Comicsluvr

I have often joked that one of the reasons the Devs don't improve the Pet AI is that they'd have to nerf the AT.

Imagine Pets that Stayed when told to do so, but could still attack. Imagine Pets that were 'leashed' to run to the limit of Supremacy range and then STOP. Imagine melee Pets who closed to melee while ranged Pets stayed at range.

Give me these three things for MM Pets and I will rule the world.

I currently have Regen on Scrappers and Brutes and I love it. Yes, it's clicky and against burst damage you need Tough to help soak damage but if you love never having to worry about your blue bar then you might look into it.

IMHO it couples best with weapon sets with Parry (Broadsword and Katana) or melee sets with lots of mitigation through knockdown like SS. While the enemy is getting up you're healing and knocking them down again.

Contrary to popular belief I did NOT intend for this thread to devolve into a KB hate thread. I was merely asking for the playerbase to acknowledge that ALL ATs need to work together to make the game more fun for everyone. Solo play is fine and we should do as we please. But we should ALL be a little more considerate to others when we team in the spirit of fun.

As to some of the other discussions, I have my own beliefs with regards to Blasters:

1) I am The Blaster, there shall be no Blasters before me. The Blaster AT is designed first and foremost to do damage. With Inventions, Incarnate Powers and so forth it is now possible for other ATs to out-damage us in the short term. However I believe that any changes made to ATs in the future should remember that overall Blasters are supposed to deal more damage on average over time. All else is secondary.

2) I am The Blaster. Whether it be ranged or melee, I shall do damage. Some players prefer ranged combat while some like to Blap. To each their own. However this is another one of those areas where the player needs to show some consideration to the team. If you die solo, that's on you. If you die on a team then the team is diminished. Therefore it is in YOUR best interest to think about the team (this goes for every AT really). If you require or expect Heals, don't hide from the teammate who throws them. If your Rain of Fire would do MORE damage after your teammate's AoE Immobilize, tell him to lead with it and then follow up. If it works even better after a Tank herd then work together. A meal tastes better when everyone at the table pitches in to prepare it.

3) All things have a place...generally face-down on the floor. Yes, Knock-Down is more team-friendly than Knock-Back. But as has been stated here before we can all work together to make things more fun. You have a Explosion with massive KB potential? Throw it on the EDGE of the mob to divert them into a wall or corner instead of putting it dead center and scattering everyone. You have Hover and a KB Cone? They why AREN'T you blasting bad guys down to keep them off of you as well as the team?

Blasters do damage. It's part of our DNA. It's usually all we have to bring to the table. But like all tools there is often a better way to use what we have. Sometimes doing a lot of damage isn't enough. We need to do it WISELY in order to maximize our potential.

Blasters are like fighter pilots. Elite, skilled (the good ones anyway), cocky. We're proud but we've earned the right to be. Do we swagger a bit? Sure we do. So does the Tank who maxes his aggro without taking a hit or Defender who debuffs everything in sight. But like said fighter pilot we need to remember that the tools we wield can be helpful OR harmful. Firing without thinking is seldom a good idea.

I am a Blaster and I support this message.

Yeah LBE was a tough call there since it takes the same sets, looks cool and I can shoot LASERS out of my EYES! I took Hurl to HAVE a ranged attack but I'm not bound by law to keep it. Thanks for the tips.

Below I have the planned build for my SS/Invul Brute Total Violence. This is my first and fave character and I love how he plays but now I find myself looking for that 'OMG you did THAT?' sort of appeal. I'd like advice from the Forum but I have a few caveats:

1) No Purples. I refuse to buy them and if they drop, they drop. He currently has none.

2) I'd like to keep the Kinetic Combat sets as the only real expensive stuff he has (no PvP stuff in other words). I'm not a Marketeer and don't want to be one just to build a character.

3) I hate running out of End. At the moment he has his Cardiac Alpha T4 and Reactive Interface and I'm pretty happy with those.

I know I'm asking a lot but given these parameters how would you rate this build? I want to be able to roll him into most regular content on +4/X8 (my first to do so) and be able to go to town. So...what do I need to change?

Thanks in advance.

I've been seeing a lot of Axe/Inv Tank builds and posts lately and everyone seems to rave about them. I know why Invul is popular but why Axe? Is it simple damage output, the 3 AoEs or something I'm missing?

Thanks in advance.

Well I have to say that I didn't think that my Wens sessions could match the fun we've been having on Fridays but it sure did last night. We mustered around 5ish and did Tips (which I now much prefer to Sewers) until one of our members was lvl 12 then did Posi 1. Once we finished that we did Synapse and it was a BLAST! We had Demons, Thugs, Bots and at least 2 Ninjas (one mine) and a great mix of Secondaries. We picked up one random MM player before starting and rolled over EVERYTHING. Even the GM towards the end was helpless. I think we had 1 death (hey, things happen) and I heard resummoning like twice all night.

Stacked Leadership is fab. Our damage buff at the end was 80%. We had two Snow Storms, two Freezing Rains and two Hurricanes running for much of the evening.

I'm very pleased with the reaction to this and the fun everyone is having. I'll look for the Friday team tomorrow night.

I'll be starting up a DFB team this evening at 6 p.m. est for anyone who missed out on earlier fun. After enough trips to get us to lvl 12 (and Lt pets) we can decide where to go from there. Posi 1 and 2 are fun and good exps or we can let one of the more advanced MMs do content and tag along.

I was pleased to hear about the new Controller set (sounds cool) but I think Staff Mastery will be good too. It may be the last Melee set for a while though as the Devs are running out of new and unique ways to beat people up (a-hem...arrest them) in close combat. Street Justice has a new mechanic (which I like) and so does Titan Weapons (my personal jury is still out on this one).

Oersonally, I'd like to see another Defensive set, another Armor set and then some Blaster secondaries. The various Primaries are cool but the selection of secondaries is a bit dated. Even if it just meant more Powerset Proliferation it would be nice.

Regardless, I love new sets so keep up the good work!

My SS/Inv Brute has S/L Resist at like 70% and feels very Tanky. I love WP but against high-burst damage foes like Cimmerorans I struggle. My Invul, on the other hand, eats those guys two at a time. I don't have an expensive build (one purple IO, the Melee damage proc) either. I'm sure a few Kinetic Melee sets to raise your Def would help a lot.

All of my Tanks take Taunt and 4-slot it with Perfect Zinger (for the chance for Psy dmg and the +Regen and +Recharge). None of my other characters do because I don't design them to tank. If they happen to be able to do it thats fine but it's not how I see them. I won't kick a Tanker for not having it but in my notes I put stuff like 'Yes, I have Taunt and I know how to use it." My Tankers are seldom lonely...

Taunt is great for saving team members. Is the Blaster getting beat up? Click on him and Taunt whatever he's attacking. You might buy him a few second's of breathing room.

Taunt is great solo. It's an auto-hit for 5 targets and with the Zinger Proc that averages to one per Taunt taking Psy damage (which few mobs have resistance to). I use it as an actual attack sometimes.

Taunt is great in open maps since the -Range will bring pesky shooters and fliers closer.

Taunt costs no End so it works even after the dual Sappers have their way with your End bar.

I don't do the 10 billion Inf builds so it's easy to come up with the 3 slots most of the time. If I can't I always use at lease 1 for the Zinger proc and Zinger Taunt/Range.

If you're spec-building a team and want 1 Tank then sure, you want him to have Taunt. Otherwise I see it as a small issue given how aggro works currently. However, if they change aggro to make Tankers more distinct then I might change my mind to the 'should take it' camp.

I don't believe that direct comparison between Tanks and Brutes is fair because they're NOT designed to do the same thing. Brutes are Redside Scrappers with a different damage mechanic is all. Redside characters don't NEED a Tank as much because the ATs were designed to be more independant than Blueside. However now that either side can play where they want we have this conflict between Brutes and Tanks.

I'd like to see hard numbers on how much negative impact a Tank will have on a Brute in the same team. Run a Brute and a Scrapper with the Shield Secondary together and record the result through one mission full of mobs. Then rerun the same mission with the Brute and a Tank. Is having someone else with a Taunt aura around REALLY going to reduce the Brute's Fury that much?

As Arcana mentioned above there are other reasons for a Brute to have his Fury reduced. If a Controller locks down the mob first then he gets hit less. If a Blaster flattens them before they get off more than one attack he gets hit less too. Yet I've never seen a Brute player on my team say 'Let me get all the aggro and get whupped on for a few seconds before attacking.' If he did there would be LOLs all around.

Inventions is part of the problem here I think. With Kinetic Combat and other sets a Scrapper or Brute can approach Tanker levels of Defense while a Tank can't use the same idea to do the same with his damage output. Back when everything was capped at SOs the lines were more distinct. Now Inventions, and therefore the time and Inf the player is willing to sink into a character, seems to be more important. A Tank with SOs or generic IOs will be overshadowed by a Brute or Scrapper with 15 billion Inf in his build.

I'd also be willing to bet that most of the Tanker players grousing about losing aggro to a Brute (or vice versa) are the uber-leet types who worry when their DPS goes down 5% and they want to know why. If I'm Tanking I'm in melee. If a Brute or Scrapper strips aggro from a mob I'm fighting then he's probably in the fight right next to me. The mob hasn't gone anywhere...all the same conditions apply.

I still believe that the Aggro rules should be altered slightly so Tanks once again reign supreme at holding aggro but that's because it's what they do. If you take that away from them then they're just really tough low-damage Brutes and Scrappers.

One of the joys of this is that we can all pile in the alts. If someone wants to jump in later that's fine too. We all started at lvl 2 and ran DFB until lvl 10 then hit Posi 1 and 2. Later joiners can do the same or just hop in and they'll catch up soon enough. We can even run lowbie teams on certain nights for alts for badges, new content and so on.

Yeah...this'll be fun.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

I'm not going to wait until next Friday to fire up the second team! My weekend plans have fallen through so if anyone wants to join me THIS Friday (12/30) for a marathon of MM Madness feel free. I'll be starting an alt team, bringing everyone into the SG and then running like mad!

Look for me @Model Nine under Atlas at 6 p.m. est Friday.

My Ninja/Storm Gale Storm is sitting under Atlas waiting. My global is @Model Nine. I also reccomend we all join the Mastermind Global Channel to make finding each other easier.

Sorry I've been absent...working like mad. But I should be there tonight for the fun and then we fire up another team next week!

Btw the name of the SG is Masterminds for a Better World. The motto is "For us that is!"