Ringo

This thread is from 2019, but if the builds will load there's a bunch of em. The last two posts are my updates in 2022. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/2352-plantstorm-controlled-chaos/page/2/

Eh, even in that thread Beasts drop from 2nd best to 4th just by adding IOs to the MM Primary build, to say nothing of leveraging the MM secondary or the player's playstyle. Beasts aren't unplayable by any means, but they can feel frustrating. Honestly, my Ninjas/Cold is from 2019 and was specifically built to try to build up the paper-thin Ninja defenses. If I were to make a new Beasts MM /Cold might be my goto once again

I have a Ninjas/Cold at 50 and a Beast/Kin at 41. Personally I have had more fun with the Ninjas overall and have found Beast rather lacking. Part of this is that /Kin is not a very forgiving set when it comes to keeping pets alive. Even with an entirely melee group whose targets you can direct, Transfusion isn't a replacement for Defenses or Resistances. Plus while Fortify Pack does give your pets Defenses, and /Kin doesn't need to worry much about the lost damage, you still need to build up stacks of Pack Mentality to actually use Fortify Pack and that can be frustrating if a fight is already forcing you to resummon. /Pain has World of Pain which will give your pets some extra toughness and better direct heals than /Kin, so it's not a bad choice (I really like /Pain), but in my experience I would rather have it with Ninjas than Beasts

How has this set pairing been treating you, @Onlyasandwich? For the heal problem, I would probably take Spirit Ward and slap it on the Bruiser hopefully letting him keep aggro while you resummon your T1s. I'd keep the Lts in permanent Bodyguard mode and then just treat the T1s as a kamikaze squad to eat alpha strikes and such. That's pretty much how the Arsonist AI behaves already, so no reason not to just get used to resummoning all 3. The end cost of constant rebubbling and upgrading might mean you need to spare some slots for EndRedux though...

Much appreciated!

By my count, players have access to 6 powers that apply -recovery to their foes: Thermal Radiation: Heat Loss Poison: Poison Trap Psionic Assault: Drain Psyche Mental Manipulation: Drain Psyche Electric Blast: Short Circuit Electric Blast: Thunderous Blast Everything else in the player arsenal only drains endurance. Am I missing any? Out of these, Heat Loss is the only one that is strictly Single Target and also Unehancable for endurance modification. Given that if you are looking for a playstyle that annihilates enemy blue bars and -recovery is the only way to keep those blue bars empty, which ATs and powersets would you want to achieve this with?

So I have a question about this build - is Heat Loss worth taking? In your build it's up every 100s. Do you find the -res and/or the team End gain to be useful often? I was just running around on an old Ninja/Cold MM and noticed his build didn't have Heat Loss and wondered if past me had incorrectly written the T9 off

Martial has a repositioning teleport in Burst of Speed which allows you to jump in and out when you need. If you set up a couple binds, one for Burst of Speed to target and then Burst of speed backwards 30ft you'll automatically line up your cones

What is the niche or playstyle that you get with a Bane? I know there's versatility with the mix of melee/ranged, cloaked crits, and the leadership toggles - but what can you do with a Bane these days that isn't replicated by Ninjitsu/Ninja Training on other ATs?

Mind doms are great

What's your typical gameplay so far? Do the immobilizes help?

Ice/Electric gets you the name THUNDERSNOW which I feel is a big selling point Grav/Dark gets you DARK HOLE ...which is potentially less of a selling point, I'll admit

Looking at City of Data it seems Gang War summons 9 thugs 100% of the time and then has varying percentage chances to summon up to an additional 4 thugs. So Necro is tied with Thugs+bad Rng, 4 behind Thugs+perfect Rng, and left in the dust by Thugs+Burnout Still, not bad for Necro, and I really love the masses of undead from the changes

You have 6 ghosts and 3 specters out. I'm not sure that's more than Gang War summons? If it is then it's a question of whether Burnout would get you more ghosts versus Burnout giving double Gang War to a Thugs mm

Eh, PA isn't broken IMO. Illusion is just a control set that trades AoE hard control for damage. Hard controlling your opponents is generally a preferable state as they can't cast their buffs/debuffs/aoe attacks. However! Purple Triangles of Doom push Illusion to the forefront of the controller meta as hard controls are shut down but Taunt is not. Take away the PToD and the other control sets have many more tools for team play. Illusion is still top tier for solo controllers though, cause, yaknow - damage

Also Blind has a very short range AoE sleep component to it. If you can kite two mobs into each other and hit one with Blind there's a good chance the other mob will get hit with Sleep. Beautiful for that early game aggro management

Yeah usually getting the armors up and realizing that all my Oh Shit buttons are on cooldown because I frantically clicked them all before I died is the moment when I die again. But hitting Barrier (or Howling Twilight if applicable) while screaming WITNESS ME is a true highlight in my gameplay

It Was Burning When I Got Here

But Self Rez into Barrier to rez the rest of the team is always such a thrill Don't need a healer! IAMTHEHYPE

I also enjoyed my Psi/Shield Scrapper

-recovery debuff as targets have panic attacks and hyperventilate Call it Overwhelming Anxiety

Hurricane is great, you just need situational awareness on when/how to use it. Hurricane's #1 strength is its massive -tohit debuff. Its two weaknesses are kb/repel disrupting enemy positioning and the power animation being vision obscuring. Even if you don't want to try herdi-caning that leaves two situations (that come up often) where Hurricane really shines. 1) Protecting you and your melee adverse teammates from melee enemies. Pick a spot (away from the tank!) and stay still. Congrats, squishes have an anti-melee safe zone for as long as you have endurance 2) Debuffing KB resistant/immune EBs, AVs, and GMs. Go stand next to the tank! Make that tough baddie have only a 5% chance to hit anything! Cancel enemy +tohit out, allow your tanks to ignore cascading -def hits, and host a dance party! Hurricane is a great debuff that works extremely well in most AV fights, even unslotted. Take it, use it, love it. Just don't go minion bowling, that's Energy Blast's job

Val Kilmer's Doc Holliday in Tombstone was very much a team buff/support in addition to being a skilled duelist. He also used his lack of fear of death as a way to debuff his enemies. Combine that with his dentistry practice as a "healer" and I think a DP/Pain Corr is a great fit. If you build for Resistances, between your toggle aura heal, normal pbaoe heal, and a +tohit +dmg +res PBAOE buff you're incredibly tough and make your team tougher. You've got a powerful PBAOE -def -res enemy debuff. An ally heal and ally rez that gives you +dmg and you can buff an ally with your t9 Painbringer. I've run this as AR/Pain and greatly enjoyed it

Huh, you're correct! Also looking at City of Data, Defensive Sweep has two different buff timings. Fast Sweep gets you +def for 7.5s and Slow Sweep goes for 10s Weird

It hits like a roleki analogy?