Shazbotacus

This is what I was dubious about with IO sets back on live when they were announced. Why buff defense in endgame when everyone stacks it to a threshold with sets? Everyone takes Fighting but nobody does it for the merits of its powers but to stack set bonuses as high as possible, and things end up having to be balanced around that rather than how well the power itself works. sigh Sorry, this sort of “back in my day” rant has little place in the topic at hand. Back to it, I might recommend something like Bots or Necro paired with Dark or Traps. Protector Bots will put at least one shield on you (7.5% defence) to stack with your Force Field Generator (10%), some mez protection, and provide CC from Poison Trap and alpha strike fodder with Seeker Drones. Dark also provides mitigation basically everyone against what you hit with it thanks to plentiful -To Hit and CC. Necro also has the Lich and his amazing CC and mitigation courtesy of his own Dark Miasma powers, and the whole lot of them have self healing to deal with the damage they receive from being your bodyguard. I wonder if Demons/Sonic would make a... resistance-based Tankermind? Possibly with the resistance bubble and resistance from Ember Demon. But probably not as well as other options.

Sad face to that then. Bane Huntsman’s still fun though.

Unless your character lore is as a Huntsman. I'd accept technical limitations though if it really is that difficult to make the backpack an optional part of one's costume.

shudder All right, all right, no more need be said. 😰

I'm having trouble understanding why this idea gets so much resistance. People seem to be forgetting that Huntsman builds are a thing, and some use the Crab side but don't take any powers that use the pack. Unless it's the thought of some people being cheeky and using it to shoot bullets and energy from an invisible gun over their shoulder like some kinda invisible gun wizard or something. No offense, Stan, but some of us would call that position a "strawman." To my knowledge, or at least for me, people aren't asking for the backpack to be removed from the archetype as that's just silly; only to have an option to not wear it.

I'd be interested in being able to give pool powers and ancillary power pools to AE characters. Would that be possible? Has it been asked for before?

I’d certainly change my Mercs’ uniform, and have the Commando comply with that uniform as well.

I guess that ain’t so bad, then. Okay.

I wouldn’t mind having Crab armors for a Huntsman build without having to wear the backpack. I, uh... think that might be kinda cool. What are the odds of us getting Nemesis rifles for Soldiers of Arachnos anyways? They have some nasty looking bayonets.

Sigh. Yeah, this worries me. I haven’t got any 50s yet, and on Live when I did I played mostly before Incarnates happened. Groups blast through stuff easy enough, but if one player can really just nuke an entire spawn regardless of archetype, then doesn’t that just take all the challenge out? I guess I’m getting off topic.

Given its reduced range, not really. Another user described the class as filling a conceptual hole more than a mechanical one, in that it's like a slightly less damaging Scrapper that does its damage at short range rather than strictly in melee. It enables us to create Iron Man type heroes who attack at range but aren't glass cannons like Blasters. I'm inclined to agree, though there's talk of a revamp that'll look at the Sentinel in the light of having a more defined team role. I'm... admittedly dubious such a thing would turn out well, or at least leave the combination of sturdiness and ranged damage intact.

Don't worry, I get what y'all mean. I could probably go on about putting up those NPC costume pieces, too. Making a re-colored Crey Juggernaut costume only needs two pieces: the backpack piece and that helmet. I envy Malta and PPD SWAT gear as well.

I believe this whole post has some merit to it. Keep fun as the prime directive. :^)

So much this. Thanks to the Sentinel, I can have my BR/Energy army dude/Totally Not Master Chief in power armor be as tough as he looks. Now if only the Crey Juggernaut armored helmet and backpack were available to finish that particular power armor costume.

Sweeeet. That'd be friggin' awesome.

Ah, that makes sense. All righty.

If I could ditch some of my pets, like tier 1 of most sets or the kinda useless Spec Ops in Mercs, on a cave map and retain full effectiveness, I’d be quite the happy camper and so would everyone around me. I’d recommend buffing other effects in addition to damage and health for some pets, however, such as mez duration, buffs, debuffs, and heals. Good for Protector Bots, Enforcers, Demons, and especially Lich. Hm. You might imagine ditching tier 1 and 3 of Necromancy to “flip the switch” between debuff/utility and raw Grave Knight damage, or double up on that debuff/utility by ditching tier 1 and 2 and keeping the Lich but with boosted effects. Interesting, if it is indeed possible.

Payloads fired from a bow at enemies should logically all do such things as damage, control, and debuffs. Like modern or science fiction riot munitions and more unconventional, debilitating substances and agents that can be dispersed except in arrow form. I like that thought.

“Tough Blaster” suits my favorite theme: soldier in power armor with a gun. I really hope that doesn’t get scrapped.

Yes.

I actually would love to see this along with a “Riot/Tactical Munitions” control set for a secondary that would have the player doing hard CC and other Controller things with less-than-lethal riot munitions such as stun grenades, tear gas grenades, beanbag and taser rounds, etc, all fired from the underslung launcher. Maybe even make some stuff up like an “anti-gravity grenade” that does a strong knock up on targets or whatever. EDIT: I might say that this set you propose should focus more on single-target damage, but perhaps that can be for a beam rifle assault set.

I think most people would say /Thermal or perhaps /Dark would help Mercs survive the best. /Dark has a lot of mitigation in its amazing cone Terrorize and -To Hit, Darkest Night with -DMG and even more -To Hit, Fearsome Stare as a decent hold, Twilight Grasp as an amazing heal, and Tar Patch to take down the resistance of enemies to... sort of help their piddling damage. /Thermal provides healing as well as damage resistance shielding, a buff, and some debuffs. Maybe you can make a... Mercenary Officer with magic or dark arts training or something. That's what I did with my Mercs/Thermal. Mercs by themselves have no strengths relative to other sets at all. Their damage is low, and so is their durability. It's painful to look at with how much I'd like to lead a squad of soldiers as a character concept, and you can see that Mercs could be possibly decent if their survival powers, Spec Ops CC and debuffs, didn't take 2-3 minutes to recharge while only being good for 6 seconds of mez and 20 seconds of debuff. When that's not up, or the AI wastes it, Mercs without the Mastermind's secondary power set helping them take everything thrown at them. It also doesn't help that the Medic dies a lot and his one healing power is piddly anyhow. Plus Serum is crap, hands down one of if not the worst power in the game. They feel weak as well, and not just because they are weak. Their attacks are burst/heavy burst/full auto, but it's six guys firing like that. Six guys mag dumping on one minion, with less damage than almost any other primary set, to kill it. If they did single shot/burst/heavy burst instead, maybe it at least would make it look like they cut down on the ridiculous amounts of ammo needed to kill a given thing by two thirds. That being said, Masterminds are like pizza; even bad ones are still kinda good. Your soldiers are still worth something, still quite capable of doing a bit less damage than Necromancy with a tenth of the debuff and CC power and with the fragility of Ninjas, and if you invest procs for their attacks that all do -defense, which'll be Spec Ops and Soldiers mostly, I hear that it brings them up to... somewhat close to being competitive. I'm really sorry to doo-doo all over poor Mercs like this. I love them for the concept, don't get me wrong, but that's exactly why I'm so vocal about their need for some improvement.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Personally, I’m a sucker for tacticool and power armor. Malta gear would be amazing, and literally all that’s missing for a Crey Juggernaut suit is the helmet and backpack. I would love to have those.

That's a fair point. Sometimes I do wonder if the devs were just lazy about some things. I know I am.

I understand the original devs' worry that players would make Masterminds of all female henchmen with... certain outfit themes and name themselves stupid, degrading middle school/4chan crap whenever the topic of customizable henchmen came up, but I wouldn't be opposed to certain henchmen summons having just one female model to be picked out by random as the game assigns an appearance to summoned pets. Like how the Skulls started taking on female members.