TygerDarkstorm

These are all great, but the Ghost Man holds a special spot of nostalgia for me because that's how we played baseball in my grandparents' backyard as kids. 😄 Which clearly others did as well, so thank you for that brief look into childhood.

Yeah, that was how I treated maintenance drone when I was on beta as well. I also had some issues with it not healing my bots when they were taking damage but the stupid drone was hanging around with full health. But yeah, I often was resummoning it when it had low health, especially if I was getting ready to start a fresh spawn.

I'm pretty sure the power description says you can't heal it. It uses its own health to heal the main bots henchmen; it's not supposed to be something you keep alive.

Mutant Malloy - Rad Emission/DP Defender

I'm definitely not on some of y'alls level, but I like how this one turned out. Demon Trapper - Demons/Traps MM

AFAIK recharge does not work on any henchmen powers.

@Spaghetti Betty

So far lots of the beta testers seem to be pairing it with Energy Assault. I went with Savage Assault myself both for a concept, and so far, it feels like they have some good synergy.

I have a Pain Dom/Beam Defender who is fun; I like to bring her on things like TinPex where you get some longish lasting AV's to make use of the increased debuffs brought by the two powersets. My other beam is a Beam/Devices blaster; mine's still a baby but I've seen quite a few others on the forums saying how much they love theirs.

First of all, all the yelling and exclamation marks aren't going to serve you well. Secondly, do you understand what the Sentinel AT is? They were purposely designed to not have the range of a blaster. The nukes do less damage because they recharge 2-3x as quickly as a blaster nuke (a few of them can be made to recharge in like 30 seconds). Your secondary is an armor set; if a blaster can be made to handle blapping, then a sentinel should be able to handle being in melee some as well. Or learn to kite.

The question was simply, is that slotting effective with even the regular versions of the ATO's? No need to be snarky about it.

Would you still consider that slotting as effective if we can't/don't want to get the purpled ATOs?

Yes, the lack of lethal resistance in the necro pets is quite noticeable, even on my Necro/Sonic. I took her on a couple of radio missions last night, choosing Council ones thinking they'd be the easier test, and then watched them nearly get shredded (this was around level 28ish). They did okay if I stayed at +0/x1, but I bumped it up to x2 or x3 (I can't remember which), and that's when things started to get dicey. Definitely requires a bit more thought and resummoning and such than you would think.

@agentx5 If you've seen the more recent beta patch notes, they already have fixed the issue with the specters; they can now be walked through like other henchmen.

I can't speak to the other stuff, but this is a known issue even on live with MM henchmen. You have to use the Attack my Target command, and sometimes go so far as to place them on go-to to the door, and then to attack it.

I haven't tested out a character with an early arriving nuke yet, but of the MM's I've put in that level range so far, the lack of slotting definitely impacts the ability to pick the powers sooner. Sure, my Bots/Cold had Heat Loss before level 30, but I didn't have the slots to assign to it, and taking those primary/secondary picks first also meant not picking up things in the pool powers as quickly for my own defenses. You are absolutely still needing to make calculated trade-offs to take these things at the new lower levels. Being able to use Heat Loss at that level was kind of wild feeling, but even with a recharge IO in it, I couldn't have it usable for every spawn. Now, I can say what these changes mean for folks who kit their toons out in attuned IO's as I tend to only use the basic ones at these levels.

It isn't for me. My MM's stuff is colored pinkish and the specters were pretty much yellowish when playing last night. Also, not sure if WAI, but Specters are able to be buffed with the /Sonic shields.

Am I crazy or do the summoning times seem even faster on beta? I knew they had shortened them some already, but I swear I summoned my zombies at lightning speed just now. Edit: Also kind of funny to see "You have defeated Specter." in the combat/chat log when they fade away and desummon. xD

Hm, I wonder if this is related to the weird behavior I was seeing. I was shifting some between go-to, follow, and attack my target to try and keep them reined in. If I knew how to record my screen, I'd try to make a video of what I'm seeing to see if it's me, WAI, or something else.

As noted though, they were performing this behavior without those types of flee patches; had I thought it was something like that I wouldn't have commented since I know those have a fear effect. Only effect kind of like that being used was hurricane, but they behaved in this manner regardless of it running or not. Further, they were doing it as part of their normal attacks, that why I asked specifically about a lower level range, because some of the behavior seemed to be them repositioning to use their ranged attacks instead of prioritizing their melee attacks. I didn't have this issue on my MM that has both upgrades, that I can recall.

Anyone else playing a level 20 (or maybe even lower level) ninja MM and noticing that the henchmen are behaving kind of oddly in combat? Or maybe it's just because I'm doing that Tsoo chain in Steel, but I'm noticing my ninjas behaving rather strangely in combat, even when they're not being hit by things like hurricane. Where like, I have them engage a mob, and they run away all crazy before circling back to attack. I don't remember them behaving this oddly when I tested my level 27 ninja/cold, so I'd figure I'd see if it's WAI or wonky AI behavior.

Yes, so far Seismic Blast is delightful on a sentinel. I need to put more time in on mine but so far I enjoy Seismic in general with that good, crunchy feel to it. Needing to be on the ground for some of the powers doesn't bother me. Can't say I've encountered anything unusual with it yet.

I fired up a Bots/Cold on Brainstorm and bumped her up to level 30 and slotted her with some IO's. Much better experience so far compared to my Bots/Nature; granted, I kept my diff at +0/x4 and wasn't fighting Malta. I can definitely see the improvement in the Bots' damage now--took them to Croatoa to do missions there. I've had other AT's doing that first kill all Tuatha in the sewers just crumple, but the bots mostly held sturdy. Had a couple of issues where it didn't seem like the maintenance drone was making a point to heal the bots that were taking damage. I took the AoE pulse blast just because I don't like being bored and my recharge is still fairly slow. Dunno how much of a difference it made, even with a proc plopped in it, but like I said, I don't like standing there doing nothing. I also noticed something interesting with the maintenance drone and wanted to see if it's WAI or not: Maintenance Drone can have the cold shields and frostwork applied to it (idk if Frostwork actually boosts its health or not, but figured it worth mentioning).

Think you answered your own question there, mate. 😛

You're missing out by not taking Serum on beta. It's a truly wonderful addition to what your mercs can already dish out.