khorak_EU

The question with Mercenaries is if, when they fix them, they're willing to damn any nostalgic whiners and do the job properly with a total overhaul. I mean not recognisable to the old set. Write it off as pants. Mercenaries are in the first round of MM primaries so they're not only completely gimped, they're completely dated. They're a failed first pass.

So I'll just dump out my thoughts on the set, since....we might as well huh?

1) Rename it 'Soldiers'. Masterminds are no longer villain only, and 'mercenaries' was already a strange decision anyway. Everyone always wanted it to be Soldiers, and we treat it as Soldiers, so bloody name it Soldiers and give us a bunch of soldiers. It's a wider term that can be applied to almost any reasoning we want (including them being mercenaries), with the simplest change possible. Maybe we'll get lucky and having the word 'soldiers' staring whoever is working on them in the face will keep them from doing something ridiculous.

2) Less gimmicky. Soldiers, Spec Ops and a Commando in one squad is just taking a grab-bag of 'things that are supposed to be cool' first, and then trying to make them work together second. So we ended up with this ugly, largely not-very-synergistic combo of three soldiers trying to pretend they're a squad of soldiers, two Spec Ops guys trying to pretend they're a squad of Spec Ops....next to the soldiers....and Rambo.

All six pets should form one homogenous squad, not a bunch of different types of cliche thrown together. Give. Us. SOLDIERS. That's. The. Whole. Point.

3) No hobos. Just....no. Get a picture of a modern, Western soldier on campaign and stare at it for, say, ten hours? Yeah. About ten hours. We want those guys. Not a greyscale MC Hammer with the worst gun ever. Soldiers are cool, that's why we want them and why they're in every film and novel in the history of ever. They're also non-copyrightable, so feel free to lift anything and everything you want from them. The worst they can do is....shoot you. Ok, so maybe be polite, at least.

At the moment it's not possible to create a modern soldier in the costume creator. I just tried. The pieces aren't there. IF YOU POINT AT THE MILITARY COAT IN THE JACKETS OPTION I WILL SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. You can do the bottom half, Camo pants (trousers if you're not an illiterate, language drifting barbarian) and Work Boots, with one of the pouchy belts. Job done. Great. But the top? Nothing doing. First we need a 'Chest Detail' which is a combat webbing. IF YOU POINT AT THE LONGBOW 'STEALTH' DETAIL I WILL SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. Open Google, type 'combat webbing' for an image search, and then do those. Soldiers need those. While you're at it, type 'combat helmet' and do those too. Hell, with those two things the guy can just break out a t-shirt and still look like one of those annoying hoo-ah light infantry jerks, who make up for a lack of body armour by having too much élan and too few brain cells to feel pain.

4) What should they do? It's an obvious question really. The set needs a focus in how it goes about it's business. Here's my idea: total cone carnage.

Tier 1
Just soldiers. Nothing special. Like Punks from the Thugs set, they just dish out piles of ranged lethal damage. Lots of it. Single shot, burst, anything bullet based that comes out their M-16. Which is what they should be holding.

Special points - They're single target only. Normal soldiers aren't waving their guns around like flamethrowers.

Tier 2
'Support' gunners. I use the commas because of the irony. That's special military code for 'the guys who kill everything'. This tier would comprise two guys with the huge bodytype and LMG's. They have absolutely nothing but cones. Heavy Burst, Full Auto...these guys just go ape****. This is the real damage in the set. These guys should be monstrous.

Tier 3
Squad leader. So by the time you're reaching this point, your epic amounts of lethal damage is starting to slow down a bit as you run into enemies with higher resists. Well gosh darn it, you think to yourself, what I first thought was an awesome set will be ruined by these nasty, nasty enemies who resist my wall of bullets. But fear not! Your leader is here to save the day! This man doesn't combat the problem of resists by introducing new damage types, he brings debuffs. He should use utility powers such as 'Reveal Weakness', maybe make up new ones like 'Concentrate Fire', all with animations that look like him shouting orders at the men, you know, like a soldier. He'll be holding one of the purple 'advanced rifles' that longbow and council use, to differentiate him from the rest of his guys, and also because it'll be the only gun with a grenade launcher. I still don't want any other exotic damage types beyond maybe a Venom Grenade, he should stick to 'down to Earth' stuff like flashbangs and such so debuff further.

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My idea is that Soldiers hurt. A lot. They kick out mental amounts of damage, and a lot of it in cones. When enemies start resisting them, their leader arrives to start debuffing them. The set has no exotic damage types. It relies entirely on lethal damage and has to batter down resistant enemies with debuffs and weight of fire. All the men will look basically the same, because if they don't then you forgot what soldiers are, go back to the start and try again. Men should be different based on the gun they're holding and the bodytype (the tier 2 guys are huge, the others are normal). The squad leader loses a helmet and has a beret and sunglasses or something, so you spot him from your normal guys. That's it.

It also has middling to poor defense. That's your job. Soldiers are vulnerable; they can slaughter the enemy, they just need the chance and you have to give them that chance. You weren't there during the Rikti War, so we ended up on the wrong end of a 10:1 ratio. You're here now. Time to claw that ratio back. Or....maybe you're a bit of a General Ripper? Men are cheap, I can replace them. I'll get a more offensively oriented secondary, kill the enemy with obscene ease, and just replace these guys like they were disposable ninjas.

If you're going medieval my suggestion for pets would be:

Tier 1: Squires

Guys with chainmail, shields and melee weapons. The fun here is that there's three men, and three weapon sets! One battleaxe, one sword, and one mace! Stuff like this gives us the opportunity to build up a relationship with our pets, as we come to love 'battleaxe guy' for constantly knocking over a troublesome enemy and saving everyone, or marvelling at 'sword guy' refusing to die because he's parrying non-stop. Obviously, shields are their defense.

Tier 2: Support

I haven't named these guys because it's a toss-up on how to go with them. You could be blatantly magic and have them be priests or something, or try to keep things more down to Earth by having alchemists and surgeons. They're different from other tier 2 pets in that they don't actually do any attacking or damage. These are ultra annoying support guys like Tsoo Sorcerors (without the teleporting). They live only to throw down heals, buffs and debuffs. They don't have defenses.

Tier 3: Knight

A massive, plate armoured death machine. This guy is total paladin, using pieces from the celestial set for example (the helm, especially), and wields a titan weapon. He runs invulnerability as a defensive. I need to again emphasise that he's a death machine; damage and support powers are distinctly split apart in this set, so this guy is absolutely nothing but raw, tier 3 damage.

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The idea is to shake up the usual progression tiers of Masterminds by introducing lieutenants who are pure support, as well as that also introducing a very, very clear split between what is doing the damage and what is doing all the other stuff. It might end up being OP because enemy AI may be too stupid to take out the squishier than usual lieutenants who are keeping the deathball rolling, but I was hoping it would make AoE attacks more concerning to the MM because it might splat their highly valuable support pets, and also make the MM pay attention to the aggro their pets are picking up; they'd need to quickly react to protect their support pets if they get noticed.

Mercenaries. We sure as hell don't have any at the moment.

Soldiers of Arachnos are massively interesting, and very unique. I don't understand why people think every AT should have some sort of hugely exciting whizz-bang Inherent. It's just a power that helps round out what defines your AT. And for a Soldier of Arachnos, being well rounded is pretty much itself what defines the AT.

Problem is that Sonic is a resist set with no heal in it. This is fine for a defense set, because you don't get hit at all and can thus roll with Aid Other only, but a resist set is getting hit. And no matter how high you can get those resists, Mastermind pets just don't have the HP and will fold through attrition.

And you're pairing that with pets who are legendary for their squishy desire to die. I wouldn't particularly recommend /Sonic at all for Masterminds because of the healing issue*, but Ninjas want to die. They demand it. I swear, these guys have dishonoured themselves somehow and want to perish in battle. Their native defense is...rubbish...and they don't even have a base level of good resists to be building on. If you're one of the cheerful nutbars who only care about your hilarious levels of debuffing tastiness, and not how many poor pets you burnt through leveraging them....great, fill your boots. Ninjas naturally output truly absurd amounts of damage and /Sonic will blast those numbers into the skybox, but it's going to do sod all to keep them alive. Sod. All. Those resists are going to be largely pointless with the heat coming down on them, and you haven't got other methods of mitigation to deal with it.

*I wouldn't, but crazy people who love micro and hate their pets would. I get annoyed when one dies. The payoff is that /Sonic has OMGWTFBBQ debuffs. I cry every time I see the set, because I want those debuffs but know I couldn't cope with only having Aid Other for it.

Who Will Die Episode 1: Timers And Just Randomly Hurling Enemies Around Is Exciting.....Right?

I'm going to re-roll my Beast Mastery MM to Force Field from Pain Domination. Even better since you can retint the set to be...I dunno, green? Yeah whatever, that'll be more natureish. Sort of. It's....natures protection? Meh, I'll somehow manage to shoehorn the giant cat lady from healing to force field somehow. Background is mutable to me not punching my monitor to pieces during gameplay.

I just found out that the Force Field mastermind secondary has been changed so the shields are now AoE's.

I came.

Ok, I was hasty about the auction house. Some things haven't changed. Other things went to crazytown. It doesn't compute to me that I have to shove out a hundred grand for a Carnival of Shadows mask. That's vendor trash, people!

You all have too much inf. You're irresposible with it. The inflation is insane. Go to the nearest email station and launch your inf into oblivion, you're not allowed it anymore.

Ok, it's status effects. I know for sure it's Sleep, may also be Disorient. I first got this all happening when I was doing the Rescue Mr Yin mission, and the endless Lost Bosses there lay down a carpet of sleep and disorient so thick that this bug turns my wolves into morons in no time. I'm now fighting Freaks and the Stunner Chiefs keep sleeping my wolves, which turns them stupid in the same way.

So basically, after being sleeped my Wolves (not sure about the lions) are....broken. They only use their first attack and won't properly align themselves with enemies who are slightly out of range during combat. Oh they'll attack and everything, but obviously when they're only using their first attack and failing to keep up with moving targets, they suck hard.

It's started happening after I entered Faultline, I don't know if it's the zone or because of something the Lost do (running Temblors and Yin's missions), but all my Beast Mastery pets eventually cease using anything but the 'base' abilities they're summoned with and don't have much interest chasing down an enemy who's moved after their initial attack either.

It is enormously annoying. They have to be resummoned, which certainly doesn't help if this crap happens when you've just started attacking a Boss.

This all sounds slightly ridiculous. It's as if Paragon Studios would never be allowed to kill off 'Jacks character' because it would be somehow 'spiteful'. Which is nonsense. Kill the most powerful figurehead hero, take the wife of the guy who has all the money and resources and stuff her in a fridge....instant storyline carnage. Brilliant. A lot of people went to that womans wedding. It sounds rather like people are missing the point by complaining about their entirely subjective out of universe musings, instead of CRUSHING FACE IN THE NAME OF.....WHOEVER SHE WAS. I TOTALLY WENT TO HER WEDDING. WE WERE FRIENDS. BRING ME EVILDOERS TO WREAK MY VENGEANCE UPON.

Spiteful? Who gives a damn. It works.

I found the options myself, thanks. Sheer hatred led me to them.

Allow me to present my thoughts on the few hours I grabbed before bed yesterday:
1) Oh my God the new title music makes me feel all warm and fuzzy in my boy parts!
2) I know no-one liked Galaxy City but....daaaaaaaamn. Bit harsh? The roleplayers didn't need to be hit with quite such a large stick. Perhaps we could have just destroyed the big statue they were congregating around. Or set up PPD with water cannons around it.
3) Atlas looks just lovely now the city no longer has to spend money on Galaxy City. And new music again! BE STILL MY OVER EAGER BOY PARTS.
4) I spent eighteen damn pounds splurging on Titan Weapons, Street Justice and costume sets. If everyone is doing that, it's no wonder the game is much more of a roaring success. It's a God damned lucky thing that Street Justice is hilariously awesome. Titan Weapons animates a bit too jerkily, I'll have to get used to it.
5) What the hell is with the new 'spawn on top of your God damn head' World of Warcraft method? I hate that. I hate it. I will kill you. All of you. As soon as I escape this endless loop of spawning enemies.
6) Three years and the Auction House hasn't changed. At all. All the prices are the same. Luck Charms are still mental, Spell Scrolls and Ancient Artifacts still around 25,000, Brass, Inanimate Carbon Rods and Boresights worthless. You'd think with how important the former three are to your first set/s of Invention Enhancements, that they'd have made them more common. Nope. Screw that! It's a good thing I still remember to save all that crap up for level 22.....even unlocking one of my ancient level fifties and transferring a pile of money isn't good enough for the crazy expense of full IOing when you have to buy luck charms.
7) TRAVELS POWERS AT LEVEL 6. WHY WAS LIFE NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS.

I have returned! If any of you know who I am....what the HELL man/manette, why are you still here!?

Does Golden Girl still rampage across the landscape, inexplicably managing to troll people by being too happy? Is that damn Blue Rabbit bounding about, or did economic problems in Portugal result in his being committed to a mental institution after eating all the rabbits to survive? I followed Chatarsis into Star Trek Online...I think he's still trapped there, unable to escape the soft, cloying allure of relentless Orion slave girls.

And most of all.....HOW THE HELL DO I GET THE MARKET AND REWARDS BUTTONS TO GO AWAY. I'M A VIP DAMMIT, I SHOULD BE LORD AND MASTER OF ALL I SURVEY.