Neiska

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

@killerdestiny @Drop Zone - I just ran some "Night at the movies" maps with a timer. With Elite Bosses - my 3 robot MM time was 68 minutes to clear. Without Elite Bosses - 46 minutes to clear. Those EBs take a bit of time for my robots to chew down. I suspect I could do better if I "juggled" my lore pets, have one MM pop one when the other one expired, so I could have a constant lore pet in the group to target those EBs down faster, but that's just me musing.

At the end of the day, I think any "balancing" really depends on what difficulty and activity we are talking about here. Personally, (in my own inexpert humble view) most activities on +2/8 difficulty to feel the best overall rounded. Anything beyond that, I see as a "hardmode" or new game plus sort of thing. Not all AT's will be able to do +4/8 etc, but that's not a bad thing either. Some ATs/Builds could likely do +5 or maybe even do a +6/9 difficulty, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing either. What does worry me, is it feels as if some people are pushing for nerfs in order to (achem) "encourage" people to team to do anything. I would urge caution against that point of view. As I expect the following would happen - 1. The fewer builds that can "push" difficulties, the more things become "meta". As an example, if everything sucked but a handful of builds, well, the minmaxers/power gamers would all play those hand full of builds. (This is not meant as an attack on minmaxers, I am a minmaxer myself. I am only visualizing what I expect would happen.) 2. "Forcing" or "Corralling" players to play a certain way, usually doesn't end well in an open game environment. Particularly in a game with such varied mechanics such as CoH can boast. I mean, if people are forced to team/play an AT in "X" manner, then why even bother having the other options at all? I mean, nobody wins in such a scenario. 3. "Balancing" is a very vague goal to achieve, because not everyone is going to agree where the "end" should be. Lets take DPS for an example, as people tend to compare Pylon damage as a sort of measuring stick to go by. Well, exactly how much content in the game do you fight pylons? (My guess? Less than .05% of the game content.) And yet that's often referenced as the measuring tool as to compare damage, and doesn't take into account things like AoE damage, Debuffs, Team Dynamics, or even your own defenses since Pylons don't fight back. To expand my example a bit, lets say Blaster #4510 has gawdlike dps, but has horrible defenses and resistances themselves, to the point they often go splat themselves when playing solo, which would render that deific dps moot. 4. And that is one mere aspect of Balancing. One should consider things like Team Size, Objectivity, things besides DPS. I mean, I consider some Controllers, Tankers, and Masterminds OP, despite their sub-par DPS numbers, simply because of what they can be built to do. It is a multifaceted issue to be sure, with no easy answer. But as I said before, in order to "balance" things, whomever is doing the balancing really should first decide on where the overall endpoint of the game is. +0 difficulty, I think pretty much any build properly slotted even with plain IOs could handle this. +2 difficulty would require some knowledge of the game with a bit of investment in enhancements. +4 difficulty is something people have to push for, and not something every AT will be able to do. Incarnate content is where things just begin to get wild where balance is concerned. So when people talk about Balance, I immediately wonder what difficulty/activity they are talking about.

@arcane - I am not familiar with "Garry's Mod", when I said sandboxes, I meant everyone is in the same game enjoying the same offered activities in their own way. I don't think that is what you were thinking when you said "Don't corrupt this server" so can I ask for some elaboration? I am genuinely curious because I think you are referring to a point I am unfamiliar with.

Kind of the statement that I wanted to highlight @arcane. For people who seem to want to help a community grow, I don't think this would be particularly encouraging. But lets expand a bit shall we? Who uses p2w toys? Well, people who level fast certainly. But also people who like to powerbuild, as well as people who INF farm. And not just INF farm for themselves either. If I had to guess, I personally have donated around 4-5 billion to various events/contests/new players. And a part of that involves p2w and the AE. And it's not just myself either, there is an entire discord of people who farm for ingame events and causes. The prize money for some of that stuff has to come from somewhere, and it helps keeps things active and lively. So your "don't let the door hit you on the way out" would really target the "charity farmers" too, people who donate to verious rp contests/games/sgs who host public things, often for prizes. You personally may not care, but I assure you a great many more do. And this is in no way meant to be a personal attack or insult arcane. I do respect your opinions as a fellow player. I'm just trying to show my point about other people that use tools for good reasons who would also be affected by changes too.

At this point I wonder if some of these suggested ideas/changes would do more harm than good. Things such as the defense cap change, removal of p2w vendors, etc. Personally if we lost things we already have access too (moreso), I would feel less inclined to keep playing than to play something else. It just very much feels as if some out there want everyone to "play their way", and those that do not, are "wrong". I mean, I truly do wonder at the thought process of removing tools and options, and call it "progress." I mean, if the P2W and AE were removed, I would likely uninstall, simply because I spend more time leveling up builds to test things out. Often enough, I get a concept build to level cap before I go "ick.. not liking this." because some powersets change so drastically once they are fully leveled/slotted etc. And the argument I have seen before about people leveling too fast really is a hook in the carrot argument. If your point to make people remain is to give them artificial "timegates" to level up before they decide if they want to keep playing or not, well, then I would question calling that "content." From where I sit, its as if people are sharing a sandbox, but want everyone to build the same castles as they make. Well don't be too surprised if people go "you know what, think I will find something else" when personal mere opinions for sweeping changes and playstyles are pushed as "policy." And do it enough, don't be too shocked or shaken when you find yourself alone in the sandbox wondering where everyone went. I've seen it happen before, many times in fact. One infamous player on a server went out of their way to coerced/harass some of the RP event's they didn't like, and then suddenly found their own things not being so widely supported. Just, be careful what changes you push for. That tool you may not personally like might be the thing keeping many people still around, and when that tool gone, the other players themselves might be gone shortly after. Just some food for thought.

I am not sure how to post videos, its not something I have ever done before. But if you are on everlasting you can tag along and see for yourself sometime.

@Drop Zone - the "Night at the Movies" terminator farm map I have never really timed myself or rushed it, i consider that my "chill" map. But if I had to guess, it would be 30-35 mins or so? But thats not me popping incarnate powers, speedballing it, etc. Mostly I run that map when I want to step away and do some house chores like laundry and such. But I can try a speedrun of it sometime if you want to know.

Fair! I try to see things from an overall perspective, both starting out, the leveling and gearing process, as well as what it can do at endgame with a "money is no object" sort of build. I didn't mean to imply you were wrong or anything if that's how my reply came off as, so sorry if this was the case. I was trying to more describe a power sets niche features and play style. Traps as example regardless of how much recharge I was packing it always had that "plant the flag" feel to it that I never could shake. Even with max inf invested, it still felt slow. Potent to be sure as you describe, but still slow. Not to say there's nothing wrong with traps though! Some like peaches, some like apples and so on. Each to their own, its still a fine secondary with robots, hence why its a classic build. But not everyone will enjoy the feel of it, regardless of how potent the powerset is. 😄

@TheSpiritFox - A fair advanced breakdown on traps, but not everyone has 600m or more to drop on a build to get to that point. Generally speaking, during the level up process I would call it painfully slow on recharge. And I wouldn't call measuring a power set by the top 5% of builds a fair "measuring stick" to gauge a powerset on. I still say Traps is more for solo than Teams, simply because not everyone is going to build their trapper with super high amounts of recharge. I would call it far from the end all be all though, but that's just my opinion. TLDR - Don't really think its fair to grade a powerset only after reaching max level, max incarnates, and decking yourself out with purples, to "only" then be able to be played as you describe.