GuyPerfect
-
Posts
1865 -
Joined
-
Interestingly enough, I just rolled up one of these this morning and haven't really figured out what I want to do with it yet. I'm thinking of building it to be a farm toon since anything with negative a billion recharge isn't going to be dishing out much damage, but I've yet to see what all is available to me.
I have an Ice Melee Tanker, which shares eight powers with this Blaster, and I love how well it plays. The biggest thing I can say I'm looking forward to right now is Ice Patch: just about nothing stands up on it. Pop off an Ice Storm when people get close and they're in for a decent shredding.
Impeded Swiftness, which is a Slow Movement IO set, has a proc for Smashing damage, and almost every single power in Ice/Ice/Cold that affects enemies can accept that Enhancement. I can see it going into the likes of Chilling Embrace, Shiver, Frozen Aura and Snow Storm for starters (assuming damage procs in toggles work the way I think they do). There's also a chance for self heal in Call of the Sandman (Sleep set), which might be worthwhile in Frozen Aura and Flash Freeze, especially for a farm toon, as it would give supplemental heals on top of Hoarfrost.
The sheer multitude of AoE -Recharge available in the build makes for some considerable foe incapacitation, and with enough of it stacked up, you'll just have a bunch of slugs dancing around you unable to attack. Make of that what you will, as that's what ice does best. -
Of course black is a popular color. Half the people who play the game sit in their rooms with the lights off and they can't open the window because they're in the basement. Either the bright lights hurt their eyes, or it's cool to be evil even if you're a good guy.
Incidentally, based on conversations with people, I believe more people are likely to roll a Warshade as their first kheld rather than a Peacebringer. Why? Because dark is cooler than light. -
Quote:I verified this to be the case back before IOs. I don't know if you can get enough damage still, but we can certainly get pretty close.Originally Posted by mintmiki
Yet, I think the GM thing is impossible without some form of -regen or debuff of some sort. -
I did it the other way around: I've got my Poison vibrantly colored instead of the sickening dingy yellow/green it was before. All the powers are colored according to the buff or debuff they do: purple for the mez protect, dank teal for the -speed, orange for the hold, etc. With the shocking contrast on the character's costume, it actually looks pretty good.
-
I was wondering about that yesterday.
-
Quote:Dare I point out the irony here?Originally Posted by Jabbrwock
My thought is that the OP is taking these forums a bit too seriously if he's getting bothered by people posting on them. They're discussion forums. On the internet. About a computer game. It doesn't get much further divorced from the general category of "things that are worth getting upset about" than that.
If you don't like the posts, don't read or respond to them. Problem solved. -
I'm actually aiming for level 50 non-purples, and seeing 49s drop gives me Hulk-like anger.
-
Quote:Quote of the game, ladies and gentlemen.Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
Of course having a solid amount of support on the team will also be instrumental, but you don't always get optimal groups and it's good to aim for as much self sufficiency as possible.
-
I've got a video uploaded to YouTube. Click here!
At the time of this posting, it's still processing, so you may need to wait a bit. -
Quote:I beg to differ. I made a Dark/Elec/Mu (Mu mostly for concept) character for the express purpose of slaughtering Rikti, and most of my kills come from Dark Consumption - the +End power in Dark Melee. Of course, it's at the end of my initial attack chain for a reason, but the fact remains that Soul Drain and Dark Consumption are both potent AoE attacks in and of themselves.Originally Posted by Jabbrwock
Dark may deal damage faster against single targets, but the price is essentially zero AoE damage potential.
I solo missions at +0x8 for inf and recipe drops, and don't generally use Inspirations.
I use Ball Lightning on a group to get it to notice me, since it's a DoT and interrupts the Commmunications Officers, whereas Taunt just makes them notice you and summon the portals. Then I run and hide like a little girl around a corner somewhere and wait. About half the enemies will run up in melee range, and the other half will stand by the corner and shoot. Once everyone's there, I hop over to the shooting guys and wait for the melee ones to catch up.
Fury's WAY full by now, and sometimes it's a good time for Energize. Pulling out Dark Consumption (which, with my slotting, has 2.35X Accuracy), I usually get the max of 10 targets, which is a huge boost to damage and tohit. Then it's Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning (which recharges in the time spent herding), then Dark Consumption to refill all the Endurance I used. This usually kills all the minions in the group, and the lieutenants are half-dead. Taking a step back, I fire off Static Discharge (since everyone's immobilized by the fences), then jump back in to finish the job with the melee attacks.
By the time endurance gets low again, I still have Power Sink in tow. -
Thanks for the input, everyone. I've been pouring over numbers for the past day (since I have nothing to be thankful for), and I've found some interesting things that I thought I might share. Though on the whole, the following is true: The Mastermind and his Henchmen are all pieces of a whole, where the pieces by themselves are generally inadequate for any given task.
Quote:Absolutely. No matter how high a Mastermind raises his base stats, any other archetype can easily do the same and be far out of reach of anything the Mastermind can ever hope to attain. On the other hand, the game is balanced around... I think it was balanced around Dual-Origin Enhancements, to be honest, and certainly Single-Origin are adequate for any given purpose. There are lots and lots of players out there who do NOT make an effort to raise their base stats, so a buffed-up Mastermind may be able to outperform them in some areas.Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
You can possibly end up as a weak defender, but will never be any more, because having such a low starting point means that any other AT with a similar amount of effort can surpass you.
With maximized survivability, wouldn't the Mastermind be in a position where melee becomes a viable option? When extra powers were added into the Epic sets in Issue 13, Masterminds got a few good melee powers, such as Knockout Blow, Thunder Strike and Oppressive Gloom. These all happen to be mez powers as well, which provide mitigation from incoming damage, so they could certainly be set up to work in a melee Mastermind build, especially if the Mastermind is able to shrug off a few punches.Quote:Originally Posted by BlissKnight
There have been many Petless MM ideas but, as the post above me said, all you can do to maximize survivability for the MM is Soft-cap and avoid Melee confrontation. But its not recommended since a MMs secondary will not be as effective as other ATs.
I know a melee Mastermind sounds like a terrible joke, but it's not as farfetched as even I once thought. See below.
I did find that certain slotting for Henchmen can make them effective on their own, even the tier-1 goonies. Each becomes like a Lieutenant in his own right, and the tier-2 and tier-3 Henchmen become, on average, even stronger, but not quite to the level of a Boss.Quote:Originally Posted by Bookkeeper_Jay
Henchmen make wonderful distractions, as well as being fodder for alpha strikes if you are built to recover quickly. Honestly neither is impressive alone, but together the henchmen and Mastermind can perform feats that alone they could only dream of.
Henchies <3 the Mastermind
But like you said, they're leaps and bounds better together, and with the Mastermind backing them up.
Sounds good in theory, doesn't it? Though after looking at the numbers, I don't believe this is entirely true.Quote:Originally Posted by Scythus
A Mastermind without henchmen is like a wagon without a horse. Useless.
I've identified that combat effectiveness is generally a two-fold interweaving of survivability and aptness to dispatch the enemy. For the most part, for a character to be effective, he needs to be able to take a hit as well as dish one out. Here's what I found:
Hit Points
The Mastermind has the lowest HP of any archetype, weighing in at only 803.2 at level 50. The next-lowest are Defender and Controller with 1017.4 (26.7% buff), then the Corruptor and Epic Archetypes with 1070.9 (33.4% buff), then Blaster with 1204.8 (50.0% buff). With clever use of set bonuses, I'm convinced a Mastermind is able to get himself 30% extra HP which, when coupled with the 20% from Accolades, comes out to a 50% boost to the base stat... That is to say, Blaster-level HP.
The only catch here is that maximizing hit points will not allow for much of a boost to damage, as there are only so many Enhancements to go around.
Other Survivability
It happens to be that Mastermind gets the same Damage Resistance modifier as Tanker, which is the highest in the game. With Tough and the Epic shield (save for Scorpion Shield, which is Defense), a Mastermind gets 27.5% + 15.0% = 42.5% resistance to Smashing and Lethal. Enhanced, this comes to around 66.7%, which is two-thirds of all incoming S/L damage.
These shields apply to ALL damage types in PvP (if for some reason you decided to take a petless Mastermind into PvP), which means the Mastermind becomes immune to 2/3 of all incoming damage. Throw this on top of the boosted hit points and put in a dash of knockback protection and you get one hardy little critter. Imagine a Blaster with 66% resistance to all damage, at least in terms of surviability.
Damage
Masterminds don't have the lowest damage modifiers out there, but they're pretty close. For both melee and ranged damage, Mastermind is on a scale of 0.55. The next lowest ranged damage is Defender with 0.65 (18.4% buff), then Corruptor with 0.75 (36.4% buff). There are lots of easy damage buffs in IO sets, even without encountering the Law of Fives, so a 36.7% buff is not out of the question.
However, like with HP, if you're going to buff both survivability AND damage, you're not going to get stats that are as high as the theoretical maximum with the number of Enhancements available to slot.
Trial Build
I've put together a build for the Mastermind I mentioned in the first post of this thread (Thugs/Poison) that buffs both HP and Damage while using no pets, but auxiliary melee damage instead. The build comes to 1144.5 HP (40.25% buff), 0.67 damage (22.0% buff), 66.75% Damage Resistance (Smashing and Lethal) and 8 Knockback Protection. The build also throws in a fair amount of Toxic damage for kicks.
The build also makes no use of purples or PvP sets (save for the Toxic damage), as I want to have a chance of actually making this thing. When my Mastermind is 50, I'll be using the alternate build to see just what it can become with no Henchmen. -
The Henchman is certainly a core element of the Mastermind archetype, as they provide the bulk of the firepower and damage intake of any given build. It's a class designed around indirect distribution of power and presents its own unique approach to the game that is not present in any other archetype. Most of the power does not come from the Mastermind himself, but from his Henchmen, and they become more effective depending on how the Mastermind interacts with the battlefield while the Henchmen are doing the dirty work.
Playing through the game since Issue 6, I've found Masterminds to be substantially easier to build for what used to be called "Relentless" difficulty than any other archetype. Something about having seven (or more) distinct targetable weak spots and sources of damage shifts the game as a whole into easy mode. Just today I rearranged a build I had on a Mastermind using the second build feature, and rather haphazardedly assigned Enhancement slots and didn't even get it fully slotted with SOs 'cause I ran out of Inf. It still handles +2 enemies with bosses quite easily and I could run around missions blindfolded and still clear the map.
So I got to thinking... What is the extent of what the Henchman brings to the table? Is it really just another source of damage and an aggro target? Bodyguard stance notwithstanding, do Hencmen amount to anything more than mobile turrets?
Another thing that came to mind is... What can a Mastermind be without his Henchmen? Other than dead meat, that is. There are many decent attacks in the Patron pools for Masterminds (strong melee and AoE among them), Tanker-level Damage Resistance from the Patrons as well, and their secondary powersets can be helpful in team settings or to debuff the enemies and make them fall more easily. On top of the powers available to Masterminds, IO set bonuses can be employed to achieve unusual stats as well. With the +HP Accolades, only +6.7% HP are needed from IOs for a Mastermind to surpass the base HP of the next squishiest archetype, the Defender. What else can IOs do? Can damage be buffed to be comparable to a non-Henchman archetype? Patron resistance is remakrable as-is, but can a Mastermind's personal resistance be pushed to the hard cap of 75%? Just how effective can a Mastermind be without Henchmen?
Bringing everything full-circle, is it possible to make a self-sufficient Mastermind in his own right, and give him Henchmen as well? Would such a character be overpowered, or would the Mastermind's personal effectiveness be affected by the need to watch after his Henchmen?
I'm not all that versed in slotting for set bonuses, so I'm really not all that sure of what can be done. This is all theoretical, of course, but I'm still terribly curious... What is a Henchman by himself, and what can a Mastermind be without them? -
In your case, you'd probably want to crank the enemies up to +2 or +3, then. I'm doing +0 for a mix of raw defeat rewards as well as salvage and recipe drops.
-
Borea is a contact in the Rikti War Zone that dispenses an endless variety of Rikti door missions and RWZ hunt missions, depending on what you feel like doing. Of the door missions, you either clear the map, defeat a boss, destroy some boxes or rescue a Vanguard soldier. These missions are classic high-level farms, as it's nothing but non-AE Rikti all the time.
-
Pardon the swift change-in-topic, but I'll throw in my two cents to the OP...
I've got two minor (albeit hard to come by) enhancements to go on my anti-Rikti Brute and I'll throw in the suggestion for the build I'm using: Dark Melee / Electric Armor / Mu Mastery.- Soul Drain is comparable to Rage from Super Strength in terms of damage and tohit buffs, and without the terrible crash. It only lasts for 30 seconds, on the other hand, though most groups won't last any longer than that. It's trivial to get it going on a full load of 10 enemies, especially with its inherent Accuracy modifier (slotted, mine has 2.35X accuracy).
- Dark Consumption and Power Sink together make for two free refills to Endurance whenever you need them. Dark Consumption costs very little Endurance to cast, and Power Sink cannot miss.
- Dark Consumption and Soul Drain are both decent AoE attacks in and of themselves. They're like a couple of extra rounds of Shadow Punch to everyone in melee range.
- Siphon Life, while being a strangely powerful attack, heals 20% base HP enhanced. Energize when slotted is another 50%, so you can refill about 3/4 of your life bar casting two powers. Siphon Life recharges fast enough for it to be helpful during battle.
- Naturally, the AoEs from Mu Mastery are wonderful additions to the arsenal. Using them all in sequence can be a bit endurance-heavy, but there's those free refills from earlier. Hold enemies down with Electrifying Fences then take a step back to blast them with Static Discharge. Slotted, these two powers and Ball Lightning do considerable damage to enemies.
- Resistance to Smashing and Lethal is a bit low, but the self heals and Endurance Drain present in the build offer sufficient mitigation. I generally don't need to pop Energize, even with the aggro cap of Rikti on my tail. Having said that, Psionic damage is resisted almost as well as Smashing and Lethal (around 40%), so it's a good general-purpose defensive set.
- Lastly, the attack chain is pretty straightforward. Once you herd everyone into a little ball, stand in the middle and use Soul Drain for the buffs. Then you can fire off Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning for some initial damage, then cast Dark Consumption to get all your Endurance back. This usually kills all the minions. Finding a target, take a step back and launch Static Discharge at everyone who's left, then step in and clean up with the actual melee attacks. By the time your Endurance is low again, you still haven't used Power Sink.
Like I said, I made this thing for Rikti, and it certainly does the job. I clear out whole Borea missions at +0x8 in 10-15 minutes (every enemy on the map), and getting 10 million inf only takes around an hour. Just doing that, I ended up getting two purples today, so I'm quite satisfied. -
I've got mine frankenslotted for damage and recharge, along with accuracy and endurance. I didn't bother with set bonuses for that one.
-
The #1 change I'd make to missions spawns in general is to remove the +1 spawns whatsoever. If I'm fighting enemies of my own level, it's usually because I can't fight, say, enemies +1 to my level... so why do mission maps have about half the spawns at +1 of what the mission's level happens to be? Does that work when you set the spawns to +5, and you get +6s instead?
-
If that's the case, then the overlay should be changed to the generic damage icon. The power is most definitely a PBAoE attack and only works with at least one enemy around.
-
Quote:This power works just like Soul Transfer in Dark Armor and (as of Issue 16) Dark Mastery for Defenders... it requires nearby enemies to work, which makes it a PBAoE and not an only-affects-self power. Instead of removing the border from Stygian Return, I motion that the border be added to Soul Transfer.
- Umbral Aura/Stygian Return PBAoE border removed
And yeah, I've received rep since I've had it disabled. And still the only bad thing I've gotten was because I replied to a PK thread. (-: -
That's true. Their skulls alone have enough lead to produce firearm ammunition for five or six third-world countries to defend themselves with for a good twenty years.
-
I'm more interested in full access to pools for Khelds, personally. My Peacebringer wants Recall Friend, and my Warshade Air Superiority. VEATs can stack Leadership; why can Khelds not stack fly/port?
-
Quote:We should stop jettisoning all our garbage into outer space. What was on the planet originally is meant to stay here!Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
[...] this planet has finite resources, yanno.
AE spammers, though... Hmm... We could probably jettison THEM into space with no ill effects. *Ponder* -
Quote:I indeed refuse to use IOs to plug the types of holes you mentioned. On the other hand, I don't write those sets off as unplayable due to those holes. If Granite Armor won't protect against Psionic, don't go fighting Kalinda with it. If Regeneration can't take alpha, don't jump in the middle of a big group.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Would you refuse to "throw money" at a granite tank so it could handle psionic damage? Regen can't take an alpha without moment of glory, so would you "throw money" at it to add enough defense and/or resistance to compensate? Or do you write off those sets as unplayable because of designed holes?
Were there no Acrobatics for use with Dark Armor, I'd be avoiding enemies with knockback just like the above. I'd rather go without knockback protection than invest in the IOs to overcome it. That kind of mentality is what results in 1% tax increases every year.
Only in the forums has anyone suggested that teams will discriminate against a Mastermind with no Henchmen. In practice, through the many times I've played the character, never once have I encountered a team that said "Eew, no. Go away." What I've found is that it's still a viable solo character as well as effective team support. It doesn't have the micro-managed aggro control that normally comes with Masterminds, but it still does reasonable ranged damage and the debuffs are quite potent.Quote:Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I don't know many teams that would let a petless MM tag along, but even so, if you've gotten to the 30's with it, you must be using IO's to compensate for the "holes" you've given yourself.
Neurotoxic Breath, in addition to the other powers in Poison, can and have convinced teams that they want to keep me around because of what I have to offer for them. A few times, people have even expressed joy that I didn't bring yet more pets onto the map.
The character is currently slotted with SOs and does not have Weave, Fitness or Leadership.
I keep track of my strengths and weaknesses and pick my fights accordingly.Quote:Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
How can you play anything when everything is designed to have a hole somewhere?
To be fair, there are times when I intentionally and indiscriminately post things that I know people will take offense to just to see how it goes. It's not that I enjoy causing damage (because I don't), but it very quickly serves to differentiate between those with pompous self-righteousness and those with level-headed thinking. It helps to find useful posts by culling out the ones that only exist to flame.Quote:Originally Posted by EricHough
Is it really that important to 'zing' someone that you have to attack a poster for an offhand comment that really isn't even about the thread topic? -
I was worried there for a moment. Almost thought I'd posted that picture preemptively.
Though I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that three quarters of all the rep I've received was positive? I knew I shouldn't have replied to that PK thread... -
Quote:Does this mean you'll be giving Television another chance? (-:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I just committed two hours of my life towards achieving NOTHING, and yet the reward for doing so easily trumped the millions I earned doing it and the experience it gave me.