TheSpiritFox

Yes the level 54 training dummy one

Mastermind Entry! Thugs/Traps. Did the level 54 Pylon in RWZ. Time: 2:48 Data Chunk I don't have a video, and I used a signature summon (ranged damage) since its allowed in division 1. Support Hybrid clicked at start of fight, but other than that and signature summon I only used levelup powers to do this. No attack enhancer or any other buffs. Idk if you want a specific format for this post, but what I did is pretty sustainable as it took over 2 minutes to do. Burnout was used for double gangwar but its part of my build.

WHAAAAATTTT?!?! 20 FUCKING YEARS AND I JUST FIND THIS OUT NOW?!

Bumping for visibility

Perma gang war isn't really strong. You sacrifice too much else unless you're thugs/kin. Whats better is respectable gangwar recharge (pretty easy to hit up 2 min down 1 min) and take burnout to occasionally drop 2 gangwars, which is not much more useful but absolutely hilarious in practice. Teams will be annoyed and amused atyour 26 pets

It depends. Do you want to take a mastermind to the point you can solo +4x8 and giant monsters? If yes, matching is critical, you will not survive without synergy. If no, do whatever and team alot. My mercs/elec and my bots/traps can both solo GMs, and do so pretty safely and easily. Theyre not the only sets that can but they are some of the easiest to do it with, I even took provoke on my mercs/elec to help with keeping shit from running around. By comparison a ninja/trick arrow will be nice on a team but somewhat weak solo especially vs hard targets, while anything /rad will be harder in large groups but solid on single hard targets like avs. There's tradeoffs to almost all of them with some uber set combinations at the top end.

Bots and Thugs with Traps, Force field, or Time for starters. Traps and FF both give you defense and mez protection, time does not but time gives enough defense and -tohit and slows to negate an absolute crapton of incoming damage. Ive found my time characters just dont need rune of protection. Farsight is just...godly. Especially for masterminds who benefit more from the tohit it grants than almost anything else. Demons, Mercs, and Necro with /elec are also incredibly tanky. Elec provides the mez protection including knockback which is rare for MM henchmen to get at all. Works well with demons and necro which like melee, and mercs which like to sit wherever you tell them and shoot at anything in sight range. My Bots/Traps and Mercs/Elec have both soloed GMs. The bots/traps can solo anything, the elec leans on envenomed daggers along with power boosted discharge and shock in rotation to drop some things regen enough to kill it. But I did manage to fit provoke with a few slots on my /elec so I can actually tank tank serious things with it, like lord recluse.

Mini mode on one character, one of the premium effects on two characters, a smattering of costumes and pets. My main has the 100 PA cataphract costume, all told spent a little over 1k PAs so far. Bought most of them off of people in large numbers, farmed up about 250 during the Scrapyard farm days. Its faster to farm up influence to buy PAs than PAs

Having a massive increase in one side, or a massive increase in only middlemen, would not be a balanced addition. You can't say a massive increase in supply side only wouldnt devastate any economy at least temporarily

No I was citing the other persons build as a "Look at this this is much better slotting choices for this powerset and looks alot like a build I would make" I dont have a build myself to show you, and I dont have time to like detailed go over all the math, too much thinking with divided attention.

You can fit the two ATO uniques into your first level demons. 4 slot command of the mastermind 2 slot mark of supremacy for 2 10% rech bonuses, two pet uniques, and you can still pull 95% damage and more than 60% accuracy out of slotting. You can put 3 hami os Acc/Dam, two +5 resist IOs, and another unique into your Lt pets Then hell on earth 6 slot with your remaining 3 uniques, one +5 acc io for the little hellspawns, and two +5 rech IOs Then the remaining 4 mark of supremacy IOs, OF Kb proc, and a slow damage proc into the prince. Then yeah thermal you could get away with 3 slotting the resist powers, but Id recommend 4 for the melee bonus on Unbreakable guard. You could also consider throwing in a 5th slot into each for the two 3% defense uniques for you personally. And yes I 5 slot both heals with panacea for the recharge bonus. My biggest other recommendation is that I feel like for thermal and cold, Rune of Protection from the sorcery pool is flat out not optional. Thermal has zero protection for the actual mastermind (Its absolute bullshit, imo, that you can place shields on everyone but yourself) and while thats not so bad damage wise because of bodyguard, its absolutely TERMINAL because of crowd control. It doesn't matter how strong your pets are, they WILL die if youre held for a solid minute unable to heal or do anything else while your pets die around you. Rune of protection is your "Fuck you youre not gonna hold me to death, assholes" button.

Unfortunately necro is a little and bots are alot alot now if you dont take some personal attacks. Bots in particular, taking pulse rifle burst and photon grenade are no longer optional, at all. Putting the regen debuffs on those makes them not optional, without them youre missing out on one of the big draws of bots - the ability to neuter some hard target regen and thus increase effective DPS on them. Brings me to another needed MM balance pass. Personal attacks from MM primaries need to have end use cut flatly in half to bring us in line with other ATs, and secondary probably needs end use cut by a flat 25% across the board as well. The entire point of double end use was that our pets do the attacking, if we're going to be required to be attacking alongside for our sets to get the same benefit, we should be on the same endurance scale as other classes.

Yes, heal. Like, I have two /traps characters. My bots/traps which in fact comes with the maintenance drone and protector bot heals. I do not always need the heal, in easier content it doesn't matter. On the other hand, when I go out to solo a GM being able to heal 2/3 to 3/4 of my assault bots health depending on if I press field medic or not can literally save my life because if his big ass goes down, I'm probably next. So yes I vote healing, I tend to either combine primaries and secondaries that go well together, or take something with a heal, or both. Especially any set which both has no real powers to protect the MM himself, and no heal? I know /cold is a great set, but not for my purposes where I wanna go solo +4x8 whenever I want, or solo a GM. Its dogshit for that with all primaries, cold just does not offer enough mitigation to pets and especially to the master to make the kinda MMs I enjoy playing. Sonic is better, but not great. Thermal at least has a self heal in its PBAOE but even so like cold its too vulnerable to crowd control and theres not enough protection on the MM himself for me to actually like those sets. Theyre really strong in teams, maybe even good in 4 star content on teams, but the second you wanna solo something serious you're up shit creek without a paddle, and I dont like that kinda fragility.

Honestly the build up proc seems wasted. I've put it in a few builds and like while it might make some small mathematically definable difference, from a gameplay perspective I have never once noticed a difference putting build up in any pet set vs putting an actual damage proc which I can regularly see come up in floating damage numbers when pets attack

I havent made a Bots/Cold OP, and Im working atm so I cant give you a solid breakdown of your build and all the bad choices in it, but I looked at this and other than 5 slotting health and 6 slotting stamina (I would not do either of those things, ever, on any toon) this is a build very close to what one I would make would look like and is a solid starting point.

I feel this. I've gone back to dual box farming because converter crafting in the currently saturated market has become too low margin for me to participate in, things are moving more slowly because of the massive influx of new sellers and the relatively small growth in buyers. It started in normal enhancements, but in the last idk probably month it feels like its now hit all the markets. Everything is down. Hell, there was a point I was turning all my threads into super team duals and I was the only person with any listed, and I had like 150 listed at 1 mil each, a slow but reliable moneymaker. Now theyre regularly going for 250k as people got told you can liquidate threads that way and I havent sold a single inspiration in over a month out of the ones I still have listed (about 70 or so across 3 alts) I'm hoping the market stabilizes soon but Ive had to pretty much give up on making money except by being super duper patient. Like I used to list and sell about 160 enh a week or so, do a double batch on my crafting character and theyd all be gone in a week. I've listed them all at reasonable prices, and I've sold 20 enh in the last week out of 160. The market is moving slow, reasonable listings undercut constantly by people who are desperate for any money and will happily take a 500k profit on an enhancement instead of being patient and listing for something more reasonable. That whole "making money off the impatience of others" bit isnt working atm because right now its the sellers who are the most impatient, not the buyers.

Please dont. Rares/uncommons are already oversaturated. You explain to people the details of like how flipping works and how to play the long game and exactly how market transactions can be taken advantage of and get 10x the number of people placing lowball bids to how it works now and you will destroy the market. Converter crafting being spread far and wide is bad enough at the moment, the last thing we need is people widespread embracing the idea of getting money out of the market without generating new product to sell on it.

This. This this this this this. I gave up farming for *years* and now I have started dual boxing again because getting things to sell at a decent price is so goddamn hard. I started getting into some flipping and the result is I now have 1 billion more than when I started flipping, but I also have 200 purples stashed in my base to represent my profit, because Im stubborn on selling. Everything is selling slower and more and more shit is just being dropped on the market every day by people desperate to make a buck, its depressed prices in literally every sector I can think of. Every single one of my moneymakers has been hit, nothing left untouched. Its at the point I'm like we need to stop telling newbies how to do this shit and let them find their way to it because we have severely oversaturated the market with people trying to pull money out of it. I feel like we should have maybe had a meeting when the announcement hit and agreed quietly "We dont teach anyone market secrets unless they already have at least 1 level 50 slotted out farmer first" Its a GREAT time to slot out an alt. If you dont have altitis and instead want to amuse yourself making billions its a really, really bad time.

Its 20% and 29% at level 50 with two +5 IOs please get your numbers right. Its also to, as stated, 3/8 damage types. The five remaining continue to be at 0% resistance, psionic is a relatively rare damage type compared to the rest so it applies to much less content. More powerful does not mean "the numbers went up" it means a manifest change in the gameplay. A 60% increase to resistance which does not stop pets from being one shotted because the level shifts increase damage to the drones 50% or more is not actually more powerful. But, again, you refuse to admit that this concept is in the end subjective and that you're the one here screaming into the wind that you agree with my concept but disagree with my goddamn word choice. Do you not remember that this is supposed to stay on topic? I've asked you to stop repeatedly. Please stop autistically sticking to this point like it even matters.

It kinda makes sense within the structure of the game. Minion, lts, bosses are all level shifted from each other even at the same level, and they were copying their own structure for how bad guys work, because MMs originally were bad guys. It makes no sense from any perspective other than a lore/concept point of view, which comes from the stupid ass "hide the numbers, numbers aren't that important" design philosophy CoH had a long time ago before things like combat attributes were implemented. I agree that making MM pets the same level as the master (so as to remove the massive damage increase from 4+ level shifts) and then nerfing the damage down a few rounds until MMs produce similar DPS on 54 purple mobs is the best overall solution. It would not be that hard to do, but I feel like buffing base resistance is more likely to actually happen.

Lord. Did you really just throw out percentages. 60% improvement to resists that aren't noticeable is still not noticeable. If you google the definition of "buff" it says to make something more powerful. Since you want to keep arguing semantics (and keep pretending that more powerful and improved and better are not subjective concepts open to interpretation) The actual definition of a buff is to make something more powerful. More powerful means a definable improvement in performance. There has been no increased performance of pet survivability compared to before the change, therefore its not a buff. The world agrees with me more than you. And since the definition is also listed as "informal" you lose out to colloquial/common use, which is to denote an actual change to the gameplay experience, since the definition disagrees with you and states that a buff must actually make something more powerful, you lose this absolutely pointless, mostly subjective argument you started that derailed from the original point which you agree with. Please just shut up about it. I'm genuinely asking.

Lets say the devs decided that blasters are too fragile. So they buff base blaster HP 5 hit points, exactly, and buff the HP cap for the blaster AT 10 hitpoints. You would call that a buff, despite the fact that it improves literally nothing about the class. But you also said buffs are an improvement. And since you wanted to do semantics, an improvement is "a thing that makes something better or is better than something else" The changes to masterminds are not an improvement. They did not make the class *better* at surviving. So by your definition where a buff is an improvement, there was no improvement, and thus it is not a buff. That's the contradiction. Its not better than it was before, pets are not surviving more because of the change, it just adjusted the math in a way thats visible in combat attributes. By comparison, the incarnate level shift (which I did call a buff myself) seriously improved pets performance in Incarnate content, it greatly changed the gameplay experience of Masterminds in incarnate content. However, thats one buff across the entire history of masterminds directly to mastermind primary set survivability without respect to secondary powersets. They dont more or less survive better. There's been no noticeable change to the damage pets take as a result. Some enemies that already werent a huge threat now do slightly less damage. Nothing that one shots a pet no longer one shots it because of the change, and in high level content anything that one shot your pets before still does. Now lets compare it to a powerset specific buff. Protector bots used to have to individually shield allies every 2 minutes, the shields added up to about the same defense that you get with the aoe single shield now, and protector bots no longer waste tons of combat time casting shields everywhere. This was a huge buff. It increased DPS AND survivability by 1) Making protectors able to shield the entire pet team in one go from one protector enabling more shooting AND healing and 2) ensuring you get full protection from protectors with even one alive, rather than requiring both alive and 3) Shortening the time between bots being summoned and bots being buffed, lessening the likely hood that they'll get immediately one shot upon summon. This was a MASSIVE change to the gameplay experience of playing bots, for the better. Same way, Serum got an incredible buff that makes Mercs much less made of paper. The buffs to their resistance did not do much of anything for them, but serum letting them take alphas and shrug it off for 15 or so seconds makes a massive difference in their survivability and the fact that it can be close to permaed makes it a very reliable "stop killing me" button. Those are buffs. They improve and better the actual game experience, improve and better the performance of the powersets. Something that does not make a noticeable difference in performance on any level isnt something Im going to call a buff. If the game experience itself is not changed, if it is not bettered (or worsened in the case of nerfs) then Im not going to call it either. If they lowered pet base HP by 5 points, Im not going to call that a nerf. Its just a pointless change. Or if you really want to go full semantics. Improvement is itself defined with a subjective word "better" which is open to its own interpretation so we're both technically right, you could use the word buff either way and its not incorrect. And there wasnt a need to argue about it.

Why are you stuck on a semantic argument where you agree with me on the problem? And "A buff is an improvement" By the definition you just stated, no manifest improvement was made. The math was adjusted. It did not actually improve the play experience. This is what happens when you argue semantics. Now youve contradicted yourself.

Then I'm done replying to you, because Im not here to argue what the definition of a buff is. A buff is not a buff unless it makes a manifest change. Define it however you like. That's how I do. Because my definition serves a function. Unless a manifest change is made to the player experience, its not a buff or a nerf, its just playing with math. When players ASK for a buff or a nerf, theyre not asking for minute changes to the math that dont affect the gameplay experience. They're asking directly, and specifically, for changes to the gameplay experience. So saying that changes to the gameplay experience are an essential part of something being a buff or a nerf is a much more reasonable definition than yours. If there is no change to the game play experience its just a math adjustment.

My credibility doesn't really matter, even you agree that MM pets need help. Hell, peregrine didnt disagree with the situation, only with the idea that the situation is a problem. Me calling it not a buff and you saying "well, but technically it is" is derailing from focus on the issue to focus on my word choice. Can we stick to the topic please, if you dont like me saying (and I continue to say it) that the change to pet resistances and defenses moving it to the T1 was not a buff it was not even a band aid, you're entitled to not like it. I am not changing my tune. An extra 10% to thematic resistances which dont make any real difference in survivability in most content is not something I call a buff. Im not going to call anything a buff unless it manifestly changes the play experience. The change to upgrades and defense/res moving to them did not manifestly change anything about the play experience except turning the first upgrade into a place that tempts you to waste a slot enhancing it. That's *not* a buff to pet survivability in any manifest way that is visible anywhere except in combat attributes. I dont call anything a buff unless it makes an actual gameplay difference. And that change did absolutely nothing to stop pets from being one shotted, so therefore yes I absolutely stand by "They changed the math, that does not equate to a real, measurable buff of any significance"