Redlynne

As Steampunkette says, there was a ... premature optimization ... made with Repel (and Knockdown, and Restistances, and Mez in general, and ... you get the idea) such that there is no "pull" counterpart to the "push" of Repel. The closest you can get to approximating a "pull" would be extremely(!) clunky(!) ... and would probably require doing something completely off the wall bonkers, such as doing rapid succession SHORT range (like 1ft per activation) Teleports that move the $Target closer to the Attractor, and do it repeatedly for however long it takes to draw $Targets in closer ... so as to make it look like they're being "dragged" towards a central location (almost certainly a pseudo-pet) rather than being "pushed" away from it. And to make matters worse, that would need to be done via some sort of Grant Power status to every Foe within aura radius (subject to Max Targets limits, of course). I think that you can already see how this would start getting excessively kludgy in a big way in a big hurry ... hence why there's no mechanic in City of Heroes that supports this kind of functionality.

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Arachnos Crab Spider Soldier.mxd

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Huntsman 1 - Arachnos Soldier - Wolf Spider.mxd

Well ... a lot has been discovered since I recovered my Huntsman build post from the original City of Heroes forums currently on the wayback machine. There has been an incredible amount of research done into procs using the PPM formulas, and how to tweak builds to take advantage of those changes, now that procs aren't fixed percentages anymore. There's also been a number of other discoveries made with respect to how debuff procs stack (or don't), what kind of impact that can have on an overall build plan ... and more. And I've had more time (and experience with the new Build Planner(!) to learn some new tricks and shift some priorities around and, well ... ye ken hoo i'tis. The old post needed an update ... mainly because I'm using this build and I want to incorporate all the knowledge I've gained (and, let's be honest here, REgained!) since Homecoming went public just a few scant months ago. So here we are. The first major change that I'm making with this new build is that ... now ... I KNOW PROC FU. I've even gotten pretty darn good at calculating it myself, so I can "run a build up the flagpole" and see what kind of proc chances are in play before finalizing the build into a format that I find most pleasing for how I'd want to play. That then lets me know if I need to rejigger the choices of enhancements within sets that I want to use (and the Level I want to slot them as) in order to control those proc chances in a way to maximize their yield in the context of the overall build. Also, since there's been a recovery of a (unverified) PPM List I can review what sets offer procs that will best fit the recharge times and area factors of various powers. This is an incredibly valuable resource, since it now means that I can "tailor" the enhancement of my powers and "know" in advance how things ought to work together. The PPM List also answers some extremely important and rather basic questions, like ... exactly what does the Spider's Bite proc actually DO, and how does it "work" (per se)? It also helps explain what the Dominion of Arachnos proc does. And even better yet, it answers the all important question of what the difference is between the Superior and non-Superior versions of the respective sets is so as to be able to predict, with confidence, how upgrading to the Superior version will modify performance (for the better). So the first (obvious) change relative to the previous build plan is that I dropped the Entropic Chaos sets entirely from Single Shot and Burst. Part of the reason for this is thanks to the pioneering work I did on my Ninja/Time/Mace Mastermind build in which I found that putting the Decimation proc into fast recharging powers that are used A LOT has a very high rate of return on investment, particularly when looking at it from the standpoint of buffing an attack chain with one (or preferrably, more than one) attack in the 5.25s of Build Up buff duration being an AoE attack that can multiply the benefit of the Build Up proc extremely efficiently. Also, due to the structure of the PPM proc system, it quickly became apparent that the best place to put the Spider's Bite would be in a fast recharging power that otherwise would have a very poor performance if slotted with a proc. The combination of these two factors made Single Shot the best candidate for Decimation, due to how the attack rotation chains at lower levels of Exemplar where you'll often times be doing a Single Shot/Burst/Single Shot rotation while waiting for other attack powers to recharge. In these limited circumstances, making more attacks (even at a lower proc chance per attack) is a superior option when trying to get the most out of the Decimation proc for a Build Up buff. Likewise, practically by process of elimination, Burst became the best place to put the (full) Spider's Bite set so as to enable a global proc chance on every attack(!) for additional Toxic damage (8% in non-Superior, 12% in Superior versions) and which is NOT subject to PPM rules. Theoretically, I could swap the slotting for these two powers (Spider's Bite in Single Shot and Decimation in Burst) with the only difference being how often Single Shot gets used during attack rotations (once or twice per rotation, basically). This is a Your Mileage May Vary negotiable point. And since I was looking for places to put the ATO sets, it started coming down to where to put the Dominion of Arachnos set. Single Shot and Burst were already "taken" for slotting. Heavy Burst (in my opinion) REQUIRES frankenslotting in order to get enough Range enhancement into the power to give it enough "reach" to match the rest of the attack powers so you don't need to get closer in order to use Heavy Burst at all (and with the longer range you get a "wider" cone arc at the extreme limit of range, letting you hit more $Targets, potentially). That left only Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade as candidates for where to put the Dominion of Arachnos set ... and I'd only have 5 slots to do it in either way, since I wanted to have an Annihilation proc in Venom Grenade (lower PPM, larger radius, but much longer base recharge to compensate) and a Force Feedback proc in Frag Grenade (the ONLY place in the entire build where I could slot in the Force Feedback proc). The final consideration then was that the Dominion of Arachnos features a -Damage debuff and a Terrorized status effect and that it would be more advantageous to put that kind of a proc into Venom Grenade with its 20ft radius rather than into Frag Grenade with its 10ft radius. Fortunately this let me 5-slot the Dominion of Arachnos set (and get the global recharge set bonus) into Venom Grenade AND 5-slot a Positron's Blast into Frag Grenade (for another global recharge set bonus). After that, it was simply a matter of selecting enhancements from each set that would MINIMIZE recharge enhancement values (from the enhancements themselves) so as to be able to maximize the proc chances of the procs slotted into Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade. If I didn't have access to the proc formulas courtesy of @Bopper and others like @Sir Myshkin doing their extensive research on how procs function here on Homecoming, I wouldn't have been able to reach the conclusions (and build plan) I have here with the confidence to know that it's about as optimal as I can get given the mix of options. Another thing that I wanted to take a second look at was the choice of "timing" for taking a travel power, which historically had been Hover (for what ought to be obvious reasons), and determine if it made sense to switch to Mystic Flight for the all-in-one Fly+Teleport power (which is just fantastic!). While I was making the build you'll see below, I actually did go through a couple of iterations where I had "too many Luck of the Gambler global recharges" and had to drop one ... so I swapped out Hover for Mystic Flight. I even considered removing the Steadfast Knockback protection IO from Crab Spider Armor and instead slotting a Blessing of the Zephyr Knockback protection IO into Mystic Flight so as to reshuffle what my Resistance slots were doing for me. However, eventually I swapped the slotting in Maneuvers to be a full set of Reactive Defenses instead of a second Red Fortune plus Luck of the Gambler slotting like I have in Tactical Training: Maneuvers (which offers a much higher Defense value aura). In this case, I wanted the Scaling Resistances that Reactive Defenses offers, which then meant I had a free slot for another Luck of the Gambler global recharge and went ahead and swapped back to Hover. However, in the process of researching that option, I managed to squeeze an extra slot out of the build so as to put it into Fortification (now moved to Level 24, its earliest availability) and 2-slot an Unbreakable Guard into Fortification so as to get the 2 slot set bonus of global endurance reduction on every power (useful!) and have a place to put the +Max HP global enhancement, which in turn augments the rate of HP return via Regeneration and also works to multiply the HP gain from Serum(!), yielding a seriously increased return on investment. The increase in Resist All from this slotting in Fortification is for all intents and purposes almost a byproduct of the set bonus and global enhancement I was reaching for here. And speaking of Serum, I switched it from being 5 slotted with Doctored Wounds (for the global recharge set bonus) to being 6 slotted with the Preventive Medicine set, which thanks to its proc will just spawn Absorb shields every 90 seconds or so (the lockout time on the proc) simply because Serum has such a long recharge time that it'll proc almost every time the lockout expires. And it doesn't hurt that Preventive Medicine set offers a larger global recharge set bonus AND a global endurance reduction set bonus all in one power. Gimmie! In order to shore up the Ranged Defense hole that some of these changes opened, I had to go with a full set of Expedient Reinforcement on Call Reinforcements, sacrificing their enhanced mez power I'd had in the previous build courtesy of HO slotting ... and doing that then essentially "pushed" me to change Summon Spiderlings over to using a full Call to Arms set, since the Pet Aura globals are unique to their respective sets (meaning I can't use the entire set twice). Hopefully this will enhance the survival rate of these Pets above the baseline, particularly while within 60ft of my Huntsman (and therefore, my Defense aura powers), so they aren't quite so squishy. Owing to the changes in slotting for Health and Stamina, which dramatically improved the endurance recovery rate for the build, and the combination of set bonuses that yielded a very nice 10% global endurance reduction to all powers(!) helping to balance the endurance recovery equation in favor of longevity in heavy combat ... I decided to drop the Victory Rush power and swap in Stealth instead. This then makes it possible to "ninja" missions in relative safety when combined with the Stealth IO in Sprint. The "price" for doing all of this wonderful stuff was "harvesting" slots from other power(s) where they weren't as needed ... which in this case meant ... sorry, Tactics ... because with a whole other aura doing the job that Tactics does, you don't need Tactics for slotting in the Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control set into. And, seriously, if you're not slotting Gaussian's into Tactics, you're left with 5 slotting Adjusted Targeting (for the global recharge set bonus), but that's a whole lot of slots just to get a +5% global recharge set bonus. The alternative is to just turn Tactics into a 1 slot wonder power, accept the loss of a pittance of +ToHit buffing and reclaim 4 whole enhancement slots to be used elsewhere in the build ... which as you can see I did ... to increase the amount of endurance recovery (by adding a slot to Health) and increasing the global endurance discount from set bonuses and being able to 6 slot enough attack powers to make full use of the ATO sets and just generally squeeze little extra bits of performance out of the build around the margins to yield an overall superior result to the previous effort(s) I've made on this topic. So yeah ... sorry Tactics. I'm keeping you as one of my power picks, but you aren't getting extra slots anymore, since I've got better things to do with those slots. Totally not sorry, given how things turned out, but if I had more slots to play with I'd put them into Tactics again, okay? But since that's not happening, Tactics is reduced to being a 1 slot wonder power at Level 47(!). Only other thing I feel obliged to mention is that with the slotting I've got in Hasten here, Hasten is perma even without procs from Force Feedback ... so ... yay. Anyway, enough babbling from me about things hardly anyone is interested in ... let's have a look at the results of all this effort, shall we?

Yeah, there might be a way to leverage those personal attacks way beyond what the Conventional Wisdom™ is assuming ...

Let's just settle for the notion that a T8 attack has a LOWER Damage Per Animation (second) than the T2 attack in the same powerset ... and also notice it it barely (just barely!) exceeds the same metric with respect to the T1 attack ... and just leave it at that. Greater Ice Sword ... NOT better than nothing!

Oh man ... you just gave me an Ebil Idea™ ... We all agree (more or less) that Mercs have a serious problem in that they've got long recharge attacks which can't be modified by recharge enhancement (unlike PCs). But we've also go the Burnout power sitting over there in the Speed pool (on a stupidly long 30 MINUTE base recharge) as an example of what is POSSIBLE to do. So WHAT IF ... ... Serum were reconfigured to be a port of Smoke Flash from the Ninja powerset (meaning 20s base recharge instead of 1000s base recharge) and Serum (only!) acted like a "Burnout" styled instant recharge of all powers for the Merc Pet (and ONLY Merc Pets!) you use it on (single target only per use of the power). In other words ... Serum lets you have your Mercs use their powers "faster" than they would be able to recharge them on their own. Recharge on Merc powers is too long? Use Serum on them so they can "double up" the use of those powers in a given time span. In other words, you use Serum to "supercharge" the offense (and if used on the Medic, defense?) of one Merc Pet at a time. Enhance recharge and endurance reduction to use Serum even more often ... but you have to use it on a Merc Pet. Damn. I think I might have just fixed Mercs for everyone ...

Numerous ... ... hardly any ... aside from being Recharge hungry (oh gee bum!) and Endurance hungry (but you can do things about that). The only weakness I can think of is that it doesn't inherently protect against Knockback, you have to slot an IO for that ... but that's hardly a disqualifier since most Defender primary powersets are similar in that regard. It's really HARD to go wrong with Time Manipulation on a Defender ... so long as you dedicate enough slots to enhancing it. Time Manipulation tends to work a in a fashion that can perhaps be described (to your $Targets) as "You're already defeated, you just haven't gotten the memo yet."

Cipher posted these today. What I take away from this datamining is that only ~10% of the PCs created have made it to the mid-30s ... but of those who do reach the mid-30s, most of them keep going until reaching Level 50. That's because the bottom two bar graphs are remarkably similar in shape, and Empathy is CLEARLY the most commonly picked and played to 50 primary powerset for Defenders (at the moment). At least there's a little bit of reshuffling in popularity for the secondary powersets, as level ranges increase. And yes, I'm amused to see that Time/Dual Pistols is not an inherently majorly popular combination, despite (or because of?) all the posting that's been expended on those builds in these forums. Just goes to show, once again, that there's more to the game and the community playing it than what you see here in the forums.

Good luck with that one ...

Alright, here we go. I spent a LOT of today working up this build, just to attempt a rough draft of it ... then sat down to compute where the proc chances were and ... decided that I needed to "change my brand" and reshuffle the deck on which proc (sets) go where in order to achieve a more middling overall performance profile from the mess of procs in this build. In the first draft I was looking at 150+% chances to proc on a number of powers and figured that was just wasteful. The first draft of this build, I had Mesmerize ... then I took it out, so as to put Enflame in ... and then I took it back out, because I had the (not so?) bright idea of slotting up Mesmerize with a 5-piece Decimation (which now seems to be a signature Go To move on my builds now) and then pair it with an Induced Coma proc for -Recharge debuffing. My reasoning for this is relatively simple, in that Mesmerize is simply the better option (than Levitate) to put the Decimation set into, and because the Induced Coma proc will incur a recharge debuff penalty for 20 seconds, even if the Sleep from Mesmerize gets broken (as it will tend to do in teams). This then turns Mesmerize into this weird combination of damage, fragile control, (chance to) buff and (chance to) debuff all rolled into a single power. It's kind of bizarre. I put Mesmerize back into the build because it gives me a reliable Go To rotation of single target attack powers that I can then work/braid around Ice Arrow. Levitate is my (chance to) self heal while also being the only Knockback power available through my primary and secondary powersets. I know that slotting Force Feedback here without other Knockback powers available isn't exactly optimal, but this is a case of beggars can't be choosers. I'm keeping the slotting of Purple 50 set IOs out of the build plan, simply to orient it more around being a leveling build for anyone who wants to try out this ... weird ... combination. Normally I'd put Purple 50 sets into Confuse and Mass Hypnosis, mainly because those sets tended to be cheaper (plentiful supply, barely any demand). I've got Glue Arrow slotted with a Smashing damage proc, and I hope it works in this power over the duration of the Glue Patch. Total Domination has a very interesting slotting going on for it. I put in the Overwhelming Force (and Energy Font proc IO) here because according to the Hero Builder the set has plenty of Accuracy, Recharge and Mez Duration buffing going on in it. That let me 5-slot Overwhelming Force (upgrade to the Superior version for a higher chance to proc the Energy Font) so as to put a Lockdown proc into Total Domination. Thanks to the PPM changes, this means that the Lockdown proc basically has a (capped) 90% chance to proc on every target hit by Total Domination, rendering this Target AoE Hold into an almost certain Boss Hold power in a single cast (particularly when also adding in the Controller 20% chance for a bonus +1 MAG). This makes Total Domination a lot more reliable for locking down entire spawn groups, once they been sufficiently herded. Recharge time is under 75 seconds, so you'd be able to use Total Domination almost routinely (almost). I did explore the option of putting the Overwhelming Force set and Energy Font proc into Terrify and ... didn't like the proc chances that came out of the equation. Putting Overwhelming Force into Terrify wound up being low chance to proc on a (still) longish time to recharge. The "real problem" with putting Overwhelming Force into Terrify was the combination of the Area Factor of Terrify, the sub-one minute base recharge time on Terrify and the 1 PPM proc rate of Energy Font (not superior) that would keep the combo from providing sufficient yield in terms of proc rates to be worth the effort. Ice Arrow is loaded up with procs (2 Psionic, 1 Smashing damage) and also the Entomb set proc so as to have a chance to spawn an absorb shield around your Controller. The longer recharge of Ice Arrow works in favor of all of these proc chances, in this case. Poison Gas Arrow is loaded up with an Induced Coma set, mainly for the proc that offers a -Recharge debuff. The reason why this set is put into Poison Gas Arrow instead of into Mass Hypnosis is because Mass Hypnosis does NOT notify mobs, while Poison Gas Arrow will ALWAYS notify mobs, thereby drawing aggro. Since any debuff will also notify mobs to draw aggro, putting the Induced Coma set into Mass Hypnosis would foil the aggro-less aspect of Mass Hypnosis, while putting the set into Poison Gas Arrow will "align" with the power in this regard because the Poison Gas Arrow will already be notifying mobs anyway. At this point, I don't think I've seen anyone do any proc analysis of slotting Induced Coma into Poison Gas Arrow, so I can only hope that it works (as expected). I did not reach for Call of the Sandman or Fortunata Hypnosis since those procs would only (really) be of any use on the initial attack, not on any subsequent attacks made by the Poison Gas Arrow spawned pseudopet that creates the gas cloud effect. At least Induced Coma ought to provide a beneficial debuff yield, even if the Sleep effect is broken or is unable to be stacked sufficiently to overcome MAG protection in $Targets. I skimped on the slotting (and procs) of Acid Arrow, simply because it is such a SMALL AoE (a mere 8 ft radius). The small area factor makes it good for proc chances (smaller divisor modifier in the formula) but it also means that it's only going to affect a tightly packed/herded grouping, and perhaps not all of them even then. Because of this small AoE factor, I went ahead and only gave Acid Arrow a mere 3 slots for the purpose of maximizing the -Resistance debuffing within its smaller AoE. Normally you'd want to put a Positron's Blast proc for energy damage into this set so as to use Acid Arrow to light Oil Slicks, but in this build (which is so incredibly slot hungry!) I decided to move the "ignition" factor of the Positron's Blast proc into Terrify (of all things) so as to "terrify oil slicks" into igniting. This appeals to be since it means that using Terrify to ignite oil slicks does not require careful/precise targeting of the oil slick itself since Terrify is a Cone attack. Which brings me to Terrify. Owing to the recharge (base and enhanced) and area factors on Terrify, it really only makes sense to slot high(ish) PPM procs into this power if you want those procs to be at least semi-reliable on their proc chances. Both Will of the Controller and Positrons Blast procs therefore have a relatively high chance to proc per use of the Terrify power, giving Terrify a much needed boost in AoE damage output/throughput onto $Targets. Hasten is ... obligatory ... in a build so many powers that have base recharge times in excess of 30 seconds. Getting the Force Feedback in Levitate to proc will help close the gap on Hasten being perma(-able). Mass Confusion is slotted for Accuracy, Confuse and Recharge so as to increase its reliability and uptime. This is to allow Mass Comedy to be used in a rotation between Mass Hypnosis, Terrify, Total Domination, Mass Comedy and EMP Arrow for more frequent en masse control and lockdown effects even when combat is chaotic. Note that putting the Purple 50 Contagious Confusion proc (and or set) into Mass Confusion means that the Coercive Persuasion proc for additional Confusion MAG (in a small area) goes up to over 90% chance to proc ... which can turn Mass Comedy into a Boss controlling power in a single hit, no need to stack Confuse unless dealing with an Elite Boss or above. For this reason alone, I would recommend putting the Coercive Persuasion set into Mass Confusion here, rather than into the Confuse power, just because of how ... thoroughly ... getting all of those 90% chance to stack all those Target AoE procs on herded groups would turn the tide(s) of battle in a hurry(!). So if you're in danger of getting overrun, use of Mass Comedy with the Coercive Persuasion proc slotted in, will be absolutely game changing! Oil Slick Arrow is proc monstered out ... although I would only expect the Slow damage proc to be checked prior to the lighting of the Oil Slick. Once the slick is lit, then the Positron's Blast and Touch of Lady Grey procs will come into play, increasing the damage throughput of the (lit) Oil Slick. EMP Arrow is slotted for Hold with a Basilisk's Gaze set, to improve the uptime on the power and to squeeze a little bit more global recharge out of the build. Be mindful of the 18s of -1000% Regeneration AND Recovery debuffing that this power inflicts (and which, sadly, cannot have the duration of enhanced). This is your AV/GM neutralizer power. Use it with that in mind. You can also use EMP Arrow to extend the lockdown duration of Total Domination long enough (theoretically, if timed exactly right) to recharge Total Domination for a second use on a group (assuming they live longer than 1 minute). Tactics is slotted with a full Gaussian's set to as to have increasing chances for the Build Up to proc depending on how many teammates are within the 60 ft radius of the power getting buffed. With a Team-8 situation, you're looking at 8 chances to proc a 6.5% proc chance every 10 seconds ... which is statistically equivalent to having a 41.5% chance to proc the Build Up for 5.25s every 10s ... which I consider Not Too Shabby™. Proc chances on the Build Up increase even more dramatically in League play where your Tactics buff can affect more than just 8 PCs per tick, so this is something to keep in mind for team/league play. So with all of that pontificating out of the way, here's the build. Yes, I (deliberately) left a Knockdown Protection "hole" in the build in order to increase the amount of global recharge the build has available to it. I figure that most of the Knockdown/Knockback dangers will be mitigated by use of Hover (even if you do flip over in the air). At this point, this build is still in the "rough draft" stages and probably still has room for tweaking (such as adding Purple 50 sets) so as to get even more performance out of the overall build. Simply switching to Superior versions of some of the procs will improve their proc chances somewhat dramatically, so there is definitely "headroom" in this build for yet further improvement/refinement by dipping into the Purple 50 regime of slotting. I suppose I should also note that this particular build feels like it would best be played in a sort of "aggressive defense" type of style that is strongly reminiscent of the City of Statues gameplay that Controllers lived in before Containment came along. First you lock 'em down and then you burn 'em down while your $Targets are helpless to stop you, while soloing. When teamed, this build offers more than just (mere) hard control lockdown capability. The mix of resistance debuffing and damage debuffing add to your ability to contribute "meaningfully" to group play, making everyone "better" at what they can do, allowing them to operate with increased safety margins for longer stretches of time. Just avoid drawing aggro yourself (you're not built to take it head on). Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Mind Control - Trick Arrow.mxd

Not sure that "complex gameplay" is a proper labeling. I prefer to think of Gravity/Time Manipulation as being a combination that doesn't rely on multiple things going Exactly Right™ for you all the time in order to achieve performance. I myself have often times found that what sounds great in the forums {insert complex chain of powers that takes 10+ seconds to animate} sounds absolutely wonderful in text only to completely fall apart in actual gameplay ... either because the situation is evolving too "fast" for you to pull off your ULTRA COMBOooooooooo!!! of awesomesauce courtesy of HEAVYYYY BARRELLLLL!!! status (some assembly required). Instead, I prefer to think of Gravity/Time Manipulation as having multiple options for a wide variety of circumstances. Basically the opposite of a One Trick Pony™. If one tactic/strategy doesn't work, you've got multiple other ones you can use. So in that respect, I'd say that Adaptable To Gameplay would perhaps be a better descriptor. It's only "complex" in the sense of needing to figure out what you want to do NOW ... with an eye towards what you're going to be doing Soon™ factored into that ... and at each decision point, you've got multiple options helping to keep the gameplay both fresh and varied (and therefore, interesting).

Ever heard of cobwebs?

There's something bizarro going on with the installer. Run the installer twice ... and if at all possible have the 2.6.0.1 version using .net 2.0 downloaded, unzipped and ready to go from the same folder location that you're doing all of your installing from (you can move everything to where you ultimately want them to be later after installs are done and the program launches successfully).

UPDATE. Please note that the bindloadfiles that I am currently using have also been updated (slightly) and can be found earlier upthread HERE. This is a case of "the more things change, the more they stay the same" ... kinda sorta (but not really). The main difference in the following updated build is that it closes the Knockback Protection "hole" that the previous build did not address (at all) ... which is "bad" for a build that intends to Tankermind all that effectively. The slot reshuffling mostly involved taking slots away from Temporal Selection (which is "fine" as a 1 slot wonder power, actually). I'd previously had Temporal Selection 5-slotted with the Regenerative Tissue set for the +5% global recharge set bonus and to have somewhere to put the +25% Regeneration IO from the set, but with Temporal Mending available every 8 second or so, that was really a luxury indulgence that wasn't actually needed. So out those slots came. Those specific slots (4 of them) got shuffled into Farsight (+3) and Scorpion's Shield (+1) of all places. The addition to Scorpion's Shield allows me to slot the Knockback Protection IO from the Karma set into Scorpion's Shield while also slotting in a Luck of the Gambler +Recharge IO into the two slots there. The real change though came to Farsight. Previously I'd had a Luck of the Gambler +Recharge IO slotted into Farsight, just for the +7.5% global recharge increase ... but with 6 slots in Farsight I could either use my 5 Red Fortune + 1 Luck of the Gambler slotting (for +5% and +7.5% global recharge buffing) granting a whopping +12.5% global recharge and a +2% global damage increase from a single 6-slotted (defensive!) power(!) ... or I could put in a full 6 slots worth of the Reactive Defenses set to get a global +3.75% global endurance discount and a +8.75% global recharge increase, along with Scaling Resists and HP gets lowered (on my Mastermind). The recharge difference is only +3.75% though, which is really only relevant to Hasten (120.6s vs 121.9s recharge time in the context of this build), since Chrono Shift is actually perma in this build. The only damage throughput of mine that's being aided by that +2% damage increase out of an extra 5-slot Red Fortune is on Snap Shot, Aimed Shot and Fistful of arrows ... amounting to an incredible +0.42, +0.61 and +0.56 damage (per $Target hit) increase (respectively) on these three powers. In other words, +1.56 Lethal damage against a single $Target per 3.7 seconds, for an astounding +0.422 damage per second increase. I'm going to file that kind of a difference under the heading of "whoop-de-fricken-doo" when it comes to analyzing the alternatives here. By contrast, the exact same attack chain of Snap Shot, Aimed Shot then Fistful of Arrows would save 0.1, 0.12 and 0.15 endurance, for a total savings of 0.37 endurance over those 3.7 seconds, for a 0.1 end/s reduction on each attack chain rotation ... to say nothing of the extra endurance being saved on every single other power being Click cast, and Time Manipulation features quite a lot of these. The other major difference between 5 Red Fortune + 1 Luck of the Gambler versus a full 6 Reactive Defenses is that the Red+Luck combo offers slightly higher Defense enhancement relative to the Reactive Defenses loadout, which can create a shortfall in Farsight performance (14.73% vs 14.33% for a loss of -0.4% Defense vs All) due to the higher amount of base Defense offered by Farsight. Fortunately, the "problem" of lost Defense increase is much less noticeable when slotting Reactive Defenses into Maneuvers (4.12% vs 4.01% for a loss of -0.11% Defense vs All). Under the effects of Power Boost that difference in slotting turns into 20.88% vs 20.48% for Farsight compared to a 5.85% vs 5.73% for Maneuvers ... meaning -0.4% or -0.12% Defense vs All, depending on where Reactive Defenses gets slotted. With that kind of "no brainer" decision at hand, I put the Red+Luck slots into Farsight and the Reactive Defenses set into Maneuvers ... mainly because the Red+Luck combo in Maneuvers offers an all to easy to miss/ignore increase in performance (Hasten by +1.3s on recharge and a micrometer-esque increase in damage from 3 powers in the entire build) relative to the broader benefits of having Reactive Defenses in Maneuvers making the entire build more endurance efficient overall to in effect enhance "longevity" in heavy combat while also offering scaling resistances as Mastermind HP drops, which could become relevant while Tankerminding. So on balance, for me at least, Reactive Defenses in Maneuvers "wins" the contest of priorities. The other change I made was more logistical than anything else. Previously, I'd be prioritizing getting enough slots into Time's Juncture as quickly as possible to augment/counterbalance the flimsy-ness of Ninja Pet Defenses (if you have to ask, you're assuming they're higher than they actually are). This time around, I decided to instead prioritize putting slots into Temporal Mending sooner so as to get the Absorb proc installed much more quickly during the leveling process. Needing to delay slotting up Time's Juncture for the Dark Watcher's set until the mid-30s is something of a shame, but once you get past it it's all good (and you'll never really need to worry about it ever again). It will also mean that right as you're getting ready for Chrono Shift your Time Manipulation powers will suddenly start getting "really strong(!)" and the whole build just won't stop getting stronger and stronger with every level up once you hit Level 22 and Single Origin enhancement levels, without looking back. The 30s and 40s are just about (back)filling in the gaps left as you leveled up until the whole build comes together with the Gaussian's Build Up proc as the capstone at 50 for the entire thing. Anyway, I hope people enjoy this update/rework that patches the one (only one?) hole I'd left in the earlier effort. I'd also like to give thanks to @SmalltalkJava for pointing out that this build can be relatively easily "ported" over for use, with practically trivial adjustment to not only Beasts/Time/Mace Masterminds, but also Mercs/Time/Mace Masterminds as well with very little effort. I'm sure that there are other Mastermind primaries which can use this build as a "template" to work from to achieve GREATNESS™ ... provided you're fine with using Ninja Run+Prestige Sprint+Swift+Hurdle along with P2W Travel Powers as your means of getting around town. However, if you absolutely MUST have a(n actual) Travel Power of some sort, you can always drop Assault for it (although I don't recommend that option due to what it does for your Pets). At any rate ... ENJOY! Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Ninjas - Time Manipulation.mxd

Yay ... fatal crash error in 2.6.0.1 when trying to access the Accolades window.

KnockDOWN ... when stacked ... turns into KnockBACK. This is because KnockDOWN is a "subset" condition of KnockBACK, rather than being its own unique thingy. So yes, if you stack enough KnockDOWN together in too short a time frame, you're going to get KnockBACK no matter what. It's just the way the math crumbles (see: cookies versus empires).

I'll just mention that Gravity/Time seems to have a few adherents aside from just merely myself ... 😎

Granted.

Mildly surprised I haven't seen more people basing the exteriors of their SG bases on the USS Cygnus from the Disney move ... The Black Hole ... Click the image to link to a youtube video of the flyby during the movie.

Oil Slick Arrow spawns a Pet ... the Oil Slick. The Oil Slick is not your Controller. Therefore ... damage done by the Oil Slick (or more specifically, the Oil Slick once it gets lit on fire) does not get modified by Containment, because the Pet doing the damage is not a Controller. Controller PCs do double damage with Containment. NPCs do not get to take advantage of Containment. Pets are NPCs. The Oil Slick is a Pet NPC. All that said, it's a fair question, particularly for those who are not steeped in the ins 'n' outs (and programming) of Controllers. I'm only explaining it the way that I am so as to provide clarity for not only the positive, but also the negative implications of the question so as to provide clarity in a thorough way that refutes potential misunderstandings.

I played BOTH games. Tabula Rasa was shut down BEFORE City of Heroes was shuttered. Cart vs Horse Round 1 OOPS!

For those of us using 2.6.0.1 on our Macs due to the "need" for a .net 2.0 build ... would it be possible to release a later version (2.6.0.4?) in .net 2.0 that we can basically extract and copy/overwrite into our working folder for the program as a drop in replacement, allowing us to update to the later version(s) of this application? Ideally speaking I'd want to be able to make use of the Check For Updates feature in the application and have it actually download the updates automagically (like you'd expect on a Win 10 machine).

Mesmerize is a damage power that just so happens to inflict Sleep (for 55+ seconds unenhanced!) as a side/after effect. You slot it for DAMAGE and then let the MAG 3.5 Sleep put Bosses into lockdown for you (in one hit) until you can get (back) to them. Mesmerize is one of your main damaging lockdown powers that you use for "you, time out!" on stuff. I've found that NOT taking Mesmerize is a mistake. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Go to System Preferences. Choose Security & Privacy. You will see there a warning that the CoH game client is not authorized ... but you will be given an option to open the program anyway. I think you can figure out everything else from there.