OneWhoBinds

Aid Other - If you can work this into your build... do so! For a Mastermind, your henchmen are your life! A single target heal will improve your over all survivability immensely. Between that, and all the defense you can stack on your pets, you should have an easy time of things.

Oh, and I suppose when you team with other people, being able to throw another heal out is nice there, too.

Seeker Drones: Not absolutely necessary, but I'd recommend it. These are an excellent method for pulling enemy groups into your traps, and - more importantly, the will take the enemies Alpha Strike for you, sparing both you, and your pets, from that (and other teammates, I suppose). There are other tricks - like not needing line of sight - but those are gravy. Slot for recharge and add a little range, and you have a very nice tool.

Detonator: No. You want things that go boom? Pick up trip mine. Hell, you WANT to pick up trip mine. Detonator sacrifices one of your henchmen (i.e. YOUR LIFE) to make a boom. But said boom will only outdo Trip Mine if you sacrifice your Bruiser... which is probably not the pet you want to casually be removing from play. Stick with Trip Mines... pull your enemies into them. It's not hard to do.

/Traps, in and of itself, is very good. It provides a broad range of support, and (if you're willing to take the time) can even be used to thin the enemy ranks before you even fight. /Traps should mesh well with any primary, although the ranged ones will probably get more all-over advantage from the Force Field Generator than the melee primaries will. The only drawback to the set (in regards to a Mastermind, at any rate) is that it's only heal is in Triage Beacon - a stationary +Regen object. I recommend dipping into the Medicine pool for Aid Other as soon as it is feasible in your build.

I don't really know Ninja/ well, other than they can do crazy amounts of damage to single targets, and have a reputation for being squishy. FFG can help add to their defense, but that would mean you are in the middle of the battle, too. On the other hand, Poison Gas Trap + Acid Mortar is a well recorded way to cripple a hard target... If you can keep your ninja alive, they should be tearing through enemies like nothing.

All I can recommend is getting a download manager program that can pause and resume your downloads as necessary, and try to bull through it. It took me nearly 40 hours to download it myself.

I only have two real issues with the set. And they are somewhat related.

The first is completely personal - I didn't want the over-the-top Gun-fu BS, but that's neither here nor there.

The second, actual game play issue is the cost of those animations. Dual Pistols pays a price in cast times to have a lot of those 'Kewl' animations... too much so, I believe. For a set that supposed to emulate being lightning quick, it is excruciatingly slow. I really don't see why my toon should be stuck in place for 5 seconds to unleash both his basic AoE attacks.

If you can handle the cast times in this set (and don't feel like beating your own brains out trying to watch it...) then this is a perfectly reasonable ranged attack set.

I've had Triage Beacon in my Bots/Traps build for a while now... but I never seem to use it. The last time I actually placed it, was during a Rikti Invasion event. I get a whole lot more mileage out of Aid Other, than I do from the Triage Beacon... leaving me the dilemma of "Why is this here?"

So, my question is... do other people find this useful? And, if so, how do you use it?

Because right now, I use it so little, I might as well not have it. If I had any good choice for an alternative, I would take it... but the only real other options are the two single target personal attacks...

Looking over my badges on my brute, I realized that I missed a contact that gave a mission I need for an Accolade (Bad Luck from Hard Luck.)

So, I think to myself. No problem, I'll just pop over to Ouroboros, and run that mission quick...

Only it isn't there. I can run his story arc, but not that mission.

I thought all these Accomplishment badges could be gotten through the Flashback system... what gives? Because looking it over, there are a lot of these missions missing from the list of what I have access to...

Is there something I'm missing? Or did something change, and I've lost the chance to get High Pain Tolerance?

Once upon a time I would have agreed with the OP. (The intent, if not the blatantly wrong errors in how the powers work.)

Then I took a serious look at it, and realized that I just needed a total of two IOs to make this set work like I wanted.

Yes, I wouldn't want to try and play this set with only SOs. Then I would have been forced to take acrobatics, and be stingy with the heal - which, as a resist based set, is a bad thing.

One KB protection IO (Steadfast Protection in Dark Embrace), and the Theft of Essence +Endurance proc in Dark Regeneration... as suddenly, I was golden.

Throwing the Performance Shifter +End proc into Stamina was just gravy after that.

The KB protection kept me on my feet until the 40s, when there were a few things capable of producing enough KB to throw me around a bit. The Theft of Essence proc fires off enough to take the bite out of Dark Regeneration's End cost. Hell, get enough people around you, and that power might refill your Blue Bar as well as your Green Bar - which, let me tell you, is pretty sweet.

With only those three, I do not consider that build to be an 'IO Build.' But they brought me the QoL needed to make the set fun for me.

...now, if only I could say the same for the primary I was using... -_-

I like the idea of a "Probability Manipulation" power set, but I think the OP's is alternatively overpowered, or incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to implement in the game system as it is.

Here's how I would change things up:

1. Cursed Luck - Enemy will suffer from poor luck, making them easier to hit, and strike with less force; single target -> enemy, Defense and Damage Debuff.
2. Lucky Shot - allies frequently hit their targets, and see things they might have otherwise misssed; single target -> ally, To Hit, +Perception buff
3. Bad Karma - enemies frequently miss the target of attacks; cone -> enemy, To Hit debuff
4. Serendipity - Ally's attacks will strike an enemy's weak points, and in turn, are less likely to be struck; PBAoE -> allies, +Dam, +Def (+7.5% to all at base?)
5. Random Misfortune - Enemies will suffer from a random affliction; targeted aoe -> enemy, those hit will suffer from a long duration, random debuff - Defense, Resistance, Damage, To Hit, or Recharge. Each enemy successfully hit gets a separate check for which debuff.
6. Lucky Break - The flow of battle turns toward your allies as the opponents seem unable to land a significant blow. Furthermore, negative status effects seem to fade much quicker; PBAoE -> allies; +Res (all), +Status Resistance (All)
7. Haphazard - Enemies ranks are thrown into chaos as chance seems to fall against them; Toggle aoe -> enemy; alternating pulses (every second) of Mag 2 Confuse (2-3 seconds) or a Mag 2 Fear (2-3 seconds), each with a 33% chance of an additional Mag 1 of the appropriate status.
8. Morale Booster - Seeing a battle go in your allies favor by your presence on the team increases their spirits and confidence; Toggle PBAoE -> allies, minor buff to health regeneration and endurance recovery rates
9. Calamity - A random meteor crashes down on the enemy; targeted aoe -> enemies, smashing and fire dot as well as knockdown

...

I may like the idea of a Probability Manipulation set, but I think that actually leaving too much up to the RNG is just asking for trouble. better to go with defined effects that mimic good or bad luck.

...

Yeah the sets still probably overpowered... I think someone with a better idea of the numbers behind the game needs to go over it...

Bah...

My complaint isn't about the content of the arcs - I agree, that it seems we're more "City of Hired Thugs" than Villains at times, but nothing I can't work with.

My real complaint is that... well, as I climb the ranks, it seems like I get real limited in my choice of enemies. Either Longbow, or Arachnos...

I don't mind fighting those factions... but they seems to come up all the time, and I'd like to see a larger variety!

I very well might side switch my highest Villains just because I am tired of seeing arcs with those two enemy groups!

Well, okay, that will kinda depend how accolades are handled with Side Switching. (I'm about 85% the way to both Born in Battle and Force of Nature with my Brute... I really don't want to see that all go to waste...)

Based on what we've heard of the power, Scrappers will probably get the most out of it. Brutes... well, it kinda depends on other factors. On a lot of my Brutes, I often covet the +To Hit in the build up powers more than the +Dam... if Power Siphon has a +To Hit component, then Brutes will give it plenty of love, even if the +Dam is just gravy.

Tanks are sure to like it, but it's unlikely to be anything remarkable there.

Stalkers... based on the description given, Stalkers will HATE this power. Its Defiance like description implies that it will encourages a 'Stand and Scrap' approach, which Stalkers are not particularly suited for. It will be hard-to-impossible to leverage Power Siphon into the situation that a Stalker most wants to use it in - the single big hit of their Assassin Attack from out of Hide. As such, I'm hoping the Devs have the foresight to replace the Stalker's version of Kinetic Melee with a regular Build Up power.

Can I ask a question regarding Crippling Axe Kick?

What good does an Immobilize - especially one that needs to be done at melee range - do for a melee character?!

This serves NO purpose. It can't reliably effect anything but minions, doesn't prevent the KB from Crane Kick... the victim is still there, capable of attacking you.

The only use an immobilize would have would be to prevent runners... no, wait - anything we'd want to stop running would laugh off the Mag 2/Mag 3 Immobilize this attack can grant.

Well, maybe good for retreating... oh, silly me. A Scrapper, retreat? Even on the off chance there exists such an animal as a Scrapper with the self preservation to run away when things get hot... a single target immobilize that can only reliably snare a minion is equally useless for a strategic withdrawal.

Heck, the slow is pretty much the same! It's not a -recharge, so it doesn't really give... any mitigation at all.

So really... what purpose do the Immobilize and the Slow in CAK serve? Can anyone explain why these are effects that are useful to the Scrapper using them?

Martial Arts is a great concept, and I really, REALLY wanted to like it. But as it is, it is just - tedious. The single target focus limits my abilities while soloing, and my value to the group while teaming. The "All Over" secondary effects mean that they rarely make any kind of difference. Overall, I've got to agree with Moonlighter. This set seemed to trade off AoE potential, Mitigation potential, and any real utility... for flashy animations. And looking good just doesn't cut it.