Maelwys

Using a target bind is your best bet. For the MM themselves, they can use "petselect_name PETNAME"... however since these are not your own pets you're probably stuck using "target_custom_next", which doesn't respect the customised names of henchmen- so regardless of what your son has called his pets, you'll need to use their default names in your targetting binds, and then keep tapping the key to cycle through each one that matches until you get to whichever henchman you actually want to buff/heal. e.g. /target_custom_next friend "battle drone" /target_custom_next friend "protector bot" /target_custom_next friend "assault bot"

Because it hasn't yet been expressly pointed out: AS YOU HIT VETERAN LEVEL 3 AND HIGHER, YOU WILL GAIN EMPYREAN MERITS. DO NOT WASTE THESE BY CONVERTING THEM INTO ANYTHING OTHER THAN "RARE" OR "VERY RARE" INCARNATE COMPONENTS UNTIL YOU HIT TIER 4 ON ALL YOUR INCARNATE SLOT ABILITIES. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Veteran_Levels#Empyrean_Merits https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Incarnate_System#Ability_List If you're a newcomer to the whole Incarnate system, then the short version is that Alpha slots and Interface slots are "passive" buffs which are always-on. Judgement is a "click" attack that is basically like a Blaster's Nuke. The Lore slot is a "click" summon ability which has a decent uptime. The Destiny slot is a "click" buff which can effectively become permanent at highest tiers (the effectiveness drops off over time; but a little bit of the buff lasts until all 120 seconds of its recharge time are up). The Hybrid slot is a "toggle" that has a maximum uptime of 120 seconds before it automatically detoggles and then takes another 120 seconds to recharge. The Alpha slot is the one you want to get to Tier #3 as soon as possible, as whenever you equip a T3 or T4 Alpha ability you become "level 51" in all content. Alpha slot is also the only slot that you can build with either Incarnate Shards or Incarnate Threads (there are two seperate recipes listed for each Alpha Slot ability!) The usual recommendation is to go T3 Alpha --> T3 Interface --> T3 Destiny/Lore (these give you a +1 level buff during "Incarnate Content") -> T3 Others; then T4 whatever you want. You can transfer Empyrean Merits to other characters on your account; and you can earn extra by running the missions in Dark Astoria, perhaps most notably Heather Townshend's arc - see https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Heather_Townshend (note that completion of story arcs gives one merit and a choice between another merit and salvage. Generally it's most efficient to go with the salvage)

Kudos where Kudos is due Neiska - it was your MM Farming thread that I linked in my "mobile blender" comment above too!! 🙂 Farming definitely goes much faster whenever you're able to aggro more mobs simultaneously. There are some AE maps which funnel mobs to you (like the "AFK" fire farm maps that use multiple patrols) but all MMs need to do is run around the map aggroing at least one enemy from each group; and the individual henchmen aggro caps do the rest! MM farming can be a bit more challenging though. There's obviously a lot more fine tuning required on MMs than on a Scrapper/Brute/Tank (since balancing damage output and survivability of your pets can get tricky without going down the triple-boxing route) and as you've noted in your threads the best AoE pets - Robots - can take a while to focus-fire down tougher single targets which decide to flee far away from the Burn Patches; so "too many runners" can become a concern. Thus far I've limited myself to 2-boxing; and my best performing MM duoing setups have been with a Bot/Kin plus either a /Cold or a /Time. However I've found that even with Bonfire and either Sleet or Distortion Field, I still need to pay attention to stuff fleeing out of the Burn Patches. That's why I've actually come to prefer using the Bot/Kin plus a Scrapper/Brute/Tank/etc follower with a Taunt Aura or two and a PBAoE ability on Autofire - it's less flashy and requires the use of staggered Barrier Incarnates to let the pets survive 4+ simultaneous groups of mobs, but there's much less actual concentration required on my part during farming sessions!

True that. So on a Brute during regular gameplay, Burn's initial non-pseudopet portion's damage remains in line with what you'd expect via regular Brute damage balancing (e.g. roughly 66.67% Scrapper base damage, but much easier to self-buff damage% via Fury) but its pseudopet portion's damage gets rather grossly inflated (due mostly to Fury). Which means that it's very difficult for a /FA Scrapper to beat a /FA Brute's damage output, at least solo. I suspect that the ease of self-buffing +damage% bit is why Brutes are king of solo farming. Generally once you start bringing along a pocket /Kin, Scrappers pull ahead (since Brutes only deal 93.33% of a Scrapper's damage when both are capped, and Scrappers cap with a single Fulcrum Shift) and Tankers (with their larger AoE radiuses) will start to give them a run for their money in terms of AoE lawnmowering. There's also the notion that with enough followers; you become able to aggro the entire map simultaneously but there comes a point where you're less "fighting" and more "trying to pull/push/throw everything as quickly as possible into the blades of a roaming mobile blender"...

AoE Powersets that rely on Pseudopets which differ according to the AT's damage scale are more damaging on a Scrapper than on a Brute. Brute damage output (including the base scales on many pseudopets) is largely balanced around having the larger damage cap of 700%, but psuedopets only have a cap of 400%. This means that most Brute psuedopets stop comparing with their equivalent Scrapper counterparts once you get above 400% damage (100% base + ~95% from slotting + ~30% Incarnates +~160% Fury = 385%? So additional buffs from teammates or things like Build Up and Against All Odds or the Gaussian and Decimation procs etc. are largely wasted!). Think of Lightning Rod. There are Scrapper (~90 dmg) and Brute (~60 dmg) versions of that pet. Think of Irradiated Ground. There is one version of that pet but it deals different damage depending on its owner's AT (~6.9/tick for Scrappers, ~4.6/tick for Brutes). Think of Shield Charge. There are Scrapper (~150 dmg) and Brute (~100 dmg) versions of that pet. But NOT Burn. Burn only has one version and it doesn't care about its owner's AT (~3.34 dmg/tick regardless). So in theory an ElecMelee/Shield or a RadMelee/Shield would be "better" on a Scrapper for AoE psuedopet damage (Patron pools are a bit of a wash, Water Spout is about the only thing a Scrapper has that a Brute doesn't, but it's rather difficult to leverage for AoE damage whilst farming. So it's probably better to just stick with Elec) ...the only problem with that is that it's also "better" on a Stalker; and they get to crit from hide and perma-build-up! From my own experience, Scrappers still mainly excel at Boss Hunting. They compete with Stalkers for that, sure, but Scrappers still have a higher base damage modifier than Stalkers and are a bit more survivable. So if you stick a Scrapper with a Taunt Aura on a duoing team with (for example) something like Bot/Kin mastermind which excels at AoE damage and can buff their allies' damage output, but suffers at Single-Target DPS... then you have an almost perfect farming duo. Different than a Brute, sure, but hellava fun.

Might just be a sample size thing, although sometimes power changes do fly under the radar. For instance, I noticed recently that they've changed how multiple Power Transfer procs are handled. Multiple procs can stack in a single server tick now, so it's become normal for my own /Rad Scrapper to have 2-3 ticks of green numbers floating above his head even whenever he's just standing around doing nothing. They're a little bit disappointing in Radiation Therapy (my testing showed that they've only got one chance to proc in RT regardless of how many enemies you hit, the same as with the Panacea Proc) but they're excellent in Gamma Boost and Stamina. Body Mastery Brutes (with Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection) could even slot five of them! Just another nail in /Regen's coffin!!

As shown in my screenshot above, Scrapper DPA (Damage per activation, meaning "how much average damage you deal during the time it takes each attack to actually animate") ranks GIS at 21.44338 damage/second, Frozen Fists at 27.43056 damage/second and Frost at 17.50797 damage/second. This means that against Single-targets, Frost is bottom of the pile. And against Multiple targets, Frost is better as long as you can hit two or more enemies every time you use it. Now as mentioned, that's DPA. So the "grain of salt it's to be taken with" is that it doesn't directly equate to attack chains. However... since both GIS and FF have a lower recharge time than Frost, in practice you'd be hard pressed to build an attack chain where Frost gives you better damage than either of them. Scrapper Crit rate has no bearing on faster attacks, it's a static percentage chance per attack. And all three of those attacks have a flat chance of 5% to crit in PVE (plus any global Scrapper ATO bonuses!) as you can see from the power figures in City of Data. Math isn't the be-all and end all of CoH certainly, it's not exactly a difficult game to "win" at. If you prefer the look/theme of Frost, then by all means more (Ice Melee) power to you!! 🙂

Yeah. Unfortunately DPA on Frost is terrible. It's by far the worst DPA attack that Ice Melee has, even below Frozen Aura, which is a True AoE rather than a Cone. And you're usually not able to hit several targets with it, at least on a Scrapper. A 90 degree Arc is decent. But a 10ft (Melee) radius isn't. Ice Sword has a DPA that's more than double that of Frost. Heck, even Frozen Fists comes close to double that of Frost. For Frozen Touch? It's not even in the same stadium (with a DPA more than 8 times that of Frost...) Honestly, you'd be better off picking up Cross Punch to round out your AoE attack chain. And for ST, Ice Melee definitely doesn't need it (see attached screenshot) All that said, I much prefer Ice Melee on a Tanker due to the Radius/Arc buffs. Tanker IM is usually more damaging than Scrapper IM when you're clearing 4x8s, simply because you can hit a LOT more targets with Frozen Aura (and Frost, should you choose to take it) on a Tanker due to the recent Gauntlet changes and their damage modifiers (and their +damage% cap!) really aren't that much lower any more. I also consider Rad Armor on a Scrapper to be a lot better if you don't try to softcap your defence - since you end up cutting far too many corners (in terms of additional damage output and recharge rate) aiming for +def set bonuses; and being completely honest the set can handle 4x8s totally fine without it. Capped resistances plus all the regeneration and absorption and Healing Procs it can stack is insane. Worst case you can just pop a Purple or use Shadow Meld etc. Example EM/Rad build:

Veteran MM player on both Live and HC here. I've experimented with a large number of control systems over the years. I agree that power tray macros certainly have their place; especially if you're used to activating your powers by clicking on icons in your power tray rather than using keybinds (or in my case, by using buttons on a joypad that activate whatever is inside each of your power tray slots!!) 😁 On my MMs, I fully admit that I like to use keybinds for "fine control" of my henchmen... ...however 99% of the time these days I find myself using only three keys and two power tray macros: Power Tray Macros (these instruct my pets to actually do something, and get tapped very regularly - multiple times during each fight) #1: "ATTACK THIS THING". (Either "ALL -> ATTACK MY TARGET" or just "BOSS -> ATTACK MY TARGET" - these get swapped around depending on the mission/situation; since sometimes against tougher foes I'll want to leave the bulk of my pets in Bodyguard mode constantly whilst my Boss grabs aggro) #2: "GO HERE". (ALL -> GOTO") Keys (these select the "Mode" of my pets, and generally only get tapped occasionally - a few times during each mission) "B" is Bodyguard mode. (ALL -> Defensive Follow) "G" is aGgressive mode. (ALL -> Aggressive, but doesn't specify Follow or Goto, so it allows me to move pets somewhere and then flag them as aggressive) "H" is Heel. (ALL -> Passive Follow) Finally, I've got a variant that I tend to bind to the "V" key for some of my tankier MMs. This is essentially "cruise control" - it swaps my Minion and LT henchmen to Defensive mode, but leaves the Boss on Aggressive. Which means that whenever I wade into a huge mob of enemies my Boss henchman will take the bulk of the initial aggro and weathers the alpha strike, and then everything else joins in. It makes soloing maps a lot easier to deal with whenever I'm only paying minimal attention. So during actual gameplay whenever I'm paying attention... I'll summon my pets and stick them into whatever mode I want by pressing a key; then I'll repeatedly use my power tray macros to actually instruct my pets either to "GO HERE" to kill all the nearby mobs and/or switch them back to bodyguard mode... and sometimes to "ATTACK THIS THING" to focus-fire tougher enemies. After clearing out a large area of the map, I can tap my keys again to switch my pets back to a different mode, or to tell them to FOLLOW me rather than to GOTO somewhere. Combinations of keys work too (e.g. B then G = Aggressive Follow mode). "Passive Follow" is rarely used once my MM gets over a certain level... but it's still something that I don't think I could live without a keybind for. Whilst they don't chase runners halfway across the map or block doorways as frequently any longer; Pets can still be annoyingly dumb even with the Homecoming AI changes... because spamming Defensive Follow simply doesn't clear their aggro list. So sometimes for positioning purposes, I'll still want to use H --> "STOP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING AND COME HERE NOW". A lot of newer players don't realise that "bodyguard mode" (e.g. the Pets absorbing a portion of whatever damage gets recieved by the MM) applies on both Defensive Follow and Defensive Goto. However the "Goto" command is much better at controlling your henchmens' behaviour during missions, at least for the Ranged MM primaries! 😉

Energy Resists is certainly loads higher, at the cost of a bit of Absorb and MaxHP, global recharge (unless you count the FF proc in RS), perception and endurance recovery. DPS looks pretty similar; aside from Irradiated ground (which will only be hitting 55% of the time against +3s with that setup - so your proc rate will suffer!) Slightly different way to build but nothing wrong with that - just goes to highlight how you can personalise a build a bit and still have a good level of performance. I'm not sure about the HOs in RS - admittedly I'm a bit biased against HOs in favour of IOs... but if I was aiming to get a bit more healing then I might aim for something like the below. (Basically I've swapped the sets in DS and RS around so that the only thing you lose is 10% global recharge, but RS heals for far bigger numbers. And since MaxHP can now break 3k without the Performance Shifter 3-piece set bonus in Stamina, my OCD will let me swap it for a Power Transfer Proc for even more passive healing!) And with that I think I'll step away from Mids for a while... could easily spend half my day in there, it's like linksurfing on tvtropes!

The Datachunk you posted was identical to the one I posted earlier (did you export the one you'd been working on?) but judging by those maximum HP, Endurance and Recovery values I'd guess that you're missing your Accolades (the +20% HP and +10% Endurance) and the "Ageless" Desitiny Incarnate. Maybe they're added in but not actually toggled on? The resistances being a bit under is probably due to the "Superior Might of the Tanker" set (which I had slotted into Proton Sweep, but it can be moved elsewhere) not being toggled on. In practice you can usually keep about 2 stacks of that up, assuming that it's in an AoE ability and you're actually using the power it's slotted into fairly regularly... so IMO it makes sense to include at least one stack in your character building. Another thing to be careful of when build tweaking is accuracy slotting - at endgame you'll usually be fighting things that are +3 to you (technically they'll be level 54, but you'll end up with a +1 level boost as well due to your incarnate slots) so it's a good idea to build with those sort of foes in mind. If you go into Mids and pick Options menu -> Configuration and then go to the "exemping and base values" tab you will see a number that you can edit called "Base ToHit". Change that from the default value of 75 to 48 and press OK. All your abilities will then end up listing accuracy values that will actually be useful to you (you'll want 95% accuracy to be "capped" versus regular level 54 mobs - see here for the maths) If you've been hunting around in different Radiation Melee build threads then you'll probably notice that slotting Irradiated Ground can get a bit tricky. In theory you'll want as many -resistance debuff procs and damage procs in it as possible, since IG has double the regular chance to activate procs compared to a regular damage aura (these normally have one chance to proc every 10 seconds, but IG creates a new damaging pesudopet every 5 seconds). However in order for those procs to actually do anything IG needs to be able to reliably hit your enemies - and IG is NOT autohit so ideally you'll want to get it up to 95% accuracy against level 54 mobs, the same as all your other powers. The build I posted is able to do that via one level 50 +5 Accuracy IO.

There're plenty of others floating around, but here's an example to get the neurons firing. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1493;723;1446;HEX;| |78DA4D93CB4F137110C767DB2DD0D2F22A501E2DD052EC9342518F8618812AD0848| |8F166C85A96B2D014427BD0A389CFAB1E38999878E2427C5D3D18BD7AF5FD07680C| |68F46414D7E97EC77637693FF39BFDCDCC77E6F7DBFC9519EF7EEEDA3429DE3325A| |D5259B9A09537F51D575E2B1A05AA3DCDFC0BC1BB32A3AFE9E58A9E595E37F4D2EA| |FF6550DEE6F592AE67CE6BAB865635B6CA589377696BAB9459D4B56DA35CF4588BE| |56D5D5FF559E69C515CAFF28B56AC4AB5A57F76DB28644EEF14AA466125AF55AAFA| |CED53E5691E6DF8C8FFF949A2ED3453D6C64556AE9A8D14D9E6EB07788197353340| |2C602CC904AFB315BEC1A597B1D45E13AD86480DE0DB06D93AC1AB35C5741ACAACC| |39AD772D39D0330F4E2C38ADBDD99FE023AEE7947ACE37F0A96F85EFC0A6F7A0F70| |3D8F611CC713D1762C99582965E3E8A66F89466E97DFC88ACDECEF27EB725D02477| |18FBCFB1AF5572B4CAFE00E7F0117CBE41D47ACC3ADB4567BBCCA543E6D22173E99| |2B974C95C7A652EF39CAC13B18E4EA99194F39890F3789E20F2A3A6D3FFC061F9BA| |1FD6E8A2E47DA65FA5893D8715FB8CB5F488BE9E0DEC9DE31A01D117F88C59F77D1| |11EA087C4246A25B2C213E002C7F64B6CFF6FE41BF8233C02837FC1215348C8F923| |4E3428B18303E83B780A3A470E1DD6DCC3AFB10E4F2326FC02FD4478CE2139AB909| |CDF907091350DCB3C8645E788E81F390E66A790EF09CF23221A2231E81B8D0B13C2| |24184D414B348ED8A71C3B26B163D755CB77EC86F0A6F01618BB2DBC032AAC3F2EE| |71097DE9DEC4B49BE94E84D8BDEF49450FA193F29F7F317B4B8393623F932724F46| |D93729BEC94FD09E50EBDFA81954491E9348342CDA7D6EC42CA912C23E258A7D079| |E7A1EA271F80EEDBE387CDF1A3E85C2D09ABC087DDF1BEF1C7457EEED3D30BB8BDA| |AF92F5EFC97C99ACF763EEF285CF4A1FE9EE86BD17615BF6E4020DBFF52CD8822E7| |B1AB666B32FD9EC259BFD35DAB0FF01C1CAD849| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Heightened Senses gives typed rather than positional defence, so it doesn't really care if they're ranged or melee. Rise to the Challenge likes having at least one foe within melee range in order to increase your regeneration rate though. Some example numbers from my old SS/WP's i24 build are below (this is with Tough and Weave active and one foe in RTTC range, but no incarnates except for the Alpha Slot) and it's pretty cheap + far from optimised by HC standards...

To throw a few actual numbers at it... back in the "Olden Days" Pre-ED, you could six-slot things: + Instant Healing is +600% (Unenhanceable) +200% (Enhanceable). 6-slotted (Pre ED) that would have worked out at: +1199.6% Regen. + Integration is +50% (Unenhanceable) +100% (Enhanceable) 6-slotted (Pre ED) that would have worked out at: +349.8% Regen. + Fast Healing is +75% (Enhanceable) 6-slotted (Pre ED) that would have worked out at: +224.85% Regen. + "Health" wasn't a factor unless you took the fitness pool, so typically on top of this you'd just have the 100% Base Regeneration that everyone gets. + "Dull Pain" you could *just barely* get "perma" by 6-slotting it for recharge; which meant it granted +40% Maximum HP. With accolades, you can bring that up to 2142 HP (Scrapper cap is 2409 HP) So a pimped-out Pre-ED Regen Scrapper would have been sitting at about 1874.25% Regen total, applied to 2142HP. That works out at a grand total of 167.2901 HP/Second (Base regeneration is 5% HP every 12s. Extra regen shortens the time between ticks. So it's 2142.17*0.05=107.1085 HP regenerated every 12/1874.25%=0.640256 seconds) Admittedly, power values will have changed a bit over time from patch to patch even leaving aside ED... but that's a rough ballpark number. Now to give a few very rough modern-day comparisons... (i) My Kat/Regen's i24 build has capped (2409.52) HP and normally regenerates 71.25 HP/Second. (Plus a little extra from Panacea etc). When Instant Healing is active (roughly 50% uptime), that rises to 172 HP/Second. However they also have softcapped Melee Defence and between 50%-60% S/L Damage Resistance (depending on their current HP level) before incarnates. (ii) My SS/WP Tanker's i24 build has 3411.46 HP (Tanker Cap is 3534) and with one foe inside of RTTC Range, it regenerates 140.24 HP/Second. However they also have softcapped Typed Defence to everything except Psionic and hardcapped (90%) S/L Resistance. So in terms of raw regeneration rate, modern-day scrappers probably still can't meet the old pre-ED performance values; as even WP Tankers will struggle to reach it. However, in terms of actual Damage Mitigation (Defence, Resistance, Absorption) and Damage Output (Set Bonuses, Procs, Incarnates, etc) the modern-day equivalents are miles ahead.

Not on a Scrapper, no. Regeneration on a SENTINEL is considerably better though. You can certainly IO-out Regen Scrappers, and if you pair them with a primary like Broadsword or Katana then you can get very decent levels of regeneration and resistance whilst hitting the "59%" Incarnate content defence softcap. But that level of performance has very little to do with your secondary powerset. Almost everything regeneration brings to the table, willpower can do better (hitting the scrapper maximum HP cap is a little easier on regen) - but hey, it's still thematic. Even if you'll never actually be "the best you are at what you do" (TM)... 😉

I've covered that already, no less than three times: I'm really not sure how many more ways I can put this. It's beginning to feel a bit like a certain scene from Red Dwarf... I'll try one last time: Because it would only grant an extremely minor theoretical average benefit over time, but in practice the build's endurance recovery would be become much less consistent/reliable. "PS Proc + PS EndMod" vs "Two regular +5 EndMod IOs" ---> In order for the PS proc to become the better option you'd need to always be sitting at under 90% Endurance, but never bottoming out. Therefore you'd have to continually carefully juggle the use of your powers in such a manner that you remain under 90% and above 0% endurance regardless of how often the PS proc actually kicks in. And that is highly impractical. No worries, likewise I'm not trying to argue, merely trying to explain the reasoning for my decision. The explanations I've given have all related to my earlier post where I listed five recovery slotting options. One of those options was slotting a second EndMod IO into Stamina. The build I posted currently has a second EndMod IO in Stamina. If you took that IO out and replaced it with a PS proc then you'd still be at least one enhancement slot short of the "ideal" (which is to have all the Healing uniques plus both a second EndMod IO AND a PS proc in Stamina). And therein lies the problem. Ordinarily I'd figure out a build's optimal attack chain and calculate its Endurance consumption, then build the character so that they meet that consumption plus a little extra for leeway. However it's very difficult to do this for a Crabbermind because the powers they use will vary wildly depending on the situation (buffs, AOE, ST). The most foolproof method would be to drop all the slots in Health and Stamina and just use Ageless instead of Barrier... but doing that negatively impacts your pets' survivability... so we're brought back to the original point that Crabbermind builds are ridiculously tight on enhancement slots and getting everything you could possibly want on them simultaneously is impossible. So the best solution I can come up with is to produce a build that ticks all the boxes for sufficient recharge, damage output and survivability... then try to get as much reliable endurance recovery as possible using the remaining enhancement slots.

Willpower. Whilst it needs heavy IO investment to reach it, WP's performance ceiling is higher than Stone or Invulnerability. Softcapped Defence (with the fighting pool and enough set bonuses), Hardcapped Resistances, Respectible Maximum HP and bucketloads of Regeneration. Has no holes. But has absolutely nothing that adds to your damage output (unless you count the additional endurance recovery)

That's probably fairly accurate. Personally I'd usually go "sufficient recharge" --> "damage output" --> "survivability". And for survivability I'd prefer softcapped defences first, then a mixture of resistances and maximum HP before looking too much into regeneration. I'm not sure if people tend to drastically overvalue regeneration set bonuses due to the reputation that regen scrappers enjoyed back in the day...?

Because whenever your build has exceedingly few "spare slots", including all of the potentially useful supportive IOs (such as the +Health and +Stamina uniques) becomes impossible. So you need to choose which ones to include based upon the performance boost each brings to the character. That's why I included the comparison between the various endurance slotting options above: If a build only has one spare slot to use for boosting recovery, then it will only be able to choose ONE of those five options (likely panacea) and with two spare slots it can choose TWO (panacea and miracle?) etc. The build I posted has enough spare slots for four of them, which means that it needs to drop one. The PS proc was the one that didn't make the cut. In my last post I was pointing out that the reason I personally treat PS as the "least desirable" option is because it has only has a Proc rate of 25%. This means that it is unreliable. Over the course of a minute it has a 18.00% chance of not kicking in (see cumulative binomial probability) compared to the "always active" additional recovery from a second IO in Stamina... and the theoretical performance difference between them is so slight (0.04 End/Sec) that PS becomes less attractive. Panacea technically suffers from the same issue, but its higher proc rate of 50% means that it is much more reliable in practice than PS - over the course of a minute it has only a 1.56% chance of not kicking in, and its theoretical performance is also considerably higher. Unfortunately due to the slotting constraints it's not simply a case of "slotting a PS proc into stamina", it's a case of "deciding what to give up in order to free up an enhancement slot in order to slot a PS proc into stamina". And as it stands each of the "loose" IOs in that particular build are already performing functions which grant more benefit (to my mind anyway) than a PS proc would give. A similar notion applies for +perception (for example). Taking the Rectified Reticle unique and/or Power Pool Tactics would be potentially useful- they'd bring the character to the perception cap. But in order to include them you'd need to drop other IOs and power picks, and that trade-off simply wouldn't be worth it outside of very specific situations e.g. Stalker hunting in PVP.

It does in terms of average recovery over time... but since it's coded as a chance to kick in every 10s, in practice it's a lot more 'spikey'. The proc rate is a lot lower than panacea - and I've found that often I won't see any endurance spikes from PS for ages, or it'll kick in whenever I'm already full and get "wasted". That's why I noted "and for the sake of only 0.04 End/Sec difference I'd rather have the guaranteed recovery from the 2nd Stamina slot than the "chance of" Endurance from the PS Proc." - although admittedly that's probably getting into the territory of personal preferences. By all means, work it into your build if you feel like doing so!

Yep, you'll notice my example build does the same thing for Ranged defence. It's not bulletproof but it lets you maintain a decent balance across the rest of the build. Similar deal for the S/L resistances and the extra 10% you'll gain as you take damage via the reactive defences unique. Void is great for Judgement. The damage debuff is guaranteed and lasts for ages, very useful in hard fights. Lore is a matter of personal preference (there's a Google document floating around with a full numbers breakdown) - the Arachnos ones are thematic but for pure Damage it's hard to ignore Banished Pantheon. And plenty of the supportive ones have a "+5% defence to everything" AoE toggle.

Lack of slots, mainly. Crab builds are quite tight, especially if you're trying to fit in permapets and softcapped defence/decent resists and HP and still proc-out and ED-cap the damage on your main attacks... (i) The Performance Shifter Unique grants +10% End at 1.5 PPM Slotted into Stamina, it has a 25% chance of activating every 10 seconds. That's an average of 2.5 Endurance every 10 seconds, or 0.25 End/Sec. (ii) The Miracle Unique grants Recovery, which works based off your maximum Endurance (buffable by set bonuses and accolades etc) In the build above, it's an average of 0.29 End/Sec (iii) The Numina Unique grants Regen and Recovery, which works based off your Maximum HP and Endurance pools. In the build above, it's an average of 0.19 End/Sec and 2.22 HP/Sec. (iv) The Panacea Unique grants +7.5% End and a set amount of HP (53.8126) at 3 PPM Slotted into Health, it has a 50% chance of activating every 10 seconds. That's an average of 3.75 Endurance every 10 seconds, or 0.375 End/Sec and 2.69063 HP/Sec (v) The Second +5 Endurance IO in Stamina grants 0.21 End/Sec. So for raw Endurance recovery, the priority is technically Panacea > Miracle > Performance Shifter > 2nd Stamina Slot > Numina. However Numina grants a bit of Regen, which I tend to weight a bit higher on builds without any regular self-healing... and for the sake of only 0.04 End/Sec difference I'd rather have the guaranteed recovery from the 2nd Stamina slot than the "chance of" Endurance from the PS Proc. If you really wanted to fit the PS Proc in that example build too, then you could drop the Rech/ToHit IO from Aim or the Defence IO from Combat Training:Defensive; but each of those would come with a tradeoff (you'd end up going well over the Proc cap on Guassian in Aim, and you'd drop under the softcap for Ranged Defence) I know Crabs tend to be very Endurance hungry, but you don't need to run all the toggles all the time; and there are plenty of Temp Powers or Accolades (Geas of the Kind Ones springs to mind) that can help in a pinch. Worst case you can just swap to Ageless instead of Barrier if you find yourself having real difficulties. Although admittedly my own Crabber tends to run with a Bot/Kin MM, so I'm used to on-demand Speed Boost and Transference... 🙂

The Mu Striker's damage is pants. Their only advantage is that they stay at range. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_mu_striker I ballparked the DPS of each of the Patron Pool's Pets a while back (see attached) - the exercise was carried out for my VEAT Widow; but the same powersets hold true on a Crab. Widow_PatronPets.txt

If you're talking about the SoulBound Allegiance Proc rather than the Gaussian's; the way it functions is a 5.25s buff that kicks in 0.5 seconds into a power animation. (see https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=set_bonus.set_bonus.boost_up ) Consider the Spiderlings. They have two attacks - "Chain Gun" which animates in 1.848s and recharges in 3.8s; and "Claw" which animates in 0.924s and recharges in 2s. If the Build Up proc kicked in during "Chain Gun" then it wouldn't affect the damage of that first Chain Gun; but the effect would persist for 3.902s after it finished animating (5.75-1.848) so in theory the NEXT "Chain Gun" attack could benefit from it; even though there'd only be a window of overlap of 0.102s. However in practice that time window is usually a bit too narrow for the combat AI, so the buff ends up wasted unless the Spiderlings are in melee... If the Build Up proc kicked in during "Claw then it wouldn't affect the damage of that first Claw; but the effect would persist for 4.826s after it finished animating (5.75-0.924) and the next "Claw" attack could comfortably benefit from it; with a window of overlap of 2.826s. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_arachnobot_spiderling The Disruptors have more powers to chain - Disruptor Bolt, Disruptor Blast and Disruptor Tesla (at range) and Claw (in melee). They're still limited by animation time, but they cycle faster. In theory they could get three of those powers into the buff time window ("Claw" plus any two of the ranged powers) but in practice it's much more likely to only affect two of them. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_arachnobot_disrupter Finally, the Epic Pool Pet. The Blood Widow has by far the most attacks of all of the Patron pets. Best case the Proc could activate in Spin or Poison Dart and then affect three other powers (Swipe, Strike and one other) during the buff time window. However it could also activate in Slash or Eviscerate and only affect two other powers. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_blood_widow So the Proc will be "useful" in all of the pets... but which is optimal to slot it in? One thing to consider here is the number of pets affected - you have three Spiderlings and two Disruptors but only one Blood Widow. The Spiderling's attacks aren't as frequent or damaging as the Blood Widow due to the level difference... but the proc will be firing off twice or three times as often. In my experience this is actually weighted towards the Widow; since on average the proc will affect 3 Spiderling Claw attacks in the same period of time as it'll affect 2-3 Widow melee attacks... but the Widow attacks are much more powerful. For the Disruptors, on average the proc will affect 4 Disruptor attacks in the same period of time as it'll affect 2-3 Widow attacks. The Widow attacks are still considerably more powerful, but the Disruptors do have two advantages. First, their damage is mainly *RANGED* - so they'll be merrilly shooting at everything whilst the Widow is still running from mob to mob. Secondly, they deal mainly energy damage to the Widow's lethal damage (which tends to be much more heavily resisted) So in terms of "raw damage output" it's very close between the Disruptors and the Widow. But there are two other things to consider: (i) Disruptors are less suicidal than the Blood Widow. (ii) Venom Grenade debuffs the damage resistance of Toxic damage twice as much as other types. And a good chunk of the Widow's damage is Toxic. So my advice is that if you find you're able to keep the Widow alive for its entire duration; then slot the Soulbound Allegiance proc into it. Otherwise, go with the Disruptors. Now personally, I lean towards the Blood Widow - but that's because my Crabber doesn't lack for ranged damage, and by using either Darkest Night or the Support Incarnate alongside its regular auras it can push the Widow to the defence softcap.

Quite right. Unfortunately that might not work quite as well in this particular case with such a melee-centric build - their attack chain is essentially Slice/ArmLash/Frenzy/Kick with the occasional usage of Gloom and Venom Grenade. However if they were rocking Channelgun/Longfang/Supression/FG/VG then 100% Hovercrabbermind of Doom all the way! A quick fix would be to swap one of the Unbreakable Guard 4-piece sets for a Gladiator Armor 3-piece; the unique could be moved out of CrabArmor to free up another IO slot... or just swap the extra LOTG Def in Combat Jumping to a Karma -KB.