Least Annoying/Most Effective Combo in a Team

[Justisaur]

I used to run Bots/Storm as my favorite MM on live, while it's terribly effective, it's very annoying to the rest of the team, the assault bot is big and blocks doors, even the protector bots can do that, and storm is visually impairing, and then there's all the knockback. 

 

So I'm looking for something that's the least annoying, helpful to the team and still effective. 

 

That leaves bots right out, demons are probably the largest and most blocking of any other pets so we'll leave them off.  Those are the two main ones I see people complaining about as far as annoyance. 

 

That still leaves a lot.

 

For primaries I was initially thinking Mercs since none of them are big and they generally stay out of melee keeping out of your teamates way, but they still have knockback attacks, and they're pretty weak. 

 

Thugs - gang war has been annoying in the past, and at least the bruiser is going to be in melee.  I don't remember him blocking, but isn't he fairly big

Necro, Ninjas - both seem prone to run off and bring back more enemies to overwhelm the team, and both have a lot of melee, and both seemed fairly fragile, zombies perhaps less so, there's some larger pets, but I don't remember any blocking people so much.

Beasts - All melee they're fairly short though I haven't really noticed them getting in the way, but not sure, and their effectiveness is questionable.

 

Then we get to secondaries

Storm is awesome - but again it's right out due to overwhelming visuals and knockback. 

Kin I don't feel like has enough mitigation.

 

The top sets I'm looking at would be

Time - maybe a bit too much mitigation in -rech that could negatively affect brutes, I didn't really like being in melee either, not sure how it would work with less melee pets either.

Dark - maybe just a touch too little mitigation for the pets I have left to choose from

Rad - I'm just not sure about how this is going to work with pets.

Traps - Powerful set, but doesn't work well with teams like to move a lot.

 

So your choice for least annoying/most effective in a team?

[PaxArcana]

Anything well-run.

 

Don't let your minions (of any sort) block doors - move them.  (I bind Shift+Lbutton to petcom_all Goto as a quick, easy way to do this without having to take my fingers away from my MM's own controls.)

 

I stopped playing shortly before i14, IIRC.  My main villainside was a Bots/FF who was frightfully effective ... and aside from the horrifically impatient, never got a complaint that my robots were blocking doorways.  (The impatient complained because it took all six bots half a second, gasp the horror, to get through that doorway themselves.)

 

...

 

Also, I haven't tested this recently, but I think they made MM pets pushable specifically to address this?  I mean, back before NCSoft tried to murder the IP.

[Clave Dark 5]

Go-To-ing your pets is just common courtesy!

[grinningsphinx]

effectiveness of beasts are questionable lol?? 

 

Please come to Indom and ill give you a first hand demonstration of a roflstomp on any of your toons:)>>

[tjknight]

Go Bots/Time or Bots/Kin and use that nifty GoTO command PaxArcana gave you.

[You]

effectiveness of beasts are questionable lol?? 

 

Please come to Indom and ill give you a first hand demonstration of a roflstomp on any of your toons:)>>

 

Any recommended beast build?

 

Thanks!

[TheRedFox8]

Storm/Sonic Defender here.

 

You can actually help out a bit with unnecessary knockback by slotting an enhancement called: Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown. I don't think it works well on hurricane since it still repels but you can slot it on your other "knockback" powers.

 

Beforehand I'd gauge the rest of my team and see how many melee guys are there. If there isn't any, I'd just go nuts with everything. I'd hurriherd people in the corners and stand there as the rest of the team would eat them. If there were a few melee guys I'd warn them saying I was a Storm/ defender and stuff might go accidentally flying. Haven't had a complaint yet. It's all about courtesy.

 

If you're truly worried that you'd annoy people with knockback, slot that enhancement on them. It actually makes the knockback magnitude negative, so it just knocks off their feet.

[PaxArcana]

Carefully done, KB and Repel can actually HELP.

 

On my Robots/FF mastermind, back in the day, I'd often run around "behind" the enemy, and use Force Bolt to knock things TOWARDS the melee guys.  (Also, towards my Assault Bot's burn patches, but, eh).  Or I'd throw up the big Repel-Dome FF power, and just _flush_ enemies towards whoever was tanking for the group (and then, since that'd pull tons of aggro my way, bubble up for a few moments while said tank/Brute/whatever threw out some taunts).

[scran]

If you're talking about 8 man teams, can either assume you're bringing defense or that its covered.  And where you want to stand. In teams primary/secondary combos matter less. I find the special ios are important for keeping pets alive, even in teams, so you want to stand near all of them.

 

If defenses are covered and you're fine with melee, id say nin/demons and kin/rad/poison.  if you want range then bots or mercs (use kb2kd and achilles heel) are purely ranged.  Akward thing about melee is you really want bodyguard mode on, but if nothing gets attacked then your pets wont attack.  So make sure to go in early.  these will be on the weaker side of solo, so make sure you are always teaming.

 

If defenses arent covered, time/dark/cold/nature are solid (i dont have experience with sonic but it seems decent on paper).  necro will also add monstrous tohit debuffs. and if you're cold/poison you can remove resistance to tohit debuffs. maybe storm with kb/kd? but i see the powers have afraid tag.

 

Beasts/necro are more defensive and on the lower end of the damage scale.  thugs have two pets that are melee that without special io coverage i dunno how well will do.

 

 

[Force Redux]

I'll put my 2 Inf in for Bots/FF/Mace.

 

Back in the Live server days it was my main and fully Incarnated. I ran every TF available and felt like I was both contributing, and was asked frequently to help out, and had lots of fun doing so.

 

Bubbles are always helpful. They provide Toxic resistance, and resistance to END drain, too. Even if you are Defense capped, extra DEF helps prevent cascading Defense failures. And buffs every thing that's not. Plus mezz protection for all who need it.

 

It also is hands off enough you can pay more attention to your pets and the flow of combat.

 

Bots are ranged, for the most part, and using GoTo to prevent door jamming and other considerate for your teammates will be useful for any pet set.

 

You're incarnate buffs and your ancillary pool choices can also add to your helpfulness to the team.

 

I've found PFF useful when I get separated from others in Trials for one reason or the other.

 

If you don't care about defense, then go Sonic. If also reccimend Dark as a top useful secondary on teams. Both go very well with Bots.

 

I won't mention Time. It already has enough recommendations for it.

 

But Bots/FF is a classic and for good reason. From level one to Incarnate.

 

Whatever you choose, the set you enjoy playing is the one you'll play the best, so try a few sets out and see which clicks :)

[Justisaur]

Based on some comments from my VG not being able to kill someone or other, I'm thinking I'll need buffs/debuffs more than defense.  I did a bunch of testing things solo on Justin, but haven't found anything that really floats my boat yet.  I'm thinking I'll try bots/rad maybe (still would prefer something smaller) that beast/kin is looking interesting too as you get all the damage buffs and near cap defenses after a little bit, and I've been looking for a kin I can stand (used to be sonic/kin corruptor on live, but nothing quite lives up to my memory of it.)

[SmalltalkJava]

/FF and /Time is always useful.    I like beasts and ninjas and zombies the most probably.  They work well with time.    Also use GOTO on your pets to maneuver them.  You can bind the pertcomall goto command to make sure they are out of doors.  I bind it to CTRL Right click.  Also make judicious use of. Follow passive to make sure they don’t run off.  Pets are a responsibility. 

 

/FF is also useful even if people are soft capped. It keeps the -def cascade from roflstomping the team

 

Here is a FF thread I asked about earlier today lots of useful info https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,4484.0.html

 

I forgot /nature is damn solid also

[Dixa]

the most useful primaries to your team are ones that don't knockback or that you fixed their knockback with enhancements, don't block doors and don't block players

 

the most useful secondaries are ones that are mobile and provide support to the team. this opens up a lot of options.

 

ff? I would go with cold instead if this is a teaming mm. more team support

 

sonic, thermal, time, nature, kinetics I consider the premiere mm teaming secondaries that can work with just about any team comp. the other secondaries have a problem or three that prevent them from being on the same level or are better served coming from a different at's modifier. 

[Justisaur]

Carefully done, KB and Repel can actually HELP.

 

Oh, I realize that, getting others to realize that is the hard part.

 

I tested out Beast/Kin, and Thugs/Rad, Bots/Rad and Thugs/Traps again.  Bots/Rad was my favorite and seemed most effective.  I'll just have to deal with the knockback somehow, and keep an eye on the pets blocking doors - oddly I found more issue getting past the thugs for some reason than the bots.  I did take mace mastery and the immobilize-slow web grenade, but it didn't seem to be immobilizing and stopping the knockback.  I'll have to do some more tests with the web grenade. I know I can eventually get kb-kd Ios (someone says OF changes it globally?  I'll have to try that too.)

 

I was wondering if power boost affects anything from rad, like AM or LF?  I tried it, but couldn't tell.  I know it only works on the toggles a few seconds.  It's been a long time since I really got into rad, and was wondering the best order of debuffs too.

[Dixa]

Carefully done, KB and Repel can actually HELP.

 

Oh, I realize that, getting others to realize that is the hard part.

 

I tested out Beast/Kin, and Thugs/Rad, Bots/Rad and Thugs/Traps again.  Bots/Rad was my favorite and seemed most effective.  I'll just have to deal with the knockback somehow, and keep an eye on the pets blocking doors - oddly I found more issue getting past the thugs for some reason than the bots.  I did take mace mastery and the immobilize-slow web grenade, but it didn't seem to be immobilizing and stopping the knockback.  I'll have to do some more tests with the web grenade. I know I can eventually get kb-kd Ios (someone says OF changes it globally?  I'll have to try that too.)

 

I was wondering if power boost affects anything from rad, like AM or LF?  I tried it, but couldn't tell.  I know it only works on the toggles a few seconds.  It's been a long time since I really got into rad, and was wondering the best order of debuffs too.

 

controlling how/when/direction of your bots kb while on a hectic team would be frustrating. sudden acceleration io is not unique. slap one in the assault and tier 1 bots.