MriBruce

If you're like me, and I know I am, you like having bodyguard minions around you, pulling some aggro, and letting them do their thing. Time's Juncture is really, really good for this! Particularly if you slot some Slow And To-Hit Debuff enhancements.

No, it's not going to replace something like Traps or Force Field for being bullet-proof. But it is a heck of a lot of fun, if you like playing masterminds this way.

postersay_name Mri <em deliberately-clueless>

Oh, like silent cow skulls would be so much better!

DP/Mental Manipulation is fun to play, and at least one of my friends new to CoH has found it easy to learn. MM provides a character with some "get the heck away from me" abilities good for pushing unwanted attackers out of melee range, a handy cone attack fairly early on, and all kinds of goodies at higher level.

And "psychic gunslinger" is just a swell character type.

Thanks, both of you!

Demons/thermal is, for me at least, fully as awesome as robots/traps, with a distinctly different feel. And my demons guy is nicely steamrollering his way through First Ward missions that are deeply unpleasant for my other soloing characters, and at a higher difficulty level to boot.

That said, I am very much looking forward to working up a new bots/traps character as well, because it's such a just plain fun combo.

I know what regular dark armor looks like. Does anyone have screenshots or, better yet, video of the "no pulse or fade" option in action for the various powers, for any of the archetypes that have it? I can mess around with the chargen screens, of course, but that's not a help for getting a sense of how it'd look in the field at, say, level 50.

I tried searching Youtube for videos and sundry strings in Google for still images, but my search fu is weak and boring this morning, apparently.

Fascinating! Thanks.

Gunmage, I'm curious what you farm with this, and on what settings. Not in a "hah hah prove yourself" way, but in the "as I level more characters up, I'm thinking more about farming possibilities, and would like to learn more about how folks match up characters and targets for their happy farming" way.

Trick arrow/archery is surprisingly effective. People will tend not to take it seriously, but they'll enjoy the debuffs, and as you go you get a lot of them. And archery performs quite solidly as a secondary.

Fiendishly clever. Thanks.

OK, I know about the merits of a simple bind like shift+lbutton for Teleport. Dechs and others who use Team Teleport, too: What do you bind it to? Or do you let it displace individual teleporting?

My guy Dr. Charon is a demon/thermal mastermind, and I'm really happy with him. Here's what thermal offers me:

- A decent AOE heal that recharges pretty rapidly even before slotting, and has good range. With a bit of recharge and heal enhancement, I can use it to support the PC and minions or a group with little fuss, short of catastrophes.

- A single-target heal with more strength and good range. It routinely saves the bacon of a minion who drew too much individual aggro (do demons have bacon? let's not contemplate it), and when I group up, it makes a great need-something-now support for other healing and buffing.

- A pair of shields that between them cover just about everything other than toxic and psi.

- A rez, which I've not taken because, well, mostly the character solos, and minions get resummoned. But there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it, and I presumably will take it at some higher level.

- A solid single-target mez protection, which I use on whichever demon's got Hell on Earth, or just whoever seems to be having extra trouble at the moment.

And still to come a single-target buff to damage and to-hit, a single-target debuff to damage, endurance, recovery, and regen, and an AOE hammer to defense and resistance.

I really like it. It's a great Swiss Army knife sort of secondary, covering just about everything I'd like. Give it stealth and a force field for the character and I'd be set for life. Seriously, though, I wasn't at all sure whether I'd like it when I started out, but I am now - with the character at level 26 and cutting a good swath through First Ward - very appreciative of everyone who recommended it.

Oh, and the heals do not require a to-hit check. Cast and go.

Oh, absolutely. It's just that I'm sort of innately tankermind-inclined, or something like it - the strategy of pets mostly in defensive, waiting for me to go get something riled up so they can stomp it and all its friends flat, works well for me. (Of course, I always have the option of telling them, "Don't wait for me, go have fun and I'll catch up.")

That is, of course, by no means the only way to play. Or even the way I always like to play myself! But as a set of starting assumptions, it works out well and happily for me most of the time.

Thanks, Klaw! I'd been wondering about the attack/defensive part.

Thanks! I've just started one up - and I'm interested that you did Praetorian stuff with a mastermind, since it occurred to me over the weekend that I would probably have more success and fun doing it that way than with anything else I've tried. And so I am.

That makes some good sense.

Thanks! Some fun sounding possibilities there.

Thanks!

As long as I'm asking questions...

What secondaries do particularly well - or poorly - on SOs, both for soloing and for teaming?

Very much obliged! I love the bits of extra explanation - I'm gradually building up the sense of just why some things are likely to work or not, and I like that.