Monos King

Don't have much to say on the matter of immersion, technically disruption arrow would be a better candidate for acid arrows affects (besides -def) based off of the precedent this game has set for sonic and toxic powers. But that could be done by a quick swap. Are you suggesting restoring the -res to acid arrow would be an improvement as to the totally new and effective attribute it has now? You would be wrong there, extremely so. Trick Arrow doesn't need anymore -res. You just stated that you could only see Acid Arrow being a filler power for if the existing debuffs were not strong enough, and that this would be a sloppy resolution, but at the moment you are suggesting the same be done to prop up the sets -res. Entangling Arrow was actually given -res for essentially that reason, and as a t1 priority power anyway, it holds fine. Simple, not sloppy. Interestingly enough, though, your original claim is correct in one instance because... 2. This power secures mastermind. survivability. Corrs just need to contribute to the team, but masterminds need to keep their funeralphilic pets alive as long as possible. Acid Arrows -debuff res keeps MMs debuffs relevant and effective at higher levels with it's lower effect modifiers, while also allowing them and any TA character to be exceptionally desired. This is because... 3. Trick Arrow promotes synergy Acid Arrow is currently the most team augmenting debuff in the game. If acid arrow just gave some aisle 1, counter-top -resistance, then it would have minimal significance when enemies are already being debuffed by sets like cold and sonic or even other TAs, and would only be improving the teams damage. You can already do that. But with acid arrow? Acid Arrow you can improve EVERYONES -to hit, make their endurance drains matter, and for the first time EVER make their -regeneration, -recharge, and even +endurance cost more effective. This same power is the FIRST to be able to cut down the nigh immunity to debuffs archvillains and some GMs posess. It is synergy beyond the likes of Oil Slick Arrow, or PGAs interaction with -res. Get a band of TA together, and you'll be able to shut down AVs like never before. Would you really want to trade off a totally new way to affect enemies for a run-of-the-mill -res the set doesn't even need? In synopsis, Acid Arrow is necessary for MMs, allows entire teams to debuff stronger and effect enemies better, and is just generally better than -res. I am certain you will see this in due time.

Bug Report Enemies with built in To Hit Resistance are not affected by the debuff to their to hit resistance. This includes Crey Tanks and Circle Death Mages. Possibly a display bug.

Being a click heavy set, TA is bound to drain a lot of end. An issue arises, though, that it does drain quite a bit of end, but many of the powers are erroneously not even receiving the correct endurance penalty. People will actually be training and using many of these powers now, and with a mastermind that will be an endurance deficit hauntingly swift. That's one of the reasons EMP should probably receive a short, but substantial, +recovery buff in its repertoire. Perhaps even Disruption Arrow can take a page from EMPs dual-effect function and instead of decrease enemy max end by a little, increase ally max end by a lot. That might be a bit much though.

Trick Arrow: Bug Reports & Commentary Taken with perspective of a well-performing (Demons/TA) and decently performing (Ninjas/TA) Mastermind. Will begin with observations and will detail my findings and opinions towards the end. With this in mind, powers in Red are not affected by the mastermind endurance penalty, which is telling for later performance. These are also the first 4 powers listed, for ease of viewing. Those listed with an asterisk (*) have distinctly larger commentary. Disruption Arrow Fails to spawn in air (entity falls and takes damage, this is in stark contrast to live) Continues to Increase Max End rather than decrease it Maintains a brief (1-2s) stacking period Is not affected by mastermind endurance penalty -Max End is mostly useless if not a percentage value. Since it is unlikely to end up like Curse of Weariness, it should be replaced or just removed. Is not intended to stack. Could possibly stand to see increased -res for MMs and Corrs. Performs well. Ice Arrow Duration of -special is too long, and should be divided in half. Values for masterminds are good, recognizing eventual schedule changes these should be maintained. Is not affected by mastermind endurance penalty Is the prime form of mitigation for masterminds, particularly those whose AoE ruin Poison Gas Arrow. Needs a moderate duration increase. Debuffs are powerful and useful. Acid Arrow Is not affected by mastermind endurance penalty Doesn't include -resistance to defense debuff. Would not hurt to include, but is not necessary. Very powerful, requires no changes whatsoever. Attack Type tagged as "unique". Just an acknowledgement that this is a description most toxic powers are given. EMP Arrow* Is not affected by mastermind endurance penalty Could use a short (15s) large recovery buff Removal of self debuffs was excellent, and existing debuffs are fantastic. However... The conditions of its new buff, EMP Field, clashes with mastermind playstyles, and puts additional pressure on them. Currently, the ideal sequence of events to keep your pets alive would be to open with Flash Arrow -> PGA -> Acid Arrow (-debuff res) ->Go-To Command into the area of attack -> EMP Field. You would also like to use Ice Arrow on bosses or hard hitters in preparation of the EMP Arrow. However, EMP Arrows purpose as a CC actually clashes with its purpose as a AoE +res because CC is preventative damage mitigation, and the +res is to be granted in the midst of the fight. Essentially, you cannot buff your pets until you have already put them at risk. Not to mention, you are for some reason, unable to buff yourself. This could be remedied a few ways. Activate EMP Field at the casters location and not the location of EMP Arrows release. This would make it easy for the caster to receive their own buff, as well as prep pets before they are sent into the fray. This would, however, remove the newly added ability to buff from a distance. I do not consider this significant as this is how debuffs already function, and the alternative is superior for controlling how your allies are buffed. Would be more logical than currently; rather than an arrow that is hostile to enemies also being helpful to friendlies from the same impact, the local pulse is galvanizing and the receiving end of the arrow is debilitated. Convert EMP Arrow into a Select Location ability Downside is this would become another macro for people to create, which is apparently frowned upon. Would permit the ability to choose EMP as a buff before battle, or a debuff initiating it. Other downside is the former proposal and existing application both offer the possibility of both. Faraday Cage mechanic instead of click Downside is it would be a buff that lasts only one spawn, as EMP Arrow's recharge is too high to be used wave to wave. I consider Proposal 1 to be the best solution to this issue. It allows for control over who is buffed far easier, as allies don't need to be in the thick of battle to receive the benefit. It is also more realistic. Returning to individual powers: Glue Arrow Awesome power concept, works splendidly. Does not stack; needs to. This power is far from spammable, and would be perfect allowed to stack -recharge from the same user. Similar powers do, and this should be one of them. Entangling Arrow Awesome power concept, works well. Would be better off doing -to hit to help with survivability and theme. -Res definitely does add some damage to sets that require it though. Flash Arrow Perfect Power Concept. Resistable portion of -to hit could stand to be improved a bit, as mastermind sets that are not already survival strengthened are still a little bit doomed. This should also be done due to pets compatibility with Poison Gas Arrow. Poison Gas Arrow* Re-applying sleep patch is very useful. However... Poison Gas Arrow is still a totally useless form of mitigation for primaries such as Thugs or Bots (mostly when Assault Bot is acquired, and ineffective for most other primaries once they are a high enough level. When pets do not use AoE to continuously ruin Sleep, it is actually quite good for the pet survivability. Now, the goal of a power is not to be excellent with every other power, and some combinations (and archetypes) will simply be far more compatible with some powers than others. The nature of TA makes it not the best secondary for masterminds no matter how it is spun, and the improvements to this set are allowing masterminds to use Trick Arrow without it being any form of penalty. The most that could be done to help offset this is: Give Poison Gas Arrow tiny (~5%) chance for hold. (Masterminds Only) Increase Rech appropriately Slightly increase duration Since the gas is a re-occuring patch, the low chance will not be trivial, and could even stack with itself potentially. This is a change that would make it a far more effective power for masterminds. Oil Slick Arrow Operates perfectly, excellent extra damage. Like all masterminds, my demons and ninjas Trick Arrow characters survived and killed well at lower levels. They did notably at higher levels as well. With nothing but SO's and no incarnates (2x5 mission settings), playing a ninjas/TA MM had surprisingly decent survivability and fantastic damage. For those of you that do not know ninjas, this is ASTONISHING. They could benefit very little from PGA, however, and could die instantly if not monitored. Demons/TA under the same conditions also survived very well and did good damage. I am soon to test with mercs as their existing CC should make them the perfect combo with TA. It is also likely, however, they will die instantly when put into more challenging circumstances. Here are primaries that I predict will, simply by nature, have poor survival with TA. 1) Zombies (nothing to patch resistance holes well, no innate defense, but -tohit would be bolstered by Acid Arrow) 2) Thugs (should somewhat be remedied by their defense buffs and CC) (AoE ruins Sleep CC instantly). Definitely should dps to death enemies before they are killed, like ninjas, so should be fine. In short, TA is actually doing pretty well for most masterminds right now, though it could be made better with minor changes. It will not be super with any of them (outside of DMG) because it doesn't offer the best protection, but it is no longer a skip. It is now just another set with a specialty and some downsides, and that is fantastic.

Here is a note then: perhaps be more careful with your hyperbole. Going that far is easily subject to false comparisons and digression.

This is an entertaining addition. To avoid going off topic, why don't you DM me with the builds you are using to be an effective petless mastermind, I am genuinely interested. Please don't disappoint me!

That is news to me.

I've had some time to look at it, but I'll be doing more team play now as well. Right now it's MM survivability is still lackluster. Sleep is not usable to MMs, and the -dmg is pitiful if you do not have another source of further AoE -dmg. This other source however, often coming from pets, is subject to purple patch and rarely capable of keeping up pets. I am looking forward to trying this with (hilariously) mercs and demons, which should have the best compatibility with TA.

It's definitely odd. I call the fact that you ordinarily would stay at a distance irrelevant because in this unusual case that would be very unideal. You would want to enjoy the benefits of you debuff-buff. So in this case, and as long as it is, you just sorta have to dismiss that familiar approach. Just like -res in entangling. The buff pulse was added to EMP purely to amp performance. To that end it should also affect the caster. It doesn't make the most logical sense, but assuming we are going down that route, the feedback I have is in support of the EMP AoE affecting self, regardless of if we are used to staying at distance.

Oh. Well, yeah, giving an AoE powers affects for hostiles and homies alike was gonna be odd but if it works I suppose we'll just have to settle in. Not the first logical compromise I've accepted for this set to succeed.

You are saying you do not want the buff arrow to affect the caster are you not?

You definitely missed the updated patch notes so I'll deliver the good news. Oh it does -res, alright. Acid Arrow is now TA's set defining move. No joke. It does -debuff resistance. You know how AVs are practically immune to debuffs? Not if you get some TA's together, they aren't. It attacks their debuff resistance directly, making those immune vulnerable and those vulnerable even more vulnerable.

That doesn't make sense when the user is unleashing a beneficial power though, logically the user would want to be in radius of it too. Now that EMP offers a buff, for that power, whatever long distance affinity was engrained in theme is not relevant.

Actually, ice also has two single target debuffs, which is an issue in its own right. This is more a comment about benumb, but Ice Arrow is highly powerful and you'd be wrong to think it's skippable if you want performance. As used by a defender, it has Longer range than benumb (and weaken) Much much much faster rech than benumb 2X the duration of benumb The same -special as benumb Also is a hold and does -rech Now ice arrow might still be bad to some, but it's definitely the second best -special move now. Spammable, fast recharge, longest range...might even overcome the splash of poisons weaken to be the best.

1) Most people do those slotting in powers like hover or combat jumping while also picking up LotG. If you choose not to, you are kind of just limiting yourself since the pay2win does exist and you could have both +rech/kb and a travel power. Afterburner is the only sort of argument, which is 3 power picks and in that case, investment for something other than flight alone. And if you aren't troubled by a tiny absence of optimization, then using a power pick on flight shouldn't be an issue. 2) You are saying that you want to move in the direction I stated above. That's fine, and I expected as much, so just understand that is what you are saying. 3) Not my opinion (see below) I don't know how I can make it clearer that I have that I am simply explaining how the game was designed with reference to travel powers, and what a suggestion like this would do for that disposition. Also maintaining the status quo here isn't "taking away" anything. If someone made a suggestion to give all damage powers 100% automatic dmg enhancement value and I disagreed, I wouldn't be "taking away the ability for people to slot in more diverse methods". That type of claim is not an argument, and very very rarely ever is. There is a reason for it here, which I already went into - being an investment. Travel Powers (much like many powers) were always meant to be an investment, because they are significant, and yes. When you want something, you usually have to do give up something to get it. In our games design, that's a power slot. You can go ahead and make an argument as to why Flight should be exempt from that whole system, and you might actually have a point. But you need to start there. You seem to think we are having an argument; we are not. You are disagreeing with the games design, which is perfectly fine, I am just explaining how it is. Like I said, the limitations characters were meant to have while leveling has depleted so greatly already, that it might be pointless to latch onto those things anyway. You'll have to prove that. The one thing you are correct about is that it does not hurt me if this were added, but have you ventured to consider why adding it to pay2win is rousing some reaction but few would bat an eye if it were a temporary power earned via an arc or event? It's because of the effort involved. That's inherently why most would be against this. You go against what's been set up, you make things too easy, and now people feel like their personal choices and investments are underwhelming. A lot of peoples satisfaction comes from overcoming limitations, and you'll have to reconcile with them as well as make an argument as to why Flight and other travels should be exempt from the design to begin with if you ever want to see this happening. But if your argument still hinges on "you are inconsiderate and taking away options from people" then I can tell you now it will never happen on homecoming; we're pretty adamant about what we like. Best of luck, I'll be on my way now.

That, it's pretty much that. That's how it undermines. Like I was saying, pool travels aren't good enough to out do their temp versions - whatever benefit they have is trivial next to the ability to save a power slot or two. Their only reason to exist now at all is because they are generic and good for customizing around (how rocket boots and wings interact with flight for instance), and even that is undermined by the origin pools - mighty leap is all around better than super jump and has an affect, mystic flight can save you an arcane aura when you spec for it, and both have minimal fx options. If we start putting customizable temporary travels in the Pay2Win vendor, that's it for the travel pool versions. Why would anyone get Flight at all when rocket flight deluxe is there to be reskinned to all our needs free of charge? The only reason they were added was because they weren't meant to be alternatives, and that you would be sacrificing something (slotting, costume compatibility) if you chose to go with that over available options. Slotting (outside of PvP where this discussion is not a thing) is irrelevant since you can boost any travel to the cap through accessible outside means, which leaves the customization benefit as the final bastion. If customizable rocket packs were added then naturally customizable jump packs would be too, and speed powers would be clamored for addition, and at this point you can easily peer down that slope to see how typical travel becomes trivial. So yeah, depends on if we want to head down that direction. It's been a while since I posted my comment originally; don't particularly care to be looped back into this thread, but my opinions have loosened since then. The investment of the pool travel powers has already been diminishing (one power pick instead of two), so the community can decide if they care about any of those repercussions.

It has nothing to do with my personal enjoyment, which you should easily know having presumedly read my responses. You shouldn't make assumptions. The devs can, of course, add whatever they want if they decide it's acceptable to the balance and format of game, because that is what it is about. As I stated in the sentence you quoted, I disagree because it's a suggestion that would undermine the significance of how travel powers are currently set up; they are an investment, and were blank slates for you to customize around. Ninja and beast run were exceptions as they were run and jump buffs, and were added to market and not the existing pools as such. You are free to disagree or denounce value being put in the fact that travels are currently an investment, but it is just objectively true that the suggestion above would undermine elements of how travel powers are set up. Alone, and as a precedent. Pool travels aren't superior to temps to an extent there would be reason to get them, and travel would become fully centred on what's on Pay2win. The question is whether or not that's the direction we want to head in.

The most recent was on the Brainstorm Beta Server. Character: Ultimate Immortal Could use some clarity on what you need to know about the respec.

I won't rule it out as a possible factor, although it's been happening with fully trained 50s too.

Luckily this time it was on beta, and the IOs did return after the 7th failed respec. I'm definitely not touching my character on live, and I can't think of any specific conditions that could be provoking this on either server. Strong warning to those soon to respec. The failure seems to happen randomly, after logging in as far as I can tell, and the enhancements have returned unreliably.

Update: All enhancements slotted or in tray were deleted invisible after the failed respec message until you finally get a successful respec. This happens on both beta and live. It is very bad. Update: Headed to beta to test out further since I guess I'm not respeccing today. Enhancements sometimes come back.

I can't guarantee my continued mental health if this happens after another hour long respec. Please make this go away forever. Edit: Why does it take an hour? I am contemplative. Does mids help alleviate this pain? No. No it does not,

Your argument is the one that doesn't make sense. In fact, I don't think you've made a single point, all you've done is show a flagrant lack of understanding as to why the exploit is being revoked. I'm not one of those shouting for a removal, but you have to understand that comments like these do truly nothing to help your stance. Here's a consideration starters pack: Use in no death badge runs Use in escaping mission objections Effect on relevance of travel powers Review the consequences in PvP Come back having weighed the positives and negatives of each of these, and maybe some solutions, and I'm sure you'll be heard. As it stands, you really are just disqualifying those opinions from even being considered.

Nah Agony Mages actually do spawn at level 50, or at the least level 50 defined Agony Mages exist already (via AE). What I would REALLY love to see are Elite Bosses occasionally spawning in Founders Falls and Peregrine Island, like they do in St. Martial and Nerva Archipelago. These are high level zones, seems appropriate. And also cool.

That's right. I want everyone to suffer because suffering is fun. Level 50s deserve the hardest, not pity NPCs! Bring back Paragon Protectors at level 50, and also Shadow Cysts ty for listening.