brophog02

I don't skip it on Masterminds. I don't skip it on anything that has something to easily stack stuns.

I skip it on Plant/Storm. I really just need an AOE control when Seeds isn't up. I've got Vines. I've got several great control methods in Storm's arsenal. Heck, I'll even take Spore Burst as a cheap purple set mule over T-Clap as a baclup soft control.

I love T-Clap. It is an extremely underrated power. I have many more Stormies with it than without it. It just isn't a needed power on a Plant/Storm controller. I've got plenty of other AOE controls and mitigation methods that serve me better than T-Clap on a Plant/Storm.

YMMV. I'm always glad to see someone stick up for T-Clap. It gets a bum rap, imo.

Unless it has been changed recently (and I haven't kept up, so it may have) you can only have one Achilles Heel Proc fired on a target at one time.

This is what Steele was getting at:

There are not two reasons to run a TF. If those were the only two reasons then we could simply make one task force involving a big room of enemies where players go in and kill, collect their loot, and do it all over again.

That game wouldn't last very long. Games need content. Enjoying the content is a big part of playing this, or any other game. It isn't just about getting one more shiny to make getting the next shiny easier to get.

When games become nothing more than analyzing mechanics, they get stale. Games need content. The devs put a lot of work in "creating" content.........whether that be totally new content, freshening up old content, or allowing players to tools to create their own content. That was all done for a reason, but players have grown so accustomed to just being robots that they often see past all of those things and just make the game about loot.

We're not talking all players, but a large enough subset to matter. That's why the AE needed correcting. That's why merits were introduced. That's why there are constantly incentives to get players to experience more things. If a large enough group is doing principally one thing, then the playerbase begins as a whole to drift that way. The game becomes stale and the business loses customers.

It is a problem for the entire industry. The concept of loot, in all its forms, is a very addictive concept, but it doesn't have staying power without content. Content needs to be both created and played, and that can't happen if loot is the ultimate, and in some cases primary, factor in what content is played. There will always be some content that is more efficient and therefore played more often. The devs can only balance things to a certain degree (and by balance, I mean always increasing the reward to the point of triviality less the players cry 'nerf'). It is the players who ultimately decide how things will be played, and it is their responsibility to see the game has lasting value.

The part in bold is why it is hard to build around Hurricane. I love Hurricane. Smart usage makes even Genin very sturdy. I think Ninja/Storm is a fantastic pairing, and a big reason is Hurricane.

However, to plan a build around Hurricane is very tough to do, because it is very difficult to make Hurricane always affect the enemy. That's where that advice is coming from. If Hurricane could always be counted on to affect the enemy without adverse side effects........well, have you ever sat in the middle of a zombie invasion and turned Hurricane on, and laughed maniacally.

You'll find stormies of all kinds that softcap defense, but I know of none that plan around Hurricane to do it. Dark, on the other hand, is a set that is easier to plan around the defense debuffs because they are more universal in nature. That's not to say they are 'better'.......I'd rather solo a Ninja/Storm than a Ninja/Dark.......but Dark's debuff is just more situationally useable, especially for those that haven't mastered the fine art of Hurricane usage.

I use Hurricane a lot, and even I find that once IO'ed I went to using T-Clap/Oppressive Gloom more simply because I can use it regardless of terrain easier and between the pet procs, steamy mist, and maneuvers I wasn't needing to have that constant -tohit active to keep the Genin alive.

Recharge is always nice on a Stormy, but one has to be careful how you do it so that you don't gimp the pets in the process. The high endurance cost on Masterminds is what really makes a high recharge Stormy difficult (not impossible, by any means, just more difficult to get a real benefit). I run high recharge builds on my other Stormies, but not on my Masterminds. I'd rather have the pets at their fullest without the ability to overlap Lightning Storm than I would sacrifice any aspect of the pets and have that overlap. With the Ninjas, especially, it just doesn't matter much because almost nothing lives long enough shy of an AV for that high recharge to make a big impact. For most other ATs, the Stormy is more dependent on their psuedo-pets for much of the damage, but that's not nearly the consideration on a Mastermind.

There have been several mentions of +Recovery in this thread, and while that is good to shoot for, it is generally better to get more endurance reduction in your powers than more +Recovery bonuses when your talking the really large endurance costs that many of your powers will have.

Because what we really need is to be even harder to kill.........

The IO defense buffs are clearly out of control when you have softcapped Blasters running around. They're not the only squishies like that, just the most extreme example. There's a reason why we're having this conversation, and that's because softcapping is very popular with those that choose to really use the IO system. It's that popular because it is extremely effective.

Everyone hates the word 'nerf' but if you don't nerf things then your only other response is to buff everything else until you effectively nerfed it, or ignore it and create a trivial situation that just leads to an excessive feeling of 'grinding'.

A compromise would certainly work, however. Resistance need not be a totally useless IO attribute the way it is in its current form. However, bumping it up and keeping defense based attributes the same would not be the way to go. By themselves, defense or resistance have built in failure points.........but combined it is very difficult to get around.

Psylenz listed the most common goals for a Mastermind.

It will be hard getting sufficient defense due to the choice of secondary. Frankenslotting, imo, is the way to go with Ninja/Storm rather than seeking specific sets, but your mileage may vary.

The most important IOs to get are the 4 DEF/RES ones for the pets. That alone shoots the survivability way up. Fully slotting Maneuvers/Steamy Mist can add more defense to your pets. With just those recommendations, even the Genin can have pretty decent defense. The Jounin can get near 40% when hidden, and the Oni has enough hit points that it rarely needs much.

T-Clap/Oppressive Gloom is a spectacular combo but don't worry about not having melee defense to use it. Heck, my blasters don't have any defense and they get up in folk's faces. At least the Ninja have pets and debuff effects. The Jounin/Oni can take the alpha easily and Freezing Rain keeps a sizeable portion flopping. It is enough time to jump in and launch your T-Clap.

I wouldn't say that at all. They "fixed" melee pets only for those that wanted to use melee pets the lazy way. For those of us that actually liked the Genin staying out of harms way and shooting explosive shurikens while the more robust Ninjas went to melee, they seriously broke melee pets.

For all pets, it was better before because you as the user had more control over how the AI would impact the situation. All pets have less control now.

That has always been true.

This thread has nothing to do with Ninja Run. Its just another fly whine thread. Move along now, nothing to see here.

And full of annoying, ignorant people that think one toggle at 3 AM with no one there is actually lagging them.

You do not get credit for this month's quota unless the idea is officially in the Suggestions Forum.

That'll be enough of that fun talk, missie. You will play the game to earn rewards and use those rewards ONLY to earn more rewards or you're going to bed without your supper. Is that understood!?!

That's a common misconception in part by players that want to think there has to be a tank class.

Bodyguard was added after the fact......in issue 7 and not from the beginning.

Villain patrons weren't added in the beginning, either, also coming in issue 7.

Furthermore, patron and epic powers are often complementary powers to round out what an AT wasn't getting from their other options. Squishy ATs get armor options, Melee toons get ranged options, low damage ATs get better damage options......so on and so forth.

While I wouldn't make the direct case that because epics/patrons contain complementary powers that it means the AT was designed as the opposite of those powers, it is a very poor argument to assume that an AT getting melee powers means it was intended for melee.

The fact that there is a tankermind option for players to take (and it works far more effectively for some combos than others) does not in any way mean that it was the intended option for players to take.

Exactly. Just because a statement is false, or even disputed does not make the person making such a statement a liar. Its an unnecessary personalization.

By the same token, if someone is knowingly doing something that would warrant such a course of action or is privy to that, why would they call attention to it to begin with? There are a lot of reasons, but none of them make any sense when threatened with potential sanction. I charge it with a mistake in user judgment, but that doesn't absolve the fact that anyone making a claim they know is outrageous should expect such a claim to be challenged and/or questioned.

How did the screenshot denote how many hours it took?

The recent generosity in regards to server transfers does engage the conspiratorial side into wondering if it isn't a stealth cure. It makes it very convenient to merge populations without drawing any notice, nor setting off the doomers that routinely recite server mergers as the end of humanity.

Then again, maybe its just normal conspiratorial nonsense.

Yeah, it was the dev's fault that the players greedily and without mercy exploited the living hell out of AE, helping to create the rampant inflation we see now.

It is only the dev's fault to the narrow limit that they didn't listen to those of us before AE hit that the players would do such a thing. I, personally, left before AE because I knew what would happen and did not want to play that way. They lost my subscription for those issues, but that is the extent I could possibly blame them. They were not directly responsible for the atrocities players caused during that, or any other period.

Ignoring the nearsightedness of simply blaming devs for player created behaviors, your solution doesn't even work. Drops are merely unliquidized assets. They will be sold, either to a vendor for inf or to another player. To a player, no inf is actually generated and possibly a small amount destroyed. If to a vendor, then inf is still created with that value being controlled in much the same manner that inf would have been originally dropped from the defeat. If a game floods the market with useless items (i.e. they cannot keep generating worth of some kind) then the mechanism of giving drops falls apart completely.

Simply dropping more items, as is the common universal remedy from player suggestions is not some kind of cure all.

The same reason someone would mention it on the forum and expect someone not to challenge them on it..........foolishness.

I offered a perfectly acceptable method of providing proof of existence, and until it is provided my challenge of the statement stands.


One cannot prove that something doesn't exist. One can prove that it does. All I can do is challenge their statement, and that has been done. I'm not making it personal. All anyone has to do is show me themselves actually PL'ing from 1-50 in 3 hours and I take back my challenge.

You'll excuse us if we don't take your unsubstantiated word on such an incredible statement.

I'll personally sit and watch someone PL from 1-50 in 3 hours before filing the bug report.

BS.

Irrelevant. The entire point of these tankmage wannabe threads is to be dominant against all possible outcomes.