Jade_Dragon

I actually did this with my Kheldian. I argued with myself over whether I wanted to take Stamina or not, because he was based on an earlier character that didn't have Stamina, but since he was a Kheldian now, I figured I could "fudge" it if I wanted to. I finally decided to use the multiple builds to switch out Stamina if I wanted to and in fact found the alternate build to be much more useful getting to 20, since I didn't have the prerequisites.

The thing is, though, I agree with those who said earlier that Swift and Hurdle are, if not useful combat powers, useful travel powers that make up for not having a stronger one at that level. Hurdle specifically is something I consider very carefully before I skip it, because the necessity to go around an obstacle instead of jumping over it can add a lot of time to getting to a mission. Particularly on the hero side. (For some reason, walls don't seem to be as high in the Rogue Isles. Either that or the walls are just SO high that you'd have to get around them anyway...)

Incredible analysis. I had always used 25% as a "in the ballpark" rule of thumb, but I had always considered that about 1/5 of that would be wasted due to overkill. That you managed to quantify that, and in fact apply it to the relative strength between various player attacks and the HP of minions at the various levels gives far more detail than I could ever have expected.

It's nice to know that around 20% is a good value as a hard and fast rule for Bosses and higher, with the percentage against Minions and Lts varying depending on whether you choose to use your weakest attacks to take advantage of Scourge.

Now if only Fury were as easy to quantify.

Personally, I have always recommended that you get Flying for at least one character so you can experience the absolute freedom of it. Of course, with jetpacks now you can try that without even having to take Flying. Hover isn't quite the same, though, even slotted for speed, you don't get that feeling of being able to go anywhere you want, in the air, over any obstacles, or anywhere.

You've got to do things like fly up to the blimp in Atlas Park, and the top of the buildings in Steel Canyon. Just to be there.

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As I understand it, MM minion appearance is actually selected client side, like Propel's random objects. So, for example, different people see a particular Thug differently. You'd need to change that to make the OP's idea possible.

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I don't believe this is the case, but it is easy enough to check.

Summoned pets, however, are actual MOBs that appear on the map. Unlike a power which is simply a temporary graphic effect. I would guess that when you see an NPC, someone else playing the game sees the same NPC. Pets should be the same way.

The problem is, as mentioned, your power randomly chooses one of a set of different NPC models to summon. You could make the pool of random choices different, but you couldn't say, "choose from this pool instead of that one".

The problem is that there is a "hook" in place to allow you to customize your weapon. There is an attachment to your costume that can be modified by the character creator. A slot it taken up by this choice, but in effect it's no different than the costume slot on your arms or your legs. It's just a piece of your costume that appears only when you have drawn your weapon.

Your henchmen, unfortunately, are not attached to you. So there is no way for them to, for instance, inherit a costume piece from you. You might have an invisible costume piece that in some way serves as a placeholder, to identify that you want, say, Council bots instead of the default ones. However, the henchmen don't currently have any way to "read" that costume piece when they are summoned.

It might be possible, but not with the way the game works right now. There would have to be some changes to the underlying code. Which is not so say it might not happen in the future, but it would have to be in the future.

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I dunno. Shields just don't match sneaky ninja types. I wouldn't expect them to give Ninjitsu to Tanks, but it could suit Scrappers just fine.

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Brutes can get Sheilds, so it's not like it is UNIQUE to anyone. There would be nothing wrong with giving Ninjistu to Stalkers and Scrappers, and leaving Tankers and Brutes their own sets that only a couple of meleers have.

The one problem I have is when a set is unique to either red side or blue side, like Electric or Ice. I don't think Ice would be out of place for Stalkers, and it would be better than not having the set available at all for villains, as it currently is. If the devs only wanted to give Electric to Tankers or Scrappers but not both, then that would be fine, too.

There's also the possibility that something similar to cold using melee powers will come out for Brutes, but with a different set of secondary effects than -recharge.

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I've been flirting with the idea of a taunt-aura in one of the MM patrons, for some time now. Something like slotting taunt enhancements into oppressive gloom, would be great.

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While that's a good idea, all Patron Sets would need such a aura power, and I doubt any more will be added. Plus, I don't think a taunt aura is a very good idea, you would have to turn off the aura, losing its benefits, to lose the taunt, and I don't think you want that. Unlike a Tanker, which benefits from holding aggro all the time, a Mastermind must be ready to shift aggro around to be at his most effective. It is EASIER to draw all aggro yourself, yes, but it is not necessarily BETTER. Henchmen do have the same Threat rating as a Brute or Scrapper. (But not the damage)

I prefer making the taunt a click power. Although in some cases, as with Gang War, it can be helpful to draw and hold aggro for a long period of time. Still, the fact that the attacks are not really effective at dealing damage means you will not lose anything by stopping their use, if you start getting too much aggro. Much the same as you might stop using the knockback from your attacks to stop mitigating damage, if you start to take too much.

Although I didn't think about making the Patron attacks or auras slottable for Taunt, though, it would be in line with doing the same in the Primary. And again, you would have the choice, you can slot for Taunt if you want that functionality, but avoid it if you want to go with a more fragile build that can't take Tankerminding.

Also, except for individual exceptions like the Grave Knights, I don't think henchmen should be slotted for Taunt. They are too difficult to control, the AI will be unable to logically decide when to Taunt and when not to. That's an ability better left in the player's hands.

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I'm curious, on an abstract level, what the Demon set specialty would be.

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Maybe a portal that starts pouring out little Imps? Kind of a stationary version of Gang War...

Nah, too much like an existing power. Maybe you could Banish a foe back to wherever you summon your henchmen from. So it would be a form of Black Hole or Detention Shield. (Although both of those are available in MM Secondaries. Eh, I'm out of ideas)

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Personal attacks should be a matter of choice for the player. It all depends on how active and now much Endurace you secondary uses. For my MMs using /Traps I've taken all of the personal attacks. /Traps is very end friendly and most everything is fire and forget.

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It's a bit of 50/50 trying to hold aggro with attacks, you can do more burst damage, but your henchmen get more Threat. Without Provoke you will probably find your foes turning back and forth to take on you and then your pet, whichever hit him last. I've noticed this early on on my Ninjas, anyway, at higher levels you will probably only have trouble pulling aggro off Tier 2 and 3. (As the more pets you get per Tier, the less damage each of them does)

I actually wish we could slot our attacks for Taunt, it would give them a definate purpose, but those MMs that didn't want to Tankermind could leave them unslotted so they wouldn't draw as much aggro, like they do now. Just make it like how knockback works in melee attacks, if you don't slot it, you just get knockdown.

And did you know that Grave Knight Siphon Life attacks Taunt?

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I was hoping for a element base pet like Fire/ice/wind/earth

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Isn't that kind of what I suggested? Elementals, Demons, it's really just a matter of kind of things you're summoning. The main thing is, you're a spell caster, and you're summoning things.

And as I've said about female henchmen before, I would only be interested in that if I could choose which henchman model went with which name. I don't want my henchman "Fred" to be a girl half the time.

I just had my boss say, "Ah, back to the old hospital. It's not like I haven't seen its insides before." It would be nice if they could teleport away at a given health level (I would like it even better if they could kill some allies and cause them to respawn stronger, but that's another story ) but just because you defeated him doesn't mean he fell unconscious at that precise moment.

For those who say, "But I don't defeat foes, I cut their feet off", yeah, but this IS a simulation. When their task is done, the NPCs probably just disappear, just as they do in the game.

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Jade thank you for the insight, you explained a lot, I did post a Necro/DM build in another thread, if you wanted to look it over and tell me what you think. I am only taking the Grave Knights. I did think about the Thug Enforcers with their Leadership buffs but I feel like Necro/DM is more thematic and Fear + Immobilize act as a hold, so I would get more of a Controller feel.

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Well, one nice thing about Dark Miasma is that you get another pet in Dark Servant... and you are going to take your Dark Servant, right? You can take him instead of your Lich, or just take both, and have a team of four with your Grave Knights.

The Lich and Dark Servant are very similar in many ways. The Dark Servant is definately a defensive pet, with lots of Fear and Immobilize powers, instead of dealing a lot of damage. Plus, he heals. Everyone. And you don't have to upgrade him or anything. (Although you do have to keep calling him back)

Don't forget also that you want at least one pet to summon a Ghost from, if you take Soul Extraction.

I would like to see this as a sort of Circle of Thorns themed primary. Give it attacks that are fire and ice blasts. Then it could be paired with Thermal and Cold Domination. Then the demons themselves could be fire and ice themed.

Either that or just make it a pure Fire set, and pair Ice with something else.

In short, there have been quite a few posts on the subject and why it's so unpopular, including from the one person I know of who has taken a petless build to 50. Personally, I would recommend skipping one or two Tiers if you are really set on it, but if you just want to run around as a duo with you and your Tier 3, you'll at least have twice the strength, and won't have much trouble corralling your "partner".

The thing to remember about Masterminds is that you are not only 75% of a Corruptor in your blasts, you are ALSO 75% of a Corruptor in your Secondary. The only place in which you are equal is in Defense and Resistance, everywhere else you're weaker than a Corruptor. So if you want Controller level Secondaries, you really have to go with a Corruptor, not a Mastermind.

The thing is, your henchmen are not just a good part of your offense, they're a good part of your defense as well. They absorb damage for you and your team, and even in some cases have buff/debuff powers of their own. So you're really using those pets not to defend the team by using your buff powers on them like a Defender would, but to draw fire like... well, like a Tanker would. Which is why MMs are called the Tankers of the villain side.

If you want to be "pure support", protecting your allies with your Secondary, then you probably have two choices. One is to go with Corruptor, and concentrate on your Secondary and not blasts. Maybe there are teammates which would be suprised by this, but there are Defenders that do very well by concentrating on the blasts in their Secondary, when they have a Primary to support that, so I'm sure a Corruptor can do the same. What I find interesting is that no one has come up with a name for such a Corruptor, like "Offender" for Defenders, but maybe it's just that most people just assume a Corruptor will have a strong balance between his Primary and Secondary instead of just blasting.

The other alternative would be to take your pets, or even just two of the three tiers of pets, but don't slot them or upgrade them. Concentrate all your slots on your Secondary. You won't do as much damage, but most upgrades don't effect the defensive capabilities of your pets, only their damage. They get the same HP no matter how you upgrade or slot them. You might want to upgrade Protector Bots so they get the shields, (oop, I mean the heal, they get shields out of the box) but if you happen to miss the other bots when you upgrade them (or they die and have to be resummoned) who cares? They're just cannon fodder to die and be resummoned as needed.

Of course, lower damage means they'll have trouble holding aggro, but you can take Provoke and use a Tankermind strategy. Just make yourself a totally defense oriented tank that happens to buff your allies as well. And if you want to go with /Dark, you can use the Fear powers as psuedo controls. Which should actually get you kind of close to an Illusion Controller, actually...

[edit] If you do want to consider going defensive with your henchmen, I took a look over the upgrades available:

Necromancy - You will want the second upgrade for Siphon Life on the Zombies and Skeletons. The Lich gets Drain Life with the first upgrade, and Petrifying Gaze/Fearsome Stare on the second.

Robots - You just want the first upgrade, for Repair, as I said. Second upgrade will give you Photon Grenade and Seeker Drones on the Protector Bots as well, but all other Bots just get attacks. And since the Seeker Drones tend to get your Bots stuck, it might be better to just use upgrade 1...

Ninjas - Probably not a good choice due to them always being in melee, but the only defensive upgrade is Hide for the Jounin, and Char for the Oni, both on the second upgrade.

Mercs - The Medic is good out of the box, but the Spec Ops get Flash Bang and Tear Gas on the upgrades, so you'll probably want them both.

Thugs - Probably the best choice, they are perfect out of the box. Enforcers gets Manuevers to start, and their other Leadership powers when upgraded are all offensive. (Tactics and Assault) The Bruiser can get Hand Clap (first) and Foot Stomp (second) but they both mess up the AI so bad they probably don't really help in the end. So you can just use your ranged minions as Bodyguard fodder while you and the Bruiser act as dual tanks.

I have to agree, even if your villain is not visible, his presence has to be seen. One of the best tabletop RPGs I was ever in had a villain whose appearance, at the end, was the mystery of the plot. So we couldn't have seen him, it would ruin the surprise. We knew his name before we even set foot in the dungeon, however, and got the definate feeling his eyes were on us at all time. (They were...)

Where you have the bad guy that you thought was the main bad guy turn out to just be the flunky for the real bad guy, that's just a plot twist. One I've used myself, actually. But the main thing is, even if you have got the wrong idea of who the bad guy is, there IS a bad guy, and you're thinking about him, and anticipating having to deal with him. That builds suspense.

As for Mary Sues, well, I don't think any of us should be claiming to be above that sort of thing. "Why behold thou the Mary Sue in thy brother's fic, but consider not the Mary Sue in thine own fic?"

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Perhaps after these several years, it was slightly misleading to label these 'numpad' binds

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I have to agree. Maybe it's just me, but if you define macros to do the same thing, it's the same thing, just macros. Of course, in my case I define macros to do what I want, then assign keybinds to them. But that just so they're easy to edit and customize between characters.

I think we all just take the given examples and come up with what works best for us, though.

Note that I believe you can edit the icons created in this way, and give them custom abilities. (Such as controlling only a subgroup of minions) Then you have custom icons for those macros.

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If you're gonig to play a story, be able to GIVE constructive criticism.
'UR Story sux!' does *NOT* qualify.

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I will amend this to say that if you're going to play a story and give feedback, you should be able to give constructive criticism. I don't want to hold someone back from playing just because he doesn't know how to say anything but "UR story sux!" but that's just me.

I have yet to post any criticism, because by the time I get through, I can't think of anything. I need to start taking notes.

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There are probably a couple of different dynamics in play: [...] A Boss of Death in a thoughtful, creative arc gets a pass from me as long as it fits in the story. A Boss of Death in a content-free arc gets a poor rating and a punch-out.

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I can think of one other reason, although I have yet to run into it, and I don't know that I would dare to try it myself:

1) The GM WANTS you to die for plot reasons. I.e., he's going to throw you in a cell you have to get out of. Not sure if that is even in this version of the MA yet, though. Or, you need some sort of secret villain killing weapon and need to run from the AV until you find it.

The only reason I'm hesitant to even try this is that too many people would see that as a challenge for their uber tricked out character, and defeat my AV when I wasn't intending for him to be beaten. Possibly even breaking my mission and making it impossible to finish. Ah, well.

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Have you like, actually played the custom missions? Because even on heroic, a boss can be designed with full defense, full mezz protection, and a huge array of attacks. Much much more difficult than normal heroic game content.

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Actually, a Boss can be created, and usually is created, who is far too powerful for the 5-10 range. At that level, the dev created critters usually have a very limited power set, but if you create a Boss with Hard or Extreme difficulty, you will have a level 5 Boss with level 5 hit points -- and Unstoppable. (or the like)

I'm trying to make my arc playable at all levels, but when I ran through it at low level, I quickly realized that the ally I added was considerably more powerful compared to me than she had been at level 32. And if an ally was that much more powerful, I knew the custom bosses would be, too. Fortunately, I think the two will cancel each other out.

1a) Any outdoor map by default has no "Front", "Middle" or "Back". You have to just place encounters wherever randomly, and hope they come up in order.

1b) If you are using a Small or Medium indoor map, I notice that sometimes they don't HAVE a "Front". The best way to tell is to look at the map description on the first page of the mission details. It should say which areas are available, and how many details can be placed in each. If there is no "Front", then use "Middle".

Of course, if you try to use a random map, you could get one that has no "Front" if there's one available in that random set. This can also effect your distribution of spawns. (If you have three encounters set for "Back", but half the maps in the set have only two "Back" slots, you need to select a map that has three "Back" slots or make sure the two you want to have priority for the Back slots are first in your list of details.

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That's why I thought using the DB Brawl animation would work; it's already used with a weapon, so the hand would be clasped around the handle and it wouldn't clip.

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In short, this would have to require Kick to work differently from every other attack in the game. Right now Kick does the Kick animation, but it forces the weapon to be sheathed. This would have to be changed so that Kick does the Kick animation, but does not force the weapon to be sheathed. And every other attack in the game would have to be left as it is, sheating the weapon.

Brawl is unique, that's why Brawl works as it does. Making Punch and Kick work like Brawl would mean they would have to be made to work like Brawl. Which is more difficult than just changing a few entries in a table.

That said, I would not mind Punch and Kick being given a special exemption allowing them to not redraw. Punch and Kick have faster recharge than Air Superiority and Flurry, and Jump Kick's recharge time was actually a kludge to make Jump Kick more attractive back when it's animation time was 3 seconds. They eventually cut Jump Kick's animation time in half (actually, they just made it interruptable, the animation time really hasn't changed) but they neglected to put the recharge time back where it was.

Actually, now that I think about it, the time between attacks is actually cast time + recharge, because the recharge doesn't start until the attack finished animating. I actually don't know if the recharge starts for Jump Kick once it is interrupted, or until it waits until the full cast time has expired. If the former is the case, then Jump Kick's recharge time is 4.3 s, if the latter, then it's 5.8 s. Kick takes 4.8 seconds to recharge, so that's only slower than Jump Kick in the former case.

Of course, damage and End cost are usually in proportion to recharge, not recharge + cast time, so in comparison to other attacks, Jump Kick (and Flurry) should have a longer recharge time. (Around 4 sec, not really that much longer)

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If I could see the number of AVs and EBs in arcs, I would be much more tempted to try other players' arcs. As it is, I'm sticking to my own creations.

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I'm definately going to post exactly how many EBs and AVs are in my arcs. At this point, it looks like there will be one, and you will get allies to help defeat it, as I do intend for it to be soloable. But I do want the players to know.

I'll add, though, that I won't have room for more than just "(1 EB, 1 AV)" at the end of the description, as I'm pretty much at the limit as it is. If the devs added about 50 or 100 more characters to that field it would be a big help.

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I guess an easy answer would be this ... from what we know of what kinds of stories get pulled .... What is the worst kind of mission that is NOT getting pulled? Could this be used as a warning or metric of don't go much farther then (blank)?

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I would add that this is NEVER a good thing to do. I have many times seen people on the Internet insist that they have been mistreated or unfairly singled out because a moderator asked them to stop using abusive language or acting in some other way that was offensive, and they replied with, "But I saw so-and-so post that exact same word here!" or "This guy was being way more insulting than I was!"

I actually just saw a comment made by one of the devs in an article I just read, linked to in another thread. He said, in essense, "Nothing happens to offensive content if it never gets reported." There could be HUNDREDS of missions with content that violates the TOS, but as no one who has actually played it yet has reported it, the GMs don't know about it, and no action has been taken against it.

That doesn't mean it doesn't violate the TOS, it just means no one has yet noticed it.

I believe it's a very bad idea to single out a specific anecdotal example in a mission and use that as a comparison for your own. Try to determine where the line is by looking at missions in general. The line will always be vague, it will never be explicitly defined.

Honestly, this is something that's going to come down to individual player choice. This is a T rated game, and it's probably going to have some controversial subject matter. There is Westin Phipps, after all.

If you make players too uncomfortable with your storylines, you might get some backlash. I don't know if anyone would report it as offensive, or if CS would consider it a violation of the policies if they did, but you're probably going to get PMs from players saying, "How could you even think of such a thing?! I'm going to go wash my brain out with bleach now." And that could be either a positive or a negative reaction. There are those who actually look for stories that challenge their world view. (I know I do)

I think ultimately it will be self policing. If you push your audience too far, you won't get good ratings, and your arc will be forgotten. You could step over the line by being too racist, or sexist, or attacking something that means something to people, like politics or religion, but I think those are well defined lines that we can all agree on. Just being controversial, in and of itself, is not against the rules. It's only when you intentionally attack or harm someone with that controversy.

I DO think that it would be a very good idea to put a warning in your introduction; "This story arc contains ideas that may be controversial to some. Play at your own discretion." That lets your player know what he's in for, and may even attract the type of players who are looking for a more thought provoking storyline.