Help Me Understand Nature

[pblue]

I am having trouble getting my head round how to play Nature. I can see the heals, the buffs and debuffs, but it all seems somhow disorganised and I having a hard time arranging this it into a coherent strategy or smooth, standard "support chain", if that makes sense. So really looking for insights into:

 

Which are the key, bread and butter powers to be used in every encounter?

Which are the powers only worth using for Boss fights?

Which are powers the skippable?

Does Rebirth have any use when playing solo?

Where do Blooms fit in this? Do they really matter?

 

For reference, I've currently paired Nature with Necro, this is mostly a casual, solo character so I not looking for strategies that require huge investment.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by pblue

[Carnifax]

Nature's thing are the 3 pbaoe buffs most importantly. Regrowth and Wild Bastion on your squishy zombies will help a bit. Overgrowth is great, you want that up as much as possible. Regrowth as your main heal obvs. 

Spore Cloud is good-but-an-annoying-toggle. Generally a on-the-boss type thing. Ditto for Corrosive.

Lifegiving Spores are decent in longer fights too, just as a way to top up a team. I found I "lost" mine a lot by leaving it behind... 

Rebirth I've never taken. 

Entangling works, I take it but you may not have much reason to be in melee. This is probably the next mosty skippable. 

 

 

 

[pblue]

Thanks, that is exactly the sort of insight I was look for.

[Tacheyon]

18 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Nature's thing are the 3 pbaoe buffs most importantly. Regrowth and Wild Bastion on your squishy zombies will help a bit. Overgrowth is great, you want that up as much as possible. Regrowth as your main heal obvs. 

Spore Cloud is good-but-an-annoying-toggle. Generally a on-the-boss type thing. Ditto for Corrosive.

Lifegiving Spores are decent in longer fights too, just as a way to top up a team. I found I "lost" mine a lot by leaving it behind... 

Rebirth I've never taken. 

Entangling works, I take it but you may not have much reason to be in melee. This is probably the next mosty skippable. 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty much all of what Carnifax said.

 

But since you are playing Necro taking Entangling Aura should be on the table.  The reason is that you can build yourself as a more Tankermind as most of your pets are melee and your T3 pet is basically a Controller.  So he will be throwing out holds that will stack with your Aura.

 

The thing about Necro is that it isn't a High Damage pet class, it is more a control and whittle away set.  So your job as "the Boss" is to give them the time to do it.

[TheMoncrief]

If your pets tend to be melee focused, Entangling is amazing. If they stay at range mostly, not so much. It can "turn off" large portions of every spawn, as long as you are staying in melee range. I play Beass/Nature, and I mostly agree with Carnifax. Lifegiving Spores are another power I feel he undervalued, though. The area heal is very useful and will keep your pets fairly topped off as long as they mostly stay in it. More important, it gives Endurance as well as Health. It keeps me and my pets well supplied with Endurance so I never run dry.

 

Also gives my wolves and cats a nice patch to go to the bathroom, but that's not so much of an issue for your Zombies.

[ghotistix]

Nature is great on a MM, I've got a few and i really enjoy them specifically because of entangling aura, but we'll get back to that in a bit. First, you're questions:

 

Which are the key, bread and butter powers to be used in every encounter?

Which are the powers only worth using for Boss fights?

Which are powers the skippable?

Does Rebirth have any use when playing solo?

Where do Blooms fit in this? Do they really matter?

 

Your "bread and butter" powers really depend on if you team or solo more. On a team, most of the enemies die so fast that there isn't time to really set much up, so I use Wild Growth and Wild Bastion to keep the team pretty safe while tossing in a Regrowth every so often and hitting Overgrowth whenever it's up or save it for the AV if I know one is coming.

 

Now, if you are solo, or even on a team if the fighting gets really tough, things change a bit. Spore Cloud can be annoying to use sometimes but with it's -tohit and -dam it can really take the bite out of boss or AV and it's -regen can help finish them off faster. Lifegiving Spores can also be a true game changer.  It gives everyone in it both health and end, it's super cheap to run and can easily give you more end then it costs making it free end for you too. You can also toss in a Panacea +hit point/endurance and it'll have a chance to affect everyone in it every 10 seconds. Now, when it comes to Corrosive Enzymes, you have to take it, might as well toss it on anyone who you really want dead faster.

 

The only power I would call skippable wold be Rebirth and that's because it is of zero use to you when solo. You can't use it to rez your pets (they're not smart enough to accept it when the prompt pops up) and some people don't like taking powers that are only of use if someone on the team dies. However, if you're someone who likes taking Vengeance it is encouraged that you also have some way to rez them after, it's polite.

 

From what I can remember, all Blooms does is give bonus healing to Regrowth, so, the more you're healing people, the better that heal is. Useful, but not something to really worry about one way or the other.

 

And now we get the the best part of nature affinity, Entangling Aura.  It is amazing.  Every 2 seconds it pulses out and tries to hold everyone within 15 feet of you for a base of 4 sec.  This power is autohit, so you don't need to worry about accuracy.  In practice, this means that I run into a group of enemies and hold about half of them right off and since it stacks with itself, 2 seconds later almost everyone else is held too.  By enhancing the hold it can lengthen how long it affects anyone which increases the chance that it will build up enough hold to lock them down while also making sure that once they are held, they stay held.  It is basically a permahold, autohit, toggle power that gives major survivability to you pets by simply taking almost every enemy out of the fight.  Is it perfect? No, but it is so good that it might as well be.  If your pets are in bodyguard mode you'll survive the alpha strike while they attach everything that isn't locked down until you have to manually make them attack targets who are just standing there, struggling to get free.

 

Now, how well does this pair with your primaries?

 

Ninja/Beast/Necro/ are mostly melee, so you're going to want to be almost in melee anyway, might as well use that to take out half the enemies yourself so the pets can take it easy killing off the stragglers

 

Thugs/Demons/ are mixed melee/ranged so you can be further back from the action but still close enough to hit them with Regrowth heals, and the +resist from Wild Growth stacks nicely with the Demons/ inherent resist.

 

Bots/Mercs/ are ranged pets so there is no real need to engage the enemy at melee range.  That being said, the Assault Bot gets Incendiary Missiles which drop fire patches that the enemies will run out of, unless they're tied up in vines, that is. Now, you can keep them in place with an aoe immob, but then they'll still be able to shoot back, better to just hold them all so they don't cause as much trouble.  As for Mercs/ um, well... the only real strength, if you can call it that, of Mercs/ is that they are very ranged. They really have no reason to be in melee and you probably don't want them there, so it might be better to use GoTo to position them nearby and then still run in and lockdown the enemies for them to pick off, slowly, one at a time, eventually.

 

So, those are my thoughts on Nature Affinity and how to use it with MMs. If you skip Entangling Aura the set plays more like a standard healing set. Buff you team and heal when needed, but, my advise is, if you have access to a power like Entangling Aura, take it, use it, love it.  It feels to me like one of those powers that you take the set for. If you just want to be a support/healer there are other sets that might work better for you, but, ultimately, take what you want and play it how you want to. This is simple A way to play the set, not THE way.

[pblue]

Thanks, I will experiment with Entangling Aura. I was kind of losing interest as just spending all my effort healing zombie wasn't doing it for me, but this might shake things up a bit.

[Force Redux]

Entangling in amazing. With a +2 hold proc and 4 pc basilisk's does a lot of mitigation. Grab an epic hold to stack and lock down bosses. 

[plainguy]

On 11/23/2021 at 7:08 PM, Carnifax said:

Nature's thing are the 3 pbaoe buffs most importantly. Regrowth and Wild Bastion on your squishy zombies will help a bit. Overgrowth is great, you want that up as much as possible. Regrowth as your main heal obvs. 

Spore Cloud is good-but-an-annoying-toggle. Generally a on-the-boss type thing. Ditto for Corrosive.

Lifegiving Spores are decent in longer fights too, just as a way to top up a team. I found I "lost" mine a lot by leaving it behind... 

Rebirth I've never taken. 

Entangling works, I take it but you may not have much reason to be in melee. This is probably the next mosty skippable. 

 

 

 

I will tell you entangling really works well.

 

I am running a petless nature whips mastermind.  I have Oppressive gloom as well. What I do is do not use Oppressive gloom and keep it on standby. If I get stunned or mezzed and Entangle gets dropped I turn on OG until Entangle recharges up. Then I click entangle on and drop Oppressive Gloom. 

But again Entangle really does hold mobs 1000 times better than Oppressive Gloom stuns. I mean it is a consistent hold.. 

 

my defenses are in the 30s so Spore Cloud puts me at cap. 

I have Wild Growth on auto cast. 
I will also say that Force of Will is very nice.. Wall of Force is a very wide cone and does a lot of dps. 
I went with Vigor on Alpha incarnate. 

Here is the build to give you an idea of what  I am doing with it

 

This Villain build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.6.0
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Demon Summoning
Secondary Power Set: Nature Affinity
Power Pool: Force of Will
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Corruption -- SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg(A), SprWntBit-Dmg/Rchg(5), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), SprWntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(7), SprWntBit-Rchg/SlowProc(9)
Level 1: Corrosive Enzymes -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Lash -- Hct-Dam%(A), GldStr-%Dam(9), ExpStr-Dam%(11), TchofDth-Dam%(11), Mk'Bit-Dam%(13), FrcFdb-Rechg%(13)
Level 4: Wild Growth -- Ags-Psi/Status(A), Ags-ResDam/EndRdx(37), Ags-ResDam(37)
Level 6: Mighty Leap -- BlsoftheZ-ResKB(A), BlsoftheZ-Travel(21)
Level 8: Crack Whip -- SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg(A), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx(15), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(17), SprFrzBls-Rchg/ImmobProc(19)
Level 10: Spore Cloud -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(A), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb(19), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(21), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/Rchg(37)
Level 12: Project Will -- FrcFdb-Rechg%(A), GldJvl-Dam%(34), Apc-Dam%(34), ExpStr-Dam%(36)
Level 14: Wall of Force -- Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(A), ExpStr-Dam%(23), PstBls-Dam%(23), PstBls-Dmg/Rchg(25), FrcFdb-Rechg%(33), Bmbdmt-Dam(34)
Level 16: Lifegiving Spores -- NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(A), NmnCnv-EndRdx/Rchg(42), NmnCnv-Heal/Rchg(43), NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(43), NmnCnv-Heal(43), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(45)
Level 18: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Wild Bastion -- Prv-Absorb%(A), Prv-Heal/Rchg(45), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(46)
Level 22: Unleash Potential -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 24: Tough -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(25)
Level 26: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(27), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(27)
Level 28: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(29), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(29)
Level 30: Tactics -- GssSynFr--ToHit(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg(31), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(31), GssSynFr--Rchg/EndRdx(31), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(33), GssSynFr--Build%(33)
Level 32: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(45)
Level 35: Night Fall -- Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(A), PstBls-Dam%(36), PstBls-Dmg/Rchg(36), CldSns-%Dam(39), Rgn-Knock%(40), Rgn-Dmg(40)
Level 38: Overgrowth -- RctRtc-ToHit(A), RctRtc-ToHit/Rchg(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Dark Embrace -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A), UnbGrd-ResDam(42), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(42), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam(48)
Level 44: Entangling Aura -- Lck-%Hold(A), BslGaz-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(46), BslGaz-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(46)
Level 47: Soul Tentacles -- EnfOpr-Acc/Rchg(A), EnfOpr-EndRdx/Immob(47), EnfOpr-Acc/EndRdx(47), EnfOpr-Immob/Rng(48), EnfOpr-Acc/Immob/Rchg(48), EnfOpr-Acc/Immob(49)
Level 49: Oppressive Gloom -- RzzDzz-Immob%(A), RzzDzz-Acc/EndRdx(49)
Level 1: Supremacy 
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Mrc-Rcvry+(3)
Level 1: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(3)
Level 6: Takeoff 
Level 50: Vigor Partial Core Revamp 
Level 50: Born In Battle 
------------

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[Carnifax]

4 hours ago, plainguy said:

I will tell you entangling really works well

Yup. I have it both on my nature MM (because she has procced up knockout blow and it lets me position her as a mobile hold field) and my Fire/Nature corruptor as a "well if anything gets close it gets held".

 

But it's probably the next most skippable power in the set if you tend to hang back more.

[pblue]

I did pick Entangling Aura in the end. It is as effective as advertised solo. Graphically it is pretty horrible though. I am using a gray-tint colour scheme on Nature so it looks more like a heavy, metal chain.

[Dark Current]

I think this might help:

 

na·ture

/ˈnāCHər/

 

noun

noun: nature; plural noun: natures

1. 1.

   the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.

   "the breathtaking beauty of nature"

[pblue]

A little necro here (pun intended), I picked up my Necro/Nature again after dropping it once I'd hit 50.

I can confirm that Entangling Aura is as good as advertised, certainly when solo and with melee pets. It is basically the lynchpin of the build, along with Spore Cloud. It's like all these healing power, but I can't use them because none of my enemies ever fight back!  Overgrowth and Wild Bastion are excellent for tougher fights, like wehn the mobs might just get to hit back. I combine them with Power Boost, I think that works, but I probably wouldn't noticed if it didn't.

 

Went recoloured Entangling Aura blood red and the rest of the Nature Power are on a white/gray scale. It looks quite impressive.

[Lazarillo]

Quick question on Regrowth: is there a way to automatically turn a character to face a specific target before using it?  I'm thinking in a more roundabout way, I could double-tap the 'f' key to "follow" the target for a fraction of a second before firing, but I wasn't sure if there was a more efficient way to do things, with a handy keybind, maybe?

[Force Redux]

I just use follow, as you said, when I target a particular person in a busy area.

[Here be Dragons]

7 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

Quick question on Regrowth: is there a way to automatically turn a character to face a specific target before using it?  I'm thinking in a more roundabout way, I could double-tap the 'f' key to "follow" the target for a fraction of a second before firing, but I wasn't sure if there was a more efficient way to do things, with a handy keybind, maybe?

There is a /face command that will turn the character to face its target.

 

I'm not sure in which order to put the that and the powexec command? My memory from way back in Live says that commands get evaluated right to left. My memory could be wrong.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Here be Dragons

[Here be Dragons]

Also, Rebirth is supposed to do a heal over time on an alive target. That would be helpful to an MM.

Should be around 35% over 60 seconds, before enhancements.

[bustacap]

On 5/20/2022 at 7:22 PM, Lazarillo said:

Quick question on Regrowth: is there a way to automatically turn a character to face a specific target before using it?  I'm thinking in a more roundabout way, I could double-tap the 'f' key to "follow" the target for a fraction of a second before firing, but I wasn't sure if there was a more efficient way to do things, with a handy keybind, maybe?

 

On my defender I just hit F which is auto follow and cast regrowth. and then break the auto follow.