Redlynne

Ninjas are really good IF THEY LIVE ... the problem is keeping them alive with next to no protection built into them by default. Solve their survival problem and they (*ahem*) kick butt and stomp on names.

Honestly? I'm of the opinion that none of the Time Manipulation powers are skippable in the sense that they do things you don't need or want to do, as a Mastermind.

Full Auto in the Blaster, Corruptor, and Defender versions of the Assault Rifle powerset are all 60s recharge times ... which is "fine" when you can slot for (and gain the benefit of) Recharge Reduction enhancement. Pets are completely unaffected by Recharge enhancement. AT ALL. So a recharge number that makes a lot of sense on a PC makes little to no sense on an NPC that cannot be affected by Recharge modification (positive or negative). The net result is a gimped (granted) power that is used so infrequently as to be only slightly better than nothing. I mean, we're talking a base damage production of 1.4 DPS per second of recharge once per minute with no opportunity or means to have that improved by recharge reduction. I'd say that reducing the recharge time of Full Auto to 24 seconds (a 2.5x reduction) and LRM down to 24 seconds also (a 10x reduction) would go a LONG WAY towards correcting this ... injustice ... to Mercenaries.

I'd consider Mace Mastery ... but only so as to access Power Boost in order to augment */Time effects.

Solo ... I'd say it's middle of the pack for damage production, slightly below a Blaster and competing with a Corruptor. Probably exceeding what a Sentinel can output, simply because of the stacked Leadership Auras. I'd honestly put the Crab (with backpack attacks or rifle attacks) on par with either a Mastermind or a Kheldian in terms of survivability, largely thanks to Serum and the designed preference for attacking from Range combined with the stacked Leadership Auras. Likewise, I'd put the build ahead of Sentiels on this score too. So not the absolute "best" at any of these parameters, but certainly a "contender" as an All Rounder™ while solo. In teams though, the double stacked Leadership Auras turn you into a permanent force multiplier. I can easily imagine 8 Crab builds being able to "mosey" through almost anything short of Devouring Earth Quartz emanators (which wouldn't survive long against the massed firepower AoEs) and of course Rularuu Eyeballs (with their stupidly broken +ToHit buffs). I'm thinking that 8 Crabs running an ITF would be humorously quick.

Yeah. It was annoying to learn that's how the code hash chunks worked (active build only, no alternate slotting included). It was more a matter of dropping in (unique) Purple Sets into various things so as to maximize them. A number of the purple Sets with a proc in them work perfectly fine at 5 slots if you skip the single purpose IO (that winds up being wasted by ED).

Oh and +1 Inf for that gloriously appropriate reply. *^_^*

I hear that someone has taken my name in vain again. Now who would be so- Oh. Sorry. The biggest thing that will determine your performance is going to be HOW you engage, tactically, and in a broader sense the toolkit of strategies you use to engage. How you maneuver and position yourself relative to your Foes and your own allies (and Pets) will make a huge difference in the outcomes you can produce. After a cursory examination of */Nature for Masterminds (I'm not steeped in history with the powerset), I'm thinking that Nature is a slightly better "fit" for a Mastermind Primary that wants to be attacking from range rather than melee as a matter of simple positioning. Which leads me to a really odd choice of primary ... Mercenaries ... slotted with Achilles' Heel for increasing the amount of Resistance debuffing and therefore the damage throughput you're able to inflict from your Pets and team. That turns you into a force multiplier of Resistance debuffing, and you stack that with the Resistance debuffing available from */Nature. Agreed. If you can heal your Pets en masse, via either Cone or PBAoE or Target AoE, you want to be using Bodyguard to your advantage in which your Pets help your Mastermind "soak" incoming damage and in effect multiply the effectiveness of your healing in a way that favors you ... particularly if you're able to soak the alpha strike (even if there's Mez in it) so your Pets and your spousal overunit Controller ally are free to counterattack with your own debuffing and controls to "ruin the day" of whoever opposes you. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking might work well for you.

That was my conclusion. Martial Arts (and Super Reflexes in combo with Martial Arts) is simply better/more synergistic on Tankers (and presumably Brutes) than on Scrappers. Of course, I figure that a major factor in that was the whole buff 'n' polish those sets got from being ported over to those other archetypes in a way that makes them "competitive" for the game as it stood when the ports were made ... as opposed to needing to struggle with a legacy of being "competitive" in Issue 0.

More like "give item to Other" has a basic limited range that doesn't discriminate between PC or NPC at the game mechanical level. Then again, I've always thought of other PCs on teams with my Mastermind as being especially poorly behaved Minions ... or words to that effect. I mean ... they'll run into melee when they're not supposed to (for starters) ... /em roll eyes

Sounds like a database transcription error, where the Dev entering data into fields put them in backwards.

City of Heroes is an EDUCATION ... for parents and children alike. The worst thing you could do with this opportunity ... is squander it ... just like NC$oft did in 2012. Don't make their mistake. Give your kid the gift of a lifetime. Give them the chance to DREAM WITH YOU.

To quote Captain Kirk in the episode "The Galileo Seven" ...

No objection. Please proceed ...

Looks like I was using slightly inaccurate info in my post upthread. I should have just quoted my calculations from my SR/MA post ...

An App? Why not a HTML5 web page that we can link to?

And here I was thinking of how many Costume Contests you could hold under Atlas ...

I have experience with Ice/* (obviously) but no experience at all with Radiation on any Archetype, I really don't feel "qualified" to comment on the combination of Ice/Radiation on a Tanker. For me, I found the -Recharge stacking of Ice/Ice to be extremely useful, but your mileage may vary (of course).

Pretty safe to assume that's the case.

Pretty sure they do ...

You're not doing something wrong. For whatever reason, build exports will NOT include the alternate slotting of enhancements on builds ... which is very frustrating. The Save file will keep the alternative slotting, but the Export to text will not. This means that whenever I get around to reposting all of these builds I've written up using a future version of Pine (or whatever replaces Pine) I'll need to have TWO code hash chunks posted so as to give the Main + Alternative Slotting options to everyone.

City of Data: Eagle's Claw Cast Time: 2.53 seconds Critical Hit Buff lasts 2 seconds starting 1.2 seconds into the animation of Eagle's Claw. This means that from 1.2 through 3.2 seconds after starting Eagle's Claw's animation, you have a +33% Critical Hit chance buff ... but Eagle's Claw is still animating until ~2.5 seconds after initiating the attack animation. This means that once Eagle's Claw has finished animating, you'll retain the +33% Critical Hit buff to your "next" Primary Powerset attack for 0.7 seconds ... which is shorter than the animation times for ANY Martial Arts attacks, meaning you get the buff for only ONE follow up attack after using Eagle's Claw. In practice, thanks to latency/lag and other issues, this essentially means that the only way to "score" this increased Critical Hit chance on the attack following Eagle's Claw is if you cue your Martial Arts attack "halfway" through Eagle's Claw animating for 2.5 seconds so as to ensure that the Critical Hit buff "counts" on your next attack due to how game mechanically everything Resolves First And Animates After. Storm Kick has a natively increased chance for a Critical Hit and therefore gets the "most" benefit out of following Eagle's Claw against a single target. Use of Dragon's Tail to follow Eagle's Claw results in an increased Critical Hit chance against every $Target caught in the PBAoE which can dramatically improve the damage output/throughput of Dragon's Tail when dealing with dogpile situations. On a Tanker, since Tankers don't get Critical Hits, the Eagle's Claw buff to follow up attacks is changed to having a 3 second duration, instead of merely a 2 second duration, and instead adds +33% damage for that duration. This means that the damage buff duration extends from 1.2 to 4.2 seconds after Eagle's Claw begins animating for ~2.5 seconds, leaving about ~1.7 seconds clear for follow up attacks. It is possible with the use of attack queue techniques to squeeze THREE attacks into that window of opportunity after an Eagle's Claw finishes animating. You can fit Thunder Kick, Storm Kick AND one other Martial Arts attack into that 1.7 window of opportunity to queue up attacks while other attacks are animating (thereby securing the buff effect onto them) even though the animation time for all three of those attacks combined will easily exceed the ~1.7 second window when the buff is in effect ... thanks to the Resolve First Animate After system used for game mechanics.

You're probably going to hate me for this answer, but ... It Depends™ ... on the situation and the opposition you're facing (and how many allies you've got at your disposal to attract attention Away From You). It also depends on what Level you're playing at, since Exemplar can restrict what powers you have access to (and the amount of Enhancement value you get out of your slots). Unlike some people, I don't just assume that once I reach Level 50 I'm never going to play anything Level 1-49 ever again. So the answer to the question CHANGES depending on what is "needed" at any given time. You play differently in a target rich environment when there is no Mez coming your way than you do when there's lots of Mez coming your way (for example). There are more complexities involved in the actual gameplay under a variety of circumstances than a One Size Fits All answer will provide you. Which I suppose is a rather long winded way of saying "git gud" and you'll enjoy yourself a whole lot more with the toolbox that Time/Dual Pistols/Dark makes available to you. The only challenge is ... can YOU (the Player) keep up with figuring out, from moment to moment, which options lead to the best advantages as situations and circumstances evolve? If you can't, you might enjoy playing something else that doesn't require as much mental agility and situational awareness to play at a high level of skill ... and the loss of a potential for Scrapperlock while playing a Defender. Trust me, when you're IN THE ZONE of Scrapperlock it can become a VERY addictive feeling!

Did you miss the melee, ranged and AoE defense being around 60% Well I know I didn't miss that part ...