TheMoncrief

Universally, Regeneration rate, Recovery rate, and Endurance consumption. Situationally, positional or typed defenses and damage bonus.

Sadly, neither NInjitsu nor Energy Aura appears to have a no-fx option for their stealth powers.

Is there a way to make Stealth and Invisibility powers less, well, stealthy and/or invisible? I put some effort into my costumes, and not being able to see them when I'm running around in the game is kind of off-putting. I don't mind a slight translucency, but these powers seem to make my character into not much more than an outline. I'm specifically asking about Energy Aura and Ninjitsu, where the stealth powers are an important part of the defense of the set, so skipping them isn't really an option. At least not a good one. I'm less fussed about the powers in the Concealment pool or Illusion Control, where the invisibility is really the whole point. Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I couldn't find a forum for costume discussions.

The sentinel is for people who like having ranged combat options but don't like being made of glass until they can kit themselves out wit set bonuses. It is particularly for people who cannot stand playing without status protection. The AT is probably somewhat undertuned, but taken for what it is, it's not without merit. There's fun to be had playing a Sentinel, you just cannot compare yourself to better tuned damage dealers. Or play with people who will do the comparison for you. Bio Armor as a secondary really helps, as it's respectably tough when soloing but gives a useful damage buff when you have teammates to take some of the aggro.

Katana/Super Reflexes. Felt like I was a ninja long before Ninjutsu was a set. And I still take Elude, because being completely free from toggles, even if only briefly, just feels so dang good. I miss perma-Elude, though.

The fact that field effects essentially turn off my entire primary power set. Nothing like trying to do a Knives of Artemis mission with a Mastermind to make you hate the game.

When you have and make billions, a few thousand here and there just doesn't really register. Your time is more valuable doing real trades than going to the vendor to sell for marginally more.

If your pets tend to be melee focused, Entangling is amazing. If they stay at range mostly, not so much. It can "turn off" large portions of every spawn, as long as you are staying in melee range. I play Beass/Nature, and I mostly agree with Carnifax. Lifegiving Spores are another power I feel he undervalued, though. The area heal is very useful and will keep your pets fairly topped off as long as they mostly stay in it. More important, it gives Endurance as well as Health. It keeps me and my pets well supplied with Endurance so I never run dry. Also gives my wolves and cats a nice patch to go to the bathroom, but that's not so much of an issue for your Zombies.

You forgot the other condition in which a set needs nerfing: when it is Regen. Nerf Regen is not just a meme, it is a philosophy for life.

You may be missing the most obvious approach. Two of them. Teammates and autocomplete. Almost anything is easy with a good team. There won't be much time for your pets to head for the hills when an entire team of actual players bringing the pain. And when you don't have teammates handy, well... Some enemies and enemy groups are just not fun to fight with certain characters. Just avoid them. You have 1000 character slots per server per account. Autocomplete your way through the missions you can't avoid, and come back to actually *EXPERIENCE* them with characters who are properly equipped to handle them. No reason Superman should fight Kryptonite Midas when he can avoid it and let the Flash or Green Lantern do it.

They are not. In fact none of the flight powers that I have found are mutually exclusive, except possibly Mystic Flight from the Sorcery pool - I haven't checked that one. Leaving Hover on has two problems. First, it locks me in the Hover stance, which IMHO looks stupid when I'm flying around with my robot posse. Second, it does nothing if I'm using Fly instead of Hover. Now, I rarely use Fly any more without Group Fly - Fly to me now exists only to get Afterburner to make my Group Fly faster. Thus, the second problem isn't really a problem. The former is enough of a problem that I'll instead prefer to just stick with my current macros and accept that I'll be falling down every time I turn on Group Fly.

So, my Mastermind has been enjoying the Group Fly change, and all my characters have been enjoying the travel power changes in general, but I have a minor annoyance. I use macros to make sure that my jet boots costume option is active when I am using any flight power, and turn them to normal boots when I land. I also use the macros to turn off my other flight powers when I turn one on. So when I activate Hover, Fly and Group Fly are turned off, Fly turns off Hover and Group Fly, and Group Fly turns off Hover and Fly. There's just one problem - When I use the Group Fly macro, it takes 2 seconds for Group Fly to kick in, while Hover and Fly turn off instantly. Thus, I fall out of the sky for 2 seconds whenever I use the macro. This has never been fatal or even seriously damaging, but it is quite annoying. So, is there a way to activate Group Fly, wait for the 2 seconds it takes to turn on, and only *THEN* turn off Hover and Fly? I haven't found any way, but I figure I ought to ask the experts before I give up. Thank you! Even if I don't get the answer I'd like, I at least want to know that it's impossible if it is, in fact, impossible.

Sadly, it does nothing for Resistance powers, click based or not. My Beasts/Nature Mastermind was quite annoyed that her minions couldn't hit the Resist cap through using Power Boost - although to be fair, her Beasts are quite rugged anyway, in spite of them being purely melee attackers.

There are inherents that define how the AT plays, and inherents that, well, don't. Fury or Domination are AT defining. Opportunity, self evidently, is not. Nobody plays Blasters for Defiance or Masterminds for Supremacy. One of those is actually a really good inherent, but it's entirely in the background. The other is and has always been kind of lackluster. I don't think any realistic change to Opportunity is going to make it an AT-defining inherent. But they might manage to make it a good inherent that just happens to be operate in the background.

Thread title: "Why is it so hard for me to play Red Side?" I think that explains why people are responding with reasons why they don't play Red Side. Possibly. I may be giving basic literacy too much credit though.

I don't think the game structurally fits well with villains. Heroes, sure, they run around, talk to people who they know to be well informed, learn what the bad guys are doing, and stop them. Heroism is fundamentally a reactive endeavor. As a villain, they other folks should be reacting to *ME*. Certainly I shouldn't be taking marching orders from random dudes I'm sent to by a "broker." Some of the villain missions do overcome this structural problem, but in the end, I tend to feel more like a lackey or henchman than a true independent villain. The redside writing, however, is much better than blueside. Few of the blueside contacts feel like anything other than random computer terminals I get in AE. The redside contacts, at least some of them, are written as real characters. Golden Roller, Doc Buzzsaw, the Radio and the Television, all are more memorable as characters than anybody I encountered blueside.

I like that I can get consistent mez protection without having to play yet another melee toon.

I'd like to know this too. I really liked the old rainbow aura for Invulnerability powers, but I significantly prefer Brutes over Tankers or Scrappers for the set on a play style basis.

And that is exactly why you shouldn't do it. There are very few "wrong" ways to play City of Heroes. The pure empath concept is famous because it is one of them. It is a build and play philosophy that absolutely requires a team to support, and provides extremely minimal support to that team in response, because it is based on the unfounded belief that providing healing (and only healing) to your teammates is essential in all circumstances, when it is usually not even helpful. A Mastermind with no personal attacks is usually perfectly self sufficient and contributes well to a team. It is an entirely functional build for any content where a Mastermind is going to be useful. No team will fail to defeat its targets and clear its missions because the Mastermind was not contributing personal damage - in order to come even close to that mark, it has to be playing so close to the edge of viability that failure is an expected outcome whether the Mastermind is attacking or not. Playing a Mastermind without attacks is not a wrong way to play. And leveling personal insults against people who prefer to play that way is not a good way to make your point. Regardless, I'm out. If you think you are engaging in constructive debate and have "won," go for it. You asked why people consider the MM primary attacks pointless, I explained, you insulted me and everybody who has ever reached a similar conclusion, I asked you to tone it down, you doubled down. There is nowhere this conversation has left to go.

Please don't compare a Mastermind who chooses to play to the AT's strengths to a "pure emp" who thinks being a dedicated healer is actually useful in CoX and likely ignores the really great powers in Empathy like Clear Mind and Fortitude because they aren't heals. I have nothing against personal attacks in your Mastermind builds - or even in my own Mastermind builds sometimes - but you don't need to be bringing them to the forums. Not everybody enjoys playing the same way as you. Nor should they. They are not wrong. Neither are you. The case that one way of playing or the other is better in some objective sense can probably be made, but it doesn't need to be. Both ways work fine. I have edited this several times to avoid saying anything truly offensive. I don't object to your arguments supporting the use of Mastermind primary and pool attacks - merely to your dismissive attitude toward those who don't agree with you.

Power picks and enhancement slots are in strictly limited supply. Masterminds have such a low damage scale that spending them on direct attacks is easy to consider a waste of resources, unless you are playing a primary where the attacks have more utility than just doing damage. Most Masterminds have plenty of things to use power picks and enhancement slots on that contribute considerably more to their arsenal than their direct attacks. At least until they need to mule a good set, but by then you're usually done or nearly done leveling, and depending on the secondary they still may not find a chance to use them. Some secondaries are very busy, others are very endurance hungry. Either can interfere with your chances to actually use those attacks even if you take them to hold a nice set.

I am content that my Robots jet feet are now useful for more than hanging out in Pocket D. Having Group Fly actually be a useful group travel power for my pets is intensely satisfying.

Caltrops is amazing on a Mastermind. I can't imagine ever wanting it on a melee class though. Stalker Ninjitsu just does not seem like a well designed set.

Depending on the specific primary, the "extra" power may be skippable too. Serum for Mercenaries or Repair Robot for Robotics are easily skipped. On the other hand, skipping Hell on Earth for Demons or Gang War for Thugs may well earn you a diagnosis for clinical insanity.

Can't you just disable redraw in your power customization? Or are there some weapon sets where redraw cannot be disabled?