Crysis

This. If you are 44.6% Fire DEF vs 45%, it -WILL- make a difference for AFK vs active farming. Same goes for perma-haste vs. just shy of it. When you active farm, you are throwing out so many attacks, that the slightly lower defense and/or recharge numbers on a cheaper build don’t matter much. I have a cheap build I used for active farming for months and I was always running Briggs maps at sub 5 minute clear times, faster with Lore pets but pretty speedy even without. But that farmer couldn’t AFK because fire defense was at 44.2% or something close to it. A respec fixed that and he AFK farms without any issues now. Also, if you PL alts using your farmers, try map 36565. Nothing spawns until you touch an object first. Makes it easy to hide the alt before the mayhem starts. Very good map for AFK farming as well as long as you position yourself properly.

I always came back to this one....

First henchman it hits only for EC I believe yes? (Edit for better clarity....I meant I think you only get that buff for the first henchman and everyone after gets less). Assault anyone can take.

That’s one of those coding oversights that just makes you realize the value of good QA LOL.

Ive got a Bots/everything and the only two that never felt right were Bots/TA and Bots/ElecAff. The issue I had with Elec Affinity is that it makes the Bots quite sturdy but does almost nothing for their damage output. Thus you are just standing there going almost nothing while they pew pew things to death SLOOOOOOOWLY. I prefer some risk vs reward ratio. I want higher damage output and reasonable durability. But I don’t care all that much if I have to resummon because I already build for high recharge. The inbound summon timer reductions will just make this easier.

Likely would never happen but what if applying the Upgrade gave a 1 minute temp level shift to the henchmen, sort of like the Level Shift inspirations?

I tend to slot likewise for same reasons but I still wish this game just had a simple “Allow Knockback?” toggle in the Tailor powers customization screen or something. When solo, I tend to like it. When teaming, not so much. Would be nice to not have to slot in/unslot the KB2KD procs all the time but at least that’s a workaround.

I enjoyed reading your stuff until you resorted to personal attacks.

Not directed at you but rather the Dev comment you referenced. But seems to me if the need to re-apply the Upgrades is an incentive to keep the henchmen alive, and yet this change greatly reduces re-cast/CD timer on resummoning, there’s an acknowledgement that keeping the henchmen alive is a real challenge in and of itself, Upgrades notwithstanding. I do see the note that MM’s will get more attention in future and if/when they do I hope it’s a buff to henchmen durability, either directly or indirectly via buff to MM’s powers/power costs.

Speak for yourself, the MM “experience” shouldn’t require me to waste END on upgrades to a henchman if his upgraded buddies are still alive. Maybe if I lost them all....but losing one and resummoning it should allow it to benefit from the group Upgrades. And what I’d give to have my END penalties diminished so I could actually USE my primary attacks....

Been awhile since I had Placate on a Stalker. But if memory serves, Placate basically overrides whatever coding causes a critter to run. I always looked at it more as a single target sleep than anything and used it to stop runners. Once you attack them, they may just run again but....just saying you may (again, I could have faulty memory) already have a tool available to you in primary to deal with this if it annoys you that much. These days, I just take an Epic/Patron power to deal with runners.

Have DB on both scrapper and stalker. Pylon times are dramatically better on Stalker version, and I find in normal play that to be true against foes as well. DB/EA stalker, following SwitchFade’s build advice, is pre-nerf TW/Bio scrapper almost broken its so good.

Been years but I used to zone PVP frequently and Recluse Victory was the top tier for that. I’d pop Hibernate and routinely get owned by AV’s and other PVP players alike. Things may have changed since Live but I don’t think Hibernate makes you untouchable.

Yes, I have PB on my Bots/Time, but on my Thugs/Time, I took Soul Mastery for the RES shield. That gives me two layers of defense. My Thugs are S/L capped without power boosted Farsight.

Thugs/Storm or Demon/Storm MM’s are amazing against stationary targets. My Thugs/Storm MM can take down a pylon in under a minute. But that’s not really how PVE works. If you’d like to experience OMGWTFBBQ levels of superhero godliness akin to Thor or Superman in any PVE +4/x8 content then you can try: Bots/ or Demon/ and /Time MM Fire/Kin, Fire/Storm or Ice/Cold Corr...or Beam/Traps Corr if you like a little more planning with your damage. War Mace/Bio or Axe/Rad Scrapper DB/Energy Aura Stalker DP/Ninja or DP/Temporal Blaster Fire/Energy Blaster Plant/Fire Dom Fire/Kin Controller Ill/Rad or Ill/Storm Controller....the latter is an “expert mode” build as its high damage chaos There are many other AT’s that are good to very good but the above can solo anything the game can throw at you or do the same with teams....but with an audience.

I have several */Time and Thugs/* MM’s, including a Thugs/Time. On mine I’ve softcapped DEF for S/L/Melee and almost capped S/L resists, thus don’t really find mezz’s land that often. So I jump into spawn with TJ running and the henchmen on Defensive and they follow me right into the -TOHIT debuffed spawn. I have slotted Boxing and Cross Punch which both do horrid damage but gives me some additional aggro ability and some soft control. I also have 190%+ recharge so I can spam the heal as needed. Most of the Thugs/Time builds I see are Ranged DEF soft cap and use Bonfire. Effective also but I do like to be in melee and tankermind and thematically slugging it out alongside the Thugs feels right.

The challenge with these kinds of threads is context. -what definition are we using for “powerful” -solo or teamed? PVE? PVP? Pylons? versus what kind of content? -what’s your unique point of reference? -are we talking DPS or survivability or something balanced? I’ve taken the various builds out of the pylon test threads and recreated them faithfully. Against pylons they worked as advertised. But in PVE with PUG teams against a variety of ordinary missions....they felt far less powerful. OTOH I’ve had team-oriented AT’s who could solo GM’s and AV’s easily as long as I controlled the battlefield and didn’t have to deal with a teammate pulling way too much aggro at once.

Speaking only from my personal experience, there are very few times I decide to go Defender vs Corruptor even when the same two power sets are available to each. I think the introduction of Procs has blurred the roles dramatically, but I also think the current implementation of Procs is going to be addressed (read NERFED) and that line will become unblurred very quickly. One is an offensive support player (Corruptor) and as such their secondary is meant to augment their primary. The other is a Defensive support player (Defender) and their powers are primarily meant to augment the contribution of OTHER players, even if it just so happens to augment their attack strength as well. So WHEN, not -IF-, Procs are adjusted, I suspect that my approach to building and playing Corrs will become even more in tune with the game mechanics. I focus heavily on debuffing MY targets so that they succumb to more damage from MY attacks. On my Defenders, I focus more on debuffing (or buffing) the TEAMS targets and core abilities so that THEIR attacks are amplified. For me, my most effective Corruptors have been Fire/Kin, Fire/Dark, Fire/Storm, Fire/Time, Fire/Rad (seeing a pattern here LOL), DP/Rad, Ice/Rad and Ice/Cold. I can build a Defender to play much like a Corruptor with Procs, but without Procs, that wouldn’t be a smart approach.

I’ve just not had that experience. But sometimes, we enjoy certain AT’s than others due to game mechanics. Mezz isn’t that big of a deal for me on any Blaster, Corruptor, etc and the Sorcery pool has been a nice bonus to work into builds as “oh crap” buttons. I mean I have many, many Melee builds and Psi or Toxic are annoying to deal with because I don’t have easy mitigation for those either, even if Mezz is virtually ignorable altogether (other than the pesky Fear powers). But every AT is meant to have at least SOME weakness. Heck, the entire Warshade/Peacebringer AT have Q’s -JUST- to annoy them. All I’m saying Bill is that without a little bit of crack in your armor, you don’t have much reason to feel Super. Even Superman has his Kryptonite.

One of the best ways to skip Clarion entirely (and I think I only carry it on one Blaster) is to go Hybrid-Melee and Rune of Protection. I often alternate between those two. Between i-Softcapped SLE and R from IO sets, plus the boost from Melee Hybrid, you are pretty much playing a ranged stalker. Mezz isn’t an issue if it doesn’t land (which is where the high DEF comes into play) and if it does, you pop ROP, get the boost in RES and then pop Hybrid Melee thereafter.

Fair enough. I’ll admit to have taken some awful powers for just that reason. I’ll often respec out of them once I realize how bad they are versus the cool factor but I can acknowledge that concept can trump functionality.

I feel that. I have a “Walking Tall” homage WM/Bio scrapper but his only two choices that fit the theme are the club or the police baton. And the club looks like something Bam Bam from the Flintstones would wield.

I think this game, more than most other video games I’ve played over the years, lends itself well to diversity since there’s so many pairings of power sets and so many set bonuses you can attempt, and respecs let you easily change a character even long after it’s been retired. I’ve even taken some long-retired alts and all but totally remade them as experiments. For example, taking a Blaster that was built for softcapped Ranged defense via Hover to a Melee Blapper with extremely high recharge. Same Primary/Secondary but two totally different characters from a play style perspective. So no, I’ve no “forever” characters. I mean some have existed in one form or another since early Beta of this game prior to 2004, but I’ve remade even those several times over....Red vs. Blue versions, different power sets, different play styles/slotting, etc. etc. etc. I guess I’m stuck in the multiverse version of this game, with my role as Writer/Director constantly re-casting the same character, but putting them in very different roles.

You should do at least one. In fact, since the game has changed so much since Live, most raids do it 3 times now in a row and are over in under an hour once formed. What works for me is I have one alt (suggest you make it a ranged damage dealer, like a Blaster, as they are really easy to play in a Hamidon raid) that I just log out inside The Hive whilst standing on “the rock” that serves as the gathering spot for raids. Then, when you see the announcement that Hami raid is starting, just log into that character. It takes awhile to form up usually, but as long as you log in early, you won’t get stuck in Hive2 instance and locked out of raid. Then, by merely being there, a simple /b LF Hami comment will get you invited. Most raid leaders have macros to call the shots/moves. And most raid strategies now involve raid sequence leaders. So if you are a blaster, just put yourself on Follow for your particular raid leader and do what they do. Make sure you have a jet pack or fly and it’s almost paint by numbers easy now. You could almost literally do one AFK if you just Follow your particular raid leader and leave an attack on auto-fire its so easy. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do, but just making the case that you have absolutely nothing to fear about screwing the raid up for everyone else. Worst case is you die somehow but with so many players involved, a Rez is usually quickly offered. So don’t worry about being invited. Just show up on time in right Hive and you WILL get invited. Follow the instructions from Raid Leader, follow your particular raid section leader, do what they do and you’ll be successful and get your Hami O, merits, etc. Three times in a row.

When HC first re-appeared, I was there day one with a plan. I had saved ALL of my old Live characters as Sentinel files, so I had all of the builds as of the date of shutdown. I was convinced when the SCORE drama cleared the game would only re-appear for a short while before being taken down again, so I was determined to get “one more run” with each of my favorites. Even back on Live I had several 50’s that just never clicked with me as did others. But I had a few 50’s that I loved, and several alts that weren’t 50 yet when the game shut down that I also loved but was forever stuck with the “Didn’t complete them” feelings of loss. So I lined up my Top 10 alts and came up with a plan to do three things: 1) Build a farmer for PL/Influence gain purposes, 2) Use farmer to quickly PL my favorite alts back to EXACTLY where they were at when game shutdown and 3) Play those alts to complete them. Not knowing about the whole market seeding thing, I planned my first farmer to be something that could easily farm via just SO’s, a Fire/Kin ‘troller, which also happened to be one of my mains. Shortly after that I created the typical Spine/Fire farmer, but both of those existed in my library of goal alts anyways. Quickly accomplished goals 1 and 2 and had my library of past Alts more or less complete. A few were changed to different AT’s because of changes to power sets and such brought about by HC. For example, my beloved BS/Regen Scrapper from Live (long since nerfed to oblivion) was converted to a BS/Shield Stalker. But otherwise, I had all my old toys back. Then, of course, alt-itis struck again. I’m now way past four-dozen or so fully T4’d level 50’s and have actually only finished maybe 4-5 of my original “Top 10” toons of old. Just having too much fun and every day I see a costume, character bio or a sequence of animated moves on another player that makes me go “ooooo, I want” and then another alt hits the library. If the game shuts down tomorrow, I’ve crammed a whole bunch of hours and fun into the new alts I’ve made, and no longer feel the need to go back and finish my Top 10. Some were “top performers” only on Live and of course HC has changed a huge number of power sets, meaning the top tier looks different now than it did.