Arbegla

I think treating traps like a "Fire and Forget" powerset is the best bet honestly. Trip Mine and Time Bomb/Detonator aren't really that useful, especially with the interrupt they have. Teams are just too fast, and unless you know exactly where a spawn is going to pop up (Katie Hannon TF, some ambushes, etc) the setup isn't really worth the time invested in my opinion.

I mean, why solo 1 AV, when you can solo all the AVs! There's a handful of V side missions where you can face multiple AVs either all at once, or in quick succession. I love missions like that, where you have multiple big bads, and you need to come out on top.

The Mastermind Tax is the fact that all of the secondary powers cost 25% more endurance for a Mastermind than they do for other classes, with the same set, for the same or lower value. I can't remember if the MM buff/debuff numbers are even on par with Corruptors, but I thought they were lower than Controllers for sure. That 25% endurance cost is pretty nasty, because its BASE endurance cost, so even with equal slotting, the powers still cost so much more to use.

To be fair, 'Tanker-mind' is a legit way to play Masterminds, and they can certainly take a beating when used as a tank. Its just hard to make it work well, and not fall apart quickly.

Not to throw a wrench in this thought process or anything, but Issue 6 was City of Villains. (released to the live servers 11/27/05) Bodyguard Mode, as we know it today, was in Issue 7. Which interestingly enough, was released 6/6/06, a bit over 6 months later. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Mastermind_Strategy#Bodyguard

Another thing is that Originally in City of Villains the developers wanted Masterminds to be the 'Tank' class, not Brutes. Which is why Masterminds have bodyguard mode. But it just didn't work out that way, mostly because Brutes and Tankers have similar powersets, and Masterminds have the lowest base hit points.

I mean sure, if you also agree that it was Player Driven, not Developer Driven. I remember multiple posts that City of Heroes was the game that you could play anything, because there wasn't a requirement for any specificness within a group.

Umm.. "actual combat" is literally dice rolls...

I mean, I'm sure it could be possible for that to be done today. get 8 blasters or dominators with just SOs, and go run it. The difficulty of the task forces hasn't changed throughout the years, just the things that the players have access to...

I really don't understand why it would be elitist to go 'We ran a Supergroup that was literally 'Oops all Defenders' and we rocked' especially when its just a numbers game. Healing is actually the LEAST EFFECTIVE mitigation in this game, mostly due to the fact that hit point totals are so low.

And they don't have the beta video of me (a bot/traps Mastermind) and Pulsaria (a grav/energy Dominator) duo-ing the ITF before it hit live, when people were screaming for it to be nerfed. And I'm pretty sure Purples, ATO, and PvP IOs weren't a thing when that happened.

Umm... that might actually be impossible, mostly because City of Heroes is literally older than 15 years old, and youtube has done more than a few scrubs since then.

I remember when the LRSF first came out that it was literally 1 Stone Brute, and 7 corruptors (not MMs, no Dominators, no Stalkers...) Because noone knew how to take out all the AVs without that level of durability and support. On Liberty, my Bot/traps was one of the first Masterminds to be dragged around on a LRSF, before people knew the power of what /traps can do. Things changed with the times, its really that simple. When the game first came out, people were used to certain things so they did certain things, and once they realized that those certain things didn't need to happen, and actually, running an all Controller team, or all Defender team was MORE effective then you're typical 'Tank/DPS/Heals' group.

Interestingly enough, I replaced it with a Razer Death Adder. The performance was about on par, but I really haven't been gaming as much as I used to, so I haven't had it die on me yet.

My G5 lasted almost 10 years as well, I loved that mouse. The only reason I replaced it was because the LED (or laser?) sensor went out, and while I could've maybe replaced it, I thought 10 years of use was good enough.

I think the endurance part is Endurance Drain, not recovery. I'm pretty sure the only part of Accelerate Metabolism that is affected by power boost is the movement speed portions.

While I can get where you are coming from, this game wasn't designed with a trinity in mind. Yes, we have Tankers, and Defenders, and Blasters, but there was never a really good push to force the Trinity. Very few encounters require any specific things, but it is easier if you have buffs/debuffs etc. Reichman is literally the only giant bag of hitpoints that exists inside City of Heroes, and they have even changed the Baracuda SF so it doesn't require specific ATs.

I would argue that the sound effects for Katana would make more sense, as the idea behind the Fire Sword, is that is made of fire.. and doesn't have the 'weight' behind it that Broadsword does. But having a 'slice' sound in additional to the 'fwoosh' would definitely be helpful.

I mean, I guess if all you do is powerlevel to 50, and start the game there. to each their own i guess.

One think to consider, is Nemmies, Rikti and even some CoT actually have confuse resistance/protection. Especially the Nemmies, as Vengence gives confuse protection. So it could've just been the groups you decided to test against.

One thing to consider though, is that Defense only counters tohit buffs. It doesn't do anything for accuracy modifiers at all. Accuracy actually increases the 'floor' of a mobs final chance to hit you. Basically the 50% chance to hit is only for white (even level) minion class (1.0 Acc) mobs. Anything higher then that in either level, or rank will have a higher 'final' chance to hit you, due to their Accuracy modifiers, even if you have softcapped defense. Basically tohit buffs/debuffs and defense buffs/debuffs are calculated first, then Accuracy is applied to that final number. So, if you have 45% defense, against a mob with an accuracy modifier of 1.5, and no other tohit buffs they actually have a 7.5% chance to hit you, instead of the 5% that you think they would have. floor(AccMod * floor(tohit - defense)) so floor(1.5 * (floor(50-45)) = 1.5 * 5 = 7.5% final to hit.

I really don't understand why a ANY blaster would skip their t1 and t2 blasts. Like at all. This argument of 'But flares is gross!' doesn't make much sense when you can use it while held.... Unless I'm just really missing something about blasters that I haven't noticed before.

Needs more duck costume.

I don't have access to City of Data, but don't they have 2-3 other attacks as well? While recharge could be an issue, they should still have a decent attack chain once you get all the upgrades.

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