Doctor Brainbottle

As a mastermind, I use team teleport while soloing all the time. It lets me put my entire team of minions in one place, nearly instantly, without the usual nonsense of them bumping into each other trying to fit through a doorway, and/or just flat out ignoring my orders in the heat of combat. Why must I always be surrounded by such BUMBLING INCOMPETENCE?!?! That being said, when I'm not solo the fact that it applies to other teammates is, from my perspective, an annoying and undesirable side-effect. So I completely agree that the supposed "original purpose" of the power is basically NEVER desirable, in ANY situation I've ever encountered, and I say that as someone who has the power on my bar. There is something wrong when a power that literally has "team" in the name is only usable solo. I would be thrilled if "team teleport" was reduced to "teleport with pets", but that would make it a niche power that is pretty specifically meant for masterminds. Mind you, at least masterminds are an ACTUAL niche to serve, as opposed to the current, entirely imaginary niche of "teams that enjoy being randomly teleported". Alternately, if the standard teleport was buffed to include pets, I wouldn't be sad to see team teleport get replaced with something radically different. I can't imagine anyone would angrily complain that they relied on the standard teleport NOT applying to pets. So that is probably the path of least resistance.

what I'd like to see: Make the base ground movement animation style a property of a COSTUME, not powers per se. If you select Ninja, you ALWAYS move on the ground like a ninja, even if you're a pathetically slow-moving ninja if you aren't even sprinting. You can then switch movement styles on the fly by switching costumes. This is perfect if your character concept is a mild mannered reporter who is secretly a Ninja, and even MORE secretly a werewolf. Then merge the actual mechanical sprint-like abilities into single inherent sprint power, and prestige run powers into a new inherent "prestige run" power. they no longer change animations, they just give performance boosts. I'd also like to see a "floating" ground movement style, which uses the hover animation to float a few inches off the ground, but can't actually levitate. I'm currently using power slide as the next-best substitute for characters that I really want to float.

I got stuck on this exact mission, and couldn't skip it or drop it, but I figured out a way to get it off my mission list: I changed my alignment to rogue using Null the Gull in pocket D, and that got the mission off my list because it's hero-only.

Hmm, Summer Blockbuster event, you say? Intriguing. I hadn't noticed a new event popping up in my LFG window, but maybe I fell out of the habit of checking. I will definitely check that out.

The first thing I did the very first time I logged into Homecoming was recreate my Bots/FF mastermind. It was slow going at first, because it's a late bloomer. I got to level 15 before I stopped and asked myself: wait, should I start over with time? So I put my Bots/FF toon on a back burner, and tried out Bots/Time. And so far I'm having a blast. I'm now level 28, which means I have all my bots (but not the final upgrade), and Farsight from the time pool. I have most of my slots filled with level 25 or 30 IOs. I respecced the minute I got Farsight so I could 6 slot it, and I've maxxed out recharge and defense. Maxxed out recharge gets it almost to perma status. I got hasten from the speed pool to seal the deal. Honestly I was already pretty tough before I got Farsight, wit the tohit debuff from time's juncture, but now it's just silly. I'm definitely not missing Bots/FF now. I'm about as invulnerable, PLUS I have debuffs on top of that. At 32 I'll get my final robot upgrade, and then at level 44 I intend to get Power Boost from the Mace Mastery patron pool, which apparently boosts Farsight. As for affording a bunch of IOs, just sell all your orange salvage on the market. There are cleverer ways to make money on the market, but selling orange salvage as it drops is dead simple and sufficient to make a few million by level 20 or so. The hardest part is really making enough money to afford the LISTING fee to sell your first orange salvage. Scrape that together however you can, and then list the orange salvage at the current market price, and it should sell pretty quick. Once you have a proper bank-roll, never let it dip below 100k or so, so you won't get stuck in a "can't afford listing fee" hole again. Then craft IOs at any university. use the /ah command to open an auction house window right there at the invention workbench, so you can buy any recipes and salvage you need without having to move an inch. Don't forget you can buy basic non-set IO recipes from the workbench, if they aren't cheaply available on the market. If you're short on cash, level 25 IOs are basically "good enough". You can also buy respec recipes from the AH.

You can now change your origin attack power at any time, at the Pay2Win vendor. You have to drop the old one, but then you can pick any one of them you want to replace it. You can also swap around things like Blackwand and the Nemisis staff at any time. The one actual issue I can think of that makes changing origins a little more complicated than swapping Blackwand for a Nemisis staff is: if you change origins, what happens to IOs you have slotted that aren't compatible with your new origin? For this reason I'd suggest that changing origins should be added to, and ONLY allowed in, the respec process.

Saying "NCSoft could shut us down with a snap of their fingers, so we might as well infringe Disney IP while we're at it" is like saying "We've already pissed off all the bikers in this bar, so we might as well punch the cops too"

It's debatable whether "actual historical" chastity belts ever really existed. As for my character, some of the issues can be hand-waved away by saying it's magic, but in any case she's definitely tired of it and wants it off now.

I figured out how to make a chastity belt in the costume creator (there is a belt that is a chain with a large padlock, wear that with a gray-tinted bikini bottom) and it inspired me to create a thugs/pain mastermind named "Chastity Lovelock". Her back-story was that she was once the kid sidekick of an extreme anti-smut vigilante named "Max Banhammer", but they have since become deadly enemies because he won't give her the key to her magic, invulnerable belt.

Well, this can be broken up into two questions: how do you PLAY a villain, and how do you get through red-side mission content? To PLAY a villain, have a compelling character concept. My main is "Doctor Brainbottle", a cybernetic brain in a jar who commands an army of killer robots. He is a megalomaniac who's plan to "rule the world" is merely the first step in a larger plan to conquer all of time and space in every dimension, and then control it all with his mind as a GOD!!! MWAH HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA! In case it actually needs to be said, Mastermind is a great class to play for a megalomaniac. Robots are especially powerful at end game, but don't wait until end game to be a megalomaniac. Megalomania isn't just about "being" powerful, it's about being irrevocably convinced you DESERVE power. Leave your pathetic minions to die when the battle turns against you, and mark your words that those enemies will PAY for being obstacles in the path between you and your glorious DESTINY! And this gets into how to get through red-side mission content. It can be annoying, but be annoyed AS A MEGALOMANIAC. These jabbering mission-contacts are a means to an end, so you will tolerate them for now, but soon.... things will be different. MWAH HA HA HA HAAA!