DarkGob

Don't you get it? The devs don't just hate villains, or Masterminds. They hate all the players. All of them.

I think the implication is that Recluse is currently in the process of absorbing the powers being drained from the world's heroes when Task Force Boresight confronts him, so he can't move too far away without interrupting the process.

I don't see any patch notes for 12/16, just 12/7.

Would rather see a more original idea (relative to comic book movies, anyway).

I agree that the badge-credit algorithm seems to have some issues (I shouldn't have to spam every single power from my secondary just for credit if I don't need to), I'm just pointing out that a) It's not impossible for Masterminds to get the badges, and 2) The devs don't have it out for Masterminds (unless it's a villain Mastermind, obviously).

Nothing has actually changed. The reason your new powers seem "meager" and "lacking" is because they're replacing powers that you never slotted before (or at most, spent 2 slots on for Stamina).

As for making level 50 more -- have you actually not noticed the Incarnate System?

I detailed all of this in the post I linked, but...

Solo for Protester and Syndicate Takedown, teamed with a Scrapper for the Great Escape or whatever it's called. The Scrapper was lower level than my level 50 (I forget how low, teens maybe?) and was sidekicked to me, and he didn't get the badge.

Heh. They switched the URLs for the links on that page.

Last I heard regular raids were happening Monday nights at 8 or 10 PM EST (one of those times, I forget which). But yeah, it probably wouldn't be too hard to get an off-cycle raid together at this point.

It sounds like you already have the +Stealth slotted.

Would a Dual Pistols Corruptor? (Honest answer - don't know, but probably.)

Power Surge is a good "oh crap" button, but then so is Eye of the Magus/Demonic Aura, and that doesn't cost you a power pick (Illusionist pets are a pain to farm for the Archmage accolade, though). I ended up dropping it in order to make room for other powers, although I use EM Pulse about as much as I ever used Power Surge (maybe less even), so I could probably pick it back up with no ill effects.

It's not something I would bother slotting.

On the contrary, with set bonuses you can muster up quite a bit of defense. With set bonuses and Hover my Blaster sits at 31.3% ranged defense, 26% energy/negative. It looks like Weave single-slotted for defense pushes that up to 35.7% and 30.4%, respectively.

And yes, you can only have one epic/Patron pool. You could of course take Mace Mastery/Scorpion Shield for more defense, but that would be specifically for Smashing/Lethal/Energy, not to mention it would betray the Elec^3 premise.

You can very easily turn Elec^3 into a blaptroller without resorting to extra builds. As far as Electric Field goes, I never bothered with it personally.

I can't speak for Tough/Wave since my pre-I19 build didn't have room for them and I haven't gotten around to planning out a respec (ugh).

As far as Hover for defense...it's defense. It's not a lot of defense and slotting for it is worthless, use it as a mule for Karma: KB Protection instead. But there's no reason not to fight while hovering as often as possible; you don't need to worry about the endurance usage and these days Hover can move about pretty well unslotted (you can also slot a Fly Speed enhancement into your newly-inherent Swift to speed up both Hover and Fly).

Tech Sleek is reflective under Ultra Mode, try it with white coloring for the best effect.

On a separate note, for anyone who wanders into this thread having issues with Vet Rewards being awarded: sometimes the Vet Reward systems glitches and the reward ends up not being granted when it should. Send a petition and you should be able to get the situation resolved.

I really REALLY hate how this forum wipes out your unfinished post if you accidentally click back.

I had a few notes written out, let's see if I can remember them.

1. You said you wanted to focus on endurance management. You don't need to, Power Sink is all the endurance management you will ever need. Although, I see you're running 3 toggles that I don't run in Leadership. I can understand wanting to keep these if you team a lot, but there are better choices (see point 3).

2. Short Circuit is better slotted for end mod instead of damage for sapping purposes along with Power Sink which, incidentally, will make fighting in melee safer, which brings me to point the third...

3. I would question playing an Elec^3 as a purely ranged Blaster, they're built to be blappers (blaptrollers, really). You're ignoring 3 powers from your primary that do great damage, one of which is a third hold which when combined with Tesla Cage and Shocking Bolt (and the Lockdown proc, if you're so inclined) can be used to easily perma-hold EBs (my Blaster was LOLing at Trapdoor in the Incarnate intro arc). Also, 6-slotting each of these powers with Mako's Bite nets you 11.25% ranged defense.

4. Um, I forget. CURSE YOU VBULLETIN!!

5. I came up with something else that wasn't on my original list. If you can afford it, grab a Karma: Knockback Protection and toss it into Hover (the defense enhancement there isn't helping you enough to be worth it in this instance).

6. Electric Fence is overslotted but I assume you did that for the melee defense, which I find ponderous since you said you don't want to be in melee. Those 3 slots are better spent elsewhere.

7. I can't say much for Voltaic Sentinel as I haven't really tried it (I think I tried it once in a test respec, but that was forever ago). Damage-wise you might be better off dropping this for one of the 3 Electricity Manipulation powers I mentioned before, especially since you're going to need to recast VS once every minute if you want it to keep up its damage continually (also, any aggro it generates gets directed to you, enemies can't target it).

As always, YMMV. It took me a while to find a build that suited me for my Elec^3, but I'm finally satisfied with what I developed, following some of the guidelines I laid out above.

Why are you debating the usefulness of Thunderstrike, a power that does lots of PBAoE damage and gives you mitigation in the form of knockback? Take this as soon as you can.

Thunderclap and EM Pulse have their utility so take them if you don't really have anything else, but they're not "have to take" powers. Voltaic Sentinel is probably not worth the effort; haven't played around with him much myself, although I do want to try taking him on my Elec/Elec Dom so I can get 4 pets (Gremlins, Sentinel, Patron pet). He doesn't stay out very long (although I think you can get him perma fairly easily), and I've heard he tends to draw aggro (to you, enemies can't target him).

Wait another hour for what...the badge? You get the same badge regardless of which way you do the event. And frankly I'm shocked you're even encountering other people at the events. The most I ever seem to see is one other person, and I usually end up teaming with them.

That said, shorter cooldown would be nice.