Dechs Kaison

I look at it this way: I've already got 75% resist from bodyguard. At this point, I need a larger HP pool to get more use out of the regen.

I believe we've had this conversation before, or one close to it. As a point of reference, my Bots/traps was the team's tank against a Vengeance buffed Bobcat.

Yes, the henchmen can die easily. But in a situation where you can control the aggro, this is irrelevant.

Big targets like AVs and GMs run away pretty often. Web Grenade can be stacked very easily. /Dark Miasma would have to rely on A/PPPs for that kind of immobilization.

I don't know how you can call that solo, but yeah, bots/traps is stupid powerful.

My bots/traps "solo'd" Countess Crey on a Kahn TF by accident.

When a Mastermind decides to tank, he's relying on bodyguard mode. I'm sure you're familiar with it, but I'll do a quick rehash anyway. In BG mode, when you take damage, instead, you take 1/4 of that damage and the rest is spread out amongst your henchmen.

BG mode fails when there's AoE to hit the pets, because now they take the full damage from the AoE as well as a full share of damage from the AoE attack itself. This is avoidable, by telling your henchmen to "Goto" an area nearby (still in BG range, but outside of AoE range).

The problem here is that the henchmen will need healed occasionally, as their HP pool is pretty small. A /dark miasma MM can dive into the group, fire his heal, and get back out, but it is a little risky. Traps allows you to drop a Triage Beacon between your henchmen and yourself. Both will benefit from the +regen, but the safe distance is maintained.

Also, traps is easier to softcap with +defense. Dark has ungodly amounts of -tohit, but that gets resisted by 85% for an AV. Bots/Dark is obscenely strong; I have no doubts. I feel, though, that /traps is a bit stronger, especially against hard targets like AVs. Also, Web Grenade.

Only that the dev time required to make a "slight UI tweak" is not insignificant.

None of us can speak as to how difficult a task that "slight UI tweak" really is.

I'm all for the idea, it's just a matter of convincing devs that it's worth the time to enact.

^ I could not have said this any better myself. ^

The signature of a good player is the ability to adapt.

This.

If the softcapped blasters are running amok, that means your difficulty isn't turned up high enough yet.

And your signature holds true yet again. This time, though, I'm inspired.

I've got a DP/traps defender, but he can get Mass Hypnosis. The character's name is "Just That Good," so the action of walking away to some heavy metal with a spawn eradicating blast in the background fits all too well.

He deserves so much more than this.

Ok, sarcasm aparently doesn't come across well in text. I should have included more [GoldenGirl]text[/GoldenGirl].

I agree that no support set is hands down best. There are "best for X" or "best for Y" and even "best as long as not Z." Traps is easily my favorite, and I responded with a bit of hyperbole to the omission of Traps in a tiered list.

Chances are, whatever your team needs, traps can give it to you. It's not going to be as fast paced as Kinetics and Radiation, nor will it be as mobile as Cold Domination and FF for protection.

Ah! My apologies. The list was almost exhaustive, so I assumed you simply forgot about traps.

In my experience, traps has everything.

Web Grenade: Single Target -recharge, -fly, immobilize
Caltrops: AoE -speed, -jump, DoT, crowd control patch
Triage Beacon: Team +regen
Acid Mortar: AoE repeating -def, -resist, DoT
Force Field Generator: Team +def and +status protection
Poison Gas Trap: Huge -regen, hold
Seeker Drones: AoE -tohit, -dmg, stun, damage
Trip Mine: Placeable AoE mini-nuke with knockback
Time Bomb: Well, at least you can pick an extra pool power.

Two reactions to this post.

1) Ah yes, that makes a lot of sense. Human formers use more toggles and thus have less use of a power that drops said toggles. I knew that I didn't know what I didn't know, so I prefaced my advice with "I'm not that good with human formers" in anticipation of this kind of revelation.

2) HOLY SQUID, HE'S BACK!!!!!

I don't see traps on your list. I guess it's so awesome you didn't need to mention that it's better than all those other things.

Totally alright, I love hearing that kind of story. In my last story of the Ice Mistral, a teammate /tell'd me to ask if I was going to hosp out. To his surprise, I replied "I'm still alive and fighting."

You know what? I have another story. I took my level shifted Bots/Traps on my very first Tin Mage last night. We were prepared to nuke/shivan/snowbeast/warwolf/Amy Director 11 in 30 seconds for the Midnight Dodger badge. That went surprisingly well, but we soon thereafter realized that the only person on the team with any form of taunt was my mastermind.

We decided to try for the other two badges. The scrappers put out enough damage to hold his attention most of the time, but he was debuffed enough that we didn't really worry about it anyway. My job was to hold the attention of the War Walker Goliaths as best I could. That was going amazingly well until something totally bizarre happened.

One of the Goliaths turned away, walked to my Assbot and footstomped. I watched, horror struck, as all six bots were reduced to cogs and bolts. The next thing I saw were the bold red numbers -1214 on my screen and a tiny glimmer of hope that was my last health point, pulsing alone and afraid. Thank the one shot code, I was alive, but not safe yet.

I already had a triage beacon down, so I mashed the [Hoarfrost] button (which, on a mastermind, is totally broken if you ask me), my Demonic Aura, and started resummoning bots. I didn't use any inspirations because all I had in my tray were huge purple, orange and green ones, and I only use those if the situation really warrants it. Somehow, I survived the ordeal and only lost the aggro of one of the Goliaths, who was promptly picked up by an awesome trapfender. We got our badge, Neuron died, the Goliaths died, Bobcat activated her vengeance, and we went after her.

I managed to even keep her aggro for about half that fight, but it went too quickly to really even notice.

Yeah, I don't think I'd drop Stygian Return (I absolutely love that power) or Acrobatics (mostly because you're a human only). Superspeed is a taste thing. If you like the stealth, by all means, keep it.

Might I suggest dropping Twilight Shield? I think that's the fire/cold one. It's the least common of the three types, and you can always cap up with Eclipse anyway. You could move some things around to fit Quasar and the slots here.

Quasar is different from any other nuke. It only gives you a -100% endurance recovery penalty, not -1000% like the blaster nukes. This means stamina will be giving you endurance back, as well as any set bonuses or teammate buffs. You also have Stygian Circle which, after using a Quasar, ought to have some fuel to fill your endurance bar. It's very easy to do if you use even a small blue inspiration right after Quasar.

When Fiery Embrace was changed, all those damage numbers were added to powers. It wasn't just FE that changed, every power it could effect had to be modified. I'd suspect this was done manually, so I'd conclude that this is intentional, not a bug.