Redlynne

This is why I went to all the effort of demonstrating that although the damage multiplier gets increased, it doesn't mean that the absolute number "throughput" on damage suddenly ramps up higher than what Blasters can do. You have to look at it in terms of the holistic package, not just merely ONE isolated component, so as to cross-check your work by cross-comparing absolute value "throughput" through the formulas. As for painfully convoluted, have you seen the proc chances and accuracy/defense formulas? PPM * ((BaseRecharge / ( 1 + RechargeBoost from Enhancements and Alpha / 100 )) + CastTime) / (60 * (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + Radius * (11 * Arc + 540) / 30,000))) = Proc Chance Clamp(AccMods * (1 - TargetElusivity) * Clamp(BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods))) = HitChance

Desired Teleport visual FX and movement functionality ... Be really nice if Teleporting didn't "zero" your movement momentum (by rooting you) after the transfer of locations if you were already in motion.

You need THIS and THIS ... We make every pretense of competency around here ... 💫

BOOM! Headshot.

You have made a mistake. You probably haven't realized it yet ... but you will eventually. Icicles plus Chilling Embrace is what makes you extremely dangerous. Icicles will contribute a surprisingly large amount of your damage production without costing you animation time for click attack powers. It's essentially "background radiation" that is harming everything that clusters up around you. You can use Icicles to not only produce "unfair" amounts of damage on herds (over time, granted, but damage is damage, right?) in addition to helping you to avoid "wasting" damage on overkills, because you can rely on Icicles to shave off the last slivers of HP rather than expending animation time and endurance of knocking off the last little bit of HP with a "larger" attack. This then lets you distribute your damage production "more efficiently" into the dogpiles of XP you dive headfirst into and rise to the top of. As for the "look" of Icicles ... isn't there a Minimal FX option for it in the costume editor? If there isn't, what I did was use the absolute darkest Blue color (left column in the color swatches) which then made the Icicles themselves difficult (enough) to see. They were still there, of course, and still happening, but the minimization of the visuals made them a LOT easier to overlook. Doing damage to up to 10 $Targets around you every 2s can get VERY efficient ... both in terms of damage produced per endurance spent (while doing damage), and in terms of enabling you to switch $Target priorities when your $Target is almost defeated (because Icicles will get them for you!) so as to move on to the NEXT $Target quicker(!). Icicles enables you to defeat more $Targets in parallel, faster ... so drop it at your own peril.

Well ... that's something that we can empirically cross compare and check, right? Archery is the powerset that contains Snap Shot, Aimed Shot and Fistful of Arrows as used by Ninja Masterminds (I'm picking this example because it's easy). Archery is a powerset for Blasters, Corruptors, Defenders and Masterminds (and Sentiels, but they don't appear on City of Data so I'm not using them for this cross comparison). So if we summarize that to make (useful) cross comparisons between archetypes, we come to the following conculsions: Snap Shot Damage ... 0.84 / 0.68 / 0.68 / 0.68 Aimed Shot Damage ... 1.32 / 1.00 / 1.00 / 1.00 Fistful of Arrows Damage ... 0.91 / 0.91 / 0.91 / 0.91 So Blasters get a damage BONUS on Snap Shot (+23.5%) and Aimed Shot (+32%) but everyone is roughly equal on damage multipliers for Fistful of Arrows. Other than that discrepancy for Blasters (because they're Blasters, so it makes sense), the Damage Multiplier for Corruptors, Defenders and (Ninja) Mastermind Archery are all exact duplicates of each other, so no discrepancies at all. Now we can take a look at the endurance costs. Snap Shot Endurance Costs ... 3.536 / 3.536 / 3.536 / 4.42 Aimed Shot Endurance Costs ... 5.2 / 5.2 / 5.2 / 6.5 Fistful of Arrows Endurance Costs ... 8.528 / 8.528 / 8.528 / 10.66 So the endurance costs are exactly the same for Blasters, Corruptors and Defenders while Masterminds are PENALIZED relative to the other archetypes while having exactly the same damage multiplier as Corruptors and Defenders. How much of a penalty? 4.42 / 3.536 = 1.25 6.5 / 5.2 = 1.25 10.66 / 8.528 = 1.25 Answer ... a +25% endurance cost penalty across the board ... because ... (flawed and bad) reasons? Well, if the damage as derived number formulas were being OBEYED WITHOUT FAVORITISM (which they're not for Masterminds) then one of two things ought to happen. Either the damage multiplier for Mastermind personal attacks needs to be INCREASED by +25% across the board so as to produce damage commensurate with the ACTUAL endurance costs as already implemented (I would favor this interpretation, actually). So endurance costs stay at +25% and Mastermind personal attacks do +25% more damage per power than they are right now. ... OR ... The damage multiplier stays the same and the +25% endurance cost PENALTY gets removed from Mastermind personal attacks. Here's what those two interpretations of what ought to happen would look like in practice: LEGACY Ninjas Lvl Acc Dmg Act Int Cast Rch End Rng Radius Arc Area Snap Shot 1 1.155 0.68 - - 1s 2s 4.42 80ft - - Character Aimed Shot 2 1.155 1 - - 1s 4s 6.5 80ft - - Character Fistful of Arrows 8 1.155 0.91 - - 1.17s 8s 10.66 40ft 40ft 30° Cone +25% Damage adjustment Ninjas Lvl Acc Dmg Act Int Cast Rch End Rng Radius Arc Area Snap Shot 1 1.155 0.85 - - 1s 2s 4.42 80ft - - Character Aimed Shot 2 1.155 1.25 - - 1s 4s 6.5 80ft - - Character Fistful of Arrows 8 1.155 1.375 - - 1.17s 8s 10.66 40ft 40ft 30° Cone +25% Endurance Penalty removed Ninjas Lvl Acc Dmg Act Int Cast Rch End Rng Radius Arc Area Snap Shot 1 1.155 0.68 - - 1s 2s 3.536 80ft - - Character Aimed Shot 2 1.155 1 - - 1s 4s 5.2 80ft - - Character Fistful of Arrows 8 1.155 0.91 - - 1.17s 8s 8.528 40ft 40ft 30° Cone As mentioned above, my personal preference would be to keep the "endurance penalty" and just "raise the damage multiplier" on the attacks for Masterminds so as to make Mastermind personal attacks FOLLOW THE FORMULA that computes damage per endurance cost, rather than being an (obvious) outlier from it. That way you "pay more" to use them, but you "get more" from using them(!) ... rather than paying something for nothing (essentially). In terms of actual damage throughput, here's how much that +25% damage across the board would mean comparing Blasters, Corruptors, Defenders and Masterminds: Blaster Snap Shot: 52.55 Lethal damage (PvE) AND +6.6% Dmg(All Types) for 8.5s Aimed Shot: 82.58 Lethal damage (PvE) AND +11% Dmg(All Types) for 9.17s Fistful of Arrows: 56.93 Lethal damage (PvE) AND +3.2% Dmg(All Types) for 8.67s Corruptor Snap Shot: 28.36 Lethal damage (PvE) AND chance to Scourge for 28.36 Lethal damage (PvE) Aimed Shot: 41.71 Lethal damage (PvE) AND chance to Scourge for 41.71 Lethal damage (PvE) Fistful of Arrows: 37.95 Lethal damage (PvE) AND chance to Scourge for 37.95 Lethal damage (PvE) Defender Snap Shot: 24.58 Lethal damage (PvE) Aimed Shot: 36.15 Lethal damage (PvE) Fistful of Arrows: 32.89 Lethal damage (PvE) Mastermind Snap Shot: 20.8 Lethal damage (PvE) changes to 26 Lethal damage (PvE) Aimed Shot: 30.59 Lethal damage (PvE) changes to 38.2375 Lethal damage (PvE) Fistful of Arrows: 27.83 Lethal damage (PvE) changes to 34.7875 Lethal damage (PvE) So ... in aggregate and in total ... IF the +25% endurance PENALTY to Masterminds is KEPT AS IS ... IF ... but Masterminds are COMPENSATED for that increase in endurance cost over baseline by doing +25% MORE DAMAGE, so as to keep the damage per endurance formula "working properly" and not penalize Masterminds in return for nothing ... THEN ... Masterminds would be doing only slightly more damage per attack than Defenders (when not factoring Vigilance among other things), but Masterminds would be "paying for that privilege" in the higher endurance costs that they've always had assigned to them (in other words, Masterminds wouldn't be doing more damage "for free" according to the damage per endurance formula). By the way ... how much more damage would Masterminds be outputting per attack, in terms of raw/absolute damage numbers, than a Defender would? Well ... Sanp Shot: 26 / 24.58 = +5.78% per attack at a +25% endurance cost per attack Aimed Shot: 38.2375 / 36.15 = +5.78% per attack at a +25% endurance cost per attack Fistful of Arrows: 34.7875 / 32.89 = +5.77% per attack at a +25% endurance cost per attack So ... rounding error more (less than +6%), but still at a higher endurance cost than what Defenders have to pay for the same attack powers (and that's before adding in the effects of Vigilance which buffs damage while also buffing endurance reduction when soloing). So ... yeah ... keeping the +25% endurance penalty while raising damage by +25% to compensate and bring the damage per endurance formula back into force would STILL leave Defenders in a superior position relative to Masterminds (their damage per endurance cost is still cheaper!) and Defenders still get bigger buff values (Leadership: Assault I'm looking at you) and so on, so Masterminds would still be essentially "last" in damage production via personal attacks, but they wouldn't be quite so RIDICULOUSLY BADLY LAST because they're trying to run a marathon race weighed down with 25 lbs of lead weights FOR NO GOOD REASON while everyone else running in the race isn't similarly penalized. However, the primary reason why I prefer to raise the damage multiplier for the Mastermind attacks, rather than reduce the endurance cost to match the baseline of the other Archetypes is because allowing the Mastermind to do more damage per attack will allow them to "contribute more" via their personal attacks, quickening Time To Defeat for $Targets and also aiding with the Threat Formula for determining who has (and holds onto) aggro, since damage dealt is a pretty major component of THAT formula. By doing +25% more damage per attack (at the already enforced +25% endurance cost) Masterminds will be better able to Tankermind and hold aggro while their Pets do damage to $Targets. So you get a synergy of engagement effects in that a shorter combat time reduces the damage taken by your Pets, meaning less healing needed for them and better survival rates, while also increasing the ability of the Mastermind to draw (and keep) aggro on themselves simply by doing +25% more damage per personal attack use than they are capable of doing right now. Right idea. Wrong implementation. So as I hope I've demonstrated (with like, maths and everything) up above, I'm of the opinion that the best way to "undo" the Endurance Penalty that Masterminds are FORCED to pay for their personal attacks is to simply allow their personal attacks to do more damage per attack than the same power would do for other Archetypes when using the same parameters ... however, because of the way the multipliers and factors work, this merely brings Mastermind personal attacks up to par with Defenders without overshadowing Defenders (who remain far more "efficient" with their powersets). Additionally, Masterminds only have three of the attacks from the powersets of other Archetypes, and those three attacks tend to be the T1, T2 and T3(ish) attack powers from those other powersets (as seen here with Archery). Or to put it another way ... it's not as if Ninja Masterminds get access to Rain of Arrows ... while all of the other Archetypes that can use Archery do get access to Rain of Arrows. So ... TL;DR ... Raise the damage multiplier on the Mastermind personal attacks by +25% so as to compensate Masterminds for the +25% endurance cost penalty on their personal attacks ... and we're golden. By my count that would involve editing 21 fields in an excel spreadsheet for the 7 Mastermind primary powersets. I'd like to think that could be accomplished in less than 20 minutes by someone who knows what they're doing (and why). Heck, we could even do the necessary calculations for it here in the forums (I mean, I've already done 3 of them here in this post ... so you'd only need 18 more for the other 6 primary powersets!). In other words, it wouldn't even be that hard to actually do. City of Data link to Mastermind Archetype And I'll just leave this here as inspiration for this effort. Your turn.

This is definitely true. Mastermind primary powersets are basically 5 Fire And Forget powers, 3 powers that hardly anyone (besides me) takes, and 1 power that is either ridiculously terrible (Serum) or beyond powerset defining (Gang War). Of those, only one will tend to see repeated use ... maybe ... unless if you're (maybe) taking the personal attacks (like I do now). This was DEFINITELY a factor for me playing a Ninja/Time Mastermind in Nova Praetoria and on into Imperial. The first build plans I made followed the "personal attacks are worthless" mentality meaning that my Mastermind play was essentially something of a spectator sport. The Ninjas did all the work and I got to /em cheer for them and then heal them when the fights were over. To put it mildly, IT WAS BORING!!!! And yes, I played a Ninja Mastermind to 50 and Incarnates back on Virtue (as a Villain), so I had an idea what it would be like, having done it before. But ... yeah ... with nothing to do but play buff/debuff bot to my Pets, it just wasn't that engaging to play. It was also frustrating to try and pull $Targets into my Ninjas, so as to fight on MY ground rather than on THEIRS, because I only had 2 ranged attacks with recharge times that didn't make for good attack cycles ... Mystic Amulet and Blackwand (my Ninja Mastermind is Magic origin, so thematics). But I found that the way that I was playing (and more importantly, the way I WANTED TO PLAY) meant that I needed fast cycling ranged attacks in order to consistently pull $Targets to my position while soloing AND be able to pour some damage into them while they closed the distance. That then led me to actually seriously consider putting the 3 personal attacks into my build (see: "It's a BOW Time") and from the very first mission I played with the personal attacks in use I fell in love with having those personal attacks at my disposal. Combat became "snappier" and MUCH more engaging to play(!) in addition to having a ranged attack cycle opening up an entire new world of tactics and strategy that had been denied to me when I was playing Just A Buffbot™ for my Ninjas. It's really hard to describe both the dynamism and the broad ranging paradigm shift that happens when you use personal attacks as a standard tactic in fights to supplement the damage output of your Pets. It's one of those things that has to be seen to be believed (and I'd be willing to demo the dynamics if someone would like to "tag along" on a mission where I can both show and tell what I'm doing) since it's really a holistic paradigm shift of HOW to play a Mastermind. If we could upload gameplay videos, I'd be tempted to find out how I could perhaps manage it, since it really is that game changing as far as enjoyment in playing goes. So, definitely, you want to be looking at how to leverage the primary powers (aside from the summons) in such a way as to make it desirable to use them more than just the once (equip/upgrade) or simply not at all (personal attacks).

Which is needed for something like almost half the secondaries that don't have heal powers in them. I'm leery of this one, simply because of how powers work (it gets really wonky under the hood). It's also something that can potentially upset the balance that we've got. NO. That would upset the balance that we've got.

Look at @Sir Myshkin's sig for the Mad King Special link. Here's my proc monster build. You may also want to refer to this post for some insights that are applicable to multiple Archetypes (not just Masterminds).

That's because the OP isn't very good at making arguments ... only at arguing.

The absolute WORST for this is the Destroyer Horde at TPN where you have to defeat 100 Weakened Destroyers in order to complete the mission. I simply (ninja) hopped my Ninja Mastermind up on top of one of the lights at the top of the steps in front of TPN (so everyone inside could admire my heroics!) and took down all 100 Weakened Destroyers PETLESS ... using Snap Shot, Aimed Shot and (occasionally) Fistful of Arrows. The battle started at noon ... and ended a couple hours after dawn ... and the whole thing was just "shooting fish in a barrel" (because they only have melee attacks and couldn't path up to me to reach me for melee attacks on top of the lamp), but man did they just run ALL OVER THE MAP like chickens with their heads cut off! Run in, then run away. The hardest part was waiting for one of them to run back so I could take potshots at him with my bow in front of the audience clapping inside TPN. At least Praetor Sinclair was impressed ...

I post all of the builds I develop, simply so I can reference them easily in case I ever start playing them. This also has the side benefit of peer review because often times other people will spot flaws and/or opportunities that I had not seen or missed, allowing for tweaks to improve that build to be even better. As for being too squishy on Beast/Kinetics ... I figure that so long as you have high Defenses yourself (which can be achieved temporarily with Inspirations if need be) and some decent Resistances (doesn't need to be capped, but more is better of course) AND you have Stealth (from Concealment) + Stealth IO (probably in Sprint) AND have Grant Invisibility ... if you can mix those factors together in your power picks before Level 38 when you add Fulcrum Shift into the build ... you ought to be able to "ninja" both yourself AND your Pets into position when soloing and open with a Fulcrum Shift while Tankerminding to absorb the alpha strike (which ought to be weakened by the Fulcrum Shift?). That then buffs you AND your Pets, who should be close by to you, at which point you "unleash the Wolves" (and Lionesses) who are in Defensive Stance to tear a new one through whatever attacked you upon use of Fulcrum Shift. Use the Kinetics Target AoE Heal to help heal yourself AND your Pets that took shares of damage from your "eating" the alpha strike and then proceed to deliver the necessary beatdown. The whole "pounce from within" strategy using Stealth+Stealth IO and Grant Invisibility is simply TOO GOOD of a combo to pass up on and wait for in a Beast/Kinetics build I would even put a higher priority on getting those powers in early (probably mid teens?) than I would usually put on Leadership toggles. It just makes too many options a possibility in terms of tactical positioning (always important with Kinetics!) and engagement strategies.

I haven't tried it, I merely did it as a proof of (theoretical) concept so as to get a "feel" for how it might all fit together. I do want to make a Beast Mastermind at some point, but it will almost certainly be a Beast/Kinetics rather than a Beast/Electrical Affinity in my case.

And as soon as Homecoming grants you your wish with a Liquid Nitrogen Splash Aura ... you'll have it.

Here you go ... /em FlashlightDown

Log out inside Icon/Facemaker to get the costume change tickets as a Day Job reward (max 10 tickets).

Updated OP.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for having a good Blaster.

Case in point ... very nearly all of Doctor Who fandom wanting to believe that the entire Chris Chibnal train wreck by definition CANNOT be considered canon.

Fixed that for you.

The storytelling in City of Heroes ... well ... let's just say it's not Shakespeare ... or all that internally consistent if you know what I mean ...

Viable (adj.): capable of working successfully; feasible. Optimal (adj.): best or most favorable; optimum. Viable? Yes, obviously. Optimal? That's a very different question. And yes, it's something of a pet peeve of mine that when gamers ask "viable?" what they really mean is "optimal?" instead. The two terms are NOT synonymous and should not be equated to each other.