baron_inferno

My vote goes to Ninja too and I've tried both sets with Poison secondary. While I could stomach (though barely) getting my Merc/Poison to level 50, my Ninja/Poison never made it past level 28. If I had kept going, I would probably be involved in a civil lawsuit right now stemming from me throwing my monitor out of the window in frustration and striking some unlucky person on the head. I would not play that combination ever again even if someone were to offer me a billion inf.

I see. It's been a long while since I've made it to test server so I had no idea it was changed. That would've made sense had KM retained the old cast time.

Oops, my mistake. I must have transposed the two in my half-drowsy state last night. Anyways, I'm just hoping that the developers will lower the cast time for all of the assassination line of attacks to the level of KM. Some Stalkers have already passed on using this bread and butter attack due to a variety of reasons, the longish cast time (interrupt duration) being one of them. Perhaps lowering the cast time will get them to use it more.

Hmm that's not it. According to Mids, KM build has a 1.17 second cast time which is the same as the BU in all of the other primaries except for Spines and Claws. Those two are even shorter at 0.73 seconds but their AS are just 3 seconds, not 3.67 like DB and BS. Odd.

Revised it a bit while keeping the same powers. Couple of main points.

1. Some of your melee attacks were overslotted. You don't really need to slot for accuracy too much. With perma rage and 27% global accuracy bonus, you won't be missing much anyways even if your attacks only have a 40% accuracy modifier versus 60%. Of course you'd also lose some recharge modifiers but it's not that big of a deal either. Your global recharge will be increased to help offset that plus you should have no problem with forming a viable attack chain as it is with 5 ST (Boxing, Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow, Gloom) and 2 AoE powers (Foot Stomp, Dark Obliteration). As for the endurance reduction decrease, no problem. With just 2-3 plain end mod IOs, WP is already a very endurance friendly set, even capable of handling the heavy endurance usage of Stone Melee. The endurance refill capability is even higher now since you have two Performance Shifter procs slotted.

2. Gloom was way underslotted. It's a great power in terms of DPA and the -tohit debuff. You can get some nice set bonuses out of it. I used Decimation in this case. Anyways, definitely find a way to fit Gloom into your attack chain.

3. Taunt was overslotted. The psi damage proc isn't going to make enough of a difference to be worth it for a build that is not short on damage options to begin with. You do lose 1.25% S/L defense by using Mocking Beratement instead of Perfect Zinger but that tiny bit of difference is easily made up by applying the extra 2 slots elsewhere. I put them into boxing plus another slot from elsewhere and used it as a mule for another set of Kinetic Combat and that results in a net gain of 2.5% S/L defense.

4. Mind Over Body was overslotted and had the wrong set in it given the fact that you're going for typed defense, not positional. Instead use 4 pieces of Reactive Armor instead of 6 Titanium Coating and that also frees up 2 extra slots for elsewhere. The small HP loss can be made up elsewhere.

5. Dumped the 5th slot in punch which had the FFB +recharge proc in it. That proc in a single target attack power is pointless. It would be a better fit in an AoE attack like Foot Stomp or Hand Clap which affects more targets giving it more chances to go off per activation. Now since you don't have Hand Clap and Foot Stomp is slotted with 6 Obliterations, I just got rid that proc entirely and opted to go for more global recharge instead. It's more reliable that way.

Overall, this is the comparison between the original build and the revised build.

1. 3-5% more typed defense across the board except for psi.
2. 16% more global recharge.
3. 2.3% more hp.
4. 4 more points of max endurance and in turn, more endurance recovered per second.
5. Same resists, regeneration and global accuracy.
6. 2.5% less global damage bonus which is insignificant given the effects of rage and fury.

Now the revised build does cost 20-25% more inf but given your original IO set choices, I presume you can afford it. If I had spent more time, I can probably overhaul the build some more to squeeze out even higher defensive and recharge numbers. Personally, I would also dump one of the travel powers as well as Hurl and pick up Resurgence, Recall Friend or some other utilitarian power. That and changing the slotting of Dark Obliteration into Targeted AoE set. Eh, you get the point. You've just got to do some experimentation for yourself

1. Yes, quite often. These days the maximum amount of time I can keep my attention on CoX is about 2-3 consecutive months.
2. This may not be a optimal suggestion for you but I personally just cancel my sub for a while. Go on vacations/trips. Play some old games I haven't touched for a while. Work on hobbies. Go on a DVD/Netflix/Hulu watching binge. Whatever works really. I'll only re-activate my accounts if I feel a real urge to play again and that usually takes anywhere between one to three months. I guess a lot of extended breaks help keep me from being completely burned out. *shrugs*

I fell into that trap for my Plant/Psi/Soul perma-dom at one time. I respeced out of soul mastery PPP and replaced it with mace mastery in order to grab the +def toggle S/L/E shield. While it is nice to have 42-43% S/L defense, I soon discovered that I was killing spawns at a noticebly slower rate. Losing dark obliteration and soul drain hurt a lot more than I originally thought and disrupter blast is hardly an adaquete replacement due to its redraw and long cast time. Then there's also the fact that plant doms have such a wide variety of control options available, mobs really don't get many chances to take swings at me to begin with. After about 2 weeks, I respeced back into soul mastery and haven't looked back since. When it comes to doms, I'm perfectly happy with the trade off of only having 22-25% defense but greater killing power.

Except for the Bruiser I hope but yeah, it would make more sense. The more I play my MMs, even my DS, the more ticked off I am with this LEROY JENKINS AI.

Actually yes, that's what I thought. I planned out the build in Mids before making him and that's the Mids seemed to suggest. Thanks for the clarification.

Now that's cleared up, do you think it's worthwhile to pick up swap ammo?

Heh, If it did, there would be no reason what-so-ever to make another type of brute or tanker.

Hmm, I tend of think of the -tohit from Dark Miasma actually synergizes quite well with the resistant based DS. One can have all the resistance in the world but the best defense is to not get hit in the first place. Here's how I prioritize the various defensive measures in terms of increasing survivability with 1 being the highest priority.

1. Defense
2. -Tohit
3. Resistance
4. -Damage
5. Healing

Now since Dark Miasma only has one +def buff power, -tohit debuffs on enemies is the next best thing in my opinion. You can effectively stack on enough -tohit to mimic the same effect of having softcapped defense. It's the same logic behind why a lot of resistance based brutes/tankers opt to build up their positional/typed defenses as opposed to adding more resistance.

In terms of Thugs and Bots, I actually think of Traps and FF as having better synergy for those primaries. After all, those are the only MM secondaries that can actually softcap the defense of your pets as well as yourself. To me, it's always better to go softcapped defense because it is a more reliable option than -tohit. This is not to say that -tohit doesn't help or is irratic, it's just that it *could* be resisted, especially when you're fighting against AVs and such.

Anyways don't get me wrong, Thermal is a great MM secondary and works quite well with DS. I just personally rank Dark Miasma a tiny bit higher. You should go with what you're comfortable with in the end.

I only meant that his picture scarred me heh. Wasn't referring to his personality or character.