Adeon Hawkwood

Masterminds are balanced with the understnading that IO set bonuses don't affect pets. If they did then Masterminds would be even more ridiculously overpowered than they currently are. So it's working as intended.

No, the guy is wrong. Basically what he's doing is looking at the "total damage" number listed on the power in the game. However, this number assumes that Scourge (which doubles the base damage) has activated. So a Corruptor will do more damage than a Blaster when he scourges but that only has a chance to happen when the target is below half health. The base damage for the Corruptor is lower than the Blaster. The exact effect of Scourge is hard to calculate, if I recall correctly it was something like a 20%-30% increase overall.

I like most of what the SCORE team has done but there are a few decisions I don't really agree with and doing full powerset proliferation is one of them. While powerset proliferation is generally a good thing there are several places where the original developers make a decision not to give a set to a particular AT for good reasons and this is one of them. Empathy just isn't a great set for Masterminds. It's playable and decent enough on teams but at the end of day it's not really a great option. If you really want an MM Empath the best option is to stick with Pain Domination which was designed with MMs in mind.

So roughly speaking on the Hero side contacts can be divided into four categories: Origin, Hazard Zone, Story Chain and One-Off The Origin contacts are the original contacts in the game. You can (I think) start them by introducing yourself to the appropriate one in City Hall or you can run Radio missions and get an introduction after doing a safeguard. You can have five of these contacts (one per origin) at each level range, some level ranges just have a single one per origin while others have multiple options for each origin that are selected randomly (although they will all offer the same mission set). Basically the way these guys work after you've done one mission for them they will introduce you to another contact in the same level range but a different origin until you've got all five. Once you reach the max level for the current contact they will introduce you to a contact of the same Origin in the next level range. There are a handful of odd contacts in this category such as Steven Sheridan or Maria Jenkins who aren't technically origin contacts but use the same system for introductions. The Hazard Zone contacts are chains of contacts that form a single unified story within a single zone. The Hollows, Faultline, Striga, Crotoa, RWZ, probably some I'm forgetting. Basically these guys have a single story arc and will introduce you to the next contact in the chain once you finish their story or out-level it. Story Chain contacts are similar to Hazard Zone contacts in that they form a single chain of contacts telling a related story. However unlike Hazard Zone contacts they aren't limited to a single zone. The Signature Story Arc contacts are the main example of these but there are a few other examples such as Keith Nance and Jenni Adair who form a two-contact arc. One-Off contacts are contacts who aren't directly part of a contact chain but also aren't part of the Origin contacts system. Montague Castanella and Twinshot are good examples. So there are a few options for contact chains. Personally I would focus on the Hazard Zone contacts since the stories tend to be better than the Origin contacts. You can go Hollows -> Faultline -> Striga -> Croatoa -> Rikti War Zone reasonably easily. You might need to fill in a bit with other contacts or Task Forces here and there to get a couple of levels but you might be able to do it in one steady stream if you start using double XP boosters once you finish The Hollows. Field Agent Keith Nance's arc is also worth doing if you need content in the 20-29 range.

^This. Early and mid game I love sets like Empathy and Force Field but for high level play give me sets like Dark, Time, Radiation, Cold or Kinetics As a side note, I would disagree with you slightly in regards to Traps. While I agree that in general Time is a better version of Traps, Traps is still a very strong set only really held back by it's reliance on global recharge. A high recharge IO build makes a Traps Defender a force to be reckoned with.

1. Load my default window and chat settings 2. Bind "r" to toggle sprint on and off 3. Grab email with 200,000,000 inf (possibly more if I've got extra inf I need to store somewhere but I tend to give a chunk to get started either way) 4. Visit P2W vendor for prestige attacks, enhancements, double XP, 5 hours of jetpack fuel and ninja run (possibly also teleports but I sometimes hold off if I'm not sure I want to keep the character. 5. Hit a DFB to get enough levels to run Positron

So all levels and the attuned version cost the same because of the bucketing so there's no cost benefit to attuned or level 50. The advantage of the Attuned version is that you'll keep the set bonuses when you exemplar down unless you exemplar more than 3 levels below the minimum level of the set. The advantage of the Level 50 version is that you can use Enhancement Boosters to increase the effectiveness of the enhancements by up to 25%. So basically if you plan to use enhancement boosters on the enhancement then get the elvel 50 version. If you don't then get the attuned version. The exception to this is Purple sets and PvP sets since they keep thier set bonuses when exemplared anyway so you should just get the level 50 version.

Actually it's a Winter Enhancement set. The Hold PvP set is Gladiator's Net (most of the PvP sets have "Gladiator's" in the name). As a side note, for the Winter Enhancement sets, like the ATE sets you can use a catalyst to upgrade them to a Superior version with purple stats and set bonuses. However unlike the ATE sets for the Winter sets both the regular and Superior versions are bucketed on the market so the market price of the Superior version is the same as the regular version.

I generally skip the Dam/Range as well. Positron's blast is overslotted for damage so you want to skip one of the Dam/Something. You could potentially skip the Dam/Acc if you've got a high accuracy build but in general I'd only bother to do that with cones. I did have an AR/Dev Blaster back on live who skipped the Dam/End and made up for it with Cardiac but I wouldn't recommend that in general. As for the 6th slot it depends on the power. My AR/Dev Blaster uses a generic range since Buckshot and Flamethrower benefit a lot from that. My Bots/Traps/Field Mastermind has the Overwhelming Force KB to KD proc because I tend to play in melee range and don't want Explosive Blast scattering enemies. My Time/Elec Defender doesn't have any Positron's but he does have a 5-slot Ragnarok in Thunderous Blast and he uses a Endurance Modification for the sixth slot.

What I find weird is how the crafted Miracle unique sells for half what the recipe sells for. It's not particularly surprising. It's level 40 so there aren't that many recipes being dropped while the enhancement itself is being regularly converted from de-leveled doctored wounds enhancements. So the only people buying the recipe are those who haven't heard about the bucketing systema nd just assume that the recipe will be cheaper.

So the actual answer is that you buy an attuned IO on the market (either check the attuned category or do a sreach where min and max level are both 1). Basically regular IOs and attuned IOs share the same bucket for the market so the price of an attuned IO is the same as the price of a regular IO. You can use catalysts to attune IOs but doing so is a waste of inf, the only use for catalysts is to upgrade ATEs to the superior version.

Ok, I think I have an explanation for this. There are three different powexec commands (well there are more but these are the important ones): powexec_name powexec_toggleon powexec_toggleoff Now I'm not sure how powexec_toggleon works with non-toggle abilities. Based on speczero's description it sounds like it functions as powexec_name but I've never tested that in game, however I am going to assume that it does for this description. Now in the case of toggle abilities powexec_toggleon will work in the way I've described. You see the thing with powexec_toggleon is that if a power is already executing (i.e. it's toggled on) then that portion of the bind is ignored which is why you can have multiple powexec_toggleon commands in a single bind. Now in speczero's case it seems that powexec_toggleon treats a power that is currently executing the same as a toggle that is on. This is undocumented behavior but I know enough of programming to believe that the game could work that way. So what happens is this. The first time you hit the button it queues up Deflection Shield but before it can start executing it cancels that and queues up Insulation Shield which then executes. The the second time you press it it queues up Deflection Shield again, it then attempts to queue up Insulation Shield but can't because it's already executing so Deflection Shield then executes. Occasionally server timing will cause them to execute in the opposite order but in general it will happen the way I described. Now to answer the OPs question, the solution is to have two binds, one which toggles on all of your abilities and one which toggles them off. You'll have to hit the first bind three times to activate them but the toggle off bind should only need to be pressed once.

You can use multiple toggle-on commands as a single bind. However you will only execute one each time you press the button so you have to press the button multiple times to activate them all.

Standard questions: 1. Are you level 50? 2. Have you actually talked to a trainer and completed the leveling process as opposed to just reaching level 50 experience?

Unfortunately this has always been a problem with pet and pseudo-pet powers. The main advice I can give you is to download Pines Hero Designer. It's got the stats for most of the traps powers in that. It's not a great solution but it's what we have.

So much this, gathering for RA is a waste of time, especially when most of the time, it's not really needed. I prefer to wait till the middle of a fight, when people are starting to get low. Blowing it before a fight just wastes the buff. And if I miss anyone who needed it, I can just hit them with Adrenalin Boost. I do the same with Farsight. I try to catch most of the group for it but if you're to far away well you probably don't need the defense since you're either running solo or hanging back.

You're correct. However since attuning IOs is free (just buy them attuned on the market) it makes sense to go ahead and get them attuned in case you want to add other IOs from the set later for set bonuses and power enhancement.

Well the pylon challenge was popular with scrappers back in the day (how long does it take to kill a Rikti pylon). There are also test dummies in the RWZ.

Yeah. Basically HOs and IOs in the level 51-53 range exist as items in the market but aren't obtainable in game so no one can sell them to me. Historically a few level 52 HOs did exist on live but they were items generated by bugs so the handful that existed were mostly collectors items.

The other problem with defense for team content is that there are a lot more support sets that boost your defense than sets that boost your resistance. So on a random team you're much more likely to have teammates who can defense cap a resistance-based tank than you are to have teammates who can resistance cap a defense-based tank.

That makes sense to me although I'd suggest giving the -to hit and stun, basically make them a clone of seeker drones.

What do you want binds to do? Honestly in my experience binds are a crutch. I know some empaths like to spam "gather for RA" every few minutes but in my experience the good empaths just wait until the team naturally groups up and cast them then. That being said here's a useful bind I encourage everyone to know: /bind f "target_custom_next enemy name" Basically this lets you set f to target a specific enemy. It's useful for hunt missions, finding the boss when you're stealthing missions or picking out particularly dangerous enemies such as quantums or sappers before they can hurt your teammates. Remember, the best defense is a good offense. That sapper won't drop your tank's shields if he's dead.

They are bracketed but not between types. Regular and Synthetic HOs share a bracket for the same type as do lower level HOs (if you want one for leveling) but different types of HOs are not bracketed. So you can convert a Synthetic Membrane Enhancement into a Membrane Enhancement but not a Lysome Enhancement/

Huh, neat I didn't know there was an option to skip the arc now.

If the team size is larger than the notoriety setting then the game will spawn based on the team size. If the team size is smaller than the notoriety setting then it will spawn based on the notoriety setting. So there's no need to adjust.