Redlynne

Can you be more ... specific ...? This is akin to saying "I can't fish!" ... which could mean anything from not having a fishing rod to using a brick for bait. Are you "golfing" affected $Targets across the map or something? What does "tons of KB" quantify as? Does it happen to ALL $Targets simultaneously, or just a few (as in, 20% of those getting hit by Quasar)?

Scrapperlock

Yes ... but it isn't a single factor that enables that, but it's a confluence of factors that makes Ninja/Time work really really well. LINK 1 LINK 2 LINK 3 If you actually read through the WALLS OF TEXT that I've written on this topic, so you can get a sense of HOW (and WHY) my thinking on this topic has evolved over time, you'll start to get a sense of where I started and then where I ended up ... and what I learned along the way (and it's the LEARNING that's the important thing!). The really big insight I've learned playing Ninjas/Time is that tactical positioning relative to $Targets (the "configuration" of who is where when) is EXTREMELY important to learn and develop Player Skill in situational awareness so as to be where YOU need to be relative to everything happening around you. There's also a "triple range" sense to what's going on in terms of PBAoE out to 25ft (Temporal Mending and Time's Juncture radius) and then another range from 25ft to 40ft (Fistful of Arrows radius) and then another range from 40ft to 80ft (Snap Shot and Aimed Shot range), and you need to know what is which range band when (and where you are in relation to them all). Moving into position to line up Fistful of Arrows, or delaying long enough to catch multiple incoming $Targets in the Cone, all become "challenges" to your situational awareness which help whittle down $Targets faster when you're "doing it right." On top of that is that the ideal time to use Temporal Mending is NOT at the beginning of a fight ... it's at the end, after a spawn has been defeated before moving on to the next spawn group ... or if needed, DURING a fight to help a Pet withstand "more than their fair share" of incoming damage. So even the TIMING of when to use powers can have a big impact on how the powerset(s) play(s) in actual practice. Some of it will even be counter-intuitive ... things like taking the personal attacks so as to reduce the amount of healing "demanded" by your Ninjas to keep them alive, in part thanks to the difference in positioning and "how" you engage $Targets tactically that is enabled by taking the personal attacks. Or to put it another way ... it's all a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey ... stuff ... So to put it simply, Ninja/Time enables a "layered protection" scheme that isn't relying on a single mitigating factor ... but rather on a confluence of multiple factors ... to help keep your Ninjas alive (and kicking the crap out of $Targets).

My recommendation. Just this week I was finally able to slot ATOs and Universal Damage into my Genin and Jounin and it's already making a difference with Overwhelming Force modifying every attack the Genin make.

Only if there are corpses to drain. There are some enemy groups that feature mobs that leave no corpses (either they explode or simply fade away) ... to say nothing of needing to fight an AV after clearing the entire map so there's nothing else to draw upon for Stygian Circle. There are going to be times when you can't rely on Stygian Circle to carry you through. Best to have a backup plan for those occasions.

If you aren't using it (or worse, can't because the uptime is terrible) that makes it LESS "worth it" to take the power, not more.

There is a very fine line wormhole between coordinating with others and trolling them (because you can).

Take Hover and Teleport out of the build and choose Mystic Flight instead (so you get both powers back). That then frees up a power pick for you to take Siphon Power.

Fly. That said, it's perfectly possible to "thrust vector" your way into stopping faster and/or drift slide through corners and so on, and if it's just too frustrating to hit the exact spot you want to fly through you can always teleport past it. Before Mystic Flight I would ALWAYS take Hover for that "stop on a dime" feeling. After getting some experience with Mystic Fly and how to "brake" against current movement directions rather than sliding to a stop I can maneuver in a way that is reminiscent of how Hover moves (although it requires a little more manual control from me to achieve). So there's a little bit of Player Skill involved with being able to use Mystic Fly in close quarters (purple caves, threading the needle through small openings in the sewers maps, etc.) and it's a worthwhile skill to develop since it will also help you with other means of moving to develop those reflexes and sense of judgement for distances and so on. Heck, I've even gotten better at Ninja Running across rooftops in Cap au Diable on my Arachnos Soldier (who doesn't have Mystic Flight) because of what I learned from needing to control Mystic Flight at a higher skill level on other alts that I'm playing. At this point I have Mystic Flight on a Tanker, Corruptor, and 2 Controllers. Conversely, I have Hover on a Defender, Soldier of Arachnos, Peacebringer (natively), and Warshade. My Mastermind has neither Mystic Flight nor Hover. So a relatively even balance between the two, and which one goes on which builds depends entirely upon the rest of the build.

Overwhelming Force is 20% chance per activation of the power, and would be checked individually per $Target hit by the power ... so it's not a 20% chance to make everything fall down at the same time in unison. As for whether that's a 20% chance per activation time of the power (0.5 to 2 seconds is typical) or merely a 20% chance per ~10 seconds or so would require testing to determine.

LINK

Also, not to distract from the question at hand ... but I simply must digress slightly. If you ever do a 1776 themed bull character @DougGraves (complete with tricorn hat?), you could always name them ... Minutetaur ... Say the name out loud to get the verbal pun you won't "hear" in the spelling alone. /em exit stage

As they used to say in all the Miller Lite commercials ... "Let's do both!" Taurobull

To be honest, the only reason I've come up with for my builds to take Hover over Mystic Flight is if I need a place to put the Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO. If I ... NEED ... to find a 5th slot for that somewhere, I'll take Hover over Mystic Flight, but that's just about the only excuse I'd have for doing so. If you don't "need" that Luck of the Gambler slotting, then I feel like Mystic Flight is the superior option. Only other time I'd consider Hover over Mystic Flight would be if I need that last couple +% to reach a defensive softcap, since Hover offers some +Defense while Mystic Flight does not. Of course, if you're taking an Origin pool other than Sorcery (such as Force of Will or Experimentation) then Mystic Flight wouldn't even be an option and you would be "forced" to take Hover instead of Mystic Flight, since you can pick powers from only ONE Origin pool ... not multiples (kind of like epic/patron pools in that regard, except you can start at Level 4 instead of 35).

Torataur

Because it's available for some secondaries, but not all of them ... which is an edge case condition that Mids' was not originally built to guard against.

That's a feature ... not a bug. Team Teleport requires you to be close enough to the caster to affect you. It's not as if Team Teleport can "yank" you across a zone like Recall Friend or Assemble the Team can.

No.

Ah, but if you sneak 2-slot Bombardment sets into Dual Pistols in the Cone attacks (Empty Clips and Piercing Rounds) as well as enhancing those attacks for Range (on top of everything else you'd want to enhance them for) you can turn Piercing Rounds into ~140ft "snipe-ish" power that can hit up to 3 $Targets in a 4º Cone(!). Spoiler alert: at ~140ft that 4º Cone is going to be about 10ft wide(!) ... so you have every incentive needed to use Piercing Rounds slotted up that way as a MULTI-SNIPE(!) power from really long ranges. And while that isn't a "2 men at 900+ yards" shot like Matthew Quigley could do with his rifle ... it's the closest you're going to get to that kind of thing in City of Heroes ... and with Dual Pistols you can hit up to 3 $Targets with that one Piercing Rounds shot ...

Uh ... Willpower ... ?

Minimal FX options?

True. Adding a source of Smashing Damage to Mind Control, even if it's a "light DoT" akin to Crushing Field (which is like single digits per damage tick) would add up over time to "useful" amounts. Instead of being a PBAoE Damage Aura, it would be a Target AoE Damage Aura kind of thing. Of course, once you open up Target AoE set slotting, that means a delicious pile o' procs ... including Energy, Lethal, Smashing, Fire and -Resistance debuffing becomes available from Target AoE Damage sets ... to say nothing of what you'd have available to you from Hold sets or even Controller/Dominator ATOs (if those are ever allowed to be slotted into Telekinesis). Another point to consider would be removing the restriction on stacking Hold Mag using Telekinesis. If you allow the Hold Mag to stack, not only can the Mag stack "deeper" than a mere Mag 3 but also enable slotting of Hold enhancements and sets so as to make that Hold stack deeper. It wouldn't stack to Mag 6/9/12/15 instantly ... but it could with enough Hold duration enhancement(!). Only restriction I'd want to put on Telekinesis if doing that to it would be to make Domination NOT apply extra Mag on Telekinesis for Dominators (so at most they'd see the same amount of Mag stack increase as Controllers, rather than double, using this paradigm). Mischief Managed.

If you add damage to Telekinesis (a DoT Crush like effect) you'd be adding Target AoE sets to the slotting.

There we go. What that is demonstrating to me is that Snap Shot+Aimed Shot for a Ninja Mastermind is operating at a comparable output level to an */Archery Defender under relatively equal(-ish, if you squint hard enough) assumptions. In other words, the proportion of damage contributed from the personal attacks is not a "bug" but rather an established "feature" of the powers selected to port over to the Mastermind version. And that's where the boot rubber meets the head. It really is something that you have to experience in order to grasp the full sense of the difference ... particularly when combined with P2W Origin attack powers. Something that I've been doing on my Ninja Mastermind is opening with the (magic) Blackwand followed by Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, Snap Shot. My Ninjas will "pitch in" with Shurikens and Poison Dart while the $Target is charging towards me, and often times they'll get defeated before they get all that close. Sometimes I can single pull (usually based on positioning) and sometimes I can't, but if I've got more than 1 $Target inbound, all I have to do is line them up in the Fistful of Arrows cone and tag them both. Sometimes I can even nail all 3 incoming $Targets with Fistful of Arrows while they're charging towards melee range. In most cases, however, this means that from a starting group of 3 Minions I basically only need to worry about 2 (or less) Minions even getting close, and their initial attacks are going to be against my (Tankerminding) Mastermind which my Pets then "react" to from the Defensive/Follow or Defensive/Stay positions. In other words, I LURE the $Targets towards me and dismantle them with ranged attacks (personal and Ninjas) while they're closing. That then means that in a lot of cases a 3 Minion spawn group is whittled down to only 2 $Targets by the time they get into melee range, and those 2 $Targets might not even be at full HP by the time they get to melee range with my Mastermind. But yes, it's a rather "lumpy" kind of damage production profile that's got a sense of "this is so stupid it might just work..." due to how it basically "pre-damages" $Targets sufficiently before they can get into melee range. The best part is that what would otherwise be a fight with a spawn group that could have potentially inflicted major damage onto my Ninjas can sometimes end with the Ninja Pets relatively unscathed and not need healing after some fights. That lack of a need for healing (in that specific fight) then informs me that playing my Mastermind in a decidedly offense oriented fashion so as to supplement the damage dealt by my Pets winds up being the superior option to simply being a PBAoE Buff Bot. Yes, there is ... unfortunately.