MriBruce

(For those who need a reminder of this most glorious of songs, here's one now.)

So there Rose Alpha (robotics/force fields) was, emerging from a Kings Row building, and there was Paladin wandering around not 20 yards away. I thought about it. Rose was fully rested and healed, and everything was off cool-down, and...why not? So we went for it.

I've slotted Rose with tier 4 Musculature, and I didn't unslot that. Ditto with tier 4 Cognitive. But I didn't use Lore, Destiny, or Judgment, just an envenomed dagger.

The ensuing fight was...sometimes epic, sometimes just silly. It was afternoon when they engaged, and the fight actually did go on all of that night cycle, and toward noon of the next day. I had no clue, I guess, just how much Paladin could and would jump around. We went through at least three neighborhoods, and up and down many, many fire escapes. You'd think a guy that big wouldn't balance so delicately on wrought-iron handrails...

In the end, the cause of human goodness did prevail, and he went down. That was great fun.

But really, there should have been "Yakety Sax" playing.

I know I can solve this problem by suitably naming my own demons, but I'm curious: am I missing something, or is there no unique way to tag demonlings and demons but not the demon prince, with petcompow? Sandolphan's guide suggests S, but that seems to catch the demon prince, too, thanks to "Summon" in its name.

That's what I thought, and am relieved I wasn't missing something. Thanks!

Stealth IOs don't affect pets, do they? That is, if I want to sneak to the end of a mission, I need to actually dismiss the pets, not just put them on passive. Or am I missing something relevant?

I like both those combos.

Demons/thermal is all about the resistance. Demon pets have a bunch, thermal gives a bunch. It's not super hard to be walking around with your pets having all the resistance the game can make use of and then some. So they get hit, but they don't have to care.

Thugs/dark is all about the...well, everything, kind of. Dark is a very powerful and wide-ranging set. You've got a wonderful AOE heal and a zillion different kinds of debuffs, holds, you name it.

The play style isn't hugely different. Your pets spend a fair amount of time up close in melee, particularly the tier 3 pet in each case. (The thugs tier 1 and 2 minions are almost entirely ranged, idiocies of the arsonist aside.) You're in close yourself to use AOE heals and maybe a few other things, and can be at range the rest of the time. Thermal has shield buffs to renew - I bind those to keys I'm not otherwise using for quick casting. Dark has more stuff to cast during a typical fight.

The whip attacks that come with demon summoning are pretty useful. I generally take one or a couple of them, while I may or may not do that with the thugs' dual pistols.

Both are, in my experience, a heck of a lot of fun to play. The pets look cool, the secondaries look cool, and everything does a lot of good things.

So how'd it go?

My bots/force field mastermind does very well on BAF doors. Turn on Force Bubble and let the pets go to work.

The character I'm having fun playing most right now is Rose Alpha, robots/force field mastermind. She has a degenerative neurological condition, complicated by exposure to Rikti War-vintage toxic waste. A research program working with people like her managed to re-direct a lot of her cognitive functions through cybernetic backup systems. Then phase 2 kicked in, and it turned out that the sponsor of the whole thing was a Crey subsidiary looking for new bio-weapons. Unfortunately for them, she proved better at controlling her robot array than at being controlled by the program's headquarters.

When it comes up, she'll emphasize that it's not "Rose and her robots". It's "Rose, an identity housed in seven bodies, one of them the one she was born in". A bit more than a third of a human brain's normal activity happens in the brain she started out with; the rest is spread through the set of bots, and she's at her best when she can have them all out and firing on all cylinders.

Dz131: Rock on. Do you have clicks and glitches?

Thanks. I expected they would, but I've learned that my sense of what's obviously right may not match all that well with others's.

A belated question.

There are the Paragon Market IO sets that scale up with the character's level. Do those scale back down for full benefit when examplaring, if it's above the set's minimum level?

Yesterday afternoon, random banter on Virtue LFG Beta coalesced into Issen1 announcing that he really did want to put together an all-mastermind Imperious Task Force. It took a little while, and one false start followed by a relaunch so that we could make it a Master Of run...and then we kicked through everything. Total time was about 1:20, I think.

Lookit alla the green in da team (window):



A fairly typical moment:



The opening salvo against Romulus:



The team (with link to larger image):





Participants:

Riou Jinzouningen (leader)
Rose Alpha
Mistress Nyte
Combat Librarian
Beelzebub Bill
Jadis Addu
AmaheRe
Malaketh

We had...let's see. 4 robots, 1 thugs, 1 ninja, 1 necro, and 1 demons, if I'm recalling correctly. I don't remember everyone's secondaries, but we had enough bubbling that most of us were over 100% on major defenses most of the time.

It was a blast, and lag wasn't as bad as I was dreading. I look forward to doing it again.

(Crossposted to the Masterminds and Virtue forums.)

Yesterday afternoon, random banter on Virtue LFG Beta coalesced into Issen1 announcing that he really did want to put together an all-mastermind Imperious Task Force. It took a little while, and one false start followed by a relaunch so that we could make it a Master Of run...and then we kicked through everything. Total time was about 1:20, I think.

Lookit alla the green in da team (window):



A fairly typical moment:



The opening salvo against Romulus:



The team (with link to larger image):





Participants:

Riou Jinzouningen (leader)
Rose Alpha
Mistress Nyte
Combat Librarian
Beelzebub Bill
Jadis Addu
AmaheRe
Malaketh

We had...let's see. 4 robots, 1 thugs, 1 ninja, 1 necro, and 1 demons, if I'm recalling correctly. I don't remember everyone's secondaries, but we had enough bubbling that most of us were over 100% on major defenses most of the time.

It was a blast, and lag wasn't as bad as I was dreading. I look forward to doing it again.

(Crossposted to the Masterminds and Virtue forums.)

Hmm. I've got a 40-ish SoA I haven't known what to do with, quite. I'll give that a respec try.

Hey, handy! Thank you.

A question about the Stealth procs: do I have to toggle a power off and back on every two minutes to get the benefits? Or does it renew or last or anything like that?

Pretty sensible-sounding!

Thanks, that's good to know. Is it from others doing the same thing I'm asking about?

Persephone Ash, necro/dark practitioner, is doing iTrials now. I'm going with Musculature. With that power combo, do I have a reason to particularly favor the to-hit debuff help or the defense debuff help, while I'm doing lots of trials?

Ah ha! That's the info I needed! Thank you very much.