Mastermind Wishlist

[PaxArcana]

/petcom_leash <n>

/petcom_leash_all <n>

 

+100 INF ...!!!

[biostem]

Mastermind is quite possibly my favorite class to play!  I'd love to see something akin to a "single player Superteam" primary set.  It'd be something like this:

 

Name: Superteam Summoning

 

1. Power bolts

2. Summon new recruits (1st would be a blaster, 2nd would be a scrapper, and 3rd would be a different blaster or maybe a stalker or dominator - these would all be fairly weak interpretations of these classes, and have fairly generic appearances)

3. Power burst

4. Equip teammate

5. Energy Torrent

6. Summon experienced teammate (1st would be a tanker and 2nd would be a defender - again, these would be fairly generic interpretations of each AT, and would powers appropriate for their role - like Invuln/SS for the tanker, and empathy for the defender - though all scaled for pet levels)

7. Rallying Cry - Buffs & heals your "teammates"

8. Summon veteran teammate (I'm on the fence here, but I think an illusion, mind, or gravity controller would be awesome as the top-tier summon for this set.  Otherwise, it could be swapped out with the tank spot for the T2 pet and given the typical "flying brick" treatment).

 

Alternatively, what if the personal attacks and such were geared around YOU being the so-called "flying brick" that represents the superteam?  The tier 7 power could be a toggle that grants you status protection and a modest damage resist buff, (obviously not on par with a true tank, but then you could always engage bodyguard mode as needed).  If this were to be done instead, then I'd swap out the tank pet for another ranged or melee attack, (or perhaps a team pet/robot, since many superteams have those as well).

 

Your thoughts?

[pattycake]

Daym Xaeon, your creativity is sublime.

 

Golems :D Make it happen

[Xaeon]

Few other basic concepts I've had for MM sets I'll expand on soonish.

 

Cowboy/outlaw: (Uses a lever action repeater gun, has a special mechanic where you have stacks of "ammo" that while you or your pets have it; let your gun attacks recharge blazingly fast for powerful bursts, but once consumed your recharge is gutted until you regenerate the ammo stacks)

 

Ninjas redone: (Basically making the Ninja MM use shurikens instead of bows)

 

Revolutionaries: (MM throws stuff, pets are themed around anarchists and other revolutionaries and are generally sneaky and have all kinds of nasty tricks and traps for their enemies)

 

Merry Men: (Robin Hood themed archery MM; strong at range and not too terrible at melee)

 

Barbarians: (Melee focused high damage set, basically an army of brutes in your pocket. Throwing weapons MM attacks.)

 

Police: (Uses shotgun attacks, summons PPD mob themed pets)

 

Plants: (Uses thorn based attacks, using a mix of plant themed creatures; starting with flytraps, reskinned Devouring Earth Plant monsters, and ending in a big treant thing; very tar pittish)

 

Legionaries: (Cimeroran/Roman themed, uses thrown weapons like Pilae)

 

Alien Predators: (Very xenomorph/genestealer/outrider/metroid inspired. MM attacks are based on things like bile spray, shockwave, and other biological attacks. Basically beasts but turned up to eleven)

 

Reptilian Domination: (Control lizard people/snakes. Slow but stealthy, does a lot of toxic damage, and durable.)

 

Abyssal Command: (Commanding the monsters of the deep, attacks based on leviathan mastery. More than a bit of Ia Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! there too.)

 

Tomb Lord: (Warhammer Tomb Kings/Egyptian skeletal and mummy themed undead. Attacks are based on usual mummy tropes such as sand and scarab magic and nasty curses. Start with Skellingtons, move up to mummies, then get this big hella nasty statue thing that wrecks people.)

 

Spies: (Ranged damage spy themed stealthy glass cannons who have the best range on average of any MM set and great ST range damage. MM weapon is a sniper rifle, MM gets a snipe attack and snipes are pretty common among the pets. Folds like paper if spotted and dragged into melee though.)

 

Martial Art Dojo: (Attacks are based on various chi projections. Compared to Ninjas they lose out on damage and sheer speed in exchange for more utility and resilience.)

 

Samurai: (MM attacks are all based on sword beams. Pretty tanky like knights but not quite as hard to kill. Also have some ranged attacks since Samurai were historically also masters of the bow.)

 

Guardian Spirits: (Generally themed around African styled nature spirits and totems; not currently sure on MM attacks, but they're pretty hard with the debuffs)

 

Fae Court: (Little tricksy faeries, MM attacks aren't quite so damaging but there's plenty of oofy debuffs to them; good for tricksy MMs.)

 

Circus: (Another tricksy set with various circus preformer tropes mixed in. Lot of variety among pets but can struggle to do any one thing well. MM attacks are similarly eclectic and come from multiple "set" ideas like throwing weapons, fire blowing on a torch, and a whip.)

 

Meta Crew: (A similarly highly varied set with your crew being made out of various types of metahumans. MM attack powers come from multiple different sets to represent their mastery over many different powers).

 

Power Suit Corps: (Attacks come from IDF shooty gauntlet guns. Compared to the Heavy Trooper set, this one's more varied and more inspired by Iron man/Samus Aran than the IDF and Vanguard. Also comes with some pocket controls and buffs too.)

 

Battle Cyborgs: (Attacks come from Praetorian Warworks. Generally themed around metal gear esque shenanigans.)

 

Drone Command: (Uses flying drones and other hovering units and compared to the other techy sets; is really fragile but packs some oofy firepower and other bonuses. MM attacks come from the beam rifle set)

 

Extradimensional Terrors: (Uses attacks inspired by the soldiers of rularuu. Monsters are weird and strange looking, really messes around with the enemy.)

 

Living Spells: (Another eclectic set with pets taken from animus arcana models. Perhaps not the most damaging of sets but having what is basically an army of pocket defenders and trollers is really nice.)

 

Arthropod Command: (Pets are all arthropod themed and have powers themed around various arthropods, MM attacks include things like acid webs, bombardier beetle spray, and firefly blasts.)

 

 

[Jon]

If we're talking new MM primaries, a Clones set would be really cool. Your pets would be clones of yourself.

[Xaeon]

If we're talking new MM primaries, a Clones set would be really cool. Your pets would be clones of yourself.

All my ideas for a Clones MM set end up being Deja Vu (energy pistol based attacks) from Freedom Force retreads. 

 

That's not a bad thing, because Freedom Force was amazing. 

 

Though the other issue with a Clones Set is figuring out attacks for the Clones without deviating from the Clone theme. 

[minichrissy007]

Do you want to build a snowman?

 

I was going to make a suggestion for a Snow Minion Mastermind powerset since it's such low hanging fruit.  The assets already exist, and it seems like it would be easy to implement and balance overall.  It also definitely fits some power tropes.  My issue with the suggestions above is when everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority, so this idea just got mixed into the wash above.  Looking at the individual post from 2019, the Ice Elemental design looks mostly solid, but there were some issues with it, so I'm making some tweaks to the original design.  The original suggestion was:

 

Ice Elementals: Through various means you can call forth the powers of winter to serve you and destroy your foes. Ice elementals are exceedingly resilient and slow down their foes substantially but are vulnerable to fire damage and somewhat slow. Special ability: Brittle cold, struck by multiple elementals (including the mastermind) gain a "brittle" proc that can allow 1.5x critical hits to be dealt to them with each proc of "brittle" increasing the chance of this by 5%.

 

T1: Ice Bolt (as per Ice Blast)

T2: Frostlings (Basically the winter horde enemy. Equip adds Ice Armor. Enhance adds Block of Ice.)

T3: Ice Blast (as per well...Ice Blast)

T4: Empower Cold (Equip power)

T5: Freeze Ray

T6: Summon Jack Frosts (Starts with Freezing Touch and Ice Sword. Equip adds Glacial Shield and Breath of Frost. Enhance adds Wet Ice and Ice Patch

T7: Stay Frosty (Targeted AoE with hold and minor DoT over time; every held enemy defeated while held has a chance to spawn a frostling)

T8: Summon Hellfrost: (Starts with Ice Sword and Greater Ice Sword. Equip adds Energy Absorbtion, Wet Ice, and frostwork. Enhance adds Freezing Aura and Hibernate.) 

T9: Permafrosting (Enhance power)

 

I propose a number of modifications to the suggestion both to simplify and use assets so coding is minimal.  First, I don't think other mastermind sets have special powers most of the time, so remove the brittle suggestion. I understand that animals have a power, but they are exclusively melee.  This set has some ranged options.   Second, I'd stick to the existing assets for the Winter Horde in order to make assets super easy to adopt.  The idea here is to give new balanced options without having to do a bunch of development...low hanging fruit.

 

T1: Ice Bolt - Ice Bolt quickly pelts an enemy with small icy daggers

From Ice Blast powerset (T1)

T2: Summon Frostlings - Calls forth one to three frostlings (depending on your level) to do your bidding

Winter Horde Enemy has Ice Bolt, Frost, Resistance.  Don't see a reason to change this.

Equip adds Frozen Armor from Ice Armor Set (T1). (Visual Change - Add cryo aura)

Enhance adds Block of Ice from Ice Control (T2).  (Visual Change - Add change cryo aura from white to light blue)

T3: Ice Blast - Ice Blast hurls shards of ice at foes and Slows their attacks and movement for a time

From Ice Blast powerset (T2)

T4: Fortify - Fortify your snow minions to make them more durable.

Equip power - gives defensive powers to all snow minions

Adds Frozen Armor (T1) to Frostlings

Adds Frozen Armor (T1) and Hoarfrost (T2) to Blights

Adds Frozen Armor, Hoarfrost, and Chilling Embrace to Snow Beast

T5: Freeze Ray - Freeze Ray encases your foe in a block of ice, holding them helpless in place for a while.

From Ice Blast powerset (T5)

T6: Summon Blight - Calls forth one to two Blights (depending on your level) to do your bidding.

Winter Horde Enemy has Chillbain, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Frozen Fists, Resistance

Equip adds Frozen Armor and Hoarfrost both from the Ice Armor Set (T1,T2). (Visual Change - Add cryo aura)

Enhance adds Block of Ice from Ice Control (T2) and Frost Breath from Ice Blast (T3).  (Visual Change - Add change cryo aura from white to light blue)

T7: Permafrost

As Frostwork (Cold Domination T5) but casts on all minions permanently

T8: Summon Snow Beast - Calls one massive Snow Beast.

Winter Horde Enemy has Ice Blast, Freeze Ray, Frost Breath, Frozen Fists, Winter Storm, Resistance

Equip adds Frozen Armor, Hoarfrost, and Chilling Embrace, all from the Ice Armor Set (T1, T2, T3).  (Visual Change - Add cryo aura)

Enhance adds Block of Ice from Ice Control (T2), Build Up from Ice Blast (T4), Snow Storm (Cold Domination T3) (Visual Change - Add change cryo aura from white to light blue)

T9: Rein of Winter - Upgrades snow minions making them more capable offensively

Enhance power, giving offensive options

Adds Block of Ice to Frostlings 

Adds Block of Ice and Frost Breath to Blights

Adds Block of Ice, Build Up, and Snow Storm to Frost Beast

 

This should be easy to balance, uses almost exclusively existing assets.  Shouldn't cause power creep.