Crysis

I’ve played almost every combination of MM’s to 50, most to T4 incarnates. My opinion? Defense is your primary goal, due largely to the native “resistance” effect of Bodyguard mode. I always softcap my MM to either a positional or typed defense level and strive to do likewise for my henchmen, although don’t neglect that many MM secondaries offer -ToHit debuffs that can be almost as effective as +Defense slotting for them. The reason I’ve found that +Def works best is simply due to the level shifts. Once you start getting your T1’s blown away your BG effective +Res drops quickly, creating cascading failures. Thus, as much +DEF as you can muster is the only real way to keep them alive to contribute to the +RES effect of full henchmen BG. And since they are such significantly lower level than what you are fighting once you hit the 40’s, their native diminished HP and damage resistance gets crucified quickly under fire. Enough +DEF can also help you avoid needing a pet heal power. I run a lot of /Storm and /Cold MM’s and never take the heal, because +DEF is enough to keep them from taking significant damage in the first place. +RES slotting for me is only a strategy if I simply am overflowing with +RES powers already, or playing Demons which are +RES to begin with.

Grant Cover is a bizarre power for Shield. Thematic, maybe, but for a Scrapper to have a Defensive power that doesn’t benefit themselves just seems….odd. For a Shield Tanker/Brute, maybe, but I never understood the +DEF for everyone BUT THE PERSON USING IT. Not even logical, as much as you can find logic in a superhero game. I mean if the shield is capable of protecting everyone on the team, why am I, the wielder of said shield, excluded from this protection, ostensibly provided via blocking inbound attacks? I’m thankful they stuck the Defense Debuff resist in there or it would likely be the most skipped power in the set. Dear HC devs, I realize Regeneration was the bad boy powerset for the original COH developers. I also feel like it got “rage nerfed” too hard after being abused by the playerbase (yes, I was an abuser running around with Perma-MOG and ignoring the rest of the powers of the set). But the levels of nerf it received were at least to me almost retaliatory. I really would like to see it buffed ever so slightly, even if it just mimic’d the Sentinel set. Can’t we just bury the hatchet and restore Regeneration to utility value again? Not asking for perma-MOG again, but…some love please?

Necro again, but I’d parked my StJ/Shield stalker in low forties forever and just pulled her back out to play again. There are obviously some enemies who are resistant to Smashing damage, but overall, she’s a TON of fun. You want big oversized spawns to take advantage of the +DMG from Against All Odds, and I can highly recommend Soul Mastery PPP for ShadowMeld. With high +Recharge, you almost never have to stop to regen health because you just keep cycling between Shadowmeld when pulling together a huge spawn and then its up again for the next one. I routinely would run the first two missions of the ITF on solo to grind out my Incarnate levels quickly. Very potent combo, and looks great also!

I honestly just quit keeping track of influence at some point 18 months ago. I do know I have 15-20 ‘retired’ alts all at 50+3 with all T4 incarnate powers and each of them have max influence (2B I think? Been awhile). And I always have several billion sitting in email, usually in 250MM-400MM chunks, which I use to seed start new alts. But there’s just not much to spend influence on in the game, so no real need to chase it/keep track of it. I do marketeer, but I’m a filthy casual at best, generally just craft/convert/sell or slot what I get from drops. Doing this through the 60-65 levels needed to get to 50 and finish the incarnate levels almost always puts me at the influence cap. Although most of mine was made from AFK farming originally.

Once i saw the word “healer” I realized this was a joke thread. haha?

Chat GPT is great at coming up with names, origin stories/bios, etc. Feed in your criteria for naming and ask it to come up with a list of suitable names. For your cyclops character, can’t help with power selections, but your story of being an “unstable Canadian” opens up a HUGE amount of humorous names. I’d have fun with that.

So dont be melee. Got it.

Yeah anniversary tokens only usable for the stuff Luna actually has for sale. The little Statesman vanity pet? Reward merits required. Seems to me to be a bit ill conceived but whatever.

I prefer unlocking Alpha, Destiny and Lore before slotting any incarnate abilities and then slotting L3 of each of those all at once to get the +3 benefits. As such, I save my Experienced charges for 50+ levels to get the first five tiers unlocked quickly.

I got to 600 tokens today just running a circle in a zone repeatedly as the capsules respawn in roughly the same area. During the day there’s almost no competition for them so once you have the route down (thanks to the bind locator) it’s just mindless run/fly/click and then onto next. Then I went to Luna and realized I had already earned all the rewards and had nothing to spend the tokens on. Oh well, at least enough tokens to outfit any alts. Looking forward to next release.

Storm/Storm Corruptors look amazing. Too bad the team is already three spawns ahead of me by the time I get the maelstrom finally going! Only toon less effective is a Petless MM.

Healing in general becomes less valuable/needed as you progress in levels, unless you are purely a solo MM. If you have an AOE heal, by all means feel free to use it as you and your teammates both benefit from it as needed. But I’d never take a single target heal just for my henchmen. They are doing as much damage with 10% health remaining as they do at 100% health. I’ve read mixed things about whether a henchman at 10% remaining health still takes “equal parts” damage when in bodyguard mode, but I don’t think even that matters that much given a MM’s native END penalty for even using a healing power. Just resummon as needed. They are cannon fodder for a reason.

I was under the impression that any power that applies both a +Def and +Res effect is unaffected by outside boosts like Power Boost and the two shields from Cold?

Voodoo Priest is quite a popular ‘backstory’ for many necro MM’s I’ve seen. And ironically, I’ve seen more than one Vampire-themed necro MM’s. This game is meant to reflect comic-book levels of logic. It’s not hard to stretch bio’s to fit the powersets and vice-versa. Many people forget that MM’s were designed as the COV version of tankers initially, whereas Brutes were meant to be more the melee scrapper replacement. This was before cross-over. MM’s can take a LOT of damage when in bodyguard mode. But that stupid pre-Incarnate level shift issue for the tier 1/2 pets is what prevents them from being more effective than they can be. Still, I can do things with a well equipped MM in half the time a well equipped scrapper or brute can. Including burning pylons, AV’s, GM’s and a whole host of other stuff. MM’s are their own team. Scrappers/Brutes can accomplish these feats sometimes also, but it takes far longer.

dunno, I’ve many MM’s who are more effective than /Regen scrappers and I’ve many of those also.

/Regen has entered the chat…..

Last stats posted at that time. People are fickle. If we’d started a new thread about stats, half of the replies would be to search this thread rather than starting a new one. Use this one and people pop up saying we’ve necro’d an old thread. Regardless, I’d like to see updated stats. Doubt it’s coming anytime soon, but I’ve always found this topic very interesting.

yeah but how do you define ‘crazy’ without stats regarding ‘the norm?’

But “do your own thing” in a game that has always been about doing the same content but with different alts is in itself -partly fueled- by stats. This is why MIDS is so popular and sharing of builds and even why the forum exists. Comparing and contrasting different ways to play/experience the game is the meta of this game itself. That’s why these stats have value. It’s driven me on a number of occasions to create alts I wouldn’t have otherwise attempted because some crazy person out there was trying it also.

-RES procs from the same caster don’t stack. You’ll refresh the effect if one goes off while another is still in play, but you won’t stack -RES procs of the same type. That said, I’ve slotted at least one of every -RES proc into my Arsenal/Storm troller and -RES definitely make a difference.

Fastest solo'er from 1-50 is likely going to be melee (less need for support), but I've felt like I moved just as fast with a Stalker rather than the more typical Scrap/Tank/Brute. I have a dual blades/energy armor stalker that was a buzzsaw from level 15 onwards and could scrap better than my scrapper with all the ATO procs doing their jobs. I find +DEF builds to be preferable to +RES builds for soloing. You quickly learn which critter groups can debuff from ranged vs. melee attacks and to target them first. But my solo library is filled mainly with Stalkers, Scraps or Tanks. Brutes work fine also, but harder to get to their +DMG caps solo outside of farms. PVE spawns just aren't that big.

You can build a very potent Fire/Kin solo toon on nothing more than SO’s or, for very little extra, IO’s. Yes, adding in the ATO’s and slotting in sets will make them far more capable, but when Homecoming launched, there were a TON of new Fire/Kin’s built purely because they can solo +4/x8 maps as budget farmers. I used one with nothing but IO’s to build my first Spines/Fire fire farmer just running PI maps. Made my first couple of billion along the way. You don’t need a bunch of influence to build an effective controller or any other AT for that matter. But by the time you build on to 50 and get all your T4’s, you’ll have far more money than you’ll need to build your next one and outfit it entirely with IO sets. Rinse/Repeat.

Three or four posts up the thread, full build posted. I've perma-shelved the toon, just not for me. But if you kept the replacement power for Soul Drain (not sure what its called now, and don't care), and six slotted it with Artillery, you'd have well over softcapped for Range.

Once the data mining says that Regen scrapper population is <4, procs are next.

I play Arsenal with Storm, and I have so many knockdown powers in the rotation that LN does a great job as a ghetto immobilize that deals damage. Heck, I even have the Ragnarok knockdown proc in Enflame to add more injury to the spawns flopping. Stuff just melts when you are running +250% recharge and have your END under control. Really have enjoyed this pairing, haven’t had this ability to rapidly clear +4/x8 spawns since my Ill/Storm.