RedwoodTheElf

By the way, i keep running into people who seem to think that teaming up lowers their chance of salvage drops...I haven't noticed this happening...does it appear to be the case that, say, if you get a salvage drop off of a mob, the percentages are lower or higher based on team size, per mob?

What I mean is, one guy says that if there is an 8% chance of a mob dropping invention salvage, then on an 8 person team, that chance drops to 1% (8% chance of an actual drop, divided among 8 people)

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You have a chance to get invention salvage whenever you defeat any NPC that cons green or above ...

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You sure about that green part? I thought it was any enemy that gave you XP, which would include a level of grey-con just below green-con.

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No recipes or *invention* salvage from greys. Ever. At least, not on Live. If someone wants to dispute this, then hunt sub-greens and provide a screenie of the invention salvage that drops from them.

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So if a Boss cons green and the other mobs in the group con grey, I can get salvage from the boss, but not from the Lts or Minions?

Go drink yer S'mores Schnaps, Damian. You are disrespectin' mah AUTHORITAH!

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Quick question about Explosives;
Wouldn't Necromancy be good with Explosives? I mean, send in all characters, set a Grave Knight or Zombie to explode and rez a ghost from it? I'm just curious 'cause I was thinking about playing one and that seemed wise.

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You mean the Traps Detonator?

The issue with the Traps Detonator is the limited Range and time.

So you have to be close to the Pet to destroy, and it goes off very shortly after you hit the power.

Plus the detonator needs some Accuracy and Damage Enhancements (as usual) to do good damage.

But yes with Necromancy, you could explode the Pet and then Rez it as a ghost.

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Which would be pretty much the only EASY way to get the Lich version of the ghost, since the Lich has so much self healing.

For Detonate, I'd usually recommend (Talking SOs here, not IOs) 3 damage, 1 accuracy, 2 range. So it's a BIG kaboom you can do at a bit further distance, and reasonably accurate.

The trick is getting the mobs to bunch up, since nobody but me apparently EVER uses caltrops to pull the mobs to a corner and force them to bunch up in a tight group...

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give up on it man. he's a pseudowannabeintellectual who isn't that good at making a 'dummied down' guide.


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Ya, us Pseudowannabeintellectuals with degrees in computer science who have literally played every powerset in the game never, ever get POed if some loser tries to tell us we've never played one of the sets. Really.

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redwood, give up on this and make another equally bad guide we can bash on , this was fun. ( I didnt do any "bashing" really but it was still fun)

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This one was deliberately dumbed down as a "quick pick" guide for newbies who want to decide what type of mastermind to pick. It's hardly MY fault if a bunch o yahoos decided that a quick and dirty "feel o the archetype" guide needed to be an in depth discussion of the arcane workings of one particular secondary set.

Too bad the first microencephallic who tried to claim that I'd never played */Traps apparently doesn't even have a */Traps of his own to compare to mine. It's truly fun when someone plants their foot so firmly in their mouth.

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Uhm. Traps =/= Devices.

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Never said they were the same. Perhaps you can make out the word "modifications" in relation? Oddly, one of the things you cited as a DIFFERENCE (trip mines) is actually something that's the same.

I send my lich in first. He's hard to kill, but the improvement in the strength of the ghost is worth it.

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Force Field - why is it not recommended with melee like ninja/necro?


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Because half of the Force Field set is knockback/pushback related, which moves your pets away from you to engage the knocked-back enemies.

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Dark - has the only aoe heal available to MMs? doesn't triage beacon do some sort of healing in a pbaoe sort of way? and you should use TG only with ranged pets? i guess, if you play an MM that's unable to have his minions maintain aggro. on my /darks i'm right next to my guys so that they GET the heals. with all the debuffs/-acc/-res available to dark, there's no reason at all to hide in the corner like a nancy.


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You are confusing a PBAOE Heal, usable every few seconds with a location AOE +regen, usable every few minutes. The two aren't comparable. And Triage Beacon WOULD force you to stand in one place to get the benefits. Again, Meele pets tend to rush up to meele range (and out of your heal radius, unless you're using AF on your fighting pets) My pets hold too MUCH agro a lot of the time actually. I would PREFER the enemy to attack me, spreading a little damage on all my pets instead of one-shotting them (thus making the AOE heal literally 7 times as effective)

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poison - you mention a rez outside of the medicine pool. may i direct your attention to screaming mimi delight of the dark miasma set, otherwise known as howling twilight. which can be used either as a stun/debuff with a long timer, OR as a rez (if you happen to be an MM that takes pity upon other ATs and teams up to let them soak up some of your uberness).



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Yup, Howling Twilight IS a nice rez...if you can get everyone to die on the same spot, or have Recall Friend to stack the bodies like cordwood, and have a mob available to trigger the rez. I was talking about "anytime single target" rezzes, but ya, if you wanna get technical, Dark does have a PBAOE rez that requires a mob to work.

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that's a quickie review of your quickie reviews. if you want to talk smart alec and down to people



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Translation: Pot to kettle: You're black.

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traps is more than trops...

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True, but that is by FAR its most useful power. It can be used in many different situations, and makes the others (For example Acid Mortar) more useful, simply by keeping the enemy from being able to get out of their effects quickly.

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'by far it's most useful power' doesn't mean "the best power"?

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Nope.

Specific example: A Swiss Army Knife is by far more useful than the butter knife you make sandwiches with, or any other single knife, since it has many additional gadgets built in. That does NOT, however, make it the BEST knife, which is dependant on the situation. For example, Rambo, fighting in the jungle, is going to find a combat knife to be better (in that situation) than the S.A.K. or the afforementioned butterknife, while someone spreading butter on toast won't want to use a combat knife or a S.A.K.

Do you understand the distinction now?

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Traps: Villain version of blaster Devices secondary, with a few modifications. Like Devices, it works best with corner pulls, dropping trops on the corner and pulling baddies onto them. If you're a pulling type personality who likes to have a good retreat option always available, this is your powerset.

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that is a really poor description.
If you're gonna write something up you should probably play it first.

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Been playin it since COV was released. If I wanna use it that way, what business is it of yours to claim I don't play it? O uninformed one? Just because YOU don't use caltrops doesn't mean it isn't a great power.

You play without trops, and I'll play with em, and I'll solo purples, and you can get killed by oranges.

(EDIT) the purpose of this thread was to give a GENERAL Idea of the strengths of the various sets, not a comprehensive description of every power. Of all the powers in Traps, I, personally, have found Caltrops to be the most useful. Crowd control can be very powerful with pets...The FF Gen is nice, as are the various other things, but in GENERAL, I find caltrops the most useful. If you think your mastermind works a lot better without caltrops, I'll be more than happy to fight YOUR mastermind (without caltrops, with traps secondary) against MY Mastermind (Justice server, Necro/Traps) in the arena. While your pets are struggling to get around the corner, mine will be fighting on the trops just fine.

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wow.

caltrops is the best power in the /traps set?


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Why is everyone putting these words in my mouth? I said it was GREAT, and that IN MY OPINION it was THE MOST VERSITILE (as in, can be used in almost every situation, as either offensive or devensive, etc) and that I would never make EITHER a Dev or Traps character without taking them.

Yet saying that it is Great and Versitile is FAR from saying that it is the BEST. Like all things, "Best" is subjective, and depends on what you're trying to accomplish at the time. Damagewise, Caltrops is pathetic. Trip Mines and Detonate are FAR more effective at damaging enemies, for example. It is an effective barrier to mobs' advance, but no more than that.

Yet nearly everyone is obsessing on one little comment in the initial (and yes, this was designed to help Noobs to the Mastermind decide sets they want to play, not as a be-all-and-end all Strategy guide, as most of you seem to be assuming) posts, to the exclusion of all the VERY BASIC outlines I was intending to confer. You guys sound like Al Gore trying to tell half the scientists in the world that he invented the internet and knows more than they do about Global Warming.

Give yer egos a rest dudes.

Hmn..you can lay traps with Hover on? now THAT is a significant difference from the hero Devices power...the Ground effect powers like Trip Mine cant be used if you're flying...my traps MM picked Superspeed because I assumed that was the case with all the ground things in traps...can you lay acid mortars and Triage beacon and trip mines while hovering too?

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Im just curious what you think of poison trap red? Is it any good?

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Quite good. Debuffs mobs passing through it with -regen, and stops some of them for a while. I usually drop one or two of these behind my caltrops, next to the Acid mortar, to pin attackers inside the mortar's firing radius. Wish the gas cloud lasted a bit longer, but you can't have everything. And since SOME people seem to think I don't know what I'm talking about, here are descriptions of all the "Traps" powers.:


Web Grenade: Identical to Blaster Devices secondary version. -fly + immob on single target.

Caltrops: Identical to Blaster Devices secondary version. Location AOE slow+Fear (makes enemies on the caltrops want to run away, not they type of fear that makes them cower) lowers the enemy's attack rate, as they spend more time trying ot get off the caltrops than attacking, and with several slow enhancers in it almost ensures that nothing short of an AV or elite boss can walk past it. Your ultimate insurance against bad pulls.

Triage Beacon: Basically a weak version of the green COT crystals. Speeds up the heal rate of any allies nearby. Makes a good beacon in PVP, since it can be seen at Loooooong range.

Acid Mortar: Aside from Caltrops, one of the powers you really don't wanna do without. Tosses out an AOE -DEF -RES debuff with a small DOT.

Force Field Generator: Acts like a dispersion bubble. Follows you around, protecting you with +Def and +resist for most status effects.

Poison Trap: One shot device, explodes with a -regen cloud and has a chance of putting a Sleep on affected mobs.

Seeker Drones: Summons two little hovering disks that look for nearby enemies and blow up, doing the equivalent of Illusion's "Flash" attack. Summon them in the middle of an enemy group and they suck up the alpha strike pretty well.

Trip Mine: Identical to Blaster Devices secondary version. Location AOE explosion, lots o damage and knockback. Multiples stacked in one location can take out bosses. Works best behind Caltrops, where mobs tend to get stacked up in large numbers trying to get past.

Detonator: Blow up one of your pets like one of those annoying COT mages. Good for punishing those stupid pets that always seem to rush into meele range. They're gonna die anyway, they may as well do some good.

Come on, Mister loudmouth...put your inf where your mouth is. I'll pit my 3 years of caltrop experience (2 in COH and 1 in COV) against your "Caltrops aren't all that useful" any day o the week. Name the server on which you have the Mastermind on which you claim to have all of this experience playing */Traps, and I'll tag along with your MM for 3 Relentless missions with you not using caltrops. We'll time how long it takes you to finish em, and how many times you die. Then we'll go over to Justice Server, where my */Traps Mastermind resides and do the same, with me USING Caltrops. I'm bettin you spend a LOT more time kissing the floor or fleeing the mission before it is complete (which would count as one "death" since you are essentially admitting that you would die if you stayed inside)

If I win, you give one of my characters a couple million inf, and if you win I do the same for one of yours. Maybe someone else will volunteer to tag along as well as an impartial referee?

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Traps: Villain version of blaster Devices secondary, with a few modifications. Like Devices, it works best with corner pulls, dropping trops on the corner and pulling baddies onto them. If you're a pulling type personality who likes to have a good retreat option always available, this is your powerset.

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that is a really poor description.
If you're gonna write something up you should probably play it first.

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Been playin it since COV was released. If I wanna use it that way, what business is it of yours to claim I don't play it? O uninformed one? Just because YOU don't use caltrops doesn't mean it isn't a great power.

You play without trops, and I'll play with em, and I'll solo purples, and you can get killed by oranges.

(EDIT) the purpose of this thread was to give a GENERAL Idea of the strengths of the various sets, not a comprehensive description of every power. Of all the powers in Traps, I, personally, have found Caltrops to be the most useful. Crowd control can be very powerful with pets...The FF Gen is nice, as are the various other things, but in GENERAL, I find caltrops the most useful. If you think your mastermind works a lot better without caltrops, I'll be more than happy to fight YOUR mastermind (without caltrops, with traps secondary) against MY Mastermind (Justice server, Necro/Traps) in the arena. While your pets are struggling to get around the corner, mine will be fighting on the trops just fine.

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traps is more than trops...

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True, but that is by FAR its most useful power. It can be used in many different situations, and makes the others (For example Acid Mortar) more useful, simply by keeping the enemy from being able to get out of their effects quickly.

Now for the breakdown on secondaries. As I said above, certain pet types work better with certain secondaries (Force Field+Robots, due to the extra bubbles you can stack with your Defender bots, for example)

Force Field: Recommended with Robots, Thugs, or Commandos. NOT recommended for Meele pets like ninja or Necromancy.

Dark: This has the only AOE heal available to MMs, but it starts out with a VERY small radius (Practically PBAOE Meele) so this works best for pets that tend to stand back and shoot (Commando, Robots) and less well with meele pets.

Poison: Can you really trust a rez from a powerset with this name? Anyway, this one can be effective for all pets, and has a single target heal, but doesn't really scream out "use me" on any particular type of pet...a good choice for masterminds who don't like to spend a lot of time adding extra buffs to their pets, or who want a teammate rez outside of the Medical pool.

Traps: Villain version of blaster Devices secondary, with a few modifications. Like Devices, it works best with corner pulls, dropping trops on the corner and pulling baddies onto them. If you're a pulling type personality who likes to have a good retreat option always available, this is your powerset.

Trick Arrow: works well with the meele pets (Ninja, Zombie), due to all the debuffs, but be sure to pick up medical pool to heal your pets. The Ninja Mastermind has the advantage in that it won't "unready" his bow when using secondary powers.

Alright. Lots of Mastermind guides deal with how to set up macros, control pets, and so on, so I leave you to seek those out yourself.

This one will deal with the burning question: Which kind of mastermind do _I_ want to play?

Now for the pets' perspective on this, I leave you with someone who has had lots of experience being a minion: Jeeves.

Hi, folks. Now I've been a follower of a lot of villains, and I can tell you, it's important to have the right kind of boss. For example, If you're a Thug, it's no good to have a boss who doesn't know the value of a good Gang War summon. And can you believe that I've seen Necro masterminds who don't even know the difference between summoning the ghost of a Lich and the ghost of a Zombie? I mean, aside from the Lich one having nearly twice the hitpoints? Anyway, da boss here will give you the lowdown on what you can expect from each of da powersets. Got dat chart ready, boss?

Yes indeed, Jenkins. Now babysit my Rikti monkey while I go over it.

Now then, Here is a brief summary of each of the main powersets available:

Robots: Overall, the most durable pets. Good ranged attacks, and bubble/healerbots (they only heal your pets, not you) as mid teir pets. Robots are the best pets at self-maintainance, freeing up some of your power slots for attacks/secondaries that might otherwise need to go to medical pool. Recommended Secondaries: Force Field (Stack with bubblebot bubbles for VERY hard to kill pets), Darkness or Traps.


Necromancy: Pets of medium toughness. Expect to spend a good deal of time healing zombies. One or more of your zombies will ALWAYS close to meele range. Soul Extraction power gives you a seventh (flying) pet with long very long range attacks suitable for pulling from long range. This pet's strength varies depending on which of your 3 base pet types died to give you the dead body to summon it from. The ghost is always -1 level to you, like your mid-teir pets.

Thugs: Fairly fragile. Expect to spend lots of time healing your Pyro pet, as he makes your enemies very angry. Gang War power gives you a small horde of fairly wimpy extra pets, good for distracting mobs while you heal your "real" pets. Recommend a good healing secondary, preferably darkness, since it has an AOE heal.

Ninjas: Like thugs, ninja are fairly fragile. Heals are a must with this set, as not only are your pets fragile, but they rush into meele almost as much as zombies do. If you don't get a healing secondary, you will want to get medical pool so you can at least heal one pet at a time. The temptation is to take Trick Arrow secondary, since it doesn't put your weapon away between secondary power attacks and your primary set attacks. Your second tier pets get Caltrops with the first powerup, so try to pull mobs to doorways. You get a cool Japanese devil (oni) as your third teir pet.

Mercinaries: A good compromise pet type for those who prefer to stand back and shoot. Your third first-teir pet is a medic, who will heal your pets or you, kinda at random. Traps makes a good secondary, letting you plop down caltrops and pepper your enemies with machine gun fire from relative safety. My personal favorite is to get Group flight and keep my pets up in the air, raining lead on the foe from above (but keep in mind, you cannot upgrade a flying pet, so have your pets upgraded before you take to the air, and Traps doesn't work as your secondary in this case, since you can't use most of those powers from the air.

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* Ability to drop missions. Coming soon!(TM) I know this will make a lot of players happy that they don't need to contact Customer Service just to continue thier story arcs.

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This one actually scares me the most...it means that there are so many bugged missions, it would be more efficient to make a way to drop a mission than fix em (I hope not....ouch! Thatza lotta bugs!)

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What about the global compensation/chat bug?
What about our Patron respecs still being borked?
Lag?
FPS problem?
Memory Leak?

Thanks.

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You forgot "No teleport surface detection beyond 100 yards getting teleporters killed because they can't get a valid teleport reticule in time to stop from falling to their doom."

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If you look elsewhere, Positron may have discovered / realised why that is happening.

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Ya, he said that about a month ago...and no fix is on Test yet even...I'd still call it a major issue, particularly with Team teleport, since it can get entire TEAMS killed, not just the teleporter.

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What about the global compensation/chat bug?
What about our Patron respecs still being borked?
Lag?
FPS problem?
Memory Leak?

Thanks.

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You forgot "No teleport surface detection beyond 100 yards getting teleporters killed because they can't get a valid teleport reticule in time to stop from falling to their doom."

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an invul tank actually has a chance of fighting back if he's tpfoed though. a mm has the lowest HP out of all heros/villains, and loses their offensive power and bodyguard when tpfoed

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I agree, TP Foe has ridiculous Range. That should be cut to 60-80 feet in PvP like any other ranged attack. What makes TP Foe exempt from basic normal range in PvP and shouldn't there be a pool power resist for TP Foe? Manuevers maybe?

I don't know about you, but most of the time I get tp foed, it is into a) a drone, or b) a group of 3 or more and then you get tp'd onto caltrops, ice slick, tar patch, etc, then you get hit by major toggle dropper and then you are just like a babe for the taking. A double AS will take a tank out as long as they both hit. Doesn't matter what AT, the difference between the tank and the MM is how long it takes for you to die. You need to get around that. If you are getting tp foed by 1 person, you should be able to find out where they are camping and stay out of their range.

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I agree, TP Foe has ridiculous Range. That should be cut to 60-80 feet in PvP like any other ranged attack. What makes TP Foe exempt from basic normal range in PvP and shouldn't there be a pool power resist for TP Foe? Manuevers maybe?

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Plagarism on the boards? Just quoting his own words doesn't count as an original post by you, dude.

Anyway, I made a suggestion of having the base drones supress Foeport (both in AND out) to prevent people from porting enemies into the drones AND stop, for example, heroes plucking villains right off the helecopter pad in bloody bay as they zone in or try to zone out (They can DO this, believe it or not, despite it being so inaccessable)

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"Bodyguard", seems like a level 32 power or it has the same effect. A Super-Buff like Unstoppable or Instant Healing... except it's an auto power that you don't need to slot....... can Blasters get this too? I mean for Blasters it would just be a 40% always-on damage resistance buff, but that would be ok. Blasters can't do all the MM Status Effect attacks, but they do a little more damage on the first-strike, I think MM's do higher continuous DPS than Blasters though. It would be balanced I am sure. Yes, Blasters should get the 40% universal damage resistance auto-power, "Bodyguard", for free at level one. You can have Defiance, it doesn't work anyway.

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If blasters had Bodyguard you would like it even less than Defiance.

Blasters have no pets, therefore bodyguard would do nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. You don't seem to even realise what Bodyguard is actually doing.

Any pets to be used with Bodyguard can ONLY be on Defensive AND Follow. So the Mastermind can't send them after you, they can only react to your attacks. If he DOES sic them on you once you attack him, bodyguard immediately stops working. It would be like having all of your powers only work on someone who attacked you mister blasterdude. How fun would THAT be?

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I posted this in a reply to a question about pulling in the Player Questions section, but seeing that is had the makings of a small guide to pulling I am posting it here.

Here are some tips on pulling that may help to solve the mystery for some of you who want to pull successfully but just can't seem to master it:

Pull from the edge
As much as possible try to pull villains that are separated from the group to which they are "attached". Frequently there are some that walk around and you can catch them when they are at a good distance from the others. If none are walking around then try to pull someone from the edge of the crowd.

Pull mobs the others aren't facing
If a group of mobs is standing around, try to pull one that the others aren't looking at. Mobs are much less likely to notice when you shoot someone whom they AREN'T facing. For example, if two guys are fighting, don't try to pull one of the ones fighting, pull someone watching the fight. If one mob is speaking, don't pull the speaker, pull someone listening to him, and so on.

Don't pull bosses
Don't pull bosses! Many people just don't get this or won't believe it. Occasionally it will work, but not very often. Typically if you try to pull a boss he will bring everyone with him. You can frequently pull Lts successfully with practice, but try to stick with minions as much as possible until you have no choice but to try a Lt.

Get as much range as possible
Get as far away as possible from the group you are trying to pull. While it is possible to pull with shorter range attacks, it is much more difficult. Use a snipe if you have it, and at long range. If you must use a shorter range attack then try to use something with at least an 80' to 100' range. Get out of range, target the enemy, hit the attack, and then slowly move forward until it goes off. That will ensure maximum range on the attack. You can't do this with snipes because moving will interrupt them. Snipes will, however, still give you the "out of range" message, so you can just keep inching forward and pausing to hit the attack until it finally starts.

Get your team out of sight or at least back
This is typically one of the most difficult parts (especially on pickup teams) because oftentimes people don't listen, are too impatient, don't care, or simple don't know what they are doing. But, I've seen more pulls gone bad than you can imagine for this simple reason. People are too close, so when you shoot and the mobs look your way, they see everyone and all come.

Hide after your shot
As much as possible you should pull to a corner or an obstacle like a crate or column. Take your shot and then QUICKLY step behind the crate or around the corner. This will force the mob to come all the way to the corner or crate before he can attack you (very important when trying to pull mobs who use ranged attacks).

Move quick after your shot
As mentioned in the previous point, move QUICK after you take your shot. Get out of sight or Super Speed way out of the mob's range immediately. Frequently if a mobs has time to shoot at you while he is still near his buddies then that will alert all of them to your presence. If he has to run to a corner or get himself within range of you before he attacks then they won't see.

Move/Hide even if you one shot the mob
If you one shot the mob then you should still hide for a few seconds. If you don't hide then the others will notice that their buddy just hit the dirt and look around to find out who did it. If they see your group standing there then they'll all come running.

Your team must WAIT to attack
This is the other common thing that wrecks pulls. You hit a mob, he starts moving toward you (hopefully to the corner you just stepped behind if you are smart) and Capt. Impatient on your team just can't restrain himself and shoots when the mob is only halfway to you. So what happens? The mob stops and shoots at Capt. Impatient, alerts his buddies to your group's presence, and then they all come running. If your team will restrain themselves enough to get around the corner with you and then let loose on the evil guy when he rounds the corner, then things will go nicely. Further, they should have him pre-targeted or be assisting you so that they can attack him before he gets the chance to attack you. Why? Because the mob hates you of course. He wants to kill you and will frequently run past everyone else trying to get to you. Since it's likely you are one of the weakest guys on the team, that could spell death for you if your team isn't ready to pounce on him as he rounds the corner.

Dealing with "packed" groups
Occasionally you will find large groups who are very tightly packed together with no "edge" to pull from. Don't be surprised in those situations if the whole group comes. They can be very hard to pull, if not impossible. In those situations if pulling is very important due to group size, weak defenses, and so on... use some "hit and run". Hit one mob and everyone run until agro is lost. Wait a little while to make sure they've "forgotten" about you, and then go back. Sometimes that will have loosened up the group a bit so that you can now find an edge to pull from.

Summery
Get way back, near a corner or obstacle, with only you visible. Pull a minion from the edge who doesn't have the group's attention. The instant your attack goes off step behind the obstacle or super speed well out of the mob's range.

If you follow that procedure you will frequently succeed. Sometimes two or three or several may come, but rarely the whole group, and even more rarely the boss with them (assuming there is a boss). However, some types of bosses come more often than others. Vahz bosses, for example, almost always come, as do the Lts. But of course Vahz are different in many ways...many rules just don't apply to them. For pulling or otherwise.

Dwimble

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A couple more notes: The coding for mobs has recently been changed a bit. Now, running mobs do a Yell for Help at intervals while they run around. So if the mob you've pulled turns around and runs away, keep a close eye out for adds he may send after you.

Kheldians: These guys have a distinct advantage when pulling in Nova form. Their flight has inertia assosiated with it, so they can fly across an open space (Say, an intersection in a corridor), trigger an attack, and be out of Line Of Sight when the attack goes off.

This should be obvious but you never know what sort of idiots you may be playing with, but Don't pull with AOE attacks of any type. That includes Tanker taunts, Provoke, Fireball, Rad debuffs, Fire Rain, Grenades, Ball Lightning, etc.

Also, you missed: If you are a meele type, do NOT, repeat, NOT charge into the mobs your blaster has just pulled one from using Dwimbles handy dandy techniques. You're not impressing anyone by spoiling a perfectly good pull.

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So, if we are to have the possibility of a defeat each mission and a handful at invincible, why don't they just reward us with automatic debt each time we complete a mision? It would be simpler and STATESMAN WOULD GET HIS "VISION" of a GREAT GAME DESIGN!?!
I am sorry, but there is no balance in Statesman's balanced vision. I mission that will cause a single death for a scrapper or a tank results in nearly constant death for a controller or a defender! And don't give me the same crap that they are suppose to team up... no hero should have to team up for EVERY DARN MISSION! Plus, because of the number of poeple that left to play villains ( not to mention those that left because of VERY POOR PLANNING on COH), there are very few people online when I play in the mornings.
At heroic level, every toon should be am to complete their own missions by themselves- assuming there is no AV or multiple bombs to defuse (that you are NEVER WARNED ABOUT WHEN YOU TAKE THE MISSION!) and it SHOULD NOT PUT YOU FURTHER INTO DEBT THAN WHEN YOU STARTED!

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I don't know what characters YOU'RE playing (I have played multiples of every AT in the game, including Khelds and all villain ATs, up to at least level 14 (Being a severe altoholic) and I have YET to play a character that can't solo missions at the lowest setting (including the Mind controller) and they can ALL (with patience) Solo the highest setting with, at most, a 50/50 chance of dying against particularly mean bosses.

Maybe the PCs and missions aren't your problem?

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Soloability gets a lot harder as you go up in levels.

Also, I'm going to assume you skip the Hollows...a mind controller soloing Frostfire?

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Most of my heroes were already well beyond the Hollows levels when the hollows was introduced, but I did go back and do some Hollows with some new characters at that time...and did I say anything, anywhere about soloing ELITE bosses or AVs? Read a bit more carefully next time...I said against particularly tough BOSSES....Bosses and ELITE Bosses are totally different. Yes, every AT except maybe tankers/brutes needs a team go to up against Elite Bosses. So?