Coyote

EA seems VERY good at keeping the henchmen alive. I'm running Robots/ EA and boy are they tough. Robots are low damage, though, while EA doesn't bring much damage boosting, so I think EA would work best with a high-damage primary like Thugs or Demons. With those, it seems very strong at keeping them alive, allowing for Konstant Karnage (tm)

I really don't think that you'll be corrected ;). Beam Rifle might end up higher effective damage in a duo against AVs, because it has -Regen and sources of -Res other than Annihilation. So while it does less personal direct DPS it may end up better against AVs/GMs. But it will be a lot lower AoE damage, and against Bosses and such they'll probably die too fast to get enough benefit from the -Regen/-Res, so Fire will generally be better. Ice is also high DPS with more defense, and Archery is also high AoE damage (but not as high single-target). So is Water Blast, and it can slot some -Res IOs. But in general, you have to work hard to put anything else in the dicussion other than Fire Blast if you're looking for "highest damage".

As Hjarki noted above, a major point of min-maxed Storm builds are to put Force Feedback +Recharge IOs in both Lightning Storm and Tornado. If you do this, when you're in a fight, the rate of Recharge boosting is between 30-40%, which is as good as Radiation Emission... and one of Rad's main draws is how it can manage a permanent solid Recharge boost. So this is a major benefit for a build, and it only costs 2 slots (and Lightning Storm isn't even 6-slotted, so it's just a matter of finding a slot for that). And Overwhelming Force gives its Ranged Defense bonus at 5 slots (and it's pretty small), so re-jiggering the slotting on Tornado to get Force Feedback in there isn't a major problem for the build.

No, I mean "The Rad!o" contact. Not police radi0s.

What do you do if you play Redside and someone gives you the Radi* contact? 😛 On a more OP-appropriate topic, I think that nanite control would not work well for several reasons: 1: For solid masses of nanites, the options are existing objects like Robots, which wouldn't work well... elemental forces like Fire or Lightning, which are too clearly the appropriate element... and Ice and Earth. Ice/Earth are the only options, but they are pretty clearly Ice blocks and Earth blocks. I don't think there are animations that are more generic. 2: For the idea of spraying nanites in liquid solution (aerosol), that would actually work. But then, you have Poison. And if you wanted to make it a Control set, why not call it Poison Control (heh), or Chemical Control? I mean, there's no way to tell that it's nanites rather than just chemicals, so it would make more sense to leave the powers open to more character concepts and just use generic liquids. One character would have nanites in them, while another character is a witch and makes the liquids in her Cauldron of Double Bubble Trouble. 3: Lastly, there is the option of gases and clouds of nanites. This might work the best graphically, although again I prefer a more generic concept and let the character choose whether the cloud is paralyzing targets because of nanites, chemicals, or unicorn tears. However, it seems to me personally that a cloud-based set would fit more with a Debuff set than a Control set.

Well, on the good side it has access to some good damage procs. On the bad side, they don't have much chance to activate... I think about 20%, checked every 10 seconds. So a normal damage proc at level 50 would average about 13 damage, every 10 seconds. Getting 1.3 DPS from a single damage IO in a damage aura would be considered pretty poor, so I don't think this would be an efficient use of slots.

I kind of visualize something too small to see 😄 On the original point, though, I do think that there is a gap waiting to be filled by a technology-oriented Control set, but I don't think that we need Nanites. I think that Gadget/Device Control would work very well, as we have a ton of grenades (both flashbang and gas), toxic and taser darts, web grenades and other toys, and some drones that can explode, could throw their own taser darts, etc. Basically, the animations are already all there and can fulfill enough different control effects to run an entire powerset, if not two.

Oh. Well, then, all I can say is that Bots are the lowest damage primary for MMs in most scenarios, except against AVs/GMs (and only because they have -500% Regen, which stacks only to a limited point with other sources of -Regen from the secondary). Or maybe against mobs that aren't max level but with large spawns, to take advantage of the Incendiary Swarm Missiles. But, in general, the time to clear a spawn will probably be worst for Robots than other MMs because they have terrible single-target damage. Pain doesn't really bring the pain (heh), especially to a single target... it has a fine AoE -Res power, but that's about all that it has against Bosses, so if you're fighting spawns at higher difficulties with Robots/Pain it will absolutely take longer to finish the spawn off since the Bosses will take longer than with many other MM powersets... or with Brutes, who generally do more damage. You can add a bit of damage with the Knockdown damage IO, but since not all of their attacks do Knockdown, it will only help a bit... and take up slots from other things you might want to slot, like the Defense/Resist IOs. You can help against single-targets by taking the Force of Will pool and hitting Bosses with Weaken Resolve (with an Achilles Heel in it) to stack a lot of -Resist on the Boss and help finish it off faster. And using single-target attacks from it, or Sorcery, or Experimentation, on the Bosses... sadly, they're probably better than the terrible pulse rifle attacks. You can take the Heat Mastery pool and slot up Char as a decent attack to help on Bosses. Leviathan Mastery has Knockout Blow, which can be slotted with a mix of damage and procs to break 500 damage, which is great for a MM personal attack and again will help with the single-target damage. A similar option is Thunder Strike, which can do about 400 damage and is slower, BUT takes PBAoE sets so you can stick another -Res IO in there. Between that, Anguishing Cry, and Weaken Resolve you have two -Res IOs and two -Res powers... add another -Res IO in either Static Discharge or Electrifying Fences, and you can get a lot of -Res debuffing on a single target. It's all trying to push a low-damage combination to higher damage, but there are methods to squeeze out more damage (though it will cost in power sacrifices and enhancement slots).

A character built to sap AVs can drain AVs, and can debuff Recovery enough so that the AV (or GM) only regains Endurance every 10-15 seconds or so. It's not easy and it requires specifically building for it, but it's doable. Just as an example, getting -667% Recovery debuffing shuts down recovery... so against a +3 AV you need -1000% Recovery. Which sounds impossible, but Gremlins alone seem to put out about -200% Recovery. A character can manage another 200% or so from Electric Control. And Electric Affinity pretty easily manages over 400%. So you're over 800% without much difficulty, and if you fully slot for it and get an Alpha Incarnate with End Mod, you can get to -1000% and permanently sap 54 AVs. It's not immunity, it's very high resistance that sets the bar pretty high for sapping. But there are builds that can do it. Leaving aside Poison, which I'm not sure about... it's supposed to have a power that by itself shuts down Recovery, but I don't know if that power actually works at all.

Another thing about Defibrillate, especially if you spam Torrent/EB with Force Feedback to get it up faster, is that with the Stun proc in it, it will have a 90% chance to Stun minions for about 5-6 seconds. That gives you some time before they act (and maybe longer if they're getting knocked down), to either kill them or sap them.

This might also depend on the bosses you're fighting and your positioning. Usually as /Pain you want to be WITH your henchmen, to provide the +Regen aura for them and for easy heals... but with the War Walkers throwing out an AoE Orbital Lance regularly that will hammer your henchmen, you might want to separate yourself frmo them. Then keep an eye for it.. if it's targeted on you, just move. If it's targeted on the pets, immediately call them all to you so that they get out of the blast. Another option is to use Move To to separate them a bit so that the Orbital Lance doesn't get to attack all of them at once. Brutes don't really have to worry about it too much since, being a single target, they just treat it like a single-target attack that does good damage but also has a long activation time, so it's not especially dangerous. Edit: as a Mastermind, whenever you're having problems with any particular mob or type of mobs, try to figure out two things: 1: do they do a lot of AoE? If so, try to kill/debuff the ones with AoE first, or step away from your henchmen and taunt the AoEs harmlessly (mostly harmlessly 😛 ) to your single-target body. Bots and Pain don't have mezzing options, so pulling AoEs away is your main tactic against AoE mobs. 2: do they have a lot of +ToHit? Any MM that relies on heavy Defense may get shredded by mobs that have +ToHit (even more than mobs that debuff Defense, because the Defense debuffers have to hit first). Awakened, Vanguard, and Rularuu are probably the nastiest examples, though Nemesis use Vengeance (but only from dying Lieutenants, so you can at least clear all the minions first before they get a 95% chance to hit your henchmen). Robots/Pain isn't a top-Defense combination, but between pet Defense IOs and Protector Bots, they do usually have 30% Defense, so losing that is a major weakness. Be aware who provides +ToHit, and try to kill them first.

Yes. Not exactly what you're thinking of, but probably Dark Servant. 😛 Otherwise, I think the Lich has the most controls and debuffs.

October 31st?

It costs about 12 Endurance, and base return is 25 Endurance.. but that's on the first target hit. Subsequent chains give back less Endurance, so I think by the time it gets back to you it's down to half, so you're basically breaking even. But that's without slotting... slot up End Cost so that it costs 8 Endurance, and slot up End Mod so that it gives 40, and by the time it gets back to you, it's 20 End at the cost of 8.

Leaving sapping aside, it seems pretty solid healing-wise since you get a decent chain Heal and a good chain Absorb which is effectively pre-Healing. Add in mez protection with some Resist, and it can do a decent job of reducing incoming damage. It's statistically going to be weaker than Defense buffs as a means of mitigating damage, but it's also not going to be as vulnerable to -Defense debuffing. If picking a blasting set, I like sets that have fast animations on their attacks so you can fire off more attacks in between heals, like Ice Blast or Psy Blast. Maybe Fire Blast though I'm leery about its lack of defensive help. For controlling, because it can handle a constant low level of incoming damage very well but may struggle with burst damage, it will do better with sets that constantly lower incoming damage but don't necessarily achieve a full lockdown of mobs. For example, Mind Control shuts spawns down... until the mez wears off, at which point a burst of damage comes in. I would avoid that, and go with Electric (Sleep and Knockdown allow incoming damage but limit it), Earth (Earthquake lowers incoming damage when Stalagmites wears off), Ice (Arctic Air and Ice Slick slow, interrupt, and redirect enemy attacks), maybe Dark (-ToHit). Ice might be my choice, as Ice really benefits from having mez protection. I went double Electric for sapping, but if I weren't going for a sapping build, I'd go with Ice as a /EA Controller.

I think, first of all, that I'm working with numbers from City of Data that show a CHANCE for -Recovery on powers like Jolting Chain, otherwise it would be easier, heh. I think that JC has a 50% or so chance for -Recovery... the in-game numbers don't show a "chance to", but I"m not sure that they're showing all of the data. If it really is 100% chance to occur, then I'm much more confident about hitting -1000% Recovery. Second, I think that Shock has a 25 second duration, which is why I'm looking at that as the major source of -Recovery. That pushes it to about -800 RPS, and slotted it can get to over 1600, raising the rotation's average a lot. Galvanic Sentinel has a 10 second duration with a 5 second cycle time on its power, which has a -50% debuff, so it should stack to -100 unslotted, which is why I assumed about -200 from it. The Gremlins are harder to check, because the Wayback machine didn't capture their power stats. I'm assuming that they're comparable to the equivalent attacks, which I think were Jolting Chain and Charged Brawl, and doing their rotation I think it was about 70% unslotted on the average (each). But unlike Shock and Galvanic Sentinel you want to slot them for damage, so most likely you can't slip in more than one End Mod IO plus probably Musculature Alpha to push them to about 100%. So that's another 200%, getting me to 400% from the pets. Though Galvanic Sentinel will require a small amount of resummoning. I'd probably go with Mu as the Epic Pool to add another source of DPS with little animation time, and it will also help slightly with Recovery debuffing. But I'm less worried about sapping than I am about doing damage with a pretty low damage primary, a secondary that doesn't do much for damage and has no -Res or -Regen, and having to allocate attack time to spamming Shock. I like the character overall, but I think it will bounce off AV regen except in lucky cases. Or maybe if using Longbow as Core pets for -Regen, and that's a long time to wait... and not usable below level 45 in any case. I usually like all my characters to be able to solo AVs, not sure if this one will be up to it, though 😞

Yes, although I think you can get a bit over 400% if you use an Alpha slot with End Mod enhancing. But Gremlins average about 100% -Recovery each (as you say, the duration of the -Recovery from attacks isn't long, and it's not guaranteed, but with an End Mod IO and an Alpha Slot, I think they're getting -150% whenever a power triggers, adn I think I ran the numbers so that each one averages a bit over 100% over the long term). Add in Galvanic Sentinel, also slotted and with an Alpha Slot, and I think that slots up to about 100% and double stacks. So you're getting 400% from Shock Spam, and 400% from the pets, plus whatever you squeeze out from the single-target attacks. That's why I htink you can get close to the -1000% that you need for +3 AVs. The real problem is that you're doing it by slotting for End Mod in powers where you want damage, and eating up a lot of animation time (like 25% or so) with Shock, and the pets aren't really high damage, etc. And if the AV does get a shot off once in a while you may have to throw in some Heal and/or Absorb, further lowering DPS from a low-DPS build. It's more doable defensively than offensively.

I actually prefer the idea of End Drain being more effective on Minions... after all, mezzes are usually more effective on Minions, especially the low-mag Stuns usually associated with secondary effects from damage-oriented sets. And it should be easier to shut down Minions, too, because otherwise they'll just get blasted by damage before they get shut down. Oh, and I forgot to credit that OedipusT was the first to suggest this kind of randomized draining on these forums (that I've read).

Eh. The real solution, IMO, is to lower the base drain of all End Drain powers by about 50%... and then give them a %chance to drain about 50 Endurance. The chance should be based on how much their normal End Drain is, so that the average amount drained remains the same. This way, the average End Drain isn't affected, but each power has a chance to almost drain the target, or can drain the target with slotting. That has a mitigation effect similar to a "chance to stun", where the mob is unable to attack you for a few seconds until it regains some Endurance. But because it's not guaranteed, it's not a "shut down the spawn" like combining two end drain powers like Thunderous Blast + Short Circuit.

A simpler fix would probably be to increase the HPs of Minions (mostly) and Lts (a bit) after level 25 or so. This would minimize the spawn-clearing effects of AoEs, and with more mobs living longer, controls and debuffs and tanking ability may matter a bit more than just front-loaded AoE damage that debuffs minion damage to 0. That should just be a change in numbers in a table. If burst AoE damage at the start of a fight is no longer the one-stop solution for both defense and offense against minions, then maybe having defense solutions against large numbers of minions may become useful again.

I'm not sure about this... it looks to me as if an Ele/Ele Controller can manage north of 700% -Recovery, maybe even bursts close to -1000. This isn't good enough to bottom out +4 AVs (you need about -1000 sustained), but if you're lowering their Recovery to 1/4 of its normal, then an Endurance tick happens every 10-15 seconds or so. With the end Drain and their own power cost, they should blow/get drained from one tick of Endurance recovery in a couple of seconds, so basically they end up having 0 Endurance for about 3/4 of the time. While this means that you can't stop ultimates or summons or heals from being used, you do lower their long-term DPS by a lot with this. Add in +Absorb and the heals, and having them drained MOST of the time will help defensively in soloing them. I'm not sure if it's practical to use this to try to solo them, because it means spamming Shock for no damage, so then you have to wonder what's going to beat a 54 AV's Regeneration. But it does look as if it makes it quite reasonable for an Ele/Ele to drain-tank an AV (along with defenses, -Damage, absorb, and heals). If you can figure out a way to sneak in some damage, it may allow an Ele/Ele character to solo AVs with stronger defenses. And the decreased incoming damage would help keep pets alive longer, which is usually a big problem against 54 AVs even if you have Lore pets out with the support healers. I'm going to try to see if I can figure out a build that has enough sustained DPS while spamming Shock, Jolting Chain, and Electric Fence.

Have Bat, will Nerf. Now, where's a Regen character to hit? 😛

No, AV resistance doesn't apply to -Damage or -Resist debuffs. They are affected by those debuffs like normal mobs (although a few AVs have really high Resistance to their own damage types, so sometimes the -Damage debuff is strongly resisted by their normal damage type Resistance).

Yes, that was the one, I didn't specify. I have an Electric Blast character planned, when I make him I'll check on the filename and list that also.

Read the long post I put up earlier in this thread about how much -Damage you can put out even against +3 AVs if you just spam the -Damage and -Resist powers. Hot Feet, Imps, and the -Regen mean that you don't have to spend that much time directly doing damage, so you're free to floor the AV's damage. Even a +3 AV won't do much when they're doing 25% of their normal damage.