Crysis

Second DP/Kin, or a Fire/Kin. Nice thing about DP/Kin is with HoB and get a sweet +DEF for a few seconds, plenty of time to jump into the spawn, Fulcrum followed by HoB. Neat trick.

All the above and…. 1) IO slotting to get your +DEF to softcap. The higher your Defenses the harder it is for most mezz attacks to land in the first place. I routinely run without any status protection and rely on breakfrees for the rare times I get mezzed, and that’s because I build to softcapped Smashing/Lethal/Energy or Ranged defense. IMO, investing in softcapped defense will do more for your survivability against mez and damage than almost anything else you can come up with via Rune of Protection. 2) While on the subject of +DEF, make sure to check out the P2W vendor and look into buying Defense Amplifier. Yes, it’s expensive as you gain levels, but depending on how fast you level, you can purchase 8 hours’ worth at level 1 and its dirt cheap. Each charge of a Defense Amplifier offers +5 in Defense, +7 in Resistance and -MAG +4- Protection to Hold, Stun, Confuse, Knockback, Immobilize and Fear mezz attacks. These Defense Amplifiers often are included in Winter Packs and given the ‘sales’ run on them from time to time those packs are a great investment. I’m still sitting on hundreds of these and use them on almost every character from 40-50. It’s a great way to fill in the issues with a build until you can attain Incarnate powers. 3) People often forget about Supergroup Base Empowerment stations. These exist in most well built bases and for the price of just a few pieces of salvage you can gain resistance buffs for a variety of status effects, from Fear to Sleep to Knockback to…almost anything. They last for a couple/few missions and are a great way to deal with the occasional problem enemy type. Got a Carnie arc to deal with? Grab the Empowerment Station buffs you need to get through it. 4) There are some temp powers that offer various types of temporary mezz protection from certain mezz attacks. Visit the Homecoming wiki for a complete list. Same for a few of the harder to get accolades. And the Aegis special proc IO for reducing the duration of certain status attacks. 5) Finally, a neat trick for needing more breakfrees than you can carry is to write a macro to convert the inspirations you don’t need (say Revive inspirations) to quickly combine them into Breakfrees. You can combine 3 of any type of inspiration into similar sized different inspirations. And if that doesn’t provide enough, you can again use the P2W vendor to modify your inspiration drops so you just don’t get the ones you don’t need and focus more on chances of only getting what you do need. Personally, I use the auto-combine macros more often and rely on that. And, as a backup to your backup plans here….email yourself a bunch of breakfrees. Then you always have some squirreled away if you find yourself suddenly in a mission you cannot easily handle without breakfrees and you can resupply from your own email. Just some tricks I’ve learned to avoid issues with mezz attacks. Every hero has their weakness, but mezz attacks can be quite manageable if you use all of the tools available to you. Edit: Numbering

The changes to Mastermind FR and Sleet -specifically to nerf the -DEF debuffs- makes zero sense when you realize the level shifts inherent in our henchmen. You are just making it THAT much harder for their attacks to land and/or for them to have any meaningful damage output.

This. Likely the most damage output of any MM is going to be something/Storm. Likely Demons/ or Thugs/Storm. That's all Storm pretty much is other than the one defense toggle....damage resistance debuffs and damage output, not counting Hurricane and some of the other skippable powers. But yes, your own personal attacks, even fully procc'd out, are laughable. I generally do more damage with a fully procc'd CrossPunch from the Fighting Pool than I'll do with any of my primary attacks.

Wondering how your builds will fare with the large nerf coming to Soul Drain? I count on that for almost all my Corruptor builds and I’m sure many others do too.

Demons/Anything. Teams just LOVE the purring sounds they make! Like….really big, hungry kittens. It’s great! Note: I’m not satan. Just haven’t had enough coffee yet this morning.

Powerfarm from 1-32. Always. I haven't played lower level content in....forever. Not since maybe first month of Homecoming. Don't miss it one bit either. Even with all the nerfs to AE, I still take maybe one or two gaming sessions per week, usually when I'm in video meetings or asleep, and just afk powerfarm a couple of new alts. Then when I'm ready I pull them out, kit them out, and play for real. Not everyone's cup of tea but I find the storyline in this game monotonous and repetitive.

No, it wouldn't. 20 years ago I suffered -immensely- from Anxiety. Like....cripplingly so. Herd-and-burn/rinse/repeat was an incredibly (mindless to some) calming playstyle for me. Something about completing the entire map, knowing nothing was left, and done so efficiently. It let me relax the way others might do so from alcohol or drugs. I would glaze over, feel calm coming over me and do it repeatedly, sometimes during the day while otherwise tending to work/life stuff. It was therapuetic. 20 years later, I don't need that, I've found many other healthy (sometimes FAR more healthy) means to deal with my lifelong battles with anxiety. I'm actually very thankful this game came back in 2019...just before COVID. Because COVID lockdown drove me bonkers with anxiety. I'm sure I wasn't alone for that. But when the dev team upset my anxiety-reducing style of gameplay I sort of freaked out as there wasn't much else on the market to scratch that itch. Luckily for me...I perservered. At any rate, people who compare to the glory days often totally miss the glory right in front of them. You can't go through life navigating through memories of the past with your eyes closed to the abundance of the present. It doesn't work that way.

To be fair, and it’s not for everyone mind you but…. It’s 20+ years later and I -immensely- enjoyed being able to herd an entire map, pull them all to a dumpster, Ice Patch + Burn and maybe a little buddy pocket Kin would jump in to help out. Would I have done that forever? I mean, I did do it for months, maybe more than a year, i don’t really remember. And the nerfs bothered me a bunch…but I’m still here! Part of the real PVP of any MMO was always Players vs. The Devs. They’d code a nerf, we’d compensate. They’d code another, we’d exploit. On an on until some Dev gets pissed that you aren’t playing the game the way they intended and they ban your accounts. I actually had that happen to one of my three accounts (Yes I was one of the monkey exploiters if you remember that time period). But I kept two paid accounts. And…20+ years later…I’m still here. Am I reformed? Nope…I just adapted. There’s some stuff I really disliked but not enough to make me rage quit. Others….they rage quit. At first, ED and then GDN and then all the fury directed at AE really pissed me off. And IO’s were confusing as hell to me originally. Until I realized IO’s were kinda the Dev’s way of saying “You can have SOME nice things…but you have to work for them.” Regardless, never underestimate what defines “fun” for someone else versus yourself. There are many who would still be here even with “City of Blasters” or “City of Regen Scrappers” were the meta. Heck, the memories I have of perma-MOG builds and literally HERDS of flaming monkeys are what kept me coming here all these years. Yes, they are but memories…but memories make nostalgia and that makes for pleasant gaming. After all…why do so many of us still play retro games with craptacular graphics? Because its a pleasant pastime. So was herding and burning once upon a time in Paragon City.

I had a Fire/Ice tanker back on Live and had played since Beta of the game. Post the “Purple Patch” you couldn’t have taken on pretty much anything +20 levels to yourself and survived. Could I pull the entire (originally non-timed) Wolf map into a dumpster and kill the whole map by myself? Yes. Could I do likewise in other hazard zones? Yes, at least up to +4 my level. But the Purple patch nerfed anyone’s ability to take on anything solo beyond +4 differences in levels. And to put it into timing, the Purple Patch went into effect before Issue 1 was released. So it wasn’t really around all that long. But while I find the mechanics of what you described above to be similar to how my Fire/Ice tanker used to herd-and-burn, that mechanic won’t work all that well these days. But on the bright side….Tanker damage output has been increased significantly from where it once stood for primary attacks. Aggro radius while not unlimited like it once was is better than it was before Live shut down and several other buffs to Tankers have been made. They aren’t meme-gods of herd-and-burn any longer in the PVE world in general, but they are still quite popular. Note: If you want a taste of SOME of that nostalgia, build a Rad/Fire combination for a Tanker or Brute and go run a Fire Farm map in AE. Your aggro restrictions will make you take on only a couple of spawns at a time, while all their friends just stand to the side throwing potshots at you until the aggro queue opens up for them to enter the fray at melee distance, but it’s still fun to take out the whole map in 15 mins or less.

Sentinels pretty much are the “easy mode” AT on Homecoming. They aren’t all that powerful, but they get armor (great defense) and melee-distance (mostly) blasts as primary offense. They don’t particularly scale well so you may find at 50 you are outclassed by pretty much every other AT in the game, but they are durable, mostly fairly easy ciick-oriented powers or toggles and don’t particularly require a lot of special tactics to play. I’m sure I’ll get swarmed by the Sentinel Reputation Defense Force forum posters for saying this, but it’s a great starter AT until you really find what you like best for combat. Mix of melee and blasting. If you decide you love blasting, then move up to a real Blaster or maybe a Corruptor or Defender. If you like the “nothing really gets through my defense” mode of play, but want more powerful attacks, then move to Scrappers, Stalkers, Tankers, Brutes or even Dominators. Controllers and Masterminds are sort of in classes all by themselves, as are VEATS and Peacebringer/Warshades. Think of Sentinels as the Sampler Platter on the appetizer menu. It can be a whole meal, but you’ve got a full menu ahead of you so best to just use them as a nibble before the main course.

Unless it's a meme toon, my name really needs to synch up with my bio/origin story. On many occasions, I couldn't get the name I wanted and so did a complete bio/origin story rewrite to match the names I could actually obtain. I'm never in favor of coming up with alternative spellings for the name I want unless it's compatible with the backstory and/or it's written that way in a different language. I'll sometimes force-fit it and use names like "Redd" for "Red" and then change the bio so that the backstory includes references to that spelling (like referencing a fictional Redd Industries for a Tech origin character, as an example). If I'm being honest, I think less of the player behind the character when I see they "settled" on a near-spelling of the name, like "Rael Sooper."

This game, like all the other MMO's of the early 2000's, had a very complex UI with a lot of different required keyboard+mouse commands. It was never friendly to joypad use, and was always designed as a PC-only game. Pre-IO's and Recipes it was one of the simpler MMO's out there, as complex as it was, because you really only needed to understand the basics of the enhancement system. Recharge for speed, Health for heals, etc. Then they introduced crafting and IO's and recipes and salvage (which coincided with the subscription model to keep players engaged longer and thus support more revenues for the publisher) and the complexity went off the rails...but for the time, still it was no more complex than many other MMO's. But it's 2024. Game design has changed entirely. Even top selling games like Baldur's Gate 3, as complex as it can be, is -far simpler- than most MMO's of their day. This is a 20 year old game, with 20 year old design criteria. It's not a PS5 game, it's not pick up and play. It will never have broad appeal, just as it didnt during Live. It has niche appeal. If I want web slinging and acrobatics, Spiderman video games are FAR more enjoyable to give me my superhero fix (as long as it's Spiderman obviously). This game can't and likely won't ever be that friendly to a casual superhero action gamer. Honestly, if I didn't pretty much know how to play this game already, and have so many years invested in so many characters and understanding how to min/max a character to the gills...I likely wouldn't hang out here at all. It's just a steep learning curve, too steep I'd argue, for most of the gaming generation that grew up playing games from the comfort of their couch.

Heck, my first 50 here on Homecoming was a Fire controller because I knew it could be effective with just generic IO’s. Then of course the Fire/Spines Brute came next since you could PL yourself with that build. I hit my first billion in influence within the first couple of months of the games re-introduction. I’ve been playing off that seed capital ever since. I PL a toon to the late 20’s or so, throw 200m at them, by the time they finish up their T4’d Incarnate powers, they are sitting on well over 5-600 million in influence just from crafting/selling drops and mainly using my enhancement converters to get IO’s that toon needed. Rinse repeat. You can’t help but make money in this game if you just do this. PL has always been a part of this game and most other MMO’s. I don’t now, nor never will, get the hate for it. It’s playing the game, using the same mechanics as all the “hard way” players.

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.