tidge

I see that Force Bomb and Crack Whip also includes -Res, so my advice would be to try to improve Accuracy, Endurance and Recharge and concentrate on MM attacks to apply -Resistance... Maybe it could work? Try to get +MaxEnd bonuses to offset the Endurance tax.

Basically I think you pass the point of diminishing returns on Defense slotting. Even with the Endurance tax paid by MMs I don't think more than 3 slots of Def and End make sense. I think Repulsion Bolt is the only power that acts as a debuff (I am not familiar with Demons), that should probably be early in the build. %-Res can help, but my opinion is that you have to lean hard into multiple powers with Annihilation slotted to have a hope of it contributing... Especially if you want to face Giant Monsters. I should disclose: I don't like FF as a MM secondary... I can see the appeal (especially while levelling), but my opinion is that improving henchmen survivability pays less dividends than debuffing enemies. I would probably try to work in a pool to help debuffing. Either Experimentation or Force of Will can be used as debuffs... Directly and via enhancement slotting.

I see a lot I wouldn't do, and possibly some mistakes. I would never slot so many pieces of LotG in any power. It is a mistake to slot the Kismet +ToHit piece in a toggle that prevents you from making attacks.

I am somewhat proud of the polite and informative responses. Personally, my own tendencies lean to the "having 5 level 50s after 6 weeks and *now* is the time to complain?" end of the spectrum. My feelings are that most ATs don't really begin to feel like a unique character until level 12, and now that the higher tier powers are available sooner, somewhere between levels 26 and 30 is a reasonable time to turn of 2xp to see how the character plays. Level 25 and 30 IO recipes will drop, of course Inf will be needed to craft them. Racing to 50 also implies getting to 50 with a merit-poor character... Merits can be used directly or indirectly to outfit characters. TLDR: new players who rush to 50 are going to end up exactly where the OP is, by design.

On my Archery/Tactical Arrow build (posted in its own thread) I only skipped Ice Arrow. The single-target hold was an easy skip for me: I didn't need a ST attack to do damage (especially via %damage) and I would need (personal feels) to slot it for Accuracy/Hold/Recharge simply to make it useful enough for the limited number of circumstances that I'd want to use it for... which would be some Boss/AV/GM I can't quickly defeat that I want to stack a Hold with teammates. I found that Tactical Arrow's other attacks satisfied a few things for my build: It leaned into the "range only" behavior, with more attacks and more controls It allowed for %proc slotting, while letting me slot set bonuses in the primary attacks The secondary's attacks fill in nicely with attack chains across all levels... that is: global Recharge is far less important than on other builds It requires neither "level 50 slotting" nor a large number of slots in each power to be effective... I found Tactical Arrow to be a very smooth secondary for "regular leveling". I did make an effort to bring the shorter-range powers up to a similar range as the rest of the powers. Briefly, my slotting was: Glue Arrow: Frankenslot with Acc/Range, %damage, %-res Electrified Net Arrow: 3xHO/Dsyncs for Accuracy/Range/Immob/Damage Upshot: 6xGaussian's Flash Arrow: Single IO ToHit Debuff Eagle Eye: 3 slots, %Absorb, 2xSynapse Shock (because Infiltration is the travel power on this build) ESD Arrow: 4x Absolute Amazement, 2x%Damage Oil Slick Arrow: 4x%damage, with 2 slots boosting Acc/End/Recharge The choice between a T1 ST immob and T2 AoE slow typically has me skipping the immob... but there were too many factors in play that made me want both: Glue Arrow is a reliable %damage attack, %-Res AND Slow is gravy Electrified Net can target enemies with DoT, Electrified Net targets runners/chargers... a slightly bigger deal for me on a ranged only build Electrified Net conveniently can ignite the Oil Slick Flash Arrow is one of those powers that once you get used to it, it become second nature to use. I don't entirely trust it to make up for running with lower defenses, but I won't argue that it doesn't help. It needs no extra slots to do its thing! ESD Arrow is a power I can see skipping, but I like AoE Stuns on 'soft' characters.... I especially like them if I can add some decent %damage! If I felt like I needed it, I would replace one of the %damage pieces with the Superior Entomb's Recharge/%Absorb piece. For me, this was a no-brainer "add some control" to the build power. I consider Oil Slick Arrow to be a bit of an odd duck. I had originally planned for some different slotting in this power, but looking at the logs I convinced myself that %damage was the way to go. The Acc/End/Recharge pieces are from Javelin Volley (boosted) and Bombardment (attuned) as these pair nicely with some %damage and offer both enhancement values and reasonable set bonuses with only 2 pieces. One final note: as a practical matter, I don't see the various powers (slows, immobilizes, knockdowns) as doing that good of a job of keeping enemies in a specific area (for area based Damage or DoT). Obviously this does happen, it just that I find spawns are often spread out enough to not be guaranteed to be controlled in this way... or they ignore/resist the control (soft or hard)... or RNG is simply unfavorable. I don't write this to be contrarian! It's more that as a Blaster, i believe is is the direct application of damage that brings more survivability to the character, and the indirect application (via control mechanisms) often has more things working against them in actual play.

There is only marginal difference between a Shield Breaker's max value from Acc/Recharge and the max value of a Analyze Weakness Acc/End/Recharge, so forgive me for assuming that the Shield Breaker piece was a %Lethal.

If I'm making any comment, it is this: in order to do damage, or to get debuffs to stick... some Accuracy should probably be slotted if facing higher-level enemies. The build appears to also just miss getting 4-slot global Accuracy bonuses from several of the Very Rare sets. A specific fer-instance: Level 45+ teams will certainly do more damage if Melt Armor has higher Recharge, even if you don't want to slot it for Accuracy. The way it is slotted right now makes it look like a wasted power pick (lvl 49 could just be a Defense mule for more global Recharge) and move the second slot to either X-Ray Beam or Rune of Protection to get either a positional Ranged or Melee set bonus. Radiation Blast is a slightly tricky beast for builds with %damage... the attacks have some -DEF, but those attacks have to hit, and while it isn't precisely necessary to spam Rad attacks to try to apply -DEF, AFAIK there may be some -DEF debuff resistance in play. Rad can be a (ToHit) multiplier against even-level minions, but I don't think it is good enough by itself to forgo Accuracy slotting. If teaming is the key, move the Gaussian's %Build Up to Tactics.

I won't argue that having henchman give Thermal "more to do", but I kinda hate Thermal on my MM.

Just a couple of quick comments on the level of personal preference for the build above: I think the above build has too many %proc in Irradiate. Irradiate does have a sweet inherent recharge time, and a better-than-usual base accuracy, and the build is running with Kismet... yet I feel that all %proc powers ought to have some accuracy slotting. I'd pick at least one slot with a preferred combo of Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Debuff that could be boosted (or attuned to give some useful set bonus). See also Char slotting. About Char... it feels weird to me to take Char (single-target hold) at level 41, 5-slot it for %damage, go hard into %damage on all the attacks, and skip the cone Electron Haze. Ranged Cone attacks are IMO the most reliable powers for %damage. Using a pair of HO/DSyncs (Accuracy/Range and Damage/Range) would still leave 3 slots for %damage (or %-Resist)... and the power would be available for much lower-level content. The Flame Mastery choices would need to be reconsidered, but the lack of Accuracy and/or Recharge in Melt Armor bothers me. I don't consider Melt Armor to be a valuable %proc power as it has a base 200 second recharge time that requires a ToHit check). Generally: I feel like the build leans a little too heavy into %proc for my taste... I'm more sympathetic here because of the Damage-over-Time aspects of the sets... but it feels to me like some of the good 5-piece set bonuses are being "left on the table" just for the sake of adding %damage. In particular: I think the %Build Up piece from Decimation in the Snipe (Proton Volley) is poorly motivated. If not going with 5-pieces of Apocalypse, then I'd suggest using a boosted 50+5 Experienced Marksman Range/Fast Snipe instead (if the Kismet +ToHit piece is always in play). Build Up/+ToHit effects work best for a Fast Snipe, and the %proc of the Decimation is pretty poor (1 PPM for 10secs IIRC) compared to how fast it will be possible to spam the Fast Snipe.

I can get behind this, to the extent that the FIRST upgrade power ought to be baked into all the henchmen. Consider the primary progression for Masterminds: Level 1: First henchmen summons is available Level 6: First Upgrade Power is available Level 12: Second Henchmen summons is available Level 22: Third Henchman summons is available Level 26: Second Upgrade Power is available The first upgrade is available before it is even possible to summon a second hench! (not to mention: it is so low it should be available on all exemplared content!) If we MUST have multiple upgrades, I can't understand why the T4 and T6 powers aren't swapped. Even in earlier times (longer recharge powers, more debt, etc.) it didn't make sense that a henchman summoned from a higher level power wouldn't already have the lower level upgrades baked in. I can understand an unwillingness to chew through the code base/power progressions to make changes to the application of boosts or the default powers of henchmen. I also appreciate the changes to allow slotting of more/different sets in (some of?) the upgrade powers. I also LOVE that the power picks are available at lower levels (across the board, for all ATs)... but none of those makes the primary power progression look any less weird for me.

/agree that Robots/FF Mastermind is not how I would roll. I can see the appeal, but the contributions from /Force Field strike me as being completely unnecessary for the survival of the henchmen and will do very little to improve map clear times. On a Defender, I went FF/Beam. I found Force Fields to be a primary I didn't need to take many powers from early (if ever), allowing me to pick up more of the secondary attacks... and of course FF has some decent mules for whenever you want them. The -Res from Repulsion Bolt is a nice enough attack and feels like it pairs with the DoT effects,; Dispersion Bubble is the toggle I used to hold the Kismet piece.

There are a large number of bids sitting at 20,002 Inf. I suppose it doesn't matter if it is a single player or a group of players... I've observed exactly what @Necrophidian described. When the sales price is above 20,002 I am assuming that is 'impatient' buyers working explicitly against the bolus of those bids at 20,002. I am also assuming that some fraction of the 100k+ outstanding bids are other players who put it lower bids... and I half-suspect that the goofball with the 20,002 Inf bids also has a bunch of similarly inflated, but slightly lower bids as well. The real mystery is why anyone would go through the bother... I understand that the common::uncommon drop rates are greater than 4::1, and that uncommons are necessary for crafting all of the desirable (uncommon, rare, PVP, Superior) recipes... and I can believe that changes in farming habits can be responsible for a smaller supply... it simply seems impractical to try to make inf while strangling the supply of uncommon salvage (intentionally or otherwise). Just keeping all those buy bids in play implies that the person(s) responsible are grinding in an unrewarding way.

A late followup: I agree that Electrified Net Arrow (with or without a targeting macro) isn't necessary for igniting an Oil Slick... this is more of a casual addition because I was investing in the Electrified Net Arrow anyway. In general, I tend to skip single-target immobilizes and holds on non-control ATs, but since this character was going to take the early immobilize, I wanted it to have the matching range and some improved immobilization duration and figured I may as well include a quicky macro for hitting any Oil Slick that exists. As I wrote above... I'm generally skipping the single-target immobs and holds because Enemies that I want to immobilize generally resist slows and immobilizes anyway (those critters that like to run, think Warwolves) Single-target holds can be a reasonable source of %damage, but often feel like they are a waste of slots compared to what else I could do with the slots. (because "single target") The times when I take those single-target powers tend to be when: The powers offer a synergy with other powers in the build There is a control I want to increase the magnitude of It is a low-DPS AT and I feel like leveraging the ST attack into some %damage (investing in Accuracy as well as %damage of course) It is an power that will hold ATO pieces for enhancement set bonuses (because I'm making other slotting choices elsewhere in the build) I wrote out all of the above because in my build above I kind-of miss not having the ST-hold Ice Arrow as one of the "tactical" options (for thematic purposes)! I simply can't justify (to myself) taking Ice Arrow in place of any other power in my build, or dedicating enough slots to it to improve it enough to be a worthwhile addition. As an early-choice power a ST-hold is less important than just doing damage (for a DPS character), and %damage slotting strikes me as a waste of slots. As a late-choice power, I think it a hold be far less useful than immobs (for single hard targets) and I wouldn't need another ST damage attack in later levels.

Are you certain the Winter Lord had not already spawned? My own experiences from past years have been: After defeating the Winter Lord (and adjacent minions), after opening about 130 presents (and defeating the naughty spawns) is when the WL will respawn. I did this with multiple characters in a zone that had no observed other player presence (via /whoall).

File this under "Things I wish I knew how to do, that are probably no interest to anyone else"... I have a very limited number of cases when I would desperately want a power in a popup tray... And yet no matter how limited those cases when I want it... I WANT IT. I could kinda do what I want with a bind, but here is specifically the circumstances: I have a Traps character with many powers from the Flight pool... I feel like if I had a single button in the Afterburner popup tray that had the effect of detoggling ALL the Flight powers (I think Walk might do this) allowing me to hit the floor for all summonses, things would be copacetic.

My old thoughts on a Synapse TF rewrite is inspired by the Penny Yin TF. Minimally...Have an instanced outdoor mission with objectives in place of some of the defeat alls and patrols. I've also long thought that the Clockwork King would have a slightly better (and geeky) set of (elite) bosses that were necessary to defeat... Something inspired by chess pieces. The CK has an interesting backstory, I wouldn't mind if Blue Steel ended up in a rewrite.

Now I am curious: what are the rest of the people in the zone supposed to do with the $loc info? Are they supposed to have a keybind of some sort to use the location info and set the minimap?

The two issues I encounter with getting a Shivan from Bloody Bay are: As mentioned, doing enough damage quickly enough to defeat all the turrets. Wearing them all down (but not defeating) and then defeating them rapidly works well even for low DPS characters. Sometimes I don't have a travel power in Bloody Bay. The temp powers for purchase in the PVP zones don't last all that long.

Ignoring the Babbage, Synapse TF is relatively quick and easy to solo... If the spawn size has not been turned up. If the character doesn't have DPS for the CK, any single temp summons (e.g. a Shivan) ought to be sufficient. I've done exactly that with Controllers. I grok the monotony complaints, but this TF is not the worst offender... And the rewards are pretty good for the investment in time.

Jessme Ritin': I find it easier to click on the leaguemate's name and "follow" then it is to mess around with $loc.

The build is fun, even if I have 'hang back'. I don't often use Bonfire, but when I remember to use it I find I want it! It is practically just a stepping stone to get RotP.

I think you may find that the lower target caps from Sentinels ends up bothering you more than whatever might by bothersome about Blaster primary/secondary combos. If face-planting is a really bothersome issue, the Epic Flame pool offers Rise of the Phoenix after several other good power picks. FWIW: Even though I have melee (and PBAoE) attacks on my Dark/ Blaster, that character almost exclusively makes ranged attacks. I find Dark to be one of the slower Blaster primaries... partly due to the DoT... and partly because of knockback/knockdown... and partly due to the way RNG tends to let some fraction of mobs get close while others are scattered or immobilized. I suspect if I was playing a Dark Sentinel I would find myself wanting some Melee attacks (because of lower AoE caps) I like Blapping, but on fast PUG teams, the teammates may not even realize if a Blaster is using melee attacks.

I had never played any of the Archery/Arrow sets; this post includes my final (level 50) build. I realize that this isn't a shockingly original combination. I'm putting it out in the wild on the chance that there may be elements that could be leveraged by other players. Some up-front talking points: 1) I typically like to have Blasters who can Melee... this is NOT that type of Blaster. This may be the most "ranged only" character in my lineup. 2) I realize this is an "expensive" build based on slotting. In reality, aside from investing in the ATO and Winter Pieces early in the build (for me, via merits) burning up a lot of Catalysts (after the level 50 respec) I happened to have a LOT of stuff lying around the SG base that went into it. This won't help anyone else, I simply felt like making a comment about how storing drops from other characters can make some builds much more affordable. 3) In attacks: this build leverages both straight-up enhancement for set bonuses and %damage from procs. I know that both types of attack slotting have proponents. This build felt a little weird to me because I usually don't have so many of each type of attack. I think this was a side effect of not having melee/PBAoE 'attacks'. 4) I did try to get all of the ranged attacks to have roughly the same range. I felt this was most important to increase the ranges for Glue Arrow and Electrified Net Arrow, I had a single slot left over that went into Fistful of Arrows just because. 5) I think the build could have better Defenses; this simply wasn't that important to me. This is built for fun more than survival. Even without the level 50 choices, this build was handling even-level x8 content solo relatively early in the play-up. 6) The travel power is Infiltration. Between Infiltration, a Stealth global in Sprint, and Flash Arrow this build doesn't care about too much in the way of being spotted while trying to sneak through areas. With the additional toggles and enhancement slotting, this isn't a painfully slow way to get around the city, but temp powers are needed for some navigation. I included some macros I use for this character.

My experience has been that I can't play Dual Pistols with the sound on, because the dog that is scared of fireworks goes into a panic.

It is possible to wear Statesman's costume (and his helmet) in a level 20-29 tip mission, as a Rogue in Paragon City (it's a "Hero" mission).