Looking for help to find my MM build to play

[benai]

Hallo,

 

I like to play MM's.

Currently i have tested out different combinations but the biggest issue i have is that my minions die alot (TF,SF, radio missions etc) - none of these is endslotted.

My thought was that a defensive (FF (+def) or sonic(+res)) based build would do better but it didnt worked out as i wanted.

Tried it with Aid Others (Medicine) but due to its close range its annoying.

I have come to the conclussion that primaries with fixed skill needs are not to my liking (Serum, Fortify Pack) because they leave your minions vulnerbale and the current recharge or with Fortify Pack the needed Pack Mentality Stacks is annoying to build up and not garantueed.

The Arsonist (Thugs) and the Medic (Mercenaries) seems to have a hugh problem with running directly in the enemies weapons.

 

My current idea is to go to secondaries with heal, buffs and maybe debuffs.

Which then would reduce the secondary pool to nature, empathy, fire, pain and radiation maybe time.

But i am not sure which of them would be a good stable option with an according primary.

 

My current builds are:

50 Robotics/Force Field --> does ok because of healer bot and drone - endurance heavy as hell

50 Mercenaries/Force Field 

50 Ninjas/Time --> very squishy

38 Robotics/Traps --> works because of the Robotics

31 Ninjas/Empathy --> is currently played and nice with heals and Fortitude placed at the 3 higher minions

45 Beasts/Kinetics -> good for group because of /kin - everyone loves speed, damage and endurance boost :-)

31 Thugs/Sonic

33 Beast/Sonic

46 Necro/Dark

29 Thugs/Time

.......... and so on

 

Any tips, help or build suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Maelwys]

/FF and /Cold can get your henchmen to the Defense Softcap regardless of your Primary.
Bots, Thugs and Ninjas can manage that with a secondary like /Time or /Dark, let alone /Traps.

So... easy combinations?
Demons or Necro or Beast plus /FF or /Cold. Alternatively; Bots or Ninja or Thugs plus /Time, /Dark or /Traps.
But be sure to TAKE and USE Power Boost from the Mace Mastery pool if you're FF, Cold or Time.

/Empathy is a bit tricky, since a lot of its mitigation comes from Fortitude rather than from the actual Heals and Auras (if your henchies get one-shot then healing them is superfluous) and you can only keep that up on a few targets at a time.
/Kinetics is all-in on damage output; and I'd not recommend it for the faint of heart. It *can* be made to work on the likes of Bots or Thugs; but it takes considerable effort and exploiting a lot of high-end IOs and T4 Incarnate Abilities.

/Sonic on MMs is basically a worse version of /Thermal. And resistance-buffing only works well on pets that have decent resistances to start with, like Mercs or Demons, and even then you end up mezzed and debuffed a lot.
 

Edited March 7 by Maelwys

[benai]

Interesting combinations.

 

Funny thing is same of these easy combinations I have already like Ninja/Time/Mace, Bots/FF/Mace, Bots/Traps/Soul, Thugs/Time/Mace with Scorpion Armor and Power Boost. Power boost is mostly set on auto cast or used on cooldown.

Like i said above my Ninja/Time/Mace MM is quite squishy. The Ninjas are quite fast dead even through i have slotted all 4 pet auras and have Farsight. Good/playable are for me Bots/FF and Bots/Traps because of the selfbubble, heal and heal drone.

I prefer Traps over FF but i like FF better. Traps is better  in terms of seeing your buffs better. Your Shield Generator a minion, on death exploding entity. While you have to recast both  FF Shields every 4 Minutes like Generator or with zoning unlike Shield Generator and that you still cant shield your self is stupid AF like the fact that your two Minion upgrades are not auto skills. The Generator also gives you Shield. But you miss therefore the toggle bubble, but you dont run then such an endurance heavy secondary.

 

What i like to play the most is Ninja/Time/Mace, Mercs/FF/Mace and Bots/FF-Traps/Mace-Soul and Beast/kin balance each other.

 

So with Defence based go for Agility or Musculature Alpha Core or do you just always go for Musculature Alpha Core?

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, benai said:

Funny thing is same of these easy combinations I have already like Ninja/Time/Mace, Bots/FF/Mace, Bots/Traps/Soul, Thugs/Time/Mace with Scorpion Armor and Power Boost. Power boost is mostly set on auto cast or used on cooldown.

Like i said above my Ninja/Time/Mace MM is quite squishy.
 

So with Defence based go for Agility or Musculature Alpha Core or do you just always go for Musculature Alpha Core?

Just to be clear - are you activating Power Boost right before your long-duration +Defence buffs (Farsight for /Time, Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield for /FF) so that they gain the benefit of it?

/FF Bubbles should go from ~17.7% Defence standard to ~25.1% when Power Boosted... so alongside your regular Dispersion Bubble (~11.8%) you'll be buffing all of your pets by around 37% Defence total. Throw in the Edict of the Master and Call to Arms +Defence unique IOs (both add another 5% each) and that's them sitting at the Softcap without even the need for Manuevers let alone any +Defence Alpha Slot or Barrier Destiny Slot shenanighans.
Combined with the Robotics Primary it gets ridiculous. 2-slotted Protector Bot bubbles will add roughly 22% Defence on top of that; so you could drop both +Defence unique IOs and still be sitting at the 59% *Incarnate Content* defence softcap, let alone the 45% regular content one. Bots also get about +49% L/C/P Resistance whenever their T1 upgrade is slotted; so adding the three +Res uniques (Sovereign Right +10%, Expedient Reinforcement +10%, Superior Mark of Supremacy +15%) will get them to +84% total.

/Time Farsight goes from ~14.7% Defence standard to ~20.8% when Power Boosted. Adding in Maneuvers (~4.1%) and both +Defence unique IOs (+10%) can bring that up to around 35% Defence total. A good 10% shy of the regular 45% softcap... however; Primary matters here.
For Thugs, each copy of Thug Enforcer Maneuvers even unslotted adds +8.5% Defence (which you can buff via slotting). For Ninjas, they all get +Defence to everything of at least 13.5% (again, enhanceable via slotting) via their T1 upgrade. So it should be trivially easy to close that gap and ensure all your pets are softcapped all the time. Neither Thugs nor Ninjas T1 and T2 pets gain much in the way of Damage Resistance; but the T3s each have +26% S/L resistance; so the +Res uniques will bring them up to +61% total.

Unfortunately Power Boost won't be doing much for the /Traps build; since the ForceField Generator is a Pet rather than a long-duration clicky so best case it'll inherit the buff for a few scant seconds. However, you're Bots/ so it doesn't really matter... the ~15.7% Defence standard from the FFG plus ~22% from the Protector Bots plus Maneuvers (~4.1%) gets you to just under 42% total. Less than a single +Defence unique IO away from the Softcap.

Musculature all the way for a MM; unless you're a /Kin (Because Fulcrum Shift will cap your pet damage output regardless of your Alpha, so you may as well go for Agility Core or Resilient Core instead).
 

Edited March 9 by Maelwys

[benai]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

Just to be clear - are you activating Power Boost right before your long-duration +Defence buffs (Farsight for /Time, Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield for /FF) so that they gain the benefit of it?

 

I use Power boost before i use Shields or Farsight.

 

But when i read this here so, I think I need to rethink my slotting in general. Less of a pure slotting more of a mixed slotting and focus more to its purpose.

So not like in the Builds you can see here from Drakken, but more for the effects of proccs and co like Chance for debuff resi, chance for xxx damage, buff auras  etc pp.

 

Then i need to look for either a blueprint or a inspiration because these whole enhancement system - I am still not into it.

Mostly i get the Buff for pets from Sovereign Rights (+resi), Edict of Master (+def), Call to Arms (+def), Expedient Reinforcement (+resi) and Superior Mark of Spremacy (+resi +regen - which i had never the money for)

Edited March 9 by benai

[Saiyajinzoningen]

On 3/7/2024 at 11:53 AM, Maelwys said:

/FF and /Cold can get your henchmen to the Defense Softcap regardless of your Primary.
Bots, Thugs and Ninjas can manage that with a secondary like /Time or /Dark, let alone /Traps.

So... easy combinations?
Demons or Necro or Beast plus /FF or /Cold. Alternatively; Bots or Ninja or Thugs plus /Time, /Dark or /Traps.
But be sure to TAKE and USE Power Boost from the Mace Mastery pool if you're FF, Cold or Time.

/Empathy is a bit tricky, since a lot of its mitigation comes from Fortitude rather than from the actual Heals and Auras (if your henchies get one-shot then healing them is superfluous) and you can only keep that up on a few targets at a time.
/Kinetics is all-in on damage output; and I'd not recommend it for the faint of heart. It *can* be made to work on the likes of Bots or Thugs; but it takes considerable effort and exploiting a lot of high-end IOs and T4 Incarnate Abilities.

/Sonic on MMs is basically a worse version of /Thermal. And resistance-buffing only works well on pets that have decent resistances to start with, like Mercs or Demons, and even then you end up mezzed and debuffed a lot.
 

 

ninjas/time 

I don't like MM's 

but that combo sound pretty fun

thanks for the suggestion

[Riverdusk]

My bots/cold and merc/dark are two of the tougher ones I've run so far.   Also done fine with a necro/sonic and a thugs/time.  Haven't tried it myself, but demons/thermal is supposed to be very tanky.

 

Keep in mind getting that +1 level shift post level 50 helps a TON.  Or while leveling up, as I've mentioned in other threads, stay in teams your level or lower.  Being an extra -1 in level that hits you and your minions while in a higher level team is a killer.

[Maelwys]

23 minutes ago, benai said:

 

I think I need to rethink my slotting in general.

 

i need to look for either a blueprint or a inspiration because these whole enhancement system - I am still not into it.

You'll find a lot of sample builds scattered around the forums; and they should open grand as long as you have a recent copy of Mids Reborn.

MMs are a bit of an oddball compared to most characters when planning a build; because their primary powerset doesn't really benefit from things like Global +Recharge or +Damage set bonuses; and there are only a few useful Procs that Henchmen can use. However the OLD rule of thumb always applies (try to get the important aspects of your powers at the Enhancement Diversification softcap - Mids changes the colour to RED so it's easy to spot) so make sure your Pets themselves have about ~95% Damage and at least ~40% Accuracy, and your +Defence powers have about~55% Defence Buff in them. Certain Secondaries (like Time and Cold) benefit more from +Recharge than others.
It's normally a good idea to Grab the Leadership pool and all the Uniques; including the SMoS (do a few Freaklympics arc runs via Ouroboros if you're stuck for Cash and/or Merits - it's trivial on a MM).

[Xandyr]

On 3/7/2024 at 10:53 AM, Maelwys said:

/Sonic on MMs is basically a worse version of /Thermal. And resistance-buffing only works well on pets that have decent resistances to start with, like Mercs or Demons, and even then you end up mezzed and debuffed a lot.
 

 I paired Sonic with Ninjas. I figured with their inheritantly high defenses that the Resistance would help them out. Plus, they seem to heal themselves reguarly. It's worked out pretty good.

[Xandyr]

Don't forget /Pain.  I feel like /Pain gets overlooked...but has some amazing powers.

   Regen aura, heals, +Resistance, -Resistance, -Defense, and Painbringer is awesome. On my Necro/Pain, with how I have it slotted, it gives +800% End Recovery, +1168% Regeneration (about 39 HP/Sec), and a +37.5% Damage buff. It can be made perma, but only on 1 pet or teammate. Combined with Suppress Pain (at least how I have it slotted), you're giving that 1 pet or teammate(as long as they're within a 15' radius of you) around 55 HP/Sec. That will typically leave you to worry about other pets/teammates' Health. Plus, that 1 target will not run out of Endurance during the duration of PB.

  World of Pain (slotted) gives about +17.5% Resistance  to all, a +7.5% To Hit buff, and a +12% Damage bonus (to all within 35'). If you team, hit WoP, then use PB on your hardest attacking teammate...that's +49.5% Damage bonus, plus the end and regen to handle about anything while dishing it out. Or, use it on one of your T2 or the T3 pet.

 

 I've had a blast with /Pain partnered with Mercs and Necro. My latest project is combining it with Demons.

[Maelwys]

36 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

 I paired Sonic with Ninjas. I figured with their inheritantly high defenses that the Resistance would help them out. Plus, they seem to heal themselves reguarly. It's worked out pretty good.

Oh I'm sure you can make a fun character with it, like most power combinations in the game.

It's just that (i) layering two different types of mitigation (Defence and Resistance) to a medicore level tends to perform worse than pushing one single type to its effective cap (and Defence is generally preferred here due to the aforementioned "mez" issue) and (ii) Thermal tends to outperform Sonic on Masterminds.

I mained a Sonic/Elec Defender for years so I know /Sonic can be a strong set; however it has a number of shortcomings on Masterminds which Thermal does not. Thermal gets Resistance Shields and -Resistance Debuffs (Melt Armor) as well; plus reliable healing (Warmth/Cauterise), a Damage Buff (Forge) and it can floor an AV's regen with Heat Exhaustion. About the only thing Sonic really holds over it is Sonic Dispersion's self-mez protection, and picking up the Clarion Destiny Slot nullifies that advantage. Disruption Field can also be rather problematic to utilise effectively on MMs with pets that prefer ranged attacks.
 

Edited March 9 by Maelwys

[Maelwys]

33 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

Don't forget /Pain.  I feel like /Pain gets overlooked...but has some amazing powers.

Yeah it's roughly on par with Thermal as long as you have enough +recharge% to get World of Pain and Anguishing Cry perma. Works out at a bit more more +healing and +regeneration; and a bit less +damage IIRC. Melt Armor and Anguishing Cry perform very similarly, although one needs you to be in Melee Range and the other doesn't. Painbringer's uptime is a bit of a killer though - a well-built Thermal can keep Forge up on all their henchmen simultaneously.

Poison is the real black sheep. Think I played a /Poison MM once back in Issue 6, then I discovered /Dark and never looked back... 

----------

Personally I'm still very fond of /Kin for a +Resistance/+Damage/+Healing secondary; although it probably pairs better with Bots/ than anything else at the moment due to the way the gaps in their inherent resistances and mez protection get filled in by Increase Density. Can just about hit the Defence Softcap with the right Lore and/or Hybrid slot too.

  

 

Edited March 9 by Maelwys

[Xandyr]

16 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 I discovered /Dark and never looked back... 

----------

 

 

Can NEVER go wrong with /Dark!

[benai]

I had always a problem with robotics because it seemed compared to the other primaries overdone while the others underperform against it.

Demons always looked like a mixture of Robots and Thugs.

 

On live Robots/FF, Robots/Traps, Thugs/Traps or Thugs/Dark where good - when it is correct they only buffed Ninja and Mercs with one of the last patches maybe Necros (?).

/Time is from my point of view good with everything and in terms of a secondaries the first pick for MM.

/Dark was never in my choice for an MM - not because it may be bad, which it isnt, because i dont like the gameplay style.

Most of the secondaries seems not good for the MM or just unoptimized for MM.

Stuff like /FF /Traps, /Time /Fire seems always be the first choices for any primary. I never tested /Dark /Cold but /Dark also seems to be often picked and well known secondary.

When i would go for /fire it would be with Demons not only theme matching but it seem quite fitting.

 

For me i prefer currently /Traps over /FF, because of the easier gameplay mode, the only disadvantge is the long recharge for stuff like Triage Bacon, Acid Mortar when you dont have 5x LotG recharge which is quite expensive it sucks.

 

Is for Bots/Traps which APP/PPP should i use?

Power Boost as far as you said before isnt working with Traps and from my point on with Bots Shields it can work but you dont know when htey cast it.

 

Do you put in slots into your two upgrade skills because they show enhance defence/resistant with either IO Defence/restistant and later one Sets for actually +def/+resi to improve your minions or for selfbuffs like knockback/-down protection/+toxic/+psionic def/+resi?

 

What is Freaklympics arc?

Edited March 10 by benai

[Maelwys]

20 hours ago, benai said:

Is for Bots/Traps which APP/PPP should i use?

Power Boost as far as you said before isnt working with Traps and from my point on with Bots Shields it can work but you dont know when htey cast it.

Any APP/PPP can work, because you don't need Power Boost and with FFG plus Protector Bots you'll easilly be sitting at the softcap without Scorpion Shield.

Flame Mastery (No Resistance Shield, but Bonfire slotted with KB>KD is still very useful even after the recent nerf; and it'll work great with Caltrops) or Soul Mastery (Dark Embrace + Oppressive Gloom) or Mu Mastery (Charged Armor and Electric Fences) or Dark Mastery (Murky Cloud and Possess) are standouts though. On my own Bots/Traps, between Trip Mine and the Assbot's Burn Missile Swarm I found groups tended to die very quickly; but tougher bosses could sometimes be tricky... so I'd probably rate "Possess" (useful for Perma-Confusing Bosses) a bit higher than "Bonfire" or "Electric Fences" (useful for locking a large mob in place). Five slotted with the Coercive Persuasion Purple set (which tends to be one of the less expensive ones) it should be pretty decent.

Power Boost will do squat for the Protector Bot's Bubbles, PB is not an AoE and they won't inherit it off you. Realistically the only thing that will buff their shields other than direct Enhancement slotting is your Alpha Slot - and honestly, it's not worth swapping out of Musculature unless you're a /Kin.
 

Quote

Do you put in slots into your two upgrade skills because they show enhance defence/resistant with either IO Defence/restistant and later one Sets for actually +def/+resi to improve your minions or for selfbuffs like knockback/-down protection/+toxic/+psionic def/+resi?

Throw an extra slot or two into Equip Robot. You want it ED-capped for Damage Resistance (so 2x level 50+5 Damage Resistance IOs will do it, but it's also a decent place for the Gladiator's Armor and/or Steadfast Protection Uniques)

Upgrade Robot isn't worth slotting, throw the Preventative Medicine unique into it and call it a day.
 

Quote

What is Freaklympics arc?

This story arc.

You can run it repeatedly (even if you don't have the original contact unlocked) via the Ouroboros Flashback system for 57 Merits each time.

It's better merits-per-hour than most other things you can find because it has a mere 8 missions, and only one of them is a "Defeat All". However since it's a level 25-29 arc, you won't be seeing many expensive recipe drops + the only useful thing it gives is the merits. So just set your difficulty at the minimum (-1/1) and blitz through it.

If you're just converting the merits to influence (by buying Enhancement Boosters/Converters at the Merit Vendor and selling them in WW) then it won't beat the return of a decent "farming" character spamming +4/8 AE missions... but it has the advantage that it's rather quick and very easy to complete for almost any character. So it's decent money for anyone who is still levelling up and/or isn't fully min/maxed yet.
 

Edited March 10 by Maelwys

[Wolfboy1]

I love /dark

On 3/9/2024 at 5:23 PM, Xandyr said:

Can NEVER go wrong with /Dark!

 

I love dark except for one thing and one thing only...and to me it's so glaring that I am afraid to go back to /dark.

 

The heal.  If it wasn't a To Hit check this would be the absolute BEST secondary ever.  It debuffs everything to the ground, making almost any MM laugh in the face of danger.  However, if you have some bad RNG (hello me) and you want to quickly heal your pets...and you miss...well that might equate to a faceplant for you.

 

Now I know that a lot of people will say "You can always re-summon your henchmen." and yes that is true but why should you have to?  Especially bots which seem to take forever to deploy so you can get them back into the fight and upgraded again...

 

It would be nice if you still have at least one henchman out and its fully upgraded, your re-summoned henchmen should be fully upgraded as well.  Only when ALL have been destroyed/defeated should you have to go through the process again...IMO.

[Shocktacular]

So is /elec just considered a non-starter for a MM secondary, because I haven't seen it here and I rather like it.  Yeah, it's a more active secondary, but I like that on certain MM builds. It's got a heal and an absorb buff, a damage buff, a +resist location AoE with mez protection to keep your pets fighting, and an endurance-gain power to help keep you and your pets going. It has a couple debuffs, but nothing too impressive, so it may not be what you're looking for. I just wanted to throw it out there since no one else has. Since the mez protetion/+resist power is a location AoE, I find that /elec works better with pets that are more ranged or more melee rather than a mix of the two. My bots/elec is pretty fun and is one of my main new-player-helper characters. Demons/elec was an interesting combo, but probably not the best pairing. I've got a necro/elec in the works which is pretty decent, too.

[Wolfboy1]

1 hour ago, Shocktacular said:

So is /elec just considered a non-starter for a MM secondary, because I haven't seen it here and I rather like it.  Yeah, it's a more active secondary, but I like that on certain MM builds. It's got a heal and an absorb buff, a damage buff, a +resist location AoE with mez protection to keep your pets fighting, and an endurance-gain power to help keep you and your pets going. It has a couple debuffs, but nothing too impressive, so it may not be what you're looking for. I just wanted to throw it out there since no one else has. Since the mez protetion/+resist power is a location AoE, I find that /elec works better with pets that are more ranged or more melee rather than a mix of the two. My bots/elec is pretty fun and is one of my main new-player-helper characters. Demons/elec was an interesting combo, but probably not the best pairing. I've got a necro/elec in the works which is pretty decent, too.

 

I have a bots/elec myself and I do "like" it but im only level 9 with it currently.  I think it only has two de-buff powers.  One is a ST the other is a weaker AoE.  They both do the same thing however and that's de-buff the Recovery/Regen/damage of the enemy.  No other de-buffs at all but on the flip side, the other powers buff your damage, to-hit, regen, recovery and maybe one or two other things.  I can see why some people like it, and others don't like it at all.

 

I keep hearing /traps is really good on bots...and that you don't need to take a lot of the powers in the set to be effective, opening up pool/ancillary powers.

[Maelwys]

8 hours ago, Shocktacular said:

So is /elec just considered a non-starter for a MM secondary

It plays very similar to Thermal, but your damage resistance buffs and mez protection are tied to a set location (making you slower to move from place to place - on an AT that is already renowned for its slowness on team content!) and your "chain" abilities are only sometimes AoE.
Perhaps most notably however, its capstone ability 'Amp Up' is practically worthless on pets (aside from perhaps the Necromancy's Lich ) because pets are unaffected by recharge time changes and unlike most 'Power Boosting' effects it only increases Defence/ToHit DEBUFFS not BUFFS.

Although it's probably still better than /Sonic.
 

Edited March 12 by Maelwys

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, Wolfboy1 said:

I keep hearing /traps is really good on bots...and that you don't need to take a lot of the powers in the set to be effective, opening up pool/ancillary powers.

I'd a Bots/Traps on live for years (it was my second MM to reach 50, after Bots/Dark).

Admittedly I've not really played it much since circa issue 13 or so (the PVP revamp - I primarilly levelled it as a PVP toon whenever Teleport-Foe into a deathzone of Caltrops/PoisonTrap/TripMine was a thing) but I can at least comment a bit from what it felt like in PVE.

Back then you could certainly get by with just the Force Field Generator, Poison Trap, Acid Mortar and Caltrops - the FFG was rather squishy and tended to lag behind a bit if you moved too quickly, but it could be resummoned very quickly.
Trip Mine was useful for something to do whilst the Bots pew-pew-pewed - being able to attain total Stealth (via a +Stealth IO in sprint and the Stealth Power) also let you sneak to a new group to toebomb them. "Pulling" foes to a sea of tripmines got old very quickly; but setting up killzones in things like the Terra Volta respec trial (where you knew in advance where an ambush would spawn) was fun.
Web Grenade was useful at keeping the occasional difficult boss at range (and in pvp)

Triage Beacon was completely skippable, as was Timebomb/Detonator (although it's since been reworked and may be more useful these days?)
The Seeker Drones were occasionally useful for extra Crowd Control and -damage debuff; but I can't picture them being needed in the current meta.

Honestly I imagine it's still one of those secondaries which is fine for soloing, but doesn't really lend itself much to endgame teaming. Most of its powers are slow to set up and kick in and these days teams tend to barrel as fast as possible from one spawn to the next.
 

Edited March 12 by Maelwys

[Shocktacular]

9 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 your damage resistance buffs and mez protection are tied to a set location (making you slower to move from place to place - on an AT that is already renowned for its slowness on team content!) 

With some recharge it's not too bad. I've got mine down to about 4-5 seconds (without hasten), which seems good enough for most teams.

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, Shocktacular said:

With some recharge it's not too bad. I've got mine down to about 4-5 seconds (without hasten), which seems good enough for most teams.

Oh sure rechargewise it's possible to spam Faraday Cage fairly quickly, and you can work around the endurance drain.
But I meant the "EVERYBODY GATHER UP AND STAND HERE... HELLO? WHY ARE YOU ALL THREE ROOMS AWAY ALREADY?" aspect.

IO'ed-up teams tend to move fast, and other than specific boss fights generally sprint from one spawn to the next, AoEing as they go... henchmen are one thing, but good luck convincing an average PUG to do anything other than ninja run right through your protective bubble and out the other side; if they even read the chat and/or notice you casting it in the first place.

[Shocktacular]

I usually just point out that staying in the bubble will help protect them every so often and leave it up to them whether they make use of it or not. I try to place it as conveniently as I can, but if people don't want to use it then it's up to them. My bots/elec can usually take care of herself even if everyone else on the team is dead, so it's not that big a deal to me.

... it seems like I should quote some saying about a horse and water... 😛 

[benai]

And when I look for a good build, how do I know that this is a suitable one because I have zero clue which enhancement mixture is needed.

Because a MM is 100% mixed and frankenslotting.

 

I think I go as main for Ninjas/Time/Mace, Mercs/FF/Mace or one of the common MM bots build so either Bots/FF/mace or Bots/Traps/Soul.

 

 

Edited March 14 by benai

[WumpusRat]

On 3/12/2024 at 5:50 PM, Maelwys said:

Oh sure rechargewise it's possible to spam Faraday Cage fairly quickly, and you can work around the endurance drain.
But I meant the "EVERYBODY GATHER UP AND STAND HERE... HELLO? WHY ARE YOU ALL THREE ROOMS AWAY ALREADY?" aspect.

IO'ed-up teams tend to move fast, and other than specific boss fights generally sprint from one spawn to the next, AoEing as they go... henchmen are one thing, but good luck convincing an average PUG to do anything other than ninja run right through your protective bubble and out the other side; if they even read the chat and/or notice you casting it in the first place.

 

The thing is, if the team is moving so rapidly that they're insta-wiping spawns and sprinting to the next one, faraday cage isn't really needed. But when you hit things like AVs, or big pitched fights with lots of tough mobs (like the wall of cyclops and minotaurs in the third ITF mission, or the robot control box, etc) then having faraday cage can be quite nice. And of course everyone loves having it when you're fighting an AV or GM. I've seen tons of people praise having faraday cage present when fighting Romulus at the end of the ITF, and when someone else uses it I love having it there as well. 

 

The base recharge on FC is only 10s, so even minimal recharge in the power and some global recharge will get it down to 4-5 seconds. If groups are wiping spawns of mobs and getting to the next one in less than 4 seconds, then you're likely running on such a low difficulty that even the squishiest blaster isn't in any real danger. 🙂