Neiska

More people does not mean more pleasant people to play with, or more enjoyable people to play with. It just means more people. More or less I was only teaming with people from my friends list or super group, and occasionally letting people sit in on farms. Because more often than not, group with an entire group of random people was not an experience that I enjoyed. Others may feel differently. They are welcome to it and I hope they have a good time. Truly. But in every MMO there is a group of people who group with whom they wish, or play entirely by themselves. And trying to force any sort of dynamic, even with a carrot on a stick, rarely ends well.

Knowing what I know now about Masterminds, if I wanted to run a solo /kin mastermind I would likely run it with Robots or Mercs. Kinetics is great for offense and support, poor defensively and debuff-wise. So a pet set with some built in forms of defense, either via self buffs of heals would be best, but Robots and Mercs stand out by being able to take advantage of Group Fly as they are both ranged pets. Having your pets flying can make a very significant impact on how well they survive. Not all enemies have ranged attacks, and even fewer have full rotations of ranged attacks. Some don't have ranged attacks at all. So just hovering your pets just out of melee range can make a very large difference, even with secondaries like /kinetics. Though this can pose a problem on some maps, such as caverns or sewers. Or against some enemies who aren't put off by your personal flying squad of death. So Group fly isn't a fix-all, but it does affect the majority of maps and enemies. Most maps with a "roof" still allows enough headroom to fly just out of melee reach. And I imagine the new Mercs/Kinetics might actually do quite well.

Hello spurgo, I need a bit more context to be able to point to exactly what the problem might be. But here are a few general things to consider - 1. What level are you? Are you fully level 50? Or are you still in the process of leveling? 2. What difficulty to play on? 3. What secondary powersets are you using? 4. Are you fully slotted or still in the process of getting geared up? 5. Are all your toggles on? Is your END management sustaining those toggles? 6. Do you have your autocasts going? The correct autocasts? 7. Are your pets staying within range of autocasts and buffs or are they running out of range and getting clobbered? I am afraid there are a lot of possible causes, and without seeing what your current builds are or a bit more to go on, it is difficult to pinpoint. But you can equip pet IO sets that raise "some" resists, but most of it will come from your secondaries. Depending on what secondaries you have chosen, you may not have your big resist buffs yet. If that is the case, I would recommend lowering the difficulty until you reach that point. This doesn't exactly help a lot, I know. But I need a bit more to go on to give advice.

Petless Ma--- darnit. Beat me to it.

That is an impressively well-lit and clean Crypt you have there Snarky. I am genuinely surprised. I expected more Bats and Cobwebs. Is that a pinball machine I see in the corner?

I can +1 attest to the sheer bulldog stubbornness of a good Demons/Electric MM. Mine was more durable (in total) than a few tankers I have made. It wasn't the fastest by any means, but honestly it survived and done things that it really shouldn't have. But another lowkey but very potent build that I don't see many of is Robot/Dark. Mine was Robot/Dark/Fire, built for flying. Stacking Tar Patch, Bonfire, T3 fire patches, Darkest Night, Howling Twilight, Fearsome Stare is all just so potent it's kind of crazy. Flying in itself can be a real game changer for pets, but only moreso when fighting enemies with limited ranged attacks and you are throwing so many debuffs at them. Plus when you are flying, all of /Dark's cones shoot downward and can hit more than expected when you use it from the ground. Another upside is that all of /Dark's -tohit debuffs works very nicely with Robots DEF buffs. Honestly playing my Robot/Dark felt like I was kind of cheating. If you want something deceptively potent that isn't overplayed, give Robot/Dark a look.

IMO it really depends on the difficulty, what kind of activity, how much INF is invested, and perhaps most importantly - player skill/experience. A skilled player can take a "bad" set and make it perform better than a new/unexperienced player with a good set, and an average skilled player with all the purples might well beat them both. And all that may change, from activity A, to B, to C. A lot of it comes down to personal preference as well. I have only dabbled with mercs and beasts and have never touched ninjas. But I have teamed with players who did very well with them, regardless of their "rankings." My advice? Go with your gut and what you like. You will likely enjoy it more and possibly do better anyway than forcing yourself to play something you don't like. And at the end, it's not like there is a race or gold medal to be won anyway. Personally, I enjoy thinking outside the box and trying new things, and sometimes it can lead to surprises that defies conventional wisdom. My two cents, for what its worth.

I still have lots of fun on my Savage/Bio brute, the fury interacts wonderfully with Savage mechanics, and /Bio is just the icing on the cake. Sure they aren't huge hits, but a flurry of little ones and bleeds/dots which fury does affect. So IMO it really depends on what powersets are being used, but that's just me. Some Brutes are still fantastic.

After level 50, you keep getting exp and gaining veteran levels. Every few levels you will get free incarnate materials. That is more or less how I fully incarnated my mains. You can also turn emp merits into transcendant merits and mail them to yourself. You do get incarnate stuff for doing incarnate content too, but the farm/exp method is there for us lone wolves too. And a lot of the upper end of enhancements can only be equipped at 50. There is still a lot to do, even fun stuff like badge/title hunting. For some of us, getting 50 is just the first step and thats when the real game begins. If you are looking for team play, there are groups who run the weeklys (at least on everlasting.) Its fine to go "well I'm done!" and shelf a character at 50. But for some of us thats when it really starts to get interesting.

One of my best Tankers is EM/Bio. Being able to hit ST for 600+ while still keeping a tanks durability feels extremely satisfying, and the AoE isn't that bad either if you slot whirling hands with damage procs. So it has respectable AoE, and strong ST, by tanker standards, and is capable of +4 afk farming if that is an activity you are interested in.

No, I was counting the perma-bats and the "when powers used" bats. 11. Squeaker

There is however, two different Bat Auras you can use, but the compromise is, you have to name them all. Here are some suggestions - 1. Zwoop 2. Nibbles n Sips 3. Ketchup 4. Bruce Wayne 5. Adam Sandler 6. Count Barbosa Edmud Delvonte Esquire Jr, XVII'th of his name, Lord of the Belfry. 7. The Lawyer 8. The cute one 9. Former Sugar Glider 10. The Flapper before the Bite

Is this the guy? My camera snapped this as he was reacting to a post of mine.

In short, no. You don't have to play with any team, regardless of level of difficulty, what they do, or how they play. You don't even need a reason or excuse. You done nothing wrong. And speaking personally, I don't care to merely just observe or bear witness on a +0 of all things. If it was me, I would have spoke up to something akin to "Well, this doesn't seem to be much fun or a challenge. Let's turn up the difficulty, shall we?" And see how much of a "gogogogogo" they are on max difficulty. Most teams can still handle that though. And if anyone asked me, I would say the game could use a higher difficulty for those that do want to min/max and push it.

Hello, sorry for the late reply. I wasn't notifed for some reason. Assualt IMO isn't all that great for the END cost, its only a little bit plus dimishing returns. I would go tactics, to first help prevent blindness, but also boosts your pets DPS against higher level targets by helping them hit more, which your T1 pets can stumble trying to land hits on. So it's multipurporse instead of just a tiny bit of damage.

The choice is Theme/Energy based attacks vs Quicker, More accurate physical attacks. Thats really about it. Personally I hate having to pull out a firearm when i got the crabby pack, but thats just me. To people who like to squeeze everything they can out of a build they may take the huntsman attacks entirely for mathematical reasons. Neither way is wrong.

I don't think anyone would argue that Crabby or SoA is overpowered, it's more of a theme/setting class. But just to point out that as a stand-alone it doesn't really shine, where it shines is team support/buffs. There mere presence is their main attraction with their super-buffed leadership toggles. Despite their failings, I still love them. The best build I found that works for me is to focus on flying and resistance/durability, with 85% resists, flying, a full cycle of ranged attacks, it feels like a I'm playing a flying fortress. Now its numbers isn't huge or impressive by any means, but often enough I was the most durable one on the team, more than most scrappers and some brutes. Just no aggro tools to capitalize on, sadly. And provoke only gets you so far. The AT itself has been largely untouched since it was added, as far as I am aware. If any ATs need updates, its the Warshades/Peacebringers along with SoA's/Widows. I am not talking a total AT overhaul or anything, just some number tweaks would likely be enough. I am not certain that the staff can do this though, as they have updated pretty much everything else to some extent or another except the Epic ATs. SoA isn't "bad", but solo or damage isn't really its niche. I am not implying they are all TERRIBLE dps, I am sure some can put up decent numbers. (I have seen some Widows that could rip a battleship apart.) I only say that isn't really their focus in their design. As far as the Crabber vs Huntsman? Well, with Crabby you get more pets, and crabby armor, personally I enjoy the animations enough that I can overlook the fact that the base attacks are better. Nothing wrong with taking things just for fun or because you like them. That, and I really like their energy based attacks and the visuals. They may be a bit slower, or lower DPA, but are energy type and thematic. Which is more important to you? Well, only each person can answer that for themselves. If it were up to me, I would really want their T9 changed, or at least that absurd cooldown reduced. It is honestly one of the worst T9's, and I'll be danged why they designed it that way. I would be fine with if it did zero damage at all, and was just a taunting drone you could drop every 2 minutes or something. At least you can find a use for something like that. My two cents.

It isn't the Power that people had issue with, its the slotting. If you take a secondary that doesn't have a heal in it, such as Cold, then the Maintenance Drone is a good thing. But for secondaries with their own heals, such as Electric, Time, Nature, Dark, and so on you don't gain much. So its a better option for those builds that didn't have a staple heal, for those with one its kind of "meh." There are certainly better as well as worse T7's. Personally my objections to the robot update was never about the Drone. The drone is a good option for people who want to use other secondaries, and I usually support more options for people. But as a whole, the primary didn't encourage different builds, but made what is arguably the primary that has the least amount of available optional slotting (IE the tightest slotting) even more so. And that's what some people who didn't like the new Robots objected to - the tighter obligatory slotting, not the heals, damage, or math.

I don't want to re-ignite old arguments, so all I will say is that of all the MM changes, Robots was the most contested and debated one. Some liked it, others did not, for differing reasons. Their damage is improved and more evenly distributed, but there are also downsides that I will not elaborate about. It's an old debate, not worth digging up. And I wouldn't expect them to revert or change it. But no, you are not alone in your musings or preferences.

Personally, I care more about the people I am teamed with, more than their ATs, builds, powers, blah blah blah. If I am with a sub-optimal group, loose, and we still have a great time, I still consider that a win. We might not succeed at all, and spend the whole time goofing around and cracking jokes and I would still consider that a win. If I am with a kiss-your-elbow META group, best of the best, but some people are ranting/political/aggressive/combative/doesn't play well with others in the team chat, I'll likely leave before we are done, and consider it a waste of my time. Heck, I would even bring @Snarky along, on any team, regardless of his AT, level, or build. And he could do nothing but hang in back and provide commentary like an announcer at a sports event and it would be glorious. My goal isn't to Win at the utmost possible speed. My goal is to have fun. Your goals may be different, and that's okay.

I think I see one, in the picture on the left if you look between the leg and arm you will see a red drape that covers the background. I believe its just the angle of picture.

@GastlyGibus Congratulations hon, I am happy you achieved a goal you set for yourself. But if you would take some words from a stranger who shares an interest the same hobby, I think its foolish to let others tell you how successful or unsuccessful you are, or to compare yourself to others in order to measure yourself. Instead one can compare yourself to your past to gauge how far you have come. We all had different beginnings, choices, and obstacles in life. So matching yourself against someone else isn't really a true or fair comparison. So don't let others tell you if you are successful or not. And I don't mean in this game either, I mean in life. Best wishes.

Lol.. far from it. Amusing name though. But some names I have seen I cannot repeat here, and I suspect they are still ingame.