Maelwys

Since you're already played Ramiel's mission line... I'm not spoiling anything for you by stating that in-game the player characters are supposed to be taking the "long way" to becoming an Incarnate. So rather than being bestowed the powers automatically by the well, instead they have to work for it. That's probably as close lorewise as you're going to get to a reason for why there is so little handholding in-game for incarnate power crafting. As to how you actually craft Incarnate stuff and progress? Well, others have already pointed out the wiki and this guide on the forums; but I'll add my 2p below: Just "continuing to play" once a character hits level 50 will get you Incarnate Experience Points as well as plenty of "Incarnate Shard" and "Incarnate Thread" salvage. Shards and Threads can both be used to purchase various sorts of useful Incarnate Components within the incarnate crafting interface (accessible via your character's Powers Tab). This salvage is in turn converted into the different Incarnate Abilities themselves. This conversion/upgrading process is a bit like Invention Enhancement Crafting. First gather the ingredients (shards/threads/components/etc) then use those to craft something you want, such as a better ingredient (higher-tier incarnate components; and lower-tier Incarnate Abilities) then ultimately an "Enhancement" itself (amaximum-tier Incarnate Ability). After you have some Incarnate Abilities fully crafted, you can select one of them to place into each of your available empty Incarnate Slots; which activates them. Some Incarnate Abilities are passive, others are toggles, and others are clicks. They'll all appear in your available powers list so try dragging them out onto your power tray. Higher tier Incarnate Abilities are generally "better"; and some of them grant very useful additional bonus effects like a "+1 level shift" in regular and/or incarnate content. On Homecoming, after you hit level 50 you get granted Incarnate Threads and Empyrean Merits just for "continuing to level up" - see Veteran levels. You can also gain additional Empyrean Merits and higher-tier Incarnate Components for completing certain content arcs. Empyrean Merits (along with some other merit types) can be used in place of threads/shards/etc within your incarnate crafting interface. They are an extremely efficient means at crafting "Rare" and "Very Rare" Incarnate components (which normally require a ridiculous amount of threads/shards/influence to craft); so typical advice is to use threads/shards to craft "Common" and "Uncommon" Incarnate components; and save your Empyrean Merits for crafting "Rare" and "Very Rare" Incarnate components. Any spare Empyrean Merits you end up with can be emailed to other characters on your same account in order to give them a head start - and you can also convert 50 Empyrean Merits to/from 1 Transcendent Merit at the merit vendors in order to make this process faster (because only one merit can be sent per email!). Also, in case you missed it; Alpha Slot Abilities are likely the only thing that you'll realistically be using Incarnate Shards on. There are two sets of recipes used for creating each of the Alpha Slot abilities - one set requires components that are crafted using Shards, the other requires components that are crafted using Threads. The other types of Incarnate Slot Abilities - Destiny, Lore, Judgement, Interface, Hybrid - all just use components that are crafted using Threads. So after you've completed all the T4 Alpha Slot Abilities you want then you'll likely just convert any leftover/future Shards into Threads. After you've completed all of your T4 Incarnate Abilities... Threads can still be useful to purchase Super Inspirations at Luna's store in Ouroboros. For anyone who really doesn't want to engage with the Incarnate System; Luna's store is a useful means of converting all those pesky Incarnate Threads into sellable stuff...

I mained a Sonic/Elec Defender on Live. I still have a copy of their original circa-issue-9 build actually. Red Noise - IOs.mxd "Charge Up" was "Aim" back then, and the missing powers/slots are: Level 8: Hurdle (2x level 50 Jump IOs) Level 18: Health (Numina and Miracle Uniques) Level 20: Stamina (Performance Shifter Endmod, Endmod/Rech and "Chance for Endurance" Proc; plus a regular level 50 EndMod IO) Note the three ST attacks; the two low-level blasts (which had ED-capped Damage) plus Dominate (which had ED-capped Damage and Hold). Voltaic Sentinel was slotted for ED-Capped Damage and a bit of Endurance Modification. Short Circuit had ED-Capped Endurance Modification and Recharge. This was by far my least damaging Defender (in terms of raw damage output) but it still had a passable ST attack chain that didn't compromise on ED Damage Slotting. It could also buff allies res by ~55%; heal them, grant them all permanent mez protection, inflict 60% Damage Resistance debuff on the enemy, drain an entire enemy mob (with two applications of Short Circuit); keep a AV perma-caged and floor the ToHit chance of a group in an emergency via Liquefy. - - - - - In Issue 19 (when inherent Fitness got added) he went through a few changes, even finding room for Thunderous Blast. - - - - - These days on Homecoming I've played around with the idea of making them again several times. The below effort takes Ball Lightning and the Snipe; and swaps Dominate out for Tesla Cage (which I had at several points on Live; but Dominate was always better performing). With Barrier available I could potentially push the allied +res buffs up to +60.1%. I'd taken Power Sink previously on and off during live to let me "two-shot" mob endurance bars together with Short Circuit... but ultimately I found it made little practical difference and the smaller radius of PS got rather annoying to juggle in practical gameplay; so it's never been a must-have for me. However... ultimately I've actually ended up rerolling him as a Corruptor instead. Short Circuit can *still* drain groups in two applications; and whilst the +res buffs are a smidge lower than before (~46.3%) the difference in damage output is night and day and it really doesn't affect its other forms of mitigation like holds, -tohit debuffs and healing. I also dropped Cage since the HOs no longer increase the magnitude, making it useless vs AVs now (rassin' frassin' stealth nerfs...) 🤣 Anyways, my point (if there is one other than all that reminiscing!) is that it's perfectly possible to build a toon that is fully effective at its major "powerset roles" (e.g. +res mitigation from Sonic/ and -endurance drain from /Elec) without skimping on the +damage slotting. I appreciate that Elec Blast has been through some major changes... but draining a mob and keeping them drained still seems to be just as straightforward today as it was back in the single-digit issues.

Firstly, this thread is more than a year old. So there's a distinct whiff of Necromancy in the air. Secondly, this particular Original Poster has something of a reputation for... oh, let's be charitable.... for possessing a set of very peculiar but extremely fiercely held opinions that run contrary to well-established convention, common sense, and (occasionally) the laws of physics; which they insist on broadcasting as "fact" on the forums every so often whilst outright ignoring any helpful advice, well-intentioned replies and/or ironclad irrefutable evidence to the contrary. You're not going to get anywhere here. Believe me, we've tried. - - - - - - - - - - "THE SKY IS GREEN!" "Are you sure? It looks Blue to me." "Pretty sure it's Blue..." "It's been Blue since Issue 5." "I guess it can maybe look a bit Green if you squint?" "Nope, it's Blue, and this is why --> [Link to NASA article Explaining atmospheric refraction]" [a few weeks later...] "WHY IS THE SKY SO GREEN?" ((Cue Memes and exasperated sighs)) Most of the rest of us will find it extremely difficult to build a character in CoH that can't deal decent damage; and "FF Offenders" were a thing from early days on Live. However the OP has apparently somehow managed not to take any damaging attacks until after level 10 or even until after level 20 despite them being mandatory at level one... so unfortunately there's a bit of a reality distortion field to contend with here in addition to your general everyday "reluctance to being proven wrong on the internet".

The shortlist @Ukase provided above is a great starting point. A Panacea Proc in Health, a KB Protection IO in your Travel power, and a Celerity: Stealth IO in Sprint are all potential game changers at low-level. To add a few things : If you're coming back from aaaaaages ago then check out this thread . Particular standouts are stuff like Enhancement Diversification (Issue 6), the Invention system and Auction Houses (Issue 9), the Flashback/Ouroboros system (Issue 11), the Inherent Fitness Pool and the Incarnate system (Issue 19) etc. etc. Regarding Financing IOs. Certain players will actually give you a big handout of influence for your first toon if you're new and don't have billions saved up... but assuming that you want to work for it, there are plenty of cash-building guides on the forums here. The usual methods are: collect merits via exploration badges and story arcs (you can repeat arcs via Ouroboros - Freaklympics is extremely good return) then exchange these for enhancement convertors/boosters at the merit ATM... or play the Auction House... or get a Tanker to level 50 and Farm AE missions.

I'm not one of the folk that live + breathe AE; but I have made several custom-damage farming mission arcs and played around quite a bit with the settings trying to optimally tweak things. So a few observations/rules of thumb that may be worth considering. + Do NOT use the automatic easy/hard/etc. mode selections. Always use Custom. + The general idea is to get "100% standard experience at level 50" critters without giving them any abilities that are very detrimental to the character trying to farm them. + You can choose primary/secondary powerset combinations that are not valid for regular player characters; such as a melee damage Scrapper powerset plus a melee damage Dominator powerset (and this can be a good method of making custom enemies that don't have much in the way of damage mitigation and have a lot of low-damage attacks!) + Different powersets are capable of contributing more "standard exp" than others. Some combinations are simply not capable of 100% standard exp at level 50 for Bosses etc. + Steer clear of debuffs; especially attacks with "-Defense" in them. + Steer clear of buffs; especially resistance buffs, +ToHit buffs and long-duration clicky "godmode" powers. + CC powers like Stun/Hold/Sleep/etc? If you're a Tank/Scrapper then you probably won't care... but if you're a Blaster then you might want to skip them. + Self-Rez that don't apply intangible can be OK as fighting the same mob again will give extra exp/reward - think olden-days Freakshow "Dreck" map farming. + In general; if you want enemies that run into Melee then pick ONE ranged attack from their primary or secondary powerset; because after this attack gets used if they have no other ranged attacks available to chain with it they'll queue up a different (melee) attack and try to hug you. + It can be worth giving enemies MORE melee attacks even whenever they're already at "100% standard exp" - as if you are surrounded by critters who each only have one heavy-hitting melee attack available then they're always going to use that particular attack on you... but if they also have five other piddly minor-damage attacks available then chances are that they'll not all choose to simultaneously hit you with that heavy-damage attack. + Do not give enemy mobs flight capabilities. + If you're struggling, give yourself a custom Archvillain NPC ally that has almost no damaging attacks but lots of buffs/debuffs/heals (my personal favourite is a flier with Cold Domination [+Defence bubbles only] and Water Blast [Dehydrate + Whirlpool only]) and set them to follow you with the "Defensive" AI. + Map selection is very important. Some maps only allow a few spawns/patrols/allies etc. Classic farming maps include the "small" meteor, "big" meteor and tunnel. Note also that some maps will allow for initial enemy spawns to be within sight of the mission entrance point (so if you're bringing low-level characters to "sit" then they'll be far more likely to die on a meteor map than on a tunnel map!) + It's possible to have no regular enemies and the mission complete criteria set to simply clicking a glowie; then after you click that glowie the mission completes and all the ambushes etc. spawn. Doing this allows the "exit mission" button to function as an emergency exit, but prevents you from inviting any extra teammates onto the already-technically-completed mission map. I'm sure there are plenty of others, but that's all I can currently think of off the top of my head whilst maintenance is running... In regards to Bosses or no-Bosses; it will make a difference to drops... but chances are that you will also be able to kill more mobs faster if you're not having to mow through all that extra HP. So it can possibly become a wash, depending on your character's farming speed. Personally I prefer staying on a single map for longer and will therefore tend to include Bosses + EBs; but YMMV! 🙂

❤️ Dark Miasma. Bot/Dark was my very first MM on Live; and even on SOs it could handle hordes of mobs providing you got Fearsome Stare up + nobody killed your Darkest Night anchor + you spammed Twilight Grasp like it was going out of fashion. It leant on that AoE heal HARD though; and slotting Shadow Fall for Defence helped... (I'm still bitter that Controllers got a better version of Dark than everyone else. I'd have thumb wrestled Recluse himself for access to something like Fade!) 🎢 🤣

Yeah that sounds like a generic debuff secondary build to me alright. You could slot your ninja upgrade powers for +Defence, take Maneuvers and a +Def Alpha Slot, Support Hybrid and Barrier etc to try to push them all to softcap.... ...or alternatively just swap to /Cold which was already suggested a few times further up the thread. Having the extra mitigation from the Defense bubbles, Arctic Fog and Frostwork will increase your survivability a LOT, and its main debuff is a long-duration pseudopet (Sleet) which lets you concentrate on doing other stuff as long as you just remember to pop it every 45 seconds. The extra defense also frees you up to take Clarion Destiny (for the mez protection) instead of Barrier. /Time is the other obvious standout, but it needs a smidge more IO love than /Cold does (and also essentially locks you into taking a particular Patron pool for Power Boost!)

To be fair, the elder gods themselves live in fear of what can happen if one of those same retirees actually decides to get off their lawnchair and do something about it...

How do you know that for certain? Supposedly there's a lot of new players coming in all the time, many of whom are used to playing other games where skins of trademarked characters are readily available for free. Case in point... The NCSoft announcement and positive press HC has gotten recently has 100% brought more newbies into the fold - including those who want to play a clone of/homage to their favourite childhood superperson. I imagine there's a mix of "don't care" and "not aware" in play here; and so whilst it's unlikely to be a silver bullet, having the odd in-game reminder might at least lessen the numbers that our friendly neighbourhood GMs have to deal with a tad. I definitely remember a lot of questionable spidermen running around back on Live...

The default stance whenever pets are first summoned/resummoned is "Defensive Follow"; which enables bodyguard mode. You will need to re-upgrade them after resummoning though; if you want them to use their additional abilities (which are absolutely worth it). Thankfully the upgrade powers are AoE these days and you don't need to do each pet in turn after a wipe 🙂 One exception: whenever you change zones the pets will follow you and keep their upgrades; but their HP and Endurance gets refilled and they'll swap back to Defensive Follow (it's basically a "resummon" under the hood; but keeping the upgrades) Disclaimer: I do not like pure "debuff" support powersets (Dark doesn't count!) and Trick Arrow has historically always been one of my least favourite MM secondaries (beaten only by Poison; which IMO is the #1 rotten egg). Because debuffs are fantastic if you're fighting even-level mooks, but higher level foes and Archvillains just laugh at them. That said, /TA has a fair number of ways to lessen the impact of a big group of foes suddenly trying to rip your face off. EMP Arrow is much better than it used to be as a capstone; but its recharge is still very long. So Oil Slick would likely be my #1 choice for mitigation, followed by Flash/Glue Arrow. Acid and Disruption arrow are more DPS-magnifiers. I'd probably also stack Oil Slick with Fireball, and take Bonfire and slot with a Knockback > Knockdown IO for extra shenanigans. However there are a lot of people out there who are much more familiar with /TA MMs than me!

Whilst it's possible to micromanage your pets through lots of clicking on buttons in the regular User Interface... a lot of players (myself included) find it far, far easier to rely on binds. Looky here (for the original idea) and here (for the homecoming revision) to get started. My personal preference is here. In actual gameplay, whenever I'm paying attention on my MMs and not in lazy mode I'll typically do something like this: Set All Pets -> Defensive Follow (default), then for each enemy group I'll give an order like T3 Pet --> Attack My Target (which makes one of my henchmen start firing on my current target) followed by actually firing off my own attack powers (by this point the remaining henchmen will have noticed that something is shooting at them, and start shooting back); followed by positioning myself and the pets appropriately to make best use of AoEs (if necessary). Some Primaries like Robotics will tend to stay back and shoot from Range; others like Ninjas and Necro are mostly Melee and things become more of a Zergling rush. My Bot/Kin MM has a ridiculously min/maxxed endgame build and plays a little different - aside from keeping their buffs up, they'll generally just order the pets to PASSIVE FOLLOW ("stop whatever you're doing and come here dammit") then immediately swap them to DEFENSIVE GOTO (with the T3 pet set to AGGRESSIVE GOTO) and direct them right into the middle of the nearest huge mob of foes (enabling Bodyguard mode and attracting enemy attention). Then the MM themselves will dash in; hit Fulcrum Shift; drop Fireball/Bonfire/etc. then repeatedly spam Transfusion whilst their buffed ball of henchmen basically transform into a big metal blender. Sometimes I'll bother to use Group Fly to stay ~10 feet up and/or hit Support Hybrid and Barrier and/or summon Lore pets... but that's overkill unless I'm herding an entire map (which admittedly happens a fair bit!).

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mastermind_Strategy#Bodyguard There's a section there on the controls as well; but it boils down to the various pet "stances" and "orders" that Masterminds can set on each of their pets. Your pets are always set to something from each of the following two lists: + "Stances": Aggressive, Defensive, or Passive. + "Orders": Attack, Follow, or Goto ("Stay" exists as well, but it's essentially just a "Goto" command targeted at the pet's current location) Whenever your pets are in the "Defensive" stance then giving them either the "Follow" or "Goto" orders will enable Bodyguard mode. Bodyguard Mode makes the pet absorb a certain amount of damage that its master takes. Setting multiple pets to Bodyguard mode makes each of them absorb a different 'share' of this damage. Pets that are in Bodyguard Mode become particularly susceptible to AoE attacks, since they'll be taking their own damage in addition to sharing some of the Master's damage - which is part of why positioning and layering Pet Defense and/or AoE healing is so important on a Mastermind. Personally when my MM wants to play in "lazy mode" I tend to set just one pet (usually the T3) to Aggressive, and the rest to Defensive. That way the T3 always initiates combat and absorbs the Alpha without worrying about also taking a share of the Master's damage; and the rest of the pets will automatically return fire whilst constantly keeping the master reasonably well protected.

You mean you're not secretly Will Ferrell in a spotty red-and-yellow onesie...? 🤯

Another vote for SS/INV here. And if for some reason you can't install .Net Core v6 (AFAIK that means Win10 1803 - which went EOL in 2019 - or later) then there are older releases of Mids available on their GitHub page. Apparently 3.2.17 was the last one that was usable pre-Core v6. The Mids Discord also has a few folk who've gotten it running under WINE + Linux. https://discord.com/channels/593336669004890113/1181650420104429648/1181650420104429648

Much less productive than sticking an AoE damage power on auto, granted. But still a smidge more productive than attempting to farm whilst dead 😸 (I mean, the twin damage toggles will probably kill everything before the weekly maintenance...) More seriously they should be completely fine fighting a few mapfuls of S/E enemies, particularly "Elec Melee", so I very much suspect that the main problem isn't with the build itself.

There are a few things worth noting here. + Pets often inherit the owners "boosts". This means that pets will get the benefit of any buffs that are currently active on their summoner at the point when the pet is summoned. For LONG DURATION buffs like Fulcrum Shift and Forge - great. However things like Toggles and Set Bonuses are out of luck - these are ongoing constantly-refreshing effects, which means they wear off quite quickly and they will typically only be active on the pet for its initial summoning... the pet's own powers will not get the benefit of them. In practice, this means that any pseudopets that create an useful effect immediately upon their summoning will benefit from +Accuracy set bonuses, but real pets and pseudopets with "sub powers" that activate after summoning will NOT benefit from +Accuracy set bonuses. You'll see something like this in your combat log for a "Real" pet: (The second Image has an extra +60% Accuracy from Set Bonuses) In both cases the Tricannon Pet's "Tri-Gatling Gun" attack shows the same actual chance to hit, so Accuracy Set bonuses are doing nothing for it. And this for Pseudopets: (Again, Second Image has an extra +60% Accuracy from Set Bonuses) In this case there are three pseudopet powers activated - Sleep Grenade, Smoke Canister and Liquid Nitrogen... each of which do slightly different things. Note that the INITIAL HIT from Sleep Grenade and Smoke Grenade is getting a benefit from the Accuracy Set Bonuses, but their ongoing effects are not. + Sleep Grenade Burst ["Damage" component] - 47.08% -> 75.33% + Sleep Grenade [Initial Sleep/Slow] - 59.44% -> 87.68% + Sleep Grenade [Ongoing Sleep/Slow] - 47.87% -> 47.87% + Smoke Grenade [Initial] - 75.95% -> 94.64% + Smoke Grenade [Ongoing] - 62.58% -> 62.58% (There are a few ticks where the ongoing effect has a 70.74% chance; which is likely due to the buff from Leadership pool Tactics lingering for an extra second or two) + Liquid Nitrogen = "Autohit" (however Incarnate Reactive Interface damage is triggering far more often in the second screenshot. Damage Procs require a ToHit check even if the power itself is Autohit; and Incarnate Interface powers are a bit funky in that they're linked back to the caster and actually inherit Accuracy Set Bonuses!) TL; DR: For Pets, ignore set bonus. For Pseudopets it's more complicated, but as a rule of thumb any effects they possess which have a "duration" listed probably also ignore set bonuses.

Looks like >90% S/L/E Resistance and >45% Melee Defence and reasonable regen? I don't see any glaring holes other than no DDR (which isn't surprising since you're /Elec) and that won't be a problem if you're fighting foes which don't have defense debuffs. Are the actual stats that you're seeing in-game the same as the ones here in Mids? Also are you definitely fighting foes that only have Melee attacks that deal E/L/S damage and don't have defence debuffs? (a lot of "Lethal" damage powers inflict -Defense...) Anyways here's a slight revision with substantially higher passive Regen/Recovery and an extra Power Transfer Proc. The additional recovery should be enough to let you put Atom Smasher on Auto. If you keep having trouble, divert a few extra slots into Energize and put THAT on auto instead. Slightly lower S/L Defense but still Melee softcapped. Elec-Rad 105 AFK Tanker v2.mbd

Arsenal (Control/Assault/etc) might be another contender if you want to open up a few other ATs (e.g. Dominators/Controllers) Maybe even a Mercs/Traps MM (as companions are a thing)? Or a Soldier of Arachnos VEAT (the default tree, not the Crab/Bane)...

I've always preferred to use Keybind files for Teleport so that it automatically zooms out more and hides the larger parts of the UI whenever I'm chain teleporting. An example is below - Hold down Key1 to enable "teleporting mode", then press the left mouse button to actually teleport. [C:\FILEPATH\tp_off.txt] KEY1 "+down$$powexec_name teleport$$camdist 100$$shadowvol 2$$ss 2$$window_hide health$$window_hide chat$$window_hide tray$$window_hide target$$bindloadfilesilent C:\FILEPATH\tp_on1.txt" KEY1+lbutton nop [C:\FILEPATH\tp_on1.txt] KEY1 "-down$$powexec_unqueue$$camdist 30$$shadowvol 0$$ss 0$$window_show health$$window_show chat$$window_show tray$$window_show target$$bindloadfilesilent C:\FILEPATH\tp_off.txt" KEY1+lbutton "+down$$bindloadfilesilent C:\FILEPATH\tp_on2.txt" [C:\FILEPATH\tp_on2.txt] KEY1+lbutton "-down$$powexec_name teleport$$bindloadfilesilent C:\FILEPATH\tp_on1.txt" (Adjust the CAMDIST value and other graphical settings to whatever your usual setup is in TP_ON1.TXT and can zoom out more than CAMDIST 100 if desired in TP_OFF.TXT)

My Fire/Ice is my favourite Blaster. His build philosophy is completely the opposite of most of my toons; with very little in the way of raw defensive stats (5-7% Defense plus 30-40% S/L/F Resistance via an Epic Shield). However their sustainable raw AoE damage output is extremely high... and anything that doesn't die to the first volley tends to end up either bouncing or mezzed between its two ST holds, Bonfire and Frozen Aura (all of which do high damage) plus Ice Patch and Shiver. Maximum HP and Absorb rate is also rather decent (>1600HP plus ~540 Absorb) and Rise of the Phoenix is on a ~90s recharge. There are a few flavours of his build, depending on whether or not I want to use "Burnout" (e.g. Frozen Touch/Char/Fire Breath/Burnout - pick any three!) Blaster - Fire Blast - Ice Manipulation (No Burnout).mbd zBlaster - Fire Blast - Ice Manipulation (Char+FB).mbd zBlaster - Fire Blast - Ice Manipulation (Char+FT).mbd zBlaster - Fire Blast - Ice Manipulation (FB+FT).mbd They do actually make use of Hover quite a bit on teams to play "keepaway" - many of the AoEs don't need you to be near the enemy, and the Snipe buffs your Range by 50% for 10 seconds; which helps a lot with Fire Breath positioning. Dropping a Bonfire, a Rain of Fire and a few Fireballs on a mob from >100ft away can be a lot of fun... 😸 Blasters are I think one of the trickier ATs to build because they have little in the way of inherent mitigation and different players' playstyles are so different. Some people like staying in melee range and stack Melee or S/L Defense (the latter is less effective than it used to be); others are constantly in the backline and so stack Ranged Defense; and then you've the folk like myself who prefer to be hyper-mobile, darting quickly between locations firing abilities off and "jousting" with foes to keep the enemy AI on the back foot (and that's why in the above builds Clarion is taken for Mez Protection, rather than Barrier!) So decide what playstyle you like, and build towards it. Proccing out your Powers effectively for maximum damage is something that lots of people here are familiar with; and whilst Procs are due for a revamp "SOON"(tm)... at the moment it mostly boils down to: "unless the attack is a pseudopet (like Rain of Fire and Bonfire) then if you're putting damage procs into it slot as little recharge reduction enhancement as possible into the power itself - instead stack global recharge". There are calculators out there and caps to be aware of (e.g. Inferno recharge is long enough that you can slot lots of recharge% into it without negatively impacting your proc rate) but that's the general rule of thumb.

Kitty'd definitely be an /SR or /Ninjitsu Stalker with Phase Shift, Ninja Run and a little miniature dragon vanity pet. Martial Arts for the most part; but perhaps Ninja Blade in her Shadowcat persona? 90's Cartoon Rogue would be a Super Strength Tanker or Brute; with either Invulnerability or Willpower for her defensive powerset. Mainstream comics Rogue would probably be a MartialArts/EnergyAura Scrapper instead (Energy Drain + Energize + Overload to represent the "Power Sapping") Gambit is an Energy Blaster, with either a Martial Combat (he uses his fists a fair bit in the comics) or Ninja Training secondary (reskin a Staff instead of the Katana). You could also rig him up as a Staff/SR Scrapper or Stalker, with the Force of Will pool (for Project Will and Wall Of Force) and Weapon Mastery (Exploding Shuriken). Longshot I'd likely place as a Spines/SR/PsiMastery Scrapper or maybe an Arachnos Widow... (Spines = Daggers) That or a Mind/Psi Dominator. Just make sure to give her /Fire Mastery for Rise of the Phoenix... 😸

An Earth/Thermal Controller mechanically speaking works extremely well? You could potentially headcanon the secondary as (Geo)thermal or "Lava Manipulation"... or just recolour its powers into something more suitable for you (healing and damage resistance are both rather thematic for earth; so I can't picture many problems there!) Alternatively; Radiation Emission (plenty of radioactive metals underground), Kinetics (tap into the momentum of the Earth), Pain Domination (smack allies upside the head with a Rock or three to keep them in line) could all have their merits?

There was a change to the default control scheme a while back, but any older characters you have that were created prior to that should still be using the previous scheme. If older characters are still working; great. Then the easiest way to lock this into place will be to open your menu, go to the keymapping tab and save their scheme/binds as your "default file"... then load it again on your newer characters. There's also a "Profile" dropdown box at the top left of that tab which lets you swap between a few sets of default binds - like "Modern" (the new one) or "Classic" (the old one). If older characters are NOT working then that suggests your controller itself is playing up or that the driver's been updated and your computer isn't binding it to the same outputs as before. So check it's working in a different game, and update your drivers. Personally I have an old DualShock2 pad that I tend to use for CoH, with character movement bound to the left analogue stick and camera movement bound to the right analogue stick. Sometimes depending on the driver update; one of those sticks might get picked up as Joystick3 instead of Joystick2; or the X axis might become the Y axis etc. My current binds are below as an example: JOYSTICK1_DOWN "+backward" JOYSTICK1_LEFT "+left" JOYSTICK1_RIGHT "+right" JOYSTICK1_UP "+forward" JOYSTICK2_DOWN "+turnright" JOYSTICK2_LEFT "+lookdown" JOYSTICK2_RIGHT "+lookup" JOYSTICK2_UP "+turnleft" JOYSTICK3_DOWN "+turnright" JOYSTICK3_LEFT "+lookdown" JOYSTICK3_RIGHT "+lookup" JOYSTICK3_UP "+turnleft" (Also, Controllers rock. My favourite is an Illusion/Time...) 😉

THIS more than anything else IMO. It typically takes only a short time for new Mastermind players to realise that their T1 pets eventually spawn at 2 levels below them, and their T2 pets spawn at 1 level below them. However it can take much longer for them to appreciate that due to the purple patch that means those lower-level pets are going to get absolutely wrecked when fighting anything that is +5 to them or higher (+3 to the Mastermind themselves). So do yourself a big favour and stick to +2/x8 at most unless you really know what you're getting into... By all means softcap your pets defences and increase their resistances via good powerset selection + aura IOs; and buff them via Leadership Pool and Support Hybrid and Barrier Destiny etc. etc... but the main thing is to understand what you're actually going up against! 😀