Riverdusk

By that time your pets are killing things and still protecting you and pulling aggro, your teammates are (hopefully) doing the same. Sitting there mezzed for a bit usually isn't going to ruin your day. Farsight doesn't drop during mez since it isn't a toggle, so you should still have good defense (along with set bonuses). Eventually of course there is also Clarion which makes it all moot. As usual it all depends on the situation. In some cases it works fine, other times it doesn't. Just giving it as another option.

As a /time, once you do get enough defense that you can survive anyway, jump in yourself is another way to go. Time's Juncture debuffs them and annoys them, they attack you (while you are in bodyguard), and all your pets retaliate.

Haven't really done any tests like this myself, but @StrikerFox watching your beast video I wasn't seeing any crits? My beasts get the "crit" message constantly and of course that would greatly increase their damage. I missing it somehow or are pylons immune or some other weirdness? Just found that strange and have a real hard time believing beasts are even worse than mercs, in general play anyway. Hasn't been my experience, albeit just going by general feel here. Also don't seem to see stacks of pack mentality showing either (once you did expand the pet buffs on the window), which is of course even more damage, unless I'm missing that somehow or you have some kind of buff display option set that doesn't show them.

Just a warning if you haven't tried it by now, that proc basically gives a graphical effect equal to tesla cage (they are held in a ball of lightning). Hopefully that doesn't mess with your theme.

In character creation you'll see them listed under detailed power info under the last power of the combo. So for instance under Typhoon's Edge you'll see it say -7.5% defense and -7.5% tohit for 20 seconds on target "Only when weaken combo is completed" Weaken and Empower are fine early on and that's when I used them, but I think in the end attack vitals for single target and sweep (for AoE) are just more useful, imho. I respec at lvl 32 and switch to attack vitals and sweep as the two combo's I keep. At that point you can have attack vitals down to level 21 if you exemp, so you'll usually have it. Go lower than that and you can either just deal with it or find a way to keep nimble slash instead of dropping it like I did.

I had a DB/WP on live and one on the few characters I remember playing quite a bit after I hit 50. I recently recreated here and remember now how much I liked it. Lot of the attacks just have a nice solid feel to them. I also like that it probably requires less recharge than any other set to get a "good" attack chain going. Blinding feint-attack vitals doesn't take much recharge at all and holds up middle of the road in the DPS charts. Lets me concentrate on other things and even skip hasten (unheard of I know) since willpower also doesn't really get anything out of +recharge. Makes for a good solid "natural" character concept.

Yep, my own testing showed it was slightly off but close to what /loc gave you. Wasn't fully understanding why it was slightly off, thanks for explaining @AboveTheChemist

I've not seen anyone really asking for or playing a corrupter over a defender or a dom over a controller myself. Defenders and corruptors especially are pretty close now (vigilance and procs on defenders and their better debuffs mostly equalize them even solo). I think the only one that has really taken over is brutes. They are pretty much the go to melee class. The rest of your post is more about the power creep with cheap IO's and incarnate stuff that has improved everyone and made the whole game easier. Not really about villains "winning".

I'm not noticing being mezed a huge issue on a time mastermind. You have high defense to avoid being hit by most mezzes in the first place and then you also have your pets cutting down on things aimed your way as well. Then even when you do get mezzed your pets are still protecting/attacking for you. I plan on getting Clarion for the knockback protection for all my pets probably more than any other "mez" and you still need to do that with /traps anyway. As mentioned /traps has its benefits (more damage, better debuff, much better -regen), but I wouldn't go traps over time if FFG is your only reason. Since you said you team exclusively I'd definitely recommend /time as Kommon said.

Even easier now you can also toggle on a display of your current coordinates. Type /showfps 2 or /showfps 3 for a smaller or larger version. /showfps 0 to turn it back off.

Yep, found it really odd radiation armor doesn't have a minimal option as I also find it obnoxious. So much so that I've yet to bother playing it beyond testing it on test server. And yet there are sets that hardly have any fx that do have a minimal option, like willpower and ninjitsu. Course I'm one of those that appreciates minimal even for those.

Sounds about right for U.S. based surgery costs. 😄

Was funny just the other day I was in a trio that made me feel like I was playing a fantasy MMO. We had the classic fighter (broadsword/Shield brute), Cleric (empathy defender), and Rogue (Dual Blades scrapper). Was just missing the right blaster to be mage for us. At the same time that is exactly why I like CoH, it has such diversity of possibilities.

Again, generally can agree and usually do take it on MOST of my MM builds. This thread made me think particularly of my necro/time that I'm currently working on. It IS power choice starved and having a tough time trying to fit in tactics, and so far doing fine without it. I'd say I was "effective" anyway. Farsight is not what I consider high level, replaces tactics +tohit exactly (and that's before power boost), and only requires SO slotting to be perma. Your statement that you have to take tactics in order to be "effective" is pretty much what I take issue with. There is very little you have to do in this game period in order to be "effective". So, I also stand by my statement as well. Tactics is generally a good choice, but is less important to some sets and you can certainly be "effective" without it.

I wouldn't say such a blanket statement myself. Lot of secondary sets have tohit buffs and/or significant defense debuffs. In those cases, tactics can be useful sure, but is much less important.

Having played a necro now to higher I can second that. My bot and thug MM's tend to have things running around and things getting more spread out. Necro tends toward being much more controlled and contained. The pets seeming to be better behaved is one thing, but also I'd say due to no fire patches to send things running and of course having the lich with its aoe immobilize (tentacles) and an aoe knockDOWN (torrent) controlling things. I find playing necro I have to worry less about "keeping an eye" on exactly where all my pets are running and making sure they don't run off into the next group 300 yards down the hall. If you want a MM to really help keep things wrapped tight and less babysitting, necro is a winner.

I'm more of the view of let people do what they want. I tend to like to try and min/max my builds, but I don't try to min/max how my team plays unless we agree we are going for a 'speed run' or a badge that requires specific play. The main concern I'd have about group fly was if it still also added a hefty tohit debuff to everyone. I couldn't remember if they'd removed that or not (and if not whether Null would affect that). I just checked test server and from what I could tell looking at combat attributes with it running, it does NOT still have a tohit debuff. However both the tool tip of the power and the text description of the power still says it does, as in "flying allies suffer from a reduced chance to hit." Might be good for devs to clean up that outdated text as I'm betting that also makes it less popular.

Have to say I'm more excited about StJ on a tank with the coming buffs. Always liked the feel of the set, but StJ's tiny aoe's always put me off a little (I'll go dark melee if I want a single target specialist). However, if the proposed tank buffs go through crossing punch's narrow 50 degree arc becomes 100 degrees and spinning strike's tiny 6 foot radius turns into around 10 foot, which is closer to a standard AoE. They'll definitely be worth taking then. Might be harder to picture a Batman type as a tank though.

Agreed. On big teams in tight quarters (like old cave map missions), I thought it was fairly common for MM's to not bother with the tier 1 pets anyway. Teams in that situation tend to appreciate you bringing out LESS pets.

Probably technically not the best place for it, but I've been testing using it in my damage aura (in bio armor) and it fires off at a decent rate even there.

Not even outdated, to me it makes no sense. Considering any AT can "hold aggro of multiple foes" with a simple pool power "provoke". Also as an aside, it always annoyed me that a pool taunt power is better than the scrapper version which is limited to single target. Any time I do actually consider taking a scrapper armor set without a taunt I consider taking provoke, and yet never confront. I actually always had the wish that all the scrapper "confront" powers would some day be made aoe to actually be worth taking, and that way be made at least a bit more worthwhile to take than a simple tier 1 pool power. Guess that hope is shot. Regardless though, my first and biggest annoyance remains the running away untaunted mobs tend to do, holding aggro isn't usually even the first concern when I'm on a scrapper, but having a taunt is the easiest fix for runners....unless and until they want to give scrappers some better AoE immobilize in the epic power pools, that'd also work. 😀 T Tentacles is quite an investment and annoying to use as a cone.

Old thread, so you probably found out already, but just in case you didn't and to help anyone else coming across this thread looking for this answer: You can do it with the slash command /badge_grant ouroborosenabled

Sorry to see this attitude as I'm of the belief all scrapper armor sets should have a taunt aura, even if they are all reduced somehow to a super weak form of one (as long as it is enough to severely cut down on the ridiculous running away that mobs seem to like to do.) Chasing after mobs constantly as a melee is the opposite of fun, it is aggravating. I've found a LOT less of that aggravation when I play a scrapper with a taunt aura. I don't play to be aggravated so I already tend to avoid any scrapper armorset without a taunt aura, simple as that.

The earth/stone sets do this for me. Stone melee, nothing feels more "smashy" to me. That naturally carries over quite a bit to also apply to dom's earth assault and controller's earth control.

Yep, I swear the old devs specifically said it'd be an incredibly hard fix. It isn't like this wasn't requested a ton on the live game.