Bots/Marine…have questions

[Crysis]

Since the updates to MM’s slotting the bots themselves is pretty straightforward.  
 

But with Marine I have a decent heal with Soothing Wave, and thus maintenance drone seems rather superfluous.  And since they’ve moved the -regen to MM’s attacks I’d like to fit in at least two, understanding of course that they are end hogs and do almost dismissive damage unless procc’d out (which they won’t be as I’ll be using them mainly for set mules and for the -regen).  
 

Otherwise I’m slotting /Marine pretty much the same as I did for my Mercs/Marine and playing it mostly the same way.  Eg; Whitecap in, drop Tide Pool on spawn, leap back out (or Combat TP out if I’m in a Tar Patch), drop Brine on the Boss, toss out Shoal here and there, buff/heal henchmen as needed.

 

Am I missing anything by skipping maintenance drone?  

[Meknomancer]

1 hour ago, Crysis said:

Since the updates to MM’s slotting the bots themselves is pretty straightforward.  
 

But with Marine I have a decent heal with Soothing Wave, and thus maintenance drone seems rather superfluous.  And since they’ve moved the -regen to MM’s attacks I’d like to fit in at least two, understanding of course that they are end hogs and do almost dismissive damage unless procc’d out (which they won’t be as I’ll be using them mainly for set mules and for the -regen).  
 

Otherwise I’m slotting /Marine pretty much the same as I did for my Mercs/Marine and playing it mostly the same way.  Eg; Whitecap in, drop Tide Pool on spawn, leap back out (or Combat TP out if I’m in a Tar Patch), drop Brine on the Boss, toss out Shoal here and there, buff/heal henchmen as needed.

 

Am I missing anything by skipping maintenance drone?  

 

I'm gonna say yes. Heals. Soothing is a half heal half debuff cone, the heal is puny and do you really want to be having to line up the cone or looking for a bot which may or may not be where you thought it was, or got kb'd behind you forcing you to spin the camera. I gave up brine on the bots/marine because i wanted group flight and 2 personal attacks for the -regen but i kept maintenance drone. And i'm glad i did. I don't miss brine but i would miss the pet heals.

[Crysis]

I have Combat TP on this and my Mercs/Marine so lining up the cone isnt so much an issue, but I hear your point on the puny heal Soothing provides.  I spam it frequently for the debuff, but still lose a guy now and then.

 

Do you dedicate many slots to Maintenance drone?  I’ve seen builds with just a 50+5 Heal IO in there and then others with 5-6 slotted Preventative or Panacea slotting.  I already have Depths slotted with one of those two full sets.

 

And your comment about dropping Brine is interesting.  I have a Priority Target macro I use to apply Brine and focus all fire on same after Ive applied Brine.  I sort of hoped the -Regen from the MM personal attacks would complement the -MaxHP debuff of Brine.  I already see up to Lieuts one shotted after Brine, and Boss/EB/AV it clearly makes a difference.  Its not the same as Benumb from /Cold but its effective.  No synergy between those two stacked on same target?

[Seed22]

4 minutes ago, Crysis said:

And your comment about dropping Brine is interesting.

Do not do this. Brine is a major source of -res. The -HP is ehh whatever but it can add up too, but what you really want is the -res.

Drop Shoal rush and soothing if you have to do, but do not EVER skip brine. Ever.

 

Your mob to mob debuff is Whitecap, your ST debuff is brine. You need and want both. 
 

Edited September 7 by Seed22

[tidge]

On 9/7/2024 at 2:06 PM, Crysis said:

Do you dedicate many slots to Maintenance drone?  I’ve seen builds with just a 50+5 Heal IO in there and then others with 5-6 slotted Preventative or Panacea slotting.  I already have Depths slotted with one of those two full sets.

 

My Bots Main has 6xPreventive Maintenance in the Maintenance Drone. I think that is an important set (for bonuses) for MMs, and I think it is important to have the Drone's recharge time to be reduced as much as possible.

 

Power of the Depths appreciates MOAR Recharge as well, and is worth taking IMO for a Mastermind. If there wasn't some other set you wanted in it, I would probably Franken-slot with something like

1. 2-slots using a single EndMod/Recharge + Healing/Recharge, both D-Syncs at 53.
2. 3-slots (if I wanted some 2-piece set bonus from Panacea using two 50+5 pieces of that set.

My recollection from other, similar powers is that it is hard to see effectively observable improvements in the recharge time after (if the build also has Global +Recharge) so with a third slot it is possible to consider using pieces which enhance more than two attributes and you won't notice much difference. I want to say I have a build somewhere that has something like a 3-slot that uses at least one Healing/EndReduction/Recharge piece in a similar power.

 

Most Interesting (to me anyway) is that Masterminds (and their henchman) will almost certainly benefit more (than other ATs) from both +MaxHP and +MaxEnd. *IF* Endurance/MaxEnd/Recovery is already under control for the MM, simply leaning into Healing/Recharge would probably be fine, even using other attuned Healing sets (but not the %procs, since they won't contribute to attribute enhancements, unless you are trying to get clever with the %procs themselves)

 

[The Maintenance Drone can't be healed, but I don't know if it can benefit from +MaxHP]

 

Personally? The powers I'd also be experimenting with for Robotics/Marines are:

• Toroidal Bubble, making sure I'm not pushing the henchmen past certain limits, balanced against using it as a mule (Slow Resistance included)
• Barrier Reef, I feel like I'd start with 4 slots: LotG Def/Global (attuned), an attuned LotG Def, a 50+5 IO Defense, a 50+5 IO Healing... I'd want to see what I could do with the Absorb for the Henchmen.

I definitely would not sacrifice Brine (2x D-Sync Siphon is all it needs, or go budget Accuracy and Healing while you save up), and I'd probably 3-slot Whitecap with Fury of the Gladiator (if I had the slots) or maybe 5/6-slots with Superior Avalanche to boost survivability, and get more sweet -Resistance.

 

[Meknomancer]

On 9/7/2024 at 3:06 PM, Crysis said:

I have Combat TP on this and my Mercs/Marine so lining up the cone isnt so much an issue, but I hear your point on the puny heal Soothing provides.  I spam it frequently for the debuff, but still lose a guy now and then.

 

Do you dedicate many slots to Maintenance drone?  I’ve seen builds with just a 50+5 Heal IO in there and then others with 5-6 slotted Preventative or Panacea slotting.  I already have Depths slotted with one of those two full sets.

 

And your comment about dropping Brine is interesting.  I have a Priority Target macro I use to apply Brine and focus all fire on same after Ive applied Brine.  I sort of hoped the -Regen from the MM personal attacks would complement the -MaxHP debuff of Brine.  I already see up to Lieuts one shotted after Brine, and Boss/EB/AV it clearly makes a difference.  Its not the same as Benumb from /Cold but its effective.  No synergy between those two stacked on same target?

 

3 slots in MD , preventetives for s/l res and hp bonus.

 

As i said i wanted group fly and that meant sacrifices, i also hate flyers so web envelope to drop them meant giving up a lot of stuff like brine/shoal rush/assault/power boost.

 

Stacked - res is fantastic, whitecap and brine alone is over 30%, even more noticeable on demons when you got the extra from personal attacks but when i'm fighting hard targets like +4 av's/gm's give me - regen every time, even in small amounts from pulse rifle bursts and photon nade. I can see that affecting the hp much more noticeably in long fights where they just regen through the -resistance. The bots do just fine without brine and because they're well out of melee range there's less to do, healing/resummoning isn't an issue, they just keep ploughing through targets steadily. They'll never beat the other sets for damage (except beasts) but thats irrelevant if you like lazy play and certain victory. The melee sets can be hard work and if your unlucky a single pbaoe from a gm/av can wipe out almost all in 1 go. 

[zeroFLUX]

On 9/7/2024 at 7:43 AM, Crysis said:

 

Otherwise I’m slotting /Marine pretty much the same as I did for my Mercs/Marine and playing it mostly the same way.  Eg; Whitecap in, drop Tide Pool on spawn, leap back out (or Combat TP out if I’m in a Tar Patch), drop Brine on the Boss, toss out Shoal here and there, buff/heal henchmen as needed.

 

 

Would you mind sharing your Mercs/Marine build?  I'm trying to plan one out and looking for some help

[Crysis]

18 hours ago, zeroFLUX said:

 

Would you mind sharing your Mercs/Marine build?  I'm trying to plan one out and looking for some help

 

Changed very little from what @Meknomancer posted originally, although I insist on Fold Space on my Marine Affinity toons....although YMMV.  

 

This is what I ended up with, although I think I managed to drop an extra slot into Shifting Tides and put a purple set in there....will have to go in game and double check.

 

 

Sirens_SEALs_MercMarine.mbd

[zeroFLUX]

Thanks. I just wasn't sure if yours was vastly different from Mek's or not. I've already been using his as a resource as well. I'm basically relearning everything as I haven't really played since Villains release on live so every input helps.

[Crysis]

Just do remember that almost all the old guides regarding Mercs are totally outdated.  The major MM overhaul that impacted Mercs took them from middle tier to amazeballs.  And with the new “hard mode” TF settings ranged henchmen have a decisive edge, even with one or more Destiny>Barriers running.  I have a Ninjas/Marine MM as well and while they are quite sturdy now, I still have to resummon them far more on hard mode trials than I ever have to do my Mercs or Bots.  Big difference in quality of play for the MM.

[Crysis]

11 hours ago, zeroFLUX said:

Thanks. I just wasn't sure if yours was vastly different from Mek's or not. I've already been using his as a resource as well. I'm basically relearning everything as I haven't really played since Villains release on live so every input helps.

 

So I just checked in-game, I did make some changes from the build I posted.

 

-Soothing has 2 slots, 53 Golgi's in each one

-Took out both %Damage procs from Shoal Rush.  They don't do much.  Left the Achilles in there.

-Pulled one slot from Barrier Reef.  It now has 3 Reactives (Res, Res/End and Proc) and 2 53 Golgi's.  Absorb is worth more than Defense.

-Put two of those free slots into Shifting Tides.  5 slotted Ragnarok (no Knockdown Proc) and for sixth slot put in the Gaussian Proc.  It goes off quite a bit.

-Put the last free slot into M30 Nade and made that an Overwhelming Force Acc/Dam.....mainly for the additional Regen bonus.  This set seems to thrive on all the +Health/+Regen you can throw at it.

 

Hope this helps!