Crysis

Although I abandoned him in the mid 40’s, my Thugs/Elec took Cross Punch and I was working on softcapped S/L Defense and had Rune from Sorcery as my oh crap button. It worked really well for tankerminding as Cross Punch drew decent aggro with some soft control. So the shield just stayed over me and the henchmen would mostly stick close to me since I was in middle of spawn. Ultimately I just found Thugs/Elec, and Bots/Elec, to be a highly survivable build but low damage output. Demons/EA might be better but I’ve kind of given up on WA overall in favor of /Storm, /Time and /Dark. Ninja/EA to me sounds incredibly frustrating. I loved my (well @Redlynne’s build) Ninja/Time. Can’t imaging Ninjas being any better than that combo.

I know it’s been said in this thread and countless others but the fact is you should be the PUG you wish was always the case. Lead one and call shots/tactics as you wish. Or arm yourself for PUG meltdowns by carrying temps/pets or whatever. Or do what I do and only take durable AT’s on PUG’s. I won’t take my non-incarnate MM’s on PUG’s at +4/x8 because I know at 49 All but my T3 henchman is going to be mostly useless other than as disposable aggro fodder, and my support capabilities will be equally neutered. But I can throw a decently slotted scrapper onto the team and contribute some damage and survive (usually) without much effort. I’ll save my lowbie MM/Controller/Dom for coordinated teaming with my SG or other known-friendlies.

I carry max qty Envenomed Daggers as my PUG rescue pill. Usually a Signature Summons or two as well. Works almost every time, especially if someone else has the Daggers. We’ve all had disaster PUGs. To me that’s just part of the experience of this casual MMO. Even PUG’s can succeed thanks to prevalence of temp powers and no-set-team-makeup required.

Trick to making Beam feel “meaty” is high recharge. You get a good chain going and disintegrate coupled with the nuke do very well together on teams. Solo, I can concede the point as it’s harder to get things bunched up to take advantage of the disintegrate mechanic of Beam.

Beam/TA before the nerf was an amazing ranged “overwatch” kind of character. I loved warehouse missions because I could hang out in the ceiling in one spot and pretty much just lay waste to the entire room from a distance. Post nerf it lost a lot of its abilities and I can’t recommend it now.

While I’m all for “I CAN do this thing and so I went and DID it,” I’m actually surprised that if 3 multi boxed MM’s can totally destroy the aggro limits of the AE farming maps and you basically have maxed out damage, resistance debuffs, etc etc.....it still takes THREE MM’s with all the crazy game-breaking mechanics to match (or possibly even beat) the kill speed of a SINGLE Spines/Fire Brute. 3:1 tells me Brutes were/are game breaking.

I dunno, I played a Demons/TA on Live and it sucked. Then I rebuilt it on HC and it sucked less but still wasn’t fun. Then they buffed /TA and so I played it again....and stopped at 44. It’s just a very underperforming set even with the buffs, at least relative to all other options you have available. I ended up using Redlynnes Ninja/Time build just so I could enable a bow with my concept theme. Fully procced out the Ninja bow attacks are decent. And at least that set felt fun relative to the slog that was /TA for me.

Just did a little more testing. On my Thugs/Storm, I pulled out the Explosive Strike procs on both the Thugs and Bruiser and replaced both with FF+Rech procs. If I throw out Tornado or LS, +Rech procs almost every time ON THOSE TWO POWERS, usually on Summon, although I think I saw LS proc once or twice after it was already out. If I let the boys run by themselves, NO +RECH Proc. Not on Summon, nor on play. Tested dozens of times. On my Ill/Storm, did similar test using Phantasm. Same thing, no FF+Recharge proc on summon, nor during play. LS, Tornado, Water Spout, etc....all other summoned 'psuedo-pets' or whatever those are, they procc'd. Again, tested dozens of times. So yes, can confirm on MM henchmen and at least on Phantasm for an Illusion Controller, there appears to be no FF+Rech procc'ing going on for anything I'd slot into them. But since the change to Soulbound behavior, I tend to only slot damage procs into the Hechmen so wouldn't have noticed this behavior otherwise. So the issue appears to be with Henchmen or Controller Pets (and maybe other pets too, haven't checked there yet), but not the summoned powers like Tornado, Waterspout, etc.

Just tested this.... On an Ill/Storm Controller, FF+Rech procs added to LS and Tornado, procs often ON ME. I'm averaging 253-325% Recharge while they are out, allowing me triple LS as normal. On an Demon/Storm MM, FF+Rech procs added to LS and Tornado, procs almost every time ON ME. I'm averaging 242-315% Recharge while they are out, allowing me triple Tornado and double LS. On a Thus/Storm MM, FF+Rech procs added to LS and Tornado, same results. Those are typically the only "affects caster" procs I apply to my /Storm Controllers and MM's. But I'm not seeing the bug you are indicating, at least not for that specific Proc?

Just to confirm, those two extra options show up once the client has managed to download the update. Mine did sometime overnight and they are enabled now.

I suspect because my HC client was in an error mode the three dots wouldn’t show “Verify” or “Check for Updates.” I’ll try to remove the client and do a complete reinstall, or just stick with Tequila since it works fine.

On my third reboot now. On HC launcher. Installer is pointing to d:\games\coh. Can’t update pre-release or Beta, and still can’t update game. Just downloaded Tequila on this machine. It’s downloading files now. Sounds like I’ll need to revert back to Tequila to play today.

Clicking three dots for me gives me "Settings" or "Uninstall" Went through all the Settings dialogs, no re-validate option in there. I think that's only for Tequila launcher. I'm running HomeComing Launcher on this machine. Again, on Tequila, everything is working fine.

Woke up, saw I needed to update, doing the same thing. Reboot, still errors out. Can't proceed. Have a second computer running Tequila and it updates fine.

You have a point here. Had Sentinels been introduced before Blaster sustains, Global Defense Nerf and during the early days of IO set bonuses, it’s quite possible they would have been one of the most popular AT’s at the time. But I honestly don’t get most of the comparisons to Homecoming blasters as those are very durable, extremely powerful and other than mezz protection really are some of the highest sustained DPS dealers in the game....mainly because they can deliver most of it at relatively safe range. I’d say Brutes and Scrappers are the ideal “entry level” AT to play as even on SO’s/non-set IO’s they pretty much have a simple mechanic of inherent durability and extreme damage with almost zero tactical management necessary outside of clicking. Wade in and start bashing....that’s all there is to those AT’s. Sentinels really need adjustments to be viable beyond concept. Outside of /Regen for Sents. Ironically, Sentinels are the ONLY Regeneration set that totally seems to make sense anymore.

Like so many others I have a Spines/Fire/Mu brute with 46% Fire Def, Max Fire resists, high Regen, high defense, etc etc. For AFK farming he clears most maps in under 12 mins easy, no deaths. For active farming, around 4mins or so. I multi box (same machine) and generally am playing one of my many Alts on primary instance while PL’ing a new alt in an AFK farm (lowbie hidden) or just set the farmer to AFK farm for purples. On a given weekday evening doing this I’ll PL a new alt to lvl 32-35, earn 4-5 purples between two of them and earn maybe 100MM in influence....all by just resetting mission and moving two accounts in/out of AE portal. Honestly if you are AFK farming speed isn’t as big of a deal as is damage and durability. And of active farming.....I have an Archery/Fire, DP/Temporal and Fire/Energy blaster that can run the maps almost as fast as a tuned brute.

I may get shot down for saying this but two bourbons into a stormy Sat night why not? Sentinels are the AT for players who whine about the durability of Blasters. They fix that aspect very well and still provide ranged attacks. Damage is lower than a Blaster but survivability is so high you have plenty of time to take down your opponents without fear of death. Sents are Blasters with training wheels. As of right now that is the sole purpose of the AT. If the Devs ever fix the damage/aggro issues with Sents then, and only then, do Sents become ranged Scrappers.

Wow! I’m using this for my “Priestess of Pele” Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel. Fitting as she’s the Sentinel Guardian of the Cult to Tutu Pele!

To add to this, many MM's who prefer the "Tankermind" playstyle will take the Presence pool to get Provoke. This is a Taunt power. Any MM can draw initial aggro on themselves by just jumping into a spawn with an aura running or throwing out an attack. But if your henchmen are on Defensive Follow, they will attack whatever attacked the MM until its dead....and then just stand there like dopes until/unless you keep getting attacked. Which, you sometimes won't be once they pull aggro onto themselves. So either you are running a toggle/aura as the MM that allows you to keep drawing all aggro onto yourself and/or you grab Provoke and spam it to keep pulling aggro onto yourself, thus keeping your henchmen from taking too much aggro on themselves. Personally, I don't bother with Provoke. On teams, it's a low-magnitude taunt and you'll have even scrappers pulling aggro off of you so it's not very useful. And solo, almost all the secondary's have some other form of pulling aggro onto yourself...inclusive of personal attacks. So not needed IMO.

I made my Necro/Storm into Michael Jackson and “Thriller”

Agreed on Gale. I typically slot mine with at least one FF +Recharge, a SA KB2KD and if I’ve slots to spare a couple of other procs. It’s used constantly. Highly underrated power.

I have a Demon/ Bots/ Necro/ and Thugs/Storm build. None have Provoke. Between your rain, Tornado, Gale and LS, you’ve little reason to worry about pulling aggro onto yourself to play the henchmen in Defensive mode. I also skipped Hurricane, or respecc’d out of it, on all of them. The neat thing about /Storm is that it’s primarily your damage power that augments your primary. It’s got some debuffing, sure, but that’s not why you play it. You maximize your storm damage output, slot +Recharge liberally and then you’ve easily got two Tornado’s, almost perpetual Freezing Rain and two Lightning Storms out, and everything is well controlled with knockdown assuming you put the procs in where appropriate. With such high Recharge native recharge (I’m typically running north of 225% when moving to next spawn), grab Burnout for a fun party trick of triple Tornado and Lightning storm. Pylons melt quickly with /Storm assuming you have native DEF or RES up on the henchmen (VERY easy to do with Demons and Thugs, little more work for other sets). What I’d suggest is go grab any of the /Storm builds I’ve or anyone else has posted, go grab a Mercs/anything build, and then just use MIDS to change the primary on the /Storm build to Mercs. With few exceptions, most people six-slot their henchmen and single slot the two upgrade powers. Then just slot like you’ve seen elsewhere for Mercs. Easy enough to add/delete slots to powers using MIDS. Take a look @StrikerFox vids in the Pylon for MM thread. There’s some videos of Mercs/Storm doing pylon runs in there. Maybe they are still around and you can get some feedback after posting your first try at a build.

Outside of a couple /SR characters and a Bots/Time MM I never hit softcapped DEF until late 40’s and usually 50. I could but to your point it’s not usually worth it without running a sub-par build for damage. And it’s very easy to achieve soft capped DEF to positional or typed past 50 without even trying that hard. Chase the fun first. When dying too much interrupts your fun -then- chase a Def or Res soft cap.

Alllll the respecs. Even the recipe ones I’ve gotten from packs. And usually I end up running a respec trial even after that. And on at least a couple I’ll have a dual build on top of all that. All of them. I use all of them.