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Nothing to do with JE or Statesman... One side observation of my own: CoX was so immune to the South Korean style of factory play that "Inf Sellers" could barely make their presence known in-game during Live. There was no practical need to buy Inf... especially with Veteran Rewards, which made the repeated play incredibly bearable. The subscriber model as implemented, for all purposes negated the need for micro-transactions. I'm sure this rubbed NCSoft the wrong way, in multiple dimensions.

I always try to slot it in the T1 henchmen. My thinking is that (when triggered) it can help with the level shift that has them fighting uphill. I want to say that I have at least one non-MM character where I included it (probably a Crabbermind) for similar reasons. The T2 Disruptors are probably the best place for this piece as they have more attacks than the T1 Spiderlings. I want to say that I have also slotted it in Fire Imps, just because.

I feel what is being written, but that doesn't line up with my own feelings as a Day 1 Invulnerability Tanker. If anything it was the aggro change that hit "herding maps". I will sympathize that pre-ED it was possible to over-exaggerate the core attributes of any AT. My own feelings regarding pre-ED for my Tanker was pretty much: "It looks like those Scrappers are shaming me!" That Day 1 Tanker of mine was Invulnerability/Energy Melee, so the changes to the secondary certainly (and to some extent ED) hurt me in all sorts of places. With that character, I took a peculiar and limited joy in applying long-lasting stuns to all sorts of enemies... even if they would zip away at Mach 5.

I have long advocated for a %Contageous Fear; the existence of such a piece would greatly improve the viability of single-target Fears in the layer game.

I have a vague memory that Stateman (the PC) also had ranged attacks, which were not really a thing for Tankers at Launch. Between that an Unyielding, as an Invuln Tanker from Day 1, it felt like Dev "cheating" for their PCs in ways that were not as immediately obvious with the rest of the big names. It's sort of like in the more modern era, Penny Yin has access to an obvious pet that players can't access... although that bothers me not-at-all.

I had a very narrow gripe about Statesman from launch: IIRC Statesman was an Invulnerability Tanker, per the game materials. My gripe is that those of who played Invulnerability Tanks couldn't do the things that Statesman could do... Like move when powers were toggled on.

I think I've seen it double-stack on my T1 henchmen.

The real reason to slot Maintenance Drone is IMO for Recharge (and enhancement set bonuses). I would absolutely take Repulsion bolt for the -Resistance. I think you also ought to be taking the Primary attacks for the same reason. I would probably only slot Repulsion Bolt with a KB->KD and 50+5 or Superior Acc/Dam/End piece (I don't think there is an option for just Acc/End). Dampening Bubble can hold some Defense globals, so don't skip it out of spite.

My hot take: Spending on Enhancements (for a Blaster) is to do these things for a Blaster who wants to be seen as a "team leader" High global recharge, to AoE and aggro lots of enemies High defenses to survive the above Mileage may vary, but if Very Rares are off the table, here is what I would go for: The Teleportation pool, to quickly get teammates around zones... ...especially Combat Teleport, to get to where your melee buddies are (use macros for self-positioning) I would pack debuffs, particularly AoE -resistance. A stronger single-target debuf for GMs/AVs is appreciated... you can do this through relatively inexpensive slotting and power pools choices. Ultimately it is going to be about Quality-of-Life for your teammates.

What kind of Priest are we talking about? A Ninja/Trick arrow MM could fit an occidental Priest. A Dark/Water Blast Defender could be a more western take, with the ritualistic powers of healing and holy water.

The thread title isn't about players not contributing to teams it is about ToT leeching. These are not the same, as described in this thread.

If a player is following a team into missions, then they literally are not being AFK. It is a mental stretch to equate a team member not contributing in every mission (and somehow getting into all of them) with the behavior attributed to MMs parking henchmen in the PI parking lot.

An AFK MM won't be able to get into a mission and get rewards if I don't invite them. How is this situation analogous to a player that doesn't join a ToT league?

If in invite a player on a mission arc, which is giving me pretty much all the agency... which is not nearly as applicable to what the title of this thread implies. But hey, if the MM wants to join an Aaron Thiery arc and knock out cell doors to help me get doorbuster they are welcome!

"Shadowing" me in open world zones is going to have a negligible effect on "occasional purple recipe drops". I can't think of a single time when I've gotten a Purple (or PVP) from open-world defeats. I fight a large number of even-con critters when cleaning up Kings Row and Croatoa too. Most of those spawns are minions, so if you want to go ahead and clean them up for me (and reset the events) don't wait... just go and defeat them yourself please! Set yourself up as a multi-box in those spawn areas (pick Grim Vale in Croatoa) to get that "AFK feeling". Nearly all my Purple/PVP drops come from running solo missions at x8, with occasional (PVP) drops from low-level teamups. My crude estimates are that it takes about one hour of "defeating all" (solo) fully-stocked (x8) 'regular' missions to have a 50-50 chance of getting a Purple (or a PVP) recipe. I mention this because while (actively!) playing in a PI league I get very few recipe drops relative to what I get solo even when there are no 'leechers'. I saw someone say they got a Purple Drop, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility... but such a drop is already highly improbable. The demand for actions seem to come from a place of entitlement, I'm not skipping over any rationalization; I am recognizing that this level of upset from "X is more entitled to fight enemies at spot N than anybody else." If the ToT leagues would move to different places these "issues" wouldn't exist.

I didn't mean to cause sticker shock! There are different strategies for ATO/Very Rare/Winter ownership. I used to simply market to get them but I have a glut of merits so they are often used. My SG base has accumulated plenty of catalysts as well as attuned PVP and other commonly used pieces that came as drops or converter roulette. I typically use the attuned PVP pieces until I can swap in level 50s (which get boosted). If you play enough content you will accumulate PVP recipes and merits long before level 50. If you keep playing at level 50, you will accumulate Catalysts. I usually force the new character to pay for its own boosters and common IOs. I'm all over the place when it comes to "where do HamiO/DSyncs come from?" in any given build... could be I earned and kept them, could be I bought them. My market habits have become "wasteful" in terms of Inf and Merits, but that's me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Generally: before level 50 I am using leftover Overwhelming Force or attuned PVP sets until I lean into the Very Rare pieces. I see the main advantages of the Very Rare sets as being the (commonly occurring 4- and 5-piece) global bonuses to Accuracy and Recharge... plus they way they exemplar down. Almost all AT play better with these Global bonuses, but I can only think of one character in my stable (a War Mace Scrapper) that felt like it has painfully slow until the Very Rare Global Recharge helped the attack chain.... most ATs can play just fine without them. Just repeating myself: PVP recipes will drop at all levels, so I typically craft and attune these at whatever level. The attuned ones can be slotted very early in a career and will level up with the character, as @Frozen Burn wrote. It is easy to pull those out of a build during a respec or simply with unslotters. As was written above, the Auction House can be used to 'convert' to/from attuned, for a price.

Here is my Water/Nature Corruptor. I wouldn't say it is the greatest possible build, but I found myself trying to thread many different needles with respect to enhancement set choices and power picks.

I'm extremely far down the list of believing that there is a single play style for any AT (or player). I personally play a very engaged MM, I witness other MM players who are clearly not AFK but play very differently. For some content, my "most active" MM will become rather passive (zone invasions, mothership raids) because the henchmen AI is better at targeting enemies than I am! Those characters (multi-boxing?) would have gotten better XP and drops by simply going into the AE and running a farm. Even with a single MM's 6 henchmen getting kill credits from Murder Motel spawns, they aren't getting most (or even very much) of the XP... assuming that the players clicking on doors are actually doing damage to the TRICK spawns. The Bosses/Elite Bosses may or may not affect the XP math (compared to a straight AE farm) but I doubt that henchmen from an "AFK MM" are specifically shifting attention to focus fire on elite bosses. This past season I anchored a few teams at the PI motel, and occasionally the XP-per-unit-time was carp... even with everyone on my team clicking doors. I don't think it is possible to demonstrate regular "XP harm", even if it is possible to imagine "hypothetical XP harm." When I regularly see multiple characters in the league gaining 20+ levels in a sitting, I am having a hard time seeing how much any non-league player is actually hurting league players. I understand the feeling that someone else appears to be taking advantage of a situation that some "in-group" of people are already taking advantage of... and so this feels to me like a "get away from my always-restocked fishing hole" situation.

If a players is truly AFK, they will get logged out from the open world zone. Otherwise it can be very hard to tell if the player really is AFK or just playing their MM in a very disengaged way. The MM subforum has no shortage of players recommending against MM powers that require active play. That is: very few attacks, spamming things like Twilight Grasp, etc. My point stands: A disengaged Mastermind is, at best, insta-killing the minions. They won't be directly engaging with the 'highest reward' enemies, certainly not at the level of more active players. XP and Inf is proportional to the amount of damage done. The only thing I see a disengaged (again, can't really call them AFK in an open zone) MM's squad of henchmen impacting might be is the reward drop rate, but AFAIK who gets drops is affected by teams... again AFAIK, drop rates for defeating spawns are spread among team members not by rando damage by a solo player. This hypothetical 'AFK MM' is missing out on GM Merits and TREAT rewards. I don't see this as something to get that upset about. If anything, multiple henchmen have a bigger effect on FPS than on XP. EDIT: Let's not kid ourselves that Murder Motel in Peregrine was chosen because it adds some arbitrary level of difficulty or 'extra engagement' that makes it more deserving of a certain style of play. It's literally the easiest place for teams (with a level 50) to ToT: many doors, with easy lines-of-sight hospital is right across the street it's in a zone that allows 50s (with or without Incarnate powers) to click doors It's close to zone travel options (helipad, base portal, to some extent travel from TUNNEL, Ferry, Ouroboros can all be risk free) At some level this feels to me like a complaint that 'someone else is taking advantage of the thing I want to take advantage of'. If the MM really wants to defeat mobs (for better rewards, XP and INF) and be truly AFK the AE is literally just behind the PI motel. Obviously the answer is to move ToTing to a PVP zone, and allow player kills of those who are judged to be playing in a completely inactive way.

This is the (level 50) slotting I like for Howling Twilight (which should be spammed). The %Energy could be %Fire, depending on taste. Howling Twilight (A) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy) (*) Javelin Volley - Chance of Damage(Lethal) (*) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Recharge: Level 50+5 (*) Absolute Amazement - Accuracy/Stun/Recharge: Level 50+5 (*) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Recharge: Level 50+5 (*) Ragnarok - Damage/Endurance: Level 50+5 A note about %damage: You will need Accuracy and ToHit to get the most out of %procs. I try to get a mix of Global Accuracy as well as slotting Accuracy in the %proc the powers as well. I use Shadow Fall to get the Kismet +ToHit piece slotted too, because it is almost always toggled on. Here is my typical slotting: Shadow Fall (A) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) (*) Shield Wall - Defense/Endurance: Level 50+5 (*) Kismet - Accuracy +6% (*) Steadfast Protection - Knockback Protection (*) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% (*) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed: Level 50 I slot Fearsome Stare as follows, to get more %damage in it. Dark Servant just gets the four pieces of Cloud Senses. Fearsome Stare (A) Cloud Senses - Chance for Negative Energy Damage (*) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (*) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/ToHitDebuff (*) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Recharge (*) Glimpse of the Abyss - Chance of Damage(Psionic)

I have my own peeve about calling henchmen (which can be controlled) pets (which cannot be controlled like henchmen) 🙂 I'm dropping traps, debuffing the hard targets, and casting AoE at those x8 spawns, or to draw more aggro to me. Basically: I'm usually facing so many different enemies at once that directing the henchmen at specific targets would be inefficient. My MMs will leave bodyguard mode, but only when: An enemy has run away and I want it chased down... 'attack my target' (either the T1s or T2s get this job) I'm fighting large spawns of even-con scrubs... because I am so far past the 'defense softcap'.... 'aggressive mode' I need some fraction of the henchmen to take the alpha strike... 'attack my target' When I'm facing multiple AV/GMs at once, I will usually try to make sure that fire is being focused on only one of the enemies at a time. Often I have to do this through repositioning the henchmen, because dropping out of bodyguard mode can be dangerous... 'goto' or directing the T3 only to focus on 'attack my target'.

Here is the build I use for my 'enemies seem to be having a lot of trouble pulling themselves together' build I mentioned above. I definitely wanted an 'enemies seem to fall down a lot', but I felt there was only so far I could go with that without picking a set full of attacks that do knockback... hence the choice of a Mind/Poison/Primal Controller with some Force of Will for extra knockdown. There are of course P2W Grenades and Plasmatic Tasers. This is possibly my most %proc-tastic build; which is important to being able to solo large spawns. IIRC, the leveling up build roughly followed what the final build was. Folks experienced with the control powers and debuffs can probably figure out which ones don't need to be heavily slotted while leveling.

I held off commenting in this thread until after the event. I'm going to springboard from a recent post, but what I write is not directed at any individual player. I think the tenor of this thread is akin to "someone else is playing in a way I don't like", and while I don't mind folks venting about a set of peeves I don't think there is an actual problem here that needs to be fixed. Bluntly: "XP Leeching", "Kill Stealing", "Drop Stealing", "Door Stealing" barely rise to the level of a thing. It reminds me too much of the early live days of "someone kill stole my 10th 5th Column while I was patrolling Steel Canyon!" complaints. I'll post my own Halloween playstyle preferences later so folks can take shots directly at me. I think there is a case to be made that every character below level 40 that is side-kicked in PI is "XP Leeching" (if anyone believes that is a thing). It's not like those unslotted attacks are doing much for the league, and it is rare that I witnessed freshly-minted characters training up and taking powers from the Leadership or Teleportation pool to improve the QoL of the higher-level characters who are doing most of the work. I think I had one freshly-minted (i.e. sub-level-50) character this year, but when I am accumulating levels quickly I try to take pool powers to benefit the league/team, because respecs are a thing. I don't AFK while on a league... yet I have trouble imagining that some non-league "AFK Mastermind" is really 'stealing' anything from a league. As an aside: there are any number of shared builds in the MM subforum such that it would be legitimately hard for me to tell if the MM player isn't playing the game differently from how they normally play... especially if the MM player doesn't need or want anything specific from clicking on doors. Any MM that can AFK solo the level 54s at 'Murder Hotel' can do much better (in terms of XP, reward drops, Inf) from other content... so as far as I'm concerned such a player is basically gimping themselves more than they are possibly hurting a league. Is it a MM soloing the minions for badges that has got everyone upset? I know that TRICK spawns can also drop event salvage, but that is already somewhat rare and anyone who damages an enemy gets in the pool for a potential drop. Is it this low-level drops and defeat badges that folks are sweating? My Halloween playstyle: I join PI league with 'fresh' level 50s. I want the prismatic aether badges. I also want a costume so I can get the tip mission. I don't mind anchoring a team and try to make sure when I drop that the team has another level 50. Once I have the badges I want... I don't need a league to get the tip mission (or XP, or drops, or costumes), but if I feel like leaguing I switch to GM hunting. As was written above: it is trivial to have Incadescence once the slot is unlocked. I feel like I was teleporting leagues around PI for the first two weeks of the event! I definitely league for zone events. I've been on banner teams that either weren't capable of doing damage or were otherwise disengaged such that I missed out on banner badges. Most of the time I solo for tip missions. I find it to be too much effort to get a ToT team all on the same page for running the tip (for salvage, badges) and coordinating how to play the mission... if everyone even wants to play it. Depending on the character, when I am soloing doors at x1 I may or may not fight the enemies that result from 'TRICK!'... eventually I'll have enough of them around to want to deal with. I prefer to solo the GMs outside of the high-level zones. I am often finding leftover Unseelie Court in places where I think there is no reason for them to be left behind... but the spawn times are fast enough that (until now) I haven't publicly complained about this level of sloppiness. AFAIK, there is only one commonly used spot that is particularly easy to never aggro an Unseelie spawn, so I don't judge folks on that spot. In order to make sure the entire spawn is cleared: all you have to do is "count to seven" to make sure they are all defeated, and if that is too much effort the pumpkins are a dead giveaway that there is probably a leftover spawn to be dealt with... eventually they come back. As an aside: IIRC, a league member who is on GM patrol can still get credit for "defeat X" (e.g. for prismatic aethers) but won't get XP or reward drops... so are they "leeching" or are they being taken advantage of?

Ma'am, this is a Wendy's.

This is the theme of my Mind/Poison/Primal Controller. Everyone who crosses paths with him ends up fumbling and bumbling.