Maelwys

Sentinel - Dark Blast - Energy Aura.mbd Chain/DPS Math: And FWIW here's my last attempt at getting Ice Blast to work: zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Elec Mastery).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Leviathan M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Psionic M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Elec Mastery).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Leviathan M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Psionic M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Energy Aura (+Procs).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Energy Aura (+Rech).mbd Chain/DPS Math for the /EnergyAura variant:

I'm not a huge fan of Sentinels; however the one that I still play occasionally is Dark Blast. As a set it's a little bit lacking in AoE damage but has nice ST (especially when procced out) and doesn't need to close to melee range for anything except the Nuke. It's also got very good synergy with the likes of SR, which is better than usual on a Sentinel due to Master Brawler. (Mine's a Dark/Energy Aura; but I did dabble with Dark/SR!)

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=blaster_ranged.ice_blast.freeze_ray&at=blaster https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.ice_blast.chilling_ray&at=sentinel That's why. On Sentinels they took most of the Ranged Blast sets; then removed the Snipes + "normalised" the Nuke recharge + reduced the maximum target caps of most AoEs. However they also adjusted most of the single Target mez effects (e.g. holds) to ensure they dealt appreciable damage and had similar CC durations. For most sets this has been a buff - Tesla Cage from Elec Blast actually deals pretty good damage on a Sentinel. However Freeze Ray from Ice Blast already dealt decent damage; and they absolutely gutted it. They reduced its damage, nearly doubled its activation time and made it a sleep instead of a hold. Ice Blast is still reasonable on Sentinels, but unfortunately it's not a top-tier set; even when fully procced out. Elec Blast on the other hand is surprisingly good on Sentinels.

It's not. /Marine MMs and -res-stacked Crabberminds take that crown these days; with the former being far easier to focus-fire on a particular enemy. If you discount any builds that leverage most/all temp powers ("Division 2+" or "Division 4+" in the above linked thread) as well as any that leverage multiple pets (since their performance can vary wildly depending on the currently-active level differences between each pet and your target!) then Scrappers are still up there; just behind Stalkers and roughly on par with Dominators. With animation-cancelling-exploit Kheldians plus a few Blaster, Controller, Corruptor and Sentinel builds hot on their heels.

Life Drain Their power list is a bit short - they've Ghastly Blast (4s rech, 310ft blast), Life Drain (15s rech, 60ft blast) and Necroplasmic Grasp (15s rech, melee hold). Note that the first two powers accept -ToHit debuff enhancement; so if you're looking to add damage output I'd stick a Cloud Senses proc in it first.

Make Fortitude an AoE and add +Absorb to the Heals. Done.

My main issue with /Sonic used to be that /Thermal exists. Now it's that /Marine exists. Sonic ends up granting ~41% res to S/L/F/C/E/N/T (providing your pets stay within Sonic Dispersion range) plus -22.5% AoE res debuffage in Disruption field and another -22.5% Single Target res debuff in Sonic Siphon. It also has Liquefy (AoE -ToHit debuff patch that can't be perma'd) Thermal gives ~46.7% res to F, ~23.5% res to S/L/E/N and ~11.7% to C (from both bubbles) plus -22.5% AoE res debuffage from Melt Armor. But it also has PBAoE and targeted healing; ST +30% Damage and ToHit from Forge (which can typically be kept up on 4-6 allies simultaneously) and a -500% ST Regeneration debuff in Heat Exhaustion. Marine gives ~14.7% res to L/C/E/N/T/P and ~29.4% to F/S (from Toroidal Bubble) and +8.7% Defense to everything (from Barrier Reef) plus -11.25% AoE res debuffage (and substantial AoE damage) in Whitecap. As well as another -22.5% Single Target res (and MaxHP) debuff in Brine. But it also has Cone AoE healing, AoE +Damage from Tide Pool, Damage Procs from Shifting Tides... plus capped MaxHP and substantial AoE +Recovery and +Regeneration and +Range from Power of the Depths. At first glance the damage mitigation which the above sets can grant mastermind henchmen might look reasonably balanced between Sonic and Thermal (although /Marine is in a league of its own!) because the first has more +res; and the second has less +res but regular healing... once you factor in the +35% res from the Aura IOs; a /Sonic will be giving their pets ~76% to the main resistances; a /Thermal ~58.5% (~81.7% vs F!); and a /Marine ~47.9% (~64.4% vs F/S!). Plus another 5% (minimum!) from Barrier Destiny. However most henchmen also have inherent resistances that apply on top of this. Mercs for example will get ~41% to S/L (with ED-capped Equip but before Serum); Necro gets a whopping ~42.3% to S/C/N/P/T (again with an ED-capped Equip) and even Bots gets +39.1% to L/C/P. Demons (with their inherent resistances plus 'Ember Shield') can get completely silly. So much of the +res from Sonic (and even some from Thermal) can become "wasted" as your henchmen end up well beyond the 90% hardcap. Liquefy getting a faster recharge cycle has taken some of the edge off Sonic's poor performance... but the set still needs some love. There is a lot of micromanaging required for a /Sonic MM to get similar levels of performance to a "cruise control mode" /Thermal; particularly for Primaries with "Prefer Ranged" Pets. Nothing comes anywhere close to /Marine though. Not even a powerboosted+clarion'ed /Time... 🤦‍♂️ I do however agree that out of the various available MM /Sonic combos, either Necro/Sonic or Bots/Sonic are probably going to be the best performing (the -ToHit and +Def will largely cancel out until you start fighting high level/ranked targets... but Necro will end up more offensive with better ST damage output and require much less micromanagement to leverage Disruption Field; whereas Bots will end up more defensive with a bit more AoE damage plus on-demand -Regen for soloing AVs)

FWIW; if you're having trouble with two commands not being able to kick in simultaneously on a single button press; you can try something like: [c:\Temp\cohbind1.txt] KEY "+down$$-down$$command1$$bind_load_file_silent c:\Temp\cohbind2.txt" [c:\Temp\cohbind2.txt] KEY "+down$$-down$$command2$$bind_load_file_silent c:\Temp\cohbind1.txt" Holding down KEY will activate the first command and load the second bindfile... and releasing KEY will activate the second command and load the first bindfile. Pressing KEY (holding then releasing) should do both providing the first command doesn't take too long to process/activate (in which case it'll usually just queue it up)

Panacea/Miracle/Numina/ImperviousSkin are all Procs rather than globals, which is a good start. The "others" flag in Panacea means that it can kick in on other targets. So if you slot it in a regular power that affects someone else like "Aid Other" it'll get a chance to activate its effects on the person you're healing as well as on you. This becomes particularly powerful in some pseudopet AoE powers like Triage Beacon and Barrier Reef. Putting procs in a summon pet power is a little more complicated. Each of the pets conjured into existence by that summon power will have various subpowers (their attacks, passives, toggles etc) and each of those subpowers will automatically attempt to inherit whatever enhancements you have slotted in the 'parent' summon power; and the same goes for any extra-ability-granting pet upgrade powers. Each pet subpower can accept different types of enhancements; so you'll need to carefully check through your summoned pet's list of available subpowers in CoDv2 to see exactly what each one can inherit. This is how people work out what damage procs are good in what pets (e.g. a pet might have multiple subpowers that inflict -defence but only one that inflicts hold - in which case they'll get far more milage out of a TouchOfLadyGrey damage proc than a GhostWidowsEmbrace damage proc!) It might help to imagine your summoned pet making multiple copies of any enhancements you give them (including procs) and then trying to see if they can "slot" these copied enhancements into each of their own subpowers. If any of the pet's subpowers ends up successfully inheriting a Proc then any "self only" effects of that proc can kick in on the pet (because effectively that pet is activating a power that belongs to them and which contains a proc!) As an example... if you put a Panacea Proc into Mercs Summon Soldier then whenever your summoned Medic activates their Med Kit subpower (which inherits Healing Enhancements) that subpower will be treated as if it contains a Panacea Proc; and the Panacea Proc's effects will get a chance to activate on both the Medic themselves as well as whatever target they're healing. Likewise slotting any of the Healing Procs such as Panacea or Numina into the Necromancy 2nd upgrade Dark Empowerment will make those Procs inheritable for all the extra new pet abilities that are granted by that upgrade. One of these abilities is a Passive subpower (which is confusingly also named "Dark Empowerment"!) that buffs each pet's Maximum HP... and since this passive subpower inherits Healing Enhancements, it will successfully inherit any Healing Procs. So every pet technically ends up with a passive 'auto' ability that contains an inherited copy of those Healing Proc(s), and which will happily continually reapply the effects of each of those Procs on that pet every few seconds. The upshot is any healing procs you slot in the Dark Empowerment upgrade power will continually kick in on all your pets, separately. (However IMO the only one really worth slotting in it is Panacea, because the Base Regeneration and Recovery rates for henchmen are tiny!) Also I already pointed to this at the bottom of my post in the above linked thread; but because a picture is worth 1000 words...

The short answer is "it depends". To gain the benefit of a Special IO; the pet summon ability needs to accept slotting it and the pet themselves needs to possess subpowers that also accept slotting that flavour of enhancement. And the Special IO itself needs to be coded as a proc (rather than as a set bonus) and have effects that are capable of affecting non-players (most of them are flagged as affecting "self" with no restrictions on the entity type, and so will work ok if they're slotted in the pet). More reading here:

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Clear_petnames_(Slash_Command)

Lots of us older hands use rotating bind files; and the top method (file1 pointing to file2 pointing to file3 pointing back to file1) should still work fine as long as the syntax is ok. Can you post a few examples to aid troubleshooting? Many of my characters use a ridiculous amount of bindloadfilesilent commands and there is a fair bit that can go wrong. The most annoying recently was a "modifier key" which worked but due to occasionally being released too quickly often appended a new keybind to my character rather than overwriting the existing one (eventually resulting in a "too many binds" error) which was resolved performing a full bind clear/reload each time the modifier key is released!

"Dr. Phosphor" (With Water Blast and the Medicine and Concealment pools; obviously)

The Nefarious Necroposting Dogooder "It's Alive!"

Whatever else you do; make sure to take "Thunder Strike" from the Mu Mastery pool and procbomb it. The other thing I'd suggest is to look at MARINE AFFINITY rather than Nature. Marine is by far the best MM secondary these days; and one of its more useful powers is Whitecap (which teleports you into Melee range for a big wallop, and produces excellent damage when Procbombed!) Necro is a popular primary and its henchmen are pretty self sufficient as long as you take the Pet +Def/+Res Aura IOs and stick a Panacea Proc in their second upgrade power (Dark Empowerment). There are plenty of example builds on the Forums and Discord.

Swapping to Intuition Radial would give you +33% Hold, +33% SlowMovement and +20% Range in exchange for -33% ImmobiliseDuration, -33% EnduranceModification and -33% RunningSpeed. PermaDoms generally don't need as much Recovery and losing some RunningSpeed isn't very gamebreaking; so it'll come down to if you value longer immobilises over longer holds + blasting things from greater distances...? (the +SlowMovement is likely irrelevant!)

If only the game had some method of representing a hero who is was unpowered Naturally, but uses a wide variety of Inventions to gain an edge against more powerful foes and situations... And whilst we're wishing on a star... perhaps they could implement some way to represent how that character could intentionally choose to fight stronger opponents to gain Experience, seek out different established masters to Train themselves up, build up a Contacts list, gain Influence and develop a reputation and maybe even ultimately join a Group of Superfriends who all have different powers/abilities to fight crimes that none of them could handle alone (or just hang out in their superbase having a games night and pizza)...? Nah, it'll never happen.

IIRC all of those sort of effects overwrite each other - so later activations effectively just extend the duration. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=boosts.attuned_achilles_heel_c.attuned_achilles_heel_c

Yes; whenever you activate the power both those procs will get a separate chance to kick in and they can both do so simultaneously. The limiting factor is on the enemy - the effects of these procs will all stack with each other but not with multiple copies of themselves (even from different players). So you can stack an Achilles' Heel, a Fury of the Gladiator, and an Annihilation proc together on the same enemy... but not two copies of the Achilles' Heel proc.

If we're getting into the nitty-gritty of constant taunt coverage... it might be worth pointing out that whenever you cast PA the decoys don't all appear simultaneously. Instead they're staggered. The first Phantom appears right away (1.067s into the animation of PA) then the second appears after another 1s has elapsed; and the final one appears after yet another 1s has elapsed. And EACH of them has a SEPERATE duration of 60s... so technically to have at least one Phantom out constantly you only need 58.7s recharge on the PA power. However it takes a beat for NPC mobs to recognise that new Phantoms have appeared and start being capable of attacking them. The Phantom Army Summon's "+Threatlevel" multiplier kicks in after 0.5s ; but for them to actually properly lock down aggro by "Taunting" something they need to hit it first - and their fastest attacks also have an AnimationTimeBeforeEffect of a little over 0.5s... so best-case that means aiming for ~58.1s rather than 56.7s. But if you can't survive a single hit from whatever you're fighting then it's probably best to err on the safe side and get more recharge from an Alpha slot or base Empowerment buff or whatever. Never mind that being hit with a stray AoE recharge debuff can ruin your day. The first toon I had with "Perma PA" back on live was an Illusion/Empath Controller; and checking their old circa-i19 build their PA had a recharge time of 56.62s (using a Spiritual Alpha slot plus 190% global recharge and drastically overslotting PA for recharge aspect enhancement). I remember using them to "tank" on an awful lot of AV fights... and they were one of the safest support toons I ever played; but there were definitely occasions where I caught a stray hit or two.

Alpha = Musculature Core for Max Dmg; Intuition Radial if you have noteworthy Ranged Attacks and/or ToHit Debuffs. and/or Slow Movement effects. Judgement = 100% Void Radial. The -Damage debuff effect is excellent on-demand mitigation and the additional spike damage from going Core is negligible. Interface = Degenerative Core for fighting AVs/GMs, Reactive Radial for everything else. Typically Radial > Core if you're teaming and folk have multiple copies. Lore = Either Carnies/Seers Radial (buffs your damage + some healing), Banished Pantheon Radial (Mix of Raw Damage + AoE Buffs) or Talons Radial (team buffs). Destiny = Ageless Radial; for Defense Debuff Resistance and Endurance Recovery. But pick up Barrier Core too for teaming. Hybrid = Assault for Scrappers; and typically Core if you're soloing because Crits. But Teammate buffs and Build Up + Gaussian Proc can make Radial better.

There is literally a pinned thread for this very purpose; with multiple Triform Warshade builds (including mine). There are even a few images of builds there rather than Mids files... but yes, you'll want to download and use Mids Reborn to display and tweak things once you start buying Invention Origin Enhancements (typically this starts at level 7+ for the more important procs/globals) unless you have an exorbitant amount of free time on your hands. Also don't burn respecs on the live server. Copy your toon to the test server and then autolevel it and kit it out with whatever enhancements you want. Building umpteen copies of a min-maxxed toon to compare/contrast things is quick + free on Brainstorm. That's a big part of what it's for.

This. They're currently going for 500k inf (or 1.5m for "buy-it-now" prices). That's blink-and-you'll-miss-it territory for most of us. If you need a respec, just ask in chat in-game or link your server + global here and your inbox will be bombarded with them.

*.mxd was an old format used in earlier versions of Mids. Newer copies of Mids Reborn should be able to import those builds OK; but it won't always get everything 100% right (some powers may have since had their mechanics or prerequisites changed by a patch or even been replaced entirely... and stuff like Accolades and Incarnates will likely need reselected!). So some poking may be required! 🙂