WumpusRat
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Posts posted by WumpusRat
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7 hours ago, TheMoncrief said:
Demons and Thugs are... all right without an update. They're no longer the best sets by a country mile, but they're OK. Beast Mastery was a sub-par set before Mercenaries, Necromancy, and Robotics got updated, and are now by a significant margin the worst MM primary. Not as comparatively bad as Mercenaries used to be, but still the worst.
Demons and Thugs really just need the update to the pet upgrade powers, but Beast Mastery kind of needs a more thorough update.
Edit: And apparently Ninjas need a downgrade, as their stealth is so OP I completely forgot they existed at all. I have no idea how much they might need, but that is pretty scary.
Demons and Thugs definitely don't really need much "upgrading", just an overhaul to bring them in line with the other pet sets.
Beast Mastery definitely needs a thorough overhaul, though. Particularly the set's damage output needs to be decoupled from relying so heavily on the Fortify Pack passive. The fact that it's nothing more than a mule power for LotG (and maybe Kismet, a KB IO, etc) is sad. The passive is the only real benefit of the power, as triggering the active dumpsters your pets' damage output for the duration of its effect.
IMO, what I'd love to see for Beasts is to put Fortify Pack on a swing-toggle like Staff Mastery has. So that you can give your pets more tactical orders.
Fight Aggressively: +crit and +damage based on stacks of Pack Mentality, like it is now.
Fight Defensively: +def and +resist based on stacks of Pack Mentality.
Fight Tactically: +to hit and %chance to knockdown based on stacks of Pack Mentality.
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3 hours ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:
I respec all the time, Sometimes it's a pain, but to me its just another part of the game and why I love it.
Same. Since I run mids on another computer, I can have the mids window open on one monitor and the game running on my main machine, and just glance back and forth to verify changes I make. It becomes fairly easy, and the whole process takes less than 10m.
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Depending on the archetype I'm playing, I'll do anything from 0x2 to +1x4, while leveling. Anything beyond that becomes a bit too much of a slog, since I'm generally running story arcs for badges and merits, rather than just raw exp, so I want to get to the end and get my rewards.
If it's a story arc I haven't done before, I'll usually stick to minimum to run it the first time, so I can focus more on the story, maps, etc, rather than grinding for exp.
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CoH's rng has always been loopy. That's why they added the streakbreaker in the first place, because you'd often see 6-7 misses in a row even with a 95% to hit.
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49 minutes ago, kanga said:
Some builds I don't think anything would effect much. my fire/time/fire controller, seems to just lock/melt/dissolve like it did before. others though... have been interesting.
Tested it on my shield/axe tanker, bots/ff mastermind, elec/elec defender, and dark/dark sentinel tonight.
Tanker, MM and defender did just fine on +3x8, though the defender had a couple rough moments in big packs.
Sentinel got her hiney spanked a few times, since they were doing enough damage to overcome my regen/healing, especially when warwolf bosses were mixed in.
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2 hours ago, kanga said:
I feel they've been pushed just a touch too far. the unresistable knockback can make mez protection mostly useless, to say nothing of combat jumping and acrobatics. They did need something though, there was a reason people would target council. That said, it is immense fun to pulverize mobs sometimes so why not have something easier to deal with. So i guess with every build now you drop combat/acro and pick up leadership/focused acc if you intend to deal with them? no thank you.
definitely not balanced around standard Enhancements anymore. 😉
I'm really keen to try them out now. Once I get home from work I'm going to take a few of my characters through some missions with CoT and Council and see how they do.
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On 2/28/2024 at 5:40 AM, Two5boy said:
Does anyone know if Demons will get changes similar to other Pets' powers in Issue 27 P5 - i.e. making enchant demons and Abyssal Empowerment able to buff the secondary powers of pets?
Thanks and apologies if this has already been discussed but I cannot find anything in search.
Demons, thugs and beast mastery all need to be updated. I was hoping it would get done by this issue, but no such luck. At this point I'm guessing it won't be for another year or so.
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On 2/29/2024 at 7:50 PM, DoctorDitko said:
(And looking forward to the days when fewer teammates raised on a steady diet of PI Council mishes are whining about fighting Malta in our PUGs.)
I occasionally did some PI groups that specifically went after Malta and Carnies, since people tend to avoid them like the plague.
And it was always a fun time introducing some people to Carnies' giant weakness to lethal damage, and watch them just tearing through missions like a chainsaw through cotton candy. 🙂
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23 hours ago, Zewks said:
Nice, this is great info!
Do you find ninja's struggling with no resists even though their defenses are soft capped?
And for keeping Fortitude up on all 6 pets... thats basically having to buff a unique pet at least every 20 seconds if not sooner. Did you set up any sort macro to help out with this?
They definitely struggled a bit early on, since it takes a while for Empathy to really reach the point where you can start juggernaut-ing your way through stuff on the power of fortitude and regen aura. My goal for this particular build was to get as close to the recharge cap as I can, to leverage Regen and Recovery Aura as much as possible. I'd tested the idea out a few times with other pet builds, and it worked pretty well, so I was curious how it'd do with ninjas, since their damage output is so high they can chew through enemies in seconds.
Overall, the only time I really struggle is against particular EBs or AVs who can one-shot the pets despite their defense, or ones who spam caltrops or other such things (I'm glaring at YOU, Silver Mantis) since that's always been a huge issue for MM pets in general. A lot of times I don't even bother putting fortitude on all of them since mobs die so fast and their defense without it is enough to that most mobs can't get past my healing. I generally only NEED fortitude against EB/AVs.
And yeah, if I want to keep fortitude on all of them it DOES require tossing it out pretty often. Mine's on a 17s recharge, so I've got a bit of leeway in terms of "must cast on cooldown". But if I'm trying to keep it going on all of them I have to pay attention to the cooldown pretty closely. Though the oni can definitely get along fine without it, as he's got 43% m/r def and 68% aoe before fortitude. The damage buff is nice though.
It's definitely not my strongest MM build, but it's a lot of fun and Empathy is actually a decent choice for soloing as a MM, as you have a premade team with you to benefit from the buffs.
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16 hours ago, Zewks said:
Seems to be some overall lack of balance between some of the pets based on those values.
Specifically with Ninjas
But thats just on first glance
The ninjas don't have any resists to speak of (other than the oni), but they have high defense and a self-heal once you get their upgrades slotted up.
The Train Ninjas power gives the genin around 17% defense, the jounin 23% defense, and the oni 29% defense, and all get about 5-10% more vs aoe, as well. Combine that with the auras, maneuvers, secondary sets' +def powers, etc, and the ninjas can hit the defense cap pretty quickly depending on the secondary you have.
My nija/empathy MM's pets are at 49% melee/range and 70% aoe for the genin, 55% m/r and 93% aoe for the jounin, and 61% m/r and 86% aoe for the oni, due to having enough recharge in the build to keep fortitude on all six pets at once.
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2 hours ago, tidge said:
Seeker Drones do not proc %damage. They can be slotted with those pieces, but unless something has radically changed about Seeker Drones, those pieces even thought they can be slotted won't contribute to damage.
The Protector Bot's bubbles are IIRC 13% +Defense. I think it is worth slotting them with either a boosted 50+5 Defense IO, or a Defense/Endurance Reduction (50+5, or 53) piece. I saw significant performance improvement by slotting them with a level 53 Cytoskeleton.
Hm. Could have sworn the drones triggered procs. I might be thinking of another power though, it's been quite a while since I played any of my /traps builds. Just popped onto my bot/traps to check though, and you're right.
And if you're really trying to squeeze a couple extra points of defense out, then sure, though it's not really necessary depending on your build. And with bots/trap not having any extra pet power to stick the auras in, if you want all 6 you're only working with 4 slots per pet. Adding a +def IO into the prot bots means they're going to be at 3 slots, which is going to seriously cut into their damage output, accuracy, and end management.
With my build, between the prot bot shields, scorpion shield, FFG, maneuvers, CJ, weave, and various IO/set bonuses my bot/trap MM is sitting at around 55% ranged/melee/aoe def, 75% smash/lethal def, 67% energy def. Toxic/psionic def are her weaknesses, but not many things are PURELY psi/toxic attack without having a ranged/melee/aoe component as well. The bots are at 43% range/melee and 57% aoe def. So not quite soft-capped, but even losing some bots to incarnate stuff I have enough personal def to get them back up and into the fight without getting shredded.
I kind of built her to be extremely durable though, so YMMV depending on builds. 🙂
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I was trying it out on the test server, and the damage seems ... very awkward.
There's no reason to put a damage set into it, considering the damage only procs when a mob actually slips on it, so it's not going to deal any significant damage at all. Which makes the way it's coded seem extremely silly. 151 ticks of X damage over 30 seconds, but really only ends up ticking a couple of times before the mob dies to other stuff.
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Play all of them! You can never have enough masterminds.
As for the various setups:
QuoteW347H3R 40 thugs/storm cyborg adobted by a gain to become their leader. Fantastic damage, chaotic but end is a problem. Not easy to control pets/ gang war is fun
End will always be a problem with /storm if you run hurricane. On the couple /storm MMs I have, I toggle it on and off a lot just to use it as kind of a "get out of my face" power, and once they're pushed back enough, I let the pets go to work on them and turn it off. If I really need the -to hit, I'll leave it on and try to converse end as best I can. Though once you get fully slotted up, your end problems can be mitigated a lot depending on build.
QuoteSally wright 38 western saloongril who sprang into existance necro/Dark very good damage, love the control, heal,.. but i seems i die a bit more on this one, even more if i aggro two spawns. love the extra pets i get although they dont last long.
Necro/Dark is a classic. Generally you want to build for a lot of +recharge so that you can leverage Soul Extraction as often as possible. One way you can really get a lot of mileage out of it is to get the full set of Mark of Supremacy, and at 50th make it Superior. Split it into three 2-piece bits for each of your pets, and you'll end up with 30% global recharge just from that. I don't often use Hasten in builds, but if you like that power you can probably get SE close to perma.
QuoteDr Jill Trent robot/trap 31 astehtically like the robots and like the idea of traps,, softcapped defense already easily, definatly very sturdy but not sure what i do wrong cause damage is way below the others.
Bots/Traps is another classic. Bots can sometimes feel like they don't do damage-churn as well as some other sets, but a lot of it depends on how the assault bot chooses to use its swarm missiles and incendiary patches. Against groups of mobs, they'll melt targets very quickly. One thing to note is that the protector bots USED to do so-so damage, but were good for support, so a lot of people (myself included) would spec them up to add a bit more defense. These days, they're one of the highest damage outputs of the set, so setting them up for max damage is essential for maximum damage output. But they SHRED their end bar. Even with 95% end reduction they'll drop themselves to low end in under 30 seconds. You'll want to leverage Acid Mortar for the debuff, and you can slot Seeker Drones with several procs to turn it into a mini-nuke, too (Positron's Blast, Javelin Volley, Bombardment, and Cloud Senses procs for damage, as well as Annihilation's -resist proc).
QuoteMighty dar 31 beast/kin liked it at start but got bored fast. dont like the constant howling.
You can get a mod that will keep them from making so much noise. It's a great help. And Fulcrum Shifted beasts deal ENORMOUS damage. My Beast/Kin goes hunting giant monsters, and kills them with pure damage output, no -regen beyond Transfusion required. She can solo Jack in Irons and Eochai together at the same time.
QuoteUesugi masamune ninja/ta 30 love the idea. the ninja do way more damage then what i was told. no research done but in feeling rather close to thugs and necro. But the mm himself is very squichy for some reason no idea what i amdoing wrong.
Ninjas are one of the highest damage minion sets in the game. They have a lot of fast-animating attacks with fairly low cooldowns, so they can do some serious damage churn. With /TA you can debuff the hell out of enemies to let the ninjas really go to town. The downside is that you have no healing for them or for yourself, without investing in the Medicine pool. Generally what I do is set up several minion-specific attack commands for my /TA MMs, to keep some pets in bodyguard mode while directing others to attack. You can mitigate a lot of the incoming damage that way. Plus leveraging Oil Slick and EMP Arrow for a lot of extra damage mitigation. Especially if you take a resist armor from one of the epic/patron pools.
QuoteSTD V2.1 11 merc/ff to soon to judge.
Once you get rolling with this, they'll churn through just about anything you throw them at. My Merc/FF has incarnate softcapped def for all the mercs, as well as Serum boosting their smash/lethal resist to softcap for a bit as well as boosting their damage output. I picked up the attacks as well just so that I could contribute a bit of damage, as /FF is a pretty passive set overall. And with Repulsion Field you can generally keep stuff out of melee, letting your mercs just dakadaka stuff to death.
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57 minutes ago, Frozen Burn said:
You can still use your base TP macro.... you just have to first click Long Range Teleport (Accolade) or Base Teleport (purchased from START/P2W vendor or earned through Monitor Duty day job). You can even still use your macro if you summon a Base Portal (again, temp power purchased from START/P2W vendor or earned through Monitor Duty day job).
Click one of those, then click your macro, and then you'll do your emote, say your message, and port to your base, 🙂
Yeah, it's not the same though. The old port was fairly quick, and would make you vanish just as the animation for the costume change was about to end and shift the costume, so it made it look like you "beamed out". Summoning a base portal isn't the effect I'm after, and the long-range teleporter has a really long animation time, so you'd have to wait and trigger the macro right at the proper moment.
It's not a big deal, it was just a cute setup that allowed to look like the characters were being beamed up by the ship.
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I was kind of sad to see it go, since several of my characters operated out of a starship, and I had a whole macro set up for doing an emote, saying "Ship, one to transport" and then doing a costume change with a special effect right as they'd teleport to the base.
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Oh nice. Maybe I'll try to reprise my starship build high up above the base level, then. I'd scrapped it several times due to constant drifting.
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I've played dozens of MMOs over the years. There are a few I still play from time to time, or that I'll drift off of one game and start playing again as my "main" MMO.
Currently I'm playing EQ2 again, and still log in to DDO and LotRO now and then when they come out with new content.
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2 hours ago, roleki said:
That said, in my opinion EMP Arrow is better on paper than in practice; if you make it to a scenario where it's worth actually using EMP Arrow, you likely don't need to use it.
I would argue that this isn't really true.
On my beast/TA mastermind, EMP Arrow was a very important part of my arsenal against EBs and AVs. Without it, I have zero status protection (other than immobilize, thanks to CJ), and my pets' resists are fairly low, even with all the auras. With it, my pets' damage resistance would get pushed up to the point that it took a couple of hits to drop the tier-1's, giving me time to save them. And since my only healing was a single-target Aid Other, that extra time makes all the difference. Additionally, the status protection means that I can keep using powers without fear of being locked down and having to pop breakfrees (assuming I still have some left) to try and avoid a wipe of my pets and myself.
It's not something that you need in every fight, but when you do need it, it's definitely a "thank god I have this" power.
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A lot of my current characters are magic origin, as they're D&D characters that were forcibly ported into Paragon and are living here now. Even the classes that aren't inherently magical, like rogue or fighter have the magic origin, because of how they got here, and that they use magical items, etc.
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1 hour ago, kelika2 said:
EM has a higher flightmod than Hover so it benefited more from enhancements.
Yeah, I don't use hover for general movement anyway. I just use flight. If I want precise control (like flying around indoors or something) I'll kick hover on as well, so I get all the speed of flight and the control of hover. Costs a bit more end, but I'm generally not doing that for more than a few seconds in combat anyway.
Generally hover and EM are just LotG mule slots for me.
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On 10/21/2023 at 10:58 PM, kelika2 said:
In the before times, long long ago I had so many alts who were flying and I had Evasive Maneuvers 6 slotted with 3 mito hamis and 3 defense procs. But some time later I switched them to Leaping just to save 5 enhancement slots and a power selection.
Funny, I don't think I've EVER put slots into Evasive Maneuvers. It's always and forever a LotG +rech mule slot, and nothing more.
Personally, I like flight because it's the most freeform way to travel. I can operate in 360 degrees and move around as I see fit. Want to go to the top of a building? Just fly up. Want to get those badges high up on ledges and things? Fly up and grab them. With superspeed? Yeah, still need to find a way to walk up there, and trying to move at high velocity on a small ledge 200 feet up is going to end up with me falling off. And superleap doesn't cut it for a lot of places, so you have to jump up to ledge #1, then ledge #2, then to the point you're aiming for.
Flight is just more convenient.
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2 hours ago, SquidVicious said:
I have a very simple suggestion to remedy this. As simple as the solution is, it may be difficult to implement. I have no experience coding for CoH so couldn't tell you. My suggestion, however, is this: if you, a teammate or league-mate did not click the door, the spawns don't give you XP or inf. This encourages everyone to actually Trick-or-Treat and prevents mechanics abuse.
Actually this would create MORE abuse, for one simple reason: A couple people could click on doors while your ToT league is parked in an area and anything that comes out you and your league get no inf/exp/badges for. This would end up with people screaming at one another about "this is our camping spot, go find your own", etc. Just like back in the day when you'd get a group and just camp in front of a spawn of mobs for hours on end grinding exp.
Personally, I don't really care if someone "leeches" off stuff I'm already fighting, since I only ToT for the badges, and stuff dying faster = faster badges. Sometimes I just want to do my own thing and not worry about being in a group/league, so I can go afk at a moment's notice, look stuff up on the other monitor, or whatever else and not have people getting irate that I'm "leeching while afk". Which is why I almost exclusively ToT solo in Kallisti.
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5 hours ago, lemming said:
And OT, I think the measurement in the costume creator is off. It seems like the base height is 6' and doorways are taller than in the real world.
Well of course the doorways are taller, they have to be to account for the fact that there are 8-foot people walking around. Can't make Captain Meltdown, The Easily Annoyed Walking Nuclear Pile have to constantly duck under doorframes, after all. Otherwise he'd eventually bump his head and you'd lose a city block.
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My characters are based on a concept I have for them, and that includes how they look, how tall they are, etc.
All my D&D/Pathfinder immigrants are based on their game races, so their heights are pretty defined from the get-go. The tallest one is the giantkin barbarian. The shortest are the two halflings, and a gnome who's a couple inches taller than them. The two dwarves are built with the "huge" male body, cranked to minimum height and large physique, since I can't make a proper female dwarf using the female body -- the legs end up looking too long, even with minimum leg length. So I just go with the "small-huge" male body, put them in full armor, and they end up looking like proper female dwarves. Besides, nobody but other dwarves can tell male from female anyway, so it's all good!
I have a couple of very tall other characters, and a lot of short characters. But none of them really follow any sort of role/AT pattern with their heights. Just whatever I feel like for the character.
Angels & Demons
in General Discussion
Posted
I think I have one angel character (a demon/thermal MM), because I liked the idea of this constantly-frustrated angel shepherding a bunch of unruly demons.
I have one demon character (who's also a demon mastermind) who gets into arguments with her minions about who's the most powerful.
And among my D&D adventurers, I have a tiefling and an aasimar, though I don't know if they really qualify, since they're based on D&D demons/angels rather than Christian ones.