Crysis

Dual Pistol/Regen/ninja Deadpool homage here. Very durable, not the best +DEF so it gets shot a lot and insta-heals, but that’s what makes it feel like Deadpool. I was honestly surprised when I built the toon how well it plays. Regen on a Sent is easily the best version of Regen available right now. You’ll be tempted to build for +DEF because so many IO builds lean that way, and you can get really good +DEF by end game, but what you want is as much +Regen and +RES as possible. Really sturdy build.

For me.... Sprit Ward: Heal and Heal/Endurance Preventative Medicine IO's....nice +RES bonus Enflame: Go proc-crazy on it. I tend to 5 slot mine with a +5 ENDREDUX IO, Bombardment: Chance of Fire Dmg, Positron Blast: Chance of Energy Damage, Javelin Volley: Chance of Lethal Damage and Frozen Blast: Chance of Immobilize (more for the stacking holds from myself and others than anything...keeps stuff in the murder box).

see my edit above. Procs in Enflame get chance to go off on initial target and thereafter on every other target hit by the flames, all during its rather decent duration. Like a free series of attacks for the ENd cost of just one. Very useful against EB’s and AV’s, particularly those who like to run.

A couple of pros for the Sorcery pool…. 1) Two power picks from there, Enflame and Spirit Ward, are both usable on your henchmen. 2) Enflame is a sleeper power. You can proc it out and cast it on the boss of a spawn who then spreads that damage over others in same spawn, like Confusion but more direct “free” DPS for you. Or you can cast it onto one of your henchmen as extra free damage also. It does add up. Oh and the procs in there not only get a chance to proc on the target itself but as the fire spreads to others it gets further chances to proc -per target hit.- Personally it’s rare I ever have to pop RoP in the later game as my personal DEF is so high either via self or buffs from others. But I do find Mystic Flight a nice fly power and the teleport is actually useful for positioning myself and dragging my lazy necrotic friends through middle of spawn to engage faster.

Yeah, no need to even bother going red to pick up patron pools now.

I’ve always felt the entire Shadow Shard, and all missions therein, were just a summer interns’ assigned task to learn how to code. That whole zone is nonsense and the missions are highly repetitive. Could have been so much more than what it is.

Once upon a time when COV was first announced, there was speculation that hero’s and villains on opposing sides could be assigned an opposite faction as their “arch nemesis” and basically accomplish what happened here. Basically, appear in the others’ missions as an arch nemesis and duke it out. Then that rumor was dismissed as just being a PVP Zone/Arena “marketing speak” kind of thing, as many players would have howled in anger to be “forced” to PVP in their PVE missions. But when reports of this bug first surfaced, I always wondered if it was some errant piece of coding that had been written specifically to allow two different players to instance inside the same door mission expressly to setup this kind of ‘forced PVP.’ I for one would have LOVED this as a feature. But alas…just a bug.

You can also have ChatGPT limit the number of characters used to get a perfecly fitting bio for copy/paste. And for extra fun, have it write the bio in a particular style, like “…using hillbilly Appalachian slang” or “….Roman-styled prose.”

It’s likely dated now but I still pull her out of mothballs for the occasional ITF or other iTrial stuff and she’s just as potent as she used to be. Final build towards end of thread.

HUGE callout for Demon/Storm. Lots of -RES against enemies, and if you build for +Recharge, your Storm powers are really amazing +Damage all by themselves. Very thematic as well. I've long since retired mine but it was once one of the highest DPS builds you could make in the MM AT. Still very sturdy and very, very high DPS as well. Ignore Hurricane, Thunder Clap and pretty much anything in your secondary but Gale, FR, Steamy Mist, Tornado and LS. Proc out Gale, Tornado and LS with FF+Recharge procs. Very easy to run double Tornado and LS all the time. Grab Mace PP and Web Envelope for an AOE hold, although FR often provides enough knockdown you won't need it. With Teleport's Fold Space I'd def try to work that in these days as well.

I learned a bunch after reading this thread when the Necro changes had settled. I ended up putting 2 Golgi +5’s into Dark Empowerment as a slot saving mechanic. Now that you have an incentive to slot/use your attacks often you’ll be a bit more slot starved on Necro than in the past.

what!? No spider monkey?!?!

I have a Thugs/Time that’s built around Anchorman. Ron Burgandy and his news crew, plus Octagon, Dr. Kenneth Noisewater and James Westfall for the t1 pets and /Time was selected partially for the opening line of the movie (“There was a TIME, a time before cable, when the local newsman reigned supreme….”), but honestly more for overall build effectiveness instead.

Depends more on your play style preferences, maybe more for Storm than anything else. Many Corrs skip Hurricane, the heal and other powers from Storm, keeping only sleet, steamy mist, Tornado and LS. Then proc it out and build for high recharge to cycle attacks and get 2 and even 3 Tornado/LS out at once, as well as all the -Res procs you can fill and dropping Sleet constantly. Played like that, a Corr is going to be focused on +DPS versus many Defenders who focus on debuffs available from Hurricane. Scourge damage is a nice added bonus to a Corr as well. For me I never play my Storm defenders after 50. They can be built for +DMG but most people will look at the two and determine if that’s the goal then go Corr.

I’ve been on Beta testing with my alt account and no matter how I try to look at the changes to /Cold for MM’s, it’s just all around resulting in more deaths for my henchmen and less ability to hit the targets (since they lowered the -DEF in this patch). Now if the dev team would remove the level shifts for the Tier 1/2 pets, then perhaps I could see my debuffs being lowered. But otherwise, this is just a net nerf to MM’s who, out of all the classes, likely don’t deserve even more penalties than they already have given the level shift mechanics in play.

Second DP/Kin, or a Fire/Kin. Nice thing about DP/Kin is with HoB and get a sweet +DEF for a few seconds, plenty of time to jump into the spawn, Fulcrum followed by HoB. Neat trick.

All the above and…. 1) IO slotting to get your +DEF to softcap. The higher your Defenses the harder it is for most mezz attacks to land in the first place. I routinely run without any status protection and rely on breakfrees for the rare times I get mezzed, and that’s because I build to softcapped Smashing/Lethal/Energy or Ranged defense. IMO, investing in softcapped defense will do more for your survivability against mez and damage than almost anything else you can come up with via Rune of Protection. 2) While on the subject of +DEF, make sure to check out the P2W vendor and look into buying Defense Amplifier. Yes, it’s expensive as you gain levels, but depending on how fast you level, you can purchase 8 hours’ worth at level 1 and its dirt cheap. Each charge of a Defense Amplifier offers +5 in Defense, +7 in Resistance and -MAG +4- Protection to Hold, Stun, Confuse, Knockback, Immobilize and Fear mezz attacks. These Defense Amplifiers often are included in Winter Packs and given the ‘sales’ run on them from time to time those packs are a great investment. I’m still sitting on hundreds of these and use them on almost every character from 40-50. It’s a great way to fill in the issues with a build until you can attain Incarnate powers. 3) People often forget about Supergroup Base Empowerment stations. These exist in most well built bases and for the price of just a few pieces of salvage you can gain resistance buffs for a variety of status effects, from Fear to Sleep to Knockback to…almost anything. They last for a couple/few missions and are a great way to deal with the occasional problem enemy type. Got a Carnie arc to deal with? Grab the Empowerment Station buffs you need to get through it. 4) There are some temp powers that offer various types of temporary mezz protection from certain mezz attacks. Visit the Homecoming wiki for a complete list. Same for a few of the harder to get accolades. And the Aegis special proc IO for reducing the duration of certain status attacks. 5) Finally, a neat trick for needing more breakfrees than you can carry is to write a macro to convert the inspirations you don’t need (say Revive inspirations) to quickly combine them into Breakfrees. You can combine 3 of any type of inspiration into similar sized different inspirations. And if that doesn’t provide enough, you can again use the P2W vendor to modify your inspiration drops so you just don’t get the ones you don’t need and focus more on chances of only getting what you do need. Personally, I use the auto-combine macros more often and rely on that. And, as a backup to your backup plans here….email yourself a bunch of breakfrees. Then you always have some squirreled away if you find yourself suddenly in a mission you cannot easily handle without breakfrees and you can resupply from your own email. Just some tricks I’ve learned to avoid issues with mezz attacks. Every hero has their weakness, but mezz attacks can be quite manageable if you use all of the tools available to you. Edit: Numbering

The changes to Mastermind FR and Sleet -specifically to nerf the -DEF debuffs- makes zero sense when you realize the level shifts inherent in our henchmen. You are just making it THAT much harder for their attacks to land and/or for them to have any meaningful damage output.

This. Likely the most damage output of any MM is going to be something/Storm. Likely Demons/ or Thugs/Storm. That's all Storm pretty much is other than the one defense toggle....damage resistance debuffs and damage output, not counting Hurricane and some of the other skippable powers. But yes, your own personal attacks, even fully procc'd out, are laughable. I generally do more damage with a fully procc'd CrossPunch from the Fighting Pool than I'll do with any of my primary attacks.

Wondering how your builds will fare with the large nerf coming to Soul Drain? I count on that for almost all my Corruptor builds and I’m sure many others do too.

Demons/Anything. Teams just LOVE the purring sounds they make! Like….really big, hungry kittens. It’s great! Note: I’m not satan. Just haven’t had enough coffee yet this morning.

Powerfarm from 1-32. Always. I haven't played lower level content in....forever. Not since maybe first month of Homecoming. Don't miss it one bit either. Even with all the nerfs to AE, I still take maybe one or two gaming sessions per week, usually when I'm in video meetings or asleep, and just afk powerfarm a couple of new alts. Then when I'm ready I pull them out, kit them out, and play for real. Not everyone's cup of tea but I find the storyline in this game monotonous and repetitive.

No, it wouldn't. 20 years ago I suffered -immensely- from Anxiety. Like....cripplingly so. Herd-and-burn/rinse/repeat was an incredibly (mindless to some) calming playstyle for me. Something about completing the entire map, knowing nothing was left, and done so efficiently. It let me relax the way others might do so from alcohol or drugs. I would glaze over, feel calm coming over me and do it repeatedly, sometimes during the day while otherwise tending to work/life stuff. It was therapuetic. 20 years later, I don't need that, I've found many other healthy (sometimes FAR more healthy) means to deal with my lifelong battles with anxiety. I'm actually very thankful this game came back in 2019...just before COVID. Because COVID lockdown drove me bonkers with anxiety. I'm sure I wasn't alone for that. But when the dev team upset my anxiety-reducing style of gameplay I sort of freaked out as there wasn't much else on the market to scratch that itch. Luckily for me...I perservered. At any rate, people who compare to the glory days often totally miss the glory right in front of them. You can't go through life navigating through memories of the past with your eyes closed to the abundance of the present. It doesn't work that way.

To be fair, and it’s not for everyone mind you but…. It’s 20+ years later and I -immensely- enjoyed being able to herd an entire map, pull them all to a dumpster, Ice Patch + Burn and maybe a little buddy pocket Kin would jump in to help out. Would I have done that forever? I mean, I did do it for months, maybe more than a year, i don’t really remember. And the nerfs bothered me a bunch…but I’m still here! Part of the real PVP of any MMO was always Players vs. The Devs. They’d code a nerf, we’d compensate. They’d code another, we’d exploit. On an on until some Dev gets pissed that you aren’t playing the game the way they intended and they ban your accounts. I actually had that happen to one of my three accounts (Yes I was one of the monkey exploiters if you remember that time period). But I kept two paid accounts. And…20+ years later…I’m still here. Am I reformed? Nope…I just adapted. There’s some stuff I really disliked but not enough to make me rage quit. Others….they rage quit. At first, ED and then GDN and then all the fury directed at AE really pissed me off. And IO’s were confusing as hell to me originally. Until I realized IO’s were kinda the Dev’s way of saying “You can have SOME nice things…but you have to work for them.” Regardless, never underestimate what defines “fun” for someone else versus yourself. There are many who would still be here even with “City of Blasters” or “City of Regen Scrappers” were the meta. Heck, the memories I have of perma-MOG builds and literally HERDS of flaming monkeys are what kept me coming here all these years. Yes, they are but memories…but memories make nostalgia and that makes for pleasant gaming. After all…why do so many of us still play retro games with craptacular graphics? Because its a pleasant pastime. So was herding and burning once upon a time in Paragon City.

I had a Fire/Ice tanker back on Live and had played since Beta of the game. Post the “Purple Patch” you couldn’t have taken on pretty much anything +20 levels to yourself and survived. Could I pull the entire (originally non-timed) Wolf map into a dumpster and kill the whole map by myself? Yes. Could I do likewise in other hazard zones? Yes, at least up to +4 my level. But the Purple patch nerfed anyone’s ability to take on anything solo beyond +4 differences in levels. And to put it into timing, the Purple Patch went into effect before Issue 1 was released. So it wasn’t really around all that long. But while I find the mechanics of what you described above to be similar to how my Fire/Ice tanker used to herd-and-burn, that mechanic won’t work all that well these days. But on the bright side….Tanker damage output has been increased significantly from where it once stood for primary attacks. Aggro radius while not unlimited like it once was is better than it was before Live shut down and several other buffs to Tankers have been made. They aren’t meme-gods of herd-and-burn any longer in the PVE world in general, but they are still quite popular. Note: If you want a taste of SOME of that nostalgia, build a Rad/Fire combination for a Tanker or Brute and go run a Fire Farm map in AE. Your aggro restrictions will make you take on only a couple of spawns at a time, while all their friends just stand to the side throwing potshots at you until the aggro queue opens up for them to enter the fray at melee distance, but it’s still fun to take out the whole map in 15 mins or less.