Crysis

I took it on my Necro/Marine and then later respecced out of it. I didn’t find it was working on anything that was already summoned (eg Barrier Reef) but would enhance my heal. But once you seldom need much healing with that set it wasn’t useful to me.

For -active- farming, your best bet is to focus on Smashing/Lethal farming. If you multibox, lots and lots of combo’s, even non-farming builds, are viable using these farms as it’s quite easy to cap S/L Defense, Resistance or even both. I have a DP/Time Blaster that is S/L/R Defense capped and also uses Hybrid Support to max out Resistance. Farm with that toon all the time and it’s not risky at all. Same goes for MasterMinds (takes a bit more work, but very viable), Dominators (really need the pets to pull this off), Corruptors/Defenders and I’ve even got one Controller (again, need the pets) that can farm effectively (Fire/Kin controllers were the first farmers I ever had).

With /Marine Affinity and either Bots or Mercs I’m just not finding that to be true any longer. Yes on a speed run sometimes lose one or two but in almost everything else /MA is an amazing set to keep the pets alive.

I’ve personally never seen it self stack but I can say Brine makes a /Marine MM with almost any primary a highly effective AV/GM soloer. It’s also incredibly effective on priority targets like Sappers, Surgeons and Repair bots. One application of Brine -by itself- is enough to one-shot most of these even at +2/+3. They are out of the fight before I even land my Whitecap spawn flattener.

NOW I want an all Petless Mastermind ITF! Maybe even a 2-Star ITF! So much derping to be had!

One player = one opinion. Yours is no less than mine. Speak your mind!

True, although I often don't want to miss so I go overkill on Accuracy and ToHit anyways. But you just educated me....didn't realize Ultimate would do anything if I'm already topped out at 50+3 in iContent, or 50 for zone events like ToT so I've ignored them.

If you have enough global accuracy and +ToHit you don't need Ultimates. I'm doing it regularly with a single slotted 50+5 Fold Space and Tactics with a bunch of +Acc and +ToHit bonuses.

I multibox often but follow the CoC to the letter. More often I'm solo on a 50+3 MM trying to grind away my last T4 emps. I think the issue is some people think that League play is the only "approved" way to ToT. Personally....I DESPISE the month of October. So much lag in PI. Too many players only doing mindless ToT Apartment Murder grinding. Nobody wants to join teams. I honestly don't log in much for the month I hate it so much. But, there's always those that insist people only play THEIR WAY. I think I despise that even more. Where's the Snarky Lounge? I need to go be anti-social for the remainder of the month obviously.

So Uh....why not just park your league next to their second account MM killbox? Anyone who tags the critters gets XP. If they are getting all the XP everyone else is tagging doors to grab, just....join them? I don't see why so many players in this game INSIST on playing things a certain way? Seriously, if their second box account is doing all the work, take advantage of it. They will likely either go away when the reward no longer is there or not and you profit either way. Besides.....single player door knockers just pull even-leveled critters. Only the Team/League players are getting EB's and +4's.

If you've got the height, I find if you leap upwards as high as you can and trigger FS at the apex of the leap, they fall down in a nice tight "ball" and as a bonus, many are falling as if they've suffered a Knockdown effect. My experience anyways. Do it this way in the outdoor ITF a bunch for clumping and burning in the killboxes. But I've seen it being done at the Murder Apartments in PI during TOT events also so I know I'm not the only one who has figured this out.

Gonna have to agree that if you are going to make a Petless (or one Pet) Mastermind, /Marine or /Storm is likely the one to beat right now. My Whippit Mastermind was a Demon/Storm, and I did keep and slot the Prince but only pulled him out on AV battles like a Lore pet. But with the other /Storm powers, particularly Tornado and LS, you pretty much could just proc all your primary Whip attacks, same with your pool attacks, and at least contribute as much as a drunk Controller running on red SO’s without any accuracy in their holds. But if I were to build one today, Whitecap procc’d out + all the other Marine Affinity goodies would be a close second choice. Not sure I’d go with Beasts MM attacks.

Paging @plainguy…..someone thinks your Petless Mastermind concept is nuts. (Note: It -IS- nuts but you’ve obviously got your cult members thinking otherwise) To OP: I give you the one, the only, original Petless mastermind er…..MASTERMIND on the concept. As a personal aside, I have made an all Whips + Fighting>Punch/Kick/Crosspunch + Epic attack pool Mastermind. It’s fun to play but I realize that I’m doing almost nothing to help the team but I look damn fancy while doing it!

In a game that’s -entirely- focused on defeating enemies to progress, and the nature of leagues of TOT’ers mostly focused around a few convenient spawn points (eg; Apartments in PI), I don’t really find the use of Fold Space that big of a deal. In fact, I’ll routinely camp right in front of the awning at the apartments and just spam Fold Space over and over as it recharges. I’ll often run across others who are doing the same and we coordinate it so we aren’t just moving packs of stuff 3-4 feet. It’s makes for a pretty convenient killing field. Now in a mission environment? If we have a tank, I’ll plant myself by said tanker and Fold Space so the mobs come right to them. If no tanker, but have players using sleet patches, bonfire, Marine pools, etc as the “killing spot” I’ll do likewise onto the patches. More often than not, it just makes for a faster clearing team than taking on one spawn after the other in sequence. The only way I can think of where you‘d be “griefing” like with is if in using Fold Space you are actively depriving someone else of XP for a kill. Given the nature of Leagues during TOT or Zombie/Rikti zone events, that’s highly unlikely to happen. Unless you are a solo 50’ish player just running around and using it specifically for that purpose. Which would require you to be highly selective about which critters you target (which is hard to do with FS itself) and your timing and the location you port them to has to be someplace the impacted League players cannot reach. Do-able? Yeah maybe. Repeatable enough to deprive entire leagues of XP? Not likely.

Nothing to add to what Mek already wrote here, and my experience has been very similar. The only thing I’ve found is that I’d put Ninja slightly ahead of Demons in normal PvE and with heavy use of smokeflash for the extra “go crit crazy” DPS. Thugs was dead last for me, but still very good, even outshining my beloved Thugs/Storm w/Burnout build. /Time is the only MM secondary that I’ve found that comes close to /Marine Affinity for MM’s, although /Cold helps them a bunch for adding defense. My one and only complaint about /Marine, and you’ll notice it far more with Mercs/Marine than other sets, is the raw summon and prep time. Exemp down and need to resummon? 40-50 seconds required to resummon, wait for Commando to finally parachute in (summon him first), equip with both upgrades, summon Barrier Reef, apply Shifting Tides to Commando, drop Tord/Abyss and THEN you are ready. During Tinpex right before you do the final Neuron/Bobcat mission, dismiss everything to avoid the stupid henchman TP bug. Then you are dead last to the fight while you do all the above and still summon Lores. It’s a crazy long sequence. Fortunately, you don’t have to resummon them as often outside of incarnate speed runs so that’s a plus.

I’m rather pleasantly surprised when I meet someone in-game who either a) never played it back on Live or b) did play it on Live but recently ‘rediscovered’ it. Yesterday I did an ITF with someone who had never done an ITF before and had no idea how IO set bonuses worked. They were on a Tank which, thankfully, can handle a lot of damage even poorly slotted but it was obvious as a Tanker they’d never dealt with more than one spawn at a time. By the second mission, they were repeatedly face-planting due to ambushes. So we started chatting during rest of missions (I was on a MM) and I just told him to put himself on follow on my Commando and attack stuff near it and I’d keep him upright for remainder of TF. Hey, I love new players….free bonus pets! Too bad I have to use chat to command them though. This game ain’t toxic. Just players who are uninformed and used to playing solo make it that way.

Generally, yes. If we have a straggler I offer to TP them. If someone is always getting low on health, and I have a heal, I use it on them. If I notice they are grabbing aggro, I cozy up to them, drop a patch and Fold Space on the aggro-er. If they aren't doing much of anything, I'll call them out. Or kick them if they just stand there doing nothing. Yes I monitor the team and their actions. Otherwise, why not just solo?

Sounds a LOT like the old “invisible Katana” bug that persisted for a long, long time. Out of curiosity, is it invisible to everyone on your team as well? Or just to the user?

I often use ChatGPT for inspiration for bio’s and such. This is kind of a neat little prompt generator for getting ideas for new alts.

Someone wrote a ChatGPT character creator. Name, powers, Bio and character image all in one. Check it out! https://www.reddit.com/r/Cityofheroes/s/PkZ33BETsf

So I just checked in-game, I did make some changes from the build I posted. -Soothing has 2 slots, 53 Golgi's in each one -Took out both %Damage procs from Shoal Rush. They don't do much. Left the Achilles in there. -Pulled one slot from Barrier Reef. It now has 3 Reactives (Res, Res/End and Proc) and 2 53 Golgi's. Absorb is worth more than Defense. -Put two of those free slots into Shifting Tides. 5 slotted Ragnarok (no Knockdown Proc) and for sixth slot put in the Gaussian Proc. It goes off quite a bit. -Put the last free slot into M30 Nade and made that an Overwhelming Force Acc/Dam.....mainly for the additional Regen bonus. This set seems to thrive on all the +Health/+Regen you can throw at it. Hope this helps!

Just do remember that almost all the old guides regarding Mercs are totally outdated. The major MM overhaul that impacted Mercs took them from middle tier to amazeballs. And with the new “hard mode” TF settings ranged henchmen have a decisive edge, even with one or more Destiny>Barriers running. I have a Ninjas/Marine MM as well and while they are quite sturdy now, I still have to resummon them far more on hard mode trials than I ever have to do my Mercs or Bots. Big difference in quality of play for the MM.

Changed very little from what @Meknomancer posted originally, although I insist on Fold Space on my Marine Affinity toons....although YMMV. This is what I ended up with, although I think I managed to drop an extra slot into Shifting Tides and put a purple set in there....will have to go in game and double check. Sirens_SEALs_MercMarine.mbd

I tend to not be a wasteful person in life, and this trait follows me into gaming. I have so many fully T4’d out 50’s, many sporting 4-5 Purple sets and tons of Hami-O’s, that I feel wasteful letting them sit there, unused, while I go off and buy more for a new project. That said, sometimes I’ll “melt down” an old alt that I no longer play via a respec so I can grab all their enhancements into the trays and then just delete them entirely. Other times, if I think the toon -may- someday be better after some Dev love (looking at you Storm Blast alts), I’ll use enhancement unslotters to grab their ATO’s, Purples, Winter Event enh and their HamiO’s via Unslotters and pass them off to another toon. It’s easy enough to reslot them should they ever be more than lackluster appeal again after a dev update, but since I’m not playing them, no sense leaving “gold rims on the car up on jacks in the garage” as they say.

I mean technically don’t all the badges collected from the hero/villain bank/mayhem missions add up to Task Force Commander/Invader Accolade?