Not seeing the downside of demons/time, guys

[Killing Legacy]

Read through threads and forums on multiple sites, and keep see the same lame-ass arguments against time on a resistance heavy primary.  
 

I’ve been doing some testing of my own on the brainstorm server and I’m having a super difficult time seeing the bad in having pets that are defense soft capped/near soft capped with good resistance to fall back on in the event that they manage to get hit. 
 

perma power boosted farsight, maneuvers and the tohit debuff from time, WITH an aoe heal…. They aren’t going down.  I mean, it doesn’t matter the pets you use, they are gonna be at the defense soft cap with all this running.  Why not use it with a primary that has resistance to boot?

[Neiska]

I am not seeing multiple threads that you speak of, but I have not checked other sites either. Demons/Time is actually quite good, balancing demons damage with times defenses, heals, debuffs, and chrono shift. Plus the Mace epic pool feature that you mentioned.

 

Honestly, it comes down to this - either you can "double dip" both a resistance pet with a resistance secondary, or even a defensive pet with defensive secondary, or you can mix and match. Or you could even go with something like /dark or /storm for even more options.

 

Neither pick will be particularly strong or weak, only have different strong points and weak points. And as with everything in this game, a lot of it us subject to personal taste so YMMV. Personally I rank time as a 4/5 secondary that can pair well with nearly anything, because as you pointed out it is strong enough to compensate for any shortcomings a pet set might have.

 

This is just me musing but, I suspect such discussions or claims you have heard about X/X pairing being "bad" might be down to personal taste. Some people love debuff sets. Some people love support. Some love Defense. Others love tools and outside the box thinking. None of them are "bad", and all of them with equal inf invested should be able to complete all base game content. Not all of them will be soloing +4/8, or be hunting down GMs or AVs, but I think that's fair to say about any powerset and AT. 

 

I mean, one of the strongest solo pairings remains robot/traps, when at base value if you look strictly at their defense/resists, its not impressive.

 

At the end of the day, what people say is strong or weak, really comes down to -

 

1. What activity you plan to do.

2. At what difficulty you plan to do it.

3. How much INF you have invested.

4. How far you grind your incarnates. (some sets only blossom at the very end.)

5. If you are solo, or if you are teamed.

6. Personal Taste.

 

And not everyone is going to agree on these things, because not everyone plays the game the same way, which I would argue, is completely normal in an MMO. 

[plainguy]

1 hour ago, Killing Legacy said:

Read through threads and forums on multiple sites, and keep see the same lame-ass arguments against time on a resistance heavy primary.  
 

I’ve been doing some testing of my own on the brainstorm server and I’m having a super difficult time seeing the bad in having pets that are defense soft capped/near soft capped with good resistance to fall back on in the event that they manage to get hit. 
 

perma power boosted farsight, maneuvers and the tohit debuff from time, WITH an aoe heal…. They aren’t going down.  I mean, it doesn’t matter the pets you use, they are gonna be at the defense soft cap with all this running.  Why not use it with a primary that has resistance to boot?

 

I haven't seen anything  bad about Time either.. 
It has been pretty much stated for a Mastermind Time and Traps are pretty much the 2 goto Secondary especially for Defense cap. 

 

 

[Killing Legacy]

I’ve been using the set for everything, including +4 x8 AV killing.  It’s got tools for everything.

 

large mobs of enemies?  Click based AoE hold/slow with power boost and PBAoE tohit debuff.  AVs and GMs?  -regen/slow/defense/resist/tohit debuff.  
 

one of the only lacking areas is a team wide damage buff and a Rez.  It’s got a decent single target damage buff tho, which stacks well with hell on earth.

[Killing Legacy]

7 minutes ago, plainguy said:

 

I haven't seen anything  bad about Time either.. 
It has been pretty much stated for a Mastermind Time and Traps are pretty much the 2 goto Secondary especially for Defense cap. 

 

 

There a few posts here and there on this forum, with quite a few on Reddit.  It’s always the same lamo argument of resist primary with defense secondary is sub optimal.  I’m like “what?”.  I mean, maybe if the defense from time was piss poor and the only way to reach soft capped pets was with pets that already have inherent defense, but that’s just not the case with time.  I mean, I’d even argue that time is BETTER on a resist oriented primary, due to the fact that time is gonna get your pets soft capped no matter what anyway (if you build it right), so may as well pair it with resist.  It seems like youd be better off pairing a resist secondary with a defense primary in order to fill their resist hole. For instance,  I don’t think time would help ninjas that much, as they are so lacking in resist they will just get one hit when the inevitable attack makes it through.

[Senbonbanana]

20 hours ago, Killing Legacy said:

For instance,  I don’t think time would help ninjas that much, as they are so lacking in resist they will just get one hit when the inevitable attack makes it through.

I disagree with this.  Time takes ninjas from wet cardboard to serviceable.  Time is one of the best secondaries for a ninja MM, if not the best.

 

As far as demon/time goes, I've never played it but I think it would be an excellent combo.  As it has been said, time goes with every primary really well.

[SmalltalkJava]

Time and demons rocks.   You take two of the strongest sets and put them together.  multilayer mitigation

[BGSacho]

Powerboosted farsight + maneuvers is not enough to softcap the defense on pets by the way. The most you can get is around 35%(~21% farsight, ~4% maneuvers, 10% MM auras) still pretty far from softcap.

 

/Time is really good for MMs in general. It's an all-around solid set. However, here's some pros and cons of Demons/Time compared to other top picks - Demons/Cold and Demons/Dark:

+ Time has a lot of free tohit to reduce the need of accuracy on pets. Cold has decent -def debuffs to do the same thing. Dark struggles here.
+ Time has a nice AoE heal, but not as good as Dark's. Cold has no heal.
- Time has very little -regen, both Cold and /Dark can maintain an effective -500%.
+ Time has some endurance regen, but not a lot. Dark consumes a lot of endurance, but has ways to mitigate it(Theft of Essence). Cold doesn't know what this "endurance" thing is and why people complain about it.
+ Time offers decent protection for the MM for tankerminding. /Dark offers a mix of protection and debuffs which can help you tank. Cold is more of a support set for the Demons themselves
+ Time offers good defense, but so does Cold, without requiring to go into Power Boost. Power Boost means no Bonfire, or no Epic Armor for the MM. One nice thing about Demons is that Ember Shield + Epic Armor gets you to capped res without requiring you to take fighting.
- Time offers some -res, but the least out of the three. Dark can stack tar patches and Cold can stack sleet, and also has Heat Loss.

You can also compare Time to Thermal - Thermal has an AoE heal, decent -res, decent -regen, and it maxes out the existing durability of demons. In general, Time's a solid choice, but so are many of the others. It doesn't have so many downsides as much as it's just not the best at anything in particular.

[Crysis]

On 7/21/2021 at 10:11 AM, Senbonbanana said:

I disagree with this.  Time takes ninjas from wet cardboard to serviceable.  Time is one of the best secondaries for a ninja MM, if not the best.

 

As far as demon/time goes, I've never played it but I think it would be an excellent combo.  As it has been said, time goes with every primary really well.

Yes very much this for Ninjas.  For just about any primary /Time is solid.  Maybe the best MM secondary overall.  
 

I started back on Live with a Bots/Time and now have used it with every pet type and all benefit although some more than others.  The best two powers are Powerboosted Farsight and Times Juncture.  You can tankermind reliably by just jumping into spawn with TJ running.  Between likely softcapped defenses and TJ’s -TOHIT and aggro pulling capabilities you will be attacked but not hit and your Bodyguardef pets just go to town while you spam other secondary powers.  Great method for /Time.

[Riverdusk]

Agreed with some of the others.  I always recommend /time if I hear someone saying they are having trouble playing a MM (most often the complaint is how the pets die constantly and they find that frustrating).   Time (along with the pet +res and +def IO's) is usually enough to make any pet pretty sturdy.  There is a whole pinned thread at the top of this forum section on how well it works on pretty much any primary.  

 

I also like to remind people though that powerboosting things like farsight has been mentioned by at least one dev as something they are "looking at".  Maybe it will never happen, but I personally keep backup build plans in mind in case it someday "goes away" or is changed significantly.  Although defender and controller are the ones that get really crazy numbers from it, more than MM's. 

[Killing Legacy]

With all the defense iOS plus the to hit debuff, my demon pets were effectively at the defense cap, with sizable resistance to boot.

 

idk, maybe I’m just burned on ninjas from leveling a ninja/poison on live when villains first dropped.  Yes, really.  It just seems like theyd do better with a resistance set or a set with lots of cc, like dark.  They’ll just get murdered even if they are at the defense soft cap.  I’m talking about +4 x8.  That many enemies? Attacks will push through and land regardless of their defense value and they’ll get one shot by +4s

[Force Redux]

To note, Times Juncture -toHit can cover the gap in Defense to the Soft Cap, as long a mobs are in range. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Force Redux

[JayboH]

On 7/23/2021 at 4:28 AM, BGSacho said:

Powerboosted farsight + maneuvers is not enough to softcap the defense on pets by the way. The most you can get is around 35%(~21% farsight, ~4% maneuvers, 10% MM auras) still pretty far from softcap.

Don't forget perma Barrier

[Neiska]

A little off topic, but the mention of power boost sparked a question. We all know it boosts Farsight +defense, but is there any other powers that benifit in a similar fashion? (IIRC, power boost is a +special, which is tricky to measure or quantify isn't it?)

 

Is there a list somewhere of what is/is not affected? I mean, could you pop it, then use Farsight, but then sneak in a shot with a web grenade too and get a stronger hold effect? Power boost lasts long enough to use 2 powers with it, so that has me wondering what MM seconaries or pool powers might also benefit. So are is there anything else of note? It would seem odd to have an epic pool power that a lot of people take turn out to be a single trick pony. 

[StrikerFox]

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

A little off topic, but the mention of power boost sparked a question. We all know it boosts Farsight +defense, but is there any other powers that benifit in a similar fashion? (IIRC, power boost is a +special, which is tricky to measure or quantify isn't it?)

 

Is there a list somewhere of what is/is not affected? I mean, could you pop it, then use Farsight, but then sneak in a shot with a web grenade too and get a stronger hold effect? Power boost lasts long enough to use 2 powers with it, so that has me wondering what MM seconaries or pool powers might also benefit. So are is there anything else of note? It would seem odd to have an epic pool power that a lot of people take turn out to be a single trick pony. 

 

I had a conversation with someone about this a long time ago. He explained that PB will boost click powers for the click power's full duration. It doesn't work the same on toggles since toggles perform a check every 10 seconds. This is the reason PB works with Farsight but not Maneuvers and Tactics.

I tested this with a Dark Miasma MM. He seems to be right as PB on Darkest Night only lasted for 10s, while PB on Fearsome Stare lasted for FS' full duration of 20s. Also tested Web Envelope on a level 36 lieut. Without PB, mag 3 immobilize that lasted for 65s; with PB, mag 3 immobilize that lasted for 95s.

Another guy said it works with Ice and Glacial Shields (Cold Domination). I imagine it will work with powers like Forge and Fort (The +tohit buff portion). It would be useless on Sonic since PB doesn't boost damage resist buff/debuff. PB would probably enhance every power TA has to offer in some way. Also all the Force Field shields. PB would last the full duration of World of Pain and Anguishing Cry (Pain Domination) though it would only enhance the +tohit buff/-def debuff. 

Not sure how it would work with Traps and Storm with all the pseudo pets... Or TAoEs like Liquefy or Melt Armor. If you decide to test anything out, please share your findings. 

[TheMoncrief]

Sadly, it does nothing for Resistance powers, click based or not. My Beasts/Nature Mastermind was quite annoyed that her minions couldn't hit the Resist cap through using Power Boost - although to be fair, her Beasts are quite rugged anyway, in spite of them being purely melee attackers.

[arcane]

Literally anything with Power Boosted Farsight is an easy mode tier toon. Whoever told you otherwise is just wrong.

[Force Redux]

On 7/24/2021 at 2:35 PM, Killing Legacy said:

With all the defense iOS plus the to hit debuff, my demon pets were effectively at the defense cap, with sizable resistance to boot.

 

idk, maybe I’m just burned on ninjas from leveling a ninja/poison on live when villains first dropped.  Yes, really.  It just seems like theyd do better with a resistance set or a set with lots of cc, like dark.  They’ll just get murdered even if they are at the defense soft cap.  I’m talking about +4 x8.  That many enemies? Attacks will push through and land regardless of their defense value and they’ll get one shot by +4s

No amount of resists available from secondaries will save Ninjas, as they have no real base resists to start with and like all minions, have low health caps. Better to cap Defenses (or debuffs -ToHit) and keep them from being hit as often as possible, resummoning on occasion.  Just my 2 Inf. 

 

[Tacheyon]

51 minutes ago, Force Redux said:

No amount of resists available from secondaries will save Ninjas, as they have no real base resists to start with and like all minions, have low health caps. Better to cap Defenses (or debuffs -ToHit) and keep them from being hit as often as possible, resummoning on occasion.  Just my 2 Inf. 

 

 

Yep.  /Cold and /FF would be better if you want to raise Ninjas to Def cap (of close to).

 

Although you can skip all that and just go straight to insanity and roll a Ninja/Storm and go for max KB/KD.  Keep your Ninjas alive by keeping everything else on their backs!