Bots/Dark - Bonfirrrrrre! Near softcapped, near perma Hasten.

[Sovera]

With the changes to MMs I had to make one and why not recreate the MM I had on live. I leveled it in two days via the usual TF route and had the full AT experience.

 

Unfortunately HD lied to me, liiiiiies, and despite saying I am softcapped I am actually 4% shy of the softcap in the game. It's something that can fixed by tweaking the slotting, I suppose, but I'm not. Between the CC and the -ToHit and the knockdowns 41% is fine. So that means Melee, Ranged, and AoE are at 41%, Hasten is at 125 seconds, and, Bonfire.

 

 

Bonfire is the elephant in the room and I'll address it first. The common way of playing Bots/ is picking the Mace immobilize in order to prevent the bots doing Knockbacks out of the fire patches. This would have saved a lot of headaches trying to fit in all the auras + procs + defense slots + having as much accuracy as possible to help the bots hit things, especially the T1 and T2. To further injure the insult Overwhelming Force with the tasty damage% attached to it did a fat zero for Assault Bot so I was forced to slot in its lesser cousin, Sudden Acceleration, which made the slotting even more complicated.

 

I wanted Bonfire for several reasons. The first one because it's fun! Yep, okay. But also pretty damn good control. Things on a Bonfire tend not to move until they die. But just as importantly was the Force Feedback. This is because in today's ultra fast meta CDs of 25-30 seconds just don't cut it. They no longer are up every pack to be instead up every two packs, and since we are Tar Patch/Howling Twilight slaves I wanted to maximize their uptime. It also takes a -res proc, which is nice since we are using it on AVs as well as on regular packs.

 

The choice of taking the immobilize in Mace Mastery is still a good one, but on top of the 2.5 second animation that adds nothing else and needs to be spammed in order to re-apply the effect it will just help us. Bonfire helps us and helps the team by indirectly helping with our recharge times so more Tar Patches, more Howling Twilights, etc. But in the end I wanted Bonfire and Bonfire was got.

 

 

Darkest Night I ended up only using as I leveled to 20, and then stopped using altogether. I might as well remove it from the skillbar although I know this is heresy and people are going to jump in letting me know I am WRONG. Hey, I'm just saying. I kept the power pick and slotted it. Use it if you want to. But to me it has no use. For regular groups we explode them and there is no point. For AVs? Sure, I mean, why not? Use it or not use I don't see the difference in -practical- terms. In practical terms we are spamming our heal on an AV to cut on their regen so any damage that they might manage to do is instantly healed.

 

 

After Level 20 we have Fearsome Stare and this is up at every spawn if it's slotted early, and it should be. We not only nullify the alpha in complete impunity thanks to Shadow Fall letting us get close, but the Terrify effect works on bosses as well. That means my usual opening once at 20 was Fearsome Stare, and then Tar Patch in complete impunity while my team assaulted the poor mobs. Speaking of Shadow Fall we can add the Celerity Stealth IO in Sprint and with both together we can do Stalker sneakings if we want to.

 

 

Dark Servant is a boss with three procs to its name. I gave him a try with just the guy summoned and he killed three even level minions at a decent pace for a darn pet who takes no damage slots. While not super spectacular damage it does add its part and overall he's a great pet commonly triggering two damage procs when he heals and with his own Darkest Night. The guy heals, he CCs, he's a good bud. Don't skimp on him.

 

Once Bonfire opens we can finally alternate something when Tar Patch isn't up yet. One spawn Tar Patch. The next Bonfire. In either case Fearsome Stare to lead it. Fearsome Stare is a better immobilize since when mobs are hit they stop trembling and come closer only to resume trembling (as they should, we're awesome). Once fully IOed we can try to throw both if the team is killing slowly enough but if not we do not need to twiddle our thumbs and can alternate.

 

 

Things I've extracted from playing a MM a decade later:

 

The bad:

 

Spoiler

- Damage is really bad. It's great for spreadsheets, but really bad otherwise. Whittling down mobs is just too slow for nowadays. Yes, if it's a pylon or an AV that does not move, I suppose. But for regular play it can take as much as ten seconds to kill an even level minion. Wanting to kill grey mobs for a TF hunt and.. slowly... pick... at.. them. Leveling and seeing a Peacebringer doing a 300 damage hit while seeing my bots do a 6, 6, 6, DoT was eeeeeeh.

 

- MMs exemp really bad. Go too low and lose our pets (well, mostly the Assault Bot at 26. This one should really really be a level 20 skill). But for further injury we also lose our upgrades. And then to insult the injury we are also cut short on the number of pets we can summon. The damage only felt normal/decent at 32 with the last upgrade so I would not personally take an MM of mine for under 28 to not be aggravated.

 

- SQUISHY! Bodyguard is a tremendous help, but the moment we want to aim at something we lose it, and most deaths tend to come instantly.

 

- SQUISHY pets! Same! Doing a LGTF was an exercise in frustration with Hami killing me half a dozen times. Even spamming heals was no use and my pets got smashed in two hits.

 

- SLOW! Needing to wait for pets to sprint to us when we need to retrace our steps, or while doing said hunts, is not a good thing.

 

 

The good:

 

Spoiler

- Impactful. Tar Patch helps the damage and mobs feel terrible about being in them. They slooooowly try to run out while being picked apart.

- Our heals are pretty damn strong and after a while they recharge in 2.5 seconds seconds. It's near impossible to let people die if they would just stick to us.

- Howling Twilight is a great anti-AV tool.

- Bonfire is great soft control.

- Once at 32 it's a pleasure to watch all the bots opening up with their AoE salvo (which unfortunately we cannot control when and where) with a sea of orange numbers floating up into the air.

- MMs are better Controllers than Controllers. Not because they have better CC, but because they control 'enough' and the rest is damage that serves to help moving things along. The game does not require extreme CC and after a point it is a waste. Leaving pets in aggressive mode while we focus on healing/ressurecting/debuffing works just fine as automatic damage before we focus back on the pets and aiming at what we wish killed first.

 

 

 

The build:

 

Spoiler

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1605&c=757&a=1514&f=HEX&dc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

 

[BGSacho]

I would drop Fireball and Assault in your build for Kick and Cross Punch. Slot Cross Punch with the Armageddon, Fury of the Gladiator and Force Feedback Procs and some Accuracy.(rest is whatever you prefer) This will push you way above perma hasten - using Cross Punch on cooldown with a FF proc should result in roughly 25% recharge bonus. 

I wouldn't sacrifice Dark Servant's slotting capabilities just for a little bit of damage out of him. You could 6-slot cloud senses for 3.75% ranged(this means you can significantly reduce the slotting in Howling Twilight), or slot 5 Siphon Insight/Cloud Senses damage proc for 3.75% S/L(and also much better recharge, -hit, endurance etc values on it). You can make much better use of Unbreakable Constraint by using it yourself in Char(+ Apocalypse and more procs). Having both Char and Cross Punch will improve your single target damage significantly, but you'd have to drop Afterburner or Darkest Night. 

I dunno how useful Preventive Medicine is in this build - you have a ton of healing, the one absorb proc every 90 seconds is kinda meh. I'd replace it with Theft of Essence endurance proc, which essentially makes Grasp free to cast.

Here's a sample build to demonstrate those changes - I haven't tried to reach softcap positionals, I just wanted to illustrate how much DPS you'd gain by adding char and cross punch to the build(Mids shows 70+ DPS, which is probably a 50% increase to single target DPS for bots). If you can fit more global accuracy into the build you might be able to get away with an extra proc on each power, which would be a noticable increase in DPS. Remember that once you land Cross Punch you get +Hit, so you could theoretically not take any in Char(although you still want to take some Recharge there, and no Recharge in Cross Punch)

Quote

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1603&c=763&a=1526&f=HEX&dc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

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by BGSacho