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Obviously players should follow their own path. I leaned on %damage for several reasons: 1) As a tri-form, I knew I was going to have a LOT of attacks and I knew I wouldn't be able to 5-slot them all... or build a single "attack chain" that made sense to rely on a complete-ish enhancment set... so as a compromise I (mostly) picked the 3-slot bonuses that I felt were optimal and reserved 5+ slots for attacks that I felt I was going to get the most use out of. The Very Rare sets slotted with 5 pieces use a %damage piece because the little bit of ED damage (and/or recharge) didn't add much enhancement to the particular power. Of course more from set bonuses would always be good, as a practical matter I don't want more recharge (and if I did, I'd put a one-slot Hasten in the build late), and the little bit more I could get in terms of global additions to resists/defenses wouldn't make that much of a difference considering where the build is now. The one global bonus I did try to chase more than usual was Slow resists. 1b) The tri-form is why I took both Ebon Eye and Shadow Bolt. I had planned to replace one with Shadow Blast, but I'd still only have the same number of slots... so I opted to take the two powers that would carry over from Human to Dwarf/Nova forms. I'm really not crazy about single-target controls, especially ones I can't stack. 2) Most of the WS attacks are skimpy enough with base damage that adding 72 or 107 extra damage, especially in AoE, feels like a better yield than trying to enhance damage. 3) With Quantums in the game, I wanted the %proc damage such that it takes fewer hits (of attacks I will be using anyway) to drop them. 4) I am comfortable with AoE %damage. I find I don't need to be super precise in my targeting to spread the pain.

Quoting myself, because there are a few Quality-of-Life aspects I have noticed while playing: Without using Antagonize, it is quite difficult to hold aggro. I mean... I get that isn't supposed to be trivial to get/hold aggro... but even while cycling through every trick in the Dwarf playbook, I am losing aggro to the Extracted Essences. I have Antagonize slotted for Threat! When using Shadow Slip, enemies that are 'ported will continue vectoring towards their chosen target. Extracted Essences that become separated can be teleported to adjacency with Shadow Recall, but they often vanish back to where they were summoned fomr... whatever has kept them from following has summoned them back! (1) I don't really have a suggestion, except this: maybe something like a punch-voke for Dwarf form? (2) Maybe to fix this one the power needs a buff... something like a VERY short duration mega-Slow or a Taunt? I'm not looking for an(other) uber %damage power... but I try to use this power to help out teammates and often they stay as targets, or the enemy critters just sprint past me to their original target. (3) This is AI wonkiness, but perhaps if after teleport, pet classes could simply reset their path-ing?

I recommend using the Unbreakable Constraint %Smashing or Gladiator's Net %Lethal in Gravity Well, instead of Touch of Death %Negative as the Very Rare and PVP pieces do higher %damage than other pieces. The Very Rare's have an inherently higher %proc chance than the PVPs (4.5 IIRCv 3.5 PPM IIRC). I also try to mix up damage types... every once in a while there will be an enemy group that highly resists the inherent damage type of any character. As long as powers with a 15+ second inherent recharge time have decent Accuracy slotting, %damage should be reliable. IIRC this is because the %procs also have their own post-hit ToHit check to see if they fire, and that ToHit check... independent of the %proc chance, and the character's ToHit check... is only using the power's slotted Accuracy... this was mentioned a long time ago via code review but it seems to hold true to me. I typically cycle between forms to fire off the PBAoE/AoE, using single target attacks (typically in Dwarf form). Note that the Ebon Eye %proc chances aren't terrible (~40% for a 3.5 PPM?) but without moving slots around I think I'd replace at least one of the pieces with a boosted Accuracy/Damage piece, possibly for a set bonus.

Oh thanks, I certainly don't have two of the same %damage in any power 😉

My full-kit GM-hunting MM can finish off many of the monsters in around 6 minutes (some take less time), without bringing out the Lores. My general experience in the new era is that having a single teammate that can do damage is pretty much the equivalent of having a DPS Lore. Prior to the current pass it was common for me to defeat the GMs in about 2 minutes (i.e. before a cast of Destiny expired). The biggest effects of the recent GM buffs for that character have been: Increased resistances (and to a lesser extent, +HP) New AoE attacks (1) Prior to the balancing pass, it was Jurassik's resistances that gave me the most pause (solo), now there are several others more like Jurassik used to be (ehem, Kraken). (2) Eochai's new Pumpkin Patch has made it my new least favorite. It isn't that hard to defeat, but taking it on solo means that it will get several Pumpkin Patches out which can be problematic for a MM. (1) + (2) With most GMs surviving longer, it is necessary to pay more attention as a solo player because the nuGMs will fire/use one (or more) of their new tricks. This does slow down solo times. For example: moving out of range of Paladin's pulse. My solo GM hunting MM is pretty finely tuned for the task, although I consider it to be a bit of an outlier. I've seen other solo (no multibox) players take different approaches and do fine. I think the recipe for GM defeating is a mix of: Debuff the GM Damage the GM Survive the GM A solo MM can do any two of those three things with practically no effort in building or playing the character... so IMO multi-boxing two (or more) MMs where all three are done (some of them multiple times) makes most of the Giant Monsters pretty easy to defeat.

Early-career advice is to keep Break Free inspirations on hand. Many Blasters use the Sorcery pool to eventually get Rune of Protection, there are a handful of other powers that act like Break Frees. There is the Clarion Destiny choice for Incarnates. Blasters can use either/both of their T1/T2 primary attacks while mezzed. Because respecs are so plentiful, it isn't a terrible idea to take both of them early in a career... and then drop one of them for the "final" build.

Open-world multi-boxing is, IMO, kind of a jerk move. There is no need to multi-box MMs through Giant Monster hunts IMO, when a solo MM can finish off any Giant Monster in 5-minutes or less (with or without using Incarnate powers). I see why players do it, but it strikes me as the height of laziness... especially when I see triple-box MMs leaving behind level-less spawns in places like the Grim Vale. Multi-Box behind instanced missions... if there are some specific open-world rewards a player wants, just team up! As for my best guess at what the "design goal" is for Merits-per-unit-time, I'd say the goal appears to be roughly: no better than 1 Merit for 90 seconds of (solo) repeatable (i.e. no timed gates) play. There are obvious outliers(*1)... and different ATs can do certain content at different speeds, with or without exemplaring. We've seen changes to the way the conversions work (Vanguard, Empyrian) when it has appeared that the conversions were making merits "too easy" to get, per the (unwritten) rules of Merit acquisition. I am of the opinion that it is a good thing to have repeatable content for useful, fungible rewards... and that the HC team has done a pretty good job of keeping rewards for time-played mostly level. (*1) Weekly targets are obviously a special case, as are other league/team-inspired content.

My issue with "loose ends" is essentially this: I did not like the shift from circular/ever-green "story-telling" content to "arcs with consequences". YMMV. Examples of what I like: First Ward, which lets your character make big changes... but then everything is put back in the box in a way that it seems completely believable the next time you zone in. Classic Blue side content, like Dr. Vahz... because I can easily imagine him slipping out and repeating his same mad schemes The Patron arcs Red Side (and to some extent the path of the red-sider), because playing them through leaves a sense of accomplishment that something was earned. I know not everyone feels this way, but for me a level 50 red-sider that has defeated Lord Recluse feels so much more accomplished than a blue sider who finishes their path to level 50 by doing Portal corps missions. What I don't like: The narrative of "Who will Die?". The missions themselves are fine, it's mire that playing that content makes a LOT of the rest of the game feel weird... like all the other times you interact with Ms. Liberty or Manticore. The Death of Praetorian Earth. I don't often play Gold content... but even so, it has got to be something like at least 10% of the available content... so why not keep it ever-green? The Incarnate content. I grok that it is the rationale for an ever-increasing set of powers for players hungry to be moar betta. I simply don't enjoy "break the world" stories.... plus everything that involves Positron now makes me consider the character to be one of the biggest jerks in the game.

Unless the Primary/Secondary have some powers that really don't benefit from slots at low levels (for example: resistance toggles), it is very rare that I slot more than three slots in attacks early in a career. I may invest more if I am leveraging one of the P2W/START %damage pieces to good effect... and if by level 10 there is some sort of 4, 5, or 6-slot bonus from an ATO set. Once I can slot Global bonus enhancements... powers that can hold those will get enough slots for them. As other's wrote: having an extra attack (that you can always respec out of) probably speeds up (solo) play at low levels more than anything else.

Below is my current (level 50) Tri-Form Warshade build: This build isn't trying to do any one thing to perfection, rather it is trying to be excellent in a variety of things. The power picks were used in the same order while leveling, Enhancements were slightly different during leveling (obviously) with the only major difference being I used a Kismet +ToHit in Shadow Cloak. It primarily relies on Human and Dwarf forms, with a switch to Nova for rapid-firing ranged attacks and steadier Endurance management. My design intents: Reliable %proc damage (off-type, where possible) in AoE Passive (i.e. from Enhancement set) bonuses to Global Recharge, Accuracy, and Resistances Recovery/Endurance and +Heal Don't take attacks I wouldn't use... and not have any unslotted attacks. Have the build "complete" by level 35... that is, all the powers I want to use across all content are available by this point. I don't mind falling in battle... I invite it... but even so Stygian Return isn't used all that often so this build feels "finished" for me by level 32. I passed on trying to boost Defense values (it felt like a losing proposition). The build has a large Psi hole (when Eclipse isn't in play). I try to skip Hasten (and did here) but it would not be hard to work it into the build if desired. All I will say about Hasten (here) is that I have so many other clicks to make in Human form... and since I rely on Dwarf form for mezz protection (and some good damage)... I kinda feel like my combat cycle is pretty close to what I need. For most play, the one power I want up more often is Shadow Slip!

"Madame, please remove your hand from my Aus."

I buy Enhancement Boosters with merits (at a Merit vendor), I think the conversion is something like 25 Merits = 5 boosters. You can combine a Booster with an unattuned Enhancement, up to +5. The drawback of boosting is that you will lose set bonuses if you exemplar more than 3 levels below the level of the enhancement. PVP and Very Rare IOs can be boosted, and you don't lose set bonuses as you exemplar down. Hami-O and D-Syncs have to be combined; they can go up to level 53. I typically boost level 50s: PVP and Very Rares... except for those pieces with Recharge in powers with inherent recharge times below 20 seconds if %procs are also in those powers Common IOs (no set bonuses to worry about) Singleton pieces, where there is no set bonus Pieces in sets where I don't care about the set bonus for content below level 47 So in the build above, I boosted three different pieces in Eclipse, 2x Resistance/Recharge and 1x Accuracy/Recharge. This is past the point of diminishing returns, but every little bit helps even with Enhancement Diversification... the math should be something like 99% recharge -> 94% recharge. I don't believe that Resistance has hit the ED limit (>=40%), and for sure Accuracy has not (>=70%). There should be 4x+10% recharge buffs, 5x LotGs, and a buff from the Recharge Pet set for global bonuses for 83.75% global recharge. It would be tricky, but not impossible to do slight modifications to my build to get perma-Hasten (modulo slows, and having to be in human form): Drop one of the LotG mule powers, replace it with Hasten (loss of 7.5%) Move two slots from a Superior Kheldian's Grace to go from two 3-slots to one 5-slot (gain of 10%, last possible)... or you could swap several %damage and get the 5th 10% in either Sunless Mire (via Armageddon) or Gravitic Emination (via Absolute Amazement) Pull two slots of Soulbound Allegiance from Dark Extraction, one goes to Hasten (making it 2-slotted), one goes to Shadow Cloak for a LotG (gain of 7.5%) This is where things get really tricky... because 93.75% is below the 95% needed for perma-Hasten. Personally, I'd stop right there because I couldn't guarantee I'd be in human form when Hasten expires... and I have several other powers I want to click first while in human form! The last little bit could come from a 90-minute SG base buff, or Gravitic Emination could be swapped for Gravity Well, I'd then 5-slot Gladiatior's Net (7.5% Recharge) plus and Unbreakable Constraint %damage. As I wrote elsewhere: I'd hate to replace an AoE Damage or Stun with a single-target Hold. The 1:48 time is what I was getting while in a solo level 45 flashback, I don't think I had any temp buffs in play. Some folks recommend Force Feedback %+Recharge pieces (yay Knockback!) but I'd rather get a chance at more insta-damage than a chance at a 10-second global recharge buff. My thinking is: more recharge = more opportunities to burn Endurance, more damage may mean fewer attacks = less Endurance burn.

For me it is cognitive dissonance that the Zombies (and the Carnie Strongmen) who get dialogue are obvious mistakes. Those hoverbots have no real backstory, and things like Nemesis windups and Malta 'bots do... so when the Hoverbots start chatting.... it creeps me the #### out.

The %BuildUp generally isn't good in either spot... In the toggle, it should fire per the formula using a 10-second recharge. I can see it fire in Starless Step, but I don't use Starless Step al that much... unless I am in Human Form (obviously) and jumping into a fresh group... or if I feel like I may need a +ToHit bonus (because debuffs). I don't know what would go in the recharge formula for Starless Step, but I'm seeing it trigger around 1-of-3 uses. At 50, with no recharge effects in play except what is slotted, I think my time on Eclipse is 1:48. If I was human-only, this would be bad... but with such a weakness to mezz (outside of Dwarf form) I find myself spending about half of every large-spawn fight in Dwarf form... I end up with a sort of clock to work with before I lose the Eclipse bonuses. I am trying to noodle a human-only Warshade, but I feel like I would have to compromise so much to get (positional) defenses and/or mezz protection that I would end up (my opinion) a sort of inferior Blaster. Bi-forms (Human & Warshade) feels much more natural to me... so my posted build is basically what I want from a Bi-form, but with the added advantage of having Nova when I want to pew-pew with almost no Endurance concerns. Nova form is my least favorite of the forms; I think it is only the rapid fire option that has me liking it. In my head, when I think about a human-only WS, I end up think of using pools to cover deficiencies, and I would need so many pool powers that I feel I would be missing out on what I like about a Warshade (fun power choices, based on form): Hasten to get "perma" Eclipse, plus better recharge on all (ultimately, few) attacks Boxing/Tough/Weave to get Defense Maneuvers to get more Defense Concealment to get more LotG Mules ... and do I want to try for Rune of Protection for the inevitable Mezz? By my rough count, this is at least 5 pool powers... and then once I have Hasten going, I need to consider post-Accolade Endurance management via +MaxEnd, Endurance Discounts, etc. ... at this point (in my mind, no one else's!) I feel like I'm not building a Warshade anymore, I'm juggling Enhancments. <- Others don't go this crazy, but once I focus on a hole, I try to patch it!

Oh I know that from the plaques, which is why I actually would like an instanced mission that offers more information... mostly because teh plaques are so completely disconnected from the lived experience of Trolls in Paragon City.

Here is my current (somewhat fresh) Tri-form Warshade (Level 50) build. I took the powers in this order while leveling up. While leveling, I used a Kismet +ToHit in Shadow Cloak. Obviously some different enhancement pieces were used while leveling, and it is necessary to skimp on some slots. It's been years since I played Kheldians, and much of what follows is unlikely to be new information for experience players... yet I feel compelled to share my thoughts. I feel like Nova form is a bit of a design trap. All those attacks are soooo sexy when you first get them... and they can help clear missions PDQ, yet... Most of them (including Ebon Eye) are single-target They are 100% Negative damage, with not a great scale Knockback (which can get in the way of enjoying the AoE) The KB on the Nova attacks bothers me not at all. In Nova form, I don't really care if the spawns get split up. Outside of Nova form, I can regroup them. I can vector the KB where I want them to go. The slight damage, all of the same type, is more problematic.... hence the heavy investment in %damage in Dark Nova Detonation. Dark Nova Emination isn't terrible for %damage, but it was going to hold three pieces of an ATO, and there are better %damage powers available so for the most part I'm not maximizing slot investment in the Dark Nova attacks. I opted to split the ATO into four powers with three slots each... if I trusted myself to always be playing an A-level game and not facing too many tricksy enemies, and wanted to always stay in Dwarf mode for those enemies, I think I maybe could get by without the 3rd-slot bonuses from Essence Transfer (S/L/Mezz resistances)... but this is where I am today. About those %damage options.... The money-makers (as near as I can tell) are: Black Dwarf Mire Gravitic Emination (with Stun, which is the only enhance-able Mezz I am leveraging) Dark Detonation Sunless Mire Dark Nova Detonation Quasar would be an excellent place to put %damage... and it is probably (across all content) a better place for %damage than Sunless Mire.... but frankly I want MOAR PBAoE damage at as low a level as possible. Just about anybody can have nuke at level 26, I like having them at level 14 and below! I also wanted to reinforce myself to want to position to use Sunless Mire for the +ToHit and +Damage bonuses. My build does not include Hasten. I could trivially include it at level 38... I don't think I'd add a second slot. If I did, I would shuffle one of the %damage pieces from Sunless Mire, and probably make Sunless Mire my 5th 10% Global +Recharge bonus (Armageddon, also more Accuracy). This build already runs HOT (burns Endurance) outside of Nova form, and I find that I have enough to do without MOAR Recharge that even when I find myself (solo) waiting for a specific power (e.g. Dark Extraction) I don't think Hasten would radically improve my Quality-of-Life... except when it comes to trying for a perma-Eclipse. This is 100% about me - but I don't like chasing perma-Hasten because (in my headspace) it feels like I'm making slotting choices to get perma-Hasten instead of making slotting choices to make the character play in a way that support a character-specific style of play. This build was more-or-less tricked out using leftover/archived enhancement pieces and merits (so many boosters!)... so I guess it could look expensive but it probably had a net cost of under 100M. The pieces I'd include if I felt like burning Influence might be D-Sync Provocations Threat/Accuracy/Recharge D-Sync in Shadow Slip... another power that would benefit from having Hasten in play.

Shadowstar's (Warshade contact) arcs includes a lot of details on Warwolves, etc. It may not be entirely satisfying for what you seek. One of the arcs takes place mostly on Striga, FWIW. The one area of Council/5th Column disconnected Lore that has always bothered me (despite me trying to pay attention to the Citadel and Hess TFs, and the level-missions involving AI, Mek-Men et al) is that I haven't encountered any sort of explanation about the Hoverbots. Ok... Vandal played some part in creating them, but these things have quite a bit of NPC dialogue that doesn't exactly make them feel like relatively simple robots! It's not clear that they share anything in common with Malta's bots... but their dialogue sometimes creeps me out!

All I know is: So... No. If there is a deeper tie to early Gold side or somewhere else, I've missed it, and I want to say (bias!) that it must be easy to miss.(*1) AFAIK we never see "Trolls" except on Primal Earth, and the other "drug" missions are almost entirely sub-40 content... I kinda feel that there is a lot of daylight between whatever the Lore is on this subject and actual playable content. I realize that not all enemy groups scale up to 40+, and that this impedes adding them to high-level content in a meaningful way, but the (Live) scaling of the Family was something I liked, and the Homecoming scaling of the Vahzilok and Goldbrickers has been well-done IMO. (*1) Something I feel that is in the category of "unless you do a wide variety of content, you miss it" are the limited number if red-side missions where you more-or-less finally see the Circle of Thorns "possessing" scientists. Without any sort of mission-based explanation, it makes little sense (to me) why the Portal Corps parking lot is thick with them. Head canon doesn't really count as canon.

I am more interested in leveraging Portal Corps to explore existing parts of the lore... Such as Superadine.

I team with a lot of players who use KB, and while there are moments when it is a little crazy... It isn't something that upsets me, no matter what I am playing. I want to note: there are quite a few low-level AOE immobilizes that negate KB. Some feel differently, but I think complaining about KB is from a different era of the game. Those attacks with KB get access to a number of different %procs too!

The above post has my sympathies on a couple of points, but I tend to think of these as features and not bugs: Knockback really shouldn't be that big of a deal. Warshades get Shadow Slip, and on my recently leveled WS the only KB->KD piece I have slotted in is Quasar... because that's the power that is most likely to send dead bodies everywhere, and the WS needs corpses. Knockback is a soft control, and with a flying form that has KB, Kheldians are the perfect AT to learn how to vector KB. There is a learning/appreciation curve. Re: Slots... I feel ya, but my current opinion is this: In the Nova and Dwarf forms, the point of diminishing returns hits really early... assuming you aren't investing a KB->KD piece in every one of them. Of course more slots helps a build get to more/better enhancement set bonuses, but I've made a tri-form build that has many of the attacks only 3-slotted. That build didn't take a pool power until level 38, and the last five power picks are all Enhancement mules with no extra slots invested in them. I can't directly speak to the second point, except that by leveraging primarily the Human and Dwarf(*1) forms, my WS has more than enough useful abilities! I am noodling a "Human Only" build where I will try to use pool powers to supplement the Human-only attacks, but I don't imagine that concept is going to have more than one pool... and I'm not entirely sure it will play superior to my tri-form(*1). I'm thinking Force of Will as my one power pool pick, because it will give me a human-form fast travel power in Mighty Leap, a debuff that needs few slots (Weaken Resolve), a sweet AoE cone perfect for %damage (Wall of Force), and Unleashed Potential. (*1) The Dwarf form's mezz protection is golden, and Black Dwarf Mire is simply too good a power to not slot. I'd be taking the Dwarf form as a mule anyway, so I can't imagine never using it. When using Dwarf form for Mezz protection, I absolutely want to use the melee attacks!

When in Bodyguard mode,, the T1 contribute to the MM's pool of Hit Points. I would not skip them, although I do play some PUG content where I don't bother summoning them.... mostly because of the level shift, sometimes because of the AI. IMO: More than any other AT, Mastermind's have to be actively considering the content they are playing. This is not to say that they can't get into a mode of play where they very rarely have to change their thinking, it's just that different content can force a reconsideration of a style of play that "works" otherwise. Because modes are mostly only visible to the MM, this may not be obvious to other players teaming with the MM. I also believe that what I wrote above applies to changing playstyles as the MM levels up. Early in a MM career it is crucially important that the (very few) henchmen "stay alive". Later, it is much less important to be concerned about individual henchmen.

I like the human only Starless Step, and I kinda think it should be available in Dwarf Form as I find the Black Dwarf Step power to be mediocre in comparison. It would be nice (unbalanced?) to have all the human only teleport powers available in all the forms. The only other things that feel like rough edges are the Endurance costs outside of Squid form.

On my Shield/Axe: I use Weaken Resolve and (mostly) Wall of Force to close the gaps. The latter is a favorite power on Tankers, as it can be available at low levels and can get the attention of many enemies at a distance.

I kinda agree with this... although I have a slight caveat that some powers (like the early S/L primary powers) can be delayed for a long time. For example: I usually don't even toggle on S/L resist powers unless I am tanking for a large PUG. I had the same idea (for Battle Axe), and I changed my mind....mostly because Fold Space was IMO completely unnecessary for the kind of Tanking I wanted to do, and it also required multiple slots to be any good if I wanted to use it... it needs both Recharge and Accuracy, otherwise it is just another power that will show its timer. Even as an extra 'Taunt' I don't like it on Tankers. YMMV. What I did instead: I took Shield as the primary, and only went with Combat Teleport. With the Battle Axe set, this Tanker has no problem gathering up enemies and jumping between groups.