAB47DF2E290909C23D974A9343D922F16170AE57CD13695D1D45C469585108EB14249CBE673DDC3D974E69C8D14FF6EDCF499746E4E9D498E2EA4B3D329AD54CE674B5ED33BBC303B9B1CD7726A59CB94843D95CF67935305559D7118E6096D6EBEACE5E69CC6B709353DA3164BF35AA191BDD98ADB3756D03249B3E4643AA3D247A9AC162FB4D12CFDF40EB9045EBA55DC250C2A2271075C610EAE826BE03AF3B95495FB4D36B4BAAFE017666C07FCCCECFBCE7C41B992A814D085D4C1F582B420D9A8A94B729CB57E3042735AD9A747C9B6A1AF2DAA18FEFA30D8CBB48798D10833D6C37C45351A248BD1A3017DEDE811A6BA8DA8DB586F35B4261B2833C30A686546EB98120DE440AEE326F7DA73035C62BA9699FDD7C0EB4C99729DF8DDCE03BC1F979704BF22E234931B75DD5B1CBF77135C67366F800F99E147CC3754C2C3B9C2D3CDBFD14DBD5AB897A5A56290D6DA0CBA980AC57811E3454C1B62DA10B31812A21D73B51FB7185AC731F030B3F3087894D97B89F9964AF83097EF236B1EEAE9E79E56FF3DD6F6DD071F806BCCC03AB3678399A01D756196AEA7BCBFEE27E026B8C50C6C838F99EFA86710B9C145AEB7FF0A7815BC8C7ECBE012F33DE58624BBB1A7109EA5DEF8FF7C4931119C6D24C05AF4139F4F814688B34F8E63CF7DD8731FF69CF82B8CE7C042FB496267C91421A888D71432006D00B53B95DD3B59B92ABA2EC663BB8A1EABF10ED4288335CAC11AE5508D72AAA248C67DD6276ABC294508098AE4E3491BE8D464CCB5634772C59F60FF4F53B348013E2DE52C9ED0D344BAF13FAAF3229CF7AB3AEF376FDA728B4FCCF28BBFAFD095B2A2F76A957DDB6DFECBFC69A550D8F351D3FEE031EDA116D3DEA8D29F054DFB1F45DEFCB4

On the contrary, I get a lot of compliments on my DP/Kin, and he's one of my favorite characters. Build below if you're curious. It isn't 100% optimized, but it's for S/L/E Defenses softcapped and tends to shred enemies just fine once Fulcrum Shift is applied.

You're totally right that Atomic has a lot to offer pure-range characters, but another option is /Energy Manipulation. With enough a little investment in Hasten or Recharge, you have Energize on perma (which drops endurance management to nearly no trouble at all and heals you on click), Boost Range to let you blast from a good chunk farther away, and Power Boost to amp a lost of secondary effects (like -def in Radiation, -End in Electric Blast, or -ToHit from Dark Blast). I enjoy my Dark/Energy Blaster a great deal, and I honestly skipped all of the blapping powers so I could laser-focus on ranged blasting and control from my primary.

The quintessential Nin/Nin Stalker is actually really strong in Praetoria. Your Defense builds up fast, and it's largely based on positionals. You also have a little bit of solid utility in the secondary without even trying. I enjoy my Psy/WP Stalker a lot. It's solid and tanky as well as brutally efficient.

Elec/Kin is a rock solid team support character with loads of damage boosting for more offense-minded friends and soft control for locking down big groups of enemies. What it lacks, however, even with Fulcrum Shift maxed out, is enough base damage to sufficiently facemurder wave upon wave of enemies the way one needs for a farming controller. I never feel like I'm not contributing when I play my Elec/Kin, but that's a build which functions more as a force multiplier than a solo farmer.

I'm really enjoying my Dark/Energy Blaster. Rather than being an In-Your-Face Blapper build, it emphasizes soft control and super-long-range cones to keep enemies at a distance.

Another submission for Gravity/Time here. Gravity has above-average Controller damage paired with one of the best pets in the game and a wide range of holds and mezzes. Time is a well-rounded secondary set with buffs that emphasize enhancing recharge, regeneration, defense, and recovery while including additional control and debuff powers. Paired together, you have a controller with powerful self-and-team buffs, rock solid damage, and extremely heavy lockdown/control options. It can kind of make a bad team into a steamroller, and turn a good team into a really, really good steamroller.

That’s an impressive number of words to say, “people aren’t playing the game the way I remember In 2005, and that means they should all adjust to how I like it.”

Okay so Water Blast is a set that emphasizes AoE damage and some soft control from knockdown. It has a ranged nuke, which is nice, and it also has a small and fast-recharging heal in Dehydrate. It functions well in melee aside from a pretty nice ranged cone that functions better when you’re far enough away for the cone to stretch out. It’s one of the better Blaster sets. Fiery Armor is a resistance set with more mild protections in exchange for added damage and self-healing. Its going to be really hard to get defenses up to softcap, but smart builders may manage. I would build to emphasize recharge after defense. It’ll increase your damage and bring your healing powers back quicker.

How would this function on a FF/NRG Defender?

I’m running a Necro/Nature MM and enjoying it. I can easily run around in melee with all my heals, and the Nature buffs don’t overlap too super hard with the buffs your husband and friend are offering. The Necro pets are solid, mostly melee, and work well with Demons. Thugs/Storm would also work extremely well. It would give you strong added damage, control, debuffs, and a tank pet. All of those would also work well with your friends if you add in Sudden Acceleration procs. Oh! And if your /Kin friend doesn’t know, he can put a Sudden Acceleration proc IO into Propel, which makes it a crazy-powerful mitigation aura that knocks enemies down when they’re in melee range. It’s hard on the blueness bar until you get Transference, but sooooo good.

This is a solid Pre-35 (for corrupters) plan for using Repel, but as soon as I got Transference I turned on Repel and just kept it on. Repel can drain your blue bar alarmingly fast in big groups of enemies, but I find the mitigation to be worth it.

Ninjas: Ninja Magic/Enchantments Thugs: Escaped human test subjects, possessing enhanced physical coordination and endurance which allows for unorthodox and unexpected tactics. Commandos: Elite soldiers possessing equipment made with cutting-edge technology. After all, any good mastermind would make sure their henchmen have a few hunks of kryptonite if standing up to Superman. Beasts: Creatures of the fey lands, or perhaps normal animals being possessed by ancient spirits. You could even go the experimentation route again and say that they were liberated or bred by the Mastermind.

I often team with Masterminds who just out their pets on auto and focus on their support. That’s fine and dandy if their support is strong, but always like it whenever I see the demons, Bruiser, bots, or other melee minions rushing in headlong. I’m often playing a controller, so that level of attention grabbing is usually enough for me to get off an AoE Control without suddenly getting aggro from every un-messed boss.

Said in the most obnoxious way possible, but true. There are many, many RP groups with different community rules concerning content. A great deal of them ban sexual assault as accepted content, and some ban particularly egregious forms of violence or murder. Now we found your issue. You're just too cool, smart, and edgy for PC culture. Clearly people only want to be inclusive for the political gain. Not at all because it's abhorrent to demean a person because of their ethnic origin, gender, or sexual orientation. Every time we hold a Pride rally, our power grows. How dare we stifle the creativity of the genius avante garde artist and their nazi kitty person? What does this mean? Who hurt you? Literally no one asked. Not one single person. You went from absolutely triggered to smiley emoji so fast that I'm a little worried for you. Seriously, if you're playing a character for shock value, don't expect people to want to interact. If you're playing a character to spew racist nonsense, at least expect the people who belong to the races your character is condemning to feel uncomfortable. This isn't rocket science. It's basic empathy.

My DP/Kin Corrupter gets a lot of use out of Repel. I just zip into Repel range, use Fulcrum Shift, and nuke while 2/3rds of the mob turns to Swiss cheese.

There are a few different ATs that show up in multiple screens. Brutes show up both as melee Damage and as tanks, for example, but their primaries and secondaries don’t change. I think controllers show up both as Control and as Support, and I know that Corrupters show up as both Ranged Damage and Support.

Heya! I’m thinking of trying out a Necromancy/Nature Mastermind. Has anyone tried this? Does anyone have a recommendation for the Patron/Epic pool? Honestly, I don’t know where to start building a Mastermind versus a controller or Corrupter. I’ve also never touched /Nature. Any help would be appreciated.

Are you talking about the most raw damage in a vacuum, or are you talking about the highest sustained damage? I don’t have a DPS meter to judge both sets by some kind of imaginary “beating up and attack dummy” scenario, but I can tell you that, in practice, Ninjas tend to suffer due in gameplay compared to the steady damage output from Thugs. Ninjas suffer from low resistances/defenses, an over-reliance on melee, and a tendency towards suicidal mania. Thugs have stronger defenses, better ranged attacks, baked-in double leadership, and a solid tank pet to draw aggro. I’d honestly pick thugs every time.