Coyote

You sir, said almost the same thing as the OP, but did it casually, without malice, and constructively...Thank you! Agreed. Although I also agree with Hawkwood: MMs are quite powerful, at both low levels and high levels. They hit a bit of a slump around the late teens to late 20s, but that's only a slump compared to their other levels. Someone who is having problems feeling that they are weak should probably be asking for advice from experienced MM players, since there are too many players posting how powerful their MMs are for the AT to be really a problem. I've heard (and for some combos, seen) that Robots/FF, Robots/Traps, Necro/Dark, Demons/Thermal, Demons/Time, Demons/Rad, Thugs/Pain, Thugs/Traps, and some other combinations are all "I WIN NOW" buttons. Some of the comments saying this are not far off base. Heck, my Merc/Traps soloed AVs almost as well as my Ill/Rad, and Ill/Rad specializes in that, and Merc/Traps is hardly a MM power build. Basically, thank you for posting your opinion politely. However, I think that it should be possible for any player who likes pet classes to get good advice, make a solid build, and tear through the game as a MM.

It can't be done, as a macro...But thanks to Adeon Hawkwood for a bind assist the other day, it can be done as a bind.. /bind [key] "powexec_toggleon [second power]$$powexec_toggleon [first power]" If you do this for two powers, and bind all of your movement keys (WASD and Space Bar) with that bind, then you will effectively have those two powers run almost as auto whenever you move. And you could have a 3rd power as the basic auto-power.

My Storm/Sonic is one of my higher-rated DPS builds. Not blasting on Defenders is generally a bad idea. MMs will usually out-damage at least one of their Tiers, whichever is the more defense-oriented one. Maybe except for Robots, their personal attacks are really bad. Necro, Demons, and Beasts have good personal attacks, whether directly from damage or due to being able to add -Resist, -Def, or Pack Mentality with the attacks. If you had a power that gave a 9% -Resist debuff, it would be worth considering... and that's the secondary effect of the Demon attacks. MM attacks are not as important as their pets, and take up slots in both powers and enhancements. But they can also be used for IO set bonuses, and they do noticeable damage, and they have other nice bonuses in addition to the damage done. Don't prioritize taking/slotting them over the pets, but they're definitely worth taking.

Plan on taking one of the two epic power shields that give Smash/Lethal defense: Scorpion Shield from Mace, or Frozen Armor from Cold. Scorpion Shield is better at least until respeccing since it's available at 35. With Kinetic Combat in your melee attacks you should be able to end up with 45% S/L Defense. You will need to take Tough/Weave. I don't recall if you can take Cross Punch as your first power in Fighting, but you may want to take Boxing anyhow for another place to put Kinetic. You need Tough, not so much for the Resist (though it's a nice bonus) but to be able to slot two IOs for +3% Defense each. After you have Smash/Lethal set up, your next target will be to raise +Ranged Defense. In general, all single-target ranged attacks should get Thunderstrike, and use the Blaster IO sets in your AoE attacks. PBAoE attacks should get 3 Eradication as a start, and then you're free to mix other sets for better enhancement numbers. The good news is that at least you don't need to go in the Medicine pool for First Aid since you have Life Drain.

Superior Invisibility's -Thread is flagged in Mids/Pines as Suppressed when Attacked/Mission Click. So if you're going to do anything that will direct a mob's attention to you, like attacking anyone who attacks back, you will lose the -Threat. The -Threat from Group Invisibility remains. Steamy Mist is too good a defensive power to skip just as a defense. The Stealth component is just a bonus. That's why I took those two. Superior Invisibility is skippable, because you can get -Threat from Group, and +Def from the other two, and the End cost is really high. However, it can be a useful power to take just as a backup for stealthing missions or using a Confuse/Pets tactic, while mostly being useful as a LotG mule. For an Illusion/Storm, with so many major powers wanting a high Recharge, you really want to try to max out the 5 LotG +Recharge IOs.

you probably used lingering radiation too ? I mean, it's within my powerset and I use it on AVs as well, so yeah can you try without it, so we can have an idea of the effectiveness of -500% regen debuff ? (not sure how it works on Objects like pylon, only 1/6th of its value like GM ?) It's probably going to cut the DPS by roughly 127.8 as that's the regen rate of a pylon and they don't have any -Regen resistance AFAIK. Doesn't Regen have a floor of 25%? So you should only be able to debuff its Resistance by 75% (Incidentally, I think this is how much Lingering Radiation debuffs a level 50 even-level AV). So, if I'm right, LR is worth about 96 DPS (when it hits) to a Pylon, and about 74 to an AV.

I agree with this. The story works as it's written, but it would be more villanously elegant to betray Harris early and discard him as the crazy tool that he is, while capturing Lt Page for Arachnos. Letting him kill her to no gain is not nearly as much fun as betraying him, IMO.

Correction: NO ONE should have to die for ANYONE to deal with their shit. But yeah, equality amirite? OR! We can just accept that there is writing we do not like and do our best to make better products in the future. Rail on about how you can do it better, sure. You however open yourself up to just as much criticism so be prepared. I totally agree with you! Nobody should have to die for anyone to grow emotionally. So Page shouldn’t have to die for Harris to get his emotional redemption. MCM No, Page has to die so that I can get my money from Arachnos ;) But for the story arc, in stories, someone often has to suffer a great loss in order to grow. In a story, that's often the death of someone else, who they love. It makes sense that in order for Harris to grow and realize his madness, Page has to die. It could have been written another way, but I don't really see why it's wrong to make this a "lesson learned from death" story for Page, and a "use the crazy man as a tool for doing evil" story for your villainous character.

+1. Nice original post. I even think it's a pretty good idea. I had a similar idea for a melee-oriented pet class where you lead several henchmen, and do it with melee attacks and some personal defense, unlike an MM who stays behind the henchmen and uses them to protect himself. Doing it with a single henchman instead of multiple is just as viable, and would focus more on attacking than on being a pet class. For that reason, I prefer my version, just to have a melee-centric pet AT, but I can definitely see this version as being playable and interesting. And I do appreciate the amount of detail and effort put into the suggestion.

Electric was my choice, it offers both an End Discount power (perma-able) and Power Sink.

What? Tanks can totally keep the aggro cap without using Taunt. Punchvoke, properly applied, is strong enough unless you're herding or pulling. If you jump in and grab aggro with Punchvoke, you don't need Taunt. And... on the original topic... Dark Blast is not only fine, but great. It's DIFFERENT from other Blaster sets since it doesn't do as much damage in the first few seconds, but there are other sets for people who don't like DoTs. In damage output per second, it's fine in both AoE and in single-target, and its defense and utility are probably the best in the AT. If you dislike the best defensive set in the AT that also happens to be average in damage, then it's not that the set is a problem... it's that you're playing a set that you don't like. That happens, but it's not a reason to change the set.

Well written argument. I agree that the "girlfriend" should be changed to Lt Page. I think that Lt Page should be more scary at the end than a weak Lt. But it's not very important. I think that otherwise, it's a villain-side arc about a mentally unbalanced person bent on unreasonable revenge. I think there are nastier arcs out there, and I think that players playing villains can realize the difference between the evil of their characters and reality. I mean, we have characters spreading plague, destroying city blocks for fun, killing helpless bystanders and prisoners just because, and so on. This doesn't seem worse. Edit: before I get accused, this has nothing to do with misogyny. I would have the same exact opinion if the genders of the characters were reversed, and for the same exact reasons.

A "shatter" mechanism would be great, but may require a lot of coding and rewriting of descriptions. Adding -Res or -Regen to powers would help. Adding damage to AA would be another way to improve the set. Also, increasing its Confuse duration a bit. Shiver is not very useful, since the set wants to be in the middle of opponents for AA, and already has a ton of -Recharge. It needs to do something extra like -Res, -Regen, or damage.

It's working as written in the database, which is how computers usually work ;). I would want a Dev's comment to know what is working as intended, however. Regardless of balance issues, other patches do benefit from Accuracy slotting. And I would want to know if the Thugs and Assault Bot powers also are limited in not getting a benefit from Accuracy, and the same for Enflame and for Ignite. And with that, I would then want the Devs to say "it's a bug", or "it's intended". Players can have wildly varying opinions on what is intended, and they can't all be right.

I don't really think that Serum needs replacing with other powers or with options for other powers. It's a valid power concept for the set, and it could be a good power. If it had stats exactly like Painbringer, I don't think anyone would be complaining. So it's not really a problem because of the concept or what it does, it's a problem because of its statistics which are laughably bad. So, fix the stats on it, maybe change the kind of buffing that it does, maybe make it an AoE, and it could be a good power. I think that we sometimes get carried away with new ideas and say "wouldn't it be great if we had THIS...", but it's easier for the devs and for balance to change a power's statistics than what the power does.

The tone is much more about assuming and stating how the OP should feel...that small chested women are just men, and you should be proud to have a big chest because it makes you hot. There was nobody saying "I find large chests hot". It never came up... Since it is specific about women's gender, felt like a gender based insult... Okay, I can see what you're basing it on. I happen to disagre... I think that if the gender of the posters were reversed, the argument would have gone down in exactly the same way, and therefore I can't see it as being sexist. To me, it feels more like someone wanting options to make more realistic human bodies, and someone else saying that we're playing a super-hero game, so having just heroes who look like they belong in a comic book is fine. I don't see it as being sexist, more as being a difference between someone who wants more options, and someone else who wants to limit options so that they better fit his idea of how heroes look in the CoH universe. But since the particular argument is about a female body option, I can see how someone may consider the argument to be sexist.

I'm not sure if I agree with the suggested changes, but I do agree with the view that Serum is currently a problem. It's far worse than other comparable powers, and it's not in one of the top sets that would be fine even with an underperforming unique-style power. Whether it's made into an AoE temporary buff for all henchmen, or into a perma-able buff for a single one, it should become more useful.

No, it isn't sexism. It's tactism. Telling ANYONE to be calm and passive when arguing on the internet is just good advice. If you claim that it's sexism then you're probably trying to start an argument where one is not warranted. Or else you believe that anyone who has a disagreement with you while knowing that you're a woman is being sexist. Listen to the wisdom of an argument or the lack of it in the argument, and respond to that. Adding in side notions of "if you say this then you're sexist" just makes me think that you're trolling. Telling anyone to be passive is a bad idea...People should be assertive...not aggressive, not passive...They don't have to lay down and take it just because it's the internet. The OP shouldn't have to "go along" with gender based insults she received. It triggers me, and I'm a guy... And she certainly wasn't aggressive or mean in her response...just stating that insulting her was hurtful... So it coming across a bit, unfair True, but she used the word "passive" in her post. I just didn't want to change it in the reply. I agree, she shouldn't be PASSIVE, she should just be polite. And I don't see where there were gender-based insults. Someone said that a character could be made with large breasts who is hot, but that's all... I don't see how that implies that someone without large breasts cannot be hot. It feels like there is a rush to be offended in this thread, and it is taking the tone downhill. Fast. Is it really unusual to read something disagreeable and just disagree with it, without being offended?

Yes, because hinting "you mad bro?" is an AWESOME way to keep the conversation flowing. Seriously? I just said that people should be polite when arguing on the internet. How does this get characterized into a snarky comment like "you mad bro?". I keep wondering how so many of the posts in this thread seem to get mischaracterized in their responses.

The thing is, the Controller already can mez 30 mobs at once. And, sure, Radiant Infection can't hit 34 targets, but Freezing Rain or Tar Patch can -- your example is specific to a type of behavior that wouldn't change, just like Blazing Aura wouldn't. Your point about difficulty is taken; it is difficult to mez 30 mobs at a time. So wouldn't "difficult" be a more appropriate position for Tankers holding aggro against 30 targets, rather than "impossible"? No, I think that you're conflating two kinds of effects and taking only the side of the argument that is beneficial to Controllers, and ignoring the side that is beneficial to Tanks. Yes, Controllers can mez more than 17 mobs, by using multiple mezzes, but the mezzes generally don't have an uptime of 100%. Very few Controllers can perma-mez 2+ spawns without using Sleep powers. So while their max number of mezzed targets is higher than 17, their control uptime is not 100%. The Tank is limited to 17 at one time, but easily maintains 100% uptime on the aggro control. Same with Defenders with aura debuffs. It could be an interesting calculation to see, with 50 mobs in the area, what % of those mobs would be free to act under the influence of a Tanker (33/50, 100% of the time) versus some Controller builds (different numbers at different times, and also we may have to make huge assumptions, like how likely is a Controller to hit two completely different sets of mobs with two AoE controls)... this may give a better idea of the actual control ability of Tanks vs Controllers. However, the main point is to just be aware that such a calculation is warranted, rather than assuming that because a Controller can mez 34 mobs at one time... he can do it all the time. A Tank is limited to 17, but can do it all the time, and this needs to be considered when comparing their controlling abilities. Also, if we compare the controlling abilities... should we, or should we not, include the ability of a Tanker to keep more than 17 mobs from attacking the team, by including their attacks that also have control effects? It would be quite difficult, given that we wouldn't know which mobs just got knocked down by Footstomp while aggroed on the Tanker, versus while over the aggro cap and aggroed on someone else. The point is that the damage mitigation provided to a team by one character is very complicated, and I think that it's a design weakness to only look at one factor (aggro cap for an AT that uses aggro control as its main source of damage mitigation for the rest of the team), and then use that to argue that a major change should be made to the game. For the amount of effort that will be required to calculate the situation and then make a change, I think we'll get a better game if that developer effort is spent towards coming up with some new ability that will make Tanks useful in other ways than just making them more able to do what they already can do.

No, it isn't sexism. It's tactism. Telling ANYONE to be calm and passive when arguing on the internet is just good advice. If you claim that it's sexism then you're probably trying to start an argument where one is not warranted. Or else you believe that anyone who has a disagreement with you while knowing that you're a woman is being sexist. Listen to the wisdom of an argument or the lack of it in the argument, and respond to that. Adding in side notions of "if you say this then you're sexist" just makes me think that you're trolling.

I think that it's not reasonable to discuss about aggro or AoE limits being different for one AT compared to others. Tanks have a limitation on how many mobs they can aggro... Blasters can only hit a limited number of targets, Defenders can only debuff a limited number of targets, and so on. I don't see why a Tank should be able to aggro 34 targets... and then the Defender cannot debuff all 34 with Radiation Infection. Conceptually, the idea of setting Tanks up as a special exclusion feels wrong to me. It does seem likely that they could use a role refining, but expanding their aggro limit doesn't seem to be a useful way to refine their role on teams. Rather, it feels more like someone finding something they don't like in the game, and then wanting it changed so that their character doesn't feel limited... by a limitation. But that's the point of limitations. Tanks could probably use something interesting to make them more interesting to play. I'm not sure that there is much that could be added to the concept of "damage-absorbing sponge" to make it interesting, but just letting it absorb more aggro is not the kind of refining that they need. It's more of the same ability that is just failing to make them useful when stacked on teams. Then we'll have people complain that their Tanker is made superfluous by the other Tanker on the team, which is exactly the problem now. Frankly, I wonder if a SMALLER aggro cap, which would make having multiple Tankers become more useful, might not be a better solution to the problem of Tankers on a team. And as for the problem of a single Tanker wanting to be the hero and hold all the aggro... I don't think it's a problem any more than one Controller may have difficulty mezzing 30 mobs, or a Blaster blasting 30 mobs, and so on. As the team gets larger and multiple spawns are aggroed, I think it's reasonable that one character can no longer fulfill all of the tanking, mezzing, or debuffing needs for the team.

Just make a male character... You obviously rather hide all female qualities that make men and women vastly different from each other. I don't have a six-pack IRL but I make badass FIT looking super villains and play them regardless. You should be proud of a hot female FICTIONAL SUPER HUMAN in a sci-fi video game. It sort of sounds as if you're saying that women who don't have a huge chest can't be attractive, and are basically just men. Is that really what you mean to say? Because as a woman with a small chest, that's really a very hurtful thing to say, if that's really what you meant. He didn't say that. It's starting to get unpleasant in this thread with everyone assuming that every post that they don't agree with is implying the worst. Logic: He implied that a female character with large breasts is hot. Not that all hot female characters have large breasts. Crows are birds, crows are black --> all birds are black. It is a fallacy to assume that a one-way example (make a hot character with large breasts) implies anything in the other direction (large breasts are required for hotness). When people are eager to jump to conclusions in order to be offended, put on the mantle of victim, and use that to assume moral high ground and get a +5% positional bonus to their next argument, the thread goes downhill. Take a deep breath, slow down your responses, and read carefully what a person posts. Don't assume that they implied something if it's not clear in their post. Doing this will hopefully keep this thread civil.

I'm not sure. Warshades have a better Dwarf form with both Mire and the Drain. But they don't get much by dropping to Human form on occasion for buffs like Hasten. Peacebringers get Dull Pain and Photon Seekers. They also have the option of going perma-Lightform, as I recall, and that may be an interesting viable option. Also, I think that they can slot -Def sets, so they can set up Achilles Heel debuff on the AV. All in all, I would say that PBs have a better chance.

Thanks. This seemed right with what I recall of the IO's coding, but there have been so many changes that I wanted to be sure...