Incarnate selections... Which fully effect our pets? Are there best choices?

[Yipp]

Intuition & Musculature Radial seem like the best choices in Alpha for my build.... question is does the damage bonus work on the pets?

 

Are there any known best for each selection as well as known duds?

 

Feedback appreciated.

[Nyghtmaire]

Yes, the damage component from musculature and intuition affect your pets. Makes it hard to pick anything else, to be honest. Check which other attributes fit your secondary to choose between the two.

 

Recharge (agility or spiritual) does not affect MM pets, only the Summoning abilities’ recharge. Makes those a hard-to-justify choice. However, Cardiac’s endurance reduction can be useful in an edge case, especially if your secondary sucks blue combined with a high recharge build (thinking storm in particular). But it’s easier to build for endurance management and recharge overall through slotting and creative IO/set bonuses. Damage to your pets? Much more difficult.

[PaxArcana]

/subscribing ...

[Yipp]

For me at least here are my choices based upon Nyghtmaire's comment.

 

Questions:

1. Does anyone know the difference in Lore-Pets? & I choose damage only pets for 5 minutes over "+Buff pets for 3 minutes", because I prefer the extra time over unknown buffing AI

2. Does the Hybrid Assault power chance for additional strike work on pets? However I think Support is probably an easy call (if your pets are not up and working not doing any damage)

3. Judgement powers, between the two I have listed, does anyone know if the Knockup effect will effect bosses? If not, I assume the -Damage will which would make an easy choice

4. Destiny powers, does anyone know the % def & res from barrier and/or Secondary effect boost from Clarion?

 

 

Alpha (Intuition has the edge for my build)

Musculature Radial Paragon For all powers: Increases Damage, Immobilization Duration, Defense Debuff, Endurance Modification, and Run Speed effects by 33% and To Hit Debuff effects by 20%.

or

Intuition Radial Paragon For all powers: Increases Hold Duration, Damage, Slow Movement effects, and Defense Debuffs by 33%, ToHit Debuff effects and Range by 20%.

 

Judgement (leaning Void)

Void Radial Final Judgement Wide PBAoE Extreme DMG(Negative Energy). Recharge: Very Long. Significantly reduces the damage of affected targets for a short time.

or

Mighty Radial Final Judgement Wide PBAoE Extreme DMG(Smashing). Recharge: Very Long. Causes massive Knockup to affected foes.

 

Destiny (Hard Choice)

Barrier Core Epiphany Wide PBAoE Ally +DEF(All), +Res(All). Recharge: Very Long. The continuing buffs from this power will gradually lose effectiveness over time before they expire completely after 120 seconds, but more of the power's strength will last the full duration. "from old forum" Barrier Core Epiphany: +90% RES/DEF first 10s, 32.5% next 20s, 7.5% next 30s, 5% last 60s (120s total), 60ft radius

or

Clarion Radial Epiphany Wide PBAoE Ally Status Effect Protection, +Range, and secondary effect boost. Recharge: Very Long. The continuing buffs from this power will gradually lose effectiveness over time before they expire completely after 90 seconds. "From old fourm" : +mag 36 status protect (18 KB protect) for first 22.5s, 6 (3 KB) for next 22.5s, 3 (1.5 KB) for last 45s (90s total), +80% range/special first 22.5s, +20% range/special next 22.5s, +10% range/special last 45s (90s total), 60ft radius

 

 

Interface

Diamagnetic Radial Flawless Interface Adds a to hit debuff proc (50% chance) and a regeneration debuff proc (100% chance) to most damaging attacks.

 

Lore (Anyone know the difference?)

Warworks Core Superior Ally Draws forth the essences of a vanquished WarWorks Mk-VI "Victoria" and ACU from the Well of the Furies to serve you for 5 minutes.

or

Robotic Drones Core Superior Ally Draws forth the essences of a vanquished Assault Drone and Laser Drone from the Well of the Furies to serve you for 5 minutes.

or

Clockwork Core Superior Ally Draws forth the essences of a vanquished Clockwork Dismantler and Builder from the Well of the Furies to serve you for 5 minutes

 

Hybrid

Assault Radial Embodiment While active, this power gives all of your damaging powers a very high chance to strike again for a large portion of their damage in Energy damage. Equipping this Hybrid power grants a passive boost to Damage at all times.

or

Support Core Embodiment While toggled on, this power provides a small boost in Damage, Accuracy, Defense(All), and Special to all leaguemates within a 50 foot radius. Up to five Support Hybrid powers can stack on a single target at any given time. This boost is doubled in strength for pets. Equipping this Hybrid power grants a passive boost to Endurance Discount at all times

 

 

 

Information on Incarnates I have found

https://web.archive.org/web/20120905141218/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=257011

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,2038.msg12529.html#msg12529

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_System

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rikis]

Honestly, the only non-choice I see for Masterminds is in Hybrid. Sadly there it's Support or waste an incarnate slot. Yes, Hybrid Assault affects pets, but only when you summon them with the toggle on. That's too wonky and unreliable with how often resummoning happens.

 

For Alpha, for example, Agility Core Paragon is vital to my Necromancer/Time in order to achieve two things: perma Chrono Shift and S/L soft cap. I wouldn't take either Musculature or Intuition on her.

 

For Destiny, there are two big winners: Barrier and Clarion. Clarion to keep yourself from being crowd controlled and barrier to help keep your pets alive. There can be arguments for Ageless (to help make a long cooldown power perma) or even Rebirth, for an "oh shit!" moment where all your pets get brought down low.

 

For Judgement, that's really personal choice. Their debuffs are great, but their uptime is awful.

 

Lore again, is up to personal choice. Well, if you're going for the support pet, you should pick one that gives an AoE buff rather than a single target buff.

 

For Interface, I would say that the two of them without a DoT are underpowered, but I think, not sure, that DoTs are not working properly right now. Reactive or Degenerative are the best options, but that's an issue with that incarnate slot and not an MM only problem.

[Yipp]

Great feedback Rikis!

 

I am a Robot/Dark/Mace MM with a focus on to-hit Debuff, fear & holds.

 

Alpha

Intuition will end up being my choice (for the reasons above). I did not consider Agility as the vast majority of my abilities already recharge as fast as their duration and have zero endurance issues now.

 

Judgement

Settling on Void

 

Destiny

Is a really tough choice, I think the only option is to get them both in game and feel which plays better

 

Interface

Diamagnetic... I am imagining that adding a to-hit debuff/-Regen proc to battle drones faster attacks will be far superior than a dot. I am assuming the dots do not stack, so each time a dot is cast on a target it just overwrites the previous one.  With that assumption when fighting bosses/AV the -Regen and to-hit debuff's in combination with my own abilities will be a better choice.

 

Lore

Straight damage pet is the only choice... Agree with your assessment of AI not reliable on support bots, which requires AOE.  My MM however play the support bot role.

 

Hybrid

Support choice made based on the information you provided!

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Honestly, the only non-choice I see for Masterminds is in Hybrid. Sadly there it's Support or waste an incarnate slot. Yes, Hybrid Assault affects pets, but only when you summon them with the toggle on. That's too wonky and unreliable with how often resummoning happens.

I think Melee Hybrid is a viable option for Tankerminds. Sure the pets don't get the buff but having a taunt aura to supplement Provoke is useful.

[Yipp]

Tested T2  Reactive Radial Interface Adds a damage resistance debuff proc (25% chance) and a moderate Fire damage over time proc (25% chance) to most damaging attacks. After 20 minutes of testing with Battle Drones It appeared less than 10% of the time and when it did 6.56 points once each time.  There was no way to test stacking because its appearance was so rare.

 

Maybe someone with a 50% chance could test and get some information?

[Dixa]

Tested T2  Reactive Radial Interface Adds a damage resistance debuff proc (25% chance) and a moderate Fire damage over time proc (25% chance) to most damaging attacks. After 20 minutes of testing with Battle Drones It appeared less than 10% of the time and when it did 6.56 points once each time.  There was no way to test stacking because its appearance was so rare.

 

Maybe someone with a 50% chance could test and get some information?

 

the dot should do more damage with the lt's and the boss pet. i generally go with degenerative as reducing max hp also reduces regen rate. testing on a nasty +4 ghost widow in the oro arc it was night and day how fast she dropped between the resist interface and the degen.

[Yipp]

Tested T2  Reactive Radial Interface Adds a damage resistance debuff proc (25% chance) and a moderate Fire damage over time proc (25% chance) to most damaging attacks. After 20 minutes of testing with Battle Drones It appeared less than 10% of the time and when it did 6.56 points once each time.  There was no way to test stacking because its appearance was so rare.

 

Maybe someone with a 50% chance could test and get some information?

 

the dot should do more damage with the lt's and the boss pet. i generally go with degenerative as reducing max hp also reduces regen rate. testing on a nasty +4 ghost widow in the oro arc it was night and day how fast she dropped between the resist interface and the degen.

 

The dot is not appearing. It is showing up at less than 5% rate on every bot T1/2/3 (for me at Tier 2 ability) & it appears to be only 1 Tick of a dot. 

 

What Tier is your Interface ability? Have you checked your combat logs for the Dot's specific damage? Are you getting more than one tick? Does it stack with any other ticks that you see or are they overwritten?

[M3z]

Intuition, degen, rebirth, hybrid assault are usually the ones I go with.

[Yipp]

Thank you M3z for the feedback... BTW love your content on Twitch and youtube!

 

One of my choices was made for me by studying the Incarnates closely. In the case of Void, T4 does not give a level shift, same radius, the only difference being effecting 32 or 24 targets Max. With that knowledge I can avoid farming for Void and just select the T3 choice. I am currently looking for other "shortcuts" in the incarnate tree

 

This is the T4 Void power

 

This is one of the 4 T3 Void choices

 

[khy]

I have some questions about lore pets.

 

Specifically, I'm trying to pick which pets I want to use, but I don't know powers. Is there a list of lore pet support powers out there?

 

Initially I was going to go with Warworks but that Longbow Cataphract looks so good I'm so tempted...

 

I'm not really into min/maxing, but appearance and powers are both important to me in making a choice. I want a choice that'll fit the theme of my character AND I want a choice that'll be useful to me. I already have a gallery of the different bots, I just don't know the powers to base my choices on.

[Yipp]

I have some questions about lore pets.

 

Specifically, I'm trying to pick which pets I want to use, but I don't know powers. Is there a list of lore pet support powers out there?

 

Initially I was going to go with Warworks but that Longbow Cataphract looks so good I'm so tempted...

 

I did not find any list of powers other than which ones did and did not have knockback which turned out to be wrong!  I ended up looking at my theme, "Terror" as a construct with Robots/Dark, then looking at all the dark/construct powers like Clockworks, warworks, Phantoms, then looking ingame for any with knockbacks and discarding them "clockworks have knockbacks as an example", (My build/playstyle requires no KB or KB to KD ok), then looked at their attacks; ranges aoe, Single target, melee etc... deciding I wanted a ST Melee heavy Lore pet which led me to Warworks as my choice.  I can't tell you what will be best for you... if you do not care about theme... Cimeroran's which I chose for my Corruptor is considered the "Best" Lore selection overall from all my research, however... how much better they are than Warworks I have no idea without a lot of in game testing...

 

My theme

[StrikerFox]

Avoid Assault Hybrid on Mercs. Double Hit seems to occur for attacks that do 50+ damage with a single hit, but since a lot of Merc's attacks are DoT, Assault Hybrid often fails to activate. I went with T4 Support Core for Mercs/Storm.

[Yipp]

Avoid Assault Hybrid on Mercs. Double Hit seems to occur for attacks that do 50+ damage with a single hit, but since a lot of Merc's attacks are DoT, Assault Hybrid often fails to activate. I went with T4 Support Core for Mercs/Storm.

 

Agreed 100%... also if your bot is dead cant do any damage.... so keeping it alive is vital and Support looks like a great tool to do that

[khy]

I did not find any list of powers other than which ones did and did not have knockback which turned out to be wrong!  I ended up looking at my theme, "Terror" as a construct with Robots/Dark, then looking at all the dark/construct powers like Clockworks, warworks, Phantoms, then looking ingame for any with knockbacks and discarding them "clockworks have knockbacks as an example", (My build/playstyle requires no KB or KB to KD ok), then looked at their attacks; ranges aoe, Single target, melee etc... deciding I wanted a ST Melee heavy Lore pet which led me to Warworks as my choice.  I can't tell you what will be best for you... if you do not care about theme... Cimeroran's which I chose for my Corruptor is considered the "Best" Lore selection overall from all my research, however... how much better they are than Warworks I have no idea without a lot of in game testing...

 

Theme is important, no argument here, but there's times where I find myself stuck between two choices that both work well for my theme and as such the powers they have may help me lean one way or another.

 

For example, going with theme I thought the Warworks bot would be ideal since I thought that the Lore Pet was going to be either a BCU or a War Walker. When I found out it was a Victoria Mk-VI I realized it doesn't quite fit my theme as much as I initially thought. With my main being Bots/, I wanted the bigger, blockier look of the War Walker over the more human and smaller Victoria.

 

Now I'm leaning towards Clockwork Dismantler/Mender duo as one option, or the Longbow Cataphract as another. The Dismantler is closer to my villains' theme but still looks a lot more anthropomorphic than my other bots, but the Cataphract which is blocky and huge and fits in terms of shape has a color scheme I'm not heavily into. The whole 'longbow working for me against their will' would be entertaining to my villain, but it's still a somewhat tough choice between those two. Knowing what the other pet would do would be helpful in making a choice; Mender seems like it has heals or at least buffs, but the Warden's a complete mystery since they could be anything. Or if I dislike all options maybe I'd look at going another way, such as the Warworks ACU/Victoria.

 

I just would like to know so I can make an educated choice, rather than guessing.

 

 

[Yipp]

Khy, Clockworks is a fine choice if KB is ok with your playstyle.  Elimination of KB was by far my #1 consideration

[Cidri]

On 7/2/2019 at 11:02 PM, khy said:

I'm trying to pick which pets I want to use, but I don't know powers. Is there a list of lore pet support powers out there?

I did not make this list and I don't know the person who did. But I find this guide very useful.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tmuk9Jf-NxhSE2P1RB6wRtn-qUDvwqpV_10B9QAAinE/edit#gid=0

[TheSpiritFox]

On 6/26/2019 at 7:34 PM, Yipp said:

Intuition & Musculature Radial seem like the best choices in Alpha for my build.... question is does the damage bonus work on the pets?

 

Are there any known best for each selection as well as known duds?

 

Feedback appreciated.

Musculature core is the overall best choice for MMs, with the only exceptions being if you need to fix a hole in your build. 

 

Degenerative or Reactive interface are both solid for all ATs. The thing about MMs is they are the ONE class I would say it is worth taking radial interfaces. Why? Because of the number of attacks. Normally, you want core for most classes so you can actually stack the debuffs on things, a 25% chance to cast debuff is low for like a blaster firing one attack at a time. With pets, that 25% chance gets multiplied by 6 pets plus any personal damage powers you use, including on some sets a bunch of aoe. That adds up to alot of extra damage from the extra damage on interfaces, while still being easily able to stack the debuffs especially on a single target. 

 

Judgement, Ion is just the best, use something else if you wanna, its not that big a deal. 

 

Destiny, use what you want, but generally speaking either ageless for endurance issues if you have them, or barrier which gives your pets even more survivability. 

 

Lore, again, pick what you want. Lore pets got buffs. Banished Pantheon are solid aoe pets, Longbow gives you a solid amount of -regen for AVs, other than that all lores are pretty solid. 

 

Hybrid, support core is the only one that's really that solid. Control doesn't benefit much, we aren't a control heavy class. Assault only works with pets if you activate it THEN summon your pets, which means it sucks for upkeep and you lose part of its benefit while you summon and buff. Melee works just fine, but the chances of you significantly holding aggro enough to NEED melee hybrid are low to none, even with provoke from the presence pool, you're not going to hold the aggro of the entire group and you don't need melee core to just tank bosses. 

 

[KC4800]

My Bots/EA MM uses and highly recommends Robotic Drones Lore Pets. A great additional boost to ST ranged damage for those hard to kill targets.

[Verix]

There's a sticky on the MM front page that has a really nice write up of Incarnate choices.

 

 

 

Alpha : Musculature.

Judgement: Ion - if you want to pull lot of things and don't really care what you hit. Pyro if you have to be bothered to aim.

Interface: I went Degen for the debuffs.

Lore: I went Longbow for the -regen.

Destiny: Clarion. The worst thing that can happen is you can't control your pets. The long acting version is a break free+ long buff to prevent all controls.

Hybrid: Support. When playing solo and chain pulling met pets got tired. I took this and now their blue bar stays full. It's another option to buff damage so why would you want anything else? This stacks up to 5 in big raids and I almost never saw it stacked that high.   I might consider Assault if it didn't have a broken mechanic that largely invalidates its use as a MM.

[Omega Force]

"One of my choices was made for me by studying the Incarnates closely. In the case of Void, T4 does not give a level shift, same radius, the only difference being effecting 32 or 24 targets Max. With that knowledge I can avoid farming for Void and just select the T3 choice. I am currently looking for other "shortcuts" in the incarnate tree"

 

That may be a display error.  All tier 3 & 4 judgements provide a level shift.

 

"Destiny: Clarion. The worst thing that can happen is you can't control your pets. The long acting version is a break free+ long buff to prevent all controls."

 

Pet orders/controls are unaffected by any mez, although it could be possible for a pet to be mezzed and unable to obey.

[Coyote]

Alpha: Incarnate or Musculature for Damage, with the choice dependent on the secondary enhancements

 

Interface: Always go Core, you should have no problems hitting the stack limit even with 25% chance, so increasing the DoT chance is good. Generally, go with the DoT over the ones that provide double debuffs.

 

Hybrid: Support is a no-brainer currently. Assault would be competitive if it worked better with pets.

 

Judgment: Ion is best overall for damage, Void is good for having a debuff that actually matters on AVs, otherwise go with whatever fits the theme.

 

Destiny: Barrier or Clarion are my choices, and it depends on how close I am to the resist or defense caps for the pets. If running Barrier's 5% is the difference between a soft or hard cap and being 5% below the cap, I'd go with Barrier. Otherwise, probably Clarion. Barrier in any case, if the support set has mez protection. /Rad, /Plant, and /Dark all really want Clarion to keep their -ToHit toggle running, and probably Storm also since it draws a lot of aggro.

 

Lore is a lot better balanced. Read the spreadsheet posted above, and avoid buffing LTs with single-target buffs. AoE buffers and debuffers are fine, or go full-damage. Try to look at whether they're AoE-heavy or single-target heavy, and see what your primary is missing... Thugs and Robots do good AoE, so I would probably lean towards single-target with them. I took Robotic Drones with my Robots, as it both fits thematically and helps with Boss killing. Another thing to look at is if you do reasonable Cold damage... I'm pretty sure that I'm going Banished Pantheon with Demons, since BP's summons have -Resist debuff specifically to Cold damage, and that's most of the Demon Prince's damage. So that's one way to consider which is best for your particular character.