Redlynne

So would I, to be honest ... Fun thing is that there was a time back on Virtue when I created a character named Dance Avatar and gave her a ponytail, an orange shirt and white baggy pants plus sneakers just to create a Villain in Breakout. She never left the tutorial, since she was just a costume test (and eventually got deleted).

2 PPM Depends on your attack chain ... and what you're slotting into those attacks. Depending on how your attack chain "flows" it IS possible to deliberately "go too low" on the proc chance and wind up with a net higher proc chance than you ought to be getting out of the power so long as you use it frequently enough. I exploited this behavior EXTREMELY THOROUGHLY on my Ninja/Time/Mace Mastermind build so as to "overproc" the Decimation Build Up (1 PPM) slotted into Snap Shot (fast animation/fast recharge) in a way that actually nets a greater than 1 PPM proc rate (18.2% chance to proc Build Up EVERY 7.128s(!!!) ... or ... 12.5% chance to proc Build Up EVERY 7.392s(!!!) ... depending on which attack rotation is being used) simply via the Chuck Lots Of Dice™ method of using a small chance to proc A LOT. Exactly HOW that performance was achieved is (more than) a bit ... wonky ... so you'd want to read carefully what I found and do some theorycrafting with your build and slotting before you can figure out how to exploit the edge cases most effectively with a fast animating/fast recharging attack power like Pistols. The key point however is that you won't need Pistols to recharge any faster than the arcanatime of other attacks in your attack chain, so if you're repeatedly using Pistols as a "filler" attack so as to proc Decimation Build Up procs you'll want to ... design ... the shape of your attack chain from the start so as to know how much recharge is "useful" to get with your Pistols attack.

This proc is a complete game-changer for water blast - it turns Dehydrate into a mega sustain power. Aye ... 😎

It is perfectly possible to make a Defense build that fails miserably at coping with large quantities of aggro. That's more dependent upon build than we're often comfortable accepting.

This was my attempt at a Water/Cold Corruptor ...

A "pure" psionic who is all telepathy (and nothing else) is a One Trick Pony™ who going to have serious problems when fighting $Targets that resist psionic damage ... and the number of $Targets who do that is not a short list. When psionic damage is resisted, it is resisted HEAVILY by NPCs.

This fallacy again. /em sigh Weave is only better in a SOLO circumstance. When in a duo, 2 characters with Maneuvers (who stick together and work as a team) break even versus 2 characters with Weave. When in a team with Maneuvers on 3+ characters (who stick together and work as a team) ... Maneuvers is BETTER THAN Weave. Why? Because defense bonuses from Maneuvers can be stacked ... while Weave can't. Weave is for selfish soloists. Maneuvers is for team players. So ... the break even point versus Weave is 2 PCs on a team with Maneuvers ... and when your PC has Maneuvers, you only need ONE other PC on the team with Maneuvers to give EVERYBODY "Weave-like" defense buff numbers on the team ... and it's a LOT easier to find 1 other PC with Maneuvers than it is to find 2 ...

Actually, they're the ones that get helped the most by Maneuvers on teams. Super Reflexes doesn't suffer from cascade failure due to defense debuffing, plenty of other defense protection scheme powersets do, so having a bit of extra "margin" for dealing with defense debuffs can go a long way for them.

*IF* ...

/em dance1 /em dance2 /em dance3 /em dance 4 /em dance 5 /em dance 6 /em drumdance /em dance7 /em dance10 /em dance11 /em dance8 /em dance9

Emotes

There was a time when I used Phase Shift out of the Concealment Pool as both a "healing" power (via regeneration) and as an Alpha Absorber power, in effect "forcing" piles of $Targets to waste their alpha attacks on me while phase shifted. Kind of hard to do that these days with the recharge time on Phase Shift sitting at 180s base, but it was an option for getting past a withering simultaneous alpha strike back in the day.

Starting in the 20s and up, since those are the first levels where you aren't competing with primary/secondary power picks. If you're going to take Maneuvers, you really want to 6 slot it. In my opinion there are 2 best 6-slottings for Maneuvers, depending on the "needs" of the rest of your build. Red Fortune+ Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge Red Fortune - Defense Red Fortune - Endurance Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed Set Bonuses 1.5% Resistance(Smashing,Lethal), MezResist(Immobilized) 2.5%, MezResist(Held) 2.5%, MezResist(Stunned) 2.5%, MezResist(Sleep) 2.5%, MezResist(Terrorized) 2.5%, MezResist(Confused) 2.5% 1.5% Resistance(Fire,Cold), MezResist(Immobilized) 2.5%, MezResist(Held) 2.5%, MezResist(Stunned) 2.5%, MezResist(Sleep) 2.5%, MezResist(Terrorized) 2.5%, MezResist(Confused) 2.5% 2% DamageBuff(All) 5% Enhancement(RechargeTime) 7.5% Enhancement(RechargeTime) Reactive Defenses Reactive Defenses - Defense Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance Reactive Defenses - Endurance/RechargeTime Reactive Defenses - Defense/RechargeTime Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage Set Bonuses 1.5% Resistance(Smashing,Lethal), MezResist(Immobilized) 2.5%, MezResist(Held) 2.5%, MezResist(Stunned) 2.5%, MezResist(Sleep) 2.5%, MezResist(Terrorized) 2.5%, MezResist(Confused) 2.5% 20.08 HP (1.87%) HitPoints 3% Resistance(Fire,Cold), MezResist(Immobilized) 5%, MezResist(Held) 5%, MezResist(Stunned) 5%, MezResist(Sleep) 5%, MezResist(Terrorized) 5%, MezResist(Confused) 5% 3.75% Enhancement(EnduranceDiscount) 8.75% Enhancement(RechargeTime) Scaling Resistance(All) The Red Fortune+ option features a slightly higher recharge set bonus (+12.5% vs 8.75%) which in the larger scheme of things is actually somewhat trivial (a +3.75% difference) ... while the Reactive Defenses option features a global endurance discount instead of a global damage buff, along with scaling resistances (courtesy of the proc). Reactive Defenses features a TINY amount of less defense buffing throughput (like a difference of about 0.2) compared to the Red Fortune+ option, which is usually so small you'd never notice it in actual gameplay. In most cases, Maneuvers will have the "smallest" defense buffing potential, so I like to put Reactive Defenses into Maneuvers if I've got another defense toggle power to slot up with Red Fortune+ for a higher magnification of defense buffing potential. Assault is a One Slot Wonder™ power. Put an Endurance Reduction common IO into it and have done with it. The damage buff is essentially permanently useful unless you're on a team that is damage capped (which usually isn't a perma condition). Tactics is either a 6-slot with Gaussians power or a 1-slot with just the Gaussian's Build Up proc power. Here's why: Mind you, slotting Tactics with the Gaussian's Build Up proc is only "useful" to you while you're OFFending, as opposed to DEFending ... so if you're not attacking then the Build Up proc is largely wasted on you (and your build), since it only affects you. Vengeance is useful as a One Slot Wonder™ power to put a Luck of the Gambler global recharge set IO into. Victory Rush is ENTIRELY an optional power ... but if you've got a build with endurance management issues, consider picking up Victory Rush. Victory Rush has a 5 minute recharge time, meaning you get a 40% uptime on the power, and it's an AoE around the defeated $Target you use it on, so very much a team buff power. Unlike Vengeance though, you only need the corpse of a Foe, not of a Teammate, to use Victory Rush. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Defenders ought to take 9 primary powers, 9 secondary powers, 3 leadership toggles ... and then have 3 power picks left over for travel power(s) and other pools. But that's just me ... 😎

Um ... which pet set are you trying to play? The answers to how to keep your pets from faceplanting ... vary ... depending on which pets you're leading around.

Boston ...??

You have got some serious Spider Noir working for you there ...

Both are fine. All you have to do is 5-slot the Terrorize proc set into Venom Grenade so it's working through a 20ft radius Target AoE. Good to go. Alternatively, if you want it to proc more(?), you can 5-slot the Terrorize proc set into Frag Grenade (leaving 1 slot open for a Force Feedback proc) so it's working through a 10ft radius Target AoE. Good to go.

Ah ... in that case you might need to be inside the Shift long enough for it to toggle pulse to shift the caster (you) before you break out the pseudopet(s) so they can inherit your status inside the Shift.

That's the hilarious thing about the Controller ATOs ... trying to find a NON-damaging power to slot them into that doesn't feel like you're wasting the slots. Might be worthwhile to inventory the Controller primary powers to get a ratio of damaging mez powers to non-damaging mez powers, to get an idea of just how constraining having Controller ATOs is on a Controller for finding powers that the sets can be slotted into without excessive "waste" of modifiers. In other words, how many powers in each powerset make "good fits/matches" for the Controller ATOs. I know that for me it's usually the Level 18 AoE Hold power plus "something else" and that's it. For powersets like Mind Control where you have mez powers that don't draw aggro, having a damage proc in the set is a complete deal breaker (I'm looking at you Confuse sets that keep wanting to add damage procs!) for those powers.

I figure that the rule of thumb for this kind of thing is whether or not the pseudopet can be $Targeted or not. If the pseudopet cannot be $Targeted then it can't be affected by Phasing courtesy of Dimension Shift. Could be. Would make for an interesting "defensive" use of the power at least ...

Denied. The game engine doesn't allow that degree of specificity. It's all or nothing with sets.

Actually ... I think I want to revise and extend my remarks above into a more broadly consistent and cohesive pattern (unified field theorycrafting). Change ALL Mastermind primary powers to fit the following pattern: Beast Mastery, Mercenaries, Ninjas and Robotics can slot: Ranged sets, Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T1 (Level 1), T3 (Level 2) Target AoE sets, Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T5 (Level 8 ) Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T2 (Level 1), T6 (Level 12), T8 (Level 26) Demon Summoning and Thugs can slot: Ranged sets, Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T1 (Level 1), T3 (Level 2) Target AoE sets, Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T5 (Level 8 ) Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T2 (Level 1), T6 (Level 12), T7 (Level 18), T8 (Level 26) Necromancy can slot: Ranged sets, Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T1 (Level 1), T3 (Level 2), T5 (Level 8 ) Pet Sets, Recharge Intensive Pet Sets and Archetype Origin Sets into: T2 (Level 1), T6 (Level 12), T7 (Level 18), T7 (Level 18), T8 (Level 26) Basic idea ... add the Pet sets and ATOs to the personal attacks for Masterminds so they can be slotted in more places than JUST the Pet Summoning powers. The enhancements in the Pet sets simply add accuracy/damage/endurance (and recharge for the Recharge Intensive Pet sets and the ATO sets). The Pet procs simply have the Mastermind create a PBAoE field around themselves that grants the effect(s) to all Pets within Supremacy radius and do not "NEED" to be explicitly tied to a summoning power in order to function (at all).

Inner Light ... Nemesis Staff(! for Knockback) ... Nova Form ... charge in, indiscriminately mop up. It's honestly simpler than what Warshades need to juggle to get the job done.

Mastermind ATOs They only fit into 3-4 powers (at most!) in the primary powerset, and those primaries that don't feature a pet summon as their Level 18 power can only slot Mastermind ATOs into their 3 Pet Summoning powers. Considering everything else we have to somehow cram into those 3 powers (with a shoehorn!) that is incredibly limiting! The only excuse that I can find for this limitation is ... well ... the Mastermind ATOs are coded as Recharge Intensive Pet Sets (only) and therefore can only be slotted into Pets ... because ... Pet Aura procs??? Seriously ... REMOVE THIS LIMITATION. I'd be fine with allowing the Mastermind ATOs to be slotted into any Mastermind Pet Summoning power (Level 18 primary and the T1/T2/T3 pet powers as already existing) while also broadening out which powers they can be slotted into to include the 3 personal attacks in the Mastermind primary powersets. That way, we don't have to sacrifice PRECIOUS(!!) Pet Slots to the Mastermind ATO sets and can instead take personal attacks from our primaries (even just as set mules) and slot them up with Mastermind ATOs so we can have some, you know ... VARIETY ... in our Mastermind builds that use Mastermind ATOs. So instead of being limited to only 3-4 powers per primary, instead you'd be able to slot Mastermind ATOs into 6-7 powers per primary. S imple E asy E ffective ... not being done ... ... yet ...

I'm just going to leave THIS LINK here for you as a ... homework assignment ... "Trust me ... I know what I'm doing."