Crysis

The TOE Proc is the only one of the set to give a chance to return END (+10). And although I don't think it says in-game it's "Unique" I can only slot one into Siphon Life...it won't let me slot multiples.

Can confirm this is also similar outcomes when slotting a single Res/End Hami-O (lvl 50) in my Necro/Storm MM. And yes, I dismiss/resummon after slotting. And further, it seems to differ depending on which henchman I’m targeting when running the upgrades. I originally thought it was the level difference of the henchmen relative to the caster, but even when I consistently target my Lich (highest level henchmen class) I get the same outcome.

Have had this happen in Talos once just using the /respec command. Zoning to Atlas fixed it. Prior to zoning, respec failed twice, i did a logoff, logged back in, and failed respec a third time. Zoning seems to resolve a lot of weird bugs like this.

Honestly, I think the vast majority of MM's had just a single EndRedux in their two upgrade powers. I did also. Too lazy to do a full respec until Mids is finally updated, I just swapped those out with a Golgi Hami-O (End/Heal) and a Ribosome Hami-O (DmgRes/End) on my Necro/Storm. I really see no need to move any other slots around as on a Necro all the +Def/+Res aura's were already slotted into the Soul Extraction power and there's not a whole lot more worth slotting there. I may look to my other MM's to do same treatment as the Dual enhancement power of Hami-O's and their kindred gives you a nice buff without having to do a full respec.

Thanks for the reply! I'm currently running Pylon tests with my Thugs/Storm and my Necro/Storm. Thus far, I'm not sure double gang war would be any worse/better than double Souls. But of course that's a stationary target and different attack types. But I appreciate that you've considered everything "in context" here.

Anyone catch the dev comment on this in the MM changes feedback thread? Sure it’s situational but if you play /Storm MM’s and proc out with a bunch of FF+Recharge, Burnout and Gangwar both recharge almost every other spawn. So it’s a pretty cool party trick. But when it was noticed that Soul Extraction didn’t work with Burnout we were told it’s working as intended. Thematically it makes sense as even zombies should only have one soul each. But it makes me wonder if Gang War is going to get the same treatment when the rest of MM sets get their “adjustments.” *edit to include comment/thread*

Speaking of procs….. In evaluating slotting choices for Necro now, I’ve got a Necro/Storm that like most stormies is always thirsty for more +END. Life drain can take heal procs, always could. But I’ve never really had a reason to slot it up before. As an attack it makes more sense to do so now. If I put heal procs like Absorb or Theft of Essence….who gets the benefit of those procs? Myself, the caster of the power and the recipient of any healing returned, or my target? Last thing I want to do is buff my target of an attack.

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.