Meknomancer

Short answer. No it can't be skipped. With toroidal its 90% smashing res, about 88% lethal. 73% fire. 59% cold. 49% e/ne/psi. 59% toxic. Chuck serum on right before the start of the fight, cos it does fade fast but for a few seconds when the mobs blasting you with everything it has every resist except psi is sitting around 78%-90%. Might not seem like much but it makes a difference when it really matters. It makes next to no difference in normal content but if your in the labyrinth or speed running lvl 50 stuff it just means i'm not constantly resummoning pets. Then again i haven't monitored the effects of the t4 barrier with the resistance when its faded so you could be right and it is skippable. I don't take a lot of notice of that.

Interesting that psi mastery should go first, its the only epic with mez protection and psi defence and with ageless a force pick psi mastery feels like a force pick too because i can't take clarion- if i get mezzed i die simple as that. Ice mastery i have taken before on an ice/dark troller and although i love the defence i don't like the options in it. Earth mastery i'd only run on an earth/dark troller because it can skip the graphically awful toggle in that set. If we could get a minimal setting on rock armour i'd probably run it on almost every troller i have for seismic and fissure. I like fireball but that's it for fire. I played and still mainly play redside and the patron powers are far superior i feel. Levi is cool, who doesn't like waterspout, on a storm you can get it up pretty quick, without massive recharge and force feedbacks you can't sadly. And i don't have either of those on /poison. Unless i keep psinado. Starting to see why there's so few of these played. And by so few i mean none. It seems despite ice's overhaul its still pretty close to bottom of the pile. Still. It is fun which is all that counts. Edited to say yes i should drop WoC and its puny 8 feet radius but its got a purple set in for recharge and range and it looks so good. And i can't see a replacement. Because i can't see another option other than psi mastery, maybe i'm missing the obvious which is to drop psi and carry a tray of break free's. Or go cardiac/vigor and clarion.

Fire/mental was one of my favourites on live and i rerolled it on here very soon after we got the game back. Perma drain psyche should be the goal. With a single accuracy and 5 panacea in you can get away with playing very badly and stupidly in situations most blasters would faceplant.

So i was looking for the laziest toon i could find after a /bubs mm and i ended up with this. After playing it a bit i thought i'll see if anyones got any interesting slotting for one one the forums and ....... i could only find 1. @Nemufrom around 2020. Mines so squishy and doesn't have enough slow resists and as you can imagine the damage is laughable. Its been 5 years or more and there has to be more players running the combo surely, so i'm looking for some help. Should i be going the route above and just being as tough and defensive as possible, or should i be modifying the build i currently have. Limited experience with poison, i avoid it on mm's it sucks with no venemous and i only run it on an ill/troller which never has to worry about taking aggro and a couple of fenders with elec and beam blast, this feels different. With the others i can wup stuff, with this i'm just sitting in the mob (which was the aim initially) doing next to nothing. But i do need some damage, running tf's its starting to feel a bit useless when all i can toss out is the t1 hold and a couple of debuffs at the av fights. Advice appreciated. And where can i fit in more slow resistance. If it didn't look so damn good with Arctic Air and WoC running together i'd consider dumping it on a dead server and forgetting i had it. Intuition and ageless and it needs more recharge, indom will isn't enough right now there's downtime and i don't have the new accolade yet. ICE POISO - Controller (Ice Control - Poison).mbd Ok so after playing the above build and getting some advice i decided to go back into mids and see if i could rework it and came up with this. Looks way squishier but hopefully will do a little more. Plan is to open up with a procced flash freeze as i jump into the centre of the mob and cross my fingers. ICE POISO - Controller (Ice Control - Poison).mbd

Distortion Field with 5 unbreakables for the recharge bonus is quite a common way to slot it, its either that or corrosive with 5 ragnaroks for the same bonus. I'd take distortion Field but only because corrosive vial only has an 8 foot radius and that generally sucks, while the field has a chance to hold stuff and has a much larger radius, even if it doesn't hold it'll slow stuff down.

Standard tactic is to hop/run to the edge of a mob and drop them with M30nade and then pop tide pool on them before shoal rush/white cap/m30 nade. If i'm solo. On teams i just hop right into the centre of the mob and drop tide pool on myself. In the labyrinth i've been super cautious pulling mobs with shoal rush to corners where tide pool is set up, i barely give shifting tides any consideration it just seems to stack up massively wherever i am i guess commando is just in melee all the time because of the way i play, even if i line it up for cones to the side of mobs it'll stack 10+ times and i've seen it up to 30+ in teams with a couple of other /marines in play. Standard content like +4 itf runs i just hop into the middle of rooms and drop tide pool on myself, mobs will walk into it. Or i just walk to about 5-10 feet from a mob so the mercs line up the cones and drop tide pool on the mob. Shifting seems weird sometimes i can't tell if its stacking just from live mobs or being affected by all the corpses at my feet.

With some mobs getting makeovers you need to find a way to fit in some slow resistance on almost everything you play now, especially on melee's you'll want as close to 100% as you can get. I'm not a big fan of shield on any AT, i ran an elec/sd broot on live and made an elec/sd scrapper on HC but i didn't really enjoy them much. If your not set on it being a broot i'd recommend elec/sd stalker its simply superior to both. I took a stab at it but its a bit of a mess just to get slow resists in. ELEC SD - Brute (Electrical Melee - Shield Defense).mbd

You want to fight av's your gonna need accuracy in slowed response and soul drain for a start.

I havent done any math but loads of recharge bonuses and any force feedback procs you can fit in with hasten and burnout and maybe ageless destiny i can see you getting there.

I do have the /macro ATK "petcom_all defensive" in my tray but it doesnt seem to be necessary, if the pets are with me i want them in offensive and with toroidal and dark embrace i'm at 75% s/l anyway so i don't know that BG mode would make any difference.

I never considered thugs but now i think of it gang war buffed with toroidal and power of the depths might actually survive a mob. The dps on mercs is just so good they are mowing down anything in sight and the extra range they get means runners and snipers have no chance. Couple of the labyrinth mobs are rough, anything that does kb, i've only got 7 points and its definitely not enough and Crey are a total pain. PP's and taunt tanks and knockbacks and i faceplant real fast unless i get them with an M30 nade first and put them on their arse. Standard tf's and content at +4 like the itf/lrsf/aeon/tinpex and it just strolls through even on speed runs. Almost every death i've had is waiting on the pets to catch up to buff them with power of the depths. As long as i have it on i feel unkillable, but without group fly i've had to wait for over 40+ seconds on itf towers after rommy dropped for the pets to get there, if i'm solo thats a death, if team is there the mobs are dead before pets hop up to me. I last longer in the labyrinth with only 1-2 lvl shifts even if i'm solo than i do on an itf tower. But i don't see any powers that i would drop to give it better defence. Build 1 has slightly better resists but its just f/c from purple sets which only really matters on MC. I run in offensive mode permanently which can be an issue. I am a lazy player and there's enough to click as it is without switching to bodyguard mode when needed.

Fantastic. There was a point where i thought necro was the way to go. Build posted is my second one. First one was all recharge bonuses, i stuck in a few procs and slow resists after solo labyrinth runs and made build 2 as there's way too much debuffing you. Considering throwing a couple procs in tide pool by taking them from shoal rush but i dunno if they'll make a lot of difference. I'd like to see the option to slot kb->kd enhances in tide pool as i'm convinced something is knocking the mobs out of it but that maybe just the commando. There seems to be a permanent 10+ stacks of shifting as soon as my commando gets anywhere near mobs and i've seen the stacks go off the screen.

Imagine you took all the best stuff from all the other secondaries and rolled them into one. Thats /marine. MERCS MARINE - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Marine Affinity).mbd

Radiation does minus defence. Spines does slows. When your farming you don't want slows. There will be arguments about this as there has been since day 1, all i can say is after 5 years running both i dumped the spiny. The damage is noticeably faster with rad and i ended up with 6 or 7 of them scattered across all servers . Don't worry about the contaminated effect when farming. Build up - Irradiated ground/atom smasher is all you need and you'll see the effect firing off on mobs. For the farm build i took 1 single target attack as a mule for a full winters set and because you have to pick 1 (radioactive smash) and i never use it. Everything else is aoe attacks and damage auras slotted with mostly chance for damage pieces or sets giving recharge bonuses/fire resistance/fire defence/hp bonuses/regen. I still run mu mastery even after the last update to fire so electrifying fences and ball lightning but if you scroll down a bit or check the guides section you'll find all sorts of builds updated for the latest fire farms usually running energy mastery for afk farms which saves you running a patron arc to unlock powers redside.

With the arsenal/psi fold space gets me a huge drain psyche and everythings in range of psi shockwave and inside the radius of all the patch control mezzes and in tri-cannons taunt range. And who doesn't love a tightly packed mob.

What's the best domi? I've been playing them lots lately and its a pretty easy answer for me. Arsenal is no. 1 and its not even close. Stealth included allowing you to run into a mob with a huge patch of confusion and - to hit/sleep/knockdown and hold, with the only pet that comes with taunt included. I've been running it with arsenal/martial arts/psi after trying it on a bunch of controllers and finding it far superior on domi's. Arse/psi for me. With teleport pool i can drop my tri-cannon into a mob to take alphas and taunt and dump all the patches on it then fold space extra mobs. Psi fixes any endurance issues i may have running a load of toggles which lets me run sorcery's spirit ward on the pet making it relatively unkillable. Psy shockwave stacks the stun with flashbang and subdue provides an immob thats missing from the primary. I've yet to find anything it can't handle if i'm careful. But if your looking for punchy....i go elec/earth and ice/earth, elecs nice and safe thanks to the awesome sleep patch and end drain, ice can get a bit iffy if the mob isn't mezzed right away. I've been trying the new tk-levitate combo with mind and its been fun although lacks in damage it does pull the mob together nice and tight for the rest of your controls and damage but it doesn't recharge anywhere near fast enough to be properly useful. I run it with /fire /energy /dark. Been running ice with /martial /sonic /ice /earth, i like martial and earth for the extra knockdown mid mob. Have you considered illusion? Its great fun on domi's and works with all secondaries.

Every bonus in transfusion could be done away with and you wouldn't notice. Same goes for ice blast. The 6th bonus in flash freeze+glacier. The 4th 5th 6th bonuses in frozen armour. Aoe bonuses in ice storm are nice but only if your stacking with other aoe def bonuses. Transference isn't giving you any really good bonuses and offers only a 5% recharge which is minimal. pre-emptive gives even less recharge but it does give some nice ranged defence on top. Kins love recharge bonuses- aim for perma hasten. 2 slot hasten with lvl 50 io's and boost them. You have a very expensive hammi in kick, you'll never use that power. And it does kb which is a no no especially on kins. Find somewhere to slot the reactive def scaling res+preventetive+absorb+glad armr+3%def. I agree with everything that @Uunsaid except the parts about flash freeze - on an ice/kin thats my opener and i'll hit it right as i combat jump into a mob and do a maxxed fulcrum, the mobs gets zzz'd and the confuse from arctic air kicks in and i'm damage capped for everything i click after that, cold snap doesn't give me that much control and its a cone on a toon i play in melee where aoe's are what i want. Since i don't run glacier i'm pretty much doing that for every mob, spamming heal if needed and popping ice slick and dropping enflame on the hardest target before i start with psi nado. Frostbite is only used when soloing or if an av is a runner, at that point it gets spammed til it hits and immobs. As i said above my build isn't for everyone and i wouldn't recommend playing it, i've tanked +4 content with it often. I've faceplanted as often. I don't mind dying and its very easy to play when theres a tank on team, its only difficult when your faster than the rest of the team and get to the mobs first and have to spam heals to survive. There's not much def/res to keep me up, as i said its purely built for fun.

Well its a necro/dark mastermind and its really hard to go wrong. You can slot these pretty much any way you want and get away with it and they'll still murder everything in their path. If you have the powers you want i guess its just a matter of slotting and theres about 40 necro/dark builds on here you could take a look at and just take the slotting from different ones and toss it into your own build til your happy. I do agree that they are more fun with the personal attacks popping the little spirit ghost type taunters so i went pretty much the same way you did and took at least gloom and life drain, probably had to drop dark blast as i ended up with group fly on mine and power picks got tight. If its working for you as it is i'd leave it til you encounter something you have a problem with, respeccing just for the sake of it can often leave you with something worse than when you started or something you like playing less than before.

One of my favourites lately is an ice/kin controller but i frequently faceplant on it because i play it like everything else i have (badly and aggressively) and i skipped a lot of stuff that would have made it tougher in favour of making it fun. So i'm not going into what you put together in detail other than to say - do not 6 slot sets randomly, check the 6th bonus they give and see if its beneficial to the overall build, does it stack with other bonuses? are you getting close to softcapped defences or resists? A quick look at what you have and i can see at least 6 powers 6 slotted with bonuses that dont provide you with any benefit. When you put together a build in mids have a goal. 45% ranged defence. 75% resistance. 45% ranged/smashing/lethal defence. 40% defence to whatever with the aim of having a t4 barrier cover the rest. Perma hasten. Something along those lines. Most obvious for me is skipping arctic air for stealth. Ice doesn't get great controls, arctic air makes up for a lot, its hugely endurance heavy but your a kin with transference so that become irrelevant. Flash Freeze is up the fastest but breaks the second you use an attack so its best use is right before hopping into a mob giving arctic air time to mez the mob. Glacier has a huuuuge recharge time like all controller aoe holds (which is why i usually skip them) so your only going to be able to use that once every 3-4 mobs on teams if your lucky. Ice slick got a bump not that long ago, its still fairly useless as a control power but slotted with some damage and it'll help out. And Ice control needs help there's less damage in the set than the other lowest dps sets like mind or elec. I'll toss my build on but i'm not sure it'll help its sole aim was to hit around 40% ranged defence with a t4 barrier and to take as many powers as i could to make it fun. I love it but its definitely not for everyone. (if your looking for mini/max advice i'm no help whatsoever) ICE KIN - Controller (Ice Control - Kinetics).mbd

If your running a crab with both pet picks available and end up taking the epic pet then yes, slot all of the uniques, its not too hard to fit them all in if you 6 slot all the pets and you can still make them perma, survivability matters when they end up providing most of your damage.

Interesting topic, not going into the how to make inf in coh as theres literally an infinite no. of ways to do that and everyone has their own personal preferences but fold space.....? Its awesome, the entire revamp of the tp pool has been fantastic. Teleport is now my favourite travel power, i use the recall friend/teleport target way more than i ever did (although to be fair that was never) mostly due to arsenal control, having the ability to drop your tri-cannon directly into a mob and have it taunt for you makes the entire set so much more fun. But i do a lot of speeding, can't seem to help it now it seems like every tf is a speed run even when its +4* content now and so i'm using teleport target to summon team mates who have assemble the team recharged. So teleport/teleport target are taken and used even though i've gone the tp pool for the sole reason of taking fold space. Aim/Bu/Insps hop between 2 mobs and click and nuke. Theres so many places it comes in handy and really speeds up the play and the other powers in the pool are great mule powers for blessings (4 points kb is not enough no matter how many players tell you it is) and the winters unique.

@Sir Myshkin has posted the only 1 i've seen on the tanker forums with ways to maximise damage, i've only tried it on a scrapper with rad armr and didn't think much of it but tankers benefit from increased aoe radius so i'd go for that. Page 6 on this link, the one with with bio armr:

Loads of time builds in this one starting with fire:

If you head all the way to the back of the stalker forums you should be able to find a few, they were (and in my opinion still are) considered the no. 1 stalker combo. But they may need an update, thunderstrike got a bump recently and just makes elec melee even better. @DreadShinobiposted a lot of good ones if you can find them. The 2nd build maybe one of them but it probably needs updating. Just slot minimal defences and throw everything else into recharge bonuses. Energy gives you more free slots to play with than any other secondary so you can go all in on epics. ELEC NRG - Stalker (Electrical Melee - Energy Aura).mbd ELEC NRG DREADSHINOBI - Stalker (Electrical Melee - Energy Aura).mbd

Can't help with balanced much, i'd go as many procs as possible with as close to 100% slow resistance as i can. I skip beheader+gash on all axe toons and often leave out cleave. I might go with something like this but i'd toss the gash set in chop (dropping gash), take evasive with a luck of the gambler 7.5% and change deflection slotting to a full red fortune and see how it played. AXE SD - Brute (Battle Axe - Shield Defense).mbd