Questions regarding Leadership & Bots/Time Skills

[UnlikelyHeroTx]

Hey fellow MM's ;D

 

I fully intend on using my MM to help others, but I'd like to be able to solo when i'm feeling more introverted. I'm going to start off by saying, I'm an idiot when it comes to putting together my own builds, but it doesn't stop me from trying and some times, I feel the need to ask for help and be pointed in the right direction. With that said, if you could ELI5, i might actually learn something  :D

 

So I have a question about Leadership... for MM's I know it's kinda obvious to take this pool set.

I would like to take all three (Maneuvers, Assault and Tactics). but i'm wondering if A) Will it be worth the endurance trade off and/or B) Are all three necessary? Hasten and Speed will probably be the only other pool powers I take.

 

In regards to Bots/Time Skills/Enhancements... As I understand it, the BOT rifle skills are not that great, so I'm only taking skills that give bots or make them better on that side. On the Time Side, I know Temporal Mending is the key to recovery and all the slows and holds help enforce my control over the fight. It looks like I should be taking all TIME side skills. Does that seem correct?

 

For Enhancements, I'm pretty much free styling... 5-6 slots for the bots, 3 into stamina, 5-6 in mending and 3-4 in everything else (time wise). Does anyone have any advice on other skills I should put more enhancements in?

 

Any help would be appreciated, and If it's easier to talk me through it, feel free to ping me in game. I'm on Excelsior and my Global is the same as my handle here.

 

Thanks in advance for reading, and thanks a lot more if you can help.  ;D

 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Regarding Leadership, you can probably afford to skip Tactics. Time has a nice To Hit Buff in Farsight and in general one or the other will be sufficient.

 

The MM attacks aren't as bad as people make out, they're a little worse than Defender attacks but they can be useful if you take and slot them. Additionally if you want to Tankermind (which Bots/Time is well suited for) then dealing a bit of damage yourself will make the Taunt from Provoke more effective.

 

Regarding Time your primary damage mitigation powers are Time's Juncture, Distortion Field and Farsight. Temporal Mending is useful to have but if you use the other three powers right you shouldn't need it much (I wouldn't skip it since it's useful as a self heal but Time has better ways of protecting teammates, espeically when paired with Bots). Temporal Selection and Time Stop are both ultimately skippable, they're worth taking if you've got the room but I also wouldn't lose sleep over skipping them. Slowed Response is important for damage dealing but relatively boring. Chrono Shift is useful as an emergency heal while solo but on a team it's better to use it proactively as a recharge buff.

 

Regarding enhancements, there are six pet aura enhancements and taking some or all of them is incredibly useful. At level 50 you can potentially take all six without having to sacrifice damage or accuracy on your pets but at lower levels you'll need to skip some in favor of damage and accuracy. Also don't forget to slot your protector bots for defense, it's critical for keeping you and your pets alive.

 

One useful tip for Time is to get some Membrane Exposures for Farsight. Three of them will max out Defense, To Hit and Recharge for it.

[UnlikelyHeroTx]

@Adeon Hawkwood

 

This was exactly the advice i was looking for, thank you so much. <3

[Dixa]

Regarding Leadership, you can probably afford to skip Tactics. Time has a nice To Hit Buff in Farsight and in general one or the other will be sufficient.

 

The MM attacks aren't as bad as people make out, they're a little worse than Defender attacks but they can be useful if you take and slot them. Additionally if you want to Tankermind (which Bots/Time is well suited for) then dealing a bit of damage yourself will make the Taunt from Provoke more effective.

 

Regarding Time your primary damage mitigation powers are Time's Juncture, Distortion Field and Farsight. Temporal Mending is useful to have but if you use the other three powers right you shouldn't need it much (I wouldn't skip it since it's useful as a self heal but Time has better ways of protecting teammates, espeically when paired with Bots). Temporal Selection and Time Stop are both ultimately skippable, they're worth taking if you've got the room but I also wouldn't lose sleep over skipping them. Slowed Response is important for damage dealing but relatively boring. Chrono Shift is useful as an emergency heal while solo but on a team it's better to use it proactively as a recharge buff.

 

Regarding enhancements, there are six pet aura enhancements and taking some or all of them is incredibly useful. At level 50 you can potentially take all six without having to sacrifice damage or accuracy on your pets but at lower levels you'll need to skip some in favor of damage and accuracy. Also don't forget to slot your protector bots for defense, it's critical for keeping you and your pets alive.

 

One useful tip for Time is to get some Membrane Exposures for Farsight. Three of them will max out Defense, To Hit and Recharge for it.

 

I actually disagree with this. the power to skip is assault.

 

The power to skip in time is temporal selection. it is again a rather small damage bonus for a single target and your pets can not have their ability recharge modified in any way. it's...ok for teaming. throw it on a dom or ill controller. but even then it's skippable as it's nowhere near as powerful as forge or fortitude or overgrowth and other similar powers.

 

 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I actually disagree with this. the power to skip is assault.

You can take Tactics but it's generally overkill for /Time. Farsight + Supremacy gives your bots +21.7% To Hit. That's enough that even your Battle Bots should be able to hit reliably assuming you slot them for accuracy. Since Battle Bots only need Damage and Accuracy it's pretty easy to get them ED capped on accuracy, especially at level 50 (you can use either HOs or +5 some Acc/Dam IOs to ED cap both stats in 3 slots).

 

And that's before you factor in Defense Debuffs from Slowed Response. So yeah, I'd skip Tactics on a Bots/Time. Now you can also skip Assault if you want but personally I like it since Vengeance is useful as a LotG mule.

[LongStrider42]

My MM is bots/dark so some of this may not be precisely right for /time.

 

I take rifle burst (lv2 slower with knockback) plus photon grenade for solo leveling.  I greatly increase the rate at which you'll kill mobs.  After 32 when we get Upgrade I respec out of rifle burst but keep photon grenade.  Because I'm running in partial stealth (/dark's Shadowfall), I really appreciate an aoe pulling power, so I can leave the bots in bodyguard mode.  Its disorient is a nice additional cc when it procs.  If you are not running stealth you can probably just body pull everything, but it might still be worth it for the minor cc.  On live at 50 I was running tactics/assault/maneuvers (Victory Rush didn't exist when I was playing); hover/fly; soul mastery where I picked up another attack and more cc/debuff.  I plan to do the same and may drop photon then as well, however there are several nice aoe set IOs with nice procs so I may keep it.  All of the ancillary power pools offer a variety of attacks that could replace Photon, if you wanted.

 

Given the numbers other are quoting, the reason to keep Tactics would be to frankenslot the heck out of your Drones power and not worry about ACC there.  This frees up space on Protector for a non-set Defense IO/Hami to buff their bubbles and/or yet more damage on Assault Bot.

 

Pulse Rifle Blast -- no

Battle Drones -- yes

Pulse Rifle Burst -- while leveling

Equip Robot -- yes

Photon Grenade -- yes

Protector Bots -- yes

Repair  -- no, it's a trap, between the protector bots heal and your aoe heal, it's unnecessary.

Assault Bot -- yes

Upgrade Robot -- yes, once you have this you can drop Burst and/or Photon.

 

I can't speak to the /time skills.  My highest is a time/dual pistols that like 12.

[kelly Rocket]

There's no such thing as too much ToHit, in my opinion. I take Tactics on all my toons, including /devices blasters who have Targeting Drone :D

 

Farsight on a Mastermind only gives a base 7.5% ToHit, but you obviously won't be enhancing that. Because if you don't enhance Farsight for Defense you're an idiot. And you'll probably want to put some sort of Defense IO Set in Farsight because Defense Sets have great bonuses in general. So you won't have room to enhance the ToHit. Supremacy is another 10%. +17.5% isn't enough ToHit bonus for me, so yeah. I'd get Tactics too.

 

Assault is a piddling +10% damage, when your bots will already be doing 225% from enhancements and Supremacy, which means the actual percentage increase you get out of Assault is like 4% since it's additive, not multiplicative. So yeah. Not worth the endurance cost IMO.

 

As someone who plays Time a lot, I agree that Temporal Selection is really the only skippable power. I mean, Time Crawl is kind of skippable, but only Defenders can skip it, so no help there.

 

The buffs from Temporal Selection are quite meh. The actual use you end up putting it to is the fact that it basically doubles the healing the person you stuck it on gets from Temporal Mending. If you can get your recharge up enough to keep it up on multiple pets, it's maybe worth it... but... It's less important than basically everything else in Time.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Farsight on a Mastermind only gives a base 7.5% ToHit, but you obviously won't be enhancing that. Because if you don't enhance Farsight for Defense you're an idiot.

Alternatively you can put three Membrane Exposures in Farsight and max out Defense, To Hit and Recharge in three slots (possibly with a fourth slot for a LotG Recharge IO). Set bonuses are nice but you can get them anywhere. I'd rather just max the stats on Farsight and call it a day.

[kelly Rocket]

Farsight on a Mastermind only gives a base 7.5% ToHit, but you obviously won't be enhancing that. Because if you don't enhance Farsight for Defense you're an idiot.

Alternatively you can put three Membrane Exposures in Farsight and max out Defense, To Hit and Recharge in three slots (possibly with a fourth slot for a LotG Recharge IO). Set bonuses are nice but you can get them anywhere. I'd rather just max the stats on Farsight and call it a day.

Except Defense sets are the only place you're going to get 12.5% global recharge out of 6 slots (LotG 7.5% + any 5 Red Fortune). Which will also let you pretty well max out the recharge and endurance reduction on it.

 

Which is sort of critical considering you're aiming for perma Chrono Shift on basically any toon that uses the Time powerset.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Farsight on a Mastermind only gives a base 7.5% ToHit, but you obviously won't be enhancing that. Because if you don't enhance Farsight for Defense you're an idiot.

Alternatively you can put three Membrane Exposures in Farsight and max out Defense, To Hit and Recharge in three slots (possibly with a fourth slot for a LotG Recharge IO). Set bonuses are nice but you can get them anywhere. I'd rather just max the stats on Farsight and call it a day.

Except Defense sets are the only place you're going to get 12.5% global recharge out of 6 slots (LotG 7.5% + any 5 Red Fortune). Which will also let you pretty well max out the recharge and endurance reduction on it.

 

Which is sort of critical considering you're aiming for perma Chrono Shift on basically any toon that uses the Time powerset.

Except that Membranes don't preclude including the LotG special IO and there are much better options than Red Fortune for getting perma-Chrono Shift on a Time character, especially a Mastermind. Heck, Superior Mark of Supremacy has a 10% Recharge bonus for 2-slotting it so spread those six pieces among your pets and that's 30%. Add Hasten, 5 LotG 7.5s, an Unbreakable Constraint set in Distortion Field and you're basically there (you can add another purple set somewhere if you really want that extra 0.78 seconds of uptime).

 

So sure you can 5-slot Red Fortune in Farsight if you want but there are much better options for getting recharge bonuses that don't require you to tank the performance of a key power. Honestly 5% recharge bonuses are chump change, it's rarely worth dedicating slots specifically for them, they're fine for picking up incidentally but they aren't worth tanking a power's performance for.

[Dixa]

drop tactics. it's like none of you fight arachnos or have any need of perception or love being blinded or something.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

drop tactics. it's like none of you fight arachnos or have any need of perception or love being blinded or something.

Or play as /Time which already has a perception boost in Farsight. Tactics is a great power, I take it on quite a few characters but some sets already have a power that accomplishes the same thing as part of your primary or secondary.

 

So my Bots/Traps MM has Tactics but my AR/Dev Blaster and Time/Elec Defender don't.

[kelly Rocket]

Farsight on a Mastermind only gives a base 7.5% ToHit, but you obviously won't be enhancing that. Because if you don't enhance Farsight for Defense you're an idiot.

Alternatively you can put three Membrane Exposures in Farsight and max out Defense, To Hit and Recharge in three slots (possibly with a fourth slot for a LotG Recharge IO). Set bonuses are nice but you can get them anywhere. I'd rather just max the stats on Farsight and call it a day.

Except Defense sets are the only place you're going to get 12.5% global recharge out of 6 slots (LotG 7.5% + any 5 Red Fortune). Which will also let you pretty well max out the recharge and endurance reduction on it.

 

Which is sort of critical considering you're aiming for perma Chrono Shift on basically any toon that uses the Time powerset.

Except that Membranes don't preclude including the LotG special IO and there are much better options than Red Fortune for getting perma-Chrono Shift on a Time character, especially a Mastermind. Heck, Superior Mark of Supremacy has a 10% Recharge bonus for 2-slotting it so spread those six pieces among your pets and that's 30%. Add Hasten, 5 LotG 7.5s, an Unbreakable Constraint set in Distortion Field and you're basically there (you can add another purple set somewhere if you really want that extra 0.78 seconds of uptime).

 

So sure you can 5-slot Red Fortune in Farsight if you want but there are much better options for getting recharge bonuses that don't require you to tank the performance of a key power. Honestly 5% recharge bonuses are chump change, it's rarely worth dedicating slots specifically for them, they're fine for picking up incidentally but they aren't worth tanking a power's performance for.

Even if I were going to Frankenslot Farsight that way, I'd still want Tactics. If nothing else, 6 Gaussians is still the only way you're going to buff all three positionals to that extent with six slots. That's how I soft-capped my Time/DP Defender (With positionals, not typed Defenses, because positionals are better IMO).

 

And Assault is a garbage power no matter how you slice it, so why would you even want it? 4% extra damage? A power that can't accept ANY Set IOs? Yeah no thanks.

 

If Assault's 10% were multiplicative it would maybe be worthwhile, but it's not, so meh.

[Dixa]

drop tactics. it's like none of you fight arachnos or have any need of perception or love being blinded or something.

Or play as /Time which already has a perception boost in Farsight. Tactics is a great power, I take it on quite a few characters but some sets already have a power that accomplishes the same thing as part of your primary or secondary.

 

So my Bots/Traps MM has Tactics but my AR/Dev Blaster and Time/Elec Defender don't.

 

I have 50 thugs/time, bots/time, demons/time, demons/nature, thugs/traps, bots/traps.

 

all still take tactics and I have less of an issue with arachnos blind 'nades then when I don't have tactics. assault however is hardly noticeable

[Klaleara]

And Assault is a garbage power no matter how you slice it, so why would you even want it? 4% extra damage? A power that can't accept ANY Set IOs? Yeah no thanks.

 

If Assault's 10% were multiplicative it would maybe be worthwhile, but it's not, so meh.

 

 

Curious if everyone agrees that Assault is useless.  Not that I'm really sure what else I'd replace it with on my MM.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

And Assault is a garbage power no matter how you slice it, so why would you even want it? 4% extra damage? A power that can't accept ANY Set IOs? Yeah no thanks.

 

If Assault's 10% were multiplicative it would maybe be worthwhile, but it's not, so meh.

Curious if everyone agrees that Assault is useless.  Not that I'm really sure what else I'd replace it with on my MM.

I think Assault is fine and I take it on a lot of my characters, in fact you could argue that it's the best Leadership power for teaming. The thing to keep in mind with Leadership is the way that they stack on teams. Tactics essentially doesn't stack since there's a pretty low soft cap on To Hit so most people will be fine with a single instance of Tactics. Maneuvers sort of stacks since it's good to have extra defense but a lot of teams are already throwing around plenty of defense buffs and other damage mitigation so it's often superfluous.

 

Assault on the other hand may only be a ~10% bonus but it's a 10% that you can stack 8 times and unless you have a Kinetic on the team you probably aren't hitting the damage cap regularly. So while Assault may not be the best solo power I think it's an excellent team power.

 

 

[Klaleara]

And Assault is a garbage power no matter how you slice it, so why would you even want it? 4% extra damage? A power that can't accept ANY Set IOs? Yeah no thanks.

 

If Assault's 10% were multiplicative it would maybe be worthwhile, but it's not, so meh.

Curious if everyone agrees that Assault is useless.  Not that I'm really sure what else I'd replace it with on my MM.

I think Assault is fine and I take it on a lot of my characters, in fact you could argue that it's the best Leadership power for teaming. The thing to keep in mind with Leadership is the way that they stack on teams. Tactics essentially doesn't stack since there's a pretty low soft cap on To Hit so most people will be fine with a single instance of Tactics. Maneuvers sort of stacks since it's good to have extra defense but a lot of teams are already throwing around plenty of defense buffs and other damage mitigation so it's often superfluous.

 

Assault on the other hand may only be a ~10% bonus but it's a 10% that you can stack 8 times and unless you have a Kinetic on the team you probably aren't hitting the damage cap regularly. So while Assault may not be the best solo power I think it's an excellent team power.

 

Awesome answer, thanks.  What about for pets?  I heard something about buffs not being as powerful on pets now days?

[kelly Rocket]

Even if you stack Assault 8 times, it's still only a 40% team damage increase.

 

If I were playing with a fixed group and we were all agreeing to take it, that'd be one thing, but I find most players seem to not take leadership at all because they build in a selfish manner, so I'm usually the only person on the team running leadership at all, and one copy of Assault is just... not even noticeable. Even 2 or 3 copies aren't really noticeable.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

If I were playing with a fixed group and we were all agreeing to take it, that'd be one thing, but I find most players seem to not take leadership at all because they build in a selfish manner,

Be the change you want to see.

[kelly Rocket]

If I were playing with a fixed group and we were all agreeing to take it, that'd be one thing, but I find most players seem to not take leadership at all because they build in a selfish manner,

Be the change you want to see.

I think I already noted I run Maneuvers and Tactics on every single character I make, just about :D

[Justisaur]

I think assault goes off of base damage (not absolutely sure) if so it's very very little.  Say you have a grand total of +300% damage from ios, sets, and buffs, that means a 10% assault, is really adding 2.5% damage. 

 

I found this old bots/time build you could look at

https://web.archive.org/web/20120911091610/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=291477

[kelly Rocket]

It doesn't go off of base damage or anything else. It's a global bonus, like a set bonus, so it's additive.

 

If you have +300% damage, it changes that to +310% damage. Which is... so tiny a change you won't notice it, yes.

[PaxArcana]

As I understand it, the BOT rifle skills are not that great, so I'm only taking skills that give bots or make them better on that side.

My main, back when CoX was still in business, was a Robotics/Forcefield Mastermind.  And yes, don't bother with your own attacks.  Early levels, that can be a pain (especially with only one Battle Drone), but you could always pick them up early, then respec when you hit level ... 12, I think it is, to get the first Protector?

 

When I was at the cap, heck, when I was 45+ ... having all six bots out, equipped, and upgraded?  I didn't NEED to be attacking for damage.  (I picked up some powers that had immobilize, slow, etc, for a touch of battlefield control, not direct damage.)

 

Indeed, when on Strike Forces or just teaming in general, it would always LOOK like I was doing nothing at all ('because there are no animations for picking new targets, moving one or two 'bots to a better position, etc).  But let me tell you, I was still pretty much MVP for damage output, unless there was another MM around.  A couple times on 4- and 5-man teams I had people complain I was "just leeching", so - in true villainous style, I said "fine, let's test that.  There's several equal mob spawns in this area.  You lot pick one, and I'll set my 'bots to passive and literally do nothing.  Then we'll trade places, and compare results."

 

Every time, EVERY time, I would intentionally pull twice as much as the rest of the team, yet be done in 3/4 of the time.  At which point, I'd pull out the villain-snarky quip "Now remind me, which one of us needs the other more, hmm?  So be good minions, like my robots here, and let's go do some crime already! MWA HA HA HA!"  (Yes, yes, I hammed it up.  Kept me from losingmy temper for real.)

 

And that was BEFORE they made things like Dispersion Field AoE.  Running three leadership toggles, keeping everyone with double-bubble joy, directing my robots ... yeah, not very many attack animations, but I was always a solid contributor.

 

And solo?  Like crap through a goose ... with diarrhea.  (THAT pleasant image should stick with you for a while, eh? :D :D :D )

 

Does anyone have any advice on other skills I should put more enhancements in?

Unless it's changed since I last played - shortly before i13 dropped - Leadership toggles are an enormous END sink.  Consider some END reduction enhancements in each of them.

 

...

 

Do you have much experience with masterminds, by the by?  Pet management is much easier with a few very simple keybinds ... something to read up on.  :)

[kelly Rocket]

Leadership end drain is pretty minor (0.32 end/second), at least compared to a lot of toggles. Ice Control's Arctic Air for instance eats a full 1.0 end/second, and it's not even the biggest hog I've seen.

 

But yeah, dropping 1 or 2 endurance reductions in them doesn't hurt... Though with /Time honestly you may not need it if you have Perma Chrono Shift because the endurance recovery buff from that is very significant.

[PaxArcana]

Leadership end drain is pretty minor (0.32 end/second), at least compared to a lot of toggles. Ice Control's Arctic Air for instance eats a full 1.0 end/second, and it's not even the biggest hog I've seen.

I may be misremembering (it's been almost a decade, so that's quite likely really - I last played during i13 ...).

 

I just know that, with the Leadership toggles up, my Robo/FF had some END management woes to deal with.  Possibly because Equip, Upgrade, and the various Bubble-buffs were single-target not AoE, so I was fair SPAMMING them every minute of a mission, solo or otherwise ... :)

 

I'm expecting END to be less of a problem in i25, obviously.