The 105; the Worst of the Bunch

[Xandyr]

I'm an advocate for Beasts. I love them. My beast/time chews through mobs. Dont understand why they get such a bad rep.

[Zeraphia]

3 hours ago, Dr Causality said:

Thanks for calling out the Petless.    That's hands down the worst and wasn't mentioned yet.    

 

/Trick also seems like the weakest 2ndary.    But I'm confused by Mercs and Beast getting rated as worse than Ninjas.  

 

 

Ninjas - Absolutely Zero Resistance, HP bonuses, No heals or Regen Buffs and disappointing 6% Defense except for Jounin.   And they prefer melee making them by far the fragilest of the Pets.  *Edit* wanted to add that Genin and Oni don't have attacks that work well with their procs, so only Jounin are worth procing for extra dmg.    Also, Ninjas don't have a power that can let you slot Mule for the pet uniques like Gang War, Hell on Earth, Soul Extraction.    Ninjas basically come up short on everything except cool factor.   But even coolness themes turn against them, as it's particularly cruel that thematically they pair well with Trick Arrow....they most underperforming 2ndary.

 

Genin                               Def -   6% AOE/Ranged/ Melee Defense

Jounin                              Def - 13% AOE/Ranged/ Melee Defense

Oni                                   Def -   6% AOE/Ranged/ Melee Defense

 

 

Whereas,

 

Beast -   No ranged attacks can be an issue, but they have Resistance, Def, self-heals, Dire gets an HP buff etc.

 

Howlers                           Def - 11% AOE/Ranged/ Melee Defense

                                        Res - 18% Smash/Lethal/Cold

 

Lions / Dire Wolf             Def - 12% AOE/Ranged/ Melee Defense

                                        Res - 29% Smash/Lethal/Cold

 

 

 

 

Mercs   - No Defense, but they have Resistance and a Medic with heals.  Dmg isn't great on it's own but they take lots of procs, letting them close the gap.  Recent ranged AI update should  open up solid strategic play as they are all ranged attacks.

 

Soldiers                          Res - 25% Smash/Lethal

Spec Ops                        Res - 26% Smash/Lethal

Commando                    Res - 26% Smash/Lethal

                                       

 

 

                 

 

Purely the only reason Ninjas are higher in my eyes is at least they deal enough damage to kill the enemy quickly enough before they get themselves killed, Mercs and Beasts seems tohave real problems doing this sometimes...

[Redlynne]

Ninjas are glass jawed melee cannons.  You need to use your secondary powerset (and pool powers) to protect them.

Ninjas are awesome when they DON'T have aggro.  As soon as Ninjas get aggro, they tend to fold like pre-creased cheap origami rice paper.

Keep aggro away from Ninjas if you want them to live!

 

The best way to protect Ninjas from incoming damage is tankerminding, healing/absorb and defense/resistance buffing ... plus debuffing/mez if you've got it at your disposal.

[SaintD]

Mercenaries are pretty funny with /Traps now, because you can throw down caltrops and it's not pointless. Robots are the only other all-ranged primary that can now reliably stand on one side of a patch of caltrops and mow down melee enemies that turn into idiots trying to reach them. Thugs can only do it until the Bruiser arrives and buggers everything up.

[Erydanus]

I wonder - and this is just off the cuff wondering - if people playing Beasts are not taking the direct attacks in the set and spamming them hard; those generate stacks of pack mentality. Pack mentality is a damage buff on the MM that stacks up to 10 charges and radiates out to the pets nearby, per Summon Wolves. Now, the beasts have a tendency to run far ahead of the MM, that means that up to now they may have been running out of pack mentality buff range and if they were balanced around the expectation of having a certain amount of pack mentality most of the time, then what we might be seeing here is a "brute with no fury" situation. Also as far as the self-mitigation the beasts have, Fortify Pack converts the pack mentality stacks into actual defense and regen (I don't have the numbers). So again, if the MM is not right in the middle of that pet group maybe that's going to waste too.

 

Honestly I've been busy with some phone games and haven't had time to play my beast MM at all since the big update. I'm really curious to see what kind of performance change comes with the new pet AI. Of course maybe beast just needs a damage buff or a rotation change but, this is something I'm curious about.

 

[Dr Causality]

On 2/18/2020 at 5:55 AM, 33053222 said:

Purely the only reason Ninjas are higher in my eyes is at least they deal enough damage to kill the enemy quickly enough before they get themselves killed, Mercs and Beasts seems to have real problems doing this sometimes...

I guess that's why I'm leaning towards Ninja/TA being the worst combo.   TA doesn't offer much to keep the Ninja's alive, so the combo misses out on a good amount of their damage too.  

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 2/18/2020 at 8:36 AM, Xandyr said:

I'm an advocate for Beasts. I love them. My beast/time chews through mobs. Dont understand why they get such a bad rep.

I'm a terrible MM player.  I have a Beast/Traps, Merc/Time, Necro/Traps, and Necro/Kinetics and the Beast is head and shoulders above the rest of them.

[THEDarkTyger]

16 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm a terrible MM player.  I have a Beast/Traps, Merc/Time, Necro/Traps, and Necro/Kinetics and the Beast is head and shoulders above the rest of them.

Yeah, I'm thinking anyone who says BM is a bad set doesn't know how to play the set. XD

[SaintD]

10 hours ago, THEDarkTyger said:

Yeah, I'm thinking anyone who says BM is a bad set doesn't know how to play the set. XD

It doesn't even really have special requirements! You take the requisite powers, you summon the minions, you tell them to eat stuff! The dogs howl, the pack mentality builds up, it all just happens! IT ALL JUST HAPPENS! 😣

[Force Redux]

My vote goes to Mercs/TA.

[Force Redux]

On 2/18/2020 at 6:36 AM, Xandyr said:

I'm an advocate for Beasts. I love them. My beast/time chews through mobs. Dont understand why they get such a bad rep.

Agree. My Beast/Time is one of my top performers, from level 1 up through incarnates. Smooth sailing. Also a decent farming MM on S/L +4/x8.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 2/18/2020 at 1:00 PM, Erydanus said:

I wonder - and this is just off the cuff wondering - if people playing Beasts are not taking the direct attacks in the set and spamming them hard; those generate stacks of pack mentality. Pack mentality is a damage buff on the MM that stacks up to 10 charges and radiates out to the pets nearby, per Summon Wolves. Now, the beasts have a tendency to run far ahead of the MM, that means that up to now they may have been running out of pack mentality buff range and if they were balanced around the expectation of having a certain amount of pack mentality most of the time, then what we might be seeing here is a "brute with no fury" situation. Also as far as the self-mitigation the beasts have, Fortify Pack converts the pack mentality stacks into actual defense and regen (I don't have the numbers). So again, if the MM is not right in the middle of that pet group maybe that's going to waste too.

 

Honestly I've been busy with some phone games and haven't had time to play my beast MM at all since the big update. I'm really curious to see what kind of performance change comes with the new pet AI. Of course maybe beast just needs a damage buff or a rotation change but, this is something I'm curious about.

 

My Beasts has no personal Attacks.  You’re telling me it gets better?  

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

My Beasts has no personal Attacks.  You’re telling me it gets better?  

Yes.

 

Wait ... you didn't KNOW THAT ...!?!?

[oedipus_tex]

It does seem a bit weird to me that none of the Ninjas have any Ninjitsu powers. I'd think they'd be pretty good dodgers.

 

[Redlynne]

35 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

It does seem a bit weird to me that none of the Ninjas have any Ninjitsu powers. I'd think they'd be pretty good dodgers.

Actually, I'm more amazed that Ninjas don't get Nemesis Vengeance so as to "properly" enforce the Conservation Of Ninjitsu ...

 

 

... so that when one gets defeated the survivors become more powerful ...

[Scarlet Shocker]

9 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

My Beasts has no personal Attacks.  You’re telling me it gets better?  

Might I suggest you post your build here? I'm sure there's a lot of great advice you'd get if you did. Clearly something seems to be disfunctional, given that Beasts is one of the best performing MM sets out there, so if we can see what you're doing then we can maybe give you some insight.

[Xandyr]

Call Ravens BEGS to be slotted with procs...and if done so, really amps up your damage. 

[Gauntlet_Prime]

I have been running a new Beast/kin this week and it has been a good time (admittedly only in the 20s).  What I lack in survive-ability I make up for with tankerminding a spawn for a few seconds while my roid raged pets SHRED them.  It has been pretty interesting and I haven't played kin in ages so it is pretty fresh for me too.

[WindDemon21]

On 2/16/2020 at 2:20 PM, 33053222 said:

I'd rate the following as "terrible" combinations (when I say this, it doesn't mean that it can literally do nothing or can't be good in some aspect, it just means that it is in general inferior to even mediocre combinations!):

 

1. Petless... Do I really have to explain this?

2. Mercenaries/Trick... Same as the above, but these minions are even worse lol! 

3. Beast/Trick... Not a whole lot of damage, the minions don't survive and this soft control secondary does not seem to provide anything that these minions truly need...

 

I'd rate the next sets as "bad":

3. Mercenaries/Empathy... Not quite as bad as Trick because at least empathy allows you to heal your pets but Empathy is unfortunately in my and most's opinions just too single-focused (single target heal, single target fortitude, etc.) it can be played and made decent but there are definitely much better combinations.

4. Beast/Empathy... Same as the above beasts are just slightly better!

5. Ninjas/Empathy... Not the worst possible but definitely there are better, empathy again as discussed early is very single-target focused buffing and healing so I feel this is a wasted opportunity to really get the most out of Ninjas which they really need extra survival. 

6. Mercs/Everything (except time nature and dark)... They're just bad. Please. Do not pick this.

7. Everything else/Trick... it's just not that beneficial for a mastermind, there are ways to "make it work" but it is unfortunately an under-performer.

8. Beasts/Everything (except time nature and dark)... not as bad as mercs but they're the 2nd lowest on the tier they have terrible defenses, their damage isn't enough to make up for it either, and they have nothing going for them...

 

 

I will say regarding beasts. They're not horrible. Mix them with either cold, sonic, or force field to capitalize on their 10-12% base defense, and then max their defense out. You'll rely on fortify pack for healing them, or more defense in sonic's case. With FF you can outright easily cap their defense. cold is tougher since it's still stupid we can't powerboost the cold shield (they need to just not let us enhance the fire/cold resists which are miniscule and nobody does since that's the reason why). But you can do it with fortify pack without needing to slot for defense or have much pack mentality. Beast/sonic is good cause they are all melee, and keep mobs together better with sonic repulsion with a kb-kd in it. They are squishier with sonic, however if you powerboost fortify pack and go for defense, you can cap their defense with full pack mentality and give like 700% regen too them on top of the sonic shields and they're invincible. Likewise with thermal, but you'll want sonic for the pbaoe mez protection and more resistance in that scenario.