Judasace

He said it in a really bad way, and probably should have looked into it first, but yeah, Masterminds really fall behind with IOs. They're fun for playing in solo missions or even in groups that want to go fast through content so don't set it at higher than +0, but a group doing +4s will all do fine if they're slotted decently, while all a MM will do there is stand there and be half a controller.

Watch as the AMAZING SPECULATOR pulls numbers right out of THIN AIR!

DCUO had stuff like this. Don't recall anyone ever doing anything interesting with it.

I also know that in end game, by time you set up, most often than not, the mobs are all but gone. That's why I don't bother setting up with my E/E, He's vet level 15 and pretty much "finished" other than I'd like to bump a couple of his incarnate abilities up a level. He just jumps in and starts blowing the hell out of everything...and if some little scrapper decides to chase a flying boss who's already at 50% health across the map, only to have me snipe said boss dead before it hits the ground...well, I guess scrappy doo should have picked a better target...maybe a minion would have been more his style. Just kidding, I love scrappers too!

You want a Mega Man bosses theme?

I'd be more than fine with purchasing skips for merits or whatever currency at the P2W vendor.

TBH I think it should be more like 5 or even 10, but the simple fact is that with farming and 2XP no one is going to be using free mission completes to somehow "game" the system. That would be so much more ineffecient than just getting in a decent farm team and staying in it...as it is the mission completion XP is so paltry that people get angry if their farm missions get completed. I don't know if it's the age of the game, the servers, the fact that it's not the original devs running it, but I'm running into just tons and tons of broken missions where glowies don't spawn, NOC don't show up or the mission just fails to complete or give the appropriate awards. The ONLY reason to do missions right now is to experience the content ... which is no fun when you can't finish a mission because a good percentage of them are broken. Almost every mission in the Dark Astoria arcs, for example, has failed in one way or another. Sometimes I've found a workaround, but I've had to use my completes, and now that I'm out that's it, and in the time I spent on this I could have made probably 4 - 6 vet levels doing farms. Also missions aren't easily numbered or identified and there isn't any convenent way to report a bugged mission. Some of these have been bugged since live, though some are new, but realistically only the hardcore lore enthusiasts are even doing missions and at least one of them is about to just give up. Back when the devs had the idea that people would level by completing missions it made sense to limit the free completions. There are so many faster and better ways to level now that the only thing having a limit on these does is discourage anyone from playing through the game for the story.

lol, that page still has pleiades listed, which is shut down. Somehow I don't think it's an authoritative source.

You're playing it wrong and gimping your DPS. As a blaster I'm constantly moving, in and out of the nob group, getting into angle, searching for medium helth targets that can be executed with one shot, looking for high value targets that can be taken out before they hurt anyone.. If you're just standing there plinking away from the rear, you're like and MM pressing your pet attack button solely, or a controller letting your pet do the work. A good blaster is active, thinking and strategic, a scalpel when heneeds to be and a club when the team needs that.

Played Thugs/Poison during release and never had any of the problems you describe. Tore through AVs like butter. Also, is it really necessary to call people "sheep" for liking and being good at a certain combination that you don't/aren't? One of the great things about CoX was always the community, and though I know the quality of discourse on the internet in general has deteriorated, I still think a little respect goes a long way. what is your goal, and how will you play? the usual sheep will say poison or dark and they are pretty off base if your goal is to solo av's and gm's or to make your pets as unkillable as possible. dark has it's uses and is excellent in teams, however the heal requires your pets to all be in melee range of the target. this is not always ideal. properly playing thugs to it's maximum potential means at least three keybinds dedicated to goto for each tier to keep the ranged guys ranged and the bruiser in melee. stacking tar patch is noticeable increase damage for your thugs, but this is not the only source and many mobs will run out of it especially av's and gm's that can't be rooted. thugs/dark does work, but it's far from optimal same deal with thugs/poison. while is has good debuffs (not the best, good) you will be replacing pets often and you need a bit of recharge to get the anchor ability perma. the two ideal, best secondaries are traps and time. here is why: with traps and time you can softcap your pets defensively. two defensive io's in enforcers gives your pets 20% def to all. ffg and farsight give another 15%. two slot gangwar and put edict of the master and call to arms +5% def auras and voila - your pets are pve softcapped. with powerboost you only need one of those +def auras. that's before you add in maneuvers. this is actually superior to bots, as the bots bubbles are not up 100% of the time and the lt pets only get one bubble each. with traps you can: lock runners in place, even av's. darkest night an av or gm? they run off. have fun! soft control in caltrops but don't bother slotting damage proc io's anymore. they don't work like they did on live with the new ppm mechanic. with enough recharge a pretty hefty pbaoe stacking +regen aura, but useless until later levels stacking -20% def -20% resist that is effectively perma the only actual total shutdown of all regen in the game. poison trap is only a -1000% regen for masterminds traps. on other at's it doesn't have -regen. poison trap also is an occasional hard and soft control, with an actual hold proc for minions and lt's and a barfing animation forced on av's and even gm's. mezz protection. malta can stun you for 40 seconds at a time. the right arachnos pack you will be perma held/slept/stunned if you aren't keeping break frees handy for EACH PACK some of the hardest content to do while you level is villain side even when you keep them to EB level. one of the arachnid story arcs has you fight biff. all arachnids have massive regen. massive. biff is even worse. my necro/dark couldn't break it because howling twilight and twilights' grasp even stacked was not enough -regen. after 30 minutes i pretty much just alt+f4. but thugs/traps? it was a 4 minute fight and nobody took a hit. When a power says -50% regen, it's actually only a 5% reduction in the targets regen rate. There is no power like mm poison trap. it is actually quite overpowered in the right hands and with enough recharge is up for every pack. if you use super speed or some stealth you can jump into a pack and drop it and negate the alpha entirely, even from the boss. time ticks nearly all of the same boxes above. it does not have mezz protection. it does not have as much -regen (spamming time crawl and the hold gets you -300%, on par with dark but also a HOLD) and would have the same issues with +2 eb biff as a thugs/dark would. what it does have is a pbaoe heal that in total heals as much as twilights grasp. it has farsight which when powerboosted is +20% def all to you and your team and pets which actually allows YOU to softcap pve smash/lethal or even positional with some slotting choices. it has a slow patch like caltrops that does no damage but can hold minions and lt's randomly. chrono shift can help with end to a degree but does not substitute slotting end in your pets and it has a pbaoe -tohit aura you run that really helps (until you get mezzed). when choosing between the above it comes down to this - traps is better solo, but poor on a team. it works best if you have team teleport to move everyone around and keep them in the ffg and can get quite spammy, but i killed a +2 av at level 29 as thugs/traps and only had to replace the arsonist a couple times because poison trap shuts down all regen, period. traps is not fun in a team. time is great solo because your pets don't need to be within a bubble to be softcapped but the lack of mezz protection has killed me and them a lot. it is however superior for teaming due to farsight, chrono shift, your hold, your slow patch. time also has -20% def and -20% resist aoe but will take some effort to make perma and unlike acid mortar which you can have two of and they stack as far as i can tell slowed response does not stack on itself. bots/time can actually softcap you the player to incarnate level defense, but bots does not do anywhere near the damage of thugs and no, i never count gang war.

I care if you're a vet. If you stuck through the game when glowies didn't make noise, when there was no sidekicking, when the trams were the only way to get around and no shortcuts through oro, pocket D or bases, then you've got my respect. You helped keep the game alive long enough for it to build a community that refused to let the game die. If those early sufferers hadn't build a community in what was essentially a disease infested swamp of an MMO, then we wouldn't have gotten all the improvements that make the game so great now.

Well, what you're describing here is a playstyle, deliberately not using tools you have access to. A bad build woudn't even have access to the tools. Any character can be bad of you go removing corepowers from the tray and refusing to use them because of "theme".

Having spent the last couple of years running RPGs online, mostly using Discord/Roll 20 to run Mutants and Masterminds and MASKS, I feel like with the AE system you could have a good RP campaign using a combination of created missions and established content, as long as you had a good GM that was willing to put together missions for the team and individual members on a regular basis, as well as run "live" RP events, mainly using the AE system and Discord for voice. I was just wondering if there was anyone already doing this out there, and if so how's it working out?

Seems like the alpha slot was made specifically to not actually benefit characters in any way. If you actually slotted even passably well, there is no combination of offered that helps a focused charcter such as scrapper, blaster, etc. There are a few that defenders or controllers can benefit from, but there should be combinations that include at least two of the following: Accuracy, Damage, Recharge and End reduction. My blaster for example only slightly benefits from the Damage or Recharge sets, and most of the extra benefits in those go to waste. As it stands, the alpha slot is just a pointless gateway to get onto the other incarnate content.