Elthenar

Really? I don't see why that would be, since FF bubbles do. Pine's assumes it works, which is why I assumed it would... I'm not doubting you, I just think that it's just strange that the power that explicitly states it boosts defense buffs wouldn't boost those two defense buffs. It's because the cold shields have some resist baked in. It makes the entire power immune to power boost. I found it out the hard way and had to research why it didnt work.

I don't know if this is true or not. I have a beasts char but I don't know how to track this sort of thing. I can tell you that beasts have a lot of non-attack abilities. Like Lick wounds and the various howls. This deadspot could simply be an instance of a couple of these abilities landing in a row.

Corruptors play redside. They were introduced at a time when side-switching wasn't possible. Because of the shake-out of faction crossing, Defenders, Tankers, and Scrappers to this day have an identity crisis. MMs are already, explicitly, a tanking AT, and (as other posters have commented) are even capable of the play style your AT would use. I think you'd do much better to propose something like a "golem" or "elemental" pets set with a Stone-Armor-like power as the specialty. IT's true. You can make MM's that have fully soft capped defenses. Not just the MM, but the pets too. If you use /Time, you can be soft capped and still have powerful heals, buffs and debuffs.

I'd like to make a macro that will cast smoke flash on one of my jounin with me needing to click on a jounin. Is this possible?

Note that Heat Loss can mitigate end problems, both for you AND your pets. I run Tough, Maneuvers, Fog and Weave on Ninja/Cold. If I land a good Heat Loss, end is no longer an issue. That with throwing all my cold stuff in addtion to spamming Smoke Flash. With only hasten and without incarnate or set stuff, there is only short gap between the expiration of the Heat Loss buff and the ability to recast it. Io's can tighten that up and going Agility in your alpha spot would really do it. As mine is an alt, I haven't settled on a final build but I am leaning towards agility on mine just to really pour out the cold stuff, like Sleet.

Has anyone tested LRM on Justin under the new snipe changes?

All of our characters on the old servers are permadead.

Something I just discovered that perhaps others may not know. Power Boost does not work on cold shields because of the +resistance they have. It's still a viable set, but I have to take back what I said about it being right there with Time.

Personally, i'd move Mercs to underperforming.

The problem isn’t Power Boost not affecting Resistance, it’s about powers with Resistance having to be exempt from ALL outside buffs, Power Boost being just one of them, or else things get crazy. A Brute’s Fury or a Kin’s Fulcrum Shift would, in addition to their huge damage buffs, would also buff any Damage Resistance on a character to their cap. Why would +dmg add to +res? That's some odd coding.

Full disclosure, I made the OP about 3 minutes after finding out this cold thing, I was a little salty. Plus, I view all things as a MM player, and time is fairly definitively the strongest secondary IMO. For a MM, pretty much every power in the set is solid gold.

I read that. I was about to post in the bug forums but I stopped to do a search first. The other question is how gamebreaking would it be for powerboost to work on +res effects. Off the top of my head, the effected powers would be the sonic, thermal and now cold shields, plus some castable auras like Acc metab and world of pain. It doesn't seem like it would be too bad to add a bonus to those effects. This would allow it to work on Cold while buffing a few sets that aren't considered top of the line, save for maybe Rad. Of course, the flip side is that this would make Mace Mastery all but mandatory for most MM builds. It's already arguably the strongest set with Scorpion Shield and the current version of Power Boost.

I am not sure if it can be adjusted to matter. When I am on teams, most things that get rooted get dead very, very fast. If you could easily end drain an AV/GM and keep them drained, that could get OP equally fast. IMO the best option is to buff the end recovery but in most groups someone will bring a power to fix end. Would be ok for solo work.

I just leveled a ninja-cold MM and had been waiting to get power boost. The idea being that it would get my pets a long way to the soft cap. Apparently it wont work on cold shields because they have a bit of resistance in them. I haven't tested it, but I am wondering if the same thing applies to Force Fields since they have endurance drain resistance. This is the legacy of sloppy cryptic coding. If you guys could fix it, that would be amazing. If you guys could fix this, that would be awesome. Alternatively, just make it so it doesn't work on defense at all. This is a part of why /time is so much stronger on a MM than everything else. It's defense buff not only works on the MM, but it's also possibly the only one that power boost works on. Farsight not only gives nearly the same +def as both cold or FF shields together, but it also benefits from power boost AND gives +tohit.

I did a test yesterday on that +HP ability, pets actualy get upto 400HP (zombi go from 580 to 840) from this and its possible with just 3 recharge in the ability to perma boost HP for 3 of your pets. Sadly, their regen dont go up (hp/sec still calculated from base), it gives you a shitload of space to take that odd hit and not being one-shotted, so you can aid-other them all in time. Yup. I didnt even cover the awesome debuffs either. Sleet, benumb and heat loss? Oh my! I even get mileage out if snow storm, the -fly is sexy when using melee pets.

Am I the only one that thinks Trick Arrow is a pretty strong set? It's not so easy to solo with it in many builds but its debuffs are legit. There are several sets I'd like to see worked on but Mercs is the big one off the top of my head. It's a set held back by IMO the worst T2 pets by a country mile. The spec ops guys are just awful, they are a balanced around some strong hard control on long cooldowns. Long cooldown hard control needs to be carefully used to get bang for the buck and that almost never happens with the Spec Ops AI. Even when they do use it at an appropriate time, it's not really all that big of a deal. They are also a ranged pet with two melee attacks, often. As a result they have extremely poor AOE damage and not so great as dps overall. This is a big reason why Mercs are generally considered one of if not the absolute lowest dps primary for MMs. Unlike the other low DPS primary (necro), the control mercs are supposed to get in exchange for the lost damage is weak, on a long timer and extremely unreliable. That's not even getting into serum, which actually has it's own thread here.

Well, maybe you're fooling yourself. Putting a different power alongside Serum might follow the letter of the Cottage Rule, but completely ignores the spirit of it. If those two IOs that Mercs can't use are so powerful that the set is strictly inferior for the lack of them, the IOs are probably the outlier and should be nerfed. And I don't think anyone wants the IOs nerfed. Actually I think you're unclear on the spirit of the Cottage Rule. The purpose of the Cottage Rule was always just to not leave existing players feeling bait-and-switched. As long as the original power remains and is not taken away from players who liked it, the Cottage Rule is respected in both letter and spirit. It never had anything to do with balancing. Hence my original suggestion. Serum does have a use as an "OH CRAP" button. It's just that this use isnt worth a power slot given that it's not broadly useful. That's why I made my first suggestion. Leave it more or less as is but add a passive ability, like what the Beasts get with Fortify Pack. No one really takes that for the defense buff, they really want the passive. My suggestion was to add a passive resist all to your pets. That's not the only possibility. Perhaps add the chance for your pets to apply a lethal DOT to represent what happens when 6 dudes with rifles start causing lead related blood loss. Whatever it is, the passive would be the meat of the power, the current clicky would be the gravy, something you dont need from fight to fight but will occasionally save your butt, or really let you pour it on an AV at the end of a TF.

Cold is outstanding. The defense buffs are everything they advertised. Its kind of a struggle until you get to 22 and can drop IOs in there but once you do, they deliver. I am doing ninja/cold and with the bubbles plus maneuvers most enemies struggle to hit them. The medicine tree is more than enough to keep rolling. It might be less effective on pets that dont have the native 10% or so defense that Ninjas start with but it would still work well enough for any pet.

Personally, I don't see a reason to throw out the cottage rule. Just take a note from Beast Mastery. Have it give a passive +res all in addition to its current state. You would then have the option of taking one of the resistance sets and make the mercs stupid tough, as opposed to most MM sets that are so heavily defense based. Personally, I favor that because Mercs/elite soldiers are supposed to be tough bastards who can slog through the worst of it and keep shooting.

Min max reasons aside, one of the things that really and truly pisses me off about LRM is that I took it expecting to pull out.....an LRM. Kind of like the Council guys have and a few others. Instead, I hit the button and my character draws a bead with his damned assault rifle. C'mon man, whoever thought that one up at Cryptic/Paragon needs to be hit with a hot mop. That was such an easy thing to have gotten right...

I like the Sentinel inherent in theory. The problem is that it's so awkward to use. I always get it full right as a pack is going down and then it decays. I have to avoid using my first two attacks or waste it on a mob that's almost already dead. All I personally would want is for the decay to be removed or massively slowed down. Plus, don't tie opportunity to the basic attacks, just give me two seperate buttons so I can hit it and open with whatever I want.

I believe I agree with you on all counts Doctor. I am curious how many people on the server actually even have mass fly or mass teleport. I'd be willing to bet most of the people with mass fly just use it to stand around and look cool.

I did way back in the day to help newb friends get around. Before there were any other travel powers besides the pools and sprint. You make a good point though. The mass travel skills are really only used for moving yourself and minions. A toggle might be redundant.

Title says it all. Sometimes being able to mass teleport or group fly with your pets is a great bit of quality of life. The problem is if you are on a team that can really piss off your teammates. If I could turn on group fly and have only effect me and my pets, that would be a great way to move my dudes and unclog hallways.

I'll be honest, I'd be ok with it as a door mission. Lots of times my groups start in the sewers anyway so we can refill inspirations between runs. It's not like the sewers are far from the starting zone or the monorail either. I just like DFB to get my characters enough levels in a hurry to where they feel like an actual toon. 1-15 or so is usually so painful because you have no abilities and are always just sitting there waiting for something to recharge.