tidge

Normally.... I'd suggest a Defender that also debuffs. However, given the multi-box constraint... I don't think 'passive' debuffs is that strong an option. Personally: I am not a fan of Venomous Gas (Poison's T9) but I suppose it could be made to work on a Pocket Defender if the defender itself has softcap+ defenses and some sort of PBAoE heal is the auto-power. You will almost certainly be able to have very high defenses by skimping on primary/secondary power choices and leaning into pools, modulo power/slotting choices for set enhancement bonuses. My first instinct/preference would be a Time Manipulation primary. There are a few different primary options for the auto-power (depending on content, and needs)... and when played more actively, the Pocket Defender should be able to buff an ally. My thinking is the toggle powers that reduce/slow down nearby enemy offense. Something else to consider (for a Pocket Defender): It might be worthwhile to consider an attack from the secondary to be the auto power targeting the Scrapper('s target). My first instinct is some sort of AoE, but that might draw more attention to the Defender than you want. Something 'simple' like Beam Rifle's Disintegrate for some single-target DoT and -Regeneration might do the trick. There may be better (secondary) choices, but a -Regeneration effect is where I would lean.

I'm not taking a strong side side in the discussion re: Time Stop and wanting more slotting options. My Dark/Temporal Blaster did take it, and has it 6-slotted with (boosted) Gladiator's Net. It is not as if there is a shortage of different slotting options for pure Holds. On the contrary: There are 3 excellent set choices (PVP, Winter, Very Rare) plus a useful Hami-O, plus more %damage options than any other non-damaging control power.... ok maybe I will take a side: I don't think there is any need to update Time Stop. For the record: I only have Time Wall with the default slot, using a level 53 Endoplasm (Acc/Mezz). I suppose it has some %damage potential. I generally don't try to slot single-target slows for much, YMMV. If I was going to ask for a buff to Time Wall, I'd want to know: Would it break the game if the 20 sec -Regeneration effect was increased? Looking at CityofData: it appears to be -25%, whereas purchasable Envenomed Daggers (10 sec) apply -250%. Every one of my characters restocks on Envenomed Daggers, so it simply strikes me as odd that there is such an imbalance, even when considering the other effects (in Time Stop) and base damage imbalance (that favors the Daggers) I will write this: paired with Dark as a primary, the Temporal secondary resulted in what is my least Blappy Blaster. Much of this is driven by the primary, but an not-insignificant portion is driven by the other (pool) choices I made for this character concept. In most content, I'm simply abusing the heck out of Chronos... I have it on Auto, with IIRC a 90% chance for %BuildUp.... and relying on Time Wall/Time Stop for select enemies. When this character gets swarmed or there are opportunities, End of Time or the Nuke (Blackstar) get used. Future Pain is in the kit, but I rarely use it... again, it's because of the concept-driven range-heavy choices.

I don't have a Mind/Dominator; I enjoy my Mind/Poison Controller...but I think these ATs are different enough that not too much from my experience would inform a style of play for a Mind Dom. I feel like I can write this (about my own thoughts on a Mind Dom): Confuse and Mass Confuse are must powers. I slot the Very Rare Coercive Persuasion (6-slot) set in the single-target power, and then the AoE gets at least one %damage piece (any damage done gets you a %drop chance). Domination is what makes the ST Confuse so much "better" on Doms. The +Magnitude makes a big difference against the hardest targets. The content where I see (a full-kit) Mind primaries really shine are: Low/Mid 20-ish content that is 'turned up', because the AoE (including Sleep) keeps enemies from blanketing players with attack rolls Spawns/encounters with Elite Bosses/AVs The first bullet is also true for any content above those levels, but not all AoE-clearing builds scale down nicely to those levels. Mass Hypnosis (AoE) over Mesmerize (ST)... eventually the typical game reaches the point where it will almost certainly be too hard to try to leverage the single-target sleep. There are probably corner cases where Mesmerize could almost pull its weight, but I think this guy (points to self) would have to set up some targeting keybinds to use the single-target sleep effectively. I don't think I'd slot either the T1 or T2 Mind Primary Powers heavily (in a final build), no matter which one I picked. 5-slots of Call of the Sandman isn't a bad choice of Enhancement set for the AoE, but I could understand a build that uses fewer slots in Mass Hypnosis. For a Dominator, I think the first (and perhaps only) power I would try for any %damage would be Terrify... and depending on if the secondary has a cone attack, maybe that too. Dominators will need Global +Recharge bonuses, and the Holds will present the choice of +Recharge set bonuses or 4+ %damage. I think the set bonuses should be the priority, but mileage varies (secondary choice, play style, budget).

I have a Mind/Poison Controller... with Force of Will!.... I like the combo but I don't think I could reskin it to be a Mermaid.

The only reason I can see to 6-slot either Health or Stamina would be for set bonuses. IMO any other non-Auto power that takes the (non-global) enhancements is a better choice of slots. If another power is an Auto (or an early enough power that will be always on) power, I may not invest even a second slot in either Health or Stamina, depending on how tight the build is. Almost all my characters 2-slot each of them. I will occasionally add a third slot to Health (for Tankers, 2-slots go to Numina's... because MOAR regeneration..., 1 will be another global). On soft characters with few HP and poor defenses, sometimes I will make sure to have the Power Transfer %Heal added to 2xPerformance Shifters (EndMod and %+End) in Stamina. Leaping from what @roleki wrote: After the third slot in either power, I'm sure every AT has a better use for the slots.

I briefly experimented with a 50+ MM jumping from banner to banner. I'd try to defeat 20-ish enemies at one banner before moving to the next. I did get the blue bar to start to move, but I don't know that I could have completed the blue bar solo before time expired. From what I could tell, I had to have defeated some number of spawns at every banner before it moved... but I wasn't able to pin down what specifically I needed to do (solo). It felt like I would have had to have done this five times (each banner)... but it couldn't verify I had done enough at each banner until I got to the fourth one (in the cycle). Even in the lowest level zones that get the Apocalypse, I suspect that my MM build would take at least 2 minutes on each (vulnerable) banner... may less time if the Lore pets were out... so I don't know if I could have solo completed the event in 16 minutes.

I also don't believe there is any 'bug' in getting badges during the Deadly Apocalypse: every case where I have missed a Banner badge is one I attributed to being on a team that didn't do enough (or any) damage to the banner. This season so far: The time I was an Incandesence 'anchor' for one the later banners, I never landed a single hit on the banners I didn't engage. The time I was on a small team, again anchoring (so away from the action) and my team appeared to be mostly lower-level characters side-kicked up. I have come to believe that on a large league in a level 50 zone, there is literally no need to have Incandesence anchors... as long as one of the folks rushing between banners summons the entire league (or waits for someone who can) before attacking the banners. Same as with the Greater Aspect.

I Like Force of Will, it's a very viable Pool... especially for characters that make have lower DPS scales. Wall of Force is very suitable as an early-ish Cone attack that can use %damage. My immediate thought was to lean into the Water set early, and then end up leveraging a Psychic Patron/Epic pool. The trick would be to find an AT whose Epic allows the kind of things you want at that tier.... or as was written, lean into the Mind/Psychic early and then leverage Mako's pool for more "aquatic" things. I wouldn't rule out Pain or Sonic with a Mermaid type character.

This is how I prefer to do it (so I don't accidentally "buff" something like the FFG or Maintenance drone. If you keep reading the thread, I think I figured out what the cause it, and have a suggested work around. It's pretty much exclusive to the T3 henchman on my Robotics MM.

Here is a MM peeve I can't believe I forgot to include: Henchmen getting in the way of clicking on doors/contact/objectives. This is especially annoying in places where there is a tightly constrained clickable area. I think I use the "goto" function more often in Ouroborous and Hazard Zone gates more than any other situations.

In my head canon, the First Ward on Praetorian Earth is located where Justin Sinclair's mansion is located on Primal Earth; Primal characters never see the outside. Mother Mayhem's "hospital" is inside the Praetorian version of Manticore's mansion.

In the Grim Vale, they certainly don't have Rules 4 or 5, but some of the rest checks out.

Generally, for MMs, I find there are competing considerations about %damage in personal (primary) attacks. The MM damage scale is terrible, so %damage will boost damage of individual attacks MMs can get some of their best set bonuses from slotting their attacks (henchmen tend to be franken-slotted) If attacks are going to be slotted: I lean towards going for set bonuses, especially for Endurance effects. Keep in mind: %damage requires making ToHit rolls MM attacks also have a high Endurance cost If going for a %proc in an MM attack, I prefer using "damage multiplier" %procs that do %-Resistance.... assuming there will be henchmen making attacks.

My memories of Rescue the Fortune Teller as a mission were these: When debt was burdensome, it wasn't that hard to end up with that mission, but... If you played with buddies (no SGs!) and avoided debt it was possible to miss it. I'm also remembering that since actual travel powers weren't available until level 14 (and Fitness wasn't inherent) so there was a lot of motivation to play relatively low-risk content (with PUGs) to level up fast enough to get that precious travel power. Specific to this mission, it used to be a very painful one to do... especially without a travel power navigating Perez Park. On Homecoming (and all my memories of using Flashback on Live), I'm always sent to Perez Park. I feel like on Live I may have had a single instance where the cave door wasn't in Perez Park. Here is a place where my memory is foggy: I want to say that prior to badges being a thing, the game was somehow keeping track of some completed arcs/missions. I feel like several of my Issue 0 slow/grind characters didn't have to redo certain arcs/missions.

This sentiment is basically why I am comfortable with no longer including a MM secondary like Dark in my stable: On Live, I felt that AoE healing the henchmen was somewhat game-changing. I don't feel that way on Homecoming.

You get "ambushed" by Frostfire's Imps, but that's about it beyond whatever spawns get aggroed.

I have found that Robotics really benefits from the primary attacks, at least after the recent revamp... for the high HP targets, because of -Regen. I'm sure much of the content can be done without those attacks. I might not take them early while leveling up, but they would probably be early choices in a level 50 build. My own post-revamp experience has been that the only GMs the upgraded henchmen can handle without my MM using the rifle attacks are the very low-level zone instances. They were more self-sufficient against GMs before; now they perform better across all content.

I try to avoid having a character that only does exclusively (or almost exclusively) one type of damage; to my thinking this is the best reason to try to have some %damage powers on certain high DPS AT characters. There are a handful of Giant Monsters that give my GM-hunters slightly more trouble because of their resistances (above and beyond their MaxHP); I usually try to have a Lore slotted that can help against these (beyond debuffs and extra DPS). Flipping this around: Generally I prefer to try to shoot for positional defenses, and as for specific damage type resistances... it is more-or-less catch-as-catch-can... especially with the more-recent changes to damage typing. I don't specifically build characters to 'farm' but I can understand easy-to-get resistance builds for S/L or F/C.

I've been experimenting with this problem. Since I almost always have the problem with the T3 (upgraded) henchman, I am starting to believe it is because (after the upgrade) it is almost always attacking... and so I think the game isn't allowing the asynchronous drag of the Inspiration from my (the player's) tray to the henchman to 'stick' because the hench is either attacking or has a queued attack at the server. I rarely see this issue with henchmen/pets that have fewer attacks. I have had more luck dragging the inspiration to the T3 when it is in 'idle' mode, such as when having the henchmen go to 'follow' bringing them in close before they start to recognize targets.

I think a lot of the classic appeal of Thugs was Gang War. I took a Thugs MM to 50+ and I was really unimpressed. I went with a combo that is strong on offense and debuffs, with just a little bit of support for the Henchmen: Robotics/Traps/Mace. I understand the appeal of Necromancy as a primary, and I don't think it is at all weak... my opinion is that it offers a lot of different cool things that MMs don't really need and that those things can be a distraction. Please don't think I hate on Necromancy! My only complaint about the Time secondary is this: Time doesn't have that many skipable powers! I voted Traps because with just four powers from the secondary (Caltrops, Acid Mortar, Force Field Generator, Posion Trap) it is possible to get almost all the debuffs and buffs needed to make the MM and the Henchmen capable of facing almost every challenge in the game.

I'm going to offer my (personal, internal) perspectives on the whole Tanker/Brute ruckus. On Live: Whatever debate/discussion folks have about TvB... I remember almost the exact argument being had about Tankers v. Scrappers ... long before Brutes were even in the game. Among Tankers;, there was an extraordinary imbalance in favor of Fire Tankers, because of enemy AI (and to some extent the aggro rules). At certain points, there were many loud voices proclaiming "Tankers are irrelevant", with exceptions made for "map herding". Many of us will be able to think of both specific and general content where a Tanker was preferred to relying only on Scrappers; my point is there were many loud voices making the earlier comment. Some changes (noticeably the AI changes, then the aggro cap) had a big effect on what those loud voices though "Tankers were good at"... so cumulative changes (CoV, Blueside Brutes, AE) resulted in (my PoV both of Live and early Homecoming) loud voices proclaiming "Brutes are superior to Tankers in every way". As near as I can tell: this "Superiority" was being measured in x8 map clearing times. Again: my point is not to argue that, it's just that this always appeared to be a cornerstone of loud arguments of players who really wanted to confidently say "Brutes are superior to Tankers". I don't personally believe Brutes ever got nerfed. I am bracing myself for a long litany of follow-up posts informing the world how wrong my perception is. I can see how some power set changes affected HC AE Fire Farms. I can see how AI changes "slow down" farming. I can see how altering XP (and Empyrian merit) rewards affects the Inf-building bottom line for some activities. I can understand how the revision to defense/resistance attack typing can have altered the performance (and perception) of specific defense/resist builds. None of these changes were targeted at Brutes IMO. Boosting the AoE radii of Tankers was not a swing of the nerf bat at another AT. Full disclosure: I generally do not enjoy ATs (or builds) that require constant button mashing or enemy engagement in missions. During play I try to pay some attention to General chat, and who knows what I might be doing with open inventory/auction house windows. Dominators I can tolerate once "perma-domination" is achieved... all discussion about that can be found elsewhere... but Brutes and the Fury bar mechanic has never really appealed to me. This player (points to self) is far more likely to roll a melee concept as a Scrapper, Tanker, or Stalker sacrificing what the Fury bar can do, simply because I don't enjoy building/maintaining Fury. Fundamentally, my perception of the combat part of the game comes down to "how many button mashes do I need to clear this spawn/enemy?"... so requiring two attacks instead of three attacks is obviously fewer clicks, but I start to lose interest in min-maxing when the difference is seven clicks instead of eight.

There was a spreadsheet showing the relative differences in expected performance for the Panacea %+HP and the Power Transfer %+HP (after the "fix"); it isn't that hard to figure out how much HP will be healed via Regeneration (and at what 'tick' rate). My search-fu isn't turning it up maybe @Bopper recalls the keywords/author?

No disagreement from me... although more than two instances of it seems like overkill, at least to me. The large HP AT might be better suited looking at what is going on with their Regeneration numbers, even if it is just from slotting Health.

Anything will work. If you really intend to cruise on -1x0 I would avoid (for play reasons, not because they are weak): Brutes: The Fury mechanic is something you are unlikely to notice. Dominators: As with Fury, you will be unlikely to notice it, until it Domination is up and then you will want to have Domination up all the time which requires build choices. Hero Epics (HEAT): These offer different play-styles, but mastering swapping between forms (and making slotting choices) may be confusing. VEATs: You should have a plan going in, as you will have to respec and make some choices. Masterminds: You'll be rolling over -1x0 content and probably not pickup on the different considerations.