Crysis

At lvl 50, zero incarnates, no temps and without any level shifts, I'm getting 82 seconds (average across 6 tests) Pylon times. This is slightly better than my Necro/Marine, and quite a bit better than Thugs even with double gang war. Smoke Flash is a must I found to max out Ninja DPS. With fast recharge, it's up pretty often and it's almost guaranteed to deliver two-three crits -per ninja- when it's activated. Coupled with Shifting Tides, it's noticeable, especially with Brine'd targets. To fit in Smoke Flash, I dropped Web Nade and stuck those slots into Tide Pool and Soothing. I also dropped the second slots for the two travel powers (SS and Teleport) as there wasn't enough +Ranged DEF bonus there to get me much out of those, although I kept both with the -KB procs. I also swapped Teleport for Combat Teleport, which when pinned to a bind (I use Lshift+LClick) is very handy for repositioning myself in tight quarters and/or to line up Soothing Wave. It always seems I'm missing one of the Ninja's with Soothing when they need it most. Besides, CT is just too fun, especially when you use the smoke bomb animation. Whitecapping is your own personal damage dealer with the one arrow attack doing pathetic levels of damage...pretty much limited to picking off runners. As stated by Mek above though, being Def based, higher level content takes out the Ninja's quite quickly. Maybe level shifts will help with that some, as well as Destiny>Barrier, but I suspect anything +RES will survive better than anything +DEF in hard mode missions. Modified @Meknomancer build attached, all credit to them. You can sub in a few things for the purples and Hami's on a budget and they don't make a huge difference in effectiveness. Namely: -Explosive Strike proc for Soulbound Allegiance -Devastation w/Proc for Apocalypse (although that Hold proc won't go off that often) -Scirocco proc for the Armageddon proc -Positron Blast w/Proc for the Ragnarok's -Acc/Dam Edict of the Master for the Nucl Hami-O -Any To-Hit/End for the Cyto Hami-0 (although Gaussian Buildup proc is a waste given your attacks, it doesn't hurt) Yes, you won't be min-maxxed but you can't slot these until 50 anyways, so may as well use the subs I listed above to "be all you can be" until/unless you decide to make the investments. Otherwise, build is as attached. You can also Boost all the defensive pieces etc to really eek out a little more. But if going for Barrier, kinda wasteful IMO. YMMV. Tidal Temptress - Mastermind (Ninjas - Marine Affinity).mbd

On Live I had a few friends and we’d play permadeath rules. If defeated, you had to scrap the alt and roll again. Only a few of us made it to 30, and only one made it to 50 (a Defender no less). This was pre IO’s. These days I have to really try to die during normal PVE missions. Its just not much of a risk outside of * TF’s.

I didnt realize people read the stuff in these boxes. These interruptions really kill the DPS.

BTW, wanted to call out @Meknomancer and their slotting of Brine with TotN. General consensus early on was this was a skippable power. Slotting Health actually improves the -MaxHP debuff. If applied at start of engagement, when health is at top end for target, this slotting is -very noticeable.- Combined with the extra Crits from Smoke Flash, Ninjas chew up an EB, GM or AV quickly. Dont sleep on taking and slotting Brine this way.

Ah yes, this pairing was/is the standard “Rambo” build. It’s been a spell since I built mine but you may appreciate some of the builds discussed here. And @Nemu did a nice reworking (dare I say….Rambo First Blood: Part 2) after i27 changes dropped here.

You forgot BoS to target>Ki Push>Executioners Shot kill while they are still in mid-air and flying backwards. DP/MC just ooooooozes style. Maybe more than any other pairings. Whomever did the animations for MC and DP I headcanon got married and had a flock of beautiful babies together. Because these two are just…..PB&J levels of meant to be together. Seriously, any time I get bored of the game I roll out one of my various retired DP/MC builds (I’ve three now) and the poetic combat just gives me a rush for the game all over again!

Just making sure you know that Dual Pistols and Ninja Training or Ninja Tools accomplishes this? My Deadpool homage is a DP/Regen/Ninja Sentinel and one of my fave Blasters, named Sig Sauer Samurai, is a DP/Ninja Blaster.

Mek, where would you place Ninjas vs Thugs? Both are Defense oriented melee.

Marine Affinity really has opened up a lot of opportunities for MM's, almost like it's a Dev's gift to the class. Have pretty much finished off my Necro/Marine and have a Thugs/Marine and Merc/Marine sitting in the library of alts ready to be leveled up and slotted to 38 or so. Haven't built a Ninja/Marine yet but seems like being heavy melee focused with crits its a good combo on paper. Anyone take one to Incarnate levels yet? Any play/slotting notes to share?

I have a 1:45 with no Incarnates slotted at all. So I can believe that sub-50 second defeat times are very possible with necro/marine.

GW is def not that powerful. Even double GW via Burnout isn’t much DPS. Quite the spectacle though.

By “pulses ever 10s” does that mean that the henchmen need to be in the pulse’ AoE to get the buff, and it drops immediately if they are not, only restoring it once they are a) in range of the AoE and b) it’s “pulsed” again? If so, that would explain what I’m seeing.

Once upon a time there was a bug/feature where Hybrid Support would only affect henchmen if you summoned them AFTER you activated Hybrid Support. Still works this way or did they adjust it so it works ‘retroactively’ on henchmen already summoned? I’m asking because in-game I’m seeing some weird results and wanted to validate how its -supposed- to work before reporting what I’m seeing as a bug?

If you can fit it into the build, the TP pool for the fold space power is super nice for dropping spawns into your tidal pool.

I’ve now got a Thugs/Marine and a Necro/Marine. I hardly have any END issues at all with Thugs, whereas I do use up my blue bar almost fully on longer fights with my Necro. The difference is that on the Necro I have all three attacks (for the spectres) and use the blasts a bunch. And of course MM’s get an END penalty on blasting. Don’t do that near as much on the Thugs since I only have Dual Wield.

I skipped Shoal on my Necro/Marine, have the OF KB to KD slotted into zombies and other than Clockwork and some other rare critters I don't experience any knockback in the set.....just knockdown. Which as a soft control works very well I might add.

So I slotted in a two-piece of Gladiator's Net, an Acc/Hold and the Proc for extra damage in place of the Hami-O and the TofN showing in the build. Honestly, at 50 vet level 3 now, I'm still sporting those two. The extra hold strength from the Glad 2-piece bonus is nice as is the additional proc damage.

I have a full Gaussian set in Shifting Tides on my Necro/Marine MM, although more for the set bonus. That proc goes off a bunch per my buff bar, so apparently it’s trigger effect is influencing my own damage as well as other pets within the area of effect of Shifting Tides. So I can vouch for that, albeit on an MM, having extra damage for your own attacks is meh at best.

Yes it won’t accept TofN….Mids error. I’ve reported it on the discord. I’m traveling right now but when I land I’ll look and tell you what I put there instead.

I found with T4 barrier Serum is totally skippable. Even more so if you are running Hybrid Support. Mercs are nigh unkillable at that point, at least in Incarnate stuff outside of the Tyrant battle maybe. The incarnate level shifts help dramatically.

Water/cold and Ice/Cold are meta for good reason….. That said for normal PvE play Fire/Kin has been top tier for a long, long time.

When playing anything Time Manip don’t forget that Times Juncture is 12-15% -ToHit (don’t recall offhand for Corr) and that is effectively the same as +DEF. So you can effectively “softcap” melee defenses and others when staying inside melee range. And personally I think DP wants to be in melee.

I found using Tide Pool and WhiteCap in any clockwork missions to be nothing but scatter city. I think those critters have just low knockback resistance. Otherwise, I just get the normal (and desired) flopping up and down. Lots of fun with carnies...they so colorful when flopping.

During beta testing everyone was wanting Marine Affinity to get some form of Mezz protection. Using the build I just posted above, I’ve just finished running all kinds of +3/x6 (x8 is doable at this level, but the extra bosses hurt solo) missions against Carnies, CoT, Malta and Arachnos. The mechanics of Tide Pool and all the +DEF I’m rocking are just incredible against mezz-oriented spawns. My biggest issue has been targeting an Illusionist for Whitecap because if they go phased it won’t activate on them. But my standard approach of drop Tide Pool in the spawn, Whitecap in myself with henchmen on Defensive Follow, leap backwards (Torodial Bubble jump height really is nice when combined with CJ), throw in a Soothing, Tide Pool again, blast blast blast…..i just don’t get mezzed because they don’t land and/or because of Tidal Pool and Whitecap they are disrupted. Really glad I went with the +DEF route. Oh and Gloom and Dark Blast against the mezzers because the -ToHit from those does help in addition to everything the undead are throwing out to boot.

I have a Mercs/Marine at 28, and maybe it gets better, but at same level my Necro/Marine was far more effective than Mercs were. I think it’s the ranged behaivor. Tide Pool wants your pets to be in Melee. I think Thugs/, Demons/, Ninja/ and Necro/ (and maybe Beasts) will all outshine Mercs. But do let us know how it plays. I parked mine in favor of Necro/ and Thugs/Marine.