Col_Blitzkrieger

From what I understand War Mace simply has low damage.
However, it also seems to be more AoE/Cone focused.

On my Thugs/Dark I took the pistol attacks to keep myself from getting horribly bored in early levels, intending to spec them out later. I open with Dual Wield, often knocking the mob down, the mob and the other mobs in the group I attacked shoot me, I take virtually no damage due to BG mode, my pets start destroying them as I casually spam Twilight Grasp.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm expected to do a good job as soon as I enter a mission even though with no pets I'm terminally squishy, have no damage and while I am dark my usefulness to the team in that state is minimal.

[/ QUOTE ]You can't expect an AT to have no inherent intended weakness to it. That's like expecting a Blaster to take hits as well as a Scrapper because you're not as useful when you faceplant.

No.

It's been argued in the past that annoyingly long setup periods are an intended weakness in the Mastermind AT, so this is rather unlikely to happen no matter how happy it'd make Masterminds. Sorry.

What I -would- like to see is standardized pet summon/upgrade animation times for all sets and tiers, though... Some of them feel horribly long compared to others.

Would this apply to PvP? If yes it gets a big fat "no" from me, sorry.

Nah, Mercenaries, Bots and Thugs are all ranged-heavy, except for the Bruiser (the level 26 pet from Thugs). Storm Summoning has great synergy with those as it keeps you and your pets alive and in your optimum atmosphere: At range.

Anything can be made to work though. I have some experience with Storm Summoning... On outdoor maps it might be tricky, but knockback can work pretty well in indoor maps - just push the enemies into a corner with Gale and/or Hurricane and keep them on their [censored] while your zombies puke on them/GKs cut out their entrails.

Your heal is single-target, which can make it a little uncomfortable to use as you get more and more pets to keep alive (a common complaint from /Poisons Masterminds as well), but at least it's quick and therefore spammable as long as your endurance can handle it.

Snow Storm is helpful with all primaries as it makes stuff kill you/your pets slower, but I take it this is pretty obvious.

Steamy Mist helps your Zombies' Fire Resist hole at least a little. The Defense is fairly negligible, sadly - though it would work slightly with Bots by stacking with Protector Bot force fields I guess?

If I recall correctly, Freezing Rain causes "old Fear", as in it makes stuff run around like crazy trying to get out of it. Of course, being smacked by zombies still results in them turning around to shoot them in the face every so often, but it offers at least some mitigation, as well as adding more slows to Snow Storm and making things die faster.

Hurricane, as mentioned, should mostly be used with Gale to pin stuff in a corner and keep it down. It also reduces accuracy, which makes your zombies die a bit less.

Thunder Clap, again, knocks back, which is the overall theme of Storm Summoning. It also stuns, providing another source of mitigation, but you don't have this yet at your level.

As for Tornado, I honestly don't know if this would be a good power choice with Melee pets... It's a great source of mitigation/chaos, but it also throws things around like crazy. However, if you go for Mu Mastery, you can get Electrifying Shackles, the AoE Immobilize. It makes foes immune to knockback (note that this will prevent use of Gale and reduce the effectiveness of Hurricane) and allows the Tornado to simply smash and stun them, providing another version of a "ghetto hold" as they stand there being killed.

Lightning Storm is another pseudo-summon that does great damage, and - if I recall correctly - knocks stuff back when it zaps them. However, it'll increase your killing power greatly.



To sum up, Storm is actually pretty good for active mitigation, but on outdoor maps this can simply annoy you by spreading foes around. On indoor maps you can simply use careful aiming and keep foes pinned in a tight cluster in a corner, however, which works pretty well if you keep them on their [censored], and it allows your zombies' puke to hit them all (it's a Melee AoE). Best you can do is avoid outdoor maps (if possible) and factions that you know will have a lot of Lethal damage (Council, etc.).

Sorry about my first comment, it's just not a set combination I would personally use. However, I always respect peoples' concepts.

I have to be honest with you, a melee heavy MM primary coupled with a set that relies on knockback for a lot of its mitigation is not something I would recommend.
[Edit]: Though as your choices and concept are up to you, I'll try to help.

But first: where are you getting Ice Patch from with Storm Summoning?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty dang sure you just don't want it in-game because the thought bothers you and conflicts with personal beliefs or something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahahahahahahahahaha.

Please go back a few pages and take note of the post made by me, stating I am not against the idea - I just don't think it likely, or worth the time and effort.

[/ QUOTE ]Oh yes, the other post full of absolute gems of objectivity and wisdom.
[ QUOTE ]
This, I believe, is why it would be unlikely that controversial subjects like transgenderism, homosexuality etc. etc. are going to be covered to any great degree in a game rated suitable for younger people. Books and films, maybe - likely, in fact - but books and films are more likely to be educational than computer games; they have that loophole.

[/ QUOTE ]And you're worried about something like this in a game where you can play a sadistic murderer. Go read up on some Villain arcs and you'll find tons more "controversial" material than Presto-Changeo-Man magically changing into a woman. In a game. With superheroes/villains who can fart laserbeams out of their [censored], which is obviously more natural than homosexuality or trangenderism.

I'm not even sure where you were going with the "Books and films may include homosexuality or transgenderism but are more educational" bit, but it's early in the morning. Reading that sentence at the moment brings an image into my mind of a short educational picture book by Disney named "Mickey Mouse Teaches Homosexualism".

[ QUOTE ]
New power -- Kinetics for masterminds!

Tell me that wouldn't be incredibly fun!

[/ QUOTE ]Fun maybe, grossly overpowered definitely. Unless they nerf the set beyond recognition.

[ QUOTE ]
Shapeshifters make sense.

[/ QUOTE ]Not the slightest bit more than shifting from male to female. Both are common in comic books, neither are possible in reality. Genderswapping actually falls under the shapeshifting category itself.

I'm pretty dang sure you just don't want it in-game because the thought bothers you and conflicts with personal beliefs or something, because all the other reasons you give aren't good reasons at all, except for "it would take time".

I could say the idea of Nazis bothers me and conflict with personal beliefs, and don't make sense because secretive paramilitary nazi super-soldier armies with robots and werewolves and dark energy aliens don't exist in reality.
Should the 5th Column be removed from the game -again- just because of that?

[ QUOTE ]
and one that may not make sense.

[/ QUOTE ]Why in the name of sanity do people keep bringing up this 'argument' in fantasy or otherwise supernaturally themed MMORPGs? It's absolutely worthless, a waste of the keys used to type it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Shape changing =/= gender swapping.

[/ QUOTE ]

As far as comics go, there's no difference.

The feeble "IT'S NOT NORMAL ((((((" argument holds no merit. Lots of things aren't normal, and gender swapping has gotten a lot of mileage in the comics (Mystique and countless What Ifs immediatly spring to mind).

If you don't want the idea, fine, just use better reasoning than "IT'S NOT NORMAL ((((".

Oh, and costumes in and out of themselves don't serve a purpose. No more customisation options plx.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right, lots of things aren't normal in the comic world. But that's not our argument, we're saying that a transgender system would be COMPLETELY out of place and unorthodox in such an environment. Mystique shape changes, I personally, forgive me if I'm wrong; can't recall a hero who has went into a surgery and had a sex change.

[/ QUOTE ]Not so sure about surgery (but nobody ever said anything about surgery before you just did anyway), but /characters/index.php]here's some transgendered heroes for you. Scroll to bottom, left side.

*edit* Bloody censor filters messing up the link.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm against this, it'd make the game too bizarre.

[/ QUOTE ]Pff, supernatural transgenderism isn't bizarre. Now, the Shadow Shard, that's bizarre.

Lowering Debt was a nerf aimed at Villains!

Hm. Well, in that case I figure I'll go the BU route, as I team with a friend in PvE but I'd like to try out PvP as well.

Are the Dart/Psi attacks any good in PvP or PvE for anything outside of runners? I realise the Darts do -regen, which is good against EBs and AVs, but are they worth taking for PvP? They don't seem to crit from Hide/Placate as it is, and I already have trouble fitting in Stamina and travel powers for VEATs due to them having so many nifty powers in primary/secondary pools. Just wondering if I'll miss out at all by skipping any of the 4 ranged attacks.

Random question on the topic of Night Widows - Follow Up for PvE DPS, Build Up for PvP burstyness? They appear to be mutually exclusive.

We already have plenty of Roleplayers rolling new toons as opposite-gender versions of their other characters (seems to be the cool thing to do these days, at least on Union GG), this would certainly make it less of a hassle and save character slots.

Tip: Naturally unlucky people should stay away from Defense based protection sets.

It's a gamble, really. You might end up soloing a deadly looking EB and not taking a single hit (Me doing the Dr. Vahzilok arc and fighting the big bad zombie-suit wearing Doc himself on my first Scrapper, /SR) or you might carelessly pounce into a tight pack of white-con minions and get butchered by every single hit within the next 3 seconds hitting, before you even realise what happened (Me on same Scrapper getting detoggled by a bunch of CoT Earth Thorn Casters, only happened once in my lifetime. No, I wasn't standing in Quicksand, they opened by using Stalagmites all at once and I didn't dodge a single one.)

So yeah, it's a gamble. If you want to play a superhero themed after having Supernatural Luck (and a weakness in the form of occasional strokes of bad luck), go for a /SR.

Inv/SS... I'm boring.

Eh, why not.

So hey, guys, there's this badge I really want, I think it's called Disruptor or something, but I'm playing a Brute with mostly SOs...

Both are very powerful sets.

Earth Control is, at least in my opinion, the best of the primaries for actual control, though this means it does little damage compared to others. Also, the amounts of -def is lovely.

Psi does good damage against most enemies (and little against certain ones, like mechanical ones; it's a tradeoff) and has some handy utility to boot.

I thought Energy Torrent did Knockdown on Scrappers and Tankers?

[ QUOTE ]
BTW for your epic powers on brute go Scorp get web genade and Burn mass hold and big damage, combine it with fire sward circle, epic power blast(AOE) and combust. AOE tastic mate!!!

[/ QUOTE ]Why Black Scorpion? All Patron Power Pools give an AoE Immobilize (well, Cones from Leviathan and Soul Mastery...) but Mace Mastery is the only one that requires weapon drawing. I'd recommend Mu myself, you can also get Ball Lightning as an extra AoE DoT if you want (Mace Mastery only offers a Cone as its ranged area attack).