Hedgefund2

I was once on a theme team where everyone had (time or temporal) manipulation. Most people went with time so I made a /temp blaster. Knowing I'd have around 5-6 time buffs (and therefore massive +def and +rch buffs) I went outside the box for my blaster and heavily pursued +dmg bonuses. My MO was to get attacks to ED cap via local slotting, add procs to flavor and pursue +dmg bonuses. Note - I'm not saying I pursued +Dmg as the A#1 priority but it was a priority. All that said I ended up with 39% +dmg via IO set bonuses, that's for a blaster that can break up Superior Defiant Barrage into 3 sets of 2 pieces to get 4% (highest bonus amount available) 3 times. That's not even a basic DMG IO. It isn't subjected to ED, ofc but it's not transformative like taking your defense from 0 to a number significantly higher than 0 or effectively adding 2 recharge IOs into all your powers (without subjecting to ED). Arguably this is what set bonuses should be like, something that is "nice" but not necessarily transformative, but I'm not looking for that discussion now.

This particular hunt has always been weird. That area has what I'll call a perimeter and a center. The ones in the center seem to never count, the ones on the perimeter do. I'd love it if they all counted and this is a worthy bug report but it's been around a looooong time and fortunately there's a work-around.

I'm going to limit my points to the three secondaries mentioned in the OP, because that's what was requested. All 3 will give you the tools to do what you're looking for. FF lacks -regen but the Bot personal attacks all have -200 regen, taking into account debuff resists (85%) that's still -90% regen which is good 'nuff. Here are the +def each provides for the MM (pets get this too): Time (Farsight) FF (Dispersion) Traps (FFG) 9.375 7.5 10 1.55 14.53125 11.625 15.5 The second row shows defense with ED level slotting. Time, with Power Boost (21ish) and Clarion Radial (26ish), can dramatically increase that number and for the full duration of Farsight. PB will boost Dispersion for FF only for the length of the PB effect (15 seconds). It does boost FF shields for the full duration (240 seconds) of the shields but that's not a thing Bots need to worry about. Time - no native mez protection Traps - mez protection but wonky, FFG has to catch up to you and can get hung up on geometry, notably in caves FF - no muss no fuss mez protection, always with you. Debuff wise no doubt Traps is the big winner, especially for stationary fights. Neither of the other 2 can compete with double or even triple (which requires Hasten, a must have for Traps) Acid Mortar but Slowed Response has its merits, easy to perma, it procs VERY well, including Achilles. Time is the only one that can give you a burst heal, it even has 2 (including Chrono Shift). So, I dunno, whatever satisfies your "rule of cool" will work.

Don't beat yourself up over that. They're confusing in the first place, Does it have a "chance to" based on PPM and the probability formula for click powers? For toggles/pseudopets? Does it work for 120 seconds after activation? Is it always active? These are all options just within the heal IO sets. Then the complexity compounds with pet upgrades for MMs. Some upgrades inherit the procs. Some don't. Some... might? Frankly I always start from scratch on those and make a build on test to make sure things behave the way I believe they should. No, I wasn't making any suggestions other than to just let you know you wouldn't be getting the results you expected. If I were to make a suggestion it would be to move your 6 slots of PrevMed to Maint Drone then use whatever procs you want in health. Personally I tend to skip Miracle unless I have an endurance problem and I rarely have that kind of endo issue that merits a Miracle.

I just checked this thread out now. The Force Feedback proc in Battles Drones is no bueno. Maaaaybe it will have a chance to proc for you when you summon the pets. It will never proc for them. The Miracle and Numina uniques will give YOU those buffs for 120 seconds after you summon the Maintenance Drone. If your intent is to spam the drone every 120 seconds, then you'll be able to keep the buffs up but if you don't then you'll lose those buffs. The Pana proc in Upgrade has a chance to fire on the bots when you use Upgrade or zone (after having previously used Upgrade). Never again, otherwise. That's the glaring stuff. My 2 inf kind of feedback - if this is intended for a "stand off" play style, then Thunderstrike isn't what you're looking for. It's a melee attack that takes you into the thick of things Personally I view Force Bomb as a no-skip power in FF now. AOE -res, mitigation and procability make it a must have for any FF user of mine. 11 points of kb protection is... a lot. If you're that risk averse to being KBd, so be it but I tend to be quite content with 4 on MMs. Real subtle thing but if I'm 2 slotting Damping Bubble I'm pairing the Defense piece with Def/Recharge (not Def/End) to give higher uptime while moving spawn to spawn.

I had written a somewhat lengthy post explaining what I meant about HL but deleted it to be more concise with suggestions. Here comes the wordiness... It's not that I don't care about the end mod boosts from HL. My point was more about, with 3 slots you really have to prioritize and in that case, my priorities are 1) recharge 2) accuracy and 3) end mod. The other attributes (slow, range, endurance reduction) I don't care about at all. The reason I don't prioritize end mod is because the base value for HL is 62.5% (according to CoD, Mids says 50%, I go with CoD when there are discrepancies), which is more than an ED capped Stamina (right at 50%). I'm talking about the auto-hit that the caster gets, not including additional stacks from mobs. So just the autohit portion is enough to fuel you for 90 seconds, additional stacks are gravy. Long ago, back on live, I used to lament the lack of Cold for MMs. I went on a bender when I found HC proliferated Cold and have since paired Cold with every primary. Among those MMs I've given HL 3 slots, for other characters I've given it up to 6. Various factors drive what approach I take to slotting, but in each case I prioritize as mentioned in the second paragraph with a focus on minimizing HL downtime. I haven't made it perma, bridging the gap from 100ish seconds (where I tend to end up) to 90 seconds requires a LOT of focus on recharge and I'm not willing to go that deep at the expense of other goals. So, I'm not saying ignore the end mod pieces of HL. I've 6 slotted Preemptive Optimization before and that gives a lot of additional recovery but practically speaking, I just don't notice it and the 3 slotted HL is practically just as effective at fueling recovery as 6 slotting. To answer about slows, I'm a hard "no" for enhancing that in HL. It's a 30 second debuff and additional slow slotting only applies to movement debuffs (not recharge) and the slow IO sets don't offer any tricks (like an Acc/Rch piece) that I'd find handy.

It was a thing that was in the data and still is. No doubt more effort than is merited to get rid of it because the downside of it existing is... nothing. It would just be effort spent for no benefit.

I dig it. Re: Heat Loss I did give an option for keeping 3 slots and maxing out recharge - "One way to keep HL to 3 slots is a PreOpt Acc/Rch, EndMod/Rch and a PerfShift Acc/Rch and +5 them all". That particular slotting gets you 66% accuracy and almost 95% recharge (both numbers local slotting) and has HL recharged in 102.6 seconds. There are a lot of different combos to use amongst the End Mod sets allowing you mix and match acc, recharge and end mod, especially via boosting. Just so at the end of the day you get recharge slotting to be 95ish and at least 42% accuracy. Good hunting out there with this. I played my Necro/Cold before the Necro buffs and it was lethal even in those days. I generally don't go back to old characters once "retired" but this topic did remind me I should retrofit my guy to take advantage of the Necro changes and take it out for a spin occasionally.

If you swap the Sovereign +Res piece with the Expedient Reinforcement +Res piece you get a free 8% regen bonus. That's not much but there's no opportunity cost to it, none of the other values change. I do want to point out that the Kismet piece will apply only to you (not any pets) for 120 seconds after applying Ice Shield. The shields last 240 seconds so you would need to reapply them at the halfway point of expiration. My 2 inf, you don't need it at all. Everything you have with a to-hit roll is above 95% for +3s (my target for final to hit) but I get that some players like the to-hit cushion. In Zombie Horde, a Soulbound Allegiance Acc/Dmg/Rch boosted by +5 will have the same acc/dmg values as a level 50 Nucleolus plus give you 16% regen and for Cold, that ain't shabby. You have no kb protection at all. I get the appeal of stacking slow resists in Fog with Winter's Gift but I'd be going with BotZ -kb there. Slotting both is pretty nifty too if you can. This is a very minor thing, but in your two personal blasts if you take the Glad Jav Acc/Dmg and +5 it in lieu of Nucleolus you'll still be over 95% for +3s and have some bonus recovery available at all levels (since PVP set bonus). I always minimize Heat Loss downtime. Local recharge at ED could get you down to about 102 seconds (from 110). One way to keep HL to 3 slots is a PreOpt Acc/Rch, EndMod/Rch and a PerfShift Acc/Rch and +5 them all. There are other ways to get there too. I value the end mod boost the least here because HL is a monster of a rec boost even with no end mod slotting. I may be wrong but it feels like Spirit Ward is a "well I gotta pick something, let me get something decent with just the base slot" and sure, Spirit Ward fits that bill but I think there are some more interesting options. You're deep enough into the Speed pool to take Burnout for the double Heat Loss AV melter. You have a rule of 5 violation for 10% regen which can be resolved with one your LotG pairs, for example use a different Def/End + Def/End/Rch combo from another Def set, like Reactive Defenses. For the coup de grace, changing the Acc in Benumb to a Provocation which would keep its final tohit above 95% for +3s and lower recharge from 40 to 36.2 seconds. That's pricy so you decide if that's worth it.

Some teams want to do Posi 1 at low level (8ish) to avoid Ruin Mages. I've not been on a team that did this but it makes sense to me, I'd rather make do without a level 18 power (when exemping) then deal with an enemy that puts an Earthquake under you while protected by a Dispersion Bubble.

I sign this petition. I have my own heirarchy of summon usage - Need a bit of oomph - Shivan Need a lot of oomph - add an HVAS Oh god we're never going to complete - EVERYONE (including Amy who is absolutely a last resort). I could move Amy into the second category if she was reattainable.

Not gonna lie, after literally hundreds of Numinas I didn't know that. "Scout" has always just been text to insert into my target bind, nothing more. Until now.

This does not show endurance usage by attack I'm well aware of Combat Attributes but that did not provide the data I was looking for in this case.

I've long considered this "conventional wisdom" that may or may not be true. Pet endurance consumption isn't monitored (that I can find) in the combat logs so I've never seen empirical evidence, one way or the other. Until now. I copied a bot MM to open beta. I stripped out all incarnates, made a second build with no slotting whatsoever, so no bonuses, obviously. I set out to just monitor the endurance bar manually as a Prot Bot attacked a pylon. With no upgrade, the prot bot only has Laser Burst in its attack chain. I watched it spam Laser Burst on a pylon and saw it used 5 endurance per each attack. That doesn't match what CoD says but I'll not concern myself with that. Then I dismissed the pet, added 3 level 50 endurance reduction IOs into prot bot slotting and still it only used 5 end per attack. Then I used Equip (first upgrade) which gives another attack - Plasma Cross. Both attacks, took 5 endurance. Total endurance would bounce around from 100 to 95 to 90. This is still with the max ED slotting of 3 end redux level 50 IOs. Then I dismissed and took out the 3 end redux, resummoned, Equipped and started again. Then I saw endurance begin to tank. 90-85-80.... So, I'm here to 100% confirm your (2 above. I don't know that it's "every" ability as it didn't seem to affect Laser Burst but it certainly makes a difference. I didn't bother using Upgrade (second upgrade) since testing results were already clear.

Predator: Killer of Killers was really good for fans of this world and worth a watch. Directed by Trachtenberg (Prey and Badlands).

My own approach to Mids is to wait weeks after an update to see what the word is among the player base. If all is good, then download. If not, keep using what you had. My uses are simple, I just want to see final in-game numbers and check for rule of 5 violations, that kind of thing. I've seen some people with "home grown" build planners that omitted doing these basic things and I'm not going to make that mistake. I can get antsy when there's a major powers update, like this last one but for new sets I always take everything and slot SOs and by the time I'm ready to respec there's Mids stability. So far.

To me, at least, capping a team's damage with a "stroke of the pen" counts as unique. I certainly can't think of another power that does it.

I opened this thread wondering how many times Fulcrum Shift would be mentioned and (thus far) it's ZERO? So easy answer: Fulcrum Shift.

Personally I like having random events that I can "lose". Once upon a time you'd see purple text across your screen and you were filled with anticipation to see if you got elated by an apocalypse or heartbroken by a Fortunata Hypnosis. Now, while I'm still happy to see purple text across the screen, I may not even bother looking to see what it is because, worst case, it's 1-3 converters away from something I can use. Today, Aeon (and advanced LG) are the only means of attaining that same thrill, the one you get from a royal flush at the casino. A few weeks ago I triple boxed Aeon and got 2 provo drops. That was pretty much one of the top 10 days of my life. I'm ok with a few acc/to-hit debuff/def debuff HOs along the way to get that high from an unlikely great drop.

I recently made a new /dark troller and took Black Hole to see what's up. I'm all for getting the hashtag #snarkywasright trending, because he is about Black Hole. I guess it could be helpful if you have a melee teammate and you want to bunch mobs a bit tighter on them. For me solo on a pyro/dark, it doesn't do anything at all that I can use . The radius is smaller than that of my aoes. I'll be respeccing out of it. Add to that I have to remember to NOT use it for zone GM fights. I was in a War in the Vale recently and I've been in the habit of using Black Hole and was about to use it on Jack but fortunately remember that's just going to phase him. Boo! Black Hole, I say Boo!

This isn't a real, thorough review, just drive-by thoughts. A debuff proc in Smoke Grenade means it WILL notify mobs when you use it. Personally I use that power as a means of clicking glowies, not wanting to be seen, so I never use debuff (or damage) procs in such a power. I love Rune for Veats. I would strongly suggest moving a resist from Foresight to Rune, preferably an Unbreakable Guard and +5 it. Is Rectified Reticle unique really providing any value? You've already got TT:L. Maybe you're PVPing? With my Widows in PVE I don't have an issue seeing mobs that try to blind me. You could put another LotG there instead.

I'm revisiting KM now with a Stalker. One thing I'm digging is 100% crits from hide with Burst.

Um, that's what I said I did in the thing you quoted.

Controller pets (the t9s at least) are commandable like MM pets. Their default stance is defensive so you should probably set the default to aggressive. You'll probably need to change your pet menu to advanced mode. Note to powers that be - you really should work on the messaging for this. It comes up a LOT.

To the above point, Cupid's Crash includes 11% global acc in the 4th slot. I've been playing an Ill dom that 6 slotted Cupid's Crush in PA. I'm pleased with the results.