Jade_Dragon

You do NOT have to do the Hollows missions. When you are sent to the Contact there, you can return to your original Contact without doing any of the missions.

If you wish, you can wait until you are 10 or so before returning to the Hollows. This will help you get through it more easily. Another Zone I typically avoid going into until I am level 9 is Perez Park. There is a mission you take from the Security Chief to defeat some CoT there, and it is such a hassle that I typically want until I turn 9, and then kamikaze on the Circle that are just inside the trees beyond the walled area. At level 9 I'm tough enough to at least get some kills, but still don't get XP debt.

I have run into Void Hunters spawning along with Longbow and PPD.

Now, here's the funny part. The Longbow or PPD will turn on the Void Hunters and kill them before I arrive. It's quite helpful.

I'm sure it's a bug, but I'm hoping the devs do not devote a lot of time to rushing a fix for it.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "What would a Thugs Mastermind be willing to give up for Swap Ammo? And who would want to take those dinky little Mastermind attacks anyway?" But that's actually kind of the point. I've been posting in another thread discussing the attacks of a Mastermind, and began thinking about the various things I've suggested to make them more appealing.

My idea is for ALL Masterminds to get Swap Ammo, as part of their Inherent. The main thing is to add something that I have suggested before, a Taunt component to the Mastermind's attacks. Swap Ammo already has a mechanism to do this, a toggle Power that could be turned on to "activate" that effect. The other effects of Swap Ammo from Dual Pistols could be added to be consistent with that set, but since most Masterminds use some form of weapon, (all but Necro, really) this could be extended to all of them.

My suggestion here is for "Ultrasonic Rounds", to emit a sonic pulse to provide the Taunt effect, but it could be something like "Capsaicin Rounds" (pepper spray) or tear gas if that seems more appropriate. Really, capsaicin would not encourage you to fight, it's supposed to stop you from fighting, but there you go...

So, you essentially provide four toggles to the Mastermind from level 1 (or 6 if you want to be consistent with Corruptors and Blasters) which he can choose between:

1) Cryo Ammunition - Changes 30% of damage to Cold and adds Slow effect
2) Incendiary Ammunition - Changes 30% of damage to Fire and adds DoT effect
3) Chemical Ammunition - Changes 30% of damage to Toxic and adds -Dam effect
4) Ultrasonic Ammunition - Adds Taunt effect

No toggle would be "Standard Ammunition" or the default behavior. In the first three cases, whatever secondary effect was standard for the attack type would be dropped for the replacement effect, but in the case of the Taunt it could keep its default behavior and damage type. Also, the Taunt effect, but none of the other Ammunition types, could be extended to APPs and the Power Pool attacks. Basically, it would have the Taunt option just like a Tanker does.

I'm debating whether to make the Taunt effect AoE, but just single target should be fine, particularly if the MM can Taunt with AoE attacks from the Patron/Ancillary Pools. The Incendiary DoT effect should also be useful just to raise the damage level of the MM attacks. Alternately, the -Dam and Slow could be effective alternate mitigation to the normal secondary effect.

Finally, while it is obviously straightforward to convert the attack effects for Thugs, Ninjas, and Mercenaries, I should make a few notes about the other Primaries:

Robotics - The 30% replacement of damage type should be applied to the Energy portion of the damage. Thus, Pulse Rifle Burst will do 20% Smashing, 50% Energy and 30% Fire, Cold or Toxic damage. And the Photon Grenade will be 30% each. The Knockback and Stun effects are lost when you change ammo. (except for Taunt ammo)

Necromancy - The Dark blasts will be 70% Negative Energy and 30% secondary type. The -ToHit effect is lost when you change ammo. (except for Taunt ammo) The heal in Life Drain should work with any ammo.

Demon Summoning - Since the Hellfire Whip has both -Res and DoT, the replacement gets a little complicated. I would suggest the following:

1) Cryo - 30% of the Fire damage becomes Cold, and the Toxic DoT is lost. The -Res becomes Slow.
2) Incendiary - The Toxic DoT becomes Fire DoT. The -Res remains. The whip becomes totally Fire damage.
3) Chemical - 30% of the Fire damage becomes Toxic, and the Toxic DoT is lost. The -Res becomes -Dam. In short, the Toxic damage becomes front loaded, and it goes from boosting your damage (and the team's) to reducing incoming damage.
4) Taunt - All other effects remain the same, just add the Taunt effect.

And here's my idea for the power animations:

Thugs - The same as Dual Pistols, of course, without all the flashy gunplay, just the colored bullet trails. I would like to see the "gun fu" animations as a Customization option, though. The taunt can add a sonic "ring" effect when it hits he target, along with sound effect.

Mercs - Visually the same as Thugs.

Ninjas - Basically, fire ammo would make the arrowhead look like Blazing Arrow, and cold ammo like Ice Arrow. You could even use Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow for the toxic and taunt versions. (Not the animation, of course, but the effects and possibly the arrowhead)

Robotics - Visually, the beam should turn blue for cold, a "hotter" red for fire, and green for toxic. For taunt, it could be a ring effect as with Thugs, or a "sound beam".

Necromancy - The graphics for this could look cool, particularly a mix of the dark with flames for fire, with the blasts perhaps leaving a trail of fire, cold, or toxic smoke. For taunt you can have various screaming effects.

Demon Summoning - The whip basically will change colors to match the Firey, Cold and Hellfire Demonlings, with a greenish tint for the Toxic version. The taunt version would become blacker, more like Dark Blast.

Crabs are from... um... a Crabby Place, and Huntsmen are from a Hunting Place.

Eh, I didn't want to put too much thought into the joke.

I actually split move and rotate between my hands; W and S are used to move forward and backward, the left and right arrows are used to rotate. A and D are still bound to "strafe", but I rarely use that. I do hit "F" occasionally when a foe is moving too erratically for me to follow manually.

Q is my "next target" key, Tab selects the nearest target. I prefer that, being able to just zero in on who is closest to me with a single keypress.

Up and Down arrows are used for up and down while flying. Space bar doubles as up although I use it to jump, as if that's a separate function from flying. One difference is that if I'm not flying when I press up, it's bound to activate Flying.

The mouse is used for manipulating windows, and clicking on Inspirations. I use keys almost exclusively in combat. Primarily the 1-5 keys, since they are near my movement hand. (But not rotate, so I can track a foe while still firing)

Not a coincidence, the main keys I use for controlling my Mastermind henchmen are UIOJKL. I can hit them quickly with the right hand while still fighting with my left.

My sister seems tied to the mouseclick movement. I honestly don't know how she does it.