Streethunter

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Somewhere mid-read in the OP this is all my brain was taking in:

I really like oranges, and since they're also fruit, I want to really, equally like apples. The thing is that apples simply aren't as good as oranges. I mean, look at the two. Oranges and apples both have skins, but orange peals are way thicker. They're both juicy, but oranges are way juicier. I can make a glass of juice with only a few oranges and little effort, but it takes a whole bunch of apples and a lot of processing to make a good glass of apple juice. They both have seeds, but apple seeds are in the core which you totally can't easily eat but you can eat the meat of the orange where the orange seeds are. They're supposed to be roughly equal fruits but oranges are clearly superior in every way. And let's not even get into the fact that some apples are green while others are red, but oranges are just orange. WTG God/Mother Nature/Natural Selection!

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I guess you have a point here somewhere, but darned if I know what it is. The "comparing apples to oranges" metaphor has always been fallacious and obtuse. The implication is that you can only compare things that are the same; even though apples and oranges are both fruits, both have seeds, both have skins, I still don't have a basis for a valid comparison. By that logic, I can't even compare one apple to another apple unless they're identical, because differences invalidate comparisons.

You can in fact compare apples to things besides other apples, and you can compare powerset performance. Had this same conversation about Poison and Pain Domination, and had to deal with the same meme that powerset performance is oh-so-nebulous and ineffable so "you can't really compare them". How aggrivatingly irrational. If you have an objective, you can set parameters for achieving it. If you have parameters, then you can evaluate the various means of achieving the objetive, even if the means are functionally dissimilar. You can compare a plane to a train in terms of which will get you to a destination faster or cheaper; if someone suggests that the comparison is invalid because one flies in the air and the other rides on tracks, they are being obtuse.

Since MMO's are very much objective-oriented, it is prefectly reasonable to compare the resources available to classes.

Whenever some change is on the way, it always seems that everyone knows all about them except me. Oddly, I can do searches and read entire threads and find no definitive listing. In this case, Doms are apparently getting some big boosts, which makes it odd that the patch notes for the I15 open beta mention nothing for doms.

I ain't lazy, but maybe I'm blind or a little clueless. Is there somewhere I can get all of this news? Anyone got a link explaining the changes?

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I don't particularly like the change (for one thing, I have to either summon the Bruiser after I give everyone else the first Upgrade, or move him out of its radius) but it's really neither a nerf nor a buff.

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Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Seems awful to me, but like I said, an FF MM has to bubble-bubble individually anyway, so bubble-bubble-enchant was just part of the rhythym.

What you mentioned about the bruiser, about not wanting to upgrade him--been thinking along the same lines with the grave knight. Not sure I want him standing back throwing dark at mobs instead of pummeling them on the front line.

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Even without Stamina the summons and upgrades are no big deal on my Bots/Traps... I lose about a full bar of endurance summoning all three tiers, FFG, and using both upgrades, but if I just wait about 30 seconds before turning on any toggles it's fine.

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Ultimately, it's the bubbles, man. I gotta find a couple of spare slots to get END reducers in them. Oddly, I have a FF defender that has no END issues even with bubbling an eight-stacked team. Anyone know if the END cost is the same for both AT's?

Anyway, I used my second built to try out some of the suggestions here. I got Provoke instead of the PFF. Of course, Teleport is just a bad idea withotu PFF or some kind of stealth, so I dropped it in favor of Flight. Seems to not hold aggor that well out of the box, but I'll try slotting it up with more taunt. Of course, not sure how an MM with no personal attacks holds taunt for long, but I took Air Superiority to get Flight, and I kept Lifre Drain.

Also, I edited out any Aggressive stances from my commands, even Attack. Until they achieve better survivability, there's little point in putting them in aggressive mode.

Things went better. Basically, my zombies are either unhurt or they're dead, not much room in-between. Fire is still a big problem. I guess I really am just hanging on until 24.

On a related tangent, when an IO gives a flat bonus like this (or, for instance, Decimation's 10% Chance for Buildup) that doesn't scale to level, why would a higher level version of the IO be worth more than a lower-level one?

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i can make that statement and back it up. i have more 50 mm's than i do of any other at in this game across 4 accounts and have been playing them since cov launched.[/

the end change on the upgrade powers? nope not seeing it.


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Right, you've been playing CoV consistently, and whenever some change was made, you were there to adapt to it. That you brush off the change in how END is charged for enchanting minions seems evident of this.

As to "backing it up", you seem to do so mostly by disagreeing based on your own empriical evidence, and in pretty general terms ("the problems you mentioned don't happen to me"). I'd be happy to defer to your hefty experience, but it would entail some indicator of what you're doing right and what I'm doing wrong. Your next few paragraphs don't really move much in that direction--it's just a big "disagree" where you're telling me how content you are with your masterminds.

Skipping to the part where we can get into the nitty-gritty:

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as for ff - at level 20 i would grab some level 20 crafted defense io's for both shields and dispersion bubble. you did take dispersion bubble at 20 right? there's also room in a necro/ff build to have manuevers at this point and still not need stamina. the only time you shoujld be replacing pets at a high clip is if they are outside of your ffg/manuevers range.
something like this is what i would do

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Nice. Your build is pretty close to mine. The only difference is that I haven't worked towards Stamina because the END problems aren't the kind that happen in mid-battle and are offset by a steady increase in END recovery. I't all happens in one big dump when I have to summon and bubble, which makes it a job for slotting END reducers. I went for Life Drain and Soul Extraction instead (of course, if you don't expect your zombies to die, I can see where the ghost would not come in handy). I've slotted 20 IO's for Defense and END reduction where possible.

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ytour pets are at ~29% defense to all but psi as long as you keep them within range of manuevers and dispersion bubble. you dont need pff unless you are a 'run to the end and click the glowy' newspaper mission runner.

come next patch you can pick up soul extraction sometime before then and put one extra slot in it, then save up some money for the recharge pet unique +5% defense and the normal pet unique +5% defense to give all of your pets ~39% defense to all but psi.

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OK, I'll go look for these pet IO's (IO's were just coming into existence when I left the game). But as to +29% defense, maybe that's just not good enough when the zombie is at -2 levels against some Lt. that's orange to me. Of course, even with 3 out of 4 attacks missing, it's still not a major source of mitgation if the one attack that connects annihilates them. That's still in the realm of "stupidly squishy".

Maybe my tactics were fidfferent back then. I was probably quicker to back off a badly-wounded pet than I am now. Whatever the case, I'm 22 and about to spend a respec so I can move some slots around and maybe dump Teleport for Flight.

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masterminds have lost no power from cov launch

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I wonder how folks can make statements like this. I mean, it's quite possible that over two years the design could shift and change in little, undramatic ways with a gradual impact that wouldn't be noticed to anyone who hasn't taken a big hiatus. Clearly the END cost of enchanting one measly zombie has been drastically increased, and that's a much bigger hassle than enchanting them in succession at the start of a mission (I have to do that with the bubbles anyway, so the enchant was just another button to cycle). Seems like a nerf more than a buff, as we're talking a power that could just as well cost zero END without inviting any balance problems, unless not having some END consumption problem to manage is considered unbalancing (and that may well be the devs' PoV).

I'm also wondering if the recharge time of PFF was two minutes last time I played either (I recall being able to give orders through the PFF, so I didn't have a constant need to drop it). I'm darn sure my undead survived battles a lot more easily than they do now--they're getting hit, and the bubbles just ain't mitigating the damage like they used to. Defenses were "rebalanced" at some point. How did that affect FF?

Again, 20 levels with no defeats, now I'm having trouble getting through any mission without turning tail and running to the door and resummoning. The proof's in the pudding for me. I did an AE mission tonight with some CoT. Whenever a mage started throwing fire, it was one-shot city for the undead. I don't understand how making them so soft to fire and lethal is considered workable, because it's kind of hard to categorically avoid those damage types. At least the ninjas have super-reflexes baked in.

You guys probably know a thing or two about that: what types of foes should I be looking for in the twenties? I looked for Mooks, Trolls, and Warriors, but I kept level 20 as the cap. I also got a bunch of missions that auto-level that scale 45-54, which is apparently just an eight-stacked team can roll in and mop up. There's little moderation in what I saw.

Oh, OK thanks.

Last week I put a recipe up for sale for 250,000, and it's still not sold. But a couple days ago, someone else sold that recipe for 500,000. How could the higher price take precedence? Do older sales take priority over newer ones, without respect to price (except of course that it doesn't exceed what a buy offers to pay)?

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Just about everyone who plays a level-based MMO develops a notion of "preliminary levels" and "real levels". The preliminary levels are rushed through, coming and going so quickly that you might as well not bother doing anything besides minimal upkeep on your toon. Then you hit the real levels, when your character's life turly begins....

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You make some good points, which I agree with, but I don't really think that's why people don't do much with the low-level IO's. I think it's because the marginal improvement before L25 on IO's is ridiculous. They just get SO much better each level from 10-25 or 30 that it's not really worth slotting them.

Than again, back to your point, if you aren't gonna be hitting 25-30 anytime soon, they're better than nothing...by a LOT!

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Right, plus set benefits don't directly skew to level. Slotting Kinetic Crash on my 23 blaster meant 3 pts of KB protection jsut as it does to a level 43. I hate KB so much, it was an investment I was happy to make.

Just about everyone who plays a level-based MMO develops a notion of "preliminary levels" and "real levels". The preliminary levels are rushed through, coming and going so quickly that you might as well not bother doing anything besides minimal upkeep on your toon. Then you hit the real levels, when your character's life turly begins.

The thing is, the demarcation point between prelim levels and real levels are a lot more arbitrary than folks on forums like to think. Level 32 is considered "low" to some folks; a fortnight's worth of playtime at most. Me? I just got my two-year vet badge today, and my highest-level toon is just shy of 38th level. Granted, I haven't actually been playing all of that time, but the simple fact is, I consider the acquisition of Stamina around 20th level to be when my "real levels" begin. The upper thirties actually feel kinda boring to me, with controller pets and fulcrum shifts and big AoE nukes doing all the heavy lifting. My 37 archery/devices blaster actually has more slots than he really needs, and picks powers just for the hell of it because once he got Rain of Arrows and puts some slots into it, fights werely largely over before they began (Trip Mines are basically just deal-sealers).

So yeah, I'll make a level 23 IO set enhancement. And I'll buy and slot the sucker too. Because I won't be joining an eight-stacked team and just pounding out ten levels over the next week. I'll be soloing, or playing with the two or three other guys I know who play, and be happy to level once in an evening.

Lots of great advice. Thanks!

Glad to hear the lover for WM. It gives me hope. I've played a WM/Elec brute to 11th level, and found the END drain to be pretty frustrating (in tandem with the high whiff factor). Jawbreaker and Clobber just clean me out. Is this something I just have to tolerate until I get Stamina?

As to zombies vs. other pets, I thought they were resistant to Lethal, but they seem vulnerable. Certainly fire kills them right away.

I should mention that the big mission I had trouble with was the cape mission. The warehouse full of Longbow agents had multiple spawns packed so close together that it was pretty much impossible to avoid unwanted aggro--not with the enemies running away constantly. Of course, the actual cape-grab in Steel Canyon is a total nightmare, with spawns dispersed in an impressively unavoidable fashion.

So, after a hiatus of about two years, I reactivated my account and started playing my level 20 Necro/FF MM. This was a guy I considered pretty broken way back in the early days of CoV. The only toon I can say has never tasted defeat.

Things have really gone sour since then. Summoning, enchanting, and bubbling my pets takes more endurance than I have, even after slotting END reducers. PFF has a two-minute recharge, and pets can't even receive commands while it's up, calling its overall utility into question. The buff bubbles seem fairly ineffective at keeping my pets intact. I would send them out, watch their health bars disappear in huge chunks, then have to run to the door and resummon. It's a bad scene all around.

I find the exhorbitant END cost of Enchant Undead to be particularly pointless. What abuse does that high cost prevent? Why make it such an ordeal? The net effect is that if I lose one zombie in a fight, and then I resummon it, I have to decide whether or not to spend my END just to enchant that one minion.

And what's with all the enemies running away constantly? Is that something specific that enemies do againt MM's, or is that something red-side-specific? I certainly don't see so much running over on the blue side.

Maybe I only notice the difference because I've been away so long, but quality of MM life certainly seems to have taken a hit.

So, what is the current stat-of-the-union with MM's as a class? Are they considered overpowered, in need of love, or "just right"? Perhaps some combo thereof?

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Others have spelled out the playstyle differences between /pain and /poison. I tried a thugs/pain MM to around 20 before I couldn't stand it any longer and deleted him; my thugs/poison MM is 41 and going strong.

For soloing - regrettably, I never got a team for the /pain MM - the /pain heals were simply inadequate to keep my thugs alive against un-debuffed, un-controlled enemies, and the ability to heal myself was simply inadequate to keep me alive after they died. I haven't had such a problem with /poison, and soloing EB's isn't a problem.

Alkaloid is pretty well able to serve the healing needs of my thugs. I went into Medicine for Aid Self to have a bit for me, and I use Aid Other to supplement Alkaloid in serious situations. Alkaloid's enough to make a meaningful contribution to team healing needs too. It's absolutely not enough to support identifying yourself as a healer or conceiving of the character as filling chiefly that role, but it's enough when slotted to make your ST heal another contribution to a team.

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I don't really follow you here. PD's array of healing was inadequate, but Poison's paltry Alkaloid was adequate? Non-sequitorish.

Thanks.

Hey, thanks so much guys!

So, once in a while I close the pet window, only to find that the only way to bring it back up is to dismiss pets and resummon.

Numerous players have told me to go to my team window and look for an option to show pets, but I see no such option (either in or out of an actual team). Am I missing some option that needs enabling/disabling?

I created fifteen level 30 Resist Damage IO's last night, but my badge window says I've only created ten for purposes of getting the appropriate badge. Glitch, or did I do something wrong? Do I have have to make some lvl 25 RD's too?

OK, I tried this even while on a team. The team window does not show anything called Pets. Not for me. Anyone know if there's an option that has to be enabled/disabled?

Seven pages deep now. Can we get a link or something to corroborate this rumor, please?

Gotta love "insider" threads where the OP doesn't explain the premise of his post. Guess I'll step up and be the toothless hillbilly asking the obvious question that makes the insiders feel warm and fuzzy: what is everyone talking about?

Looks like you guys are talking about corruptors getting the MM's Pistols...but this is a blaster forum.

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Not sure of which hot key it is , but I know its attached to the team window. Just open the team window and click pets , I believe it on the top part of the window.

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Last night, several people on the Help channel told me the same thing. I guess this doesn't work if you're not a team.

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In short, as long as your pets are on Defensive, and you give them any command but Attack, (Follow, Stay, etc. are fine) any damage you take is spread out to them. So you can take huge amounts of damage without dying, as long as your henchmen can take the damage.

Many Masterminds use this feature in a strategy called "Tankerminding", in which they draw all of the aggro for the team. Their pets remain in Defensive mode and fire only to back up the Tankermind. This results in you doing less damage, (sometimes none at all, if you're being attacked but your foes keep missing) but is a great defensive benefit for the team. (Possibly as much as having a Brute to draw aggro, maybe as much as a Stone Brute in Granite form)

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Patently wrong. I tested this. Only Defensive+Follow is bodyguard mode. I was taking full damage if my pets were following orders to attack.

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Seems to me like Jade_Dragon specifically said BG mode excluded the Attack command. What he did say that I'm curious about is that the pets could be given orders like Go To, which would be great for bank missions where the reinforcements come straight for you, sometimes appearing out of thin air.