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!

Specifically Whitecap (proc'ed) and Shifting Tides. I haven't tested it personally, but from what I recall in other threads shifting tides can do Hot Feet level damage in the right situations. If you have a taunting pet that brings things in, I suspect that damage could rack up quickly. Add into that a confuse to keep them from damaging the tree or yourself...it does look to be quite the nice combo. Really I'm honestly surprised Marine didn't get tuned in this patch. If you like a more active Controller, marine is really in a league of it's own almost. I love me some storm, but it's damage is a little late blooming and doesn't offer any self buffs\heals like Marine does. Basically throwing caution .. ahem ... into the wind. I like storm with less active primaries like illusion personally..so I can focus on throwing out tornadoes and thunder storms, but it is quite amazing with plant.

I wouldn't say Dark Armor on sents is awful personally, but what's fun for me may not be for others. Dark Armor really wants you to be in melee range so if you're more a blasting from a distance kind of sent, then it probably isn't for you . For me, I tend to play close and and use epic melee attacks, so I don't find dark armor problematic and this lets me leverage the CC aura's as part of my "defense". I've taken fire, radiation, and electric blast the furthest (I do have a sonic, but it's a pain to play with DA). I personally like electric the best and radiation second (for stacking disorients). I've been meaning to try beam\dark since it has a number of stuns that I bet would work nicely (again..when focused on close\melee range)....and with that ...another alt will be born today! Fire is 🔥. It does have that single target repel which can be the opposite of what you want to do with dark armor. Although you could pick an epic power like chained fences to keep baddies in rain of fire while they're mezzed. You could also do the same with ice blast too.

My hot take is psi/stone. Stone brings so much to the table and when it comes to Psi being resisted you have fire proc from brimstone to help soften the blow. At least that how I look at it with mine. Yes, it's clunky, but that's kinda what I did about it.

This is one of those topics that comes up often.... over here 🙂. Mayhaps drop your suggestion there...if you search for Mastermind in that forum you'll see all sorts of interesting ideas. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/45-suggestions-amp-feedback/

Also since the enforcers leadership powers do not effect players, not only do players not get the bonus +damage or +tohit, but they also don't get other benefits like Taunt\Placate resistance and Confuse\Fear resistance (and importantly ... to me +Perception). The perception part can certainly be addressed with a yellow inspiration, if you have one. It's rare but when a baddie has a stealth or a power like Flash Arrow, it's super annoying, especially if your secondary powers rely on being able to see your opponents in order to support your henchmen. It rarely happens, but another neeto thing about Thugs is that their leadership powers stack with other MM thugs. So if you're teamed with other MM's that are Thugs, all the Enforcer leadership powers will affect the other MM's henchmen.

I have quite a few bubblers and I, more or less, agree with this. Generally speaking when I want to solo with one of my bubblers I take one of my MM's off the shelf (or maybe eve one of my controllers like fire/ff or arse/ff). I find solo'ing with a corruptor\defender force field toon not impossible, but too slow for my tastes.

I have all of these. Necro/traps is fun and does reasonably well...solo at least. But time just is a cake walk (power boosted +defense and all the other bells/whistles makes it stupid strong). Marine is more offensive and is more DPS focused (and busy). Honestly Necro goes with absolutely everything...even Sonic. Have a concept that works (because it's king) and have fun and don't worry about the meta performance combinations.

Kind of surprised no one's mentioned it, and I had to take mine off the shell to remind me, but my electric/poison controller (poison trap does -recovery\-end) with fold space does some really impressive -end and maintains it with all the drains + the Poison version of Poison trap. Sure it's not as tough as an elec/elect/elec sentinel, but I'm been thoroughly impressed with how quickly and how it maintains endurance drain. Won't win any damage awards of course.

1. Yes, for the first hit, which will wake them upband then they're no longer under containment. 2. No. Using sleeps in an unorganized group where they don't know (or care) that you're using a sleep is a recipe for frustration. I generally don't recommend using sleeps unless you're on a team which is going to work around it. There is one exception and that's pulsating sleeps like you find in electric control and arsenal control. The sleeps are repeatedly reapplied and thus a little more useful. Arsenal's sleep also is a lovely proccable AoE proc'able sleep, so I often I use that as a damage power. Mind controls sleep isn't like these and this is mostly useful solo.

So here's the thing. Having fun is objectively the most important part (why are you here otherwise?). If it's not fun to you, then it's a waste of time. Who really wants to spend hours playing a toon that they don't find fun just because it hits some kind of performance objective? Concept is king and have fun! Always rule #1 and avoid chasing the meta/FoTM. So take that stick and swing it with a smile. Nothing to be ashamed of there 🙂