Poll Worst MM combo

[Dr Causality]

53 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Sadly I think TA is getting a bit of a bum steer here. I think we need to consider where "the worst" is in context. I mean, are we asking "The worst MM to solo?" or "The worst MM in a team?" which I suspect would give different answers.

 

You have a good point.  We're mostly considering self-sufficiency and solo play when we pick /TA as worst.     If a well balanced team already had Def, Res and Heals covered, then /TA's couple fast acting debuffs would be a valuable fit on a the game's quick moving steamrolling teams.   But by not providing buffs /TA is also not as flexible in forming well balanced teams since the other teammates need to provide all the buffing.  

 

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I would think TA doesn't fare well on a solo MM because it lacks proper synergy with any of the pets, but it does have some great bonuses, debuffs and control. The problem is, other stuff does the same thing only better.

Yeah I guess that's another aspect of /TA's  shortcomings.  Some of the other sets that do provide buffs also have as good or even better debuffing powers.  

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you know what I'm thinking now though. I think we need to make the shittiest MM team we can and run them from 1-50 without PLing them and see how they fare against Incarnates!

 

I'm game, as I already committed to rolling whatever is chosen as worst in the poll and it seems like a fun challenge.     But wouldn't the shittiest MM team likely just be  8 x /TA MM's?      So that our entire team still gets nothing besides debuffs from our 2ndary?    🙂  

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 minutes ago, Dr Causality said:

I'm game, as I already committed to rolling whatever is chosen as worst in the poll and it seems like a fun challenge.     But wouldn't the shittiest MM team likely just be  8 x /TA MM's?      So that our entire team still gets nothing besides debuffs from our 2ndary?    🙂  

Which is bad because...?

 

8x OSAs and nobody can move out ofit?

[Dr Causality]

13 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Which is bad because...?

 

8x OSAs and nobody can move out ofit?

 

Funny thing is an 8 x Thug/TA MM team would actually own.   Hell even 2 or 3x should do very well.   Stacked Enforcers Leadership would mean pets all at soft capped Def.    All that stacked -Res from /TA and things should just melt.  Plus Bruisers being the only melee would take most of the aggro making them easy to buff and heal with single target Aid other and Spirit Ward for Absorb.

 

   

[Dr Causality]

Due to large model size and all melee attacks,  I'm thinking 8 x Beast/TA might be the worst MM team you can make.   I suspect that against single targets like an AV or even GM only a fraction of the Beasts would be able to get close enough to attack with the remainder just milling about hopelessly trying to get within range.   Should seriously undercut the team DPS.

 

• 8x Thugs/TA seem like they would clearly be best all identical /TA MM team.
• 8x Demons/TA would be interesting because even with the 25s cool down 8x Abyssal Reconstruction Heals going off might actually add up to a significant source of sustain (if slotted for heal it should total about over 2400HP/min in AOE Heal..._) .  And not that 8x /TA would need more,  but Demons would stack an insane amount of -Res. They would also likely floor -Rech and -movement debuffs. 
• 8x Assault Bot Burn Patches combined with /TA's -Res would be insane damage against multiple targets.  Similarly, assuming it stacks all the -500% Regens from their Plasma Blasts would floor AV Regen.   
• 8x Necro might stack enough -Tohit to actually be an effective debuff.   8x Lich could permanently stack 24 Mag aoe Immob and although the cooldowns are too long to be up permanently between the Lich and Soul Extraction pets would stack a decent amount of single target hold (maybe in the Mag12 to Mag16 range)
• Ninjas - Probably mostly just amusing, but having up to 16x Jounin Caltrops out at a time would be pretty insane.   And despite it's 120s cooldown they'd probably sometimes stack enough Confuse from Blinding Powder to Confuse entire mobs, even if only for 22s.    But the best stacking Ninja would have going would probably be from Oni's single target Immob and Hold since they both have longer duration than cooldown and the Immob is a mag4.  With a single Oni that doesn't do much, but with 8x Oni they be should permanently around stack Mag32 Immob and Mag24 Hold against a single target.   With the MM's themselves having /TA's Entangling Arrow for Immob and Ice Arrow for Hold, combined with an Epic Hold, which could all have a chance for hold proc, it should be possible for the team working together to easily perma Hold AVs through their purple triangles.  (From some napkin math I'm thinking they could easily stack and maintain well over Mag100 Hold...and even more Immob due to Entangling Arrows long duraction.)
• Mercs seem to have the least to gain from stacking.   Spec Ops mezz or crowd control powers have very long cooldowns and short durations making the stacking not very impactful.  And their advantage of being able to slot the Achilles -Res proc, doesn't help on and all Merc teams because the -Achilles proc is flagged not to stack. A single Merc player can reliably maintain the Achilles proc on their own, making the others a wasted slot. 

 

Thinking about that I'm wondering if despite Ninja/TA probably being worst solo, on identical 8x team Merc/TA might actually be the worse than Ninja?   The only thing Mercs might have going is with the new pet ai you might be able to leverage their long range, but I doubt that would be as good as being able to perma hold an AV with minimal effort.    

 

So maybe 8x Beast/TA worst due to game mechanics of model size and only melee attacks.    Followed by 8x Mercs/TA since they don't really get any stacking benefits?

 

 

 

 

[Xandyr]

I'd like to see 8 Oil Slick Arrows in action.

BURN BABY BURN 🔥

[Scarlet Shocker]

7 hours ago, Xandyr said:

I'd like to see 8 Oil Slick Arrows in action.

BURN BABY BURN 🔥

That would be awesome!

 

What TA powers stack?

 

[Xandyr]

As far as I know, since the powers are from different players they would all stack. That's why Radiation Emission "Superteams" were so popular. 

[Crysis]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:43 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

 

you know what I'm thinking now though. I think we need to make the shittiest MM team we can and run them from 1-50 without PLing them and see how they fare against Incarnates!

I've run with a few all-MM teams, and you can pretty much overcome any obstacles of ANY MM team with enough overlapping and stacking buffs/debuffs.  True for any other "All-XX" AT teams also (run an all-corruptors team sometime....Scourge is insane).  But once you hit Incarnates, everything is pretty much viable as you a) get an extra free Enhancement per power with Alpha, b) Get a really powerful AOE and c) Can totally block Psi, plug Def or have unlimited END.  Incarnates are just totally OP for this game in general, regardless of AT's.

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, Crysis said:

I've run with a few all-MM teams, and you can pretty much overcome any obstacles of ANY MM team with enough overlapping and stacking buffs/debuffs.  True for any other "All-XX" AT teams also (run an all-corruptors team sometime....Scourge is insane).  But once you hit Incarnates, everything is pretty much viable as you a) get an extra free Enhancement per power with Alpha, b) Get a really powerful AOE and c) Can totally block Psi, plug Def or have unlimited END.  Incarnates are just totally OP for this game in general, regardless of AT's.

I dislike Incarnates for exactly that reason.

[Dr Causality]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:43 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

Sadly I think TA is getting a bit of a bum steer here. I think we need to consider where "the worst" is in context. I mean, are we asking "The worst MM to solo?" or "The worst MM in a team?" which I suspect would give different answers.

 

I would think TA doesn't fare well on a solo MM because it lacks proper synergy with any of the pets, but it does have some great bonuses, debuffs and control. The problem is, other stuff does the same thing only better.

 

you know what I'm thinking now though. I think we need to make the shittiest MM team we can and run them from 1-50 without PLing them and see how they fare against Incarnates!

 

My first big solo test backs up your point that Ninja/TA is not as bad as I expected, even solo.  

 

 

[Peacemoon]

On 2/19/2020 at 9:00 PM, Dr Causality said:

Thematically a terrible combo.   It will take a fairly inventive back story to make sense of how your Bow wielding MM is in command of a bunch of Mercenaries with guns and modern warfare gear.    Does make me wonder how much of the least played combos comes down to conflicting themes versus poor performance?

I had a merc/TA on live. He didn’t get very high. He had the tech bow with the laser sight, I always thought it was pretty cool...

[Haijinx]

surprised no /poison on this list 

[Dr Causality]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

surprised no /poison on this list 

But does that say more about /Poison or /TA?      🙂

 

I'm certainly not saying Poison is good on a MM, I'd definitely put it near the bottom of 2ndaries for MM's.    But compared to Trick Arrow:   Poison actually does have at least some buffs to help your pets/teammates and it has more powerful debuffs, especially for dealing with tough targets.   I'm fairly confident that a ___/Poison MM can do everything a ___/TA could do, plus probably take out a few AVs or GMs the TA couldn't handle solo.   

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

back in the day on live it was often said that MM/Poison were the true AV killers, though I found mine to be a tad underwhelming but I think Poison as a set is excellent. If I recall, I think it got buffed around the time Dark control was released and I made a Dark/poison troller that is extremely good, even in PVP

 

I think again much of how we perceive a set is very dependant on our play style, which perhaps varies more than the raw numbers might indicate.

[Pherdnut]

My beef with poison, which I don't hate, is that it has a lot of indirect powers and single-target powers that don't compare favorably enough to much more direct and multi-target buff/debuff/sometimes-combo-group-buff-debuff powers from sets like Dark Miasma.