WumpusRat

Supremacy is the equivalent of a 10th level IO in accuracy, and a 20th level IO in damage. Yes, that would mean that popping an inspiration would make the pets tougher. That's kind of the point. A blaster popping 3 defense inspirations becomes a nearly untouchable juggernaut of destruction. Those 3 inspirations are protecting him defensively and keeping his offense from suffering any reduction due to getting hit by cc, etc. In order achieve that same effect, a mastermind would have to pop 3 defense inspirations PER PET, as well as for themselves, or 21 inspirations total. That's...excessive. I think allowing pets to gain the benefits of inspirations while in supremacy range probably wouldn't be gamebreaking, especially since pets have a lower damage cap than players.

What about instead of trying to dig into the pet code, just look at the Group Fly code, and see if it could be adjusted to increase the radius when it comes to pets. Or even just give it infinite range when it interacts with pets. That way you wouldn't constantly run into the issue of the follow code causing the pets to lag behind and drop out of the GF radius and falling.

I tend to agree with this. Or like a half-second of float time. I know I'm always mildly annoyed when I'm on my teleporters and port right near a mission door or other place, but not quite close enough to touch it, and hover there helplessly for a second or two, then finally drop to the ground. I feel like a cartoon character that hasn't realized they've walked off a cliff yet because they haven't looked down.

I, and I suspect a lot of other masterminds, would be quite irked if they removed bodyguard mode, even if it meant making the pets invincible. Bodyguard mode is one of the things that makes tankerminding viable. It's also one of the tools that can keep a mastermind alive in dicey situations when cc is being hurled around willy nilly by some enemy groups (I'm glaring in your direction, Malta). I'd be fine with them giving pets some sort of instant-kill protection, or even some basic resistance/defense to aoe attacks in general. But they don't need to be literally unkillable, nor should bodyguard mode get axed.

If the pets couldn't be destroyed in PvE, it would make masterminds nearly invincible in bodyguard mode. They'd have the equivalent of nearly 8000hp. It would be more than a bit overpowered.

Yeah, a lot of objects tend to flicker badly when they overlap something else, especially surface-type objects. I usually set the grid to 2x2 when I'm laying down large areas of floor, that way there's much less chance of it overlapping at all, since you can line edges up more easily.

That game is actually where half my username comes from. 🙂

If you look under the "surfaces" tab you'll see square sections of grass that you can place down as floor plates. You can use them to cover the ground and then put the grassy hills and such down wherever you like, and it'll blend together. Not perfectly, as the edges aren't really that smooth transitions, but close enough.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

So if the slightly greater defense and protections are balanced by the fact that it a) can be destroyed and b) tends to lag behind, why would it also have a further limitation that it times out and self destructs after four minutes? I'd see nothing wrong with making it a permanent summon.

If you want to be "just as protected as a SR scrapper" as a FF character, then yes, you need to give up utility. It's about balance. It seems as though what you want is for a FF character to have more utility than a SR character AND be just as much defense. Which would be imbalanced. Really? Because a couple comments above Jeuraud asked for that very thing: My point is this, and after this I'm done with this thread, because I've said my piece, even if people seem to vehemently disagree with a plea for balance. If you want support sets (yes, they're "support" sets, get over it Jeuraud) to have tons of utility AND be just as protected as a set tht has NO utility, then just be honest and admit that what you're asking for is for your character to be made overpowered, and that you don't care about game balance. The more flexibility and utility a set has, the weaker it should be at doing all those various things. Jack of all trades, master of none, as the saying goes. SR, for instance, is THE self-defense set. If you want FF to be on par with it for defending yourself, you can't also have it be just as powerful for defending other people AND have a ton of extra utility, because it ends up overshadowing everything else that has similar functionality. Simnilarly, if you allow support sets to ramp up the user to the level of a tank, you're giving a middle finger to the Sentinel AT, and proclaiming that it should simply be deleted from the game, because at that point it becomes POINTLESS to create one. Just make a Corruptor or a Defender, since you'd have just as much (if not more) defenses AND have a ton of team utility. It's about balance. And with that, I'm done.

If you want to be "equal to <insert armor set>", then you'll have to sacrifice some things. Are you really asking what would be wrong with giving a FF character the same defenses as a SR character AND all the other stuff as well? You can't see how that might be, you know, maybe a TINY bit imbalanced? How it might completely crap all over the Sentinel AT in the process?

"Support" defines a powerset that has multiple buffs that affect other people. That's all. Okay, so like I said above, we'll make FF "just as protected as SR solo". You'll just have to give up force bolt, personal force field, repulsion field, repulsion bomb, detention field and force bubble. The values for insulation shield and deflection shield will be lowered, and bulked back up with some auto powers you can purchase for extra defense. And you'll also lose all ability to affect other players with your powers, it will be purely personal powers at that point. To balance it out, we'll replace one of the powers that you gave up with a +rech power as well. Now you're just as protected as a SR character. Sound good?

It's interesting to note that you completely ignore all the other things that Force Field has other than just defense. Force bolt, detention field, repulsion field, force bubble, repulsion bomb, personal force field. If you want Force Field to have the same values as Super Reflex, then all those powers will have to go. In return, you can have the values on insulation shield and deflection shield lowered, and little +def auto powers to be put in their place, to bring you up to par, so you'll have to take at least 5-6 of the powers in the set to bring your defense up. You'll also lose the ability to cast the buffs on other people. We'll even toss in a +recharge passive to make it even closer. There, parity. Sound good?

"Support" is a definition of a powerset, not a playstyle. My "brutes" aren't all mindless rage-monsters who flip out and punch things while screaming like the Hulk. My "corruptors" aren't going around constantly trying to despoil and ruin things. You're getting hung up on the name of something. Defense sets focus on protecting the user. Support sets have buffs, debuffs, and often attacks as well. Should a set that focuses on self-defense not do that thing better than a set that has a wide variety of abilities and functionality?

Are you building above/below the actual base area?

Neat. ididn't know that, thanks. :) And here I thought my little rat avatar was so distinctive... *sniff*

I'm trying to figure out how to multi-quote, but my forum-fu is failing me. But on page-2, our very first interaction is my mentioning my bot/FF mastermind, and that's the part that you first quoted. Perhaps I was lazy in assuming that when I kept referring to it you'd remember what I said in my first post. Oh believe me, I don't LIKE the fact that a lot of the support powersets can't use many of their powers on themselves (I'm glaring in your direction Empathy). I just feel that allowing self-casting with the buffs at their current level would be too much of a swing in the other direction, and would kick the Sentinel AT square in the junk. I'd be quite happy to test out an idea of allowing the various support sets to cast weaker version of the buffs on themselves, and we can fiddle with the numbers to see where a good balance point lies. I just don't want to jump all over another AT's shtick, you know?

I'm not talking about set bonuses while leveling. I'm talking about generic IOs. Accuracy, damage, endurance reduction, etc. The "set and forget" types, where you drop it into the power and don't have to look at it again until you want to swap it out for a set bonus, unlike SOs that you need to replace every couple levels.

I suppose part of it is pedantic. To me, saying "the game is balanced around SO's" seems stupid since, as I said, nobody uses them anymore except as occasional filler if they get a drop during a mission and happen to have an empty slot. And when I said "a 50th level with standard IOs", I meant 25th level IOs, since upgrading to 50th level IOs is stupidly expensive. I don't know anybody who does it, they just go for sets at that point. And taking the fighting pool is always something I consider to be a kind of "required cost" if I'm building a heavy defense character. The smash/lethal resist is nice, but if you've got capped defenses, you don't get hit much. But then again, if you DO get hit past the def, you're not quite as squishy. Plus it's a convenient place to mule specific IOs, such as steadfast protection and gladiator's armor, for +6% more defense. And actually I did say that my mastermind was Bot/FF. That was in the very first post I made, which is what sparked our back and forth. You even quoted the part of my statement where I said "my Bot/FF Mastermind..." The thing is, if you allow self-buffing via the two shields in FF, you wouldn't NEED to be a Bot/FF mastermind to achieve really high defenses. The MM values for the FF shields are 10% base, so with simple slotting, that's an extra 15% defense. With just those and Dispersion Bubble, you're looking at 26% defense to everything. That's with just three powers. A Defender is even stronger (of course), having 25% to all positional defense at level TWELVE, without ANY slotting. Once they get to 22nd and start slotting meaningful enhancements, they'd have 37% positional defense, again with just three powers. Toss in maneuvers and you'd have ~30% positional defense with four powers for non-Defenders, while the Defender would have capped defense with those four powers. Most defense-oriented sets can't do that with four powers. SR requires 6 at a minimum, and then also needs to pick up maneuvers and possibly weave to get capped defense (unless it's on a Tanker, which has higher numbers, but still can't do it with just four powers). I suppose a lot of it is that I don't want a change like this to make another AT (Sentinels) completely irrelevant. The Sentinel is the "tankmage" AT right now, having blasts and defenses. If you allow support sets to become support/defense, what purpose does a Sentinel really have anymore? They'd basically be inferior version of the Defender/Corruptor, since their secondary is entirely selfish, whereas the support sets typically provide lots of team utility in addition to resist/defense buffs. Similarly, you CAN build a Blaster to be a "tankmage", but it requires specific builds, sets, incarnate abilities, etc. And you're still going to be pretty squishy against some things. So it takes dedication to turn a squishy into the tankmage type. Given how powerful the defense/resist buffs are in the support sets, allowing them to simply be self-cast would be too much, IMO. Maybe a weak version of them might work, though.

I want female henchmen. I've wanted to make a Knives of Artemis mastermind ever since CoV went live. Will some people abuse their female henchmen? Sure. Do some people already abuse their male henchmen? Yes. Should the fear that "someone might do something wrong with this thing" stop it from being implemented? Hell no.

You don't need to balance it around 50th level IOs. You balance it around 25's, which is where they first come into play. Which is roughly the same level as SO's, which frankly nobody uses anymore anyway to my knowledge. Nothing needs to be nerfed. You can call the current state of the game, with current builds at 50th with just standard IO's "the balance point". People already complain the game is a walk in the park at 50th with incarnate and full set bonuses, that's why you see people farming +4/8 content, or doing +4 PI runs and inviting anyone to come join them, because they can solo the entire map. I just find it silly to claim to be balancing the game around an enhancement that nobody uses. Given that /FF for Masterminds doesn't have any -def resist, buffing past 45% is a good way to prevent the occasional cascade fail. Not to mention it means you can solo into incarnate content, as the soft cap is higher, without having to constantly be chewing on defense inspirations. I'm at work right now so I can't post the build, but I can give you a breakdown of where it's all coming from, using Mastermind values: Dispersion Bubble: 7.5% base defense Maneuvers: 2.65% base defense Weave: 3.5% base defense Protector Bot: 7% base defense Hover: 2.25% base defense Scorpion Shield: 12.5%(?) base defense S/L, slightly less against energy Before any slotting at all, you're looking at ~22% positional defense. Adding +50% from SOs, you bump that up to ~33% positional. I don't remember the values for scorp shield off the top of my head, as I haven't touched my masterminds for a few months, but I THINK it's around 12.5% base against S/L, and 9%ish against energy, or 19%/14.5%ish after SO's, bringing your smash/lethal up to ~52% and energy to 46%ish. Pretty much exactly what I quoted, which was read straight from mids. Trust me, if I had set bonuses in there, it'd be MUCH higher. Which is where the numbers I quoted originally were from, with her sitting at ~50% to positionals. I'm pretty sure you have mids, Pax. You could very easily toss some SO's onto a bot/FF build in 30 seconds or so and check for yourself if you still think I'm trying to be deceptive. I have a feeling you didn't remember that the prot bot can bubble the Mastermind as well (though only one bubble, rather than the double stack on the other minions), which is probably why you were questioning the numbers.

To be honest, the argument that "the game is balanced around SOs, not sets" is a bit outdated at this point. It's kind of akin to arguing "well, the rules for racing were made back when we used cars that couldn't go more than 40mph, there's no need to update them to reflect the current state of things". At the very least, you have to balance things around basic IOs, which provide a lot more bang for the buck than SOs do. Also, with my FF MM using just SOs and her current build (which includes weave, maneuvers, and scorp shield -- because remember, MMs get access to defenses in the patron/epic pools, something that Sents don't get) is sitting at 56% S/L def, 49% NRG def, and 35% to all positionals/other typed damage (except for psi, which she's only at 23% against). If you allow her to cast her bubbles on herself, that cranks her S/L def up to well over 70%, and her positionals to 53%. Now, a comparable SR Sent would have around 42% to melee/ranged and 46% to aoe. This is including, just like the MM, maneuvers, weave and hover, but also adding in CJ on top of it. The def of scorp shield doesn't factor in since they're positional rather than typed, but even then the MM pulls far ahead once you allow them to cast their bubbles on themselves. So with personally-castable bubbles, the /FF MM has superior defenses to the /SR Sentinel, can buff teammates as well, and has several other options that the /SR character doesn't have, such as force bolt, repulsion bomb, etc. All SR brings to the table is personal defenses. FF brings defenses and other tools. And all its defenses would require fewer slots to achieve. The two bubbles and dispersion bubble. That gives you all your defense and status protection. SR requires 3 toggles, two passives, and either a clicky or master brawler to give you status protection. So 6 power picks compared to 3, AND would provide LESS defense. And that's for Corruptors/MMs/Trollers, who have lower values than Defenders. A Defender with SOs could have almost 40% positional defense at 22nd level. They'd have around 30% at TWELFTH, if they use DOs. Sure, they do a lot less damage, but their buffs and debuffs are far stronger. And if you're just soloing, you get +30% damage, which isn't anything to sneeze at. Like I said, I'm willing to try it, but I have a feeling that allowing "support" sets to self-buff would make Sentinels nothing more than a novelty AT, as both Corruptors and Defenders could ALSO do the "tankmage" thing, and do it better since they'd be providing much more use to a group. And once you DO start factoring in sets, they'd blow Sentinels out of the water defensively. And be damned close offensively. Sure, they might do a bit less damage solo, but that would be the slight tradeoff for better defenses and better utility, right? <edit> I think you could balance it if you made the self-castable buffs weaker than the buffs you cast on other players. After all, it's a SUPPORT set, not a tanking set. You could play with the numbers and make it more balanced. But I think just saying "you can now cast ally-only buffs on yourself" would be a bit much.

Of course. Trust me, I've tried everything that I can think of. I'm not a novice at building bases. 🙂 Like I said, I'm going to start noting down where it happens, and see if I can figure out a pattern, so I can submit a properly reproduceable bug report.

This was my thought too. While pylon timers can be amusing to look at in terms of "look at what this can do under specific, idealized circumstances", it's not even remotely close to what 99.9% of the rest of the game is like. It's kind of like saying "yes, but psi damage does a bunch of extra damage against clockwork, therefore psi hits too hard and needs to be nerfed".