Lunar Ronin

Yeah. Using henchmen to pull is an issue. When soloing or playing on a duo or trio and I or we encounter a tight area with multiple mob groups close together, I'll occasionally tell a henchmen or two to move out and pull some mobs back to me or us. That will no longer be viable. I don't much care for speed running, but this solves an issue for speed runners which is the majority at this point in time. The needs of the many, yadda yadda. Just have to take the good with the bad. Also, FWIW in regards to personal attacks, with the Electrical Affinity secondary, I've found that it's simply not possible to use personal attacks. I simply do not have the time to use one, between micromanaging henchmen and spamming Electrical Affinity powers. With most other secondary power sets, I'm able to use one or two personal attacks fine.

There's a new bug with Sir Bedwyr's mission "Meet Lorn." In that mission, you basically challenge Pendragon to a duel. It was never difficult, but now he cons gray at level 27 (when he should go up to at least level 39), and doesn't seem to fight back much. The first few hits didn't seem to register any damage on Pendragon, but then his health started going down after what looked like the third attack, and he seemed to only get one attack in? I ran the mission on a team so it was hard to tell, but Pendragon is definitely bugged as he never conned gray on that mission before.

It's a good thing then that open beta for Page 3 was fifteen days. -

I sincerely want to thank the Homecoming developers for including the even con Mastermind henchmen with the +5 through +7 difficulty update. When Paragon Studios raised the maximum difficulty from +2 to +4 in September 2009, Mastermind henchmen went untouched. The Mastermind AT suddenly went from playing decently at maximum difficulty to substantially struggling. Then when the Incarnate Alpha +1 level shift was added in February 2011, Mastermind henchmen were ignored. It took an overwhelming outcry from Mastermind players to convince Paragon Studios to add the level shift to henchmen. Then when the Hybrid Incarnate ability was added, Mastermind henchmen were ignored yet again. IIRC, it took another overwhelming outcry from Mastermind players to get the Support hybrid to work on Mastermind henchmen and for the Assault hybrid to partially work on Mastermind henchmen. It was one of the last things that Paragon Studios did before being shuttered. When Homecoming developers first broached the subject of raising the maximum difficulty, I feared that the Mastermind AT would be ignored a fourth time. I was prepared to start a fight like we did on the old blue boards, or leave. Ask my friends, I had the war paint nearby. But none of it was necessary. Thank you for remembering the Mastermind AT and its players. Thank you for taking the time, the dedication, and the extremely hard work in raising the minion and lieutenant henchmen to even con. It is greatly appreciated.

Jack Emmert left DC Universe Online and Daybreak Games a couple of years ago. It got worse after he left. Andre Emerson and Al Rivera came on after Jack Emmert left. Also, don't trust AI search responses. They're frequently wrong.

Thankfully, I don't care about playing meta characters (in any game). I just really like how a couple of power sets there play, the travel powers are awesome, and being virtually "in" the DC Universe setting and flying around Metropolis and such after reading DC Comics comic books for 45 years is great. So I don't get to do elite raids. Big whoop. But it sets a terrible precedent, and it makes it much harder to onboard new players. I'd really hate to see anything like that come to City of Heroes, (which it won't, thankfully).

No thank you. The other MMORPG I play is DC Universe Online, and holy crap. The former Star Trek Online developers took over the game last year, and the DCUO monetization is now wild. Two or more FOMO timed events every single month that you have to either seriously grind or shell out $$ every month (each)... and they contain permanent very strong powers or NPC companions. If you happen to miss one of those timed events? Tough luck. You may never be able to get those permanent powers or NPC companions again. Then they started adding meta-changing and defining permanent powers to lockboxes. If you want to be in the meta, you have to pay $200 to $400 per character, per power. It's insane. Oh, and like the FOMO timed events, once those lockboxes are cycled out for new lockboxes? Good luck. I miss the days of when MMORPGs just had a subscription and that was it. "Free-to-play" is a joke.

It's far from the first time that I have heard that nonsense on Homecoming. It's mostly from true blue types who either never played red side or tried it once and never again. "If you want to team, you play a blue side AT. Red side ATs are for soloing." Yes, that surely explains the various strike forces and trials that you couldn't even start solo back on live.

It does. Tested it when friends pranked me by doing a blue side static team.

Just bumping this, because something tells me that there's going to be a whole lot of new Masterminds Group Flying around Paragon City and the Rogue Isles soon.

Yep, that's exactly what I do on every character. Both because I generally don't do blue side, and I don't go into a PvP zone for any reason.

Sure. I've successfully done all Mastermind +2 and +3 advanced difficulty mode TFs and SFs without issue. Mastermind is actually a good AT for them considering their single target damage. And that was before these changes. Why not +5? Honestly, people grossly over-inflate the issues with Masterminds. Do they have issues? Oh yes. But mostly their issues are due to jank and speed, not "lack of damage," and Page 3 deals with the survivability issue.

FWIW, that hasn't been the case for years. That other server gave each henchman his/its own costume slot. No more using the Mastermind's own costume slots.

Mastermind. Masterminds do a ton of single target damage, and between that and potentially debuffs from your secondary, you'll be an asset against AVs and GMs (even solo AVs depending on power sets and build), and be helpful to your team. Other than that, I second Gershwin's Fortunata recommendation. Great buffs, great defense, good damage. Just lacking on debuffs, but no character can truly do it all.