Maelwys

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).

Support Pets are generally where it's at as the others die too quickly to remain useful. + Carnies grant Forge (Permanent +15% Damage; +20% ToHit) + Seers grant Fortitude (Permanent +15% Damage, 5% Defense) + Banished Pantheon deal substantial AoE damage (as an unkillable support pet, no less) and buff your Recharge time and Recovery rate (about 50% uptime on that buff). + Clockwork grants you and up to two other pets a permanent +5% - 7.5% Defense buff. Most of the time BP wins out performancewise; but take your pick. The rest tend to either have buffs with poor uptime; only have heals; or are better at buffing large numbers of allies/pets rather than a single target. You can also check the entire Lore pet DPS tier list here and their raw power numbers here.

Apologies, I missed this bit for some reason... 😕 I'm not aware of any exhaustive official HowTos; but a few helpful user-created guides exist like this one. There are also a smattering of youtube videos. Most of those look great; although the Interface slot may be better swapped to Reactive (-Res) or Degenerative (-MaxHP) rather than Diamagnetic unless you're purposely fighting a single very tough target upon which you really need the additional -Regen. And I'd always lean Radial over Core on a MM because all of the stackable debuffs cap out quickly enough (with six Henchmen constantly shooting!) that you generally want them at 25% and the Damage DoT at 75% rather than the other way around. The Robotic Drones Lore pets aren't wonderful performancewise, but they're certainly thematic. Technically the best performing Lores tend to be the Intangible Support ones (the rest tend to die too quickly to be useful) and in order to affect MM Henchmen they'd need to have decent AoE buffs. So that's Arachnos Radial (which you can treat as an on-demand 90s +Defence buff plus a little additional healing) or Talons Radial (their buffs are much better over time than Arachnos) or Banished Pantheon Radial (the only Lore with an immortal support pet that DEALS DAMAGE and can pull aggro!). And if Heavy Mechs with -Regen is what you're after, take a good look at Longbow. There's a Developer-built guide to all Lore pets available here (it's a Google Sheet with pictures) and exact power stats here. The differences between the different Judgement abilities essentially come down to personal preference; however there is a major -damage debuff that comes with Void Radial Judgement (-50% damage for 30 seconds to 32 targets is a LOT for a power that deals substantial AoE damage and is up every 90s) that is worth picking up on almost every character as an additional utility option. Alpha and Hybrid are both 100%. Technically you can leverage Assault Hybrid on a MM, but getting the buff to reliably affect your Henchmen requires a lot of juggling of power activations and resummoning of pets and IMO is generally not worth the hassle. For Destiny; Barrier Core (not Radial) is the usual goto; but having Clarion Core available for permanent Mez Protection for both you and your pets can be very useful. Note that Core lasts for 120s and Radial only 90s; and the power recharges in 120s so with Core your downtime is next to nothing. FWIW, I always find the quickest way of capping out my T4s solo is to repeatedly run Burdens of the Past (Dark Astoria Incarnate Arc Part 1) via Ouroboros and choose the Incarnate Salvage option at the end.