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If you can find a mailbox (I know there's one in PI near the arena I was using for testing), Hurricane and the power nobody takes - Whirlwind - are quite satisfying to use in its vicinity. Tornado near a trashcan might be a good bet, too. Or find some rikti drones to asplode. In the past I used to feel that BEST way to test out physics powers is Mayhem missions! ;D Trash cans, cardboard boxes, payphones, Parking Meters (COINS EVERYWHERE), mailboxes, they all spew out ridiculous amounts of debris!

The Value is a bit off, normally it always adds 7.5 Base Value but in Pine it adds 8.7 as Base Value. And in Game it also adds 7.5 to negative energy, in Pine it adds 0. Yeah, the values I put in were off slightly. The Database Editor's method of showing numbers is... weird to say the least. Negative has been added. The file in the OP has been updated with those minor fixes. Regarding Bio-Armor : It looks like there's some problem within the program with it recognizing the special cases. There's a special case 'DefensiveAdaptation' that doesn't seem to work at all. Hardened Carapace is set to add 5.63% extra res whenever DefensiveAdaptation is on, but that check doesn't appear to work. I've modified it a dozen different ways, but the check for DefensiveAdaptation seems to be broken. Without looking at the code, i'm shooting blind and the chances I'll find what makes it trigger are very, very low. The same issue applies with recognizing the 'EfficientAdaptation' case. There 's a 30% endurance discount that never triggers because the program doesn't seem to recognize when the 'EfficientAdaptation' power is active. I REALLY wish I had access to the code for the program, if so I could see why the triggers aren't working and work in a fix. Too much is happening out of sight.

Mucous Membrane - not that amusing until you see that he's bright green, dripping green slime, with green-tinted 'water blast' powers. Yes, he's a snot elemental. Doctor Neurotic - It just rolls off the tongue, you know! Miss Mutation - It's alliterative!

Oh, well in that case, Leandro (Actually ALL THE DEVS working on homecoming!) are gods among men and I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. My Mercenary/Storm Mastermind will once more stalk the streets of Paragon and the Rogue Isles to cause mayhem and destruction in her wake! EDIT : Except I just realized, I am in hell because I won't be home from work for another 8 hours and this will be all I can think about until then.

This is the part I'm REALLY hoping can (eventually) be fixed. I tried out the Rebirth/Pleiades servers since they have updated clients, but even there I was underwhelmed and slightly disappointed by the physics. While some of the extra debris is present (leaves, shotgun shells from the assault rifle 'slug', propel objects) the empty shell casings from burst and from mastermind mercenaries were still disappearing when they'd hit the floor. I could get very, very small amounts of debris present, but I couldn't have literally mountains of spent shells littering the warehouse that I'd cleared out. I know it seems small and insignificant but it's one of those little things that really stands out in my mind. Spending twenty minutes going through a mission and at the end, instead of hitting Exit I'd run back to the entrance and see the trail of destruction I left in my wake. City of Heroes is the ONLY game which ever managed to make the hardware physics stand out as being impressive to me, which is likely why I am so eager to see it hopefully become re-implemented! Leandro - thanks for the reply and the additional information, I really appreciate all the work you guys have been doing. I'm super thankful for everything the team's done and I look forward to all the exciting stuff happening in the future!

I'll look into this, but it's complex enough (Where the power affects numbers for other powers) that I don't know how to do this right away. It will probably take a few more days to get this dialed in, as I'll have to experiment with the way the various different entities work. Okay, this one took me a good long while to figure out, but figure it out I have! I will apply this fix in the next release today or tomorrow.

Not quite! Here's the post you mention. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,2875.msg19393.html#msg19393 What he says is that changing DLL files would break the i24 Beta client, which is used by other servers. The 'sunrise patcher' he mentions will allow different servers to use different files - IE, homecoming could use certain files while Rebirth would use different ones. That would allow one server to use different DLL files than another without breaking either one. As for it not being needed... it's slightly more in-depth than that. First, yes, physics is entirely optional. Without the physics and debris stuff, the game runs fine and players can play. And I'm absolutely THRILLED about that, don't get me wrong! I love the work that the Homecoming team has done, and I'm super grateful for all the effort they put into for us. And yes, a modern CPU will have no trouble at all handling the physics when you set it to very high. But that said, even if you DO set the physics to very high (Which affects capes, objects summoned by Propel, and other objects in the world), it doesn't enable the extra debris we can see in this video : https://streamable.com/99nvy Enabling extra debris, leaves, spent shell casings, and all the other features are what needs updated physics DLL files. Is it necessary to have that extra debris? Not at all. Is it cool to have all the extra objects? ABSOLUTELY. Watching them get blasted back by explosions, picked up by gravity powers, swirling around hurricane and things like that all make the already-amazing game that much better. I'm happy that Leandro says they'll look into new features and stuff later on; it's great to see continued support. I hope that once the capability to enable Physics like we used to have, that the team can put it in without much hassle.

OP Link has been updated with changes made today! I noticed this as well, somehow it has to do with when I removed the 'Fitness' power pool. Picking any primary or secondary power, or adding a slot to any inherent power will cause all of the Inherent powers to show up at once, or as you said mousing over them works as well. It's a pretty minor thing so I didn't think much of it, but I'll check and see if I can figure out what part of the program is causing that. Okay, Flame Mastery has been added - and let me tell you that was annoying. Not anyone's fault, just the side effect of the program being SO in-depth and complicated. I'm happy to do it, but I wanted to complain ;) I don't know if the actual damage numbers match, but it's easy enough to adjust the numbers. If anyone happens to have a defender at level 50 that can respec into flame mastery, pick all 5 powers and jot down the numbers from in-game I can update them. For now, the numbers for Consume, Char, Fire Shield, and ROTP have been copied from other ancillary pools, while GFS was copied from Brute_Melee as it doesn't exist in any other Ancillary pools. I've got a defender I've been levelling, but with my crippling alt-itis I cannot guarantee how quickly I can make it to 50 to test the numbers. I'll do my best though! Damage per activate and pop-up being on are actually user settings that follow the last way you used the program. The reason they were set to DPS and pop-up off is because I turned those off when I was doing my builds, but I will set those on for the next release so it'll be on for other people. I'm not sure why Pine's shows a longer activation time for powers, within the database for 'Dark Blast' (as an example) the Casting Time is set to 1.0s and something within the program is automatically adding that extra 0.188s to what's in the database. I'll browse around and see if I can't figure out what that might be. EDIT : AHA! Okay, here's what I found. Go to 'Options', then 'Configuration', and go to the 'Effects & Maths' tab. At the bottom of the options window is an option that says 'Use ArcanaTime for Animation Times'. Checking this box adds a bit of time to power cast times, while unchecking it drops the cast times down to the 1.0s and 1.67s times you're expecting. According to the pop-up information on that option, it says that ArcanaTime is 'the real time animations take due to server clock ticks'.

I can and I have! I'm at work at the moment, correct me if I'm wrong - isn't the protector bot 7.5% defense base? I'll upload a new version later this afternoon containing the Protector Bot defense change. Also, for the Demon Summoning pool, the Ember Demon grants damage resistance and I was thinking of adding that in, but I'm not sure about the numbers. The numbers present on the wiki aren't 100% clear to me. Can anyone who has a Demon Summoning MM check how much resists the ember demon grants to the mastermind himself, base? The wiki claims it's Smashing 10% Lethal 10% Fire 13.33% Cold 6.66% Toxin 10 %. I also fixed Stalker Radiation armor so that Fallout Shelter properly is moved to Level 16. Could you give me more info on this? I checked out the patch notes quick reference and didn't see anything about Pyre Mastery, and the forum search didn't pull up anything. I can add it if I can get some more details. That much, unfortunately, is a bit beyond me. I'm not much of a programmer, though I've dabbled in the past. Most of the work I'm doing within Pine's is simply editing the database of powers, pets, etc. I can add, remove, and edit powers and powersets but not rewrite the code to incorporate the incarnate system. I just REALLY want to contribute to the game I love in some way, and this is the best way I found so far...

Updated 6/7 Alright, I know at least one other person has already tried with some success, but I thought I would throw my hat into the ring. https://mega.nz/#!PkUXlK7J!9fgAveje4Fe8bb7ElCZtID-aYhKON9OO5cNzZ6cn7pc This is my attempt at fixing the Pines Hero planner. Notable changes from the default version of Pines : Fixes the /kin and /rad secondaries for Masterminds so they aren't empty. (Some numbers like END costs are still being updated, be aware they may be incorrect) Removes the unused power pools (Experimentation, Utility Belt, etc) that can't be selected on Homecoming. Removes the 'Fitness' power pool, since it's now inherent to all characters. Removes the 'Wind Control' power set for Controllers, as it was never completed and put in the game. Fixes the 'Leviathan Mastery' Patrol Pool for masterminds, so that the version with the Coralax pet correctly doesn't show up for Masterminds. (The 2nd version with the Coralax pet was actually the pool that Sentinels get) Fixes the 'Bio Armor' pool for Sentinels, Defensive Adaptation will now only show up if you have 'Adaptation' selected. Added the Flame Mastery ancillary pool for Defenders/Corruptors Protector Bots will now display their defense buff on 'Totals', 7.5% base defense to the MM. Fallout Shelter has been moved to the appropriate level (16) for Radiation Armor Stalkers. Sentinel's Refractor Beam no longer shows up as Penetrating Ray in the Info Box. Changes made on 6/7 Removed Wind Control from Dominators Updated Sentinel Refractor Beam to use Targeted AoE IO sets Frigid Protection should no longer show debuffs for the player, only enemies Controller's Containment effect will now show a 100% damage buff when turned on to reflect the double damage it does (The current version has no way of duplicating damage for powers so a 100% damage buff is the closest way to do so) It most likely will NOT work with pre-existing saved builds due to changes in the static indexes as I adjusted the various powers, but feel free to try if you want. YMMV. I would greatly appreciate if people would try this out and let me know if there's any bugs or issues that I missed. I've been exploring it and I think I'm getting fairly good at navigating the program. To the best of my knowledge, the numbers for /rad masterminds matches up , however I could not judge on /kin since the game would only let me view details for powers I already have and I don't have a /kin high enough level to confirm those numbers. Edited for new changes as of 6/7/19.

I saw the announcement but since it didn't say a word about Physics in it, I didn't go too deep into the thread. I found Leandro's post regarding the DLL files and whatnot on page 4 and it does make sense... but I am impatient, so I may have to simply make a second install just for playing around with those features.

Okay, here's the info I have obtained from the Ouroboros Discord : If you use Tequila to download CoH for the Rebirth or Ouro QA server, it'll come with the Ouroboros.exe file. That file is a version of the CoH executable that contains updated PhysX SDK so that the physics works with those. You can rename the file and play on other private servers. I've been told, however, that it won't work with Homecoming due to being different source code. So until the Homecoming team updates the client themselves (or releases their source for someone else to update it for them), we're unable to play with the Physics enabled on newer graphics cards on the servers. I'm not well-versed enough with programming to be able to say how easy or difficult doing such an update to the Homecoming client would be, nor do I have any information as to the priorities of the Homecoming dev team so I can't say if it's something they care to do or if there's other things they have a higher priority on. Personally I REALLY hope that the homecoming dev teams can take a look at this fairly quickly and get it enabled, but that's just my opinion. I have no idea how many players out there care or don't care about the physics, so it's somewhat hard to gauge if it's something the community as a whole really cares for.

This is just incorrect. With the exception of specific enhancements labeled as Unique, you can slot the same sets in multiple powers. You can't slot more than one of the same set enhancement in the same power, however. You're right, I apologize - I'd been told that in the sets that contain one unique IO the entire set became unique, but I see that's incorrect. I've updated the post with more accurate information. I also added a bit of info about Memorization badges for badge-hunters or for people who want to craft and sell IOs on the AH.

Oh, one more enhancement I should mention! Prestige Enhancements Prestige Enhancements are available for free at the P2W vendor. There's 5 total, all relatively similar to one another. Each of the prestige enhancements offers a 16% boost to attack damage, a 16% recharge reduction, and a special effect. The special effect is a chance for smashing, lethal, psionic, or energy damage for four of the enhancements, and a chance to knock down enemies for the fifth. Prestige enhancements do not scale up or down in power, and you can only have one of each slotted - but that means five free decently powerful enhancements can be obtained by any character straight from level one.

I'm sort of a weird guy, and I find it hilarious when I'm running around Paragon city and suddenly hear something weird or funny.

I have a beast/thermal MM. In the bio : "I wanted to be a hero, but a hero doesn't light dogs on fire and throw birds at people so I had to be a villain."

BAH! Look at the file dates, I beat HIM to the punch by 23 days! So there! Actually I had used this waaaaaaaaaay back during live, but since I lost those files years ago after god only knows how many hard drive reinstalls, I had to remake it once I found out about homecoming. So technically I may (or may not) have beaten him to it by a decade. I also customized most of my boombox emotes, half of them play queen songs now. The others are a random mix of songs, like Moskau and tunak tunak tun. It sort of makes me feel bad when I come across a Freak dancing to "Hammer to Fall" and I have to kill him. I also customized one of the car sounds to be Nyancat, when I'm REALLY bored I find the car with the Nyancat sound and follow it around the city.

For my custom glowy sound, I use the list of objects from Weird Al's "Hardware Store" song. http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=52389968582638632652 If you don't wanna download and hear the loop, it's here :

I would be OK with a bit of wonky physics if it meant having at least SOME entertaining debris issues. Where can I find more info about this Michael guy and his work on it?

That's a good start, I'm wondering how is this being done - finding an old Ageia card and using it with a new version of Windows? Using an old card with an old version of windows? Somehow figuring out how to enable the feature without having the appropriate card? God looking at that debris makes me want to turn on Hurricane and watch it spin around like a washing machine...

Let's take a look at Enhancements, Inventions, and all the fun that comes with them. 1) Enhancement Basics Starting at the basics! Enhancements usually come in five 'types'. Training, Dual-Origin, Single Origin, Hamidon (Special) Origin, and Invention. Training enhancements can be slotted by anyone, but they are (comparatively) super weak. They usually boost most powers by 5-10% or so. They only boost one aspect of your powers. Dual-origin enhancements are specific to two different origins, but they are TWICE as potent as Training (IE : 10-20%). For Example, a DO 'amulet' enhancement may only be slottable by Natural-origin or Magic-origin characters. Single-origin enhancements can ONLY be slotted by a specific origin, but they are twice as potent as Dual-Origin. (20-40%) Hamidon Origin enhancements (Also called 'Special Origin' or 'Special Enhancements') can be slotted by any origin, and they enhance TWO aspects of a power instead of one (Such as Damage & Accuracy, or Recharge & Endurance Reduction, etc). These can't normally be purchased, and are found in special encounters. Each power boost is roughly the same as a Single Origin. Invention Origin enhancements are crafted instead of found (usually) and behave differently than the other four. I'll explain these in greater detail later on. With all these enhancements, you can only use an enhancement that's 3 levels above or 3 levels below you. Enhancements over 3 levels can't be put into your powers, and below 3 levels provides ZERO effect. Enhancements get a bonus if they're higher level than you, and are weaker if they're lower level. So if you're level 20, you can slot enhancements up to level 23, or down to level 17. Level 16 or lower won't have any effect on your powers. Always keep an eye on your enhancements when you level - it can suck to have a power suddenly lose 30% of its effectiveness because you've outleveled your enhancements! Training, Dual-Origin (DO), and Single-Origin (SO) enhancements can be found OR purchased from vendors - but DO and SO can only be bought at higher levels. DO enhancements start appearing on vendors at level 15, so you need to be 12 or higher to buy them. SO enhancements appear on vendors at level 25, so you need to be 22 to buy them. Some trials and missions reward higher-quality enhancements as a bonus for being tougher. All those 'DFB' (Death from Below) groups you see advertised in chat are popular in part because they let low-level characters acquire random Single-Origin enhancements. Other trials, task forces, and similarly challenging content can give rewards normally only available to higher-level players, to encourage group play. Hamidon Origins can only be found from defeating super tough fights, at the end of task forces, and similarly rare circumstances. Until Inventions came out, they were considered the best possible enhancements in the game; even now they're very desirable since many Invention enhancements can be quite costly and rare. Invention Origin enhancements, IOs, change things up from normal enhancements in several ways. First, they NEVER EXPIRE when you outlevel them. Instead of expiring, they have varying power levels based on their level. A level 10 IO will give the same bonus to a power if you're level 10, or if you're level 50. Because of this, IOs early on are much weaker than later. You still can only slot an IO that's at most 3 levels above you. Low-level IOs have roughly equivalent power to training enhancements, mid-level IOs have roughly equivalent power to Dual-Origins, and so on. The highest level IOs (Level 50+) are a bit stronger than Single-Origin enhancements, making them potentially the strongest in the game. IOs won't need replacement as often due to their inability to be outleveled, but you'll want to replace them as you gain levels to ensure they're giving enough of a bonus to be worth keeping. After all, a 7% boost to a power that doesn't expire is not worth keeping over a 33% boost even if it does, right? IOs can affect one statistic of a power, or multiple - they can be part of a 'set' which grants bonuses the more enhancements of that set are slotted, and in some instances do unique things like changing a knockBACK effect to a knockDOWN effect, or boosting HP/Endurance, or even granting a bonus to powers other than the one it's slotted in. IOs are primarily crafted. While it's possible to get one here or there from a trial or other mission, this is very rare. Crafting is a whole system by itself, so let's take a look at that! 2) Crafting IOs - Getting started. So you want to craft an IO! There's 4 things you need - The invention workbench, the invention Salvage, the invention recipe, and Inf. Workbenches are located in very specific places, the easiest way to find them is to go to the University in Cap Au Diable or Steel Canyon. If you are in a supergroup, you can put workbenches in the SG base. The second thing you need is salvage. Salvage drops at random from enemies you fight, the higher class of enemy (Bosses, Elite Bosses, Arch-Villains) have a higher chance to drop salvage than lower-classes (Minions and Lieutenants). Underlings can NEVER drop salvage, so don't try farming easy-to-kill enemies that spawn infinitely. Salvage is also easy to find on the Auction House (Wentworths for Heroes, Black Market for villains). The last thing you need is a recipe. Unlike other games, recipes for IOs are single-use. So if you want to make 3 healing IOs, you need 3 Healing recipes. Even different levels use different recipes - you could find a level 10 Healing recipe from a random drop, and purchase a level 30 healing recipe. Recipes for common IOs (Healing, Recharge, etc) can be bought from the workbench while recipes from sets have to be found at random. The AH is a great place to find the rarer recipes, or to (hopefully) get the common recipes cheaper than buying them from the workbench. If you need Inf, you can always consider selling off recipes you don't need! Once you have the recipe & Salvage components, go to the workbench and hit create. IOs tend to be more expensive than other enhancements because the recipe can cost influence, the salvage (if you don't have it already) costs influence from the AH, and it costs money to craft as well. Be aware that trying to replace all your enhancements with IO can deplete your inf very, very fast! One additional tip : If you make enough IOs of a particular type and level, you can MEMORIZE the recipe. Doing so makes it so that you no longer have to pay to purchase a recipe, and as such can craft IO's for significantly less cost. When you craft enough of a particular IO at a specific level, you earn a badge. If you're badge-hunting, then you can earn a total of 45 memorization badges. In addition, certain badges will grant you bonuses in the form of increasing the maximum amount of salvage or recipes you can carry! For details on how many enhancements of a specific level you need to earn the badge, see this wiki page : https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Memorization_Badges 3) Invention Sets Sets are different from normal IOs in three ways : First, some sets can be 'unique'. If a set is unique, then you can only have one enhancement in that set slotted in ANY of your powers. Other times, specific IOs from a set might be unique - such as the global recharge reduction from 'Luck of the Draw'. The other pieces of the set aren't unique, but the 6th piece which offers a global always-on bonus is. Second, sets provide different bonuses for different pieces. For the 'Panacea' healing set as an example, there's 6 different enhancements : Heal/Endurance, Endurance/Recharge,Heal/Recharge, Heal/Endurance/Recharge, Heal, and Boost HP/Endurance. The first five pieces are like normal Healing, Endurance Reduction, or Recharge reduction enhancements. The 6th is a unique bonus that boosts your maximum HP and endurance. All together they boost a single power's healing by 97.49%, reduces the recharge by 73.78%, and reduces the endurance cost by 73.78%. Last, sets provide unique bonuses the more you slot them into a specific power. As an example, here are the bonuses for the 'Panacea' set I mentioned above : 2 Slotted : Gain 2.5% endurance recovery, 2.25% smash/lethal resist, and 3.75% mez resist (Immobilize, Hold, sleep, stun, etc). 3 Slotted : Gain 10% HP Regen and 10% knockback resist. 4 Slotted : Gain 1.5% max HP, 3% Fire/Cost resist, and an additional 5% mez resist. 5 Slotted : Gain 7.5% recharge reduction to all powers, and 7.5% range to all powers. 6 Slotted : Boost healing by 6%, gain 3.13% melee defense and 1.56% lethal/Smashing defense. The important thing is these bonuses only apply if the enhancements are slotted into the SAME POWER. If you put 3 of them into 'Heal Other' and then 3 of them into 'Heal Self', you do not get all 6 of the bonuses, you only get the 2 and 3 slot ones. Put all 6 enhancements in the same power and get all 6 bonuses for maximum effect. Now with sets being super powerful, having slot bonuses, and many times unique effects you wonder why would anyone want normal IOs or other enhancements? The tradeoff of course is since set recipes can't be bought from the Workbench, you're 100% reliant upon them dropping for you (rare) or buying them from the AH. Buying from the AH could be difficult and/or expensive when it comes to rare, hard-to-get and popular sets so be prepared to spend quite a lot of money or search for a while to find the recipe you want! 4) Consignments - CoH's unique auction house system Since the Invention system and the AH go hand-in-hand, let's go over the consignment system a bit. The AH system is very different from what you're used to in other games because you go in blind. The way it works is this : Seller puts up a recipe on the AH saying 'Sell it for 10,000 inf.' Buyer #1 sees the recipe is being sold, but does not see how much the recipe costs. He'll place a bid to try to buy it for 5000 inf. This bid isn't high enough to buy it right away, but the bid stays in the system. Buyer #2 sees the recipe and is more impatient, he bids 100,000 inf. Since this is above Seller's cost, Seller gets the full 100,000 and Buyer #2 gets the recipe instantly. Buyer #1's bid stays in the system until he either cancels it, or until someone lists another copy of the recipe for 5000 or less inf. This can mean some difficulty in trying to know 'what should I sell this recipe for?' and 'How much should I bid for this recipe?'. To help that, there is a 'history' where you can see how much previous items have sold for. This isn't perfect, but it's a good starting point. If there's something you REALLY want, you can always place a bid, cancel if it doesn't win, place another (higher) bid, cancel if you don't win, and keep going until you find the price high enough to get that recipe. Keep in mind that selling an item for a large amount may get few buyers, but you might get lucky and sell for a lot of inf to an impatient person - or if it's a very rare and sought-after recipe! The AH lets you sell all sorts of things. Recipes, Salvage, and enhancements (Both crafted and dropped) can all be sold. If you completed a difficult trial but the enhancement you got at the end isn't useful for you, put it up on the AH and get some cash out of it!

Yes, the majority of the game is about levelling. And that's fine. The thing is, the early levels are super, super boring and suck tremendously because you're missing 80% of your powers, and almost all the best and most enjoyable powers are the ones that come later on. I do rush through levels, but only early ones. Once I hit ~24-26 I slow down because at that point I've got most of the fun stuff and I can enjoy the levelling experience more leisurely. That said, DFB is amazing for so many reasons. The fact that it's such good XP at such a low level is incredible. I've joined a DFB on a freshly made level 1, and exited at level 8. Sure, I could have done contact missions and gotten 1 level every 2 or so missions, but it's a lot slower of a grind. If I make a mastermind, doing DFB three times is enough to get my mid-tier minions which is a major milestone. Then there's the fact that we get a whopping 5 SOs doing it; early on when you're stuck with the measly 8-10% boost from training enhancements, the sudden 33-40% boost from a SO is tremendous. There's no other good reliable sources for that many SOs early on. And those temp powers are pretty great too - the accuracy one is a flat 12% tohit, while the recovery one is super helpful early on before you have SOs in stamina. Just getting them early on can make a drastic difference once you're off doing other things.

I feel like if you want to be the healer that focuses on the team the best option is to be a Mastermind, so you can focus on your heals and let your pets just do their thing. You can focus on topping people off and helping out, while your pets contribute damage. One of my favorite 'pure support' builds is a Thugs/Thermal MM which has zero attacks (I use a blackwand and my apprentice charm during periods where there's little to no incoming damage) but instead focuses on buffing, group-wide topping off health with warmth, cauterize for spot healing, and phoenix if someone does manage to fall. Just because I myself am staring at the team's life bars doesn't mean I'm not helping DPS because my thugs just do their thing. If we need to focus down a specific enemy, I do have an attack button that'll focus them but otherwise they just attack whatever they want. It also means that you can, potentially, do some solo work if you really felt like it. Options are never a bad thing to have!

Ultimately there's one important thing to remember :

I like to think of it this way: There's a specific combination of powers that fits me perfectly, but I don't know what combination it is. I'm going to experiment with different combinations until I find it. Plenty of stuff will feel fun, but nothing yet has been QUITE what I feel like I want, and so I'll keep trying until I get that perfect combo.