Redlynne

Somehow, this build came out even more awesome than I'd been anticipating or expecting it might. And although it is definitely built around my playstyle preferences as a Mastermind (meaning it's probably not something everyone will like), there are almost certainly going to be a few "gems" in the slotting choices I've made which will appeal to other people for their builds. The build you see posted here in the forums is the "budget" build version that isn't loaded out with Level 50 Purple IOs. If you load the data chunk into Pine (or Mids') and use the Flip To Alternate for Slots, you'll see what happens when you do replace (some) of the Set IOs with Level 50 Purple versions. The primary consideration for this build is ... Ninja Pet SURVIVAL. Dead Ninjas do no damage output (until resummoned). With that in mind, the Pet Set IOs that add +Defense to Pets are slotted into the Genin, Jounin and Oni powers so as to "spread" their demand for slots around. Note that the Oni is somewhat uniquely slotted to deliver not only the standard Acc/Dam/End mix, but also Mez in this build ... although it will require HOs in order to achieve that final peak of performance. If memory serves, Genin natively have 7.5% Defense (All) and both the Jounin and Oni have like 11.2% Defense (All) ... and that's it. The only way to (wastefully!) increase that with slotting is to either put Defense enhancements into their respect powers (not recommended!) or to augment their Defense with Secondary and Pool powers. In this case, I'm using +Defense to Pet IOs which add a whopping +20% Defense to all of the Ninjas ... along with (Power Boosted) Farsight and Maneuvers to increase their respective Defense values. Layered on top of all that Defense is Time's Juncture, slotted up for ToHit Debuffing to give my Ninjas even more of a safety margin when it comes to avoiding attacks (and the damage that they deliver). All of this combined ought to push my Ninjas well into (and beyond?) the Defense Softcap while $Targets are within the PBAoE of Time's Juncture. Likewise, the combination of Time's Juncture ToHit Debuffing along with Farsight and Maneuvers Defense Buffing ought to push my Mastermind into Defense Softcap territory as well, which means it's "safer" for my Mastermind to get in close with my Ninjas in melee, rather than standing back and observing from afar. Anyone seriously looking at this build will notice very quickly that ... there's a LOT of -Recharge procs built into this ... and there's a reason for that. The -Recharge procs will last for 20 seconds, and the -Recharge when procced is something that the $Target casts onto themselves ... meaning that the debuff "cuts through" the Purple Triangles of Doom, since the debuff is being imposed by the $Target onto themselves, rather than being something cast on them by your character (which can be resisted). The point and purpose of all of the Slow built into Distortion Field and all of the -Recharge procs that would get brought to bear from Distortion Field and (presumably) Time's Juncture is to effectively "neutralize" $Targets inside of a No Escape Zone inside of which my Ninja are (in effect) "free" to add insult to injuries with near impunity. All of that -Recharge debuffing and Defense softcapping combined results in a very SAFE SPACE inside of which my Ninjas can "go to work" on dispatching anything and everything I direct them towards. So while this isn't exactly a City of Statues™ build (per se), it certainly endeavors to come really close to it. My adversaries unload their attacks ... MISS everyone ... and then get forcibly faceplanted before their attacks can be recharged. So the net result is that my Mastermind has no damaging personal attacks ... at all ... in this build. But that's okay, because my "job" as a Mastermind is to "direct traffic" and support my Ninjas as a "controller" who needs to manage way too many Pets. And funnily enough ... I took Provoke out of the Presence Pool, so as to have a Target AoE Taunt as yet another way to keep damage from going into my (flimsy) Ninjas. Keeping hostile attention on my Mastermind while in Bodyguard Mode allows ALL of my Ninjas to "share my pain" if any incoming damage leaks through the combined +Defense and -ToHit Debuffing, and if we're fighting in formation together I can heal ALL of us with a single Click by using Temporal Mending ... which has been slotted with the Preventative Medicine set to grant a +Absorb proc chance for even MORE opportunity to mitigate incoming damage. This way, even if my Ninjas pull aggro, I can always draw that aggro back onto myself and spread the damage across all my Ninjas, making the collection of us all much MUCH harder to Defeat, while at the same time making it easier for my Ninjas to do what they do best ... BEATDOWNS. So in that respect, my Mastermind is something of a "mendicant" who wouldn't (can't?) hurt anyone ... but who leads an army on Ninjas who CAN. Anyway, enough pontificating in satisfaction ... here's the build plan for this monstrosity that neutralizes enemies and empowers Ninjas to do everything they can to eliminate my enemies. Behold ... the Tankermindroller!

You only need SG Prestige if costs for SG Bases are greater than zero. SG Base costs are set to zero ... hence there is no demand/use/need for Prestige anywhere in the game.

Super Reflexes is the path of No Get HITSU!! Stray from the path at your own peril. Note: Medicine Pool is recommended for anyone playing Super Reflexes, because you're going to need to recover from the hits that "leak" through your Defenses (and hit you at full strength).

ALL Knock* effects rely on the same magnitude system. KnockDOWN is simply KnockBACK with a MAG of less than 1. Most of the time this will be MAG 0.67 or MAG 0.75 by default if you go digging around in the data for powers (helpful link provided for the curious). KnockBACK is simply KnockBACK with a MAG of 1 or greater. Most of the time this will be MAG 1.25 or greater. KnockUP is simply KnockBACK with the vector for the Knock direction changed. Instead of being "away from caster" it is instead "away from down/ground" ... that's the only difference. It is, however, a distinctly different function call from the powers database, even though it uses the same MAG of Knock system as the previous two options. Incorrect. ANY Knock* MAG of below 1 is what Players consider to be a KnockDOWN (because that's what it "looks like" to a Player). ANY Knock* MAG of 1 or more will "move" a target from its original location (dramatically more in cases of increased MAG). This is the reason why you can take a Level 50 PC into Atlas Park and "golf" Level 1 Hellions with a KnockDOWN power ... because the level differential (50 vs 1) multiplies the MAG of the KnockDOWN so much that it becomes a KnockBACK effect (because the MAG gets modified to be (much?) greater than 1). Observe ... Air Superiority ... is a 0.75 KnockUP effect. Levitate in Mind Control ... is a 12.463 KnockUP effect. Both of these powers "throw $Target into the air" because they are KnockUP effects. The only difference between them as far as KnockUP goes is the MAG. Air Superiority "flips" the $Target in place, but they don't really go anywhere, because the MAG is (supposed to be) below 1. Consequently, far too many people interpret this as a KnockDOWN when it's actually a "low power" KnockUP effect. Levitate will "toss" the $Target into the air with a pretty decent hang time, because the MAG is in excess of 1 (by a good bit). If you slot Levitate with Knockback enhancers, you'll increase the "loft" distance of the power. Don't believe me? Look at the City of Data reference links I've provided here. This is just one of those things that everyone "thinks they know" ... when in fact they don't actually know what's going on under the (game mechanical) hood. Um ... slots are tight enough already on Peacebringers ... I'd rather have the solution baked into the game mechanics at the database level, rather than needing to waste up to 12 slots on fixing a problem that has existed since Issue 3. Also, I don't see any KnockBACK to KnockUP converter IOs lying around anywhere, because this is a change that has to be made at the powers database level. It's not something that can be slotted into a Power as an enhancement.

I just posted [Proposal] UNGIMPING basic Peacebringer design game mechanics in the Kheldian Forum while you were doing this. Please relocate this proposal to the (now) correct forum where the Dev Team can peruse (and hopefully implement everything suggested).

The second change that I would recommend is correcting the insult to injury that is the difference between Pulsar (Peacebringer power) and Gravimetric Emanation (Warshade power). Just look at the disparity between these two powers. Pulsar PvE damage scale: 0.000000 Accuracy: 0.8 Cast time: 3 seconds Endurance cost: 15.6 Attack types: (PB)AOE Effect area: Sphere Radius: 20 feet Max targets hit: 10 13.41s Stunned (mag 2) (PvE) 13.41s Stunned (mag 1) (50% chance) (PvE) 2s Stunned (mag 2) (PvP) Gravitic Emanation PvE damage scale: 0.400000 Accuracy: 1 Cast time: 1 seconds Endurance cost: 14.352 Effect area: Cone Radius: 40 feet Arc: 45 degrees Max targets hit: 10 17.8 Negative damage (PvE) 9.347 Knockback (PvE) 13.41s Stunned (mag 3) (PvE) 65.05 Negative damage (PvP) 9.347 Knockback (PvP) 2s Stunned (mag 3) (PvP) -20% Str(JumpHeight, RechargeTime) for 10s (PvE and PvP) -20% SpeedJumping, SpeedRunning, SpeedFlying for 10s (PvE and PvP) So ... cross-comparing these two powers against each other, point by point ... Damage Scale: advantage Warshade (0.0 vs 0.4) Accuracy: advantage Warshade (0.8 vs 1.0) Cast Time: advantage Warshade (3s vs 1s) Endurance Cost: advantage Warshade (15.6 vs 14.352) Stunned MAG: advantage Warshade (2 w/ 50% chance for 3 vs 3 every time) Stunned Duration: equal (13.41s each) Damage: advantage Warshade (0.0 vs 17.8 Negative) Knock Effect: advantage Warshade (0.0 vs 9.347) Stun Powers Available to Archetype for Stun Stacking: advantage Warshade (Pulsar vs Gravitic Emanation AND Inky Aspect) There is literally NO aspect of Pulsar that is in ANY WAY superior ... let alone on par, aside from Stun Duration ... with Gravitic Emanation for a Warshade. Each and every single parameter you care to look at is qunatitatively superior for a Warshade than a Peacebringer when it comes to being able to use (and stack!) Stuns on $Targets. There simply IS NO CONTEST here. Everything about these two powers tilts towards the Warshades ... including the fact that Gravitic Emanation can increase the area that it affects by slotting Range enhancements into the power, while Pulsar canNOT increase its area of effect because it's a PBAoE sphere. So right from the get-go, it is beyond obvious that the Peacebringer power Pulsar is GIMPED BY DESIGN compared to its direct counterpart in Gravitic Emanation. I therefore propose the following changes be made to Pulsar for Peacebringers. Reduce Recharge from 45 seconds to 20 seconds Increase base Stun MAG from 2 to 3, but keep the 50% chance for +1 MAG Stun as is Add 9.347 KnockUP effect (PvE and PvP) and add ability to slot Knockback enhancements into Pulsar The net effect of these modifications to Pulsar would be to allow Pulsar to: Stack With Itself since there are no other Stun Powers available in the Peacebringer powerset(s) for Pulsar to stack with (unlike the Gravitic Emanation+Inky Aspect combo) Match the base Stun MAG of Gravitic Emanation (at 3) with a 50% chance to add +1 Stun MAG (for a total of 4) capable of one hit Stun against Bosses Give the power the Knock (in this case, UP) effect it needs to be able to slot in Knockback enhancements and sets, with the Kinetic Crash and Force Feedback sets being of especial interest. Pulsar: 3s animation + 20s recharge = 23s Gravitic Emanation: 1s animation + 45s recharge = 46s Unenhanced ... a Peacebringer ought to be able to deliver and recharge 2 Pulsars (23*2=46s) in the time it takes a Warshade to deliver and recharge 1 Gravitic Emanation (46s) ... because Peacebringers have nothing to stack Pulsar Stun with, while Warshades have Inky Aspect to stack Gravitic Emanation Stun with (pretty much immediately). Over to you, Homecoming Dev Team ...

Far back in the mists of ancient time (as in Dec 2011) Peacebringers remained saddled with a mistake of poor game mechanical design choices that had been inflicted upon them since Issue 3 when they were first introduced. Thanks to the Cottage Rule there was never a serious attempt made to correct the deficiencies arising from the fundamental underpinnings of the design of 12 Peacebringer powers. The basic mistake was mapping Energy Blast/Energy Melee "too closely" (or perhaps "too faithfully") onto Peacebringers without fully realizing or understanding the self-gimping burden that doing those simple (stupid?) ports of powers over directly would yield and result in when actually played. What mistake? Well, actually there are two of them ... but the first one is this ... Peacebringer Human Form KB Powers Gleaming Blast (Ranged): 1.869 KnockBACK (10% chance) Radiant Strike (Melee): 2 KnockBACK (60% chance) Luminous Detonation (Target AoE): 3.739 KnockBACK (50% chance) Incandescent Strike (Melee): 0.67 KnockBACK (80% chance) Solar Flare (PBAoE): 4.154 KnockBACK (80% chance) Photon Seekers (Pet): 2.077 KnockBACK (50% chance) Dawn Strike (PBAoE): 18.694 KnockBACK (100% chance) Peacebringer Nova Form KB Powers Bright Nova Blast (Ranged): 1.869 KnockBACK (10% chance) Bright Nova Detonation (Target AoE): 3.739 KnockBACK (50% chance) Peacebringer Dwarf Form KB Powers White Dwarf Strike (Melee): 0.67 KnockBACK (30% chance) White Dwarf Smite (Melee): 0.67 KnockBACK (30% chance) White Dwarf Flare (PBAoE): 0.67 KnockBACK (80% chance) Now in the context of the game's design in Issue 3 ... a lot of this made a lot of sense, since this is pretty much a slightly "nerfed" port of Energy Blast over to Peacebringers, with the "nerf" side of things being the combination of KnockBACK with the RANDOM chances, yielding a frustratingly inconsistent (to the point of being downright unhelpful) combination of Knockabout factors that can easily overwhelm pretty much any attempts at coordination or strategy in group play (let alone Herd & Burn strategies for farming). The Player can mitigate SOME of these problems through good gameplay (mainly good 3D angle to target positioning) whenever possible, but that isn't always possible due to map terrain features, resulting in unwanted performance results that are under extremely limited Player control. I therefore propose the following changes be made to these powers here on the Homecoming servers to ... correct this legacy mistake ... Peacebringer Human Form KB Powers Gleaming Blast (Ranged): 1.869 KnockUP (10% chance) Radiant Strike (Melee): 2 KnockUP (60% chance) Luminous Detonation (Target AoE): 3.739 KnockUP (50% chance) Incandescent Strike (Melee): 0.67 KnockUP (80% chance) Solar Flare (PBAoE): 4.154 KnockUP (80% chance) Photon Seekers (Pet): 2.077 KnockUP (50% chance) Dawn Strike (PBAoE): 18.694 KnockUP (100% chance) Peacebringer Nova Form KB Powers Bright Nova Blast (Ranged): 1.869 KnockUP (10% chance) Bright Nova Detonation (Target AoE): 3.739 KnockUP (50% chance) Peacebringer Dwarf Form KB Powers White Dwarf Strike (Melee): 0.67 KnockUP (30% chance) White Dwarf Smite (Melee): 0.67 KnockUP (30% chance) White Dwarf Flare (PBAoE): 0.67 KnockUP (80% chance) Note that the MAGnitutde and proc chance for Knock effects remain UNCHANGED. The only change that I am proposing to make here is to alter the VECTOR of the Knock effects, so as to orient them "UP" (away from the nadir and towards the sky/heavens) in every case, rather than orient them "AWAY" from the Peacebringer casting their power(s). My rationale for this edit/change of the Peacebringer powers in this way is as follows ... Warshades are a GRAVITY based archetype. So many of their powers thematically involve INCREASING Gravity on affected $Targets (just read the names of the powers if you're not sure about this point). Gravimetric Snare Gravity Well Gravitic Emanation Gravity Shield The game mechanical effect of (increased) Gravity was decided to be expressed as a generalized (universal) Movement Slow and Recharge Debuffing effects. Peacebringers are thematically the "opposites" of Warshades on a whole host of levels (light versus dark being just the start of it). So what's the ... (equal and) opposite ... of a Gravity Increase? Duh ... ANTI-GRAVITY ... Simply from a thematic/conceptual standpoint, what Peacebringer powers that do Knock effect ought to be doing is applying an Anti-Gravity Field to their $Targets, which will "launch them upwards" from the ground/planet they're standing on towards the STARS and SPACE that they consider to be "home" for them as a space-faring species. This means that their powers would be UNLIKE those of a Energy Blast or a Force Field "push" resulting in KnockBACK, where the vector of acceleration is angled away from the caster and through the $Target. In effect, what Peacebringers ought to be doing is temporarily REVERSING GRAVITY (subject to the RNG chances of success depending on the power) on their $Targets, which would result in those $Targets being hurled away FROM THE PLANET underneath them ... rather than being knocked back away from the Peacebringer. In other words, the Peacebringer's powers ought to not be pushing $Targets away from the Peacebringer (KnockBACK) ... but rather pushing $Targets away from the local source of Gravity, meaning the PLANET (KnockUP). Make that one little edit to 12 Peacebringer attack powers and the Archetype will suddenly gain in popularity AND in team friendliness. Change KnockBACK into KnockUP for all Peacebringer attack powers and you will have "solved" a mistake that was made before 2005 and which never got corrected by Cryptic/Paragon Studios in 8 years. That's all that's required to make Peacebringers what they SHOULD HAVE BEEN ... rather than what they WERE.

Coalitions "can" work ... but last I checked (Issue 23) there was a limit to the number of SGs that can be in a single coalition (10).

What I always did was on a designated character go into the keybind editing section of the in-game UI ... reset all of the keybinds to default ... and then commanded the game to export the default keybinds to a text file for me. I could then go into that text file and edit everything (to be the way I wanted stuff by default for ALL of my characters) as a default starting point. I would then make "keybind modifier" files for each of my characters to add on their special keybinds relevant to each one (Mastermind and Kheldian had multiple files for all of this). That then let me "reload" everything from saved text files until I got everything working JUST SO™ and I was happy with them. Looking at the export of the default keybinds text file will be a great primer on figuring out how to edit up the bind files. You then just use /bindloadfile {path to txt file} in order to load the file into the character.

Your GAME CLIENT is in the Pacific timezone ... but the GAME SERVER isn't ... and the differential between those two time zones might be at fault for the Timed Missions "instantly" timing out due to a flaw in the coding.

NUMPAD0 to NUMPAD9: 0-9 on the Numpad NUMLOCK: Num Lock key DIVIDE: / key on the Numpad MULTIPLY: * key on the Numpad SUBTRACT: - key on the Numpad ADD: + key on the Numpad NUMPADENTER: Enter key on the Numpad

AZURIA

I wonder if this might be a Server Time Zone issue. The original CoH servers were hosted in Pacific time, so they may have everything (unfortunately) hardwired to key the timed missions to Pacific time, but then the timed missions "flub" that server time handoff and because of the time zone differences the timed mission auto expires "immediately" (in effect). That might explain the wacky behavior people are reporting.

Looks like the poll won't let me "unvote" in order to "revote" for this.

If memory serves, the reason for the change is that Footstomp type powers require a groundbound avatar ... because AIRstomp doesn't work ... so the power was reworked to be a Handclap type power instead, which doesn't care about where the ground is in relation to the avatar. It was just one of the limitations of the game engine.

I played a Ninja/Trick Arrow back before shutdown and Ninjas basically have no native/inherent survivability on their own. They fold faster than wet origami paper without an assist from your Secondary. You CAN slot them for bonuses to +DEF and +RES using Set IOs, but even then that won't get them even halfway towards being "sturdy" without buff and/or debuff support from your Secondary. What kind of support? -Recharge -Speed -To Hit +Defense +Resistance Kinetics offers essentially NOTHING helpful in that regard. Speed Boosted Ninjas will simply suicide faster. One option you might want to try doing is using the Taunt powers out of the Presence Pool, for better Tankerminding in Bodyguard Mode. Ninjas are reasonably decent so long as they're not grabbing aggro. The thing is, almost anything can look at them funny and your Ninjas will keel over almost pre-emptively. Bottom line ... you may want to reroll with a different Secondary. Ninja/Force Fields will make them pretty darn sturdy by helping them get on up towards the Defense Softcap. Natively, they're at like 7.5% and 11% Defense unsupported ... which is NOTHING as far as a protection scheme goes.

The proc chance for the NUKE FX was probably lower than 1%, so it won't be going off all the time unless you've got a lot of (individually discrete) attacks going on. Powers like Caltrops (or any other "rain" power for that matter) would I expect have a chance to proc like a Toggle ... meaning once per 10 seconds.

We need a forum (or at least a subforum) to hold all the patch notes in one centralized/easy to access location. That would then let us Quote Paste the relevant patch notes into other posts along with links to the relevant patch note as posted.

Now we just need someone brave enough to put Pine into a wrapper for Mac users so they too can use the tool without needing to resort to Boot Camp for Windows.

The forum topics listing shows NEW posts with a marker ... but when looking at the actual forum thread itself, there's never a NEW marker on any of the posts to tell you where to pick up reading the NEW stuff from. Seems like a simple QoL feature to implement.

I too will have to protest this change, but I will at least explain my reasoning. There needs to be a 20 hour lockout after doing 5 Tip Missions because that encourages "farmers" to play multiple alts to generate hoards of resources. By throttling the "flow rate" of rewards from Morality Missions in the manner you achieve a greater circulation of characters (alts) through the game than if you throttle the "magnitude" of the rewards from Morality Missions via this reduction. This has long term game health implications insofar as establishing a broader base of characters to play than just having a SINGLE character for grinding out Tips mindlessly (endlessly?) for Merits without stopping.

The Pillar of Ice and Flame is a Control Aux item.

To my knowledge, in Issue 23 the only way to redo those missions was to ... reroll. There was no flashback system for Praetoria, only for Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.

If you're JUST hitting Tab with no modification of the keybind for Tab, it's going to cycle through the Foes in a "database numerical" order, rather than by sorting through them in any kind of nearest to farthest progressive order. You can relatively easily update this behavior using the following targeting macros. What i typically do is assign the target_enemy_nearest functionality to the ` key to the left of the 1 key while letting Tab remain a "cycle through Foes" function that can let me pick targets without needing to use a mouse click to do so.

Steel Canyon and Skyway City both had Origin aligned vendor stores to buy enhancements at. The whole idea of going to your Contacts to buy enhancements turned out to be something of a dud that was rendered superfluous by later updates to the game.