Maelwys

The easiest for a Support Blasty AT ? + Top recommendation would definitely be a Forcefield. These come in Defender/Corruptor/Controller/Mastermind flavours; and of those Defender and Corruptor are the most "Blasty". As long as you keep your various Toggles running; really the only thing you need to do is press 2-3 buttons at least once every 4 minutes (Power Boost or Power Build Up whenever you get access to it at level 35+; plus the two allied Bubbles Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield) and you'll be set. "Damping Bubble" (a buff/debuff patch that needs recast once every 45 seconds when fighting very tough targets) and "Force Bomb" (a glorified AoE attack that inflicts a 30-second duration -resistance debuff) are the cherries on top. FF also has mez protection that affects the player (Dispersion Bubble) and a "Panic Button" in Personal Force Field. + Sonic Resonance is an obvious alternative. It buffs +Resistance rather than +Defence but otherwise playing extremely similarly to FF. However you will get hit more often and because -resistance debuffs are so valuable your teammates may also expect you to spam Sonic Siphon (a single target resistance debuff) more than you'd be comfortable with. + If you're OK with a little bit more hands-on buffing/debuffing then look at Cold Domination. Compared to FF it has two very similar once-every-four-minute bubbles (although they don't work with Power Boost/Build Up) and three important long-duration buffs/debuffs in Benumb (30s), Sleet (45s or less) and Heat Loss (90s). Sleet is the thing you'll be expected to be using the most regularly; but they are all used proactively so none of them require you to press buttons with anything remotely close to split second precision. Snow Storm (a Toggle Slow/Recharge Debuff) can be used a little more actively, but most of the time you can get by without using it. Frostwork (a 120s duration Allied +MaxHP Buff) is completely proactive and much less important; many builds (particularly Corruptors) even skip it entirely. The easiest for a Pure Blasting AT? + Likely a Sentinel. For the secondary powerset you'll probably want a Defense based one with mostly Toggles/Autos. You could certainly reuse /SR (and using either Dark Blast or Water Blast would give you some regular self-healing)... alternatives would be Energy Aura, Ninjitsu, Stone, Ice or Invulnerability. For the primary powerset, traditionally Fire, Ice and Elec Blast are the gotos for decent damage with little/no complex chaining mechanics; and Ice Blast also works a smidge better than you might expect on a Sentinel due to all the extra Damage Procs it can fit... but honestly just pick whatever you like the look of. ...or as a completely different idea: Have you considered a VEAT? Some Widow (Fortuna) builds play very similar to an "/SR Sentinel" with better range, more control, and just one clicky buff every 90s (Mind Link) that you need to worry about. And they also provide substantial buffs to Teammate Defence, ToHit and Damage as well. Very non-optimized example build - zArachnos Fortunata.mbd (Ignore the Melee Defense value being higher than the rest; that's just my own preferences showing. However do note their hefty SR-like damage resistance scaling - displayed below at 100% HP and 25% HP. The actual figures in-game will differ a smidge due to the Reactive Defenses IO also giving a bigger buff as your HP drops; which Mids ignores!)

Try using the Search Function again If you're looking for a post by a particular Author, then state that under "more search options". The above link is a search for the keywords 'invulnerability' AND 'brute' by author 'Infinitum' and the 4th result (dated June 2022 but likely still decentish) still has a valid Mids file attached to it.

Oddly enough, it consistently takes my MMs the longest to summon and rebuff their 'bots whenever Group Fly is toggled on. Both Equip Robot and Upgrade Robot only successfully cast whenever you're targeting a henchman that has its feet firmly planted on the ground. It's one of my few remaining bugbears about Robotics MM gameplay (although these days due to powercreep it's rare that I lose a henchie even in the midst of AE Farming permaspam...)

Peacebringers get copious amounts of Knockback in most of their attacks AND Group Fly.

Matt 4:5-6 NHFE (Nonsensicial and Heretical Forum Edition) Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his Flight Pool toggles concerning you, and they will lift you up in their holy aura, so that you will not strike your foot against a skirting board’”

If memory serves the way Null's various "I don't want X to affect me" abilities are currently coded is as a series of different "tokens" - a bit like invisible passive powers/flags. If an entity possesses the correct token, then relevant power effects are counteracted at the point of casting and have no effect on them. You can see this in the CoDv2 entry for Group Fly as the condition: if !target.TokenOwned?(Power_DisallowGroupFly) Which translates as "if the target does not possess a token named Power_DisallowGroupFly then apply the affect on them" It's quite technically possible to reverse this condition - making Group Fly ONLY affect other player entities which have such a token. However you would also need to make Group Fly provide two additional effects in order to continue to apply to the original owner of the power and their pets (otherwise someone could pick a power and have it do nothing for them until they visit Null) (i) An effect which has a maximum target cap of 0 "Self"; that provides Group Fly buffs regardless of any Null the Gull flags and affects ONLY YOU. (ii) An effect which has a maximum target cap of 255 "Own Pet (Alive)"; that provides Group Fly buffs regardless of flags to ONLY YOUR PETS (this may need a wide number of caveats to pin down all the allowed entity types - examples here and here - although a similar setup already exists with the "Boost doubled for Pets" Support Hybrid powers) So quite doable, but would need a tweak or two from the already infamously busy powers team.

100% agree. However having something someone else does affect your own character's gameplay can be hellava annoying. See Speed Boost, Knockback Spam, etc. Admittedly it's usually Melee players that gripe about this stuff; and there are methods (like Null and AoE Immobilises) to cope with most of them. This is not a new player. See "I’ve been playing this game on and off since 2004." Whilst I personally do think that going to Null is ultimately the thing to do... in this case their teammates would have been unable to do that until the TF ends. And ultimately it sounds more like this was an issue with not listening to the person with the star more than anything else. The team leader asked one of their recruited followers to do something, was refused; and then kicked the offender. That kick took place later on during a TF and it may have been well-deserved or tyrannical depending on who you ask; but what occurred is still firmly within the limits of what a team leader is allowed to do and there doesn't appear to have been any other active griefing taking place. So definitely not one for the GMs. I'd like to think more communication may well have smoothed things out... but some folk are just plain harder to co-exist with than others. All that said - in this case the request may have been to turn off Group Fly. But it could have been a request to turn off a genuinely migraine-inducing bubble power (I've seen this happen) or just changing to a less annoying costume (this too). Some requests are more frivolous than others. (I suppose I should be thankful that both players in question even had their chat windows enabled...)

Unfortunately multiple other fellow Mastermind players and advocates for the use of Group Fly have stated opinions and experience to the contrary in this very thread. The consensus here appears to be that Temporarily turning off Group Fly will have very little impact on your gameplay (Leveraging FOLLOW or GOTO commands on the ground is doable 99.9% of the time and at most will require a few extra clicks from you; the player who is familiar with micromanaging the critters in the first place) and would be the polite and appropriate response in general teaming situations; let alone in a TF where the other party would have to actually quit the task force in order to visit Null. Also Robotics henchmen (unlike a lot of MM Primaries) take very little micromanaging to get them to clump up. Across many, many, many hours of gameplay I can confidently state that they work just fine at range whether on the ground or in the air. Group Fly is primarily just a method of keeping them out of melee and AoE range of tough enemies, something which is simply not needed on teams where you're getting lots of additional buffage and/or your teammates are locking down aggro either via taunting or spamming CC abilities. Apart from that it's only been on huge dedicated farming maps (where there are so many NPC bodies milling around on the ground that I have found myself simply UNABLE to get my henchmen to cluster tightly enough together for buffs) that running it really matters. Worst case, I'd have just picked a different route far away from the rest of the team and Tankerminded it - the vast majority of MM combinations can solo a TF by themselves anyway.

The Sun is still up ... he will be here shortly Should I just hide thread now? There is NO HIDING from @Snarky (and a particular fondness of a bit of Potential Undead Giddiness...)

Pretty good, as it happens. @Neiskas guide is about triple box Mastermind Farming and it's available here. It's a smidge less relevant these days than it used to be after the recent changes that affected AE critter behavior whenever you're at the aggro cap; but it is still quite a useful reference piece. It describes well what happens whenever you bring a Mastermind(s) with multiple henchmen, each with their own aggro cap, into a tightly packed farming map. In short, GLORIOUS BEDLAM. Multiple stacking AoE buffs and Group Fly in that scenario is a godsend. My own Bot/Kin/Flame still makes good use of the same style of farming, albeit typically dual-boxed with whatever alt I fancy leveling up at the time.

"Hey man, mind turning off Group Fly? It's severely messing up my rotation." "Oh, sorry. Yeah no problem. That'll make my Bots take a few extra hits but we should be grand. Although you realise you can visit Null to global disable GF and stuff yeah?" "Aye but I forgot on this toon and we're on a TF. Thanks. You know I was half expecting this to turn into some kind of major argument or something." "Naw... it's just a game, right?"

There was a little bit of artistic license going on, sure, but from what I can tell it's a valid summary rather than a strawman. I realise you called this a "vent thread" and I'm not leaping on the judgement bandwagon. However FWIW, here are some of my "greatest hits" of the thread so far: "the team lead can be tyrannical" "Can GMs do nothing to these people" "others shouldn't be able to impose on my playstyle" "I'm practical" "I would even been gracious enough to quit" "If someone presents a valid argument, I'll concede it." "I've been nothing but civil." "my time is very valuable" "As far as I'm concerned, they didn't take the correct steps." "I hope its a hard piece of wooden furniture."

This. I actually agree with the statement "Group Fly is very useful on certain ATs, therefore anyone who wishes to never be affected by it should visit Null the Gull to turn it off". However I do not agree with the statement "Whilst on a TF the Leader asked me to do X. I refused to do X. The leader booted me. Therefore the leader in question is a very terrible person and anyone who disagrees with me should go whack their foot off a skirting board." I mean, we all love a good rant and a therapeutic bitching session about Group Fly and/or Knockback and/or nerfing Regen. However as a PUG horror story this needs 50% more Snarky.

Yups. Was from Zwillinger apparently: "to answer the question as to why Null's wonderful reality bending capabilities are not put into a UI/Options window: UI work takes a significant amount of time. Creating an NPC that offers these toggles takes significantly less time." https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Null_the_Gull#Historical

The public education system has failed me If Spellcheck didn't exist. I would concede the point. 😉

One of my favourite toons is a Bot/Kin MM. They have Group Fly on all the time because it makes the Henchmen far more survivable and much easier to place for Fulcrums. However I've been the melee-only-Scrapper-with-poor-suppressed-movement-speed too; a long long time before Null existed. I can see both sides of the argument here; and personally I would probably err on the side of "if it annoys you enough Null it, otherwise stop whinging" That said, ultimately THIS PARTICULAR scenario smells of a distinct lack of communication. The Leader of the TF failed to communicate just how bloody annoying they (or the rest of the team) were finding your usage of Group Fly; and you failed to communicate just how important leaving it on was to you. They're perfectly within their rights to boot you for not listening/obeying; and you're perfectly within your rights to 1-star them and complain on the forums about it. Also, and I cannot stress this enough: it's spelt "AGGRAVATED".

Two Force Feedback Procs (one in Titan Sweep, another in Whirling Slash) plus Hasten. And an Agility Alpha slot to boot. To be fair, after you detoggle Superjump, Sprint and Tactics and swap the Def/Rech in Weave to a Def/EndRed the Recovery rises to +1.67; but the build still has a fair bit to go. With one foe in Invincibility range it's currently looking like this: Ideally Defense to all damage types here should be 45% or above; and S/L Resistance should be capped (90% is fine, but 100% is better as you ignore debuffs). Alternatively, you can push Resistance to other things higher and leave Defenses a smidge lower (so that you can lean on Barrier and/or keep a few more foes within range of Invincibility to hit the softcap) but IMO that approach goes much better on a Tanker - with lower base numbers and no helpful ATOs, getting Brute resistances high enough to justify it simply requires too much sacrifice elsewhere in the build. If all you want is MOAR DAMAGE then start with 2x Acc/Dam HOs and 4x Damage Procs in every attack (or even 5-6 damage procs and 0-1x Acc/Dam HO if you can swing the Accuracy requirements to cap your ToHit chance vs whatever you're fighting) and work up from there... although in that case /SR might be a better choice than /INV.

I remember being involved in a few Supergroup PVP raids back whenever that was a thing. Aside from the fact that any destroyed items remained destroyed (and the obnoxious geometry/terrain exploits where the defending base could be built to "wall off" access to things or create inescapable killboxes) it was actually quite fun to have what amounted to a big mad superheroic capture-the-flag game with your friends. I also enjoyed some Gladiator matches (yes, really) which I genuinely think could still become a brilliantly fun minigame even in the HC era with some very minor tweaks.

If you're willing to pick an attack set with a stackable +Defence buff (Katana/Broadsword/Staff/MA/TW) then you can get a little more wiggle room. Brutes unfortunately don't gain the same raw Resistance values from their powers as Tankers; and their ATOs don't grant additional resistance on demand either. This means that it's much harder to cap multiple resistances on Brutes without overly sacrificing other things like damage output. However it's relatively straightforward to cap a small number of damage resistances (like Smashing+Lethal OR Fire+Cold) on a Brute; which is why so many Brute AE farmers existed prior to the Tanker AoE attack range buffs. Stone Armor Brutes in "Granite Armor" Form are an obvious exception here; but as others have highlighted, running in Granite comes with its own built-in set of penalties and these days the rest of the set is good enough that a lot of people either skip Granite Armor entirely or use it as a set mule. My favourite AFK AE Fire Farmer is currently still a Graniteless RadMelee/Stone Brute; despite the fact that Tanker auras are wider. Their totals look like this (without Earth's Embrace or any other Clicky buffs running) I've got a BattleAxe/FA Brute who can also AE Farm; but who is much more active (Axe Cyclone into Burn + Pendulum!) and a lot more fun in regular non-farming content. Their totals look like this:

It's only 3 trials so you can just back-of-handkerchief it manually. If chance of X occurring is 17.54%, then chance of X NOT occurring is 82.46% Given 3 "chances", that's 0.8246^3 = 0.560699270936 chance of X not occurring... which gives (1-0.560699270936)=43.93% chance for X to occur at least once. As to whether a 43.93% average likelihood of at least one Stun to kick in per rotation is worth it or not...? Personally I'd vote not; but I don't like the idea of relying on mitigation that assumes you'll never get an unlucky streak. (And it doesn't help that CoH has a notoriously spotty history whenever it comes to streakbreakers...)

I don't think I've ever used more than 10 Catalysts on a single build (to "Superior" two full sets of ATOs) ever since I figured out that the Homecoming AH pools both levelled and attuned enhancements together (and so there's there's no downside to buying attuned enhancements directly off the AH instead of using Catalysts on them!). But the Winter sets tend to be a "only useful once I ding 50" thing for me anyway. My SG base always has at least three full bins of Boosters at any one time though. I go through those like popcorn...

having 'em in a bunch of different powers would increase that probability (three attacks would make it like a coin flip each rotation) That's not how it works. Each ability has its own chance of proc'ing the stun, the chances are not cumulative. If you've ever converted enhancements, same thing. I mean... that's kind of how combining probability chances works... Although 43.9% likelihood isn't quite a 1 in 2, so perhaps the coin in question is a smidge weighted towards one side?

The Gaussian and Soulbound "Chance for Build Up" procs both have a chance to grant a short-lived buff to Damage and ToHit chance on their target (e.g. you or your pets). It's essentially a bit like if they'd just activated the "Build Up" power from one of the game's melee damage powersets, which is where it gets its name. The exact values granted by the buff differ a bit depending on the target's modifiers; so your T1 henchmen get +60% Damage and +30% ToHit and your T2 Henchmen get +80% Damage and +40% ToHit and your T3 gets +100% Damage and +50% ToHit. The buff itself is also very short lived - only 5.25 seconds long (which is delayed after triggering by an extra 0.5 seconds due to another value named "Animation Time Before Effect") so it'll typically only affect your next 1-2 attacks at most. But whenever it kicks in you'll hit noticeably harder; and placing the Soulbound Proc IO into a power which spawns multiple pets (like Battle Drones) makes all of them get affected by it. [EDIT] - Here's an example screenshot showing the Soulbound Proc's buff in action on a set of three Battle Drones. In the icon list next to the pet names it's shown as a little purple circle with a clenched fist in the middle. Note also that the buff can stack with itself + in the listed attributes of my targeted Battle Drone you can see that the buff values are getting doubled (shown as separate +30% lines in the To Hit Bonus section and a single combined +120% line in the Damage Bonus Section).