How good is Beast?

[You]

I could not find anything / analysis / commentary on Beast. Is it a good set? Which secondary goes well with it?

 

Thanks!

[ParaBruce]

I'm doing it with Nature Affinity, have it at 22, and feel it's good so far. It seems a bit weaker than my robots, but I suspect some of that is kind of psychosomatic. I'll see what more levels bring, but it's serving me well.

[Tigress]

The worst thing about the set is also the best thing about it: The practical complete lack of ranged attacks. Animals do monstrous damage to single targets in Melee but will always be stuck in melee, therefor they will all be clustered together with the touch of the attack button. Easy targets for area-buffs and -heals. However, that makes them extremely susceptible to crowd control and area attacks. I suggest a secondary that gives some form of status resistance, like Kinetics with Increase Density and Speed Boost. The targeted area heal is also more useful with this set than almost any other.

 

Animals will be unbelievably annoying against enemies using area attacks of any kind and especially Teleporters. Just think of a Tsoo Sorcerer: Debuffing all animals around him, then teleporting away and aggroing the next two groups when they chase after him. A simple area root will completely shut down any and all damage from the animals, unless you raise their resistance to it, so that is something to consider.

[You]

So... Beasts are Ninjas but without ranged attacked. I do see your point. A “melee” MM would probably love the set. I am testing a Beast/Kin at the moment. Should not be too hard for them to enjoy all the benefits from Kin but without any defence/resist or -to-hit / -dam protection around them, I could see it may be a problem at a high level.

 

How about /Dark or /Time. Would that mitigate the problem some what?

[Tigress]

Neither Darkness not Time has (at least to my knowledge) any real resistance to status effects, especially. In my experience, that is rather critical to the set. If I could chose again, I would probably go with Pain or Poison.

[Erydanus]

I'm also playing Beast/Nature and just got to 28.

 

It's interesting to finally see some specific criticisms because up to now I've heard nothing but dismissive "it's just bad" type comments. I just haven't had any problems with them. I sic the doggies on things, things die. I did have a fight with a Tsoo sorcerer, he teleported away so I turned them on something else. He came back, I shot him with my attack that causes knockdown and had them go after him again.

 

Their innate defenses seem fairly generic. They can get ripped up a bit. The set has a power mechanic called Pack Mentality where you get charges of this buff from using the mastermind personal attacks and the minions do generate some on their own. The stacks buff their damage but there's a defensive power at 18 called Fortify Pack that converts the buffs into actual Defense (and regen) and the amount of defense is based on how many stacks you had. I'm having trouble finding the numbers but from frantically clicking while playing I think it's something like 3 or 5 % defense per stack. I've been trying to use it more proactively and get a feel for how helpful it is but considering I'm playing Nature Affinity I end up saving it as a panic button.

 

This is a set that I think needs a buff/heal set to be paired with it. The minions need outside protection of some kind and some healing. Nature affinity feels like an innate pairing for it because it similarly gets stacks that increase effectiveness and has one direct shield (that cannot be 100% uptime) and lots of overlapping hots and regen buffs; however Nature lacks a -mez power. I think something like Kin would work because you'd be able to spam the heal on them easily and let them benefit from the big guns of Fulcrum Shift. I think my go to would be something with direct shielding buffs like Thermal, Cold, Sonic, even bubbles. Time Manipulation is apparently a lot of heals and some really powerful buffs so it would probably work very well. However, out of all of those I suspect Thermal might be the best choice because it has shields, an AoE heal, and a mez breaking power.

 

As much as I love Dark I don't think it would pair that well. The MM would be able to do some controls and debuffs with darkest night and fearsome stare, but the heal is on the caster and you'd need to be right up there with them, but then you have shadow fall. It could work, but I think it'd be a lot of work. I think i25 gave MMs radiation too? It would work but you'd have to wade into things. You might have to actually run choking cloud to help them with crowd control.

 

The really independent secondaries like Trick Arrow and Storm Summoning I don't think would work well at all. I would normally also include Traps in that list but specifically Traps has an anti-immobilize field in its level 8 force field generator which is pretty much exactly what Tigress pointed out is its biggest weakness. Poison would be terrible in my opinion, the one little heal is not going to keep the minions up, though at least it has anti-mez. Still, you'll be resummoning them all the time.

 

Overall though I am enjoying the set. The animals are well made and the animations are great. Finally, you can live your dream of siccing wolves to tear apart Council!

[Razor Cure]

It is not a bad set..I made a Level 50 Beast/Nature MM on old Test.

It just..also is not great. The pets are ok, but have a weak damage type, the buffs are very lacking, as is teh heal. The whole Pack Mentality gimmick is just that, at least I found it to be. I forget exactly how the powers interacted, but there was a marked lack of synergy..which should not occur in a Single powerset!

Best thing I found..is the attacks look vicious. But again..worst thing for me was how the 4 legged pets often 'glide' over the ground and dont actually seem to run.

[Erydanus]

One small thing I found out though. I couldn't find the old Red Tomax data so I just sat there in game and pulled up the pet power data directly.

 

The pets have an immobilize protection buff. It's just not continuous. It's a 20 second buff on a 90 second timer and is piggybacked on their self damage buff. So when they howl, they buff damage and gain immobilize protection (NINE points of it). At least they have some. I'm thinking I'll be working the new version of stimulant into my build. But, I hit 30 and the only fight that's been difficult for them has been The Sea Witch (red conning EB, solo). And tha's a pain for everyone.

[GrubbsGrady]

Thanks for all of the info guys. I did go with Beast/nature affinity. Currently lv38 and it seems to pair very well together.  Really enjoying it.

[kendo339]

Thanks for all of the info guys. I did go with Beast/nature affinity. Currently lv38 and it seems to pair very well together.  Really enjoying it.

 

just started a beast/nature and only level 12 but enjoying it so far.  any update on how it is going for you?  would also appreciate any ideas or a Mids on how you slotted your powers, especially on the nature side - not seeing many guides to get some ideas on sets to use

[Wintervoid]

Quick notes on Fortify the pack.

 

The defense is 5% + 1% per stack of Fortify the Pack.  When you have all your pets, 4 stacks is pretty easy to get, so I generally use that number to estimate effectiveness.  At 4 stacks you get 9% defense.  Slotted it gives you about 14.4%.  Add Power Boost and you should be at 23.4% (I do not have Powerboost yet, so not tested by me)

 

Base Defense is 12.5% at 50.

 

IOs add 10%

 

Maneuvers add 4%

 

So, at 4 stacks you get 40.9% defense.  Power Boosted you get 49.9% Defense.  At 0 Stacks you get 12.8% power boosted, or a total of 39.3%, and you can Perma that with enough recharge.

 

In addition to this, each Lion has a Roar that gives the pets 6% defense for 15 seconds every 60 seconds.

 

Add to that the fact that your pets also get some resists and self heals, and I think they are fairly durable. 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

one of my favourite X-Avengers.  8)

 

I like beast a lot. I played a Beast/Rad to 50 and it was a monster. The biggest issue is the lack of control makes it difficult to mitigate their lack of range, but when even on a small team, it really rocks. And it's not even fully IO'd but does have most incarnate powers.

[chigiabelo]

As I've almost exclusively soloed since CoV came out, I found MM's my favorite to play because they solo well, as long as you don't push it too far. I soloed a Bots/FF to 32 before it's first defeat, but then only on +0 or +1; a totally relaxing, easy mode build.

 

Since building my own server, I rolled a Beast/Empathy for kicks and insta-leveled it to 33 to see how it would fare. Our first outing was at Founders and I could not believe how well it was doing street hunting purples. As long as I kept healing, the Dire Wolf was so good at keeping aggro and the others did really good damage and killed pretty quickly slotted only with SO's. i liked it so much that I'm leveling one the old fashioned way on Live now.

[McJigg]

I hit 32 today and got the 32 upgrade. It's hard to put into words just how much of a damage upgrade it was. It feels similar to when bots first gets it's 32 upgrade and you think something in the game broke from how fast everything melted.

 

26-30 I spent quite a bit of time fighting Freakshow, I didn't have time to do a Freakshow mission before work but I did a quick Tsoo mission and the boss at the end did not feel like a boss at all. Granted, a Tsoo boss doesn't exactly have the same lethal resist as a Freakshow Tank, so I look forward to fighting one of those to see a more direct comparison.

[You]

Would Beast/Time do well?  Anyone has any thoughts on that combo?

[kelly Rocket]

Would Beast/Time do well?  Anyone has any thoughts on that combo?

There is no primary that Time won't do well with. Time is amazing.

[McJigg]

People tout Time as being amazing in general. I've heard it's amazing with Ninjas. Though I haven't played it, I think it could do well once you have Farsight. Before farsight however, you may have some survive-ability issues with the pets without tankerminding. The -recharge really only takes effect after the alpha where the enemies use all their attacks.

 

Someone more experienced will likely chime in but I can't see it being 'bad'.

[kelly Rocket]

People tout Time as being amazing in general. I've heard it's amazing with Ninjas. Though I haven't played it, I think it could do well once you have Farsight. Before farsight however, you may have some survive-ability issues with the pets without tankerminding. The -recharge really only takes effect after the alpha where the enemies use all their attacks.

 

Someone more experienced will likely chime in but I can't see it being 'bad'.

Honestly the -ToHit and -Damage and -Recharge are enough to shut down almost everything below the level you get Farsight at anyway.

[ParaBruce]

My beasts/kinetics character is up to 24, and I'm very much enjoying it so far. Buffed-up beasts can dish out a lot of damage very quickly, and it's fun to watch.

 

[Dixa]

so beasts are fine. yes.

 

but please do not think for a moment they are the killing machines the other primaries are. beasts was very new to the game before shutdown and it needed tweaks and balancing that never happened. the biggest issue is that they do not have enough attacks and have a near 33% gap in their attach chain where they are doing no damage. this is bad, especially if you want to push to harder difficulties as attacking that infrequently will not break regen of some of the tougher bosses, eb's or av's.

 

beasts work. they are fun - but how an mm performs in their 20 or 30's is nothing like how the sets start to perform in their 40's and endgame with and without incarnates unless you really do never move on from 1/0 difficulty.

 

enjoy the set, but temper it with reality please and anecdotes about how the set is fine because you have an alt in the 20's is just not helpful in general.

 

at level 50:

t1 pets - 11.21% melee/ranged/aoe defense

18.68% resist s/l and cold

 

t2 pets - 12.45% melee/ranged/aoe defense

29.88% resist s/l cold

 

t3 pet - same as tier 2

 

with io's (defense only)

 

ti pets - 21.21% melee and ranged, 36.21% aoe

t2 pets - 22.45% melee and ranged, 37.45% aoe

t3 pets - 22.45% melee and ranged, 37.45% aoe

 

with saturated fortify pack (4 stacks)

 

t1 pets - 30.21% melee and ranged, 45.21% aoe

t2 pets - 31.25% melee and ranged, 46.45% aoe

t3 pets - 31.25% melee and ranged, 46.45% aoe

 

this is a far better defensive base than thugs, bots or demons by far and may be why their damage output is as low as it is

 

the various roars i'm not calculating because they do not have 100% uptime.

 

I would not bother slotting the resist io's or even enhancing that defense in any of the pets. farsight without power boost will cap them which means you have patron pool options, although powerboosted farsight is good for teaming and scorpion shield allows some breathing room if you get debuffed as well as a buffer between fortify pack applications

 

this is what I would probably do. maybe. it has enough recharge for nearly perma chrono shift and hasten, but I do find time to be extremely end hungry even with chrono shift going so I would prob still end up with ageless even though time is very vulnerable to cc.

 

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temporal selection is an optional power. I was being lazy here. I would actually recommend swapping it out for a travel power. the 18% dmg boost it gives is minor for your pets and they don't benefit from the recharge bonus.

[Redlynne]

People tout Time as being amazing in general. I've heard it's amazing with Ninjas.

 

Now that's just CRAZY TALK.

See?  I've even got a link to prove it!

[Wintervoid]

 

with saturated fortify pack (4 stacks)

 

t1 pets - 30.21% melee and ranged, 45.21% aoe

t2 pets - 31.25% melee and ranged, 46.45% aoe

t3 pets - 31.25% melee and ranged, 46.45% aoe

 

this is a far better defensive base than thugs, bots or demons by far and may be why their damage output is as low as it is

 

Looks like this is unslotted Fortify.  Should be about 6% higher with Defense slotted, and another 4% with slotted maneuvers.

 

I pretty much agree with your points, but IMO, Beasts shine with Kin.  The downside of Kin for Masterminds is that it doesn't provide much in the way of defense, but with near perma fortify the pack, defense is taken care of by the primary.  As a matter of fact, Kin gives + recharge which helps get you to Perma Fortify the pack. 

 

So, with kin you can have softcapped defense AND 300% damage boost (Is that the cap for pets?  When I have checked my pets they don't seem to go above that even with tons of stacks of Fulcrum shift)  Granted, the Defense is not capped all the time, but you have heals to help fill in the gaps (And Lion Roars, but I don't count on those).  I don't think you can achieve that with any other combo solo.

 

Currently playing at 41.  Right now I am working on my own personal defenses because me dying from drawing aggro is a much bigger problem then my Pets getting wiped.  I am only on +1/5 though, so it goes to your point of pushing difficulty.  I do want to get Powerboost at 44 before I push up the difficulty to +2, and I am not expecting to solo AVs because the gap in the perma fortify (Waiting for stacks) and not enough -regen.  The overall experience is similar to Brute playstyle as far as rush, rush rush to keep up damage. 

 

 

[Dixa]

All numbers were unenhanced.

 

Fortify pack doesn’t need much recharge to be perma so kin really does t have that much of an advantage there.

 

However and I believe I stated this elsewhere this combination is still nowhere near as tough as demons/thermal. I have been testing several dozen mm combinations on Justin fully decked out in io and tier 4 incarnates by taking them through the Maria Jenkins arc which has a lot of avs with various damage types and nothing has cruised through it like demons/thermal. Hell infernal had his way with beasts killing them over and over it was frustrating even though they were softcapped without fortify pack. As a same level av he one shot the dire wolf straight up.

 

Beasts hit pretty crazy hard with the slotting I used above but every time they stop to roar a short term buff it’s a dps loss.

[Justisaur]

Beasts/Time should do very well, it has a good PBAoE heal/regen, and the slows should help keeping enemies in melee and keep the damage low enough that the beasts survive to benefit from the heal.  You'll need to be up melee to fully benefit them, but you should be fairly close for supremacy/bodyguard/ATO globals anyway. 

 

Likewise you eventually get entangling aura on nature, which you need to be up in melee to use too - that will also help with some mitigation since it will hold minions. 

[Wintervoid]

All numbers were unenhanced.

 

Fortify pack doesn’t need much recharge to be perma so kin really does t have that much of an advantage there.

 

However and I believe I stated this elsewhere this combination is still nowhere near as tough as demons/thermal. I have been testing several dozen mm combinations on Justin fully decked out in io and tier 4 incarnates by taking them through the Maria Jenkins arc which has a lot of avs with various damage types and nothing has cruised through it like demons/thermal. Hell infernal had his way with beasts killing them over and over it was frustrating even though they were softcapped without fortify pack. As a same level av he one shot the dire wolf straight up.

 

Beasts hit pretty crazy hard with the slotting I used above but every time they stop to roar a short term buff it’s a dps loss.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say Beast/Kin is top tier, I am just saying that they can self softcap w/ Fortify Pack which opens up some other avenues for secondaries if your goal is softcapping.  I just think with Kin it makes the most sense, not because of the recharge, but because of the added damage.  I have not tested out numbers, but I take your word that they are lower DPS (and a more resisted type of damage as well) but my thoughts are that a Beast at or near damage cap with Fulcrum Shift is probably still out damaging any other Henchman that is not Kin.  Other sets can get more damage out of Kin, but they will not be as durable as Beasts that have Fortify as an option. 

 

I guess all I am saying is beasts are viable, and with Fortify, they have some different options not available in other sets.

 

Good info on Demons.  Thanks