Turgenev

Srsly... work work is crimping my badge work...

(Kotch: Thanks bro! Let's get you some more WST work tonight! )

It matters. If even ONE person on the team has the Level Shift Incarnate enhancement, it can cause a localized mapserve disconnect for instanced missions.

I would like a Master badge just for being willing to do the trial. Thanks.

Note that these numbers reflect players in a zone, and not in an instanced mission. Personally I'd give the ratio of zoned players vs instanced as a 1:3 ratio, but that's my wholly unscientific assumption.

Hrm. That's why I hit the ESC key to clear my current target reticle. However, there IS a keymap you can point to "target nearest enemy" under Options, too. That would be faster, but after half a decade of MMing, I'm stubborn as heck with my methods. I'd imagine it would work in exactly the same way though.

When I picked bots/traps when COV first went live, it was to suit a theme (Supreme Soviet, a Cold War era roboticist who insists that the Iron Curtain never fell). I lucked out that the theme happened to be a heck of a combo. Traps gives bots the right balance: Some defense, some debuff, some crowd control, and really makes it a versatile combo than just straight-up buffs or debuffs from /thermal or /FF. /storm's a good combo with MM too for similar reasons. That's not to say the other powersets are any less useful, it's the playstyle that changes from a more passive role to a more dynamically aggressive one.

Just interjecting here.

1. Wyatt, welcome to Freedom.

2. Irish: The best way to manage MM pets is to treat them like fingers of your hand. If you leave them on Defensive or Aggressive and you're not retooling them regularly, then you're asking for a world o' trouble.

I keep them in Defensive (for Bodyguard bonuses), but I'm always giving them a target to lump their attacks. I keep them near me for proximity bonuses/ancillary defense (my main MM's a bots/traps, for instance, so I'll have FFG running as well as a few Poison Traps/Acid Mortars during a hazardous fight). Keeping them near you means you're using your minion cone attacks more logically, instead of trying to imagine where your pet is vs the target all the time.

When a target goes down, I hit ESC, then TAB (to target the closest enemy), then redirect them to drop THAT target. The idea is to always be flushing the closest threats first, working my way outward. Minions to bosses last about 1 second vs 5 seconds depending on the boss.

The system works well for me for my other MM builds (thugs/poison, demon/thermal), but it's in bots/traps where that method shines the most. Don't give up on Masterminds - maybe you just haven't found the right combo for you. It IS a harder AT to play than the others, but no other class comes close to effective mob sweeping than a horde of crazed minions.

IIRC, an alignment change from one absolute to the other (going from Rogue to Hero, or from Vigilante to Villian) wipes our your in-game titles, and I THINK the badge title as well. If you gimme a few days, I'll test again to be sure (I wanted to take my badger back to Vigilante status anyway, he's sitting on Rogue right now).

I think your only hope on this is to be a Rogue, if you need to retain the Pilot flag.

o.O

Oh crap, I get it. Hmmmmm. Let's hope there's not a ridiculous timer on it...

Per server is 36 slots. If you have all 36 right now, you can throw the slot onto an alt server. You don't get 37 (although that'd be wicked nice if they bumped that one day, but I'm spoiled rotten).

First, welcome to Freedom. I'm addressing this point first cuz it's something you'll see a lot while you're here. Personally, I live in /hide when I don't want to deal with it (just hide yourself vs searches and that will drop the blindvite requests to near zero). When I'm not in /hide and i get one, I send a quick tell asking what the invite's for - TF/SF, farm, AE arcs, etc. If I want in, I take it; if I don't, I say "no thanks, good luck on the run", and the exchanges are universally pleasant.

Now, the rest of the questions:

1. Hero side gets more activity in general; even more so now that GR is out and people are riding Rogue/Vigilante alignments to get access to both sides. If you're new to the game, I'd start out as Hero personally.

2. Plenty of good SGs out there, but I've ascribed to the idea that good players don't necessarily congregate in a particular guild, but with more general communities. Start getting comfortable with the global channel system, and knowing how to use it and more importantly not being AFRAID to use it. However, when it comes to looking for a SG, my first suggestion is always "do random teams 'til you find people you like". People of certain personality types always run in similarly-minded packs, so if you run with a few good people, keep them on your global list, and meet the rest of their crew. Don't take anyone's word that supergroup X is the best - try it for yourself.

Glad to have you on board the Freedom train, Grimb0t. If you need anything, dial @Turgenev for a good time.

Dunno, but...