StrykerX

Dual Blades is a lot of fun on a Brute or Scrapper, but the Stalker version is nowhere near as good. Having combos require Build Up, Placate, or Assassin's Blades ruins the fluidity of the set since those have long recharges or are interruptable. Plus you lose Typhoon's Edge, which is actually a very good PBAoE.

Procs work on pets the same way as on players, except for a couple of things:

- Pet recharge rates can no longer be buffed or debuffed by any means. That means the Chance for +Recharge proc is utterly worthless in a pet. It also means that sets with recharge enhancement placed in a pet power only increase the recharge of the summon power itself, not the pet's attacks.

- IOs of any kind placed in a pet only affect individual powers by that pet that can be enhanced by that set. For instance, if you slot a Kinetic Crash Knockback/Accuracy IO in Assault Bot, it only applies to attacks that can do knockback. Even the Accuracy part doesn't apply to attacks with no knockback. Note that Pet Damage sets only boost damaging attacks, so pets with non-damaging controls (like the Lich) need other forms of accuracy enhancement.

Procs work the same way: they only have a chance to fire when the pet uses a power that could use that set. For instance, if you slot your Spec Ops with the Achilles' Heel resistance debuff it can fire off when they use their rifle bursts, but not when they use their snipe or melee attacks (since those have no -defense component).

In general, I'd suggest Pet Damage sets for any Mastermind pet except Lich. Pets with defense debuffing attacks (pretty much any that use a gun) do well with an Achilles' Heel proc, but most other procs are of limited use. If you have a Lich, be sure to slot a common Accuracy IO (or a Hami-O) so his controls don't miss. A full set of Blood Mandate is a nice way to get a good defense buff, or you can grab Acc/Dam and Acc/Dam/End IOs from multiple sets to save slots.

And be sure to get the Resist Aura and Defense aura IOs if you can... they make all nearby pets tougher and harder to hit.

That doesn't explain the Energy changes though... 6 and 10 second recharge instead of 4 and 8 like every other Energy Blast set?

Bodyguard mode splits damage up among all eligible pets and the Mastermind. Each pet gets one share of damage and the Mastermind gets two... so even one pet provides 33% effective resistance while all six combined provide 75%.

As to what exactly constitutes an eligible pet, all of the following must apply for a given pet to be counted toward Bodyguard:
<ul type="square">[*]Defensive stance[*]any order other than Attack[*]within Supremacy range (60 feet)[*]In line of sight[/list]If all of those conditions apply, the pet is Bodyguarding you. Bodyguard does not suppress when you are stunned, held, etc... but if your pets run out of Supremacy range or around a corner then you do lose Bodyguard. Even something as simple as a pillar between you and a pet can break line of sight and remove that pet's contribution... the easy way to check is to enable pet buff icons. If a pet is on Defensive Follow, Defensive Goto, or Defensive Stay and has the Supremacy buff icon then it's protecting you.

A couple of tips...

First, you don't always need all your pets in Bodyguard. Assigning two or three to Defensive Follow and making macros that order the others to attack your target lets you reduce incoming damage by half or more while still focusing your heavy hitters' fire.

Second, if you are worried about AoEs and have ranged pets you can use Defensive Stay or Goto to position them away from yourself, but still within 60 feet, and then taunt the enemy. Those pesky AoEs will be hitting you and not the pets, and Bodyguard will keep you alive. Very handy against some EBs and those annoying CoT Succubi.

Finally, edit the pre-existing pet macros or make your own. You can drag command icons from the pet window onto your power bar to make macros that have the same icon as the pet commands... just edit them to do what you want after you drag them. I suggest removing stance from the macros altogether... make them just "Stay", "Attack", "Follow" or "Goto". Then leave the pets on Defensive mode full time unles you want to run past enemies (go to Passive) or cut loose in a Mayhem mission (Aggressive). That way you always have Bodyguard unless you specifically order an attack, and if do order them to attack hitting any other command instantly makes them bodyguard you again. You can use the pet window buttons or additional macros or binds to change stance, and when you do the same Attack, Goto, etc... macros still work with the new stance.

I was looking at the new assault set numbers on Test and as a bit puzzled. In particular, things like moving Flares to a 4 second recharge a Power Bolt to 6 seconds just seemed... odd. Why the differences from the Blaster / Defender / Corruptor versions?

Then it hit me... it looks like the new assault sets are being balanced like the melee ATs! Essentially we're getting ranged attacks that follow the same conventions as Brute and Tanker attacks: various recharge numbers (usually between four and twelve seconds), no extremely fast "spammable" attacks like the old Flares and Psy Dart... if you pretend the blasts are punches instead the numbers look right at home.

I wonder if this was a conscious decision, or merely a result of being rushed for time because the changes got moved up? It would be faster to balance everything as if it was a melee attack instead of trying to separately look at the blasts and melee attacks...

I'd say Fire/Psi will keep the crown. PSW will still be a monster (very similar to Foot Stomp, and we all know how nice that is) and Psychic Scream will actually be worth taking. Add in Hot Feet and the Imps and you're looking at serious damage.

I'd say the AoE chain will go something like:

PSW -&gt; Fire Cages -&gt; jump back -&gt; Psychic Scream -&gt; repeat

It will be a bit trickier since you'll need to alternate between a PBAoE and a cone, but it should be very effective once you get the hang of it.

The endurance changes were due to the damage going up. With Dominators having a higher ranged damage modifier Flares got a sizable damage boost, and they calculate endurance based off of damage so that had to go up too.

I'm not sure why they raised the recharge though... maybe they felt it would be a little too powerful with the new damage and decided to slow it down a bit and keep the damage instead of dropping it to a 0.8 or so damage scale and keeping the recharge. Hopefully it will be tweaked a bit during testing... I like the fast feel of Fire so I'd rather see something like 3 seconds for Flares and 6 seconds for Fire Blast even if it meant slightly lower damage (and endurance use).

You need tons of +recharge bonuses. The easiest way to get it is to use purple sets, but you have to be level 50 and filthy rich to do so. If you are level 50, try to at least get five pieces of the Fortunata Hypnosis set for Flash Freeze... it's very cheap for a purple. I think Coercive Persuasion is cheap too if you take Arctic Air.

If you aren't level 50, you'll have to use normal sets and Hasten. The best set for that is Basilisk's Gaze... it gives a 7.5% recharge bonus if you slot four pieces. It's expensive, but try to slot every hold you have with at least four. If you can spare the slots, you can also take Kick from the Fighting pool and slot it with a full set of Kinetic Crash for another 7.5%... it's inefficient as hell, but some builds have plenty of spare slots and at least you get knockback protection and a little regen too.

Other than that, you'll want to slot Call of the Sandman in Flash Freeze and Decimation in your single target blasts... those each give 6.25% recharge. If you take Arctic Air, slot Malaise's Illusions there for another 6.25%. You can get 5% recharge from Crushing Impact in melee attacks, Obliteration in PBAoEs, and Impervious Skin in Resistance powers (if you take one from the patron pool). You can also get 3.75% from Enfeebled Operation in an immobilize or Tempered Readiness in a Slow power like Shiver (or really anything in Ice).

Finally, the expensive option is to add Luck of the Gambler +recharge IOs to any defense powers you might have, like Hover, Combat Jumping, Scorpion Shield or Weave. They cost a fortune but they make quite a difference since you get 7.5% recharge each, and they count as a separate bonus than the normal 7.5% sets. You can only have five of the same set bonus (not the same set, the same bonus) so normally you couldn't go over five 7.5% recharge bonuses... but with LotGs you can have up to five LotGs and up to five 7.5% bonuses from sets.

I'm not really sure how much recharge you need total. It's kind of a matter of personal taste... if you get Domination recharging in 89 seconds it's perma under ideal conditions, but one recharge slow or just being in the middle of activating another power will be enough for it to drop. How much overlap you need depends on what kind of safety margin you want... I'd probably shoot for 80 seconds or less to be safe. On the other hand, the cost difference between getting Domination back in 75 seconds versus 85 seconds can be huge, so it's a balancing act.

A lot depends on your primary. Necro is not a particularly high damage set, so it's going to take longer for you... spamming Twilight Grasp and Howling Twilight as often as possible will help since both have -regen components, and of course Tar Patch for the -resist. Incidentally, Ghost Widow is a royal pain for even a lot of high-powered AV soloist builds so that's a bad place to start... not sure about Libery since I've never fought her as an AV.

The keys to soloing AVs are DPS and survivability. The harder you hit, the shorter the fight and therefore the less time you have to survive. The harder you are to kill, the longer you have to do damage. I suspect what happened to you was that the pets were dying too fast and therefore dropping your DPS... you stayed alive, but you couldn't keep a solid stream of damage going. AVs tend to squash pets like bugs, especially in melee, so your best bet is to get Challenge or Provoke and slot it well... if you stay in Bodyguard you can take the hits a lot better than any of your minions can. Still, Necro is a mostly melee set and AVs tend to have PBAoEs or melee cones, so keep them as debuffed as possible and hope they miss. You could really use global recharge bonuses, both for spamming debuffs faster and also for replacing pets. I'm sure Necro/Dark can solo AVs, but I don't play the set so I can't give detailed strategies...

The most "casual friendly" AV soloing combo is Bots/Traps. They can solo quite a few with just SOs. Bots are tough and all ranged, Traps has debuffs (includung huge -regen), an immobilize and a nice area +regen power, and both Bots and Traps boost the Mastermind's defense. You can beat a lot of AVs by simply having your pets stand on a Triage Beacon in Bodyguard mode, immobilizing the AV with Web Grenades, and keeping it taunted while the bots shoot it. Drop your Acid Mortars and Poison Traps as they come up and stay on the edge of the Beacon yourself (but a bit away from the bots to protect them from AoEs) and you're pretty hard to kill. You also have enough defense to get Aid Self and Aid Other off most of the time even under fire. You even get hold and stun protection. With Necro, you're just going to have to rely on keeping them debuffed and slowed... hopefully you can get the AV to chase you around while the zombies and Grave Knights pound on it. The Black Scorpion patron pool might help... it has a nice defense-based shield that will help you tank the AV if you go the taunt route.

Energy / Energy is good... the knockback helps keep you alive and the melee stuns are great when things get close.

I also really like Archery / Mental. Fast animations, good AoEs, and decent utility make it a nice set for a pure ranged build.

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That is incorrect. The 54 month Nemesis and Blackwand specifically state "This version of this power doesn't gain bonus damage dependant upon your origin."

edit:
Screenshot

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I didn't realize that. I'm still a month or two away from that one.

Oh, one other minor effect... if you plan to use many SOs (instead of going to IOs at 25), the Natural and Mutant ones are a lot easier to shop for because the names actually reflect what they do. Tech is a nightmare by comparison... all those nonsense names make it a pain if you're looking for something that doesn't stand out by color like Accuracy or Damage. They're mostly alphabetical so it's not horrible, but it takes me a few seconds to find something at the Mutant or Natural shop and considerably longer at Tech, Science, or Magic.

There are several reasons to take at least one personal attack:
<ul type="square">[*]They significantly boost damage at early levels, especially if you lack veteran attacks (you can always respec later)[*]They're the only way to have a character pull out dual pistols or a laser rifle[*]At any level they do still add some damage, so if you have nothing better to spend time and endurance on and can spare a power choice or two (I'm looking at you, Force Field) why not?[/list]On the other hand, if you have a tight build they're the first thing to dump to free up space. They also use a lot of endurance for mediocre damage, so you're normally better off using your secondary if it's an active one. Veteran attacks are also better than the MM personal attacks, especially if you have +accuracy or defense debuffs to insure they hit. The only time I'd consider taking all three is on /FF... and that's just to have something to do other than spam Force Bolt.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: Do you have time to use them, endurance to power them, and room for them in your build? If you answered yes to all three, go for it. If not, skip them.

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Pff, the Arsonist draws way more aggro than the Bruiser. My Commando is much better at keeping the aggro off the lower tier pets than the Bruiser is.

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I don't count the Arsonist... he's doomed even if you run a co-op TF with seven Tankers.

The early game is pretty fast compared to the over-20 game. I'd hate to lose damage later on just to soften the blow in the early teens... remember, most people will never be permadom at any level so a 25% damage boost in Domination and a lower base damage would still be worse than a higher base and Domination only providing mez protection and extra control.

Honestly, Dominators even in the teens will be better than some Controllers and Defenders so I don't see it being that big a deal. The teen levels are only a few days of play, compared to weeks or months at 20+.

Fire/Kin, like most Controllers, is pretty pathetic at low levels when it comes to offense. Especially in a duo, where there are more mobs. But if you can stick it out until later it's worth the trip... Fire Imps change things a lot and Fulcrum Shift is just insane. At low levels, the Sonic/Sonic will indeed clear spawns faster... though Fire/Kin can do it very safely (though slowly) by using holds and immobilizes.

I personally would team a Blaster with that Fire/Kin. Blasters rip through early game content, and by the levels where they really start to fall off the Controller will be up and running. A Speed Boosted Fire/Fire Blaster with the /Kin following him with Transfusion on auto can stomp most spawns flat, and if you hit a tough boss you can switch to spamming holds to remove him from the picture. The Sonic Defender will add more at higher levels, but Fire/Kins don't need much at high levels so...

Electric / Electric might be interesting. You get good AoE and you both have endurance drain... you might be able to drain mobs dry for extra defense. EBs will be a pain though.

A duo isn't going to run into huge mobs, so unless you plan to herd or go for end drain I'd go with something that has good single target damage as well as some AoEs. Dual Blades / WP or DB/SR are fun and have pretty good AoE while still having better single target damage than Electric Melee. There's also Fire/Fire... it's squishy for a Brute but it can handle two-man spawns, especially with some controls. (If you can afford expensive IOs it can handle a lot more, of course.)

If you are going to herd, go with the classics: SS/WP or SS/Fire.

Storm, Traps, and FF deal with it by keeping things from hitting the pets enough to kill them. As for TA, its debuffs are AoE so it's easier to deal with a horde. Poison is one of the strongest secondaries against a single hard target, but it's the weakest against groups.

Also, your Thugs have a fair amount of defense from the Enforcers' leadership buffs while the Mercs have none. That means they get hit more, and need more healing. Thugs / Poison would be a lot sturdier than Mercs / Poison since you have defense plus a nice tough Bruiser to attract aggro off your squishy tier one pets.

The non-weapon ranged animations do tend to all look alike at times. Energy Blast isn't quite so bad since the blasts themselves tend to look different, and Fire Blast is fairly varied, but the ranged control powers in particular all seem to be variations on "flick a wrist" or "wave both hands". At least Plant has a wide variety of very obvious effects.

Storm is always good for a ton of cool visuals... lightning, snow, wind, tornadoes... it has it all. One thing about this game is that there is no "gear" in the normal sense, so there is no variation in attacks. Each attack power has one animation that never changes... you can't get a cool new sword and see a different weapon when you attack like in fantasy MMOs. There is one exception to that: Propel from Gravity Control tosses a random object at the target, and there's a large pool of objects for it to pick from.

Power sets that I consider visually exciting:

Storm Summoning
Fire Blast
Electric Blast
Plant Control (though it's a matter of taste)
Super Strength (it just feels really "super")
Dual Blades (by far my favorite melee set aesthetically)
any Mastermind primary (you have a whole squad attacking!)

I'd suggest a Dual Blades/Super Reflexes (or Willpower) Scrapper or Brute if you want a really fun and visually exciting melee character. But if you want truly stunning visuals and don't mind being a bad guy then make a Robotics / Storm Mastermind. Massive laser barrages, explosions and incindiary missiles, hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, snow... you can't get a better show!

If you want to stick to the good guys, Illusion/Storm is also very impressive. I believe Phantom Army has a bit of random variety in the pets it summons, and the Phantasm's energy attacks look good. Plant / Storm is also good if you like the plant graphics... some do and some don't. Fire / Storm might be something to try, though I personally think Fire Control's visuals get kind of repetitive. That's true of all the control sets though...

Dominators are probably what you are looking for, but don't overlook Corruptors. You might want to give Fire/Dark a try... it's thematic (the Dark powers look a lot like smoke, or you can go the whole demon route), hits hard, and gives you quite a bit of control. You won't hit as hard as a Blaster, but you'll have more control than one... besides which, nothing redside hits as hard as a Blaster, at least in the sub-billion inf build range.

I'd suggest trying several ATs and seeing what you like. Brutes are a lot of fun, especially after you get Stamina and stop running out of endurance every third fight. Dominators are fun but slow soloists... you may want to wait for the coming Dominator buffs before trying one. Corruptors are a lot like "offender" Defender builds, but even more offensive. And Brutes are Scrappers on steroids... they have lower burst damage but once they get going they steamroll through just about anything.

I'd go with a Fire/Fire Blaster and a Kinetics/whatever Defender. Swap over to apply Speed Boost (and Fulcrum Shift when you get it), leave the Kin on auto-follow with the Blaster targeted and Transfusion on auto, and go to town.

A Fire/Kin and a Fire/FF could give you a similar feeling late game to the pair of MMs. Or even better, Fire/Kin and Fire/Sonic (for Disruption Field).

After the pet changes, all it does now is waste a slot. The pet is what gets the recharge buff, but since pet recharge can't be buffed any more... you're better off slotting a level one TO.

That's true, but Shield Charge isn't available every spawn. AAO is. I'd agree that the set is a bit weaker on Brutes, though any secondary that adds a +damage power and an AoE attack is going to be nice. It's just nicer on Scrappers and Tanks.

Possible? Yes, though it's not easy and would get tedious. I could do it on my Bots / Traps by immobilizing both AVs with Web Grenades and alternating Challenge between them to keep them taunted. It would be a ton of clicking or tabbing though... immobilizing both near each other and using Provoke would be a bit easier.

As far as the damage goes, with 40% ranged defense and Bodyguard plus Triage Beacon, Aid Self, and Aid Other I doubt it would be a big deal. However, some AVs or Heroes can be real problems... Silver Mantis and her super-Caltrops that interrupt my heals, for instance. But as long as neither target has any odd tricks like autohit attacks, huge area ranged AoEs, or auto-interrupt patches and neither has extra immobilize protection I think it would be possible on my current build and I know it would be possible with fully softcapped ranged defense and some more +HP bonuses. Doing it with no inspirations would require a new build though... I have to use blues on AVs since I'm not running Stamina or any real +recovery.

(My Bots / Traps is only about a 50 to 100 million inf build... no purples, no uniques other than the pet auras, and mostly midrange sets. And he can already solo a fair number of AVs, much less just tank them. He doesn't even have all the +HP and +END accolades yet.)

With an extreme build, it might be possible to hold aggro on three AVs or Heroes if you can get a Brute or someone to bunch them up for you or use geometry to do so. The patron AoE immobilize plus Web Grenade should keep them still, and well slotted Provoke will keep them aggroed as long as they're next to each other... but that's a lot of incoming damage so you'd want all the accolades, massive defense, +HP and +regen, and probably some global recharge.

The Assault Bot's incindiary missiles do scatter enemies, but it's really no big deal on anything under a boss. With bosses or higher, you do want to keep them in the patch for best results... but fortunately MMs have ways to do so.
<ul type="square">[*]Web Grenade in Traps (well slotted it can immobilize an elite boss or AV through a Dispersion Bubble)[*]Slows like Caltrops, Tar Patch, and Snow Storm[*]Repels and knockback if a corner is handy and the target isn't immune[*]Patron immobilizes, especially the one in Mu since it has -KB. Well slotted they'll stack to immobilize a boss or AV.[/list]
One reason Bots pair so well with Traps is the fact that Poison Gas and Caltrops will keep a spawn in the incindiary missile fire patches a lot longer, while Web Grenade insures that hard targets never move at all. Fully slotted with Trap of the Hunter it can be stacked six times, more than enough to perma-immobilize just about anything except some custom AE critters, while giving you some nice set bonuses and a damage proc. And if you can't immobilize it, just set the Bots to Stay and they won't chase after it... it'll be back once it runs out of the patch and while it's running around in fear it's not shooting you.

As for the clanking and "pew pew pew" sounds, that's part of what I like about the Bots, so it's all a matter of taste.