Onlyasandwich

I continue to tool around with this, and have an alternate build I'm considering. Not sure what I like best! Dominator (Mind Control - Martial Assault) levitate version w unleash.mbd Here I dropped Combat TP (sadness), Fly, and Evasive in favor of grabbing Unleash Potential. Hover swapped for Stealth. I also dropped Explosive Shuriken in favor of Levitate. Advantages: Levitate fits into my opener, giving me a reliable aoe soft control to keep myself safe at the intro as I follow up on Terrify. As a ST filler, it's slightly less DPA than Explosive Shuriken, but has a strong control element and is available at lower levels. Should be minimal usage in rotation at high levels. I could juice its damage ~40 more with more ED, which actually makes it stronger DPA that Explosive, but value the resist spread. Unleash lets me hit softcap on ranged defense some of the time, and benefits from the high global recharge and FFback present in the build. With this, I can handle spawns by rotating Mass Confusion, Total Dom, and Unleash, giving me a more sustainable strategy for mob groups where my soft controls aren't enough. Stealth is thematic and sometimes useful when stacked with the celerity +stealth in sprint. Disadvantages: No Combat TP! I love combat TP. However, jousting in with Combat Jumping should be just fine. I ate my extra end support slots in Health/stamina to slot out Unleash. This puts me at 2.18/sec positive if you account for average performance shifter and Panacea procs. Domination refills should bridge the gap for the most part, but timing won't always work to rely on this, and the procs are great on average, but may hit some dry streaks. I'm hoping that dom refills alongside the higher recovery from Unleash windows will be enough. A bit less slow resistance in favor of optimal levitate slotting. If I could somehow steal 3 slots without sacrificing anything important, I could plug up all these concerns. What approach would you take with these goals?

The defense bonus from evasive maneuvers goes away once you attack. If it kept the defense bonus it would be the best pool power in the game by a longshot! It's a great power to increase flight maneuverability, and act as an extra long mule.

Hello Dominators! I've had my eye on the Martial secondary for a while, and haven't been quite sure what to do with it. The relatively recent rework of Telekinesis is calling to me - it's time for another Mind dom! I know Envenomed Blades gets poo poo'd a bit out there these days, but the fact that it has some juicy +tohit that can be perma'd is a prime opportunity to optimize for procs. The damage from the global toxic proc is just gravy. As is tradition with most of my doms these days, I avoid focusing on softcap, and instead leave room for controls to handle incoming damage. Other combinations of Mind I've played in the past have had no issues with this, especially with careful play, which is something Mind is especially good at. You can really juggle spawns and manage aggro quite well when solo. I'd love your review and perspective! Goals: Perma envenomed blades, and permadom of course. I'm okay relying on a FFback proc here and there to bridge the gap. I'm 5 seconds shy on envenomed with no FFback hitting, which should easily be overcome with even minimal FFback fires. Squeeze all the sweet proc juice out of every power where it matters. Max hit chance against +3s even while doing so. Maximize slow resist. A side dish of as much ranged defense as I can grab while getting there. Keep with the Psionic Ninja theme. I don't think I'd go for a different epic for this reason, though am open to suggestions if you see a strong synergy. Concerns: I've seen mixed data on trick shot. I get the basic idea (chains up to 5 targets, fire and forget), but am not sure on how well it procs. Do the chains actually benefit from the procs? Other chains like chain induction don't take well to procs. I'm pretty happy with the DPA even single target here - it seems like a pretty nice power. Spinning Kick. This seems a bit finicky, and I'm not sure if it would mesh with my playstyle for these types of builds. I currently have Psi nado in its place, serving a similar purpose (extra proccy aoe with FFback fun). Which would you pick? I do like being able to just splort out aoes without lining up cones once I'm past my opener, so that's something. World of Confusion is sort of a throwaway thematic pick here. I like the idea of a pretty pink ball surrounding me as I kick stuff, and maybe it will get a chance to stack confuse here and there. Alternatively, I could grab a lotg mule from indom will. Do you see any valuable one slot wonder alternatives? Caltrops is a good power, but perhaps not great in this specific kit. Explosive Shuriken seems like poo poo. Is it poo poo? Am I missing something here? Maybe I even consider dropping this for Spinning Kick. From what I see in CoD, this thing maybe does 23ish aoe damage enhanced. Why ever bother having this component? I guess it's an okay ST attack, but not really any better DPA than a proccy Spinning Kick. This is seriously the most disappointing dom T9 I've seen. Levitate vs Mesmerize. I went with Mes here for the little bit of sandman fun. Levitate isn't super competitive with my secondary attacks. However, perhaps I'm not giving enough credit to the special interaction with TK? Maybe I even drop Psi tornado entirely to eat its slots and put them into Levitate and leverage this interaction. I can see it being really helpful extra mitigation in my opener. Do you think it's a strong enough trick to invest into here? Anticipated engagement plan: Open with Terrify to debuff and alpha some strong damage. TK to bunch the spawn. Combat TP in to start spamming aoes and kicking things in the face. If it's a really sticky enemy group, cycle total dom, mass confusion, and sprinkle in Confuse while doing the above. Otherwise rely on the fear alongside mitigation from knockdowns, using Mass Hyp as a pause button if things get out of hand. I will be running in hover with evasive maneuvers on most of the time. Supreme maneuverability alongside Combat TP! Note that I have procs disabled for my FFback powers to better reflect recharge totals. File: Dominator (Mind Control - Martial Assault).mbd Picture: Text: Chunk:

Hi Jake! I'll include every version that I can share here in the hopes that one of them is accessible for you. I still really love this build! Even after running it for some time, there's nothing I'd really change. File: Dominator - Plant Control - Fiery Assault mk2.mbd Chunk: Text: Picture:

As sr has no resist powers, this won't do anything for your resist. A very minor bump to sl if you're taking tough. Alphas act as enhancement for existing powers, so relevant powers need to exist for them to benefit you. There aren't any truly ideal alphas for sr. Nerve radial can help you optimize a proc build if you slot with its accuracy and defense enhancement in mind, but then the build suffers sub 50 for those stats. Alternatively, you could embrace it as a way to get you to incarnate softcap when in relevant content, and treat the accuracy as gravy. I just go musculature radial for the extra damage and small end benefit to stamina. If you really find yourself sucking wind, cardiac is a pretty strong solution, though the res is wasted. If your build isn't proc focused, agility radial is a good option with nothing wasted. If heavily procced, it will impact your rates.

Placate is pretty excellent now. It's fast enough to be a good damage gain even if just using it for crits. Sure you get ato procs for crits too, but both is even better. It also works really well to keep runners to a minimum. Otherwise big groups have a tendency to scatter after your nasty big critting alpha strike. As a survival tool it can be nice at low levels or as an emergency button when everything goes wrong. I mostly use it for offense.

Both would be very viable picks. /SR would probably a bit of an easier daily driver, and give you more room to proc out your attacks. I rather like Storm/Rad myself. /Rad covers a lot of the same territory as /Regen, but with better resists. Ground Zero also helps make up for Storm's mediocre aoe. One thing with storm to keep in mind is that you are incentivized to keep on blasting with storm blasts specifically. Every pool or epic attack you use is one that won't have a chance to proc the secondary lightning attacks inherent to the set. It could probably use a once-over for modernization, but I'll share my build below. The primary slotting at least could be a good reference if you translate it to another combo. Picture: Text:

This is the way! Pick the fun thing you want to do, embrace it, and optimize towards it within the parameters of fun.

Here we go, as promised! Some highlights: Ignite is not the best proc power, due to a good portion of its damage being tied into the pseudo pet it summons for the secondary burn patch. Good place to lean on set bonuses instead. Same for Burst, but because its short recharge makes proccing it pretty pointless. Note that mine only does like 8 less damage doubling down on a great set. Though I didn't softcap, resists and defenses significantly increased across the board. Notably, capped S/L resist even with Strength of will down. Recovery is still totally fine. I've sprinkled more endredux in attacks, so you should find it actually superior. Recharge is much higher. You also have a FFback proc in both single target and aoe rotations. Decimation proc moved to a higher percentage power. No ideal targets for this, but it will still make a meaningful impact, especially if you capitalize on procs with the right follow up. I dropped Resurgence for Evasive Maneuvers. This makes Hover more in-combat viable, and frees up a slot as well. You could swap this back if you want, but find a slot to sacrifice to put the +res unique back. 50% slow resist is a nice bonus. Gaussian in Aim! Note that FFback procs and Decimation are enabled right now, so keep that in mind when reviewing totals. Even so, you'll find that the proccable powers here do much more damage in this iteration. Temp buff powers like Aim are turned off. No incarnate stuff included here, but of course many options would be viable. Edit: I don't feel like editing all the shares below, but swapping the Dam/End Rag in Flamethrower for Acc/Dam/End Winter IO is an upgrade. For F/C resist for no loss! File: Sentinel (Assault Rifle - Willpower).mbd Image: Text: Chunk:

Welcome to the Proc side, @Snarky! A few broad observations: You don't really need Buckshot, M30, Flamethrower, and Full Auto. You have a very coherent aoe chain with only 2-3 of these. Obviously keep FA, but consider dropping one of the others. I'd drop Buckshot myself, though it's a nice power. If you just want a bag full of munitions for variety, that's fine of course! KD proc in Full Auto is a really nice idea! I like it. If you're really committed to proc success, FA itself could use some more proc love. Defenses are so-so. I feel like the right rework could find a way to softcap S/L. Not sure though - may take a crack at it later for comparison. Canny play and all the KD should do you well enough for the most part. Gaussian proc in Aim would make a big difference. Burst and disorienting shot are just a little low for my preference on accuracy. 92% and 88% on +3's respectively. If you're keeping M30, FFback here is very strong. Also - where are the procs? The set bonuses from overwhelming force aren't very good here. Overall your current build is reasonable, and will probably run through content just fine. I'll try a ground up rework later with the same theming and share for a better comparison than my points above.

Never! Best power in the pool for my dollar and one slot. 😃

Hah - good point! Even just the 50 is fine alongside a +5 recharge. Don't have to shell out the extra for 53. Good point on HL as well- hitting the debuff is pretty significant. I could actually move some of the slots I freed up dropping Hoarfrost to cover this - I think I will! For infrig, I figured 94.8 was close enough, especially with Sleet out most of the time. It would be nice to have some extra pad room though. It would be easy enough to switch the set piece to a +5 acc. From what you share, I shouldn't have to worry too much about the extra end consumption. I had it as is to spread the love of endredux with the acc/end IO. Maybe some day they'll have a D-sync Acc/End! Hmm - I wonder what else I could do with spare slots? I could just move one endmod from Stamina to acc in HL and be done with it. No other super impactful things to do with extra slots that I see beyond a little extra exotic res or S/L here and there.

Right, of course I'm using it as well, and the muled set allows it to reach the recharge goals I have for it. Meanwhile the set bonuses serve me well. If I didn't need these set bonuses I'd just be slotting it with two recharge. I did take your suggestion and dropped Hoarfrost! I feel like what I gained was about a coinflip better. Now I have a travel power, which is nice, a bit more slow resist (almost capped!), more E/N resist, and 4 more points of KB protection. 11 Points is pretty nice! With the base buff, I can be at 20 and be FREEM proof. Here is the new version for reference: Mastermind (Beast Mastery - Cold Domination).mbd Text: Picture: Chunk:

Thanks for taking a peek, @Uun! I'm just using sleet as a mule here. I'll probably switch out hoarfrost for a travel power - thanks for the perspective! I actually really like Frostwork on MM's. It has a substantial effect on pet HP, and if anything is worth it for dropping on the T3 pet. The endredux in maneuvers is worth considering if I find myself sucking wind. As it stands, I think I'm happy with the overall recovery when leaning on Heat Loss, but we'll see how it works in practice. I hear you on Fortify Pack for sure! I have in mind to ignore it unless needed, just relying on the howls from Lions to get things started as my soft controls hit the floor. If it gets messy, I imagine Fortify will do a good job stabilizing matters.

Hey there forum friends! It's me, your best friend Onlyasandwich. I've been away in the land of FFXIV these days, but the CoH itch is starting to return. There are only a few primaries I've yet to run in some combo or another across the ATs, and Beast/ is one of them. I know they are bottom of the barrel these days with all the wonderful reworks out there, but I'd like to try them on for size, and would love your review. My goals with this build: Gotta keep Icy theme! Ice Mastery quite frankly stinks compared to more optimal pools, but I'm making the most of it. Softcap those pets. Clearly I'm going to have to rely on Fortify pack, even with icy shields. Still - it looks like I'm most of the way there even without Fortify if you account for the double defense buffs from Lions for the first 15 seconds. Squeeze that personal damage as much as possible! Efficient proc opportunities abound with this combo. Slow resist. I always want it. Fortunately Cold comes with a super strong baseline. Max hit chance against +3s without accounting for debuffs. As much Recharge, Personal Defense, and random resist bonuses as I can grab without sacrificing the above. Basically the low hanging fruit. Special things I like in this build: Flash Freeze actually does something! A little proc bomb, and the extra debuff from annihilation makes it actually worth using. KD proc in Ravens. What a great power this is! Proctastic, and the 50% KD chance seems like a beautiful opportunity for something I'll be spamming. Further optimization: Pet slotting? I'm pretty happy with it overall, but do you see something you'd change? I wish I could squeeze the shield breaker proc into summon wolves. From what I see, the slow procs do nice work in Dire wolf, especially for aoe. End consumption. What do you think? In my experience, Heat Loss is a strong solution. Even without 100% up time, the refill and natural recovery should bridge the gap. Would love to free up a slot for one more recharge in Benumb. I could plop 2 provocations in there, but don't want to invest the extra billions into this character. A little extra nudge of slow resist would be nice if it can be found with no sacrifice. Hoarfrost - do you like it? It is up most of the time, but not super close to perma. Would you drop it for something different - maybe a travel power? This could free up slots for above priorities depending on how slot hungry the pick is. File: Mastermind (Beast Mastery - Cold Domination).mbd Chunk: Text:

Your goals are very similar to mine! I revamped my fire/storm a while back, and spruced it up a bit more for this thread. Pure softcap builds are very smooth to drive, but I like to leave some room to rely on my controls, and use that extra freedom to squeeze in resists and proc damage. My focuses: Maximize damage by all means - focus on procs where there is good return. High recharge. Avoid relying on Ageless for an endurance crutch. Actually pretty tough on this very thirsty combo! High baseline resists across the board. Secondary goals: Slow resist where I can get it. Easy ranged defense bonuses. Not softcap, but enough to make an impact, easily stack to softcap with buffs/candy, and effectively floor hit chances when using hurricane. Note that I have all powers with Force feedback toggled off for procs to reflect more accurate recharge totals. I have both Rune and indom will. This makes you less reliant on perma indom, though it is still perma for the most part as long as a FFback fires here and there. If you forget to pop it, you have rune to save you. Rune of course makes a great resist steroid regardless. Typical engage: Flashfire to open. Fly in with hotfeet on, hit bonfire, cages. Drop my pets and start blastin. Resummon pets on cooldown. Try to remember to refresh indom will. Pop Rune when I think it's going to be dicey. Cinders is super fast to animate, and a great backup control if things get out of hand. If it all goes to hell, spam cages and circle around with hurricane on. No -KD in LS, so a quick hop above to the spawn to pop it, or position it as a goalie in a direction I want to keep mobs out of. Gale is a nice control with -KD at lower levels of course, but I don't have the time to spam it at higher levels, and find more utility from it as an occasional "get over there" button without -KD. Imps die but who cares - resummon when the chaos calms. Hurricane is not an always tool, but really useful solo, and a third backup plan on teams or at lower levels when fewer tools are available. I'd definitely drop at least thunder clap in favor of it. Thunder Clap has a very long animation for its low mag, and there are always better things to be doing that mitigate more and/or actually do damage. The biggest issue I see with your current build is end consumption. Even if you toggle Mystic flight off, you are still sucking wind hardcore. Your overall slotting is reasonable, but fighting+leadership is pretty brutal on top of the expensive attacks. I don't take fighting on my controllers much these days unless they have substantial in-set endurance support. Even then, you have plenty of other tools to keep you alive more efficiently. For some reason I can't attach files to the thread right now. Here's the chunk for my build: Text:

Indeed my latest iteration referenced in the thread uses hover/fly!

I've always had a seed of doubt, but here we are confirmed. Diantane is indeed the king of trolls. Masterful.

It's not a bad trade! I think the extra global acc is worth keeping though, given that I'm relying on it to hit with some of my more heavily procced powers. It's not a bad concept to keep in my back pocket if I do significant shifts elsewhere in the build. I'm wondering if maybe I just drop the +def uniques (not the pet uniques, but for personal defense). This would give me room for more procs, slow resist, or to shore up my KB protection. Since I'm not anywhere near personal softcap, they aren't doing as much work as normal. There again, they put me that much closer to softcapping with purples or outside buffs.

That is one of the areas I'd love to improve if I can find any slot efficiency that's worth the trade. One potential solution on my mind is swapping Brine for Acrobatics. This brings me up to 12 KB prot, along with some bonus hold protection. I've seen a lot of folks skipping Brine, but I'm inclined to keep it I think. On a MM especially, the force multiplier for hard targets seems well worth it. With its current one slot, it's at 95% hit chance for +3's on only one stack of shifting tides. I'm good with this. Good point on Barrier Reef! That gives me an extra little nudge on defense totals. I also swapped the Cyto in Enforcers to a straight up +5 Defense IO. The tohit benefit is very marginal here (only .5 tohit), and the extra defense edge is nice, alongside some influence savings with the cheaper option. Pets are now at 44.1% defense, just barely shy of softcap! A meaningful step forward. I could hit official softcap with another Defense IO in Enforcers, but I don't think it's worth losing a proc or the extra bit of acc/dam/end from my +5 Sovereign right. Latest version with these small updates: Mastermind (Thugs - Marine Affinity).mbd

Thank you @Crysis and @SeraphimKensai for your input on the Guassian proc! Indeed I did suspect that it was sort of similar to putting it in tactics (buff hits the MM, and gets a chance for every target hit). Some part of me was hoping that it somehow would buff the target I anchor it to, but of course that doesn't make any sense. 55% uptime for buildup proc sounds nice, but ultimately doesn't come out to all that much with poor base damage on MM, so I don't think I'll devote the slot. I'd love to hear more perspective on how you slot the power overall! Especially whether accuracy is necessary. From what I see, it would be necessary for the bonus damage to hit. I'm loving the build so far! Any insight there is welcome as well if you see anything you'd do differently :).

I recognize that it's strong and objectively makes my st damage better. However, I agree that it's disappointing. It just doesn't feel good to use. When it comes to it I'd rather just have the oomph of a real snipe.

Hello long lost coh friends! It's been a while (I've been digging away at FFXIV for a few months), but the latest issue caught my eye, and Marine Affinity is of course all the rage. I've noodled on a few different Thugs combinations in the past, and this one seems the perfect synergy, as well as the ideal opportunity to lean into a pirate fantasy : ). I know we all have a lot to learn about the practicalities of this new set in practice. I want to first talk about Shifting Tides specifically. What does this power need? I haven't seen other builds out there slotting it for any accuracy at all, but as far as I can see in CoD, it looks like the bonus damage mechanic maybe needs accuracy to hit? Am I missing something here? I'd love to save the slots if possible, but as it stands I've devoted some accuracy attention to it. Also - has anyone tested the Gaussian proc in it? I would guess that it works similar to tactics, in that it would buff the caster only, but the chances would be strong every 10 second pulse due to many enemy targets generating little blips of shifting tides buffs. However, maybe there are some odd shenanigans with how the buffs are generated, and something more interesting happens. I'm also curious how impactful the bonus damage itself is, and how worth enhancing. Looking at CoD, I can't quite parse the % chance that scales with rising tides stacks, so am not really clear on how often it triggers, and if perhaps the % and/or damage scale is in proportion to the attack used. On to the build section! Here is my pirate dude for your dissection and enjoyment. Mastermind (Thugs - Marine Affinity).mbd Primary Goals: Gotta have at least one pistol power - he's a pirate. Leviathan is also required for theme. I will be a pistol shooty, punchy, shark bitey kinda guy. Maximize personal and pet damage through procs where possible. Secondary goals: Maximize personal resist across the board. As much recharge as possible without sacrificing primary goals. Max hit chance against +3's. As much slow resist as I can squeeze in without sacrificing the above. I'm pretty happy with the result! The current build hits ~41% defense (more for aoe of course) for my pets with the enforcer buffs, with very healthy resists to support. Between that and my heals, regen, and bit of absorb, I think they should be pretty sturdy. Neat tricks in the current build: Overwhelming KD proc in thugs is super fun and powerful! Extra KD proc in shifting tides should add to the passive mitigation. Panacea in Power of the depths should juice me and my minions in an aoe, and if it works like similar powers, provide a continuing chance of further procs over the duration. Any confirm of your experience here would be great. Where I'd love to improve: I am relying on a few click powers for endurance management. Could put me in awkward spots at times. Devoting slots to health/stamina would be nice, but I think not necessary. Would be neat to try out Gaussian in shifting tides. Would be nice to have room for the damage proc in Brine. Not sure that I'll use it much outside of EB/AV though. More room to slot out Soothing Wave would be nice. 1-2 extra -KD IOs would be nice. Do you think it's a real miss to skip Shoal Rush? It seems pretty lacklustre, even procced out. I see that it was improved over the course of testing, but it still seems pretty redundant, and the easiest skip in the set. Note that I have shifting tides set to max right now. I have a little extra global acc that on the surface appears unnecessary, as I'd like to keep good chances to hit without full saturation. Chunk: Text: Picture:

Oil slick arrow would do the trick.

You'll find quite a few if you look in various Demons/ threads out there. It's a popular combo. The whip attacks are very much worthwhile. Theft of Essence proc in your heal is also key for sustainability, as MM's have some trouble on that front. This IO gets a proc chance off of every henchman healed, so you can spam it indefinitely and it will not only keep you steady, it will often refill your end. Here is my own build for reference, which was updated fairly recently. Mine is very focused on adding as much personal damage as possible, and it works really well! /Dark provides plenty of defensive tools to keep everyone afloat - you just have to keep using them proactively. Demon Dark.mbd Of the builds you shared, the Mysha build is better. It goes for more personal defense than mine, but mine has much more personal damage. Personally, I find /Dark bridges the gap with all its debuffs just fine, but can understand why others might want a stronger defense baseline. Mine also leverages damage procs in the pets where they are most relevant, which substantially increases their potential. I especially like the Overwhelming KD proc in the T1 on a lot of my MM's. Since it's a flat 20% chance for KD unaffected by recharge, those little demons provide a lot of passive soft control! The other build is pretty inefficient, and focuses way too much on full set bonuses to no real benefit. It also skips all the personal attacks, which in my opinion is a mistake for Demons, as Whips are some of the best MM attacks around. Many of them are excellent for procs, and they also do -res debuff which enhances your pet damage too. It's also missing two of the global pet enhancing IOs.