Maelwys

Back on Live I mained a Sonic Defender for yonks, so I'm rather comfortable with its toolset. (And henchmen are considerably better behaved than those old-school PUGs ever were....) Its most oft-overlooked big trick these days is Liquefy. It used to be extremely long recharge; but HC quietly tweaked it some years back and you can now get it to a ~45s or less recharge time pretty easily. it lasts for 30s, so that's a decent uptime. Aside from a 25ft-radius "Knockdown" patch; it applies an autohit -21.4% base debuff to both Defense and ToHit (e.g. about -34% ToHit with enhancements) and has a capped (90%) activation rate for damage procs in the first "tick". Naturally it also boasts hefty +DamageResistance buffs (~42% with slotting - throw in the +35% from MM Aura IOs and that's only 13% shy of the hardcap!) and -DamageResistance debuffs (-22.5% AoE from Disruption Field; plus another -22.5% non-stacking Single target from Sonic Siphon) and it has a 90s "become immune to CC effects" button in Clarity (which to be fair can be annoying to keep up on 6 henchmen if you're not used to oldschool single-target bubbling). The ally-anchored AoE -res debuff ("Disruption Field") very much benefits from you being familiar with GOTO commands on ranged henchmen; but it's cruise-control on melee henchmen. Sonic Cage is useless. Sonic Repulsion is useless. Certain Primaries will benefit from taking Aid Other. It's not a top-tier set; but it's passable. IMO if you've got lots of +Rech and are leveraging Liquefy properly then it's better than Thermal and DEPENDING ON YOUR PRIMARY can be better than Elec Affinity. No -Regen debuffs and poor performance versus incoming Psi-typed damage (outside of Liquefy!) is the real headache IMO.

(And as a bonus:)

Post it in the Suggestions Subforum --> https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/45-suggestions-amp-feedback/ Although a fair few have beaten you to it.

TBH the only MM Secondary I consider utterly irredeemable is Poison. And if MMs got Venomous Gas instead of Noxious Gas then even that might become workable. Some combos are definitely weaker than others; but I'd play most of them and at worst I'd consider them "poor" rather than "utterly useless". Beast/ anything is pretty meh and you couldn't pay me to play a Beast/Poison. Sonic Resonance is a bit iffy on anything other than Bots (because you don't need +Def from your secondary when Protector Bots + Radial Clarion exists) or Thugs (as Enforcer Maneuvers help and the Bruiser is tailor made for the ally-anchored -res debuff)... but I'm pretty sure I could make a Ninja/Sonic work with a bit of effort (although it'd likely need to lean heavily into Incarnates...). Traps is great with anything; except perhaps Bots (it's great with SOs; but a decent IO'ed build will typically end up with a lot of superfluous +Def and -Regen). Mercs/Traps and Ninja/Traps are both perfectly fine IMO. I've heard people complain that Kinetics is bad on Ranged Primaries; which just plain isn't true. My Bots/Kin MM is my most effective Kinetics toon by a country mile. As for the others... Marine is top tier on everything and Time is close behind. Electrical, Dark, Pain and Nature are all very solid. Cold and Thermal are fine too (if rather reliant on Global +Recharge to really shine). FF (Powerboosted with Procbombed Forcebomb) is fine. That leaves Radiation Emission, Storm Summoning, Trick Arrow and Empathy. The first three of which probably work best with specific primaries like Bots, Necro and Demons... but IMO they're still perfectly playable on the rest with a bit of care (and full IOed builds with specific Epic/Incarnate power selections)... Empathy though? Empathy is awful... but it's awful on every AT; and at least on Masterminds when you're soloing you can stack enough +recharge to keep a Fortitude up on most of your henchmen simultaneously. Meh. Necro/Cold, incidentally; wasn't half bad whenever I tried it. The Bubbles plus the Aura IOs plus Maneuvers is about ~32% defense to all. Arctic Fog is another ~6%; for ~38% Total. I found I didn't even need to run Barrier since the pets churn out rather a lot of -ToHit (and between a Panacea proc in Dark Empowerment plus their own Siphons/Lifedrains they reliably self-heal...). Sure; whilst levelling up it got rough a few times, but if I kept a few team +Def insps on hand it was perfectly fine; and at endgame it was a powerhouse.

Build up with Gaussian Proc window, surely? Which (after accounting for Build Up's ATBE) is just under 5.458s. Subtracting 1.188s (from the first ET) leaves 4.27s. Therefore as long as your ET has a ~4s recharge you can fit two of them within the Gaussian buff window, regardless of whether the second ET is Fast or Slow. Fast AS is 1.188s Power crash is 1.98s Bonesmasher is 1.452s Energy Punch is 1.056s Fast Snipes are 1.584s So after a Build Up you could technically just about fit in Fast ET > Fast AS > Fast Snipe > Bonesmasher (5.412s) before queueing up another ET and still have them all (including the second ET) be Gaussian buffed. But that leaves only 0.046s wiggle room in the buff window; and the less wiggle room the less margin for error you'll have regarding lag etc. I've encountered issues getting chains with 0.064s of wiggle room to consistently work (see here). A more reliable spike chain would be substituting Bonesmasher for Energy Punch (5.016s) or a low-Arcanatime Epic Blast like MuBolts/BallLightning/DarkBlast/IceBolt. If your ET comes back up fast enough to let you skip that last attack (2.772s recharge time or less), fantastic... although then that second ET has to be Fast or you'll miss out on your next attack getting the effect of the Gaussian buff. ⚖️

That can work, assuming TF is cycling at just over the 10s mark rather than just under it (e.g. if it cycles every 9.9s then you'll regularly encounter streaks where the proc is only half as effective as it could be). But don't immediately follow TF with ET (use the snipe instead!) otherwise the Hidden Crits will be wasted. You could also keep the proc itself in AS and just drop some of the other superfluous set IOs. The main thing is to look carefully at your attack chain timings so that the Chance-for-Hidden ATO's 10 lockout period isn't having a needlessly harsh impact on you. This can be especially tricky on Energy Melee as your chain timings will differ depending on whether or not TF Crits (when ET becomes fast twice in a row and you lose nearly 2s from your chain's cycle time!)

(I) The Chance for Hidden proc has a ten second lockout period. This means that to get the full benefit of it, whatever attack you stick it into should be cycling at just over once every ten seconds. (ii) AS is typically one of your best attacks, so using it as a 6 piece set bonus mule is incredibly inefficient. Work out what the bare minimum recharge is for your chosen attack chain, then get that plus ED capped damage aspect and fill the remaining slots with damage procs.

Their PC doesn't have the recharge for it (6.43s it looks like); and their BS isn't procced at all so I make using it to push for 3x stacks to be a net loss in average DPS. (Team Crits will factor too I guess, and at least with the "chance for hide" in AS their TF will be getting a Crit a smidge more often; which will allow for a few more Fast ETs... but the lack of a Snipe and all that recharge aspect in Build up gives me the Jeebies) 😛

And I'd advise against doing this: or this: That said, at present since your Total Focus is currently recharging in 8.02s and you don't have any Snipes; it looks like your attack chain is going to be something like: TF > ET (Fast) > AS > PC > ET (Slow) > AS ...which is workable; if not optimal. However if TF crits then the second ET will be fast and you'll need to fill in with Fireball before/after it otherwise the second AS and next TF won't be recharged in time.

The "inertial drift" that accompanies Hoverless flight can also be partially mitigated by Toggling on Combat Jumping or Athletic Run. Personally on the (few) characters I have which take the Fly pool over the Sorcery pool, the only real draw is the extra one-slot wonders for LotGs. Mystic Flight's Translocation teleport ability is excellent at reducing main map travel speed, enabling me to bypass geometry to appear at a target's feet, and getting me the hell out of dodge quickly.

That's kinda what /Devices is for, TBH... although Trick Arrow works fantastically as an always-ranged secondary set too. Beam Rifle or Archery are probably the best standalone sniper sets (due to the ranged Nuke) than AR. Elec is decent too but lacks a weapon (may break immersion). I've got both a Ranged-Defence Softcapped Archery/TA Blaster and a BeamRifle/Ninjitsu Sentinel that use this sort of playstyle.

Also "/showfps 1" will give an indication of how well the graphics element of things is doing. Whilst it's unlikely to be your CPU or video card that's the issue, it's always a good idea to rule it out (healthy is anything from about 30 FPS up to whatever your monitor's VSync rate is - typically 60 on non bleeding edge kit)

Recipe and Salvage drops certainly add up. Purple Recipe drops are definitely "big ticket items"; and I'll usually average a little over 1 of those per hour (my best is six in one run). However most will want to maximize inf/hr from BOTH enemy defeats and gain of high-profit drops. If it was purely (or even one-sidedly) about the drops, then we'd all be running at +1x8 instead of +4x8. Ultimately the aim is to defeat mapfuls of enemies as quickly as possible; which translates to "maximum AoE damage output whilst staying upright". Everything else is just efficiency tweaks... 😉

issue 28 Page 1 was the previous major patch (landed in July 2024) Issue 28 Page 2 is what we're on currently (landed in June 2025) The OP was last updated in June 2024, so it predates both those patches. Since then there have been plenty of changes, most notably to how Tankers deal AoE damage (which lowered both raw damage vs large numbers of foes and proc rate)

10m plus a Panacea proc (typically attuned so as they get exposed to the idea of attuned Set IOs) is fair IMO. That's enough that they'll not have to worry about SOs until they're high enough level to have built up a merit stash. If you throw another zero on, you tend to either get more "that's far too much" protests and/or they'll pester you again once they've blown it all on winter packs and Pocket D lapdances. Gifting them more IOs instead (especially globals/Procs like LotGs and Miracles) feels like it has a higher chance of producing a more engaged newbie, even if it takes a bit more time.

They do. However they have the same recipe drop rate as bosses but die slower. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Recipe#Pool_A_(Enemy_Defeat)

If it's not in the RosettaStone post or this followup you might have to go PIGG diving or try the generic city mod tool. CoDv2 has the PFX and FX files listed as: "source_file": "MENU/POWERS/ANIMFX/PLAYERPOWERS/BLASTER_SUPPORT_EARTH_MANIPULATION_BERYL_CRYSTALS.PFX", "activation_fx": "CUSTOMIZEABLEPOWERS/STONEFX/MINERALARMOR.FX", MINERALARMOR.FX seems to direct to the following OGGS: SOUND\OGG\POWERS\STONE4 SOUND\OGG\POWERS\MINERAL_LOOP SOUND\OGG\POWERS\GLOW6_LOOP

This one?

Planning a build is almost always an exercise in compromising (A, B, or C... pick any two!). There's no one-size fits-all approach. But there are some rules of thumb. Like "Aim for capped (95%) Accuracy versus whatever you're fighting". And "ED (Enhancement Diversification) cap your damage". And "Don't post in any thread about knockback". Technically CoDv2 ( https://cod.uberguy.net./ ) has virtually all of the raw data; but it can be hard to understand even if you're familiar with the powers and effects concerned. So if you want to really get into the ins-and-outs of particular powers and proc interactions then it's probably best to pick a particular subject and ask. There's a lot of tribal knowledge and many of us old hands have convoluted knowledge about various subjects. I'm going to drop some links to previous posts here:

Recharge is the most important base empowerment buff for "Passive" (AFK) farmers as it helps get your one big PBAoE attack up a bit sooner. You don't strictly speaking need it though (and personally I tend to not bother if I'm just chilling with a movie) You can also get the Offensive booster (and others) from the START vendors; but it's rather pricey at Lv50 so IMO isn't worth it if you're farming for inf. No. From one single Active (behind the wheel) farming toon; running solo at +4x8 with Bosses enabled. Whenever I'm active farming, bringing any teammates to sit/buff is a drain on my inf-per-hour, frankly... because I'm already at the damage cap (from insp-spamming) and cycling AoE attacks constantly. So about the only thing that'd be beneficial to me is AoE -res debuffs; and lots of those cause scatter (even if it's just by causing any mobs that I might have around me which are over the aggro cap to start pummeling the debuffer!). To be fair... I've tried bringing a Sonic and Dark Miasma Defender along and they do speed things up... but not so much that they'd offset using that account to just run an AFK farmer in a separate map instead. And Cold Dom/Stormies cause far too much bedlam IME. I have a few different maps I cycle through: the Asteroid maps by far require the least brainpower; but you end up wasting a little more time in loading screens. The "secret ingredient" really boils down to always keeping at least 10 foes around you (the more bosses the better dropwise) and keeping yourself at the damage cap and having an unbroken chain of of powerful AoE attacks (Force Feedback procs help here). Additional damage output buffs like damage procs, -res procs (especially Achilles Heel and Fury of the Gladiator) and selecting the correct Incarnate abilities will all contribute to your killspeed. Survivability is much less of a concern for Active Farmers than for Passive Farmers, but the more survivable you are the less time you'll need to spend clicking on heals or active survivability buffs (or using purple/green/etc insps instead of combining them into reds). My Passive farming toons defeat foes roughly half as fast as my Active farming toons... hence ~80m/hr per Passive farmer; and ~160m/hr per Active farmer. However those figures are averaged over multiple runs, and include selling off the pricier salvage (rares, prismatics) and recipes (rares, purples etc) on the AH. Often I'll craft some recipes into enhancements to make them worthwhile listing... but "selling and crafting stuff" factors into playtime and often it can be more cost effective to just NPC the lower-cost junk than juggle additional sell orders on the AH or craft stuff that's worth sub-500k inf. Playing Enhancement Converter Roulette can definitely be worth it though. And the real thing to remember is to have fun. Active Farming can be incredibly intense... and if you're trying to optimise inf/hr by running 1x Active and 2x Passive farmers per shard it's like doing air traffic control. But running three separate Passive farmers on different maps is almost as good, and you can do that whilst watching Netflix.

Also worth remembering Archvillain Debuff Resistance https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Archvillain_Resistance

The raw stat boost benefit from running Maneuvers, Assault and Tactics is tiny on (non VEAT) melee ATs. You can gain an additional location for a LotG +7.5% Global Rech in Maneuvers, but you don't need the power toggled on to benefit from it. FWIW on most of my toons I'll aim for a recovery surplus of at least 2 endurance per second. Occasionally I'll drop below that if the toon is running Ageless and/or has an inherent endurance restoration power.

There shouldn't be any attacks that debuff defense on a farming map that has "Updated for Page 5" in the name/description. Meteor maps are best for passive farming, but lots of maps work for active - "Boomtown Tunnel", outdoor Skyscraper/Carnie/Dreck, whatever. Don't do a cave map though, they're horrible. Really you just need lots of big spawns and a sufficiently open space to pull 2-3 of them together. "Most efficient" for inf/hour is usually max difficulty; unless you are weak at both survivability and AoE damage output... however the main thing is to enable Bosses when solo and set your team size to 8. Mob level just affects your raw influence gain from killing them; not the likelihood of getting salvage/recipe drops from them. As a ballpark, whenever I'm going flat out I tend to average about 80m/hr (including drops) per passive farmer and about 160m/hr (including drops) per active farmer. (although to be fair; I hardly ever go flat out these days!) 😛

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill 😉 ⚔️ (also https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/mad-jack-churchill-a-rare-breed-of-warrior/ - which details his antics both before and after he became a Commando) Just the Bagpipes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin Bagpipes were officially considered to be weapons of war until 1996 (and kinda sorta still are, at least during wartime!)