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OMG and vendors are over-paying on mini-pet recipes too!

In my experience, Dominators are the most "living-on-a-knife's-edge" of all the ATs. What level is the Dominator?

Try not to lose sight of this facto about Masterminds: They have terrible damage scales, and they pay an enormous endurance tax on their attacks. I can understand simply wanting alternate (primary) powers, as 3 summons + 2 upgrades doesn't leave many more (primary) powers for variety... but this is essentially the basis of the Mastermind AT. The request for a melee-option instead of a ranged-option isn't prima facie terrible, but as a practical matter I'd want such a thing on whole lotta other AT too... such that this suggestion just feels like a different game. Better IMO is to propose new primaries that have alternate attacks, with similar damage and endurance profiles as current MM sets. I'm skeptical of the true motivation, because if the original ask is "give us Masterminds with Melee primaries and Armor secondaries", this sounds like a variation of "give us Scrappers with Henchmen" to me. We sort-of can have this with "Crabberminds", and Scrappers can get a Patron pet.

I want to +1 the thinking on Infrigidate, but I have comments on it, specifically with respect to Masterminds. Using Infrigidate as an attack, is generally a good idea, especially for low-DPS AT that might not otherwise have a viable attack chain at low levels (without visiting P2W/START vendor for temporary attacks). However, it needs Accuracy slotting for the %procs to be reliable.. and there is the typical way that RNG works (flatly populating results between 0 .0 and 1.0) that adds a sort of 'soft' limit on the number of successful rolls (below 0.95, 0.90, 0.95 for ceiling values of attack ToHit , %proc chance ceiling, %proc ToHit ceiling), so diminishing returns kicks in. ^ The above is true for all AT ^ For Masterminds, this attempt to get damage from a single-target Mastermind attack ends up costing slots, as well as opportunities for set bonuses that is probably (MHO) hurting the rest of the MM build. For example, I believe adding single Power Transfer %Heal slot to Stamina would improve a MM performance more than a single %damage piece in Infrigidate. I also want to emphasize that my experience has been that a Mastermind that is focused on trying to deal damage via its own attacks will be a low-performing Mastermind. The alternate power choice for Masterminds is Ice Armor (a Defense + Resistance Shield) which can hold useful Global pieces and/or get some enhancements that can get pretty decent set bonuses. Mileage may vary if the Ice Shield itself is completely necessary (for henchmen), minimally it may reduce the need to slot henchmen with global Defense/Resistance pieces. So TL;DR -> It's not as cut-and-dry a choice between Infrigidate and Ice Shield on Masterminds, IMHO Having written all that, I think the debuff portion of Infrigidate can be useful... as long as we don't forget that it is a single-target attack that requires a ToHit check. I'd probably put it in a MM build at some point, but I think I'd probably only 2-slot it: Accuracy and the Achilles' Heel %-Resistance piece (if I could spare a second slot). If I could only single-slot it (which is very likely for my MMs), I'd probably just use a Hami-O Lysosome. I often only 1-slot such powers because the enemies I typically want to debuff the most usually resist debuffs the best.

I want to write: I think the monsters are in a pretty good place, design-wise, right now. I especially like the Perception change to Kraken, and the limiting of rewards for Scrapyard and Adamastor, as those were out-of-control... Scrapyard more than Adamastor, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . The areas I think perhaps ought to be looked at next, before considering any combat tweaks relate to interaction with the game engine and game world. The sore spots for me: The Arachnos Flier gets 'stuck' between point Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 landing zones. Caleb has a little too much stealth. Both of those being fliers, are IMO the source of the issue... being fliers is ok, but the AI pathing of fliers in the game is... peculiar. Finally, the Grim Vale event is easy to mess up. Again, flying Cabal that are not defeated and prevent the event from respawning is a thing, but the other mobiles can end up far from the vale too. I have also noticed that during the Halloween event the following issue: Outside of Halloween, defeating the Giant Monsters and then any stragglers would reset the Grim Vale event (via the zone message about Monster activity). Recently, it appears that the if the Giant Monsters are defeated in the Grim Vale before any of the level-less spawns, defeating the level-less spawns does not reset the vale (no message about Monster Activity is sent). I wonder if this is because the zone also has timers for supernatural activity and Zombies, plus whatever the timer is for Sally and the two zone wanderers.

FREEM! is a 20-point Knockback Attack that happens on 5% of Council hits. It can disrupt a player's flow, so if it is straightforward to get more than 20 points, I go for it. Willpower has a 10-point toggle, but that same toggle offer large KB resistance as well, so the extra KB protection from FREEM! may not be needed, or wouldn't be worth chasing. A Mule power is one that can take a useful global piece, even if the power is never used. Defense powers are probably the most common mules for Luck-of-the-Gambler Global Recharge.

Have you seen Baby New Year?

I didn't say it was impossible, that is not what invoking Occam's Razor is about.

OK! First, try to think of Sentinels as Scrappers that make ranged attacks. some folks think of Sentinels as "Blasters with Armor", but I think that paradigm hurts their performance. I'll run down how I would approach powers, with some suggestions for slotting. I don't use MIDS, so you will want to play around to see what you may want to emphasize. Primary Psychic Blast T1 Mental Blast I'd probably skip this, in favor of T2 Telekinetic Blast, because it has Smashing damage. T3 Psychic Scream, I'd take this. T4 Will Domination, I'm on the fence about this, as I don't think another single-target attack is necessary. T5 Psychic Focus, I'd eventually want this. T6 Psionic Strike, I want this. T7 Psionic Tornado, I want this T8 Scramble Thoughts, I want this T9 Psychic Wail, I want this. As for Slotting: For Psi, I always try to get %damage (of a non-Psi type) in the AoE, so Psychic Scream and Psionic Tornado. My typical experience with T9s is that they are better used to hold 5 or 6 slots of a single set. My typical franken-slotting for a (PB)AoE attack is at least 2 pieces of Accuracy/Endurance (or Accuracy/Damage/Endurance, because Accuracy/Endurance is rare) boosted to 50+5 (or equivalent, like Superior Winter) and no more than 4 %damage pieces. If the endurance cost isn't too bad and the base echarge is faster than 12 seconds I might just single slot Accuracy at 50+5 and 3 %damage. There is no substitution for testing, unslotters help with testing. Sidebar: I have found that if a character is regularly using three AoE ranged attacks as part of an attack chain, it can be useful to include the Annihilation %-Res in each of them. The duration of the -Resistance is short, but it gets extended upon each application. Mileage varies here... because the damage type is so heavily Psi, it is probably better in the long run to use %damage (of a non-Psi type) instead. I don't bother with %+Recharge pieces, we'll get a more steady and perfectly adequate global Recharge value through slotting. My personal opinion about the Sentinel ATOs is that they are worth more 6-slotted than they are franken-slotted. I'd put one of them in Telekinetic Blast, and then decide which other power wasn't taking a Purple set. It would probably be Psionic Strike, because Scramble Thoughts can take Apocalypse and Psychic Wail can take Armageddon. Note that those two Purple sets (Apocalypse, Armageddon) offer a 6-slot bonus to boost Psi/Toxic defenses/resistances significantly. I always consider 6-slotting those on Sentinels, because those can be annoying holes in Sentinels. This is something to look at IMO. Psychic Focus is worth planning to try to 6-slot with the Gaussian's set, but can be pared back to 2-slots (%Buildup and an IO Recharge 50+5) if you need the slots elsewhere. Secondary: Willpower <- this is an excellent set with many options. What follows is me 'shooting from the hip' as I don't have it on a Sentinel. There are certain sets (with bonuses) I really like... so I'm going to list them but with a caveat: It is important to take a look at the values being boosted in a power (e.g. Resistances, Defenses, Healing) as well as Endurance costs (if any) to make the optimal choice on which sets go where, as well as which pieces are best (i.e. Auto powers don't need Endurance reduction). I honestly can't recall if the +10000% KB resistance eliminates FREEM! (20 points of KB, I'm going to assume it does. If it doesn't (or if the cancel-on-stun is affecting you), then you want to add an additional "more than 10" points of KB protection. 3 can come from Gladiator's Armor (3 pieces), 4 can come from Steadfast Protection, 4 from Karma, and 4 from Blessing of the Zephyr. T1 High Pain Tolerance (auto): I would probably 1-slot this with Steadfast Protection (Res/Def) If another slot is available, it might be worthwhile to add a Health IO at 50+5. Because the resistance is to all damage, a resistance piece at 50+5 isn't a bad option here, but the extra resistance will be smallish. it depends on how the final profile looks. T2 Mind Over Body: Minimally I would 3-slot with Gladiator's Armor, including the global) to boost Resistance (use 50+5). 3 pieces gets +3 points of KB protection. T3 Fast Healing: This is an auto power that offers an interesting set of choices. Minimally, it should have 2x 50+5 Healing, but 5x Panacea is what I would plan for. T4 Indomitable Will: As the earliest toggle you will always have on, this is a good place for Kismet +ToHit. Add a LotG Def/Recharge. I'd probably add the Shield Wall global and Shield Wall Defense (or Defense/Endurance) at 50+5 here. T5 Up to the Challenge: 6x Preventive Medicine. It is a good set and there is no better power for it in this plan, unless you want to boost the Panacea set and swap them, but I like the Panacea Global to be in an auto power. T6 Quick Recovery: 2x Power Transfer (EndMod and the Global %Heal) because 2xPerformance Shifter is in Stamina. T7 Heightened Senses: LotG Def/recharge, add 2 more slots to boost Defense and Endurance Reduction (I'd use attuned LotG to get the Health bonus for sentinels) T8 Resurgence: Not strictly needed, but I rather like having a self-rez power because it means I don't have to sweat having "soft cap" defenses. If taken, a single 50+5 IO recharge is fine. T9 Strength of Will: I'd only take this if I needed a power to mule a resistance piece. I generally don't mind these sorts of T9s on sentinels, but this one is pretty mediocre. I'd also try to have 4x Unbreakable Guard slotted somewhere, for +HP and Melee Defense. For pool powers, my #1 recommendation is: Force of Will Weaken Resolve: I slot with either Accuracy 50+5 or a Hami-O Lysosome. Could add the Achille's Heel %-Resistance I suppose this might help with the Psi damage Mighty Leap: I Plan for 3xBlessing of the Zephyr, but otherwise a single slot is fine. Wall of Force: This will be your third AoE cone. You won't need it for an attack chain, but you probably will want another AoE for the Sentinel. Follow 6-slot advice from above. Unleash Potential: 6x Reactive Defenses, if that isn't used elsewhere. This isn't a bad power to frankenslot: 3xShield Wall (Global, Defense, Def/Recharge), LotG (Global), and Healing/Recharge. You absolutely want the Scaling Resistance piece. I'd plan on the build using pool powers to get up to 5x LotG Global Recharge, but otherwise I don't think the build needs more. I personally don't like build that heavily rely on powers taken after level 40, so I will usually only go into Patron/Epic for thematic reasons or mules. Another easy choice is Combat Jumping, but I want Wall of Force as early as possible (when I want it), so taking Combat Jumping early doesn't usually work with that idea. Don't sleep on a power like Infiltration being used as a mule for Slow Resistances. I almost never take Hasten.

Does you have any restrictions/desires? are there certain power pools that are "must haves" for you? I can sketch out what my baseline would be... but because of the Psi-damage-heavy focus on Psychic Blast it may not look precisely as you envision.

He does have all the new attacks when encountered in the Blue side missions.

Occam's razor: there are quite a LOT of "Visit Ms. Liberty in Atlas Park" missions in arcs; some of them would be guaranteed to get messed up by moving/replacing her.

IMO: The number one way to increase the damage out of henchmen is be applying (AoE) debuffs to the enemies. Tar Patch is aces for that, although the recharge time on it, even with leveraging every trick possible to reduce it, is still not going to have it be available enough to see much of an improvement. I suggest slotting the Annihilation %-Res in as many powers as possible, and use those powers. This is an AoE, so you don't have to worry too much about which target is getting the %debuff. Photon Grenade (from Robotics), Nightfall / Soul Tentacles from Mu, you should be getting the picture. The piece won't self-stack, but it will extend the duration of the -Resistance if it is reapplied. No need to try to %damage proc-bomb, just slot 5 or 6 of the Annihilation set, or use the %-Res piece as the 6th slot behind another set's 5-bonus. With Dark secondary, you can "cheat" and put some of the Global pieces that otherwise have to go into the henchmen into Dark Servant. Personally, I wouldn't go to hard into single-target controls for a Mastermind, so even though I like to include a single H-O Accuracy/Control in Dark Servant (behind 4x Expedient Reinforcement) I'd take a good look if I could get away without it (for MMs). You will have Maintenance Drone as an incredibly reliable henchman heal, so I wouldn't sweat the healing that dark brings, YMMV. I wouldn't put any KB->KD pieces in any of the robotic henchmen. They will still do KB on some attacks, and against lower-level critters, but that is a waste of a slot IMO. They will be doing enough "knockdown" that you will barely notice you haven't slotted it. That thinking is a leftover need... it does something, but it does very little of it.

AFAIK, the listing price will default to the last listing price, no matter the object. As for the en masse moving: "automatic" things tend not to happen without verification prompt (which in some cases can be disabled), so this sounds like a request for something personal that would very likely add a lot of grief to others.

Prismatic Aethers are a gate, but they are a gate for a cosmetic effect. They are not that difficult to come by (directly or indirectly) and unless a player commits to using them, they are going to accumulate. I've got one character that has well over 1500 self-earned Aether particles, and that character has also acted as the Aether-piggy-bank for any new characters that wanted to start early with a specific costume or effect. A note about "faming" Aethers: Prismatic Aethers are in some ways the "anti-XP" reward, as they drop from completed missions, whereas XP and Inf drops from defeating critters inside a mission. Completing missions faster improves the haul of Aethers.

As I wrote above: The biggest across-the-board change to the zone Giant Monsters (and I don't think all of them changed, or some didn't change much, aside from reward scheme *1) is that they survive fights longer, and in some cases got an upgraded attack (usually with a long recharge time). Specific to Adamastor, because it takes more damage to defeat, it gets more opportunities to hit back... and now it's got some harder hitting attacks, plus a self-heal. That is it. The way RNG works, and the way ToHit works means that it is very likely that Adamastor will hit somebody after enough attacks... so somebody needs to be able to hold its attention and be able to survive its attack. This is a classic "Tanker" job, but because of the self heal (IIRC starts at 50% Health, then its on something like a 60 second timer) the "Tanker" can't stand toe-to-toe with the GM without risking it healing back up. So yeah, strategy. Also specific to Adamastor: there was some player-generated grief specific to it, related to camping, that you should know was a thing. Of all the Giant Monsters, it offers some the best rewards, although they are time-locked. (*1) Babbage is as much of a punching bag as ever. If feels like Scrapyard only got more health. I didn't notice anything different about Goliath War Walker, Caleb or Deathsurge, and I am skeptical that the Kronos Titan got any changes made to it, as it isn't a standard zone monster.

I looked at the posted build, and at some of my Blasters... I'll make some comments on different choices, but I'm not implying anything is wrong. I like your approach to Inner Will, but I have 2 slots of Heal/Recharge (from a D-Sync) and I keep that power on auto. I have the %Absorb piece elsewhere. I slot Reaction Time with 2x Health 50+5, a Power Transfer %Heal and a 50+5 Power Transfer EndMod. I see what you are going for. I split the Blaster's Wrath into two 3-slots, with one half of them in Burst of Speed. If you haven't noticed yet: %damage goes up as slotted accuracy (in the power) goes up. You have a few %damage choices that I think more slotted Accuracy could help. Global (player) bonuses to Accuracy and ToHit don't help the %procs, which also need a ToHit roll, in addition to the first ToHit from the attack and the %proc roll. I have a few more comments about %damage... My experience has been that the reason to add %damage to a build is to reduce the number of attacks a character has to make to clear a spawn. For this reason I prefer %damage in AoE over single target attacks. %damage is inherently unreliable, so (potentially) applying it to multiple critters at the same time is the way to get some critters not being targeted to the point where they will be eliminated (or close to it) by the time you actually do target them. A bunch of single targets that needs two (single target) attacks to defeat requires more attacks than a bunch that will (eventually) only need one (single target) attack to defeat. With that written above; I find that Blasters' high inherent baseline damage rarely get true utility from non-set %damage. Blasters can also get some nice 5/6-piece set bonuses (as seen in the build above), but I try to get a single-target attack close to max damage and only consider a %damage if it's going to be very reliable. I skipped Storm Kick, it looks like a poor choice for %damage slotting. Blasters, because they have access to so many different sets that offer great bonuses, can choose to add %damage to power they are going to use anyway that don't otherwise do great damage (like Burst of Speed). It looks like you have a pretty good balance with %damage choices, but I recommend doing some testing (use unslotters) and check logs to see how the choices you have made a re working out.

This feels like an incredibly infrequent issue that is asking for a revision to part of the code that is extra-spaghetti for extremely limited payoff. I can think of numerous work-arounds (for the player); the simplest is to not be trying to keep storage item windows open.

The major functional changes to Adamastor are IIRC (and if anyone wants to link to the details, please do! I can't seem to find the notes): It is a little bit tougher (resistance, health) than previously It has improved attacks, but nothing too crazy, except for It has a PBAoE self-heal, so standing in PBAoE range once it starts its Soul Drain is a bad idea. Adamastor is one of the better GM revamps IMO. Some of the GMs have the most noticeable change that they appear to simply have been given more/stronger Resistances and more Health, so they've become more of a slog. Paladin has a clever trick for Endurance Drain/Damage, and Eochai is a flat out jerk now that it learned the player's trick for Bonfire slotting.

BEGONE! is one of those effects where Adamastor has to hit when it uses the attack, so I can easily believe it would have been hard to notice this. As an aside: there are some pretty weird game engine effects with knockback (and/or repel), so I don't recommend adding it willy-nilly without testing. Specifically, Mastermind Henchmen. What I've observed with (Robotic) Henchmen is that certain Giant Monsters that do Knockback (and/or Repel?) can put the henchmen into a sort of "locked in place" position, usually in a ragdoll pose, where they won't move or respond to commands, and the also can't be summoned by Assemble the Team. (Usually a henchman acts this way when it is trying to resolve an animation or power). The easiest way to replicated this is with a Halloween event (old school) Eochai, and have Group Fly toggled on. Group Fly doesn't need to be used, but I think it increases the possibility for "vectoring" resolution of knockback/repel paths; it is far less common if the henchmen are all on the ground. If Eochai gets off one of those KB attacks (I think it has an auto-hit power) some of the henchmen are likely to end up in this peculiar state. FWIW, nuEochai's Pumpkin Patch doesn't seem to do this.

IIRC, there were occasions in the past when Kronos Titan's were added to the pile, as well as before the event. I want to say that as part of the event where Kronos Titans were added to the pile there was an actual GM (not Giant Monster) that also handed out temporary badges. Players can certainly go out of their way to spawn Kronos Titan's, but let's not forget that during Hallowe'en there is going to also be a holiday giant monster somewhere in the zone.(*1) My point? This is a thing that has evolved, in an open-world zone, so reaching for absolutes is not possible. (*1) I've simultaneously had a Jack in Irons and a Kraken fighting within feet of each other. I didn't see them showing any interest in each other, although it was hard to tell if the Kraken was doing ancillary damage to the level-less Red Hat spawns, because it looked like they would occasionally go flying after a foot stomp... but I was using quite a lot of KB attacks too.

For my rig, the issues with lag really started with the release of the Storm sets, especially when those were the "new hotness". It is noticeable for me on the SNS, Mothership Raids, and the Mapserver Leagues. I'm positive that Storm also affects PI trick-or-treating, for the following reason: I can take my Storm/Storm character solo in PI during off-peak times (so few people in the zone), and get mobiles from the TRICK to continually exit/re-exit/re-re-exit from a door without ever being able to make an attack or cast a power. Geometry collision is certainly part of the problem, but when a ToT Elite Boss can't exist long enough to target me (or vice versa), I think that is indistinguishable from what a player would describe as "lag". EDIT: I want to add that this game result is not affect by my rig's graphics setting. The /noparticles shouldn't be doing anything about what the game engine is trying to resolve, with respect to mobile behavior.

Definitely looks like something approaching an 8:3:1 weighting. (or if you prefer 2/2/2/2 : 1/1/1 : 0.5/0.5) I like that this data appears to show a couple of things that I strongly suspect about the pseudo-RNG: The pseudo-RNG populates the result space flatly between the end-points of its result space. (A true random number generator wouldn't have such even-looking results) The pseudo-RNG very likely has a slight, but observable bias at the end-points of its result space. The second point is confounded because I don't actually know what the probability endpoints are. This is, is the range inclusive of 0 <-> 1, or does one/both of those endpoints actually "close but not exactly 0 or 1". From this one study, I would lay odds that Liberates are a result at one end of the probability space and that Furious Rages are at the other. This is a relatively small sample size so there isn't a lot of power to back it up, but I think the confidence in that result is pretty high. I can think of a couple reasons why this would happen: The probability space isn't inclusive of one end, but is inclusive of the opposite end. There is a subtle theoretical under-pinning of the RNG relating to scale-invariance (I propose this partially because of a scale-invariate priors treat zero, but IIRC there are other subtle factors with prior choices that manifest at endpoints)

Good point about Fusionette and Jim Tremblor. I have always felt that the villain-side arcs involving the Vindicators makes them feel a little more engaged, at least to me.