Neiska

Robots had the best AOE and inherent -regen. They had weak ST though (and still do), but the biggest complaint was how back-loaded the set was. The T3 pet did roughly 80% of your total net damage, which made doing things like Ouro or side-kicking down a pain. But there were also ways to take advantage of that was well. Having so much damage on one pet made ST buffs like Forge much more useful, and it was easier to drop a red inspiration onto your big T3 and boost your damage as well. It was also a mixed blessing when it came to teams, as you could get by with just your T3 pet and it wouldn't impact you very much. But now you can't really do that anymore and have to bring all the pets, the same as every other MM set.

I think they wanted to make the MM primaries more interactive/personal attacks more impactful, but not in regards to damage. I have played the new Mercs, Necro, and Robots. The Mercs and Necro were definitely made better, but to me the Robots got a lateral demotion. My new Robot Farm team takes about 150-180 seconds longer than it used to, despite the "DPS being made better." The DPS isn't so loaded on the T3 anymore, but to some of us that wasn't a bad thing either. But I digress. Honestly if they wanted to make the MM sets more equal giving each primary a mule power would go a long way to do that. Most MM sets have a "slot tax" for pet auras, and the sets for those auras are far from optimal. So if you use the slot for the set bonuses you are kind of shooting yourself in the foot. They could make the pet Enhancements better too, or remove the Auras entirely and bake them into pet stats or upgrade powers. As far as Beasts specifically, I am not a fan. They don't have a full attack chain so can get stuck and pause a moment, and if the mob is fleeing then its a chase and can pile into the next group of mobs, often before you are ready. I also wish the wiki had a more complete power listing for beasts like they do for the other sets, it could show ways to improve proc-slotting.

Call them the Sewer Sprayer?

MMs can be lazy, depending on primary and secondary. Some MM setups are also quite active. But another "lazy" AT can be the brute or tanker. If you build durable enough with softcapped defense and resists, you can just put a PBAOE on auto and go do laundry. Again, not all are that way obviously. It depends on the build.

Oh for sure. Just last night my ITF was graced with the presence of Dan and Akuma from Street Fighter, and a few days ago I joined a DFB led by Homelander. Their names were different, Bios were empty (I think) but it was 100% their costumes, Dan's pink Gi and all.

You are taking things entirely out of context. They cited how they typically personally deal with things that might offend them. But in an earlier post they elaborated on how the team has discussions and the like. Those two things are not one and the same. Moreover, wither or not you personally like or dislike someone has absolutely zero impact on someone's ability to perform a task or job. You are jumping to conclusions based on things not related, and creating a situation that doesn't exist, and presuming that it is true without any firsthand knowledge or experience of it.

Blasters: "I drink Coke." Corruptors: "I drink Pepsi." Tankers: "I drink Beer." Brutes: "I drink Protein Shakes." Controllers: "I drink Decaf." Dominators: "I drink Tea." Masterminds: "I drink Chocolate Milk." Sentinels: "I drink Tang." Scrapper: "I drink Monster Energy." Stalkers: "I drink Whiskey." Defender: "I drink Water." Arachnos Soldiers: "I drink Gatorade." Arachnos Widows: "I drink Starbucks." Peacebringers: "I drink Milk." Warshades: "I drink Purple Mountain Dew." Snarky: "You already know what I drink." DMs: *looks into cup, sips Coffee.*

My take after playing several Robo MMs - /Traps would beat /Time for -regen, which is crucial for GMs and AVs. /Time has a little bit of -Regen, and you could take personal attacks for a bit more, but /Traps would still win. But for virtually everything else, +4/8 missions, Orobo missions, exemplar-ing down, etc, my money would be on /Time being superior at all those other activities. /Traps can be a little clunky or lacking in power until later on. Both like recharge, but /Traps requires more of it. And /time is good from level 1 onward. Also specifically for Robots (and Mercs) I would also suggest group fly. It makes a lot of difference in how durable your pets are when you can effectively negate many of the incomming attacks. It's not a fix-all, it can very according to map and enemy type. But for the majority, if you are alone it makes a very large impact on pets surviving, even on harder difficulties. Hope this helps!

The funny thing? To me your entire attitude of selfishness and how to "game the system" is just as offensive to me as that name, if not more so. What kind of person wants to purposefully make a community fail, just because they didn't get their way? We will not be communicating again. (See, this what mature adults do.)

But that's precisely what it is. Both you and I are guests here. Either we behave ourselves, or we will be shown the door. There is no debate. No compromise. This is their house, so it's their rules. Don't like it? Too bad. If you took time to apply my context to the argument, you might see how it does. An easier example for you to apply then, in context of a costume, might be making a superhero costume, but changing the colors. Or transposing a few letters of the name. Lets say someone wanted to make an omage to Wolverine, and instead uses the name, VVolverine, and instead of yellow and black, he is red and blue. Now, you or I might be okay with that. A staff member, may or may not. The point is, it isn't up for you nor I to decide. And once decided, you don't get to ask another staff member to try and get the answer that you want. IE - "Mommy said no, so I will just ask daddy." Your counterpoint failed the intellectual maturity bar, and wins you zero points. To people with fair intents, the rules ARE fair. The rules are "Omages or funny jokes are fine. but don't copy." To any honest and well meaning player, that is quite fair. Only those with, shall we say, poor intents of skirting the rule would such a rule be "unfair" which is whom that particular rule is directed to. So, I would say the rule is working. As far as the "lets overwork the GMs so the sytem fails!" then I believe you are the specific kind of person who the majority of rules exist in the first place. The majority of mature adults know how to behave and conduct themselves. But the notion of "lets crash the system" in a "home" you are free and welcome to be in, without any manner of pay, provided for entirely on volunteer time, reeks of entitlement and narcissism. A better counterpoint - Can't follow common sense and behave yourself? Need to be hand-holded and an overbearing presence to ensure your lack of integrity is always in check? Then don't play here. You say "it isn't fair!" "What" isn't fair? That you don't get to copy IP and threaten the entire community and game with your selfish desires? I would say that isn't fair to the rest of the entire community that attitude is even permitted. To anyone with clear intent to just enjoy the game, the rules are pretty transparent already. Only those who are going "I wonder if I can get away with..." are the rules not clear-cut enough. And odds are, if you have to question it, then you are likely in the wrong. I have no inner knowledge of your specific case, but "Useless" and "Lesbian" are neither wrong or profanity, while the F bomb most certainly is. Now, neither you nor I are the ones to decide if "Useless Lesbian" is an acceptable name. I believe most people would say, that it is not. But here is a shocker - if someone on the staff says it's okay, then it is. Don't like it? Too bad. Not your call. And for the record, yes, your term for bull excrement is also profanity. Life is far too short for me to even pretend to care about your personal feelings on the matter. But perhaps your time would be better spent in wondering if you resent playing here so much why are you playing then? Personally, I think your entire complaint arises from a personal interaction that you are still salty about. So salty and selfish that you would rather see it all come crashing down just because you didn't get your way on something, most likely a minor matter. And to that, I can only respond with "K." And the way this conversation is going, I expect this topic to be closed.

I might be able to offer some insight. But before I do, I want to make it clear that this is only my personal experience as a staff member for a different but similar game. (Neverwinter Nights 2 for those wondering.) A similar circumstance - a private server with a community, active forums, roleplay, etc. But I claim no hidden knowledge or 100% accuracy in how CoH runs things, I am only sharing how we managed things as well as why. 1. "The rules are vague!" - Yes, intentionally so. Having vague rules serves multiple purposes - 1a. There are "a lot" of us, and only a hand full of them. Enforcing and policing rules in a community this size would be a full time job. Having vague rules gives staff members room to make personal calls and decisions where needed. 1b. The moment you make a hard, clear cut, lawyer written rule, in about three minutes you will have people who dance up and down that rule, and try to get as close as possible without actually breaking it, and often enough break the "spirit" of the rule, but not actually breaking the rule itself. As an example, I will quote a line from Sword and the Stone - Merlin- "Come now Mim, you made the rules and you said No Dragons!" Mim- "Did I say no PURPLE Dragons? Well, DID I?" You will see this almost constantly. People can be clever with wordplay or, shall we call it, "creative interpretation" of the rules. Another example would be "You never said no Dragons, on TUESDAYS" and so on. 1c. Having vaguely written rules is actually an advantage to the Staff. Not from the "play nice" standpoint, but from the "lets see what they can do" standpoint. It allowed our big brain people watch to see "how" people would try to break the rules via exploits and the like. So in a way, we used our own trolls and/or cheaters as a QA process. Not that they were ever aware of it of course. We would just watch to see what they did, and quietly make adjustments where necessary. It actually proved to be very successful as a way of highlighting to us what needed attention and/or fixing. This isn't to mention that it would take time and resources to actually write a sort of players code of conduct, as well as policing and enforcing it. When I hope we all could agree we would rather the staff work on other things, rather than spending their precious time chasing down offenders who like to draw attention for thrills. 2. "The rules are selectively enforced!" - Well, yes and no. 2a. As mentioned, there are a "lot" of us, and a handful of "them." A staff member might spend every spare moment stomping out offenders, and you personally might never notice. And how would you? It isn't as if the staff is going to personally notify you of their actions. 2b. All you might see, or even realize, is that the "offender" is suddenly gone. You might chalk it up to playtime or circumstance, when the staff member may have taken action. Or they may not. There is simply no way to tell. And I would argue, that it isn't our business what steps they took against the offender in the first place. You did your part. You made a ticket and reported it. That should be the end of your involvement. 2c. Context matters. Using my own experience as an example, we had one rule that was more or less "Roleplay how you like in private." This is because different players will roleplay differently. Some take the lore and books as kiss-your-elbow-gospel, and others take it as more of a guideline. And these two groups of player styles can often get into arguments. So in our attempt to compromise, it was "Rp as you like in private." Well, then the term of what is or is not "private" got called into question - it started as 1 on 1, then it got expanded to private player houses/bases, then it moved onto personal guilds, and then suddenly it was being practiced by "official" guilds as well, followed shortly thereafter by people in official elected positions and the like. The point is, is that the rules kind of have to be selectively enforced. Because people are going to people, meaning any rule in place they will analyze and try to see how it might advantage them personally. At this point I would point out that being too aggressive with trying to "police others" can be just as bad. "You" might see something you dislike or believe is against the rules, and submit a ticket. The staff member looks into it, and makes a personal judgement call of "well, I think that's fine" and does nothing about it. IE - they disagree with you. Now it may look from outside appearances that nothing was done. But in actuality a judgement call was made that simply disagreed with your view on the situation. Who knows, perhaps even the other person and the staff member even had a conversation, one which you were not a part of. (In truth, situations like these made up the vast number of 'rules are selectively enforced' complaints I had to deal with.) The rules weren't selectively enforced, the person who made the ticket was wrong. It's really that simple. A staff member might have looked into the costume or whatever and said "it's similar, but it's different "enough" and closed the ticket. Or that person with the costume might have simply disappeared from your point of view, and you simply never realized. Anyway, there is a lot more I could go into. But that is the skinny of why "we" had vaguely written rules. And why things might have seemed one way, but in actuality was not. Please bear in mind, you only see one side of things - your side. Not the staffs side, or even the side you might be complaining about. Again, NONE of this is directly related to CoH staff, how it writes the rules, why, and how they police them. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were similarities.

It's 3.33% per personal attack, so all 3 together is 10% total damage. Not an insignificant number however. And I will be the first to say this build is far from optimized or min/maxed. It could certainly be better. Some builds have themes. And themes (while awesome) are often far from optimized. And this builds "theme" is being lazy. The general idea is to be as effective as possible, while also being as passive as possible. Hence the name, the "Lazy" Mastermind. 😆 Not expecting this build to be taking on AVs or GMs, but if it can solo +4/8 then I will consider it a success!

My take on it - Personally, I don't want anyone to loose their names, 50 or not. If it were up to me, it would be "first come, first serve." And I wonder what brought this change about in the first place. Is there suddenly a shortage of names or adjectives in multiple languages on Earth? Aside from that - life happens. People take breaks. I myself only just started playing regularly again after being gone about 9 or so months. And when I think about returning to play a game again, the last thing I want to do is scroll through 100+ characters on multiple accounts just to "log in" to keep something I have already had for years. People have multiple characters. Some build specific characters for specific tasks. Others simply have characters to act as bankers or storage. Other players still have a bunch of characters simply used as visual props and use assorted powers for roleplay, and the list goes on. To me this entire think stinks, to 50s and non-50s alike. And for nearly all contexts, I usually take a dim view on making people take extra steps or jump through hoops to keep something they already had. My two cents on it.

Here is the MK 2 with the suggested changes, a few of your points were a little confusing but I think I got all that. But this is mostly a checklist for myself - 1. Adjusted pet slotting. 2. Moved 1 slot from Scorpion Shield to Equip Mercenary, added Impervious Skin . 3. Swapped Shield Wall out, replaced with LoTG. 4. Replaced LoTG with Shield Wall in Hover. 5. Added Steadfast Protection to Equip Mercenary. (Lack of other places to put it, it was Equip Mercenary or Serum.) Think that's everything? But here is the build and a screenie for reference. Your comment about Shield Wall was a little confusing. Thank you bunches! Do appreciate. Lazy Mastermind - Mercs + FF mk2.mbd

Thank you, I will make the suggested changes. I can answer a few of your questions too! - Yes, a MM can be knocked out of the air, it's happened to me on my other MMs. Elusive maneuvers isn't 100% failsafe but its enough to make a difference. Pets can get knocked out of the air as well, but as far as I know there is nothing that can be done about that save having a high ranged DEF. - I had the KB protection because I was unsure of the interaction between that and Elusive. I will see what else I can put in, but I hope to be knocked out of the air as little as possible. - I actually took Repulsive Bolt over Burst because of the KB to KD, but also of the inherent -15% res, which should stack with the Achillies procs. - As far as the pet stats goes, I have no way to look at them in MIDs and I actually can't check ingame yet. But it's not just softcap I'm worried about, it's also Ranged since I hope to be flying as much as possible, save for maps like caves. But it's not like I can just have it on me and check later on too, so there is that. But thank you very much for the pet slotting, that was my big question was how to slot them and maximize their damage while still having all the must-haves.

Hello Forums, I decided to try out Mercs, but I have no experience with them or with FF. The general idea is to focus on Group Fly and being lazy/easy to play. I know the slotting for Mercs is a little different, as I have seen procs done all sorts of ways. If someone with Merc and FF experience could take a look at my initial attempt, it would be appreciated. But here are the highlights I am striving for - - I am hoping to use this as a sort of "training wheels" to help some friends/new players learn how MMs work. Not looking for top shelf/GM soloing here, I am more looking for ease of play and still be good. (Hoping it is +4/8 capable.) And namely trying to see if I can make a build that capitalizes on Elusive Maneuver's passive bonus and Force Field's passive playstyle. - I included Medicine Pool to help with healing a bit, but also to have a END tool as FF does look quite hungry, and I intend on taking Barrier, because I personally really dislike having to rely on ageless or blue candy to make a build work. But since this build won't be doing a whole lot, and the END is only tight with when Repulsion field is on, that should suffice. - With the "lazy" feature, I am hoping to take advantage of Elusive Maneuvers as much as possible. It won't be "completely" hands free of course, but far more than others. The one thing I am uncertain about, is once you take an action, how long the buff from Elusive Maneuvers remains inactive before re-applying again. Far as personal actions goes, I am expecting to just use Serum and Aid Other when necessary, with the occasional Force Bolt. -Have very close to perma-serum, with a 60 sec duration and a 68 sec recast time. And the way it is slotted, it should give 87% resistance, with FF's strong +DEF and the fact this build uses Group Fly, "should" end up with some very sturdy pets, with the option to use Repulsion shield to push away other fliers if necessary. -I did try to stick in pet procs and Achillies -res proc's on the pets, but I am sure it could be done better. I did try to focus on a balance of recharge/pet damage far as pet slotting goes. I did ignore a few of the +def pet auras since FF has that covered in spades but did grab the +res ones. - After talks with @Bionic_Flea I did manage to add Power Boost into the build. -I am unsure what other incarnates to use with a Merc/FF build. I intend to use Agility core, for the Def Buff and Recharge bonus. For Interface I will probably use Degen. I hope I don't have to use Ageless and will be able to use Barrier, but I guess we will see about that. Anyway, for those that know more about Mercs and FF please let me know if pets or FF powers could be slotted better. Honestly, I don't think this looks too bad for my first attempt. Thanks bunches! Lazy Mastermind - Mercs + FF.mbd

Ah my bad, thought you meant live. But I duno! Still don't pvp unless you count baseball bats, snowballs and frisbees!

I have no idea hon, that was way before my time. I never played live! So you tell me! 😆

Maybe you should "git gud" at making inf and buying those cosmetics you want so bad then huh?

See, now you are changing your request. Currently, the NPC Lady Liberty in Atlas does not take part in combat, she is a mission giver/quest NPC. And changing her to take part is no longer just "adding more PVP." This sounds more like you are asking to make it possible for teams of Gankers to kill PVE NPCS, like its possible to do in WoW where the opposite faction just kills the quest NPCs over and over, preventing the opposing faction from completing quests. Which I view just as another form of harassment. But this entire conversation is moot. There is very little chance of any of this coming about, especially as you keep changing your request. Originally this began as "Aethers for PVP" to "PVP flagged server" now to "Let us fight in Atlas City." And the more I hear the less I care for any of it. To me it sounds like you are grasping for ways to justify grieving your fellow players or tricking them into being punching bags. No, thank you. If you want to PVP, go PVP. Can't find people to PVP with? Perhaps there are reasons why.

Given that there are already pvp areas on all servers largely devoid of people, I don't see how having a server specifically made for open-world pvp would change that. Here is what I expect would happen - 1. If its an existing server suddenly made into open season PVP, anyone who doesn't want that would change servers or simply leave. 2. If it's a new server, you just made a server-sized PVP zone, that would be largely empty. You might get some people who would check it out shortly after launch, but as soon as the toxic behavior began (ganking new characters at lady liberty) I suspect that those seeking "legit" PVP would leave. So what would leave you with 3 - 3. A server with few legitimate PVPers/duelers, a few people like yourself wondering where all their targets are. 4. Cue the "pay people to come to the pvp server!" posts. Which is essentially the same thing as this same topic. Just instead of PVP zones, it would just be the PVP server.

I did not play on live, so I am only vaguely familiar with base raiding. If its just people kicking down the door to your base and ransacking it, destroying things, then I would take a pretty dim view of that. Some people have spent months on their bases, if not longer. to suddenly log in one day and see it destroyed would be enough to make me want to uninstall personally. But if base raiding didn't destroy objects/placeables, I am uncertain what the goal or interaction would be. I also wonder at how much "space" or memory that might take to pull off, I mean you kind of just duplicated all the memory required for personal housing, unless it was a "created on spawn" kind of thing like mission maps. Not a computer smarty here so I have no idea how any of that would work. But PVP SGs could work. if nothing else its a place for people with similar minds and playstyles to gather which I think is needed. So long as the base thing was an "opt in" instead of "free game" I doubt any would mind. It might actually boost some activity with some people offering to design bases and defenses and such to sell or even customize for the PVPers. Heck, you could even have a "run the gauntlet" kind of setup, but you can already sort of do that with AE now.

A fair comment, and I agree - personally I don't think the CoH PVP community itself are all gankers, or even a majority. If anything, the gankers are a minority, to my mind. But let's be fair here, it only takes the actions of a few, for people to assume the worst in any group of people. But that is my mere opinion. If what the OP was proposing was a league or some such, I would be fine with that, and I have nothing against those kinds of PVPers like yourself. But that form of PVP doesn't seem to be what the OP wants. A "fair fight" doesn't involve jumping people who not only aren't expecting it, in a supposedly "safe" place, but who aren't even interested in that form of gameplay. And I think it takes some gall to ask to be rewarded for such activity. And I think the entire idea of free-form, auto-flag PVP at any time, anywhere, in CoH to be the height of bad ideas. I certainly wouldn't log into any server with such rules in place. Even if I never got jumped, just the possibility that I "could" be, would be enough to ruin any enjoyable experience. I log in to relax, have fun, and to tinker with builds. Not to keep my head on a swivel, all my toggles on at all times, a tray full of inspirations, open to suddenly be attacked by anyone at any time. Personally, I would sooner be at the dentist office with a broken air conditioning while a group of howler monkeys screeched as they scratched chalkboards than be "forced" into any kind of PVP, but that's just me. People who want to pvp and enjoy it are certainly free to do so, and I hope they get the PVP they want, truly. But I take a dim view of bribing/tricking/forcing players into such, particularly in a game like CoH where it is very much a "play your way" environment.

No. If they wanted to do such a thing, they could do so now. But I doubt many would be willing to lounge about in a risky area and get ganked by people such as yourself, particularly when they have put so much time and effort into building customized bases of all different themes for just that sort of thing, with no risk of interference from persons such as yourself. If people want to rp and adventure, there are plenty of opportunities to do so elsewhere. Literally the entire game in fact. I am skeptical that you speak for the entire PVP community. You say you want more PVP, but only one particularly aspect of pvp - that is open world conflict. Not arena matches, not team on teams, not a "fair fight" or contest of skill. You just want to stomp other players with as little risk as possible to yourself, and then expect HC to reward to you for what a good part of the community considers toxic behavior. If you want that kind of pvp, there are entire IP series of games designed for that in mind. CoH is not one of them, and many of us are glad for that. If you want to "be attacked" then go play a game where you will be. Another possibility for you to consider is that perhaps it's not PVP at all but perhaps people simply don't wish to play with you personally. If all you desire is to attack people, even if they have zero desire to be attacked or involved, in a game not designed for such, I would consider that toxic behavior, and a fine example of why a good portion of the community dislikes PVP. This entire context of "screw what everyone else wants, or what the game is meant for, I want to pvp even against people who don't want to" I consider 1 step away from "1v1 ME SCRUB!" which resembles the worst parts of communities such as WoW or Diablo.

Yyeeaa... It's currently not the pve'ers or "I hate pvp" people who are listening to the "empty wind." *Looks at empty pvp zones* Oh. Oh no. You have to earn something like everyone else? How sad. And the item you actually want is optional, cosmetic. Purposefully put into the game to give people something to work for, and to also act as a time sink. So I would say it is doing a pretty decent job at what it's designed to do.