Redlynne

Yes. Yes we do ... 😎

I've updated my keybinds to use this emote when opening the Contacts window and the Auction House when using keybinds, replacing the now hopelessly out of date /em cellphone emote with it's BRICK SIZED candy bar phone (that was appropriate for 2004, but not for 2019).

Go Darwin Go.

Found your problem.

Edited OP to include additional limitations on which contacts will talk to you at any time (Warden or Responsibility) and which contacts will require you to match their alignment in order to talk to you (Crusader or Power). This revealed some flaws in the previous pathing through alignment switches, which needed to be rectified so as to not accidentally block progress for needing to talk to (and get missions from) a contact who opposes your current alignment.

One possible option, which theoretically ought to work but would almost certainly be murderous on a programmer to program(?) would be to make Group Fly into a PAIR of Cone powers, rather than a PBAoE. The idea being that the forward 120º Cone gets one Fly speed value for the Group Fly effect ... and a rear facing 240º Cone(!) would get a different slightly HIGHER Fly Speed value that would exceed the Flight Speed bonus granted to the Caster by the Swift power. Point being that anyone affected by the aura who starts "falling behind" will automatically "overtake" the Group Fly caster and move into the forward 120º Cone where they'll slow down and get "overtaken" by the caster again, creating a more dynamic "looping" forwards and back behavior around the Group Fly caster. It wouldn't be Formation Flying but it would at least allow everyone to "keep up" with the caster. An optional quality of life adjustment for Group Fly would be to rig it such that in the absence of active movement control by others everyone affected by Group Fly has their movement "slaved" to the Group Fly caster's movement commands ... so you don't have to "coordinate" everyone to move with you to stay within the aura radius. However, if someone other than the Group Fly caster uses a movement keybind, then that PC's movement commands would take precedence over the "slaved" Group Fly movement commands from the Group Fly caster. That way, you can have the Group Fly caster "bring" everyone in the aura along with them, so long as all of the other PCs don't activate any movement keybinds, but as soon as they do they can "peel off" from the Group Fly aura and "drop out of range" whenever they want to. To prevent Griefing of AFKers, this slaving of movement controls (with manual override for other PCs) functionality would only affect Teammates ... so as to prevent "scooping up" AFKers and dumping them someplace unfriendly without their (implied) consent.

Having played an Ice/Ice Tanker ... if you're not slotting Frost for Range enhancement, so as to do the 15 ft high Hop 'n' Pop to turn Frost into a PBAoE-ish attack on everything clustered up around you, rather than simply using it for a pie slice to one side of you ... let's just say you're missing out on a lot of AoE debuffing and damage dealing potential that could keep you alive.

Minimum proc chance for a 3.5 PPM is: 5 + (1.5 * 3.5) = 10.25% So assuming a 3.5 PPM proc, the probabilities are: Cast = 47.16% Pet = 10.25% (clamped upwards from 8.68% calculated) Assuming a Pet (x1) plus Pet (x2) plus Pet (x4) chain spawning that hits a maximum of 15 $Targets (including the initial $Target) then you're looking at spawning up to 7 Pets. 1 - (1 - 0.1025)^7 = 53.09% chance of at least 1 extra proc from the 7 Pets spawned after the initial hit Your mileage may vary, of course.

I honestly think that Ninjas (as pets) were basically half-baked when they were released and just never got looked at ever again. Part of the problem is that any sort of nod in the direction of the Conservation of Ninjitsu in the context of a Mastermind would mean that your Ninjas all get WEAKER as you deploy more of them ... which works in a cinematic context, but not in a gaming one. However ... there is a somewhat ready made answer to this particular problem which functionally already exists inside of the game, complete with working examples/samples, functioning animation and FX and everything and it simply needs to be ported over to the Ninja Pets practically "as is" for it to work. What Ninjas need is a VENGEANCE power ... just like what Nemesis Lieutenants all have (and use). That way, instead of the Ninjas getting weaker as you summon more of them ... instead they get stronger every time one of them is defeated(!), which would mimic the Conservation of Ninjistu trope in a way that would set the entire primary apart from all of its competitors as a unique game mechanical trait of the powerset. As far as increasing their Defense (which isn't even really "token" protection) ... I've long been of the opinion that the Tier 1 Genin ought to have a Maneuvers styled power that stacks Defense for all of the Ninja Pets (but not the Mastermind, other PCs or other Pet sets), representing the value of "combat choreography" by the Genin. The Tier 2 Jounin would then have an Assault styled power that stacks Damage buffing for all of the Ninja Pets (but not the Mastermind, other PCs or other Pet sets), representing the value of "combat experience" by the Jounin. You then have the Tier 3 Oni having a Tactics styled power that grants +ToHit to all of the Ninja Pets(but not the Mastermind, other PCs or other Pet sets), representing the value of "combat mastery" by the Oni "leading" his troops (at the direction of their "lord" the Mastermind PC). Basically a Leadership Pool "pyramid" that buffs the Ninjas more/better when there are more of them. Add Vengeance to them so they get stronger when one gets defeated, so as to ward off a cascade of defeats, and things would start getting rather interesting in a hurry for how they would "feel" in actual gameplay. Poison Dart is the absolute WORST possible power for Jounin to have been saddled with, given the way that they (mis)use it to waste critical hits. If the Pet AI were smarter, it would make a decent power, but as is it's just a "shoot self in foot to spite face" kind of thing for them. The Fire Sword attacks are ... cinematic ... but really impractical with how the Pet AI insists on (mis)using them. At this point, I'd honestly say they ought to be dropped and that giving Oni the Enflame power from the Sorcery set would be a much more interesting choice (that wasn't available back in the Issue 7 days when the Ninjas powerset was created). In an absolutely perfect world (which we don't live in, but I'm talking totally blue sky stuff here) ... I'd want to rig Smoke Bomb such that the ONLY Set IOs that could be slotted into the power would be ... (drum roll please) ... PROCS! Basic idea being that if an Set IO is NOT a proc, it can't be slotted into Smoke Bomb. So what Smoke Bomb would then do is "add" whatever proc IOs are slotted into Smoke Bomb to the enhancements that affect the Ninja Pet that Smoke Bomb gets used on, for the duration of the Smoke Bomb effect. Essentially, the Smoke Bomb power becomes a "carrier" for those proc IOs to be temporarily added to the Ninja Pet affected by Smoke Bomb. Alternatively, I'd expand the functionality of Smoke Bomb such that it would cause the Mastermind(!) to gain a temporary bonus effect to their Supremacy which adds +Defense to all Ninja Pets within Supremacy range for the duration of the Smoke Bomb effect. Adding this functionality to Smoke Bomb would necessarily mean allowing Smoke Bomb to be slotted with Defense Buff enhancements and the Defense Buff Sets (for muling Kismet, Luck of the Gambler, etc.). But then, what do I know of these things ... ^_~

The thing that I find ironic is that thanks to your work, Bopper, proc chances that people dismissed as being "worthless" and functionally the waste of an enhancement slot (relative to the alternatives) are seeing a renaissance once we understand how the mechanics work and how to ... angle ... for a Chuck Lots Of Dice!! solution to the low proc chance problem resulting in improved odds to proc well in excess of what you'd expect to see just looking at the raw numbers (and calling it a day). The Decimation Build Up proc seemed somewhat wasteful to put into single target Ranged attacks, relative to alternative options, until you can put it into a "buzzsaw" styled fast animation attack chain in which you're using the power with the Build Up proc as often as possible so as to Chuck Lots Of Dice!! to get it to proc MORE often than it ought to be doing. And then there's putting the Gaussian's Build Up proc into Leadership/Tactics ... where a solo test against a Rikti Pylon showed the option was pretty useless ... but then subsequent research and testing shows that Team-1 is the worst possible context for testing this proc, but a Team-8 (or even just a Mastermind plus 6 Pets) context demonstrates that the proc can counter-intuitively become remarkably powerful at a 37.5% (Mastermind) or 41.5% (Team-8) chance to proc every 10 seconds in Tactics. So it was a good option, then a bad option, then a good option again. And to underscore the irony of both of these applications of the Build Up proc, in BOTH cases the way the mechanics stack up is via by pushing the proc chance BELOW the minimum floor of 6.5% per chance to proc, in some cases WAY beyond that minimum, and then using the "clamping" at a minimum 6.5% chance to proc to (subversively) increase the chance to proc above what it otherwise "ought to be" and then use the Chuck Lots Of Dice!! strategy to multiply that low proc chance into a cumulatively higher chance to proc. So yeah ... very interesting.

Yup ... it's that time again ... for Redlynne to dive back into the build planner and pull a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot out of the available possibilities, thanks to the work of Bopper (and everyone else who contributed!) to the Testing on how Procs Per Minute (PPM) really works thread. Ready to have your mind blown? Alright, here goes ... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ... So it was recently "discovered" (see above) why slotting the Gaussian's Build Up proc into Tactics provided such a poor yield performance when soloing a Rikti Pylon. Spoiler alert ... it's because Tactics has a huge area factor that does PPM procs no real favors when soloing. This in turn "floors" the Build Up chance to proc at 2.15% ... which because the Gaussian's Build Up is a 1 PPM proc ultimately resolves out to having the minimum 6.5% chance to proc. But then Tactics, being a toggle, doesn't check the chance to proc every 2s on every activation of the Tactics buff power ... it instead only checks the chance to proc once every 10s. So ... 6.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds for a 5.25s buff duration that on a Defender amounts to a +40% ToHit and a +80% Damage. Sounds like a major LOSER of a proposition, right? Well ... The "funny" thing is that Tactics is a 60 ft radius aura that can buff Teammates, not just yourself ... and every Teammate within that aura radius gives you a 6.5% chance to proc the Gaussian's Build Up every 10 seconds ... which winds up looking like this ... Team-1: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^1 = 06.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-2: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^2 = 12.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-3: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^3 = 18.2% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-4: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^4 = 23.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-5: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^5 = 28.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-6: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^6 = 33.1% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-7: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^7 = 37.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-8: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^8 = 41.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Alright. Raise your hand if you think that getting a 41.5% chance to proc a Build Up for +80% Damage every 10 seconds while you have yourself plus 7 Teammates within your Tactics aura radius is a worthwhile investment? Now cross compare that yield performance with what you could potentially be getting out of Soul Drain from either Dark Mastery or Soul Mastery. The only "useful" differences between the two Soul Drains (for our purposes) is the 2x recharge time on the Soul version and the 10 ft (Soul) vs 15 ft (Dark) versions of the Soul Drain power(s). On the logistical side of things, the Dark/Soul Drain version of the power requires 3 power picks (pre-requisite of 2 in Dark Mastery) while the Soul/Soul Drain version has no power pre-reqs. If you're dealing with a power picks and slot picks limitation (like I am with my Time/Dual Pistols/Soul builds) then doing what I'm suggesting here using a /Dark build starts becoming somewhat untenable simply due to not having enough powers and/or slots. Even with /Soul here, I'm having to do some significant compromising over previously posted build strategies just to shoehorn everything in. But at any rate ... back to the story of how to become a Build Up BOSS on a group of powersets that don't have an Aim/Buildup power built into them. With Soul/Soul Drain on a 62.5s recharge, it will functionally have a 90% chance to proc pretty much any procs that are put into the power, so using the Obliteration proc for what amounts to 2x damage, rather than the set's Damage IO for an extra +10 damage instead, becomes something of a No Brainer. But if you're able to get 7 $Targets into the PBAoE and debuff them, you'll have a 90% chance to gain +14% ToHit and +56% Damage buffing for yourself for 30 seconds of duration. 0.9 * 0.56 * (30/60) = +25% damage buffing per minute (average-ish) Compare that with what you could be getting out of Tactics with a Gaussian's Build Up proc in a Team-8 context ... of a 41.5% chance (statistically) of getting a +80% Damage buff for 5.25s ... every 10 seconds. Factor in the uptime on the buff and you get ... 0.415 * 0.8 * (5.25/10) = +17.4% damage buffing per minute (average-ish with Team-8 inside aura radius) Now stack on top of THAT the Decimation Build Up proc slotted into Pistols ... with a 6.5% chance of getting a +80% Damage buff for 5.25s every 3 seconds ... which translates out to a (statistical) 18.2% chance to proc every 9 seconds. 0.182 * 0.8 * (5.25/9) = +8.5% damage buffing per minute(ish, kinda sorta maybe-ish) Under the heading of Chuck Lots Of Dice!! at the opportunities for a Build Up proc, putting ALL THREE of these means of damage buffing yourself into a single build would ... statistically speaking (which means a presumption of Ideal Conditions™ to eliminate variables of cross-comparisons) the combination of Soul/Soul Drain with a Gaussian's Build Up proc in Tactics (in a Team-8 context) and a Decimation Build Up proc in Pistols would actually manage to rival the "perma-uptime" performance of Dark/Soul Drain ... assuming 7 $Targets getting drained every time Soul Drain is used (see: Ideal Conditions™ disclaimer warning label). It also opens up the very real possibility of scoring double (Soul Drain plus 1 Build Up proc) or even the extremely rare triple(!) (Soul Drain plus 2 Build Up procs!) being something that can happen when RNGesus smiles upon you. However, having two independent Build Up procs "harmonizing" around use of Soul/Soul Drain would make for a VERY interesting randomization for spikes of high damage output that ought to far exceed what Dual Pistols "ought to" be capable of producing (short of burning a lot of Inspirations to achieve the same effects). The downside of this performance profile would be its randomness (aside from Soul Drain itself), but the capacity for dramatically increased damage output would always be lurking within the build, waiting for procs to hit their chance and supercharge an entire attack chain rotation. Ah ... but what would such a monstrosity look like in practice? Well I'm glad you asked! If we stipulate use of all 9 Primary and all 9 Secondary powers, that leaves only 6 power picks left over for Pools. If 1 of those Pool picks is either Hover or Mystic Flight (so as to hang in the sky the way that bricks don't while shooting up a storm) ... and another 1 of those Pool picks is Hasten (because, Farsight and Chrono Shift functionally DEMAND use of Hasten) ... then that leaves only 4 more power picks left over. Getting to Leadership/Tactics requires 2 power picks from the Leadership Pool, and slots are already at enough of a premium that choosing Assault as the pre-req for Hasten makes a pretty decent amount of sense ... leaving only 2 power picks remaining. You can then choose Soul/Soul Drain and Soul/Power Boost as your last 2 power picks and manage to make everything "fit" into the overall build for power picks. Yeah ... it's THAT TIGHT on power picks. If you want to do essentially the same thing but go with /Dark instead of /Soul, you will need to "sacrifice" one (or more?) power picks from your Primary and/or Secondary powersets to accommodate Dark/Soul Drain if you also want to keep Leadership/Tactics for the Build Up proc in a toggle performance. But wait ... there's more. If you're like me and want to make sure you can actually manage to fit all of the needed slots into Tactics and Soul Drain, that means that you can't have either Tactics OR Soul Drain be your Level 49 power pick ... since Tactics, to 6-slot a full Gaussian's set, and Soul Drain, to 5-slot an Obliteration set, will both need to be chosen no later than Level 47 in order to be able to slot in 1-2 Level 48 slots and 3 Level 50 slots. And just to make the challenge even better, you must take 1 Leadership toggle power (either Maneuvers or Assault) before you can take Tactics. Now, if you're like me, and you prioritize getting all of your Secondary attack powers "as early as you can" while then filling in the gaps with your Primary powers in Tier sequence order (rather than skipping around) ... and you want to take your Travel(ish?) power at Level 6 so it will ALWAYS be available to you even if you Exemplar down to Level 1 then the earliest you can take Hasten is going to be at Level 30(!), just in time to support Chrono Shift (especially when Exemplared!). After that, the only remaining slots available are the Level 41, 44, 47 and 49 slots. Since Power Boost doesn't need any slots added to it, it can be relegated to the Level 49 power pick. Assault (in my case) NEEDS to be taken at Level 41 so as to enable Tactics in either the 44 or 47 slots. As far as Exemplar Friendly sequencing of powers goes, the Level 44 power pick becomes the "prime" location, since it is +5 Levels to a content breakpoint of Level 39 for a lot of Flashback and also Task Force/Strike Force content. Conversely, the Level 47 power pick stays active only for content in the Level 42+ content areas, while the Level 49 power pick is only relevant to Level 44+ content. For me, as you'll see in this build, that essentially means: 41: Assault 44: Soul Drain 47: Tactics 49: Power Boost One other major change from previous builds I've posted in this thread was the need to "pirate" a lot of proc slots from other powers so as to be able to "feed" those slots into Tactics to achieve a full 6-slot Gaussian's set. This may not be strictly necessary, although the set bonuses gained are somewhat nice. The "piracy" of proc slots came from: Time's Juncture loses its Pacing of the Turtle proc. Distortion Field loses its Pacing of the Turtle and Lockdown procs (so loss of 2 slots here). Hail of Bullets loses its Force Feedback proc. Soul Drain loses its Avalanche proc. However, the interesting thing (to me, anyway) is that the removed slots from Time's Juncture and Distortion Field will ultimately result in less "overlap" between duplicated procs that would not be able to stack with themselves, meaning that the shift into a full Gaussian's set in Tactics also yields better deconfliction of potential proc debuff sources in these powers. So ... here is what happened when I took the opportunity to push as much Build Up style procs and Soul Drain into the already existing framework I had for Time/Dual Pistols/Soul. There is a slight loss on the "No Escape" front due to the removal of debuff procs, but the compensation for that is a significant increase in damage production capability while on teams (particularly in Team-8 situations). So a little less control capability in exchange for more frequent spikes in damage output. For some people, this may prove a very tempting option, especially if they prefer to play in teams rather than solo. To be honest, I'm kind of shocked that this build has evolved so far as to reach THIS point. Enjoy ... IF YOU DARE ... | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1543;756;1512;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F135114C6EFB403D8520AD8226FA13CE4513A5079A82B13414D0C984| |6883BD38C30C0E830D374DA284B172EDDE8028D2ED4A8C846131F6074E5BF609087| |BA34F189FA07A8F574CE074C6492C9EFF6DCFB9D73EE77EF74E4E250E0D1F14B878| |5141C3454DB4E0E69939A39A1A5FD63DAF8B46919D6D4ACC83F45F4366C4E268F64| |272795317D464B8EA8A69ECA1A6A46B7CCBAADF953AA39A54D284359D54826743B6| |319B6284E5896A11C33F4A9E98CDF198FA6346DA2D4190E6B2AE9EC693D15E0657A| |C6D46CBBF6684A1F5706AD743A9BCA58E9E4A89535A8A49DD1D2B355D45117BDCB6| |1812727440D21EE13F1B2AD58819823D4C8C2731DBCC1946F82B78855B2289C979D| |DFFB492B412B7572AC30CADCD505C6987E05EC66F692D60BADB78F50E815659B7C9| |2EF4D16BB1724E66366F8B24788B02C7C647181C4FB28A8909C9EDE86D9F97CBEA2| |CF5EA746F80B73CF57F01BB3EA3BB8C1ECA35E7CACCDAD509E62CE2D172F7A9CF99| |A25F005B3EE25F88AFB59254D097C2D19E15EFB296729FA297DCAFEED7D063E0717| |998D4B20F6B746F9CA59EB2D5FE65A8DABCCC81AB84EF4C96280EA84503B34C0FEA| |D93BE02FA0AE8232BCC66E469469E77B4B692F7EBA9EC677D33D8026FDFD39A6ACE| |2755BFF138FB6B79CDF50F50FD5AECB3F61CFBD9729EB9CF00674093D966319BE8C| |0EA718EF551BE8F1FA85603FA6988F23D68BBC235DBAE310F52CD26D46C82B71DF0| |B603DE76C0DB4E78DBF9896A86647188B4ADAC955B7F53BEBD34F787D9F517CC81F| |91B5A4FF78FFA6C479FED11EEF3024D459D1B9793A3C813439E18F2C490A71B7942| |B45C41DFCA3DF6BFFB3EF880199F071F820B7C273E0684E8C139F7C0AB3AF9FFEF9| |9F6E28EE5E8113D3B22F11D91DE1D913E7724C6B987DD311FF51594C5C97C8CBDC9| |25E4ADFF0321E1EC7CDBDF796EC34FF3F05142CE9FDB318F14F13A772A704272CE2| |A705A727CFBE1D6B5B3EE975BD7C8B1E055F62C38C79EDD2EDFFEAEEFB8C6775DE3| |84DFD98D333EE31AABAEF159D7F81F618CF106| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| Level 50 Technology Defender Primary Power Set: Time Manipulation Secondary Power Set: Dual Pistols Power Pool: Flight Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery Hero Profile: Set Bonus Totals: Set Bonuses:

Hence why testing is needed to verify which "interpretation" of that snapshot of buffing at the time of summoning is needed.

Guess that's the difference between: /petcomall dismiss /releasepets Dismiss will cause your pets to "exit thematically" complete with emote action and everything. Release will cause your pets to "die" unceremoniously, leaving corpses on the ground. If you're in a hurry, such as needing to cast within a 5.25s window of opportunity, you want to /releasepets rather than dismiss them. Of course, if you do use /releasepets you kill them ALL, rather than killing off specific Tiers like you can with dismiss.

/Time is better for Ninja/ than /Force Fields is (or can be, really). Force Fields can't heal Ninjas ... while Time Manipulation can.

This is making me wonder about a Gaussian's Build Up proc prior to casting Enflame ... giving ALL of the Enflame patches the bonus Build Up damage ... So at this point we're pretty much sure that Gaussian's, when it procs, the Build Up buff effect is SELF ONLY. However, it can be slotted into aura powers like Tactics that permit multiple chances to proc every 10 seconds, multiplied by the number of teammates within that aura. On Masterminds, this then becomes something of an incentive to actually take (and use) the personal attack powers, in addition to any Pool powers that can be used for attacks. Trick question for Team-8 Mastermind deployments. If you summon Tier 1/2/3 Pets during a Gaussian's proc (via Tactics, presumably) ... does the +damage "permanently affect" those Pets beyond the 5.25s duration of the Build Up buff, because they were summoned while the Build Up buff was active? If so, then there might be a bit of an incentive to watch your Combat Tab so as to time/synchronize any Pet (re)summoning so as to coincide with Build Up procs. Note that as a solo Mastermind (so time isn't as much of a factor), what you could do is zone into an instance, summon all of your Pets (but not upgrade them) with the Gaussian's proc in Tactics (toggled on, of course), and just wait for the proc to happen. 1 - (1 - 0.065)^7 = 37.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds in Tactics Watch your combat log for a proc notice. When you see the Build Up proc, dismiss ONE Tier of Pets and resummon that Tier of Pets during the 5.25s duration of the Build Up proc. Wash/rinse/repeat for all 3 Tiers (or however many Tiers of Pets you have available to you). After summoning a Build Up buffed Tier of Pets, go ahead and upgrade them while waiting for the next chance to dismiss/resummon under Build Up. If the test dummies in the Vanguard Base in RWZ report accurate damage amounts, you can do your before/after testing on them of whether or not summoning Mastermind Pets while under a Build Up proc will "permanently" affect those summoned Pets until they are either defeated or you change zones (including into instances) with your Mastermind. Note that for extra bonus points, the above complicated process to time the summoning of each Tier of Pets may not be necessary in order to achieve the benefit. That's because every time you zone ... into an instance, move to a new map, etc. ... all of your Pets that you had in the previous zone are automagically "resummoned" into the new zone upon entry. This means that if you've got the Gaussian's proc slotted into a power like Tactics and you have all of your Pets summoned already, all you would need to do is WAIT at the zone change point (mission door, portal, tram, tunnel, etc.) for a Build Up proc to happen and then QUICKLY CHANGE ZONES before the proc expires(!). This ought to "work" for putting a Build Up proc buff onto ALL of your Mastermind Pets in parallel since the current state of your character is saved when you change zones, meaning that the Build Up buff ought to "carry over" into the new zone when you enter (and expire shortly thereafter due to 5.25s duration and reaction time speeds). The idea being that you'll enter the new zone with the Build Up buff still active "through" the zone change ... and your Mastermind Pets will ALL be "resummoned" after the zone change, causing them to benefit from the Build Up buff affecting your Mastermind during the zone change. In other words, clever use of game mechanics. 😎 Again, this would be relatively easy to test for a Mastermind who has slotted the Gaussian's proc into Tactics and has all of their Pets summoned. Stand by at a zone transition to the Rikti War Zone and only chance zones after Gaussian's procs Build Up. Once you've entered RWZ, complete any missing upgrades on Pets and then march them over to the test dummies. Command your Pets to attack the test dummies to check to see if your Pets are now "perma Build Up(ped)" by virtue of carefully choosing when to change zones while under the Build Up effect on your Mastermind. Note that if this works, you can develop habits to ... exploit ... this behavior more routinely for your own benefit, regardless of how many teammates you have (as a Mastermind). Any questions?

All you need is Serge ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk1CKSOm5dg

For some reason, that combo brings this to mind ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-3e0EkvIEM

Um ... copy/pasted from Kinetic Crash ... as advertised?

Similar problem with the Defender version of Empty Clips from the Dual Pistols powerset. While on the ground, it will animate correctly ... but while airborne (using Hover in this case) the animation skews 90º to the avatar's right. This FEELS like the animation is "right" but it's just being played on the wrong XYZ axis (as in, "point the cone" on the X axis, not the Z axis, kind of thing). This makes me think that the root cause for this issue may ultimately be ... A TYPO in the coding.

Easy to say/post. Stupidly absurd in difficulty to try to implement as a developer/programmer without breaking something/EVERYTHING.

Hmm. According to City of Data the buff effect only counts Teammates ... so it might not be as easy as just going to Atlas Park and using the cluster around Ms Liberty for "testing purposes" without them knowing/noticing. Conversely, standing around a TF NPC waiting to fill up a team ought to provide an almost ideal opportunity to test this, where you've got 2-7 people idling within range of your Tactics Aura for "a while" ...

I might have found an excuse for the poor performance you've reported here.

Tactics Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up Set Bonuses: Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control (Tactics) 7.5% SpeedJumping, 7.5% JumpHeight, 7.5% SpeedFlying, 7.5% SpeedRunning 19.08 HP (1.88%) HitPoints 2.5% (0.04 End/sec) Recovery 2.5% DamageBuff(All) 2.5% Defense(Melee), 1.25% Defense(Lethal), 1.25% Defense(Smashing), 2.5% Defense(Ranged), 1.25% Defense(Energy), 1.25% Defense(Negative), 2.5% Defense(AoE), 1.25% Defense(Fire), 1.25% Defense(Cold) Using Level 27+21 Proc IOs: Endurance Discount: 58.98% Recharge Time: 58.98% ToHit: 52.89% Using Level 50+21 Proc IOs: Endurance Discount: 73.78% (Pre-ED: 74.20%) Recharge Time: 73.78% (Pre-ED: 74.20%) ToHit: 57.52% (Pre-ED: 70.13%) Prob = PPM x ActivatePeriod / (60 x AreaMod) AreaMod = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540) / 40,000 Gaussians proc PPM = 1 Minimum probability is confirmed at 5% + PPM x 1.5% = 6.5% Radius: 60 Activation period: 2s for Tactics, but the activation period used in a toggle is set to 10s Max Targets: 255 PPM * ActivatePeriod / (60 * (1 + Radius * (11 * Arc + 540) / 40000)) 1 * 10 / (60 * (1 + 60 * (11 * 360 + 540) / 40000)) = 2.15% (!) Due to minimum proc chance clamping, the chance to proc Gaussian's in Tactics is 6.5% every 10 seconds. With 6 chances to proc every minute this results in a 1 - (1 - 0.065)^6 = 33.18% chance to proc (at least) once per minute. Congratulations! By putting a 1 PPM proc into Tactics you've turned it into what amounts to a 1 PP3M …!! This then explains why a PPM governed Tactics is kind of terrible(!) … for a soloist. I'm reasonably sure that when Gaussian's procs, it only buffs the caster and doesn't proc "for" every Ally within the radius. However, this brings up the intriguing prospect that Gaussian's proc might receive 1 proc chance per Ally within 60 ft of the caster, which then benefits the caster if it does proc (limit 1 proc per 10 seconds, so it doesn't stack). In that case you're looking at the following matrix of possibilities … Team-1: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^1 = 06.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-2: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^2 = 12.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-3: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^3 = 18.2% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-4: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^4 = 23.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-5: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^5 = 28.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-6: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^6 = 33.1% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-7: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^7 = 37.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds Team-8: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^8 = 41.5% chance to proc every 10 seconds League-16: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^16 = 65.8% chance to proc every 10 seconds League-24: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^24 = 80.0% chance to proc every 10 seconds League-32: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^32 = 88.3% chance to proc every 10 seconds League-34: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^34 = 89.8% chance to proc every 10 seconds League-35: 1 - (1 - 0.065)^35 = 90.0% (90.4%) chance to proc every 10 seconds Needless to say, you won't see this kind of performance profile while trying to solo a Pylon for testing purposes … provided this assumption about how multiple Allies receiving the Tactics buff will increase the quantity of proc chances every 10 seconds when the proc is "allowed" to check for a successful proc. Also, this is assuming that Gaussian's is coded to proc off Allies the same way that Force Feedback is coded to proc off Enemies (it may not be). Tested? No … not yet. This is pure theorycrafting, but with predictions like these ought to be relatively easy to test. Part of this may depend on how Tactics is coded to handle procs like Gaussian's (since there might be extra "nerfing" going on in there we don't know about).

I have not tested (my Corruptor is only Level 10) but I'm pretty darn sure that the Stun proc will "work" in Heat Loss. This was more a "concept first" type of character, rather than an attempt to min/max beyond the bleeding edge. I basically wanted to make a "water mage" type of character, and this looked like the best way to accomplish that goal.

Try 5-slotting Decimation with the Build Up proc into Pistols. 😎 THAT'S your (poor man's) Build Up that you can proc more than once per minute.