Canine

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However, it ain't a DarkWings team unless we kill everything single thing that moves.

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<cough> and try to kill anything that doesn't move, in case it tries to sneak up on us later</cough>

You forgot the second part, MBar :P

It wouldn't ba a DW team without massive amounts of devastation wrought.

It doesn't usually matter a great deal whether it's wrought by us, or on us

It went pretty much as planned.

Managed to hit 50 From the xp From Vanessa DeVore.

Utterly forgot to set a demorecord running, or take any screenshots....

Other than that, she dropped like a sack of spuds. We had more trouble with the three Master Illusionists at once that we managed to aggro shortly thereafter

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Suggestion : PPP Tier 4 for Masterminds gives Kamikazi.

Robots run up and explode on their target, Thugs/Mercenaries have a satchel of C4, Ninjas ignite themselves and dive on the nearest enemies, Zombies become Embalmed Abominations.

Now that would be fun

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<cough> Traps Secondary, 9th Power, Detonator </cough>

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now then gents, still no news on the PC front. Re-activated my account ready and I can keep up with the boards, real shame i'll miss Heat dinging.
might just be desperate enough to kick my g/f off hers and stick my RAM and gfx card in her PC.

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If you can somehow get on, then you're guaranteed a spot, given you were part of the regular mob that got Heat a long way towards 50. If you can't? Well, I'll send you a copy of the demorecord

Oh, and so much for the hopes of having more than 4 powers per AT to make the 'No respeccing and changing Patron' Rule less painful

Guess I'll be spending more time spamming Glitterdust and annoying Fighters/Paladins in DDO then

(Yes, I'm probably Whining. I don't care, I've had a crappy day at work, and this is massively underwhelming compared to what they COULD have done. I just hope there's more to it, but my natural cynicism is stirring.)

Well, that looks thoroughly uninspiring....

It looks like they're doing what they did with CoH, and adding powers which remove or at least severely reduce the specialities of the AT's. Thus all the non-MM's getting pets, and the MM's getting shields and control powers.

And from here, it looks like the patron whose MM defence is a toggle defence is the Mu Mastery. At least going on a strict reading of the page. I'd bet that they're all toggles though, which means more endurance outlay. Oh Joy.

Also, looking at the Mu Mastery set (which looks like being the only one I'd consider for Toybox), all the other AT's get some degree of end recovery (Power Sink for the Corruptors/Dominators, Mu Lightning for Brutes, and Mu Bolts/Zapp for Stalkers (Stalkers and Brutes not guaranteed end recovery, but something's better than nothing)) but not a sausage for MM's

And am I alone in finding the concept of a Critical Zapp from a Hidden Stalker to be more than a tad overpowered? Or a Dominator getting everything locked down and then going in to Power sink and recharge to also be a tad unbalanced?

Or am I just being paranoid?

Nope, I'm not impressed, so far... And not sure I can be arsed to grind the last 10 levels to try the powers out. Meh.

:edit: Of course, having said that Mu Mastery is the only one to appeal to me, Black Scorpion could fit quite nicely, given that spamming web grenades is what I spend most of my time doing anyway, so the AoE Web grenade and Web Cocoon would fit.

Umm, Doc, I think you count as an honourary Darkwing

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If you're online and part of the regular mob the got me most of the way to 49.95, you're guaranteed a slot. If you're online and I've teamed with you on a regular basis, then it's first come first served for the remaining slots, which will be dished out at 7:30pm.

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You definitely fall under the second category

Besides, we can always do the "How many teams can we get in one mission" trick

You know, things are never bloody easy

OK, Current plan is that come hell or high water, Heat *IS* going to be 50, come 9pm on Sunday.

If I have to run solo (well, sort of solo, as solo as you can be with 3 psychotic fire imps) against 7th gen PP's in a parallel universe, I will

Failing that, 7:30pm, Sunday the 2nd of April.

If you're online and part of the regular mob the got me most of the way to 49.95, you're guaranteed a slot. If you're online and I've teamed with you on a regular basis, then it's first come first served for the remaining slots, which will be dished out at 7:30pm.

Does that sound fair enough?

Nice to see you noticed this thread, doc. I got 90% of the way through posting a rely which was telling him to contact you, but decided against it at the last minute

And it's likely he's on Union, since he posted it in the Union - heroes board (another senior moment there )

:edit: PS, I'm also a miserable sod. Welcome to the club

Hmm, and suddenly life got complicated....

If Vetis doesn't get back in touch you can have his space. If he does get back in touch, but Ball can't make it, you can have his space. If they're both there... Sorry.

OK, so far then, the team is looking sort of loike this: (:edit: loike? When did I turn into a yokel? :edit

1) Heat Haze
2) Ballbearing
3) Lylyth
4) Darkshift
5) DVM
6) Green Jet
7) Private GIlliam (or an alt thereof)
8) ? Reserved for SirenX if Vetis ever gets back in touch. ?

Did I forget anyone?

Web Grenade - Essential. Take it (not that you've got a choice ), slot it, spam it, love it. Keep the enemy at range, and let your bots use all their ranged attacks on that webbed in place target.

Triage Beacon - Very Useful, get it slotted with 3 recharge and 3 Heals as soon as you can spare the slots..

Force Field Generator - Take it as soon as possible, and use it all the time. Mez resist and +def for a MM? Oh yes.

Poison trap - Take it and use it, whenever you can. It's an AoE Hold. That should say it all.

Seeker drones - No real need, since your PB's will be dumping seekers constantly when fully upgraded.

Detonator - An absolute pile of steaming wossname. Avoid.

Use Trip Mine instead of Detonator if you feel a need for big bangs.

Acid mortar is useful too.

I never took Caltrops, so I can't really comment on it.

I'd have replied earlier, but for whatever reason, the boards weren't letting me...

:edit: Typos.

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Sorry - not available 6pm Saturday. Can suggest 6pm Sunday? ( Hess'll be finished by then )

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You've always got to be awkward, don't you?

Make it 7pm, Sunday the 2nd of April. Or is there another problem, and am I going hunting 7th gen PP's solo for the last half bar?

Well, I'd say you qualify as part of the usual mob

Bring Jet along, assuming Ball's coming, that's the tanking sorted

I don't mind, I can leave Heat in a holding pattern until next weekend if needs be.

OK, so given MBar's no show during the week, Is Saturday afternoon, roughly 6pm out for anyone?

Heat is currently 2/5ths of a gnats crotchet from 50. (less than half a bar)

So, I would like to get Ballbearing, Darkshift, Lylyth and some of the others I spent most of the way to 50 teaming with together for the final ding.

I suspect that Tuesday evening (March 28th) would be most viable, knowing how Lylyth's week usually works out.

If Vetis has got his PC working again, I wouldn't mind having SirenX along, too

And there's a space reserved for a Tundra Alt, preferably DVM, but open for negotiation.

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It's because if in range, the bot preferentially uses flamethrower which is a pretty poor attack compared to others it has available.

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It's not a poor attack if Stompy is in close to 4 or 5 mobs, given that it's a pretty wide cone. Besides, look at the pretty fireworks

I think the US Board analysis of the Dual Plasma Blast is a bit off too, I don't think it's a narrow cone, I think it's a fairly tight ranged AoE centred on the main target, with a DoT attached too. I'm certain about the DoT, and 90% sure of the ranged AoE.

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Force Bubble - i know theres afew bubbles you can run at the same time but really want to know if FB can be run with Dispersion bubble at the same time ?.

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Yes

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Yep, you can run 'em both at the same time. It's not necessarily a particularly good idea with such a squishy AT as a MM, as everything that your pets haven't aggroed onto them will be aggroed onto you by the force bubble.

It IS however useful for the Oranbega portal rooms, as you can pop Force bubble, set your pets on the portal, and have all the nasty demons pushed away from you until the portal drops, upon which you set your pets on the demons. Popping a +def or +res insp first can help though.

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And it's always wrong to force people to do play to a style they dont want to. It's far easier to kick them from the team and find someone better.

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.........

So, it's wrong to force people to play a way they don't want to, or which doesn't conform to how you think they should play, but instead of seeing if they can be effective in their chosen style of play you'd rather just kick them from the team? And you see nothing wrong with that statement? o_O

Pets can't really tank, all they can do is act as an ablative shield. (The following applies to robotics, since that's where all my experience is) As soon as any Player uses an attack power, the affected mobs will shift aggro to them, as they will almost invariably be doing more damage than the pets.

Now, in my book, acting as an ablative shield is not tanking. Others may disagree, fair enough. But tanking in CoH/V has a very distinct expectation of prolonged holding of the mobs attention. Not something that a MM's pets can do and survive.

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I'm sorry, do you not have a secondary?

If you do, then how about using it in a way to enable you to do more than just sit at the back of the group, stroking your bots? Cuddles has already outlined one way for /Traps to tank, surely I don't need to echo it for you to take note of it?

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Yes, I have a secondary which requires me to be rooted, defenceless and in the middle of the mobs I'm trying to affect. I also don't have flight or stealth, which were both pretty central to the techniques mentioned by Cuddles. Because frankly, the 'drop the Mortar just in range of the mobs and then leg it' technique requires luck and an enemy type with average or lower perception.

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Play how you want by all means, but the MM AT is capable of numerous roles - first line of offence, first line of defence, debuffs, buffs... CoV ATs are nothing if not adaptable, easily moreso than CoH ATs - it doesn't take a huge build change to switch from one role to another, and MMs are more than equipped with the tools for this job.

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So by implication from that, because they are equipped to be able to do the job, they SHOULD do the job. That's what I thought this whole thread was about, people *expecting* you to play in a way you don't see as an appropriate use of your resources, just because you're a Mastermind.

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A pet may die, many more pets remain,

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Strange, because it's my experience, based on my playstyle, that when one pet drops, then I can usually expect another couple to follow in swift order.

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As I said, acid mortar is the best alpha taker imho, followed by decoy dave, my low tier soldier who does about 20 damage per attack. OH NOES ONE THIRD OF MY DAMAGE.

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Please get past the 1/3rd comment. It was a single exaggeration made in an attempt to stress the point that in that sort of situation I'd be getting asked to sacrrifice a big chunk of damage output. And I don't know about mercs, but I don know that a significant portion of my damage over time output comes from my Drones, and they are NOT expendable in my little world of masterminding.

I'll leave the whole lot of my henchemn behind as I run for a safer location to TP teammates out of trouble if I have to, but I don't send them in first as sacrificial lambs. (note stress, I'm not saying that other people do things my way, but I object to other people expecting me to play by their expectations.)

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well as traps, why not use your acid mortar to take the alpha? Unless you are anal about your acid mortar dying too :P

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Nope, I'm kind of anal about me dying... Since I don't have any sort of stealth ability to let me get in close without drawing the alpha myself.

And a MM drawing the alpha on himself is a MM lying face down on the floor in 50% of cases, and when the MM drops, so do all the henchmen...

The point I'm trying to make has been made elsewhere. There is no 'Right Way' to play any class in CoV. I don't recall ever seeing a dev post saying 'MM's are the tanks of CoV'.

Brutes can be pseudo-tanks, or single target killers. Corruptors can be blasters or buffers, Dominators can be controllers or squishy scrappers, Stalkers can be single target killers, or melee scrappers, and MM's can be played however the hell they want to.

Having someone else tell you to sacrifice your henchmen is just rude. Unless they pay me 10k infamy per destroyed henchman in panel beating costs and protection money

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Newsflash: your bots are cannon fodder, if it comes down to it.

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Newsflash: MY bots are not cannon fodder. Yours may be, but mine are fire support.

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Unless the Brute wants to charge in for Fury-building purposes, I always start the show when playing my MM. Hell, sometimes I've deliberately sent one decoy bot out wide to specifically take the alpha whilst the rest of my henchmen took up position to open fire. I've never had any problems with "losing a 1/3rd of my attacks" either - it's very rare that any of my bots die (Repair & Twilight Grasp ftw), and if they do it's only a quick resummon and back they come.

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Hmm, Repair, which work once every couple of minutes, and twilight grasp, which strangely enough, as a /traps MM, I don't have. Yep, that'll keep my bots ticking over real well...