DrMike2000

Its a cool idea for a concept-neutral pet, since you just have to be fighting crime in Paragon City for it to make sense.
There are still some case that work better than others. A Spawn-like Dark Defender or Namor-like haughty Atlantean FF/NRG Defender might have a few problems with their cop pet tagging along, although there's quite a bit of mileage in the idea that the hero has unwillingly been appointed an 'assistant' to make sure they behave themselves.

Its still a pet though, with all the associated problems. Does it close to melee, or shoot from range where Sonic's Disruption Field will have no effect? Does it taunt and draw fire from you once you've shielded it?

And would you feel a bit less heroic maybe because you have to take a cop along with you to fight crime effectively?

Like Biospark, I find the draw for Defenders is the lack of pet. Defenders fill the very common niche in X-Men level heroes of "I fight from range and do some other cool stuff via my control of a single element or something, and I do it through my own power".


Out of the three problem sets (FF, Sonic and Empathy) I'd say FF needs the least help. I'm thinking of making another one and slung together a quick build that achieves 35% Defence vs everything without even dipping into IOs by around level 30. The options are already there for a solo oriented FF tank mage - not too tanky, not too magey and balanced. I've previously suggested addign some +Def to Repulsion Field and Force Bubble, this would help the set and not require 3 powers from Fighting to achieve effective defence.

Sonic falls down mainly via Disruption Field. This set is unnecessarily team-dependent, and this is the main reason why - the better half of your speciality of increasing damage needs a teammate. Allowing this to be placed on an enemy would fix this, although I believe the game engine doesn't currently allow for that.
While we're at it, Sonic Repulsion could probably be changed to work just like Repel and Repulsion Field without breaking too many hearts. Its valuable mitigation against heavy melee hitters for a solo-ist.

Empathy - hmmm. I've got nothing right now.

I think there's no harm in asking.

A lot of people enjoy putting builds together without ever considering actually playing the character, I know I do. Some of us are born number crunchers and find it fun, some aren't and find it difficult and no fun. There's nothing wrong with asking for help.

Do the cage powers give any warning when they're about to wear off?
I'm afraid to say I have no idea, despite having a level 50 Sonic/Energy, FF/Sonic, Dark/Rad and Grav/Emp Controller!

I think thats one of the issues - say you've got a lone phased Behemoth left and everyone's waiting for him to unphase, does he pop straight out ready to attack?
Can you tell when he's about to unphase?

In Freedom Force, for example, the exile state caused knockdown when exited, so you have a small window to deal with the target without reprisal when they reappear.

It would be cool to treat a phased character as out of range - that way the team could queue up attacks which would fire off the moment he popped back into normal space, and also stop people wasting their attacks on phased targets.

A definite no from me to fixing the problem with a pet, especially one that isn't concept neutral like a Coralax or Tsoo Ink man.

This is one of the reasons I play Defenders over Controllers - I tend to make Marvel/DC style superheroes and having a visibly bipedal pet of some kind really messes with the concept but a major part of the gameplay equation for those powersets. Abstract pets like Singularity or Voltaic Sentinel are OK I guess, but still not the best.

I agree too that Force Fielders need help.

I've played a Force Fielder to 50, and through use of IOs from very early on built up 38% vs Melee and 45% vs Ranged, AoE and Psi defence. This plus mez protection made up for the lack of offensive buffs or other utility powers in my opinion - I'd chosen to play a ranged tanker who could turn teammates into tanks too, and thats what I got. I wasn't gimped or overpowered - fights would go quicker on my Kin/Elec but not as safely.

I had to spend millions and wait a long time to get this though.
FF already has a niche as the Defender who can soft-cap teammates at level 22, the Blaster's best friend in Talos Island and so on. I'd like to extend this to the Defender themselves.

I dont agree with lowering the ally bubble values - I think that your primary role as a Defender is to protect the team still, and since you do that one way only, you should do it well and early.

I would:-

- Give Dispersion Bubble decent Defence Debuff resistance - this is a great idea.
- Move the End Drain resistance from Insulation Shield to Dispersion Bubble, so the user is protected too.
- Add some more personal defence somewhere. I've suggested before adding +Melee Defence/S/L to Repuslion Field, and +Ranged/AoE/E/N/F/C to Force Bubble, maybe of the order of +7.5%?
- Remove the sleep hole. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but having Lost, Rikti, Tsoo, Devoruing Earth, Freakshows, Carnies and Crey suppressing your defences constantly is a sizeable portion of the game.

This would give a FF-er about 30% Defence to all positions just from slotting Dispersion, Repulsion and Force Bubble, similar to what a SR scrapper gets. They can easily make up the difference with Hover/CJ and Manouvers and maybe Weave, or easy to get IO bonuses.
I'm talking Thunderstrike, Red Fortune etc rather than Blessing of the Zephyr.

You also get an interesting bit of "gameplay tension" ie decision making via Force Bubble - it will draw aggro and push bad guys around while you boost your defence, so you won't just want to leave it toggled on at all times.

I'm planning on using Blood Mandate for my Grav/Elec Controller (in both Voltaic Sentinel and Singularity) for the Ranged/AoE Defence bonuses, as well as decent Acc/Dam slotting from the enhancements.

I think I did the same on my Gravity Controller when I9 came out.

+Regen scales with the recipient's Health, whereas healing ticks don't.

Since a Mastermind is made up of the character themselves and 3 different tier pets all of whom have different HP (I think?) then +Regen means that all of them will go from say half health to full in the same time barring other influences.
A ticking heal like Corrupters get would heal the low hit point characters to full first.

I've always figured that this is why Masterminds get +Regen.

As for why Corrupters get healing ticks - it works better on low hp teammtes and not as well on Brutes? Doesn't seem like a great reason. Maybe enough +Regen to match the current healing ticks on the Corrupter themsleves would make too many Brute teammates unkillable within the aura?

I guess the argument against mini-games is that it takes developer time to do what players can do themselves. They may not be difficult to do, but they take time and money that could go elsewhere.

If you want to have a regular poker night in the D, you can use an online poker game that already exists, especially if you have a second monitor or PC.
If you want a Danger Room, use mission architect.
Sure, its less seamless, but its doable.

This leaves the devs to use their finite time to do things that only they can do, like new powersets, alternate walk animations, new mission content, new costume pieces, vehicle travel powers etc etc.

A couple of years ago, I'd have said no to mini-games on these grounds. These days though, the game's in such a mature state with all the other stuff that minigames seem quite attractive. I'm still coming across new content and powersets after four years, and many of the oft requested features like Power Customisation have come to pass.

So yeah, I reckon a few minigames wouldnt hurt at all now. Slot machines that cost infamy/influence and occasionally dispense Architect ticket prizes? Thats a simple start.

About 13 maybe?
I had a supergroup from the 37th Century, the Celestial Bodies, who'd travelled back to the 21st Century for a while. There were a few 21st century natives, but at least 12 native 37th C-er time travellers.

One of my first characters, Michael Mordecai (Dark Defender) was a 1970's physicist who'd got shunted forwards to the early 21st century and turned into a photographic negative of himself - a bit of a homage to the Jerry Cornelius books there.
I've since remade him as a warshade, but he never really stuck.

Come to think of it, my current villain group are alternate future Victorians, so add another ten there.

So 24 all up, give or take a few.

[Edit] - make that 28, I just remembered two other duos of time-travelling amazons.

Gordon Stacy worked for three of my characters at least in that group - I had two who duo'ed him concurrently and both got merits, and a second duo where he refused to give the mission to one of the characters, despite working through every single non-arc mission on offer.

Funnily enough, the guy who didn't get the story missions was my dodgy streetwise compulsive-liar shapechanging mutant who had registered as a Kheldian for a laugh. It sort of made some internal sense when Gordon Stacy with his military haircut and bristly little moustache said he wanted nothing more to do with him

This was really jsut old style contact behaviour taken to extremes - getting the story arc for two characters at once was often an exercise in frustration (or at leats patience), barring newer content like Faultline and Croatoa.

That said, Villains has been an absolute dream. Sit down for a session, finish a story arc in a couple of hours or so, and get 10 merits or more for each character.

This is a brilliant idea.

I ran my last lot of heroes to 50 doing story arcs, and it was incredibly tedious at times trying to line pairs of them up with the same contact and work through the filler missions till they both had the story arc.

One contact (Gordon Stacy, but I dont hold a grudge ) flat out refused to give me the arc once, and I'm positive I didn't have any story arcs open at the time.

Ive got to say Villain side is much nicer. My villains are in their late teens and have around 30-50 merits each just from doing story arcs and levelling up naturally, with very little run around from the contacts. When I hit the higher levels I'll definitely grab an Ouro portal crystal for my base and do some of this.

I've got to say, when I think of who is in need of a bit of help in the world today, buying snacks for the armed forces of the most powerful nation on Earth comes pretty low down the list.

I'd suggest a Shield/Axe/Arctic Tank.

Shield and Axe make you right at home in the middle of a pack of minions swinging away and knocking them all over. You're giving up a bit of safety for better offence in choosing Shield.

Ice Storm at level 47 finally lets you control the weather, and in a pretty Scandinavian way.

If anything its got easier.

If you have the Sands of Mu vet power, use it. Invincibility and Rage both give you a permanent To hit bonus that will prevent it whiffing too often, and because it ignores damage buffs, it still works during the Rage crash.

Plus having an extra damage type for use against Smashing resistant enemies is always nice.

Some of the IO damage procs are quite nice in your smaller faster attacks like Jab for a bit of extra punch and alternative damage types.

Invulnerability lacks a damage aura, which is nice when soloing, but you'll still be quite viable without one.

Good Question. The introduction of IOs has changed the balance of a good few sets, often in ways that would warrant breaking the cottage rule to compensate.

Anyone can now pick up stealth for free, so Devices loses one of its speciality features. Well, two, since Smoke Bomb and Cloaking Device both provide stealth, which is now available at a price.
I would suggest adding an assasination-style damage bonus to Cloaking Device. It compensates for the lack of build up, lifts the power way above any other stealth power, and is thematically appropriate, making the set a kind of sniper set.

Anyone can now build up a decent defence to some positions, so sets which specialise purely in Defence are now a bit overshadowed by their hybrid cousins.
Super Reflexes is overshadowed by Shield Defence, Force Fields by Cold Domination.

I'm not sure what I'd give to SR. It does have the awesome defence debuff resistance to set it apart.

Force Fields, I'd add some more personal protection to the set - give Repulsion Field some +Melee Def and Force Bubble some +ranged/AoE Def.

I'd also add Sonic Resonance to the list. It seems to have been designed in a way that's unnecessarily team dependent. One of its best debuffs (Disruption Field) requires an ally, and it has one of the greatest WTF powers in the game in Sonic Repulsion, once again made ally dependent for no other reason than just to be different from kinetics and Force Field?
I'm not really sure what I'd replace Sonic Repulsion with, just that I would replace it.

Thats how random numbers work.

If you ask a human to write down a series of random numbers, they'll make little decisions like "oh, I just did two 3's, better not do another one". A Random number generator doesn't do this.

I remember hearing about some tests where people were given number sequences froma RNG and from a person trying to look random, and asked whioch one was produced by the RNG. They typically got it wrong, our brains are really good at noticing patterns in random data.

So statistically, someone's going to get drops from only two sets, rather than a more even spread across the board. That person just happens to be you, BeLikeWater.

Force Field is definitely relaxed.

Sonic Resonance allows you to improve your teams surviviability and offensive power without doing much at all. Sonic Barrier and Haven every 4 minutes, Sonic Dispersion and Disruption Field running pretty much earn your place on a team. Before Stamina, you can claim that you dont have the endurance to attack.

Radiation Blast is a good laid back secondary.
Load up Neutrino Bolt with procs (Devastation chance to hold, Achilles chance for -Res, two damage procs) and set up a macro to toggle it on and off auto, eg.

/bind 1 "powexecauto Neutrino Bolt"

You can now sustain a worthwhile contributing attack chain by pressing one key and then switching targets. Every now and then activate Cosmic Burst and youre done.

In Freedom Force, I did a fair amount of work on setting up power mimicking through scripts and data. I ended up making a character who could borrow powers from any other character in the game whilst keeping her own.

The results were mixed, mainly because in a superhero game you typically fight lots of minions, whereas in a comic you fight supervillains (read Elite Bosses) almost exclusively.

Say you're on a mission fighting Warriors. You can mimick a bit of strength and maybe grow a medieval weapon. Next up, the Council - you get to mimic some guns and grenades? Tsoo would be a bit more fun, getting some temporary storm powers and teleportation, maybe kinetic powers or mind control.

You also suffer from "red dragon" syndrome, where enemies are often resistant to the damage they deal. Absorbing Behemoth fire powers to fight other Behemoths isn't that efficient.

On the flip side, a power-mimicker could be an AV killer. I doubt the devs would let you absorb Reichsman's full power and 100 MAg Stun him through purple triangles. Even in comics, at this point Rogue typically gets an "overload" or turns temporarily evil because of the force of the personality she's absorbed.

I guess all I'm saying is that power copying is not as fun as it sounds, and incredibly hard to balance - thats lots of dev work for low returns. That was my experience of it.

If you're in Hide, and a Sonic Resonance Corrupter has put Disruption Field on you, do you draw aggro?
Or can you sneak up on a fresh spawn and assassinate one of them to take advantage of their lowered resistance?

Exactly what Weatherby said - End Drain as a mechanism looks unreliable because it hasnt been given a chance yet.

End Drain for players currently revolves almost exclusively around Short Circuit - a long animating PBAoE that only gets used by Blasters and Defenders.

Imagine for a second that the implementation of holds were this limited - a Blaster or Defender AoE hold would probably be mag 2 and short-lived, making holds look unreliable.

An Electrical Control set for Controllers could do things like replace the single target hold with a single target drain that drains a +0 enemy out of the box, and a +4 enemy when fully slotted for it, and applied a good 15 second -Recovery. You end up with something a bit different then.

On the downside, the enemy can still run (unless you use your single target immobilise), and it doesnt last quite as long as a standard ST hold.

On the plus side, it works on bosses as well as on leiutenants/minions, and it can even be built up on AVs/GMS.

Same with the standard 4 minute group hold - could be replaced with a group end drain that will reliably drain and -Recover a whole group of enemies in one shot on a 4 minute timer.

I really hope that the Electrical Control set is not just a rehash with different graphics.

Theres an opportunity here to make a set that plays differently from all others by using End Drain as the means of control rather than Holds.
It can all be done within the current game engine, and could produce something unique in the way that Illusion Control is unique, rather than just Fire/Ice/Earth Control with different graphics and some minor End Drain tacked on.