Carnifax_NA

I think any sane individual prefers Mayhems over Snoozeguards.



I prefer redside missions over Blue usually and find the ATs overall more interesting there. I do find the lack of variety in the zones redside a bit of a trial though, would love to have more alternatives available. GR will be good in that regard.I'd love alternative Striga & Croatoa style zones Red Side too though.

Aye the first time I fought him our team was mostly damage with some Tankage and my Illusion/Stormie and he was a bit of a grind.

Second time was with my Warshade and at least 3 strong Regen debuffers (Dark. Cold and Rad I think) and he was horribly violated within about 2 minutes. I actually felt sorry for him.

I like PuGs as well so the switch to Virtue worked really well for me too. I'm really enjoying being able to get a group together very quickly at the mo. Even last night threw together a ragtag Sharkshead Villain PuG which I was sure was going to be disaster and it was a hoot.

There are some horrible drawbacks (losing access to my older characters, vet rewards etc) but it suits my erratic playtimes and pick up and play preferred play style and works well for me and the sort of team dependent characters I like to make.

Yep, me too. Unless they are set to Not Looking and have a Search Message of "Not looking" or "Soloing" there's never any harm in asking politely and waiting for a response (the second part is important, no-one likes getting a Tell and Invite 2 seconds apart).


Of course even if someone is flagged as LFT I still send them a tell first. People can forget they have it on or might like to know what you're up to before responding. Some people don't mind SSKing a few levels, others do. My rule of thumb is certainly ask anyone less than 5 levels above the team, I leave others off unless their Search Comment says "Up for anything" because I know I hate it when powers grey out on me. Anyone lower level should be fine but again I send them a tell and let them decide if they feel their character is up to it.


I've been leading quite a bit of villainous Virtue teams recently, taking the bull by the horns works well even if you do end up with just a 4 or 5 man team, no-one seems to mind much.

Try a Plant controller. Planties aren't dull from about level 12, once you've gotten some DOs into Seeds. The pet on the other hand is a wuss. My Plant/Emp has been a joy to level and I'd never have thought I'd enjoy an Empathy controller.



A Plant/Rad would be excellent for those who don't like pre-pet grind.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.



Mind you any rollback should be followed up with a restore of the previous Database state once the emergency had past, so EU players can continue testing the higher end game. Of course a Level Bump would achieve the same process so I wouldn't be surprised if the characters are not restored but instead a scheduled Level Bump happens, which is essentially the same thing in terms of Testing.

Actually no, if you look at a Dominators Earth Assault set there's a few powers there that are weaker than other equivalents, for the same reasons. Sets are balanced as sets for a specific AT. If you compare Controllers to Defenders the same process occured with placeable pseudo-pets.


Saying Thermals debuffs are "slightly" weaker than Darks is just plain wrong as well. Not only are darks far stronger, it gets the majority of them by level 20 (except Fluffy of course, who is a bit of an aberration really. MMs should never have gotten the Defender version of him, although remember at the time IOs didn't exist so the MM drawback of him not being perma was more important)


If Twilight Grasp was changed then I'd bet money to doughnuts that Fluffy would undergo a pass as well to reflect the fact that with a bit of Frankenslotting he's basically as good as the Defender version.

I don't think you're one of the players I'd be worried about. For one you're posting reasonable points in the Mastermind forum, that probably exempts you from the type "one track mind" MMs I'm worried about

Any MM just sticking their pets on Aggressive/Follow and playing pure support is a sillyhead too A good MM is a balancing act spinning multiple plates at once (the clue is in the name).

I agree with you, just healing a fellow teamie isn't the only option (I gave examples using Doms and Brutes for that reason), my Necro/Dark will usually opt for some mez, debuff and pet attacks before running in to pop off a heal. If a zombie dies while I'm doing that, no worries, he'll be replaced shortly.

I shouldn't have used the H word should I? You'd think I'd know better from reading the Defender boards. My point is more that some MMs can have a tendency to be less team friendly in their playstyles, and a massive influx of them could be on it's way, at least for a week or two (then Natural Selection should kick in).

I'm gonna start a Fortuna I think for i17, damage, defenses, control and team buffs seems a good foil to them. I started a Plant/Emp who lacks Absorb Pain and Rez for the wave of DPers and it works really, really well. He's a team player but that doesn't mean he's a healer... Ack, the H word again.

This basically. Comparing a power in one set to another and using that as proof it needs changing is no way to go about balancing sets. They're sets for a reason.

Dark doesn't need a buff, it's a very, very good set indeed for a MM.

Thing is I never said any MMs primary job is to heal. I said if a teammate is threatened a MM should try and do do something about it (actually any AT, my Dom has frequently jumped in to help out a Brute who is struggling and whos health is draining away slowly. My Brutes will do the same, trying to Taunt, Mez or knockdown enemies hassling a teamie).

What I've seen with some, low level MMs is a tendency to focus on shooting things and healing the pets and ignoring the teamie who is close to death. It's gotten better since I've moved up the levels. Demon Summoning looks like it's going to be incredibly popular, thus more inexperienced lowbie MMs running about. Plus Demon Summoners have a unique and interesting set of attacks, so the temptation of focusing on them too much is higher. That's my main worry, with DS which is a "sexy" set we're going to see a lot more inexperienced, slightly selfish (inflammatory statement I know, I'm certainly not tarring the entire MM playerbase as that, just a select subset) MMs running about, especially in the first 3 zones (thank heavens the latest AE exploits were fixed, it's probably the main reason the Devs had to make such radical, quick changes to it over the last couple of weeks).

As both my Necro/Dark and my Thugs/Traps I've frequently let a minion or two die in order to focus on a struggling teammate (resorting to Aid Self with the Thugs/Traps). The fact the powers take a while to recharge is generally irrelevant, it is almost always recharged when the situation arises. Losing one or two is rarely a disaster, they can be brought back quickly. Tier 2 and 3 are
obviously more important tier 1s are expendible and quickly replacable when it happens, even if you can't upgrade them. A Zombies damage output is not that impressive, certainly not compared to a teammate. The Arsonists is probably the highest of any tier one but any Thugs MM knows the Arsonist is a madman anyway and should be used to resummoning him.

So I'm not saying MMs should be the primary healer (but if you are a Pain or Thermal then you are a support character, supporting both Teammates and Henchies), MMs are a fairly complex (to play well) and potentially busy AT, focusing on just pets and attacks isn't a good thing to do on teams, IMO.

I was thinking Grav Emission from Warshades Umbral Blast but there'd be too much opportunity to stack stuns then really.*



A 10 foot AOE version of Touch of Fear?

With Blaster levels it'd be a 19.5% debuff, which is fairly significant. But with say a 10-15 foot radius and maybe a 20 second duration (Tar Patches duration is 45) it'd be fairly balanced I suppose

* Tar Patch isn't much of an AOE mitigation tool though, it's a Run Speed and Resist debuff. It doesn't even have an Afraid or Avoid effect like Freezing Rain or Hotfeet.


* *Edited to prevent confusion on the Slow effect

Again? Really?

Just so long as she's not an homage to The Magdalene from Clive Barkers Weaveworld (although that'd explain the hips).

No, but there's a balance to be had. I've had some MMs recently who've left my poor Squashy dom die while they're busy shooting things (although not for a while now I've gone past the low teens). On a tiny 3 man team last week with a Pain Domination MM. I died the death of a thousand cuts 3 or 4 times without getting a heal (but, oddly, he then rezzed me almost immediately each time). Very frustrating. Pets can be resummoned pretty quickly, dying occasionally isn't a bad thing at all.


If the Dual Pistol release is anything to go by we're going to be up to our armpits in Demon MMs when i17 goes live (ironically with the DP release I opted to play a Plant/Emp because I figured the buffs would go really well with all those DPers running about).

TO THE WIZARD!! He'll give you a nice new heart.


We're off to see the wizard...

Pffft. Since when did you have a soul?