Crysis

Look to the master….their build had all three personal attacks and all the other goodies you’d really need. You might want to throw a few slots around but it’s a great starting point. It was already the best Ninja build I’d ever played but the buffs -even without any slot changes- just made them crit more!

Doesn't really matter as MIDS hasn't been updated for current issue so you can't really build an Ill/anything Dominator in it right now. My suggestion is to look at a number of the Dark/Dark Dom builds (plenty here) and some of the Illusion builds over on the Controller forums and cobble together what you want from those. Personally, I'm going Ill/Dark/Dark. END hungry builds, even with perma-dom.

I'm not playing as much these days as I was (Steam Deck has me finally churning my backlog of games) but I did log on yesterday and played my old Ninja/Time build (modified version of @Redlynne's 'It's aBOW Time" build). That has all three bow attacks, all highly procc'd. While my bow attacks remain abysmally bad (Oh lookit, I hit that guy for 45 damage!), the chance to crit mechanic from personal attacks + revised Smoke Flash is really, really noticeable. I've not seen much yet from the enhanced +Heal and +DEF mechanics, but since I'm already running Destiny Barrier, not much additional +DEF needed outside of hard mode stuff....and we all know most MM's aren't welcome in those anyways. Ninja's were always fun to play, and the changes really seem to have given them some more teeth. Haven't tried my necro yet and I've never been fond of Mercs so won't bother with those. Still seems like one of the lower tier sets to me.

Nice graph. I have almost ceased playing the game altogether in my typical fashion, which was 1-2 AFK farmers and one active account. I used to play nightly like that, sometimes daily during business hours with the AFK accounts, but now maybe log in once per week and only on my Active account. The chart shows flat trendlines from May-Sep on all servers, so from my perspective, Page 4 didn’t really drive any new player engagement. We’ve hit our peak years ago during Live, we hit our Homecoming peak 2 years ago and we have an active, if really small, community of hardcore players. No more, no less. Any changes to the game from here on out aren’t to drive growth of the playerbase, just oriented at hanging onto what we have. That’s fine, I get some enjoyment out of it still. But then I also still play Day of Defeat fairly regularly. Familiarity is always a strong draw.

Care to share some tactics? 1) Did you have a tank grabbing/holding aggro? I’m assuming you weren’t “Tankerminding” stuff? 2) Did you remain ranged on Defensive Bodyguard or otherwise attempt to keep bots using mostly ranged attacks? 3) Any significant +ToHit buffs to allow pets to hit targets? 4) Pet +DEF/+RES stats at top end? 5) Any other useful combat tactics for keeping pets/self alive? I’ve now completed exactly one 2* ITF with my Demons/Time build and it was primarily keeping myself and henchmen entirely on Defensive Bodyguard and only selectively targeting outlier critters. Had a tank and brute on team, remainder were blasters and corruptors and one Defender. I basically hung back with blasters and was a weak buffer and ghetto blasters. Demons didn’t do much damage at all. Still lost henchmen frequently but survived mainly by being carried and roaring pew pewing pot shots.

Too busy fixin’ farmin’ I’m afraid to worry about MM’s being able to participate in end-game content. Maybe after Sents get some attention.

Really, all you have to do to make your existing Spines/Fire into a current-gen AFK version is ensure you have the +Regen and +Health accolades and grab Spiritual T4 (or possibly just make do with Survival Amplifiers). I think Spiritual T4 is +33% Health and Regen? I think Survival Amplifier is +40% to Regen and +15% to Hit Points. So depending on your slotting, -might- be better off with Survival Amp I'm thinking?

I finally managed to finish a 1 star ITF on my Ninja/Time with Destiny Barrier. The “It’s a Bow Time” build famous in these forums. I agree with all you’ve said and yes the Rommie battles were hopeless for my pets. Haven’t tried on Rugged with this build yet but I’m about done trying on MM’s unless it’s someday addressed. And yes….I do believe a level shift solution would make these hard modes playable to MM’s up to at least 2 star ratings.

If any Dark Souls players are here on HomeComing, I'm sure they are here to relax. This isn't that challenging of a game. Unless you play MM's who actually -rely- on Destiny Barrier to keep from resummoning henchmen twice per spawn in iTrials.

Realistically, any comparison should be made around min/max builds. Minimum spend and effort required for maximum output. I mean I can spend a billion on a Sentinel but it’s never going to compete against even a Brute at half that cost.

Regular Incarnate trials are already challenging for a MM. It's hard to keep the henchmen alive when they are fighting against stuff in the purple patch above their level. But the new Advanced Difficulty stuff? MM's may as well just not participate at all. I know you always try to look at balance, etc, but really the henchmen need level shifts at least -1 to the MM player or something. As it is, this is almost as bad as the original LRSF days of CoV when entire AT's just couldn't even participate. Take a look at this chat and maybe consider throwing us some attention so we too can enjoy your new content?

Ummm E) All the Above Seriously. And the new Aggro rules mean even if you are really accurate with proper henchmen control macros it doesn’t matter as any nearby mobs are gonna aggro onto your pets and they just can’t handle 2-3X inbound damage. I have 8 fully T4’d MM’s now. I’ve attempted to run them all on Rugged ITF. I even did an all-MM version. It’s just not viable. For me at least. I was hoping it was just me and someone would throw out some useful tactics but I think it’s just that these new difficulty modes don’t consider the native MM handicaps.

I’ve also noticed that many of the AFK farms were built with ‘helpers’ that would fly randomly about the map and thus pull aggro towards the center. Now they seem to not move at all, or if they do, only a bit. I’m not sure if this was a stealth nerf or a change to “helper” powers requiring them to be grounded to do their thing.

Incarnate stuff for MM’s is mostly playing things “on hard mode” anyways, because of the level shifting effect. But since we now have more than one “really hard mode” TF I would hope the Devs might circle back and realize that almost our entire AT is excluded from this content. There’s been countless recco’s on how to improve them in general, but I think its going to take a matching level shift for our henchmen now to survive this. I’m willing to acknowledge I may just be missing a tactic or three when tackling these challenge TF’s. But I just found myself totally unable to leverage my entire primary at all.

Have now done 2 and 3 star ITF’s on my Thugs/Storm and my Demon/Time MM’s. I just can’t keep pets alive and end up running pet less for most of the missions. The added aggro mechanic is murder on my pets. I have all the numpad binds, max DEF and RES values from builds etc. Seems like the whole thing is just not MM friendly. Any insights from others?

Easily defeated by current "mouse movement emulators" so not likely to work on an 18 year old game. Heck you don't even need a software hack to do this. Just place your mouse on top of a wristwatch and it will do the job. But I get where you are coming from. I'll just reiterate that I think the way the Devs implemented this "Anti-AFK Farmer" coding is fair and equitable. You can still do it...but it will take more time and require more than just copy+paste into MIDS and buying IO's on the AH. It requires sacrifices....Spiritual vs Musculature, go PVE world and earn some Accolades, buy some pretty pricey Amplifiers, etc. It's not brain-dead easy now. Equitable is always a good dev design choice. I appreciate what they did, even if I think it was totally unnecessary in a game already getting killed by playerbase attrition.

I had it slotted (Gladiator's TP Protection) and it didn't seem to make any difference.

I'll give devs credit. They curbed AFK farming for the filthy casuals. There's already ways to tweak your AFK farmer if survivability is an issue (go Spiritual T4, IO bonuses for Regen/Health, get all the +Health accolades or just cheese it with Survival Amplifiers for +Regen). But given how they tweaked the aggro stuff, added the damage type calculations, nerfed some of the easier fire farm XP/Inf mechanisms.....you have to -work- at it now to AFK farm. A little bit more perhaps, but enough that some will just not bother and switch back to Active Farming. Or just do what so many have already done and PL a AFK farming -tank- rather than a Brute. They could have just outright killed it with a sledgehammer if they wanted to. Instead, they left it possible....but not without relearning some things. So in that way, those that still want to do it will stay in the game as players. Those that don't won't...or simply switch back to Active farming. Either way....while I disagree with it in principle, I have to give them credit for -HOW- they did it.

3 Blasters, 2 Widows, a Defender (don't recall exact but know they were Empathy and did all the rezzing) and a something/electricity Controller. We were just too quick to resort to old tried and true "normal" ITF tactics and that's usually where we got clobbered, mostly individually but a few times multiples of us at once. The biggest issues was drawing the extra ranged aggro from nearby spawns who no longer just wait their turn while watching us destroy their buddies across the way. For first series of Rommie battles, it wasn't so bad as long as we worked together to take out the guardians when they respawned. But Rommie wouldn't get locked down and he'd start pulling in adds from far and wide and those would get some of us ganked. The final Rommie battle wasn't difficult at all as long as you avoided the Black Hole bombs. Honestly, it got easier as we went along because we learned that old tactics didn't work any longer. And the body thief tactic we'd defeat quickly once we learned it was slowing us down repeatedly. But for a PUG....think we did about as good as could be expected.

But with the aggro'd >18+ ranged plinkers throwing shots at you, your fury builds faster! So this is a buff right? RIGHT?!?!

New Rommie is no joke. That whole ending turned ITF (always one of my faves) into an -entirely- different game now. I can see myself repeating that often. I'm sure it will go faster over time. But who wants the old and busted Rommie relative to the new improved bad-assed versions? Loved the two GM's, but admit we cheesed that a bit by pulling them up the mountain to keep the riff raff adds from constantly ganking us.

yup did that repeatedly on Rugged ITS last night.

I did a 2-Star/Rugged ITF last night on my dual build Widow. She’s very tough in normal PVE stuff inclusive of all the iTrials. Solo’s LAM objectives, DA incarnate level missions etc. I got my a$$ handed to me multiple times last night. Most of the team died repeatedly and had at least one or two total wipes. Mad respect for the advanced difficulty sliders. I really enjoyed the challenge. The whole “body thief” mechanic really pushes a new level of cooperation amongst team members. It’s the only time outside of AV battles where I’ve seen the full team shift immediately to save a fellow player. This was with a PUG which made it even more exciting. The rewards earned me several hundred million as well (I’m not into costumes).

But if you are truly AFK farming....what difference does a few minutes clear time make? If you are ACTIVE farming, I'm using my pre-patch build on an auto-timeout fire farm in AE and I can active farm clear it in the 5 minutes allotted before the mission resets. If I'm AFK farming, it's -always- taken longer than Active farming. Might just be the maps I use. But I'm not really getting overwhelmed at all. I do tend to start farming right inside the entrance but I've always done that as I'm typically using my phone and ShadowPC to AFK farm while going about my normal business day. Worked before, still working now.

Drama. The answer to any debate about this or almost any other game is always and forever drama.