Neiska

@00Troy00 - sorry, i seem to have missed your post. But I have EA and Time robots, both are quite strong. But it really depends what you want to do, there are lots of good options. Electric is my favorite, but Forcefield, Time, and Traps are popular choices. I have heard good things about thermal, nature, and dark as well, but I have never played those. My favorite setup is 3 boxing 3 robot MMs - 1 Electric, 1 Time, and 1 Kinetic. Sins Robot-Electric MM (fold space).mxd Sins Robot-Time MM (mace).mxd

A little off topic, but the mention of power boost sparked a question. We all know it boosts Farsight +defense, but is there any other powers that benifit in a similar fashion? (IIRC, power boost is a +special, which is tricky to measure or quantify isn't it?) Is there a list somewhere of what is/is not affected? I mean, could you pop it, then use Farsight, but then sneak in a shot with a web grenade too and get a stronger hold effect? Power boost lasts long enough to use 2 powers with it, so that has me wondering what MM seconaries or pool powers might also benefit. So are is there anything else of note? It would seem odd to have an epic pool power that a lot of people take turn out to be a single trick pony.

Personally pet classes in not just CoH but games in general is what I usually lean toward, that or tankers. But I love Masterminds and Crabbers, (just wish crabbys had more oomph.) I've tried a few different Controllers, but I wasn't a fan. From what I have seen in video games, pet classes are a mixed bag. Some people love them, others hate them. But I think thats fair to say about any archtype. I know I loathe playing a clerics/priest/healer sorts. Some MMs can heal quite well, but I wouldn't call that their forte. You can build MMs any way you like, depending on secondary. Which to me is sort of a hidden feature. A scrapper is always gonna scrap. A tanker is always gonna tank. But a MM playstyle can change on pet and secondary parings. A /Dark MM plays very differently from a/Forcefield or /Kinetic MM. Which to me, is a fantastic thing.

I have fun when I learn something new and get to use it in action. I have fun breaking the mold, or breaking what people assume to be true. I also have fun sharing that with other people, as well as just helping people in general. I also enjoy number crunching and sharing my results with the big brains out there, who often correct my misunderstandings and mistakes, or help me think of something entirely new and often altogether entirely different and often enough better than I intended. I also have fun running 3 MMs all around and hearing peoples reactions when 18 robots/demons/thugs go by them in one large mob. I also have fun doing things like popping Gangwar 3 times, then Burnout 3 times, then Gangwar 3 more times after that. Or doing something silly like have all 3 robot MMs with group fly and specialize in knock back attacks. Or power farming with 3 MMs and watch people still go "WTF??" To me, all that is fun. YMMV though.

I am not seeing multiple threads that you speak of, but I have not checked other sites either. Demons/Time is actually quite good, balancing demons damage with times defenses, heals, debuffs, and chrono shift. Plus the Mace epic pool feature that you mentioned. Honestly, it comes down to this - either you can "double dip" both a resistance pet with a resistance secondary, or even a defensive pet with defensive secondary, or you can mix and match. Or you could even go with something like /dark or /storm for even more options. Neither pick will be particularly strong or weak, only have different strong points and weak points. And as with everything in this game, a lot of it us subject to personal taste so YMMV. Personally I rank time as a 4/5 secondary that can pair well with nearly anything, because as you pointed out it is strong enough to compensate for any shortcomings a pet set might have. This is just me musing but, I suspect such discussions or claims you have heard about X/X pairing being "bad" might be down to personal taste. Some people love debuff sets. Some people love support. Some love Defense. Others love tools and outside the box thinking. None of them are "bad", and all of them with equal inf invested should be able to complete all base game content. Not all of them will be soloing +4/8, or be hunting down GMs or AVs, but I think that's fair to say about any powerset and AT. I mean, one of the strongest solo pairings remains robot/traps, when at base value if you look strictly at their defense/resists, its not impressive. At the end of the day, what people say is strong or weak, really comes down to - 1. What activity you plan to do. 2. At what difficulty you plan to do it. 3. How much INF you have invested. 4. How far you grind your incarnates. (some sets only blossom at the very end.) 5. If you are solo, or if you are teamed. 6. Personal Taste. And not everyone is going to agree on these things, because not everyone plays the game the same way, which I would argue, is completely normal in an MMO.

Demons are definitely tougher when multiboxing. I think its an oversight but different demons will buff other MM's pets, where robotics will not. I am sort of on hiatus from CoH right now, and I have only experimented with dark and other debuff sets. Usually in games I favor heals/buffs over offense/debuffs. Things like "mag" and so on seem a bot convoluted to my inexperienced eye, and I don't want to find myself in a situation where I cant debuff bosses/elite bosses/AVs/GMs either because they are too resistant, immune, or I lack the perfect IOs/setup to be able to make debuffs effective. Also there are things like target saturation to consider as well. This is not to downplay debuff sets or those that enjoy them by any means. I just found buffing and focusing more on my own as well as my pets buffs/etc to work better for me. Debuff sets are fun to just have fun on for sure though. It's just not what I would choose when pushing content. I have heard some very good things about storm as well, but when I tried it, it was pretty chaotic and difficult to grasp how it was supposed to be played. I was sort of thinking about a robots/storm build that used and all ranged damage set with group fly that also had multiple sources of knockback or knockdown. It was just a concept on paper that I never got around to doing. Plus builds like that are difficult to build and plan in mids, as I would expect such a build to have lower stats. But mids doesn't show things like how much knockback/CC you have and how strong it is (far as I know anyway, could be wrong there.) Though have you considered an alternate - using a dark MM as your "main" MM, and using other sets that would directly or indirectly support or offers what it lacked or needed? When I multibox MMs, I don't plan them 1 by 1 and just team them together, I compare them side by side and see what interactions or combinations they can do together. But either way, I wouldn't encourage you to give up on your Dark MM. Even if its just for fun and its something you want to do and will enjoy, then what does it matter how far it can go or push, or if it isnt as good as other setups. I mean, 3 MMs might be awesome together, but for speed and such I would wager 3 brutes would be miles ahead. If you want to min/max, at least as far as damage and speed are concerned, MMs perhaps aren't the optimal choice. But as far as fun, enjoyment, activity, playstyle, and the "oh wow" factor, MMs win hands down for me over any brute. I mean, I've gotten a ton of comments when running around the world or even in the AE with my 18 robots following me. Even got invited to a private coh discord for the big brains over my MM farming guide, simply because it was something new and fresh and it sparked a ton of discussions and theorycrafting, which lots of people were excited to see, because like me they were sick of thorns/fire farming, or just brute or similar gameplay in general and the idea of "my army vs the map" was an entirely new gameplay style. So don't give up, keep experimenting! Who knows maybe you will come up with something entirely brand new. What about a "dark" triad or similar? Where you don't play 3 MMs for example, but something like a Dark Tanker, Dark Controller, and a Dark MM together? Something that was multiboxable/autopower capable. (just an idea off the top of my head.) Could even give them a name or theme, Team Shades taking Shadows or something. And I am curious to see if overlapping Dark powers would support one another with the mag mechanic, and so on. Best wishes!

if you just want to make money/farm, i would suggest 3 boxing robo masterminds. with kin, your pets will have all damage cap anyway. with much more aoe. assuming you are farming en masse with multiple groups at a time, it will be faster. but if you are going 1-2 groups at a time, thugs or demons will edge out ya. but your def/res will be high enough to do much more than that at once if you choose to.

I would like to explore that a bit, shall we? 1. If Ultron was Tony's biological flesh and blood child, and still committed the great crimes that he did, would you still hold Tony morally and criminally responsible? 2. I think the majority of parents out there would do the same for the sake of their child. That's instinct at work. There is a very large difference between accepting things, and being the offending person who made them. You are making it out to be Tony was the one who did the snap, when it wasn't. While he didn't magically erase what Thanos did either, do we even know that is an option? It might be possible in the comics, but not possible in the film version MCU. A great many lesser things were changed or omitted. You aren't holding Tony accountable for something that he "did", you are holding him responsible for something that he "didn't" do, which are not the same things. 3. With #2 in mind, it is a very small step from holding people accountable for what they "might" have done, to what they "might" do. I know some comics explored this sort of narrative, but to my mind it comes down to the Batman vs Superman argument - he "could" become the most challenging evil threat. He isn't now, but he "could" one day be. Is that enough to justify treating him as such? I would argue no. It isn't. Just as its not acceptable to hold people accountable for passive inaction either. An example: You see a charity on Television. You then decide not to donate to whichever cause. By your passiveness, you "allowed" people to suffer. You didn't cause it. You had no part in it. But you didn't help either. Are you now complicit? I would argue not. We both agree Tony isn't "Lawful Good" by any stretch. But not all heroes are "Lawful Good" either. Tony is a Chaotic Neutral to my mind. And that doesn't make him Lawful Evil, which what I believe Thanos was. TLDR: Making the best of bad situations, or accepting things that have occurred, are not evil acts. Particularly when you had nothing to do with the original root cause. And protecting your child by any means possible, isn't evil either. Even if by protecting your child, other people might suffer. You aren't responsible for them. No one is responsible for the entire world. Just my thoughts on it.

A bit off topic, but I find this line of thought quite disturbing. First off, you should clarify if you are going by the movie, or by the source material, as they are not the same. Secondly, if you want to split hairs, Ultron was an AI, able to make its own thoughts and decisions. Where it gets murky is the law as well as its enforcement to such beings, as you are applying real world context and morals to a work of fiction. If such things were true in the real world, I imagine there would be laws created to deal with such instances. But broadly painting it with the brush of "Tony made it, his fault, he's responsible", could also be applied to the real world bill gates and say "this man is responsible for all cybercrime, so punish him accordingly." Even though I personally think that is ridiculous, akin to holding every weapon and gun manufacturer responsible for how their products are used. And I would ask if you have given thought to whom would be enforcing such rules? And who would then be governing and enforcing them in turn, and so on. I suppose my point here is, such leapfrogging in thought has led to some very terrible things in the real world, and any such discussions of those would hardly be suitable for these forums. Just my two cents on it. TLDR - It is a fallacy to apply real world morals, standards, and laws to a fictional setting where that setting could have beings, situations, and exceptions that the real world does not.

Hello Rockroom, Tried to find my own Demons/Thermal, but it seems to have wandered off on me! But I will offer such advice as I can. Firstly, you can save some slots on things like boxing, by splitting up your mark of supremacy, for more recharge time bonus for only 2 slots. Second that stands out to me, is most demon players use hell on earth as a mule for all the aura/pet IOS, where you seem to have them set as another AT might. You might consider putting all the pet IOs onto your hell on earth, and putting things like chance for damage procs and knockdown in your pet slots. (Yes, they are a noticeable bump in pet performance!) Another thing that stands out is you can actually slot your t2 demons with defensive things, which saves slots on things such as your stealth/invisibility slots. Which might free up an entire pool power choice. Which would let you take leadership, so you could get toggles for your pets. Lastly, I would personally say you have stamina and boxing overslotted, those slots might server you much better elsewhere. If you choose a different epic pool such as Blaze or Mu mastery, you could really rock the house with those extra slots in powers such as bonfire or electric fences, which would help by more directly supporting your pets offensively. Hope this helps! Happy Masterminding!

I have run two separate teams of 3 masterminds, one team being All robot with EA, Time, and Kin, the other being all demons with the same secondary's. Even figured out a way to "Powerfarm" with them both. Made a post about it. From those two I would say Robots are faster/more dps, the Demons are tougher/safemode. But both teams were capable of doing any activity I tried with them, from AE farming to GM/AV hunting. Here's a link - Mastermind Farming: Discussion/Guide - Mastermind - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) Happy Masterminding!

Challenge accepted. You my good sir/madam/other are a stinky fartfaced doodoo head.

To play armchair philosopher a moment, posts like these always wonder how much of it is perusing the "spirit" of a healthy game environment, and how much of it is simply trying to eradicate or remove that which you don't personally support or agree with in an attempt to control it. There is a line in there somewhere to be certain, and I feel not I nor others not on HC staff can make that distinction. I would urge the OP to use the tools that already exist and are provided to everyone. If you see a name you find questionable, submit a ticket, and those in such positions will look into it. However, you may not always agree with their decision. One name you feel slighted by, another might see harmless. And that "another" just might be a staff member. Personally, I go by live and let live. I do my own thing, and allow people to do theirs. Even if its something I find distasteful or unenjoyable. I don't have to take part, or even support it. No one is "forcing" anyone to play with anyone else. But I don't particularly support policing other people's own personal enjoyment either. Just my thoughts about it.

Sure, that's fair. I agree that many who don't usually use the forums would be motivated to when the games go down for news and to find out what's going on. However, I do hope you would also agree that it is ironic and not suspicious at all that all the posts that got/keep getting deleted saying something similar to "HC finally going" etc, are all made from brand new accounts with zero posts/forum rep. Which I also submit are made by folks how have other main accounts, and wouldn't post such things on their main account for which ever reason, which is who my original post was directed to, not the first time forum users. Because I don't know about you but I have seen 5 or 6 new "lolz its down!" topics get removed. Not saying thats good or bad, I just find it amusing they were all made with new accounts.

Hmm... A rather interesting time for several brand new accounts with zero previous posts and zero forum reputation to be making posts.

I use fold space to pull things into my stacked bonfire/assault bots fire patches. This works just fine on the ground, or, it works wonderfully when flying. Because the enemies want to naturally run under you, so thats where your pets tend to shoot. But also fold space will yank things to you and drop them straight down, which if you are hovering over your aoe/the pile of mobs, it drops them directly where you want them to be. So it really is sort of a win-win-win.

Here is my main Bots/Electric MM. Notes - - Group Fly which is fantastic with Robots. - Bonfire for additional damage and CC, works quite well with Assault Bots fire patches. It plays quite well. You can hover and ranged fight if you want, or go into melee. Its fantastically tough, with endless end, and faradays cage makes you and all your pets status immune. It also packs a ton of +absorb and healing. It feels quite tanky. It can both solo or be on a team on the hardest difficulty. Sins Robot-Electric MM (fold space).mxd

@Twistedview - Bots/Time is solid. I played that for awhile before perfecting my Bots/EA. But for /time, I focused on minimizing recharge time. Plus the standard Mace epic pool to make softcapping defenses with robots easy with Power Boost + Farsight combo. With robot/time you can get into melee and focus on keeping pets going through buffs and heals, and keeping things in range of your debuffs like Time's Juncture. Also with /mace you can play "ranged" if you wanted to, using Distortion Field and Web Grenade to slow things down, making them have to slog to get to you. With enough recharge you can shoot another Web Grenade before the first one wears off. I have completely "outgunned" spawns before, using this method. Also worthy of special mention is group fly with robots. Since they are an entirely ranged set, they wont swoop into melee. Though the assualt bot may get semi close to use flamethrower, but if you want to use group fly you can simply choose not to use the upgrade power on your pets to prevent this. Some enemies such as fire lack any -fly powers, and any outstanding ranged damage. So you can hover out of reach and just let your robots mow things down. I have even afk farmed this way with robots, my healing on autocast being enough to cover what ranged damage I did take. Hope this helps!

Personally I don't run TFs anymore unless its with friends or people I know. But random ones? Really lost interest for a few reasons. 1. Difficulty argument - it might be some want to show off, or get the most drops/money, or have challenging gameplay. But too often people disagree on the difficulty, to the point where its just not worth my time that I could be spending elsewhere. That and I am not here to bare witness to your flexing pixels, sorry. 2. The "gogogogo" mentality - some players seem to be in a great big hurry. I have done TFs that I still don't understand the story or mechanics, simply because each and every time it was diving headfirst into everything as fast as possible, without anyone even explaining anything or even having time to read what's going on. I bare no ill will against anyone personally who plays the above ways, its just not my cup of tea. And its just the common feeling that pug groups often have now. So instead of getting bent out of shape over things outside my control, I simply join TFs on my own terms - namely doing it only with guildmates or friends, if not a full group then at least enough of them that we are the majority. I can't count how many times one person ran off by themselves and went splat, only to rant in group chat, when our thoughts are "well if he ran off, he must know what he's doing and knows he can handle himself." Lastly, an observation from a TF novice - the difficulty slider seems to affect the bosses much more than the trash spawns? I mean, the only difference I notice from +0 to +3 or 4 is time required to clear them, but for the bosses themselves that can mean quite a bit? So is that possibly the point of contention? Some want fast spawns/easy bosses vs harder spawns/harder bosses? TLDR - I don't do random TFs anymore, often the group interactions make it too unpleasant to be fun.

Never really played Rad much, but I know Traps is a good set for AV/Boss killing. Far as pets, well, Robots have weak ST damage, but come with a big beefy -regen debuff as a staple. But I am not sure if that would offset the weak ST damage in a av/gm situation. But I do GM kill with my robots/elec, so I do know they are capable of it, I just don't know which would be best, specifically if you have /Rad for a secondary. I never made a character specifically for AV/GM killing, but I do know that -regen is pretty much a must have, so make sure you have that in your build somewhere.

I think SoA's and Widows have the same res caps as Peacebringers/Warshades, I've gotten my Crabber up to 85% before. Not many folks build them that way, but still...

It might just be me, but I don't enter CCs to win infamy. Sure, it may be nice to get noticed when you win, (and I never have. I think I have placed in the final group once). But honestly? Even if I don't place I still get tells from people saying "I really like your costume" and so on. And on top of that, I like seeing all the amazing things people come up with for looks, style, creativity and so on. But if money is what I am after, I don't count on CCs. Some of them can take quite a long time, over an hour or two in some cases. I would usually make more in that time powerfarming by myself than I would if I won first prize. And I have seen some doozy winners myself, people who made me think "wow how did that win?" This is not an attack on that person who won, or even the judge who voted for it. Maybe they saw something I didn't. Maybe its for another outside or unknown reason. And yes, it could be a "pity vote" or even a "new player handout" sort of thing too. But, I would say none of these are "wrong" or even "bad." People who feel so strongly are certainly free to host their own CC after all, and decide their own winners. Regardless of the theme, judges, winners, not everyone is going to agree on the winner or who was "best." But that is human nature I suppose! And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. So if your objective is to win/get money, then it might not be fair no, as judges and winners are entirely subjective, and even in real life competitions not everyone agrees with professional judges decisions. But if your objective is to hang out, chitchat, maybe make a few friends, and see some amazing creations, then I have won every CC I have ever entered. And I for one am glad we have such an active community where players host their own events without outside help/assistance/oversight from the staff. Not all games are so lucky, in fact, most aren't. I see events such as these as a GOOD thing. Its people being creative, interactive, enthusiastic, and helping create entertainment instead of merely being entertained, which I don't really see as an ill thing. But that's just my mere personal experiences. As far as the Cel shading thing? I would say that depends on the host or organizer, but I don't think I have ever heard it mentioned before.

I would like to take a brief moment to highlight this thread, as I think its actually a good thing and part of why I love masterminds so much. Yes they are a pet class, and I usually love pet classes and tankers in games. But Masterminds are an entirely different beast altogether than a mere "pet class." Here, you really can build them in so many different ways, even within the same powerset picks. Which to me, is sort of the secret niche of masterminds. You make your mastermind in so many ways. You can have quasi CC, or a super durable tankermind. You can decide to buff defense, or resistance, or a bit of both. You can buff everyones endurance, damage, even give everyone status immunity. And yes, you can heal as well, and most healing sets also offer additional things than just healing itself. You can also focus on some super potent debuffs that are god tier later on. Or you can take personal attacks if that is what you like. Honestly, I don't think any other AT can be built in so many different ways. A scrapper is always gonna melee. A tanker is always gonna be sturdy. A blaster is always going to blast. A Controller is always going to be CC orientated. But masterminds? They really are in a league of their own if you want to crunch numbers. The only thing I think they can lag behind is DPS, but even then they can put up a good showing for what else they offer in addition to the decent DPS. I mean, you can even farm with them if you wanted to. Only Warshades and Peacebringers with their different forms can offer so many options, but Masterminds have advantage of being customizable. Moreover, your secondary can greatly affect how your mastermind will "play", or their "style". A traps MM feels very very different from say, a Dark MM. Some people like personal attacks, for flavor, feel, personal taste, or whatever reason. Others dont. One of the great things about CoH in general is there really is no "wrong" way to make a character. If you want to focus on fun/flavor/theme, then do that. If you want to focus on minmaxing you can do that too! Personally I strive for a balance of both. Something that is strong, but also makes sense thematically and rp wise. But one caveat to this is that with such a varied, customizable and varied AT, not everyone is going to agree on what is superior or best, because not everyone has the same goals or objectives. And I would say that is expected, normal in fact. It is a complicated AT, but to me thats a large part of their attraction. Not everyone wants to push the same 4 or 5 buttons, no matter how good those 5 buttons may be. I perfer options, or being able to fulfill different roles and do different things all within the same AT. On my main MM I can farm, I can heal, I can buff resistance, damage, tohit, defense, status protection, and give everyone endless endurance which everyone is always happy to have. I can even AFK farm on her if I want to. Plus she has goodies like teleport, fold space and group fly for those oddball situations. But thats just how I view Masterminds. Personally I think they offer so much in one neat little package. It can be over whelming for some, but I think once most get a feel for it, it can be quite an interesting, active, and potent AT, particularly if you don't focus on just DPS numbers. My two cents for what its worth! TLDR - Masterminds are awesome because they can be made in so many different ways, and can do so many different things. Which I think is their "real" feature, their pets is a huge bonus.

For me its Synthetic Sins, simply because she was my tabletop character that I brought to CoH. I also have a DnD character of mine, but Sins I have played a long time. She is based on shadow run and cyberpunk. I have made many versions of her, because nothing felt "right" as in order to recreate her as close as possible id really have to take cross-set powers. But, more after the roleplay, appearance, and vibes anyway. Shes simply the one i feel attached to the most. I do like her as a crabber, but her main build is a robotics/electric mastermind. Tabletop though she was a Street Sam with heavy cybernetics, and she made her own cyberware, with some rigging abilities.

Hello @Eoland, A few questions. First off, you haven't used all your slots, the build you posted says it has 13 slots to use still? Why team teleport? You are missing out on fighting pool so your personal defenses/resists will be lower. Is there any particular reason why you have teleport pool? You have both super speed, and fly pool. You could cut down on power choices with something else if you wanted to. You are also missing a few key enhancements, such as Gladiator and Preventative Medicine +absorb proc. You also have pulse rifle burst, something I really wouldn't recommend tanking. Photon Grenade is better in nearly every aspect especially if you load it for procs, if you really feel the need for a personal attack. But here is my Robot/Time that has served me well. It did go with mace mastery, but still performs well in any task I have used her in. Sins Robot-Time MM (mace).mxd