Sir Myshkin

Honestly this wouldn't be very surprising if you're not pushing the Merc side of things very aggressively and letting the Medic do a lot of the heavy lifting. The upgrades to the way the Medic functions in the Merc set now is overall far better than before and has a much better head on its shoulders in terms of being able to effectively heal the squad so long as it stays alive, and if you're actively keeping them wrapped in Faraday Cage and Insulating Circuit, then this is a no-brainer in why you'll hardly be touching Rejuvenating. If you team at all I wouldn't give the power up, it'll still have value there and won't require much slotting to be effective (just two slots will be enough to get your most bang out of it). Watch the pet window. Insulating pads Absorb shields and you can see that little gray line overlap the green health bar. The primary target gets the biggest kick and it trickles down as it chains, the duration of the shield is 30/s, but the recharge is super fast so you can treat it like a dual layer to res/healing. With Mercs having a Medic on the team this is also a nice way to add support without double-dosing responsibility (see above). This the one you were looking for? The Mercs are Softcap to Ranged/AoE and Resistance levels are somewhere around 70%ish, Serum caps them and trickles down. Spirit Ward is for the Medic to pad it for protection, Frostwork on the Commando and Spec Ops while in Bodyguard nearly triples the effective HP available to get hit through. M30 is to help fuel Serum (Mids, at least mine, don't think its been correct yet, is wrong on the recharge) and keep it closer to perma, and Burst adds ST -Res and a secondary attack with the best bonus value for +Dam to the Mercs when spamming it for added value; plus proc'd out it's actually a decent attack.

Haha! Funny thing is I really did follow the premise of going Blaster for, yeah, a blaster because Lightsabers really do have limited use in the cinematic universe. The average on-screen use time of the original trilogy is 5-7 minutes total for the entirety of each individual film, and they run a little over two hours each (2:00-2:15), and up until Episode VI it's not much different (VI has ~20 minutes on-screen time). Who knew!

Final Update: I have all of the Incarnate abilities unlocked, on the verge of Vet Level 10 with a pile of threads and several Tinpex's down to close up T3'ing everything but the Lore on this build. Only enhancements I'm primarily missing are purple sets; for the speed at which I pushed the build to 50+9 it hasn't had a lot of time to invest in its own drops (and I'm actually surprised in how few IO recipes I'm actually getting). I decided to pull Winter-O's out of storage to fill those in to make things more bearable. After all that, the build is still surprisingly endurance heavy. Phantasm is dying a lot more often than anticipated in team scenarios adding to the woes. I've been spending most of my time with my toggles turned off besides SS and Invis. This aggression of endurance has pushed me to making alterations to the planned Hybrid/Destiny scheme and I now have Support and Ageless made to see which (or both) may be required to float the build. Beyond all that, seeing the build function at soft cap is pretty good. It is insanely busy and so long as I keep feeding Dragon's Tail to keep up the extra 100% Rech it has a break-neck speed. Thunder > Blind > Thunder > Masterful > Explosive is possible pretty safely, and if I throw Ageless in there I know I'll probably be taking out a Thunder from that mix. With Dragon's Tail I definitely have the feel I was looking/hoping for in this combo, but at the same time there's this strangeness about Illusion and the soft controls in the KD's, Gleam being my only real mass control as a Stun, and the heavy slows in Sleet/Ice, oh and the indirect Fear from Snarf, er--I mean Spectral Terror. There's definitely pieces of crowd control going on, but I never really feel like I'm stopping the flow of combat like, say, Seeds of Confusion might, or Bonfire truly would. I feel like I'm lulling things just enough to kill them which is creating this fuzzy misconception about being a Dominator when really it just feels like being a slightly more trolly Blaster. I think I ended up building myself out of the Dom box and into a Blaster box with Dom powers. Yolo, I guess.

See my signature or search for "Proc Monster" and you'll find the relevant information that will help guide you along the path to enlightenment.

At this point in the stage of the code development I'd say that it is no longer an issue of the integration of the code, but the fact that the look was baked in, and there wasn't a method of extracting a different look to tie into it, but the current development team has found the methods to overlay unique costumes from pre-existing game assets. At this point the only thing that actually needs to happen is to create a static replacement power that holds the existence of the stats (the power components themselves), and then trades out an over-laying cosmetic power costume choice through the power selection screen, or via power-integration and getting granted multiple costume choices when the power is earned that can be toggled between exclusively when the power is on. This is far less daunting now than it was in the past and is mostly just a need to invest the time on a somewhat small and niche (but really awesome) QoL improvement.

I had to think about it for a minute, but yet, there is, and always has been, two powers that I just hate being forced to take: Gale and O2 Boost. I will never take O2 Boost, it just isn't worth my time as a Stormie to think about paying attention to anyone else's health bars, and Gale gets no action unless I'm bored wandering around waiting for something to start and I decide to throw something off a cliff.

If it's just a costume I'll generally just go about my business, especially on Everlasting. There's a much higher chance of running into someone doing an homage or RP related thing with likeness and what not. If it's a case of full-blown "Look At Me!" then I'll give them a courtesy warning to step out of the game and take care of things then and there. On the rare occasion I'll see the retort of "It's a free game I'll do whatever I want." That gets them a full report with chat dialogue, and we all know where that account is going.

A Tinpex and a Katie Hannon down alongside some time traveling around Paragon on different level 50 teams doing odd jobs and business has gotten me a chance to ride the wave of infinite endurance and recharge to see what the build can do in a fully slotted sense and I definitely see where the short comings are. My PTSD from Quarterfield hasn't quite settled yet, but the 280+ Merits have served me well in flipping all my earned recipes into viable enhancements. So far I haven't pulled a dime of my outside resources to fuel this and I've got quite a collection of stuff slotted which is giving faith to this lil' Dom's future since I'm not really investing in it thus far. I've gotten my cycles down and I've figure out where I want to trim. This is the build I'm coming from: And this is where we're going: I know originally I really wanted to work in Psi for the Epic, but on a testing platform it was easy to toss in Scorpion shield and focus on the powers themselves and I came to the conclusion that Psi was just going to add another step of busy work to my survival I didn't want to focus on; automation is better. From there I do like having Caltrops, but it doesn't add enough value for me to remember to keep cycling it in and I wanted to scale up the PA a bit so Sleet was a reasonable call to get the slows and add some major -Res. Ice absolutely does not make sense for the concept, but at this point I'm saving the build over the character. Trick Shot is my last potential power on the chopping block. It hasn't impressed me thus far and I think I can get at least 40% Ranged with just a few alterations if I sacrifice that power. That would also get Hibernate into the build for some kind of self-Heal/untouchable for Hard Mode style content. It is a forward-direction 9' cone on activation, it doesn't utilize/require a target making it incredibly easy for it to miss absolutely everything you intend to hit with it. Mid's doesn't have this clarified or I'd have probably passed on it from the get-go, but you're right its animation is pretty great. I dropped it out of my build. After hitting the button and watching it continue to spatial puke on itself too many times I gave up on the power and removed it from my tray and stuck to Dragon's Tail and found I was just generally happier with it. I really want Martial to work out here, the more I use Masterful Throw and Explosive Shuriken, the more I enjoy watching those little stars arc around (even when they miss they go crazy all over!) and hit things. If it starts holding up better in this next round, there's hope, otherwise I'll be off to playing the Psi/Martial Blaster I rolled as a backup.

You'll find quite a few Blasters buried within this thread who've tackled this challenge. Biggest straight forward threat from the Pylon is getting Energy Defense or AoE to ward off its hits, even just a marginal portion can be surprisingly helpful when you don't have to stand there very long.

I suddenly really wish there were an option for characters in wheel chairs or some kind of way to express that in-game so I could make a character that can't walk that uses extreme Psychic abilities to make others believe and see they are this massive raging beast 24/7 (dual costume) when in fact they are this thin frail brittle little man with an absurd amount of psycho-telekinetic ability.

I can answer this interestingly from both sides of the perspective as I've considered this for a story. For me personally my favorite zone is Croatoa so it'd be a pretty for-sure place for me just on the aesthetics of the town, rent be damned. I'd work as a professor at the university in ancient studies of some lost Fir Bolg/Tuatha cultural stuff, have a few reclaimed Red Cap red caps hanging on my wall as decorations and I'd start each class about Wicca Studies with some line like "If you're here looking for Sara Jessica Parker you'll be disappointed that they're mostly all Scarlet Witches with mommy issues and none of them looking for sugar daddies." From the opposite side of the coin though I've actually gone through significant lengths piecing together the placement and conception of a Hero point of view living in the city of Paragon, the where, the why, how it interconnects with other zones, ease of travel, time to travel, and put him living in Steel Canyon on the Mid-Upper North end, Skyscrapper. More shops on that side, tram access, Steel is sort of centralized (although the rail system kind of trivializes that anyway).

M Help Combat Dam LFG G Always in this order on every character. M: Rewards tab for XP/INF and also where Pet/NPC Chatter resides. Help: Help, of course, but I also put the Request channel here for Raids Combat: This is all combat logs sans damage Dam: This is all combat damage, if I'm running a MM I'll add another tab for Pet Damage (P-Dam) LFG: The LFG core channel and three other created LFG channels. G: General, just to keep it isolated. A place for the noise away from the other noise. I nearly never look in here.

The issue here is that it’s really hard to perceive the difference between pre and post Takeoff. It does boost the effects, but they’re not gigantic boosts and the power runs in arcs making it even harder to really visually quantify the speed to height increase, especially when most usually aren’t hitting height cap each jump but rooftop jumping.

Following up on my experiences so far: I think I've given up on the idea of leveling up a Dominator myself. If it doesn't get PL'd to the late 40's I just can't stomach their lack of slots/ability to enhance. I worked the Illusion/Martial into 30ish range and had gone off on a couple of missions and found it still felt too tedious and took it back to the farm again until it hit 44. Tonight it got to go through a real test (without enhancements even), and execute the Dr Quarterfield TF (03:14 w/7). I definitely died, a lot, but I expected that (I also wasn't alone!) without having any set bonuses or any slotting in defense, but this forced me to play differently and by far more cautious about my actions. Right now I think I may have one or two too many abilities that I'll be looking at trimming down. I could easily let Phantom Army open and take the brunt of most assaults, but I lacked the endurance to support with AoE that I know this should be able to work out, and I definitely ended up feeling like I had too many AoE's to consider choosing from that weren't getting used cause I wasn't able to actually engage in Melee successfully. I'm going to Market some enhancements up for the build from its wee-lil seed stash and try and get its defenses stable enough to feel comfortable testing melee better before I completely pull the cord on this being a viable Martial pairing. Made it to 48 during the Quarterfield, so I can drop pretty much everything/anything I want enhancement wise into the build once I obtain them. I'll give it until Alpha Unlock before I decided if it's going to get fully slotted or just parked in the garage like the last Dom.

I read this and suddenly all I could think of was having a polyamorous relationship with my Phantom Army 🤣

I’m not certain I’d put a bet on this. The in-game dynamic/opinion has been showing a lot of folks showing the Mercs some love, and from a play stand point I’d currently look at one or two other sets being a lower margin (Beasts and Zombies). I know the Zombie squad got a little love as well, but it doesn’t quite measure up to what changes Mercs and Robotics got to balance them out. For me personally I’m not even definitive on where Mercs stand compared to Robotics. Serum is a really good kicker in a higher recharge build and it gets to just stack on top of whatever other goodness is coming along. The faster it gets, the better the Mercs become.

Wanted to add something more specific about the updates to Mercs: They're a lot more focused on Resistances, and a lot more rounded to that effect than they were before. Pairing them with a defensive support set can yield a lot of advantages over just another Resistance set. As an example, I rolled a Merc/Cold and pushed up Resistances as far as I could with the uniques and such, this is where my Commando sits: Figured this was the best method to really demonstrate since Mid's can't really properly reflect all this actively. And if I activate Serum on the group: Now this is a decaying point from cap, but that's a huge point to hit on a pet, and then it just slowly scales over the next 30/s down to base, and Serum is up every minute baring any other global boosting (FF+Rech in M30). And a fun trick I utilize with Cold since it lacks a reasonable heal is to use Spirit Ward on the Medic to help give it extra shielding and it tends to be just enough continual support to keep it alive in order to sustain the rest of the team, and then drop Enflame and Frostwork on the Commando making him an ireful target for aggro. Commando HP on Frostwork:

What you’re looking for can be found here:

For what it’s worth, if you’re a MM person or not, I highly encourage doing Electric Affinity on a MM over a Defender, and it is the only set I have and/or likely ever will make this suggestion; and I’m not even a MM fan myself. ElecAff is indelibly all about having someone else present to bounce off of. Yes it does give you that little Galvanic pet but it is relatively uninspired in combat when there are much better things you could be supporting. If you ever want to solo, or find yourself in a team-mate-less position you’ll discover you can’t do much, but as a MM you always have something on-tap. With Faraday Cage and Pet Uniques and personal IOs I was able to Res cap pretty much everything for myself and get many categories well covered for my friendlies. I ran it on Demons (partially for their favoring Res, and partly because Whip), but The new changes to Mercs would do really well under ElecAff support too. Grab the Electric Mastery Epic for some added attacks and theme, and it all rounds out nicely. Just a personal experience suggestion.

... I'm still working off packs I bought in 2020.

If you're looking to get up to speed on things, there's a few interesting topics linked in my signature (one in particular about Defenders) you'll probably find worth skimming through. This thread also has some good anecdotes about the current status of choices and direction in the game: (funny that, the image it plays is one of my gifs, lulz) What level of difficult are you looking for to get the rust off?

Ah yes, I forgot to mention this part. EB's and AV's and Monsters and GM's cannot functionally be zeroed out like players can. Many of them carry abilities that literally cost like 1 End meaning there's no realistic scenario where they won't have an opportunity to slip an attack in even under best circumstances. Nothing like going through all that effort just to watch then smack you anyway.

You're on the mark here, but I think the reason why (at least for me especially) no one mentioned sets like this one are because the OP was looking for things to occupy buffing the pet directly with, which Dark Affinity doesn't entirely do with just Fade. Electric Affinity may not be a bad thing to consider too if you do want to go Resistance. Many of the chaining abilities will be able to cycle back onto you after they bounce off the Animated Stone, and the Res Bubble gives a wide spectrum of mez protection that can help not just you, but the pet as well. You'd have at least four different powers to throw at the little guy that would all feed back on you in the secondary chain if you're in range, and then Amp Up which will give him an assortment of interesting boosts.

Speaking from experience of trying to do the same thing for years: Don’t. Okay, now that I’ve said my peace, let’s talk about it. Kin/Electric will probably drive you up a wall on how poor they perform together. In order to get the sapping experience you have to use one power to actually STOP recovery, and most don’t do that well, but Short Circuit does, and to make it better you have to commit it to the task (no damage). Then it has to be supported be tagging powers to cause drain, and you want this to happen in large fast chunks, so Ball Lightning is now getting pushed to this purpose too. Now as a Kin it does have Transference, and it is a great tool at yanking chunks of endurance, but it’s primary effect is on the target, and is best for bosses and up, and takes quite a few applications to get moving on things like AVs. This means you’re now constantly spamming three different powers in an attempt to just dwindle and recovery lock one spawn. Just one. Every time. Pass. So my advice is two fold: Either play an ElecB/ElecAff Corr and focus on being a damage magnet with solid support abilities, or… Roll an ElecB/Nrg Blaster with Agility Core Alpha, Permeation Interface and Power Boost, focus again on being a damaging Blaster and let the Alpha slot all your attacks with End Mod, and Power Boost to super charge it, and watch how the Blaster can sap out better and faster than the Defender (by pure accident) while actually managing to kill things like a beast.

In no particular order, and consolidated due to typing this on mobile: Illusion: Phantom Army is indestructible set of three tanks, stuck the BU pet proc and OF KD proc in them and they’ll do insane things, but you can’t target or huff them beyond this. You also get Phantasm who also clones himself with an unkillable decoy. All around this set can do powerful things, but it can be very busy and PA demands a lot of recharge. Also, for whatever reason Phantasm seems to be one of the stupider AI pets and has a hard time staying out of melee. Dark Control: This set kind of gives your three pet choices. Umbra, Shades, and the fact you can “possess” another enemy to attack for you. Shades don't take much to keep up, and the Umbra can be given a couple of good procs to add to its damage. In conjunction with fears and a great stun, this set can really rival Illusion overall. Fire Control: Imps we’re once the standard for damage, fire overall has huge numbers and was a king until Dark came along. Earth: Stoney is effectively a pocket tank, reasonable damage, naturally defensive and sturdy, takes buffs well and has built in KD for good added soft control. This set also procs out really well, so pairing with a good debuff set will give you great mileage. Ice: There was an attempt to give this a boost in some areas but it is still the worst/weakest of options from a player side if things, but Jack is pretty tanky. Grav: Singularity is more about control than damage. Probably not the direction you’ll want. Plant: Fly Trap isn’t bad, but Plant’s power really comes from Seeds and Carrion Creepers, so if you’re looking for a pet-focus, this is doable, but may feel underwhelming for just the pet. Overall if you’re wanting to still be a Controller and have a buffable ally, I’d suggest Dark overall. It has excellent damage, a great toolbox, and a mixture of pet options. It will also pair well with a lot of sets. Personally I have a Dark/Sonic and Res cap Umbra and toss the -Res toggle on him and can get away with some impressive stuff. Some other good options that can get you a good buff ally from experience: Fire/Time: With imps being able to protect them in one shot is great, and Time will help speed you up to get Temporal on each imp so they become little murder balls. I did a lot of Invarnate content on old Live with this combo. You could to Electric/Time too, it’d operate the same way. Earth/Cold: A few shields and an HP booster will extend your tank into the stratosphere, plus cold has some strong debuffs that will let Stony open up and hit harder. Illusion/Storm: This isn’t exactly a “buff my ally” build, but a high recharge theme that really let’s PACK and Phantasm go nuts and deals a berserk amount of damage. Illusion/Cold: A less ADHD version of the previous with the ability to buff Phantasm and help keep it alive.