Doctor Brainbottle

A scrapper or a brute might look at the fighting pool and conclude that crosspunch is the "only good attack", but they are spoiled for choices and have very high standards. Masterminds can't afford to be as picky: your other attack choices are pretty thin on the ground, so even the weakest fighting pool attack is "one of the best attacks you can get".

I have robot and thug masterminds, and I can't say I've noticed their minions losing their first equip when zoning. I suppose I can double check next time I play them, but I'm pretty sure I would have noticed, especially with my robots which I play the most, and the visual cues of both equip powers are pretty distinct and noticeable.

Wait, you really think the fact that you've been re-posting the same dismissive meme on the internet for fifteen years proves you... AREN'T arrogant and rude? And I can't say I'm impressed by how effectively posting this meme "sidesteps" arguments, when the very argument you are in right now was STARTED by it.

To say that a person who has the "duty" to do something is morally obliged to do it it is merely belaboring the definition of what duty means in the first place. Fire fighting isn't an easy job from a practical perspective, but it's a pretty simple job from a moral perspective: if someone's life is in danger, you save their lives. Not just "because you're equipped to do it", as if it's just some lucky coincidence you happened to be show up at a burning building wearing that getup and carrying an ax, you do it because it's pretty much the entire POINT of your job. There are a few other things in the job description, like getting cats down from trees... but when someone is trapped in a burning building AND someone's cat is stuck up a tree, it isn't a "tough call" to decide which is more important. Nobody is going to literally die if that kitten stays stuck up a tree for another hour. If you're a soldier in a war, your "job" is much less exclusively about saving the lives of random innocent civilians. In this job, there ARE other priorities to consider. If you are under orders to achieve a military objective, and you happen to pass by some civilians in danger, you might have the "training and equipment" to save them, but what about your strategic objective? The orders you would be ignoring are probably about something MUCH more important than just some kitten stuck up in a tree. It's very possible people WOULD die if you stopped to help these people. Lady Gray is fighting a War against the Rikti. This isn't fire-fighting, it's war. A war she can't win without the help of villains. That is the perfectly logical, in-game reason villains are invited to participate in her task forces, and why civilian casualties are disappointing but not considered "failure".

Robots in fact have a special animation for flying, that they use when under the effects of group fly (and sometimes very briefly after team teleport)

I have robots/time, with all 6 res/def auras slotted in the battle drones. With power boosted farsight I don't have to worry too much about accuracy, and with musculature as my alpha slot I at least partially make up for the lack of attack power. Even so, I'm definitely giving up some DPS to have all 6. Sometimes I don't even bother to summon the drones, and hardly notice the difference: the AOE damage from the assault bot is what really kills stuff, especially at my preferred difficulty setting of -1/8. But if you want to go after big single targets like AVs, AOE is less important and the first tier robots might matter more. Anyone can get musculature for the alpha slot, but without Farsight, you might need to slot some accuracy in the drones. But then where do you move the displaced res/def IOs? Protector bots need power and accuracy AND defense, and can also really use endurance recharge, so that doesn't leave much extra room. Assault bot only really "needs" accuracy and power, but it's a great place to put proc-on-hit IOs.

Yes, well, *I* know that Chrono shift is actually a lot more than just a heal, but if someone asks how they can be a better "healbot" I'm going to tell THEM it's a heal because that's the easiest way to convince them it's an important power they should spam at every opportunity.

Glacial Shield and Ice Shield both have a resistance component (to cold and/or fire), so if power boost doesn't work I wonder if it's because it checks the power for resistance, finds it, and concludes it can't boost the entire power. Edited to add: ah, someone already said it.

I have a thugs/pain MM that I enjoy playing as a change of pace, because it fits the character concept and yadda yadda, but if you want to know what's "most effective" I have to say that's pretty much a Bots/Time MM with mace mastery. Mace Mastery gives you power boost, and power boost + Farsight = utterly invincible robots. Oh, and Time also has two AOE heals, so you aren't really giving up a lot of healing power compared to something like Pain, you're just indisputably superior at absolutely everything else with no down side. Robots/Traps is arguably a little better at soloing AVs, but in general, for everything else Bots/Time/Mace is the answer before you even ask the question. I suppose it isn't really fair, but I'm too busy going "MWAH HA HA HA HAAA!" while watching my boosted-farsight-enhanced mechanical minions steamroll over everything to take the time to properly feel sorry about that.

I'd also love this, and yet I have to wonder... if it was "easy", wouldn't the original devs have done it that way in the first place?

Even from an RP perspective, no. This is a "Lady Grey" task force. Her name should be the first clue that she's a pragmatist who is willing to make some moral compromises, when asking Heroes and Villains to work together to fight the mutual threat of the Rikti invaders. By alll means you can role-play a Hero who is horrified by collateral damage, as long as you realize that villains, rogues, and vigilantes scoffing at you is just as much in-character for them.

Do you mean "Dark Astoria"? In any case, I want to be sympathetic, but.... no. Aside from the fact that it sounds like a lot of work for developers, I as a player don't want YOUR dialog box interrupting MY game. Have you tried just skipping missions that make you sick? I might not have your exact problem, but there are certainly missions I didn't want to play for various and sundry reasons, so I just DIDN'T. The game makes it so easy to find a new contact, it will even give you a free teleport to any level-appropriate contact you haven't met yet, who can quite possibly be in an entire zone you haven't visited yet. The devs want to empower players to progress their characters doing whatever they find fun, so if there was something actually "forcing" you to play maps that make you sick as the only way to progress your character, they'd see that as a pretty serious problem. But their solution would be to give you entirely NEW options, possibly involving a new contact or even a new zone. It will NOT involve adding intrusive, immersion-breaking dialog boxes to existing missions. I can pretty much guarantee that.

I've got a thugs/pain mm who took all the fighting pool attacks, and I was happy with the purchase, so to speak. Now mind you, the "raw dps" isn't super impressive, it's not like playing a brute or a scrapper, but you can knock enemies down, provoke some aggro, and generally keep enemies busy and distracted until your pets finish the job.

MMs are already a class that can "lead from the front". All you really need to tank with an MM is a taunt power, and an AOE heal. These are already available to MMs, in various secondary power sets and generic power pools, but I suppose we could create a new secondary power set for masterminds that is more explicitly built to support this play style. I'd give it: an AOE heal at a fairly low level, a bunch of melee attacks that don't do amazing damage but have a built-in taunt, a pet aura toggle that gives a huge defense buff to pets, but only vs. AOE, and a good mez protect power. Being a SECONDARY mastermind power set, you would then be free to pair it with any pet type you like. I wouldn't mind playing that secondary with demons, myself.

I've never heard of power levelers "believing the game is crap, and leave". On the contrary, let's be honest: some people's real problem with power levelers is precisely the fact that they AREN'T leaving! You can find herds of them hanging around in Atlas park any hour of any day, happily spamming the LFG channel for DFB and fire farms all day and all night. Do they LOOK like they're getting tired of it, and are going to leave any minute now? I'm not holding my breath.