SmalltalkJava

Ahh I got confused. I was thinking "fighting" pool. for tough/weave. I've thought about thugs, but i've only dabbled in thugs a bit. Do thugs have better defenses than bots? Here is what I threw together quickly for a Bots/Nature build.

I've done my experiments with demons and Beasts /Nature MM's with a tilt towards damage. Now I'm thinking about a true TankerMind. So that leans towards Bots or Demons. Regarding survival, Nature gives +Resists and Absorb, but really needs high recharge to sing. I've gone back and forth in my mind about Fighting Pool vs Leadership pool. I know the Pools that I want are Presence for Provoke, Teleport for teleport, SuperSpeed for Hasten. That leaves 1 extra pool. So either leadership or Fighting. My idea on how it would play. It would work like @Crysis's Bots/Time tankermind. Buff every 60-70 seconds, Teleport in with the Aura, then lay down my garden, then attack and Provoke. This is basically what I do today with my /Nature, except I have to run in. It is kind of like the two bulls on the hill scenario. Why run in when you can port in and take care of them all. Bots + a third layer of survive-ability with Protector Bots shield + Ranged, so I can use mouse click bound "Stay" and "goto" to keep them out of melee aoe range + MM attacks are ranged, which will allow me to better control the pbaoe aura range of Entangling Aura. Try to find the sweet spot to hit mobs with attacks and still keep the max number in my aura - pet knockbacks. might be a problem. mobs knocked out of my aura. trying to balance this with getting good recharge for nature does it impact you /Time users that don't slot for kb->kd conversion? Demons + Right off the bat, +15 extra resists for several area's + Don't have to worry about knockbacks - pets are mixed melee and ranged so they will take more hits Here is a rough quick build that I threw together for a tankier Demons/Nature. It wasn't all my idea. I've never done a tankermind before. The incarnates should be turned off, I wasn't set on them, I was just doing some experiments to see what would work or not work. Regardless, if anyone has a better idea/build for either bots or Nature then let me know! All input is welcome, especially if you can get the defense capped with high resists or vice/versa.

Test Results for Henchman's resists and any possible impact on their Bodyguard damage share. Same mob in a PI instance: Level 51 Council Empire Adjutant (Lieutenant) I did have to leave and reset the zone a few times. All data was gathered against the same orange con "Level 51 Council Empire Adjutant (Lieutenant)" type. This test was with me putting the pets in Defensive/Stay and then when I moved in and took the first attack, I spammed my "GOTO" mouse bind to delay them from coming into attack. So it actually tests both Defensive Stay and Defensive Goto. In addition to the pets resists impact on their damage share. This was not an easy test to do! I had to repeat it over and over until I could get the Adjutant to open his salvo with the same attack. He would open with about 5 different attacks sometimes. And sometimes they would miss, so I just tried to capture his first attack then put the pets on passive and then I'd run off, wait a bit and then come back and try again. I tried not to let the pets kill the Adjutant if i could help it. I logged quite a few different attacks, but grenade was the first one where I could get a test set completed. Then there was a weird thing where bodyguard would only hit 5 of my pets and not the whole 6. Generally, it was one of the small demonlings that wouldn't take any damage at all. I'm not sure if it was a distance thing with supremacy or if it was just the Demon Prince's wide a$$ blocking line of sight on a pet. It was a balancing act to keep them in supremacy range and still get initial aggro. It was very frustrating. Test 1: Control Test - No Nature Resist buff on me or pets Test 2: Nature resist Buff on myself and Pet Test 3: Nature Resist Buff on Myself Only My Conclusions It seems that the Henchman's Resists DO NOT lower their share of bodyguard damage. Defensive Goto and Defensive Stay are valid states for Bodyguard Mode

Does anyone know how long the knockback reduction effect lasts after I teleport? I'm thinking about putting one in Teleport

Interesting you should mention that. Today after finishing my demons/nature damage experiment. My next thought was to do a Tankermind with Nature. I was thinking along the lines of @Crysis's teleportation scenario style of play that he uses with his Bots/Time. Except with Nature you'd port in and let Entangling Aura start its mojo to lock things down. I was thinking either Bots or Demons. Bots would give some +def shield to make it easier to softcap the more prevalent defenses, then nature would add addtional layers via resists and absorb. Demons/Nature on the otherhand could cap the major resistances and get the rest in the 50+ range. I was initially leaning towards Bots, but the trick would be to get Teleport and then have to mitigate the knockback from the bots and still get enough recharge to make nature usefull. I'd probably have to go with the incarnate to reduce recharge. I’ll probably go demons. Since I can respec

Sentinels are a great starting class. Defenders bring nuance and can get good defenses with a good build. Either one will probably be fun for you. I’ve never gotten a level 50 sentinel as I play them as a side hobby. But both are fun for me.

Demons/Nature - Only incarnate is second tier Musculature. So no level shift. I fired Hell on Earth near the beginning. Pretty consistent times. 2:44 2:50 2:50 2:44 2:47 So given this particular build and the port over from my Beast/Nature. Demons are a little slower for single target, but better for close range AOE when looking at my test runs on the PI groups. They shred the PI groups at +3x8 (not +4 because I'm not level shifted) For this build the Power Boosted Absorb granted is 680.7 HP to myself and the pets. Unboosted: 511 HP Build as played:

Well, After messing around a bit. Demons definitely kill groups of mobs faster than beasts. the portal PI mission, the demons just rock it. at +3x8. I haven't bumped it to +4 because i'm not level shifted yet. The demons shred them. I did a few more Pylons where i made sure that the demons were grouped for the buffs. I fired Hell on Earth near the beginning. Pretty consistent times. 2:50 2:44 2:47 My prior runs 2 runs of 2:44 and 2:50. Funny that two times matched. I guess probability would show that it would occur. The times are pretty tight and you would get duplicate times in such a short finish range. So given this particular build and the port over. Demons are a little slower for single target, but better for close range AOE when looking at my test runs on the PI groups. For this build the Power Boosted Absorb granted is 680.7 HP to myself and the pets. Unboosted: 511 HP Build as played:

Hmm. Not what I was expecting. So far the Demons kill time is way way longer than what Beasts was doing. About twice as long. As a matter of fact, I went over my build 3 times to see if i slotted something wrong. I'm talking in the 4 minute range as compared to beasts 2:20 to 2:30ish range. And this is pretty much the exact same build as what I was running on my Beast/Nature. About the only actual difference I can see is the -Res proc in the T1 Beasts. But I was expecting the inhereint -res in Demons to make up for that. I will do some tests with an Impeded Swiftness proc to see if that help. I'm really surprised. I was expecting Demons to faster than Beasts or at least close. - edit- with impeded swiftness proc I got a 2:50 kill and a 2:44 kill. Still 😞 not that impressive. One of the problems, with Demons/Nature is that the demons tend to stay in range mode. So it is difficult to get them all in pbaoe buff range. I have to manually relocate them with the "goto" command. Then when I do they will get knocked back and I have to do it all over again. They appear to get knocked back more often and take longer to recover than beasts. So not really that good of synergy, at least for pylons.

I would love it if they put ina force feedback type of effect in whirlwind. It is such a cool looking ability

To be safe. Just make a copy of your directory. To use if you need to

I understand their position. But it sucks that my time traveling cosplayer “Nostalgianaut” can’t cosplay anymore. Oh well. Corporate greed wins again.

I've tried a million combinations. I was never able to find a way to "release" only one pet so that is leaves a corpse the "dismiss" command doesn't leave a corpse. so "/petcom_name petname dismiss" won't work. The only real option is to summon the 1 pet you want and then releasepets. But that leaves you with a long cool down to summon again. You can try it and see if it works. Just in case I'm wrong.

XPOST FROM the Scrapper forum post: I made a video of one of my recent Beast/Nature MM. Depending on where you start the timer, it took about 2:24 or less. Depending on the rules, you could probably trim about 15-20 seconds off the time. It depends if you start when I buff or when i first make contact with the pylon. But the log shows it all. I left the combat log on my MM personal attacks so everyone can see that the damage does build up if you use the MM's attacks.

I made a video of one of my recent Beast/Nature MM. Depending on where you start the timer, it took about 2:24 or less. Depending on the rules, you could probably trim about 15-20 seconds off the time. It depends if you start when I buff or when i first make contact with the pylon. But the log shows it all. I left the combat log on my MM personal attacks so everyone can see that the damage does build up if you use the MM's attacks.

Yep. All that and you can heal. Force Field wants to play. It’s sad and alone.

Pretty much. And once you have a farmer the boosters are dirt cheap. So you can unslot specific pieces resell and pick up the non attuned version. Then boost it pretty cheap to do. But not necessary

Now that I have my Beast/Nature in a place where I like it. I have set my sights on Demons/Nature. I'm just starting the process but I've settled on a few initial builds. But as with my Beast/Nature getting Recharge was the first goal. Then filling in any extras that I could get. Build 1. Almost direct port of my beast/nature. The overall purpose of this build will be to give me an estimate of how damage from Demons and Beasts relate to each other. Granted I can't slot them exactly the same, but i can get pretty close. I still have some refining to do in regards to the attack slotting. I also might drop corruption and pick up Crack Whip for an extra ability to use Force Feedback proc in. Overgrowth Recharge: 65.23 Seconds, without Force Feedback procing 🙂 Wild Bastion Recharge: 65.08 Seconds 🙂 Knockback resist is just 4. so its a little lower than what I prefer. But it matches my beast build that doesn't have hover. Def S/L 35.6 Energy: 28.4 Resists with the 2 Demon Shields active and Wild Growth. S/L 35.9 Fire/Toxic: 46.7 Cold 36.2 Rest are just 14.2 Mids Import Link Build 2. I just noticed that I over-wrote a Provoke build that I was working on. So I will have to start over theory crafting it. It was based on a Beast/Nature build that @AurianArchive posted in his archive thread. It didn't have Regrowth, but it has Provoke and the Resists when ported to Demons were absolutely insane. What I was trying to do was to play with the Resists slotting a bit to lower them a smidge, because with Demons it was way over capped resists for S/L and a few others. I also was trying see what I could do with the concept and get the recharge up a bit more. I like my Overgrowth recharge to be sub 70 second range. In his builds he uses the incarnate to increase recharge.

Yes! and you can use it to enable/disable the Summon Demon's "Ember Shield Owner" and "Ember Shield" abilities to have their effects show up in the "Totals" window. So now you can see how much resists you will have. Also be careful with the pet window. It allows you to enable effects that don't actually affect the MM. Like the "Resistance" ability that the Demons have

I went back and did some more testing with achilles heel. So far over the course of a pylon kill. It actually shaved about 13 seconds off my prior best. Taken into account that this is just how my wolves were slotted. But With the rest of my build remaining the same, this has given me the fastest time at 2 minutes 19 seconds. Level 1: Summon Wolves (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage (3) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Endurance/Pet +Resist +Regen (3) Soulbound Allegiance - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (5) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage (5) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up (7) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff

I've been doing some Rikti Pylons. Mainly to get used to using the attacks on the MM, but also I've been trying out different slotting options on the T1 Wolves. Once I get used to doing pylons I'll make a couple videos. Notes, If your doing pylon testing with this build. Turn off Entangling Aura. It doesn't seem to affect the pylons and with it turned off you don't have to worry about endurance at all. So far Achilles Heel Proc gave me the fastest Pylon kill at 2 minutes 19 seconds. Level 1: Summon Wolves (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage (3) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Endurance/Pet +Resist +Regen (3) Soulbound Allegiance - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (5) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage (5) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up (7) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff

You link when clicked goes to this same forum post.

Thanks!

I have to share this with the MM community.

Amazing!!!