Redlynne

Not to discount your point - I think it probably applies pretty broadly - but this potential for battlefield control was, in fact, what attracted me to Masterminds in the first place. However, I found that I could get pretty much the same strategic feel, with a more visceral or personal "oomph", from Controllers (and even Dark Defs or /Dark Corrs). To be fair, though, I'd been playing Controllers for a good long while before trying Masterminds. If I'd tried Masterminds first, I might be singing a different tune. Masterminds are just a different bag of tricks compared to Controllers. The one thing that most Masterminds can do rather successfully is apply what I think of as distributed pressure onto $Targets because it's not just YOU attacking, it's a "collection of You(s)" that is attacking, and that creates a very different dynamic and set of engagement strategies. For one thing, particularly with Mastermind personal attacks in the mix, (for me at least) battles tend to evolve through stages rather than being a single set piece of strategy that never varies. For example ... Even though with Ninja/Time my Ninjas are a mix of melee (mostly) with some ranged attack capability (Shurikens, Poison Dart and the like) and the fact that Time's Juncture is a massive aid to survivability due to the -ToHit and Slow debuffing it does ... Time's Juncture only has a 20ft PBAoE radius on it. So there's a kind of "boundary layer" of a 20ft radius away from your Mastermind where the battle dynamics change. So there's a 0-20ft radius of action within Time's Juncture, as well as the 20-80ft radius of action enabled by the Snap Shot and Aimed Shot personal attack powers (Fistful of Arrows is shorter ranged at 40ft base). What I've found myself doing is attacking with Snap Shot+Aimed Shot from maximum range (to enforce maximum "bumrush to close" time), even though doing so is "not optimal" from a debuffing standpoint as my primary opening move. That's because most $Targets will charge towards close(r) range and attempt to melee, during which time I'm continuing to shoot at them with Snap Shot+Aimed Shot (and even Fistful of Arrows if they get close enough) ... but usually those incoming attackers will have used at least one ranged attack before charging in at me which will "activate" my Ninjas who are either on Defensive/Follow or Defensive/GoTo (the latter is best to help them avoid burn patches in my vicinity) which keeps them in Bodyguard Mode. This means that when a $Target is charging towards me, they're taking fire not only from my Mastermind using a bow, but also from my Pets throwing ranged attacks at them too ... and because I have the Overwhelming Force KD proc slotted into my T1 Pets, the odds of getting a Knockdown from a thrown Shuriken(!) is relatively high, particularly when I've got 2-3 T1 Pets summoned who are all attacking in support of my Mastermind. The result is a kind of withering barrage of arrows, shurikens and darts that will often time faceplant an incoming attacker before they even reach my Mastermind in an attempt to melee me. In other words, tactically speaking, my build is able to defeat a $Target before it even has a chance at doing meaningful damage to either my Mastermind and/or my Pets. I defeat them while they are charging into melee, rather than trying to defeat them after they're in melee and doing significant (melee) damage to either my Pets or myself. The imbalance in damage dealt versus damage taken is simply MASSIVE compared to the alternative of making my Pets deal all the damage themselves, in melee, where they will also take a lot of damage, in melee. The differential in survival is simply a CHASM ... and that's before calculating the difference in time spent to achieve those defeats, the safety margin that the ranged opening affords and the reduced need for healing after everything is over and done with. I worked all of this out by realizing that I could either spend my endurance healing my Pets for all the damage they were taking, or I could help them defeat $Targets faster(!) by attacking myself so they took fewer hits. The endurance cost was roughly equal either way, but the tempo of action was vastly different ... since it was either defeat fast with light healing needed or defeat slower with heavy healing needed. It didn't take a whole lot of experimentation to realize that going faster with less healing needed was the superior alternative (and a lot more FUN and engaging to play to boot!). Having those ranged attacks ready at ALL times for use just completely inverted my thinking on how to play my Mastermind, and I am MUCH happier as a result of that. I'd be willing to demonstrate the differences for anyone who'd like to witness how the different engagement strategies completely alter the dynamics ... but my Mastermind is only Level 19 and a Praetorian who is currently level locked while I'm playing through ALL of the Praetorian content. Ordinarily, this is the kind of thing I'd want to just post a demo video for, but since we're not allowed to do that, it's not an option ... so in game team to observe in missions is the next best alternative.

Tough is a minimum 2 power picks due to pre-reqs and Weave is a minimum of 3. Temporal Mending is a single power pick with no pre-reqs. The comparison you are making is not symmetrical in opportunity costs.

King's Row originally connected to Galaxy City ... until Paragon Studios "wrecked" Galaxy City to make a new Tutorial Zone.

I was able to obtain the Frenzy alignment power on 2 of my Villains thanks to the Tips To Morality missions on 2 of my Villains who have stayed Villains. At some point I'll do the month long trip "around the horn" of spending a week+ being each alignment just to get the badge for each of them ... all of which can't be done via the Null the Gull shortcut.

This is incorrect. Go to the costume editor and look in the Backpacks and you'll see that there are 2 types of Backpack ... the Original, which uses default colors, and a second option that allows you to pick your colors (2).

It is a glorious day for science!

Just came across this guide and I think I’m in love. This sentence sealed the deal. It only hurts because it's TRUE ... 🤣

This is one of those situations where I'm pretty much convinced that the Conventional Wisdom™ on Masterminds has "got it wrong" on how they are meant to be played ... and I'm speaking from personal experience here (see Ninja/Time/Mace Mastermind). The Conventional Wisdom™ on Masterminds holds that a Mastermind shouldn't be build or played as the "leader" of a gang of Pets who fights WITH them, but rather should be played as a pure-ish Buff Bot who supports their Pets (who do all the fighting) while the Mastermind reserves all of their endurance for Pet support. This notion has been cemented by the "Endurance Penalty" imposed upon their powers which makes everything Masterminds do cost more than the same power would cost if it were used by a different Archetype. So the basic fallacy is the notion that Mastermind personal attacks are both WEAK AND WORTHLESS to take and use so should never appear in any Mastermind builds (let alone be used, because endurance "wasted" on attacks is endurance that can't be "spent" on buffing your Pets). And while that notion may look like the correct one while staring at the build planner of your choice and trying to min/max your way to an optimal Mastermind build ... it completely discounts and negates any value to be gained from positioning and different Battlefield Flow Strategies which in actual gameplay can make an incredibly huge difference. Again, I'm speaking from personal experience here ... and I cannot stress strongly enough just how much of a difference in actual gameplay it makes. Actively attacking from long range as a (Ninja) Mastermind to draw aggro (initially) onto yourself, which then via Bodyguard Mode distributes the incoming damage AND triggers your Pets to attack (at range) like a bunch of support turrets is A LOT more fun to play than just sending in the Pets to destroy everything while you watch (passively) waiting to use a support power (if needed). It honestly FEELS DIFFERENT to actively participate (as a Mastermind) in the beatdowns that You AND your Pets are delivering to each spawn group. It's a far more active and engaging style of play, and it also makes it possible to use multiple styles of tactical strategy ... from "fight them over there and tenderize them as they close" to the stock and standard "fight them over here because they bumrushed towards you" that is so typical. By expanding the envelope of opportunity and THREAT that your Mastermind not only has but and impose at your discretion, the way the Archetype plays is almost completely different. So as you can tell, I am totally converted to the notion that Masterminds should take, slot and USE their personal attacks so as to not force themselves into the corner of making their Pets do all the work for them. The ... harmony ... that results from taking and using personal attacks on Masterminds, rather than just standing around as a buff bot while your Pets do ALL of the fighting for you, is simply a matter of night vs day in terms of enjoyment in playing the Archetype. Sadly, there don't seem to be that many Players willing to challenge the Conventional Wisdom™ on Masterminds that reduces Masterminds to being Buff Bots With Pets™ who are little more than spectators for a "team" of NPCs who do all the fighting for them. No wonder there are a number of people in this thread saying they can't GET Mastermind gameplay ... in part because a lot of Players wind up playing builds that are the functional equivalent of playing with one hand tied behind your back in pursuit of "optimal min/maxery" (or words to that effect) that looks GREAT on paper/in the build planner but which winds up being deadly dull and boring to actually play. Or to put it another way ... Paganism. It's not just for Heretics anymore ...

Time/Dual Pistols is more fun to play, whether you're solo or in a group.

That's Kinetic Melee. Baking Force Feedback into attacks? That's power creep right there. Staff Melee? Martial Arts already does Stuns, Immobilize and Knock effects. More power creep. And even more power creep. I'm going to have to decline to support what you're advocating for.

When soloing, played right, a Controller "defeats" the mobs they encounter BEFORE the fight starts, rather than after. Once lockdown is established, it's simply a matter of debuffing HP until XP/INF get released. Control heavy gameplay relies heavily upon the notion of neutralizing your opponents before you faceplant them, resulting in a (preferred) City of Statues style of gameplay that by design isn't that dynamic ... instead it's all about "winning" from the start and then just mopping up. If you're trading blows as a Controller, you're losing. You are not a Scrapper ... you're a Controller. You CONSTRAIN (or control, if you prefer) what your opponents are ALLOWED to do. Prevent them from taking actions while you continue to take actions (lockdown) and you win. That way, the risk is at the start of the fights (kind of like with Regeneration) ... rather than at the end of them. Your opening move determines how the entire battle progresses ... and whether your $Targets even get a "turn" to act against you at all.

Hook. Line. Sinker. Rod. Reel. Fisherman. ... and part of the dock ... This thread has a rather pungent odor to it.

You flatter me. It's one of those "how many layers deep do I need to go to figure this part out?" kinds of things. A lot of people who mess around with the build planner(s) simply do something that "looks right" and is all about optimizing each individual power in a vacuum, rather than going to the extra dimensional layer of looking at how their entire build ... integrates ... as a whole. Depending on how you're doing your build, that's like about 3-4 layers deep into the build strategy, and you're dealing with 4th dimensional Tetris assembly at that point (and that's before you even start accounting for how gracefully performance will degrade when Exemplared below 50). But yes, being sensitive to the ... shapes ... of attack cycle timing (animation and recharge cycling) as well as making sure you have enough margin to double stack your mez durations reliably will make a tremendous difference in overall performance in actual gameplay. I see a lot of builds that go the a la carte route of just wanting to "pick the best everythings" and then throw them into a build and call it Done™ without going onto that extra dimension of even trying to integrate everything together to see if all those "best everythings" even fit together in ways that are useful, let alone self-reinforcing (or even stable). If all you care about is MAX DEEPS then that kind of additional layer of analysis won't interest you because all you care about is "max everythings" and anything else is a waste of your time. So it really depends on what your goals are for your build(s), and what kind of investment in time and rethinking you're willing to put into refining your build strategies ... because the more you put in, the more you get out of it. And THAT ... right there ... is the reason why I post the results of my research. Knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. Pass it on.

Even better yet, you can enhance Temporal Selection (I like using the full 6 slots of Preventative Medicine) so as to have it simulcast on more than one Ally/Pet. With enough global recharge in the build (for Farsight and Chrono Shift mainly) you can get Temporal Selection down to ~40s recharge time on a 120s duration, which can mean up to 3 Temporal Selection effects running concurrently on multiple Allies/Pets ... so definitely not useless.

Well, here's my take on the value of increased crowd control capacity on a Tanker ... v3.1.0 SR/MA "No Get HITSU!!"

*ahem* Neither of these powers should be skipped. Time Crawl combined with Time Stop will neutralize Bosses in short order (mag 3 without Time Crawl, mag 4 with Time Crawl debuff). Temporal Selection adds multiple buffs that apply to a single Pet (+Damage, +Regeneration and increased Healing effect when healed). I disagree. Entangling Aura is a power that needs enhancement to be very powerful (surprise, I know). The activation period is 5s and the Hold duration is 4s (and does not stack from same caster) ... so at a bare minimum you want to have +25% Hold duration (to increase 4s to 5s for possible perma overlap) with the goal being to have as much Hold duration enhancement as you can usefully fit into the power so as to make the Hold effect as extended as possible. With an 8s or more duration, the Hold duration is long enough to severely imbalance combat in your favor (and thus in favor of the survival of your Pets).

Polishing up a rebuild of my Time/DP/Soul Defender build into a Time/DP/Power build ... and with that one change (and a bit of reshuffling of enhancement slots) was able to do a 9+9 of primary and secondary with 1+1+1+3 powers from pools (the 3 are the Leadership toggles!). It's a thing of beauty ...

Wait ... Power Mastery ...? /em ducks out to check build planner Oh. Oh my ... So with Power Mastery instead of Soul Mastery, a pre-req power (Soul Drain) doesn't need to be taken ... freeing up that power pick (and all of the slots associated with it) for being put into Executioner's Shot (the one Dual Pistols power I didn't have the slots for). It would mean dropping Soul Storm from the build, but that would open up a slot for taking Stealth out of the Concealment pool for stealthy positioning into the center of a spawn for optimal positioning for Hail of Bullets as an opening attack, which with Standard Ammo is a 100% Knockdown (against $Targets that do not have Knock Protection). So I finally (after almost 6 weeks) found enough time to scrape together a first pass on a rewrite of this build into a Time Manipulation/Dual Pistols/Power Mastery build and ... I'm kind of thinking it's even better than the Time/DP/Soul build I've been hung up on for most of the past year. The difference is a little bit like trying to compare Warshades to Peacebringers, in that one leeches power from $Targets nearby (Warshades) and the other is entirely self-contained (Peacebringer) with no dependencies on external circumstances. Best way I can describe what's different between the two builds is ... this way ... When I get enough time to compile everything together, I'll make a new post for Time Manipulation/Dual Pistols/Power Mastery. Oh and I was able to fit Executioner's Shot into the rebuild with Power Mastery ... 👍

If Null The Gull can allow fill in the blank to happen, then it ought to be a non-lying slice of cake to add higher order Kheldian triggered foes to spawn into the Notoriety Options.

When a melee powerset has 1 AoE attack ... it's an ALL OR NOTHING proposition whether or not that 1 AoE attack ought to be granted to Stalkers. Dragon's Tail in Martial Arts is such a case. I say yes. You say no. Now, if none of the Stalker primaries had any AoE attacks allowed in them, I'd say you have a leg to stand on ... but since that's obviously not true ...

Unless the thread is locked ... people could still post ...

That was basically Flurry with a foot (as originally animated) ... that meant when you missed resulted in a "smell my foot for no damage" animation.

SHOULD ... But there's always an edge case ...

That's kind of hilarious ... because my best friend mainlined an AR/Devices Blaster (rolled up in Issue 3) who was commonly known as "The Angel of Death" among the many members of the SG we ran with.