Kommon

My savage melee / shield defense scrapper is experiencing an odd bug where every time I execute rending flurry on a target, I will lose all set bonuses from Scrapper's Strike or Critical Strikes including the global IO bonus; both sets seem to exhibit the same behavior. The bonuses disappear from the powers tab under personal info and from combat attributes. The set bonuses also disappear upon reaching five stacks of blood frenzy, even before executing rending flurry. With my limited testing on the beta server, it seems that purple sets, regular sets, winter sets do not have the same behavior in rending flurry, only the scrapper ATOs. The only way to recover the set bonuses is to either wait several minutes (haven't timed it) or zone, at which point getting five stacks of blood frenzy or using RF on a target will make them disappear again. More weirdness: on the beta server there seems to be something odd going on with slotting IOs into rending flurry if the power was recently executed in the same zone. If I were to use RF on a target, use unslotters to swap out enhancements with another set, and then zone, all the changes I had made would be undone. Can anyone help me confirm any of this? It's driving me crazy....

I had the same slotting as you. Thanks for the suggestion! I'll end up doing just that until it get fixed (hopefully).

Ah... I misread your reply. You said you HAD the set slotted, not have. What is slotted in your Rending Flurry now? With whatever is slotted in that power now, do the set bonuses for that IO set seem to go away after zoning and then using Rending Flurry?

Interesting... Can you zone again and then see if you lose your set bonuses from Scrapper's Strike (recharge, accuracy, damage, etc.) when executing Rending Flurry?

Whew! I thought I was going crazy! I have seen this bug in action since I completed my SM/SD scrapper last month. I was just about to make a post like yours until I found this thread via search. Just reading your post made me realize that this bug probably has something to do with the way Rending Flurry works. It's one of those powers that has a redirect function. Based on certain conditions being met (Blood Frenzy stack number), it will either redirect to the normal RF power or the RF power with a 15 foot radius. I only lose the set bonuses (and maybe unique IO bonuses) from whatever I have slotted into Rending Flurry. If I were to re-zone, I would have all set bonuses again. If I use RF afterwards, I would lose the set bonuses in RF and not get them back until I zone again. I haven't done extensive testing to figure it out, but at least now I know i'm not crazy.... Edit: While typing this message, The set bonuses came back on their own without zoning this time.... Definitely an odd bug. Another note: I'm using Superior Scrapper's Strike in Rending Flurry.

Bots/Traps can kill AVs and GMs with Single Origin Enhancements. Killing an archvillain is no different than killing a boss, except you are dealing with ten times the hit points and maybe more damage from the mob. Bots/Traps gives you several tools to mitigate and lessen damage dealt to you and your henchmen, and both Bots and Traps have massive amounts of regeneration debuffs, which allow you to take your time while killing the AB/GM meat bags, as they will not be able to regen any hit points during the fight. You really don't need anything special like taking down AVs/GMs with that combo, but a good build makes it faceroll-on-keyboard easy to do so.

It could be explained that, being a Mastermind, you need to be smarter than the gifted individuals with special powers, like how you mentioned your gang being equipped with Impervium ammunition. I can't remember Golden Palm, but if it's a lower level hero, maybe their powers are all they can be yet, and regular bullets do actually hurt them, and maybe hundreds of bullets can take their toll. In the case of a hero like Statesman, you may not need to explain anything at all. Statesman is HIGHLY resistant to smashing and lethal damage. When fighting Statesman later in your career, if he is about to be defeated, he uses his version of Unstoppable which allows him take ZERO damage from smashing or lethal sources, making your Thugs, Enforcers, and Bruiser do no damage at all. In a fight against Statesman, you would need to use your other tools, perhaps laying a trap that poisons him, reducing his health regeneration over time to allow you to outlast his boost in power to take him down with your limitless supply of meat bags.

I never had the impression that Invulnerability armors were completely impervious to physical damage like bullets and punches, only resistant to physical damage. And who says Superman is an Invul/SS Tank? We can't make direct comparisons like that. Heck, if we go down that route, we might as well say that a Mind/Time Controller can either see their own defeat and avert it or simply mind control their enemies permanently to automatically win every engagement.

I did a quick test on the test server in AE versus EBs with no powers. I only summoned my Dire Wolf, and I hid around a corner while I was commanding it in order to block supremacy affecting from giving the wolf a damage boost. Each time that I ordered the Dire Wolf to attack, I had to make sure that it didn't use Wild Charge before executing an attack; if the wolf did use Wild Charge, I waited until the buff expired and tried again. I'm not going to post big screenshots, but only damage numbers from the pet combat log before and after I added three level 50 damage IOs. Before adding any enhancements in Dire Wolf: After adding three level 50 damage IOs for 99.1% enhancement: From the numbers, it seems as though this is only a display problem and does not affect the pet's damage. However, the Summon Dire Wolf power accepts damage resistance enhancements (The pet has no powers with damage resistance that can be enhanced...), which is likely why this bug exists. This can make slotting the power difficult unless one copies the enhancement slotting into another power to confirm the damage bonuses, or use Mid's Reborn to slot damage correctly.

There is also a bug with some Incarnate powers where henchmen do not inherit what the mastermind has slotted in always-on Incarnate abilities, like Interface. Unless the mastermind resummons their henchmen after loading into a new zone, their henchmen will not inherit the Interface slot ability. This is similar to Assault Hybrid where if henchmen are already summoned prior to toggling the ability on, they will not gain the Assault Hybrid ability; the mastermind must dismiss them, activate Assault, and then resummon them in order to have Assault affect them during the two minute Assault duration and subsequent toggle activations, assuming they don't die during the Assault's downtime.

This Works great! Just for curiosity sake, I tried it without targetcustomnear after the plus sign and it still works. I made the following for my Bots/Traps. The + is the important part it seems. We really need to create a sticky for this great MM information so we can collect all it in one place. Maybe sticky the below post and we can add posts with updated commands and tricks.

If you team more than solo, go with /Time. The team buffs and damage mitigation the set provides is top tier. Do carry break frees though, as you would with any other set. Other than the Mez protection hole, Bots/Time is a solid combo both solo and in teams. Once you get high enough and start on Incarnate content, invest in Clarion Radial line. That will boost your buffs and debuffs and provide Mez protection if needed.

I recommend you use dismiss most of the to not leave henchmen bodies behind. It's a cleaner command. However, when doing missions and your pets decide to start violating the rules of nature by going through walls or just no cooperating (elevators....), or if you simply want to dismiss them right at the start of a mission and they are doing their weird door routine where they go in and out several times, use release pets. This will kill them dead 100% of the time and let you start over, while dismiss will simply _ask_ them to kindly leave. If they are busy doing other things, like phasing through material or being stupid with doors, they may not leave. It may look like they are go because their names will be removed from the pet window, but they will still be alive and prevent you from re-summoning them.

I have a love/hate relationship with bots. On one hand, their AoE potential after their level 32 upgrade is crazy good mainly due to one power, Incendiary Swam Missiles with its stacking burn patches. One the other hand, before level 32, their low dps potential is painfully obvious, and their single good AoE up to that point is on a Tier 3 pet that is available no sooner than level 26. Mercenaries are in the same boat, except they deal mainly lethal damage. This make for leveling discrepancies between the original ranged MM sets like Mercs and Bots and the newer hybrid sets like Demons and Thugs. It's almost like the original Devs figured out how to develop Mastermind henchmen after they released Thugs. It's not just the leveling issues with Bots (and Mercs have this problem too). After the Bot's level 32 upgrade, the Assault bot struggles with deciding to either toy with enemies by using its flamethrower or dual plasma blast powers with their ridiculous cast times and low dps, or use its swam missile powers to end the engagement rather quickly. Then, of course, there's no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no river wide enough to keep the Assault bot from running into melee range to bash a minion's face in instead of blowing away the entire mob in seconds. Anyone remember when recharge enhancements in pets affected their powers? Back then, summoning the Assault bot and only using the level 32 upgrade on it resulted in a massive damage increase simply because it wasn't wasting time bathing a few enemies in a light fire damage via flamethrower. I would love to see the original MM sets looked at and maybe modernize them a bit. Merc, Ninjas, Bots, and Necro could all benefit from some tweaks to survivability and/or animation times. One other thing that would be cool is if we gave the mastermind the ability to revoke melee attacks from primarily ranged henchmen to, hopefully, stop them from trying to run in, get too close, and die over and over (Arsonist!, some bots, all mercs). Something like what dual pistols have with toggles that change what powers do, except this power would revoke certain powers from pets within a wide radius. When using the protector bots, I can't remember a time where they decided to, on their own, close the distance to an enemy except when they lose line of sight; protector bots do not have a single melee attack...

Looks like you have Detonator slotted with 5 Posi Blast, and Hasten slotted three recharge IOs. Right off the bat, you can reclaim six slots right there, as the third slot in Hasten won't be missed, and slotting detonator with damage and accuracy has no benefit to the explosive damage. After that, try to at least four slot or if you can, six slot clouded senses in seeker drones if you can for the recharge and ranged defense bonuses. Stamina is five slotted giving you a damage bonuses (doesn't affect pets), but you can take out at least one slot in that if you want the set bonuses without affecting stamina too much. Looks like poison trap has a winter IO hold set in it. If you wanted to not use winter IOs, you can try frankenslotting poison trap with 4 Basilisk's Gaze and a Hold/Rech IO from another set. That should give you some breathing room to figure other things out. Edit: One more thing, give FFG some defense love ☺️

If you have seeker drones, Procs do not work in that either.

While testing detonator, I discovered that procs do not work in certain pseudo-pet powers. Trip Mine and Seeker drones are two those powers. It's likely due to the way the pseudo pets execute their primary power. With trip mine, the pseudo pet detects an enemy nearby, kills itself, and then automatically executes it's bomb power, whichcan only execute while dead. Seeker drones behave a similar way in that the debuff and stun from flash pulse is executed only after the pet has died. If anyone else can test this, please do. I was looking forward to procing out those two powers...

I wanted to make sure that I wasn't giving you out of date information, so I tested a few things today on my Bots/Traps and a Thugs/Traps I made on test server. I tested once again slotting enhancements in to the detonator power itself, and I once again confirmed in my own testing that it had no affect after casting the power on a henchman. This time, I went a bit deeper into how the power actually works (without going into the source code and all that). This is what I gathered from my testing: Human henchmen-- The planted bomb will not explode immediately. Once detonator is cast on the henchman, they will be granted an auto power that does that following: Spawns a pseudo-pet Time Bomb that has a two second fuse. The time bomb will deal a high amount of lethal and fire damage upon detonation. Grant the henchman a high magnitude afraid effect to itself so they attempt to run away. Knock itself back 2.13 seconds after initial power activation. Kill itself .12 seconds after the knockback affect. Also of note for the planted bomb power, it has a higher damage scale than the bomb power that non-human henchmen are bestowed. Non-human henchmen-- The Henchman will explode immediately. Once detonator is cast on the henchman, they will be granted an auto power that will immediately deal a moderate amount of lethal and fire damage along with a high magnitude knockback to itself and any enemy within 25 feet, and then kill itself if the initial explosion doesn't kill it outright. The significant difference between the two types of bombs are in how they are executed... For human henchmen, after the detonator power is used and after the henchman summons the time bomb pseudo pet, the time bomb will explode after two seconds, dealing high lethal and fire damage. Accuracy, Damage, and Knockback Enhancements will still pass down from the original henchman summoning power all the way to the time bomb power that the henchmen plants. Since the time bomb is a summoned pseudo pet and not one of the henchmen's actual powers, the bomb will use the Pet Melee damage modifier to adjust its damage, which is a scale 1.0. For non-human henchmen, once the bomb power is bestowed to them, the bomb auto power will use the Accuracy, Damage, and Knockback enhancements in the henchman's summoning power to modify the damage, and then immediately explode dealing high lethal and fire damage. However, seeing as how the bomb power is now being executed by the henchman, the bomb's damage will be adjusted using the Henchman Melee damage modifier for whichever tier of henchman you used it on (Scales are 0.450 for Tier 1, 0.550 for Tier 2, and 0.650 for Tier 3). This will result in significantly lower damage for this non-human henchman's bomb than the time bomb that the human henchman plant. This probably balances out in some way... Two ways to look at it: Non-human henchmen can give you instant damage to large mobs, but the damage won't be a large amount. With 95% damage enhancement in the henchman summoning power and 25% from supremacy, it will deal slightly more damage than one trip mine with 95% damage enhancement. If the henchman were damage capped prior to casting detonator on it, the bomb's explosion would not deal enough damage to kill an even-con lieutenant. Human henchmen can deal a greater amount of damage (almost 70% more damage), but are delayed in doing so, giving the enemy mobs time to respond and potentially kill or, at least, knock them back. If the henchman were damage capped, the time bomb's explosive damage would be on the scale of a blaster hitting buildup and then using their tier 9 nuke ability with 95% damage enhancement. Hopefully this information helps /traps users in taking/skipping/slotting this power from a practical, non-theme standpoint, and for everyone, helps understand how this power works. Sigh... and here I am, doing all this research and testing for a power most people don't take anyway when I could be doing something useful around my home. Procrastination.... IT'S A HELL OF A DRUG.

Detonator is designed to sacrifice the pet that it's used on. So yes, they die 100% of the time. If it is used on Bots or Zombies (and maybe other non-human pets), the pet will detonate immediately. Since Detonator grants the pet that's cast on the bomb power, the the bomb power will inherit whatever is slotted into the ability that summoned the pet. I tested this during Live and on Homecoming. Acc and Dam enhancements in Detonator have no affect on the bomb power that the pet will use, so DO NOT slot Damage or Accuracy enhancements into Detonator unless it is to mule set bonuses. On another note, Detonator does more damage depending on the tier of pet you use it on, with your tier 3 pet doing the most damage. If you make a bind that feeds your tier 3 pet a bunch of damage inspirations and then use the GoTo command to send the pet into a large mob before pressing the button, it can function as a poor-mastermind's nuke.

This is a small bug that is low on the totem pole, but I felt the need to at least post it for future reference. I noticed today that my Fire Aura Brute with 65% Slow resistance was resisting the recharge buff from my Defiler Essence's Empowering Burst from the Banished Pantheon Radial Superior Ally Incarnate power. When that power was cast onto my Brute, I was given only 8.75% recharge buff instead of the advertised 25%. At first, I thought that the pet being two levels below me was what changed the powers behavior, but then I dug a little deeper. From the power details, it looks like the recharge buff isn't flagged as 'unresistable' and 'Ignores buffs and enhancements' like one would normally see on buff powers such as speed boost and hasten. The Recovery, Endurance, and Regeneration buffs in that same power are flagged as 'Ignores buffs and enhancements', which is strange. I was under the impression that alpha slot abilities are supposed to enhance other Incarnate abilities. With those attributes being flagged as ignoring buffs and enhancements, would the alpha ability have any affecting on them? Seeing as how this untouchable support pet can do damage, this may be intended behavior. This is what is displayed currently in the game for that power's detail: It probably should look like this (based on other similar powers in the game): Thanks for reading.