evetsleep

You've reminded me about my necro/sonic MM that I had not played in ages and you're right. I took her for a spin this morning to refresh my memory. When it comes to combinations which mesh well with Sonic I think necro is a fine choice. The resists along with the individual pet heals (which is part of what makes ninja's nice these days) means they can independently take care of themselves. I need to take my demon\sonic for an update spin to see how it performs, but the new necro does quite well once some basic slotting happens. I think what helps here is the updated necro and the new Liquify combines for some really nice play patterns. I suppose the thing that makes sonic tolerable if you have pets that can heal themselves. The melee aspect of necro means you can easily take advantage of Disruption Field, which is nice. Nice call out there...I did enjoy this combo.

I think what saves Ninjas here is they can all self-heal. I have a thugs/sonic too, but even with great resistances, because they cannot heal themselves they're subject to folding in a long fight. Aid other can only go so far.

I have a bots/sonic that I take off the shelf every now and then. It's not horrible, but the issues you point out are in line with my experience. The buff to Liquify helps and the layering of defense + resistance is always a good strategy. The addition of the healing drone really expanded the survivability of non-healing builds that don't have a secondary that has one built in. I have driven pretty much every MM combo at this point and I find poison the absolute bottom with sonic right above it as well. Sonic isn't as frustrating as poison, it just doesn't perform nearly as well as others and I find it's repel one of the most annoying sounds in the entire game with large spawns.

As others have said, there are some good reasons to pick a Build-up, but I'd add it's not a must pick right away. I often save it as a 30+ pick.

Is that 8x4? I haven't tried with a blaster before but if your alpha doesn't kill the spawn don't you end up with a lot of runners? Btw, not saying other AT's can't farm. Really any can, but runners would significantly slow things down I would think.

Can confirm .. but also bio helps darks lower damage. They go pretty well together and compliment each other.

The cool thing they did, as others mentioned, is they allowed you to take fish out of the powers and also have a full range of colors to use. For example, you could have a MM master bot which is infused with nanobots (in the form of animated black sludge) which can be used to control other robots (your minions) as well as be used offensively\defensively against foes. There are a LOT of different creative things you can do with this particular powerset give the color\power customizations they made available.

I would add that a nice thing about bots is you get a forcefield bubble on your toon from the protector bots which can pair nicely with marines defence to help add to the MM's individual toughness. Also in addition to -regen from the MM attacks the damage type (energy) for bots is probably less resisted than mercs. Not a huge difference, but worth noting. I find bots tend to be a little more resilient with their shields and heals. Don't get me wrong.. I very much love the dakka boys, but I appreciate the pewpew crew too 🙂

I'm going to go ahead and say it. Concept is King. We get 1,000 slots per server. Use'em (I have 826 now 🫡). Marine is so well done it still surprises me how powerful it ended being, especially in the hands of pet wielders. That being said I've given them all a spin and they all have different ways they can play well with Marine. Recent I took the much maligned Beasts and paired it with Marine (Wet Fur!) and they do really well with everything that the new set brings. Personally I think the choice first is do you want to be in melee range with your pets. After that come up with a concept you like and have at it!

I've started building, where it makes sense, many of my sentinels to be close range (occasional melee range) and I've been pretty happy with it. They are not blappers, but staying out of melee all the time seems to be leaving a ton of potential damage on the table (specifically later on when you get access to the ancillary melee attacks).

It works on brute for both katana and broadsword :). I was running my broadsword/fire brute today ... Inspired by this thread and I was reliably sitting at 47% melee/lethal and he's not IO'd at all yet.

I just want to chime in to add on to the blasphemy. Fire armor really needs a taunt and you'll only get it from a brute or tanker. Between those two I prefer the brute because, as far as I recall tanks cannot stack parry but brutes can. On my broadsword/fire brute I could softcap (~45%) melee\lethal just about as soon as I picked up parry via a few parry hits since it recharges really fast.

Holy moly....while I was out at the gym today getting my creative juices flowing I had an idea, but then I said...no way. Got home and FFS...the name was actually free now...I feel a great sense of responsibility to do it justice: 🔥❄️Frost Burn❄️🔥

I just picked up one I've tried for years to get: Captain Wavy Hands Kinetic Melee/energy Aura brute Yes I know kinetic melee isn't great. I'm past making meta characters and I focus on concept (because it's king) these days.

Also I think it's often forgotten that tanking things doesn't just being highly survivable, but also generating threat and taunting. Sentinels don't really get a taunting ability so off-tanking without a taunt won't really work (IMHO). Brutes, and to some extent, some scrappers, could off tank since they're both durable and can taunt. If you're looking to off-tank I'd recommend a brute or a taunting scrapper.

Honestly I don't think you can efficiantly farm without a brute or tank. It's not just about damage output but high defense, resistances, and importantly taunting to keep the baddies from spreading like cockroachs in the light. Anything can farm, but at +4x8 I don't think it's realistic to do it without a highly survivable taunting AT. My 2 inf.

If footstomp scratches a particular itch, Frozen Aura from Ice Melee is very similar without needing Rage... It's also a pretty fun/safe/effective set IMHO.

Concept is king 👑. Bio Armor is awesome, but it doesn't always fit. More power to you 🙂

I've been noodling this question myself lately.. specifically on what to bring along with my farmer (other than another one.. I am far too impatient to build another). I'm considering: Illusion/kin - really for the improved illusion for threat reduction and safe casting of fulcrum and speed boost for the recharge buff.. quicker burns and other AoE attacks. Illusion/Marine - Marine has some really interesting things that boosts recharge, damage, to hit, etc.. doesn't really need to be illusion, but I'm thinking invisibility will minimize taking aggro off the brute In the end the problem (for me) is dealing with the aggro you'll get as a non-farmer. If you have some tools to deal with that without being annoying to the farmer you're golden. As a defender I think kinetics, Marine, or trick arrow are the best options since they boost the things a farmer needs: damage and recharge.

Not saying this is crazy, but the few times I've brought in a traps toon to a farm the acid mortars didn't last long at all plus they take aggro away from the farmer (pealing off a few.. just enough to be a little annoying).

I'm currently running a bots\marine MM (where the bots are notorious END eaters). Toroidal Bubble goes a super long way to helping with END consumption on bots, so I'd image you're instinct is correct here.

I've tried both and they proc on cast but that's it. So not really worth it from my observation.

I mostly agree with you except for Trick Arrow. Fully slotted Flash Arrow combined with pets that have native defense and the defense IO's meshes extremely well. I rarely need to resummon my thugs and ninjas, while flimsy, have a self heal on their own. The -DMG in trick arrow goes a long way, also, to preventing minions from being one shot in most normal content.

I've tried both Power Transfer and the Performance Shifter +END proc and I didn't see either proc firing outside of the initial cast with the combat log open.

As someone with fire/Marine controller I can say Marine takes the edge off running hot feet in a very meaningful way as soon as I picked it before making any QoL slotting choices while leveling. If anything Marine Affinity is a fantastic set to combine with endurance intensive sets. I friggin love getting in a Super Stunners face and not worrying about what'll happen when they die the first time.