Redlynne

First Ward and Night Ward are alignment agnostic. Hero. Villain. Resistance. Loyalist. None of that matters in First Ward or Night Ward. Beyond that, you're basically wrestling with headcanon ... and at that point, you're kind of on your own as to whether Resistance/Loyalist (and which "flavor" of each) best leads into/fits with the storyline(s) of First Ward and Night Ward. So ... whatever makes you happy to play ...?

Two ways you can do it. One is to just quote button the entire post and then edit the contents of the quoted section to only keep what you're needing to reply to. Then for the next bit, you quote the entire post again and edit down again (differently this time) to only the part you're replying to for the second bit. The other way is to highlight what you're wanting to quote in someone else's post and you'll be given a pop-up Quote option which will quote only the part of the post you've got highlighted. Wash, rinse, repeat as you reply to different quoted bits. Trust me ... it's not that hard. You can do it too.

You may want to (have @Felis Noctu edit the OP to update this info then.

These two goals are in opposition. If the personal attacks are "good" then you're going to "want" to take them (or at least 1 of them), even if the purpose for doing so is as a set mule so you don't have to shoehorn those slots/procs into the Pet powers themselves, allowing you to better slot the Pet powers. Actually, an idea occurred to me on this front. Why not just make the equip/upgrade powers also have a Heal that only affects Pets of the type summoned by your primary? Doing that would "solve" the I Can't Heal My Pets problem for a number of Mastermind secondaries, while also opening up additional slotting options (Heal and Heal sets specifically) for slotting into the equip/upgrade powers. That way, even if your Pets are already buffed, recasting the equip/upgrade powers would serve a useful purpose as a way to help prevent the need to resummon (and re-equip/re-upgrade) damaged Pets. Could do something like a base 10% of Mastermind HP worth of healing for the Level 6 power and a base 15% of Mastermind HP worth of healing for the Level 32 power ... which with Heal enhancement could go up to some 20% and 30% respectively. Doing that would then give Masterminds a reason to use those powers "more than once" after summoning, thereby making them relevant beyond just being a power pick tax. I mentioned this in the other thread about Ninjas specifically ... but if there's a desire to add an additional effect (beyond just mere Lethal damage) to the Ninja Mastermind personal attacks, I would instead advocate for a "poisoned weapons" thematic where the type of poison used is more of a Slow effect (so -Movement and -Recharge debuffing) which could be enhanced, meaning adding Slow enhancements and Slow sets as options for slotting into those powers. The idea is to "debilitate" $Targets in a way that makes them easier prey for your Ninjas and less of a threat to them. I would also point out that it makes almost no sense whatsoever for Thugs to get Leadership powers while Mercenaries don't get any. If anything, I would expect Mercenaries to combine all 3 Leadership toggle powers together. And given how much "help" Mercenaries need to "get up to par" with other Mastermind primaries, I would honestly advocate for the following: T1 Soldiers: Tactics T1 Medic: Maneuvers T2 Spec Ops: Assault T3 Commando: Maneuvers Note that combination means that with all Pets out you'd get 2x Maneuvers, 2x Assault and 2x Tactics ... which sounds about right (to me, anyway) for Mercenaries, who ought to be professionally trained and disciplined military types. I'm thinking that kind of buffing ought to help bring Mercenaries closer to where they ought to be. It would be even better if their Leadership powers applied to all Allies, not just to the Mercenaries themselves. You could make their Leadership buffing be 1/2 to 3/4 what the Mastermind's own Leadership toggles buff values would be (so as to not overshadow the Mastermind entirely) but it would mean that Mercenaries would be more ... predisposed ... towards having Masterminds who take Leadership toggles in addition to what the Mercenaries themselves bring simply as a matter of synergy.

To be honest, if a secondary effect were going to be added to the Ninja primary personal attack powers (Snap Shot, Aimed Shot and Fistful of Arrows) I would settle for a "poisoned weapons" kind of thing where the attacks add an enhanceable Slow (-Movement and -Recharge) as a way to make $Targets more vulnerable to being chewed up by Ninjas. The important thing though is that such a ... broadening ... would enable the personal attacks to slot Slow sets in addition to Ranged Damage sets, so as to enable a little bit of variety in options. Wouldn't upset the game balance but would help with the thematics of the powerset. Essentially a "tweak" rather than an overhaul.

Oh wow ... the COLORS ... 🤯

Open the menu. Go to the I.D. Type in your bio in the space provided at the bottom of the new screen.

Shop. Save. Rularuu.

This is why I subscribe to the Build Before You Play philosophy, because I've never had any (good) success(es) with playing first and then worrying about the build afterwards. As I like to say, the way you play from 1-10 will determine how you're going to play at 50.

I would only want to consider that change AFTER having made any and all other changes. In other words, I would put a LOW priority on anything in this direction. Reason being that making other changes may make any kind of Pet Stance change on top of those other changes too much of a pendulum swing. So looking at things from an incremental point of view, I'd want to increment through the other options FIRST and then leave any kind of Pet Stance modifications for LAST with the explicit intent to determine if the Pet Stance modifications are even NECESSARY after having made the other changes FIRST. Hope that is sufficiently clarifying for you on MY stance on the question. The problem is that doing that would have to be done via a Grant Power mechanism or some sort of "keyed" modifier buffing on the Pets themselves (if you have Buff A then also apply Buff B). However, if you're going the Grant Power route the way to enhance Defense and Resistance is with ... wait for it ... Defense and Resistance IOs and sets, NOT with Pet, Recharge Intensive Pet and Mastermind ATO sets (which, spoiler alert, are all DAMAGE sets!). AND, you would STILL be able to stack the Pet Aura IOs on top of all of that which would become "quite broken" in a remarkable hurry. I know what you're trying to do. The goal is laudable. The means you're choosing to get there however will have side effects that will not be acceptable in terms of disruption to overall game balance and build metas. Nice idea ... bad means/execution to get there. Among other things, you keep trying to take the most convoluted path to achieving the outcome you desire, making everything extremely complex (and thus much more likely to fail, perhaps even spectacularly). What you need to be looking at are SIMPLE solutions that require only minor tweaks to the existing codebase structure (which is NOT inherently stable to start with!), rather than urban renewals that will slash and burn entire swaths of legacy codebase. In other words, try to work with WHAT YOU HAVE rather than with what you WISH YOU HAD. The simpler and easier solutions are much more likely to not only happen, but also to ENDURE ...

I'm really surprised to hear that. Almost every time ninja personals come up all I see are complaints about them; lack of effects, lack of damage, etc. That's pretty cool to see. I have my reasons. That said, I would appreciate having a little bit ... more ... available to the personal attacks on the Ninja primary, since they ARE quite limited in terms of effects and slotting options, but I've figured out how to make them work (for me). The irony is that while the attacks look weak I have found that they actually aren't weak when used *skillfully* in concert with Ninja Henchmen attacks. I really wish it were possible to post gameplay videos to demonstrate what I'm talking about with this because of how I've been blending everything together while soloing through Praetoria (dealing with Imperial City right now, level locked to 15 until moving on to Neutropolis after clearing all story arcs). I've even developed tactics using Defensive/Stay with the Ninjas (so as to keep them from running off) and using them as ranged attackers while I use my Bow personal attacks and basically "gun down" incoming Minions before they even reach me/us. Likewise, parking the Ninjas off to the side and standing far enough away so they don't get caught in the "blast radius" of Blast Master Destroyer attacks and then being able to pull in and bow/shurken "gun down" the Minion(s) in comparative safety. A lot of the time, the incoming Minion won't even reach me before they faceplant, which is astonishing compared to the alternative of making the Ninjas chew them up in melee (and take damage themselves as a result). The Conservation of Ninjitsu is one of those things that works great in narrative, but is very difficult to implement correctly in game mechanics. Done wrong you wind up with a situation where they start strong and end weak, which is the way giving them Leadership "toggle" powers would wind up working ... because they're at full strength with all of them but as they fall they start to crumble because the buffs get smaller and weaker as the Ninjas get defeated. What you want is the reverse behavior where as they drop the survivors get "stronger" relative to before the loss ... and the only way to do that is to cast an effect upon defeat. I would consider being able to Smoke Flash the "Ninja Team" (including the Mastermind) something that would compensate for the AoE vs Single Target by an increase in the recharge time. Using the PPM formula for Area Factor, a 15ft radius would compute like so: (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 15 * (11 * 360 + 540) / 30,000)) = 2.6875 Smoke Flash has a 20s recharge as a single target. Multiply that by 2.6875 and you get 53.75s. If you want to make it a nice round 60s recharge you'd want an 18ft radius: (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 18 * (11 * 360 + 540) / 30,000)) = 3.025 20 * 3.025 = 60.5s Push it out to a 20ft radius and you'd be looking at a 65s recharge: (0.25 + 0.75 * (1 + 20 * (11 * 360 + 540) / 30,000)) = 3.25 20 * 3.25 = 65s And I would be perfectly fine with that, since among other things it would give a reason to slot Recharge into Smoke Flash. At the very least, it gives you a "sense" for how much of a gearing ratio ought to be involved for different radii of Target AoE Smoke Flash performance.

Simply being able to slot Pet, Recharge Intensive Pet and Mastermind ATO sets into the equip/upgrade powers ... simply so as to provide an alternative location to slot the Pet Protection proc uniques ... would be an acceptable solution to the problem.

Counter-proposal. The most glaringly obvious failure on the part of Cryptic and then later Paragon Studios with respect to Ninja Masterminds is that the Ninjas do not observe the Conservation of Ninjitsu. Game mechanically speaking, the simplest and the best way of producing this effect is ... wait for it ... Nemesis Vengeance (repurposed to only affect surviving Ninja Henchmen when any Ninja Henchmen gets defeated). Except in this case, you'd code it as a power granted by upgrade to your Ninjas such that when they are defeated (zero HP) they will cast a "Vengeance Lite" effect that buffs any surviving (1+ HP) Ninjas within a 100ft radius of where the Ninja was defeated. This then, game mechanically, introduces the idea that Ninjas become "stronger" when their fellow Ninjas "die" ... thereby succeeding at implementing the Conservation of Ninjitsu in a way consistent with computer game mechanics that can "make sense" to both the computer and to the Player. It also means that depending on how you want to play, there could potentially be a strategy behind a "crunch all you want, I'll just summon more Ninjas" style of play that could appeal to some Players. The biggest problem with Smoke Flash is that it is single target. If Smoke Flash were a Target AoE ... with, say, a 15ft radius ... it would be fantastic. If it was a Target AoE that affected up to 10 Ninja Henchmen AND THE MASTERMIND when cast (regardless of how far away the Target AoE is from the caster) ... you'd have a winner. I'm actually quite happy with the game mechanics for the personal attacks for Ninja Masterminds. Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, Fistful of Arrows FEEL right in terms of tempo when used. So I wouldn't want to see their power parameters in the database changed. I would however welcome a cosmetic costume editor option of replacing the bow with simply throwing Shurikens instead of using a Bow and Arrows. So I would welcome a cosmetic alternative to using the Bow, but would not welcome a change of the underlying game mechanics.

Interesting notion, but may need some tuning, particularly the Aggressive Stance proposal. Definitely like the idea of using Passive Stance as the Henchmen equivalent of using Rest so they can heal up without requiring use of healing powers on them. This is a good idea. Tier 1 Henchmen are overly penalized by level shifting when they get shoved down into being -2 Levels to the Mastermind. It's enough to make me wish I had 2x Henchmen and Level -1 instead of 3x Henchmen and Level -2. With Inherent Fitness for All (except Henchmen) this makes sense. The Henchmen really ought to be able to have a chance of keeping pace with their Mastermind. The problem with this notion is that if the Mastermind gets far enough away from their Henchmen, then the Henchmen will despawn. That would then prevent the "Come to me" from being able to summon a Henchman from a long (too long) way away. Besides, if this is really an issue you ought to be Dismissing your Henchmen and then resummoning them once you get to your destination. A whole other power for doing the same thing is not required nor needed. I'm sorry, but you completely lost me in this section. Writing in alternative implementations of Invention sets that applies only to Masterminds is an inherently flawed idea, I'm thinking. The FAR easier and simpler solution would be to just allow Pet, Recharge Intensive Pet and Mastermind ATO sets to be slotted into the Mastermind's personal attacks (of which there are 3 powers) in their primaries. That then takes the "pressure" off needing to spend as much as 1/3 of the 18 slots in the T1, T2 and T3 powers on bolstering wholly inadequate protection baked into summoning/upgrading powers themselves as a structural matter. The problem arises when trying to cram that many slots into 3 or 4 powers, with a huge advantage being inadvertently given to primaries that can slot Pet, Recharge Intensive Pet and Mastermind ATOs into their Level 18 powers, since that allows those primaries to "offload" their protection slotting out of their actual T1, T2 and T3 powers in order to better slot them for Accuracy, Damage and Endurance Reduction. Allowing Pet, Recharge Intensive Pet and Mastermind ATOs to be slotted into the 3 personal attacks however "levels the playing field ENOUGH" to not need a wholesale rewrite of how entire CATEGORIES of enhancements "work" for Masterminds. At the same time, it would also make it advantageous to actually take (and slot! what a concept!) the personal attacks, rather than "discarding" them as being ... worthless ... to the Mastermind playstyle, particularly in light of other options (such as pool attack powers).

Well that sounds like a WHOOPSIE! in the database ...

And just think ... if you'd made him an amateur astronomer and given him one of these ... ... you could have called him Lute Skywatcher ... ✨

We even have The Cape Radio DJ's broadcasting from in-game. One Hit Wonder was DJing from Pocket D last night.

Could have just called him "Farmboy" and we'd all know who you were referring to ... 😆

Where are you logging out in Dark Astoria? Before you log out, can you verify that there is a Day Job buff marker saying that you're in the correct location where the Day Job will accrue while you are logged out before you log out?

I know, make them howl 1 time every 4 minutes ... instead of 4 times every 1 minute ...

Dark Regeneration (Tanker version) Max targets hit 10 Entities affected Foe <-----<< Entities autohit Target Caster If Panacea DID work in Dark Regeneration, it would affect your $Target(s) ... not you. So you really WOULDN'T want to have Panacea proc FOR your $Target(s) when using Dark Regeneration. Short answer is you want to put Panacea into powers that affect YOU, not your Foes.

"Behold! The Underminer!"

I just copy/pasted into a text editor and then enforced plain text before copy/pasting the plain text back into the forums so as to remove the RTF color coding. Note that you can do the same thing when you export by choosing the No Codes option from the right column at the top.

The build(s) that I'm using rely on using 3x Resistance/Recharge 50+5 boosted set IOs (Titanium Coating, Aegis, Unbreakable guard). The Warshade adds a 4th slot for a common 50+5 Accuracy IO so Eclipse won't MISS $Targets. But that slotting provides +94.56% Recharge (Pre-ED: 99.38%) as well as +55.84% Resistance (Pre-ED: 59.77%). I can easily imagine that if you slot for more than Pre-ED: 100% you can bring the global recharge number down below the amount I was calculating above ... but that's not the slotting I'm using so that's why I'm building slightly differently. Here's the math I'm using, by the way. As a matter of usage, I'm simply adding +94.56% from the enhancement slotting on Light Form/Eclipse and then adding global recharge to it and compare it to the chart below to figure out how many Force Feedback procs are needed to get Light Form/Eclipse to recharge in 90s or less. Peacebringer = 94.56+133.75 = +228.31% Warshade = 94.56+122.5 = +217.06% Comparing that to the chart below, the number of Force Feedback procs required is checking the above totals and then go DOWN the chart until you get a recharge total BELOW the above number ... and then cross reference how many Force Feedback procs that needs to close the "gap" in recharge. So for Peacebringer, +228.31% is just above the +227.78% breakpoint ... meaning you need only 1 Force Feedback proc per 90s to accelerate recharge of Light Form to be faster than the 90s duration of Light Form. For Warshade, +217.06% is just above the +216.67% breakpoint ... meaning you only need 3 Force Feedback procs per 90s to accelerate recharge of Eclipse to be faster than the 90s duration of Eclipse. Now, obviously, you can choose Incarnate slotting that will give you even more recharge throughput than I'm talking about above ... but taking that option will also impact the probabilities of proc chances for click powers that have PPM procs slotted into them. So depending on your priorities, you may want to reserve your Incarnate Alpha slot for something other than recharge enhancement, thereby preserving a diversity of options so as to better fit your personal playstyle preferences as well as character concepts.