tjknight

Wow thanks.. I appreciate you sharing this!

I have an older ninja/time toon, I'd shelved in the mid-twenties. He was created as a Praetorian, and once I got him out of Praetoria last year, I stopped playing him. Curious about the changes to MM pets (specifically Ninjas), I logged into this MM yesterday to test things out. All I can say is wow, this is a subjective opinion of course. But again, wow. Without IO sets or anything fancy (other than a LOTG gambler IO in Train Ninja's), this mastermind is blowing through regular content. I can only imagine how much more powerful this combo will be when kitted out with IO sets. Builds that perform well out of the box and when exemped down to lower levels, are impressive to me. Anyone running a 50+ version of this, with IO sets? I'm curious what your experience has been since pets were revamped.

I was just writing to say thank you! I don't need a build. I'm finding all the builds you've posted over the years useful and helpful. You rock!!!

Some Thematic Pairings... Necro/Dark - A good all around combo, especially with the recent pet upgrades Necro got. Necro/Nature - Zombies pair well with nature's buffs/debuffs, fun build. Necro/Thermal - Flaming Zombies, highly resistant to just about all damage types (if paired with the Unique + resist IO's) . Necro/Electric - Another good all around build, Zombies work well electric buffs, similar to nature. Necro/Time - Because all the MM primaries work very with /Time You honestly won't feel lacking or underpowered with a Necro/Dark though. Also, these suggestions are strictly my opinion YMMV.

A second vote for Ninjas/Dark. Actually very thematic. With the now buffed Ninja's I can see this being a lot of fun.

I'm enjoying the update. Sentinel's are hybrids, and really should be compared to VEATS, not blasters. The improvements really strengthen the AT overall, while not sacrificing unique feel of playing a hybrid DPS.

I was really hoping Serum would be made an AOE buff!!!

I know right. Love that series'

I think I saw that in the global broadcast on Excelsior. Didn't join because my only 50 MM still isn't incarnated out yet (too many alts, not enough time). But it was cool to see people breaking out and trying things. I also saw a couple of "bring any AT you want" 2 stars being advertised.

So my first villain to level 50 on live was a necro/poison MM. I started this guy at COV launch. This was before all the buffs so take my feedback with a little skepticism. Poison was a rough ride to 50. The only reason I made it to 50 is that I stubbornly refused to give up. On the other hand, that necro/poison could utterly destroy single hard targets. As I recall, noxious gas worked really well on my melee oriented zombie knights. It's probably not going to work as well on your more ranged oriented robots. For RP purposes, have you considered /rad? A lot of the same tricks as poison but a lot more utility.

Thanks for response Voltak!

I agree. Voltak has been posted a couple of videos in the Defender forum of his ITF successes with varied teams. I believe this one , is the successful run that the Demons/Cold MM participated in. Some tips I've been picking up from reading his ITF threads include making sure you have a good amount of negative energy resist, and how beneficial Incandescence is to healer/support classes. I didn't know that Incandescence boosted support abilities as much as it did. Also seems like ability would work really well for MM's. Also, I'm now pondering if Demons have a significant amount of negative energy resist. That combined with cold shields could be a factor.

Necro/EA... look at the resistance numbers your pets end up with.. especially with the resistance unique IO's added.

Necro/Thermal = Flaming Zombies. Seriously never gets old to watch - and you can get Zombie's resist pretty high with pet resist IO's + Thermal Shields.

I really enjoyed Mercs/Nature.... the heal, absorb, and + damage helps mercs a lot. And because they are ranged they stay in your healing patch. I find having some simple binds to keep them from running off is also helpful.

I found Spines/Dark really fun on live.

I really enjoyed pairing Mercs with /Nature for this very reason. Nature does a very good job of shoring up Mercs weaknesses, they like staying at range. Someone gave me this slotting suggestion a while back: Soldiers: Achilles Heel & Touch of Lady Grey Spec Ops: Touch of Lady Grey Commando: Explosive Strike

From playing Sentinels I stick with my old argument. They are not blasters, and shouldn't be. Comparing Sentinels to blasters is always a losing, pointless, circular argument. They are hybrid AT, the do a little of everything (dps, buff, debuff, minor control). This is evidenced in their epic pools, in my opinion. A hybrid by design, is never "the best" at anything, but they are versatile and solo well. If we are doing an AT to AT comparison, it makes more sense to compare them to the EPIC AT's and Corruptors. For me, they most closely resemble the VEAT's. But comparing them to blasters doesn't really make sense. Especially if you look at the Sentinel's AT modifiers and their inherent. They are not designed to be top-notch DPS, they are designed to debuff hard targets, do middle-tier dps, and have a little utility. If anything, I'd like to see their buff/debuff modifiers buffed, and the inherent tweaked to not be so reliant on the first tier attack powers.

My short answer.. stacking buffs make them great. VEATS are primarily force multipliers.. one on any team is good.. more than one is excellent. My favorite toon by far is my Claws/Psychic Fortunata, with double leadership, and near-perma mindlink. Stupidly high defense, decent smashing/lethal resist from melee IO's, and superb passive team buffs. I know that any team I'm on will benefit from her being there. I went with a suggestion from the boards to mix the widow claw attacks w/psychic attacks. So I guess you could say she's technically a Night Widow. She can solo EB's and even farm a little (Council or Cimerorans are best). I don't find her squishy at all, especially with incarnates slotted. But even exempted down for lower level task forces/strike forces she play well. No complaints at all... and to be honest she was decent even before max level, incarnates, and IO's. Those things just put her over the top.

In the past it wasn't really possible to play a classic durable comicbook style ranged character. Iron Man, the Human Torch, and Nova dont crumble like paper after a few bullet hits. Now it is. That's basically what sentinels are. The issue for me is that people continue to compare sentinels to blasters. They are not blasters and shouldn't do blaster level damage. At least that's where I stand on the issue. They are much closer to epic archetypes, in that they are a hybrid AT. It's more fair to compare them to Kheldians or Arachnos Soldiers. Personally, I think their damage and buffing/debuffing values should match what Arachnos bring to the table. So basically Srntinels are damage/buff/debuff hybrids. My criticism is that the current design doesn't lean into that as hard as it should.

Necro/Thermal - I had a lot of fun with this, even though I've yet to take it to 50 (thanks to alt-itis). But flaming zombies was super fun to watch. Plus the global resist IO's + thermal shields pushed Zombies resistance way up. They were super tanky and on fire. Demons/Kin - My Demons/Kin was fun too. Probably not the most effective build, but watching the Demons go berserk was amusing. Plus Demons have decent survival buffs which made /kin as a secondary decent.

I teamed with Almighty Magic once this weekend purely by chance. It was amazing, A.M. cleared a fire farm map in less than 4minutes. Plant and Fire are easily considered the top tier damage primaries among control sets.

Warshades basically getting 'Fold Space' for free is a game changer. You can pull a large mob into your orbiting fields of disorient and death. Unleash multiple AoE's, and most things are kaputt before long.

I'd agree my lvl 50 Elec/Psi can handle EB's quite well. I haven't tried to solo an AV with him, but he was able to deal with Silver Mantis and Valkyrie as EBs. I'm sure there were others, but it's been awhile. /Psi is amazing and would be my goto for a Dom AV killer.

I have a Merc/Nature and this guide offered some great advice. Thanks!