Crysis

Nah, play however you want. Your time, your own brand of fun. Powerleveling is still a thing and you can learn most gaming mechanics just following the farmer and lending a hand on attacks/buffs/debuffs. Not like Tab and Click works differently in AE missions versus the “real game” lol. Welcome back and enjoy your playtime here.

Thugs/Storm is a beast for DPS especially if you build for high +Recharge. Thugs/Time is much easier to play and also quite fun.

On my Mercs/Cold (very high +Recharge) I didn’t find it all that passive. I had procc’d out Infrigidate as an attack pretty much and of course dropped Sleet often. That plus having all three attacks PLUS Fold Space and Cross Punch kept me plenty busy. Heat Loss was also up pretty often. I guess it depends on your play style.

Get outta my head! I was actually considering a Zane (of Ninjago fame) type of character, an Ice Ninja. But honestly, I really like the concept of going all bow attacks between primary attacks and TA. So maybe I'll just make one of each. How much of /TA is skippable to allow me to take the primary Ninja attacks? Even proc'd out they aren't all that good, but some of the build crafting I'm doing is showing me it's still going to be pretty tight if I want to fit in Fold Space (and I'm pretty sure I do!).

I want another MM character. I have really enjoyed the rework of Mercs and built out an incredibly effective Mer/Cold character. She was fun all the way through T4 Incarnates. Shelved now as I'm a bit of a completist and once I've achieved all the accolades and incarnate tiers, I've no desire to play that character any longer. After the rework to Nina's, I completely rebuilt my old Nina/Time character and found it effective enough to finally finish up all the accolades and Incarnate powers. Most recently, I finished up my Necro/Storm Michael Jackson homage build after the Halloween event. Great fun, will likely pull that one out of mothballs next October as well, gods willing. But now I'm waffling between a Ninja/Cold or a Ninja/TA. Very recently I ran an "all bow users only" ITF and actually surprised the leader when I showed up with my Nina/Time. They forgot that Ninja MM's have bow attacks as our primaries....easy enough to not remember that since in the past so few MM's took their native attacks. So it got me thinking...what about a Ninja/TA? Both Ninja and TA have been updated since Live days. Maybe those changes would create a far more effective toon than in the past? I love bow animations, so maybe...just maybe..... But then there's /Cold. It's an incredibly powerful secondary for the paper defenses of ninja's. Two +DEF shields, a -RES and a +END power all in same set? Worked -very well- for reworked Mercs. Maybe Ninja's also? I ran a Demon/TA in Live and to this day that's the -only- toon I've ever totally "melted down" for their IO's and deleted, despite having T4'd all incarnate powers. Just a horrible combo. Thoughts? Is a Ninja/TA better off in the PVE world than a Ninja/Cold? And if so...any recent builds around these two updated sets to show me the way?

Think of it as an “AOE Upgrade,” meaning if you upgrade one you upgrade all. I’ve seen it not work if one summoned henchman isn’t anywhere near the others when upgrading but that’s going to be a rare occurrence. If in doubt look at your henchman control display and you’ll see the upgrade buffs.

Welcome to club. Psychic Clockwork gears don't count. I think several of us learned this the hard way. Not a bug.

Later in levels, Sleet + Heat Loss properly slotted for both and proc'd stack up to around a 80%+ -RES effect. Plus more Endurance than you'll likely ever be able to burn. Benumb is an AV killer for -REGEN. Infrigidate is almost better as an attack than a debuff with procs. I have a Vet level 70-something Water/Cold Corr that runs top difficulty Aeon and ITF's non-stop. Ice/Cold and Water/Cold are absolute top tier AT's in this game for anything in the PVE world.

I have always wished the upgrades to henchmen were simply an inherent power once chosen. If that's too much of a 'freebie' then make them toggle powers the MM has to run with a wee bit of END burn. I get so sick of having to click 5 powers to get ready, and the aforementioned delay of upgrading re-summoned pets that get killed during battle.

I've seen comments about Heat Loss being optional but for all of my /Cold AT's, it's at least as useful for the massive +END as it is for the AoE -RES...which isn't small! For a lvl 50 corrupter the -RES from Sleet is -30%. But Heat Loss is another -24% and it STACKS with Sleet! If you have any other -RES procs in the mix (I have both an Achille's Heel in Infrigidate and then a Fury of the Gladiator -RES in Soul Drain in my Ice/Cold build....and Soul Drain is also nigh perma), you are literally turning the foes into paper targets. Oh and +1 for the BP Lore Pet for the additional -RES from their sleet. It's sort of how some /Dark users forget that Howling Twilight isn't just a situational rez, but a massive (-500%????) Regen debuff on targets it hits. I consider Heat Loss to be one of the foundational powers of the set.

Very true....Burnout produces double Gang War, but Burnout doesn't produce double Ghosts. Something tells me though that we are seeing a hint of what's coming for Gang War.....I'm betting it won't let you double up that power after they address Thugs. But even if that comes to pass (you read the dooooom here first folks!) Gang War by itself could spawn 9-12 pets, so you'd have 6 henchmen + up to 12 from Gang War + 2 lore Pets = up to 20 out at once, not counting a secondary pet. That would still put Thugs as most pets on the field at a single time. Impressive! Anyone ever play Undead Horde: Necropolis? COH starting to remind me a little of that. Or if you are really old school...remember the Overlord franchise? Those games were my go-to when COH died the first time just to get a feel for herds of pets.

Did a TF earlier and during AV battle realized I had 14 pets out PLUS 2-3 Spectres at all times. 6 henchmen 6 Ghosts using Soul Extraction 2 Lore Pets ------- 14 pets +3 Spectres from primary attacks So 17 technically, although 9 of them not controllable. I suppose depending on my secondary (Storm in my case) I have triple LS and triple Tornado out at once, so those are another +6 pseudo-pets. /Dark would have fluffy, etc. But I'm thinking Necro is now about the king of pets out at once? amirite?

A glass of bourbon and fresh roasted pecans. Easy on my keyboard, and I tell myself the pecans cancel out the liver damage.

As long as it says Scourge over a spawn we are attacking, I’m doing my job. If I’m NOT REALLY doing my job, then stay quiet about this please.

Storm Blast getting absolutely ZERO love…. Color me shocked. After alllllll that feedback given during beta. SHOCKED I say!

So much seconding this. I used to be huge on /Time for Ninja’s and several other MM primaries, but /Cold and Ninja’s work really, really well together. Same for Mercs although obviously Ninja’s are going to be very melee oriented. Cold requires so few slots to be super effective that you can load up your personal attacks and if you still feel you need something else consider Cross Punch, more for the KD than the damage, although procc’d out it’s not so bad as far as MM attacks go. But otherwise, a Ninja/TA is a lot of fun and very thematic. I often show up on ITF “All Bow User” teams and people are often surprised that MM Ninja primary attacks are bow based.

I started one of these but at around 36 I parked it and rolled a Merc/Cold. Might pick up the M/D again but wow I was impressed with Merc/Cold.

You say bug I say MM buff. Actually makes me wonder what other ways I can leverage this buff.

I’ve seen it double stack on Grave Knights frequently but I’ve never seen it apply double damage bonus….just two buff icons.

Just wait until they finally get around to nerfing procs….

I was a bit surprised I had to get this far in the thread without someone mentioning pet slotting, esp for MM AT. For that matter, anyone who procs out their attacks usually is already sacrificing some IO bonus here or there in favor of more damage. HO/D-Syncs are great in these powers to shore up either Acc, DMG or both. If you are already frankenslotting it’s a good idea to see if you can free up a slot and still min/max within that particular power. Likewise for MM pets since they typically have multiple powers of their own that make it hard sometimes to fully max out with traditional pet IO sets. And almost all MM’s are starved for slots. The recent makeover Necro pets got screams for several HO/D-Sync opportunities, especially with the two “power up” enchantments. Those used to be 1-slot wonders but since one is +Res and the other is +Regen/Heal they now benefit greatly from 2-3 slots each. Ribosome’s and Golgi’s or equivalents in particular. “Min/Max” isn’t just for full builds. There’s plenty of one or two slot powers that can be effectively min/maxed with just two slots that would benefit from HO/D-Sync slotting.

Is there a full list somewhere of the ‘memorial’ NPC’s?

Not the answer the OP was looking for, but I had an alt in a RP SG once upon a great long while ago, only time I ever played RP in this game. At any rate, there were strict rules about the effects on a players’ character after engaging certain elements of the Lore of the game. For example, anytime you faced Vahz or undead you would be weakened for some period of time. In order to simulate that ‘weakness’ you were required to strip enhancements from certain powers that otherwise boost vitality, agility, etc. And you were forbidden from using travel powers for the duration of the “after effects” of the engagement. It was a well-written/conceived list of ‘consequences’ and was part of the RP fabric of the SG. There were a few “curses” that would permanently cripple your character, at least for awhile. For example, if you were defeated in combat against an AV you’d be forced to lose any Tier 9 powers in any subsequent missions against the forces aligned to that AV (COT if lost to Infernal, etc.). The RP rules of the SG effectively made the game FAR more difficult than fun to me so I didn’t stick with it, but your comment about RP curses reminded me of it. Perhaps one way you can play out the “curse” motif is to take debuff powers that are color tintable in a way to simulate the curse being applied to your targets. Radiation, Dark, etc all would work well for this purpose. Then apply some of the curses to yourself as mentioned above (lose an enh/temp loss of a power) if you are defeated as the “curse backfired.”

I won’t say who as it was actually several, but I repeatedly watched “leechers” standing around by the terminal directly opposite the entrance to the apartment complex. They were close enough to earn XP, but far enough away to stay out of the melee. Pure leeching. I’m assuming most were alts to others actively playing in the TOT league as a couple showed up in my Global Friends as new alts while their owner also showed up on their primary accounts as being in-zone on a team of 8. But more than a few times, I watched “leechers justice” kick in when people would deliberately pull aggro onto the leechers from either nearby street trash and/or (more often) directly from the apartment spawns. It was clear to see the leechers weren’t actively played as they’d just die and their bodies would lie there for some time before the account owner came back and rezzed them at the nearby hospital. Leeching has always been part of this game, door-sitting or otherwise. I even see it in the Hive during Hami raids or the RWZ raids. Leechers gonna leech.

Lots of control macro sets available. I love @Sandolphan’s myself. I even carry a small bluetooth keypad with me just to play MM’s with those binds. its so easy to just go from defensive, to aggressive, to attack my target. Its become second nature for me.