Help with MM Merc/Time build with IOs and incarnates plz

[chusski]

Hello, i am new 50 at game. And atm dont know much about enchant and sets or how to do good build. Can you help share a good build for Merc/time MM? thx very much guys ^^

[Meknomancer]

7 hours ago, chusski said:

Hello, i am new 50 at game. And atm dont know much about enchant and sets or how to do good build. Can you help share a good build for Merc/time MM? thx very much guys ^^

 

 

My old mercs/time (old'ish) a favourite i ended up with 3 of them on different servers. Used to be a  great solo gm hunter before page 7. I haven't tested it solo since. Could probably do with some fiddling enhances'wise but i never felt the need. 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd

[chusski02]

1 hour ago, Meknomancer said:

 

 

Mis viejos mercenarios/tiempo (antiguo) son mis favoritos. Terminé con 3 de ellos en diferentes servidores. Solía ser un gran cazador de GM en solitario antes de la página 7. No lo he probado en solitario desde entonces. Probablemente le vendría bien algunas mejoras en el violín, pero nunca sentí la necesidad. 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenarios - Manipulación del tiempo).mbd 46,32 kB · 1 descarga

Thx very much, with that build what can you notoriety lvl do? +4/8 ?  

[Meknomancer]

1 hour ago, chusski02 said:

Thx very much, with that build what can you notoriety lvl do? +4/8 ?  

 

Its fine on teams at +4, i never tried soloing +4's. Did a lot of itf's at that rep with no problems and i'd just hop into rooms herd them up with times juncture and stick the pets in the centre with a macro. Don't see a lot of tf content run at that rep when teaming except in cimerora. Solo i just run at +2/8 pet damage isn't fantastic it just takes too long to kill stuff.

[chusski02]

30 minutes ago, Meknomancer said:

 

Está bien en equipos a +4, nunca intenté jugar en solitario con +4. Hice muchas cosas en ese representante sin problemas y simplemente saltaba a las habitaciones, las reunía con los tiempos y colocaba a las mascotas en el centro con una macro. No veo mucho contenido tf ejecutado en ese representante cuando se trabaja en equipo, excepto en cimerora. Solo, simplemente corro con +2/8 de daño de mascota, no es fantástico, simplemente lleva demasiado tiempo matar cosas.

oh nice then. i have alot of question. i am new bie really^^

 

1- on the mid reborn there a way to see the total stats of pets?

2- on mid reborn, when put cursor over the skill, if there are % numbers in red or yellow, are good or bad thing ? 

3- I have made some changes to your build (from ignorance), to try to upload the defense (I imagine it is that of the main toon). but maybe I would have to balance defense and resistance, I don't know... can you give me your opinion?

 

thx very much 

 

MERCS TIME MU v3- Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd

[Meknomancer]

1 hour ago, chusski02 said:

oh nice then. i have alot of question. i am new bie really^^

 

1- on the mid reborn there a way to see the total stats of pets?

2- on mid reborn, when put cursor over the skill, if there are % numbers in red or yellow, are good or bad thing ? 

3- I have made some changes to your build (from ignorance), to try to upload the defense (I imagine it is that of the main toon). but maybe I would have to balance defense and resistance, I don't know... can you give me your opinion?

 

thx very much 

 

MERCS TIME MU v3- Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd 45.71 kB · 1 download

 

 

I don't think there's any way to see pet stats in mids. You can go on beta and create a lvl 50 instantly and slot it for 0 if you wanted to see exact numbers.

When you mouse over the skill it will show how close you are to 100% in that area. Anything over 100% does not count and thats when you see the red. So if you turn off musculature alpha you will see pet damage drops below 100%, turn it back on it goes over 100% and goes red.

 

The changes you made didn't raise the defence. You have vengeance turned on. You lowered the defence when you removed the winter set entomb in time stop, it gave ranged/energy/negative energy/fire/cold/aoe. A lot.

 

 Mids is showing you with 71% smashing and lethal and 69% energy defence. That number drops, 15 seconds roughly once powerboost fades. You still get decent defence from powerboosted farsight but for some reason mids only shows the immediate effects and not the actual numbers 15 seconds later. They will be lower.

 

Theres a rule of 5 when it comes to most enhances. 5 luck of the gambler 7.5% recharge. No.6 and no. 7 don't count.

6 slot farsight with reactive bits.

You dropped time crawl and time stop, together they are a large - regen debuff on hard targets, but you do not need them in build.

You dropped M30 grenade, it had a force feedback in to get recharge high. If your numbers are right in mids you got perma serum without it which is impressive.

The 5th Dark Watcher in TJ gives you a damage bonus that only applies to you, you just gave up all your personal attacks so thats a waste.

You put 3 purples into Distortion Field, put all 5 in for recharge bonus. Or 2 slot with stereocilla exposure (Hammi enhances)

By putting mace patron shield in you now have 0 resistance to anything when you get hit. That will hurt.

You don't need tactics heavily slotted when you have farsight. The gaussian piece will only fire off on you (almost never) and you have 0 personal attack to make use of it.

The 4th thunderstrike in burst gives an accuracy bonus. You already have more than you need.

 

Click totals. Bottom left. Recovery. End Drain. If end drain is more than half of recovery it often means endurance issues.

 

I see you translated the above post into spanish or portugese? Hope all this makes sense 🙂

 

Made a couple modifications. I realised you do have burst still so you have at least 1 attack.

 

 

 

MERCS TIME MU v3- Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd

Edited March 26 by Meknomancer
add build

[Maelwys]

I posted this yesterday in the Bots/Time thread; but the biggest contribution to pet survivablity on a /Time MM will be combining Farsight with both Power Boost + a Radial Clarion Destiny.

With ED-capped +Defense slotting, Farsight grants about ~14.7% Defence to all.
Power Boost raises that to ~20.9%
Power Boost AND Clarion Radial Epiphany (or Clarion Total Radial Invocation) brings that total up to ~28.4%
Throw in another ~4.13% from Maneuvers and +10% from the two +Def IOs and your pets will be just a few percent shy of the regular 45% Def Softcap.

If you desperately want to reach the Softcap without other buffs (Support Destiny, Diamagnetic Interface, Lore pet with +Def bubble, etc) you can technically do so via a +Def Alpha like Agility Core Paragon and a little overslotting in Farsight.

(Not bad for tapping three buttons every 120 seconds...)

Edited March 26 by Maelwys

[chusski02]

12 hours ago, Meknomancer said:

 

 

I don't think there's any way to see pet stats in mids. You can go on beta and create a lvl 50 instantly and slot it for 0 if you wanted to see exact numbers.

When you mouse over the skill it will show how close you are to 100% in that area. Anything over 100% does not count and thats when you see the red. So if you turn off musculature alpha you will see pet damage drops below 100%, turn it back on it goes over 100% and goes red.

 

The changes you made didn't raise the defence. You have vengeance turned on. You lowered the defence when you removed the winter set entomb in time stop, it gave ranged/energy/negative energy/fire/cold/aoe. A lot.

 

 Mids is showing you with 71% smashing and lethal and 69% energy defence. That number drops, 15 seconds roughly once powerboost fades. You still get decent defence from powerboosted farsight but for some reason mids only shows the immediate effects and not the actual numbers 15 seconds later. They will be lower.

 

Theres a rule of 5 when it comes to most enhances. 5 luck of the gambler 7.5% recharge. No.6 and no. 7 don't count.

6 slot farsight with reactive bits.

You dropped time crawl and time stop, together they are a large - regen debuff on hard targets, but you do not need them in build.

You dropped M30 grenade, it had a force feedback in to get recharge high. If your numbers are right in mids you got perma serum without it which is impressive.

The 5th Dark Watcher in TJ gives you a damage bonus that only applies to you, you just gave up all your personal attacks so thats a waste.

You put 3 purples into Distortion Field, put all 5 in for recharge bonus. Or 2 slot with stereocilla exposure (Hammi enhances)

By putting mace patron shield in you now have 0 resistance to anything when you get hit. That will hurt.

You don't need tactics heavily slotted when you have farsight. The gaussian piece will only fire off on you (almost never) and you have 0 personal attack to make use of it.

The 4th thunderstrike in burst gives an accuracy bonus. You already have more than you need.

 

Click totals. Bottom left. Recovery. End Drain. If end drain is more than half of recovery it often means endurance issues.

 

I see you translated the above post into spanish or portugese? Hope all this makes sense 🙂

 

Made a couple modifications. I realised you do have burst still so you have at least 1 attack.

 

 

 

MERCS TIME MU v3- Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd 45.33 kB · 3 downloads

Thank you both very much for answering me.

 

Sorry Meknomancer for reposting you translated into Spanish. The lack of knowledge of the game is not my only handicap, my English is not very good, and some of the technical terms you use, or clichés, confuse me.

 

Meknomancer, very good idea to try it on the beta server, I didn't know you could do that...
I'm trying the first build you gave me. and in TF +2/8 work fine.

But would it be possible for you to help me modify it, even if it loses some attack power, so that the pets would be more resistant and/or do more damage?
I would also prefer to use fly than or superjump than superspeed.

I like to play as if I were a healer, buffer (AOE or toggle) and let the pets do the work.

On the other hand, I don't know if I understood Maelwys correctly, but haven't you told me that power boost only lasts 15 seconds? and I think radial clarion too... even though they have low cooldown, pressing 2 power continuously is too much, right?

Many thanks^^

[Meknomancer]

7 hours ago, chusski02 said:

Thank you both very much for answering me.

 

Sorry Meknomancer for reposting you translated into Spanish. The lack of knowledge of the game is not my only handicap, my English is not very good, and some of the technical terms you use, or clichés, confuse me.

 

Meknomancer, very good idea to try it on the beta server, I didn't know you could do that...
I'm trying the first build you gave me. and in TF +2/8 work fine.

But would it be possible for you to help me modify it, even if it loses some attack power, so that the pets would be more resistant and/or do more damage?
I would also prefer to use fly than or superjump than superspeed.

I like to play as if I were a healer, buffer (AOE or toggle) and let the pets do the work.

On the other hand, I don't know if I understood Maelwys correctly, but haven't you told me that power boost only lasts 15 seconds? and I think radial clarion too... even though they have low cooldown, pressing 2 power continuously is too much, right?

Many thanks^^

 

 

Don't apologise for the translation i was just wondering what language it was. If you want more damage from pets just check out any post by @StrikerFox. They have ton a lot of work testing pet damage and maximising it with extra chance for damage pieces in the pets.

 

Powerboosted farsight only lasts 15 seconds but some of the defence stays with you. I do not know the mathematics of it or even how it works exactly- i do not trust it anymore, its another reason i prefer using a resistance shield like mu or soul. What i see in mids is roughly what i get in game. Powerboosted farsight from mace will show very high numbers- but mids will not show you how far those numbers drop after powerboost wears off.

 

Just taking my original build and throwing in procs in the pets and the fighting pool and flying gives you this:

 

 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd

 

Or this. You can really do whatever you want, its up to you what powers you want and how tough you want to be, how much recharge you want in your build. How much damage you want pets to do. What power pools you want. You can play about in mids til you get exactly what you want.

 

 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd

Edited March 27 by Meknomancer

[chusski02]

2 hours ago, Meknomancer said:

 

 

Don't apologise for the translation i was just wondering what language it was. If you want more damage from pets just check out any post by @StrikerFox. They have ton a lot of work testing pet damage and maximising it with extra chance for damage pieces in the pets.

 

Powerboosted farsight only lasts 15 seconds but some of the defence stays with you. I do not know the mathematics of it or even how it works exactly- i do not trust it anymore, its another reason i prefer using a resistance shield like mu or soul. What i see in mids is roughly what i get in game. Powerboosted farsight from mace will show very high numbers- but mids will not show you how far those numbers drop after powerboost wears off.

 

Just taking my original build and throwing in procs in the pets and the fighting pool and flying gives you this:

 

 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd 46.27 kB · 1 download

 

Or this. You can really do whatever you want, its up to you what powers you want and how tough you want to be, how much recharge you want in your build. How much damage you want pets to do. What power pools you want. You can play about in mids til you get exactly what you want.

 

 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd 46.25 kB · 1 download

Thank you very much for spending some of your time helping me.

 

some words or terms that I don't understand:

porcs: what is this? chance of xxxx damage are a proc?

what are softcap?

 

I'm trying to understand some changes:

evasive maneuvers are def buf aoe, but why need group fly? there are set of enchts combo or something ?

aren't better to take tactics or stealth for to hit buff or more def aoe?

 

I really don't understand the difference between these last 2 builds, sorry. They only change some chats and slots, right?

[Meknomancer]

3 hours ago, chusski02 said:

Thank you very much for spending some of your time helping me.

 

some words or terms that I don't understand:

porcs: what is this? chance of xxxx damage are a proc?

what are softcap?

 

I'm trying to understand some changes:

evasive maneuvers are def buf aoe, but why need group fly? there are set of enchts combo or something ?

aren't better to take tactics or stealth for to hit buff or more def aoe?

 

I really don't understand the difference between these last 2 builds, sorry. They only change some chats and slots, right?

 

 

You can just take any power you want. Then put in enhances to get the recharge/damage/defence/resistance you want.

 

Straight from wiki:

 

 

If you are participating in an online multiplayer game, you might see people using the term "Proc." The acronym is not easy to figure out. What is the definition of Proc?

 

Proc stands for Programmed Random Occurrence.

 

How Proc Is Used

Proc is a computer gaming term that rhymes with "dock." Proc is used as both a noun and a verb to describe whenever a random gaming item activates or a random gaming event occurs.

 

 

 

 

In this case, its the enhances with a chance to do extra damage/special effect. Touch of Lady Grey: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for instance in the mastermind pets.

 

Softcap:

 

Soft Cap - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

 

 

Evasive manouvres- it increases flight speed and control and prevents immobilization. And slots a luck of the gambler 7.5%/winters gift slow resistance/blessings of the zephyr etc. 

Grou Fly. I love it, Homecoming changed it form the original game, its much better now. Why take it? Mercs are all ranged, if they are out of range of melee attacks they die less. Mercs are slow, group fly lets them keep up when you are in large zones or maps. Group fly can be disabled at Null the Gull in Pocket D if team mates find it annoying. Or its easily turned off. You do not need it. Its just an option.

 

Not much difference between the 2 builds. I was just showing you how easy it is to move slots and enhances around if you want different powers but trying to stay near the 45% softcap.

 

If you want mace and powerboost you can easily take those. 

 

Its hard to build for another player without seeing the other players powerpicks. What powers would you take? What powers do you like? All i did was put my 1 of my own builds for mercs/time. Its not the best build. Its just the way i like to play with the powers i want. You need to work out what powers you like. Then put slots in. Then put enhances in. Then shuffle slots and enhances around to get the defence and recharge you want.   

 

For example. No attacks. Just a few clicky and distortion field. Mace mastery and powerboost. All i did was shuffle slots and enhances from the above builds. It still says mu but its not.

 

 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd

 

I don't understand the numbers they look way too high. No idea why. Ah, i see it now. Turn off hybrid support core.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 27 by Meknomancer

[Maelwys]

  

8 hours ago, Meknomancer said:

Powerboosted farsight only lasts 15 seconds but some of the defence stays with you. I do not know the mathematics of it or even how it works exactly

The idea is pretty straightforward once you break it down.
When you hit Power Boost (and/or Clarion Radial) you get a short-duration buff that boosts the secondary effects of your powers.
Any power that you activate before that buff which has those secondary effects (ToHit, Defence, etc) expires gets its values massively boosted.

"Toggles" and most passive "Auto" powers refresh every few seconds and do a fresh check each time they cycle. So shortly after the Powerboost buff expires... their values will return to normal.
However most "Clicky" buffs (perhaps most notably long-duration +Defence-granting abilities like Fortitude, Forcefield Bubbles, Farsight, etc!) only check to see if they're boosted ONCE whenever you first activate them. So if they're boosted when you cast them, then they'll maintain that boost for their entire duration. Which means if you can get Power Boost to recharge again before that power expires, the boost can be effectively "permanent".

There are a few exceptions - Cold Domination's Bubbles and Darkness Affinity's Fade are coded with a flag to "ignore external strength boosts" (this is because those powers buff 'damage resistance' as well as 'defence'; and there's a convoluted coding thing in CoH where if you boosted the strength of a character's Damage Resistance then you'd also boost their damage output - so the short version is that Power Boost effects don't work in any powers that grant Damage Resistance)
 

[Meknomancer]

31 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

  

The idea is pretty straightforward once you break it down.
When you hit Power Boost (and/or Clarion Radial) you get a short-duration buff that boosts the secondary effects of your powers.
Any power that you activate before that buff which has those secondary effects (ToHit, Defence, etc) expires gets its values massively boosted.

"Toggles" and most passive "Auto" powers refresh every few seconds and do a fresh check each time they cycle. So shortly after the Powerboost buff expires... their values will return to normal.
However most "Clicky" buffs (perhaps most notably long-duration +Defence-granting abilities like Fortitude, Forcefield Bubbles, Farsight, etc!) only check to see if they're boosted ONCE whenever you first activate them. So if they're boosted when you cast them, then they'll maintain that boost for their entire duration. Which means if you can get Power Boost to recharge again before that power expires, the boost can be effectively "permanent".

There are a few exceptions - Cold Domination's Bubbles and Darkness Affinity's Fade are coded with a flag to "ignore external strength boosts" (this is because those powers buff 'damage resistance' as well as 'defence'; and there's a convoluted coding thing in CoH where if you boosted the strength of a character's Damage Resistance then you'd also boost their damage output - so the short version is that Power Boost effects don't work in any powers that grant Damage Resistance)
 

 

 

I run a time/dp fender and power build followed by farsight bumps defence massively the same way a power boosted one would, but the numbers drop off once PBU drops. Its been so long since i ran mace mastery with anything but bubbles i haven't checked to see if PB is maintaining the numbers on farsight. Its not the only reason i prefer the resist epics over mace but watching the defence numbers drop after 15 seconds in game after putting together the build in mids is disappointing. If mace maintains the defence then i may give it another spin. 

 

I do run a lot of corrs with soul for power boosted clarion for soloing av's and just like the mm's they seem to work way better with a resistance epic (for me)

 

Appreciate the response, worded better than anything i could come up with other than i just don't have a clue about the maths of it or why mids doesn't show the diminishing numbers.

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Meknomancer said:

I run a time/dp fender and power build followed by farsight bumps defence massively the same way a power boosted one would, but the numbers drop off once PBU drops.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the reason you're seeing defence spiking/dropping is because of powers other than Farsight (Autos/Toggles/etc) contributing to your Defence.
Try expanding the Combat Attributes screen so that you're not just looking at the tooltip + you can see each of the values contributing to your current Defence - check Farsight's buff at the 1 second and 119 second mark; it should be identical.

I just hopped on Brainstorm and did a quick test using the exact same powerset combo - a fresh unenhanced Lv50 Time/DualPistols/EnergyMastery Defender.
 
BEFORE DOING ANYTHING
 


WHILST PBU IS RUNNING
 


LONG AFTER PBU EXPIRES, RIGHT BEFORE FARSIGHT DOES


Farsight as currently coded literally cannot alter the defence buff value it's granting midway through its 120s duration.
https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=defender_buff.time_manipulation.farsight&at=defender
Note that no child effects are applied here and there is no"Activate Period" listed. It simply applies one single long-duration buff (Ranged_Buff_Def * 1.25 Defence) for 120 seconds. Since the system applies this buff precisely once (1.667 seconds into the casting of the power - "Animation Time Before Effect") only one single check is ever performed to see if anything is boosting the value (Enhancements/Power Boosting/Whatever).

Compare this with a different power like Maneuvers/Combat Jumping/Stealth/Hover and you'll notice the duration of those buffs is measured in at most a few seconds but they have "activate periods" which are very slightly shorter than the duration... so they continually refresh and continually adjust their buff values over time.

 

Quote

i just don't have a clue about the maths of it or why mids doesn't show the diminishing numbers.

If you're just going off the numbers in Mids then you'll need to manually account for the effect that Power Boost's expiry has on your toggles.

First ensure the green checkmark in Mids next to Farsight and Power Boost/Build Up is OFF and record your regular non-boosted total defence. Then check Farsight and Power Boost/Build Up back ON again and record the defence value listed ONLY in the "effects" tab of the Farsight power itself (not your totals!). Finally add those two numbers together and that's what you can expect to actually get in-game.
 

Edited March 27 by Maelwys

[Maelwys]

Also, just for fairness sake - respecced to Soul Mastery and tested with Power Boost.
(Identical behaviour!)

  

[StrikerFox]

I think this is the slotting to give Merc pets their max amount of damage. But it sacrifices majority of the pet uniques. If you would like to remove procs in favor of Edict/Sovereign/Call to Arms/Expedient, remove them from the Commando first, and then Spec-Ops. 

 

MERCS TIME MU v3- Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation) SFA.mbd 

MERCS TIME MU v3- Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation) SFB.mbd

Don't worry about their accuracy too much. Most pet attacks apply a -defense debuff, making targets easier to hit. Also between Power Boosted Farsight (+12% tohit), Tactics (+12% tohit), Supremacy (+10% tohit) and Serum (+5% tohit average) gives pets around +39% tohit. A Kismet unique could be added to Tactical Upgrade to give them an additional +6% tohit (For a total of +45%).

Good luck! Crazy build, I love that Serum is pretty much perma.

[chusski02]

On 3/27/2024 at 7:36 PM, Meknomancer said:

 

 

You can just take any power you want. Then put in enhances to get the recharge/damage/defence/resistance you want.

 

Straight from wiki:

 

 

If you are participating in an online multiplayer game, you might see people using the term "Proc." The acronym is not easy to figure out. What is the definition of Proc?

 

Proc stands for Programmed Random Occurrence.

 

How Proc Is Used

Proc is a computer gaming term that rhymes with "dock." Proc is used as both a noun and a verb to describe whenever a random gaming item activates or a random gaming event occurs.

 

 

 

 

In this case, its the enhances with a chance to do extra damage/special effect. Touch of Lady Grey: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for instance in the mastermind pets.

 

Softcap:

 

Soft Cap - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

 

 

Evasive manouvres- it increases flight speed and control and prevents immobilization. And slots a luck of the gambler 7.5%/winters gift slow resistance/blessings of the zephyr etc. 

Grou Fly. I love it, Homecoming changed it form the original game, its much better now. Why take it? Mercs are all ranged, if they are out of range of melee attacks they die less. Mercs are slow, group fly lets them keep up when you are in large zones or maps. Group fly can be disabled at Null the Gull in Pocket D if team mates find it annoying. Or its easily turned off. You do not need it. Its just an option.

 

Not much difference between the 2 builds. I was just showing you how easy it is to move slots and enhances around if you want different powers but trying to stay near the 45% softcap.

 

If you want mace and powerboost you can easily take those. 

 

Its hard to build for another player without seeing the other players powerpicks. What powers would you take? What powers do you like? All i did was put my 1 of my own builds for mercs/time. Its not the best build. Its just the way i like to play with the powers i want. You need to work out what powers you like. Then put slots in. Then put enhances in. Then shuffle slots and enhances around to get the defence and recharge you want.   

 

For example. No attacks. Just a few clicky and distortion field. Mace mastery and powerboost. All i did was shuffle slots and enhances from the above builds. It still says mu but its not.

 

 

MERCS TIME MU - Mastermind (Mercenaries - Time Manipulation).mbd 45.12 kB · 1 download

 

I don't understand the numbers they look way too high. No idea why. Ah, i see it now. Turn off hybrid support core.

 

 

 

 

Thank you Meknomancer, Maelwys, StrikerFox, for helping me and sharing your knowledge.

But I'm going to try the flight group build that you have prepared for my Meknomancer.

Thx very much