Crysis

Think of Bots as having stupid level AI and Thugs are just a murderous street gang and Thugs will get the advantage just by being human street smart.

I actually think Redside content is more interesting story-wise and variety-wise than Blue Side. But I find the entire atmosphere just kinda….murky and stifling. It's not "dark" in a psychological manner. I find it too cartoony for that. But it just seems...murky. I find myself having to hunch up closer to the monitor just to make out some details, or fiddling with my Gamma to brighten up the screen. Annoys me. I feel a bit manipulated, sort of like a cheesy horror flick that's using music to constantly tell me when things are about to turn blood and gore.

Starting today, I've been having frequent and repeatable Mapserver Disconnects when zoning out of Ouro into BAF trials. Oddly, the "Mapserver Disconnect" error appears over the opening credits sequence (looking at Mother's opening monologue) or upon zoning in and getting the "Power of Prometheus" popup. Normally, I'd just DC and get that message on the loading screen, but now it's actually superimposed over in-game cutscenes and normal team gathering footage. This has never happened before today. I've re-validated my files via Tequila, etc. Several other players reported same thing, forcing League leader to re-invite us after we DC'd to a Trial already in progress.

Yes on Sentinels neither the player nor anyone else can see the katanas. Totally invisible.

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside yo (salvage) trunk?

Well if true, and I suspect you are right.... Paragon City is dying again.

Looks like they REALLY enjoy playing this “boring set” relative to just about anything else in the game! Compared to how much they play there are entire AT’s that must be more “boring” to play. We also don’t know what they are playing content-wise. I suspect much of it is AE but I also see quite a few on iTrials and PVE content. But I also think this number is highly representative of the popularity of AFK farmers. I have one and it’s almost always logged in earning influence and drops during slow parts of the day, often for several hours at a time. The total population drop that happened in Aug/Sep was noticeable. Let’s hope end of school year coming brings back some summer players but I’m doubtful.

Looks as if Freddy Mercury and Burt Reynolds made a love child.

Dr. Q will always be the crappiest TF in the whole game for me. You have to have the right travel/temp powers to make the TF even remotely do-able, and as you’ve stated, it is an extremely BORING TF. I’ve only done it maybe 3-4 times, but I remember the last time I was quite literally falling asleep at mission doors waiting for someone who missed the teleport to make it there so we could start. Bad writing, bad design, crappy zone in general and repetitive missions. Just stupid, like some summer intern was messing around with mission building in the Cryptic dev shop and then they said “screw it, just throw that one in there” on a whim.

I personally find Fire/Rad/Fire to be a really good combination, as you add in Fire Sword Circle as part of your opening chain. For me it’s Aim+Ground Zero (they are on backs) + Inferno + Fire Sword Circle for those surviving, then Fire Cages. You can also throw out Fire Cages after Aim and alternate your chain a bit depending on the spawns tendencies to run. Since your aggro limit is lower on a Sent this helps keep everything grouped up. I based my build off of this thread, but made some changes along the way. Out of all my Sentinels, it “feels” the most powerful. I routinely solo +4/x8 with it, have literally “farmed” Carnies and solo’d several TF’s. Because it’s a Sentinel, it still won’t kill anything fast, but the 3 PbAOE plus Fireball makes it a really good AOE player, and you’ve several good ST attacks for finishers.

Have played with both slotting models. Honestly, in normal PVE (not a Pylon test), Piercing Rounds + Procs “feels” like better damage. Because of the animation and what you see with orange numbers. But I agree, its actually bad for your DPS. I’ve since returned to mostly full sets. If you’d like, I’ll dump my build here, but I based it on another thread (rarely follow builds as exactly as posted however). It did get better with Incarnates as I was then able to change up my slotting even further. But then, everything else just gets that much better than Sentinels ever will. Honestly, the Blaster changes have spoiled me as to what a high damage AT can accomplish via Absorb and DEF slotting. I’ve got a Fire/Energy blaster that has perma power boost so S/L/Ranged DEF is all pushing 60% and fantastic recharge of almost +185%. She doesn’t faceplant at all, hasn’t even died once since lvl 39. So when I look at Sent’s, with naturally better DEF and RES to begin with, I think they could actually back down a bit on some of the secondary values and instead re-divert them into primary. Or even do something like extend a Sent’s native high +DEF/+RES and let it benefit the team somehow (sort of like Grant Cover for a Shield player). That is what I actually THOUGHT a “Sentinel” was going to be when it was first announced. But I’m no designer so unsure of what it needs. More damage for sure. But if you really want to make it a “scrappy Blaster” then it needs a lot more than that. Maybe more AOE oriented primaries, maybe more melee attacks and fewer ranged. Right now, they are just a hodgepodge and feel a lot like the PeaceBringers when they were first introduced. Jack of all trades, master of absolutely nothing.

My DP/SR/Ninja Sentinel does very weak damage. Sturdy, but almost nothing there. You can survive forever, but that’s important because you will take forever to kill things. On the other hand, my Fire/Rad/Fire Sentinel is very sturdy, has three PbAOE nukes that are up almost every spawn (a couple twice per spawn) and is a very explosive-tanky kind of character. I’ve outsurvived tankers and I certainly out damage them, even after the new buffs. The recharge on this toon is so high that AOE’s are the primary attacks and the ST stuff is just to pick off runners. All said though, I think OP may have picked the wrong powers to think of this is a the ultimate Sentinel. Then again, the ultimate Sentinel for damage output is still fairly underpowered relative to just about all other ranged attackers in the game.

May I ask how you slot it? I use usually 6-slot the power with 4 Dark Watcher's Despair including the -Recharge proc, a Pacing of Turtle -Recharge Proc and an Impeded Swiftness +Chance of Smashing Damage proc. I may as well be the only light in the moth house with this power.

Oh man, seriously? So this app has now been abandoned? If this isn't updated any longer, and Pines isn't updated any longer....we no longer have an updated builder?

Here's another historical alt timeline character, this time my "durty" Broadsword/Shield stalker, Revenant de Molay.

I'm a history buff so a lot of my characters have backstories rooted in historical people, events or "alternate timeline" scenarios. Here's what happened to the Pirate Anne Bonny....now a full T4'd Incarnate Fire/Storm/Dark Corruptor.

Can second this guide Redlynne. I’ve played many Ninja combo’s (Ninja/TA....please just kill me now), and frankly Ninja/Time is about the ONLY way to play Ninja’s at anywhere close to the same level as other MM sets. Still not meta, but definitely plugs a ton of the holes. To add my opinion to this thread, I think for years Bots was top tier and could be married up against almost any of the secondaries and still remain in the top 10 combo’s for the MM AT. HC brought some changes about to make me now say that Thugs is likely just a smidge above Bots in most areas, and considerably the highest DPS potential when married up against /Time or /Storm, with maybe Demons now knocking on Bots second place depending on the secondary. HC really has made MM’s an entirely new class to play, and I think the playerbase is starting to notice this. For a long time, MM’s weren’t fun to team with and while I always enjoyed them, they weren’t really top tier on anything. Not so anymore.

I think Tankerminding as a playstyle still has its uses, but these new MM changes have really given us a whole new dimension on how to position the crew for maximum damage while still remaining defensive yourself. Also, the common wisdom behind Tankerminding was to take and spam Provoke. I’ve found that totally unnecessary on a /Time MM with Times Juncture. That power, for whatever reason, seems to constantly peel aggro off of tankers. Jump into spawn with TJ running and let the henchman open up from range (this is how I did it for years on my Bots/Time MM’s, although I even used TP Self to trick the henchman AI into opening always from range...worked well). I’d take the alpha (floored -TOHIT and high native DEF meant zero damage to me) and usually the next couple of rounds of attacks while my bots chewed them up from range. I never once took any powers like Provoke...just wasn’t necessary. I’d just have to touch something with TJ aura and they’d stick to me like glue afterwards. MOB’s seem to hate TJ’s debuff enough to ignore everything else.

My understanding (could be wrong) is that henchmen and pets are simply coded to ignore all +RECHARGE buffs of any kind. So no matter the fixes they did to ranged vs brawl attacks, they simply have no ability as coded to accept any form of +Recharge buff. I have likewise heard they ignore -RECHARGE debuffs, but honestly don’t run into that often in the game to know if true or not.

Yes I used to be a huge believer that you really couldn’t beat a Bots/ Time for MM. softcapped defense and Botsdid good damage from range, as long as you could learn how to keep them fighting at range. But the MM fixes and new IO’s from HC pretty much have me sold that Thugs/Time and Thugs/Storm are pretty much the top performers now.

Don’t mind me, let anyone play however they want. I’m just bitter because I’ve done /TA MM’s several times, invested hundreds of hours into them and billions of influence just try try and MAKE them perform at some reasonable level of effectiveness. I’m by no means a perfect player, but they are by no means an enjoyable set of powers for me either. To each their own. I just remain disappointed because THEMATICALLY the /TA set is just about exactly what I wanted for several of my MM’s. Now I’d give just about anything to swap it out for something more akin to Tactical Arrow instead.

Yes, because playing in a “cowardly manner” as a Mastermind is a great way to feel like you are playing a superhero/villain game. Not snarking at you. Snarking at Nin/TA. Or even just /TA. I’ve been terribly disappointed with all of /TA on a MM and have tried multiple combos. Some T4’d fully via Incarnates with billion dollar builds just because I was CONVINCED some new proc or slotting strategy would make it almost as effective as a Thugs/ or Bots/ build running on SO’s. It’s just a poorly designed set for MM’s. Never again will play this set until it gets some attention from the Devs, and even then I doubt it will ever be anything more than bottom tier on a MM.

While most of my play has been on Excelsior for many months now, its a very nice QOL feature to be able to swap so frequently on HC. It’s also worth it to keep at least one higher level AT that you’ve otherwise “retired” on your alt servers and build a SG base using that one. That way you’ve got this nice little home for any characters that come visiting. Not as necessary for travel given all the SG’s that are open now, but helpful for salvage storage, etc.

I confess I don't know what you are saying here, but on my Fire/Rad/Fire Sentinel, my primary attack chain each spawn is Aim (self buff) + Ground Zero (PbAOE) + Inferno (PbAOE) + Fire Sword Circle (PbAOE). Fireball, Blazing Blast and Blaze....those are cleanup attacks, usually fired at point blank range against targets that survive the alpha chain.

Technically true, but range is so short on Sentinel powers its more like “point blank” range half the time.