Necro/Dev Build Help

[SourceField]

I haven't played since Live went down and I am trying to get back into how to build characters. Back then, we had SO's with HO's to look forward to, so I don't know much about these new fangled IO's and sets and whatnot.

I am leveling a Necro/Dev MM and need help with what powers and slots to take at each level. I am leveling using the event and doing TF's but my plan on hitting 50 is to start doing all of the story missions solo. (My teaming up characters are Controllers and Blasters so I wanted something I could just walk through story casually.) I will only being using the common workbench enhancements for now, until I can make some really good inf and learn what proper IO's to make/buy and slot later on.
 

The powers that I absolutely want are, the 3 summons and two upgrades. Caltrops, Acid Beacon, Trip Mine, Poison Trap, and Force Field Generator. Flight, Teleport Target and Fold Space (I don't like TP as a travel power so however you can get me Fold Space is fine). Assault and Tactics. Stealth. Grant Invisibility would be great but not necessary.

 

Thank you.

[Xandyr]

You might want to consider taking 1 or 2 attacks just to be able to spawn a spectre. They help draw aggro, plus do damage.

 Definitely take Soul Extraction. Summons the "soul" of each of your pets. It's great for extra damage/mitigation, plus a great place to put the unique Pet IOs. There are 2 that increase your pets' defenses by 5% each, and 2 that increase their resistances by 10% each. There is a Mastermind IO that increases your pets' AoE defense, and another that increases their Regeneration rate and their Resistances by 15%. Just by getting them, you're increasing their Defense by 10%, their Regeneration rate, and their Resistances by 35%. The Defense ones will really help since you'll have the FFG.

 Necro is one of the sets that were revamped recently. They're WAY better now than they were Live. The 2 upgrades can now take Resistance IOs and Heal IOs.

 

 The IO system can be difficult to understand, and it can also be easy to understand.  If you look at, say, Luck of the Gambler (a Defense IO). You'll see that this set has 6 "pieces". One of which is a Defense/Global Recharge IO. If you slot this one piece in a power that takes Defense enhancements,  it will increase the Defense of that power, PLUS increase your Global Recharge by 7.5%. Global recharge is great, as it will let all your powers Recharge that much faster. Now, if you slot this piece, AND another enhancement from the same set, say the Defense Luck of the Gambler, it will increase the Defense value of that power. PLUS, since you have 2 enhancements from the LotG set, you will increase your Regeneration rate by 10%. By looking at the set bonuses of different IOs, you can slot enhancements to help increase your Defense, Regeneration,  Resistances,  Range, End Recovery, etc etc. So...if you want to focus on building for Melee Defense, you can look at all the IOs that give a set bonus that increases Defense/Melee Defense and slot those. Hopefully that makes sense?

 I'll try to get on later and see about a build.

[Xandyr]

I'm no expert ( @StrikerFox comes to mind for being an MM expert), but here's something I threw together that I think checks off all the powers you wanted.

 

Mastermind (Necromancy - Traps).mbd

[StrikerFox]

Don't give the guy false info. I really don't know what I'm doing most of the time. I tried just swapping in Necro on my Bots/Traps build but it came out horrible. But here's the slotting I got for Necro pets and upgrades. The most worthwhile damage procs are slotted, all the pet uniques, Overwhelming proc for mitigation. Also Lich's debuffs/mez powers are enhanced a bit. Pets will get a good amount of +res, +hp, and +regen. Also overall, it gives them some decent stats. For the MM it provides +30% rech and mules the Steadfast and Glad Armor uniques. Not much more beyond that. Musculature Core Alpha would be ideal.

 

Necro Pet Slotting.mbd

[SourceField]

Thanks for the ideas. I appreciate it.

[tidge]

On 4/3/2024 at 9:20 PM, SourceField said:

The powers that I absolutely want are, the 3 summons and two upgrades. Caltrops, Acid Beacon, Trip Mine, Poison Trap, and Force Field Generator. Flight, Teleport Target and Fold Space (I don't like TP as a travel power so however you can get me Fold Space is fine). Assault and Tactics. Stealth. Grant Invisibility would be great but not necessary.

 

With /Traps, I recommend only:

 

T1 Caltrops

T4 Acid Mortar

T5 FFG

T6 Poison Trap

 

Web Grenade is of limited utility. Triage Beacon is ok, but generally you will be moving. I like Seeker Drones, but they are also of limited utility. Trip Mine slows you down too much. I have not tried the "new" Detonator, but generally I prefer my henchmen to be doing damage via their attacks.

 

One problem with Necro/Traps is that you will have to take 3 of the following 5 powers:

 

T1 Dark Blast

T2 Zombie Horde

T3 Gloom

T1 Web Grenade

T2 Caltrops

 

I've highlighted the ones I recommend, Gloom is picked because it is a DoT, and generally ranged sets are better than immobilize sets for bonuses. Even with just two slots Gloom will be useful in ways that Web Grenade is not.

 

You won't need Concealment pool powers until late, and then as mules for LotG. Making henchmen invisible is quite marginal in the scheme of things. I suppose you can use an invisible henchmen to Detonate, but that seems to be somewhat time consuming to set up. Likewise with Fold Space.... but it seems like you have an idea of how you want to play, so run with it.

 

[Jacke]

Due to most Pets, including all Mastermind Henchmen, not benefiting from the build's Global Accuracy and Global ToHit (despite MRB showing they do), should use my two Pet build principles to get the Pets hitting as much as possible.

• Pet Summons powers need to be slotted with ED-capped Accuracy.
• When important Pet powers have less than 1.2 Base Accuracy (MM Henchmen have a mix of 1.0 and 1.1, and the Tier 1 and 2's are downleveled😿 )
  the build should have Leadership Tactics, even the weak MM Tactics, even with just the base slot with a L50+5 ToHit or a L50+5 ToHit/EndRed IO.

Yep, need to dig into CoD2 for every Pet Summons power and check them and their dependencies out.

 

 

11 hours ago, tidge said:

With /Traps, I recommend only:

 

T1 Caltrops

T4 Acid Mortar

T5 FFG

T6 Poison Trap

 

Web Grenade is of limited utility. Triage Beacon is ok, but generally you will be moving. I like Seeker Drones, but they are also of limited utility. Trip Mine slows you down too much. I have not tried the "new" Detonator, but generally I prefer my henchmen to be doing damage via their attacks.

....

You won't need Concealment pool powers until late, and then as mules for LotG. Making henchmen invisible is quite marginal in the scheme of things. I suppose you can use an invisible henchmen to Detonate, but that seems to be somewhat time consuming to set up. Likewise with Fold Space.... but it seems like you have an idea of how you want to play, so run with it.

 

Another Repeat Offender, @Psyonico, who has way more Traps experience than me, has commented that Caltrops is more useful at low level.  But that Web Grenade comes into usefulness at high level to tie down those silly running AVs.  Because when you don't take it will be the time when you end up on a Team with no well-stackable Immob and more runners than Logan had to deal with.  😺  I now have Toxic Web Grenade back in my AR/Dev builds with a L50 Dam/Mez HO, using Global ToHit and Global Accuracy, which the Toon has a lot of.

 

I believe Psy also likes both Triage Beacon (which I share), but damn, it needs at least a few slots and Global Recharge.  He also likes Seeker Drones, when I'd skip them.

 

As a player who mains an AR/Dev Blaster, I love Trip Mine.  I'd take it on a Traps Toon as I used it on my /Dev Blaster before it lost its Interrupt time.  I also go for stealth on all my toons and do so early, no later than L20 and usually closer to L12.  More problematic with a Mastermind, which I've not played to very high level.  Would still keep it at my usual levels, but may not use it as much.

 

Detonator is a panic button.  If there's room, perhaps take it, even maybe with just the base slot.  Likely rather skippable.

 

As for Fold Space, I'm trying it on my L50 Fire/Rad Controller who has Hot Feet and a few Containment powers and others to debuff and discombobulate the mobs.  Got a new build for it and will test it out, as I didn't play it enough to be sure about it.  (Plan to Teleport into the mobs with Hot Feet going, Fold Space, Flashfire, Fire Cages, Bonfire, then cook 'em on down.  😺)  Problem is it needs 3 Teleport Pool Power Picks and at minimum 2 extra slots for Fold Space itself.  Really need a reason to pull in mobs every 40 to 50 seconds or so.  Would it be that good to say drop a Poison Trap and a Trip Mine, then Fold Space?  Would need testing.  And good mastery of the Toon without Fold Space before testing.

 

 

11 hours ago, tidge said:

One problem with Necro/Traps is that you will have to take 3 of the following 5 powers:

 

T1 Dark Blast

T2 Zombie Horde

T3 Gloom

T1 Web Grenade

T2 Caltrops

 

I've highlighted the ones I recommend, Gloom is picked because it is a DoT, and generally ranged sets are better than immobilize sets for bonuses. Even with just two slots Gloom will be useful in ways that Web Grenade is not.

 

This is a particular problem on many Toon builds.  Really a pain on my Empathy Defender, led to it going with Electrical Blast.  Some others Toons with a similar issue.

 

And now with changes to Mastermind Primary Powersets, there's a reason to want to try to fit in all 3 MM personal attacks, even with a low number of slots.  Usually a buff or debuff.  For Necromancy, it's extra minor beasties.

 

Spectral Forces:
Activating this power has a chance to summon a Specter to your side! Specters slowly fade away over 90 seconds, even faster when attacking. They cannot be healed, regenerate, upgraded, or commanded, but provide a good distraction.

 

Can have up to 1 per MM personal attack in use, 70% chance on each MM personal attack use to summon its Specter.  Don't know if they're worth it.  But could make up for other weaknesses.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_enslaved_specter

 

Yup, it's now likely a good MM build will want ALL Primary Powers.  Getting as bad as some Melee Toon builds.

Edited April 10 by Jacke

[StrikerFox]

I like Trip Mine. It can be slotted with the Force Feedback +recharge proc. It activates frequently and will help get Soul Extraction and Acid Mortar up more quickly. Below is a video of TM with FF. I dropped around 15 mines and FF proc'd 14 times in a row. 

 

 

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Jacke said:

Another Repeat Offender, @Psyonico, who has way more Traps experience than me, has commented that Caltrops is more useful at low level.  But that Web Grenade comes into usefulness at high level to tie down those silly running AVs.  Because when you don't take it will be the time when you end up on a Team with no well-stackable Immob and more runners than Logan had to deal with.  😺  I now have Toxic Web Grenade back in my AR/Dev builds with a L50 Dam/Mez HO, using Global ToHit and Global Accuracy, which the Toon has a lot of.

 

This is the limited case where Web Grenade is useful... but then it has to be slotted to actually work against AVs and GMs. This is such a corner case (Diabolique, a few others) that I feel it is hardly worth having that power for the entirety of your build.

 

Caltrops, by contrast, is an excellent AoE Slow, that also does DoT and simultaneously (slowly) keeps swarms from attacking and drawing aggro from the henchmen. It is also not a terrible source of %damage when cast into a large spawn. It doesn't need %damage, it just needs to keep as many critters occupied as possible to maximize aggro. Here is my /Traps slotting for it:

 

Level     1:            Caltrops              

 (A) Annihilation - Damage/RechargeTime

 (*) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime

 (*) Ice Mistral’s Torment - Damage/Recharge

 (*) Ice Mistral’s Torment - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

 (*) Ice Mistral’s Torment - Chance for Damage(Cold)

 (*) Javelin Volley - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

 

2 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

I like Trip Mine. It can be slotted with the Force Feedback +recharge proc. It activates frequently and will help get Soul Extraction and Acid Mortar up more quickly. Below is a video of TM with FF. I dropped around 15 mines and FF proc'd 14 times in a row.

 

... in 4 minutes. It's nice that you find value in it. My non-Hasten non-Force Feedback /Traps build has 2 Acid Mortars out without the SG base buff, and 3 with it. I'm still experimenting with Necro, my Soul Extraction (again non-Hasten, non-Force Feedback) in on a 60 second recharge.

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

I like Trip Mine. It can be slotted with the Force Feedback +recharge proc. It activates frequently and will help get Soul Extraction and Acid Mortar up more quickly. Below is a video of TM with FF. I dropped around 15 mines and FF proc'd 14 times in a row.

 

15 Trip Mines ?!?!?

 

During an Advanced Mode LGTF, in a certain room where a Big Boss fight was about to take place, my AR/Dev Blaster put down about 5 Trip Mines while waiting.  During the fight, as I ran around the edge of the room, I kept laying Trip Mines and blasting as much as possible.  In the whole fight over several minutes, I don't think I got to 15 total Trip Mines.  And that's the only time I remember dropping a lot of Trip Mines in years!

 

Trip Mine is more useful toe-bombing on a mob spawn as a first attack.  Also as a security blanket.  Holding a spot, lay a Trip Mine.  First mob to charge me down gets an explosive surprise (my Trip Mines do not have any KB>KD slotted and will KB the mob ~50% of the time  😺).

Edited April 10 by Jacke

[Jacke]

8 minutes ago, tidge said:

Caltrops, by contrast, is an excellent AoE Slow....

 

...that drive Werewolves and Rommie (both immune to Slow) crazy.  😺

[StrikerFox]

7 minutes ago, tidge said:

I'm still experimenting with Necro, my Soul Extraction (again non-Hasten, non-Force Feedback) in on a 60 second recharge.

 

60 seconds? 30s uptime; 30s downtime? Sounds like a substantial dps loss not having Soul Extracted pets out more frequently. But if you're happy with it, fantastic. I think most builds I've seen has it recharging in 35-40s. I have it recharging in 37s on a Necro/Dark.

 

16 minutes ago, Jacke said:

15 Trip Mines ?!?!?

 

Necro and Traps aren't spam heavy sets. It's not difficult to find the time to drop the odd Trip Mine to bump up recharge. The video is to just show how reliable the FF proc will trigger. It wasn't meant to say "Drop mines continuously, nonstop." Haha!

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

 

...that drive Werewolves and Rommie (both immune to Slow) crazy.  😺

 

Warwolves are there own kind of problem, not exactly fixed with single target Web Grenades.

[Jacke]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

Warwolves are there own kind of problem, not exactly fixed with single target Web Grenades.

 

Didn't say Web Grenade would solve Warwolves, more like an AV or two, maybe.  Yes, in most cases the Immob will be cut to 65% by Purple Patch (assuming +3 Level AV WRT the Toon) and then Immob Protection and Resistance.

 

But at least it's not Radiation Emission's Lingering Radiation.  Where the -Regen power has a Slow.  Guaranteed to be fun at times when fun is not wanted.  😺

Edited April 11 by Jacke

[Camel]

On 4/10/2024 at 11:28 AM, StrikerFox said:

I like Trip Mine. It can be slotted with the Force Feedback +recharge proc. It activates frequently and will help get Soul Extraction and Acid Mortar up more quickly. Below is a video of TM with FF. I dropped around 15 mines and FF proc'd 14 times in a row. 

 

 

Thanks for sharing this! I had no idea Trip Mine reacted with the FF proc this way, figured it would proc on detonation... but I forgot it follows pseudo-pet rules! My Storm Summoning characters are some of my favorites because of the massive uptime of the FF proc via Lightning Storm and Tornado.