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I do wish there was some (public) conversation from the Homecoming "powers team" about possible tweaks to some of the (mostly older) Power pools. It's all well and good for we hoi polloi to throw out ideas, but I have no idea what the team's thoughts are... and they could certainly be radically different than my own. Keep this in mind: I feel like I can make most of the following sets work, but there are things I find clumsy about them that I think turn off many others. The main thing about certain older pools that bothers me is the level's when certain powers open up and which powers require how many pre-requisistes. I don't like the (level 4, 4, 14, 14, 14) progression of legacy pools (like Presence) compared with the (level 4, 4, 4, 14, 20) progression of "modern" pools (like Sorcery or revamped travel pools). I find it especially clumsy when the final two powers in a pool require two other power picks, so as a practical matter it is rare to be able to choose one of the "final two" at level 14... this is just silly IMO. I won't repeat specific criticisms or suggestions in this thread,

When I write "don't bother with %damage in MM attacks" I am referring to the Mastermind's attacks, not the henchmen powers. Masterminds have a serious endurance tax and can only make a fraction of the attacks that henchmen collectively can. There is also a sort of opportunity cost involved with spending time making attacks instead of doing something else, although that varies depending on other powers available. Applying something like a %-Resistance for 10 seconds (or longer) so the henchmen can pile on more damage is so much more effective than a sometimes chance at 70 HP from a MM attack. This is the same argument for why I don't think a MM leveraging the Gaussian's %Build Up for itself isn't much value. Slot the henchmen for %damage to your hearts content, but it is necessary to have the henchmen actually hitting for the %procs to have a chance to work. Robotics (see thread title) by itself offers few places to slot the global resistance/defense uniques, so there are trade-offs. Tactics can help, but then it becomes necessary to keep it toggled on, etc. The Spiderlings are pets of course, and not henchmen... and they only have two attacks IIRC, and they are pretty disposable (luckily on a somewhat short pet timer), so with a max of three of them the OF KB->KD piece is as good an any to use for them. Since the Robotics KB was minimized, the only MM henchmen that I thought was flimsy enough to warrant the OF KB->KD piece were the T1 Ninjas. FWIW, I consider Crabberminds to be an excellent AT to have the Gaussian's %Build Up in one of their Tactic powers, as they have much better damage scales and inherently more powerful attacks.

I was thinking 'what if Group Fly granted an ally-targeting power that nullified Group Fly?' but I foresee issues with that which would make it more complicated than how Null currently works.

This is a bit of a stretch... I recognize that some folks express a LOT of distaste for being affected by Group Fly, or Speed Boost, or even certain power visuals/sounds... but Null actually gives the players who self-choose to be "disrupted" agency to not be disrupted (for Speed Boost, Group Fly). At this point I can't say what is more "tired", is it the suggestion to use Null the Gull or the insistence that some subset of players shouldn't have to hear the suggestion?

It is a new calendar year, so I'll repeat that I don't think a Mastermind should be "proc-bombing" any of its powers. It is far better IMO to leverage slots in MM attacks to get set bonuses. The most worthwhile "procs" for MM attacks are IMO, those that do %-Resistance (Annihilation also has useful set bonuses for MMs) and any that can give %Absorb (such as Superior Entomb) because of Bodyguard mode mechanics. A soft control like knockdown can also be useful, because flopping enemies don't fight back.

For a Storm secondary? I'd say Robotics. I write this partially because the Robots are good on offense (although they are slower against Bosses... but just fine against AVs and GMs, because they are TOUGH)... and partially because Robots are ranged attackers and won't have to run all over the place to fight whatever Storm has scattered.

Latest round of tweaks, shown below: I'm showing the global Accuracy bonus as well, as it (plus Targeting Drone) convinced me to make some subtle (and not-so subtle) changes for powers that had something of an overkill on Accuracy. Big changes from earlier include: Pulled 3 slots from Targeting Drone, moved to Weaken Resolve. Pulled 1 slot from Burst, moved to Gravity Distortion. Pulled a second slot from Burst, one went to Mighty Leap. (1) Was a grab at a slightly higher global Recharge set bonus. I want to note that the (boosted) slotting for Targeting Drone keeps me just below the "Snipe cap", with only a slightly elevated Endurance cost vs. earlier slotting. I could put Hami-O here, but I wouldn't benefit that much (except to recover a little bit of lost +ToHit that I probably wasn't using anyway). This added a %damage piece to Weaken Resolve, FWIW. (2) was to experiment with using 5xUnbreakable Constraint in place of 4xBasiliks' Gaze, and using non-superior Ascendancy of the Dominator to get a net +1.25% more Global Recharge. Ultimately I didn't like losing almost 2% Ranged defense, and I just kept the %damage in the Hold, because (3) I primarily wanted Slow resistance from 3x Winter's Bite, and I can get more by just using the unique piece from Winter's Gift. I am infrequently using Burst, which didn't need Accuracy slotting (now, because of bonuses) so a simple Damage IO at 50+5 there is fine. The infrequent use leads to not worrying about Endurance Reduction. I'm keeping the Expedient Reinforcement in Singularity, because it is the difference between Domination being on a 1m25s timer instead of 1m27s. The final slot I am going to experiment with is the Miracle +Recovery in Health. Initial testing shows me burning the Blue Endurance bar fast (no surprise, with high global Recharge), but past experience with Dominators has shown I can mostly rely on the perma-Dom refill... but this is something I have to test with each Dominator.

I passed on Sting of the Manticore for reasons similar to why I am reluctant to use Expedient Reinforcement.... the level cut-off. You hit the nail on the head with the KB protection thinking. Ultimately the move suggested is a net +1.25%, and there are a couple of ways to get that. For example, I could just move three slots from Targeting Drone to Weaken Resolve. As you note... I kinda ran out of slots for the 6-piece set bonuses. Usually I skip on slots for the T1 attack power on Doms. EDIT: There is another subtle build trick I've used with past Dominators... I've skipped catalyzing the Ascendancy of the Dominator, which keeps it's global recharge bonus at +8.75%, and allows for the use of a 5-slot control power (my build is currently NOT using the very rare Unbreakable Guard) as the fifth +10% Global recharge. This is one of those subtle changes that would probably only net my build a somewhat small extra %, but I'm somewhat already in the margins of possibilities without Hasten as is.

IIRC, I don't think it is possible (any longer, on Homecoming, *1) to slot a Very Rare set's +5 proc. My guess is that it would be the same for other boosted procs as well, it is only the the Very Rare sets for which I've played converter roulette for 50+5 pieces... and this is a feature of those sets typically over-doing it on Damage and/or Recharge enhancements, so I've occasionally found myself rolling between a 50+5 Damage piece and a 50+5 Damage/Recharge piece. *1: I guess I have to believe that Perfect Zinger did get slotted!

I take it that you have met Ms. Liberty? I agree that the Medicine pool has more to offer beyond "role play" (which was a weird take in the OP, IMO), but my experience with it has been that it is a notoriously difficult power pool to leverage. Aid Other can of course be used to mule the Preventive Maintenance %Absorb piece. There are a few other pool powers that can do this, but sometimes I can't do something like take the Sorcery or Experimentation pool on a build, or I'm not going to have Unleash Potential, or whatever. The most use I got out of Medicine was in earlier eras of the game when I'd be slow-ishly playing Masterminds. I used Aid Other to heal up the low-level henchmen while street sweeping in zones with large spawn sizes. There have been a significant number of changes to Masterminds and Henchmen, notably shorter re-summoning times, plus the potentially faster leveling experience, that make this application less important IMO.

Here is an image of my post-50 slotting, now under experimentation: Some minor things to note compared to earlier prototypes: I swapped the slotting of Burst and Lift, as Lift does more damage, and I was using it more often while leveling. I goofed on my suggestion to slot a Hold set piece in Singularity, so I used a boosted Expedient Reinforcement enhancement for Accuracy/Recharge. I settled on dropping Maneuvers (Leadership pool) as we can only have 4 pools (plus one Epic pool). I miss Maneuvers, but it was one more toggle that was only ever going to have a LotG piece anyway. I slightly adjusted the chosen order of the Epic Psi Mastery powers, as I found myself using Mind Over Body more than expected. Some major things to note: I swapped out a %Lethal piece in Wall of Force for a Force Feedback %+Recharge piece. This is a pretty reliable %proc power because of its AoE. This build has achieved perma-Domination, but just barely. Some of the powers have long-ish animation/cast times; I found myself losing Domination unexpectedly during fights. I don't like relying on that %+Recharge proc, but I use Wall of Force quite a bit, so this was the best compromise (for me, for now). This also helps with a couple other long-ish powers like Link Minds and Unleash Potential. I have a few other options, that I'll rank in my order of preference: I could 4-slot Expedient Reinforcement in Singularity, for +6.25% Global Recharge (for level 27+ content) I could juggle slots to swap the Superior Winter's Bite in Burst for another 5x Decimation for another +6.25% Global Recharge I could replace either Combat Jumping (Leaping pool) or Aid Other (Medicine pool) with Hasten (Speed pool) I could juggle slots and convert the franken-slotting of Unleash Potential to use 6x Preventive Maintenance for +8.75 Global Recharge Supergroup Base buffs! (1) is sort of a no-brainer... but that would a somewhat minor reduction in the time on Domination. It is quite hard for me to tell if the Hami-O boosts to controls are doing anything for Singularity! I may play with this for a bit. The level range isn't that big of a deal, considering the marginal improvement in an already borderline Domination countdown. (2) would involve some compromises, but I can drop 5x Gladiator's Net to 4x Basilisk's Gaze, but I kinda like those PVP set bonuses (in PVE) and Winter set bonuses. I'd have also have to lose something else, probably either the Power Transfer %Heal or the Miracle +Recovery piece. Mighty Leap could probably go to fewer slots. (3) would be the easiest... and what I probably should have done while leveling up: take Hasten at level 22, delay Unleash Potential until level 32... and probably lose the Medicine pool (and the power that holds the %Absorb piece). I doubt I'd worry about trying to put a second slot in Hasten, but it is certainly possible. I suspect I could pull the third slot from Mighty Leap if push came to shove. Personally, I've already got a number of powers that I'd want on "auto" anyway: Power Up, Link Minds, Unleash Potential and Domination... mileage varies of course due to durations... so Hasten as perma somewhat loses its appeal. (4) I really don't like this choice. Even though I wouldn't need the Medicine pool (to hold the %Absorb piece), and a third power (Grant Invisibility) from Concealment can serve as a the 5th LotG mule)... I kinda hate losing the Shield Wall global set bonuses as well as the net boost to Defenses. (5) I may end up just using the SG base buff to global Attack speed, but I find it to be a PITA to refresh it every 60 minutes (don't believe the text of the power if it says 90 minutes!) Finally, in terms of "power/slot juggling" I can see one other potential area: Weaken Resolve should be able to take the Cloud Senses Accurate ToHit Debuff set... with 4 slots used there, I could get another +6.25% Global Recharge bonus. Three slots isn't that easy to come by! I could get two from Burst, and then maybe one from Mighty Leap.

I think everything has been covered, so I'll add some adjacent information! If a build is using Snipes, the Fast Snipe (yellow ring around the power icon, shorter range) will get a damage boost for every +N% of extra ToHit (not Accuracy!) up to (IIRC) +22%. I find this to be a handy bit of design space for certain builds.

The one thing about War Mace that bothered *me* while leveling up was this: with little Recharge, the set felt *really* clumsy. It doesn't take huge amounts of global Recharge, along with set-slotting the attacks to make it perform smoothly... but it is something I think should be kept in mind depending on how you level up. I wouldn't necessarily try to use Hasten while leveling, but you may want to have some temp attack powers,

Is there a difference (in Detonator damage) if you have boosted a henchmen (or other pet) with a red inspiration active prior to Detonation?

On my Mind/Poison Controller, Poison is a pretty good secondary but it is somewhat forgettable, I'll share my choices for the secondary: I quite dislike Poison on my Defender. I don't have a Corruptor. I tried really hard to make Venomous Gas work, but I simply could not build a character that could hang out in melee range and survive. Trying to do so felt like I was making a LOT of peculiar choices just to try to get the VG ticks to work against enemies while taking huge amounts of aggro (melee, ranged, AoE). In my mind, I was spending a huge amount of design (and play) space just to try make a T9 work.... for 18% damage resistance that is mostly for the benefits of allies who may or may not care (or be able to do anything about) me taking the aggro. It isn't the only T9 in the game that I find disappointing, but it is one of them.

Prior to the Robotics revamp, I used to slot the henchmen for Knockdown. Now I don't bother. I do have knockdown in Pulse Rifle Burst and Mace Beam Volley. Things don't fall down quite as often, but things are still flopping about quite a bit. I tried to make Seeker Drones work, because I *like* stuns, but I found the power to be a bad fit for *whatever* strategy I was pursuing. Knockdowns, AoE Immobilizes, AoE debuffs, AoE Slows... these were all IMO more reliable than the Stun. I don't need the -ToHit. I don't need the power to mule any set pieces, see below. My henchmen slotting: With this slotting, I see no endurance issues in any of the tiers. I don't do anything fancy to try to replenish the robots' health or endurance except for Maintenance Drone; it has 6xPreventive Medicine. Obvious level 50 is needed for this slotting, but it is what it is. I know there are advocates for the %BuildUp in the T3, or for KB->KD, or for %damage... my experience is that for the content I play, I can split targets using the MM itself with either the T3 or all the T1, leaving the other tier with the T2s, and the two groups finish off their hard targets in roughly the same amount of time. The one compromise I'd make, if Seeker Drones is going to be used to hold any of the pet global uniques, might be to replace the T1 Expedient Reinforcement with Explosive Strike's %Smashing and (depending on other slotting) swap the T2 Edict of the Master for a Luck of the Gambler Defense/Global Recharge piece. My own build is incredibly tight, so I'd have to sacrifice something to get even 1 more slot for Seeker Drones.

Ignoring the elephant-in-the-room that is the method the game gives rewards (Inf, XP, drops) for defeating critters, Blasters have a significant number of advantages over Controllers, including: Blasters can still fight while controlled. Blasters have generally better base Accuracies across primary/secondary than Control powers (especially AoE) Blasters' attacks are (for most primary/secondary) the same type of damage whereas Controller's typically only get a pair of same-type controls (for most primary/secondary) for "stacking"... e.g. a single-target Immobilize/Hold and an AoE Immobilize/Hold. It is far more common across all content to have enemies that effectively cannot be controlled (by certain controls) than it is for enemies to completely ignore/regenerate from damage taken from attacks. If we further consider IO enhancement sets, because of the nature of ATOs, most Winters, most PVP and most Purples... Blasters (with more attacks) end up with more options for building for set bonuses than an AT like a Controller. I'll grant that this point is "in my experience", and that "mileage may vary"... but some of those sets can end up giving very healthy global Defense bonuses. I'm aware that some of the control sets have some options for global defense, but for Control types they've got far fewer powers to opt to place their ATOs, whereas Blasters typically have powers in both their Primary and Secondary... I realize this is a somewhat subjective argument, however I think of it often whenever someone tries to invoke an "aprocalypse", as the non %proc choices already favor specific ATs over others.

As an aside: I groan about folks calling for some diminishment of %procs... often it is one or two players arguing over which melee DPS AT can clear a +4x8 map (fractions of a minute) faster than some other melee DPS AT, with no consideration for how far behind the curve (in terms of clearing similar content) an AT like Controller would be. Another aside: At some point I think the (mostly Live) devs took a healthy respect for control (of critters) and turned it into a full-on paranoia. If not for %damage, I'd find Controllers to be pretty boring to play.

On my Earth Controller I ended up 6-slotting Will of the Controller in Volcanic Gasses, From memory I found the power to be a poor one to use %damage pieces in... Stone Cages and Stalagmites ended up being better for that trick. I agree that the recharge times for the Controller AoE 'nukes' are too long to bother with trying for %damage. I never skip them, because they offer utility and an opportunity for getting enhancement set bonuses; I agree that performance (including lack of up-time) definitely dampens my enthusiasm for them.

I have a different take on most giant monsters, because they are open-world events: I dislike waiting around for more than 3 minutes(*1) for anyone to start fighting a giant monster. There is *some* variance in timing for how long a giant monster takes to defeat solo, but if a player isn't using Lore pets, and isn't multi-boxing (i.e. only one character is fighting) there shouldn't be any giant monsters that are defeated in under three minutes. There aren't many zones that take longer to check for giant monsters than 3 minutes, unless the character is rather under-powered. If I'm going to be that one guy, I'll announce that I'm softening up the giant monster, but I'm perfectly capable of pacing defeat times. I can't help it if other people freak out in an open world... the Giant Monsters will be back. When I've done this, I've never used Lore pets, which ought to be enough evidence that this isn't going to be a quick fight. (*1) It is always possible to send a tell to someone who has announced a GM, and the folks kind enough to post the $loc of the GM in LFG means that once in the zone players should know where to go and not have to zone in with "where is it?" broadcasts. As for the duration of fights, I *know* there are players who prefer to take 10+ minutes to assemble a team of 8 (or fewer, for the multi-boxers) players, have everyone pop Lores and then be done in under a minute. I don't understand how this is better than a small team defeating a GM in four minutes without lores. The monsters that can spawn in different zones, like Kronos, that's a slightly different kettle of fish. By now most long-time players should know that there is a good chance of a followup Kronos spawn, Finally: I know when I see some players announce a GM, and I know that that player isn't waiting around... I know roughly how long they take to solo GMs, so I have a good idea of if I can get to the GM in time to join in.

My slotting is in an earlier post in this thread: 2x Acc/Dam/EndReduction, 3x %damage. After this, 6x Annihilation would probably be my choice, although I might be swayed by a Knockdown strategy. I almost never bother with the Gaussian's %BuildUp in these sorts of powers for ATs that inherently do relatively little damage... I will have the build such that I don't need the extra ToHit, and if the ATs attacks already do somewhat small amounts of damage, I don't expect that the %+Damage is doing that much (for an AT that won't normally be constantly attacking). I don't think Comtrollers are quite as bad as Masterminds for using the %BuildUp piece, but I think they are probably among the worst choices... not because the proc rate is bad, more that these AT typically don't get that much mileage from it. Opinions may differ, and I like the 6-slot bonuses for the set, it's just that the ultimate yield in performance v. investment almost never strikes me as the best use of slots.

%damage does work in Shifting Tides. IIRC, the combat messages for it are in the PET category, but it has been a while since I felt the need to review the logs for my /Marine controller. I hadn't planned to add %damage (see my slotting above) to Shifting Tides, but I found it to be a pretty reliable source of extra damage for my Controller, The test that convinced me to lean into it as a source of %damage was against a relatively small group of street enemies... I mention this because usually these types of powers require relatively large spawn sizes to get a feel for reliability... but because it was toggled on an enemy, and persisted as long as the enemy body didn't de-rezz, the extra %damage in the wide area of effect was noticeable. Perhaps if the enemies are all being destroyed quickly without need for extra damage, or the spawn sizes are exceptionally small and/or not in the area of Shifting Tides, it might be easy to miss. I can't remember precisely (I got bored with that character, sorry!) But I want to say that my impression was that the %damage output in Shifting Tides was better than something like a more classic 'pseudo-pet' such as Caltrops. It could be the wider area, or the persistence, or all the other stuff also happening in Shifting Tides, but once I tested it with a simgle %damage piece I like what I was seeing. The net effectiveness was counter-intuitive to me, so I kept an eye on it across a somewhat large range of content with the result being that I kept it as franken-slotted. I probably wouldn't make this choice on a different AT (for example, probably not on a MM) but for a Controller that solos, yes. There are a handful of these sorts of powers that I wasn't expecting to be good candidates for %damage but turn out to be rather reliable. As I was going to be casting it anyway, getting the extra damage as long as it lasts is a pretty good use of the slots IMO.

I agree that Incarnate powers feel out-of-place, but it is IMO the incarnate content that has most of the game's "gotta understand specific mechanics" content... so I don't know if this argument really gels. I rather like the IO system, because it allows a solo player to emphasize their own build by making choices that work the way the player wants their characters to perform. Certainly there are elements of making characters with relatively few weaknesses, but as near as I can tell it is mostly the Incarnate system that is required in order to build characters able to handle the hardest difficulty settings (solo) for otherwise somewhat straightforward missions/arcs. Certainly if we didn't have power picks above 40 as well as all those extra slots most of the game would be much more challenging. I also don't want to discount the fat that having an inherent Fitness pool makes a lot of sense (because the game wasn't that much fun having to include that pool via choices), but even without IOs an inherent Fitness pool makes characters more powerful.

I also relied on 'old methods' to get the maps installed... afaik the only ones that are "messed up" are the safeguard/mayhem maps for Atlas Park and Founders Falls. The Cimerora/PVP zones are all fine, which used to be the tell-tale sign something was wrong with my install.

I don't have that combo, but I find Martial to be a good secondary for just about any primary. A typical set of baseline choices for me in Martial is: Ki-Push gets a 5-slot set Reach for the Limit is taken, but doesn't get slots Burst of Speed often has 3 pieces of Blaster's Wrath (including the %damage), and 3 %damage Dragon's Tail is a convenient power for %damage slotting, but mileage varies if I need/want that or a set bonus. Reaction Time is often minimally slotted... I have put an attuned Power Transfer %Heal and a boosted EndMod piece from the same set in it. Inner Will usually just has two Heal/Recharge pieces in it (boosted or D-Syncs). I often have this power on Auto. Eagle's Claw is a good candidate to be slotted for a set bonus I've posted a lot in various threads about Psy as a primary. The biggest drawback IMO of Psy is that at high levels there will be a lot of enemies that have hard resistances to the typed damage. There are a few different ways to approach this, but without knowing how you would prefer to approach it I am reluctant to provide advice that could be a bad fit.