evetsleep

If you want to see funny, run zombie/kin (I have one named Crack Zombie). Zombies on speed boost is ridiculous and their resistance and debuffs keep them reasonably alive.

Ninja's are ok on damage honestly and kinetics just won't do a good job keeping the cardboard dragons alive. They do far better with a secondary that can reinforce their defenses. I personally like time, trick arrow, dark, and traps. Honorable mention for marine since that gem goes with everything.

Well...to be clear (for those new to traps), it's not a "heal", but regen. So long as you're henchmen aren't taking more damage than it's regen`ing you're good (and they stay put). Kind of depends how much pressure your henchmen are under. Also the only form of area denial (like repulsion field) is caltrops, which is honestly also fine..I just find repulsion field a little easier to use. Caltrops would be nice since it's centered on where you drop it instead of around you. I LOVE traps, to be clear (it's very much one of my favorite secondaries for controllers and MM's). But since we're asking about "stand-off" combo's strategies I kind of wonder if caltrops is enough to keep those naughty bad guys off the henchmen. Speaking of area denial, I've actually tried bots\sonic when Maintenance Drone was introduced and it's actually not bad..but I can not stand the sound of a busy Sonic Repulsion field. It drives me absolutely batty. Another runner up, for me, now that you mention it, is /storm, which does have O2 boost (I wouldn't pick it though..let the protectors\maintenance drone do healing). Generally speaking I have stopped picking hurricane on my stormies in most cases. However a purely ranged set like bots or mercs means I can "stand-off" on the edge of the spawn, put the pets on stay and run hurricane to keep baddies away without annoying the melee guys tearing things up inside the spawn. The bots or mercs are plucking away while I drop in tornadoes and lightning storm. Naturally storm is a little more offensive so you won't be bored picking your nose while the fight is going on (definitely a risk with force field, depending how you play it). Traps is a solid, middle pick imho where you get a good balance of offense\defense for a stand off combo. You may call me a heretic here, but I pick detonator and I often send in the assbot into the middle of a pack and blow him up. I enjoy the damage and it makes me happy...all thanks to the quality of life changes the devs made to MM's awhile ago with quick, cheap henchmen summons. Totally changed how I play MMs.

I happen to LOVE both for this kind of playstyle: Robots/FF Merc/FF You get softcapped defenses + repulsion field and the henchmen can heal themselves, which helps. Bots is going to be a little more survivable thanks to the Maintenance Drone and the mercs will be more DPS. Often with these I place them on the edge of a spawn and command them to stay (in aggressive posture) and then I hang out near them with repulsion field running to keep anything from getting too close.

Enjoyable is kind of subjective. Psi seems to kind of go with anything. Of the list, if it were me, I would go with battle axe (for crunch) or dark melee (for survivability). That being said my 2 favorite psi brutes right now are spines and super strength. Spines is just a walking aura of chaos and destruction. Super strength's weaknesses (endurance and defense) are mostly covered/addressed with psi armor. Of course concept is king. I'd go with what you have a fun concept for and run with it.

I'm still annoyed that you can't put the ice minstral set in Jack to utilize that cold damage proc. I was really hoping they'd fix that.

Everything you said here was accurate however with the most recent page the changes to controller pets combined with the gremlins getting more attacks has resulted in a noticeable improvement on damage output. I was soloing when it first landed with my electric/sonic troller and the kill speed was dramatically improved with the change to gremlins (at least to me) and since I can control the it's a much more fun set, even solo.

In all my time playing Sentinels I've never known this...thanks for sharing! I looked at it in Mids and it doesn't show that, but City of Data certainly does. Thanks!!

Here's the thing. Concept is King. Any brute can solo. Make one that fits a concept you like. You'll get far more fun and mileage out of a character you care about. Happy SMASH'ing!

Can confirm poison is pretty darn safe...especially once Venomous Gas gets into the mix, but the lack of a heal, sometimes, makes things interesting. Time would probably a little safer if standing in melee range is concerning. Personally I'm loving pyro and poison together. They mesh so well with the -ToHit that both sets offer (among other debuffs).

This all is in large part of why I shifted to auction house manipulation/sales for inf and I just use my farmers (active) for power leveling new toons to 26. Chasing what AFK farmers currently work was kind of tiring. Selling crafted IO's takes about 15-20 minutes of my play time and it passively gets me more than enough to support my alt-aholicism.

Well that explains a lot. Thanks for that!

I personally like it. It's on a relatively short timer, taunts, is super sturdy, and it provides Regen (possibly panacea procing too... I haven't tested this since the update). What's not to like? Whether solo or on a team I find ways to use it. Interestingly enough the taunt doesn't seem to last long (or it could be that I'm too aggressive). On my plant/sonic troller after dropping the tree they all start gathering around it and almost as soon as I drop my -res toggle on the tree they start coming my way. But by that point I have other tools (confuse, immobilize, sleeps, vines). I think the biggest value is getting things bunched up since lots of secondaries benefit from clumped up baddies (I immediately am thinking of sonic, poison, radiation, and storm). I intend to have it in all my builds now.

I kind of feel like anything that has -ToHit will benefit. I've got a pyro/poison than in spending time on and I'm quite happy with Incendiary Aura, Glitter Column, and Venomous Gas.

Really nice setup an spread. Pretty easy to get 3 or 4 spawns together (solo) and just burn`em down. Some of the EB's don't follow very far (not your fault ...just how the threat system works). Solo it didn't take long and the pathing (go around up top, then bottom) is easy enough to follow and not miss anything. Love the references to other fire farm creators!