357trall

Only secondaries to watch out for are Poison, Trick Arrow, Radiation, and Kinetics. They have a hard time keeping pets alive. Getting the 6 def/resist IO's/ATO's will give you like 30% damage resist, 10% def, and 10/15% aoe def, added to whatever secondary you choose, gives a good amount of durability. I don't think you will gimp yourself, unless you have some really high goals for your character. That said, high defense is the easiest way to keep pets alive.

I tried Marine Affinity out a little bit, created a Mercs/MA mastermind and ran a few paper missions at +0/x2 without bosses using common IOs. At level 10,the first mission against council gave me trouble. Their grenades and my lack of powers and enhancement slots made things painful. Second paper mission I did at level 18 and things went much better, tide pool and it's frenzy mechanic made a major difference. Third paper mission was done at level 40 with all the Marine affinity powers taken. It went well and I didn't lose any pets. It's a ok set, but I can't say I really enjoyed it. Tide pool appears to be the center of this set, most powers want allies/enemies in it to buff/debuff/cc. I found Whitecap to be not really mesh well with mercs, they tend to stay put while my character jumps around outside of bodyguard range. A couple powers are probably a bit too powerful, Barrier Reef and Power of the Depths. Barrier Reef (forcefield generator + stacking absorb shield) should probably be limited to one stack of absorb shield or increase the time it takes to generate one. Power of the Depths should probably have a longer base cooldown then 4 minutes to prevent it from being able to be made perma. Not a bad set overall, should support teams well. Can't say that I liked it that much with it having, short duration buffs, location dependent and late blooming powers.

Just thought I would throw out a tip about getting recipes early on. At level 7 go to the AE and do some missions for tickets, every 60 tickets gets you a low level recipe. I like to turn my EXP off and do missions for 300-500 tickets each, Bads in Space works well for this. Save up a couple thousand and turn them in for 40 or so useable level 10 recipes. Just don't fight EB in the AE, they don't drop tickets.

Many powers in Assault Rifle can be proc'ed well, and that used to be the best way to up sentinel damage. There is the sentinel guide that is stickyed if you want in depth info on all the power sets. In general burst and m30 grenade can be skipped, they don't proc well and are lackluster attacks. Buckshot is really good, takes aoe procs and I use it for both aoe and single targets. Flamethrower takes aoe procs, Full Auto takes defense dbuff procs, Slug takes knockback . AR has alot of proc potential that helps with being a lethal set.

I think mez is in good place, though mobs often don't last long enough to be worth locking down. I have taken a mind/time controller to 50 and have a few others in the 30's that I tried to like(illusion, cold, symphony,fire). Sleep isn't a bad mez and works rather well on enemies, either locking down a spawn that the team mistakenly aggroed or missed is very useful. Even a few seconds of sleep can be useful and sleeps recharge quickly and last a long time. That said, just about every other mez is prefered because they don't break after damage and release the mobs to continue attacking. My complaints about the sets I have played are rather small. I would like to customize the illusion pets more, the sounds on sympony get annoying after awhile, and mind aoe powers seem to have longer cooldowns compared to sets with comparable powers.

To answer the question about using the 3 mastermind attacks on mercs to get the bonus damage, I would say no. If you want a real damage increase, slot shieldbreaker chance for lethal damage and touch of the lady grey chance for negative energy damage into soldiers and spec ops. I find using personal attacks to be alot of fun and useful on a mastermind. I tend to stay in bodyguard mode and use them to get mobs to attack me to trigger the pets. Aoe's are the best for this and can do decent damage if proccessed and slotted for accuracy and endurance reduction. They way M30 grenade is slotted in the first post would not be accurate and very costly in endurance. To me, your defense powers such as tactical upgrade, weave, manuvers, ect, seem over slotted. At 3 slots for luck of the gambler, you would get the most out of them for slotting purposes(def, def/endurance,def/global recharge), unless you really need the 5 slot bonus. As a forcefielder you already get partial mez protection and these days the medic has a good chance of using stimulant on the mastermind, so you could save slots there as mez isn't a much of a issue for you. Tactical upgrade could be pruned back to just a level 50 defense IO if needed. I'm not seeing panacea chance for hp/endurance or performance shifter chance for endurance in your build, they help alot with endurance problems.

Just allowing the Succubi to scale up to 54 would add punch to the COT, they are rather nasty with their aoe damage and placate/confuse(provided I am remembering their powers correctly). The Hellfrosts and elemental mages would be nice, if only for variety.

Just a minor thing, the medic's medkit cooldown is 20 seconds. Don't know how long it's been that way, but it's kinda nice that it's useful now.

I say keep the change, it's about time there was a nerf of some variety in a update.

After making a controller on the test server and playing with it for a short bit, Symphony Control seems like a very pretty blast set. 1) 7/9 powers do damage 2) 4 cones that take ranged AoE sets, powers take alot of sets 3) seems like the set is designed for proc monstering 4) Reverberant is too powerful. Pet doesn't have a duration, is very capable of attacking things and is tougher then it should be(40%-60% damage resistance with it being 90% to psi) 5) Very pretty, but looks like your character is spitting things. 6) Doesn't have any subpar or niche powers I do like the set, looks nice and plays smooth, but it doesn't seem like a control set.

Just did 2 Tunnel Witch AE missions on a character and got no tickets for killing mobs or finishing a mission. It was on a level 5 villain in the mercy AE. mobs were elite bosses. Also did a couple with it set to just bosses and it worked fine.

Completed heart of the hallows mission arc and got reward merits twice. Got 30 merits when I talked to karsis and another 20 when I talked to the mission contact. It also happened when I did destroy the psychometron arc in faultline, 30 and then 24 I think(it has been a couple of weeks and on a different character). Another bug I have noticed is that on certain weeks, AE tickets won't drop from bosses and elite bosses or from finishing the mission. Minions and lts still drop them. Tunnel Witch is the AE mission that I like to do to generate tickets on a new character, it has 30 EBs and on the weeks when it bugs, I get no tickets.

1 Sentinels- They feel unfinished and have lackluster damage. The epic/patron pools look like a grab bag of powers, I think making each pool specialized would add something special to the AT. Like the having the support pool or cc pool, rather then just a melee attack, heal, immobilize, and a random power thrown in. Perhaps the inherant could be combined and instead have single target powers affect the target at a large effect and aoe powers could affect all hit targets at a reduced level. 2 Masterminds- They have 7 pet IOs that can be slotted and only 3 primaries have a dump power to put them into. Mercs gets the short end on that, since procs are the best way to increase the damage of soldiers/spec ops and that costs another 4 slots. Also wish to say that Demons is spoiled with the ember demon being able to cast it's resist power not only on the pets but anybody in range(pets,MM,Team Mates and random strangers). Medic on mercs can only keep it's single target stimulant up on 4 targets at a time and rarely is it the mastermind. 3 Regen and Kinetic Melee- Regen could use something more in it's toolkit, but I don't play regen and will leave it to others to add suggestions. Kinetic melee however just sucks. Long cast times and animations, narrow cone, and lower damage then I would like. Everything is just slow on it.

Soldiers and Spec Ops take shield breaker chance for lethal damage and touch of the lady gray chance for negative energy damage, slotting them will more then double the damage those pets do. Without them, your pets do pretty pathetic damage. Looks like you are only slotting 2 out of the 6 pet IO's that increase pet defense and resistance, you may want atleast all three that increase defense. Fitting all these in will ruin your set bonuses, but are worth it to get the most out of your pets.

Feel free to use, critque or erase the review of ice armor as desired.