WumpusRat

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".

Part of me thinks "yeah, that'd be cool, you could buff yourself with the defense sets and have a bit more flexibility and defense", but on the other hand, it feels like it might be a bit of overkill for some sets. Masterminds in particular. My bot/ff MM has ~50% def in all positionals, and that's WITHOUT using either of the (currently) ally-only shields. And she doesn't even have her alpha incarnate ability slotted yet. Nor does she have any super-expensive sets. I suppose my main fear would be stepping too much on the Sentinel AT's toes. If support sets can suddenly have massive defense, resists, status protection, etc, AND still offer a lot of benefits to teammates, it makes the Sentinel AT a bit more of a "why is this here?" stepchild. Especially for masterminds. It would make being a tankermind VASTLY easier, and FAR more powerful. So I dunno.

As I said above, I'm not building outside the base area with this one. Which is why it was baffling. And yes, I know all about toggling clipping. Everything I was building was inside the base, and the item in question was one of the praetorian power cables (a very small object), and was being attached TO ANOTHER OBJECT that had already been placed in that location to create a wall. So obviously the game knew enough to allow SOME items to be placed there, but when I went to place an object on THOSE objects it said "um, no, won't fit!" That's why I found it so odd. I've run into it here and there in other parts of the base (and in other bases, as well). When it happens again I'm going to start noting down positional information within the base and see if I can figure out some pattern that might be causing it.

Well, the same can be said for ANY pizza topping. "You order two pizzas, one pepperoni, one mushroom, but two people don't like mushrooms. There's now less pizza for those two people." "You order two pizzas, one supreme and one pepperoni, but two people don't like olives or onions. There's now less pizza for those two people." Etc, etc. Personally, I despise mushrooms on pizza. I think they're disgusting. But like any rational adult, of someone orders one with mushrooms on it, I'll either not eat it or pick them off. You can do the same thing with pineapple, if your sensibilities are so horrified by the prospect of pineapple on pizza. Unless you think it's somehow "tainted" the entire pizza. But the same can, again, be said for any topping.

Nope, I'm building inside the base this time. Hence why I used a bunch of doors to make fully open areas. I've noticed it crop up here and there, but I've never really looked to see if it was something happening in a "doorway" or not. This one was, but I don't remember about the others. There've been a lot of strange bugs and glitches in the base builder lately.

Yeah. The odd thing is, when I just decided "screw it, I'll see if I can just cover up the wall area" and dropped a huge mainframe terminal down, in almost the same spot, and it went in with no trouble. But for some reason tiny cables wouldn't fit. It's baffling.

Given that all the defensive turrets and things are things are free, imagine the insanely lethal danger room you could make. Glass walls (so people can watch) and a porter to step in, with so many debuff fields, force fields protecting the turrets, slow fields, sappers, etc, you could even start making a contest out of it! "Come one, come all, to Lethal Arcade's Danger Room. Thing you're tough? Think you can laugh off a full base of Malta, or Carnies? Yeah, so can our danger room. See if you can get through to the pretty girl/handsome lad at the end of the danger room, and win a prize! It might be influence, it might be a rare recipe, it might be catalysts! Who knows! Can You Survive?" :)

After running into numerous frustrations with having the base builder not store the proper positions of items when I went to build my ship down at the -1600 mark or so, I junked it and started rebuilding within the base confines instead. I'm going to have the interior be within the base area, and "airlocks" leading from inside to the exterior of the ship via portals. I came up with a pretty decent (if I say so myself) airlock combo of an arachnos doorway spun around so the empty back of it is facing outwards, and a portal placed in the circle opening, which fits perfectly. Makes a nice little circular airlock portal. It's a huge project though, and I'm still in the process of laying the foundation of the ship decks. Once I get all that done, then decorated, I'll build the exterior of the ship outside the base confines, so people will have somewhere to port to via the airlocks and be able to float around the ship in 360 degrees. Given the sheer size of the thing it's going to take a while to build, and taking screenshots won't get the proper feel for it, I think, so I'm going to try and make a video walkthrough. Especially since the ship is for my tiny aliens, who are from a low-light world, thus the interior lighting is fairly dim. Hopefully I'll have it done in a couple weeks. :)

I think the place that I was trying to build is already in a doorway. The area was two long 2x21 rooms that had the space between them filled in with doorways, to make one larger room. The pieces I was trying to place were small praetorian cables, so it wasn't a size issue at all. And not only that, but I'd already built a wall there with other objects, so it wasn't just "nothing can be built here". It was just extremely odd.

Or hell, you could go full X-Men and design a Danger Room. Turrets, sappers, debuff fields, etc, hop in and see if you can survive!

I want to play bio armor, but I much prefer to set all my defensive toggles to nofx, and you can't do that with the adaptations. I don't want to be surrounded by an ugly glow to use the powers. 😞

I'm running into this constantly when I'm trying to build a large base using internal walls (constructed via objects). I'll be running, say, a length of conduit along a wall, and everything is going fine, but a stretch of about 6-10 feet of the wall will suddenly be a non-viable place to place objects, despite there being nothing else in the way. It'll just pop up the error "base edit failed: can't fit". It's frustrating as hell, because it's popping up all over the place, seemingly at random, and prevents a lot of customization.

Probably been mentioned before, but another thing I'd like: Smaller letters. The alphabet right now are HUGE letters, and it'd be nice to have some that are about half that size, or even a third, so you could make more reasonable signage.

In the last few days when I've been trying to build within a base, whenever I'm using shift-drag to move an object up/down, quite often the game will somehow interpret the sliding as a double-click, and teleport me forward a good distance. It's become INCREDIBLY frustrating, as it happens every 4-5 objects, and when I'm building a large base with a lot of objects I want to reposition, I'm having to crtl-z (since it tends to teleport the object into a random position as well) and try again. I asked in the help channel and a couple of other people say they've seen the same behavior. I don't have click-to-move turned on, so it's not that. It just seems like there's just some weird overlap with shift-drag and the click-to-move that's inherent with base building that's conflicting, and it's getting confused and teleporting me around.

I have one that I'm leveling up. Still a lowbie, though. It's one of a whole slew of characters I've made that follow the same theme: they're all summoned elementals, so they all follow a very tight theme with their powers. Fire/fire/fire, ice/ice/ice, earth/earth/earth, etc. I did try a bunch of thrown-together builds for them on justin, and while they're certainly not optimized in any way and don't use incarnate abilities, they're decent for testing general damage output and durability. My standard test is to throw them up against +1/8/boss malta and see how they do. If they roflstomp their way through malta, then I deem them a success. :)

There are numerous things that could and should be done to bring Mercenaries up to parity with some of the better sets (looking at you, Demons and Bots). The commando needs to be overhauled, Serum needs to be revamped entirely (1000s cooldown? Seriously?). The other mercenaries need their damage and animations tightened up. Etc. The fact that the commando's LRM Rocket has a 240s cooldown is absolutely ridiculous, for one. It should be around a 24s cooldown, comparable to the other tier-3 pets' abilities. Hell, the Assault Bot's two missile swarm attacks have 16s cooldowns. The original devs were just really lazy with mercenaries. And with a lot of mastermind stuff, if we're honest. They just didn't really like masterminds all that much, so never really gave them the attention they needed.

It won't work anyway. Blazing Blast doesn't allow you to slot KB sets into it. So you can't get rid of the repel even if KB->KD worked. <edit> However, it does take universal damage sets. Just tested it with Overwhelming Force. While it doesn't negate the repel, it minimizes it a good bit, so they only go a LITTLE backwards. So it's an option, just not a great one.

Like I said in the other thread, it happens to stuff that I've moved on the grid, or disabled, at random. If I'm forced to have to build everything on a 1x1 grid, I may as well not build bases that aren't just giant square blocks, since I won't be able to do any fine tuning.